The six “guests” spent the next hour huddled against the fire, periodically
feeding it with surplus wood that Grumiah discovered further back in the cave.
Pols raised the possibility that this could be connected with the cave Zyn and
Lum ventured into the other day, but upon brief exploration they discovered
that this particular cavern had an end about forty yards in. However, Lorian
had pointed out, it must have been Xayk who was responsible for the evil power
that was felt in the first cave. This did nothing to convince Zyn of his own
safety though. If the dragon, no matter how off his rocker or “polite” he may
have presented himself, could produce such an unholy wave of darkness, even if
it was only an illusion, then he had to possess extraordinary power.
Shuddering, Zyn shifted his attention to the cave’s mouth. Peering out, he
realized that it had to have been the opening in the rockface they had seen
before. It certainly made a secure location; unless you could fly you weren’t
getting up there; none of them would have ever made it inside if Xayk hadn’t
flown them. Outside he could barely see anything save when flashes of
lightning lit up the sea and the island below. Zyn was content to sit down and
listen to the storm outside. Growing up in Ainador he had known rain but it
had not been a common occurrence. He remembered growing up sensing the
excitement of his village at every approach of rainfall, then sitting in the
doorway of his home listening to the rain. He tried that now, tried to relax,
focus on the rain, listen to it patter against the rockface and flow down in
innumerable tiny streams. He tried to immerse himself in its white noise.
But his mind had other ideas, as he thought again of his future. [i]What
future?[/i] he thought. Stuck here on this island with Lorian, a inept mage
and three useless sailors, and now an insane dragon...
Wait, dragon? Why didn’t he think of that earlier? Couldn’t dragons, you
know, [i]fly?[/i]
Staring out into the black rainstorm, the smallest kernel of hope rose up in
Zyn. There were of course unanswered questions, like why the dragon stayed
here at all and if he could even fly the distance to the mainland (though Zyn
thought they could), and the like. Plus there was the fact that Xayk was...
mad. They’d at least have to learn more about him before they tried anything.
Still, it was something where before there had been nothing.
A shiver rattled its way through Zyn’s soaked body, reminding him he was still
very much cold and wet. Sitting down next to the roaring and roasting flames,
he saw to his amusement the three sailors lying down next to each other, if not
asleep yet then pretty close. It could only be expected, he reasoned, as they
had been laboring hard all day and had been through a very uncomfortable and
stressful predicament. Thinking about it, he wondered why he wasn’t passed out
on the floor as well with exhaustion.
Speaking of exhaustion, Parn at that moment must have felt the same way as one
moment he was sitting next to Zyn, then the next toppling over into him.
“Wha... Oh!” Parn woke with a start, “Oh, sorry. Sorry about that, I just...
uh...”
“Fell asleep sitting up?” Zyn finished for him.
“Uh, yes,” the mage said, “yes, I underestimated my fatigue, I do apologize.”
Zyn shrugged, and stared at the fire for a few minutes longer in silence. He
noticed that the mage hadn’t fallen back asleep, and there were things he was
curious about. “So, what’s a young aristocrat from Yesulam doing way out here
by himself?”
The look of shock on Parn’s face was palpable. “H-how did you know that?”
Zyn tried his best to suppress his smile; he had gotten it right! He knew for
certain that Parn had to be Ainadorian aristocracy from the way he talked,
though his features bespoke of some Pyralian ancestry somewhere mixed in, but
he wasn’t so sure exactly where he was from. Luckily, he’d guessed right.
“You don’t exactly hide it very well. Let’s just say the way you speak gives
certain things away.”
“...Oh. I suppose it might,” Parn said thoughtfully.
“And I take it your being a mage doesn’t sit well in Yesulam,” Zyn ventured.
Normally he wasn’t this blunt, but Parn didn’t seem the most... wily of
individuals.
Parn let out an exasperated sigh. “No, no it does not. The Church does not
look kindly upon magic users.”
“Nope,” Zyn agreed, “Nope they don’t. Yet you still went ahead and became a
mage?”
The mage shuffled, positioning himself a bit further from the fire. “It...
I...” he fumbled for words. “I have never... been one for the politics that
come with my position.”
Something about the way Parn said that made Zyn cock his head in curiosity.
“Position?”
“Yes. I am the eldest child in my family.”
Zyn blinked. “Wait, you’re the [i]main heir[/i]?”
“Unfortunately,” Parn sighed.
“...Damn.” Zyn figured that Parn, being an Ainadorian aristocratic mage,
would face some ostracism, but he never thought about his exact position. His
being the eldest son made things somewhat more complicated. “What was your
family name again?”
“Scolastin,” Parn answered.
Searching his memory, Zyn tried to remember that name. “Sorry, doesn’t ring a
bell.”
Parn sighed again. “It... there is more. Let me explain it to you this way.
Do you know who Biathan was?”
“Wasn’t there a Patriarch named Biathan?” Biathan had been a Patriarch
roughly two hundred years before, other than that Zyn didn’t know much.
“Yes. Two centuries ago,” Parn explained. “He came to power in good part due
to his being well placed in Yesulam politics from the earliest age. He was
from the house of Motesta. That is the house that my mother was born into.”
Yikes. This guy was related to Patriarch who got to that position by family
connections? “Your mother, is she particularly influential?”
The response was unexpected; Parn laughed, something Zyn had never seen him do
in the past week since he had met him. It was not, however, an easy going
laugh; half nervous and half bitter irony. “She likes to think of herself as
the second most powerful person in Yesulam besides the Patriarch himself. But
then again she is my mother and is prone to certain... eccentricities.” He may
as well have been confiding secretly about an affair, such was nervousness
exuding from him; he was uncomfortable to speak ill off his mother even in
secret. It was plainly evident from the tense was Parn held himself the power
that this women held over him; though in retrospect that wouldn’t be
particularly hard with Parn. But the picture was becoming clear nonetheless.
“She has never been-I...” Parn fumbled.
Zyn said nothing, giving Parn time to explain. When you got someone willing
to talk, you didn’t force them through roughshod into spilling the beans, you
let them come out with it on their own.
“I... she will always mention Biathan to those around her; [i]everyone[/i] she
meets is given an earfull. It is always ‘Biathan did this,’ and “He was such
a great member of our family.’ But everyone just nods their heads politely,
not wanting to offend her.”
“Offend her?” Zyn asked, picking up on the mages unusual tone at the end.
Parn nodded uncomfortably. “Yes, she is an... easily insulted woman. No one
has the nerve to tell her anything that contradicts what she already has in her
head.”
“So I take it the Motesta family was held in quite esteem in Biathan’s time.”
“Oh yes, it was the most influential family in Yesulam. It was its golden
age; everyone looked up to it,” Parn said with a hint of melancholy.
What was he getting at? “You’re mother likes to think on those days then?”
For a moment, Parn gave him a curious look, but it quickly subdued itself into
something more amicable. “I suppose. It is something she frequently speaks
of, especially when talk drifts to...” he drifted off.
This caught Zyn’s attention like a dog seeing meat drop right in front of him.
“Drifts to what?” Mentally he cursed himself for being just a tad bit too
direct.
Parn shifted uncomfortably in his spot. “It... I really shouldn’t talk about
it.”
Damnit. He [i]had[/i] been too direct. In his momentary excitement he had
charged ahead too quickly and now Parn had backed off. He had done it again!
Why did he keep screwing this part up? “Fair enough,” he declared, cutting his
losses and saving face by nonchalantly dismissing the matter. “Does your being
a magic user sit well with your family?”
“Uh... that truly depends on who... It does not really bother them, I guess.”
Zyn gave Parn a dubious look.
“No, no, they treat me well, they have never done anything against me because
of my... abilities.”
“Then why were you on that ship with us alone?” Zyn asked, putting extra
emphasis on that last word.
“Well, er... they had me on an errand you see, I had to find a distant
relative of mine down in the southlands. They had not heard from him in years
and they needed him to... well, actually I do not know exactly what they needed
him for, but still, you see.”
“Uh-huh,” Zyn replied. “And to find this guy your parents sent their
firstborn son to another continent?”
The mage opened his mouth, then shut it awkwardly. “Um... I was available,
you see.”
“Oh yeah, I can see pretty easily,” Zyn smiled wryly.
Parn sighed heavily, rubbing his hand through his hair. “Fine, fine, you win.
There is no deceiving you. My family is constantly bothered by my magical
affinity.”
Zyn blinked. He hadn’t even been trying to crack him utterly, but before he
could get a word in Parn continued. “They send me funds and they try to ensure
I have no want, but they do not allow me to return home as I am too great an
embarrassment to the household. I have not even been home in four years. They
keep me out and away with distant relatives and family friends. They do not
speak of me at home, trying to pretend I do not exist. They are desperate to
keep others from speaking about it, but every noble and clergy in Yesulam knows
that I, the eldest child of the Scolastin family am a magic user. They all
know!”
Um... wow. That was more of a gut spill than Zyn had been expecting. But
even then Parn wasn’t done. “They keep me away hoping that I will not come
home and cause trouble for them. Even though I am not really hated, my
mother... when I left home, I did it without her permission. Against her
permission, actually, I suppose, sort of, because I made my affinity for magic
public.”
Zyn had been expecting tidbits and nuggets of family information, not his
whole life story. “I suppose I should not have done it as I did, but...”
Sheesh, now that he had this guy open he wouldn’t shut up. And he went on...
and on, to the point where Zyn found it hard to listen to all of it and pick up
the important bits even though he knew that was exactly what he should be
doing. It was an unadulterated wave of verbal diarrhea that just kept coming
and coming. “My brother is not the type who knows to keep his opinions to
himself though...”
“Yes,” Zyn replied with impatience.
“But at least he is-“
“Yes I see,” Zyn snapped, shutting Parn up instantly.
“O-I-uh-sorry I did not realize I was rambling. I-I apologize, I am so sorry,
I just did not...”
And then, out of the blue so quickly that Zyn almost didn’t catch it, was “I
don’t suppose you have such problems with your parents.”
“Can’t really say, my parents are dead.”
Parn opened his mouth then clamped it shut, then repeated. “Um... I... sorry,
I did not know.” After an awkward silence, he lifted his head, though still
dripping with embarrassment. “You, uh, you had other family, didn’t you?”
“Just my grandparents.”
“Which ones?”
“Maternal; my father’s died some time ago. He kicked the bucket not long
after I was conceived, then my mother died in child birth.”
“But, you must have some other relatives, some uncles or aunts at least.”
“Nope; both my parents were only childs. The closest I have really besides my
grandparents are some third cousins I think.”
Parn nodded, though it seemed to be more out of appeasement than anything else.
All other thoughts when suddenly a thunderous rush of air swept the cave,
nearly knocking them over and sending Pols up with a start. “I didn’t bang
your wife sir!” he shouted instinctively.
The rush of air heralded the return of Xayk, hoisting a massive fish the size
of a carriage in his jaws. Spitting it out, he gave Pols a most amused look
(everyone else would likely have done so too had they not been so rudely
shocked by the dragon’s arrival), but in the end didn’t comment on it. “I got
something for you all, and some dinner too!”
The gargantuan fish was already quite dead with the teeth marks from Xayk
having punctured it quite thoroughly. It spilled a nasty reek that set even
the experienced sailors covering their mouths in queasiness. “And the thing
you got for us would be?” Grumiah had to ask.
Smiling, Xayk reached up onto his back. “May I present to you...” he produced
a coconut with a crude face etched into its surface, a face which could best be
described as somewhat confused and slightly on the fritz. “Him. His name is
Steve!”
“It’s a coconut,” Pols began, before being shoved to the ground violently.
“His [i]name[/i] is [i]Steve[/i]!” Xayk roared with fury. Settling
back, the giddy smile returned to his face. “And yes, he is a coconut.”
Great Eli, what had they gotten themselves into?
Deciding that staying on the insane dragon’s good side, Zyn forced an amiable
smile to his face and stepped forward. “Uh, hi Steve.”
The dragon looked to his... coconut, and eyed Zyn suspiciously. “Steve thinks
you’re being patronizing. Isn’t that right Steve?” Upon the coconut’s ensuing
silence, Xayk responded with a sudden, “Shut up moron.”
“Um, are you talking to... Steve or me?” Zyn asked.
“Who do you think?” Xayk asked sarcastically and unhelpfully.
The dragon then proceeded to grab “Steve” and huddle into the corner of the
cave, engaging in a silent “conversation” with his erstwhile friend. The
effect was sufficient to leave the cutting and preparing of the fish to be done
in silence; none of the men wished to provoke an outburst of any kind from the
eminently unstable beast that called himself their host. At first there were
no tools to cut the fish open with, but looking around they happened to
discover a couple of Xayk’s old teeth lying around. After some brief
hesitation they went ahead and began making their meal, during which Zyn stole
a glance or two back at the dragon to see him staring intently at Steve, eyes
unwavering and solid as stone. Suppressing a shudder, Zyn got back to work.
“You know I’m glad you guys are all here,” Xayk suddenly declared a while
later. “There isn’t much company on this island you know; now I can show
things around to someone!” he said exuberantly.
Nervously looking over his shoulder as they cooked the food in silence, Zyn
saw the dragon with his giddy expression that you could find on a five year
old. “So, are you the only one here on this island?” he asked, before adding a
placating “Besides Steve, that is.”
“Steve?” the dragon asked, looking at his crudely carved coconut. “Steve’s a
know-it-all jerk; he never acts surprised to anything. Nope, I’m the only one
here. Don’t you remember? I welcomed you earlier to the island of Me, Myself,
and purple sheep. I think I was pretty clear in pointing out the occupants of
the island in that.” Zyn was going to ask about the purple sheep, namely that
the dragon hadn’t said that the first time and that there didn’t seem to be any
purple sheep on the island, but decided against saying anything further about
it.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Lorian began asking.
“What if I do?”
Lorian froze, a brief wave of fear clasping him in place. “If you do?” he
asked, regaining his composure.
“Um, yes,” Xayk said, “You said ‘if you don’t mind.’ Well what’s the ‘if’?”
“Um...” Lorian trailed off, not quite sure what to say.
“I mean what do you mean when you say things like that? What’s the ‘if?’ If
you say ‘if,’ do you mean like ‘if it’s so I’ll eat a goat’s bladder?’ ‘Cause
I have to admit that’d be pretty funny.”
“Um...”
“You do like goat’s bladder don’t you?” Xayk asked.
“...I don’t think...” Lorian began.
“Well shame on you for not keeping your thoughts in order silly human. If
you’re going to add silly superfluous things in your questions you’re going to
run into a lot of stupid obstacles aren’t you?” the dragon asked, raising an
ironic eyebrow. “Just spit out what you want to say.”
Sighing forcefully, Lorian composed himself. “Very well. Is there a reason
you’re on this island by yourself?”
“I have Steve,” Xayk pointed out, indicating his coconut.
“He means in addition to Steve,” Zyn said.
“Are you insinuating that I can’t get by on my own?” Xayk demanded.
“Er...”
“Well you may or may not be right. But who gives a crap? You know who Dvalin
is?”
“He’s that supposed wine god that the pagans worship,” Pols blurted out.
“Pagans?” Xayk tilted his head in curiosity, “Are you those Following types
that want to worship the creator dude?”
The thought popped into Zyn’s mind that their dragon host might not look too
kindly on rejecting a well established pantheon. But before they could say
anything Xayk continued. “Probably just as well, they’re all a little stingy
and full of themselves if you ask me. Case in point, Dvalin’s a wine god but
he’s also a wind god. And he’s also a sex god. Not a [i]sexy[/i] god mind
you, he’s got an overinflated opinion of himself, but he likes to sleep with
sexy ladies.
“Now, a few years back he found this really hot virgin girl and he absolutely
had to have her, so much that he went around all macho proclaiming what a
‘great prize he had found that he was going to give pleasure to,’ blah blah
blah. He went around literally everywhere strutting his stuff making all these
proclamations, so I just had to do something about it.”
Lum’s eyes widened. “You... didn’t eat her, did you?”
“Hell no,” Xayk said, then grinned devilishly. “I banged her first.”
Every single mouth in the cave collectedly dropped at once.
“Yup!” Xayk grinned. “Got her good; you should have seen the look of shock
that crossed his ugly mug when he realized what happened.”
“But that means he did find out,” Lorian pointed out.
“Yeah, he kinda did that. Ended up chasing me halfway around the world trying
to kill me, but then he eventually got tired of it for some reason or another.
My guess is his balls told him he had gone on too long without some sex.”
Pols opened his mouth to say something, but a quick elbowing was delivered to
his gut from Lum. The two sailors exchanged a brief meaningful silent
conversation, ending with Pols shaking his head and grumbling. Something told
Zyn that Pols, and quite possibly Lum too from his resigned continence, didn’t
exactly hold belief in multiple deities in high regard. Granted, sailors were
on the whole superstitious and prone to caution in when it came to magic or
spirits, but that didn’t mean they all believed in a pantheon their own
religion repeatedly and harshly denied the very existence of. Still, it was
probably not the smartest thing to contradict their draconic host on the
existence of such beings... or on anything for that matter.
“So he gave up on hunting you?” Grumiah asked, doing his best to ignore the
very callous manner with which Xayk was describing things, “I thought this was
about how you got stuck on this island.”
“Dvalin’s the wind god, remember? He controls the storms and junk across the
whole world. He found out I was on this island and set a huge spell so that
whenever I tried to leave a massive maelstrom would whip up almost immediately.”
Silence gripped the six men as they stared at the dragon mutely. “Wait, are
you saying that whenever huge storms whip up here it’s because you’re trying to
get off the island?” Lum asked.
“No, no. I gave up trying to leave ages ago. I just like to see how big a
storm I can whip up sometimes.”
More silence. “You didn’t happen to try this four nights ago, did you?” Zyn
asked.
Xayk scratched his chin in contemplation. “Oh yeah, I think I did. I dealt
with all kinds of terrible wind to see how far out I could get to see how big
the storm would get. I think I got a good fifty miles worth or so. Now
[i]that[/i] was a storm!” All the cast aways gave each other startled looks.
“What? Something on my face?” Xayk asked.
Pols pointed at Xayk, shaking his finger angrily. “You... You were the one
responsible for the storm that marooned us here.”
“Probably,” Xayk shrugged.
“That’s it? You cause a storm that kills all our shipmates and strands us
here on this Eli-forsaken island and you say ‘probably?’” Pols demanded.
“Yup.”
“Alright, alright, let’s not focus too much on blame here,” Lorian said,
appealing for Pols to be calm; for Xayk, no one had any idea [i]what[/i] to do
about him. “You’re saying that you cannot fly off this island at all? No way
for you to leave?”
“Nope. I’ve been stuck here for a good five years and I expect to be stuck
here for quite a bit longer.” With that statement their newly raised hope of
getting off the island using Xayk was officially dead.
“Well that’s depressing,” Zyn muttered.
* * *
Catching sleep wasn’t the easiest thing to do, despite how tired and exhausted
they all were. The reason could be summed up in one word: Xayk. Zyn swore the
insane dragon was watching them, waiting for the six men to all fall asleep and
then pounce on them with whatever insane scheme his fiendish mind could conjure
up. Maybe he wouldn’t wake up at all.
Fall asleep he did, though, and he was cast into a sleep full of dreams.
Dreams of travelling the world, dreams of home, and one particular dream about
great yellow constructs hovering high over the earth and something about a guy
named Arthur or some crap, during which he swore he saw Xayk pop up every now
and then, excitedly giggling to himself. The dragon must have left a real
impression if he was already appearing in his dreams..
He felt something rub against his leg. As he looked down he saw a stick
rubbing against him, but... something didn’t feel right. Almost as if....
With a start his eyes snapped open and he was awakened instantly, eyes
immediately focusing on his leg. In the near utter darkness of the cave he
could barely see anything, but he swore he spotted a long, thin object on his
leg. The one thing that differentiated it from just a stick or piece of cloth
or what-not was the fact that it was [i]moving[/i]... and it had a distinctly
scaly texture.
It was all that Zyn could do but scream bloody murder, a shrill screeching
sound that pierced through the cave sending the others bolting up or straight
for cover. Grumiah boldly stood and grabbed a large block of firewood as a
club, defiantly awaiting whatever had come to torment them. Parn shrugged down
low to the ground as possible. Lorian sat up in a tense expectant manner,
while Lum and Pols crashed into each other in the confusion. The only one who
didn’t move was Xayk, who regarded Zyn with a curious raised eyebrow.
“What is it?” Grumiah demanded, “What happened?”
Zyn, however, was too busy shrieking as he wiggled and thrashed his leg trying
to get the hideous demonic [i]thing[/i] off of his person. His hands made
broad and ineffectual slapping movements near it but not actually to it as he
was too terrified to actually touch it, all the while screeching, “GET IT OFF!!
GET IT OFF!!”
Heroically his companions rushed forward and with Grumiah’s makeshift club
flung aside the intruding monster. “What was it?” Parn found the nerve to ask
as he worked to help the fire along so that they could at least see the face of
their tormentor. Fortunately this was done rather quickly as light returned to
the cave amidst the still wet and raining dark of night, revealing at last what
had deigned to sneak up upon Zyn during his slumber.
The first reaction besides stupefied silence was from Pols as he doubled over
laughing, to be quickly followed by Lum. Even Grumiah had a hard time keeping
himself steadily, and Lorian let loose a wry smile.
“It was a snake?” Parn said aloud.
“No, no,” Grumiah said laughing, waltzing up to the animal in question and
hoisting it before them. “It’s a little [i]garden[/i] snake, that’s all.”
Instead of a sane, calm and cool reaction as should be expected, Zyn’s face
contorted in a mixture of fear and rage. “Get that thing the [i]hell[/i] away
from me!”
This however was exactly the wrong thing to say as it served to egg on the
sailors in their own torment of Zyn. “Oh, poor baby, we don’t like snakes do
we?”
“NO!”
“Um, I hate to ask while you are holding it,” Parn said, pointing at Grumiah
and his prize, “but might not it be poisonous?”
Lum shook his head. “Nah, I’ve seen those before. They’re called Wylund
snakes. See the markings? Completely harmless.”
“You don’t know that!” Zyn shrieked hysterically. “You know snakes, sometimes
they look like one kind but they’re actually another!”
Giving Zyn a funny look, Pols marched over to Lorian and took the little snake
from him. “Alright landlubber, you wanna see if we know what we’re talking
about? Fine!” With that he took the snake and began pecking at its face with
his finger, which soon resulted in the writhing creature taking the sailor’s
finger in its mouth. Zyn clamped his eyes shut, unable to watch and stomach
churning up a maelstrom. Letting out only a slight grimace and grunt, Pols
shock the reptile off. “See, I’m confidant enough that I’m not going to become
poisoned or anything by this little guy. When I wake up tomorrow and get
through the day just fine you’ll know that we’re right.” With that, he tossed
the snake at Zyn, who yelped and darted aside to avoid the little devil, much
to the amusement of the others.
Even as they had their fun all were eager to get back to sleep. Xayk, the
only one to remain silent through the whole ordeal, sat there as immobile as a
rock, staring; what he was staring at, no one knew or probably wanted to know.
However, as the night wore on the dragon moved his tail about the floor like a
snake and at random would slide it across Zyn in apparent attempts to freak him
out, attempts which couldn’t have succeeded better. More than once Zyn woke up
screaming to the laughter of the others as well as a giddy smile from Xayk.
!DSPAM:4af0d337220431804284693!
_______________________________________________
MKGuild mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/mkguild
