Adrian's External

Now for the pleasure of the several individuals who read this, the last installment. Feel free to read this part and then the preceding one (that is, the linear order) or read the previous and then this last one (which is my preferred order, with my favourite ending).

Now how did Adrian resolve the dragon incident to eventually make his way back?

Adrian had tip-toed carefully into the cavern, the hot breath condensed on his face and mixed with sweat. Around a corner there was a cage comprised of bones, as though the food had assisted with the décor. Inside were two cadavers and three gaunt figures whose eyes followed him as he approached.

‘Shh,’ he said. The captured heroes barely displayed signs of life.

‘Are you here for the lentil?’ one said shakily.

‘Yes. What is up ahead?’

‘Tis an abhorrent dragon, friend. He captured us one by one, and eats us periodically. Two have managed to will themselves out of the apprehension.’ He pointed at the bodies.

‘Eww. Look, stay here – I’ll find a way to break you out.’

Adrian tried to wyrm his way into the inner lair. The old thing’s senses were still as sharp as ever, and nearly toppling him backwards came its booming voice.

‘Who is it that dares intrude upon my hoard?’

The muzzle of the massive creature filled Adrian’s vision.

‘It is I, Sir Adrian Salem of the Clockwork City,’ said Adrian after recovering from the shock.

‘What is your purpose here, Adrian Salem?’

‘I have come to claim the Golden Lentil,’ Adrian said.

‘Golden Lentil? What Golden Lentil? Aren’t lentils brown, mushy and tasteless vegetables?’ it bellowed. ‘A dragon has no use for those!’

‘You may have got it wrong, noble Dragon. Contrary to popular belief, lentils are delicious and nutritious! I have come for the one you may have mistaken for gold,’ the knight rebutted.

‘Very well, but you should know I cannot let you simply walk within and take what you like. Also, contrary to popular belief, not all dragons are noble creatures.’ The thing slowly began to move. Adrian realised what was happening and ran. From behind, a great boom rippled out from the dragon’s footstep. Adrian reached the bone cage and tried to look for a lock or door.

‘It’s no use. Dragons have no thumbs, they don’t build a cage with a door,’ said one of the food prisoners.

‘I’m not going to leave you people behind!’

‘Are you kidding? Save yourself!’

‘Okay.’ Adrian was sure he could hear the lumbering, elderly monster drawing breath. He made it around the corner in the cave and didn’t look back, but the scorch and glow made it clear what it had just done. He spared a moment’s thought for the heroes who had gone before him, but before he continued on there was a heave noise and a thunderous crash.

Adrian ventured a look around the corner after several beats. The giant reptile lay still on the ground. Dead? he thought. It still wasn’t moving.

‘Well that was anticlimactic,’ he said to himself. Behind where the dragon had emerged from was a pile of plunder, including the armour of several knights. Right on top lay a golden, sparkling, roughly pillow shaped object – the Golden Lentil. The issue plaguing his mind was how to get back carrying the damn thing, more implicitly how to descend the mountain.

Back outside the cave he got a chance to really survey the countryside; it wasn’t a bad place to be. His mind slipped into thinking about how he had spent most of his life in the Clockwork City before becoming a knight, and presently parts of his life were showing themselves before his eyes. The feeling of a presence came upon him and from behind a woman’s voice as sticky as honey and dark as ebony said:

‘Why hello again, Adrian. Care for a dance?’

Adrian's End (For Now)

Unconventional, yes, but this whole writing is yet to be consolidated as a whole anyway - so for reasons that I might make clearer later, here is the chronologically last part of the story:

Finally Adrian had claimed the Golden Lentil and returned to the Clockwork City. Just in time, too, because people were beginning to starve to death. He was outside the western gate and talking to the same man who had sent him on this journey.

‘Your clues were helpful… I guess,’ he mumbled.

Egghead sighed, ‘I’m afraid that if I hadn’t given you those clues you wouldn’t have had such a hard time. It’s all to do with narrative flow.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, never mind. Anyway, you’d better get that Lentil in the ground.’

Adrian ceremoniously lowered the legume into a hole dug by the substantially compensated farmer. As soon as the earth was replaced over it, a plant more than two metres tall burst from within the ground like a firework. Within seconds, pods had exploded all around, and any fertile soil within a kilometre was springing with lentils itself. Within a clearing in the forest, a new lentil plant was approached by a battle scarred spinach which made whistling noises, and the fields of the fiefdom were filled with plentiful and healthy food.

The story of Adrian and the Golden Lentil was spread throughout the land, and before long the City became a regional tourist attraction. Out of the flow of foreigners, the Prince was even able to trap a wife. That certainly calmed him down. Everyone in the end lived happily – until the next time Adrian was needed to help them out.

Adrian's Precipice

This part in turn follows on from Adrian's Dialog.

‘Adrian Salem, Knight of the Clockwork City,’ the woman pronounced. ‘I admit that many would not predict this happening so soon.’

‘Do I know you?’ Adrian said.

‘It is a matter of perspective. We were bound to meet sooner or later.’

The woman stepped into what seemed to be light, but in this nothing Adrian could not be sure. What he did see as the figure drew closer though, was that her pupils were not black and round but made the shape of skulls in the iris.

‘You’re… her… aren’t you?’ he began with fearful reverence. ‘What can you do for me?’

‘Theoretically, anything, Adrian,’ she swung the scythe with a sense of drama, ‘although the price would, lamentably, reduce the effectiveness of the deal.’

‘Why do I have to be here?’

‘You asked a favour from the swamp lady. I was indebted to her in turn, so here I am for you.’

‘Then why is everything gone?’ Adrian looked around. Something was almost visible in the nothing.

‘It gets like this when you are close to Death.’ She stepped closer and the image in the distance became a baby, growing fast, whom Adrian recognised all too well.

‘Can you get me to the mountains alive?’ Rightfully, Adrian was a little nervous.

‘Of course!’ She now turned away from him and his lifetime faded away. She faced him again and said, ‘it may require, say, a “brush” to take you that far.’

‘A brush?’

‘Okay.’ Death grabbed his hand and Adrian felt the sensation of being pulled free of a guillotine only in the nick of time – then a noise you would think to be a motorbike running out of petrol. After this he was standing halfway up a steep incline, a valley visible around the bulge of the mountain but not where he was heading.

‘Excuse that, but this is as far as it will take you. I know we will meet again, Adrian. I won’t spoil the surprise though.’ The voice faded away and he was alone in a wild country with only a fading memory of where to go. Somewhere towards the crest of this hill was the cave where who-knows-what stood between him and the prize he required so desperately.

Adrian skimmed down and stood on the goat track winding up the hill, when out of the blue the scene from Egghead returned with a possible alternative route. The cave he was to enter formed an opening to the subsystem under the mountain range, but further down the slope was a larger, horizontal entrance that would take a longer walk to find the Lentil and alleviate him from sliding down a long precarious shaft.

Lo and behold there was such a cave on this side of the rise but celebration was extinguished by a loud, deep breathing that wafted out onto Adrian’s face. Though he would didn't know it yet, an ancient dragon had taken up residence in the cave and now guarded the Lentil jealously as part of its hoard.

Adrian's Dialog

This continues from Adrian's Amble, I apologise if it comes off as a bit boring, I promise that the next part is more interesting :)

The goo reaching just below his neck and the breathable air having quickly turned to hot, reeking steam, Adrian was nearly driven to despair. Unusually, though, the sinking stopped and he stood there – nearly immersed but definitely alive. Several seconds passed where nothing happened, the gloop of a bubble the only sound in the cookie cottage until a wrinkled arm shot up out of the “water”.

‘Blaa!’ he said, startled. Adrian would have jumped but the liquid was too viscous. The old, purplish hand was holding a disembodied eye. Another arm shot up out of the muck and the hand made the shape of a mouth – it began to “talk” to him in a clear and whiny voice, as if the hand itself had a voice box.

‘Why, you aren’t a child! Why go to all the trouble of building a place like this if all I catch are disgusting old men – hmm?’

‘I’m not an old man,’ Adrian complained.

‘Well you might as well be.’ The hand clicked its fingers. The house was gone and Adrian was simply in the middle of the swamp. ‘This place is supposed to look like whatever you want most on the outside. Could never quite get the inside to work though, always ends up as a gingerbread house.’

‘I don’t see the point of –’

‘Quiet.’ The hand lent forward. ‘Is that spinach that I can smell?’

‘Sure, but –’

‘Why didn’t you say so?’ The hands disappeared beneath the surface, and quickly the head and torso of a short, bulbous hag emerged. The hag squished the eye back into its socket, and she clicked her fingers again; Adrian was now standing only knee deep in the slippery ooze.

‘Come on – let us have the spinach, love. If there’s one thing I like more than children, it’s spinach.’ Now it was talking with its mouth, as well as slavering profusely.

He began to reach into his pocket but stopped abruptly.

‘You’ve got to promise me that I can leave the swamp, and that you’ll show me in the right direction to the mountains.’

‘Alright, alright, anything if you give me that spinach!’

‘And I – well if it’s anything…’

‘Yes, yes, anything, give me the food!’

‘I want you to take me there. Take me to the Lentil.’

‘The what?’

‘Look, just use your magic or something – you people know all sorts of tricks.’

‘I will call you in a favour I’m owed, okay? Now make with the spinach.’

Adrian handed over the green stalk, and everything began to fade away. That isn’t to say that he fainted, but the whole of everything but himself faded out of view and left him standing in nothing. A blackness was formed in front of him – out of it came a young woman in a hooded cloak, carrying something in her arms.

Adrian's Amble

This follows on from Adrian's Quest.

Adrian left the city through the western gate – unceremoniously nicknamed ‘the armpit’ by the populace. Around here was the farmland that was so desperate for something to grow. Sir Adrian, being the upstanding gentleman he was, ‘donated’ a considerable amount of gold to one of the farmers to make it easier to tell him in which direction he could travel to make it through the forest.

‘See,’ said the farmer, pointing at a tree that looked no different from any others. ‘Along that path and you should be at the swamp. I suppose that beyond it are the mountains.’

‘But there is no path!’ said Adrian.

‘You have to squint just right to see it,’ the farmer said.

In here the trees were so close together that only a weak, tea coloured light penetrated the canopy. The only thing he could be sure of was that he was moving away from the city. As afternoon turned into dusk, Adrian began to understand why this wasn’t the Happy Bunny Forest. Owls hooting in the distance, and a wolf’s howl once darkened his mood to an idle apprehension. He came to a small clearing – or at least what amounted to one, it was barely four metres across – where a patch of spinach wavered in the night breeze. Obviously puzzled, but still wary, Adrian bent down to grab some. The spinach shrunk away into the ground like a crab at the beach. When he stood up, the spinach popped up again several steps away. He went to grasp it and yet again it was sucked back into the dirt. Looking over his shoulder, the patch had now reappeared on the other side of the clearing.

‘Third time’s a charm.’ He dived for the ground and snatched the tip of the plant as it went away. There was a ripping sound and a screech. Something tapped his shoulder. Slowly Adrian turned around and saw, noting that it hadn’t been there before, a large willow tree with two knots on the front. The branches above gave the impression of it frowning. The thing on his shoulder was another limb. He casually pushed it away, but a large groaning creak from within the tree made his eyes widen with fear.

‘Oh. No.’ The tree reached out with its branches, but Adrian was no longer there. He ran and ran, trees ripping at the cloak covering his chain mail, boughs glancing off of his pauldrons. All of a sudden the most horrible stench reached his nose and he realised he must have been nearing the swamp. Up ahead was a cliff side with a well-worn door in it. He dodged the last irate tree and clambered inside.

There was a sweet aroma in the air. Perhaps it was just more desirable than the pong of the “flatulent” swamp. He pulled out a match from his breastplate and struck it on something. He couldn’t see a cave at all, but the interior of what he imagined looked like a gingerbread house of all things. He took a step forward and a tile in the floor moved. The walls around him began to lower. Bubbling up was stinking ooze. He tried the door and it didn’t budge. He began to frantically bash on the walls and windows but to no avail. The whole place was sinking into the swamp and Adrian had no way out.

Adrian's Quest

Here's the start of a serialized version of one of my short stories.

The citizens of the Clockwork City were a morbid bunch, due to the many rules and regulations with which the Prince had constrained them since the death of the King. The Prince did not like his city or his circumstance. Being, in his opinion, a perfectly organised person, he couldn’t stand the disorganisation of an entity with the word Clock in its title. For example, the rains were late, the people were hungry and whichever girl was going to marry him was nowhere to be seen – without a Queen he could not be King. This story is not about proving whether the Prince was competent, evil or good though; it is about Sir Adrian, Knight of the City on his quest to find the fabled Golden Lentil.

‘The what?’ Adrian laughed.

‘I said, to feed the people and raise their spirits, you must find the Golden Lentil!’ repeated the wizened old Egghead. ‘The Golden Lentil is a huge, magical lentil; it will grow many lentil trees and provide food for decades to come. The only problem is it is located in a land far to the west – beyond the Foreboding Forest and the Flatulent Swamp. Anyway, we need a knight to go there.’

‘And that knight is me?’ said Adrian sceptically.

‘Not necessarily, there is William,’ Egghead muttered.

‘I’ll do it. But what exactly do I do?’ Adrian said.

‘You simply make your way through those lands to the ancient resting place of the treasure.’

‘What if it isn’t there?’ said Adrian.

‘I will give you three clues,’ Egghead continued, unabated, ‘the first is the true location of the bean, only known in thoughts, not in words.’ Egghead touched his fingers to Adrian’s head. A flash of a cave, and something large – and alive; then a wide, sweeping image of the mountain scenery, showing him the route to climb.

‘The second is a message from the last hero who attempted to find the Lentil.’ Adrian heard in another voice the phrase: ‘Oh, it hurts, so badly!’

‘Wait.’ Egghead’s message stopped. ‘A little further back than that,’ he mumbled. There were sounds like a mosquito flying backwards and then ‘The hag likes spinach.’

‘The hag likes… huh? What’s the point of that?’ Adrian was becoming impatient.

‘The final clue is… that contrary to popular belief, lentils are delicious and nutritious.’

‘This is ludicrous - how am I supposed to make it to the western mountains and all the way back again with nothing but a mental image and some stupid sayings?’

‘That is up to you,’ Egghead was gone when Adrian tried to look at him.