TombGeld: Chapter Two
Friday, July 31, 2009 @ 11:06 AM
I still don’t understand why I have to eat this junk, Mithra whined, prodding her supper with a paw. It’s not even real food! All it is is filler and flavouring. Disgusting.
They had returned from their expedition with the wolf bouncing along beside them, clearly relieved to have a new master. David had immediately set about making himself a sandwich, and had set out another canned meal for Mithra. All three of them were very tired; for some reason, the portal had been closed, and so the group had had to walk the 50 mile journey back to their home town.
I’ll eat it, piped up the wolf. Its tongue was lolling out; it was clearly hungry.
“I guess we’ll have to feed you, too, won’t we?” asked David, patting the wolf’s head. “Can’t have you eating cat food like the lunatic here.”
It’s not like I want to eat cat food, huffed Mithra. You’re the one who buys it for me. She scowled, and began devouring her supper, grimacing every so often.
“Also, we should clear our taking care of the little wolf here with the GuildMaster,” David continued. “I hope he’s not angry.”
The GuildMaster wanted us to come and
see him sometime today anyway, Mithra said, licking
her empty food dish. Shall we go now? After that we can stop by the
supermarket and buy some good for… what is your
name, anyway? she asked the wolf, cocking her head
to one side.
My name is Seaguile, said the wolf. It was what I was called when in my pack.
“Ok then, Seaguile,” David said, retrieving his backpack from the kitchen counter. “Shall we go?”
It was 4:30 in the afternoon, and there were many people hurrying around the town. David’s house was relatively close to the Guild, and it was only a short walk to get there, with the white wolf trotting beside him, and Mithra flying high overhead. David watched Mithra for a short while; it was harder for her to turn in one direction than the other, due to her bird wing being larger and heavier than her dragon one.
As he walked, David thought about the Gelders. All he really knew about them was that they were a creation of one of the early GuildMasters. Gelders were a strange species, one that was nearly impossible to create. There were only two ways of making one: An existing Gelder had to have children, which would take the forms of their parents, or a Gelder would be made. Gelders without forms were strange black, feline creatures. Instead of feeding on milk like normal newborns do, newborn Gelders would have to feed on the nearest animal to keep from dying. They would then take on the shape of that animal. David wondered about Mithra, and whether she really had chosen to be a leopard, or it had just been her first kill. Were leopards that common that a newborn Gelder could simply kill one? Perhaps Mithra had been raised in the Guild laboratories. Perhaps they kept leopards there.
David was thinking so very hard about these troubling topics that he didn’t notice that the Seaguile had led him right to the door of the Guild. Cautiously, he pulled open the door and stepped inside.
The guard was sitting in a comfortable chair by the door, with his Gelder sleeping soundly by his side. At the sound
of the door opening, however, the guard gave a great start and stood up, and the enormous Rottweiler dog bounded over to them enthusiastically.
Walking over to them cheerfully, the guard said, “That man from last night -- Morgred, you know --, well, he’s been given a proper burial now. Morgira said that you took his Gelder home with you…” his voice trailed off as he took a good look at Seaguile. In the light of the Guild’s hallway, Seaguile’s fur shone and sparkled brilliantly. David could see a small, raccoon-striped tail starting to grow just beside the wolf’s long white one.
Greetings, human man, Seaguile said nervously. David could tell he was confused by the guard’s reaction.
Oh, quit staring at Seaguile, Morgira snapped. He’s just a kid. It doesn’t matter who his parent’s were, does it? She growled, showing all of her very sharp teeth.
“Is that wolf…” the guard said hesitantly, “One of Kira’s litter?” He backed away from the wolf. “Are you sure it’s safe to be around it?”
David nodded. “We were going to see the GuildMaster today. Supposedly he had something to talk to us about, and so I thought I might as well run keeping Seaguile past him.”
“So you’ll be needing me to let you in then?”
Again, David nodded.
The guard retrieved a huge key ring from his pocket. On the ring were more than a hundred keys, in all different sizes, shapes, colours, and metals. A few of the keys seemed to have no place in which to insert themselves into a lock, and a few of the keys appeared to have no place with which to retrieve it from the lock. He rummaged around with the keys, making an enormous racket as the keys banged together. “Aha!” he cried, triumphantly brandishing a tiny electric blue key, “That’s the one!”
Striding over to the apparently empty wall at the end of the hallway, he pressed the tip of the key into the drywall.
It vanished.
With dizzying speed, the empty wall fell away, revealing a study completely hewn out of wood. The only non-wood item in the room was a moss green chair made of squashy velvet, and in the chair was a dark-haired man with a very kind face. This was the GuildMaster. Beside the GuildMaster, lying on the floor, was his Gelder, Kira. At the sigh of Seaguile, her eyes widened in shock, and then she raced over to David and his friends and greeted her pup with great joy.
“David!” exclaimed the GuildMaster. “How lovely to see you.” He beamed.
David tried to suppress a grin. “Good evening, GuildMaster. I’ve come to--“
“I know why you’ve come,” the GuildMaster interrupted. Interrupting, of course, is very rude, but David was not about to point this out his superior. “You’ve come to hear about this wonderful new advance I’ve found!”
David nodded weakly. “I also came to ask if I could keep Seaguile.”
“Of course, of course,” the GuildMaster said jovially. “But now we must turn to the more pressing matter of portals."
“Portals, sir?”
“Oh yes! As you know, a portal is a door from one destination to the other. One sort of… sort of folds the space between the two places, and a portal is made. Just one step takes you from one to the other. Now, one doesn’t have to have visited the place in question to create a portal from here to there. One simply has to know the exact longitude and latitude.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, I was thinking, what if someone could find the coordinates of another world?” the GuildMaster said excitedly. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? You see, my boy,” he leaned closer to David, “Our world is running out of resources. The only way to save our world would be to create a large portal to another, uninhabited one, and take things from that one.”
David chewed on his lip. The idea of taking materials from another planet was not a new one, but it had been shot down many
times. There were two reasons why this topic was a heatedly debated one: because it was almost physically impossible, and because there were moral reasons to consider.
“Sir… wouldn’t that be…” David hesitated, searching for the right word, “Not right?”
“Not Right?” the GuildMaster asked, staring at David in disbelief. “No, David, NOT taking these valuable resources from a planet with no life forms would be not right. In fact, it would be downright neglectful to our own planet! And now I’m going to let you into a little secret,” his voice lowered to a whisper. “I’ve already made a door into another world. It comes out in the middle of a rocky forest. I did some scouting around, and it seems to have a lot of trees and plants we could harvest. And that,” he said, returning to normal volume, “Is your mission. Come along, boy!”
David followed the GuildMaster meekly along another corridor. He recognized this place as an in-progress portal hallway, where portals that had been opened in dangerous or un-charted locations where housed until all of them were deemed fit for commutation. The GuildMaster opened a door which read “Terrean Earth, 8:45:2395, Milky Way” and held it open for David. “Step inside,” he said brightly.
The boy stared. “You really want me to go into another world, sir? It would risk our world being found out, in the event that anything does live inside. It would also be risking my life, and the lives of two Gelders.”
The GuildMaster sighed. “Nothing lives on that planet, David. I looked around for miles. In any case, if something does live on that planet, they’re far away from where we’d intend to harvest.”
David continued to look worried, so the GuildMaster finally said, “All right, I’ll tell you what. I’ll leave this door open for two weeks, and in the event that anything does come out, you’ll have proven me wrong. If nothing emerges from the door in two weeks, I’ll send you and a few other members in. Deal?”
“Yes, sir,” said David hesitantly.
Seaguile, Mithra, and David were shown out of the Guild by the guard. No-one but Kira saw the GuildMaster quietly walk back to the door marked “Terrean Earth”, insert a key, and lock it.