Gathering of the Titans: The Tol Chronicles Book 2 (40 page)

Tartag was visibly shaken by this. Ambassador Tigli winced. “Your Excellency, I’m certain that Sir Tol-u-ol was not suggesting that there is slavery extant in Hellehoell. Were you, Sir Tol?” Tigli looked at him pointedly.

Tol shrugged. “I’m not suggesting anything at all. I’m just telling you why I am reluctant to divulge the whereabouts of Korq until I get some hard facts concerning his claims. Edict enforcement officers are sworn to protect the people they serve. When Korq and I left here together, this was Tragacanth territory and therefore under my jurisdiction. I was and am bound by that oath.”

“Of course you are, Sir Tol-u-ol,” said Tartag, “I would not under any circumstances ask you to violate your oath. You must understand that I am simply responding to a request from Korq’s family to ascertain his whereabouts. They are very concerned about him.”

Tol did not let up. “
He
was very concerned about being dragged back here against his will. From what I could tell, he would be considered an adult, is that correct?”

“Yes,” replied one of Tartag’s staff, “Korq is above the age of legal ascendency by Hellehoell edict and titan custom.”

Tol thought in silence for a few moments. “I will tell you where he is, on the condition that you give me your word that he will be allowed to live his life in the way, and location, in which he sees fit.”

Tartag did not hesitate. “You have my sworn word on that, Sir Tol. We just want to be sure he is all right. We believe he is most likely with his mother’s relations, which would be perfectly acceptable.”

Tol let out a sigh of relief. “That is precisely where he is, Your Excellency; at least, that’s where he told me he was headed. I left him in the company of trolls at the docks in Port Jool. He seemed very happy.”

Tartag smiled. “Thank you, Sir Tol. That news will put his father and relatives here in Hellehoell at ease. His mother passed a few years ago; her family never approved of the marriage and refuse to communicate with any on his father’s side. They blame him in some way for her death, I suspect.”

“Korq told me that he was the product of...rape.”

Tartag put his face in his hands. “I just don’t know why he would make such a terrible accusation. I knew his mother personally for a short while; she was happily married, I can assure you. Her death was a devastating blow to Dr. Rerris. This is all very disturbing.” He seemed on the verge of weeping.

“I still have unanswered questions myself, Your Excellency. Would it be at all possible for me to speak with Korq’s father in person?”

“I will ask him,” Tartag replied. He motioned to his staff, one of whom hurried off.

“His father’s name, incidentally, is Dr. Anbeg Rerris. He is senior reader and research coordinator in agricultural sciences at the Jiwqal Institute here in Hellehoell. Korq is his only child. To be perfectly frank, very few titan-related interracial assignations produce children. We aren’t certain why, but those that do almost always involve a titan as the male parent. The idea that we would enslave the children thus produced is untenable for several reasons: first, since children are very rare in those cases they are usually loved even more intensely for it; second, they are
so
rare that enslaving them wouldn’t really make any difference to our labor pool; third, slavery of any sort is abhorrent to titans as a society; early in our history there were cases where titans were ourselves enslaved because we were few in number, immensely strong, and feared by the other races. Ignorance quite often engenders fear, which leads to mistrust and frequently, abuse. Because we have
been
enslaved, we as a society utterly reject that practice.”

Just then the assistant came back into the room and whispered to Tartag. “Dr. Rerris is willing to speak with you. He will meet us downstairs in the first floor conference area.”

Tol nodded and followed him down to the indicated room. In contrast to the fairly intimate setting of the Odinial’s private conference suite, the main conference facility was quite expansive. It was still well- appointed with comfortable chairs, plenty of audio-visual capability and beautiful glonkwood tables with elaborate carving. The acoustics were quite excellent, as well, especially for lower frequencies that corresponded to the titans’ speaking voices. As was the custom with all titan public buildings, the walls were covered in rich tapestries depicting various scenes from the titans’ long history, much of it unknown to other races. Tol felt drawn to their examination and had to remind himself that he was there on a mission.

Dr. Rerris wasn’t really the talkative sort, but after a few minutes of questioning Tol got him to admit that a couple of the plants he’d developed did exhibit psychotropic properties. He verbally resisted any suggestion on Tol’s part that they might have had something to do with Korq’s delusions and strong desire to flee, but Tol could tell he’d planted a seed, as it were. He thanked the professor and sent him on his way.

“I think I’ve gathered all the information I need, Your Excellency. You now know as much about Korq’s disappearance and whereabouts as I do, and I in turn have some answers, tentative though they may be. I would appreciate being kept informed about future developments concerning this case, if for no other reason than it would provide me with more tools for evaluating this sort of behavior if I encounter it again.”

“Agreed,” replied Tartag, “This situation has reminded me of the importance of cooperation with other races and governments. It has been many centums since titans have been in a position to consider such things; it will take time and experience to ‘normalize’ our collective mentality, I’m afraid.”

“From my point of view you did just fine,” said Tol. “You didn’t rush to judgment, you didn’t make any rash decisions, and you acted in a totally responsible and reasonable manner. I don’t think you’re going to need much ‘normalizing’ at all.” Ambassador Tigli gave Tol a smile and a surreptitious ‘thumbs up’ at this.

Tartag also smiled.“You are most kind, Sir Tol. I understand His Majesty Tragacanth’s decision to create a new office of knighthood for you. You are a rare combination of tough, uncompromising, and thoughtful. If you are willing, I would like to bring you back at some point to help train our own edict enforcement people.”

“I am most certainly willing, Your Excellency. Training is a part of my responsibilities that, to be honest, I have let slide more than I should.”

“Then it is settled. My office will get with you on topics and scheduling.”

“I am,” Tol said, shaking Tartag’s hand, “Always at your service.”

Phaeon was a native of interstellar space, or rather, spacetime fabric before it was stretched to form the current universe, but he never ceased to be enthralled and enraptured by the spectacle of stars, nebulae, and myriad other ways in which the matter-energy disturbance manifested itself. There were countless colors and forms, ranging from the breathtaking magnificence of vast multicolored dust clouds comprising stellar nurseries to the impossibly dense points of the smallest gravity wells, which appeared to Phaeon as pinpricks through which one could peer into the next universe over.

He wandered lonely as a cosmic ray for some time—not that time has any meaning when you are part and parcel of eternity— until his attention came to rest on a small blue planet whirled with white, brown, and green. It wasn’t much in the grand scheme of the multiverse, but then neither is anything else. The scale is simply too immense.

This planet was well outside of the dark energetic continuum, so magic wouldn’t be an issue here. Blue planets were always inhabited by one or more forms of life, usually sentient at some point in its progression. That suited him. Eventually he would provide them evidence of his presence and see how long it took them to figure it out. Once they did and were in danger of coming into actual contact, he would move on without telling them exactly why or how. It amused him, if entities born of quantum superpositional perturbation can be said to experience amusement.

As he approached the planet, the cloud of debris surrounding it told Phaeon precisely where they were in their development: very early space-age. Most races did not pay attention to how much junk they were depositing in near orbit until it began to interfere with their satellites and kill a few of them here and there. Eventually if they continued along the space exploration vector they would herd all the debris together and either vaporize it in the atmosphere or jettison it into deep space. He preferred the former, as the latter amounted to interstellar littering. The real irony came when a planet was sterilized or otherwise seriously disrupted by collision with another civilization’s jettisoned space junk. Rare, but it happened.

Phaeon did not want to deal with any even remotely advanced civilization on this occasion so he slid back a few thousand local years into the planet’s past. That would give him some time to settle in before they developed any significant technology.

Settling on a place to settle in was always a diverting exercise. This planet had expansive oceans: did he want to live deep beneath one? Inside a volcano? On the tallest peak? Inside the most massive peak? Decisions, decisions. Circling the planet a few times, Phaeon finally chose a broad expanse of unbroken brown and gray: a vast desert area. He descended through the burning sands and excavated a domain there, with an elaborate palace and boulevards leading to it. To mark the spot on the surface he erected three large cut stone block structures, each with four faces and coming to a point at the top. The entryway to the largest he marked with a word meaning ‘Private Property:’
Khufu
.

Aspet and Boogla had just finished a sumptuous repast on the private balcony of the Royal Residence when a red light over the door leading back into their study began blinking in a particular pattern. Aspet stared at it for a few seconds and put down his napkin.

“Military alert. That can’t be good,” he sighed. “I’d better find out what’s up.” They returned to the study and Aspet pressed a button on his desk. A hidden panel slid open and a keypad popped up. He punched in a series of numbers and characters, waited until the green light came on, and entered another. The transceiver crackled into life.

“Your Majesty, we have a disturbing report from the Coastal Patrol. A patrol boat spotted a corvet sailing out of a makeshift pier north of Balom in Galanga. We have reason to believe it was full of orcs.”

“Why would you think that?” Aspet asked.

“Two reasons: first, two known individuals were positively identified on the vessel. Second, the registration was archaic and belongs to a ship known to have been taken by the orcs in a small skirmish about fifty years ago in Uzplenq.”

“Uzplenq? Are you telling me this fifty year-old corvet sailed all the way across the Noorprid Sea? Alone?”

“Yes on the sailing, but not necessarily alone. While we have no evidence the orcs have anything resembling a fleet, they could have as many as a half-dozen ships of the frigate class or smaller.”

“Which way was the orc ship headed?”

“Out to sea, Your Majesty.”

“Any idea why?”

“None. But any movement of this sort is a violation of the worldwide Treaty of Mutual Containment. We must notify the international community and be prepared to fulfill our military obligations in this respect.”

Aspet sighed. “Understood. Have the Ministers of National Defense and International Relations start the notifications through diplomatic channels. I want a full cabinet meeting in one hour.”

“As you command, Majesty.”

Aspet turned to Boogla. “So much for a relaxing evening. Guess you better cancel the string quartet.”

in which the physiognomy, races, and beliefs of N’plork are examined

Geography

N’plork is a water-dominated world with four principal land masses hosting a total of fifteen sovereign nations, in descending order of size: Esmia (Tragacanth, Galanga, Lardonica, Ovinis, Asmagon, the Paradiddle Islands); Turmia (Solemadrina, Rublosq, Tantatku); Litria (Spleroste, Frespiola, Hividz, Grosyem); and Bazgush (Azlymosh, Nerr). The diameter of N’plork is approximately 19,125 km. Oceans cover 80% of the planet’s surface. The day length is just under 22 hours, which gives N’plork a fairly rapid rotational velocity as inhabitable planets go. This creates some dramatic weather patterns that manifest themselves primarily as extremely expansive sea storms which regularly ravage the coasts of all continents except Bazgush, which is sheltered from direct effects by its proximity to Turmia, upwind.

The extensive Turmian mountain ranges, particularly the Folmnissi range with peaks exceeding twenty thousand meters, provide the nearby coast of Bazgush with considerable shelter from the prevailing winds. However, those same peaks effectively remove all the moisture from said winds as they scale to the upper limits of the atmosphere in climbing over them, so that sheltered coastal area of Bazgush is also N’plork’s most arid region, with periods of as long as twenty years with no measureable precipitation.

The rapid rotation, dramatic temperature differences, and high winds aloft also create extremely active oceanic currents that are capable of carrying an unpowered vessel along in excess of thirty knots. Moreover, two major currents, the Arctal and Austral, reverse themselves about every six months for the return trip. This makes for an efficient transportation conduit that allowed for the early development of trade routes supporting quite sophisticated civilizations. These early societies were composed of numerous races: goblins, gnomes, elves, dwarves, hobgoblins, bugbears, kobolds, ogres, and trolls chief among them—with isolated populations of gnarlignomes, titans, and orcs—and each experienced its own rich mythopoesis.

Sociography and Anamorphology

The races of N’plork all evolved, scholars believe, from a distant common ancestor and developed their particular morphologies in response to the demands of the environments in which they lived. As a result of this ancestral commonality each can theoretically hybridize with the others, although the only relatively common such interracial assignations seem to involve ogres, trolls, and goblins. Half-trolls and half-ogres are still somewhat rare in the general population, but in certain densely urban areas of Goblinopolis (Tragacanth), Aspolia (Solemadrina), and Uzplenq (Nerr), they are not an uncommon sight.