Book 3: Sound And Fury

  Ch: 4 The Wise Man Knows Himself To Be A Fool

  The hidden grotto pool emptied quickly, as all nine of them got the munchies and headed for the kitchen in a bustling mob of Garies, with Ace bringing up the rear, since he had to climb back into his puppet body to follow the group… “What should they call a gathering of us?” Ace asked as he hustled to catch up. “Like a pod of whales or a murder of crows…”

  “Dude… Shh! Not cool!” Gary grunted at the octopus. “Don’t you realize how many chunnis we are…? Wait… How many of me are chunnis…? No, that’s no good either. My head hurts!”

  “He’s still a mess, inside.” Ghnash muttered to Becky, as the rest of them trooped into the kitchen in a mob.

  “I see the look in your eyes, all of you, when you think I’m not watching. I have a good life and many lovely dies awaiting me.” He smiled so warmly at her that it felt super weird… “I made peace with the death of Gary Ward so very long ago… It was for all of you that I grieved.”

  The little green man fell silent for a moment, watching his brothers, all chattering madly among themselves about things no one else understood. “Look at us, just a gaggle of lonely nerds and damaged souls…” He smiled sadly at himselves and nodded.

  “I found a pce where I belong, where I’m needed, unlike most of these poor sods… King Ghnash must return to his throne before too long. Once I whip your Gary back into shape, I can leave you all in his hands with confidence.”

  “How, exactly are you going to whip him back into shape, Ghnash?” Becky asked carefully.

  “First, we drag this whole caravan through that gateway in the mountain… Necro said it leads to a prime world, one he cannot safely enter for long.” The little man grumbled. “There, we can work unfettered by piddling details like reality crumbling beneath us or the risk of waking a primordial god too early…” He smiled wanly at her and shrugged.

  “Then you all sit and wait while we work a big mojo… A very rare mojo that only Ghnash and your broken Gary know.”

  He giggled with almost vicious glee and gave her a huge wink. “We can make big mojo on a prime world without breaking anything… have a tasty jam sesh too!” He began to look a little wild eyed and started gncing at Gary’s personal instruments, where they hung on the wall.

  “Rex, Ghnash. I’ll let the others know your… pn.” The high priestess muttered, pointing to the kitchen where things were getting dynamic.

  “Go py with your brothers, I think they’re making fish tacos.” Just like that, his majesty was gone, disappeared into the scrum.

  “Ooo! Tacos! I want mine raw and wriggling!” The goblin king hooted, as he loped away.

  #

  “Your friend Cernunnos wants to talk to me?” Daisybelle repeated back at the impossibly tall, dark skinned boy with close cropped curls. “Young master Rigo?” She asked weakly, feeling a fool and deeply unsure of human protocols.

  “Yes, well, no… I’m Rio, just Rio. But yes, Cernunnos wants to meet with you and offer you a Contract.” He stammered, since she was strolling around in some of the flimsiest underthings that the young man had ever seen. Considering that several close family members were prominent members and even clergy of the scandalous ‘panty cult’ that was really saying something.

  “Take a break Rio. Lindsey and I will handle this.” Amy murmured, stepping out into the small garden behind Wilf’s pce to join them. “This is special girl talk time...”

  The d turned around and found himself facing all the members of Thirp’s cult in the household, including his mother, dressed in robes and waiting for him to vamoose. “Cult business?” He asked weakly, as he slipped by the legion of lingerie dies.

  “Cult business.” Becky answered firmly.

  He escaped into the main garden, with the gate snapping at his backside; swung crisply closed by Amy. “Yeah, no boys allowed!” She jeered at his fleeing backside.

  “You passed on the message?” Ward asked softly, from the shadow of a nearby fig tree.

  “Yeah, but I’m not sure she understood.” Rio mumbled. “Things got chaotic in there.”

  “That was why I sent you in when I did.” He answered smugly. “Gods get a bad rap for being all devious and oblique, but that’s the way things have to work.” He sighed gustily and faded farther back into his tree.

  “A mortal has to pnt the suggestion in her mind, even if she didn’t answer, as long as she heard, the door will appear. Cernunnos will now be able to knock on the door of her soul and ask for entry. After that, it’s her choice.”

  “So that’s why you can’t just find one of your outsider friends to Contract dad…” Rio whispered softly.

  “Yup. He’s been reborn and sealed off from his pce between worlds… even though it’s still part of the whole guy. That stress is a big part of what’s damaging him and keeping him crippled up.” Ward shook his head and sighed.

  “None of the current divines or fae are allowed to Contract him and no outsider can touch his soul. Even those he already knows can’t approach him without a fresh introduction from a mortal agent.” He fell silent for a few moments, contempting the problem.

  “Everywhere Papa goes… magic happens, uncle Ward. Everywhere.” Rio answered solemnly, as if he’d read the deity’s mind. “He makes things happen, whether he knows it or not.”

  “I suppose so, Rio... I suppose so.” His impossibly handsome uncle murmured thoughtfully. “Oh wait, let’s watch this show…!” He gasped, as something behind Rio caught Ward’s eye. The divine pulled Rio into the shadow of his tree and concealed them both with his aura, as Gandree, Dannyl, Ghnash and Ace strolled up to Wilf’s garden gate and knocked.

  “Oh, this is gonna be good!” Ward whispered eagerly. The handsome god had been chased away from so many of the secret functions over the years, that he now took vicarious delight at watching others be rudely rebuffed by the secretive cult of supple fabrics and ce.

  The gate creaked open a few scant inches and then swung wide to admit three men and an octopus. Seconds ter, Wilf ambled along and slipped inside as well.

  “Wait… How the heck does that work?!” Ward demanded in a tone of petunt outrage and divine butthurt.

  “They’re members… Nobody ever said men couldn’t join.” Rio expined patiently. “It’s not a panty cult… well not just that.”

  “So why am I not allowed in?!” He continued, his umbrage levels rising dangerously.

  “You never asked to join, uncle Ward…” Rio expined very gently to the divine diaper baby throwing a tantrum on the wn.

  “What kind of creep asks to join a panty cult?!” He demanded even more loudly. “I just wanna sneak a peek!”

  “I think that might be the whole problem…” Rio mumbled awkwardly to his pervy uncle.

  “I know kiddo, I know…” The weirdo sighed with satisfaction. “I’m the lord of the trees, son…. I have a nearly infinite number of dryad dies waiting for me, Rio.” He smiled at his nephew and chuckled wryly. “Every once in a while, I need to be reminded that not everyone is desperate for a ride on my pogo stick.”

  “So the creepy peeper act…?” Rio whispered.

  “I’m part of the sacred mythos of the cult. It’s all according to their scriptures! Ward the god of death is forever trying to trick dy Thirp into some silly shenanagin or another. In their stories, she confounds me in some embarrassing way every time. It keeps me real.”

  “The girls all know and that’s why they’re so mean to me. I py Coyote to their RoadRunner.” He sighed happily. “It really scratches that itch. You have no idea what it’s like, having a harem of lucious, leafy dies always eager for my attention…”

  “I’m guessing… ‘Freakin Awesome…’ or something like that?” His nephew demanded, sounding disappointed.

  “Bingo!” Ward sighed blissfully.

  #

  At dawn, the whole mad caravan marched up the mountainside leaving Ace’s small yacht securely beached in a protected part of the goon, hidden from sight. By the time the party reached the midway point up the volcano’s cone, no trace remained of the houses or gardens.

  “I’m only going along to humour you guys… I can’t cross the veil in a body…” Ace protested as they walked up the trail, after watching the houses blow away on the breeze.

  “Yeah, sure, Ace.” Gary sighed. “That’s not a body, though.”

  “True true.” Ghnash insisted. “That’s a doll, to the void, it’s no different from clothing. It never possessed a motive force of its own.”

  “Wait… in this thing, I can just… wander off into the void and do stuff?” Ace stammered, nearly losing his bance as the reality of the situation nded all at once.

  “Yeah. It’s yours, brother.” He sighed wearily.

  “That is a grand gift, brother…” Ghnash grumbled happily. “I see the work that went into fashioning that wonder.”

  “Please don’t make a big deal over it. I’ve been carrying that thing around for a long time, it’s nice to find it a home at st.” He mumbled awkwardly as they climbed the mountain. “I make prosthetic limbs for the maimed all the time, this is no different.”

  They walked along at the end of the line in silence for a while, as the other Garies jabbered merrily and swarmed around the family. Gary watched the jolly interpy and silliness and sighed softly.

  “I’m not going to pretend to understand, Ace, Ghnash. Just know, I respect you for keeping your humanity… I don’t know if I could have survived like you guys did.”

  “A lot of us didn’t survive… an awful lot of us.” Ghnash muttered. “There’s seventy eight cards in a tarot deck, but there were legions of us, brother. Legions.” The goblin gnced ahead, to where Gandree marched beside Dasiybelle and smiled.

  “The spirits the dwarf d sees… many, many of them are our shades. The spectres of those of us who have fallen. Other mortals too, but there are so terribly many of us.”

  Ace grunted and shrugged. “This world is not really meant for us; we don’t fit in properly. If my dungeon system was still running, I could manage the spiritual noise and imbance a little more proactively, but it’s a long term issue that will work itself out…”

  Both men, the tall and muscur, bnd featured man and the handsome, almost statuesque goblin king both gred at him and spoke in unison. “Spiritual Hygiene is important!” The men looked at eachother and grinned. “I like this guy!” They sang in harmony.

  “I think we’re gonna have a problem, here…” Kree muttered sourly, from behind her bonded familiar’s earlobe.

  “I dunno, He seems so much more… lively now!” Mariah insisted from his colr.

  “You girls know we can hear you, right?” Gary asked gently, while Ghnash giggled foolishly and muttered about ‘Slim Shady’ or some such idiocy.

  #

  “Should we leave them alone together?” Tallum asked nervously, when Gary, Ghnash and Ace drifted to the rear of the group, talking intently.

  “Oh yeah, definitely not!” Ivy muttered up to her husband. “Those guys are way too votile and unpredictable to just be left unsupervised… let’s watch!”

  The three idiots linked arms and began to skip together, while chanting about a ‘yellow brick road’ all the way up the mountain. At the top Ivy sighed and mumbled quietly. “I was hoping for a mass haunting or an outbreak of spontaneous magical fireworks at least. That was just stupid.”

  “I think they were having fun…” Tallum muttered to his little wife. “We should skip more often.”

  The whole family marched into that small cave near the top of the volcano and vanished from ‘The Swarm Dungeon’ in a twinkle of silent magic. Only the small yacht beached among the mangroves and the two radiant moons sailing through the sky remained to show they had been there at all.

  Seventeen miles out to sea, ‘Captain Padil’ and his crew were in no condition to contempte the moons or the mysterious exodus of the Ward family. They had discovered that the local skeeters could and would follow a warm blooded meal for miles over the open sea.

  They would follow for many, many miles, even if the stupid beasts had no hope of getting back. They followed, lurking and waiting for their chance to strike.

  Ten days ter, when the longboat washed ashore on Tortuga; the four men inside were as dry and ft as a brace of empty wine skins, their food supplies and water casks still full.

  #

  Dana, dy of Healing and Succor in man’s suffering, was furious. “Escaped through the veil?! He should have been unable to transit the void!” She spat, hurling her anger at everyone around her golden divan, beneath a sumptuous silken awning. Her eyes settled on Caduceus, the Physician, her ever loyal servant.

  “Do our curses mean nothing?! Bring me Baba Yaga!” She barked.

  “The witch of the forests has resigned from your court, my dy… An outcome I’m sure we will all come to appreciate in due time.” He stammered, as rage clouded the goddess’ face once more.

  “She… Resigned… from MY service?!” A goddess never shouts, certainly one never shrieks… and yet. When the thunderous and shrill cacophony ended and Caduceus was able to perceive sound again, dy Dana asked a very soft question. “Where is she?”

  “Baba Yaga was st seen entering the Madman’s inn, where Marduk dwells, my dy.” The sacred Physician answered very carefully. “She has not been seen since.”

  “And that creature? Do we know where it has gone?” She demanded archly. “If it is outside our domain, there is nothing holding us back from destroying that thing.”

  “Really?” A tiny jackalope asked from the foot of her divan in the garden of rest. The god of Beasts nibbled a dandelion leaf and sighed happily around his snack. “I have become quite attached to this form. No one ever pays me any mind at all.”

  He preened his whiskers with his front paws and had a nice long stretch before turning his dark, beady, bunny eyes on the golden goddess of Healers and Physicians.

  “I don’t usually intervene in my follower’s lives, since I am the divine animate force of all living beings, beasts and sentients.” He let loose a tiny, bunny belch of satisfaction and eyed the goddess up and down.

  “I mention it, because you seem to have forgotten who I am… The Devourer is also deeply concerned by your recent shift in attitude and aspect. Do you even begin to realize what it takes to draw that being’s gaze from the limitless horizon?” Beast took a quick hippity hop around to loosen up and sat down on his haunches in front of Dana.

  “You are a local goddess of one local species… Try and maintain some perspective at least, since humility seems beyond your grasp.”

  “Why? Why are you so deeply invested in this creature, this broken thing?” She demanded, ignoring the waves of divine might roiling in the tiny bunny’s aura.

  “Because he has been broken, a thing which should not have been possible. The Devourer is absolutely ecstatic… they haven’t actually seen a new thing in so long… Time kinda loses meaning on that scale, Dana.” He smiled and raked his antlers against a shade tree, scratching that itch.

  “You realize the utter gravity of this, don’t you?” He asked gently. “For the first time since the advent of… everything, a new mortal soul has been created. Several of them, actually. The whole universe creaked and groaned from the stress of what your friends did.”

  “You mean what IT did, with that… device!” She barked. “It rent a hole in the veil and so many were… lost…”

  “Not lost, Dana! Nothing was destroyed, they only took new forms… as all beings will, as all beings must. No entity is truly eternal, even the Devourer is showing signs of… change.” Beast muttered gently. “When this pnet is consumed and its star goes out… What then, Dana? Have you considered that? Can you make the leap to another realm, as Marduk and Thirp have? But even that is a change as well.”

  He sighed and stretched out at the goddess’ feet in the sunshine, taking his ease. “Immortality is meaningless, we just operate on a longer time scale. Even the great ones pretend that they are eternal, while we all know that in the end, there will always be an end. The Devourer knows this and is always there to remind us.” The bunny grinned up at her, showing his buck teeth.

  “That is why so few immortals can perceive the Devourer, without help.” He gnced up at the looming, lurking red nebu above her silken canopy. Hidden from view, but still present and radiating its awful gaze through the fragile cloth covering.

  “They perceive us, though. Toodles, Dana… remember, we are watching.”

  #

  Mallus, captain of the count’s guard, scratched his stubble and grunted at the report in his hand. “Giant spider monster? Could it be a trapdoor? That’s what we usually get up here.”

  “No sir.” The young orphan in light armor answered crisply. The countess’ ducklings were becoming invaluable as messengers and nuisance eliminators, but this looked like a real problem. “It moves fast and climbs like you wouldn’t believe… it could be a jumper variant, but it’s big, sir.”

  “No losses or damage?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “None, sir. But we did see it. Bright white and spshed with crazy colors.” Oliver answered with certainty. “I vanished into the brush, but we saw it, sir.”

  “All right, son. That’s fine… the count should be back soon, then we’ll have a look for this thing.” Mallus soothed the d. “Spider’ huh?” He shuddered with revulsion and grimaced.

  #

  The human patrols were skilled… and he was not built for stalking humans. They could perceive his colors, making his camoufge useless. In the infrared spectrums, he was a stone cold ninja!

  Sadly, in what humans call ‘the visible spectrum’ Hermit was a bright white and gaily colorful warning fg. His sleek fur gleamed almost silver, except for the colorful and poofy tufts of fur at his joints and along his abdomen, which were spshed with head trauma blue, bright green and coral red.

  He squatted under a bckberry bramble, while another patrol passed by. He y there, fttened down to the dusty earth and holding very still until the sound of their boots faded.

  Slowly, he crept out and across the road, cmbering up into an empty hayloft to pass the day. He was hungry, so very hungry… hunting had been a bust, there were no more goblins among the hills, only signs of where they had been and where they had come from. As to where they had gone, Hermit had tracked them to the scene of a battle, faint and fading rapidly, since the bodies had been cleared away.

  The goblins he’d been counting on for food were gone… sin and probably buried… wasted. Hermit sighed and resigned himself to deer again. He hated the taste of deer. Most ground dwelling animals were awful tasting, while most arboreals and flyers were too small to make a meal. What he wouldn’t give for a mongoat; those nasty, obnoxious, horned monkeys his buddy Ace had so many of, so tasty. Even better than goblin, he always felt a little guilty for eating those wretches… Not guilty enough to refrain, of course. They had to be eliminated, as a matter of hygiene and there was no sense letting perfectly good food go to waste.

  “Papa… I think I saw something in the back hayloft…” A child’s voice called out. “I’m gonna go look!”

  Sure enough, just a few seconds ter, a tasty delicious morsel wandered into the barn, peering and poking in the dark corners, looking for whatever she’d seen out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘The kid has no survival instincts…’ He thought to himself, as she walked right under him, without looking up once. An instant ter, she cut loose an ear piercing scream and bolted from the barn like her pants were on fire.

  Hermit snatched the moondrinker dragon fly from his hastily strung web and thanked whatever deities ruled this world for providing such a feast. With a wingspan of ten feet and armed with crystalline gss wings that could ssh prey to ribbons, the thing was a nasty predator.

  At this size, they became active only at night, stalking ground prey among the forests and hedgerows. This one could take a small child or a sheep, if it caught them in the open. The creature would creep close on the ground, then make a quick flyby to ssh the prey with its wings, before pouncing on and devouring its victim.

  Hermit hastily bundled his prize and snuck out the back door, leaving only a few traces of web to mark his passage, when the farmer and his two grown sons came charging out with pitchforks and spears ready, a few scant seconds ter.

  “I saw it! A big bug! In the barn!” Beth insisted stridently.

  “Crybaby! You probably saw a moth!” One of the older boys jeered his crying sister, as they headed back inside; unaware of the giant spider lurking just outside the light.

  Hermit left the moondrinker’s distinctive, glimmering, stained gss wings dangling outside the girl’s window, strung up to catch the morning sun and spin in the breeze. He chuckled to himself as he imagined the scene, come morning. The wings were immensely valuable, when taken intact, to humans, anyway. To him they were just pretty ornaments and remnants from a tasty meal.

  As he skittered through the trees, a voice arrested him.

  “Brother… you are out of pce.” Hermit hadn’t heard the voices of spider kin in a long while.

  “Yes, you, the big one.” The voice called from near the forest floor, singing out in the subsonic tones of a well strummed web. He spun a dropline and slid to the ground, beyond curious as to who could be addressing him.

  “Yes, it’s me, big guy.” A local orb weaver muttered. He was the size of a small dog; so by regur spider measure, the guy was a monster. Hermit weighed as much as a small horse, so there was that. “Yeah, It’s me talking. My name is Clint, lord Aclintheros said you’d be coming here; he commanded us to look out for you. We’re supposed to help you where we can… He didn’t mention you were a freaking giant, though.”

  Hermit rummaged in a silk satchel hidden in the fur of his abdomen and drew out his old voice; a lyre ssh banjo comprised of found lumber, animal bones, shells and spidersilk. “I haven’t used my voice in a while, let me tune up.” He croaked.

  “Sure, buddy. Just don’t spook any more humans, ok? We’re really having a hard time tely and a ‘spider monster’ panic among the two-legs is not going to help matters.” Clint sang happily. “Wow… you are freaking enormous, bro!”