She's All Thaumaturgy

by A. K. Caggiano

  Frederick all but ignored her, leaning leisurely against the counter. “Natty?”

  A plump woman popped her head through the doorway, a kerchief tied over her hair and a linen in her hands. When she saw him, her face lit up. “Good Sir Frederick,” she said in an orotund voice, sweeping through the arch and up to the counter, “You’re in quite early! Didn’t think we’d be seeing you at all this moon what with the coronation.”

  “You know me, always full of surprises.” Elayne could hear the smile in his voice and saw how the baker chuckled.

  “And you’ve brought…a friend?” The woman had hesitated, her eyes narrowing as she tried to make out Elayne’s face.

  “Right,” he told her cheerily, gesturing over his shoulder. “Elayne, this is Natty. She’s got the best buns in the business.”

  Natty chuckled once more as another figure entered into the shop, bumping Elayne with the sack of grain he was carrying. The boy began to apologize but stumbled over his words when he turned and saw her, making a face he was too distracted to hide. Elayne huffed, turning away, mumbling about how everything was fine, and the boy hurried back behind the counter and through the door.

  “…and some of those tarts, you know the ones? With the red filling?”

  “Of course!” Natty slung her towel over her shoulder. “I’ll just get you some fresh loaves from the oven.”

  When she disappeared back into the kitchen, Elayne closed the distance between her and Frederick, leaning close to hiss, “I hope this is the only stop you planned on.”

  “Relax.” He lolled his head toward her, still leaning on the counter. “I promise it will be worth it.”

  She doubted that very much. “I doubt that very—” Elayne could feel the little eyes on her immediately and snapped her head toward the counter. There was a small, blonde girl on its other side, peering up at them, her dark eyes wide, mouth open. The girl had a hand outstretched, in it a bit of biscuit, but then she gasped, pulling her arm back and flitting away from them into the kitchen.

  “Bree?” Frederick called after her, and Elayne shriveled into herself: there was really nothing worse than scaring a child.

  Then the little figure appeared again, flying through the door in a blur of yellow hair, nearly smashing into the counter as she thrust her arm toward Frederick, biscuit in hand, and then, to Elayne’s surprise, the other arm toward her. In her hand she held another bit of biscuit, but more interesting to Elayne was the hand itself, her skin pulled taut and inhumanly pale save for blotches of blackened, scabby pieces. The fingers weren’t quite right, and when her sleeve fell away from her wrist, Elayne could see the disfigurement running up her arm. Bree smiled.

  “Ah, for both of us. Well.” Frederick slid two coppers across the counter to her, taking the biscuit. “You are a clever shopkeep.”

  Elayne received the biscuit from the girl, mouthing a thank you to her, and Bree nodded, taking up the coins and skipping back through to the kitchen. In a bit of a daze, she stepped back from the counter as Natty came back out and handed over a bundle to Frederick in exchange for coin. Their voices filled up the bakery, but Elayne didn’t really hear them, only following Frederick out when she realized he was leaving. Her eyes were trained on the half of a sweet the child had given her.

  “See,” Frederick said, slipping the package into his satchel and throwing back the treat he’d been given, “Worth it.”

  Elayne made sure her hood was pulled firmly over her head as the sun rose higher over Yavarid City, though there were fewer villagers the farther they went. Rosalind only stopped her excited chatter once to complain of hunger to which Frederick was quick to resolve with a still-warm bun. With a full mouth, she went right back to expressing how she intended for their trip to go—perfectly, of course. Elayne was glad for the distraction of her constant voice, especially as they came to the edge of the city, but the moment they crossed out of the city proper and entered the sparse wood that made up the northern border, Rosalind took off on her horse with a howl.

  The two were left with the silence between them as they abandoned the inhabited city. The farms sustaining Yavarid City were all southward, so trees, though short and thin, lined the well-walked pathway to the north, insulating them from other noises, and so led to a particularly awkward silence that really felt like it should be filled. Elayne pulled back a little so that she fell behind Frederick, but he seemed to be trying to match her. And that was quite annoying.

  Finally, she swallowed, and gave in. “Sir Frederick,” she began, clearing her throat, “What exactly is the plan here? How do you propose to…help me?”

  “We’re going to rid you of that curse.” Even the back of his head exuded confidence, and when he turned to her his ridiculous face confirmed how sure he was. “We shall make your face normal—uh, I mean…”

  She would have been angry if it weren’t so amusing to see him falter. “Right, I get that. I mean specifically. How?”

  “Elves!” he announced as if it were absolutely genius.

  She waited a moment for him to elaborate. When he did not, she sighed. “And?”

  “Well, they have healing magic, and isn’t a curse just an illness?”

  Elayne screwed up her face, which was particularly hard considering its natural state. “No, it’s not, it’s—” She held onto the thought instead of blurting it out. She wasn’t exactly sure he was wrong, but she was determined that he couldn’t be right.

  “Sir Legosen told me it could be done.” He waved away the concern on her face. “And if it was an elf that did that to you in the first place, an elf should be able to undo it.”

  Elayne pulled on her horse’s reins and came to a stop. She wasn’t quite sure where to start. “First of all, I don’t think elven magic works like that, and secondly—”

  Frederick pulled his horse around. “I know elves, okay?”

  She cocked her head. Did he know who he was talking to?

  “And one owes me a favor.”

  “An elf owes you a favor?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged and started on again, and she urged her horse to follow. “I’ve done some pretty, well,”—he chuckled—“let’s say heroic things for the Trizians, so it goes without saying—”

  “Trizians?” Her heart began to pound a little faster at the mention of the clan found at the heart of the wildest forest in Yavarid. After what had happened two years ago, there was no way they would be willing to help her.

  “Yup!” His cheerfulness made her want to barf.

  “Frederick, no.” Elayne hurried her horse to get up beside him. “They won’t help me.”

  “Why not?” He shrugged as if there were no question about it.

  “Well…” She looked out at the path ahead of them, her voice trailing off. How could she explain?

  He shook his head. “They will. Just trust me.”

  Trust him. He wanted her to trust him. She felt sick at the thought: there was no one she’d been able to trust outside of Rosalind for years now, and even she had gone behind Elayne’s back to set this whole thing up. That familiar, hot anger bubbled up in her belly at the thought, but then Rosalind’s voice called out from the wood ahead, sharp and alarmed, and the feeling was doused.

  CHAPTER 7

  Rosalind sat atop her steed, chin held high, but her knuckles were white on the reins. Three men stood across from her in the little clearing, the likes of which Frederick had seen before in the unprotected woods, though they were usually just smart enough to leave someone like him alone. There was a fifth figure there too, one Frederick had almost missed: a child, barely standing to the height of the horse’s knee, but its limbs were a bit too long, and it held itself much straighter than a toddler. And then there was the odd fact that its skin was a bit too green. Frederick raised a brow, and motioned for Elayne to stop at his side, still in the shadows of the brush.

  “Give it up, we know you got plenty of gold in that sack!” One of the men pointed at the little creature, i
ts bat-like ears twitching at the command.

  Another snarled. “Dirty little goblin probably stole it all anyway.”

  The being readjusted the sack it carried and pushed a pair of wire-framed glasses up the bridge of its snout. “Um, actually,” he spoke with a squeaky lilt, “goblin is a colloquial term for any number of bipedal creatures amongst which my kin are included. Unlike the trow, of which I believe you are thinking, kobolds are much less likely to burgle passersby, not that I’m too keen on attributing that characteristic to any goblinoid, but I am only—”

  “Shut up, goblin!” One of the three started forward.

  Rosalind dismounted then. “Stop right there!”

  “Oh, dear.” Elayne’s voice was barely a whisper. “I think you need to stop this.”

  He watched Rosalind come to stand just behind the kobold. She hadn’t begun to shake, her eyes focused on the men. “Ro says she wants to be a knight, right?” He looked over at Elayne, but the woman just glared back.

  Frederick shrugged. Rosalind was at least as tall as them, significantly taller than one, and she squared up as well as any opponent he’d been against out on the road. “If you want to steal from this goblin,” she said through grit teeth, “you’re going to have to go through me.”

  “Kobold,” the creature corrected quietly as it backed up behind Rosalind’s leg.

  “Fine.” The shortest of the men shrugged and went for her.

  “Uh—” Another threw a hand out across his chest to stop him. “That’s a lady, ain’t it?”

  “Barely.” He didn’t even raise his fists as he strode across the small clearing, though Rosalind dug her feet into the earth. Once he got close enough he simply held up a single hand and pulled it back.

  Rosalind shot an arm out and grabbed his wrist just as he swung. The man was as surprised as she was fast, and he froze. Rosalind also seemed at least a bit surprised, but the look in her eyes turned the moment the man tried to tug away. She had him held to the spot, and she grinned back, then punched him squarely in the nose.

  The short man stumbled backward, caught by his cohorts. When he pulled his hands away from his face, there was blood spattered across his mouth and chin. “Fucking strong bitch,” he mumbled, spitting onto the forest floor.

  Another of them came forward, and this time Rosalind hopped from one foot to the other. Frederick recognized her expression, the same he’d seen in so many of the pages when they landed their first blow. “Come on!”

  This man was ready, but she ducked his oncoming punch and came up between his arms with an uppercut to his chin. Rosalind hopped some more, laughing, but he regained his footing quickly, swinging, and connected with her jaw.

  Elayne gasped, and Frederick had to grab her horse’s reins to stop her from riding out and revealing them.

  “What are you doing?” she spat, tugging the reins away.

  “Giving her a chance.”

  Rosalind composed herself quickly and took a swing that was blocked and answered with another of his own which she expertly blocked as well. She then closed the distance between them and began to pummel at his sides. As he dropped to the ground, Rosalind jerked her knee into his gut, and the man doubled over with a yelp.

  She had no time to celebrate as the tallest of the men stepped right over his fallen companion. Rosalind threw a punch at him, but her arm was caught. The man didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with her, and so she raised up her legs and kicked him in the stomach. He faltered, dropping her onto her back, but before she could get back on her feet, her arms and legs were captured. The shortest man had recovered enough from his bloodied nose and, swearing, instructed his cohorts to hold her still. From his pocket he revealed a small blade. “Enough playing,” he snarled, “Just let me gut her.”

  Frederick was off his horse and between them before Elayne could even gasp. “I think not.” He pulled his sword from its plain leather scabbard but did not bother lighting it; the glint of its hilt from the light filtering through the trees would be enough.

  The bandit lowered his dagger. “A soldier, eh?” His eyes darted back and forth, and his words seemed to distract the others so that Rosalind flailed a leg free. “What are you doing wandering out here without your gear and your regiment?”

  Frederick spun his sword in his hand. “Whatever I want, I suppose. Perhaps, as you suggested, I might gut someone?”

  He took a step back but curled a lip. “Just you, against all three of us?”

  Frederick narrowed his eyes, tightening his grip on the hilt. He could feel the spark burning in his palm, daring him. His eyes flicked to where Elayne hid in the shadows, then back to the bandit. The blade sprung to life with a wild, green flame that reflected back in the bandit’s widening eyes.

  “Just me,” he said. There was a pop from behind him, and one of the men grunted. He glanced over his shoulder just long enough to see Rosalind free herself from the two, and they backed away as she hopped to her feet, fists up again and ready. “And her.”

  “Uh…” The shortest bandit took another, quicker step away. “No need, no need. We’ll be on our way.”

  “Will you?” He spun his sword, and the green glow left a trail in the shadows under the trees. “Is that what I’m going to let you do?”

  The man’s face blanched. “Please?”

  “I don’t know.” Frederick turned over his shoulder slightly. “Ro, what do you want to do?”

  She snorted from behind him but stood straight. “I think they’ve had enough.”

  “You heard the lady.” Frederick lowered his blade.

  “Wait!” They had begun to draw away, but Rosalind’s voice stopped them. “An apology, for my little friend.”

  The kobold was quivering behind her horse’s knee, his big watery eyes staring up at them from behind thick lenses.

  When they did not say anything, Frederick raised his sword again.

  “S-sorry!” the short man sputtered, and the other two complied in a stuttering mess.

  “That’s right!” Rosalind was grinning, hands on her hips. “Now you can go.”

  The three fled into the thick of the woods. Frederick lowered his sword after the sounds of them crashing through the branches wore away. Lowly bandits didn’t expect to come dagger-to-sword with a soldier, let alone a mage. He spun the weapon once more with a smirk and sheathed it, the flame going out. They would have posed next to no threat to him—he’d seen how poorly they’d swung at Rosalind, and their weapons were rusted at best—but, he glanced over at Elayne once more, she didn’t know that.

  Rosalind’s hand came down on his shoulder and shook the thought of them away. “I owe you big time!”

  “You were doing well,” he told her earnestly, “Impressive, actually.”

  Rosalind grinned back. “Really?”

  “Ro, are you okay?” Elayne came bounding out of the shadows on foot. Her face was all awe and horror, in more ways than one, but Frederick still smiled.

  “I’ve never felt better!”

  “You’re bleeding!”

  “Excuse me, ma’am? Sir?” The tiny voice of the kobold came up from around their feet and even Elayne stopped rummaging through her bag to look down at the little green thing. He brought his fingertips together in front of his snout and gave them a bow. “You saved my life, and you do not even know me. How can I possibly ever thank you?”

  “Oh, it was nothing.” Rosalind slapped Frederick on the back again, and he stumbled from the shock. Then her face changed. “You didn’t actually steal anything from them though, right?”

  “Steal from them? Of course not!” He shook his great head, and his ears flapped. “As I said, kobolds don’t typically steal. Of course there are any number of individuals who would, if the chance arose or circumstances called for it, but on the whole kobolds are naturally fortuitous so items do come into our possession when—”

  “Okay, okay, a ‘no’ is good enough.” Rosalind took the fabric scrap away from Elayne who
was trying to wipe away the blood. “But what are you doing out here all alone? Don’t your kind usually live in underground clans or something?”

  “Yes!” He rocked forward onto his toes and grinned. “But I, Bix The Wanderer, intend to see all of Maw.” He threw his long spindly fingers and pointed claws out in front of him as if he could see the world waiting there, though really it was a sea of knees staring back.

  “Well, you should come with us then!”

  “Wait, wait,”—Frederick held up a hand—“We’re not traveling all over Maw or anything, we’re just headed up into the Trizian Wood to visit the elves. It’s two days, tops, then back to the castle. We’ve got other business to attend to.”

  “We do?” He could feel Elayne shoot him a look, but he refused to return it.

  “I’ve never been to an elven enclave before.” Bix was practically vibrating with excitement. “And it would mean quite a bit to me to have such tall companions, even for just a few days.”

  Frederick grimaced, looking over the kobold then to Rosalind who was staring at him expectantly. He wanted to say no and ride off—they’d saved the creature and that was certainly enough—but then there was a spark in the back of his mind that convinced him it was a good idea. Frederick didn’t know, of course, that Bix had been accurate in calling kobolds naturally fortuitous, and at that moment the luckiest thing that could have happened to him was to become part of their party. “Fine, but that’s it. And we’re coming right back to Yavarid,” he said in what was very much a little-did-he-know moment.

  They again mounted their horses, and Bix was invited to sit up in front of Rosalind. “I can see everything from up here!” he’d exclaimed, noting that the tops of bushes looked quite different than how he’d expected. The two began chatting immediately about the world beyond the city.

  Frederick watched after the two as they rode ahead, then glanced at Elayne. She was glaring at him again, and it wasn’t just the way her face was—she really meant it. “What?”