by Chris Turner
Risgan pursed his lips in thought. “Let the silly automaton believe she is in control of the situation and fall into the trap,” he whispered. He stroked his wish bone, desiring with all his strength of will that his legs be free, for it was now or never that he needed his mobility. The clock of his life was coming to a standstill.
A queer sensation suddenly washed over his body. His long legs rooted like useless cane began to feel pins and needles—then suddenly he could move his toes, his heel, finally his ankles. He suppressed a chuckle of exultation. If Hammish plied the key and jerked open the portal… Risgan rushed out like a bear and tackled Afrid’s minion, twisted her lampshade neck. The wood snapped. The automaton lay senseless. Next, he ripped off her girdle and the half machine lay there, inert and dysfunctional like a heap of spare parts.
“Good work, Risgan,” praised Jurna. “Now, spring our traps.” Jurna’s voice was a harsh echo from lack of sleep and deprivation.
Risgan set to his work. First he freed Kahel, for he would not repeat his last mistake. Then he pried the oaken beam that held the archer, using a long club Afrid used to beat the isks with when they became fractious. Kahel emerged groaning and flexed his muscles and hobbled painfully toward the wall. He recovered his arrows slung to the side and nocking one, skewered the foremost isk with a squashy thunk.
Jurna gave a whimpering cry. He hopped out of his circle of terror for the first time in weeks. He slapped Kahel on the back and went to pull down Hape from his field but was repelled by a buzzing shock of the electric flux. Looking about wildly, Jurna’s eyes kindled. He fashioned an ingenious lasso from a fragment each of their costumes and slung it over the encharged space to knock out the vortex of fluxion. Hape, tears in his eyes, dropped free from his floating captivity.
Moeze could not be so easily released—the prisms seemed averse to the Journeyman’s approach and repelled him, sizzling any who ventured any closer. Fearing Afrid’s return, Risgan was forced to leave the magician behind, much to Moeze’s dismay.
All but the magician, bellowing his protests, were free and they regarded Hammish with little sympathy. Kahel gave the heap a vicious kick.
Risgan shook the magic girdle sullenly before the faces of the men to focus their attention. “We shall slink into yonder chamber, apply this cursed torque to Afrid’s person.” With a determined flourish, he herded the three to the door.
Foul luck was on their side. For they heard the tramp of Afrid’s feet, likely returning from her morning meditations.
“Just our luck.” Risgan hissed out an oath. The squawking of the remaining isk had doubtlessly aroused her suspicions. Quickly, Risgan covered the peephole window with a tarp used as a drop sheet for the evil birds. Jurna and Kahel slid a heavy crate of birdseed in front of the door.
Risgan panted. “Will it deter her?”
It was all taking too long. He heard the sorceress’s familiar muttering outside the door. “Hammish, Hammish! Open the door immediately! What is going on in there?”
“Go away,” cried Jurna, “we are in the midst of peaceful slumber here and Hammish has decided to join us. We wish only tranquility and solitude.”
“Hammish, come out!” Afrid cried jauntily. “The door is locked. Open up. Whatever you have done with Hammish’s key will earn you blights. Give it over, ragbags! If you don’t obey, I shall discharge a putrescence upon this door.”
“Our ears are closed to your dull roars, Afrid,” chided Risgan.
“Yes, begone, witch, let us die in peace,” Hape hissed.
“Hammish neglects our feeding, and so, is not here,” said Moeze. “You have persecuted us for the last time.”
A furious rap rattled the door, likely a reverberation of Afrid’s Mylixean magic. “Cockroaches! You shall all burn in fires of mesalomax.”
“The latter does not exist,” cried Moeze.
“No matter!” Another enraged blow landed on the door. The boom was not repeated and Risgan thought for a instant that they had rid themselves the witch. But no. A pressure of sinister magic slammed against the door, nearly cracking the oak to pieces.
Risgan struggled to free Moeze, who may be their only saviour.
To no success. The cubes and prisms pulsed out to burn Risgan’s skin and cause him howls when he sidled near. The shapes circled about in fury.
Risgan spat out curses. A few minutes later the door burst into a thousand pieces and Afrid stepped through with a triumphant leer on her face. Her loathsome serpent was coiled around her neck, shafting eyes of pure venom.
“Ah, what have you to say, you skulking rogues! Couched in the shadows like rats. I should have guessed. Your well-planned escape falls apart before your eyes. I warned you that resistance is futile against my magic, so prepare for a pang!”
The incapacitated form of Hammish lying broken on the floor caused Afrid a start and she scrambled over with a thin scream. Even to Risgan’s eye, it was a moment of rare tenderness. Hammish’s girdle was gone, bent and snapped, lying in the moulder.
In outrage, Afrid unleashed a bolt of fire-light at Jurna.
Jurna caught the beam broadsided and grunted as he attempted to block her path. He rolled in time, stamping out the fire threatening to engulf his gibbeth fur cloak. Afrid’s slimy snake flew through the air and Kahel took pleasure in shafting an arrow through its gleaming belly. Seizing an iron rod from the wall, he stabbed the serpent with finality.
Afrid gave a howl of grief. “You have killed Marna, my one and only pet of substance!”
“Aye, dame! And we will kill more of your creatures in this house of horrors!”
Risgan saw that Afrid was not the Afrid of old—but younger, more flighty, and volatile, as if her hair were bushier and less lurid. But her skittishness spoke of something else. Risgan’s lips moved in a frosty curse. The youth talisman had something to do with this transformation.
Afrid fled out of the detention chamber with the prisoners hot on her heels. No sooner had they won past the door, when thorn daggers come slicing past them like fire darts. They pelted them back in rage. A few branch-shafts hung pinned in the nearby wall while others hit home to strike Risgan and Kahel in their arms and legs.
Risgan howled, Kahel groaned while Hape fled in terror. The defenders threw themselves to the floor, covering their heads and limbs from the assault, uttering grievous moans. The tempest had lessened; now Afrid was perplexed why her magic did not seem to avail itself of its usual potency. Her lips parted in a sneer. Trying to speak, she found no words came.
Moeze had managed to free himself of his oppressive magic. Part of Afrid’s thaumaturgy had died upon the sudden shift of power. The magician kicked away his prison blocks and chortled with glee.
Afrid changed—younger and younger, and her spells would not obey her flourishes. The imprisoned men began rounding on her in satisfaction. Risgan’s face twisted in a grin of triumph. The youth talisman was doing its work and Afrid, no longer able to control her magic, had lost much of her knowledge of the craft as she grew younger and more unpredictable. “Traitor!” she spat at Risgan. At last she understood the fate upon her.
“Not so confident, are you now, Afrid?” Risgan gloated heartily.
Afrid scampered to her workroom, whimpering, clearly confused at what was happening to her body.
Risgan limped after her, bloodied and vengeful, the others close behind. They passed the huge thorn tree, looking ever eerier and twisted in the dusky light. Half its topmost branches were shorn off. Risgan snatched up a long thorn for use as a weapon.
From Afrid’s workroom came a spectacle of ghostly lights, flares and crackles. Risgan heard whispers of crazed glee as the sorceress boasted to a non-present Hammish of her achievements to come. The sorceress was obviously mad and getting more deranged by the second. Her waning power was not a pretty sight to witness.
She ran out with a headstrong gleam in her eye. Her cheeks pulsated to a sallow, inhuman glow. “Halt! Or feel the bite of Mylixean magic!”
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br /> Moeze stood to attention, feeling now was the time to assert his own dominance.
The sorceress hissed. “Let us see what you have now, little magician.”
Unnerved, Moeze lifted a hand. “I wouldn’t waste my best magics on you.I shall decisively shatter your pervulsiums—”
“Don’t be a prig.” With a small gesture, the witch caused Moeze to waver like a stalk of corn. The magician steadied himself and directed an impingement of his own—a fearforn blight—which widely missed Afrid and struck Jurna square in the belly. The journeyman was thrown back, doused with a strange brown deluge of water that had him crashing backward in surprise.
Afrid cackled in delight. She directed a wave of wind at him: a mysterious musical force that seemed to envelop the flustered mage and push him floating through the air. The magic dissipated and Moeze fell to his knees. Afrid coughed, stunned that her magic could strike so feebly. Her fingers twitched and she grew an inch shorter.
Moeze leaped to his feet, pointing a quivering finger. “Now, hag! Prepare to burn!” An incomprehensible spell gusted from his lips.
To no great surprise, nothing happened. Moeze’s magic was little better than Afrid’s at the moment...
Kahel and Jurna charged her from the side. Afrid sent them branches of thorn that came tearing from the large tree. Instead of the sharp thongs of death, the denuded branches simply wilted and flashed tickling little swipes at their ribs, a consequence of Afrid’s dwindling magic. The twain doubled over in spasms, clutching at their ribs in uncontrollable laughter, unable to help themselves as they were slowly being tickled to death.
Risgan drew a frustrated breath. Why were they laughing? He realized that events were careening out of his control. How had he ever permitted himself to be ensnared in such a plight? Events flooded back to mind: of the harrowing escape from the Pontific’s palace, the grim flight downriver, his capsizing in Replex’s craft, the loss of all his gold, living on squirrels and rodents in the wilds, suffering bleak frights, rigours and revulsions, only to succumb to this abominable witch.
Grimacing with malice, Risgan grabbed up a broom and crept up behind Afrid and gave her a decisive chop to the head. The sorceress toppled and lay groaning.
Recovering some of his wits, Risgan wrested the abominable skull amulet knitted at her skirt out of her grasp. “At last! Matters proceed along a path of restitution.” He glared at Afrid with satisfaction. “All your paltry magic, Afrid, and your fancy moves, come to naught against a good blow to the crown. Now, let us wrap up this affair. Bind the little imp, Kahel, so she can do no more harm.”
“Gladly.” Kahel grunted at the idea and nursed his thorn-pricked ribs. “None of us likes Afrid’s little amulets and flourishes.”
The foursome formally bound and gagged the defeated witch and stood glaring down at her, heaving rasping breaths. Afrid seemed to have grown a size smaller—if not to a tiny waif, barely two feet in height before their eyes.
Risgan scooped up the sorceress in a large beaker taken from the workroom and tightened the lid. Gathering several important personal items, his gibbeth bone, his scooping tool, bodkin, youth talisman, he found the latter wrapped in a soft black silken scarf almost as if packaged with tender care. Afrid had grown a soft spot for the gem, which had ultimately betrayed her.
Risgan did all this without his peers’ knowledge, for it could hardly benefit them to get mixed up with the reality of the jewel if they knew of its evil origin. As for Delpit, the automaton was standing crouched in a brainless stoop by her workbench. All that was left of the poor wretch was a vacant stare of helpless incomprehensibility. His vitals lay piled in a corroded tub. A similar circlet, resembling Hammish’s infamous girdle, lay snugged around his waist.
Risgan ripped off the sorcerous belt with disgust. He voiced a shrill curse to all wizards and watched as the shell that was Delpit fell in a lifeless heap. He scowled but nonetheless felt vindicated that he had at least released Delpit from a sorcerous thrall; at last he retrieved a boot from the corpse to replace his own.
The sorceress was left with no knowledge of her craft. Reduced to a blubbering child, impotent, except for the sharp teeth which had done some nasty work on Kahel’s arm, Afrid hung her head in defeat.
The prisoners were at a loss to explain her sudden loss of magic and they probed Risgan for details. The treasure-hunter shrugged his shoulders in cool reflection. “A misfired spell, I suspect. Afrid’s youth is a function of weird sorcery. None of us will understand it. Many strange things have happened today.”
“Aye, too many strange things, Relic Hunter!” snarled Kahel. “I daresay that more will come unless we quit this cursed manor. Rejoice now that the hag has met Douran’s justice!”
“Not so fast!” cried Jurna. “What will we do with her?”
Frowns and mutters followed, and with them, no mutual consensus.
Moeze quietly retrieved his magic items, tucked them under his belt in his silver robe. Included was a silver disc which blinded man and beast when a button was depressed on its underside, and a less impressive ‘prezion’, which contained a squeeze tube injecting an evil-smelling, mustard-coloured vapour at a distance of up to seven feet. Doubtless the spray would prove useful for paralyzing some unsuspecting enemy, Risgan conceded.
Jurna bagged several of Afrid’s thaumaturgical accessories then selected an ebon idol carved with skulls and primitive symbols which professed a healthy hint of magic powers. None of which Moeze had mastered. Hape had recovered from his terror and now selected only a small music box from Afrid’s stash, whereby he could listen to sweet memories of his childhood as it played tunes pleasing to his ears. The group mutually commandeered a three-wheeled cart that ran on its own power after winding a tight spring.
Afrid’s fate was at last decided. Kahel fashioned a cage of thorn, in which he dropped her childlike form, an imp of foul tongue. Fashioned of glass panes and a small air hole at the top, the glass served as a deterrent when Afrid’s imprecations became too unruly. Plopped in the spring-powered cart, she was wheeled out and none of her new wards need expend too much efforts to keep her contained.
Out in the mansion’s court, the group shambled; the bright sunshine stung their eyes. For some, it had been weeks since their skin had felt warmth.
Kahel grumbled in loud tones at the care Risgan took to Afrid’s ministrations. “You treat her like a pampered doll. I say we should tie her to a tree and let the volfi have their way with her.”
“Normally that would be my own thinking, but I suggest that it would be a cruel fate and that we not follow Afrid’s example.”
“Why? Are you forgetting Delpit?”
Risgan frowned, fingering his gibbeth club. Recalling his own indignities suffered at the hands of Afrid, he loosed a doubtful sigh.
“Hold on,” cried Hape. “We could probably sell her for a fair price at the market in Bazuur. ’Tis a great balloon city with teams of rich folk.”
Jurna was inclined to disagree. “Why would anybody purchase such a miserable-looking item?”
“Grotesques are popular these days,” declared Moeze.
Risgan ran his fingers through his hair. “The punishment is just. A fitting fate for a zealot who clung to a fiendish goal.”
“Hers is a case of acute madness,” observed Jurna, swigging the last of her malt liquor from her wine cellar. “Well, it has caused the witch her doom. She does brew a mean tub of malt-ale though.”
Hape snorted. “My grandmother could make better swill than that. It’s less than vinegary sludge.”
“What of Hammish?” asked Moeze.
“We leave the automaton here. ’Twas once a lifeless piece of junk and is now again.”
“And Delpit?”
“He is gone,” said Risgan sadly.
Jurna and Kahel gave dark nods. “Let us get away from this ill-hatched abode.”
There was common consensus. It was almost noon and lazy clouds crawled across a pure blue sky. A faint
breeze tousled their hair, carrying the scent of gibbeths and the hint of ancient moulder.
The companions tightened their cloaks around them and all shared their own shivers at the prospects ahead. With no great enthusiasm, Risgan and the others set out as one toward the northern greenwood, anxious to be gone from Afrid’s lair and her wretched workshop.
The Huntress of Caerlin
1: Isks of doom
A gentle breeze rustled the treetops and Risgan paused to take a breath. He clutched the handle to his enchanted wagon, a kind of barrow that carried the caged witch, Afrid. Her eyes glowered in distaste, rich with an unpleasant hue behind those dark withes of thorn. A godsend that her magic had been stripped by the piece of nephrite he kept stashed away in his pouch. But was the effect permanent? Her three foot height did not diminish her menace, despite confinement in that square cage of tough thorn.
“Seems Afrid’s in a rotten mood this morning,” mused Risgan, scratching the itch on his sweaty brow.
“Bully for her,” mumbled Jurna in a dark voice. His bushy brows dipped in a scowl. It seemed his memories of old wounds inflicted back at Thornkeep were still quite fresh.
Moeze looked back at the trees from where they had come. “Thornkeep, bah! Perhaps, I shall learn useful spells from this old hag before she gets her just desserts.”
“Young hag,” corrected Hape.
“Better luck talking to the devil,” grumbled Kahel, counting his precious arrows. Too few of them for the dangers that lurked ahead. He shook out his shaggy mop of red hair.
Afrid hissed between the thorn bars and rattled her cage with an unwholesome fervour. The witch’s baby face and youthful skin seemed uncanny for one so utterly wicked and cruel. Her snake-like hiss had Hape recoiling.
“Relax,” Moeze chided. He flicked his fingers in the gesture of a spell…a bright green spot grew on the witch’s brow. “Aiee!” she squealed in anguish. She clammed up after that.