© Copyright 2017 Douglas Christian Larsen. Rood Der.
Rood Der — Episode Six: Barbarians and Bumblebees
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Joss
stood in the observation room of Crash House, peering through his Rand digital
binoculars. From the outside of the house, the big windows were reflectorized
and screened, but looked just like normal, everyday windows. Joss was up here
on the third floor of Crash House scanning the skies because all the security
sensors were going crazy. But Joss had not seen anything, not yet. For an
instant, he thought he might have spotted something, but when he checked with
his binoculars, scanning the location high in the sky, there was nothing there.
He stood very still, calmly breathing, watching through the binoculars—sensors
in his high-tech viewing device would highlight and isolate any movement, or
aberrant shape. After thirty seconds of vigilant observation, there was
nothing, but still, Joss did not move. He clicked the timer on the side of the
binoculars, again setting off a thirty-second countdown. He would do this two
more times, and if he saw nothing, he would employ his phone to dismiss the
alarms silently whining in all the systems and head back downstairs. He had
things to do, and wouldn’t waste much more time scanning the heavens for
imagined threats.
He relaxed his muscles, ignoring the
tremblors of stress that wanted to kick off in his forearms. He maintained
regular breathing, keeping his eyelids at half mast, hardly blinking. When the
thirty-second timer finished he was about to activate it once more, when he saw
the thing. It coalesced right there, in the center of his field of vision. He checked
to ensure the camera in the binoculars was running, and it was. He could
disseminate everything more powerfully, later—right now, he needed to
accumulate as much good data as possible.
The thing came together, or gradually
decloaked, or something. One moment there was nothing there, and then suddenly
it was building, growing, piece by piece. He zoomed in and enhanced the focus.
What was he looking at?
This certainly was not what he was expecting
to see. It looked like someone playing Minecraft
in the sky, building something pixel by pixel. Or no, it more looked like a
swarm of insects—bees—gathering in a ball, for there were spaces between the
pieces—the thing he was looking at, he could see through it, the thing really
seemed insubstantial, if he were looking at it with naked eyes there would
probably not be a whole lot to see. In fact, you wouldn’t see it—Joss was
surprised that he had even caught sight of anything in the first place, and
knew where to look—it seemed more like luck, now—and here he was, centered on
the thing as it took on shape, right there in the center of his vision.
Was it possible that the thing was watching
him—had been watching him all this time, and was now choosing to appear right
where he was watching? Was it actually revealing itself to him?
Sweat ran down under his arms. Sweat beaded
on his forehead and threatened to roll into his eyes. But Joss did not move.
Because he was seeing something, it was awesome, he was watching something
intensely strange, and there was no other place in the world he would rather
be, than right here. Oh yes, this was the ticket, the golden ticket, right
here, ladies and gentlemen, step right up, everyone wins in Atlantic City.
Whatever this was, it was exactly one hundred
feet up in the sky, and about one hundred feet out from the house—the tracking
data scrolled translucently across his field of vision inside the binocular
view. The strange see-through ball was hanging there, either riding the wind,
or impervious to the wind, so this did not seem to be any kind of drone with
cloaking ability, but something else, such as...molecular nanotechnology, which
could clump together or break apart—but was such a thing even possible? Did it
exist? Joss had heard rumors in the security community, but all of that seemed
like conspiracy theory, Big Brother watching from a mythical eye in the sky.
Joss had never given such notions much credence, but right now, he was witnessing
something beyond drone technology, or any kind of nano hint. This seemed more
supernatural, like a ghost, or some kind of living creature—sentient bees? He
zoomed in closer. Enhanced the view. No, whatever this was, the individual bits
were smaller than bumblebees.
Suddenly it was bigger in his view. He ran
the scan again, and it was definitely closer, now only eighty feet removed from
the house, but still one hundred feet in elevation. That didn’t seem possible,
despite witnessing the almost...teleportation
of the object. He had watched it with his own eyes. No, it had not exactly
teleported, as it had never vanished from his vision or from the sensors, but
it had moved forward twenty feet unimaginably fast, like jumping. Or physical
zooming—nothing in nature moved like that.
Then the thing came apart as he watched,
expanding, the spaces between each piece surging simultaneously, moving apart
instantly, like a school of fish acting with one mind.
It blew Joss’ mind. It seemed completely
mechanical, only much slicker than any machine he had ever seen. Again, he told
himself, this isn’t possible. It had expanded from about three feet in diameter
to about nine feet across—Joss had to decrease his zoom and refocus. It seemed
more like computer animation than anything moving in the physical world did. His
own...UFO, was impossibly unmoving,
sitting one hundred feet up in the sky. The thing had reshaped, going from an
orb to an oblong cigar shape, reforming in an instant, staying impossibly
still.
Could he be observing a hologram? But what would be the point of that?
Sure, whoever was running the thing was certainly freaking out at least one
observer, chiefly, Joss Chen. And yes, Joss was freaked out, very big freaked,
that’s what he was. But you couldn’t observe with a hologram, could you? It
couldn’t see, but only be seen. Or maybe that wasn’t true, not any longer. If
molecular nanotechnology was real and operational, then perhaps sentient
holograms were as well.
He held the binoculars steady, and moved his
eyes slowly away and peered cautiously above the binoculars. He searched with
his eyes, but he could not spot anything right up there, his naked eyes could
see nothing up there, even when he blinked and relaxed his eyes. He slowly
returned his gaze to the view through the binoculars. The cigar shape was still
there, unchanged.
It changed again, right then. The object in
the sky seemed to take on double the volume, inexplicably. How could it
suddenly have...more to it? Unless
bits were piggybacking on bits, and then separating, but still, the individual bits
were just too small, maybe the size of common houseflies. Whatever it was, it
certainly was a surreal and engrossing phenomenon. It had gone from a cigar shape
to a large rectangle, much larger than nine feet across, now it was like twenty
feet across, and possibly eight feet tall.
At first he did not understand what he was
observing, even as it happened in the very center of his enhanced vision. And
then Joss began to read as letters formed and scrolled across the rectangle. It
had become some sort of ticker tape message.
THEY, Joss read as each
letter formed at the right of the rectangle and then scrolled to the left: A...R...E.
They
are,
Joss murmured, a trembling forming throughout his body.
W...A...T...C...H...I...N...G.
Joss Chen blinked. They are watching. The message had scrolled across the rectangle
with appropriate spaces between the words.
The message continued. The thing in the sky
was communicating with him. Warning him.
Time is
short.
Joss blinked and again peered over the
binoculars. He couldn’t see a thing up there. Whoever or whatever was producing
this message, it was occurring in such a manner that only he could see it, from
this room, at this window, with these binoculars. He swallowed hard, and
shuffled his feet to get his circulation going. He kept his hands as steady as
humanly possible, breathing shallowly.
He returned his eyes even as the next series
of letters began. That was something to make you think. When he looked away
from the binoculars, the letters did not scroll, but only while he was watching.
It was reacting to his observation, participating with his observation. How
could that even be possible, unless someone were observing his physical actions
as closely as he was observing the phenomenon? Was someone observing
him...observe?
They
only guess,
the message continued.
But
soon they will know.
Then
they will act.
Prepare
to depart.
“Is this happening?” Joss Chen whispered,
overwhelmed by a sense of unreality.
As he watched the message continued.
Yes,
this is definitely happening.
It is
real, Joss.
Red
Door. Rood Der.
“Come on!” Joss murmured, frowning.
You are
chosen.
“What the hell?” Joss breathed.
Yes,
what the hell.
There was one last word that flashed, but
only for a moment. Joss puzzled over the strange word, figuring it must be a
code or an acronym.
Then the rectangle in the sky exploded—it
seriously looked like some kind of explosion, except that it was a flash toward the binocular vision, blurry in
streaks of movement. Joss jerked his head back and drew close to the window—he
could see them coming, swiftly, dark streaks heading straight toward him. He
leapt backward as they hit the glass, cracking it in many places, as the dark
specks struck like hail, rattling off the glass.
And then, Joss was drawing close again,
setting aside his binoculars and whipping his phone from the holster at his hip
(the phone was nestled in an inner holster just inside his gun holster, and
while he instinctively almost went for the gun, it was the phone he quick-drew).
He got up close against the glass and filmed the specks, zooming in close for
macroview.
He sighed. Wow. They were little bees, distinctively
bees, but smaller than common houseflies, they were the size of ladybugs, but
looked just like miniature bumblebees, with yellow and black markings on their
furry little bodies. But these were not creatures of nature. These were little
machines, constructed to look like bees, but they were just a little too shiny,
and they moved far too quickly, trekking all over the glass, making little
circles and shapes. They didn’t appear to be trying to gain access, but were
still performing, for his eyes, and he filmed them.
Suddenly they moved into a flowing shape,
streaking along the glass like ice skaters, all of the miniature machines
forming into an infinity symbol, like the number eight on its side, ever
flowing. Joss Chen observed that it was one continuous line of movement, a
Moebius strip, crossing over itself, but still making the sign of infinity.
And then the nanobees seemed to double before
his eyes and while the Moebius strip continued to flow, it shrunk in on itself
as a rectangle formed around the sign of infinity, and then it looked like a
door formed on the window, with the infinity symbol inside, and then the
Moebius strip changed with a circle forming about it, and then weirdly, it took
on the shape of the Planet Saturn with its big ring—
—except that the ring was still the infinity
symbol.
A door that leads to infinity, and the Planet
Saturn, and then upon the glass the door turned red—Joss blinked, but his eyes
were not deceiving him, it was a red door with that symbol, and it was all
moving, shimmering, and then the door began to open and Joss gasped, trembling
where he stood—it was all like a show, or a hologram, but it was there, on the
glass, and then it seemed that the glass was gone, and there was a real,
physical door, red, with that Moebius strip ever flowing inside it, and then as
the door opened more Joss could see into that other world he had only seen
once, it seemed an actual portal was opening before him, and if he chose, he
could leap through it.
Breathing hard he turned and fled the room,
trampling down the stairs, winding down and down in Crash House, fleeing that
vision above him. Because he never wanted to cross into that land again—the one
time he had crossed into that world it had seemed to turn him inside-out, like
the baboon in the Goldblum movie The Fly.
As he blasted down the winding stairway he
silenced the alarms of the security system, tapping on his phone. He heard
glass shatter above him, but he kept running, half-falling down the stairs, he
was moving so fast.
He might have just pissed off those nanobees
by rejecting their invitation, and his heart shrieked in his chest, because he
was never going back, never going back, let them pursue and strip the skin off
his bones, but he was never going back through the Red Door.
He should have grabbed the binoculars as the
whole recording was in there, except for what he had filmed at the last with
his phone. And there was that strange word, he had to retain that while it was
fresh in his mind, elsewise he might forget it.
He typed a text message to himself, as he
often did, doing his best as he dashed down the steps to get the letters right,
just that one word or series of letters.
TEOTWAWKI.
It sounded familiar, but he would have to
Google it.
Dripping with greasy sweat, the massive
barbarian sat still in the lotus position, between two raging open fires, his
battle ax across his thighs, staying as still as possible as the Wee Folk
worked on his portrait on the other side of the cave. He enjoyed watching them
work by firelight, although it was getting a tad smoky in this extended cavern.
Along with being incredibly polite, good-natured, and very sweet, the Wee Folk
were amazing artists. The image across from him seemed to have depth, and
one-to-one, it was like looking in a mirror. The barbarian almost burst into
laughter, looking at himself, for he truly was a sight. What would his mother
say? No, better, what would Ayn say?
A bumblebee the size of a basketball buzzed
in and alighted upon his head. He rolled his eyes. It didn’t even surprise him
any longer, and in fact he rather enjoyed the way their feet prodded at his
scalp, it was quite a nice massage that usually only lasted about a minute, but
often another bumblebee was lined up in cue and you often could get about ten
minutes of massage that way, bee after bee, and he still wondered if the bees
and the regular head massages had anything to do with his bizarre hair growth.
The bumblebee was sucking his sweat as well
as dried skin flakes, and was obviously transferring something as well, and he
often caught faint visions of things far away from the pollen share-linking.
There was something more than the physical realm happening here. In one sense,
the bumblebees were gathering his thoughts, what he was seeing, and
transferring that out to the many hives, and to the many Wee Folk. It was
pollen share-linking, but not the way or to the magnitude to which the Wee Folk
did, of course, because they were constantly connected to each other and even
distant tribes of other Wee Folk peoples. The bumblebee departed from him after
only about twenty seconds and there was no second bee lined up to prod his
skull.
He looked like a clown, some violent,
barbarian clown. Still, if he were to be honest with himself, he was terribly,
terribly pleased with what this world had done to him. Hey, if you are going to
stick your toes in, you might as well fully take the plunge, go deep, full
immersion, and that’s just what Hank had done, he had gone all in, laying all
his cards on the table, in for a penny, in for a pound, balls to the wall, he
was screamingly gone native, scooting all his chips to red, and he loved it! He
would mix as many metaphors as he could, many times a day, and he was bubbling
over with joy. He was a happy camper, and he just wanted to scream and howl. He
wanted, desperately, to do a few other things, as well, except that there was
no one about his size to do them with. Oh but that would make things perfect, a
woman, oh a woman, my crown for a woman!
Still, he looked like a clown. And what woman
would enjoy a sight like him?
He had mostly been bald, in his world, and
had gone completely gray in what remained of his sad hair, hardly enough there
to gather for a decent comb-over (and Hank could never stand the thought of
combing strands of thin white hairs across his pate).
Now, he had a luxurious tuft of glaringly red
hair standing up like a Mohawk, or no, more like that horsehair plume or brush
on the top of a Trojan or Spartan helmet. Yes, his hair had grown in like this,
too thick and porcine to do anything with, so Hank just let it wave up there,
looking preposterous, probably ten inches high, but hey, he had to admit it, he
thought it was completely badass, as well. He loved it. Oh he loved it, but still,
a woman, please Sky Valley, a woman, please, send me a woman!
The hair on the sides of his head had grown
in full and thick and all white, no color whatsoever, but it swept back on the
sides of his head like wings, and the red hair and the white hair met in a truly
gnarly mullet. Even his facial hair had gone to a place and then just stayed
there—he didn’t even need to shave. He had a little goatee, which was garishly
red, and very sculpted, and the tips of the thick hairs were white, as if with
hoarfrost. It kind of looked...sweet.
And look at what had happened to his body, in
just six weeks of running about (he wasn’t sure how long he had been here, it
could be three months, or possibly as short a time as four weeks—time was kind
of wonky here), his body had slimmed down and then plumped out, like Ballpark Franks. He now had muscles
where muscles should never be. And he was vigorous, and scintillated with
vitality, he positively glowed with excellent health, it practically squirted
out of all his pores. Half the time he wanted to run around screaming and
laughing, and the other half of the time even knotholes in trees were starting
to look...highly attractive, to poor, horny Hank.
He hadn’t been with a woman since Ayn had
left him—yes, as embarrassing as it seemed to him now, he had actually been
married to a woman named Ayn (although she had not had the beauty of the famous
author and President, but Ayn had been the number one baby name for the past
sixty-five years, for baby girls and
boys). But he had to remind himself, carefully, carefully, that none of that
was real—where he was now, this was real. In that other world he had wanted to
find someone else when his wife left him, but he had gone rather soft and dumpy
through the years, and in the middle of his fifties, he just could not imagine
any woman finding him attractive.
But over here, he had the body of a
twenty-five-year-old Olympic athlete, and though it seemed highly improbable,
Hank felt he must be one or two inches taller than his usual six-foot two
inches. And damn, with all these muscles—he could probably star in a reboot of
the Conan movies—and his endless
energy, he could run for miles and miles with no twinges of arthritis or gout,
he was just a whole new man, and wouldn’t mind meeting a whole new woman.
There were the tattoos to consider, which had
sort of formed over the nights while he was sleeping, first on his arms, which
were kind of cool, like metal thorns wrapping his big biceps, Hank didn’t mind,
but then the facial tattoos started forming, and these were...well, odd. It’s
like the tattoo elves had crept in and painlessly added eye make-up to his
face, the kind you couldn’t scrub off. His eyelids were black now, as well as
the area between his eyelids and his eyebrows, and long, wicked lines extended
from the corners of his eyes down alongside his much more prominent beak of a
nose, where they flared out on either side of his mouth like inverted black
flames. He looked like Gene Simmons from KISS,
except, now that he thought about it, Simmons had all the face paint firing
upward, while Hank’s was all directed down, in fact, it kind of looked like his
mascara was running like a waterfall down all over his face! It was
embarrassing, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it. In his
world, he had not been a tattoo guy—he had considered it, during his years on
the police force, just to fit in with the guys, but could never bring himself
to face the needle. At least here, there didn’t seem to be any needles
involved.
Hey, the truth was, he didn’t mind. If this
was the way this world wanted him to be, heck, he’d play the part, and with all
his strength. And he had already done quite a lot of playing the part, ever
since he met the Wee Folk, and become their champion. He had successfully
defended them from a great cave bear that wished to invade and claim their cave
domain, and then he had fought and chased off some guys that were later
identified as Dragon Warriors—how cool was that?
He had even taken this ax off a would-be
thief, a little runt of a guy with colorful feathers for hair. The guy came to
regularly plunder the Wee Folk’s honey storage, for the Wee Folk lived symbiotically
with the great buffalo bumblebees that pollinated all the plants of this world,
and housed titanic vats of honey underground, which they stored like a bank for
both their use, and providing access to the bumblebees whenever they required
the stuff. When Hank had seized the little fellow and brought him kicking and
screaming up to the light of day, the thief had offered the ax for his life—like
a leprechaun offering his pot of gold—and Hank had accepted.
The battle ax just felt plain old good in his
now-beefy fists, like it had sought him out and wanted to be used and abused by
him, he just seemed to know how to use it, and he just seemed to have...skills,
man, crazy skills, and while the shiny steel weapon must weigh easily forty
pounds, it seemed as light as a plastic movie prop.
Hank felt that he finally understood what it
must have been like to be the Pugilist, Stacey Colton, when he had gone head to
head, hand to hand with more than a hundred Vikings, armed with nothing more
than a stick! Hank felt that he wouldn’t mind trying something like that.
Yes, it was a good life. The Wee Folk ensured
that he had plenty of the dark honey, supplying him with a glass tube of the
stuff with a big cork that stoppered the vial. They always checked on him,
demanding to know if he was eating all of his daily supply of honey, and he
always swore he was, displaying the empty bottle, which they promptly seized to
refill again, and return to him. He had been living off of honey, grasses,
various fruits, nuts—there were nuts like pistachios here, that were the size
of your fist, and they were delicious—and berries, all kinds of berries, and he
had to admit it, he liked the vegetarian diet, it certainly agreed with his
muscular new body.
The Week Folk were foraging vegetarians,
eating mostly mosses and grasses and various lichens, all of which they showed
to him and carefully explained, detailing where to find the major sources of
all the foods that he should eat, and those plants and various mushrooms that
he should never touch, let alone consume. They showed him tend kinds of good
mushroom, three kinds of deadly mushrooms, and something they called a
Shroomboom, which provided mystical visions, but should not be taken more than
once or twice in a lifetime.
They were incredible little beings, these
friends of the bumblebees, the Wee Folk. Standing an average of twenty-one
inches or so, give or take a half inch—the very few tallest of them did not
quite reach Hank’s kneecap when he was standing, and the very shortest of them,
the children, they barely reached the bottom of Hank’s meaty calf—and they were
beautiful, with enormously large almond eyes that glowed amber in the dark, and
in the light of day looked like irises made of honey, darkest honey. Their
features were chiseled and defined, with long, perfect noses, and little
dimples in their chins, high cheekbones, and the sweetest dimples that
glistened when they smiled, and the Wee Folk were always smiling.
They sported manes of flowing hair, either
silvery or pure white. Facially, and for the most part their whole bodies,
there was not a lot to distinguish between the males and females, although the
womenfolk proudly jutted their large breasts, and generally had tiny waists save
for when they were pregnant, and the males were flat chested and stout of
waist, although both the males and females became pregnant and bore children.
The males usually produced the slighter
children that became artists, singers and painters and storytellers, as well as
the nurturers, as large groups of the males watched over the children, and
reared them as part of a vast extended family. Whereas the females produced
much larger babies, and these were reared to become warriors, bumblebee riders,
and tenders and distributors of the honey troves, their most prized treasure, the
glistening dark honey.
The Wee Folk also befriended the great
spiders of the Tombwood Tangles, a vast ocean of forest that the Wee Folk
believed covered most of the world, harvesting spider silk, which they treated
and wove into beautiful, shimmering garments. The females wore tight,
shimmering leggings and beautiful poet shirts made of the spider silk, with
capes upon their slim shoulders, and spidersilk boots that extended high on
their thighs, whereas the men wore kilts made of various furs, with knee-high fur
boots and went about exposing their chests in masculine pride—Hank suspected
they hunted squirrels and other rodents for the fur, the meat of which they fed
to the spiders to distract them when they milked the silk (that’s what the Wee
Folk proudly called it, milking the silk).
The males wore their hair in extravagant
pompadors, and Hank had caught sight of many of them teasing their hair into
tall Mohawks in imitation of their giant protector’s hair. Apparently the women
found the elaborate male hairstyles attractive, and the more flamboyant, the
more aggressively attractive, whereas the women wore their hair loose and down
and beautifully windblown.
He had come to know them well, and had begun
to discern, slowly, the differences in their faces, for they were as unique and
diverse as any people—although for the most part, Hank supposed the women
looked Swedish, while the men looked Finnish, with the odd Dane and Norwegian
of both sexes thrown in to keep things lively. They were not blond or blonde,
but truly white-headed, and in the rarer cases, platinum-blonde, which looked
almost like a metallic silver, shiny and lovely, and these were considered the
most beautiful among the men and women. The children had red hair, as garish as
the plume on Hank’s head, but the more they aged, their hair went swiftly gray,
and then slowly white, and then only in the chosen few, platinum.
The Wee Folk did not seem to practice
monogamy, not even in the minority, but paired off as both their hormones and
the bee pollen demanded, with some practicing sexual profligacy to such extent
that Hank wondered that they ever did anything else, while others seemed
downright asexual, and would have nothing to do of an intimate nature with any
other of the Wee Folk.
Hank had trained himself not to notice their
amorous antics, because it would drive him crazy if he allowed himself to watch
them. They were like little pornographic actors, beautiful, lovely creatures,
going through an encyclopedia of sexual positions and styles, but at least
after they noticed how they affected Hank, they had finally begun to practice
their lustful deeds out of his line of sight, in an effort to respect his
sensibilities. Still, occasionally, he caught flashes of acrobatics that could
drive him staggering out into the forest, to howl at the moon in his torment.
Their beauty and their lustful naturalness
made certain there were always lots and lots of Wee Folk, with female pregnancies
lasting less than a week, and male pregnancies lasting two weeks. The male
pregnancies obviously had something to do with the bumblebees, something to do
with the pollination. Whereas the female pregnancies were the same as most in
nature.
The Wee Folk were making Hank a spider silk
blouse that they swore would keep him warm during the snowy seasons, as well as
discourage the attack of any arachnid, for if you were wearing their silk they
saw you as already bound and set away for future feeding, and thus would not
touch you, deeming you the property of another spider. The spider silk also
acted as repellant to the giant angry wasps that would attack any person, tall
folk or Wee Folk, without provocation, as the angry wasps were voracious
carnivores, and their sting was deadly, but as they were at war with every
manner of creature, they were terrified of spiders, or more accurately, the spider’s
silk, which could catch and clasp the, and leave them negated and weak before
all their enemies. So such a garment as they were making Hank was considered
priceless.
Despite their great numbers, the Wee Folk
also died just as often, as the angry wasps swooped in and carried off a child
here, and sometimes a male artist, but rarely the male and female warriors.
Plus there were all manner of other predators in the Tombwood Tangles that
especially enjoyed the meat of the Wee Folk. The Panther people enjoyed a Wee
Folk, once or twice a week, and great birds favored the little people.
One on one, the Wee Folk were no match for
the angry wasps, as was the case with the great bumblebees. One angry wasp
could easily kill ten bumblebees. But paired together, Wee Folk and bumblebee,
and they were far more than a match for even ten angry wasps. A bumblebee mounted
by a Wee Folk was truly formidable, with both steed and rider exponentially
fiercer, more savage, and highly mobile. Hank thought it was like watching a
dogfight between Sopwith Camels and Fokkers. The Wee Folk were incredible
archers, carrying packs of thirty poisoned darts, which brought down angry wasp
after angry wasp, the bumblebees darting and looping, and the mounted bumblebee
had the ability to butt and slam into wasps, knocking them from the air, while
the unmounted bumblebee seemed to lose any sense of defense or offense.
“It is impossible for a great bumblebee to
fly while mounted by a Wee Folk, but somehow they do!” the Wee Folk loved to
sing, laughing uproariously as if this constant thing they said were the most
humorous thing a body had ever heard. Hank thought it was somewhat funny the
first time he had heard it, but now after the thousandth hearing, it just
sounded plain stupid. Of course he was used to hearing about the impossibility
of the basic flight of the bumblebee, and the generic way it was woven into one
Randism or another.
He glanced at the portrait opposite him.
These little buggers were fantastic, he thought, watching the Wee Folk as they mounted
scaffolding to work at his likeness, with more than ten of the Wee Folk artists
laboring simultaneously. They painted with honey-based paints, mixed with
blood, and berries, and charcoal, and who knew what else, but their results
were amazing. If he glanced quickly, it really did look like an absurd warrior
made of muscle and gristle sat there glowering at him.
“Please, Mighty Red Cock, do not smile so
much, we need to bring out your ferocity in our work, if we are to do you
justice, oh great one,” Reethrook said, the chief artist, striding forward and
shaking his paintbrush at Hank.
Oh, that name, he had argued with them about
it. He had begged them to call him something else, anything else. But no, their
wise women had declared him to be their prophesied savior, the Mighty Red Cock.
“How about Rooster, Mighty Red Rooster?” Hank had pled.
But they had no idea what a rooster was, and
when Hank explained they had just laughed, because he was further proving to
them that he was the incarnation of their god, the laughing god, the Mighty Red
Cock, who always jested with his followers, prior to slaying their foes.
“I will promise to sit very still indeed, and
look very, very fierce, if you will just call me the Motherless Hen, or the
Chortling Chicken, anything other than what you keep calling me,” Hank swore,
grinning at the little man, who was all a mop of piled-up white hair, with tips
of platinum. “How about Rubber Chicken, or El
Pollo Loco?”
“You are truly humorous, oh Mighty Red Cock,”
Reethrock said, bowing, and giving Hank such a sweet smile, you just knew the
guy wasn’t kidding around. By calling Hank such a name, he was honoring him.
Hank rolled his eyes, knowing how the guys
would react to such a name when he introduced his Sky Valley Group to the Wee
Folk, he knew exactly what Barney would say, the kind of dry jokes both Ron and
John would make. It was almost enough to keep the Wee Folk a secret, and hope
the two groups never met. He sighed, knowing the two sides of his family were
going to meet sometime. Probably sooner than later.
The beautiful little woman that had taken on
Hank as her own project of mothering, one of the elders of the Wee Folk, but
still a knockout in any world, she came now with a vial of honey almost as big
as herself.
“Have you had your honey today, Mighty Red
Cock?” she asked, giving him such a smile.
Hank winced. He wouldn’t even try to argue
with her, but it made it his heart surge in his breast, hearing her say such
words, even though he knew they were said in complete innocence. Sheesh, who
would have thought he would have a woman that looked like this—talk dirty to
him, however unknowingly?
“Thank you, Ivygarten,” Hank said, reaching
for the vial of honey.
All the artists groaned, as if Hank’s
movement had ruined their masterpiece. Hank sighed. They could be such little
boobs, these Wee Folk, as if his position was such a hard pose to get back into—he
supposed most artists were just as finicky and flaky, regardless of their size,
or world of origin.
Hank accepted the vial and upended it,
pouring the warm honey into his mouth. It was delicious, more vibrant than
perhaps any other taste in his life. If the stuff he ate in his own world was
honey, then this stuff was the very nectar of the gods. He thought it must be
about the equivalent of a tablespoon he had just quaffed.
“Delicious, thank you,” he said, handing back
the vial to the Wee Folk woman.
She came forward and deftly climbed up
between his crossed ankles, and stood there with one foot upon his crotch.
“Mighty Red—” she began, but Hank rudely cut
her off.
“—please!” he begged, “just call me Hank,
Ivygarten, I would consider it a great favor.”
She looked a little hurt, just for a second,
drawing back to stand upon his ankles, and then she smiled again, and stepped
fully again upon his crotch, standing there upon both her spidersilk boots, her
hands reaching up and placed upon his collar bones. And she was one of the
tallest of the Wee Folk, and her hair was bright platinum, and despite her
great age—comparatively to the others—she was perhaps the most beautiful woman
he had ever seen.
“We all know your torment, Mighty—um, Hank, as the bumblebees visit you as
much as our greatest profligates, and we all understand that this can be
dangerous, even a mighty one can lose his mind to the demands of the pollen,”
Ivygarten said, smiling so generously, and genuinely, that Hank felt his poor
heart was breaking.
“I am fine, in time I will probably find a
way, but really, you don’t need to worry about it, thank you Ivygarten, I
appreciate your concern,” Hank said, and he couldn’t help it, he gritted his
teeth, as he couldn’t exactly demand that she not stand where she was standing,
but it was growing rather uncomfortable, and he would really need to shift his
body one way or the other, and soon, so he sat very still and gritted his
teeth, and tried to focus his mind on other things, such as wasps, yes, he
should think about wasps, and not the way her spidersilk fit her like a second
skin, or all that platinum mane of lovely hair.
“But I can help you with that, it is not a
problem, Mighty Red—uh, Hank. We Wee
Folk have had interactions with the tall folk, and we can soothe you, and ease
your burden.
“Wee Wee Folk?” Hank said, flummoxed. Is that what she said?
She laughed in her musical voice, tossing her
mass of platinum Farah Fawcett mane, and said, slowly: “We, us, Wee Folk. We
Wee Folk can help you, Hank, please let me
help you. Of if you would not prefer me, if I am too old for your
pollen-demands, there are at least a dozen youths that would consider it the
greatest honor to aid you. If you would prefer males, they will gladly comply.”
When she explained the we Wee Folk misunderstanding on his part, he had inadvertently
laughed, deeply, causing her to bounce upon him, and his laugh transformed into
a mighty groan. This was too much. He couldn’t stand this.
“No, really, oh, but no, no males,
perhaps...Ivygarten, perhaps if I was careful, and if you were careful so that
I did not hurt you, um, I can’t think of anyone in the world I would rather
help me, with this...massive...um, pollen...demand,” Hank groaned, keeping his
voice as low as possible, but glancing to the artists, he saw that they were
all standing and gaping, all paused mid-actions, all smiling.
“Oh thank you, Mighty Red—um, Hank, thank
you, I assure you there is no danger, and this will be the highlight of my
entire life, I promise you, if you will allow me to help you, this will be the
reason I was born,” she said. “I can help you right here, right now,” she said,
and began to do just that.
“No, no please,” Hank moaned, about to have a
heart attack. “Is there a safe place where we can go, as I am—kind of a private
person?”
But just then one of the larger bumblebees
came in, all black, with a somewhat insidious appearance—the truth was, these
messenger bumblebees were the most gentle of all, and had no stinger, and
generally three great bumblebees would accompany any messenger bumblebee,
ensuring that their direct message was delivered.
“It is for you, Great Red Cock,” Ivygarten
said, leaping away as the bee buzzed in and hovered like a helicopter over Hank’s
head.
“Are you sure, right...now?” Hank said, in near agony.
“Yes, it is always best to receive divine
messages, as soon as possible,” Ivygarten said.
Hank sighed, closing his eyes and bowing his
head. The bumblebee messenger descended, and roamed in circles upon his
head—this thing was much larger and heavier than the basketball-sized
bumblebees, and much longer, it looked more like a cricket and was about the
size and dimensions of a child’s kite, a very puffy child’s kite.
Hank sighed, receiving his massage.
A loud buzzing filled his head. He caught
images of something, the sky, the intense blueness, a stream washing down, the
river, another view of the river, the buzzing grew louder, his body vibrating
with it, and he felt a sense of surreal unreality wash over him, he felt that he
was a bumblebee, a messenger bumblebee and he was flying, zeroing in, rocking
back and forth as he flew down and then everything is in slow motion, they have
slowed the message, he sees far below two figures on a flat rock, and he knows
with the knowledge of knowing so much, so much, that this is not far away, no,
this is close to the portal, only about two miles away, just on the outskirts
of the great Tombwood Tangles, there is a woman, he is zooming closer, and
closer, she is standing, and she is carrying a man, and Hank recognizes him,
the man, and he recognizes the woman, oh but a woman, such a beautiful woman,
with all that dark hair, those eyes, oh Hank those eyes, it is Frances, from
the other world, with Frederic, she is actually carrying Frederic, and he is
pale, yes everyone knows Frederic is sick, but what is this, they are being
pursued by something slithering close behind Frances, something otherworldly,
something horrendous and filthy.
Hank came to his feet and just at the last
instant he ducked his head, and only bashed his noggin a little upon the
low-lying roof, his ax in his hands, and he was already moving through the
cave, making sure to shuffle his feet so that he did not squash any of the Wee
Folk, he goes, and he caught an impression of Ivygarten coming after him. But
he has to go, now.
“What is it, Great Red Cock?” she cried,
leaping and catching hold of his frayed shirt, clinging to him.
“I will return, Ivygarten, but another two
from my world have crossed the Red Door, and I must go to them, as they are in
danger,” Hank said. He gently removed her from his shirt and placed her upon
the ground, just outside the cave.
A wasp came down diving at Ivygarten, and
Hank reflexively batted it aside with a broadside of his ax, flicking it as
easily as if he were playing a game of ping pong, crushing the little monster
before it could sting and carry off his would-be sure thing.
“You must stay here,” he told her, “I promise
I will return as soon as possible.”
“No,” she stated with command in her voice. She
was an elder, after all, probably two years old, or a little more, which Hank
figured was about eighty-five to a hundred years in his own years of a lifetime.
It was like dog years, only much shorter. Possibly hamster years. The Wee Folk
rarely lived beyond a year of age, due to dangers and threats and their own
wildly-beating hearts, and by the age of thirteen months they might have
already had ten or more children. At fourteen months they had reached the
impossible twilight of their existence.
A child of the Wee Folk was two to three
months old, and a youth was three to four months old, and a fully adult Wee
Folk was five months to a year old, and the elders surpassed thirteen or
fourteen months, but rarely lived beyond that, so in their time of living Ivygarten
was a very old woman, one of the oldest. The oldest living Wee Folk was part of
a separate tribe, deep in the Tombwood Tangles, and was rumored to be more than
seven years of age, and could no longer walk, but was transported everywhere by
an equally ancient bumblebee.
“Stay, and listen, god in the flesh,” she
commanded him.
“Ivygarten, I’ve told you, I am not a god, I
have never claimed to be a god, I don’t want to be a god, and damn it, I’ll say
it again: I am just a man from another world,” he said, with a little anger
showing through, because he had patiently explained this time and again, and
they nodded their heads and smiled, and then looked at each other as if to
communicate that yes, although he was a god, they must all agree he was a
somewhat dimwitted god, and should be treated as a child, and it was all
starting to piss him off, but good.
“I do not claim that you are immortal, or
that you are divine in purity, Mighty Red Cock, but that in comparison to me
and my people, you live forever, and you are mighty and while we consider
ourselves to be the Wee Folk, you are the mighty tall folk above us, which we
view as gods, that is all we mean to say, Mighty Red Cock, Great Hank, and you
have protected us, and so do not be surprised when we worship you, and adore
you.”
She sure could speak sternly. Hank felt
sufficiently chastised.
“Do not worship me,” he said, “you may love
me, but do not worship me.”
“You have made a promise to me,” Ivygarten
stated, “and I have accepted you beyond the time of my lifespan. I will love
you, Hank, and no other, but mark my words, I do know how to love you, and I
shall do so. But we are bonded by our mutual promise, and thus you shall not
leave me behind. Wherever you go, I shall go.”
He felt touched. He had agreed to take her as
a lover—however in the world that was going to happen, or how it could happen,
because the mechanics of the idea were so far beyond his understanding—but he
felt he had given in, on a whim, due to the pressure of her otherworldly
temptation; but now, hey, he admitted it, he really felt something for her, as
if promises here in this world were much more potent than promises made in his
own Rand world, where people ran rampant upon their own words, as if they
dragged their tongues wherever they went. And it was expected that everyone stepped
on everyone else’s words and intentions. In his world, you couldn’t trust
anybody, but here, he trusted this small, ancient being of a woman.
“So how are you going to come along, by bumblebee?”
he asked.
“No,” she laughed, “I am too wizened to ride
the bumblebee, but you shall be my steed, and I shall be the arrow in thy
quiver, oh Mighty Hank.”
He kind of liked that—Mighty Hank—because for
the first time in all his years, he did, he felt it, mighty-mighty, and mighty
good.
“How are you going to be an arrow in my
quiver?” he inquired.
She whistled, sounding just like a songbird,
and three craftsmen of the Wee Folk bustled out of the cave, bearing what
looked to be a beautiful, shimmering purse made of spidersilk, and Hank
recognized it as a quiver, the thing you wore crosswise from left shoulder to
the right side of your waist (or the opposite, depending upon your hand
dominance). He was right-handed, so he donned the accessory as he assumed it
should go.
“Very good,” she said, “and always remember, Mighty
Hank, offer me your hand, but do not grab me. It is best if I grab you, as I
can hold on better to you than you can to me.”
They had drummed this in, many times, and he
assumed they would keep reminding him, because really, it was a very good thing
to remember, because these Wee Folk were tiny and fragile in comparison to Hank’s
big, muscular hands. His thumb and index finger together were stronger than the
strongest Wee Folk’s entire body.
He extended his hand in invitation, and she
took a running leap, vaulting through the hair, and landed feet first upon his
palm, and her feet and gait were so light that it felt more like an insect
landing upon him and scrambling up his arm. She vaulted and flipped and came
down in the pocket of the quiver, which was braced with something flexible,
like wood, and had a platform for her to stand upon, and handles for her to
grasp, as well as a soft loop she could affix about her waist, and there was a
small bundle of supplies at the very foot of the quiver.
And Hank was running, flipping his ax in his
hand as he dashed faster than he would do in the normal world even if he were
running a one-hundred-yard dash. He was running pell mell, all out, and he
figured he only had about two or three miles to go, and he could do this
without slowing, so souped-up was he on dark liquid honey, he could easily run
ten miles without slowing!
Ivygarten rode high enough to just peer over
his shoulder, and she was low enough down that his hair streaming behind him
did not blow into her face. Two bumblebees with riders flew easily above them in
escort
Hank’s boots were wearing thin, even though
they were considered very expensive and quality footwear in his world. Things
from that lesser world did not do well here in this denser reality. He would
eventually need to obtain his clothes here, in this world, or he would find
himself running naked, and very soon.
He ran through the woods toward the foothills
that led up into the tall hills below the mountains. This was a lighter part of
the forest and not as many dangers condensed here, but still, you never knew
when an angry wasp would come at you like a kamikaze from above, or when a
scorpion might come clack-wandering up from the rivers.
As Hank came over the top of a tall ridge
that climbed through the tops of the foothills, he thought he caught sight of
her—Frances, at least a mile away. He shouted as he ran, wanting her to know
that help was on the way. He felt a little stupid, rushing to her rescue,
because everyone knew that Hank had always had a small crush on Frances, I mean
come on, she was the bravest thing in the world, calmly facing down muggers,
and not batting an eyelid at Frederic’s obvious illness. She was the kind of
woman of substance that stood by you, no matter what, and Hank wished he had
met a woman like that, at some point in his life. But Ayn had left him for a younger,
better-looking man that made more money, opting for the better all-around deal.
Promises were empty in that world, unless you were a woman such as Frances.
Hank increased his speed on the uphills, and
decreased somewhat on the downhills, conserving his strength and catching his
breath when he could coast somewhat. He was getting close. He could see her
now, beautiful Frances, standing on the very flat rock that Stacey Colton had
stood and fought the Vikings. She was watching his approach and she stood with
some challenge in her posture, and it appeared she was pointing something at
him.
He picked up his pace. He would ease the
tension when he got closer, call out to her and reassure her. Lucky Frederic,
even ill, to have such a woman as Frances standing over him.
And Hank mounted the last climb up to the
ridge on which stood the flat rock, and he grinned and spun his ax, excited to
see Frances again, and there she was, he saw her as he mounted the last part of
the climb, and then when he was only about fifty feet away—her pointing hand
exploded and Hank stumbled in his charge, staggering backward, but he knew not
to fall down, not with Ivygarten upon his back, because he would crush her, so
even as he fell he offered his hand and felt her seize and climb upon his arm,
and then run and leap as his back crashed into the rocky soil, and he tumbled
end over end, picking up speed as he fell into a crevasse, one of the great
rents in the ground that the giant serpent had created, many months ago when
all of this had begun.
Hank felt warmth upon his face as he fell,
and he wondered why the world was spinning in such a hectic manner, as he
tumbled and fell, crashed and tumbled, rolling and falling, tumbling and
falling, seemingly forever falling.
© Copyright 2017 Douglas Christian Larsen. Rood Der.
Rood Der — Episode Six: Barbarians and Bumblebees
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© Copyright 2017 Douglas Christian Larsen. Rood Der. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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