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The Vagrant's Tale - Ch. 19

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“For Jysalef and
The Scholar Osmaard,
Having their second
Talk was far less hard.

As Tallus spoke of
Matters truly grim,
Soresh ate while
Listening to him.”

- Excerpt from the “The Ballad of Jysalef”, as Written by Gulosc the Bard

Chapter 19: “Far Too Seldomly Seen”

The world not only seemed to spin from its presumably out-of-focus far off distant location, but the mere sight of it all was as if it directly burned the very core of his eyes as he opened them for the first time in a few days time. Thusly, it came as no surprise that Jysalef – with a most beleaguered groan – moved to reshut his stinging eyes far more quickly than he had first opened them only mere moments earlier. That said, even with his eyes now safely reclosed, the world did not seem to give forth any cessation in the maddening whirling that was making the former soldier of Corsinthia feel as if he could quite easily hurl at far less than a moment’s notice.

However, despite the sickening swirling sensation that pounded relentlessly on his senses, the swordsman heard a rather close by voice calling out to him in a tone most unbefitting the current apocalyptic upheaval the world must surely be in the throes of at this very moment. “Oh good, it is such a relief to see that you are last coming to; especially when one considers that the time left to do what must be done has been cut far shorter than I had at first thought.”

Despite the fact his eyes would have much rathered to be allowed to remain closed right then and there, Jysalef slowly forced his eyes open so that he might gaze upon the man that could just stand so calmly during all of this unholy motion, “What in the name of all of the lord’s creation compels you to just stand there during this most peculiarly wretched unhinging of fabric itself, can you not see that all of Theria is moving to and fro in a most unholy manner?”

The clean-shaven scholar, whom defiantly heaved and buckled with the shifting surroundings with nary a sign of concern or discomfort, somehow set a most generously proportioned tray of food in front of the ex-soldier without spilling even one iota of it. “Here, I believe that you should have some of this; after all, she did say that you were going to have to eat once you finally woke up due to the all of the blood loss. Actually, it’s rather quite good, I never would have imagined that Latte would grow up to become quite the culinary master as she now is.”

Regardless of the sensation that the world was currently rocking back and forth all about him, the smell of the meal placed before Jysalef was more than enough force his body into action against the preferences it might have otherwise been harboring. As the wandering vagrant, whom had only a few days earlier slain a dragon, began to tear insatiably into the meal - as if his insides were a pit that spiraled downwards forever, with nary a bottom to be found – you could easily have sworn that it had been a great many months since food had lasted went into this man’s mouth. In fact, it almost seemed as if – as he continued to shovel in the food without pause – that Jysalef had forsaken even the act of breathing itself as he partook of the meal that Latte had prepared for him.

The surface of the world of Theria - as the food continued to go down, as if without end - slowly began to stop warping and shuttering all about Jysalef’s head in a manner fit to induce great sea sickness. With his sense of balance now finally at last restored, Jysalef could clearly see that the reason Tallus had been standing nonchalantly about during the great upheaval of all creation was that this was not the middle of an earthquake at all; but, rather, Tallus Osmaard’s home in the city of Kyosem instead. The realization of where he was brought forth upon Jysalef’s mind a sudden resurgence of memories of what had happened before he woke up a few short moments earlier with the sensation that the all of creation was coming to an end; however, the actual contents of those memories weren’t exactly adding logically up at the moment.

Tallus, noticing that the some of the color was at last beginning to return to Jysalef’s face, smiled to himself in a relieved manner before putting out a slightly nervous question, “So – uhm – Jysalef Soresh, might I be permitted to inquire as to whether or not you remember much about what transpired before you woke up on my couch?”

Jysalef, forming a most cross visage upon his face, paused only briefly in his rabid food consumption to impatiently declare, “Although I happen to recollect you being oh so happy with yourself that you chose to completely disrespect your homeland, and those that defended it with their lives; there happens to be the matter that I also seem to have memories of thereafter skewering a dragon through the eye, but only once it had already begun to chew upon my own flesh. Therefore, I am going to side with the notion that whatever left me so maddeningly ill when first I awoke has also filled my time asleep with a great many hallucinations. Thusly, I will instead defer to you to tell me what actually happened before I passed out, as surely I did not engage in any such life and death struggle with a giant winged lizard for I most obviously would not be here talking to you right now if I had.”

After all, could not this man of so-called higher learning see that he was positively famished? Therefore, surely Tallus could just be on about his business of saying whatever it was that he so wanted to tell him without first making him stop eating long enough to play twenty questions. Jysalef had half a mind to let this man know how moronically inept and inconsiderate he was being right now, but to do so would have involved spending even more time away from consuming all of the food laid before him that presently beckoned to him with a most irresistible siren’s call.

In response to Jysalef’s little tirade, something which at this point the man realized he should have actually expected, the former student of Miran Via reached up and nervously adjusted the frames of his spectacles as he began in correction, “Well – no – actually, Mister Soresh, the entire ordeal that you think transpired in the market square between you and the dragon actually did take place”

Then, as if he had pre-cognitively predicted a rejoinder that was about to form in the ex-soldier’s head, the scholar immediately threw up a palm in a halting manner as he rushedly added, “However, just keep eating and I will explain to you myself how that is not just a product of delirium.” For his efforts in making an attempt to preemptively halt a second fight between himself and the man that it was most vital he spoke with for the sake of all Theria, Tallus’s reward was a solitary unpleased sounding grunt coming forth from Jysalef while he continued to shovel food into his mouth.

Capitalizing on the fact that Jysalef was currently too preoccupied with eating to want to spare even a moment of time to say anything in complaint to what was said to him, Tallus began to speak more quickly to best take advantage of this most vital opportunity. “The memories that you have wherein you were nearly devoured by a dragon – as well as the fact that we had a most unfortunate altercation a few days ago, for which I am immensely sorry – are, I assure you, all of very real occurrences. You see, the Skrandonese woman that you so valiantly threw yourself in front of – at great cost to yourself – so that she might not be devoured by the dragon, was in fact a most clearly gifted high priestess from Skrande’s holy order. After the beast fell down to the ground, lifeless from your sword being thrust into its brain, she performed some sort of holy ritual – the likes of which I’ve only read about before – that saved your very life.”

With a mouth that was full of half-eaten food, as he was most certainly not about to take a pause from eating just to speak his mind, Jysalef angrily mumbled a response to Tallus’s explanation of how he got here, “It would seem to me that if I have just let the Dragon eat the foreign trash, that I then might not have nearly lost my life in the first place.”

“But,” began the Scholar with a face filled with a widely beaming grin that seemed to fully ignore the vulgar suggestion that Jysalef had just given to counter the explanation that the Skrandonese woman was responsible for saving his life, “that simply wouldn’t be possible for you; despite all the anger you have seemed to maintain a firm grip upon, as a carry over result of that idiotic crusade you were drafted into, the fact still stands that you are a most noble person. Although the vision that the great divinity bestowed upon me made no direct mention of whom exactly the great Corsinthian Vagrant Swordsman might be, no one else roaming the lands of this kingdom – after being discharged at the aborted conclusion of that stupid conflict – has done quite the gallant things that you have. From the valleys of Helskath come tales of how you and your ward drove out a nearby enclave of bandits; meanwhile, the forested village of Felzion speaks highly of how you together exterminated the infestation of orcs that fancied moving in; and now, most recently, while you slept there came reports of how in Elpsiod you freely volunteered to deal with their outbreak of leeokas. When the divine one put you upon Theria, my friend, he used a mold that is far too seldomly seen.”

For his reaction to all the lordly praise that was presently being heaped upon him by the scholar, whom only a few days ago had been calling him a simple minded man, Jysalef could do little but roll his eyes as he push forward with consuming the plate of food that was now almost completely devoured.

Then - suddenly taking on a far more grim and serious tone, a sharp contrast to the joyful declarations of admiration he had been making only a few moments previously – Tallus began to speak some more, “However, that you are the man spoken of in my vision – of which I was granted from the above - means I must now talk with about matters most terribly grim. As my former mentor has most likely told you already - ere he sent you here to Kyosem to speak with me - the very same demon which originally made ashes of the ancient kingdom of Glein is soon to cast his malevolent shadow upon first Corsinthia itself, and then afterwards the rest of Theria. That you did not arrive here with the ‘Arcanum of Jasmodeus’ already within your possession must clearly mean that Miran Via has already returned it to the grand library in Dulsnik. Although time is now – more than ever – of the essence, I guess there is now no choice but to…”

Jysalef - his much needed meal now at long last finished - interrupted the Scholar’s explanation with a query, “What in the name of all that’s holy is this ‘Arcanum of Jasmodeus’ that you prattle on about so fearfully?”

The Scholar stood there in utter silence, positively flabbergasted by what had just been asked of him, before he finally found within himself a way of responding to the astounding inquiry that had been put forth to him. “I must admit that I am quite shocked he didn’t tell you himself when you met him in Elpsiod, but I guess that my instructor is beginning to become somewhat forgetful in his later years. You must forgive him for that oversight; after all, these days his aging mind is most assuredly kept exceedingly occupied with all the orphans he has taken under his wing.”

Then - with his previously grim demeanor returning to the words he spoke - Tallus Osmaard began to answer Jysalef’s question as to what the ‘Arcanum of Jasmodeus’ was, “Anyways, near the end of our foolish conflict with Skrande, our government – out of a desperate desire to expediently end the conflict in victory, before our kingdom’s coffers could finally run dry – relinquished the forbidden book over to Miran Via in hopes that he, our country’s greatest sage, might succeed where legends say that the Glein empire so disastrously failed. Our government presumed that surely if anyone could harness the powers of that accursed tome in a safe manner, then it would clearly the great Miran Via himself; however, his careful research into the powers of that unholy book took far longer to complete than it did for our kingdom’s funds to fully deplete. When last I spoke with him face to face, he was still studying the book under the notion if he could succeed - where the great land of Glein had failed through haste – that he could use the sum of all his research to help pull this broken kingdom out of the depression that it now rests within. That he did not still have passion of it - when you spoke with him - must mean that he’s finally realized, as I did myself tell him back then, that there is surely no man upon all of Theria that could ever hope to control such an unholy force.”

Tallus then, before he continued onwards with the grim declarations, rested his left hand imploringly upon Jysalef’s right shoulder, “My mind simply can not wrap itself around how anyone could be so foolish as to actually go forth with an attempt to tap into the powers of a demon such as Jasmodeus himself; but they are, as evidenced by a second oracular vision which arrived last night just to inform me that the time in which to prevent this great calamity has almost run out. Jysalef Soresh, you simply must hurry to the grand library at Dulsnik - despite the distance involved in such a journey - to prevent this from being allowed to transpire, for I can not possibly begin to fathom a way that Jasmodeus might be halted once he has already been released.”
AFTER FIVE EDITING PASSES (THE ABOVE IS THE ORIGINAL DRAFT) THE BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR SALE, AND HAS A BONUS NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE 16 PAGE EPILOGUE:

It is currently available on Createspace: [link]
It is also currently available on Amazon: [link]

(What follows is the original comment from when this chapter was first posted)

While Jysalef Soresh eats after waking, just at the priestess said he would need to, Tallus Osmaard gets to have some words with him without Jysalef interrupting him this time.
© 2009 - 2024 Clovis15
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Raftrider's avatar
I don't know why, but I always thought about Clint Eastwood in his role as "Dirty Harry" whenever Jysalef was described in this chapter.

Also--


LET A MAN EAT! :fork: