by Chase Erwin
“My word,” I said, shaking the last few cobwebs away. “Is that some sort of new medicine?”
“Now’t at all,” Kathlyn said, moving behind one of the black kettles. “Just my latest brew, but I added some Mythical Mother to it. ‘At’s a nomadic herb that Caeden feller gave me to help your hurt. Likker’s just an extra form of medicine to quicken the pace.”
She stirred the contents of the kettle before reaching for another glass and pouring a cupful into it.
“Take another swaller of tis without the herbs ‘n tell me what it’s missing. Yer the only one I trust to tell me what’s what with my likkers.”
I accepted the glass and savored the tastes on my tongue. “Hmm,” I said after a moment. “Perhaps… perhaps steep some cocoa nibs?”
“Ahhh, that’s it!” Kathlyn cackled. “How could I not have remembered the cocoa? Brilliant, m’boy, brilliant!”
She scurried to her desk where she kept her notes on her various concoctions and scribbled furiously with her quill. I smiled, then backed slowly out of the brewhouse.
Another week came and went while the group tried to keep me occupied.
After about a year or so of living alongside them, the Winds had asked if I would like to accompany them on a quest. I agreed, and despite not knowing the first thing about adventuring, I developed a taste for it.
I wouldn’t go on every trek with them; after all, I still had a business to look after. But there were times when they’d need an extra set of hands or business had waned and I had nothing else to do.
To make me official, and in part to get me out of the keep, Beltrin took me to get my adventurer’s license from the Hall of Records. It was hours of bureaucratic nonsense – filling out forms in triplicate, providing two kinds of identification, and even testing my myriad of powers at full strength… doing so also qualified me for a “License to Kill.”
Days later, I arrived back home with one hell of a tale to tell – we fought a terrible beast, a round, bulging entity with hundreds of spines and waving tentacles. We called it “Craterface” because it had dozens of pockmarks on its body that would open to reveal any number of horrors – poison gas pockets, razor-sharp fangs, yellow, oozing eyeballs… or worse.
We came in through the public entrance to the tavern, all rather worse for wear. The first storm of Deepfrost had blanketed Galek, so when we bustled through the doors, a whip of icy wind whirled through, flickering candles and causing the patrons to grumble softly.
“That was fun,” exclaimed Remi. “Though that fight didn’t last nearly long enough. Let’s go find another one!”
“God, no!” came the in-unison reply from the rest of us. Alongside me were Beltrin, his usual pearl-white suit dusty and smeared with mud; Irek, the team cleric, his desert tunic stained with yellow goop; Caeden, whose usually bright green eyes were dull with exhaustion; and Taryn, a purple horned fae, who wheeled in on his specially-attuned chair, the rims of which were slightly bent and giving off harmless sparks as the spokes turned.
Ricken looked out at us from over the bar. “Tough fight, I gather?”
“You could say that,” Beltrin said, hanging up his busted top hat and cane by the door. “I nearly died.”
“Again,” corrected Caeden, brushing sand and soot out of his eyes. “You have a habit of doing that at the most inopportune times.”
“I need a drink,” Taryn grumbled as he wheeled up to the bar. “Pint of gin, please.”
“Sure thing, milady,” Ricken said as he pulled the pint.
He was correct, of course, in addressing Taryn as milady. As Taryn himself explained to me, he, like a small percentage of the horned fae, are gendermutual – in other words, they have the genetic equipment for both genders, but one is only ever… there, based upon whoever their partner happens to be and their combined preferences – if they have one. Otherwise, a gendermutual’s appearance is in the eye of their acquaintance. I first met Taryn and saw a male. Ricken saw Taryn for the first time and saw a female. According to Taryn, we were both correct. But for the purposes of keeping your confusion to a minimum, dear reader, I shall refer to Taryn as “they” or “them,” or of course, by name.
Sliding the glass over to where Taryn could reach, Ricken turned his gaze to me. “And how did you fare?”
“Not too bad,” I said, hiding my arms behind my back.
Never one to miss a trick, Ricken called me out: “What’s that about?”
“Not to worry, old hat,” Irek said, casually undoing the headdress of his tunic. “Abel gave the Craterface a social disease.”
“Pardon?” Ricken looked panicked.
I rolled my eyes and explained. “I was just in the process of casting some blight on the creature. I had lifted my right arm up in the air, because the thing was floating about five feet above my head, when…”
“When I gave it an expert blast of force from Stardust here,” Remi giggled, setting her sword lengthwise across the bar.
“And Abel’s arm met exactly with one of the creature’s… craters,” Taryn said in between gulps of gin.
“Oh, no,” said Ricken. “Abel, are you hurt?”
“No,” I sighed. “It just landed on my outstretched arm.”
Caeden sniffed. “It’s what I’d call a million-gold shot, actually. Out of all those craters, each one holding a mouth or a poison pocket or an eye, you happened to get your arm right up his” –
“Thank you, thank you,” I sighed, letting my arms fall to the side in exasperation. My right arm was tinted a purplish-black. “If you will all excuse me, I have about a year’s worth of scrubbing to do in the shower.”
Amongst the tittering of the rest of the party and the few patrons who had listened to our conversation, I rushed upstairs to the quarters I shared with Ricken and into the bathroom, where I cranked the shower to full power and as hot as I could possibly get it.
A took a deep exhale as I let the water do the first bit of cleaning. This was certainly not the life I was expecting. Full time tavern owner, part time adventurer, recovering abuse victim.
But the first two parts were fun. And I had good friends beside me the whole way. A little crater goo seemed a small price to pay to do a little good in the world.
I soaped up and scrubbed the filth away, took a little extra time to wash my face, then turned off the water and toweled down.
When I was in the middle of putting on fresh clothes, I heard a commotion rise from downstairs. I ran back down the steps to the tavern to see what was going on.
A man in baggy black clothes was in a headlock thanks to Beltrin. There were broken bottles and liquor dripping down the side of my bar.
“What is this about?” I demanded.
“I juss wanted anutherr…” slurred the man.
“Our friend here was refused service and didn’t take no for an answer,” Ricken replied, already beginning to mop up the mess on the bar.
“He started taking other patrons’ glasses,” Taryn explained. They had continued to nurse their gin in the same place I last saw them. “And when he went for mine, I flung him back.”
Taryn demonstrated what they meant by pulling a lever on their chair’s right side. The top half of the right wheel slapped outwards. It was clear the man had stood in the line of fire and the wheel pushed him back.
“That’s when he went for this,” Remi said, twirling a small-handled knife in her paw.
“I see. You may release him now,” I said calmly.
Beltrin acquiesced, but when he released his grip on the drunkard, the man remained in mid-air. That’s because I was keeping a telekinetic hold on him.
“I’d fling the door open, but I can only do one thing at a time,” I said. “Would someone please do so for me?”
“With pleasure,” said the customer nearest the door. He opened it and pushed it all the way back.
I began to walk toward the door; as I did, the drunken man floated in front of me by my power. “Fame, please refresh ev
eryone’s drinks, on the house of course.”
“Yes, Mr. Abel,” Fame said. Her usually bright tone was a bit more muted.
Meanwhile, the drunkard was struggling in my magical grip as I continued to usher us out of the building.
“I neither know nor care who you are,” I began. “But on these premises, I hold a zero-tolerance policy towards violence. You are not welcome here again.”
I carried him telekinetically past the door as I followed close behind. I then willed him to the ground with a not-so-gentle toss.
“Who the bloody hell do you think you are?” the drunkard grumbled. He turned to face me.
I stepped into the lamplight so he could see. “My name is Abel Mondragon,” I said, “the owner. Now get off my property.”
The man looked ragged; he hadn’t shaved in weeks. He looked me in the eyes… and began to laugh. First a chuckle, then a full, hearty laugh.
“Did I say something funny?” I asked, my jaw set.
“Hoo hoo hoo!” the man held his sides. “A tavern! That’s where you find yourself these days? Ha ha ha ha!”
Ricken and Remi both stepped outside to watch this spectacle.
“Don’t presume to speak to me as if you know me,” I hissed.
The man suppressed more chuckles as he stood up and dusted off his coat.
“Very well, have it yer own way,” he said in between a hiccup. “We shall meet again, on another day.
“Fare thee well… Dr. Kane,” he said. He tipped a nonexistent hat towards me, spun on his heel, and hobbled off in the opposite direction.
I stood there in shock. What did he just call me?
Dr. Kane.
How could he possibly think I was Kane? I turned and looked at Ricken and Remi. Remi looked just as confused as me.
Ricken, however, did not appear as if this bit of drama came as any great shock.
3. Rook and Raven
Remi dangled the orange crystal on its chain between her pink paws. “You gotta admit, it’s quite pretty.
Remi, Beltrin, Caeden and I were seated around one of the large dining tables in our keep. The disturbance in the tavern earlier had killed off most of the usual foot traffic and we closed up early.
We were passing the amulet around, examining its rough facets, looking through to the raven’s head inside. None of us touched the gem; we all held it by the chain. I was concerned with the continuing glow. Its pulse quickened when Beltrin passed it to me; slowed when I gave it to Caeden; quickened again from Caeden to Remi, then slowed once again when it was handed back to Beltrin.
“Okay, you’ve had more time to collect your thoughts; what more do you remember about this?” Beltrin asked me.
I rubbed my temples as I tried to remember. “I only really remember seeing this twice,” I replied. “Once during my captivity, and then most recently after our confrontation at the inn.” I gestured towards Ricken.
Ricken had taken me to a quaint bed-and-breakfast in the coastal town of Breezeport as our first date. However, the inn had been overtaken by Dr. Kane and his henchmen before we arrived, and Kane had tried to capture me once more and kill Ricken in the process.
Kane failed, thankfully – but it confirmed that he was still out there, somewhere, and intent on reclaiming me as his “pet.”
“I wonder how they get the head in these things,” Remi mused. “It’s like a ship in a bottle – how do they manage to get those things built without breaking the bottle?”
“Remi, focus,” Beltrin said, placing a silvery hand over one of Remi’s paws. “She does have a point though. The head has to have some sort of meaning, otherwise Kane wouldn’t have bothered to encase it in the jewel.”
“I can tell you it is no jewel,” Caeden said, taking hold of the chain once again, peering into the orange object connected to it. “At least not in the natural sense. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“I think I know what you mean,” I said. “In my living sciences class at the academy we observed a large piece of amber that had many insects and even a worm or two inside.”
Caeden nodded. “Creatures get trapped in the tree resin and die, but their bodies are perfectly fossilized as the resin continues to build around them.”
“But you’re saying that’s not what we have here?” Remi queried.
“Right.” Caeden set the object back on the table. “I sense some sort of magic in this item, but I do not know the type. The material of the resin is not… naturally occurring. However, my brother should be able to work it out.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Taryn said as they wheeled in from the private entry at the back of the tavern. “We’ve been adventuring for quite a while now, and you’ve never mentioned him to me.”
“Mm,” Caeden nodded affirmatively. “Forgive me if it seemed like I was hiding something from you. Rook and I don’t speak much. He’s a Wind Walker, you see. He travels around the globe, seeking his fortune. He has devoted his powers to matters of the self, whereas I prefer using my ability to commune with nature for the greater good.
“However, he’s adept at using the history of the wind to uncover more information about an object. And I believe that is what is required in this matter. I sent a message to him on our sending stone asking him to come right away. He should be here by midday tomorrow.”
“Abel,” Taryn said, now dangling the chain in his right hand. “You really should take a closer look at this. Maybe it will jog your memory.”
I nodded hesitantly. “I suppose you’re right,” I said, holding out my hand.
Taryn placed the amulet in my hand.
A tremendous explosion rocked the room, centering from the amulet as it exploded in a blaze of orange light.
The force of the blast knocked us all off our chairs. Our ears were ringing, our vision temporarily impaired. Taryn had been knocked backwards but was still in their chair. They pulled a lever on their left side, and the wheelchair seemed to crank itself upright.
One by one, the rest of us managed to stand up… all, that is, except for Remi.
“By the gods, Remi!” Beltrin cried, running to her side.
“Nnng… wh-what’s happened?” Remi said, her words slurring slightly. “My… my neck hurts.”
Beltrin gently turned Remi’s neck to one side. We all peered over them as he examined a large gash in her neck. There was a fragment of the orange crystalline material stuck in the wound.
“What the bloody hell?” Caeden said.
Everyone’s eyes turned towards me.
I stood there, wishing I knew the answer.
✽ ✽ ✽
The next day, while Remi recuperated alone in her room, the rest of us awaited the arrival of Rook, Caeden’s brother.
There were few words spoken between us, but it seemed evident I was being shut out. Everyone knew, myself included, that I was connected to the amulet in a deeper way than I could explain.
A female dragonkin guard entered the keep’s sitting room and gave a polite salute. “Mr. Rook is here.”
Caeden rose from his chair. “Send him in.”
A few moments later, a tall, thin man crossed the onyx marble threshold of the sitting room. His face was obscured by a thick, oak mask. There were only two triangular eye holes near the top of the mask. The bark used in the mask had made rough veins that almost looked like a moustache where you would expect one to be on the face. There were also some sturdy antler-like branches crowning his head.
“Brother,” said Caeden, taking Rook by the hand and shaking it generously.
“Brother Caeden,” Rook replied, placing his free hand over the ones being shaken. “It has been many moons.”
They broke their embrace and Rook removed his mask, revealing a thick, bushy red beard and moustache. The oak branches that had jutted above his head remained.
Caeden introduced Rook to everyone in the room. We all stood and offered our hands as our names were called.
“There’s another member of
our party, a Felinial named Remi, but I’m afraid she won’t be joining us,” Caeden said. “She suffered a nasty injury last night and is recuperating upstairs.”
“Ah, that’s a shame,” Rook said. “May I ask what happened?”
I instantly looked at the ground. I felt every pair of eyes in the room turn towards me.
Taryn wheeled over to a side table, where the fragments of the broken amulet lay on a satin cloth. “It has to do with this object,” they explained. “Abel here touched it as we examined it and it exploded.”
Rook took a thoughtful gaze over the shards, which even still were glowing, albeit at a less intense pulse. He reached out with his right hand.
“Oh, Rook, don’t,” cried Beltrin, “I don’t think it’s safe” –
Rook’s hand vibrated at a frenetic pace, and we all watched as the fragments of the amulet rose in the air and into his waiting palm. Once the last shard was in his grasp, he closed his fist around the pieces. A moment later, he opened his palm. The amulet was almost entirely intact, minus the pieces that had been too small to locate after the explosion, and the piece that had injured Remi.
“Don’t worry,” Rook said. “It is quite harmless now. The core dissipated when the charm was broken.
“The core?” repeated Caeden.
“A core is the heart of a Cursed Amulet such as this,” Rook explained. “It is a magical essence trapped within the confines of the gem. Whatever the purpose of the ‘curse,’ its power is permanently charged within the amulet. At least, until it is released.”
“I still don’t understand what I did that caused it to destroy itself,” I said. I sat back down in one of the lounge chairs.
“The material of the amulet is generally impervious to most natural efforts of force,” Rook explained. “It’s a supernatural material, thus it takes a supernatural effort to destroy it.