If Alka Alon blushed, she would have. There was more to that story, I could tell. The part about being in exile, or entrapped, or however you wanted to view it was making our guest uncomfortable. “She is in residence there with but a few servants now, enjoying her dotage in pure study. And there is, indeed, a natural hot spring – one of the reasons the region was settled.”
“So it’s your grandmother,” yawned Alya. "That improves my mood, I suppose. And the idea of soaking my sore back in a hot spring is lovely. I take it she likes humans?”
“Adores them,” Ithalia promised. “And the journey should be easy to make. There are but few natural dangers and some scattered bandits in this land. Your folk grow oats there, and barley, and have cut back the forest, which is a shame. Once it was tended as a garden, every hill and dale blessed and sang to. Then it was a wasteland, devastated by the forces of magic and war. Then the humani came and made it bloom again, beautiful in a different way with their importasta trees, their birds, their insects. It was a fresh, wild song that the land embraces.”
“That is really beautiful,” Alya said, sitting up in her cushions, slightly. “My sires always said it was the Tree Folk who made the trees grow.”
“That would be a conceit,” Ithalia nodded. “But we do help them along, we adore them so. Some of our wisest take to crossing them, breeding them as you would a mare or a cow until they produce wonders. And we know the songs to make them grow fast and large and produce many seedlings.”
“Your cities must be magical,” Alya breathed. “Beautiful,” she amended, realizing that Alka Alon cities were, by their very nature, magical.
“Now, they are often mere arboretums,” she said. “Of my kindred’s great settlements only a few survive: Carneduin, in the Kulines, a place of great lore. Anthatiel, the City of the Lake, in the remote reaches of the Mindens. And Nandaroriel, a merry place, but a shadow of its former glory. Other kindreds live differently, within our realm, but ours prefers the majesty of living wood to the cold of stone.”
“It sounds terribly romantic,” agreed Alya, who I could tell was not at all allured by the thought of living perched in a tree. “Is that where you are now?”
“I am . . . in transit,” she answered. “I took a respite to look in on you, but I will have to be on my way again soon. Indeed, I may not be able to contact you for the next few days. Fear not, just follow my instructions and I will contact you anon. In two days time you will reach Gilasfar. From there you make your way northeast to the domain of Sarthameton. The locals know a way into the forest, they call it the Elf’s Gate. Have them take you there. From there, I will help you make the final part of the journey.”
We continued chatting for a few more minutes, Ithalia politely (if often evasively) answering Alya’s questions about the Tree Folk and their culture. While many girlhood myths about the elusive creatures were shattered for her, she came away from the meeting very impressed by Ithalia. When her songspell could no longer hold and she bid us farewell, Alya was even feeling more positive about our visit to the Sorceress of Sartha Wood.
“But did you get the feeling that she was holding back something, Min?” she asked as she peeled a hardboiled egg Palia had brought her. “Like there is a lot more to this that she isn’t telling us?”
I nodded approvingly. My bride was observant. “Just what I thought, too. But we don’t know enough to know what questions to ask, yet. Not about them, not about her. But they’re on our side,” I reasoned. I remembered the Aronin and his fellows marching bravely toward the malignant green sphere that was Sharuel.
“I suppose,” she said, slowly. “Still, dealing with cheese merchants taught me how pretty words and a smile can distract you while you’re getting stolen blind.”
I looked at her, startled. “They really tried to cheat you by being charming?” Such things were notoriously common among the mercantile class. Charming got you little when you were an artisan.
“Whoever said I was the one getting cheated?” she smiled, mischievously. “Can you hand me those plums? If I move more than half an inch I’m going to have to pee. And once I’m up, I’m going back to bed.”
I handed her the plums. “Having fun so far?” I asked.
“It’s my honeymoon,” she moaned gratefully as she began eating the dried plum. They had been dusted in cinnamon and were quite good. “I’m sitting on my arse, sleeping as much as I want and eating like a duchess. My husband isn’t ignoring me yet. There are no Censors jumping out of the bushes. No gurvani hiding in the chamberpot. I am content, my husband.”
“Just as long as you don’t get bored,” I smiled. “I don’t think you could bear that.”
* * *
One of the lovely advantages of pushing upstream on the remote Teelvar during early winter was the scenery, the wildlife, and the lack of much else in the way of traffic on the river. Apart from the occasional cot or hovel on the river banks, where villeins fished and crones did laundry in the chilly water, it was almost completely unspoiled. It was peaceful and quiet as the water elementals pushed us along under a clear, cold blue sky and warm sun.
But the remote nature of the branch also made it a good spot for enterprising locals to interfere with trade without much in the way of risk of accountability, it seemed. A single barge making its way upstream at that time of year was unusual enough to warrant special consideration.
I was just getting up from an afternoon nap when I heard a particularly distinctive thunk of metal on wood. The sort you don’t mistake for anything else. An arrow.
“Pirates!” came the pilot’s panicked call. I was up the short steps in a flash, closing the hatch behind me. The pilot was coming out of the rudderhouse, but he didn’t look too alarmed.
“Where?” I demanded, as I drew a warwand. Yes, I know, I’m on my honeymoon. I’m also wanted dead by a lot of people. And my mageblade was packed away at the bottom of our luggage, enwrapped in oilcloth.
“Soon, my lord,” the pilot said, disgusted. “That’s a Yellow Arrow,” he said, nodding to a long, yellow-fletched shaft that protruded jarringly from the barge’s bow. “That’s how the locals let you know they expect a donation for coming through. And a warning as to what will happen if you don’t comply.”
“Ishi’s tits!” I groaned. “Pirates? On my honeymoon?”
“Likely just a couple of lads who want to try to scare some gilt out o’ us,” the man reasoned. “We’re well past harvest, now, and they’ve spent their bonuses. Now they’re facing winter without. So they’ll watch the shore from secret, try to make the difference through our purses.”
“And if we choose not to comply?”
“Oh, they might try to take us, they might not,” the pilot shrugged. “Depends upon whether they are just a couple o’ lads, or whether they’re a bigger gang. There have been rumors of one, sometimes through here,” he said, uneasily.
“Now you tell me? Captain, I am not inclined to be robbed on my honeymoon.”
“No, you don’t seem the type.”
“Can I count on you to fight?”
“Been a riverman all my life,” he grunted. “I been in my share of scraps with pirates. The mate, too, for his years. You look fit, and will be guarding your wife. Might have a spare axe or knife around here.”
“Don’t bother,” I dismissed. “I’m going to add a few charms to the boat, see if that doesn’t help. But as for these folk,” I said, plucking the arrow from the bow and snapping it in half before throwing it over the side, “I’ll deal with them properly, if I have to.”
I wasn’t particularly nervous about it, as I knew we had been in danger of pirate attack at nearly any time on the river. While it rarely happened on the big ones, like the Burine and the Bontal, river pirates were a constant in the Riverlands. They were almost always out-of-work locals, or enterprising outlaws with some sort of scheme to take a toll on river traffic. Rarely did the attacks lead to a wholesale massacre, but it had happened. Wise lords patrolled for river pirates in their
domain, lest they get a reputation for being unsafe. Wiser lords allowed just enough river piracy to make their tolls seem worthwhile.
The pirates usually enjoyed a marginal existence in camps and hidden oxbows and used elaborate systems to spy out likely targets. The gangs were ephemeral, and waxed and waned with the need for honest labor in the nearby villages, but there were frequently other criminal enterprises associated with pirates.
Ironically, many local groups were viewed as sort of folk heroes to the local villagers. While no one wanted pirates to take their barge, seeing the lads from the river come and spend their loot at your shop was seen as a boon to business.
I wasn’t about to let this pretty barge become some pirate’s prize. Nor did I want to spill blood on my honeymoon. I considered digging my mageblade, Twilight, out of the hold, but that might take hours . . . and spread our baggage out on the deck for all the world to see. Instead I tried to cast a big unnoticeability charm on the barge
But the biggest thing I did was to prepare a few scratch wands.
I found a bundle of willow branches in the barrel of tinder near the galley and after magically inspecting them, I found a half-dozen that would suit my purpose. I returned to the privacy of the pavilion on the deck and began trimming them with my belt knife until they were each about eighteen inches long, each the thickness of my pinkie.
These weren’t real warwands, of course. If you want to kill someone, it takes a lot of power and some relatively sophisticated tools - and willow is just the wrong wood for that. It takes a spell easily, but it won’t keep it without a lot of effort. And it couldn’t bear but so much power before something unfortunate happened.
But I didn’t need these to last, and I didn’t need to blaze hot arcane death on my foes. I just needed them incapacitated. Luckily, the War College at Relan Cor had a huge library on all sorts of warwands, and among the ones I’d picked up was the decidedly non-lethal Malleus Wand - known in the trade as the Guthammer, Using five innocent glyphs and a sigil, the Malleus was an ideal way to keep a sentry down without risking killing him . . . in one of the most painful ways possible.
It was a low-power wand, but it didn’t need much. The sigil allowed a small electrical charge to explode for a few moments, but not on the skin - on the target’s vagus nerve. The sudden interruption of so many autonomic processes in the body resulted in immediate loss of consciousness, and the occasional control of the bladder and bowels. No physical damage was done, but the effect was splendidly sudden and immediate. The victim was usually out for twenty minutes, and when he woke up, he felt like a drunk in the bottom of a privy. You didn’t even need a command word mnemonic. Just touch him, and down he goes.
I held three of them on me, and then hid the other three around the boat. The wands wouldn’t last more than a few days, a week at most, before they lost power. And I had other resources. It only took me a few moments to hang a couple of deadlier spells, more sophisticated things I could cast with a word. I made sure that the cook and Palia would join my wife in the hold as soon as there was a sign of trouble.
Then I sat back and scryed the route ahead. I’m no great military tactician, but I saw a spot, a bend in the river six miles ahead, that was perfect for piracy, in my estimation. Closer examination revealed enough to confirm my suspicions, and even estimate the number of our foes. I ran through a few possible scenarios, and didn’t see much room for error. I finally sat down to lunch - lamb sliced thin, marinated in a rich red wine, and cooked over the coals - feeling quite satisfied by my preparations.
“We’re going to be attacked by pirates this afternoon,” I mentioned to my bride, casually. “Don’t worry, I have it taken care of, but I thought it would be appropriate to bring it to your attention.
“Pirates?” she said, her eyes wide. “First you take me to a sorceress in the forest in the middle of nowhere, and now we have to fight pirates?”
“I’m going to fight the pirates,” I corrected. “You just get to watch.”
“Min, are you being serious?” she accused.
“Am I likely to jest about a pirate attack?” I asked, surprised. “It seems to be just a little shake-down operation. I could pay them off, but that seems against my nature.”
“You’re doing this because you’re bored, right?” she grumbled. “Here it is your honeymoon, and I’m the shape of a pumpkin. That has to be hard for a husband to bear.”
“I’ve never been happier,” I said, honestly. “And your shape hasn’t precluded any traditional honeymoon activities,” I reminded her. “We just have to get creative.”
She snorted. She didn’t look convinced. “I think you’re growing bored with me.”
“So bored I arranged to be attacked by pirates? Waylaid by Alka Alon plots?” I asked in disbelief.
“You’re a wizard,” she reminded me. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“It seems an awful lot to willfully arrange at such short notice,” I pointed out. Was she just teasing me? Or was she serious?
“Perhaps,” she conceded. “But I guess I’ll have to just get used to this sort of thing, now. Being a wizard’s wife.”
“And lady of the domain!” I said.
“Please, one re-adjustment at a time,” she warned. “I’ve just barely accepted that I’m your wife, and now I’m contending with being a wizard’s wife. We’ll save Lady Alya for another time. I’m still working on Goody Alya.”
“Fair enough,” I conceded. “And I have to agree, you will have to get used to a few . . . unusual aspects of my profession. Whatever that happens to be, now. But conversing with fey creatures and defending my love from pirates are, apparently, just those sorts of elements.”
“Daddy always said I should have married a rancher,” she snorted. “They’re predictable, stable . . .”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said, flatly. “Let’s not even discuss my mother’s feelings about whom I should have married.” That made her blush. She knew precisely my mother’s feelings on the subject, after spending a few weeks under her roof. They weren’t flattering. Mother thought I should have found a nice Riverlands girl, perhaps a miller’s daughter, not a western mountain woman who talked with a funny accent. “If such things are going to discomfit you, my wife, best I should hear of it now.”
“As I said, I am merely growing used to the idea, my husband. And in a few short months, I get to discover what motherhood will make me. Grant me the boon of patience, my lord,” she said, sarcastically.
I sighed. I did owe her that.
“And I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” she added, slyly. “My love, if you could hold off a hundred thousand goblins, you can handle a few common river pirates.”
That was what I wanted to hear, I realized. Here I was trying to keep her safe, and she was sniping at me about her marital options. I needed a bit of validation, it just took her awhile to get there.
I stood and kissed her brow. “I’ll try to make it quick,” I promised her. “If we aren’t delayed, we can make Gilasfar in time for supper in a proper inn.”
* * *
“Red arrow!” shouted the pilot, a moment after the scarlet-fletched shaft thunked into the bow, near to where the yellow arrow had sprung. The pilot had informed me that this was the pirate’s way of saying “stand and deliver!”.
The women had taken shelter in the cabin below, and the mate had grabbed a rusty short sword, a frightened look in his eyes as he guarded the hatch. The pilot continued steering, resolutely, the water elementals mindlessly forcing us against the current. He had a wickedly curved knife in his belt and a spear next to his tiller.
I stood around with a drink in my hand. I’d found a breathtaking mint spirit in the chest of goodies Pentandra had left, and I was sipping it on the foredeck after I had readied my defensive spells. I suppose an unnoticeability spell wasn’t worth much when you’re doing something as noticeable as pushing a boat upstream without anyone at the poles.
“Two boats, aft,” th
e mate reported, trying to sound confident. “Two apiece.”
“That won’t be all,” promised the pilot. “That’s just to keep us from turning around.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, my insides warmed by the strong liquor. As we approached the bend where I had scryed our trap, ropes flew from the overhanging trees, boathooks on their ends. Two clutched firmly at the starboard gunwales and tried to pull the barge into a knot of trees looming menacingly from the bank.
I waved, sending a simple charm in their direction. Both ropes parted from their hooks and allowed us to go free.
But the pirates were persistent. Another rope dropped from the trees, and three skinny, barefoot pirates descended.
They certainly looked the part: undyed cotton tunics and trousers, threadbare woolen mantles or leather jerkins. Each bore a long, nasty-looking knife in their fists.
Orduin, the young mate, tensed, but I’d ordered him not to move unless I commanded it. This was my honeymoon. This was my fight. He was just supposed to guard the hatch.
The Spellmonger's Honeymoon: A Spellmonger Novella (The Spellmonger Series) Page 7
