The Elfmaid's Curse (The Elfmaid Trilogy Book 1)

by Warren Thomas

  "Now I need supplies," she muttered to herself, swinging back into the saddle.

  * * * * *

  Pulling her right foot up and hooking it around the saddle horn, Danica pondered what to do next as she tried to get comfortable in the saddle. She now had a sleeping roll and saddlebags with enough food to last a week. It wouldn't be enough, but was a start. She had spent almost every coin she had acquired from the Amazon, the leathern purse hanging limp from her wide belt.

  With a sigh, she glanced up at the only pass through the mountains. Carl was gone, presumably after the sorceress in his old body. She could use her old friend's somewhat twisted sense of humor right now.

  Enough, he's gone. Danica had bigger problems. Talar. Where is Talar? Is he still in the city? And if not, how did he leave? By horse? Warhawk? Magic? And which way did he go? To what city?

  She glanced around the bustling plaza in front of the Palace of the Merchant's Council. Then up at the mountain pass again. Carl probably was up there somewhere, and maybe Talar ahead of him. It could take over a month to reach the other side of the Tyr Mountains by horse, longer during early spring. A warhawk could do it in one day. Only there was nothing saying Talar headed that way. He could just as easily have ridden into the desert a half day's ride north and east of Elfhaven, or, less likely, the steppes. Unlike the desert which boasted many sizable cities, there were no cities on the steppes.

  Danica needed help.

  "Ho, boy," Danica called to a dirty looking youth. One of the wild street urchins, no doubt. Probably no family. A thief. "Where can I find a witch?"

  The boy held out a grubby hand and waited. Glowering, she tossed one of her few remaining coins to him.

  "Take this street east two blocks and turn right," he said, pointing. "All the Vikon live there, on the Street of Cards."

  "My thanks," she said, dropping her foot back to the stirrup and urging the bay on.

  The Vikon were everywhere. They were an ancient, semi-nomadic people heavily steeped in magic and legend. Tyrian mythology said they were direct descendants of Maag, Goddess of Magic, and the human mage Vik.

  Danica, well over half Tyrian herself, understood the Tyrian peoples and customs well enough. But the Vikon were driven out of the Tyr Mountains centuries ago, forced to wander the world. Though she had fought beside and ridden with many Vikon, and even called some friend, they continued to be something of a mystery to her. She had a distrust of anything and anyone magical.

  Most Vikon lived in small roaming family groups, in large garishly decorated and painted wagons. Every city Danica had ever visited contained a small Vikon community. They were the spellcasters of choice for the common folk. The premier practitioners of Witchcraft. The mysterious Children of Vik cast most of the birth control spells, sold most of the love and fertility potions, and told fortunes. Anything involving magic that would earn them a coin, they did. Their warriors, both male and female, were also popular mercenaries. Needless to say, they were generally feared and despised.

  She soon found herself on the Street of Cards. At first glance the street looked like every other street in the city. It was paved with cobble, mostly covered with the fine powdery sand that blew in off the nearby desert, and lined by low slung one and two story mud brick structures. The street was crowded and loud with laughter and arguing and hawking of merchandise. The fragrant scent of spicy food cooking sang to Danica’s empty belly.

  Like the boy had said, all the Vikon lived there. Everywhere she looked, Vikon warriors and witches stood in doors or in small groups. Many watched her with wariness.

  The Vikon were quite distinctive in their flashy, brightly painted armor and faces. No two looked exactly alike. Most of the warriors were men, but women made up a fair share. All women of the Vikon were trained in both weapons and magic. The men were only trained in weapons, the reason lost in the mists of history.

  Stopping before a young warrior woman, Danica asked, "Where can I find someone to magically locate a person for me?"

  The warrior-witch studied her closely, and apparently wasn't very impressed. The redhead's face paint was white and red-orange. She wore orange-dyed leather halter and matching breeches stuffed into bright white thigh boots with elaborate red-orange lightning bolts embroidered on them. Her armor consisted of nothing more than a wide, white leather brace on her right wrist, and a pauldron of white-lacquered steel plates protecting her left arm and shoulder. The long white hilt of her slightly curved steppe sword jutted over her right shoulder.

  Flashy. Impractical.

  Typically Vikon.

  "I am Susi, warrior-witch," she said at length. "I will help you."

  "I'm looking for a powerful...spellcaster. He may have left the city either last night, or this morning. I need to know which way he went and what his ultimate destination is," Danica said. "Can you help me?"

  "Do you have anything of this spellcaster's person, like a lock of hair, or maybe a cherished object very recently in his possession?"

  Did her body count? Probably not. She would most likely need something of Danic's now.

  "No," she said, frowning. If Carl hadn't taken both horses then she would have something of Danic's.

  The Gods are against me.

  The Vikon scowled a moment. "Then you will need to see someone else. Try Mother Zelma." Pointing to a rundown, two story adobe, "She's probably the only one in these parts who can help you."

  "My thanks," Danica said and nudged the horse forward.

  There was a red hand with an eye in the palm painted on the whitewashed wall beside the door. It meant that Mother Zelma was a palm reader, a fortune teller. Danica frowned as she dismounted. She didn't want her fortune told.

  Stepping through the open doorway, she found it remarkably cool inside. There was goat roasting somewhere within. The faint laughter of very young children drifted through the house. The sudden shift from bright afternoon sun to sudden darkness left her near blind, so she couldn't make out the layout of the house or its furnishings.

  "Come in, my lady," Mother Zelma said. Her voice deep and rich, with just the faintest hint of the Amazon Empire to Danica's mind. The Vikon were well represented within the Empire. "How may I help you?"

  Stepping through the side door the voice came out of, "Are you Mother Zelma?"

  "Yes, I am Zelma."

  Danica hesitated. How much could she trust this witch? How much could she tell her? But what choice do I have?

  "Susi sent me to see you. She said you are the only one who can help me," Danica said, just beginning to make out the heavyset woman in dark silk sitting behind a small white lace shrouded table.

  "Sit and tell me what it is you seek," she said, and lifted one bejeweled hand to indicate a delicate looking chair opposite herself. As Danica perched nervously on the edge of the chair, "Knowledge of the future? A potion of some sort?"

  Danica frowned at her. If she was such a great fortune teller, why didn't she know what Danica wanted? It seemed to her the woman needed to be told too much. It was the chief reason she didn't believe in their ability, at least where telling the future was concerned.

  "I'm looking for a sorceress — wizard. He calls himself Talar," she said.

  Eyes narrowing, "You're holding something back."

  Danica tensed.

  From between clenched teeth, "The Wizard Talar used to be the Sorceress Taara, until she stole my body last night and left me in this...her old body."

  Mother Zelma's eyes went wide a second, "Indeed?"

  "Yes," Danica said, feeling her face heating up. "Now I want to know where he is so I can get my body back."

  The Vikon witch gazed at her a moment, worrying the inside of her cheek. Unable to meet her frank gaze, Danica dropped her eyes to study the floor tiles.

  "Give me your hand," the Vikon said. After Danica complied she began a low chant in some strange language.

  Not understanding what she was saying disturbed Danica. Was she conversing with demons? Gods
? Then the hairs on Danica's nape rose as the Vikon witch began drawing strange designs on her palm with a finger. She tried unsuccessfully to stifle the chill running up her back.

  Suddenly Zelma's eyes popped open, "Tall, dark hair, fair complexion, gray eyes — you?"

  "That's me...or was me. Danic of Drakehorn."

  Nodding, she closed her eyes and began the disturbing chant again. As far as Danica knew, all humans spoke the same language. It was given to them by the Arisen Gods after the War of the Gods.

  Suddenly, "Allaria."

  "He's going to Allaria? By horse or warhawk?"

  "He's already there," she said, staring off into space. "Magic. Very powerful."

  "May the Gods blast him!"

  It would easily take her two and a half months of very hard riding by horse to reach the distant riverside city, deep in the vast Jar Swamp. That infamous city of pirates and rogue wizards was well known to her. Even if she sold the horse she still wouldn't have enough to buy a warhawk. Other than magic, a warhawk was the only way to get down there quickly.

  She knew enough about magic to know that no Vikon would have the power to magically transport her anywhere. That would require knowledge of Sorcery. Witches only practiced Witchcraft. If Zelma knew Sorcery, fortune telling would be beneath her.

  With a worried look, "Perhaps you should forget about him, and learn to live — "

  "Damn that idea! I want vengeance, and my body and life back!" Danica cried, standing. "As long as there's life in me, I'll not give up."

  "He is powerful, very powerful. An Arch Wizard, probably. To teleport himself that far requires enormous power. Not to mention what it takes to pull off...," she just waved at Danica.

  "I have fought, and defeated, powerful wizards before," Danica said, starting to pace the small room like a caged dragon. "I'll not back down now. Too much is at stake."

  Mother Zelma chewed on her inner cheek a moment more. "Perhaps we should see what the cards say."

  Fearing what they might say, Danica paused. "I guess it wouldn't hurt." She sat down again, perched on the edge of the delicate chair, legs splayed as if she was prepared to bolt.

  Pushing a thick deck across the table, "Shuffle them."

  Danica shuffled them twice, then pushed the deck back to the witch. Taking a deep steadying breath, she fixed her eyes on the edge of the small table. She watched as Zelma started peeling off cards and laying them across the table. As the witch began laying out cards on the table, Danica became aware of swirling colors about her. Many of the brighter colors seemed to converge on the deck, intensifying just before Mother Zelma peeled off another card. It wasn't the first time Danica had seen tarot cards used, but it was the first time these strange colored mists were involved. When she shook herself out of the semi-trance she’d slipped into, the colors vanished.

  Mind tricks to fool the unwary, Danica concluded, turning her full attention to the cards being laid out before her. But still, it was common enough knowledge that mages saw magic as colors, using either magesight or witchsight. There was a time in his youth that he possessed magesight, before the Dakkor High Mage cast a spell that suppressed his natural magical abilities. It was all just a faint memory, hard to recall. His parents both had magesight, though.

  "Oh," Zelma said, cutting her worried eyes up at Danica.

  Danica didn't know what any of the cards meant, but Zelma would gasp and cringe as each was in turn laid down. The first card was a nubile young woman with chains on her ankles and wrists, the next was an anguished looking young man being consumed by fire, the next card laid down was all black with a gray skull, and then she was afraid to look at the rest.

  "What? By the Gods, tell me," Danica said, worried by the sheen of sweat showing on the Vikon's forehead and the troubling emotions the cards themselves seemed to evoke in herself.

  "The cards..." she started, then stopped to compose herself. “The first is slavery, then torment, then — "

  Danica swept the cards away with a cry of fear and anger. She didn't want to know what the rest said, for they looked worse even to her untrained eyes.

  "'Fate isn't written in stone,'" she quoted the ancient proverb nervously. Zelma nodded, but said nothing. Not sure she really wanted to know, "Is...Can you tell me what my fate...what the cards think my fate might be?"

  "Slavery, most likely," she said. "But like you said, fate can be changed and quite easily. The cards can only foretell what will happen if nothing changes. So I highly recommend you change your plans."

  "And abandoned my rightful body — my life — to that hell-spawned sorceress?" she cried.

  Biting her lip a second, "No...just changing your approach might do it."

  "I don't have an approach yet. I came to you looking for answers," she said.

  "Come." Zelma stood.. She led Danica over to a thick, black velvet curtain. Pulling it aside, she revealed a mirror set in a thick silver frame. Zelma spoke a Word of Power and the mirror became a black whirlpool. "This will be more specific. It is an ancient heirloom of very powerful Sorcery. Touch the frame on each side, and as you answer my questions the consequences will be revealed."

  Nodding, Danica took a deep breath and tried to force herself to relax. As she did so, thick mists sprung up around the mirror so suddenly she yelped with surprise. The mists vanished and Zelma looked at her curiously. Feeling her face flush, she reached out quickly and lightly touched the unnaturally cold frame. Despite the frame's chill, she felt a warm tingling sensation tickle her fingers.

  "What will you do after leaving here?" Zelma said.

  "I guess I'll ride through Horsekill Pass toward Allaria..."

  Before she could finish, the whirlpool condensed into a hellish scene. By firelight, Danica could see herself being held down by at least a dozen armored men, being gang-raped. Then the scene changed again to her laying motionless, nude, legs wide, eyes glazed over, flies and carrion eaters beginning to converge on her.

  "Raped to death," Zelma's shaking voice said. Then noticing Danica's ashen face still staring at herself laying dead, "The emotions you feel are but a small fraction of the true horror that fate would entail."

  "Then...I must stay in Elfhaven?"

  The scene immediately changed to an alley in Elfhaven. Danica was tied — no, nailed with daggers through her wrists and ankles! — to the side of a barn. Angry men and women surrounded her in the dim torchlight. A woman she recognized as the Amazon slaver was just pulling a bloody dagger from the ruin that had been her face. Danica jerked her hands away in horror.

  "I can't stay either," she whispered, hugging herself.

  "I agree. How about going north? To Samulla?"

  "Yes, I could go there for a while before returning to the Jarlands." Warily, she reached out for the mirror. "Go to Samulla?"

  The whirlpool quickly condensed into a scene of Danica being held down by a group of nomad men and being stripped. Then it changed to scene of her in steppe nomad clothes, heavy with child and several small children running about her. Then it changed once again to show her dressed in a filmy veil, and nothing else but strands of pearls draped over her well-oiled body as she danced slowly, seductively, through what looked to be a brothel or tavern in some unnamed desert city, filled with lusty men reaching for her.

  Jerking her hand away again, "Are they all my fates? Or did it show me three possible fates?"

  "I don't know. It may depend on how you decide to go to Samulla," Zelma said. "Or you may be captured and raped, then later taken into the clan as a wife only to be captured by their enemies and sold into slavery in one of the desert cities."

  "The cards were right," Danica said, feeling her strength draining away. "No matter what I do, I'm doomed. My only choice seems to be between slavery and gruesome death."

  When Mother Zelma failed to respond, Danica noticed she was deep in troubled thought. She knew the witch was trying to work something out, so she let her be.

  Finally, "Even if you can escape those
fates, you can't hope to sneak up on Talar, not in that body. He'll probably be able to detect it easily." She hesitated, as if torn between conflicting emotions. "But there is a way."

  "It is?"

  "It's dangerous," she warned. "You could lose more than just a body, or your life. You could lose your soul."

  A chill ran up Danica’s back. "It's a chance I'll have to take. Tell me."

  Again...the hesitation.

  "In the city of Ismat al-Haratha there is an object of great power," she said slowly. "It is in the Temple of Maag."

  "A talisman?"

  "Yes. It is a gift from the Goddess of Magic. If you are caught trying to steal it..." she paused, "...the priests will feed your soul to it."

  Damnation?

  The alternative was slavery or death.

  Danica hated magic. She considered it almost cowardly to fight with magic. Warriors should settle their disputes with bared steel. Toe to toe. All this magic made her skin crawl. But, if she wanted her body back then she might have to use magic.

  "And just what will this talisman do for me?"

  "It will make you a powerful sorceress, too."

  Great, she thought, scowling. It'll probably damn my soul forever. Would Bandu turn me away for this use of magic?

  What the God of War would do to her immortal soul was something to worry about later. Danica just wanted her body back.

  "Talar's equal?"

  Zelma didn't answer right away.

  "Perhaps...but he probably won't be able to detect your approach behind its magic, and you might be able to take him by surprise," she said, doubt written all over her face. "I suggest you contact one of the Vikon in Allaria before you use the talisman, though. You will need lessons to properly wield it."