Chapter One pgs 7-10

     Master Bahuli followed his lumbering white guide onto Rook’s Row and then onto the sidewalk of Kestrel Boulevard.

Just as they set their feet upon the raised walkway, Og stopped suddenly and jerked backward on the trunk they carried.  “Stop!” he cautioned.

“What in the world—?” Master Bahuli spluttered, looking indignant.

“There.” Og pointed at the ground just in front of the man's right foot.

“What?”  He looked down and found a curious rune scribbled in yellow chalk on the cement.  “Yeah, so?”

“Those things have been appearing all over town this week,” Og explained.  “I don’t really know what they are, but I know it’ll be best for us both if you don’t step on it.”

“I see.  One more damned thing to worry about, eh?”

“Yes, you could say that.”

“So what would happen if I stepped on it?”

“I’m not really sure, but you’d probably be… disrupted.”

“Disrupted?”

“What was it you said earlier—‘you’re liable to step into another dimension’ or something like that?”

Master Bahuli wrinkled his nose as he stared down at the rune.  “Good heavens!” he exclaimed.  “This city is one bother after another.”

“Yes, well, watch your step.”

“Thank you.”

The two unlikely companions lifted the trunk over the rune then continued on their way.

Og led the man past a bookshop, a spice shop, and Mrs. Higgins’ Tea Cozy, a quaint corner nook with walls made of spick-spack.  They passed by multiple gatherings of people.  Some folks, even here, were making their way to the town square, but just as many were standing still, content to vent and discuss the city’s ills with their neighbors.  

Master Bahuli puffed and chugged away beside Og as he did his best to tote the enormous trunk between them.  “Is it much farther?” he asked.  “I’m not sure how much longer I can carry this damned thing.”

Og looked up.  The Docking Tree was only a half dozen blocks away, but so many of the streets were impassable that those six blocks might have been twelve miles.  “I’m not sure,” said Og.

“I thought you slodhi knew your way around things?”

“Well, ordinarily,” said Og.  “But the streets are rarely this crowded.  I can navigate changing streets, just not crowded ones.”

“I understand.”

Og wondered.  If only he could use the city’s changes to his advantage.   When Oard shifted, he could feel it.  He knew where things would wind up and how to use the alterations to take short cuts.  But he had sensed nothing of the kind for some time.  Despite the chaos in the streets, Oard had remained constant for several hours.    

Og looked at Master Bahuli.  “Are you tired?”

“A bit.  I’ve been toting this thing all day.”

“Here—” Og took the other end of the trunk from Master Bahuli and hoisted the thing up alone.

Master Bahuli marveled at his strength.  “Good lord!  How are you—?”

“It’s alright,” said Og.  “I’ve got it.”

“But, I didn’t mean for you to carry it all by yourself.  That’s not—”

“Never mind that,” said Og.  He pointed his muzzle to the east and sniffed.  There was the faintest tingle in that direction.  “Come on.  I feel like if we get down to the canals, we might have a chance.”

“The canals?” said Master Bahuli.  “Alright.  If you say so.”

Master Bahuli followed Og down a street lined with ancient oak trees.  The trees cast dark shadows even as the merry lights of the manor houses beyond them twinkled warmly.  As they proceeded, the road widened enough to allow multiple horse-and-carriages to go clopping by.  The road was busy with wagons and fancy black hansoms.  Many of the wagons were full and stacked tall with suitcases and trunks.  Drivers cracked whips and put on speed—all toward the Docking Tree.

“Looks like I’m not the only one trying to get out of town tonight,” said Bahuli.

Og looked past the carriages as a small contingent of soldiers turned and marched toward them.  He squinted as he saw a woman leading them.  A man carrying a green flag with a blue dolphin crest strode just behind her.  

“Lady Dovina,” Og whispered.

“Eh?”

Before Og could explain, the Lady spied him and approached.  “Slodhi!” she called.  “Wait there!”

“Friends of yours?” asked Bahuli.

Og glanced down.  “Not exactly.”

Lady Dovina reached Og and stopped.  Fifty armed men drew up behind her.

“Slodhi,” she said.  “Can you take me to the citadel?”

“The Chaos Lord’s citadel?” Og asked.

“Yes.  That’s right.”

Og studied the woman.  Her eyes were fierce.  Her visage was stately and aloof.  Lady Dovina carried herself with an air of importance that brooked few refusals.  Still, what did she want with the Chaos Lord?  Why did she travel with so many armed men?  Was she a friend or an enemy?  He did not know.

“Well,” he said.  “I’m already engaged actually.”

“With this man?” she asked. 

“Yes.”

Master Bahuli gave a quick bow.  “Madam,” he said.

Lady Dovina frowned.  “I see.  And he is of some importance?”

Og tilted his head.  “No more or less than any person.”

“This is a grave matter, slodhi,” she said.  “Forces are moving.  Oard is in danger.”

“I see.”

“The chaos you are witnessing is only the beginning,” she said. 

“I understand.  I just—”

The lady held up her hand.  “Enough,” she said.  “I see that you cannot be swayed.  Still, would you at least point me in the right direction?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent.”

“Follow this street in the direction you’re heading.  Turn left three blocks down then advance.  Keep the Docking Tree to your left.  You will see the citadel on a hill surrounded by fruit trees and manor houses.”

“Thank you.”  The lady motioned to her men.  With heavy footsteps and clanking armor, they hurried past.

Og and Master Bahuli watched until the group was some distance away.  

“What was that all about?” asked Bahuli.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s true?  Is Oard about to be attacked?”

“I have no idea,” said Og. 

“It does seem to fit with the theme of this week, though, doesn’t it?”

Og glanced down at the man, but ignored the question.  “Are you ready?”

“Yes, sir.  Lead the way.”

Chapter One pg. 4-7

          The city of Oard was awake again.  So, too, was Og.  He didn’t know how long he or the city had been asleep.  He didn’t know how such things were even possible.  He didn’t understand how an entire city, complete with citizens, streets, byways, buildings, and flying ships, could simply vanish from time and memory only to return again eons later.  Yet, he did not bother himself with such questions either.  Og thought it best to leave the riddles of the universe to philosophers, alchemists, and sages.  He had no use for esoteric knowledge.  Og knew what everyone knew about Oard—the legends—and that sufficed.

Og knew the story of how the inscrutable Chaos Lord, Roland Wrightson, along with his intrepid band of explorers, had ventured into an Angustian ruin and had somehow, against all odds, emerged alive from the ruin’s cursed and blackened borders.  No living creature had ever done this; not since the ancient cities had been blighted and destroyed by the gods, an event that had brought the First Age to a dramatic and decisive end.  

This remarkable feat was somehow—impossibly—only the beginning of the legend of the Chaos Lord and his companions.  Roland Wrightson had not merely escaped an Angustian ruin.  He had also brought with him, out of that dead and most unholy of places, the very living, breathing, essence of the chaos city of Oard.  He had brought it forth replete with its alehouses, market squares, public fountains, bureaucratic institutions, cobbled streets, and its flying ships.  He had brought it complete with Mrs. Wiggins’ Cake Shop, The Society for the Protection of Reason, the Craft Guild, The Gnomish Auxiliary Balloon Corps., and the mighty Docking Tree.  He had brought it back just, one might suppose, as Oard had existed so many millennia ago.  But, only the fledgling Chaos Lord knew for certain if the city had been fully restored to its original splendor, and only he knew the secret of its awakening.

To the average citizen, the city’s reappearance had seemed like some magician’s parlor trick—a ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ cosmic ruse.  The city had not been, and then, in the blink of an eye, had very much been—delivered to the mother of reality like some cosmic babe pulled from an ethereal womb.

Og did not understand such things.  He only knew that he enjoyed being awake again.  He delighted in his city.  He loved its people, its absurdities, and its ever-changing scenery.  He took pride in his role as a navigator and a guide.  It was a comfort to him to know his place and his purpose.  Oard needed him.  He was integral to its functioning, for Og was a slodhi, and a slodhi was a very special, and very useful, creature.

Slodhi were useful because chaos cities were—well—chaotic.  They always changed.  One day Master Daven’s forge might be found on Barren Avenue.  The next day it might not.  Things perpetually moved in a chaos city.  Shrubs went for walks when no one was looking.  Narrow avenues, upon a sudden change of heart, grew sullen and became dark alleyways.  Buildings shifted.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs might appear one day as a building formed in the Rodello fashion, the next day it might appear in the severe Drychtnothian High Katsenu style.  Suffice it to say, in such a place no one ever knew where anything was or where it might be tomorrow.  The citizens of a chaos city existed in a constant state of befuddlement—all, that is, except for one particular and curious species—the rare and dedicated slodhi.

This was what made slodhi—and thus, Og—so utterly indispensable.  Slodhi were never confused or lost in chaos cities.  The entire species possessed an unerring sense of direction, a magical talent that flowed through their veins.  This talent was so rare and useful that long ago unscrupulous wizards and their ilk once hunted slodhi for the magic qualities of their blood.  The process of extracting this power was often fatal to the slodhi themselves.  After centuries of being hunted in this way, the species had been reduced to the brink of extinction. Only the timely intervention of the first Chaos Lords had saved them.

There were few who claimed to understand the minds of Chaos Lords, yet one thing was certain and known about them.  Chaos Lords had always been staunch defenders of freedom, and all of them, with few exceptions, loathed oppression.  It is told (though no one remembers for certain) that upon hearing of the slodhi’s unusual plight, the ancient Chaos Lords came to their defense and offered them sanctuary within the chaos cities.  The slodhi, it is said, accepted.  

As soon as their numbers were safely reestablished, it is believed that the slodhi immediately began repaying the Chaos Lords in the only way they knew how—by using their singular talent to guide lost citizens and errant travelers.  It is conjectured that in this way a curious symbiotic bond developed between the slodhi and the Chaos Lords, a bond that had lasted right up until the eventual destruction of the cities of the First Age, a bond that now seemed to transcend time and space, for here was Oard, here was Chaos Lord Roland Wrightson, and here was Og.

Og stopped midway down the block between the current location of 7th and 17th Street.  He tugged gently at the pointed tuft of white fur that jutted goat-like from the bottom of his prodigious chin.  His left ear twitched.  He studied the crowd ahead.  It was a large, sweaty mob  composed of a dozen different species all on their way to city hall.  Humans, goblins, and minotaurs all shouted epithets and pumped torches and pitchforks in the air, desperate for the crowd to move.  Three ogres glowered over the heads of the others and grumbled in foul tones as several gnomes, hoping to see anything beyond the horde, jumped and shoved from the back ranks.  The streets ahead were packed from one side to the other.  There was no way through.  

Og set down one end of a trunk he’d been carrying.  He glanced down at the human holding the opposite handle.  Being a seven foot tall mass of white fur and muscle, he was often forced to look down on others.  “I’m afraid we’ll have to go around,” he said. 

Master Bahuli set down his end of the trunk and glared at the mob.  “Curse this blasted city!”

“Now, now…”

“Don’t ‘now, now’ me,” said the man.  “This place is an absolute nightmare!  Even on a good day you’re liable to step into another damned dimension or walk into a wall.  And this has been anything but a good day.”

“I’m sorry.  It has been unusually strange this week.”

“‘Unusually strange’,” he huffed.  “That’s a delicate way of putting it.  I should think ‘unusual’ for Oard would be a day of efficiency, peace, and quiet!  Is that what you meant?”

Og frowned.  The man was especially worked up.  “Well,” he said.  “No.  Not exactly.  I meant—”

“I know what you meant.  I’d like to find the fellow who’s actually in charge of this ridiculous city!  What do you call him?  A Chaos Lord?”

“That’s right.”

“Fitting title.  And he’s supposed to be in charge of this mess?”

“In charge?”

“Oh, for the love of—does that concept even exist in Oard?”

Og rubbed the back of his neck.  “Well…”

“Insanity,” Bahuli grumbled.  “The leader of the city thinks anarchy is a viable form of government.  You might as well elect a monkey and give him a special chair and a fancy hat.”

“Well, the Chaos Lord wasn’t really elected.”

Bahuli glared at Og.  “Do you really think that was my point?”

Og frowned but said nothing.  It seemed best not to goad the man further.  

“I just had to visit during the week of a city council meeting,” Master Bahuli shook his head slowly.  “What in the world was I thinking?  I know what I was thinking.  I was thinking I could save time—kill two birds with one stone.  I could visit my sister and sell a few things in the process… I was trying to be efficient.  What a joke!”

“So,” said Og, hoping to change the subject.  “Has business been good?”

“What do you think?”  

Og was not good at deciphering sarcasm, so didn’t know if the man’s sales had been good or bad.  Still, at the risk of further riling up the poor fellow, he decided not to ask.

  Master Bahuli had a point, however.  Oard had been a mess all day.  Even for the night of a city council meeting, it had been unusually tense and tumultuous.  Og wasn’t sure what accounted for it.  People had been on edge all week.  Crime was up.  The city guard, already undermanned, was frayed and short-fused.  There had been scuffles and fights all over town.  The Docking Tree had reported above average traffic from every corner of Inzeladun.  The burgeoning air traffic, along with the gridlocked streets, had caused flight delays, shipment bottlenecks, and passenger layovers.  The summer heat had also added to the misery.  Tensions were high and moods were foul.  The streets reeked of sweat, urine, and booze-soaked frustration; a fetid broth in which every gang, club, and society with an ax to grind had been simmering.  Mobs had sprung up all over town.  Protesters had blocked the streets for days.  The Women’s Judgmental Knitting Society had attacked the Canary Street Crochet League in broad daylight.  

“City Council meetings in Oard are always a little much,” said Og.

“Much?” said Bahuli.  “I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere in all my life.”  

“Really?”

“Do you have any idea what city council meetings are like in Kharzho?  Silvergate?  Catemar?”

“No, not really.”

“That’s right.  No one does—not even the people who live there.  No one knows what goes on because no one wants to know what goes on.  Civic duty in most cities is left to octogenarians with too much time on their hands.  But not in Oard.  No, sir.  In Oard, every member of a faction, splinter group, and do-gooder society shows up at city council meetings with an ache in their bellies and an ax to grind.  In Oard the civic-minded pour out of every doorway, bubble up from every sewer grate, and rain down from the sky like a plague of squids.  Duty!  That’s what they call it.  When righteous indignation marries duty you get yourself a baby monster with nine ravenous heads.  You cut off one head and six more sprout from the wound.”

“You really do have a way with words, don’t you?”

“Yeah, well, that’s what a Catemaran education will get you, I guess.” 

“I see.”

“So, what the hell are we going to do now?” Bahuli sighed, staring at the crowds.

The heavy toll of a chiming clock rang throughout the city.  Og and Master Bahuli glanced up at the sound.  It was the Clock of Time, a gigantic, mysterious time piece housed within the Chaos Lord’s citadel.  The chiming of the massive Clock reverberated through every nook and corner of Oard and could be heard by ships miles away.  

It was nine-thirty.  Og bit the inside of his lip as he realized how late it was.  He needed to hurry.  Master Bahuli was not his only duty that night.  Weeks before, his friends, the sisters, Nela and Nala, had arranged for him to escort them after the council meeting from city hall back to their workshop in the engineering district.  If Og was going to reach them in time, he would have to hurry.  He grabbed his end of Master Bahuli’s trunk and lifted it up.  “We’ll have to go around,” he sighed.  

“Why do I feel like that’s about to be our theme for the evening?”

“Maybe, but we’re not getting anywhere standing here.”

“I’m not sure we’re getting anywhere moving either.”

“Come on,” said Og.  “You have a flight to catch and I have other duties tonight.  I’d hate to see you miss your connection.”

“Faaah!”  Master Bahuli grabbed the other end of his trunk and hoisted it up.  “Don’t say such evil things.  If I spend one more day in this city, they’re going to have to arrange a special room where I’m not allowed to use sharp utensils, if you know what I mean.”

Og turned back the way they had come.  “This way,” he said, and started out.