Sarah Palin: Vampire Hunter (Twinkle)

by Dan McGirt

  “What do you wish to know?” asked Rubis.

  “Everything.”

  “I'll bet.”

  Alternating every few sentences, Sapphrina and Rubis skimmed through their life story. Their mother, Jewella, was in her day the most beautiful woman in Zastria. She died giving birth to the sisters. Their father, Corun Corundum, was the richest man in Zastria and a member of the ruling Senate. They grew up among the rich and powerful, enjoying a privileged life of palaces, parties, and pedicures. That carefree existence ended when they defied their father by refusing to go through with the marriages of alliance he arranged for them.

  “Zastrian girls don’t get to marry for love,” said Sapphrina.

  “But the suitors Father picked were particularly odious,” said Rubis.

  “Our refusal utterly upset the balance of power in Zastria,” said Sapphrina.

  “We started a civil war, if you must know,” said Rubis.

  “Helped start it,” Sapphrina corrected. “It wasn't entirely our fault.”

  “Nevertheless, Father ordered us flogged for our defiance,” said Rubis.

  “Flogged?” I was horrified.

  “Scourged is more like it,” said Sapphrina. “He is used to getting his way.”

  “But so are we,” said Rubis.

  “We had planned our escape for some time, saving a portion of our allowance and skimming what we could from Father's treasury,” said Sapphrina. “Though we could own nothing in Zastria, we transferred our funds to a secret account with the Bank of Caratha.”

  “To Caratha we fled,” continued Rubis.

  “You can read the whole sordid tale in our autobiography,” added Sapphrina.

  “Naughty Nymphs,” said Rubis. “It was twelve weeks on the Caratha Times bestseller list.”

  “Not only are we rich and fabulously beautiful,” said Sapphrina. “We're famous too. Not quite as famous as you, however.”

  “Am I famous?”

  “Infamous, rather,” said Rubis. “You’re Arden’s Archvillain.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “We have achieved a certain prominence in Caratha,” said Sapphrina. “Which does not sit well with Father. From time to time he sends agents to abduct us back to Zastria.”

  “But they are easily bribed—or otherwise dissuaded,” said Rubis.

  “Was that how you came to be sold into bondage? Some revenge of your father’s?”

  “No,” said Sapphrina. “At first we thought his men had taken us. But they were instead in the hire of one of our high society rivals.”

  “Aurora Nightdew,” spat Rubis.

  “The treacherous witch came to gloat before they shipped us off to Rumular,” said Sapphrina. “She was much amused by the notion that we would spend the rest of our lives as scullery maids for some backwoods Brythalian baronet.”

  “Birksnore bought us for the price of a broken down donkey,” said Rubis. “We arrived in Offal less than a week ago. We were already planning our escape.”

  “But we are very grateful for the rescue,” said Sapphrina, batting her eyes.

  “Very, very grateful,” said Rubis. She winked.

  By the time we stopped to make camp for the night, I had ceased to be shocked or embarrassed by the suggestive comments of the sisters, for it was apparent to me that their flirtatious manner was more show than substance. They were not quite the naughty nymphs they pretended to be. But they were, to be sure, a bright, brave, and resourceful pair. I was completely charmed.

  Mercury, however, was still annoyed by their presence.

  “They will slow us down,” he groused as I helped him set up a small tent he produced from within the folds of his magic cloak. We decided to pass the night in a little copse atop a low hill between the road and the river.

  “They haven't so far,” I said, glancing down the slope to the river bank where the twins were tending the horses.

  “We've only been on the road a few hours. Tomorrow we'll be in the saddle all day. And the next day. And the next. And so on for weeks. They won't be able to maintain the pace we must set.”

  “They might surprise you. They've got more experience in the saddle than I do.”

  “I don't doubt that, but the Black Bolts will soon pick up our trail in Offal. I don’t want them to catch us out here. In that event, your pretty friends will only be in the way. They might get us all killed.”

  “We beat the Black Bolts before.”

  “What if Natalia attacks? Or the Red Huntsman? Or Isogoras? Or all of them at once? Those girls are our weak link, as any enemy will realize.”

  “So what would you have us do, Mercury? Abandon them in the wilderness?”

  “No. But we must be rid of them as soon as possible.”

  “Before we reach Raelna?”

  “Yes.”

  “You said Brythalia was no place for unescorted women.”

  “Brythalia is bad. But Hell is worse.”

  The sisters shared the tent while Mercury and I took turns on watch. The night proved uneventful. The next day we were up and riding before dawn. We traveled four leagues over rugged terrain before sundown. Even so, Mercury was unsatisfied with the pace. We covered almost twenty miles the next day. Stiff, sore, filthy with sweat and grime, we stopped for the night. We were still some fifteen leagues from the Brythalian frontier.

  “We're going to bathe in the river,” announced Sapphrina. She eyed me with a challenging smirk. “Care to join us, Jason? You look like you could use a good scrubbing.”

  I blushed. “Maybe later.”

  “We'll be waiting,” said Rubis.

  The sisters strolled arm in arm to the water's edge. With no concession to modesty, they shed their clothes and dove naked into the water, laughing and splashing. I tried not to look in their direction as I assisted Mercury with the tent, but my eyes betrayed my good intentions with alarming frequency.

  The wizard tensed. A worried frown crossed his face.

  “What is it?” I asked, involuntarily glancing toward the river. Just to make sure the wet, glistening, soaped-up twins were safe, of course.

  “We have been observed.”

  I looked about and saw no one. “By whom?”

  He shook his head. “By magic. Scrying. I detected the signature energies with my heightened magical awareness.”

  “Of course you did. So what are you saying? Someone spotted us in a crystal ball?”

  “Something like that.”

  “The Society?”

  “I don't think so. What I felt was far more powerful than any scrying device the Society could master. I have felt it before. It was the Black Mirror of Ouga-Oyg.”

  “What, may I ask, is the Black Mirror of Ouga-Oyg?”

  “Ouga-Oyg of the Thousand and Thirty-Two Eyes, Less One, is among the more puissant of the Demon Lords. The Peeper From the Pit, as he is called, possesses a great enchanted mirror with which he can spy on events almost anywhere in Arden. I sensed its power upon us.”

  “Then the Demon Lords know where we are.”

  “A Demon Lord knows where we are, but not necessarily who we are. The impression was fleeting. Likely, the Peeper was merely browsing the countryside. He may not have noted us at all. But it troubles me that his attention is drawn to this part of the world.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is where we are.”

  “Oh, right. I knew that.”

  “Our interview with He Who Sits On The Porch was obscured by a misdirecting magic mist and he transported us several leagues away afterward. But the Demon Lords may have been drawn to the disturbance. We must guard our words, actions, and even our very thoughts. If the Peeper turns the full power of the Black Mirror upon us, he will be able to read them all.”

  “You're making me paranoid.”

  “Good. Paranoia keeps you alive.”

  “Ho, Jason Cosmo!” called Sapphrina from the river. “Won't you be a good hero and come scrub our backs?”

  “
We'd return the favor gladly!” added Rubis.

  “Go ahead,” said Merc, with an uncharacteristic smile. “You really could use a bath.”

  Later that night, Mercury woke me for my turn on watch. The night air had gone chilly. The waning moon was obscured behind a bank of clouds that glowed like luminous frozen smoke.

  “It has been quiet,” whispered Merc. He nodded to the wall of darker clouds gathering in the west. “We will have rain tomorrow.”

  “That should obscure our trail,” I said.

  “And slow our progress,” said Merc. “And get us wet. Good night.”

  Mercury rolled himself into a blanket and was soon fast asleep. I stood and stretched and ambled around the perimeter of our camp to get my blood flowing. I checked on the horses, and then strolled to the river bank. The Longwash slid through the night like a great dark serpent, writhing and murmuring hypnotically. An occasional moonbeam broke through the clouds and danced lightly across the river in glints of silver before winking out as if it had never been there at all.

  I sat beside the river for a long while, reflecting on all that had befallen me. Wizards, bounty hunters, mercenaries, the struggles of gods and demons. I almost wished I were back in Lower Hicksnittle.

  Almost.

  Hearing a light tread behind me, I realized I had been a poor watchman while lost in my reverie. I half-turned to see one of the twins standing behind me. In the darkness I couldn't tell which of them it was.

  “Sapphrina,” she said, answering my unasked question as she sat down beside me. “I was looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  “I have yet to thank you properly for rescuing us.”

  “No thanks are needed.”

  “I think otherwise. You have added to your own danger by helping us.” She clasped my hand in hers and brought her face close to mine. “I am grateful.”

  “I could not have done otherwise,” I said.

  “I know,” she whispered. Her breath was sweet and warm on my cheek. “Your motives are so honorable. You didn't even blink when we revealed our father's wealth. You’ve made no improper advances—which is bruising to our egos, but touching. You are a rare and noble man, Jason Cosmo.”

  I shook my head. “I'm just an ordinary man.”

  “No, you're not,” she said. “I have never met any man so brave and decent and kind.”

  She clasped my face in her hands and delivered a long, lingering kiss, then stood and returned wordlessly to the tent.

  I could get used to this hero business.

  or

  Rainy Daze

  True to Mercury’s prediction, it rained the next day. And the next. And the day after that. The downpour did not relent for five rainy days. The Longwash overspilled its banks, sweeping aside boulders and trees as it rampaged southward. The rising water forced us to abandon the track beside the river for higher ground. Alert for flash floods and mudslides, we picked our way along the hilltops. —Hero Wanted (Chapter 7)

  “This is not good,” said Mercury Boltblaster.

  “Do you mean the rain?” I asked.

  It was unfriendly rain, heavy, cold, and stinging. A rain that soaked us to the skin while slowing our pace out of dismal Darnk from headlong flight to fretful trot to tedious trudge.

  “I mean everything,” said the dusky-skinned wizard.

  “Like you being hunted by the Dark Magic Society?”

  “Yes.”

  “And me being the most wanted man in the Eleven Kingdoms?”

  “That too.”

  “Our violent encounters with the mercenary Black Bolts, that terrorist Zaran Zimzabar, and Natalia Slash?”

  “All of it,” said Merc. “Plus having those two along.”

  He jerked his thumb to indicate the other members of our party, riding a few yards behind as we followed the narrow river road up a muddy hill. I turned in the saddle for a better view through the wind-lashed raindrops. Sapphrina and Rubis were sisters, identical twins from Zastria, golden of tress, blue of eye, brown of limb, shapely of figure, and sopping wet. Sapphrina wore blue, Rubis red. Their scanty tunics, already so tight they might have been painted on, had shrunk and become partially translucent in the rain.

  “I don’t see the problem,” I said.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” said Mercury. “By the way, you’re about to ride off the road.”

  I tore my gaze from the twins and nudged my horse back from the ledge. It was a steep drop down the hillside. Below seethed the raging, racing, rain-racked River Longwash.

  “They’ve been no trouble at all,” I said. “And we did pledge to escort them to safety.”

  “You pledged. I begrudgingly acquiesced.”

  “Merc, they were kidnapped, sold into slavery, and chained up in a tower until we rescued them! Helping them get home is the only decent thing to do!”

  “I didn’t say we should abandon them here in the wilderness,” said Merc, in a tone that suggested exactly that. “I said I don’t like having them along.”

  I again glanced over my shoulder. Sapphrina brushed a long strand of wet hair back from her face. Our eyes met. She smiled. I smiled back.

  “I do.”

  “You won't like it so much when the Black Bolts catch us,” said Merc.

  I snapped my head around. “How do you know they’re still chasing us?”

  “For one thing, this is the only road out of Darnk.”

  “All roads lead from Darnk,” I said, nodding.

  “What?”

  “It’s a saying we have.”

  Merc scowled. “What does that even mean? There is only one road to and from Darnk. We’re on it, and so are the Black Bolts.”

  “But we left them in Whiteswab days ago. For all they know, we headed east.”

  “Deeper into Darnk?” Merc scoffed. “I doubt even I could withstand the stench of central Darnk—and I've ventured to some foul locales indeed.”

  “The slime bogs are a bit rank this time of year,” I admitted.

  “That aside, the Black Bolts know we were in Offal because Dylan left two of his men posted there while he led the rest to Whiteswab.”

  “I didn’t see them.”

  “Zaran's men gassed them to sleep with the rest of the city.”

  “Then how would they know we were there? The city still slept when we left.”

  “Because I stole their horses for your girlfriends back there.”

  “What?” I looked back yet again, confirming what I already knew. The sisters were indeed mounted on black horses matching those Merc and I took from the Black Bolts in Whiteswab. I hadn't pondered the how and why of that coincidence until just now.

  Catching my eye, Rubis blew me a kiss. I blushed and gave a shy wave back.

  “Or do you disagree?” said Merc.

  “Say what?”

  “I said those girls are a constant distraction and will likely get you killed.”

  “Oh.”

  “You didn't hear me, did you?”

  “Sorry.”

  We reined in our horses at the top of the rise.

  “Arkayne's hood!” said Mercury. He shook his head. “This gets worse and worse!”

  Sapphrina and Rubis caught up.

  “Why are we stopping?” asked Sapphrina.

  “We've run out of road,” I said.

  On a normal day, the road dropped from this rise down to a long level stretch beside the river. But not today. Swollen up and egged on by the relentless rain, the Longwash had overleapt its banks and elbowed its way ashore, claiming all the low ground for itself. For at least the next mile or two, there simply was no road, only a frothy roil of waves and eddies and whirlpools and bobbing debris.

  “We can't ride through that,” I said.

  “No,” said Mercury. “We can't. Nor can we go back the way we came. Nor can we wait here for our pursuers.”

  “Then what can we do, wizard?” said Sapphrina.

  “We’ll make through the hills,” said M
erc. “That stream coming down there has the look of a trail.”

  “Through the hills?” I asked, the words squeezing past the sudden lump in my throat.

  “Yes,” said Merc. “You know, high ground, away from the river? We'll needs beware flash floods and mudslides. And our progress will be slow. But it will at least be progress.”

  “But those hills are haunted!” I blurted. “And cursed! And full of monsters!”

  “Really?” said Merc. “Well, that's delightful. Follow me.”

  Who blazed this trail and where it went, I did not know. Mercury didn't know either, but the wizard led the way with resolute confidence. The path was steep and narrow and made more treacherous by the unending flow of water around the fetlocks of our steeds. Every ridge, gully and channel tracing down from the heights was awash with swift-flowing runoff. The river passed from sight as we picked our way between the hilltops, but its great roar contended with that of the storm.

  Wind howled around us, flapping our cloaks, bending the trees and slapping at our faces with flying leaves and stinging raindrops. Terrible peals of thunder shook the ground and spooked the unhappy horses. Fearsome clouds blotted out the last remnants of sunshine, leaving our way to be lit by blasts of lightning that shot across the sky like tongues of white flame.

  Never had I beheld such a tempest as this. The rains of Darnk were dull and monotonous. But this was like something out of the old stories, the myths of long ago. Had the golden chariot of Great Whoosh, God of Wind and Sky, overturned, spilling its cargo of thunderbolts across the clouds? Had Thunderhoof and Skysplitter, the ornery goats tasked with pulling the chariot, broken out of their pen and partaken of the fermented pomegranate whiskey that Freshlord, God of Fruits and Vegetables, kept in a clay jug behind his sacred tool shed? Perhaps a massive cold front advancing through moist, warm air had triggered atmospheric instability leading to high intensity precipitation and an accumulation of charged particles released as a massive electric discharge that in turn superheated the air, resulting in the aerial shockwaves we perceived as thunder? I didn’t know. Yet whatever its causes, this was a downpour of legendary proportions. It could only portend ill.