Quinn

Chapter One

THE sky was a happy light blue. It was the beginning of summer and the days were long and hot. Quinn was sitting on the top of his thatched roof house surveying his garden of gigolops.

The straight rows of plants stretched down the shore of Lake Rikop in the distance.

The friggles were lulled by the warm summer morning and loped around the shore stopping every once in a while to suck on some ground sap. Friggles are a kind of paracitic dog that suck on the mud slopes of Lake Rikop. Their long dull teeth are hollow and serve as kind of tube to suck the sticky brown subtance from beneath the sand. Quinn had long watched them and studied them, after all what else was there to do around here? They are relatively intellegent and he had even heard them make half intellegable noises as if to communicate. But that was only around Fall for some reason.

Quinn had never killed anything before and it scared him to know that he had destroyed a life that had done nothing to him but venture too close to one of his gigolops.

When the other friggles saw this they ran off in fright. Quinn knew that the shores of Lake Rikop were the only place where they could survive. So he chased after them until they were out of sight and his legs felt like jelly. He collapsed and fell asleep.

The next morning brought a splitting headache. When he found out that it was it was truly a splitting headache because a root from the ground was sticking all the way through his head. Of course it didn't injure him because his brain was located in his midsection.

He got up to see that the beach had grown thousands of roots. When he got a closer look he saw that there were small beads of jelly-like sap that the plants fed on. He remembered that the friggles used to suck out the sap so the plants had nothing to feed on. But now the friggles were gone and the roots were sprouting like mad. It was eroding the beach into Lake Rikop and the lake was getting smaller. If he didn't stop it the whole lake would be covered and his home would be doomed.

He got up and fought through the underbrush. He saw that this was doing nothing so he decided to head for the forest.

He found that the roots could only grow on the beach because that is the only place where the sap was. He also found that it formed a tunnel-like path following the edge of the forest that he could easily follow for several miles. After he had followed his newfound tunnel for several miles he decided he would camp for there for the night.

When he woke up it was still dark so he sat up and felt around when he found a tree he proceeded to climb upwards. He didn't get very far before he hit his head on something. He searched it and didn't know what it was until he his hand hit a bead of jelly-like sap.

He dropped to the ground and tried to comprehend how the roots had grown so fast. He figured that the jelly-like sap must have supergrow in it.

He lit a fire and saw that the roots had formed an impenetrable barrier on each side and the top. He decided he would go back to his hut and get some tools to dig through the top. So he set out for his hut running all the way.

After awhile he got tired so he sat down and rested. It was then that he discovered that he didn't have any food and that he hadn't eaten for two days. He was starving to death. He grabbed a torch from his campfire and set out to find his hut with a new determination. He ran as fast as he could until his legs could run no more and he fell on his face exhausted. He fell asleep.

When he woke up the air around him was getting thinner and he knew that the tunnel was constricting fast. He also had a harsh burning pain in his stomach. He had to find food fast.

Then he remembered the jelly-like sap beads he scrambled over to one of the walls and plucked one off. He popped it into his mouth only to spit it out again. The beads tasted like manure. He finally had to make a choice whether to eat one and survive or to not and die on the way to his hut.

He chose to survive and he popped one in and chewed it. He tried to swallow it but it wouldn't go down. Finally he forced it down and immediately he started to grow. This didn't help because as he grew his stomach grow so he needed more to fill him so he grabbed a handful threw them into his mouth and forced himself to create saliva to take out the taste.

His stomach felt a little better but he kept growing. His lungs had also grown so the air became thinner and thinner. The one advantage was that with his long legs he could move faster so he could reach the hut a lot quicker.

When he got to his hut he searched it for his tools. By this time he had grown so tall his head kept hitting the roof. He found his trusty battle ax and began hacking at the ceiling roots. He had to set down his torch so he could use both hands and it eventually went out.

He went back to his hut and could barely fit through the door he grabbed his lantern, lit it and brought it out and started working. He found that the ceiling had grown very thick, several feet in fact.

He kept hacking at the large roots forming a large round hole upwards. He got frustrated and mad and he took one mighty powerful swing that went right through four large roots and got stuck. He worked the ax up and down side to side until in one last thrust of pure strength and frustration upwards it shot up and almost disappeared into the small hole that it was in.

The only visible part of the axe handle was the very end of it and a sweet smell of fresh air came seeping through the cracks between the axe handle and the roots surrounding it.

He went to his hut and had to tear part of the door frame off to fit in. He grabbed his jigsaw went outside and started cutting away around the ax handle. When the hole was big enough he got his tree saw and cut a big hole so he could fit through When he got on top and it was afternoon and he took a good deep breath.

It was then that he remembered his stomach he went back down and tore apart the remains of his hut. to salvage all the food he could. When he ate some he grew a bit smaller and he realized that the sap beads made you get bigger and gigolops made you get smaller after you have eaten the sap. So he went to the side of the tunnel picked a bunch of the beads and put them into a small sac.

He went back on top and looked around. He had fairly underestimated the extent of the root's damage. From up here he could see for miles around and to the east he could barely see any of the forest. He saw that the roots were so tightly bunched together, it made a sturdy enough ground to walk on.
Chapter Two

Quinn started to walk to the south. The roots were hard to walk on because of the rounded roots and the roots that stick up.

After awhile of walking, the roots he was walking on got thinner and sagged under his weight. He was getting farther and farther away from his home and Lake Rikop. Finally one of the roots he stood on sagged and broke and he fell to the ground. Under him was a soft layer of grass.

When he got up he noticed that he was back to his normal size. He found himself in a grassy meadow with a path leading back north that was almost covered by roots and another path leading south. He followed the south path for awhile until it started getting thicker overhead but he pressed on.

Finally the path forked one leading back to where Lake Rikop must be and the other leading southeast. He followed the southeastern path until the sun sank low in the west. He found a clearing and set up camp gathering wood for the fire and collecting leaves to sleep on.

Next morning Quinn woke up because a root was growing underneath him.

During the night the roots had snuck up on him and were almost covering the ceiling and him. He followed the path again toward the southeast.

"This route is more beautiful than any other I've ever traveled," Quinn thought aloud.

Just then he heard a thump off to his left that sounded like a lumberjack falling a tree. He cut into the forest with his battle ax to find a gigantic male badger sharpening his claws on a mighty oak tree. Before he saw him he ducked behind a tree. He watched it in marvel that such a great and mighty beast lived.

He hadn't noticed that the wind had changed sending his smell toward the gigantic badger. The badger picked up his smell and turned to look, but Quinn was well hidden. The badger started to walk towards him. He could smell the blood of the animals that it had killed on his paws as he came closer to where he was hiding. He could hear the crunch of its feet snapping logs in two getting closer ever closer. He could see that it was at least twice as tall as he was.

Quinn was in a state of panic. He jumped out of hiding and ran out the hole he came from and tripped on a root. The badger pounced as he rolled out of the way. He sprang up, swung the battle axe, and chopped into the badgers back with a sickening crunch. The badger got up and Quinn knew that the battle was far from over.

Quinn wasn't going to let it get another chance at him, he swung the ax into his leg and he staggered a bit then slashed at his chest and jumped on him. He slid over a bit and it fell on top of his blade and it sunk deep into right shoulder almost searing off its right arm.

Quinn was not a trained fighter but he felt that before the journey was over he would be quite experienced. The badger reared on him screaming in pain.

By now blood was gathering on the ground in pools. Quinn swung clumsily at the right side of the badger's head. It slid down completely shearing off the badger's right arm. The Badger was now light headed from the loss of blood and instead of fighting to win it was fighting to survive.

Pain seared through the mighty badger's massive frame. Quinn began to feel sorry for the massive beast. But then he thought of all of the innocent creatures it had killed. With a mighty arc, blood spraying from his battle ax, he sunk the blade deep into the beast's chest. The huge badger roared with a cry of pain and anguish. It fell to the ground with a sickening crunch. He heard little gurgling then it breathed its last breath.

Blood spattered and battle weary Quinn fell to the ground in the pool of blood.
Chapter Three

His leather shirt had not protected him. The mighty badger had sunk its claws deep into his chest. His wounds had to be treated but he hadn't packed any medicine to treat a gash like this. He dug into his pack to find the sac of sap beads hoping that they might help. He popped one of the beads into his mouth and swallowed it whole. He could see it was working because the edges had started to heal and the bleeding stopped. He lay down exhausted and eventually fell asleep.

The next morning he awoke to a beautiful sunny day. Birds were singing and for the first time he didn't see any of the cursed root in sight. This morning he didn't have to run from the root, so he could look around and see what was around him. He could see the forest was in full bloom.

Surrounded by a large beautiful meadow the giant oak stood superior to all the other trees in the forest. It stood like a gigantic gravestone for the equally large badger that he had slain there. The other trees were mainly pine and aspen. He decided to climb up the great oak tree to see where he was and how far the roots had gotten to. It was a long hard climb because the larger limbs were higher up and the smaller limbs could not hold his weight .When he finally reached the highest spot in the tree he could not believe his eyes. All the roots were gone!

He set off down the path back to lake Rikop to find that the pathway was totally blocked off by a heap of dead trees that had been strangled by the roots. He could see through the dead limbs that the whole forest had been killed by the roots. He knew that he didn't have a home to go back to so he changed his mind and turned back the opposite direction. He climbed up a rather tall aspen tree that was just off the trail and saw in the far distance a mighty castle. He jumped to the ground and set off running in the direction of the castle. As he was running he could see the sky getting darker and stopped to make a shelter so if it rained he would not be caught out in the rain. He ran until he spotted a gigantic maple tree surrounded by a dead, 3 yard-thick, berry bush. He searched around the bush until he was certain that there was no easy way in. Finally he pulled out his handy dandy Swiss army pocket chain-saw and proceeded cremating the bush until it started to form a hole. As he cut deeper he found that there were sudden crops of berries. He was almost all the way through when his handy dandy Swiss army pocket chain-saw ran out of gas. Then he had to resort to Primitive Methods; he pulled out his handy dandy Swiss army pocket knife and started cutting the few branches that remained.

When got through he sat at the foot of the maple tree to catch his breath and survey his surroundings. He sat by the maple tree for an hour until he decided to search the base of the tree. Hidden under the dirt on the far side of the tree he found a latch. He decided that it must be an entrance to something so he searched around the edges when he lifted the latch a breeze of musty air came from the hole. He lifted the latch the rest of the way and threw back the door. It was extremely dark in the cavern below so he tied a rope around his lantern and lowered it down. It was several hundred feet down so he decided to tie his rope to the tree and lower himself down. As he got lower he noticed there were side passages along the walls leading in every direction. By the time he got to the end of his rope he found. That he was on a small island of some sort. There were bones bleached with age and rats ran along the outer edges, just out of the light of his lantern's light. He walked to the shore of the island to find that it was not an island after all it dropped off on all sides.

He searched the island until he found that there was a tree in the center with a oddly deformed bird in a cage hung from one of the low branches. It had a long wickedly curved beak and jet black wings. He thought it was dead until surprisingly, it spoke to him! It said, "If you free me I'll fly up and untie your rope."

Quinn was so surprised that he couldn't speak. Finally he gathered his wits enough to say, "Wh-who and what are you?"

"I am a Zlag, my name is Zethar. I was trapped in this cage by his master a thousand years ago because I ran away." It said in a rusty voice. "My master is Helgar he has seen the beginning of the world and will see the end of it - unless I can help it."

"That's impossible no one can live a thousand years. The oldest man I've heard of is only ninety-seven."

"I have lived for seven thousand eight hundred years and I don't even feel old. I have seen things that every sane minded person on this planet would think impossible."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"What good would it do if I didn't tell you. I'm trying to get you to to trust me so I can get out of this stupid cage," he said slamming his body against the wall of the cage. "Besides, the walls got tired of hearing it centuries ago."

Quinn slowly walked toward the cage but stopped suddenly when he saw the talons of the bird. They were blood red as if they had been stained frequently. He sat down on a nearby rock. Knowing that the bird was probably a killer, Quinn asked, "How have you kept alive down here for so many years without any food?"

"Zlags don't need food. I haven't eaten anything for three thousand years."

"Then why are your claws blood red?"

"All Zlag's claws are red. I'm starting to get the feeling you don't trust me."

"Well why are so many bones down here?"he asked

"I suppose you saw the tunnels on the walls while you were climbing down on your rope. Those tunnels lead from the castle. Once, a group of slaves dug those tunnels trying to escape, but by the time they got this far the nobles had caught onto them and they jumped in to their deaths."

"I'm sorry I thought that you were just a killer," Quinn apologized.

"You were wise not to trust me you should never fully put your trust into someone. There are some wizards powerful enough to change someone's mind to follow them." he warned, "But if you free me I will never consciously try to kill you."

"Do I have your word?"

"Yes, you have my word on the council of Zlagar."

He walked over and studied the latch. The latch was so simple he wondered why the bird hadn't freed himself. "This is so simple why didn't you free yourself?"

"The latch is magical, To me it weighs as much as the earth itself but anyone else could lift it with their little finger."

As Zethar said it was so light he could lift it with his little finger. As he did this the cage started to glow with a strange blue light. "Get back!" , Zethar said between clenched teeth. As Quinn stumbled backwards a look of extreme concentration came over the giant bird's face. A strange heat emanated from the cage, a heat that touched his soul rather than his body.

The cage was glowing red hot when Zethar's eyes snapped open. He slammed his wings outward into the glowing wire. Bits of molten wire flew everywhere sending the rats scurrying for cover. Quinn ducked behind a boulder. Zethar flew upward with surprising speed until he was out of sight. Then Quinn heard an ear splitting cry from above when all of the sudden Zethar shot from the darkness diving straight for the tree at top speed. At the last second he shot his wings outward and the tree exploded into a million splinters. Then before the splinters could hit the ground Zethar shouted "BURN!", and in response all of the splinters burst into white hot flame, turning to ash before they hit the ground. When most of the ash had fallen Quinn could see a crater 10 feet diameter blackened to a crisp and in the center the form of Zethar. Forgetting the ash falling everywhere Quinn ran to the form sitting in the crater where the tree used to be.

When he got there he was surprised to hear Zethar laughing. The bird looked up and said, "Do you how long I've waited to do that? Every day I promised that when I got out of that cage I wouldn't leave a trace of the cage or the tree. Oh, how wonderful it feels to be free again." he looked at Quinn, "and all because of you." He caught Quinn in a tight embrace and hugged him to the point that he could hardly breath.

Then he said, "Now to keep my promise." Then he flew up out of sight and Quinn's rope swung into view. Without thinking he began coiling the rope. When Zethar flew back down Quinn asked, "What's down over the edge of the island?"

"I don't know. I guess we'll find out."

As Quinn lowered himself over the edge and he got lower it got warmer and warmer. Then a redness appeared below him. It got brighter and brighter and then it faded in the center. Quinn was sweating a lot by then and by the time he landed on another island, he was about ready to faint.

While looking around he discovered the island was surrounded by molten lava and there was a bridge on the northern shore forming a tunnel in the wall. It would have been fine if the bridge had been whole but there was a five foot gap in the center where the bridge had fallen away. They finally decided on this plan: Zethar would hover above the gap while Quinn ran as fast as he could toward the gap and Zethar would hold his weight long enough to get to to the other side.

The plan worked brilliantly, Zethar was much stronger than Quinn had anticipated. As he was walking into the tunnel it was like a wall of cold hit him. As his foot stepped back toward the bridge the same kind of wall hit him except it was very hot, so hot in fact that his legs started to buckle as he began to faint. He was falling, then the blurred vision saw Zethar swoop down. What he saw then he could never forget. A man with a jet black cape and a crooked jaw appeared into Zethar! There was about no other way to describe it, one second was Zethar, another was the man. The man in some unseen way resembled Zethar. After that there was no time to think about it as he lapsed into unconsciousness.

Images of the roots chasing him, images of the tree burst into splinters, images of the strange bird Zethar who claimed to be seven thousand eight hundred years old, images of lava and of the strange man carrying him flooded his thoughts in unorganized patterns all shouting his name over and over and over again. Then the images whirled and whirled around him calling his name and in one loud voice screamed "Quinn!"

Quinn tried to jump up but the strange man's strong grip held him down. Still struggling, he asked between clenched teeth, "Where's Zethar!"

"Stop struggling you fool, I am Zethar."

"That's impossible Zethar's a Zlag, your a human!" Quinn said, still fighting the man's iron grip.

"That's right, Zlags can change shape."

"Oh," Quinn said feeling stupid, "I'm sorry. I say that a lot don't I?"

"Don't be sorry, I should have told you more about myself."

"OK, you tell me about yourself and I'll tell you about me."

"That sounds fair," Zethar agreed. "I'm from Zlagar, as you've probably guessed. Zlagar is a tribe in the north made up of clan members and clan chiefs. In every tribe there are ten clans. The clan chiefs make up the council of the tribe. Then there is the council chief. The council chief forms a bond with the rest of the tribes. This forms the council of Zlagar. The head of the council of Zlagar is the High chief. The ways of the Zlagar election is very stupid. Every ten years the old high chief picks a replacement and then jumps into the nearest active volcano. I tried to escape because I was selected by the high chief to be the replacement. I was held captive by my fellow Zlags and forced to be the high chief. Since they thought that the high chief knew everything they completely trusted his decision and believed that I would change.

"After being forced to rule for seven years, Helgar sensed that I was being held against my will and translocated me to his cave. For the next hundred years Helgar trained me in the arts of magic,sorcery, and witchcraft. When the three forces are applied the user can be almost invincible. In the art of sorcery there is a rite called the rite of Immortality, and as you can guess it makes you so you can't die, of natural causes anyway."

"How long do Zlags usually live," Quinn asked.

"Oh, around three hundred years, about."

"Wow and I just had my fortieth year not a month ago."
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