Sailing Ether Tides

Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance

Tears Of A Clown Ch: 10

Evening was finally closing in when three of the boys slipped into the bath together, sighing with exhaustion. Dinner was almost on the table, Barry was finishing that up and would be out shortly. The veterans and Lindsey were in the house relaxing and everything was finally still.

“So, what was that? It really felt like we had extra… participants.” Perry asked quietly.

“We’ve done this a few times now… it’s never felt that easy and… collaborative.” Harry agreed.

“I’d swear I heard someone playing a tin pan ukulele… or something…” Larry mumbled. “Yo, Harry, we should build one…”

“How about a Canjolin? I still have that steel canteen prototype.” Barry offered eagerly, caught up in the stupid as he slipped into the pool with his brothers...

“Why is the pool swirling like that?” He asked, before they were flushed away into somewhere else.

#

Swirling together through an endless darkness, headed for a tiny mote of light in the distant faintly visible sky of utter madness, four brothers sighed in one person’s singular breath.

“If this is bloody Dana the dumbass Healer I’m gonna be so pissed.” Harry snapped, as they picked themselves up out of the shallow pool.

“Uhh… who are you… guys?” Larry asked, blushing bright red as he locked eyes to boobs with the voluptuous little green girl.

Three huge, shaggy monster wolves were sprawled in the warm sand, rolling around and enjoying the living hell out of themselves.

By the pool stood two people, a small, dark haired girl… or woman, it was hard to tell… Trying to place an age on her was too tough… and she smiled at them confidently, carelessly… naked. What she was… was curvaceous, slim, nudely green and quite entirely, greenly, sexily nude.

The guy was short, stocky as a fireplug, with gray-blue eyes and short blondish hair. He was older than them by a bit, maybe eighteen or twenty, once he’d been clean shaven, but was showing a few day’s worth of stubbling on his chin. Something about him was super familiar…

Each group stopped and stared at the others, as Marduk stepped between them his hands upheld as if to stop a fight.

“Who are you?” The short dude asked right back, hitting the four with a potently suspicious glare.

#

A dwarf, a goblin and three wargs are stranded on a desert island with a human child who claimed to be a god… It was an awful setup and the punchline splashed up from the depths of the pool a moment later, in the forms of four gigantic, nude men. They towered over six feet tall, even the shortest of them, muscular, young and quite naked.

Since Gandree was the only one wearing clothes, that offset the height advantage the other group enjoyed, nicely; thus, his bold question.

“Who are you?”

Less advantageous was the number of dongs jumbling about meatily in the local area.

Some distant memory jogged the back of his mind… something about thrones, and a game for them, set in a frozen land where no one wore pants, for some reason… He shook his head to dispel those random ghost thoughts.

He peeled his heavy, sodden wool coat off and draped it over Daisybelle, who shook it off immediately.

“Ohh, too heavy and cold cold!” She chittered. “Goblin girls only wear uniforms, maybe pretty sundress, or slinky one piece… Oh, I know! Miniskirt, long socks and twintails hair-do!” She chirped and chattered on about things that made the four giants blush, further eroding the tall mens’ confidence.

While that was going on, the four men found green robes somewhere and put them on, almost between eye blinks.

Now Daisybelle was the only one unclothed, which made her smile expand and become slightly predatory.

“Miss…” The youngest boy said gently, speaking sweetly to the tiny being. “You can imagine clothing in this place and it will appear, if you focus your will.”

“No no, silly boy, now I has the power!” She crowed, smiling even more widely, displaying very even, but very sharp white teeth.

Daisybelle giggled at the boys making them all blush; she was super bouncy. “Boys get stupid when milkers collide… It’s ‘jiggle physics…’ so says king papa!”

“Yeah, that tracks.” The smallest of the three boys sighed. “But, to answer your question… We’re the Ward brothers. “I’m Harry, these are; Larry, Perry and Barry. Who are you?”

“I’m Gandree Ward… This is Daisybelle and her pack…” He started, before grinding to a halt with a worried and confused look on his blocky, but somehow very familiar features. “Ward brothers?”

“Yeah, we’re part of the Ward clan… there’s a few of us around.” Larry mumbled, still dazzled by the green and bouncy boobs.

“Papa king Ghnash says his proper name is Garee Ward… that’s hard for him to say though… He has really bad teeth.” Daisybelle offered cheerfully.

“Oh dear, this is getting complicated…” Marduk muttered crossly.

#

“Some accidental resonance between the group of you…” The tiny god explained very carefully.

“Has, by some happenstance, opened a gateway into this place; which beings who are properly attuned may use to enter this realm… We currently stand outside your world.” He said to Gandree and Daisybelle.

“We also stand outside your world… at a point in time, space and ether where they almost intersect.” He told the four boys.

“Your own natural gifts have combined and created this island, this tiny domain, which lies, as a friend of mine likes to say…” Marduk smiled warmly.

“Between the buttcheeks of reality.”

Daisybelle took another trip to giggle town, disrupting the boys’ focus, just because she could; and the little god was boring.

“I’m a deity older than your species, mortal…” He scolded her firmly, when she tried her wiggle and jiggle on him. “I’ll not get befuddled by those ta-tas... I have a girlfriend!”

“oh yes, tiny godboy has a girlfriend…” She agreed readily, without halting her ‘activities’. “She lives in far off Canadia, yes?”

Frustrated, he allowed a glimmer of his divine Will to leak out. Daisy relaxed her psychological warfare, as the being became a radiant, intense source of KNOWLEDGE… Who should be listened to intently.

Just like that, she sat down at his feet and began to pay absolute attention.

“This is like when smileyface goddess kissed me back… I want this godling too!” She whispered, when Marduk paused his lengthy dissertation on etheric transit as compared to true portal travel.

Gandree was seated right beside her, receiving the ancient god child’s sacred tutelage with wide eyed awe.

#

“Huh, watching Contracts form… I can see them taking shape and almost get a glimpse of the sacred geometry and divine logic.. pretty interesting…” Harry muttered, understating things super intensely.

“Oh no, boys…” Thirp sang from behind them, as she descended from nowhere on a long silver dropline. She landed on her four spider legs and hugged the group all together. “I’ve been waiting to see you all… this is very exciting. Though, to come here in this way… it must be quite startling to your companions.”

“Oh?” Harry asked nervously, while pretending he didn’t notice how desperate Thirp was to distract him from observing the divine Contracts slowly forming on the beach. “Tell me more…” He feigned interest, in the interest of continuing to observe, when he could.

“Oh yes, your bodies are floating around empty, awaiting your return. I gather that mortals find the effect… distressing.” Thirp shushed him before he could ask any more.

“Lord Marduk is almost finished with those two. This is quite a coup for him. It is rare for a god to slip through the veil and find worshippers in an untenanted mortal realm… ”

She sighed happily as her friend expanded his influence, while contemplating her own possibilities with those two.

#

“...In summation; I’d intended to simply bore you back into mortal sleep, with a long ass, dusty and dull discussion of super advanced magical theory… Egg on my face; you kids are delightful! Now, my new followers; pop off back where you belong… Before some nosey spider goddess comes sniffing around my garden patch.”

He addressed the last part to Thirp as well, who chittered at him with venomous good humor.

“I think perhaps these mortals might welcome my grace… but not tonight.” She turned her beautiful arachnid face to the new mortals and bobbed a spidery bow.

“I have seen your lights, you may call to me, if you wish. I am Thirp, She Who Spins in the Void…” She whispered softly. “Your world has no native gods, or perhaps it no longer possesses gods of its own. In any case, I would welcome either, or both of you, as well.”

“Spinner in voids, spider goddess is spooky and mysterious! I would hear your voice…” Daisy yawned sleepily.

Thirp turned back to Marduk and sighed. “I begged my master for a less ominous and… frankly, ‘chuni’ title, but he took cruel amusement in my distress.”

“I’m sorry Thirp, but please, not in front of the mortals…” The golden deity muttered. “You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends!”

Marduk turned back to the gathered people and waved bye-bye with a smile on his face that was positively beaming.

“Off you go, back into your bodies. You will meet again and can learn more… later. We have god stuff to do! Important god stuff!”

He waved at the rapidly fading mortals, shouting at the goblin and dwarf as they vanished. “And make me a ritual offering of honeyed dumplings with pistachios!”

#

“And mint tea with cookies…” A faint, childlike voice echoed in the distance as Daisybelle, Gandree and the three wargs awoke… In the pool, all tangled together at the bottom and somehow, not drowning.

They all surged to the surface together, hurling water all around; they fell scattered across the flagstones surrounding the bath. All together they began coughing up a huge volume of a silvery, viscous slime that tasted only faintly of salt and left their lungs without any troubling after effects… It was just super disgusting.

Even the Wargs found it gross; and they often enjoyed a nice ripe carcass in some really weird ways.

“Ohh… wow..” Daisybelle gasped. “Bathings with the boy are pretty intense. Next time, scrubs my back for me.”

#

“Etheric slime… a natural byproduct of a living soul contacting or passing through the ether.” Harry gagged into a sample container, inscribed and etched with preservative spells.

“You guys never paid attention in magic theory class… Now everybody, puke in my magic bucket.”

*A few intense and deeply unpleasant minutes later:*

The four lads bustled into their little cottage on the mountainside, chattering and discussing their misadventure, surprising the veterans and Lindsey, for whom no discernable time had passed.

“Wait… Dream journey? Meeting gods in person? That’s… possible? It wasn’t just a dream?” Lindsey stammered as she recalled her vivid dream of riding across the endless meadow and meeting radiant, fascinating beings there.

“Oh yeah, it’s super weird…” Barry mumbled awkwardly.

#

“Seriously, we can do some remedial classes and get you up to scratch…” Harry was insisting. While he stowed his buckets of magic slime away in the house’s basement. “It feels like I have to do all the serious spellcraft…”

“But, we have you…” Perry muttered.

“How is that a good answer?” Harry demanded of his three brothers.

They all pressed in on him leaning and looming over the smaller boy. “Because…” They all spoke in chorus, hesitating for a long moment, before affecting a deep, gravely tone; they all three growled in unison:

“You’re a wizard, Harry…”

“If the Clownshoes fit, gotta wear ‘em… I guess.” Harry sighed with a sad smile.

#

Above a narrow valley, riven from the stony mountains long ago and rich with living, growing things, Fleshsculptor looked down and wondered. A human town seemed to be thriving below the necropolis on the plateau, above the small city. Men, women and it seemed, even beastkin moved about in the daylight unafraid. That much could be seen, even from her warcamp on the valley rim.

Somehow a lich lord had arisen here… without leaving a barren, lifeless pustule of decay behind on the land. Her many tearful and unpleasant ‘smiles’ declared her confidence in her encamped army of the damned: They were more than enough for any lich or crypt lord…

She’d sent a flurry of undead spies down there, and almost as many fleshbound constructs. So much material lost and now just scattered, empty dust. She almost wept for the waste, as the spirits bound in her works fled into the never with a long, longering, manifold gasp of pleasure that echoed through her severed bonds with their no-longer tortured souls.

Fleshsculptor waited impatiently for her eyes to return and report… The ensorceled zombie bats had simply fallen down entirely dead, as had all of her fleshbound, reanimated agents. Now she was forced to await an actual half living, human slave... The things a trans dimensional Necro-theurge had to endure in the name of research.

The human’s brain had been removed alive and placed in a sealed jar of her secret necromantic liquor, as part of her regular work for the Pontiff that ruled the mortal cattle…

The endless, soul destroying pain of an entire, bare human nervous system being submerged in alcohol and her proprietary blend of occult preservatives, obscene nutrients and cursed elixirs was a delight to the senses.

slithering through the soul jar arrays below the cathedral always soothed her essence, mortal suffering had such a delightfully tonic effect on her necromantic energies and immortal core.

Those curse constructs powered all the various magical workings needed to run a functioning theocracy, complete with phony miracles… and left an excellent supply of empty, living bodies to use.

It had taken centuries to fully supplant the feeble gods of this liminal realm; even weakened as they were, now just when things were going so well…

This world existed across multiple, fragmented realms, touching so many other worlds; even some that were largely closed and sealed… it was a priceless resource. Once entirely in the grasp of the Pontiff, a swathe of untapped worlds would be opened before the glorious marching armies of the priest kings, ready to plunder their mortal flesh and souls...

The harvest was just starting to ripen, as the mortals shoved and jostled eagerly, competing with one another to be the next to leap into the promised paradise their priest lords exhorted them to seek every day from their pulpits, in every city and town… save this one.

With all other information gathering methods stymied, it all came down to the half-living slaves…

Tuck a living child’s brain into the empty skull of a brain donor, along with a good slab of dog brain; and she had a reasonably smart, relatively obedient servant that could pass as a cursed or befuddled human.

Since only the brains of the very young would do, the process left a bit of tender child flesh to play with, that was always nice in these times of scarcity.

She’d sent a dozen of those nearly entirely alive servants down there, in a last ditch attempt to gain some information. She needed something before plunging in with her marvelous, custom crafted body of many souls.

Finally one of her slaves was slowly trudging back up the slope… She need only consume those incomplete brains and sift out the sensory…

“Hello, demon filth.” Her mindless, Will-less slave sneered in the raw, ragged voice of a man who had seen far too much.

“You wanted to meet me… Now you get your wish, though we won’t be conversing long… or really at all.”

The half-living thing’s jaw flapped down bonelessly, as he vomited a terrible hurricane of fast flying, tiny, jet black wasps into the air.

The nameless, now cleanly dead man, slowly sank to the earth with a grateful little sigh, as the invader swarmed and attacked Fleshsculptor’s beautiful, hideous body of wailing, tormented souls.

Every insect sting broke a permanent magical bond, severing that which could not be cut; in their legions they jabbed her, dissolving the insoluble and releasing those who were doomed to serve forever…

Her screams began quickly and lasted long into the night.

The wasps quickly spread through her small army of the dead, undead and nearly dead, flying too fast for lifeless meat to escape; bringing lasting peace and turning the encampment into a silent, hallowed graveyard on a hill.

In the end only one revenant walked slowly back down the valley, as sunset brought life and lights to the town of living men and women dwelling below.

#

Gabriella Rex, empress of the empire of Light sat back in her carriage and shuddered. “I feel unease, Jocomo… something stirs; I can feel it in the web of bonds we share, my beloved whispers… and yours.” She sighed and gazed out the window.

Strung through her very soul, spun out with dark magic, evil intent and no care for the people whose lives they’d toyed with; a cult of demon summoning madmen had created an empire of lies over centuries. Through deceit, demon Contracts, torture, murder and endless indoctrination of her citizens, the hidden cult had created aa shadow government, hidden behind a parade of child empresses who invariably died before their majority.

The possessed and demon haunted priests of Craft, War and Order had ruled in truth, wielding her people as a tool to expand their influence. They directed every aspect of government from behind the helpless empress, ruling an abomi-nation, to serve their hidden lord.

To sustain their master, they had crafted a spellwrought throne, to steal the very life force of the empress and her bond sworn imperial Whispers, her secret police, guardians and servants.

Gabbriellea’s mad, broken brother from another world had unwound those spells, leaving the Empress wielding power in her own hands, and her Whispers free to choose to serve her or go their own ways. All had stayed in their posts, enspelled in bonds of loyalty and love for their sweet, slightly silly empress of Light.

Wherever she was, wherever they were, she could feel each of her two hundred and fifty whispers, as a faint warmth and a slim, sweetly singing cord of magic.

“This feeling is faint and distant, an echo from far away… or a distorted reflection in warped glass.”

“Fear not, empress of my heart… your witch friend is ‘on the case’...” He sighed. “I really dislike relying on him, but he is terribly reliable.”

#

“Don’t ask me, I’m all messed up, my shit’s super unreliable.” Gary complained over his hideous troll foot ritual. “According to this, the rest of this turd burglar is still alive and well… and completely undetectable.”

He grumbled and broke his ritual with a stroke of a wand made from a possessed sea urchin spine. He sighed as he picked up the awful foot.

“He can totally feel this thing still, wherever the hell he’s hiding… poor bastard.”

“Really, it has some continuing connection? Is that why the foot you hold still lives?” Sir Frank Pangbourne asked quietly, from behind his notepad.

“Mostly, my lovely wife hexed it on the spot to firm up the connection… She’s a dab hand at that kind of thing.” The madman sighed happily, as he strolled over and carefully fitted the hideous foot into a wooden clamp on a modified spinning wheel.

He tied a string to a brass ring driven through a big, clawed toenail, hooked to the device’s drive treadle.

He gave the wheel a spin and the feathers attached all around the wheel began tickling the sole of the troll’s foot, which made its toes thrash, which drove the spinning wheel on.

“The best part, this thing’s entirely mundane, humane and cruelty free…” He lied merrily.

“Now we wait for him to come for his foot.”

“Fascinating…” The knight murmured, while sketching the torture device.

#

He couldn’t even remember his name anymore… so angry, so tired… so ticklish… Ghost foot had stopped for a while… but the tickles came back… giggling troll gets no meat… sneaky troll eats… giggling troll hungry…

Slowly, he began dragging himself back up the mountain, he needed his foot back; needed to go back through the darkness and into the other place that was like this one, where his foot was.

#

Gandree wandered around in the house he’d always seen in his dreams… almost anyway. He spent some time poking in cupboards, snooping and generally enjoying himself. It was not even close to the grand, light and airy home he saw in those fond, hazy dreams. He was getting far closer than his first abortive attempts in his hidden vale had been.

Those small huts had been fragile and very temporary, leaving him exhausted for hours after. Since leaving the hold he felt… stronger, more confident in his growing gifts.

His bond with Joy had profoundly deepened on his twentieth birthday’s dawn, flooding him with energy and a sense of being more complete.

Daisybelle was passed out in the big upstairs bed with one of her huge mutts,while Petunia and Nightshade patrolled the area; leaving him alone to watch the sun come up… for the first time really. He’d been distracted by his new friend’s sudden arrival on his first dawn.

It was an impressive thing to see, driving the darkness back and revealing a different kind of beauty among the rugged hills and valleys.

By night, the mountains were still, nearly silent and cold, under the dark velvet sky, spangled with innumerable stars. The world breathed more slowly and waited for the dawn, when life and light would pour down in the shady dells and mist shrouded valleys.

His dream encounter with the tiny blonde god had lit a firestorm of new ideas inside him… perhaps his musings on the beauty of nature were part of that as well. He felt like he needed more time to decide what to do about the flurry of new feelings and thoughts lurking in the corners of his mind.

#

A faint flicker of motion caught Nightshade’s eye, as something moved on the hillside, below the two prowling wargs. Something ungainly and large spidered across a rock face, headed for a wide, shadowed cleft, lower on the mountainside; accompanied by the faint sound of a deranged, furious giggle.

They’d given the broad, low cavern plenty of distance, after setting up in a clearing a half mile away, since an inexplicable, charnel reek percolated out of the depths when the wind was wrong.

While Nightshade watched the troll scrabble up the steep and broken mountainside, tail wagging slowly in frustration; Jasmine dashed back to warn the others of danger.

#

“Should we really be hunting this thing?” Gandree asked softly.

“I hunt, you wait here and don’t get in the way. “Or maybe waits till it hunts us again? We clomp it now. King papa will praise me for bringing him its skin and bones.” She muttered fiercely. “And Juniella’s lost womp.” She snarled at the end.

“Juniella?” Gandree whispered.

“Troll ate her… now I take him and my doggies will eat him up.” She grinned her bright, sharp toothed smile in the dark. “Justice.”

“You can’t be serious…” He whispered. “Even with just one foot…”

She pulled her oval hoop drum from Nightshade’s capacious ruff and held it out for him to see. The drum’s hoop and braces were made of a pale white substance, tinted faintly yellow, like old ivory or… Bone.

Two eye sockets and a nasal cavity stared out from the domeless, skin topped hoop of a very large creature’s skull.

“Ogre skull, troll bones and skin…” Daisybelle announced proudly. “King papa rewards the skilled huntresses with noisy, fun things. I have him make me a flute from this one’s legbones… bass flute!” She chittered her teeth eagerly at him.

“I’m coming along…” He grumbled angrily. “Madness.”

They stalked through the night, carefully stopping to test the wind circle back and scout forward before moving on. Trolls were famously stupid, but occasionally they would spring a canny surprise on cocky hunters…

From behind a boulder, several yards up a narrow, rocky climb, an awful, wicked giggle sounded.

Daisybelled sighed and nodded to Gandree, indicating that he, Nightshade and Jasmine should continue on the path, as she and Petunia slipped into the scattered woodland glades on the mountainside.

He watched her slowly circle around, as he laboriously made his way up the rocky goat path, with one eye on that softly giggling boulder.

#

He could smell them just down the slope, climbing up up, toward his hungry teeth. He grinned and stifled his tickly-gigglys and waited til the time was right. Smushed by boulder would be easy to eat…

“So smart…” He congratulated himself so softly it was inaudible, past his soft giggle.

#