The Search For Magic tftwos-1

by Brian Murphy

  “Isn’t this great?” he said happily. “We did it.” He gestured at the ruined walls and warehouses.

  Lila looked back at the town and said again with frank disapproval, “It’s a mess.”

  “It sure is,” Franni said, and added with a grin, “but I’ll bet you don’t have to work for weeks. Months maybe.” He looked around at the destruction, thoroughly satisfied. “Fire and water. This is even better than the other two.”

  “Other two what?” Sorter asked, a horrible suspicion forming in his mind. “You don’t mean-”

  Franni shrugged and looked Sorter in the eye. “Children should have time to play.”

  “What’s ‘play?’ “ Lila asked.

  “You’ll get the hang of it,” said Franni, patting her shoulder.

  She smiled suddenly and radiantly, then ran off to where a group of her friends were splashing around in the muddy puddles.

  Franni looked at the ruined town, then at the villagers who had been on the hill but who weren’t anymore. Indeed, they were coming toward the gnome and the kender, and they didn’t appear particularly pleased.

  “I think our work here is done,” said Franni. “I know that the grateful populace will probably want to give some sort of reward, but we didn’t do this for the money, did we?”

  “No, we didn’t,” said Sorter.

  “So I think we should leave,” Franni hinted. The villagers were getting up speed. “Now.”

  It is an unfortunate fact, however, that the legs of gnomes and the legs of kender are shorter than the legs of humans.

  Elder Cammion caught both of them before they’d taken much more than twenty steps.

  Cammion stood in front of the wreckage and chewed his beard. “I see your machinery works.”

  “Indeed it does,” said Sorter. He looked at the faces of the crowd and would have chewed his own beard if he’d had one. “I grieve for the destruction of your town.”

  Elder Cammion waved a hand dismissively. “The knowledge you brought us is cheap at any price. In fact, we owe you money.”

  “You do?” Sorter was astounded.

  The elder poured steel coins into a bag and added more, coin by coin. “Plus, we are prepared to augment this payment with a construction grant.”

  “A grant?” Sorter repeated, stunned. “But we haven’t filed the proper paperwork with the Committee on GrantsLoansHereTodayGoneTomorrow-”

  “You were the only applicant we considered,” said Elder Cammion hastily. “Your construction talents are unique. We want you to continue to exercise them. Besides,” he added, “there are still the villages of Bomar, Comar, and Formar, guided by the Elders Nammion, Pammion, Tammion…” He passed the kender the bag of coins. “We owe it to my brothers- to our brothers in trade to share your technical expertise.”

  “You want me to do for these villages what I’ve done for yours?” Franni asked.

  “Indubitably,” said the elder. “We are on a trade route. Competition-”

  “Is fierce,” Sorter agreed. “Yes, I’ve heard.”

  Elder Cammion raised his palm in warning. “This grant has two conditions. One is that you visit only villages other than ours.”

  Franni nodded.

  The Elder pointed at Sorter. “The other is that you take the gnome with you.”

  Franni glanced unhappily at Sorter and shrugged. “Well, that’s that, then. He has to go back to his library. Overdue books. Thanks anyway.” The kender muttered to himself, “All those kids…”

  Sorter looked at the kender, then at the ruined town, then at the wrecked machinery on the plain.

  He turned to Elder Cammion and handed him the books. “The next time you leave on your trading, will you take these to Mount Nevermind? Mention that Sorter will not be coming back.”

  The gnome took a few of Franni’s coins and dropped them into the man’s hand. On impulse, he added two more. “Thank Stacker for his kindness, and tell him I will send a design or two his way.”

  Sorter turned to Franni. “Time to go. Have we forgotten anything?”

  “But how are we going to build anything?” Franni wailed. “You sent away our plans!”

  Sorter took a sketch out of his pack. “Bear in mind that this is a preliminary.”

  Franni looked reverently at the sketch. “That’s wonderful, Mr. Sorter. All those sharp blades going every which way.”

  Sorter nodded, pleased. “I call it the Solamnic Army Knife.”

  “I’d make it ten times bigger,” Franni suggested.

  “And add wheels. And a motor.”

  “Perfect,” Sorter said fervently.

  “Then we’ll add a rotary saw with sharp teeth on a swinging arm at the front.”

  “Great.” Sorter unrolled a blank piece of parchment and began sketching. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  A few moments later, walking southward, they surely were.

  Go With The Floe

  Paul B. Thompson

  Sea, sky, and Raegel’s face were almost the same color, a flat green-gray, relieved only by white-caps, pale shredded clouds, and, in Raegel’s case, a shock of carrot-colored hair. Raegel mumbled something to Mixun about being seasick, but Mixun knew better. They’d been at sea long enough to get over being seasick. Raegel was just plain scared.

  He had reason to be afraid. Both young men lay on their sides, facing each other. The deck rolled gently beneath them. They were twenty-two days out of Port o’ Call, twenty-two days as prisoners of a man they had sought to cheat of five hundred steel pieces. Most of the voyage had been spent in the ship’s rope locker, unable to see where they were going. Last night, after eating their once-daily ration of beans, the pair had fallen into a deep sleep. Some soporific had been added to the meal. When they woke, it was gray, cold morning, and they found themselves on deck, with their hands and feet tightly tied.

  Balic Persayer, captain of the caravel Seahorse, emerged from his cabin. He was heavily swathed with scarves and wore a thick woolen coat and peaked hat. Very little of his face showed save for his piggish eyes, red-rimmed and veined with blood, the broad tip of his nose, and his ruddy cheeks, all of which glowed in the raw wind like a trio of ripe crabapples.

  “Let’s have them up,” Balic said. Sailors in rough cloaks and fleece jackets hauled the two men to their feet. Only then did Mixun get a clear view of where they were. His previously stubborn spirits sank.

  Lying off Seahorse’s starboard rail was a high, rugged coastline, sheathed in ice and snow. Wind, steady as a flowing river, blew off the ice and over the bobbing ship, chilling everything it touched.

  Icewall. Captain Persayer had brought them to the frozen end of the world.

  “Well, gents, I hope you had a pleasant voyage,” the captain said genially. Mixun told him what he could do with his pleasant voyage. Balic promptly boxed the young man’s ear. He had a fist like a tackle block, and the blow drove Mixun to the deck. Laughing, the sailors dragged him upright again.

  “What’s this about?” quavered Raegel. “Do you mean to kill us?”

  Balic chuckled unpleasantly. “By my beard, no! If that’s all I wanted, I could have cut your throats back in Port o’Call.”

  “Yeah, but murder’s a crime there,” Mixun said.

  “So it is, and I am a respectable ship’s master.” Balic gestured, and the sailors behind Raegel and Mixun cut the bonds around their ankles. Their hands were left tied.

  Instinctively the two men moved apart. “What are you doing, then?” Raegel asked anxiously.

  “Dispensing justice,” said Balic. “Prepare the longboat.”

  “What does he mean?” murmured Raegel.

  “We’re being marooned,” answered Mixun. “The good captain is putting us ashore on the worst land in the world.”

  Two sailors with drawn cutlasses prodded Raegel and Mixun to the rail. As they watched, the ship’s longboat was rigged and lowered over the side.

  “Call it what you will, you’re murdering us,” Mi
xun said as he watched the preparations.

  “No sir, I am not,” said Balic, sounding quite cheerful. “You shall leave this vessel alive and breathing. What happens to you afterward is between you and the gods who still live.”

  “No!” cried Raegel. “Please, good captain, don’t do this! It’s all a misunderstanding! We never meant to cheat you-”

  Balic crossed the deck in two strides and took hold of Raegel’s flimsy shirt. “Of course not! You didn’t know the casks of fine pearls you sold me were filled with old oyster shells, eh?”

  “No, we didn’t! Our supplier from Schallsea duped us!”

  “Enough lies!” Balic backhanded the frightened man. “Get this scum off my ship!”

  Struggling and protesting, Mixun and Raegel were herded to the gap in the rail at swordpoint. With their hands tied in front of them, they were able to hold a rope as they descended the hull cleats to the longboat. Six oarsmen and the bo’sun, a quarter-elf named Tamaro, were waiting for them. Mixun missed a step near the bottom and fell into the boat. Raegel made his last step, then toppled over as a vigorous wave dashed the longboat against the caravel’s hull.

  “Wear away!” Balic roared. “Look to your oars!”

  “Aye, Captain!” Tamaro shouted back. He took his place at the tiller and ordered the sailors to dig in. Slowly, the longboat worked its way toward shore. Rowing into the wind made the bow leap and plunge, but Tamaro kept them on course for the flat, rocky beach beneath a frowning glacier. Mixun struggled upright as his tall companion slid down among the boat ribs.

  Raegel’s lips were already turning blue. “I’m cold.”

  “We’re going to be a lot colder,” Mixun said. He was glad now he hadn’t cut his hair in Port o’ Call. It was well below shoulder length and gathered in a thick hank. At least it warmed his neck a little.

  There were no shallows near the beach. The dark water never lightened, never gave way to curling breakers as they rowed in. Tamaro ran the bow right on the stony shore, and the sailors shipped oars.

  Drawing his cutlass, Tamaro said, “All right you two, out!”

  “You’re murdering us! You know that, don’t you?” Mixun said.

  “Captain’s orders,” replied the bo’sun. “If I didn’t obey, he’d have me put ashore with you.”

  Sullenly, Mixun stood up and worked his way forward. He swung his leg over the bow post and dropped to the gravel. With much cursing, bumping, and thumping, Raegel staggered through the waiting rowers and joined his companion on the stark shore.

  “Are you leaving us any food or clothing?” Mixun gasped, clutching his arms against the knife-sharp wind.

  “I’ve none to give you,” Tamaro said. The quarter-elf s features were not without sympathy. He came to the longboat’s prow and opened his coat, revealing the hilt of a sturdy iron dagger. Concealing his movement from the sailors behind him, Tamaro flipped the weapon over the side. Mixun caught it before it clanked on the rocks.

  “And now we’re done,” said Tamaro. “May you find the fate you deserve.”

  He resumed his place at the rudder and ordered the sailors to backwater. The longboat grated off the gravel beach, spun around, and rowed briskly away. As it receded, Mixun saw Tamaro’s face, white against his dark wool cloak, as he looked back at them several times.

  “Wretch!” said Mixun. “He should’ve used his dagger on Captain Persayer!”

  Raegel took the weapon and began sawing through the cords around his wrists. “But it was very decent of him to help us,” he said. Lengths of cord fell at his feet. Free, he set to work on Mixun’s bonds. “I always had hope for Tamaro.”

  Mixun raised a single eyebrow. His partner had the habit of making puns at the worst possible moment, like the time in Ergoth they were caught selling painted lead bars as real gold, and were thrown into a dank, rat-infested dungeon in Gwynned. Mixun remarked about having been in worse jails, to which Raegel said, “As prisons go, this wasn’t so bad, barring the windows.”

  “Don’t start,” Mixun said. He shivered hard. His flimsy city finery, intended to impress the gullible, was no help against the climate. Already the brass buckles on his knee breeches were conducting blistering cold into his legs. His thin velvet boots offered little resistance to the insistent chill.

  It began to snow.

  “We’ve got to find shelter,” he said. “We’ll be dead in an hour if we don’t.”

  Raegel stamped his feet, trying to warm them. “Maybe there are caves in the cliffs?”

  There was nothing better to try, so they set off for the towering glacier. Before the snow completely closed them in, Mixun cast a last look. Seahorse, topsails set, was driving out to sea. Someday, he fumed, someday he and Captain Persayer would cross paths again, and the result would be much different.

  “Come on,” Raegel was calling. He’d found a path to the glacier. Different layers of ice had fractured and fallen, creating a broad, slippery set of steps leading to the summit. Mixun untied the ribbon holding his hair in place and combed the long strands forward to protect his dark, frowning face from the raw wind.

  Raegel, Rafe’s son, was a country boy from Throt. At twenty-four, he’d been on the run for seven years. While hoeing onions on his family’s farm one day, he was taken by a press gang from the Knights of Neraka. The Knights needed men to fill out the depleted ranks of their army, and lately they’d begun impressing free men rather than hiring expensive mercenaries. Raegel went along without a fight, and the press gang sergeant was the first of many to take him for a simpleton. He didn’t look like he had two thoughts to rub together. Tall, gangling, with a shock of red hair that had the habit of standing up on his head like a worn-out broom, Raegel learned at an early age to let people think what they wanted about him. While everyone discounted his wits, Raegel went about life with a peculiar grace, unhindered by conscience.

  He escaped the unwary Nerakans, and after various adventures, made his way to Sanction, where he found work as a footman to the seer Gashini. Old Gashini did a lucrative trade in fortune-telling and dispensing advice to the high and low in Sanction, but his powers were not derived from magic. Gashini was a snoop, and he employed an army of lesser snoops to ferret out gossip and private news which he later dispensed as supernatural revelations. Raegel learned pick-pocketing and eavesdropping from Gashini, among other vices.

  While working waterfront grog shops for his master, Raegel met a kindred spirit-a tough, sullen young fellow named Mixun, “short for Mixundan-talus,” as he often said. Mixun was down on his luck. He wouldn’t speak of his origins, but he’d come to Sanction as the bodyguard of a steel merchant named Wendelsee. Wendelsee had died-poisoned by a jealous rival-and Mixun was left without gainful employ. It was hard for a bodyguard to find a new job when it was commonly known his last master had perished violently.

  The two men hit it off, although a more disparate pair would be hard to imagine. The tall, seemingly guileless Raegel and the dark, dangerous-looking Mixun began running small capers of their own, like rigged dice games, or liberating high-value goods from warehouses. They did well at petty larceny for a while, until the lord governor of Sanction, Hogan Bight, announced his intention to clean up the waterfront and drive out the criminal gangs hiding there. Less than a week after Bight’s decree, Raegel and Mixun found themselves invited to leave town, which they did, taking ship to the west before the leaves changed that fall.

  Ironically, the duo did very well in honest, upright Solamnia. Posing as refugees from Nerakan oppression, they worked a number of successful capers in Port o’ Call, including the pearl scam. They salted oysters with seed pearls and convinced their marks they could grow pearls of any size by using a magical powder (which was just black sand from Sanction). They worked this scam successfully three times. On the fourth try, they ran afoul of Captain Persayer, who was not fooled. Instead of a handsome payoff, the farm boy from Throt and the sullen bodyguard found themselves taken by the vindictive captain and left to die on
the frozen shore.

  By the time they reached the top of the glacier, the snow was pelting down in great feathery globs. It was very wet, sticky snow, and they quickly found themselves soaked through to the skin.

  Raegel gazed across the featureless plateau of ice. His scarecrow hair was laden with handfuls of fluffy white snow. “I don’t see any place to go.”

  Mixun replied, “Inland is just ice. We must stay close to the ocean, where the glaciers break off. Maybe we’ll find a cave or something.”

  They trudged on, the taller Raegel breaking a trail. Every footfall broke through the crust of ice over the last layer of snow, and lifting his heavy feet reminded Mixun of trying to free himself from a bear trap. They blundered on like this for almost a mile, getting colder and wetter with every faltering step, then Raegel broke through an extra deep drift and sank into the snow up to his chest. He struggled for a moment, lost his balance, and fell face down in the snow. Mixun halted. His friend tried to stand, but another shell of ice cracked beneath him, and he disappeared below the surface.

  “Raegel! Ho, Raegel!”

  Mixun moved forward carefully, but not carefully enough. The ice gave way under him too, and he slid feet first into the depths.

  He slid quite a ways-more than twice his own height-before coming to rest against a pile of loose snow. Mixun sat up and saw Raegel lying on his stomach a few feet away.

  “Ho!” he said. “Are you alive?”

  “So far,” was the whispered reply. “Don’t talk so loud, if you want to keep living.”

  Mixun looked around and saw the reason for Raegel’s concern. They had fallen into a large hollow in the ice, ten feet or more below the surface, and if the rest of the roof gave way, they’d be buried alive under tons of ice and snow.

  With great deliberation, Raegel sat up. His face and hands were chalk-white with cold, leaving only the tips of his ears and his nose with any color in them. Mixun was shocked, but knew he was at least as far gone.