CHAPTER TWO: SCIONS
Take thee my sword and my mantle; sayest thou my oath upon my altar, for thou art now my Scion.
-Bardon, from 'Quest of Lupo'
"Fucking hell!" Bestel Myrdon said.
The banging and the cursing woke everybody up, even Theo, who was used to sleeping near barnyard animals. He roused and checked the poultice at his shoulder, tugging on the corner of the little cloth sack. His shoulder felt numb and only slightly sore.
"Leave that there," Larian said, resecuring the bit of twine that Theo had loosened. "Maybe whoever's making all that racket can help."
They stepped out from the shelter of the ancient temple and startled Bestel Myrdon, who shouted and pulled a wilderness knife from the sheath on his thigh. He didn't look like much of a threat - middle-aged, balding, and a bit too stout to be wandering through the wild by himself. Indeed, his pack mule was only a few paces away, sampling at the grasses by an ancient, crumbling wall. Bestel's hair was a ring of iron-gray curling limply to his shoulders and the top of his pate was completely bare. He was already sweating up a storm despite the early hour.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked, waving his knife about. "Raiders?"
"We're from Rouentz," Larian explained. "We ran away when the village got hit by raiders."
"That explains the smoke. What do you know about these raiders, girl? Think they'd go in for old trinkets?"
"They might be in for old trinkets," Larian allowed. "But they're more the taking kind than the trading kind. We don't know how many they killed, but it wasn't pretty..."
Bestel introduced himself and circled around them for a minute, hands behind his back, belly poking out from his unbuttoned jerkin. He stopped at Theo, prodding the meat of his arm and then chuckling when Theo's belly rumbled. He wandered over to his mule and returned with a long iron rod.
"I think we may be able to help one another," Bestel said. "Sounds like you need a meal and a guide to a nearby village..."
"I can find us to Nortsair," Heath said.
"Ah, but I can give introductions. Everybody knows me there. But! I'm not leaving this spot until I've got the trinkets I came for. I think the big fellow... Theo, was it?... can help me open this cache I've spent half the morning uncovering. What do you say? Help an old man out, get a meal and an passage into Nortsair?"
That was an easy enough proposition to agree to. Theo accepted the iron rod from Bestel, who pantomimed what to do. Theo was to jam the pole into the crevasse that the merchant had trenched out and pry with all his might. He did so, managing to prop a great stone tablet up, a white marble slab perhaps five feet square, at which point Larian shoved a stone into the gap. Then she had Theo pry again, several times, widening the gap with more stones. Heath, who was almost as slim as Larian, tried to squeeze through the gap and almost got himself killed when one of the stones cracked and the slab shifted. But the shift broke part of the lip around the stone's platform, too, and the whole thing tilted up and slid down, crunching and crashing down a narrow set of stairs.
"Huh," Bestel said, sopping the sweat from his head. "Would have thought it was just a little cache... but it looks like there's a whole passage down there."
"All right, Mister Myrdon, we've done our part," Larian said. "We're owed a meal and introductions at Nortsair."
"Ah..." Bestel raised a pudgy finger. "The deal was to help me into the cache... we don't know that there is a cache... only that there are stairs leading down. It seems to me you've still got work to do."
He had them there - Bestel Myrdon was an old hand at agreements and contracts, and it would take more than a frontier town teenager, even an unusually bright one, to better him in matters of bargaining. The three youths and Theo filed down the narrow passage and into the underground chamber beyond. The passage was so narrow that Theo had trouble fitting through, especially when it came to getting around the remains of the slab that had crashed down the stairs. But he managed to budge it out of the way...
"Wait! You'll get us..." Cano started. "...trapped."
The stone shifted, blocking their path for all of a second before cracking down the middle and collapsing into a more manageable impediment. Theo would have to crawl over it, and the other three could probably just stoop. They continued back to a chamber, close to claustrophobic with the four of them cramped in there and almost too dark to see.
"I think we're under the temple," Larian said. "Wouldn't you say we've got about ten yards?"
Theo shrugged. Ten yards was three fence posts long, so that sounded about right. He sat on a little bench while the teenagers searched the room. They found a few pebbles, some drainage chutes, and could feel out inscriptions on the wall, but otherwise the room was empty. Whatever had been cached here was long since gone, or else had decayed or been devoured by generations of rodents.
"Mister Myrdon isn't going to be very happy," Heath said, scuffing his shoe along the stone floor.
"It's empty," Larian agreed. "But what can we do? Let's go... Theo. What are you sitting on?"
Theo shrugged and stood. What he'd taken for a bench in the dark was, in fact, a chest. It was hard to make out the details, but it seemed valuable in of itself, with detailed engravings and the glint of metal. There were four handles on it, too, one on each corner sticking out a few inches along the long axis of the chest. Theo grabbed two of the handles and tried to lift the chest - even with a grunt of effort, it wouldn't budge.
"Heavy," he said.
"Maybe if we all lift it..." Larian said.
"Don't be stupid," Cano said. "The three of us put together aren't as strong as the one of him. If he can't budge the thing, none of us can lift a corner."
"Let's just try," she said. "And if we can't, we'll see if we can rope it up and get Mister Myrdon's mule to haul the thing."
That seemed like a reasonable idea to them, though Theo wasn't quite sure he got the plan. Each of the teenagers grabbed a handle and waited, looking back to Theo. It took him a moment to understand - they wanted him to grab the unclaimed handle and lift. He reached for it, his skin touching something cool and metal. Then the colors and patterns flashed across his vision.
+++++
Theo was only vaguely aware of the world around him. Instead, he saw the colors... and he saw three people who shouldn't have been there. Were they ghosts? They followed the four of them along the narrow corridor. The first one spoke, a woman with a strange hat, beautiful and fiery-haired, her eyes as black as night:
"I like this one, smart as a whip.
I'll have my name upon her lips."
The next one spoke, smaller than Theo but not by much, well-muscled, armored, rugged, and clear-eyed.
"And this one, too - he's brave and true.
What better lad to come anew?"
And the third one, probably a man, but slender in the soft leathers of a scout and with hair that striped and mottled as he moved.
"I'll this one, friends - through dale and glen,
we three shall be evoked again."
A fourth one appeared, popping into the field of patterns and colors from out of nowhere, tall, bounteous, and ravishingly beautiful. Her hair was black, her eyes ice-blue. She ran a finger along Theo's arm and spoke:
"Alas, I get the laggard then,
too big by twice, blessed in the head,
but let it never go unsaid:
Astrilla reigns o'er gods and men.
A project I shall make of him,
I'll sculpt this mortal to my whim,
and 'fore the seasons wax and wane,
Astrilla great shall reign again."
"Theo! Theo, are you all right?" He felt someone shaking him - it was Cano, the larger of the boys.
"Fine," Theo said.
He struggled to his feet and looked about, the last of the colors fading from his vision. They were back at ground level in the Barren Bones, the skeletons of dead buildings surrounding them. Bestel Myrdon crouched at Theo's side - but he wasn't worried about Theo. He was grumbling and trying to pry the chest open without much success. He stuck an iron crow into the seam and tried to pry the chest open, managing only to scrape at his arm when the bar slipped.
"Fucking hell!" he grumbled, licking at his arm where the scrape was beading blood.
"Look, there's no key hole, right?" Larian said. "So there's got to be another way to open it..."
"Well, girl, what would you suggest? It hasn't got any buttons or levers..."
"But it has got four handles. What if we pulled on them?"
The old merchant shrugged. "I've yet to get at my cache, so the work is on you four to do it."
The four of them lined at the handles again. This time as Theo gripped his handle, he didn't see colors or hear strange people. But something felt different, an energy in the air that made him nervous. He looked to the chest, wondering if the power was emanating from that.
"Pull, Theo. We all have to pull," Larian said.
Theo did. All of them did - and the chest clicked open. Bestel Myrdon rushed to the thing, bumping Heath out of the way. He pushed the box open and whooped when he saw the contents: a fortune in treasure - intricate artifacts, the likes of which were utterly beyond modern craftsmen, in gold and silver and stranger metals, glittering with precious and semiprecious gemstones, inlaid with strange symbols not gazed upon for many hundreds of years. He lifted a gem-encrusted bauble - it was probably worth as much as the whole village of Rouentz... more if you subtracted the recent damage.
"You've done well," he said carefully. "It seems I owe you a meal and an introduction."
"I think we deserve part of the treasure, too," Cano said. "We did more than just our part, so we deserve half, to split between the four of us. Which leaves half of a massive fortune for you."
"That wasn't our deal," Bestel stated. "It was a meal and an introduction to Nortsair for access to the cache."
"You had access to the cache the moment we found the chest - the chest is the contents of the cache," Larian said, her slim hand running along the rim of the case, her fingertips grazing at its golden contents. "But you'd have had no way of getting it out and open without us. By the time you summoned help, it might well have been stolen... and if anybody else happened upon you here as you struggled to reclaim it, you might have left here with nothing, not even your life."
"Is that a threat?" he asked, his jaw clenched.
"No," she said, her dark eyes turning to regard him. "It's how things work in the wilderness."
"That's the truth," Heath said. "Nature doesn't much care for the honor and quibbles that pass among men."
Just then, Theo's stomach grumbled. He'd like some baubles for himself, of course - women would often do kind things to you, pleasant things to you, in exchange for valuable tokens. He'd only done so a handful of times, but he figured a few of those treasures might get him another handful. But he'd also like to eat.
"How about this," Bestel said. He grunted and eased to his feet. For a moment he looked disoriented, as if a strange thought had just crossed his mind, but he shook it off. "You each pick one thing from the chest. We'll eat. And, while we're eating, I'll consider it. And, if you don't like my offer, you can beat this poor old man up and leave me to die in the wilderness."
"We're not going to beat you up and leave you to die," Cano said.
"But we could always take handfuls of the stuff and run off," Heath added. "Word to the wise."
Bestel nodded. "All right, then. Fair point. You four go through the chest and pick your one item. And I'll get to warming up a stew - there's fresh water nearby and I've got all the ingredients in Norrie's pouches."
They did just that, taking their time, as a good stew took a while to make. The three teenagers went first, finding items that they liked in short order - in Heath's case, two items, but Cano made him put the second one back. They'd made a deal and they'd follow it. Larian found a jeweled hairpin in platinum and ice-blue king's silver; Cano found a fine dagger, a single big ruby at its pommel, the metal glinting ruddy gold and inlaid with intricate symbols; and Heath found a sash made in mail so fine it was almost a fabric, the metal strangely dark, the silvery clips to attach things contrasting against it.
"You too, Theo."
Theo had known it was his turn, but he'd been utterly entranced by the contents of the chest. He'd have liked to have all of the contents, but he knew that wasn't fair. Instead, he picked the first thing that caught his eye - a ring that looked like a tiny crown, its metal silvery and its jewels small and sparkling like a panoply of stars. At first glance, it looked far to small to possibly fit him, but it slipped perfectly over his middle finger.
"A bit small, but if that's what you want," Cano said.
It was what he wanted. Theo couldn't explain it - there was a lot that he couldn't explain, but he'd not have been able to explain it even if he could speak for more than three syllables at a go. Something about the ring resonated with him and, when he slipped it over his finger, something palpable shifted within him. It felt like there was somebody else sharing his body, looking out from his eyes - and he liked it.
"I've got plenty of stew if you're ready," Bestel said amiably. Theo nodded and followed after the others. He looked back to the ring on his finger and tried to count the sparkling stars, but there were far too many.
They ate stew - Theo ate far more than any of the others. He was a lot bigger and he hadn't eaten anything since morning the day before. The stew was savory and filling, with a hint of fiery spice. It sat heavy in his belly and, by the time he noticed that something was wrong, he was well on his way to drifting off. He lifted his arm and it moved clumsily, only half within his control.
"Some... something's wrong," Larian slurred. Her eyes were unfocused. She scrambled to her feet, wavering there for a moment.
"Nothing personal," Bestel Myrdon said, sitting her back down with gentle pressure upon her shoulders. "It's my treasure by rights - after twenty years of scraping, it's what I deserve. Let yourself drift off, and maybe you'll wake up in a better place."
"Poison?" Cano asked, reaching for his knife.
"Poison," Bestel said. "Poison of the gentlest type... go to sleep."
It wasn't too gentle. A dull pain radiated out from Theo's liver, and from the pit of his stomach. It was a crushing soreness that spoke of organs shutting down, of blood supplies clamping off. It hurt a lot, but he was too tired to care much. As his eyes closed and his limbs became leaden, he caught a last glimpse of the woman with the black hair and the ice-blue eyes. He thought he heard her singing.
+++++
"That's... that's him?" the man asked.
"Process of elimination," the woman said.
Theo felt somebody shaking him. For a moment, he wondered whether he'd died but, as his eyes cracked open, he considered that his entrance to the afterlife probably wouldn't go like this. Would it? A woman was leaning over him, a beautiful young woman with tumbling coils of red hair, golden-olive skin, and eyes that were just a bit too dark. She looked familiar... like the girl Larian, but a year or two older. Her older, even prettier sister?
"What happened?" he asked. His voice was strange - not only had the words come out far more easily than he was accustomed to, his voice sounded higher, like that of a teenager.
"We were poisoned. Do you remember the stew that the fat man gave us?" the young man said. He looked a lot like the young woman, albeit larger - golden-olive skin and coppery hair, though his eyes were neutral gray rather than night-black. He also looked a lot like the boy, Cano.
"You're Cano?" he said. "What happened to you?"
"It happened to all of us... even you," another young man said. This one was a bit shorter and slimmer than Cano, though he had a wiry strength... and very strange hair. There were at least three or four colors in there, mottled and streaked. "How do you feel? You sound... better."
"Better how?" he asked, rising to his feet. It was effortless to do so, as if he was suddenly awake and energized after a perfect night's sleep. "My speech?" He cleared his throat, frowning at the pitch of his voice. "I can say a whole sen-tence now," he said with a laugh. "Wow... oh, wow. I'm... you guys look older... am I younger?" Theo felt like he could talk all day.
"Maybe a bit," Larian allowed, "but not exactly. More like more... feminine."
Theo looked to his hand - it was smoother and more slender and, now that he was really paying attention, the crown-of-stars ring was gone from his finger. If he had to guess, Bestel Myrdon had stolen it, along with every other thing of value except for the chest - it sat empty and right at the spot where they'd opened it. He examined the other three - Cano was about as tall as him now and the other two were perhaps half a head shorter. Theo then plodded over to the chest to confirm its empty contents... only it wasn't empty. There were four objects in there.
"Our stuff is back in here," he said, gesturing happily. "The old man didn't steal it."
He slipped the ring back onto his finger - even though it was a much slimmer finger, it still fit perfectly. Magical jewelry, apparently. Then, remembering that men and women had different bits between the legs, he felt around down there. It felt smoother down there but about the same... though, he supposed, his hands were a lot smaller, which meant his manhood might be smaller, too. He shrugged - that wasn't high on his list of concerns.
"If we're all feeling healthy and unpoisoned, we ought to get to Nortsair," Larian stated. "We still need to get help and maybe someone there can tell us what's just happened to us."
"Or is happening to us," Heath said.
"And, if Bestel Myrdon is there, he's got some explaining to do," Cano added. "He tricked and poisoned us and, if I had to guess, tried to kill us. But whatever this is kept it from working."
"My guess is that's where he went," Heath said, crouching down to inspect the tracks of the merchant's mule. He glanced skyward. "If we head out now, we might make it by nightfall."
"Lead the way," Theo said.
They slipped into the forest, following along the woodland path and all of them silent, barely upending a single twig. The whole time, Theo felt that they were being watched - not from afar, but from within, by whatever forces had changed him... and, if he had to guess, were changing them yet. And, more than once, he caught that pale-eyed, raven-haired woman in the corner of his vision, but when he turned to look the only thing he saw was forest. Forest for miles and miles around.
I'm glad Theo was healed, and the rest too