Framework of the Frontier, Sain Artwell [read me a book .TXT] 📗

“A sea hag I am not. My name is Rulu Ekh— No. It is simply Rulu.” Dispirited, Rulu had no energy to hold the anger lit towards this creature’s disrespect. She sat down on the edge of the pool to think of William and Ember.

With a huff, Rettete heaved a jug half his size from the water. He groaned, leaning against the container for support. “Is the Ranger and them dead? Ye better not have gotten mah boy Trotto in no trouble, ‘cos if you have… There’ll be seven sorts o’ trouble if you have. Seven sorts!”

“No trouble has come to them, and I shall bring them no more.” Rulu hung her head. As she watched water drip from her hair, she contemplated whether or not to wait for Ishaiolthess’ here or to seek him out in the open sea. Closing her eyes, she could already hear the crashing waves and looming rhythm of the depths.

Fabric rustled. Feet slapped on stone and an ass sat down next to her. Rettette’s breath stank of a decayed whale. “Off to die, yes?”

“It is not my goal…” Though odds were against success, the eyes had a chance of bringing down a leviathan. And then what? If she ran or remained here, the wrath of R’lyeh would march onto these shores — on William and Ember. No, she would have to dive into the depths and challenge the armies, the Queen Yutulhu, and the coven of elder aboleths. “…but a nigh inevitable outcome nonetheless.”

“Yes, yes. They come to die here. People do. I know. Seen it. Watched it. Sometimes I bury ‘em. This one time I watched someone walk into the sea with that same look too, yes. Was a sea-hag as well she was, that girl. Not the same sorta of hag as you, but of the salty bosom of the waves. Lit her life on fire with that same look. Think she went to fight for some village or kingdom or some such. It was so damn important. Suppose it was. Must’ve been. But you, you didn’t leave them with any lies, did you? Them Ranger and them. Waiting for the dead to return kills the soul whether they stay dead or walk back undead, squeezes it to a krexing ol’ wrankle.”

“How dare you insinuate I would lie to them? No. I spoke the honest truth.”

“Good. That is good.” Rettete continued muttering under his breath.

Rulu spread out her toes into wide paddles, shifting them lazily against the current. Slowly, the waters drifted towards the canal descending into the sea. She decided to face Ishaiothess in the open. No others would be caught up in her gamble.

“I shall be going.” She slid into the pool, submerging up to the eyes.

“May the gods bless ye little sea hag, if any of them listen in on the Frontier.”

Rulu nodded in an awkward thanks, smiling at a gesture. Aimless and alone, she had prayed to the Ladies and Lords of Dreaming. Though he was no true god, a twinge of divinity dwelt in William, and so did more than enough in love to compensate for what he lacked in Godhood.

She dipped beneath the waters and rode the stream. Insectoids and leeches avoided her. Overgrown branches of fallen trees, rocks, statues, and scrambled growth coated debris whisked past her rapid dive down the flow. The rapid grew faster, stronger, until it folded upon itself in coils of turbulence and foam. Rulu relaxed, becoming liquid between the boulders and finally joining the eject stream of a low waterfall.

Salt replaced sweetness in a splash. Spots of bright fiery and turquoise-luminescence danced in the darkness of inky-purples and near void-black blues. Like hostile tumors clinging to the bones of the ancient city, corals writhed their bulbous bodies and outstretched fingers hungrily towards their prey. Diminutive translucent creatures drifted in the open. Between the shadows and caverns darted long silhouettes.

Rulu swam across the reefs and over the valleys turned into meadows of seagrass as tall as the tendrils of leviathan. By morning, she came upon a deep narrow wound in the sunken city. It was a dead spot, devoid of foliage and avoided by all but the simplest of lifeforms. It was distant enough.

She rested her eyes shut, and while maintaining the slumber of the golem cores, called out across the Dreaming. The fluttering reflection of the sky grew orange with a dawn by the time Ishaiothess answered Rulu’s summoning. A shiver of trepidation licked up Rulu’s tail when she felt the sea flutter from the movements of his mass.

If not for the shadow he cast, Ishaiothess’ abyss darkened form would’ve melded in the sea. His thick cylindrical body dwarfed Rulu with the scale that she dwarfed a shrimp. A rhythmic fluttering of smooth blade-shaped sails, which interlocked to form eight body-long wings, propelled him. He possessed neither a single mouth nor a pair of eyes, but rather a mantle of various tendrils, which bloomed from the upper quarter of his body in an unbroken thicket. Several of the appendages tipped in ring-shaped mouths trembled to produce a sonorous voice.

“He set you free from the law of the surface?”

“He set me free.” Rulu loosened her grip on the sack of golem cores.

Ishaiothess circled her, his mass eclipsing all but one shaft of morning’s light. “Then, we shall go.”

“Yes, together to the depths.” Rulu opened the sack and let the golem cores spill out.

No longer actively suppressed by her magic, they lit up as they began to sink. Pearly dots inside of them focused on him. Water bubbled as the cores lit up bright and discharged eighteen white jets of liquid fire.

Ishaiothess howled with agony so loud it hurt to hear. Deep crimson blood filled the water and the coil of his body loosened. Rulu darted towards a gap, slipped through, and