Happy to oblige. ![[Image: smile.gif]](http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif)
Rantaome's eyes narrowed. "Does your concept of 'home' include being surrounded by malevolent flesh-eating lemurs?"
"...Of course not! What in the world would give you cause to think such a thing?"
"Because we are surrounded by malevolent flesh-eating lemurs," Rantaome shot back. "See?"
Ryouki snapped out of his brush with bliss and noted that, indeed, the trees around them were suddenly alive with ... lemur-like creatures, check; mouths filled with vicious fangs under a fringe of writhing tendrils, check; rather hostile looks being directed their way, check.
A soft yet menace-ridden chorus of fluttering noises filled the air.
That one, the creatures were whispering to one another in a tongue neither youth could understand, that one stinks of Cat.
Kill!
"Back to back!" Rantaome barked as the creatures leaped from high branches and flowed toward them in a furry wave. "Try to clear a path out of here!" As he assumed a half-remembered battle stance, a lambent blue flame sprang up about his hands--
Behind him, a similar aura of yellow-green fire clung to Ryouki as he stripped a black-checked bandanna from his head and charged it with that same energy, causing it to become as stiff and as sharp as a fine steel blade--
--and the Zoogs were upon them.
***
Elsewhere...
At the far north of dream, north from anywhere, north from even the Pole, there is a mountain that surpasses all others. The sheer enormity of that peak, impossible by the laws of the waking world, is exceeded only by what has been done to it--for in an age long past, hands now forgotten carved that greatest of mountains into an unthinkably vast city.
This peak, this city, is unknown Kadath: home and refuge since time immemorial of the Gods of Earth.
And, in a sumptuously furnished bedchamber somewhere within its labyrinthine corridors, one of those Gods has just woken from a sleep within dream.
"He is here!" the divine Bast gasped, green eyes wide with shock as she sat bolt upright amid silken sheets. "Nath!" In a frenzy, she grabbed her still-sleeping bedmate by the shoulders and began shaking him awake. "Nath, my love, our son has returned to us!"
***
Elsewhere, again...
Not north, now, but west. West, to the Basalt Pillars beyond which foolish men say lies Cathuria, but which the wise know mark only the edge of the world and a ceaseless waterfall into eternity...
But the seas of dream no longer surge past the Pillars into that unfathomable chasm. They continue, unbroken and calm, onward... to the shores of a continent previously--and rightly--believed nonexistent.
For, in fact, splendid Cathuria does now indeed lie beyond the Pillars of the West.
And in a palace of marble and porphyry built atop a glass bridge over the sweet-scented river Narg, the monarch of that land--the Dorieb, the Wizard-King of Cathuria--is in a towering rage.
"All of them. All of them!" The Dorieb struck out blindly, sending an intricately carved coral statuette to shatter against the green marble wall. "The spell was meant to draw her to the Cavern of Flame, her and her alone, not EVERY SLEEPING SOUL IN THE CITY! I cannot even track her dreamself now--every one of them is marked by the spell, thousands of them made it past the Priests, IT COULD TAKE YEARS TO FIND HER!" He whirled, glared at the jinzou who knelt before him. "You. Gather the scouts. It may take years... but here, we have years."
The soulless, will-less image of the Dorieb's obsession rose to her feet, nodded curtly, and exited her master's chambers. The wizard-king took a few deep shuddering breaths, collecting himself, and strode to a nearby balcony. As he gazed out over the realm he had forged from nothing, the Dorieb could not keep his thoughts from returning to her. To them.
"She is here... and no doubt you as well," he growled, weak-seeming fingers grinding ruts in the black basalt railing. "But you will not have your memories... and neither, neither will you have her!
"Saotome Ranma... in the waking world I am nothing, but here I have surpassed the powers of the gods themselves! I will claim Akane, claim her body and soul in this world and the other, and you will be left with nothing! In the end, you will beg me for mercy or death--and I will grant you neither!"
Gosunkugi Hikaru, Wizard-King of splendid Cathuria, laughed the high and horrible laugh of the terribly mad; and as that sound echoed over his kingdom, even the soulless jinzouakane were moved to shudder in fear.
To be continued in the Second Night: A Dream of a Thousand Cats.
...Wow. That, just now, marked the biggest piece of actual writing I've done in a while. (Yes, the whole thing happened right here, no prior rehearsal or rough drafts.)
I should probably warn people, in advance, that in addition to the obvious influences of H.P. Lovecraft and Sandy Petersen, this fic is heavily based on the Dreamlands novels of Brian Lumley. So it's going to tend toward Fritz Leiber-style sword and sorcery, and Lumley's characters (David Hero, Eldin the Wanderer, Ula and Una, Gytherik Imniss, et cetera) will be showing up before long...
...and, of most important note, this takes place several waking-world months (many dreaming years) after Lumley's Elysia: The Coming of Cthulhu, so there have been some rather radical changes to the familiar setting. The details should come out in the course of the Second Night.
--Sam
"How the hell did I do that?!"
Rantaome's eyes narrowed. "Does your concept of 'home' include being surrounded by malevolent flesh-eating lemurs?"
"...Of course not! What in the world would give you cause to think such a thing?"
"Because we are surrounded by malevolent flesh-eating lemurs," Rantaome shot back. "See?"
Ryouki snapped out of his brush with bliss and noted that, indeed, the trees around them were suddenly alive with ... lemur-like creatures, check; mouths filled with vicious fangs under a fringe of writhing tendrils, check; rather hostile looks being directed their way, check.
A soft yet menace-ridden chorus of fluttering noises filled the air.
That one, the creatures were whispering to one another in a tongue neither youth could understand, that one stinks of Cat.
Kill!
"Back to back!" Rantaome barked as the creatures leaped from high branches and flowed toward them in a furry wave. "Try to clear a path out of here!" As he assumed a half-remembered battle stance, a lambent blue flame sprang up about his hands--
Behind him, a similar aura of yellow-green fire clung to Ryouki as he stripped a black-checked bandanna from his head and charged it with that same energy, causing it to become as stiff and as sharp as a fine steel blade--
--and the Zoogs were upon them.
***
Elsewhere...
At the far north of dream, north from anywhere, north from even the Pole, there is a mountain that surpasses all others. The sheer enormity of that peak, impossible by the laws of the waking world, is exceeded only by what has been done to it--for in an age long past, hands now forgotten carved that greatest of mountains into an unthinkably vast city.
This peak, this city, is unknown Kadath: home and refuge since time immemorial of the Gods of Earth.
And, in a sumptuously furnished bedchamber somewhere within its labyrinthine corridors, one of those Gods has just woken from a sleep within dream.
"He is here!" the divine Bast gasped, green eyes wide with shock as she sat bolt upright amid silken sheets. "Nath!" In a frenzy, she grabbed her still-sleeping bedmate by the shoulders and began shaking him awake. "Nath, my love, our son has returned to us!"
***
Elsewhere, again...
Not north, now, but west. West, to the Basalt Pillars beyond which foolish men say lies Cathuria, but which the wise know mark only the edge of the world and a ceaseless waterfall into eternity...
But the seas of dream no longer surge past the Pillars into that unfathomable chasm. They continue, unbroken and calm, onward... to the shores of a continent previously--and rightly--believed nonexistent.
For, in fact, splendid Cathuria does now indeed lie beyond the Pillars of the West.
And in a palace of marble and porphyry built atop a glass bridge over the sweet-scented river Narg, the monarch of that land--the Dorieb, the Wizard-King of Cathuria--is in a towering rage.
"All of them. All of them!" The Dorieb struck out blindly, sending an intricately carved coral statuette to shatter against the green marble wall. "The spell was meant to draw her to the Cavern of Flame, her and her alone, not EVERY SLEEPING SOUL IN THE CITY! I cannot even track her dreamself now--every one of them is marked by the spell, thousands of them made it past the Priests, IT COULD TAKE YEARS TO FIND HER!" He whirled, glared at the jinzou who knelt before him. "You. Gather the scouts. It may take years... but here, we have years."
The soulless, will-less image of the Dorieb's obsession rose to her feet, nodded curtly, and exited her master's chambers. The wizard-king took a few deep shuddering breaths, collecting himself, and strode to a nearby balcony. As he gazed out over the realm he had forged from nothing, the Dorieb could not keep his thoughts from returning to her. To them.
"She is here... and no doubt you as well," he growled, weak-seeming fingers grinding ruts in the black basalt railing. "But you will not have your memories... and neither, neither will you have her!
"Saotome Ranma... in the waking world I am nothing, but here I have surpassed the powers of the gods themselves! I will claim Akane, claim her body and soul in this world and the other, and you will be left with nothing! In the end, you will beg me for mercy or death--and I will grant you neither!"
Gosunkugi Hikaru, Wizard-King of splendid Cathuria, laughed the high and horrible laugh of the terribly mad; and as that sound echoed over his kingdom, even the soulless jinzouakane were moved to shudder in fear.
To be continued in the Second Night: A Dream of a Thousand Cats.
...Wow. That, just now, marked the biggest piece of actual writing I've done in a while. (Yes, the whole thing happened right here, no prior rehearsal or rough drafts.)
I should probably warn people, in advance, that in addition to the obvious influences of H.P. Lovecraft and Sandy Petersen, this fic is heavily based on the Dreamlands novels of Brian Lumley. So it's going to tend toward Fritz Leiber-style sword and sorcery, and Lumley's characters (David Hero, Eldin the Wanderer, Ula and Una, Gytherik Imniss, et cetera) will be showing up before long...
...and, of most important note, this takes place several waking-world months (many dreaming years) after Lumley's Elysia: The Coming of Cthulhu, so there have been some rather radical changes to the familiar setting. The details should come out in the course of the Second Night.
--Sam
"How the hell did I do that?!"