Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (12 page)

He could look no more. He felt
betrayed by it somehow. That it were Hovel’s fault, that Hovel were
in fact laughing at him mockingly. That there had been some mass
secret, held by all but him.

7

As a floating consciousness, he
drifted away from Hovel and Summer Woods and soon even Buccuyashuck
River had vanished from view. Eastways’n’north there were
mountains, the Scarecrow Range, and it filled his view now as he
soared toward it, their jagged white peaks poking the heavens. Some
claimed the Scarecrow were so tall and immense that during certain
orbital phases, one could simply climb up and step off onto a
passing moon. Amidst it somewhere, the city of Mt Destruction lay
in a vast alpine valley, an ancient crater filled now with exotic
plant and wildlife.

The slopes rushed by beneath him
like waves, slopes laden with bracken, heather and fern. He saw no
living thing. Naught but carcasses of grass kraken (a species who
had long ago left the seas) and mountain goat and colossal
twin-headed rock serpents. And over the jagged crest of Lower Crow
(where the towering rock spines had been carved out to represent
the five Goddess’s of D’Ileron) he saw herds of downed mammoth, and
decimated prides of sabre tooth, and families of shaggy alpine
gorilla all wiped out.

The mighty spires of Mt
Destruction’s tree cathedral swam into view before him and within a
moment or two his movement halted and there he floated above a city
he had not visited in two summers. Northways’n’east the bulk of the
mountain range loomed as a defiant block of grey and blue against
Cloudfyre’s eastwun horizon, its towering snow laden peaks,
flirting with realm of moon and sun.

Of Mt Destruction itself, he could
almost not bear to look. As he sunk beneath the leafy branches of
boab trees, he found a city of giant corpses littering the streets
in their thousands.

If it were not for the eerie
whisper of wind, the place would have had about it the silence of a
tomb.

Gargaron felt a
need to depart immediately. But he did not. If
he
himself had survived this
puzzling affliction then why not someone else? He forced himself to
float amongst the streets, to roam the lanes, fixing his mind to
find any survivors, hoping the Skysight would pick up on his
intention and deliver him to his quarry.

But… it did not happened. If any
had survived here they had either vacated or had since
died.

8

With heavy heart he turned his
thoughts now to Horseshoe of the Downs. Picturing Luasha: its river
lands and its cascading falls. And in no time… Mt Destruction were
swallowed up behind him as Skysight sent him southways. In no time
Lower Crow came and went, and away went the mountain slopes cut
with a hundred streams and brooks feeding the rivers of the
lowlands.

The flint coloured mountains gave
way to verdant wetlands as Gargaron flew across them. He were at
last beginning to relax with the mechanics of Skysight, he felt,
some small part of him even marveling at how wonderful it were to
observe his world in this fashion.

Horseshoe Of The Downs lay on a
vast stone shore at the base of the mighty Horseshoe Falls. The
Falls, a league or two in height, cascaded down about the misty
city from its northwun face in a horseshoe formation where a number
of rivers and tributaries converged. The architects of Horseshoe
had incorporated the northwun section of the falls into Horseshoe’s
cathedral. A mighty flute atop the cathedral had been constructed
around the falls, so that cascading water plummeted against a
granite floor inside the cathedral’s main hall and from there water
splashed and roared and swirled away into canals running down the
inner flanks of the building, past the sacrificial posts, and out
through a series of water-stairs situated either side the enormous
main doors.

The township itself lay spread out
before the cathedral, countless small buildings built along a
series of curved rows, that all faced the holy building; it gave
the impression of a congregation of smaller, lesser beings bowed
down before some revered entity.

Gargaron felt his heart sink as he
approached the city. For the tumbling river water came down heavy
with rolling, blackened carcasses. He watched in dismay and horror
as they spilled endlessly over the top of the falls, dropping
lifeless down into the city.

Gargaron drifted downwards and
hovered there above the cathedral. He were sickened at the sight of
bodies gushing over the falls and splatting hard against the
granite floor, piling on top of each other like fish tipped from a
fisherman’s net. Gargaron saw the cathedral were fast filling up
with them. Logjams were building at its open arched doorways where
arms, legs, heads, and torsos from any number of animals and people
were being squished and mashed together.

Sickened,
Gargaron turned his attention back on the city itself.
Could anyone have survived here?
he wondered. And if they had, why would they
remain here? This were a charnel house now. A nightmare from which
there were nothing to do but flee.

He did not linger. He conducted his search
methodically but quickly, sweeping the streets for any possible
living remnant, and then, having found none, he sped with haste
away from there, his thoughts reeling.

9

He felt ill. And not this time
from Skysight’s effects. The dead deserved better than to be flung
off some waterfall, piling into each other, burying each other
inside some cathedral. It had been a sickening sight. One that
rattled him, angered him.

Naught can be
done for them
, he told himself.
Should you get to the bottom of this mystery,
should you help right this part of Godrik’s Vale, you may return
and give these folk the burial they deserve. For now though… you
have work to do
.

He thought about
this as the world rushed by beneath him, as he built in his mind
thoughts of his next destination: Darkfort nestled amidst Forever
of Bleakstone. Was this what Yarniya had meant then, in his
dream?
You have work here
first
. That he were tasked with finding
the cause of this strange blight and putting it to
rights?

The idea seemed
to give him a sense of purpose.
And
perhaps if it be some dark enchantment, then mayhaps it might be
overturned, even reversed
. There had been
any number of such documented cases throughout history.
Enchantments or curses, engineered by some warlock or witch or
sorcerer, that had been countered or overridden, and thus damage
and mischief caused by them put to rights where it
could.

The most well-known of these were
the Fleshlust Curse contrived by the rogue witch Tanamii. She had
kidnapped Mary of the White Cross, a young princess, daughter of
the line of Drufaux Kings. Tanamii flayed some skin from the young
princess’s arm, and boiled it up sewn into the belly of a leech
toad. Once she had consumed it she took on the princess’s
appearance, adopting also her memories.

Tanamii, in the guise of Mary of
the White Cross, returned to Seawatch castle, stumbling at the
gates, feigning weakness and injury. When castle sentries saw her
they rushed to her aid, carrying her to castle
infirmary.

When she recovered she took from a
dark cavity in the side of her chest a vial of Fleshlust blood and
force-fed it to her chamber maid.

In a day Seawatch castle had
overrun with flesh eating undead. Yet Tanamii’s ultimate ambition
were to have her minions eat their way across Godrik’s Vale so that
she might rule and plunder all. She got as far as capturing three
neighbouring villages before combined enchantments by giant Magers
and Sagetown sorcerers saw her minions revolt and turn against her,
the Fleshlust dying with her.

Perhaps if Gargaron could find the
source of this blight, he might be able to overturn it as his kind
and the sorcerers had once done to Tanamii.

10

Eastways he
“flew”, the rivers vanishing long behind him. With the Scarecrow
Range at his back constantly bordering his northways view, the
hills of Forever became slowly more prominent. The greenery of
Luasha began to fade. Elevated land and rocky outcrops began to
appear. Lush grass gave way to spiky straw coloured spinifex. And
in the stretches between the spinifex, the
earyth
were characterised by the
black dirt and rock of this region. Bleakstone.

Below Gargaron, a cobbled road
meandered. And countless bodies littering it all the way into
Darkfort. After the other settlements, he had expected no less. But
there had always been hope that the next city would prove the
exception. Sadly, so far Darkfort were no different.

Darkfort lay amongst a series of
ancient hills that had been carved thousands of years gone into
three dozen pyramids. They had eroded at the edges, and had
sprouted bony white trees. But the carved ancient symbols whose
meaning had been lost to knowledge when the Juuga, the pyramid
builders, died out, still stood stark along the flanks of each
structure.

It were said this language were
without record, without trace anywhere in all of Cloudfyre. Some
with more wild imaginations claimed they were symbols of a lost
alien race that what were written here were a secret message for
starmen who might one day return. There were some who believed that
the Juuga themselves were starmen, and that they had grown sick of
Cloudfyre and they had upped and left and what were written there
were but parting expletives.

Darkfort’s cathedral were a
pyramidal structure designed to reflect its immediate surrounds.
The only difference being it stood taller and wider than the ones
the Juuga had left. And at four hundred years, it were also
considerably younger. Also, unlike its neighbours, it did not carry
the same mysterious hieroglyphics. Instead it carried depictions of
the sand goddess Skalla. And there she stood, carved from a
monumental chunk of bleakstone atop the cathedral. So tall and
stark were she that folk from Gargaron’s village claimed that on a
clear Summer’s day, standing on the escarpment overlooking Hovel,
one could spot her.

Gargaron slowed and hovered there
in the air above the settlement. He saw naught but corpses. These
included pilgrims, by the looks, for he counted many several
species of folk. Darkfort were known for its influx of travelers
from realms near and far, from the Outlands, from the sky-cities of
Freiyfall and Oppaarra, some even from across the raging seas, a
journey made only by the foolhardy or the very brave. Makeshift
camps were a common sight on the fringes of Darkfort. Some yurts
still stood. Others had been torn away by wind and gale; these
flapped and whipped against spinifex or snagged amidst bleakstone
or spindle tree.

The well-worn path, Pilgrim’s Way,
meandered through the pyramid hills toward the Gates of Forever, a
colossal stone gate guarded by dormant Monyt sentries, etched with
the same hieroglyphs that featured on the surrounding structures.
Flower offerings and sacrificial corpses hung from pikes around it.
Slaughtered squid giants, brought by coastal folk, hung from pegs
upon the gate. Before this devastating blight, Gargaron had
witnessed such sacrifices swarming with flies and carrion bats. But
there were naught of the sort this day. The same went for every
corpse his eyes found. And unlike Autumn, there were no corpse
flowers here. As there had been none in Horseshoe or Mount
Destruction.

Be this a
positive sign?
he wondered. He were too
perplexed, too jaded to distinguish.

The Gates of
Forever were currently closed. Its strange and unholy breech in the
fabric of reality locked away. There, in days before this blight,
brave souls―or senseless fools, depending on how you looked at
it―would chance their fate and cross into other worlds. Sometimes
returning. Sometimes not. Gargaron had once purchased a book said
to have been sought from another plane of reality, pulled back into
Cloudfyre through the portal.
Strangeworld
, it were called. An
expensive heirloom but oh, how it spoke of strange wonders from a
distant garden across Great Nothing.

11

Here, Gargaron wondered what he
should do next. While he had access to Skysight he thought it would
be worthwhile to search much and more. The capitols, for example.
Dunforth. Blakanz. And the northlands. Far beyond the mountains.
Where Eilophi Swamp and the Deserts of Gahndor met the Jagged Sea.
And the westwolds, where folk told tales of ancient lizards that
still walked the land, gargantuan beasts that could gobble up a
giant in a single bite. And Jade Deep, the Green Sea, a vast ocean
of frozen wastes whose depths were unknown to anyone but the green
ghost squid who lived to pull down all those who would sail upon
her. There were cities in or upon her shores. Cities he had never
seen. Never dreamt of seeing. And what of the realms across the
waves? Continents and islands beyond count. How far would he need
take the Skysight? How far had this blight spread?

For a long while his sight hovered over
Darkfort. Wondering. Wondering what next to do. How long would he
need concentrate his thoughts? How long before exhaustion got the
better of him and Skysight ate away his untrained mind?