The Lore Anthology: Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 - 5

by John Klobucher

  “Small screams drew us from far and wide through a sun-dappled valley of rosewood and pyne to the edge of a huge field of green — but a green of vein-blue hue it was, like an ocean stained with jealousy. There in the deep of that sweetgrass sea stood a twisted old ironwood tree. It snaked skyward, spawn of a gray strain unknown, ominous, lost, at anchor alone, a strange scurvy pirate, no skull but all bones, bleeding black sap like bile. With gnarled, fingery branches it cast a wide net, nails longing to scratch at our treasure and get it…

  “Two tots, the Mayn twins, had wandered too near in their innocence not knowing what was to fear. It taught them a lesson they’d never forget — a course in assailing with cutty sharps from its twitching limbs and hard arms. Men found them under the waves of blades, still with this world but maimed, everharmed.

  “For the boy, Droydyn, his right hand was gone. His sister Nystra had lost her left.

  “At least our medicine, all that we’d learned by trial of the Wild, spared their lives. From that day on we boys, the three, were often at their side — then when better, they at ours, always in tow. We didn’t mind. Sweet Hannyn especially befriended them both, Droy and Nys, the siblings she never knew. And up they grew, the plucky pair, not as a single-handed two but together too handy to compare. In fact by the age of seventeen, yet apprenticed and their father’s own, they would be unmatched already, the finest craftsmen of pikes ever known. The twain of Mayn. Magic stick makers. Treasured by the Guard.”

  “Grrrrrr-OWWW…”

  Fyryx sat up with a start.

  “Grrrrrrrrr-OWWW…”

  He snatched up the strangers’ sword from the floor and scrambled to his feet.

  “It tracks us even here, the beast… to the very edge of our Keep.”

  With a few steps he reached the tent’s front doorflap and pressed his ear to listen.

  “This thing prowls with a purpose. Thirst it must for more of the blood, your blood, that it tasted yesterday.”

  Fyryx noticed the lamp that he hung and how it now burned low. Its oil was almost empty. Its light but an afterglow.

  “Morning is soon to come, my friend, and daylight will send this devil home. No oddcat strays far from its lair for long. Not once the sun comes up.”

  He heard the growl again but this time at a distance.

  “It chills the spine, that sound does, even from afar.”

  Fyryx lowered the borrowed sword and began to pace the fore chamber floor. He was silent for a while. His shot eyes were all but shut, somewhere else.

  At last he looked.

  The petrified vell now seemed strangely serene. Was this the unworldly before him?

  At last he spoke.

  “You have a peace about you, old boy. Perhaps my childish tales have helped. We were never more alive than then, your pureblood never more clear… In those memories maybe you’ve found some relief from the poison that now pollutes your veins. A moment’s peace at least — in a place of the past where your soul can rest a while from the venom’s reach. Away from its fire and ice.

  “And I pray this peace is not that other, the calm of approaching death…”

  Fyryx leaned on the bone-white blade like an old man with his cane.

  “Please forgive me, Arrowborne. Riding you into the Wild again, I was careless, reliving a youth long gone. The Keep years had left you less quick and alert, and robbed me of my boyhood luck. I never valued that dumb luck enough or the practice we had evading death. Keeps you sharp, on edge, that constant threat. But we’d all gone hapless and dull in time, even the honored Guard. Waning behind our settlement walls. Flagging atop these seven hills. Wilting in their flowered fields…

  “I won’t lie to you any longer, dear friend. There is no cure known for the oddcat’s fang. The moment it lunged and locked on your leg, its teeth too deep in your hind left hock, you were done, all was lost. Still, its toxin takes time to do its work. A day more, maybe two. Is that time enough to work wonders? For a miracle to save your skin? I pray that it’s so but my hopes are all false.”

  The lamplight finally flickered out.

  “I had no heart to tell the boys, not out in the Liar’s field last night with all the world fogbound in half-truths and tricks. Not even here in this makeshift stable once they had been spellbound by sleepiness. No… they deserved better, so better to wait. They must learn your fate by the light of day, this day, with heads clear and eyes open wide. Though those eyes won’t long stay dry. I know that they’ll cry for you boy, Ayr the most. For he’s the most like me.

  “You mean that much to them, Arrowborne. That much to us all. To me. And to Ayrie… if only I could tell him… but maybe he’ll know somehow anyway. Can you hear me, Ayryx Hurx?”

  A thin stream of sun from the tent’s flap door split the floor between Fyryx and vell. Yet the fresh broken dawn went unnoticed by both, for the man here turned inward as well.

  “From this day and onward, take heart, remember, whatever befalls you now… your life shall not have been lived in vain. I make that promise. This I vow…

  “Though my means may have at times been flawed, my purpose has ever been pure and right. The ends always back to where we began.

  “The impure clot in our wild hearts, the true flaw spoiling our gemstone souls — that evil came from father’s own tongue by the child’s tales of hope he told, the fool’s gold of his welcome speech, in the glow of that treasured address. Oh, rosy words, yes — so soothing, easing. All well-meaning but misleading…

  “So there at the end of that Crossing Day when we made this Keep our home at last, that was the moment we lost our way. To be shielded by armor but rusting away, deep in the irony wood…

  “We were never intended to rest in peace, complacent, with comfort our only goal. The Semperor knew, he foresaw it all. That’s why his edict ordered we move at the turn of every third season. But we chose to ignore his wisdom and rule, thinking somehow that we knew better than him.

  “Now we know how wrong we were. No Sylander can still deny that. Instead I reject my own father’s act and dare at last to overrule it. Back to the natural law of the land. To return to the struggle that made us strong.”

  In slipped the sound of a songbird, sweet, adrift on a draft of the morning air. Fyryx nodded his head when he heard it.

  “Brother vell, I’ve another confession to make. One more small mistruth I have told you tonight, spun from a secret that I’ve been keeping. A feint about a voice you knew… a Voyce of the Court I’ve come to know…

  “A fortnight ago I had a dream. The Semperor’s siren appeared to me — Semperess Amyly, in song — and told me it was time to go. Seduced by her beauty, under her spell, I eagerly agreed. But little enchantment did I need to do what I’ve yearned for myself for years. Long before leadership fell to me, I felt in my heart that our destiny would be written without this safe Keep. Only now, I knew it to be true — filled with music, the courage to act.

  “That very morn I gathered the Guard.

  “‘Warriors! Ready your mounts to ride. Pack them with two weeks’ provisions. Into the Wilderness we go. Armed to the teeth. Tomorrow!’

  “The next day we set out on expedition, to find a way back to ourselves once more…”

  Men made noises, manly ones, just beyond the tent’s thin walls. They were the sounds that morning brings.

  “Father would have thought me mad, rash to leave his Treasury, the Keep of the people he loved. No doubt my brother Ayryx too, who carried on that legacy. But they no longer stand this ground or walk its ways or smell the soil. With both lost or fallen to evil disease, the bloodline of Treasurors runs to me. Now I must claim it as my own. For once and for all. Finally.

  “Not that I pity myself as weak or that I’ve led meekly at every turn. I’ve ruled with force when pushed — quelling the tide of leavers, making judgment swift and punishment public, meting out justice sure and sharp. And yet, not rightly honored. Never more than Huryx’ younger son or the stricken Treasuror
’s little brother.

  “Ten years I’ve served in my brother’s stead. It’s been twenty since our father left to meet with death alone. I’ve already paid them due respect. I cannot fear to truly lead and be the Treasuror in full.

  “What beset us yesterday — setbacks sobering and strange — none of that will sway me. No, the opposite is so…

  “I’ve been thinking. These alien three that served themselves up last night like some stinking imported cheese — their arrival cannot be by chance. There’s a deeper secret behind this rot. For in all our Treasured history, from the moment this internal exile began, no one has ever found us before. No Sylander. Surely no outsider. And now these foreigners stumble upon us just when the Guard and I are away? Hardly happenstance, I say.

  “I have a feeling we’re being tested but know not by whom or why. How sad that we’ve failed in every way. First, exposed and naked to see, we’ve lost the defense of obscurity. Worse, we’re revealed unready to fight and die for the very reason we live — to be the blood of Syland, kept safe at all cost, untainted and pure. But the unclean slipped in anyway. The plainsmen let them pass untouched. The folk stood by gawking, all but bewildered. Even the Guard they turned into buffoons.

  “But you, ancient one, seemed to know something more. Is it part of the Semperor’s plan, this test? A trial to ensure our fidelity? Or perhaps an attack that he foresaw or some omen he shared with you years ago? I wish you could wake and tell me…

  “Yet, despite your silence I have a sense. Tonight I thought it was evil had found us. This morning, with time, I’m not so sure. I may still choose to kill these three. In the end there may be little choice, now that they know so much. The plump one at least, in any case. But first I must learn what they are. Who sent them here? Both how and why? I sense a greater hand in this…”

  The doorflap suddenly flew wide open, filling the room with warm sunlight. Fyryx squinted and shielded his eyes then gasped as he caught glimpse of Arrowborne’s shape. Despite the life-giving yellow glow, his vell looked a pallor of bloodless death.

  A Guard clad in sea green and blue burst in.

  “Forgive the intrusion, sir my sir!”

  Fyryx returned a watery glare then barked something out, his throat too dry.

  Surprised at this scene, the Guard stepped back.

  “Do you want for assistance, sir my sir? May I serve you in some way?”

  “No,” coughed Fyryx, seeking his voice. “What is it, Taan-syr? Speak.”

  “The Finder’s plainsmen have caught a leaver attempting to flee through the Western Way. A lone man they say, no accomplices.”

  Fyryx hoisted the strangers’ sword and stabbed it into the floor. Blood-red anger filled his face.

  “I thought that we’d killed this disease off at last! And now there’s a new case to cure? More bad blood we have to let? This is disappointing. But those foreign bodies might be to blame… alien infection the source of it…”

  The Guard Taan-syr looked puzzled as he handed Fyryx a flask of drink. “Have you orders, Treasuror sir?”

  Fyryx gulped down a long swig of the liquid and tossed back the flask with a nod. Then he spoke to the Guard in a much clearer voice. “Thank you, Taan-syr. My orders are these. Bring the prisoner here to the dome room for trial, but hold him aside in the wings there a while. For first I must meet with my inner ring on all of the recent threats to our Keep. Make the call for council now, to convene before this hour is up…

  “But we must dine and sup as well to fill our bellies for the day. Have folk fetch us fresh meat, hard loaves from the hearthstone, and brewn ale, of course, by mugglet or cup. When the talking is done we shall break fast together before we turn judge to break bones.”

  “Sir of sirs!” snapped the Guard with a cross-arm salute. “If there’s nothing else, sire, I shall…”

  “Hold there, coast Guard. My nephews I need.” Fyryx turned his dark eyes from the vell’s lifeless carcass, which seemed nearly ready to give up the ghost. “Have their mother wake all three and send them here to sit for me.”

  “As you wish, sir my sir, shall it be!” Taan-syr made a bow to leave then spun on his heel to march away.

  “Wait,” called Fyryx. “There’s one more thing… The tall male stranger, the foreign warrior… bring him to the hall as well.”

  Taan-syr touched one knee to the ground and dipped his head. “My Treasuror!” Then he was up and gone.

  The room seemed suddenly vacant, like some sky empty but for a far-off star dying by the day.

  The man moved into the sun, toward the vell, and the distance fell away.

  Fyryx leaned over his fading friend and kissed him on the crown of the head, just between his nascent horns. The man’s lips instantly blistered and bled, just as he had to know they would. But Fyryx simply wiped them clean, leaving his hand stained red instead.

  “And still you sleep, my beauty. I’m afraid there’s no magic in me, old boy. Only the blood of a lonely brother, destined to be the last, I fear…”

  Episode 4 ~ The Letting Pen

  There, in midair, a pair of disembodied orbs.

  He seemed at home here alone in the silent night, back to the wall with true blue eyes standing watch as his two friends slept. But he knew where they were more by sense than by sight, for the gloom that engulfed them morphed all to vague shapes.

  The knotwood against his shoulder blades was rough and sticky with fetid tar, leaving him nowhere to lean. Beneath his feet a crooked floor made standing straight a struggle. And yet he had no mind to sit, no quit in his tirelessness.

  Of a sudden from somewhere there came a voice.

  “Ee`aye ee ~ Ss`noop pa`boofii J`onncapp na-kynd^”

  “Morio?” he half-whispered, turning an ear.

  “Ss`noop pa`boofii na-kynd ~ J`onncapp^”

  “Hold on… no comprende, mi amigo. I don’t have Oglet on me here.”

  John Cap looked up through the black and called out. “Oglet, I need you. Come on little guy.” Then he raised his right arm, his fist thrust high.

  Something small like a moonbat whipped about overhead, too quick of wing to let a good look. It glanced off the walls around the room, making impossible loops.

  So swift to follow what else could it be but some sort of fairy or pixie? A sprite of the lowlight that glowed from above, a fleeting glimpse into the indigo. No chance a man could catch it. But then it slowed and spiraled down.

  Just a simple strip of flesh. A frisky, hand-size flap. It hovered then wrapped around his wrist.

  John Cap’s head snapped back. “Okay, now, you were asking…”

  “Are you awake, John Cap?”

  The young man paused and held back a sigh. “Um, that’s a pretty dumb question.”

  Morio smiled toward John Cap’s voice but barely saw his tall, fair friend in the dark of this foul-smelling place. “Why, yes… I guess it is!”

  John Cap slowly shook his head and patted the skin round his forearm.

  “When did you last doze off, dear chum?” wondered Morio, now sitting up. “How long has it been since you’ve slept? Since you’ve dreamt?”

  “I never have… slept, I mean.”

  “Not even as a child?”

  “No.” The standing man shifted his feet.

  “Nor as a babe wrapped warm and snug by a blanket of love in your mother’s arms?”

  “That’s what they always said. Worried my folks that I wouldn’t nap when they put me down with the other kids. But that they got used to and kept it quiet…”

  “Ah. Oh! So this is not normal with your people?”

  The question made John Cap grin. “Heck no.”

  “Well, all along I’d just assumed…” said Morio sounding sheepish. “But never mind and please go on!”

  “There’s not much more to say.”

  The rounder man would hear none of this. “But surely there is, much more,” he urged. “It’s not good to hold such stories in. To keep tales secret till
the end. Tell me my friend how you grew up, reared in a state like that.”

  “It’s not something that I usually…”

  “Say — for instance, suppose, I just had to ask: Were all of those waking hours kind to that boy, to you, the young John Cap?”

  For a moment nothing but silence came from John Cap’s side of the night-shade room. So Morio Yoop leaned forward more, pressing his palms into the floor. He felt worn boards and bits of straw mashed into the rotting wood.

  “Maybe it could have been okay. But my eyes gave me away.”

  “I see.” Morio pawed at the fragrant fibers underneath his fingertips. Those flaxen strands lent a fruity note to the stench that filled his nose.

  “Our Aunt Louise, who was visiting, found me wandering in the night. She ran out screaming, ‘Devil child!’ Said I had a haunted look. It was all downhill after that…”

  The older man nodded in sympathy, though his mop-top nob was but a blur from John Cap’s spot across the way.

  “My brother’s gang, they called me Spooks. That or Johnny Owl Eyes.”

  “And those were not fine names to have?” asked Morio just to be sure. A hint of puzzlement tuned his tone and his eyebrows arched in mild surprise.

  John Cap let out a muffled laugh. “Oh yeah, they were the best.”

  “They were?”

  “Sure, a dream come true.”

  “Well yes, that’s what I would have guessed.”

  “So maybe you’d like a nickname yourself.”

  “I would be honored to be so known. Do you have such a name in mind?”

  John Cap thought for a minute or two, happy to turn the talk from himself. “How about Morio Pork-Yoop-Pie?”

  “Ooo, that does make me sound quite yummy!” squealed Morio, rubbing his belly. “But a creature not to be trifled with either. Thank you my true and fowl friend. A hoot-out to you from this pig pen…”