Threshold Crossing

  The streets of Nurom, the capital of Great Tataria, are always festive. During the day, the wide streets come alive with magical illuminations, flying ptforms, merry songs and children's games. The Universe Fairs are open all day (free admission!). At night, the terraces and verandas of the open-air taverns are filled with people under the light of colourful orbs. Men and women dance the semi-forbidden Wallwalker dance. Even during the war. - "Frugal Traveller's Guide to Faltess, Volume 6, Expanded by Collective of Authors"

  Gloomeye was on the half-hundredth name when they reached Storyteller and Giggler. They were sitting in the shade of a lone middleshroom, talking about something.

  "I told ya we'd meet them on the way!" Giggler excimed enthusiastically, spotting Gloomy.

  "I told you," Storyteller said, either correcting or arguing.

  "Oh, did you find someone on the road?" the boy noticed Boiriann.

  "She's No, I mean - Cloak, I mean..." Gloomeye said, confused.

  "My name is Splinter," the girl said, quickly jumping off Gloomeye's back. Then, realising what she had said, she hastily corrected herself: "Boiriann. My name is Boiriann. And no other way. The Mourneers put me in a cage and made me spy on this hero. But I thought I'd rather be with you."

  "It's not up to me alone to decide, but I don't think we're going to chase you away," Storyteller reassured, getting up to walk on. "We're a bunch of rogues ourselves, we have to stick together, I'm telling you."

  Then Merchant with Babyboy caught up with them. She tended to Boiriann and Gloomeye's wounds, noting the time of their escape and the fact that Gloomeye was his father's son. Gloomeye didn't understand what that meant. Can you not be your father's son, or the son of a non-father?

  Then they were found by Moose, Crushy, Shroomer, Thorn, Stump, Firster and Earlier, Windblower, Forager and Pner. When Northman (who was indeed from the North, his white hair and blue skin confirmed it) caught up with them, he examined Gloomeye's wounds and congratuted him on his first battle. Crushy, as usual, didn't notice Gloomy, but she was talking to Splinter or Boiriann about something until her friend Rasca approached. So the whole vilge gathered again. They all happily accepted the new girl.

  The journey had been a long one, but fortunately Forager had found some slimy roots to chew on, which had helped to stave off hunger. Waterman tried to find underground rivers or springs with metal vines, which were the only good things in the vilge (not counting the Wolves' daggers, which could be used to shave, which everyone who needed it did), but found nothing.

  They walked across the wastend and the only variety was the ground, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, sometimes trying to bend or twist. In one pce it managed to do so, and was able to spiral. Sometimes there were small scars, though one was quite rge, but someone had put a megashroom trunk bridge over it.

  Gloomeye saw the vilge's ndmark for the first time - a huge stone arm sticking out of the ground. Of course, Worldedge had nothing to do with the construction of this thing, but everyone called it the Landmark. Only Mom walks that far from the vilge, and he told everyone about the hand.

  The statue was bigger than Gloomy had imagined, bigger even than the megashrooms, and the fingers were half bent, as if the hand was supposed to be holding something, but it was only holding a thicket of eyemoss. It was a woman's hand, or, as he now knew, an elven hand of either gender. The whole procession stopped to admire the Landmark. It was hard to imagine that civilisation had ever been able to do such a thing, especially for Worldedge. And as Storyteller had suggested, the hand might have had a torso underground, which seemed logical, but so unreal.

  Mom and Wolves were the st to arrive. Wolves said they had been released after the Mourneers discovered that almost all the prisoners had escaped. And when he heard about Splinter, he remarked for some reason that Gloomeye was his son.

  The vilge had already left the area that Gloomeye might have called home. Is he really leaving it? Gloomy had lived here all his life, and now he was moving unknownward. Memories of home come flooding back.

  When Crushy was his age and he was Giggler's age, she used to talk to him. There, he tried to pnt what he thought was a megashroom in the centre of the vilge, and it turned out to be a whipsh that the adults had been fighting for two days. There is a group of travelling artists who, for some reason, were nearby and decided to give a performance for Worldedge. There is Mountain, who brought a small boarler from somewhere. There have been stories told by the Storyteller around the fire in the evenings, there have been attempts to descend to the Edge of the World on ropes, there have been attempts to hunt with his father, there have been invented adventures on waste fields with Giggler and Meat. All this will now be repced by something else. And it was both terrifying and exciting.

  The group joked, bickered, and pyed riddles as if they hadn't lost everything. Although not everything, they had them. Everyone wanted to talk to Splinter. That made her feel uneasy, which was reflected in the near absence of barbs. The fact that she called herself a Mourneer's spy didn't bother anyone. Either they thought it was a bit of a dash of madness (not a newfangled thing in the vilge), or they thought she had gone over completely to their side. Gloomy was of the same opinion, as she was kept in one of the cages the giant had brought with him. Even as a prisoner, she must have annoyed Slizvert, and he just wanted to get rid of her. He had underground ghosts to spy on anyway. Wait. The thought of spying ghosts became an unpleasant guest in Gloomeye's already rexed mind, and he began to look around warily.

  But he should be looking forward. The hairs on the back of his arms and neck stood up. The same happened to the others, as they all suddenly fell silent. It was only after a few moments that Gloomy realised what his body was reacting to.

  In the distance, a strange figure was walking unsteadily. They kept falling in different directions, falling and then, to avoid falling altogether, started falling in the opposite direction. The dragging of a long sword in their hand also kept them retively vertical.

  Wolves stepped forward and pced his daggers between himself and the wanderer. As the figure approached, all Gloomy's hair stood on end. It was a skeleton in rusty armour. When he was level with the others, he hovered forward, clutching his sword and slowly turning his skull to the crowd.

  "Where is... El... vinon?" he rasped.

  Wolves waved his hand uncertainly to the side.

  "Thank... you..." the skeleton thanked him and walked in the direction he had indicated.

  When he was far enough away, they all looked at Storyteller at the same time.

  "Magic Magisterium of Sorcerous Power," he swore, but then he caught himself, cleared his throat and said, "he died long before the Break, or there would have been more meat on him. And I've never heard of El-vinon. Perhaps he was resurrected by necromancers or Deathlords during the st war. I'll tell you that."

  This event made everyone quiet. They walked until it began to darken and the crimson sky turned blue. Having found an isnd of safe trees, with their fluffy leaves constantly changing colour, it was decided to make a stop. It consisted of finding a soft enough pce to lie down and sleep. Splinter led Gloomeye off to the side, to a mound that looked like a frozen wave, so they couldn't see the others, and the others couldn't see them.

  "I almost forgot, Slizvert asked me to test your combat skills. You're not a mage, are you?" the guy had never heard magic spoken in such a dark tone before, though it was a common component of most curses, as rare visitors to Worldedge had confidently reported.

  "No, I would have left my family so I wouldn't endanger them," Gloomy assured her.

  "It's lucky that nobleness doesn't ooze like sweat, otherwise we'd be drowning in that wonderful secretion right now," with Gloomy alone, the girl became sarcastic again.

  "Are you still going to deny that you're Splinter?"

  "I don't... oh, I don't care. Splinter, then Splinter," she said, waving her hand. "Let's see what you can do. And don't underestimate me, fight with all your might. I'll also teach you a lesson."

  Gloomeye wouldn't underestimate her. He had been taught to fight by Mom and the father, but now the boy was tired, and the girl was obviously not so simple. In the stories, it was always shown in such cases (though usually by little old men) that it was not brute force that was needed in a fight, but the ability to direct it. Sometimes in Storyteller's stories, even frail girls could beat big men, and then Northman and Mom would try to roll their eyes deep into their skulls.

  He dodged her feeble blow to the chest, caught her arm, and pulled it behind her, bending the girl in half.

  "Ah, you see..." Splinter croaked in a choked voice.

  The guy released her immediately.

  "A direct attack on a more skilled and powerful opponent will result in a shameful and humiliating defeat," Splinter began to rub her twisted arm.

  "Are you out of your mind? Are you a fool? Gloomeye couldn't help himself. "You act like you're some secret master of hand-to-hand combat, a great teacher of the lessons of humility, but you don't really know what you're doing, and you're hurt!"

  "Yes, I'm a fool. Also a weakling. And a lot of other words," she moved closer to the guy. "But you know what?" she suddenly kissed the air between them. Gloomy stepped back in surprise and stumbled from her foot behind his. She sat on top of him, holding her fingers over his eyes. "That's what mean tricks are made for people like me. The most important thing in a fight is to win. And then you can make up stories about your honour and nobility."

  Wolves came out from behind the mound, but immediately turned and went back without slowing.

  "Don't wean me from honour as if I were a noble son," Gloomeye said, poking her in the stomach with his father's dagger. "I am the son of bandits. You may have thought we were nice and funny, but if you try to treat us like fools, you'll see what happens. Now, unless you want to dig your navel deeper, get off me."

  Gloomeye's speech was born in his, as the familiar arch would say, bone pot, and his mouth simply expressed it. The guy threw off the offence from the first moments, but stood up for his kin because he knew it was the right thing to do.

  Boiriann stood up from Gloomy and smiled broadly:

  "You passed the test with honour - I mean, I'm sorry, with dishonour. Perhaps you'll survive in the wastends after all."

  Mom had caught an alm with horns and hooves, so dinner was delicious. Gloomeye y on his back, staring up at the starry sky. Purple threads crisscrossed it, and a white vortex glowed in the distance. Also visible was the rgest lunar fragment, with a hole in the centre and orange veins. Gloomy tried to find all the familiar consteltions: the elongated Cockatrix, the complex Visceromancer, the funny and broad Council of Crowns, or the Dance of the Fat Men. Oh, and of course there was the wandering Venomous.

  Maybe Skull was looking at the stars too, and that got him thinking about life and the eternal:

  "And then what?"

  "Then we'll go to the nearest city," said Wolves, who also y down. The whole vilge was already lying down.

  "And after?"

  "And after we'll gather information and decide what to do next. And then we will try to implement those decisions. And if we can't, we'll decide something else and try to implement it. The "Human Life" pn.

  Skull had no further questions.

  The next morning they continued on their way. Everyone was silent because of their thirst. Some were so hungry that they chewed a milkmilk. The weather was cloudless, and the blue sky was streaked with gold, turning everything beneath it golden. There were no clouds, which was a good sign, but this was summer, not the more predictable winter, so everyone could expect anything. Titus looked away.

  But everyone's mood was normal until they reached a magerot. This is a thick, purple liquid that is not good to get into. And it was this magerot that occupied a vast territory that stretched beyond the horizon. On the other side, rocks popped out of the ground like sharp fangs. If the party wanted to go further, they would have to follow a narrow path between two obstacles.

  "Follow me in a line. Don't hold on to each other. If you fall into this mess, don't panic, just get out and pray... to someone," Wolves instructed.

  Gloomeye tried not to look at the dangerous slurry as he walked. He was probably under the impression of Storyteller's tales about reality going 'crazy' around magerot, but he really began to feel that something was happening above it: something invisible was spinning in rings, moving in the air as if under a cloth.

  The way was uneventful until they reached the trunk of a megashroom, which blocking the passage. Several people were standing on it, very dirty, thin and in ragged clothes. Among them was a horned man, with twig-like horns, and yellow eyes with long, thin, crisscrossed pupils.

  He shouted:

  "Give us all you have and we won't kill you!"

  "An ambush? Seriously?" Wolves sounded genuinely disappointed. "Here is a straight line, your fallen mushroom is visible from afar. And you threaten? That is necessary for intimidation, but what kind of intimidation is there when you are much less numerous than we are? Well, let's start again. We'll leave now, and when we come back, you can tell us that this is a toll pass. That way you'll at least have a chance of getting paid".

  "Don't charm us, warlock," the horned man snapped. "Do you know how long we've been waiting for someone to come here?”

  "See! That's why we stopped robbing: there's no one to rob here," Wolves turned to his cn, turning the situation into a moral lesson as well.

  "Enough! We've done all we can," the horned man shouted again, though he wasn't far away, he just liked to shout. He took a crudely shaped (and covered in finger marks) jug from his clothes and threw it at Wolves. As it flew, some of its contents - magerot - spilled out. Red and white veined flowers sprouted from where it had fallen, then withered and crumbled, leaving a strange, hard frame that looked more like bones than anything else.

  Mom, towering behind Wolves, swatted a flying projectile at the magerot with his hand. Gloomeye could have sworn that the spray from its fall resembled an upturned silhouette of a man.

  Wolves threw his dagger at the thrower, who fell forward and rolled into the purple liquid. It was as if it had lunged at a horned man, who began to change at its touch, as if underneath the skin of this body another non-human being was trying to put his skin. But then the transformation stopped and the body was covered in a golden crust, slowly sliding into the magerot. The rest of the ambushers managed to roll down to the other side of their megashroom.

  "Are you completely mad?" Wolves shouted, not jokingly at all.

  Another vessel came flying out of the shelter, which meant 'yes'. If they were taking their time making these jugs of magerot when they didn't have any victims, then it was too bad. The jug hit the rock right next to Gloomy's father. He staggered back, forcing the people behind him to take a step back. One of the vilgers screamed.

  Wolves saw the next vessel and rushed forward. He rolled over on his knees and caught it, then threw it back at once. This was certainly not what the mad throwers had expected. There were shouts and the sound of more jugs breaking.

  The vilge seemed to come out of its stupor and began throwing projectiles behind the barricade. It was necessary to throw at an angle, and most of the projectiles flew heavily over the megashroom, but there were plenty of stones underfoot. The ambushers decided to escape from there, but the only pce to go was the open area behind the mushroom. The slingers and spearmen didn't spare anyone. Gloomeye threw stones from his sling, but when the enemy ran, he did not hit them in the back. No, they're not special.

  "Missed one," said a voice from above.

  Gloomy looked up and saw the man. He was sitting on one of the ft rocks with his legs dangling. He was dressed in an elegant but shabby suit and even carried a walking stick. His face was sly. The man closed one eye and raised his forefinger and thumb to the other, as if he wanted to catch a fleeing bandit between them. Then he squeezed his fingers together, and there was a sound like a rge number of dead branches breaking and someone rge stepping in mud at the same time. Gloomy looked in the direction of the sound. In the distance, behind a fallen mushroom, there was a piece of meat, and all the ground around it was covered in blood.

  "Lo! Did you see that?" the man turned to the crowd below in surprise, pointing to the bloody lump with his thumb. "I squeezed my fingers together and he exploded. What a coincidence! No less a curious natural phenomenon we are witnessing for the first time. Spontaneous bursting of a body..." he looked at the expression on everyone's faces, and his surprise turned to displeasure. "Oh, you have no sense of humour at all. Sure, it was me," the upper man spat to the side. "That's my little quirk, left over from my st job - killing anyone with an evil heart at any distance. Did you, like, put a bunch of thorns in your mouth? He would have died soon anyway - fall into a scar and starve to death, but now, ho... He went beautifully and almost painlessly." The man began to ugh, the kind of ugh Storyteller gave to major vilins.

  "Why are we attracting all the crazy mages in the area?" Gloomeye thought.

  "I'm not a mage. But if I had not been lenient with ignorance, I wouldn't be sitting on a rock right now, but on a mountain of corpses of all the people in the world. And why... Because everything has a cause and effect. The first one wanted to get lost in the backwoods, and that's you. After him came the pseudo-mages, I do not put it too scientifically? They set in motion a curious mechanism that attracted me as an observer," the upper man began, bancing a cane on his finger.

  "Can he read my mind?" Gloomeye panicked.

  "No," the non-mage reassured him. "So there's no need to panic, I'm only here as a spectator. I want to see the adventure begin," he looked directly at Gloomeye. "You have little potential for magic, boy."

  "Leave my..." Wolves couldn't stand it.

  "And you have even more," the strange man looked at Wolves. "And you," he pointed at Storyteller, then looked at Merchant, but said nothing to her. "But you'll never be able to use even the weakest, childish magic," the non-mage said to Splinter, in an 'and here's another funny thing' voice. "Someone has burned you out from within, girl."

  "If you don't want to hurt us, let us pass, we have to go," Wolves did not give up trying to control the conversation.

  "And if I want to? Then what?" the man's voice thickened, then warmed. "Oh, everyone's sense of humour is completely dulled by the demise of civilization. Am I really holding you back? I'm just talking all sorts of nonsense, and you're just listening as if spellbound. But I suggest you take their stash, it's buried under the rock behind me. Give the name you find there to the outgoing person. Who knows where else dragons live?" the dangerous man stood up on his rock and began to wave his hand: "Bye-bye.”

  After Wolves had used his daggers to cut down the steps on the mushroom blocking the passage, he began to search the bodies.

  "Do ya think it's smart to follow thay ...err advice of ayy that there man aw whatever he is?" Mom asked.

  "I thought of that before he did," Gloomeye's father reassured him.

  According to the evil tradition, the robbers had nothing of value. Gloomy looked at them almost with pity. Most of them died not from stones, but from the spilge of their mad projectiles. Parts of their bodies were changed: some had different skin or new limbs, and after counting their bodies, it was possible to conclude that an unfortunate (or fortunate?) bandit had been completely transformed into a strange little chubby bird alm, still alive. It could have been their fate, the fate of a bandit cn. Maybe it's a good thing that Worldedge doesn't have a chief.

  The cache was there, and there were a few round metal objects called coins, a pile of rags, dried herbs, and a jar of some clear liquid that no one dared to taste. There was also a round metal object with runes etched on it that the Wolves had taken. The most valuable item was the real axe that Mom had received. The non-mage sitting on the rock was gone when the cache was found.

  Earlier had stepped in the magerot during the battle and now he had six toes on his foot, all the same length. Firster suggested renaming him Lucky, but no one supported the idea.

  Everyone continued on their way, but now in a very gloomy mood. Gloomy thought about the mad non-mage's words: "Do I have a weak potential in magic? Should it be ignored? I must admit, the dispy of magic power was impressive. What negative consequences could there be? Potential new world breaking? As if there is anything left to break. The close attention of the Mourneers, which I already have? So there are many advantages, but there are no disadvantages."

  The guy looked back at trailing Splinter. "Burned out from within and therefore unable to use magic? Did the Mourneers do that to her? Is she a former mage? Or do they burn out all people with magical potential?"

  Lost in thought, he got into a treacherous footgrab that cleverly skipped ahead heavier people, and Gloomy had to be pulled out by the whole vilge.

  Then a limping Earlier caught up with Gloomeye:

  "Do you think he did the meat trick beforehand? It can't be, in the name of all that's holy left, that people can kill people like that."

  "He's obviously a madman, and it's impossible for normal people to understand him," Gloomeye said reassuringly.

  "Yes, I knew that at once. And he sndered you, too. Magical sod!" but from the way the guard rexed, he hadn't realised it at once, but only now.

  But Gloomy knew that the madman couldn't just randomly respond to his thoughts. So it wasn't just a madman. The mage who finds it insulting to be called a mage. Because it really is an insult? Or is it because he considers himself so much, much higher than any mage?

  Unnecessary author's note: Foreshadowing!

  Transting my own definitions and names was fun. In the original, magerot is very much in tune with sputum. Or, for example, Rasca her name sounds much ruder in English, so I dropped the st 'l'.