Jason Cosmo

by Dan McGirt

  “He’s got a sour disposition,” I said, trying to get my breathing back under control. “So, how did you two end up here?”

  “Bad luck,” said Rubis as her discarded garment landed on my shoulder. “We were at this party in Caratha, the wine was drugged, we were captured by slavers and bought by Birksnore at a private sale in Rumular.”

  “Sold?” I knew about slavery but it wasn’t practiced in Darnk, where the people could hardly afford to support themselves, much less chattels. The idea of one person owning another had a certain wrongness to it in my mind anyway.

  “It was awful,” said Sapphrina. “They only asked eight thousand crowns for us.”

  “And Brythalian crowns at that,” added Rubis. “Which exchanges to only six and a half thousand Carathan.” The Carathan crown was the standard for international commerce.

  “We’re worth at least twenty thousand,” said Sapphrina. “After all, we’re healthy, good-looking, intelligent, and of nearly noble birth.”

  “And very talented,” said Rubis.

  “And Birksnore has no class at all,” continued Sapphrina. “Do you know what he wanted us for? Not what you would imagine. That disgusting man wanted us to—”

  “Are you Carathans?” I asked, hastily cutting her off.

  “Zastrians,” said Rubis. “Have you heard of the Corundum Trading Company?”

  “No.”

  “It’s the largest merchant enterprise in Zastria. Father owns it. You can turn around now.”

  They were clad in tunics and hose, Rubis in red, Sapphrina blue. The outfits weren’t much more seemly than what they had been wearing. Their hems were daringly high, and their necklines daringly low. The garments didn’t even cover their shoulders, and must have been held up by magic.

  “We look awful, don’t we?” said Rubis.

  I realized I was staring and tried to find a safe place for my eyes to rest. “No, not at all.”

  “Those slavers stole our jewelry,” said Sapphrina, looking in the mirror to adjust her hair. “And my hair! Ick!”

  “It’s lovely. Spun gold.”

  “You’re sweet,” said Sapphrina, throwing her arms around me and kissing my cheek. I flushed a brighter shade of scarlet. Women neither looked nor behaved like this in Lower Hicksnittle. It would take getting used to.

  “What are we going to do with that pig Birksnore?” asked Rubis as she combed her hair.

  “You should write a letter of complaint to the king,” I said. “Keeping slaves isn’t allowed in Darnk and I’m sure the king will give the matter prompt attention.”

  Rubis gaped at me in dismay. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “Of course he is,” said Sapphrina, pinching my cheek. “Write a letter to the king! That’s rich! No, we should hang him from the top of the tower by his testicles.”

  They both laughed wickedly at that idea, though I didn’t find it particularly amusing. In fact, it made me blush again.

  “Wait!” said Rubis amid her laughter. “I have a better suggestion.”

  Without knowing what it was, I knew I didn’t want to hear it. “If you ladies will excuse me,” I said. “I think I will go and help Merc.”

  We departed Offal two hours later, leaving the city to its slumber. Merc and I had located food, spare clothing, blankets, and horses for the girls. At his insistence I borrowed a sword, dagger, and chainmail shirt from the keep’s armory. We also tended our wounds, though Merc’s consisted solely of a tiny scratch on his left arm.

  Governor Birksnore was spared the grotesque punishments imagined by the girls, though they did manage to talk Merc and me into helping them transport his unconscious body to the market square, where we left him bound and naked. He would be thoroughly humiliated when the city woke the next day—and would have no idea how much worse his fate could have been.

  The road we took paralleled the river, running initially south, but gradually bending west to the Brythalian border. The territory between the kingdoms, an area of rough scrub and stubby trees, was unclaimed and largely uninhabited. Brythalia had no interest in expanding its territory northward toward Darnk, and Darnk already had more rough scrub and stubby trees than it needed. It would take us several days to cross this no man’s land.

  I found riding with a punctured posterior painful, but talking with the vivacious twins took my mind off my discomfort. They rode on either side of me, plying me with questions, while Merc rode just ahead, looking dour and doing his best to ignore us.

  “Is it true you are Death’s first cousin?” asked Rubis with grave seriousness.

  “No. Where did you hear that?”

  “Here and there. Since the bounty was announced there has been endless speculation about who you are and what you’ve done, because no one knows for certain.”

  “What have you done?” asked Sapphrina.

  “I’m just a woodcutter,” I said. “I do a little turnip farming too.”

  “I would have taken you for a warrior at least.”

  “No. I’m no warrior.” I told my story from the beginning. They listened attentively, with few interruptions. “And here we are,” I concluded. “Now tell me more about yourselves.”

  “What would you like to know?” they chorused.

  “Everything.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Rubis. Sapphrina merely smiled.

  Alternating every few sentences, they skimmed through their life stories. Their mother had died giving birth to them. Their father, Corun Corundum, was not only a wealthy merchant, but a member of the Zastrian Senate. They grew up among the rich and powerful and had traveled extensively. Their father had thrown them out two years ago when they had refused to go through with unappealing marriages of alliance he had arranged for them.

  “He thought cutting off our allowances would make us give in to him,” said Sapphrina, “not realizing that we had saved and invested enough over the years to live quite comfortably without him.”

  “We are his daughters after all.”

  “So when he told us to walk, we did.”

  “And had more fun than ever.”

  “At least until we got kidnapped.”

  “And sold to Birksnore for a ridiculously low price.”

  “We’d only been there for a week when you rescued us,” said Sapphrina. “And we’re very grateful.”

  “Very, very grateful,” said Rubis.

  ***

  By the time we stopped to make camp for the night I had ceased to be shocked or embarrassed by their suggestive comments, for it was apparent to me that their flirtatious manner was more show than substance. They were not quite the naughty nymphs they pretended to be, but were actually two intelligent, capable, courageous young women. I decided that I liked them very much.

  Mercury, however, was still annoyed by their presence. “They’re going to slow us down,” he groused as I helped him set up the small tent he had produced from within the folds of his cloak. We had decided to pass the night in a small copse atop a low hill.

  “They haven’t so far,” I said, glancing down the slope to the river bank where the girls were watering the horses.

  “We’ve only been riding for a few hours. Tomorrow we’ll be in the saddle all day. And the next day. And the next. And so on for weeks. They won’t be able to maintain the kind of pace we’ve got to set.”

  “They might surprise you. They’ve got more experience in the saddle than I do.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but it’s not just that. The Black Bolts are going to pick up our trail in Offal. In a couple of days they may even catch up with us. If that happens, your friends are going to be in the way. They might get us all killed.”

  “We handled the Bolts before. Sort of.”

  “And what happens if Natalia attacks us? Or the Red Huntsman? Or even Isogoras? The girls are our weak link and any enemy is going to realize that and go for them.”

  “So what are you saying? We should abandon them?”

  “No. But I want y
ou to realize the risks we’re running by bringing them along. We need to be rid of them as soon as possible.”

  “Before we get to Raelna?”

  “If possible.”

  “You said Brythalia was no place for young women alone.”

  “Neither is Hell.”

  The sisters shared the tent while Merc and I took turns on watch, but the night was uneventful. We were up and riding before dawn, and covered over twenty miles of rugged terrain that day, but Mercury was not satisfied. We covered almost thirty miles the next day and we were all stiff, sore, and filthy with sweat and grime when we stopped for the night, still at least a hundred miles from Brythalia.

  “I hope you’ve got some soap under that cape of yours, wizard,” said Sapphrina.

  “Why?” said Merc.

  “Because I haven’t bathed since we left Offal and I smell like that city’s namesake.”

  “You’ll smell worse before we get where we’re going.”

  “The soap, wizard. Why should you ride all day and look immaculate while the rest of us look like the horses have been riding us?”

  “I’m the only one with self-cleaning clothes,” said Merc, producing a bar of black soap.

  “Black soap?” said Rubis.

  “It’s the Ebony brand,” said Merc. “It works like any other color—and it floats, so you won’t lose it in the river.”

  “Thank you.” Sapphrina took the soap and they trotted to the edge of the water and quickly shed their clothing. I pretended not to notice their activity and bent to help Merc erect the tent. Suddenly he stiffened and a worried frown crossed his face.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said slowly.

  “What is it?”

  “We’ve been observed.”

  I started and looked to and fro. “Where?”

  He shook his head. “It was magical observation. Scrying. I sensed it due to my heightened magical awareness.”

  “Someone used a crystal ball on us?”

  “Something like that.”

  “The Society?”

  “No. The impression I got was of a medium much more powerful than any crystal ball mortal magic can master. It can only be the Mirror of Ouga-Oyg.”

  “And what, may I ask, is the Mirror of Ouga-Oyg?”

  “Ouga-Oyg of the Thousand and Thirty-Two Eyes is one of the Demon Lords. He is nicknamed ‘the Peeper from the Pit’ because he has a great magic mirror with which he can spy on events almost anywhere in Arden. That is what I felt.”

  “Then the Demon Lords know where we are.”

  “Where we are, but not necessarily who we are. The impression was fleeting. Likely, Ouga-Oyg was merely scanning the countryside. He may not have even noticed us, but it troubles me that he would be looking in this area.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is where we are. Our interview with He Who Sits On The Porch was obscured by magic mist, and he transported us many miles from the spot afterwards, but the Demon Lords must have noticed and taken an interest in this part of the world. We must guard our words, thoughts, and actions carefully. If Ouga-Oyg turns the full power of his mirror upon us he will be able to read them all.”

  “I’m getting paranoid.”

  “Good. It will keep you alive.”

  “Hey, Jason!” called Sapphrina from the river. “Aren’t you going to come and scrub our backs?”

  “You could use a bath!” added Rubis. “And we’d be delighted to help!”

  “Go ahead,” said Merc, with an uncharacteristic smile. “You smell like the backside of a buffalo.”

  I joined the girls in the river and we emerged twenty minutes later—after much splashing, scrubbing, and racy banter—much cleaner than we went in. Merc’s bar of soap was now half its original size.

  As we ate our meal of fruit and cheese, Merc explained to Sapphrina and Rubis the new danger of Ouga-Oyg’s mirror and the precautions which were now necessary, then volunteered for the first watch.

  Merc shook me awake four hours later for my turn on duty. The night air had gone chilly and the moon was obscured behind a bank of clouds which glowed like luminous frozen smoke.

  “It’s been quiet,” whispered Merc. He nodded at the clouds. “We’ll probably have rain tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “That should obscure our trail.”

  “And slow us up. And get us wet.” He shrugged. “Beginning tomorrow I think we’ll put the girls on watch too so we can get more sleep.”

  “Good idea.”

  Merc rolled himself into a blanket and was quickly asleep. I stood and stretched and ambled slowly around the perimeter of our camp to get my blood flowing. I checked on the horses, then headed for the river bank. The water slid through the night like a great dark serpent, hissing and murmuring hypnotically. An occasional moonbeam broke through the cloud cover and danced across the river in glints of silver before winking out as if it had never been there.

  I sat beside the river for a long while reflecting on all that had happened to me in the past few days, on sorcerers, bounties, mercenaries, and the struggles of gods and demons. I almost wished I was back in Lower Hicksnittle. Almost.

  I heard a light footstep behind me and realized I had not been a very alert watchman while lost in my reverie. I half-turned to see one of the twins standing behind me. I couldn’t tell which one it was.

  “I’m Sapphrina,” she said, sitting down beside me. “I was looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  “I really haven’t thanked you properly for freeing us.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I think it is. You didn’t have to bring us with you. I know you’ve added to your own danger by helping us.” She clasped my hand and looked me earnestly in the eye. “I appreciate that.”

  I was silent a moment before saying, “I don’t think I could have done otherwise.”

  “I know,” she said, smiling. “That’s what I appreciate. Your motives are so… honorable. You didn’t even blink when Rubis told you who we are, how wealthy we are. You haven’t made any advances toward us—which is bruising to our egos I might add—and I think you’re a very rare and noble kind of man.”

  I shook my head in denial. “I’m just an ordinary—”

  “You’re not,” she said. “That’s my point. In the other kingdoms we make jokes about the poor, stupid, cowardly, backward Darnkites—”

  “Most of them are probably accurate.”

  “—but in all the lands I’ve visited, I don’t think I’ve met anyone as brave and decent as you.”

  “You’ve probably just been looking in the wrong places.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I should have looked in Darnk.” She leaned over and gave me a lingering kiss, then quietly got up and walked back to the tent.

  Despite the danger and the hardship, I could get used to being a hero.

  * * *

  7

  We reached the settlement of Grimmel on the Brythalian frontier after five straight days of riding through heavy rains. My companions and I were drenched, chilled, mud-splattered, and exhausted. Our horses were nearly spent from the effort of trudging through the thick mud. We had been forced to abandon the relatively level track beside the river for higher ground when the Longwash spilled over its banks and flooded the surrounding territory. We wanted nothing more than to kick off our boots and prop up our feet by the hearth of a homey inn.

  Unfortunately, no such place was to be found in Grimmel, which was little more than a logging camp. The forest region of northern Brythalia boasted oak, ash, birch, and maples mingled with spruce, fir, and pine. The Brythalian forest was said to be the overgrown remnant of the nursery in which The Gods first developed the various kinds of trees. This was highly unlikely considering the destruction wrought during the Age of War and the fact that none of the trees in the area were more than a few hundred years old, but every nation needs its folklore.

  In any event, Grimmel was a crude and sullen collec
tion of several bunkhouses, a mess hall, a guardhouse, and a few other structures used for storage, all clustered atop a barren mound of earth and stone beside the swollen Longwash, from which protruded the pilings of the flooded docks. The twangy rasp of saws and the loud chop of axes from the surrounding woods suggested that most of the men who lived here were at work, but perhaps a dozen loggers and brown-shirted Brythalian soldiers were milling about the camp itself. They greeted Sapphrina and Rubis with appreciative looks and occasional catcalls as we rode into town. Merc and I rated only surly glares.

  When we reached the open area between the buildings, the men surrounded us, spreading out in a loose circle around our horses. Some held sticks, knives, or axes. The soldiers placed their hands on the hilts of their swords. So did I. Most of the workers in these camps were criminals consigned to hard labor by the Brythalian courts. They were ruthless, unprincipled men. Their military overseers were not much better since the courts also provided many of the recruits for the Brythalian army. I noticed that no one was in chains here. The guards and the guarded were united in their intentions regarding us.

  “I would advise you girls to stick close to Cosmo and me,” whispered Merc, “lest you get dragged behind a woodpile and never come back.”

  I gave the girls a weak smile that was meant to be reassuring. “We’re outnumbered,” I said to Merc. “Should we make the first move?”

  “Don’t do anything. I may be able to defuse this situation.”

  Merc cast his gaze slowly over our would-be assailants. He was wearing his sunshades, so no one could be certain just who he was looking at in any given instant. Suddenly he raised his hand and pointed it at the largest, ugliest man present, a burly logger holding a thick tree branch like a club. Five thin beams of blue light emanated from Merc’s fingers and converged on the man’s bare chest, which promptly exploded in a spray of gore and shattered bone. He fell over backwards in the muck with blue smoke curling from the ragged hole in his chest.

  “I am Shadrizar the Sadistic,” announced Merc in a low, menacing voice as the other loggers and soldiers backed away, stricken with fear. “I seek a night’s lodging for myself, my associate Burlo Bonecracker, and my two man-eating vampire succubi slaves.” Rubis and Sapphrina’s faces glowed with an eerie green light and when they opened their mouths they appeared to be filled with sharp, curving fangs.