by Peter Plasse
“Commander Makk, Sir,” he repeated.
“Well, Captain Makk,” he said, “You will now be my personal chief aide. Would that suit you?”
“Oh yes, Sir. Very much, Sir.”
Too drunk to walk on his own, he leaned against his escort and they left the bar. In about twenty minutes they arrived at his new home. It sat with three others in a courtyard outside the main gate of the castle proper. Like the castle, it was made entirely of stone. It was huge, measuring easily ten thousand square feet. The entire compound was enclosed by a high wall on all four sides, and its large, iron entrance-gate stood open, awaiting him. All of his servants, cooks, groundskeepers, messengers, attendants, and aides were waiting for him outside, where they applauded as he approached them. He noticed a bevy of young Troll girls off to one side, all wearing looks that told him they were more than anxious to get to know him as soon as he was ready. He shook off the help of Makk, who was so far holding him up, and walked into his new mansion under his own power, stumbling only a couple of times.
Once inside, he looked up. Vaulted ceilings soared upwards forty feet in the receiving foyer, massive wooden beams interlocking with the stone ceilings above. At the far end of the entrance hall were two sets of highly polished granite stairs that ascended majestically to a common balcony, which was bordered by a wrought iron railing. All around on the walls were murals depicting famous battle scenes he had learned of while ascending in the military rank and file.
He was quite taken aback by all of this. He had once been in the living quarters of the Emperor himself, and now knew for a fact that his new living quarters were more ostentatious than the Emperor’s own.
His new chief aide noticed his awestruck look and asked, “Did you know that the great Leopold Malance Venomisis lived here once?”
The captain shook his head, “No,” too beset with awe to speak.
“This way, Sir.”
Makk led him up the stairway to the right and down a hallway to its end where he threw open a set of large, polished, oaken doors in which were carved more battle scenes.
Captain Dumfe gasped. Silver fixtures gleamed by the light of hundreds of candles. They were everywhere he looked. They adorned the walls, the desks, and the four tables set in the corners of the room. And every kind of weapon imaginable hung from silver hooks all around him. It was almost too much.
On a large, canopied bed, which could have served as a small barge, was draped a full set of dress blues, the shoulder epaulets of which demonstrated the rank of General.
He went to the bed and sat down. Unable to sit due to his drunken state, he flopped back, closed his eyes, and groaned.
“Those,” droned Makk, “are all of the weapons carried in battle down through the years by the generals of the northern campaigns who have come before you. And these,” he pointed to a particular set, “were carried by Leopold Malance Venomisis himself. Someday yours too will hang here, Sir.”
Vladimir Dumfe, still too flabbergasted to comment, kept his mouth shut while his aide moved matters along by helping him into his new dress uniform.
“If I may, Sir, I would advise that you not eat before the feast. I am told that the Emperor likes his guests to arrive with a good appetite.”
Finally, the captain found his tongue. “And what are they serving?” he croaked.
“Oh. Sorry, Sir. I should have told you. You will be dining on the former Minister of the Interior, Uncutus Twit.
Chapter 25
Rolan Fairman, King of Ravenwild, and Singular Night, Emperor of Vultura, sat together and listened to the debates around them. It was clear that Borok would never support putting half of the Ravenwild fighting forces this deep within hostile territory with no chance of escape and no reasonable possibility of fighting their way out.
“The final decision, of course, rests with My King, but I could never agree to such a plan. It would be one thing to proceed along these lines if we had enough of these vessels, or one that had actually been tested, to transport our soldiers away from harm’s way, but you say you have only one of these things, and it has never been in the water. And, you say it is not even finished.”
“True enough,” said Saviar Murlis. “On both counts. But the builder, with whom I would entrust the lives of my own wife and children, assures me that the construction will be finished long before the troops would arrive from the eastern front of Ravenwild - weeks before. And that includes the sails, all the rigging, an anchor, and the rest of the gear. But we need to launch it to make sure that it’s functional.”
“Do you know it will float?” asked Borok.
“If my friend the builder says it will float, it will float.”
“And say again how many soldiers it will carry?”
“Four hundred Gnomes, sans provisions except for fresh water. Two hundred with provisions for a month.”
“So roughly half that in Humans, Elves and Dwarves.”
“That sounds about right.”
“Let me think on it for a while.”
“Now let us speak to the plan of using an overwhelming force to twist the arms of your northern clans and convince them to join us in our fight against the Trolls, or die by our swords … ”
Rolan and Singular sat with their arms folded while they crafted a workable plan.
And so it went, back and forth, for the entire morning, through the midday meal, and well into the night. Now that they had their alliance, based on an oath of trust, it came down to logistics.
It came down to planning.
“I thought you wanted to leave right away,” he said, “to rescue Jacqueline.” Orie scratched his head. “I do,” he answered. “But you said a while ago that time does not pass ‘out there’ while we’re in here. Is that true?”
“Yes. This place, and it is my understanding some other places here on Inam'Ra, were spelled centuries ago by twelve very powerful wizards in such a way that the rules of nature are … different than they are on the rest of our world. Maybe they conjured these places in this way so that they could meet for prolonged periods of time and solve the problems of their day without fearing that the time they were spending in deliberation would become the issue itself. I don’t know if I said that clearly enough. Let me put it this way … ”
Orie interrupted him. “I know what you’re trying to say. They could take a timeout and huddle up without the game-clock continuing to move.”
Forrester cocked his head with an inquisitive look.
“Never mind,” said Orie. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, we can take as much time as we want here, and time is not passing out there.” He gestured with a sweep of his arm.
“And it has not passed for the entire time that we have been here.”
“Correct.”
Orie stood and said, “In that case, follow me.”
Up the ladder they went, out the door of the outbuilding, and across the short span of field to Cirrhus’s house.
“We need to know more about this tell-all thing. It’s the whole ball of wax as I see it.”
They entered the house and went straight to her bedroom. Orie took a seat on a small chair beside her bed. Forrester remained standing, removing the tell-all from his pocket.
“Sit here,” he said. “Please. On the bed. Man, Forrester, you have to learn to pay better attention to the details. Let me hold the tell-all.”
Forrester sat on the bed. Orie held it up in front of him. Forrester’s image appeared as big as life. Orie grinned.
“The way I see it, this has to be a data storage device, and beyond that, it has to be voice-activated. I seriously doubt that it could be thought-activated. Maybe, but it seems a reach to me.”
“What do you mean?” asked Forrester.
Scratching his chin, Orie replied, “Tell me exactly how you used it for the very first time. Don’t leave anything out.”
“As I told you before, I found it and held it up. I was sitting on her bed, and her face all of a sudden a
ppeared. Then it spoke to me, telling me about the location of the portal, you know, under the outbuilding. There was a picture of the property, and the outbuilding was circled, so there could be no doubt as to its location. Anyway, I went there … ”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Orie. “Tell me this. Whenever you had occasion to visit Cirrhus before, had you ever sat on her bed?”
“Of course,” said Forrester, “Why?”
“Did you always sit on her bed, you know, if you happened to be in her room?”
Forrester thought about it for a moment. “You know,” he said, “Now that you mention it, I probably did. Being my size, it was the only place that I could sit in her room. These,” he pointed to the two chairs in front of them, “would never accommodate me.”
“Okay,” said Orie. “You say the first time you sat on her bed, her face appeared, and you did nothing except think of her. What I mean is, you didn’t say anything.”
Again Forrester took a few moments to think back on it. “No,” he said, “I don’t recall that I did. I can’t be entirely sure, but I don’t think I did.”
“Good,” said Orie. “Now. You say that last night, the very first time you used it on your own, you sat down on the bed and thought of her, and her face appeared. Then right after that, you were directed by a picture to the portal, and you used it to go to the Ghasten castle.”
“Well, sort of. But there was a little more to it than that.”
“Forget that for a minute. Let me ask you this. Has the picture of the property, with the outbuilding circled, appeared again since the first time you used it?”
“You’re holding it … I haven’t used it but the once.”
“No. It’s not there. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
There was a pause.
“I’m confused,” said Forrester. “Why does that matter?”
“I’m thinking that Cirrhus knew that one of the first things you would do if you got here, if she had already passed on, would be to go to her bedroom and look for the tell-all. She knew you had seen her use it, and she knew that you would want to use it as well. So she preprogrammed a command into it that was activated once you sat on the bed. I would bet you a million dollars that there’s a switch of some sort in this bed, and I would bet that it would only be activated by someone as large as you. You know, a pressure-activated switch. A weight-biased switch.”
“Now I am really confused,” said Forrester. “What is a ‘switch’?”
Orie didn’t answer him for a few seconds. “Never mind that right now. The point is, this was a onetime command meant for you alone. Once you activated it for the very first time, it was meant to not ever repeat itself, as a safeguard, to protect the location of the portal in case the tell-all ever fell into the wrong hands.”
Forrester held his head. “This is giving me a headache.”
“Sorry,” said Orie. “When we first met you, and we were in Slova for the very first time, you had this little trick of appearing and disappearing. Remember?”
“I didn’t think you had noticed,” said Forrester, “but yes, I was able to do that.”
“We did. All of us did. Now how were you able to do that? You didn’t have the tell-all with you then, right?”
“Correct.”
“Then how did you do it?”
“I used this,” said Forrester. He reached into a shirt pocket and pulled out a piece of flat black rock about the size of the face of a large wristwatch.
“I made sure I always carried it on me with the holes facing me. It’s what Cirrhus told me to do.” He held it up in front of him.
“May I see that?”
Forrester handed the rock to Orie, who inspected it. One side was completely smooth. Looking deep into it, he noticed several subtle but unmistakable flashes of light that seemed to pass intermittently between the lighter and darker areas of the crystal matrix. It looked like some sort of electrical discharge. The other side was plain, and was otherwise pierced with small holes, much like those of a telephone receiver.
“Oh man,” said Orie, “this is going to be so easy.”
“Go on,” said Forrester.
“And Cirrhus instructed you to always position it with the holes facing you. Don’t you see? This is a simple, well not simple, audio-visual transmitter that somehow allows for the same magic that spells this place to encircle you, on-demand. So, wherever you were, Cirrhus sat here watching you with the tell-all, which is somehow linked to it. It’s a fancy one, no question about that, capable of both audio and visual transmission, as well as some sort of flow of the magic to wherever you’re standing. Anyway, real-time images of you were transmitted back to Cirrhus; to the tell-all. See? In other words, she was able to see your need to be invisible, and first activate, then transmit, the magic to cloak you.
“Wow, the data transmission in this thing must be incredible.”
“Now I’m completely lost,” said Forrester.
Orie seemed to not hear him as he passed back to him the odd, fenestrated stone, which Forrester replaced in his pocket with the holes facing him. Orie also handed him the tell-all.
“Can you stand, please?” he asked.
Forrester stood. “Over there,” said Orie, pointing away from the bed.
He knelt down and inspected the bed carefully. “What are you looking for?” asked Forrester. Orie held up his hand, his face set in deep concentration. First he inspected the headboard. It was made of five brass rods, three inner straight ones and two bent ones on the sides that met at the top in the middle. It looked like they had been welded together.
“See here,” said Orie. “These rods are brass. They’ve been brazed. Good work, too. My Dad has one in his shop, a brazing unit. There is no way that this bed came from this time period. No way. This bed came from the time period when they had the technology to do brazing.”
“What is this brazing of which you speak?”
“It’s a way to melt metal and join it together. I don’t know much about it except that you need electricity.”
He continued to inspect the bed, carefully sliding the mattress and coverlet off, under which he found an ordinary metal frame with suspension springs.
“Here,” he said, “Help me to flip this over.”
They flipped the small frame upside down.
“Bingo,” said Orie, then, “Wait a minute. We need to flip it back over again.”
They turned the bed upside right again and he continued to inspect it down at the foot. It appeared to be basically the same as the head, but wrapped around the center post, in its middle, was a piece of round stock with a diameter slightly larger than the post itself. Orie had Forrester hand the tell-all back to him and shooed him back away from the bed.
Holding the tell-all in one hand, with the other he reached for the piece of round stock that was wrapped around the middle of the center post, sliding it upwards. There was a distinct “click.” He sat on the bed and held the tell-all up in front of him. The image of Forrester appeared in the tell-all; it was identical to what Orie saw in front of him in Cirrhus’s small room. Orie smiled.
“Walk that way,” he pointed.
Forrester began to walk. His image in the tell-all moved across the room.
“That’s it,” he said.
“That’s what?” asked Forrester.
“The bed thinks I’m Cirrhus,” said Orie.
“What do you mean?”
In answer, Orie handed Forrester the tell-all and took from him the strange, fenestrated stone, which he put in his pocket with the fenestrations facing him, saying, “Forrester, now you sit on the bed. Please.”
Orie reached down to the foot again and slid the same piece of round stock, on the center post, back down. Once again, there was the same audible, “click”. Now Orie’s image appeared in the tell-all, causing Forrester to frown.
“Lad,” said Forrester, “I’m not getting any of this.”
Orie smiled again.
“Completely understandable. Fortunately, I am.”
The horses led them through the woods all night. The sun was peeking its way over the horizon when they came to a small clearing across from which was a small, rundown house. It appeared empty. They stopped. Dead-tired, and cold to the bone, they napped while they were standing. The both knew they were waiting for something, but what? Once they had awakened from their brief nap, Ryan made the mistake of stepping into the edge of the clearing. Fury roughly shoved him back into the woods, back under the cover of the trees and bramble, with a look that said in no uncertain terms, “No. We wait.”
Gracie beckoned Ryan close and whispered into his ear, “What are we waiting for, do you suppose?”
Ryan shrugged.
So they waited.
In a few hours the sun was high in the sky, and they were starting to warm up when Fury started across the clearing towards the house, Ryan and Gracie following, while Thunder and Lightning held back. He approached the back door and gently kicked at it with his hoof. The face of a Troll appeared, and Ryan cried, “Run, Grace! It’s an ambush!”
They raced back away from the house towards the woods, but were headed off by Thunder and Lightning who shepherded them back to the rear door. The Troll who opened it said, “Hello. My Name is Daria.” The horses all nodded up and down several times. Thunder gently pushed Grace in the small of her back towards the door, nodding, “Yes.”
“Are you telling me it’s safe?” she asked the horse.
Again Thunder nodded, “Yes.”
Ryan said, “My name is Ryan. This is Gracie.”
The children went inside, and the horses walked back across the clearing and into the woods.
Inside the small house it was dark. What were left of any of the shades, since it had been abandoned, were drawn, and where there were none, rags, and pieces of rotting, moldy blankets, and even some branches, covered the rest. A young man stepped out of the shadows with his hand extended. “Hello,” he said. “My name is Erik Elijah Fairman. I am the Prince of Ravenwild.”
Ryan and Gracie introduced themselves, and Gracie said, “You’re a prince? You don’t look like a prince. You look like a bum.”
