Heroes: A Raconteur House Anthology

by Honor Raconteur

  “You can mother me later, Aunt Morena,” Sevana said, pushing her way out of the embrace. “Right now, I want to see Morgan.”

  Morena tried for a smile, which failed, and she waved her through. “He’s in his bed.”

  Without another word, Sevana slipped past her and into the house.

  Not much had changed in the three years that she’d been gone. The main room still had the same furniture cluttered about a single iron stove, with every knick-knack available cluttering the walls and shelves. It didn’t smell the same, though. Morena always seemed to have a loaf of bread or trays of cookies baking, and the house always smelled of rising bread or sweets because of it. Now, it didn’t smell of anything more than wood smoke. The absence made Sevana even more unsettled. Her adopted aunt had obviously dropped her usual activities in order to care for her son.

  She could hear Master behind her, properly greeting Morena at the door, but she ignored him as she went to the back of the house and stepped into Morgan’s bedroom. This hadn’t changed much, either—trunk next to the door, a washstand in the corner, bed tucked into the other corner, and an open chest overflowing with toys and the like near the footboard. Her eyes skimmed over this as she sought out her friend.

  Morgan lay completely still, truly looking as if he were only deep in dreamland. But as she looked closer, she could see the lie. His dark hair lay lank around his head, lips chapped, skin paler than it should be. He barely seemed to breathe, the quilt tucked up around him hardly moving. Morgan had always been an active sleeper, not staying in one position more than five minutes before he moved, so this stillness shouted wrong in her head.

  Sevana dropped her bag to the floor, briefly kneeling to rummage around and fetch what she needed. She pulled out the diagnostic wand and a small leather-bound book. Flipping to a blank page, she pointed the wand at Morgan and enunciated clearly, “NE FOLE.”

  The adults showed up as she slowly scanned Morgan from head to toe, letting the diagnostic wand cover every inch of him that she could. Master came to stand close to her, peering over her head so that he could read the script writing itself onto the pages.

  Finished with the scan, she lowered the wand and read what was on the page. Her brows furrowed into a straight line as she read it through again. This…didn’t look promising. In fact, the more she read, the more her stomach twisted itself into a sick knot.

  “Sevana?” Morena came in a little closer, bending to put them on the same eye level. “Master Tashjian said that helping Morgan is your job, is that right? Then, explain to me what it is you’ve discovered.”

  She in no way wanted to. She looked up at Master, but the man just nodded encouragingly, his hand giving a little wave as if saying go ahead. Growling, she gave up any help from him and reluctantly faced Morena again. “You’re right. He’s under a curse.”

  Morena flinched. “Are you sure, my dear?”

  “Very sure. The curse is designed to make him sleep.”

  “Then it is the Sleeping Princess curse,” Ralston said in a hollow voice. Morena choked on a sob, muffling it behind her hand.

  “You were right to come to an Artifactor,” Tashjian said calmly, almost radiating confidence. “The curse your son is under is strong, but I think it can be broken. It’s not powerful enough to be an anti-spell.”

  Morena took a deep breath in, visibly collecting herself, and lowered her hand enough to ask, “Anti-spell?”

  Tashjian put a hand on his apprentice’s shoulder. “Sweetling, as these are your clients, why don’t you explain?”

  She didn’t want to explain. She wanted to start researching Morgan’s curse so she could break it. But both adults were looking at her with confusion and fear, so she heaved a sigh and dutifully said, “Most spells do not get over a twelve in power. Actually, the most powerful spells are a twelve, which is what Morgan’s curse is like. But if you break a lot of rules, and use the more evil elements, then you can make it more than a twelve. We call those anti-spells.”

  “So if this is not, as you say, an anti-spell…?” Ralston asked uncertainly.

  “Then it can be broken,” Sevana answered confidently. “It’s just going to take some work and time to figure it out. If it was an anti-spell, it’d kill him before we could do anything, so he’s lucky.”

  “Well.” Morena reached out and rubbed Shion’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort, the manner so natural that she likely didn’t realize she’d done so. “Morgan’s always been a lucky child. Let’s hope that holds until you can break this curse. For now, what can I do to help you?”

  Master stepped forward at this point, voice gentle as he responded, “It’s best if we stay nearby as we study the problem. Mistress Morena, I know this is a hard time for you, but if possible, we’d like to room here.”

  “Oh!” She blinked at him, nodding as she realized what he meant. “Oh yes, of course. I’ll make a room for you. I’m so sorry, my manners are lacking. Have you eaten?”

  “We have not.”

  “Then I’ll prepare some dinner as well.”

  “Broth for Morgan,” Sevana inserted, her mind already turning back to the curse. “He’s not getting enough water.”

  Morena reached out and put a hand on her son’s leg. “I was afraid of that, but I’m having a hard time getting him to swallow anything.”

  “I can make him swallow,” Sevana assured her, brandishing her wand. “I have a spell for that.”

  “Do you?” Morena smiled, amused at her manner, but also very relieved. “Then I’ll leave feeding him to you.”

  Shion grabbed his sister’s waist again, looking up at her and demanding, “What about me?”

  “You go home so I’m not tripping over you,” Sevana ordered firmly.

  “Awwww!”

  Ralston reached out and snagged Shion’s arm, pulling him away. “You do need to go home, Shion. Your parents don’t know where you are right now. You can come visit again tomorrow, alright?”

  Complaining about the unfairness of it all, Shion left in Ralston’s wake, his voice carrying until the front door closed behind him. Morena left as well, to start dinner and prepare rooms for her unexpected guests.

  Sevana turned back to Morgan, for a moment lost as to what to do. This wasn’t like the usual tests or challenges that Master threw her direction. This was her friend. His life had suddenly been dumped into her hands, all pending on how well she could think and reason this out. It overwhelmed her so much that for a moment she couldn’t properly breathe.

  Master knelt down near the edge of the bed, also looking at Morgan for a long moment before asking, “Aunt Morena? Uncle Ralston?”

  “We’re not related,” she answered quietly. “Not by blood, anyway. But I’ve spent more time in this house than in my parent’s.”

  “So Morgan isn’t so much a childhood friend as your brother.”

  “I guess so.”

  Master put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her in tight for a moment, whispering against the top of her head, “It’ll be alright, sweetling. You’ll save him.”

  “How can you be sure?” she demanded, choking on her own words. It took a moment to realize it was fear suffocating her. “Didn’t you see what this curse was made up of? Eggshell powder from a harpy’s egg, shadow of an eclipse, and stillness of a moonless night! The worst is the eggshell powder, because it doesn’t react well to anything good, so if I don’t break the curse perfectly, then it’ll hurt him!”

  He hugged her even harder, hand stroking her shoulder soothingly. “Sevana, sweetling, I’ve cracked harder cases than this. Your friend will be fine, I promise you. I have all faith in your abilities. You’ll find a way to break this.”

  That reassurance calmed her anxieties more than anything else could have. After all, this man was renowned throughout Mander as the Artifactor of the age. He’d had kings and great sages come to him personally for aid. If he said that this curse could be broken, then she didn’t doubt him for one moment. It was her o
wn skills that she didn’t trust right now. After all, she’d only been his student for three years. She knew enough to recognize how dangerous Morgan’s condition was, but enough to save him? That remained to be seen.

  Taking a deep, shuddering breath in, she forced it out again just as slowly, trying to calm down before she really did start crying. When she felt like she could talk normally, she said, “Let go, Master. I’ve got work to do.”

  “So you do, sweetling.” He leaned back, withdrawing his arm, and heaved himself back up to his feet with a slight grunt. “I’ll go help Mistress Morena. Come to me when you need to.”

  She listened to his footsteps as he walked calmly out of the room. Only when she was sure no one would hear her did she whisper into the quietness, “I’ll save you, Morgan. Promise.”

  Sevana didn’t sleep well that night. Numbers and calculations and spell elements chased her in her dreams so that she awoke bleary-eyed and crankier than usual. It didn’t help that she had a wolf hogging up most of her bed either. She finally gave up, rolled out of bed, and quickly dressed in her usual pants, shirt, and thick sweater. She spelled her hair with a tap of the wand and a whispered word so that it neatly coiled up in a bun on her head, keeping it out of her face. Snagging her diagnostic wand, bound book, and a pencil, she headed for Morgan’s room.

  His condition hadn’t changed, except for being better hydrated now that she’d gotten a full glass of water and a bowl of broth in him. She sat near the foot of the bed, legs crossed in front of her, and studied the curse again carefully.

  Magic was a living thing, with more quirks and rules than one could shake a stick at. It took most Artifactors ten years to memorize all of the rules, much less learn everything else they needed to. Sevana was praised as a prodigy because she’d already memorized the rules. She still had a lot to learn, but Master trusted her to analyze spells and come up with counters now. She just didn’t know if she’d learned enough to find a counter to this one.

  Stillness of a moonless night was a wind-based element, so to counter it she’d need to use either earth or water. The trouble came from the other two elements. Shadow of an eclipse was one of those grey elements that defied proper classification. Some people argued it was a fire element, others mystical, but its properties didn’t properly fall in with either. To find the right counter would be tricky, especially since it had a rather high power rating of four. But the one that really worried her was the eggshell powder from a harpy’s egg. Aside from not mixing well with any of the good or pure spell elements, it had a powerful rating of five. Finding an element with a higher rating than that, which would counter the powder, would be tricky. Nothing sprang to mind, and unfortunately, they’d left Master’s research room behind. She could really use access to that right now.

  Well, no use crying over it. She’d just have to do the best she could from memory. If that failed, she’d tie the old man to a chair and tickle information out of him.

  Scooting around a bit more, she put the cool wood of the footboard against her back. Comfortable, she propped the book open on her knee and started scribbling ideas out as they came to her. She scratched them out again almost immediately, but the process helped her to think.

  Hmm? Sevana looked up as the bed dipped, her attention drawn away from the pages in front of her and her own thoughts for the first time all morning. Judging by the slant of the light coming in from the window, most of the day had passed. In fact, her rumbling stomach suggested that lunch might be in order.

  But lunch would have to wait. Shion climbed onto the bed, crawling over her without any consideration for personal space, and settled in on her other side, squished in between her and the wall. He snuggled in against her side with his head on her shoulder, both hands grasping her arm, eyes firmly fixed on Morgan’s face. Judging from that expression, he had no intention of moving anytime soon.

  She sighed and let the book fall into her lap. “Shion, you’re making it hard for me to work.”

  “Sissy…is Morgan going to die?” he asked in a small voice, still not looking up at her.

  “No,” she said confidently. Morgan’s life wasn’t in any danger at the moment and she’d find a way to break this curse before his situation became truly dangerous. Somehow.

  “But he’s under the curse, right?” he insisted, hands tightening around her arm to a near-painful level.

  Sevana sighed, partially exasperated, partially resigned. How to explain the complexities to a six year old? She should remember how to break it down, considering that she was his age just three years ago. Rubbing at the back of her head, she thought about it for a second before offering, “The curse doesn’t actually kill people.”

  Shion finally looked at her, eyes nearly crossing, expression saying, I can’t believe she just said something so stupid.

  “It doesn’t,” she insisted. “The curse just makes you sleep, unable to wake up. It’s because you’re only sleeping that you die, because you can’t eat. But Morgan’s fine. Aunt and I are feeding him regularly.”

  “But what if you can’t break the curse?” he insisted.

  “I can,” she assured him confidently.

  “But what if you can’t?”

  “I can,” she maintained, tone firmer this time.

  “Yes, but what if—”

  “Shion, did you come here just to pester me?” she interrupted, past the limits of her patience.

  He wisely clamped his mouth shut, although he had a mulish set to his mouth that suggested he didn’t buy her baseless claims. Not being the sort to stay quiet for long, his eyes fell to the scribbles in her workbook and he asked, “What’s those?”

  “These?” Sevana had to once again think of a way to explain. “I think too fast sometimes. So I write down my ideas as they come so I can slow things down and take a good look.”

  “You scratched out all of them.” He sounded…glum?

  “Well, some of them just wouldn’t work. Some of them won’t work because it’d take very special ingredients that I can’t lay hands on right now.”

  He cocked his head, intent on what she was saying. Miracles of miracles, did he actually follow that explanation and didn’t find anything to question?

  “But can’t you just go get them?” he demanded, not seeing the problem.

  She let out an even longer sigh than the previous one. No, of course he found something to question. He always did. “No. They’re too expensive. Or they’re too dangerous to get.” Wanting to chase him back out of the room, she cut through to the heart of the problem. “Shion, look, he’s not in any real danger. It won’t hurt him any if he sleeps a day or two longer as I figure this out. Who knows? He might actually start growing.”

  Shion pondered this for a moment, studying Morgan’s tranquil expression for several long moments before he finally gave a reluctant nod. “I guess I can wait, then.”

  Praise be. “Now will you scoot? I’m trying to focus and you’re not helping.”

  “Oh.” He released the grip on her arm and perked up as if he just remembered something. “I came in here to fetch you. Aunt Morena says lunch is ready.”

  “Now you tell me,” she grumbled, rolling off the bed.

  After spending a full day on the problem, Sevana did not feel any closer to a solution but did feel increasingly annoyed. Frustrated, she sat there on the bed and ranted at Morgan for a while, telling him in detail just how stupid he was to have gone to play in those ruins and how much he was going to owe her when he woke up again.

  Morgan, of course, slept through the whole thing peacefully. Ranting at someone that couldn’t react was a completely unsatisfying experience.

  Even more frustrated, she went out for a walk, hoping to clear her head. Besides, it felt wrong to be this close and not stop in and see how Big and Baby were doing.

  When she’d been three, Morgan had brought her up toward the only mountain in the area to play in the caves. It had been very fun, but she’d felt it’d be even more fun
if the mountain could play with her as well. Sevana, at the time, had been delighted when the mountain did just that. Of course, at three years old, you don’t realize that mountains shouldn’t be able to talk and play. Now she realized it was the first real magic that she had worked, and how her parents knew to apprentice her to an Artifactor. But for a few years, at least, she went up daily to play with her mountain-friend. At five, Big had found an orphaned mountain lion that was barely four weeks old. Worried about him, Sevana had adopted the kitten and raised it. She’d fully expected Baby to go off somewhere once he was old enough, but he chose to stay with her and Big instead.

  She went up the crooked steps cut into the side of the mountain, climbing upwards towards Big. The mountain obviously noticed her approach because he opened the front cave entrance even wider and sighed out a greeting on the wind, Sevana!

  “Hi, Big!” she greeted, smiling widely. “I’m back for a little while.”

  From the top of the mountain, she heard rustling sounds, as if something was running for her at top speed. In no time at all, a blur of tan fur leaped from Big’s side and tackled her flat to the ground. Sevana hit the ground with an oomph, making stars dance in her eyes. Something rough and wet kept licking her face and she put her arms up and started shoving, to no effect.

  “Baby, off!” she commanded, turning her face away in a vain attempt to avoid the tongue. “I’m glad to see you too, but off!”

  With a rough, uneven purr, the cat leaned back enough for her to sit up partially. Giving his chin a good scratch, she distracted him enough to wiggle free and gain her feet again. “How have you two been?”

  Good, Big assured her. Morgan comes to play. Shion too.

  Her throat closed up tightly. So Morgan and Shion came to play up here still, eh? “Big, Morgan’s been cursed.”

  Baby and Big both froze, as if they didn’t hear her right. She looked down at the ground, unable to look at either of them as she explained, “He played in the Nickerchen ruins and now he’s got the Sleeping Princess curse. It’s why I’m here. I came to help him.”