Sword and Sorcery Eight, chapter one_Sword and Sorcery, a Novel

Part 8, chapter 1

 The silence lasted a mere three heartbeats after Miche departed that hovering, egg-shaped shrine. He came backward through the portal to find himself at the dead center of a towering hedge-maze; griffin-patterned mosaic below, transparent dome arcing high overhead. Not all alone, though.

 “Well, that was amusing,” remarked Lord Erron, inside of his mind.

 “Shut up,” snapped the elf, drawing his tattered red cloak and his dignity tighter around himself.

 “As a ride-along observer, and I do mean ri…”

 “I said, shut it! Be silent!” snarled Miche, fumbling his energy blade out of a faerie pocket and then hurriedly lighting the thing. Sparked three feet of crackling sword and pivoted wildly. Only… there was no one to fight. “Leave off!”

 He was too sick yet from parting, too worried for Fina, to accept any teasing. Just stood there swaying, facing an internal voice. Then Erron said,

 “Understood. I spoke out of turn, and I apologize for it. You can be rid of me, if that is your preference,” offered the elf-lord, when Miche didn’t respond. “All it would take is deleting my memory file. I am as much a recording as I am a ghost, young warrior.”

 The elf doused his blade after a blank-hot-furious moment. Then, shaking his head, he got himself under control again.

 “No. Never,” he said. “You are my friend. I just… reacted without thinking, is all.”

 Nameless had observed all of this in silence. Now the marten chittered a warning, quieting both voices (inside and out). Miche whirled to face the nearest opening. It was an arch formed of bent-over branches, eight… maybe eight-and-a-half feet in height. There was movement. A stealthily rustling shadow, but no scent of monster or person. The elf took a cautious step forward, sword in hand though not reignited. Saw…

 Not one of Gottshan’s barbaric inhabitants. It was a robot maze-guardian, peeking around through the arch. Just a big metal griffin with shining gold eyes and brightly enameled feathers of black, red and silver. Miche stared for a moment, then found himself smiling. He relaxed a little, as it came to him that he liked griffins.

 The robot guardian squawked aloud, making a noise like a basilisk who’d swallowed a tin-plated whistle. In the ten-thousand years since Gottshan’s collapse, had anyone else reached the center? (Right, so, he’d actually cheated, dropping down from above, but he’d been terribly busy and very allergic to arrows and spears.)

 “Squawk!” cried the robot griffin, clanging and rustling, raking the ground with its talons. And so "Squawk" it became.

 Now, quite unable to help himself, the elf put his hand out and started slowly forward across the tile floor. Made no sound at all but his heartbeat and breathing.

 “Hello, there,” he said, very quietly. Gently. “It looks as though you could use a charge and some maintenance, Squawk.”

 The griffin cocked its head to one side, coming partway through that arched opening. Its surface gleamed in the light that filtered through Gottshan’s dusty, scaffolded sphere. A bit dented in places, but whole and still functional.

 A few more soft paces spanned the short distance between them. Then, crooning and clucking as one would to a strange horse or a dog, he placed his hands on the robot’s warm metal carapace. It vibrated faintly, with here and there the catch and screek of worn gears and a flawed perpetual motion machine.

 Easy enough to put right, and doing so sorted Miche out, too. Fixing the mess outside of himself had a way of doing that. The griffin sidled nearer; all color-shot feathers and rattling talons. Utterly beautiful.

 The mechanical beast was quite large, and barely able to fly. Low manna and considerable weight made all but the shortest hops impossible, Miche discovered. Still, quite an impressive creature, once polished and magically healed. It was taller than Miche, with a twenty-foot clattering wingspan. That put a thought in his head, as he worked to burnish those sharp-feathered wings.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

 “Squawk, I have a mission for you,” said the elf, caressing the griffin’s sleek metal head. “If you will come along to the start of this maze, I believe we can forge lasting peace… or else break a few heads (whichever is easiest). Me, I vote broken skulls, but I tend to think with my spells and my sword.”

 Squawk responded with a short, tinny screech, butting the elf’s armored chest with its head. It listened intently to Miche’s idea, seeming to fully absorb what it heard. The plan was a simple enough one… if the folk of Gottshan would follow orders. If its griffin would heed his command.

 The elf cheated again, going out. His robot ally knew all the right turnings and how to avoid dozens of pits, traps, illusions and loops.

 Anyhow, on reaching the final grand archway, the elf stepped through with one hand on his griffin friend’s shoulder. Found the North- and South-enders gathered right at the edge of their respective borders. Waiting.

 His appearance sent a ripple and hiss through both murderous crowds, causing their spearheads to waver and arrows to droop; making grey-painted faces slacken with awe. Right. Miche still hated them, but…

 “Maybe,” said the last elf, very quietly. “All of this is my fault. Whatever I did has dragged you and your city into this state, and… if so, I am sorry. I am trying to repair the damage. Just… stop fighting each other. Explore Gottshan. Learn from the city around you! Squawk, here, will keep you apart and maintain the peace, in the meantime.”

 Except that those wondering people could not understand him. They just aped his words, chanting them over and over like holy writ or an epic. The last line of their mantra “There’s no talking to you!” still rang in the air as Miche gathered his cloak around him and shot off for the heights.

 Up and away from the park, its maze and its shrine he arose, like a glowing and tattered phoenix. Straight to a nearby emergency hatch. There was a coded lock on its threshold, but the door yielded at once to a tap of his memory-drive, no fumbling or guessing required. Then, after swinging it noisily open, the elf faced a sort of small anteroom and a second emergency door. This one led to the city’s surface.

 There, the sun was setting through clouds of rust, and that staticky light-wall was close enough to cast shadows. His own slender shade arrowed straight as a spear, pointing right back at the nearby Dark Cloud. That menacing light wall was full-moon bright, but he didn’t have much time to stare. Marget roared wildly, launching herself at the elf from a twisted, pried-open vent.

 She knocked him down, hard; sent him skidding away on heavy, transparent plastic. Pounced as he rolled to the side, then punched him with both her flesh and her construct arms, while Nameless leapt on her head. She batted the marten aside, still lunging forward at Miche. He got a spell-shield up and managed to parry or dodge most of her blows. Couldn’t bring himself to strike back, though. She was his friend and his sister, and anger for Meg equaled love. Most of the wrath drained from her all at once as he was gathered up and held close; wounded and reeling, but still alive.

 “Just once…” he oofed. “Could you be… urk… glad to see me without… unh… cracking my ribs?”

 “A quarter candle-mark!” raged Marget, shaking him. “You said a quarter candle-mark, and it has been nearly two! I counted!”

 She probably had. Now her red eyes were slitted in fury and deep concern. The orc’s nostrils flared wide, while her tusks reflected the sunset and shimmering wall.

 “You did not follow the plan, Old One!” accused meg, flushing a very dark green.

 “I… unf… ran into some… truh… trouble!” he told her, as well as he could while being beaten like a rug.

 “Explain!” she demanded, setting him down again. He wobbled a bit, but managed to say,

 “I, erm… dropped inside of the docking well through a hatch, and then came under attack by creatures with hooked blades and skill at mimicry… Then, the city docked as I was still fighting, so I retreated inside. Being wounded…. No, not that badly. I’m healed, now… I recovered, then set off to explore, seeking the shrine and then a way out. The city is still inhabited, but its folk are a lot of wild barbarians.”

 Meg cocked a dark eyebrow, causing Miche to course-correct.

 “That is, they were a flock of lowing merchants and farmers. They stampeded when… when I neared their crops, but I managed to reach the shrine, where I had to fight its goddess many, many times over.” And there was no need to go any further than that, decided the elf.

 “Uhn. You have repaired this one, too?” asked Marget, turning him roughly around to re-plait his straying blond hair.

 “Yes, and there are two more to go, but…” Miche looked up and across at that hissing and crackling light-wall. “I think that we’ll have to deal first with that.”

 The wall had cut across Gottshan’s deep track, pinning the mobile city in its last available docking bay. Marget grunted once more, then drew back. Seized the elf’s shoulder, growling,

 “This time, Vrol, I go with you. There is always trouble, when you are alone.”

 Miche did not object. Just collected Nameless again, interrupting a meal of late evening bugs. The marten swarmed up his red cloak in a flurry of barks and sharp claws, then took a perch on the elf’s right shoulder, snapping at insects. Miche sighed. He was going to need cleansing again, but…

 “This time we’ll be quick,” he promised the orc; wrong, as usual.

MillionNovel

Sword and Sorcery Eight, chapter one