Robert B.Wintermute - The Quest for Karn

“Something is watching us from the huts,” the geomancer said.

From behind them came the sound of metal scraping metal, coupled with a low moan. The scraping sounded like many fingernails dragged across flaking iron. It had been some time since the hairs on Venser’s back stood, and he was not altogether happy to be visited by that feeling again. “I think we should move,” he said.

“Yes,” Koth said. “I think that is a good idea.” Venser and Koth’s slabs moved forward.

But Elspeth did not move. She had put one of her feet on the iron ground. Her wide eyes slowly narrowed.

“Elspeth? This is the time now to find my friend on the outskirts of the village. He will be able to tell us what is happening here.”

“The knights of Bant do not flee, ever.”

“Of course they don’t,” Venser said. “Nobody would ever ask you to do that. To flee. Koth here is suggesting we visit his friend.”

Koth nodded.

“Do not patronize me, artificer.”

“How do we know there are enemies out there?” Venser said. “And if they were, don’t you think our position here is not the best? Strategically, I mean. We are as vulnerable as plucked pullets, and whatever is making that noise has many in its party.” You only just kidnapped me here. I can’t die yet , he added to himself.

Elspeth blinked.

“Yes, this is low ground. Let’s repair to a better position,” she said, taking her foot off the ground and putting it back on the slab, which floated to catch up with the other two.

“A wise choice,” Venser said, when she was floating next to him. If she’d waited more than a second longer he would have snapped a submission spell on her.

They moved very quickly after Koth who led them over more tube huts.

The scrabbling sound they had heard earlier continued behind them. Elspeth was reminded of another time she had heard a similar sound: fleeing a certain prison as a child. When she had run, the beasts had screeched and clawed at their own bars. She remembered the smell of them in that moment and brought her gloved hand up to pinch her nose as she floated along on the slab.

Koth moved them over the land. They saw not a single living thing, except a strange mechanical bird which alighted on the ground and turned its one good eye to stare at them as they passed. Soon the huts became fewer and fewer, and they were away from the village. Elspeth sheathed her sword.

Soon a different type of hut came into view. It was composed of a series of large tubes welded together and nestled in the valley between two vast iron hills that leaned toward each other.

“Is this your friend’s house?” Elspeth said.

Koth said nothing for a time. He glided his slab to a stop near the entrance of the hut.

“We’ll stop here a moment. This is where I was raised. My family has gel-fruit orchards,” Koth stepped off his slab. “And beds.”

“Good, I think I might fall down,” Venser said. He had taken his helmet off sometime earlier, and had it under his arm.

“You will watch your mannerisms around my mother,” Koth said to them. “She has yet to meet one such as yourselves.”

“What does that mean?”

“A being of only flesh,” he whispered. “Flesh is distrusted by many Mirrans. You must do your people credit.”

“My people?”

Elspeth eyed the house surrounded by its low, metal trees. The noise that had been behind them seemed to have disappeared, and she felt more at ease. The dark was on them, and she could see lights in the window of the large hut and smell roasting meat. The night was silent. She realized suddenly that she did not like this plane for its utter silence.

“What is your opinion, my lady?” Venser said, the half smile that played frequently across his face in evidence. Koth was already moving past the twisted metal tubes that made up the gel-fruit trees around the hut.

Elspeth nodded as she watched Koth, thinking Venser was talking about the vulshok. “I watched the vulshok fight in the pits at Urborg. I fought him there as well.”

“And what is your impression?”

“He is as good a fighter as I have ever seen, and a strong mage, but …”

“But?”

“He is given to the foolishnesses of all men, and one of those is impulsiveness.”

Venser straightened a bit. “Excuse me? Am I not a man?”

She looked back at him. “Yes, and what of it? I am sure you are as thickheaded as the rest of them.”

Venser bobbed his head in agreement. “You are probably correct.”

“Now that that is settled,” Elspeth continued, “we should follow him before he does something foolish that gets us all throttled.”

And they did. They caught up with Koth just before he reached the house. The smell of roasting meat was strong. And there was something else in the air as well, Venser thought. Koth pushed the mesh aside and walked headlong into the largest tube of the dwelling.

The interior was brightly lit with sconces welded to the wall and holding globs of what looked like bright molten metal. A fireplace cut out of a chunk of iron stood at one end of the room.

“Hello,” Koth said. He walked to the hearth, turned, and looked around the room. “Hello?”

Elspeth put her gloved finger to her lips. “I am not sure that we should …”

“Look who has arrived at long last.”

The voice came from the dark doorway next to the hearth. A woman’s voice, made by a woman who sounded as though she needed to clear her throat, Elspeth thought. A form moved in the shadow and Venser found himself sucking mana through his eyes and temples in anticipation of an emergency teleport. He wasn’t the only one concerned-he noticed that Elspeth dropped her hand to her sword’s pommel when the woman spoke.

“Mother?” Koth said. “Is it you? Come from the shadows, Mother.

“It is I, Son. None other.”

There was more shuffling in the shadows but nobody came out. Koth took a step closer.

“Mother we were being pursued … by something making strange sounds . We must leave this place and take to the mountains. Mother?” The vulshok took another step closer to the form in the darkness. Venser snatched a deep breath and thought, do not step any closer .

The figure in the darkness shifted and stepped forward a bit. “You always were a coward. Afraid of shadows and sleeping alone.”

“But Mother.”

The figure in the darkness stepped forward and into the flickering light from the sconces. Elspeth’s hand left the pommel of her sword. The being standing before them seemed as harmless as could be: a vulshok mother in a simple robe, with spiky silver hair and forearms of alloy that glimmered in the dim light.

But Koth seemed bothered. He cocked his head at the woman. “You have changed, Mother. You are thinner. Your hair is different.”

The mother’s expression did not change, though. Her face remained impassive, plain somehow, as though emotion had never occurred to her.

“You have nothing to fear, I am the same as I have always been. It is I, your mother.”

But Koth’s unease increased by the second. The tracer lines along his wide chest began to glow red, as did his eyes.

“Where is Father?” Koth said. “Collect him and we must flee.”

“It is not time for that,” she said.

The woman went to the hearth. She snapped her fingers and a lick of flame ignited in the firebox. The smell of food, of roasting meat, was suddenly overpowering. Venser’s stomach turned as he realized he had not eaten in days.

“Perhaps she’s right,” Venser said. “Surely we have time for a snack before we flee.”

Koth set his teeth together and scowled at Venser.

Just then someone screamed outside. The cry echoed off the mountains. It came from far away, Elspeth thought, and was soon cut short, but it was a cry of utter fear and despair.