by Des Pensable
Aquitain couldn’t believe his luck.
‘Come in, come in Quab and grab a seat. Does news always travel this fast in this town?’
‘Unfortunately, yes! Everyone knows everyone else’s business, often before it happens. There’s little else to talk about. You’re the hot topic at the moment, so if you sneeze everyone will know about it before you can wipe your nose. Your friend is also very topical but they’ve had a chance to meet her. You’re much more mysterious, and even envied.
‘What have I got that they would envy?’
‘I believe you talked to a friend of mine called Miranda. She’s never talked to a single male in this town. You’re the first.’
‘You’re joking aren’t you? I can understand why they’re all envious, she’s beautiful, but she seemed like a normal young woman who’s probably a bit shy and lonely because she spends all of her time in the jungle.’
‘You’re largely correct, she’s a lovely girl and a good friend, but quite feral in nature and she avoids men like the plague as her mother has coloured her opinion of them. It’s quite possible that the only reason she talked to you was that you were in that iron box.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind if I see her again,’ said Aquitain. ‘Is she still around here?’
‘No, she’s returned to her territory but she does come to see me regularly. She should be back in four to six weeks, unless of course I need to call her back to help me with some job that I am too busy to do.’
Aquitain wasn’t quite sure what Quab was hinting at, but he quickly jumped in just in case.
‘Err ... Quab. While I’ve been trapped in this body I’ve learnt how to shape change to a newman shape but that’s all I can do. I was wondering if you would know anyone who might teach me to shape change to other creatures, assuming of course it’s not breaking any local laws or taboos.’
‘I’m pretty busy at the moment but I’ll look into it for you,’ he said with a smile on his face.
‘Thank you very much. How can I repay you for the bag of air freshening powder?’
‘I think I’ve got an amulet that needs fixing. It hasn’t worked properly for a while. Perhaps you can have a look at it for me?’ he asked with a wry smile.
‘Of course, of course that’s what I’m here for,’ Aquitain assured him, and then he remembered the fountain that Featherdown had asked him to fix.
‘Before you go. I’ve been asked to have a look at the town fountain. The High Wizard said that it’s not been working properly. Do you know if anyone knows what’s wrong with it?’
‘It’s possessed,’ said Quab.
‘What do you mean, spirits of some kind?’
‘No, small water elementals have taken possession of it, and young air elementals are fighting to get access to it. However, as they’re near invisible the town people think it’s possessed by spirits.’
‘Why are the elementals fighting?’ asked Aquitain.
‘I don’t know, I haven’t asked them,’ replied Quab.
‘Can you talk to them? Miranda said that druids can talk to some creatures.’
‘To be honest, we rarely see them and I don’t know if they can talk.’
‘She said you have an ability that allows you to talk into their minds and you can tell by their body language and reactions whether they understand you or not.’
‘Did she now. I’ll have to have a word to her about giving away druid secrets.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was a secret. It wasn’t her fault. I asked her how you talked with animals and she told me, in general terms of course, no detail.’
‘Why don’t you use that mind wizard stuff of yours? That works on creature minds as well as newman minds doesn’t it?’ Quab suggested.
‘I don’t know whether it would work on them, but I suppose I could try something,’ he replied.
‘Good, I’ll leave it with you. Have a good day,’ said the druid, and left.
‘They’re all damn good at finding me work to do,’ he muttered to himself as he put the mop and bucket away, then asked Alpha whether he had any hidden memory about air and water elementals.
To his complete surprise Alpha replied that there was quite a bit. It seemed that sometime earlier in his life he had memorized a complete book about them and locked it away in memory. ‘Good!’ he thought, ‘But first I had better have a look at this fountain and perhaps ask a few locals when the trouble occurs,’ so he slid back into his body shell and set out for a tour of the town.
Twin Towers was a peaceful and sleepy small town located on the rocky eastern coast of a continent overlooking a beautiful azure sea. It was named after the two wizard towers in the town that dominated the skyline. The tower opposite the one in which Aquitain was now located belonged to an Archwizard friend of the High Wizard called Granwell, who was away at the moment.
According to the locals, the only reason that the town and towers were here was to service the extra dimensional gateway through which most people and goods travelled. They said that it was the only permanent gateway into Mudrun, and hence the justification for two powerful wizards able to dissuade unwanted visitors. Aquitain knew that if the place had anything of value there would be other more private gateways hidden somewhere. He knew a bit about gateways, as Panmagica had hundreds of them going to all the known worlds in the universe.
Temporary gateways could be created between worlds by very powerful wizards and mind wizards, but they were usually only opened for a couple of minutes at the most. He and Zephira had arrived through one of these. Permanent gateways were only constructed by very powerful and skilled wizards, at huge expense. They were created for trade, and consequently they were guarded jealously and a toll was charged for their use.
Officially, the gateway and the two wizard towers were set on a roughly semicircular rocky headland that jutted out to the east for security reasons, although Aquitain now knew better. It was surrounded by sea on three sides and cut off from the town by a high stonewall which ran in a north-south direction parallel to the coastline. On the gateway side of the wall were four buildings. One was the barracks for the ninety-five gate guards and officials and the other three were used for customs and storage of goods traveling through the gateway.
The town was spread out to the west of the wall and consisted of a shopping area containing a dozen general merchants, several artisans, two inns and several boarding and eating-houses. In the centre of the town was a large fountain, which provided the town’s fresh water. Since everyone went there for water, and most of the eating-houses were located around its periphery, it acted as the central meeting place and promenade. Further to the west towards the jungle edge were small farms, which grew most of the town’s fresh food.
As he trudged around, the smell of the sea air mixed with rich perfumes of the exotic flowers and bushes growing in profusion around the town gave it a relaxed holiday atmosphere. The few people who were about watched him pass by but didn’t talk to him. They weren’t exactly hostile, but they weren’t friendly either. At the fountain, several women were collecting water and chatting among themselves, but all were too shy or afraid to talk to him, and they hurried off as he approached.
The fountain was a relatively simple affair consisting of a knee-high tiled pool about seven paces across. In the centre of the pool was a three-tiered rock structure that looked like three large inverted brown breakfast bowls, each sitting on top of the other and each one smaller than the one below. Water cascaded out of the top bowl from four equally spaced openings around its side. It was obviously the top bowl that had exploded a few weeks ago, as it appeared to be much newer than the rest of the fountain.
He walked around the fountain several times trying to spot anything unusual but was disappointed, as nothing happened. The fountain seemed to work perfectly. After a couple of minutes, a lone man wearing blacksmith attire approached him with a hammer in his hand.
‘You there, stranger. What are you doing! People need to
get water.’
‘I’m not stopping them. I’m Aquitain the new wizard artisan. I’ve been asked by the High Wizard to find out what’s wrong with the fountain, but it looks like it’s working perfectly well at the moment.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re so different. My name is Lanthum, I’m the blacksmith, very nice to meet you Aquitain. The problem with the fountain’s got some people a bit nervous. It’s been happening over the last few months and it only happens after dark and when the wind blows in from the sea. There seem to be invisible spirits fighting there. Some think it’s the spirits of people who have died in the sea. The spirits generally ignore anyone standing nearby, but a few weeks ago their dispute got so violent that they destroyed the top section of the fountain and flying pieces of it injured two people.’
‘Do you think they’ll be here tonight?’
‘It’s quite possible. The wind direction is right,’ said the blacksmith.
‘Well I’ll see what I can do.’ Aquitain was feeling like a knight asked to vanquish a dragon. He knew that this was a typical job asked of a field wizard, but he wasn’t experienced in this type of work. He was an artisan but it did feel exciting, so he hurried off to prepare. He was sure that this was a test given to him by the High Wizard and the druid Quab had realized it too, and left it for Aquitain to solve.
Several hours later Zephira called in to see him again. She was excited, but tired. He was busy loading some powder into small boxes.
‘Hi Aquitain! How’s your day been? I had a great time this morning showing a group of young wizards my defender technique. By the Powers, it smells a lot better than this morning. You’ll have to watch out what you eat or you’ll lose all your customers.’
‘I might need your help tonight, Zephira. I’m going to try and exorcise a possessed fountain,’ Aquitain informed her.
‘What are you talking about?’ she asked, suddenly realizing that he didn’t seem to be joking.
‘There is a dispute between two groups of elementals, and they’re fighting at night in the town fountain. Some people were injured recently. I’m going to try and fix the problem.’
‘But you’re not that type of wizard. Granddad specifically forbade you from learning any fighting magic.’
‘Who said anything about fighting? I’m going to try and arbitrate their dispute, but just in case it doesn’t work, I was hoping that you would back me up.’
‘You mean protect you when they all try to beat you to a pulp?’
‘That’s a definite possibility. Are you with me?’
‘Of course I am, I can’t have my favourite cousin being beaten up, besides I’m busting for a good fight, it’s been too long.’
‘Good but I want you to only use violence as the very last option. Let’s try diplomacy first, second and third. Go and get a meal, then meet me at the fountain just after dark.’
Aquitain was quite pleased with himself. He had prepared for every eventuality that he could think of, including learning key words and phrases of both air and water elemental languages; and he had conducted a magic ritual, which allowed him to comprehend other languages more efficiently. He had used this ritual on quite a number of occasions over the years when dealing with customers to the magic shop from remote worlds that couldn’t speak trade common very well.
Elementals were creatures whose bodies were made of one of the four elements, air, water, fire or earth. In their own element they were almost invisible, hence they were rarely noticed. They generally ignored other sentient creatures including newmans unless they got in the way or were attacked. In either case, they attacked fearlessly and recklessly worrying little about their own safety.
With the fountain, the problems only occurred when the wind blew in a certain direction, suggesting that the air elementals were coming into the town with the sea breeze. It was quite possible that young water elementals came out of the fountain at night to play, or even to look at the strange newmans. The air elementals were only small ones, and were known to dislike water elementals and vice versa. The situation was perfect for a fight to develop between gangs of the young of each type of elemental. Aquitain had to somehow find out why this had recently started happening, and somehow mediate a truce.
Just after dark, he gathered the special items that he had prepared into a cloth bag and set off for the fountain. When he arrived it looked as if the whole town had come to watch. Many had booked seats in the eating-houses around the periphery of the plaza, which were offering special meals and drinks and had set up lanterns around the fountain to ensure their patrons got a good view.
Zephira was wearing her own leather armour, her shield bracers and a short sword in a sheath at her side. She saw Aquitain arriving and ran over to him a little worried.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing. If this doesn’t work we’ll be the laughing stock of the town for weeks.’
‘So do I,’ he said, looking at the crowd.
‘I expected a few observers, but not everyone. Here, take two of these boxes of fairy sprinkles. They contain two powders separated by a small divider. To get them to work, you pull out the divider and shake the package. Then you tear off the lid and hurl the contents over the fountain. The fine powder will form a cloud of dust, which will stick to the elementals making them glow so that we can see them. Don’t do it until I give you the signal. Now, let’s mindlink so that we can coordinate our actions, and then you keep watch over the other side of the fountain.’
Through the mindlink Zephira asked how he was going to talk to them. He told her that the air elementals communicated with high-pitched whistles right on the edge of normal hearing, while the water elementals used low frequency splashing sounds. The Logicon body shell had a built in sound generator which was normally used for Logicon communications. He would use that together with his mind wizard ability to alter sounds to create the elementals’ speech; in a similar way to the way he used it to generate newman speech. Hopefully they would understand him. He had already conducted a ritual to help him hear and understand them.
They waited until midnight and nothing happened. Many people got bored or drunk and left for their homes. Suddenly the wind picked up all around the fountain and he could hear splashes in the water and spray blew all around, but he couldn’t see the near invisible creatures. He used his power to see the glow of magic and could see vague deep purple glowing, blob-like shapes swirling all around the fountain.
He gave Zephira the signal and she threw her two packets into the air over the fountain. Simultaneously, Aquitain threw two packets over the fountain from his side. A huge cloud of sparkling dust appeared which blew all over the place. Both Zephira and Aquitain were covered and glowed like giant glow-worms. However, six small air elementals about the size of eagles and just as fast were also covered, and glowed as they zipped and sped around the fountain, diving at rabbit sized glowing watery blobs blocking the entry to the top of the fountain.
‘Air friends. Stop! Come! Listen!’ whistled Aquitain as loudly as he could. He did it about three times before they took notice, and then they flew over to him and circled around him. The sight must have impressed the crowd, for all the talking, laughing and joking had stopped. It was dead silent. Perhaps the spectators thought the glowing air elementals were spirits or ghosts.
‘Why fight?’ he asked.
‘Who you?’ they whistled back.
‘Wizard friend Aquitain,’ he replied.
‘Want food, want food, want food,’ they all whistled.
‘Where food?’ he replied.
‘In fountain,’ they chorused.
‘No understand,’ he said.
‘Want food. In fountain.’ they said it several times but Aquitain couldn’t understand. How could air elementals need food from a fountain? There was only water in the fountain. Suddenly one of the air elementals departed, flying unbelievably fast up into the sky. The others stopped talking and flew around him in lazy circles.
�
�What’s happening?’ asked Zephira through the mindlink. ‘I can see that you’ve got their attention. Are they aggressive?’
‘No, they’re hungry. They want food from the fountain and the water elementals are sitting in the holes at the top of the fountain where the water comes out. I’m not sure what to do.’
‘Can you talk to the water elementals?’
‘I’ll try,’ he said, and tried speaking to them in splashing water sounds, but they either couldn’t understand him or just plain ignored him.
Suddenly the air started to blow like a gale. Zephira could hardly stand up and crouched beside the fountain, grabbing hold of the pool edge for support. Water sprayed out like heavy rain in all directions and Aquitain sat down to keep from being blown over. The watching crowd scattered to find cover, and the lanterns extinguished.
‘What do you want, wizard?’ demanded a much deeper gusty, whistling voice in the Draconic language. He looked up and saw hovering over him a huge blurry creature the size of a house. He was quite surprised. Not at the size of the creature, but that it had used the Draconic language. This was the ancient language of power attributed to the dragons that was used universally by wizards to manipulate magic. It was also used in the written form to create scrolls, and extensively during the manufacture of magic items. Aquitain had studied it for years and knew it well.
‘I am Aquitain, a wizard artificer newly employed here. I wish only to help. Your young ones want food from the fountain. I don’t know how to give it to them,’ he said.
‘I am Whooshoo, Maker of Storms,’ said the elder air elemental.
‘It is a long time since I have spoken to a wizard. We have taken food from the cavern below the fountain for centuries. The old pathways we have used are now all blocked. The young ones are hungry and want to go down through the fountain to the cave below, but are stopped by our water cousins. Remove them if you wish to help.’
‘Perhaps we could reopen the old ways?’ suggested Aquitain, thinking that might be easier than trying to clean small water elementals out of the plumbing.