Ch: 283 Putting The Fun Back In Funeral

Gabbie’s little armada sailed out on the morning after the battle of Sturgeon Beach. She’d taken her retainers in hand and seemed ready to assert herself in ways that would likely fail to please whatever remained of the empire’s noble classes. Duke Belen sailed as well, on his ducal yacht, with baroness Phyllicia Dunham’s sleek vessel following along. 

 

The Wards had little interest in noble doings, even less since Shai’d hauled Gary down to help her finish clearing away the massive leviathan early in the morning, before the warmth of the day could make things… fishy. 

He’d insisted on spending an hour before dawn crawling all over the terrible creature, peeling armored plates off and extracting the long, needle teeth from its mouth. When he stripped down and dove into the thing’s insides looking for a  ‘cloacal carbuncle’ his looting gift assured him was ‘down there’ ‘somewhere’ Shai stopped watching him work…

 

She made him bathe in the river, in the hidden third pool among the bamboo stands, then in the public bath… before he was allowed back inside.

“Yer stink magic be nae substitute fer hygiene, lad.” His wife had insisted, with backup from his traitor kids.

 

 

They spent two days and nights a few hundred yards downstream of town on the newly named beach. Gary spent most of his time in training, meditation and the balance of his hours, down in the workshop with the kids working on ‘Adventure stuff’. Really it was Wilf. the other kids colored or played music… 

 

Wilford Brimley Ward, oldest and youngest son of Gary and Shai ward, watched his papa work with a level of interest and engagement most three year old kids would never manage for a moment… but most three year old kids weren’t Wilf… His young ancient eyes watched every movement of his father’s hands as he inscribed tiny runes into a ring of fine brass. 

 

“So a harmonious and repetitive series of interlinked syllables… if they are precisely spaced and laid out, can compress or expand the wave form, by rotating the user’s Mana through the mystic octaves. If we deform the ring, we can distort the sound, creating a distinct tonal change… that’s where rock and roll lives.”

 

“Papa… it’s time.” He said quietly, the second morning on Sturgeon Beach.

 

“Time for what, son? Lunch?”

 

“No, it’s time to show me how to make the snake mine.” WIlford said even more softly. “I need to master it, or it will master me, someday.”

 

“Why now? You’re still so young…” He stammered, in the face of those too wise child’s eyes.

 

“It’s time.” He insisted sadly and gently.

 

“Yeah… hold on. I’ll get ‘em.”

He’d sewn the conjoined objects together in a sack of spidersilk sealed with a wax tablet bearing an alarm charm that would ring throughout the house, if opened by anyone but him. He carefully removed the little artifact and set it aside for re use. Waste not want not!

He carefully slit the sack open at the seam and started extracting pieces. Parts and plates of red and amber veined wood came out first, followed by the body of the inert snake club itself. After that, joints and scales of bone, wood, monster tooth and even more bizarre substances appeared, one by one.

 

“All these things have been cleansed, Wilf. There’s no trace of the snake spirit’s left in them. If you’re sure, we can start this together. Wouldn’t you rather have a musical instrument?” He almost pleaded with his dour and quiet son… poor Wilf shook his head sadly. “I have‘ta get strong… for the others.” 

 

“There’s strength in music too, Wilf… you don’t have to become like me.” He whispered. “You don’t have to fight and get hurt.”

 

Wilf hit him with a flat, judgemental stare that hurt just a little. “Hey… I’m not that bad at fighting…”

The awkward, pitying silence that the little jerk laid on him hit the mark, square on. “Really, kid… I’m still new at… Well that’s just mean.” He fussed and huffed at his stolid boy, making a great show of his injured dignity as he worked.

He had a silk vest quickly laid out in its assorted parts and was carefully tucking tiny stitches through the fabric, sewing a thread so impossibly fine it was almost imperceptible through the woof and warp. With extraordinary care he embroidered tiny symbols, runes and stylized plants and animals into the garment as he built it.

 

“You’re trying to hide what you’re doing, Papa. I need to see.” Wilf insisted, cutting through his silly act and laying the truth bare.

 

“Buddy, I don’t want you doing harm to yourself trying to do what I do… It’s dangerous and it hurts.” He whispered.

 

“That’s you… spinning out like threads in your hands… sewn into…” He looked down at the everyday clothes he was wearing. “...everything?”

 

“That’s why I make your clothes… the others’ too. Don’t tell. It’s a secret.” He locked eyes with the sober, sensible child. “Don’t tell your mom. She wouldn’t understand.”

 

“Papa… There’s already not enough of you here.” The wise little tot mumbled.

 

“There’s plenty, Wilf. Plenty for everything I have to do.” He murmured happily.

 

“Then there’s enough of me, too.” The burly lad grumbled. “Show me, please Papa.”

 

“I’ll show you how I put a simple trace of my essence in an enchantment. That’s safe and will open the door to other methods for you… It’s the difference between touching a thing and swallowing it… forget I said that.” He murmured unhappily. “What I do only works because I’m profoundly broken inside.”

 

“Thirp says that healing is more than just picking at scabs until they bleed…” Wilford whispered. “She says that scars are a sign of renewal and we should embrace our soft, squishy natures.”

 

“My mom says you should suck it up and grow a carapace, softshell man.” Kree added in helpfully from behind his ear.

 

“Not how that works Honey. You mom knows better, she just likes getting you to bust my chops.” He said softly to his youngest ward, who wasn’t named Ward at all… Those doofy contemplations told him it was time for a break.

“Ok, Wilf, I need some sunshine and you need a snack. Upstairs.”

 

His child sized dummy was partially dressed in a long oilskin coat with individually enchanted monsterbone buttons laid out on a diagram drawn in something dark red. Sketches of arcane glyphs drawn in silvery chalk shone all over the inside out garment in progress.

“I’m gonna have a chat with Thirp at naptime…” He told all three little brats. “Then we’ll talk about real lessons in enchanting.”

 

“Sounds boring.” Amy muttered.

 

“Oh, no sweetie… it’s super fun. You have to stay inside, in a dismal workshop, sitting still, paying close attention and really focus on the tiny… super complicated details until you wind up all squinty eyed and exhausted.” He enthused, while watching Wilf from the corner of his eye… the littlest jerk just nodded and smiled along.

“Kids these days…” Gary grumbled, suddenly feeling very old.

#

 

“Eglund…” Duke Belen said quietly in the baron’s private meeting room. “You are going to retire to a nice little place in the country. If you fuss, you will retire to a much smaller estate, one six feet underground.”

 

“Your grace, I…” He began, his aged face purpling in outrage.

 

“My new mad wizard just broke a naval blockade of Wheatford.” He said, by way of smalltalk. “A small flotilla of imperial navy vessels sailed up as pretty as you please and tried to sack my town... If I thought this was a part of some scheme on your part, we would not be having this conversation. To be explicit, I would be cheerfully scrubbing your remains from my hands right now.”

 

“Duke Belen… My duties to…” He sputtered feebly.

 

“Your duties have been done, Sir Eglund. Baron Thelonius Dunham will be managing things here going forward. You’ve cost me the best justiciar knight in my duchy, Fallon…”

#

 

“Baroness Adelia Dunham…” Filly murmured in the parlor, over tea with her cousin’s wife and her new bestie. “How is it settling in?”

 

“I’ll let you know when it begins to settle in, Filly.” She sighed happily.

 

“I’ll be sailing for home, to get my own place in order…” She cooed with a wide grin. “The Oddsmen’s guild has enough going on… Their games with my house will be the undoing of them.”

 

“Willful enslavement of a vulnerable person for profit will end them first, Filly.” The diminutive mage and new minted baroness whispered in conspiratorial tones of delicious gossip. 

“The ducal council is eager to get some wins on the board and that one seems to be their first objective. Rumor is, that the verdict in that case will be handed down in days, rather than weeks.”

 

“And the little baron or baroness my enormous cousin planted in you?” Filly asked with a smile.

 

“A daughter, if you must know.” She sniffed with entirely false and highly over-acted offense, at the probing question. “I wouldn’t have known for a few weeks yet, were it not for Amy.”

 

“Who? That odd little child in blue?” Filly wondered over her teacup.

 

“Oh Yes, Amy… the dear child. you never really had the chance to meet the Wards… perhaps on your next visit. Most of them are a complete delight.” The baroness mused. “Their mother, Shai, is a treasure while the three little ones… so unique and special, each of them… It’s a pity about their father.”

 

“The poor thing is so young to be a widow.” Filly sighed. “At least they seem to be prospering.”

 

“Oh no, dear. Shai’s husband is alive…” She paused to consider for a moment or two for no obvious reason, before nodding to herself in mild satisfaction. “Yes. Gary is alive.”

 

“Oh…” The young baroness remarked, a little put off by the odd exchange.

 

“You’ll understand if you meet him.” Adelia refused to discuss whatever distressed her, about this Gary Ward character, answering her queries with: “If one can’t say anything nice…”

#

 

“Wilford, like his brother and sister, is as unique and in many ways as damaged as you, yourself are. Why is it acceptable for you to leverage your unusual condition , but not your son?” Thirp asked reasonably. 

 

“He’s barely three…” Gary mumbled weakly, as the kids rolled across the beach below them, turning somersaults and handsprings in the sand.

 

“He’s not, not any more than Ward is really eighteen, or Amy and Rio truly five years old.” She whispered gently. “No more than you are nineteen… You know how long you circled this world in the void. Your soul remembers those gulfs of time and emptiness that it was not meant to experience…”

 

“According to the dryads… at least a hundred thousand years… and they really weren’t paying attention.” He sighed softly. “They say humanity fled and perished in the void long ago.”

 

“That is part of the tension tearing your soul apart, part of the longing for the end that hides in the dark recesses of your mind.” Thirp murmured with satisfaction. “We can clear much of that up now! Follow me please.” She took him by the hand and led him into the woods, leaving the kids to play by the shore with the giant, eldritch tentacle creature in the cove.

 

“Under my guidance, once he’s mastered the occult trick of it, he will be able to achieve similar results to yours… without the unfortunate side effects you suffer.” Thirp lectured as they walked. “It’s really not unlike what I do with my web constructs.”

 

A few minutes later they stepped into a clearing and a vast hotspring bath, ringed with stones and surrounded by trees of every description. 

Ward was lounging on the lawn nearby with a tall, muscular woman, who’s deep, dark skin tone contrasted to make his brother seem even more pale and unnaturally handsome. She was sprawled across his chest curled up and adorably asleep, dressed in a men’s button down shirt and striped cotton panties, her long legs entwined with his.

“Shhh, Ebony’s sleeping…” He whispered, while slowly easing himself out of her grasp. That elicited a soft, disappointed moan, like leaves in a restless breeze.

 

A few yards away, seated on convenient boulders the three faced off for a chat at last. “Ward, Gary has been struggling with the dichotomy of his own… unusual circumstances and his mortality…”

 

“The time thing?” He asked, his ever present smile fading a little. Both nodded solemnly at the brand new demigod. “Yeah, that’s a tough one… earth is still out there spinning along, essentially empty. Has been for longer than humanity ever existed, by now.” He mumbled unhappily. “No other sentient race appeared or traveled there… not to stay anyway.” 

 

“Huh?” Gary asked ever so cleverly.

 

“Earth, home… well, not anymore. I have roots there, in a manner of speaking…” He giggled a little. “Sorry, Dryad humor. I have fig trees there, scattered all around, just like the ladies have their roots planted in the soil of the dead world. That lets us touch the soil and feel the wind and water… even without magic to manifest ourselves. If there were sentients there we would feel their dreams, trickling along our root systems through the void.”

 

“So earth is just trees and animals… no thinking beings at all?” He murmured, feeling that familiar, bittersweet sadness welling up deep inside.

 

“It’s still vibrant and beautiful… changed, of course, but you’d recognize it still. But you can’t go, none of us can. Not just because we are beings rooted in magic, you and I…” He sighed long and sad. 

“No thinking being will live or thrive there, under the pall of malaise and despair cloaking it. We call it ‘the dead world’ because of that aura of extinction lingering all around.”

 

“Without an etheric veil, magic cannot linger in your old world, this makes sentient life unable to develop or truly thrive. Those of your species who have tried to re-colonize your world have always failed for this reason.” Solange said quietly, as she joined the group.

 

“Wait… I thought we were the last, here in this world…” Gary demanded in surprise.

 

“Of course not…” She huffed in annoyance. “Humans, of all the minds we have fostered, are the only mortals able to thrive in worlds like yours, devoid of magic… We scattered you everywhere that such conditions exist.” She shivered in delight as she spoke, smiling with beaming happiness. “You are our favorite creations, which is why we have so many of you here, despite… resistance from some quarters.”

 

“So there are still humans out there?” He whispered desperately.

 

“Ohh yeah, so many!” Ward added in with a smile that hurt to look at directly. “Others too, folks of every description, I feel their dreams, percolating through the realms, following my roots. But human dreams pack a punch that makes them distinct… delicious, creative and exploratory…” He murmured in growing pleasure.

“We aren’t a dead end, just a side street in a forgotten suburb.” He smiled and took Solange in his arms, holding her close. “This is where we began, between earth and this place. Between our long forgotten animal ancestors and these sexy ladies all around us.”

 

“Huh… That really shouldn’t make me feel better…” Gary mumbled angrily. 

 

“It does, though.” Ward answered, smugly confident. “Relax, let some of the pressure go… I’m here, things are moving in the right direction. I feel so many more pieces of us, lost down there…” He sighed, a little sadly. 

“There’s at least as many down there, as there are up here, bro. We’ll find them all eventually…” He brought Gary up short with an aggressively raised finger. 

“Me and the ladies will find them… You should stay the hell away, I’ll be doing this fetch quest. We don’t want to sever them from mortality too; they should find their own ways home.”

 

“I’m sorry bro… doing this to you…” He whispered to his parallel self, from the hentaiverse.

 

“I was pretty jacked up already… your crazy, half baked abilities just gave me the leverage I needed to make my transition into this form… otherwise I’d have flown off like those other souls you’ve shuffled through your shadow.” He said with a smile, as usual. 

“Now I’m…” He paused for a few heartbeats. “It’s too soon to say I’m happy like this; eternity is a long time.” He grinned and clapped his brother on the shoulder warmly. 

“But I know a guy with the secrets of mortality… Keep that under your hat.”

 

Natural sleep came soon after, troubled, but more restful than any sleep he’d had in a few days.

#

 

Gary Ward: Demihuman Monster, Aberration

Class: Druid, Craftsman, Witch 

Age:19 

Rank:Copper

 

Might:Copper, Beast, divine Contract, Homebody, The Hive, The Sun.

 

Resilience:Copper, Ward, divine Contract, Fractured Soul, Quietus Moon, The Moon.

 

Agility:Copper, Spear Wanderer's Legacy, Pockets!, Sleight of Mind, The Hierophant.

 

Will:Copper, Brigid, etheric Contract, Artisan, Bound in Flesh, The Hanged Man.

 

Mind:Copper, Ipet, divine Contract, Interface, Unlivening, The Endless Dance of Death.

 

Animus:Copper, Joy, divine Contract, Familiar Stranger, Entrainment, The Fool.

 

“Sweeet… Rankup!” He groaned as he woke from a nap that had turned into an overnight oversleep. Gary rolled over to face his first day at Copper rank with a headache, back ache and all the old familiar symptoms of lying in bed too long, unconscious. 

He dragged himself to the en suite lavatory and deposited an entire Gary’s worth of dark, reeking, liquids and solids… and some stuff that could and did defy description.

 

“Gross!” Kree buzzed from her tousled, wild, hair hive.

 

“GahhhH!” He replied evenly and in a very reasonable way. “Man, that sucks… Sorry, Honey. I should work on that.” 

 

“Yeah, you scared me!” She buzzed and clicked in his ear.

 

“Alright, Honeybee… Let’s go see what’s happening in the waking world.”

#

 

The kids were finishing breakfast and getting ready to travel, while the grownups double checked the supplies before they left town. By third bell they were aboard Moonrise and sailing downriver again.

 

After lunch on the water, the little ship sailed past the side channel where they had recently… done stuff. They sailed by and Gary stared in mute surprise. 

People were out, clearing the brush and thickets from the former docklands and working their way inland. A small flotilla of rowboats and small craft were pulled up on the sandy banks, while small barges were busy ferrying supplies, people and tools across from a work camp on the River Road.

 

“Duke Belen gave an ultimatum to his nobles.” Liam murmured quietly when he noticed Gary’s surprised reaction. 

“All untenanted former farmlands will be sectioned and auctioned off as smallholdings unless development work is underway before autumn… The ducal preserves and forests have been declared protected wildlands and will be patrolled more… aggressively.”

 

“Where will he find the people? Wheatford’s not exactly suffering from an unemployment problem.” He asked, watching the men and women at work as they slowly slipped downstream.

 

“Refugees from Mubarak’s lands, second and third children of common houses, but mostly, people from the slums of Port Fallon…” He smiled at that thought. “Too many of us end our indentures and are cut loose with skills and Contracts… unsuited to civilian life… and memories that make a placid existence challenging.” He sighed happily.

 

“I proposed instituting some of lady Thirp’s innovations in ‘trauma counseling’ and advocated for a study on this ‘Post Traumatic Distress’ thing.” He murmured softly. 

“I still will never be able to Contract Dana, the lady of healing… but now her clergy can hear my voice and suffer my touch, Gary.” He whispered. “Thank you.”

 

“We did that together, brother. Without all of you, I’d be living in the woods somewhere, slowly becoming a lich.” He sighed happily, half sprawled in the hammock near the bow.

 

“Gary, who’s steering the ship?” Liam asked, in growing alarm.

 

“Amy’s trying out for her Pirate’s license. Wilf and Rio are crewing for her.” He answered with a huge yawn.

 

“You’re letting your four year old daughter drive the boat?” Liam looked a little pale under his usual healthy glow.

 

“Uhhh…” He paused to think about that for what felt like an awfully long time. “Yeah… so far so good.” He mumbled. “Parallel parking is gonna be the tough part.”

#

 

Admiral Amy had to stand on a crate to manage the wheel… and maybe she left one of the aft fenders down when they set sail… but they docked with nary a thump nor bump and she threw the bowline to Wilf right on target. 

“Did I pass?” She gasped, as she skidded on the smooth deck planks in front of her stern and unsmiling Pirate’s License Examiner.

 

“I noticed that fender, Amy. Details matter aboard ship.” She muttered sternly, pacing up and down the deck in front of the hopeful applicant. “That being said… Yes, you pass.”

 

The explosion of joy from her little pupil nearly knocked Becky’s official Pirate’s License Examiner tricorn off. There were an awful lot of feathers on the silly thing… but Gary swore it was essential. 

With solemn reverence she unpinned a golden ship’s wheel badge from her hat and attached it to Amy’s “Congratulations, Amy! You are a Provisional Pirate. You’ll be able to apply for your unrestricted pillaging endorsement when you turn fifteen.” She waved her finger warningly at the tiny buccaneer. “You always have to have a grownup crewing for you, sweetie.”

 

“Ohmygosh!” The fast moving blue bur seemed to shout, as Becky was swiftly hugged and released by a cobalt blue tempest.

 

“Any other children and I would say you are courting disaster, Becky.” Tawny said softly as she came up from below. “They are such strangely old souls, inside those toddling waifs.”

 

“Tawny… you can’t keep avoiding him. He already noticed; we’re on a ship together.” Becky hugged the golden healer and pointed her at the bow. “It hurts him, too. Go, talk to him, he probably doesn’t even understand.”

 

“Hey Tawny.” He spoke very quietly, when she sat down beside him, on a deck lounge. “Healer’s pissed at me again… I can feel it from your aura when you’re aboard or in the house.”

 

“Yes, Gary. She’s super ‘pissed’ at you… Since the pantheon’s junket into your…” She sighed, still having trouble coming to grips with her friend’s weirdness. “...thing.”

 

“That seems pretty unfair, since I wasn’t allowed to attend.” He mumbled.

 

“She understands that and is struggling with the spiritual, emotional and ethical problems the situation has created…” She frowned when Gary gave her a blank, uncomprehending stare.

“Dana the healer took a limited corporeal form inside your… realm.” She whispered. “Within a few short minutes she was witness to the violent murder of one entity and the assault and battery of two more…”

She held up her hand to forestall his complaint.

“Lady Dana is aware that the perpetrator was your… Brother? Ward… the new demigod of Death, Shadow and Vengeance…” She added dryly. “The fact that you are Contracted to him and are his new high priest is equally troubling.”

 

“I didn’t ask for any of these problems and haven’t really been awash in divine assistance from the major deities…” He grumbled. “I’m working with what I have and it’s mostly my own flesh and soul… Your goddess is welcome, by the way.” He added in just a little nastily. 

“I know your cult has been reaping a windfall in new members, along with my… creations. Tell your goddess she’s welcome. And that she should come by and talk to me like a person, if she has a problem with me.” He grumbled. “I hate the way she keeps putting you in the middle.”

 

“Gary… witnessing the ending of a life so brutally and casually, on her first foray into this… thing you do…” She whispered in scandalized tones. “Such a thing is incompatible with her nature and has caused her to learn… fear.” Tawny looked all around in case someone might overhear. “Gary, my goddess won’t talk to you and makes my skin crawl when you are near, because she is afraid.”

 

“Fear is a funny thing, one need not feel fear, to suffer from it. Her fear is hurting you and me; she needs to learn to deal with it.” Gary grumbled sourly. She stared at him as if he might be joking…

 

“Dana, the Healer of wounds will ‘Deal With It’ in what manner her divine glory sees fit.” Tawny fired back hotly. “Even though you may not have actually…” She dropped to a harsh whisper for a moment. “...Actually murdered War… You could at least do something about the… body…” She gasped in desperate awkwardness. “It’s creeping most of the pantheon out, just lying there.”

 

“All right… I’ll take care of it tonight. Tell her not to watch; I dig my graves naked… I’ve decided that’s the proper method.” He grumbled.

#