The Travelers' Song

by Brendan O'Gara

  Johan could hear a conversation going on. as if the conversation is taking place on the air, over the next hill. The sound came to his ears as though through and under water. He looked up at the sky and couldn’t fathom why he heard people at the surface above him. He was not under water. They talked in soft whispers, and he heard them though he didn’t discern what they actually said. Only every now and then he caught a true word or name that he knew. Sometimes it was his name or the name of one of the people he’d traveled with recently.

  While walking on this beach through and around the carnage, Johan heard other voices clearly over the roar of the cannons around him and the ragged sound of fires that burned. He heard what he knew to be the voices of the Inexorables—the Guardians of Reality and the Keepers of the Well of Souls. Johan was terrified.

  “You will never, never have things on an even keel throughout your life. When you are down, when you’re in the bottom part of life... that is when work starts,” came a strong, firm female voice. Her name was Maude.

  “Growth comes when you get knocked down. It is how you handle it in this terrestrial life that has brought you to this point. What did you learn from living? Are you learning anything?” came a deep male voice. He was called Slauer.

  Johan looked all around him. He saw no one.

  “Harness your will and decide to live. Decide...are you going back to where you came... will you be stronger because of experience...stand up for your dream, your desires... stand up for life...life is cyclic...ever changing...expect things to get better...” came yet another female voice, softer than the first. She was called Xin.

  “You are on your deathbed...standing around you are all the ideas that you own...all that you worked for and never accomplished. What will you do? Give in to the sweet solace of death? Will you pull free, live, finish them?” Slauer shouted.

  “Johan, to do something you have never done you must be born again.” Maude’s voiced lifted above the others as they echo, “Born again! Born again!”

  Johan dropped to his knees, his head in his hands. The battle still raged around him.

  “You cannot accept the reality that you were given... you must work hard... you must push on... you must make your reality. There are tools on the corporal plane with which to work,” Xin intoned.

  “Do not listen to the naysayers...do not falter. How many times were you told you cannot do what must be done? You can do all things...you can do what must be done. Because it has never been done does not mean that it cannot be done,” came a fierce male voice to join the chorus of the others. He was called Maven.

  Johan began to weep.

  The fierce voice of Maven continued, “You will fail...you have failed...you will lose and you will fail again at something. there is no doubt life is about failure and perseverance. Keep going...with willpower and hard work, you will be great.”

  “To fight change is to lose the battle. Freedom and happiness are found in the flexibility by which we change. You humans love comfort, stability, and predictability. The ability to relax. You love the ability to relax too much,” came again the strong voice of Maude. Echoes swirled in all four of the voices around Johan: “Too much. Too much.”

  “There will be discomfort... unpredictability...change...to grow because in this world nothing is stable. Life is constantly changing...change is a natural force of life,” Slauer said.

  Johan lifted his head, wiped the tears from his face, and came to the shocking realization of where he was located. Home, he thought. Dakar, along the beach of home. He stood. He saw the port. He saw deep into the water. In the nethermost waters of a grim, cheerless port lay the wreckage of the Kellerman, a ship once used as a trading vessel just days ago. She did not stand the test of battle well; shattered windows, cracked planks, and pieces of mast were strewn across the sandy floor. She belonged to the salty waters now and they were far from kind, but various fish kept her company even if to them she was merely a safe harbor for their young. The new inhabitants guarded their homes against new arrivals as well as trying to claim more for their own when given the chance.

  The Kellerman, an eerie sight from afar, was a ghost-ship without a crew. She was lying almost entirely on one side and ropes dangled back and forth, swaying in the ocean currents. Several crates and containers of various sizes were covered in a thin layer of sand and oceanic waste. Contents inside had long been claimed by ocean creatures. All broken containers were empty. Various bones stuck out of the sand—a dour, pitiless grave for a crew of people now forgotten by all but the carrion eaters.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” Johan yelled. He could see the effects of a breeze blow by him in the trees and on the smoke of nearby fires. He couldn’t feel the breeze on his face, though. “Am I dead? Is this what death is like?” Johan fearfully asked as he looked at his hands and then up at the beach surrounding him.

  He cerebrated to himself as he stood on the beach of Dakar. “I grow strong against this wind; muscles working all the more. It is the freshness over my skin, that which makes a fine flag fly. In the trees it is a gusting chorus. There are times I feel it within, that push and swirl, that stir to show what is solidly there. I’m okay with it; I am. For the calmness of sweet days long ago, it was such plain sailing. Then why can I not feel this? I remember what it was like, though none of the feelings I remember are truly there.”

  There appeared, marching across the beach, a twister of sand obscuring his sight and view of the world and his surroundings. The blast deafened him so that all he heard was his own breathing. As suddenly as it rose the storm was gone, and before him was the road in the city of Median he remembered.

  The city of Median was built along the banks of a mighty river and was, in its time, truly a marvel. A charmed city matched by the backdrop of mighty mountains which shaped the city. The trade resources these mountains brought were of great importance, but they were also influential when it came to architectural designs. The vast majority of buildings was built in the shape of those same mountains. The skyline was riddled with modest buildings and they seemed to be reaching higher and higher each year. Health and services were faultless in Median and attracted a lot of attention. Many new cultures left their mark not just on the architecture, but also on the city’s identity.

  “Do what is easy and your life will be difficult. Do what is difficult, and your life will become easy,” the strong voice of Maude explained.

  “If you view all the things that happen to you, both good and bad, as opportunities you operate out of a higher level of consciousness,” Slauer the fierce intoned. “Johan, you must do what is difficult.”

  Johan saw himself, his own body, standing before him. He watched as his past self moved throughout the scene in front of him. He saw the things that he had done in this town. He saw the people he’d helped and the people he’d hurt. He realized all his life’s events were being shown to him.

  “Have I done so wrong? Have I hurt so many people that I must be shamed for my life here at the time of my death?” Johan called out to the universe.

  Again the storm raged up before him, and again the noise deafened him. The sands, wild and frantic, blinded him to all view. In an instant they diminished and disappeared. Again he stood on the beach of Dakar. There was no battle. Gone were the bodies scattering the beach. The Kellerman was upright and proud, its sails billowing in the soft breeze. Glancing over at the pier, he could see his friends who he knew had long since died.

  Knowing he could not interact with the world around him Johan walked slowly to the water’s edge and sat on the beach, placing his feet in the water. He felt no coolness on his skin.

  He decided he was at the mercy of the universe or maybe even Darr’s God of Light. Maybe the old gods would come save him from this place. Maybe he was to be cast into Hades. All he could do was sit, so there he sat. He hoped if he waited for his friends, maybe they would save him. Wandalor certainly had spells in the books that could free a man from death. Even as
he thought it, Johan knew it would take more than a sorcerer’s spell or a druid’s Eldrich to get him to where he once was.

  Once again he heard the conversation going on in the air, not clear like the four voices of the Inexorables. It was muffled like when one is standing in a room of a house and someone is talking in conversational speech in the next room. It was as if the conversation was taking place on the air, over the next hill. The sound came to his ears as though through and under water. He heard his name spoken again and recognized the voice of Darr, though he couldn’t make out the words.

  Johan waited.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The mid-morning Emeranthian sun glared on the tall turrets of the Black Keep. The emperor sat upon his throne, a man standing before him. The massive long room with the red sea of carpet was empty save the two of them. The man, Karl Hawk, was a serious young man of keen intellect and a pragmatic mind. His green eyes in the soft light filtering in through the dark drapes held the faintest hints of violet, soul piercing eyes. His countenance was complemented by copper red hair and alabaster skin that was the envy of many a maiden of Zebulon. Mooreclasian wished to have found someone less striking in the gene pool to have the talent and temperament for the work ahead. Work that Karl Hawk was perfectly suited to do.

  “To read is the foundation of all knowledge. We must institute a new objective of literature.” Mooreclasian paused for a moment, allowing the man to grasp what he said. “Understand this: at fifty years old two thirds of your life is behind you and there is one third of your life ahead. How do you want to spend that third? Do you want to spend it on the battlefield like you did before? Do you want to spend it in camps at night with people, friends, or colleagues? Do you want to spend it at home with warm loving people and good food? I want you to take time. I want you to think about this.” Mooreclasian spoke with vigor in his voice. He enjoyed the way the sound echoed and thundered off of the walls. He relished the way his voice resonated with authority, even though he was alone in the throne room with the man.

  The only other sound in the chamber was that of a pen on paper. Placed in an alcove near the throne was an immense book with a pen hovering and writing. An Eldritch incantation on the pen and book caused the pen to write everything said in the throne room. Later the book of words that the pen captured would be read by a transcriptionist. The scribes would then take the musings and ideas of the emperor, rewrite them into a cognitive form, and have it read by the senate. Once there, barring any objection of a member, the item was voted on. If the proposition passed, it became law. If vetoed, the idea returned to the emperor for further review. The emperor would accept the decision or overrule the senate.

  Absolute loyalty was expected of the transcribers, all of whom were trained from a young age to read for cues of tone in the emperor’s choice of words and his ideas as set out anything else was simply ignored by the transcribers. If it does not read like an intention set down by the emperor, it was not noted.

  “I will have you outfitted with a ring of the empire. A ring enchanted with Eldritch, a change self spell if you will. Either speak or twist the piece to produce the effect of changing your physical characteristics. You will blend in with the people with whom you will be more closely working,” Mooreclasian said as he circled Karl. He moved the way a shark might circle prey before striking. Karl said nothing, simply waited and listened to the emperor speak.

  “It is said that the emperor knows all aspects of the empire and the location of every citizen... is this true?” Karl asked his emperor.

  “It is.” Not elaborating on his answer, Mooreclasain moved the conversation forward. “I have spent approximately an hour with the Accumulators today before coming here to speak with you. They will adorn you in a proper manner from Zebulon. You will go to the Excursionist’s office to manage your travel; you have seen these offices, and I assume that you know where they are located here in the palace.” Mooreclasain waited for a response before continuing.

  “I do, my lord,” Karl replied.

  “Good. As I have spoken to the Precept, you are prepared to enter out into the world and apply the skills we have instilled into you.” Mooreclasian seemed satisfied with his emissary.

  “Warm at home here in Emeranthia, my emperor... I took the time to think about it,” Karl said.

  “Good, as it should be, after a time of service to the empire.” The emperor smiled thinly.

  Later Karl Hawk found himself standing in front of an empty counter, looking across it at empty shelves. A bell sat on the counter next to a name plate that read: Artemis Alistair Stonetooth, Head of Accumulation. Karl tapped the bell. After waiting what seemed to be an eternity and taking more than a few deep sighs, Karl rang the bell a second time. “Be right up,” came a voice from below the counter.

  Emerging from below the counter stood a humanoid no more than four feet in stature, perfectly proportioned to his diminutive size. Karl was a bit surprised by the man and was unable to hide the shock. The stairs the small man had ascended emptied right onto the counter top, where he walked right over to Karl and looked him eye to eye.

  “Never seen an elven dwarf? It’s impolite to stare. You’ll learn this as an emissary. See a many of us then you will, I should say, sir. Artemis Alistair Stonetooth, at your service, head of accumulation. Nice to finally meet you in person, Mr. Hawk.”

  Artemis spoke with an even tone and no discernible accent. The dwarf’s hair was neatly combed and his mutton chop beard well kept. He wore clothing unlike that of the local custom of the dwarves in the kingdom. His trousers sported belt loops. His gray shirt did not simply pull over, but buttoned up the front. Although not seen by Karl Hawk, the cuffs of his shirt also had buttons. Artemis, being a working person, rolled those sleeves up to his elbows. He wore a vest of the same material as his pants; sturdy brown cloth, tightly woven. A pair of gloves with the fingers cut off covered his wide hands. The gloves had several metal plates on the back of each hand, as well as palm, for use in a manner unknown to Hawk.

  “So, his Eminence tells me that you will be working in more than just an emissary capacity. I am to provide you a signet ring so you can more easily pass for a local. What with your striking looks and all,” Artemis said with a wave of his hand, looking Hawk up and down.

  “It’s not my fault most humans are ugly. Nor is it my fault, luck of fate I suppose, to have a handsome father of intelligence. Also, with the health and stamina to keep up with my mother, who is not human, strictly speaking,” Hawk grumbled.

  “Well, let’s get right down to this. You will be receiving the ring that his Eminence wanted you to get, as well as the standard communication earpiece for field operatives. I assume they instructed you on this in the Academy. If not, here’s a quick refresher.” Artemis continued. “Through the use of a line of sight and by pinching on the earpiece you can communicate with another operative up to a thousand yards.” The dwarf secured a silver-leaf-shaped earring into Hawk’s waiting ear. Without missing a breath he gave more instruction, “Now, without line of sight you can communicate to any operative within a ten-mile radius. A call for backup or let us know you are about to be killed is a squeeze and yell.” Stonetooth laughed at his own humor. Karl Hawk was not impressed.

  “If you are in a major city such as Zebulon...” Artemis paused, “this might hurt just a bit.” Stonetooth spoke as he clamped the silver piece in place like he was clamping down a tag to a piece of cattle to give it a permanent home on Karl Hawk’s ear. “Ow!” Hawk said as his ear was punctured.

  “Yes, in a friendly area such as the Embassy and Zebulon, you can connect to the Aether and make contact with people in any other capital city.” Stonetooth released Hawk’s ear, put his hands on the larger man’s cheeks and turned his head side to side, admiring his work. “This device—” While Artemis was speaking to Hawk he moved over to a drawer and pulled out a small red box, opening it to reveal an onyx ring that shimmered in the light. “—also helps the necromance
rs from here find you in the unlikely event of your death.”

  “Nice. Does this one pierce me as well so that it can never be removed or stolen?” Hawk asked sarcastically. “No, it does not; once you put it on it will size itself to you. As you are a citizen of Emeranthia, you have not undergone the implantation of Red Mercury into the bone of your chest as most the other non-citizen operatives have had to do,” Stonetooth said as he tapped Hawk on the chest.

  “Anything else for me?” Hawk asked.

  “No, I'm done with you. Now be a good lad and please take yourself down the corridor to the Excursionist’s office. They will manage your travel. I wish you luck in your future endeavors, and I do hope to see you at court one day soon. If not, I will see your corpse in the army of our lord.” Stonetooth bowed to Hawk and motioned him down the hall.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The group stopped in a clearing near a medium sized pond on the leeward slope side of the mountains, where it flowed out from an underground spring.

  The trio decided to dismount and walk their horses as a means to keep moving and rest the animals at the same time. Thalin knew that the horses were capable of much more. Most equine can easily carry two hundred and forty pounds, run at a good speed, and not tire for a few miles. Thalin looked at Wandalor and Gadlin, surmising that not one of them was close to that weight. Darr, in his full armor, would be hard to match that weight.

  Gadlin began to scout the area near to the pond, as it rolled out into the river on their path. He was happy, uncharacteristically so. Being in the forest lifted his spirits. He needed to hear the natural world around him. The insects in the air and the small amphibians near the water’s edge; he could hear it all. Using a log or a downed tree would be nice, but Gadlin knew that it would be precarious at best for the horses. Boulder hopping was a better idea since the chances of finding a tree that was down were not good. The odds of finding one that was down and not old was near to impossible. As a tree that had newly fallen would still have its bark and a tree that had long ago fallen would not likely have its bark and thus be slick. “Blast it! We’re going to have to do this the hard way,” Gadlin said to the air, as he could now see no easy way to cross the river.