After this quick breakfast, Khyte stepped from under the obscuring outline of the promontory to be soaked by the storm, then further inundated by rain slipping down the rocks as he climbed. The gale chilled him to the bone, and his hands were soon numbed and chapped from the cold, rough stones, through which the wind passed shrilly, spraying him. The deluge was so constant and from all sides that it was nearly a minute before Khyte realized that the rain had stopped, as he continued to be pelted by secondhand rain rolling down the slopes.
When Khyte crested the summit, he shuffled along the arête, using one hand to shield his eyes from the wine-red radiation of the Abyss and the other to balance. By these cautious, shambling steps, he proceeded to the peak’s highest point, where the Baugn roosted. Was there something toxic in the world’s soil, or was the air too thick below, or were the Baugn afraid unless sky surrounded them? Khyte argued the latter strongly, for it was the only theory that fit the facts: Upon arriving on a world, Baugn never landed on the surface below, but instead perched at high altitudes on the tiniest strip of material that would bear their weight. Khyte believed that even a corral assembled from four vast horizons would be too confining to Baugn, who seemed to treat any substantial plane of material as an impassable wall. Though huge, the world-beasts believed themselves dwarfed by the looming dimensions, and hurtled through the Abyss not to travel, but for the sake of the liberating speed.
It was either that, or the Baugn feared their own shadows.
It was a pity that the playful and affectionate Baugn were stuck in the symbiotic relationship they shared now with travelers between the Five Worlds, for with the novelty of travelling by Alfyrian Ladder increasing in popularity, the Baugn would one day die out, having forgotten how to fend for themselves. As the denizens of the Five Worlds held in common a liking for the ground, and even the thinnest strips of land were confining to a Baugn, their respective lives were barely tangent. Before going extinct, they would be forgotten, for they were too fanciful they would not survive as myths. And the few attempts at bringing a tame Baugn into a human encampment, at any altitude, had led to panic, then heart failure in the beasts.
While not domesticated, the Baugn were no longer wild, as constant trafficking of travelers had removed any fear of these riders; also, they had become dependent on offerings and hadn’t needed to scrounge for food in centuries. Now and again, Khyte would hear of a Baugn that had starved waiting for a propitiator, but he had seen Baugn grazing in their journeys, both those carrying him and those that were riderless. He believed these exaggerations to be crafted by storytellers who had never seen the abundant life on an oasis in the Abyss, much less a Baugn.
What should have been equally fascinating to tale-tellers is the theory—only propounded by those who traveled by Baugn—that the world-beasts had developed not on any one of the Five Worlds, but in the oases of the Abyss. If true, this meant that none of what was offered by its riders was native fare, and much of what was offered was savored rarely by the Baugn. Since Baugn had varying personalities, and some offerings would be rejected by one to be appreciated with gusto by others, sometimes a traveler would be stuck while waiting for a less picky eater.
And so it was with some excitement that Khyte found three Baugn perched on the highest rocky point, two of which slept in the narrow shade while the other bathed in the light of the Abyss, rolling to and fro somnolently. When Khyte congratulated himself on his great luck, making his way along the ridge with enthusiasm rather than with caution, the wide-awake, eight-eyed head topping the sinuous neck tracked him carefully. Khyte slowed to a more respectful crawl, with his head bowed. While there was no ceremonial meaning for this approach, travelers had learned this humble crawl for centuries as the most practical posture when making the final, precarious approach to the half-wild beasts. Though it wasn’t ceremonial, the crawl lent the proceedings the caution and respect the beasts deserved.
The Baugn were over fourteen feet from head to tail, and their wingspan from two to three times that. Their soft fur was a rich ebon black, at times absorbing all light, and at times reflecting it, depending on the angle of the light and whether the Baugn was in motion. While its wings were massive, so were its hind legs, which were thicker than goblin lampposts and powerfully muscled.
The Baugn whistled mellifluously through its three nostrils as he crawled under its belly, his backpack ticking its starfish-shaped udders as he did so, until his back was pressed against the last near-vertical spur of rock, which creaked and spilled a few pebbles when he came to rest against it. Squashed between the beast and a rock that was as tenuous as a loose tooth made unpacking his offering exceedingly difficult. If the Baugn could have been lured to steadier footing by the sight or aroma of food, he would have attempted it, but as it was, he retrieved the treat one-handedly, almost losing the pack to the slopes below as passed the pack loops over each hand. As one hand helped him keep his perch, he used his teeth to assist the other hand to work open the pack, and then, grabbing the offering, he shook the pack free as he lifted it out.
The sunbathing Baugn unfurled its neck like a black ribbon, sniffed the meal, and all of its eight eyes rolled, although in delight or contempt Khyte knew not. While the Baugn would eat whatever was laid in front of them, Khyte had a curious nature and experimented with various fodder over the years; he now believed that the Baugn preferred not raw meat or heads of lettuce, but fully cooked or baked human foods. For while the world-beasts would often reject travelers with uninspired offerings—after devouring the gift—they invariably accepted Khyte and his offerings. One of these days, he would bring a pie up a mountain to test his theory, but today he had packed two loaves—now half-squashed—of buttered bread.
Why these creatures had human stomachs was unknown to him. Perhaps his ancestors had seen them as divine emissaries, not wild beasts, and the offerings had started as religious propitiations, so they had acquired a taste for the richer fare that remained after unknown centuries. The Baugn masticated the buttered bread with gusto, and savored its repast for so long that the cold stone precipice numbed Khyte’s fingers through the hide of his gloves.
When the world-beast finished its meal, turned its eight-eyed head toward Khyte, and lowered its wings, Khyte shuffled forward on his knees until he was flanking the Baugn, scrunched against the cliff face. He didn’t want to be dashed to the slopes below if the beast shook him off as it flew to a different perch, so he waited a few moments, during which the winds kicked up, blowing nothing but the coldest of air, which lent him even more caution. Then, without room to stand, Khyte mounted the Baugn with all four limbs, like a monkey straddling a branch with all four limbs akimbo. He clenched onto its flanks with his knees, twisted handfuls of fur in his fists, and pressed his cheek to its shoulder. He was still skin-to-fur when it sprang from its perch and shot straight up to the Abyss.
The Baugn maneuver like birds and bats when parallel to the ground, rapidly and with admirable agility; when moving toward the Abyss or any of the Five Worlds, however, they can move in a split second as far as an eagle can see, as if a winged god were pulling them by an invisible cord. As regards this bewildering speed, the Five Worlds’ best minds were as ignorant as babes. While he may not have articulated it in words, the young barbarian sometimes wondered if the Baugn’s blinding speed was moving through a medium which only they could see, in which only they could soar. Other times, he wondered if the Baugn were an illusion, a stand-in for something beyond human wisdom.
Though in truth, these were half his ideas; he had debated and bandied them about with an old traveling companion, Frellyx the Alfyrian. Not that the elf was the sole author of these speculations either, and some credit must be given to the long days passing through the Abyss that had shaped their theses. And while Frellyx had given up on adventuring and Khyte had forgotten the Alfyrian’s voice, the Abyss remained, and the young barbarian couldn’t help but hammer out his ideas in the wearying
passage through it.
Khyte sat upright, his fists still clutching the beast’s fur, watching as the ebon ether of the Abyss slid past the Baugn’s flanks. Flight was now second nature, so that the motions of it were all familiar to Khyte, and even exhilarating on the right day. Nonetheless, he braced himself, not for what would cause strong men to faint with fear for their own skin, but for the three days it took to reach Nahure. At least, he assumed his destination was the Goblin World, as Baugn that left Mount Juntawni usually traveled there, but at this speed, and with a mute beast as his pilot, he could only guess at his destination. When they reached the oasis, he might judge whether Nahure was their target, as Frellyx had imparted knowledge of planetary astronomy that was further shaped by Khyte’s later voyages.
In his first journey through the Abyss, the intoxicating purity of the air went to Khyte’s head, as it was wont to do with virgin travelers, and when he panicked, fearing he would starve before arriving at his destination, Frellyx laughed at him. Khyte should have guessed that the Baugn must slake their appetites on the three-day journey.
While there are only five worlds in the sunless, starless Abyss, there are oases in the ether between them—an archipelago of free-floating islands with a curious mélange of hypertrophic trees, anacondic vines, and grasses that seemed to creep in the static, windless air of the Abyss. That some of these plants seemed familiar to travelers—having no doubt taken root from the seeds and burrs carried in Baugn fur—only made their appearance more otherworldly. For while the Abyssal archipelago was cross-pollinated with seeds from each of the Five Worlds, the Abyss was an unusual medium for growth, so that while the plants were recognizable cousins of those they knew, none of the trees, bushes, vines, or grasses there recalled the fields and woods of the travelers’ homeworlds. For instance, one of the most common plants in the Abyss was an orange-petaled orchid that Khyte would have thought a twin to the Keluvil, a Hravakian flower. Its Abyssal cousin was common as a weed in the Abyssal Archipelago due to its unusual properties of locomotion—its roots had become adapted into a gasbag that propelled it by a jet of warm air.
After a half-day hurtling through the Abyss, the Baugn’s flight was so blinding that Khyte only knew that it chose a place of rest when it came to a full stop. When its claws landed in the grass of an oasis, it appeared to Khyte that the Baugn had snatched the island out of the Abyss itself.
As the Baugn grazed on the oasis’s grassy rim, Khyte glimpsed the lower hemisphere of Ielnarona, the Dryad World; through a copse of trees to his right, he saw the faint outline of the Elven World, Alfyria; and, looming directly above was Nahure. While the Goblin World looked much closer than it did on Hravak, Khyte knew this was a trick of the Abyssal air, and that they still had the bulk of a three-day journey ahead. Now that he was confident that Nahure was their destination, Khyte’s mind also turned to grazing.
While the Baugn ate well at the oases, for their riders it was a risk to forage, as the world-beasts might wait … or might not. And while Khyte had never been stranded on an oasis, he had one or two good scares while rooting for his supper, and he didn’t want to risk getting marooned between worlds.
Thereafter, Khyte strayed no more than three steps from his ride, relying on the jerkies, cheeses, coarse breads, and dried fruits he had packed. Sometimes he could snap a bough of berries from a plant on which the Baugn grazed, but just as often he had to wait for the next oasis. If he was particularly lucky, the Baugn that selected his offering was an older, grayer world-beast, and prone to napping during the journey. While rests would prolong the journey, they also gave him time to forage.
He grabbed a few delectable wine-red drupes called pondira (Alfyrian for “demon heads”). Weightlessness had made them so loaded with juice that they often exploded in the eater’s hand. As their edible pits were both salty and sweet, many travelers preferred them to the messy, cloying flesh of the fruit. Khyte thought them best eaten together in a few large bites, as it tasted like a peach sugared with its own syrup, with the succulent, velvet, flesh wrapped around a candied pecan. Not for the first time, Khyte thought it would be nice to try to cultivate them, and stowed more than a few of the seeds in his pack, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from eating them before he returned to Hravak. That he had never seen one on the Human World was a testament to the near-magical allure of the otherworldly fruit.
Khyte’s chosen Baugn had the skittery shyness of a colt, and when it pulled away from the oasis without giving Khyte any warning, it was as if the oasis vanished into the Abyss. They hurtled faster than anything feathered, whether bird or arrow—so fast that Khyte could see little other than the beast’s back, his hands in front of him, and the vast diameter of Nahure. He wondered, not for the first time, why the sudden force of the speed didn’t rip him from the Baugn’s back in the Abyss.
Though punctuated by stops at the planetoids that dotted the void, riding the Abyss was, in the main, unending speed—hypnotic, unceasing movement that left Khyte in a reverie. How did the Baugn think, he wondered? Did they have a conception of the strangeness of their lives? Did they have a mythology to explain the travelers they bore as a devil’s bargain that kept them from their overpowering fear of foraging near the soil of the Five Worlds? For that matter, no one had any satisfying explanation of the Baugn, either scientific or mythological. Khyte accepted them for what they were—it mattered not whether they were a grotesque fact in a faceless chaos or the elegant idea of a whimsical god. The young barbarian had no religious consolations, only the trial and error of his own experience, and those shared by his mentors in The Abyss.
Chapter 2
The Goblin World
After several days hurtling through the Abyss, with a few more stops at oases where Khyte kept himself fed and watered, the young barbarian was was not only exhausted, but enervated. Khyte’s hands and legs had started to shake when he realized that Nahure’s outline had expanded to occlude most of the forward space, and, thinking that he would soon need his strength for the descent down Mt. Irutak, ate the remainder of his packed food.
From the Abyss, you could see that Nahure was not only an old, wrinkled planet, but the goblins had wounded it for centuries with nonstop mining and strip-farming. Since goblins as a race feared both wide open spaces and heights, they lived in massive city sprawls of tightly packed single-story dwellings that punched stone stitches into its surface. As there were only a few heights unaltered by the goblins’ piercing, hollowing, and leveling, it was unlikely that the Nahurians would name a mountain or two as Baugn conservatories. One day the world-beasts would balk at alighting on that uglified shrunken head of a world, and they would be completely dependent on the Alfyrian Ladders to travel in the Five Worlds.
A few emaciated rocky spires still stood, the tallest of which was Mt. Irutak, named after the triple-breasted goblin deity. In ancient days the mountain had three pinnacles; two had been pulverized for copper and iron, but the middle one was volcanic and too dangerous to mine, although on the day that magma spews gold from Irutak, the inventive goblins will find a way to harvest it and Irutak will be flat-chested. Irutak was not only a third as majestic as it once was, but the mountain had been sheared by so many mining detonations that there remained only two rocky spurs acceptable to the Baugn. While disembarking was already precarious, since Baugn eyed only the slenderest and barest of promontories, these outcrops were so meager that simply dismounting was a perilous endeavor.
“Thank you,” said Khyte, patting the Baugn’s black-furred flank.
When Khyte saw a climber a few hundred feet below his ledge, his curiosity was piqued. While the Alfyrian Ladders made the journey through the Abyss slightly easier, traveling to the Five Worlds by the tried-and-true method of appeasing the Baugn—which required climbing a mountain, a show of fearlessness toward the world-beasts, a long journey through the void, and descending another peak—was not for the faint of spirit or the w
eak of limb. Consequently, there were only a few dozen Baugn riders per world, and Khyte liked to think that he either knew or had heard of all of them. He hoped this one was a friend.
Nahure was ugly, but from his ledge on Irutak, the monotony of the Goblin World’s surface, pitted with sprawling cities, was calming after being stretched through the Abyss by days at Baugn-speed. He knew from past experience that his destination, the goblin city of Kreona, would not appear so calm when he was in it, as it was agitated by constant tumult; also, the air in goblin cities caused unease, as there were few trees to freshen the air. Khyte enjoyed the vista for a few moments before planning a descent that the young barbarian, shaky with hunger, was in no hurry to begin.
“Speak of the devil,” Khyte said, when he recognized the climber. “I was just thinking of you.”
The broad-chested, thick-armed goblin had a long brown, braided, waist-length beard, and a shaved, oiled, gold-hued pate. Like Khyte, Huiln was a traveler, and less concerned about turning knives and arrows than the chill of the Abyss. While he wore a quartz-studded cuirass to guard his vitals and goblin boots cobbled from the horns of Nahure’s giant burrowing bugs, the rest of his attire was soft and woolly, from his finely woven breeches and the doublet buttoned up to his ribs to the tasseled scarf and blocky, three-fingered gloves. While Huiln was a head taller than most goblins, he only came up to Khyte’s chin, although his arms were nearly as thick, and the rest of him was nearly as broad.
Goblins range from olive green to golden ocher, and their hair, most commonly a sunset auburn, varies from dark green to red gold. They average a head shorter than humans, but are just as broad, and as they are a martial race fixated on weapons, their arms tend to be better developed. The goblin physiognomy is a mesmerizing juxtaposition of a most noble brow—so high that it looks about to crumble in an avalanche—poised over a perpetual moue that makes them look haughty when they are happy and scornful when they are pleased. On Khyte’s first visit to Nahure, he learned to weigh his words carefully, because the goblins’ unreadable snarls seemed to be smoking cauldrons, condemning his every action. This turned out to be true, though he learned it wasn’t his words that provoked them so much as heathen actions that transgressed an unending list of cultural mores that expected him not to do as he wished at all times.
A Spell Takes Root Page 2
