The heavy scuff of their boots on the stone floor of the dungeon beneath Whitespire rang against the damp earthen walls. They descended a steep set of stairs that led further into the murky belly of the prison.
Doctor Professor led the way, a torch held aloft. Shadows capered in every direction. Somewhere in the distance drops of water reverberated as they pooled on the ground.
Sam, Nate, and Charlie followed close behind. Hag sat perched on Charlie’s left shoulder.
“The man we’re seeing is a vicious criminal,” Doctor Professor said. “He’s been arrested more times than I can count. Most recently for the murder of six individuals over nineteen steel shicks he was cheated out of in a game of chance.”
“Is nineteen shicks a lot of money?” Charlie asked.
“No,” Doctor Professor answered. “No, ’tis a pittance.”
The air was sodden and stale, and smelled vaguely of urine and mold and fetid meat. The stairs finally bottomed out, leading to a long hallway. On either side, rusted bars ran from the floor to the ceiling. Four sconces lined the hallway, only two of which held tallow candles that flickered and spat.
The passed an old man wrapped in rags, his frame bent, his leathered skin covered in grime. A dwarven woman lay on a ramshackle cot, her blanket more hole than cloth, her eyes glazed and empty.
Doctor Professor stopped at the last cell on the right. A man sat with his back resting against the far wall, his manacled wrists resting on his knees, his head stooped so his long, stringy hair covered his face like a curtain. Doctor Professor kicked the bar with his heavy boot.
“Zambit, wake up,” he barked.
“That’s not my name,” the man answered, lifting his head. He was an elf, his bright eyes glittering in the dim light. He face was sunken and anemic. “Call me the King of Thieves.”
“Zambit the Puny is on your writ of execution,” Doctor Professor said. Sam was a bit taken aback by the contempt in his voice. Zambit pulled a small, silver flask from the folds of his jacket, popped it open, and took a heavy swig.
“Are you drunk?” Sam asked.
“Working on it.”
“Hey!” Doctor Professor again banged on the bars, louder this time. “These three would like to talk to you. I recommend you listen closely to what they have to say. Could be the only thing what saves you from having your neck stretched.”
Nate glanced at Sam and Charlie, who both shrugged. He cleared his throat. “Well, erm, you’re a thief, right?”
“Was it the bracelets that tipped you off?”
“We’re assembling a team, and we could use a man with your particular set of skills.”
Zambit’s ears perked up. “A team you say?” He rose to his feet. “Is it for a mission?”
“Yes.”
Zambit shuffled to the bars, gripping them with his delicate hands. “A top secret mission? To save the world?”
“Well, yes actually.”
“He’s making fun of Nate,” Hag whispered loudly to Charlie. “But Nate doesn’t seem to know it. This is so embarrassing for him.”
Zambit glanced over his shoulder conspiratorially. “Do we… get code names?”
“I suppose… I mean, we hadn’t really discussed that far ahead.”
Zambit clucked his tongue. “Can’t have a proper mission without proper code names. Here, I’ve got a list of super cool code names in my pocket.”
Nate watched puzzled as Zambit began to rummage through his clothing. “I know it’s here somewhere- Ah! Here it is.” Zambit dug his hand deep into his vest, and pulled out his middle finger which he held in Nate’s face.
“Okay, that’s not very nice.” Nate grumbled.
“Let me try,” Sam said. “Zambit, you’re poor, right?”
“Are you really asking the guy who just last week killed six people over nine shicks?” Zambit said.
“I thought it was nineteen shicks.”
“I took nineteen. I was only owed nine, but seeing as the man was dead, I figured he didn’t need the other ten.”
“What if I told you; you could keep any treasure you find along the way?”
“I’d say your generosity is inspiring. I can’t believe you’d give me the opportunity to not only risk my life for the people who have locked me in a prison cell and ordered my execution, but as payment I can keep any garbage I happen to find along the way. Amazing! You should go into sales.”
“You’re telling me the opportunity to not get hanged from the end of a rope, and the chance to make some coin, are not appealing in the slightest? You’d rather simply die tomorrow?”
Zambit studied her face. “It’s him. I don’t trust him.”
“Me?” Nate said. “What did I-“
“No, not you, you warm chamber pot. Qailz’risd’anth’freiv’ryn’th. I’d rather be kicked in the nuggs than trust my life to that walking ham sandwich.”
“Who?” Sam asked.
“Doctor Professor,” Charlie said.
“Oh, right,” Sam said.
“You don’t trust me?” Doctor Professor snorted. “Well, isn’t that hilarious.”
“What is the deal?” Nate asked. “Clearly there’s some history between the two of you.”
“Didn’t you tell them?” Zambit asked. “My, you truly are a stubborn old fool.”
“Tell us what?”
Doctor Professor pursed his lips. “Zambit, very briefly… dated my mom.”
“‘Date’ isn’t quite the word I’d use. Date implies leaving the bed, if you catch my drift.”
“Your mom?” Sam asked in horror. “She must be, what, a thousand years old?”
Doctor Professor’s face blanched.
“No offense or anything,” Sam quickly backtracked. “I just… you’re old, so your mom must be…”
“Age is just a number,” Zambit said. “Plus, with age comes experience, if you catch my drift.”
“Why would you have us recruit someone who is sleeping with your mom?” Charlie asked.
“Oh, we weren’t doing much sleeping, if you catch my drift,” Zambit said.
“You can stop saying that,” Nate sighed, rubbing his temple, his eyes pinched closed. “We catch your drift. You’re about as subtle as a turd on white sheets.”
“Because despite my personal feelings toward this man,” Doctor Professor said, “he truly is the best thief in the Ten Kingdoms. I won’t let my personal history get in the way of my duty. Our mission is too important.”
Nate sighed. Zambit sucked air between his teeth, as if trying to dislodge a piece of gristle stuck there.
“Tell you what,” Zambit finally said. “I’ll agree to accompany you on two conditions. First, I want a full pardon and a guaranteed payment of a thousand zlots, regardless if we succeed.”
Nate glanced at Doctor Professor, who nodded his ascent.
“Done,” Nate said. “What’s the second condition?”
“Your friend here has to call me Dad.”
#
A rickety wooden sign hung crooked from a single chain near the roof of the tavern. It was painted a garish green, but time had bitten flecks of paint free. It was carved in the shape of a buxom ogre and, in bright red, the words “The Ogre’s Teat” were crudely scrawled across it.
The interior of the saloon stank of bad breath and booze. The crowd was rowdy, and Nate had to dodge more than one elbow as they pressed their way through the throng. It was exactly the kind of atmosphere he hated, one where everyone seemingly felt at ease but him.
He began to fidget. When in a crowd, he often felt as if part of his brain shut down. He would seemingly forget how normal human beings walk or stand. Not knowing where to place his hands, he simply held them out slightly from his body, while dying inside knowing this was not how a normal human stood.
Sam smirked at him. “Don’t worry, I promise someday I’ll help you find a safe way to socialize.”
“If we can find somewhere to sit, I can regroup,” Nate mumbled. Charlie scanned the room and spotted a small table in the far corner. Heads down, they marched single-file through the boisterous crowd that sang bawdy tunes and spilled ale in their revelry.
“This place is unbearable,” Nate said as a fat man built like a coffee table made out of depression sauntered past. The rotund dipso either belched or farted, it was difficult to ascertain from the sound, and the smell provided no additional clues.
A stuffy-looking elf ambled over to them. Wearing a white shirt and apron with an expression of world-weary contempt, his presence was a grotesque contrast to the patrons of his establishment.
“Can I help you?” he sneered, his mouth pinched tight as if holding back vomit.
“Yes, um… we’d like something to eat,” Charlie said. “What do you have?”
The waiter raised a single eyebrow. “Food?”
“Yes?” Charlie answered, confused by the waiter’s confusion. “Is food an unusual request in your restaurant?”
“Do you see many other people eating?” The waiter sighed. “We have some soup and some bread.”
“What kind of soup?” Nate asked.
“The wet kind.”
“And the bread?”
“Also wet. It’s been in the root cellar for some time.”
Charlie shrugged. “I’m sure it’s fine; three of your best soups and breads, please.”
“Very good,” the waiter said in a voice that clearly communicated that their order was, in fact, not very good. He disappeared into the crowd.
“He seems nice. I think I’m going to invite him to my wedding,” Charlie said.
“Can I Hag you a question?” Hag said.
“Did you just use your name as a verb?” Nate asked.
“How do you expect to find someone to marry you, when you have checked pretty much every red flag there is?”
“He’s right,” Sam said. “If your personality was a video game, it’d be minesweeper on expert.”
“You know what they say,” Charlie said. “One woman’s trash is another woman’s husband.”
“Banking hard on the old ‘I can fix him’ fallacy?” Sam said.
Nate scanned the crowd. “What was the name of the person we’re supposed to meet here?”
“Gri,” Sam answered. “Some kind of giant, warrior barbarian according to Doctor Professor.”
“How are we supposed to recognize him?”
“Doctor Professor said they’d be very obvious.”
“I’m not seeing anyone impressive among this gathering of human garbage.”
“Why do you have to always be so pessimistic? It’s called a garbage CAN, not a garbage can’t, Nate.”
The waiter re-emerged from the rank crowd, with three steaming bowls carved from animal skulls. He set them down heavily, sloping some of the thick brown liquid onto Nate’s lap, scalding his thigh.
“Careful,” the waiter sneered as he tossed a clump of discolored bread onto the table.
“Yes, thank you,” Nate said as he wrung his pant leg out. The waiter eyed him for a moment, before abruptly turning and walking away.
“I thanked him. Why did I thank him?”
“Because you’re a trombone slide of a human being,” Hag said.
Charlie poked at the liquid in the bowl. Thick, unidentifiable chunks briefly surfaced in the oily water.
“Do you think it’s safe?” Sam asked as she tore off a clod of gray bread. “If I remember my history correctly, most people in the dark ages died of diarrhea.”
Nate took a tentative sip of the soup, which was surprisingly sour. “I don’t know that I’d gamble on the bread, but the soup has probably been boiled for days, so it should be fine.”
Charlie pulled out one of the chunks with his fingers, and took a bite. “I think it’s a root vegetable. But it might also be chicken.”
“It’s worrying that you can’t tell,” Sam said. She stared intently at her soup, her hunger fighting her brain in a contest of wills. Her stomach won, and she lifted the bowl to her lips and drank vigorously.
Setting her bowl down, she stared at her hands. Since their time in this world, she had developed a borderline obsessive habit of checking her hands for slivers, terrified at the prospect of getting an infection or disease.
“What do you suppose happens if we die?” she asked, suppressing her gag reflex as the soup fought to make its way back to the bowl.
“Are you asking if we believe in God?” Charlie asked, chewing another mystery chunk loudly.
“No, I just mean,” she hesitated, trying to find the right words for her fear. “This place is dangerous. There’s no hospital we can go to, no antibiotics we can take. Not to mention the horrifying monsters we’ve already seen. If we die, do we wake up back in our world? Or are we dead-dead?”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Nate said. “If we die, we die, not much we can do about it.”
“Thanks, Nate. Are you sure you don’t want to be a therapist when you grow up? You’re so emotionally supportive!”
Nate shrugged. “The way I see it, there are no guarantees in life, here or back home. You could die any time, in a freak accident; hit by a drunk driver, or choking on a cracker covered in canned cheese.”
“We were in second grade, Nate,” Charlie sighed. “You need to let it go.”
“You weren’t the one who had to clean the vomit.”
“No, but I’ve had to listen to you complain about it for a decade, which is worse.”
“My point is, worrying about it won’t change anything. In the long run, people who worry still die just as much as people who don’t.”
“Brave words from a guy who had to wait in the shower stall at school for an hour after gym class because he was too scared to be seen in a towel.”
Nate’s body stiffened as he bit into something that crunched. He spat it into his hand, before dropping it on the table. The object bounced and flipped, landing in front of Sam, who squealed in horror. It was a fully-intact toe nail.
All three of them set their bowls of soup down.
“Is that a…” Sam trailed off.
“Yes,” Nate said.
“Is something wrong?” the waiter asked, startling Nate.
“Yes, there was a… that, in my soup.” He pointed at the curled nail.
“Ah, yes,” the waiter snatched it up, holding it to the light. “I believe our chef, Gareth, lost this just this morning.” He slid it into his front pocket. “I shall see it is returned to him.”
They stared at the waiter, dumbfounded.
“And how was your soup? Everything to your liking?”
“I… there was a nail in my soup,” was all Nate could manage to say.
There was a flash of steel. Appearing from nowhere, a man with a jagged scar running down the left side of his face withdrew a small blade. He plunged it into Nate’s stomach.
Nate stared stupidly, his brain unable to process the shock and pain of steel tearing into his gullet. Sam screamed as the man pulled the weapon free and turned to her. Seeing his friend in danger, Nate managed a weak kick, knocking their assailant into the waiter, causing both of them to tumble to the ground.
That was when the pain registered. Nate began to shout in agony, pressing his hand to the wound in his stomach. Panic set in as the warmth of his blood washed over his hand.
Charlie pulled out his spear, guiding Sam behind him where she grabbed her own weapon. “Nate, are you okay?” he shouted as the scarred man pulled himself to his feet.
Nate’s head swam. “I don’t think so.”
The scarred man slashed angrily at Charlie’s spear with his dagger. Charlie answered with some threatening but tentative jabs of his own.
“They said you was easy kills,” the man said with a throaty growl. “Easy money.”
The crowd pulled back, giving the combatants sufficient space, but not so much that they couldn’t watch the murderous brawl. Nate couldn’t be sure in his haze, but he swore several onlookers were placing wagers.
“Leave my friends alone,” Hag shouted, appearing from thin air in front of their mugger. With his tiny fist, Hag punched the man in the groin.
The man grunted, his face twisted in pain. He backhanded Hag into the nearby wall.
“Hag! No!” Charlie shouted, stabbing at the man’s leg. He missed the mark, leaving a thick cut in the wooden floor.
The crowd fell silent as thunderous footsteps approached. The sea of drunken faces parted, as a woman who stood head and shoulders taller than the rest of the drunks pushed her way toward the combat.
The brawny woman wore heavy metal armor across her torso, its edges lined with animal furs. Her legs and arms were bare, but her heavy boots and gauntlets clanked heavily as she walked. Atop her head was the skull of some strange, monstrous creature, the empty eye sockets inset with red gems that glowed faintly. Around her neck, a thick iron chain rattled, and a heavy cloak fluttered behind her. A vicious-looking battle axe as tall as Nate was strapped to her back.
She walked up to the scarred man, who withered in her shadow. She flexed her arms, the muscles bulged and distended and rippled. “Why you hurt little man?” she asked with a thick accent.
“I- well, w-we… were paid to,” the man stammered, backing away.
“Who?”
“The Brotherhood of Smoke.” He pulled the neck of his shirt down, revealing a dragon claw brand that puckered the flesh on his chest.
“Hrmph…” the woman’s lip curled. “You paid to hurt weakling? That make you bully.” She took a threatening step toward the man. “Gri no like bullies.”
Sam looked at Charlie, and mouthed the woman’s name as if asking a question. Charlie shrugged.
The man smiled nervously, before lunging with his blade. Almost too fast to see, Gri’s hand shot out, catching the man by the wrist. She twisted his arm. The sound of his forearm snapping was much louder than Sam expected.
The man began to scream as Gri began to wobble his broken arm in her grip. “Gri no like bullies. Bullies bad. You are bad man.”
“Please, stop, that hurts!” the man begged.
Gri lifted one of her enormous boots, and braced it against the man’s side. She grinned. “Gri no like bullies.”
Her muscles flexed, and she pulled hard. The man’s arm tore free with a sickening rip. He stared down in mute horror as blood sprayed from the stump at his shoulder, bathing the crowd in red.
The man looked up at Gri in shock, just in time to see Gri swinging his arm down into his face. He collapsed to the floor like a loose sack of potatoes. Gri hit him three more times with a wet thwack, crushing his skull like a melon.
Looking at his arm, Gri smirked. “Gri no like bullies.” She tossed the limb onto the corpse. The crowd erupted into cheers.
“Where’s Hag?” Charlie shouted through the chaos.
“I’m fine,” Hag said, hovering near Nate, who now lay on the floor. “But he doesn’t look so good.”
Sam ran to Nate, his face drained of color as blood pooled beneath him.
“Let me look at it,” Sam said. Nate removed his hand and more blood gushed out of the wound, mixed with a light green liquid. “Charlie, it’s bad.”
Charlie knelt next to his friend. “Uh-oh. That’s bile.”
“Bile?” Nate said.
“Yeah. That means he hit your gallbladder. Probably your liver too.”
“Won’t that cause sepsis?” Sam asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep the panic out of her voice. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know.” Charlie said. “I could, try to…” he hesitated. “Heal you with the Aether.”
“Isn’t that how we blew up Gadium?” Nate said through grit teeth.
“We? I thought that was you? Besides, what’re the odds of that happening twice?”
Nate and Sam shared a concerned look. “Not a lot of options,” Sam said grimly.
“Alright, but if you kill me, I’m going to haunt you so hard.”
“Then I hope your ghost is prepared to see some very upsetting things.”
Charlie closed his eyes, holding his hand to his friend’s stomach. He felt the familiar a spark, and warmth in his chest. Slowly, he willed the feeling down his arm and into his hand, which prickled and burned.
Nate gasped in pain as the flesh on his stomach knit itself back together. Slowly the pain subsided to a dull ache.
Charlie collapsed to the floor in sweat-soaked exhaustion. Nate’s finger traced the jagged purple scar a few inches above his belly button.
“Holy crap!” he said. “You did it?”
Charlie grinned as Sam hugged him. “As if there was ever any doubt.”
A huge hand grasped Nate’s forearm, and he was yanked from the floor to his feet. Gri smiled down at him. “Little man okay now?”
“Yes, I think so. Thanks to you, Gri.”
She smiled, clapping his shoulder so hard it nearly popped out of socket. “Gri very happy! Is not nice of scary man to pick on poor, pathetic weakling.”
Nate’s face flushed. “I’m not that weak,” he muttered.
“Oh, yes, little man very weak,” Gri said. She held his arm up. “Look how tiny muscles are. Gri saw little man drinking soup from across room, and Gri wondered how little man with tiny muscles hold up big heavy bowl of soup.” She shook his arm. “So tiny! Like baby bird.”
Charlie and Sam made no attempt to hide their laughter. Gri glanced at them nervously, blushing. “Little man introduce Gri to handsome friend?”
“Who?” Nate asked.
“Him,” Gri said, pointing at Charlie. “Him handsome. Gri like him face. So soft.”
“Uh, sure? This is my friend, Charlie.”
Charlie extended a hand. “Thank you for your help, Gri.”
Gri stared at his hand, puzzled. She grasped it in both hands, pulling it close to her face. “Soft man have no callous! How! How man so soft?”
“I…” Charlie stammered. “I have impressive video game callouses…”
“Soft man smell nice,” Gri sniffed Charlie’s palm. “Gri want Charlie for mate. Is agreed?”
Now it was Nate and Sam’s turn to laugh as Charlie flustered, pulling his hand free. “You could at least buy me dinner first.”
“Gri,” Sam said. “We came here looking for you.”
“Soft man and friends look for Gri? Why?”
“We need your help. We are on a quest to-“
“Will soft man be there?”
“Oh yes, soft man will be there.”
“Then Gri help!” She reached out a giant hand, and gently stroked Charlie’s cheek with the back of her enormous fingers. “Gri do anything for soft man.”
She leaned in uncomfortably close to Charlie’s face.
“Anything,” she whispered.
#
A distant explosion sounded, followed by a bestial roar. Nate dove for cover behind a dusty shelf of books that stood nearly two stories tall.
“You doing okay there, Nate?” Sam asked, looking down on him as he cowered on the floor.
“Yeah, I was uh-” He grabbed a random book, “I wanted to do some reading.” He glanced down at the warped, ancient leather. There was no title on the book, just delicate inlayed art of a skinless man dancing wildly with a woman only covered by her long hair.
“Oh yeah? What’s it about?”
Nate opened the book, the vellum groaned and cracked loudly in protest. “The Liber Ivonis,” Nate said. He began to scan the text, flipping through page after page containing gruesome depictions of human dismemberment and strange robed figures participating in crazed rituals.
As he stared at the diagrams and drawings, the corners of his vision darkened, and he felt light headed. Inhuman voices whispered to him from the shadows, called him to them, promised him wealth and power and love if he would simply open the door, and invite them in.
He snapped the book shut, sliding it back onto the shelf between the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan and a dog-eared copy of the play The King in Yellow. He returned to his friends, his pace quickened.
The library at the Academy of Spells where Doctor Professor had sent them was impressive. Open in the center, but lined by three floors, each twenty feet tall, it contained endless rows of overflowing bookshelves.
The ceiling displayed a living piece of art, a projection of some place deep in space, several smaller suns revolving around a massive star, each sun with its own system of planets that orbited in strange patterns. Bright nebulas painted the background in vivid reds and oranges.
At the center of the massive star was the outline of a strange looking creature, tall and thin, its arms and legs so delicate a stiff wind might snap them. Their skin resembled tree bark of the most exquisite white, and from their back sprouted a long network of branches that gave the appearance of wings.
At the center of the Library a black book the size of a bed floated above a bright red pillar. An elven woman, her face pocked and narrow, her thin body bent with age, floated slightly above the book, reading through the heavy glasses miraculously balanced on the tip of her nose.
“Are you Seda Milan?” Nate asked.
“Who wants to know?” She did not look up from her book.
“I’m Nate, this is Sam, and that’s Charlie. We were told you could help us.”
“By whom?” the woman flicked her impossibly thin wrist, and the books massive page turned on its own.
“Doctor Professor,” Nate said.
“I’m afraid I know many Doctors and Professors. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“His real name is, um…” Nate glanced at Charlie who shrugged. “His name is really long, and starts with a Q. I think?”
“We’re here on orders from Alianna Stormbow and the Council of Kings,” Sam interjected.
Finally, the woman glanced up at them, holding her head back slightly too far, so as to peer at them through her glasses, which magnified her eyes to owl-like proportions.
“Ah, yes, the prophesied three here to save the world.”
“Something like that,” Nate mumbled as she floated down to him. Dressed in burgundy robes, she walked toward a door covered in strange knobs and switches along the closest wall. She glanced back at the three of them.
“Well, are you coming?” she snapped impatiently.
They hurried over to her as she twisted dials and toggled switches. Twisting the door knob, she opened it, revealing a stone chamber roughly the size of a football stadium. The ceiling extending so far up, the torches there were small dots that flickered and spat.
The room was pure chaos as fifty men, all wearing comically thick armor, held an iron chain that hung around the neck of a very large, very angry dragon. It pulled and yanked at its restraints, dragging the men along the ground, lashing its horned tail against the ground.
“Hold tight, boys, here comes another blast!”
The dragon inhaled deeply, and two small sacks on either side of its neck bulged like a frog. As it exhaled, a titanic spout of flame hit the men holding the chain. Their armor sizzled and steamed. The iron chain glowed a dull red under the heat.
“Water!” one of the men shouted, and a robed woman waved a wand which summoned a small storm cloud above the men, drenching them in rain that hissed and squealed on the hot metal.
“Where are they with the male?” another man shouted angrily. “We can’t hold her here indefinitely!”
“Whoops, sorry,” the old woman said, shutting the door. “Wrong room.” She began to twist knobs on the door again.
“What was that?” Sam asked breathlessly.
“That? The dragon-breeding grounds,” she answered, as if she were telling them where the laundry room was in her apartment.
“You breed dragons?”
“Well, yes. They’ll breed on their own, but a female will only lay one clutch of eggs every sixty years. And more often than not, she’ll kill any male before the eggs can be fertilized. Nasty creatures, dragons.”
She opened the door again. Inside was a laboratory out of the fevered dreams of Mary Shelley. The walls were lined with oddly shaped bottles filled with different colored liquids that glowed and bubbled in the dim light.
Strange clockwork devices that crackled with electricity clicked and snapped as dazzling arcs of energy sizzled the air. At the center of the room were five metal slabs, each with a corpse on it in various stages of decay.
A man wearing only dark green pants and welder’s goggles stood at the center of a group of robed wizards. The man’s chest was covered in scars, and his left arm appeared to be made from ice, which cracked and shrieked while he gestured, leaving a trail of mist. His right arm glowed a dull orange like brimstone, roaring like a furnace as he turned to look at them.
“And to what do I owe the honor of this visit, Seda?” the man asked. “I assume something important enough to merit the interruption?”
“This lovely person,” Seda said, gesturing toward the man, “is Reave the Bold. I was told you needed the best wizards our Academy had to offer, and I’m afraid this is it.”
“Needed for what,” Reave asked, removing his goggles and resting them on his thick hair. The three were startled to see that Reave had no eyes; his lids were sunken and had been stitched shut.
“We have been tasked with finding the last heir of Brenius the Divine,” Sam said. “By the Council of Kings.”
Reave chuckled for a moment, before the smile on his face slowly melted. “You’re being serious?”
“I received a writ this morning, signed by all nine members of the Council. These three are to be given any aid and assistance they require.”
“But I can’t simply leave, my work here is-“
“Reave, you’re not being asked.”
He opened his mouth several times, but swallowed whatever angry retort he had, and simply stepped through the door, which Seda shut.
“Hey,” Charlie said. “I like your arms.”
“Thanks?”
Charlie poked the burning arm; his finger sizzled, and he gasped in pain before sucking on the burned tip.
“Please don’t touch me.”
“What were you expecting would happen?” Sam whispered as Charlie sucked his finger.
“What’s with your eyes?” Charlie asked.
“You don’t talk to many people, do you,” Reave said.
“We tried crate-training him,” Nate said. “But that doesn’t seem to have done the trick.”
Seda twisted the knobs some more. “Now, I believe you wanted a second member of our order? In case the first one dies?”
Reave’s mouth pinched tight.
“Well, that’s not exactly how I’d put it,” Nate said.
“How would you put it? Exactly?” Reave asked.
“Well, you know how some animals have two hearts, to ensure that their bodies get enough oxygen?”
“What are you talking about?” Sam said.
“Like deep sea creatures and stuff. Things that live where there’s not very much oxygen.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“At the Children’s Museum. Is that not common knowledge?”
“Yes, Nate, obviously most people stay up on their octopus anatomy, so using that as an analogy makes total sense,” Sam said.
“The only thing I ever learned at the Children’s Museum is that I hate children,” Charlie added.
“My point is, sometimes making sure you have redundant systems in place keeps everything running smoothly.”
Reave studied his face for a moment. “Okay, that actually makes some amount of sense.”
“It does?” Nate said before clearing his throat. “I mean, it does. Good.”
Seda opened the door a third time. Inside this room was a dimly lit chamber filled with thousands of thin, stone pedestals, roughly four feet in height, laid out in a perfect grid. Atop each pillar, a cloudy crystal ball was balanced, each of them glowing softly.
Several robed figures walked between the pillars, occasionally touching them, which would cause an image to be projected into the air above it.
“Henry, where are you?” Seda called into the room. No one answered. “Henry Potter, I know you can hear me. I see you.”
“Henry Potter?” Sam said. “Did she say Henry Potter?”
A scruffy-looking teenager with bedraggled hair and thick, circle-shaped glasses glanced over at them. He had his hand on one of the crystal balls, and floating above it was the image of a woman walking along the docks at Whitespire, carrying a basket of dried fish.
Her foot slipped between two of the wood planks, causing her to stumble, tossing her basket into the face of an obese man walking the opposite direction. In an attempt to prevent herself from falling, she clawed at the man, catching his pants, pulling them to his ankles. The man stumbled backwards in shock, tripping over his pants, and falling backward into the brackish gray water.
“What is this room?” Nate asked.
“The scrying room. These crystal balls can peer through space and time, allowing us to see any moment in the past since its creation two hundred years ago,”
“That’s amazing,” Nate said.
“You’d think so,” Seda answered, annoyed. “But mostly it’s used to watch people getting hit in the groin with various objects. Henry Potter, I won’t ask again.”
The teenager, chuckling to himself, dressed in thick brown robes finally approached them. “Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t hear you when you called the first time.”
“This is Henry Potter, my second recommendation for your little quest,” Seda said.
“Are you sure it’s Henry, and not Harry?” Sam asked.
“Quite sure,” Henry answered. “Henry Potter the Ninth, if you want to be more exact. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of me, my family is quite famous.”
“Did one of your relatives defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort?”
“So you have heard of my family then?” Henry grinned. “That was my great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. The original Henry Potter. Though it was the Dark Lord Moldyvort, not Voldemort, or whatever you said.”
The three friends exchanged a look of confused concern.
“Henry, by the order of the Council of Kings, you are to accompany these three on their quest.”
Henry shrugged. “Okay, sure.”
“Don’t you want to know what the quest is?” Sam asked.
Henry yawned. “No, not really. I’m bored, whatever it is has to be more exciting than watching Alianna Stormbow shower for the twentieth time today.”
“Henry Potter, you know full well watching people while they are naked is strictly forbidden in the room of scrying,” Seda said, her voice tinged equally by exhaustion and disgust.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that even here, the magical surveillance state is almost exclusively used for porn,” Charlie said. Sam elbowed him sharply. “Ow! What? It’s what I’d do with it.”
“What’s wrong with you? Can’t you get an idea without saying it out loud?”
“And Henry is your best?” Nate asked.
“Yes. Despite the many accusations that the Potter family has coasted through life on the glory of their heroic ancestor, they do have a preternatural talent for all things magical.”
“What sorts of things can you do?”
Henry reached into the folds of his robes and pulled out a thin wooden wand. He twirled it over his head, and the marble floor beneath them began to bubble like liquid. With a sudden crack, the stone floor shot upward, spraying everyone with a fine white dust.
Coughing and sputtering, a statue of Henry Potter now stood in front of them, his smug smile immortalized in stone. The statue’s body rippled with muscles, like some bodybuilder’s fever dream of what the human physique is capable of. On the floor, being crushed underneath one of Henry’s enormous feet was a perfect simulacrum of Nate, his mouth agape in pain.
“Is that his fantasy, or yours?” Hag asked Nate.
“How do we know the floor didn’t do that before?” Charlie asked.
“Thank you for your help, Seda,” Nate said, casting a wary eye at Henry.
“You’re most welcome,” she said, waving her hand and floating back in the air toward her book. “May the Aether watch over you.”
“Now what?” Sam asked as the old woman returned to her reading.
“I guess we go to the Council of Kings?” Nate said.
“If we’re going to leave,” Henry Potter said, “then I’ll need to… how do I say this politely? Wipe better?”