She's All Thaumaturgy

by A. K. Caggiano

  “Show me your mean face,” Frederick urged the others as he gathered them around just at the border. Varying pouts and frowns stared back at him, not one amongst them intimidating. Even Bix, with his pointed teeth and curled up snout, had those bloody glasses making his eyes big and round like a puppy. Frederick grimaced.

  “Well, that won’t do either.” Rosalind crossed her arms and looked down her nose at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re too pretty to be a tough guy.”

  No one had ever called him pretty before. “Excuse me?”

  She shrugged. “I guess we’ll see, huh, El?”

  “What?” She glowered at her friend. “What are you asking me for?” Then she stomped ahead of them into town. That would do, at least.

  The city sloped downward at a steep pitch so that the homes and shops were all built into the earth on an angle. They descended narrow streets that had to be traversed on foot. From inside the bowl, the sounds of marketeers and children rose up to meet them as did the smells, overwhelmingly unpleasant. Too many bodies in too tight a space made for a hot, human stench that told the sniffer the city didn’t know exactly what to do with old fish innards. The deeper into Bizgain, the higher the shops became, connected above them with rope bridges and wooden planks that one wouldn’t notice until they heard the distressing sound of shuffling feet overhead.

  “How do we find pirates?” Neoma asked the pipe as she was shoved nearly off her feet by a woman passing by with a basket of fruit on each hip.

  “Near the coast, of course!” Gramps’s voice echoed out of the copper urn. “Find the seediest looking tavern, they’ll be in there.”

  “Done this before, huh?” She gave the others a look.

  “Never,” he spat back.

  They wound their way through the crowds, faces turned away from them, many covered, though others shouted to be seen, putting on shows and selling their wares. It wasn’t unfamiliar to Frederick, he’d been out on the road plenty of times before, but never with a group of people so helpless.

  He saw Bix nearly be trampled, and quickly grabbed the kobold’s collar to pull him back to his feet. The creature turned his big, black eyes up at him and sputtered out a thanks to which he only told him to be more careful. He hardly noticed that the pain in his chest had disappeared as he puffed it out and kept them all in his sights.

  Starkly amongst the smells was a salty, fishy air that stung the nose and lungs. A fair number of vendors carried sea wares, and they passed a cart where a man was arguing with the merchant that what she’d sold him earlier in the day was bad.

  “It’s your job to know what you’re buying!” She tried to wave him away.

  “You can’t sell bad goods.”

  “You’re right!” She sniffed. “By your own words they were good, so there!”

  The man roared at her, and she roared back, but as they passed, Frederick picked up that the fish wasn’t bad necessarily from the outside, but its innards had been black.

  They walked the length of the city, and by evening they’d come to its far end where the great high wall held back the sea and concealed the setting sun. It was set together with stones, the cracks between filled with an ancient magic that Frederick could feel even at a distance. Who maintained it, he didn’t know, and perhaps it didn’t need maintaining, but he didn’t want to be around when the realization came about that something integral had been ignored for too long.

  The street that ran along it was littered with puddles of salty sea water. Every now and again a spray would come over the rim and rain down on the indifferent villagers, but it took Frederick aback. Impending doom had never seemed so real, even with a gaping hole in his chest.

  “Where do you suggest, Gramps?” Neoma held up the pipe, gesturing to the wall ahead of them.

  “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  Shadows covered the westernmost half of Bizgain already, and every place looked sordid in the dull, green glow of seeing stones stacked up in glass jars filled with seawater that hung over doorways. But when they found it, they indeed did know.

  The tavern crawled up the edge of the wall set behind a set of storefronts. Without knowing it was there, it would have been difficult to find which wasn’t exactly how a tavern should work. The windows were blacked out from years of neglect, and its only sign was hanging from a half-broken cord which once read The Crafty Gentleman, but Frederick supposed it didn’t go by that name anymore.

  The crowds had thinned, and the only people about were shifting their gazes, scurrying, and mumbling to themselves. Neoma didn’t exactly seem to notice all this, though, and went for the door first, walking smartly forward, her silvery hair loose and a smile on her face.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Frederick called, gesturing to them all to gather around. “Can we please, once more, just try to be a bit intimidating?”

  “Look, Fred, I just don’t know if we’re capable,” Elayne admitted.

  “Come on, you’ve been yelling at me for a fortnight, can’t you muster up some of that anger now?”

  She snorted at him.

  “Good!” But the rest of them simply furrowed their brows. At least they were trying.

  When Frederick opened the door, it creaked, long and low, wrecking the quiet inside, and the stagnant smell of sweat and stale ale hit him. The eyes of the place turned on them from the shadows, and Frederick took a deep breath and continued inside. He felt the heaviness of his footsteps as he crossed the tavern to a table near the back where they would all fit, out of sight.

  “Meal’s one coin each.” A slim woman showed up at the table from the shadows. “Ale’s another if you’re so inclined. No tabs. Rooms are three, and there’s ladies and fellas upstairs what charge by the service, though,”—she looked around at Frederick’s companions—“You lot look sorted.”

  “Food and ale for us all!” Rosalind dropped a small purse of coins onto the table with a clink, and Frederick inhaled sharply.

  The woman smirked. “Right away.” And she disappeared into the shadows again.

  “Gods, where’d you get that?” Elayne pointed at the purse, her voice low.

  “Nicked it from mother. She won’t miss it.”

  “You fit right in.” Bix was grinning, gesturing to the rest of the room.

  “You think so?” Rosalind beamed, overly pleased with herself. “It probably won’t hire us a whole ship, but it might get us part way there.”

  “Speaking of,”—Neoma craned her neck out of the shadows—“How do you know someone’s a pirate?” The clientele of the place could have been any number of things: thieves, assassins, bandits, even pirates, but there was little that made them distinguishable. “Should we ask?”

  “No.” Frederick pulled her back to the table by her arm just in time to avoid a staggering drunkard from bumping into her. Instead, he knocked into the table, stuttered an apology, then hobbled away. Elayne looked after him, but the woman turned back up with a tray full of bowls and a girl behind her with steins of ale blocking her view. Some kind of stew was slapped down in front of them.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” Rosalind asked as she handed off coins. “Do you think you could point us in the direction of your most dastardly pirate?”

  “Oh, gods.” Frederick dropped his forehead down onto the table as Gramps blasted a hearty laugh from his pipe.

  “Pirates? There ain’t no such thing, and if there were, I certainly wouldn’t be tattling.” The woman grinned, half of her teeth missing. “Plenty of seamen in these parts, though I don’t know why you’d want to get yourself caught up in any of that.”

  When she left, they each tucked into their food except Elayne who was inspecting the other patrons, and Frederick had a mind to ask her what she saw, but once he lifted his bowl to his face, his hunger took over. By the time he set it back down, she had disappeared.

  “El?” He got up quickly and scanned the tavern. She was already halfway across the room when he
spotted her, and when he started after, a mass stepped into his way so that he knocked into it.

  “Aye!” A deep voice rumbled over him. “Watch it.”

  A bearded man was staring down at him with one good eye, the other scarred over. He smelled of pickles, and Frederick couldn’t stop himself from crinkling his nose. The man poked a finger into the wound on his chest, and he winced.

  “Oh, don’t like that, eh?” He poked him again. “Too pretty for a little poke?”

  “Pretty? What in Oh’oa’s eyes?” Frederick muttered, hands on his hips, then lifted his voice. “Sir, we have no quarrel—”

  “Don’t tell me what we have!” The man grabbed the front of his tunic, and Frederick suddenly wished he had taken something with the crown’s markings on it after all. Then again, that might have made him more of a target. “What’s someone so clean-looking doing in a place like this anyway? Trying to rat out a burglar for Denny? You know what we do to rats? Or uh,”—He chuckled, looking Frederick over—“You’re more of a little mouse, ain’t you?”

  “Mouse?” Frederick sighed. This was getting ridiculous; he hadn’t shaved since Havencourt.

  “Excuse me.” Rosalind’s voice was behind him then. “What’s the problem?”

  “Gods be still, yer a big lass.” The man’s eyes widened when he set them on Rosalind, and he dropped Frederick.

  Rosalind grunted. “I’d take exception to that if it weren’t true.”

  “You’re with him?” He pointed at Frederick as if he were week-old meat, then raised two closed fists. “Last one standing takes you home, how bout it?”

  Rosalind looked from one to the other. “Ew.”

  “Fine, you and me then. Winner gets to be on top.” He threw an arm out and swept Frederick out of the way and into a table which he immediately toppled with his new dearth of balance.

  Frederick scrambled to his feet, stale ale running down his back complimented by the angry voices of patrons. “That’s enough.” He stepped between them, and the big man went to brush him away again, but Frederick ducked. “We’re going to head back over here and—”

  He was slow, but the brute was big, and he took a wild and wide swing at Frederick so he felt the wind off his knuckles. The knight knew he should have been even quicker, but he was at least able to dodge the punch. He dropped his hand to his hilt, then hesitated: his sword would end it quickly, but then they’d probably have a lot more trouble ahead. That’s usually what happened when people ended up dead, anyway.

  Rosalind shouted from behind him, something about a fair fight and this not being one, but it was lost in the sound of the bull of a man charging across the floorboards. The knight pushed Rosalind out of the way and backed up to another table that wasn’t quite as easy to move. He jumped up backwards onto it just as the man started throwing more punches. The woman behind the bar was shouting at him to get his dirty boots off her clean tables—though that was a stretch—notably ignoring the madman’s swinging fists.

  There were a number of bowls on the table that Frederick could have sworn hadn’t been there a second before, but with a quick foot he kicked them toward his aggressor. Most landed on his huge frame with a wet thunk, covering him in stew, but he barely took notice, pushing through and grabbing the edge of the table to flip it backward. Frederick flew off and into another group of tavern patrons who only pushed him back up and right into harm’s way. There was crashing and shouting from the other side of the place, but Frederick’s eyes were locked on the giant of a man coming at him full speed.

  Then suddenly the giant slipped, his boots flying up over his head, greasy stew coating their bottoms. The beast crashed into the ground hard, and Frederick took the extra lucky moment to escape the corner he’d been knocked into. The brute was up again, shaking his head and charging. The knight fought the urge to draw his blade once again, and instead reached behind himself for something less lethal.

  The handle of a pan slid into his grip. The cast iron was heavy, and though he didn’t know how he came to have it, he flung it forward. The man threw out an arm, blocking the pan with a terrible clang. His eyes bulged at the pain, but it did very little to stop him. In fact, it may have made him come a bit quicker. From the corner of his eye, Frederick saw Bix’s little form appear beside him then disappear. Apparently his luck was running out.

  Pinned against the wall, the brute loomed up over him, his vinegary stank all-encompassing as he wound up an arm. And then there was a crack, loud and metallic. The man’s eyes crossed, and he froze. His big body wavered then crashed to the floor at Frederick’s feet.

  In his aggressor’s place stood a new stranger holding up a stein with a generous dent, beside him Elayne who had finally mustered up an acceptably fierce face.

  “What did you do?” she hissed, her small hands balled into fists on her hips.

  “Me?”

  Elayne reached forward and grabbed him by the tunic. “Nevermind, let’s just get you out of here!”

  CHAPTER 28

  Elayne and her companions piled out of The Crafty Gentleman into the newly fallen night. She could barely believe her eyes when she’d seen him in the tavern, making his way drunkenly across to the bar. It had been a decade, but she recognized his hair, greying more now than it had been then, still tied with a thin cord at the nape of his neck, his crooked nose, perhaps with a new break, his bright blue eyes, even now that they were sunken and rimmed in red. He’d been one of her father’s best and most faithful friends, and she’d been sure he died alongside him. And yet here Sir Walter of Heulux was.

  “Thanks for the, uh…” Frederick mimicked bonking himself on the head with an invisible stein.

  Sir Walter shrugged. “Tor gets what’s coming to him just about every time. Shame you had to provoke him like that.”

  “How?” Frederick threw his arms up.

  “Looking like you don’t belong.” Sir Walter sniffed, heading down the alley between the tavern and the seawall. “Don’t get me wrong, kid, I can tell you’re a piece of shit, but you ain’t no criminal.”

  Elayne held back a laugh, trailing after him.

  Frederick grimaced. “All right, who is this guy?”

  “Sir Walter of Heulux,” Elayne told him proudly, feeling more like an Orraigh than she ever had before.

  “No.” The man suddenly rounded on her. “That ain’t me anymore. I’m just Wally out here.”

  Elayne narrowed her eyes at the flask he pulled from his pocket. “Nonsense! You were one of my father’s most loyal men. Just because he’s—” The word dead caught in her throat, and she shook her head. “I just don’t think you can stop being a knight. Can you?” She looked to Frederick for help, but he only shrugged.

  Sir Walter took a drink then gestured to her with the flask. “This really ain’t no place for a duchess. You should be as far from Heulux as possible anyway, and I wager this is too close.”

  She took a step toward him, dropping her voice low. “I’m actually trying to get into Heulux.”

  Sir Walter looked like he immediately sobered.

  “You know any pirates?” Gramps shouted from the pipe.

  Sir Walter glanced at Neoma, then his eyes looked down to the pipe, back to the elf, back to his own flask, and he took another long swig. “You can’t do that.”

  “Find pirates?”

  Sir Walter laughed. “Oh, I can find you pirates. It’s the going back to Heulux part that’s absurd!” He turned away from them again and stumbled further down the alley toward Bizgain’s enchanted seawall.

  Elayne knit her brow and gestured to the others to stay put. “But I need to.” She hurried after him. “The duchy’s in trouble, and I need to help it.”

  “The duchy’s been in trouble for years.” He tripped and caught himself on the wall. “Ain’t no saving it now.”

  “That’s not—” She glanced back at her friends just before she went out of their view, holding up a finger for them to wait. A familiar, hot anger started to ris
e in her chest before she swallowed it back down. “That’s not at all what I expected you to say.”

  “I’m not the same as you remember,” he grumbled. “I maybe never was.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” she offered quietly, folding her hands in front of her. His eyes changed when he recognized her in the tavern, and in that moment he had been the same knight who had served beside her father since before she was born. How he’d escaped, she had no idea, and what had happened to him since was even more of a mystery, Frederick’s shenanigans cutting her questions short, but the brave man she’d known as a child was certainly in there somewhere—brave people usually were.

  “I can’t help you.”

  She crossed her arms. “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Both.”

  She watched him walk away from her, trailing a hand along the wall and taking another drink. Screwing up her courage, she shouted, “My father would be very disappointed to know you’re refusing to help me.”

  Sir Walter barely turned to look over his shoulder. “Your father is dead.”

  Her knees went weak, but she didn’t fall, she didn’t even waver, but gods did she want to. Lionel Orraigh was dead, Cressyda Orraigh was dead, and those who had served them—perhaps even Sir Walter—were dead. Her hand wrapped around the crystal hanging from her neck, its weight suddenly tremendous, and she reached out to touch the wall with her free hand. Ice sparked at her fingertips, and she pulled away as a violet flash lit up the cracks between the stones and shot out away from where she’d touched, dissipating as they meandered around the stones.

  Then so be it, she thought, Sir Walter was dead too, but there were others in Heulux, surely, who didn’t consider themselves too far gone, and she wasn’t going to let this drunkard stop her from helping them.

  Elayne strode past Sir Walter. There was a man leaning up against the back of an unmarked building with his head in a pint. She went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. With as brilliant a smile and as sweet a voice as she could muster, she began, “Good evening, sir, do you think you might be able to help me? I am looking for the most dangerous and frightening pirates that Bizgain Bay has to offer. Might you be able to point me in their direction?”