The Bringer of War

“Please,” said Whipple, wringing his pudgy hands “don’t squeeze the merchandise!”

“Sorry,” said Fennick, putting the yam back into its crate. He scanned the interior of the warehouse, nodding as if in thought. “High ceilings, low humidity...yes, this is the perfect place for a dragon to roost.”

“When I saw the clawed prints upon my floor, my food ransacked, I called the watch,” said Whipple. “They called me daft and strode for the nearest tavern without so much as a by your leave.”

“Ah,” said Fennick “it was fear that caused them to flee the scene. You are very fortunate that my brother and I have come to Port Gar, good master Whipple!”

“I have had the worst luck,” said Whipple with a frown “first the blight, and now a dragon! It is as if the Allfather himself wishes me to be destitute!”

“The Allfather?” said Fennick with a frown.

“He is the one true god,” said Whipple with a scowl “many here in Port Gar worship him. If you studied in Fort Drakken, I cannot fathom how you have not heard of him.”

“Oh, the Allfather,” said Fennik “I thought you said Our Feather! Of course I give tribute to the Allfather, for he keeps me safe from the dragon’s deadly embrace!”

Whipple gave him a narrow eyed stare but did not push the point.

“So can you catch this beast?” he said stonily.

“My good Whipple,” he said “I guarantee it!”

A short while later, Fennick strode out of the warehouse, his purse bulging with silver. Seamus glanced up from where he was engaged in a game of toss stone with some young urchins. His brother frowned up at the big man as he saw his new friends off.

“You lost that last toss deliberately,” said Fennick.

“Bah,” said Seamus “they are just better than they seem. Been hustled, I have.”

“Right,” said Fennick “your soft heart will be the death of you one day, brother. Where is Roikza?”

“Snoozing in our room at that little shithole of an inn,” said Seamus. “Don’t fret, brother, she is quite used to this routine. She could probably run the game better than us, eh?”

“You think too much of that stupid flying lizard,” said Fennik “why, if given a choice, I am certain that you would rather part with me than it!”

Seamus shook his head with a deep frown, causing Fennik to shrug and turn away. The pair walked along the dirt roads of Port Gar, accosted by merchants the whole way. Fennik allowed himself to be coerced into purchasing two haunches of lamb. They feasted upon the steaming meat, enjoying themselves even though they had to swat flies continuously.

“I tell you, brother,” said Fennik “our fortunes are due to change, I am certain of it!”

“I don’t know,” said Seamus around a mouthful of lamb “I hope you are right.”

“Of course I am,” said Fennik “when have I ever led you astray?”

“Well now,” said Seamus, his voice rushing out like a geyser “there was the time I was tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail because you dallied with a married woman-”

“That wasn’t my fault!”

“Then there was the occasion I had to spend the night up to my ears in shit because you would not allow me to hide with you inside the stable-”

“They were likely going to catch one of us, I didn’t think it had to be me-”

“You never think it has to be you. And how could I forget getting twenty lashes from the Count of Sesame because you insulted his arithmetic...”

“He thought you said it,” said Fennik “who am I to correct a noble?”

“And then there was-”

“Okay, enough,” said Fennik “let us speak of something else.”

“Alright,” said Seamus “let’s speak of the time we were paid four gold for a job and I only received one stinking piece of it. For expenses, you said.”

“This is going to be a long walk,” said Fennik.

** *

Stella furiously kicked the black tome repeatedly with her small feet, cursing the whole time.

“Damn you,” she said “damn you damn you damn you damn you, open!”

The tome lay silently on the grass. She added another kick for good measure but lost her footing and fell to her rump. She sat there for a moment, near to tears with frustration.

Stella was about a mile south of Port Gar. Hearing a rumor that the watch was looking for a witch who swindled inn keeps out of their coin, she had decided to camp in the wilderness. The path she had chosen may have kept her out of jail, but it did nothing to stop the gnawing ache in her belly, or keep the sun from beating down on her.

“Please?” she said, going to her knees before the tome “open will you? It’s not so dangerous a spell, I just want to conjure up some breakfast!”

She gingerly reached her hand out towards the book, laying her hand on the black leather binding. When she tried to cover, it remained firmly shut.

“Oh, you think I deserve to be hungry, don’t you?” she shouted at it. “Because I didn’t pay a few merchants, and might possibly have set the blight upon their wares in the first place...”

The book remained a silent witness to her confession.

“Well, fine!” she said. “I had this page open once before; I remember it well enough.”

She took the book off the ground and firmly bound it to her back. She made the laces extra tight as if to punish the grimoire. Adjusting her pointy hat, she closed her eyes and scanned for lines of energy. They were all around her, as they often occurred in the wilderness. She tapped into them and gathered the energy into herself. Holding her hands with palms upward, she spoke the word of power to unleash and shape the power.

“Avias!” she said. Glancing around, she noticed that no food was visible.

“What?” she said “I said the word, I did...”

Her voice trailed off as she realized her feet no longer touched the ground. Slowly she began to drift upwards, one hand clapping her hat to her head when it threatened to fall off.

“Oh dear,” she said “that may have been the fly spell...”

Suddenly she shot upwards, rising faster than any bird could climb no matter how hard it beat its wings. The green of the forest was soon below her like a carpet, and still she rose higher into the clear blue sky.

“Stop!” she screamed “Stoooop!”

Still the wizard flew, Port Gar becoming a dark splotch below. She waved her arms wildly, trying to slow her ascent. Her hat was ripped away from her by the high winds at her new altitude, and she watched helplessly as it spiraled down towards the ground far below.

“Damn book!” she screamed into the azure sky.

** *

Crown, dressed in his Father Cornelius role, shoved open the haggard door to his hut. He entered the dwelling with urgency speeding his movements. A rare look of panic was across his face, and it did not diminish as he tore through his wardrobe, flinging different garments onto the dirty floor behind him.

He at last found what he was searching for, the spool of arcane silver thread he had used to communicate with Roland what seemed a lifetime ago. Quickly unwinding a short length from the spool, he placed it in his teeth and concentrated on Roland’s pudgy, whiskered face.

“Crown,” he heard in the hollow voice of the seneschal. “You are late.”

“I apologize,” said Crown “I have been splitting my time between several different identities in order to carry out my mission, and it can be difficult to extricate oneself from such situations.”

“Has there been progress?” said Roland.

“Indeed,” said Crown “though, I have had trouble finding folk here angry enough at the King to revolt.”

“Your orders were very specific-”

“I know,” said Crown without a trace of exasperation “I am attempting to kindle the fires of rebellion as we speak.”

“Just don’t do too good a job,” said Roland with a slight chuckle “and have booted feet marching on the capital.”

“I am well aware of the dangers of choosing the wrong catspaw,” said Crown a bit stiffly.

“The King and I trust you, Crown,” said Roland “we are prepared to be patient...to a point.”

“When next are we to conspire?” said Crown.

“In a fortnight, at the eleventh hour,” said Roland.

“I shall have the deed done by then,” said Crown confidently.

“Of course you will, my good man,” said Roland “you are the best, after all.”

The thread glowed red in his mouth, then disintegrated into nothingness. Suddenly, he seemed very tired, and every bit of his fifty years.

“I’m the best,” he said bitterly.

** *

Stella gasped, sucking in great lung fulls of air. She shivered in the freezing air, staring down past her heels at the ground so far below. The coastal area around Port Gar looked like a picture on a map, albeit a highly detailed one. Her ascent seemed to have stopped, but she now drifted helplessly, nailed to the sky by her own miscast enchantment.

“Wonder...” she said between heaves “if my...body will....just float....forever...”

With fading consciousness, she racked her brain for any minor detail. The flight spell had been one she had tricked the grimoire into allowing her to see, while pretending to study a spell for killing rats on the other page. There was a way to cancel the invocation, if she could just remember it...

“Terrapis...” she gasped, her numb fingers struggling to form a dome shape before her chest. Her oxygen starved brain finally gave out, but not before she began to drop towards the earth below.

She awakened a short time later, and it took a moment for her to realize she was plummeting towards the ground. The buildings of Port Gar loomed large below her, taking up most of her field of vision. The wizard screamed, waved her arms and legs wildly.

“What do I do?” she said “whatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdo-”

Somehow, her fear enfeebled brain managed to recall an older enchantment, one she had mastered long ago but rarely used, being afraid of heights. She held her hands to her face and wiped them down towards her body as if she were sluicing off water.

“Avias!” she screamed for all she was worth. She found her velocity dropping, the wind whipping by seeming to slow. Gradually, she began to drift downward as slowly and lightly as a feather.

“HA!” she shouted “I am a true wizard, father! There’s nothing I can’t do! I’m unstoppable-”

Her voice was cut off as she crashed through the canvas covering of a fruit vendor, ripping through the thin fabric. The spell cut off when she was about two feet above his brightly colored wares, and she crushed the fruit into pulp amid a spritz of juice.

“Ow,” she said through a low groan.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” said the merchant, a horrified expression on his face. “My entire stock, ruined!”

Stella glanced towards a nearby apple that seemed intact, squinting as she had lost her spectacles in the fall. She reached out and grabbed it, still lying on her back. Offering the fruit to the merchant, she tried to smile.

“This one’s still good,” she said.

“You had better be able to pay for all this,” said the merchant, brandishing a stout corn broom.

“Uh-oh,” said Stella, seeing a troop of watchmen rushing in their direction, their feet bizarrely anchored to the sky because of her position.

The wizard slithered off of the mound of wasted produce, wailing when she realized the tome strapped to her back was stained with juice. Booted feet tromped up behind her as she fussed the straps binding it to her back free and laid it on the ground.

“Oh, no no no,” she said, aware that she was being surrounded by the watch. She held her right hand as if she were gripping a feather duster, and swept it back and forth over the tome as she uttered the word of power.

“Sush,” she said, letting the sibilants hiss. The juice was whisked off the leather tome to stain the dirt on all sides.

“Hey,” said one of the watch, a man large of girth with a red captain’s sash around his waist. “Ain’t that the little bugger what been ripping people off?”

“Aye,” said one of his subordinates, peering down at Stella with piggish eyes. “Careful, lads, they say she’s a witch!”

“Wizard, you cretin,” said Stella under her breath. She rose to her feet, causing the circle of armed men to jump back a few feet. Squinting her eyes, as she had trouble seeing very far without her spectacles, she peered at what she hoped was the captain.

“Look, sir,” she said “if you’ll but give me a moment to explain myself, you’ll find that this is all a terrible misunderstanding.”

“She ruined my fruit!” yelled the rotund shopkeeper, elbowing his way through the circle. “I demand compensation!”

The captain turned a baleful eye towards Stella, then eyed the large tome on the ground.

“If she lacks the coin to repay you,” he said “then perhaps this fancy book will fetch a good price-”

“No!” shouted Stella “you can’t take my grimoire!”

“What’s a grimoire?” said one of the soldiers.

“She means the book,” said the captain, “and why can we not take it?”

“Uh,” said Stella, her mind racing “because....because it is cursed! Yes, you are right, I am a foul witch, a consorter with demons and dragons, and, and Demon-dragons!”

“Not sure consorter is a word, love,” said the captain “but you and the book will be coming with us.”

“I don’t think so,” said Stella, making a gesture like she was tossing a heavy stone with both hands. She gathered up energy from a nearby ley line and spoke the word that would shape the spell.

“Heracles,” she said as she completed the motion. The captain and three of his fellows stumbled backwards, their wind leaving them in a rush. The sprawled upon the dirt and lay groaning in the bright sunlight.

Stella broke for the opening, narrowly ducking under a pair of reaching arms as she clasped the tone to her chest. She had landed near the docks, and desperation made her turn towards the billowing sails and salty spray of the sea. All about her heads turned to witness her mad dash for freedom. Behind her the watch shouted, and somewhere in the distance she heard an alarm bar being struck. It kept a pace with the rapid tattoo of her heart as he legs pumped to stay ahead of the burly men.

This was far from the first occasion that Stella had been in where fleeing was the only option, and she was beginning to outdistance the guards when her feet began tromping on the wooden boardwalk. She flashed by a huge three masted vessel flying the flag of the North Kingdom with its stylized dragon on a purple field. The wizard had to leap over a large fish carcass lying across her path, its unblinking eye staring blindly up at the sun. Her feet slipped a bit when she landed on the other side, and she stumbled into the back of a man trying to thread a hook. He screamed as he shoved the metal barb right through the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger.

“Sorry,” she said, wincing in sympathy. Stacks of crates were her next obstacle, and she responded by squeezing between two of them laid quite near each other. The towers rocked dangerously as she wedged her way through them, coming out on the other side mere inches away from the edge of the docks. She teetered with her toes over the water, leaning back until the heavy tome dragged her down to the sun warmed wood.

Stella struggled to get to her feet, fingers clutching at the heavy tome, she was up on one knee when the blow fell across her temple. Light exploded behind her eyes, though the initial impact was not painful. A moment later she cried out when the white hot knives of agony lanced through her head.

“She’s trying to cast another heck on us!” said one of the soldiers.

“Hex,” said one of his fellow, emphasizing the last syllable.

“Two of them?” said the man, his jaw dropping “that’s even worse!”

“I’ll take care of it,” said the captain, looming over the stunned woman. He glanced about himself and found a filthy rag sitting next to a spittoon. Wrapping his huge paw around the back of Stella’s aching head, he rudely shoved the dirty cloth into her mouth.

“Get the hands, cap’n!” said one of his fellows “she was doing stuff with her hands too.”

Soon the slender wizard had her hands bound together behind her with rough hemp, more of the same stuff tied around her head to hold in the revolting gag. Stella moaned, a miserable expression in her eyes over the cloth.

“It’s been a long time,” said the captain “since we had a witch burning in Port Gar!”