102. (Crossposting, more crossposting.)

Harbingers, parts One and Two
A Kill

101. (An Incredible Likeness.)

Posted here.

100. (The Best Damn Thieves: Chapter Six, Part One)

The snow was barely coming down, and the wind had let off so the tiny flakes fell slowly around them, catching on their furs, melting on the lenses of their goggles. "They came from over there," Marcus said, pointing off to the west. "I imagine your heralds saw them coming, and were unsure how to react. They were setting up their camp, getting ready to set in for the night. The 'greenskins' probably just walked up casually, and cut down the first one to meet them.... here," he said, standing just outside the smoldering camp. There was a corpse half-buried in the snow, gore frozen around it. He could see it in his head: the corpse, probably the leader, had walked casually out of the central camp and raised his hand in greeting; he had stood there for a moment, before the greenskins were within striking distance, and then he'd been struck with a heavy weapon with a ragged blade.

"Hurm," someone muttered. Other than Fergy, who was slimmer than the locals, Marcus couldn't tell them apart under their heavy protective gear. "They probably thought it was a delegation from Hobber. They must have been dressed in furs, to have survived this deep into Vastness."

Someone else said, "If the greenskins don't know where Hobber is, where were they going?"

Isa's voice answered, "A better question is, where have they gone? I personally find it hard to care where they came from--it's a place that's better off without them."

Marcus spoke up again: "They went back the way they came. There's blood on the snow leading back along the tracks that brought them here. They must have retraced their steps." He paused for a moment, thinking. "They're lost," he added eventually, "And they don't know where they're going. They're just wandering Vastness at random. But somewhere back along their tracks they found shelter or something, a cave of outcropping of rock, and they've holed up there to recuperate."

"How hard would it be to track them back to it?" Fergy asked. She lacked the know-how to cut it in the wild on her own--skills Marcus had picked up in his soldiering days, she'd assumed. She'd never had to "rough it" before she'd met him, sneaking and lying her way into and out of whatever bed was conveniently vacant.

"Not hard," Marcus replied. "Even if the snow fills up the tracks, there's plenty of blood--and even if that gets covered up, it's just a matter of uncovering it."

Isa interjected: "You're planning on tracking them? Why?" He exchanged glances with one of the other albinos, though their expressions were hidden behind the masks. "The plan, um, was to hide Hobber, yes? A practical, peaceful solution to this issue. Enough blood has been shed as it is."

Marcus shrugged nonchalantly. "Better to know what you're hiding from, I'd think. There might only be a couple of them left."

"Um, you're on your own, then, Marcus," Isa said. "The rest of us will return to Hobber and assist the mage in any way we can. Is this satisfactory?"

Marcus and Fergy together replied, "Yes."

At the same time, Pri spoke up: "No." Marcus hadn't realized that she was there until she'd raised her voice.

Isa fidgeted. "Pri?"

"I'm going with them," she continued. "I have a few ideas as to where the greenskins would have gone."

Isa's head cocked to the side slightly. "Do you think they found one of the Walker's Marks?"

"Perhaps," the portly woman responded. "Though to be fair, if they've found shelter at all, that'll be it. There's not exactly a lot else out there."

The trio set off from the carnage, heading west. The snowfall had been light enough that the sloppy, disorganized group of ogres was easy to follow. They trekked in silence for quite some time before Pri spoke up.

"Did you enjoy it?"

Marcus replied, "The Boar?"

"Mm."

"It was an interesting experience. I look forward to taking Fergy down there. I think it would do us both some good."

Fergy let out a small chuckle. She'd found her husband's clothing piled up outside the Boar's chamber, along with Tater's, and their borrowed furs. She had been waiting, arms crossed, when they finally came upstairs. "Well," she'd said.

Marcus had been unable to stop blushing. "It's not--" he'd started, then, "We weren't--"

Fergy had just smiled and held up a hand. "It's okay, baby. I know. You must be bored of me," she'd said, laying on the melodrama. "Just remember--under all that sexy magic, she's probably ninety-seven."

Tater, who hadn't skipped a beat when she'd come up, was already half-way dressed. She'd spun around, glaring at Fergy; "Conducting tunic blasphemy!" she'd shouted angrily.

Marcus had moved to stand between them. "Look," he had said quickly, his voice low, "We don't have time for this. There's something we've--" But he'd stopped: Pri had opened the front door. Whatever he'd been trying to tell her, he didn't want to do so in front of their guide.

Out on the snow, Fergy had a question of her own: "If those were your ominous heralds," she asked, "Where's this so-called Walker?"

Pri shrugged. "It could be anywhere. I suspect Isa will send out an expedition to find it, or at the very least set out more sentries on the wall. Whoever sends out the heralds won't even know anything has happened to them until the Walker passes near whichever coastal city they embark from."

"Something that big," Fergy continued, "You'd think you'd be able to see it from just about anywhere in Vastness, as flat as this place is."

"You can only see it from up close," the albino replied. "Within... oh, maybe two-hundred yards?"

"That doesn't make any sense," Marcus interrupted.

"We have some theories," Pri said, looking back at him. "The most popular one is that the Walker is just so big, your brain can't comprehend it. It simply, um, ignores it--you could be looking straight at it on the horizon and you wouldn't even know."

Fergy laughed. "That was supposed to be an explanation? 'Your brain switches off'? That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard, and let me tell you lady, I've heard a lot of silly shit in my time."

Behind his goggles, Marcus scowled a bit at the edge in his wife's voice. "It sounds more like magic, to me," he said.

Pri replied, "There are a few who agree with you, but that begs the question--where would magic of that scale even come from? There are a few minor magicians here and there along the coast--but no one who could pull off something so, um, grandeur."

"That's curious too," Fergy said. She sounded more perplexed than facetious then. "If anyone could cross the Yawning Sea and get here, it would be a mage--surely the Magister's League could send someone across. Yet I've never even heard of anything on this side..."

Pri shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

99. (The Best Damn Thieves: Chapter Five)

In Fergy's dream she was sitting on a stone floor, her back against a stone wall. The room she was in was square and small, and one side was made up of a series of metal rods--the bars of a cell. She was in a dungeon of some kind. Can't quite put my finger on it, she thought. Where am I?

A voice, echoing down the hall beyond her cell's bars, said: "Look, um, I'm really sorry I screwed up your heist," it said, sounding legitimately apologetic. "If I'd known someone else was going to make a grab for the statue at the same time I did--"

"It's not a problem," she heard herself reply; "It's not your fault, big guy." Big guy? I can't even--Oh. Oh! She realized where she was in a flash: Terrana. The hidden voice was Marcus', oddly distorted by the stone walls and the fact that she was, in truth, dreaming. "You strong enough to kick your cell open?"

"I'm pretty strong," Marcus replied, "But I'm not that strong."

Fergy frowned thoughtfully. "If you get me a knife, I can get us out of here."

There was a moment of silence from the other cell. "I'll handle it." Then, nothing.

Fergy rubbed the back of her neck, thinking. Most of the time people missed one or two of her daggers when disarming her; the Duke of Terrana's guards had been overly thorough. Judging by the looks of them, they didn't get many chances to paw at a woman. This was the first time in a long time that Fergy hadn't been able to just pull out one of her concealed daggers, pick the lock, and walk out. It made her uncomfortable. She stood up and paced the cell, ran her hands through her hair and tousled it a bit, fidgeting awkwardly.

Eventually, Marcus started talking to her again; "That was a pretty impressive, uh, rig, you had going back there."

"Thank you," she'd replied, smiling to herself.

"How long did it take you to get that set up?"

"Couple hours," Fergy replied. "Conveniently, your guard friends aren't allowed to actually enter the vault. Gave me plenty of time."

"You must have jumped rooftops to get up there," she heard him mutter. "And then cut a hole in the roof, somehow. I'm surprised no one noticed that."

"It's layered," she replied. "A dome within a dome. I crawled in at the bottom and shimmied up to the top."

"Oh, of course--" She heard what sounded like Marcus clapping his hands once. "Sturdy material on the outside, pretty material on the inside. It's very well made, I wouldn't have thought that just from looking at it. Must have been a tight fit."

"That it was." At some point, she fell asleep. It was a surreal feeling, because she was already asleep. The sound of a scuffle woke her up, or at least it did in the dream. For a moment she became disoriented. She could hear two bodies struggling, and someone shouting, "Ah, ah, shit, ow! Let go--damn it, you bast--", then something slamming heavily against the steel bars of a cell several times, then silence again. "Big fella?" she called out, after a moment of hesitation.

"Hang on," Marcus replied. "I think this idiot came down here unarmed."

"... What?"

"Wait, no, okay, here we go--" There was the sound of a body falling, a heartbeat of more silence, then the clatter of metal on stone, and a rusted, poorly-maintained dagger bounced to a stop in front of her cell. She scrambled over to grab it through the bars. "Will that work?"

"Oh, absolutely," she called back, then muttered to the blade, "You poor thing, look at the condition you're in! What a waste of good steel." A moment later she had picked the lock and was standing in front of Marcus' cell, grinning, the knife tucked into her belt. "You know," she said to the big man, "That worked out pretty well. I'm Fergy. You're a lot smarter than you look."

She watched herself meeting her husband for the first time and remembered, I really wasn't that impressed with him, at first, was I? Except for those arms--he looked like he could've taken down an ox with his bare hands.

"I'm Marcus," he said, extending a hand once the door was open, "And I'll take that as a compliment. Pleased to meow you."

"What?" What? Here memory wasn't matching up with the dream anymore.

Fergy's eyes opened hesitatingly to a bright glare coming in through the window. She was laying in a large bed, tucked in comfortably. Judging by how much sunlight was coming in the window, it was morning, just after dawn. The light was awfully white, she thought. She tried to sit up but a weight was on her chest--a warm weight, not heavy enough to pin her down, but foreign nonetheless. "Meow," said the weight.

She was eye-to-eye with the mage's cat, which had curled up on her chest. "Good morning to you too," she muttered, frowning.

Other than the cat and herself, the room was empty. Fergy sat up, moving the feline aside, and frowned. Unfamiliar room, unfamiliar bed--at least she was still wearing her clothing. "Marcus?" she called out, rising out of the bed.

The only response she got was voices in another room, two of them, speaking in turn to each other. Fergy frowned again and made her way towards the only door in the room. The room itself looked like your average, though underused, tavern room. Nervous, she reached down to her belt.

When it didn't find what she was looking for, the hand moved to her sleeve. Then she bent over and checked her boot, and reached around to check her back. It was when she was bent over, one hand on her calf, the other twisted around behind her awkwardly, that the door opened and she found herself face-to-chest with a stout figure. Her hair fell over her face annoyingly and she took a pair of quick steps back, before--"Oi, lass, s'good that ye'r awake, but what the bloody hell are ye doin'?"

She looked at the dwarf quizzically, standing to her full height. "Where are my knives?"

Brasskicker shrugged. "Some'ere safe?"

"That's not good enough," she said, her voice low.

"S'all we got fer now, though," he replied, pushing the door closed behind him. "Yer lad Marcus made sure with the big boss here that yer... effects're in good hands, before him an' Tater took off for th' library're whatever. 'Bout six hours ago, now, I figure."

"Tater?" She looked at him like he was speaking in a foreign language. "Oh, god," she muttered, losing her train of thought. "I really need to piss."

"Ye've been asleep for nigh on a day now, 'er most o' one. S'not a surprise. Pot's unner th' bed, there," he replied, turning his back to her. While Fergy relieved herself, he explained what had happened since they'd come through the portal in the mage's tower. "After the mage an' yer lad left, s'been quiet. That Isa fella's cookin' up some breakfast fer me, prolly wouldn' be too much t' ask 'im t' make ye some too."

"Do you know how to get to where Marcus and Tater went?" She'd picked up on the mage's new nickname pretty quickly.

The dwarf shrugged. "En't got a clue, lass. Been stuck here babysittin' a certain sleepin' lass and a cat, en't had a chance to go lookin' fer 'em. Not that that albino bloke would'a let me leave in th' first place."

Fergy frowned, and pulled the strap of her bag over her head and let it hang across her chest. With one arm she scooped up the cat and stuck it in the bag, then closed it; the feline poked its head out and let out an annoyed meow, but it didn't struggle to get free. She pressed past Brasskicker and out into the hall, then into the common room.

"Oh, you're awake," the oddly-proportioned man said, when he saw them. He was just as Brasskicker has described: pale and pear-shaped, with red eyes and absolutely no hair on his head. Fergy wondered how much different the female had looked. "I was making your short friend a meal--my understanding is that you've been asleep quite some time, would you like one yourself?"

Fergy eyed him warily before sliding onto a barstool. "Famished," she replied, leaning over the bar a bit. "Where are my knives?"

Isa slid a plate of eggs and sausage across to her, smiling. "Someplace, um, safe."

"Not a good enough answer. I'd like them back."

"Um, I'm afraid that's just not possible, miss. Hobber is a sanctuary--no one, not even our own residents, is allowed to carry weapons on pain of expulsion. As I understand it, you missed the trip in--expulsion into Vastness is not a fate you want to tempt." The odd man smiled awkwardly, then nodded over Fergy's shoulder. "I hope you don't mind, sir, I gave the lady your helping."

"Not a prob'em, lad," Brasskicker replied, climbing onto the neighboring barstool. "Now--let's talk about meetin' up wit' our compan'ons, now'at we're all up an' about, aye?"

Fergy added, "No reason to stay split up, as it is, what with me up and on my feet again."

Isa cleared his throat. "I thought you might have such an idea, so, um, I brought a pair of extra suits for you." He gestured to one of the far tables, where a pile of furs was laid out. "Whatever... magic brought you here without letting your limbs freeze off is out of the question, so you'll have to suit up to stay warm. The suits will also, um, conceal your identities. I don't want your presence to, um, cause a panic among the townsfolk, you see."

Fergy frowned. "Wah woo--" she paused, swallowed her mouthful of food, "Why would we cause a panic?"

"Ah," Isa replied, "It's less nefarious than it sounds, trust me. Pri took the map with her, so it's not here for your benefit--but imagine a broad, empty plain, covered entirely in snow, bitingly, bitterly cold. Smack, um, in the middle of this plain--of Vastness--is Hobber. There's nothing else. Just Hobber. There are a few cities just outside Vastness, along the coast, but no one else has moved inland. You can imagine, um, why."

Brasskicker asked, "I reckon ye don't get a lot o' travelers?"

"Less than one group a year, most of the time." Isa fidgeted slightly. "The same group, um, in fact. A group consisting of a dozen or so men and women in roughly their middle years--different people, mind you, but the same organization. Nomads, of a sort. They come from the outlying villages--Snowport and the like."

"That's great," Fergy interrupted. "Can you get to the point? I'm getting antsy sitting here."

Isa watched her for a moment; she thought she could see the gears clicking around in his head. "They come before the Walker," he finally replied, as if measuring their reaction to each word individually. "Heralds, if you will, of its path."

Fergy stopped, forkful of food half-way between her mouth and the plate. "The Walker?--no, wait," she interrupted herself, dropping the utensil. "Walk and talk, we're getting out of here."

Isa looked at her, non-plussed, and nodded at the pile of furs by the door. Fergy strode across to them and started rifling through them. "The Walker?" she repeated, her back to the albino. The clothing was simple enough--a thick, heavy fur coat and pants, thick leather boots and gloves, and a heavy hood and scarf. Each item was matched with a twin--two suits, one for Fergy and one for Brasskicker. Atop both piles were tinted goggles on leather straps. As Isa explained, the pair suited up.

"The Walker is... it's hard to describe," he said, speaking slowly. "It's... well, it's exactly, um, what it sounds like. It walks Vastness, blind, aimless, wandering from edge to edge on a seemingly random path."

"And it has heralds... why?" Fergy asked, adjusting the coat. She watched the dwarf for a moment, trying to figure out how the hood attached.

"Simply put, it's, um," Isa paused, watching them. "Imagine a tower, a castle. Now, imagine them as a child's toys at your feet, barely ankle-high. You step over them, or knock them aside. They're tiny beside you."

"Ye're pullin' our chains," Brasskicker muttered, adjusting his goggles uncomfortably. "Or ye'r crazy."

"If only, sir." Isa was pulling his own furs on again now, far more efficiently than his guests. "The Walker is large--so large, a wrong step would topple our walls, smash our roofs, end Hobber." He chuckled. "The Heralds let us know when to be ready."

"You don't run?" Fergy asked from within her bundling. Wearing the outfit, her hair and skin completely hidden, she looked like a smaller, slimmer version of Isa.

The albino regarded her for a moment; "Like a tall child, um, not bad. Kind of an odd fit. Where would we go?" he asked, opening the door to the street beyond. "Shall we?" he said, gesturing for the woman and the dwarf to precede him outside.

The road beyond was paved in grey cobblestone. It was a little less than straight; the town itself seemed compact within its walls, the road built to follow the spaces between buildings placed apparently at random--at least, that was the impression the left on Fergy. "So we know why we have to wear the suits," she asked, walking beside their host. "But it's not that cold out here. Unpleasant, yes, but--I mean, it's cold, but I'm not exactly at fear for my life."

"We have a certain sensitivity to the cold. It's part of our affliction--the skin, the eyes, and so on."

"So then," Brasskicker asked, "Why bother livin' out 'ere in the wastes? I figger ye lot could do a lot better fer yerselves."

"Hobber is a sanctuary for our kind," Isa replied. "We came here, we built it ourself, because we were called to do so. It is here that we found and find peace, and so it is here that we stay."

The streets seemed almost deserted. Since they'd left the tavarn, they'd only seen a handful of other people outside. Most of the buildings they walked past were dark, seemingly empty. The place put Fergy ill at ease. "I don't understand," she said. "What kind of peace requires you to stay in any place?"

"You really aren't from around here, are you?" Isa asked rhetorically. "The peace offered by the Boar. The Boar is here, and it is the Boar's presence that soothes the savage in each of us--travel to the coasts and you'll find hodge-podge villages of men and women like us, but in their red eyes you'll find not compassion, but bloodlust, rage, death. The people of Snowport and the like call us... call them ogres--and fight them tooth and nail. My people--the people of Hobber, left this behind and followed the call of the Boar, and came here, and built a town around it. It is here that we can be human--" He stopped, and let out a sigh. "Or at least humane."

"Ogres," Brasskicker muttered. "Like in the stories, aye? Monster's ye tell yer kids aboot t' get 'em to behave."

"I assume my kind has died out across the Yawning Sea," Isa replied, "Relegated to the annals of history and children's stories. Yet here in the south, we live and thrive. And here in Hobber, we live and thrive, and, um, don't eat babies."

A few moments later the trio found themselves standing in front of a stone-walled building, where the albino stopped. "Here we are then, um, if you'll give me a moment." Isa dug around in the pockets of his furs briefly, eventually finding a heavy steel ring with a series of keys on it. These he used to open the large wooden door, which he pushed and held open for Fergy and Brasskicker; "After you," he said.

Fergy furrowed her brows behind the tinted goggles, watching Isa; the artificial darkness made it impossible to see beyond the threshold into the building, but she was doing her best to hide her lack of trust. "Is my husband in there?"

"We will, um, get to that momentarily, but first, come in," the strange ogre replied, waving towards the open door. "I understand your lack of trust. Consider this, um, a peace offering of sorts."

"Eh," Brasskicker muttered, "We're far 'nough up shit creek as it be, lass." The short man strode past her and into the building. Fergy, still scowling, followed.

Beyond the door her eyes quickly adjusted, and Fergy found herself standing in a large room lined with cabinets and shelves. Closing the door behind them, Isa walked around her and gestured for her to follow. Eventually he stopped in front of one of the smaller cabinets and, using the same ring of keys, unlocked it and opened it.

Fergy let out a little gasp; without even thinking she pulled her hood off and slid her goggles up on top of her head. Inside the cabinet, resting delicately on soft cloth, was a collection of knives and daggers, each in its own space, carefully arranged. Her knives and daggers--most of them, at least. But before she could question the presence of the rest of her things Isa opened the neighboring cabinet, where they rested, as carefully-handled as the others.

"In Hobber," the albino said, his tone that of a teacher, "Our key tenant is respect: respect for the Boar, respect for each other, respect for each other's belongings. You'll find everything you're lacking from your personal effects here, cleaned and shined by myself, personally."

"Th--" Fergy paused, unsure exactly what to say. She was at once grateful and annoyed.

Isa held up a hand. "There is no need. All I ask is that you trust me, and trust that we bear no ill will towards you."

"I'm sorry for doubting you."

"It's an understandable thing," he continued. "You're knocked unconscious and when you awake you're in a strange place, separated from he who is most important to you. Speaking of--our next stop is the lib--"

He stopped, having been interrupted by the sound of the door opening again, then slamming closed. Fergy quickly pulled her hood and goggles back on, and then turned to see the newcomer--another local, panting and hunched over from having run to find them.

"Erna," Isa said, his voice low. How he could recognize the person under all of his or her fur was beyond Fergy. "What's wrong?"

Erna held up a hand, catching his or her breath, then spoke between gasps: "Smoke-- horizon-- Th'heralds--" The voice was decidedly feminine, though deep.

Isa visibly tensed up. "Are they coming?"

Erna shook her head. "No--not camp fire. Sent party to check--all dead, camp burned."

"Who?"

"They put up a fight," Erna replied. "Left a few dead. Greenskins."

Isa spat out a word that wasn't part of any language Fergy had ever heard. "Close the gates," he muttered, fidgeting uncomfortably. "Close the gates, and sound the bells."

Nodding, Erna ran out again.

"Ye cannae fight, can ye?" the dwarf asked.

"We cannot even hold them back," Isa replied, pacing now. "The greenskins--the ogres, the ones we're descended from--they've never ventured far into Vastness. Not until now, that is. If they come here--"

"We can help you," Fergy interrupted. "The girl--Tater, she's a mage."

"If they've come in strong enough force to wipe out the Heralds, it will take more than a single mage, but--"

"But she can hide you. This place--if they've never seen it, never ventured this far, how would they know it was here? How would they even know to expect it?"

Isa clapped his gloved hands together. "Yes--yes. We need to get to the library."

With that, he shuffled past the pair and out the door. Fergy and Brasskicker followed.

"Ye sure about this, lass?" the dwarf asked.

"Not even a little."

***

"Sauerkraut shipping lanes bottled water," Tater muttered, letting her head fall onto the book she was scanning.

"I know the feeling, kid," Marcus replied, flipping the tome he'd chosen closed with a thump. The pair sat across from each other, separated by a large pile of books, none of which had had anything to do with anything that would get them home. "Look, there have got to be... hundreds of books here," he continued. "Somewhere in this incredibly dry, dusty, boring room has to be something that we can use."

The mage looked up at him, frowning. She stood up and held a book up; "Cousins? Utility!" she shouted. The book burst into flame in her hands. She picked up another for a repeat performance. Before she could destroy a third book in frustration Marcus had scrambled across the table and grabbed her wrists, restraining the girl.

"That was completely uncalled for," he snapped. She just glared at him and struggled free, dropping back into her soft-backed chair with a sigh, muttering nonsense under her breath.

"Your pretty young friend has a bit of an attitude, doesn't she?" Pri called from the other side of the room. She was the only other person in the library; when they'd arrived, she'd ushered out the building's caretaker so that Marcus and Tater could remove their hoods and goggles.

"Young and impetuous," Marcus replied, watching the mage. "I think young, at least. Hard to tell with her kind."

Tater glared daggers at him.

"Not finding anything?" the albino woman asked, walking over to them.

"Yellow errant hugs," the girl muttered under her breath.

"I have another idea, if you two are willing to listen and not, you know, set me on fire."

Marcus said, "I'm open to whatever. It's not like we're making any progress here."

"I'll take you to see the Boar. It'll calm down your hotheaded friend, if anything, and maybe you'll be able to get something out of it. Who knows." She had given them a similar explanation as had been given to Brasskicker and Fergy en route to the library.

"Couldn't hurt," he rumbled, standing and stretching his arms out.

It was a shorter walk than Marcus had expected: the structure housing the Boar was next door to the library. Pri explained that they were the first buildings the townspeople had erected, after they'd arrived and discovered the Boar. At least, that was how the story went. They waited outside until she had sent the small group of worshipers and caretakers home, then made their way into the drab, average-looking building.

The first room they entered was empty--an antechamber, with a door on one end. Pri immediately led them through this door and into a second antechamber, this one circular. In the center was a wide staircase, spiraling down into a basement of some kind. The entrance was curtained, and they could not see down into the room or rooms below. Pri stood between them and the stairs, and immediately began to remove her furs.

"Your clothes," she said, "You'll have to take them off. Not just what we've given you."

"You're kidding, right?" Marcus replied, awkwardly. "Tater, she's gotta be kidd--"

But when he turned to face the mage, she was already disrobing. She looked at him and blinked. "Peanut?" she said, and shrugged nonchalantly, casting off her long robe.

Marcus turned away before he could see how little she was wearing under it.

"Halibut oranges deskchair," she continued. Without being able to look at her, he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Fine, fine," Marcus muttered. "This is just the kind of dumb crap I knew this trip would turn into," he continued, shucking his own furs off, "And just wait, we're going to get naked, and then my wife is going to burst in. And with my luck, she'll find us right after I trip over my own damn feet and fall on top of you." He stood there, exposed, keeping his back to the mage, and his eyes locked on a point several feet above Pri's head. "Can we get this over with?"

"Of course," the woman replied. She started down the staircase, holding the curtain open for the trailing pair.

The basement was fairly bare, albeit spacious, stone walls and a stone floor. It was also poorly lit, so at first Marcus didn't know what it was he was looking at. Once his eyes adjusted, it became clear that the Boar was exactly what Pri had described, visually at least: a huge porcine beast. It slept leaning against the far wall, its massive snout blowing swirls through the dust. Even laying down the crest of its spine was higher than Marcus was tall.

But while it looked like any other wild pig blown to massive proportions, looking at it did something strange to Marcus' head: the longer he watched the Boar breathe, the calmer, the more at peace he felt. He turned and looked at Pri--no longer concerned with the albino woman's nudity--and said, "It's amazing. I've never felt so... so..."

"At ease?" she finished for him.

"Yeah," Marcus replied. "It's like... I could just sit here, and--"

"Pri!" someone above them was calling. "Pri, are you in here?"

The albino woman frowned. "Yes," she shouted up, walking over to the stairs. "What is it?"

"They're ringing the bells!" came the reply.

Pri's brow furrowed. "Why in the--..." she drifted off, confused. "Wait here. Sit. Rest. Enjoy the Boar's presence. I'll be back as soon as I know what's going on." Without waiting for a response, she hurried up the stairs and vanished through the curtain.

Marcus couldn't help but smile. He turned back to the Boar, and then to Tater. Her nudity didn't affect him either, in the Boar's presence. "Isn't it great?" he said, taking a deep breath.

The mage was blinking, a vaguely confused look on her face. While Marcus watched, she rubbed her temples with the ends of her fingers, watching the Boar--and then snapped, and let out a short laugh, as if she'd just figured something out.

"What is it?" Marcus asked.

"Cucumber grass root barely red," she said, grinning.

"I don't... I have no idea what you're trying to tell me, Tater," the big man replied warily.

The girl rolled her eyes, then held up one finger, thinking. After a moment, she pointed at the Boar, then held her hands far apart.

Marcus watched her, perplexed. "Yes, it's a very large Boar, I can see that."

Tater shook her head rapidly. She pointed at the Boar again, then held her hands close together, and then spread them far apart again. While she did this she watched Marcus expectantly.

"You don't know that," he replied, frowning. "For all you know it's always been that big."

The girl let out a groan, rubbing her temples with the heels of her hands. "Perfumed strays," she muttered. Resolutely, she pointed at the herself, then wiggled the fingers on both her hands at Marcus. When it seemed like he understood what she was implying, she pointed at the Boar, and held her hands close together. Again, she waited for comprehension from her companion; once she felt he had it, she wiggled the fingers at the Boar, then quickly held them close together--and then spread them far apart. A look of quiet, annoyed desperation had entered her eyes by this point.

"Magic..." Marcus said, slowly, "Made it... this way?"

Tater let out another little laugh and clapped her hands together, gleeful. "Hairstyles!"

"But wait, so it's just--"

She nodded eagerly.

"But what about--"

Again, the girl held up a finger, silencing him. She pointed at the boar, then wiggled her fingers at the top of the stairs, at the curtain that hid the Boar's room--at the people of Hobber, Marcus assumed.

"But what about me?"

Tater just cocked her head to the side--then realized he meant that the Boar had affected him. She just shrugged, pointed at the Boar, and wiggled her fingers at Marcus.

"That's a great theory, Tater, but Pri told us herself--there's no magic here."

The girl rolled her eyes, then beckoned for Marcus to stand closer to her. He hesitated, but eventually did as requested. She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed down, indicating that his much taller frame would need to kneel or squat. He did the former, dropping to one knee in front of her. Tater closed her eyes and put a hand on either side of Marcus' head.

"This is going to look reall--OW!" She interrupted him by snapping her fingers close to his skull, then stepped back, rubbing her hands together. Marcus felt like a bolt of lightning had flown directly into his brain. "That freakin' hurt, you little--Oh." Marcus stood back up, his brows furrowing, and turned to look at the Boar. It was suddenly very clear what was going on. "Well, damn. You're right," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "But why in the world would anyone make a really big pig, and... and then enchant it to hypnotize a bunch of albino ogres?"

Tater just shrugged, pressing her lips together. "Alphabet cohesion willowy ducks."

He glanced up at the curtain above them, frowning. "Well, I think it goes without saying, we should act like we're not in on it, okay?"

The mage nodded quickly. She made a cutting motion across her neck.

"My point exactly. I mean... I don't get the impression that they would, but, we're unarmed and outnumbered. Better safe than sorry."

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."

92. (The Best Damn Thieves: Chapter Three)

Marcus and Fergy had just finished failing to dust each other off when an explosive crack tore through the air, and something smashed into one of the closer tree-branches on the other side of the fire, shattering it. The pair immediately ducked reflexively, quickly looking around--and towards the tower's entrance, where a stubby figure was standing on the front steps, pointing a long instrument of some kind at them.

"Oy, ye lot," the figure shouted, its mouth hidden in a thick, white beard. "Hands in th' air, step 'way from each other, ye hear? That was jest a warnin' shot, next one en't gonna be."

Fergy raised her hands, taking a step away from her husband, but Marcus just stood there, glaring incredulously at their attacker. "Is that a musket?!" he asked, a huge grin growing on his face. "Are you threatening us with a musket?"

"Bloody 'ell lad, ye got some cheek, don' ye?"

Marcus laughed, walking calmly towards the short man. "Can you blame me, mate? That thing's about as dangerous as a kitten."

"Oh aye?!"

"Oh, aye," Marcus repeated. He stopped walking, crossing his hands over his chest. "Go on then, shoot me."

Fergy took half a step towards him; "Marcus, baby--"

"Just trust me, love."

"Fine lad, ye asked for it!" The short man--a dwarf, Marcus could see by then--took aim down the shaft of his musket. "Ye sure?"

"I'm sure."

"This is a stupid plan," Fergy muttered.

A heavy silence fell over the ashy clearing, and all Fergy could hear was her own heart beating. She could just imagine in in her head--the musket ball striking Marcus in the head with the force it had shattered that branch with, splattering his brains all over the place. She closed her eyes, unable to watch.

"Baaaaaaagh!" the dwarf shouted, shouldering his weapon. "C'mon then, Ah'll get ye some vittles." And with that, he turned and stomped back into the tower, grumbling.

Fergy opened his eyes, dropping her hands to her sides. "What the hell?"

Marcus grinned at her. "He hadn't loaded in a second shot, and that takes bloody forever. Hungry?"

She let out a little half-hearted laugh. "Quite." Together, the two closed the distance between themselves and the entrance to the tower, and slipped inside.

Once they were inside, both of them were so distracted by the structure's interior that the apple the dwarf tossed at Marcus caught him in the chest. He clumsily caught it and relayed it back to Fergy, then caught the dwarf's second throw and took a big bite. The room they were standing in was fairly barren, save a few barrels and crates on the far side, and clearly spanned the entire base of the tower. The ceiling, some thirty feet up, only covered half of the room; the other half was open, apparently, all the way to the top of the tower. From where Fergy was standing, she could see the different floors of the tower above her, as if she were looking at a cross-section of the structure. The third and fifth floors were lit, while the one directly above them and the fourth were darkened. There were no stairs leading up from the ground floor, and none connecting the other floors that Fergy could see.

"What... exactly is this place?" she asked, munching idly on her apple and turning her eyes to the dwarf. "And... why does this apple taste like stale bread?"

"'Ell if I know, lass," the stumpy man replied, shrugging his broad shoulders. "Sorc'ress lives up there, flits aboot some'ow without stairs, I reckon. Don' ask me 'ow it works, I en't got th' slightest." he crunched on his own apple, grimacing at the taste of it. "Conjured food--reach int' the barrel an' ye can pull out jest aboot whatever ye want, but no matter what ye pull out it all tastes like last week's bread."

"That's... very strange," Marcus muttered.

"Oh, en't jest strange, 'tis barkin' mad!" The dwarf threw his arms in the air and stomped over to Fergy so he could see up the empty half of the tower. "Ye hear that, ye daft bitch! Ye'r barkin' mad!" He hurled his apple upwards, but missed his angle and it fell back to the ground a few feet away, splattering.

A head, with long black hair, poked out from the top floor, and a moment later, words floated down in response: "Excelsior! Panda tunic rocking sky!" The head vanished and silence fell over the trio at the bottom.

"Baagh!" the dwarf groaned. "Don' pay that useless thing a fig o' attention. She's always like that--utter gibberish. Been tryin' t' get 'er t' help me get the hell out o' this damn wood, but she won' even come down here."

While he was talking, Fergy was eying the wall, and without a word to interrupt him she walked across the room and started shoving a crate across the stone floor.

Marcus watched her nonchalantly. "Going climbing?"

His wife just grunted, then said, "If I can get a little higher up, yeah, the stonework looks climbable. Just gotta push this really heavy, bulky crate over there and it shouldn't be hard. Really heavy. Pushing it all on my own."

Her husband grinned. "You want some help?"

"A little late now, you think?" Fergy shot back, rolling her eyes; a second later the crate thunked dully against the wall, and the woman climbed on top of it. A second later she was clinging to the wall like a spider, working her way towards the level directly above them.

Down below, the two men watched her; the dwarf let out an impressed whistle. "Nimble lass, en't she?"

"That's my wife," the other muttered. "I'm Marcus, by the way. She's Fergy."

The dwarf shook his hand eagerly. "Brasskicker."

Marcus nearly spit out his bite of stale-bread apple, choking back a laugh. "Seriously?"

"Cross me heart."

"You pick that name yourself?" Fergy called down, laughing.

Brasskicker chuckled, walking over to try and get a look at the floor above. "Me pa... he had high hopes fer me. If'n it weren' for me ma, I'd pro'lly jes' be 'Asskicker'. She didn' think it was a proper dwarf name without the metal in it, so the two o' em came t' a compromise, or so they tell me. I do me best t' live up to the name."

"I'll bet you do." Marcus patted him on the shoulder, watching his wife climb. A moment later, Fergy vanished into the level above, and Marcus and Brasskicker craned their necks in vain to try and get a look. "So," the big man said, "Does that sorceress have an airship or something we can ride out of here on?"

"Hell if I know, lad." The dwarf scratched his beard thoughtfully. "En't ever seen anythin' but this room, never seen 'er flyin' in or out on one, that's fer sure. Mebbe she's got one tucked away up there, that lass o' yers'll be the first t' know. Ye lot come in on one?"

Marcus nodded, taking another visual survey of the room. "Forced landing a few miles from here. It's wasted, though, torn apart by the woods, so even if we stood a chance of getting through the trees, it wouldn't matter."

"Queen o' th' fores'?"

"The lackey, actually--"

"Aye, the creepy bugger. Gave me the willies, that 'un did."

"Yeah, I sorta figured you'd say something like that. What the hell are you doing out here, anyways?"

"Jus' passin' through." Brasskicker shrugged and waddled over to the food bucket, pulling out what looked like a leg of mutton. As he munched on it, he continued, "Makin' me way north o' here. Was runnin' a'hind schedule, so I figured I'd cut through these woods. Pah, that came back an' bit me in the ass, didn' it?" He let out a loud guffaw and tossed the conjured food over his shoulder. "Ran into that woody bassard, then hoofed it here when 'e tried t'... ugh, I don' even wanna talk aboot it. Ye?"

"Queen tried to possess my wife. It didn't take." Marcus frowned, thinking about that.

"It didn' take? Why not?"

"Search me, I've got no idea. Neither does she. Neither did the queen."

Up above, the woman in question squatted on floor, stretching her arms over her head languidly. She was in pretty good shape, and scaling the wall hadn't been that difficult, but her muscles burned from the strain nonetheless. She stood up and surveyed the room around her, stretching her legs as she did so. It was mostly dark, but she could see well enough from the torchlight below. She appeared to be in a library of sorts--there were a lot of books, but they seemed to lack any kind of organization. Some were on shelves, other were stacked on top of tables, and still others were just scattered on the floor. On the far side of the room, a spiraling metal staircase led up to the level above; Fergy headed for it, careful not to step on any of the tomes.

She was about to mount the steps when a shadow across them moved, and immediately the woman dropped into a crouch and slipped a pair of daggers out of her belt; in the same motion she slipped silently backwards and behind a table, hiding, ready, holding her breath.

She crouched there for a minute or two before peeking back over the pile of books on top of her hiding place, brows furrowed. Sitting a few steps from the bottom of the spiral, at about eye level, was a small black cat. It regarded her coolly, its head tilted just slightly one side.

"Well," Fergy said, standing up, "I guess the sorceress isn't the only one hiding up here--or maybe she is." She slipped the daggers back into her belt and curtsied quickly, keeping a fair distance from the animal. "A pleasure to meet you, m'lady sorceress. That is one hell of a shape-shift."

The cat just stared at her, and let out a little "Mew."

"I hope you don't mind me climbing up here. We're kind of in a bit of a snafu down below--I'll bet you've met the queen of the forest, right? Well, her little goon tore our airship to bits, and we're looking for a way out of these woods--and, since she's taken a liking to me, sanctuary until we can skidaddle."

The cat continued to stare at her.

"You're just a cat, aren't you?"

"Mew." The cat padded silently down the stairs and closed the short distance separating them, then rubbed against Fergy's legs amiably.

"Just a cat... without a tail. Poor thing, what happened to it?" She reached down to scratch it between its ears, then picked it up and held it against her chest. The cat curled up into a ball and rubbed its head against her chin. "Sweet thing. Let's go find your lady mistress, yeah?"

Holding the cat with one hand, Fergy mounted the spiral staircase, her other hand on the curving banister. The second story up was much like the first, in that it was messy and disorganized; instead of books, however, its shelves, tables, and floor were lined with glass jars, each full of some kind of clear fluid, floating in which were various bits and pieces of--well, for the most part, Fergy wasn't sure what they were bits and pieces of. As she walked idly through the room, which like the two rooms below it took up the entire half-level of the tower, she saw claws, plants, scales, rocks, crystals--and, seeming to stick out to her specifically, what looked like a long, black worm, curled into a spiral in the clear solution.

"Well, I guess now we know what happened to your tail, fella," she muttered, scratching behind the cat's neck, her lips twisting into a little frown. The cat just purred against her breasts, pleased with the attention she was giving it.

The entire room was softly lit with a bright, natural light. At first, Fergy thought it was coming from the jars themselves, as there were no windows, but soon she realized it was coming from another source, a flat-looking disc of light just off the center of the room, hanging vertically in mid-air. Looking at it made her head hurt; Fergy dismissed it as some random magical do-dad, something she probably wouldn't be able to wrap her mind around even were it explained to her, and continued up the stairs.

The floor above was utterly empty, and covered in dust, which was marked with lines of paw prints.

The top floor was also empty--or nearly so. In the center of the room stood another strange light source, this one a lantern hanging from a curved pole. The lantern was emitting a soft glow that shifted from blue to green, and back again, as she watched it.

"Hello?" she called out. "M'lady sorceress? The hell did she go?" There hadn't exactly been a lot of places to hide that Fergy had seen on her way up the tower--she would have seen someone under any of the tables, and all of the bookshelves and cabinets had been flush against the wall. She set the cat down and walked around the edge of the room, towards the empty space on the other side, keeping a fair distance away from the odd lantern. She leaned out over the ledge carefully, and spotted Marcus and Brasskicker on the ground level.

"Any news from down below?" she called out, waving a hand to get their attention.

Marcus looked up and grinned; a moment later, his voice floated up to her: "We pulled a keg out of the barrel of tasteless food, but--surprise!--it tastes like bread. Worse, it's not getting us drunk."

"A crime, if'n I ever heard o' one!" the dwarf shouted. "Oughtta string th' daffy lass up fer it."

There was a noise behind Fergy, but when she turned around, the room was still empty, save for the black cat, which looked like it might be having a spasm or a seizure of some kind. She frowned and leaned back over the drop; "Have to find her first, I haven't seen her anywhere. Hang out down there, I'll get back to you. See if I can find some rope or something."

"Aye."

Turning back to the cat, Fergy walked across the semicircular room and kneeled down next to it, watching its odd movements. "What's gotten into you, friend?" she whispered; then, reached out and grabbed a fistful of air; the air attempted to pull away, but Fergy held on tight, then pressed it up against the wall before taking two quick steps back and raising her empty hands. "Drop the invisibility, m'lady sorceress, I'm not here to hurt you. You know I know you're there now--can we talk?"

The space of nothing next to the cat shimmered, and suddenly a young woman with long black hair was standing there; the cat was rubbing up against her legs, purring. "Treebranch moonlily," the sorceress muttered, glaring at the animal.

Fergy just stared at her. "I have no idea what that means." She dug around in her bag, then held out small pouch of cloth, which was tied shut with a bit of purple ribbon. "Here, you can have this, as a sort of peace offering, I guess."

The sorceress eyed her warily, her brows forming a sharp V shape. She looked twenty, twenty-one, and exceptionally pretty--but being a magic-user, that didn't exactly come as a surprise. Her robes were thick and well-decorated, with a golden insignia attached above one of the girl's breasts. "Corsair grass plains..."

"I don't know what that means, just take the bloody chocolate!"

"... Crackers?" The sorceress' eyes went wide and she snatched the little pouch up, slim fingers yanking it open viciously. Inside were several small squares of the sweet, brown substance. The sorceress immediately popped several in her mouth, and leaned up against the wall, eyes closed, savoring it.

"I figured you might be a little tired of the stale bread downstairs. Do you have a name?"

"Evergreen rats plank sky."

Fergy just let out a sigh. "I officially hate this job. Okay. Fine. No words."

"Juniper midni--"

"Just stop!" Fergy threw her arms in the air. "Don't talk. Yes or no--just nod, or shake your head. Don't speak. Okay?"

The girl nodded.

"Okay, good, you can understand me."

She nodded again.

"Are you the mistress of this tower?"

And again, a nod. She was chewing on another square of chocolate.

"Have you met the wood nymphs outside?"

Another nod, this time more vigorously.

"Have they trapped you here?"

This time, the sorceress shook her head.

Fergy frowned, confused at that. "Then why are you here, in this god-forsaken place? No--wait! Don't answer that--"

But the girl only held up a hand, her pointer finger extended. She quickly slipped over to the spiral staircase and beckoned Fergy to follow, before vanishing down it. Fergy found the sorceress on the floor full of books, shoving several around, searching, until she found the volume she was looking for. Grinning, she held it up for Fergy to read the title:

On Behavior of and interaction with Magical Creatures; vol. Seven: Nymphs of the Wood, Water, and Sky.

Fergy put a hand over her own mouth and let out a sigh. "You have got to be kidding me. You're here to study them?!" She noticed, then, that several of the tomes scattered about the room were marked with the same insignia as the mage's robes.

The younger girl nodded vigorously.

"How did you get out here, then?"

The sorceress held up a hand, forming a circle with her pointer finger and her thumb. She stuck the opposite pointer through the ring and wiggled it around.

"I don't understand."

The sorceress repeated the gesture, a frustrated look on her face. "Compound eloquence!" she shouted, clearly annoyed.

"Okay, new subject--what the hell happened to your... to you?"

The sorceress let out a little huff, dropping her arms to her sides. She glared at Fergy for a moment, then walked past her to a bookshelf against the wall. Regarding it for a moment, she selected a tome from one of the middle shelves and laid it out on a relatively-clear table. She opened it up to the middle and pointed at it, looking at Fergy.

Fergy looked at the page in question, but, "I can't understand any of that--I've never even seen that language written down before."

The girl nodded repeatedly. Then, she pointed at the page again and shrugged melodramatically and pointed at herself. After that, she wiggled her fingers at the book--and then slapped the page with her palm, formed a fist, and thrust the fist in her own face, opening it up and wiggling her fingers again. With this last motion, she made a little "pssssh" sound with her mouth.

"Oh, wow, that is unfortunate," Fergy replied. "Your translation spell backfired and hit you in the face--so, if what little I know about magic is true, the only person who can... fix it is... you. So... why haven't you fixed it?"

Looking impatient, the sorceress pointed at her mouth and rolled her eyes.

"The... fix is a verbal spell. Amazing--someone with worse luck than ours!" Fergy couldn't help but grin. "So are you just screwed for life, or what?"

The sorceress pointed at her mouth again and wiggled her fingers, then spread her palms apart; then, she pointed at herself, and placed her palms much closer together. "Apricot snowfall..."

"You need a more skilled magic-user."

The girl nodded.

"Have you tried writing? This pantomime garbage is going to get tiring fast."

The girl nodded again, and found a third book to show Fergy; this ones pages were blank for the most part, but at the front of the book was what looked like utter gibberish--random words with no apparent relation, written in lines as if they were actual sentences.

"Okay, look. I think I can help you out here, would you like that?"

The girl nodded.

"Do you have a way to leave the tower other than going through the forest?"

Another nod--and at almost the same instant, a thunderous impact rocked the tower; Fergy and the sorceress leaned against tables to steady themselves, and were suddenly bathed in a shaft of sunlight. Down below, they could hear Marcus and Brasskicker shouting and cursing. The far wall of the tower now had a massive hole in it. Peering down over the ledge, Fergy could see a large boulder down below.

Marcus looked up at her; she could just barely make out a redness on the side of his face. Blood, probably. "I think your green lady-friend outside is tired of waiting on us to come out," he called up. "And she smashed our keg."

The sorceress was suddenly beside her, looking down at the men below; then, a look of confusion came across her face and she turned her gaze to Fergy and said, "Thesis horseback arrogant grasslands?" Her tone was as bewildered as her expression, but it was pretty clear what she was asking.

"I may have set the queen nymph on fire before we came here."

"Quantum philandry?!"

"I had a good reason!"

Down below, Marcus examined the boulder, and the hole it had made. He blinked and wiped the side of his face against his shoulder, staining his jacket with blood. Best he could tell, a bit of shrapnel from the shattered wall--the same kind of shrapnel that was all over the floor now--had caught him in the temple. It wasn't a serious wound, but like most head wounds, it was bleeding profusely. The big man was already feeling a little light-headed, and was trying to keep himself focused.

He managed to catch a glimpse of the second boulder through the hole the first one left, and just barely had enough time to shout "Incoming!" before it hit the side of the structure. The impact shook the tower again, but the wall held somehow, and outside he heard the muffled thud of the boulder landing in the ashes.

Brasskicker was at the doorway, shouting madly; "Ye'll 'ave to do better'n that, ye old bag!"

"Brasskicker," Marcus said calmly, "Come take a look at this. There's something up with this rock." There were several odd depressions in the boulder, almost like scraping, and strange cracks scored the surface. The dwarf hobbled over, and as he examined the boulder Marcus could hear Fergy and the sorceress upstairs, arguing. Or at least, that's what Fergy's half of the conversation sounded like--the other woman's words didn't make any sense to him. It sounded like, somehow, she and his wife had come to some sort of verbal understanding.

"Ye hear that?" Brasskicker murmured.

"What, them?"

The dwarf shook his head, leaning down close to the boulder. "Ne'er been in a dwarven city, have ye? No fire, no light, gotta have good hearin'."

Marcus just stared at him. "Why no fire?"

"T'dangerous--something goes up, fire sucks all the air out--jes' trust me on this, lad, en't really got time t'explain, ye know?" he interrupted himself inpatiently, "I got pretty damn good hearin', and there's somethin' movin' 'round in there."

"I think we should probably move away from it."

"Ye think we should prolly move away from it?!" Brasskicker shouted. "Ye think so, do ye?! Well screw that!" The dwarf leaned down and threw his shoulder against the boulder, rolling it towards the door; as he did so bits of the rock started to break out and fall to the floor. It looked like an egg hatching.

"Shit," Marcus muttered, moving to help Brasskicker. "Queen's more devious than I figured."

"No kiddin', lad," the dwarf replied, giving the boulder one last shove out the door; as he slammed it shut, Marcus caught a glimpse of whatever was stored inside as it "hatched"--long, sinewy vines, which seemed to be growing larger by the second.

"We might just be well and truly screwed," he muttered, vaguely amazed.

"Best I can tell, lad, that wall o' fire out there en't just yer normal fire," the dwarf said, looking upwards into the higher areas of the tower. "'Tis a magic shield o' some kind. Queen's not gonna have a lot o' power in here, and we know she cannae cross it 'erself."

"She's throwing over those things, whatever they are," Marcus said, continuing the dwarf's line of thinking, "Hoping to hit us, maybe?"

"Mebbe." Brasskicker brushed himself off. "Thing had plenty o' time to grab me, didn' do snot." He tried to peek through a crack in the door, probably split open by the impact of the attack. "Jes' sittin' there now," he said after a moment. "But gettin' bigger. Weird. Y'ougthta tell yer lass t' get a move on with wha'ever plan they got goin' on up there, aye?"

"Aye." Marcus looked up into the tower again, trying to figure out which floor Fergy was on now. He started to shout for her when a third impact rocked the tower, this one higher up. He could hear the boulder tumbling down the side of the structure--then nothing, the noise stopped. The tell-tale sound of the boulder hitting bottom never came.

"Oy, lad." Brasskicker was still peeking out the door. "Bloody thing's lookin' at me. Friggin' eyeballs on it."

"Oh, well, that's just fantastic, isn't it? Queen of the forest's taking a peek. Oy! Fergy, love! We need to get a move on!"

Fergy's head appeared two floors above the bottom. "Look," she called down, "I think we've got a thing figured out. There's this thing up here--I think it's some kind of magic transport, a portal. We're working on a way to get the two of you up here to it. How're things down there, baby?"

Marcus' voice floated up to her. "Decidedly distressing. We're running out of time."

Fergy frowned. "Just a little longer." She turned back to the flat disk of light--the portal, or at least that's what she thought the sorceress was trying to tell her. It certainly felt like one; standing in front of it, if she got close enough, she could feel a warm, muggy, tropical breeze. Whatever was on the other side, it was overwhelmingly pleasant.

The sorceress was busy rummaging around the room of jars, clearly looking for something. What it was, Fergy had no idea. The younger girl had her tailless cat stuffed into the neckline of her robes, its little head poking out under the girl's chin.

Fergy watched her for a moment, then asked, "Look, don't you have some rope? Nothing fancy, just a length of rope. Maybe half as long as the ground floor is tall would be enough."

The sorceress just looked at her, and muttered, "Taters." She started searching again, then stopped suddenly, her eyes staring across the empty space at the far wall. Fergy followed her line of sight and took a small step backwards: hanging there in the hole in the wall, about level with the floor above them, was a plant. It wasn't moving, just hanging there and slowly getting bigger. And looking at them.

"That's... eerie." It took Fergy a moment, but it dawned on her that the plant thing wasn't looking at just them, but in lots of places, above and below them.

She could hear the sorceress murmuring, more gibberish words, but now she sounded legitimately scared.

And suddenly it dawned on Fergy what it was the plant was looking for. "That thing--" she snapped out at the sorceress, "That lantern thing upstairs, at the very top--that's what's making the wall of fire, isn't it?"

The sorceress just nodded once.

"The nymph is aiming," Fergy hissed, then let out a string of profanities. And then she could hear it, the wind-like sound of something flying through the air; a shadow passed over the hole in the wall, and Fergy had just enough time to throw her arm over the sorceress' head and yank her down to the floor before a fourth boulder smashed through the tower, much higher than the previous three. She caught a brief glimpse of it as it sailed into the top floor above them, and heard it smashing through the floor into the empty room between the lantern and the portal. The sound was immediately interrupted by a metallic impact as the boulder hit the spiraling stairs, a long chunk of which immediately came crashing through the ceiling and landed, horizontal, on the floor only a hand's breadth away.

Fergy stood up and looked out the hole--the wall of fire was still up. "You missed!" she shouted.

They wouldn't get that lucky again, and Fergy knew it. Without a word, she threw herself into shoving the stairs towards the ledge, the hard metal screeching in protest as it scraped against the stonework. She hardly noticed when the sorceress, panic still in her eyes, started shoving with her. A moment later the stairs toppled over and fell to the ground level with a clang.

Marcus had to dive out of the way, but as soon as he saw what Fergy had thrown down to them he knew what her plan was. It was simple, the kind of simplicity that only came from accidental boons. With a look to Brasskicker, he lifted the stairs up and leaned them against the wall, then held them steady as the dwarf scrambled up them, cursing. It wasn't quite to the second level above them, but he could jump. The dwarf hit the ledge with his stomach and grunted--his gun slipped off his shoulder and fell to the floor with a clatter. After a moment of stumpy legs dangling over the ledge, Brasskicker vanished, only to reappear a moment later to help Marcus once the big man had made it to the top of the makeshift stairway; it fell away below him.

"Dropped me gun," Brasskicker muttered,

Marcus replied curtly: "Not worth it."

Another impact rocked the tower, another boulder smashed its way onto the top floor, and all four pair of eyes turned to look out the ravaged wall--just in time to see the wall of fire go out.

"We are so bloody screwed," Brasskicker shouted. It only took a few seconds for Marcus and Brasskicker to reach the next level up, the room with the portal in it. There, they found Fergy and the sorceress waiting before the flat disk.

Marcus gave his wife a kiss, muttered, "I love you," and before she could protest he shoved her bodily through into the light, following immediately after.

Fergy squeezed her eyes shut and let out a shout as she hit the portal--a shock passed through her, and for an instant before she blacked out she was very, very cold.

As the woman passed through the portal, the duo still behind her watched as the warm, golden light shifted suddenly to white, followed by a blast of cold air and a biting, freezing wind; the round portal began to waver, destabilizing. Brasskicker turned and glared at the sorceress, whose eyes were as wide as saucers.

"Weren' s'posed t' do that, were it?" the dwarf snapped.

She took two steps back and shook her head--and Brasskicker grabbed her by the wrist and dove through the portal, taking her light frame with him.