They knew the
gelatinous thing already. Through strange
corridors they had glimpsed its quivering form darting from plot to plot. It animated the strange life of the grand
vault and through illusionist passage even appeared to some who wandered the
lower ravines and caverns outside the prison for all treasures. Yet the Blue Which Flows carried a deeper
familiarity, so close, they realized, that its slimy touch had graced them
without their knowledge.
Red years pressed down by the
thousands upon the Badlands of Nysul, ice and snow crushing all things beneath
their cruel weight. Such was the
pressure that in the lowest depths rude elements were compacted to gems and
strange matter where the Lattice reached up from the unknowable core of the
planet. These treasures brought men and
war, depositing their bones like sediment, grave after grave, dynasty after
dynasty.
In elder days they had no word for
king or crown. They danced with
innocence amongst the early frost, but such is the Riddle that mutates
souls. Nobles crystallized within those
tribal communities and set about to frame kingdoms according to the dreams they
dreamed. Dreams that welled up from
below.
Runoff from the upper world trickled
down to the roots of the earth and pooled in the depths where the Lattice sang. There grew the ruling dream.
This magic coagulated and flourished
and the chieftains dreamed of it, of what it promised, and it, in turn, dreamed
for them the things which lay beyond their minds. Mages flocked to the badlands. Power distilled itself into crowns, into a
weave of treasures and demons, all unknown and secret for many cycles until, at
last, there was too much wonder.
The Nysul disaster echoed through
the carven ravines and snow-danced plateaus.
That wave of power broke and rolled back into the sea of the
Lattice. But in sealing away those
treasures they bottled up much magic and those things lay unquiet and human
minds never ceased to dream of them.
Stone is not as still and dead as
many think. The adventurers now knew
this danger intimately. Always tension,
always the threat of quakes and fractures, of things loosed from stone-bound
prisons. Time never ceases its
revolution and so the pressure continued, stronger, stranger, with a voice, or
at least a soul, fracturing the vaults which seeped humid dreams down to the
Lattice point, there further swelling that which ruled. The Soul of Nysul, the Blue Which Flows.
This emperor jelly grew implements
of power as organs, parts which budded from its syrupy matter. These became the royal artifacts of the high
kings and queens. Even now half-formed
crowns of gold dictatorship gleamed in the strange electric glow. Coins grew like scales upon the floor, some
as small as fingernails, others full of value.
There were scepters and miters, gauzy vestments and weapons edged in
enchantment, all waiting to be wielded against each other. The growths had a pattern, a sort of outward
spiral which ended in the vast sea of pent-up wonder, like sand building up on
a river bend.
Upon the Fencer’s shoulder the
gold-light scarab nervously worked its almost mechanical legs, searching for
some kind of absolute security. How
unfortunate, he thought, to yearn for the impossible.
He raced around the central pool and
lost sight of the Hunting Thing. His
cold eyes danced from coin to coin, from mountain to mountain, back to the
emperor jelly quivering upon its throne of gravity.
The Blue Which Flows was some dozen
meters tall, all of a kind of frosted, azure gelatin. This slimy mass was cut at odd angles into a
bizarre polyhedron or monument. It had
the appearance of mineral or ice but its walls bent and flexed and the
swordsman knew it to be flesh of some sort.
Upon its top was a grand device, like the plumage of a singular
bird. This crown gleamed with the very
crystalline matter of the Lattice.
Yet this pristine entity contained a
flaw. A shadow floated within its form,
half the silhouette of a man.
Tiny claws in his shoulder tensed
even before he heard the clink of coin to his left. He spun Dhala’s
edge into this unknown adversary but stopped at the throat. If Jaal felt fear his actor’s mask didn’t
show it.
“Never mind me,” he quipped through
obvious shivers, “just wanted to get a closer look at our true ruler.”
“You know this thing?” asked the
Fencer as he lowered his sword.
“I’ve felt it,” said the actor and
picked up a golden sword from amongst many.
“Now this would make a fine show.
But I would always know that it was an appendage of something else.”
“Guess that’s the nature of power,”
shrugged the swordsman as he watched the others scramble to meet them over
hills of organic treasure. “We never see
its true face.”
While they watched the quivering
mass the Trumpeter joined them and Jaal traded back his wondrous sword for one
of plain steel. Out there somewhere was
the Hunting Thing and Princess Hnah.
Then she arrived, stalking through
the streaming curtain of living blue. Strange
waters played off her crown of tangling horns and rippling flesh of reactive
purple. The Hunting Thing seemed to grow
even larger, taking in the bizarre radiations for her own strength, a noble
beast swollen with power. She took her
time, watching her prey with eyes like yellow half-moons.
Suddenly she stopped and
tensed. Following her eyes led past
them, to the far dunes of gold and silver.
Standing atop one mountain was Hnah, golden bow in hand, her gossamer
gown stripped down to the base body piece from the edges of which strips of
diaphanous material trailed in a draft.
On her face was neither happiness, nor sadness, but stern determination.
Splashing brought the lookers from
this binary. Jaal had set off across the
pool, leaping from one island of treasure to the next, racing for the Blue
Which Flows.
Tension broke and the air buzzed
with energy. The Hunting Thing dashed
through the pool, sending up a spray of heavy droplets which caught the light
in a bizarre rainbow. Rays plucked from Hnah’s
bow fell with the fluid but the mutant cat raced on. The Trumpeter put his instrument to his lips
as the Fencer chased after the actor, who now wore his mask.
Gaping at everything, nimble with
many years of stage training, he was too quick and found the thing first, only
to stop short. Over the din of the
waters the Fencer listened.
“...you hear me?” cried the masked
man at the shadow within the emperor.
Then the Fencer saw it, the
half-dissolved torso of a man. Only one
arm and part of the head remained.
Naked, stripped of clothing, it lay near the surface of the thing, the
rest of its features turned to jelly. It
had no wounds, only transitions of flesh, pink skin and red muscle dwindling
into icy blue.
Within the Blue Which Flows hung a
young man with fair hair trailing still and blue eyes locked on nothing in
particular. He was dead, a corpse, until
he moved and spoke. Bubbles frothed from
his mouth and no words fought over the din of splashing fluid. Then a voice spoke through more sublime
channels.
I’ve
found it, said the melted youth.
“I can see that,” said Jaal, his
mask indeterminate of whether this was good or bad. “Can it be tuned to our goal?”
There
is none. Rasped the unheard voice. I feel
so cold, yet it has gone beyond pain, to clarity. Truth lies stretched across the land,
touching all things unseen.
“What do you mean there is none?”
demanded Jaal, who then turned to the Fencer.
“Help me get Denovin out of there.”
Then
I die, said the youth.
A silver cry echoed out. Looking back they saw the Trumpeter heaving
for breath just as a huge block of palace struck. Fragment frozen in that moment, the water
leaping out before the crash. The
trumpet had spoken and the Hunting Thing was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was under the block, crushed, as
if that would do anything to stop her ambition.
From
where I am now I can see all things crystalline, continued Denovin, his
face dwindling. Power is a mindless thing, driven to purity by the uncompromising
structure of the Lattice. I’ve held onto
my mind for as long as I could but soon I’ll fade into its embrace.
Jaal wore the look of his mask well
as waves from the distant battle sloshed against his feet. In that moment the turn of his head, the
consideration of his shoulders, they were the tribal enigma, neither cover nor
concealment.
“I can’t have come all this way for
nothing.” The actor’s words wore naked
trouble.
Do
not take it, said the silhouette.
Once the waves died down a beast
presented itself from behind the massive block of dreamy palace. She wore a jagged grin and her snake tongue
lolled out, blinking.
The Hunting Thing charged through
the blue pool and in response the Trumpeter scrambled away, to the top of a treasure
dune. There he turned and played and she
laughed as thousands of tons of ceiling dislodged and fell upon her.
Flesh shimmering the titanic blocks
hit an invisible field projected about the beast, shattering and falling
aside. This was another skin of hers,
gone all magic with the flooding blue.
“You see things clearly now?” asked
the Fencer, keeping his eyes on the beast’s play.
My
thoughts gain layer and order, whispered the dying man. His strength failed, his voice gaining an
electric whine at the edges.
“Have you met a green-haired
witch?” In his words all his hopes.
We
remember, realized the remnant. She came seeking a place and told our being
to stop with the language of chemicals.
“She had a book and in that book was
a page,” continued the swordsman, bringing his weapon up.
Content with one victory the Hunting
Thing turned her head and saw them conversing.
Slowly at first, then with growing violence, she galloped through the
pool towards the Fencer and Jaal.
We
touch the page, said the thing within.
The emperor jelly quivered and a charge shot through both men. The Fencer hardly noticed.
“What is on the page?”
A
crown of power, a thing from outside.
As he dredged up these memories from the great liquid intelligence of
the Blue Which Flows Denovin faded further and faster into the thing. Now there was little left but muscle, bone
and organs. A grim visage of skull, an
eye watching them with stark understanding.
“From outside?”
The beast was almost upon them, huge
and insane, the air around her crackling with blue lightning.
Not
of our rule. Denovin’s voice
continued into the realm of whispers. Some other maker, some other place, it
commanded us and we did its will, but cannot remember much more. I need more clarity to understand, I need…
The telepathic voice rasped to an
even buzz which lingered in their minds as the Hunting Thing crashed upon them.
Dhala
locked with the mutant cat’s horns, pushing back the Fencer, forming a huge
gouge in the pool. He slid several dozen
meters before the beast whipped its head around. Turning the blade just so sheared off several
adamantine growths and brought a roar of pain.
The Fencer’s limbs grew numb from
both cold and current. The matter he
sloshed through was a medium of communication, all parts, all whole, entangled
with the entirety of the Blue Which Flows.
Those electric jolts and zings were motes of information transiting its
mindless perfection.
“You aren’t so gifted as I,” noted
the tongue. “I drank of this stuff and
grew mighty and changed. All you are is
a man with the fortune of a sharp edge.”
The beast’s flesh became as metal
and the air cried out in electronic pain.
Humming current grew and the Fencer realized too late what was about to
happen. He charged, lest he fail to meet
his fate head on.
Lightning rose up when he was about
halfway to the creature. A storm erupted
around her, conducted and controlled through her array of horns and
spikes. It grew to a bone-jarring
treble.
The sun intruded. With a shriek all the power was loosed too soon. Gasps of ball lightning were born and exploded
in flashes.
Thrown back but relatively unharmed
the Fencer propped himself up from the fluid.
On the shore stood Hnah, nocking another arrow.
The snake tongue hissed and turned
its blinding glance upon the girl.
Beneath her the gold smoldered.
Hnah raced against the sudden heat, her bare feet smoking as she
descended. In a second the metal
immolated, in something less than that she stepped into the soothing liquid.
“The Regalom, if you please,” rasped
the serpent, turning its attention back upon the Fencer.
“What more power do you need?” he
asked.
“Fire and lightning are useful
subjects,” reasoned the beast, “but the word is the thing which endures the
cold.”
The Hunting Thing leapt. Her whole form seemed to flow forward with
desire to become High Queen Hope once more.
Stepping back the Fencer readied his
weapon and struck a moment too soon.
Dhala
carved the azure liquid in a wide arc.
The splash rose up in a jagged spray and froze. Yellow eyes narrowed as the beast fell upon
the spray of icicles. A dozen lances
pierced her noble flesh and so huge was the iceberg that she stuck there,
impaled, half in the pool. The humming
dynamo of her heart ceased and she went still.
“Is she dead?” The Trumpeter wasn’t sure. His smile wanted to be jubilant, but
something within was also sad. In such
intimate confines, connected by this flowing medium, he knew there were aspects
of the beast which he would miss, despite all the blood.
“She is, but there is a greater
foe.” The Fencer gestured to the hideous
jelly at the center. Through the battle
it had done nothing, and this pondered in his heart, troubling and unfinished. “Perhaps it is the Riddle itself.”
Jaal remained by the thing,
uncaring, distant. He searched the inner
matter for signs of his friend once more but found nothing in that frosted
interior.
“Who was that?” asked the swordsman,
but as he arrived strange thoughts blinked into his mind. He saw the dissolved man whole, wrapped in
the two tone cloak of the Children of Nysul.
The image was still and the memory wore a smile frozen on his face.
“Denovin,” said the actor, who had
uncovered his face now and wore the truth of worry. “He was a fellow Child who went missing a
week or so ago. We were always looking for
ways into the vaults and I guess he found it.”
“This thing’s empire is full of
holes,” noted the Fencer. “Over time the
brittle prisons opened up sly passages.
He must’ve found the way down and became trapped.”
“So weird,” he continued. “This crown is from elsewhere. What was Clea doing in this place? If only we had the page.”
“If only we had the page we’d be
making the same mistake which lost us our minds,” laughed the Trumpeter. He was doing his best to mask the sorrow he
felt for the Hunting Thing. Perhaps he
would compose a song.
“Maybe,” sighed the Fencer, who then
turned back to Jaal. “Is this the
treasure which you seek? Your
birthright?”
“Birthright? Yes.”
The actor brought his face up to glare at the Blue Which Flows. “But it is a lie. Politics and treasure are organs of this
hideous thing. To think its base
impulses have lapped against my life makes my skin crawl. Bone and blood are its only legacies and it
doesn’t even give the satisfaction of being a villain. It only reacts to stimuli according to a
strange merging of factors.”
“Did the play of crowns come from it
or is it the result of the actions of sorcerous politics?” The Fencer felt bits of this as he stood,
soaked in its thinking fluid.
“Does it matter?” replied the actor,
to which the Fencer nodded.
Hnah was with them now, saying
nothing. So intent they were on the
confused ecology of the badlands.
Jaal felt the tension of the whole
land falling upon him here, like a grand stage balanced upon a needle’s point. Any motion at the edges would unbalance the
whole.
Within the jellied creature sudden
flashes occurred. A buzz, a smell of
ozone, the humid clouds rolling through its grand chamber echoed its
message. Out there huge, deadly dreams
billowed up from its mindless imagination.
The Fencer cursed and readied his
weapon for whatever came lumbering out of the curtains of slime. The others were less inclined. Jaal stewed and the Fencer daydreamed. Only Hnah had her bow out, her eyes
clear. Strange for someone who only
lived in this world half of the time that she would fight to keep the worse
half.
He imagined the things which would
come, the shapes dead kings and queens left behind for the Blue to gather into
its ceaseless flood. These would be
juggernauts, these would be dragons, all the kinds of legendary death which
might salvage this thing’s play of crowns.
Though Sol had come and taken their magic and Crow had sealed the most
deadly of artifacts away, it infected the minds of those above and sent them
and all their subjects howling into this well of skulls.
With these thoughts weighing upon
him the Fencer was unprepared for the sudden assault.
Hnah made to lift her bow to get a
bead on the first blue devil but the motion shifted. Sweeping her weapon up she caught the
Fencer’s leg and sent him sprawling. The
crown was loosed and splashed freely upon the pool.
In the cold all there watched as she
dropped her golden weapon and took up the device. Through an unnatural clarity they all witnessed
her first edict as High Queen.
