Fool's Errand

by David G. Johnson

  “You know, my northern friend,” Gideon replied, “I was not born a paladin, and I have dealt with more than my share of drunken soldiers serving as a mercenary. I am sure I can draw on those experiences to emulate the behavior. Melizar, are you certain that this plant works on Adami? The One Lord forbids his people to be drunk with alcohol.”

  “This stuff works on every race we have tested it on. Your sobriety will be intact. You have my word on that.”

  Gideon nodded, indicating his trust in the word of the mage and took a bit of the moss. Placing it into his mouth, he began to chew.

  “Just because I am small and a girl,” Jeslyn snapped, her fiery temper once again reared its head. “Don’t think for a moment I couldn’t drink your giganto butt under the table even without this silly weed. Rajiki make a root-based alcohol that would plant you on your backside after half a glass, and we drink it with our meals.”

  Goldain smiled.

  “I am well aware of the Rajiki root-mead, chikava. I have shared it many times with the tribes living close to the wolf clan borders. Some tribes to mix certain flowers into their chikava, which produces some interesting hallucinations.”

  “Yes, that is called chikava-papa. It is not a normal beverage but used in ritual spirit walks. This is part of Rajiki coming-of-age ceremonies of some tribes, though Blue Arrow tribe does not use this. Anyway, then, you know Rajiki are no strangers to strong drink, so don’t be so quick to write me out of your plans, Goldain.”

  “Yes, princess, no doubt you can carry your weight at the drinking table, but the men around here may not be familiar with Rajiki warrior women and their drinking prowess. In order to not overdo our acting job, perhaps you may wish to consider playing the part of the sober caretaker just this once.”

  Jeslyn was obviously not happy, but she folded her arms in front of her chest and harrumphed a begrudging “Fine then,” and let the matter drop.

  Melizar could not fathom why the northerner chose placation over exercising authority. Indulging this temperamental child was growing wearisome. Perhaps a bit of mistargeted kashaph during their next hostile encounter might be in order to rid them of the troublesome child for good.

  “Well that is settled then,” said Thatcher. “Let’s chew up this trezen and get downstairs. After dinner, Melizar and I will lay out the rest of it for you.”

  Thatcher grabbed a pinch of the trezen and popped it in his mouth. The look on his face showed he was using every bit of his self-control to not spray his mouthful fully into the faces of his companions. Gideon’s lack of reaction had not let on how truly horrendous this stuff tasted. Melizar well knew it was a nauseating combination of salty, sour, and bitter and as one chewed it, leaving behind a stinging sensation spreading throughout the whole mouth as though one were chewing on a fistful of bees.

  “Aw…” Thatcher squawked, “Jeslyn be glad you are playing caretaker and don’t have to ingest this foul plant.”

  “Good stuff, huh, kid?” Goldain chided, only frowning slightly as he chewed his own noxious mouthful.

  “Just like mom used to make!” Captain Gideon said, rendering a rare quip as he and the northerner exchanged grins. An audible chuckle escaped from beneath Melizar’s dark mask.

  “Oh, sorry, I forgot to warn you,” said Melizar. “The trezen is a marvelous plant for the work it accomplishes, but it tastes like the sole of a marglak’s foot that has been rubbed in a kragzar’s armpit.”

  The surface dwellers exchanged puzzled glances as Melizar continued to snicker at his own clever comment. Of course none of his companions had any idea what a marglak or a kragzar was, but to anyone from Shadowdeep, that would have been a hilarious analogy. Still Melizar gave his companions credit for politely pretending to laugh along.

  Jeslyn, who had no idea what the mage was talking about and unlike the others no idea about his secret, just screwed her face up and harrumphed again, probably assuming the adults were trying to make fun of her somehow.

  Once the four men had their mouths sufficiently prickled with the bite of the trezen juice, they swallowed the remains of their bitter vegetation and proceeded downstairs for the evening meal. Everything they were served looked and smelled well enough, and Jeslyn commented that for prison food, it was pretty good. Of course for those under the influence of the trezen, they could just as well have been eating moldy old socks for all they could taste.

  “Oh yes, another side effect of the trezen I forgot to mention,” added Melizar, “is that pretty much whatever you eat or drink all tastes the same.”

  “Fantastic…” grumbled Thatcher.

  Thatcher and Goldain made quite a show of ordering wine and ale in abundance.

  “Come on now innkeeper,” Goldain said. “Princess Tarynna herself said we are guests of Cyria tonight, and our evening fare was courtesy of the Cyrian royal family. You wouldn’t want to defame the royal family by skimping on the drinks now, would you?”

  Thatcher laughed as he mused that Goldain was quite the ham when the need, or even the opportunity for that matter, presented itself. Thatcher had grown deeply fond of the northerner. Goldain had become more of a big brother to him than the whole guild full of rogues with whom he had grown up. He found himself wishing this adventure would never end.

  For once, he truly felt as though he had a family. Gideon was like the father that the cruelty and selfishness of that Aton-Ri merchant deprived him of as a child. Melizar was like a crazy grandfather that the family kept hidden away in the attic but loved just the same, even with all his eccentricities. The absent Duncan was like the uncle who drank and joked too much but was always there to lift your spirits when you were down. And Jeslyn, well she was the annoying kid sister who just had to nose her way into all her older brother’s business. At this moment, in a strange land far from any home he had ever known, Thatcher realized he was the happiest he had ever been in his life.

  After much dramatization, exaggerated drinking, and merrymaking, the evening meal drew to a close.

  “Melizar,” Gideon said quietly, clapping the mage on the shoulder, “this trezen is amazing. I have consumed more alcohol tonight than I have in the past year combined, yet my head is as clear as ever.”

  “Glad to hear, captain, but perhaps the time has come for us to retire for the evening.”

  The four revelers plus Jeslyn made their way upstairs. Goldain continued to ham up his performance with staggers, stumbles, and even the one gratuitous pratfall at the top of the stairs.

  Thatcher could not resist this opportunity. He pretended to need Jeslyn’s help even to walk. Deliberately putting nearly his entire body weight on the girl’s shoulders, he hoped to get her to stumble. His plan failed.

  Despite a bit of grunting at the effort, the girl was not as skinny and waifish as she looked. She proved easily strong enough to have carried the young rogue upstairs without any assistance. Thatcher’s arms around her shoulders felt beneath them the streamlined but well-toned muscles of a budding young woman. This thought hit Thatcher about halfway up the stairs, and he immediately returned most of his weight to his own two feet, his face flushing inexplicably.

  Jeslyn must have caught sight of the change in the hue of Thatcher’s face and noticed the reduction of the weight he was putting onto her shoulders. She whispered tauntingly in his ear.

  “What’s the matter, Thatch? Don’t worry, I ain’t got nothin’ that you are gonna catch. Besides, I could toss your scrawny behind over my shoulder and carry you up the stairs if you wanna pretend to pass out. Rajiki women are raised strong on hard work not like them lazy city-girls you no doubt are used to seeing.”

  Thatcher did not respond but felt his face continued to burn a beet red. He had absolutely no idea why.

  As the five companions entered their room, they heard the outer deadbolt drawn behind them. They were locked in for the night. Making a good bit of noise in the process, they began banging beds and groaning exaggerated mumbles a few minutes longer for the benefit of any
one who might be listening at the door.

  There was a little light in the room coming from a low-burning oil lamp on the room’s single table. Through the small, barred window in the west wall, Thatcher could see the slimmest sliver of the waning crescent moon peeking through a mostly clouded sky. With the clouds blocking the stars and the tiny sliver of moonlight fighting to shine through at all, the best conditions they could have hoped for were manifest to cover their escape.

  Thatcher and Melizar motioned for the rest to quietly join them under the small circular-barred window. Melizar whispered instructions.

  “According to Thatcher’s map, we are located just above and to the east of the stables. This window should be aligned with the second stall from the big doors.”

  Jeslyn, looking impatient, interrupted.

  “We heard them pull the deadbolt. We are locked in. Even if we knock out this window and rip our way into the stables through the roof, we are still inside the walls of the keep.”

  Thatcher heard a disgruntled noise emerge from below Melizar’s cowl. He felt he had better intervene before their mage decided to freeze the Rajiki archer solid.

  “Jes, have patience and listen for once. We have it all worked out if you will just give Melizar time to explain.”

  The girl stuck her tongue out at Thatcher, but did hold back any further comment, returning her attention to the mage.

  “As I was saying,” Melizar continued, “you will need to trust me. There was no place for guards to sleep inside the stables, according to Thatcher’s reconnaissance, so I will cast a shadow door. It is a kashaph power that will allow us to walk through the end in this room and appear out of the other end.”

  “Um,” interjected Goldain with a skeptical arching of eyebrow. “Where exactly will the other end be?

  “I can cause the other end to appear anywhere within a few dozen feet of this end. Thatcher has given me the distances and so I have a clear mental picture. Thanks to his map, I can easily place the other end inside this empty stall in the stable.

  “Our horses, their tack, and harnesses are in the stables as well, so we can quietly ready our mounts. After that, I cast another shadow door inside the stables with the outlet here,” he said, pointing on the map to a narrow alley between two buildings about twenty feet outside the walls of the keep. “The guards at the corners of the walls won’t have line of sight on us this deep in the alley, so we should be able to, with a little luck and quiet horses, maneuver away from the hostel before anyone notices anything amiss.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” Gideon said, “but the city itself is locked up for the night, what do we do about that?”

  “I noticed when we came in last night,” Thatcher explained, “the gate guards were all watching the outside. Everyone in the city knows there is no entry or exit after dark, so the guards won’t be looking for anyone approaching the walls from the inside the city. That’s the hope anyway. We draw up to the wall near the gates as quietly as we can, and Mel casts another shadow door right on the wall itself.”

  “But,” Goldain interrupted still looking not wholly convinced at the soundness of this plan. “Where will that door come out?”

  “Good question,” Thatcher answered. “We passed a small copse of trees about forty-five feet past the gates. From there, we should be able to slip away.”

  “Uh, look,” Goldain said, “I am not a great numbers guy, but you said you could push the other end of your shadow-door thingy a few dozen feet. Can you reach the trees from inside the wall?”

  “Well,” Melizar replied, “admittedly this is the weakest point in the plan. If we are spotted inside the gate, we may have to fight our way out unless we can get close enough to the walls to shadow door just past the walls and make a run for it. That will pretty much sound the alarm and ensure a pursuit. Assuming, however, that we can make it up to the walls without being noticed, I can push my kashaph to its maximum and hopefully reach just to the other side of the trees Thatcher has shown here,” he said once again, pointing to a drawing of the front gates of the city in Thatcher’s notebook.

  “Hopefully?” Goldain pressed with a raised eyebrow.

  “I have prepared one more kashaph in anticipation of avoiding detection should anything go amiss with the plan. The spell is called shadowdusk, and it will engulf us in a moving cloud of shadow, which in this low light will make us nearly invisible.”

  “Sounds spiffy. What’s the catch?”

  “It doesn’t last long, and I only have the components to cast it once, so unfortunately, we cannot use it to cover our approach to the walls as well as our retreat on the other side. We will have to trust to luck and stealth to get us to the walls. At least, if I cannot manage to push the other end of the shadow door all the way to beyond the trees, the shadowdusk spell will keep us hidden. I will use it on us right before we enter the last shadow door and center it on whoever goes through first. It will attached to them and follow wherever they go. As long as we stay close, and the cloud cover holds, we should be able to get a good distance away from the city before the kashaph wears off.”

  “I dunno,” Jeslyn added. “For all your plotting and scheming, it sounds like we got a lot of chances to get caught.”

  “Well,” Thatcher replied, “it is either try our plan or sit here and wait to see what is in store for us tomorrow morning. Something tells me we won’t find the princess’s reaction to Mel’s detection spell to our liking.”

  Gideon looked thoughtful and scratched his short beard for a few moments before rendering his verdict. Thatcher’s heart was pounding in anticipation of whether their leader would see the merit of their meticulous plan or reject the risks as too high. Thatcher had pulled off capers ten times this complicated without a hitch, but Gideon was a paladin, used to politics and decorum, not walking on the edges of life’s cliffs. Thatcher held a breath as Gideon finally answered.

  “While I am not thrilled about possible combat with Cyrians should we be discovered, I do agree our situation is vulnerable. Getting out of town on our own timetable is probably best.

  “I want everyone here to understand one thing,” he continued, as he swept the room with his azure eyes. “No one takes any hostile action inside the borders of Cyria unless it is absolutely unavoidable. Are we of one accord on this point?”

  The others nodded their assent, save Melizar.

  “I have a question, captain.”

  “What is it, Melizar?”

  “I do not understand why you are insistent on being so careful to protect people who would slit your throat without a second thought if the roles were reversed. Honestly, the plan is as unsure and convoluted as it is because young Thatcher rejected my version of the plan where we would kill the guards along the north section of the wall from a distance. Doing that would make our stealthy escape an absolute certainty, well, until the bodies were found anyway. He insisted you would never approve of the plan, but I could sense in his eyes he had little taste for it either. Goldain, surely you see that casualties are expected in conflict, no?”

  “Hah, Mel, leave me out of this one. My job is to hit things with a sword when it is necessary. I’ll leave it up to more strategic heads to tell me when it is and isn’t necessary.”

  “That is a cowardly answer. If it were just you alone, what would you do?”

  Goldain set his teeth and took a deep breath.

  “Mel, I like you. Because I like you, I’m going to give you a benefit I don’t normally give. You might want a handful of kashaph components already in hand before the next time you insinuate a Qarahni is a coward. That generally doesn’t play well to that particular audience. To answer your question, however, I am not alone, so what I would or wouldn’t do is irrelevant. There are five of us to consider, and we all go or we all stay. I trust Gideon to decide the best way to get us out. Given the delicate politics between Cyrian and Parynland, there is more at stake here than just our survival.”

  “Melizar,” Gideon began
with a genuine smile and a look of compassion on his face. “I realize in your home culture things probably work very differently. Goldain is correct that there is more at stake than just our survival, but it goes well beyond just the political situation between Cyria and Parynland.

  “Tarynna has the expectation in her heart that we, or at least some of my countrymen, are behind these attacks. If we slaughter our way out of here after attempting to using kashaph against her, it will only reinforce and amplify whatever preconceptions she has. I want to change her perception and the way we do that is to leave without doing harm. Perhaps this soft answer to our cold reception and virtual imprisonment will turn away the wrath in her heart.”

  “I cannot pretend to understand it, but I will do my utmost to respect your instructions, captain.”

  “That is all I can ask, Melizar. Thank you.”

  For better or worse the plan was set. They gathered all of their personal gear and assembled silently near the small window. Melizar reached into his component bag and withdrew a small piece of charcoal and a handful of grayish-black powder.

  He drew a large archway on the wall of the room just below the window and spoke in a low mumble words none of them could understand. After half a minute, he tossed the powder in an arc in front of him, and the plastered color of the wall within the bounds of the drawn archway dissolved into a wriggling sheet of shadow.

  “This is a shadow door. It will remain active for about two minutes, so if Goldain wouldn’t mind drawing his sword and going first in the event we were wrong about there being no guards in the stable.”

  “Oh, fine,” Goldain said with a smirk. “We might be ambushed, so send the Qarahni in first. Oh well, higher body count for me I guess,”

  He shot a sidewise glance at Gideon, who glowered his disapproval.

  “Just kidding, captain. I know, I know, kill them gently.”

  Without waiting for a response, the large prince ducked his head and stepped right through the shadow-covered wall.