The Mephit's Tales

She came to the steaming springs and found a man already there.

Sky-clad, sitting at the pool’s edge with his legs in the water, he was breathing heavily when she arrived. Any doubt she might have had over what he’d been doing vanished within the space of a few more steps.

She felt her cheeks heat. Whatever had possessed the man, to indulge his lusts like that, out here open to the wild? Her breath caught in her throat from the shock of it.

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None who looked down the lane failed to notice the procession. In the blowing snow, perhaps the mourners themselves were a bit less obvious, the white of their robes against the whiteness of winter, the people made visible mostly my glimpses of hair or skin. If the robes had been all they’d had, they would have been easy to miss indeed.

The quartet of bearers at the procession’s heart, however, seized any eyes that drifted their way, carrying a litter on which lay a form wrapped in a bright red shawl.

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It was Deck’s first time past the wall, and it was well worth the wait.

Nobody lived in Rian’s Green without knowing about the wall. It was a stone barrier twelve feet high, capped with fence that went higher still, and it surrounded a space five miles across in the middle of the city. All homes, businesses, warehouses, and whatever else were outside the wall.

Inside was virgin land. It wasn’t a park in the sense that most cities knew the word. Those were cultivated, tended, shaped. The Greenwardens, though, maintained only a few rough trails – and even those tended to shift over time. This was wilderness – a small packet of it, to be sure; but it was a place that had been left almost entirely to itself since the day Rian’s Green was first settled.

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Working for the Duke of Barklan wasn’t a bad lot, really. The Duke was stern and intimidating, and his rage could be a terrifying thing to behold – especially around the full moon, when it could make for a great deal of work mending torn drapes or sheets or clothes, or in the worst cases, moving in new furniture. Everyone feared what that temper might do if it was ever turned against them.

But the Duke had always been careful to send his people away when something roused his ire. He was very careful about that.

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Derek emerged from the diner into the late-afternoon sun and blew out his breath.

What a day. At times like this, all he wanted to do was sleep for a week.

Oh, well. Someone needed to step up to the plate.

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Everything, Ayden had come to understand, had its price. Sometimes that price was harsh and other times it was gentle, but everything had its price.

That was certainly no less true in magic. And for the greatest and most complex works, many prices might be needed.

He took samples from many plants in many places, and even some animal sources as well. All of these he set to dry. Then, one by one, he crumbled leaves and stems and roots and seed pods into small pieces, or chopped thicker stalks – or organs. One by one, he put those coarse things into his mortar and worked the pestle with careful vigour, grinding each thing in turn to a fine powder before tipping them into bowls, cleaning his tools, and moving on to the next.

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It was so strange, being back in this park again.

This was where it had all crumbled. So many words said – or shouted – in anger. So much venom it was a wonder anything could grow here at all – yet there it was, in full bloom, with birds singing, just like nothing had happened.

She’d avoided this park for so long. The first time she’d happened by it, afterwards, she’d had the whole scene play out again in her head, so strong it was like he was right there shouting at her again, and she’d had to clamp down on the urge to scream back. After that, she’d taken to charting her days so she never had to come to this part of town. As the days turned to week and the weeks turned to months, and the legal battle raged on, him accusing her of the impossible and denying every one of his own misdeeds, that careful gap had taken less and less effort, until it had been automatic.

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He was rowing home with his catch, as he always did, when he heard the song drifting over the waves. It was sad and lonely, played with amazing skill on what had to be one of the finest flutes in all of creation, and it beckoned to him. He changed his course, and he found the source of that song: a woman sat upon the rocks, her fair hair tossing unbound in the wind, her gown shimmering like fish scales while she played a flute carved from a narwhal’s horn. Everything about her was wondrous, and yet the sorrow in her song wrenched his heart.

He waited there, his boat bobbing in the waves, until her song was done; and only then did he call out to her, asking why such a lovely woman would be here all alone, playing such a mournful song.

“I am cursed,” she told him, “and any man who shares my life will be taken by the embrace of the sea.”

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For twenty nights, the forges had burned, hammers ringing on steel. The finest smith in the land put all his art into the work, shaping arms and armour such as had never been seen, the likes of which would be remembered through the age.

Finally, on the morning of the winter solstice, it was done. Each piece was a work of terrible artistry; each link in the mail was shaped just so, each plate curved exactly as it ought to be and inlaid with fine filigree. The sword was exquisitely balanced, sharp enough to cut the very wind, and a brilliant fire opal gleamed in its pommel.

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If anyone had asked, Allan would have said his life was comfortable enough. He had a little cabin in the woods, where he kept all the things he needed to do his work. Those same woods were home to a great variety of life, and that life was his wealth. He took pelts and meat, bone and horn, and other, more esoteric things as he found them; in exchange, he gave his thanks and respect. Each time he found a beast in his traps or snares, or brought it down with an arrow, he whispered a prayer to that animal’s spirit, thanking it for its sacrifice and wishing it life anew. He checked his traps often, leaving nothing to suffer long in them, and his kills were as quick and merciful as he could make them. Anything he could use, he did, wasting little, and returning the remains to the forest.

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The tales had spread far and wide of the lonely keep in the mountains, guarded by a beast with claws like swords, its scales black as coal, its breath hotter than a blacksmith’s forge. Of the ancient relics that rested within, their beauty and value beyond measure. And, of course, of the beautiful woman who could be glimpsed at the window, singing lovely, lonely songs to the moon and stars.

Many warriors had come to the mountain keep to vanquish the beast. Some had come for the promises of wealth, some for the beautiful maiden’s hand; some had come for glory, some in quest of good and valiant deeds, and there could be none finer than such a rescue.

None had returned.

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It was all becoming distressingly familiar. The hunger, the wind in his fur and earth under his paws, the hunt, the taste of blood on  his tongue… still lingering when he woke, well away from the village, with only the grass against his skin. It had happened three nights around each full moon; this was the third month, now, the seventh time he’d woken in the wilds.

Except that this time, when he came to, there was a rough blanket thrown over him and a hand on his cheek.

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By day they took shelter, hiding away from the merciless sun under thin canvas, the day’s heat kept at bay by a single enchanted stone, a shard of the frozen south. It was by night that they travelled, boots scuffing over dusty stone. What course they followed, Darrin did not know, but his guide never faltered. From time to time the fennec would pause, pushing back her cowl and gazing up at the stars before drawing it back over her ears and continuing; other times, many hours and many turns would go by without a moment’s hesitation. At some of these turning points Darrin could see something that might qualify as a landmark – a distinctive peak or a kink in a ridgeline, or some such thing. At others, all around looked the same. But Shari was confident, and in four years of journeying, in the rocky wastes and elsewhere, she had never led him astray. It was no great thing to put trust in her now.

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John had thought he’d missed Kelly, while the cougar was out west on site, as much as she’d missed him. When he’d picked her up at the airport, he’d seen a twin to his own longing in her wide, intent eyes; in the way her hands had slid over him when they embraced, so like his own roving touch, he’d felt it. Neither of them had really wanted to go to a picnic on a cloudy, windy day like this, and it wasn’t because of the weather – the otter hardly felt it through his fur – or because Kelly’s coworkers were unpleasant people. No, they’d just had other things they’d both wished could be higher priority.

Maybe she’d missed him a little more after all, or maybe she was just more adventurous. But when he first caught a whiff of masculine arousal, he pushed down his own desire, saving it for later, when he could give her a proper welcome home.

(more…)

It was not, by most standards, a perfect day for a picnic. It was rather on the windy side, and cool when clouds blocked the sun as they frequently did. But company picnics were ponderous things to schedule, and it had been decided to go ahead and have the picnic anyway. After all, so long as the clouds stayed light and didn’t bring rain with them, it wasn’t a bad day for a picnic.

In fact, Kelly found that there were some advantages to it. Namely, when the sun went behind a cloud and the wind picked up, it was a prime excuse for the cougar to cuddle in against John under the blanket they shared, and the otter was quite happy to gather her in close. If this hadn’t been her first chance to see him since her departure on a two-week trip for that same company, she’d actually have thought it was a pretty good day for a picnic after all.

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