Scratch

This story is translated from the Polish original - that's why there are ramrods. Believe me, when I was writing the Polish original, I didn't know what ramrod means in English.

Chapter 1
There are no babies of the
contrary species, but I can make
an exception for Galch
- Ramrod Hospital midwife

"In three billion years the world was formed, and another billion of years the life was created by. The first human came to this realm, and after two millenniums the human species has discovered the art of magic. Meanwhile, somewhen lost in time, from the great flood, to the in-land lakes, the marine creature called the Tritons migrated. They needed to adapt to the non-salt waters. From that time, the specie called "ramrods" were known, the breed of half-human half-fish creatures that live just like humans, just under the water. Exploiting the ancient knowledge of the Tritons, they acknowledged the Water Magic, and the art of building underwater machines.", read the letter sent to Karalendil, or more precisely  its upper half, because the lower half was eaten by wolves during the escape from the Amundien — The elves considered that the dryads are getting too far into elves' teritory, so they declared the forest ladies war, involving fire birds, Pegasi, and unicorns. Dryades responded in equally brutal way, with moose, wolves and boars. The war last for three days, but with the endless casualties, on the both sides of the conflict. Karalendil remembered this battle very well — that's when lone group of wolves attacked his retinue and ate the papers. Nobody knew this event, until this moment, when the lower half of the letter was so important. Astor was really furious. It impossible to enter the Secret Tower without the spell. As it seems, the tower has no doors nor windows, but after saying the special words, the wall opened, showing the spacious and sophisticated interior (it's magic, right?). Suddenly, Karalendil heard the sound so sweet, the silent song from the trees was.
... Come here, handsome stranger,
     You shall forget your danger,
      The fear and concerns sink
     in the delight inconceivable.
Karalendil followed the vague sound and reached the Amundien-Agal lake bemused with the mermaid's song. He entered the water. Then he didn't remember anything... Nearly after a year, a witch from the Lake of Azure Glow gave birth to a odd, unusual baby - with ears and fingernails, just like human's.

Eighteen years later
The first leaf shaken on the spiked-cold wind. The first on the moiré tree after a half year of winter long as the moon snake's tongue. People said that there was no such winter since king Kermor IV. A dale, where Romerich, also called Galch, usually were going to the surface, was iced for many weeks. Trees grew here not very big, but there were lots of them. In the middle of that dale, there was a pond, so small that a trained horse would easily jump over it, it wasn't also very deep, but the number of channels connecting it to ramrods' enclaves was impressive. In one of those enclaves, Galch's mother resided. Unfortunately, Galch himself couldn't celebrate his birthday with his friends and family. Over a year ago, he got on a quest to find his family from the father's side to the Kerrich woods. He knew that that's where his mother seduced his father, near the Secret Tower. Unfortunately, there was several Secret Towers in the Forest of Amundien. An old rhyme was know about this forest:
Amun bewes trot dien alte
  Kerrik donnum plone marte
  Movis dernin kolmainenta
  Svaszti gelle Amundien-a
Nearly everybody knew those words. It was an old Tritons' rhyme, according to a legend, a part of a very important prophecy, but for Galch, it was something more - according to some sources, it was a spell opening passage to the tower. He was looking for a proper tower for couple of months, sometimes with accompany of a cartographer in a special machine that let him breathe over water; those weren't good opportunities to talk, because crystals didn't render the sound as properly as water.
Suddenly, the horses were heard. Galch returned to a forest road to check, what was happening. He saw an old, ramshackle cart, pulled by a grey horse thin as a stick. The horse wasn't so usual, a small horn pad between eyes was a sign of some relationship with unicorns. The person on the cart was a fatish, small man with a face of thirty-years-old, hands of seventy-years-old and hair of ninety-years-old, going out from a silly red hat. He wore linen trousers, shoes made of siberian ferrets, a shirt made of wool patches, and a parka that looked like made of tomentum from gornak wool. The cargo on the cart was covered with a blanked sewn with a hand at least drunkish, and a quite thick snow. The man held the horse.
"Who are you? A one-smile traveller? Get on!", he said. Galch looked at him.
"What's the date?", asked Galch.
"Febror the twelve, I guess", answered the man. Galch thought about it for a while, and remembered that it was his birthday. He got his things and went back to the cart.
"OK, I'm going", he decided.
They were going through the snowed forest, listening birds tweeting, or more like birds crowing. Once, Galch noticed that border trees of Ni county started leafing. After two hours, they rode out of forest to the fields, where snow was melting already. There they felt the heat of sun, which seemed to encourage plants to grow. Then, they rode to Noral, which suburbs looked like after a war - burned houses, dead animals was stinking, waiting to be incinerated when the people consider that it's warm enough to go out houses.
Noral was divided into five parts (each part differed a bit with color of bricks and style of buildings), with a tower in the center, also divided into five parts, also varying with color of bricks. In some places, the traces of walls once built here remained, from times when the tower was on the meeting point of the Five Duchies borders, also being a communication point between those duchies, with a headquarters of runners and wizards. The tower itself was high, and also very wide, so Ni county residents started to lock insane and * people there. Soon, it gained a status of official insane's tower in the province.
The town was surrounded with a quite big river, which was going fast to the west. The channels were built to provide fresh water in the town, and to flush public and some private toilets. According to the legends, channels were also built under the tower, because the river spits out cloths from nowhere. Other legend says that in the river live tritons, and another legend, that the tower is cursed even for it's residents, because each month, few days after full moon, people from nearby villages hear the screams from the tower.
That strange man held the cart near the tower, unharnessed the horse and led him to the room that was used as a stable, then came back and removed the blanket. Cargo consisted of wooden crates, linen bags full of gallipots and baskets with herbs, fruits and other plants.
"Welcome to Noral hospital, stranger", he said, without turning from unloading the cart. Finally, he took baskets and bags to the tower, and pulled the crates by another entrance.



More to come, as I write more.

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Last edited by filo5 (2009-09-04 07:15:06)