Hell of a Ride
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
With an urgency wrought of sheer terror, the stagecoach driver cracked his whip and spurred the horses onward. The team of four beasts frothed at the mouth, their eyes rolling wildly with exhaustion, but they did not relent. A cloud of dust rose from their pounding hooves, stinging the driver’s eyes. Somewhere behind the stagecoach, he could hear the baying and snarling of the worgs and the gleeful hoots of their orc riders.
Their path took them up a winding mountain path carved deep into the bedrock. On either side, sheer stone walls offered no alternate route. The only way was forward. The pursuit had carried on through the night. As dawn broke in a tapestry of pastel hues, the slobbering worgs showed no signs of relenting. The driver knew beyond doubt the hulking, wolf-like beasts would outlast the horses.
“Yer slowin’ down on me, Cor!” a voice boomed from the back of the stagecoach. “These damn beasts’re nippin’ at our heels!”
“Gods above,” Cormac, the driver, cursed under his breath. Then, loud enough for the voice’s owner to hear, “The horses won’t last, Otto!” He chanced a second glance back as the meaty, bald head of Otto Wellworth popped into view, jostling back and forth as the stagecoach ran over some stray stones. In spite of the circumstances, the bard wore his characteristically wide grin.
“Make ‘em last, damn it!” Otto boomed. “I’ll see what I can do back ‘ere!”
Cormac’s only reply was a second sharp crack of the whip. His urging had little effect on the rapidly tiring beasts. If anything, their pace seemed to slow.
Up and up they climbed, the air growing thinner as they gained altitude. Cormac coaxed the beleaguered horses around a sharp bend. All at once, the stone walls surrounding them gave way to open air, revealing a precipice right in front of them, a deep canyon doubtlessly filled with the sharp rock spikes and thick, brambly vines common to the Swordtooth Mountains. The stagecoach driver desperately twisted the reins, and the horses responded to the movement by cutting hard to the right, away from the sheer drop.
The stagecoach lurched and groaned in protest, kicking up loose stones and shale. Cormac’s eyes bulged as the rear half of the stagecoach skidded over the edge of the precipice, its wheels spinning freely. Time slowed for the stagecoach driver when the gargantuan frame of Otto Wellworth, still grinning and whooping, shook loose from his precarious perch on the back of the vehicle and launched out into the open air.
*****
The hapless bard’s corded muscles strained as he hefted his pride and joy, the twin-headed battle-axe guitar known simply as ‘The Axe’. He twisted to reorient himself and lunged, stretching his right arm, and the weapon, to their fullest length. The bard beamed as one curved blade of the marvelous weapon hooked over the small step leading up to the door of the vehicle. The rear wheels of the stagecoach regained traction and it completed the turn unscathed, but Otto’s celebration proved to be short-lived, as the motion jerked him into the vertical stone face of the cliff with a sickening crunch, before dragging his bruised and battered body up over the edge and onto flat ground. The horses, terrified and whinnying, did not respond to Cormac’s frenzied cries to slow down, and so Otto was along for the ride, bouncing and scraping behind the stagecoach as it surged onward.
Otto Wellworth could not remember the last time he had known such excitement.
“Look at the coffin with golden handles!” he boomed, the song flowing freely from him. “Isn’t it grand to be bloody well dead! Look at the tombstone, bloody great boulder! Isn’t it grand to be bloody well dead?”
As the last words left his lips, a sharp crack signalled the end of the stagecoach step, Otto’s battle-axe snapping the thing in two. For the second time in as many minutes, the bard experienced a moment of weightlessness. Then he crashed back down to earth, skidding and tumbling, with no sense of up and down. Finally, his momentum ran out and he landed in a heap on the warm stone.
“La ta tee, da diddley dee, la ta tee ta tee da,” he groaned, his wide smile stained with blood and dirt. “Hell of a time, Cormac! Thanks fer the ride!”
A low, throaty growl interrupted Otto’s attempt at humor. He swung his bald head to look behind him, and found himself peering into the jaundiced, bloodshot eyes of a giant worg.
*****
As the stagecoach rounded another bend, more cautiously this time, Cormac allowed the horses to slow. Gallop to canter, canter to trot, trot to walk, and then they were still. The horses whinnied and nickered nervously, not convinced the threat of the terrifying worgs was at an end. Their long, muscled legs trembled with exertion.
“Damn the bard’s stinking hide,” Cormac growled. His heart pounded in his chest. He had hired Otto Wellworth to protect his master, as an escort through the dangerous canyons and winding, bramble-choked roads of the Swordtooth Mountains. Instead, the bard’s booming songs and the magically amplified notes of his perplexing battle-axe guitar had brought every orc in the gods-forsaken mountains down upon their heads. “Good riddance.” The stagecoach driver spat into the dirt.
Yet Cormac found himself looking back down the road toward where he had callously abandoned Otto. He had a duty to his master, that much was true, but the young man also considered himself to be a man of principle. It did not sit right with him to leave Otto to certain death. Heaving a sigh of frustration, he swung his legs to the side of the stagecoach and dropped to the dirt. He drew his thin rapier and strode to the door of the vehicle, rapping on it with his knuckles.
“Madam?” he said, concerned his master might have been knocked unconscious at some point during their wild ride.
The door cracked open, and he was relieved to see the pale blue eye of Lady Alrentis peering at him. “Are they gone?” The words emerged almost as a whimper.
“For now, madam,” Cormac replied. “But our escort is gone with them. Lost his footing and fell from the stagecoach.”
“A shame,” came Lady Alrentis’s sarcastic reply.
“Indeed.” Cormac bared his teeth in a humorless grin. “With your blessing, madam, I would like to go back for him. Otto Wellworth may be a mercenary, but I fear we may not survive our journey without his protection.”
“Protection?” the dignitary scoffed. “By my estimation he brings more danger than he prevents.”
Her words rang true in Cormac’s ears, but the stagecoach driver remained insistent. “Madam, you will hear no argument from me on that point, but the fact remains that I am ill-equipped to handle the next enemies who take notice of our passage.” He brandished his meager rapier to illustrate his point. “A single worg would prove my equal, while it would take a score or more to defeat Otto Wellworth.”
Lady Alrentis sighed from within the depths of the stagecoach. “Very well, Cormac. You have my blessing. But make haste,” she warned, “for we must make our way out of these mountains by nightfall.”
“Very well.” Cormac pulled the stagecoach door closed and listened for the click of Lady Alrentis engaging the lock. “Do not open this door until I return.”
Twirling the diminutive sword in his hand, Cormac set off back up the road toward Otto’s position. The dust cloud from the stagecoach’s wild ride had yet to settle, gritty particles drifting through the air to settle on the stagecoach driver’s fine clothes. This high in the mountains, unprotected by the sheer cliffs that held back the blazing sun, heat shimmered in the air in front of him. Beads of sweat traced long paths down his face, drenching the collar of his shirt.
As Cormac neared the corner around which Otto had fallen, he drew a steadying breath and ran the back of his free hand across his forehead. While he had dispatched an orc or two in service to Lady Alrentis, the inexperienced stagecoach driver had never met the likes of a worg face to face. Yet still he turned the corner, bound by a strict code of morality that transcended his own safety.
The scene before him stole Cormac’s breath. The road bordering the precipice had ruptured, leaving deep furrows and cracks. A massive pillar of stone had erupted from the center of the battlefield, towering more than ten feet tall and five across, like the trunk of an ancient tree. Strewn across the road, the corpses of a score of orcs and words lay still, their limbs bent and broken at odd angles. If any of their foes had survived the encounter, they had fled back the way they came.
And Otto Wellworth, the infamous mercenary, was nowhere to be seen.
*****
Otto tumbled through endless darkness. While he could not feel the wind rushing by his face, he nevertheless knew he was falling by the churning sensation in the pit of his stomach. Clutching The Axe tightly, the bard whistled a soft tune, unperturbed by the bizarre situation in which he had landed. Adventure was Otto Wellworth’s middle name, and this was shaping up to be quite an adventure indeed.
Then, he stopped. Still suspended in utter darkness but no longer falling, Otto peered into the distance as the silhouette of a man approached. As the figure neared, it did not resolve into a recognizable person as Otto had anticipated. Instead, it remained a vague, blurred outline. All at once, a mellifluous voice filled Otto’s mind. My name is Omni. This is not the world you know. This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.
Still whistling, and without an alternative, Otto watched as the mysterious figure produced a swirling, rainbow orb.
This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most. You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn. That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching … and waiting.
The darkness faded, replaced by stark, bright light. Otto once again found himself on solid ground, his brow furrowed in consternation.
“What in the name of me bald head,” he grumbled, trying to make sense of the last several minutes. He wondered, not for the first time, if he had whacked his head one too many times. The ache in his muscles, and the many bloody scrapes and purplish-yellow bruises he had sustained in his battle with the orcs, told him this was not a dream. He had indeed been transported… someplace else.
As one always seemed to in times of confusion and hardship, a tune popped into Otto's head. Shrugging his broad shoulders, the implacable bard raised The Axe and began to play.