Alium, page 30
There had been the burrows of small furry animals, the veins of subterranean waters, the echoes of nearby bodies frail and strong plodding atop or working into the soil, splitting the rock. The skitter of insects clicked and whispered in the finest airy spaces; the wriggling of strong-bodied worms sent waves of sight through the blind deeps. There was even the ripple of Byron rising from his seat against the back of this very tree, though when it had occurred the plant could not say, so awash was it in the simultaneous sensations of its liberty during the ogre’s sleep.
Reminded then of the mercenary’s morning ritual, Ogwold followed the map of emanations which came to him through the plant so entwined with his consciousness. And surely there was Byron, standing at the terminus of that silvery aural path of memory, hard at work swinging his sword. It seemed as though he’d practised a thousand slashes already, for his breath was ragged and his arms seemed even to shake as he spat away the sweat which fell from his nose and brow.
As before, Ogwold at first could only watch, fascinated with the display of determination and self-control. Only the mercenary’s arms and shoulders seemed to move as he swung, his legs stalwart to their chosen technique and his back like a sinew of metal. Each swing of the sword blew up a rushing whorl of dry leaves that swirled and fell in delicate gatherings all about the clearing, only to be swept up again by the next strike. The man’s green eye rolled to the side and—like a bird of prey sights its prize from afar—connected with Ogwold’s stupid gawking.
“You’re late,” said Byron, relaxing his posture and turning round.
Ogwold could not help but grin, tired of pretending to be so stoic and cool as the mercenary, and so pleased by the notion that he was even expected. Not with the same ease as he had extricated his arm from the soil, but certainly with an increasing dimension of understanding, he formed his green arm into the shape of a sword, straighter and more stout than before, though he figured—looking at it with surprise, for he had not exactly willed any specific design—this sort of weapon seemed easier to wield.
“You are not ready to spar,” said Byron. “When I have reason to rebut your attacks, I will.”
“I’ll do my best!” Ogwold said swinging the verdant edge of his arm. It was turned away as another leaf in the wind, though this time—lunging and exposed as he was—the ogre stopped himself from falling. As before, Byron parried Ogwold as he far less gracefully delivered his heavy and awkward blows, eventually losing his balance, swinging to madly as he grew tired and careless, collapsing upon his face, now his back, laughing like a fool in the grass as Videre appeared and savagely licked his big cheeks. She had watched all the while, her curious great head tilted, lucid black eyes following each exchange, containing yet missing nothing.
Now the road cut up and along the hipbone of an enormous mountain, far larger than those such as even titanic Shadith they had brushed with earlier. Its height disappeared into a ceiling of grey clouds, only which parted in brief pockets to reveal a dizzying succession of crags that seemed to have no end. They made almost no progress, it seemed, by night, and camped still among great dark trees which grew on the massive shelves of land.
In the morning they trained for several hours in total darkness but for the light of the sphere hovering near to them, for this time Ogwold woke partly with excitement to try his hand at Byron again, and partly to catch the mercenary sleeping. But Byron was already up and hard at work. How long in the morning he trained, Ogwold did not know, and never knew truly, but it crossed his mind often that Byron simply did not rest.
Afterwards they hiked quite far, yet still the trees were thick. Now they were running disastrously low on provisions. Byron slew a red-tailed vosca, which he found it seemed at once, leaving the trail while Ogwold waited with Videre, whose own meal showed in the spattering of blood upon her long snout. Byron seemed also a skilled hunter, for he returned with his prey already deftly skinned, cleaned, slung over his wiry shoulder. He roasted it against a simple fire as the dusk came on them.
He held out a portion for Ogwold, who’d been sitting like a gigantic lumpy boulder, hugging his knees opposite Byron over the flames, but the ogre hung his head even further. “I don’t eat meat,” he said.
The habitually lowered eyebrow of Byron’s empty socket twitched.
“What?” Ogwold tilted his head, confused.
“You’re an ogre,” said the mercenary flatly.
“Nogofod only eat fruit. I haven’t seen any that I recognize. I saw a malevolent looking red thing the other day. Perhaps it was quite nutritious. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it though. Does the map say anything about local flora?”
“You can’t just try some meat? You’ll feel better if you do.”
Ogwold peered over at the cooked flesh. He shuddered. “It wouldn’t stay down,” he said faintly.
“Xeléd,” Byron muttered. “What a stubborn race.” He popped the meat into his mouth and chewed aggressively.
“What is Xeléd?”
“Oh. It’s a moon. That one.” Byron jabbed a finger up into the sky. Framed in the dark branches of the night was a powerfully bright crescent of electric blue.
“That’s Mutat,” said Ogwold. “The Moon of Change.”
“You know the Lucetalian name. It is called Xeléd by the Xol. The significance of it is very different in their culture, but still they conflate it with transformation in many ways. Some say that the spirits of the moons are beyond the divides of language.”
Ogwold had heard of the Xol only in passing, and never from Nogofod lips; even Ogdof had but a snippet or two to divulge, and naught that he said uplifted or denigrated that race. Only the guards ever really used the word, and always bitterly, often spitting into the grey sand as they uttered so nefandous a syllable to them. He knew at least that the Xol lived in huge, black trees and had purple skin and many tails; and, of course, he knew that they practised black magic. To the Lucetalians, they were demons. But his green arm was easily the same sort of evil thing in Wog’s eyes. And what was Nubes to men?
He looked up at Byron wanting to learn more, for here was a man who could answer such questions as pertained to the mysterious natives of Efvla, but also here was that familiar feeling that he’d overwhelmed the usually silent man with questions. It was already miraculous how talkative the mercenary was this evening.
Byron stared back, swallowed methodically. “I once lived among the Xol,” he said presciently. “They are similar to Novare in many ways, though they have an innate connection with Xeléd. The one I’m looking for—he is Xol.”
Ogwold tried to imagine the Xol as he often had before, but now instead of purple devils crawling out from insidious boles he saw rather a more elfin Nubes nimbly running branch to branch. He tried to impose upon this fey character the visage of the old wizard in the moment of his most grave severity, but he could only smile thinking how quickly that look might dissolve into whimsy. What might his tails get up to!
Time passed and the secret choirs of insects chirped madly as they listened to the crackling fire. Videre began to snore loudly, jowls flapping against wet gums. Aborjays and foreign night birds shrieked distantly and cawed in the heights. Cool winds hissed through the dry grass. Ogwold’s stomach chimed in with so horrible a gurgling that he grinned like a sad idiot.
“I see light,” said Byron, whose shadowed face had leaned out into the forest for some time. He pointed down among the thick trees, clinging to the side of the mountain, and there in a kind of natural bowl in the land Ogwold could see the fickle aura of flame.
His stomach rumbled even louder. “Maybe they know something about mountain fruit?”
Byron glared at him. “I’d not suspect hospitality for a pair such as us coming out of the night.” Seeing that Ogwold submitted even as he spoke, hanging his head like an infant chided, Byron ground his teeth and said, “But we can try.” The ogre’s head popped up eagerly, grey eyes shining.
Byron scooted in from the dark with a fallen bough and fashioned a torch from their fire. Off they trundled loudly through the black brush, leaving the trail. Videre seamlessly awoke and followed them down through the trees. As the pulsing yellow grew in each its coruscations they found that it darted from the warm mouth of a great cave. Byron motioned for silence and entered first, passing so easy and low on his long legs that Ogwold shivered to think what men had fallen to that stealthy prowl. Though, something told him that Byron was not one to attack his foes from behind.
Inside was a great dig site, but even the untrained eye could see that the discovery of minerals was not the primary objective here. Wooden stairs and walkways were built all throughout the cavern in a many-storied network, many of these structures encapsulating at various levels raised tables of rock which seemed to have been very carefully carved out of the land. All about were crates of seemingly valueless stone packed very carefully together. At the far back of the chamber squatted a cluster of low, windowless wooden structures. Opening with dissimilar size all around and high above these little shacks stretched a smattering of odious, ink-dark tunnels, all seeming in the feeble light which trespassed their thresholds to turn straight up like natural slides.
Two Novare in the centre of the cave stood upon the rickety scaffolding and bent painstakingly over the top of one skinny rock-table, looking like a chthonic thumb sculpted out of the solid cavern floor. The men brushed away at its surface with little bristled things and picked gently at the finest debris. All of these minute, feverish movements were conducted with immense anxiety.
“Ho there!” Byron called out.
The men spun around and their eyes gleamed rodent-like from the shadow of their hunched work, but presently they straightened. They wore floppy flat-brimmed hats and extremely tarnished tunics too streaked with dirt to bear their true colours. From their leather belts hung a vast array of strange and specialized metal tools. Their awkward boots seemed far too large for either of them.
“Hello!” ululated the first who had turned in a surprisingly welcoming tone. “What’s your business, swordsman?”
Activated by the friendliness of the hollering voice, Ogwold lumbered suddenly into the light like an enormous yellow-orange beast, his great white cloak blazing with the flames of the hearty torches, and his booming voice ballooned in the cavern. “Do you have any fruit?”
Byron shut his eye angrily, jerking his chin towards the night. “He means—what is edible out there?”
“Caelare eclipsed, it’s an ogre!” loudly whispered the second, shorter man, adjusting a glinting pair of huge spectacles. His voice was not at all amicable and issued in a leathery, nasal stream of anxiety. “Tep, lookit those bones!”
The warm-voiced man laughed and patted the first on the back as he called over affably. “We’ve some drel berries to spare, but you must stay awhile. My brother and I have never seen one of the Nogofod before.”
The diggers padded confidently along the precarious catwalk, and stepped onto the rock, approaching the entrance of the cave. Now Ogwold and Byron could see that they were middle-aged, black-bearded and certainly as beady-eyed as they’d appeared from a distance, the squat one with his ill-fitting glasses, the tall other with enormous ears and his grand smile.
“I am Teperchael,” said the large-eared man. “And this is my brother Tinjus.”
“Ain’t no fruit won’t poison you round here. Best you eat meat.” The man with the glasses doffed his voluminous hat, shedding a curtain of dirt. “We’ve some of that too. Please. Stay.” His eyes flashed blackly and he seemed to sniff at the air like some enormous rat.
“We are archaeologists. This is our dig.” Teperchael said the word ‘dig’ with affected awe, seeming even to step partly in front of the unnerving Tinjus.
“I don’t eat meat,” said Ogwold sadly. “You said something about berries?”
“Yes! We love berries. I know little of mountain ecology, so we brought our own drel seeds with us long ago and keep a small garden here. You’re welcome to them but we’d really appreciate some company.” Tinjus nodded greedily as Teperchael spoke. “You see, being students of nature we are deeply honoured to encounter a creature of your exquisite genetics.”
“Oh now,” said Tinjus, adjusting his glasses and staring past Ogwold. “What’s that fine specimen?” His constantly flitting eyes had noticed Videre who—as soon as she had crossed the threshold of the cave—had edged back into the darkness, the hair on her back standing jagged and hard, her eyes like black suns.
“That is Videre, our companion,” said Ogwold, glozing over her tensity as she backed into the night like a white phantom of apprehension.
“Ah… of course,” said Tinjus, and it seemed almost that he smacked his lips. “What is it?”
“Two new creatures for you to see then,” said Byron shortly. “Now let’s buy some berries and be off. I don’t like the smell of this place Ogwold, and neither does Videre.”
“Oh you needn’t pay us, good swordsman. We haven’t seen a fellow Novare in many years either. Aren’t you interested in our findings?” Teperchael swept his arm out into the cave. “You’ve no idea what ancient creatures used to walk the mountains. We’ve discovered the bones of organisms that haven’t drawn breath in millions of years.”
“Well now that is interesting,” said Ogwold, smitten. Byron glared at him.
“How about some berries then, and I’ll show you around in the morning? It’s getting quite late for us.” Teperchael had gripped one dusty glove into the low shoulder of his brother who had all but yelped, though he said nothing now, and they were spared the awful tone of his speech.
Ogwold looked over to Byron expectantly. “Fine then,” said the mercenary. “We leave at dawn.” Promptly he went and sat up against the cave wall beside the entrance, arms crossed, eye shut, sword across his lap.
Tinjus brought out the berries in a large dirty jar, his small black eyes lively and darting about, though he didn’t seem interested at all in eating. They were small and grainy morsels with little blue stems that reminded Ogwold of the tutum in a way, though the flesh of their fruit was a sallow and sickly colour. Still, the bitter taste was wholesome and refreshing, and he devoured them in great handfuls which their growers assured him was quite all right, for they rarely ate the berries and cultivated their bushes more as a way to remember their homeland.
Ever since the first camp of delvers which they’d passed so publicly unabated, Ogwold had been practically bursting to speak with other Novare that might not despise him. As his hands and lips grew stained yellow with drel juice he grew more relaxed and talkative. He shared with Teperchael and Tinjus stories from Epherem and the ways of the Nogofod, that race about which they probed him incessantly for the physical characteristics and livelihoods of. They swooned at talk of wrestling, leaned in obsessively as he described a day of work, tittered manically at the nuances of sexual dimorphism. Often they questioned him about his strange hand which appeared from the white sleeve, but he explained that this was no typical characteristic of his people. When he spoke of the sea serpent they listened in awe.
Never before had any Novare given the ogre such a stage upon which to speak, and never before had any but Byron truly listened to him. They seemed so carefree and easygoing compared to all other Novare that the ogre had met, such that Ogwold described his fear at being so different, and how his race was persecuted by the men of Lucetal and Occultash.
“Don’t worry ’bout that,” said Tinjus unctuously. “Miners are only for metal.”
“And we’re only for bones,” Teperchael interjected. “Fossils really. The museum at Occultash pays handsomely for even the slightest trace of anything before the dawn of Novare.”
“Like what?” Ogwold asked.
“All sorts of things, but the most interesting we’ve yet to unearth.” Tinjus laughed greasily. “It’s hard work, and these mountains are more dangerous than you could know.” His eyes shimmered cryptically as they flicked off into and along the strange black holes that lined the wall. “For the good stuff, the stuff way down deep in the dark… certain sacrifices are made.”
Teperchael cut in quite nervously. “You should see the specimens they have in the city. These mountains used to be full up with these gigantic lizards.” He drew out his arms wide as they would go. “And that’s just the width of the head! They’ve one skeleton put together, not all of it mind you but quite a bit, that’s near twenty feet tall on its hind legs!”
“Such a find is but a dream for us,” said Tinjus slapping a hand down upon Ogwold’s massive arm which seemed almost to grip the flesh with a sense of appraisal.
“Ah but, I think I’ve found something even older,” Teperchael breathed. “Wait until you see this, Ogwold.” Quickly the archaeologist scampered off and over the ledge down into the deeps of the dig. His floppy ears were the first to reappear as he climbed back out, and under his arm was a dusty but nonetheless uncommonly shiny object.
“Yes, yes,” muttered Tinjus as his companion approached. “He has many theories on the thing, but as for its age it can’t be as old as he thinks.”
Teperchael placed the object carefully before Ogwold, and sat in reverence beside it, wiping it tenderly with a dirty cloth. Smooth and metal in form, it was shaped very much like a helmet, but nothing like those he had seen upon the heads of the knights of Lucetal. For one thing, it was unadorned, and the quality of its material far finer than any ore to his knowledge. Most peculiar in substance was the visor, which he could only compare with glass, though when Teperchael winked and rapped upon its thin, transparent surface, it emitted no such familiar noise.
