Lord Zee
Cyclone
The river lord, a mere ant compared to the king of strife and steel, made his most courteous bow in the direction of the colossus.
”It could be worse.” Narzhak had finally stopped perfunctorily scratching his head, and gazed over the newly verdant landscape surrounding them. ”There’s these pebbles that keep falling on my head, but that blast was worth it.” He broke into a fit of cackling, recouping himself somewhat faster than the previous time. ”Pity I was not up there to see what’s the matter. There was also that river full of someone’s blood that sprang up on my doorstep. That wouldn’t happen to be one of yours?” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, inasmuch as could be seen, as he spoke.
The snake let out a sigh. “No, I believe myself to be above creating such appalling excuses for rivers,” he said sourly. Remembering to check his attitude, he made an attempt to remove the bitterness in his voice. “Say, what brings you down to this part of the country? My word, had I known there more of my siblings would come, i would have brought more wine!” He chuckled cordially.
A wave from a gigantic hand raised a sudden gust of wind. ”Don’t mind that, I’m just surveying the grounds. I feel there will be all the time in the world to sit in a cavern, and it’s best to take stock of things while they’re still in motion. A good moment to do my part, too.” Narzhak’s eyes glinted asked as he lowered his head to one side. ”What’s this wine you speak of?” he added as a perceivable afterthought.
“Oh, ‘tis but a mere hobby of mine, if you will. A drink of most exquisite flavour - a drink with the power to even influence the mind’s control of the form, even our divine minds.” He tapped his chin pensively. “I actually have yet to test the drink on a mortal subject. I suppose I ought to do that someday… But yes, wine!” He lowered himself down and rummaged through his picnic basket, which thankfully had not been swept away by the natural forces awoken by Narzhak’s approach. He pulled out a small bottle, which he handed to Narzhak. It was likely the size of a speck to him - a miniature of a tiny candy.
Two fingers that could have well passed for hilltops descended from above to grasp the container with careful, almost mechanical accuracy, before disappearing in the blue yonder along with it. What transpired up there was indistinguishable from the ground, but a satisfied rumbling betrayed that the liquor had reached its destination. ”Not bad,” the Iron God remarked as the tip of his hand was lowered once again, this time holding a fully emptied bottle whose mouth was stained with some sort of thick black grime, ”But it’d be even better if it was stronger. I could do something about that. You have a spare one?
The snake shook his head apologetically. “I fear that was all I brought. Again, had I known that we would have been graced with your company, I would naturally have brought more.” Shengshi shot the newly sprouted sugarcane a look. “Although…” He slithered over and picked a few reeds.
“Humour me for a moment, please. I may have an idea.”
A conspicuous twisting of the shadows on the ground reflected Narzhak’s nod. ”Go ahead.”
The snake proceeded to carve a hole for brewing. He filled it with water and the crushed up reeds, followed finally by a handful of Sleeper’s Sand yeast from a sack. He stirred the waters to let the yeast breathe deep in the surrounding air as it ate its fill of sugars and protein. This process had become nearly second nature to him - a ritual of sorts. The brewing process, spurred on by divine influence, was almost instant, producing a liquid that gave off the familiar stabbing scent. He filled the bottle Narzhak had given him and filled a cup for himself. He handed the bottle to Narzhak and raised his own cup.
“This should be much stronger, dearest brother.”
Once again, the bottle rose beyond sight, and grumbling followed. This time, however, its tone was almost flat. ”Grhm. Doesn’t taste that different to me.” The hand holding the empty flask began to move downwards, but stopped midway. ”I think I’ve got something. Hold this.” The giant deposited the speck of glass on the ground before moving some long steps along the river’s course. Then his fist darted up with tremendous speed, and shot in a groundward arc with a tremendous roar.
The blow rang out like a fragment of Orvus’ moon striking the surface, waters rising in impossibly high waves as grass, bushes, fish and other river-dwellers were sent flying for miles around. Clumps of soil were still raining down as Narzhak clambered around the gulch he had dug himself into, smoothing its walls and edges with his hands. Slowly at first, but steadily growing faster and broader, glinting grey stains spread over the earthy cliffs as iron seeped out from them and spread from the behemoth’s claws, layering itself in a smooth, polished coating.
Once the pit was fully covered in metal, Narzhak hauled himself out of it, and lightly stomped down near its mouth. Narrow, deceptively deep cracks spread around its edges, running wide in an almost perfectly circular web, and the glare of welling molten rock soon seeped out from them. The air began to ripple as the gulch’s plated walls heated up.
Retracing his steps to the river, the god stabbed a single finger into the ground and dragged it back, gouging a trench between it and his handiwork. Water poured down the improvised channel, steaming and bubbling as it filled the incandescent basin.
Narzhak took a step back with a satisfied grunt. ”Heat. That always improves things. Try it here.”
Shengshi found himself completely dumbstruck by the spectacle that had just played out before his eyes. It took perhaps a moment too long for him to realise the blast had uprooted the first two hundred metres of forest and shrublands that Phystene and he had just spent half a day making. Furthermore, he realised that the blastwave had sent half the fish in his rivers, along with at least several dozen earthworths, flying into the sea. As such, the god struggled desperately to keep a calm demeanour.
“I assure you, deeeeeaaarest brother of mine. I am -TRULY- grateful for the effort, but there was absolutely. No. Need. To go all this way. A kettle and a fire would have been more than fine.” His voice so bitter that it could have been mistaken for poison. The snake jumped into the river and swam with godlike speed over to the hole.
“So, may I ask, how do you propose we use this?” he said sourly.
If even Narzhak did notice his sibling’s less than pleased tone, its import clearly sailed past his thickly-armoured head. ”When you did your wine-making thing in cold water, it wasn’t strong enough. Now, if you do it in hot ones…” he dipped a fingertip into the rapidly filling rift, and watched amusedly as water drops sizzled on it as it withdrew, ”...I have a feeling it’s going to be much better. If it works, there’ll be enough of the thing not just for us, but the rest of the family, and mortals too. Remind me, I’ll need to do something like this down in the Pit.” he added pensively.
Another dipped finger, and the iron skin was left sizzling with incandescence. ”Should be about ready.”
Shengshi gave the pit a skeptical look. “I think this cauldron is, well, a little big, but we’ll see…” He gave a compliant sigh as he waved the water flowing into the pit to the side, infused it with sugarcane and alcohol and let it brew for a few minutes. Once the boat-sized batch was ready, he sent it over the edge into the depths. A moment of silence broken only by the occasional metallic bubbling from below followed. Then there was a violent rocking in the earth below that was promptly followed by a pillar of steam that came rushing upwards through the shaft. Shengshi sighed.
“See? I told you it was too-!”
He suddenly felt indescribably dizzy - so much so, in fact, that he fell backwards and struggled to get back on his tail again. This was a familiar influence.
”No, hear that? That means it’s work-”
The growling voice stopped, followed by a whistling of air being drawn in through uneven fissures. ”Hmmm.” More whistling, and Narzhak’s bulk leaned dangerously forward as he took in the vapour’s novel smell. ”Now this…” His head swayed lightly in contentment. ”This is good.”
The snake called some freshwater to himself and used it to quickly purge his body of the alcohol. He shortly thereafter got back to his tail and looked down into the pit, both very frightened and very intrigued.
“Alright, I will admit…” He took a deep breath. “I had my doubts, but in the end, your method proved to yield results. I respect that, dearest brother.” He nodded at the tipsy colossus.
“However, one problem remains - what should we do after the vapours disappear?”
Narzhak righted himself and shook away the fumes from his head, quaking the soil in the process as well. ”Simple. We don’t let them disappear.” He lifted a hand before his eyes, as though measuring some invisible shape. ”If we put something over it to collect them…”
“A smaller size this time, thank you!” Shengshi added curtly. “I’d rather not make a tenth of the continent into a wine factory. At least, not right away...” Shengshi drew up some dimensions in the iron sand left over from the blast earlier.
“Would you be a dear and grab me a handful of molten iron from the bottom of the pit, please?”
An amused snort came in reply. ”Aren’t you the one who likes to dive? Watch and learn.”
With a step, the titan floundered into the bubbling waters, making them churn even further. The jagged crown of his head was the only part of him that remained visible as the shuffled through waves and intoxicating steam, conspicuously sinking from time to time, and after a time decidedly longer than it ought to have taken a vast claw emerged from the small tempest. Cupped in it was a small lake of dense, heavy fluid that breathed with sweltering heat.
Shengshi once again let out a sigh. Just be grateful, he thought to himself. He proceeded to bend some of the molten metal into a cauldron, another bit of it into a lid with a hole on the top, and a pipe that extended upwards and then downwards diagonally. He put the three parts together until they resembled a strange, big-bottomed vase with a severely broken neck.
“Now to light a fire and add the wine…” He quickly realised it might be better to swap the firewood for hot metal and just used some from the molten lake. Even better, he thought, was to trap the heat inside this metal, so that this contraption would never need firewood! Thus, he cast an enchantment upon the contraption - one that let him adjust the temperature with his will, and with no need for fuel. He then added the wine into the cauldron and put a flask underneath the end of the diagonal pipe. Sure enough, the vapours condensed along the pipe’s surface and poured down into the flask. After the flask had been filled to the brim, Shengshi took it, sniffed it and nearly retched.
“My word, what have we created?” He took a small sip and nearly cringed to the point of keeling over. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment or two, and exhaled slowly.
“We may have created a monster, dear brother.” He offered Narzhak the bottle.
For the third time that day, the flask was drained in the unseen heights. And surely, the reaction that followed it was the strongest yet, with a ”Grhum!” that sent a reek of spirits into the breeze.
”I can’t say anything more about the strength, for sure.” The titan’s eyes seemed to flare in a strange way as he lowered the bottle to the ground. ”This is going to kill anyone who’s not us on the spot. Besides, it still tastes…” He paused, slowed in his search for words either by the alcohol or his own lack of eloquence. ”Bland. It’s got a blow, but nothing else. Think you can better that?”
Shengshi, still recovering from the gruesome excuse for a flavour, plucked pensively at his beard with a shaky hand. “I… I could try storing it to see if the flavours develop.” He scratched his head to appear even more pensive. “Though that will take some time, most likely. What I can do for the time being is likely limited to perfecting the mash before the process. That will likely enhance the flavour somewhat.”
Shengshi proceeded to make several batches of the sugarcane wine. He proceeded to distill ten of the batches: Each sample was tasted by the two - the five best were stored on quickly conjured wooden barrels, each crafted from a specific wood type. The five worst were analysed further to find what exactly made them different from the ones stored in barrels.
“I think… I think I may have an idea as to how to improve the wine…” Shengshi proposed. He proceeded to take a few of the samples and blend them. He sipped the final product and found himself caught by surprise.
“Narzhak, my brother… Taste this!” Almost forcefully, the snake thrust a cup of the stuff in the colossus’ direction.
Up it went, and when it returned, it was accompanied by a contented metallic grinding.
”We’ve got it!” The joyous voice, comparable to the sound of an avalanche, and the smell it carried made the sparse surviving stalks of grass nearby droop to the earth in defeat. ”A backbone and a taste! And what if we put more different things in it? A host of flavours, it’d be.”
The snake licked his lips with a forked tongue. “All the things one could mix this with… My dear brother, we may have stumbled upon a goldmine of opportunities here!” Shengshi had another cup of the stuff and savoured the flavours.
“This reminds me of a poem of mine - one that I wrote a long time ago.” He cleared his throat.
”Parted by mountains;
The two rivers meet again;
United, they are strong.”
He bowed to the invisible audience. “Like the rivers unite stronger, so the flavours of different batches cooperate to pleasure the tongue!” He filled yet another cup and handed it to Narzhak. “This warrants another toast!”
”Done. We drink!” With this jarringly prosaic exclamation, the cup was borne away and emptied. The shrill scratching that indicated the Iron God was pondering something followed. ”You said this affects the mind and body. I’m not me if I don’t feel that, but I think there’s more to be done with that than we know now.”
Narzhak gathered up some of the slag he had still been nonchalantly holding in his other hand, and with an agility marvellous given the size of his fingers and the quantity he had drunken he fashioned a small simulacrum of Shengshi’s crucible. ”I’ll have to remember how this is done. There’s people back down home who’ll need to try it. And more.”
Shengshi, now under a considerable influence, waved his hand dismissively. “Of course, of course! Be my guest! Oh, by the way, could you be a… A dear ‘n put this on my ship, just over there?” He pointed first at the distillery, then at his ship, which from his position actually was not visible. To Narzhak, however, he saw clearly a small, golden dot floating in the middle of the Giant’s Bath like a shiny miniature duckling.
”That way? It will be easier if we just…” the colossal god shook the molten iron away from his hand, lifted the original contraption in it and trudged directly into the river. ”...followed the flow.”
For anyone else, wading a flow of water such as that would have been a more than daunting task, but Narzhak seemed undeterred as he made his way upstream, more or less large parts of him alternately disappearing under the waves. Before long, an immense arm stretched out to deposit the distillery onto Shenghi’s vessel, which rocked perilously but held its balance by some miracle.
The snake, who at this point was miles away, snapped out of his daze and hopped into the closest river. After a quick swim to get the alcohol out of his system, he arrived at the Giant’s Bath and boarded his ship. There, he found the distillery on the middle of the deck, somewhat bend after thinking its metallic body could somehow outmatch god-infused mahogany planks. Shengshi looked up at the titan, or made an attempt, anyway.
“Thank you so much! Truly lovely to have so many strong siblings around. Say, what are your plans now, then?”
”This place still looks flat. Dull. There’s plenty of room for improvement, and that’s what we’re here for.” Narzhak made a sweeping gesture towards the horizon, although all that could be seen from their position was water. ”And I need to find out what’s it with these falling stones. They’ll be a nuisance if this carries on, if a funny one.” He stopped to think for a moment, then added, ”And those things I made to manage the Pit. I’ll wager they still can’t even talk. There’s no time to idle for us now, I’ll say.”
The snake nodded weakly, finding himself unable to relate to most of what the giant said. He still kept a smile on his lips, however, and waved his hands enthusiastically.
“Well, I wish you the best of luck in those endeavours. Until we meet again! Oh, and Narzhak…” The snake paused. “Please do not make an attempt to break the continent in half the next time you make something, alright?”
A rumbling laugh bubbled up from below the waters. ”Don’t fret. When I want to break something in half, I don’t just attempt it. Hrah!” And, still gurgling to himself in congratulation for what he found to be an extremely funny joke, Narzhak turned about and began to wade back towards the shore, raising dizzying waves as he went.
The snake shook his head with a smiling sigh and went up to his chambres. He had to rest.
