Villains by Necessity (v1.1)

by Eve Forward

  The room was white and lilac-lit again, and it seemed as though they had been there a long time, but none could say how they had gotten there. But Arcie, why he could not say even to himself, was rummaging in a small crevice in the white stone wall.

  “What is it, old chum?” asked Sam. “Gold, so you can pay me back the deposit you stole?”

  “Nay!” The Barigan was almost crowing in excitement “Some such much better!”

  Arcie stood there with a wine bottle in each hand and a huge grin on his face. The bottles held a pale golden-pink liquid.

  “Pixy-Clover Wine!” crowed Arcie.

  “Oh, get off your sky-horse,” snorted Sam. “There is no such thing.”

  Arcie looked hurt. “There are so, Sam, and I have got two bottles right here to be proof of it. Has anyone got any goblets?”

  “Right here,” announced Robin, digging in his saddlepouches and pulling six fine glass and silver drinking cups. Where he got them from, he couldn’t say, but he knew they were there. Arcie was rummaging in his pockets for a corkscrew.

  “ ‘Tis late, I’m fair parched and away hungry-”

  “What else is new?” broke in Sam. Arcie ignored him.

  “And by greatest of serendipity we has two bottles of Pixy-Clover Wine. Don’t ask how, say when.”

  “Very well, then,” decided Kaylana, looking about with suspicion. The walls were very white. “We shall camp here.”

  Arcie had dug out a small folding corkscrew and was working the cork out of one of the bottles. Sam wrinkled his lip in mild disdain and sat down, at least glad for the opportunity to rest. He felt tired and drained, though what he had been doing that had caused him to feel so he could not say. The fire was gone, gone forever, and he was a useless waste of flesh ... what did it matter what Arcie did?

  The Barigan quickly filled the six glasses with sparkling amber liquid, and passed them around. Sam looked at his when Arcie pushed it toward him, and looked away.

  “No, you aren’t going to get me drunk again, short one,” he said sternly.

  “Alcohol is a poison and rots the body,” said Kaylana virtuously, ignoring her glass.

  “This isn’t bad, Sam, really,” Robin commented, taking a cautious sip. The liquid flew into his veins like a bird, and he giggled and drank the rest of his glass.

  Arcie, meanwhile, was looking back and forth between Kaylana and Sam. “Come on, you two tumps. ‘Tis nay harmful, I swear.”

  “And where are you such an expert?” asked Sam.

  “I will drink it if you will stop babbling,” Kaylana sighed, picking up her glass.

  “Babble all you want, Arcie,” retorted Sam. “You won’t get me a second time.”

  “Sam, here, at least smell it...” Arcie held the glass under his nose. “You really ought to try it by rights ... too many people die without ever having tasted Pixy Clover Wine.”

  Sam sniffed involuntarily and was surprised. The smell was familiar, though he didn’t remember it from any place or time ... but it was a beautiful smell of flowers and sunshine and lazy times lying on the roof of the Guild in summer with the clouds sweeping past in a blue sky and the laughter of his assassin friends below in the training halls ... he took the glass.

  “Well, just a taste,” he relented. Arcie grinned. “Good boy!”

  Sam took a mouthful. It made his eyes open wide and he banged his head against the wall behind him. The stuff was magical, obviously-it brought back memories of every good thing that had ever happened to him, all the times he’d felt happy, or proud, or cheerful, or just content with the world. There was the euphoria of the Shadowrealm and the comforting security of his old room at the Guild when he was just about ten, a young boy whose only family and friends were black-clad killers. There was the time he had spent on Grozzle’s farm in the summer, learning the alchemy of the thousands of poisons and antidotes Grozzle grew there. He had wandered in the blooming gardens till his head swam from the scents and he laughed in the sun. It reminded him of warm summer evenings, walking along in the streetlights with Cata, arms linked. It was the smell of a thousand intoxicating perfumes, from strawberry pie to the faint scent of Kaylana’s hair when she had bent over him to heal his wounds. It almost made the ache of the missing fire go away ...

  Kaylana had half-finished her glass and appeared to be staring into the depths of the clear liquid. She was thinking of green summer fields, the flight of birds, the running of deer. She remembered, so many years ago, the summer festivals when the Druids would gather great wreaths of fragrant blooms and strew them about for the great rituals, when the bards would come to gather and play their songs from faraway lands. She fumbled and took hold of her staff. The images drifted away. Puzzled, she released the staff, and the feeling of joy and happiness returned.

  She sighed and held the staff, letting the images vanish, and sipped the rest of her wine. Her staff protected her from its intoxicating magic, and she pondered on the nature of the beverage while trying to ignore the general frivolity of the others. The Pixy-Clover was one of a small number of rare plants with inherent magic. The small, fragrant fairy bloom had a power to twist time around itself so that it lived in a continual state of summer, vanishing into the timestreams for the other seasons and emerging into temporal reality only in the warm months. Fresh or distilled, this power was a vital component of most spells that involved changes in time, such as freezing a person in time or Kaylana’s speed-slowing of time. If the distilled potion was drunk, much of the magic went instead into the associated intoxication, as well as reminding the brain of cheerful times, particularly in summer months past.

  Mages had scorned this practice of consumption, which they regarded as a waste of valuable magical extracts.

  The wine could only be brewed by the Fair Folk of the Hills, it was said, a race of beings older than the Elves, who had fled from the land in the destruction of the War.

  Now the pale amber liquid was worth far more than liquid gold, but what was money, or time, or even reality?

  The dreams of summer were no stranger than the other dreams that flickered in the corners of her vision.

  Arcie was looking at Robin.

  “Minstrel,” he said owlishly, “mayhaps you can give us the music as goes with this.”

  Robin snorted and started giggling at the sound. “Of course I know it,” he scoffed. “Doesn’t everyone?” He hauled out his harp, buffed the wood tenderly with his sleeve, and began to play and sing in his clear voice.

  Of all the nectars in the fields, None are quite so fine, As the Fair Folk’s brew of summer’s dew, Pixy-Clover Wine!

  The sprightly tune made Sam look up and smile. He knew the words too. This was a very old song, and a very well known one.

  Sweeter far than all the fruit, That grows on branch or vine Of time-twist power or fragrant flower Pixy-Clover Wine!

  Arcie scooped up three empty glasses and juggled them in a brief circle before setting them down again and refilling them. Sam found his glass full again, and drank some more, enjoying himself. Kaylana watched Arcie fill her glass and gave a smile. You would never think these people were hardened villains, she thought. Look at them, listen.

  Even without the effects of the wine, she couldn’t resist singing along. This was an old song, older even than the War and all it had brought.

  Let your sorrows drift away Summers past are yours and mine Glass to the sky, your spirit high On Pixy-Clover Wine!

  Sam stood up and said, “Here, Arcie, did I ever show you how I can balance a dagger on the end of my nose?”

  “Nay, Sammy, dinna try it now,” spoke Arcie in a brave attempt at seriousness. “You canna do that sort of thing nay more, recall you?” Undaunted, the wine fizzing in his brain, making him feel like he was sixteen again and immortal, Sam shook out a dagger and tried to flip it in midair, but the Barigan jumped up and caught it.

  “Nay, you’ll put your eyes out.”

  “Just one,” insisted Sam.

  Ro
bin had got his fingers tangled in the harp strings and was doing his best to recover. He finally yanked his fingers free with a twanging sound, flexed them and began the next verse.

  Sam bowed to Kaylana, putting his glass down. “May I have this dance?” he asked solemnly. Kaylana regarded him thoughtfully. He looked so happy, his eyes sparkling with the wine, that she didn’t have the heart to refuse

  “All right,” she said condescendingly, standing up, and before she knew what she was doing, she set the staff aside, leaning it against the wall. Instantly the effects of two glasses of aged Pixy-Clover Wine crashed into her, and she half-fell sideways into the ex-assassin’s arms with the faintest suspicion of a giggle.

  Futures are a mystery But you’ll always find a sign, Of times to come in summer’s sun With Pixy-Clover Wine!

  Sam whirled Kaylana in his arms. He was happy and sad and confused and old and young and lost all at the same time. But clearer than anything else was the strange ache in his heart, not of loss, but somehow connected intricately with the beautiful woman before him who had impressed herself into his soul as no one else had ever done. Kaylana danced like a dryad in the wind, and his vision was full of flowing copper hair and a flash of green eyes. She might be formal and distant, but underneath all of that was a woman of courage, strength, and intellect.

  He’d never felt quite this way about anyone before, not even Cata ... he knew he’d never feel this way again.

  Joy is free the wide lands over From desert to the frothy brine Let a year pass way in a single day By Pixy-Clover Wine!

  He spun her close, and she turned her face toward him, the wine shining in her eyes. He almost gasped, she was so beautiful. Her cheeks were flushed ever so delicately, her hair tangled around her face. And she was smiling! A beautiful, wide, joyous smile, and she gave a little laugh of delight at the wonder of it all, a laugh that struck the poor ex-assassin like a blow to his heart. She looked into his eyes, and he lost himself. He folded her into his arms and kissed her.

  As past and future meet in now So take my hand in thine, Distill a flower to a joyous hour, Pixy-Clover Wine!

  For an instant she was uncertain, then her lips responded warmly to his. He held her close. Kaylana felt the pounding of his heart, felt weak for a moment, and reached out to the wall for support, her fingers closing around the staff.

  Sam felt the change instantly, and threw himself away as the Druid suddenly sobered. The others didn’t seem to have noticed; Arcie was trying to play the other strings of the centaur’s harp. Kaylana looked at him out of hard green eyes. She pulled a lock of hair out of her eyes.

  “Do not do that again,” she told him sternly.

  He sat up, shaking his head to dispel the images.

  Kaylana looked coldly at him a moment, then vanished into a cloudbank before he could call out.

  In the outside world, Sir Fenwick relaxed in the shade of great fruit bearing trees that had sprung up from the ground and bare rocks of Ein. All around was emerald green grass, filled with multicolored wildflowers. The men and women of the Company laughed and chatted and enjoyed the long, sunlit days and the slightly softer dusky times of what had once been darkest night. The Einian army had been sent home to be with their families, but Lord Tasmene and his adventuring companions remained, keeping company with Fenwick and his men in the strange new spring that had fallen on Ein.

  In the Silver Tower, the radiance shining into the rooms through the stained-glass windows was almost too bright to bear. Mizzamir moved in patient waiting, polishing his magic stones, enjoying the music of the world as it soared to perfection.

  She gripped the staff tight. Things were confusing. She was not in control. She didn’t like that. With all her will she forced her mind to see what was there, instead of what it chose. Illusions began to fall away, slowly but surely, like earth eroding under the steady rain of her strength ...

  Sam followed and came out into a wide area where a huge structure loomed, like a massive black vertical hole twice as tall as a man, ringed with a crackling field of light ... the Darkgate!

  Even as he strode forward, there was the sudden shouting of men, and the Verdant Company, set to charge now that the magic of the Labyrinth had vanished, came running in, and he drew a weapon and prepared to fight for his life, as the others did the same ...

  It was some weeks later. The journey home, with the battle won, the darkness restored, had been quite peaceful.

  He and Arcie had obtained passage on a ship back to Dous and rode horses home. Since Sam was no longer an assassin, Arcie had agreed that the contract on the Arch Mage was expired, and Mizzamir could be allowed to live, his power curtailed now, of course, Sam and Arcie had gone to the Frothing Otter first thing, back in Bistort, and ordered a pint each of the fine brown ale. They sat back in a dark table in the far corner, relaxing for the first time in months.

  “Well, it were quite a tussle-up there, eh?” Arcie remembered, chuckling at how the sudden opening of the Darkgate had sent the Verdant Company fleeing in terror.

  Sam nodded.

  “Yes indeed ... pity Kaylana had to go home after we’d won, though,” he sighed wistfully.

  “Och, you’d never have brought her back into another town anyway,” said Arcie. “Anyway, what’s for you now? Back to assassining?”

  Sam shook his head. “No, that’s gone forever ... I don’t really know. I suppose I can learn a trade ... the others did.”

  “Ah, but them were whitewashed,” the thief pointed out Sam nodded.

  “I thought, perhaps, of trying to find Valerie. She vanished about the same time Kaylana did ... heading home. She said I might have some magical talent ... maybe I’d make a good sorcerer.”

  “You looked mighty farce in the hat,” replied Arcie doubtfully. Sam smiled.

  “It’s pleasant to be able to just relax and look back on it all,” he said, with a sigh. “It seems so far away now. Everything, after we got into the Labyrinth, until we got out and came all this way home. It seems so distant ... like a...”

  Two mugs of ale froze halfway to two mouths. Arcie and Sam stared at each other with eyes suddenly full of shock and realization. “... dream,” they said, simultaneously.

  “I’m picking up some fluctuations in the field, Sir Fenwick!” called Towser. Fenwick looked through a cloud of scintillating butterflies to where the mage sat. The sky was blue, the sun was bright, a very pleasant eleven o’clock in the evening. The grass and wildflowers were lush and thick, songbirds sang continually in the trees.

  There was no trace of the barren, rocky land that had bred the hardened Einian people since the beginnings of time. Reports came in that in the areas around the mountain Putak-Azum, there were lush green fields and no trace of the barren, salt-poisoned plain that had once been the Frozen Waste. The very air seemed to shiver with perfect light. Troubles with the Labyrinth seemed a distant memory. Though it still sprawled in white coils across the valleys, it had sat there without change or danger for almost a full week now and seemed to be harmless, though the wildflowers which grew everywhere would not root in its smooth marble surface. It was truly an enigma ... but soon, perhaps ...

  “Well, keep an eye on it,” Fenwick instructed with a smile. Soon, soon, he thought. Soon there will be nothing more to worry about, ever.

  Sam and Arcie sat frozen, ice flooding into their stomachs as they realized the narrow escape they’d had.

  Around them, burning off under their lucidity, the warm familiarity of the Frothing Otter melted away, leaving behind icy white marble walls, smooth and featureless but swirling faintly with half-images. If Sam closed his eyes, or looked out of the corners, he could see faint dreams-faces, places, shadows. It was a similar experience to days past when he’d been deprived of sleep during finals week, back in the Guild in studies, and would start seeing things ...

  “Wake up! Sam, wake up!” Hands shook his shoulders and he sat up, warm bedsheets tumbling around him.

  Tousle-haired, he
looked up into a pair of rich azure eyes, framed by black curly hair and a worried face. He smiled, and the face smiled back at him. Around him, the warm shapes of his bedroom resolved themselves. Sunlight was pouring through the window behind Cata, helping to outline her nimble figure dressed all in tight-fitting black silk. She must have just come back from an assignment.

  It was good to see her, especially dressed so provocatively.

  “Cata,” he said with a sigh, reaching out to stroke her cheek. She sat on the bed, winking at him. “Was I having a nightmare?”

  “Yes indeed, and darker than any of Hruul’s adventures it sounded, too,” Cata replied, running her long fingers through his hair. He took her hand and kissed the fingertips gently, as he had done so many times before.

  She smiled. “You were yelling about a labyrinth and someone named Kaylana...”

  “Kaylana ...” Sam looked up, unsure. Kaylana. The name was vaguely familiar, but...

  “Sam! Wake up! Wake up!” Hands shook him and his eyes flew open into a world of white marble. Blue eyes and black hair blew away and were replaced by impossible green and red. The green eyes bored into his mind, his soul; once, guarded by the fire, his spirit could have withstood almost anything. Now, dream-dizzy and powerless,

  Kaylana’s Druidic strength reached in, took hold of his will, and shook it.

  You will stay awake. You will stay aware. We are in the Labyrinth of Dreams. We are searching for the Darkgate You must concentrate on that and let nothing else distract you, or we shall all die. The commanding presence finished with a shot of strength to his will that helped clear his head some. Kaylana dropped her fixing gaze and lifted his hand to place it on her staff, and he looked around for the first time clearly, the oak wood tingling under his fingers.

  Next to Kaylana, also with a hand on the staff, was Arcie. Blackmail stood in a corner, his sword out, slashing at nothing. Robin sat some distance away, his ears up as if listening, his eyes open but unseeing. Valerie walked in a small circle, and Nightshade fluttered around on the floor, as if wounded.