My father smiled at me and for the first time in my entire life I saw pride in his eyes for me. I felt a fuzzy feeling inside me even though I wasn’t levelling up. But the next moment, everything went south because staring at me my father had eased his control on the ant, and Glosis’s hit the ant and all three of them were thrown away.
I was filled with so much anger that I sped towards the giant Glosis, who was laughing at her small victory.
The moment I reached near her leg that I activated my liquefy spell and spread myself over as large an area as possible.
Glosis, who hadn’t noticed me in my liquid form, put her foot on my liquid body. She slipped and the next moment the giant Glosis was tumbling down. She hit the ground in a very awkward way and fell over a couple of her own followers who died the instant she fell over them. The quill fell away from her hand.
The goat king picked it up and ran to the stone and began writing on it.
Even as Glosis tried to pick herself up, her eyes dazed, she began to shrink at an accelerated pace and in mere seconds she had acquired her former size.
Chapter 43
Glosis slumped onto the ground and I knew that nevermore would she rise. The goat king ran to her like a mad cat, the quill still in his hands.
He fell on his knees next to Glosis, his eyes watering.
“Oh, Glosis!” he said and sobbed. I ran to him, not understanding him.
“Why are you crying?” I asked him.
“Why am I crying?” he said to me as that I had asked something that I shouldn’t have, “At the end of the day she is my wife. And now she is dead! She couldn’t take the hit from the fall! Oh, Glosis, if only you hadn’t let greed take you!” And he kept sobbing for a while.
The other cats had all been killed as well. After the goat king had written on the stone, they too had acquired their former selves and taking advantage, Gnaria and the others had done away with them. The tortoises that had fled towards the lake now came back.
“We cannot be more grateful to you,” they said to us all. “You have saved the reality of the world of Arun!”
Zunzu was able to find the container that contained Julia, and he was able to release her. The ant and my parents had been bruised by Glosis’s attack but thankfully they had escaped any great injury. And then, as we huddled around the dead Glosis and the goat king who still knelt beside her and sobbed, two figures came to the ground from the lake. One of them was a dogman female, while the other was an octopus woman, who moved over the ground using her great tentacles. I just hoped she wouldn’t run out of breath being outside of water.
“Loria and Oli,” Julia said, “I think because Glosis is no more the spells that she put over them no longer have any effect on them.”
***
“It happened a few days after the day when I took you to my treasury for the first time,” the goat king said. By ‘you’ he meant his wives.
“I realised that someone had come to my treasury in my absence and since I had only showed you five the treasury I knew that it had to be one of you. Still, whoever had come to my treasury, had not taken any of the gold or the other gems that I kept there and I realised that they had seen the quill and had wanted to take it. This was further proved by the fact that many of the gold and gems that had been near the quill the day I had brought you all to the treasury had been displaced. Thankfully, I keep changing the location of the quill in the treasury and this was what saved the quill from being taken.
“I did not know what I should do. The day I had come into existence in this world I had been assigned the task to keep the quill safe. I realised that I had committed a great mistake in showing the treasury to my wives, because one of them had seen the quill and knew that it could be used it write reality.
“The days that followed were the worst ones in my life. I couldn’t trust my wives anymore and as the time passed I realised that if I wanted to keep the quill safe then I would have to send my wives away because there was no other option. Had I kept the quill in some other place in my treasury then still the wife that wanted the quill would try her best to find out where I have kept it.
“And then my fears came true as a second attempt was made to steal the quill from the treasury, and I knew that I had to take measures to protect the quill, or I would have failed at my job. I came up with a plan, one that would cause great grief to both me and the wives, but I had to do it. I began to treat my wives differently. I acted as though I no longer loved them. And then one day I called them all together and asked them to leave me and go forever. I myself left my castle and came to the land of the Four Tortoises and I went to sleep hoping that no one would ever be able to find me and no one would be able to get the quill.
“But my plan wasn’t fool proof. I had forgotten that years earlier I had told my wives that there were still ways to find me. I had also not given thought to the possibility of a quest centred on me coming into existence. And that is how it seems that I have come to this day when we are together, with the exception of Dragonia of course; I always knew that she cheated on me but I forgive her for that. Hearts work in their own mysterious ways and if her heart was meant for someone else than who am I to condemn her?”
We were all near the edge of the lake, the portal that led back to Sarotok. After Glosis had died, we had transferred her body to the box-like root structure in which the goat king had been previously sleeping. As for her followers, we placed their bodies near the roots as well, and even as we had watched the roots had grown over their bodies magically. Even though Glosis and her followers had fallen victim to greed because of his former love for Glosis, the goat king had insisted that we perform some semblance of a proper burial for Glosis and her followers.
And then Julia, Oli and Loria had asked the goat king to tell the true reason why he had insulted them so long ago.
“But there is someone else missing,” I said to the goat king presently, as I recalled a promise that I had made to a lady a good while ago.
The goat king frowned as though my words were a riddle to him and then his frown disappeared as he realised what I was talking about.
“Hoovemine!” he said with a gasp. “A long time ago I left my friend Dom with a riddle. Did you meet Dom, and did you solve it and meet Hoovemine?”
“Yes,” I said. “She still awaits you. Why did you abandon her?”
The goat king’s eyes swelled with tears.
“Hoovemine is a goat lady and the nature of my service of protecting the quill disallows me from associating myself with goat ladies. Shortly after asking my wives to leave me, I began to wonder if my associating with Hoovemine was the ultimate reason behind all the bad things happening to me. I decided that I would cast a forgetting spell on myself so that I could remember her no more. But I remained selfish and before casting the spell on myself I went to my friend Dom. Using my magical powers I was able to transform Hoovemine’s plant into a device which could transport one’s mind to wherever Hoovemine was. And then I gave Dom the riddle which could lead one to the particular plant.”
Julia and the other two wives asked the goat king about who Hoovemine was. When he said that she was a concubine whom he had promised to marry they told him that he had done a wrong thing in not marrying her earlier. They also seemed to have forgiven the goat king for treating them badly in the past as he had done it out of desperation to safeguard the quill.
It was odd, I thought, even with my arm around Gnaria, whom I loved. Any wife would forever lose her head at her husband if he told her that he had promised marriage to another woman. But the goat king’s wives almost seemed to want the goat king to have more wives. Their relationship sure was a very strange one for sure. But I reckoned that if something was strange to me, then it was not necessary that it was something bad. I for one could never think of loving another woman as long as I was in love with Gnaria, which I hoped would be a love that would last a life time.
“So what do we do to the quill?” my father, King K
itty asked. He had barely spoken anything in the land of the Four Tortoises. “Isn't the quill the cause of everything that has happened?”
The goat king nodded, looking at the shiny quill that was still in his hand.
“My entire life has revolved around this quill. If not for it, I would be in the castle, being happy with my wives. Glosis wouldn’t be dead. Perhaps I would have even married Hoovemine.”
The goat king handed the fifth quill to the tortoises and said to them that he no longer wanted to take responsibility for the quill.
“It is ultimately your wish,” one of the tortoises said, “but it will have consequences. You will lose all the treasures that you are famed for.”
The goat king let out a meek laugh.
“I left the treasures in my castle ages ago. The fame I never wanted either. Plus, I know what my true treasures are,” the goat king said sparing a look at his three wives that were with him at the moment.
“Your treasures would pass to those who embarked on the quest of the goat king’s treasure,” the turtle said, glancing at me, Gnaria, Gulor and Zunzu. I felt a tinge of anticipation within me. “As for the quill, a new goat king shall be born somewhere in the world of Arun and he would take care of it and relive you of your duty.”
The quill that had been in the goat king’s hand vanished and a smile came to the goat king’s face. A smile that could only ever come to a person who had been relieved of a great burden.
Just then a notification appeared in my vision. And judging from the gasps of Gnaria, Gulor and Zunzu, I knew that they too had received the notification.
Congratulations!!!
You have completed the quest for the goat king’s treasure!
You receive one/fourth of the goat king’ treasure!
Use it carefully!
And then four pouches appeared in front of us. I picked up the one before me and another notification appeared in my vision.
This is the pouch of wealth. It might look small, but it can be used to access one-fourth of the wealth in the goat king’s previous castle without you having to go to the castle. Use it with wisdom.
Before the tortoises went back to writing on the stone, Loria requested them to do something about the undead dogman of Sarotok.
“Please, I beg of you. Either let them go to the other world, or make them living again!” she said.
“Sarotok, eh?” one of the tortoises said. He went away to the great stone and a few minutes later he returned, an expression of concern on his face.
“It seems like I made a mistake while writing the reality of the disease that was to come over Sarotok,” the turtle said, “The time of the inhabitants of Sarotok had come and they were meant to die, but because of my mistake they didn’t die. To fix my mistake, I shall make all the inhabitants of Sarotok living again. I hope that would solve the problem?”
“Thank you, it would,” Loria said with a look of gratefulness on her face.
“One question still remains,” I said, turning around at my parents. “How did you come to the land of the Four Tortoises? I understand that you could track me, but I used the portal in Sarotok to come here and Sarotok is a long way away from the land of the Four Tortoises.”
“We used the portal as well,” my mother said with a smile. “We were lucky enough to spot you from afar going into the lake. When we reached it there were quite a few undead and we weren’t sure for a while what had become of you. But then your father said that he was able to trace your location at the land of the Four Tortoises and we guessed that the lake, despite the undead living in it, was some kind of a portal and we entered it and came here.”
Chapter 44
So it happened that the first ever quest of my life came to an end. And it couldn’t have ended better.
With the wealth that I had received from the quest, I bought a home of my own in the south of the kingdom of Abhaya. I also gave a considerable chunk of the wealth for the development of the poorer regions of the kingdom of Abhaya, as did Gnaria. Gnaria also gave some of her money to her traveller friends.
Gulor and Zunzu continued seeking new adventures and the last time I heard from them they had barely escaped some monster in some distant land. Gnaria and I decided it was a good idea to rest for a while, especially after all the days of unending adventures.
Two months have passed since the great adventure and now I stand at the balcony of my home looking at the hills in the distance. Some hours ago a bird brought us a beautiful scroll from the goat king inviting us to attend his marriage with Hoovemine. It’s been a while since Gnaria and I have travelled and we look forward to attending the marriage which is to be held in Julia’s mobile island. Perhaps once we return I might marry Gnaria, who knows!
The end… for now
Catheroes Page 47
