‘Another of your machines?’
‘Yes. The text of each page is set up using… Well, to be honest, I know it was one of the most important inventions ever , but exactly how it works is beyond me. It was a quick way of making a lot of copies of text documents. Before that, books were something rich people owned.’
Aneshti picked up a copy of ‘Enchanting for Beginners.’ ‘I think, if I’m going to get into enchanting things for cash, this would be a useful thing to work through.’ She sighed. ‘It’ll take me ages to learn the spells well enough to be useful.’
Kana picked up ‘The Mysteries of Motion’ and checked the contents page. ‘I think I’ll learn some movement spells. This has Levitation in it. That’s got to be useful. I’d love to learn to fly someday.’
‘Start small and work up. I bet you’ll get there before I can make magic staffs.’
‘Maybe. Though I hope we’ll have less time to study now that we’re out in the world.’
‘We can always hope we’re too busy, sure.’
~~~
They were back in the Sword and Staff, evening meal taken care of and mugs of ale on the table. Constance did not have excellent news. ‘Nothing we can really handle on the board, so it’s mundane work until something comes up.’
Rain shrugged. ‘I figured that would be the case.’
‘Well, Kana and I will be making scrolls,’ Aneshti said. ‘We checked with Letina in the magic shop. We can both make things they’re short on at the moment.’
‘Sounds good,’ Constance said.
‘You never said what you and Mimi do,’ Kana said.
‘Oh, I usually make potions,’ Mimi said. ‘Go out and gather the ingredients and then cook them up for sale in the magic shop.
Healing always goes down well, and you’d be amazed at how many people need a sleeping draught to get a good night’s rest. In spring, I spend a lot of time blessing crops, and I can often get work on the local farms if some disease has got into their plants. I do okay.’
‘I… do what I can,’ Constance said. ‘People don’t like necromancers, but when they have trouble with spirits, they’ll hire me to deal with the problem. I’ll live off the proceeds from Dvartim for a while and then, if nothing else comes up, I’ll fall back on the same thing attractive women have been doing since the beginning of time.’
‘You mean you–’ Kana started to ask.
‘Sell my body. It’s terrible. I know.’
‘It’s pretty bad that you have to do that to make food and rent.’
Constance gave a shrug. ‘I like sex. Always have. It’s not too much of a chore. Really.’
Kana was not convinced. ‘I doubt the men who have to pay for it are that good at it.’
‘She’s got you there, Constance,’ Mimi said.
‘Yeah,’ Constance admitted. ‘That is where my argument tends to flounder… Never mind. I’ve enough gold to keep going without resorting to that for quite a while. At least a couple of months.
Who’s up for another round?’
Kana considered this question carefully. The ale in the pub was far stronger than the light ale she was used to from the White Castle. There was significant danger of getting really drunk if she kept going. Equally, she had never really been drunk, so…
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘Bring on the booze.’
~~~
‘I’m drunk,’ Kana observed happily.
‘No kidding,’ Aneshti replied from under Kana’s armpit. It was, in many ways, preferable that Aneshti was half-carrying Kana because she was the shorter of the two.
‘Not as drunk as Constance.’
‘Uh, no.’ The drinking had come to an end after about three hours when Rain had had to help Constance outside to empty her stomach.
Mimi had finished her drink and staggered after them. Kana and Aneshti were maybe five minutes behind them. Rain and Aneshti were the only ones with a modicum of sobriety about them, but sober they were not. ‘I’m on the tipsy side, you’re drunk, and Constance is falling-over drunk.’
Kana giggled. ‘I’m going to be miserable in the morning, aren’t I?’
‘There’s a distinct possibility.’
‘Well, I’ve never had a hangover before.’
‘I don’t think it’s something you should hope for.’
‘Probably not.’ Kana giggled again. ‘We should have fumbling, drunken girl sex.’
Aneshti almost dropped her. ‘W-where did that come from?’
‘Constance is going to have fumbling, drunken girl sex. Probably with Rain and Mimi.’
‘Well, I’m not drunk enough to just go for it. And you’d probably regret it in the morning.’
‘Pretty sure I wouldn’t.’
‘Still not going for it.’
Kana pouted. ‘Spoil sport.’
‘I’m saving you from having a really embarrassing first time. You should be thanking me.’
‘It’d be yours too. Are you sure you’re not just saving yourself?
I don’t think having you be my first would be embarrassing. I think it’d be great!’
Aneshti’s cheeks, already red, went scarlet. ‘Tell me that again when you’re sober.’
21 st Thokarte.
Kana did not emerge from under her blankets until ten in the morning when she was sure that her head would not throb every time she looked at any form of light. Aneshti left her to it, which was good because Kana found herself blushing every time she looked at the elf. It was not that she would have regretted the sex, but she did regret getting drunk enough to proposition Aneshti.
At lunch, Constance was eating light and Rain was looking a little uncomfortable. Maybe Rain was regretting giving in to Constance, but Kana was fairly sure that there had been a drunken threesome in Constance and Mimi’s room.
‘Why do I drink?’ Constance asked. It was probably rhetorical.
Mimi answered anyway. ‘The world always looks better through an alcohol haze. Until you start sobering up anyway.’
‘Which was right in the middle of–’ Constance’s eyes flicked to Rain and then away. ‘I mean, my head started throbbing before I could get to sleep.’ Yeah, Rain was not entirely happy with how the night had ended, though that left Kana speculating on why that would be the case.
‘It’s market day, right?’ Kana asked, mostly to change the subject.
‘Yes,’ Mimi replied. ‘I’m not sure there’s anything in the market you’d find interesting, but the stalls will be out.’
‘Occasionally there’s a travelling trader with something interesting,’ Constance said. ‘It’s usually worth a quick look.’
‘Mostly,’ Rain added, ‘it’s people selling local produce.’
‘Well, it’ll be my first market,’ Kana observed, ‘so it’s worth a look just for that.’
~~~
The town square was barely recognisable. Well, the square itself was barely visible since the entire thing was covered in stalls displaying goods from the nearby farms. There was more or less no uniformity to the array of colours the stalls were decked out in, but they all had the same frame. This led Kana to the conclusion that the town provided the poles which slotted into holes in the ground and bolted together to form a basic frame, but the cloth walls and roof were brought from home by the people showing their wares.
It was early autumn, so there was a lot of food on display.
Fruit, vegetables, and cuts of meat were available from various places around the area. A couple of stalls had fairly extravagant displays of fungi which Mimi said were gathered in the forest.
There were also clothing stalls; the shops around the square were not the only places you could buy clothes, though the stalls tended to have more functional garments. That said, the stalls also had handmade, beautifully crafted garments which could have graced any lord or lady.
‘As it gets later in the season,’ Rain explained, ‘you’ll see more preserved goods and craft items. There’s quite a long growing seaso
n here, so there’ll be winter vegetables and the like until midwinter, and there’ll be fresh meat around then because they slaughter some of the animals to reduce feed bills.
Springtime you also get things like wool bundles on sale where the farm has sheep but doesn’t have anyone to make cloth. It’s always a little different every time you come.’
‘Makes sense,’ Kana said.
‘You’ve really never been to a market before?’
‘Not like this.’
Rain shook her head. ‘You led a really sheltered life before coming south.’
‘Sure did.’ Which was true in a lot of ways. For a Japanese teenager, Kana had had a fairly normal life, she supposed. But if you compared that to a typical peasant living in Soken, her life had been one of privilege and luxury. Then she had arrived in the White Castle and that was far from a normal environment. Really, she had been told what to expect outside the castle’s walls, but
it was poor preparation for actually living the life of a typical human in what amounted to a twisted version of medieval Europe.
‘We should check in with the inn soon,’ Aneshti said, which appeared to come out of nowhere, but Kana looked around and saw the front of the town’s lone inn visible down the walkway they were on.
‘Looking for whoever it is you’re looking for?’ Rain asked.
‘Yes. I think that, if they came here, they’d have stayed in the inn.’
‘Could be. You should talk to Raknar too.’
‘Raknar?’
‘Raknar’s the best smith in town. His forge isn’t far from the Sword and Staff. If your friends were riding, they may have needed their mounts seeing to, and they’d have probably used Raknar.’
‘Besides,’ Constance said, ‘you should meet Raknar. You’re mages, so you’ve not much use for ironwork, but Raknar’s still a good person to know. Especially for you, Kana.’
‘Me? Why me?’
‘You’re a fire mage. Raknar hasn’t a magical bone in his body, so he’ll pay mages to provide the heat he can’t get from his forge if he ever needs to make something special. Aside from that, he’s a nice guy.’
‘And there’s Mitzka,’ Mimi added. ‘You have to meet Mitzka.’
‘Who, or what, is Mitzka?’
~~~
‘Kawaii!’ Kana exclaimed.
‘Huh?’ Rain said.
‘Sorry, I’m slipping languages, but she is dangerously moe.’
‘Strangely, even if I don’t understand the words, I think I can grasp the meaning.’
Mitzka was a terminally cute, ten-year-old dwarf girl with pigtailed brown hair, large dark eyes, and a button nose. She was decked out in a peasant dress of red, white, and blue with an apron over the skirt. The apron, it seemed, was there to catch sparks from the forge because it had enough holes in it that it would need replacing soon. Mitzka seemed to like helping her father in the forge and, remarkably, seemed able to do so without
being a hindrance. She barely came up to Kana’s waist and was maybe a little wider in the body than a typical child her age; dwarf children tended to be extra short but heavier than humans their age. That did not stop her looking absolutely adorable with her ready smile and her apparent complete lack of fear of strangers. She had greeted the party before Raknar had had a chance to, announcing that they were welcome in Raknar’s forge.
The forge itself was a little like the Sword and Staff: it had been buried under earth. The front of it was quite open thanks to a huge pair of barn doors. A door at the back suggested that Raknar and Mitzka lived under the bulk of the artificial hill, behind the business part of the building. Various weapons adorned the walls and there were suits of armour on wooden crosses off to the sides of the front room. Kana had little idea of what constituted quality metalwork, but Raknar’s goods certainly looked like they were made by someone who knew his trade.
Raknar himself was a thickset man whose head came level with Kana’s shoulders. Fully dressed and wearing a heavy leather apron, you could still see evidence of a muscled body, but that was sort of what Kana expected from a dwarf smith. He had the same dark-brown eyes as his daughter, and he might have had brown hair at some point. His beard was brown but showing signs of grey, and he kept it neatly trimmed rather than growing it out.
His head was as smooth as a baby’s bottom, however, which made precisely determining his original hair colour impossible. Mitzka had to have inherited her nose from her mother since Raknar’s was broader. He did have a broad smile, however, and he favoured his visitors with it as he set the metal he was working on aside to greet them.
‘That pony of yours need shoeing, Rain?’ Raknar asked.
‘He’ll last a while longer,’ Rain replied. ‘We dropped by to introduce our two new party members. These are Kana and Aneshti.
Kana’s not an elf, but she is a fire mage.’
Raknar looked up at Kana and frowned briefly. ‘Get that a lot, do you?’
‘More than I expected,’ Kana replied. She had not expected to be mistaken for an elf at all, in fact.
‘Do you know Aranshir’s Fire?’
‘The spell? Yes, I do, as it happens.’
‘I’ll put you on the list then. I don’t have anyone else who knows that one at the moment. Don’t need it often, you understand, but sometimes I get a request for orichalcum goods and you can’t work orichalcum without Aranshir’s Fire.’ The smith flashed Mimi a grin. ‘So happens that I know someone who can provide the orichalcum too.’
Mimi actually blushed. ‘Soansha saw fit to bless me with the necessary prayers. It’s her doing really, not mine.’
‘Aye, but she’s not the one who’s giving me the metal.’
‘Sorry,’ Kana said, ‘but what’s orichalcum? I feel like I should know, but it’s not coming to mind.’
‘You’ve not heard of orichalcum?’
‘She had a bit of a sheltered life,’ Mimi said. ‘Orichalcum is the epitome of metals as Aranshir’s Fire is the epitome of flames, and adamant is the epitome of stone, actually. To make orichalcum or adamant, I have to get Soansha to bless some of her earth, and then I convert that blessed earth into stone or metal.’
‘Orichalcum is stronger than steel,’ Raknar said, ‘and it’s especially good at holding enchantments. But it’s not a form of iron, so mages can carry it without it interfering with their magic and it doesn’t harm elves the way iron does. It looks like bronze. Maybe a little more golden.’
That was interesting. So, Kana figured, Cadorian’s swords and armour were likely orichalcum. Certainly, his armour had been described as golden. ‘That reminds me, I don’t suppose you’ve seen an elf in your forge. He’d have been with four humans, all of them on horseback. I think the elf had orichalcum swords and armour. Aneshti and I are looking for them. They’ve gone missing.’ The inn had been no use, they either did not know or were not telling, so Raknar was likely to be the best hope of any news on Cadorian.
‘Two longswords?’ Raknar asked. ‘Tall man riding with four mages?’
‘That would be right.’
‘Seen him twice, but not the four mages.’
Kana frowned. ‘Really? When?’
‘Well, first time would be this time last year. One of their horses was running on worn shoes, so I replaced them. That was when he was with the four mages. I saw those swords you mentioned. Fine pieces of work they were and orichalcum like you said. Then he came through town this spring. Would’ve been Pakarte, as I remember. He didn’t come to the forge that time, but I happened to see him in the square and he wasn’t with the mages that time. Not the same mages anyway. He had more people with him and I thought they looked like they might’ve come from Sintar. Some were mages, some were soldiers.’
‘There were no vertagi with him?’ Aneshti asked.
‘No elves of either sort. Humans, all of them. Mitzka didn’t like them much.’
‘Bad men,’ Mitzka said. ‘They were bad men.’
Kana dropped to one knee to
bring herself down to the child’s level. ‘And why do you say that, Mitzka?’
Mitzka shook her head. ‘Don’t know why, but they were bad men.’
‘I see. Well, if I happen to run into them, I’ll be careful then.’
Mitzka gave a nod. ‘Good. You’re not a bad lady.’
‘Thank you,’ Kana replied, smiling.
‘Funny thing was,’ Raknar said in something of a musing tone, ‘I heard someone call the elf “Cadorian.” I didn’t think they ever named a child after him.’
‘They don’t,’ Mimi replied.
‘Not in the north either,’ Aneshti confirmed. ‘That’s strange, isn’t it? Maybe someone went against the tradition.’
‘Well,’ Raknar said, ‘an elf going against tradition is strange, but I suppose that’s the only explanation.’
~~~
‘And this dwarf is sure he was not with his escort?’ Sharassa asked.
‘Well, he said that the same mages weren’t in the group he saw.
No elves either. Cadorian was supposed to go see the elves after checking out that blight, right?’ Kana had waited until she was back at the guesthouse before reporting back to the castle. Get that done, and then she would be going out to the Sword and Staff for dinner. But less drinking.
‘Yes. We received a report from the Heart of the South that he was leaving there with a force of vertagi…’ There was silence from the other end for a second and Kana considered speaking again. ‘I’m not sure what this means. I’ll need to discuss it with the Master. You said it seemed like Cadorian was heading west when he passed through the second time?’
‘Yes. Skovir or Trefall seem like the logical destinations. Maybe Skovir is more likely, but I’ve no idea why he’d be going there.
I mean, it’s a port city, right? You go there mostly to go on to Skonar and why would he want to go to Skonar?’
‘And what was he doing with mages from Sintar? I don’t have answers. Perhaps the Master does. You hold on in Hillock for now.
I’ll be in touch if we need more information.’
‘Works for me. I kind of like it here, and there’s every possibility of finding a little adventure.’
The Girl Who Dreamed of a Different World Page 17
