“What are you wearing?” Brock countered.
“It’s an animal skin—they called it a boar,” Zed said matter-of-factly. “Are you all right? How are your hands?”
Brock huffed. “The next person who asks about my hands is gonna get them!”
Zed looked at him quizzically.
“As fists, I mean,” Brock said. “As in, I’m going to punch the next person—forget it. Why are you wearing an animal skin on your head?”
Zed shrugged. “It’s a tradition. We’re being initiated!” There was a frantic gleam in his eye, and he seemed…twitchy.
“Are you feeling all right?” Brock asked.
“Here he is!” shouted a man, and suddenly a heavy hand slapped Brock’s back. It was a friendly gesture, but the force of it nearly took Brock off his feet.
“Get this young adventurer a mantle!” shouted the man.
“Get him some food!” cried another.
“Food for the naga slayer!” the first man hollered.
“Naga slayer!” the men chanted together. “Na! Ga! Slay! Er!”
“Oh, please don’t let that stick,” Brock said.
Someone shoved a massive chicken leg into his left hand, and a heavy flagon into his right, all while men and women reached out from the crowd to slap and batter at him playfully.
“You have to try that drink,” Zed said.
“What is it?” he asked, sniffing at it suspiciously.
“It’s not anything bad. They make it right here in the guildhall!”
That only made Brock more suspicious. He peered into the flagon. The drink was a rich amber color, somewhat syrupy but frothing with bubbles. He took a tentative sip and was startled by the intensity of the flavor.
“It’s so sweet!” he said.
“That’s thanks to the beebread,” said a boy at his shoulder, probably no more than a few years older than Brock, pale-skinned with long blond braids. “Harvested from the hives of the scorpion bees of Kraken Cove by yours truly.” The boy smiled, revealing a set of crooked teeth the same yellow color as his hair.
“Right,” said the boy beside him, dark-skinned and sleepy-looking. He wore a three-horned helmet of metal and bone. “And who harvested the stingers from your sore and sorry hide? Longest day of my life.” He nodded at Brock in greeting. “Nice job out there today. For a new kid, I mean. Brock, right? I’m Syd. This sack of hammers is Fife. Near everything he says is a lie.”
“Right, right.” Fife tapped his chin. “Unless that’s a lie, of course.”
“It’s not,” Syd said flatly.
“Here’s a truth: I’ve never taken down a naga.” Fife’s voice was heavy with regret. “A grimspider, yes. A devouring hood. Two amphibimen, and more kobolds than I can count…”
“So, five or six kobolds then?” Brock said.
A shadow passed over Fife’s face, and for a moment Brock feared he’d misjudged the moment, but then Fife broke out in wheezing laughter.
“A mouth on this one, I think,” Syd said.
“Mouth,” Fife said, nodding at Brock, “and ears,” he added, gesturing at Zed. “Put ’em together and you’ve got half a decent apprentice.”
Fife saluted comically and walked away. Syd lingered a moment more. “Watch out for each other, okay?” Then he turned to follow after Fife, tri-horned helmet bobbing through the crowd.
“They seemed nice!” Zed chirped from beneath his boar.
Don’t get too attached, Brock wanted to say. We’re not going to be here long enough to make friends.
Brock sipped again at the drink and then sniffed at the greasy meat, and his stomach gurgled. All he could think of was Hexam slicing away at the dead creature in the basement.
“Are you gonna…?” Zed said.
“Be my guest,” Brock answered, and he held out the drumstick. But Zed took the flagon instead and, two-handed, tipped its contents into his mouth, gulping it down.
“So good,” he said, and then he gave a little belch, which the men around them acknowledged with a cheer. “I’ll get you some more!” he said, and before Brock could stop him, he darted through the crowd.
Brock found a mostly empty plate on the table to his side and dropped his drumstick on it, then turned back to find himself eye to eye with the hideous lizard skin sitting atop Liza’s head.
“Gee-aaah!” he screamed, flinching. “Oh, come on!”
“Settle down!” Liza barked. “Where’s Zed?”
“He went for more of that drink.”
“The ambrosia? Blech.” She stuck out her tongue. “That stuff is pure sugar.”
“Oh, no,” Brock said.
“What?”
“Zed…doesn’t handle sugar well. I once smuggled him a few hard candies from one of my mother’s parties, and he spent the next two hours dancing in place while excitedly alphabetizing his sock drawer.”
“How do you alphabetize socks?”
“I still don’t know!” Brock cried.
A tremendous crash sounded from across the room, and Brock saw the chandelier had torn free of the ceiling. There was a clattering noise as the woman who’d inadvertently pulled it down lifted herself to her knees and raised her arms to raucous applause.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” Brock said. “But I think these people may be out of their minds.”
“I’m here!” Zed cried. “I’m back! Don’t worry!” He handed Brock a flagon—it was empty.
Brock shot him a look, and Zed burped a pipsqueak burp. “Sorry.”
“And it might be contagious,” Brock told Liza.
“What’s contagious?” asked Zed. “I feel really good, actually. Like, really good.”
“How are your hands, by the way?” Liza asked Brock.
Zed’s eyes went wide, and he looked hard at Brock as if daring him to follow through with his earlier threat.
Brock pointedly ignored Zed and his bulging eyes. “They’re…a little tender, actually.” He leaned in closer to them and lowered his voice. “Has it occurred to anyone else that what happened outside the wall was a complete disaster? What are we celebrating, exactly?”
“It’s an annual tradition,” Liza said. “The recruits survive a night outside, then return to a day of revelry.”
“Not all of us.”
“We wanted to stay with Jett,” Zed said, suddenly somber. “But they ran us off. Told us they had it under control and we were just getting in the way. They said he needed to sleep it off.…”
“I think it’s more serious than they were letting on,” Brock said. “Hexam has people working on an antitoxin, and Lotte insisted on sending for a healer on top of that.”
“That’s good, though,” said Liza. “The healers can handle just about anything. Maybe everything will be all right.”
“Frond certainly wants to act like it. But what that thing did to the wards…Shouldn’t we be raising the alarm?” Brock asked.
“And start a panic?” Liza said, putting her fists on her hips. The lizard skin that was draped over her head and shoulders flopped about.
“It’s impossible to take you seriously with that thing on your head.”
“Oh, were you taking me seriously before?”
“I never actually saw any healers arrive,” Zed interjected.
“There has to be a side entrance. I doubt Frond would want them to see all this.” Brock scanned the crowd. Most of the men and women there towered above them, but one girl was their height—and looking right at them from across the room. “Follow me,” he said.
“Where?” Liza demanded.
“To make friends!”
Brock led them through the crush of the crowd, putting on a friendly face and giving a little wave as he approached the girl, whom he recognized from their arrival at the guildhall. She had red curls and a silver crescent moon on a string around her neck.
“Hi!” Brock said lightly. “You look like someone who knows a thing or two about magic.”
“Uh, I do?” s
aid the girl. She smiled. “Thanks.”
Brock smiled back. He’d had a feeling a former Mages Guild apprentice who still wore the guild’s symbol would take that as a compliment. He introduced himself and Liza, leaving Zed for last.
“It’s really good to meet you,” the girl said, taking Zed’s hand. “I’m Jayna. I’ve never met a sorcerer before!”
“Uh, me neither,” Zed said brightly. “Other than me, of course. Not that I’ve…met me. That’s not even possible!” He brought his fist to his mouth and started flexing his jaw, desperately suppressing a burp.
Brock sighed. “Maybe you can settle a dispute for us, Jayna,” he said. “I was just telling my friends here that there’s a room in the basement that’s been made cold. You know…with magic.” He raised an eyebrow. “But Liza here said that’s not even possible.”
“Hey!” Liza said, but she didn’t contradict him.
“Sure it’s possible,” Jayna said with a shrug. “The trick is that it’s taxing on the caster’s mana. A sustained spell like that requires a focus. Magic gets stored inside, then released slowly to power the effect. It’s complicated spellwork.”
“But I bet you could do it,” Brock said.
“Well, no.” Jayna rolled her eyes. “Well, I could, I mean, I can generate cold, but I wouldn’t be able to maintain a focus on my own, even if I could get my hands on a suitable gemstone.” She turned to Zed. “I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to see the Mages guildhall. I was only there a few months, but I learned so much in that time.”
“They must teach you magic here,” Liza said. “Otherwise why recruit mages at all?”
Jayna nodded. “Hexam teaches me. But it’s not a real priority for him, you can tell. When I do get instruction, it’s very…combat oriented? You’ll learn to attack with Icebite or Gestalt’s Rending Rime long before you learn how to ward a room.”
“But Hexam would know how,” Brock suggested.
“Hexam for sure. He’d be the only one here who could.”
“Thanks, Jayna. You’ve been a real help. Now Liza here owes me a steak dinner.”
Liza glowered at him. “I hope you like your steak rarely.”
“Glad I could help,” Jayna said, oblivious to the daggers in Liza’s eyes. “Say, Zed.” She reached out to touch his arm, hesitated, seemed to lose the words. Her eyes flicked to Brock and Liza. “Tomorrow is our weekly lesson with Hexam. Let’s talk more in the morning. About magic. Before you talk to Hexam.”
Zed nodded uncertainly, picking up on her hesitation. But she quickly bid them good night and retreated to the back of the hall.
“Strange girl,” Zed said. “Right? She was strange?”
“I’ve lost perspective,” Brock said, addressing the boar. “But I sure don’t like the idea that only one person here could set up an easy ward.” He held Zed’s eyes. “What are the odds the wards that keep the city from being overrun by endless waves of otherworldly terrors are easy wards?”
Zed gulped.
“Frond knows what she’s doing,” Liza said, stepping between them. “I’m sure she’s already sent word to the Mages Guild.”
“Let’s ask her, to be sure,” he said. “Come on.”
“Wait,” Liza said. “Brock, wait a minute.”
There was something in the way she said it—Brock found himself rooted to the spot.
“Don’t go just yet,” she said.
Brock searched her face. Her expression had gone very serious. Her eyes, deep brown with flecks of gold, bored into his, and she took his elbows in her hands.
“What—what is it?” he asked, suddenly breathless.
“I just need you to stand here just…one more moment…”
Out of nowhere, a weight slapped down upon Brock’s head and shoulders, and rowdy laughter went up all around him. He knew right away he’d been draped with some monstrous animal hide. It reeked of wet fur.
Zed completely lost his composure, going bright red and doubling over as he cackled, his boar shaking with his laughter.
“I don’t even want to know what it is,” Brock said.
“Don’t worry,” Liza said lightly, patting his cheek. “It’s a definite improvement.”
Sneaking away from the crowd took some time. They were stopped every few feet by men and women wanting to introduce themselves, and most of them made a point to slap, smack, punch, or shove them. Brock began to think he’d be far more bruised and battered by the party celebrating their battle than by the battle itself.
Eventually they made their way to the far end of the dining hall and into the staircase they’d gone down before. This time, Brock intended to go up, but he paused upon the landing when he heard a loud thumping coming from a barred door at ground level. The three apprentices looked at one another as the thumping paused and then sounded out again, louder than before.
“Is someone locked in that closet?” Zed asked.
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Brock.
“There are a lot of ways to find out,” Zed countered. “We could ask someone about it tomorrow, for example.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Liza said, and she removed the bar and swung open the door.
It wasn’t a closet at all, but a door to the outside. The woman who stood there, fist raised to knock again, wasn’t immediately recognizable to Brock. She was old, her wrinkled face screwed up with annoyance, and her cloak was shapeless and drab.
But when she saw them standing on the threshold, her fist became an open hand of greeting, her annoyance dropped away, and Brock knew her the moment her wide smile beamed down on them.
“Mother Brenner,” Liza gasped.
The guildmistress of the Golden Way dipped her head graciously. Mother Brenner wore no jewelry or cosmetics, and Brock had scarcely seen plainer dress. Yet everything about her bearing was noble, and her bright blue eyes and flawless white teeth lit up her face more than any decoration could.
Brock felt the scrutiny of those blue eyes as they swept over him, and he quickly slipped the animal mantle from his head and dropped it to the floor.
“I recognize you three,” she said warmly. “Even under these charming…hats.” She caressed Liza’s lizard mantle as if it were a cat, then brought her hand down to lift Liza’s chin. “I hear you’ve been through a terrible ordeal already.”
Liza nodded.
“Are…are you here for Jett?” Zed asked. “He was injured.…”
“I sent my best healer to help Jett,” Mother Brenner answered. “He should be with your friend now. I…am here for Alabasel Frond. May I enter?”
Brock was keenly aware of the rude and raucous sounds of the party at their backs. He remembered Frond’s insistence that only one healer be allowed on the premises. He wasn’t sure how to answer the Luminous Mother.
He regretted it straightaway, but it happened unconsciously: He turned to Liza to see what they should do.
Liza hesitated for a moment, nodded, and then stepped out of the way. “Of course, Mother Brenner,” she said.
“Thank you, child,” the guildmistress said, and then she swept past them and up the stairs.
Zed made a funny face at Brock and Liza, baring his teeth, half embarrassment and half eager anticipation, and he turned on his heel and followed her. Liza barred the door, and she and Brock went up after him, taking the stairs two at a time.
The staircase led to a hall lined with doorways, each one opening onto a room just large enough to hold a bunk and a dresser. Zed and Liza both tossed their mantles into a random room as they passed. At the end of the hallway was a closed door.
When Mother Brenner opened it, a warm, golden radiance spilled out. She stepped into the light, and they followed.
The room was square and plain, slightly larger than those they’d passed, with space for a proper bed and a bookshelf. The only decoration was a large vellum map pinned to the wall. It showed forests, mountains, lakes—with great blank patches scattered throughout, like a b
ird’s-eye view of the land, obscured by passing clouds. Freestone stood at the very center of the map; in the context of the larger landscape, it looked shockingly small.
Jett lay on the bed, unconscious, but with more color in his cheeks than he’d had the last time Brock had seen him. Above him stood Lotte and a man in a flowing white robe trimmed in gold. The healer stood stock-still, his hands pressed to Jett’s shoulders and emitting the vivid honeyed light that gilded the entire room. He didn’t look up when they entered, but Alabasel Frond did.
“I told you to stay out,” Frond barked, and it took Brock a long moment to register that she wasn’t speaking to them but to Mother Brenner. He shouldn’t have been surprised that her utter lack of civility would extend to the Luminous Mother, yet somehow he was surprised.
But Brenner was unfazed. “I like to keep a close watch on my people, Frond,” she said. Her voice was calm but firm. “Pollux here is my responsibility. If any harm should befall him—well, the blame for that would rest uneasily on my shoulders.”
Frond took a menacing step forward. “If you have something to say, Brenner, by all means spit it out.”
“Let it be, Frond,” Lotte said softly. “She’s here. What harm can she do?”
Frond’s gaze flicked to Brock and the rest, but she didn’t say anything more, only leaned against the wall and turned back to watch the healer.
Brock had never seen a member of the Golden Way in action. His family had been blessed with good health, and the healers were not dispatched for the standard cuts and scrapes of an active childhood. By all accounts, the healing gift was a taxing one, and not without its dangers. It demanded a strict ascetic lifestyle and tremendous discipline, and it was employed only in serious circumstances.
He considered the healer at work, and he saw now the signs of strain written upon the man’s face. Sweat dotted his brow, but his hands were steady, and the bright glow that came from them never faltered. Brock thought of gauntlets fresh from the blacksmith’s furnace, the way they glowed orange with the memory of fire, and he marveled at the thought of such light without heat.
“It’s beautiful,” Liza said, holding up her own hand as if to catch the golden glow.
The Adventurers Guild Page 9
