Her One Wish

by Marie Hall

  He chuckled, hefting the slight weight of the vial in his palm. “Drink it. Do ye take me for a fool? What do you really want, witch?”

  A bright red glint burst through her eyes then, and he knew the moment he saw it with whom he actually spoke.

  “Baba Yaga.” He dropped the vial, scooting his chair back.

  The witch with three faces—child, maiden, and crone. To have her come within his camp. Why, why was she here? A knife could do nothing against her. His heart hammered painfully in his chest now. Robin did not fear death, but he feared dying before bringing Crispin down.

  She cackled. “My bloody damn eyes, always giving me away. Trust when I say I dinnae want you dead, boy. I’ve my reasons for wanting to see your…”—she rolled her wrist—“plan succeed. That potion is exactly what I say it is. You find that genie, and you fix this. Or not. ‘Tis entirely up to you.”

  A violent clap of thunder exploded then, deafening Robin and tossing him from her wagon to the muddy ground below. When he sat up, the caravan was gone.

  In his hand rested the vial.

  ~*~

  “Are you daft, Robin?” Little John grunted in astonishment thirty minutes later after Robin told his friend almost all of the story.

  John would never place his trust in Baba Yaga, and, honestly, Robin might be a fool to do it himself, but the more he thought on it, the more he trusted his gut. She’d been telling the truth. Why the witch cared, he knew not.

  Robin leaned back on his bench and kicked out his leg. “I’ve never thought more clearly, John. Why would you think me—”

  “Why?” He gaped. “Why!” Every time John got excited the plump folds of his cheeks turned scarlet and mottled. “Because this is a fairytale! The damned thing doesn’t exist, if it did, dinna ye think it’d have been found by now?”

  John was a solidly built man, with fists like iron hammers and a belly that jiggled when he walked. But for all that, he was a quiet, contemplative soul. Unless, of course, while drunk—then John could be a wee bit of a hellion, though Robin would never tell him so to his face.

  He was also Robin’s right-hand man, the only man within his inner circle to whom Robin admitted the true workings of his mind.

  A master thief by trade, Robin didn’t actually need his Merry Men—and that term was absolutely ridiculous, one he’d never held with, but the damn fairies had labeled them as such and for better or for worse it was a moniker that’d stuck—to do what he willed, he’d taken in the motley assortment of men for reasons which were his own, and definitely not as altruistic as the stories might lead one to believe.

  “If the stories are true, then that would mean that genie devil killed her last master.” He crossed himself quickly before kissing his thumb. “To even contemplate bringing that into our camp,” he sneered.

  Robin shook his head, rolling his eyes at his man’s theatrics.

  “No, you mind my words.” John wagged a blunt finger. “That’s the devil’s toy, it is. And thank the gods that it is nothing more than mere myth; we’ve enough monsters in our world.”

  Robin snorted. If John only knew the monster that’d just been in their midst moments ago.

  “If it’s myth, mate, then why do you look ready to piss yourself? Hm?” Robin chuckled at John’s blustery features.

  Snapping his jaws shut, the big brute crossed his thick arms and growled, “I do not find this at all humorous. It is bad form to risk our men for sport such as this.” He leaned forward, whispering the last words, as though afraid they might be overheard by any one of the fifty men now deep in slumber within the haunted forest of the South.

  Robin’s lips twitched as he poked at the dying campfire flame with a dead stick. “You worry too much. Of course, you always worry too much.”

  “And you don’t worry enough.” John’s brown eyes were like hard chunks of granite. His bristled jaw clenched twice before he finally sighed and said, “You won’t budge on this, will you?”

  “Nope.” Robin popped the “p”. “I won’t. I want the lamp.”

  “If I am to risk my neck—”

  Shrugging, Robin dropped the twig and leaned back, enjoying the last bit of warmth from the dying flame. The sun would rise in an hour. He’d thought long and hard on this.

  “I’m not asking you to come with me. In fact”—he eyed his man—“I’m going it alone.”

  “Like the bloody blazes you are,” John snorted. “Ye can leave the rest of the men, and that’s fine, but I go where you go. That was the deal.”

  Grunting, Robin scooted forward, crossing his elbows over his knees. “I release you from that bloody vow, mate. How many times do I have to tell you, the debt’s been paid.”

  “Over my dead body, and only then.” John nodded decisively. “Where you go, I go. Period.”

  Years ago, Robin had come across the tale of the dark genie in one of the out-of-the-way taverns he and his men frequented while in between their “gathering duties”—a nice way of saying stealing, if he wanted to break it down to its basest form—and the thought had simmered in his head like a slow-leaking poison for nearly three decades since. If that genie actually did exist, it would solve all his problems.

  True, John was probably right—the legend was probably nothing more than mere fancy. Kingdom was rife with them, rarely was any story told in its entire truth.

  Hell, around the universe he and his men were known as good little scouts stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Not bloody likely. But he’d lived long enough to know that to any fairy story there was always a small grain of truth.

  Finding genies, of any kind, was near impossible. Aye, there were always stories of a pauper suddenly finding himself with a wealth of disposable income, and Robin had even seen a genie or two in his day, but they were rare and difficult to come by.

  No sooner would he learn of a location than he’d find it was gone.

  For years treasure hunters had sought out the location of the dark genie, which was always shrouded in mystery. Some said the lamp had been buried beneath the waves of the Seren Seas, others within the trenches of the cannibal dwarves’ stone caves, but never had the creature been found.

  But now he might potentially have found a way with this finder spell.

  The bottle only contained enough juice for one trip. If he allowed himself to be misled, he’d never find it. But his ability to peer beneath what the eyes saw to the reality beneath improved his odds of unearthing the genie tenfold.

  If the stories about the dark genie were true, and with Baba making an appearance, more and more he began to believe it might be so, then this long-fought war with Crispin might finally come to an end.

  Find her and make her his and then the king’s realm would finally be Robin’s by right and might. The bloody bastard—his molars clenched whenever he thought of the officious man.

  “In the morning we tell the men to make their way back to Sherwood Forest. It’ll take us a week, maybe a week and a half, and then we’ll meet up, just in time for Crispin’s ball.”

  John tilted his head. “I hear the shivers of retribution in your words, Robin.” And as if to punctuate his words, John rubbed at the fine hairs standing up on his muscular forearms. “But I doubt we’ll find that genie in a day, hell, not even in two days, more like a week, I don’t doubt. Which means we could be gone two weeks or more. We’ll need more than just the two of us. I say we bring a group of five all total, that should do us well.”

  “Five.” Robin snorted. “Not likely.”

  “Then it’s settled. Four.” John clapped his hands to his knees, gave Robin a no-nonsense look, and then stood, marching off to rouse two other men.

  Unable to help the chuckle from escaping his lips, Robin merely shook his head. Smart man. If he’d stayed, Robin would have demanded they bring only one other and John would have had no choice but to agree. Because that’s what John did. He agreed with anything Robin demanded, even if he didn’t want to.

  John ha
d developed an almost anxious attachment to Robin years ago.

  There’d been a moment in their life that’d bonded the men. One they rarely spoke of, and one no other knew. A secret they’d shared and would take to their graves. Some days it bothered Robin how much of an interest John took in his affairs, but then again, he’d also never known a man more loyal for no other reason than out of a profound sense of duty and honor.

  Reaching into his hip pocket he withdrew the vial, flicking at the red wax seal with his thumb.

  All his hopes, all his dreams—to think they could be realized by one drink, it was almost too impossible to believe. For years Robin had resigned himself to the thought that there was nothing he could ultimately do to regain what was rightfully his.

  But now…

  Now his life rested within the viscous fluid inside the vial. He clenched his jaw.

  With a deft flick of his nail, he cracked the seal and swallowed the repugnant spell. It slid down his throat, thick and wet and briny tasting. Making him gag as it settled hot in his empty gut.

  The bastard would pay for what he’d done. Robin would see to that, even if it were the last thing on Kingdom he ever did.

  Chapter 4

  “And you’re certain that this is the place, then?” Maurice—a steely-eyed swordsman with a wicked right hook and an even wickeder scar that traveled from the tip of his temple to the outer edge of his lip—asked, glancing around with a worried frown.

  Thrane—and equally disreputable-looking man, with a long, grizzled beard and a paunch that could rival John’s own—snorted. “Don’t tell me the wee lad is afeared,” he teased Maurice, who hissed back at him.

  “I most certainly am not, you son of a whore.”

  “Och, well if me mum’s a whore, then so is yours, ye ignorant bastard.”

  The brothers were known to bicker, and bicker often. But they were also loyal to Robin to a fault and would keep their tongues about what they’d see or hear on this excursion, which was likely the only reason John had chosen them from the bunch.

  Robin’s lips set into a grim line, ignoring their banter, choosing instead to focus on getting to his quarry. Ahead of them stretched the flatlands of Kingdom’s sulfur pools.

  The pools were a foul-smelling wasteland of death. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but vast miles of deep pools full of toxic brownish-black water. Plumes of white smoke curled up from the hundreds of puddles through the air like fat fingers, the rotten, eggy waft saturating the breeze enough to make Robin’s insides dip and sway. His stomach threatened to bring up his morning meal.

  Currently they stood within the sheltering grove of a forest, but all they needed to do was take one more step and it would be like being transported to an entirely new and strange world. The line of trees cut off almost at a precise point, moving from thick, lush greenery to nothing but red dirt.

  Toeing the dirt, he studied the landscape ahead for any signs of life, but the place was completely barren. There were no trees or grass, no birds flitting through the air, there weren’t even insects. Everything was dead and filled Robin with a terrible sense of foreboding.

  There were animals calling through trees right behind him, insects scampering over the toe of his boots, and yet, it was almost like the creatures had a sixth sense preventing them from crossing the demarcation of life to death.

  Curling his nose, he glanced at John.

  “Bloody hell,” his right-hand man said.

  “Aye,” Robin agreed thoughtfully.

  The finder serum had led them here, about a four-day journey northwest from Sherwood. John had been right, of course. The walk had been much farther than Robin had anticipated. His men were in good hands, not that he worried for them much, but still. A four-day voyage was a nuisance he’d not anticipated.

  To even consider staying away from his men for so long wasn’t ideal. In a fortnight Crispin would host his annual fair. That was the time to strike, when spirits were high and drinks plentiful, when the promise of slacking a man’s lustful needs overrode his common sense to guard and protect the realm as he should.

  Of course, Robin could find the dark genie and wish them back. It would be expedient to do so, give him the time he needed to plan his infiltration of the king’s event. But it would also waste a wish, which in the end could cost him dearly.

  He set his jaw.

  “Do you see it, then?” John leaned in to whisper.

  The brothers hadn’t been apprised of what exactly it was they were looking for. All they’d been told was that Robin had heard of a great treasure and he’d need them to tag along for backup.

  Rubbing the back of his neck, Robin was reluctant to move away from the safety of the woods. His skin prickled and tightened, a lot like the feeling he got when being watched by faces he couldn’t see.

  “Do you feel it?” Robin asked, turning to his men, staring them each in the eye.

  “If by feeling it ye mean the eeriness of the place, then aye.” Maurice shuddered. “I feel it. Feels worse than traveling through the haunted forest.”

  “No.” The fact that the pools were far from inviting didn’t bother Robin nearly as much as the fact that there was most definitely something, or someone, watching them. “I mean the eyes.”

  All heads turned up, staring into the thick branches of the shrouded tree above them.

  They all four stood there for a moment, peering silently through the forest, as if trying to will whatever it was out into the open. But apart from a murder of crows resting on the branches above, there was nothing.

  “And what exactly is it we’ve come in search of, then?” Thrane asked, his gravelly voice almost booming in the silence.

  “A prize that will make all our years of toil be a thing of the past.”

  “And is it waiting for us in the fields?” John asked, getting back to his question of earlier.

  Nodding, Robin turned back to stare at the pools. “I suspect so, yes. That’s where the pull is strongest. There can be no ambush waiting for me there, so I’ll need you three to remain behind and keep a close watch, and once I get it, we’ll be leaving immediately.”

  “Do you expect an ambush?” John’s nostrils flared.

  Robin rubbed the back of his neck. “Not necessarily. We’re being watched, though by what or whom, I couldn’t tell you.”

  Withdrawing a wickedly curved saber, John jerked his chin in the direction of the pools. “Then be well, mate, and trust your men to keep a close watch.”

  Not sparing his men another glance, Robin squared his shoulders and stepped into the glaring heat of the noonday sun. It was like he was being led by an invisible string. a nagging tug compelled him forward to a smallish pool some fifty yards away.

  Trusting that his men would call should they spot the “eyes,” Robin knelt and ran his fingers through the grainy red dirt. The tug was now gone.

  The serum had done its job: it’d led him to the spot where the lamp rested. Unfortunately, the lamp was either in the pool or buried beneath the earth. Either way, recovering it wouldn’t be easy.

  With a soft mutter, he called his magic to him, peeling back what was seen to reveal what was unseen, looking beneath the surface to what lay below.

  The colors of the world shifted from normal to an infrared glow, the colors determined not by what the objects were, but by the heat markers they left behind.

  “Bloody hell,” he sighed.

  The waters were now a roiling red, the earth a pale blue. He could make out a few objects—likely rocks, since they were black in color through and through—below. But nothing lamp-shaped.

  Jaws clenching, he wondered whether the serum had been defective and he’d pinned all his hopes on yet another fruitless endeavor, but just as he shifted on the balls of his feet he saw a wavering image, like a wet mirage on hot sand.

  Heart skipping a beat, he shifted slightly to the left and this time released a shouting whoop of relief.

  “You’ve found
it?” John called from a distance.

  Wiping the sweat off his brow, Robin nodded. “Aye, but it’s buried beneath several layers of dirt and hidden within a mirage.”

  Trotting back to the men, Robin reached for his pack. He’d brought along shovels and pickaxes for the trip, not sure if he’d need them.

  Twirling one of the shovels in his palm, Robin grinned. “We’re almost home, boys. We’re almost home.”

  The brothers smiled in tandem, though John did not. There was a look in his dark eyes that made Robin think he worried.

  Clapping his friend on the shoulder, he nodded. “All will be well, Little John, you’ll see.”

  “I hope so.”

  Just the thought of home, of reclaiming what was rightfully his, lent Robin strength. Returning back to the pool, he attacked the earth with a vengeance, scooping up shovelful after shovelful. The progress was slow, but his determination was strong.

  After thirty minutes, he paused only long enough to toss aside his sweat and dirt-stained shirt and resumed his digging.

  Repeating the same motion over and over again.

  Dig. Pull. Throw.

  Dig. Pull. Throw.

  On and on and on.

  Lost in the monotony of his task, he didn’t stop until a burning thirst gripped him.

  “John. Water.” He glanced up, leaning on the tip of the shovel, only just realizing how far down he was.

  He could barely see the world above without having to lean on his toes. He was easily six feet down, if not a little more.

  A canteen was thrust at him.

  “How much farther, mate?” John’s voice was a scratchy burr.

  “I’m standing within the mirage now,” Robin said as he glanced at his feet. Tilting his head a little to the left, he spotted the lamp. “I’d say another fifteen minutes or so should see me out of here.”

  “Then if it’s all the same to you”—John knelt—“I’ll stand here and watch.”

  Chugging the warm contents down his parched throat, Robin shrugged. “Call the men over too—I think they deserve to see what all the smoke and mirrors was about, don’t you?”

  Brown eyes finally gleamed with excitement. “Aye. I do. Maurice. Thrane,” John barked and motioned with a flick of his wrist. “Come.”