Hazelhearth Hires Heroes

by D. H. Willison

  “And you study standing the entire time?”

  “I practice standing the entire time. I study seated. In the library.”

  “Very well, then you… what? Practice casting? That’s why you need the open space, I take it.”

  “Correct. I practice both channeling energy, and transmuting it to the correct form.”

  “And then?”

  “And then… to my dismay, I am uncertain what I shall do next. At the academy, once I had mastered a spell under controlled conditions, I would move on to a simulated combat environment. I suppose I hoped to have been transfered to the academy by then.”

  “You could just join us on one of these ‘rudimentary’ quests you keep assigning. If you had been there when we were escorting the oilwood gatherers, even a poorly cast spell might well have saved a little boy’s life.”

  “Such a chaotic environment would not have been conducive to…” Lady Isylnoir’s gaze sank. She mumbled a few words before speaking up again. “The loss of civilians that day was regrettable. There are so few to begin with.”

  “Right. So, anything else?” Sam motioned to a short metallic rod inset with crystals atop the desk. “A magic wand rack or the like?”

  “That is simply a tool I use to measure the frequency at which I channel. A staff is what battlemages use for combat casting.” Lady Isylnoir crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Although I find them more troublesome than they are worth.”

  “So. Something like a wide podium or shelving unit at about…” Sam tried to estimate the standing height of Lady Isylnoir’s elbows. Uuugh. I really should measure her, she thought. I feel like a dressmaker to a princess. She winced, blowing out a long, slow breath. “To avoid any inaccuracies, it might be prudent to measure you.”

  Lady Isylnoir nodded. “I believe the carpenter left a box of tools in the next room. Perhaps there is a tape.”

  Sam returned a moment later with a cloth tape measure. She handed one end to Lady Isylnoir. “Please hold this at your left elbow.”

  Lady Isylnoir extended her forearm in front of her, and pressed the end of the tape against the sage-green fabric of her tight-fitting blouse at the elbow.

  Sam knelt to take the measurement. “Are those your normal shoes?”

  “Very thorough of you to account for such details. They are.”

  The burgundy leather boots had only the slimmest of heels. Sam glanced up at the seven-foot-tall elf. This was exactly like being the dressmaker to a princess. “At least I’m not obligated to fit you for a corset,” she mumbled, then snorked at the thought.

  Lady Isylnoir cocked her head. “What exactly is a ‘corset?’ ”

  “The fact that you don’t know rates you one rung higher than Priscilla Mildenhall.”

  Lady Isylnoir stared at Sam, her expression a textbook study in how not to mar the skin of one’s face with pesky lines.

  This is the first thing Lady Isylnoir has ever asked me about humans. I suppose it wouldn’t do to be stingy with information, she thought. “It is a garment that high society ladies on my world wear.” Sam ran her hands from her chest to her hips. “It goes around here and is made of cloth and thin strips of whalebone.”

  “And it stops below the breast?”

  “It does. Right about…” Sam fidgeted with her chest at the spot where breasts would be, had she any to speak of. “About here I guess. I haven’t worn one since my late teens. Dreadful things.”

  “Such a design would appear to offer most inadequate armor protection.”

  Sam grinned. “That it would.”

  Two rungs higher than Priscilla Mildenhall.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Lee inspected his thigh in the dim light of the back room of the Dancing Dryad. He’d just washed away several days of grime with a warm sponge bath, which he had to acknowledge was refreshing as well. Though he refused to admit this to Sam. The bruising was all but gone, and several dozen gashes and punctures had knitted nicely.

  “At this rate, they won’t even leave a scar,” he muttered.

  He donned a clean set of long underwear and a threadbare though clean flannel button-up shirt, picked up a half-empty mug of lukewarm well water and swirled it around. “There really is something to this stuff.”

  He downed the last gulps and trudged up the stairs, surprised to see a light in the attic.

  “Sam. You’re in bed already?”

  “Doing a little reading.” Sam had shoved her bed against one of the interior framing timbers and had rigged a pair of silvered reflectors on the candle holder. She sat up in bed, back against the timber with a tome in her lap. “It may be warmer downstairs by the hearth, but the light’s not great.”

  Lee kicked off his shoes and sat on the edge of his bed. “Whatcha reading?”

  “A magic theory book. Lady Isylnoir lent it to me.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t have imagined she had a single generous bone in her body.”

  “Yeah. Generous isn’t quite the right word.” Sam shoved a compact notebook to the side and flipped the page. “Her words were something along the lines of, ‘this tome is typically given to elven children in grade school, but you seem marginally more intelligent than most humans, so you should be able to understand a little of it at least.’ ”

  Lee bit his lip. “Still seems generous of her. You sure it’s not some kind of cursed tome? Read passages aloud and you summon demons.”

  “That’s not how magic works.”

  “So you’ve already figured it out? That’s great.”

  “Not even close. Magic really is complicated. But I’d rather eat a plate of night crawlers than admit that to Lady Isylnoir.” Sam gazed back down at the tome. “It’s less about chanting and incantations and more about understanding energy flow.”

  “Mind if I…”

  “Sure,” said Sam, shifting the position of the tan, leather-bound tome.

  Lee knelt down next to her bed and peered into the tome, which was open to a page with a series of diagrams. “Looks more like a geometry textbook.”

  “There’s some trigonometry involved,” said Sam. “And some of it feels familiar. Almost like some of the latest theories about the nature of electricity and magnetics back home.”

  “When you know enough to rig some of those glow stones to give us proper lighting, let me know, and I’ll help you build it. Wouldn’t it be funny if we could set up electric lighting before they did back home? I mean magic. Magic-electric… you know what I mean.”

  “Don’t think we’ll be doing that for a while. Magic gems are rare. Quality ones are anyway. Oh! And a glow stone isn’t technically a specific type of mineral. It’s a common name given to a low-quality gem that converts magic energy to light. But it can be any one of a half-dozen different types of minerals.”

  “See? You’re already learning something.”

  “Not quick enough. I feel like I did when I was a child, reading Faraday’s works for the first time. So hard to wrap your head around.”

  Lee cocked his head.

  “Faraday? Electromagnetic theory? Don’t tell me you worked in a telegraph office and don’t know who—”

  “I know who Michael Faraday is, thank you very much. I was questioning the ‘as a child’ part.”

  “Oh. Maybe I was a teen.” Sam grinned. “So how about you? You ever going to show me that notebook you’ve been working on?”

  “That? It’s just for the game. And my sketching skills are a little rusty.”

  “Oh, come on! I’ve shown you mine, you show me yours. Isn’t that how it works?”

  Lee stood up from the rough floor planks and rubbed his knees. “Don’t laugh, OK?”

  “Now you have me curious,” said Sam. “And I can’t make any promises.”

  “Fine.” Lee handed her the smaller of his two notebooks.

  “Hmm… you did a decent job sketching the… murder monkeys?” she glanced up at him. “I suppose a bit of artistic license is OK.”

  “When w
e get back, just don’t spill the beans until after I’ve sold my first million copies.”

  Sam leafed through pages of notes, sketches of drooling creatures, towering trees, the fortress city of Irondale. “What’s this?”

  Lee peered over her shoulder. “Oh. The gastropoid. Umm, so I was thinking. It’s not very frightening unless you’d seen it in person. I mean, it’s basically a giant, carnivorous snail.”

  “With tentacles, poison darts, and a ravenous appetite for human flesh? That sneaks up and devours people in their sleep? I’d say it’s terrifying!”

  “Yes, but the thing is, snails are slow. And slow creatures aren’t so inherently scary. So I thought, for the game, what if it levitates? Like a hot air balloon. Then it could move much faster.”

  “Geeze, might as well just paint a big face across it’s shell and call it a disembodied floating head.”

  “Ooooh, now there’s an idea!”

  “Lee, just do me a favor and keep the game bestiary and real life bestiary separate. It’d be a very bad idea to get them mixed up in the wilderness.”

  “Um-hum.” Lee had set his own candle atop a wobbly barstool, and was already scrawling in his notebook.

  Chapter 19

  The party waited just outside Hazelhearth’s front gate. Gnebnik, Sam, and Lee tightened straps on saddlebags, and double checked the tack on their horses in the chilly dawn air. Sally uttered an occasional “Mrrrh,” and pestered Shin for slices of dried apple.

  “Doesn’t it seem odd that Lady Isylnoir decided to come with us on this quest?” said Lee.

  “Don’ knock it,” said Gnebnik. “Havin’ a battlemage in the party makes things a whole lot safer for the rest of us. An’ this is not a quest we want ta take chances with.”

  “And I suppose she did get us these horses,” said Lee. “Although I still want to try riding your dinosaur some time, Shin.”

  Shin smiled, patting Sally’s long reptilian neck. “She’s warming up to you. Give it another six months.”

  “I believe Lady Isylnoir has a new spell she’s looking to try out,” said Sam.

  “I suppose there is an advantage to practicing well away from buildings,” said Lee. “Or other flammable objects.”

  “I would agree that there may be uncertainty surrounding her motives,” said Shin. His feline ears perked up at a faint clopping from within the city.

  Lady Isylnoir emerged from the gate leading an equine beast by the reins, a beast so tall, it barely passed under the portcullis. The creature had a stout horn atop its head, shimmering charcoal fur, powerful legs like a draft horse tipped with enormous hooves. Its legs also had one additional peculiarity: their number. Eight to be precise.

  Lady Isylnoir nodded at Gnebnik. “Has my extra gear been stowed?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then let us set forth.”

  Lady Isylnoir mounted her steed, an impressive feat even considering her imposing stature. The saddle and stirrups had several hand- and footholds, though neither Sam nor Lee was able to identify them precisely, as Lady Isylnoir launched herself atop the steed with alacrity.

  Shin motioned to the two of them, whispering, “You will want to give her mount a wide berth whenever she is not on it. The elven karkadann is noted for being… surly around strangers.”

  “Surly, huh?” Sam and Lee glanced at each other, biting back the exact same snarky comment.

  Their pace was awkward, with Lady Isylnoir’s mount proceeding at a faster trot than the loaner mounts Sam, Lee, and Gnebnik rode, which forced them to break into a canter every few minutes to catch up. Shin and Sally scouted ahead as usual, but even Sally’s speedy gait was barely enough to stay ahead of Lady Isylnoir.

  They paused at noon to stretch their legs, gulp down a few sips of water, a handful of dried fruit and nuts, and exchange a few words. Some of said words were even unrelated to the likelihood of encountering various creatures and/or the likelihood of said creatures wanting to eat them.

  As the midafternoon sun beamed through a gap in the heavy clouds, Lady Isylnoir raised a hand, signaling the group to stop. “We have traveled a sufficient distance: I will take a reading.”

  She resumed riding, stopping fifty paces in front of the group, and dismounted.

  “A reading?”

  “On her magolabe,” said Shin. “To determine the location of any ogres in the area.”

  “I thought you were the scout,” said Lee.

  “I only know what I can see, hear, and smell. Lady Isylnoir can detect the life energy of creatures at a far greater distance through magical means.”

  Lee watched intently as she removed a bronze disk the size of a dinner plate from her saddlebag.

  “If it picks up life energy won’t it pick us up?” asked Lee.

  Lady Isylnoir rotated a couple of rings on the device and held it in front of her.

  “As smaller creatures, our life-energy is much lower,” said Sam. “And there are adjusting crystals to compensate for our presence and the ambient level of magic energy. Like those spheres next to a ship’s compass used to correct for interference from an iron hull.”

  “Oh. Hey, I always wondered what those spheres were for.”

  Lady Isylnoir made an entry in a small journal, replaced the device in her saddlebag, and mounted, again foiling Sam and Lee’s attempts to follow the sequence of hand- and footholds needed to mount the steed.

  They arrived at a rest stop—one of the defensible stone sheds found along main roads—earlier than expected, and set camp. Having a roof over their head simplified matters: there was no need to pitch tents, and the robust structure even had a simple hearth.

  On the downside, firewood was harder to come by, as the immediate area had been scoured clean by prior occupants.

  Lady Isylnoir took another reading with the magolabe, recording copious notes in her notebook. Her reaction betrayed neither the reading nor any implications of said reading.

  Shin stirred a pot of barley porridge. “It is about done. I have nuts and dried pumpkin to sprinkle on top.” He turned to Lady Isylnoir, handing her a tin bowl. “Although I assume you would prefer your own topping.”

  She nodded, removed a bottle from her provisions bag, and poured what appeared to be reddish honey over her porridge. “Your accommodation of the elven diet is noted, Master Ranger.”

  Lee filled a bowl, topping it with dried pumpkin and a generous scattering of emu jerky, while Sam added a handful of green shoots.

  “So, did your gizmo detect any ogres around?” said Lee.

  “I am uncertain.”

  “Uncertain?” said Lee. “So there might be ogres in the vicinity?”

  “At longer ranges the device is not particularly accurate,” said Lady Isylnoir.

  “So, there may or may not be ogres in the region, but if there are, they are a ways distant?” said Sam.

  “Correct,” said Lady Isylnoir.

  “And?” said Lee. “It’s going to point the direction we need to go?”

  Lady Isylnoir sighed. “Life energy does not read like a mundane compass. There is no one ‘north’ to point to. Every creature has life energy to one extent or another, and in general, larger creatures can be detected at a longer range. However, several smaller creatures located close together might, to the dilettante, read like a single larger one. And to answer your next question, no, you may not ‘try out’ my magolabe.”

  “Humpf,” said Lee.

  “And do forgive the presumptuousness,” said Sam. “I assume you would inform us if you detected anything large in the vicinity, whether it was an ogre or not.”

  Lady Isylnoir glared at her. “Your party was selected to escort me in order to gather intelligence regarding the ogres’ whereabouts and machinations.”

  Gnebnik stood and stretched his legs. He slapped Sam on the shoulder. “In other words, a meat shield only serves her interests if it’s alive. Keep yer head an’ we’ll be fine.”

  Lady Isylnoir stood up, nodding at Gne
bnik. “Master armorer. I assume you have experience with an aura ward?”

  “Aye.”

  “Good. Inform the others of its proper function. I will set it before I retire for the evening. The radius is twenty paces. I will be quite cross if any of you trip it accidentally.”

  Lady Isylnoir retreated to the far corner of the three-sided stone structure, sat cross-legged atop her bedroll, closed her eyes, and began reciting a low, almost ghostly chant.

  Gnebnik nodded at Sam and Lee. “You two. The aura ward works like a tripwire alarm, but without the need for a tripwire.”

  “Neat,” said Lee. “Why didn’t we use one on our trip to Irondale.”

  “Because they are prohibitively expensive,” said Shin.

  Lee grumbled and scrubbed his mess kit.

  Gnebnik unfolded his bedroll. “Sam, you take first watch, Lee you’re second. I’ll take third. Shin is off tonight.”

  “And Lady Isylnoir?”

  “She is contributing the ward to our security. And she’s the quest sponsor, so technically she’s not a party member anyway.”

  Sam sat at the fire, crossbow at the ready, gaze shifting between the shelter’s open wall and the slumbering forms of the others. She shot a quick glance to the far corner, where Lady Isylnoir sat in the shadows, still chanting faintly. “Lee’s a model roommate in comparison,” she mumbled.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  The first few hours of travel were swift, as the party rode along a well-manicured road, but after a midmorning reading of her magolabe, Lady Isylnoir announced that the ogres were likely off the main road, in the Towerwood Forest.

  With Shin having to scout not only for the presence of hazards, but also for the route itself, the party’s pace slowed. They had a map noting the significant geographic features: rivers, mountains, and lakes. Yet the most critical element to the traveler wishing to complete the journey alive could be found on no map: the ever-shifting territories of ferocious predators. Said territories had borders no wise adventurer would wish to discover by accident, for when traversing the wilderness of Arvia, a straight line often represents the shortest distance to a predator’s stomach.