Jay Eight-Legs: Leg the Seventh
A hundred symbols fluttered on a hundred banners, each brighter than the last, until the eyes could see nothing single but only the united splendour of a magnificent host. The armour of the thronging knights and their spear-tips glinted in the sun. Their camp bustled to the neighing of horses, the clash of sparring swords, and the minstrel’s strum.
It’s a wonderful delusion, it will be a shame to leave it.
He, or possibly she, turned to the knight, crouching down at the tree line.
“Prithee, good sir, what more hast thou seen in thy expedition bold?”
“Pay heed,” he replied, his voice an urgent whisper. “These loyal retainers of our enemy foul have bound to their cause a noble questing beast of thickest scale and sharpest horn. Oh! It grieves me sore but to think of valiant knights in service to such malice, yet only for my woe to be compounded by the actions, so injurious to their pride of chivalry, that rangeth further force against us.”
A questing beast? Could be anything, but probably not good.
Jay decided to tell the ‘knight’. It was a very weird circumstance in which to finally get through to someone, but it had been a weird day.
“Sirrah, thy words do thee credit and honour thy nobility of heart, and assure my trembling heart that thou art worthy indeed of these words I shall speak. It is a test needful not in view of the speaker, for I am weak in the noble sciences, but rather in view of their utmost gravity.”
The knight lifted the visor of his great helm to give him (or perhaps her) his courteous attention.
“Know thou, then, that pustulent evil hath spread a curse on these knights’ hearts, and it moveth them to acts most deplorable in pursuit of a yet more deplorable end. Long have my people hunted them, knowing all too well the signs of this evil, which we call the work of Chaos. Alas! Repulsed were we by the foe’s power and now ignorant remain of the ritual they wouldst perform, though its abhorrence none may doubt, as well as powerless to prevent it.”
A funny way I put it, Jay thought, but the sense is right. The Idoneth really had sensed the work of She Who Thirsts without knowing exactly her plan. They had followed the fleet here and laid their ambush. But we underestimated their strength.
“Another thing I saw also,” replied the solemn knight. “Yea, the corpses of the lizardfolk, whom the wise name Seraphon, are scattered in great number beyond the rise. What business they had their lifeless lips could not impart, yet surely they had enmity with this evil also. Alack the day that brought two virtuous hosts low against the will of evil.”
Seraphon! Right. The pirate cultists have something of theirs and they are using it for… well, it won’t be good.
“Thus,” he continued, pompously, “I counsel guile, stealth, and connivance. Our strength is not so great as the Seraphon, nor any longer as thine army, for thou art now but daughter and smith. No din of battle could we long withstand.”
“Truly, sir, thou speakest wisdom.” Jay replied. “Let us therefore maintain our silent step and remain unseen.”
With that, he withdrew from the creature’s dreamworld and saw the boney monster beside him again, with its claws caked in dry blood and its eyes large and yellow. The camp’s resplendent banners were gone and it was once more the filthy dive of pirates. Jay went off to get Gib.
He found him where he left him, resting on a rock, back against a great, thick trunk, but not before the Warlock had. The strange, tainted elf had a blade to Gib’s neck. Gib just looked furious.
“A mite tardy, Ochtarr,” purred the Warlock, “but only a mite. I have a proposition that I fear I cannot make in safety without this uncouth threat of coercion, so I’m sure Gib is grateful you arrived.”
“Why not, eh?” Gib growled. “Why can’t ye talk to me normal like?”
“Because I daresay you’d try to shoot me, which has a higher probability of ending my existence, occasionally pitiful though it is, than I care to wager upon, and a near certainty of attracting the attention of our mutual enemy.”
Gib spat. “Arr, get on with it, then.”
The Warlock shrugged, expansively but without moving the blade. “Here it is: I need you to assist me in reaching the ritual place. I expect you know that they are attempting some portentous undertaking, but perhaps you are not aware that they require five of these to succeed. Get me to the ritual and I will gladly assist you in gathering the rest.”
He held up the golden tablet he’d taken from Gib earlier.
“One of my many merits is that I admit when teamwork is necessary.”
Gib raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused. “If’n we be ‘aving one already, why don’t we just run away with it?”
“Ah,” replied the Warlock, as if slightly embarrassed. “Well, I do not need to explain to an Ogor that there are certain insatiable appetites in the world. Whatever their plan is, it involves a truly magnificent soul. No! I never exaggerate. I swear to you, I have never tasted such potential on the air.”
He saw what Gib was doing when he’d already done it. Now there was a sword to a neck and a gun at point blank range.
“I appreciate yer honesty, elf. Now I know I need ta stop ye dabbling in things that don’t concern ye.”
The two sized each up, mentally calculating who could shoot or stab or stand or swerve first. Jay needed to act, fast, so he set to thinking very hard.
When he’d reached out to the creature that thought it was a knight, he’d been careful, cautious, tentative. Now he sent out an intense shockwave of his magical consciousness into the air, so hard that it blew leaves, and more than enough to break into the Warlock’s own. The feeling wasn’t muggy this time, but cold and sharp.
“What the — ” said the Warlock, both outloud and through the winds.
“No time,” Jay interrupted, thankful to use his customary voice. “Tell Gib this: if we run, they won’t stop. They will find a solution, or something else to do with the source of power they have. As long as they have it, we are in danger, and all the realms are in danger.”
The Warlock shook his head, as if to rid it of Jay, but then he blinked his black eyes in understanding. He turned to Gib, who was again confused, though not more confused than he was tense.
“Listen, uh, Gib. The Ochtarr says you have no choice. We must destroy their source of power or they will find another way to harness it.”
Gib immediately tucked his pistol away. “I don’t know how ye can understand what ‘e’s a’saying, but I believe that’s what ‘e would say.”
He began to stand, heedless of the Warlock’s sword, who withdrew it a moment later.
“What’s the plan, then, eh?”
“Well, in an ideal realm, should I be permitted to dream of such a thing, you would use your talents with blackpowder to make a distraction, while the Ochtarr and I do our surreptitious work at the ritual site. I suspect, however, that you would be understandably loathe to bring the wrath of an army down on your head alone.”
“Arr,” smiled Gib, “I won’t be alone.”
The Warlock looked at him quizzically. Jay reached out and the creature came loping through the woods, chittering softly.
“You’re in league with a ghoul?!”
Oh, a ghoul. Right.
Gib smiled.
“But… this is inexplicable…”
“It do be inexplicable, elf, but he ain’t the weirdest friend I made today.”
“Truly,” sighed the Warlock. “So be it. Let us see if a broken warlock, a wandering Ogor, a very misplaced Ochtarr… and whatever this is really are the heroes to defeat a great evil.”
We do make an odd team.
The ghoul garbled something, to which the Warlock replied.
“Well, time is of the essence.”
“Wait!”
Gib turned to Jay.
“So, we be parting at last, mayhaps never to see each other again. It’s been a good ‘un, Jay, ye salty seadog.”
Jay sped to him through the aethersea and wrapped his tentacles around his friend’s shoulders. Gib patted him on the bulbous head.
“But afore ye go, ye can get the ponce to tell me yer real name.”
Jay told the Warlock, and the Warlock said:
“He says he’s never had a name of his own before. He says today has brought him many misadventures, but whatever happens now, whatever becomes of us after the sun sets on it, he’ll always be Jay Eight-Legs.”
