Robbing Centaurs and Other Bad Ideas

by Bethany Meyer

  He eyed the carving, second-guessed himself, and jumped. His fingers just barely reached the button. He didn't have enough reach to press it.

  He'd need more height.

  Wick looked over his shoulder. “Archer, I need a boost.”

  Archer looked up from where he had been taking stones out of sacks, a frown already forming on his brow. “Why?” he demanded. “You're the tall one.”

  Wick gestured to the button above his head. A shout of triumph came from the passage. Someone had succeeded in pitching a particularly brave fair folk across the gap. A seraph clutching an injured wing must have already tried to take off in the cave and found the stalactites too low. They were making every effort. It wouldn't be long before they found a way across the gap.

  Someone appeared out of the crowd with a length of wood. Slowly they shifted it forward to lay it across the gap in the pathway.

  They were almost out of time. “Archer, help me or they're going to catch us.”

  Archer looked up again and saw what was happening on the bridge. “Forget it, I've got this.” He backed up and took a running start at the wall. When only a few feet of distance remained between him and the wall, he pushed off and slapped his palm against the button.

  A grating sound filled the chamber. A great stone door appeared out of the curving wall and began to creep across the opening.

  Part of Wick reveled in everyone's horrified expressions as the door closed.

  “Okay, let's get this done,” Archer said. “You take four, I'll take four.”

  Wick nodded and gathered up four stones. “They go in the stands. But be careful. Don't drop any of them. I don't know what would happen if they hit the stone.”

  “Might be nothing. They're supposed to be together, right?” Archer asked, carefully sliding a stone into the stand that fit it. “This big one isn't reacting to itself.”

  “Maybe nothing would happen. Or maybe we could blow up the mountain. I really don't know.”

  “Lovely.”

  They started matching stones up to their according stands. The centaurs didn't know it, but they had made it considerably easier by removing the stones from the broken settings. This way the stones fit without any forcing. Wick found the stand for the Oak Leaf. It fit without the tiniest gap. Somewhere in Aro's history, these stands had been someone's best work.

  The seraph piece was the last one left. Wick snatched it off the floor and found the last empty stand. This was it.

  Archer cut into Wick's train of thought. “Can I just say: when I started on this whole thing, I thought in the end it would just be me lining up rocks in here. I thought I would have needed to ditch you ages ago.”

  “When I met you,” Wick said with a smile, “I didn't think you'd end up in here lining up rocks at all. I thought I would have turned you in by now.”

  “Like you could have turned me in.”

  “I could have.”

  Archer shrugged. “Agree to disagree. Now. Do it.”

  Wick lined the stone up and dropped it into place.

  Nothing happened.

  Wick's brow furrowed. “I think the stands have to be on top of the Heather Stone.” He tried to ignore the sounds of everyone pounding on the stone door as he and Archer pushed and pulled the heavy gold stands from the edges of the room. Together they hauled the eight stand on top of the green of the Heather Stone and waited.

  Still nothing.

  A sick feeling crept into Wick's stomach.

  “Maybe it is working. Maybe we just can't see anything,” Archer said, his brow creasing as he spun around and around, trying to see what they had done wrong.

  “We should be able to see something,” Wick said. “There should be a hum or a spark, something. Something's wrong.”

  “Maybe we were supposed to say some words or something?” Archer suggested.

  “No, no words.” Wick swallowed. “Once the stones are in place, it's supposed to just happen. Maybe one of the stones is damaged.”

  “Not damaged,” said a voice behind them.

  Wick and Archer spun around. Tinor stood between them and the door to the chamber, which was still shut. Beside him, more humans and manghar and seraphs and satyrs and fair folk appeared every minute through the Door in the Wall. The Door in the Wall which Wick had so foolishly dropped. When a fire-eyed manghar unfolded himself from the little door, Wick looked away.

  “The stones are all intact,” Tinor said. “But the human stone was replaced with a fake.”

  As much as he wanted to stand strong, Wick couldn't look Tinor in the eyes.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Archer breathing rapidly. Rather than being embarrassed, Archer looked ready to spit venom. “So all this was just. . . an elaborate trick? You let us go to all this trouble for kicks?”

  “No,” Tinor said. “I didn't know about the fake myself until the full collection was brought to us for inspection. I had to send a messenger to the humans to find out what had happened, and their keeper of the stone told me that he had started carrying a fake once he learned about the thefts in other territories. The human stone is still safe in their territory.”

  One of the manghar standing behind Tinor smirked. Wick's heart sank.

  “I kept the information to myself as a last line of defense in case you made it this far,” Tinor went on. “And since you did make it this far, it seems that it was for the better that I did keep that information to myself.”

  Wick's body slowly filled with an empty numbness. They had been doomed for failure almost from the very beginning.

  “And now, since you have no weapons or tricks left,” Tinor said in a gentle voice, “please come quietly and don't make it difficult on yourselves.”

  Chapter nineteen

  Even Behind Bars I'll Still Say Whatever I Want

  It was Tinor himself who brought Wick and Archer their meals the following morning.

  It had been a rough night of sleep. The cells were decently spacious(although Archer claimed the one in manghar territory had been larger), but it was cold. A thin layer of dried grass clippings covered the stone floors, but it was not nearly enough to keep the chill from seeping into the very depths of Wick's bones. However, the centaurs were too fair to allow even their prisoners to suffer. Wick and Archer had each been provided with a blanket if not any kind of mattress, and they had been given something to eat before they were abandoned for the night.

  Wick had slept in worse conditions many times. But it was less the conditions and more his guilt that had kept him from sleeping.

  He had ruined everything for himself. Everything that had happened to his reputation was by his own doing, his own hesitation, and then by his own choice. That part he could come to terms with. But if he had just thought to check over each piece of the Heather Stone as they had gathered them, maybe they might have avoided arrest. He would have recognized the fake if he had just checked. And he had been the one to drop the Door that had let the centaurs back into the cavern.

  If he had just thought everything through more thoroughly, they might have done it. They had been so close. They had made it through everything, past everyone, even to the point where it would have worked, if it hadn't been for the humans and their fake piece of the Heather Stone. The country would be safe now if it weren't for him.

  Now they were in jail until who knew when. He had no idea what the centaurs would do with them, and he couldn't yet find the courage in himself to ask.

  He sat up as the sound of hooves came down the hall to their cells. Tinor's grey head came into sight, carrying a ceramic plate of food in each hand.

  “Good morning,” he said smoothly as he bent and slid the first plate under the slatted door of Archer's cell.

  “Morning.” Archer gave Tinor a massive fake grin and then dropped it as he reached out to pull the plate closer.

  Wick accepted his plate without a word. Most of the food appeared to be cold vegetabl
es from the centaurs' gardens, but they had also been allowed a leftover cut of meat each, also cold. Again, the centaurs had given them enough to be considered fair.

  “Your family sent word to us that they're coming to see you,” Tinor said to Wick as he rose. “They should be here tomorrow or the next day.”

  Wick nodded. “Thank you.”

  Tinor stood there a moment longer. It seemed he was waiting for Wick to say something else. Wick had nothing more to say.

  Instead, Archer was the one that piped up. “Hey, centaur guy.”

  Tinor turned to Archer, bearing the best expression of tolerance he could. Archer had already well overextended Tinor's patience. He had even gone far enough to try to bite Tinor as they had been taken into the prison, and he still wasn't sorry for it.

  “I know you've made your stance obvious about what you think of us and everything, but has it occurred to you yet that we might be right?” Archer shrugged. “There's nothing bad about you being wrong. Just hasn't happened before, that's all.”

  “And if we were wrong, what evidence would you have to prove it?” Tinor asked.

  “Nothing more than what we've already tried,” Archer said. “If you won't believe everything we've already told you, I can't give you anything else.”

  Tinor nodded and turned to leave.

  “But you might still be wrong,” Archer said, making Tinor stop and turn again. “I get it. You're convinced you're right. But we're convinced we're right, too. And I guess at the rate we're going, the only way we're ever going to find out who's right is if we wait another. . . what, Wick? Two months, would we say? It was going to be four, but it looks like it's coming faster than even Caihu thought, so are we guessing two months?”

  Wick thought, then nodded.

  “The only way we're going to find out who's right is if we wait another two months and watch to see if Aro gets destroyed by demons from outside or not.”

  “As you said,” Tinor said, and left at last.

  “So what'd they put on this meat?” Archer asked, picking it up with three fingers and inspecting it.

  “Chives, I think,” Wick said. “And salt and pepper. Not complicated, but I like it.”

  Archer took a bite and chewed speculatively. “It would be better warm.”

  “True.”

  They chewed in silence for a moment.

  “Do you really want to see your family?” Archer asked. “I know they're your family and everything, but you didn't seem very happy to hear they were coming.”

  Wick's mouth quirked for a moment as he gathered his words. “They are my family, and I love them, but I know why they're coming. They just want to see if it's all true and if I willingly came along with all this. They won't like the answer. And they won't like that I transmogrified and now I look like this. They won't like any of it.”

  “Do you want to see them?” Archer asked.

  Wick hesitated, then admitted, “No, not really. I'm not ready to face them just yet.”

  Archer made an understanding noise.

  They chewed in silence for a moment more.

  Wick looked over at Archer through the slatted bars between their cells. “We're getting out of here, right?”

  “Oh yeah. I've already got it all planned out. I just wanted to make sure you didn't want to see your family first, that's all.”

  “Good.” Wick nodded. “We still have to prove to them that it's coming, and we can't do all that from in here.”

  “Exactly.”

  Wick and Archer grinned at one another.

  They were long gone before dawn.

  ENDE.

  Songs From the Soundtrack

  As you may know, many writers create playlists or ‘soundtracks’ for their works in progress, often to have something personal to listen to while writing or to have the right mood while drafting a specific scene.

  The full soundtrack has around thirty songs on it, so it would take up far too much room, but here are a few choice songs from the soundtrack of Robbing Centaurs and Other Bad Ideas.

  Main theme song:

  Burn the Ships (For King and Country)

  Secondary theme song:

  We Are Legends (Valley of Wolves)

  Wick’s theme song:

  Running (ONLAP)

  Archer’s theme song:

  I’m a Wanted Man (Royal Deluxe)

  ‘Credit song’:

  Bad Decisions (Bastille

  Glossary and Term Guide

  Ambrack (AM-brak) — A satyr of some small importance in satyr territory.

  Aro (AIR-oh) — The country where Wick and Archer live, a coastal country wherein eight different sentient species live in harmony.

  Caihu (KYE-hoo) — A prophetic centaur, now considered mad and irrelevant. Deceased.

  Centaurs (SENT-ars) — A prophetic race placed in charge of the welfare of Aro, appearing half horse and half human.

  Crowned Head — The ruler and king of the manghar.

  Door in the Wall — A magical door that one of the long-past human sorcerers created, allowing one to pass through walls.

  Eland (ELL-and) — A young centaur with red hair, still in apprentice training.

  Eri (AIR-ee) — One of the biggest cities in seraph territory, well-known for its riches and beauty.

  Fair Folk (FAYR FOHK) — A race of small, nomadic agricultural people. About three apples tall.

  Heather Stone — A magical stone used to cast spells for the protection of Aro, currently split into eight pieces and given to each race in Aro for safekeeping.

  Lelo (LELL-oh) — A leshy who works as a museum guard, a childhood friend of Wick's.

  Leshy (LESH-ee) — A race of people with the appearance of trees on legs, with glowing yellow eyes. The protectors of the forest.

  Lif (LEEF) — The younger sister of Wick.

  Manghar (MANG-harr) — An aggressive and terrifying race with the appearance of giant bats on two legs.

  Nixies (NICKS-ees) — A race of pale green people with many teeth, dressed in armor and sea findings.

  Oak Leaf — The formal name for the leshy piece of the Heather Stone, named for its ornate setting, which is shaped like the leaf of an oak tree.

  Ongel (ON-gehl) — A centaur with dark skin and hair, commonly a mentor figure to centaur apprentices and to messengers.

  Prentiss (PREHNT-iss) — A human living under the influence of paranoia.

  Rewin (RUE-inn) — A human messenger.

  Satyrs (SAE-terrs) — A race of people with the head and lower body of a goat and the body of a man.

  Seraphs (SAER-affs) — The winged people.

  The Scorch — An unknown outside force bent on destroying Aro, only seen once every few hundred years.

  Tinor (TEE-norr) — A centaur with grey hair, a mentor among the centaurs.

  Transmogrification (Trans-mohg-riff-ih-CAY-shuhn) — A leshy's ability to change his or her appearance into something different, usually used as a defense mechanism. Irreversible and normally discouraged by the leshy.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bethany Meyer grew up in Maryland and finds it odd to write about oneself in the third person. She discovered a love of writing when she was eleven and has been creating stories ever since. When she isn't writing, she enjoys reading, drawing, or consuming a large number of animated movies.

  FIND HER ON

  Instagram: @scribbledfiction

  Twitter: @ScribbldFiction

  Blogger: Scribbledfiction.blogspot.com

  YouTube: https://rb.gy/ld4bsq

  Acknowledgments

  You've come here for my thank-you speech, right?

  I always find this part awkward. I'm never quite sure what to say. But there are too many people who deserve a hand, so I’m going to do my best here.

  Let's start with the most important, shall we? All of my gratitude will always go to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Without Him I would
not succeed in anything, and nothing I do would have any meaning. Thank you, Lord.

  Thank you, as always, to my family. Thanks for listening to me ramble, for reading drafts that were less than quality material, and for telling me to snap out of it whenever I let the stress get to me. To my mother and to my sister Rachel especially, thank you.

  A giant thank you to my editor, Angela, who is such a spectacular editor and an even more superb human. Every little helpful note and every gentle but firm grammar correction was invaluable, and really, I couldn't have done it without you.

  So many thanks to the wonderful people of Miblart for my beautiful beautiful cover! I still can’t stop drooling over it.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you to the many internet friends I met along the way. Thank you for the encouragement, for sharing resources(how else would I have found Angela?), and for being my cheerleading squad. Y'all were the first fans of RCOBI, and your kindness brings me so much happiness.

  Since I forget many things, I don't doubt I've forgotten someone. Thanks to you as well.

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