Crossroads: An Artifactor x Deepwoods Short Story

by Honor Raconteur

  “Tran?” Bellomi’s voice sounded cautious and a trifle alarmed. “Why are you coming from that direction?”

  Quickly putting the crate down, Erik stepped outside again, one hand on his sword. “What’s the problem?”

  Tran lifted both hands in a staying motion. “It’s fine. I was just keeping an eye on things. Baby got it into his head that Alex needs proper training in hunting and skulking skills. He keeps taking the kid out into the woods when our back is turned.”

  Alarm shot through Erik. “Wait, Sevana specifically told Alex not to do that.”

  Bellomi waved him down with a strangely reminiscent smile on his face. “It’s fine. As long as they don’t go too deep in, they’ll be fine. When I stayed here, Baby gave me the same lessons. It’ll be good practice for the kid. And Baby adores teaching us hapless humans. He’s a good teacher; he won’t let Alex come to any harm.”

  “It’s certainly been entertaining watching them,” Tran admitted with a deep snicker. “Baby of course noticed me, but neither Grydon or Alex has yet, and I think Baby’s about despaired of them because of it. They are improving though, I grant them that.”

  As long as Tran kept an eye on the situation. Shaking his head at the idea of a mountain lion teacher, Erik decided to let that one be. “Tran, we’ve got a selection of brews here. Want to join in a sampling party?”

  “I do believe that’s the stupidest question you’ve ever asked me.” Tran rubbed his hands together, already heading inside and shedding his heavy coat as he went. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Girls are still shopping with Morgan, Conli and Rune,” Bellomi informed him, hefting the crate a little higher in his arms, making the glass bottles inside clink together. “Hana’s determined to find a nice engagement gift. Since Sylvie and Morgan are shopping with her, I pity the merchant she eventually buys from. Those two are formidable. We left Markl in the library, happily combing through the books. I think it’ll take a force of nature to get him back out again.”

  Knowing Markl, Erik agreed with that assessment. He knew Grae to be inside with Sevana, still working out the kinks of how to get home again, although they seemed to have a general plan. But, “Fei?”

  “He was with me,” Tran answered, slipping sideways to get past Erik and inside Big. “But he went ahead of me, said something about his turn to cook tonight and wanting to get a rack of lamb going.”

  Mmm, lamb sounded good. Of course, any night that Fei cooked was a good night. Erik scooped up his crate of goodies and followed Tran in. “Ask him if he wants to join us.”

  Big whispered, Coming.

  That was the funny thing about the mountain. He loved passing messages along, for whatever reason. Bellomi mentioned off-handedly that Big adored having guests, a rare thing as Sevana did not, and enjoyed playing host to their large group. After nearly a week of being here, Erik no longer jumped when the mountain spoke to them and just let things roll. “My thanks, Big.”

  They settled in the living room, the only space big enough for everyone, and one of the few fireplaces that was kept going throughout the day. Erik threw a few more logs on the fire, building it up once more, and as he did that Fei appeared with several tankards that they put to good use. As they filled them up, Beirly joined them, rubbing his hands together with anticipation. Erik had lost track of him at some point. “Where have you been?”

  “Sevana let me take apart an old flying device of hers,” he explained, as giddy as a child with an entire shop of sweets. “I’ve been backwards engineering it. It might take magic to make it fly, but I think if we put some sort of engine into it, it could work the same. I saw something in Saoleord that might be adapted.”

  “I hope you figure it out.” Erik really hoped he did, as flying would be amazing in their world, magic or no magic. “Want a tankard?”

  “Sure. What are we drinking?”

  “Everything,” Bellomi told him cheerfully, passing him a cup. “We’re doing a sampling party. You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to this, I haven’t been able to drink like this in ages.”

  Considering his status in the kingdom, Erik imagined not. Although he sometimes struggled to remember that Bellomi was a prince. The man was just so approachable and down to earth, he felt more like a friend than anything. “Then let’s open this party up properly.” Taking his tankard, he lifted it in the air. “Here’s to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking. If you cheat, may you cheat death. If you steal, may you steal a woman’s heart. If you fight, may you fight a brother. And if you drink, may you drink with me.”

  They clinked glasses and drank deeply. The ale was robust, an earthy aftertaste that lingered on his tongue and set a low fire to his belly. Smacking his lips, Erik lowered it and grinned. “A fine beverage. What’s next?”

  Chapter Five

  Siobhan returned from the shopping trip, her nose frozen on her face, which was really her only complaint. They’d had a great deal of fun shopping at the market, and while they did buy sensible things like groceries, they’d bought fun things as well, such as clothes, a bit of jewelry, a wonderfully rendered art book that covered the wonders of the world, some interesting medicines, and so on. Hana had insisted on buying Rune and Denny’s wedding rings, a kindness really, as Rune had been saving to afford something beside plain gold. These had small sapphires intertwined amongst the metal in a simple but elegant design. The young couple had been beyond thrilled with the purchase.

  All in all, a good day, and Siobhan blessed that they’d been lucky enough to end up here, with such good hosts. What worried her, however, was that she’d lost track of her troublemakers. Wolf had gone ahead to start a drinking party, she wasn’t necessarily worried about him, but where was Tran? Alex?

  Coming through the front door, she nearly ran smack into Tran, and only his quick reflexes saved her, as his hands caught her shoulders. “Whoa, steady there.”

  Re-balancing, she patted his chest. “Thanks, Tran. Where’s everyone?”

  Used to her counting ducklings, Tran rattled off, “Alex just headed for the baths. He’s been tramping out with all of the animals all day, and trust me, he needs one. Grae and Sevana are still bent over their designs in her workroom, and when I passed by, they looked happy with their progress.”

  Relief flowed through Siobhan. She always checked in with them, to hear what they had to say, but they seemed mostly to have theories about what went wrong with only tentative plans on how to send everyone back home. Progress sounded good.

  “Everyone else’s on their way to being good and drunk,” Tran continued, frankly amused. “I just turned the rack of lambs over and lowered the heat, as they’re done, just need some more basting.”

  “I thought it was Fei’s turn to cook tonight?”

  “He started it, but I didn’t have the heart to pull him away from his conversation.” At her puzzled look, he gestured toward the living room. “Go see for yourself.”

  Beyond curious, she did so, giving way so that everyone could come in behind her without needing to scoot sideways to manage it. As they went to their own rooms to stash their goodies, Siobhan beelined for the living room, setting her own shopping bundles just inside the door and out of the way. It took barely a glance and a moment to listen to realize what Tran had meant by that. All of the men were comfortably sprawled out, a tankard in hand, although they seemed to have fallen into their own groups. Fei and Bel were adamantly discussing sociopolitical systems with gusto, hands gesturing in the air and illustrating their points, both clearly enthralled with whatever it was they were agreeing on. Most of it went straight over Siobhan’s head. The other group closer to the fire consisted of Beirly, Wolf, and Sarsen. Sarsen had Wolf’s iron hand in both of his, turning it this way and that, and that conversation seemed just as involved.

  Was it too much to hope for that Sarsen had an idea of how to make that iron hand truly unbreakable?

  Crossing the rest of the distance, Siobhan dropped down to sit on h
er husband’s knee, which he accommodated by shifting his free arm out of the way, then closed it back again around her waist. Looking up at her with a smile, he greeted, “Shopping went well?”

  “I pity the poor merchants,” Siobhan reported cheerfully. “They were on the point of tears by the time we left. Sylvie and Morgan are a terrifying combo. Hana kindly bought our two wedding rings, which they’re wearing, as they’re terrified of losing them. All in all, we had a great deal of fun, although I’m now worried about our weight allotment.”

  “We should probably curtail the shopping soon,” Wolf agreed, eyes crinkling up in a silent laugh. “Although good luck convincing Sylvie of that. Here, wifey, try this ale. It’s the smoothest thing I’ve ever tasted.”

  She pulled it up to her mouth and took a generous swallow. “Mmm, yes, that’s quite good. We need the recipe for this.”

  “Brewmaster’s a friend of mine,” Sarsen promised her absently, his attention still on the iron hand. “I’ll get it for you later. Beirly, instead of iron, have you considered tungsten?”

  “No, what’s that?” Beirly asked, very intrigued.

  “Hardest metal that you can find in nature,” Sarsen supplied, finally tearing his eyes away. “Iron doesn’t even compare to it in terms of strength. It’s a little difficult to work with, as it has a high melting point, but I’ve crafted things with it before. I think it’ll solve the problem of the fragility of the hand. Although truly, the way you engineered this…” Sarsen tilted it again to look at the joints. “It’s very clever. Can you draw out the design for me?”

  “If you’ll help me craft him a new hand with tungsten, I think that more than a fair trade,” Beirly agreed promptly.

  “That’ll be my pleasure. I’ll understand the design much better if you guide me in making one anyway.” Sarsen waggled his eyebrows at Wolf teasingly. “That sound alright to you, Erik?”

  Wolf grinned back, a bit of tooth in the expression. “If you can really forge me an unbreakable hand, I’m all for it.”

  “I didn’t say it was unbreakable, just that it was nearly impossible for human strength to break,” Sarsen corrected.

  “And no,” Siobhan added tartly to her still grinning husband, because she didn’t trust that expression at all, “that is not a challenge.”

  Wolf attempted an innocent look. He was very bad at it.

  “But I think we can do more than just make this more durable.” Sarsen poked at one of the joints with a pencil, expression alight with a look Siobhan knew well from watching Beirly work. “The joints on this thing is ingenious. I can see the locking mechanism—that’s quite innovative—but it requires the other hand to set it in the right pattern, correct? I wonder if we can’t insert some gears and put a spell on it so that it can move much like a normal hand.”

  Beirly and Wolf went taut, their entire focus on him. For that matter, Siobhan held her breath. “But you’d use magic to make it work, right?” she asked him uncertainly. “And magic runs out, even on this world.”

  “I’ve no notion if it’ll work right on your world,” Sarsen admitted frankly, still poking at the joint and clearly thinking hard. “But I can create it so that the spell can renew, run off a natural energy. Say sunlight, that should be more than sufficient considering how much traveling you do.”

  Beirly leaned in as well, studying the hand with new eyes. “If we design it right, then even if the spell doesn’t work, it’ll still function like it does now. You can still lock it in place when you need to hold something.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Sarsen agreed, pleased Beirly apparently shared his vision. “But if it does, you have a fully mobile and functioning hand just like your left. What do you think, Erik?”

  “I think its certainly worth the try,” Wolf said promptly, not even needing to think about it. “But do we have the time to make it?”

  “It’ll take a few days, but magic will help speed the process along. I think its doable.”

  The conversation was interrupted by Sevana, striding into the room with a bounce and an infectious smile. “Everyone! I think we have a plan.”

  Siobhan half-turned, hope rising fast and hard. As much as she respected this woman’s magic, her eyes went to Grae to see how he felt about this. Her cautious friend would never whimsically try something that he didn’t have perfect faith in. Grae, to her relief, had a hopeful smile on his face and a certain smugness, as if he were sure this was the answer.

  “We believe that your magic and mine opened at the same time,” Sevana explained succinctly, still bouncing a little on her toes, as if she were beside herself for having figured it out. “Portal dimensions overlap, and because we both worked magic at the same time and with the same elements, they connected when they shouldn’t have, which brought you directly here. I wish I could actually test the elements involved on your end, get the exact power levels, but Grae’s given me a good estimation, and I know my power levels here, which more or less coincide. We believe we can duplicate this.”

  “We’ll need to build a path with the same wave pattern,” Grae pitched in, his voice louder than usual so that everyone could hear him without straining. “But we’ll incorporate Sevana’s clock portals, so it won’t be a long path. We’d only gone four stepping stones in, approximately, when we were yanked here.”

  “So four stepping stones in, then you step into my clock portal, and presto!” Sevana threw her arms out wide in a grand gesture, smile irrepressible. “You’ll be home. Pretty sure. We think.”

  “Maybe not Goldschmidt, but Robarge at least,” Grae added more prosaically.

  Siobhan sucked in a breath, head dizzy with the possibility. Strange enough they’d landed here to begin with. But going home again was somehow trickier, more dangerous, as they had only a good guess on how they’d come here to begin with. Still, she had to trust her experts and if they felt this could be done, then…well. No one had ever accused the Deepwoods Guild of lacking courage.

  Her husband squeezed her gently around the waist, offering silent encouragement, and that was what loosened up her throat and lungs enough to be able to say the words. “How many stones do we need?”

  In the interest of using their time at max effectiveness, they divvied off the tasks. Beirly and Erik were to focus on his new hand, making that their priority to get done. Siobhan, Grae, Rune, Denny, and Sylvie were the stone gatherers. Fei picked Bel’s and Hana’s brains, learning everything he could about government and economics and recording it to take with them to share. Markl and Conli did the same, only from Sevana’s and Milby’s extensive libraries, writing down as much as they could. Alex was hit and miss in helping with the stone gathering, as was Tran, as Baby seemed intent on teaching the boy on how to properly hunt and skulk. It was such a rare opportunity for him to be able to go outdoors and play that Siobhan didn’t have the heart to curtail him. She let him go, with Tran keeping a careful watch on the pair.

  Erik personally thought that was a bit optimistic, as Tran didn’t have the same sense of ‘dangerous’ as the rest of them, and Baby apparently had rules because he brought home things he shouldn’t. But he wasn’t about to tell his wife that. He was more or less sure that whatever happened, Alex would survive the experience and learn from it, and that was more important.

  Even though it was his own hand, Erik couldn’t really help much in the forging process. Still, he was vitally invested in this and sat on a stool out of the way of the worktable and watched both men bent over the metal. It had been something, watching Sarsen forge the different pieces of it. It took an interesting blend of kiln work and magic to melt the metal alone and Erik had no idea how Beirly would manage to duplicate the process at home. Even though he had tungsten ore to lug home, it was indeed a question if he’d ever be able to use it.

  The room was hot, almost unbearably so, and that was after it was left to cool overnight. Yesterday’s forging could still be felt on his sweating skin. Erik ignored it, his eyes focused on the joints of the first
finger as the men used a combination of gears and pins to bolt the thing together.

  “Not too tight,” Beirly cautioned Sarsen. “It’ll stop the joint from moving altogether.”

  Grunting acknowledgement, Sarsen eased up on the tension. “There?”

  “I think so. Alright, let’s add the second knuckle. Wolf, how’s it looking to you?”

  “Very sharp,” Erik admitted, the excitement audible even to himself. “I don’t know why, but I expected it to be darker than iron.”

  “No, it’s actually quite lighter. Looks much like silver, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, strangely.” The thought brought a smile to his face. “People will think I’m a wealthy man, striding around with a silver hand on my arm.”

  “Up until you punch someone with it,” Beirly muttered, shaking his head in exasperation. “Just do me a favor and don’t try to stop a sword or a shield with this hand, alright?”

  “Now, Beirly,” Erik teased in his most deadpanned voice, “that’s what metal hands are for.”

  “Try using your head,” Beirly shot back, eyes twinkling with laughter. “I guarantee it’s harder. Oh good, second joint’s working fine.” He lifted it closer to his face, inspecting it carefully, the nodded. “Yes, that’s fine. Alright, let’s set that here. Middle finger.”

  “Middle finger,” Sarsen agreed, handing Beirly the tip of the finger to hold steady while he lifted a gear and pin.

  The door to the workroom opened and Baby slouched in with a distinctly guilty air about him. Not that Erik had much experience reading the body language of giant cats, but the hangdog way his head hung between his shoulders, and the guilty looking boy trailing in after him gave him a good indication. Uh-oh. Maybe he should have been worried about those two after all. “Baby. Alex. What did you do?”