“What do you mean, I’m in more danger than you, anyway?” I wondered.
“Well, the wolf seems to have gotten you in the mouth,” she said.
I wiped my chin, seeing blood covering my hand.
“He didn’t get me,” I explained. “I bit my tongue.”
“For you, that could be the worst type of injury.”
I nodded, sheathing my sword.
“Come along, let’s find the beast.”
Elleena put away her weapon. It became immediately obvious that one of us at least had injured the monster, as there was a trail of blood droplets leading across the field, away from the scene of our battle. This we followed. It was obviously not a mortal wound, even had it been a completely mundane creature, which is to say not a werewolf, because the drops of blood became fewer and fewer the further we went. There were other signs though—a smudged footprint, a bent stalk of grass, a bit of werewolf fur. Some of these were more obvious than others, but all were easily seen by lamplight and some even in the bright moonshine. Elleena was adept at tracking, and I of course am more than skilled in that area.
We crossed the field and an open meadow that lay beyond it. Then we passed through a small copse of trees and then another meadow, this one much more vast and sloping down toward a stream. The locals call this stream Gaunt Rill, but it is far more than a rill in my opinion. It is more than a branch and more than a brook and more than a creek. It is not so much as a river or a tide or a rush. It is certainly much more than a spritz or a spate or a beck. Anyone who called it a rivulet, I would punch in the nose. It was a stream, and that is all there is to it. It should be called Gaunt Stream and not Gaunt Rill. In fact, it shouldn’t be called Gaunt anything, because gaunt means thin, narrow, or scrawny… unless it was named after a person whose last name was Gaunt, and now that I think about it, I do believe that I heard someone say that was the case. But it is no rill.
This supposed rill, but more to the point a stream, was heavily wooded on either bank, because trees are lazy. Trees will almost always grow right next to water, because they can’t be bothered to get up and move around, like say… a rabbit. A rabbit will go down to the river and drink, but it doesn’t just stay there. It will wander back up to the field and eat some grass. But a tree just sits there, acting all wooden and superior. I will tell you this: I would much rather have a rabbit for a pet than a tree.
“What about fruit trees?” asked Elleena.
“What are you talking about?”
“Fruit trees have fruit, and fruit can be made into pies. You must like fruit trees.”
“Keep to the matter at hand,” said I. “We are on the trail of a werewolf.”
“You are the one who is muttering to yourself about the size of rivers and rabbits and trees acting wooden and superior.”
“I didn’t say anything of the kind,” I replied. “And to be fair, trees have a lot to be superior about.”
The stream was about ten feet across at the point we reached it, and as I knew that in other places it widened to three times that width, I supposed that it was anywhere from five to seven feet deep. Now, two feet does not make a great deal of difference in many situations, but when one is jumping into a stream wearing eighty or ninety pounds of steel armor, the difference between five and seven feet is the difference between being able to breathe air and being able to breathe water—which I can’t. I was about to explain this to Elleena, when she took a great leap and jumped halfway across the span.
She completely disappeared beneath the rapidly running surface, leading me to believe that the higher end of my previous calculation, which is to say seven feet, was closer to the actual depth of Gaunt Rill. For a moment I wondered whether I should divest myself of my armor in order to jump in and save my friend, but before I could decide, she shot out of the water, grabbing hold of the small trees along the far shore and pulling herself out.
“Jump!” she called. “When you hit the bottom of the rill, just push yourself up and out!”
“That is no rill!” I called back.
“Just jump!”
I did as ordered and launched myself as far across toward the opposite bank as possible. The splash of water and the knowledge that I was completely submerged did not hit me nearly as much as the temperature of the water. It was cold. To be precise, it was damned cold. For most of his life, my poor old father was wont to go out of winter, cut a hole in the ice and swim, along with several of his more senile friends, in the frigid water of Lake Sump. I always thought this a ridiculous pastime and now I knew that I had been right all along. There was no ice on this stream, but I knew deep down that this was just the kind of water in which my poor old dad would have swum.
Kicking off against the bottom of the stream, I shot out of the water and grasped at whatever I could get a hold of on the shore. Elleena grabbed my wrist and helped me out.
“Too damned cold,” I said, shivering.
“Just like when your dad took me swimming,” she said.
“How come he took you swimming?”
“I don’t know.”
“And how did he not know you were a woman?”
“I kept my clothes on,” she replied.
“Let’s go,” said I. “I need to get moving again or I’m going to freeze.”
Elleena no longer had her lantern, having discarded it before jumping into the water, but we didn’t really need it, as the eastern sky began spreading light toward the west. We passed the trees on the other side of the stream, and then across a meadow sloping upward, and then finally into the uncut forest for which Brest is justly famous. Here the trees were old and thick, though just as lazy as those by the water. We could tell that we were still moving uphill. Picturing the map of central Duaron in my head, I figured that we were near the base of the Blue Goblin Hills. I had only just come to this conclusion when I spotted a ridge fifty feet or so ahead, and once we got closer to the ridge, I spotted the mouth of a cave. The cave was rather obvious, as there was light spilling out of it.
“What do you make of that?” asked Elleena.
“I make it to be a cave,” said I.
“And there’s someone in there with a light source.”
“I was just about to say that,” said I.
Just then the werewolf appeared at the entrance. He sniffed the air and then looked right at us. Then he was off running away once again, this time deeper into the forest.
Chapter Fourteen: Wherein we discover the secret of the cave.
“That’s just great,” said I, as I watched the spot between the trees where the werewolf had disappeared. “And I am being ironic, as I don’t think it to be great whatsoever.”
“At least it will be easier to track in the daylight,” replied Elleena. “In the meantime, why don’t we see what is in that cave?”
“Why bother with that?” I asked. “That werewolf is fast and we will have trouble enough catching it as it is.”
“There was something in there that the beast was interested in. And besides, there is still light in there.”
She was right. Though the sky had grown quite light, it was still easy to see the yellow glow flowing out between the rocks of the cave mouth. I nodded my assent, and we both crept to the open maw in the earth. Beyond was a passage leading back into the hillside, and on either side of the passage, torches burned in those torch-holder thingies in the cavern walls.
“They’re called sconces,” said Elleena.
“What are called sconces?”
“The sconces on the walls—those torch-holder thingies.”
“Who asked?” I demanded. “Besides, I know what a sconce is. How could I live in a pre-electric medieval society without knowing what a sconce is?”
“Don’t snap at me,” she said. “You’re the one who is narrating this ridiculous story. If your vocabulary isn’t up to it, just stop now. And what are you talking about anyway. Medieval is Elven, right? Elven for middle ages? The middle between what and what? And
what the hell does ‘electric’ mean?”
“Never mind,” said I. “Come on.”
Drawing our weapons, we moved stealthily through the passageway. The rough-hewn walls wound through the solid rock and eventually opened up into a cave room, some thirty feet in diameter. Like the passage, it was lit by torches. It was also furnished with a bed and sofa, tables and bookcases. Standing across the room, back toward us, looking at one of the bookcases, was a figure with long blond hair wearing a green robe. Elleena carefully drew her sword.
“Don’t bother trying to sneak up on me. I could hear you coming a mile away.” The figure turned to look at us. “I’m surprised to see you still together.”
“The sorceress,” hissed Elleena.
“Myolaena Maetar!” I cried.
Chapter Fifteen: Wherein I discuss the motivations of a sorceress.
“Yes, it is I,” said the sorceress, brushing back her hair and stepping toward us. “Myolaena Maetar—magician, sorceress thaumatageur, prestidigitator, diviner, seer, mystic. I am spellcaster, mage, conjurer, and necromancer. I am all that.”
“I remember the dialog from my own play,” said I.
She smiled snidely. “A weak effort.” Then she turned to Elleena. “Still pretending to be a man? I always suspected you might turn out a bit on the butch side—after all, a little girl leading an army into battle, enjoying the blood and carnage.”
“She’s not butch,” I explained.
“Shut up, Eaglethorpe,” said Elleena.
“Well, she’s not,” I told Myolaena. “She was overwhelmed with desire for me when we met in the land of the Amazons.”
“Shut up, Eaglethorpe,” said Elleena.
“But it is true. And she is all woman. Let me tell you.”
“I heard that story and I don’t believe it any more than the crap you wrote about me.”
“That was all true,” I said. “And when did you hear the story?”
“I heard it two nights ago at the inn in West Knucklewick,” she explained. “There was a story-teller who claimed to be the great Eaglethorn Boxcar, but he wasn’t you.”
“He said he was the real Eaglethorn… Eaglethorpe Buxton?”
“Yes,” she said, with a sly smile. “And maybe he was. After all, what do we know, really? You claim to be him, but we have only your word for it.”
“You may rest assured that I am the genuine article,” said I.
“So you would say if you were an imposter.”
“You may be sure that I would.”
“Then how can we trust that you are the real Englethorn Boxcar?”
“Oh, just stop it,” said Elleena. “Who would claim to be him?”
“Well, apparently this fellow in West Knucklewick,” said I.
“She is tricking you with her words. She is taking you off our task. We came in here to find out why the werewolf was here and secondarily to find the missing girl and/or girls.”
“Girls, plural?” I wondered. “I thought we were looking for Eventually.”
“Eventually, we should find all the girls. Remember, the creature has been taking a girl each month for who knows how long.”
“Yes, I remember,” I replied. “I was working under the assumption that the werewolf just ate them.”
“So was I,” said Elleena. “But that was before I knew she was involved.”
She glared at Myolaena.
“I have not forgotten, witch, that you tried to steal my kingdom.”
“It wasn’t your kingdom then. You weren’t even born yet.” Myolaena protested. “Besides, who is watching your precious kingdom now?”
“Miriam,” I replied.
“None of your business,” snapped Elleena. “Now where are those girls?”
“What makes you think that I know where they are?”
“Because you’re evil.”
“I am not evil,” said Myolaena.
“Evil people never think themselves evil,” quoth I. “But you are evil, even though you are a most excellent piesmith.”
The sorceress shrugged and gestured toward the bookcase behind her. Examining it for the first time, I suddenly realized that unlike the other bookcase in the cave, it was filled not with leather-bound volumes of lore, but with dolls. There were about a two dozen dolls, all of about the same size, and all with similar but not exactly the same clothing. Their features varied as did their hair and their little painted-on expressions.
“Here they are,” she said.
“What?” I wondered.
“The werewolf has brought me a new girl each month and I have turned them, every one, into dolls for my collection.”
“Why?” I wondered.
“I like to collect things,” she said. “Think of it as an affectation.”
“How?” I wondered.
“The usual way.” She held up her hand, the magic wand clutched between her fingers flashing purple.
“Where?” I wondered. “No, strike that, because it’s right here. Um, why, but why in a different way than I asked before.”
“Ever the wordsmith,” she sneered. “I had to charge the werewolf something for the potion I have provided to him. I couldn’t think of anything else, and I do love playing with dolls and, you know… people’s lives.”
“What potion did you give to him?”
“It was a potion that prevents him from killing anyone.” She looked at Elleena. “It looks like it was a good thing for you that he’s taken it.”
“But why would you do that?” asked Elleena. “You’re evil.”
“So you keep telling me. He didn’t want to kill anyone and I helped him out. As I said, I had to ask for something in exchange—that’s how magic works, you see—so I asked for my dolls.”
“We heard it from the villagers,” I thought aloud. “They said they were terrorized each month, but aside from the women disappearing, nobody seems to have been killed.”
“Release the girls!” Elleena ordered the sorceress, in a voice she usually reserved for when she was at home being queenly.
“In exchange for what?”
“Your life is enough!”
The young queen pointed her sword at the sorceress’s long, slender neck. Myolaena made a quick gesture with her wand, and suddenly Elleena was holding not a shining steel blade, but a long-stemmed yellow rose.
“I told you, that’s not how magic works.” Myolaena sounded out each word carefully as if speaking to a child or a half-wit. “I will give you my dolls, and in exchange, you will give me the love of your life.”
“Her wife is back in Shoopshire and I don’t know where her husband is,” I remarked.
“She means you, you idiot.”
“She does?”
“Yes, I do,” said Myolaena. “In exchange for the return of my dolls to their human forms, I shall have Eagletwit Bucklehorn as my husband.”
Chapter Sixteen: Wherein I play a game of five questions.
“That’s Eaglehorn Buckletwit… Eaglethorpe Buxton,” I corrected her.
“Yes,” said Elleena. “If you are to be Mrs. Eaglethorpe Buxton, you should learn to say it correctly.”
“Absolutely… she should what now?” I wondered.
“We don’t have a choice,” Elleena said. “We have to return these poor girls to their families.”
“They look perfectly happy where they are,” I observed.
“How will you be able to look Immanent in the eye if we return without her sister?”
“I’ll just look at the bridge of her nose. She won’t be able to tell the difference. I do it all the time.”
“Maybe what they say is true after all,” said Myolaena.
“And what is that?” asked Elleena, icily.
“That you’re a great big dyke.”
“Release the girls before I kill you with my bare hands.”
“Take them all outside and place them in the shade of a tree,” directed Myolaena. “Form them in a circle, with their feet pointing towa
rd the center. When the last one is placed on the ground, they will change back to their original forms.”
Elleena pushed past the sorceress and gathered the dolls up in her arms. I watched her carefully. Previously, even when I had seen her in a dress, she was more queen than woman, and naked, she was all woman. Holding the tiny figures thus, I thought, she really looked like a girl for the first time since I had known her. She carried the dolls out through the passage. I started to follow.
“Stay a moment,” said Myolaena, stepping close and placing her hand on my shoulder.
I couldn’t feel it through my armor of course, but seeing it, and her standing close, made me feel much warmer than I, dripping wet as I was, had a right to feel.
“I am looking forward to our wedding,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Yes, but not as much as the wedding night. It has been some time since I have been with a man.”
“Um, how long, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Forty… years.”
“Forty years?”
“Probably closer to forty-five than forty. What is the matter, my love; you’ve lost all your color. Are you not fond of older women?”
“I have no problem with older women. Why there was my Sunday school teacher Mrs. Linkwittle. She would wear these calico dresses that showed off her… um, how much older exactly?”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-three and a third.”
“Then 763 years older,” she smiled. “And two thirds.”
“Well, that’s not so bad,” said I. “But why did you want to marry me anyway? As I recall, you didn’t think too much of me. In fact, you tried to poison me.”
“It’s all well and good to go slutting around, partying, and playing the field, when you are in your 750’s, but no girl wants to be single when she reaches 800.”
“But why me? We hardly know one another.”
“I hardly know anyone,” Myolaena said. “Tell you what—we will play five questions. I will ask you five question and you must answer them. Then ask me any five questions you wish, and I will answer truthfully. Then we can say that we know at least something about one another.”
Many Adventures of Eaglethorpe Buxton Page 29
