https://wayneoconner.com/carnival-world-book-one-all-chapters/

Copyright 2025 (TXu002497745)

CARNIVAL WORLD CHAPTER 34

Padre, my Dwarven Cleric, muttered “Come in Laddie, it is dreich ootside!”
Bard replied, “Indeed, Niijii, Padre, it is wet and miserable out there!”
Padre grunted and started the health summary he knew that I, Orlando Bard, expected, “Aye wanted ta give oot sedatives. Ghordo the Half Orc mercenary is oot cold with broken ribs. ‘Cept for that stubborn she-elf, Knorn.

She refused. But she’s sleepin’ now. She keeps talkin’ ‘bout a dragon named Enchantra. The young Elf lass seems to be huggin’ somethin’ and a carryin’ on in her sleep like she’s readin’ one o’ them Creator-dammed drama books! That she elf’s bum oot the windae!”
“Exaggerating or imagining things, Padre? Maybe. Apparently, Mystica does seem to suffer certain disabilities that stem from a traumatic childhood event. And then, you remember Padre, the horrible events that first night she came to Carnival City, and her parents were assassinated and she almost died, too.
“Lying. Or literally crazy. No.” Orlando shook his head, then asked, “Is she hurt?” in a gravelly whisper. “I will never hear the end of it from Princess Quetzi, if that is the case.”
“Nae. The wee beastie just got the wind knocked oot o’ her. Her last battle was with a Hob female with a club. She got smacked a couple o’ times. Her leather armor and knowin’ how to sidestep just enough to less’n the blow helped.
“That saved her broken or cracked ribs I’m a thinkin’, Bard. Bein’ wacked with axes would o’ been worse. Axes, when wielded right, cut through armor, Orrie, me boy, be it leather or metal.
“Nae, Laddie, her lady lordship will be fine with a good night’s sleep.” Padre continued, “Knorn will give you the shirt off her back, but she has a temper. She gets madder than a wet hen if the fightin’ gets rough. Knorn will yell a stream o’ cuss words that would make a Dwarf smith blush and tell ‘em they can’t do whatever they are a doin’, whether it’s swingin’ a mace at her or pelting her with rocks. She’s a good fighter, tho’, or she wouldn’t still be ‘round! And she’s nae yet a grown woman Elf!”
Orlando the bard agreed nonchalantly, then shrugged, and flipped up the hood of his oil skin cloak. “She is an Elf Ranger from the Knorn family. And occasionally, when she’s angry she moves so fast that she literally becomes a blur – she is a descendent of the ancient elder race. Nordic Elves. She seems to have no control of that ability. Maybe when she is older.
“Zandar’s race are good people. I mean Elves. High Elves, technically. Royal family line, but all that is just a memory. Good people, but a bit proud and stubborn.
“Her Uncle Zandar is old as the hills. Old even for an Elf. Voice like a bull, skin like flaking ivory parchment, and about as agile as a newborn cat. Used to be an adventurer like me and a Ranger, too.
“Bought Mystica an apprenticeship with the Flying Serpent Guild.
“The headmistress, when she was barely hatched, joined Old Zandar’s adventuring group. Just barely a teen back then. She was Naga, but took human form, permanently, upon leaving puberty, then disavowed the old snake gods and pledged herself to Creator. And as far as I know she has served him faithfully for several centuries.”
Padre smiled, but with only one side of his mouth, then stroked his dwarven beard. “Princess Quetzi.
“Aye, laddie, her hair is white as mountain top snow, but with a pale blue tint, and her human form is beautiful, yah must admit! Her skin twinkles in the sunlight if yah look at her oot o’ the corner o’ yer eye. Hard ta believe she was born one o’ them feathered serpent beasties. Hatched from an egg, nae less!”
Orlando grinned, thinking how the Dwarf sounded more Scotch Irish than himself. One of the strange mysteries of Carnival World. It was not earth but there were many parallels. “Princess Quetzi is very kind and very wise.
“She has not told Mystica Knorn yet, that her Uncle Zander passed his “avuncular” duties off onto our patron, the soon-to-be headmistress of the Flying Serpent Guild.
Zander is just too old to travel these days and must be tended to by his servants. The venerable elf does send a monthly stipend to Quetzi for his niece’s care. I hope he makes peace with Creator and His Son before he passes.”
Padre’s thick eyebrows danced as he nodded in agreement. “Aye, laddie. Creator, His Son, and my grandfather, arrre nae on old Zandar’s favorite person’s list. If he weren’t a grudge holder, he’d have moved on and forgiven them already. Reminds me of that famous Orc saying, ‘Yer holdin’ onto a hate that doesn’t have no more grounds than a hill o’ beans.The words o’ that saying are malformed, Laddie, but aye ken the meaning well enough.’” The cleric reached toward a pocket, then stopped, flapped his eyebrows again, then merely grunted.
“As for the talk about a dragon and the fact that it looks like she is holding something in her sleep… she is of the elder race, Padre, like I just said.
“Some of them see glimpses of the future, during the day in visions and at night in their dreams. The first of the elder race had bodies almost like angels.
“Well, they weren’t really angels, superhuman though. A few hundred of them, after providing service above and beyond the call of duty in a faraway cosmic war, or so the ballads say, they asked for a new planet where they could retire and have families.
“Creator gave them a province east of here, about half-way up the north range of the Misty mountains but asked them not to make war with the other inhabitants. Creator did make allowance for them to defend themselves, as necessary. Made alliances like King Solomon did, in that Bible of yours, Padre, with many races, royal and even with good families in villages, throughout the mountains, plains and along the seacoasts.
“They interbred first with the native humans, near their first settlement, and you have the modern Nordic Elves. A few generations down the line following their racial hybridization, and an occasional human in the mix through the centuries after that, and voila – High Elves. Tall, strong, and fast without even working at it. Zandar was a few inches taller than me, until he lost four inches of vertebrae following his one thousandth year of life. His shoulders were wider than mine, but nowhere near as wide as Anya the Barbarian maid’s people.
“Mystica is not a tiny, darkly creamy brown Wood Elf, like our Flyt. Those Wood Elves are a Fey and Nordic elf hybrid. Small, but great snipers and have hands as deft as a trained rogue. They are as good or better than a Ranger at wood craft. And they can charm animals and communicate with and befriend them.
“Well, some of the Wood Elves, as well as other Elven races, like the Snow Elves, Sea Elves, and Golden Elves became an infra-variety of Wood Elf, too. If you look closely, they have copper glints in their eyes, but the genetic marking of the other Elves, favors the Elven Ancestry, rather than that of the first Nordic Elves, the off-planet super soldiers.
When the Nordic Elf marries with a Human or Barbarian, the genetic markers, more often than not, favor traits from the super soldier ancestry. High Elves, the Nordic Elf and Barbarian/Human hybrids display more hybrid vigor, even to the point that some later offspring have full copper and yellow eyes.
“Remember Padre, when you told Mystica, that first time, when she demanded we give her back her baby blue dragon, when she woke from her first dream about it? And she wouldn’t stop arguing with us when we told her she had just been dreaming!”
Padre grunted, “Aye those, what did you a call them Laddie? Old-penny eyes, yah; they flashed hard as daggers at me. She yelled, ‘One!’ Never got ta two. Never does. Stiff as a ramrod that five foot nine she-elf. She’s five ten, now, aye reckon. Mystica wore her anger like a cloak! Lass didn’t speak a naught ta me unless she had ta, for almost fifty days!”
Orlando chuckled, “She is a grudge holder. Always has been, even when she first came to us, months ago, and was only five feet six inches tall and tom boy thin! She’s sprouting like a weed, Padre!”
Padre grunted and nodded from his place by the fire.
Orlando continued, “But she is a good girl. Quetzi has recently made connections with the Crystalins. They are a quartz-based creature that can assume any form. Usually, they become a dragon or a human/humanoid.
“Mark my words, one of these days Mystica will probably get that little blue dragon! Quetzi will find one for her!
“Might be trouble though, I think, if that happens, Padre. Mystica will think of the dragon as a pet like her three cats she had at Zander’s castle. Enchantra’s species, if that is what she calls him or her, are highly intelligent, and a sentient species, not mere pets. Crystalins are very proud and independent. Sounds like someone we know!”
Padre nodded, chuckled, flashed his eyebrow dance, then took a pipe out from the pocket of his thick green cloak, stamped with the clover and lanced snake symbol of St. Patrick’s Guild. The young, but old according to human years, Dwarf Priest, tamped his pipe, and grabbed an ember with his tong. He then lit the pipe with a combination of quick fluttering puffs followed by several slow strong puffs. He widened his dark brown dwarven eyes, mumbled and offered his tobacco bag.
Orlando, nodded in the negative, then casually lifted his large, strong scarred hands in a shooing gesture, “No, thanks, Padre. Not tonight. I am a special occasions kind of pipe guy.”
Bard looked at the fire, watching and listening. The red embers popped and snapped.
There was a draft hole that opened in the ceiling above the fire, which was well away and back from the cavern entrance, that drew a draft into the hollows of the caverns.
He had used this cave several times before losing count and the smell of smoke, or the odors of roasting food, never exited past the camouflaged branch that rested against the hill that contained the cave entrance.
It had been Bard’s suspicion that the two rooms of his hidden cave were part of the huge Goblin Caves system located far up into the footings of the Smoky Blue Mountains north and a bit east of Carnival City.
He forced his medium brown eyes to look away and reminded himself, it is not good to stare into a campfire. It ruins the night vision.
Not a good thing, knowing that half men and monsters roamed the borderlands. If there was an attack, I would probably hear them or smell them first, but…

CARNIVAL WORLD, CHAPTER 35

Bard had cleared his reminiscing mind, then draped his coat over a waist high pile of rocks. Stretching again, he then removed his leather armor and sat it away from the pooling water. He said, “I am going to hit the hay, Padre. After you relax a bit and finish your visit with puff the magic dragon, you should do the same but give me a few hours. I’ll take second watch. Knorn is sleeping. Ghordo is out for the count. Paladin Rob is no longer with us. Hopefully, he’s recovering in St. Patrick’s Hospital. Klawse, the blue Feyhoomon fighter is dead, too. At least he was a good fighter.
“We had to give old Blue Boy the Feyhoomon the left foot of fellowship at the Adventurer’s Inn Guild. Klawse, on the other hand, was more high maintenance than Ghordo, but he was an asset to the Guild!
“That strutting little cobalt peacock, Blue Boy, always shirked chores and tried to use other people as human shields. He hadn’t worked out as a Bounty Hunter or as an inn worker.
“But he was perfect for playing the Peasant character in the games. Once that little dirt troll—” Bard laughed, used a Beach Boys tune, not exactly the same, but just a tad differently than the original – Little Deuce Coope – and he sang few lines a Capella:
“He’s a little dirt troll! Do ya know what I mean?
“That Blue Boy’s got
“The dirtiest duds
“In the whole damn to…wn.
“His chronic halitosis gonna put you do…wn.
“Feyhoomon’s gotta dirty potty mouth!
He makes the little children… and the grammas cry!
Yeah, he’s a little dirt troll! Do ya know what I mean!
Yeah, he’s a little dirt troll! Do ya know what I m…ea…n!
Bard continued, “Once Blue Boy spent the money for Master Skill Game training, in the Carnival Game Tourneys, he had many fans. Not so much the gamers, but the gamblers. He won odds, even though he rarely won a tourney.
“It is either first or nothing for Carnival Game tourneys, as far as winning, but for the gamblers, long shot, place and show, and trifecta bets won wads of cash, sometimes on that little potty mouth freakazoid. Although, as long as your character doesn’t suffer a holographic kill, or get disqualified, everyone who finishes the game bows to the audience, after the game. and wins a secondary victory.
“Odds were, once Blue Boy the Peasant had a few games under his belt, and he earned his skill game training certificate, he often placed in the first three betting types. He would even bet on himself, and win more gambling, than playing the game!
“Blue Boy was as fake as astro turf, Padre, but The Adult Irish Pub Casino owners pooled their large gold pieces and bribed him $1000 to have him relocate out east. He fit in well with that crowd and is a celebrity now.”
Padre grunted, at least three times, then frenziedly puffed a great guff of cherry flavored smoke into the cave and scowled over his pipe.
Momentarily he removed his Calabash from his mouth, and gestured with it, as if he was about to pontificate a holy sermonic acclamation.
The Dwarf Cleric shook his head like a mountain goat, and his beard braids danced wildly. Expelling a long and deep, raspy, whistling grunt of irritation, through his pursed lips, Padre exclaimed heatedly, “Feyhoomon males are all the same, Laddie! Darrrk blue, rrrude, hellish, bullishly self-centered, unholy, and uncouth and nae ta be trrrusted.
Padre paused, swallowed, then continued, “Feyhoomon females are all horny little mischief makers, and a bit self-centered, too, but they are usually good natured for all o’ that. I would rather traipse around with a grumpy, sarcastic Orc, than with a male Feyhoomon, Creator rest his blue soul!”
Padre’s eyes flew wide, and his eyebrows did the cancan. He gestured with his meerschaum once more, then mumbled a garbled apology, as he cautiously glanced over at the sleeping Ghordo. He scowled again, looked back at Orlando, and continued with less heated enthusiasm, but with a note of finality, “Good riddance, I say, Laddie! Good riddance!”
Bard continued, “The Barbarian, Keegan, was just a male human native from this planet, not a rich earth citizen who could afford a resurrection contract. Because I knew him as a friend, his loss is all the greater.
Padre grunted, “Aye knew ya would be bringin’ that up Laddie. Aye may not feel as responsible, but aye feel the loss as deeply. Keegan was a fine laddie.
“Aye think his birth name was Keegano, Orlando, but the wee beastie never liked it. Nae one bit. I think that tall drink o’ water told me that only his mother, his sister, his Chief and his betrothed had his permission to call him Keegano, no one else, me or you included, Orlando. Aye was just startin’ ta feel like an uncle ta him. You, Orlando, have been his adopted uncle for years. The lad has been with us for a few years now, Laddie. Our Keegan never made eighteen years of age, and his poor sister, Anya, the lass is aboot a year younger. Both o’ them joined us, the older about a month afore the other, not long after the Carnival started.
“Creator knows what He is a doin’ but sometimes it is hard cheese to swallow for us meager servants a servin’ him. And we arrre left to explain the mystery.
“With us dwarves, as the old sayin’ goes, ‘it is not hard to tell the difference between a dwarf and a ray o’ sunshine.’ Proverbs 25:2 says, ‘It is the glory of God to conceal, but the honor of a king is to search out a matter.’
“Aye don’t always ken why Creator does, or allows things ta happen the way they do, Niijii Orlando, but by faith, aye must say, Father knows best and Keegan is now with the Son, in a fine, Jesu-crafted abode in the heavenlies.”
“For all o’ that, my heart pains me, Orlando. Keegan was a fine lad, bold and good-natured, full o’ honor and stronger than an auroch. We will all miss that lad.
“Except when the lad was oot with us on bounty huntin’, almost every day, for three months, Keegan was at me and Anselm’s home fellowship meeting, or in Bishop Patrick’s private social room. Keegan was thinkin’ ta leave bounty huntin’, lad, to take clerical orders with St. Patrick’s Guild? Did ya ken that, lad?”
I replied, “No, Keegan asked me about Creator, but I just thought he wanted to make his peace with Him. I didn’t see that from the end of the road, Niijii Padre. I thought he was still as eager to be a bounty hunter as when I first met him.
“He was a younger cousin to those two barbarians I met, a long time ago, on the edge of a mountain overlook, while I was camped and cooking a pan full of elk meat and a side dish of wild potatoes and carrots.
“When I had later visited the tribe, he was a tall for his age, wide-eyed boy, chock full of questions, with big hands, big ears, and big feet who took a liking to me when his cousin introduced me to the tribe. Well, most of that tribe is like that, well-built and handsome. That tribe runs to tall, well-built, good-looking guys and gals.
“Keegan, as a boy, convinced many in his tribe to make the long trek and visited the carnival a few times. They always wanted to stay at my inn. They loved the wall mounts and nature exhibits and listening to my bard shows. And as children, he and his sister loved the carnival. And his sister, Anya, came to be with us about a month later than her brother. Family wanted to test the waters, so to speak, and see how Keegan fared before sending her. Keegan actually brought them for the first Carnival Game! Keegan and Anya stayed in Cordova and his wife’s inn room and were late to go into the Carnival. I think they went shopping in the Eastern Commons at the souvenir shops, first.
“When he became a man, Keegan wanted to take training with me as a bounty hunter. Both he and his sister worked around the inn for a few months before he took Bounty Hunter training.The tribes tend to make their children become adults when they are not much past thirteen.
“I deeply feel the loss, Padre. I feel responsible.”
Padre puffed, cocked his head slightly, giving Bard a compassionate glance, and grunted.
“Unfortunately,” lamented Orlando,. He sighed and toed his moccasin on the cavern floor. “Keegan’s body is still out there. Somewhere. I didn’t find it.
“He’s gone, but he died bravely. I wanted to pack him back to his village, so that I could sing the songs and help light his funeral pyre.
“That’s not going to happen now. I will have to compose a song in his honor.
“I will play it at the inn, and for his people, the next time I get to his village in the mountains.
“Almost as tall as a High Elf, but shoulders twice as wide, Keegan, killed three hobs with that first swing of his dire axe. Gray green heads literally rolled in the dust, but there were just too many, and more coming through the pines in the distance.
“We were lucky to pick off all those little groups hiding around the outer carnival area. One of them must have slipped by us. Maybe that was why such a large group of them was traveling the Warrior’s Path.
“If they hadn’t been barely out of eyesight, we wouldn’t have survived.
“Their nine Hob scouting party was bad enough! And twenty warriors in that distant second wave!
“They are like you Dwarves, Padre. Good short distance chargers, but very slow over distances.”
Padre puffed, chewed his pipe, squinted, and nodded, letting out one of his customary grunts.
“We had to get lost in the woods. Fast!” exclaimed Bard.
“Good thing we have two in our party with Ranger skills. I did circle back, through that copse of scrub elm, and scattered some leaves and dropped an old branch over a bit of sign you left.
“I don’t think they’ll find us, Padre. I didn’t see or hear evidence that they are anywhere nearby. No sounds of jangling metal or the brush of leather armor against trees and shrubs.
“It will be a cold camp for them, wherever they stopped. No campfire is possible out there in this rainstorm.
“And nobody knows about this cave except me. They were a war party far from their clan lands which is a few weeks march, minimum, from here, in the upper Hob Gob mountains, just under the snow line and in the caverns below that, I think, Padre.”
“Aye, Laddie, you arrra as right as the rain out therrre.” Padre closed his eyes, stroked his full reddish-brown beard, fiddling with one of his beard braids with one hand while deftly balancing his pipe in the other.
Once more a round of the eyebrow acrobatics, then Padre puffed gently on the long-stemmed black pipe, making it glow like a one-eyed red monster from a dark dream.
Orlando walked over to his sleeping roll with short soft steps and dropped into it as gently as a falling leaf. He considered himself a light sleeper, and he was, generally, but he did not hear Padre chuckle. A light snoring rumble emerged from Lando’s blunt hatchet nose, signifying that the former Cryptid Ranger from Earth had entered the dream lands of winken’, blinken’, and nod.

CARNIVAL WORLD, CHAPTER 36

When Padre nudged my moccasin foot with his sling staff, I said, ‘You go to sleep, Padre. I am going to sit outside, against the hillock, and pull my guard shift.’”
…
I stepped over the fallen log that obscured the door into my hidden cave. Whenever we used the cave, I always insisted that we leave using a different route and to step carefully, leaving as little sign as possible. There was a hidden switch that activated a stone door that slid with a grating grind that hid the entrance. When I used the small cave door, I often kept it open but concealed.
After squatting down carefully against the hillock, I rubbed my fingers in the wet grass, then held them against my nose. Strangely, while a rainstorm can camouflage some odors, wetting one’s nose can temporarily increase olfactory ability.
I sniffed the air and listened for sounds. It seems the forest life had quieted a bit when I came out but was not still as if sensing danger. And talking about sensing danger – and my gut instinct is usually very perceptive – I could tell our danger was gone. Did those Hob Gobs run clean out of the area or did something else happen?
While I could hear some wildlife, the signs I looked for like humanoid or human walking or the jangle of arms and armor, or the whisk of leather or furs against brush were absent. Nor did I smell campfires or the wet musky scent of larger natural danger. Most people wouldn’t know a great cat or bear was near unless it was charging. I am a ranger and an Ojibwe who has been trained in the Old Ways.
Although as far as scenting, that She Elf, Knorn, she is naturally born with olfactory, and vision better than a man like me. I may look like a Half Elf, but I am a human from earth in disguise.
False dawn heralded the coming of the day. Watching the sky, through a patch of open tree canopy, I glimpsed the Ebony Cavalier, also known as “The Dark Lancer,” which if the sun’s, or moon’s rays, were just right, caused it to shimmer in the night sky, but only dimly.
One of the missions I had had as a Ranger Investigator was to study the conspiracy theory of the Black Knight. Most people on earth had never heard of the Black Knight Satellite. Many internet authors “debunked” the story and published articles that claimed skywatchers were miss identifying it. They had opined that misguided conspiracy theorists were either conflating it with other planetary objects or watching a piece of space debris from modern satellites, rockets or items tossed or lost from the space station.
Nice try. I have found old journals, penned centuries ago from different countries whose authors were just as puzzled by the mysterious object as we are in contemporary times.
Soviets put up the first satellite in ’57, if memory serves. In 1971 the Soviets were at it again with a space station. America’s Skylab came later. And a joint space station of American and Russian cooperation happened even after that.
The point is, whether it was aliens or an earlier advanced civilization on earth, who have left as much or more space debris than we have, modern earth is late in the game.
How do I unpack this? Of course, part of my job was to get the truth to my superiors and their job was to see that most of that truth did not become readily available to the public. Whether they just concealed the truth or obfuscated it with fake news, that was their thing, not mine.
My best guess is that the Black Knight of earth once kept tabs on earth like the Ebony Cavalier monitored Carnival World. Cigar Man’s skip jack could, someday, visit the satellite. I hope that they are so busy searching the rest of the planet, that they ignore Carnival World’s Black Knight, called the Dark Lancer, among other names.
All of the data it mines is sent to the research colonies.
In the future I was planning on setting up a library with books from Carnival World and books from Earth.
There are crystal Atlanticean artifacts, that I was telling you all about, which I had found in Sakki Nayana Zazazi’s hidden chambers. Those crystal skulls link with the user’s mind and provides translations in their language or translates, in the user’s language, and provides information on a variety of subjects. Although there are a couple of crystal skulls that translate between Enochian and the user’s language, there are also several skulls that are like the Encyclopedia Britannica. I found an article in the Crystal Skull that explained that the Ebony Cavalier, or “Dark Lancer,” keeps track of environmental issues like air composition, mineral deposits, wind and cloud information, heat and water quantity and quality and other such information.
Secondarily, from what I have read in Sakki Nayana Zazazi’s library, the Ebony Cavalier, monitors wildlife, in a special manner that far exceeds mere data collection. Anything too large and it sends drones with sonic weapons to drive it back into the Badlands, or Mountains of Exile, or simply teleports the giant, or dangerous animal, out of the Borderlands.
It has been known, especially with dragons or dinosaurs, unless they are small, the Ebony Satellite shoots them with lasers. The accuracy of the Ebony Cavalier, Dark Lancer, is pretty amazing. If necessary, it can hit an object the size of a fifty-gallon trash can from space. That is better accuracy then the best Space Command gunners from earth!
Also, if an area of the Borderlands becomes overpopulated with a certain species, it will teleport about half of them, to an area appropriate to that kind of animal, on the opposite side of the continent.
There have been stories of a large dead mammoth or dinosaur, being teleported to a village of any race, that is in danger of starving. You can’t go to the bank with it, but it has happened.
We rarely see dinosaurs or sea serpents. Many small flocks of Compsognathus, small chicken-sized bipedal dinosaurs, very fast and agile predators, can be found, way south of the Carnival Theme Park, not far from the sea. In general, medium sized dinosaurs and small flying lizards are rare in the Borderlands. You can find them, but mostly in the south near the sea. And the Ebony Cavalier, AKA, “The Dark Lancer,” deals with any medium (anything bigger than me, I think) or larger avians or Pterosaurs that enter too far into the Borderlands.
Dinosaurs and giant lizards, as well as huge amphibians, and Monster Men, Giants, or Trolls, in all sizes, are common in the lush tropical and island paradise, of Carnival World, in the Badlands. I don’t know if there are deserts here. Back on earth the Bad Lands are desert lands, but not here.
From what I have read, if the meat of dinosaurs and sea serpents, has clear or golden grease, when heated, it is not poisonous. If the liquid from the fat is not clear or has dark solids or completely dark, it is very toxic. Completely dark and it is dart frog or coral snake level of potency.
Maybe the Black Knight of Earth, now quiet, was like the Ebony Cavalier, Dark Lancer, of Carnival World.
One major difference is its orbital pattern. The ebony satellite has a flight path that starts at true north over the north pole and each day slides a degree to the west and covers another full circuit. Each day it progresses to the next parallel. After thirty days, once more it begins its course above Northern Antari.
According to one of Nayana Zazazi’s journals, the satellite has a special gem, as large as both of my fists, called the Tuaoi Fire Stone. That archaic artifact is what generates the powerful laser beam that can accurately, with unbelievable medical precision, end the lives of large, dangerous animals that stray out of the Badlands into the Borderlands. While the cold blue laser is dangerous to any animals, such as Mammoths, dragons, and dinosaurs, it stuns or freezes beast men, like Cryptid Hyena Men, Buck-Heads, Draco Men, Wendigo, Dark Jackal Heads, and Dark Sabe, Thunder Birds, as well as Dark Angels, Giants, Trolls, Sea Serpents, Naga goddesses, and Octo Mer queens. Draco Men and Gator Heads died out before the Atlanticeans came on the scene, but there are some Draco or Dragon men in the Badlands now, that while reptilian in form, are much different than the ancient Draco and Gator giant humanoids. Or, so it is recorded, in Sakki or “Scholar’s” journals. Sakki, in his language meant scholar or wise one.
In the future, this could become an issue. Cigar Man’s superiors, I presume, will be in search of any Advanced Technology they can find. Finding weapons platform advanced technology is the primary goal in their explorations of Carnival World. But any advanced tech, from elemental laser rods to life extension technology will be quickly taken back to the labs for the science team to investigate.
I fear that one day, when they do make that connection, they will use a skip jack to board it, and the Ebony Cavalier’s valiant mission will be over. Just like its twin, the Black Knight over earth, that has become one more silent relic floating endlessly around the planet, I fear, I will witness, in the future, the sad demise of the Dark Lancer, Ebony Cavalier.
Just then I heard a snort and a stamping and pawing about thirty yards away. The light of morning was only slowly trickling through the leaves of the trees. Hours had yet to pass before the sun would be at an angle high enough to cover the ground with the checkerboard shadowing. The contrast was caused by patterns of light and darkness. Sunrays were blocked by leaves, but at the same time showing the warm radiance of skittering lights poking through the empty spaces beneath the shady canopy. A slight breeze was blowing in my direction, making the oak leaf clusters dance as if in the throes of an artful puppeteer.
My guess is that a deer, probably a buck, had been laying in its bed, and had awoken to wander and graze. I waited. Carefully I positioned my bow but did not yet draw back. Minutes passed slowly.
Soon the buck stepped into an opening, down the hill. I watched as it lifted its head and sniffed the wind. After about a minute, its beautiful rack dipped down. The deer bent low to munch a clump of honeysuckle, then further lowered its black nose into a tuft of grass on the forest floor.
Before it could raise his head, I carefully knocked my waiting arrow, and with a gentle move, careful not to brush my leather armor, my missile shot with a swish. A nice, precise heart shot, behind the shoulder and at the top of the heart.
The buck’s ears perked and snapped in my direction, but it leaped only several feet, then fell in a heap.
“Breakfast! Thank you, Creator!” I whispered.
Walking carefully forward, I sliced away an area of fur, over the choicest meat. Placing several pounds of chunked and sliced meat into a bag, then into my game pouch, I went back to the log at the door, did the squirrel call, then stepped into the cave.
“Padre! I just bagged a buck! We’ll have to sanitize the spot and move the carcass away from the cave, but I will throw the grill over the fire and get this venison started. I wonder if Knorn and Ghordo will wake up when it starts sizzling?”
Padre grinned, “Prolly so, Laddie.” He added, “Aye only have one Quick Heal potion left and I have prayed. Aye think it will be enough to heal Ghordo so that we can leave. He may be a tad slow and wince a bit, but he should be good ta go.”
“Good! After breakfast we’ll start back. I was going to have Mystica take over guard duty, but we’ll just go.”
Mystica Knorn sat up suddenly and yawned. She sniffed the air and scowled. Mystica was not a morning person. She sat grumpily, hands around her knees, and doubtfully sniffed the roasting deer meat.
Not much later, as Mystica softly rocked in place, and slowly finished waking, Ghordo groaned and stirred.
“Are ya, awake Ghordo?” asked Padre.
“Yes,” grumbled the young Orc, “And I am going to spear the mammoth who danced on me last night.”
“I only have one more bottle of Quick Heal left. If ya drink it down, the memory of the mammoth that stomped you will plumb run oot o’ yer mind, Ghordo.”
Ghordo tried to set up, began to swear, then slowly rolled into a sitting position. “Orcs don’t need no Quick Heal! Save it for yourselves, raw milk drinkers!”
I said, “Ghordo, we need to break camp. I can’t have you slowing me down.”
“Fine! Just fine! You are the chief! I don’t need no healing potion, but just to stop you from yammering, I’ll drink your scarlet cocktail! Give me that potion Padre, ‘fore I change my mind.”
Padre grunted and gave the red flask to Ghordo. Ghordo swallowed it in one gulp, then grumbled, “This tastes stale. Are you sure it is not old stuff?”
Following a grumble Padre exclaimed, “Nae a thing wrong with it, Ghordo. Just grab yer mess kit and quit grumbling!”
Mystica snorted and rolled her eyes, but also stood up and stabbed a chunk of meat with her right scimitar, then sat down, after a grumpy sniff, and gobbled down the meat.
Without groaning this time, Ghordo grabbed his mess kit and forked several chunks of venison and ate it standing up. “Hot! Hot! Hot!” he grumbled. I grabbed several slices and chunks of meat and ate them. Padre did the same.
Everyone except Mystica followed their carnivorous repast with several gulps of hot bitter, joltingly strong, coffee, black as a cloudy, moonless night, and hardy enough to float a horseshoe.
Mystica pulled a small bottle of juice out of her pack and drank it in about four swallows. She rarely drank water, and it had to be good, clean, pure water, without any aftertaste, and never drank coffee or tea.
“O.K., boys and girls, kitties and doggies, its show time. Let’s get packed and hit the trail.”
We sanitized the area where I’d dropped the buck. Then I wrapped a clean hide around it to soak up some of the dripping blood. I didn’t want to leave a trail of blood drops as I walked. I picked it up over my shoulder, reminded everyone to carefully avoid leaving a trail, and we headed down to the bottom of the hill.
After walking along the trail for about an hour in the direction of Carnival Theme Park, I dropped the buck off the trail. The scent of blood would follow on the wind and in not too long some bear, wolf, or great cat and the circling scavengers would heed the call to breakfast.
As we walked along, wary for trouble, Padre was quietly humming an earth song, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” taught to him by Patrick Conner.
Mystica and Ghordo were just as quietly debating a topic that they never seemed to wear out. I had asked Mystica not to call him Dork or Dorko, which she had solemnly promised. She did, when irritated, call him the Green Meanie and Ghordo would often snap back, “And you’re Princess Dirt Troll!”
Today’s topic of their bantering was a common one. Why Mystica had vowed to remain celibate as some of St. Pat’s clerics and why Ghordo should stop sniffing around and go pester “the girls on the line.”
Although prostitution was illegal in the Conner’s Carnival Theme Park, there were a couple of inns that catered to that vice, but any soliciting, and there were stiff fines and jail times.
Ghordo made the mistake of touching Mystica and making a crude comment, not long after she had joined the group.
She had promptly decked him. Knorn moved faster than a molting snake. Mystica absolutely cold-cocked that randy Orc.
Then, nose in the air, she had walked over and sat with her arms folded across her chest, back against the wall of the inn. Mystica had fumed, and then repetitively, she would unfold her arms and gesture wildly, mumbling and play act about the incident. Knorn was not talkative in general for days, and from time to time throughout the day, would launch into a garbled reenactment of the incident. She refused to talk to Ghordo for weeks!
When Ghordo woke up, we had a little talk about the incident. His pride had been bothered more than his glass chin and it was painfully evident. You could always tell when Ghordo was angry. And it was usually a proud, haughty anger. Both emotions etched into the lines of his face as his head would bob sideways, back and forth, like a bobble head toy. Although his anger often faded quickly into normal grumpy sarcasm mixed with bouts of smiles and excited questions.
He never touched Mystica again, but he was always ready to bicker with her about her strong feelings that most males were over-sexed morons. Further as she was wont to exclaim, she couldn’t understand how people could engage in gross behavior such as kissing, petting and the “unmentionable!”
Everyone who works for me as a bounty hunter or for my inn have a private talk about Mystica which is made part of their contract for working for me.
It is simply this. Don’t ask her about how she came to live in Carnival City. If I find out you did, our contract is terminated. Don’t push her to do or not do something. I will give you one warning on that one. She is a good girl, but she is a grudge holder, and if you push her buttons, it will affect the whole team. Both the bounty hunting team and the inn staff crews. If you have a problem with Mystica, come see me. I will give you one warning on that. If we have a problem a second time, our contract will be terminated.
I did, several years in the future, after being asked to tell at my Bard Show, how I had met Mystica, tell her story. In the past, I had made that story as short and general as possible. But the time did eventually come where I would relax that rule and spend a whole Bard show, regaling my audience with the unabridged story of Mystica Knorn.
But back to my little talk with Ghordo’s inappropriate touching and sexual harassment incident. We had thought that maybe Mystica was just still a child, and that Elves, since they were so long lived, just matured very slowly. We figured that she would grow through that phase. Years later, Mystica was still as staunchly opinionated as ever on the subject and was never slow or shy to voice that opinion.
As we walked along the trail, we were suddenly startled by a disembodied voice, heavy with the sterling ring of command, “Hail, Orlando Bard. This is Colonel Zales. We need to talk! I am going to land.”

Suddenly there was a mechanical air hiss, the acrid odor of metal and oil, and the craft uncloaked. The skip jack dropped to the ground, rear cabin facing the group. Another quieter hiss followed by a low hum as the ramp on the back of the vehicle dropped down.
Zales, who I mentally refer to as Cigar Man, eased from his command chair, and with a stiff-backed walk like a calvary man, ambled to the edge of the ramp. Three other airborne rangers assumed guard stance and waited silently. However, the navigator remained in the pilot’s chair and kept watch on the computer screen and various gauges.
He, Zales, reminds me physically, of the tall, brusque, white-haired man, the commander in the Avatar movie series, that I ordered from earth, for the future Members Only area of my library. The commander is about five inches shorter than me, but a man of great authority, and accustomed to military command.
“Greetings Colonel Zales,” I said.
He pointed at a long cryo body bag at the side of the craft. “My condolences, Orlando. We picked up your barbarian yesterday.”
My grin changed into sadness. “You found Keegan?”
“Affirmative,” explained the colonel. “Beta team found him. They were walking towards a mission point not too far from here and they ran into a Hob Gob war party of about twenty.”
“We killed about nine Hob Gob scouts,” I replied. “One each charged the rest of us. Six of them Potifers charged Keegan. He took out three of them instantly, but the other three slammed him with their dual axes. We lost the barbarian and the little dark blue Feyhoomon, Klawse. That group of twenty hobs was high tailin’ it from the pine forest, and the rest of us had to flee. Live and fight another day and all that!”
“I understand,” said Colonel Zales with an abrupt nod. “You’re a ranger, although not the same kind of ranger as I am. We thought this might be your handy work. Thought I saw your boot print. Wasn’t sure. And sometimes you wear moccasins, Orlando.” He threw a small leather bag at me, which I deftly palmed, in my ham-sized hand. I could smell the Hob Gob ears.
I thought to myself, I am a ranger just like you! Only you don’t know it and I hope you never find out! I just worked for an above top-secret branch, the Cryptid Rangers of Earth. Yes, I am a Carnival World ranger too, which is like a fantasy role playing ranger from 3DO “Isle of Terra” game!
“You can take that to Constable Conner,” continued Colonel Zales, “and collect your bounty hunter fee for the scout Hobs.” Cigar Man chewed his cigar, then puffed his rum scented stogie. “Talking about collecting, I am here to collect you. I can take your crew back, too.”
“Thanks.”
“By the way,” said the Colonel, “Patrick sends his condolences as well. He said to tell you that it is not just a matter of the expensive resurrection contract, but there are medical procedures that must be done for that tech to work.”
I nodded sadly.
Cigar Man added, “We never found the blue boy. Klawse? I mean your Feyhoomon, Blue Boy is still the star of the Irish Pub Theme Park Adult Theme Park. If memory serves, the one named Blue Boy, only worked for you a short time, this other one was a new Feyhoomon that you kept around for a while.
“The way your barbarian was gutted and trussed, Bard, we can guess what happened to your other bounty hunter.”
Ghordo cussed and Padre rumbled, “Damnable ewil, Nickie-Bens Hob Gobs!” Following an elongated eyebrow dance, “Aye hope ya kilt them beasties, Colonel Zales!”
I couldn’t see Mystica, as she was behind me, but I am certain her eyes were blazing, and her jaws were so tight that her lips were a grim reddish-brown line.
Zales replied, “I didn’t Padre, but my Beta team took them out. My men and women are crack shots and good under pressure. Or they wouldn’t be on my teams.
“Those brutes were charging at them, or so the reports state, pumping their dual wielded axes, screaming like Comanches!
“But my squad shot them to doll rags before they even got close. Even those brutes don’t get through a volley of fifty calibers and machine guns! Two of them came close to melee distance. They had spears on their backs and never threw them! Probably could have thrown their axes, too, but they didn’t. Crazy damn berserkers. We use both frangible and full copper rounds that play havoc with the regenerative powers of the trolls, beast men and giants. Those all work damnable well against Hobs, too.”
“Thank you again, Colonel Zales.”
“Don’t mention it, Orlando. I still owe you big time. And I don’t forget my debts. You bards and your knowledge of history and geography. Commendable. Very Commendable.
“First, I don’t think, as good as they are, Alpha team would have survived that cryptid attack on the White Dwarf Mountain Mission. Then, second, when Delta team accidently tripped that teleporter at the research station, number forty-three and ended up in that abandoned research facility on the other side of the Badlands, you came to the rescue again. Remember, on that high cliff island. Their damn trackers went offline. Radiated ore deposits or some such.”
“Well, Colonel, you had said that one final garbled transmission came in and the only word you understood was dragons.
“I had read an old book that said there had been an Atlanticean Research Outpost on an Island called Dragon’s Roost and it gave approximate coordinates. Without you and your skip jack…”
“And without you,” replied Cigar Man firmly, as he rolled his cigar around in his mouth, “and your bardic knowledge, I wouldn’t have known where to look.
“My whole team would have died, even with fifty calibers, machine guns, and grenades, and a rocket launcher, and the best damn training Uncle Sam can buy. Stranded on a dead outpost and no fresh water. Sea serpents the size of aircraft carriers. Real flying dragons the size of a small house. No, bard, I owe you one, and don’t forget it.
“Well, enough conversating!” snapped Zales in his gruff commander’s voice. “Get your bounty hunters inside, Orlando. Times a wasting.
“Oh. Anya knows. And she’s waiting for you. I’m going to airlift you both, and up to two others, to – what was his name – Keegan’s tribe in the mountains, so you can all participate in his Celebration of Life funeral pyre and feast.
“And since you are a bard, they will expect an epic song. His little sister wanted us to find you. So, we’ve been looking for you and your band of merry men and the Zander-kin she-elf.
“Anya said that you are like family. She even went to the bishop and alchemist to get a fire under my fanny and find you!”
“Yeah,” I offered, “When Anya puts her mind to something, there’s no stopping her. Anya is one of my waitresses at the inn, but I have always been close to her family. Her and Keegan called me Uncle Orlando until they started working for me. I found her tribe once when I was wandering the mountains, before I met you.”
As the ramp of the skip jack raised, I watched Zale’s eyes roll, as he scowled, “Boy am I glad I didn’t shoot your half elf padooka when you charged, unannounced, through the force field door, into my camp, on the first day we met.
“I was damned close, Orlando! Damned close! If that Paccetti wouldn’t have interpreted that Dwarf-lovin’, outlander, broken English gibberish, that you spoke back then, we wouldn’t be having this fine chat!”