NOVEL WEB Fetch Quest – One
I’ve gotten used to this sort of thing when we’re in a tavern, but I expected better when we were having dinner at a decent restaurant. Not the finest in town, because even if they’d let us in, it wouldn’t be an enjoyable evening for either of us. This one had good food, though, with some real selection, not just whatever pottage is on the fire, and there was a live band playing, and even a dance floor near them. We could party all night and then retire to our own room upstairs. We deserved a chance to celebrate and unwind.
Sylvael and I had just spent an extended period camping out in an abandoned city. We’d been hired by a university professor to collect a wide variety of unique and extremely peculiar creatures that had been created by a wizard, which involved throwing magical balls at them to contain them safely. It hadn’t been particularly dangerous, as our jobs went, but it had taken us longer than we’d expected to catch them all. Plus, it was highly annoying, having curious weird beasties showing up to watch whenever we were taking a few minutes to, ah, relax and enjoy each other’s company. Our wagon had a fairly comfortable bed, but what’s the point of being in the middle of nowhere if you have to go inside and lock the door just to have a quick bit of fun in privacy?
He’d paid us well, though, and that was about all we could ask for. I rather hoped he had no nefarious plans for what to do with the critters, because to be fair, they hadn’t been aggressive towards us despite having opportunities, but I was pretty sure they could look after themselves.
But right now... well, I’d only gotten up to make use of the privy, which was indoors and had running water instead of being a shed out back with a hole under it. Coming back to our table, I found the usual: Sylvael, fingers toying with the bracelet of dangly ornaments around one wrist, happily chatting to a strange man about local ancient history. I could read the stranger, even if Sylvael remained absolutely oblivious: he was a lot less interested in the story than the teller.
I dropped back into my own seat. “Bugger off,” I told the stranger. “Stop flirting with my husband.”
I watched the stranger’s eyes go wide as he processed that. “Your... what?” This one spun the prize wheel and came up with Better luck next time, completely at a loss to interpret that.
“Husband,” I repeated, more slowly. “As in, not the innocent pretty girl you were going to try your luck with. Stop trying to find a way to explain yourself and just go away.”
He took me up on the offer and hastily removed himself.
“He seemed nice, Keva,” Sylvael said.
“He wanted to get you in bed. He couldn’t repeat back one sentence of anything you just told him.”
“I wouldn’t have gone anywhere with him without telling you. But he said he knew a crypt in the graveyard with an old-looking carving on it, and...”
“There’s no crypt, sweetheart. Trust me. How’s your supper?”
“It’s great, it’s all cooked just right. The chicken had red laceleaf as one of the spices, which is unusual around here, because there’s an old tradition that if you eat it, it’ll draw the attention of the spirit world. Holy men and women used to use it as part of a ceremonial tea they drank before major rituals. It tastes better than I expected, though.”
“Do you suppose you’ll be visited by spirits tonight, then?”
“I guess we’ll see. That’ll be an interesting experiment.”
I love my brilliant husband, and I wouldn’t trade him for anyone in the world, in my arms or at my back, but he does need someone patient and protective to keep an eye on him.
For one thing, he’s entirely too pretty, in an androgynous sort of way that lets people see what they want to see. Not that he’s small or frail—he’s around my height, although more slender—but those rather blousy belted shirts do tend to confuse the issue. He likes having his hair long, and while it’s in a braid to mid-back while we’re working, he left it loose to go out tonight; I happen to love running my fingers through all that red-highlighted blonde hair, but far too many others want to try. Then there’s that skin that just refuses to tan, just reddens into painful sunburn and fades back to white, with the adorable freckles scattered across nose and cheekbones, and the big blue eyes. I’m pretty much the only person who gets to look into those gorgeous eyes, though: Syl is rarely comfortable with eye contact, and that plus the tendency to drop to murmured monosyllables on most subjects looks like shyness. All of that adds up to far too many people, usually men, seeing a shy-but-friendly winsome young woman.
For another thing, he’s trusting as a new-hatched duckling.
“Well, no running off with the spirits without me. If you have any dreams or visions or anything, make sure you tell me about them. So tell me about these rituals they did. Anything fun?”
I could listen to Sylvael telling me stories all day. The band provided a pleasant background—and one of the songs distracted Syl onto the history behind it. The wine was a good one, and I coaxed Sylvael to the dance floor with me. When he feels safe, he’s graceful and agile, and with me, he feels safe and ignores everything else. I don’t, even when thoroughly enjoying myself; I warned off an overly-optimistic man who clearly thought that two women doubled his chances of success.
I’m less striking than Sylvael. As I said, we’re nearly the same height, but I’m far more active and it shows in the lean muscle on my frame. My hair is dark, and I keep it cropped short, with a strip at each side clipped close to my head and the rest long enough to either tie back in a tail, when working, or to comb over to one side on a night out. I can hardly recall what colour my skin is when it isn’t deeply tanned, and there are a few scars here and there marring it. You won’t catch me in those puffy shirts, either—I like my arms bare, whether we’re working and I have my chest securely wrapped under a layer of cushioning linen between my skin and my leather-and-chain short-sleeved jerkin, or playing and I choose something that lets my curves show as much as my muscle. I don’t care what others think: Sylvael likes to look, and I like how it feels, and that’s good enough. I do attract attention; some actually seem to prefer approaching me. It just isn’t nearly as frequent as attempts at my very pretty husband.
Both somewhat winded, we settled back at our table, and I requested more wine.
We’d scarcely tasted it when someone stopped next to our table.
“You are Sylvael and Keva Ferran, are you not?”
“Who’s asking?” I said, but at the same time, Sylvael said, “Yes, do we know you?”
I kicked him under the table and looked up.
Wizard, beyond any question. I don’t know why wizards like those dratted impractical floor-length long-sleeved robes so much, unless it’s to hide something under there. They were a bad lot, as far as I was concerned, and I’d put nothing past one.
This one was in a robe that had the usual mystical runes embroidered in black and blue over a background of a rather metallic grey; they obviously weren’t very secret if they were all over his clothes, so they probably had no actual power of their own, thus they served only to impress the impressionable. His head was shaved; skin only turned that ashen shade when it was deprived of sunlight to a truly remarkable degree. He looked down his hooked nose at us over a pair of brass-framed glass spectacles.
I sighed. “We’re trying to enjoy a night off together, if you don’t...”
“I have a proposition for you. I understand that you retrieve unique artefacts when hired to do so. I would like to hire you to do a retrieval job for me. I can pay extremely well, and as I want this item very badly, I’ll be feeling very generous once I’m holding it. It could also offer some intangible rewards, as I understand your husband has a deep interest in history.”
“His interest in history is what allows us to do our job so well,” I said. “But it doesn’t pay the bills.” Sylvael had gone silent—he trusted me to handle any kind of business dealings for both of us.
“Is that a refusal?”
I kept my groan carefully private. “Your timing could be a lot better, but no, we try to only decline jobs if we have a good reason. Fine. If it’s so very urgent that it can’t wait until tomorrow, then have a seat and tell us what this job involves. What it is, where it is, obstacles or difficulties you expect. And I’ll need a concrete number attached to that generosity, and your sworn word that you will pay us the full amount upon delivery in actual negotiable local currency.”
“I beg your pardon!” He sounded indignant now, and his nose rose higher in the air.
“We’ve dealt with wizards before, and being paid in bizarre ingredients that would be worth the equivalent if we could find a buyer willing to pay the full price, or in promises of your future services for free up to that amount, or in the shell currency of some forsaken island culture we’re unlikely to ever visit, have all been tried. If you aren’t planning to pay in local coin in full, then we can stop this discussion before your backside even hits that chair.”
He paused for a heartbeat, like he was thinking about leaving. He wasn’t. No one was as good as Syl and I at finding and exploring lost temples and abandoned cities and fallen castles and other long-forgotten places, and getting out alive with whatever we’d been hired to find. He finally sat down, and from under the outermost layer of his robe he produced a folder of stiff paper, which he set on the table with great precision before folding his hands and laying them on top.
“Local coin will be fine. Shall we get down to the requirements of the job?”