Pangothean Legends: Chapters 5 and 6

Chapter Five

The Proposal

         “Holy Hell! What just happened?”

         “Are you alright, Frost? What happened to your hand?”

         “Forget it. Shut up and get behind me.”

         “Help us get these fires out. You cost too much not to pull your weight.”

         “The fires aren’t the problem.”

         “What, him? Forget about it. We’ll chalk it up to collateral damage.”

         “He’s not a victim, you idiot. He’s what did it.”

         Falroth opened his eyes. The wood he lay on was completely blackened. Men were dumping buckets of water on small fires that burned nearby. Others stared at him from a distance. Just outside the fire stood Frost, hunched over, eyeing him warily.

         He took in a deep breath and sat up.

         “How did it feel?” said Frost. “When everything went white?”

         The fires began extinguishing of their own accord. Those closest to Frost went first.

         Falroth stood up and stretched his neck. “I wonder,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “If it’s gonna take two punches to floor you, or just one.”

         He charged her at full-tilt. She fled. Gradually the narrow gap between them widened.

         Unbelievable. Was there no one on this boat that couldn’t outrun him?

         She slowed a moment to look over her shoulder and, seemingly, to throw an invisible object back at him. He felt a blast of cool air glance off his right cheek. It actually felt good. He answered by aiming with his palm and sending a stream of heat in her direction. It barely traveled faster than she ran and was entirely transparent. The only evidence of its location was the way it rippled the light that moved through it. When it hit her in the small of the back she made no acknowledgment, although her body tightened subtly.

         A stoic response to pain. Falroth knew it well.

         They had now reached the front of the boat. There was no where to run. Or so it seemed, but Frost proceeded without hesitating out onto a narrow beam. She stopped in front of the wooden hippo’s head that lead the ship, turned around, and grinned.

         Coming to a halt, Falroth glared back at her.

         He might’ve tried burning the beam, but couldn’t be sure it wasn’t vital to the vessel’s means of propulsion. He certainly wasn’t going to follow her out there though.

         The sound of rapid, lumbering footsteps came to his attention. He turned around to see a large man swinging an axe at his face. He ducked. The axe flew just over his head and the man was thrown off-balance. Falroth bashed him in the lower back with his elbow.

         There was a loud crack. The man screamed, dropped to his knees, and fell over awkwardly.

         Then he burst into flames.

         That had seemed a bit of an over-reaction. Falroth stood over the conquered man, dumb-struck. He briefly examined his own arm to be sure it was still made of the same stuff. This was the first time he’d struck another living thing, besides his brother and the Sand God. Was this sort of thing going to happen every time?

         He looked around at the crowd of timid, axe-wielding soldiers that had assembled around him. Another man ran up and splashed a bucket full of water on the fallen man.

         A sharp pain struck the back of his head. He spun around with a stiff backhand, but Frost had already stepped back out of range. He followed up with a volley of haymakers, forcing her to back up further. He finished with a wide roundhouse kick, which barely brushed across her chin as she performed a back-flip that sent her clear off the side of the boat. He turned around and stopped the handle of an axe with his palms before it could slice his head in two, but the force of it knocked him over the side of the boat as well.

         He turned himself around in mid-air and watched Frost hit the water below. She quickly surfaced and swam close to where he was going to land.

         When he hit the water and tried to come up, something stopped him. The surface of the water had frozen solid. He could see Frost through the ice, standing atop the rapidly expanding frozen platform. Pressing his hands to the ice just beneath her, he began to slowly thin it. Soon a small hole formed and one of Frost’s thin legs slipped through. Falroth clutched at her, but she yanked herself free. He then wedged both of his hands into the hole. Pouring heat out his palms, he widened the hole enough to pull himself through.

         Frost was already a distance away. She was running along the side of the boat, freezing the surface of the water ahead of her. Falroth followed.

         It was rather easy to get solid traction. Frost had frozen the water in such a way that it was almost sticky rather than slick.

         Falroth had to keep up his pace. The ice melted almost to nothing by the time he passed over it.

         Up ahead, Frost pulled herself into a small boat that had been hanging by four ropes from the deck above. She started to climb one of the ropes. Falroth soon reached the boat and chose another rope to ascend.

         Now was his chance to catch her. He may not be able to outrun her, but he could certainly out-climb her and any of the other pip-squeaks on the boat for that matter.

         “There he is!” shouted one of the sailors. “He’s trying to climb back up.”

         He saw an axe raise up to chop his rope, but he reached over and clung to the other rope, beneath Frost, before it hit.

         He could no longer overtake her, but he was “hot on her heels”, figuratively, and almost literally.

         When they collected Frost into the boat, another of them immediately tried to cut the rope, but Falroth hit him in the eyes with a blast of heat. The man screamed, dropped his axe, and covered his face. Falroth scrambled into the boat and grabbed the axe. He then dodged another wild swing and wedged his blade squarely in the attacker’s backside.

          He turned to face the rest of the entourage. He held the axe at ready in his left hand and pointed his right palm towards them.

         “Back away, you idiots!” shouted Frost. “Back away unless you wish to meet an ugly end.”

         Falroth stood his ground as the sailors obeyed the girl’s orders.

         “We have ourselves a very unique situation, my friends,” said Frost. “For this boy is equal to me. If our struggle is allowed to continue we will surly render you all dead and this ship a raging inferno beached upon an island of ice before either of us emerges victorious.” She turned to address Falroth. “And seeing as such a victory leaves you in far worse a predicament than it does me, and I would rather fulfill my contract, it behooves us to make a mutually beneficial arrangement, for which I have a proposal.”

         Falroth sat down on a nearby barrel, planted his blade in the floor, and leaned on its handle. “I’m listening,” he said.

Chapter Six

The Keys

         Randal Manders sat in silence with his elbows leaning on his desk, his fingers tented, and his head hanging low.

         “Sir?” said Alper.

         Frost waved her hand dismissively. She crossed her arms and took a seat.

         The young bureaucratic Nobles could be so pious. He would talk down to her, demand an explanation. He would try to turn her apologetic for doing the only sensible thing she could. He may even attempt to dock her pay (it wouldn’t work), all the while pretending that her mere presence was such a terrible inconvenience and that he was doing her a favor by bringing her along.

         Manders took off his spectacles. One at a time he wiped the lenses clean with his silk handkerchief. He put them back on, turned around, and peered at Frost over the top of them. “So, you’re telling me...” He stood up and took a step toward her. “...I’m paying you...” He walked to a nearby table and snatched a stack of parchment from atop it. He picked through it for a moment. “...I’m paying you one hundred and sixteen Amethyst a day, just to cut a deal with anyone who opposes us?”

         Frost rolled her eyes. She so wearied of the dance.

         “If I may speak on her behalf,” said Alper. “It is due to the exceptional abilities of Ms. Frost that such an arrangement is possible. She is the only thing keeping the boy from having free reign on this ship and forcing us to take him anywhere he wishes. In fact, we most probably would not have become aware of his presence on board in the first place if it had not been for her keen consciousness of temperature.”

         “I like it cold,” said Frost, and grinned. “But please, Dorf. I never permit anyone to speak on my behalf, much less while I am perfectly able to speak on my own behalf.”

         “Well, Ms. Frost?” said Manders, looming over her. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

         Frost held his gaze, her grin unwavering. “I won’t play your game, Manders,” she said. “I refuse. Because without me, your crew would be held hostage to a witless village boy.”

         Manders stared for a moment. He blinked, then stared some more. “Fine,” he said, and threw his spectacles back on the desk. “If you were anyone else, I’d call your bluff, but you... you’ve been around the block I think.” He sighed and yanked open his desk drawer. He pulled out a long, tightly rolled chirouquette. He lit the end with the candle on his desk. He stuck the other end in his mouth. “Just tell me what you promised him,” he said, talking out the side of his mouth.

         “All he wants is to go to Pangothea. I agreed to charter a small ship to take him there once we reach our destination. In exchange, he has agreed to allow our errand to proceed without any further hindrance.”

         Manders coughed out a cloud of dark, green-tinted smoke. “You realize there won’t be any ships leaving Telmas for a good long while after our arrival, correct?”

         “Of course I do,” said Frost. “But chances are, once we get him off this ship, we’ll have the proper resources at our command to orchestrate his... marginalization. And if worst comes to worst and we have to actually make good on the deal it won’t be too great an inconvenience.”

         “Hmm...” muttered Manders. He removed the chirouquette from his lips and puffed out four equally sized smoke balls. “Why does he even want to go to Pangothea at all?”

         “He was born in an isolated village located east of Jeweland Harbor. The island of Jeweland has almost no Wandering Meyta. Now you’re from Jeweland, so I’ll assume you don’t know that Wandering Meyta is what causes people to be born with Meyta. However, somewhere along the line, one of his ancestors Manifested with a rare type of Meyta that exhibited the property of Hereditary Form, meaning that it passes through the bloodline without fail and does not change form. This lead the village to believe his family had been blessed by their local deity, the Sand God, and they were given the responsibility of looking after the village. But Falroth believes he is unworthy of the charge. He wants nothing more than the chance to blend in.”

         “Can he?”

         “Excuse me?”

         “If he goes to Pangothea, will he blend in?”

         “Ah, well in Goldale the Meytal are held to a higher social contract than the average citizen. Physical abnormalities are typically a sign of Meyta, so his hair color is a dead giveaway, but he can remedy that if he chooses, although even if he doesn’t he can simply memorize a short list of rules for acceptable Meytal behavior and people won’t make too big a fuss about him. No one will expect too much of him if he keeps his head down. It would be a different story if he were going to live in a place like Meytalia, but Goldale is much more lax about the Meytal. So essentially, yes, he can blend in, at least in all of the ways he cares about.”

         “If I may say a word on that point,” said Alper. “I do not deny that there exists, in Goldale, the proper societal structure to allow for a man like Falroth to ‘blend in’, as you say. I would, however, call into question his specific capability of doing so without significant suppression of his core characteristics. There are a number of aspects of his personality, apart from his Meyta, which I think prohibit it, and as a dorf who takes an astute interest in the psychology of men, they trouble me greatly. One of which constituted the reason for which I determined the boy to be a threat.”

         “I thought you decided he was a threat when he told you he had overcome his brother in direct combat,” said Frost.

         “That was merely what convinced me of the seriousness of the threat he posed,” said Alper. “But it was much before that when I began to realize that he was not likely, if he fully comprehended our plan and purpose, to allow us to continue unchallenged.”

         “I’m not sure I agree,” said Frost. “From what I can tell, the boy barely even knows what a dorf is, let alone why anyone would want to capture a Dorfish port, and even if he did, I doubt he would care.”

         “Then you have evidently forgotten what he told me of his upbringing,” said Alper. “He was raised in a small community where he and his family were expected to care for everyone else. Every man he ever knew or believed existed was someone he thought himself responsible for, therefore it should not be a strange thing, in his mind, to place the well-being of numerous strange dorfs above his own desires, no matter how absolute those desires may seem to him at the moment.”

         “So essentially, what you are saying, in your dorfishly long-winded way, is that his conscience will get the better of him?” said Frost.

         “Absolutely not!” said Alper. “As is typical for your kind, you have taken a complicated, specific statement and misconstrued it such that it becomes as something simple and general. I am suggesting that his super-ego will get the better of him. Just as we all do, he has formed a picture in his mind, of his social environment, which determines his concept of appropriate behavior. This picture, though formed by his environment, has taken root in him so deeply that even in the absence of the environment that created that picture he will cling to it and project it onto the world around him. He does not realize it yet, but the very thing he is running from has already become a part of him and is thus inescapable. It is this part of him which will force him to oppose us if given the chance.”

         Frost gave a nod of approval. This was an entertaining bit of intellectualism. Or more like romantic cynicism. “Very well,” she said. “I’m afraid I must concede. After all, you dorfs do seem to hit the mark when you can find so many words on a subject.

         “But if we are to kill him, we ought to get to know him a little better first.”

         “Will that make killing him easier?” asked Manders.

         “Easier for him, easier for me,” answered Frost. “Easier all around.”

         “Okay. So what do we need to know about him?”

         “We need to find out what his Key is.”

         “What’s a Key?”

         “Every Meytal has a Key. It’s an emotion that is closely tied to their Meyta. Only through the Key can the most powerful version of one’s Meyta become manifest.”

         “So his Key is a feeling?”

         “Yes. It could be a basic feeling, like sadness or pleasure. Or it could be something more subtle, like contentment or depression. Almost anything you could think of is a potential Key.”

         “Then how do we find out which one is his? Ask him?”

         “No, you dope! He probably isn’t aware of it. The Key can be difficult to pin-point if you’re not looking for it. He can control his Meyta without it. See Meyta is like fire. He can start one on his own, and build it and manage it well enough, but triggering his Key is like dumping a bucket of oil on the fire.

         “But we have a couple of clues. For one, he’s already shown us a Meytalic Reaction.”

         “What’s that?”

         “It’s what happened when I tried to kill him the first time, when he sort of exploded with energy. Only the Key can trigger a Meytalic Reaction. It’s completely involuntary. We know that whatever he was feeling in those last seconds before he lost consciousness must have been his Key. If he had experienced that moment differently, he most certainly would be dead.”

         “In that case, Ms. Frost, I may have a relevant observation to offer,” said Alper. “In my scrutiny of him, I have become aware of a constant, slight fluctuation in his eye color. It seems to change gradually, between dark orange and red, and on that one occasion when the Meytalic Reaction occurred, his eyes were bright blue. I find it unlikely that these variations are coincidental. It seems most logical that his Key is the very mechanism which governs his eye color.”

         “Very good, Alper,” said Frost. “That theory definitely fits with what I know of Meytalic Tendencies, and I’m nothing if not educated. Nothing I want to remember, anyway.

         “Our other clue is in his story about he and his brother. As you pointed out to me initially, Alper, it must have taken an incredible amount of energy for him to burn his brother’s skin. Meyta is far more resistant to itself than it is to any other. Even its own opposite. As hard as it was for him to burn me...” Frost brandished her right hand, which was beet-red where it had been in contact with Falroth’s hand. “...burning his brother would be even harder. I’ll bet you anything his Key was on full blast when it happened.”

         “All this talk of Keys has got me curious, Ms. Frost,” said Manders. “If everyone with Meyta has one, then you’ve got one too, don’t you? What is it?”

         “Hah!” said Frost. “As though I’d tell anyone. I wouldn’t wish one of my Meytalic Reactions on any place, save perhaps one, but I can’t imagine feeling anything other than hatred if I ever found myself on his doorstep.”

         “I’m sorry, did you say you wouldn’t wish it on any place?” said Manders.

         “That’s right,” said Frost. “It’s only happened to me twice, and both times I managed to forever alter the climate of a geographical region. I was...” The corner of her mouth lifted into an asymmetrical smile. “...almost gave it away there, didn’t I?”