Coldest Trail, Part 1

EPISODE 2, Part 1

ART: GEMINUS THOMAS; Source: New York Public Library

Opening: Good Drinking Company 

[Two figures sit quietly amidst a busy bar scene]

“I don’t usually hear from you.  It’s been busy with reconnaissance and exploring the forbidden isle; never expected to be tapped by the hand of high society!”

“You say it’s your first drink, Robek? We both know you hold attention well.”  

“It pays to be attentive.  You tend not to threaten a free drink sans consequences”

“It’s real.  One of my whales.  Dangerous though”

“Oh? Catacombs?  Thrull bone munchers?  Big scary fungus!”

“Fine, if you don’t want to hear more then we can just enjoy each other’s misanthropy”

“Claran, I miss our high tea dates”

“I think it’s an excavation.  But i’m not sending my caving experts.  This is something more esoteric.  They’d drill their way into hellfire and immolate in the island’s belly.  You want this job”

“So?  On your usual esoterica, how does this rank?”

“More echoes of the past, as ever.  Something about coming into wealth, or being born into it, leaves out clients less intent on the present than the great tales of our ancestry.  If anything, it might argue for presenting the wealthy with more menial labor to keep them occupied.” 

“Indeed; but you know how I feel on this score.  The snake rots from the head, and so on. I know it’s unpopular and you’ve made me swear off client meetings at the risk of offering my opinion free-of-charge.  I get it.  So let me step into the mouth of some undying beast for them.  Down payment required.”

“It’s hunting the vestiges of a ghost.  Yes, they all know the Island’s rare artifice and magical echoes from generations of rule by the empires of men, orcs, dwarves and elves, but now it’s silent on the Isle.  Over the past century,  communications and ships have gone out, but return messages from the island dried up.

The island is dying.  Maybe dead, who knows.  Either way it’s far along now, being reclaimed by nature after the hubris of civilization.  Little left, and few real leads.  But underneath that shaking husk is something truly unique.  And the buyer thinks they've found it.”  

“Look, the place is overrun with hellions.  The elves have lost control completely of their flora and fauna; the icatians send out more and more sporadic notice since the end of their uprisings and that nasty civil war of theirs.  Nothing left, soon.”

“A sadistic priest chose to burn his empire apart from within. When he did that, he birthes a demon, and pulled the rock out from beneath humanity on the island.  

This villain hoarded power and wielded it with remorseless hate for even those who he desired,  

The monster died in fitting betrayal but was then canonized as a martyr.  His remains became a  blessed boon for followers, gilded bones capable of enchanting weapons and empowering soldiers. I need you to find that ghost.”  

“I think I know the story.  But not the epilogue”

“It’s an ark, a small remnant of the time.  Who knows if they still carry power.  But the buyer is convinced they exist there yet.  Part of an elaborate morgue or shrine.”

“Interesting - where?”

“Buried under the stones of a once-mighty city.  I have landmarks, a few clues from writings they pieced together for the buyer. I’ll be honest - these are cryptic at best.” 

“Our standard agreement”

“Yes - keep anything else you find.  Sell it.  Worship it.  That’s your business and your time”

“And maybe another drink while you show me these notes” 

‘’’’’’’

Claran doesn’t call often.  Hers are the clients who ephemerate, bottomless purse in-hand and wild-eyed stories of ancient pieces of power on their tongues.  Sometimes it’s a sucker chase, but more often the danger and the prize are closer to reality than the stories suggest.  And anyway - it may be quartz masquerading as diamond, but i get paid all the same.  

If the client were to have funded a successful search for rare keys to riches beyond time, it would make sense that the trail lead to the lost Isle.  Other times they come to Claran on the trail of something so old and powerful that it means an ending - either for the locator, or that rich benefactor.  They’re high risk and she doesn’t hire inexperienced folk.  You have to know enough not to open the dust cover, but usually you need to want to more than most.  That’s the drive.  

I get it.  The world today rots from within and somehow from all around, but in the same coordinated dissolution.  Empires fall to the forces of chaos and far fewer tears are shed than the bloody kinds and generals would like. 

But in the past there are keys.  Half-realized ideas.  Echoes of endless eons.  The artifacts and ruminations of the great and infinite.  If there’s a piece you can cut off and take with you, and it doesn’t crack your sanity like a melon, maybe you can find a better way to live than this flaming slag.

I accepted the job, as Claran knew I would - she had already set up arrangements and had the down payment in the tavern where we met. 

Tomorrow we board the green sail.  Inventory checks are complete.  Stepping into the Isle that knew great heights ages ago, only to succumb to some unknown blight.  My mission is a skull - or a helm fashioned from a skull?  The reconnaissance from the island is spotty.  Barely a map.  But I’ve set sail with less.

There is no greater thrill than this.  Explorers journey to meet our death only to outwit it each time, chasing untold treasure until our peace finds us, and with faster reflexes than our own.

Signing off.

TO BE CONTINUED …