Tip

  I dance with the shadows, I play with the light,

  The mage’s deceit, the fool’s own disguise,

  I’ll guide the heroes with the morning wind’s flight,

  And the darkness will thin, the haze breaks and dies.

  - The Prophecy of Adventure on Great Fool.

  ***

  "The old man," Firster threw as he returned from his scouting.

  Gloomeye, who was loading Grassy's saddlebags after spending the night in nature, looked at Princess sternly:

  "We won't attack him without a reason."

  Princess, who had been scratching Raven, blushed and covered her cheeks with her hands:

  "Do I finally have such a terrible reputation? Hooray."

  "Squeak!" Drat supported her. Or didn't support her. But most likely he was supporting her, because he spread his arms wide, showing (probably) the extent of Princess's wickedness.

  "Oh, don't. I haven't shown you a tenth of myself yet, out of modesty. But thank you anyway," Princess decided that since she did not understand the rat, she would come up with the meaning of his squeaks herself.

  As soon as the group had gathered, they followed Firster to the old man he had spotted. Another blizzard passed, bending the thin-legged mushroom caps under the weight of the snow and sweeping the ground with it. The pegs moved in leaps, and the snowdrifts didn't really bother them unless there was something dangerous underneath. But the alms descended slowly on their leather membranes and would have been able to react to snow-covered surprises.

  The old man, dressed in rags, sat in a rough-hewn chair at a similar table in the middle of nowhere (which was enhanced by the white expanse of snow) and crossed his fingers as he watched the group arrive. As Gloomeye approached, he realised that he needed to talk to Firster about the meaning of certain words. For example, the words 'old man'. Of the old man, the creature only had wrinkles (and who doesn't in these times?) and a bald head (there were variants of what happened). Otherwise, he was a grey-skinned, big-headed, big-eyed little creature that looked like a former dwarf, but wasn't a former dwarf. There was a sticky feeling about him. Touched by magerot? Or...

  "Chosen One, I don't attack, see?" Princess said proudly.

  "Guests, guests, guests! You're too wate! You don't know how long I've been waiting for you," the creature said with a slight lisp, pressing his arms to his sunken chest. The feeling of stickiness increased.

  Gloomeye jumped down from his pega and approached, seeing that the creature's rags were long, narrow strips of parchment with inscriptions on them. Gloomy could only make out individual words: "event", "prophecy", "haze", "heroes", "milkmilk". The parchments are attached to the body with red circles with patterns in the shape of bulging eyes.

  "'But we didn't even plan to come to you, because we didn't know of your existence', 'What does that have to do with you? How does it prevent me from waiting for you?', 'We have used universal logic so far', 'But I don't. I'm so mysterious and weird', Got it?" Gloomy squinted and pointed all his index fingers at the creature.

  The creature seemed to choke on his saliva.

  "No."

  "Then what were you going to say?" Gloomeye asked.

  "Not that," but the 'old man's' eyes darted around.

  "What then?" Gloomeye decided to take revenge on all the mystic hermits of Storyteller.

  "Not thith. We'll never know what now," the creature seemed offended.

  "Okay. You're sitting here all alone on some awful makeshift furniture, I'm sorry if I offended you. And you don't look very strong, sorry again. And this is the road that the bandits must travel all the time. So I can only come to two conclusions: you're either a lucky fool, sorry, or a strong pretender to being a lucky fool. A false god, perhaps? I once knew a false god who liked walking around, giving people cryptic advice. So can you answer a few questions?" Gloomeye put his hands on his hips, expanding his cloak and smiled ingratiatingly.

  His companions stood behind him, watching the scene (Princess and Drat interested in "how the conversation will go", and Firster interested in "how to kill if a fight starts". Classic Firster).

  The supposed false god sighed and held up three fingers.

  "Three quefhtions."

  "Why did the Break occur?" Gloomeye decided to start from afar.

  "How do you know it happent? Did you find the world before the Break? Maybe ith this all a big hoax, an experiment of everyone over you?" the interlocutor did not even try to avoid difficult sounds for himself. Worthy of respect.

  "All the...? So these are the answers that will be given."

  "How many entertainments do you think I've got here? The answeer is two: to chashe small alms and mind-bogglingly answher on questionsh of all shorts of guesth."

  "What are demons?"

  "Jusht a shadow dance on the back of your head."

  "How can I protect Worldedge?"

  "You could ashk about the Unthinkable Onesh." the creature cleared his throat, preparing for something. "You mush defeat yoursheelf."

  "You mean my own shortcomings?"

  The creature suddenly grabbed Gloomeye's arm with lightning speed as he came very close, not wanting to miss a word. The creature's hand was wet and firm.

  "I mean, yourshelf from alternate reality, aposhtle of Pride."

  "Ugh..." Gloomeye tried in vain to pull the hand away.

  "The Firshtreason of the Worldcreation ish Evil. Everything ish created by Evil. Good ish created by Evil for entertainment. Thish means there are no wrong decisionsh, each will shuit the Universe. The only queshtion ish whose decisionsh these are: yours or your guide's." the creature whispered quickly and stared at Gloomeye. He recognised the look. It had been the same look of the woman who had thrown him and Splinter into the pit of slavery. Only now the tunnels of madness led into infinity and sucked him in. "You will passh Water, Fire and Air, but Earth will kill you. To win, you mush not do shomething, collect words in a right order and turn 'defeash' into 'victory'!" the creature let go of his hand and moved back contentedly, but then caught himself: "Lords of Hunt! They are made of different lettersh, no magnificent effect!"

  Gloomeye rubbed his free hand, then took a gold coin from his belt pouch and tossed it to the creature.

  "Thanks. A great shiny thing for stupid alms," the creature caught the coin with the same lightning speed.

  "Work must be paid. Even such a peculiar one," Gloomeye went back to rubbing his hand. "And to make you feel bad if you've said meaningless things to me."

  "Over there!" the creature pointed behind Gloomeye.

  The guy decided not to ruin the creature's game any more (who knows, maybe he really is a false god?) and looked back.

  "And I'm not a false god," a lisping voice said.

  When Gloomeye turned back, he saw that the creature was gone, and that the chair and table had been broken (and had been for what seemed like a long time).

  Gloomeye awoke to find Princess bent over him, watching his face with interest.

  "Nightmares, Chosen One?" she asked hopefully. "You were twitching so much, especially with your eyes, that you were definitely visited by the Night Hag, who blessed you with the visions of the Abyss," the girl drew a pentagram in the air. I'll have to talk to her about this. Later. Somehow.

  Gloomeye untangled himself from his cloak and reached for his purse, but remembered that he didn't know the exact number of coins it contained.

  "Not a nightmare, but a rather unpleasant one. Sticky, I'd say. Maybe the last night's alm was infected with a brain fungus," the guy suggested, getting up.

  Drat, who was busy around the campfire frying the last night's alm in a pan, stopped and looked at Gloomeye hesitantly.

  "Or maybe something else. Yeah, probably not meat - Drat would have noticed. He's such a good cook," Gloomy said, trying to smooth over the awkwardness.

  The rat continued to cook contentedly. How easy it is to praise someone's skills and professionalism, completely shift all the work to them. They will even snatch the job right out of your hands.

  "Well, what are dreams? Strange stuff: you lie unconscious like a waterskin for half a day, and crazy things happen in your head. Just like laughter, foreign languages, one's own and other people's perspectives, or air, but everyone has already got used to this madness," with these arguments, Princess went to prepare the pegs for the journey. And she doesn't even need to be called the best pegwoman in the world.

  The guy took a stick from his saddlebag and began to carve lines on it with his stiletto.

  To test his language skill, Gloomeye developed his own language: each symbol represents a sound and was a vertical line, and they were distinguished by different horizontal lines (such as: 'I','Г','L','E','-I'. Of course, when writing thickly, the horizontal lines merged, and it was impossible to understand: they relate to a current character and a previous one. But the first time a person comes up with a language, you have to treat it with understanding). His ability had actually worked, and he could easily understand this tree script, just at the cost of others doubting his sanity.

  Now he tried to write down the creature's words (though admittedly, he didn't understand all of them. The heroes of Storyteller had no such problem - they all spoke clearly and did not lose the flow of the conversation). They probably don't mean anything. This is a dream, and as Princess said, dreams are a strange stuff. But the guy had a strong suspicion that dreams were related to thoughts, so they were also creations of the mind. An attempt to communicate with oneself. Gloomeye trusted himself. And what would he lose by writing the words down on a stick? Just a stick. What if the words meant something? Details are important. Storyteller didn't often make small details important to the plot, but when he did, Gloomeye couldn't sit still. He jumped up, realising the interconnectedness of various things in the world.

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  "The way is clear," Firster threw as he returned from his scouting.

  "Isn't there an old man who isn't really an old man?" Gloomy asked, but when he saw the looks directed at him, he quickly added: "Just an example of what can be there."

  "No old men," Firster said after a moment's thought. "But I saw a gorge of sharp rocks.

  Gloomeye, who was loading Grassy with his saddlebags, also thought. Then he turned to Princess:

  "We're not going to attack them first."

  Princess, who was scratching Raven, blushed and squeezed her cheeks:

  "Do I finally have such a terrible reputation? Hooray."

  "Squeak!" Drat squeaked, showing some vastness.

  "Oh, don't. I haven't shown you a tenth of myself yet, out of modesty. But thank you anyway," Princess thanked Drat.

  Gloomy turned and looked thoughtfully at the sky, which was shrouded in dark clouds, and at the former snow cap of a megashroom, which was now falling as a snowfall. It was impossible to tell from his expression what he was thinking. He was thinking of prophecies and false gods.

  The company continued on its way to its destination. Gloomeye didn't even try to find the grey creature's place in the snow. Soon, rocks poking in different directions out of the ground, snow and, for some reason, mist appeared. They flanked the gorge (though Gloomeye would have called it a pass. Even a crevasse) and created an ominous atmosphere.

  "I have to admit, Tip does have a sense of taste," Princess said as they all stopped to admire the sight.

  "How, may a sorcerer cast a spell on you, do you know the chief's name?" crawled a man in a badly treated alm skin from an inconspicuous crevice in the dirt (the round alm ears on the bandit's hood were even funny and cute).

  "Tell him Wolves' son is here. He'll understand," Gloomy declared.

  The gatekeeper (and he would have been surprised that he was a gatekeeper) looked back at his crevice, then at the guests, then back at the crevice. It was obvious that he did not want to go to the chief, then back, then back to the chief.

  "I don't want to go to the chief, then back, then back to the chief. Let's just tell him yourself that you're Wolves' son, Wolves' son," the gaterkeeper said finally, after a long thought.

  "If he goes that far, their lair must be huge," Gloomeye notice grimly, not noticing that he was speaking aloud.

  "And if they live in narrow earth passages, then my whip will have nowhere to go and I will definitely hit you," Princess said, but then she thought some more: "You are not one of those, are you? I can, if you're one of those, Chosen One."

  "It's better if the corridors are narrow. That will negate their numerical superiority," said Firster.

  "Oh, Mr. Poker, that's easy for you to say," Princess turned on her peg to face Mr. Poker.

  "Hey! Hey! Hey!" the bandit in the fur waved his hands in protest. "Can you not discuss how you plan to kill us in front of me? What are we to you: meat obstacles?" he narrowed his eyes suspiciously: "Isn't there a heroic scum visiting us?"

  "What kind of heroes are we? We're from the bandit clan too," Gloomy reassured the bandit. Then he turned to his people (and his rat). "We have made this journey for a purpose. If it still suits you, let's go. I have a feeling of good luck. Here's Titus watching us."

  No one argued. The gatekeeper eyed the group suspiciously once more, but was too stupid to do anything clever, and led them into the gorge. There he pushed aside an inconspicuous flat rock to reveal a deep pit.

  Gloomeye asked Drat to watch the pegs (because he was so good at watching pegs). Drat hadn't even planned on going down to the bandits' lair. Everyone else went into the hole.

  It was really cramped in there. Sometimes the party had to squeeze through and go down into other pits (making a lot of atypical movements). In the branches and crevices of the cave, its inhabitants, dirty and dangerous bandits, watched the procession in silence.

  The only source of light was the glowing blue crystals that grew in the earthen walls. Gloomeye didn't like their light, it reminded him too much of the light from mushrooms in the slave pit. Once he accidentally kicked one of the crystals growing right in the passage, and it shattered with a slight clink.

  The gatekeeper in front of them stopped and asked, still looking ahead:

  "Isn't that a crystal of light you just shattered?"

  "No," Gloomeye said quickly.

  "Magical. I'm going to think it's just the coins clinking in your purse. You'll have to be careful with it here."

  The sound of water heralded a change of scenery. The company entered a large cave, its surface dotted with giant glowing crystals and a waterfall bursting from the wall into a small underground lake. It threw glowing, curved lines onto the crystals, which altered the lines and threw them further.

  On a throne carved from the crystals sat a bald, gaunt, dry man (which was strange in this damp room), dressed in the skins of alms and green plants. Behind the throne, a huge balding head was suspended in a net trap. And how did they drag it here?

  "The self-proclaimed son of Wolves is here to meet you, Chief," said the gatekeeper, his words echoing through the cavern. "And it looks like they have shattered a crystal of light. Huge, with your fist, Chief (what a liar! Even Drat's fist would not have been a good comparison).

  The bandit snitched and stepped back. Gloomy noticed a crowd gathering, silhouettes flickering behind and between the crystals.

  "Are you Tip? I’ve heard a lot about you," said Gloomeye as diplomatically as he could (his diplomacy consisting of not adding, 'Of very bad things,' in the middle of the sentence).

  "Son of Wolves..." Tip tasted the words hoarsely. The hoarse voice wasn't acquired, it was part of the chief's nature, he seemed to have been born with a hoarse cry. "So the boy lived long enough to produce offspring. And you have come to avenge your clan?

  "Why avenge them? We have recently taken in refugees from Capital. And soon we will be building houses out of such smooth rectangular stones," Gloomeye defended the honour of the clan. "And all thanks to you - if you hadn't left, none of this would have happened."

  "I confirm the words of Chosen One as a refugee from Capital," Princess confirmed.

  The bandits around began to whisper (to each other and to echoes), and someone shouted:

  "Chief, it's true! The Blackies have taken over magical Capital, and many people have fled from there."

  "If not for revenge, then..." Tip was interrupted by Firster's raised hand. "Yes?"

  "I'm for revenge. Remember Knife? She had twins, and I'm one of them. My earliest memories are of my mother crying because of your betrayal," Firster said the last word in the same tone Splinter uses for magic.

  "The words of a real man," Tip said, whether he was joking or serious wasn't clear from his voice.

  "Let's all talk before a senseless violence, shall we? We can't do it the other way around," Gloomeye said, trying to calm everyone's fervor. "We need that huge head," and for some reason he pointed out which head he meant, as if it wasn't clear.

  "Folks, look at that cheeky little wolfling (who?). He needs a huge head. His is small," Tip joked.

  There were giggles, which (when the more intelligent thugs started elbowing their less intelligent colleagues) turned into real laughter. And there are more bandits here than I thought.

  "Oh, I get it," Princess giggled.

  "What do you need that head for? Besides making such funny jokes?" continued Gloomy.

  "Okay, puppy (who? Someone should tell him that name-calling should be understandable to the person being called to be offensive), I'll explain to you how our wonderful world works, since your daddy didn't bother. This huge talking head is unique and, as we now know, it's valuable even to such small fry (now it's clear!) as you.

  "So you're not going to give up the head in a nice way," Gloomeye realised. "You're limiting my options."

  Now everyone's laughter didn't need to be whipped up. Even the chief smiled. Thunderous laughter rang through the crystals. So many people. Is the whole gang here? Good.

  "You are definitely the son of Wolves. We called him that because he was as bold as a pack of wolves. You came here when you were barely learning how to walk (why do older people like to insult young people with their age? It makes them look closer to death), you demand my property from me, and you dare to threaten me in my lair, surrounded by my people!"

  "And also broke the crystal of light!" the gatekeeper echoed to his leader from the crowd gathered between the great crystals.

  "What can you offer me, enchanted pup, that I can't take from you by force?" Tip asked, leaning forward on his hard throne and looking amused.

  "Lack of history."

  "What?" the chief didn't understand. Or maybe he did, but he couldn't believe it.

  "You have confirmed that you know my father. I can tell you a story about you and him. Make a cultural exchange between the clans. I have a feeling your people will like it as much as Worldedge.

  "You have nothing, sorcerer's apprentice. Only the boy's lying words. Kill them!" Tip ordered.

  "It is very suspicious that you made your clan laugh with the boy's words before, and as soon as he promised to reveal your terrible secret - you ordered him to be killed," Gloomeye took out his sling and began to spin it.

  Behind Gloomy, a bandit screamed as Princess or Firster reacted to an attack. The narrow passageway really helped the heroes. Tip jumped off the throne and hid behind it, but the guy wasn't aiming at him - he hit the rope holding the net with the head. It swayed and held, but lost some of its thread. The pre-Break one, and it's damp here.

  "Tip was our chief too!" Gloomeye shouted, tossing a new stone into his sling. The echo ensured that everyone present heard. "But he betrayed us and disappeared with our common fund, leaving some kind of note! We spent the rest of our money to hire a chronicler to read it, and it turned out to be a mockery!"

  A battle was already raging behind. Judging by the lack of characteristic cracks and disgusting flesh sounds, Princess was fighting only with her hidden blade. Gloomeye didn't look back, concentrating on throwing stones. The guy's next hit took a few more threads out of the rope.

  "The words of the light crystal destroyer!" shouted a familiar voice (why is he so attached to that crystal? Was it his personal one?).

  "Just look in your vault!" Gloomeye said, hitting the rope again. It finally burst, the head falling to the ground, breaking a couple of large crystals, rolling to the pond and diving in. Oops.

  Without hesitation, Gloomy reached the water and jumped in. He was not afraid - after the slave pit, all the days that followed would be seen as a gift from fate. He reached the descending head with his floundering style and began to cut through the net with his stiletto.

  The rescuer found himself at the giant's half-closed eye, and even through the water he could clearly see its blue and brown fibres, similar to parts of the starry sky, as well as bloody curved lines on white.

  Something was happening to the head, but from his angle Gloomeye could only see a bunch of growing hands tearing at the rope prison. But something in the guy's chest began to spread a sharp pain, and everything began to darken...

  After a few moments, a long creature with limbs along its entire length and a bone growth in front of it, behind which were eyes, mouth and nose on stalks, broke out of the water. Part of the limbs held the unconscious Gloomy on the monster's back. It leapt up to Firster and Princess, who were retreating under the pressure of the bandits, picked them up with its other limbs and threw them onto its back as well. The creature rammed its bony appendage through the humans and leapt through the cave entrance, knocking out the edges of the passage and smashing crystals of light and people.

  VVV

  Fortunately, the crystal protector didn't see it. He was in the crowd surrounding Tip.

  "Not even half of the enchanted valuables were there. And these strange magical things," the bandit said, holding up a parchment, a quill and an inkwell.

  "Folks," Tip held up his hands to indicate that he wasn't going to write any mocking notes, "I'm rehiding the common fund to protect it from possible diggers."

  "It seems to me that the biggest magical digger here is you, Chief," said another bandit.

  "I understand your indignation..." Tip began.

  "Don't try to confuse us with your scientific words," said another bandit.

  "That's what I'm trying to say. You folks are complete idiots. Dumber than alms, and some of you even - dead alms. That's why you need me - the non-idiot in charge."

  The bandits stopped advancing menacingly, looked at each other and nodded in agreement.

  "I only know how to kill. I'm afraid I'll forget how if I learn something new."

  "And I thought my ma named me Dullard."

  "Avyva-va!"

  "And how will you redeem yourself, Chief?" said the hooded bandit with the cute round ears.

  Tip dropped his hands and grinned:

  "Did you hear what the miraculous wolfling said about my former clan? He even gave us the name - Worldedge. A fat piece of loot, slaves and whatever else you want. I'll give it to you and you'll forgive me. Do you agree?"

  "Forgive you for what, Chief?" one of the bandits did not understand.

  The surrounding blockheads had dreamy expressions on their faces.

  "I love you, folks," the chief confessed.

  ***

  "Are you sure you can do artificial respiration?" Firster said to Princess, bouncing up and down on the back of Aurgelmir's head, under the rain of the cave's former twists and turns.

  The girl tore herself away from Gloomeye:

  "What respiration?" she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "I just took the opportunity."

  Firster tried to stop Princess from using the opportunity again with his hand, but then Gloomeye coughed and poured water out of himself, and then the words:

  "Kha! I see I'm still alive. A pleasant surprise."

  "That was stupid, Gloomeye, jumping into the water without knowing how to swim to save the enemy," the giant's mouth said in a deep, low voice.

  The girl turned and slapped the prying eye on the stalk. It shrank, offended.

  "That's for storming the gates of my city. Do you know how many sisters you've killed?" she said.

  "That's stupid too, lass But I understand you. If this is all your revenge, then I have no complaints about you."

  The head had to climb up, and its riders had to grab onto it.

  "I need to see Slizvert. Without his army at his back," Gloomy said.

  "I owe you a debt of life, Gloomeye. And Hyperons always pay their debts," said Aurgelmir without hesitation.

  With a fountain of earth, they burst to the surface.

  Frankly, I don't really like the scene with the creature. In the first part there was a similar scene with Demis. Sometimes I repeat scenes, but with different characters and in a different context (poetry!). But to get from point A to point C, you have to go through point disgusting B.

  A one-eyed man at a water source and a talking head, something similar I have seen before (at least in my imagination). There are also "Lost Boys", but that is in the depths of my subconscious.

  And yes, Aurgelmir is a northerner, but his skin is white, not blue. Don't reimagine him.