| Terquem |
One of the things that I keep doing is not finishing the third novel in my series, “The World of Hamth” (you can look them up on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. They stink, don’t read them) and instead I keep starting other story-ettes, little bits of story ideas I keep having. Here is one of them I was thinking about yesterday, and wrote down today. I’ll probably add more, or post other bad fiction here, until someone tells me to stop, or I get enough complaints from friends and family that I go back to that third novel (it is 51,000 words and needs a complete rewrite, but I’ll get to it, no really I will, soon.)
The Adventures of Arac Horne, Privateer – A Game of Snakes and Looters
There was going to be trouble at the tavern that night.
At the Broken Window, the tavern owned by Markum Frol, for the three nights before tonight, property had been damaged and people had been hurt. It was a small tavern, not nearly as big as Grumbul’s, or the Rising Sail, but still the crowd had gotten out of hand, and Sheriff Hoolie wasn’t going to let things get out of hand again.
“Good afternoon, Hoolie,” Markum said from behind the bar as the town’s sheriff came though the open door. The afternoon sun was bright, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the reflection of the sun off of Hoolie’s bald head threw a flash of light into the small tavern when Hoolie ducked his head as he entered. Markum had always planned on making the doorway bigger. He knew that human folk tended to get worked up over having to stoop every time they came in. And wasn’t it enough that he filled the place with chairs made for all kinds, Dwarves, Humans, Halflings, there were plenty of seats for all, but the doorway, yes he knew, that needed to be fixed.
“Master Frol,” Hoolie said as he walked slowly across the tavern floor. The tables and chairs, the ones that had not been broken in previous days, had been pushed to the walls, and Markum’s young daughter, Tamitha, swept pieces of broken glasses and shattered mugs into a pile at the center of the room. Hoolie came to the pile, smiled down at the small, toe-headed, Hafling child, and then squatted down, and picked through the debris. Hoolie found a large piece of dark green glass. On the piece was the torn fragment of a label. There was still just a small bit of glue holding the piece of paper to the glass. Hoolie rubbed the paper down with his thumb as he read the name of the label out loud, “Narrliegh’s Summer Cider, twelve sixty three.” He tossed the glass back into the pile as he let out a long sigh. “I’ve had a few good nights with Master Narrliegh’s ciders,” Hoolie said as he stood and wiped his hands together. “I sincerely hope you have a few bottles left.”
“Now, Sheriff, please, you’ve not come to shut me down again have you. Why, why, I thought we were friends,” Markum said as he came out from behind the bar.
Hoolie looked to his left and his right, sighed heavily again and said, “Can I sit down, Markum, and no I won’t shut you down, but we have to talk. I can’t let this happen again.”
“Tamatha, get the man a chair please,” Markum said.
Tamatha laid her broom on the floor and hurried to the wall where she took hold of a large, high backed wooden chair, and then with effort, drug it to the center of the room, making a horrible squeal as the legs bounced and slid along the polished surface.
“Go ask you mother to fetch us a bottle,” Markum said.
“No, no sir, not today,” Hoolie waved his hand at the small girl. He smiled as she looked toward her father with confusion in her eyes, and Hoolie noticed how much the little halfling child looked like her father. Blond hair, round face, friendly brown eyes. She was a bright and attractive child, and would probably grow up to take over the tavern from her father, if she was as easygoing as he was.
“Well, go to your mum anyway, Tamatha,” Markum said.
Markum looked long and hard at the Sheriff. The tall, bald human man had once been a soldier, then a sailor, and now he was a King’s man, and he was old. It always seemed odd to Markum that humans aged so differently. Now the dwarves, the spirits only knew how old they ever got to be, they always looked old, even from the first day they left their families, and the elves, bless them for their sense of humor, they looked like children till the day they died. And Halflings, like Markum and his wife, Nilly, they tended to age slowly, looking a bit older every five or ten years, but never really getting that old, corpse looking face that a human could have. A human like Hoolie, anyway, and he looked like a dead man walking. Hoolie’s eyes were sunk in, and surrounded by wrinkles. His cheeks were hollow, and his lips pulled thin and cracked. The skin on Hoolie’s pale bald head was pulled tight, and had a shine to it that could easily be described as coming from beyond the grave. Hoolie was old. Why as far as Markum knew, he could be almost seventy, maybe older.
Now,” Hoolie began to say as he sat down in the large chair, “why don’t we keep it short and simple. Now, I’m not asking, and I’m not exactly telling you what to do, but damn it Markum, for tonight, maybe a couple of nights give it a rest. She doesn’t have to sing every night. She doesn’t have to take the stage every night. We don’t need a riot over her, her, well you know what I’m talking about, over her specialness, every damn night.”
Markum threw his hands out wide pleading, “But Hoolie, come on! You know what kind of crowd she pulls in. I’m making money for the first time in my life. Why, I’m making more than the taven’s on the docks, the docks Hoolie! Or, that’s what I hear. You can’t shut me down. Besides, she can’t be blamed for looking the way she does, or singing the way she does, it’s her nature. Why it’s almost a crime to suggest she shouldn’t be allowed to entertain. And she isn’t hurting anyone, not more than a scratch, a bump, a knock on the head here and there. She’s a good lass, a right fine lady, for her, you know, her kind.”
“Now, here we go again, Markum, Markum, we’ve had this talk before. I’m not going to tell you to shut down your bar. But please, just for tonight, and, and tomorrow, keep her off the stage. Put on that fellow who plays the mandolin, and that girl who juggles the fire sticks. Just, don’t put Loridia on stage. Don’t put her on the stage tonight, or I swear, I’ll get an order from Duke Harold, and I’ll shut you down as a public nuisance. That girl is downright dangerous. Keep her off the stage tonight.”
Markum frowned, but then he tilted his head, and his frown changed to a firm grimace. He pursed his lips and said, “She came here on her own. I didn’t bring her here. She asked for a job, and I gave her one. No one else in this stupid little fishing town would give her that. I did. Now you want me to turn her away,” he tried to sound serious, dramatic, but he could see it wasn’t swaying the old sheriff. Markum changed his attitude, he smiled and said as casually as he could, “Besides, don’t you think that in a few days the newness will wear off? People will get over her, her differences. It won’t be as big a problem, in time, just give it a week. I’m sure interest will wane. Come to think of it,” he said as he folded his arms over his chest and held his chin in one hand, “did you stop to consider what kind of riot my take place if people came here expecting to see her, and I had to tell them, you, the Sheriff of Tallowspittle, told me I couldn’t let her come out and sing for them? That could be worse, admit it, don’t you think?”
Hoolie reached out with his left arm, the arm that ended in a stump, and on the end of the stump was fashioned a dull, but curved hook, just a small hook, something he could use to lift a bucket, or a rag, if he needed. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t ever, threaten anyone with his hook. But he put the hook against Markum’s chest, looked left and right, and then whispered, “Word has spread. I’ve got Handsome Allan telling me that this morning nine men from across the bay checked into his inn, and all they wanted to know was where she could be found. I’ve seen farmers in the town that I haven’t seen come here for years, from way out past the Woods of Tularwry. People are talking about her. Are you going to stand there and pretend you didn’t already know what sort of trouble you were asking for when you took her in? Sure, she was turned away by a lot of folks, good folks, but you know why. I think what you did was kind, but eventually, sooner than you think, they are going to hear about her, and they are going to come here, to my town, and they will take her, and not you, not me, none of us, will be able to stop them.”
“Damned snake folk got no right trampling on us here,” Markum said with a spit. “I don’t give a damn if the King did sign a treaty with them. They got no right hunting down her kind. I won’t stand for it, Hoolie, I just won’t stand for it.”
She had been listening. Hoolie knew she was close by. He could smell her. He had smelled her before. She smelled like the warmest flowers after a rain. She smelled like sunshine and sea salt riding on a current of the sweetest oil. She smelled, wonderful.
She slithered in directly behind Markum, behind the bar, coming through the partially opened door from where Tamatha had left the room. Hoolie couldn’t see her tail. He could only see her from the waist up. Her head and shoulders moved up and down ever so slightly as she moved from behind the bar and came around into the room itself. She was taller than a Halfling, not as tall as a human, but her height was deceiving. She had the upper body, arms and waist of a Halfling, but just below where the curved beauty of her hips began she had a long reptilian tail. Measuring her tail she would have been eight, maybe nine feet from the top of her head to the tip of it, but when she moved, holding her body upright, she was just barely four feet tall.
She had said her name was Loridia, but Hoolie doubted that it was her real name. Loridia was a Halfling name, a common one, and maybe that was why she chose it for herself. Loridia was a Gymnagaophthian, and the simple fact that Hoolie knew what that meant, was more than he wanted to know. Her kind came from the east, from over the central mountains and beyond the great inland sea of Gromay, from the coastal moorlands of Drasbia, where the wild elf clans ruled. How she ever came to be here, on the west coast, in the kingdom of Vologna, was anyone’s guess. Loridia was silent on the details. She was wearing a long, white shirt, perhaps a dressing gown or something like it that rode, gathered up, on the swell of her hips, and a wide belt made of light tanned leather.
And she was beautiful. Loridia was the most beautiful female creature Hoolie had ever laid eyes on, and that was saying much. He’d seen the fey Maetaurs of central Eshia, the green skinned, dancing girls of Eysturlun, and the wild red haired elves of Drasbia, but none of them, not a single one, was even close to being as beautiful as Loridia. Her face was shaped like a perfect heart shaped jewel cut from a milky white perfect piece of alabaster. Her lips were full and red, her mouth wide and her smile generous and warm. She had a small nose that turned just slightly up on the end, and her eyes were large and green, almond shaped and above them the most perfectly shaped brows a woman could have. Her neck seemed long, but not strangely so and her hair, black and full with a flow like silk, was long and cascaded over her shoulders whenever she turned her body. In one moment it would seem her hair was parted on the side, and then with only a slight tilt of her head, her hair would shift, flow and move, and then it would be parted in the middle. And then there was that thing she did whenever she was on the stage, at the end of every performance. Loridia would bow, deeply, bringing her body almost parallel with the stage, and then with a burst of energy, she would fling her body upward, flip her long hair back and away from her face, and for a moment it would hover, like a black crown made from the darkest material of a starless sky above her perfect brow, and then as if it were a living thing under its own will her hair would slide down her shoulders, and sway from side to side. Hoolie had only seen her do that once, one night, just a few nights before last, just before the fighting broke out. He had only seen it for himself once, but he had heard about it from others. Oh yes, he had heard about it. When he heard them talk about it, the bounce of her hair wasn’t the only bounce they talked about. Loridia, in front, where a halfling woman would be small, was quiet large, full and round, more full and more round than many dwarven women he knew, and that, that was saying too much.
She came toward them slowly. Loridia swayed from side to side as she slithered across the floor. Her hips moved in a tic tock rhythm that captured Hoolie’s attention, and he found himself trying not to look at her hips. He looked up, and then up again until he was looking at the top of her head. Even the top of her head was something to look at, and Hoolie, old Sheriff Hoolie, felt his heart skip a beat. At his age skipped heart beats were not a good thing.
Loridia held her head down as she came closer, but when she was right next to Markum, she raised her head, and though her moist, tear filled eyes she said to Hoolie, “Maybe they won’t come. Maybe it’s too far from the Inland Sea?”
Markum turned away. He knew he couldn’t look Hoolie in the eye. He knew what trouble he had caused.
“Dear, sweet, girl, please understand,” Hoolie said. “No one here wants to see someone like you hurt, or abused, but how did you think that if you climbed up,” Hoolie stood, turned and pointed with his hook to the stage in the corner of the tavern, “on a stage like that anywhere, and sang the way you sing, moved the way you move, that they would not hear about it. Now, Markum, and I, we’ve travelled. Most of the people in this little town haven’t. They don’t know anything about the trouble between your kind and theirs, and to be frank, I don’t claim I understand the subtly myself. It’s a problem between your people and theirs. And you’ve brought that here. You’ve brought trouble, trouble I can’t handle on my own, to my town. It has got to stop.”
“If you want me to leave,” Loridia choked back her sobs, “I’ll go. I wasn’t going to tell anyone. It really isn’t something you need to care about, it’s my problem, but I cannot go back. I will not go back to where I came from. I will not be a concubine in the Yanthia King’s harem. I don’t care what my parents or my people have agreed to. I won’t do it. If I cannot stay here, with your kind, and his kind,” she said pointing to Markum, “Then I will leave on the next ship that is sailing away from here and not coming back.”
“Oh,” Markum said turning around to face Loridia, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You on a sea going ship, no, no, no, that’s a bad idea. There must be another way.”
Hoolie turned slowly back to face them both.
“There might be something I can do,” Hoolie said as he scratched the back of his bald head with the rounded edge of his hook. “I know someone. He is in town now, but also looking to leave soon. He is, well, he is different, like you, in some ways. Maybe he can help you. Maybe he can help us, maybe?”
Hoolie walked three steps toward the open door of the tavern, turned and looked down before saying as he raised his head and looked at the ceiling, “I’ll speak to him. I’ll ask him to come by tonight, and talk to you. Markum, you have to keep things quiet tonight. No riot, and girl,” Hoolie pointed with his right hand, bent with arthritis, “You need to do your part. Take it down, just a notch, just a bit, don’t be, try not to be, like, well, like you are, just this once. Cleric Tom is draining pockets faster than old Ballywid the Dwarf drains barrels of wine. If he earns enough to buy passage out of town, it’ll be months before a I can convince the king to ask one of the temples in the capital to send us a new cleric, so please, just, just, don’t be,” he waved his hook and crippled hand at her and sighed, “all that!”
feel free to critique, comment, bemoan, or whatever, or just talk about bad fiction in general, if you are inclined
| Terquem |
There was going to be trouble at the tavern that night.
There were four of them. Markum noticed them as soon as they came in through the door. They were not dressed like locals, or even like the kinds of foreigners he had seen before. They wore dark brown robes that seemed too large for them, and it looked as if the robes incorporated some kind of cape that hung down to the ground. The robes were hooded, and under their hoods the four strangers wore something, some kind of cloth, black and smooth, over their faces. Only the stranger’s dark eyes and mottled grey foreheads could be seen, and they kept their hands hidden in the long pleated sleeves of their robes. They looked like trouble. The four strangers moved through the small crowd that had begun to gather in the tavern since before the late supper was served, and made their way to a round table, one of only five tables left unbroken, and then gathered chairs so that the four of them were all sitting close together with their backs to the wall, and the table in front of them.
From the very first night Loridia had taken the stage, and sung a song accompanied by Markum’s wife, on the bag pipes, and Kalow Green, a friend of the tavern, playing the mandolin, every night the crowd had gotten larger. It was only seven or eight that first night. Then it was twelve the next, and then the night after that a few Dwarves came in, and there were more than twenty in all that night. Each night after that, there were more, and now there were probably more than fifty, and maybe even more than sixty, Markum couldn’t count a crowd that large, they moved around inside of the tavern, packed in even as they were. There were Haflings, about all of his regulars, and a few from out of town, and Dwarves and Humans, and for the last three nights, a group of Elves, not Drasbian Elves, the tall pale skinned, fair haired and freckled folk from the eastern part of Ibalnd, no these were dark brown skinned Elves, with greasy black hair, and almond shaped eyes. Markum had never seen Elves like these before, but even these strange elves didn’t give off an aura of trouble, the way the four strangers did.
If there was going to be any trouble, Markum thought, it would start with the four strangers. That seemed certain.
The crowd wasn’t restless. Most of the people in the tavern huddled together in small groups, staying with the friends or family they came with. Talk was light, but the conversations of over four dozen people filled the tavern like a constant dull roar. Markum thought about what Hoolie had asked. “Keep her off the stage tonight,” was what Hoolie had asked. But how could he? They had come to see her, and hear her sing. If he tried to tell this crowd that she wouldn’t perform tonight, there would be a riot, for sure. Markum looked back over his shoulder to the open doorway behind the bar, to where his wife, Nilly, and the Dwarf, Kalow Green, stood, instruments in their hands, and looks of apprehension on their faces.
Nilly took a step forward, leaned close to her husband, brushed the long, curly, brown hair away from her face, and whispered into Markum’s ear, “I’m a little scared. This is more people than I’ve seen in here before.”
“Did you send the kids to your sister’s place?” Markum whispered back.
“Yes,” she answered him, and then with her free hand she squeezed her husband’s hand.
“Then, I suppose as long as the place doesn’t burn down tonight, we can get through this night, and tomorrow, well, tomorrow we’ll just have to put the word out that this was her last performance here in the Broken Window,” Markum said.
“We’ll be alright,” Nilly said as she leaned away from Markum, but as she did her expression changed. Her eyes opened wide, her mouth dropped open, and the color of her checks turned a bright red. “Oh, my, Saints and Angles,” Nilly gasped as she raised a hand to her face and covered her mouth, “its Arac.”
“What?!” Markum exclaimed and spun his head around to see the tall blond haired man just as he was straightening up after coming through the door. That damned little door. It was bad enough that most humans had to bend over, slightly, to come through the door, but Arac, Arac Horne the privateer, was the only man Markum knew who could turn something as simple as bending over to pass through a small door into a show.
Arac Horne was not exceptionally tall, nor exceptionally large, but he was above average in height, and his shoulders were broad and square. And Arac Horne knew how to draw the attention of a crowd. He stepped, first with one foot, through the doorway, and let the hard sole of his high, black, leather boots strike the wooden floor with a loud slap, then her turned sideways, dipped, swung his shoulder down and to the side, then he spun on his heel, gracefully, up, to the other side, and stepped in with the other foot with another loud slap of his boot, and when he knew that everyone had stopped talking and had looked his way, he rose, slowly, turned his head to the side, smiled that half smile he had mastered, ran one hand through his blond hair, and with the other hand he pointed to Markum, and winked. He was dressed in the suit that Markum knew Arac called his, “Evening Attire”. A pair of knee high, hard, black leather boots, black, tailored, wool trousers, tucked neatly into the boots, a dark blue silk shirt, with long fitted sleeves, and a wide collar, a black silk double breasted vest, with two small pockets sewn on low at the sides, and a bright red linen napkin tucked, folded neatly in fact, into the left pocket, and on each cuff of the shirt, a large silver cuff link in the shape of a heart with a cutlass running from the top right, through it.
A loud cheer rose up from several of the locals, “Arac Horne!” and Markum felt a shiver, cold and like death, run down his spine.
There are not very many men who have learned how to swagger, with confidence, without looking ridiculous. Arac Horne was born to swagger. He strode across the tavern floor. People stepped out of his way, reached out to shake his hand, and were rewarded with a firm grip and single swift shake. Others clapped him on the shoulder, some continued to chant his name, others whistled. With every step he came closer to the bar, and with every step, Markum felt his heart beat harder and louder. By the time Arac had reached the bar, Markum was having trouble swallowing, and felt a lump growing in his throat.
“Hey,” Arac dragged out the word and then after a short pause went on, “what a great night, eh Markum?” He rested one elbow on the bar, and turned his head to the side so that he could look at Markum and take in as much of the tavern’s patrons as he could.
Markum stepped up onto a box he kept behind the bar. The bar was sized not to high for Haflings, and Dwarves, and not too short for Humans or Elves, and Markum had no trouble serving everyone from the floor behind the bar, but when he wanted to talk to a tall person, he had the box. Markum reached across the bar, took Arak’s vest in both of his hands and pulled him half way across the bar until Markum’s nose was touching Arac’s. “How dare you come into my place again?” Markum growled.
Arac placed his large hands on top of Markum’s, gently, and gave him an affectionate squeeze.
“Little brother, why such hostility? Let’s not bring up the past, not when we both have agreed that it is behind us, eh? Hey, you know I love you, I always will, and I would never go back on a promise, unless, you know, it was because our friend, the good sheriff of Tallowspittle pleaded, begged me no less, to come by and give you a little helping hand.”
Markum tightened his grip on Arac’s vest, “Are you telling me he asked YOU to try and keep the peace in MY tavern?”
“Our tavern,” Arac smiled, “I believe I still own at least, well, at least a thirty percent share in the building, don’t I?”
“I gave you four hundred gold pieces for your interest in the tavern. Don’t try your tricks on me, pirate!” Markum sneered and finally released Arac’s vest. “I know that old sheriff is getting a bit slow, a bit easy, but he must have lost his mind to think I let you be here, now get out.”
“Four hundred gold pieces paid off your dept to me, and gave you full ownership of the business, but Markum, seruiously, did you not think to check the records in the mayor’s office to see who owned the building? You are fine tenant, Markum Willowbranch Frol, and,” Arac looked around the room, “seeing as you are entertaining such crowds, and given that it must be taking a toll on the structure, I might have to talk to the other owners about raising your lease. And I’m not going anywhere. Hoolie and I have an understanding. I’m staying, and if things get out of hand tonight, I’ll make sure his interests, and mine, are well considered. Ah Nilly,” Arac exclaimed as he finally noticed Markum’s wife standing in the background, “it is wonderful to see you again. How’s your aunt Lilly?”
Nilly smiled, stepped to her side, turned her back to Arac, and took a small bottle, a ‘Champlannet Vintage Bourbon’, turned and heaved it right toward Arac’s head.
Arac’s left hand shot up, and snatched the bottle out of the air just a few inches before it could find its target. “She’s well then, I take it, and she still speaks highly of me, I would guess. Hey,” he dragged the word out again as he examined the bottle, “This is premium quality booze. You should have thrown one of those nasty ciders’s the sheriff likes.” He sat the bottle down on the bar, pushed it toward Markum, and leaned forward, set his expression to be as serious as he could look, and said, “No more joking, eh, you and me, we got no problems. It’s all fun, you know, the sneers and threats, but look around little brother, something is going to go down tonight that is going to be far beyond you. I’m here, because I was asked, but not just because I was asked. Something here isn’t right. I’ve only been back in town for three days, and the stench is all over the town. I haven’t seen this Lizard-girl of yours, but if she is what I hear, you’ve asked for it to rain fire on your head and forgotten to bring a fire proof umbrella.”
Markum looked around, sighed, smiled and extended his right hand to Arac. He accepted Arac’s hand shake, pulled the cork from the Champlannet, drew two small glasses from under the bar, and poured two fingers of the heady caramel colored liquid into each glass. He pushed one glass toward Arac, and raised the other to his lips as he said, “To old times, good times, good friends, and empty pockets.”
“To empty pockets,” Arac responded, and drank back the bourbon. He let out a slight cough, and then added, “Did I say this was premium quality booze? You’d think I’d have a better memory.”
| Terquem |
Bones of the Rune Crafter’s Daughter
(C) 2012 DH Austin
Chapter 1, Part 1
Queen Duloria of Esnid paced the floor in front of the large open window of the fourth floor of her castle in Thelox. She was not a young woman anymore, her youth had been behind her for many long years, but she was still spry, active, and on occasion, quite temperamental. The Queen kept her arms behind her back, her hands clasped tightly to her Mathcarian Rod, and as she paced back and forth, she tried to convince the Chancellor of the Reliquary to accept her suggestion that sending a group of strangers out into the forest of Alm to kill an Ogre was the best way to handle the situation at hand.
“Can’t you go out into the city and hire a team or whatever you call that sort of thing, give them some money, a wand perhaps, you have a half dozen of those things lying about in the eastern tower, and, you know what I’m trying to tell you, send them out with instructions to kill the thing. These kinds of people never ask any difficult questions. They will go, hunt him down, and kill him. The problem will be solved.”
“Well, you majesty it’s not that simple,”
“How can it get any simpler?” She exclaimed, turning her red face toward the small man.
“More simple, your majesty. The correct expression is, how can it be more simple.”
“That doesn’t sound right,”
“I’m certain that it is,” he sighed.
“I think you are wrong. Write it down. Take it to Wollamary, and have her look at it. But in the mean time,” she raised her voice to a shout, “How can it get any simpler! What is the problem with having him killed? One less Ogre, one less problem. Simple.”
“Well, your majesty there are two things we still do not know. The first is that we are not certain it is a ‘he’, a male, that is. There is some indication that the responsible monster, if that’s the best way to describe it, could be a female, particularly considering some of the reports from the witnesses to the incident. And the second thing is that it may not, actually, be an Ogre. There is a possibility that he, or she, could be a Giant.”
The Queen walked slowly toward the small man, and extended her Rod, the Rod that was the sign of her authority and power, toward him, holding it so that the curved, carved ivory head, in the form of an elepantum’s head, was poised just inches from his nose, and said, “Do you mean to mock me, Lubert? Would you be so presumptuous to stand here and argue whether it is a big Ogre or a small Giant as if I CARED ONE WAY OR THE OTHER?”
She raped him on the head with the Rod, and then said, “Hire a team, or whatever that society is calling it these days, give them a thousand marks, and tell them to go into the forest and kill the monster who stole the Baronesses laundry. Make. It. Happen.”
“But, well, you majesty, the society is rather careful about these sort of things these days. It could turn out to be a terrible misunderstanding. The Giants, you know the Giants of Harrenthrow, are your allies, and you have promised not to treat them in the manner that your father treated them. It might not do well for us to approach the situation this way.”
Queen Duloria folder her arms across her chest and seemed to boil with contempt for the little man, but for a moment she remembered that some of the things he was saying were true, at least, she did remember signing something about a peace, or some such thing.
“So what is your opinion, Lupert?” She said through gritted teeth.
“I, well, I suppose, we, you, your majesty, should ask a party of adventurers, I believe that is what they prefer to be called, to meet with the Sheriff and then, investigate, with your permission, the incident, and if possible, determine exactly why the Baronesses Laundry was taken, and who, or what this huge person who has been seen in the city at night, is, and what they are doing taking these things that are missing, into the forest.”
She thought anbout his suggestion for a long while, and then, after a deep breath she said, “Oh, fine, then do it your way, but I still think that it would be quicker, and less costly to just have the thing hunted down and killed. Snip snap, that’s the way my father did things, and his father before him. They never had these kinds of protracted debacles.”
“Yes, well, your majesty is correct, but I needn’t have to remind your majesty that you father is now a living brain kept in a jar in the laboratory of your grandfather who has become a notorious Lich, and plagues the kingdom’s western counties on a very regular basis, do I?”
“Hmm,” she frowned, wrinkled her forehead, and then shrugged and said, “Well, Lupert, you have a good point, I suppose. Go on then and hire this team, and have them do whatever it is they do, but be quick about it. The Baroness gives me such a terrible headache, and I am just not in the mood to have to find someone to replace her if I am forced to have her head removed. It’s such a tedious process of interviews and rituals.”
“Remember, well, remember, your majesty that you are trying, you do want to be different from your father, and that taking heads from people who upset you, is something that leads to more problems than it solves, yes?”
“I suppose, but she is on my last nerve, Lupert. It’s in your hands. I’ll give you a week, no more, and then if she is not satisfied, snip snap, and we find a new Baroness. A Baroness who won’t be so concerned about losing a few sheets and bed spreads.”
“Yes, your majesty. I’ll have someone send for the Master of the Society Hall, immediately.”
| Ringtail |
You might want to use some spoilers to prevent the page from stretching if you plan on adding many more.
| Terquem |
...or not
A Panoply of Sins
© 2012, D.H. Austin
Chapter 1
Carmen Srax clung to the straps that crossed her chest as the capsule plummeted toward the planet below, and tried not to worry about the future.
The future.
Until only a few hours ago, Carmen had forgotten what it was like to imagine a future. At the age of fourteen she was sold to her maternal aunt to settle a debt of twelve credits owed on the repair of a sewing machine programmer. At sixteen she worked the bath houses of the Turangen Barges of the mercenary shuttle services over the planet of Athcor. At twenty one she stood trial for accessory to Interstitial Grand Larceny, conspiracy to sell illegal technology on an orbital sanctuary, and criminal intent to do bodily harm to an officer of the Interplanetary Relief Society. Her trial lasted four months, her sentencing hearing another three. She was separated from the rest of the conspirators. Rehabilitation consisted of fourteen months on an IRS orbiting women’s prison asteroid. She assaulted nine guards and thirty five inmates. She lost the first finger on her left hand, and her right eye. Transfer to the long term incarceration barge orbiting Celarax was inevitable. Her death, at the hands of the guards or inmates there, was inevitable. Transfer to a new prison, and a chance at redemption, seemed inconceivable. And then Carmen met June.
Carmen was built lean. June was plump. Carmen had black hair, as black as the space between distant stars. June had yellow-gold hair that shone like a rising type-five sun. Carmen was quiet, moody, private, and suffered from a lack of emotion.
June was explosive, loud, violently passionate, and filled with a desire to make everything right, everything.
They were the same age. And even though their lives had been dramatically different, they both came to Celarax at the same time.
Carmen had come to Celarax to die. She could not know that June came to Celarax to find people desperate to live.
It was a disaffected administrator’s cruel joke, that Carmen was selected from the prison population to be included in June’s experiments.
Seven inmates were selected from the population of the orbital prison barge to be transported to Sanafield Research Planet. June Abercrole (acting as assistant Director of Project Execution for the Ninth Section, District Eight, Interplanetary Relief Society: Core Affirmative Relocation Experiment) checked the medical histories, biological compatibility reports, and skill assessments of the seven, and oversaw their transfer from the prison barge to the shuttle, Parathan, and loaded the information holo-memes into the suppression hoods. Thirty seven hours later, the Parathan suffered an implosive field generator fault. June evacuated the prisoners, abandoning the suppression hoods for full restraint pod-cradles in the third, dorsal long-term-support-pod, strapped herself into pod-cradle number eight, and launched the life boat.
The life boat was spiraling down toward the surface of an uncharted, type-seventeen planet, in the remote boarder zone between the Gallie Republic of Solar Systems and the Narag’ic Empire.
Carmen’s stomach rolled and twisted, her head, held tightly in the clamps of the pod-cradle, ached from the changing G-forces. She screamed, swore, cursed, and for the first time in years, fought the fear of death that tried to overtake her senses. She would survive. These kinds of life pods were well known for their ability to land, guided through even the most extreme atmospheric conditions by redundant hazard-resolving proto-tier bio-compressed logic inversion programs. She would survive, and she would have a future. All she had to do was kill the agent of the IRS, the lady with the bright hair and white smile. As soon as June was dead, and the signal-nora-sponders disabled, and maybe she would have to kill some of the other prisoners, she didn’t know any of the other six of them, then, she would be free, and the rest of the universe would never know whatever became of her.
| Terquem |
A Panoply of Sins
(C) D.H. Austin
Chapter 2
“We don’t have any other choices, Henry,” Father Timothy said. “It’s not as if we are sentencing them to die. There is a chance they will all live, and the community needs the money. Prince Alfred has signed the papers that will allow you to take them across the border and once they are sold you can return here and do what you want, what you really want, for the rest of them. There are just too many of them. We cannot feed this many, and they are the oldest. No one will adopt them, and the city has so many unemployed laborers now. It is either this, or we indenture them and send them across the sea to work in the cotton fields of New Aragorma. You know what the captains are paying for contracts of indenture, the prices are drastic. Selling them to the slave markets in Dalaz’Nembre will bring more, and they will have a much better life in the fields of the Nembre Nobles than in the plantations of the southern islands. Please, Henri, don’t be so upset. It is for the best.”
All that Henry Dowl ever wanted was to become a priest of the Order of Saint Marco Desrinault, but after twenty years of working as an ostler in the stables of the Third Avenue Temple, he had failed the exam for the tenth time. He would never be a priest. Father Timothy, the rotund and young Second-Councilman, had tried to explain to Henry, a week ago, that some men were called to the priesthood, while others were called to different work. Henri could stay on, caring for the horses of the temple, or, if he agreed to take a mission, a difficult mission, on behalf of the temple brothers, to transport thirteen orphans across the desert of Al’Gathin to be sold in the slave markets of Dalaz’Nembre, he would share in the profits of the sale, given a full third of the monies, and allowed to open a new orphanage, in the town of Canrick Upon-Sullin, where Henry had been born and raised. He would lead a team of six small and aged horses, pulling a train of four covered wagons. The trip would take four weeks. The first two wagons would carry the orphans, and Henry, and the second two wagons would carry enough food and water for the trip.
At first Henry was reluctant. He was not young. He was often sick, and his body was not in the best shape it could be. He had been kicked by horses, one of his legs had been broken twice, and he walked with a limp. His hair, thinning and turning grey, barely kept his head warm, and he could not afford to buy a hat. He ate well, but he didn’t seem to have the natural ability to put on weight. He was thin, and tall, and his cloths fit him poorly. Travelling for a long time across the desert frightened him. He did not like the idea of selling children, even if most of them were between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, into a life of slavery, but after a week of pleading and explaining to him that the remainder of the children would fare better, Henry relented.
On the morning of Theladay, the first day of the week, in the month of Nofver, the wagons were loaded, the children separated into groups and placed in the first wagon, six of them, and seven in the second, and the sacks and crates of supplies loaded in the third and forth wagon. All of the wagons were small. There was hardly enough room for the children to lie down, but they could if they squeezed in close to each other. It wasn’t expected that they would sleep in the wagons, unless there was a freak desert shower, and they would probably sleep on the ground on blankets each night.
Hours after the wagon-train had left the city, passing under the great Western Arch, and as it shambled across the prairie grass stretching westward toward the high desert lands, Father Timothy walked along the courtyard promenade with Arch Deacon Phillips.
“How much food do they have?” the arch Deacon asked.
“Enough for fifteen days,” Father Timothy answered, “the sacks and crates on the bottom of the stacks are filled with rags and weeds. They should make it as far as the bridge over Akumal Gorge, and maybe a day or two past that. Once he discovers he is out of food, he will have to continue on, and ration whatever he has left. He isn’t very bright, and it is imagined he will feed the children well, and by the time he realizes what was done it will be too late for him to do anything about it. They might reach Dalaz’Nembre, but the Nembrians will kill him and take the children. He and they are no longer anything for us to worry about."
“Well done, Timothy,” the Arch Deacon said.
Nine days later, while camped for the night, Henry watched as a bright, flaming star fell from the sky. The star burned in bright colors, red, then gold, then blue-green, and as it fell it grew in size. It grew in size and came closer. It changed from a star into something else, something very strange indeed. It looked like a needle, a very large needle. It was black and silver, and as it fell from the sky it came directly toward the place where Henry had camped for the night.
| Terquem |
A Panoply of Sins
(C) 2012, D. H. Austin
Chapter 3
A Diwares Technologies, type Nine-Romeo lifeboat is a remarkable craft.
Its listed displacement is twenty tons, but the Diwares comes in at just around twenty three. It is fully auto-piloted, capable of 1G of constant acceleration for thirty tree hours, and can make planet fall on any class E planet. The Diwares can carry forty people (of average humanoid build, within the C thru F Tiller Body Mass Index), and has equipment and supplies to sustain that number of people for four months.
One of the more impressive aspects of the Diwares lifeboat is its tested and reliable Inertia-Compensation-Refractors. The ICR’s of the Diwares are the same ones used on all Interplanetary Relief Society Schooner Class System Response Boats. The design is over forty years old, and has never been improved upon. When landing, even at re-entry speeds of over twelve hundred miles per hour, the ICR’s maintain a stable and level craft, regardless of atmospheric or terrain conditions. Once the Gravity-Nullifying landing pods, or skids, are deployed, any Diwares lifeboat sails smoothly and comfortably down to a computer selected surface with practically no possibility of error.
Practically no possibility of error at all.
Inside the lifeboat, Carmen could hardly feel the deceleration of the lifeboat as it entered the atmosphere. With her body fully restrained in the pod-cradle, she could not see any of the other passengers, but directly across from her, just above the starboard storage cells, she could see the four colored lights of a standard Axial-Control-Orientation panel. All four lights were green. That was a good sign.
It meant the lifeboat was descending in a near perfect orientation.
Carmen had been in a Diwares lifeboat before, in fact, for a few weeks, she had lived in one that had been converted into a low orbit shuttle. The friends she once associated with had stolen the lifeboat from a crippled Laboratory Ship, used it to escape with stolen cargo, and while hiding out in an asteroid field, remodeled the lifeboats interior, scrubbed its identification markings, reprogrammed its computer, and then piloted the boat to a passing Subsidized Merchant passing through the system. Carmen knew what kind of gear was stowed on a Diwares Lifeboat. There would be no firearms of any kind, standard IRS protocol, but there would be knives, axes, and even a dozen collapsible spears, in addition to supplies of compressed rations, water, and small recycling units. She had learned a lot about the Diwares lifeboat, but the most important thing she had learned about a Diwares lifeboat was how to shut down the signal generators.
While in motion, the lifeboat emitted a very weak signal, most power of the on board plant was directed toward keeping the lifeboat in the right orientation, and powering the Inertia Compensators. Once the Lifeboat had exhausted any fuel for thrust (typically a lifeboat was only manned when the ship it was carried on suffered a catastrophic accident, otherwise it was always safer to stay with a ship, even a derelict and drifting ship, with minimal life support was a better option than a lifeboat, and in such a catastrophic accident, it was best for the lifeboat to maneuver as far, and as fast, away from the accident – minimal activity form emergency powered systems of a destroyed space ship could interfere with the signal generators of a lifeboat, preventing anyone from ever knowing where you are, preventing your quick recue) and once the lifeboat was stable, either in orbit, a drift, or grounded, the batteries and power-collectors would fire up the signal generators, sending out powerful pulse-signals. Compressed information on the exact location and status of the lifeboat would be sent out in regular timed intervals, and with the buoys of the IRS dispersed throughout the galaxy constantly listening for just those kinds of signals, it was typically only a matter of weeks before you could be sure a rescue ship was on the way.
Carmen did not intend for there to be a rescue.
As soon as the ship was stopped, she was going to be going after those signal generators. That was her first priority.
Priorities.
That was what she had learned in the years since she left her family. Everything was a matter of priorities. Once you know the priorities, everything else is simple.
| Terquem |
A Panoply of Sins
© 2012, D.H. Austin
Chapter 4
The Arch Deacon was not well. Father Timothy was called to visit him in his chambers, but the idea of visiting the ailing Arch Deacon made Father Timothy uncomfortable. When he entered the large, spacious room, he remained by the door.
“Timothy,” the Arch Deacon rasped from the bed, “Is that you?”
“Yes sir, I am here,” Timothy replied.
“Come closer, we need to speak.”
“But, sir, the cough, it is probably contagious, don’t you think?”
The Arch Deacon sat bolt upright in his bed. His thinning white hair was plastered on his head in a sheen of sweat. He held himself up while both of his arms shook, his hands placed flat on the mattress on either side of him. He shouted, “Get over here!”
Timothy raced toward the large bed. The orange and green colors of the bed linens reflected bright sunlight streaming in through the window behind the bed. When Timothy was close enough, the Arch Deacon whispered, “What is the condition of the prince today?”
“His condition worsens, sir. His doctors, our people, say it is only a matter of days.”
“This is very good, very good. Now, Timothy, you understand that when I die, you will be made Arch Deacon, yes?”
“Yes, sir, as you instructed.”
“And everything is in place to complete the ritual for my return, and make no mistake, Timothy, Arch Deacon Timothy, that should this effort fail, I have agents who will see to your demise before you can finish tailoring the garments of your office, this is also understood?”
“Yes, sir, I understand,” Timothy said with difficulty. “Duke Rouson and his men are camped in the Heredy Valley. We, I mean, our men will send for him once the Prince’s death is announced. He has agreed to everything you put before him. But, sir, there is one thing I still worry about.”
“There is nothing left to worry about, Timothy,” the Arch Deacon said as he lowered himself back down onto the bed.
“All those years ago,” Timothy said turning just slightly away, “the young queen’s death was such a tragedy. So many people loved her, and there were always rumors that she died in childbirth. Her husband, the king, had only passed a few weeks before she died, but everyone at the court believed she carried his child. When his brother, Prince Alfred, took the throne, there were rumors that he would be only a regent, for the King’s child, but, well sir, all those rumors, surely someone must have known the truth.” Timothy turned back toward the Arch Deacon with an accusing look on his face.
“It is a funny thing,” the Arch Deacon coughed. “How truly funny it is that people, who think they know the truth, tend to die more readily than people who aren’t sure of anything at all. Come closer Timothy, and I will tell you the truth.”
Timothy leaned over the edge of the bed. The Arch Deacon’s hand shot upward and took Timothy by the throat.
“Every single person who knows the truth about that child is dead. Do you understand? If they knew the truth, then they are dead. The prophecy, silly things that they are, kept the child alive. But soon that child will be of age, and with the prophecy fulfilled, the child will also soon be dead. You and I took care of that just a few days ago. Now you know the truth, Timothy, or should I ask you this, do you think you know the truth?”
Father Timothy, struggling against the strong, boney grip of the Arch Deacon, shook his head from side to side. The Arch Deacon released him, and Timothy quickly reached his own hand to sooth the pain around his neck as he said, “I don’t know anything at all, anything at all.”
“That, to, is very good, very good indeed. Tell me, Arch Deacon Timothy, get used to that, I think you’ll like it, tell me,” the Arch Deacon said as he fluffed his pillows, “How go the preparations for the festival.”
“The festival, sir,” Timothy said, puzzled.
“Yes the Festival of the Harvest, yes I suppose you haven’t been keeping up with things, but it is approaching. I suppose that the town will be saddened to hear of the passing of the Prince, but these things have happened before, Kings, Queens, Princes, they die at the most inopportune times. I imagine the festival will go on as it always does. Send someone into town and have them buy a few loafs of the sweetened bread we like. We will want to celebrate, wont we?”
The Arch Deacon died that night.
It was the same night that Henry watched a star fall out of the sky.
Something was very strange about that star. As it fell out of the sky, it first appeared to be headed directly toward Henry’s camp, but he didn’t panic. He tried to keep his head, and strained his eyes to look in the direction of the falling star. It was night, the moon was three-quarters full, and there were millions of stars out, no clouds. Henry stared at the path of the falling star for several long moments, and then he was sure. The falling star wasn’t falling at all, it was sailing, if sailing was the right word at all in this case.
The falling star moved, just slightly, as it fell, angling to the right, and then to the left, changing its path ever so slightly each time as it did. Against the background of the dark night sky, and the silvery shadows created by the light of the moon and the stars, it became obvious to Henry that this falling star was being controlled by someone, or something. The falling star was angling to find a place to land, that was what Henry decided. For a few moments the star leveled off, as if it wasn’t falling at all anymore, but gaining altitude, as it approached a place, off in the distance, where Henry though he could make out a field of boulders, huge boulders strewn across a field that was a few miles across in size, but to his horror, as the falling star seemed to fall again, angling to miss the field of boulders, he realized that they were not boulders at all.
The whole expanse of the seeming field of boulders suddenly leapt off of the ground.
They were Rockbacks, giant four legged desert beasts, each one nearly the size of a small cottage, with short fat heads, and huge rounded bodies covered in hard plates that folded against each other when the beasts lay down to sleep. If it had been daylight, Henry would have noticed them right away. Rockbacks were mostly black in color, and stood out against the brown desert sand. Very few of any animals ever crossed a Rockback on purpose, and their distinct color, and bony shells, gave everyone and everything plenty of warning to avoid them.
The falling star had missed them, somehow, but whoever, or whatever was guiding the falling star had made a mistake.
When the Rockbacks were startled out of their slumber, and leapt onto their feet, their backs rose into the air a good fifteen feet. The falling star was just barely that much above the ground when it passed over them. From where Henry was watching he couldn’t make out any details of the falling star, but something must have been hanging off of the bottom of the thing.
In rapid succession the falling star, or something hanging from it, struck, one after another, a dozen of the Rockbacks as they were stampeding away from the falling star. The impacts, bang, bang, bang, rang out through the quiet of the night, and Henry watched as the falling star began to spin. It spun, round and round, and appeared to veer, out of control to the right, to Henry’s right. And then, nose first, it slammed into the ground with incredible force sending a plume of dust and sand high into the desert sky.
At first, Henry had been worried the falling star was headed right for his camp, but it wasn’t after all, and he didn’t have to worry about it.
What Henry had to worry about were the Rockbacks, hundreds of them were now stampeding right toward him.
| Terquem |
A Panoply of Sins
© 2012, D.H. Austin
Chapter 5
Practically no possibility of error at all.
There wasn’t any way Carmen could know how much longer it would take for the lifeboat to land. She didn’t know anything about the planet, its surface, atmosphere, any details at all. She knew that the lifeboat’s onboard systems would be scanning the planet for the best possible landing zone within the range of its fuel supplies. The only thing she could count on was that moment when the landing gear was deployed. That would be the signal that the lifeboat was only seconds away from a landing.
And the landing should be noticeable, not rough, but noticeable. The landing gear of a Diwares lifeboat consisted of four skids, one each deployed from one of the four quadrants, forward and aft, port and starboard, of the lower hull. The skids were each an array, approximately one and a half meters in length, of two parallel inertia compensators mounted above a high impact shock absorbing assembly, no wheels (wheels meant a need for brakes, and any child could tell you that an inertia compensator was far better at controlling motion, than any set of wheels and brakes). When the landing gear was deployed, passengers aboard the lifeboat would feel the vibration of the sudden extension of the inertia compensators. It was a slight vibration, rumbling through the hull that typically lasted a few seconds. Carmen would know the feeling. She had felt it many times before. She waited, watching the colored lights on the bulkhead on the opposite wall from her pod-cradle, and prioritized her tasks, listing, in her mind, each step, and each action she would need to carry out, as soon as the lifeboat was landed.
There was a sudden jolt, slight, from below her, and then Carmen felt the unmistakable vibration of the inertia compensators of the landing gear. Then all hell broke loose.
She would not be able to remember everything that happened, but it went something like this.
Immediately after the vibration of the lifeboat began, due to the deployment and activation of the landing inertia compensators, there were several violent collisions. Each collision shook the lifeboat hard, jolting it upward. There was the sound of a minor explosion, and then the lifeboat lurched to the left. Carmen would remember seeing that three of the four colored lights against the bulkhead across from her turned from green to red, bypassing orange and yellow completely. The loss of stabilization of the lifeboats orientation triggered emergency landing systems. She could not see the red cross of light that flashed across her face, but in less than two seconds a full face respirator was forced down upon her face, as her pod-cradle rotated thirty degrees. A whiff of yellow smoke filled the respirator. Carmen thought it smelled faintly of bananas, and then she lost consciousness. The pod-cradle, normally an open three-quarter containment, high shock resistant, full body restraining chair, sealed, as two clear protective canopies snapped into place, completing the total containment of the occupant, and then once sealed, a rapid expanding pressure dissipating gel was sprayed into the pod. The complete sequence took less than five seconds.
The forward port landing skid had impacted seven large, armored, herd animals. The fourth impact was sufficient to fracture six of the eight mounting rods. The landing skid, and its inertia compensators, continued to function as it dangled, striking the fifth, sixth, and seventh animal, before it was completely severed from the lifeboat. The landing skid, now operating on emergency reserve batteries, struck the ground and then ricocheted up striking the lifeboat on the starboard side, causing the craft to begin to spin uncontrolled. The lifeboat spun more than fifteen times, throwing all onboard systems (with the exception of emergency safety systems) out of order. Without the rapid response of the life saving systems, the passengers on board would have suffered terrible, if not fatal, injuries from the massive G-forces created by the spinning of the ship, and would surely not survive the impending impact.
Thirteen seconds after impacting the herd animals, the lifeboat nosed downward, due to a burst of energy sent to the rear compensator landing gear, and crashed into the surface of the planet at four hundred seventy three miles per hour.
The entire forward quarter of the lifeboat was compressed into an unrecognizable tangle of twisted metal, cables, and components. Fortunately this part of the life boat housed primary navigation, propulsion control, internal diagnostics, and signaling equipment. The more important systems, life support and environmental diagnostics, were housed in the third quarter of the lifeboat, just ahead of the propulsion units. The second quarter of the lifeboat held the forty pod-cradles, in four rows of ten (twenty on each side, port and starboard with a central, very narrow, aisle way between them).
The gas released into the full face respirators of each pod-cradle would ensure that each occupant would be fully relaxed, physically and emotionally, for the duration of the crash event. The masks incorporated full life monitoring scanners, and would ensure that each occupant’s respiration and heartbeat remained normal. The lifeboat’s backup systems would evaluate the condition and integrity of the ship, the environment of the planet, and the extent of damage to all ship’s systems. If an imminent threat was detected to the passengers of the lifeboat, another gas would be introduced to the respirators, waking the passengers, as well as giving them a dose of inhalant pharmaceuticals designed to enhance performance and thinking. If no imminent threat were detected, the passengers would be kept sedated for a full thirty minutes, before a milder, slow working gas would be introduced to bring them out of their sleep with as little disorientation as possible. The short term effect of the slow acting gas was to cause the passenger to feel mildly elated, happy, calm, and was designed to give survivors a moment to collect their thought, asses their situation, and also allow time for the onboard systems to play recordings of protocols for passenger required actions following an emergency crash landing.
The lifeboat’s systems detected no dangers. The canopies of the pod-cradles opened, and because the life boat was sitting at a rotational angle of 270 degrees clockwise, all of the impact gel drained out of the pods as soon as the canopies began to open.
Carmen slept for thirty minutes, and then felt herself rousing from a very relaxing sleep. She felt good, and warm, and couldn't remember what it was she was supposed to do now. Even the thought nagging her that there was something she had wanted to do after the ship landed, didn’t distress her. She remained in the pod-cradle with her harness pressing against her body from the gravity of the planet gently pulling her downward and listened to a southing male voice go over proper lifeboat passenger protocols.
She felt fine, mostly, but for a moment she had a thought that made her uncomfortable, for just a moment she felt as if she had wanted to hurt somebody, but she couldn’t remember who or why. Carmen smiled, happy that she survived the landing, and continued to listen to the recorded message.
Before the recorded message ended, something was banging against the hull of the lifeboat, and drowning out the words of the message. That seemed rude, to Carmen, but it didn’t upset her all that much.
| Terquem |
A Panoply of Sins
© 2012, D.H. Austin
Chapter 6
Farther to the east, across Pelican Bay, and the northern tip of the Sea of Azanor, in the city of Corill, Kyle Baknum hurried through the streets as the sun was rising in the east. The early morning fog, the city was famous for it, shone with a golden glow as the sunlight reflected off of it, and even though it would be another warm day, the fog clung to Kyle’s shirt and hair, and gave him an uncomfortable chill.
Kyle had come to like living on this world, and knew that he would be both happy and sad when his tour was completed, in another two standard thirty day months. As a volunteer of the Interplanetary Relief Society, Kyle had served for three years on this world, and in return he would be given a commission in the Scout Service, and if his review were high enough, possibly a scholarship to the academy. It had been a mostly uneventful assignment, until today.
Kyle was in good shape. He was a fit young man. His genetic profile placed him in category thirty six G, which the locals would call human, in their language, but his face was bit longer than normal and his eyes where small, and set wide, nearly on the sides of his head. He did not normally go out in public without a small mask, with a built in view screen that allowed him to see even though the artificial eyes of the mask were placed to the front of the face. This morning, Kyle ran through the city, with his mask in his hand. He had picked it up on his way out of his apartment, but in his excitement he had forgotten to put it on. It was lucky for him that he didn’t run into anyone this morning. When he came to the chief administrator’s house, he didn’t even bother knocking on the door, and quickly pulled a small plastic pass-key out of his pocket, waved it passed an otherwise common locking spot on the wall near the plain wooden door. The locks, a technological improvement made on the small brick and wooden frame work house, clicked open, and he barged though the door as fast as he could move. He ran through the house, and into the chief administrator’s bedroom. She was sleeping, still, her long brown hair was piled on top of her head, and she slept on her side, with her head resting on a fine feather pillow. She had the covers pulled up close below her chin, and one hand, her left hand, under her check. She looked very peaceful.
“Ma’am,” Kyle said loudly when he came next to the bed, “There’s been an event.”
The chief administrator woke startled, and rolled over on to her back.
“Is it serious? How was it scaled by the Evaluator?”
“The Evaluator doesn’t know yet, Ma’am.”
She sat up in the bed and swung her legs over to the floor. When she looked up at Kyle she stared in disbelief.
“Were you out in the city, without your mask?”
Kyle looked down at the mask in his hand and gasped, “Eye, sinanmbru,” he said in his native tongue. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, I forgot,” he added speaking in the local common language.
“And why wasn’t the Evaluator notified? What are we talking about here, Kyle?”
“It’s a lifeboat, Ma’am,” Kyle said as she stood up next to him. She took the mask from his hand and placed on his face, and then she retrieved her own mask, a much smaller mask, with a nose and two normal human green eyes, from the stand beside her bed.
The chief administrator was a twelve D, making her almost as human as one of the locals, but her nose was practically nonexistent, and she had the solid black eyes of her race, something that would stand out here. She fit her mask into place and waited for Kyle to fill her in as she dressed.
“And you say there was an initial message from the satellite responders, but nothing transmitted from the boat itself, are you sure it has landed safely?” she asked as she led Kyle through the house to a secret passageway that led from a pantry in the kitchen.
She led the way down a long narrow flight of stairs, into a basement below her house.
“I think it’s safe to assume it did not, land safely anyway. The initial message was captured earlier this morning. My computer tracked an object that was headed for a normal entry, about five hundred kilometers to the west, that should have landed just after four o’clock this morning, about two hours ago. There’s been no signal. It would have landed one hundred forty, or so, kilometers west of the city of Poustumah, in the country of Earlamon, a country we have been watching closely for a few years now. This could be very problematic.”
“Do we have an agent in the area?” the chief administrator asked as she sat down in front of a multi screened computer terminal. She busied herself with bringing the system up, and typed furiously on the keyboard as each screen came to life showing different status conditions of the operating system.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Kyle took a small cylinder out of his shirt pocket, it was about the size of a stack of twenty pennies, and set it down upon a clear glass box next to the chief administrators keyboard. “The password is Hexaflexagon Magic fourteen.”
She typed the password into the keyboard, and then noticing a ready icon on the screen to her right, she reached out and touched the icon lightly, a male voice came from a small speaker over the screen, “System voice recognition on line, please state the pass code.”
“Buttered Rum Toddy, access portable file media, Kyle Baknum, hexaflexagon magic fourteen. Seek file, agent, vicinity of Poustumah,” she said.
“Her name is Theolonia Dolominara Haspur Geomanasp, but prefers to go by the name Theo,” Kyle said.
“Access authorized, good morning Administrator Hathaway. File loaded. Would you like me to activate the remote terminal?”
“Pause,” the administrator said.
“System paused,” the computer responded.
“Kyle, do you know this agent. Is he a local, or a remote field operator?”
“She, ma’am, it is a female, and she is a local. I’ve spoken with her on a few occasions. She can seem eccentric, but she’s very intelligent, and has earned a level four security clearance. I think we can trust her with about anything, really. And don’t let her behavior fool you. She is older than she pretends to be.”
“What is her genetic codifier?”
“Ma’am, our system would identify her as a nine A, but she is a bit sensitive about that. She prefers to be classified under an ancient descriptor, Aurum Draconum. I’m not even sure what language that is, but it is important to her.”
“It’s old Earth, Latin, I think. Restore, open a direct optimized transmission channel to the remote terminal, now.”
| Terquem |
A Panoply of Sins
© 2012, D.H. Austin
Chapter 7
Henry’s first thought was that he was going to die.
Rockbacks are not known for their speed. They are huge, lumbering beasts. He had seen a few of them in the city. They were used as draft animals by the nomads, and he knew they could pull heavy loads, but he had never seen one run. Henry had never seen a Rockback at a full run, let alone a herd of them at a stampede. His first thought was that he was going to die, but then he realized that he had time.
The herd was coming toward him. It was moving, thundering, but it wasn’t moving quickly.
He jumped down from the back of the lead wagon and began shouting, “Up, up, everyone, get up!”
When he had brought the wagons to a stop earlier in the evening, Henry had unhitched the oxen, and let them off to graze on the sparse desert grass. There was no way he would have time to round up the four animals, yoke them, and move the wagons, so instead Henry did the next thing he could think of. Wake the children and get them running as fast as they could run. He was glad that there were no small children. He was glad that they were all healthy adolescents, and that, given what he had just seen, he believed they could out run them. He was glad, and he was terrified.
Henry ran to the second and then the third wagon, and at each one he grabbed the side rails of the open wagons and shook as hard as he could, “Get up, we’ve got to run!”
The children woke. Some of them woke clear headed, excited by Henry’s shouts, and jumped out of the wagon in only their shifts. Others woke more slowly, rubbing their eyes and asking, “What?”
Henry reached across the gate at the back of the third wagon and took hold of a young boy’s night shirt at the front and heaved. Henry wasn’t as young as he used to be, but he was still strong, and he lifted the boy, who could not be more than sixteen or seventeen years old, out of the wagon and dropped him onto the ground, “Run, run for your lives!”
Henry’s yells grew louder, and he circled the wagons just one more time making sure there were no more children sleeping in them, and then with a quick glance over his shoulder he saw the Rockbacks were close, two, not more than maybe three hundred yards was all that was between them now.
He grabbed at shifts and shirts, arms, even hair and pulled, first one then another, then another. Henry moved quickly getting their attention and shouting all the while, “This way, we’ve got to outrun them!”
In only a moment the children realized the danger and began running away. They outran Henry, or maybe he held back making sure he could see all of them were in front of him. That wasn’t what Henry was thinking. He didn’t think of himself as a hero. Henry wanted them all to survive, but he wasn’t thinking about them at all. Henry was thinking about what would happen to the wagons.
They ran. The children, eleven of them (Henry counted them), seven girls and four boys, ran with the strength and vigor of youth. They pulled away from Henry gaining ground ahead of him with every step. Henry ran as best as he could, and behind him he heard the crashing and destruction of the wagons as the herd of Rockbacks trampled over everything in their path.
Eleven?
Wait, henry realized in shock and almost came to a stop. There were supposed to be thirteen. Thirteen children, he had counted. There was supposed to be thirteen children, eight boys and five girls. He could almost remember all of their names. Henry peered ahead of him through the moon and starlight, and counted again. Now he counted eleven. And then he counted ten, no seven, wait five.
Henry ran off of the edge of a gulley.
It was a dry river bed. The fall was only six feet. When he ran off the edge he spun his arms wildly, thinking, this is a funny way t o die, falling off of a cliff trying to outrun a herd of Rockbacks. He hit the ground on his hands and knees and was surprised to learn the river bed was full of soft powdery sand.
That was why he miscounted. The children running the fastest had come to the gulley first, and had fallen in.
There was very little time. Henry shouted out through the darkness, “If you can move, fall back against the wall of the gulley. We’ll survive if we stay close to the edge.”
Henry scrambled, thankful that he didn’t break a bone or strain a muscle. To his left was a young brown haired girl. Her name was Rowduin, and to his right was a boy of eighteen, with square shoulders and short cut black hair. The boy’s name was Adric, and he was a good boy. He was always helping around the orphanage, and everyone liked him. Henry leaned his head out just slightly and looked to the left and to the right. The children, some of them standing and some of them sitting with their knees drawn up and their arms wrapped around their legs tightly, were all close by.
The thundering sound of the Rockbacks grew closer and closer. It filled Henry’s ears. The wall behind his back began to shake violently and dirt crumbled off the wall and fell down the neck of his shirt.
And then there came a strange silence. As dozens of the animals approached the edge of the gulley at the same time, the air was filled with a sudden silence. The sound of the thundering hoofs of dozens of more Rockbacks approaching could still be heard, but the immediate sound of the closest animals stopped as they (knowing the terrain by instinct) leapt into the air and cleared the width of the narrow gulley and then with a tremendous pounding shook all around them the animals landed on the other edge. It amazed Henry that these huge beasts could leap so far, and what he watched from below filled him with awe.
One after another, whole groups of Rockbacks sailed overhead. There would be the approaching thunder of the hoofs so close, then a silence, then a crashing as they landed fifteen feet away. The moonlight and starlight above was blotted by the continuing waves of hundreds of them soaring across the sky over them.
Thundering, silence, crash. Thundering, silence, crash. It seemed to go on forever.
When the last of the animals cleared the dry riverbed, the sound of them thundering off away from was the most joyful sound Henry would ever hear.
There was no sound from behind them, but still Henry, and the children, stunned with the fear and amazement of what they had just experienced, stayed hunkered down against the edge of the gulley.
Henry’s assessment of time was distorted. What felt like hours of waiting, was actually only a few minutes. Finally he took one step away from the wall, turned slowly and asked, “Is everyone alright?”