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Explorer
Wealsun 22, CY 593
51: The Celestial in the Closet.
“Can you hear me in there? Buzz your wings twice for yes?” Heydricus looks into the empty potion bottle that has become the new home for his polymorphed companions. “I need Crim,” he mutters to himself as he watches the teeny-tiny flies (still disguised by magic to look like teeny-tiny flowering bushes) crawl around the inside of the flask.
Locating them had been the easy part. Heydricus had ripped tokens from his bracelet of friendship, and wasn’t entirely surprised when a pair of fly-sized Talisman bushes appeared before his eyes. But now what? Flies can’t cast spells, and Heydricus cannot dispel magic.
Heydricus thinks to himself, calculating how much distance he can cover with his remaining applications of the fly spell. He wishes for the tenth time in the last ten minutes that he hadn’t given Dabus the map to hold, and makes his best guess as to the direction in which he is likely to find Prince Thrommel’s command.
-----
The sentry rides up quickly, reining in his mount. “Someone approaches, my lord. He . . . it . . . it flies, sir.”
Thrommel climbs into his saddle and nods once, then beckons to Urin, his new aide-de-camp. Urin passes Thrommel a spyglass. Thrommel removes his riding gloves, tucks them into his belt, places the glass to his eye, and smiles. He folds up the spyglass, and runs his hand across his dusty face, smoothing his newly-grown blonde beard.
“Men,” he booms, standing up in his seat. “Lay eyes upon your lord. Heydricus Tritherionson approaches.”
The men take up a cheer, banging spears against shields.
Heydricus lands in front of Thrommel, and regards the prince. “Well met,” he says. “I’m here for Crim.”
“Well, I wondered when you’d come calling,” Thrommel says. “We’ve had great success. We’ve marshaled your peasantry and I anticipate little resistance in Nevond Nevnend. Crim is not here.”
“What?” Heydricus exclaims. “What do you mean, not here?”
“Well, I mean the usual, I suppose,” Thrommel says. “He’s quit the fight, Heydricus.”
“What?” Heydricus says again.
“He was cross with our assignment,” Thrommel says. “He called it a ‘fool’s errand, fit for lackeys’. I called him a coward, and we exchanged heated words. Imagine, calling the Prince of Furyondy a lackey. His mother should have disciplined him more I think. At any rate, he quit my service, and I can’t say I shed any tears.”
“Oh, gods.” Heydricus says. “Where did he go?”
“How am I to know? He teleported away, as is the habit with wizards. Do you know he had the nerve to pass me an invoice? For ‘magical services rendered’ it said. He intends to draw funds from my father’s treasury. Can you believe it?”
Heydricus sighs. “Jespo is tempermental, you know that. His feathers were likely ruffled.”
“This is war, Heydricus. Men die, feelings are hurt—you suck it up and do your duty. Don’t think I didn’t tell him, because I did, the coward.”
“I’m sure you did,” Heydricus says.
“At any rate, things proceed apace. We ride for Nevond Nevnend. I plan to divide my forces. My scouts report a large encampment of orcish mercenaries in the valley guarding the approach to the city, though I doubt their arithmetic. I am sure these orcs mean to flee when assaulted. To counter this, I have determined to send young Reno into the valley with my vanguard, while I lead the remainder of my forces along the rise, to take them in the rear as they flee. It should be a hot afternoon, and we expect total victory. It will be glorious, I promise you.”
“Thrommel,” Heydricus begins, already taking to the air. “Remember what we learned in the Temple. Never split the party. That’s an order.”
Thrommel looks hurt, but nods. “If you command, I defer. We fight in your fief, after all.”
But Heyricus is already in the air, flying to the east, toward Halrond’s estate, hundreds of miles away.
-----
Heydricus travels non-stop for three days, flying for as long as he can, and then walking until he is forced to rest. The scrub-plain gives way first to rocky hills, and then to temperate grassland, before Heydricus can finally see the trees of the massive Fellreev forest.
Along the way, he talks to his companions in the flask, regaling them with indiscreet tales of his mis-spent youth, revealing more than is proper about some of his ribald affairs. If either the Prisantha-fly, or the Dabus-fly are shocked, embarrassed or offended, you wouldn’t know it from the expressions on their tiny little faces.
He follows the dimly-remembered directions Halrond had given him, and wishes for the first and perhaps last time that he’d listened more closely to the temporal head of Tritherion’s church in Furyondy. Shortly after dawn on the fourth morning, he comes across a dilapidated manor-house that must be the place. The stately home was certainly once the centerpiece of a grand plantation, but the exterior is greatly weathered, and the grounds have been given to seed. New saplings and wild patches of verdant grass mark the entry-points for the forest’s reclamation of the formerly landscaped grounds.
Heydricus walks to the door, and pulls on the crocheted rope dangling in front of the mansion’s entrance. After a few moments, there is the sound of furniture being shoved aside and eventually an old woman answers the door, suspicion carved deeply into her aged face.
“Hello, my name is Heydricus, and I . . .”
“The Liberator!” she exclaims, a smile working its way reluctantly to the weathered surface of her skin. She moves to embrace Heydricus, and then thinks twice before finally settling on a grandmotherly pat on his arm. “We’ve been waiting for you,” she says as she looks past him at the grounds. “We were told you would be bringing ore,” she says.
“It’s in my pocket,” Heydricus replies with a smile.
The woman scowls at him, but invites him inside anyway. The majority of the building is unused, she says, as only herself and hubby live there now as caretakers. She raised Halrond, you know, once his mother had taken ill. Not that she ever thought of him like her son. Not like some domestics do, mind. Halrond was always a distant and troubled boy, true, but now he’s a great man. A great man. The rest of the army is in the forest, she explains. Hubby will take you.
Hubby is a much younger man, a deeply sun-bronzed Flan with an even harder time mustering a smile for the Liberator. Unlike his wife, he is not one of Tritherion’s faithful, but he is the one who knows how to drive the cart. After hitching up a pair of sway-backed plow mares, he invites Heydricus up to the passenger’s seat, and they set out over the rutted trail into the Felreeve forest.
The rest of the morning passes in silence, as the cart trundles along, laboriously working its way beneath the massive maples, elms and walnut trees. Heydricus dozes off, occasionally jarred awake by the cart striking a stone. Afternoon arrives, and finally the man speaks.
“Forgot that ore, did you?”
“It’s in my pocket,” Heydricus says stretching his legs out over the dash.
The man makes no reply. After another minute, he says, “Never understood your Eastron humor.”
“I’m not joking,” Heydricus says.
The man makes no reply. Eventually, he stops his cart, and hobbles the horses. He comes back to the cart and motions for Heydricus to step down. He lifts the seat of the cart back, and removes a pair of short swords, which he slings across his chest in the front-draw unique to the legendarily belligerent duelists of Ulek and Keoland. Noting Heydricus’ curious gaze, he says, “Ain’t just an army in the forest.”
He leads the Liberator along game-trails and stream-beds as they wind their way to the West. The afternoon wears on, and just as Heydricus is starting to feel like the man must be senile, a voice emerges from the forest, startlingly near. It belongs to a half-elf, apparently the spokesman for a large band of elves who make themselves suddenly conspicuous, revealing to Heydricus that he is surrounded. The Liberator grins to himself at the implied threat.
“Who’s this, Maedwyn?” The half-elf asks.
“The Liberator,” the old ranger replies.
“We thought you were bringing ore,” the half-elf says.
“I am,” Heydricus says. “It’s in my pocket.”
The half-elf frowns, and looks at his companions, trying to decide whether he’s just been insulted. The elves remain expressionless, and the half-elf smiles a thin-lipped and cold-eyed smile. “Funny,” he says. “Follow me.”
Who can blame Heydricus if he had always assumed that what Halrond called an ‘army’ was merely a double-score of refugees and malcontents languishing in the Felreeve for want of mail and blade? But as the small group passes through encampment after encampment, Heydricus begins to realize that Halrond has sequestered almost a thousand fighting men and women in the deeps of the forest, gathered in small camps, training, eating, laughing and praying. Heydricus sees priests of Heironious, Pelor and St. Cuthbert among the men, and even a lone Hextorian sword-master. The troops do seem to be in need of proper arms, but Heydricus can’t help but notice the steely-eyed determination he sees present on nearly every face.
These men hate Iuz as much as I do, Heydricus realizes with a bloom of pleasure. “I wish Lucius could see this,” he thinks to himself.
Heydricus is finally taken to a massive stone-walled forge, crudely built but solid, and sadly underused. Only one of the long row of forge-fires is even lit, and Heydricus notes with displeasure that the smith is repairing horseshoes and wagon hitches. He greets the smith, and inquires where he wants the ore. The smith, assuming an ore-cart is outside, points to a large wheeled bin. Heydricus promptly upends his portable hole, and in a rush, a cart-load of iron ore comes pouring out.
“There really is a celestial in the closet!” the half-elf says to himself, and Hubby laughs. At Heydricus’ quizzical expression, the half-elf says, “a folk expression. I’m sorry I doubted you. How can we repay the Liberator of Tritherion?”
Heydricus is taken to a cleric of St. Cuthbert, a man (they all assure him) more than capable of dispelling whatever magic afflicts Heydricus’ friends. The rotund cleric is quite un-expectedly glum (for a fat friar leading a band of woodland brigands in their fight for justice). His jolly cheeks, and twinkling eyes seem misused when put to the purpose of scowling and harrumphing, but scowl and harrumph he does. He tsk-tsks disapprovingly when Heydricus’ dilemma is explained, but agrees to help out nonetheless.
He regards the flask containing the two flies, and brandishes his cudgel as if threatening the polymorph spell with a swift beating. In an instant, Prisantha is herself again, although suffering from a multitude of tiny cuts where the glass vial shattered as she regained her form. Heydricus winces. “Whoops,” he says to himself.
Prisantha examines her hands with a look of relief, bows to the cleric, and then casts dispel magic on Dabus.
“Welcome back,” Heydricus says, embracing his companions.
“It was horrible!” Dabus exclaims. “What a miserable existence.” The cleric looks at Heydricus with an expression of awe on his face. “I have learned pity for the common fly. Never again shall I swat one in annoyance,” Dabus vows, clutching his spear to his chest. “Do you know they vomit on their food? On purpose?”
“And what were you thinking?” Prisantha snaps. “Feeding us carrion, for the love of life!”
“Well, I tried to find something a fly would like,” Heydricus says. “I gave you a chunk of a wolf’s hind-end.”
“And I loved it!” Dabus sobs, overcome with shame.
51: The Celestial in the Closet.
“Can you hear me in there? Buzz your wings twice for yes?” Heydricus looks into the empty potion bottle that has become the new home for his polymorphed companions. “I need Crim,” he mutters to himself as he watches the teeny-tiny flies (still disguised by magic to look like teeny-tiny flowering bushes) crawl around the inside of the flask.
Locating them had been the easy part. Heydricus had ripped tokens from his bracelet of friendship, and wasn’t entirely surprised when a pair of fly-sized Talisman bushes appeared before his eyes. But now what? Flies can’t cast spells, and Heydricus cannot dispel magic.
Heydricus thinks to himself, calculating how much distance he can cover with his remaining applications of the fly spell. He wishes for the tenth time in the last ten minutes that he hadn’t given Dabus the map to hold, and makes his best guess as to the direction in which he is likely to find Prince Thrommel’s command.
-----
The sentry rides up quickly, reining in his mount. “Someone approaches, my lord. He . . . it . . . it flies, sir.”
Thrommel climbs into his saddle and nods once, then beckons to Urin, his new aide-de-camp. Urin passes Thrommel a spyglass. Thrommel removes his riding gloves, tucks them into his belt, places the glass to his eye, and smiles. He folds up the spyglass, and runs his hand across his dusty face, smoothing his newly-grown blonde beard.
“Men,” he booms, standing up in his seat. “Lay eyes upon your lord. Heydricus Tritherionson approaches.”
The men take up a cheer, banging spears against shields.
Heydricus lands in front of Thrommel, and regards the prince. “Well met,” he says. “I’m here for Crim.”
“Well, I wondered when you’d come calling,” Thrommel says. “We’ve had great success. We’ve marshaled your peasantry and I anticipate little resistance in Nevond Nevnend. Crim is not here.”
“What?” Heydricus exclaims. “What do you mean, not here?”
“Well, I mean the usual, I suppose,” Thrommel says. “He’s quit the fight, Heydricus.”
“What?” Heydricus says again.
“He was cross with our assignment,” Thrommel says. “He called it a ‘fool’s errand, fit for lackeys’. I called him a coward, and we exchanged heated words. Imagine, calling the Prince of Furyondy a lackey. His mother should have disciplined him more I think. At any rate, he quit my service, and I can’t say I shed any tears.”
“Oh, gods.” Heydricus says. “Where did he go?”
“How am I to know? He teleported away, as is the habit with wizards. Do you know he had the nerve to pass me an invoice? For ‘magical services rendered’ it said. He intends to draw funds from my father’s treasury. Can you believe it?”
Heydricus sighs. “Jespo is tempermental, you know that. His feathers were likely ruffled.”
“This is war, Heydricus. Men die, feelings are hurt—you suck it up and do your duty. Don’t think I didn’t tell him, because I did, the coward.”
“I’m sure you did,” Heydricus says.
“At any rate, things proceed apace. We ride for Nevond Nevnend. I plan to divide my forces. My scouts report a large encampment of orcish mercenaries in the valley guarding the approach to the city, though I doubt their arithmetic. I am sure these orcs mean to flee when assaulted. To counter this, I have determined to send young Reno into the valley with my vanguard, while I lead the remainder of my forces along the rise, to take them in the rear as they flee. It should be a hot afternoon, and we expect total victory. It will be glorious, I promise you.”
“Thrommel,” Heydricus begins, already taking to the air. “Remember what we learned in the Temple. Never split the party. That’s an order.”
Thrommel looks hurt, but nods. “If you command, I defer. We fight in your fief, after all.”
But Heyricus is already in the air, flying to the east, toward Halrond’s estate, hundreds of miles away.
-----
Heydricus travels non-stop for three days, flying for as long as he can, and then walking until he is forced to rest. The scrub-plain gives way first to rocky hills, and then to temperate grassland, before Heydricus can finally see the trees of the massive Fellreev forest.
Along the way, he talks to his companions in the flask, regaling them with indiscreet tales of his mis-spent youth, revealing more than is proper about some of his ribald affairs. If either the Prisantha-fly, or the Dabus-fly are shocked, embarrassed or offended, you wouldn’t know it from the expressions on their tiny little faces.
He follows the dimly-remembered directions Halrond had given him, and wishes for the first and perhaps last time that he’d listened more closely to the temporal head of Tritherion’s church in Furyondy. Shortly after dawn on the fourth morning, he comes across a dilapidated manor-house that must be the place. The stately home was certainly once the centerpiece of a grand plantation, but the exterior is greatly weathered, and the grounds have been given to seed. New saplings and wild patches of verdant grass mark the entry-points for the forest’s reclamation of the formerly landscaped grounds.
Heydricus walks to the door, and pulls on the crocheted rope dangling in front of the mansion’s entrance. After a few moments, there is the sound of furniture being shoved aside and eventually an old woman answers the door, suspicion carved deeply into her aged face.
“Hello, my name is Heydricus, and I . . .”
“The Liberator!” she exclaims, a smile working its way reluctantly to the weathered surface of her skin. She moves to embrace Heydricus, and then thinks twice before finally settling on a grandmotherly pat on his arm. “We’ve been waiting for you,” she says as she looks past him at the grounds. “We were told you would be bringing ore,” she says.
“It’s in my pocket,” Heydricus replies with a smile.
The woman scowls at him, but invites him inside anyway. The majority of the building is unused, she says, as only herself and hubby live there now as caretakers. She raised Halrond, you know, once his mother had taken ill. Not that she ever thought of him like her son. Not like some domestics do, mind. Halrond was always a distant and troubled boy, true, but now he’s a great man. A great man. The rest of the army is in the forest, she explains. Hubby will take you.
Hubby is a much younger man, a deeply sun-bronzed Flan with an even harder time mustering a smile for the Liberator. Unlike his wife, he is not one of Tritherion’s faithful, but he is the one who knows how to drive the cart. After hitching up a pair of sway-backed plow mares, he invites Heydricus up to the passenger’s seat, and they set out over the rutted trail into the Felreeve forest.
The rest of the morning passes in silence, as the cart trundles along, laboriously working its way beneath the massive maples, elms and walnut trees. Heydricus dozes off, occasionally jarred awake by the cart striking a stone. Afternoon arrives, and finally the man speaks.
“Forgot that ore, did you?”
“It’s in my pocket,” Heydricus says stretching his legs out over the dash.
The man makes no reply. After another minute, he says, “Never understood your Eastron humor.”
“I’m not joking,” Heydricus says.
The man makes no reply. Eventually, he stops his cart, and hobbles the horses. He comes back to the cart and motions for Heydricus to step down. He lifts the seat of the cart back, and removes a pair of short swords, which he slings across his chest in the front-draw unique to the legendarily belligerent duelists of Ulek and Keoland. Noting Heydricus’ curious gaze, he says, “Ain’t just an army in the forest.”
He leads the Liberator along game-trails and stream-beds as they wind their way to the West. The afternoon wears on, and just as Heydricus is starting to feel like the man must be senile, a voice emerges from the forest, startlingly near. It belongs to a half-elf, apparently the spokesman for a large band of elves who make themselves suddenly conspicuous, revealing to Heydricus that he is surrounded. The Liberator grins to himself at the implied threat.
“Who’s this, Maedwyn?” The half-elf asks.
“The Liberator,” the old ranger replies.
“We thought you were bringing ore,” the half-elf says.
“I am,” Heydricus says. “It’s in my pocket.”
The half-elf frowns, and looks at his companions, trying to decide whether he’s just been insulted. The elves remain expressionless, and the half-elf smiles a thin-lipped and cold-eyed smile. “Funny,” he says. “Follow me.”
Who can blame Heydricus if he had always assumed that what Halrond called an ‘army’ was merely a double-score of refugees and malcontents languishing in the Felreeve for want of mail and blade? But as the small group passes through encampment after encampment, Heydricus begins to realize that Halrond has sequestered almost a thousand fighting men and women in the deeps of the forest, gathered in small camps, training, eating, laughing and praying. Heydricus sees priests of Heironious, Pelor and St. Cuthbert among the men, and even a lone Hextorian sword-master. The troops do seem to be in need of proper arms, but Heydricus can’t help but notice the steely-eyed determination he sees present on nearly every face.
These men hate Iuz as much as I do, Heydricus realizes with a bloom of pleasure. “I wish Lucius could see this,” he thinks to himself.
Heydricus is finally taken to a massive stone-walled forge, crudely built but solid, and sadly underused. Only one of the long row of forge-fires is even lit, and Heydricus notes with displeasure that the smith is repairing horseshoes and wagon hitches. He greets the smith, and inquires where he wants the ore. The smith, assuming an ore-cart is outside, points to a large wheeled bin. Heydricus promptly upends his portable hole, and in a rush, a cart-load of iron ore comes pouring out.
“There really is a celestial in the closet!” the half-elf says to himself, and Hubby laughs. At Heydricus’ quizzical expression, the half-elf says, “a folk expression. I’m sorry I doubted you. How can we repay the Liberator of Tritherion?”
Heydricus is taken to a cleric of St. Cuthbert, a man (they all assure him) more than capable of dispelling whatever magic afflicts Heydricus’ friends. The rotund cleric is quite un-expectedly glum (for a fat friar leading a band of woodland brigands in their fight for justice). His jolly cheeks, and twinkling eyes seem misused when put to the purpose of scowling and harrumphing, but scowl and harrumph he does. He tsk-tsks disapprovingly when Heydricus’ dilemma is explained, but agrees to help out nonetheless.
He regards the flask containing the two flies, and brandishes his cudgel as if threatening the polymorph spell with a swift beating. In an instant, Prisantha is herself again, although suffering from a multitude of tiny cuts where the glass vial shattered as she regained her form. Heydricus winces. “Whoops,” he says to himself.
Prisantha examines her hands with a look of relief, bows to the cleric, and then casts dispel magic on Dabus.
“Welcome back,” Heydricus says, embracing his companions.
“It was horrible!” Dabus exclaims. “What a miserable existence.” The cleric looks at Heydricus with an expression of awe on his face. “I have learned pity for the common fly. Never again shall I swat one in annoyance,” Dabus vows, clutching his spear to his chest. “Do you know they vomit on their food? On purpose?”
“And what were you thinking?” Prisantha snaps. “Feeding us carrion, for the love of life!”
“Well, I tried to find something a fly would like,” Heydricus says. “I gave you a chunk of a wolf’s hind-end.”
“And I loved it!” Dabus sobs, overcome with shame.
