The Temple of Vitus Read online

  THE TEMPLE

  OF

  VITUS

  Chris Turner

  Copyright 2012 Chris Turner

  Cover Design: Chris Turner

  Published by Innersky Books

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in these stories are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  CONTENTS

  1: Grinneth

  2: The Temple of Vitus

  3: Dihbas

  The Bones of St. Isis

  Books in The RELIC HUNTER series:

  Forsaken Magic : Witch of the Thorn

  The Isk Rider of Bazuur

  The Temple of Vitus

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  Grinneth

  Risgan, tawny-haired treasure-hunter, faces penury in the merchant city of Bazuur after devastating losses in forays to Lim-Lalyn. He is seeking his fortune elsewhere. His allies, however, have either gone their own ways, or fallen to foes or are sealed in dungeons—a rather unfortunate turn of events which has him waking from a strange dream at the hot air balloon station at Bazuur. He learns of his future daughter to be, also a wrathful ‘Adjudicator of Time’, who has adjudged him a ‘Time Miscreant’, quite literally a thieving meddler, after he unwittingly scavenged a certain piece of an experimental time machine. In light of such transgressions, the overlord Adjudicator wishes Risgan’s head. Guarding an eerie sense of déjà vu, Risgan mulls over which direction to take: west or east, whilst he carries on his person two magic items: a youth talisman blessed with the granting of powers of youth or aging, and a wish bone purported to confer boons by wish alone …

  1: The Vlon River

  Risgan felt significant trepidation walking the gangplank to the balloon bound for Ravel. His effort to bypass the voyage for fear of the omens induced by his dream became overshadowed upon recalling the pitfalls of travelling these same roads by foot. Gibbeths, wizards, obscure flying foes… all haunted the outlying realms. He heard favourable reports of the town Ravel from the few people at the ticket booth, and on simple trust, decided to risk it.

  The great red and white canvas balloon flared up, the gondola rocked… just like in his dream… He felt familiar qualms. Happily, the five balloon passengers were much different from those of his memory, and Risgan began to gain some confidence. The looming vessel gained height; he heard the fires roar and the fifteen-foot guide-birds, the grey-feathered and yellow-eyed teratyx, squawked at having their tethers pulled by the conductor. The lands swung below in a flush of green and gold.

  Needless to say, a somewhat circumspect man by nature in regard to omens, Risgan did not strike up any conversations or gambling congress with his fellow travellers. For this reason, the voyage proceeded with a certain glumness. Perhaps it was befitting Risgan’s mood, for he felt a changed man, or at least wary of gods, fate, and unseen forces, in memory of the disturbing words of the Adjudicator—or was it his daughter? Risgan gave a laconic laugh. Pure nonsense! A trick of the mind, a farce of imagination.

  The conductor bawled out the names of the sites below: the Fallen Pillars of Lasinx, Sphinx Valley, Bisimen Keep, Ourtia Necropolis, the doomed City of Hugus, the Raging River Tivis, Bristlebax Falls, Fernamon IV’s Parthenon, the cursed Obelisk of Duranth, and finally Mangor Wood. Once again, Risgan felt a noticeable pang tingle his spine. To traverse these menacing territories and dense brooding tangles as which wheeled below, would make Fadnar Forest seem a picnic…

  The journey continued for hours, and leagues of forest passed underneath. Far to the east, a thin black river rolled north like an unfurled ribbon. Not far overhead patches of sunlight angled through broad covens of purple cloud.

  Risgan peered up curiously as the canvas rippled. The weather was known for its capricious moods in these parts and not surprisingly, turned suddenly for the worse over the wood known as Mangor. A strong freak gust caught the balloon broadside, twisting it like a cork on the ocean. The canvas buckled, billowed, slid sideways in the updraft. The conductor compensated by smothering the fire and letting the balloon drop several feet. Down, down the carriage dropped while the winds raged above. The trees rose ominously to greet them, and Risgan thought, while peering over the rope-railing, to catch a slur of movement in those green cauliflower clumps of trees.

  A strange whistling sound shivered from below. A projectile shot up from the green expanse: a fire arrow that pierced the starboard teratyx, catching it clean through the neck.

  Risgan felt his heart leap, his throat constrict. The beast flapped and died; its feathered hide caught on flames, flopping like a dead weight. It pulled the gondola sideways. On a dangerous yaw, Risgan plunged with the momentum of the carriage hard against the rope railing where he scrabbled to cut the strained leather reins holding the dying, twitching beast.

  To no avail. The conductor efforted to tamp out the flames with his isk rod, flames that were eating the canvas.

  “Cut the line!” he cried. “Or we die!” In his last frantic efforts, Risgan was pulled back with the gondola’s sharp jerk—his blade could not cut the line in time.

  There was pandemonium in the carriage as the gondola fell many more precarious feet. Another gust and the craft gave a perilous lurch slantwise. The trees below suddenly seemed like sharp spikes of death. Risgan braced himself for impact. Elbows and knees of the other passengers jabbed up at him with the force of truncheons and he tried to gain higher ground in the doomed craft, climbing up the rigging. A great tearing sound seared the air. The passengers flew like dolls. Leaves and splinters of wood thrashed about Risgan’s legs, lashing and lacerating his skin. He was lucky to have one leg caught in a guy wire. It saved his life. He hung suspended from the certain crush of impact, upside down; his scored face was less than a dozen feet from grass and rocks, bobbing like a dizzy spider. His left leg dangled from the guy wire which was curled precariously around the middle branches of an old gnarled daobob.

  The other passengers were gone, strewn—likely killed and beyond help in the sudden crash.

  Yards to his side, the great grey teratyx hung impaled, with a quarrel ripped through its gullet, feathers still smouldering. The other beast had broken free of its harness and likely sailed off into the sky. Who had shot the arrow? It was clearly of primitive design. A thick painted shaft quivered gently with a ruffled fin of vulture feathers.

  Wood savages! Risgan felt the urge to flee; the hunters would come for him, even if they expected no survivors.

  Risgan gathered his wits. His hunting knife was still belted at his waist. He cut his ample bulk down with rapidity, sawing the keen blade along the wire’s tautness.

  The youth talisman was gleaming on the grass, like a ripe apple. He hoisted it gingerly, protecting fingers with the hem of his cloak so he would not be smitten by its enchantment. He wrapped it tenderly in his pouch. The relic hunter noted with distaste that the bauble was almost too easy to recover.

  He collected the few of his possessions that he could find—pickaxe, calipers, flint and tinder—and scrambled on his hands and knees, muttering like a ship-wrecked sailor. The wish bone, gibbeth club, and the sum of his tools were gone.

  In shock, Risgan loped to the edge of the wild clearing, mumbling an oath that he was a cursed man. He studied his surroundings. The ground was uneven, thick with coarse twitch grass and fungi. The young mandrake trees surrounding him were low and sprawled like twisted bonsai: thick olive green dwarfs with squat trunks. Between the twists of branches, dark holes peeked back, showing inimicable vistas stretching into the forest’s interior. The old daobob had saved him, thrust up in the middle of the glade like a withered sentinel, a grandfather of ancient time. Remnants of the balloon garlanded its hoary branches, fla
pping like tattered flags. Raucous birds chirped on high, yellow bills voicing competitive squawks with the other birds of the forest.

  Risgan assessed his wounds. They were minor, considering what he had survived. He faced facts. He was marooned in an unknown land, alone in the wilderness without guide, information or food. He must take action or the workers of this mischief would be collecting their fruits… even now he thought to hear a flutter in the woods…

  The sign was no fiction.

  A host of pygmy-like men came bounding out of the trees—four feet tall, if an inch, naked and painted all white with black dyes around their eyes and banded on all arms, loins and limbs. Several held spears, others gripped crossbows; belts of quivers lay strapped at their painted waists. Twenty of them foraged amongst the wreckage with predatorial competency.

  A tallish giant strode forthwith out of the trees barking orders. He stood astride the daobob, looking up into the branches thoughtfully. He seemed to be the leader of the grim tribe. He pointed to the balloon and tattered wreckage and uttered an excited shout.

  A half dozen of the pygmies bared knives and following the giant’s order, took to the daobob. They were like monkeys, cutting down the ruin of canvas for their own needs, finding other items of utility—leather tethers, the guts of the teratyx which they dropped to the ground and let others either gnaw, or gather in fetid sacks. One pygmy fell out of the tree and the giant berated him, hoofing him, lifting him several inches off the ground. He ordered the victim back up the tree. This headman was easily seven feet tall, absurdly poised, so juxtaposed against the others who were half his height. His head was huge, a grotesque white oval skull, akin to a thing Risgan had seen carved in the primitive fanes of Durus or Phem in the far south. Risgan could not be sure, but he thought to discern the giant crouching down beside a clump of mushroom furze bent on skinning the hide of a figure who looked strikingly similar to Lolar the conductor.

  The relic hunter winced, curling lips. Scavengers! If he were still slung in the tree… he shuddered to imagine what would have become of him. He wondered of his prospects now. Under no circumstances must he fall prey to the conductor’s fate. He began to doubt the wisdom of his booking flight at the balloon way.

  At last, he gathered up enough gumption to risk the forest. But which direction? The sun showed a hazy patch through a maze of mandrakes. He picked a direction that looked safe, and furtively cast a look over his shoulder.

  He wandered in a daze, hacked through the tangle with his knife. Vines traced crazy arches overhead; trunks were closely-woven, often laden with epiphytes or creepers, forcing him to squeeze his way through the dim, green aisles. His hope vanished for a quick solution out of this nightmare; at best, the ghoulish pygmy raiders might make do with the bodies they had, not the one they sensed had escaped.

  His choice of direction proved felicitous. Within a few hours he arrived at an unknown river, breaking out of the clot of mandrakes. The river was too wide to ford and the waters were black and fast-moving. The river, none too encouraging, veered wide, flooding the area with brackish water. A trio of crumbling statues of bygone tribal kings stood knee deep in murky water and weeds to shoreward. North and south, the watercourse drifted, like a great wallowing serpent, disappearing in a jade-coloured blur of foliage to the north.

  Risgan looked longingly to the hither side, easily a span of two hundred yards. He recalled the malign charms of the Badan river, and bypassed an idea of swimming across.

  Only as he made this easy decision did he see a flamingo or some other fowl, suddenly plunge underwater on the far bank. Risgan frowned. It had disappeared in a flurry of bubbles and feathers, as if some underwater predator had targeted it for a fine snack. He nodded to himself grimly. To make matters worse, the western shore, on which he was confined, was too rugged to pass on foot, north or south. Dark ferns rose like antlers in his path; stumps of old mongoose cedar and mandrake elm made miserable foot companions. He was in a pickle, and the retriever tried putting his wits together, thinking aloud for some time. Clearly, the river was his most expeditious route to safety and he felt no desire to backtrack through the savage forest and risk the domain of the pygmies and the savage lands he had recently crossed by balloon: Sphinx Valley, the Necropolis of Ourtia. He began crafting a raft of light timber, cut with his only useable tools, pickaxe and belt knife. It was tough going and the retriever expended several hours of hacking and whittling which gave but minimal results. He piled the largest branches on top of each other, strapped them together with rope foraged from slim saplings which he twisted and twined with precision. A crude sail of large manga leaves he onerously fashioned, knit together with tough strips of bark peeled from the old towering mandrakes. In this locale no undersupply of these dignified goliaths existed. He was in the midst of carving out a long pole to guide him in places near the shore when several fleet, loose-limbed shapes came darting out of the woods.

  Risgan realized that cool aplomb was his only defence against the pygmies and retained an easy manner of industry. The crew surrounded him in a wide circle. He saw necklaces of human teeth garlanding their necks, front incisors filed like wolf fangs. Pale feet gripped the soil, flat and splayed for maximum springing. The lead scout burst out in a torrent of jabber which Risgan could not understand. A nearby savage clutched a crude bone hook in a hand, brandishing it menacingly at Risgan.

  Risgan knelt at his task calmly and squinted up at them in peevish annoyance. “Here, now, what is all the fuss?”

  “What do you do?” cried another who changed tongue in the broken vernacular of common speech. “We are the Aluka—fierce woodland raiders! We skin men’s hides and drape them on our tents when we raid.”

  “This is only natural,” concurred Risgan. “In truth, I build a raft to take me to the other side of this river—for hides.”

  The scout translated to his peers in excited gutturals. “The other side is forbidden! Mitrim—full of strange birds which revel in carving men’s flesh and which dwell secretly in the forests of the Knug.”

  Risgan gave a raucous laugh. “Nonsense! The bank is within plain sight and I see no birds. Fresh hides are to be gained by the dozen, as I mentioned.”

  The scout peered with interest and suspicion. He translated to the others, and they stared from one to another, falling into a whispered murmuring.

  “We know not of any river craft that has crossed the Yumina or survived,” confided the scout, “only that we pluck sky craft that taunt us out of the sky with our fire arrows.”

  “That is an unsavoury practice… yet, beside the point. Look!—” Risgan beckoned to the two logs he had laboriously strapped together “—you see before you, the art of raft-building. This platform will become a giant ship.”

  There were murmurs of doubt, and awe, and the scout babbled on truculently to his mates. “We will summon Og, our leader, who will decide what is to be built. Our war-king roams upstream with a savage troupe of warriors hunting for survivors like yourself from the wreck.”

  Risgan discouraged such an act. “Such effort is unnecessary. Help me construct this raft and we will go to Mitrim together. You, me and your cohorts. Great merit is in store for all of us… and if you can bring Og hides, you will surprise and please him with some new wares. He seems a man harsh and unwielding of praise.”

  The scout affirmed the opinion and conferred with his tribesmen. There arose suspicious and controversial slurs of dissension.

  “Efit asks, how do you know there are hides on Mitrim if you have never visited? Where is your craft? Why do we see you building one for the first time?”

  Risgan scoffed. “Fools! Do you forget the balloon?”

  More rumbles and whines filled the air. Eventually, the group consented to Risgan’s scheme.

  “Bring logs then!” commanded Risgan briskly. “We will need dozens of them to strap together to form an appropriate platform. Your saw-edged blades will work wonders here. Shake a leg, men!—before Og returns!”
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br />   The dozen pygmies set to work. Within an hour, they had, with the help of their efficient hands, strapped enough wood to form the initial phase of the platform. The raft, eight foot square was complete with a central mast and a small sail of Risgan’s manga leaves and they pulled it out into the shallows. A group of primitives eagerly embarked on the raft anxious to cross. They stamped feet in wild unison.

  Risgan cried out petulantly and held up a hand. “Halt! Are you forgetting the poles? How will we steer?”

  There were fretful grumbles; ten men pulled out knives and began to whittle three stout poles from long saplings.

  “You might as well carve out some oars too,” suggested Risgan wisely. “Hurry!” he bawled. “Og will return in a brief time and our surprise will be spoiled!”

  Grunts greeted the warning, but they promptly complied. Four crude oars were soon carved of the mandrake. The host jabbered on about the five foot long snargs with razor teeth that teemed in the waters of the Yumina river but Risgan gave an offhand wave, allotting little attention to such dangers. “There are gibbeths also who prowl the forest, yet we walk on land. Do we hide in caves all day?”

  The savages had no answer for this and Risgan nodded in triumphant satisfaction. “The oars will do.”

  Several again sought to clamber aboard, including the scout, a fox-nosed hunter with long fingers and knobbly knees. Soon many of the pygmies were fighting amongst themselves as to who would occupy the best spots. Risgan whispered an earnest remark in the scout’s ear. The scout dropped back in fervid conversation with his friends.

  “These rafts are known to possess flaws,” reiterated Risgan. “I will raft out for a small spell, only to test the craft for its river-worthiness. Should I fall to snargs… well, then I will be the sole sacrifice to Douran, not yourselves.”