Book 3: Sound And Fury

  Ch 6 Now Time Doth Waste Me

  In a high mountain vale, on the very hindmost end of human lands, things were stirring in the woods. Down a long, winding and seldom traveled mountain road that led to a sleepy backwoods town, an odd and mysterious group appeared from the scrubby woods.

  A strange parade of nearly silent machines pelted down the slope with a pair of giant wolfhounds chasing after, tongues lolling out and lungs heaving. Laughter, joyous whoops of delight and the rush of the wind followed them down, echoing off the granite mountains all around.

  The mad peloton of bikes and wolves blasted down the quiet mountain roads and country lanes of Foresthome, leaving chaos behind them. Most residents of the frontier town had become accustomed to the sight of the weirdos and their crazy machines, so the party didn’t even attract that much attention, by sleepy town and bored mountain folk standards. Which is to say, they developed a long train of followers, mounted, in haywains or afoot, people began ambling toward the town proper and the lakefront, where that crazy inn had appeared and disappeared so suddenly.

  The count’s personal ensign waving from the swarm of machines suggested a celebration or homecoming feast at the palace, which always became a town wide party… So there was that as well. All in all, it was a long and thoroughly enjoyable ride for the bike mounted members.

  Three full Adventure bands and a number of guests wheeled their wooden mounts through the sparse and heavily wooded township’s borders without stopping, riding behind the count’s own banner.

  They finally came to a stop in a wide and low lying meadow beside a good sized lake, just beyond the boundaries of the town proper. Family and friends staggered off their bikes, gasping sweaty and exhilarated by the long, almost entirely downhill run.

  The wargs dragged in, tired and worn to the bone from running seven miles behind those damn, fast rolling stick horses. Something about them infuriated the wargs on an instinctive level, driving them on in hot pursuit, despite the pace the horrid things set.

  Daisybelle staggered off Jasmine’s saddle and sank to the soft, plush lawn of the river side clearing in absolute exhaustion. Her two wargs drank deeply from the river and sank down around her in a soft and furry pile, with their tails draped over the sleepy goblin girl.

  “Wake me when food is ready, boy…” She grumbled from deep within the fur.

  Gandree stepped off his bike with a cocky grin, took two stumbling steps and collapsed face first onto the lawn with a soft moan of despair. A second or two later, Ghnash joined him; both men face down and battered ass up, seeking relief from their smashed grundles.

  “That’s why I kept yelling at you to stay off the saddle…” Becky said softly, from so very high above the two collapsed men. “We’ll have the house set up in a jiffy, then we’ll put your butts back together.”

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  “We left our pelvises scattered all down the road… Be a dear and go sweep the pieces up for us, please?” Gandree whined pitifully.

  “We will have to get ass transplants.” Ghnash grumbled. “I’m a witch doctor, I can tell.”

  Ace leaned against a tree and watched the proceedings with interest. His wooden backside cared nothing for the saddle, it was just as tireless as his puppet legs.

  “This thing is incredible.” He muttered to Wilf, who was busily setting up a drum kit on the wide, riverside meadow below the castle on the hillside.

  “That’s one of the family treasures… I’m glad you can use it.” The sober young man said softly.

  “I studied every line and inscription, every joint and carving for years… Papa even explained every enchantment and spell worked through it in detail. I still have no Idea how it works.”

  “That’s exactly why I feel weird about just taking it…” Ace complained weakly.

  “It wants to be used, that puppet.” Ghnash interjected, from his position on the lawn. “The thing desires an occupant, the way a musical instrument calls out to be played. Every day it spends sitting still and silent, when it could be in use, is a small tragedy.” The armored figure of the goblin king rolled over and moaned sadly. “This is why I tell you to be silent and accept it.”

  “If I find myself in need of a new puppet body, I’ll make a new one.” Gary said firmly, from the middle of their formerly discreet conversation, where he had somehow appeared without warning, despite the significant array of advanced and occult senses sprinkled liberally through the little group.

  “Ace, that Action Figure? belongs to you now. It’s not even mint-in-box; it has zero collector value. Now shut up while we unpack the house.”

  Ghnash watched from the lawn, with a smug smile on his handsome green face, as his long lost family performed the ritual and brought their home into being, filling the empty patch of grasses and weeds with a vast garden, hotspring and inn complex. Even the family looked out in wonder on the expansive and marvelous, impossible place.

  Several years before, while on trial in the interdimensional kangaroo court of the gods Order, War and Craft; the young musician finally lost his temper with the gods.

  Ina foolish and desperate, final act of defiance and violence, Gary had blasted himself away into something far less substantial than vapor, with a highly unstable and super janky homemade sexbomb. He’d been erased from mortal reality in an instant, along with a number of divinities and lesser immortals, leaving not a trace of the packed courtroom or its inhabitants. Only a disturbing and surreal tear in the etheric veil remained at ground zero, softly moaning and wailing into eternity.

  Through the intercession of a number of friendly divines, Gary’s unbound and formless soul had been shoved back into the living world, into a new mortal body.

  Most of the gods of the mortal realm were less than enthusiastic, when Beast, Joy and Marduk conspired to return their favored agent to the living realm.

  The gods spent an unfathomable span of not exactly time in their timeless realm; arguing and debating for endless, suspended moments, until the decision was made.

  His body was made new and whole, but the soul that slipped inside that sunny afternoon bore shackles, bindings and strictures crafted by the entire pantheon, shutting him away from nearly all magical energies and gifts.

  Gary returned a cursed and broken thing, barely able to touch the elemental, spiritual and magical forces swelling and surging all around him at all times.

  The innate magical wellspring in his soul had been strangled by curses placed on him by the pantheon, including by his own unwilling deities.

  Sprawled across the wide, flat stretch of land beside the river and lake, below the town proper, the home and garden stood tall and defiant once more, as improbable and impossible as ever before.

  “Guess who’s back… Back again… Shady’s back, tell a friend.” He sighed, as he sank to the lawn beside his exhausted and butt broken new friends. A moment later he was snoring softly, passed out in a careless sprawl on the grass.

  “He really is nuts…” Ace sighed sadly, looking down on the wacky and unexpected Fool.

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