by Scott Meyer
They discussed balancing the dailuaine on a cushion on their heads, but they decided against it on the grounds that it seemed like a terrible idea.
After a bit of debate, Brit and Gwen asked Martin and Roy if they could borrow their wizard staves. Gwen pawed through her backpack and came out with the sewing kit that Brit the Elder had supplied, presumably for mending clothes and stitching up wounds.
Brit and Gwen silently unwrapped the dailuaine. Brit sat on it to help everyone remember where it was. Gwen tore Martin’s robe into two parts.
Martin knew that his robe had been pretty much superfluous ever since they’d arrived. It didn’t serve any real purpose here, where he had no powers and where high visibility wasn’t always desirable. Martin had worn it under his warm jacket, but he’d done so mainly out of affection for Gwen, who had made the robe in the first place. Still, it gave him a nasty jolt to see it destroyed, even if it was Gwen who was destroying it.
Gwen looked up from her work and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll make you a new one. A nicer one.”
Roy said, “Yeah. Maybe the new one will be gold instead of silver.”
“Nah,” Martin said. “Gold’s too flashy. I’d stick with silver, but maybe the new one can have big shoulder pads and lapels, like a zoot suit.”
“Sure thing,” Gwen said.
A little time and some industrious whipstitching later, the dailuaine was rewrapped in part of Martin’s former robe. The bust of Santo and the head of the bridge cue were placed in a backpack for safekeeping. The rest of the robe was sewn into a rough sling three layers thick, strung between the two staffs, allowing any two relatively able-bodied adults to easily carry the heavy lump of rock as if it were Cleopatra.
Roy whistled, and said, “Well done, ladies.”
Brit said, “Thanks, Roy.”
Roy said, “Martin and I’ll take the first shift carrying the rock.”
Brit said, “I know.”
With that, they were on their way. If actually carrying the weight of the rig Brit and Gwen made had done anything to dampen Roy’s enthusiasm, he didn’t let on.
“It’s not just a good idea,” Roy said. “It’s really well executed too. It feels solid. If anything’s going to give out, it’ll be my pool cue, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Brit said, “Thanks. I agree.”
Roy was walking in front, holding the poles on his shoulders as he walked forward. Martin was bringing up the rear, with no choice but to look at the dailuaine and at the back of Roy’s head.
Good work, Roy, Martin thought. You were genuinely complimentary without being condescending. Now drop it.
Roy said, “I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s well made. I mean, it’s mainly sewn together.”
Brit said, “Yeah?”
Martin thought, No, Roy, stop now.
“Are you saying it figures we’d be good at sewing because we’re women?” Brit asked.
“No,” Roy said. “Not at all. I’ve known plenty of women who wouldn’t know what to do with a needle and thread.”
Brit said, “And I’m sure you’ve known plenty of men who could sew.”
Roy said, “Not really, but that’s not my point. I shouldn’t be surprised at the quality of the work because Gwen did it.”
Martin nodded.
Roy continued. “And she’s a seamstress.”
Martin shook his head.
Gwen said, “I’m a designer, but I see what you mean. I do all my own sewing. I know you meant it as a compliment.”
Roy said, “Good. I’m glad. I really do respect it. It’s a highly technical skill.”
“Thank you,” Gwen said.
“Did you know,” Roy forged on, “that the space suits for the Gemini and Apollo missions were mostly made by women?”
“No, I didn’t,” Brit said.
“Yeah, at a bra factory, which figures.”
Martin and Gwen winced at each other. Brit remained silent. Roy kept talking.
“They had experience in sewing together multiple layers of synthetic fabrics.”
Brit nodded and said, “Huh.”
Roy said, “And, they had nimble little fingers that—”
“Roy,” Brit interrupted, “I’m not offended.”
Roy said, “Good.”
Brit continued. “So, this would be a good time to stop talking.”
Roy cranked his head around to look at Gwen and Martin. The looks on their faces told him that Brit was right.
Roy stopped talking. When Brit smirked at him, he knew he’d made the right decision.
They walked until nightfall, taking bearer-duty in shifts, with the two non-load-bearing members of the team fending off the occasional tree wolf. At first the height differential between Martin, the tallest of the men, and Brit, the shortest of the ladies, made carrying the litter awkward, but soon enough they got the hang of it.
Early the next day, Martin was walking in the lead. Brit and Gwen were carrying the litter, and Roy was walking well behind, watching for wolves and fighting the urge to offer to take one of the women’s places.
From her place at the rear of the litter, Gwen heard Brit mutter, “It’s no good.”
“What?” Gwen asked quietly, hoping to keep Martin and Roy from hearing. “What’s no good?”
Brit had been lost in thought, but snapped out of it, glanced back over her shoulder quickly, and said, “What? Oh, sorry, Gwen. It’s nothing.”
“So, nothing’s no good,” Gwen said. “Splendid. That certainly makes sense.”
Brit said, “Oh, I don’t want to make a big deal. I’m just worried about Phillip.”
Gwen said, “Yeah?”
“And the others,” Brit added hastily.
Gwen smiled. “Brit, you and Phillip are very close. You only really know Tyler, Jeff, and Gary through him, and none of us like Jimmy. It’s only natural that you’re more worried about something bad happening to Phillip.”
Brit shook her head. “That’s not it. I mean, yes, I’m very worried in general that something awful is going to happen to him. Them. That’s not what I’m worried about right now. Right now I’m concerned that they’re probably moving too fast.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Think about it. The wolves seem to attack in groups of at least two, right? And always in even numbers.”
“Yes, I guess.”
“And if we kill a number of wolves, then hang around long enough, twice as many wolves appear from where those wolves died, right?”
“Yeah? I think it’s to give us incentive to keep moving.”
“Exactly,” Brit said. “I don’t think Phillip and the boys have been getting attacked by two wolves. I think they’ve been attacked by single wolves, and we’ve been getting two wolves because we’re behind them. If that’s true, they have five people, not four, fighting half as many wolves and soldiers as we are. They have to be moving faster than us.”
Gwen said, “Yeah, makes sense.”
“So, unless we start thinking of ways to speed things up, the only way we’ll catch up to them is for something to happen that brings them to a stop, and if that happens, I’m not sure I want to catch up to them.”
Not long after that, Martin yelled back to the group, “Whoa, hold up. We found something.”
Brit and Gwen put down the litter, and they and Roy walked up to Martin, who was hunkered down on one knee, looking into the middle distance at something that seemed to puzzle him greatly. Gwen followed his gaze, and the breath caught in her throat. A hundred feet or so ahead, four wolves were standing in front of a dark shape that was lying in the middle of the road.
Roy muttered, “Oh, no.”
Martin said, “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a person. It’s too small.”<
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“Then what is it?” Brit asked.
Martin said, “Part of a person, maybe? I doubt it, though. There are only four wolves. It’d take some doing, but any of us could take out four of these stupid wolves single-handedly.”
After a moment’s quiet contemplation, Martin said, “I’m going to go get a closer look.”
Gwen said, “It could be a trap.”
“I dunno,” Martin said. “Four angry wolves and a dark lump—that’s not very good bait.”
Roy said, “It’s good enough that you want to get a closer look.”
“I’ll be careful. Besides, it’s in the middle of our path. We kinda have no choice.”
Martin crept, sword drawn, toward the wolves. They made no move to intercept him, but they never took their eyes off him either.
Martin slowed his approach. The wolves watched.
Martin was as close as he felt he could get without triggering the wolves’ attack. He stood tall and leaned one way, then another, trying to see what the dark form was that they were guarding. He turned back to look at his companions, who were still standing in the path where he’d been.
Martin shouted, “I still can’t tell what it is!”
“Thanks for the update!” Gwen shouted back.
Martin looked at the wolves. He knew there was only one way he was going to figure this out. He held his sword in front of himself and boldly stepped forward.
As expected, one of the wolves growled, then leapt for his throat. Martin took the wolf out with little trouble and dispatched the next three wolves in turn. Once they were all gone, he approached the dark shape, afraid of what he might find.
As the others approached, Martin poked at the shape with his sword. He nudged it harder. By the time they reached him, he was lifting it with his sword point. He reached out a hand, pulling the dark mass closer to his face, and after inspecting it for a second, he turned to the others and said, “It’s a cloak. Some kind of fur. Bear, I think.”
Gwen took it from him and held it at arm’s length. “Ugh,” she said. “It’s awful.”
Martin said, “It might not look like much, but I bet it’s powerful.”
“Its smell certainly is,” Brit said, wrinkling her nose.
Martin took the cloak back, handling it as if it were priceless. “Don’t let looks and smells fool you. This is important.”
Roy said, “Kid, it’s just a dirty old hide. That’s all.”
“No, think about it, guys! We’re on an epic quest! It’s a dumb epic quest, but still, it’s an epic quest, and we’ve found an ancient-looking garment out in the middle of nowhere, being guarded by vicious animals. I’m telling you, this is important. We’re supposed to do something with it.”
“Yes,” Brit said. “Ignore it and leave it where it is.”
“I can’t believe you all are against me on this. It’s not practical to waste any resource in our position, and it’s a fur. I thought women liked furs.”
Roy said, “It’s smelly and beat to hell, and we have all the coats we need. We have no use for it.”
Brit added, “And some women like nice furs, but we’re not them, and that’s not one. Besides, it’s not so much the fur they like; it’s the fact that their guy was willing to spend that much money on something completely impractical to try to make them happy. The same thing with diamonds and roses. The same cannot be said of filthy bear pelts you find laying on the ground.”
Gwen said, “And even if that were a nice fur, which it is not, it wouldn’t really be something Brit or I cared about. Fur is murder.”
“Especially that one,” Brit said, “since we watched you kill four wolves to get it.”
Martin rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on! We all know they aren’t real wolves.”
“And that’s probably not a real bear pelt,” Roy added.
“Which is all the more reason to get rid of it,” Brit said.
Martin sneered at them. “I’m telling you, this thing is important. I’m keeping it, and it will eventually do something cool and you’ll all be glad I grabbed it. You’ll see.” He draped the pelt over his shoulders with a flourish and took off down the path. The others shared a smile; then Roy took his turn carrying the litter with Gwen and they all followed.
An hour later, eight wolves sprung from the fur while Martin was wearing it. Roy and Brit dropped the litter due to their excessive laughter. Afterward, they apologized to Martin and admitted that the fur had done something cool and that they were glad he had grabbed it.
20.
The raw ore was in the crucible. The furnace was built, filled with charcoal, and sealed. Inchgower lit the coals and instructed the wizards to place the business ends of their bellows onto the holes at the base of the furnace, one on each side so as not to crowd each other. The wizards did as he said, but knowing what was going to come next, Tyler made sure everyone had used the restroom before they plugged the last bellows into its hole.
As predicted, the instant the bellows were in place, Inchgower said, “All right, lads, now the easy part. All you have to do is pump your bellows, one at a time so that there’s a steady flow of air into the fire for the next six hours.”
Tyler said, “I fear that does mean six hours straight with no break.”
Inchgower said, “Yes, the whole six hours, nonstop.”
Tyler said, “He was expecting the question.”
Inchgower said, “I’m afraid so. Any more questions?”
Tyler said, “We didn’t have any questions.”
Inchgower said, “Good, then it’s time to start pumping. Off you go.”
As they each took their stations, Tyler muttered, “If I get my hands on Todd, I’ll kill him, if just for subjecting us to this crappy workmanship.”
“On the bright side,” Phillip said, “your arms will be in good shape for it.”
The actual business of pumping the bellows worked out to be very much like a large, polite, slow game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, wherein each player simply took turns eating a marble. Each man pumped his bellows in turn, and the action traveled around the furnace at a steady pace.
The first hour passed in grim silence, each man trying hard not to say, or even think about, how much they were not enjoying pumping the bellows.
During the second hour they tried to play I Spy, but it did not go well. They got off to a bad start when Gary said he spied something that started with a B and eventually revealed that it was “blacksmithing tools.” When the others complained that since they were in a blacksmith shop, he had, in his first turn, used up virtually everything in the room, he merely said, “Then I guess I win.”
They tried playing a game Phillip invented, which he called Desert Island Todd. The rules were simple. Imagine you were going to be exiled to a desert island with Todd, and list the three items you would bring along to beat and torture Todd with. Points were given for inventiveness, and for nonlethality, because they were better than Todd and because killing Todd would just end his torment.
Jimmy ended up winning but at a terrible cost. His three picks were a towel, orange juice, and toothpaste. He had been further into the future than any of the others at that point, so he had to explain the concept of waterboarding. Once they understood that, he did not have to explain why he felt it would be even more unpleasant if you made Todd brush his teeth first, then used orange juice instead of water.
They all agreed that this was the worst torture any of them had dreamed up yet, but instead of laughing and taking his next turn, Tyler went silent. Hearing Jimmy discussing inflicting hypothetical suffering on Todd had been a potent reminder of the time, not that long ago, when Jimmy had inflicted all too real suffering on Tyler.
Tyler didn’t say what was bothering him, but everybody knew, and nobody knew what to say.
Finally, inevitably, it was Jimmy who broke the si
lence. He didn’t know what to say either, but he knew that saying anything, even the wrong thing, would be better than saying nothing.
“Tyler,” Jimmy said. “I’ve stopped saying I’m sorry every time I see you, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being sorry.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said. “That makes it all okay, doesn’t it?”
“No, of course it doesn’t. There’s nothing I can say or do that will ever make any of it okay, but I’m not going to stop trying. Look, when we get out of this, I’ll let you ghost me for just as long as I ghosted you.”
“Great,” Tyler said. “Fantastic, except that we both know I would never do that to you.”
“And hopefully you know I would never do that to you again.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s the again that’s the problem. There’s a whole lot of stuff that I’d never do that you’d never do again. The thing that really burns me up is that I’d never get away without being punished, like you did.”
Jimmy didn’t want to argue with Tyler, but he had to. He couldn’t let the idea that he hadn’t been punished at all go unchallenged.
“Tyler, you can argue that the punishment didn’t fit the crime, but you can’t claim that there was no punishment.”
Tyler said, “Spare me. We’ve all heard all about it. ‘Wah wah, I had to ride a bicycle.’ Big whoop.”
“For thirty years,” Jimmy said. “Thirty years with no money, no friends, no family, in Central and South America in the eighties. I was in constant danger.”
“You poor baby. All you did was kill a town and you had to endure the world’s longest backpacking trip. That’s really a fitting punishment.”
“You assume my punishment is over. It isn’t. It won’t be as long as I’m alive.”
Tyler said, “Oh, please.”
“Again, you can make the case that it’s not enough punishment, but I’ve spent the last three years as a total pariah, and I don’t see that ending anytime soon, or ever.”