by V. Moody
“I want you to teach me how to do magic,” I said.
“Why?”
I placed the tip of the sword against his neck. “Because if you don’t, I will kill you.”
Obviously, I was bluffing. I had no intention of killing him. If things went pear-shaped, my plan was to leg it. I might’ve been reluctant to kill but given the chance, I was sure he’d have no problem ripping my throat out. Like it or not, we were enemies.
“No, you idiot, I mean why do you want to learn. You humans have your own magic.”
Grayson had said there were magicians, but there’d been no sign of any kind of magic-wielding humans so far. If they existed, they weren’t very common. And even if I found one, I doubted they’d share their secrets with me.
“I don’t get on well with other humans.” I thought this might win his trust and it wasn’t exactly untrue. “As soon as I arrived in this world, they put a weapon in my hand and told me to kill, but most of the monsters I’ve met so far have been other humans. I want to learn your magic to defend myself against my own kind.”
The frogman laughed, which sounded like a gurgling drain. “Our magic is simple and harmless. It’s a way to make life a bit easier, not to murder.”
“Okay, but show me anyway. That’s all I ask, and then I’ll let you go.” I threw him some more jerky.
He narrowed his eyes and thought about it as he chewed on the dried meat. “You’ll have to untie my hands.”
It was risky. If he attacked me, my chances of survival probably weren’t all that great. He could use magic, for one. Who knew what other defense mechanisms he might have? Poison skin? Acid spit? Frogjitsu? But there was no point quitting now. I loosened the rope I’d used to tie his hands behind his back. He didn’t try to attack me or run away, he just shook his hands to get the feeling back.
“Man, you’re a pain. What kind of magic do you want to learn?”
I didn’t realise there was more than one, but I went with what I’d already seen. I held up a hand. “Show me how to make fire come out of your fingers.”
The frogman made a series of movements with the fingers on his right hand, ending with his index finger sticking out. A blue flame popped up from the end. He blew on it, and it went out.
He showed me the movements more slowly and I copied what he did. The gestures were like a more complicated version of rock, paper, scissors, enacted super-fast, but not beyond my capabilities to imitate. I tried a number of times at different speeds. No flame appeared for me.
He carried on showing me and I carried on copying him for twenty or so minutes, with no success. I didn’t know if I was doing it wrong or if he was playing me and the movements were not how it worked at all. Or, it could be humans didn’t have the ability to do this kind of magic.
“What are you thinking when you do it?” I asked him.
“Nothing.” He had all the jerky now, and was munching away as he watched me repeat the hand signals over and over.
“Is this right?”
He shrugged. “Mmdunno.”
It was like being trained by Stoner-Yoda. Questions you ask, too many. Harshing my buzz, you are.
There was a shout in the distance that sounded like someone calling, “Nabbo! Nabbo!”
I jumped to my feet, holding my sword in a trembling hand. “What was that?”
“That’s my son. He’s probably wondering what’s taking so long.”
“You’re name’s Nabbo?”
“Nabbo means father. My name is—” He made a strange whistling, burbling sound.
“Nabbo it is, then. You better go.”
I felt quite depressed. I hadn’t learned any magic. In fact, I’d failed miserably and the whole thing had turned into a bit of a fiasco. I’d assaulted an old man, got frog faeces on my new boots, and was down one bag of jerky.
He got up and walked off.
My stomach growled. “Wait,” I called out after him. He stopped and turned. “What about some fish. You have quite a lot, you could afford to give me a couple.”
“In exchange for my life?” he asked.
“In exchange for all the jerky you ate.”
He looked down at his fist which still held the last couple of strips of jerky. “All right. This way.”
I scrambled to my feet and followed him back to the water. Foolish? Probably. Once we got back to his people, there was no reason why he wouldn’t have his son kill me on the spot. But I didn’t care. Kidnapping and threatening an elderly frog hadn’t been easy on me. I had been drenched in sweat, shaking with nerves and constantly on the verge of throwing up throughout the ordeal. After all that, I couldn’t stand the thought of going back empty-handed.
As we approached the water’s edge, the frogmen on the platform saw me. I had my sword out and probably looked more menacing than I intended. The young male grabbed his spear and pointed it in my direction, while the female pulled her kid into her arms and crouched down, her eyes on the water, probably planning to swim for it.
The old frogman waved at them. “Put that down, he isn’t dangerous. Give him two fish.”
The son lowered the spear. “Two fish? Why?”
“Eh! Just do it.” He threw the last of the jerky at his son, who caught it, sniffed it, and then stuffed it into his mouth.
They gave me two large fish that I could just about carry. The female and kid kept to the other end of the platform, eyeing me suspiciously. I was about to leave when a thought occurred to me.
“I was just wondering,” I said to the son, “how do you keep your spear sharp?”
The spear was actually very basic. A straight piece of wood sharpened to a point.
The son placed the end of the spear in his mouth and twisted it like a pencil in a pencil-sharpener. When he took it out, it was noticeably pointier.
“Have you thought about using a metal blade? Like this one.” I dropped one of the fish and took out my knife. I showed him the blade and then tossed it to him.
He examined it, felt the edges, put it in his mouth and tried to bite it. The he shook his head and tossed it back. “Fish would slide off.”
“What if you could design it in the shape you wanted?”
He thought about it and then placed the end of his spear in the fire. when he took it out, the tip was blackened. He used it to draw a design on the floor of the platform; a narrow blade with a curved hook on the side. It didn’t look like it would be very hard for a blacksmith to make.
“If I bring you a spear like that, will you teach me how to catch fish?”
He glanced over at the old guy and they shrugged at each other. Then he looked back at me, still uncertain I was on the level. “Maybe.”
I looked over at the woman. “And this…” I pointed at the pot on the fire which was actually a rusted old helmet. “If I bring you a proper cooking pot, will you show me and my friends how to cook the fish we catch?”
“Who are these friends?” asked the son.
“Hey!” I called out to the other side of the pond. “Stand up!”
The four members of my party stood up sheepishly. I waved at them. They nervously waved back like contestants in a ‘who can act the most awkward’ competition. It was a four-way dead heat.
The frogman looked confused. “What exactly are you people?”
It was a good question.
“Do we have a deal?”
He nodded.
“Wait!” said the female. She held up two fingers. “Two pots. And a big spoon.”
I smiled—a fellow spoon lover. “Okay.” All that time thinking violence was the answer when the only weapon I needed was good old capitalism.
17. It’s Nice To Be Wanted
When I returned to the others, they had a bunch of questions for me. They hadn’t expected to see me walk out with the old frogman, and didn’t know what to do. Rush over and help? Cause a distraction so I could escape?
“You know,” said Claire, “I thought you might kill them, even the little bab
y.” She laughed like she was telling me some silly joke. “I was about to scream at you to leave them alone, but Maurice said we should see what you were planning.”
I could imagine the reaction if a crazy girl had suddenly started screaming at the top of her voice—frogman spear straight into my gut. Fortunately, they ended up doing what I would expect from them. Nothing.
We ate the fish for dinner, which was by far the best meal we’d had in days, and next morning we set off back to Fengarad. I explained the deal I had made exchanging goods for services and they let out a collective sigh of relief. More shopping was something they could handle.
It took us two days to get back. On the way, I showed them the hand movements for creating fire. There was no reason to keep it secret from them, and there was always the chance one of them had a knack for it.
They all very excitedly gave it a go, but no one managed to produce a flame. Although every few minutes Flossie would blurt out, “Ah think ah felt summit. No, really, this time, there were definitely a tingle in me fingers.”
They eventually got bored and gave up, but I kept at it. Maybe it was one of those things that just clicked one day and you could just do it.
We were out of food, exhausted and ready for a night in a cosy room with a proper bed as we reached the familiar city walls. The sight we were met with as we approached Fengarad’s main entrance, though, twisted my stomach so hard I nearly fell over.
The long line of people wishing to enter the city was there as usual, along with the guards on the gate. But stuck to the city wall were a number of posters. They were like the bounty posters in the Municipal Directory that told you which beasts to kill and how much money you’d receive for them. Only these posters didn’t have a picture of a beast on them, the drawing was very clearly of a man. Me.
And the rewards? 10,000 bits. Dead or alive. The ‘dead’ was in a much bigger font than the ‘alive’.
Of course, it was very flattering to be considered such a high value target for every killer out there. If my head hadn’t been spinning while I gasped for breath and flop sweat ran into my eyes, blurring my vision, I’m sure I would have felt immensely proud of the achievement.
The others quickly huddled around, propping me up as my legs gave out.
“Oh look,” said Dudley, “isn’t that one of those, er, what do you call them? Trees?”
“Yes!” agreed Maurice. “I’ve been wanting to have a closer look at one. Let’s go over there.”
All of them joined in this highly unsuspicious conversation as they carried-dragged me away from the line of people all watching the group of weirdos who apparently had never seen a tree before.
The drawing was of me when I had my scraggly beard and my hair wasn’t quite right either. The artist had also taken the liberty of thickening up my eyebrows and giving me a vicious scowl. Wanted-me definitely had the face of a criminal and was also, somewhat upsettingly, much more handsome than regular-me.
All these small changes, plus the hat I was wearing, helped me get away without being recognised. If I had been, I’m pretty sure every single person waiting to enter Fengarad would have abandoned their position in line to beat me to death with their bear hands, and split the money between them.
Shit, for 10,000 bits I considered surrendering to the authorities and claiming the reward myself.
We managed to get beyond the trees and out of sight.
“What the fuck did you do?” Claire yelled at me.
I’d been in daze up to this point, but her harridan screeching snapped me out of it. “What are you talking about, you dozy cow? I haven’t done anything. I’ve been with you the whole time.”
This undeniable bit of logic calmed her down. Slightly. “What about before you left?”
“Nothing. I did nothing. Someone’s obviously trying to fit me up. One of the people we pissed off.”
Thinking about who that someone could be, made me realise how long a list it was—we’d only been in this world a few weeks and we’d made a formidable number of enemies.
Grayson might have changed his mind about me. Or maybe the cut I gave him got infected and he died, making me his killer.
The farmboys could have decided to frame me for one of their crimes. That would certainly put me on the most wanted list. But for ten grand?
Then there was Sonny. He struck me as someone who’d make up a lie to get his revenge, and he probably had connections to the people in charge of putting up bounties.
But one person seemed much more likely than the rest. HRH Princess Laney. On the one hand she was just a young girl and this seemed quite an extreme response to our little tiff. On the other hand, she was mad as a bag of ferrets.
I told Maurice to go see Commander Ducane. “Tell him I left the group, but you know where to find me. You’ll bring me in but first you want to know what I’m accused of.”
He was a bit nervous about not fluffing his lines, but Claire agreed to go with him, for moral support.
They returned in about an hour with news of my crimes.
“It’s the Princess, like you thought,” said Maurice. “She’s put up her own money for your capture. Apparently, you committed an unspeakable act.”
“What?! I never touched her.”
“No,” said Claire, “it’s not that. She sent you an invitation to the Palace and you never turned up.”
“And now she wants me dead?” This seemed more than a little disproportional.
“Well,” said Flossie, “you stood her up. Ah’d be mad, too.”
“I wasn’t even in the city! And why did she even invite me? It’s not like we parted on good terms.”
“Actually,” said Maurice, “according to Ducane, before she sent the invite, she asked him about the differences between arsenic and cyanide, and which kind of pastry best disguised their taste. So, he reckons she was planning to poison you, but when you didn’t show, she decided to take a more direct route.”
“But there is some good news,” added Claire. “The King found out what she did and declared the bounty void. It’s just that it’ll be some time before they can take all the posters down.”
“Great. I guess we’ll have to make ourselves scarce for a couple of days.” It wasn’t ideal considering how tired and hungry we were, but it could have been a lot worse.
“The thing is…” began Maurice, in a tone I didn’t like at all. “Once we realised you weren’t really considered a criminal, we told Ducane you were here. And he thinks it would be best if you went to the Palace and sorted things out. Turns out the King is quite keen to meet you, and he can smooth things over with Princess Looney.”
“But I’ll be mobbed as soon as I’m recognised,” I said.
Claire took over. “That’s why he’s sending an armed escort to take you there.” She pointed at the six soldiers walking towards us.
It was inconvenient, but they were right. Best to deal with it now. “Okay. Let’s get it over with.”
“Yes…” said Maurice in that same tone. “I really need to get something to eat.”
“And I need a bath,” said Claire.
“Ah’m dead on me feet. Couldn’t make it to the Palace if I tried.”
“Let me take your bag for you, old boy,” offered Dudley. “Make it a little easier on you.”
“We’ll go grab our usual rooms and meet you later, yeah?” Maurice gave me an encouraging pat on the back. And by encouraging, I mean highly irritating.
The four bastards abandoned me just as Corporal Laffi arrived with his men, who had their swords drawn and carried large shields.
“Ah, hello again,” said Laffi. “Now, we’ll be moving quite quickly and if we do get attacked, please remember to keep your head down and your hands inside the shields at all times. It’s considered bad form to bleed in the Palace.”
The journey through the city was uneventful, if a little nerve wracking. Laffi took the lead, with two soldiers either side of me and one bringing up the rear.
/> We moved the way you do when you’re walking at night and you hear footsteps behind you, so you speed up while trying to make it look like you aren’t running scared.
Which looks odd enough when it’s just one person. When it’s seven of you all doing it together, with heads bobbing around like paranoid pigeons as you check for assassins… well, we got some pretty strange looks as we zoomed through the streets of Fengarad.