A Dangerous Plan

A month passed since Joshua had joined them, and Ol-Lozen’s patience for the boy had worn thin two weeks prior.

Joshua had his uses, and become a fine companion for the road: he knew the basics of care for a beast of burden like Jackbee, how to keep his fur clean of debris and insects, what properly motived an animal to keep moving through mud-sodden terrain, up steep gradients, rivers in need of fording where the waters foamed on sharp rocks and dams; he knew techniques in crafting snares, how to apply them in practice for catching smaller woodland animals with good meats and versatile skins; he knew the basics of cooking, in that he’d learned a dozen variations on suppers both edible and tasteless, and understood how porridge could be improved with spice and flavor if he’d ever once decided to apply that knowledge; he knew his clothes would thin from wear, and carried tools to sew tears shut and mend holes larger than his thumb; what he did not grasp, however, was the concept of idleness, having been born into a lifestyle where nearly every moment was spent in maintenance or farm labor. A raggedly cut void gaped in his lexicon where “twiddling thumbs” had been, as opposed to Ol-Lozen’s bronzed and polished plaque bearing the phrase.

“Of all the stories my Da’ told me of magi, birds keeping conversation with one never came up. I don’t think the sight will ever sit well with me.”

“Uh-huh,” mumbled Ol-Lozen.

“What a little pest I was to the winged things will one day come back to bite me. I used to throw stones to make them fly away. When I was only a few summers old, I chased one, this dopey blue thing with green feathers, flying close to the ground all the way to the trees, and collected pockets of sticks and dirt to badger it with, up in the branches.”

“I suppose,” he replied, needle held between thick fingers. Woven string curved through its eye.

“What about the ones I ate? Did they all have thoughts to share?” Joshua began to look sick. “If I ate your brother, wouldn’t you want a piece of me back in revenge?”

“Fascinating.” The needle pierced the goatskin he held easily; he tied it back to make a stitch. Only a hundred to go, and another two hundred chances to prick himself before the gloves were finished. If it happened fewer than the five times yesterday, he’d consider it a victory.

Joshua observed Daigay and the crows on her shoulder, tapping his foot on the tufts of hard grass. “And Mouse can talk to that spider of hers.”

“What a world.”

“Wrapped in all this magi nonsense day after day. How you manage it, I can’t imagine.” He looked at the start of Ol-Lozen’s leatherwork, impressed with the scale of it, and feeling a lick entertained by the comically small needle in comparison. “If only you could tell me your secrets,” he murmured.

“No, do go on.” The next stitch started giving trouble. One of the layers was harder than the other, and he feared bending the needle if he continued pushing straight. He went in at an angle instead. Feeling small resistance he shoved down, and pain sprouted in his thumb as the needle bit into flesh. Uttering a curse, he pulled back to inspect the wound and found a small bead of blood had welled up. Joshua bit off a chuckle when the tusked face snapped to his. With a growl he popped the thumb into his mouth, letting saliva handle the hole with magic born of biology. It gave him another chance to gaze out over the vista.

They’d made camp at the summit of a rocky crag, at the cliff face, overlooking the land after a grueling day of climbing. From there was a view miles out, offering sight of the sun descending to the west. Orange glow ruled the sky, and the first tails of purple were already snaking their way forth. Shadows lengthened in the valley below, cast by the smattering of leafy trees with their branches hanging low to the ground, lending appearance of overgrown bushes in the expansive fields of long brown grasses. As their dinner cooked over the firepit, Ol-Lozen stirring occasionally with his uninjured hand, it made a wonderous sight to rest upon.

“Burn it into your eyes, chain it down with your best and heaviest locks,” Daigay had said. “You may not see another like this for a long while.”

The magus had seated herself at the mountain’s shelf where a boulder had sunk partway. Magic sent with the winds had drawn a pair of crows to her, and she had wiled away the past hours in back-and-forth cawing meant for “gathering insight” into the next leg of travel. She had only a stale loaf to offer these guests, and a small collection of glittering gems taken from her cloak. The glassy eyed birds had pecked at the stones before accepting bread, scrap by brittle scrap. Thankfully, these had not shown interest in Ol-Lozen’s sword. Yet.

Unlike a certain boy. Thanks to his pestering, Ol-Lozen had added their people’s word for “sword” to those bits he recognized, along with “demon,” and “book,” and “needs salt.” Joshua eyed it even now, scenes of heroism involving a young man and his unstoppable blade clear on his face as the stain of black powder dusting his upper lip, unaware that swinging the sword – Gods forbid, touching it, Ol-Lozen thought – would cease him.

With a caw-caw to frighten the morning worms, the birds stuffed with bread plucked a stone each from Daigay’s palms before departing, their flight pathing down the mountainside towards nests unseen. She returned the remaining stones to an inside pocket.

In the wagon, Daigay located a particular satchel. From its contents she drew out a grey pouch made from deerskin, tied with cord: top to bottom, and side to side. Mouse watched over the edge of her tome as she unlaced the pouch. She rested against a barrel stocked with apples tucked into the bed’s corner, where sunlight did not fall. The wagon was nearly full with crates and tall containers. The last village they’d passed through had much to offer in exchange for a magus’ arts.

“Found a good volume?” Daigay asked. “You’ve had that one in your lap the last three days.”

“Healing arts,” replied Mouse. She turned a yellowed page to a diagram of a skeleton with the various bones and their names written out.

“That all?”

“That’s all, grandma.”

Daigay’s brow crinkled. “Well, find a good place to break. I need you out here with the rest while we sup. That way, I’ll only need to explain all this once.” She withdrew from the pouch a dense sheet of folded vellum, ochre with age. Some of the ink was already showing through. “Child, are you going to move yourself, or should I?

“There are two hundred six fundamental principles to memorize, grandma, along with compositions and formula. I need this time.”

“While I admire the dedication to your studies, this will only take a few minutes from you, and then you can return to reading theory. Besides, you’ve only just seen the skeleton of an anatomically standard man. There are over eight hundred sixty-four different principles, none of which will successfully salve your demon’s hurts.” Eyes wide with disbelief flicked over the book.

“How far are we from the lostlands?”

Daigay wiggled the vellum in her hand. “Closer than you think. If you’ve a willing to set aside your umbrage with me, I’d be more than happy to progress your theory to execution. Refinement, afterwards.”

Mouse closed the tome with a heavy slam, and whiffs of dust were sent twirling through the wagon. As she found a place for it, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, turning around just in time to catch the bread Daigay tossed. Crumbs scattered over the wagon bed.

“Find a place for this too, please.”

Daigay made her way to the two sitting by the firepit they’d dug, cookpot hung above and hot to the touch. Ol-Lozen had his middle finger in his mouth now, and Joshua was trying to pantomime needlework with his smaller, advantaged hands in a shoddy attempt to guide. She looked down at the steaming pot. “Smells lovely,” she said, turning her head to make certain Mouse was on her way. The girl walked slowly, taking her sweet time, as though time away from studies hadn’t been a chief complaint seconds previous.

“Should be about done by now.” Ol-Lozen set his leather down to tear with a fork at the salted beef simmering in its stew with a fork and knife. Brown all the way through gave him cause to frown. Edible, if disappointing. He hadn’t yet caught on to the secrets of cooking meat medium-rare in a pot. He picked up a bowl and ladled out a healthy portion, repeating until everyone was holding supper.

Quick as a thought, Daigay speared a chunk of something soft and maroon floating in her stew on the end of her fork, and held it up until Ol-Lozen felt the prickle of her stare. “That is a mushroom.”

He blinked dumbly. “Is that a problem? Those were among our food supplies. I figured they would make for fine flavor.”

“I’m certain they do. To anyone who hadn’t subsisted on mushrooms for upwards of two decades, I mean.” She began sifting through her bowl for further chunks of the accursed vegetable matter, each one she found plopped into Mouse’s own bowl. “Breads, spirits, pudding, drizzled on every meal like rain, chocolate, pastries, powders, sauces – all mushrooms. Truth be told, I can’t stand them anymore.” Ol-Lozen and Joshua watched with opposite degrees of interest, a slow smile spreading across the latter’s face.

“Finally! Someone who understands the gamey things don’t belong in our gardens, much less our mouths.” He plucked out a chunk from his bowl with unwashed fingers. As he leaned over to give his to Mouse too, Daigay smacked the approaching hand with her fork.

“A growing boy needs his vegetables.”

“You’re giving yours away!”

“Do I look a growing boy?” She gestured up and down her body. Ol-Lozen snorted into his food. “Meat – Orkans learned how to imitate meat from mushrooms. In that form I would be willing to give them another taste, but not as they are now.”

“How does one eat mushrooms for that long a time?” Ol-Lozen asked, chewing his with relish. Mixed in with carrots, lettuce, green beans and salted beef, that anyone could taste them at all came as shock.

“Being raised in the Kingdom of Feeruni; a frostblasted land where nothing grows but the abominable plant. Far too cold for anything else.” She took a bite of stew. “Though Our Empress Attendant has done away with that name and left off the ‘kingdom’ from her seat of power. Nowadays, the capital is only Feeruni.”

The sat in silence eating, and enjoying, Daigay slipping her mushrooms into Mouse at the moment of notice. By the end they were all quite full with still a few forkfuls warm in the pot. The sun had slipped completely out of sight; the night stretching its arms, and yawned awake. With her bandaged hand, Daigay moved the cooking apparatus from the fire, clearing a space above the pit. Out of her cloak came the vellum. She started unfolding it little by little, careful not to create more tears than it already had. Luckily the night was without heavy winds, and so the map remained stable in her grip.

“Gather round, all. We’ve important matters to discuss.” When she’d unfurled the map completely, a snap of Daigay’s fingers pulled it taught and level, centering it above the pit for all to gaze upon. Ol-Lozen leaned in, prepared to nod along as if he knew what was happening, but the map struck him familiar.

It was the first time he’d seen the layout of the new world, or at least this part of it. Daigay’s map depicted a slice of what might have been corner of a larger continent. Two sides of the map shared borders with an ocean, he assumed, from the depictions resembling serpents swimming in and out of wavy lines. A handful of smaller islands dotted the coast of a landmass appearing like a hiking boot laid on its left side, continuing off the map. Yes, he thought, definitely a hiking boot.

Miniature facsimiles of trees peppered the landmass to represent forests. A range of obtuse triangles starting in the north continuing south down to the boot’s ankle was a mountain range. Another one was at about the sole, growing into where the top of the foot curved into the ankle. Narrow parallel lines made the rivers, ovals deformed or stretched like children’s toys were the lakes. Areas demarcated by dashed lines, given the singular string of bold, underlined text in each area, were probably countries or, perhaps, kingdoms. Their names were unintelligible to him, and some were palimpsest in nature; several of these areas had had this text effaced and rewritten, some multiple times. High turnover rates, he mused. There were also three distinctly colored lines on the map, made sharper by the explicit use of black ink for other marks, and a red circle.

One line was green and dashed and quite long, starting in a forest, and moved from one black dot to the next – probably their journey thus far.

Another, inked in blue dots, started near no noteworthy marks. If it continued straight, and so did their green, they were likely to cross at some point, though the blue line would be long progressed.

The last was brown, far removed from the other two. Curious squiggles had been inked at its beginning, and its motion was straight as an arrow. Should this stay true, it would travel some distance above the red circle. As it were, not one line was headed directly to that red mark.

But all were headed into a profuse mess of watered-down violet covering large portions of the land, of which the red circle was in the lower-left. It was as if a toddler had squeezed out a sizable dollop of violet paint from a tube onto the map, combined it with water, and then proceeded to splash around in it like a puddle, later returning to add on a sequence of wormlike flower petals before smearing those out with grubby hands.

“For anyone wondering,” said Daigay, in Orkan, “Those are the lostlands.” She traced the violent expanse with her finger until it rested on the green line. “This is where we are. Keep our speed, and we’ll enter that forsaken place within the next two days. There’s just one problem: we need to reach…” Her finger slid to the blue line’s end. “…here. At our current pace, we’ll be wandering the lostlands for three times that on our own before we meet them.” She repeated her words in both languages.

“Who’s them?” asked Joshua.

“No one, according to the crows.”

“Grandma, please be honest.” Mouse’s eyes never left the violet-stained section of map.

“I am being honest,” Daigay said. “The birds have relayed to me that no one is here. Certainly no people; nothing but a trail of leavings. Food scraps, bottles, heaps of good material for nightsoil and piss salt.” She sighed dejectedly.

Mouse made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. So did Ol-Lozen when she repeated herself. Joshua stared with a blank look.

“Nightsoil and piss salt?” he asked.

“That’s filthy,” groaned Mouse.

“A consequence of knowledge! Apprenticeship means more than learning spells, daffodil, but all the tricks of the world, too! The crows have had much to say on that.”

“You’ve spent the past days discussing a trail of rot with the crows. Have they shared any useful news at all?” He threw up hands to emphasize his discontent.

Daigay only smiled. “Crows bring me lots of news. Granted they cannot tell me titles, which forest I’m thinking of, kingdoms, leaders, sigils on banners, if a traveler is a bandit or a refugee, the relative age of a woman, how many soldiers travel in an army, or many other important minutiae I’d prefer to know in advance. But, they do know details. The right questions can unearth a grand bounty.” She returned her finger to the blue line. “No people are spotted, but their leavings are found. Mouse, you should able to answer this one.” She looked at the girl expectantly.

Mouse mumbled the question to herself, ostensibly as means to jog her brain into working the quandary down. That Ol-Lozen leaned in was simply coincidental in the eyes of the one present not in on their secret.

“They’re traveling under cover of invisibility,” she answered, receiving Daigay’s nod of praise.

“And for good reason: the lostlands teem with Incursion. It is their territory ceaselessly expanding, ruin all the true demons desire to see. Any force caught would be swiftly destroyed, so any army looking to invade must plan with the utmost subterfuge in mind.” She tapped the blue line, then another point their own green line passed through.

“Larken’s Hold,” Ol-Lozen rumbled.

“Depleted their own army, as had a dozen other lords to assemble this expeditionary force. Up here,” she continued to the brown line, “Is the main body it intends to supplement, headed by soldiers of Our Empress Attendant.”

“The birds knew all this was occurring?” Joshua held his head as though keeping it aloft with his neck pained him.

“More or less. They are drawn by food and shiny goods. Colors, too – if not their names. Fantastic memories they possess, these crows. In truth, those in Larkhen’s Hold told me much, but I deemed it necessary to keep my news current.” Daigay leaned back and folded her hands. “We come now to the crossroads.”

The others waited in rapt silence. The words carried with that last statement a queer solemnity absent her voice in recent memory, and demanded notice. “As I’d said before, the intention was to join the expeditionary force thus adding numbers onto our side. At our current pace this will take roughly a week of travel through the lostlands, of which we have little information outside the ever-present threat of discovery by Incursion, but this can be circumvented.”

She placed a finger at their current position and cut a straight line to the blue through a violet arm. “Two days of travel, and we’ll set foot in the lostlands while the sun is still risen. This expansion, however, has been abuzz with activity. New growth. Incursion will be concentrated, so we must be alert and on guard. The longer path may carry less risk, as it’s old growth, but few variables regarding the Incursion are ever certain, save for what we can prove with our own eyes.” She began refolding the map up, careful not to tear the delicate material, the crinkle of vellum loud as the gnashing of teeth. The flurry of dread yellow wings.

“Whichever decision we arrive on, I’ll establish a perimeter to bend light and hide us under similar protections wielded by the expeditionary force,” Daigay continued, louder, pretending not to hear the hurried footsteps passing her by, nor the sound of a small body escaping into the wagon bad. “A simple spell easily maintained.” She withdrew the pouch from her cloak, retying it after the map was secure, and sat back when the job was done. A minute passed without an answer. “You could have the night for consideration, if you’d prefer.”

“P-perhaps I should check on Mouse,” Joshua stuttered out. He rose quickly, one hand holding the hatchet handle at his waist with the barest tremble. “She took off without a word, completely unlike her, a sure sign of poor humors caused by…” By then he was too far away to hear, having had started to mumble his way from the discussion while his legs were still striding.

“And here I’d believed the boy itching to prove himself,” Daigay said.

“He’s the worst of glory seekers. Talks himself strong, only to crumble when pushed.” Ol-Lozen reached a hand to the sword he never went without. “But I won’t falter. If you’re going into the fray, it’s my duty to accompany you.”

“A more touching sentiment I never could hear. But, come now, surely you must go for more personal reasons. Is there not a thrill in you? Did the first demon not whet your appetite?” asked Daigay.

“More than I’d like to say aloud.” He flicked his eyes to the wagon.

“Fair enough. Given the circumstances, we’ll need a heartier meal tonight to warm our spirits. Before we do,” she said, holding out an open hand, “I’ve been meaning to ask for a closer look at your sword, if you’ll unsheathe it for the moment.” At his hesitation, she sighed loudly. “You’ll get it back in one piece, and I’m not so stupid to let it cause me undue harm.”

Ol-Lozen drew the Tankbuster from its sheath, onyx-frosted metal catching the last few rays of the sun. With one snap of the old magus’ fingers the blade centered itself between them, rotating to sit flat in the air, Daigay keeping her hand aloft as though she meant to snap again. Her lips parted slightly to blow a slow, pointed breath.

“Let’s see this mighty design.” Her fingers cracked like a sheet of lake ice.

And the sword disassembled.

Magic divided the sword into four sections: blade, crossguard, hilt, and pommel. Those were partitioned into further subsections, exposing the myriad layers of circuitry and eerie printed tech, razor thin lines of gold and copper. Screws more minute than flecks of dust spun from their nooks. Inner walls packed with wires unwound. The blade itself opened like a stacked doll, revealing an inner core of rounded metal in the spine before that hissed in two.

What hung in the air was a green liquid: the distilled essence of Orkan science, iridescent, like a liquid emerald.

“Clever,” she said. “Hollowing out a weapon goes against everything a blacksmith knows, but yours know better.”

Ol-Lozen fought down the urge to scream as his weapon was vivisected before the light of the world. He felt violated in its stead. With a snap and a wave of Daigay’s hand it was reconstructed and returned, and he caressed the shard of his home once back in its sheath.

“You will not do that again,” he growled. “If you value your life.”

“Valuing my life is why I did what I did. I seek to understand the world to better my skills, and your blade has been tempting me for the longest. You will never see its internal organs again now that I have them committed to memory.” She slipped a closed hand to her back. “Just think if your sword were broken. Are you aware of anyone from our world capable of repairing damage sustained to it? I doubt so. But given some time to ruminate, reprieve to write out a formula, and I may be able to accomplish better work than anyone you might have known.” Daigay chuckled to herself at the worried expression Ol-Lozen wore, still cradling his sword like a lover.

Out of sight, a glass vial rolled between her fingers, one minute drop of filched emerald suspended by shimmers within.

Far off in a tree with nest unseen, a crow laughed aloud into the darkening sky.