(edited by jolllly.1320)
[fic] The Engineer and the Ingénu
Chapter 1
Oh, Melandru wears a skirt of leaves and carries a rake and hoe,
She dances all about our fields and sings for the crops to grow.
Her skirts come tumbling off each fall when our harvests and prayers flow free,
But easy lad—don’t jump ahead—‘cause her bottom half’s made of tree.
~old Seraph marching song, currently banned
On the eve of his eighteenth birthday, the day before he was to report for his compulsive military service in Divinity’s Reach, Ffeldy ran away. Two hours after the recruitment sergeant reported him absent, a farmer in the Kessex Hills went to feed his moa flock, found Ffeldy hunkering in a shed, and reported him to the authorities. Ten minutes after that, Seraph from the nearest fort arrived. Ffeldy was knocked soundly on the head, apprehended, and led away with his wrists bound.
“Happy birthday, you ingrate,” growled the farmer. Jagged scars lined his face and hands.
“And what kinda soljer do you think you are, kneeling in moa-dirt with yer hands over yer face, lad?” asked one of the guards as he led Ffeldy past the farmer, the farmer’s wife, and their six children who had all run over to watch and laugh and throw bits of dandelion and moa-dirt.
“I’m not fit for soljering, I’ll be terrible at it, and I don’t see why I should march off when plenty of other lads’d be there in my place in a second,” blubbered Ffeldy. “Besides, I’m a conscientious objector.” He’d been socked in the eye, which was starting to swell and he couldn’t see out of it very well. He licked metal-tasting moisture from his lip. Maybe his nose was bleeding. He couldn’t check because his hands were tied behind his back.
“Heh, next he’ll be telling us that the farmer knew elemental majik an’ rooted his feet to the ground or turned him to stone or some-such,” said the second guard. Actually, the farmer had indeed used minor earth-magic to root Ffeldy’s feet to the ground when he’d first spotted him, and applied a stony veneer to his shins to keep him long enough for the Seraph to arrive.
“Aye, and only a complete skritt-brain doesn’t run for the hills and lets himself be captured. You had a ten minute head-start, lad. But Queen Jenna needs her soljers, and you’ll make as good a meat shield as any. Though yer a scrawny one. Don’t fear. We’ll jus’ have to thicken you up a bit first.”
The guards marched Ffeldy along the old outpost road, resting only to dismantle the occasional centaur spike trap. The sun shone on the green hills, and at first Ffeldy was relieved to be free from the suffocating moa-stink of the shed. But then the fields gave way to scattered timber-and-wattle cottages. People came to the doors of their homes to see the little procession, and kids ran up to the front gate, and one well-borne looking woman in fancy fish-scale armor spat in the dust as Ffeldy was marched by. Even disregarding their prisoner, who was still smeared with moa-dirt and dressed in tawdry dirt-colored clothes made of canvas and old split leather, the two guards by themselves were a sight to behold.
Ffeldy remembered when he was the age of these children watching from the roadside, and used to watch the Seraph pass by his own front gate in Claypool. They always wore matching burnished breastplates and golden helmets and greaves that clattered as they walked. Each soldier had a sword and scabbard, and a shield shaped like a golden wing on one arm. In battle, Ffeldy thought a Seraph probably looked like that hero from the poem his mother recited sometimes, the one who transformed herself halfway into an eagle.
“Come, lad,” said the Seraph marching at Ffeldy’s left elbow. “Why would you not want to be a soljer? Aye, you are one of the worst scrappers I’ve seen yet, but our drill captain can batter fighting know-how into the thickets of skulls. Even yours, I imagine, though I don’t envy him the task.”
“Sure, sure,” said the Seraph on Ffeldy’s right. “You may not live to be an old man in the army, but they ensure you have a nice enough few years. Or months. Wine, decent food, half an egg-shell full of hard spirits twice a week, the odd brothel permission slip. Old age isn’t as nice as it’s made out to be.”
“I know about soljering,” mumbled Ffeldy.
“What’s that, young meat shield?” said the left Seraph.
“My Da’ was a soljer. He was killed by centaurs when I was seven. An’ five of my brothers were drafted. Only one still writes home to Ma. And I’m the youngest.”
“Well,” said the rightmost Seraph in a reassuring voice, “at least your ma has your sisters at home.”
(edited by jolllly.1320)
Ffeldy didn’t mention that he only had one sister, and she was in the Order of Whispers, whatever that was. And since the Order was usually up to some sort of illegal something-or-other, which was all Ffeldy knew about it anyways, he kept his mouth shut. Besides, she had seemed very eager to leave home two years ago and hadn’t ever seemed to like him much.
“And what did you think you were going to do after you ran away?” asked the left Seraph, giving Ffeldy’s shoulder a shake. “Live off the land until an Ettin dragged you into its cave and lived off you instead?”
“I could be a tinkerer. Or…a merchant, maybe. Or if I could prove my skill I could repair armor in the Eternal Battle Grounds. There’s lots of need for that sort of think there. Not everyone has to be a fighter. Do they?”
The two Seraph ignored his rhetorical question, though he hadn’t meant for it to sound so rhetorical.
“Methinks the lad is full of so much putrid essence. We should render him down and sell him for good coin at the trading post. What about these objects you were carrying, eh lad? What exactly would an armor repairman be wanting with a set of these?” The rightmost Seraph released Ffeldy’s elbow and held up three small multi-colored crocheted sacks. “Are you a juggler, boy? Running off to the circus?” The soldier tossed the three sacks and caught them again—actually beanbags that Ffeldy had made himself by filling small satchels with dried beans and stitching them closed.
“I was not going to join the circus.” He could tell that his face was hot with embarrassment and he prayed that the civilians they passed couldn’t hear the conversation. The Seraph with the beanbags tried to juggle and managed a few bad tosses and catches before one bag went soaring out of control and hit Ffeldy in his already swollen eye. Ffeldy’s knees buckled and, with his hands tied, he couldn’t catch himself before collapsing forward onto his face. The second Seraph should have caught him, but he was doubled up and helpless with laughter at the first Seraph’s antics. Ffeldy struggled to stand, but before he could stumble away into someone’s cow pasture and escape, the Seraph had him by the elbows again.
“Don’t look so shamefaced,” said the Seraph who returned to his position on Ffeldy’s right. “One out of three people we catch trying to desert are ‘running off to the circus.’ Seems a popular fantasy with the youngsters. Isn’t that right, Melbus?”
“Aye, and if it’s not the circus, it’s finding their real parents or somesuch. Retrievin’ the body of a lost brother—“
“Lost sister, Melbus. It’s always the sister.”
“Aye, sister. Odd thing, that.”
The Seraph fell silent for a while, only the sound of the gravel scuffling under their boots reminding Ffeldy that he wasn’t alone. Then Melbus piped up.
“Well, lad, just be glad you’re not in the Grove and we’re not a stand of those Sylvari plant people.”
“Why is that, Melbus?” asked the rightmost man when Ffeldy didn’t rise to the bait.
“Running around with those sacks of beans? The Sylvari’d dig your feet inna ground like a tree and set them fernhounds on you for them sacks of beans. ‘Trafficking of minors’ is what they’d call it.”
The Seraph didn’t stop laughing until they delivered Ffeldy to the captain of the guard inside the sun-bleached stone walls of Fort Salma.
(edited by jolllly.1320)
Chapter 2
Well human lads, and lasses too, were always meant for war,
But if you like art and science and such, take a lesson from old Malchor.
As sculptor he, per Dwayna’s whim, gave years of his hands and mind,
To sculpt six likenesses of the gods—his thanks? Dwayna made him blind.
- old Seraph marching song, currently banned
Instead of formal introductions, the sergeant of the night guard had Ffeldy locked in a cell for the night, to “discourage nighttime steeplechases” as she put it. The cell was really more like a cleaning closet. It was dark, and smelled of silver polish and saddle soap. And it was already occupied.
“The lieutenant will see you lot inna morning for a bit of discipline, then you’ll be sent along to Divinity’s Reach,” said the sergeant of the guard as she shoved Ffeldy inside. “Try not to eat each other alive before then. As you were, then.” The door closed, then opened just a crack. “Oh, and young man, the lieutenant won’t mind if I return these to you,” said the sergeant, and placed the three bags of dried beans in Ffeldy’s hand. “Seeing you probably couldn’t assault no guards, nor harm yourself with ‘em.”
“Uh…thank y—“ Began Ffeldy, but the door shut again, this time for good.
“Ah,” said a treacley male voice in the gloom, “a green stick of a lad, is it? And with three satchels, no less. Hand ‘em over, let’s have a look.”
Ffeldy tried to tuck the bags away, then realized one of them was already missing. Beans rattled somewhere off to his left, then he heard a ripping sound as if the seam had been torn.
“Atty, let’s have a light, shall we? And see how rich the lad is.”
“Very well,” said an unenthused female voice. “But I can’t hold a light for very long. I’ll have to use—what is this? A dust rag on a stick?—since they confiscated my scepter.”
A strand of blue electricity appeared in the middle of the room. It cast just enough light for Ffeldy to make out the sharp, mustached face of the man and the tall, dark-skinned woman sitting beside him on an up-turned rinse bucket.
“Oh Grenth’s middle finger, Atty, the lad must’ve sold his poor mother’s cow for a pile of worthless beans. Be glad you were arrested, boy, or that old mother of yours’d beat you up, down and around the village green for falling for that old con-artist trick. Er…they aren’t majicked beans now, are they?”
“No sir,” said Ffeldy. “No one was ever expanded or shrunken or otherwise assaulted by majicks, wanted or no, from that crop of beans.”
“Wait, wait,” said the man. “Atalanta, bring that light closer, I can’t quite make this out. Can you brighten it? Bring out a bit more yellow so I can see? There’s something here mixed in the beans.”
“You know,” said Atalanta, “I should charge you a silver for every spell I cast for your personal use.” But she brightened the light and toned the color anyway.
The man held up a tiny glass disc between his fingers. “Well I’ll be…”
“It’s nothing,” said Ffeldy quickly. “Nothing of value. Jus’ parts of an old telescope I had from my brother, he was a sailor. I couldn’t take it with me—it’s long as my arm—so I salvaged the important bits. The lens, that’s what you’re holding now, sir. Some of the brass fittings are there, an’ in these other bags. I’ll make a better one someday with new parts as I can find them.”
“Atty,” said the man, still studying the bits of glass and metal, “can you test for residual majicks? Curses?”
“I think the Seraph would have detected magical residue if it had been there.”
“Humor me, my apple blossom…”
“I’m no one’s apple blossom, Domanick. Unless blossoming means I plant an apple seed in your gullet and have it grow inside you until a tree bursts out your stomach and ears. I may have that power.” Atalanta looked at Ffeldy and lowered her voice. “I’m sorry about him. He’s just a bitter thief who was caught filching from the Seraph storerooms. Obviously he is not a very good one because he was caught. Isn’t that right, Domanick?”
“I’m not bitter, Atty. When I don’t eat nothing for a few hours I just get…the jitters. Can you just test the lad’s baubles so I can sleep in peace? Please?”
“You’re bitter.” Atalanta held out a hand, and Domanick placed the bits of telescope in her palm. She held the lens to her eye, then blew on it. “It’s a well-crafted lens. There’s some perceivable, uh, doctoring, but only in the scientific sense. No magic here.”
Domanick huffed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Atty.”
Atalanta held her hands apart and let a twist of white lightning arc between them.“I know it looks like I’m doing what he says,” she said to Ffeldy, who had very much wanted to ask the question but didn’t feel it his place to ask, “but I merely happen to be interested myself in your…baubles. Also, I’ve already reminded Domanick—and now I’m warning you, young friend—that if you touch me or even look at me in a way I deem improper, I may sting you a bolt that can stop your heart. Understood?”
(edited by jolllly.1320)
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Excellent.” She held out her hand for Ffeldy to shake. Well, he hoped she expected a shake. Kissing her hand seemed…dangerous. “You may call me Atty.”
“I’m called Ffeldy, miss.”
She laughed at his hesitation to take her hand. “Then we shall tolerate one another pleasantly until the guard releases us in the morning, shan’t we.”
“Come on, lad,” said Domanick, “stop standing there all awkward-like at the door, making us nervous. Have a seat on this pallet. There’s only the one, but it’s not too lumpy or flat. Here is your satchel, beans and the rest of it. Sorry if I gave you a turn. I had a chap take out a purse once, like he was about to pay me off for holding my knife at his throat, and he threw a handful of majicked blinding dust at my face. Can you believe the nerve? A thief can’t be too careful these days. Anyway. Looking at your dried beans all edible and not at the same time, it’s near torture when you’re as starved as I.”
“Didn’t they give us water? Couldn’t we just cook them up?” said Ffeldy hesitantly as he sat down where Domanick had pointed. “With, uh, Atty’s skill, of course.”
“Not a chance,” said Atalanta. “There’s not enough ventilation in this cell, not even a window. I start even a tiny fireball, and we’ll suffocate in minutes, if not seconds.”
“There is water, though,” said Domanick hopefully. “In that copper pot.”
“But what about that other magic skill from just now?” said Ffeldy. “The lightning? You used that.”
“Electricity isn’t the same as fire.”
Ffeldy tried to listen to his thoughts over the rumbling of his own stomach. “Yes, but…have you ever tried doing anything else with it? Besides lighting up rooms and, beg your pardon, shocking villains like Domanick an’ myself. I hear the Asura bottle it like fireflies in jar, and get it to work for ‘em like a tamed hive of bees. An sometimes without majicks.”
“What,” laughed Domanick, “Did the asura catch lightning by standing out in a thunderstorm holding a jar? How does a Krytan farm lad like yourself know about asura, anyways? You ever even met one?”
“The telescope parts are asura-made, given to me by my sist—my brother the sailor. And I have something else, too.” Ffeldy retrieved one of the other pouches, the green one, and ripped it open. He dug around in the beans with his fingers and drew out a tiny glass orb the size of his thumbnail. On one side of the orb was a small metallic nub. “They say the asura use these for light, but I don’t know how to get the lightning in. I tried shuffling across a bearskin rug with slippers on, and got a nice jolt when I touched the door latch, but nothing happens when I touch this.”
“You,” said Domanick, “have wasted far too much time thinkin’ about useless things. What exactly, uh, were you locked up in here for to begin with?”
“Running from the Seraph recruiters. I’m a conscientious objector.”
“Of course you are, lad. Of course you are.”
“Here. The glass bauble. Let me hold it for a minute,” said Atalanta. Ffeldy handed it to her, and she pinched the metal nub with her thumb and index finger. With a flash, the room lit up so bright that Ffeldy though the roof of the cell had blown off to let in a strong mid-day sun.
“Well now, that certainly is an improvement,” said Domanick slowly.
“I’m barely using any power at all,” said Atalanta. “Remarkable. I’d heard of asuran accomplishments, but chalked them up as exaggerated myth. They and the charr, as I recall, practice something called “science,” which I understand to be a magic rooted in electrical matter. However,” she added in a surly tone, “I think I was happier not being able to see every scar and streak of dirt on your faces. You two look like the lowest of rabble.”
“We are the lowest of rabble.” Domanick had found an old candle holder and was scraping out bits of old tallow candle to chew. “Ffeldy here is country draft dodger and I’m a petty thief caught with stolen potatoes up my shirt. Instead of prison, I volunteered to join the Seraph, see the world, kill things an’ all that. What about you, Atty? You haven’t mentioned your own common crime.”
“That,” said Atalanta, “is because I have committed no crime. The misunderstanding will be realized in the morning. The lieutenant is always most gracious. Until then, you’d be best served to not annoy me, lest you end up with a powerful enemy instead of an ally. Shall I dim the light a bit? That’s better. Though I suppose I’ll be stuck holding this thing for the rest of the evening. Goddess, I am starved through. It’s a shame about those beans. A hot supper would have been ample repayment.”
Ffeldy, meanwhile, scooted toward the glass bulb in Atty’s outstretched hand and knelt before it, studying the way the coil of wire inside glowed like one of the goddess Lyssa’s fiery hairs. When he touched the glass, it was so hot he cried out and stuck his finger in his mouth.
“By the Six, Atty, how do you stand it?”
“I’m an elementalist. Heat, cold and wet don’t bother me much.”
“The bulb’s construction is most curious,” said Ffeldy, still sucking his finger. “Lighting appears to like metal, it only flows along the metal strand, an’ I suppose through the copper nub, but not the glass. Though it’s hot as Balthazar’s ba—uh, fingers. You said the water pot was copper? I wonder if we couldn’t heat the water the same as the glass, with the lightning.
“And burn down the building,” growled Domanick. “And ourselves by association, seeing how the door is bolted from without.”
“You would burn down the building if you were as good an elementalist as you are a thief,” said Atalanta. “But I have control over these things. Pass me the kettle, Dom, let’s have a go.”
An hour later they were taking turns eating bean soup out of the pot, passing a wooden ladle back and forth. Once he realized that they would not burn to their deaths by electricity, Domanick became so heartened that he whipped out a potato, an onion, a wafer of unidentifiable dried meat, a vial of Ascalonian seasoning, and even a carrot from nowhere to add to the broth.
“I get why you didn’t want to eat a raw potato and even, maybe that dried…protein paste,” said Atalanta. “But why hold on to the carrot?”
“There was only one,” said Domanick. “I didn’t want you ta hear me crunching, as then I’d have to share or be electricutified.”
“I wonder why the Seraph didn’t confiscate all this,” added Ffeldy. “They took my haversack, everything but the beans.”
“Oh, they thought they confiscated my rations,” Domanick said with a grin, “but you don’t confiscate from a thief unless he lets you. And unless you strip-search him first.”
Atalanta and Ffeldy exchanged a glance. Ffeldy tried to shove the ladle into Atty’s hands, but when she zapped him with a small electric shock he thrust the ladle at Domanick instead.
“Oh, you two,” said the thief, then laughed. “You already ate most of it without complaint when you didn’t know the particulars. Doesn’t heat cook out the evil spirits? What’r you so anxious about?” He slurped loudly from the ladle. “Ah well, so much the better for me. A thief gets what he wants. Doesn’t even have to steal it sometimes, it gets handed right to ‘im.” And he raised the ladle in salute.
Chapter 3
Queen Jennah was home when you left — You’re right
Oh Jennah was home when you left — Right!
And Logan was here to my left — to fight
Oh Logan was here to my left — he left!
He left? [beat] You’re right.
He left. — You’re right.
He left [beat] double-time! — Right?
He left. — You’re right!
~ Seraph call-and-answer marching cadence (currently banned on pain of thumbscrews)
The next morning at dawn, Seraph guards roused Ffeldy, Atty and Dom with a sharp rapping on the door.
“Up, up you lot. Rise and shine in the name of the Queen! Today’s a big day for ya. At attention now!”
Ffeldy clambered unsteadily to his feet, convinced the centaurs must have invaded to have caused such racket. He and Domanick, despite both vowing and attempting to stay awake all night swapping bawdy jokes and tales—in whispers after Atty threatened to turn their mouths to stone—had fallen asleep, each half on, half off the thin straw-filled pallet. Atty had distanced herself and made a nest out of her thick, green cloak, which, as the Seraph clomped up and down the hall, she now shook free of dirt and tossed over her shoulders.
The cell door swung open, and a row of Seraph in impeccable armor awaited them in the corridor. The sergeant from the previous evening stood front and center, holding two coils of rope.
“Von Ffeldy and Domanick Garret. Please step forward an’ hold out your hands.”
Ffeldy and Domanick exchanged a nervous glance, and stepped forward together. One of the guards bound Ffeldy’s wrists. He winced when the rope slid over the red patches of skin that had rubbed raw on yesterday’s march, and tried to tell himself today would be better because at least his hands were tied in front this time, not behind his back.
“What about her?” whimpered Domanick as the guard tightened his cords. “Aren’t men and women equal in the eyes of the law? Is it ‘cause she’ll singe right through yer rope that you don’t bind her, too? A metal cable might do, just sayin’.”
“Quiet, you,” growled the Seraph sergeant. She towered over Ffeldy, who wasn’t exactly short himself, and her muscular arms, what he could see of them, seemed the width of Ffeldy’s calves. When she flicked her finger, her guards roughly dragged Ffeldy and Domanick from the cell and shoved them down the corridor, taking care to bump the captives’ heads on every wall and door-frame. Atalanta followed along behind, serene and unfettered.
When Ffeldy’s head stopped spinning from being knocked around, he found himself standing in ankle-deep muck in a courtyard before a Seraph officer in an intricate set of armor that seemed to have been constructed of bits of an exploded dragon that someone had dipped in silver and soldered together.
“Good morning, delinquents,” said the officer.
“Show some respect,” hissed the sergeant, thwacking Ffeldy and Domanick over their heads with a thick vellum scroll. “Kneel.”
Ffeldy staggered forward from the blow. He bowed his head and dropped to his knees in the muck, which soaked through his leggings, leaving them clammy and cold. From the corner of his eye he saw Domanick do the same. But when he managed to scan the courtyard for Atty without the sergeant noticing, the elementalist had vanished. Maybe she had transformed into a mist and escaped—he’d heard good eles could do that. Did that mean she’d return to rescue two dirty vagabonds? Yes, Ffeldy tried to tell himself, even though every last whisper in his brain told him otherwise.
The sergeant faced the officer and stood at attention. “Lieutenant Gregoire, two prisoners, having engaged in illegal acts according to Krytan law, have been captured, accounted for, and await your gracious inspection.”
“Thank you, Sergeant Delaqua. Please read the charges.”
Delaqua unrolled the scroll and cleared her throat. “One Domanick Garret, accused of fourteen counts of larceny, apprehended at the Wallwatcher camp near barrels of the Queen’s stores, having been found with numerous stolen wares upon his person…” The sergeant droned on in an officious voice, giving a too-thorough account with an unnecessary level of detail. A few of the Seraph guards snickered at the part when a Wallwatcher corporal, suspecting the thief, had noticed a tell-tale potato working its way down one of Domanick’s trouser legs.
“Yes, I get the gist” interrupted Lieutenant Gregoire. “What of the young lad?”
“One Von Ffeldy, accused of draft avoidance and evasion, having failed, upon reaching legal age, to report to the Seraph recruiting sergeant in Claypool…”
Ffeldy’s ears burned as he listened to the account of his transgressions and, worse, when the Seraph all laughed at his shameful showing in the moa shed.
Meanwhile, the lieutenant had drawn his sword. He placed the point under Ffeldy’s chin and tilted it up so that Ffeldy was forced to meet his eyes. Gregoire’s face was grim, his eyes dark under thick brows crisscrossed with battle scars.
(edited by jolllly.1320)
“And why do you hate your queen so?” said the lieutenant in a low voice for only Ffeldy to hear. “What has fair Kryta done to you, that you would abandon her to dragons, and undead, and other foul threats?”
“Sir, I never meant to offend Queen Jennah. I would serve her in a different way—“
“You would save your own skin by letting others die in your place.” Lieutenant Gregoire spat. “I know your kind.”
“Others have died already, Sir. My dad and brothers. My ma runs the farm herself—“ Ffeldy could feel the tears sliding down his cheeks.
“So you choose to abandon your own mother to the dragons, undead, and foul threats. Ungrateful, stupid lad. You must cut the apron strings and leave her either way, either with honor or with great shame.”
“Lieutenant Gregoire? Sir?” Sergeant Delaqua had finished reading the charges and rolled the vellum back into a tight scroll. “What disciplinary measures would you have us take against the accused?”
The lieutenant took a step back, sword still in hand, and said in a loud voice for the entire Fort Salma to hear, “I pronounce both defendants guilty as charged. For fourteen counts of larceny of the Queen’s stores I hereby sentence Domanick Garret of Nebo Terrace to the stocks, and for no fewer than fourteen rotten tomatoes to be thrown at his head. Thereafter he shall serve the Queen as a Seraph recruit for five years, in lieu of prison.”
Two guards advanced, lifted Domanick by the elbows, and hauled him bodily away. The thief’s dragging heels left two parallel lines in the mud.
“And for the avoidance and evasion of required military service…” continued Gregoire.
Ffeldy’s tongue plastered itself to the roof of his mouth.
“…I hereby sentence Von Ffeldy to kiss the blade of this sword and swear allegiance to Queen and Kryta. Furthermore, he shall not rise until he has kissed the weapon—or hand—of every good Krytan citizen in Fort Salma, and sworn allegiance anew each time. Thereafter he shall serve the Queen as a Seraph recruit for the rest of his natural life, in lieu of death on the gibbet.”
Ffeldy’s vision went black, as if someone had snuffed out a candle. When he came to, he was on his hands and knees. The tip of the lieutenant’s sword floated in front of his nose. Ffeldy closed his eyes and pressed his lips to the flat of the blade.
“Repeat after me,” said the lieutenant. “I pledge my life to Queen and Kryta, until my death, so help me Six.”
“I pledge my life to—to Queen and Kryta. Until—until my death. So help me Six.”
The lieutenant sheathed his blade with a shing. “So help you,” he murmured, then turned away on his heel.
Sergeant Delaqua stepped forward and lowered her blade for Ffeldy to kiss.
“I pledge my life to Queen and Kryta. Until my death, so help me Six.”
Delaqua whacked him again on the head with her vellum scroll. “Say it like you mean it,” she snarled, and stepped aside to oversee the rest of his punishment.
The Seraph guards filed past, one by one, then the sentries and archers stationed on the fort’s walls, the quartermaster, the armorer, the cook, the various merchants. Even a handful of passing travelers and mercenaries were rounded up and sent to the courtyard to receive Ffeldy’s oath of allegiance. Their boots trod uncomfortably before him, their hands and blades reluctantly offered under Delaqua’s potent gaze.
“I pledge my life to Queen and Kryta, until my death, so help me Six.”
At last all the citizens and passers-by had gone, and one last pair of boots—tall, heeled, flame-colored and feminine—stood before Ffeldy. He hadn’t been able to look anyone in the eye out of shame throughout his ordeal, and before this fashionable stranger he felt even more wretched. The stranger removed her glove and offered a hand, dark as caramel.
Ffeldy hesitated, his head spinning with some strange déjà vu, and he leaned towards the hand. As his lips met the fingers a loud crack filled his ears, and a white flash nearly blinded him. His mouth stung and for a moment he thought he’d been on the receiving end of Delaqua’s powerful backhand.
“Gotcha,” said a familiar voice. Ffeldy raised his eyes. Atalanta, decked not in her drab prison garb but in a gauzy, flame-colored outfit, winked at him and laughed.
“Atty!”
This time Sergeant Delaqua did deliver Ffeldy a smart cuff. “Is that how you address the Hero of Shaemoor, you cur?”
Atalanta held out her hand again, and Ffeldy instinctively recoiled. “Pledge your allegiance, cur,” she said, but Ffeldy could hear the humor in her voice. This time her hand was warm and soft against his mouth, and not quite so electric.
“I pledge my life to Queen and Kryta until my death, so help me Six!” The words came easily to him now, and yet rang heavily in his ears. He spoke, but still couldn’t bring himself to believe. He was a coward, and a fraud.
“Disciplinary measures are now complete,” pronounced Delaqua. “Von Ffeldy, you may rise.”
Chapter 4
Flame!
The girl dressed in flame!
When centaurs invaded and put us to the sword,
And no one could help us, not magistrate nor lord,
At’lanta sent them packing, putting them—and us—to shame:
The Hero of Shaemoor, the girl wielding flame!
~excerpt from Shaemoor Inn’s most frequently requested ballad
The midmorning sun had cleared the battlements by the time Domanick and Ffeldy were allowed to use water from a dolyak trough to rinse the worst of the mud, grime, or in Domanick’s case tomato juice, from their faces and clothes. The Seraph retied their hands, then linked the men together with an arm’s length of rope. Sergeant Delaqua at last deemed them fit for travel and sent for the lieutenant, whom she said would see them off. Ffeldy was surprised to see Atalanta reappear with Lieutenant Gregoire. As the Hero of Shaemoor, she should have had more important things to do.
“Might I inquire,” Atalanta asked Gregoire, “where the two scoundrels are being taken?”
“To Divinity’s Reach, my lady. The Seraph Chief of Recruits will process them, and see that they are turned into more…useful members of society.”
“What a coincidence,” said Atty. “I, too, am traveling to Divinity’s Reach to report back to Captain Thackeray. His most recent notion was to have me infiltrate a den of bandits by disguising myself. I suppose it worked a little too well. The Seraph raided the venue and—as I understand it, Captain Thackeray, being busy with bigger Krytan affairs, forgot to tell them that I was not an actual bandit myself. Luckily, I was able to count on your own gracious understanding this morning.”
“Sergeant Delaqua says her sister Marjory has only good things to say about you, my lady.” Lieutenant Gregoire halted a few paces from the prisoners, but only Atalanta held his full attention. He had tucked his helmet under one arm, and his fingers played with the face-shield, absently clicking it up and down. “On behalf of all Seraph,” he said, “I apologize one hundred times for such an oversight. To think that the Hero of Shaemoor had to spend the night locked with a pair of ruffians in a cell. How can such a thing be repaid?”
“Please,” said Atalanta, “think nothing of it. Two bandits are barely noticeable after dealing with an entire den of them.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” replied Gregoire, still flicking his fingers on his helmet. “I hadn’t meant to ask you—I can barely form the words, I’m so mortified by what I’m about to request—but with recent centaur attacks I barely have enough sentries to guard these gates and…would you mind escorting the prisoners yourself to Divinity’s Reach?”
“Escort the prisoners? I?” Atalanta’s nonchalant tone slipped. It was the first time Ffeldy had noticed any lack of confidence in her demeanor. “With perhaps one Seraph guard to…hold the rope, or what have you?”
“I’m sure the Hero of Shaemoor has no need of any Seraph guards.”
Atalanta thumped the butt of her plain wooden staff into the dirt in apparent agitation. “No, of course I need no accompaniment. And Captain Thackeray—“
“—would be most impressed by your initiative,” said Gregoire. “Most impressed, indeed.”
“Yes, lieutenant, I believe he would be.”
“Very well, then. I release the prisoners into your capable hands.” Gregoire thumped his chest in salute. Ffeldy and Domanick bowed to the lieutenant per Sergeant Delaqua’s firm suggestion.
“Come, scoundrels,” bawled Atty, her self-assure tone restored. “Let us report to the capital, Captain and Queen! Forward march!”
Ffeldy lurched forward when a zap of electricity stung his back. The rope attaching his wrists to Domanick’s tightened, forcing the thief to stumble along behind him. They marched through the Fort Salma gate in single file with Ffeldy in the lead and Atalanta falling in behind.
“I bet it’s an act,” whispered Domanick. “She’ll untie us once we round the bend and Delaqua can’t see us anymore.”
And so Ffeldy played the part of despondent prisoner—not a difficult act—but even after the fort had disappeared behind a bend, a dense swamp, and a number of hillocks, Atty still hadn’t broken her act as warden.
“Atty,” whispered Domanick, “the three of us had bonded last night. We’re all common sufferers, don’t you see? You can untie us, surely.”
Atalanta’s voice was as cold as a Shiverpeak winter. “I have a duty. I’ve been chosen for this. Nothing you can say can bend me from it. Nothing.”
As the sun arced overhead, they labored up the side of a steep ridge out of the swamp. Far below, the stout, sharpened logs of a distant garrison looked like a child’s twig fort, and beyond that, a lake glinted like colored glass. Throughout the trek Ffeldy found it difficult to empty his mind of fear. What would his new life be like as a Seraph? Could he really be a fighter? Was it too late for him to learn a few spells, or would he discover some untapped talent as an agile rouge scrapper?
Thereafter he shall serve the Queen as a Seraph recruit for the rest of his natural life, in lieu of death on the gibbet.
Lieutenant Gregoire’s words echoed in his mind. Death on the gibbet. He had committed a capital crime. The Seraph had every right to string him up on a post, but some strange fate had spared him. For the rest of his natural life. How much longer did he have left in his natural life, anyway? Months? Days? Stop, he told himself. Stop thinking about it. That way lies madness.
At some point Ffeldy noticed Domanick whistling a tune, a familiar, popular air he had heard back home in Claypool. Maybe music could distract him from those more troubling thoughts. Ffeldy focused on the tune, then joined in by humming. He knew the song had words, too, and tried to remember them.
“What is that?” demanded Atalanta, who still followed along behind. “Enough. Silence. I’ll hear no more of it.”
“The Hero of Shaemoor doesn’t like her own song?” said Domanick in a wry voice. “Or are we that badly out of tune?”
Suddenly the words to the song came flooding back from some far corner of his memory, and Ffeldy belted out the verse:
Now Atty saw the centaurs attackin’
And sent us frightened peasants to the inn.
The sparks from her scepter started cracklin’,
Her rank was Rabbit, but we knew she’d win.
Even Seraph ran for cover but she still stood tall,
She cried, “Watch this giant earth elemental fall!”
“I didn’t actually say those words,” insisted Atalanta. “It’s all taken out of context. The Seraph never ran. I didn’t either, but…they didn’t exactly give me the chance. Really. It sounds so silly laid out that way in the song. I’m just surprised anyone remembers the words at all.”
Now Domanick joined Ffledy for the next verse.
Meanwhile the elemental was a’crawlin’ from the ground,
With hands as big as windmill blades that knocked our armies down.
With Logan off at Jennah’s side, seems every fight’s the same:
He sends us Shaemoor’s Hero, the girl who wields the flame.
They held the last note until their voices and lungs gave out. A few shocked birds flapped away into the treetops.
“But Logan Thackeray was there, fighting the elemental with me,” said Atalanta. “Or at least, he provided some sort of healing magic. I don’t understand why people make so much fun of him for—“
“Never actually fighting?” interjected Domanick. “Making other people do his work for him? Because he would never do something like, say, abandon Destiny’s Edge because his lady love the Queen was in danger…ow! No lightning, Atty. Unfair.”
“You are the vagabonds, both of you, and I am the hero. I’ll decide when to use lightning, or fire, or stones. And criticizing Captain Thackeray will not be tolerated in my presence. Understood?”
Domanick said nothing. Ffeldy had no wish to get involved in a political discussion, either. He braced himself for any chain lightning that might arc off Domanick, but none came. Instead, a shadow seemed to fall over them, then a steady rain began to fall. Feldy pushed wet strands of hair from his eyes. Soon his clothes, and Domanick’s, were soaked, but when he glanced over his shoulder, Atalanta’s getup was as bright, gauzy, and dry as ever. He looked up. A rowboat-sized cloud hovered directly over his and Domanick’s heads, drenching only the pair of them.
“My lady, please,” Ffeldy groaned. “Haven’t we been punished enough?”
“If I hear one more verse of that song, even a single note, I’m calling up a blizzard.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The rain slowed to a drizzle, and at last the warm sun filtered through the dissolving cloud. They continued their trek up the side of the mountain, followed a ridge west for a time, then dropped down into another, more narrow valley on the other side. Yet another near-vertical incline awaited them.
“Well Lyssa be praised,” puffed Domanick between labored breaths on the second, even steeper ascent. “It’s a good thing my hands aren’t tied together, or this climbing business would be really difficult. I might not be able to catch myself before plummeting off the edge. I imagine you’d hear me scream for a good four seconds, maybe five, before I hit bottom.”
“I could tie them behind your back instead of in front if you’d like, thief,” growled Atalanta.
That shut Domanick up for a while—until he did indeed stumble and would have fallen from the steep cliff face if Ffeldy, still attached to him by the rope, hadn’t dropped backwards on his rear and jerked Domanick away from the ledge. They both sat huffing and exchanged a sympathetic glance. Atalanta eyed them warily, her arms crossed.
“I suppose,” she said at last, “that we could take an underground shortcut I know of.”
“Shortcut?” echoed Ffeldy.
Domanick added, “So, you’ve been holdin’ out on us, Atty?”
“Holding out?” said Atalanta. “Of course not. It just didn’t seem like a viable alternative until now.”
“Not a ‘viable alternative?’” Domanick nearly shouted. “An’ I suppose this underground shortcut has fewer ledges where we can plunge to our deaths, or rock faces that might crumble out from under our hands.”
“It has few, if any of those things, yes,” admitted Atalanta.
“So why didn’t we go that way to begin with?”
“Domanick, you focus only on what this alternate route does not have, instead of what it does have.”
“What DOES it have, then?” asked Ffeldy.
Atalanta shrugged as if this were a trifling question. “Trolls,” she said.
Chapter 5
Shall I thee to thy rest now croon?
For thou shalt breathe thy last quite soon.
It seems that thou were not immune
To my pistole,
Expiring troll.
Have they thee hunted, these killjoys:
Mages, knights, hobbledehoys,
In steel plate, leather, silken turquoise
Camisoles,
Expiring troll?
~from ”Ode to an Expiring Troll” by the poet laureate of Divinity’s Reach
They double-backed and descended the ridge, then traveled up-valley until the escarpment on either side grew sheer, and the flat rock walls seemed to lean in toward each other. Soon they reached the end of the box canyon—the end, that is, but for a small, dark opening framed with timber like the entrance of a mine. A weather-beaten sign tacked to one side was scrawled with a brown substance that may have been dried blood: Warning Trolls!
“So this is where you untie us an’ let Ffeldy and I fend for ourselves if need be,” said Domanick, halting at the sign. “Right, Atty?” His face had turned the color of cold oatmeal.
“Untie you?” said Atalanta. “And risk Captain Thackeray’s ire if—when—you try to run off and I’m forced to, well, ‘maim’ is such a negative word, but you get my meaning. I’d prefer to deliver the two of you whole.”
“Atty, you’re very…sweet. But what if—“
Atalanta silenced him with a wave of her hand. “If the circumstances require it, I can singe the ropes.”
“Yes,” said Domanick, “I’m sure you can. Doesn’t mean you’ll actually remember in the thick of the fight.”
“Well, if Lyssa holds you in her favor, it won’t come to that, will it? See, Ffeldy knows better than to complain.”
In fact, Ffeldy’s attention had been drawn by distant yellow-greenish lights that swayed deep within the dark, horizontal shaft. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Glow worms,” replied Atalanta, “as big as hounds. But if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you. Come along, we definitely don’t want to be here after dark.”
“What difference does daylight make in a cave?” asked Domanick, but Atty pulled the rope attached to his and Ffeldy’s hands, and they stumbled along after her, following the purple electric sparks that swarmed from her scepter like fiery gnats. She cast occasional flares to scare off bats or large spiders that ventured too close.
“Now is not the time to be curious,” she insisted when Ffeldy stooped to probe some phosphorescent jelly. It oozed from the corpse of a glowworm that had been struck by one of Atty’s misfired flares. “The cave opens up into a cavern the size of a cathedral, and it’s not a safe place to linger. I’m going to extinguish my light now, since it might start to attract…things.”
She tugged the rope. Ffeldy lurched along after her and the thief. His hands, he noticed, now glowed the faint green of glowworm ichor.
- – -
They advanced into the cavern in a single file—first Atty, who strode with confidence through the darkness (“because the earth and rock guide me underfoot,” she’d claimed in a whisper). Next came Domanick who since entering the cave had clutched one of Atty’s long silk sleeves because she wouldn’t let him touch her shoulder. Ffeldy brought up the rear. He had reeled in the rope that linked him to the thief, and followed close enough that Domanick’s pony tail swatted him the face. With Domanick wrenching on the rope, and protruding rocks tripping him at every step, Ffeldy couldn’t keep his glowing hands tucked in his jerkin for long.
BOOM.
A sound like a slammed cell door rang through the cavern, echoing back and forth across a space that must have been far more vast than Ffeldy had imagined.
“We didn’t just get locked in here, did we?” huffed Domanick between hyperventilations.
“Oh no,” whispered Atalanta, serene as a frozen lake. “There are no doors here.”
“Was that the troll?” Ffeldy tried not to let hysteria leach into his words. A feeling of dread seemed to settle on his shoulders, as if someone had just draped him in a chainmail curtain.
“You did read the sign outside. Or can’t you read?”
“I…it said ‘warning trolls.’ There was no comma atwixt the words, an’ I thought it was warning the trolls against us?” Ffeldy’s attempt at humor did not lighten the situation.
“I think it’s time for you to singe the rope, Atty.” Domanick tugged at his bonds. The line attached to Ffeldy went taut, nearly jerking him off his feet.
“Don’t be silly,” said Atty. “Be still. As long as no one does anything stupid—strikes a light or screams to alert the troll of our presence—we’ll be fine. Assuming the brute doesn’t catch a whiff of the pair of you over its own stench. Unlikely but…not unheard of. Come along. Now may be a good a time to dash.”
The rope tightened again as Domanick sprung forward. Ffeldy tried to follow but caught his toe on a block of stone. As he fell, time seemed to slow enough for him to repeat to himself a dozen times: I will be as the kerch tree under an axe, I shall fall bravely in utter silence, I shall not alert the troll…
The cave floor should have knocked the wind quietly from his lungs—at most he should have emitted a soft hiss—but instead, phosphorescent hands flailing, he cracked his elbow on a rock and for a moment saw goddess twins Ilya and Lyss dancing circles around his head. They screamed…or was that the sound of his own voice? And then a stone struck his head.
One of Atalanta’s water spells blasted him back into consciousness.
“Atty,” he mumbled, noticing the purple light on the tip of her staff. “My lady, put out the light.”
“No need,” she said coldly, “not when your ruckus and—what is that? Your glowing hands, of all things?—have given up our position. It’s tossing rocks. Now get up and run!”
Ffeldy found that his bonds had been cut. He scrambled to his feet and ran a few paces in the direction Atty pointed, then stopped to look back. He couldn’t see Domanick. Atty still stood, staff alight, facing the blackness.
“Milady! Atty!”
“Run, lad. I’m going to fight it.”
“What you mean, Atty,” came Domanick’s voice from somewhere off in the gloom, “is that you’re goin’ to needle it a few times with some ice slivers and singe it with a few sparks ‘afore you realize it’s like fighting a lumbering boulder. Even the Hero of Shaemoor can’t solo a champion troll. ”
“I didn’t say I was planning to solo it.” Raising her lighted scepter in one hand, she pulled a dagger from her belt with the other and lobbed it in the direction of Domanick’s voice, as if he were the target dummy at a festival knife-throwing booth. “Take this. But if you try to steal it, I’ll freeze your fingers off.”
Domanick stepped into the cone of Atty’s light, holding the dagger he’d caught between his forefinger and thumb. Blood smeared the glinting blade. “Take back what you said about me earlier.”
Another rock smashed into the ground nearby.
“Idiot. There’s no time!”
“Take it back, Atty.”
“May Balthazar take you! Oh, very well. You’re…not a terrible thief.”
“Atty! Say it.”
She gave a loud sigh. “You’re an excellent thief. Who is constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Good enough. I’ll stealth. Catch the troll by surprise. A blow to the heart may not kill him, but it might make a dent.”
Ffeldy watched them argue, unsure of what to do. “Give me a weapon too,” he pleaded over Atty and Dom’s whispered battle plans. “Anything will do.”
Their faces both turned towards him. “Run!” they hissed.
Just then, a huge club made of an entire full-grown tree slammed into the ground, scattering the would-be fighters. Atty’s lightning threaded along the ceiling of the cave, brightening the vast cavern. There stood the cave troll, a scaly, knuckle-dragging creature as tall as a Seraph watchtower.
Ffeldy, who had ducked behind a pile of rubble, could make out what looked like gleaming white sticks on the ground nearby. Bones. They lay scattered about like a morbid human puzzle, along with scraps of armor, a rusty shield and badly corroded sword. Ffeldy armed himself and ran in the direction of the troll. He thought he heard screams—Atalanta and Domanick were indeed screaming at him to not kill himself on his first combat blow—but the voices distorted in his brain, and turned into meaningless noise, like blasts of a hunting horn.
Ffeldy managed to dodge the troll’s club and swung his rusty sword at the creature’s exposed leg. Instead of piercing its hide, the blade bounced off with a clatter.
“You’ll need to put a lot more muscle behind that sword!” shouted Domanick unhelpfully as he somersaulted past, carving figure eights with Atty’s stiletto like a traditional Kessex dancer gone psychotic.
Ffeldy realized how badly he’d chosen his current position when the troll’s club swung at him from one side, while the troll’s rock-like fist swung in from the other.
“Dodge, Ffeldy!” shouted Atty. Ffeldy obeyed, but not fast enough. The troll’s fist clipped his shoulder and dropped him to one knee. He hoisted his shield. The club ricocheted off its convex surface, which surprised Ffeldy by not shattering. The force sent him sliding on his knees. His leggings tore, but he remained more or less alive. So far.
“Your sword!” shouted Domanick, and kicked the ancient blade in Ffeldy’s direction. He hadn’t even realized he’d dropped it. “Behind you! Parry!”
Ffeldy scrambled for the sword and held it in front of his face just as the club swung at his head. This time the blade did shatter, and tiny slivers of metal stung his face and arms. He managed to roll away from the club, barely.
“Stand back,” bellowed Atalanta. “I’m going to hit it with everything I’ve got.”
Ffeldy raised his shield. A thick rope of lightning burst from Atty’s staff, the brightest Ffeldy had seen her wield yet.
“I shall stop its heart!” she cried. The lightning flicked like the tail of a bullwhip, but the troll proved to be more nimble than expected, and stepped neatly aside. The electric whiptail lashed past the troll towards Ffeldy instead. It struck his shield in an explosion of purple sparks. Ffeldy felt a million tiny insects crawling over his skin. They seemed to sear him with pin-prick legs. His scalp grew warm and itchy, the sensation of his hair standing on end. Cords of electricity writhed over the shield like snakes. If he didn’t drop the shield, his own heart would stop.
From the corner of his eye, the troll’s club swung back. Ffeldy planted his feet and swung the shield over his head. He thought he heard Atty’s voice shouting at him not to toss away his last means of protection. Ffeldy launched the shield anyway. It sailed at the troll, struck it once on the head, then reversed course and struck it a second time from behind. It landed not-so-gently in Ffeldy’s hands. Each time the shield had struck, purple lightning snakes had wriggled over the troll’s skin. Now the troll stood rooted. Ffeldy’s ears buzzed, although the shield no longer crackled. It was just an old sheet of metal in his hands.
Ffeldy tried to run, but either his nerves were fried, or perhaps the troll had injured him worse than he’d thought. As he fell forward on his hands, Domanick grabbed one of his arms, and Atty the other. Domanick must have deployed one of his thief tricks because when the troll woke from its stupor, it lumbered past them, head swinging in all directions, but did not see them.
“By the Six,” said Atalanta, crouching by Ffeldy’s side. “I’ve never seen such terrible swordplay in my life.” She lay a hand on his chest. She didn’t shock him for once, but her touch sent a slow tingle through him. The pain in his legs and head lessened, just a bit.
“Your face looks like somethin’ a dog chewed on and spat out again,” added Domanick. “At least yer tough. Suicidal, but tough.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Troll up! No time for healing, Atty. Let’s go!”
Atalanta quenched her light source, and all went black. Ffeldy tried to stand but couldn’t find the strength, and he felt his companions drag him away from the thump thump thumping of the troll loping behind them in pursuit. Suddenly his forehead bonked into a wall. Beside him, Atty and Dom grunted and cursed. Ffeldy sank down between them and tried not to think about how many bones he might have broken.
“There should be a door here,” hissed Atalanta.
“Should be? What mean you now, Ele?”
“It’s here, just not…here. I’ll strike a light, and we’ll see it.”
Domanick’s voice rose to a hysterical falsetto. “Light? The troll’l see us.”
“Well he just heard you!” This time a melon-sized fireball rose from the top of Atalanta’s staff.
The troll towered over them, a huge boulder in its claws. Atty’s light cast every bump on its scaly skin into harsh relief.
“Leave ‘im!” Domanick grabbed Atalanta’s hand, and as if by some magic, they both disappeared from his sight. The fireball still hovered, but sputtered and shrank like a burned-out candle. Ffeldy sprawled on his back, unable to move. He watched the troll raise the rock over its head. Now he was the only target.
Dwayna save me.