by Jack Heckel
The effect of her revelation on the rest of the bar was equally impressive, as a shout of “VALDARA!” rang out from the crowd.
She held up her hands for quiet and the silence that followed was nearly religious. It was only spoiled when my chair slipped from beneath me and I clattered to the floor in a tangle of limbs and a shower of ale.
Valdara looked down at me, rolled her eyes in disgust, and turned back to the crowd. “Gentlefolk of Blightsbury,” she began grandly, “a great wizard has come to our land.”
She gestured in my general direction, but I’m certain nobody bothered to look, which was a good thing, because at that moment I was still trying to extricate myself from beneath my chair.
“He seeks adventurers, for a quest!”
I finally got myself free and looked out at the crowd from beneath the table. I knew immediately that we had them. Every eye was on her, and in every eye you could see the desire to follow wherever she led. Unfortunately, it was at this moment that Drake woke up.
He swayed to his feet and shouted, “Where they will face terrible danger and excruciating agony . . .” I watched in dismay as eyes widened and faces paled at this pronouncement. “. . . deadly enemies will pursue them at every turn . . .”
Valdara turned to me and drew a finger across her throat. I got the message. Reaching up, I yanked the unsteady man down to the ground beside me. She turned back to the crowd and continued. “Yes, we will face enemies, but with the might of the wizard’s great power, the holy hand of St. Drake, and my sword, we will drive the evil from the land and all who join us shall know that they saved Trelari and its people!”
Beneath the table, Drake and I were locked in a desperate, albeit ridiculous, wrestling match. He was surprisingly strong and slippery for a man as ale-soaked as he smelled. Despite my best efforts, he managed to break my hold and shout, “Yes, their names shall be engraved for all time on the tombstones of the land as the worms devour their flesh and their bones turn to ash and—”
He finally shut up when I bashed him on the side of the head with my fallen tankard. However, as I climbed out from beneath the table, I saw that Drake’s words had done their damage. The crowd was grumbling and casting suspicious glances our direction.
Valdara’s shoulders drooped. She sighed and said in a near monotone, “And, of course, there will be riches, treasure, and glory beyond measure.”
A great cheer arose from the majority of the less reputable-looking people in the tavern, but the light had gone out of Valdara. She climbed off the table, donned her heavy gray cloak, and, seizing several bottles of wine from a nearby table, settled herself into a dark booth in the far corner of the room and began to drink.
There was no longer any doubt in my mind that we had been successfully inserted into my stabilization spell’s matrix. The proof was in Valdara’s failed attempt to alter her previous pattern. Things were going exactly to plan, and I felt awful about it.
Chapter 9
HEROES EVERYWHERE
I pulled the now profoundly unconscious Drake out from under the table and propped him up in a chair. I was crouched next to him applying a wet rag to his head where a lump was forming, and trying to convince myself that the ends justified the means, when I realized that I was not alone.
Two dwarfs stood a few feet away, their noses just level with the top of the table. I rose up on my heels and peered at them. Based on my fairly limited experience they looked like standard issue dwarfs. They were both stocky and solidly built; each wore an axe on his belt, had a bottle of beer in his hand, and was staring at me with a glower in his eye. But there the similarities ended.
To start with, while they both wore plaid kilts, the patterns were of such clashing design that it was difficult to look at them at the same time without getting dizzy. And then there were their faces. The first dwarf looked a bit like a bearded snowman. His coal-black eyes, long crooked nose, and tangled beard were all arranged rather haphazardly on a head that was remarkably round and entirely bald. The second dwarf was squarer in the jaw and had washed-out gray eyes bracketed by a great mass of bright orange curly hair and a short-cropped beard of matching color.
The dwarfs both looked at me expectantly. “Can I help you?” I asked.
They bristled their brows and the bald-headed one said, “You asked for adventurers? Seamus Silversmith at your service.” He bowed.
The orange-haired one glowered briefly at his fellow dwarf and then also bowed, saying, “Fergus Goldsmith at your service,” in a wheezing voice that bespoke either a life of smoking, or a few years spent as the lead singer of a death metal band.
“Ah, yes.” I wasn’t sure exactly what I was supposed to do. I knew I needed a dwarf, but two seemed excessive. I held up a finger. “One second.”
I stepped over to the booth where Valdara was sitting. She was already halfway through the first bottle of wine and her green eyes were a little fuzzy. She looked at me lazily and slurred, “Yes?”
“There are two dwarfs that want to join us.”
“Told you,” she replied bitterly, and took another drink from her bottle.
“Yes,” I agreed, “you did. But we only need one.”
“You only want one?” The thought seemed to perk her up a little bit. “That’ll be interesting.”
To someone else this might have seemed a non sequitur, but I recognized it as the opening shots in Valdara’s next battle with my stabilization spell.
“Well, what do I do?” I asked, trying to get us back to the point.
“Let them settle it.”
“I don’t want a brawl or anything.”
She took another drink and shrugged.
Realizing I wasn’t going to get anything else from her, I wandered back to the waiting dwarfs. They both crossed their arms over their chests and said, “Well?”
“We only need one dwarf. You’ll have to decide the matter between you.”
The dwarfs looked at each other and then back at me. The orange-haired dwarf, who had called himself Fergus, spoke first. “If that’s the way it has to be, then that’s the way it has to be.”
Seamus, the bald-headed dwarf, rolled up his sleeves and nodded. “We’ll settle this the old-fashioned way. Prepare for the thrashing of a lifetime.”
“Right,” Fergus said with a drawn-out rasp.
Seamus sneered and assumed a fighting stance, but as it seemed some form of dwarven violence was about to break out, Fergus asked, “What are you doin’? I thought you said that you wanted to settle this the ‘old-fashioned’ way.” He began to unfold a piece of sheepskin that he’d pulled from a pouch at his side. It was a playing board with sixty-four white and black squares painted on it. He slammed it down on the table and announced, “You’re about to find out how I earned the name . . . Rook.”
“Rook?” both Seamus and I said at the same time.
“Yep. Call me Rook,” said Fergus as he wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief.
For a moment I thought I saw my own bewilderment mirrored in Seamus’s face, but in a twinkling it transformed into a malevolent stare. “Fine, if that’s the way you want to play it. I’m white.”
“Let’s do this,” Fergus growled.
I watched, mouth open, as the two dwarfs sat down and started setting up chess pieces. “Wait, what’s happening?”
The dwarfs glared up at me without a word and then turned their attention back to the board. I spun about in confusion, trying to make sure this wasn’t some bizarre practical joke, and found that a crowd was beginning to gather around us and that a deep silence had fallen over the bar.
I returned to Valdara’s side. “Are you seeing this? Is this normal?”
She looked up blearily from between her bottles. “Does it matter? Does it make any less sense than St. Drake being drunk after spending half his life sober, or the Dark Lord being vanquished by a bit of cut glass, or recruiting people to fight the Dark Queen in a bar?”
It didn’t, but a philos
ophical discussion with someone on the verge of blacking out wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I shoved my way back through the crowd to the table, took one look at the determined faces of the dwarfs, and resigned myself to watching. I sat down and began drinking seriously.
Forty minutes of silent tension followed as the dwarfs raised eyebrows, huffed, and slammed pieces smugly onto squares. “Check!” shouted Seamus.
Fergus swallowed and studied the board from beneath bushy eyebrows. With a shaking hand he reached out and made his move.
Even though it is the “national” sport of Mysterium, I’ve never been particularly interested in or good at chess. I assumed that the game was nearly over when Seamus yelled “check.” Tragically, I was wrong. It was at least another half hour, and I had fallen asleep, when a collective gasp from the watching crowd startled me awake. I looked at the board. There were fewer pieces, but beyond that it was nothing more than a scramble of black and white to me. However, the mood of the players had shifted dramatically. Seamus was staring at the board with a desperate look on his face.
“You know it’s inevitable, laddie,” Fergus said with a hoarse cough. “Ten moves.”
Seamus was sweating, literally—a sheen of perspiration clung to the top of his head, making it shine.
After another couple of moves Fergus shouted, “Three!”
Seamus looked sick, but he continued to play. The people around the table were murmuring and pointing. Even I found myself caught up in the moment, though I had no idea what I was watching, or why. After moving what I thought was his king behind what I knew was his knight, Seamus slumped in his seat with a look of utter defeat on his face.
“Checkmate!” shouted Fergus, leaping to his feet. He wagged a finger beneath Seamus’s nose. “You’ve been rooked!”
The crowd roared with approval. With a shaking hand, Seamus tipped his king over.
At once the tension between them melted away. They shook hands and then both turned to stare at me. Given the length of the game I had completely forgotten what we were doing. With a start I realized that we’d found our dwarf.
“Right,” I said, holding out my hand. “Welcome to the group, Fergus.”
“Hold up there, Sonny Jim,” Fergus said with a raised finger, “what about Seamus?”
“What about Seamus?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.
Fergus laughed. “You can’t go on an adventure with only one dwarf.”
I looked over at Valdara; she was smirking at me as she uncorked her second bottle of wine. Between her and Drake, I was beginning to think that our group might have a bit of a drinking problem.
I turned back to Fergus. “Am I hearing this right? You want Seamus to join the group also?”
“It ain’t about what I ‘want,’ chief, it’s about what’s right,” replied Fergus.
“And his name is Rook!” Seamus added emphatically.
I slapped my hand against my forehead. “A moment ago you were at each other’s throats . . .” I paused and then amended, “At least as far as you can be while playing chess, and now you want to work together?”
They both nodded.
“Well, what was the point of all that?” I asked, gesturing at the remains of the chess table. They shared a looked between themselves and then turned back to me quizzically. “Never mind,” I said. “Anyway, I don’t have time for the explanation. I have to put an adventuring group together, and if we have to go through something like this with every member it’ll take forever.” I slumped down in my chair.
Fergus, or Rook as he was calling himself now, gave me a strange one-eyed leer and laughed. “You must be tired tonight,” he said, still chuckling. I started to ask what that meant, but he waved me back to silence. “Don’t worry about it, laddie. Seamus and I can handle this.”
He wrapped his arm around Seamus and the two dwarfs bent their heads together in whispered conversation. When they were finished they rose and let loose two earsplitting whistles. The room grew quiet, and as if on cue, a band somewhere in the tavern that I could not see or recall having seen struck up their first notes. The two dwarfs stood in front of my table waving their arms. Then, to the rhythm of the fife and fiddle in the background, Rook sang out in a deep raspy bass voice, “Now, lads and lassies . . .”
“Elfs or elves,” supplied Seamus in a baritone that seemed to surprise even him.
“Orcs or orcishes,” countered Rook.
“Basically, anyone but a dwarf,” I groused behind them, and then put a hand over my mouth as I realized that I’d had sung that aside in a tenor that harmonized suspiciously well with Rook and Seamus. Events were carrying me away with them just like they were everyone around me. A terrifying thought struck me: perhaps the spell was affecting me also. As a Mysterian it shouldn’t be possible, but then I shouldn’t have been able to sing a middle C either.
Fortunately, I didn’t have much time for self-reflection. The dwarfs shot me matching evil looks, but otherwise didn’t break the rhythm of their song.
“The great wizard . . .” Seamus sang, and looked meaningfully at Rook.
Rook started to sing something in reply, but then his eyes widened and he shrugged.
They both looked at me as though waiting for something. I ignored them. If this was the spell, I was determined not to be used by my own creation.
Rook leaned over the table and whispered, “Unless you want me and Seamus to come up with one for you, laddie, I’d advise you to go ahead and tell us your name.”
The threat of having the dwarfs give me a name, and the likelihood that it would rhyme, broke my resistance. “Avery.”
Rook’s forehead crunched together, but after a short consultation with Seamus, he said, “We can make this work.”
The invisible fife player bridged back into the main melody and Rook sang again. “Avery, a wizard of great fame.”
“Who goes by Avery lest his enemies discover his true name,” Seamus quavered.
“Will now take petitions from those gathered here,” Rook boomed.
“And who have traveled from both far and near,” Seamus crooned.
“To join his dauntless fighting crew, and surely find riches and renown ere they are through,” they sang in perfect harmony.
It was as though a mass charm had been cast over the tavern. One figure after another approached the table until they blurred together. Though I have studied my notes on the events over and over again, I can only remember a fraction of them. The reality is that the number of unexplained things happening were multiplying alarmingly, and I was distracted by the sudden realization that I was going to have a harder time controlling the direction of my spell and ensuring my own safety than I had originally assumed. I really needed to talk to Eldrin. Fortunately or not, Rook and Seamus had assumed the rolls of double-headed (and bearded) gatekeepers to my quest.
The first applicant I can remember was an enormous—both in height and breadth—man. He had so many muscles, and they were so corded and ripped, that his whole body seemed to be in a constant fight with itself.
“Me orc-blood. Me smash puny Dark Queen!” he bellowed.
Personally, I liked his enthusiasm, but Rook whispered, “Possible anger management issues.”
“Next!” shouted Seamus.
A skinny, clean-shaven fellow in a billowing robe of impossible color stepped forward. “I am a great and powerful mage. There’s nothing up my sleeves but this rabbit, which I should not have shown you and who is now trying to get loose . . .”
Rook cleared his throat and shook his head.
“Next!” came Seamus’s call.
“Son, in my day, we fought three and four dragons at a time, blindfolded in the snow,” said a man so ancient that his body had bent almost double so that he was addressing the floor the whole time.
“Next!” shouted Seamus before Rook could even say anything.
“My name’s Sam,” said an unassuming little fellow with an enormous pack on his back.
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��Excellent name! Sign here,” said Rook for reasons I’m not sure I understand to this day.
“Next!” shouted Seamus, cutting off my ruminations on what criteria Rook might be using—logic and consistency clearly not being involved.
An elven woman approached the table. She was wearing a robe and carrying a staff. Around her waist were belted a half-dozen knives and over her back a bow was strung. I perked up. We needed an elf. Seeing the suspicious looks Rook and Seamus were giving her, I decided to intercede. I couldn’t afford for them to pass her over or, gods forbid, challenge her to a chess match.
“I see you have a bow,” I said brightly. “Are you an archer?”
“I’m an elven archer sorceress rogue, but I’m not fully committed to that. Lately I’ve been thinking about becoming a druidess pathfinder,” she said.
Having known a lot of students that could never commit to a major long enough to get past the intro-level classes, I was suspicious, but Rook gave the thumbs-up. “Good enough for us, lassie!” In an aside he whispered, “With a background like that we can fill all the eleven spots with one recruit, and then we won’t have too many of them prancin’ about and makin’ snotty comments about how they live forever and don’t need to sleep and can run all day and so on. Elves can be so aggravatin’.”
Seamus was already shouting, “Next!”
So much for taking control. In fact, trying to follow what was happening was getting harder and harder. The music kept speeding up and so did the candidates. I remember little except that there were a lot of warriors and mages that had once been something else.
There was a fellow named Arthur who had been a servant of some sort until he found a stone sword in a lake. His story was compelling, but after some discussion he was rejected.
“We don’t need stone-challenged swords,” said Rook.