"So what are we doing again?" Lester asked, twitching the wrist of his right hand, uncomfortably grasping a short sword, to swish the blade about a bit in the air.
"We're a distraction," James said. His sword remained still, his eyes searching the forest path intently.
"Okay," Lester said. Lester hadn't felt proper misery now for quite some time. Panic, confusion, fear, awkwardness, guilt and even terror, all yes; misery, not so much. He didn't even really know how to express his misery because the reasons for it would either sound stupid or selfish or both.
Since James had found his own form in the Undone; since they had escaped, all three of them, into this charming little shadow kingdom; since they had set out into the woods in the hope of picking up a trade route back to Bridgetown, Lester's misery had grown.
Was Lester miserable about James now not being a mouse? It was true that the lanky, intense individual that had replaced the sarcastic, emotionally complex little rodent was a bit of a system shock. Someone's physical shape should not play such a huge part in how one related to them, Lester felt. Yet here was James, now not a cheeky mouse, instead a charismatic and intelligent man approaching a distinguished middle age.
The transformation appeared to demand that people took James more seriously, not to mention the man's kind and lovely wife. Rebecca had known the man James for longer than the mouse James. From the first moment they had been together Lester knew that Rebecca would never have viewed her husband's rodent form as anything more than a horrible affliction. Lester had never known James as a man and so had always thought of him as a mouse with amnesia.
The amnesia was another thing that had put Lester off kilter. A mouse could have amnesia and it was possible for an observer not to take the whole thing terribly seriously. After all what important memories could a mouse have? When the mouse was a man, the pain of forgetting written in the lines on his face, you were forced to confront your own flippancy.
None of this was a recipe for much more than confusion and a period of necessary adjustment, of course. The problem was the misery and sense of loss that accompanied the confusion. Lester realised that whilst he and James had both been bewildered, both seeking things that appeared impossible to find, that their bond had formed organically, without either one of them noticing. In a world where the finding of a clue to the location of a brother, or a memory that might help upon the road to a mislaid daughter, was a task of gargantuan proportions the funny young man in the pinstripe flannel suit and the amnesiac mouse had each other.
James had gone with Lester on an amazing journey, through some of the strangest places in Faerie, they had seen the ruins of a sorcerer's palace, the edge of the Undone and the colourful stalls of the market at the centre of everything. James's journey had restored to him many (although still not all) of his memories, his daughter, his wife and his physical form. Lester had managed to harvest an elliptical letter and a bottle of potion he had used up to escape the Undone.
Lester knew that his quest was ongoing, and probably a worthwhile endeavour, but when he compared his progress to James's the results were not encouraging. Still, Lester felt incredibly selfish for resenting his companion's progress and feeling the blank, empty helplessness of his current empty-handedness.
Even trying his hardest to put all this aside Lester still felt that he was losing the best friend he had ever had, before he'd even ever really had a chance to tell this friend how he felt. He couldn't help but gain the impression that James believed that they were companions because of circumstance and not because of friendship. As James now had a family to think about, and some handy opposable thumbs, it became more and more apparent that Lester was somewhat of a third wheel in any situation James might find himself in.
That was difficult and caused a sadness that Lester couldn't just squash down out of the way.
"You know," Lester said, filling the empty, silent air with a distracting burble of noise. "Things have happened pretty quickly today. I'm not even sure that I know what we're standing here for."
"I just said," James repeated, absently, "we're a distraction."
"Yes," Lester said. "I got that. I just don't know what we're a distraction from, or indeed what it is we're supposed to be distracting. It has something to do with a wizard. I remember the wizard, and you, you were talking to a mouse."
"Yes," James said. "Gargantuus Redstorm, who lives in the wall just yonder, told us that he was the member of a tribe that gathered intelligence for Silas Strumpkin, a wizard who lives in that house over there." James pointed at the house just visible along the path about fifty feet away. "Wizard Strumpkin is currently engaged in commune with the weave, trying to gain some information paid for by a noble in the next shadow. A rival noble has sent a lupine mercenary to kill Strumpkin whilst he is vulnerable. Gargantuus and his tribe are not able to warn Silas and so we are here to defeat the mercenary before it can get to the wizard."
"Right," Lester said. He took a look down at the lumpen, poorly forged metal rod in his hand. A poorly constructed melange of sword and mace. He had never held a weapon before now, he wasn't sure that this was the weapon to start with. Also, how was he supposed to be of any use fighting a wolf? There were more questions. 'Why?' seemed to be one of the most pertinent, so he asked it.
"Gargantuus knows that Silas has recorded a spell of transportation in his book of spells. If the wizard awakes from his trance alive and in good humour Gargantuus will persude him to send us back to Bridgetown."
"So all we have to do is kill a wolf to save a wizard and we go back to where we started from?" Lester said. "Done much wolf killing, have you?"
James shook his head.
"Almost none that I can remember," he replied. "We're not really supposed to kill it, we're just supposed to keep it busy until Rebecca can kill it with an arrow."
"Oh, okay," Lester nodded. "And what happens if the wolf comes from the other direction?"
"Then she'll be in the ideal position to kill it before it ever sees her or us," James said, his tone was beginning to gain an edge of annoyance. "You weren't listening at all back there, were you?"
"Not really," Lester admitted, allowing a little ire to leak out in his tone. "I'm tired, and afraid. I'm pretty hungry and... if I'm entirely honest... I was busy wondering why a mouse was called Gigantuus."
"It's a mouse thing," James said. "I discovered this when I was one. Mice think of themselves as the biggest creatures in the world. Anything bigger than them is, to them, just as big as them. So they like to call themselves big, tough names, to recognize their awesome stature and whatnot. They're mostly a species of proud warriors."
"I see, they always struck me as a little nervous," Lester said.
"They're very proud of their flight reflex. They have almost no voluntary control over it," James explained. "I had more because I wasn't born a mouse. Regular rats and mice will run automatically in the face of overwhelming odds without even really being aware that they're doing it. They call it 'saviour ghosting', well, they do when they get away intact."
"Wow," Lester said. "There's quite a lot going on with those mice then. I never knew."
Silence fell, which was not a good thing for Lester as his mind was instantly alerted at his failure to actually admit what was really troubling him when he had said 'if I'm entirely honest'. Worse Lester had realised that he had given James a hard time about not being entirely honest when he himself had been too confused to be honest on several recent occasions.
Lester had made a decision to improve his honesty and was now failing miserably to speak up and be direct about things. Lester didn't feel comfortable with the notion that emotions could be difficult, they were going to happen no matter how complex or inconvenient they were going to be, but that didn't make them any simpler. Lester was in danger of becoming wreathed in sadness again. He had to talk or his feelings would overwhelm him.
"So, you're glad... to be a person again?" Lester asked. If he brought up a topic of conversation that put James's transformation on the table maybe he would find a way to say the difficult things.
"It's definitely an advantage," James replied. "If I could just get my memory, my daughter and my home back then I would feel a lot better still."
"Yes," Lester said. "That would be nice. Having everything sorted out would be nice."
James looked over at Lester, the clear, grey-green human eyes in James's human face were far more expressive than the small dark eyes of the mouse he had been. Lester found human James too human to deal with. Adding guilt to the misery Lester realised that his sense of loss came with the realisation that he was no longer the most important person in the duo. He was a drifter looking for an elusive brother. James... well, James was some kind of important.
Someone had robbed James of his memories and put him into a faraway shadow not far from the edge of the Undone. Someone had turned James into a mouse and dispersed his wife. Someone had wanted James hidden away and imprisoned. Whatever James's full story was it was a story that mattered a great deal to several powerful people.
What about Lester and Chester Topping? Chester was so important that he had been forced to hide himself from everyone, including his twin brother. All Lester was trying to do was find him. Lester was not important. Lester was just Lester.
"If I can do anything to help you find Chester, when I have the power to do so, then I will, of course," James said quietly.
There was no time to respond to that. Lester saw a movement on the path, not far from where they stood. It looked as if the mercenary had arrived.
Lester looked pointedly at the approaching figure, James turned to look in the direction Lester was indicating.
"Just concentrate on staying safe," James said. "Try to knock him back, give Rebecca a clear shot."
Lester nodded. The sudden tension in his stomach made him completely unable to feel sadness, or inadequacy, or guilt. Lester shifted his grip on his wonky sword. He wondered if he could get used to this sort of thing, like a knight.
About sixty seconds later Lester had firmly decided that, no, he was never going to make a knight. The wolf was being kept back but this was mostly due to a lunatic ferocity he was managing to exhibit in his sword waving antics. The adrenaline flooding his system prevented him from looking over to see if James was doing any better but, regardless, a few seconds later the whole thing was over when an arrow in the chest put down the ravening lupine mercenary.
"Remind me to avoid being a decoy again," James said, leaning over and putting his hands on his knees, exhausted.
"Same here," Lester replied.
They got about a minute to gather themselves together before Rebecca joined them on the path and the three of them went back towards the wizard's house. Once James had talked once more with Gargantuus, and the three of them had shown that the mercenary had been thwarted, they went back to the house with their rodent companion.
After a few hours Silas Strumpkin came out of his trance and, upon being told by Gargantuus of the bravery of the three strangers was happy to make them a portal to transport them into the Patchwork Market. So James, Lester and Rebecca stepped through the portal back to their destination, but what happened to them when they got there is a story for another time.
Showing posts with label Wolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wolf. Show all posts
Sunday, 10 November 2013
Sunday, 22 September 2013
In Which Avan and Saeed Encounter The Prince Lanchoni Problem
Saeed had reconciled in himself the knowledge that fighting alongside the most renowned warrior-mage in the history of Faerie would place him in some dangerous situations. Since they had first encountered one another they had fought orcs, lizard men and vampires, all in one evening. In addition they had uncovered the mechanisms of a conspiracy that may serve to plunge the Terra Draconis into some very deep trouble.
As Saeed knew that the time of the Vanishing was surely close at hand, the incident in which all traces of living dragons were removed from Faerie, possibly forever, the youthful thief had to wonder if this plan was the first echo of that momentous cataclysm. Saeed knew that time, chronology and history were somewhat malleable but riddled with what could best be understood as 'hard bits', bits you could not change, the structure of the world relied on certain events conforming to a certain shape. The Vanishing appeared to be one such event, so, really, if Miranda Felix and her employer were intent on unleashing such powerful magic upon the world then there was probably very little that Saeed could do about it.
Saeed enjoyed a self-image that included a healthy dose of humility. If he was facing the Vanishing then he was happy to admit that it would happen regardless of what he tried to do about it. He was, after all, a skilled thief who had begun his life as an Afsan street-urchin. How was he to save the world?
Prince Avan Weatherstrong, on the other hand, was the most heroic cultural hero in all the lands of Faerie. Of course, the Prince didn't know much about that, he was living his life, it was only those who came after him who would get the opportunity to turn him into a retrospective demi-god.
Prince Weatherstrong had a kind of humility himself. He was not particularly interested in being a celebrity. However, if you told him that a force of magic so powerful it could wipe an entire continent and species from the face of the world was about to be unleashed he would always attempt to put a stop to it. He would say that even if he couldn't succeed the knowledge he held meant he had to try. To Saeed that just sounded like a different way of believing that you could not fail.
But you could. Just because the consequences of failure would be dire did not make the prospect of success any more likely. Saeed had stayed alive for nearly a quarter of a century safe in that knowledge. Prince Weatherstrong had lived over ten times that his way, but then, well, when all was said and done he was Avan Weatherstrong with all the advantages that this identity implied.
In his life Avan Weatherstrong had fought wicked sorcerers, giant monsters and bloodthirsty warlords. Avan Weatherstrong was more than a man, he was a legend.
So when it came to the task of tracking and retrieving a small running animal it seemed obvious that of the two the humble thief should take the task. Running through the undergrowth outside the house on the edge of Dracopolis Saeed was aware that, although his life was not in danger, the prospect of losing his quarry was cutting cleanly into his sense of self-worth.
He was partnered up with a man who had bloodied the nose of tyrants and written the pages of history in his own hand, if Saeed could not fetch a small animal for this man what was it all for? They had gone to the house looking for one Prince Ystaban Lanchoni, a roguish ne'er do well who had been observed in a square adjacent to the Dracopolis jail house a couple of hours before an explosion opened a hole in the jail's western wall.
When they arrived at the house it had appeared abandoned and unoccupied until they had opened a door into a cellar room to find a small animal, probably a dog, as the sole occupant. The animal gave every indication that it had been waiting for someone to open the door, it dashed past the pair before they had much of an opportunity to see what was happening.
Saeed hadn't even bothered to say anything, he just took off in pursuit and hence the potentially embarrassing current situation. He had followed the bouncing white bundle of muscle and fur out into the forest and noted the disturbance of nesting birds and undergrowth. Saeed had attended closely to the almost indiscernable pounding of tiny paws along the forest floor.
Then it had all stopped. Saeed guessed that the little beast was somewhere close to Saeed's present location, hidden from view. Perhaps it was even waiting for Saeed to stop looking. That was strange behaviour for a small animal in panic. They didn't usually stop running until they knew they were safe. Saeed wasn't that slow.
A thin, depressed whine came from a bush to Saeed's left. Saeed went over to part the branches and observe the small, white dog doing one of the things well-trained small, white dogs do in bushes with a look of surprise, concern and indignation on its face.
It finished up and then looked up at Saeed, testing his pursuer for some hole in his resolve. Finding none the dog tried to dodge past Saeed but reckoned without Saeed's reflexes. The dog gave another, more panicked yelp as he was hauled into the air by the scruff of the neck. A short struggle followed but Saeed kept a tight hold on the little animal.
Before long the white dog was brought back into the presence of Prince Weatherstrong back at the house.
"I think your associate in the Eastgate Inn may have overstated their case," Saeed said holding up the yapping, grumpy beast for Avan's inspection.
The dog did its best to bark in a threatening manner at Avan, but the high pitched squeaks were more ridiculous than anything else. Seeming to be unhappy at the effect of barking the dog switched to a growl that sounded like the operation of a stable but broken clockwork motor.
"I'm going to have to guess that the Prince is not home," Avan said. "That's a setback I hadn't expected. I have to ask what the point of a safe house is if it isn't to keep someone safe after performing some heinous act of wrongdoing?"
"It is always a possibility that Miranda betrayed Prince Lanchoni the same way that she betrayed me," Saeed pointed out. "Without you to look out for him the prince may well be dead."
The dog craned its neck round to stare at Saeed. Saeed had never encountered a look from a dog that implied he was stupid before.
"I'm just talking about the possibility," Saeed said to the dog. "I'm sorry if it betrays your mental image of your master."
The dog just looked downcast, hanging limply over Saeed's right forearm.
"I don't think that's it," Avan said. "Please, could I?"
Avan held out his hand towards the dog. Saeed passed the miserable little beast over to his companion. Avan held the dog up to his face and looked into the dog's eyes.
"Mischief," Avan said. "a lot, hastily applied. The dog's soaked in it. He almost smells of mischief."
"So the dog is magic?" Saeed asked.
"No, I don't think so," Avan answered. "I think it's the result of magic, crudely applied, the kind of thing a wish fairy or similar might do."
"Someone made the dog out of magic?" Saeed asked. He still wasn't used to talking so much with an expert on magical things. Magic felt like its own world to Saeed, he always felt stupid for not understanding it right away.
"I think this animal isn't supposed to be this way," Avan said. "I think that this dog was something else and then the wish fairy, or other sprite, transformed it into a small dog."
"So..." Saeed looked at the dog's floppy ears and little paws. "You think this might be-?"
"If I were a sprite and a muscular royal wolf tried to threaten me," Avan said. "I think this might appear to be a suitable response, a reflexive defence, if you like."
"Oh, I see," Saeed said. "So, should we try to turn him back?"
"That's not the difficult part," Avan replied. "The difficult part is containing him when we do."
"Good point," Saeed agreed. "How do we do that?"
"I have just the thing in my saddlepack," Avan said. "Come on, let's get moving."
Avan took the dog and went outside to where they'd tethered their horses. Avan rummaged through the pack attached to the horse's saddle and pulled out a small metallic ball about the size of a fist. It appeared to have been made by tightly binding together twists of silver-black wire by twisting and looping. From the top of the ball emerged a thin strand of cord that Saeed recognised, spider silk.
Avan hung the ball off the stout branch of a nearby tree and fiddled with a catch in the ball's base. The ball suddenly sprang outward, twisting, unfolding and dropping until it was about nine feet long, no longer a tightly wound ball, now a long cigar-shaped mass of metallic twists reaching from the tree branch to the ground.
"That'll do," Avan said. He held the dog out towards the cage and the twists parted to allow the dog to be placed inside. When Avan withdrew his arm the dog skidded down inside the cage with a small yelp and the wire closed back over the gap. "Now, dispelling mischief, that's not a problem, I think I have a spray." He rummaged in a pocket in his belt and brought out a misting bottle. He sprayed a fine sparkling mist into the cage. A couple more squirts of the mister bulb and Avan took a step back.
Saeed had never seen mischief magic dispelled before, the experience was an unusual one that made him feel a little giddy. The dog in the cage didn't appear to expand or bulk out at all, rather it just seemed to shift around in the confines of the cage to find that there was simply more of it than could have been expected a few seconds before. This slow growth by discovery continued until the small dog was gone and in its place stood a wolf on it hind legs considerably bigger than the talking desert wolves Saeed had seen at home in Afsana.
Prince Lanchoni was similar in stature to the wolves of Sorrowblade, he guessed that they must share a common ancestor at least. This wolf was, if anything, even bigger than that. Its hateful eyes glittered dangerously in the low light of the forest. It regarded both Saeed and Avan with naked contempt.
"Let me out," Prince Lanchoni demanded. "You have no right to keep me here."
"I don't think you're particularly in a position to be making demands," Avan told the captive. "You cooperate and we might think about releasing you."
"What do you want?" Lanchoni growled, staring into Avan's eyes with an expression on his face that Saeed could read easily. If the wolf got out of the cage it would mean trouble for everybody, not least of all Avan.
"You were supposed to meet with Miranda Felix," Avan said. "Then, somehow, you appear to have become sidetracked."
The wolf snorted.
"I made the meeting," Lanchoni said. "Turns out I shouldn't have trusted Felix, she sent lizard men to kill me. She should have sent more."
"You set off the explosion that broke open the Dracopolis Jailhouse," Avan said not waiting for any denials, Lanchoni didn't bother objecting, he just shrugged. "So, what was in it for you? What did Felix promise you?"
"The Sword of Zanczasza," the wolf said. "She promised me she would take it from the Amethyst Treasure House and deliver it to me at the Castle in Serpenside in return for my assistance."
"What did you want that for?" Avan asked. "You realise the blade is cursed?"
"It shortens the life of the one who weilds it, yes," Lanchoni said. "In return it would have given me the power to take Onapica away from my brother."
"A magical coup," Avan nodded. "Not the world's noblest cause."
"What do I care what you think?" Lanchoni said. "My business is mine alone."
"What can you tell me about the lizard men who attacked you?" Avan asked. "Were they alone?"
"No," Lanchoni said. "They were being controlled by a draco, stocky dragon, one eye missing, covered with a patch. He was using some kind of crystal orb that made the lizard men obey his commands."
"A coldblood orb," Avan said. "Not common but available on the black market for a price. Well, thank you very much for your help, Prince Lanchoni, it will aid us in our efforts to track down Felix. I'll be sure to send her your regards."
"If you find her before I do," Lanchoni snarled. "Let me out of here."
"Oh, you'll be released," Avan said to the wolf. "When you're safe in a cell in the Dracopolis jailhouse."
"You said you would release me!" the wolf complained straining to break free of the wire metal prison.
"To be fair I said I'd think about it," Avan replied. "I have and I've come to the conclusion that it would be best to free you only once you're incarcerated for the crime that you have committed."
"So you're just going to leave me here?" Lanchoni complained. "If I get out of here before you arrive with help to get me to the prison I'll make sure you regret it."
"Who said we needed help?" Avan asked. "You might want to brace yourself this next bit can pinch a little."
As soon as those words left Avan's mouth he jumped up to grab a hold of the branch from which the cage-pod was suspended. He swung himself towards the top of the pod and wrapped his hand round the blunt cylinder attached to all of the pod's wires. Avan shifted his fingers across some sort of button or catch and the pod shrunk upwards swiftly.
Lanchoni cried out but as the wires spiralled in tight the cry was cut off. Avan picked the wire ball back off the tree. It was a little larger than it had been when it was empty but otherwise there were no signs that it contained a large, angry wolf.
Avan dropped down from the tree and hung the cage-ball from his belt.
"Is this how you deal with everyone who gets on the wrong side of you?" Saeed asked.
"No," Avan replied. "You I teamed up with, Felix.... well, I don't really know what I'm going to do with Felix when we catch her."
"I thought you intended to kill her," Saeed said.
"Is that what you would do?" Avan asked.
"I... am not sure," Saeed said, although he was sure that when he was a boy he would have revolted at the notion of murder. Somewhere along the line he had come to think of killing someone bad as an unpleasant necessity. Now, strangely, he found himself uncertain again.
"Then we shall both discover what we should do, when we get where we're going," Avan said.
"And where is that?" Saeed asked.
"First," Avan replied. "We are going to find Vasky Jantnor."
"Who's that?" Saeed asked.
"A Draco mercenary, last time we met I took one of his eyes."
And that is where they went, but what happened when they met him is a story for another day.
As Saeed knew that the time of the Vanishing was surely close at hand, the incident in which all traces of living dragons were removed from Faerie, possibly forever, the youthful thief had to wonder if this plan was the first echo of that momentous cataclysm. Saeed knew that time, chronology and history were somewhat malleable but riddled with what could best be understood as 'hard bits', bits you could not change, the structure of the world relied on certain events conforming to a certain shape. The Vanishing appeared to be one such event, so, really, if Miranda Felix and her employer were intent on unleashing such powerful magic upon the world then there was probably very little that Saeed could do about it.
Saeed enjoyed a self-image that included a healthy dose of humility. If he was facing the Vanishing then he was happy to admit that it would happen regardless of what he tried to do about it. He was, after all, a skilled thief who had begun his life as an Afsan street-urchin. How was he to save the world?
Prince Avan Weatherstrong, on the other hand, was the most heroic cultural hero in all the lands of Faerie. Of course, the Prince didn't know much about that, he was living his life, it was only those who came after him who would get the opportunity to turn him into a retrospective demi-god.
Prince Weatherstrong had a kind of humility himself. He was not particularly interested in being a celebrity. However, if you told him that a force of magic so powerful it could wipe an entire continent and species from the face of the world was about to be unleashed he would always attempt to put a stop to it. He would say that even if he couldn't succeed the knowledge he held meant he had to try. To Saeed that just sounded like a different way of believing that you could not fail.
But you could. Just because the consequences of failure would be dire did not make the prospect of success any more likely. Saeed had stayed alive for nearly a quarter of a century safe in that knowledge. Prince Weatherstrong had lived over ten times that his way, but then, well, when all was said and done he was Avan Weatherstrong with all the advantages that this identity implied.
In his life Avan Weatherstrong had fought wicked sorcerers, giant monsters and bloodthirsty warlords. Avan Weatherstrong was more than a man, he was a legend.
So when it came to the task of tracking and retrieving a small running animal it seemed obvious that of the two the humble thief should take the task. Running through the undergrowth outside the house on the edge of Dracopolis Saeed was aware that, although his life was not in danger, the prospect of losing his quarry was cutting cleanly into his sense of self-worth.
He was partnered up with a man who had bloodied the nose of tyrants and written the pages of history in his own hand, if Saeed could not fetch a small animal for this man what was it all for? They had gone to the house looking for one Prince Ystaban Lanchoni, a roguish ne'er do well who had been observed in a square adjacent to the Dracopolis jail house a couple of hours before an explosion opened a hole in the jail's western wall.
When they arrived at the house it had appeared abandoned and unoccupied until they had opened a door into a cellar room to find a small animal, probably a dog, as the sole occupant. The animal gave every indication that it had been waiting for someone to open the door, it dashed past the pair before they had much of an opportunity to see what was happening.
Saeed hadn't even bothered to say anything, he just took off in pursuit and hence the potentially embarrassing current situation. He had followed the bouncing white bundle of muscle and fur out into the forest and noted the disturbance of nesting birds and undergrowth. Saeed had attended closely to the almost indiscernable pounding of tiny paws along the forest floor.
Then it had all stopped. Saeed guessed that the little beast was somewhere close to Saeed's present location, hidden from view. Perhaps it was even waiting for Saeed to stop looking. That was strange behaviour for a small animal in panic. They didn't usually stop running until they knew they were safe. Saeed wasn't that slow.
A thin, depressed whine came from a bush to Saeed's left. Saeed went over to part the branches and observe the small, white dog doing one of the things well-trained small, white dogs do in bushes with a look of surprise, concern and indignation on its face.
It finished up and then looked up at Saeed, testing his pursuer for some hole in his resolve. Finding none the dog tried to dodge past Saeed but reckoned without Saeed's reflexes. The dog gave another, more panicked yelp as he was hauled into the air by the scruff of the neck. A short struggle followed but Saeed kept a tight hold on the little animal.
Before long the white dog was brought back into the presence of Prince Weatherstrong back at the house.
"I think your associate in the Eastgate Inn may have overstated their case," Saeed said holding up the yapping, grumpy beast for Avan's inspection.
The dog did its best to bark in a threatening manner at Avan, but the high pitched squeaks were more ridiculous than anything else. Seeming to be unhappy at the effect of barking the dog switched to a growl that sounded like the operation of a stable but broken clockwork motor.
"I'm going to have to guess that the Prince is not home," Avan said. "That's a setback I hadn't expected. I have to ask what the point of a safe house is if it isn't to keep someone safe after performing some heinous act of wrongdoing?"
"It is always a possibility that Miranda betrayed Prince Lanchoni the same way that she betrayed me," Saeed pointed out. "Without you to look out for him the prince may well be dead."
The dog craned its neck round to stare at Saeed. Saeed had never encountered a look from a dog that implied he was stupid before.
"I'm just talking about the possibility," Saeed said to the dog. "I'm sorry if it betrays your mental image of your master."
The dog just looked downcast, hanging limply over Saeed's right forearm.
"I don't think that's it," Avan said. "Please, could I?"
Avan held out his hand towards the dog. Saeed passed the miserable little beast over to his companion. Avan held the dog up to his face and looked into the dog's eyes.
"Mischief," Avan said. "a lot, hastily applied. The dog's soaked in it. He almost smells of mischief."
"So the dog is magic?" Saeed asked.
"No, I don't think so," Avan answered. "I think it's the result of magic, crudely applied, the kind of thing a wish fairy or similar might do."
"Someone made the dog out of magic?" Saeed asked. He still wasn't used to talking so much with an expert on magical things. Magic felt like its own world to Saeed, he always felt stupid for not understanding it right away.
"I think this animal isn't supposed to be this way," Avan said. "I think that this dog was something else and then the wish fairy, or other sprite, transformed it into a small dog."
"So..." Saeed looked at the dog's floppy ears and little paws. "You think this might be-?"
"If I were a sprite and a muscular royal wolf tried to threaten me," Avan said. "I think this might appear to be a suitable response, a reflexive defence, if you like."
"Oh, I see," Saeed said. "So, should we try to turn him back?"
"That's not the difficult part," Avan replied. "The difficult part is containing him when we do."
"Good point," Saeed agreed. "How do we do that?"
"I have just the thing in my saddlepack," Avan said. "Come on, let's get moving."
Avan took the dog and went outside to where they'd tethered their horses. Avan rummaged through the pack attached to the horse's saddle and pulled out a small metallic ball about the size of a fist. It appeared to have been made by tightly binding together twists of silver-black wire by twisting and looping. From the top of the ball emerged a thin strand of cord that Saeed recognised, spider silk.
Avan hung the ball off the stout branch of a nearby tree and fiddled with a catch in the ball's base. The ball suddenly sprang outward, twisting, unfolding and dropping until it was about nine feet long, no longer a tightly wound ball, now a long cigar-shaped mass of metallic twists reaching from the tree branch to the ground.
"That'll do," Avan said. He held the dog out towards the cage and the twists parted to allow the dog to be placed inside. When Avan withdrew his arm the dog skidded down inside the cage with a small yelp and the wire closed back over the gap. "Now, dispelling mischief, that's not a problem, I think I have a spray." He rummaged in a pocket in his belt and brought out a misting bottle. He sprayed a fine sparkling mist into the cage. A couple more squirts of the mister bulb and Avan took a step back.
Saeed had never seen mischief magic dispelled before, the experience was an unusual one that made him feel a little giddy. The dog in the cage didn't appear to expand or bulk out at all, rather it just seemed to shift around in the confines of the cage to find that there was simply more of it than could have been expected a few seconds before. This slow growth by discovery continued until the small dog was gone and in its place stood a wolf on it hind legs considerably bigger than the talking desert wolves Saeed had seen at home in Afsana.
Prince Lanchoni was similar in stature to the wolves of Sorrowblade, he guessed that they must share a common ancestor at least. This wolf was, if anything, even bigger than that. Its hateful eyes glittered dangerously in the low light of the forest. It regarded both Saeed and Avan with naked contempt.
"Let me out," Prince Lanchoni demanded. "You have no right to keep me here."
"I don't think you're particularly in a position to be making demands," Avan told the captive. "You cooperate and we might think about releasing you."
"What do you want?" Lanchoni growled, staring into Avan's eyes with an expression on his face that Saeed could read easily. If the wolf got out of the cage it would mean trouble for everybody, not least of all Avan.
"You were supposed to meet with Miranda Felix," Avan said. "Then, somehow, you appear to have become sidetracked."
The wolf snorted.
"I made the meeting," Lanchoni said. "Turns out I shouldn't have trusted Felix, she sent lizard men to kill me. She should have sent more."
"You set off the explosion that broke open the Dracopolis Jailhouse," Avan said not waiting for any denials, Lanchoni didn't bother objecting, he just shrugged. "So, what was in it for you? What did Felix promise you?"
"The Sword of Zanczasza," the wolf said. "She promised me she would take it from the Amethyst Treasure House and deliver it to me at the Castle in Serpenside in return for my assistance."
"What did you want that for?" Avan asked. "You realise the blade is cursed?"
"It shortens the life of the one who weilds it, yes," Lanchoni said. "In return it would have given me the power to take Onapica away from my brother."
"A magical coup," Avan nodded. "Not the world's noblest cause."
"What do I care what you think?" Lanchoni said. "My business is mine alone."
"What can you tell me about the lizard men who attacked you?" Avan asked. "Were they alone?"
"No," Lanchoni said. "They were being controlled by a draco, stocky dragon, one eye missing, covered with a patch. He was using some kind of crystal orb that made the lizard men obey his commands."
"A coldblood orb," Avan said. "Not common but available on the black market for a price. Well, thank you very much for your help, Prince Lanchoni, it will aid us in our efforts to track down Felix. I'll be sure to send her your regards."
"If you find her before I do," Lanchoni snarled. "Let me out of here."
"Oh, you'll be released," Avan said to the wolf. "When you're safe in a cell in the Dracopolis jailhouse."
"You said you would release me!" the wolf complained straining to break free of the wire metal prison.
"To be fair I said I'd think about it," Avan replied. "I have and I've come to the conclusion that it would be best to free you only once you're incarcerated for the crime that you have committed."
"So you're just going to leave me here?" Lanchoni complained. "If I get out of here before you arrive with help to get me to the prison I'll make sure you regret it."
"Who said we needed help?" Avan asked. "You might want to brace yourself this next bit can pinch a little."
As soon as those words left Avan's mouth he jumped up to grab a hold of the branch from which the cage-pod was suspended. He swung himself towards the top of the pod and wrapped his hand round the blunt cylinder attached to all of the pod's wires. Avan shifted his fingers across some sort of button or catch and the pod shrunk upwards swiftly.
Lanchoni cried out but as the wires spiralled in tight the cry was cut off. Avan picked the wire ball back off the tree. It was a little larger than it had been when it was empty but otherwise there were no signs that it contained a large, angry wolf.
Avan dropped down from the tree and hung the cage-ball from his belt.
"Is this how you deal with everyone who gets on the wrong side of you?" Saeed asked.
"No," Avan replied. "You I teamed up with, Felix.... well, I don't really know what I'm going to do with Felix when we catch her."
"I thought you intended to kill her," Saeed said.
"Is that what you would do?" Avan asked.
"I... am not sure," Saeed said, although he was sure that when he was a boy he would have revolted at the notion of murder. Somewhere along the line he had come to think of killing someone bad as an unpleasant necessity. Now, strangely, he found himself uncertain again.
"Then we shall both discover what we should do, when we get where we're going," Avan said.
"And where is that?" Saeed asked.
"First," Avan replied. "We are going to find Vasky Jantnor."
"Who's that?" Saeed asked.
"A Draco mercenary, last time we met I took one of his eyes."
And that is where they went, but what happened when they met him is a story for another day.
Sunday, 15 September 2013
Anabyl's Choice
Princess Anabyl Spireshine was not always as dedicated to the cause of the Dragon Warriors as she became in later life. The dragon epitomises the polarity between chaos and order encapsulated in a single entity. Dragons formed mischief into majesty, this transformation was accomplished through understanding, clarity and wisdom.
The Dracopolis Academy was never that concerned about taking on students in possession of large amounts of understanding, clarity or wisdom from the start. Chaos is hard to cultivate, like a fire burned out of control it tends to eat itself eventually. Natural chaos, on the other hand, can, potentially be moulded into the stuff of a great Dragon Warrior. It was on this basis that Warden Razath first accepted Anabyl into the Academy under the patronage of Prince Avan Weatherstrong.
Anabyl would tell anyone who asked that when she stepped into the Academy she was attracted by the availability of many martial devices essential to the creation of serious amounts of chaos. The concept of training, discipline and achievement were the furthest thing from her mind. It took Anabyl about seven hours to become thoroughly bored of the Dracopolis Academy and wishing she could go home to Spireshine. Nine hours after her arrival someone let all the criminals out of the Dracopolis Jailhouse.
Never one to miss an opportunity Anabyl took advantage of the skeleton staff left to look after academy attendees, stole a sword from the armoury and found a way into the Dracopolis Sewer System. Twenty minutes into her new subterranean adventure thoughts about what she might do if actually confronted by a perilous situation began to occur to her.
The Princess did not, as many young people alone in the dark, wet tunnels of a major metropolitan sewer system, surrounded by potential hazards, feel any fear. For Anabyl fear was a thing to be inspired in others, not to be experienced by oneself. Wariness and caution were not things that Anabyl had previously had much use for but with fear off the table she decided that these would do in their place.
As it turned out watchfulness and sneaking, two vital components in any worthwhile and serious mischief-making enterprise, were also handy when trying to navigate through an unfamiliar underground environment without bumping into troublesome escaped convicts. She got into the swing of this so quickly that it came to a point where the business of skulking through the shadows not making any noise was only occupying a tiny part of her attention.
She made her way in the direction of the city walls (Anabyl had never questioned her uncanny sense of direction, it was always a given and, hence, taken for granted); as she did Anabyl thought about the sword.
The sword was a training sword, being an ideal size and weight for a smaller person. It wasn't a short sword, or an elaborate dagger, it also wasn't one of the fine balanced fencing swords that Anabyl had seen in grand cities like Bellespire. The weapon would have appeared a little odd in the hands of an adult because it wasn't built to an adult scale. For someone Anabyl's size it was just about perfect.
Anabyl had never used a sword for much before, mischief was one thing, violence was something else altogether. Anabyl was no stranger to fire, concussion, humiliation, itching or other types of general unpleasantness associated with bringing self-important people down a peg or seven.
When she had been a very young child Anabyl had never needed anything more than pig-jousting, rotten vegetables and an unlimited supply of mud. Swords were fascinating, of course, anything that could destroy other things was interesting. Anabyl came to realise that she had honed the art of inflicting pain and discomfort on people she considered boring to such a fine point that real weapons had just naturally never figured into her schemes.
Anabyl knew that if you picked up a weapon then you were either an idiot or you intended to really hurt someone, and not in a fun way, or both. So why had she picked up the sword on her way into the sewers?
A few months ago she would never have done that, no matter what the circumstance. It didn't matter that she was in a fabled land in a far off time, cut off from everything she knew with no way home. It didn't matter that she was moving through a series of dark tunnels and could hear the screams and hoots of a riot going on above her head as she stepped under the grating covers for street level. Not so long ago Anabyl wouldn't have cared about any of that, she would have naturally assumed it had nothing to do with her.
Then an owl of wisdom had told her about dragon warriors, shortly after Peregrine Pagebinder had made it plain there was one person in the universe that she couldn't get the better of. The facts of these things had combined in her head to form the potential that one day Anabyl could be...
Anabyl had always assumed that she could just dodge the business of growing up. The world didn't work like that. She had met sprites who never grew up and she liked to humiliate those foolish creatures as much as any other idiot she met in the course of daily life. She remembered distinctly the feeling of not wanting to be like some idiot adult-child. She had been to the world of humans once and seen one of their picture box shows about old women (to Anabyl anyone over 20 years of age was old) who tried to act in a childish manner.
The whole concept brought Anabyl as close to fear as she had ever been.
No. Anabyl was determined not to be that. The only way to avoid it, unfortunately, was to grow up. That was unpalatable for a number of other reasons, chief among which was the idea of being married to some boy-prince and living out your life in a castle coping with the fallout from the actions of her children. Sons, she could probably handly discipline for a bunch of snot nosed little boys, no problem. What put a little ice into Anabyl's heart was the concept of the kind of daughter she might produce.
No. Altogether not something to be countenanced. She had decided to grow up in her own way, on her own terms. She had never known what they were. Then she had heard about dragon warriors.
A woman could be a soldier, or a knight, she had read the stories. Surely the dragon warrior was the best kind of knight. That had to be a contender for one of the best ways to grow up.
The discipline did not appeal, there was the problem.
Still, even in her escape she had taken a sword. This meant there was a new seriousness in Anabyl's heart, one that could not be denied.
This rather troubling notion was the last thing to play through Anabyl's mind as she exited from a drainage pipe outside of Dracopolis's city walls. Close to the drainage opening were a few small stone huts, locked up with rust-tinged metal doors, along the path away from the sewer tunnels was an old house. The house appeared as if it was abandoned, probably for some time. The question was: had the house been left empty long enough to attract ghosts?
Anabyl had a keen interest in ghosts, it was almost a hobby of hers. Her fascination with the spirits of the dead was unique in her personality as being the only thing she could be preoccupied with that didn't ultimately lead to someone ending up covered in some kind of wet slime. She had enquired of one spirit she had met about the possibility of obtaining some ectoplasm but found that the ghostly substance was a myth.
Still, she found the dead had a simple view of the world that she appreciated. They tended not to be judgemental and they didn't often have any agenda with which she might disagree. When she was a little older Anbyl would articulate that she appreciated the clarity that death appeared to bring to people (most people). At that moment all she knew was that if there were ghosts in the house she wanted to say hello.
Anabyl climbed the steps and crossed the porch area to find the front door locked, or at least jammed shut by something. A little further investigation revealed an open window that she wriggled through without any problems.
Before the final occupants of this house had moved on they had done a pretty thorough job of emptying it of anything that they might have formed a sentimental attachment to. There wasn't a stick of furniture, a picture hook or a scrap of textiles anywhere on the ground floor.
Of course, Anabyl wasn't really interested in those things, she was more interested in the possible inhabitants of the house. If there were ghosts here they were shy ghosts. The trick with a shy ghost was to not look directly at where they might be, because they could hide more easily if they knew you were looking. You had to catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of your eye.
The ghost of one of her great uncles had told her that, with a little concentration and effort, dimming a ghost's natural glow was an easy thing to achieve. However it did take some concentration and effort, and it became hellishly uncomfortable after a while, a bit like a live person holding their breath. What a ghost needed to do if it didn't want to be seen was move out of the way and then relax their concentration when they believed they were out of view.
So the way to get a glimpse of a shy ghost was to enter rooms suddenly, turn around unexpectedly and other wise try to look in places you hadn't been looking moments previously. Somewhere in the remains of the kitchen Anabyl believed she had got a glimpse of something, but the ghost in question was extremely shy because she couldn't catch it out a second time.
On the upper floor of the house Anabyl noticed a new smell accompanying the damp odour that permeated the lower floor, a smell of burned dry hair. Anabyl knew the aroma from somewhere but she couldn't quite place the exact memory. Irritated by this small mystery Anabyl stopped trying to catch out the local ghosts and searched the upstairs for the source of the smell.
In one of the upstairs rooms Anabyl found a small locker chest and a basic cot bed. Someone was using this place as a home.
This prospect made Anabyl feel a little awkward about being here. If there was someone alive using this property Anabyl felt it was her duty to soak them in something as soon as possible. She hadn't seen a well, or a mud patch or any other source of the necessary sogginess nearby. The prospect of not springing an unpleasant and hilarious surprise on a stranger due to a lack of materials made Anabyl uncomfortable.
She didn't want to stay in the mouldy house with the reclusive ghosts anyway. She reasoned she had best be on her way directly. She went down the stairs and through the front room to the door. She opened the door to find herself looking into the softly glowing orange-yellow eyes of an enormous wolf dressed in a fine crimson jacket, a light-yellow silk tunic and breeches of the same crimson as the jacket.
Anabyl knew a bit about wolves, it being the kind of distressing subject that her parents believed she should be shielded from. There were, of course, a full range of completely normal wolves ranging from smaller dog-like varieties to enormous dire-wolves. Then there were the spectrum of talking wolves. Unlike cats, dogs, mice and sundry other animals there were no talking wolves that appeared to be normal every day wolves until they asked you if you might not mind getting them some food.
Every variety of talking wolf wore clothes of some fashion. Previous to this Anabyl had only ever encountered the slim and erudite kind of wolf that was common in the Hundred Kingdoms. There were legends of vastly powerful talking dire wolves, or Royal Wolves, a war-like, aggressive species; Anabyl had only ever encountered them in stories because they had died out long ago.
Of course, now Anabyl was long ago, so the presence of a Royal Wolf shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it was. The problem with slipping through a hole in time was that sometimes you forgot that you had done so. For this reason Anabyl found herself surprised and without a response to the enraged predator whose dwelling place Anabyl had disturbed.
"What are you doing in my house?" the wolf demanded reaching out to push Anabyl backwards. Anabyl's long developed instinct for avoiding any grabbing hand kept her out of the reach of the gigantic creature.
"I was just passing through," Anabyl said. "I was a bit lost and I just wanted to ask for directions."
"Well, I'd say you'd taken a wrong turn," the wolf snarled. He flailed forward meaning to grab at Anabyl a second time. "Because when I catch you then you won't live long enough to regret coming here."
Anabyl considered ducking past the wolf at this point and running back towards the sewers. The only problem was that she wasn't terribly sure of her way and she was pretty confident that the wolf would turn out to be faster than her.
For the first time in her young life Anabyl realised that something was actually trying to seriously kill her. This annoyed her intensely, she considered it doubly rude seeing as she hadn't done so much as let a stink bomb off near this wolf and here he was acting like she'd left him for three days in a tree-snare. When she'd left one of the groundskeepers in such a precarious position all she'd got was gruel and a grounding. On that scale the wolf's unjustified anger seemed a bit of an overreaction.
More out of practicality than any intention to strike back Anabyl pulled out her sword and waved it at the wolf.
"You think a little girl would come out to such a scary part of the woods and walk around a creepy house if she didn't know how to stab a monster with a sword?" she asked. As bluffs went it relied heavily on the passion of the delivery, thankfully this wasn't a problem to Anabyl.
"I don't know," the wolf sneered. "Let's find out!"
It lunged for her again and she dodged away, swinging the sword in a manner that clearly owed more to enthusiasm than skill. Anabyl reminded herself that she had either better think of a good plan or get instantly a lot better with her sword if she wanted to see sunrise.
Anabyl backed away from the wolf trying to spot an escape route and babbling on about how jolly sorry the wolf would be if he came any closer. Spotting a doorway to her left Anabyl ducked through it and found herself at the top of a set of steps leading into a cellar. The growling noise behind her indicated that if she was in for this particular groat then she was most certainly in for the whole bronze mark. So she hurried down the steps three at a time.
It was at about this moment that Anabyl had a momentary pang of regret regarding her disdain for plans and strategising. She knew she was belting down stone steps into a dark basement. She knew she was being pursued by a seriously angry, powerful and inherently nasty royal wolf. Somehow the thoughts in her brain wouldn't allow her to do anything else.
She wasn't under any illusion that she was being manipulated or controlled. She was just acting, like she always did, the only difference being that this time her stream-of-consciousness approach to life might very well get her killed.
She found the basement to be a long corridor giving access to three rooms. She hadn't seen a ground level exit from beneath out at the front of the house so she vaulted over the bannister and headed for the room at the back. As she approached the door at the end of the passage she made great efforts not to think about what might happen if the door was locked or if it just lead into another boxy room with no exits.
Her relief at seeing a ground level window in the ceiling of the basement room was immense and all consuming. She lost no time in running towards the opening, scrambling up the wall, grabbing and pulling at the latch. The latch sprung and the window opened inwards. Surprised Anabyl fell back to the floor, stumbled but remained upright. She could only have bare seconds before the wolf was on top of her. She scrambled once more at the wall.
"Help me," said an unexpected voice behind her.
Anabyl didn't have much time to react, she turned her head to see a bird that looked very much like an owl of wisdom sitting in a cage. Next to the cage was a writing desk and a chair, the only proper furniture she'd seen in the whole house.
She didn't even think about it. She took the writing chair across the room and jammed it under the door handle just as the wolf tried to open the door. The door swung about an inch open on its hinges before jamming as the chair legs scraped against the bare stone floor. The royal wolf bellowed in rage and began rattling the door. Anabyl had only bought herself a few seconds.
She didn't waste those seconds. She worked the lock on the cage eventually prising it open with a letter opener she spotted on the writing desk. The owl thanked Anabyl and had just flapped out of the window when the door burst inward and the royal wolf charged into the room.
"My owwwwwwl!" it screamed, its already boiling fury seeming to kick up another few notches. "You will pay."
Anabyl realised that there was really nowhere else to run. She could try to get through the window but then she would just be dragged back into the room. If she was going to die then she decided that she had pretty much better look it in the eye and see if she could distract it into a staring contest.
"You!" she shouted at the wolf, "are about the meanest and most awful creature I have ever met in my entire life! How dare you keep an owl of wisdom in a stinky cage? I'm glad I let it out, I hope they come back and poop all over you!"
The tirade momentarily caused the wolf to pause, wondering why this strange little girl was not crying and screaming and pleading for her life and, further, why she felt she had the right to tell him off. After a moment he plainly concluded that it was all bravado and bluff so he snarled at her preparatory to eating her right up.
But by then it was too late.
The enormous royal wolf that had been ready to swallow Anabyl whole a second before now found itself in the body of an embarrassingly small and rat-like dog. It's snarl sounded like a large rat trying to clear its throat. The wolf brought itself up short, throwing a second confused and awestruck look in the direction of Princess Anabyl.
"Don't look at me," she shrugged. "It wasn't my doing."
"Not directly, anyway," said another voice emerging from the darkest corner of the basement room. "I can't very well have the children in my care getting eaten by royal wolves on a field excursion now, can I?"
Peregrine Pagebinder emerged from the shadows and picked up the little dog from the floor. The former royal wolf now looked irritated beyond all reason not to mention absolutely disconsolate.
"I did wonder where you were hiding," Anabyl said peevishly, determined not to show Peregrine any gratitude whatsoever. If the annoying sprite hadn't sent her on this field trip then she would never have ended up in this situation anyway, that was her reasoning.
"I have not been hiding," Peregrine said. "I have been looking at the possibilities for the continued unfolding of your educational curriculum. It's time for options, young lady."
"Options?" Anabyl asked. "What are they? No. Don't answer. Anything to do with you has to be stupid and boring."
"Not so antagonistic please, Anabyl," Peregrine said. "The path we are engaged upon is for the betterment of us all. Now, the question of how much better is entirely in your hands. You must choose your next step carefully. That is the option you will be given, how to proceed with your education, understood?"
"Unless going home and having you move out permanently is one of the choices I don't think I'm going to be interested," Anabyl said.
"I'm afraid not," Peregrine replied coolly. The calmer he was about Anabyl's volley of vitriolic insults the more obnoxious she was determined to become. "There are two options, option one is that we now return to Caer Spireshine and you embark upon a programme of extensive social education with the aim of turning you into a master stateswoman."
Anabyl felt the only response to that was to stick her tongue out and make puking noises.
"Option two," Peregrine continued, ever unruffled, "is to combine the advanced discplinary, tactical and spiritual educative methods of the Dracopolis Academy with some more focused sessions on history, natural science and other useful academics with the aim of turning you into the finest dragon warrior the lands of Faerie has ever or will ever know. I should tell you that this latter option is the more difficult of the two, however it does give you the potential to fulfil one of the grandest destinies that the world has ever known, if you can stick to it."
Anabyl tried to muster up some enthusiasm for puking at that option too. She was surprised to find that she couldn't. After today's near miss she reasoned that if someone could teach her not to fight her way into a corner that would be a very good thing indeed. The Dracopolis Academy appeared to be a place of rules and discipline, neither of which were Anabyl's favourite things. In a contest between martial discipline and political protocol though the discipline won every day.
Then there was the thing about the destiny.
"What do you mean 'the grandest destiny the world has ever known'?" she asked.
"One of the grandest destinies the world has ever known," Peregrine said. "Choose that path and you will come to find out in time."
So she did, and she did, but all of that will be told at another time, in another place, for the hour is too late now.
The Dracopolis Academy was never that concerned about taking on students in possession of large amounts of understanding, clarity or wisdom from the start. Chaos is hard to cultivate, like a fire burned out of control it tends to eat itself eventually. Natural chaos, on the other hand, can, potentially be moulded into the stuff of a great Dragon Warrior. It was on this basis that Warden Razath first accepted Anabyl into the Academy under the patronage of Prince Avan Weatherstrong.
Anabyl would tell anyone who asked that when she stepped into the Academy she was attracted by the availability of many martial devices essential to the creation of serious amounts of chaos. The concept of training, discipline and achievement were the furthest thing from her mind. It took Anabyl about seven hours to become thoroughly bored of the Dracopolis Academy and wishing she could go home to Spireshine. Nine hours after her arrival someone let all the criminals out of the Dracopolis Jailhouse.
Never one to miss an opportunity Anabyl took advantage of the skeleton staff left to look after academy attendees, stole a sword from the armoury and found a way into the Dracopolis Sewer System. Twenty minutes into her new subterranean adventure thoughts about what she might do if actually confronted by a perilous situation began to occur to her.
The Princess did not, as many young people alone in the dark, wet tunnels of a major metropolitan sewer system, surrounded by potential hazards, feel any fear. For Anabyl fear was a thing to be inspired in others, not to be experienced by oneself. Wariness and caution were not things that Anabyl had previously had much use for but with fear off the table she decided that these would do in their place.
As it turned out watchfulness and sneaking, two vital components in any worthwhile and serious mischief-making enterprise, were also handy when trying to navigate through an unfamiliar underground environment without bumping into troublesome escaped convicts. She got into the swing of this so quickly that it came to a point where the business of skulking through the shadows not making any noise was only occupying a tiny part of her attention.
She made her way in the direction of the city walls (Anabyl had never questioned her uncanny sense of direction, it was always a given and, hence, taken for granted); as she did Anabyl thought about the sword.
The sword was a training sword, being an ideal size and weight for a smaller person. It wasn't a short sword, or an elaborate dagger, it also wasn't one of the fine balanced fencing swords that Anabyl had seen in grand cities like Bellespire. The weapon would have appeared a little odd in the hands of an adult because it wasn't built to an adult scale. For someone Anabyl's size it was just about perfect.
Anabyl had never used a sword for much before, mischief was one thing, violence was something else altogether. Anabyl was no stranger to fire, concussion, humiliation, itching or other types of general unpleasantness associated with bringing self-important people down a peg or seven.
When she had been a very young child Anabyl had never needed anything more than pig-jousting, rotten vegetables and an unlimited supply of mud. Swords were fascinating, of course, anything that could destroy other things was interesting. Anabyl came to realise that she had honed the art of inflicting pain and discomfort on people she considered boring to such a fine point that real weapons had just naturally never figured into her schemes.
Anabyl knew that if you picked up a weapon then you were either an idiot or you intended to really hurt someone, and not in a fun way, or both. So why had she picked up the sword on her way into the sewers?
A few months ago she would never have done that, no matter what the circumstance. It didn't matter that she was in a fabled land in a far off time, cut off from everything she knew with no way home. It didn't matter that she was moving through a series of dark tunnels and could hear the screams and hoots of a riot going on above her head as she stepped under the grating covers for street level. Not so long ago Anabyl wouldn't have cared about any of that, she would have naturally assumed it had nothing to do with her.
Then an owl of wisdom had told her about dragon warriors, shortly after Peregrine Pagebinder had made it plain there was one person in the universe that she couldn't get the better of. The facts of these things had combined in her head to form the potential that one day Anabyl could be...
Anabyl had always assumed that she could just dodge the business of growing up. The world didn't work like that. She had met sprites who never grew up and she liked to humiliate those foolish creatures as much as any other idiot she met in the course of daily life. She remembered distinctly the feeling of not wanting to be like some idiot adult-child. She had been to the world of humans once and seen one of their picture box shows about old women (to Anabyl anyone over 20 years of age was old) who tried to act in a childish manner.
The whole concept brought Anabyl as close to fear as she had ever been.
No. Anabyl was determined not to be that. The only way to avoid it, unfortunately, was to grow up. That was unpalatable for a number of other reasons, chief among which was the idea of being married to some boy-prince and living out your life in a castle coping with the fallout from the actions of her children. Sons, she could probably handly discipline for a bunch of snot nosed little boys, no problem. What put a little ice into Anabyl's heart was the concept of the kind of daughter she might produce.
No. Altogether not something to be countenanced. She had decided to grow up in her own way, on her own terms. She had never known what they were. Then she had heard about dragon warriors.
A woman could be a soldier, or a knight, she had read the stories. Surely the dragon warrior was the best kind of knight. That had to be a contender for one of the best ways to grow up.
The discipline did not appeal, there was the problem.
Still, even in her escape she had taken a sword. This meant there was a new seriousness in Anabyl's heart, one that could not be denied.
This rather troubling notion was the last thing to play through Anabyl's mind as she exited from a drainage pipe outside of Dracopolis's city walls. Close to the drainage opening were a few small stone huts, locked up with rust-tinged metal doors, along the path away from the sewer tunnels was an old house. The house appeared as if it was abandoned, probably for some time. The question was: had the house been left empty long enough to attract ghosts?
Anabyl had a keen interest in ghosts, it was almost a hobby of hers. Her fascination with the spirits of the dead was unique in her personality as being the only thing she could be preoccupied with that didn't ultimately lead to someone ending up covered in some kind of wet slime. She had enquired of one spirit she had met about the possibility of obtaining some ectoplasm but found that the ghostly substance was a myth.
Still, she found the dead had a simple view of the world that she appreciated. They tended not to be judgemental and they didn't often have any agenda with which she might disagree. When she was a little older Anbyl would articulate that she appreciated the clarity that death appeared to bring to people (most people). At that moment all she knew was that if there were ghosts in the house she wanted to say hello.
Anabyl climbed the steps and crossed the porch area to find the front door locked, or at least jammed shut by something. A little further investigation revealed an open window that she wriggled through without any problems.
Before the final occupants of this house had moved on they had done a pretty thorough job of emptying it of anything that they might have formed a sentimental attachment to. There wasn't a stick of furniture, a picture hook or a scrap of textiles anywhere on the ground floor.
Of course, Anabyl wasn't really interested in those things, she was more interested in the possible inhabitants of the house. If there were ghosts here they were shy ghosts. The trick with a shy ghost was to not look directly at where they might be, because they could hide more easily if they knew you were looking. You had to catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of your eye.
The ghost of one of her great uncles had told her that, with a little concentration and effort, dimming a ghost's natural glow was an easy thing to achieve. However it did take some concentration and effort, and it became hellishly uncomfortable after a while, a bit like a live person holding their breath. What a ghost needed to do if it didn't want to be seen was move out of the way and then relax their concentration when they believed they were out of view.
So the way to get a glimpse of a shy ghost was to enter rooms suddenly, turn around unexpectedly and other wise try to look in places you hadn't been looking moments previously. Somewhere in the remains of the kitchen Anabyl believed she had got a glimpse of something, but the ghost in question was extremely shy because she couldn't catch it out a second time.
On the upper floor of the house Anabyl noticed a new smell accompanying the damp odour that permeated the lower floor, a smell of burned dry hair. Anabyl knew the aroma from somewhere but she couldn't quite place the exact memory. Irritated by this small mystery Anabyl stopped trying to catch out the local ghosts and searched the upstairs for the source of the smell.
In one of the upstairs rooms Anabyl found a small locker chest and a basic cot bed. Someone was using this place as a home.
This prospect made Anabyl feel a little awkward about being here. If there was someone alive using this property Anabyl felt it was her duty to soak them in something as soon as possible. She hadn't seen a well, or a mud patch or any other source of the necessary sogginess nearby. The prospect of not springing an unpleasant and hilarious surprise on a stranger due to a lack of materials made Anabyl uncomfortable.
She didn't want to stay in the mouldy house with the reclusive ghosts anyway. She reasoned she had best be on her way directly. She went down the stairs and through the front room to the door. She opened the door to find herself looking into the softly glowing orange-yellow eyes of an enormous wolf dressed in a fine crimson jacket, a light-yellow silk tunic and breeches of the same crimson as the jacket.
Anabyl knew a bit about wolves, it being the kind of distressing subject that her parents believed she should be shielded from. There were, of course, a full range of completely normal wolves ranging from smaller dog-like varieties to enormous dire-wolves. Then there were the spectrum of talking wolves. Unlike cats, dogs, mice and sundry other animals there were no talking wolves that appeared to be normal every day wolves until they asked you if you might not mind getting them some food.
Every variety of talking wolf wore clothes of some fashion. Previous to this Anabyl had only ever encountered the slim and erudite kind of wolf that was common in the Hundred Kingdoms. There were legends of vastly powerful talking dire wolves, or Royal Wolves, a war-like, aggressive species; Anabyl had only ever encountered them in stories because they had died out long ago.
Of course, now Anabyl was long ago, so the presence of a Royal Wolf shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it was. The problem with slipping through a hole in time was that sometimes you forgot that you had done so. For this reason Anabyl found herself surprised and without a response to the enraged predator whose dwelling place Anabyl had disturbed.
"What are you doing in my house?" the wolf demanded reaching out to push Anabyl backwards. Anabyl's long developed instinct for avoiding any grabbing hand kept her out of the reach of the gigantic creature.
"I was just passing through," Anabyl said. "I was a bit lost and I just wanted to ask for directions."
"Well, I'd say you'd taken a wrong turn," the wolf snarled. He flailed forward meaning to grab at Anabyl a second time. "Because when I catch you then you won't live long enough to regret coming here."
Anabyl considered ducking past the wolf at this point and running back towards the sewers. The only problem was that she wasn't terribly sure of her way and she was pretty confident that the wolf would turn out to be faster than her.
For the first time in her young life Anabyl realised that something was actually trying to seriously kill her. This annoyed her intensely, she considered it doubly rude seeing as she hadn't done so much as let a stink bomb off near this wolf and here he was acting like she'd left him for three days in a tree-snare. When she'd left one of the groundskeepers in such a precarious position all she'd got was gruel and a grounding. On that scale the wolf's unjustified anger seemed a bit of an overreaction.
More out of practicality than any intention to strike back Anabyl pulled out her sword and waved it at the wolf.
"You think a little girl would come out to such a scary part of the woods and walk around a creepy house if she didn't know how to stab a monster with a sword?" she asked. As bluffs went it relied heavily on the passion of the delivery, thankfully this wasn't a problem to Anabyl.
"I don't know," the wolf sneered. "Let's find out!"
It lunged for her again and she dodged away, swinging the sword in a manner that clearly owed more to enthusiasm than skill. Anabyl reminded herself that she had either better think of a good plan or get instantly a lot better with her sword if she wanted to see sunrise.
Anabyl backed away from the wolf trying to spot an escape route and babbling on about how jolly sorry the wolf would be if he came any closer. Spotting a doorway to her left Anabyl ducked through it and found herself at the top of a set of steps leading into a cellar. The growling noise behind her indicated that if she was in for this particular groat then she was most certainly in for the whole bronze mark. So she hurried down the steps three at a time.
It was at about this moment that Anabyl had a momentary pang of regret regarding her disdain for plans and strategising. She knew she was belting down stone steps into a dark basement. She knew she was being pursued by a seriously angry, powerful and inherently nasty royal wolf. Somehow the thoughts in her brain wouldn't allow her to do anything else.
She wasn't under any illusion that she was being manipulated or controlled. She was just acting, like she always did, the only difference being that this time her stream-of-consciousness approach to life might very well get her killed.
She found the basement to be a long corridor giving access to three rooms. She hadn't seen a ground level exit from beneath out at the front of the house so she vaulted over the bannister and headed for the room at the back. As she approached the door at the end of the passage she made great efforts not to think about what might happen if the door was locked or if it just lead into another boxy room with no exits.
Her relief at seeing a ground level window in the ceiling of the basement room was immense and all consuming. She lost no time in running towards the opening, scrambling up the wall, grabbing and pulling at the latch. The latch sprung and the window opened inwards. Surprised Anabyl fell back to the floor, stumbled but remained upright. She could only have bare seconds before the wolf was on top of her. She scrambled once more at the wall.
"Help me," said an unexpected voice behind her.
Anabyl didn't have much time to react, she turned her head to see a bird that looked very much like an owl of wisdom sitting in a cage. Next to the cage was a writing desk and a chair, the only proper furniture she'd seen in the whole house.
She didn't even think about it. She took the writing chair across the room and jammed it under the door handle just as the wolf tried to open the door. The door swung about an inch open on its hinges before jamming as the chair legs scraped against the bare stone floor. The royal wolf bellowed in rage and began rattling the door. Anabyl had only bought herself a few seconds.
She didn't waste those seconds. She worked the lock on the cage eventually prising it open with a letter opener she spotted on the writing desk. The owl thanked Anabyl and had just flapped out of the window when the door burst inward and the royal wolf charged into the room.
"My owwwwwwl!" it screamed, its already boiling fury seeming to kick up another few notches. "You will pay."
Anabyl realised that there was really nowhere else to run. She could try to get through the window but then she would just be dragged back into the room. If she was going to die then she decided that she had pretty much better look it in the eye and see if she could distract it into a staring contest.
"You!" she shouted at the wolf, "are about the meanest and most awful creature I have ever met in my entire life! How dare you keep an owl of wisdom in a stinky cage? I'm glad I let it out, I hope they come back and poop all over you!"
The tirade momentarily caused the wolf to pause, wondering why this strange little girl was not crying and screaming and pleading for her life and, further, why she felt she had the right to tell him off. After a moment he plainly concluded that it was all bravado and bluff so he snarled at her preparatory to eating her right up.
But by then it was too late.
The enormous royal wolf that had been ready to swallow Anabyl whole a second before now found itself in the body of an embarrassingly small and rat-like dog. It's snarl sounded like a large rat trying to clear its throat. The wolf brought itself up short, throwing a second confused and awestruck look in the direction of Princess Anabyl.
"Don't look at me," she shrugged. "It wasn't my doing."
"Not directly, anyway," said another voice emerging from the darkest corner of the basement room. "I can't very well have the children in my care getting eaten by royal wolves on a field excursion now, can I?"
Peregrine Pagebinder emerged from the shadows and picked up the little dog from the floor. The former royal wolf now looked irritated beyond all reason not to mention absolutely disconsolate.
"I did wonder where you were hiding," Anabyl said peevishly, determined not to show Peregrine any gratitude whatsoever. If the annoying sprite hadn't sent her on this field trip then she would never have ended up in this situation anyway, that was her reasoning.
"I have not been hiding," Peregrine said. "I have been looking at the possibilities for the continued unfolding of your educational curriculum. It's time for options, young lady."
"Options?" Anabyl asked. "What are they? No. Don't answer. Anything to do with you has to be stupid and boring."
"Not so antagonistic please, Anabyl," Peregrine said. "The path we are engaged upon is for the betterment of us all. Now, the question of how much better is entirely in your hands. You must choose your next step carefully. That is the option you will be given, how to proceed with your education, understood?"
"Unless going home and having you move out permanently is one of the choices I don't think I'm going to be interested," Anabyl said.
"I'm afraid not," Peregrine replied coolly. The calmer he was about Anabyl's volley of vitriolic insults the more obnoxious she was determined to become. "There are two options, option one is that we now return to Caer Spireshine and you embark upon a programme of extensive social education with the aim of turning you into a master stateswoman."
Anabyl felt the only response to that was to stick her tongue out and make puking noises.
"Option two," Peregrine continued, ever unruffled, "is to combine the advanced discplinary, tactical and spiritual educative methods of the Dracopolis Academy with some more focused sessions on history, natural science and other useful academics with the aim of turning you into the finest dragon warrior the lands of Faerie has ever or will ever know. I should tell you that this latter option is the more difficult of the two, however it does give you the potential to fulfil one of the grandest destinies that the world has ever known, if you can stick to it."
Anabyl tried to muster up some enthusiasm for puking at that option too. She was surprised to find that she couldn't. After today's near miss she reasoned that if someone could teach her not to fight her way into a corner that would be a very good thing indeed. The Dracopolis Academy appeared to be a place of rules and discipline, neither of which were Anabyl's favourite things. In a contest between martial discipline and political protocol though the discipline won every day.
Then there was the thing about the destiny.
"What do you mean 'the grandest destiny the world has ever known'?" she asked.
"One of the grandest destinies the world has ever known," Peregrine said. "Choose that path and you will come to find out in time."
So she did, and she did, but all of that will be told at another time, in another place, for the hour is too late now.
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Avan Weatherstrong and the Riders in Little Hill
Before the time of the Vanishing, when all the dragons went away, there were a number of realms that were ruled by, or living in symbiosis with, the Draconic races. These realms were governed by a treaty between the dragons and the folk known as the Ninefold Covenant.
In that dim and distant past Faerie had a greater geography than it does today, with three vast continents separated by two enormous oceans. The continents of Araby and Axis were connected by a thin spit of land marking a dividing point between the Trader's Ocean and the dark waters of the Ocean Incognita. The last continent, Terra Draconis, lay at the far end of the Crystal Ocean, its vast trenches and extensive underwater kingdoms make up most of the sub-oceanic shadows, even today.
The riches to be found in the Terra Draconis were many, the routes to cross the oceans few and fraught with dangers. One of the most detailed accounts left across the former continent of Axis (now home to the Hundred Kingdoms and the Crossway Realms) is the account of the adventures of Prince Avan Weatherstrong set down in the tenth volume of his adventures.
If one were to look at a standard edition of 'The Tales of Avan Weatherstronge Vol. X' purchased, for example, from a stall at the Patchwork Market of Bridgetown one would probably find the following tale set down there. However, if one were to visit some of the deeper stacks of the Faerie Archive of Levercastle one may find the events transpired a little differently in the 'Fully Annotated' edition of the same volume written in a special expanding binding with intelligent ink. Such refinements are only to be located in Faerie's only real library, probably because of the testing effect they tend to have on the surrounding reality.
In this tale Avan Weatherstrong emerged from the sea road through the undersea kingdom of Redkale to cross the border into the coastal kingdom of Bromo. This would be his first days in the Terra Draconis and he was excited to see the last of the lands of Faerie first hand.
The first sign of trouble in Bromo came when he climbed up the stairs cut into the rock of the Bromo Cliffs to find that his entry onto land was barred by a tall gate, a tower to one side provided enough room to house a few guards. Avan knocked upon the door and saw a face appear at the top of the tower.
"Who goes there?" challenged the Broman guard from above.
"My name is Prince Avan Weatherstrong," Avan explained. "I bear a Seal of the Hundred Kingdoms, I seek no more than to travel through your lands upon my great journey among the lands of Faerie."
Avan held up the golden circle, the seal of the Hundred Kingdoms but from the top of the tower it must have looked like no more than a small golden saucer.
"Wait there," the guard told him, "I'm coming down."
There was the scuffle of a number of boots against stone and a small hatch opened in the gate.
"Hold up your seal," the guard demanded, Avan complied.
There was the sound of a number of bolts and latches being undone before the gate finally opened. Across the threshold of the kingdom of Bromo was a small stone room and two nervous looking guards holding spears, regarding Avan with suspicion.
"I take it you were expecting something more troublesome than a travelling prince?" Avan asked.
"Kalers," one of the guards mumbled in response.
"They don't usually come in the day time, they've not been coming at night so often. They're probably up to something," the other one said. He scanned the stairway behind Avan, as if expecting to find an attack force that he had not previously noted, skulking among the jagged walls of rock to either side.
"You are at war with your neighbours?" Avan asked. "That is a great shame. Men like you should be building a kingdom, not waiting in fear in a damp gatehouse."
"You'd best come through," one of the guards said. "Not safe to have the gate open for too long."
Avan entered the gatehouse and one of the guards closed and locked the door behind him. The chamber beyond the gate was small and bare, there was a set of steps off to Avan's left and a larger wooden double door about eight feet further on.
"I'm really just passing through," Avan said to the guards. "I have come to see the wonders of the Terra Draconis. Maybe, if I talk with your ruler, then I could offer some insight into whatever is troubling this realm."
"You'll have to take the Caer Road," the guard said. "You'd be better on a horse, not long now until sundown."
"What's the problem with sundown?" Avan asked. There were often, in his experience, problems with sundown, the question was more an assessment of what kind of problem this might be.
"The riders come out, usually after night fall, sometimes at dusk," the guard said. "Take the road to Little Hill, that's not so far away, you can stay at the Inn."
Avan was curious about what a rider might be but he could tell that the guards were keen to send him on his way during the last few hours of daylight so he held his tongue. One of the guards went up the stairs, back into the watch tower, the other lead Avan through the double doors at the opposite end of the antechamber and out onto a broad courtyard. A simple four stall stable was set up to one side of the courtyard, there were a few wooden stakes to the opposite side that were probably used for combat practice. At the far end of the courtyard was a high wall and, in the centre, two tall wooden gates topped with spikes.
Without talking, or even looking at Avan, the guard lead the prince to the gates. He opened a wicket in the gate on the right.
"Little Hill road goes that way," he said pointing to a cobbled road that split north from the junction just beyond the gates. Avan noticed that the guard was stood away from the open wicket, his nervousness had increased with the little door open. "Town's just over the hill in the valley beyond," the guard said. "Don't stop, get to the inn as quick as you can, when evening bell rings close the shutters on your room. They'll tell you what to do."
Avan's curiosity was now raging but he did not think that this guard would appreciate a barrage of questions. Avan would have to find someone more talkative in this town, Little Hill. He thanked the guard for the advice before setting foot on the Little Hill road.
The walk into the town did not take long, he reached the town limits while the sun still had quite a distance to sink upon its travels. Avan had travelled a long way on his journey and so he was neither surprised nor disappointed that his first experience of the Terra Draconis was indistinguishable, in many ways, from his experience of anywhere else he had been.
The air was a little chilly, the sky was a light grey, Avan imagined that some rain could not be too far away. The local vegetation in Bromo was verdant but not exotic, all in line with a temperate autumnal season. The only unusual thing about Bromo was how quiet the roads were and how scared the guards had been.
Little Hill was no more reassuring. People rushed back and forth with a sense of urgency, most ignored Avan, those that didn't regarded him wide-eyed, appearing to assess him as they would a stray dog that may turn out to be rabid. Avan heard many people make remarks about wanting to get things done before curfew.
In the early days of his adventures Avan's curiosity at this odd behaviour would surely have got the better of him. When he had begun his journey his patience had not been tempered by so many brushes with death. He was confident that he could get some information from someone at the Inn, these establishments were always the hub of all the most interesting information to be gleaned in a particular place at a particular time.
Little Hill Inn was adjacent to the town's market square. By the time Avan arrived the stalls had all been removed or locked up, even though the evening bell was still a little time away. As Avan approached the inn he observed townsfolk heading indoors with some haste. Many of the houses that surrounded the square were shut up tight, blank faced shutters hiding the interior from view. To one side of the square there were three houses that had been burned out, a sign advised passers by to stay away from the ruins.
Whatever Avan's expectations had been of the inn they did not include the desolate tavern area that he stepped into. There were no more than ten patrons in the whole place, a bored looking draco stood behind the bar occupying his time with a bar-room skittles set. The green skinned inn keeper was the first draco Avan had ever seen so he tried his hardest not to feel underwhelmed.
Avan had experienced some difficulty separating out the draco, a race of dragon-people who walked on two legs like the folk, from lizard men. Now that he could see one to compare he understood that you could not mistake one for another. Lizard men were related to goblins, as such they tended to be wiry of frame, their heads were far more lizard than folk, their skin was scaled, their eyes had yellow irises and black slitted pupils.
The draco were smoother skinned, if anything their complexion looked as if it were made of some kind of soft fabric, tinted not just green but rather in a wash of colours including yellow, blue, purple and green. Their eyes were an odd china blue at the edges with large dark pupils that sometimes shone as they caught the light. Instead of having a steady iris the pupil gave the appearance of being on fire.
The draco also carried a natural bulk, even this small bar man appeared stocky, robust with health. Black hair sprouted from his head in a stripe that gave his pointed ears plenty of breathing room either side. At the back the barman's hair was gathered into a clip.
Avan approached the draco who was intent on knocking down the four badly spaced pins still standing on the board. The bar man made Avan wait until the ball had swung through its arc, narrowly missing two of the pins, clipping one so that it fell and going nowhere near the fourth. The bar man tutted at his failure and readjusted his focus to point in Avan's direction.
"The guards at the cliff stair gatehouse told me that I should come here and book a room for the night," Avan said.
"They must have liked you," the bar man replied. "Room's four florins."
Avan put down a crown.
"People round here appear to be frightened," Avan said. "Maybe while you show me my room we could talk about that."
"Your money," the barman shrugged, pocketing the crown. "Follow me."
The bar man lead Avan out of the main tavern area up a set of steps that wound round up to a second floor. He showed Avan to a small, functional guest room. Avan noted, upon entering the room, that the shutters were already closed and locked.
"Don't open them," the bar man said, following the direction of Avan's gaze. "I don't want any trouble."
"What's so troubling?" Avan asked. "I think you'll find I've paid for an answer."
"Wolf riders," the bar man said. "Mercenaries hired by Redkale. They have beseiged the whole of Bromo,"
"Why?" Avan asked. "Such a campaign must be ruinous for both kingdoms. Only the mercenaries would make any profit."
"Redkale's daughter, Princess Auriga and Bromo's son, Prince Lachlan, they are married," the barman said. "Redkale has never supported the mingling of land dwellers and merfolk. He was less than understanding on the matter."
"It's unusual for a Lord to jeopardise his people supporting his child's love match," Avan said. It was a remark that Avan hoped the barman would recognise as a diplomatically phrased question.
"There's enchantment involved," the barman said. "That's all you need to know for now. That and, don't open the shutters, until you hear morning bell. We'll bring you your supper after evening bell, there isn't a night bell."
With that the bar man withdrew, leaving Avan to get as comfortable as he could in his cell-like room. He took his heeding stone from its pouch in a boot pocket and set it up on the small dresser. He took his binding scarf from around his neck and laid it over the surface of the small mirror attached to the dresser. Only then did he remove some of his armoured travelling clothes and stretch out the tiredness in his muscles.
After a short time Avan heard the muted sound of the evening bell through the shutters. A draco woman, possibly the inn keeper's wife or sister, brought Avan a bowl of hearty broth and some unusual dense bread. Avan ate slowly and then talked with his heeding stone for a little while before retiring into the bed in his room. The complete dark and silence felt like a cocoon so the prince fell swiftly to sleep.
Avan had been travelling for too long to be a deep sleeper, so when the scream made its way through the muffle of the stout wooden shutters it awoke him. There wasn't much else in the way of sound and the scream had already died by the time he was conscious, to the point where most people would have been uncertain whether or not they had dreamed the noise.
In his travels Avan had cause to deal with the forces of the dream world, he had cause to know better than most what was real and what was not. The scream had been muffled but already Avan had recalled it to mind, it had been female, probably young, so close to the bleat of an animal in distress but that was another distinction that Avan had learned to pick apart.
Still, he couldn't be certain but where there was doubt there was also possibility. He crept to the shutters, unlocked them and opened them just a crack to peer out into the dark night.
The streets of Little Hill by night were not well lit. There was evidence that there were some lights here and there, low down to street level, mostly the view out of the window was dark, then there was the rainbow corona. A column of whirling rainbow light picked out the tiles of rooftops in narrow streets, approaching the market square. Every so often the column would collapse and the view would darken, before, once more blooming upwards shooting towards the sky.
With the shutters open a crack Avan could detect the sounds of snarling and shouting, no doubt the noise of the riders stalking whatever it was that formed the centre of the corona. Avan had to act, someone could be in danger and he had no confidence that anyone from Little Hill would risk involvement.
He quickly pulled on his armoured clothes and picked up his short sword and channeling staff. He wanted to be stealthy but had no time for a serious enchantment, he spoke a darkening charm that merely dimmed his form, making it less distinct and muting the noises he made. Then he stole out of his room and down into the tavern.
The door to the inn was locked up tight with a mortice lock, Avan muttered the words of a minor thieves' cantrip and touched his channelling staff to the lock and it sprung open. He was careful to close the door again behind him, he didn't want to think of the riders finding a house that wasn't secured. Once the door was locked Avan ran into the dark streets trying to locate the rainbow corona once more.
It didn't take long to spot it, the column of light was still blooming upwards, fading and blooming again, clear against the night sky. Avan's eyes were becoming used to the darkness now and he picked his way quickly across the market square avoiding the locked up permanent stalls, water butts and other obstacles that could have slowed him down.
As he drew closer to the corona it became apparent that its source was mobile, it was moving toward the market square, only a few streets distant. As Avan reached the western edge of the square he heard a sound from his left. He turned his eyes to see a shadowy figure emerge from between two buildings about forty feet distant from his position.
The figure was a giant wolf, it looked to be a large cousin of the dire wolf found in Axis, mounted on its back was a soldier in armour, one of the riders. Behind it came two more. Avan darted forward to gain cover at the corner of the street he was headed toward. Once he was behind the wall he carefully surveyed the approaching riders from his cover, trying to assess whether they had targetted him specifically or just happened to be headed in his direction.
From a quick glance it did not appear that Avan had been spotted. It was likely they were moving around to hem in the source of the rainbow corona. That meant that he had to head in towards the source quickly, before it was too late.
The source was only one street over now, around a corner about sixty feet ahead. It appeared to be travelling in his direction. Avan picked up his heels and ran towards it, determined to beat the riders to the prize.
The source and the prince reached the junction at the same time. Avan found himself looking into the furious face of a little girl wearing an almost comical lemon-yellow party frock under which could be seen the ominous black leather of a pair of stout boots. The corona centred on her illuminating her form and providing a glowing spear of light that pierced the night sky, betraying her location.
For a moment Avan and the little girl just stared at one another, neither certain which would move first. The little girl broke the deadlock, darting forward and kicking Avan soundly in the right shin.
She was three feet away from him, dodging around to his right, before he had recovered from the unexpected pain enough to move after her. He didn't want to draw attention to himself by calling out. Avan started after her, back up the street he'd come down originally, but neither of them got very far before the riders came down ahead of them. The three wolves spread out across the road to cut off their retreat.
The little girl spun on her heel and dodged back round Avan without even acknowledging his presence to run west further along the street. Avan quickly checked the southern approach where the girl had emerged from, there were more riders coming up that way. It was almost certain that there would be a third band of riders up the other street. The rainbow corona was too easy to pinpoint.
There was no time for questions, and equally little for subtlety. Avan had problems with works of sorcery, particularly in circumstances such as this, but the price of a one-off effect would be minor. He held out his hand and recited the summoning charm for his familiar. The tiny figure of an imp appeared in the palm of his hand.
"Long time no see, Princey," the little man said. "You must be desperate."
"The power of flight, until sunrise, how much?" Avan asked. He could hear the heavy lope of the wolves coming closer.
"One hundred hairs from your head, they will never grow back," the imp said.
"One hundred?" Avan asked, he was in a poor position to bargain but one hundred hairs was the potential for one hundred curses to be worked attached to him, one hundred death kisses, one hundred doppelshades, one hundred custom built mirror prisons. "Twenty, maybe."
"I'll do seventy," the imp replied. "Doesn't look like we can haggle any further if you want to keep the head those hairs grow from."
"Done," Avan responded and felt a smattering of prickles on his scalp as the hairs were extracted.
"A pleasure doing business, princey, don't be a stranger," the imp said before exploding in a puff of acrid purple smoke.
"I hate sorcery," Avan muttered as his feet lifted from the ground. He swooped forward just as the axe wielded by one of the riders swung through the space he had occupied until the very moment before.
The flight wasn't smooth, the power had been given with too much inertia, Avan would have to be careful about stopping and turning. Right now he had to aim for the rainbow corona and get the little girl out of harm's way.
The corona was still obvious, it had slowed to a stop about twenty feet further on, no doubt the girl had seen the other riders and was now looking for some avenue of escape. There was no time for anything clever. Avan soared down the street, gripped the little girl round the waist, eliciting another huge scream that rattled his eardrums, before finally shooting up into the sky.
Once he was far enough over the roof tops he flew towards the coast, where he knew the courtyard outside the cliff gatehouse would be open to the sky and locked down tight.
"Get off me!" the little girl shouted, squirming to get out of Avan's grasp.
"Stop struggling," Avan said. "I don't want you to fall. I'm not going to hurt you."
"Good for you," the little girl said. "I'm most definitely going to hurt you, as soon as I get the chance."
Avan was so surprised by the comment he nearly fell out of the air.
"I just saved your life," Avan said.
"How do I know that?" the little girl asked. "You're flying, that means you're a sorcerer, and sorcerers are mean."
"I might be an alchemist," Avan responded.
"Alchemists can't make people fly," the girl scoffed. "They just make things smell, or explode, sometimes both."
"Alchemists can work any magic, if they're skilled enough. I could be a druid, they fly," Avan said.
"I don't know anything about druids, if you mean witches they need a broomstick, you've got no broomstick, you're definitely a sorcerer."
"Well, currently," Avan said. "I'm a sorcerer who rescued you from soldiers on wolf back," Avan said. "So I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt. You can hurt me later, if I try to hurt you, deal?"
"I suppose," the little girl said.
Avan couldn't help but notice that when she made her last remark the halo of rainbow light faded a little.
"Where are we going?" the little girl asked.
"Guard house, on the coast," Avan said. "We can get you inside until morning, then you might not stand out so much."
"Will there be guards?" the girl asked.
"There usually are in guardhouses," Avan answered. The light instantly blossomed brighter. "Why are you glowing?" Avan asked.
"It's a punishment," the girl said. "From my stupid personal tutor. He makes me glow whenever I'm thinking of mischief. I've been glowing for three weeks now, almost constantly. He said it was so he could find me easily when I was up to no good."
"I take it your personal tutor is a trickster, then?" Avan said. He had heard of such sprites, they were attached to people the powers that be had deemed to be in need of a drastic lesson.
"He's a stupid, that's all I know," the little girl said.
Avan saw the light of the gatehouse tower, he curved round to make a landing.
"So how did you end up in Little Hill, after dark, alone?" Avan asked.
"It's a 'field trip', whatever that means," the little girl replied. "I told him I would do anything to get rid of the light, he said 'really, anything?' and I said 'anything' and he said 'even go on a field trip?', and I told him that if it would help me get rid of the light I would do anything at all. So he tapped me on the head with his stick and then I was in that town.
"I wasn't glowing at first, I was too amazed. Then I saw the wolf people and I couldn't help but wonder if I could steal one of the wolves, I mean, they're amazing. Then they spotted me, they were angry, that's a usual sort of reaction in anyone who's met me before, I didn't think they had. Anyway I ran, they came after me and you took me away to here."
The little girl finished speaking just as Avan touched down in the courtyard. The two guards from the tower, who were a different pair from the ones who had lead Avan through earlier, came running out, waving their spears.
"Which," the little girl concluded. "Looks really dull, apart from the spears." She turned to address one of the guards. "Hey, mister, that's a really good spear, can I have a go?"
The rainbow corona was still shining brightly. Avan held up his seal of the Hundred Kingdoms.
"Gentlemen," he said. "I will explain, inside, I think we need to contain this little girl before her light brings the riders down on this place."
The guards were confused but they weren't idiots, they hurried Avan and the little girl into the guard tower where Avan explained the situation to them. The little girl turned out to be called Anabyl Spireshine (which seemed odd as Spireshine was one of the hundred kingdoms that neighboured Avan's own home of Weatherstrong) and she identified herself as a princess. She found it hard to believe that Avan was who he claimed to be because she said he was 'from a storybook'.
Avan found out a bit more about Anabyl and how she had come to the Terra Draconis, why she was there and how he could return her to her home. All of this is a story for another time.
Sunday, 12 May 2013
In Which Saeed Visits The City of Sorrowblade
Life, Saeed considered, is filled with hard lessons. The hard lesson that had occasioned this consideration was thus: Do not take the terms of a deal with the Master of the Patchwork Market lightly. Saeed had believed that the restoration of Princess Butterstone's brother, in reasonable health, from his place of captivity would satisfy the deal he had made with Kalico.
The Master of the Market had told Saeed upon his return to the Master's Tower that the agreement was null and void. If Saeed wanted a market seal he would have to do one more job. When Saeed had objected Kalico pointed out the clause in their verbal agreement that required the matter be handled 'with discretion'. Saeed took a moment to reflect and came to the conclusion that the explosion and resultant damage to Sir Vaskorn's plaza, not to mention the confrontation between Vaskorn's mercenaries and the Market Watch that had followed, could hardly be described as 'discreet'.
Saeed's only options were to get angry about the matter or to accept his own shortcomings. A thief Saeed was, hot tempered he was not. So Saeed had, with unspoken sadness and frustration, accepted the master's ruling.
"I knew you had wisdom," Kalico grinned, as he sat behind his large flat desk. The Master of the Market was relaxed, he exercised power with an air of great assurance. He smiled like a shark and had eyes like a snake. Underneath it all, Saeed believed, there was a heart that was, if not good, at least ethical. "Maybe the sting of my harsh ruling will be lessened if I tell you the nature of the job I wish you to do."
"Perhaps," Saeed said, although he could not imagine it.
"What if I told you that yesterday's little disturbance was not the first time that Sir Vaskorn's activities have attracted unwelcome attention?" Kalico asked, his tone smooth and measured.
Saeed could not help but lean forward a little. He had not liked the giant knight one little bit. Sir Vaskorn was a bully, filled with rage, who frightened people into obedience. Any chance Saeed was given to undermine a man like that was a chance to do good in the name of his mother.
Kalico's smile neither grew nor did it falter.
"A wise boy and an excellent thief," Kalico said. "I shall not be able to cut too many deals to my advantage with this one."
Only then did Kalico's facial expression change, it grew darker, the grin disappeared as Kalico sat forward over his desk.
"Before the close of market on Duesday," Kalico said, "One of Vaskorn's men has been observed leaving the market upon a certain bridge to one of the darker far off shadows. The same knight returns upon the following Stockday accompanied by two talking wolves pulling a cart of treasure, the treasure goes onto Vaskorn's plaza. At that point I lose track of it.
"I have, of course, performed routine inspections of Vaskorn's plaza, as I do all pitches in the market, in order to assess the dues to be paid for the upkeep of the market as a whole. My watch have never found evidence of the chests or their contents upon the plaza.
"Aside from the possible dues evasion issue," Kalico said, a new darkness settling into his tone at the mention of 'dues evasion', "there are other matters at hand. For a start nobody knows what is in the chest, nobody knows where the chest comes from and nobody knows what happens to the chest or its contents after it disappears onto Vaskorn's plaza.
"As you have already observed all confrontations between Vaskorn's men and my watch have the potential to turn ugly. It would not be the right play for me to directly confront a dues paying merchant when I do not know what the outcome will be for the market or its other patrons. The Patchwork Market has long held a reputation as being not only the biggest and best market in the lands of Faerie but also a far safer place to bring your coin purse than many smaller establishments. A street war is not something that anyone wants.
"The particulars of market lore prevent me from hiring a retinue of intelligencers but they say nothing about how I choose to reclaim the debt of a thief that I have found causing a disturbance on the plazas. So you see, as much as I may wish to dispense you a seal and send you upon your way, right now I need your particular skills more than I need to be praised for my benevolent generosity.
"Besides, I think I would be right in saying that you are not overly displeased to be offered an opportunity to redress the power balance problem I have with one of my wealthiest patrons."
Saeed could feel the beginnings of a smile start upon his own lips. Kalico's judgement was stern but it could not be argued against.
"Indeed you would not be wrong, Master," Saeed said. "I would be happy to provide you with this service, but I cannot, a second time, allow you the opportunity of a loophole. I am as keen as anyone to see Vaskorn properly hemmed in, but I am more concerned about the progress of my journey towards my mother. If I cannot be assured that I will secure the seal by the performance of this latest task I will have to leave the market and find another road upon my journey. I am sure that, as this would mean that everybody loses, no one here wants this to be the case."
"You argue eloquently," Kalico said. "Be assured that if I find out where the chest comes from, what it contains and where the contents end up, I shall happily furnish you with the seal you require. Discretion in this matter is obviously vital. If Vaskorn catches you I don't have to tell you how badly things would go for you. I also have to inform you that I will not be able to vouch for you if he brings you to me. This matter cannot be sensibly resolved if Vaskorn knows what I have been up to."
"I understand," Saeed said. "As I will not be encumbered by either a weakened prince in a state of confusion or a requirement to make noise it shall be just as if I am not there at all."
"Let us hope for all our sakes that you are neither proud nor boastful," Kalico said.
By the following Duesday Saeed had been given a good three nights to consider the extent of his own arrogance. He had come to the conclusion that a little arrogance was required of a thief, therefore he could only hope that his own was not excessive.
Vaskorn's knight appeared before the noon bell, heading out along the bridge that the Market Watch had pointed out to him. The bridge lead out through the rainbow mists to a shadow called Sorrowblade. This was not a land that Saeed was keen to visit again once he had left this time.
A large city sprawled up the sides of a valley directly upon the far side of the bridge. The sky here was a strange reddish purple. Upon the horizon Saeed could make out the tall stacks of vast chimneys constructed from dark mud bricks.
The same bricks were used to build everything in Sorrowblade, the walls, the roads, the buildings. There was no sign of nature excepting small walled beds of black earth from which there sprung coils of sickly white creeping plants with no leaves. The wind that blew through the valley was warm and dry, it filled Saeed's nose and mouth, drying his throat and leaving a taste like baked bricks and vinegar.
The domain of Sorrowblade was a sad place indeed, buried in bricks and steeped in wickedness.
Thankfully the city streets were a natural home to shadows and the rooftops were high. Saeed did not find it a challenge to follow along behind Vaskorn's agent unseen. The citizens of Sorrowblade all appeared to be talking animals of the ferocious variety. Many were wolves but there were bears and foxes alongside tall rodentine men who obviously had ancenstry among rats, mice, ferrets and weasels. There were also a fair few of the more evolved lizard men living and working in the city.
Saeed recognised the way that the people of Sorrowblade were divided as being very similar to the social divisions of the souk in Afsana. Many of the wolves, bears and foxes were well dressed, they treated the rodents and lizards with contempt, shouting at them and ordering them about. Saeed couldn't help feeling a little sorry for some of them, particularly those who resembled white-furred mice who were not just smaller than their lupine and ursine fellows but also a good deal meeker. In much the same manner as the meek souk residents had been regularly bullied and abused by the palace guards of Afsana so these little fellows were the butt of cruel practical jokes or bore the brunt of horrible abuse from the ferocious bears and wolves.
Saeed followed Vaskorn's knight along a number of streets and over a gigantic square. In the centre of the square was an enormous statue of a jackal sitting upon a throne. The statue's eyes glowered down upon the throng of Sorrowblade citizenry with suspicion.
Vaskorn's knight headed into an alley and down a set of steps into a cellar building. At the door of the cellar the knight's identity was confirmed before he was allowed entry. After he had gone inside the door was locked behind the knight.
He moved from the shadows where he was standing back to the corner of the alleyway. Thankfully there was a low building, two stories high not far away from which he could look at the cellar in the alley and also the front of the same building. That way he would be able to see if the knight returned to continue his journey before evening. Saeed scaled a drainpipe at the side of the building and took up a position at the edge of the roof.
It didn't take long until Saeed began to feel that he was being watched. The entire oppressive atmosphere of Sorrowblade was enough to generate a certain level of paranoia but Saeed began to feel that this was not all there was to his feelings. He surveyed the rooftop and it did not take him long to spot a pair of sleek black cats regarding him with almost total disinterest from the opposite side of the roof.
Upon making eye contact one of the cats stood up, stretched and slunk over to sit beside Saeed on the roof ledge.
"Monkey two legs," the cat said. "Not often we see one of your kind on our streets, let alone within the kingdom of the cats."
"Apologies for my intrusion," Saeed said. "I was not aware that this vantage point belonged to anyone. I promise I will be no trouble and I will be gone soon."
"I am not overly concerned about your presence here, monkey two legs," the cat said. "I barely care enough even to be having this conversation with you. Still, you are strange in my world and I do have a little time for strange things. Would you care to tell me why you come to Sorrowblade? This city is so hostile to your people that you have to hide away in the Cat Kingdom lest you be savaged by a wolf or bear."
"There is another man here," Saeed said. "He comes from the Patchwork Market of Bridgetown and soon he will return there bearing a chest. I just wished to know where the chest came from, and now I do."
"Why do you care?" the cat asked. "What is in the chest?"
"I don't know, this is something else that I need to find out."
"That building is one that has a hot roof," the cat said. "It is not part of the Cat Kingdom. A mischief worker plies his trade inside those walls. A cat goes in, it never comes out."
"What does the mischief worker do?" asked Saeed.
"Works mischief," the cat said in a tone of voice that communicated just how stupid it considered Saeed to be. "All kinds, many kinds fatal. The mischief man has a book of monkey markings, even though he is descended from the play food. We stay away."
"Thank you," Saeed said. "That is very helpful."
"It was not intended to be helpful," the cat said. "And I do not care for your thanks, they are neither soft to sleep on, nor good to eat. I am bored now."
The cat turned and walked away to its companion. After a brief conversation the two of them hopped off the edge of the roof and retreated away from Saeed's position.
The afternoon wore on, the stalls in the square began to close up, a lizard man swept up in front of a stall that advertised itself as a barber's. Saeed assumed the lizard was not the barber, after all who would trust a barber with scales instead of hair? Satisfied that the knight was not going to leave that day and keen not to be caught in Sorrowblade after dark Saeed returned to the Patchwork Market to report his findings to Kalico.
The following Stockday Saeed was waiting by the Sorrowblade Bridge as the knight, accompanied by two wolves on their hind legs, dressed in relatively fine clothes and pulling a cart behind them, returned to Bridgetown.
By the time they arrived the evening bell had rung and the streets of the market were mostly dark and silent. A few of the plazas, particularly those that offered food, entertainment and lodgings (all gathered into the cosmopolitan quarter), were still operating. The knight and the wolves avoided these plazas, sticking instead to the mercantile plazas, all of which were closed for business.
They were even careful to avoid the all night tobacconist stands and appeared to be on a constant lookout for the watch.
Not needing to gain access to Vaskorn's basement area this time, and having already located his prize, Saeed skipped along the beams of the roof tops, only coming down when he needed to cross a bridge behind the knight and the wolves.
Before long they reached Vaskorn's plaza. Saeed took the opportunity to quickly circle the high walls of the area checking for weak spots. This time, the urgency of his mission having decreased as no one's life was on the line, Saeed found a small hole which allowed access for plumbing pipes, gas works and ventilation ducts. Vaskorn's plaza was well defended but it did take advantage of some things that could only be distributed through the market network.
Saeed squeezed through this hole and found himself in the rafters above the plaza, looking down upon the neatly cobbled streets of Vaskorn's domain.
The knight, wolves and their cargo were admitted via the main portcullis and crossed into the small square where Vaskorn and Kalico had confronted one another the previous Longday. A scaffold had been erected over the covered ramp that Prince Butterstone had blown apart, the stocks that Vaskorn had vandalised remained broken.
The knight crossed the square and entered the main building on the plaza via a stout wooden door. After a few minutes the knight returned with another man Saeed did not recognize. The man wore a long dark cloak made of a rich material. He also wore a broad brimmed hat topped with s single green feather stuck into a silk band that was held in place by a jewelled buckle at the front. The quality of the man's attire lead Saeed to believe he was royalty.
"I don't like doing this in the square," the man complained as they crossed to the cart. "It's too exposed."
"Unfortunately the basement rooms are not safe at present, after our accident with the detonating powder," the knight said.
"I hope that teaches you to be more careful with explosives in the future," the man said. "I always thought that Vaskorn was too cavalier in such matters."
"Indeed," the knight said. "Would you care to inspect the shipment?"
"Of course," the man said. "The second thing they teach you growing up in the House of Mossdark is never to trust a Sorrowblader, no offence," he said to the wolves with no hint of sincerity. The wolves didn't appear to be paying much attention anyway.
Vaskorn's knight took a key from a chain about his neck and opened up the chest a little way. A sliver of white-green light spilled out from inside. Before Saeed could get a good look at the contents the man in the cloak held up a hand.
"Not too far," he said. "You can still see the light of dragon crystals from an open plaza, even if you can't see the plaza."
Dragon crystals, Saeed noted. He didn't know what dragon crystals were, but he noted the name for Kalico anyway.
The man in the cloak squinted past the light into the chest and, after a few moments, waved for the chest to be closed. Once that was done he pulled a purse of coin from his cloak and handed it to Vaskorn's knight. Then he produced a stubby stout wooden wand and waved it vaguely in the air in front of the treasure wagon.
A glittering portal opened up in the square and the wolves, who seemed unimpressed by all of the proceedings, followed the man in the dark cloak through the portal which immediately began to shrink and close.
Panic gripped Saeed's heart. He had seen where the chest had come from and he had discovered what was inside. All he knew of where the crystals went was that a man in a dark cloak took them through a magical portal.
Vaskorn's knight was already halfway across the plaza, his back to the closing hole in reality behind him. Thankfully the void had to be big enough to allow a cart pulled by two large man-wolves to pass through it. Without thinking too hard on the decision Saeed jumped down from the rafters sped across the square and dove through the closing portal before it had quite disappeared.
Saeed landed roughly upon a cold stone floor in a broad passageway. There were no windows and it was both damp and cold. Saeed guessed he must be somewhere underground. Up ahead some distance he could see the back of the cart as the wolves pulled it onwards. Once they had delivered the cargo Saeed reasoned they must be allowed to return to Vaskorn's plaza. Only the chest disappeared from view.
Saeed's only option was to follow on behind and hope he could get through the second portal to return him on his way. In the meantime he had to find out who the man in the black cloak was and, if at all possible, what he was doing with chest after chest of dragon crystals. This he did, and returned to the market with news for Kalico, but the ins and outs of the situation are a tale for another day.
The Master of the Market had told Saeed upon his return to the Master's Tower that the agreement was null and void. If Saeed wanted a market seal he would have to do one more job. When Saeed had objected Kalico pointed out the clause in their verbal agreement that required the matter be handled 'with discretion'. Saeed took a moment to reflect and came to the conclusion that the explosion and resultant damage to Sir Vaskorn's plaza, not to mention the confrontation between Vaskorn's mercenaries and the Market Watch that had followed, could hardly be described as 'discreet'.
Saeed's only options were to get angry about the matter or to accept his own shortcomings. A thief Saeed was, hot tempered he was not. So Saeed had, with unspoken sadness and frustration, accepted the master's ruling.
"I knew you had wisdom," Kalico grinned, as he sat behind his large flat desk. The Master of the Market was relaxed, he exercised power with an air of great assurance. He smiled like a shark and had eyes like a snake. Underneath it all, Saeed believed, there was a heart that was, if not good, at least ethical. "Maybe the sting of my harsh ruling will be lessened if I tell you the nature of the job I wish you to do."
"Perhaps," Saeed said, although he could not imagine it.
"What if I told you that yesterday's little disturbance was not the first time that Sir Vaskorn's activities have attracted unwelcome attention?" Kalico asked, his tone smooth and measured.
Saeed could not help but lean forward a little. He had not liked the giant knight one little bit. Sir Vaskorn was a bully, filled with rage, who frightened people into obedience. Any chance Saeed was given to undermine a man like that was a chance to do good in the name of his mother.
Kalico's smile neither grew nor did it falter.
"A wise boy and an excellent thief," Kalico said. "I shall not be able to cut too many deals to my advantage with this one."
Only then did Kalico's facial expression change, it grew darker, the grin disappeared as Kalico sat forward over his desk.
"Before the close of market on Duesday," Kalico said, "One of Vaskorn's men has been observed leaving the market upon a certain bridge to one of the darker far off shadows. The same knight returns upon the following Stockday accompanied by two talking wolves pulling a cart of treasure, the treasure goes onto Vaskorn's plaza. At that point I lose track of it.
"I have, of course, performed routine inspections of Vaskorn's plaza, as I do all pitches in the market, in order to assess the dues to be paid for the upkeep of the market as a whole. My watch have never found evidence of the chests or their contents upon the plaza.
"Aside from the possible dues evasion issue," Kalico said, a new darkness settling into his tone at the mention of 'dues evasion', "there are other matters at hand. For a start nobody knows what is in the chest, nobody knows where the chest comes from and nobody knows what happens to the chest or its contents after it disappears onto Vaskorn's plaza.
"As you have already observed all confrontations between Vaskorn's men and my watch have the potential to turn ugly. It would not be the right play for me to directly confront a dues paying merchant when I do not know what the outcome will be for the market or its other patrons. The Patchwork Market has long held a reputation as being not only the biggest and best market in the lands of Faerie but also a far safer place to bring your coin purse than many smaller establishments. A street war is not something that anyone wants.
"The particulars of market lore prevent me from hiring a retinue of intelligencers but they say nothing about how I choose to reclaim the debt of a thief that I have found causing a disturbance on the plazas. So you see, as much as I may wish to dispense you a seal and send you upon your way, right now I need your particular skills more than I need to be praised for my benevolent generosity.
"Besides, I think I would be right in saying that you are not overly displeased to be offered an opportunity to redress the power balance problem I have with one of my wealthiest patrons."
Saeed could feel the beginnings of a smile start upon his own lips. Kalico's judgement was stern but it could not be argued against.
"Indeed you would not be wrong, Master," Saeed said. "I would be happy to provide you with this service, but I cannot, a second time, allow you the opportunity of a loophole. I am as keen as anyone to see Vaskorn properly hemmed in, but I am more concerned about the progress of my journey towards my mother. If I cannot be assured that I will secure the seal by the performance of this latest task I will have to leave the market and find another road upon my journey. I am sure that, as this would mean that everybody loses, no one here wants this to be the case."
"You argue eloquently," Kalico said. "Be assured that if I find out where the chest comes from, what it contains and where the contents end up, I shall happily furnish you with the seal you require. Discretion in this matter is obviously vital. If Vaskorn catches you I don't have to tell you how badly things would go for you. I also have to inform you that I will not be able to vouch for you if he brings you to me. This matter cannot be sensibly resolved if Vaskorn knows what I have been up to."
"I understand," Saeed said. "As I will not be encumbered by either a weakened prince in a state of confusion or a requirement to make noise it shall be just as if I am not there at all."
"Let us hope for all our sakes that you are neither proud nor boastful," Kalico said.
By the following Duesday Saeed had been given a good three nights to consider the extent of his own arrogance. He had come to the conclusion that a little arrogance was required of a thief, therefore he could only hope that his own was not excessive.
Vaskorn's knight appeared before the noon bell, heading out along the bridge that the Market Watch had pointed out to him. The bridge lead out through the rainbow mists to a shadow called Sorrowblade. This was not a land that Saeed was keen to visit again once he had left this time.
A large city sprawled up the sides of a valley directly upon the far side of the bridge. The sky here was a strange reddish purple. Upon the horizon Saeed could make out the tall stacks of vast chimneys constructed from dark mud bricks.
The same bricks were used to build everything in Sorrowblade, the walls, the roads, the buildings. There was no sign of nature excepting small walled beds of black earth from which there sprung coils of sickly white creeping plants with no leaves. The wind that blew through the valley was warm and dry, it filled Saeed's nose and mouth, drying his throat and leaving a taste like baked bricks and vinegar.
The domain of Sorrowblade was a sad place indeed, buried in bricks and steeped in wickedness.
Thankfully the city streets were a natural home to shadows and the rooftops were high. Saeed did not find it a challenge to follow along behind Vaskorn's agent unseen. The citizens of Sorrowblade all appeared to be talking animals of the ferocious variety. Many were wolves but there were bears and foxes alongside tall rodentine men who obviously had ancenstry among rats, mice, ferrets and weasels. There were also a fair few of the more evolved lizard men living and working in the city.
Saeed recognised the way that the people of Sorrowblade were divided as being very similar to the social divisions of the souk in Afsana. Many of the wolves, bears and foxes were well dressed, they treated the rodents and lizards with contempt, shouting at them and ordering them about. Saeed couldn't help feeling a little sorry for some of them, particularly those who resembled white-furred mice who were not just smaller than their lupine and ursine fellows but also a good deal meeker. In much the same manner as the meek souk residents had been regularly bullied and abused by the palace guards of Afsana so these little fellows were the butt of cruel practical jokes or bore the brunt of horrible abuse from the ferocious bears and wolves.
Saeed followed Vaskorn's knight along a number of streets and over a gigantic square. In the centre of the square was an enormous statue of a jackal sitting upon a throne. The statue's eyes glowered down upon the throng of Sorrowblade citizenry with suspicion.
Vaskorn's knight headed into an alley and down a set of steps into a cellar building. At the door of the cellar the knight's identity was confirmed before he was allowed entry. After he had gone inside the door was locked behind the knight.
He moved from the shadows where he was standing back to the corner of the alleyway. Thankfully there was a low building, two stories high not far away from which he could look at the cellar in the alley and also the front of the same building. That way he would be able to see if the knight returned to continue his journey before evening. Saeed scaled a drainpipe at the side of the building and took up a position at the edge of the roof.
It didn't take long until Saeed began to feel that he was being watched. The entire oppressive atmosphere of Sorrowblade was enough to generate a certain level of paranoia but Saeed began to feel that this was not all there was to his feelings. He surveyed the rooftop and it did not take him long to spot a pair of sleek black cats regarding him with almost total disinterest from the opposite side of the roof.
Upon making eye contact one of the cats stood up, stretched and slunk over to sit beside Saeed on the roof ledge.
"Monkey two legs," the cat said. "Not often we see one of your kind on our streets, let alone within the kingdom of the cats."
"Apologies for my intrusion," Saeed said. "I was not aware that this vantage point belonged to anyone. I promise I will be no trouble and I will be gone soon."
"I am not overly concerned about your presence here, monkey two legs," the cat said. "I barely care enough even to be having this conversation with you. Still, you are strange in my world and I do have a little time for strange things. Would you care to tell me why you come to Sorrowblade? This city is so hostile to your people that you have to hide away in the Cat Kingdom lest you be savaged by a wolf or bear."
"There is another man here," Saeed said. "He comes from the Patchwork Market of Bridgetown and soon he will return there bearing a chest. I just wished to know where the chest came from, and now I do."
"Why do you care?" the cat asked. "What is in the chest?"
"I don't know, this is something else that I need to find out."
"That building is one that has a hot roof," the cat said. "It is not part of the Cat Kingdom. A mischief worker plies his trade inside those walls. A cat goes in, it never comes out."
"What does the mischief worker do?" asked Saeed.
"Works mischief," the cat said in a tone of voice that communicated just how stupid it considered Saeed to be. "All kinds, many kinds fatal. The mischief man has a book of monkey markings, even though he is descended from the play food. We stay away."
"Thank you," Saeed said. "That is very helpful."
"It was not intended to be helpful," the cat said. "And I do not care for your thanks, they are neither soft to sleep on, nor good to eat. I am bored now."
The cat turned and walked away to its companion. After a brief conversation the two of them hopped off the edge of the roof and retreated away from Saeed's position.
The afternoon wore on, the stalls in the square began to close up, a lizard man swept up in front of a stall that advertised itself as a barber's. Saeed assumed the lizard was not the barber, after all who would trust a barber with scales instead of hair? Satisfied that the knight was not going to leave that day and keen not to be caught in Sorrowblade after dark Saeed returned to the Patchwork Market to report his findings to Kalico.
The following Stockday Saeed was waiting by the Sorrowblade Bridge as the knight, accompanied by two wolves on their hind legs, dressed in relatively fine clothes and pulling a cart behind them, returned to Bridgetown.
By the time they arrived the evening bell had rung and the streets of the market were mostly dark and silent. A few of the plazas, particularly those that offered food, entertainment and lodgings (all gathered into the cosmopolitan quarter), were still operating. The knight and the wolves avoided these plazas, sticking instead to the mercantile plazas, all of which were closed for business.
They were even careful to avoid the all night tobacconist stands and appeared to be on a constant lookout for the watch.
Not needing to gain access to Vaskorn's basement area this time, and having already located his prize, Saeed skipped along the beams of the roof tops, only coming down when he needed to cross a bridge behind the knight and the wolves.
Before long they reached Vaskorn's plaza. Saeed took the opportunity to quickly circle the high walls of the area checking for weak spots. This time, the urgency of his mission having decreased as no one's life was on the line, Saeed found a small hole which allowed access for plumbing pipes, gas works and ventilation ducts. Vaskorn's plaza was well defended but it did take advantage of some things that could only be distributed through the market network.
Saeed squeezed through this hole and found himself in the rafters above the plaza, looking down upon the neatly cobbled streets of Vaskorn's domain.
The knight, wolves and their cargo were admitted via the main portcullis and crossed into the small square where Vaskorn and Kalico had confronted one another the previous Longday. A scaffold had been erected over the covered ramp that Prince Butterstone had blown apart, the stocks that Vaskorn had vandalised remained broken.
The knight crossed the square and entered the main building on the plaza via a stout wooden door. After a few minutes the knight returned with another man Saeed did not recognize. The man wore a long dark cloak made of a rich material. He also wore a broad brimmed hat topped with s single green feather stuck into a silk band that was held in place by a jewelled buckle at the front. The quality of the man's attire lead Saeed to believe he was royalty.
"I don't like doing this in the square," the man complained as they crossed to the cart. "It's too exposed."
"Unfortunately the basement rooms are not safe at present, after our accident with the detonating powder," the knight said.
"I hope that teaches you to be more careful with explosives in the future," the man said. "I always thought that Vaskorn was too cavalier in such matters."
"Indeed," the knight said. "Would you care to inspect the shipment?"
"Of course," the man said. "The second thing they teach you growing up in the House of Mossdark is never to trust a Sorrowblader, no offence," he said to the wolves with no hint of sincerity. The wolves didn't appear to be paying much attention anyway.
Vaskorn's knight took a key from a chain about his neck and opened up the chest a little way. A sliver of white-green light spilled out from inside. Before Saeed could get a good look at the contents the man in the cloak held up a hand.
"Not too far," he said. "You can still see the light of dragon crystals from an open plaza, even if you can't see the plaza."
Dragon crystals, Saeed noted. He didn't know what dragon crystals were, but he noted the name for Kalico anyway.
The man in the cloak squinted past the light into the chest and, after a few moments, waved for the chest to be closed. Once that was done he pulled a purse of coin from his cloak and handed it to Vaskorn's knight. Then he produced a stubby stout wooden wand and waved it vaguely in the air in front of the treasure wagon.
A glittering portal opened up in the square and the wolves, who seemed unimpressed by all of the proceedings, followed the man in the dark cloak through the portal which immediately began to shrink and close.
Panic gripped Saeed's heart. He had seen where the chest had come from and he had discovered what was inside. All he knew of where the crystals went was that a man in a dark cloak took them through a magical portal.
Vaskorn's knight was already halfway across the plaza, his back to the closing hole in reality behind him. Thankfully the void had to be big enough to allow a cart pulled by two large man-wolves to pass through it. Without thinking too hard on the decision Saeed jumped down from the rafters sped across the square and dove through the closing portal before it had quite disappeared.
Saeed landed roughly upon a cold stone floor in a broad passageway. There were no windows and it was both damp and cold. Saeed guessed he must be somewhere underground. Up ahead some distance he could see the back of the cart as the wolves pulled it onwards. Once they had delivered the cargo Saeed reasoned they must be allowed to return to Vaskorn's plaza. Only the chest disappeared from view.
Saeed's only option was to follow on behind and hope he could get through the second portal to return him on his way. In the meantime he had to find out who the man in the black cloak was and, if at all possible, what he was doing with chest after chest of dragon crystals. This he did, and returned to the market with news for Kalico, but the ins and outs of the situation are a tale for another day.
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Why Tabarnas Had To Rehome An Owl
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| Tabarnas, Rachel and Micras were looking down on a toy castle. |
"So that's it, is it?" Rachel asked, her tone was harsh. "You're just going to make her produce rainbow grease for you, like a slave?"
Tabarnas jumped. He had been wondering how on earth he was going to find Rachel. It was job enough to locate stock that didn't move in the stacks. How one was supposed to find a lost and frightened little girl was a problem he had not even begun to consider the answer to.
"Oh, young lady," Tabarnas said. "You mustn't sneak up on old people like that, I might have had a heart attack or something."
"Would have served you right if you had you mean old slave driver," Rachel replied. "I thought you were nice."
"I don't know where you got that idea from," Tabarnas said. "I'm a goblin merchant, as a breed we're not noted for our bon homie."
"Your what?"
"Er, sorry, foreign words trip from my tongue. I speak business in every language, you see... Because I'm a merchant, not a slave driver, a merchant."
"So you're going to let the mermaid go?" Rachel asked.
"I'm not going to 'let' her do anything, she's her own fish person, she is mistress of her own destiny."
"Well, good," Rachel said. "I knew you wouldn't be a big old meanie about it. So how are we going to help her?"
"Help her?" Tabarnas asked, a puzzled look upon his face. "We? Young lady-"
"Rachel," Rachel interrupted him.
"Rachel," Tabarnas said. "You seem to be the victim of a misunderstanding. Firstly, 'we' are not, uh, 'we'. There is you and there is me. That is how things work in the market. Secondly, and for the very same reason, I am not helping anyone. I will render services in exchange for remuneration, of course. But if I went around doing things out of some fuzzy headed do-gooder notion that wouldn't make me a good merchant now, would it?"
"You told me a story, that was nice," Rachel pointed out.
"You didn't enjoy it much, as I recall," Tabarnas replied.
"It was a nicer thing to do than standing around here being a nasty old grumpy guts like you're being now," Rachel said.
"Has anyone ever told you that you are impossible?" Tabarnas asked her.
"Only James and..." Rachel ran to a stop. "Oh! James! Did you rescue James?"
"Ah, now, there was a small problem..." Tabarnas began but it was too late, Rachel had begun to cry.
"Oh no," she said. "James, you lost James. This is all your fault!"
"Now I think that's a little unfair-"
"No, you're right..." Rachel said.
"Well, I'm glad-"
"It's all my fault, me and my stupid wish!" Rachel sat on Tabarnas's step stool and dissolved into floods of tears.
Tabarnas didn't know what to do or how to feel. He had been a goblin merchant his entire long life, over half a millennium at this moment. He bought, he sold, he bartered, he did stock taking, accounts ledgers and paid his dues to the Merchant's Guild. The only thing that Tabarnas did that was not the action of a goblin merchant was collect as many amusing stories as he could. He packed them into the corners of his brain that were not occupied with matters of trade.
Being confronted with a disconsolate little girl who had lost her talking mouse was not a situation that he had any idea how to remedy. He wondered if Cressie would be able to do any better. He swiftly came to the conclusion that, in fact, she would in all probability make things worse rather than better. Cressie had no spare corners in her mind, the whole mind was merchant from top to bottom.
Before Tabarnas could unpick the predicament any further matters were taken out of his hands. The soft and lilting sound of a beautiful melody washed over the small yard between the tents on the pitch. The song had no words but appeared to be, at one and the same time, choral and coming from a single throat. The song was soothing as it was beautiful and came from the throat of Teleosti, the mermaid.
Rachel stopped sobbing and looked up at the mermaid in wonder. For just a moment the thrust and bustle of the market appeared to recede and a placid atmosphere of calm came over the scene.
The song ended and Teleosti smiled down at Rachel. Rachel stood and went over to the mermaid's tank.
"Your voice," Rachel said. "It's so beautiful."
"Thank you," the mermaid replied. "So are the feelings of love you have for James. I can only sing a song so beautiful when something pure and joyful inspires me."
"Oh, you mean I..." Rachel couldn't finish what she was trying to say.
"I was singing your love for James, Rachel," the mermaid said. "That should keep you strong while you find him again."
"Oh it will, it will!" Rachel said. "Thank you so much... oh, I don't know your name."
"I am called Teleosti," the mermaid said. "But my friends call me Eos, you may call me that, if you would like to. I haven't made any new friends since I began the quest to find my people's lost treasure, so a new one would cheer me up right now."
"Oh, yes, of course Eos, we can be friends, of course! I've never been friends with anyone but James and now I have two new friends in one day, Eos and Tabarnas."
"Ah..." Tabarnas said. He felt that it was incumbent upon him to point out, once again, that he was a goblin merchant. For which reason he did not have friends, only customers.
Rachel and Eos looked over to him, both appeared much happier than they had been for the entire rest of the afternoon. Tabarnas saw no business value in ruining a good mood, indeed bad moods were well known to sour business.
"The market will be closing soon," Tabarnas said. "I suppose, Rachel, that we had better find somewhere for you to stay."
"I thought you didn't help people unless it was for money," Rachel said, a smirk at the corner of her mouth.
"We can... work something out... in the morning," Tabarnas said. "First of all we had better tell Cressie. I don't think you will find her to be as soft a negotiator but we can hardly hide you away from her now, can we?"
"I suppose not," Rachel said. She did not sound like she was looking forward to meeting Cressidia again, which marked her out as something of a wise child.
The two of them stepped towards the flap at the rear of the stall. Before they could go inside the fluttering shape of a glowing white owl flapped out of the stacks. It flew over to land on the edge of Eos's tank.
"Hooo! Thought you could get away from me did you, vandal!" the owl said to Rachel. "Well, no such luck, my head rotates all the way round and my eyes can spot a mouse three miles away."
"So," Rachel said. "If James is less than three miles away, you'll be able to spot him. Oh, but you're not to eat him."
"Whooo is James?" the owl said. "And why would I find anyone for you? You uncouth child!"
"Nobody in this place is very polite or particularly nice," Rachel complained. "Except for you Eos, and you're not from around here originally."
"Why should I be nice to the person who destroyed my home?" the owl asked.
"I did no such thing!" Rachel objected. "I've never even seen your smelly home. I wouldn't destroy it anyway."
"Oh no?" the owl shot back. "Not even when your good friend the gnome pointed out that you could get outside instantly if you just damaged some stock?"
"Oh! No!" Rachel said, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. "You were inside that doll's house?"
"It was not just a doll's house, I will have you know," the owl said. "It was a genuine _haunted_ doll's house, you tipped it onto the floor as if it didn't even matter."
"You did what?" Tabarnas cried. Until now he had been too confused by the owl flapping about to put the whole thing together. The understanding that this troublesome little girl had cost him stock sparked outrage in his heart. Add to this the fact that the item was an authentic haunted doll's house and the outrage almost grew greater than he could bear.
"I got lost, in your stupid stacks," Rachel said, unrepentant petulance written across her face. "The gnome came back and reminded me about the anti-vandal charm that set the troll loose. I just thought it was a doll's house."
"But... it was... haunted..." Tabarnas said, his head was spinning, it was his turn to sit on the step stool.
"You've still got the ghost," Rachel said. "Although, if you sell him we're back to slavery again. I am surprised at you, Tabarnas, I thought you were just a merchant."
"I knew it was haunted," Tabarnas said. "I didn't know what by, the thing was only a foot and a half tall and it had three floors."
"I was for sale!?" the owl objected. "Micras Whitney is not for sale to anyone, at any price, dead or alive," it announced. Then, more quietly: "In this case, decidedly dead."
"Well, looks like I did you a favour," Rachel said. "If you'd sold that haunted doll's house you would have sold Micras along with it, and that would have been bad karma."
"Bad what?" Tabarnas asked.
"Karma," Rachel said. "James told me about it, it means if you do bad stuff then bad stuff happens to you."
"But I wouldn't have known," Tabarnas said. "Apparently neither would the owl."
"It is true that I had become very comfortable in my lodgings," Micras agreed. "But this is no excuse to sell them. And me along with them."
"I don't even remember where we got the silly thing," Tabarnas grumbled. "Probably in one of Cressie's job lot acquisitions. Sorry for the inconvenience everybody."
Tabarnas most certainly did not mean that last sentence, and he knew that everyone present knew that he didn't either. He didn't care.
"Well, it looks like now you've got to find three of us somewhere to stay," Rachel said. "Me, Eos and now Micras as well. You should be more careful about what you keep in your stock room. Magic mirrors full of trolls, haunted doll's houses. Who else do you have back there that you don't even know about?"
"Look!" Tabarnas said, tapping his cane upon the ground sharply. "This is Riseandshine and Titsadaisy Goblin Merchants. It is not Riseandshine and Titsadaisy Flop House and Mission For The Dispossessed. I think I've just about had quite enough for today."
"Well, the sooner we rehouse Micras and find me a bed the sooner we can get on with tomorrow," Rachel said brightly. "I'm sure tomorrow will be better. Besides it can't be that hard, you must have another doll's house somewhere in that stock room, it's massive."
"Not that I know of..." Tabarnas said, thinking hard. He had to admit that the child was talking sense. If they could re-haunt something else then the ghost owl would be happy. They could finally put this awful Tuesday behind them and move on.
A memory resurfaced from the story telling parts of Tabarnas's mind. The memory's subject happened to cross reference with a stock item so it was close to hand. Tabarnas could remember almost every item of stock attached to a story.
"I think I have the place, just the place," Tabarnas said. "A curiosity that I am not intending to sell and it will be just the thing."
"I'll be the judge of that," Micras said. "But very well."
"The best part is that I think we'll be able to give Rachel a bed in the same place. Maybe we can talk to Cressie about the whole thing when she's in a better mood."
Tabarnas could tell that no one who had met Cressidia would possibly have held out any hope of her being in a better mood ever. Right now there were more pressing matters to deal with so nobody said anything.
"Now, before we go in," Tabarnas said to Rachel, "you just remember to stick by my side in the stacks. I can't have you junking stock because you keep getting lost."
"I'm sorry Tabarnas," Rachel said. "It won't happen again."
"You see that it doesn't," Tabarnas said as they made their way into the stall. They ducked through the gap in the display shelves that formed the entrance to the stacks. "We're already in enough trouble as it stands."
"I thought there was no 'we'," Rachel said. Tabarnas was dismayed to see the return of the insufferable smirk to the girl's face. "I thought," she continued uneccessarily and with far too much smugness, "that there was just 'you' and 'me'."
"Yes, well," Tabarnas said. "We will definitely be having a conversation about the matter in the morning for now... where was the blasted thing? Let me think, second right, third left. Behind the storage bin for winged sandals and other lightly enchanted footwear, yes, here it is."
Tabarnas, Rachel and Micras were looking down on a toy castle. The model was remarkably detailed, not to say quite odd. The castle had a rounded wall, a gatehouse, a traditional wizarding tower, a grand hall and a few outbuildings. In the courtyard an intricate and beautiful model garden had been created. From the tallest point of the main building a metal pin carried a red flag bearing the device of a frog wearing a crown.
"There is a most fascinating story about the castle upon which this model is based," Tabarnas said proudly. "It's another story of the great prince Avan Weatherstrong. You see, he was travelling in a far away land. One where the entire ruling family found themselves transformed. Turned into frogs by the evil sorcerer..."
"Tabarnas," Rachel said. "Another time. Right now, this looks fine for Micras, if he likes it." She looked up at the owl.
"It will do," the ghost said not committing to anything.
"I don't see what it does for me, though," Rachel said.
"Ah, well, you see, that's where you fail to understand the precise nature of the artifact. Now, do as I do, carefully."
Tabarnas put his finger onto the top of the flag pole and intoned:
"In the name of the Grand Frogfellow Clan, bid me entry to this monument erected in your honour. Created so that none would forget the acts of Seditas Wolfjaw until this world should end."
Tabarnas loved the strange falling sensation, the tingle of well-applied sorcery accompanying the transition. Whenever a new volume of collected stories came into his possession he would make his way to the garden of the model Caer Frogfellow. This was where he would secret himself away to read.
He knew that Cressie would take a dim view of such activities. So, he had concealed the model carefully in a part of the stacks reserved for the storage of low value unsaleable tat.
Tabarnas did not have much of a chance to feel clever about what he had done because within moments Rachel was at his side in the garden. Micras, being a ghost, didn't need the model's magic to transfer scale.
"Impressive, don't you think?" Tabarnas beamed, positively glowing with pride. "You are now standing in my favourite item in the whole world."
The model garden was stunning in its detail. The ponds were made of polished glass and the hedges crafted from tiny pieces of wood. Each bore a mark indicating they had been hand carved by pixie workmen. The castle was a remarkable piece of work.
The large frog statue mounted on a pedestal in the central fountain was perfect in every detail. The giant frog's right leg draped across a recumbent wolf. The symbol of Frogfellow's eventual victory over the sorcerer Seditas Wolfjaw. It was one of Tabarnas's favourite stories and he burned to tell it right away.
"If you're thinking of launching into a story," Rachel said, gauging his mood perfectly, "don't. I've had a long day and I need some sleep. I assume you're going to tell me that the castle is an exact replica inside, so I will be able to find a bed."
Tabarnas deflated.
"Yes, just so," he said. "It really is a fine story, the tale of How Avan Weatherstrong Defeated Seditas Wolfjaw."
"The last story you told me about that prince he was fighting a wolf," Rachel said. "One wolf story in a day is quite enough."
"He wasn't a wolf," Tabarnas complained. "He was a sorcerer, he just happened to be called Wolfjaw, it's just a surname, like Riseandshine. I'm called Riseandshine, I'm not the sun."
"So, once I've slept and I want to leave," Rachel said, ignoring Tabarnas's hope that she would allow him to tell the story. "How do I manage that?"
"Just curtsy to the frog statue and thank him warmly for his hospitality," Tabarnas explained. "I bow because I'm a man, women curtsy."
"What if I want to bow?" Rachel said.
"Do what you like," Tabarnas said, irritable that his storytelling ambition had been thwarted. "It'll work or it won't."
"There's no need-" Rachel began but she got no further.
"Tabarnaaaaas!" the greatly amplified and terrifying voice of Cressidia rang out. From their low position it sounded like the mighty battle cry of an enraged giant. "There's a market keeper here to see you, something about a troll and property damage."
"Oh, fiddlesticks!" Tabarnas said feeling his heart sink in his chest.
"Looks like you'd better thank the frog for his hospitality," Rachel said. "And I'll see you in the morning."
Which she did, at which point there were more problems to solve, but those are the subject of another day's tale.
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