by Allan Joyal
"Now dear, would you like me to try the light blue fabric for your skirt? It will stain easier, but the color will match your eyes and should compliment your hair. I just wish I had a blouse for you. I don't suppose you can take that strange top off,"
Heather looked at me. I gave her a reassuring smile. The inn was still deserted except for us. With trembling hands she undid the button holding the sport jacket closed and removed it. Just then Madam Wessera turned around.
"What is that? Girl, I've heard of strange traditions and outfits, but why are your breasts covered? What purpose would that serve?" Madam Wessera said upon noticing the bikini top that Heather was wearing.
Heather stood, slowly blushing. She looked down and then up, avoiding Madam Wessera's gaze for several moments. Finally she looked the seamstress in the eye. "I save glimpses of my breasts for my husband. And while the garment looks flimsy, it supports my breasts while protecting them."
There was a moment of silence. "Humpf..." the woman replied. "Don't that beat all. I'd still take a bodice. You don't show enough to really entice a man. It's too bad you don't have more up there though. I can see how that outfit could really warm up the right man. Well, never you mind. I asked you to take off the top because I wanted you to try this." She held out a blouse. It was gray and made of a seemingly heavy fabric.
Heather took it. She examined it for several moments while Madam Wessera pulled out some fabric and began cutting it with a knife. The blouse looked like it would be simple to put on, with a clear front covered with a few flowers embroidered in white thread. The sleeves were short and puffed out. I found her holding it out to me. When I took it, she slipped the cloak off and then took the blouse back.
The blouse went on quickly. It was a bit loose and hid Heather's figure. As I noticed this, I realized that Heather was one of the more athletic of the coeds and had one of the smaller endowments. I glanced over at Lisa Little, who giggled and put her arms under her "huge tracts of land". Heather noticed that I had been distracted and giggled herself as she threw the cloak back on.
"So I'm not going to win any wet T-shirt contests. If a man needs a pair of Big'uns to be happy, then I'm not the woman for him," she said with finality.
"I said nothing," I snapped. "In fact I hadn't noticed it until now. I think I've been too busy with more important things."
"Like keeping us moving and alive," Lydia whispered.
Madam Wessera had ignored the entire interplay. She had been standing at the other table working with some fabric. Right after Lydia spoke; she stepped forward and tapped Heather on the shoulder. "Did I say you could move?"
Heather spun around and stood back in an approximation of the original pose. Her motion caused the cloak to swirl out and Madam Wessera had to step back to avoid it. "That's enough," she said smiling. "My, that blouse does look good on you. I still think you could use a bodice, but at least now your top looks presentable. Now let's check the fit on this skirt. I'm afraid it's going to be slit a bit higher than I'd prefer, but I wanted to make it fast. Come, lift your leg."
Heather lifted her left leg and Madam Wessera slid part of the skirt under the raised foot. She arranged the fabric and then gently guided the foot back to the floor. "Now the other one," she commanded.
Once Heather's right foot was in the air, the process of spreading out the fabric was repeated. The change was that when the foot touched the ground, Madam Wessera pulled the fabric into the air, raising it around Heather's body until one end was even with her waist and the other was touching the tops of her feet.
"Now, I did see one problem. You just don't have any hips. Most of the time we'd make the skirt so that it would slide down to your hips and stay. I also don't have time to sew in a complete drawstring. I decided to try something based on that button I saw on your top. Feel here, on your right hip." She guided Heather's hand to the top of the fabric. "That button will draw the waist tight. I've reinforced the button as much as I can, and the buttonhole as well, but I can't guarantee that it will last. And as I warned, I haven't sewn up the side all the way. Your thigh should always be covered, but any quick movements will reveal your knees on down on your right side. Some men are going to react poorly to that."
"She can give those men the axe!" Steve called out; holding up the axe Heather had been carrying.
Steve's quip had the table giggling, but Madam Wessera looked confused. She checked the fit one more time and then nodded. "How do you like it?" she asked.
Heather spun around. The skirt billowed out, showing her firm calves. "It's heavenly. I never imagined that a skirt would be this nice to wear."
Heather posed one more time and then threw her arms around Madam Wessera, hugging the surprised woman. She released her before any protest could be made and spun one more time while coming to stand next to me. For a moment she stood at the bench looking confused, but finally she gathered up the skirt in her right hand and eased herself onto the bench.
I looked over at Madam Wessera and noticed that for the first time she had a smile on her face. She gazed off at the doorway for a moment. Her daydream quickly ended though and she turned back to me.
"Do you have any preferences?" she asked. "I can try to spend more time on each skirt and make them a bit less revealing."
I shook my head. "I'd ask the ladies that question, but I expect most will be happy. They might want the skirt a little shorter. In our land, dresses and skirts aren't as long; and I expect they will find it a bit difficult to walk in skirts that touch the floor."
Heather was nodding beside me. "He's right about the length. I haven't worn a skirt this long before. And I doubt any of the others have. A woman wearing long skirts is considered strange where we come from. But if showing ankles is considered wrong here, we should still cover those. I don't want every man thinking I'm available. I already have a man for me, when he's ready."
Heather slipped her right arm inside mine. I wanted to turn and say something, but Madam Wessera huffed and looked down at Natalie. "I'll get this one next."
She knelt down on the floor, carefully pressing on Natalie's uninjured leg. Esme came over in protest, but stopped when Madam Wessera shook her head. "Oh, don't worry. I can see that moving her right leg is a bad idea. That does look fresh. Not much blood though, how did you treat it?"
Esme blushed and pulled the second vial from the pocket of the sport coat she was wearing. She held up the small crystal vial and showed it to the seamstress.
The woman huffed again. "Elven crystal. And a healing potion. Not the most powerful I've heard of, those are usually gold in color. Must have been strong enough though. What attacked her?"
"We don't know what it was," Steve said. "We had never seen one before. It came bounding across a stream and swiped at her with its claws before anyone could react. Ron fought it off with his spear."
"Powerful shoulders, ran on four legs?" Madam Wessera asked. When Esme gave a small nod, the woman paled for a moment. "Damn that wizard. I should have known that his spell would have even more side-effects."
"Wizard? Spell?" Lydia gasped out.
Madam Wessera was kneeling by Natalie and using her knotted string to measure the unconscious girl's legs and hips. "That's right, you wouldn't know," she said. "It all started in the spring. The whole village was suddenly overrun with some really nasty mosquitoes. Now, I'm sure you've run into those pests in the past, and if its only one or two they are annoying but hardly dangerous. The problem was that there were so many that they blocked the sun when they swarmed. None of us could understand it. We soon learned how dangerous it could be. The bloodsuckers would attack anyone who went outdoors. There were so many that anyone attacked was weak and sickly for days after an attack, if they survived. The first week they were here, they caught Versil's grandson outside. He fell while trying to run away. No one could reach him as the swarm covered him. When they left him, the boy had been sucked completely dry."
I heard a sob behind me. Madam Wessera ignored th
e sob and walked over to her fabric, pulling out a bundle of brown cloth and preparing to cut it. "I think brown is the right color for this girl," he muttered. She began her work on the fabric and continued her monologue. "Well, anyways, after that the villagers demanded that something be done. As you can imagine, Versil was the loudest about wanting to do something. He finally convinced everyone that we should send a message to the Wizard's Academy and inform them of the problem. Said that a wizard would solve the problem."
The woman had finished cutting the fabric and pulled out a needle and thread. "Humpf. A wizard would solve the problem, indeed. I wasn't involved in the communications, but ten days after Versil's grandson died this kid in a blue robe showed up. Claimed to be a great summoner of demons and a friend to humanity. Had some papers on him too. Versil looked at them and said that it indicated that this boy was a graduate of the academy. Don't know how he could have been, he was younger than any of you. Still had freckles on his face and fat on his cheeks. He had an engaging smile and was very confident, I'll admit that."
The fabric was flowing under the woman's fingers, it was clear that she was skilled at what she was doing. I watched in silent awe as she completed her work and brought the finished skirt over, holding it against Natalie's body. "Humm... It looks right, but she'll have to be standing for us to see. With that injury, I wouldn't recommend waking her. Instead I'll work on you with the black hair," she said, putting the skirt over Natalie's legs and pointing at Esme. "Come here, you've watched me since I came in and you know I don't bite. Just stand like your friend did earlier so I can measure you."
Esme stood up as Madam Wessera measured her with the knotted string. "All you ladies are young and healthy. That's so nice. Oh, but I was talking about the wizard wasn't I? I should finish that story. Anyways, the wizard was green. He looked like a kid and from some of the things he muttered when Versil wasn't around, we must have been his first contract."
"That was a problem?" Albert asked. I had similar thoughts, but was more interested in watching Madam Wessera work on the skirts and had planned on asking my questions to Hencktor when he returned.
Madam Wessera completed her measurements of Esme and snorted. "Don't you have many wizards in your land? Magic is taught, and sure you can learn on your own, but experience is the key. We should have sent back to the academy and demanded a more experienced wizard, or at least a second opinion. Instead this boy came out and immediately said that he would cast a banishment on the mosquitoes to drive them from the village."
The woman had pulled out the blue material she had used to make Heather's skirt and began cutting it. "Banishment! As if the mosquitoes were some kind of demon. But when we sent to the academy after the spell was cast to complain, they revealed that they had thought our problem was some kind of demonic attack. It wasn't. The mosquitoes were just numerous for some reason. But we couldn't know that, and the boy produced a spell to banish the mosquitoes. The problem was that when it didn't work initially, he tried to modify it while he was still casting. The modifications did work. A faint bubble of light started spreading from where he was standing. It drove the mosquitoes ahead of it. They could not pass through."
Heather squeezed my arm. "But weren't all the villagers outside the bubble when it started to spread?"
Madam Wessera gave a bitter sounding laugh. "Quick, aren't you? Yes, we were outside. However, the bubble seemed to adjust for that. Any animal larger than a fly would be slowly surrounded by the bubble and then would pass through the inner barrier. It was a horrible feeling as the bubble felt sticky and warm as it enveloped each of us. But the bubble did clear the village of all the mosquitoes. Of course it kept spreading for hours. The boy started casting his spell at dawn. The bubble didn't vanish until after sundown, by then it was far from the village."
I nodded. "It did get rid of the mosquitoes."
"And all the other insects too. The village had several small beehives for honey and wax, the hives were wiped out because the queens couldn't flee the bubble and perished. Since then our chickens struggle to find the small insects they use to supplement the grain we feed them. And it wasn't completely harmless to humans or our cows either. Two of our cows stopped producing milk shortly after that, and all of the village cows lost weight. They had trouble eating. For humans, most of us spent the next week squatting and doing unspeakable things. I think half the men chose to wear no pants after the first day when we realized what the spell had done," the woman said with a snort.
Just then Versil walked in. He obviously knew what was being talked about because he shouted. "You don't have to tell them about that. It's over with. We protested the wizard's action to the academy, and they supported our position. It will go down as a black mark for the wizard back at the wizard's hall, and we only had to pay a fraction."
"Did the wizard promise revenge?" I asked.
Versil smiled wickedly. "What can he do? He's a recent graduate so the prohibitions against harming humans are still in effect. He could try to summon a demon, but that's a chancy business. Unless he had more experience than he pretended, he isn't owed many favors from demons at the moment, and the academy did send up a senior wizard to cast wards on the village. He probably can't summon a powerful enough demon just yet. Last we saw him was three days ago when he stormed out of the village and headed into the wilderness."
I looked over at Steve, who had a puzzled look on his face. "Which direction did he travel?" I asked.
Versil seemed confused. He held his chin in his right hand for several minutes. "I can't rightly say. He was headed up into the mountains. Not in the direction you came from, but definitely deeper into the mountains."
"We noticed a road up in the mountains, but left it. Later we saw it running along a ledge up on some cliffs. Where would it have been relative to that road?"
Versil smiled. "Oh, the old dwarven trail. They used to have a mining outpost about three days travel up that road. Pulled back after a dragon took a bit of interest. Not sure why, it was mostly copper, although there was a rumor that they found a deposit of sapphires nearby. Well, it would have been higher up in the mountains. If you were below the trail, it would have been on the far side from where you were."
I looked at Steve. He nodded. "Our route did curve from the direction we started in. The dragon we saw pass over us might have risen from where the wizard was."
Lydia gasped. "You mean we might be here because of a wizard's spell?"
Madam Wessera and Versil stared at us. "What do you mean?"
I held up a hand to keep the group quiet. "I told you that we arrived from far away. The truth is that our coming here is a mystery to us. Where we come from, we have some special rooms that can move people around within a building. We were all in one when it acted strangely. By the time we opened the doors, we were in a clearing up in those mountains. That happened two days ago."
Versil looked at me and then at the others. "A room that moves? Your people must have some strong magic." He looked over the items we had distributed around the table. Avarice colored his eyes and tightened his lips, but he turned and strode towards the kitchen without a word.
"That one will do what he can to get all the valuables you have," Madam Wessera said as she brought a finished skirt over to Esme. She handed the skirt to the surprised girl and then beckoned Martha over.
I realized that the breadbowl of stew was getting cold and turned around. The substance was about as thick as clam chowder. I could see some orange and green vegetables floating in the stock along with some rather small chunks of meat. Tentatively I brought a small spoonful to my mouth and tasted the food.
The stew had a nutty, almost smoky flavor. The vegetables were firm and the meat still tender. The first taste convinced me that I was hungry and I turned to eating.
Moments later my mouth felt like it was on fire. I grabbed a handful of the bread and tossed it into my mouth. The bread and my saliva combined to neutralize the spices, and after downing a couple gul
ps of the inn's watered ale, I resumed eating.
"Kind of sneaky how the spices slowly burn your mouth," Steve observed as he tossed some bread into his mouth. "Good though."
"Kariy is the best cook in the village," Hencktor said as he walked back up to the table. He looked at Heather and Esme, now dressed in their new skirts and smiled.
Madam Wessera was stepping away from Martha and smacked the man on the back of his head. "Don't stare. These people will think you have no manners."
"If I was looking at people from another land back on campus, I'd be staring," Albert muttered.
"At least you aren't drooling like Eddie was doing over that slave girl," Lydia muttered. "Ron, are we going to do something about her?"
I smiled. "We haven't seen our innkeeper in a while, so I haven't been able to say. I'm hoping that she'll reappear soon, and we can try to work something out. If anything, she'd make a great camp cook."
Heather squeezed my arm. "Hey! This is grilling, the men should be doing the cooking."
Steve laughed. "Ugh! Men burn meat good!"
The table collapsed into laughter. I looked over to see Hencktor blinking as his head moved back and forth. It was clear he was trying to figure out what was the cause of our amusement. Lydia must have also noticed, because she stood up and walked over to him.