A Touch of Magic (20 page)
Randall looked more closely at the little creature at his feet. It seemed to be carrying something small and black. Noticing Randall’s interest, the pixie held out the little treasure, as if it meant to share with him.
“A blackberry! Well I’ll be! I thought it was too early in the season for berries. Thanks little guy!” Randall exclaimed excitedly as he reached for the treat, only to be surprised when the creature snatched the treat out of Randall’s grasp and scampered backwards a few feet.
“Stingy devil,” Randall laughed. “If you don’t want me to have it, that’s fine. I’m just glad to have you back!”
But the little brown creature extended the treat again, waiting patiently, as if hoping to share it with Randall. But when he stepped forward to reach for it, the creature once again scampered away skittishly. After clambering out of arms reach, it once again held the little berry aloft toward him. After a couple of failed attempts at accepting the offered berry, Randall began to realize that the little pixie was leading him in the same direction every time it scampered away.
“Oh, I get it!” he said, giggling as enlightenment hit him. “You want me to follow you! Well, lead the way!”
The words were barely out of Randall’s mouth when the sprite dropped the berry, spun, and quickly scampered off. Randall raced to keep up, though the creature had a significant advantage; it ran and hopped gracefully through the underbrush as Randall splashed clumsily after it. Occasionally the little man would stop and look back over its shoulder as if to ensure he was following it. Each time Randall caught up with the imp, it would resume its madcap rush through the marsh.
They must have traveled a mile before it showed any signs of slowing down. Randall found himself in a marshy meadow, with large areas of more-or-less solid ground. His new friend dashed off to a clump of blackberry vines thick with ripe berries. There it plopped itself down, picked one of the scrumptious morsels, and began eating. Randall sat down nearby, wary of the thorny vines, and began plucking the dark, juicy berries and tossing them in his mouth.
“These are perfect!” he exclaimed after eating a half-dozen of the sweet morsels. “Thanks little guy! I’ve been wondering if I should come up with a name for you, and I think I’ll just call you Berry!”
The creature paused in its gluttony and glanced sideways at Randall as he made his pronouncement, but quickly returned to stuffing its face with fresh blackberries. Randall laughed and followed suit. After eating two or three dozen berries, Randall sighed.
“Well, Berry, I suppose I should get to work picking some of these so that we have something sweet to eat over the next couple of days!” As Randall stood to begin harvesting the crop of wild blackberries, Berry finished the morsel he had been eating, and quickly scampered up Randall’s leg and onto his accustomed place on his shoulder.
Randall spent the rest of the morning gathering berries and putting them into his journey sack. He’d gathered a couple of gallons of the sweet treats by mid-day, not bothering to stop for lunch. Eating as he harvested kept the hunger at bay, but Randall knew that he’d have to start catching some live game soon. These berries would probably only last the both of them a couple of days at most. It was time to add some meat to their diet.
Randall was bent over and plucking another ripe blackberry when he heard a distinctive hooting sound. It was almost like the high-pitched laughter of a madman. It was a sound that the mothers in his village used to frighten misbehaving children, and one that children used to scare each other with around the campfire. Even though he had never actually heard the sound before, he knew it instantly.
“Bog-wights!” Randall swore, under his breath.
He crouched down, quickly scanning the meadow around him for any sign of the creatures. He didn’t see them, but he knew they had to be close. He drew his knife from the sheath as quietly as he could, and began creeping back the way he had come. Berry was agitated too. He clung to his vantage point on Randall’s shoulder, on all fours, chittering angrily. The mocking call of the bog-wight came again, and Randall quickly shushed his companion.
“Hush, Berry!” Randall whispered through clenched teeth. “You want them to hear us?”
Berry quieted down at the admonition, but Randall could still feel him clinging to his shoulder, tense and stiff-legged. The sound of Randall creeping through the grass was the only sound in the meadow, and Randall grimaced every time he took a step and crunched grass or rustled against a bush. After several long minutes, Randall began to hope that they might get away. He had almost reached the edge of the meadow and the relative safety of cover when they heard the call of the bog-wight again, loud, and close! And then, the beasts were upon them.
The bog-wights streamed into the meadow from nearly all directions, trapping Randall and Berry inside. The brutes nearest Randall reared up on their legs, bellowing their maddening laughter. Randall fell backwards, heart pounding. Up close, the bog-wights looked like some grotesque cross between an ape and a human. Their bodies were incredibly muscular and they stood hunched over, like a great ape, but completely hairless. The skin was wrinkled and pasty white, almost as if the beasts had been dusted with chalk or flour. And the stench! Now that they were upon him, Randall gagged at their ripe odor, cloyingly sweet, mingled with the smell of something long dead. The scent was thick and relentless, and Randall found himself gasping in shallow breaths so as not to take it all in.
But it was their faces that unnerved him the most. It was no wonder that some people thought of these creatures as ghosts. Their faces were human!
Unlike the rest of the body, which was covered in folds and wrinkles, the face was smooth-skinned and vibrant. The lips curved up ever so slightly, giving the impression of a youthful serenity. If Randall were to imagine a painting of a saint at peace, he might imagine it with just such a face. It was only when the bog-wight curled its lips back and opened its fang-filled mouth that the illusion was shattered.
As the circle of bog-wights quickly closed on Randall and Berry, Randall struggled to fight down his panic and remember what Master Erliand had taught him about these monstrosities. While part of his mind raced in panic, the other part struggled to remember that these weren’t the ghosts of men.
They are only animals!
Randall tried telling himself. It did little to alleviate his fear.
And then he remembered something else: they liked to attack from behind! And Randall was in their trap! He had no more time to think; the bog-wights had nearly closed in behind him, and then he would be trapped on all sides.
Gathering up his courage, he screamed at the beast closest to him, and launched himself forward into an attack. The bog-wight leapt backwards, but Randall managed to deal it a vicious cut to the arm as he pressed the attack. He slashed again, just missing the animal’s midsection when he felt a stunning blow to his temple. In attacking the bog-wight, he had turned his attention away from another, a near-fatal mistake.
Randall rolled forward with the blow as best as he could, springing to his feet at the end of the tumble. He was out of the circle! He hit the ground running and pumped his legs as hard as he could to escape the dangerous beasts. There was no way he could face a dozen of these creatures and live! Whichever animal he faced down, the others would slip around behind him, and attack him from his blind spots. His best hope was to simply outrun them.
Randall had caught the creatures off guard, and gained the advantage of a momentary head start as he sprinted into the marsh. His hope to outrun them was short-lived, however, as the creatures quickly began to overtake him. The marsh was these creatures’ home, and where Randall stumbled and caromed through the marsh plants, the bog-wights moved with speed and grace. They would catch up to him very soon, and when they did, that would be the end of it. Even with horses and armor, militiamen sometimes returned with grave injuries after going on a bog-wight raid—and Randall had neither.
His only hope lie in magic. He wasn’t sure what he would do with it, but as he ran, he began desperately trying to draw power from Llandra. His headlong flight through the marsh was proving to be too distracting, however. Randall couldn’t concentrate on drawing power and pay attention to where he put his feet at the same time. But he couldn’t stop running, or the bog-wights would be on him in an instant. As the panic welled up inside of him, he felt an odd sensation from his shoulder.
Berry! Randall had forgotten all about him! Berry was purring, like the day Randall had first met the sprite. Something about the soft vibration at his shoulder was immensely comforting. Momentarily lost in the feeling, Randall forgot about his fear and stopped running. At this momentary instant of calm, Llandra opened itself, and he could feel the raw power pouring into him.
The euphoria hit him in an instant as well.
Why am I running from these…animals?
He thought to himself in disdain.
I am a Mage! These creatures are nothing!
Randall turned to face the pack of bog-wights. They, too, sensed the power coursing through Randall, and they stopped abruptly a few yards away, no longer confident in their aggression.
“What are you afraid of?” Randall screamed at them. “I thought you wanted a piece of me! Well, come and get me!”
With each word Randall screamed, he drew more and more power from Llandra, and the bog-wights flinched back further, milling about in uncertainty.
“Well, come on!” Randall yelled, taking a step forward and causing the beasts to retreat back skittishly. At the edge of the pack, a pair of them turned tail and fled, disappearing into the marsh.
With each determined step that Randall took toward the creatures, they retreated back even further, giving him a wide berth. The pack began to lose cohesion, losing members with every passing moment. But still, the largest of the bog-wights would not back down completely. Randall exuded power in a palpable aura, and a half dozen of the beasts stayed just on the periphery, hooting and snarling. They would not enter that circle of power, but nor would they so easily give up the prey within it.
It was then that Randall felt a sharp tugging in deep in his guts. Something was tugging at his seat of power. It wasn’t exactly like when he powered the Buk rune and the power ran away from him. It was like he was holding onto all of this power, but that something wanted to use it, to put it to some purpose. Not knowing for sure what he was doing, Randall relaxed his hold on the magic he had leeched from Llandra.
At that moment, to Randall’s surprise, Berry spoke! And what he spoke was a Word. The power fled Randall instantly, followed by an intense thunderclap and a concussive wave that nearly knocked him from his feet. The nearest of the bog-wights that had remained literally exploded from the inside out, spraying guts, blood, flesh and bone fragments in all directions.
This, finally, was too much for the remaining beasts to bear, and they fled back into the marsh, screeching and yelping. Drained to the point of exhaustion, Randall dropped to his knees. He turned his head sideways, trying to get a look at his diminutive friend.
“You….spoke,” Randall managed to get out before passing out on the marsh floor.
Randall woke some time later, damp and stiff-jointed. It was late afternoon, so he had probably only been asleep an hour or two at most. Berry was perched next to Randall’s travel sack, nibbling on a blackberry.
“Hey, Berry,” Randall started, hesitantly. “I…I didn’t know you could talk.”
At the sound of Randall’s voice, Berry looked up momentarily from his meal. But then he quickly went back to his dinner.
“Oh, come on!” Randall cried in exasperation. “Magic then! You can do magic, right?”
Berry cocked his head, but gave no indication that he had understood a single word. He finished off the last of the morsel he had been nibbling on and reached into the sack for another.
“Fine, whatever,” Randall grumped. “Have it your own way.”
Annoyed, Randall scooped up the sack and Berry with one hand, and resumed his march northward.
Over the next few days, Randall and Berry saw no further sign of the bog-wights. If any lurked nearby, they had learned their lesson and were giving the pair of travelers a wide berth. The two friends traveled through the swamp much as they had been before the bog-wight incident, with stinging insects and poison sumac the pair’s only serious obstacles.
Because they were constantly on the move, Randall didn’t have the opportunity to trap any small game animals like he had hoped. And truthfully, he wasn’t even sure what kind of small game he could trap in the marsh. Even so, he did manage to add a little protein to their diet by catching a half-dozen large black eels. These he prepared for the journey by carefully filleting and smoking over an open fire. Between rests, he would tie the eel pieces with leather cord and hang them over his shoulder and from his belt so that they could continue to air dry. Every time Randall stopped to camp, he would start a fire and smoke the eel a little longer.
After a few days, the combination of alternating air drying and smoking left the eels bone dry and nearly rock hard. At this stage, the pieces of eel in Randall’s travel sack resembled dried out driftwood more than food, but Randall had seen his mother prepare black eels this way every spring for as far back as he could remember. Eel preserved like this might keep for months, or perhaps even years without spoiling. Not that dried eel ever lasted that long in the Miller family household.
Eel soup made for an extremely tasty dinner. Randall would bring some water to a boil in the tiny cook-pot his mother had packed into the travel sack. Into the boiling water he would throw whatever edible roots, mushrooms, and herbs he could find nearby. Then, he would take his knife and whittle shavings from the dried eel into the water, just like one might whittle wood. Shaved thin, the eel parings would rehydrate and cook in almost no time at all. In minutes, he would have a very rich and flavorful broth.
The meal was a favorite springtime treat in his home, and the smell of it cooking brought back painful feelings of homesickness. For the most part, he was able to distract himself by Berry’s hilarious antics at dinner time. It turned out that the little brown man was completely and hopelessly in love with the eel concoction.
Whenever Randall would get out the cook-pot, Berry would immediately begin chittering and hopping excitedly, while running from Randall to the campfire and back again. Randall would put the water on to boil, and begin scouring the area near the campsite for any edible flora. Berry would race along ahead, trying to help by bringing him bits of various marsh plants and insects.
Randall would often find himself laughing at the crazy things that Berry would bring to him in the hopes of getting dinner started sooner. The little imp obviously had no concept of what kinds of ingredients would make a good soup. He would gather twigs, moss, grass, grubs and other assorted bugs, presenting each to Randall excitedly. Randall would pretend to solemnly judge each item for its suitability for the evening meal. Almost nothing Berry brought actually made it into the cook-pot, but when it did, Berry would chitter and squeak proudly as
his
ingredient was added to the stew.
But the most entertaining behavior by far was after Randall had shaved the eel into the pot, and taken it off of the fire to steep. Berry would try to imitate Randall, sitting patiently as they waited for the soup to cool. This only lasted a minute, at most, before Berry would start chittering and fidgeting. Then he would eventually creep toward the pot, and chitter at it excitedly while pacing back and forth. Inevitably, he would be unable to control himself, and leap on the lip of the pot, trying to score a mouthful of soup before the heat forced him to leap back off.
Randall would double over with laughter while watching his little friend leap to the lip of the pot, yelp, and leap back off, chittering angrily and scolding the pot for thwarting his desire. Then, seconds later, the little pixie would repeat the performance, as if the pot would have cooled any in such a short time.
Once the pot had cooled enough and Randall had run out of laughter, Berry would perch himself on the lip of the pot, bend over with great care, and drink noisily until satiated. After filling up on soup, the little sprite would leap off the side of the pot and curl up, with his hands around his belly, purring contentedly. Berry’s behavior was exceedingly charming, and helped stave off the loneliness which surely would have set in by now if Randall had been travelling alone.
As the pair traveled northward through the marsh, Randall saw with great relief that the marshlands were beginning to give way to meadows and grassy fields. As the ground became drier, and the scrub bushes and the mangroves of the marsh were replaced by ordinary bushes and grasses, Randall felt himself letting go of an inner tension that he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying. They had made it through Black Eel Marsh! Randall’s mood improved further with each passing step that distanced them from the dangerous wetlands.
“I guess I really didn’t expect to live through the marsh,” Randall said, breathing a sigh of relief.
Berry chittered from his customary vantage point on Randall’s shoulder, as if in agreement. Observing his friend, Randall came to a conclusion.
“You know, Berry,” he said. “I don’t think you really understand me at all. You’re definitely some kind of fae, like Master Erliand mentioned. But you don’t seem very bright. I think you must be some elf’s pet or something. Still, it’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
Randall imagined Berry riding on an elf prince’s shoulder, dressed up in tiny finery and ribbons, chittering and purring. It seemed to make sense that an elf might teach its pet some magic, much like he might teach a dog to sit or do other tricks. He shuddered to think what kind of elf would teach its pet a trick the likes of which he saw displayed in the swamp, though. Master Erliand might be right—it would be better to stay completely away from them!
A day later, by the time they had left the marshlands completely behind them, Randall began wondering exactly where they were. Paranol was just north-east of the marsh, but Randall wasn’t sure just how far that was from their current location. He decided that they would just walk northeasterly until they ran into some sign or landmark that would help him get his bearings. Once he knew where he was, he’d start figuring out a plan for where to go next. In the marsh, Randall’s thoughts were only centered on surviving another night. Now that he had made it through safely, he needed to focus on the bigger picture.
When Randall made camp for the night, he remarked to Berry at how much nicer it would be to sleep on dry ground rather than within the wet borders of the marsh. Growing up, Randall would have never thought that he would appreciate sleeping on the hard ground as much as he did that night.
The next day, Randall decided to continue on to Paranol. He hoped that the militia would have given up on him once he entered the Black Eel Marsh. Given a good reason, the militiamen of Geldorn would prefer to sit in the relative peace of Frank’s Inn downing ale. Once Randall reached Paranol, he would scout out the roads to make sure that there were no soldiers on patrol looking for him.
After another day’s travel on the plains, Randall got some clue that he wasn’t anywhere near Paranol. The pair of traveling companions started running into the occasional oak and beech tree, and as they continued to travel, it wasn’t long before they were out of the plains completely and were within the borders of some kind of woodland.
Randall didn’t know much about the geography of Tallia, but he was pretty sure there wasn’t a forest between Geldorn and Paranol. His father had never mentioned it, and he’d never heard anyone else mention it either. They must have come out of Black Eel Marsh much further off course than he had expected.
“No matter,” Randall found himself telling Berry. “We’ll just follow the tree line to the east. It should put us back more or less on track.” The confidence in his voice belied his inner uncertainty.
They traveled along the sparsely wooded edge of the forest for the better part of a day. Near evening, they ran across a trail just inside the tree line. It wasn’t a road so much as it was trodden path of bare earth snaking through the forest, heading in a vaguely east-west direction. There were ruts in the trail, obviously made by a cart or wagon, but the path wasn’t well-trodden. Half overgrown with vegetation, there were points where the trail disappeared completely, forcing Randall to scout ahead until he picked it up again. Still, the sparse path gave him hope, which he latched onto like a drowning man latches onto a rope.
“Ah ha!” he said to Berry, “This trail
has
to lead to Paranol! It’s going the right direction, and I don’t know of any other cities or towns that lie near there. We’re going to make it after all!”
Berry reacted to the joy in Randall’s voice by lifting his head up and chittering excitedly. Then he stretched his arms and legs into a large yawn and curled up on Randall’s shoulder, purring loudly.
“You’re right,” Randall laughed. “It’s getting late. I’ll make camp here close to the trail. I think it’ll be safe. It doesn’t look well-traveled at all.”
And with that, Randall began the routine of making camp. After making a dinner of eel soup, along with Berry’s hilarious antics, Randall doused the fire, made a bedroll, and curled up to sleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Randall was roughly awakened by something prodding his shoulder. He was so tired from his travels that it took him a couple of moments to realize that it was the tip of a boot. Sleep fled quickly as Randall grabbed his dagger sheath and rolled out of his makeshift bedroll. He rolled smoothly to his feet and crouched in a low fighting posture, ready for anything.
“The boy’s got reflexes,” said the man who had been toeing him. “Whatcha think?” The man’s companion merely grunted in response.
“Hey boy, what are you doing out here, in the middle of nowhere?” the man asked, this time the question was directed at Randall.
“Sleeping, obviously,” Randall retorted sarcastically, trying to size his opponents up and shake the cobwebs from his head.
The man who had been prodding Randall with his boot was on the short side. He was probably an inch shorter than Randall. His hair was dark, long, and a little greasy. He had an equally long mustache, and a goatee to go with it. His hair was held in place by a leather cord acting as a headband. He wore a studded leather jerkin over his tunic, and had a dagger at his hip, which was still in the sheath. The hard lines of his weather-beaten face gave him the look of a fighting man. If Randall had been asked to draw a picture of a highway bandit, he couldn’t have done a better job than an image of the man standing before him.
His companion was more neatly kept. He wore a colorful hat, underneath which flowed long, clean hair that was so light brown it was almost blonde. He had no beard, but his mustache was neatly styled and waxed. He wore an equally colorful tunic and leather breeches. He didn’t look like a fighting man at all. He looked like he would be more at home in some nobleman’s court than tromping about the woods after dark.
Randall had a hard time imagining such an unlikely pair being robbers, but he couldn’t fathom why else they would be out here in the middle of nowhere. Nor could he think of a good reason for them to be accosting him in the middle of the night. Randall’s dagger was still in the sheath, but he kept a firm grip on the weapon’s handle. He couldn’t see any sign of Berry, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off of the strangers to look for him.
“Look, boy, I ain’t got time for your lip,” the man growled while resting his hand on the hilt of his own dagger. “Let’s keep things civil, all right? If we had wanted to kill or rob you, it would have been easy enough to do the job while you slept. So, I’ll ask again. What are you doing out here?”
No matter how roughshod the man looked, his logic was inescapable. They
could
have killed him if they had wanted to. Randall’s mind raced, trying to come up with a plausible excuse to tell the men. Randall had no idea if the news of his flight from Geldorn had reached the surrounding countryside, but he didn’t want to give these men any reason to be suspicious of him. For all he knew, they might think he was a robber himself.
Randall recalled Master Erliand’s advice when it came to lying: Tell a story people expect to hear. Since he had started this trip drilling on how to act like a caravan master’s apprentice, it seemed like a good idea to stick to the same story. Randall didn’t think he could invent a better one on the spot. He wasn’t that good of a liar.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Randall said. “I’m just awful scared. We were on the road when my master was killed two, maybe three weeks ago! I’ve been trying to find my way to Paranol ever since!”
Randall was surprised at how much desperation and anguish came through in his voice. He didn’t have to put on an act; the events of the last couple of weeks had strained his nerves to the breaking point, and he found himself on the verge of tears just talking about his problems with another human being.
“All right, boy, just calm down,” the man said gently. “We ain’t gonna hurt you none, so you’re safe. So, you’re ‘prenticed then? Just how old are you anyway? Twelve, thirteen? You look awful young to be a caravan guard to me.”
“Fifteen,” Randall shot back hotly. During the time he had stayed at Master Erliand’s house, he had forgotten that he looked much younger than he actually was.
