Just to get something out there, here is a draft of a short story set in the Borderlands. Tell me what you think!
*****
The stem-bridge bounced precipitously as Kennett scurried
across it towards the shouting. A deep voice was calling out, its challenges
interspersed by strange sucking noises. The red bowl ahead contained shops and
the homes of craftsmen – but this ruckus sounded more like the arena!
He dodged past some slower-moving pedestrians ahead,
scuttling along the very edge of the stem, the sixty-foot fall below broken
only by a partial lattice of lower stem-bridges. Skidding between the legs of a
Brock leaning at the bowl-gate, Kennett swung right and looked for a way up,
avoiding the crush ahead which cut all view of whatever drama was unfolding. He
could now hear a second voice, quieter, quavering, stammeringly replying to the
challenger. Kennett could not yet pick out the words.
Pulling himself atop a crate and thence to a low roof,
Kennett bounded across the roofs of the shops here. He ended up perching atop a
chandler’s balustrade – picking at it, he rather suspected it was heavy plaster
rather than stone. Well, Kennett wasn’t too heavy. He looked round for wherever
the action was, his eyes passing over the landscape beyond the City of Quinces –
the oak stands and rich grasslands of Loam Country, the hill of the Great
Carpet with its marble monument atop it, the mountains to the east shrouding
Lost Elariel from view, a great floating mote of some kind stationary above the
woods to the south, shrouded in cloud. None of this held his attention for more
than a moment – from the vantage of the Flower Towns, this was his daily view.
Ah, there – on the other side of the bowl, a hollow in the
crowd, filled by four figures – a cowering Brownie woman clad in practical
craft leathers, two mailed Human guards-for-hire, and between the guards, a long
and strange slug with tentacle-arms grasping a scroll. An Arbiter.
“...The seventh charge laid and approved by the Kind Master
Aurion the Smiling goes thus: three centuries ago, your grandfather was
indentured to Lord Aurion” – a strange sucking wheeze, and Kennett spied, with
his keen eyesight, a tumourous wound beneath the Arbiter’s mouthparts – “and
fled, taking with him eight-hundred platinum worth of glasses, tools, and gems.”
The creature rolled up its scroll, depositing it in some
sort of organic sac on its own back. It wore a purple silken half-cloak clipped
around its neck, and a metal spike glinted from its tail-end. Beyond that, its
rotten body was wholly on display – sleek, slimy flanks marred by gashes and
warts and tumours, its face cut and rotted. Kennett briefly retched – and then,
in a flash, felt pity for the awful creature.
“Under the conditions of the Happy Peace, I hereby take you
under guard to return you to Faery and to the care of Lord Aurion. He assures
me he will be merciful.”
The Arbiter gestured with a tentacle-arm at the Brownie, and
the two Humans stepped forward. The crowd muttered and there was a stifled sob,
but there was no movement. And then...
“JEROME K. JEROME!”
The voice sounded unnaturally amplified, but any
consideration of the technique was soon swept from Kennett’s mind by a brown
cannonball arcing up from behind a house on the far side of the marketplace,
performing a perfect parabola down on to the scene of the arrest – straight down,
indeed, on to one of the Human guards, barrelling the man over and dazing him.
Then the cannonball – unfurled? – and in its place stood a
dimunitive and spiky being holding a rapier-like weapon. A Spikeling.
“Who’s next?” it cried, again in a strangely loud tone.
Kennett thought he spied something silver at the tiny being’s throat.
The Arbiter began to sinuate its way forward, not even
bothering to reply to the Spikeling’s bravado.
“Non, non, non, Poggle, I have told you a thousand times – that
is not the phrase!”
This voice rang out from behind the Arbiter, and the crowd
began to jostle and part. The same voice continued.
“Mon cher Arbiter, I am happy to relieve you of the burden
of this arrest, and shall take this felon into my custody; be assured I shall
give her all the punishment she deserves for such misdeeds!”
The Arbiter swung its head round, its purple cloak flapping
sharply.
“By what authority do you seize this bounty?” it asked
calmly, “Has Lord Aurion commissioned you also?”
Now Kennett could see the Spikeling’s ally. A Human male in
a blue tabard displaying a white flower, wearing a floppy hat.
“Ah...” the Human paused, thinking, “Perhaps it is truest to
say I bear the authority of Louis, the thirteenth of his name, and the love of
Madame Bonacieux, and such marks give me full confidence to deprive you of your
bounty.”
The Arbiter gestured to its remaining guardsman, who drew a
sword and advanced on the blue-tabarded man, before turning its attention back
to Poggle the Spikeling – who still stood at arms like a gamecock, waiting to
meet the charge of this being some fifteen times his own size.
The Arbiter drew no weapon, but instead withdrew a round
ball – crystal, Kennett thought, squinting closely – and thrust it at the
Spikeling from eight feet away. What was this?
A wispy smoke began to issue forth from the ball, and the
Arbiter seemed to murmur – or slurp – something, though Kennett could not hear
what. The vapour began to entangle the little Spikeling, whose attempt to leap
back was foiled by the smoke’s sooty arms.
Meanwhile, the two Humans had come to swordpoint, and had
already backed off from one another, watching each other warily. The
blue-tabarded man held a rapier like a fencer, the mailed guardsman a long
sword; the fencer might seem to have the speed advantage, but the guardsman was
tall and strong, moving rapidly and taking advantage of a longer reach. Then
the blue-tabarded man leapt to his right, scattering members of the crowd, and
landing on a raised slab of stone. Now he had the height advantage and was
closer to the Brownie, to boot – who seemed to be recovering from her shock and
was edging away into the crowd until one of the wisps of smoke seized her, too.
“GERROFFFOVME!” Poggle shouted, slicing at the smoke.
“Mon ami, that is also incorrect – it is Jer-on-“ – and there
the blue-tabarded man stopped, for he had to parry a sudden rush from the
guardsman, who sought to follow that up by bundling the duellist from his
perch.
Instead, he swayed back and seemed to fall to his knees,
throwing his free hand out to the guardsman’s shoulder. His opponent began to
flinch away, but the duellist had already launched off leaping over the burly
Human’s head and landing into a heavy roll. As the guardsman turned, the
duellist was already on his feet, albeit unsteadily, and drove his pommel into
the taller man’s chin, knocking him down hard.
A third wisp of smoke detached from the mass to seize the
victorious blue-tabarded man.
Then, suddenly, a burst of bright light above the
marketplace, and the world suddenly seemed to undergo a brief blueshift,
everything tinted in indigo and outlined in navy. Then normal colour returned,
but a peculiar metallic taste remained in Kennett’s mouth. The smoke was gone,
and the Arbiter was darting its head around, seeking something.
“Took your sweet time, Tinkerbell!” Poggle yelled angrily.
The duellist, by this time, had reached Poggle and carefully
clapped him on an unspiked shoulder.
“Oui, oui, that is the reference! Correct!”
“Tinkerbell”, it turned out, was a small flying Fae – a Pixie,
Kennett thought, but the being shimmered behind the speed of its wings and he
could not be certain – and they were not happy with the epithet.
“I would not be so ready to mock, if I repelled as readily
with my personality as with my spikes...” came a sweet female voice. Pixie or
Sprite, then.
The Arbiter’s guardsmen were both shakily getting to their
feet by this point. The ball of shimmering light moved slightly, and Kennett
caught glimpse of a small, lissom arm – and then a shower of sparks covered the
marketplace, causing guardsman and gawking crowd alike to scatter.
“...At any rate, I was rather busy drawing away the Arbiter’s
other two guards!” the flying Fae finished, with a tone of superiority.
Before the sparks could clear, there was a further scuffle
or sound of movement in the obscured area – and once they had dissipated, only
the Arbiter and the two guardsman were left in the open area, looking angrily around. There was
murmuring, clapping, and even a little ribald laughter in the crowd.
“Wow,” breathed Kennett.
