Chy Read online

  “Nice piggy!” He advanced on the angry looking beast with a heavy bolt of sacking. But she wasn't a nice piggy. She was an angry piggy. And she didn't want to be disturbed as she rooted out all the potatoes and carrots in his garden. She wanted to eat. And she didn't like him one damned bit! But then he wasn't that fond of the sow either.

  “Good piggy!” He took another careful step towards the animal, and noted that she was staring suspiciously at him. She sensed trouble. And the clearest sign of that was the unexpected grunting she let out. She was warning him. And when he looked at the size of her tusks, he knew she meant it.

  He could roast the pig, he thought. Hurl a shaft of ice or a bolt of lightning at her. But somehow that didn't seem right. The beast hadn't come to do him harm. Only to fill her belly. So his plan was simple. Grab her, wrap her up in the sacking and toss her through the portal. He should be able to do that. After years spent sitting on the throne of the three horned bull he was more than strong enough to pick up three hundred and fifty pounds of pig, even if she had tusks that were more like small swords, and wings that belonged on a demon from the pit.

  “Just relax,” he soothed the pig. But she didn't seem to want to relax. Instead it looked like she wanted to eat him for lunch!

  He took another, cautious step towards her. But that was one step too many.

  The flying pig let out an ear piercing squeal and then charged him like a bull, and for a moment Chy knew complete terror. But then just as the pig was about to hit him and tear out his guts with those damned tusks, he remembered his plan. He tossed the sacking over her head and dodged to one side, just as the beast raced past.

  And then he leapt on her.

  That might have been a mistake he discovered as he wrapped his arms around her barrel like chest. Because she didn't slow down. The pig didn't even seem to notice his weight on her back. Instead she just galloped faster with him desperately trying to ride the pig like a horse. And when she did finally notice him, her only response was to try and turn around and gore him. She was not a nice piggy at all!

  Thankfully she couldn't reach him while he was desperately hanging on to her back. But not so thankfully he discovered that she could buck like a wild stallion, and he swiftly found himself being lifted into the air and then brought down hard onto her back and the ground. He took more than a few blows to his knees.

  “Stop that!” he yelled angrily at the beast, only to be bucked even harder. But no matter how hard she tried to get free of him he hung on, far stronger than any man should be.

  Unfortunately it turned out that the piggy was cleverer than she looked, and even with her eyes covered with the sacking, she somehow knew how to twist and turn as she ran, swinging him around like a club and causing him to bash hip first into a fence. That hurt! The fence post broke instead of him – clearly those sessions on the throne had helped toughen him – but it still hurt.

  “You bastard!” He yelled at the beast even as he concentrated on hanging on, and hoping the beast would run out of strength.

  But she didn't seem to be short of strength, and he found himself being carried from one end of the yard to the other and then back again, while his legs took an endless amount of punishment as she swung him into every solid object she could find. And while he kept yelling at her, that didn't help either. Piggy wasn't in a listening mood!

  It also didn't help that while he was hanging on to the beast for dear life and being carried around his property at break neck speeds, someone started cheering him. Then lots of someones! That did not help at all!

  What did help was that when the pig took a sudden left turn in another attempt to throw him off, she smashed straight through a wooden fence and he was able to grab on to one of the posts with his legs. That brought the insane rush around his yard to a sudden grinding halt. And then it gave him the chance he needed to start digging his feet into the ground and start lifting the front of the flying pig up so her trotters no longer reached the ground.

  After that the battle was his. He went down on his knees and hoisted the beast up until even its back legs could no longer find any purchase on the ground. And then he stood up and the pig was helpless. But her squeals somehow doubled in volume, and his ears began to ring with pain.

  Pain though didn't matter. What did was that he had three hundred and fifty pounds of frenzied flying pig in his arms, and a portal. He activated it and started marching while the pig struggled helplessly and waved her trotters around like an out of control dancer. And when he reached it he simply tossed the beast, her head still covered with the sacking, through the portal and closed it a heartbeat later.

  “Damn you pig!” He yelled after the beast even though she couldn't hear him. “You come back and you're bacon!”

  Then he started brushing himself down while all around him people started laughing. But not people, he corrected himself as he studied the damaged to his leggings and boots, dwarves. They weren't people. People were civilised! These were half pint barbarians who never seemed to be able to think past their next flagon of ale or their next bar fight.

  “Damn, that was some fine pig riding!” One of the dwarves called out to a round of cheers and laughter from his friends. “But usually when it comes to riding them we of Cupris use ropes not just our arms!”

  “And what the bloody hell do you want?!” He yelled back at them, still brushing himself down. He'd thought the dwarves were taken care of. Fitting in to life in Charlton, drinking themselves under the tables and being regularly thrown in the town gaol for fighting, but otherwise accepted. It turned out that they were quite willing to work for their coin. The elves weren't doing so well. They had set up camp outside of the town and for the most part refused to mingle with the unwashed peasants as they called the locals. Humans were clearly beneath them. But at least there'd been no real trouble.

  “Not us. Him!” The dwarf yelled back, still nearly bent double in laughter. Then he gestured at one of the others who strode forward and then stood there with his chest puffed out proudly.

  “And you would be?”

  “Yarin Coldstream,” the dwarf announced at the top of his lungs. “True son of Strongvein!”

  “Al … right?” Most of that meant nothing to Chy, except that they were of different clanholds – which in turn made him wonder why they were together and not brawling on the road. And why the rest were yelling their own war cries. “And what do you want?” He started examining his boots, wondering if he needed to get some new ones. They were badly scuffed and he didn't know if some spit and polish would be enough to repair them.

  “Her!” The dwarf pointed at his house or more accurately at Elodie who was standing on the patio in front of it with her mouth hanging open. “The piss-taking cow from the Temple!”

  In a heartbeat the laughter went away. And so did Chy's annoyance at the battle he'd just fought with a flying pig, and most everything else. This, whatever else it was, sounded serious. And he didn't like the dwarf's tone. Nor the sudden look of alarm in Elodie's eyes. Chy stopped brushing himself down to stare at the little man.

  “Dwarf, I don't like your tone!” He told him bluntly. “It sounds like you mean trouble. And I don't like trouble. Elodie is a guest in my home. She is under my protection. Unless you want to find out what it's like to spend the rest of your days bleating like a goat, you'll stay well clear of her!”

  “You –.” The dwarf began. But he stopped hurriedly as he was suddenly hoisted ten feet into the air.

  “As I said,” Chy told him. “My house, my guest and my protection! Is that clear?!” He gathered it was by the way that the dwarf simply hung there and spluttered helplessly for a while. The rest of his companions didn't say a lot either. They just stared at Yarin and looked worried.

  Chy let them stand there for a while before he decided to get to the nuts and bolts of the problem. Long enough for them to realise that he was the one in charge of things.

  “So if he's from Strongvein and you're from Cupri
s, why are you with him?” He thought he should start with the basics.

  “We're not with him,” the leader of the other dwarves corrected him hastily. “But Cupris and Strongvein aren't enemies either. And he said she's an enemy of all the clanholds.”

  Chy guessed that that made sense – at least as much as anything else did these days. But the only thing that mattered was that the other dwarves didn't look as though they wanted to get involved in a battle with him. So he turned his attention to the one that apparently did.

  “Now dwarf,” he addressed the man still hanging in the air, noticing that he was starting to spin around slowly, “what is your problem with the Guardian?”

  “She robbed me!” Yarin yelled at him, then started slowly tumbling head over heels in the air.

  “Explain,” Chy instructed him coldly.

  “She owes me my opals back!”

  “Opals?” Chy had no idea what he was talking about.

  “For the blessing! It was defective!”

  That surprised Chy. It worried him a little too. He hadn't realised that the dwarf was a caster. But obviously if he was one, he hadn't learned the right magic to get himself down. So maybe he wasn't very advanced. Still the charge had been made and he supposed he should get to the bottom of it.

  “Elodie?” He turned to his guest.

  “He was drunk,” she replied quietly, having clearly regained her calm. “So drunk he could barely stand. And he sat on the Sphinx for only a couple of minutes, unable to continue. Then he demanded his price back. And when I would not give it to him, he attacked me.”

  “It was agony!” The dwarf screamed at her.

  “It is always agony!” Chy snapped at him. “That is the nature of it. It is not the Guardian's fault if you were too weak to endure it!”

  “Piss arse!”

  “And yet I have sat on all the thrones many times. I have endured the pain. And I have never once turned up for a blessing drunk, pissed out of my mind because of fear.” For some reason that made him mad. “I have certainly never attacked a guardian.”

  “Whoreson!”

  “But, I can be generous,” Chy continued realising that he had a solution at hand. “I can grant you your blessing here and now.” He gestured at the bushes in front of the thrones and had them bend down a little so that the dwarf could see them as he twirled slowly in the air. “There is the sphinx. Would you like to take a seat? Receive the full blessing? I can do that right now!”

  “No!” Yarin screamed at him, fear suddenly taking control. He started flailing desperately at the air, panic in his voice.

  “Then you are satisfied with the blessing you received? You do not wish any more?”

  “Yes, you piss taking whoreson!”

  “And you renounce all claims against the Guardian? And apologise for your false charges?”

  “Yes!” The dwarf spat it out angrily.

  “Good.” He let the dwarf slowly descend to the ground and turned to his companions. “Take him away and do not allow him to return.”

  His instructions were obeyed, and not just because the dwarves had seen what he'd done to their companion. They'd also heard the fear in the dwarf's screams. And if there was one thing the dwarves did not respect, it was cowardice. Yarin had larger problems than an incomplete blessing to deal with. He had lost the respect of his fellow dwarves. That had to hurt even if they weren't from the same clanhold.

  Chy watched the group leave, making sure that none of them came back. Then he turned and headed back to the house and a cup of something hot. It had been a busy morning thus far. He had vanquished a dwarf caster and a flying pig. He deserved a little reward.

  “Thank you,” Elodie nodded.

  “You are my guest.” He paused on the patio just in front of her, realising that there was more to do. “There is no need for thanks. But –,” he took a deep breath, “there is a lesson here. Magic is hard. There is no place for weakness. But the same is true for you.” He gently placed his hand on her arm.

  “I don't know what happened to you. And I'm sorry that I must ask and cause you pain. But it has been a week, and I have to ask and you have to tell me. The world is in danger. All the worlds are in danger if what you sent is true. There's no more time for weakness. No time to feel sorry for ourselves. I need to know what happened. The other casters need to know. The words must be sent out. And you are the only one who can do any of that.”

  “But why?” Elodie stared at him. “It's ended.”

  “Because maybe, together, we can do something about it.”

  “We can't.” She dropped her gaze to stare at the ground and her voice fell. “The Temple is lost. I cannot return to it. No one can. And without it, nothing can be done. The Ladies and the Gentlemen all surely know that.”

  “No.” He pointed out the obvious. “Clearly that's not right. You were sent from it. Through the great wall of void that surrounds it. Without the use of the grand portal or the path. So if you were sent from it, there must be a way. And if there's a way then there's a way back.” It was only logical he thought, even though he saw the look of denial that found her face. But was that truly because she didn't believe that it was possible to return, he wondered? Or because the memory of what had happened there was so terrible that she could not face the idea? Either way, it had to be done.

  “So please gather your strength. We will share a mug of tea. And we will speak.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  An ice mountain was an unusual sort of thing to see in the middle of farmland. Though it wasn't actually a full mountain. It was just a piece of one. But even so as Elodie stared at the great peak above her complete with water running off it in small rivers, she found herself amazed by the sight.

  The local farmers were less amazed and more worried as the water ran away through their fields heading for the nearest lake, and washed away their crops and soil and grass as it did so. They'd already lost their customers as the sprites had stolen away the people of Stonely, and now they were losing their farms too?!

  “I take it that this wasn't here before?” she asked Chy as he stared at the same thing. Of course she knew it hadn't been. How could you have a towering mountain of ice standing alone in the middle of sunny farmlands? But she had to be sure.

  “It's worse than that,” he replied without taking his eyes off the white mountain. “Here wasn't here before.”

  “What?!” She looked at him, wondering what he was saying.

  “Look at the rifts between where the ice and the land join. Look at the steam. And feel the way the land's shaking. And then look at the sides, where the ice starts. Look at the fence, that runs along one side, stops at the ice and starts again on the other side. This isn't simply one piece of a world being swapped for another piece of another world. This is a piece of another world simply being pushed into this one. Forcing it apart like a nail being hammered into a piece of timber forces the wood apart. That's why it runs down into the ground, deep enough that the fire down below is being released.”

  “That's …” Her denial trailed off as she considered what she was looking at. Impossible was a word that didn't seem to mean the same thing that it once had any more. Besides, he was right. The lands didn't marry up at all. And then there was the fact that others had said much the same thing, even as she'd tried to deny it.

  “How?” she finally asked.

  “I don't know. But I sort of understand what's happening. Some of it.”

  “Which is?”

  “I think the world's reforming,” he replied. “I mean I knew something fundamental was wrong with it when the mammoths arrived. They are from the endless forest after all. Prima. And that didn't make sense. Not if Prima is the true world and all the others are shadows of it. How could something real became a part of its own shadow?”

  “But now I don't think that's right. I don't think there are shadow worlds.”

  “And what do you think is right?” Elodie stared at a herd of cows grazing
not far from the edge of the white mountain, idly wondering how they could be so calm when disaster was approaching them all. But she supposed they had their priorities, and they began and ended with grass. Maybe they were the quick witted ones.

  “There is a toy they give to children. They call it a puzzle box. A picture painted on wood and then chopped up into little pieces which are scattered for the children to put back together. And when I look at this I see no places where the edge of the ice and the start of the pasture don't meet. It is as if the pieces fit perfectly together. As if they always did.”

  Elodie stared at the rift between the ice mountain and the farm lands and wondered. Could he be right? And yet, even as she asked the question, she could see the truth of his words. There were lots of places where steam and lava rose out of the ground. Grooves and channels in the ground which only a fool would go near. But no massive chasms where the land did not meet. And no unexpected mounds of earth where the lands had been squashed together. Maybe the fit wasn't perfect, but it was very close.