95. (The Best Damn Thieves: Chapter Four)

The cold on the other side of the portal was so intense it took Marcus' breath away; a chill wind hit him and knocked him to his knees, his eyes watering from the sharp blast of air. "Ah, damn it!" he yelled, stumbling to get to his feet and failing, falling into--snow? Snow. He sucked in a deep breath, burning his lungs, and tried to get a look at where he was, but his tear-blurred vision showed only white, white from all angles, white above, white below, white all around. His hand brushed against something warm and he looked down, and could barely make out the blurred shape of his wife laying in the snow, not moving. "Fergy? Fergy! Shit!" he yelled, quickly checking for a pulse--she had one, and was breathing.

Someone grabbed his shoulder from behind, and Marcus spun around, grabbing whoever it was by the shirt. "Aye, lad, relax, 'tis jes' me, ye daffy bassard!" Brasskicker squirmed out of his grip. Somewhere behind the dwarf he could hear a feminine voice--spouting non-sequiturs rapidly. The mage, of course. They had all made it through the portal, but where were they? And what had happened to Fergy?

Another sharp wind tore across the snow and Brasskicker spat out a curse. Marcus buckled under the chill, but the dwarf just stood there, grumbling. "Gonna need t' find shelter," he said under his breath, scratching his beard.

The mage patted Brasskicker on the shoulder to get his attention, shaking her head. "Geophysics altitude feline," she said, before holding a single finger up. She clapped her hands together twice, and the wind stopped as suddenly as it had arisen, and the quartet was bathed in a cold violet light.

Marcus looked up, wiping the moisture out of his eyes again. They were surrounded by some sort of glowing purple bubble, which was shielding them from the wind. It wasn't, however, protecting them from the cold. Marcus was a big man, and was usually pretty tolerant of extreme temperatures, but this was too much even for him. He scooped up his wife from the ground and brushed the snow off of her clothing, holding her against his body to keep them both warm. His eyes went to the mage. "Where are we?"

She shrugged. The cold didn't seem to be affecting her, or the cat under her clothing, much at all--of course it wouldn't, Marcus thought, she's a mage. Probably auto-heated robes or some kind of personal ward. You could almost feel the air tingling around her, there was so much magic coming off her body. He wondered what she looked like without whatever spell she'd cast on herself.

"How can you not know?" he asked, frustrated. "Your tower, your portal."

Again, she shrugged. "Yew branch azure cornbread taters." She reached over to the edge of the violet bubble and touched it; her finger left behind a gold glow, like phosphorescent paint, on the smooth, clear surface. With it, she drew a small circle, then pointed at it, looking at Marcus meaningfully.

"The portal?"

The mage nodded then drew a second ring about a hand's-length away from the first. When she looked at Marcus again he nodded to show he understood. Then, she drew an arrow leading from the first portal to the second portal.

"That's great, hurry up and get on with it," he said impatiently.

The mage looked at him and rolled her eyes. Maybe she was as young as she looked--she certainly had the attitude to match. She re-traced the shaft of the arrow with her finger, but about half-way through the length she suddenly dragged the finger to the left a foot, then drew another arrow-point, and another ring. Then she looked back at Marcus again.

"Okay. But can you tell where we are at all? Use some kind of magic tracer? I dunno, you're the one with the magic here, do something."

She shrugged once more and drew a big X over the first portal; only then did Marcus realize that the disc of light they had arrived through had vanished--he'd been too distracted to notice, at first. It was probably for the best; the last thing they needed was to be assaulted by an insane plant. The mage started drawing more and more lines coming off the first arrow, each ending at their own newly-drawn circle, until there were dozens of lines and rings branching off from that first drawing.

"So we could be anywhere. Damn. Well, why did this happen?"

Once more, she shrugged; then, the mage pointed at the first off-shoot on her diagram, tapping it twice. Turning to Marcus, she pointed at the woman in his arms, and pointed at him, frowning. Before he could respond to her, she stepped quickly across the small space separating them and started rifling through Fergy's bags and clothes quickly.

"Hey hey--stop that!" he shouted, shoving her away.

Looking impatient, the mage reached into her own robe and brought out what looked like some kind of prism shard. She held it up to her breastbone and it glowed a pastel green. Without taking her eyes off of Marcus, she held it up to Brasskicker's--who had been listening impatiently--face, and the glow faded.

"Izzat a magic detec'or, lass?" the dwarf asked warily.

The girl just inclined her head once more, growing even more irritable. Again looking to Marcus, she held the prism up to Fergy's face; no glow presented itself. The girl moved the shard around a few inches from Fergy's body, careful not to touch her--and it lit up, pale at first, then brighter as it got closer to her waist, until next to one of her bags it glowed as bright as it had when placed against the mage's chest. The girl reached into the bag without asking permission and rifled around for a moment, eventually pulling out an amulet on a gold chain. The prism glowed brightest when held up against it.

She furrowed her brow and looked at Marcus expectantly; "Follow run run fireball?"

"It's a delivery--we're couriers, of sorts, and that's our package."

She glared at him, then brushed the amulet against the protective bubble, being very careful to only come into contact with the chain--almost instantly, the bubble vanished, and the cold wind bit him again. The mage tossed the amulet onto Fergy and clapped her hands again, re-forming the barrier.

"It's a nullifier of some kind, isn't it?"

The mage nodded, exasperated.

"Well we didn't know that's what it was!" he shouted, stuffing the amulet back into Fergy's bags. "Though in hindsight that sorta explains a lot." Duke Thieren's anti-magic field, Fergy's protection from the queen of the forest--and the portal going wonky when Fergy and the amulet went through it. "You're a lot smarter than you look," he muttered. "Sorry for snapping at you and possibly getting us all killed."

The mage shrugged for the umpteenth time. "Chocolate."

"So if'n ye two're done bickerin', even wit' th' crazy girl's magic bubble, we still need t' figg'r out where we are, an' try an' find some shelter." Brasskicker turned and looked at the mage, frowning. "This thing mobile?"

She pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded--Marcus wondered if she was going to get sore in the neck from it all. She leaned against the side of the bubble with her shoulder and it started to rock gently, crunching the snow around the base. She pointed at herself and pantomimed having trouble breathing--weakness. Then she pointed at the big man and pantomimed flexing her biceps. "Vortex mushroom hydration."

"I'll try," Marcus replied. He adjusted Fergy in his arms and then put one of his booted feet against the slope of the sphere, pushing forward and downwards--beneath his other foot, he could feel the bubble moving and nearly lost his balance. Brasskicker leaned against the bubble as well, helping him push it, and the stumpy man almost fell too. After a few minutes of false starts the two men managed to get the ball rolling easily, and soon they were rolling along the vast plain of snow at a good clip, their own body heat from all the exertion staving off the cold and warming up the inside of the bubble. It held in the warmth nicely.

"How's yer lass doin'?" the dwarf asked after a few minutes.

Marcus looked down at his wife, adjusted her so that her head would rest more comfortable against his chest. "Heartbeat, breathing's all fine, as far as I can tell. I'm no expert, but I think she's just asleep."

"Really, really deep sleepin', if'n that's th' case."

"Magic," Marcus replied, rolling his eyes. "If--if we find a village of some kind, or anything, I'd like to lay her down and let her wake up on her own, if she will. Maybe find a doctor, or a mage who can communicate easier than, than..." He stopped, looking back over his shoulder at the girl while still pushing the bubble forward with his feet. "You have a name, kid?"

She was walking along casually behind them, as if rolling around in a bubble was the most natural thing in the world, feeding the little cat morsels she'd procured somehow; the feline was nuzzled against her bosom, only its head peeking out of her robe's neckline. The mage frowned at his question, and seemed to be thinking hard. Then, she opened her mouth: "Tater."

Brasskicker let out a guffaw, and Marcus couldn't help but laugh, despite his concern for Fergy. "Tater?" the asked in unison.

The mage looked upset, though mostly at herself. "Fizzy flow rapscallion elephants!" she shouted, glaring at them. "Root diggers!"

Marcus chuckled. "Root diggers, huh? Well, Tater, I don't know if my wife introduced herself, but I'm Marcus, and this is Fergy."

"Tater" let out a little hmph, rolling her eyes at him.

"I'm Brasskicker," the dwarf added, grinning through his beard at her.

"Peanut avocado?!" It didn't take much thought to figure out what she'd meant.

"Yes," the dwarf replied, his grin fading, "Tha's me real name."

The girl laughed, unable to keep herself from grinning. After a moment Marcus--and then, Brasskicker--joined in.

They rolled across the snowy plain this until the blindingly white glare faded to a more tolerable intensity, then faded again to a dismal gray. With the sun starting to go down, it became a lot easier to discern the horizon, as the clouds overhead shifted to a hue somewhat darker than the pure-white snow. Judging from the new powder still falling outside of the bubble, the wind had let up--thick, puffy snowflakes were drifting down gracefully. Wherever they landed on the bubble they slid off, like water on a duck; the snow underfoot did not stick to the shield either.

The most important change, however, was the result of the encroaching nightfall: on the distant horizon, Marcus could just make out a faint glimmer of light. An instant after he saw it, the mage started yammering in her usual gibberish-filled way, pointing at the light insistently.

"Aye, we'll head o'er thataways," Brasskicker muttered, "We en't got much o' a choice, do we?" He chuckled, half-heartedly. "Hopef'lly thassa fire, an hopef'lly--" The dwarfs stomach let out a timely rumble; "Well, ye get what I'm sayin'."

"I didn't think to take the time to grab that magic barrel," Marcus replied, grinning ruefully. "Might've been a bit big, though. Hey Tater, does that thing come in a smaller size?"

"Gazebo."

"I didn't think so. Okay. Look. We head for the light, and hopefully it's... a tavern, or at least a watchtower, or something and not, like... hell, I don't know. Let's not think about what we don't want it to be." Marcus scratched the back of his head.

"Aye, lad."

"I just wish there were landmarks or... something." The big man shifted his wife around in his arms a bit, trying to keep her comfortable. "I've been all over, and I've never seen a place like this. This cold, this much snow, we've got to be pretty far north, yeah? Farther north than Aeros, farther north than... than whatever's north of Aeros, I have no idea. The Great Northern Wastes, I guess."

"Not a lot, lemme tell ye," Brasskicker said. "There's a dwarven mining camp, Midr, just inside the edge o' the Wastes. But this en't the Wastes, s'too flat. Cold 'nough, snowy 'nough, but nae nearly as jagged. If'n we're north o' Aeros, we're north o' the Wastes."

"So what you're saying, my friend, is that we may be well and truly out luck."

"Lad, ye en't had any luck since I met ye. Not tha' I've known ye all tha' long."

Marcus laughed at that. The conversation was keeping him distracted from the labor as the light slowly drew closer--and the night grew darker, and colder. "We haven't had any luck since we picked up that damn amulet. Not much before that, either. I blame our clients."

"Oh, aye? Well, tell me 'bout it--an' cut this courier bullplop. En't ne'er met a courier who didn' travel 'lone, for speed. Ye stole it, didn' ye?"

Marcus just nodded. "Margus and Fergy, thieves for hire." Behind him, Tater snorted back a laugh. "The best damn thieves, she is wont to say. I am not exaggerating when I say I'm yet to meet anyone better--and that's not me being full of myself, it's a fact. Though to be fair--thieves don't exactly run into other thieves very often."

"Were th' two o' ye... eh... straight? Before ye got yerselves hitched?"

Marcus grinned. "No, actually, our meeting was one of those random, unlikely coincidences that I just said don't happen. It's kind of a long story."

"Lad, that light yonder en't gettin' closer very quickly."

The big man shrugged. "I met Fergy... wait, no, let me go a little farther back than that. Before I met Fergy, I was little more than a hired thug, muscle for money. I was working in a hamlet called... hell, what was it--Terrana. I think. The local duke, the aptly-titled Duke of Terrana hired me and some others to guard his vault--which, honestly, was more of a private museum, a gallery--just for him to look at his own wealth. Big room, high-domed ceiling, walls lined with art and treasure and whatnot, and right smack dab in the middle of it all was a statue. Not just any statue--a relic, an obsidian carving that was at one angle a cat, the picture of feline grace, and from a different angle, a nude goddess, the picture of feminine beauty.

"And this obsidian statue was estimated to cost more than the Duke of Terrana's land, house, airships, horses, and serving staff combined. I'm talking--astronomically valuable. So of course some ne'er-do-wells tried to hire me to steal it."

"Tried?"

Marcus chuckled. "Okay, maybe that's the wrong word. Let's just say they made me an offer I couldn't refuse, because it would keep me from having to put any effort into finding food and lodging for the rest of my life."

"Well, lad, nowadays ye're a thief, an' not a wealthy ponce, so I'd say it didn' go off t' plan?"

"Not even remotely. The plan was to bust in using my... physical superiority and prowess to overpower the other guards, smash the door open, and rush out, powering through anything that got in the way. Masked, of course, not that it mattered--I mean, I'm a really big guy, I sorta stand out, yeah? Anyways, someone tipped the Duke off, so I arrive at the vault and find triple the usual guards waiting for me.

"Which honestly wasn't that big of a deal. Despite the Duke's wealth, Terrana's kinda... backwater. These guys he hired, they weren't exactly the creme of the crop, if you catch my drift. They just slowed me down significantly. Anyways, I'm fighting my way through a bunch of hired muscle, and I get to the vault door, kick that bastard open and knock the last of the guys aside--and what do I see? Hanging from a freshly-carved hole in the dome, dangling from a series of ropes and hooks way too complicated to describe out loud, is this woman, this... gorgeous redhead, the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on. She's upside down, her hair hanging down loose over the platform where the carving used to be--the carving already half-way into her bag, and she's got this look on her face like her parents just caught her getting friendly with the neighbor boy."

At that point, Marcus had a huge grin on his face. "I'm standing there gawking like an idiot. And I say--out loud, swear on my life, without even thinking--I say, 'I'm gonna marry that woman.' And before the words are out of my mouth, some jerk clocks me in the back of the head with a blackjack. The last thing I hear before I'm out out is her voice, and all she has to say is, 'Holy crap, that guy's arms are huge!'"

Brasskicker laughed. "An' th' statue?"

"That's the best part," Marcus replied. "My break-in ruined her plans too, and the guards caught her, and in the process of cutting her down from her rigging she dropped the statue on the marble floor--and the damn thing shattered. Immeasurable amounts of money, broken into a million little bits on the Duke of Terrana's floor."

"Applesauce running fire plain." The mage's tone was sarcastic; Marcus chose to ignore her.

After that they traveled in silence for a while. The air grew colder, but their mutual body-heat staved off the chill to a degree; it was very cold, but not so cold that they were risking frostbite. Slowly, the distant light grew closer, until it loomed over them, at the top of a gate, in a wall cobbled together out of large stones. It was a signal fire, both calling in lost travelers and lighting the road to expose shadier elements. Said road almost immediately vanished into the snow.

"Nobody's watching," Marcus murmured, "Probably a gatehouse up there, whatever poor sod is in charge of this gate must be getting out of the cold in there. Better to not make a scene. Tater, drop the shield."

The mage protested: "Stonework lamplight damnation."

"Jes' trust 'im on this, lass," Brasskicker, "It'll be easier t' get in if'n we don' look like a bunch o' loonies in a ball."

"Mud boots cat grass." The girl snapped her fingers, and the bubble vanished--and with it, their built up heat. Immediately Marcus started shivering.

"Hail! Hail!" he shouted up at the top of the gate. "Travelers at the gate! May we seek sanctuary here?"

They waited there a long moment, but no one responded.

Marcus tried again: "Hail! Travelers at the gate! We seek shelter and sanctuary, and bring coin for food and lodging!" He turned to the dwarf and muttered, "That last bit usually helps."

A moment later, a voice called down: "By the Boar's teats, what the hell are you people doing outside this late at night? You're looking to lost an extremity or two that way--and in such flimsy garb!"

"We're lost," Marcus called in reply; he couldn't see the source of the voice, but it sounded masculine, and maybe a little drunk. "Travelers, we lost our way and followed your firelight. Will you let us in?"

"Are you armed?"

Marcus turned to Brasskicker again; the dwarf shrugged, holding up his empty hands. "Left me gun behind."

The mage, too, admitted to being unarmed. Marcus shouted up, "The only person here with any weapons is unconscious; we'll gladly remove the weapons from her if you'll let us in."

There was a long pause. Marcus thought he heard talking above them, but it was hard to tell. Then, "Open the gate!" the voice shouted. The wooden barrier let out a crack, then a low rumble as it was dragged off to the side; beyond it was a steel portcullis of some kind, lit by torches set in the archway; the travelers quickly moved under the wall, and the gate rumbled shut behind them, effectively pinning them in to a cell some ten feet across formed by the portcullis and the gate. Above them, Marcus noted warily, was a small hole, probably for dumping hot oil or some such on intruders. He made it a point not to stand directly under it.

They stood there, Marcus standing near one of the torches to keep warm, for several minutes before anyone came down to greet them. Two slightly-hunched figures, both heavily bundled in dirty white furs, stepped in front of the portcullis and observed them. Their faces were hidden behind masks, with glass discs over their eyes, tinted black, with leather straps holding them in place. Not a bit of skin was visible. "The woman's armed, and not the rest of you?"

"Aye," the dwarf replied.

"That's most curious. Well, big man, remove her weapons and we'll let you into Hobber."

Marcus nodded, carefully laying Fergy down on the hard-packed--but snow-free--ground. He carefully removed two long, curved daggers from her belt, sticking them into the dirt point-first.

One of the figures started to speak: "Alright, raise the ga--" But Marcus held up a hand, looking up at the speaker from his kneeling position over Fergy.

"Look, I really want to do this right, without any snags or crazy crap happening," he said. "Let me finish what I'm doing, and I'll tell you when I'm actually done."

The figure looked puzzled. "O... kay. As you wish."

"Thank you," Marcus replied. He set about completely disarming Fergy, placing each of her daggers point-first into the dirt like the first two: two daggers concealed in each boot, one on both of her thighs, one hidden on the small of her back, a pair up each sleeve, and three more hidden in the lining of her jacket.

"Lass likes t' be prepared," Brasskicker muttered, eying the fourteen total daggers.

"She just likes knives," Marcus retorted, looking back up at the two figures on the other side of the portcullis. "Makes her a bitch to carry around, all that steel weighs a ton. Okay, that's all of them."

The fur-clad pair looked slightly alarmed. "Um. Well. In that case, welcome to Hobber. Thank you for your... um.. honesty." The figure waved at someone above him, and the portcullis slid out of the way. The more outspoken of the two figures motioned for the travelers to follow; "This way, if you will. I believe you requested shelter and sanctuary, food and lodgings?"

"Indeed, and we're most grateful for anything you can provide, sir," Marcus said, scooping his wife up once more and cradling her gently. A third fur-clad figure had hobbled up to them and was gingerly gathering up Fergy's weapons. Marcus said to him, "Make sure those all stay together, and are well-treated. She's going to be really pissed off at me when she wakes up as it is." He grinned ruefully, but couldn't discern any response from the heavily-garbed figure.

The hodge-podge trio followed the first two figures deeper into the walled village. "It's not much to look at, but Hobber's home," one of them said; Marcus couldn't tell which one was speaking. "We'll put you up at the old tavern. Oh--incidentally. I'm Isa, my companion is Pri." It was unclear which one had which name. "We'll put you up for the night, free of charge--couldn't leave you out in the cold, now could we, eh?" One of the figures--Isa--looked back at Marcus and, the big man could only assume, grinned. "If you don't mind, we'll be locking you in."

"That's... well, not what I expected," Marcus replied.

Turning forwards again, Isa continued: "Unfortunately, it's a fact you'll have to get used to. We don't get a lot of travelers this far out, and until we've had a better chance of checking you out for the safety of the village we'll keep you confined. You're more than welcome to leave the town, mind you--you're not prisoners--you just can't go anywhere in the village."

"I understand. All I want is a place to lay my wife down, and food for the rest of us. I know we aren't exactly the most... usual group of people to find at your gate. As such, your restrictions are understandable."

Isa chuckled. "That's good. The tavern is well-kept, but sadly underused. We should be able to get you separate rooms--"

"Ac'shully, we'd prefer if'n ye'd put us all up inna single, if'n ye don' mind," Brasskicker interrupted. The mage immediately protested with gibberish, but the dwarf leveled a glare at her that shut up her.

"What did she say? I can't have heard that correctly," the less-spoken of the figures--Pri--said, and Marcus realized for the first time that the body under all those furs was female.

"Nothin'," the dwarf explained. "The lass's... touched inna head. A 'ffliction o' th' speech."

"Poor thing," Pri murmured.

Isa clapped his hands once. "Well, here we are. If you would rather a single, that can easily--more easily, even--be arranged." He pushed the door of the building they'd stopped before open, spilling out the firelight from inside. "After you."

The travelers slipped into the tavern, and Marcus immediately moved before the fire in the hearth, warming himself and his wife. Behind him, he could hear Isa speaking to his female companion. He turned and saw that Pri was removing her furs from the top down. What he saw was surprising: under all that bundling was a hearty woman in her middle years, completely devoid of hair on her head--including her eyebrows--who stood with a slight hunch; her skin was as white as the snow they'd trekked across, her neck was thick, and her ears were set low on her head. She left her eye protectors on; under her furs she wore a thick tunic and jacket, and heavy trousers and boots. Her figure was vaguely pear-shaped, with wide hips and waist. She bowed to Isa from the middle, and he left the tavern, nodding in Marcus' direction as he slipped out. Once he was gone Pri locked the door behind him, but didn't bar it--they weren't trying to keep people out, after all.

"Your room is this way," she said, addressing the dwarf now. "There's only one bed, but it's large and should fit at least a couple of you. If you want you can drag some chairs in there with you, but they're not padded, so it's up to you."

"Th floor'll be fine, lass, but thank ye." The dwarf smiled, doing his best to be genial. "An' vittles?"

"I'll be cooking them up myself. You can stay in the common room until after you've been fed; I'll start working in the kitchen now." She nodded, and vanished into an adjoining room.

They chose to dine in the room that had been selected for them; the meal consisted of what looked like potatoes mashed into a paste, covered in some kind of brown sauce, along with thick slices of what tasted like roast elk. "You ever see anyone like that?" Marcus asked Brasskicker once Pri had locked them in, keeping his voice low. He sat on the wide bed next to Fergy's inert form; she continued to sleep away peacefully, unchanged from the condition he'd found her in.

"Nay, lad. Wherever we be, it en't within th' borders o' the ol' Kingdom. Not even close." The dwarf tore into his food ravenously, his eyes crossing the room to stare at their youngest companion. "Tell ye who 'as seen 'em, though," he continued, nodding at the mage, "that 'un."

Marcus turned his own gaze on the girl, frowning around a mouthful of potatoes. "That true, Tater?" he asked.

She just glared at him, then at Brasskicker, before turning her chair around and facing the wall, sulking. The men exchanged glances, and shrugged. They ate in silence for a while then, when they realized that the mage had fallen asleep sitting up, the two men split up the watch--Brasskicker went first, letting Marcus get some much needed rest; he fell asleep with his face in his wife's hair.

When he woke up, it was dawn; the sky outside the window was once again a uniform, eye-aching grey. Brasskicker was still awake, his back against the wall opposite the door; the mage had moved down to the floor in the corner, her tailless cat curled up in the crook of her arm.

"You let me sleep?" he muttered, sitting up; he made sure Fergy was comfortable (or at least as best as he could tell), then slid off the bed and stretched. The room was cold, but not uncomfortably so.

"Ye got me outta that godsfersaken forest, figure it was the least I could do, lad." He grinned through his beard. "I hope breakfas' in this dive is as good as th' dinner. Whatsername came by 'bout an hour 'go an' unlocked th' door, said t' wait for an escort 'fore we left the buildin'. Was waitin' on ye to get up."

"Oh yeah?" Marcus faced the door, reaching back to scratch between his shoulders. "Watch the ladies, would you? I'll be back, just gonna try and find a map."

The big man wandered out to the tavern's common room, where he found Pri leaning against the bar; the exceptionally white woman hadn't changed clothes as far as he could tell--she had probably been watching the door to the room they'd slept in all night. "Coffee?" she asked, gesturing towards the hearth, where a pot was hanging over the fire. Her eye-protectors dangled from their strap around her neck; they eyes previously behind them were a vivid, clear shade of red.

"You read my mind." He smiled and grabbed a mug from the bar, and set about preparing himself a serving. "So."

Pri smiled half-heartedly. "So."

"Where are we, exactly?" Marcus asked, leaning up against the bar next to her.

"Hobber."

"This is good coffee."

Her smile went a little more earnest. "Um. Thank you."

"And where's Hobber?"

"About a hundred miles from Snowport, in Vastness."

"Snowport? Vastness?"

"You get curiouser and curiouser. How, tell me, could a person get this far into Vastness--lost--and not know what Vastness is?"

Marcus chuckled. "Magic."

Pri raised a hairless eyebrow. "Intentional?"

"Accidental. Do you have a map?"

"Of Vastness? No--there's nothing to map, to be honest, just a big blank whiteness with Hobber a little off the center. I can get you a wider map, though."

"Could you, please? We're trying to figure out how to get home."

Pri nodded, and slipped behind the bar, rummaging around under its surface. She talked while she searched. "So is the girl with the funny speech impediment your mage?"

"Well, not my mage. We sorta got thrown in together in a crisis."

She laid a length of parchment out on the bar, unfolding it carefully. On it Marcus could clearly see a moderate-sized continent in the upper-left quadrant, the majority of which was covered in empty whiteness. The upper-right quadrant was peppered with smaller landmasses, and the bottom half of the map was dominated by a vast sea and, at the edge, one large continent, fading away into obscurity only a small distance inland and stretching across the entire width of the map. Nothing on the parchment looked familiar to Marcus in the slightest.

Pri pointed at the continent in the upper-left quadrant. "This... big empty space in the middle here, is Vastness, and here--" she pointed at the lower edge of the land mass, "--is Snowport." Various other marks on the mass were named Rorr, Yanil, Whitecourt, and so on, none of them anywhere Marcus had heard of. The smaller masses in the upper-right quadrant were given names too, but they were even more strange: R'hilla, Zon-yi, and so forth.

"This doesn't make any sense," the big man muttered to himself, looking the map over. "None of this looks familiar."

A noise behind him got Marcus' attention, and an instant later the mage was standing next to him, eying the map. She looked at at Marcus and rolled her eyes, exasperated.

"What?" he asked.

She shook her head and put her palm on the map--and rotated it one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, moving Vastness and Snowport to the bottom, and the massive, blank continent to the top. Without a word, she looked up at Marcus expectantly.

"Oh," he said, after a moment of re-examining the parchment. "Oh." He ran his finger along the coast of the great unmarked continent. "Of course. It looked totally different upside down," he muttered. "Look, here--this is where Porsin Harbor is, and here's the Bilox shipyards... and..." Then the realization hit him--"Oh, shit, we've crossed the Yawning Sea. Somehow."

The mage just nodded. Pri watched the two of them, frowning. "Then you're from the Northlands, from the Greater Unknown?"

Marcus nodded, overwhelmed. He plopped down on a barstool, rubbing the back of his head. "Across a vast sea with no wind and no current, from which no explorer has returned." He frowned. "It sounds melodramatic--but honestly, it's as bad as it sounds. When I was younger I crewed on a merchant ship, and we were set on by pirates. We fled, until the wind and the sea died, and we coasted on pure momentum out into the Yawning Sea. The pirates didn't follow us."

Pri was regarding Marcus cooly, her thumb resting on her pale lips. "Snowport is full of similar stories."

"We ended up rowing our way back out, but the whole place just felt... empty. No fish in the water, no birds in the air, no wind, no movement in the water other than that of our ship; it was spooky, and I'm not and haven't ever been easily spooked. In theory, one could simply row across it--but I mean, look at it. It would take months of non-stop progress to get across, and when the sun's in the sky it's swelteringly hot, year round."

The mage was trying to get his attention again; she was motioning with her hands like a pair of flapping wings, moving from one end of the map to the other, across the sea.

"In what, an airship?" Marcus asked. She nodded. "Wouldn't make it across. The mineral that powers the lift and propulsion devices is powered by its proximity to Aeros and, more specifically, the Aeros Crater. I don't even begin to understand it--I don't think anyone does, really, but it's generally known that about... here--" he pointed to a spot an inch or two off the coast of the northern continent "--airships lose power completely. Closer to the Aeros Crater means more power, and the closer you get to the coast the squirrellier your ship's lift and propulsion get--and then at this point, zilch, you drop out of the sky. Ker-sploosh."

"It sounds fairly fantastic," Pri murmured. "Flying boats? There's nothing of the sort here."

Marcus nodded. "It's not a surprise, really, given how the devices work. If it wasn't so... well, then we wouldn't be in this pickle, now would we?" He finished off his coffee and poured another mug's worth. "Well now we have a point of origin and a point of destination--Tater, could you magic us up a portal back to the north?"

The mage shook her head.

"Why not? You made the one in the tower, didn't you?"

She shook her head again. "Verisimilitude ejecta pasta-sauce."

"Well," Marcus muttered. "I guess that makes sense. If you could just make it yourself you wouldn't leave it sitting open in your tower, would you? Someone else must have made it for you."

She nodded.

"Before you ask," Pri interjected, "We have no magic here. Not in Hobber, not in Snowport or even Whitecourt in all its grandeur. We know about it, sure--but there's no dedicated organization, and magic-users are a rare find. Much less a magic user who could transport you over such a vast distance."

"Figures." Marcus regarded the woman's red eyes for a moment, thoughtful.

"Tell you what," she continued, matching his gaze. "Let's say I took you two outside--just you two. We'll go to the repository, and the two of you can, um, dig around in the books. I don't know what you'll find, but maybe you'll find something. Stay here, I'll fetch you some clothes a little more appropriate and a little less eye-catching--even out of sight, your presence is causing something of an hubbub in the town, so let's bundle you up so you look local. Does that sound alright to you?"

Marcus and the mage exchanged looks. "Sure," he said. "Whatever gets us home."