Dreams of Steel - Part 18

I am alive! Yes, after a two month hiatus, like a zombie, I have come back from the dead. For those of you actually wondering, my break was due to a mixture of laziness, a summer job, and taking two summer courses for my master's degree. As those two classes are finished, I now have more free time (minus the fact that I'm moving to Colorado and getting a new job...) I actually translated this current post a couple days ago, but was planning on getting the rest of the section done before posting. Obviously that didn't happen. Anywho, enjoy!

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Linar got up and started to walk long strides that in four or five steps carried him from one end of the room to another. In the last few days he had noticed a growing unease, as if a colossal storm was brewing, of a telluric scale. Perhaps he had had a premonition of Yatom’s death; or perhaps it was only the first sign of greater evils.

"I am an echo..."

This time Linar gave a jerk. He turned to Mikhon Tiq. The young man was still asleep, but his lips moved and from them sprung grave and deliberate words, torn from the deep breaths of his sleep.

"When you hear me I’ll be dead, brother ..."

Linar approached the boy and leaned over him. He had his eyes closed and his pupils were moving under his eyelids. The voice that came from his mouth rang with the youthful timbre of Tiq Mikhon, but the cadence, accent and words were those of Yatom.

"For some time the disease has been devouring me. Despite my power, the evil has spread its seeds through my body and I'm a boat taking on water through a thousand fissures. You must take in Mikhon Tiq so that when the moment comes you can awaken the Beautiful Light and keep my soul from being lost."

"I turn to you because I see signs of difficult times like we have not experienced for hundreds of years. I do not trust that the other members of the Table accept my words. Attend well, Linar...”

Linar sat before Mikhon Tiq and listened to that message from beyond the grave. According to his brother, a previously unknown terror extended throughout Tramórea. The roads had become more dangerous, merchants gathered in well-stocked caravans for fear of robbers; even the Silk Road, which had been secure for decades, no longer was. There was talk of atrocious rituals in which humans were sacrificed to dark and bloodthirsty deities, like in times remote and more cruel.

Dreams of Steel - Part 17

Random thing that happened while looking up a word:  I caught a joke that made it past the censors in The Princess Bride.  https://youtu.be/F56QikTv-6A  Yep, Inigo Montoya basically tells someone to go f*** himself in Spanish.

Also, a friend of mine got confused by a statement I made in a previous post.  I have not skipped over any of the book due to sexual content.  I said that I would do it if anything too graphic happened, but nothing graphic has happened.  If such a thing occurs, it will be clearly marked in [brackets] with a vague description of what transpired.  Any conversation relevant to the story will be kept intact (or mostly intact with said brackets).

Anywho, enjoy!

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The rules of hospitality are universal.  Before questioning a traveller one must let them rest, clean their feet of the dust of the road, sate their hunger and thirst.  If these rules were not observed, Tramórea would be an even more savage place.  It had been many years since Linar had received any guest, but he had not forgotten those standards.  Despite his curiosity to know who this dark and thin young man was that he had saved from the clutches of the corueco, he prepared a meal of bread, cheese, hot broth and water sprinkled with the sap of the Great Old One, the ancient tree that served as his home.

At the sight of the wooden tray covered with food, the boy brightened up.  Linar prepared coffee, one of the scant luxuries he received from the outside world, sat on the floor in front of his visitor and drank it in a clay mug.

"I appreciate your hospitality, Master Linar.  May the warmth of your hearth endure forever."

"Eat.  It will be good for you."

The boy wasn’t slow to polish it all off.  Afterwards, he left the tray to one side and opened the travelling cloak which covered him.  Under the light brown mantle he wore a Ritiona tunic down to his knees and covered his legs with woolen breeches in the northern style.  But what was not revealed by that hybrid clothing was betrayed by his dark complexion and lilting accent, characteristics of a Ritión of the Islands.  He had delicate features, almost feminine.  His eyes were large, dark and moist; hungry eyes, and not just hungry for food, but something more, an essential lack, insatiable, like that of his own...

Had he ever been young?

"You know Yatom.  I want you to tell me more.  But first, my reckless guest, tell me who you are."

"My name is Mikhon Tiq.  I'm from Malirie."

"A beautiful place," Linar responded, with sincerity, as Malirie was called the Pearl of the Sea for the beauty of its white rocks and the transparency of its beaches.

"The best in the world."

His father, explained the young man, was a dealer in purple dyes who had sent him to Uhdanfiún to follow a military career and bring honor to the family.  Mikhon Tiq studied there for a few years, until he left.  The reason, whatever it was, was overlooked.  Upon returning to Malirie, he worked for his father and met Yatom on a trip, aboard a merchant ship.

"He was always restless and fond of travel, old Yatom," Linar nodded.  "Continue."

Yatom must have seen something in Mikhon Tiq; as he decided to adopt him as a disciple.  Linar arched an eyebrow:  taking apprentices was something unusual in a Kalagorinor.

"Yatom knew that his time was short, and did not want his syfrõn to be lost," explained Mikhon Tiq.

Linar leaned his face in and fixed his eyes on his guest.

"What happened to Yatom?"

"He has died, Master Linar."

Only his extreme control prevented Linar from emitting a groan.  The Kalagorinor are not eternal; but for those whose hearts do not beat, the decades pass like years for humans.  Yatom was barely older than him.  He still should have had a lot of time remaining.

Linar put his hand on the boy's forehead.  It was a minor invasion, just a fleeting visit to his mind.  Within that small receptacle which was the head of Mikhon Tiq hid another presence, a huge place unfolded in dimensions unconnected to the normal world.  That little cosmos could only be Yatom’s syfrõn.  Fortunately, the boy had received it before the mage died:  if not, the syfrõn would have collapsed in on itself in a cataclysm that would have destroyed a good part of the forest and perhaps Linar himself.

The boy looked at him with unfocused eyes.  Linar recalled that he had gone through a hard time that night and took pity on him.  Before removing his hand from his forehead, he instilled the warmth of sleep through his skin.  Mikhon Tiq blinked a few times, and soon his breathing became deeper and his head dropped to one side.

Dreams of Steel - Part 16

Sorry I didn't post sooner.  I'd claim that I was really busy, but that would be a lie.  I was just being lazy.  Anywho, my new word of the week:  caduceus.  Apparently this is a winged and be-snaked staff used by Hermes.  The description makes me wonder if it might actually be a reference to the "Rod of Asclepius," which is often mislabelled as the caduceus.  Enjoy!

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But the blow did not come.

The corueco gurgled.  Mikhon Tiq ventured a look.  The beast had moved back a step and had its yellow eyes fixed on something new.

A bluish light was reflected in the scales of its thorax.  Mikhon Tiq turned.  A few steps away, suspended over the surface of the creek, floated a figure enveloped in a luminous aura.  He was a tall man, dressed in a long cape over which fell a plait of white hair.  His bare feet were set on the water, but did not sink in it, like a ghostly vision, a will-o’-the-wisp of human scale.  The corueco growled, frustrated, and waved its arms in bravado, but did not dare to go one step further.  Gradually, Mikhon Tiq retreated toward the center of the current, away from the beast.

"Relax,” said a slow, soft voice.  “You no longer have anything to fear from that creature.”

Mikhon Tiq turned back toward the spectral figure, and at that moment he felt a prick in his hand.  When he looked, on the back he had a small wound that barely bled.  The pine needle had left him.

"Tonight the corueco must seek other prey."

Mikhon Tiq looked toward the bank.  The beast had climbed it and had already entered the bushes.  Its stench still lingered as it disappeared from sight.

Mikhon Tiq turned back to the stranger.  His ghostly glow was gone and he no longer floated over the water.  Still, even sunk to his knees, he stood nearly a head over Mikhon Tiq.  By the light of Taniar his features appeared sharp and long, like engravings in the rock of a cave.  He had his right eye covered by a dark patch and he carried a staff around which coiled a carved snake.

"I owe you my life."

"That's a privilege held by your parents, and I would not like to take it away," said the stranger, and he turned ready to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

The man turned halfway and pointed to an indefinite spot with his caduceus.

"Over there.  The same as you."

"How do you know where I'm going?"

"If you're a smart person you'll follow me."

Mikhon Tiq considered that an invitation and moved to walk behind his savior.

"Can I ask your name?" he ventured.

"Can you?"

"Are you Linar?"

The man stopped short and looked at Mikhon Tiq.  His eye seemed to shine in the dark.

"How do you know my name?  No one has uttered it for a long time."

“A man that you know told it to me,” Mikhon Tiq explained, pleased to have woken the interest of the stranger.  "Yatom."

The one called Linar pierced him with his lone eye.  The boy felt intimidated, but didn’t avert his gaze.

"You must explain this to me," said the mage.  "But not before we get to my dwelling."

As he walked behind Linar, Mikhon Tiq realized that he was fatigued.  Now that all fear had dissipated, his body wanted to relax and collapse on the ground, but the time to do it had yet to arrive.  Hang in there a little longer, he told his legs, and soon you will rest.  Although the presence of the mage intimidated him, something deep within told him he could trust him and that there was no longer anything to fear.

They arrived at a path that opened cleanly through the thicket.  Linar picked up the pace without looking back.  He made strides so long that Mikhon Tiq was forced to do short dashes to not be left behind.  On the left opened a meadow, from which came an intense and cloying fragrance, while to the right of the path stood a wall of cramped trees like soldiers in an infantry.  When they reached the top of a hill, Linar pointed with his finger.  There rose a strange tree.  Under the purple light, Mikhon Tiq noticed that it was formed of four trunks fused into one.

When they arrived in front of the tree, it seemed a dark cleft opened before them into a natural doorway.  Linar lowered his head to pass and Mikhon Tiq followed.  The interior lit up to receive them.  The light came from thin and winding lines that covered the interior walls and that were illuminated with a yellow radiance.

"It is the sap of the tree itself," said Linar.  "Welcome to my house, my young friend.  Take a seat and rest, as you will need it."

Mikhon Tiq sat on a natural bench that formed the inner wall of the tree and, with a sigh of relief, leaned his back against it.  He found himself in a small room, warm and dry, of irregular form.  To the left and right each crevice opened as a manner of door.  Linar disappeared through one of them without saying anything.  While waiting for his return, a warm stupor seized Mikhon Tiq.  He tried to keep his eyes open, as the heat was so sweet and the fatigue of his limbs so pleasant that he felt sleepy.

Dreams of Steel - Part 15

This might be my favorite simile of all time:  "los ojos amarillos como dos malignas luciérnagas."  Eyes like malignant fireflies, really, who can top that?  Enjoy!

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When he bid farewell to those men, he felt proud of his own bravery.  Now, at night, surrounded by the dismal presence of the forest, that bravery had been vanishing while the silhouettes of the trees faded in the twilight.

"I wish I had never followed Yatom,” he repeated, for the comfort of hearing his own voice.  “I would be in my parents' house, watching the reflection of Taniar in the ocean...”

He was lost for an instant in a daydream.  Malirie, his city, was one of the most beautiful places in Tramórea, and life there was easy and warm.  Now, however, he was stiff with cold.  Through his cape, the bark of an elm, wet and rough, dug into his back.  He did not dare to light a fire because, as they said, fire, far from frightening the coruecos, attracted them.  It was better to continue moving.  He got on his feet and turned on his heels, until the pine needle stopped stirring under his skin.  He felt around in front of him with his stick and set out anew on the road.

Later, at some point, he noticed that the hair on the back of his neck had risen, and after a few seconds he realized why:  someone was there.

Or something.

He cowered behind the trunk of an oak.  But he didn’t know where the threat was coming from.  Perhaps the danger was hidden just behind him.  He turned, frightened by his own idea, and brandished his stick.  His heart was pounding out of control and he was panting like a bellows.  Surely, any creature found within five hundred steps could hear it.  He recalled his military training, dug a knee into the ground and remained motionless.

You must be the ones stalking, their survival instructor had told them.  If you think that you are the prey, then you will become the prey, and you will be lost.

He had not chosen a good place to stop.  He was in a ravine covered with ferns and surrounded by brush, where he could not see an attacker until it was too late.  And if he saw it, and it was a corueco, what could he do?  Better to not think about it.  He concentrated and little by little managed to quiet his pulse.

When he sat up, ready to continue, he discovered a new smell, fetid and metallic, like that of the jaws of a great carnivorous beast.  He recalled the counsel of the mushroom hunters:  if the smell of blood comes to you, run!  He got up and fled from the stench.  He ran without direction, without plan, looking only for an open path between the vegetation that planted snares in his way.  He tripped over a raised root and fell face down on a cold and wet patch of earth.  It was then that he heard a howl, half a human scream and half the roar of a beast.  It came from behind him; his instinct had made him flee in the right direction.  He sat up and turned to run.  Branches whipped his face.  Something sharp struck his brow. His own blood trickled warmly over his eye.  Another howl, more furious and close than the last; it was said that the smell of wounds excited the coruecos.  Was it a corueco?  From the racket raised during its race, this creature was as heavy as a boar, perhaps a bear.

The thicket opened without warning and Mikhon Tiq met with a slope that dropped into a stream.  The ground was slippery; he lost his footing and tumbled down.  He was hit in the right elbow by an outcropping and his fingers were caught between his walking stick and a stone, and the water was icy, but he hardly noticed it.  He tried to get up and slipped again.  He turned toward the bank, where a large dark shape had just emerged from among the trees.  By the red light of Taniar, Mikhon Tiq could make out the enormous and bulging thorax, the long arms, the short and muscular legs, the bony crest that crowned its head and, above all, the yellow eyes like two malevolent fireflies.

The creature dropped into the creek, supported on its long arms.  Mikhon Tiq looked around, unable to decide whether to flee downstream or upstream.  The phosphorescent gaze of the corueco had hypnotized him.  He had become prey.

The corueco placed a foot in the water.  It was less than two meters from Mikhon Tiq, so close that its blood-tinged breath turned his stomach.  Finally, the youth reacted and, with the force drawn from his fear, swung the walking stick against the corueco’s head.  The beast covered with his arm at a velocity unthinkable in a creature so large.  The staff ran into bone, and Mikhon Tiq felt as if he'd hit against a pile of granite.  All the damage projected in that blow he took in his wrists and fingers, which opened limply and let the stick fall.

He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and waited for the final darkness.

Dreams of Steel - Part 14

Fear not!  I have not abandoned the project!  However, since I did miss posting yesterday, I decided I'd translate this whole section today.  There were quite a few spots that I'm still not sure about.

Random sections of note (I might add more later):

• "Sparkles" became "flickers" because... sparkles... enough said.
• There was a wonderful opportunity to use the word "phantasmagorical" as a direct translation but I gave it up for "dreamlike" since it didn't seem to fit quite right.
• The line "In order to open the tunnel through which he could enter that secret place he had to find Linar the One-Eyed" was the hardest to translate.  The original said "Para abrir el túnel por el que podría entrar a ese lugar secreto debía encontrar a Linar el Tuerto."  It's always the lines with strings of minor words that are confusing.  If you have suggestions, please add them.

Anywho, enjoy!

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When Shirta, the green moon, abandoned the heavens, the light of her sister Taniar gave a tint of blood to the clearing where the young Mikhon Tiq had stopped to rest.  His heart beat like a drum; little by little a strange fear had overtaken him.  Its source was none other than that very same forest, whose dangers he had been warned of by Master Yatom.

"But although it is dangerous, it is imperative that you enter it to meet my brother Linar.  He will make it so my syfrõn matures in you, will help you in your mission and, when the time comes, will awaken the Beautiful Light."

"Master, but you can’t ..."

"We can all die.  That day comes even to the ancient gods.  When I die you must be ready for my syfrõn, otherwise the energy locked within will leak uncontrollably and everything within a league around you will disappear from the face of the earth."

Mikhon Tiq rested his delicate chin on his walking stick and breathed deeply.  The sounds of the night (the hooting of owls, the whispers of branches agitated by the wind, the shrieks of vermin whose names one doesn’t want to know), the sweet and damp aroma of decaying leaves, the crimson light of the moon:  all wove a dreamlike veil through which the forest seemed an unreal place.  One had to take precautions against this misleading impression, for Corocín was as material and tangible as the dangers it harbored.  Before them, Mikhon Tiq no longer had the protection of Yatom’s spells, as his mentor had died before daybreak, in the spectral boundary that separates night from dawn.  Mikhon Tiq had heard that that hour, when the blackness of the heavens is tinged with grey, is when most souls abandon this world, sent off by the howls of roving dogs.

But it was not so, he corrected himself.  Neither Yatom’s soul nor his mystical seat, his syfrõn, had departed.  Just before breathing his last breath, the sorcerer had grasped his hands.  At that moment, Mikhon Tiq felt that a dark pit had opened at his feet.  With a cry, he plunged into the abyss.  He fell for an eternity, surrounded by a circular wall that shimmered with flickers and pulsating colors.  His own cry was lost high above, far from him.  At some point, the fall ended and the youth encountered a plain that was indistinguishable from the sky.  Before his eyes emerged an impossible construction.  It was a castle built with great blocks of grey stone covered with lichen, which stood alone from its foundation like a monstrous tree of rock.  The walls rose, row after row of solid masonry, and from them began to emerge turrets, battlements, counterforts, posterns, bastions, flying buttresses, bold pinnacles that challenged the sky.  When the castle stopped growing, the thousand eyes of its windows keep looking on Mikhon Tiq with a reddish glow.  It was a majestic work, almost perfect, but here and there were small gaps, lines that were lost, tiny cracks.

Nothing is ever finished, Mikhon Tiq, whispered the voice of Yatom.  Receive my syfrõn and use it to build your future.

Then a chord resounded so low that the bones of his chest shook.  Mikhon Tiq thought it felt as though his flesh became sand scattered by the wind.  The spaces of his being opened, it expanded like a sponge at the point of breaking; and when he felt most permeable and defenseless, an alien presence penetrated him.  That intrusion, painful yet soothing, lasted an infinitesimal fraction of a second, and after that nothing remained.

And now he knew that almost everything that had been Yatom, his memories, his projects, his power, was locked inside him in a minuscule corner of his mind that he was not able to locate, but that vibrated as if inside his head pounded a tiny heart.  In order to open the tunnel through which he could enter that secret place he had to find Linar the One-Eyed, Yatom’s companion in the order of the Kalagor.

He didn’t know where Linar lived.  Yatom had spoken to him of the "heart of Corocín" a very vague term for a thick region stretching for leagues and leagues.  But, before his passing, the Kalagorinor had pierced a pine needle in the back of his hand.  When he moved away from the right direction, the needle stirred beneath his skin, producing a painful itch that would not stop until he returned to the correct path.

He was exhausted, but did not dare to sleep.  As a child, in the distant city of Malirie, they had told him horror stories about the forest.  Now he was nineteen years old, he had received military training in Uhdanfiún and supposed that he was a man sure of himself and ready to face his fears.  But at midmorning he had encountered a group of five men who prowled through the trees looking for the precious red mushrooms of Corocín.

"What are you doing here, boy?  Have you lost your mind?"

When Mikhon Tiq explained to them that he was looking for an old man named Linar, they said yes, they had heard of him:  the old one-eyed, the sorcerer, the madman of the forest.  They doubted he was still alive.

One of them, a big man with a bushy beard that was mixed with the hair of his chest, added:

"Watch this."  He showed him his spear, which had a shaft of ash wood a meter and a half long and a wrought iron tip of over two hand spans.  "Each of us has one.  If a corueco appears, we will try to stab it in the belly, which is the only place on its body where one can hurt it.  But still, even if we drive five spear heads in its body, the corueco can kill us all.  Stay with us and return in the afternoon to our village."

Mikhon Tiq replied without hesitation:  he would continue alone.

"At least take our advice:  if the smell of blood comes to you, run for your life!” they told him before they left, and as he looked so skinny to them, on top of that they gave him, in addition to their council, half a loaf of bread and a thick pork sausage.

Dreams of Steel - Part 13

I've already been posting daily updates for TWO WEEKS without skipping a day!  (Though I admit I have fudged a couple of the time stamps by a few hours in order to meet the deadline.)  I never actually thought that I would get this far so soon.  Yay!

I present the latest installment.  It does not actually have Mikhon Tiq as promised, but he starts off the next paragraph.  I only had time to do the small section introduction today.  I have coined the new English term "cornigriff" based on the fake Spanish word "cornigrifo."  Also, if any of you have an alternative suggestion for the "Desert of Winks" that doesn't sound awkward, let me know.  I left it as "Desert of Guiños" for now.  Enjoy!

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HERE STARTS THE FOREST OF COROCÍN.

HE WHO LEAVES THE ROAD TO ENTER IT DOES SO AT HIS OWN RISK.

DO NOT BLAME THE GODS FOR YOUR ERRORS.

Before the splintered sign, the young merchant who travels for the first time to the north following the Silk Road scratches his head and asks the veteran why the road, instead of delving into the forest, it deviates to the west to cross the steppes.  Their question is not without reason, as after crossing along the Desert of Guiños and suffering for days through dust storms and the rays of a relentless sun, the dark foliage of Corocín promises a delicious freshness.

"The gods don’t permit it!" answers the veteran, rolling his eyes.

And in whispers he recites the horrors that the forest hides:  wild wolves, bipedal snakes, basilisks, cornigriffs, bloodthirsty witches, nymphs that seduce men to drown in ponds, and, above all, the enormous man-eating creatures known as coruecos.

"But do coruecos still exist?" asks the novice, incredulous, believing that those creatures of his childhood stories are already extinct.

"Why do you think the forest is called so?"

Corocín.  The forest of coruecos.  Full of treasures for those who want and know how to find them, but dangerous for travellers who do not know its paths, and a bit deadly.

Dreams of Steel - Part 12

Yay, the end of a section!  In this part, I changed the word "miracle" to "apparition" because it's supposed to be kinda scary, and the word miracle doesn't come across as scary to me, like, ever.  The next section mentions Mikhon Tiq, Derguín's friend who shared in the lashing incident.  Stay tuned!

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"What's wrong, Shayre?"

Something splashed on his back.  Kratos turned.  In the washbasin, the water was rising in waves, and these broke and rippled into smaller ones, until a miniature tempest shook the bowl.  Those tiny swells took shape and carved a human face that opened its mouth to speak.

Kratos moved back in fright.  But a voice that sounded like bubbles of crystal bursting in the air spoke.

Do not fear, Kratos. I am Yatom...

Kratos leaned his head over the washbasin and recognized the face formed of water.  It was Yatom, the ancient sorcerer who had saved him from the corueco.

"I recognize you, Master Yatom," he replied, without getting too close.  "What do you want of me?"

You must go to the Boar’s Hoof, in the village of Banta, and train a young warrior.

"But I do not know if I can leave Mígranz..."

It is essential.  The fate of the kingdoms now depends on us.  Will you do it?

"I swore you my obedience.  For what do I have to train him?"

For him to become the next Zemalnit.

Kratos's heart missed a beat.  What the sorcerer asked was to face the wrath of Aperión for the interests of a stranger.

"What is the name of this warrior?"

Gorión.  Derguín Gorión.  I have little time remaining.  You must deal with my brother Linar.  Goodbye, Kratos.

The voice faded out as Yatom's face dissolved into the last waves of the water.  Behind him, Kratos heard a moan.  He turned just in time to pick up Shayre before she collapsed.  He carried her to bed in his arms, but the desire for her naked body had abandoned him.  That apparition had scared him, as did everything related to the mages; but what truly terrified him was what he had to do next.  I swore a vow and have no choice but to comply, he said.  But what was it that restricted his throat?  Was it just apprehension, or the cold of the steel blade that might await him?