Dark Michael, known in life as 'The Cold Major' (for all that he was once high general of the quiet land of Saint Demetia), sat upon a simple and civilian stone. Wrapped in heavy solder's coat, defying the warm summer sun.
Beside him perched Professor Shadow Night-Creep, supernatural summoning from the moon. The familiar of devils, advisor to angels, companion of haunts and Fae, consultant to witches, warlocks and all folk enamored of arcane secrets.
Together they stared out over the land of St. Martia. Not from any great height. For the hills marking the northern border of Plutarch did not descend again. They continued as a bare and rocky tableland, far less green than Demetia or Plutarch.
The two watched the Society of St. Benefact marched away, guards upon all sides.
"So much trouble to get them this far," said the cat. "I feared they'd wander Plutarch till they joined the local ghosts."
"What shall happen to our brave band in the land of the Saint of Worthy Battle?" wondered Michael.
"No telling. Martia is a strange place, a strange person. More primitive than Demetia. More rule-bound than Plutarch, more idealist than Hephestia."
"All their lives the folk of Martia train to fight," mused Michael. "And yet to no purpose but decorate one another with scars. Never any grand march of conquest to justify the bother."
"Fortunate for its neighbors."
"True. Though to live forever beside the dangerously mad, must incline one to dangerous madness."
"That can be said of any kingdom in the Land of Saints, and every last nation beyond the sea."
"What? That their neighbors are mad?"
"No, that they are mad themselves. And so gaze upon their neighbors as a man holding a bloody knife might stare into a mirror."
Cat and ghost pondered this striking image in silence, gazing upon the high and stony land of St. Martia.
The Society of St. Benefact marched along a dusty path that never quite became proper road. Before and behind, to left and right, walked soldiers of Martia.
These soldiers made indifferent guards. They looked content, so long as the Benefactors kept to the same pace. The Martia soldiery sang as they walked, nonsense words not meant to keep common step, but a common humor.
One, two, three, four,
Why Infernum go to war?
Stone, blood, storm, flood,
Drown us all in fire and blood.
Five, six, seven, eight,
Who did Martia copulate?
Sword, spear, bow and shield,
Legs up high to say you yield.
Jewel whispered to Cedric. "Are we prisoners?"
"No," said the man carrying short spear of authority. Hypo, as he'd named himself.
"Yes," growled Val.
"We didn't confiscate your weapons," pointed out Hypo.
"Because you hope we will fight you," sighed Cedric.
"You actually think we hope you to lift your staff and burn us with Demetia's flames? While that Silenian fires arrows fast as pigs fart, and our glorious Kurgus goes into a battle rage that rips half the patrol to scraps so small a cat wouldn't need to chew first?"
YOU ARE READING
Barnaby the Wanderer
FantasyBeing the astonishing adventures of a widow's son journeying the Land of Saints, with a magic cat, a dark ghost and the map of a cursed tower; and what became thereof.
