The Lore Anthology: Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 - 5 (2 page)

Episode
1 ~ The Strangers

They appeared at dawn, on the edge of the northern horizon. We watched them glide across the barren plain, swiftly and gracefully as if on the wind itself. Ever closer they came and we saw what they were, three figures and nothing more. No chevox, no traveler’s cart. Yet they wore the dark shrouds of a long and solemn journey.

Suddenly they were within the settlement walls. A man came running, “Ghosts on the market road! To the square! To the square!” But most were there already, eager to begin the business of the day. Before they knew, the strangers were upon them.

The crowd scattered, some falling back behind mounds of sand beans and wheaten fruit, others disappearing into shadowed doorways. A few froze in place, agape.

By the roadside, a young mother stumbled trying to flee with both her handsome boy and a basket of fresh billit eggs in arm. She saved her son from falling, but the eggs flew and cracked on the ground. Her trouble seemed to draw the three, who swooped in close to see.

She sensed them surround her and lifted her gaze from the broken yokes and bits of shell. They were faceless, empty eyed. Quaking, she clutched the child
even closer and screamed with all her mortal soul. But the terror choked her lonely voice to something squealing and weak, so woeful. Their shaded shapes pressed closer at the pitiful sound and studied her.

Yet the little one was not afraid. He smiled at them
and reached out his hand.

The mother gasped.
She held him back.

He reached
out the other as if to be taken…

At that they spun away, the three, with nodding hoods and
an unworldly laugh. The noise of something wickedly wild. And then in a blur they were gone, speeding eastward down the rutted road to a narrower footpath of dirt and stone that fed into a clearing known as the common field. They circled there a great ironwood tree that stood out in the opening. Before long they came to rest beneath it, on the ground planted side by side.

Word of evil’s arrival and the threefold visitation spread like skyfire
over the land. From morning on through afternoon folk trickled down and then streamed from town. They ebbed and flowed on the edge of the field to witness, at a distance, for themselves. The strong came armed with toiling sticks or a pocketful of stones. The curious came with a keen eye and a fleet foot pointed home.

“They say there are devils here.”

“Yes old man, look out in the sweetgrass. See? By the Liar’s Tree.”

“
There?”

“That’s them.”

“I see only rocks. Are you sure?”

“They sit as still as the
hardwood itself.”

“
Then perhaps they nap…”

“
Oh that may be, but dreaming up a nightmare for us.”

“So strike down these demons as they sleep.”

But no one dared be the first.

Day turned to dusk and the gathered grew
, into a makeshift encampment of hundreds arrayed in a crescent against the three. Some of them set to building fires, pyres of thick limbs fallen from storm season, mixed of everwoods, iron and rose. The wood was dry and cracked in the heat, throwing off sparks of silver and red that glowed in the heavy smoke. The smell of roast billit meat soon filled the air to tempt and tickle every nose.

And t
hen with the night-rise, more surprise. From the deepening haze and flickering firelight came another puzzlement.

“What’s this? Look!”

“Someone runs!”

“Who is it?”

“A child. A girl.”

“It’s the orphan Mox...
”

“She carries something.”

“What is she doing?”

“I’ve always thought her mad.”

“Bad blood.”

Jixy Mox flew across the
field and into an emptiness far and wide while her ragged clothing rippled behind, like a tattered flag flown into battle. In one hand she clutched a pregnant sack of soft, tanned boven skin. Its contents seemed heavy and important. In the other hand, a talon blade.

Her hair
went wild to the rhythm of running, whipped up into a frantic dance. Already animal to some, she now took the look of a chevox foal galloping through the grass untamed. As the plainsmen sing:

Mane of straw and strands of gold

Heart of home, unbridled soul

Even before she reached them,
the urchin girl called out, all but breathless. “Daddy, is it you?! Daddy?! Have you come back home again?”

The
dormant figures did not answer.

“It’s Jixy, Daddy! Mommy’s gone
. It’s…”

Jixy
stopped dead in her tracks as the black cloaks abruptly rose from their slumber — up, up, up to tower above her. They rose from the ground, afloat on the air.

The unwashed waif
looked down. “You must be hungry Daddy. You’ve been gone so very long. See what I have for you?!” She turned her eyes to the boven sack and smiled to herself with pride. “It’s food. Daddy, I brought you food. You can have it all. Look here.”

The dark ones
drifted nearer.

She held the sack up high
as she could and flashed the talon’s jagged claw to slash its skin wide open. The contents spilled out on the ground — two loaves of crusted siege bread, a fist of pungent boven cheese, strips of leathered blood snake, and a whole smoked billit.

Suddenly, two of the visitors swooped
and simply by the wind they made knocked Jixy off her feet. She tumbled into a tuft of tall sweetgrass. They pounced upon their windfall. By the time the twain had ascended again the meats were gone and an awful squeal split the ears of the gawking folk.

The third had not stirred
at all at first, hovering off aloof and watching. But then it too descended upon her, down to the sound of a mournful groan. It swept her up in the folds of its shroud and raised her from the bed of blades that had caught the fallen child.

Jixy’s eyes were wide
as moons but her voice was sweet and calm. “I knew it was you Daddy. All along. I knew you’d save me. Now hold on. Promise you won’t let go forever.”

But from their dimming distance, the folk saw
something very different. A scene of utter horror…

“She hangs in mid-air by the grip of that ghost!”

“It wraps her in its death robe.”

“Wasn’t this a prophecy? Does anyone remember?”

“My wife has fainted! Water! Please!”

A young man and woman, both handsome and tall,
emerged from the dumbstruck onlooking lot. They stepped forward as others now seemed to shrink back. Without a word or the slightest glance these two set course for the odd event, walking at an even clip. Soon they were joined by one more man — an older, rounder fellow or chap, who scurried to follow after them. He and his apparent friends each carried a long torch of home-spun oil.

The
young woman raised her torch aloft, high above her uncovered head. Then she leveled it at the fading horizon and held it there in a firm clenched fist. The warm flame shone on the cascade of golden hair that fell upon her shoulders and poured like liquid light down her back.

“Ogdog!” she called out, “Ogdog!” Her voice was clear and strong.

“Enough.”

She spoke to the one with
Jixy Mox, the demon that possessed the girl. She and her men approached them now.

“It is done.”

This devil seemed to be under her spell and bowed to the woman at once, deep and low, as a servant bows before his mistress. Then it obeyed her command without pause. In a swirling whirlwind and dizzying spin it cast off the cloak of darkness it wore and cast out the child from its armless embrace.

The
ribbons of blackness that had wrapped it drifted away on a waft from the west. But the rapt girl dropped like a rock instead — down, down, down until she landed hard on the young man’s strong right arm. She was shaken but unharmed. He had reached her just in time, still holding the glowing torch at his left. The long herder’s hat he wore tipped back, revealing two eyes the blue of sky set square against features of chiseled truthstone.

“Fear not, my dear, fear not at all.” It was the rounder man. He spoke
to her in a soothing way. “All is alright. You are with friends. I am Morio and I shall keep you safe.”

But Jixy turned away and pointed back at the
murky sky. “What is it? Where did Daddy go?”

The curious crowd,
so much the braver, spilled in to fill the void around them and planted a ring of firestalks in the rich, black soil.

“It’s a bird.”

“Or a birdless wing I think.”

“No, look, it is skin and meat.”

“But alive. A slab of flesh that flies.”

“What beast is sliced knuckle thick and lives?”

It flapped slowly to an entrancing rhythm, holding steady in the air. The other two figures, yet enshrouded, loomed like omens high behind.

Morio whispered
in her ear. “That, my dear, is called an og and a very fine one at that. But I’m afraid I don’t know your daddy. Perhaps we can find him together.”

He stepped in closer and stroked her cheek with a stubby but
tender hand. “Why, look, you have eyes of tan like mine. What is your name, my wee cousin of color?”

“Jixy…” She paused for a moment, remembering. “Jixy Poxum Mox.”

“Well then, Lady Mox,” he said with a nod, “it is truly my honor to meet you today… and in this lovely place no less.”

She couldn’t help but giggle
at him. It was just the look of his sweet, fat face framed by such a mop on top — all curlicues and long brown locks that sat on his head like a fernage bush.

The mopster
motioned to have his young friend put Jixy gently down. Then he took her by the hand.

The first edge of moonrise cut
open the azure and out spilled some of summer’s wealth. A glimpse of heaven’s treasure. It washed over all in pale gold and shadow.

The young woman plunged the sta
ff of her torch hard into the ground then clapped hands twice. At that the og took off and flew a loop between the other two, disrobing them along the way. Then it sailed to the old, gray Liar’s Tree where it wrapped around a twisted bough.

“What trick is this?!” yelled an elderwoman, shaking her toiling stick at the sky.

“Two more of these wingy things?”

But t
hese were bigger than the first and fairly hairy too. Free of disguise they began to act up, like young pups darting in all directions, one with a kind of cackling shriek, the other its own low growl. They seemed to take pleasure in stalking each other — a dogfight right over the heads of the folk. At each pass they crashed then passed again. They slapped and nipped and tangled up, nearly tumbling to the ground.

Some boys pushed their way to the front of the crowd
to get a closer look. Three of these, the brothers Hurx, came with pummel stones and a mind to use them. Pyr was not the oldest one but he had the reddest hair of all and knew just what to do.

He raised his stone high and proclaimed the words
that he had learned so well. “Semperor says: Strangers die in Syland!” He fired. And then did his brothers too.

The gourd-shaped stones lurched head over handle on their crude arc toward
the nearest og. One fell short, another long, but Pyr’s was true and strong.

Crack!

The pummel stone splintered and rained down shards, some sharp or hard, on the folk of the field. The og, unhurt, flapped off with a fury and turned back at the boys.

“What armor wears that warbird?” wondered Pyr’s elder brother Ayr.

“I think we’re soon to learn,” said Pyr, squinting at the sky. “It comes.”

The angry og dove and the crowd fell back
, all in a great commotion. But the brothers, defenseless yet brave, held their ground.

“Here lad!” called the
quick-thinking elderwoman. She hurled Pyr her irony wooden rod. He plucked it out of the air just in time and took a swat in the very same motion at the approaching raptor. He hit the flesh of prey dead on.

Suddenly
Pyr was on his back and staring at the stars. In his ringing hands he held one half of a broken toiling stick. He shook his head, confused. “Did I slay it, brothers? Is it killed?”

“No Pyr, no,” answered Ayron, the youngest. “It wheels for more… its twin
now too.”

“Rise brother,” said
the elder Ayr, pulling Pyr back to his feet. “Let’s face these headless hunters together, live or die tonight!” Each took grip of the shattered stick and held it up prepared to fight.

Someone screamed. “
Don’t harm them! Please!” It was Jixy, the ragtag orphan girl. She bounded from the older man and entered the fray with the boys and beasts.