from THE UNDERGOD
FARCHRIST TALES - BOOK THREE
Speculative Fiction
Approximately 69,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1991. All rights reserved.
Approximately 69,000 words
Copyright © Eric Lanke, 1991. All rights reserved.
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My mother realized the necessity of a father-figure in my life—a
good, positive role model for her son to emulate and to learn from. Otis seemed
to be the perfect choice. A man of Grecolus, he ran a good business and had
enough education to impart to a young boy the moral, ethical, and religious
training needed to rise above the rabble of the world. Amanda made her decision
early in her pregnancy and did everything in her power to make herself
available and attractive to Otis. She still loved my father, and would never
stop loving him, but the responsibility of their son demanded such actions.
Otis Parkinson was wise enough to see what she was doing, but took things
slowly and bit by bit worked his unassuming way into my life and my mother’s
heart. When I was three years old, the wedding was held in the local temple,
and my mother took the name of a man more than ten years older than she.
+
+ +
When morning came, Smurch was
removed from the cage by a group of groggy orks and put immediately to work
around the settlement. Brisbane would not see him again until that night, but
his day was filled with enough activity to keep him from missing the half-ork.
After he had returned the night
before, Brisbane had shaken off Smurch’s questions about the importance of one
sword and concentrated instead on getting Smurch to promise not to tell his
superiors about Brisbane’s magic and his little midnight trip. It wasn’t easy,
but he eventually got his wish when he reminded the half-ork that Ternosh would
supposedly discover his true power the next day anyway.
Before they had finally gone to
sleep for the night, Smurch reconsidered his duty to report Brisbane’s power to
the clan in the light that Brisbane was, in fact, a Grumak of considerable
power. The half-ork decided he would do as Brisbane wished for that reason if
for no other. As he had said before, Gruumsh One-Eye must have sent a human
Grumak here for a reason, and Smurch decided it was wise to steer clear of
whatever that reason might be. He was, after all, just half an ork, and he
didn’t know if he even had a place in the eternal army of He-Who-Watches.
The sun had only been up for an
hour or two when a determined group of orks, led by Vrak, made their way over
to Brisbane’s cage. Vrak opened the door with his key and sent four very large
orks into the wagon to tie and gag Brisbane. He did not put up a fight, letting
the orks secure his hands behind his back and place another awful-tasting gag
in his mouth. Soon he was ready for transport and the orks led him out of the
wagon.
Vrak stood there at the exit and
when Brisbane reached the ground he snapped a few hostile-sounding words to his
prisoner in his harsh language.
Brisbane burned the ork with an
angry stare. Your name may be Vrak, but
your teeth are no less twisted, you ugly bastard. Did you know I can open that
lock without your key? Did you, Vrak?
Vrak pushed Brisbane ahead and he
took control of the bonds connecting his wrists. The ork quickly began walking
Brisbane toward the entrance of the cave.
Vrak. How many syllables does your name have, Vrak? Can you count
that high? You’re just a flunkie, aren’t you, Vrak? A whipping boy with someone
to whip.
They entered the cave and
Brisbane’s vision suddenly failed him. Vrak kept pushing him forward. It was
noticeably colder inside the cave and Brisbane could feel his steps descending
into the earth. As they went along, his eyes began to adjust to the darkness
and Brisbane could begin to make out the walls and floor of a tunnel. There
were many turns and side passages. Some of them he was pushed past, some of
them he was pushed into. Even if he could see his surroundings perfectly well,
the many twists and turns he had taken would have left him utterly lost in what
had to be a confusing maze of corridors.
Eventually, Brisbane was forced
through an open portal and into a chamber that would have been unusual in the
dark tunnels for no other reason than it was lighted by bright torches. But
there was plenty else about the room that made it unusual. It was circular,
about thirty feet in diameter, with smoothly polished walls unlike the rough
stone found in the tunnels. The torches hung in wall sconces around the
chamber, lighting the unusual contents of the room. In the very center, painted
on the floor, was a red circled pentagram about three feet in diameter. On one
side of the pentagram was a large chair, ornately carved with thousands of tiny
ork faces, mouths open in screams of pain or pleasure. Seated in this chair,
dressed in the red robes he had worn the day before, was Ternosh the Grumak.
Ternosh said something to Vrak in
orkish and the ork pushed Brisbane into the room and onto a small chair in
front of the Grumak, on the opposite side of the pentagram. While Vrak fastened
a chain to Brisbane’s wrists that would keep them connected to the floor behind
him, Brisbane looked around at the rest of the room. A small shelf ran nearly
all the way around the wall at about neck level. This shelf was stuffed with
all kinds of books and papers and boxes bulging over with miscellaneous items.
The cluttered paraphernalia reminded Brisbane of all the things he had carried
into a house owned by a man named Roy Stonerow so many years ago. There was a
workbench of sorts behind Brisbane, but he did not have much of a chance to see
what was on it, apart from a vague impression of some glassware and some rubber
tubing.
Ternosh said something else in
orkish to Vrak and the ork grudgingly removed Brisbane’s gag and slowly left
the chamber. When he was gone, Ternosh fixed his single red eye on Brisbane.
“Well now,” the Grumak said in the
common speech of humans, roughly spoken but understandable. “The time has come
for our little talk. Let’s start at the beginning. What were you doing in the
mountains?”
Brisbane did not see any reason
not to answer the Grumak’s questions. Smurch’s opinion had been that his only
chance was to cooperate and prove himself to be a human Grumak. If Ternosh
discovered him to be a fake, Brisbane was sure he would quickly be killed for
the sacrilege of wearing what was, in effect, an orkish holy symbol.
But what was this question about
his presence in the mountains? Brisbane thought he had been brought here so the
Grumak could somehow test him for magical powers. Why the interrogation?
Brisbane was not sure what he should do.
Ternosh rose to his feet. He
brought out a slim glass rod that had been concealed in the folds of his red
robes. It was about a foot long and had a round glass ball about the size of a
tangerine on the end of it.
He held the rod up for Brisbane to
see. “Do you know what this is? My people call it the drom-kesh. A loose translation into your tongue renders it ‘the
wand of pain.’”
Brisbane still said nothing.
Ternosh went on. “With it, I can
channel the power given to me by He-Who-Watches from my mind into your flesh.
The raw power, unfocused and unshaped as it is, can then dance across your
nerves in a way that I’ve heard can be most painful. If you don’t answer my
questions, and answer them now, I will use the drom-kesh on you.”
Brisbane did not know if this was
possible, but he didn’t want to test it. He really didn’t see any point in
hiding things from the Grumak, anyway. Smurch seemed to believe Ternosh would
discover everything in the end, with or without Brisbane’s compliance. If he answered,
he was not sure what was going to happen to him. If he did not answer,
evidently he was to be tortured.
“So,” Ternosh said. “I shall ask you one more time. What were you
doing in the mountains?”
“I was traveling,” Brisbane said.
Ternosh sat back down. He placed
the drom-kesh in his lap. “Very good. You were traveling. What was your
destination?”
“I was searching for a temple
rumored to exist at the source of the Mystic River.” Brisbane did not see any
harm in this line of questioning. What would Ternosh care about his expedition?
Ternosh’s brow ridge went up. “A
temple? Devoted to which god?”
“Grecolus.”
Ternosh nodded. “I know of this
temple. It lies quite a bit farther up the Mystic than the place where you were
found. Were you traveling alone?”
“No,” Brisbane said
absent-mindedly. The orks knew about the lost temple? They lived in the hills
and obviously patrolled the mountains. Brisbane supposed their knowledge of the
temple was not that unusual. How long had the Clan of the Red Eye been here?
Were they here when, say, the temple was a living part of the religious life of
Grecolus? Perhaps they had attacked the temple and killed all the priests in
their conquest of other races? It could explain a lot.
“Where are your companions?”
Ternosh asked.
Now the questions were getting
dangerous, Brisbane judged.
Ternosh held up the drom-kesh.
Brisbane told the ork how he had
become separated from his friends. He did not say who his friends were or any
of the events that had led up to his fall from the mountain top.
Ternosh stood up and began to pace
in a slow, small circle around his carved chair. He tapped the drom-kesh
against his chin with contemplative regularity.
“What is your name?” Ternosh
asked.
Brisbane again so no reason to
lie. “My name is Brisbane.” To most strangers he gave the name Parkinson. It
usually avoided a lot of tiresome questions. With Ternosh, Brisbane did not
think that would be necessary.
“You must forgive me, Brisbane,”
the Grumak said. “I admit I have been delaying the inevitable. The scouting
party that found you on the river bank also discovered the massacre of the
kroganes in their lair. I believe your race calls them ettins.”
Brisbane said nothing.
“And just this morning,” the
Grumak went on, “another party returned from the west with news of a
slaughtered group of eight grugan. Orks, as you would call them, from this
clan. I am very curious as to who could be responsible for all these deaths.
Was it you? Your friends?”
Brisbane lowered his eyes and
still said nothing. He fought uselessly against the chain that held him to the
floor. They’re going to kill me, he
thought. For killing their friends.
Ettins and orks. They’re going to kill me.
Ternosh stopped pacing behind his chair.
He waited until Brisbane stopped fighting the chain and looked back up at him.
“No matter, really,” the Grumak
said. “You see, we grugan take a different look on combat than you humans do.
It is a way of life to us and, when a man dies in combat, we believe it is just
and that he deserved his death. In this way only the strongest survive.”
Brisbane still did not say
anything.
“So,” Ternosh said. “You need have
no concern for your own life because you may have killed some of our number.
Even Kras, the man you strangled to death when you were taken captive, will not
condemn you. If you are to be killed, I will do it, and it will be because you
bear the symbol of that which you cannot be.”
With that, Ternosh went quickly
over to the shelf that nearly circled the chamber, put the drom-kesh away and
took down what appeared to be a large, golden incense burner. Ternosh brought
it over and set it down in the middle of the pentagram at Brisbane’s feet. It
had a five-pointed base, each point stretching out into one of the arms of the
star. The bowl was about the size of a large cooking pot, and it too had five
sides to it, set askew to the points of the base. The curving lid rested on a
flat lip that ran all the way around the edge of the bowl and was pierced with
five star-shaped holes to allow the incense smoke to escape.
Ternosh then went back to the
shelf and took down a heavy, folded-up curtain, which he hung from some hooks
above the open portal of the chamber. Lastly, from the shelf, he obtained a small
golden bowl and a short silver knife. The Grumak returned to his carved chair.
“Now,” Ternosh said. “We shall
hear the truth of the matter.” He took the lid off the golden vessel at their
feet and Brisbane could see the bottom was filled with a fine red powder.
Ternosh said an orkish word and a spark jumped off one of his fingers and fell
into the powder. He replaced the lid as dark gray smoke began to trail out of
the bowl, and then he stood up and went over to Brisbane.
“I will require some of your blood
for the process,” the Grumak said as he brought the silver knife up and cut it
into the side of Brisbane’s neck.
The pain was hot and immediate,
but Brisbane did not flinch away as Ternosh held the small golden bowl up to
catch some of the human’s blood. When he had collected enough for his purposes,
the ork brought a sticky bandage out from one of the folds in his robe and
pressed it against Brisbane’s wound. It held itself there and the Grumak said
it would stop the bleeding.
Ternosh returned to his chair with
the bowl of Brisbane’s blood. By now, smoke was pouring out of the vents in the
golden burner. It had the smell of sharp oranges and was already beginning to
make Brisbane’s eyes water. With the way the smoke was coming out of the vents
and the curtain hung in the doorway, it would not be long before the room was
thick with it.
“What are you doing?” Brisbane
asked, his voice sounding far away from his ears.
“I am summoning my Demosk,”
Ternosh said, his voice sounding more inside Brisbane’s head than outside. “He
will sample your blood and tell me whether or not He-Who-Watches has infused it
with power.”
With that, the Grumak began a low
guttural chant in the tongue of magic Brisbane could almost understand. The
orange-scented smoke was so thick now as to obscure Ternosh’s form across from
Brisbane. He could only see glimpses of the red robes through the haze. His
eyes were crying tears in reaction to the smoke, but it was not painful, and
his head was swimming in a dizzy sea of pleasant feelings. Brisbane could no
longer feel the chain that bound him or the chair he sat upon. He felt like he
was floating free in the vapor, and he didn’t care where he might float to.
Still, the Grumak’s chanting went on.
Brisbane’s rational mind, small
and sheltered deep within his head, whispered that the incense was some kind of
drug, and both he and Ternosh were flying on it. But Brisbane did not care
about that, and did not care that his defenses were down and he was susceptible
to suggestion and delusion. All he cared about was feeling good, and in a room
full of this smoke, that was not much of a care at all.
As Ternosh continued to chant, an
eerie light began to pour out of the incense burner, five tiny beams that
widened and focused together at a spot in the smoky air about five feet
—or was it five miles?—
off the floor. Smoke poured
through this light, making it appear as if it moved along without changing
position.
Suddenly, Ternosh’s chanting
shifted its timbre and the spot of ghostly white began to take shape. Its
sphere elongated into the small head and torso of a humanoid figure. Slender
arms broke away from the body and darker features began to deepen into it. The
figure developed the pig-ears and snout of an ork, but under the heavy brow
ridge, there was no trace of any eyes whatsoever. The figure floated in the air
before Brisbane, but it only seemed to exist where the smoke was. As the vapor
moved across it, where it was thinner, the figure was dimmer, and where it was
absent, the figure was transparent.
Ternosh stopped chanting and stood
up.
The floating figure opened its
mouth and spoke. Brisbane heard it as the common tongue, but if he had had
Ternosh’s ears, he would have heard orkish. “Why have you summoned me from the
battlefield, Grumak Ternosh?”
Ternosh spoke to his Demosk in the
native tongue of the grugan. Brisbane could not understand these words but,
again, they seemed to sound more in his head than in his ears.
“I see,” The Demosk said. “The
test is a simple one. Give me the bowl.”
Ternosh handed the small bowl with
Brisbane’s blood in it to the Demosk. Brisbane’s rational mind might have asked
how a creature made of light and smoke could hold and support a golden bowl,
but that part of his mind was growing smaller with every inhalation. The Demosk
held the bowl in its small hands, raised it to its smoky lips, and drank down
its contents.
When finished, the Demosk tossed
the bowl back to Ternosh. There was no sign of Brisbane’s blood anywhere. It
was indeed as if the apparition had imbibed it.
Ternosh spoke again to the figure
in orkish.
“Grumak Ternosh, the taste is
unmistakable. The blood does contain the bane of Gruumsh One-Eye.”
The bane of Gruumsh One-Eye? What does that mean?
The smoke was beginning to make Brisbane sick to his stomach.
Ternosh stiffened and launched
into an explosive tirade against the shimmering Demosk. The figure floated
patiently before the Grumak, waiting blindly for the ork to run out of breath.
“The blood contains the bane of
Gruumsh One-Eye,” the Demosk said when Ternosh had finished. “I was summoned
and I have performed as demanded. Grumak Ternosh, do you require anything
else?”
Ternosh waved his hand angrily at
the Demosk and the figure vanished in the blink of an eye. Instantly, smoke
stopped coming out of the incense burner and the smoke already present in the
room quickly began to dissipate. Brisbane’s rationality began a long swim back
up to the surface and he began to again sense his surroundings. The effect of
the drug had left him with an upset stomach and a headache. He began to wonder
just what it had been in that smoke that had made him feel so light-headed. He
began to wonder what kind of spell Ternosh had used to summon up his Demosk. He
began to wonder just where the Demosk had been summoned from. He began to
wonder where his blood that had been in the bowl had really gone. And beneath
all these wonders, Brisbane still was bothered by what the Demosk could have
possibly meant by the bane of Gruumsh One-Eye.
Before long, all the smoke had
disappeared from the chamber and Ternosh was returning his items to the shelf
that ran around the room. Brisbane’s head was clear but he felt a little tired
and his pain and hunger had returned to him in force, seemingly worse after his
short reprieve from them.
Ternosh called out for Vrak and
moments later the ork burst into the chamber. His eyes scanned the room, his
sword in hand, indicating he had expected some kind of trouble, but he saw
everything as he had left it.
Ternosh turned to Brisbane.
“Well,” he said. “It seems your power has been verified. Personally, I cannot
fathom why He-Who-Watches would grant the power on a member of such an inferior
race, but evidently he has. I will need time to decide just what his purpose
may be in this matter. Vrak will return you to your cage until I have need of
you again.”
The Grumak turned to Vrak and
repeated his order to him in orkish. Vrak came over to Brisbane, reaffixed the
foul gag, and released him from the chain that had kept Brisbane connected to
the floor. Roughly, the ork jerked Brisbane to his feet and moved him towards
the chamber’s exit.
“Remember,” Ternosh said before
Brisbane left, “my spell of anti-magic still protects the circus wagon. Within
it, you cannot use any of the spells you might have learned.”
That’s what you think, Brisbane thought. My cantrip worked and it will be interesting
to see what else will work. Your anti-magic spell is a joke, Ternosh. It’s a
sham, and I think you know it. But I wonder if you know I know it?
Vrak pushed him roughly from the
chamber.
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