The House of Yeel (4 page)

Yeel looked along the length
of the ledge. It appeared to have no means for descent built in. He
found it quite odd that the room should be so large and beautiful,
with the running fountain and massive white pillars, yet the
designers had thoughtlessly let down the hopeful descender, the
potential drinker of water, or any soul who found themselves on the
ledge in need of getting to their gate.

Yeel peered down and saw several doorways
along the wall in the room below.

“Ah! I understand it! A logic puzzle. There
are other entrances, no doubt connected via some circuitous route
from this very spot. How delightful!” Yeel would have to find an
approach to the fountain room from some other passageway.

He looked in all directions. The only obvious
exits were ahead and behind. Yeel decided to continue ahead and try
that direction first.

At the end of the ledge, he walked through a
doorway and found another hall. A large sack hung on the wall
before him. A passageway descended on his left, and the corridor
curved gently away on his right.

“I have cleverly left my travel sack here,”
Yeel observed. “I am truly a being capable of great foresight.
Thank you, Yeel!”

He took up the sack and slung it over one
tentacle. Then he turned and slid into the descending tunnel.

At the bottom Yeel found an entrance into the
atrium. “Such a simple solution! Oh, perhaps it is not a puzzle
after all. But it was fun while it lasted.”

Yeel flowed across the
smooth marble floor, examining the perimeter of his water room.
Soon he discovered his return portal, nestled between two great
white pillars. Images of faraway places flashed in its
lens.

There, attached to the edge of the doorway,
sat his roveportal.

“Aha! My device hangs just where I deduced it
would be! Progress! I now have the most basic instrument needed for
all travel!”

Yeel snatched up the tiny device, a simple
S-shaped piece of metal with tiny emeralds set flush in one side
like little green windows.

“What else is needed? Food!
Protection!” Yeel turned about and regarded his fountain for a
moment. He slid along the floor and came to the perimeter of the
pool. Directing his eye pods downward, he spotted his children
growing below.

“Ah, my children. No need to deduce your
existence! I have carefully remembered each of you!”

The three ghostly clear spirals below gave no
answer. Their wispy tentacles waved in the flow of water, rippling
their tender diaphanous membranes. His fragile offspring were very
precious indeed.

Movement from the corner of
the pool caught one of his eye pods. He slid over to get a better
look. Another, smaller, transparent creature floated near one edge
of the fountain.

“A fourth! I have spawned a fourth
spiralette! I have no recollection of you, young one. A momentous
event indeed. This must be remembered. Your existence has to be
recorded so that I might recall it at any time!”

Yeel began to concentrate. He stood very
still at first, but soon began to quaver with the effort. For
several tense seconds he stood, recording the existence of his
fourth child, putting it firmly into his memory. At last he was
done. He had permanently remembered his new offspring.

“Four! Very well, now I
shall not forget. But I must return to the task of the moment…what
am I doing?”

Yeel looked down, and saw that his travel
sack dangled from a tentacle and he also held his roveportal.

“I’m getting back from…no,
preparing to leave on a journey!” He realized. “Ah, of course. The
natives wanted my help. I need food, and protection…perhaps even
weapons. All of these things must be procured in a timely manner,
as my friend has indicated urgent need.”

Yeel plunged a tentacle deep into the cool
water and took a long draught. The soft green cone of his body
expanded considerably as water flowed into his internal reservoir.
Then he retracted the tentacle and slid toward the nearest
exit.

“I’ve traveled from this
direction and each thing I’ve needed has been found in order.
Therefore I will continue in the same direction and take this first
exit. I should come to the kitchen next, as food is ingested after
water. Next I should find my laboratory. Of this I’m certain. It is
only common sense, after all.”

Yeel found the kitchen in short order,
wandering through only one hallway and selecting the right
direction at each intersection. Once in the kitchen, he set about
filling his pack with various food items of all colors and shapes.
The odd being placed the pack back on one of his rubbery tentacles,
so that it dangled comfortably against the flexible mound of his
body.

“The food situation is
ready. Next I will need protection. Perhaps the most important,
would be my reagents pack. Yes, I have distinctly remembered what
it looks like. A soft hide pack with two tentacle straps! Full of
all manner of important alchemical resources! It must be nearby…I
would keep it in my laboratory. It is only logical and therefore
that is what I would have done! It is only a matter of time before
I may discover it through diligent deduction and
observation!”

Yeel moved through the kitchen and searched
about, quickly finding a room that must be his lab. The rows of
carefully laid out jars of reagents and large, hollow vats for
mixing potions and ointments made it quite clear. In the center of
his room hung his reagents container. It looked exactly as he had
painstakingly remembered, a flexible container of animal hide with
straps to affix it near his body.

“Hmm, this is well and good,
but perhaps some kind of device to enhance mechanical advantage in
times of conflict,” Yeel said. “The world is wild, and primitive,
and dangerous. Yes, another device might be called for, something
that can be useful in the unpleasant event of a confrontation with
something…malicious.”

Yeel considered weaponry for
quite some time. He was not really disposed to pick on these
primitive creatures, but he realized that things could get
dangerous when he was out traveling far from home. He searched
through several closets with this in mind and discovered a sturdy
malinthander from a work closet and snapped it onto his magnetic
belt. The weapon was simply a curved handle with three dense metal
spheres dangling from thin ropes attached to it.

“Just in case,” he told
himself. “Yes, as a preparatory measure against the unexpected, as
it were, as in another resource to protect myself in bad situations
that may or may not arise, hopefully the latter,” he
muttered.

Movement in front of one of
Yeel’s detached eye pods caught his attention. In the room
upstairs, Jymoor rolled in her sleep uncomfortably.

“Ah! My guest! I should be thinking of her as
well!”

***

Jymoor awoke refreshed. She
sat up in the luxurious bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. A
second later she bolted out of bed, remembering where she was: the
lair of the mighty Yeel!

The traveler walked around the room, drinking
in its grandeur again. When she grabbed her worn tunic and pulled
it on, she realized something had changed. The garment had been
stained and smelly when she arrived, yet now it looked clean. She
could tell it had been worn before, but all traces of dirt and
sweat had been removed.

“Thank you, my lord,” Jymoor said
uncertainly. She looked on the floor and found her boots in similar
condition. She slipped her feet into the heavy footwear and paced
the room, wondering what to do next.

Suddenly Yeel burst into the
room. Jymoor jumped, her heart hammering in response to the
shock.

“Greetings to you, my good friend Jymoor! I
sensed that you were ready. I have made some basic preparations.
Follow me!” Yeel rattled off.

Jymoor shook her head and fell in behind her
towering host. She noted that the mysterious man still wore the
same outfit as last night. She wondered if the legendary Yeel had
need of a change of clothes as mere mortals sometimes did. She
nervously looked down at her own attire, painfully aware that the
travel clothes did not befit a servant of the mighty Yeel.

They moved to the kitchen.
Jymoor wondered how the man knew where to go this time. Something
wasn’t quite right about Yeel. Jymoor expected that such a
legendary figure might be eccentric, or even beyond understanding,
but Jymoor felt that the man might be deceiving her somehow.
Perhaps he wasn’t the Great Yeel after all. Would anyone dare usurp
the position in Yeel’s own house?

“Please sit and rest your
lower limbs, my good friend Jymoor,” Yeel said. “Please partake of
these refreshments which I have prepared and tell me of the manner
in which your people make war upon one another.”

“Er, ah, thank you, my
lord,” Jymoor said, her eyes roaming over the array of food cubes
on the table. “The barbarians make use of the most simple of
weapons and techniques. Their siege craft is primitive to be sure.
They use ladders to scale the walls, create turtles to approach and
attempt to sap the walls. Only occasionally will any of them employ
a mobile tower or catapult.”

“Right. Of course. What? Oh,
let’s be more specific, please. Let’s start at the beginning. What
equipment does the average, ah, barbarian, as you say, as you
labeled them, good enough for now, yes, what equipment do they
bring to the, ah, field of battle, or shall we say, the theater of
war?”

Jymoor blinked her eyes and tried one of the
white squares of food. She hoped that it would prove to be cheese,
but instead it tasted like a rubbery sort of meat like squid or
crab.

“They usually wield only axes or clubs,
sometimes swords. Most have wooden shields, although others may
have plundered a metal shield or a breastplate.”

Jymoor saw that Yeel had
been listening with an unusual intensity. The man’s eyes were open
wide, fixed directly upon her.

“So…” Yeel began, blinking
at last and losing the gaze. “The general mechanics of war involve,
what, walking up to each other and attempting to…use these tools in
an effort to remove each other’s limbs, rendering the opponent
immobile and thus helpless?”

Jymoor nodded. “Sort of…they
also usually try to stab the swords into each other’s vitals. Since
they defeated the king’s army on the field, though, we’ve been
doing more hiding behind our fortress walls, trying to slow down
their incursion by forcing them to lay siege to our cities one by
one.”

“Ah yes, siege, of course.
No doubt they then attempt to abrade away the stone of your walls
with their primitive implements! And you counter by….wait, don’t
tell me! You herd nest-building insects and convince them to
secrete rock-hard substances to thicken your walls from the other
side?”

“Um. Well, I’m afraid those
ways are unknown to us, my lord. The enemy builds towers to bring
them up to the level of the top of the wall so they may hurl giant
boulders or brings up powerful rams to break through the gates of
the city.”

“You built gates into your
walls? Whatever for? Doesn’t that simply invite attack?”

“Well—”

“Oh, don’t answer that. No
matter, the gates are there now, are they not? No doubt you have
your reasons, sunk deep into the mire of instinct and tradition.
Towers, you say? And rams? How delightful!”

“I’m afraid I’m really not
giving you an adequate picture of the sophistication of such
affairs,” Jymoor said. “Perhaps if you talked with one of our war
leaders. There are other matters, such as making feint attacks on
one side while launching the real attack to another quarter of the
city, to overwhelm the defenders through sheer numbers—”

“Simple principle of
concentration of force,” Yeel muttered. “Hmm, yes that is
understandable. To be expected. Yes. I understand.”

“Or as I mentioned earlier, they may tunnel
beneath the walls to gain entry, or weaken the walls from
underground.”

“Yes. Yes. I begin to
understand the mentality of your…ah, um, your adversaries.
These…barbarians are migratory, yes? Is this the typical season of
their attack? Will they stop to mate if the weather
changes?”

“Ah…um…the attacks will stop
during the winter….”

“Of course. No doubt you
will retreat into your sanctuaries when the climate
changes…understandable. Hmm, wait a moment, I want to remember
that…”

Jymoor blinked. For a moment the man standing
before her seemed to change, stretching a little and becoming
somewhat green. She stood up, knocking her chair back, and
gasped.

“What? Hmm?” Yeel snapped
back to his normal appearance.

“My lord…I thought
you…changed for a moment.”

“Changed, well, of course,
I, you know, as you know, well, sometimes…people of my…stature, ah
that is my tremendous power, well, we are able to alter our
appearance. I was simply testing you.”

“I understand, my lord,”
Jymoor said. She bowed low. How crazy she was to doubt the mighty
Yeel! He had begun to change his very form right before Jymoor’s
eyes! This man had power. Jymoor would not doubt him
again.

“Very well then. The hour of
our departure approaches,” Yeel said. “Now, if you would be so kind
as to share a few more details of your warfare
traditions…”

Chapter 4: Sojourn

“The sky is so blue. It seems more colorful
than I remember it,” Yeel said, stepping out onto the rocky bluff.
“I wonder if I should remember it again? Would it be warranted? A
considerable outlay of resources would be necessary. Yes, I think I
should!”