by Logan Jacobs
“Ah, your brother, what’s his name?” Ilandere asked me as Osric ran off into the night, away from us and away from the inn.
“I’m not my brother,” I said as I sheathed the knife. “I’m Vander too. You already met Lizzy.”
“The horse may refer to me as Elizabeth,” Lizzy said firmly.
I sighed. “And this is--”
I looked around for Willobee, wondering how he had managed to keep his mouth shut for this record-breaking length of time when confronted with undoubtedly the most magically beautiful woman and-or horse for that matter he had ever beheld. Especially considering that her rescue owed a great deal to his own prowess at playing cards. One glance told me that the drunk little gnome had fainted dead away.
Chapter Four
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I grumbled and reached down to scoop up my gnome. I was startled to find that he weighed just as much as an average man twice his size if not more. No more than four feet tall and no visible muscle mass whatsoever but dense as a rock. I slung him over my shoulder and held him in place by the ankle. With my other hand I tugged my cloak off and held it out to Ilandere. “Here. Put this on. Otherwise, you’ll attract a lot of unwanted attention when we go back in the inn.”
She took the cloak and sniffed it. I hoped it didn’t still reek too badly of Thorvinian corpses. If it did, I hadn’t noticed, but I expected the beautiful centaur to be a little more sensitive to such things than I was.
“I’m sorry if it stinks,” I said awkwardly, “but that’s, er, not because of me. I took it off a-- I mean, someone else wore it before me.”
“It doesn’t smell bad at all,” she said. She blinked her enormous doe eyes. “I’ve just never smelled a human man up close before. Besides Osric. And he’s not pure human. He has a trace of troll blood in him.” She buried her nose in the cloak again and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes.
“Did Vander tell you to sniff the damn cloak, or to put the damn cloak on?” Lizzy asked rhetorically.
I sighed in disappointment. I had hoped that their inhuman scent-detecting abilities might turn out to be one thing they had in common that they could bond over, but it didn’t look like that trait was going to endear Ilandere to Lizzy any more so than her waifish marble beauty or angelic innocence did.
“Vander, is it really a good idea to go back in the inn?” Lizzy asked. “Those gamblers ain’t gonna be none too happy with us, nor with the gnome least of all. I’m a’thinkin’ we’d stir up less trouble if we just camped out along the roadside.” Her long ears twitched anxiously.
She had a point there. I wasn’t worried about the gamblers harming us, of course. Just one Simon could have slashed all eight of the fellows at the table to ribbons. But I didn’t want to slash people to ribbons whose only real crime was wasting their shitty lives on drink and card games. Especially since I had my own doubts about the tactics Willobee had used to beat them.
But I didn’t think there was any other inn in the town or for miles around. And although I wasn’t worried about Lizzy or myselves camping outdoors, I suspected that rattling around more in a carriage or sleeping out in the cold weren’t going to do Willobee’s inevitably horrific hangover any good. And I didn’t know what kind of sleeping accommodations Ilandere was used to, but she seemed like an indoors sort of horse. Centaur. Gal.
I was conflicted. “Ilandere, where would you rather bed down tonight?” I asked her.
“Me? Well, my people always sleep upon the grass, beneath the stars,” she replied.
“Oh,” I said, relieved. That made things easy. Even Lizzy nodded approvingly.
Then Ilandere burst into tears again. “But it’s horrible. It’s always so damp and so c-c-cold.”
I sighed. “All right. We’ll stay at the inn for tonight. But you know, Ilandere, I’m afraid that we’re all going to have to sleep outside sometimes on this journey. I’ll try to make you comfortable if I can, but there won’t always be a choice.”
“Yes, I understand,” she sniffled. “That’s v-very kind of you, my lord. But I’d like to stay at the inn tonight please. I don’t think I could go any farther. Osric made me run so far today.”
“When dearest Willobee wakes up,” Lizzy growled, “I shall make him regret that card game. Why, oh why, couldn’t he have won something useful? Like more money. Or a real horse. One that doesn’t fucking talk.”
It was becoming very clear to me that just one room for the night for the five of us, even with Willobee unconscious, was going to feel awfully crowded. But I didn’t want to spread the party out too much either in case I needed to fend off any disgruntled gamblers or any other kind of threat.
If it were any other girl than Lizzy with me, I would have thought it most polite to room the two girls together. But I was becoming convinced that that wasn’t going to be the way to make Ilandere feel most comfortable in this case. And Willobee was a wild card. I had no idea how he would behave toward the centaur once he woke up. He wouldn’t be vicious or try to eat her, like Lizzy very well might. But that didn’t mean he was going to be a gentleman either. I didn’t think I trusted either of them alone with Ilandere.
Still carrying the gnome, I headed back into the inn, the bristling she-wolf at my side. My other self followed behind escorting Ilandere, who had wrapped herself in my secondhand cloak and pulled the large hood over her radiant head.
I found the innkeeper and said, “We’ll have two rooms for the night. They need to be next to each other. With strong doors and clean sheets.” I held out the smallest gem from my second pouch, now that I knew how to use them. I still had no idea where my first pouch had gone, although I did know that it was significantly plumper than when I had lost hold of it, and I still was not at all that inclined to search the nooks and crannies of the gnome’s fat little body for it.
The bespectacled innkeeper took the gem, held it up to the light, and nodded. “Right you are, sir.” He pocketed the gem and beckoned to a housemaid passing by. “Bessy will show you the way to our finest.”
Then as he was about to turn away, he suddenly caught sight of Ilandere’s horse legs. Most of her horse body was obscured by the cloak, so in the midst of the crowded inn, he had not immediately noticed her unusual form.
“Ah, pardon me, sir, but you cannot bring a horse into this establishment,” the innkeeper stammered.
Lizzy cackled with glee. “So reassuring-like to know your inn maintains decent standards, sir,” she said and batted her lashes at him. “You’ve a nice stable outside I presume?”
The innkeeper stared in confusion at Ilandere and adjusted his spectacles, no doubt attempting to figure out which part was horse and which part was rider, and where the horse’s head had gone.
“She is not a horse,” I informed him.
Ilandere reached up with her dainty white hands and shyly lowered the hood.
“I-- oh. Fairlands.” He gaped at the sight of her ethereal face with its porcelain skin, huge sad eyes, and little pointed chin. “Begging your pardon, my lady. You are, of course, most welcome here.”
“Thank you,” Ilandere whispered with a tiny smile, and the innkeeper flushed beetroot red.
I quickly ushered the centaur along before she could attract more attention from the inn’s other customers. I also had to hurry to catch up with Bessy the housemaid. She was simply not nimble enough to keep up with Lizzy, who had already whirled on her heel with a huff and started up the stairs without waiting for the rest of us. Ilandere, I could tell, was extremely skittish about climbing the narrow wooden stairs, but she clutched my hand and brought herself to do it. I think she may have been holding her breath the entire time.
The she-wolf stalked down the hall, sniffing in all directions. Halfway down she stopped at one of the doors and went up to it. I could see her striped skirt rustle with the movement of her tail wagging beneath them. She tapped one claw on the door. “We’ll take this one,” she informed Bessy.
“I, ah, believe that room was reserved
for--” Bessy began.
“Someone who will be perfectly content in another room,” Lizzy snarled. Her wolfish ears were pressed flat back. Her teeth were human but extremely visible at the moment.
Bessy made the intelligent decision and handed Lizzy the key. Then she looked over at me. “You asked for two rooms, sir?”
“Yes. Are either of the two next to it vacant?” I asked.
“Yes. That one,” Bessy pointed to the right of the room Lizzy had chosen, and handed me another key. She bobbed a curtsy, said, “A pleasant night to you, sirs. M’ladies.” And hurried away.
“Er, Lizzy, why that room in particular?” I asked.
“It smells right,” she said simply, as if it should have been obvious to me.
“I see. Well, I believe it would be best if you and Willobee--” I began.
“No,” Lizzy cut me off. “If you put me with the gnome, I will eat him. And if you put me with her, I will eat her.”
Ilandere let out a little gasp and took a step backward. It was very noticeable when she took even the smallest step in any direction because her hooves clattered.
“Lizzy, there are five of us. You cannot have a room all to yourself,” I said firmly.
Her rigid, bristling posture shifted immediately. She softened up and slunk in a figure eight around the two of me, brushing her tail across my crotches again accidentally-on-purpose. “I know, Vander,” she said sweetly. “I hope you don’t think I’m as horribly selfish as all that. And besides I would get awful lonesome. You are of course invited to join me. Both of you,” she said, with a wolfish smile.
“Listen, Lizzy. There are a lot of folks around this inn that we aren’t too popular with right now. I hope they don’t make a fuss over losing to Willobee earlier, but in case they do, we need to be prepared. So, which of us are the best fighters in the party?” I decided to appeal to her ego and hoped that it would convince her. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in a tumble with the pretty she-wolf. In fact the prospect interested me very much. But I couldn’t allow the gnome and the centaur to be robbed, kidnapped, or worse in the next room over because I was too busy enjoying myselves with Lizzy to be paying attention.
“You,” she answered, “and then me.”
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s why it doesn’t make sense for us to room together. It makes the most sense for you to guard Willobee while I guard Ilandere.”
Willobee, still draped over my shoulder like an elegantly clothed sack of potatoes, emitted a loud snore. Ilandere giggled and whispered, “He is such a peculiar little creature!”
“Oh, so you want the horse to yourself, do you?” Lizzy hissed.
“No. That has nothing to do with it,” I said quickly. “I just think you are more likely to eat her if I leave her with you than you are to eat Willobee.”
Lizzy considered this and did not deny it. She reached out and tweaked Willobee’s knobby nose. He sneezed without waking up. She tugged his mead-soaked lavender beard. He smacked his lips and snored again. “There’s only one more thing you haven’t reckoned on,” Lizzy said.
“What is it?” I asked suspiciously.
“Willobee is the one in most danger from the folks hereabouts, seeing as he’s the one who cheated them at cards,” she explained. “So, he should have a double guard. You and I can keep Willobee in our room. And you can also guard the horse in her room.”
I considered this, and it seemed like a reasonable solution that would keep everyone safe. “Very well,” I said as I unlocked both doors at the same time.
I held one door open for Ilandere and carried Willobee through the other after Lizzy had already barged in.
“Ooh, there’s a bed,” Ilandere said. “I love beds!” she squealed.
“You do?” I asked. I hadn’t been sure whether she usually slept standing up. As I locked the door and then barred it, the centaur trotted eagerly past me. “Well, the bed is for you. I will--”
There was a loud crash from behind me. I turned around. The bed frame had cracked in half and all of its legs had broken off. Ilandere was curled up happily in the center of the mattress which had now dropped down to floor level. She had all of her horse legs folded beneath her, and her human torso leaned over to rest on the mattress face-down. She was hugging a pillow to her chest, and her silvery hair fanned out across her almost-bare back. My cloak, she seemed to have hung neatly on a bedpost, but since the bedpost in question was no longer attached to the bed frame, the cloak had been flung across the floor.
“...Er. Good night, Ilandere,” I said hesitantly.
“Good night. Thank you for saving me, Vander,” she murmured and closed her enormous eyes.
“You’re welcome,” I whispered, because it looked like she had fallen asleep immediately. I retrieved my cloak and used it for a blanket to sleep in front of the door. If anyone tried to open it during the night, I would know, and I would be ready for them.
Meanwhile, next door, Lizzy had also been quick to claim the bed. She rolled around on it, stretched luxuriously, and made deep canine growls of pleasure deep in her throat.
I looked around the room and spotted an armchair, so I settled Willobee in it. The seat was large enough to fit the gnome’s whole body. I arranged him on his side in case he vomited in his sleep although I was getting the sense that gnomes only seemed to vomit exactly when and where they wanted to.
Then I went back over to the door, took my cloak off, spread it out, lay down, and folded it over me. I shut my eyes.
I should have known it would not be that easy.
“Vander,” Lizzy called from the bed.
I wondered if I would be able to fake a convincing snore. I had never tried it before, so I had no idea what kind of sound might come out.
“Vander,” Lizzy called again. “The horse might be stupid, but I am not. I know very well that you are not asleep. And I know very well that under that cloak, you are all a-tingle with thoughts of all the things you could be doing right now instead of sleeping.”
“Stop calling her a horse,” I replied. “She is a centaur. How would you like it if people called you a wolf?” I had to admit that I did think of her that way in my head sometimes when her behavior was especially wolfish. But it still seemed rude to refer to her that way out loud.
“People do call me a wolf sometimes,” she said. “And I don’t see why on earth I would take an objection to being called exactly what I am.”
“But you’re not just a wolf,” I said. “You are also a human woman.”
“Hmm, is that how you prefer to think of me then?” Lizzy asked thoughtfully. “Well, it is all the same to me. But I am both, and you can call me either and I won’t mind it none.”
“If you’re so non-particular, then why did you insist that Ilandere should call you Elizabeth, since I have never heard you use that name with me nor Willobee nor your old crew on the road?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t want the horse to think she could be getting uppity with me and all familiar-like,” Lizzy snorted. “She’s no better than me, just because she looks like a princess and because she doesn’t know a single thing about the uglier parts of life. Not one bit better. I could tear her pretty little head off in a trice if I pleased, and I will do it too, just exactly the moment you get tired of her, Vander dear. That means that she should show me the proper respect until then.”
“Ilandere does not belong to me,” I said sternly. “Regardless of how I feel about it, you do not have the right to tear her head off.”
“She does too belong to you,” Lizzy snorted.
“Willobee is the one who won her in the card game, not me,” I pointed out. “And more importantly, since she never rightfully belonged to that Osric asshole who kidnapped her, she wasn’t his to give away to Willobee or anyone else.”
“That is not what I meant. Not what I meant at all,” Lizzy said.
I knew the she-wolf wanted me to ask her what exactly she did mean, so I closed my eyes again.
>
Lizzy decided to explain what she meant without being asked. “I know that Ilandere belongs to you because of the way she looks at you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “She’s just grateful to me for rescuing her from Osric, that’s all.”
“Well, yes, that did make you her hero right away,” Lizzy agreed. “And I know her type. A woman like that is really just waiting for a man to attach herself to and cook his meals for and bear his whelps. One that will take care of her and tell her that she’s pretty. She doesn’t want anything else besides that and she isn’t good for anything else besides that.”
“You and I both just met Ilandere,” I said. “We don’t really know anything about her. She might not be as simple as you think.”
“People are a hell of a lot simpler than you think, Vander,” Lizzy replied amusedly. “As a god, you really should know that.”
“Is that so? You for one don’t seem so simple to me, Lizzy,” I answered. I opened my eyes again to see her expression. Every time I looked over at her, she seemed to have arranged her limbs in a different position. Spread-eagled. Or with her legs propped up on the headboard. Or dangling halfway off the bed. Right now, she was simply lying demurely on her side with her head propped up on her hand, watching me.
“Well, maybe not more generally speaking, I have a few more knots in my character than most,” Lizzy admitted. “But right now? I only have one thing on my mind, Vander. Can’t say simpler than that.”
“For fuck’s sake, Lizzy, Willobee is right there,” I said. And our enemies could be right outside the door, I thought. But I didn’t want to seem overly concerned about a couple of dimwitted card players.
“Willobee is highly unlikely to wake up before noon tomorrow,” Lizzy said flatly, and I couldn’t really argue with that.
I had many, many more things on my mind than just the one. Like destroying Thorvinius and all his followers. Like how I was going to go about gaining more temples that would give me the power to create more selves in order to do it. Like how the hell I was going to keep a gnome, an uncooperative she-wolf, and now a delicate centaur all three safe by my side while I did it.