Hours later, the same woman with the white winged hat came back and began to unfurl the bandages around Willow’s hands. She had the most terrible premonition of blood and bone, muscle and tendon, and almost looked away in fear.

But what was revealed wasn’t her hands as she’d last seen them, but as they had been days before, albeit cleaner, and her nails painfully short.

“We had to reconstruct the entire surface,” the woman said as she inspected the smooth skin of Willow’s knuckles; skin that should have creases in it from everyday use.

“Even the backs of the hands, there wasn’t much left,” she said and tutted. “But it looks like you’re all healed up. Everything joined to the bone well enough, and I daresay the muscle tone is better than anywhere else on your body. Whatever you were doing that got you so grievously injured, try not to do it again.”

“Trust me, I don’t imagine I’ll be in that position anytime soon,” Willow answered.

The rest of her possessions were returned to her in a bundle and she was left behind a curtain to dress. As she fastened her clothes she discovered that her hands didn’t ache like the rest of her body—the muscles in her fingers didn’t burn and throb, and she was able to get dressed twice as fast as she normally would.

She supposed that wouldn’t last long.

Leopold was waiting on a bench at the entrance of the great cathedral-like building and he looked up from a book when she entered the hall.

“All ready to go,” he asked, shutting the book. She noticed it was the introductory text on spellcasting, and a startling thought came to her.

“How many days until the examination,” she asked. It wasn’t possible that she’d slept through the entire examination, was it?

“It’s tomorrow, lucky for you,” he smiled. “Still have your book?”

Willow patted the bundle held awkwardly at her side, by her hands now strong enough to carry the weight.

“Well, study up. I don’t know what the effect of having brand new hands will be on the exam…”

“I’ll be ready,” she said, although she didn’t feel the confidence she tried to project. How would her new hands affect her casting? Might they hamper her meager abilities even more?

“We’re off then,” Leopold said, and stood from the bench. “To Bryan’s place.”

As they left the hospital, Willow looked back and found herself shocked at the sheer size of the facade. It looked like the pictures of cathedrals in her books—ancient ruins from civilizations long past.

The streets were paved with close-fitting flagstones and each had a curb that was suspiciously clean. Buildings rose on either side of the city street that were just as impressive, each containing a second story and built of pale yellow stone blocks, roofs studded with dark wooden beams. She couldn’t keep herself from staring.

“Incredible, isn’t it,” Leopold said.

“I never asked you where you came from,” Willow said. “Was it a small village like my own?”

Leopold nodded. “Barrowhaven. It’s a little bigger than what I saw of your town. We have a few two-story buildings in the center, but nothing like this.”

“Just the mayor’s mansion for us,” Willow said. “And even that… well, they think they’ll have to rebuild soon enough. The beams are beginning to crack.”

Leopold grunted at the uninteresting trivia from Bridgewater, but speaking of it brought Willow a reverie of home. Would her parents even know that she’d been injured on the journey out? Probably not, and since nobody was killed on the wagon they might not even receive word of the attack when the next caravan came around. All in all her almost-lethal adventure was ultimately an uneventful waylay for the Caravanner’s guild.

After two turns during which Willow was mostly caught up in her reverie, Leopold stopped in front of a wooden-linteled doorway and she pulled up short behind him. He gestured to the door.

“This is it,” he said, then pointed to the number carved into the lintel. “Twenty-three Grave street.”

“I wonder why it’s called that,” Willow said. Leopold gestured down the lane.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Because of the graveyard down there.”

“Right,” she responded.

“Well, I’ve got to go; exams start an hour after first light. I’ll be here at dawn to take you.” He gestured to the door. “Bryan twisted my arm.”

“Thanks, Leopold,” Willow said, and smiled. He looked hesitant for a moment, then looked down at her hands, which almost seemed to glow with the paleness of her new skin.

“You really… did do it, you know,” he said, and swallowed. “I was even less than useless. It just shrugged off my attack, I couldn’t do anything. You saved us, saved me.”

“Oh, I don’t know—,” Willow said, but he shook his head, cutting her off.

“Thank you, Willow. Thank you for getting me here. I’ve wanted it for so long, I never thought I might not even arrive.”

Willow swallowed hard and nodded. “I know what you mean.”

Leopold nodded and turned, walking down the street toward the graveyard, leaving her to knock at the door all on her own.

🜛

Far away in another part of the city, a caravan guard approached a wide-set building with a shingle hung above the door which depicted an anvil radiating sparks. He tripped the latch and swept inside, holding a tightly wrapped bundle close to his body.

A corpulent man behind the wide counter at the other end of the room looked up, squinted his eyes in the magelight, and a smile broke over his face.

“Bryan, I see you’re back from the caravan. How was the job?”

Bryan didn’t answer until he was across the shop, sweeping past tables with mounted magical objects, each worth at least a solid week’s pay on the road. The real expensive stuff, he knew, Geoff kept in an iron safe in the back of the store.

Geoff grew a puzzled look at Bryan’s silence, until the guard reached the counter and put the wrapped bundle down. From the way it clanked against the hard wood, it had to be heavy.

“It was bad, Geoff. Real bad. I almost lost the caravan, and my life.”

Geoff looked taken-aback. “What happened?”

“Deathworm attack.”

“Deathworm? But aren’t they—”

“They never attack,” Bryan interrupted. “Yes. Not one has been recorded to attack a caravan, until now. I don’t know why it did. Why it thought it could take on the caravan. They only go for small magical creatures. But it burrowed up in the night, caught me off-guard. I got knocked out, helpless. I should’ve died, no one there should’ve been able to face it down without a weapon. But… well…”

Bryan looked down to the parcel and pulled back the heavy canvas which covered it. Within was a twisted bar of metal covered with a viscous jelly. A small block of wood was screwed onto the end.

“One of your passengers held it off,” Geoff said, pulling a cloth from his belt and beginning to wipe the red deathworm ooze off the iron. “I don’t suppose you told them you kept the artifact.”

Bryan stiffened for a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t imagine it would work anymore, but it might make the base for a powerful weapon,” he said hopefully. “Something like that would mean I’d never get jumped again.”

“Might be, might be,” Geoff muttered, and set an articulated metal stand on the counter. He twisted a ring at the top and a beam of magelight shone down on the twisted metal.

“What was this? Not a sword. A club?”

“A cane,” Bryan said, and Geoff inspected the broken-off handle.

“Strange material to make a cane out of, must have weighed at least ten pounds.”

“It did,” Bryan confirmed. “Right away I suspected it might be an artifact, but after the deathworm…”

“Right, of course,” Geoff said, and went into the back of the store for a moment and returned with a bucket of sudsy water. They both worked at the metal together, Geoff guiding Bryan to ensure he didn’t damage any inscriptions that might still exist on the twisted bar, and after a quarter of an hour they had gotten it mostly clean. Geoff then procured a magnifying loup and began to go over the twisted item.

“Can you tell what it might have done,” Bryan asked after a few minutes. Geoff was still bent over the bar, scrutinizing every inch of it. “I could really use something like it for a sword. Hell, I’d train on a mace if I could whip it around like—”

Geoff straightened and Bryan stopped at the look on his face. “What?”

“You’re not having me on for a jape, are you,” Geoff asked. Bryan could see the vague lines of anger in the other man’s face. He’d seen Geoff furious before, usually at being swindled in a trade, and he didn’t want to antagonize his friend.

“No, no of course not. I wouldn’t lie about this.”

Geoff pocketed the loup and pushed the twisted bar back across the counter to Bryan.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“There’s no inscription on this,” Geoff said. “Not a single etched line.”

“But the damage—”

Geoff held up his hand. “Wouldn’t be enough to wear every trace of an inscription away. I can still see the working marks on it, a craftsman in Raly forged it. I recognize the stamp.”

“Does he do hidden inscriptions? Maybe something within the bar…”

Geoff shook his head. “Not him. Straight iron-worker. Mundane blacksmith. Whoever used this to kill a deathworm did it with pure strength.”

“That’s not possible,” Bryan said. “She’s just… just a child. She can barely walk.”

Geoff narrowed his eyes at Bryan and leaned across the counter. “Are you certain you know what it was that wielded this weapon,” he asked in a deadly whisper.