Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Chapter 7

Chapter 7


Feast Day celebrations at the Wild Boar tavern are legendary, usually ending with half the patrons waking up in Constable Bandern’s jail and the rest greeting the morning sun with aching heads and stomachs. The din that faced Malcon as he opened the western door into the Council chamber rivaled anything that the Wild Boar could boast. Council members were hurling angry accusations at each other with such vehemence, Malcon was sure chairs could not be far behind. The rule against weapons in the Council chamber saved the room from being redecorated in red, he was sure. Malcon’s seat at the Council table was on the opposite side from where he’d entered, presenting him with the unpleasant task of weaving his way through at least a half dozen furious creatures, each flailing their arms about themselves as they berated each other. Normally, his dull black robe and status as a lowly human made most of the Council ignore his presence. Their current agitated state would only heighten his seeming invisibility, making the trek to his seat all the more troublesome. Liliandra, the Elven representative was his first obstacle. She was livid, vigorously shaking her finger at the Orcan councilor, Oogo. Her elegantly embroidered emerald silk robe, gold tasseled belt and regal circlet made her harsh berating of Oogo seem more like royalty condemning her serf than fellow councilors hashing out a particularly troublesome problem. Liliandra’s natural elven demeanor only added to the lopsided appearance. Elves tend to view other races as inferior, especially ones that are not blessed with the beauty that is common in Elves. On the polar opposite end of the beauty spectrum stands firmly the Orc race. Oogo was a perfect example of an Orc, strong, fierce, intense, and well, ugly. Mottled green/gray skin, a sloping forehead, a pair of two inch tusks protruding upward from his lower jaw, and a perpetually disheveled dingy green coarse mass topping his head marked him as a typical Orc. His clothes also spoke of his extreme difference from Liliandra. He wore dark leather pants and a plain russet jerkin, practical clothes for a life of hard work, as opposed to elven clothes that spoke of grace and leisure. Liliandra’s incensed accusation centered on an attack by a group of Orcs on a wedding party just inside Windwood Forest; she demanded to know what would possess Orcs to kill an innocent wedding party. Oogo might have had an explanation or might have even tried to understand what she was talking about, but his attention was elsewhere. Malcon, after slipping past Liliandra’s pointing finger, noticed that Oogo didn’t have a clue that Liliandra was berating him. He was bellowing at Cogsworth, the Gnomes’ presence on the Council. At three feet two inches, he was the second smallest member of the Council, but his usual impact on Council meetings belied his physical stature. A jesting, animated councilor, full of wit and wisdom, he was a credit to his race. Gnomes are sought out as court jesters and counselors because they seamlessly blend humor with sage advice. Today, however, was not a good day to observe gnomish virtues. Cogsworth’s normally serene yellow-hued face resembled a beet, Malcon observed as he squeezed by both Oogo and Cogsworth. Unfortunately for Oogo, Cogsworth’s strained expression had nothing to do with Oogo’s incensed claim that a group of Gnomes had ambushed and slaughtered three Orc children while they swam in Okoo pond. Cogsworth was focusing his ire at a gaunt, extremely pale creature dressed in a dark brown robe tied at the waste with a white corded rope. This creature was the Hurmink’s envoy to the Council, Beleeze. As the guardians of knowledge, Hurminks are usually somber, deliberate observers, seldom getting personally involved with other races. They are reserved people, speaking rarely, and then only in hushed tones. Malcon passed Beleeze as he neared the end of the council table, remarking to himself, that Beleeze wasn’t speaking deliberately in hushed tones today. The charges he was hurling at another councilor drowned out all of Cogsworth’s irate words about a Hurmink caravan destroying a small Gnome village, near the Hopsound River. He alleged that a survivor said the Hurmink leader bragged about “collecting knowledge”. Cogsworth demanded to know if murder and pillage were the way all Hurmink collected knowledge. Of course, Beleeze never heard a word of the gnome’s accusations, as his own voice carried above all the others. He needed to be loud, since he was condemning Anak, the twelve foot tall Giant member of the Council. Anak wasn’t a skinny twelve feet tall; he rather resembled a small mountain on legs. His arms were six feet long ending in hands that easily palmed a watermelon. It was Anak’s massive right arm that nearly ended Malcon’s journey to his council seat. Anak had swung his right arm around to punctuate a point he was making, nearly relieving Malcon of his head. Of course, Anak’s well-gestured point didn’t come close to answering Beleeze’s indictment of his fellow giants. Apparently, a giant had destroyed the Hurmink repository near Wang-Loo. Beleeze ranted incessantly about the senseless loss of years of knowledge collection by a stupid creature simply too self-absorbed to notice that the driving of posts for his new home was crushing the repository located in a cavern below. Malcon noted, after he was safely beyond Anak’s thrashing limbs, that briefly mentioned amid Beleeze’s relentless bemoaning about the loss of all that knowledge, the writings, the artifacts, the time spent collecting; two of Beleeze’s fellow Hurminks had lost their lives. It struck Malcon that Beleeze was more distraught over the loss of pieces of paper, wood, and stone, then he was over his own kin. Anak’s voice raised in anger would normally have punctuated the Council chamber so profoundly that all would have had to stop and listen, but as his voice was merely another in a symphony of furious voices, it succeeded only in making the Council chamber walls rattle slightly harder. His voice was raised and his arms waved not in response to Beleeze’s insulting indictments, but in condemnation of the Dwarf race. He addressed that condemnation to Joknor, the dwarf envoy. Standing at only 4”7”, Joknor should have been cowering before a enraged foe nearly triple his size, but even had Joknor been alert to Anak’s fury, there would have been no cowering. Joknor was a warrior and a craftsman, as most dwarfs are. Only his son, Angus, rivaled him in fighting. Joknor had dealt with a selfish giant before, one that had not understood the concept of sharing, and this giant, Kairn, made Anak look like a runt. If Joknor had been listening to Anak’s claims, he would have heard that a group of dwarfs had killed a giant near Pillstone Peak because they wanted his land to mine. Unfortunately for Anak’s desire for justice, Joknor was consumed with his own indignation. His indignation was focused on the smallest member of the Council, Moonstar. Skin darker than a moonless night, hair displaying the myriad of colors nature provides the Quie delegate stood only a few inches above three feet tall. Joknor’s indignant accusation was that a dwarf hunting party had been slaughtered, not in battle, an honorable way to die, however unlikely he considered that to happen in a battle with Quies, but they had been slaughtered in cowardly traps set up along the deer trail the hunting party had been following. Everyone knows that Quies, who seem endlessly to be asking “How and why”, are masters at developing traps, both benign ones that preserve the captives alive and deadly ones. It was Joknor’s turn to ask “why?”, but it appeared that no answer would be forthcoming; as Moonstar’s peevish voice was being used in railing against Paddersly’s Halfling kin. Her claim against the peace loving race was that a Halfling delegation supposedly in Quiestorm to mediate a dispute between a Quie merchant and a Gnome fur trading caravan had ended in the murder of the merchant and the caravan leader and the disappearance of the merchant’s money and the Gnome’s furs, as well as the “peace” delegation. Paddersly would normally have taken great care to find out all the details of such an affront to peace, as he considered the Halfling divinely given responsibility to peace a sacred duty; however he was presently consumed with righteous anger against Liliandra’s people for another affront to peace, the murder of Piddersly, his brother while on a mission to settle some in-fighting in Liliandra’s own home city of Avea.
As Malcon listened to Paddersly’s grief-filled accusations, he realized that he was near his seat, but it was presently being blocked by Paddersly. As he waited for some break in the madness consuming the Council chamber, he remarked to himself that it was the permanent members of the council embroiled today. There are eight major races, each one has a seat on the Council, and the remaining two are for the Others, as the lesser races are called. Those seats rotate among the lesser races, races like humans, animal-kin, goblin, and the like. Reminding himself that the remaining Other’s seat is currently held by Salmon-slayer, a Grizbar, Malcon looked for him. He found the Grizbar seated in an overstuffed chair near the main doors to the Council. Even seated, Salmon-slayer was an imposing figure. Well over seven feet tall, Salmon-slayer is a thick, hairy, creature with claws instead of nails at the end of his fingers, and a mouthful of teeth that gives any opponent pause. With his protruding nose and jaw, it’s no stretch to see the creature his race is kin to, the grizzly bear. Today, Salmon-slayer seemed less intimidating though, perhaps this is the result of the utterly confused look on his face as he witnesses the mayhem before him.
Malcon looks over the room again, amazed at the complete confusion and rage he observes. This is the mighty Council of Terrerth, the sole body dedicated to the preservation of civilization and it appears that civilization is about to explode into a bloody mess. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the room, besides himself, possessing the state of mind capable of stemming the destruction of civilization and he has no desire to stop this meltdown. He absent-mindedly strokes a pendent hanging from a chain around his neck and a hint of a smile begins to form, when he sees that he’s wrong. He’s forgotten to look at the whole room. At the other end of the table, the head of the table, sits the Council’s leader, calmly smoking a long stemmed pipe, allowing smoke circles to rise slowly above his head. His name is Ban’helai, the High Priest of the all-Father, and there is not even a hint of confusion marking his face. Sadness and resolve are what Malcon reads on Ban’helai. The all-Father’s voice on Terrerth is dressed in a forest green robe accented by white circles. His shoulders are brushed with ebony hair that parts ever so slightly around his distinct elven ears. Beauty is often a word reserved for the females of the world, but the Elf race demonstrates that the word has a masculine side and Ban’helai clearly embodies it.
Malcon observes that while Ban’helai is clearly not happy with the uproar that has taken possession of the Council chamber, there’s no panic coming from the Council leader. Ban’helai leans forward a bit, bringing his staff, an ugly, crooked piece of wood, deliberately off the floor. Never moving from his seated position, Ban’helai raises his staff over the end of the Council table and calmly touches it with the staff’s end, speaking one word as if he were talking to himself. Roaring through the Council room with the ferocity of a hurricane, a peal of thunder shatters the cacophony of fury-laden voices and one word is plainly heard amid the thunder, “Silence!” The force of the command is so intense; Malcon almost falls to the floor. The insanity that has reigned in the room is dispelled by that one word and the angry voices are hushed. All the Councilors are looking at Ban’helai, stunned and unsure of what to do.
“Please take your seats. We seem to have some important business to discuss.” Ban’helai serenely instructs.

1 Comments:

Blogger Marla said...

very good. it does convey the idea well. did you go back and edit already?

November 25, 2005 at 8:47 PM  

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