The trail had become cold. But our Hero was a consummate tracker. The minx was light enough on her feet to nearly vanish outright. But a faint line of telltales had been in place to guide our Hero on his righteous quest for donating an ethics lesson. Now he was here, in the snowbelt of Terra Silex, enjoying the hospitality of outcasts.
His long journey had begun in the verdant rolling communities of DARia. The natives there, while impeccably hospitable, were tight-lipped when he produced a description of his quarry. She seemed to be something of a local icon. Oh well. At least they could cook! His final meal, before taking on the icy ramparts and breathtaking altitude of the Blowoff Peaks, was a memorable feast composed entirely of mushrooms and wine.
Over the frozen divide, the Cheesemeister descended into the ancestral terraces and spires of Loquaesthesia. A twilit pall hung over the land. No trace of Rambi; none had been there for months, ever since she had lost the favor of the reigning matriarch. Our young Cheese Wizard gained entrance to her great if chilly stone manse. She was there, magnificently swathed in the finest woven hemp, listening patiently to a visiting Sage who was expounding rather strenuously on the evils of Government and Mysticism. Hero was impressed with her tolerance, what with she was both government and priestess of her domain. The visiting sage was fearless, perhaps that the great Barbacoa, constructed on the backs of countless puns and webserfs during an interregnum between dynasties, was cold and clean of all ashes. Loquaesthesia had become a prosperous vegetarian society, with livestock promoted to shareholders, and sharecroppers, in the farm-driven economy. Trade was brisk with neighboring kingdoms and republics, trading great caravans of hemp and rice hulls for such treasures as zinfandel, enamelware, and fish.
Hero excused himself from the audience hall after being richly resupplied with fruits, grains and - yes! - canned dairy products. A resident artisan managed to resole his tattered boots and laminate his smaller scrolls against the bad weather on the horizon. Dark clouds were pouring through Greenspan's Bluff on the northern end of the Trading Range.
Many days later, after crossing the endless bleak lowlands of Pentachias, escaping starvation only by gorging himself on a closetful of fermented durian found while rooting through the youngest ruins on his path, our Hero arrived here. All around, the subarctic gale storms of Disapproval. Yet here, a small warm pocket populated by spear hunters. Short spear hunters. Hero was invited into a longhouse apparently made of a whale's ribcage. A grinning bowlingpin of a woman pulled back the collar of her anorak and handed over half a well-aged harp seal pup. Ahh gods, MEAT at last.
Outside, snow was falling in horizontal windblown sheets. Any trail was wiped out for the evening, or the season. Hero suspected that at these latitudes, that was saying the same thing. A group of young women, sleek complexions riding above warm sealskin garments, sat down at his sides, and with an uninterrupted dialogue of gutturals and soft plosives, heavily spiced with giggles, eagerly accepted the gobbets of ripe seal blubber surrounding his meal. He was amazed at their forwardness in exploring his unusual physique - his broad chest, his fluted thighs, his waist - but he realized that it was probably wise to subordinate his innate shyness to an acceptance of hospitality. Heck, they were even cute in a streamlined sort of way. And they were warm, for sure. An ancient came into the longhouse and pronounced it the house of the guest for the duration. Hero was too tired and sated to take up his enquiry right away. Time enough to rest here; to enjoy sleep, endless meat (if amazingly gamey) and the company of Boreal nubiles. Rambi was safe for the moment, but no amount of bodily diversions was going to hold him for long. He'd sworn solemnly before the village crone; even under the shifting curtains of the aurors he was certain that the wardens of Terra Silex would have him give account.
Soon he would move on, into more exotic realms, even perhaps into the land of the Phoenix fabled to be on the far side of the ice. But to gain passage into that place, first he'd have to cross the domain of dragons. These mysterious, devious creatures would demand the solution to a set of riddles as payment of passage. He laid even chances that he'd make it. |
