by Ember Lane
“A magic shop run by a mouse-like-humanish thing? A ceratog?” Star asked.
Lincoln clicked his fingers and pointed at her. “That’s it, a ceratog. Spillwhistle. That’s where I brought the map.”
“And the script,” Shylan pointed out.
“No, not the script. Thinking about it, she threw that in. That’s why I think it’s faulty. I mean, I don’t know a lot about these things, but shouldn’t it…you know…have switched off once the other hero came?”
“The other hero?” Cronis asked.
“The one in the tavern,” Lincoln nodded. “Yes, that one. And he won’t budge either, or swear allegiance. Surely something’s gone wrong.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Shylan said, raising his voice to extinguish all others. “He’s already rejected you, and yet he’s refusing to leave?”
“That’s about the size of it, and as I’ve only got a level 1 tavern, only one hero can drink in it at a time.”
“Why’s he not leaving?” I asked.
“Well,” said Lincoln. “I serve my very best ale in the tavern.”
“Best ale?” said Shylan, turning his empty mug on the counter.
“Very best ale,” Lincoln affirmed.
“Hmmm,” Flip mused. “So tell me again. Why are we drinking in this hall and not the tavern?”
Shylan thumped the table. “Because it’s full,” he grumbled, clearly frustrated.
Flip’s golden eyes shimmered, and his finger wagged at the wizard. “But only full for heroes. I’m not a registered hero—never have been.” He switched his attention to Lincoln. “Lincoln, my man, I take it I can sup your finest ale in your level 1 tavern?”
Lincoln shrugged. “Of course you can. You all can, just not these two.”
Shylan banged on the table again. “If Cronis and I can’t drink in the tavern, no one can. Now, to the script: Why can’t you turn it off?”
Lincoln held his palms up. “Not a clue.”
Flip jumped up and darted out of the hall. Cronis growled.
“So, you’re not a summoner, a mage, wizard, or enchanter—you’re just a normal man who bought a script from a mouse-like-humanish shopkeeper in Brokenford?” He sighed.
“That’s about the size of it. Spillwhistle—”
“I know who Spillwhistle is…” Cronis growled.
Lincoln glanced nervously at the hall’s door. “I’d best trot to the tavern—make sure your friend’s being looked after.” He made to get up.
“Sit,” Shylan ordered. “Now listen, while you're over at the tavern I want you to tell the incumbent hero that his time is up, and he must leave.” Shylan raised his chin in the air. “Tell him that I, Shylan, possibly the most powerful wizard in this land,” he announced and brought his emerald eyes to bear on Lincoln, “said so.”
Lincoln shifted uneasily on his seat. He pursed his lips. “Nope, can’t do that.” He made to get up again.
“Why not?” Cronis barked.
“Well,” Lincoln said, now standing. “It’s like this. He’s a man-mountain, towers over everyone, he does. And well, he certainly looks like he’s…adept at a brawl or two.”
“I don’t believe you,” Cronis said, flatly, and hunched in thought. “Alexa, Star, you both go and see, and one of you report back instantly.”
“What if they don’t come back?” Shylan pointed out, but I was already on my feet. I really wanted to see the tavern. Then it struck me; I hadn’t had a sup of Lincoln’s ale. I grabbed my mug and took a slurp.
It was like pure nectar—smooth gold running down my throat, and not at all bitter like other ales. It had a myriad of tastes, the aroma of conifers, a hint of caramel. It was dry, yet thirst quenching, smooth, rich, fragrant, full, and fancy. This was a king among ales, and my eyes wandered through the hall’s door and toward the tavern, and I yearned for the very best ale. I looked at Star, and she at me, and we bolted for the door.
“They’re not coming back, are they?” I heard Shylan mutter.
The tavern looked much more lavish than the hall. It had a stoop with a central set of four steps leading up, and a couple of tables and chairs placed on it. A leafy tree was growing from the stoop’s corner, its branches intertwining with the tavern’s frame as if it were a living part of the building itself. It had a certain power; I could feel that, some kind of binding essence. I ducked my head to the tree, unsure why I did, but certain I should respect its power.
The building was just single level, ample in size, and the constant hum of conversation spilled from its open double doors. A soft, yellow light filtered through two quartered windows either side of the doors, and a stone chimney poked out of its roof. Dusk had now fallen, and I couldn’t help but think that lent to its hominess. I could clearly hear Flip’s laughter ringing out.
“What’s he like?” I asked Lincoln, stopping and waiting for him to catch up as Star raced by.
“Ah that…I’m glad you asked.” He pulled a small pipe out of his pocket and lit it with his strike. “There’s a couple of things you should know.”
“He’s big, I heard.”
Lincoln shook his head. “Not just that. I’ve fought big folk—some go down easy. Nope, it’s not just that. He’s big—huge—a warrior, no doubt about that. It’s in the way he moves, the way his eyes always see things before they’ve happened. Wide eyes, Alexa, I’ll tell you, wide, mad eyes that have seen their fair share of killing. He’s got scars on his scars, and his face looks like it was wed to a fist before a bitter breakup. The man is iron and bone, but he’s more dangerous than that—he’s got a brain too.”
“But he won’t shift from the tavern?”
“Nope,” Lincoln replied.
“And he won’t swear fealty to it either?”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“Reckons he’s in this land to serve another. Says he’s looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“That’s fer you to ask and him to tell. My business ends with serving him ale. Hard to talk to him—it’s like dancing on eggshells. That’s why I’m keeping him tanked up.”
“Is he that bad?” I asked, and we ducked as Flip flew over our heads.
“Yep,” Lincoln said, and we climbed the steps and paused briefly on the stoop. Flip barged past us, racing back.
I took a breath and stepped in.
The hero caught my eye immediately. He was a beast. Six foot six, maybe more, with shoulders that held up his head like a fat shelf. He wore his dented, silver armor like a crocodile wears its scales, moving as if it weighed nothing. As Lincoln had told me, his face looked like he’d swum up a rockslide, and his crazed eyes bore down on Flip who was already jammed up against the tavern’s counter.
“She was my queen,” he growled.
“And how was I to know that?” Flip pleaded, but winked at me.
The hero pressed Flip farther into the counter. “She lived in a castle with my king, and she wore a damned crown on her head—how’d you think?”
“Never wore a crown when I was with her,” said Flip, and he beamed up. “Well, she did once, but it was a special request.”
The man drew his arm back, ready to pound on Flip. “You had no respect then, and you’ve no respect now.”
“Hold! Hold!” Lincoln shouted, and then I saw Star sidle up behind the man, pressing a thin, pointed knife to the hero’s neck.
“Careful, Valkyrian,” she hissed. “You’re a long way from home.”
The man froze. “Me and the jester, we was just playing.”
“The jester?” I said, and immediately wished I’d kept quiet.
“Ales all around!” Lincoln announced, and hopped over the counter.
There was a general mumble of assent, and I looked around to see plenty of full tables. It appeared most folk hadn’t been put off by the fracas.
“Weren’t you banished?” Flip asked the man, and I winced and waited for the beast’s fist to fall, but when it did, it swept up a fresh mu
g of ale.
“Aye, banished I was.” He nodded and took a swig of his beer, its foam resting on his drooping moustache.
“Just out of curiosity,” Flip ventured. “Who was it that exiled you?”
“The queen’s son,” he mumbled.
“For what?” Flip whispered.
“Avenging Ethan Tanglefoot’s murder.”
Flip reached out and put his hand on the hero’s shoulder. “For that you were exiled? Tell me—why were you banished?”
“Jammer, because of Jammer.”
“Then surely,” Flip said, raising his own mug. “You’ll forgive me my little indiscretion against the same family that condemned poor Ethan to die, and hunted down Jammer?”
“They blinded him. He had to go to The Variant. You’re right; why stick up fer them,” said the hero. “Now your lady can stop tickling my neck.” He grabbed Flip and dragged him over to a nearby table.
“So what are you doing in Irydia?” Flip asked him, as they sat.
“I came to pledge my sword to Sakina, but I hear I’m too late. I’ll pledge it to her successor.”
I gulped.
4
Mezzerain
His name was Mezzerain, and I’d heard of that name before. It was in The Auguries, and he’d attended the meet that had condemned Poleyna all those years ago. Now he sat dwarfing the chair, his muscle-bound arms leaning heavily on the table between us.
“Her?” He looked from Star to Flip.
“She has been passed a task by Sakina,” Flip answered.
I studied my booted feet before looking up.
Mezzerain nodded. “And your first task is to seek a gambler?” he asked, looking at me.
“It is one of seven quests she’s charged me with,” I replied, my eyes failing to meet his. “I have taken up that quest.”
“Why so ashamed?” he asked, his tone filled with confusion.
I looked up. “I don’t deserve it.”
He roared at that, a deep-throated laugh that billowed around me. “What’s that ever got to do with anything? Don’t deserve? Jammer never deserved to get his eyes poked out; Ethan Tanglefoot didn’t deserve to die. Young lady, if Sakina offered you the quest, then she saw something in you and believed you could complete it.” And then he turned his head to Flip, and the pair dived back into conversation. It was like I had been dismissed.
Lincoln was still behind the counter, and I had plenty of questions for him. We took our ales outside and sat on the stoop. I breathed deeply. Somehow these folk dwarfed me—a term I thought I’d best stop using—but they did. They dwarfed me with every action they took.
“Mighty fancy folk you’ve fallen in with,” Lincoln said. “Take it you didn’t have too ordinary a start?”
I told Lincoln everything. He merely sat back and took it all in, nodding his head. Once I’d spilled all—Billy Long Thumb, the vale, Gromolor, and Zybandian—he primed his pipe and blew a great funnel of smoke into the night air.
“Back aboard the ship,” he said after a good while. “Tell me, where did you end up? Because I ended up in a huge hall packed with VR pods—I saw Pog getting in his, saw that Brandon boy, and I saw the girl—never did get her name—but I never saw you. What happened to you?”
It seemed so odd to talk about that time. It was as though it didn’t really exist anymore—as though it was the game, and this was real life.
“I was taken to a room, a small room with six or seven pods—I can’t remember how many—seven I think, and a man said he’d keep an eye on me.” I thought some more. “That was it; he was worried—or the AI was—that I hadn’t ever played a VR game, that I hadn’t had my…neurons? Hadn’t had my neurons, or something, mapped.”
Lincoln flashed me a smile. “So,” he mused. “Half a dozen pods spare, and half a dozen companions that seem quite important in the land—coincidence?”
My jaw dropped. “You think they’ve been helping me?”
“It’s a possibility, though they don’t seem like players—or act like them. And help…maybe, though you had to earn your place else they’d have just dropped you off at a beginner’s plot somewhere. Probably had good intentions—dribbling your attributes in slowly, letting you get your feet under the table—so to speak. Though I think you’d have been fine just jumping in.”
“What was it like?” I asked, finally taking a sip of ale. It was twice the ale of the hall—twice as smooth, twice as fruity, twice as nice. I smacked my lips together after. “That is one nice ale,” I said.
He smiled. “Basing much of my game on it,” he said.
“On ale?”
“You watch.” His smile broadened.
“I wish I could,” I said.
“But you can, Alexa. Stay here; stay here with me.”
“But the quest?”
“Deny it, fail, just don’t bother with it,” he urged.
But I knew I couldn’t do that. I’d seen Sakina and ventured with Shylan, with Cronis, Petroo, and the others. “I don’t think I could do that.”
He scratched at his chin. “Maybe not,” he muttered, running his finger around the rim of his glass. “I’m going to build you a base here, somewhere you can put down your roots. I’d planned to do it, hoping you’d find me—one for the others too. Would you be interested in calling it your home?”
I leaned over the table and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’d like that. Tell me about your game. What’s supposed to happen in a normal game?”
“Oh, a lot’s happened to me. Some of it I have you to thank for.”
“Me?”
Lincoln grunted a laugh. “I got your beginner’s pack.”
“No fair!” I said. “What was in it?”
“Some gold, a beginner’s plot, city building token, copper knife, seeds—that sort of thing.”
“Gold? I’ve got gold?” I said, then quickly added: “It’s okay if you’ve spent it…really.”
“I haven’t spent it. Though I’ve planted your seeds, killed a troll with your knife, and a couple of other things. I owe you. Getting your sack was the start of my lucky streak; I don’t mind telling you.”
“Lucky?”
“Yeah, first off my allotted plot was on the southern side of the city. To be honest, it was just an average plot, could have probably gotten a few cottages on it, but that close to the city, well, who’d want to help out? Anyway, I got there and there was this fellow that came by—strange bloke, black cloak and nasty looking, went by the name, Fawkes. Unsettled me, he did. Had something about him, something dead odd.”
“Did he have a stooped back?” I asked, thinking of the Thameerian.
Lincoln nodded. “Hunched, possibly, maybe. Why?”
“Because a man like that has been shadowing me. What happened next?”
“He said there’d been a mix up and offered me double the gold it was worth to sell it.”
“Double, from this stranger? Didn't you think that was odd?”
Lincoln took a sip of his ale and raked his fingers through his hair. “Well, that’s what I thought, and with everything that’s happened to you…I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t something strange going on. Anyway, I took the money ‘cause I wasn’t fussed on the plot anyway and then for some reason decided to go north. Anyway, I met up with Grimble and Ozmic, a half-elf called—”
“Allaise?”
“Yeah, how do you know her?”
“Stayed in Thickwick.”
“And Pete?”
“Yep.”
“Small world,” Lincoln mused. “Anyway, I brought a map from Spillwhistle and ventured here.”
“So, how does it all work—the builder thing?”
“That?” He looked around. “It’s just a balancing act. You get some lumber, some stone, a bit of iron, and food—oh, and a city guide—I call mine Bethe. So, you build a cottage first, and then the copper workers come.”
“It sounds…fun,” I said, and it did.
“Yeah,” he sa
id. “But you get to a point where…”
“Excuse me!” Shylan’s voice echoed out, again. He was standing a few yards from the stoop, but didn’t seem to be able to get closer. “Is he coming out?”
Lincoln looked through the window and began shaking his head. “Not anytime soon.”
“Then couldn’t you just pass me an ale? You see, I’ve really got to try it. I don’t understand how it can be better than the other.”
“That?” said Lincoln. “Well, it’s in the hops—I grow them in a specific way. The ale you’re tasting, well, I think I used too many enhancers to make it grow quick. This one...” And he held his mug up. “This one’s just perfect.”
“Could you pass me some down?” Shylan asked.
“No can do,” said Lincoln, shaking his head and pointing to the nailed-up script. “Can’t pass the threshold, damned mouse and damned script.”
“Damned mouse,” agreed Shylan, and he looked up. “There must be a way though?”
Lincoln sighed a great sigh. “Well, if he won’t move, there’s only one other way—according to Bethe.”
“Bethe?” Shylan tried to shuffle closer but couldn’t. “Who’s Bethe?”
“Bethe? My guide, my administrator.”
“What’s the way?”
“Way?”
Shylan stamped his feet. “To get me into the tavern.”
Lincoln shrugged. “Get it to level 2—the script can accommodate two heroes in the tavern then. Or if you want the other one to join you, then 3—level 3.”
“Well…do that then.”
Lincoln scratched his head. “I can’t quite recall, but I think I have to upgrade a workshop, or cottage or something like that. Bethe’ll know—it might vary here from what I’m used to.”
“Well, upgrade one of those. Upgrade a workshop.” Shylan’s call was now a mix of pleading and frustration.
“Bethe!” Lincoln shouted.
Shylan cut such a forlorn figure, standing there, shoulders slumped, that I actually felt sorry for him. I could see the hall across the yard, and could see through its open door and spy Cronis drinking on his own. It spoiled the night for me, and such a perfect night it could have been be too, what with finding someone I knew, finding this idyllic place.
