Chapter 64: Ch: 56 Sugar Magnolia

Ch: 56 Sugar Magnolia

 

 

An hour past dawn, Otho had his dog cart rumbling up the river road, panting with excitement. Gary trotted alongside with Shai, the rest of the troupe ran or rode in a loose formation around them. 

Tallum ran at the right side of the cart while Ivy drove, with Wilford and Amy asleep inside. The babes slept, wrapped in thick blankets. 

Levin and Becky kept to the front of the column on a pair of sturdy ponies on loan from War. Tawny also rode a pony; a happy go lucky, golden palomino named Magnus, who was just excited to be out of the stable, with his favorite human.

 

Thick crusted snow crunched under wheels, feet and hooves, while icy plumes flew from noses and mouths, giving the journey a crisp texture. 

Gary had his shamisen out, plucking a moody number with plenty of frosty stops and slides. “I can’t believe you brought my kids along.” He chanted as he ran. “Taking kids to face a dragon, just seems wrong.”

 

“It’s a ground dragon Gary, this is what happens when a groundworm lives long enough to become an actual threat.” Ivy lectured from the cart seat. “They start in a direction and eat everything they run into, until they get killed, or eat too much and burst. This one is headed for Flintspire.” 

 

“How big do they get?” Gary asked while plucking an inquisitive little flurry of notes that brought to mind birds startling from a bush in winter and taking to the sky.

 

“Last report, this one could swallow a horse whole. By now, who knows, that all depends what it eats. If it finds a few more patches of groundworms, it could be big enough to scour the valley of life.” 

 

“Really, ‘scoured of life’ you say… so why does this woman insist on bringing my children along?” He grumbled to Ivy, but at Shai.

 

“You two can argue with each other, leave me out.” She snapped, as Otho quickened his pace to catch up with Tawny and Liam.

 

“We bring the children because ye kinnae stay behind an I will nae.” Shai said softly. “I would nae be fretting that summat goes wrong wi thee, an I am far away. Thee an me might master the beast alone Gary, tis a worm grown fat. There be no risk in this beyond winter travel.” 

 

He kept grumbling until time to camp that night, on a hillside overlooking their first sight of the beast’s trail of destruction. On a flattened spot of barren and pebbly soil, the pair summoned their home.

“Ok, it feels good to be on the move again.” Gary sighed when they were all soaking the chill away, in the big public pool with the horses and ponies. 

Annie had her party clustered in the shallows, frisking and reveling in the warm water. Wilford was somewhere in the depths, while Amy and Becky floated hand in hand without a care.

Gary and Shai were in robes sitting on a bench, looking out over the sunset forest below. Winter gray and white dominated the scene with snowbound evergreens and bare deciduous trees lining the road.

A few hundred yards off, a long dark furrow pointed arrow straight to the north east. It stretched ten yards wide in churned, dark soil and displaced stones. Any bush or tree in that path must have been consumed entirely, as only scattered twigs and the occasional branch lay beside the trail.

“Tis naught but a dumb beast, mayhap we slay it wi aid frae a troop of lancers, more like we direct it intae the wastes, an hope it do meet sumat nasty. War hae done this in the past. Whether the worm do eat the monster, or the monster slay the worm, War does give the winner their prize at spear point.” Her fierce grin was confident enough for Gary to surrender. 

“Ten years gone in Port Caledon, they did turn one intae a barren stone valley and feed it trash fer a season, tis now a lush parkland orchard.” She gave him an appraising look. “Nae unlike thee… and now I suppose meself as well.”

 

Liam and Tawny joined them on the overlook, as Gary summoned them a sofa to snuggle on. “That is the true danger.” Liam said as they got comfy. “In barren places like these, it will continue on. If it hits the fields and orchards of Flintspire it will begin to circle, chewing its way through everything. The people will escape with their livestock, but the town will be lost forever to the waste, once the temple falls.”

 

“I thought monsters couldn't approach temples…” Gary mused as blankets appeared over the friends.

 

“That’s true monsters Gary, Outsiders. They cannot approach human territory without losing their connection to their home plane and weakening. Groundworms are just normal monsters no matter how big or how many they are.”

 

“Wait.. ‘big, or many’ you said, like a big one, or a lot of little ones?” He asked, already feeling lost. Gary’s trusty field guide had nothing to offer on the issue.

 

“That’s the tricky part usually. If it’s one big one you need a troop of foot to hold it and lancers to run it down. If it’s a huge patch of groundworm, you need foot and mages to stomp them out.”

 

“Or just one Gary.” Tallum rumbled happily from the pool behind them. “This is a pleasure outing with you along, all we have to do is redirect it into the waste…”

 

“Cocky Adventurers have short careers.” Khan said mildly. “We will handle this safely and all return home in one piece."

#

 

“Follow my lead and we will all make it back safely.” Annie nuzzled Maybelle and Sasha, the roan pony sisters from Wheatford. This was their first journey on an interdiction force, those duties were often the riskiest. 

“This is no patrol for War, my darlings.” Magnus opined from a stall in the corner. “My Tawny has never let me down.” He said with finality. She stamped a forehoof delicately in agreement and snuffled in Magnus’ ear. 

 

Otho rolled over a few times in a pile of straw, and took a good long yawn. “Why are you so quiet Winslow? You’ve done this before.” 

 

“It’s Tawny, she doesn’t like me, I feel like that’s Brennan’s fault. That guy sucks.” He sulked. “She never rides me, does she think I wanted him on my back?”

 

Magnus rubbed his forehead against Winslow’s chin. “I think you're just too tall.” Maybelle whickered at that, but she was always silly fo Magnus.

#

 

Morning came bright and clear, big billowy white clouds stacked high into a perfect azure sky, shading to gray in the west. Long gray shadows beneath those clouds said cold, wet weather had passed by in the night, that would be someone else's problem now. 

 

They hit the road by second bell and trotted along till third, when Luna and Winslow came back from outriding and called for the group to halt.

“Walking stick ahead, a big one, it’s mad too, looks like the worm took a few bites on the way past. We need to tidy that up before anyone comes down the road.”

 

“Oo! What kind of tree?” Gary had a hungry look in his eye. 

“The kind that flails at passing riders with tree trunk limbs. Am I a beaver to know of trees and such?” She sighed long and loud. “Crafters on a war party indeed. Even babes in arms, Khan you are growing soft in the head.”

 

Gary and Shai built the house on a bluff, overlooking a small, steep sided valley on one side and the wide river valley on the other. The River Road ran along the top of the bluff, with Flintspire just visible in the distance.

 

The worm track ran through the narrow side valley, continuing on in rough parallel to the river and road. At the foot of their bluff, a small forest was not having a good winter. The worm track cut right through, passing through a pleasant meadow, as did the road, a number of felled trees lay near a sudden widening of the worm track, nearby stood a raging giant.

 

Gray brown bark and wide glossy green leaves made up most of the towering creature. It was roughly mantis shaped, with four legs and a pair of arms. Its head was a bushy clot of leathery oval leaves with two enormous pearly white blossoms for eyes.

Creeping vines crawled and slithered over it’s bulk as it searched for whatever had sheared off one of its forelimbs and a chunk of torso. The vines passed uprooted trees to the maimed section of the creature as it healed itself, subsuming the trunks into its body.

 

“Sweet sugar magnolia!” Gary exclaimed. She stood eighty feet tall and smelled divine. She stomped aggressively, pounding the earth and searching for someone to vent her fury on.

“How do we get this done? Getting hit by those arms is gonna suck.” Dannyl asked. “The plum tree was a grabber, not a basher.”

 

Khan smiled, grounded his lance and leaned on Annie’s flank. “The trick with these things is finding the actual critter. Most of that is just a construct to protect the beastie hiding inside.”

 

Gary bounced on his toes excitedly. “Oh, I noticed that with the haunted plum, it started out as a simple enchantment, an instinctive manipulation of raw materials to protect itself…” 

He started humming and fishing through his mental notes, standing there with his eyes half closed mumbling rhythmically to himself. 

“Ahha!” With a flourish he pulled a small ball of dark green amber out of his pocket. “This is our last walking stick, she’s in hibernation right now. When I started working with the lumber from the last one, it was already lightly enchanted, with organic, natural magic. These guys craft bodies for themselves from wood in an almost sentient way… I don’t think they’re monsters at all.”

 

Without another word Gary strolled back to the house and went inside. He re-emerged a minute later with a cacao sack over his shoulder, bulging with a strange, irregular shape.

 

With a loud clatter he dumped the sack out, revealing a pile of carved wooden shapes, loosely connected with cables of spider silk. “I’ve been feeling kinda weird about this ever since the haunted plum, it’ll be nice to confirm my theory at least.”

 

Gary pulled a bag of salt out of his magic butt and began spilling a circle on the rocky soil. Next a thin trickle of sugar went over the salt, carrying on in a slowly shrinking spiral until he closed another, smaller circle around the pile of wooden shapes. 

He delicately placed a braid of twisted jasmine vines, rooted in a small bag of soil at the edge of the inner circle. With even more elaborate care, he set a tiny plum tree in an unfired clay pot in the very center of the entire assembly.

 

Gary stood back with a satisfied smile. “I needed an excuse to suck it up and face the music. Take a seat, gang, we have some help coming, I hope.” They retreated to the patio and sat to watch.

He produced a small wooden platter, carved and painted with elaborate runes. The mad boy arranged a cup of fresh milk, a small loaf of bread and a tiny pot of honey on the plate as though it would be served to a queen. Once it was ready he set it on the ground just inside the outer circle, carefully avoiding his complex lines.

“Shai, my dear, if you would…?” He pulled out his weird new flute and began a soft and haunting tune. Her violin joined without hesitation as they began a slow and gentle dance around the assembly, whirling together as they played.

 

“Why are we watching a performance, there is a monster rampaging a half mile that way…” Levin whispered to Becky as they watched. “It’s lovely, but we have to do something…” 

“Shh!” Becky hissed. “This is something new… or something very, very old.”

 

Their music hushed and thrummed in turns, carrying over the hillside with a quiet urgency. They fell silent and paused in their dance when a soft wooden clatter sounded from the pile of loose parts in the circle of sugar and salt.

 

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Slowly, the wooden shape stirred, engulfed the two small plants and collapsed in on itself, twitching quietly for a moment.

“Well, let’s give her a few minutes to gather herself, Becky, has Joy said anything about what we just did? It really feels like she was watching.” Gary grinned, while strumming his mandolin feverishly and capering about.

 

“Lady Joy does not comment on the day to day activities of mere mortals.” Becky replied archly, with a huge wink.

 

“Beast does,” Ivy announced from Tallum’s lap. “Beast says you’re nuts Gary. He is super excited though.” 

 

“I feel good about this, let's meet our new friend.” Gary dialed his distracting gift back to his default level of ‘I’m not doing anything’ and turned around with a grin.

 

“Mortals, how disappointing.” She said in a sweetly alien voice that dripped with hostile disdain. Standing in the remaining circle of salt was a remarkable figure. 

 

She stood confidently on four slender legs of turned plum wood, her abdomen was wrapped all around in twining jasmine vines. They climbed over her thorax, to drape in a verdant robe of leaves and twinkling white blossoms.

Her torso was faintly humanoid and subtly feminine, though she was composed entirely of lathe turned plumwood and a living plum tree. 

 

She reached with long, hooked and barbed arms to grasp the plate set before her. In a twinkle they became shapely humanoid hands with three slim fingers and a thumb. She shook her shrub head as it became insectoid. 

With swift, graceful movements she devoured the loaf and honey, then drank the tiny cup of milk. She released a soft chittering sigh that went on for a terribly long time.

 

“An offer made, a bargain struck. Why then am I Prison’d such? I see mortal men and something else, an outsider cast in human guise? A human soul in unborn flesh, an undead wraith walking in the sun?” 

She skittered forward, to the line of salt and stopped, peering at Shai and Gary with alien interest. 

“Hello, do you have a name?” Gary asked while Shai stood and stared in wonder at the strange and beautiful creature.

 

The puppet of wooden parts and plant matter was now a stunning jewel colored mantis, standing impatiently at the edge of the salt ring.

Shades of purple and gold decorated her bright green carapace, like a boldly variegated leaf. Her emerald compound eyes and long antennae expressed her displeasure, as her amethyst crested head pivoted to take in everything.

 

“Odd indeed, it speaks and remembers… yet is dead, dead, dead. Yes, but it does remember, does it remember the other thing?” 

She chittered and hopped inside the salt ring, her humanoid hands replaced by hooked and barbed nightmare claws.

 

“Give me to drink and I may agree to serve… for a time of my choosing. Give me none and release this prison, perhaps I will not destroy it, or perhaps I will. It is unclean after all.” Her voice was a soft clatter of branches in the wind and the rustle of leaves, mixed with insect calls.

 

“Do you have a name?” Gary asked again, patiently.

 

“Humans once called me Plumeria, they have all forgotten. It remembers, but is unclean, I have no name to give it… She may call me, though she does not remember.” 

 

Her human hands returned, beconning and reaching for Shai, from behind the salt line. “Release me human, I will destroy this poor abomination for you, this mercy I owe it at least. If you have the other thing then even one such as I may agree to serve…” She somehow made a thirsty slurp with her mandibles to illustrate her point. 

Gary pulled a small clay jug from his pocket and uncorked it. He poured a small measure into a wooden cup and placed it very gently on the ground, just inside the salt. 

Instantly she pounced, snatching at his retreating hand with terrifying speed. Gary held up two intact hands, as he stepped back from the ring.

“It is quick for a dead one…” She chirped in happy cricket song. “It shall be good prey when I escape.” With a sudden jerk of her insectile head she noticed the cup. 

“It remembers this too… yet is dead…” Plumeria whispered reverently. “It also lives, after a fashion… yet dead… yet…” Her muttered incantation paused while she sipped delicately at the cup, shuddering with some unnamed emotion.

“It has fulfilled all the forms and rites… why has it summoned me?” She looked to Shai when she asked, a new light of clarity and reason in her voice. 

“I see it is your slave, so I ask you, human child who does not remember. What do you wish?”

 

“I wish nothing, spirit, I dinnae summon thee, t’was mine mate who ye will nae address, He does wish tae treat wi thee. Speak wi Gary, mine human male, an mate.”

 

She circled inside her boundary, moving closer to Gary, peering at him while pivoting her neck. “It has congress with spider kin, we respect those. They are honorable predators. It has been touched by the divine, even great Joy herself… yet is dead.”

 

 “Why do you allow this thing to linger on so? Let it return to the void and become once more, clean and wholesome.” With lightning quickness she scuttled back to be as near Shai as possible. 

“I have known enough mortals to understand your fear and loss, I am truly sorry. You must know that mating with the unliving is not the answer, young mortal.”

 

Gary’s patient smile wound down at that and he grumbled sourly. “Ok, that’s enough from you today good night Plumeria.” 

She whipped back around as he spoke and watched him carefully. Slowly, Gary reached out a toe and scrubbed a gap into the ring of salt.

With a whoop of triumph, Plumeria manifested her shredding forearms and surged through the opening, reaching her barbed limbs out to rend flesh.

 

She passed through the ring and landed in his arms as a loose pile of wooden doll parts and a pair of houseplants. He tucked the parts away and held up the smooth lump of green amber. 

“That’s proof of concept at least. Walking sticks are dryads, starved of magic and reacting unconsciously to any perceived threat.” Gary got blank looks all around while he pocketed the stone and parts. 

“Dryad’s, fae spirits of nature and forests, tree spirits? Not ringing any bells?” He grumbled about ‘bigoted lifeist spirit!’ and other less sensible things.

“Ok, let’s go collect another trinket, now I don’t feel bad about clobbering them.” He summoned his armor and singing baton as he stretched and warmed up. “Who’s staying with the little ones?”

#

 

Becky and Levin wound up staying, starting work on a fine dinner, while the rest marched down into the haunted wood.

“Shai, do you wanna try talking to it first? If it’s anything like Plumeria I’ll just get smashed if it sees me.” Gary asked.

 

“We kin try, show me the way of it.” She said gamely as they walked and talked.

 

A few minutes later, in a clearing, Shai drew a wide, open spiral in sugar around Gary’s wooden plate, with a fresh loaf, cup of milk and pot of honey. The others were hidden in the treeline uphill watching.

“Now I play from far off and you play and dance here to bring her in. ready?” Gary said softly when all was prepared. He passed her his small clay jug. “If things get out of hand, offer her some of this. They love moonshine.”

 

She uncorked it and took a taste, then gasped. “Fie! Muktar hae a paint stripper whae smells such. Moonshine be a bonny name, but tis vile stuff!”

“I wouldn’t drink it, but they love it. Use that to seal the deal.” Gary slipped away and made himself inconspicuous while playing a soothing air on his new flute.

 

Distant crashing began to draw near, while becoming less violent as it approached, lulled by sweet and mellow music from the violin, flute and bells.

The creature pushed into the clearing carefully, searching for the sound. As it touched the line of sugar, it stopped and bent low. With a low snuffling sound the sugar disappeared, as it followed the trail to end at the small ritual meal.

 

“I see you darling, come out and talk. To think, someone taught you the old way after so long.” Her voice was warm hoot owls and whippoorwills by a moonlit creek in midsummer, Shai almost felt a warm breeze blow past.

 

She lowered her body to the ground, bringing one enormous blossom eye close to the small meal.  The blossom twitched, squirmed and popped out. As it fell it bloomed into a small humanoid figure.

 

She touched down gently on tiny pale feet, long flowing brown hair draped around her form. A mantle of magnolia leaves and blossoms spraying from her shoulders, otherwise she was unclothed. 

With tears of joy in her liquid hazel eyes she flopped down on her tiny rump and began to eat. When every crumb and drop was gone she stood and put her hands on her hips.

She looked Shai up and down with satisfaction. “It’s been… what do you call them, when the sun circles a few times?” She tapped her tiny bare toe in impatience. 

 

“Years?” Shai asked in confusion.

 

“No, no, the bigger one. Millennia! That’s it, two millennia since someone did this, and this was the really old way. Older than old…” She sniffed the plate suspiciously. “No Iron at all. You stink of iron, reek of it. Where’s your druid?” 

She looked into the trees peering all around. “Come out druid, we learned our lesson long ago, no need to hold grudges…”  

 

Shai stood in utter confusion as a voluptuous woman three feet tall, roamed the clearing, catcalling and shouting into the woods. 

“I hear your flute, even when you are not playing it… did you slay Plumeria to craft that? She is a terrible bitch. Don’t worry, she will bloom again in a plum tree on some far off hillside. I just hope the unseelie twat gets a shady spot.” 

 

Finally Gary stood and walked down the hill. “Plumeria is alive and well, just sleeping. She found me… slightly objectionable.” He called as he approached.

 

“A man…” She giggled excitedly, before losing her smile. “...or something like one.”  She turned to Shai. “Is this yours, silent mortal woman? Why is this here? We don’t like those things.” She tapped her tiny foot again. “Spit spot. If you meant to harm me you would have made a salt circle… out with it.”

 

She sighed to the brilliant blue sky above. “Mortals… how do they ever get anything done…”

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