Post by Malri 'Taffeta' Thistletop on Apr 15, 2018 10:33:34 GMT
10 Tarsakh
‘Welcome home, my sparrow!’ says Nerry Shortcrust from the candle-lit kitchen as he hears his wife arrive home. ‘How did it go at the fort? I wasn’t expecting you to be away overnight.’
‘The fort? Oh! No, nothing happened at the fort,’ answers Taffeta, pulling off her boots and knocking sand and gravel out of them. ‘When I arrived, Captain Thundercog said the other fellow couldn’t make it and there was no point doing it on my own. So I went over to the inn and fell in with a group who were going to look at that caravan.’ Briskly she fills the array of empty hooks on the wall: crossbow on one, shortbow on another, quivers, back-pack, cuirass – each in its proper place.
‘Caravan?’
‘You know, that big painted wagon that turned up outside town.’
‘Got you, yes, go on.’ Nerry looks up from his pastry and rolling-pin to see Taffeta flop down into a kitchen chair. He leans over to give her a kiss on the top of the head and then splutters. ‘Cyrrollalee’s knees! Your hair, love, it’s full of… grit or something!’
‘Oh my, yes, it would be!’ laughs Taffeta. ‘I’m back from the earthen plane, you see.’
‘The what?’
‘I know! I hardly believe it myself, but there it is. Your wife’s been to the elemental plane of earth, mister pie-man.’
‘Look now, you’d better start this story from where it starts, for I can’t make head or tail of it now,’ says the astonished husband. ‘Go back to the caravan.’
‘You know I’m no good at stories, Nerry, but I’ll try. There they were in the Ettin, talking about this caravan. There was Dûm Bah and Barden, two dwarves, and both devotees of the gods too – and Barden does a bit of gardening as well, I think he and your mam might get along now I think of it. Anyway, those two, and, oh, a hin called Seraphina! First time I’ve seen another of our folk in this town! She’s a holy woman like the dwarves.’ Grunting a little, Taffeta stands up and walks into another room, still talking. ‘Then there was Aramil, he’s an elf, and a demon-kin with a huge book on his back, calls himself Nowhere.’
‘Nowhere? Like… not anywhere?’
‘I think so! So there they are in the inn and all saying how nobody’s seen anyone go in or out of this wagon, there’s no sign of what animal pulled it here, and some have seen it smoking. We should check it out, they say. So they did, and I went along too, why not?’
She comes back into the kitchen with a mat and a wooden comb. After laying the mat out on the ground and putting a chair in the middle of it, she sits on the chair and begins vigorously combing sand out of her hair and onto the mat. Head turned almost upside-down, she continues the story:
‘So off we trotted to the caravan. The two dwarves went right up, bold as brass, and got themselves invited in, so in we all went. And blow me down, Nerry, there inside was some kind of creature made all of wind, and behind it was a tall, handsome fellow floating in the air, blue from head to toe! A djinn, Nowhere said it was. Pour some water in a basin for me, would you, love? Thanks. Now this djinn, Ka’sam was his name, told us what he was about.’ Taffeta starts wetting her hair.
‘It turned out he’d come here with his sister – Sha’sam, she was called – came here from the plane of air, just for a holiday, sort of thing. But Ka’sam had an old enemy, Razid, who’s a… what’d they call it… a dao, I think. Like a djinn but made of earth and rock. And one day when Ka’sam wasn’t looking, Razid kidnapped his sister and took her off with him. And if we went and got her back, Ka’sam would give us gold or jewels or he’d use his connections to get us things we want.’
By now, Nerry has finished rolling his pastry and is starting to tidy up the kitchen, glancing fondly at his wife while she struggles to comb knots out of her wet hair. ‘So off we went. A day and a half on foot, south-west. Oh, and you’ll like this: we passed a tree-stump where Barden told us he’d met a dark elf called Silver. A dark elf! You should tell your mam.’
‘Tell her yourself, she’s only upstairs.’
‘Oh she’ll be asleep by now, won’t she? Anyway you’re making me lose my train of thought. Yes, we got to some mountains and there was a load of gravel and pebbles all rolling down the mountain like a river. Strangest thing I ever saw.’
‘Apart from the floating blue fellow and the wind-monster.’
‘You terrible man, let me tell the story!’ she laughs, flicking water at him from her comb. ‘All right, well we followed this stone river into a cave, and we all ran across it – Aramil went first, he’s a nimble one to be sure – Dûm Bah wasn’t so steady, he slipped over and got swept a bit down the river but got himself up again right enough. Now, on the other side of the stone river it got even stranger. You’d kick up a little rock and it would fly into the air and just stop there, floating. We walked on down a tunnel and behind us we were leaving a spray of stones scattered in mid-air! The tiefling reckoned we must’ve crossed into the plane of earth somehow. He seems to speak the language, ’cause when we got to a big arch with writing on it he could read it. Can't remember what he said, though. Something about “the granite gloom” I think.’
Taffeta has stopped combing and Nerry has stopped tidying. He crouches down to her eye-level and parts the damp curtain of hair hanging in front of her face. ‘You still in there?’
‘Still here. I give up. Sandy bed tonight!’
‘My favourite kind. So what happened in this cave, then?’
‘Well, first there were some people - well, sort of people, they had three arms and no head, and they were eating rocks. Nowhere and Aramil tried to do something clever with a precious stone, I didn't really understand it and neither did the rock-eaters, but eventually Nowhere just gave them some gems and they agreed to take us to this Razid fellow. They took us through the rock, Nerry! I was scared, I don't mind telling you, but it was fine, just a strange fuzzy feeling and we sort of pushed through the wall and out the other side!’
‘After that, there were two stone heads shouting at each other, and it was like in those stories where one always tells the truth and the other never does. Nowhere figured out the answer and one of the heads - it had tusks and horns - that one gave us a big crystal. Then there was a giant stone fist wearing a ring with another crystal in it, and the fist was alive! Honestly, love, this all sounds so ridiculous, I can hardly believe I didn't just dream it! But you believe me, don't you?’
‘’Course I do, my apple-blossom,’course I do. Here, dry your head and let's go upstairs.’
They do, Taffeta rubbing her hair with a cloth, Nerry extinguishing the lamps as they pass. ‘So, a giant fist?’
‘Aramil went ducking and diving to get the gem from its ring, but this fist was slapping all around, clocked him hard once or twice. He got the stone in the end though, so now we had two. Sure enough, next comes a round door with a face carved on it, and Nowhere slots the gems into its eye-sockets to open it. But on the other side it was so dark, some kind of magical darkness that nobody could see through, even with torches or spells. Well, I looked round to ask Nowhere what we should do, because he seems to know a lot about this sort of thing, but where he’d been standing there was just a sort of cloud that seemed to gather itself up and swoop into the dark. After a few moments the cloud came out again and there was Nowhere, telling us the darkness was full of arrows but he’d turned them all around so they'd fire into the walls. I didn't really understand, but we all groped through the dark and came out safe and sound.’
Taffeta flops heavily onto the bed and closes her eyes. Nerry prods her with a gentle finger. ‘Now then, you can't go to sleep without finishing the story,’ he chides. ‘Nor without changing out of those dusty clothes, neither.’
‘Ugh, fine,’ sighs the weary hunter, not opening her eyes. ‘So, after the darkness we were in a huge cave full of floating crystals. Some of them were tiny but some were huge. There were four especially that were bigger than me, bigger than the elf and the tiefling even. I had a peek at one and there was a person inside it! I was lucky though because if I’d looked at the one next to it - well, Barden peered into that one and he started turning to stone!’
‘Arvoreen’s shield!’
‘That’s when it all started happening. Dûm Bah started smashing one of the other crystals – I think he reckoned it had the djinn’s missing sister in it – and Barden was shouting for us to break the crystal that was turning him stone, so Aramil and I did that. Dûm Bah shattered his crystal first, but it turned out it wasn’t Sha’sam inside, it was a marid who’d been trapped there for hundreds of years! We were close to breaking the other crystal too but Barden somehow managed to shake off the stone magic and we stopped – which was just as well because Barden figured out it wasn’t the crystal that tried to turn him to stone, it was some monster inside it! The marid told us which crystal was newest and we all laid into it and broke Sha’sam free. She was very weak and injured. So we were about to make a run for it when that Razid turned up and it was him against everyone, including the djinn and the marid.’ Taffeta pauses. ‘Nerry, I was useless in that fight. Didn’t make a single scratch on that dao. This is nothing like the old goblin raids back home. It’s monsters and elementals and… and everyone there had magic weapons and spells, and there I was with just a crossbow…’
‘Don’t fret, my fox. You’ve got your part to play, and there’s plenty to learn in this new place.’
‘I guess so. I don’t know.’
‘You need some rest. Let’s sleep.’
‘I thought I wasn’t allowed to sleep until I finished the story?’ she grins.
‘Well get on with it, then!’ Nerry replies with mock exasperation.
‘There isn’t much more to tell. With everyone against him, Razid was beaten down pretty quick. He called out to surrender. The marid was having none of it, though, and just kept attacking him. The rest of us agreed to cut and run with the djinn. Oh, but I nearly forgot – we had time to swipe some crystals from the cave before we left. I’ve got a little bag of them. I’ll have to find out if they’re worth anything. Anyway, Sha’sam had just enough strength to magic us all away, back to town, and that was that.’
‘Sounds like quite a day you’ve had,’ says Nerry as he goes to extinguish the lamp. ‘You’ll have to tell mam and the girls all about it tomorrow.’
‘They’ll probably think I’m making it all up!’
‘But they’ll enjoy it all the same. Now, go to sleep, love.’
‘Maybe I’ll try to remember some of those little spells Aunt Vatina used to do, see if I can’t get the hang of them…’
‘Spells tomorrow, my nightingale. Sleep tonight.’
And she does.
‘Welcome home, my sparrow!’ says Nerry Shortcrust from the candle-lit kitchen as he hears his wife arrive home. ‘How did it go at the fort? I wasn’t expecting you to be away overnight.’
‘The fort? Oh! No, nothing happened at the fort,’ answers Taffeta, pulling off her boots and knocking sand and gravel out of them. ‘When I arrived, Captain Thundercog said the other fellow couldn’t make it and there was no point doing it on my own. So I went over to the inn and fell in with a group who were going to look at that caravan.’ Briskly she fills the array of empty hooks on the wall: crossbow on one, shortbow on another, quivers, back-pack, cuirass – each in its proper place.
‘Caravan?’
‘You know, that big painted wagon that turned up outside town.’
‘Got you, yes, go on.’ Nerry looks up from his pastry and rolling-pin to see Taffeta flop down into a kitchen chair. He leans over to give her a kiss on the top of the head and then splutters. ‘Cyrrollalee’s knees! Your hair, love, it’s full of… grit or something!’
‘Oh my, yes, it would be!’ laughs Taffeta. ‘I’m back from the earthen plane, you see.’
‘The what?’
‘I know! I hardly believe it myself, but there it is. Your wife’s been to the elemental plane of earth, mister pie-man.’
‘Look now, you’d better start this story from where it starts, for I can’t make head or tail of it now,’ says the astonished husband. ‘Go back to the caravan.’
‘You know I’m no good at stories, Nerry, but I’ll try. There they were in the Ettin, talking about this caravan. There was Dûm Bah and Barden, two dwarves, and both devotees of the gods too – and Barden does a bit of gardening as well, I think he and your mam might get along now I think of it. Anyway, those two, and, oh, a hin called Seraphina! First time I’ve seen another of our folk in this town! She’s a holy woman like the dwarves.’ Grunting a little, Taffeta stands up and walks into another room, still talking. ‘Then there was Aramil, he’s an elf, and a demon-kin with a huge book on his back, calls himself Nowhere.’
‘Nowhere? Like… not anywhere?’
‘I think so! So there they are in the inn and all saying how nobody’s seen anyone go in or out of this wagon, there’s no sign of what animal pulled it here, and some have seen it smoking. We should check it out, they say. So they did, and I went along too, why not?’
She comes back into the kitchen with a mat and a wooden comb. After laying the mat out on the ground and putting a chair in the middle of it, she sits on the chair and begins vigorously combing sand out of her hair and onto the mat. Head turned almost upside-down, she continues the story:
‘So off we trotted to the caravan. The two dwarves went right up, bold as brass, and got themselves invited in, so in we all went. And blow me down, Nerry, there inside was some kind of creature made all of wind, and behind it was a tall, handsome fellow floating in the air, blue from head to toe! A djinn, Nowhere said it was. Pour some water in a basin for me, would you, love? Thanks. Now this djinn, Ka’sam was his name, told us what he was about.’ Taffeta starts wetting her hair.
‘It turned out he’d come here with his sister – Sha’sam, she was called – came here from the plane of air, just for a holiday, sort of thing. But Ka’sam had an old enemy, Razid, who’s a… what’d they call it… a dao, I think. Like a djinn but made of earth and rock. And one day when Ka’sam wasn’t looking, Razid kidnapped his sister and took her off with him. And if we went and got her back, Ka’sam would give us gold or jewels or he’d use his connections to get us things we want.’
By now, Nerry has finished rolling his pastry and is starting to tidy up the kitchen, glancing fondly at his wife while she struggles to comb knots out of her wet hair. ‘So off we went. A day and a half on foot, south-west. Oh, and you’ll like this: we passed a tree-stump where Barden told us he’d met a dark elf called Silver. A dark elf! You should tell your mam.’
‘Tell her yourself, she’s only upstairs.’
‘Oh she’ll be asleep by now, won’t she? Anyway you’re making me lose my train of thought. Yes, we got to some mountains and there was a load of gravel and pebbles all rolling down the mountain like a river. Strangest thing I ever saw.’
‘Apart from the floating blue fellow and the wind-monster.’
‘You terrible man, let me tell the story!’ she laughs, flicking water at him from her comb. ‘All right, well we followed this stone river into a cave, and we all ran across it – Aramil went first, he’s a nimble one to be sure – Dûm Bah wasn’t so steady, he slipped over and got swept a bit down the river but got himself up again right enough. Now, on the other side of the stone river it got even stranger. You’d kick up a little rock and it would fly into the air and just stop there, floating. We walked on down a tunnel and behind us we were leaving a spray of stones scattered in mid-air! The tiefling reckoned we must’ve crossed into the plane of earth somehow. He seems to speak the language, ’cause when we got to a big arch with writing on it he could read it. Can't remember what he said, though. Something about “the granite gloom” I think.’
Taffeta has stopped combing and Nerry has stopped tidying. He crouches down to her eye-level and parts the damp curtain of hair hanging in front of her face. ‘You still in there?’
‘Still here. I give up. Sandy bed tonight!’
‘My favourite kind. So what happened in this cave, then?’
‘Well, first there were some people - well, sort of people, they had three arms and no head, and they were eating rocks. Nowhere and Aramil tried to do something clever with a precious stone, I didn't really understand it and neither did the rock-eaters, but eventually Nowhere just gave them some gems and they agreed to take us to this Razid fellow. They took us through the rock, Nerry! I was scared, I don't mind telling you, but it was fine, just a strange fuzzy feeling and we sort of pushed through the wall and out the other side!’
‘After that, there were two stone heads shouting at each other, and it was like in those stories where one always tells the truth and the other never does. Nowhere figured out the answer and one of the heads - it had tusks and horns - that one gave us a big crystal. Then there was a giant stone fist wearing a ring with another crystal in it, and the fist was alive! Honestly, love, this all sounds so ridiculous, I can hardly believe I didn't just dream it! But you believe me, don't you?’
‘’Course I do, my apple-blossom,’course I do. Here, dry your head and let's go upstairs.’
They do, Taffeta rubbing her hair with a cloth, Nerry extinguishing the lamps as they pass. ‘So, a giant fist?’
‘Aramil went ducking and diving to get the gem from its ring, but this fist was slapping all around, clocked him hard once or twice. He got the stone in the end though, so now we had two. Sure enough, next comes a round door with a face carved on it, and Nowhere slots the gems into its eye-sockets to open it. But on the other side it was so dark, some kind of magical darkness that nobody could see through, even with torches or spells. Well, I looked round to ask Nowhere what we should do, because he seems to know a lot about this sort of thing, but where he’d been standing there was just a sort of cloud that seemed to gather itself up and swoop into the dark. After a few moments the cloud came out again and there was Nowhere, telling us the darkness was full of arrows but he’d turned them all around so they'd fire into the walls. I didn't really understand, but we all groped through the dark and came out safe and sound.’
Taffeta flops heavily onto the bed and closes her eyes. Nerry prods her with a gentle finger. ‘Now then, you can't go to sleep without finishing the story,’ he chides. ‘Nor without changing out of those dusty clothes, neither.’
‘Ugh, fine,’ sighs the weary hunter, not opening her eyes. ‘So, after the darkness we were in a huge cave full of floating crystals. Some of them were tiny but some were huge. There were four especially that were bigger than me, bigger than the elf and the tiefling even. I had a peek at one and there was a person inside it! I was lucky though because if I’d looked at the one next to it - well, Barden peered into that one and he started turning to stone!’
‘Arvoreen’s shield!’
‘That’s when it all started happening. Dûm Bah started smashing one of the other crystals – I think he reckoned it had the djinn’s missing sister in it – and Barden was shouting for us to break the crystal that was turning him stone, so Aramil and I did that. Dûm Bah shattered his crystal first, but it turned out it wasn’t Sha’sam inside, it was a marid who’d been trapped there for hundreds of years! We were close to breaking the other crystal too but Barden somehow managed to shake off the stone magic and we stopped – which was just as well because Barden figured out it wasn’t the crystal that tried to turn him to stone, it was some monster inside it! The marid told us which crystal was newest and we all laid into it and broke Sha’sam free. She was very weak and injured. So we were about to make a run for it when that Razid turned up and it was him against everyone, including the djinn and the marid.’ Taffeta pauses. ‘Nerry, I was useless in that fight. Didn’t make a single scratch on that dao. This is nothing like the old goblin raids back home. It’s monsters and elementals and… and everyone there had magic weapons and spells, and there I was with just a crossbow…’
‘Don’t fret, my fox. You’ve got your part to play, and there’s plenty to learn in this new place.’
‘I guess so. I don’t know.’
‘You need some rest. Let’s sleep.’
‘I thought I wasn’t allowed to sleep until I finished the story?’ she grins.
‘Well get on with it, then!’ Nerry replies with mock exasperation.
‘There isn’t much more to tell. With everyone against him, Razid was beaten down pretty quick. He called out to surrender. The marid was having none of it, though, and just kept attacking him. The rest of us agreed to cut and run with the djinn. Oh, but I nearly forgot – we had time to swipe some crystals from the cave before we left. I’ve got a little bag of them. I’ll have to find out if they’re worth anything. Anyway, Sha’sam had just enough strength to magic us all away, back to town, and that was that.’
‘Sounds like quite a day you’ve had,’ says Nerry as he goes to extinguish the lamp. ‘You’ll have to tell mam and the girls all about it tomorrow.’
‘They’ll probably think I’m making it all up!’
‘But they’ll enjoy it all the same. Now, go to sleep, love.’
‘Maybe I’ll try to remember some of those little spells Aunt Vatina used to do, see if I can’t get the hang of them…’
‘Spells tomorrow, my nightingale. Sleep tonight.’
And she does.
