by Logan Jacobs
All except for Lavinia. She still tossed out a few jibes now and then, but her glass held water, and she picked at the food on her plate. The smudges under her eyes looked darker as well. When she excused herself from the table, I followed after her and caught her just as she was starting up the stairs.
“Lavinia, wait,” I said as I grabbed her elbow. She looked at my hand, then at me. I slowly removed my hand, but she didn’t move.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she replied.
“Something’s going on,” I insisted as I studied her mana.
“Don’t tell me you can tell when someone’s lying,” she sighed.
“Not yet,” I said with a quiet laugh. Her mana was definitely burning brighter, and it didn’t seem concentrated in that singular spot that I had gotten so used to seeing in all living things.
“What do you see?” she asked quietly as she studied my face.
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “Lavinia, what were you trying to tell me in San Lorraine?”
“Well, I suppose this is as good a place as any,” she sighed. “Do they have moon weed where you come from?”
“Moon weed?” I asked. “What is--”
“I didn’t think I needed to take any,” she sighed as she closed her red eyes. “I mean, this has never happened before. I thought I didn’t need to worry about it.”
“What has never happened before?” I asked as my stomach started to sink.
“It’s just impossible,” she cleared her throat and opened her eyes to stare at me again. “I even teased you about it last time we made love. You poured all your seed in me, and I--”
“Wait,” I interrupted her as I suddenly put together her being sick in the morning and my observations that she hadn’t been drinking any alcohol lately.
“Gabriel, I’m pregnant.”
“Oh.” I stared at her in stunned surprise, and it seemed like the world was spinning.
“It isn’t possible for a human and a ladona to have a child,” she continued. “It’s never happened before. But apparently, it’s happening now.”
“But,” I protested, “How?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Maybe it is because you are a manipulator? I don’t know! If I had thought this was possible, I would have made sure that I used some of Lena’s moon weed. But it’s too late now.”
We stared at each other for a few more moments.
“Say something,” she finally pleaded.
“This is wonderful news,” I said. “I love you, and I want to have a baby with you.”
“What?” Her red eyes opened wide.
“Yeah,” I chuckled as I reached out to pull her body against mine. “Why wouldn’t I? You are intelligent, cunning, sassy, an amazing fighter, and beautiful. This is great news. I’m really happy.”
“Are you sure?” she asked quietly as she turned her eyes away from mine, and I could see relief flash across her face.
“Absolutely,” I said as I cupped her chin with my fingers and slowly pulled her face to mine. Then we kissed, and her lips were gentle and passionate, instead of her usual urgent and pressing.
“We’ll have to tell everyone else,” she sighed as soon as our lips parted.
“Tell everyone else what?” Dehn demanded. He must have just stepped into the hall, but he was eyeing the two of us suspiciously. “That you two are smooching? Everyone knows that.”
“They are going to find out eventually,” I pointed out as I laid my fingers on her tummy. “It might be better to get it over with.”
“No,” Dehn groaned. “We all know you two are fucking. Hell, Gabriel is plowing all of you females. If you ask me, he needs to focus more on his martial arts training and less on getting his dick we--”
“Shut up, pipsqueak.” Lavinia scowled at the halfling, but he simply scowled back.
“Hey! I’m the tallest in my fam--”
“We know!” she groaned.
“So, what is your secret then?” he sighed.
“We are going to tell everyone all at once,” I said.
“Then get on with it!” he groaned and pointed back down the stairs to the common room.
“Fine,” Lavina said, and then, with a martyred sigh, Lavinia walked down the steps past him and looked at me.
“Are you ready for this?” she asked.
“If you are,” I replied.
Lavinia took a deep breath, then stepped back into the main room. The rest of the Shadow Foxes looked up curiously when we reappeared. Dehn stood behind us with an angry frown on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Aerin asked as we stood there.
“They have some sort of secret announcement,” Dehn explained.
When neither Lavinia nor I spoke, Dehn gave us both a jab in the back.
“I’m pregnant,” Lavinia blurted out.
The place was so quiet, I could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the back room. Lavinia looked like she was about to bolt from the room, and I saw a tear form in the corner of her eye.
“How?” Aerin finally asked. “Didn’t you take any moon weed?”
“No,” Lavinia heaved a heavy sigh. “I didn’t think I needed it.”
“Well, that’s just silly,” Lena giggled. “If you don’t take moon weed, then you’ll get pregnant. I take it every day so Gabriel doesn’t get me pregnant.”
The other women all nodded, but then Emeline cleared her throat nervously.
“But who’s the father?” she asked carefully. “I thought you were all sleeping with Gabriel, and--”
“He is the father!” Lavinia groaned as she covered her face with her hand.
“Wait,” Aerin said as she blinked her green eyes at both of us. “Uhhh, that’s… impossible?”
“I know!” Lavinia groaned again. “That’s why I wasn’t taking any moon weed.”
“Are you sure, though?” Lena asked as she tapped her chin thoughtfully and wound a finger through her honey-blonde hair. “Humans and ladonas can’t have kids. Their species are too diff--”
“By the gods, I am absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure Gabriel is the father!” Lavinia hissed. “It’s his!”
“I’m the father,” I announced as I reached out and threaded my fingers through Lavinia’s fingers.
She turned to me, and the anger quickly fled from her red eyes, and a slight smile came to her lips.
“This is wonderful!” Yvaine shouted as she jumped to her feet. “You all must know what this means, correct? It must be Gabriel’s magic!”
“That’s actually what I was think--” Lavinia started to say, but Yvaine had already danced around the table and was pulling Lavinia into a tight hug.
“This is the most fantastic news I’ve ever heard,” the Marchioness declared. “I must admit though, I am a bit jealous! I’ve stopped taking moon weed with the hopes that Gabriel would impregnate me first, but--“
“Wait, what?!” Lavinia, Aerin, Lena, and Emeline all asked in unison, but Yvaine just kept talking.
“--your baby is going to be so deliciously unique! To think, the first human ladona mix to ever live, and the baby will be all ours to shower affection on.”
“Well, the baby will be Lavinia’s and Gab--” Aerin started to say, but Yvaine was on a roll now, and could not be stopped.
“Oh! And just think about all the attention we are going to lavish on you, mama!”
“I don’t really need any extra atten--”
“We’ll all make sure you get the best prenatal care!” Yvaine talked over Lavinia. “I’ll have to hire extra staff to ensure you get daily massages and a proper diet. My mother swore by pea soup and shredded liver steaks. I’ll order a hundred pounds of each once we get back to the guild hall.”
“That sounds terrib--” Lavinia started to protest.
“We are having a baby!” Maruk laughed as he slapped the table in a very orc, but very unlike Maruk, way.
Then the spell of shock
was broken, and everyone was on their feet laughing at the good news.
Aerin and Lena were hugging and kissing both of us, while Dehn gave us gentle punches on our arms. Emeline tripped over the table in her excitement, and only a fast save by Maruk prevented all the plates from clattering to the ground. Lavinia was dragged back to the table, and the women gathered around her, asking questions about due dates and baby names.
“We’ll need a nursery,” Yvaine declared as she once again took control of the conversation. “Something with plenty of room to grow. Maybe a nice mountain theme to reflect the baby's ladona heritage. And Gabriel will have to tell us more about his world, so we can add that.”
“We’ll have a baby shower when we return to Ovrista!” Maruk cried out happily. “And I know just the caterer. Oh, it will be perfect.”
“I really wanted to keep this simple,” Lavinia protested.
“Nonsense,” Yvaine and Maruk said at the same time. As the Marchioness and the orc began their plans, Aerin wrapped Lavinia in another hug. Lavinia softened, and she placed a hand on the elf’s shoulder. Lena dug through her pockets, and produced a small vial which she handed to the ladona woman. Lena was as animated as I’d ever seen her, and I heard her mention morning sickness and cravings.
Emeline and Dehn were toasting each other, and the Shadow Foxes, and Lavinia, and anyone else they could think of. I heard Sulla and Urim and Etienne in there, as well as a few names I didn’t recognize. Merlin pulled himself onto the table between the panthera and the halfling, and waited patiently for drops of beer to spill from the mugs, which he quickly lapped up.
It was late by the time the party broke up, and I staggered to my room, more weary than drunk. I was still having a hard time grasping the idea of fatherhood, but I knew in my heart that I wanted this.
I flopped onto my bed and felt something hard bite into my back. I rolled over in annoyance and pulled out the offending object. It was one of the books I had taken from Murillo’s house. I didn’t remember leaving it out, but I was too tired to worry about that. I put the book on the nightstand, turned the lamp down low, and rolled back on my side.
After counting off one hundred and sixteen sheep, I gave up and pulled the book off the nightstand, and turned the oil lamp back up. I thumbed through until I found the section about the Shodra, and the civil war that had torn this world apart.
It was grim reading. Millions dead, and many races on the verge of extinction. One race of canine people believed to be extinct. At the heart of all this death and destruction, a feud between two different factions of mages.
On the one hand were the elementalists. Their power was derived from the forces of nature, and while elementalists could, in theory, control any of the elements, most often found they had an affinity for a particular element. A few sometimes practiced two or more.
On the other side were the manipulators, whose power came not from the outside forces of nature, but from the life force within. The most powerful manipulators could control the mana of others. And not just with the bits that I did, like reinforcing a handful of weapons or creating clones. They could hold thousands of people in thrall at the same time. There were stories of manipulators who could make a city’s population jump off a mountainside or augment the weapons of entire armies.
The list of manipulator attacks went on, and soon, the manipulators themselves split into two factions. There were those who believed that manipulators should use their powers to rule the world, thereby creating a utopian society, at least for the manipulators. The other faction wanted to eliminate all other intelligent life from the planet.
The Shodra were created by the manipulators who wanted to create a utopia. They were designed to enhance a manipulator’s innate powers. A footnote at the bottom of the page recognized that the Shodra did not work as well for elementalists. All attempts by elementalists to use the Shodra had unexpected, and often disastrous, results. The author attributed this to the inherent differences between the elementalists and the manipulators.
With three sides now at war, the body count quickly went up. The author suggested that the manipulators would likely have been the victors if not for the rift within their own kind. With the manipulators fighting each other, the elementalists and their supporters had time to recover and plan.
There was one last epic battle between the three sides, though judging by what the author had to say on the topic, the manipulators made it easy for the elementalists by nearly killing each other off. The Shodra were recovered at the last battle, and brought back to Balas, the ancient Elven city.
After several failed attempts to destroy the Shodra, the Oracles were consulted. The Oracles, I learned, were actually a race of people that looked a bit like the guy in Munch’s Scream. (Here the author had supplied a lovely drawing of several Oracles.) The Oracles had considered several options and then announced that the “belt” would ensure that the Shodra remained hidden for the longest length of time.
The four Shodra were dispatched, where they were placed at the appropriate sites of worship. As history moved onward, the temples were forgotten, or torn down, or converted to other purposes. Sometimes the Shodra were removed, but they were never taken far from the spot where they had originally been placed. The elementalists of the day had at least been able to do that much with their spellcasting.
The Oracles had predicted that the Shodra would not be reunited until a new God was born. Sometimes, a mage would set out, with the purpose of finding the Shodra, but no one ever found more than one piece, and nothing good ever befell the mage who tried to use it.
After I read that grim story, I laid back down and stared at the ceiling. Maderel had said that the Academy intended to study the Shodra in order to understand them, but if this book was right, that wasn’t possible. At least, not for an elementalist. A manipulator would have to do the job.
It was also pretty clear that bad things happened when elementalists tried to use the Shodra. I thought of the necromancer in his cave, and the bizarre cult in the mountains. Even Murillo, a respected and powerful elementalist, seemed somehow darkened by the Shodra. And then I remembered the look on Maderel’s face as he had examined each of the Shodra. The man had always creeped me out, but there had been something unnerving about the way he had studied each of the pieces. A sinking feeling in my stomach accompanied the obvious conclusion: Maderel intended to use the Shodra for himself.
I knew then what the Shadow Foxes next mission would have to be. We would return to Ovrista and recover the Shodra. I was the only one who could destroy them, and I had to do that if I wanted to save this world.
End Notes
What did you think of the book? Most of you asked for the women to start getting pregnant, and I thought Lavinia would be the funniest to go through the experience. I’d appreciate a nice review if you have 30 seconds, and you’d like to read more of this series. Please leave a review right here.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Logan Jacobs
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