Sailing Ether Tides

Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance

Mirror, Mirror Ch: 12

Marduk was lecturing a select group of interested deities and spirits, in the private garden under the Strange, High House in the Mist; suggesting some wildly innovative ideas.

“By touching just one mortal in this empty, fractional, liminal, gateway world, I’ve glimpsed a stunning new vista… This halfreal space we occupy here and one or two others I am aware of are uniquely able to allow us to address mortals directly, in their conscious state and with mortal language.” He ran his eyes over his class, satisfied that they were attentive.

“I am now a pan-dimensional deity, if only in a small way. The increase in perspective is stunning… I suggest that not only our world was subject to invasion and encroachment by outside forces. I put it to you that we are still under threat of invasion by an active cabal of outsider dickweeds with a taste for cruelty.”

He let the gathered divines bustle and whisper that over for a while.

“That means these jerks are still knocking at the doors to our realm, and sneaking in through open windows where they can.”

The hubbub from that one almost became a ruckus.

“Now I shall tell you a great secret, The persistent rumors that immortal lights have been continuing to wink out is true.” He enjoyed the chaos after that nugget dropped; and it went on a while.

“Yes, the thing so many of the others feared and sought to stamp out has spread to a mortal realm between realities, while remaining deeply rooted to our own home.” He cackled a little as a few deities blanched.

“Several dozen minor immortals who have been making trouble and setting themselves up as gods have gone screaming into the place only mortals know. They were all the same kind of invading, mortal murdering twerps that my favored cultist was eradicating, before the pantheon at large got so… interested in him.”

Marduk let that marinate for a while, as Eponna, Thirp and a few dryads circulated in the crowd. Eventually he judged the time was right and pounced.

“Now, you get that rarest of things, a second chance. You can choose, will we repeat the mistakes of the past, or try something new, for once in our eternities? You may bury your head in the clouds and ignore the mortals, as we have for so long… that worked out poorly for everyone. Or you can interfere, in cowardly panic; perhaps you might actually manage to destroy more of yourselves… That would be interesting at least.” He smiled at them, a coldly furious smile that no one was a big fan of among the gathered divinities.

“My friends and I plan to infiltrate this liminal world, plant our cults in the poor mortals trapped there and bring the whole plot out into the light… This is your invitation to the party. Be there or be square.” He laughed with delight at something that only he saw… “It’s a project an old friend of mine has been working on for some few mortal years already. He really is furious.”

#

“Those unContracted living mortals who flee, will be allowed to escape!” The Necromancer shouted into the legion of cultists and their terrified mob of peasant conscripts.

“You living mortals who wish to be released from your demon Contracts, lay down your arms and submit. You will be unshackled and left free and alive on this field.”

A long, dreadful silence unfurled, as the shadowy, eerie army of the dead lingered in the forest, facing the army of Jonasburg, the city of wine and song. The conscripts swirled and shifted restively, as whip cracks and screams rang out in the gathering dusk.

“So be it.” The tall figure on a huge palanquin borne by four skeletal ogres shouted impossibly loud, louder than any mortal could; his voice, with its slightly musical accent rolled across the fields and rebounded from the city walls.

“Bring forth my Marshal… Marshal Stacks!” He called, as a massive form lumbered forward.

The massive, haunted carapace of a stag beetle, the shell filled with boiling shadow lumbered forward, dragging a truly enormous wagon behind.

It turned broadside to the gathered army of men and stopped, presenting an array of shining metal disks, stretched hides wrought with arcane runes and odd metal cones and horns to the tremulous men at arms. In the center a massive bass drum bore the painted image of a wide smiling man with one huge gold tooth.

“Those who are about to rock, we salute you.” He declared, as an awful noise began behind him… and poured out terribly loud from the giant soundwagon of occult witchcraft.

#

Music spread out across the army and into the town, sweet, seductive, mellow music, at a volume that could not be ignored.

One shadow, holding a curly horn of shadowstuff stood at the fore, blowing ‘Feels So Good’ out across the dance battle unfolding on the plains below the city. The officers halted mid command, puzzled and more than a little concerned… those with supernatural senses could feel… something hidden, primal… instinctive moving in their army. The music shifted, even as their host began to move and sway in time.

A chorus of male voices began to sing, softly at first, then with greater volume.

…I was slippin' into darkness,

When they took, when they took my friend away!

You know he loves to drink good whiskey!

Wo ho ho ho

While laughing at the moon!

Slippin' into darkness!

Take my mind beyond the dreams,

I was slippin' into darkness!

First squadron was still trying to discern their lord’s order over the noise, when the peasant conscripts acted. They began to sway and stomp, popping their hips on the beat and stomping at the elite warriors behind them.

“Corporal Janus… did we just get… served?” He asked carefully.

“Yes sir, major Duncan… Pretty badly too. There’s a couple lads out there with serious moves.” Janus answered, shaken by the press of battle.

“Counter attack on the next changeup, I want to see bodies hit the floor…” He paused, listening. “Is that a rumba? Rally the men, I’m taking the field.”

It got more confusing from there, as the people of the city streamed out en masse, shaking their bottoms, invading the pitch, as it were.

While the citizens of Joansberg, or Jannburg, whatever, while they were busy moving their booties, slaves to the dance, his legion was scouring the city, seeking his true prey.

La Luna would manage what remained here, under the light of the Quietus Moon, within the spell of his dance… no curse or geas could last. Demonic Contracts, hidden spells and unclean hexes would drift away, when he pulled his shadow back from the moon.

#

Harry sent the little clay bird winging back down the valley to the sweet strains of ‘The Man Who Shot The Windmill’… Just cause he liked the melody and the title was silly.

“That always makes him laugh…” Barry murmured from the kitchen, where he was making late night snacks. “When you drag something obscure out of our memories.”

“Is it strange?” Lindsey asked gently, leaning over the counter to speak to the two boys alone. “Sharing so many of your early memories… of that other world?”

“It’s super strange, I’m sure.” Harry whispered back. “But it’s who we are. Little of what we remember of the other world is useful or even makes sense, much of the time.” He shrugged and smiled.

“We get bits and pieces, flickers of something called ‘pop culture’ and the rest is mostly just music.” Barry sighed, as bowls of falafel hummus and baba ghanouj landed among baskets of fresh naan.

“And weirdly… food. That’s probably because we’re always hungry.”

#

“There’s something ravenous in those hills…” Dannyl murmured quietly as they rode. “Something desperate and restrained…”

“Sasha feels it too… It’s new, or at least it’s newly awakened.” Kermal agreed from the back of the group, where he was riding trail.

“It’s not hungry, not really… that’s spiritual hunger, the draw of the beyond on souls restrained.” Rio muttered angrily. “So many souls, trapped in…” He shrugged, which did little in the darkness they rode through.

Head and tail lights swept up the valley in the late evening dark, flashing by too quickly for most of the farm dogs to even bark at them. A group of lightly armored warriors flew up the dark, tree lined road, silent and swift headed for the northern, upper valley side, where no men yet lived.

Among the trees, craggy boulders and riven slabs of tilted granite began to appear, as they rode higher up the valley side. They slowed as the party diverged onto a mining road, headed for a long column of smoke and steam, glimmering faintly under the moons’ light.

A half hour after full darkness, the team rolled into a clearing below a crag, tucked among the pines on the shoulder of the mountain; right into their home in miniature.

“I like what you’ve done with the place.” Amy called, as she unbuckled her helmet and deactivated her bike’s magical glowstone lights. “It feels… more substantial, more present.”

“We had a bit of a breakthrough. Get settled and we’ll talk about it.” Harry yawned mightily. “We drove off… some fraction of a troll a couple hours ago. It’s in no condition to be a threat to anything that belongs in these hills.”

#

The necromancer’s shadow wights found them, found them all… Hiding in concealed and warded ritual sites, ancient, forgotten temples to unremembered gods; corrupted and re-used for foul things.

He found them under flesh traders houses and behind the desks at government offices… Men and women with foreign souls squatting in bodies without true minds.

Hidden in the open, living as aristocrats, merchants and crime bosses, judges and priests, the true masters of the town were unclean constructs of undeath and outsider influence.

He needn’t have bothered searching the poorer quarters, they were always found among luxuries and the trappings of wealth. They begged, blubbered, threatened and bullied, but like the souls of those they were impersonating, they were dragged out, leaving clean, empty corpses behind to join his ever swelling host.

#

At dawn the army of the dead was gone, only the bodies of the populace remained, scattered across the wide fields in a tangled, sprawling harvest of unmoving flesh.

Two hundred men and women died in the sack of the town, more or less. Their animating spirits were dragged screaming into the void by shadow wights with clawed hands and wide gaping, hungry mouths, even while the citizens of the town were dancing to wild, frenetic music, in the thrall of the dead.

Starlight’s familiar glow slowly strengthened over the town, as shadows pulled back from the glimmering, silvery sickle of a crescent moon, cratered and pocked into the image of a grinning humanoid skull inside the wicked sharp curve.

Black motes whirled and swirled above the army, before darting into the mountains to the north with a silent rush of immaterial wings, where they vanished among the crags.

“Gotta do something about that, too…” The exhausted Necromancer gasped, laying back on his palanquin, as a skeleton brought him a flask of watered wine. His army marched on, while the necromancer rested leaving chaos in its wake.

“I shouldn’t have tried for the whole town… too much, too many old and sick people…” The skeleton didn’t answer, naturally, no tongue, or brain…

Major Duncan Kline rolled over and sat up with a groan… confused, sore and exhausted by a barely remembered night of revelry and dance under the… moon? He looked to the sky, as it slowly faded to pale blue under dawn’s approach. There it was, hiding, sliding along under the stars, just slipping away across the sky to hide among the mountains…

The rest of the people were stirring, babies and children began to cry, as they awoke under a lightening sky, where they’d collapsed on the grainfields around town when they couldn’t dance any more.

#

“What you have done violates sacred tradition!” Dana wailed at Marduk, jabbing her good pointer finger at the small deity in accusation.

“Does it though?” He asked with a sweet smile on his lips. A smile that looked, to blessed Dana, Healer of wounds; more like the cruel jaws of a hidden trap snapping closed on a hapless fool.

“Beast has touched every world, every domain and every flicker of animate life in all the vastness of the… Well, everything. Is he not a member of this, and also so many other pantheons?”

He fluttered his eyelashes at her, fanning the flames of her anger.

“It was in fact, Sweet lady Joy herself who was first called to a faithful soul, lost on that fractal, fragmented domain. Shall you call her to account?” He sighed at the gathered conclave of immortals, gathered by the standing stones.

“Doing nothing is an option… so far it hasn’t worked out for any of us, but by all means, carry on… as I shall carry on, in my own way. Lady Thirp, myself and a few others have followers calling to us there, we will answer and try to shed a little light; before the place can be consumed by darkness.”

With a shrug of his narrow shoulders and a toss of divine curls, he strolled away from the gathering, calling out over his shoulder:

“You ill served my friends once, to your sorrow… and mine. I’ll not allow it to happen again.”

#

At dawn, Shai prodded her poor, befuddled husband awake and shoved him into clothes despite his clumsy, half wasted attempts to ‘help’.

“...jello world…”

“I might have got him too good last night…” Kree mumbled awkwardly from behind his ear. “He didn’t befoul himself or fall down in the yard, though!”

“Aye, honeybee, ye did well. He just hae not recovered from foolishly challenging a goddess tae a fistfight.” She swatted his cheeks a few times, rousing him enough for the scent of fresh coffee, eggs and bacon to do the rest.

“Oh… so hungry!” He gasped over the rim of his mug. “Feed me, woman! The master of the house hungers!”

“Oh, it’s a silly day.” Liam said, as he sat down at the table, dressed as a common Adventurer, in light leathers. “How long until he can think straight?”

“Food, coffee, a bit of music, some exercise… another bath…” Tallum rumbled, as he shoved his goofy brother back down onto his bench with gentle hands. “He’ll be sane around third bell.”

The giant turned from the count, to address his charge. “No Gary, breakfast first, then you can play with your new guitar.”

“Aww…” The befuddled man mumbled. “You’re mean.”

He continued to whine and complain, while also devouring more food than should have been possible for one person. A half hour later, he was propped up on a stool, holding a yellow slab of vaguely familiar guitar.

“Teleblaster™…” He burbled merrily as he tuned up. “I made one before. I lost it when Amy was born, dreamed about it a few nights ago, so I made a new one…”

He strummed the thing and smiled as a rich, slightly metallic cry split the morning.

“Nae too much, lad, yer fingers hae healed, but I’d not see thee bloodied again.” Shai warned from behind her violin, lifting the music higher with her own instrument and her sweet, chiming bells.

“All right, I’m in.” Count Liam sighed, as his own guitar slipped into view from their shared storage gift.

#

Tawny listened to the music, floating up from the in, down by the lake and sighed, remembering the days when she could truly call that place home.

The fall of War, Order and Craft had plunged the world into chaos on the night of the Madman’s moon… chaos that threatened to engulf the remaining gods and their clerics. Only Joy, Healer, Beast and the Spirits Air, Earth, Water, Fire and Light kept the panicked world and its peoples from descending into an age of darkness.

Shai had been a rock of stability, even in her grief; a solid point to anchor herself to, while the world went mad around them.

Amy, Wilf, Rio, and then the four triplets had been vital, the bedrock that kept Shai so firmly fixed on the shady banks of the river Belen, just across the bridge from Wheatford town.

The inn had been her true home for those years, until Gary returned, cursed, broken and unclean in the sight of her goddess. No amulets, sutras or cleansing rituals could allow her to stand his presence, only dogged stubbornness and friendship had kept her coming back, despite the discomfort.

Now it was a forbidden place, the thought of going down there was uncomfortable, jarring and deeply unpleasant. Dana was no help at all… The goddess seemed even more agitated than before… whatever was going on, got worse.

“Goblins, trolls, redcaps, dungeons and giant bugs…” She sighed to the geraniums potted on the balcony. “This seems familiar… like a distorted reflection in a warped glass…”

The humble plants had no advice for the countess, neither on her mortal problems, nor the divine mysteries.

#

Harry was lecturing at breakfast, again. “...So a void maw will allow mortals to pass from one realm of reality to another, but at great risk and with great discomfort.” He announced carefully. “Only sentients can pass through unchanged, or at least, only slightly changed. Non sentient creatures always emerge tainted with some monstrous traits and begin ‘monstering up’ within a few days or weeks.”

Lindsey was taking notes, while Barry was taking note of how her shoulder length, lustrous brown hair draped over her smooth, lightly tanned throat.

Dannyl took up the discussion, as Harry handed him the bronze tipped pointer stick and waved him toward the chalkboard. “This troll obviously knows where another entrance is, somewhere in these mountains… We need to find it and secure it against further incursions into this world.”

He paused to sketch a very startlingly accurate depiction of a typical troll, in a few lines of chalk. He considered for a moment, then added a few stink lines and erased one foot.

“We’ll track him, find the entrance and hopefully snuff him or trap him where he belongs, on the other side.”

“Do you think this is another dungeon? Or part of the same one?” Becky asked, from behind her own notepad.

“Yes and no…” I’ve been in a few dungeons, they are always a flipside, strangely similar reflection of the world. If you go into any dungeon, it can often be superficially the same place, with reversed directions…” He explained, poorly.

“Imagine entering a cave, getting turned around in the dark and re emerging from the same entrance, but on another world that is similar.” He waited a moment for that pinch of leaves to steep in their minds. “With all different people, animals, wildlife, even their own civilizations.”

“Wild… so why don’t people travel to other worlds?” Larry asked, sounding super stoked.

“Because most of them suck. Our world, according to people I trust, is pretty isolated and largely sealed off. The void maws that lead here don’t directly connect to the larger multi… whatever. They dump out into a fractional world, infested with monsters and dangerous beasts.”

“So this might be just another entrance into the same ‘fractional world’ but just at a different spot?” Harry asked.

“Maybe or maybe a sub realm of that world that also connects here…” He stopped for a moment to consider, before continuing.

“By fractional world I mean just that, multiple isolated instances of say, these three or four valleys, but sealed off from each other, existing in largely the same space and, or time; but all different and interconnected with this world at different points.”

He plucked a small, faceted gem from his pocket.

“This is just a shiny piece of quartz crystal, there’s heaps of them everywhere in these mountains, each one is unique, each one has unique facets and shines or reflects in its own way, but they are essentially the same. Just as each facet on each of them is also individual and distinct.”

He smiled warmly at the kids. “If you ever go into one, remember to exit the same way, or you might get lost in the eternal maze between worlds.”

“Unless you have a spirit guide.” Amy offered helpfully, while petting Shiro. “Wait, wouldn’t any bond with the god of Beasts or his retainers work too?”

“I was trying to be all mysterious and ominous Ames…” The small, ginger death cultist whined merrily.

“The only caveats are actual demons, ghosts and spirits; they cannot pass, even if they are haunting or possessing a person. Only a psychopomp can allow ghosts to cross the veil and generally, in one direction only, toward the Devourer of Souls.”

“Oh, nicely ominous…” Ward agreed as he stepped out of the shadows.

“That is, I think, a part of our problem here. The world beyond this portal has humans… and others living and dying, for so many generations. All without a proper death god, to allow those souls exit into the wider ether and back into the eternal cycle. Souls enter, in the usual moist and squishy mortal way, but cannot escape.”

He smiled at them, dazzling poor Lindsey who was caught quite flat footed. “They are building up and pressuring the veil enlarging these openings… Well, who is this?”

His regard fell on the girl, sending her to the floor in a dead faint. “You gotta warn me when there’s normies in the house, kids…”

#

Lindsey woke with her head on Amy’s lap, while Maya rubbed her feet, the three of them stretched out on a sofa by the fireplace. “That was uncle Ward… You’ll get used to him, just relax. I was hoping you’d meet some dryads and maybe Axio before him, but oh well.”

“He’s not… not mortal.” She gasped softly.

“Nope, he’s the god of Death and Vengeance.” Amy answered gently. “He’s pretty cool. Just think of him as my dad’s sane twin brother.”

“Hey! Golden Figs too, Amy!” The tall man who looked like a handsome, charming, witty and suave Gary Ward called from the kitchen.

“Yes, uncle.” She sighed at the strange man. “He’s the eternal dryad of the Golden Fig as well.”

“I thought all dryads were female…” Lindsey whispered.

“He’s the only boy…and the lady dryads all think the sun rises and sets on his…” She stopped herself and shuddered. “He’s super smug about it, don’t ask.”

“Wait… do you mean…?” Lindsey began, only to be violently shushed by Becky, Maya and Amy.

“What they mean is that I am a succulent feast, shared by the darling deciduous damsels, those comely conifers, all my perennial precious pretties…” He began a recitation that went on for a while.

“...who may be tall or small, slender or stout, broadleaf or narrow, are comely in my sight and blessed by the bountiful light of my love…”

“I tried to warn you…” Amy sighed. “Come on, the pool is going to be full of lady bugs tonight and you don’t wanna see that.”

“Ladybugs? Those pretty red shelled beetles?” Lindsey asked as she was dragged off to Amy’s gingerbread cottage over by the pine forest edge.

“No, I mean ladies who are really the insect forms of the local dryad species. They always show up when he gets like this.” She whispered. “Don’t look out the windows at the pool tonight, it gets pretty…”

“That big weird guy is going to be having an orgy with a bunch of forest spirits in the bath, all night.” Maya interrupted. “Watching them get after it is… instructive, but I don’t recommend it.”

“O-Orgy?” She stammered.

“None of them are actual, physical beings the way we are…” Becky interrupted Maya’s interruption. “But when they manifest in human form, they take on some of our attributes… They are spiritual beings of life, growth and renewal.”

“Who wants first ride on my magic lap!?” Ward demanded joyously from the pool, as Becky’s door closed behind them, cutting off a chorus of feminine approval.

#