The exercise:
The
first week of October kinda slipped by before I realized it, so let us
return to The Dream Kingdom before any more days sneak past me.
Had
a nice Thanksgiving dinner with my parents this evening. We roasted a
whole chicken, did up some potatoes and yams and peas, and had some wine
to go with it. It was good to have them here for the holiday.
We've
got one more full day with them before they head for home Tuesday
morning. Not looking forward to how the boys will take their departure.
Mine:
"I
don't know how these people can wear this everyday," Dylan muttered as
he tried to scratch an unreachable itch on his back. "I'm going to lose
my mind and I've only been wearing this for ten minutes."
"They
must only wear clothes outdoors and just walk around their homes
naked," Olivia said, completely unaware of the effect her words had on
her friends. "They can't possibly wear these outfits all day."
"At
least your clothes fit properly," Josh pointed out from where he was
lying on the cart. "Did you have to steal the clothes from a walking
blimp?"
"These
are an isolated, impoverished people," Nystor reminded them. "Magic is
dangerously unreliable here. They have little to work with and do the
best they can. Their lot is not their fault."
"Whatever."
Dylan paused to try to reach the itch with his other hand. "All right.
So remind me again what the plan is? I can't concentrate with all this
itchiness going on all over the place."
"Does that mean you're going to get naked before this is all over?" Olivia asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Try
to focus, children," Nystor cut in. "Our... informant, once he was
fully recovered from his near suffocation, was quite useful. We now know
that there was an unusual burst of activity at The Lighthouse shortly
after King Brekstan was taken and that was followed by a steep increase
in security. If the king is not being held here, The Islanders are doing
a fine job of misdirection."
"Right," Dylan grunted.
"We
already knew that the only approach to The Lighthouse has to be through
the village of Sandsekt, which makes our current disguises highly
necessary - especially with the tower's meteorite foundations. We cannot
expect to be able to maintain any sort of magical disguise once we get
within a few hundred feet of its gates."
"So
we're just going to hope these will be okay?" Josh asked, patting the
blanket between himself and Nystor that covered Olivia and Dylan's
swords.
"Can't exactly go in there unarmed," Olivia countered.
"I
think that's enough bickering for now," Nystor said with a poorly
concealed sigh. "We are approaching the outskirts of the village."
3 comments:
The thanksgiving dinner sounds lovely! I didn't realise that it was that time of year already; I thought Thanksgiving was closer to November?
Right, so we have disguises that won't fall apart as we near the tower, we've got as much of a plan as these guys ever have (if Nystor turns out to be a bad guy, and I'm looking at you here Marc, then I'm not going to be entirely surprised), and we're at the village. Let's see if I can get us to the tower at least so that we can really ramp the tension up next month!
Mine:
"Du bist yunk fer hi-ratted," said a sandy-haired man. He was supposed to be speaking to Dylan, but his eyes were on Olivia as he spoke. Although it was clearly an effort for him to look away, he looked at the cart with Josh lying still, his body half-over the blanket that concealed the swords, and Nystor sitting cross-legged and straight-backed. "Ist er farter?" His hands, grey with the sticky, silty sand that seemed to be everywhere in the village, gestured at the cart.
Dylan opened his mouth, but Nystor beat him to it. "Bin doctor," he said. "Krank. Browx sneeze ow burr."
"Krank?"
"Nish wear," said Nystor. He lifted a hand, holding the palm flat and tilted it a little this way and that as though to say that something was in the balance.
"Wek von Turm." said the sandy-haired man. He pointed towards the coast away from the Lichtenturm that was casting a long shadow in the afternoon sunlight across the village.
"Tank," said Nystor.
They moved on, the cart seemingly changing how hard it was to push with every step. The village had cobbled streets, but the cobbles had a coppery sheen to them and seemed to reflect light that wasn't sunlight, and there was a constant sense of warmth about them that had nothing to do with being the in the sunlight or the shade. There were few people out; those that were stood around were carrying tridents and nets and wearing padded cotton jackets and trousers that Nystor said were armour. As you looked towards the tower there were more guards, and they all started looking back at you.
"He said you were young to be married," said Nystor when they were out of earshot. Dylan felt his face blaze with heat and knew he must be blushing. Olivia looked indignant. "Why would I marry him?" she demanded.
"They're probably asking the same question," said Nystor calmly. "Islander culture means that the women choose their husbands, usually for strength. Since Dylan isn't obviously muscular -- Dylan felt another surge of fire across his face -- they'll be suspecting that he is rich. Oh, and women can have more than one husband, this isn't one of those weird monogamous cultures you find in the deserts."
"Good," said Olivia hotly. She thought for a moment. "Wait... do they think you're all my husbands?"
"I told them I was a doctor," said Nystor. "They thought I might be your father."
"Oh. Oh!" Olivia laughed, and now it was Nystor's turn to look embarrassed. "Dad would love that! He's been bald since he was thirty, I think."
Nystor ran a hand through his grey hair and allowed a half-smile.
"Right," he said. "They're not going to let us get near the gates, which is far more organised that I've ever known them, so we're going to have to be sneaky, and hope for some good luck. Let's get to the coast and push the cart in. We'll need a little magic to keep it afloat and moving in the right direction, but hopefully not enough that we'll have trouble if we get hit by the random magic. There's a sea-gate to the tower, and I'm hoping very much that they've forgotten about it."
The coast was rocky and Nystor made sure they stayed on the yellowish limestone and away from the copper-coloured meteorite-infused rock. They pushed the cart into the waves, and Nystor stared as the cart floated like a boat on top.
"What magic is this?" he murmured.
"Aluminium," said Olivia. Everyone looked at her.
"Well, it needed to be light," she said. "I was thinking of a tank made of aluminium."
"I was thinking of a skateboard," said Dylan. "I knew you were thinking of a tank!"
"Why aluminium?" asked Josh.
"It was that or magnesium," said Olivia. "We did them in chemistry last week, remember?"
"So... how do we make it sink a bit?" asked Dylan.
"Easy," said Josh promptly. "We just need ballast!"
Thirty minutes later the cart had been imagined to have several ballast tanks underneath it and was now sitting happily below the water but still several metres off the sea bed. Nystor and Josh were still inside, enclosed in a hemisperical bubble of air that Nystor had conjured, and Dylan and Olivia were poking their heads just inside the bubble while holding on to the handles of the cart.
"This is remarkable," said Nystor. His words sounded grudgingly approving. "All the changes we have made do not need to be maintained beyond the barest trickle of thought... even a magical surge ten times greater than I've ever seen would struggle to make changes to this.
"How about the air bubble around you though?" asked Olivia.
"More dangerous," said Nystor. "But I will manage that, I have experience. You and Dylan just need to push the cart through the water now."
"Push!" said Olivia.
The cart moved more slowly through the water than it had over land, but the two teenagers were able to swim comfortably and move it forwards. The air-bubble shrank and enlarged a lot -- it never seemed to stay the same size or shape for more than ten seconds, but Nystor seemed unconcerned and kept giving them new directions to push in. Fish came and swam by, curiously nosing at feet; one bright red fish swam right into the air bubble and fell, flopping wildly, to the floor of the cart. Josh reached for it, and Nystor grabbed his hand.
"Many of these fish are poisonous to the touch," he said. "The Islanders know how to tell them apart, but the rest of us have to guess."
Josh grabbed a handful of the blanket and used that to toss the fish back into the water instead.
Finally, just as Dylan's legs were starting to burn with the effort of swimming, Nystor pointed.
"The gate in there," he said. "And is unguarded, and rusted open by the looks of things." Everyone looked, but all the others saw was the greenness of the water and some dark shapes that might be rocks. I dare not probe for life this close to the tower, so we shall have to be as discrete as possible."
Greg - American Thanksgiving is in November, Canada's is the second Monday in October, so it was a little on the early side this year.
Nystor can still go either way in my mind. We shall see :)
This is excellent. You've brought us to the gates (rather cleverly too!) with lots of great details. You've even managed to continue casting some doubt around Nystor as well.
I'm not sure what his goal would be if he is in fact a villain but... oh, hold on. Never mind. Hmm. Tempting.
We shall see what comes next month :)
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