Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 13 Loafing Around

The complex network of lava tubes that the island communities used to process their waste, led to a myriad of side passages and small crevices.

Those chambers hosted a lightless, ravenous ecosystem all their own; fueled by the islander’s nightsoil and kitchen rubbish.

The island’s native predators were sufficient to manage nearly all escapees, since anything large and voracious usually ran into a woolcrab first.

The huge, horribly toxic, but completely harmless crustaceans roamed the island constantly, consuming leaf litter, detritus and any other decomposed or decomposing organic matter. Their burrowing activities and constant browsing created the rich, fertile croplands on the lower slopes.

Loud and raucous music thundered from the narrow rift in the volcano’s side, shaking small stones loose and terrifying the local fauna.

More than a few creatures fled the lava tubes; flying, crawling or scuttling for their lives. Maya picked off the few batspiders that were desperate enough to emerge into daylight and lucky enough to navigate the razor sharp lava tubes. The eyeless bat, scorpion, spider creatures were cave specialists, unable to tolerate even moonlight.

An ordinary colony of the things, far from human habitation could be left alone, to feast on even more noxious vermin; like cave crawlers and stray worms from the wasteworks. The things were usually timid, preying on small crawling vermin and hiding in the complex, rocky environment when humans intruded.

In the lava tube ecosystem, almost any form of small scuttling life thrived, from tiny mundane crawlers, like roaches and isopods, to giant cave centipedes. Those were the most dangerous natural beasts native to the island. Monsters were a different matter; they could and would mutate from minor nuisances to terrifying threats in a few short weeks, if left unchallenged.

That was what was at play here. The Batspiders were agitated and aggressive, hurling themselves in suicidal dive bombing runs, rather than their usual stealthy, ambush tactics. That more than suggested to the team that things had gotten deeply odd, farther into the cave system.

Under the influence of Wilf’s flute, the flying horrors redoubled their desperate attacks, even as Amy and Rio’s music blinded and deafened the enraged beasts. Wilf urged the fragile, brittle, fast flying winged spiders to hurl their bodies at the team in mindless aggression. The almost invariably collided with jagged stone walls and outcroppings, slapping into the rocky terrain with such regularity, that the walls were nearly covered with wrecked bugs. The wretched things would have as much luck trying to fly through a woodchipper; ichor and bug parts slowly dripped to the uneven floor of the tube, which did little for the general ambiance.

Three hard rocking tracks later, the flying vermin stopped appearing. Either they had finally learned their lesson, or this colony was depleted. The only way to find out was to investigate the slick, noisome cavern.

“We’re heading up…” Amy spoke into the cavern, sending her voice to her comrades with her vocal arts.

“Frankie is recovering” Ivy answered over the magical device in Amy’s ear. “Lunch first, then we delve for our prey.”

#

High above the island, riding its thermal uprisings, Ward wheeled in the sky, singing a wordless song in praise of Joy, in frequencies no human could hear. In his bat form, only the wind on his wings could touch him, just as mortal eyes would slide off his aura. That was the funny thing about being largely incorporeal… he didn’t feel insubstantial or vaporous.

Unnatural senses, likewise had become second nature to him since taking on his new life as a demigod in the human pantheon. In his senses, the aged, sick and dying stood out with greater clarity than the mass of living mortals, subtly calling for his attention.

His few and scattered believers and cultists drew him to themselves in a different way, seeming like barely heard strains of sweet music, drifting in from distant places on the breeze.

That was what he was searching for; somewhere on the island, Dannyl was out with a fistful of golden fig saplings, planting the small trees in unattended graveyards and forgotten, abandoned places.

Amy and the kids were on the mountain slope, hunting, he heard their melodies clearly as they were actively using their gifts in battle against something. He gave a mental shrug. Ivy and Tallum were there, he would just be a distraction…

Dannyl was out wandering alone, as was his habit when exploring fresh lands. The lad’s hunger for new vistas and excitement thrummed in the song his Contract crooned, over in the wide lowlands. Ward homed in on his emanations and dipped a wing, streaking to the source of his cultist’s song of faith.

The soft fluttering sound as he alighted in a mango tree drew Dannyl’s attention instantly. “I really enjoy trying to sneak up on you, Dan. Maybe someday I’ll manage it.” There was a strong note of pride in his voice, as he cooed at his second cultist.

“Get good, then.” He muttered happily. “Your buddy Kermal should be able to help, he’s the sneakiest guy around now that Gary’s… whatever.” Both men’s smiles faded a little for a moment, as they considered the unfortunate cripple.

“How’s he doing? I haven’t been to see them in a while.” The slim, wiry young mortal asked softly. “Is Shai still pissed at me over the books?”

Ward dropped soundlessly to the ground, taking on human form as he landed. “She’s coming around. Gary’s been working on her… And The kids have embraced the notoriety of it. Amy wields it as a weapon, playing up the ludicrous and over the top aspects of the myth to confound and confuse. I wonder where she learnt that trick?” He murmured with a smile that made a few of the local night blooming vines unfurl their petals early.

“When are they coming home to Wheatford? Any clue?” Dan asked gently. “I think she’ll forgive me if we’re all together at home again.”

“I think by midsummer next year.” He said, from the shadows and dimness under the trees. “Healer still refuses to grant him her rites and the rest of the pantheon remains… wary of him. I am still forbidden to speak to him directly, so I sneak around with Shai and the boys while he’s working.”

“What’s going on up there? Ipet and Marduk have taken over for Order and Craft… even if the hardliners still refuse to believe it, but War is still a mess.” The warrior sat down on a stone and pulled his guitar from nowhere. He began strumming and noodling in the blues, wandering around the key of D.

The pale golden instrument gleamed in the afternoon light, its silver, rune inscribed resonator disk and braided silver grass strings, singing out across the forested lowlands.

“We have a half dozen War gods and goddesses now… even the most easygoing of them is pretty hard to deal with, when it comes to sharing power.” He sighed. “As the only Death god in the pantheon, I wind up caught in the middle a lot.” He drew a screaming red and yellow viola from his billowing cloak… or from his wings, it could go either way.

He joined Dannyl’s brooding blues wanderings and slowly dragged him into a more uplifting, classical space, with a few tricks he’d picked up from his brother.

“I suspect that the cults of War will keep arguing until the sun goes out. Fortunately, they are all so terrified of my brother… and by extension… me, that they won’t try and break the peace.”

Ward mulled that over for a while, with a slightly wicked smile on his face. “I wonder if Cernunnos would be interested in taking over monster interdiction… It’s more like the Hunt, than War anyway.” His grin became a little feral and cruel. “Healer might just sign off on that… If Beast suggests it.”

The two young men played together in a small woodland clearing, far from anyone or anything particularly remarkable. Shadows and subtle movements in the woodlands all around stirred the foliage, as unseen forces slowly closed in, called by the music.

Specters, shades, wights and ghosts slipped through the trees, drifting from shadow to shadow, answering the call of the void. One by one, they slipped into the tall, dark haired man’s shadow; occasionally emitting a weary, thankful sigh.

#

Back on the surface, Frankie was looking much better and was up and moving. He’d brewed a purgative tea that nearly made him soil himself and flushed the wound with an astringent decoction of bloodwillow bark and aloe slime. He now sported a bandage, wound around his middle with a highly effective, smelly and lumpy poultice of powdered charcoal, aloe slime and healwell leaf.

They had all taken at least one sting from the creatures in that wild melee; though Frank had gotten the worst of it, with a full load of venom right in his torso. He’d had the foresight to prepare a number of concoctions ahead of time, but the scorpion venom was a nasty surprise.

The distinctive aroma of Frankie’s general purpose venom treatment was almost worse than most stings and bites…

In this case, no one was passing up his fragrant treatment, except the three who emerged from the depths at last.

“Nahh, we’re fine.” Amy chirped happily, while scratching a small wound on her forearm. “It has to be magical to affect us.” She shrugged and started helping Rio out of his armor.

“What’s for lunch?”

“Ooo, yeah, so hungry…” Wilf muttered, as he started passing out warm damp cloths from his storage gift.

#

When Ward and Dannyl left their little clearing after lunch, a small golden fig tree stood in the meadow, as the only sign of their passing. Ward took on his shadowed bat form and winged away silently, while Dannyl continued his exploration of the island, planting his patron’s trees wherever he found a place that spoke to him.

Abandoned graveyards, forgotten crypts and battlefields, lonely farmhouses, long since fallen into ruin; in places of death and desolation, his little seedlings took root; sometimes the golden fig, occasionally the strangler fig, if the dead were less obstinate.

On the desolate, upper cone of the volcano, among the lava flows and pumice sand dunes, he planted wildfire plums and twilight plantain. He camped there on the rim, by the warm glow of one of his little plum trees, looking down on the lights of Centre Port… And the little islands beside it, that glowed nearly as brightly.

Westfall and the little unnamed silt mound had become a real thorn in the side of the merchant princes of the trading realm. In a few short days, Amy and the boys had raked the foul, mucky underbelly of the town up, into the sunshine…

Now the Baroness would have to decide whether to tend her garden, or let the rot spread. He sketched the splendid view, recreating the panorama spread before him in charcoal and smiled down on the island domain below him.

Lords and ladies might have title to the land and wear the pointy hats; but an Adventurer in the wilds was king of all he surveyed. He curled up in his tent, on a bedroll enchanted to provide comfort, repel insects and the elements. Beneath a tiny, green and verdant moon, he felt the comfort of Home, wherever he wandered, once the Fool’s moon emerged in the night sky.

#

Becky looked over the smooth streets and sturdy piers Westfall Island now boasted, shining in the early morning fog. The rutted, overgrown and boggy trail between the city and Westfall had been taken in hand as well; it was now a road of hardened clay on a gravel berm, with drainage culverts spaced at regular intervals.

She smiled with amusement at the traffic in both directions, as humans and beastkin of the poorer quarters bustled about days that were suddenly much more productive.

A little hope and a bit of help was the secret ingredient, the people of Westfall and the docklands would provide all the leavening her loaf needed.

Becky was elbows deep in a huge wad of dough, which prompted her bready maunderings and contemplations. The beaver and badger kin had pooled their talents to create a large, communal oven in the village green; Becky was helping with the inaugural bake. That should be the catalyst for the next phase of Operation: Only Douchebags Spell Center With An E On The End.

“I have got to stop letting Gary name things…” She sighed to herself as she wrestled her yeasty foe.

The scent of baking had hit the docklands and brought a number of local goodwives scampering over the new road, hoping that bread could be had nearer their homes. The civic guard charged the docklands and slum dwellers two iron bits for entry, morning through evening, which always came with stern warnings to; ‘Be back where you belong before nightfall’.

There were a pair of young dogboys tending the fire, and a platoon of eager bakers, shaping loaves and working the ovens. The tall, freestanding oven made of local lava stone had four bake chambers, two fireboxes and a tall chimney to carry the smoke up into the trade winds.

Becky and a tall rabbit woman, goody Laupin, were in charge of the dough production team. Goodwife Laupin’s approximately fifteen daughters were doing most of the work, and more than their fair share of the gossipping.

Across the green, a collection of local crafters had cobbled together a simple craft hall of their own, with a smithy assembled from repaired cast offs from the town smiths, along with local stone and lumber. The carpentry shop boasted a springpole lathe and a few startling innovations provided by the kids of Team Ragamuffin, as a way to tweak the townies’ collective noses.

There were a number of folks over there, among the worktables and tools, sharing their knowledge among themselves. Goodman Laupin was demonstrating the craft of weaving rushes and reeds into chair seats and backs, while a doughty old beaver man was teaching a group of young men and women the basics of household carpentry.

“I don’t know why it’s always that we make a spice rack first… It’s tradition, ya obnoxious whelp!” The grumbly beaver man was saying to a grinning cat boy, who was clearly winding the codger up.

The local craft guilds had been slow to adopt the new ideas sweeping the mainland, the beastfolk had fewer preconceptions about what was and was not possible.

That was exactly what the high priestess needed in a Craft cult. Becky hadn’t bothered approaching the temple of Craft in the merchant’s quarter, she suspected they would be coming to her, this evening… if not sooner.

As if conjured by her wandering thoughts, a ruckus began in the docklands slum, between Westfall island and the city proper. At least three palanquins were meandering over the muddy streets of the docklands, carried on the shoulders of burly armored retainers. The bearers shoved and shouted their way through the slum and onto the new path connecting the outskirts of Centre Port and the suddenly flourishing hamlet of furry folks.

A swarm of well dressed people followed the three land barges, chattering in self important tones as they crossed onto the tidy road to Westfall.

The sharp cry of the comfortable, when outraged was distinctive. Shrill bleating words battered at Becky’s ears from the edge of town, where the elders of Westfall town were confronting the merchant league of Centre Port in a classic standoff.

A richly dressed woman sat atop one of the platforms, speaking sharply to old Brock, the scarred and irascible badger man who served as the village head.

“...No license from the bakers guild, nor any permits from the city council, or craft association for any of these activities! This bakery and craft hall must be dismantled immediately!” She shouted at the gathered townsfolk. Her mob of hangers on and the armored palanquin bearers formed up to block the road in an unsubtle threat.

“No.” Brock said firmly. He crossed his short, furry arms over his burly chest and chittered at them in annoyance.

“Westfall needs no permission from Centre Port.”

With the road blocked, the majority of the human visitors to ‘Beast Town’ did their best to withdraw to the outskirts of the burgeoning conflict and pretend they were not there at all.

Becky also withdrew from the scene when things got interesting; she and sir Kermal were enjoying the view from the fo’c'sle of their unnamed warship, with Moonrise bobbing at anchor below them.

Esperanza had sailed at dawn, heading for her next port of call; which no doubt explained the timing of the Trade Association’s visit.

Few merchants had the stones to challenge an actual merchant captain of Esperanza’s reputation and reach. Bernadette Kerrik displayed her courage in other ways, like shouting at aged and impoverished badger men while comfortably surrounded by her hired bully boys.

“I had a nice chat with Filly and Alby last night…” Sir Kermal remarked over a dense, local bread roll slathered in goat cheese. “They agreed with your suggestion and will remain hands off unless someone gets violent…” He smiled a little cruelly, before he continued.

“Steps have already been taken to make certain that things won’t get out of hand.”

#

“By order of the united craft halls and guilds of Centre Port, you must dismantle those structures and cease operations immediately!” Bernadette shouted again, waving her jewel bedecked fingers in irritation. She paused, when a commotion started at the back of her crowd of merchants and goons.

A column of old timers came marching two abreast, down the newly made road from the human slum, two abreast and five men deep.

The precision of their steps and erect carriage gave them a martial air, despite their motley, common gab and complete lack of weapons or armor.

Ten haggard looking, crotchety old farts made their way through her back line of well dressed flunkies; by the simple advent of shoving the merchants aside.

Squeals of discontent and complaint ended swiftly and definitively as they marched along; often with the meaty thud of fists meeting flesh, or the splash of a well heeled person hitting the water or mudflats on either side of the road…

A richly robed man raised a jeweled walking stick threateningly, when jostled aside near the head of the crowd. “Ruffian! Do you know who I am, who my father is?” He shrieked.

A wizened old hand with knuckles that stood out like a glove filled with gravel, reached out and rapped him in the nose, before his lineage could be determined, sending him into the shallow water as a spray of crimson blood fountained from his nose.

In a trice, ten cranky, craggy old geezers were eyeballing the well heeled elite of the city and scowling ferociously. “Brock… We need two dozen loaves for the Fishermans’ Daughters’ lodge…” The oldest man rubbed his tummy thoughtfully for a moment.

“Make it three dozen, every morning. Standing order from the baroness.” He grinned at the gathered merchants and guild representatives, pointedly ignoring their hired goons.

“We’ll come get them every morning at first bell.”

The hirelings for their part, had done a very fine job of fading into the crowd and making any obvious weapons vanish from sight. They spent a lot of their collective effort on avoiding eye contact with the old warriors lined up between the two groups.

An uninformed observer might be forgiven for assuming that the old men were debt collectors facing a crowd of deadbeats on payday.

“The Daughter’s lodge has a long standing contract with my guild…” Master baker Willard Franc huffed in outrage from his elevated platform, seething with fury at the public slight. “The baroness will hear of this!” He hissed. “I care nothing for your paltry trade, but it’s the principle of the thing!”

Makkie Killdrake smiled his gap toothed grin at the plump baker and spat into the mudflats. “Ye have been sending us day old bread for months now; no doubt thinkin’ we wouldn’t know, or that we wouldn’t dare raise the matter.”

“A shameful and outrageous lie! This too will be brought before her ladyship! Now stand aside from your betters!” Willard shouted at the codger.

He scratched his stubbly, wrinkled chin and spat again.

“We cut our teeth fightin’ pirates, slavers an sea monsters, ye tubby spratling! Think ye a retired warrior will back down from yer doughy arse?” Ten weathered old men chuckled and grinned at the collected merchants, who had only just begun to realize that the crowd had thinned dramatically on their side…

Their shop guards and hired toughs had melted into the crowd of onlookers, mingling with curious townies and agitated human slum dwellers. Only the armored house retainers remained, nervously not fingering the cudgels at their belts. Tension buzzed in the air between the three groups: Merchant lordlings, beastfolk elders and retired guardsmen between them, in a three way tangle.

Three mounted and armored knights, in the distinctive panoply of the baroness guards rattled up; with a tall, sandy blonde woman in fine, if common garb riding a cute palfrey mare in the midst of their formation.

“What, pray tell, will be brought to my attention… Lord Willard?” Baroness Phylicia ‘Filly’ Dunham asked coldly. “If it’s the matter of bread for the Daughters’ lodge, master Killdrake has my full confidence.”

Most of the ‘upstanding citizens’ who had been manhandled or pitched in the mud in the old men’s approach, suddenly lost their eagerness for reprisals and did their best to slip away, without drawing attention.

“If that is settled, perhaps you should clear the road… I have business at the trading post.” She sniffed unhappily. “Perhaps I should contract with Westfall for road maintenance, going forward… Why are my streets so muddy and foul?” She asked as she rode past the Trade Association leadership.

The baroness tossed a beaming smile at anyone she could manage to lock eyes with in the crowd of well monied, richly robed pricks. She petted the graceful neck of her palfrey mare as she rode past the trio of platform riding merchant nobles.

“We fancy ourselves imperial potentates now?” She sniffed with a bit of disdain while eying the richly cushioned palanquins and their muscular bearers.

“I’ll be having a look at your tax ledgers when I’m done here, lady Bernadette… Did you know that the civic guard has been charging a fee for entry to my town?” She murmured sweetly to the chairwoman, who suddenly seemed quite unwell and pale.

#

“... so what will become of the temple of Craft in the trade quarter?” Baroness Filly murmured in alarm, adding in a belated: “Honored cleric.”

“The craft halls attached to the temple and the trades will continue as they always have.” Becky answered firmly. “I’m not here to overturn your apple cart… Though there are some wormy fruits that should be discarded, if your ladyship will forgive my frankness.” She smiled warmly, with her hood thrown back, in the lounge on Moonrise.

“If I may be frank, your young people have been a proper nuisance since they arrived. My poor officers have been deluged with complaints for a few days now.” Something in her slight smirk suggested that she was not entirely displeased by the way her domain had been jostled by the antics of Team Raggamuffin.

Becky smiled at the baroness, with real warmth in her eyes. “If any of your locals want to press the issue or make additional complaints, my door is always open. Please invite them to visit me at their leisure.” Something in her voice hinted that such complaints would be largely ignored… at best.

“There was a matter with some local goodwives and a smith…” She shook her head sadly and sighed. “He’s been fussing and throwing tantrums regularly for a week now. If half of what I’ve heard about your Ward clan is true…”

“If that fellow is still able to make complaints, he got off very, very lightly. The last person to lay hands on Amy regretted it deeply, at the end. None could save him.” Becky answered ominously.

“Disregarding those silly rumors about slaver lords being cursed to dwell in chamber pots, of course.”

#