The House of Yeel

Chapter 3: The Task at Hand





“First things first!” Yeel exclaimed to himself. Where had he left the roveport? He could hardly be walking around out in the world without it. “Perhaps it’s by the gate. Yes, I’m certain it is, since that makes the most sense; after all how else could one deduce where it is each time rather than have to remember its location?”

Yes, of course, he had thought of the optimum solution. No doubt when he last dropped it he had taken the time to make sure it could be found again! The only other alternative was that he would have had to remember its particular physical location each and every time he moved it…a tedious undertaking to be sure.

“Let’s see, the gate would be in the water room…the water room would be in the center of my sanctuary!”

Yeel slid around the corridor, noting the curvature of the passageway. He selected the side of the smaller radius and followed the wall, taking a turn when he came to an open doorway. He saw a guardrail along a ledge that overlooked a massive atrium. His ear cluster picked up the sound of running water.

“The water room! What a magnificent water room I have!” Yeel announced, taking in the vast chamber adorned with giant white pillars around its perimeter. “However shall I get down?”

Yeel looked along the length of the ledge. It appeared to have no means for descent built in. He found it quite odd that the room should be so large and beautiful, with the running fountain and massive white pillars, yet the designers had thoughtlessly let down the hopeful descender, the potential drinker of water, or any soul who found themselves on the ledge in need of getting to their gate.

Yeel peered down and saw several doorways along the wall in the room below.

“Ah! I understand it! A logic puzzle. There are other entrances, no doubt connected via some circuitous route from this very spot. How delightful!” Yeel would have to find an approach to the fountain room from some other passageway.

He looked in all directions. The only obvious exits were ahead and behind. Yeel decided to continue ahead and try that direction first.

At the end of the ledge, he walked through a doorway and found another hall. A large sack hung on the wall before him. A passageway descended on his left, and the corridor curved gently away on his right.

“I have cleverly left my travel sack here,” Yeel observed. “I am truly a being capable of great foresight. Thank you, Yeel!”

He took up the sack and slung it over one tentacle. Then he turned and slid into the descending tunnel.

At the bottom Yeel found an entrance into the atrium. “Such a simple solution! Oh, perhaps it is not a puzzle after all. But it was fun while it lasted.”

Yeel flowed across the smooth marble floor, examining the perimeter of his water room. Soon he discovered his return portal, nestled between two great white pillars. Images of faraway places flashed in its lens.

There, attached to the edge of the doorway, sat his roveportal.

“Aha! My device hangs just where I deduced it would be! Progress! I now have the most basic instrument needed for all travel!”

Yeel snatched up the tiny device, a simple S-shaped piece of metal with tiny emeralds set flush in one side like little green windows.

“What else is needed? Food! Protection!” Yeel turned about and regarded his fountain for a moment. He slid along the floor and came to the perimeter of the pool. Directing his eye pods downward, he spotted his children growing below.

“Ah, my children. No need to deduce your existence! I have carefully remembered each of you!”

The three ghostly clear spirals below gave no answer. Their wispy tentacles waved in the flow of water, rippling their tender diaphanous membranes. His fragile offspring were very precious indeed.

Movement from the corner of the pool caught one of his eye pods. He slid over to get a better look. Another, smaller, transparent creature floated near one edge of the fountain.

“A fourth! I have spawned a fourth spiralette! I have no recollection of you, young one. A momentous event indeed. This must be remembered. Your existence has to be recorded so that I might recall it at any time!”

Yeel began to concentrate. He stood very still at first, but soon began to quaver with the effort. For several tense seconds he stood, recording the existence of his fourth child, putting it firmly into his memory. At last he was done. He had permanently remembered his new offspring.

“Four! Very well, now I shall not forget. But I must return to the task of the moment…what am I doing?”

Yeel looked down, and saw that his travel sack dangled from a tentacle and he also held his roveportal.

“I’m getting back from…no, preparing to leave on a journey!” He realized. “Ah, of course. The natives wanted my help. I need food, and protection…perhaps even weapons. All of these things must be procured in a timely manner, as my friend has indicated urgent need.”

Yeel plunged a tentacle deep into the cool water and took a long draught. The soft green cone of his body expanded considerably as water flowed into his internal reservoir. Then he retracted the tentacle and slid toward the nearest exit.

“I’ve traveled from this direction and each thing I’ve needed has been found in order. Therefore I will continue in the same direction and take this first exit. I should come to the kitchen next, as food is ingested after water. Next I should find my laboratory. Of this I’m certain. It is only common sense, after all.”

Yeel found the kitchen in short order, wandering through only one hallway and selecting the right direction at each intersection. Once in the kitchen, he set about filling his pack with various food items of all colors and shapes. The odd being placed the pack back on one of his rubbery tentacles, so that it dangled comfortably against the flexible mound of his body.

“The food situation is ready. Next I will need protection. Perhaps the most important, would be my reagents pack. Yes, I have distinctly remembered what it looks like. A soft hide pack with two tentacle straps! Full of all manner of important alchemical resources! It must be nearby…I would keep it in my laboratory. It is only logical and therefore that is what I would have done! It is only a matter of time before I may discover it through diligent deduction and observation!”

Yeel moved through the kitchen and searched about, quickly finding a room that must be his lab. The rows of carefully laid out jars of reagents and large, hollow vats for mixing potions and ointments made it quite clear. In the center of his room hung his reagents container. It looked exactly as he had painstakingly remembered, a flexible container of animal hide with straps to affix it near his body.

“Hmm, this is well and good, but perhaps some kind of device to enhance mechanical advantage in times of conflict,” Yeel said. “The world is wild, and primitive, and dangerous. Yes, another device might be called for, something that can be useful in the unpleasant event of a confrontation with something…malicious.”

Yeel considered weaponry for quite some time. He was not really disposed to pick on these primitive creatures, but he realized that things could get dangerous when he was out traveling far from home. He searched through several closets with this in mind and discovered a sturdy malinthander from a work closet and snapped it onto his magnetic belt. The weapon was simply a curved handle with three dense metal spheres dangling from thin ropes attached to it.

“Just in case,” he told himself. “Yes, as a preparatory measure against the unexpected, as it were, as in another resource to protect myself in bad situations that may or may not arise, hopefully the latter,” he muttered.

Movement in front of one of Yeel’s detached eye pods caught his attention. In the room upstairs, Jymoor rolled in her sleep uncomfortably.

“Ah! My guest! I should be thinking of her as well!”





***





Jymoor awoke refreshed. She sat up in the luxurious bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. A second later she bolted out of bed, remembering where she was: the lair of the mighty Yeel!

The traveler walked around the room, drinking in its grandeur again. When she grabbed her worn tunic and pulled it on, she realized something had changed. The garment had been stained and smelly when she arrived, yet now it looked clean. She could tell it had been worn before, but all traces of dirt and sweat had been removed.

“Thank you, my lord,” Jymoor said uncertainly. She looked on the floor and found her boots in similar condition. She slipped her feet into the heavy footwear and paced the room, wondering what to do next.

Suddenly Yeel burst into the room. Jymoor jumped, her heart hammering in response to the shock.

“Greetings to you, my good friend Jymoor! I sensed that you were ready. I have made some basic preparations. Follow me!” Yeel rattled off.

Jymoor shook her head and fell in behind her towering host. She noted that the mysterious man still wore the same outfit as last night. She wondered if the legendary Yeel had need of a change of clothes as mere mortals sometimes did. She nervously looked down at her own attire, painfully aware that the travel clothes did not befit a servant of the mighty Yeel.

They moved to the kitchen. Jymoor wondered how the man knew where to go this time. Something wasn’t quite right about Yeel. Jymoor expected that such a legendary figure might be eccentric, or even beyond understanding, but Jymoor felt that the man might be deceiving her somehow. Perhaps he wasn’t the Great Yeel after all. Would anyone dare usurp the position in Yeel’s own house?

“Please sit and rest your lower limbs, my good friend Jymoor,” Yeel said. “Please partake of these refreshments which I have prepared and tell me of the manner in which your people make war upon one another.”

“Er, ah, thank you, my lord,” Jymoor said, her eyes roaming over the array of food cubes on the table. “The barbarians make use of the most simple of weapons and techniques. Their siege craft is primitive to be sure. They use ladders to scale the walls, create turtles to approach and attempt to sap the walls. Only occasionally will any of them employ a mobile tower or catapult.”

“Right. Of course. What? Oh, let’s be more specific, please. Let’s start at the beginning. What equipment does the average, ah, barbarian, as you say, as you labeled them, good enough for now, yes, what equipment do they bring to the, ah, field of battle, or shall we say, the theater of war?”

Jymoor blinked her eyes and tried one of the white squares of food. She hoped that it would prove to be cheese, but instead it tasted like a rubbery sort of meat like squid or crab.

“They usually wield only axes or clubs, sometimes swords. Most have wooden shields, although others may have plundered a metal shield or a breastplate.”

Jymoor saw that Yeel had been listening with an unusual intensity. The man’s eyes were open wide, fixed directly upon her.

“So…” Yeel began, blinking at last and losing the gaze. “The general mechanics of war involve, what, walking up to each other and attempting to…use these tools in an effort to remove each other’s limbs, rendering the opponent immobile and thus helpless?”

Jymoor nodded. “Sort of…they also usually try to stab the swords into each other’s vitals. Since they defeated the king’s army on the field, though, we’ve been doing more hiding behind our fortress walls, trying to slow down their incursion by forcing them to lay siege to our cities one by one.”

“Ah yes, siege, of course. No doubt they then attempt to abrade away the stone of your walls with their primitive implements! And you counter by….wait, don’t tell me! You herd nest-building insects and convince them to secrete rock-hard substances to thicken your walls from the other side?”

“Um. Well, I’m afraid those ways are unknown to us, my lord. The enemy builds towers to bring them up to the level of the top of the wall so they may hurl giant boulders or brings up powerful rams to break through the gates of the city.”

“You built gates into your walls? Whatever for? Doesn’t that simply invite attack?”

“Well—”

“Oh, don’t answer that. No matter, the gates are there now, are they not? No doubt you have your reasons, sunk deep into the mire of instinct and tradition. Towers, you say? And rams? How delightful!”

“I’m afraid I’m really not giving you an adequate picture of the sophistication of such affairs,” Jymoor said. “Perhaps if you talked with one of our war leaders. There are other matters, such as making feint attacks on one side while launching the real attack to another quarter of the city, to overwhelm the defenders through sheer numbers—”

“Simple principle of concentration of force,” Yeel muttered. “Hmm, yes that is understandable. To be expected. Yes. I understand.”

“Or as I mentioned earlier, they may tunnel beneath the walls to gain entry, or weaken the walls from underground.”

“Yes. Yes. I begin to understand the mentality of your…ah, um, your adversaries. These…barbarians are migratory, yes? Is this the typical season of their attack? Will they stop to mate if the weather changes?”

“Ah…um…the attacks will stop during the winter….”

“Of course. No doubt you will retreat into your sanctuaries when the climate changes…understandable. Hmm, wait a moment, I want to remember that…”

Jymoor blinked. For a moment the man standing before her seemed to change, stretching a little and becoming somewhat green. She stood up, knocking her chair back, and gasped.

“What? Hmm?” Yeel snapped back to his normal appearance.

“My lord…I thought you…changed for a moment.”

“Changed, well, of course, I, you know, as you know, well, sometimes…people of my…stature, ah that is my tremendous power, well, we are able to alter our appearance. I was simply testing you.”

“I understand, my lord,” Jymoor said. She bowed low. How crazy she was to doubt the mighty Yeel! He had begun to change his very form right before Jymoor’s eyes! This man had power. Jymoor would not doubt him again.

“Very well then. The hour of our departure approaches,” Yeel said. “Now, if you would be so kind as to share a few more details of your warfare traditions…”