by Regina Watts
Sliding my empty arm around her taut waist, I drew her into my embrace and guided her mouth to mine. Though surprised, she yielded at once, her soft lips fluttering to permit the trailing of her tongue into my mouth. The sweet pitch of her moan fired my blood, a flame whose growth was accelerated by the energy that flooded my body when faced with the divine. When she pulled away for a gasp of air, her face was flushed and her eyes had grown glassy with desire.
“What a place for a kiss like that,” chided the elf, who nonetheless bit her lip and looked shyly away. Her eyes widened to cross the Scepter reclining against the stone. “Why—is that—”
“It is,” I told her.
“Where did you—how is it here?”
I did not have to be told that I could never speak in full to anyone of what had transpired there. No one but you, reader, into whose hands this chronicle will have been placed only once I have retired from the business of being an old man to become a young one again in Weltyr’s manor-house. At that time, though, with the event so fresh, I could not even think of it for how mad it made me feel. Able to produce neither lie nor truth, I looked at the Scepter and evasively said, “The raven brought me to it.”
“I see the lantern there. How is it possible? Was it some druid, or another witch in disguise?”
I shook my head, unable to speak further on the subject, and was awash with gratitude when Valeria hurried into the clearing amid the stones.
“Ah,” she cried with relief, “Rorke, oh, we were so worried she had taken you again—”
“She’ll have to pull a trick even craftier to lure me into her false world next time…I’ve no need of the pleasures she provides with the two of you here, and if she had genuine divine truths to impart she would share them in a way that permits me to recall them. I have no use for her. What of the gimlets in Soot?”
Branwen shook her head. “When you were following the raven, they scattered in all directions. Anroa knows where they’ve gone.”
I rubbed my jaw. “Hopefully not back in those houses…”
What would be the outcome of this harrowing week? The people of Soot would, at best, be furious. At worst, a few of them would be ill or even dead from their time spent living in the hills without supplies. There was also the cost of the ruined fields to consider—and the question of how the future would look long-term for the already troubled relationship between the gimlets and the villagers of Soot.
“I think I have an idea about how we might broker a peace,” I told the women, my eyes falling across the scepter while my arm loosened its hold on Branwen’s waist. “But I’m not sure how it will go—these things are delicate in the best of times, but…”
Valeria noticed it upon following my gaze. Her pale eyes widened in the sublime mask of her face.
“It can’t be—”
“It is,” said Branwen while I made a silent approach.
All thought dissolved into nothing but miscellaneous sensory experience as the Scepter of Weltyr drew me in to witness its majesty. Mesmerized, I knelt before it, my forearm draped over my knee and both my hands clasped. Its many gems gleamed with lustrous beauty in the lantern’s light. In each one was reflected my own awestruck face. Even the gold, immaculately polished in spite of its long sojourn away from home, bore traces of my phantom.
I had expected to look at it and feel some tremendous impulse to touch it, or to covet it greedily—this was what Grimalkin had implied. But, especially now knowing why Hildolfr had behaved as coldly as he apparently had upon killing me, (It was, after all, he whose weapon mortally wounded me before the durrow came to my aid!), I felt not the least spark of covetous inclination. No desire to sell or barter or trade.
I still did not understand what I was to do with this thing. All I knew at that moment was that it was a symbol of a new covenant between myself and Weltyr—a private one, set apart from the covenant I’d once had with the Church.
The covenant he destroyed with the flick of his lance.
“Pray, Valeria—do you have an extra petticoat under there that I might borrow to wrap this in?”
But the high priestess of the durrow shook her head and, drawing her hem to her knees, knelt upon the rocky ground. “That is not a just manner of transport for such a sacred object…Roserpine would not permit it.”
Valeria shut her eyes, her hands clasped before her face. Her lips moved to emit words that were soft and meaningless to me as her breaths, but, for their music, twice as wonderful to hear. The air around her took on the thunderstorm quality of magical weavings, and as the prayer grew on, it took the rhythm of a kind of song.
The prayer was not the only thing to be woven, however. While the song climbed delicately up, spiders scuttled in through the rocks.
As the first few wolf spiders bumbled past and scurried along the scepter to learn its dimensions, I’m embarrassed to say I was more startled than Branwen and recoiled upright from where I knelt. The druid, though surprised, was far more intrigued, and marveled around her as readily as though the little creatures were squirrels or fawns.
“How helpful,” she commented with a laugh, offering a more approving and warm-hearted look toward Valeria than I think I had then seen her give. “It takes a spectacular heart to see the creativity of spiders and call on them without fear.”
“And Valeria’s heart is most certainly spectacular,” I agreed while more spiders flooded merrily into the quarry. Fuzzy tarantulas scuttled down from the mountains while trapdoor spiders crawled from their holes and raced to hear news from those comrades who were first to the scene. Jumping spiders sprang out of shadows and even a few plane-shifting spiders the size of large mastiffs vibrated into the visible dimension. Their purple eyes studied me warily until I moved back from the Scepter to let the arachnids do their work. These demi-alien spiders had to be about as careful as I was when it came to avoiding their tiny brethren; but, somehow, their silk threads were no less fine!
The weaving had begun before I even realized it. It was the nighttime hour, I think, coupled with the arresting sight of all the many spiders. One became focused on the arachnids and not necessarily on what they were doing. But what they were doing, I was soon to find, was incredible.
Strand by strand, the spiders created a silk shroud long enough to wrap around the Scepter of Weltyr. It tucked into itself with ease, allowing the concealment of the sacred object’s either end. The cloth shimmered in the light nearly as brightly as did its charge. When it was finished, it wafted down into my hands as lightly as would have the veil of a bride.
When the work was finished, the spiders remained only to assure themselves that I understood what to do with their gift. As I approached the relic with the cloth over my arm, they dispersed. Rather than the awesome waves in which they’d come, they left the area in a gradual black trickle as though rejoining the pool of night’s darkness. By the time the plane-shifting spiders phased out of the third and fourth dimensions back into whatever one they preferred to spend time in, Valeria’s song had reduced to soft chanting. A few wolf spiders remained to watch us finish what they started, and when satisfied that their work was a perfect fit, they scurried off to resume their business.
“I have to hand it to them,” I said, stepping back from the wrapped scepter to admire its new cocoon, “they really are capital tailors.”
“That was such a beautiful prayer, Valeria,” said Branwen, still in that tone of genuine compliment. “I never would have thought of calling on spiders for assistance…we druids tend to favor mammals, but now I feel like it’s some kind of prejudice!”
Smiling thinly, visibly tired to call upon so great an act of magic without the aid of Roserpine’s ring, Valeria swayed up to her feet and permitted me to take her warm, sweet-smelling body in my arms. “Perhaps it is something like that…but, in the Nightlands, the animals we know best are snakes, bats, and spiders. Roserpine loves all those creatures that move through the darkness.”
“Then please pray to her
as well as to Weltyr that such love has been shown to the people of Soot. Branwen, take the lantern…”
I paused. My chest grew pained to look on Strife, broken there amid the rocks. If we were met with trouble I would have only my own prayers with which to defend myself. None of those could be said to be directly offensive in nature except, perhaps, for Weltyr’s occasional willingness to bring about undead entities through me—always temporary in nature, and usually only something automated like the severed hand of Al-listux. I supposed, in a pinch, I could always lead my enemies back to town and around to Soot’s small cemetery.
Luckily, no such thing was necessary. After all—I had just been told that, in my greatest need, a new sword would be mine for the taking. I trusted I would not require a weapon until then, although my heart still ached while Valeria tenderly took Strife’s pieces and, as I had, pressed them to her heart. She looked at me curiously, but did not ask me any questions. That quality of Valeria’s—her ability to perceive when it was not yet time to ask a question that seared her with intense curiosity—has always been the one I most appreciated in her.
Then, with the Scepter snugly in its silk wrapper, the women and I set out to find the citizens of Soot. Valeria bore Strife in one hand and the lantern in the other. I, the holy relic. Branwen, meanwhile, carried her reclaimed crossbow.
“Yelp returned it to me when he saw you run off,” she explained.
“Do you suppose that fellow’s still around the town?”
Branwen shook her head, uncertain.
Together, the three of us took to the hills. The mountain nearest the town of Soot, the very same down which we’d come, was a natural place to look. We had not long wandered toward the base of the mountain and the altitude that was richest in trees when our calls of, “Hello? Hello? Erdwud? Rigan? Mr. and Mrs. Dardrie?” were at last answered by a hopeful response.
“Who’s that?”
“Rorke Burningsoul,” I shouted into the trees. “Lively called for us.”
“Lively!”
Erdwud thundered through the trees and underbrush, bursting out through a pair of trunks and regarding us with wild eyes. In spite of his obviously haggard appearance—malnourished, unwashed and scruffy to say the least—the tavern-keeper looked desperately at us. “Is she all right?”
“She’s in perfect health,” I assured him. Erdwud wept in relief, his hands clasping before him as he fell back against the support of a tree trunk. I continued, “And she’s very brave—she rode all the way to Skythorn to find us. Weltyr must have inspired you to send us to your friend so that she would know where to look.”
More of Soot’s citizens made themselves known from the trees, guided by the light of the lantern and the sounds of our voices. Rigan, the old blacksmith, appeared next. “Did you slay those little—”
“The gimlets are still around—however, because they value their lives, we don’t think they’ll be in your homes any longer.”
The old man regarded me sourly. “What gives you that idea?”
“Because their queen has fled, pursued by a magical animal; and they did not come into your town before her interference, so I would not expect them to attempt it again.”
Someone bitterly shouted, “Those little buggers have been squatting in our houses and stealing our food, and they get to just walk back into the hills?”
“That’s not what I’m proposing,” I told them as they muttered. “Look—the gimlets speak a language unintelligible to humans, but they still speak a language, and most of them at least understand the common tongue. They’re creatures of reason. Why not help them develop a neighboring settlement?”
So many villagers had gathered around by now that I could no longer keep track of the speakers. I only knew by tone and gender that they were not all the same people, but many voices addressing me in a chorus round. “Help them, after their queen destroyed our crops?”
“They could help you establish and harvest new crops to make right what was destroyed. By the same token, you could teach them the secrets of agriculture and have new neighbors to trade with. Instead of dealing with constant raids on merchants coming through the area, you could have new trading partners available to you.”
Perhaps inspired by the spiders, I further posited, “They seem skilled in the tanning and crafting of leather, and I saw at least one of them cooking. Another appeared interested in the care of animals. Perhaps, if you gave the gimlets an opportunity to learn mankinds’ ways, they would apply themselves to the tasks of living in those ways so readily that they would have no more time or interest to quarrel with you.”
“Or,” suggested someone crass, “we could obliterate them. Then they’ll certainly never be a problem again.”
“More like you’ll kill the ones you can find and leave a few behind,” I told the protester sternly. “And those surviving will grow all the more resentful, and will radicalize their children against you. Another such invasion will be guaranteed.”
With a few, somewhat more placated murmurs and still others that remained reluctant, the townsfolk considered this. One spoke up again, saying, “How do we know they won’t just take the information we give them and leave us without paying their debt?”
The weight of the scepter somehow all the heavier in my hands in that second, I reminded them all, “Weltyr is the overseer of oaths and contracts. It is a basic standard of decency for all mankinds that an individual be impeccable in their word and commit deeds in line with their actions. Introduce the gimlets to the concept of contracts and the understanding that if one breaks contracts, one cannot be trusted to do business, make trades, or engage in anything else professionally- or socially-motivated.”
A few more people seemed amenable to this. Rigan, still skeptical, looked hard at me. “And if they don’t abide by the requirements of their contracts?”
I spread my hands. “Perhaps some will and others won’t. Introduce them to the concepts of laws and courts—assuming they don’t have such things already. You can either try to introduce them to the ways of mankinds, or you can continue struggling each against the other. Each one trying to eek out separate livings until one of you truly is eradicated…and, crafty as they are, I’m not convinced it will be the gimlets.”
Contemplative silence draped over the villagers of Soot. Exchanging a few long glances, they all seemed to share variations of the same thoughts; the same awful imaginings.
Erdwud turned to me again.
“I don’t suppose you can translate to gimlet, can you?”
“Not without somebody’s help,” I said. “Luckily, I know just the fellow.”
Together, we made our way back to the village in a great procession. Yelp hurried out when we called to him, though he almost ran away when he saw the villagers moving through the darkness. After some explanation of what we wanted, however, his tail wagged and his eyes grew bright. Barking and yipping, the gimlet called his peers out of their many hiding places.
Right then and there in the town square of Soot, before the pile of objects that represented the most precious things in the town, the negotiations began.
There’s no point in boring you with the details of all this. Between all the translating and the decision-making, it took until dawn before an agreement was brokered. When it was, however, the results were heart-warming. The gimlets were very eager to learn the ways of mankinds. To them, the concept of a contract seemed the most intriguing way to start.
A treaty was signed, and in it, the gimlets agreed to integrate into various forms of work around Soot in exchange for fair wages after the first year, which would be a year of reparations to pay back the damages along with the costs of their own training. Meanwhile, in exchange for no longer helping themselves to the contents of merchant caravans, the gimlets requested the right to start a settlement on land about ten miles north of Soot. Whether the humans would help them build that settlement remained to be seen, but I suspected, as in every tentative relationship between n
eighbors in this world, there would be those that would assist and those that would protest. This was just the way things were.
Satisfied, the gimlets at once set about fixing the disarrayed town. While they picked through the remains of the bonfire and golem to see what was salvageable and what was destroyed, the villagers retired to their homes to fulfill the other side of the catalogue—their own precious objects, missing or destroyed. Beds had to be remade, kitchens had to be cleaned, traumatized (and, no doubt, baffled) animals had to be comforted that their disappearing masters had returned.
Throughout all this, I arranged for Erdwud to return to Skythorn with us. Branwen went to fetch the horses while he readied himself. Alone together at last and semi-free to speak, Valeria looked at me.
“What will you do about Strife?”
My eye trailed back over the path to Rigan’s house. Soon we stood before the building of the outraged smith, who mopped his brow and sat on his porch looking exhausted from the effort of inventorying his weapons.
“Those bloody gimlets stole all my swords,” he lamented.
While I, wholly unsurprised to hear this in the way of those who were accustomed to divine coincidence, went on to ask if we could help him straighten up his place, he shook his head.
“No, no, but thanks for the offer. Something I ought to do myself…or maybe I’ll have my grandson come ‘round and sort it. It’s time I had an apprentice, I think. Be a good opportunity to show him a few basic example pieces…with what’s left, anyway. In truth, I had too much sitting around. Good opportunity to go through it all…that armor of yours comes from a few bits I already had sitting around. Your friend see it? What’d he think of it?”
“He’s a fellow of few words,” I told Rigan, earning a brief glance from hooded Valeria. Pretending not to notice, I took Strife’s pieces from her hands and showed them to the old blacksmith. “Now—I’m sure you’ll have enough to do for the foreseeable future, and if I’m reading the winds right, Weltyr will not be leading me back to Soot anytime soon…but, maybe if I return for it, or someone returns for it on my behalf, you might take the time to repair this sword and have it ready? I’ve a few coins now—”