christopherhoward - 03/12/2003 22:25:41
Hello, folks. As I mentioned in another thread, some
time ago I wrote a large portion of the book "Keys to the
Kingdom." It looks highly unlikely that this particular
book will ever see the light of day, so I am posting the
opening short story here for your amusement.
Please note that I never signed a contract for this work
and never received the traditional "kill fee" for a
cancelled book, nor have I signed a non-disclosure
form, so this is post is solely at my discretion. My
posting this story should in no way be taken as a
commentary on the ultimate fate of Changeling as a
game (simply put, I don't know what WW is planning
long-term here).
The story is somewhat long (almost 4,000) so it will
take multiple postings. It is an extension of a much
shorter piece that I wrote for Denizens, cut for space,
and then posted here about two or three years ago. I
hope you enjoy it.
Sincerely,
Christopher Howard
Keys to the Kingdom
Little fellow, you're amusing
Stop before you end by losing
Your shirt:
Run along to mother, Gus,
Those who interfere with us
Get hurt.
Honest virtue, old wives prattle,
Always wins the final battle.
Dear, Dear!
Life's exactly what it looks,
Love may triumph in the books,
Not here.
We're not joking, we assure you:
Those who rode this way before you
Died hard.
What? Still spoiling for a fight?
Well, you've asked for it all right:
On guard!
Always hopeful, aren't you? Don't be.
Night is falling and it won't be
Long now:
You will never see the dawn,
You will wish you'd not been born.
And how!
The Triumph Casque
"Danforth" and "Sugar-Lips." What kind of names were
those for redcaps? Danforth was a toady little fart and
didn't say much, for which Cyrrax was grateful. Sugar-
Lips (so named because she poured piles of sugar on
everything she ate) was apparently damming it up with
that kiss-ass Viktor back at Harroth’s place. She had
winked at Cyrrax earlier, but he didn’t like redcaps no-
how and wasn’t about to sweat up the straw with one of
them. The redcaps with whom Cyrrax was familiar —
the Storm Dancers from Kureksarra, or even those
sissies from the Middlemarch — would eat these little
pissers alive. Of course Cyrrax had to admit that he
wasn’t feeling too well himself here. A good meter
shorter than he usually was, he still towered over
everyone else, but that didn’t mean it didn’t make him
nervous. It was the "och-man" or some such. Cyrrax
hadn’t been listening too carefully when his employer,
Lady Eithlinn, had explained how dreams got smaller
in this, the "true world." Well, frammit, true world or no, it
was a job, wasn’t it? That meant Cyrrax would just have
to brace his bollocks for what was to come and get on
with it. Hell, the key better be worth hanging with this
bunch of losers.
The Triumph Casque of Sorrows. It was the so-called
"Chicanery Key" he had come here to find and Cyrrax
had yet to fail when gold was on the line. On the great
platform, he, his companions and about a thousand
others waited. Cyrrax smacked his lips as he looked
around him. It had been some years since he’d had a
chance to eat man-flesh and some of the folk around
him looked particularly appetizing. Later, he promised
himself, he would cage a few and grind their bones to
make his bread. The men-folk anyway. The women
here had an altogether different appeal, one that both
excited and frightened the slow-witted ogre. Cyrrax
squinted at one of the nearby chimerical boxes
mounted on the wall. He had seen one back before the
metal stair, but hadn’t had time to look carefully. In the
box, a man was smiling at a black-haired woman who
reminded Cyrrax a little of the Lady Eithlinn, though her
beauty was nowhere near as frightening as the
sidhe’s. The man leaned closer, closer, closer toward
the woman, lips parted for a kiss, when she suddenly
recoiled in revulsion. The man looked down sharply,
his face contorting into a mask of embarrassment as
he spotted several prominent white flakes on his
shoulder. "Problem dandruff ruining your love life?
Tegron shampoo will wash all your troubles away," a
voice from the window confided. Cyrrax eyed his own
perpetually flake-covered shoulders with sudden
concern. Tasty head-flakes never seemed a problem
before, but now he wasn’t so sure.
"You like her, eh? The woman in the tell-a-vision?
Chimeras. Dream-craft, you know. Nocker works in
Japan. You diddle the box right and the chimera come
out to furk you. When we have some time, I’ll show you
how it works," interjected Lojack with a sly wink. Cyrrax
always suspected Lojack was making fun of him, but
for now he would let it pass.
"For now, though, keep your furking mind on your job. It
is this moment and place that Harroth said would be
most propitious for finding the Chicanery Key, but stay
alert; Kosa’s bastards will be here too. Trolls, maybe
two or three. The scuttlebutt in the barracks is that Kosa
wants to use the keys to return the Tuatha dé Danaan.
That's a wind that won't blow any of us any good.
Friggin' trolls. That’s why we have you here," Lojack
laughed. Cyrrax gave a half-hearted grin in return.
Killing was always good, but his eyes returned
unbidden to the magic box…
A clanking, screeching noise presently jostled Cyrrax
from his reverie. The great wyrm, a clashing
monstrosity as huge as any he had ever seen,
thundered from its hole at the end of the cavern. A
thousand silver scales flashed by, accompanied by a
hot, roaring wind. Cyrrax instinctively reached for his
great mace, but Sugar-Lips grabbed his arm. "Save it
for later, big-boy. Soon. Soon," she grinned, exposing
twin rows of grinding teeth. The wyrm slowed to a stop
and its sides burst asunder, disgorging a torrent of
humanity who pushed past him with nary a glance.
Suddenly the crowd was surging in the other direction
and Sugar-Lips gave him a shove — into the belly of
the beast. The wyrm’s stomach was surprisingly bright
and people jockeyed for the benches that
incongruously lined its gut. Not Lojack though, and so,
apparently, not Cyrrax. Lojack had his damned
pendulum out again and was pushing his way through
the crowd; the redcaps were suddenly nowhere in
sight.
Cyrrax knew what was expected of him, and made sure
that the little folk didn’t get in the nocker’s way, roughly
jostling them to the side as Lojack opened the portals
that led from one belly, to the next, to the next. Cyrrax
caught a glance of himself in the great glass panes
that only narrowly concealed the roaring darkness that
hurdled past as the wyrm crashed blindly toward who
knew where. A large red-faced man with a bristling
ebon beard and balding pate stared back at him. He
wore strange black leather garments and was only
dimly recognizable as the ogre he saw whenever he
looked into the Silver River in his Kureksarra home.
Eithlinn had told him that he would appear different
here, to shield him from human curiosity, but if he
squinted just right he could see his more familiar ram
horns and bronze-armor behind the reflection.
"That boy, over there. He has the key, or at least had it a
short while ago…" The pendulum was straining madly
at its chain and Cyrrax followed Lojack’s gaze. Seated
inconspicuously in a corner was a small, rat-faced boy,
and even here, so far from home, Cyrrax believed he
could spot a skin-changer when he saw one. "Little
pooka furker looks like he’s on another planet," said
Lojack. "See what you can do about it, eh?" Cyrrax
laughed. Here, at last, in the midst of all this confusion,
was something he was good at. Surging forward,
roughly pushing a small elderly man out of the way, he
swooped the startled childling up with one swift motion,
his great hand clenching vise-like around the boy’s tiny
waist. The crowd in the car gasped audibly, but none, it
seemed, dared to challenge the leather-clad giant.
"Where is it, you little bastard? The key?" snarled
Lojack from Cyrrax’s elbow, as he began to rummage
through the terrified boy’s jacket pockets.
"Key? Key? I got no key," stammered the childling,
which was about what the ogre expected from the lying
little pooka turd. The boy was terrified, but there was a
sly look of defiance in his eyes that the ogre didn’t like.
He squeezed harder and the boy gave a yelp, evoking a
sharp laugh from the nocker. The child fumbled in a
side pocket and hurled a small ring of keys to the
ground, but Lojack wasn’t impressed. "Not those! Don’t
furk with us! The crystal, the Chicanery Key, you nasty
little monkey. We’ll tear you to ribbons right here if we
have to…" The nocker’s last threat died with a choke as
a silver blade abruptly protruded from between his ribs.
The blade was wielded, not by a troll warrior as Cyrrax
had at first half expected, but by a small, pleasant
looking old man with comical gray whiskers, scarcely
taller than the child he was protecting.
"Bullying a child? Are there no depths to which Balor’s
lackeys won't stoop? Tartuffe, captain of the boggan 3rd
Watch, I am, I am. Release the boy, good friend ogre,
and you may yet return to the Splintered Peaks from
which you came," said the little man with a grim
equanimity that boiled Cyrrax’s butt. Not… a… troll, but
a crop-grubber from the Fields? No insult could be
worse. With a roar and a fluid motion of his free hand,
Cyrrax loosed his mace from his belt and lunged at the
small man, taking care not to ease his grip on the boy.
The crowded car milled about him as the witless
humans ran for safety. Cyrrax’s mace didn’t find its
mark, however. The small man was gone and a great
blade expertly deflected the ogre’s mace. Now
suddenly there was a troll before him! No, not one, but
two, a man and a woman, both silver-clad and wearing
the red-charging bull livery of Harroth’s blood-enemy,
the hated Kosa. Cyrrax grinned. This was what he lived
for and leave it to the honor-bound blue-skins to give
him a warning shot first. Idiots. Cyrrax thrust the pooka-
brat forward to serve as an impromptu shield; let the
oh-so honorable protectors of the fae cut through that if
they want. Freely flapping material betrayed the truth of
his folly, however, and Cyrrax’s expression grew slack
with confusion. Rat-boy was gone and all he held was
the child’s empty jacket. Another glance betrayed the
pooka’s true whereabouts, at the opposite end of the
chamber, making for the door in the company of the
gray-haired boggan. His prize had eluded him…
"Haar-gaaahh!" Rage replaced bewilderment in the
ogre’s thick skull and he howled his war cry, an
exclamation feared throughout the Kureksarra Planes.
Troll moron number one, the man, was edging in
cautiously with his short-sword while his female
companion, a violet-tressed giantess, lunged in for the
kill. Cyrrax was ready for her though. Swinging his great
mace in an underhanded fashion, he’d smash her rib
cage clean open right through her fancy silver armor.
The woman was expecting the blow, however, and
nimbly doubled-back by shifting her momentum around
one of the ubiquitous metal poles that rib-like lined the
wyrm’s innards. Suddenly it was the male troll who was
in the lead, peppering the ogre’s arm with a series of
three heavy blows. Two resounded off Cyrrax’s bronze
armor, but the third penetrated, and he felt a reassuring
warmth welling against his skin. First blood to the
trolls. Good. It only made him mad, and anger was one
emotion the ogre knew well.
No one ever gave much credit to ogre intelligence, but
the truth, Cyrrax knew, was that many ogres were at
least a damn-sight craftier than people thought. The
two trolls were obviously waiting for him to lose his shit
and charge headlong into them like a tusk-beast.
Instead, dropping rat-boy's jacket, he bit into a special
piece of wood he'd prepared for just such an occasion.
Almost instantly, a strong but supple sheathe of
protective silvery bark blossomed from a hundred
different points on his body — just to make things
more interesting. Now it was the trolls' turn to lose their
heads. That was just an expression for now, but in a
minute Cyrrax fancied they would lose them for real.
The male troll stabbed up and into Cyrrax's belly for a
killing blow, but only succeeded in ripping away a huge
section of silver bark and renting the armor below. He'd
had his shot and now it was Cyrrax's turn. The ogre's
mace caught the troll squarely in the chest, flipping him
up, backward and clear through the window of the
speeding beast. A flash of crimson gore and a
sickening series of rattling thuds heralded the troll
warrior's final exit from the world. Cyrrax spun back fast,
knowing that the woman would be on him and hot to
avenge her slain kinsman. The woman stood frozen.
Her face, clenched and tear streaked, was turning
midnight blue with sorrow and growing fury. In another
second, Cyrrax knew he would have a "situation" on his
hands, but a second was all he needed.
Starting in for the kill, Cyrrax suddenly realized that his
feet could not move. A quick glance down and he saw
that the stone (or whatever it was) that served as the
floor in the wyrm's belly had come to life and wrapped
around his boots. The witch had glued his feet to the
ground! Looking back up, he saw the grim face of the
avenging fury, eyes flashing, teeth barred. Her blade
was pulled back for a killing blow to Cyrrax's throat and
he realized there wasn't a damned thing he could do
about it. Suddenly, however, there was a flash of
flurried motion behind her. The absent Sugar-Lips had
scrambled up the giantess's back and was working her
black scythe-like dagger through the leather armor
protecting the woman's throat. Danforth had appeared
at her side, ham-stringing her with his axe. The little
bastards were good for something after all.
With a monstrous effort Cyrrax tore his feet clear from
the floor and bounded past the troll and the two
redcaps. Let his companions deal with her in their own
fashion; he was going for the key. The chamber had all
but cleared of passengers, but as he neared the glass
and metal portal he could see slack-jawed faces in the
next room trying to decipher what they were seeing. He
could still hear the sounds of a struggle behind him.
The giantess was down, but not out. No matter.
Opening the door, he smashed the two nearest
onlooker's heads together with bone-shattering force.
Leaping straight through the next crowded car, people
fled before him like leaves in the wind. The feel of the
wyrm's motion told him that he was heading for the tail
of the beast, and he could just picture his pooka and
boggan quarry trying to jump out its arse in order to
escape. The passengers in the next two chambers
were less aware of what had been going on, and took a
little more convincing to make way, but still he made
swift progress, his eyes straining to catch sight of his
prey.
He found them — or at least the boggan anyway —
against the back wall of the last chamber. It was
strangely devoid of passengers and the boggan, far
from quailing in fear, was calmly smoking a straight
pipe-like device. The wyrm's "arse" was open and a
small sliver of turquoise hung by a silver chain from
above the back door. Cyrrax had not seen the
Chicanery Key, but had heard it described by Lady
Eithlinn well enough to recognize it. If the little Field
grubber thought he was going to trick him into charging
headlong for the key and over the side, however, he
didn't know Cyrrax. The boggan had nowhere to run
and the ogre decided he would take great pleasure in
gutting the little runt, maybe saving his carcass as a
snack for later. Then he would pluck the key at his
leisure. A purposeful, measured stride brought him into
the car whereupon he abruptly fell hurtling headlong
into darkness as the entire chamber melted away like a
dream. Cyrrax hit the ground hard, bouncing three
times as the great wyrm roared on without him. Gaining
consciousness minutes later, he painfully pushed
himself into an upright position just in time to see
another great wyrm clashing toward him from the
darkness. This was going to hurt…
Cyrrax had had better days. It had taken some time to
drag his battered bones from the tunnels of the wyrms
and even longer to find one of the tell-phone devices
and to remember how to use it to call for a ride. Lady
Eithlinn's countryside manse was as gloomy and as
undersized as he remembered it. Viktor met him at the
front door and seemed to be a real sport about the fact
that Cyrrax's companions (including Viktor's lover) had
not returned and were assumed dead. Down, but not
out, indeed. Of course the ogre knew at least enough
about redcaps to figure that Viktor was doing a slow
burn and plotting revenge of some sort. Enough time
for that later though, for now his "masters" called.
Lady Eithlinn, coldly terrifying as usual, was, apparently,
not in any mood to hear his explanations or stories of
disappearing passenger cars. Cyrrax sweated and
squirmed like a small child. How? How could
creatures, so pink and frail and small put such fear in
him? There were only two of them and Lady Eithlinn
was concentrating her discomforting gaze on him and
ignoring Viktor, who was no doubt smirking behind
him. "Kiss-ass, sycophantic little futhermu — "
"The thing of it is," continued Lady Eithlinn, burgundy
and black voile draping her slender frame. Her black
hair glistened and shimmered in the firelight; Cyrrax
liked the hair. Her sharp crimson lips bowed in a
sardonic smile and her scarlet eyes bored into his
brain.
"The thing of it is that King Harroth has been more than
generous with you in terms of time and resources," she
said, eyeing the silent, sickly looking man (also draped
in red) who sat languorously behind her, wearing a
pale silver circlet around his brow. "It was a simple
enough matter: find a single key, which is of…
sentimental value to his majesty, and return it to this
place. You had the able assistance of three of our best
agents and yet still you failed, losing all of your men on
the way. What do you think we should do about such
gross incompetence? What would you do?"
Cyrrax knew. He had seen this scene played out before
with this former commander, Umlaüt o the Pretentious,
and was not about to end up in the Tower of Screams
like him. Besides, he had had just about enough today
and, in his slow ogrish way, felt that — on top of
everything else — these were insults no self-
respecting troll-slayer should tolerate. He decided,
what the hell, maybe he should just roll the bones and
take his chances. In his heart of hearts he had always
suspected the sidhe were soft under their fearsome
exteriors. Maybe he would have a chance to find out.
There were only two of them, small and frail, and they
did not seem so fearsome here in their freehold as
they did in the deeper realms. Two swift sweeps with
his great ax and it would be King Cyrrax (The Stout?
The Big? Well, there would be time for that later.) who
ruled this freehold. He had never e’t sidhe before, and
they looked tender and sweet. He’d take the man’s
silver crown for a bracelet and make ogre-mittens from
the woman’s pretty, pretty hair. Lady Eithlinn arched her
eyebrow and awaited his reply.
With a deafening bellow, Cyrrax drew his mace and
charged. The woman simply stood there as he closed
the distance between them (probably paralyzed with
fear). He hefted his mace, but something was wrong.
Great arms that could fell a tree with a single blow
could barely lift the weapon. His stomach felt all queasy
and watery; his vision blurred, fixating tunnel-like on the
pale king. Cyrrax spied his hand, once pulsing with
endless strength, thin and so frail that his brass
gauntlet slid down around his bony, wrinkled arm.
Excrescence and putrescence, his flesh rotted and
withered as a hundred seasons passed in mere
seconds. The wailing of time outraged rang in his
fleshless skull and gnawed at his pitted, yellowed
skeleton before his spirit was finally able to go on its
way — to reincarnation, damnation or whatever fate
awaited an ogre’s soul.
As Cyrrax collapsed into a pile of dust, Lady Eithlinn
turned her charming smile on Viktor, scion of the Hand
of Vengeance. His toothy smirk had turned into a wan
little frown. "Never send an ogre to do a redcap’s work,"
she sighed. "My apologies to you and your corby for
having to tolerate the lout. We have new information on
the key's passage and you have our full confidence. We
will speak again anon." A stiff but nervous bow saw
Viktor from the room.
Lady Eithlinn considered her lordly guest, sitting on
cushions now frayed and moldering with age. Mute as
ever, silent as death, his intentions were nonetheless
clear. Nightmare made flesh, he was perhaps as old
as the High Lord Li-Tili himself and a true child of the
Fomorians. It was only the unbelievable failure of the
keremet Soul Bearers a few months ago that forced
him to hide his light under a bushel so far. His forces
were divided now, between those hunting the keys to
the Triumph Casque and those seeking the mortal
soul taken in exchange for the body Harroth's essence
now inhabited. Harroth might have two of the nine keys,
making him the prime shareholder in the Triumph
Casque, but as long as the mortal's soul was missing,
Harroth was vulnerable. At least she was reasonably
sure that Kosa's team did not get hold of the Chicanery
Key, despite Cyrrax's failure. Still, she meant what she
had said. Viktor was competent and tenacious;
recovering the Chicanery Key was just a matter of time,
and then they would go further abroad for the others. As
for her? She would tread carefully around Harroth, for
here was old power. The Evernight approached and
Lady Eithlinn smiled.
Copyright © 2000, Beau Brown