The Lore Anthology: Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 - 5 (12 page)

“There on the ground to my surprise was a light-sleeping man who awoke as I spied. But by fortune or luck or trick of the light, which flickered and faked flaring firefly-like, he mistook me for something entirely else. I was to him the ghost of a queen, some songstress from treasured antiquity for whom he feverishly bent a knee to bow and vow fidelity. A siren of legend, the sweet of his dreams…

“Then it struck me, the trick that I almost missed and something more precious than gold in this. His mistake meant that there was advantage to take of this phantom operation. So I used his delusion and played along for the price of a song to help our cause. He mumbled some words about being unworthy… ‘Even as leader of my people… despite my red hair… my family name…’ Yes this was the very same iron-eyed man, the steely jawboned and rust-bearded one, who would meet us so hard in the field tonight… two weeks later and worse for wear riding herd on his wounded beast. It was I who sent him on that errant mission, on a chase through the wild with a goose, as John says. Yet it was all truly the man’s own idea, a test that he already had in mind…”

“A wild goose chase,” confirmed John Cap. “Vaam, how wicked smart was that?!” He gave her a wry and admiring look. “We couldn’t have diagrammed it better if this were all a game. A game of thrown matches and catches, I mean.” The young man turned to his friend on the floor. “It was more than luck that snuck us in. That’s why there were lazy boys on the walls
— just a couple manning them — instead of a few good men. And why the regular guards weren’t here to see us land out on the plain then walk through the gates and blend right in.”

Morio nodded, “Yes, I see, that makes perfect sense to me. I can handle the truth, most certainly.
Using the cover of broad daylight — really clever, very bright. And I was around when we covered this? You say I knew about it?”

John Cap flashed him two thumbs up.

The ground hog returned a sheepish look. “You might have noticed I’m not one for scheming, rather more prone to a little daydreaming. The same goes for plotting. No. Let alone meetings! I confess I nod off at the drop of a hat then snooze or doze like a lapdog or cat, a napster with the best of them… So I may have missed some finer points during our pregame planning scrum.”

He slid toward the tall two with puppy
og eyes as if seeking forgiveness, the road to redemption. “But if you’ll permit me a brief presentation… I’ll prove to be less than a total bum… or at least a bit more than the butt of jokes.” He slid another yard then… “Yikes!” Mr. Yoop stopped abruptly and pursed his lips, seemingly stuck again, re-spiked. “Ouch!” He reached for his moon’s far side and pulled out another surprise from his rump. “I submit evidence, Exhibit A, that some points I sorely did not miss.”

He held up a slender splinter of plankwood then casually tossed it away.

After a pause to compose himself, the defendant continued to plead his case. “As I sit before you in this court of flaws let the record show I do not stand accused of being amongst the most agile of men, when it comes to thinking I mean. On the other hand for a man of my day, born sixty and eight years ago give or take… minus seventeen lost as a nowhere man, living in a nowhere land… um… darn, I’ve forgotten what I was to say…”

“Something about your mind,” cued John Cap.

“Thank you dear friend, as a matter of fact…” Morio placed his hand like a hat. “If you don’t mind I’ll try my suspect brain with an exercise of memory. A little display if no one objects.  I’ll step through each leg of our trip to date, just from the mental notes I’ve made, hour to hour and day by day, all along the way. Then you be the judge and jury.”

“I wish there were photos too,” cracked John Cap. “And brochures from the Syland Travel Bureau.”

Morio shook his curly head. “I assure you these legs have no faux toes. I stand by them sure as you call me ‘bro’ sometimes and picture an honest soul.”

Vaam simply rolled her eyes at both men. She did not dare encourage them.

John Cap shrugged his broad shoulders at her.

Morio carried on, undeterred.

“It’s hard to fathom how far we’ve come in a single cycle of the seas, just one month of the watchful summer moon. All almost too quick to tell the truth — like some spooky arithmetic’s at work to keep the time of our lives in check when you sum the entire trek. Like we’re digits of nature’s mathematician, manipulated, our days numbered to solve a secret formula or perform her perfect calculus. Prime examples of fate’s numerology.

“However you figure, the total’s the same.

“It took seventeen suns from our escape cast off the former shores of Merth to cross the timeless Sea of Mer’n, the ancient ocean of our blood. From dawn to dusk it added up. By day by air aloft on the ogs, our hearty high-borne friends in flight. By night by sea afloat on their backs, transformed to make fine boats for us and rest themselves awhile asleep. And alive we made the coast of this land, this island, this Syland, little known.

“Then seventeen more suns did we pass, now sailing the skies above the grass so green by cities old but gleaming boney white below… over velvety rolling hills ribboned in roads, dotted by villages, inns, and outposts… past great golden fields of early grain to the edge of a forest veiled in rain… as lush and vast those woods as could be with treetops so high they touched the bellies of our wingy changelings, all but cloud-bound though they were…”

Morio looked to the distant ceiling, almost as if he could see them.

“But here the pynes grew thin and small, the land ascending to a wall of silent, stone-faced mountains over which we barely dared to climb. The cold froze hard our faces, crystalline as snowmen and snowgirl… word the world had turned and not for the better but dark and wild. Then howling like a devil child the wind forced us to take a dive too steep, falling at the speed of what faint light was left… only to find ourselves fogbound and lost in the thick of a hellish muck that stunk a stink of sulphur so, so acrid that it burned the nose… a swamp to rival any known. O no more than a glimmer of hope could penetrate this woeful place.

“And so sick and dizzy from our descent, into the shadowland we went. The wilderness at the heart of this island. The chamber of secrets of Syland…

“And so on and so forth, which brings us to here!” At that the proud teller threw both arms wide and twirled them with a dramatic flourish.

Young John Cap could not help but laugh. “Whoa there ‘O! Hold on just a minute. I think you left out a couple of things…”

“Left out? Are you sure? It’s hard to imagine… I know! I’ll just take it again from the top!”

“Oh no, that’s alright,” insisted John Cap who had turned out his palms in a signal to stop.

Vaam faked a cough to silence them then turned her eyes to the older man. “John is right to remind us of this. There are some things we must never forget.”

Both men nodded back.

She went on.
“Such as the place where this quest began. We have to remember the moons lost in hiding, healing our wounds from the Grievil’s wrath all before we ever left… I carry those scars on my soul to this day…”

John Cap clutched at his thick left shoulder. “I’ve still got the cuts on my back from their claws. I guess I may have those forever. They’re dug so wide and deep.”

Morio’s head bobbed, conceding the point. “Incisive remarks as always,” he said.

Vaam brushed away a few strands of gold that had spilled down to cover her emerald eyes. “It’s very important, Uncle M. You need to pay heed and keep things in mind…”

“Like the fact that we landed a dozen times and explored on foot for quite a while.” John Cap tugged at his own shirtsleeve. “That’s how we found these clothes ‘O…”

“Along with some worries we wished not to find,” Vaam added, still holding a hand to her brow.

“Yup, you skipped over all of those.”

“I have been known to skimp on clothes for a skinny dip, if that’s what you mean…”

“We’re not joking, Uncle, about these lost gems. You must do your best to recollect them.”

“I suppose I can, Miss Vaam. It’s just that the flight was so exciting!”

The young woman’s eyes opened wider. They glowed with a calm and pale green fire.

“Were you bored to discover their great cities empty, nary a living soul in sight? Unimpressed to be chased by beasts through the streets, nearly gored on the horns of a herd gone wild?
Or barely bemused to be turned back by storms and swarms of looming evilings as we approached the realm of their king — his seat of power and palace home? The breathtaking place called Syar-ull?”

She tipped to her side to catch his eye. “Didn’t your blood run as we fled from the firestone rain upon our heads? Of heart did you not lose command under these signs of a devil hand?”

Morio suddenly looked enlightened. “Well, now that you put it that way…” Then he stopped himself to wonder something. “So that’s when we changed course to go chasing ghosts?”

Vaam seemed relieved. “That’s right.”

John Cap clapped.

“And you asked me to tell you all that I knew of the legend of Syland’s Lost Folk?”

“It’s true.”

“Yes, I see. Ah, that must be… the bumpy road where I lost track. Red rocks to the noggin will do that you know…
But skipping one’s breakfast, that doesn’t help either. Not to mention lost lunch. Then no filling dinner? Well, you can forget about it!”

“So let’s go over that part one more time.” Vaam’s tone was quiet again and patient.

“The part about finding some friends to bring back? That much I always had in mind. Or do you mean the part about lunch?”

Vaam put a finger to her lips.
“Shhh. Just listen till I’m done telling.”

She waited for him to be settled then told.

“I was so foolish in our first attack, thinking to out-trick the Trickster himself, expecting to sneak into his world unseen and with us alone succeed.
Just strong John the hero, brave Ogdog, and me. But we learned the hard way that we would need help to prevail in the darkened Underland, now so hopelessly enslaved, enchained so deep within evil’s heart.

“Yes we failed and miserably too
— except for setting you free, long-lost Uncle, and that was by accident. No. There was no choice now but to find an ally, somewhere where there were yet peoples free. If such a place there was. And so as we cowered and licked our wounds we wondered and dreamt who they could be.

“The compass, at least, was no friend to us. To the north lay naught but the Steppes of
Nor Dool, which turned to a permafrost that stretched for thousands of leagues to the Frozen Sea where an ice-floe armada ruled. The song of the south offered even less solace, singing of sure and grotesque death for any who passed that way. Such a merciless place it was. A jungle land of hellish hot that boiled the blood and left the flesh to rot away in hours or less with little evidence of its victims — serpent-bit, fever-pitched, ravaged by sickness down to a thick and sticky tar that was one minute man then putrid pool. Westward? O the world just ended, out at the edge of the final frontier where the rising moon met the setting sun. Old myths told of another All there, a whole new world for those who dared to fly — but none who ever tried returned to tell their tale.

“So what way was left but to look to the east? Of course we knew of that continent island out across the Ocean Sea, there by the bed of the waking sun at the far where the arc of the world fell away. Every child of Merth had heard of Fargonne, the name by which we called that land. But its peoples and ways were a mystery, cloaked or concealed and well-defended, shielded from sight by a mighty hand. Many a sailor’s shanty warned how few slipped by their western fleet, fierce and armored to the teeth, a thousand swift ships strong. And fewer still made it on to shore to face the sharp spikes of their songful war men, the fearsome and long-renowned Guardians.

“Yet now was our prayer to find these tales true, to be overwhelmed by their deadly do. So we set out to journey across the sea and plead for the conscience of their king.

“We’d need their armies.
Their navy too. And just how was I to convince them so? Some strange-storied girl of seventeen years who appears from nowhere with two stranger men? How could I make believers of them? Or make real the doom that awaited all if they failed to join our cause? The maw that would swallow their world as well? I pondered it all the way there.

“Meanwhile there was something odd in play, a scenario I did not expect. Like an actor too soon left the stage their fleet was nowhere to be seen. Not the smallest boat on the empty sea. Before long we would land and learn why.

“I had good reason to be suspicious. And an all too familiar chill in my bones. Of course I should have known…

“The evil I feared was already here. His mark was everywhere we looked. All within the Grievil’s reach.

“No Fargonne remained to save our souls. This land was all but lost. Now what? We had no plan, no hope…

“Dear Uncle, how lucky you already knew just a little about this island, these folk. For in that dark hour your legends revealed the clue and showed us what to do. We would have missed it without you.”

Morio, cheery red, was ready to burst. “The Clue!” he blurted out at last, gleeful, unable to hold himself back. “Surely I didn’t forget about that. Its words, Miss Vaam, to be exact: ‘Keep safe the Semperor’s Secret Treasure, deep in your heart where the Wild things are.’ You’re welcome and thanks for bringing it up — ever my honor to help of course. And what better rulers than friendship and love to measure the depth of one’s heart in the end? But… if you don’t mind giving me a clue too… where was it we saw that again?”