Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Ch: 27 Killing Time

Count Liam’s spear point glittered and sparkled in the sunlight, dazzling his foe with rainbows and scattered lances of brilliance. When the bigger man flinched from the blinding lights, the young warrior lord struck without hesitation in a swift, economical movement. He spun his hips, redirecting his weapon and lashing out for the foe’s left leg, a perennial weak spot on the wily musician.

This time nothing was there… the broad, richly decorated but still highly utilitarian weapon swept through empty air, rather than shearing armor, striking flesh, then bone.

The count smiled, as he rolled to the right and lashed out with his left fist, burying it in Gary’s innards, right betwixt his belt buckle and belly button.

While the madman coughed, choked and hurled his breakfast onto the lawn. The bigger man began to gasp out a stream of incoherent curses, as he struggled to rise.

Seeing the movement, Liam took a graceful half pivot and drove his spear down on his gasping, helpless old friend; through his heart, pinning him to the earth.

#

He helped his friend to his feet, once the illusory spear composed of light, fog, mist and magic evaporated into a pleasant smell; releasing the mad witch from his own sorceries and strange glamors.

“You really have come a long way, brother. That took real effort!” Liam gasped, as they sank to a bench together and started chewing on Liam’s sticky, delicious apricot and orange post workouts treats. “You nearly got me a couple times there… I’ll let you go berry picking in the nearby woods tomorrow, but only if the boys will keep an eye on you.”

“Gods, you suck.” Gary grumbled and chuckled at his oldest friend in this, or any world. “I promise, if you landed where I come from, they would have had to scrape you off the road with a shovel on day one.” He sighed through a mouthful of ‘Turkish-De-Lectrolytes’™.

“Truck-kun would have dusted you off to the next world before your etheric slime dried.”

“All these years, you still make no sense, mooncalf.” Liam sighed with a fond, almost paternal smile.

“Yeah, but Shai likes me.” He sighed happily, as the two men ambled off to the baths, stuffing their pipes with dangerous things… Since the ladies and the kids were away, monster hunting in the wilds.

“Got any more of that headband strain of yours” It felt like a sweet, kindly grandma knitted an alpaca wool sweater for my brain.” Gary muttered around his pipestem. “So warm, snug and fuzzy…”

“I have more work to do on that strain…” He had a shifty look in his almond shaped, dark eyes. Something about the ‘I could star in a korean drama, but it’s no big deal’, good looks of the athletic, muscular and profoundly talented warrior nobleman failed to convince the strange musician.

“Seriously, does it cause a little paranoia? Couch lock? I always have the munchies… I can handle it…” He wheedled and moaned piteously.

“It’s a little haunted, right now… I used your magical, cursed garden tool on it two weeks ago.” Liam grumbled, seeming embarrassed.

“I didn’t know you were coming… I was going to bring some as a gift when we visited you, in a few weeks… for midsummer, like we planned.” Now he looked irritated and embarrassed.

“So, you did use your spade on it! Organic gardening, my ass! I knew it…” He splashed and flailed in the bath like an idiot, exulting in his brother’s confession, all without extinguishing his pipe.

“It’s like cheating… enchanted garden tools and agricultural curses…” He sighed at last. “Tawny and I both think when it’s ready it might help your… condition, but it’s still under the influence of your witchcraft.”

The disappointed look on the poor stoned boy’s face was pitiful, until the handsome count passed over his smoldering briar and grinned. “I have others though… I call this one Chuckleberry… cause it tastes faintly of berries.” The count giggled merrily, as he passed over the pipe.

“So why the chuckle, part?” His brother coughed and snickered into the fragrant, now smoky steam.

“Whaddaya mean?” Liam sputtered, half submerging himself in his mirth.

“I mean…” Gary guffawed and chortled himself back upright after an unexpected change in the pool’s depth… or maybe his legs had suddenly gotten shorter? Either way it was hilarious.

“I mean, why Chuckleberry?” He gasped as his laughter slowly subsided. “Oh, that’s a workout for the laughin’ muscles…” The poor boy’s brain caught up with the rest of him a moment later. “Oh, right… Gotcha.”

Liam was quietly smirking and being absurdly proud of himself, over by the fragrant, magical vanilla orchids. “...what a jerk.” Gary cheerfully grumbled and complained, as he re-lit the pipe for another round.

“I’m surprised you are so calm…” Liam said finally, once they were both just two guys, smoked stupid and floating in a magic hotspring. “This is the kids’ first ‘real’ Adventure. Goblins are no threat, unless you are foolish enough to treat them as a non threat.” The soggy lord murmured to his brother.

“I’m not calm at all… I’m all twisted up like a rusty chain inside… My kids are facing danger and I have my thumb firmly up my ass.” He mumbled unhappily. “Sure, I could dash off and get there, then what? I’m unranked and just using my gifts to get there would squeeze me dry.” He murmured quietly. “Wilf, Amy and Rio; they’re better than I ever was, better than I’ll probably ever be… and they’re just getting started.”

He sighed in utter contentment. “I’ll spend the rest of my life creating the best equipment and supplies I can... For them.”

He hopped up on the curb and produced a mundane acoustic guitar, strumming idly into Rainbow Connection; like he always did when worried about his kids.

“What could I do even if I were there?” He smiled, the way he always did, just a little sad and just a little angry, if one knew where to look.

“I know, brother…” The young Adventurer nobleman shook his head, rose and began toweling off. “But you are not just your abilities. Quit sulking and come on, I want to look at your latest alchemical experiments.” He rolled his towel deftly and snapped it at his laggard brother in the ancient and traditional manner.

#

“You are really leaning into the poisons…” Liam muttered warily, down in the lab, nearly lost in a maze of complex, glittering glassware tubes, carboys, and ominously bubbling vats.

“I don’t have little ones in the house any more… and we see a lot of toxins, venoms and other nasties in the business.” Gary was a different creature down here, confident, relaxed and in his element.

This was the Gary no one ever saw in the surface dwelling, daylit world, unless he was hiding behind a musical instrument or butchering something unnatural.

“I’m largely immune to most poisons; so it’s safer for me to experiment with them than any normie… Don’t open that.”

Liam slowly and carefully drew his hand back from what had appeared to be a jar of bright colored marbles, in a rainbow of candylike hues. “Toxins?” He asked, once he was certain he remained uncontaminated.

“Nope, glamour fireworks.” The madman muttered, as he rooted around in his big cabinet of weird trinkets and strange finds. “All illusions and alchemical powders, mixed with a little low energy witchcraft. I’ll show you those later, it’ll be fun on a bun. For now… I need you to hold this tuning fork in your teeth and tell me when you hear three long tones.”

This was far from the first, the oddest or even the most random request the mad wizard had made of his brother, comrade in arms and friend.

The young warrior count went along without question; standing on one foot, patting his head and rubbing his tummy, with a silver tuning fork clenched between his teeth for a good long while.

The two men worked together in comradely silence; in a dark basement workshop, whose walls seemed at times strangely distant, or perhaps entirely absent… as though they floated in a limitless void.

“They will be home soon, my friend… you shouldn’t take all your worries out on… or into your crafts, brother. That thing is… unsettling.” Liam said at last, when Gary placed his finished project on a long, heavy rod of carefully worked ironwood. Two bronze rivets mated the javelin head of dark, oily looking black metal to its shaft.

The sound of his files, grinding and buffing tools reminded the count of the ringing in his ears after a close lightning strike, jarring, energetic and impossible to ignore.

The thing was short, for a spear class weapon, longer and lighter than the short spear typically favored for close combat. Unlike a harpoon or lance, it was unbarbed; instead, the slim shaft merged seamlessly into a narrow, thick spined, double edged, stiff blade, with an armor piercing point.

The foot and a half long, darkly shiny, wet looking metal blade was balanced on the butt end with a four inch long mirror image of the dark metal tip; the edges were blunted, but it was pointed enough to be a credible threat, without posing a danger to the wielder.

Intricate traceries and lines in paint and wax indicated where he would be continuing the work by eldritch means, once his wife got home with her functional Mana system.

Gary noticed Liam’s gaze and stiffened in embarrassment. “Don’t look at me like that… I’m not crippled… physically… anymore... this time.” He mumbled, growing sulky again.

The young count just reached out and pulled his friend into a silent hug that lasted just a little too… not long enough. “Come on… off to bed. They’ll all come roaring back tomorrow and give you a heap of laundry and dishes to do.” Liam promised cheerfully, as he turned the musician toward the stairs and started shoving.

“Yeah, laundry day…” He mumbled tiredly, becoming obedient as exhaustion took him.

#

Kree and Mariah were getting along famously, buzzing around and holding hands as they investigated every blossom the party encountered. The older boys ranged ahead, stalking the woods seeking game, under the guidance of a veteran Adventurer from the count’s household. Shai, Tawny and the two insect girls were escorted by Harry, that the ladies might enjoy a leisurely stroll in the woods while the boys received valuable instruction from their elder.

At thirteen, soon to be fourteen Harry felt the age gap between himself and his brothers a little more keenly today. After Midsummer’s day, they would be badged Adventurer apprentices and one more long step ahead of him.

It was a little galling that he would be celebrating a birth day as well… just not the big one. He swallowed down a knot of disappointment, seasoned with a little guilty jealousy and envy for his brothers and kept his eyes on the woods.

#

Perry’s bowstring thrummed softly from the shade of a wide oak tree, his shaft pinning the slow moving bug to the tree before the weapon finished droning its single note.

By daylight, moondrinker dragonflies were a joy to behold, flitting through the trees in flashes of rainbow hues, scattering rainbows whenever the sun struck the jewel toned insect predators. Unfortunately, they had a tendency to become too numerous and far too large, if unchecked.

This example was seven feet long, of a size where it could snatch large poultry, pets or even a small child, if it were to wander farther down the valley. “The god of Beasts rejoices in our hunt, even as he mourns our prey… Until we meet again…” He whispered, as Larry and Barry joined him for the short prayer, emerging form the woods, their own bows ready.

“Nice shot… You didn’t even break any carapace segments!” Barry murmured appreciatively, while he worked to disassemble the body of the giant insect for transport.

Larry already had the precious wings cut free, wrapped up and tucked into his storage gift. The eight, five foot long, two foot wide elongated ovals glinted and shone like the finest stained glass, delicate, colorful and ever so fragile. Papa would be ecstatic to get the full set… and undamaged too!

Together, the three young lads slipped through the woods to rejoin the party on the road, with a little light foraging in the wooded verge on either side.

Harry smiled with just a little satisfaction as Malus, the ugly, bent nosed, slab muscled captain of the count’s guard barked at them for ‘lollygagging’ and ‘sniffing the pretty flowers’ with one breath, then began casting aspersions on their prey and foraged goods with the next.

“When I was your age, we’d make a whole meal for the troop, from whatever we found in a roadside ditch!” He grumbled and fussed incessantly, making contradictory demands and criticizing them relentlessly for every fault, real or imagined.

He examined the remains of the enormous dragonfly next and scoffed at Perry’s kill. “Went for a trick shot, rather than just getting the job done, boy! That’s a fool’s choice!” He barked, gesturing with one thick scarred finger at the neat hole punched between the creature’s armored segments, just behind its head.

“Bahh, you scratched this segment with your incompetence, boy! Ruined valuable materials!” He scolded Perry a little while longer, before moving on to Larry and Barry.

“You spratlings well rested, after watching your brother do all the work?” He demanded, waving his finger in their faces for the full effect.

In a few short moments, he had the three lads formed up and marching down the road in fine form. He still chivvied and barked at them, when he wasn’t blowing on his damnable whistle.

Their obnoxious putz of a father had gifted the older Adventurer the small, tin snail, with a tiny bead of cork in its rounded shell portion. Malus took delight in its shrill, ear piercing, warbling trill.

“Never could learn to whistle, meself!” He chortled, between nerve shattering blasts on the toy hung from a lanyard around his neck.

Just when the boys thought it couldn’t get worse, their instructor called a halt, half a mile from anything, anywhere. “Here’s our prey, boys. Your first official monster hunt… a trapdoor spider!”

He grinned, showing his crooked, yellowed teeth in a disturbing and awful display of cruel mirth, as the boys groaned.

“This one is special, it’s been preying on stinkroaches and giant centipedes from the local caves for a while.” Now the old coot looked positively ecstatic. “Rankest, most vile stench I’ve smelt in a while.”

Harry snorted his giggle back under control, as Barry and Perry turned a little green, just at the thought.

That seemed to only encourage the awful geezer. “Yes, lads, bring a knife and fork for the air you’ll breathe! The smell you’ll be wading through is thick as good stew! It’s a full meal, and you’ll need to chew well to get it down.”

“So, we can use our stink rings, right?” Perry mumbled, with a forlornly hopeful look in his eyes.

The older warrior just smiled and adjusted his own tiny bronze earcuff. “Trainees must use mundane equipment for their evaluation…” He answered smugly. “Don’t you worry though…” He assured them with a benign smile.

“I’ll have mine on, to be sure; it’s so kind of you to worry for this old man! I’ll be upwind and holding this bouquet of flowers as well.”

He brandished a splendid cluster of aromatic herbs and blossoms from the garden back home. He struck a demure pose, smiling winsomely at the three boys.

“I feel so pretty, like a bride on her wedding day…” He sighed, as he took a deep sniff of his floral arrangement. “Now, let’s march, boys. You decide how you’re taking it, I’ll

just be observing.”

#

Kree, the sugar wasp princess nestled herself in countess Tawny’s golden hair, beside Maraiah the wildfire plum dryad and sighed in a high buzzing tone. “No fair, Shai’s gonna go watch... Why do we have’ta stay here?”

She demanded, while the boys and their supervisor trooped off down a narrow trail into the woods, as Shai vanished a moment later.

“You can’t use the magic needed to approach that creature’s lair and even if you could…” Tawny spoke firmly to the two tiny humanoid insect girls, while Harry busied himself setting up a simple wayside camp.

“The beast is uniquely adapted to prey on small, flying creatures, you would be at great risk of becoming trapped in its webs.” Tawny’s firm, sensible guidance went over just as well as one might expect… Poorly.

“I ain’t scared of any ol’ spider!” Kree buzzed and chattered, waving her tiny, intricately wrought, swept hilted bronze rapier fiercely, in close proximity to the countess’ face. “I’ll sting him good!”

“Sweetie, if you poke me with that, I will be very badly injured…” Tawny murmured very softly to the insect child.

“Let’s settle down and have some tea, while Harry has a rest, he’s been working so hard.”

“Yeah, I ‘spose…” She buzzed, nuzzling the golden priestess fondly. “Harry, bring us refreshments, then and only then may you take your ease!” The hive princess clapped her hands and eyed her sluggish retainer with disappointment. “It's so difficult to find good help these days…” She sighed to Mariah.

Harry flipped his papa’s familiar a cheerfully rude gesture and stuck out his tongue at her. “Host your own teaparty, sugarcube… I’m gonna have a nap!”

The two very dissimilar almost siblings had a long, satisfying and very productive argument, over who exactly was servant to whom. Each made imperious demands, scolded and scoffed in high handed, commanding terms; They circled round and round, until they settled down exhausted and giggling together, whispering merrily over a steaming tea service as they served their auntie and her silent, giant bodyguard, Bran.

“He’s the most like Gary…” Tawny whispered to Mariah, when the two were snuggled together for a nap beneath a tree, the enormous adventurer standing watch in silence nearby.

“Nothing he ever says is to be taken seriously, save for odd moments of profundity and deeper wisdom.” She sighed a little sadly. “Like his japing, jesting fool of a father, he remains a deeply troubled and dangerous person. Harry is perhaps the most worrying of them all, considering Gary’s continued frailty.”

Mariah smiled sweetly up at Tawny, seeming the very image of innocence and guileless purity of intent. “Certainly, because uncle Gary is sick.” She hummed merrily.

“Mariah, are you keeping a secret from me?” Tawny asked gently, peering at the little red gold insect child with dawning suspicion.

“Auntie… I’m only a few days old, how would I have a secret?” She asked, through a huge yawn, before she released her grip on the golden tresses of the lady Kinnis and buzzed over to join in the naptime fun.

#

The young Adventurer candidates’ tall, red haired mother vanished into the forest, slipping between the trees like a ghost, following at a discrete distance. She moved unseen and unheard through the woods, despite the softly tinkling bells at her hips.

She stalked them, silencing her magical, musical chimes with a flex of her Will. They continued to provide their benefits to her, increasing her native Mana, Stamina Etheric and Health regeneration rates.

She smiled and stroked the shining sash of braided metal strands and silk that had become her first Contract and her boy’s first true gift to her. A lady couldn’t count a murder shovel as a courting gift… could she?

#

They marched down a barely cleared woodland trail for nearly an hour, perhaps two miles on the narrow, partially overgrown track. A quarter mile in, they passed a neatly built cabin, snug, well roofed and boarded up tight as a drum. The small, neatly laid out garden had run riot, showing weeks of rampant overgrowth at least.

Oddly, no herbivores had nipped by for a snack, there was no sign of animal activity, not even insects, aside from flies. Big, bloated, disgusting direflies buzzed lazily in the shade of the fruit trees, their glossy, jewel tone butts seemed lovely at first, glinting in the dappled shade of the trees.

“Nice place… do you think they left because of the trapdoor?” Barry asked, standing in the tall, rank verdure of the neglected yard.

Larry opened his mouth to propose a theory or answer of his own, just as the breeze shifted a little…

#

“...oh, that’s rank…” Larry gagged somewhere ahead; drawing her back into the moment, from her mental wanderings

“Hyurrrk!” That could have been any or all of the boys, since vomiting tended to all sound the same, regardless of who might be tossing their most recent meal onto the ground.

“That’s why yer mistress Shai insister yer breakfast was to be porridge, lads… yer mother really cares fer ye.” The older man mocked her boys mercilessly, confidently secure in the enchantment of his own stink band.

The tiny bronze ear cuff the veteran wore created a tiny pool of fresh air around his head, magically extracting noxious ‘sulfidies’ and ‘hydrocarbins’ from the air in a small radius… or some such nonsense. Truly her husband’s crafts remained largely a mystery to her, even after all this time.

Shai eavesdropped and snooped shamelessly, knowing that Malaus was highly unlikely to sense her presence, and that the boys were wholly unaware that they were under her fond, maternal glare.

#

Barry rinsed his mouth from his waterskin and made a sour face at the veteran, still smiling in undisguised enjoyment at the young Adventurer candidate’s troubles.

“Now now, boys… none of that sass, I’m your superior officer, endowed by the law and his lordship with command over you poor waifs.”

They kept on, past the little house and up into the rugged, stony hills of the valley side. The trail became much wider, due to the awful number of stones poking up through the thin, dusty soil. As they left behind thistle, gorse, sedge and briars; those thorny nuisances that pushed in on either side of the trail swiftly became fondly remembered companions. The snags, pokes jutting limbs and wild tangles were replaced by a steep, ankle turning, rocky cowpath.

Their ‘trail’ was little better than a shallow dry ditch, full of rounded boulders, dust and ever shifting sand as it snaked up into the hills. All three lads pulled long, sturdy spears from Larry’s storage gift and kept hiking up the steep hillside.

As the woodlands became sparse, arid highlands of dry grass and boulders, dotted with oaks and olive trees, the reeking breeze ‘freshened’, carrying some startling new flavors to the sweating, nauseous boys.

“It got worse?!” Perry gasped, when he was done making that horrible noise, leaned over the side of the trail so his brothers wouldn’t step in it.

“We’re still a quarter mile off, its lair is in those hills.” Malus remarked cheerily.

The ‘hills’ he pointed to, were a run of sheer cliffs, jagged and inhospitable, even from this distance. Gnarled and twisted thornbough trees grew on every bit of the terrain that looked vaguely flat.

The tough, scrubby trees grew low and wide, shading out any other plant life. Animal life gave them plenty of space too, since the limbs of the trees were tough, springy, long and super flexible.

They grew in dry, hot dusty and windy spots and produced no fruits, nor was the lumber desirable; since it was horribly tough to work and grew in short thick trunks or long scraggly branches…

Thornboughs defended their only marginally edible leaves with their long, sharp thorns and slender, flexible boughs that would whip and lash in even a slight breeze; relentlessly shredding any un-armored being seeking shelter from the sun beneath them. The thorns that gave the plant the first part of its name were not springy, but they were awfully sharp, stiff and liberally coated with a waxy secretion that caused miserable, weeping, itching sores on large creatures, and slew small critters outright.

Each tree squatted in its own shade, dominating the space, creating near impenetrable thickets of notoriously pointy, envenomed spines presenting few viable paths up the massif that would not involve scrambling through the awful things.

“Up there?” Larry asked, sounding frustrated and cross. When his supervisor nodded and smiled, the boy turned to his brothers and nodded silently. Without further comment, they began unpacking gear from their packs and Larry’s storage, since his was the most fully developed.

They swiftly set up a long, folding work table and set out a number of jars, pots, small bundles and little pails. Perry began mixing and grinding with a mortar and pestle, adding dribbles of that and dollops of this to a mixture of dried herbs and less identifiable things.

After a few minutes, he filled a small jar with a thick, blue and gray paste, which he dabbed under each boy’s nose before tucking the little jar away for later.

“Just an herbal unguent to cut the stench, it’s entirely mundane.” Perry explained to their skeptical elder, while his brothers cleared away the mess with quiet efficiency.

Just as silently, they began removing the elegantly sculpted wooden plates from their gear, leaving behind a light, flexible cloth armor, much better suited to climbing and resisting scuffs and scrapes.

Before the sun reached its peak, the lads were dressed for mountaineering, each outfitted with knee and elbow guards, light helmets and an assortment of metal tack and pieces hanging from their safety harness of buckled and braided spider silk.

“Yeah, you’re his kids all right…” The veteran mumbled when the Ward triplets had all their gear stowed in the backside of nowhere, outside reality.

“We used to have to climb in armor and drag our gear up after, on ropes! When I was your age…”

He mourned and sobbed for the youth of today… and all the ‘character building’ they were missing out on, as they clambered up the somehow even steeper, stinkier trail.

#