Hokum

A Goat Named Jed

1

Many miles away, stood an old dead tree upon a ghastly ashen hill where the sun did not shine. Within the hill, beneath the tree, stirred a thing from a very long sleep.

A Goat Named Jed

Part 9

A Thing

A Goat Named Jed

7

'No, of course we don’t want to wake the dead,’ said Jack with a roll of his eyes. He sighed. ‘Can we just keep going? This place gives me the creeps.’

It didn’t smell too bad for a place of death, though, Jack thought while Amber continued walking ahead between the walls of sarcophagus and, despite his own words of wanting to move on, Jack delayed following her for the time being. Something had caught his eye. It was the twinkling like that of a bright star sparkling with various colours. The small spectrum of light was coming from atop a stone shelf protruding out from the wall next to one of the floor-level sarcophagus to his right. He turned towards it, tilting his head to try and make out what it was.

It was then that Jack noticed that the majority of the sarcophagus in the chamber had stone shelves next to them, displaying what were mostly small items - obviously Grave Goods or Votive Offerings – that were likely connection and holding personal or religious value to the deceased, and were placed there by relatives during or after the burial service. This particular item, however, was much more eye-catching than anything else he had noticed in the chamber. Jack figured it was a gemstone of some variety and, as he stepped up closer to it, he saw that he was right. It was a magnificent jewel, similar to a parti sapphire, maybe some variety of extremely rare diamond. It was roughly the size of a golf ball, glorified in a fusion of dazzling blue, purple, pink, yellow and traces of green.

As Jack stopped and stood next to the stone coffin, gazing down with hungry eyes at the beautiful sight before him, the Chilli on his shoulder turned her head to him. Her eye lids were no longer laden with boredom, rather widened with suspense, or possibly shock mixed with disbelief, perhaps even disgust at what she though Jack was about to do.

‘Don’t touch….’ said Nip, her voice cascading through Jack’s mind for the second time. But Jack didn’t appear to care this time, his attention was instead dedicated to the gem.

‘It’s okay…’ he replied in a low, automatic tone, ‘I just want a closer look.’

Amber, meanwhile, stopped when she heard Jack say something and she realised he wasn’t following her. Curious, she turned around to see him reaching for the gem. Her heart skipped a beat. Her breath lodged in her throat for a moment. She dropped the torch and started running towards him.

‘Jack, don’t touch that - No!’

A Goat Named Jed

6

Amber gave Jack a quizzical look, then looked at the Chilli, then back at Jack again. Meanwhile the Chilly remained still on Jack’s shoulder, eyes lids heavy as if it were bored.

‘Nip?’ She inquired, though rhetorically realising he had named the creature, but she added, ‘What did she do?’

‘She spoke to me.’

‘No.,’ Amber replied objectively, ‘that can’t be true.’

‘I’m telling ya, the thing spoke to me.’

The Chilli shifted uneasily. Amber gave her a suspicious glance, and said, ‘I didn’t hear it.’

‘That’s because it was in my head.’ Jack said, and turned his eyes to his little friend. ‘Isn’t that right, Nip?’

Amber had to think about this, her mind flipping through all the knowledge she had about Chilli’s. ‘There was an old fable,’ she said, ‘about some dragons having the ability to use the power of their mind to communicate. But it was only a story. No one believes it.’ She gazed at the creature, wondering, ‘Did you really talk to Jack?’ She then looked at Jack for a response.

‘I got nothing,’ he told her.

‘What did she say before?’ asked Amber. She was clearly mocking him with a sardonic expression.

‘“Be calm.”’ He told her in a tone that begrudged her derision.

Amber considered this. ‘Well, it is good advice.’ She then looked around at the burial chamber, and added, ‘It is always best to stay calm, especially while in a crypt.’

‘You say that like they actually care.’ said Jack, and pointed out in a firm tone, ‘They are dead.’

Amber puckered her lips to one side as she looked at him in a way that seemed like doubt to Jack.

‘What?’ He glared at her.

Again, she glanced around at the many tiers of sarcophagus, and replied softly, ‘Well, I mean sure they are dead. Physically. For now. But it’s best we don’t get too excited. We don’t want to wake them.’

A Goat Named Jed

5

Jack froze in position, while holding his breath and expecting the undead to start exploding from their places of rest, while the words be calm swept through his mind, and Amber stopped to turn around and smile at Jack. The dead didn’t burst from their coffins.

‘This is the crypt of Davious’s Armsmen’ said Amber, as if it was meant to men anything to Jack at all. And it didn’t, he of course had never heard the name before, and he was far too busy feeling weird about the recent voice he heard in his head to worry about who was buried in the Crypt, or even the previous sense of apprehension he was feeling for the place.

‘That’s fascinating,’ he replied sarcastically and looked down at his right foot, still keeping pressure on the tile that had turned on the lights, ‘But can you tell me if it’s safe to lift my foot off this without some booby trap killing us all?’

‘HAHA!’ Amber laughed, swinging her head with amusement at the thought. ‘You’re such a frightened child right now.’

‘I’m really not,’ said Jack, ‘I just don’t want to die.’

‘You can lift your foot,’ she told him with a playful slap to his arm.

Jack lifted his foot and took a wide step to the side to avoid the tile. The chandeliers remained lit. He then turned his eyes to the Chilli on his shoulder, giving the creature a narrow glare, and said, ‘I guess that was you then, Nip?’

A Goat Named Jed

4

Having the Chilly perched on Jack’s shoulder caused the first part of the journey to be made mostly in uncomfortable silence. Seemed like both Amber and Jack were too cautious to speak for fear of possibly upsetting the creature. On top of that, Jack didn’t appear to be very comfortable about walking through ancient tombs. In fact he was acting a little skittish, a type of behaviour that really didn’t suit him at all.

From the basement room of Amber’s shop, she led the way through a secret door into the catacombs and down several dark passages, a flaming torch in Amber hand being their only source of light. They had been traversing the ancient labyrinth of corridors for close to half an hour before entering a rather large chamber. The light from Amber’s torch didn’t reach far enough to disclose anything else in the chamber, but the cavernous darkness that surrounded them was chilling enough to provoke Jack into finally breaking the silence.

‘There wasn’t a less… spooky path to take?’ he said, voice broken with obvious anxiety.

Jack had barely finished speaking the words when a stone tile beneath his foot pressed down into the floor with a dull clunk, which apparently served as a type of On Switch for the lighting in the chamber. Just one second after hearing the startling clunk and feeling the tile give beneath his tread, the chamber suddenly lit up by way of flames on the ancient chandeliers that hung from the stone cathedral-like sealing, the blazing light from which exposed the hundreds of sarcophagus that lined the tiered platforms on either side of their path.

A Goat Named Jed

3

With a lot of careful guidance from Jack, Amber finished crafting his holster. She was happy with her work, and it gave her ideas for further product lines in her shop. This excited her a little, knowing that her new idea would have been inspired from an entirely different world. The idea, however, didn’t excite her nearly as much as Jack himself did. There were so many things about him that captured her intrigue and caused her primal urges to exert themselves. She did what she could to keep those urges concealed because, after all, it just wasn’t ladylike to be forthcoming about these matters. Still, After Jack redressed in his now dry clothes, she took maybe a little too long fitting the holster to his torso, letting her fingers linger in places that they really didn’t need to in an attempt to familiarise herself with his form.

It wasn’t just physical appeal, though. The whole exotic outlander thing was also super intriguing. She didn’t necessarily believe his story, but somehow the sense of adventure the story brought with it was exhilarating and welcome in her mundane life. So she chose to go along with things for the time being. Besides, he and she were in fact fugitives now, leaving not many other options but to get along.

There was also the Chilli’s interest in Jack. The interest the dragon had was likely a different type of enthusiasm than Amber had for the man, but it somehow served to validate her own sense of attraction for him. Despite all those self assuring reasoning’s, it really was extremely odd to witness the Chilli’s interaction with Jack, and it just kept getting more odd by the minute.

Before leaving Amber's basement to commence their Journey, the Chilli left her roost on the barrel in favour of Jack’s shoulder. Perched like a pet bird.

A Goat Named Jed

2

‘I don’t know what a phone or an airfield is,’ said Amber with a small smirk, picking up on his sarcastic tone, ‘but we are talking about the King and his Workers. They have means beyond common folk.’ She paused, and added, ‘Royal Magic. And one should not forget, the other guard posted in town has a direct channel to the Preeminent.’

‘Of course he does….’ Jack sighed. He didn’t bother to pursue the matter.

Amber placed the next leather cut-out on the stack of other pieces she had cut. She pushed the stack neatly aside, looking at Jack from the tops of her eyes as she did so. His mind seemed a million miles away, maybe even a little scared.

‘We’ll be fine,’ she said, ‘the labyrinth of tombs can take us quite some distance before we need to surface. I am very proficient in illusion. Stick with me and they won’t catch us.’ She looked at the Chilli. ‘And don’t forget, we have a dragon as our friend now, any attack on us will need to be carefully reconsidered.’

Jack looked at the Chilli as well, she was nestling down to sleep again.

‘I’m not really worried about that,’ he said, giving Amber a slight smile, ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’m just a little unclear about the situation. And a little concerned about other things.’

‘What other things?’

‘I haven’t heard from my people yet.’

‘But they are far from here?’ She questioned him, showing the same confusion he had displayed for her a few minutes beforehand.

‘We have our ways,’ he said with a wink, before his expression became sober, ‘but they are taking far too long. Something’s wrong. They would have contacted me by now if they could. The fact that they haven’t is… bothering me.’

A Goat Named Jed

1

‘You are here now, and experience is the best way to learn,’ said Amber, as she leaned back in her chair and started working on Jack’s holster again, as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place.

‘Well, that is true,’ Jack glanced around at the grotto, ‘but we are kinda stuck here at the moment.’

‘Not for long. The Preeminent of the Kings Legion will have received word of the guard’s death already. A deployment of Sleuth Soldiers will arrive in Greenfalls soon enough. Then it will only be a matter of time before they convince one of the residence to tell them where we are hiding. I say we have a day, probably less, before we need to move on.’

Jack considered this, brow furrowing with thought as he watched Amber cut the leather.

‘Just… hold up.’ He shook his head as if attempting to ward off a delusional thought. ‘How far is the King and his Preeminent from here?’

‘Five to seven days by foot,’ said Amber, glancing up from her work, ‘one or two days by horse or carriage, under best conditions.’

Jack was very confused by this. His brow furrowed sharply. ‘You just told me they would be here in town within a day. How? And how does one in this day and age manage to send word to someone so far away so quickly? You got a phone hiding around here or something? An airfield nearby?’

A Goat Named Jed

Part 8

A Catacomb