Campfire Stories

The road from Ostigan to Centa Muis guided Lavenza and Deme back to the imperial border. Between the conditions of the horses and a long spell of snow that did not stick, the journey took an additional week of travel.

Lavenza spent much of that week alone.

During the day, Deme exchanged stories with Samuel and Old Calvin. Like Ariadne, Samuel had never heard of Rafta before. He was a common smith to the local lord, but he shared Old Calvin’s appreciation for the craftsmanship of Deme’s father’s armor.

“I wouldn’t know how to begin making something like this,” Samuel whistled. “There’s magic weaved into the armor, yes?”

“Some of it comes from the material itself,” Old Calvin explained. “It wasn’t uncommon in my day to be given steel or iron laced with a few magical spells or crystals. It was sometimes so faint people didn’t know what they were buying. The more impressive feat in the armor Deme is the layering. There’s a sheet of magic between the metal and the linen padding.”

“For protection?” Samuel asked.

“For comfort too!"

“My father handled magic items frequently,” Deme said. “He taught me how to maintain the armor’s essence, to keep mana from within from fraying apart, to even strengthen it if necessary.”

“I’m jealous,” Samuel frowned. “All the interesting stuff was handled by the lord’s smith up by the bailey. I only filled menial requisitions. Nails, horseshoes, fixed a few broken wagons.”

“Get across The Opposing Shore, and everything changes,” Old Calvin smiled. “There will be plenty of need for blacksmiths in the new world. We can open a forge together."

“I’d be honored, Calvin.”

During the evenings, Deme shared with Ariadne and her midwife the responsibility of cooking meals. They all possessed little in way of proper ingredients. Deme and Lavenza’s cache of spices and seasoning had long expired, but they supplemented sour apples and stale bread with what game they still had preserved.

“Rabbit? Duck?” Ariadne raised her eyebrows at the sight of meat. “Did you hunt these, Deme?”

“No,” Deme pointed to Lavenza, who meditated beneath a lone sycamore. “Venz caught them.”

“Really? And you keep the bodies, where?”

“We store them. Lavenza’s a spatial magic expert,” Deme explained, then simplified things when it was clear Ariadne didn’t understand. “She uses magic to keep the meat fresh.”

“It’s been so long since I handled meat,” Ariadne murmured. “Can I leave you to prepare it?”

“Of course!”

At night, Old Calvin and Samuel parked their carriages off the side of the road. While the horses munched on gruel, dinner was served over a cozy campfire. Portions were modest, consisting of a starch like porridge topped with thin shreds of meat and sliced fruits or vegetables. Taste notwithstanding, food and company was warm.

“You can’t beat the taste of game,” Samuel sighed. “The village where I found Sister Caroline was surviving off of beans and lentils.”

“People there haven’t left yet?” Ariadne asked.

“About half of them have, the other half think it’s better to stay where they are,” Samuel shrugged. “It’s what I told Lord Ostigan too. If we worked together, built some tunnels really deep underground maybe—”

Lavenza coughed.

“Sorry,” she croaked. “Excuse me. Rabbit bones.”

“Sometimes,” Samuel continued, “it doesn’t seem right, taking my wife all the way to Centa Muis. I mean, how many ships even make it to The Opposing Shore?”

“It’d be riskier to stay,” Old Calvin replied. “Remember Her Royal Highness was the one who issued the call to leave. And remember the Royal Decree? Women and children first?”

“We don't know if we can even be granted passage,” Ariadne frowned. “Her Highness didn't include children who haven't been born.”

“Think of the viciousness of the average man,” Old Calvin muttered. “A beautiful lass like yourself. A vagabond who has not yet found passage is desperate for a way to save himself. What would he think to do if he knew an unborn baby could grant him salvation?”

Ariadne recoiled at Old Calvin’s suggestion. Samuel offered his wife a comforting embrace.

“With all due respect Calvin, I’d ask that you not say such things,” he scolded. “Perhaps we should talk about more comforting things. Lavenza, was it? Is Deme your daughter?”

Lavenza shook her head.

“We are not mother and daughter,” she said. “Why? Does she look like me?”

The band of travelers looked between her and Deme. The child squirmed in her seat from all the attention.

Even setting aside Lavenza’s tattoos and general dress, the two shared little resemblance. 

Lavenza’s skin was of a tanned complexion. Deme’s was peach white; her blushes were obvious even at night. Lavenza had auburn hair and sharp, combative eyes. Deme’s flaxen hair was thicker than Lavenza’s, she had soft blue eyes, and her gentle resting expression had more in common with the midwife, Sister Caroline, whose nonchalance could have put even the most guarded treasure hungry dragon at ease.

“I suppose not,” Samuel murmured. “And you two are headed to The Opposing Shore as well?”

“We’re headed east,” Deme answered. “We’re looking for Rafta, Samuel, remember?”

“Eastward?” Old Calvin repeated. “That’ll take you far from the harbor Deme, far from any ships that could carry you across The Great Sea.”

“It’s for my father, Old Calvin,” Deme said. “We don’t know if Rafta grows in that other world. That’s why I want to find it and finish my father’s armor.”

“You approve of this?” Old Calvin stared at Lavenza. She felt his anxiety, his suspicions. “The Royal Decree is quite clear, Mage Lavenza. Children are to be escorted to Centa Muis.”

“There is still time before the Endire darkens,” Lavenza explained. “The last ships will not sail for another half year. We will make it.”

“Actually—”

Lavenza tapped Deme’s back with the butt of her staff.

“If you two aren’t related,” Samuel asked. “How did you two meet? Did you know her father?”

“No,” she replied. “We met by chance. She was looking for someone to guide her through the Abyss, in search of Rafta. I had just begun yet another pilgrimage and—”

Lavenza paused. Earnest eyes fell upon her. Her companions looked like children who had been tucked into bed and were waiting for the next part of a great story. Her stomach churned.

“You can tell them the rest, Deme,” she said. “I’m feeling a little unwell again.”

“Venz?”

“Good night everyone.”

Lavenza left for their carriage. She did not know what they said, but both Old Calvin and Samuel muttered something beneath their breaths. She boarded the wagon and folded her arms inside her sleeves to keep warm.

“I’ll go check on her,” she heard Deme say. Boots crunched on soft snow until they stamped on the uneven dirt beside the wagon.

“Venz, are you okay?” Deme asked.

“I’m okay,” Lavenza answered. “You go tell the rest of the story. You know it better than I do.”

“They’re a little surprised that you left like that,” she said. “Is there something wrong?”

“I’m weary. That’s all.”

“They’re good people, Venz.”

“I know,” Lavenza smiled. “I would not leave you alone with them otherwise. Now run along. Tell them the rest of the story.”

Deme remained unconvinced, but she left the issue alone.

“Is she alright?” Ariadne asked when the child returned.

“She…” Deme said. “She really is just tired. She’s been casting spells for the past few weeks. It takes its toll on her.”

“Right. I can imagine,” Old Calvin shuddered. “I saw her cast a few myself. Hardly ever see a mage cast so many incantations like she does, and I’ve been around plenty of them.”

“Maybe it’s because she’s Menuan,” Ariadne added. “I hear they draw their life from the Endire itself. With the sun dying, it must be so difficult for her...”

“That’s just a superstition, honey,” Samuel laughed. “You can't believe everything you hear.”

The conversation drifted to other things. Old Calvin regaled legends that he already had shared with Deme. Samuel talked about daily life under Ostigan’s lord in the days before the village emptied. Ariadne and Sister Caroline said very little, but they kept the camp warm by throwing kindling into the fire. The midwife whispered the occasional phrase to Samuel’s wife, who giggled and rested a hand on her rotund belly.

Deme never got to tell the story of how she and Lavenza first met that night. She didn’t mind. It was not a particularly interesting story. Old Calvin’s tales of the far east proved more riveting.

The story’s ordinary nature made Lavenza’s brief departure all the more peculiar, but Deme knew it was better to not pry when the apostate kept secrets. Lavenza reserved, deep inside her heart, two types of secrets, the secrets she kept from Deme and the secrets she kept from others.

Deme did not mind that Lavenza kept things from her. She knew that a Menuan nomad, as rare as they were these days, would have never met Deme under any ordinary circumstances, would not have agreed to journey all of Aparthia in search of the rarest of flowers. Deme reasoned that there must have been secrets between them since the beginning.

But what concerned her were the secrets Lavenza kept from the others, from Old Calvin and Samuel and Ariadne. What had given Lavenza pause? What terrible truth lay embezzled in her heart, such that even the thought of telling a simple tale with her fellow travelers frightened the apostate into silence?