Songs of the Dying Earth

Lord Lychenbarr tried to raise his head but failed. Dringo knelt and cupped the back of his head.

“I’m sorry, Dringo…” Lord Lychenbarr managed in an old man’s voice. His hand searched for Dringo’s and placed an object the size and weight of a glass marble firmly into his palm. “My legacy to you, my dear friend,” he whispered.

Iucounu towered over them. “Dringo, you are too much in your father’s image. You want your father? You shall have him!” He invoked the Agency of Far Dispatch followed by an infliction of the Spell of Forlorn Encystment.

Dringo could hear the sound of Iucounu’s girlish whinny as reality shifted in a dizzying swirl of sky and stars and awareness.

Dringo looked at himself through an ocher err-light, his image distorted further by a strange opaqueness, as if looking through amber. His eyes were open but unblinking. No movement was discernable. Nor was there a trace of sound. He tried to move. It was a sensation beyond the scope of anything he could imagine. Null. Nothingness. An absolute disconnect between mind and body. He sensed no beat of his heart, and he realized at that moment that he did not breathe. There was no pain. There was no cold. There was no heat. Was there life, even? So this was the Spell of Forlorn Encystment. This was worse than being buried alive. Wait! He was buried alive. Forty-five miles beneath the surface of the earth to be exact. But there was no hope even for death to bring a cessation of this perpetual nullity. He turned his mind towards Iucounu. There was hate, at least. But he couldn’t even hold on to that because if it was possible to still “feel” anything, he did still feel the fragility of Lord Lychenbarr’s head as he cradled it in his hand. Was Lord Lychenbarr yet alive? Dringo cried. But he didn’t cry.

Time passed. Or he assumed it passed. His universe now ran on a different clock. He didn’t seem to sleep, but at times awareness of his own thoughts would recede without volition and then coalesce like a dream suddenly coming into focus. It occurred to him that madness would be the adjunct to his situation. He began to discipline his mind by recalling the entirety of every spell he had learned with each pervulsion recited in exactitude. A mistake required him to start from the beginning. Later, the slightest hesitation was cause enough to start all over again. More time passed.

Dringo was in one of his less cognitive states, his mind meandering as he gazed at himself in the strange reflection of his encystment, when suddenly he noticed a minor imperfection in his countenance that had gone unnoticed. Like passing a painting on a wall, day in and day out, while being unaware of the actual image until one actually looks at it. For the first time he concentrated on the image. Although indistinct and vague, there were other minor differences that suddenly seemed obvious. Now he understood what Iucounu meant when he told Dringo he could have his father!

He was looking at his father, not himself. Iucounu had placed him facing Cugel. The irony and the cruelty were manifold and magnified.

The reality shift was almost physical. Where before there didn’t seem to be perception of depth, now he could see that Cugel was no more than an arm’s reach away. What might be going through his mind? He didn’t even know he had a son. Would he think that Iucounu had created a doppelganger as a further perverted punishment? Maybe Cugel’s sanity had already departed his body and his thoughts would be inconsequential. My father. Now that was something to contemplate.

Time progressed. Dringo existed in what he now thought of more and more as a dreamlike state, vacillating at various levels of awareness. His initial claustrophobic fears of insanity receded. At times he looked into his father’s eyes and had imaginary conversations in his head. He found other matters to dwell upon. Would he even be aware of the sun’s final struggle when it came?

It was during one such contemplative moment when he became aware of a sensation. It was infinitesimally slight. But when there is nothing, then anything seems immense. Some time passed before he could even place the locale on his body; so long it seemed that he had been disassociated from it. It was the orb that Lord Lychenbarr had given him. It moved.

Physical awareness grew. First his hand began to tingle, and then it felt like an animal was running up and down his arm. Next he became aware of heat and odors, and his lungs filled with a gasp of hot, stale air. He blinked. Realized he blinked, and blinked again.

Perched on a rock shelf of only a few inches width and approximately a foot away, there sat a miniature halfling with a smug look on its impish face. “My indenture is complete,” it said. “Release me — as I have released you — so that I may return to the subworld.”

Dringo moved his head about. He was free. He need only say a spell to return to the surface. “I am indebted to you, little friend,” spoke Dringo. His words sounded strange to his ears.

The creature sneered, baring needle-sharp canines. “I am not your friend and I am not small. I only assume this size because crushing you would negate a satisfactory fulfillment of my obligation. How do you think I fit into Lord Lychenbarr’s orb? Now release me.”

“Of course, you are relea—”

The entity disappeared.

“—sed.”

Dringo’s encystment was gone but the hollow in the earth created by its removal was barely large enough to turn his shoulders. Cugel’s encystment was as before. The features of his father were easier discernable now. He reached out and touched its surface. Though his hand could not penetrate it, neither could he feel it. Was Cugel aware? He was soon to be very surprised if he was not. Dringo rehearsed the required six lines to expel himself to the surface. It was increasingly more difficult to breath and the heat was unbearable. He confidently recited the words.

Dringo was ousted like a living magma. He lay on wet grass too weak to move other than to suck in the cool air. It was night; or had the sun gone out? At the moment it did not concern him. Eventually, he stood on his unstable legs and slowly paced in the darkness. Before he lost his nerve, he uttered the identical pervulsions with the addition of three critical words.

The ground shivered, then quaked, then erupted as Cugel was ejected to a spot not three feet away from where Dringo stood. Cugel lay motionless for a disheartening length of time. In the gloom Dringo could see that his chest did rise and fall; but was there a sane man in the body?

Abruptly, Cugel sat up. “I’m thirsty,” were the first words Dringo heard spoken by his father.

“Can you stand?” asked Dringo. “We will have to go in search of water.”

Cugel tried to lift himself using an arm to lever himself up but failed. “A moment, first. I think my time beneath the earth is longer than I supposed.” He lifted his head towards the sky. “Is it night or has the sun cast its last shadow on the dying earth?”

Dringo looked heavenward also. “I think it is night only. We have twilight enough to dimly see each other and the ground beneath us, but we will know in a few hours.”

Cugel laughed. “Just so!” He squinted at Dringo. “Are you a cruel joke played on me by Iucounu? You appear to be a replica of me, though not so dashing.” Without waiting for an answer, he slowly turned on his side and rolled to a crouch, then rose up to a standing position. “Well, if you are a demon sent to mimic me and raise false hope, at least lead me to some water before you inter me again.”

Dringo answered, “I assure you I am of flesh and blood. But you are astute in suspecting the malicious frolic of Iucounu. More than you can imagine, Cugel.”

“You know me by name! More reason to suspect a foul hand at play.”

Dringo ignored the comment and turned to face the downward slope of the hillock upon which they had found themselves expelled. “Come, let us seek some water. We have much to talk about.”

They stumbled down the small hill in the darkness. Twice Cugel stopped and sat, the second time saying, “I will wait here while you search. You seem more sprightly than I. You may even find a suitable container for returning the refreshment, thus eliminating the need for both of us to traverse these difficult slopes.” Dringo disregarded Cugel’s complaints and continued on. The terrain kept leading lower to eventually funnel them into a line of fragrant Myrhadian trees that flanked a small arroyo from which they could hear the gurgle of a brook. Both of them cupped hand after hand of the sweet water until their stomachs were distended gourds.

They sat together on a broad, flat rock above the water line.

Cugel, in a much improved humor, smiled and said to Dringo, “Your resemblance to my own is remarkable. Who are you, if not a minion of Iucounu?”