Sailing Ether Tides

Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance

The Green Manalishi Ch: 20

Down in the king’s basement workshop, the dwarf started releasing knotted cords and clamps from his project. Slowly, blocks and forms slipped away; revealing an unfinished guitar body. Glue squeeze out and toolmarks still marred his unfinished instrument, but the shape and joinery seemed just right. He gave it a gentle thump and enjoyed a tight resonant response. No rattles or off tones at all.

Gandree wasn’t sure what would result, he was operating on instinct and pure fugue state, giddy willingness to try any damn thing…

“Your drum looks funny.” Daisybelle offered helpfully.

“Uh, huh.” He sniffed at the girl, skewering her with a disdainfully raised eyebrow. “This is a Workshop… what craft are you working; to justify your presence and commentary?”

His goofy grin took the sting out of his words, but Dasiybelle fired back anyway.

“Crafts, smafts! This is my home, silly boy. I need no permissions from you!” She leaned over and bit his forearm lightly, without getting up from her stool.

“Hey! Bad Daze!” He scolded her firmly.

“Shush boy… you’re salty.” She mumbled around her mouthful of his arm, following him as he tried to escape. He didn’t try very hard or for long...

“If you’re hungry, I have some things…” He insisted, while gently, but insistently freeing his arm, at last.

“Oh, yes, hungry… and other things too… but hungry.” She grumbled, sitting back on her stool.

Gandree slipped his guitar body safely away when she wasn’t looking and started fishing out his lunch. Tough, crusty pasties, filled with chunks of salmon and a rich, slightly sweet sauce of lemon, dill and butter, landed beside a jug of cold apple cider.

There was a crock of white beans, cooked in a sticky glaze of brown sugar and onions; biscuits and crusty loaves of bread, all stashed away for his journey, still fresh and hot, preserved by the magic of his shadow.

“I’ve been thinking, Daze…” Gandree said, between bites and over her ecstatic moans. “About traveling, seeing things, meeting different peoples…”

“Mmm, Yeah… ‘sh the best part of traveling!” She agreed with her mouth full. “Fish stew in a pie? Genius!”

“Yeah, I always felt… trapped in Dwarfhold, under the mountain.” He continued. “So, are you interested in what he asked?”

“Can’t travel freely to a land of men… Pointy knives, blood on the ground, much screaming; all because of green skin and human stupids.” She replied calmly.

“Maybe with my boy along…” She suggested to Nightshade and Petunia as if arguing with herself.

“Yes… With Gandree boy along, we can pull this off! A fine prank indeed!”

#

“I really expected him to come for this thing by now… we may be dealing with a troll of unique mental and spiritual fortitude…” Pangbourne muttered as he took more notes on the filthy device the horrid foot was clamped into.

“Yeah, I’ve had to replace the feathers a few times. Now I’m brushing it with a stinging nettle every few hours.” Gary murmured happily. He sat back and admired his construct of evil and bad intentions. The spinning wheel had fewer feathers now, and little brass clips to make replacements easier and quicker.

The potted stinging nettle herb in the window planter was thriving, beside a carefully sculpted poison oak, a poison ivy and a few other forest surprises.

“I can see why you would be offended when someone calls you a witch.” The older knight complained sourly as he perused the garden box of nasties.

“It’s how most people say it. Witchcraft is demanding, subtle and not even a little flashy, but it works wonders, when applied correctly.” He shot a significant glance at the shrouded idol in the corner.

“Even divines must follow the laws they established; this is a matter of leverage, applied where it will be most effective; combined with an arrogant fool behaving arrogantly, like a fool.”

“Still…” Pangbourne muttered sourly. “This would be a lot easier if you could explain the root cause of these troubles. I have difficulty imagining what could have infuriated the goddess Dana, to cause her to behave so.”

“See? There you go again, assuming that I somehow offended her first… She’s had it in for me since I drew my first breath of this world’s air.” He grumbled at the knight. “Miss me with the victim blaming and shaming. My sons did nothing at all to her, beyond being my sons.”

“So you keep insisting.” Sir Frank mumbled distractedly, while thumbing through his copious notes. “Why then is the goddess so furious with you? I see in your record that you did violence during a sacred festival and again… It says here, you struck someone in her very temple…”

“Oh, Yeah. I beat the tar out of a guy for creeping around my little sister in the dark after a wedding. Jeremiah, nice guy. Then I brutally nut punched a War cultist while escaping from her temple cells, where they had locked me up illegally, ‘by accident’.” He sighed happily.

“Good times…”

“But that’s not it?” Frank insisted. “Violating the peace of her temple isn’t the issue?”

“Nope. I did the bare minimum violence needed to secure my escape…” He grinned and buffed his big, hard knuckled hand on his shirt front. “Dana demanded a penance and I served it. We’re square on that score; she already hated my guts before that guy ever got his ball bag tapped.”

“I begin to wonder less and less, why Dana hates you…” Pangbourne muttered.

“Dude! You’re supposed to be on my side!” Gary grumbled.

“But you make such strong arguments for the other side…” He whined just a little. “At least tell me why you faked your death and how you got the authorities to go along with it.”

“Dude, I didn’t fake my death! Seriously, try listening more and taking fewer notes!” The madman complained as he mashed a large quantity of something purplish gray and nasty looking with an enormous mortar and pestle.

“It was a pretty traumatic time, so thanks for bringing it up again… and I still can’t tell you anything more. I was dead for five years, then I got better. That’s pretty simple, if I could tell you more I would...”

He grinned madly and sighed. “It’s a crazy story!”

He went back to smashing his noisome berries or whatever in his mad kitchen of witchcraft and potions. He poured a stream of thick, barely molten beeswax into a huge wooden trough with his awful smushed stuff and began kneading the mess with his hands. He leaned into his work, folding the stuff together and stretching it in the trough, up to his elbows in viscous violet sludge.

“Is that the violet healing unguent? I’ve never seen it made before…” Pangbourne murmured, trying a different tactic. “I imagined a more sanitary process.”

“Our production facilities are super hygienic and sanitary, we comply with all the stupid rules…” He grumbled. “This is strictly for family use, we get the good stuff, with my filthy witchcraft all up and through it.”

“You claim this is better than the cult of Dana’s product?” Frank asked skeptically. “I find that doubtful.”

“This is the original recipe, fermented duskmoon beans, duskmoon pollen and fresh beeswax, dried and mashed skeeter glands and venom sacks and a bit of magical slime from my friend, Albert the vampiric glowooze.” He dipped a bronze ladle into a bubbling clay jar half filled with a deep reddish ooze that smelt of fresh blood.

“He’s not exactly stable, or properly alive… as we understand it, so Healer’s cult won’t let us sell this formula to the public.”

“Because it contains the product of an unknown, undead monster ooze?” The older man asked, eyeing the bubbling clay pot suspiciously. “How desperately closed minded of them...”

“Yup, that’s what it means to be a witch, working with the cruddy animal bits and forest leavings that proper mages and clerics don’t value.” He shrugged.

“You guys wanna throw pearls in the trash, go ahead. I’ll fish them out and make something pretty, or something pretty awful. That’s why you care what I’m doing or where I go. Cause I get results… Or, at least I did, once upon a time.”

“Madness….” Pangbourne grumbled sourly.

“Madness indeed. I survived something impossible by going entirely mad… Then I did something only a madman could; a thing so awful, so unprecedented and so impossible that I’m not allowed to even hint at it to a living mortal. Not even my wife and kids have heard a word of it from me…”

#

Lindsey snuggled in closer to Barry in Flash’s cozy new quarters, there was a fold-away bed and a private lavatory for humans; including the horsey equivalent in a discreetly curtained stall of its own. A tiny woodstove kept things warm and cheery, while providing hot water at all times thanks to a water tank built into the back of the firebox.

“When did you boys do all this?” She asked, gazing all around from the comfy circle of his arms.

“We didn’t do anything. Our house isn’t real; we can manipulate and change it around if no one is looking and we all agree.” He utterly failed to explain.

“How does that even work?” She demanded gently.

“Nobody knows. If anyone tries to watch us create it, nothing will appear. The magic just fails completely.” He shrugged. “If we disagree fundamentally on what we’re doing, nothing happens, otherwise, it’s a compromise situation.”

“So all this is made of what? Magic dirt?” She asked, running her hands over the sofa beside the stove.

“Nope, light, shadows, illusion and Will. A sufficiently powerful Will could break down the walls, disrupt our construct or even banish it.” He sighed.

“Our dad’s was more like a castle, the way Amy and Rio talk about it. He faced demons from behind his walls… Ours is only as durable as a normal house, if easier to repair. Amy’s and Rio’s are the same, only Wilf’s is different. He’s pretty different overall.”

“I still haven’t spoken to him. Is he shy?” She asked from the sofa, which was super comfy.

“Wilf is… quiet. A thinker and planner, like Harry but much more direct and straightforward.” Barry murmured as he eased down beside her with an exhausted sigh.

“Wilf’s really mellow, mostly… He cares about equality, justice and making things fair, so he has a lot of trouble with the world at large. He doesn’t trust many people and is slow to open up; until you get him on a bike in the woods.”

“How does all this happen? How are you all like this?” She finally just asked it straight out.

“It’s simple, really. Larry, Perry and I fell to earth together as two year old babies, when our dad killed a bunch of immortals, then exploded.” He paused for a few seconds, letting that soak in slowly.

Before she could ask any questions he held up his hand to forestall her.

“We don’t know any of the details; beyond that he killed a shitload of immortals and a few gods… like Craft, Order and War. He can’t talk about it at all. The gods gave him a bunch of curses and hexes, when he came back, including a curse of secrecy.”

“I feel like I’ve heard this before, but it’s just too…” She fell silent when her horse ambled over and began snuffling at her ear.

“Flash says it’s all true… but he’s a horse. He’d sell me out for a handful of sugar cubes and an apple.”

She yelped when he nipped her ear gently and shoved her onto Barry’s lap with his wide forehead.

“My dad says horses are sensitive and wise beings… and that we would all be well served to follow their instructions.” Barry opined.

“Wasn’t your dad in the stable getting bossed around by the horses, almost every time I saw him?” Lindsey demanded.

“Uh, yeah. We’re all blessed by Eponna, just like you. We just haven’t Contracted her; cause we’re boycotting all the divines, even the ones we like.” He stroked her hair when she settled herself on his shoulder, even though there was some horse snot in there.

“You should go back inside, I’ll stay here with Flash… It’s a little crowded in there for me.”

“I was planning on staying here with Flash… ‘Cause it’s a little crowded in there for me, too.” She murmured.

“My pajamas are already here. Stand over there and turn around so I can change.”

Barry turned bright red and followed her pointing finger, staring into a corner of the ‘barn’ with nervous dedication, while listening to every rustle and whisper of silk behind him so hard, his ears started to hurt.

“You can turn around now, boy.” She murmured softly.

Lindsey wore a long shirt of pale green silk that fell to her knees, the high collar secured with three big flat bone buttons. It was a proper nightshirt in every way, save that it was so clingy and slick, despite being also loose and voluminous. Her silly, horsey slippers made soft clippity clop sounds when she walked, which made them all smile, including Flash.

“Get changed, we’ll have to share the bed I suppose.” She sniffed at him in feigned outrage.

“No funny business… mind you! I swear, you’ve got some nerve, just assuming like this. I have pajamas for you in the bottom drawer.”

He opened the lowest drawer of the compact dresser and found a pair of green, drawstring pajama pants, just the pants…

“There’s no shirt…”

“It’s a small dresser, boy. Cuts had to be made.” She answered calmly.

“Aren’t you going to look away?” He asked weakly.

“I’m your team medic and you are still recovering from a dangerous wound… Best I observe closely.” She replied.

“Follow my instructions; I’m a professional, Barry. And… do a little turn.”

Barry turned a few new colors under her gentle teasing, before finally sliding into the bed, so perilously close to her. Shiro, Becky’s accursed familiar arrived right on time, slipping between them and curling up with an obnoxiously self-satisfied little meow.

#

“Daze…” Gandree asked carefully. “Why are you in my bed?”

“Mmm… ‘Cause you’re mine?” She asked, as though he were an idiot for asking.

“Don’t want you to run away again.”

“I didn’t ‘run away’ and I’m my own man; not your property, comfy as you may be.” He mumbled, while undermining his own argument by snuggling in a little closer.

“I showed you to king papa. You’re mine now. No take backs.” Daisybelle mumbled and wriggled against him to make her point.

“I gotta go on patrol for a few nights. You gotta be good while I’m away. Listen to king papa and no sneaky kissing other girls.” She mumbled quietly in his arms. “We ride at full dark and be back in two nights, maybe three. Be a good boy and maybe I’ll bring you a treat.”

“I’m not one of your dogs, Daisybelle.” He sniffed, catching a noseful of her scent from her dark green hair. Redolent of pine sap and forest, sweet spices and a hint of something warm and animal, her scent soothed Gandree as she wriggled against him again.

“True, not one of my doggies.” She mumbled happily from under his chin. “When I bite you, I don’t get fur in my teeth.” With that, she chomped down on his neck and had a gentle gnaw on his throat until she fell asleep.

#

“We should stay here at least a few days, while I take my measurements and investigate.” Harry insisted at breakfast. “The strange visitors in our bath, the storm and the strange sealing stone on this void maw, all point to something unusual happening here.”

“What have you found so far?” Becky asked from behind a coffee mug that dwarfed her.

“The etheric veil is more permeable in the local area… Some force set up a resonance between the world we know and the world on the other side of the gate, up on the hill there.” Harry eyed the high crevice on the mountainside above them.

“Whatever caused it is gone, but echoes remain. I’d like to investigate the phenomenon, while we search the area for other, hidden void maws.”

“We should investigate the area in detail…” Wilf agreed readily. “We’ll start by exploring the local game trails!”

“Trios at minimum. No solo jaunts, no wandering alone. There’s at least most of a troll out there somewhere.” Sir Kermal declared firmly.

“Where did Ward get off to…”

Kermal blushed when they all started giggling at his choice of words, even his wife and the new girl.

“Gods above and below…” He sighed sadly, before bending down and addressing his shadow. “Sasha, be a dear and fly around a bit please… I would like you to look for any magical or spiritual anomalies.”

“Good idea, uncle Kermie.” Amy chirped happily. “Shiro needs a nap before he can do any exploring and sniffing around, he was up all night being the responsible one.”

She winked at Barry and Lindsey, with Becky and Maya grinning along like idiots behind her.

“You guys all suck, just so you know.” Barry pointed out, gesturing with a butter coated table knife to make his point abundantly clear.

#

Gandree pulled himself from the clingy goblin girl around mid morning, feeling too restlessly agitated and finding her too cuddly to safely be awake near. Her grabby little hands wandered in her sleep and made relaxation impossible for a few compelling reasons.

Downstairs he found things greatly changed while he slept; the oddly oversized furniture and fixtures were now the proper proportions for sensibly sized people; though the ceilings remained improbably high.

He spent an hour in the kitchen, starting up a few things and preparing for the future, before heading down into the basement workshop to start playing with his new ‘drum’ and ‘funny shaped whomp’.

He whistled a merry tune, while he worked, scraping, sanding, carving and smoothing his work, preparing for the next steps. With exacting measurements and strict calculations, he scored and sawed slots in the fretboard of finely planed ebony. His frets were nearby, waiting… each one a precise and delicate work all its own.

The king had been generous, ogre bone was as hard, dense, tough and durable as hammered bronze, without any corrosion issues. The work of carving the nut, saddle and each of the twenty four frets from the stuff had been laborious, gross and stinky, but was so worth it.

By the time his belly reminded him of time’s passage he had all the frets seated and clamped down while the glue cured. The body and soundboard were settling into their first coats of lacquer and he had tuning pegs and a bridge of carved ebony set aside, waiting. That was the worst part… the waiting.

With nothing more to do for now, Gandree went back upstairs for a fresh cuddle with the sleeping goblin and her wargs. He slipped into the warm, cozy pile and felt… at home for the first time in his life.

Third bell was chiming from the not too distant human town, ringing out over the lake, calling him. Gandree left a note on the table, beside a few meat pies and a blueberry cobbler and slipped out the door, headed for town with his flute on his lips.

Game trails and narrow footpaths crisscrossed the forest, with the only real thoroughfare being a wide dirt path that occasionally resembled a road, which led from goblin town to the human city by the lake, below the hillside keep. He played along with the forest birds and bugs as he walked the mile and a half to the human town between the lake and the mountainside keep.

Orchards and garden plots began a few hundred yards from the city wall, ending in a wide clearing around the gate itself. Two actual roads led away from the city, one up the valley side and around to the northwest and another running down the wide, forested valley to the south.

He strolled in through the gate and nodded at the guard, who seemed surprised and alert at his sudden, musical appearance from the goblin woods.

“I hope you aren’t looking for trouble in those woods lad.” The light armored guard leaned on his spear and peered at him as he approached. “Or are ye traveling? Either way, don’t trouble the goblins of the woods, they are our neighbors and allies, stranger.”

“No trouble, I’ve just come from goblin town and simply wish to see your city and perhaps trade a bit.” He waved his flute and smiled at the enormously tall human. The fellow had to be over five foot seven at least!

“Wait… yer one of those dwarf fellas… mountain folk. I never seen one of you before.” The guard smiled and got more chatty when he got a better look at the short, solidly built, sandy haired, blue eyed young dwarf. He was dressed in sensible woolen traveling attire of fine make, if unembellished and largely undyed.

He wore no armor nor weapons and carried only a flute in one hand and had a strange four stringed shovel instrument slung over his shoulder on a strap of suede wormhide.

“What are ye trading, young dwarf?” The guard asked, growing suspicious again at his lack of gear and pack animals.

“Small jewels, trinkets and ornaments of bone and stone, oddities and little comforts.” He held out a small collection of wooden and bone combs and hair brushes he’d created for trade.

“Now that is fine… My wife and three daughters do row something awful of a morning for want of such things…” The guard said with a sly grin.

“Perhaps I’ll be doing some trade with you before the others get a crack at them, hmm?”

Gandree grinned and nodded, producing several more combs and brushes from his voluminous coat pockets, along with a tray of hair ornaments of carved wood and strings of agate beads.

Dwarfhold had an insatiable appetite for such things and Daisybelle had swiped several from him already.

“The silly boy keeps his hair short, what need have you for a comb?!” She sniffed when she’d stolen it from his grooming kit while he shaved.

He’d made another to replace it, just because the empty slot in his leather kit annoyed him… and she had liberated that one too. Eventually he just gave in and made several for her and her many sisters and quite a few more for this exact purpose.

“A man with a wife and three daughters must do what he can to maintain domestic tranquility…” The dwarf lad spoke softly to soothe his unsuspecting prey.

“I have oak and alder for the value conscious, but for my money, bone is the best by far.” He held up a slab of polished beef femur carved into a fine, sturdy and robust comb. “Ebony and rosewood are splendid, if costly…” He cooed, steering the guardsman back toward his selection of bone combs.

#

Gandree strolled into the gated town with a wide smile on his face and a small pouch of iron and copper bits on his hip.

The guard was grinning as well, he’d insisted on making broad hints as to how richly his wife might reward him for his thoughtful purchases… A suggestion Gandree had somehow planted in the poor man’s mind with just a salacious wink and a knowing nod. The poor boy was confused by the whole exchange, but decided to just go with it.

He had vast stores of beef bones from working in Dwarfhold’s kitchens for so long; that was one of the materials he’d always had ready access to, like stone and low value minerals, so he had a lot stowed away in his capacious shadow. Gandree had experimented with his surplus in so many ways, carving, shaping and manipulating crystal, bone and stone in many ways; honing his skills against the day when he would have access to the lumber he craved.

He strolled through the town’s market, trading with the barber quite profitably. His pouch was nicely plump by the time he was out of combs and boar bristle hairbrushes. He traded the baker a handful of agate beads for a big sack of fine white flour and a small box of yeast powder, before moving on to his next destination.

The lumberman took three dozen finely matched rose quartz beads on a spidersilk strand for a goodly stack of assorted well seasoned wooden slabs and boards. The bargaining had gone on until almost fifth bell, deepening the shadows and drawing evening in closer.

Gandree tried to be evasive with his shadow storage gift, but with a significant pile of timber to vanish away, it was being troublesome. The man just wouldn’t look away for long enough for him to stash the stuff.

“Perhaps you should get a better look, out in the full sunlight, master Penfold. The stones do sparkle nicely…”

“Where should I have this delivered lad?” Master lumberman Penfold asked cheerfully, while admiring his purchase, especially the way it glittered in the sunlight.

“No need! I have taken delivery, good sir.” Gandree chimed happily as he slipped out of the lumberyard, on his way to the butcher’s stall, then the poulterer.

As evening closed in, he strolled out into the woods, strumming his shovulele and feeling good.

He had nearly a bronze half mark in loose change and almost everything he’d come looking for, with a few notable exceptions. The humans did no trade at all in monster meat or parts at all, which was odd… When he’d asked the butcher for groundworm, the man had nearly paled in horror.

Like the clan lords and upper crust of Dwarfhold, humans held monster meat and leather in very low esteem.

His own boots and belt of groundworm leather were considered eccentric and ‘edgy’ if not downright suspicious. Most folks would happily go forth dressed in rags, rather than in monster leather.

Even spidersilk got short shrift in many ways, the men of the town considered it inferior to cotton, wool and linen cloth, despite its sheen, softness and durability; while the ladies seemed to appreciate its smooth, supple and slick attributes… Humans were weird.

With those thoughts in mind, he strummed and strolled into the darkening woods, walking by the light of a lingering sunset, filtered through leaves.

#