Rubbing his tired eyes with the back
of his hand, he brushed his viewing glass aside. The scroll he had been reading sprang loose
and spontaneously re-rolled itself.
“Very good,” he said tiredly, “but
not good enough. No prize for you this
week. Now, speak your name, and get your
szamár out of my office.”
There was no response. That was unusual. He was known throughout the College (and the
Realm, for that matter) as a tolerant man who encouraged cleverness and
ingenuity among his students. He knew,
for example, about the game called “soft-step”, whereby acolytes challenged each
other to purloin an object from the Master Magister’s office, and return
undetected, with large numbers of drinks (and occasionally more exotic
forfeits) at stake. There was no danger
in it; the College’s wards were sufficient to keep genuine thieves at bay, and
Kalestayne found that it helped to keep him on his toes. It helped his control, too; it had been years
since he’d accidentally unleashed his full might against anyone. He even kept a number of non-lethal spells
ready in his arsenal for such occasions.
Hardly a day went by when he didn’t
apprehend some stumbling newcomer making a clumsy foray into his sanctum. Far more rarely, the odd object occasionally
vanished. Kalestayne only had two rules:
anything taken had to be returned within a day; and he did not guarantee the
safety of anyone who disturbed him while he was trancing.
He glanced around. Still nothing. “Last warning,” he said, sitting up
abruptly. “Show yourself now, or things
are going to get magical.”
“Perdamaian!”
The wizard whirled in his chair and
stared. The voice seemed to be coming
from one of the windows overlooking the quadrangle between the towers. He clenched his fingers, and a sparkling,
scintillating ball of pure energy appeared in his palm, crackling and snapping
with barely-contained might.
“Puh-reeze!” the voice squealed
hysterically. “No k-k-kill I! Puh-reeze!”
He sighed. This was neither a student, nor any ordinary
thief. “Aku berbicara bahasa hutan,” he said gently, quenching the energy
ball with a snap of his fingers, letting the power trickle away into the
air. “Aku tidak akan merugikan Anda.”
I speak the
forest tongue. I will not harm you.
“Pukhta! Syahdu
pukhta!” Excellent! Most excellent!
He blinked. The voice wasn’t coming from outside. Flanking the window were two enormous clay
pots, each of which contained a riotous growth of ivy. The plant’s tendrils coiled up the side of
the portal and met above its lintel. As
the wizard watched, caution etched into the lines of his face and his fingers
already crooked to deliver a boiling mass of arcane devastation, the left-hand
pot began to tremble. Broad, verdant
leaves shook as if in a high breeze.
And then, from out of the tangled
mass of foliage, there stepped a woman.
Kalestayne frowned. No;
he amended mentally; not a woman. Her eyes were as green and bright as his own,
but there any resemblance to Kindred ended.
The form was feminine enough, to be sure; but where he would have
expected smooth, white skin, there was rough, brown-gray bark; and instead of a
long fall of ebon hair, her head was crowned with a tangled mass of leaves.
“Aku
Sembunyi Lazat,” the newcomer whispered.
A
dryad, Kalestayne thought. Wonders would never cease. “Welcome,” he replied in the same
language. He couldn’t bring himself to
repeat her name; in the Elven tongue, Sembunyi
Lazat meant “stealthy-delicious”, and he didn’t think he would be able to
control his chuckling. “How can I be of
assistance?” he said softly. The dryadii were notoriously skittish.
The wood-woman glanced around his
office. Clearly, she was looking for
something. Her words confirmed his
impression a moment later.
“He was here,” she said softly.
“But he is gone now.”
“ ‘He’?” the wizard frowned. “Child of Hutanibu, many folk pass through
this office. Whom is it that you seek?”
“Centang
Lewat,” she replied. Her voice, low
and husky, took on a dreamy tone. “Pembebesan Hutanibu is near. The Threefold Benison is upon us – especially
the Third, which has not been granted in a thousand hands of turnings of the
seasons.” She shivered with obvious
anticipation.
Kalestayne cocked an eyebrow. He’d had two dozen visitors that day
alone. While they’d all been mortals,
with mortal problems and mortal potential, none of them had seemed in any way
extraordinary. He had no idea who she
was talking about.
You’re
not Fey, you old fool, he reminded himself.
You probably wouldn’t recognize
the Last Warden if you stubbed your toe on him.
Maybe
that ‘Beck’ chap, he thought suddenly.
The one whose colleague had called
him by the corrupted ancient name, ‘Breygon’.
He certainly looked woods-crafty enough.
Or
maybe not. Whomever it might be, he
didn’t dare finger anyone by mistake; if the Fey were trolling for Lewat on Slaughter’s-Eve, they wouldn’t
be satisfied with a substitute.
He shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he told the visitor. “But I don’t know the one of whom you speak.”
“He was here,” she said dreamily, stepping out of the stoneware pot,
leaving twigs and little piles of dirt here and there. Her toes, he noticed with a start, looked
like roots. “I can taste him on the
air!”
The wizard took a cautious
sniff. Nothing. He shook his head,
annoyed at his presumption.
“There!” the woman said decisively,
stepping towards the door, pointing her target like a hunting dog.
Evidently the Dryad’s senses were
more potent than his own. Not surprising, he shrugged
mentally. She breathed with her whole
body.
As if struck by a sudden thought,
she turned back to him and bowed slightly.
There was a creaking, crackling noise from her midriff. “I beg pardon, Child of Bræa, for disturbing
your equilibrium. Drink deep.”
“Drink deep, forest daughter,”
Kalestayne smiled. “Go and find your
Warden.”
“Aku
akan.” I shall.
And with that, the tree-creature
stalked out of his office door. Moments
later Kalestayne heard a series of shouts and squeals echoing up the levitation
shaft. Presumably his colleagues and
students had encountered his visitor, too.
Hara’s
mercy! he thought wearily, pulling his viewing glass back into place. One just never knew, where the daughters of
the Forest Mother were concerned.
♦♦♦
“Next!”
A girl sidled forward, her thighs
bumping the cluttered table.
The man seated behind the table didn’t look up. “Stage, cage or sheets?”
“Stage,” the girl replied, a little
nervously.
The man behind the desk nodded. “Voice or instrument?”
“Both,” the girl said, holding up a
long-necked vithelle.
“Good.” The man scribbled something on a scrap of
parchment. “Name?”
The girl hesitated, looking panicked.
“Relax, bella,”
the man said, rolling his eyes. “Doesn’t
have to be real.”
She pursed her lips.
“…Iolanna?”
Scribble. “Of?”
“What?”
The man scratched at an ill-healed scab on his
chin. “Where’re ye from, girlie?”
“Oh!
Eh…Capavallis?”
“Good enough,” he grunted. He tore the scrap of paper from the bottom of
the sheet and handed it to her. “Down
the stairs, red door. Give this to the
stage-master.”
She took the paper and was about to depart, when he
added, “Hang on.” He looked her up and
down, grimaced, and said, “Blue door first.
Find something more appropriate to wear.
And remember, less is more.”
“What?” she asked, again.
“Nova,
yes?” He rolled his eyes, again. “Your pay’s based on how long you’re on
stage, and you’re on stage as long as the assembled company likes listening to
you and looking at you. The more of you
they can see, the longer you’ll play, and the more you’ll make. Your choice, miss…” he glanced down at his
notes “...miss Iolanna. Of Capavallis.”
He jerked a thumb at the stairs. “Off you go.
Next!”
She went.
Another girl stepped forward.
The man behind the table – his name was Perductorian,
but his friends knew him as ‘Perdo’ – turned to another fellow seated
nearby. “What d’ye think?”
The second man shook his head in awe. “I think you have the best job in the world!”
he laughed.
“Some days, sure,” Perdo shrugged. “Others...”
The other man – one Laestor – nodded. “Seems pretty easy,” he remarked.
“Oh, it’s easy enough.” Perdo looked up at the next girl. “Stage, cage or sheets?”
“Sheets,” the girl replied. Her voice was low and musical.
Perdo shot his friend a glance. “What d’ye think?”
“I’d take her,” Laestor replied earnestly. “In a heartbeat!”
Perdo nodded agreement. This girl was Third House, but of some exotic
branch. Some odd combination of
bloodlines had given her dusky skin, almond-shaped eyes, and a silhouette that
was the stuff of which dreams were made.
Her voice was low and sensual, and she radiated a delicious scent that
made it difficult for him to think straight.
“Name?” he asked, clearing his throat first.
The girl eyed him frankly. “Why don’t you pick one,” she purred.
Perdo pursed his lips.
He glanced at his friend again.
“What does she look like to you?”
“My next lifemate,” Laestor laughed. “I dunno.
A kitten, maybe?”
“How does that sound, missy?” Perdo asked. “ ‘Felisetta’?”
The girl dropped a seductive wink. “Meow.”
Perdo cleared his throat again. “ ‘Kitten’ it is,” he said hoarsely. “Up the stairs…”
“…and behind the green door,” the girl whispered. “I remember.”
“You’ve been here before?” Perdo asked, surprised.
Her only answer was a wink. She undulated gently away. Both men watched her until she had
disappeared down the stairs.
When she was gone, Laestor whistled. “Gods above and below! Hard lot you’ve got, you bastard!”
“ ‘Hard’ is certainly the word for it,” Perdo grunted.
Perdo had been behind the desk for decades; his friend
Laestor was a newcomer. The two men were
the first contact that many of the more adventuresome citizens of the Realm had
with the ‘Furious Fang’. The Fang was
one of the capitol’s legendary dens of ill repute – a vast, sprawling
establishment that catered to all races, offering every conceivable
entertainment allowed by law, some that weren’t, and a great many that fell
into the gray area resulting from the inability of a stolid man like Dîor
Fell-Handed to imagine the full potential of mortal vice. The place was considered so unsavoury by the
Duodeci that most avoided it completely – at least, when anyone was watching. In reality, many members of the Houses, both
Great and Lesser, patronized the Fang regularly, while some even served, even
if only temporarily, on its rotating staff.
As a result, it was an article of faith among the Fang’s patrons that,
at any one time, fully half of the hoods, masks and veils in the audience hid
noble features. Of course, nobody knew
for sure. That was part of the Fang’s
unique charm.
The ‘attraction’ part of the equation was the
principle thing that made the place famous – or rather, infamous – throughout
the Realm. Its owners happily welcomed
citizens who felt like taking a walk on the wild side of life, asking no
questions when a well-dressed, obviously well-moneyed lady showed up incognito,
wanting to serve rather than simply observe.
The place offered such adventure-seekers three choices. The first two were to serve on ‘the stage’ –
that is, performing, whether alone or in company; and to serve in ‘the cage’,
that is, dancing for the amusement and pleasure of the other patrons. Under both of these arrangements, performers
were remunerated on a basis of how long they performed, which was in turn
decided by audience acclaim.
The third option was to serve ‘between the sheets’, a
self-explanatory euphemism for amateur exploration of the oldest profession,
and one that was chosen by a surprising variety of the local, chronically bored
blue-bloods. Because such conduct was so
blatantly opposed to the tenets of the Codex, aliases were required, no
questions were asked, and the management neither demanded nor offered payment. Disguises were almost de rigeur, and whatever
changed hands, if anything, was a matter for discussion between patron and
servant. The management merely took a
cut. Often no money was passed at all;
the Fang was a favourite haunt for nobles who, sated by a glut of living, were
looking for something different. A
little spice. And for those seeking spice, there was no
better place in all the Realm to find it.
The ‘stage’, as the name implied, was fairly prosaic;
an elevated platform at one end of the Fang’s great hall where aspiring skalds
performed for a base salary and whatever coins – or pastries, or beer mugs, or
furniture – that might be flung their way.
The Fang’s most startling feature lay at the other end of the hall. Fifteen feet above the floor, suspended by
iron chains from the ceiling, was the skull of a colossal green wyrm. The bone had been transformed by magic into
crystal, and the thing had been given a transparent floor – a sheet of pure
force, erected and maintained by magic.
Each of the dozens of crystal horns and spines protruding from the
transformed cranium had been enchanted to emit flickering, sparkling,
multicoloured light.
The ‘cage’ was, in fact, formed by the dragon’s
monstrous fangs. Its purpose wasn’t to
keep the dancers confined, but rather to protect them from the unwanted
attentions of some of the Fang’s more exuberant patrons. The interior of the evacuated cranium was
fully twelve feet long, and varied from a few feet wide at the front of the
jaw, to more than eight feet wide between the eye sockets. There was sufficient room inside the thing
for half a dozen girls to dance at once.
Or a dozen, provided they were slender, friendly, sufficiently
well-acquainted, and not over-dressed.
Like the musicians, the girls who volunteered for ‘the
cage’ were remunerated on a basis of how long they performed before the crowd
lost interest. The longer they went –
and the less they wore – the higher climbed the rates. It was not unusual for a capable dancer
unburdened by excessive modesty to make upwards of a hundred aureae in a single evening. Students at the College made up a surprising
proportion of the performers, both because students always need money, and
because most of them had access to spells capable of disguising – and, more
importantly, enhancing – their appearance.
“So you get to pick all the girls,” Laestor said,
shaking his head in wonder.
“Yup,” Perdo replied.
His face bore a look of vast contentment.
“Ever reject any?”
“All the time!” Perdo exclaimed, shocked. “It’s in my interest to make sure we don’t
let any turpes through!”
“Really?” Laestor blinked.
“Gotta keep the quality up,” his friend shrugged. “It’s important. I don’t get paid; I just get a percentage of
the house.”
“How much?”
“Half a point,” Perdo chuckled. “Pretty sweet, yes?”
Laestor looked sceptical. “That’s not a whole hell of a lot.”
“Isn’t it?” The
table-man burst out laughing. “This
place,” he chortled, “turns twenty thousand a night. Easily!”
“So…you pull a hundred orry a night?” Laestor
exclaimed, looking suddenly ill.
“Yup,” Perdo said again. “More on feast days and high holidays. Except the Twelve-Day; we’re closed then, of
course.”
“Of course,” Laestor muttered.
Great forest
gods! A hundred!?
They sat in silence for a while. At length, Laestor asked, “So it’s all pretty
girls, then? That’s all you pick?”
“Well, they’re all pretty when they come in, or it’s
out the door. But by the time we’re done
with them, they’re irresistible,” Perdo
chortled.
“ ‘By the time’… Hang on. You just said you rejected the unattractive
ones.”
“There are no
unattractive ones,” Perdo said with absolute conviction. “Not once I decide they’ve got the magic, so
to speak. We have wizzies on call from
the College. If any of the little ladies
need it, the magic boys just give’em a touch-me-over before they go on.”
“That must get expensive!” Laestor exclaimed, his eyes
wide.
“Nope. The
wizzies don’t get paid either,” Perdo chortled.
“But they do get to spend the
night hanging around a dressing room full of half-skinty girls.
“ ‘Course,” he added pensively, “it doesn’t pay to
make’em too beautiful, does it?”
“There’s such a thing?”
“Sure,” Perdo shrugged. “But it’s a bad idea.”
“Why?” his comrade asked, surprised.
“Don’t need a riot,” Perdo snorted. “Hard on the furniture. It happens every now and then. Last time was back in Lastreap. Instead of a wizard, we had a druid in, from
the Protector’s sacred grove or some such.
Had three girls dancing together; good dancers, nimble as you’d like,
but plain as perch. A real shame. Had the tree-boy give’em a touch-me-over. He did a little too good a job of it.”
“What happened?” Laestor asked, curious.
“Well, basically, he turned all three of’em into
wood-maidens. Nymphs, you know. About half a minute later, the place looked
like the last charge of the Hand Knights at Duncala. This round-eye from Kelva – you know them,
big mountain lads – ‘e was swinging from the bottom of the Skull like a
gods-damned ape! Trying to get in at the
girls, you see. Couldn’t resist’em.”
“Great gods!” the other man exclaimed. “What happened
to him?”
“Nothing good,” Perdo laughed. “He forgot – or didn’t know, most probably –
that the College is just up the street.
Half our performers might be apprentices, but half our clientele are
magecraft masters. I’ve never seen so many spells fly all at once.”
“They were protecting the girls, I suppose,” Laestor
nodded.
“Hardly,” Perdo laughed. “If they hadn’t been straw-armed wizzies,
they’d’ve been swinging on the rafters with the Kelvan. Naw, they vaped him ‘cause he was blocking
their view. Dropped’im like a pole-axed
steer. He took out two tables on the way down.
Quite a mess.”
“It sounds like you live an exciting life, my friend,”
Laestor said, shaking his head ruefully.
A hesitant step sounded on the stairs outside the
door.
“Lot’s’o folks think so,” the other
acknowledged. “Lesser House types in
here all the time, mostly watching, but occasionally some up on stage. Greater, too.
Had a Cælestis girl come in a few weeks back. Terrible dancer, but pretty as a peach. Went half an hour in the Skull ‘afore she
stumbled and broke a tooth.” He shook
his head. “Laughter’s no way to end a
set, let me tell you.”
The door at the front of the hall
opened, and a girl squeezed through. She
was as black-haired and green-eyed as the majority of her countrywomen, but
there the resemblance ended. She was
shabby-looking, her hair slightly unkempt, and her clothing plain and worn.
As they eyed her curiously, she
padded over to the table where the two men sat.
She halted, clutching her cloak nervously at her throat.
“Looking for someone?” Perdo said,
wondering if she were lost.
“Is this…is this the…the ‘Furious
Fang’?” she asked, obviously nervous.
Perdo bit his lip. “It is,” he said quietly. “How can I help?”
“I…I want to…to serve,” the girl
murmured. She seemed to be looking at a
spot above their heads.
“I see. Name?”
There was a long pause. The girl looked flustered and opened and
closed her mouth several times.
“Doesn’t have to be real,” Perdo sighed.
“K-K-Kové…Kové. Kovégom.”
Perdo rubbed the bridge of his nose
wearily. “That’s a man’s name.”
The girl’s lower lip trembled. “Kovégom…ar…a?”
“Your name’s ‘Kovégomara’?” he said,
staring at her in disbelief.
Laestor, deaf to the girl’s pathetic
estate, was snickering.
“Your parents,” Perdo sighed, “named
you ‘Bucket-arse’? In Orcish?”
The girl’s eyes filled. “I…I just…”
The table-man pursed his lips. “How old are you?” he asked quietly.
“I…I passed without the walls two
years ago,” she replied, trying to feign indignation, and failing miserably.
“I see,” Perdo answered. He glanced back at Laestor, who
shrugged. “Very well. Stage or cage?”
The girl blinked. “Sh…sheets,” she stammered.
The table-man stared blankly at her
for a long moment, while she trembled and bit her lip. “I’ll be switched if you’ve seen a century,”
he said at last. “What’s going on here?”
There was a sudden thunder of boot-heels on the
stairs.
“I want to serve,” the girl insisted
stubbornly. Her lip quivered. “I’m of age, and I want…I need…”
Laestor was looking at the door in
alarm. “The Guards?”
“Nec. They’re paid off. Gotta be something else.” Perdo nodded at the girl. “Stand over there,” he commanded, pointing at
a long line of cloak-hooks near a window.
“And keep you quiet.”
The girl looked dismayed. “But I…I want…”
“Move!” Perdo commanded.
The girl did as he said, scuttling
over to the wall.
An instant later the door banged
open, and yet another woman swept through it.
This one was taller by a handspan than the quivering girl, and much more
elegantly dressed, in a hooded cloak of soft, midnight wool that stretched from
her shoulders to the floor. Her hair was
expertly coiffed, and her makeup exquisite.
Her features, though, were invisible; above the nose, they were concealed
by a diaphanous mask of gold wire and black silk in the shape of an enormous
ebon dragon. Its outstretched wings were
studded with tiny gemstones.
As she stomped towards them,
boot-heels echoing against the floor, Perdo shot a quick glance at his comrade.
“Stand up!” he hissed under his breath.
Laestor, no fool, complied.
The woman thundered to a halt before
the table. Perdo bowed immediately. “Good evening, milady.” Laestor, to his relief, mimicked him without
being prompted.
The woman regarded the two men
without expression. “The cage,” she said
firmly. “And then the sheets. My usual room.”
“Of course,” Perdo nodded. Laestor noted that his friend didn’t pick up
his pen.
With a contemptuous gesture, the
woman unhooked her cloak, whirled it off, and tossed it at Laestor. “Hang this up,” she commanded.
Laestor, his eyes nearly bugging out
of his skull when he saw what the stranger was wearing – or, more properly, not
wearing – caught the thing only just in time.
“Of course, milady,” he said, sounding as if he were being slowly
strangled.
Without another word, the newcomer
stalked down the hallway, boot-heels clacking on the floor. She climbed the stairs without a word, and
disappeared.
Laestor blew out his breath with a
startled whoosh. “Great gods of the forest!” he
exclaimed. “Who…who was…”
“She calls herself ‘Letifera’,”
Perdo replied. “It means ‘Deadly’.”
“I know what it means. It suits her, I’ll bet,” Laestor
chortled. “But what’s her real –”
Perdo cut him off with a
gesture. “Never ask,” he said
firmly. “And if by some evil fortune you
should happen to find out, never, ever
tell.”
“Why not?” the man exclaimed. “She…she was…”
“Yes, she was,” Perdo agreed. “She was
indeed. But it’s hard to pick up a wine glass when
you’ve naught but pitch-sealed stumps at the end of your cheaters, and little
use drinking it when you’ve a maggot-hole in your weasand. So take my advice, my duck, and keep you
silent, too.”
Laestor glanced over his shoulder to
where the woman had disappeared up the stairs, and shook his head. “Aye.”
Perdo sat again. Then he noticed the girl cowering by the
window, and sighed heavily. “You! Come here.”
Obediently, the girl scuttled over
to the table. She glanced involuntarily
towards the stairs where the well-moneyed woman had disappeared.
Perdo snapped his fingers, and her
eyes flashed back to him. “You need
money,” he said quietly. “Is that it?”
“Yes…yes sir,” she nodded
miserably. “I want to…to try…”
Shaking his head, Perdo grabbed the
girl’s wrist and turned her hand palm-up.
He reached into a chest below the table, grasped a handful of coins and,
without counting them, slapped them into the girl’s fist.
“There,” he said gruffly. “Compliments of the Fang.”
Stunned, the girl hesitated. “I don’t…sir, I can’t…can’t repay…”
“It’s a gift, not a loan,” Perdo
said brusquely. Standing, he stepped
around the table, slipped his hands under the girl’s cloak, parted it, and gave
her a good looking-over. She was wearing
a simple, well-worn peasant gown, but there was nothing at all wrong with her
figure.
“As I thought,” he commented. Grasping her chin, he turned her head to left
and right, looking deep into her eyes, searching professionally for any sign of
imperfection.
Clear eyes,
clear skin, good teeth, he
thought. And fair features, if a little grubby. He glanced over his shoulder at Laestor. “She’s beautiful.”
The girl blinked at that. Her cheek even twitched, as if she were
thinking, ever so briefly, of smiling.
Perdo grasped the girl by the shoulders and kissed her
on the forehead. “Take the money, little
one. There’s no need to ever return it,
or even to set foot in this place again.
“But if you do,” he added in a forceful whisper, “wait
‘till you’re of age. And when you come,
come because you want to. Not because you have to.”
“All…all right,” the girl stammered. She turned and walked toward the door. Before walking through it, she glanced back
over her shoulder. “Thank you, sir.”
Perdo pointed at the portal. “Out!”
She smiled once, and vanished. Perdo listened for her heels on the
steps.
Once he was certain she was gone, he glanced over at
his comrade. Laestor was giving him an
odd look. “What?” he said gruffly.
“I don’t think I understand your business model,” the
man said drily. “Are you really supposed
to pay girls not to...”
“She needed the money,” Perdo cut him off with a
growl.
“You’re pretty soft-hearted,” Laestor grinned. “For a pimp, that is.”
“I’m just a good businessman,” Perdo replied. “Look, you saw ‘Letifera’, a moment ago,
there. She’s going to make us a thousand
orry in the cage tonight, and another two thousand, maybe three, between the
sheets.” He jerked a thumb at the
door. “What d’ye think yon twitchy
virgin would earn me? Two arjies? Maybe five?
And meanwhile, how many customers would she drive away with her
flinching and her tears?
“But,” he nodded sagely, “you also saw the look on that chit’s face when I gave her the
coin. I know the type. Seen’em a hundred times. She’s not a wine-soak or a weed-head; she’s
just down on her luck. Needs the money
for something honourable, no doubt. Sick
brother, indebted father, elderly mother.
That sort of thing. So she
figured she’d hit the sheets to earn some glitter, and that’d be it. Except it’s not that simple. Never is.
Takes some iron, and she hasn’t got it.
Not yet, anyway.
“I don’t want
her type,” Perdo sighed. “She thinks
this is easy. Thinks she’s better than this. Thinks
what our girls do is a dodge, a scam.
She don’t understand that the regulars here…they’re here because they
love it. Those are the girls I need, Laes.
The ones who want to be here.
“That money?” he nodded at the door. “That was nothing. About fifty orry, give or take. I’ll wager you another fifty right now that
yon babby’ll be back here inside of a year, ready to go, and eager to pay off
her debt. She’ll be bright-eyed, happy,
and full of pride and fire. I’ll send’er
‘ome again and again, too, because she’ll still be south of six-score. And she’ll come back again and again, because
doing so’ll make her feel strong, not weak.
By the time she’s old enough, she’ll be ready, and she’ll want to be
here, and I’ll let her stay as long as she likes. And by the time she’s had’er fill of it – if
she does, some of’em never do – I’ll have made back a hundred times what I
gave’er tonight. And that’s a thousand
times what I’d’ve earned off’er if I’d let her go out there, looking and
feeling like she did.”
He snapped his fingers happily. “Hells, if she keeps filling out, she might
make me a thousand times what I gave
her. Sweet little thing like that – you
just never know, do you?”
“You make no gods-damned sense,” Laestor complained.
Perdo heaved a vast sigh. “Look,” he said patiently. “Women aren’t horses or cattle or dogs or
sheep. They’re not herd animals. You can’t lead’em, ‘cause they won’t follow,
and you can’t drive’em, ‘cause they’re too gods-damned contrary. What does that sound like to you?”
Laestor shook his head. “No idea.”
“Cats,” Perdo said, exasperated. “Cats, man!
Women are cats! How do you get a
cat to do what you want it to do?”
Laestor spread his hands. “Never owned a cat,” he said
truculently. “Can’t stand’em. How?”
“Tell’em they can’t,”
Perdo replied. “Tell’em it’s not allowed. Tell’em they don’t want to, that it’s no fun,
that they’d rather be doing something else.”
He smirked. “And if that don’t
work, tell’em some other woman said it’s too hard, or they’re not good
enough. Make sure you tell’em that ‘some
other woman’ said it, though. That’s
like raw meat to a tiger, my duck.” He
buffed his fingernails against his lapel.
“Works every time.”
“You’re quite the philosopher, my friend,” Laestor
commented, smiling.
“Gotta know your product,” Perdo shrugged. “As for the orry...look, suppose I were to
give that same handout to ten girls.
Even if only one of them returned with a smile on her face and a twinkle
in her eye, I’d end up making my money back, and then some!
“It’s bread upon the waters,” he added with an unpleasant
grin. “Girls like her…they’re a natural
resource, my friend. We’ve got to
husband them, nurture them, take care of them.
Or we’ll run out.”
Laestor nodded slowly.
“I understand. At least, I think
I do.”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Perdo shrugged. “Once you think about it.”
A light, almost unnoticeable footfall announced
another arrival. They turned their eyes
to the door.
A sweet, floral scent wafted in from the hall. Their nostrils flared, and both men
involuntarily sat up straighter.
“What’s this,
now?” Perdo breathed.
When the portal swung open, their jaws dropped to the
table. Behind the door stood a creature
of ethereal beauty. She looked for all
the world like an elf; but she was impossible to categorize. Her hair was a deep, rich auburn, her eyes
piercing green, her skin as fair and white as snow, and her figure, scarce
hidden by undulating wisps of gossamer, was the stuff of dreams.
Spying the two men, she smiled. Teeth flashed like a bolt of sudden
skyfire. Without appearing to move, she
floated – she couldn’t be said to be walking, not really – over to the table.
Perdo felt a fist of ice grip his heart. He could hardly bring himself to meet the
woman’s unearthly gaze. “Y-y-yes?” he
gasped at last.
The stranger fixed him in place with her glorious
eyes. It was as though twin spears of
mithral had been driven into his orbs, through his heart, and down into his
groin.
Her voice, when she spoke, was like the soft thrum of
angels’ harps, with larks’ song for accompaniment. “I am
looking,” she murmured softly, “for
Lewat. Have you seen him?”
Perdo smiled idiotically. Then his eyes rolled up in his head, and he
toppled sideways off his stool.
Laestor didn’t notice.
He was smiling dreamily at the girl.
“You know,” he sighed happily, addressing no one in particular, “you
really do have absolutely the best
job in the world.”
♦♦♦
But the room was big, and
unfamiliar. She was alone. And she could smell something…unsettling.
His shout was most welcome. “In here, girlie!”
She blew out her breath in a vast
sigh of relief. Tip-toeing the last few
yards, she rounded the corner and stepped into the sitting room.
The warrior – in absolute darkness –
was perched on the edge of the red velvet sofa she had observed earlier that
morning. He had dragged it into the
centre of the room, mid-way between the doors leading to the offices and the
gaping hole where the concealed vault door had once stood. He was seated on the back, his boots planted
on the cushions, running his whetstone over his sword’s edge.
Valaista paused in the
entryway. “No lights?” she whispered.
“Don’t need’em,” Karrick
grunted. He tossed the sword onto the
sofa and tapped the side of his face with a finger. “Old Father Shields gave me a little
touch-up. I can see as well as you. For
a few more hours, anyway.”
“Oh.
That’s...that’s...” She snorted
suddenly. “Sorry, but can’t you smell
that?”
“ ‘Course I can,” the warrior
shrugged. “It’s blood.” He slid down to the cushions with a thump,
and with one booted toe, nudged a shadowy lump lying at his feet. “Don’t trip over the head; it’s around here,
somewhere.”
Valaista glanced down at the
corpse. It was indeed headless. “It doesn’t smell like…like blood,” she murmured,
taken aback.
“Well, there’s bile, too,” he added
clinically. “Got th’other one in the
gut.” He nodded at one of the walls of
bookshelves, where a second recumbent form lay huddled.
“In the gut,” she repeated in a
fascinated whisper.
“He rushed me,” Karrick
explained. “I’d’ve liked to have
questioned them, but…” He shrugged.
“Oh,” the girl said in a small
voice. She swallowed audibly. “Who are...er...who were they?”
“Dunno. Elves, by their ears. I’ll look into it in the morning.”
“Have you...have you searched them?”
“Yup,” Karrick nodded. “Nothing special. A few odds an’ends, Lockpicks, wax, tallow, ropes, hammers,
spikes, a few coins. The usual
rubbish.” He chuckled. “One of’em even brought a pry-bar, if you can
imagine. A pry-bar ‘gainst that vault.”
Valaista glanced at the gaping hole
where the vault door had been. A pry-bar
seemed excessive to her. “Any weapons?”
“Couple o’knives. This one – ” he toed the headless corpse at
his feet a second time “- he brought a crossbow. Didn’t do’im much good, though. Only got one shot off.”
“You got him first, then?” she
asked, sounding relieved.
“Nah, I was dealing with his
friend,” Karrick replied, sounding embarrassed.
With a finger, he flicked something protruding from his right bicep.
Valaista looked closer. The butt of a bolt stuck an inch out from
Karrick’s arm, wrapped in messy, bloodstained bandages that appeared to have
been torn from a shirt. She emitted
something that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a squeak. “You’re wounded!”
“This?” the man snorted. “Barely nicked me. Shields can deal with it in the morning.”
“What if it’s p-p-poisoned?”
Valaista stammered. Stepping gingerly
over the body at Karrick’s feet, she took a closer look at the embedded
projectile, taking care not to touch it.
“I think I’d know by now,” the man
said reasonably. “Look, stop fretting,
Val. It’ll be fine.”
“You should let me take it out for
you,” she said faintly.
Karrick cocked a skeptical
eyebrow. He was watching her hands, and
they were shaking. “How many arrow
wounds’ve you dressed?”
“Well...none,” she replied. She looked queasy.
“Yeah, that’s about what I thought,”
he laughed. “With your finesse and my
luck, the barbs’d catch on the bone and you’d tear my arm off. I think we’ll leave it for now.”
“But…” She reached for the missile.
He caught her hand, gently. “Thanks.
Really. But just…leave it be.”
She looked rebellious for a moment,
then sighed. “All right.” She plopped herself heavily down onto the
couch beside him. “So…any more
excitement?”
Karrick shrugged. “Nothing much. A couple of giant mushrooms looked in.”
Valaista turned slowly to stare at
him. “Giant mushrooms?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he replied. He picked up his sword and went back to work
on the edge.
The dragon-girl waited for him to
expand on his observation. When he
didn’t, she asked hesitantly, “What…what did they want?”
“Looking for the half-elf,” the warrior
shrugged. “I gave them directions to the
lady’s house, and they left.”
Valaista blinked several times. At last, she said, “I’m sorry. ‘Giant mushrooms’?”
“Yup. ‘Bout my height,” he said, pursing his
lips. “Eyes, mouths, feet. Little spindly arms. Spears, too.”
“Giant mushrooms…with spears,”
Valaista muttered. “Really.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
She glanced down at his ill-tied
bandage. “How much blood have you lost?”
Karrick heaved a vast, irritated
sigh. “They’re called ‘Myconids’,
girlie. They live underground, or in the
deep forest. Vesterskov’s full of’em,
back home. Tribal. Worship one of the elf-gods. One of the two even said ‘e was a
priest. Of ‘Hutanibu’.”
“The Forest Mother,” Valaista
nodded.
“Whatever,” Karrick shrugged. “Said they were looking for ‘Lewat’. You know, what that big tree called Breygon,
a week or so ago. Said they wanted to
advise him, concerning something they called tiga berkat. The ‘three-fold
benison’.”
“I didn’t know you spoke sylvan,”
the girl said, surprised.
“I don’t. They were talking man-talk.”
Valaista nodded. “So,” she said, with the air of someone who
was summarizing an argument, “two giant mushrooms, with spears, show up
speaking the traveling tongue, and when one of them tells you he works for the
Forest Mother and asks you where to find our comrade…you told them?”
“Yup.”
“Why?!?” she exclaimed.
Karrick frowned, considering her
question. “I suppose,” he said at last,
“because he had an honest face. The
priest-mushroom, I mean.”
“Mushrooms don’t have ‘faces’!”
Valaista shrieked.
“These ones did,” he replied
reasonably. “Look, girlie, calm
down. You’ve not been at the adventuring
business long. This sort of thing happens
all the time. If a day went by without a
robbery or a murder, or something getting set on fire or obliterated, or some
bloody revenant popping up and trying to bite my face off – then I’d start to
worry.”
“That,” she said through gritted
teeth, “is insane.”
“Good,” he said happily. “I knew you’d understand.
“So,” he went on, leaning back into the plush
upholstery. “What brings you here
tonight? The boss send you to check up
on me?”
She took a deep breath. The warrior braced himself for another
expostulation, and was pleasantly surprised when she made a visible effort to
relax. Instead of yelling again, she
said, “No. I just wanted to...to see if
you needed anything.”
“A wheelbarrow,” Karrick smirked,
giving the corpse at his feet another kick.
“And some food would be nice.
These fellows look tasty enough, but elves’re all bone’n’sinew.”
The girl grinned at that. Slinging her pack down off her shoulder, she
produced a large, stoppered wine-skin, a white loaf wrapped in a towel, and –
to Karrick’s astonishment – a lidded stoneware crock. She lifted the cover with a flourish. Inside was a whole goose, roasted a
mouth-watering golden brown, nestled in a bed of vegetables.
The warrior clapped his hands,
crowing with delight. “Vara bless you,
girlie! And your tight, white a…ahhh…”
He stopped himself at the last instant. “Thanks,” he said instead, looking
embarrassed.
Valaista acknowledged the praise
with a bow. “Never let it be said,” she
intoned solemnly, “that I am a slow learner.”
Karrick bit the stopper out of the
flask, levered the thing up over his elbow, and took a long, deep draught. When the vessel was half-empty, he lowered it
again and offered it to the girl. “Your
turn. There’s a lot that’s wrong with
this bloody country, but they do know
how to make wine.”
The dragon-girl accepted the skin,
did her best to emulate the warrior, and managed to only slightly soak her
tunic. She coughed and spat. “How do you manage it?”
“Practice,” Karrick said
sympathetically. “Lots and lots of
practice.”
He reached for a leg of goose, but the moment he
touched it, his face fell.
“What’s wrong?” Valaista asked,
alarmed.
The warrior heaved a great
sigh. “It’s cold.”
She frowned.
His eyes narrowed. Then he glanced at her, and grinned
hopefully.
She eyed his expression for a long
moment, puzzled. When she realized what
he was asking, her face went flat.
“You’re not serious,” she said stonily.
Karrick winked. “Please?”
Valaista rolled her eyes. Then she stood, grasped his sword, speared
the goose on the end of it, raised it shoulder-high, took a deep breath, and
exhaled sharply. A blast of superheated
air tinged with glimmering sparks and bright, orange flame enveloped the
roasted bird. Its skin immediately
darkened and crackled.
She chopped her exhalation off in
mid-fume, coughing slightly as she did so. Twin jets of spark-speckled smoke shot from
her nostrils.
“Skidegod!”
Karrick laughed, applauding. Yellow
afterimages glowed and shifted behind his eyes, and he had to blink to clear
them. Once he could see again, he
plucked the smoking bird off the sword-blade, juggling the carcass from hand to
hand, tore a leg from it, and fell to with a will.
Valaista was still coughing. “Do you have any idea,” she hacked
uncomfortably, “how difficult it is <COUGH> to...to break off a
breathblast like...<COUGH>...like that?”
“Imathe
init butuff,” he mumbled around a mouthful.
She shook her head in
disbelief. “I swear, you make me look
like a dainty eater,” she muttered. She
plunked herself down on the couch again.
After another disbelieving glance at her companion’s table manners, she
pulled a fresh towel from her pack, picked up his sword, and began to clean the
burnt goose fast from the blade.
Karrick smiled to himself. He very carefully avoided noticing the close,
professional attention she paid to the weapon.
“You could’ve just let’er all fly,” he said as offhandedly as he could
manage.
“There would’ve been nothing left of
your dinner but a cinder,” she sniffed.
“And I’d have burnt down half the room.
I presume that if the master had wanted the place incinerated, he
would’ve done so himself while he was obliterating the vault door.”
The warrior chuckled at that. He tore the second limb from the goose and
offered it to her. “Leg?”
“I’ve already dined, thank you,” she
said somewhat primly. She noticed a flaw
in the blade’s edge, picked up the whetstone, and addressed it carefully. Karrick tore a piece from the loaf and
continued with his meal, keeping a close eye on her stone-work.
She noticed him watching this
time. “Of course,” she said
mischievously, “if I were to feel at all peckish, there’s always...” She kicked at the corpse lying at their feet.
Karrick laughed until he
choked. When he started to turn blue,
Valaista put the sword down and pounded him between the shoulder blades until
he could breathe again.
They spent the rest of the night
talking and laughing quietly. Despite
repeated urging, however, Valaista – to Karrick’s immense disappointment –
declined to eat the two thieves he’d killed.
♦♦♦
Hand
in hand, they ran.
Down
the long, treacherous slope of the mountain, plowing like beasts through
waist-deep drifts, and skidding on the ice where the wind had blown the
landscape clean. He was booted, but her
feet were bare, and before long she was limping, hobbling, gritting her teeth
with grim determination, holding herself aloft by will alone.
When
he saw the bloody trail of footprints behind her, he cried out and swept her
into his arms, holding her to his breast, her arms about his neck, and his face
all but buried in the fresh, floral fragrance of her hair. Bearing his love aloft, he ran, his face wet
with sweat, his heart pounding, pounding with exertion, pounding with
fear. Fear of the wind and the sky; fear
of the clouds and the snow. Fear of the
terrible thing that he had tricked, and that followed after them...
His eyes snapped open.
His heart was pounding, pounding, and his face was wet with sweat. He felt a sudden urge to leap to his feat, to
bolt for the close comfort of the garden and the trees, but he squelched it
mercilessly. Dominating his fear took
every ounce of effort he could muster; but at last his limbs ceased their
trembling, and his lifebeat slowed, and he breathed normally again.
A breeze whistled through the
trees. They had bedded down in the Amatorium again, both in obedience to
the sanctity of their nuptial chamber, and because he liked the privacy and the
proximity to the slumbering winter splendour of the gardens. It did have certain disadvantages, though,
especially when the winds were easterly; the sleeping platform was fairly well
shrouded, but the occasional blast managed to throw back a blanket, showering
them with crystal flakes of white, and raising what felt like an acre of
gooseflesh.
He glanced to his left. There, in a tangle of sheets and blankets,
her face half-concealed by the fluffy mass of her preferred pillow, lay his
bride-to-be. She’d removed the last of
her braids earlier that evening in order to offer a blank canvas to her
hairdresser on the day of their nuptials, two days hence. As a consequence, she seemed to be shrouded
from the waist up in a tangled, jumbled mass of midnight locks.
Her lips were parted in sleep, and
such was her beauty that it took all of his remaining willpower not to awaken
her. Instead, he reached out a gentle
hand and ran a fingertip down her cheek.
His reward was a sigh and a smile, and that was enough.
Enough. Composing himself, he lay back again and
closed his eyes. The last image he saw
before doing so was one of the nearby garden, of interlaced branches,
new-burdened with a cargo of snow, and more snow falling...
...snow
falling, falling more heavily now, bearing down the limbs of the firs and
pines, weighing them down, crushing their life beneath the suffocating blanket
of white. He brought the snow; their
pursuer. It came with him, following
them down the mountain, making each step heavier and more chill than the
last. They could run no more; he lacked
the strength to force his way through the towering drifts, and while she might
have found a different path, walking lightly atop them, she refused to leave
his side. Entreat her as he might, she
would not go. She spoke her refusals not
in words, but only in glances; and he could find no reply to the mute appeal in
the deep, enthralling emerald of her eyes.
When
he moved to tear the lower limbs from the trees to build a shelter, as men did,
she cried out in dismay, halting him. He
despaired then; for he knew no other means of keeping her safe and warm. He no longer had any thought for the thing
that pursued them; the elements alone, the unnatural, deadly chill of the
Winter-King’s rage, would end her. It
would end them both, if he could not find warmer quarters.
In
the end, they found a way. With gestures
and signs, she motioned that he should build them a cave; a hole in the snow,
covered over with blocks cut from hardened drifts. This, he could do; and with his knife, in a
trice he had built a long, low house.
They entered it together; and he closed the door with a plaque of ice,
leaving no gap.
The
cave was little more than a crypt, but it was sufficient; for though they were
forced to lie together for warmth, such was in any case their one desire. And so they stayed there, for long and long,
neither hungering, nor sleeping, but only touching and talking with one
another. She spoke of her captivity at
the Winter-King’s hands, and he told her of his long quest to find her, of the
Wood-Maidens who had aided him, and of the Mountain-Dwarf who had betrayed
him. And though they remained many days
in that place, buried beneath the snows above, they did not falter nor fail,
but had breath a-plenty. For such is the
way of true love; each supplied what the other most needed.
Spring
came to the mountain dales at last; for the Winter-King had been defeated by
the strength and cunning of the man, and by the wit and steadfast courage of
his love; and the cold and bitter hatred of the mountain-top could hie after or
hinder them no more. The King of Winter
had been banished from the mortal realm, forced by mortal courage to return to
the depths of his icy fastness, in the dark, hidden places of the World Made. The snows began to melt; and when their
ice-cave vanished, still they were there, holding each other, and revelling in
each other’s presence. When the light of
stars broke at last through the thin roof of snow above them, she placed her
fingers on his lips, and then hers, and then his again; and she said...
“...Memberkati
saya, Lewat.”
Breygon’s eyes snapped open. A yell of surprise rose in his throat, but he
managed to choke it off before it escaped.
His hand flew involuntarily beneath his pillow, his fingers feeling for
his dagger’s hilt. It was only with difficulty
that he halted and unclenched them.
Hovering above him, leaning over
him, her face only inches from his own, was a vision of such transcendent
loveliness that her merest smile, he feared, would shatter his heart. It looked like an elf-woman, but like no
elf-woman he had ever seen, with the finest and fairest of features, brilliant
blue-green eyes, full, delicious lips, and a fall of auburn hair streaked with
gold that looked too beautiful to possibly be a creation of nature. There were, he noticed irrelevantly, oak
leaves, holly and mistletoe, woven together into her tumbled locks.
“Memberkati
saya, Lewat,” she repeated softly.
Her breath caressed his lips, smelling like fresh leaves and the morning
exhalation of lilies. “Berkatilah saya, saya mohon, sebagai Eldu
diberkati Csæleyan.”
She was speaking the Western sylvan
tongue, he realized. The instant the
words registered, he started, glanced down, and gulped; she seemed to be clad
in nothing but flowers, vines and a creeping, translucent veil of early morning
mist.
His lifebeat thundered suddenly in his ears, and he
felt the sweat start again.
“Apa
yang salah?” the incredible vision murmured. Her eyes were sad, and her voice echoed in
his ears like the sea in storm. “Apakah
Anda tidak memberkati aku, Lewat?”
He forced himself to concentrate,
shaking his head to clear it. “Oh,
hells,” he muttered to himself. “It’s
happening again.”
“Hmm, yes,” a familiar voice muttered
in his ear. “That’s just what I was thinking.”
Breygon’s head spun to the
left. Amorda was propped up beside him,
her hand supporting her cheek, and was staring at him most intently, a
dangerous glint in her eyes.
The half-elf cleared his throat. “Greet the dawn, wife,” he said hopefully.
Her expression didn’t change. “Care to explain that?” she snapped, nodding
at the vision of delight leaning over their bed.
“Ah, so you see it too?” he joked
weakly.
The elf-woman said nothing.
“Er...do you speak the forest
tongue?” he temporized, still trying to wake up.
“I do not,” Amorda replied through
clenched teeth. “But I speak ‘woman’
fluently, so I have a fairly good idea what she wants. Shall I translate for you?”
Breygon thought it best not to answer
that. “She...er...says she wants me to
bless her,” the ranger replied, a little unsteadily.
Amorda blinked, then laughed. “Is that
all? Well, then, I apologize. Go ahead, Lewat. Bless away!”
“It’s not that simple,” he said
desperately. “Your instincts were spot
on. She...um...wants me to ‘bless’
her. You know, the way...the way
Eldukaris ‘blessed’ Csæleyan.”
The elf-woman frowned. “And how was that, precisely? I’m not familiar with human legends.”
“Err...”
“Spit it out!”
“ ‘Bless’ her. You know, with...ah, with children,” Breygon
said, flushing a little.
The nymph, perplexed by their
exchange, sat back on her haunches, her magnificent, emerald eyes shifting
between the speakers.
The elf-woman’s eyes widened. “Come again? ‘Children’?!”
“According to legend,” Breygon said
rapidly, “after he rescued Csæleyan from Mælgorm, the Avatar of Winter, she and
Eldukaris became lovers, and he sired the race of dryads on her.”
Amorda’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, really?” she grated. “And that’s
all she wants?”
“I think so.”
One corner of her mouth
twitched. “And you’re not worried about
splinters?”
Breygon rubbed his face
wearily. “There’s no way this ends well
for me, is there?” he muttered.
“I shouldn’t think so, no,” Amorda
grated. She took a deep breath, glanced
at the nymph again, and said, “So you’re telling me that she came all the way
from...from wherever it is she lives,” the elf-woman said, her voice growing
louder with each word, “to ask you, my...my sponsa,
to...to...”
Breygon put a gentle hand on her
wrist. “She’s Fey, love,” he
murmured. “They’re wild. They’re the very essence of wild. They don’t
think or...or take mates, like we do.
They do as they please. They take what they please. They…”
“I know what Fey are!” Amorda
exclaimed.
“It’s bad enough,” the elf-woman went on, “that she
wants to top my lifemate on the eve of our wedding!” Her face was flushed, and her eyes at least
as wild as the nymph’s. “But the least
she could’ve done,” she half-shouted, “was leave the audience at home!”
He blinked. “What?”
Amorda pointed at the garden. “Would you care to introduce me to your
parishioners?” she said, a little too emphatically. “Lewat?” The way she said it sounded more like a curse
than a prayer.
Breygon sat up abruptly. The nymph scuttled back and prostrated
herself beside the bed, putting her forehead to the mattress in the gesture of
submission that he had come to recognize and dread.
His eyes bugged out, and he scrubbed
at them again. Behind the cowering
beauty were hordes of animals – wildcats, wolves, a dozen hawks, and some sort
of catlike owl that he was pretty sure was called a ‘chordevoc’, and was native
to the Elf-realm. A trio of satyrs flanked
a half-dozen Wildthorn warriors, all of them armed with unpleasant-looking
spears and longbows. Behind this crowd,
the bizarre mushroom-shapes of a pair of Myconids bobbed and weaved most
alarmingly. One of them waved a spindly,
thin-fingered hand at him. Without
thinking, Breygon waved back.
Amorda, who had sat up at the same
time as Breygon and was clutching a sheet before her, seemed to be attracting a
good deal of attention from the satyrs, one of whom winked suggestively. The little goat-man made a variety of
thoroughly unmistakeable gestures at her until she flushed to her ear-tips, and
did not desist until the ranger cleared his throat meaningfully. The largest of the garden’s oaks, meanwhile,
seemed to be sprouting a dryad, which emerged from the bark, stepping gingerly
onto the grass and looking around with interest. One of the garden’s topiary animals – a boar, he thought inanely – galloped
rustlingly past the Amatorium,
scattering its last few winter-browned leaves hither and yon, followed closely
by a mangy, branch-bare hedge-lion. And
a veritable squadron of Pixies, Petals and assorted Sprites flitted here and
there, zooming in close to examine the half-elf and his mate at close range,
before flittering away again.
A sound of splashing followed by
angry squeals drew their attention to the garden’s reflecting pool, and Breygon
sighed again; a Glaistig, two Sirines and what he remembered as a Rusalka
appeared to be hurling gouts of icy water at each other, which the Sirines
seemed to object to, and the Rusalka appeared to be enjoying immensely. None of them were wearing much more than mist
and spray, and when Amorda’s tooth-grinding became audible, he turned his
attention hastily away. Beside the pool,
two creatures he didn’t recognize at all – a grey-haired, burly-armed woman who
looked for all the world like a miniature stone giant, and a bizarre, bug-eyed
biped with a smooth, featureless face and an elaborate flute clutched in long,
spatulate fingers – were engaged in an animated conversation.
Breygon leaned over to Amorda. “Those...creatures...over by the benches,” he
whispered. “Any idea what they are?”
“You’re the ranger, my darling,” she
hissed between clenched teeth. “You figure it out. It looks like I’m going to have my hands full
keeping that...that...tree-tart away from you!”
She waved a hand at the beauty crouching beside the bed.
“She’s not a...a tree-tart. She’s a nymph,” he corrected her without
thinking.
“Is
she?” Amorda grated.
Had her eyes been tapers, Breygon
thought, both he and the nymph might have burst spontaneously into flame. “Be careful,” he muttered. “She can blind you with her gaze.”
“I can blind her with my nail-file!” Amorda snarled.
There was a muted <pop> beside Breygon’s left ear. A tickle of tiny toes on his bare shoulder
and the flick of a wing against his ear announced Angin’s presence. “The grey one’s an Oread, Lewat,” the tiny eladrin whispered, “and
the one with the flute and the funny eyes is a Banshrae.”
“Never heard of’em,” Breygon sighed.
Angin cast a sidelong glance at the
simmering elf-woman at Breygon’s side.
“Tell your mate she’d be wise not to upset the nymph,” the eladrin
suggested sotto voce.
“You’re
the one with spell resistance, damage reduction and wings,” the ranger hissed
back. “You tell her.”
He glanced around in wonder. “Is this going to be a regular thing?” he
asked despondently.
“Get used to it, Lewat,” the tiny creature grinned. “It comes with the title. Especially on the Slaughter. They’re here for the Threefold Benison.”
“Wonderful,” the half-elf
sighed. “You’re going to have to explain
that to me.”
“I will,” the tiny celestial promised.
He shook his head.
“All we’re missing is a treant.”
Angin winced. “Actually...” she muttered, pointing upwards.
Breygon and Amorda looked up
simultaneously. The elf-woman
shrieked. Breygon, to his credit, did
not.
Two enormous, emerald eyes stared
down at them through the latticework over the Amatorium. The ranger
winced; a colossal oak appeared to be leaning over the house.
“Hoom, hoom!” the thing bellowed in
tones that dislodged icicles from the trellises. “Ha-hoom!
Greet the dawn, Lewat!”
The ranger looked at his fiancée and
smiled weakly. The monstrous tree had to
be standing in the alleyway next to the house.
He wondered idly how it had managed to find its way into the city
unobserved. If it had.
Amorda smiled back. It was not her customary happy grin, but
something rather more forced. “If we’re
going to make this mating work, beloved,” she said evenly, “then, between the
dragon-killing, the undead, the quest for fiend-summoning artefacts, and this sort of thing...” she waved a hand
at the sudden menagerie “...we’re going to have to set some ground rules about
you bringing your work home.”
“Yes, dear,” Breygon sighed.
♦♦♦
