NOVEL NEXT Chapter 96: The Six Years Story
"Yes! Yesss!" Rum scratched a final line in the brick wall and stepped back unsteadily, staring at his creation with wide, manic eyes. "That's it" he spoke faintly. "I've done it." I've figured out how to expand the pattern.
Rum's feet shuffled slowly back to the wall. With arms outstretched, he leaned against it with his left cheek, closing his eyes, hugging it. The bricks felt rough, cold. But he didn't care. He sighed. "Huhhh." He was tired. Really tired. But I can't give up now. He pushed himself gently off the wall and took an unsteady couple of steps back. Raising his pebble, his little stone, he put it against the bricks and started carefully drawing out another set of lines, another modular expansion to his adaptation of Amez' original design.
He scraped, and scraped, white lines on a rough surface. He couldn't stop. No, not for a moment could he stop. Not even for a little nap. He had to continue, he had to make the reservoir big enough, the input channels greedy enough, the output channels wide enough.
What time is it? The thought passed him by as he scratched. There was no time of day down here. No way to tell the body that it should sleep, or be wake, or for how long. He felt tired, so tired. But maybe it's just evening? Maybe the stress of the courtroom had made him tired, perhaps he could yet postpone some of his sleep. The thought motivated him, driving conviction in his work.
Mumbling voices from above. A new shift of guards? Rum stopped scratching and tried to listen. A light was approaching his oubliette, getting stronger. He lowered his hand and tucked the stone deep inside his palm, staring upwards. What looked to be a lamp was moving over him.
"You awake, prisoner?"
Rum tried to moisturize his mouth. "Yeees" he managed faintly, then coughed, and tried again, louder but hoarse. "Yes, I have am awake."
"Good" responded the voice firmly.
Rum saw the lid starting to move as gnomes opened up his prison. Soon the wooden ladder was slid down towards him, and he hurried back up against the wall not to be accidentally struck by it. As the ladder landed, it bounced lightly a couple of times. Rum grabbed it quickly, and began to climb.
"Your next court day awaits you, but you knew that." Rum saw the boots and then the face of yesterday's official as his own head ascended from the hole in the ground. "Hope you've slept well" added the little man.
Rum felt a pit of despair open up in his belly. I didn't sleep. AT ALL. The wizard, out of the oubliette and rising up straight, stared back down at the gnome, trouble filling his gut.
"Though by the looks of it, that's not the case. Well, that's your problem." The gnome had some small paper package in his hand, and as Rum's eyes glanced to it, the gnome looked down at his own hand, before bringing it up to Rum. "It's for you" he said, and Rum eyed it curiously for a second, before taking it gently. A string tied up the paper, but the knot was easily undone. "Breakfast" said the official. "You can eat it while we walk." He gestured to behind Rum, and the wizard turned to see a band of gnomes standing ready to make the escort. While Rum began to open the package, the official lead him to form up with the others. Inside he found sandwiches, three of them. He bit the first one immediately, and hungrily chewed as they began to march, first towards the other end of this underground holding spot, then up the stairs, floor after floor, until they reached the courtroom.
Half an hour later, and the wizard sat back in the court, the lights only illuminating the judges, and himself, and accidentally his guards, while all the others sat behind Rum, cast in those deep shadows.
"This is day two of the proceedings against Rum Warmhud!" began the central judge, and went on to summarize the previous day's events. When he had finished, he immediately proceeded. "Today, only one question remains: Is Rum Warmhud an agent of the dungeon lords? And if he is not, what allegiances or motivations could he have had to sow the chaos that he has wrought." The gnome looked down at Rum from the judges' table. "You denied being an agent of the dungeon lords, yesterday. Is that still so?"
"Yes!" Rum replied hastily, looking dirty and dry there where he sat. He was about to ask for water when the judge beat him to it, and pointed to a gnome on the side, waving for them to step forth. It proved to be a gnome woman with a jug of water and a cup. She walked over to Rum as everyone else waited. She poured the liquid and handed a filled cup over to him.
"Thanks" Rum hoarsed, and drank greedily.
"The question we have for you then" the judge continued, "is where have you been for the last six years? Nobody, it seems, can account for your whereabouts. Not even your brother is willing to tell us a single detail, claiming nigh total ignorance. You have also resisted interrogation so we do not have your own version of these past six years. Therefore, given these peculiar circumstances, we are forced to believe that you were, in that time, in training as a spy for the dungeon lords near any of The Three Lost Cities. We know that upon your return you came from that direction. However. Since you blanketly deny being a spy, we ask you once more, and only once: Tell us what happened? Account for your last six years." The gnome folded his hands and looked down over at Rum, a mix of patience and expectation surrounding his moustache, in all its whitehaired elegance.
"My last six years?" Rum wondered. The judge nodded his head slowly. My last six years? Wait, this is perfect. I didn't get to finish my creation, and if they hand me my judgement today they might take me back to Andertun immediately – BUT – if I drag these proceedings on, I could delay the judgement by at least a day. That's it! I have to tell them EVERYTHING.
"We're waiting" prompted Judge Twixluck next to the center judge.
"Ehm" Rum touched his bald sweaty head, stroking it gently with his palm. "Could I be permitted to stand and walk a bit? It just makes it easier to talk at length."
Four of the judges raised their eyebrows, before one leaned over and whispered to the central judge. The two had a whispered exchange, before the center judge again turned back to Rum with folded hands. "You may stand, and you may walk the space between us and your chair. However, you may not stare at the audience. If you're caught doing so, you will be forced to sit again for the remainder of this trial."
Rum nodded hurriedly. The judge responded by gesturing for him to rise. Rum rose. "I might also need some more water?" He showed them his empty cup. The judge waved for the water lady to come back, which she did, filling his cup. He drank from it while making thinking expressions. "Where do you want me to start?"
"From the beginning. Start with when you decided to leave, and why you decided to leave so abruptly from the university. We know all there is to know about your time there, and your studies. But nobody knows why you left."
"Eeeeh..." Rum began to pace a little, first a few steps towards the judges, then he changed course and started walking parallell with their table, slowly, back and forth, his eyes absentmindedly on the floor. The cup in his left hand, while his right held tightly onto his pebble. "Okay. So. If you would allow me to indulge a bit in magical theory?" He glanced up at the judges. "I promise you that it will be relevant!"
The central judge simply gestured for Rum to go on.
"Okay!" Rum nodded to himself, eyes falling back to the floor. "First things first. What you need to understand is that I have a complicated relationship towards the gods. Or perhaps I should say an unorthodox opinion. I believe that magic, as we know it, is a..." he fumbled for words, "... perpetuated misconception. And it was when I studied at The Flipped University that my suspicions were first raised. There I kept asking myself this question: Were there always gods? Was there a time before the gods? Was there magic before the gods, and if not, how could the gods just create magic, out of nothing? If they created magic, there would have to have been a something from which they created it. This much my instincts told me." Rum really wanted to stroke his beard, but when his left hand came up and the cup pressed against his hairs, he realized he had both hands full. Disappointed at not having a third arm, he suppressed his beard-stroking urge as best he could. "And" he let out in a strained voice, "perhaps this something was the real magic?"
He glanced up at the judges, all of which were staring at him patiently. After a brief pause in which he drank empty his cup of water, he resumed. "The gods – well perhaps I'm skipping ahead a bit here, no matter." Rum fumbled to organize his thoughts while quietly pacing for a few seconds. He was so tired. But, he had to go on, he had to keep talking, keep the court engaged. "The thing is" he restarted, "I only had a suspicion at the time, and my suspicion was as such: The gods have somehow obscured the real source of magic, for whatever purpose they may have. At the university though, when I tried to share my thoughts, they laughed at me. They wouldn't listen, they wouldn't entertain the thought. One other student even called me crazy when I finally shared my thinking with them – fully that is. What was I to do there? I could not get the idea out of my head." He gesticulated wildly with his cup towards his own forehead. "The more time passed, the more difficult it became to take anything that they taught me seriously. It was like being told the events at a play, the actions of actors playing out a script, while nobody could share the authentic story of the real events. Nobody could speak a real witness account. What was magic, truly?" Finally the beard-stroking urge overwhelmed Rum and he had to go back to his seat and put down the cup, so that his left hand could do its thing.
"How" judge Twixluck began, "does this relate to taking off? I can see you did not like it at the university, that much is obvious in what you say. But why leave the city altogether? Why leave Ermos? Or did you leave Ermos, at first? Where did you go, and why did you decide to go where you went?"
Rum looked up at the gnome as she talked. When she was finished, he stroked his beard three savoring times before answering. "I did leave Ermos. I had a hunch, coming from history, that the answers to my question would not be found here. We are a young city, a young region. This used to be a backwater some hundred or more years ago, a nowhere of no importance but to the small indigenous population living here. I wanted to seek answers in the ancient realms. Magic arose in the south and east, that much I learned at the university, and that much the books could tell me. So I decided to leave, and cross into The Giant Forest. Into Melrum."
"You went to the dwarves?" Twixluck raised her eyebrow.
"Yes."
"Why? The dwarves of The Young Mountains don't have much magic. They didn't even learn it properly before The Flipped University got going. Your story doesn't make sense."
"Ah, but their cities have existed for ages" Rum took his hand off this beard to raise a finger. "All dwarves in the west descend from The Young Mountains. And they lay to the east, far to the east, in that general direction I needed to go. So I went there. Partially out of curiosity that they might know something we do not. And partially as a way-stop towards the real source of magic."
"That is an adequate explanation" Judge Twixluck conceded. "Go on then. How long did you stay there? Also, how did you even get there? The journey is long and difficult, and you left abruptly. I can't imagine you had the funds to pay for your journey, and we know you did not consult your parents, who either way are not wealthy."
"I went with a returning caravan" Rum answered directly. "As a partially trained university mage I was able to trade my knowledge of magic in exchange for accompaniment and food." He went on to detail the people he'd travelled with. Every single dwarf, including the children of those who'd travelled. Every profession he could remember. Every kind of item stored on their wagons. Even the tiniest details, like one of the wagon drivers pulling out a pipe to smoke every morning at dawn, to which Twixluck finally interrupted.
"Enough with the details! We get it! They were real dwarves. You don't have to justify the fact. Move on with the story" and she made an irritated gesture.
"Yes, of course. So, well. We had passed the Silkenlip Castle, and all the rest of Olam, and for weeks we travelled deep into the forest. I learned from a dwarf there how to gather mushrooms, nuts, berries, and other bounties of the wild forest. I mention this because these skills would later become useful when I departed the caravan. Which I had to do, not long after we exited out and into The Young Mountains. They were heading north. I on the other hand, had no reason to go north. But I did go with them for a little bit. There's a rest stop a little downhill from Redratall for those returning from across Melrum, so I went together with them up there to see my first dwarven village. As I departed with the caravan's people, I was introduced to an old couple of men, dwarves, living together, who decided to take me in for a pair of days. Again, I was asked to tell about magic. When it became time for me to leave, they asked me to bring a letter from them to Redratall. I hadn't yet at that point decided where I would go, so my visit to that little republic was actually a bit accidental."
Rum finished stroking his beard and went over to his cup, lifting it up from his chair and looking down into it, as if surprised that it was empty. He showed it to the center judge, who boredly waved for a refill. Rum waited while the gnome woman came over. After she was done and began to walk back again, he drank, savouring the refreshment.
"You were at Redratall" prompted an impatient Judge Twixluck. "What happened there. Was the letter important in any way?"
"Probably not, but it did introduce me to the sister of one of the dwarves, who happened to have the state librarian over for dinner. And she invited me in to eat as thanks for delivery. If I remember correctly, the librarian was cousin to one of her three current husbands, the fourth had died after being rammed by a ram over a cliff's edge. Anyways, I told the librarian how much I liked books and one thing lead to another: suddenly I was drinking mead at the librarian's house and chatting about the state library, before he, his co-husband and wife, all invited me to stay in their home under the mountain, and to come with him to work. So that's how I ended up in The State Library of Redratall. I liked it there, and given my quest for the truth of magic, it made sense for me to stay and learn as much as I could." Rum slurped from his cup. "I must've stayed there for a many weeks, couple of months possibly."
"We do not need to know the details of your stay" brushed Judge Twixluck, "so please just let us skip to the end, and tell us what if anything made you move on to your next destination. We still got, what? Five and a half years to account for? More?"
"Keeping time was not a concern of mine on the journey" Rum remarked. "I can only tell you the sequence of events, not exactly when they occurred."
"Fine" Judge Twixluck said with a grumpy expression. "I have to inform you that ambiguity about times and places will work against you at the time of our judgement. But please go on, anything you can say is still potentially favourable to your case."
"Right" Rum said. "So, yes, two months passed, and I learned a lot. There was this one book in particular, which the librarian showed me. Apparently it had been a work of the librarian before him. On The Origins of The Celestial and The Magick. It was, you might say – perfect." Rum made a satisfied expression. "Almost exactly what I'd been looking for. The book described to me a place called The City of Ages, far to the south. It was more information than I'd ever been able to gather from the university. So naturally, that's where I went next. I left Redratall, wandered down the mountain, along the treeline southwards, all by myself. Just me and the wildlife." Rum paused, memories erupting in his mind of a grand wild forest, adjacent to an equally grand tall mountain range. "I later learned that most of the dwarves take a different route via the mountains, or under them, and that nobody really goes by the treeline. Which explains the absense of any dwarves there. Suffice to say I was really hungry at that time." Rum shrugged. "You live and you learn. Anyways, I followed an old trail that lead up to Motharan, that great city of the dwarves to the east. I spent about a month there, hoping for similar luck, that I'd stumble upon someone who would grant me access to books and learned people. I was initially barred from their public library, considering I was a stranger. But when I sat down outside the library, and got help to make a sign that said my soul needs books, someone eventually took pity on me, and they let me in. Their library is vast beyond comprehension, you should've seen it! Levels upon levels, basements under basements with relics. But" Rum's face adjusted with disappointment, "it was all so poorly organized. I drowned in the seas of possibility, and left without having learned much."
Rum described his continued journey southwards. He'd once more gone by the treeline, but also over the mountains once the treeline ended. Crossing it, he'd descended down into The Sidan Hills where village wizards and village witches abounded. He'd sought The Lands of Adalway, wherein lay The City of Ages. To get from Sidan Hills and into Adalway however, he had to cross The Ondanara Desert. Which turned out to be nigh impossible. Thirst. Starvation. Dust storms. A whole three months had passed before he managed to hike with a caravan across that vast, dry ocean of nothing.
"I found it though, in the end. The mountain where the city lay. I climbed it, but..." The wizard sighed. "It was only a city of ruins. A place lost to time. I could scarcely find any residual magic, and what magic I found were just indecipherable inscriptions on stone walls. No answers could be found there. I had crossed beyond the edges of the world I even knew existed, yet had only found a ruin, in a land of scattered villages and small towns. The wizards and witches here were few, and surprisingly undeveloped in their magecrafts. Furthermore, they were far in-between. At least that's how I experienced it." Rum paused at that, his face and eyes caught up in a dosen minor memories.
"You reached your destination, and this is roughly – a year?" Judge Twixluck commented. "A little more? You didn't go home, did you. What happened?"
Rum's gaze returned to the courtroom, and he looked up at his addressor. He smiled. "What do you do, when there's nothing, and nobody in this world, who can get the answers for you?" He paused, making it unclear whether his question was rhethorical or supposed to be answered by his audience. "You get them yourself." He nodded, agreeing with himself. "Of course" he raised his voice. "I could've headed out to the Far Away Origins of Magic. I could've made the journey through the endless wilderness of Melrum, far north, to The North Peak itself! I could've climbed that mountain to the very home of the gods. You could say that was an option, if I truly wanted to know their origins. But that journey is far more perilous than even crossing The Ondanara Desert. And who would follow me there? And would the gods even let me ascend? No. It was an option in theory only. If I was ever going to succeed in figuring it out, I had to find the answers myself, within myself." He knocked his chest with his cup. "As a mage I am magical am I not? So why couldn't I simply study myself?" Rum opened his arms, as if to invite people to his realization. "You want to know what I did then? I wandered. My quest was to discover my own magical self, but this was as far as I knew an unprecedented task. Never before had anyone figured themselves as that which ought to be studied and understood, that magic was of them. The orthodoxy is that magic is a gift from the gods. We summon the powers of the gods, and therefore if anyone and anything is to be studied, shouldn't it be the gods? Well, I upended that notion in my quest." Rum waved his cup and got a refill, drinking slowly while letting everyone else soak in his words. "This also brings me to a deeper point. Maybe magic is something far more alien to our kins, than anyone have really been able to comprehend. At least since the dawn of magic, since that first mage, The Zer, and the early days of The City of Ages. I believe magic is, in a sense, a nature beyond our nature. But also, a nature coupled to ours. The gods have appropriated it, that alien nature, turned it into some kind of system, when it truth it is a thing all of its own, a reality all of its own, distinct from ours and infinitely discoverable. Actually, more than that, I believe it is an example of how reality is inherently novel, inherently surprise. Magic is a mystery that could only be, by itself wanting to be itself. It won't come to us and it won't be real to us by coersion, by our will. It will be only as it wants to be, and it wants to be different in each one of us, it wants to be itself in each and every one of us. It is, as if, our magical selves wanted an expression all of their own." Rum halted, and stared into the dark beyond the judges, into a wall far off, ideas from long ago passing through the window of his mind like a biography of ideation.
A silence.
"Ehem." Judge Twixluck was drawing attention to herself. "That's all very interesting, but I believe you have strayed from the topic of this hearing quite a lot now. Please, if you will" she stared at Rum's back for a bit, until the wizard turned around, remembering where he was. "You were wandering, you say. Wandering to where? Whom did you meet? How did you get back?"
Rum's expression wandered from the judge and to the floor. He took a few careful steps, thinking, trying to get his thoughts back on track. "I wandered Adalway for a few months, trying to see if I could find anyone left who knew the old magic. I found wise people, I found stories passed down dozens of generations. People who traced the lineages of their villages back to times when they'd been formed or brought to ruin by the workings of emergent gods. They made me realize that the gods are perptuating lies, their worship a deception, a farse-"
"STOP!" shouted a man, and it was a judge that Rum hadn't seen speaking up before, the one on the far left among the row. "This is blasphemy! An attack on institutions that bring together all of the kins of the world! You WILL NOT utter more of this blasphemy! Not if you do not want blasphemy added to the list of your crimes, a list already too long." The face of the judge was deeply serious, and he looked as if personally offended.
A university-trained mage? Rum wondered, stupified by the reaction. Eventually, he carefully nodded, changing the topic. "So" he said, "I got out of Adalway in time. There's trade between Adalway and The Kingdom of Meya. I was allowed to follow a caravan, and it brought me straight into the land of humans. Meya was not very pleasant though. They don't like poor people in Meya, and I was put into prison a number of times."
"For what crimes?" asked the center judge, making a note.
"None!" Rum retorted. "Or at least none that should be considered crimes. One time, when I was feeling hungry, they put me a prison for simply asking for food in the streets. Another time, they said I was loitering, which might be true but when is walking around and just thinking a crime? A third time they didn't even bother to tell me what I was accussed of, I believe they simply didn't like the look of a poor person near the rich people's streets. So yes, no crime that is reasonably a crime. Even so, they kept finding reasons to put me in prison. This was true of The City of Meya, their capital, and it was true at The Monarch's Lake, where thugs even abducted me from a village to hand me over to a rural prison. It was true almost wherever I went. It seems that in Meya, you either serve someone, or you are like a stray dog to them. Worse actually, because I've seen stray dogs treated with love and compassion. They treat their stray humans like trash. Something to be put out of sight, and away. I was actually considering walking up and into the Edi Goblin Lands. I've heard that they have some fascinating sex magic there, and maybe they would've shared some revealing secrets with me. But alas, the locals in eastern Meya chased me away, and I was forced to march north. That's when I decided to head up and into The Agadeya Plateau. I was truly desirous of peace then. I needed peace." Rum absentmindedly tapped his cup against his chest, memories filling him again. Recollections of harrassment, closed doors, closed hearts, the persecutions, the chasing out of towns and villages, time and again. Forcing him on a long, tiresome march, further and further, on an empty and growling stomach. Except for those few times when he could sneak crops from cultivated lands, or mushrooms from the small forests. "It was a painful time" he mumbled. More so to himself than anyone else present.
"We understand" Judge Twixluck responded, her expression unusually compassionate for the ordinarily sour judges. "We have heard about some of the things that transpired in Meya. Could you perhaps paint a – hmm" the gnome thought about how to formulate her question, "bigger, more connected picture of what transpired there, at The Plateau. How was it that you became thisss–" she gestured at the air, as if her next word was to be found there, "–captive, slave, whatever you wish to call it. What happened up to that point?"
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"What happened?" Rum raised an eyebrow. "Magic happened. I thought maybe I would cross Agadeya, pass west to the dwarves and return by The Wild Corridor to Ermos. But I found a quiet village there, who did not shun me for my poverty-stricken look, or the fact that I had no money. Nor did they care about money either. No shops, you see, no travelling merchants this far into the marshes where I went, a bit on a whim really. I wanted to try and see a bit more of what these communities were like, after I got a few good impressions. Instead of a peek though, I ended up in a place where I was welcome, where I became their very own village mage. They'd never seen a mage before there. Never. I was charmed into staying, and I found that peace there, that inner peace, and the time and the necessary boredom to focus on my magical self. So. What happened? I came up with my very first bit of magic. My own, personal magic." Rum looked back to his chair, where stood his guards. One of them looked like a master wizard. His attire well-made, and with a wand in his hand. "I could demonstrate it, if the room would allow it. It is quite harmless." And he glanced up to the judges, who eyed him back with suspicion for a moment. They leaned in to chat between themselves.
After a time the judges reached some form of agreement. "You may" began the center judge, "but only if your guards believe that they can contain you quickly, should your demonstration prove to be anything like what you've used before."
Rum turned back to his guards, where the master wizard raised his wand a little. He looked confident as he eyed Rum suspiciously, his eyes weighing, analytically, and without fear nor hatred. His head went to the judges, and he nodded firmly.
"You may" the center judge declared.
Rum went back to the chair to put down his cup, then went a few steps towards the judges – but not too close – not willing to excite more of the suspicion already hovering over him. He kept a good distance from them, and in clear sight of the master mage. Opening his palm, he spoke a simple, familiar phrase. "Channel Bio-Energy." Abruptly, a little green flame flared up amongst his fingers. He raised his hand for everyone to see. "Godless magic" he explained. "The mana requirements are negligible, but it burns the energy stores of the body. I would later discover that using this when very hungry is a very bad idea. I once fainted. But when I'm well fed, this can work as well as magical light, never burning out." He shut his fingers over his palm, and the fire extinguished smokelessly in an instant.
Most of the judges looked mildly wonderstricken, while at the end of the judge's table, one judge looked on with disgust, more mad at the display than anything. I guess that means blasphemy is on the list after all. Rum put the thought aside.
"How long did you stay there?" asked Judge Twixluck. "Can anyone corroborate your story?"
Rum shook his head. "I suppose the villagers could and would, but you'd have to travel far to reach them and ask. I stayed there for a good, looong time. But less than a year I think. And I discovered a couple of other spells there too. It's wonderful, really" Rum spoke with fondness in his voice, "how much you can advance in magic, when there's nobody to tell you how it's supposed to be like. And the villagers certainly didn't know. They knew only that you ought to have a village mage if you were a proper village. A village of means, they put it. But that's the end of it really. In their little village, magic was what I did, magical was what I was. That's what everyone knew, and so that's what I could be. Who I could be."
A shared silence followed, as everyone in the room absorbed what'd been said.
"And then, you left. Or were you captured?" Twixluck asked.
"I left. I had had all the boredom I could muster. I left, and the villagers were quite sad to see me leave. They'd loved me in a way, I'd been their village mage, and at some point I think some of them hoped I would settle there, and stay forever. At one point I might've wondered if I would too. But I couldn't. I was on a journey, and this was only a resting place before the rest of my journey. I travelled the Plateau for maybe a month, perhaps a bit more. Then, I was captured."
Rum recounted the story he'd once told his party, but insisted on explaining as many details as he could even as the judges tried to rush him onwards. He talked in depth about his spellcraft, causing the judges to sigh, and eventually call for lunch, whereupon they demanded that he skip ahead in his story when they'd later reconvene.
Rum ate with the guards, and his food was actually quite nice and nourishing. Lunch lasted for about an hour. He tried to get some sleep in the second half of lunchtime, but was not allowed to cast Softify for comfort. Even so, he was tired enough that he didn't care. Also, he was experienced enough in bad sleeping arrangements that he could do without. So he slept on an empty bench, with his guards choosing to let him, as they were in an otherwise empty room where nobody could see the disgraceful display of their prisoner sleeping on a bench. When lunchtime was nearing its end, Rum was poked back into the waking world by a speartip, and his escort brought his sleepy face back into the courtroom. There the wizard started to truly feel the effects of his lack of sleep. But he tried to imagine the eternity within Andertun that he'd be facing, least he could stay awake and keep talking. The ensuing surge of anxiety certainly helped.
"Tell us, succintly now" began the center judge, "what happened after you arrived at Ordonbur?"
Rum got up from his seat. Walking a bit helped even more with wakefulness. He yawned, then tried to suppress a follow-up yawn. "Sorry" he said before they could reprimand him, "I will tell you." He began pacing a little, back and forth again in front of the judges. "I did not stay in Ordonbur. Nice as some of the people there were, much better than most of Meya, I was kind of done with the whole kingdom. Neither did I want to return to Agadeya. I'd already been south, that's how I got into the kingdom. And to the east they hated the man interested in goblins. Thus I only had one course." Rum halted. "West." He resumed his steps. "I decided to go and seek the wisdom of the elves, at the top of Sunpeak Mountain." He pointed to the air, as if back at the western end of Meya, looking up at that distant mountain, where an entirely different civilization lay. "Alas, the elves would not let me ascend. I tried to argue that I was a scholar, the kind of person they most respected. But I could not convince them that I was worthy. So I stayed at Sunseen, down the slope of the mountain." Rum grew a smile. "I must admit, this was another good time for me. Even if they would not let me up the mountain, there were plenty of sky elf collectors in Sunseen, and the dwarf collectors of course, and those dwarf-elves – the kin-mixed. I found people who might be called kindred spirits there. People who loved to learn, loved to read, people with open minds. They would listen, and they'd help from time to time. I ended up staying at many houses there, the community passing me around like a book nobody dared to monopolize. I was entertaining, stimulating, on an intellectual level I think, to those learned folk. Even when one of them did think me mad, they admitted that at least my madness was fascinating. Whenever I left a house, it was always like they were sad to pass me over to the next one. I stayed for a long time again there, at Sunseen. Almost a year, I think. Many months at least." Rum went on to detail his stay. Telling the judges about his favorite books, of the fascinating traveller's account by the mecha-gnome witch, whose story had enlightened him on the nature of sentient books. He told them of moments with his dwarf-elf friends. "They took me on a trip once." Rum recounted. "Up the mountain road to the city, then we shot off onto a trail. They would not tell me where we were going. Then – hours of walking a trail, and we climbed up a smaller peak. They gave me a spyglass. And guess what I saw? The grand summit. The city whose towers touch the sky – Sunpeak. Distant and through a glass, sure, but I could see its buildings, its people wandering around up there. We camped on that lesser peak, and eventually some people saw us too, the elves of Sunpeak. We found some people looking down at us with their own spyglasses. They waved at us." Rum's smile broadened, becoming wide and full of fondness.
The judges listened to Rum's tale. But when the wizard had finished, he followed up with another tale, and another, and soon the stories of his friends multiplied, becoming numerous. The judge's tried to make Rum skip them, but their attempts were in vain. Every time Rum would promise he'd speed things along, after he'd finished the event he was just describing. Of course it was a lie every time. Still, there was one moment in Rum's accounting that truly stood out. A recollection of sitting with his friends under the night sky, stars twinkling brightly at them, with a summer's breeze in the air, along with laughter and philosophical musings. In that moment the wizard shed a tear in front of the judges. Then, another tear slid down his bearded cheek. Nobody spoke, nobody made a sound. The fact that the wizard in front of them was accused of being an agent of the dungeon lords was all but forgotten. At that moment, the courtroom were so caught up in the story, they might as well had fallen into Rum's memories themselves. When Rum's tale ended, he wiped his eyes and face with his dirty robe. Stepping back over to the chair, he sat down in it, promptly breaking the immersion. Almost as if he was reminding everyone what they were actually there for.
"Oooo-right" said the judge at the center, clearly a little affected like most of them. "So, you stayed there for a long time. But we still got a lot of time to account for, Rum Warmhud. Will you please tell us how you left, and where you went?" He looked down and over at Rum. "Succinctly" he reminded him, ignoring the futility in such a suggestion.
"Well, all good things have to end" Rum responded. "At some point my time there was over. Not in any spectacular fashion, but I simply came to be one of them, and at some point I realized I couldn't be. These people lived in their own world, largely isolated from a world which often forgets they even exist. Like the library at Motharan, I could've stayed there indefinitely, reading and learning, but no. I needed change. And to be frank, I missed Ermos a little. I hadn't seen my family for years. I hadn't known my own lands for quite some time. I was not done with my journey, but it was time to start moving in the direction that was home."
"And you went where?" pressed the judge.
"Axe Mountains of course. I was considering venturing into The Lands of Tosk, but in the end I couldn't find a proper reason to. I wanted homewards, so I journeyed the traveller's road that goes through the woods of Tosk, north and into The Town of The Steelrod Clan. It was an uneventful journey. My new friends guided me down the mountain and pointed out the shortest route to me. They also gave me something to go with the trip." Rum smiled at the memory. "Dried fruits and nuts, a couple of flasks of pressed juice, some wonderfully flavored jerky. They were nice folk. Even gave me some money for when I'd reach the dwarves." Rum remembered that moment, of walking out of the forest, and in under the stone-sculpted archway of The Town, as the dwarf locals liked to call it. A town of beards and bellies, metal forges and lumberyards, artisans and river fisherfolk. The dwarves of The Axe Mountains were notably different from their eastern, wealthier, quieter counterparts. These dwarves had warriors, they forged weapons, they were loud and merry, and fiercely artistic. The wizard detailed his journey into the mountains, which first resulted in a dead-end at The Tongbringers Clan Halls, before he'd have to journey all the way back, back through The Town even, and up the river to the north-eastern parts of The Axe Mountains, known as The Northern Blade. There, at the lake which ended the river, the wizard walked the mountain roads up and into The Pinkiron Clan Halls.
"The Pinkirons, well, my encounter with them was very interesting" Rum's smile returned, but less fondness in it now, and more... fun? "The Pinkirons have an interesting twist you know, on dwarven polygamy. Instead of the dwarf women collecting dwarf partners one or a few at a time, she chooses them all at once. Or rather, that's not so unusual, but here she moves into a house with three to five men, all of which are already in a relationship with each other. That's unusual. They have some belief there that the husbands need to learn to love and desire each other, before they can jointly love and desire a woman. Very interesting" Rum nodded to himself, "but why am I telling you this? I stayed in such a house of men. Young dwarf men who had not yet found a woman for their house. Their company was exceedingly gay, fantastically gay, one might say, unbelievably so. Also, they had this thing against wearing clothes, although they didn't mind me wearing my robes around them. Thankfully the walls were made of stone also. They were very into each other, one might say" Rum hinted, "and I think they were hoping I'd be tempted to join them. But alas, my only love and desire at that point was for magic."
"Where is this story leading?" demanded the gnome at the edge of the judge's table. The one which Rum was starting to think of as the angry-gnome at this point.
"Oh, this is relevant, I promise!" Rum reassured his audience. "You see, my hosts had a lot of parties, where they invited fellow appreciators of the unclothed male dwarven body. I attended most of these parties, hoping to find interesting people. Unfortunately, most of them just wanted me to take off my robes and give my beard over to a visiting dwarf, who was a member of The Cutters Clan. Famous beard-dressers in those parts, you see. Possibly they also wanted to give me a sponge bath." Rum twiddled his thumbs and frowned at his own memory. "I couldn't always tell."
"OUT-RAGEOUS!" came a shout from the end of the judge's table. Rum saw the angry-gnome, his cheeks flushing red. "This story is smut!" His arm raised, finger pointing straight up in the air. "It's filth! It's indescent!" He shook with every sentence. "It's corrupting! We cannot allow this story to continue."
"But where else am I supposed to tell the truth?" Rum replied, taken aback at the outburst. "If not in the courtroom where I am to be judged. You want me to lie to you – to hide the truth?"
The judge adjacent to the angry-gnome leaned in to whisper to him. A hushed discussion soon began among all the judges. The red cheeks on the angry-gnome soon begand to lose their intense color as rational discussion took over. Within a couple of minutes, the gnomes came to a conclusion, and the center judge looked away from his colleagues and over at Rum, their accused. He stared for a second, before lifting his gaze behind Rum. At the shadowy figures of the audience.
"Everyone leave! This courtroom is closing its doors while we the judges, and the guards, hear the rest of the story."
Groans and complaints erupted from behind Rum.
"This is for your own good!" added the judge. "Forget what you heard here the last few minutes. We apologize for not having done this sooner. The Character of The Mecha-Gnome must not be corrupted."
It took a while, but the audience eventually left, shuffling their gnomish feet out the door, most of them clearly disappointed. As the doors finally closed, and total silence descended upon the courtroom, the judges looked at the wizard remaining.
"You may resume" said the central judge.
Rum stroked his beard, nodding his head. Where was I? Ah, yes, The Pinkirons, the home of my dwarf friends. Their parties. Rum smiled, and he looked up at the judges, who stared down at him, all of them as sour as the first time he'd seen them.
"The parties!" Rum exclaimed. "The energy." He bit his own lips. "Mmm. That was something special. The total relaxation of the guests, and free flow of their desire." He cast about his left arm as if letting it flow with a stream of desire. "I'd never seen anything like it." His thoughts filled with the images of dwarves linking hands, of kissing, and... "Never seen anyone be so ready to explore their own sensual natures, together and openly like that. I remember they had some games, one of which they called Center of Pleasure." Rum's smile widened. "I think I ruined that one though. We took turns you see, and you were supposed to tell the other people in the room something that they could do to make you feel pleasure. Unfortunately for them, when it was my turn I asked them to take notes and pay attention to me while I explained my theory on the origins of magic. They obliged, but I could tell they were quite disappointed and it probably took a bit longer than they'd signed up for. Might've ruined that whole night for them" Rum chuckled, and looked around at the guards, and up at the judges. Nobody else in the courtroom had as much as twitched their lips. "Anyways, the dwarves taught me about fun, about gaiety, about desire. I learned a lot from their company" the wizard strolled back and forth, a bit freer with his movements now that the audience was gone, "and all of that gaiety would, eventually, rub off on me. Most directly it inspired for me to make that spell: Positive Mind. This spell isn't gay like my Gay Bolt, or Gay Aura. But, it kept some of that relaxed attitude you know, and especially, I drew inspiration from the great confidence of my hosts. They had that kind of personality, that kind of inner strength and inner honesty, a form of bravery for oneself, which I greatly admire to this day. I wanted to feel that, I wanted to know how that was like, after all the hate and social alienation I've had to escape." Rum stopped at the end of the judges, his lingering gaze against the far wall.
"Did you ever have any help in making your spells?" asked the center judge, changing the subject. "Are we to believe that you, a failed university student, really created all these spells by yourself. Just by looking at broken backs and gay dwarves?"
"No" Rum turned and furiously shook his head. "No help. Never! Who could even help me? I am a pioneer, as far as I can tell. There is nothing like what I've done. Not since ancient times at least. Though who knows what they thought about magic."
"A dungeon lord" responded the judge. "A dungeon lord might've helped you. We know that your magic is... unique." The judge sighed for some reason. "But it is also quite conceivable that it only appears so to us, because your patron has yet to reveal themselves. We find it quite likely that you could be lying to us, and telling us you did this – all by yourself – when in truth you just happen to be privileged to secret magics, known only to select members of the enemy."
"If that was so, how can I even prove my innocence? Hypotheticals are hypotheticals." Rum shrugged. "There's no reason to think I have any patrons."
"–except for the fact that you seem to be doing all these things" retorted the judge, "all by yourself, yet there's nothing in your history – prior to returning – to indicate that you should be this capable."
"Well it was six years" Rum answered. "People grow."
"M-yes" the judge responded. "But we can't even tell your level." He tapped his fingers on the desk. "Anyways, go on. Did you make any other spells, or anything else happened that we need to know about, or can you skip ahead in your story. We'd like to finish this today."
"No, no other spells. And yes, I can go on. Let's see" Rum's left hand stroked his bald head in thought. "Next destination must've been The Birthstone Great Halls. I met a lot of people there." Rum went on to talk about his time at the halls, which actually wasn't very important to his case, but his motivations were of course not to finish telling his story that day. So he just kept talking, at some point talking about the history of Birthstone and its four clans. The Thirsty Beards, known for their brewing, and for fighting in the early wars against the dungeon Lords; Glamourstone, a small clan known for their stone sculpting, and for having been involved in designing and carving almost every single dwarven hall under The Axe Mountains; The White Peaks, the survivors from Bright Star Fortress in The Three Brothers Mountains; and The Cutters, another small clan, known as the greatest jewellers and, as had already been hinted at, the greatest dressers of hairs and -beards. Birthstone was millenia old, the first hall to be made by dwarves migrating westwards across Melrum. It held a great many enchantments. When once the dungeon lords had tried to lay siege to it as revenge for The Thirsty Beards coming to aid The White Peaks, their runic enchantments had promptly obliterated the mages who assaulted its doors, ending in one swift motion any attempts by the dungeon lords to conquer The Axe Mountains like they'd conquered The Cities.
"My trip out of Birthstone began when I accompanied an adventuring party of dwarves who sought to enter The Home of The Ancient Lady. Dwarves have been exploring that dungeon for as long as they've been in the area – millenia. My party consisted of some ten dwarves at first, but we travelled to halls of The Grinder Clan, where they recruited another four. Fourteen dwarves, and me, went to the entrance of The Home. I was not an adventurer, not at that time at least, not the kind of adventurer who carried weapons and went looking for a fight. So I stayed behind with the cook. Thirteen dwarves entered then, behind a statue of a troll over 40 meters high." Rum gestured up with his left arm, as if trying to paint a picture of the sheer grandness he'd witnessed. "A giant, detailed statue. It sits upon the mountain, as if the mountain was a chair, and looks out over Coppersoil Valley. I remember it well. Overgrown by moss and hanging plants. With at least two bird's nests on its shoulders. Behind it the gap into the mountain is equally as tall as the statue. On their first trip inside, the dwarves brought back the magical remains of earth elementals. Naturally, they felt triumphant that night. They were excited, emboldened. The next day they returned, and I went with them, just to peek inside the entrance, just for curiosity's sake. What a sight that was." Rum shook his head, disbelieving. "The inside is as grand and as tall as the outside. Grander even. And I saw in the distance there, what I think might have been giant furniture actually, carved out of the mountain. A table, two chairs, a kitchen counter... that dungeon is, truly, a home." Rum stroked his beard. "But for who? That question fascinated me – it still does, a little! That evening when the dwarves returned, just twelve of them did..." Rum paused for a moment, as his face fell. "Moody. They were moody then. A comrade had been lost, fallen to a swarm of cockroaches almost as tall as them. The crossbow of the fallen dwarf had been utterly incapable of penetrating their carapace. They kept blaming each other too, throughout the night. On the third day they delayed venturing inside, continuing to argue until midday. When they finally went in, distrust was in the air. Everyone could sense it, even as a mere onlooker I sensed it. It was obvious. They managed to come back up with the horns of some monster, but one of the dwarves had been severely hurt, his mid had been pierced and their healing potions would not fully heal him. The comraderie was wavering." Rum's face and voice slowed, becoming grim. "The party was starting to split. Four of the dwarves, including the one hurt, didn't want to venture into the dungeon anymore. On the fourth day, nobody entered. They just kept bickering." Rum produced a little sigh, and nodded, but his voice perked up a little. "At that point though, I'd taken an interest in the dwarf whose wounds would not close. I realized the whole party had been cheap with their healing potions, careless." Rum shook his head in disapproval, his monologue pausing.
"And?" asked Judge Twixluck.
"And what do you think!?" Rum exclaimed, his serious face giving way to a small smile. "I had to try!"
Twixluck raised an eyebrow.
"Magic! I knew of healing spells. Not enough to cast traditional healing magic myself, but I was familiar. I stayed with the dwarf, studied him, even lied with him there in his tent outside the dungeon. We weren't the only party present though. Three other groups had been at the dungeon longer than us. They were less eager. More careful. But they agreed to trade a weak healing potion at gouged prices. I studied its effects when it washed over the dwarf. It was crude, yet, I learned something about healing. A missing puzzle piece. The party sent two members off to the nearest settlement: The Halls of The Smith Clan. The dwarves were to bring back supplies, as much medical supplies as they could afford, and hastily. The rest remained. A miserable bunch. No dwarves entered on the fifth day I remember. On the sixth, seven dwarves entered, returning with only a slain giant spider. It was meat, but not much of a profit. Meanwhile, I had made myself into the wounded dwarf's caretaker. I looked out for him. Studied him with my magic. I also experimented on him. I should've asked for permission" Rum produced a grimace of self-dismay, "but, he didn't appear to mind. Even when I failed. I think he was scared. I think he wanted anyone to give him hope. Even if he wasn't immediately dying, I think he might've felt like death was near. He wanted someone who'd do something, anything, to give him back his strength. On the seventh day, I made a breakthrough: Restore Body. It would take me another week to master it, to complete it – but I'd done it. I'd figured out how to induce a healing effect upon a living being. On the eight day the dwarves returned with a high grade healing potion. My spell had managed to keep the dwarf hopeful, and it had furthered the healing process, but only the high grade healing potion could finalize the healing." Rum paced silently in front of the judges.
"And how did you leave then?" asked the center judge. He was starting to look mildly tired. All the judges were. Rum on the contrary was feeling rather energized from talking, his sleep-deprivation mostly gone, even if his thoughts were a bit sluggish. He got the judge to refill his water again. He also got them to call a bathroom break. When he returned, they were all there waiting for him, and, surprisingly, most of the audience was back. "Where did you go next?" the judge demanded.
"Well" Rum thought as he walked back into his rhythm of pacing. "Next is Murd Town. But, I might add that when the dwarves learned of my healing, they wanted to know my other spells. Which is how they got to know about Positive Mind, which they wanted to try. It helped. The comraderie was revitalized. Which is why the things I will tell you of next, the things that happened in Murd Town, why it did happen. I thought..." Rum sighed. "I believed it was my duty to offer the world this spell, which could change everything. And, I still believe this magic is there to bring about a change which some of us need. But, perhaps most of us only need it once. Most of us, only need to know that there is another us out there, within an adjacent realm of possibility, there in that realm, there is another us, waiting to be real." Rum told them the story of Murd Town. Of how he had come to inadvertently abuse the spell for easy money, and then, when they wouldn't accept his refusal to use it any more when he realized his mistake, he told them how he'd escaped.
"I escaped into The Wild Corridor. First off into the forests there, because I was afraid they'd send someone up the trader's road. I wandered the wilds, for a long time actually, maybe for two months? I don't know. But it was a long time. I stumbled upon the ocean in the end, and wandered north along it, into the villages there. From there I eventually found my way back to the trader's road." And I stumbled upon The Wizards' Retreat, Rum added mentally in a pause, but you don't need to know about that place. There's no way I could adequately explain it to you. It'd only work to confirm your suspicions of me. "I passed in through the guild strongholds. You should be able to dispatch someone there who can verify my presence. When out in the wilds I created many of my better survival spells. I can give myself muscles, summon a magic blanket, summon magic shoes. Just some examples. I learned to do all these things because I needed them." Rum went on to talk about his presence at the guild strongholds. How he'd witnessed attacks by the dungeon lords, and counter-raids against the dungeon lords, wherein he swore to have offered his services of healing, which'd been denied when it became evident the spell was rather ineffective compared to the healing potions which the guild could readily buy. He told them of his journey up into Ermos, going as far as talking about individual farmers he had stayed with in south-western Ermos, the fisherfolk at the sea in The Wild Corridor, and the caravans he had followed up The Southern Highway.
"And – that is my story" he concluded suddenly. "Six years of wandering. I sought out the university first when I returned, as I was eager to tell them of my discoveries. When they rejected me, I sought out my brother."
Along the judge's table, the gnomes all appeared drowsy. Two of the judges had closed their eyes. One of them on the far right appeared to be actually sleeping, while the other one, adjacent and left of the central judge, had at least recently had an eye open. It took a moment before the central judge himself realized that Rum had stopped speaking, leaning as he was on his little arm with half-closed eyes. But yes, the whitehaired gnome noticed it, if barely, that Rum was, actually, finally, completely done talking. The six years story, had come to an end.
"Ah" he said, and leaned back, forcing his eyes fully open and awake. He nudged the gnome next to him, who opened his eyes. Judge Twixluck did the same against the sleeping judge, who jolted awake. "Finally" he center judge continued, maybe more to himself than to Rum. "You are done. Well. The day is getting late. I believe we will end it here, and..." he looked uncertain. He leaned over to his colleagues. A brief discussion ensued. "Okay, okay." He turned to Rum. "We have agreed on a time for your case, which must be reviewed in light of the evidence, including your account today. Our review will probably take all of tomorrow. In that case, the court will retire for today, and we will summon you, Rum Warmhud, when our judgment is ready." The gnome nodded his head, and Rum heard the audience behind him begin to stand up, all of a sudden, and move out of the courtroom. The judges too, though slowly, began to fold paper and stand up from their seats.
Rum waited, until the last of the tired audience left, and the last of the judges. His guards poked Rum and he stood up, leaving with them out of the courtroom, and down the stairs, towards his oubliette.
Yes!