Day Twenty "Well I think she's a natural slavegirl", Memree was saying. She was wearing shorts, boots and her white sweater, looking down at Fran on the floor of our room. Fran was wearing a small pair of leather panties which had somehow got in among our stuff when Memree had packed the saddlebags a couple of days before in the Churmuk camp. Fran's wrists were handcuffed behind her back, her ankles were tied together, and the ballgag had recently been replaced after she'd been fed some breakfast. "She was fascinated by the whole deal of you apparently owning me, and when you were away, she went on about how the warrior-pairings in their clan were so boring, and the clan-meets where they did get the opportunity to get laid weren't much better. Despite what Natella made her do, she did want to get away, and that wasn't just to become a member of the town guard here!" Ashil had been around earlier, to report that Kreston, before he headed out of town for some big family reunion, had indeed bought Natella, and for an excellent price. He'd also sold all the horses we'd thieved - I suggested that the money from them, and the saddles, should be divided five ways, two for Memree and me, and one each for the three men who'd escaped with Kreston and us. Ashil agreed, and said he'd also put them on the accounts as part of the cavalry group, so they'd get a few silvers for that too. Kreston's people were paying the bills, after all! I went out to do some minor shopping, and chat to a few people... and when I came back, well, maybe I'm being a little suspicious, but both Memree and Fran did seem a little, well, flushed, and while I didn't get a good look, my impression was that Fran's bottom was a bit pinker than I'd remembered it. I think Fran had been getting a little introductory lesson in slavegirl life... Anyway, after lunch the three of us headed for Delinda's store. We timed it right, as a rather respectable-looking couple were just leaving as we arrived, with a large bag of purchases. Delinda and Loji welcomed us - they'd heard all about our latest adventure of course, these things get around town faster than a horse can gallop. "And this must be the new slavegirl, Fran", Delinda said happily. "You'll want to get her measured up and kitted out with some personal restraints, I'm sure." "Not exactly", Memree told her. "Charol and I don't really have room in our life for a slavegirl, even as natural and eager a one as Fran here... so we thought we'd do her a favour, and you a favour, I hope, by giving her to you - just as an extra thankyou for all you've done for us." Delinda hugged Memree, and then hugged me; she seemed delighted. "If you can handle more than Loji, that is", I added. "We thought that Fran would need a firm hand - and that's what you've got with slavegirls, right?" Delinda was sizing up Fran, who wisely kept her eyes downcast, and her posture straight. "Hmm, I'll shave her hair, just leaving eyebrows and eyelashes, like Loji - I think she will train up well, she'd better if she knows what's good for her." She turned to us. "Did you have any ideas for a slavegirl- name for her?" "To go with Loji, I thought Joli", Memree said. "But that's entirely up to you, she's your slave." We left not long after. "I hope we did the right thing", I commented, as we walked home. I idly kicked a pebble across the street, it bounced off the wall opposite. "I think so - Loji could probably do with the company, Del's a natural slave-trainer and slave-owner - and I think it won't take Fran long, sorry, I don't think it will take Joli long, to surrender herself and admit that this is what she was made for." And that's about all there was of any conceivable interest today, my Mage-Librarian friend, so I'm signing off until tomorrow! Day 21 One thing I'm not looking for at the moment is a new adventure, assignment, job, call it what you will, so I was a little wary when Ashil called around. Luckily he'd only come to discuss the money we'd earned, and what we wanted to do with it. We started talking about bankers, we even talked about buying one of the local taverns, having it cleaned up a bit, putting a landlord in, and having our very own rooms upstairs - but, even with one of the smallest and worst-placed hostelries in town, we would still be stretching ourselves a bit. Suddenly, Memree surprised us by asking Ashil what he knew about "Mistress Indigo" - a name I'd heard mentioned, I knew she was some kind of mage-healer who lived not too far outside town in a miniature castle with a domed roof. Ashil looked puzzled, and then smiled. "Well she's good - if I have people badly hurt, she cures them. Not cheap, though... but it's not a matter of her giving you a bottle of some smelly potion, it's more involved than that, it's a very hands-on approach, she kind of brings the cure out of you yourself..." "I thought we could get Charol's scars healed - she's so beautiful, I just hate the way her back is marred by those ugly weals, it just doesn't seem right!" "Now hold on", I began, and I'm sure I was blushing. "She is expensive - I admit the idea is tempting, but--" "We can use my share, or go half-and-half, but if any of the money is mine, that's how I want to spend it!" She grabbed my shoulders, and looked me in the eye. "Please...?" And that's how we came, in late afternoon, to be knocking on the miniature castle's door, cloaked against the wind - Memree even had her hood up. The sound of the knocking was surprisingly quiet, but within a few heartbeats Mistress Indigo was opening the door, and beckoning us in. "Ah, Charol, and Memree - Ashil's message said you'd be coming, welcome to my house!" She wore a long, tight black dress, and had a teardrop-shaped dark blue gem suspended on her forehead. Her black hair had a bluish tinge, I think; perhaps it was dyed, but she looked no older than a well- preserved, handsome 35. We were shown into a large room with a blazing fire in the grate. There were normal comfortable chairs, but there was also something more like an upholstered table - and that's what I found myself lying on, on my front, in my underwear, while Mistress Indigo gently ran her cool hands along the old scars. "It is no simple thing", she told us. "No ointment, no lotion can do more than calm the redness. I have to understand the scars - and you have to understand them, too." "I was young, I was stupid, I thought I was in love", I said glumly. "So I got sweet-talked into hanging around the streets in a town well away from here, wearing a tiny skirt and a thin blouse." I closed my eyes. "I wasn't... I didn't sell myself, what I did was worse than that, though I didn't think so then..." I must have fallen asleep; the table was comfortable, the fire warm, the flickering light made it easy to close my eyes, and Mistress Indigo's hands were warm now, and very soothing. Sometimes, when it rains a lot, or in the worst of winter, I do feel some memories of pain in my back, but now, I was just drifting... and I dreamed. Old Cerryl always said that our hill-tribe made the initiation test harder for the girl-children, as they needed plenty of tribe-wives to stay in our village and breed and look after the children. She was right about this costume, certainly, I'd made it out of a rather small amount of leather, and the first defender I'd had to pass hadn't known whether to fight, faint, or, well... I used my knee to give him a love-tap in an appropriate place, and was past and out of his circle before he remembered what he had been supposed to be doing. I hurried across the hillside. Arrow-signs made from pebbles showed the path I must take, and I clutched my spear, and ran on, into a narrow pass, half-choked with bushes and a few hardy trees. This must be the next trial-point, I thought - and a monster, green and slimy and half again my height, leapt at me, a claw swiping across my naked stomach! The pain was - was not agonizing, this had to be some sort of illusion. I swung the butt of my spear round, it hit something that wasn't there, and the monster wavered, rippled, and was gone. Our shaman looked annoyed, rubbing his forehead where I'd clipped him. "Yes, yes, very good, Highfield - the test continues, on you run!" So far, I'd been lucky... but the further I went, the more dangerous it would become. People could get killed out here, it was understood, which made it a fine time to remember old grudges. I moved quietly, now... this wasn't the next testing-point, but the birds were quiet, the flies were too active, and then I caught a whiff of stale sweat and old leather, and stopped, began to circle around, as quietly as a butterfly with a hangover. Ah yes - Finbur! A couple of years older than me, a bully, a loudmouth, he'd got a grudge against me, just because I'd turned him down - oh and I'd beaten him in a fishing contest too, in front of all his friends. So here he was trying to ambush little Charol and make her fail her test, maybe rape her, maybe maim her, maybe kill her. Oh yes, he held grudges, did Finbur. Unfortunately for him, so did I; I crept up behind him,held the spear two-handed and whipped it over his head like a garrotte, he tried to grab the spear as it began to crush his windpipe, but, too much fishing and too little weapons practice, his arms weren't quite strong enough. He fell to the ground, wheezing and coughing blood. Truth to tell, I didn't know if I'd killed him or not. I ran through the firepits, hardly noticing - I leapt clear of the spear-throwers, and jumped off the waterfall into the pool far below, easily avoiding the rocks. Hey, I'd been there often enough on hot days with a few friends, cooling off and showing off! And now the final hillside was ahead, with its warren of caves. Choose one cave, and see what the final snare for you will be... "Charol?" It was Memree's voice, she sounded concerned. "You drifted off, then - how are you feeling...?" "Hmmm?" My eyes were a little slow to focus. There was Memree, with my clothes, ready to help me dress; and there was Mistress Indigo, smiling encouragingly. "Sorry... I was dreaming..." "That is good", Mistress Indigo said quietly. "It is the beginning of the cure, but only the beginning. You will return tomorrow at the same time, and we will continue." She grinned. "And yes, there is some ointment for you to use tonight, have your friend rub it in all across your back last thing before you sleep, it will help, just a little." We left, walking back into Redwall. And now it is last thing, and Memree is holding the little pot of ointment reasonably patiently while I finish this. Was my dream part of the treatment, or did I just sleep through whatever Mistress Indigo was doing? Hopefully we'll all find out tomorrow! Day 22 I was too tired in the morning to do much. I managed to do some warrior-type exercises in the early afternoon, but the main part of the day was always going to be our second visit to Mistress Indigo - and it proceeded very much the same way as our previous appointment. And as soon as I was lying face-down on that leather-upholstered table, I could feel myself drifting off, as Mistress Indigo's hands massaged my back, and she hummed something, very quietly... My dream continued from before, and I entered one of the caves, spear at the ready, expecting some hungry wildcat, some brown bear, a gladiator with a trap-net... but what I found was Flavion, sitting not far from a campfire, gently tapping on a pair of drums... a rhythm like a heartbeat. He was a year or two older than me, and I'd always thought he looked rather good - today, with his muscular chest and tight trousers, he looked exceptionally good to this tired would-be warrior. "Flavion? But I thought these caves were - well, traps...?" "Charolia! Well chosen, my lovely! Some caves are traps, but I hope you will consider this one a treat!" He smiled. "Put down your javelin, for it is I who surrender to your beauty!" He gestured to some animal furs beside him. "Face it, sweet woman, today we've both got lucky!" In my dream, I was agreeing with him, but the modern me wanted to scream, as the two figures kissed, embraced, and were soon lying on those furs, oblivious to everything except each other. For it was a trap, a trap of honey. I was so young, then, and innocent, and I didn't know that traps came in all sorts of guises. Time blurred, and the dream leapt forward. I'd failed the test, and I left the tribe - Flavion left too, he'd decided there was a world to be seen outside our hills, and, with me at his side, he was confident he'd make his fortune. And it soon became clear how I could help him get rich - oh Flavion! It seemed so simple, then. We needed money to live, and as outsiders in that town we couldn't earn it honestly, or so he told me... he was older than me, more wise to the world, and I believed him. After all, we were in love - weren't we? So there I am, in a skirt so short it shows my panties, slit up the side too, and a top that enhanced rather than covered, plus sexy little shoes - where did Flavion get the money for all that, I wonder? And it's evening, and I'm just hanging around outside a tavern, waiting for Flavion to come out with his "new friend". Not that I'm an honest prostitute, oh no that wasn't Flavion's idea though, gods know, he could probably have talked me into it... The target tonight is Lord Gillaird, who's soon to be married, apparently, but still has a roving eye. He takes me back to his townhouse, I contrive to leave a door unlocked (I'd been shown, from across the street earlier, which one), and Flavion gets in, steals everything of value, and by the time the theft is discovered, when Gillaird awakens in the morning, we've both vanished, very possibly riding Gillaird's own horses. A few successes, little more than backstreet muggings when I led some randy local somewhere quiet for some "privacy", had made us over-confident and much too greedy... Would Flavion have waited for me? To this day I don't know. The plan was moronic, Gillaird had servants who discovered the unlocked door almost as soon as I'd done it. A big bodyguard of a man burst in on Lord Gillaird as he was offering me wine, told him what I'd done... and I was dragged down into the cellar, and chained to the wall, while guards waited to see what rat would be taking the bait. Still in my stupid little skirt and humiliating little blouse... "Charol...?" I was so glad to hear Memree's voice, to be woken from the nightmare before it could reach its worst part. The second day of Mistress Indigo's treatment was over; I was shaky on my legs, I felt cold - but this was my past, I was going to deal with it! Day 23 I didn't want to get onto that padded table again, but eventually I was naked on it, lying on my front again, with Mistress Indigo massaging some oil into my back, and Memree watching silently, standing close by. I gripped her hand in mine... but my grip loosened as I fell into the damned dream again. My last sight of Flavion saw him bruised and blooded, his shirt torn off and his hands tied, gripped tightly by two of Lord Gillaird's men. Not so handsome now, nor so cocksure of himself. I think he saw me, but I'm not sure that I really registered - he was terrified, shaking and pale, you could almost see the shadow of the gallows across his face. "So, two amateur thieves were out to make a fool of me, eh? I expect I'd have been drugged, robbed, and you'd have laughed all your way to Spektros!" Gillaird's voice was harsh and angry. "N-no, m'lord, it was--" "Well I'm nobody's fool - and I'm not soft, either!" He turned to one of his men, the big bodyguard I think it was. "Have his... left hand chopped off, and dump him in a ditch well outside town." "At once, Lord." It sounded to me as if it wasn't the first time Gillaird had given such an order, and his man sounded eager to carry it out. "If he's seen in this town again, remove his other hand, too." "And his woman, Ser...?" Flavion didn't shout, or plead, I don't think he had any voice for it... they led him away. Well, they more carried him, really, his legs didn't seem to want to work, and I'm sure he peed himself. To this day I don't know if he bled to death, died of exposure, or is still alive somewhere, maimed and probably blaming me for the whole thing. "Get me a horsewhip, a heavy one", Lord Gillaird said. "I'm not going to maim her, but I'll give the whore something to remember us by - for the rest of her miserable life!" I moaned in my sleep - I knew it was a dream, a true dream, but I couldn't wake up. Mistress Indigo's hands soothed me, I was clutching Memree's hand so hard it hurt, but the dream went on, and I cringed, I wept... Mistress Indigo was murmuring something to Memree, and her hand left mine, I tried to keep hold of it, my lifeline to wakefulness... "Stop, you brute!" The words echoed in the basement dungeon, and Gillaird let the whipping cease, let the whip's bloody strands fall to the floor. I turned my head, and a glowing, armoured angelic figure, a warrior angel fierce and sure, was standing there. The two remaining servants - well, one fell to his knees, the other ran away. The blonde-haired angel looked furious; she had a sword on her hip, but she hadn't yet drawn it. "What sorcery is this?" Gillaird was not easily cowed. "Guards!" This had never happened. The whipping had continued until I fainted, and in the morning I'd been thrown out...luckily Flavion and I had paid for a few days more at our inn, and we had some belongings there, including rather more money than Flavion had said we'd got, so I'd staggered back there, and lived to fight another day... The angel was Memree, I realised, bigger than life, in glowing armour. She picked up the cowering servant, threw it at the guards who came running, bowling them all over, and turned to Lord Gillaird, drawing her sword. "I think you've done enough, don't you?" "Stop! I didn't mean... I didn't know..." The angel unlocked my shackles. My back was on fire; I bent, picked up a short sword someone must have dropped, and turned to Lord Gillaird. "Your hospitality is... rather overwhelming, Lord..." "Please... don't kill me." His voice wasn't so harsh now. Memree turned to me with a smile. "This is your dream, Charol - you decide what we must do." "I'd cheerfully slit the fool's throat", I told her, "But I don't think that would prove anything. We could just leave him...um... hanging around...?" "Poetic, Sister", was the comment, but it was rather indistinct, as at last I was emerging from the dream. The angel Memree grasped my hand, just as the real Memree grasped my hand again as I opened my eyes and started to sit up. My back was raw and blee-- oh no it wasn't, Mistress Indigo held a mirror up to show me a pale, pure, unmarked back, her face alight with triumph. "It was hard for you, I know, but there was no other way, Charolia", she said, putting the mirror back on the wall. "The scars were deep, but we dug them out. If you have any ointment left, use it tonight, and then, you two can get on with your lives, free of the past." Look, I'm just reporting what happened today, I don't claim to understand it. I wonder if, somewhere, Lord Gillaird is having some strange dreams too, maybe of hanging in chains in that torture room? I'm still a bit fuzzy from it all, so I hope you'll excuse me if this makes no more sense to you than it does to me, but my back is healed, and that is certainly a dream come true! Day 24 I actually slept until after lunchtime today, though I don't remember any dreams, luckily. I'd not truly realised what a weight on me those scars had been, but my back is as clear as a baby's now. The money we paid Mistress Indigo, with a little help from Ashil, works out at almost half our total purse, but I really don't care. Who wants to own a tavern, anyway? Adventuring is what I do, I kill dragons, slay lurking monsters, rescue the innocent, and that's what I want to continue to do, with Memree beside me! Yes, the afternoon did involve shopping - after spending all that gold, a little more couldn't hurt, and I had a yearning to buy some new clothes, including one or two items to show off an elegant, shapely back. It's weird, I feel so light and happy I could easily burst into tears, and I'm certainly not spending long on this clever little book today, so, Ser Mage-Librarian, see you tomorrow! Day 25 No, I hadn't been drinking, yesterday... at least, I drank a little, but I can drink ten times as much as that and still make better sense than yesterday's entry. Oh well, onwards...and if it makes you feel any better, I did have a sort of ghost of a hangover. So, was there anything worth writing about today? We checked with Ashil, but he didn't have any work for us at the moment, though in a few days a group of merchants may be glad to hire on an extra guard or two for a journey south. Do we want to journey south, and probably hang about spending our money for a while before anyone wants to have guards for a journey heading back this way? And can I make Memree look like the sort of tough, experienced fighter that they'd want to hire? Oh well, she can cook a fine dish of porridge! Our curiosity got the better of us, and we dropped in on Delinda, in theory because I was still buying new clothes and wanting to show of my gorgeous new back - in practice to see if Fran was now a good little slavegirl, under her new name of Joli. But we'll have to come up with another excuse to visit, our favourite ex-Churmuk warrior was nowhere to be seen. She was engaged in some "quiet contemplation", Delinda said, which, we decided as we walked home, meant some tight ropes, a gag, probably a hood, and no chance to do much more than wriggle, and that only in moderation. So we ate, and we drank, and we did a little more shopping, or at least browsing - and that's about it. It's rather relaxing not to be involved in any life-and-death adventure, for a day or two... but I'm sure it won't last. Something will come up, or I'll just get restless! Day 26 Another slow-starting day, though maybe for the last time for a while. One thing that I hadn't done, since we came back from our Churmuk adventure, was check in with Man Coker, the town's self-styled "underlord" - and it was time I put that right. No point going to his place in the morning, of course - he keeps late hours, not early ones. So, that was the plan, taking Memree to see him or, more to the point, taking Memree so that he could see her, as requested. Early afternoon seemed like a good time, so we put on nice plain cloaks, and headed off to that terrible tavern that provides one of the ways to enter his own private underland. I'm just glad I don't have to drink there! Old "one-thumb" let us through into the back, the card-players totally ignored us, and we went down into the cellar, through the half-height door, down the ladder, got the lantern from the guard, and walked on to the large cave he calls home. He must spend a lot on lamp oil, the place was bright and cheerful - and, luckily, so was he. "Charol my love", he shouted. "I see you've brought your lovely mystery woman with you, as I asked - though I was starting to think you'd forgotten about us!" He got up from his seat at the head of a table, off to one side - a couple of minor gang leaders I knew were sitting there too, and raised their glasses in our direction amiably enough. Chance was about fifty, well-preserved, with plenty of muscle, and ran a gang of no more than a dozen people, mainly on protection and gambling, though he owned a couple of quite reasonable taverns too. Carter, around thirty and with the misleading look of a minor nobleman, was mainly a slave trader, and also owned a couple of brothels. "Sorry, Man - there wasn't any loot except the horses and saddles, and Ashil took charge of those", I told him. "And then Memree here got me entirely side-tracked." "I can see that is something this very gorgeous young lady would be very good at", he said gallantly, and walked over to shake her hand. Luckily I had warned Memree about Man Coker's aversion to washing, so she smiled, and shook his hand, and then surprised me, and Man, by giving him one of her top-quality, lingering hugs. "Any friend of Charol's is a friend of mine", she told him once she released him. "Charol's told me how good you've been to her, so I'm delighted to meet you, Ser Coker." "I've not been as good to her as you've been, I'm sure, Sera Memree", he replied. "And I gather that getting Charol's scarred back cured was your idea?" Like I've said, word spreads fast - and Coker makes it his business to know what is going on. "Which took a large amount of money, though it was well worth it", I told him. "And that means that we're looking for work... got anything in my line, Man?" "Well, my good friend Ser Chance has got something that you might be right for", Coker said after a moment, looking at the gang leader. "It's no big thing", Chance said, "But as I was telling Coker, someone broke into my Red Sunset tavern yesterday, and robbed a guest of mine, a friend of mine who'd come to Redwall to broker a deal. I'd really appreciate it if somebody could get back what was stolen, because it makes me look bad." He shook his head wearily. "I'll pay its full value, and a bonus if the thief gets to regret what he did." "So what was stolen, Chance?" "A brown wood box, with three golden stars inlaid in its lid - and inside is a dagger, a really fancy one, not much good for throat-cutting but with more stars engraved on the blade, and a black hilt with a ruby at the end." He sighed. "It's supposed to be part of the deal, a gift from one party to the other." I smiled. "Well, I can't promise anything, the thief may have run out of town as fast as his legs would carry him and not stopped since, which would certainly be a sensible strategy after robbing a man with your sort of connections - but I'll see if I can pick up any trail. Who should I talk to at the Red Sunset?" "The manager, Cookson - but leave it until the morning, I'd better make arrangements first." So I am leaving it until tomorrow. We said our goodbyes, and headed home, and tomorrow I'll talk to Ser Cookson, though I don't quite see how I can track down a mysterious burglar two days after the event. But then, I have friends, or at least informants, in all sorts of places, and a dagger like that is not going to be too easy to sell in town. Day 27 The manager of the Red Sunset, Cookson, was not a huge amount of help. His guest, Jasper, had had the dagger, in its presentation box, stored in the small, and sturdy, safe-room behind the bar, where the expensive wines and spirits were kept. Only he, the manager, had the key, but the thief had been able to gain access to the next store-room along, and had used an axe, or a sword, or something like that, to make a hole in the wall between. The thumping, shortly after lunch, had been so obvious that everyone had assumed that some work was being done - until Cookson needed a fresh bottle of brandy, an hour or so later. Well, I talked to the cook, and his two helpers, and one of Chase's security types whose job it was to stop any trouble before it started... he might have investigated the noise, but he wasn't on the premises then, his job being more of an evening and night thing. The barman was no help at all, and his assistants hadn't come on until later... Memree and I looked at the hole more carefully - it looked like axe-work to me, the wood was splintered in that sort of way, after the layer of plaster had been knocked away. The hole had been big enough for a man to lean in with one hand, and grab, well, the box, as the most expensive-looking thing there, and two bottles of spirits. Not the best ones, the light probably hadn't been good enough for label-reading, just a little bonus that would fit easily in a workman's bag. I'd also have liked to speak to the box's rightful owner, but Jasper wasn't around. Maybe it would be better if I could at least tell him I'd been making enquiries, when I did see him! During the day the tavern is actually in a fairly quiet part of town, so Memree and I just strolled around, looking for anyone to talk to. Our best prospect was a girl of about ten, sitting on her front doorstep eating a rather large piece of bread. Nice clean blonde hair and a pleasant enough face, a clean dress too, though rather faded and a little small for her... no shoes, and rather dusty feet. Memree approached her, smiling. "Mind if I sit down?" "Go right ahead", the girl said with her mouth still half-full. "You looking for my dad?" "Only if he works at the Red Sunset, across the road." Memree sat down next to the girl. "That'd be good, he could come home for lunch - but he works at the stables, the other side of town." Memree leaned forward. "Did you hear that thumping noise at the tavern, a couple of days back, after mid-day?" The girl stopped eating, and grinned. "Someone robbed the place! Fancy making all that noise, and nobody doing a thing about it. Old Cookson's not the brightest of campfires, my dad says!" I crouched down to join in the conversation. "Well there's a reward for getting the stolen stuff back - we want to claim it, and if you can help us at all, we can cut you in...sorry, I don't know your name...?" She looked at me dubiously for a long moment, before reaching a decision and holding out a slightly greasy hand. "My name's Ruby, and that sounds good to me. I'm guessing that you're Charol, which makes blondie here Memree, right?" As I've said before, news travels fast around town, and it travels wide, too. I took the hand, and shook it. "That's us, Ruby. You get us any useful information, and we'll treat you fairly, I promise." I took a couple of copper coins, and one small silver, from my purse, and passed it to her. "This is for expenses - but you be careful, don't do anything risky, there are some nasty people around." She smiled reassuringly. "My elder brother will do any risky stuff - no, not risky, really, we'll take good care of ourselves, don't worry." We promised to return tomorrow, and she told us she knew where we lived and would send a message if anything urgent got turned up. I was rapidly getting the suspicion that she was taking charge of the investigation now, and we'd just be doing some of the legwork for her. But if it got results, that wasn't a problem. Anyway, we decided to leave the immediate area of the tavern to Ruby, and went off to talk to my contacts around town, see if anyone was offering any special daggers for sale, with or without presentation cases. Nobody knew anything, of course, but promised to let me know if any news did come in. And that about wrapped it up for today. We did enough to show we were taking it seriously, but without any leads to follow, that was really all we could do. It wasn't something to knock ourselves out over, anyway, just a nice gently change of pace and an excuse for some exercise. Day 28 I really didn't take to Jasper, the man whose presentation dagger, plus wooden box, had been stolen from the Red Sunset tavern. He was polite enough, and looked at my face more than most men do, he just gave the impression, to me, that only he mattered. I don't mind thieves or robbers, but he just wasn't involved with other people in the way that most of us are. It was creepy, and it got me to wondering what, if anything, was special about this particular dagger. Memree went off to visit Joli - I got the impression that there had been some sort of deal that Memree would have some part in her slavegirl training. So I wandered back over to the Red Sunset after lunch - and was approached by a tall, red-headed man of probably about 18 to 20, before I actually got there. "Hi there, I'm Perry - you met my little sister, Ruby...?" He smiled. "You really impressed her, I think she's decided to be an adventurer when she grows up!" "I hope you didn't mind us talking to her - but she was the only local person who looked as if they might have seen something, when the tavern's store was raided." "She's the best one of us to talk to - the brains of our family", he replied. "And to prove it, she's come up with a possible address you ought to check out." He handed over a scrap of paper, with a sketched map on it - it was of a section of town that didn't have road names or house numbers, where even the muggers went about in pairs for safety. It wasn't easy to make out, but luckily there were a couple of tavern signs I recognised. Well I thanked Perry, and went off to see if Torner was on duty or off. He was on duty, which made him easy to find - he got another guard to stand in for him for the rest of his watch, and went with me as I tracked down the address Ruby had sketched. Hey, there was no good reason for me to go there alone, and the sight of a large castle guard in full uniform ought to keep any but the most drink-addled bully-boys quiet. We found the place, and immediately the hairs on the back of my neck began to rise. Somehow, flies never make the same sort of buzzing noise when there isn't a corpse involved. The smell hardly stood out in that part of town, but - it was bad. I looked at Torner, and, without trying the handle, he kicked the door in. Suddenly the smell was a lot worse. The man couldn't have been dead more than two days, though from the state of him, you'd have guessed a week or more, at least. He was lying on his back, and it looked to me as if a knife had gone into his stomach, then ripped up through his chest almost to his neck, slicing through his ribs like butter. There was a lot of blood about, all dry and flaking. What there wasn't any sign of was his heart. There was one clean rectangle on the floor, which could well have been where the dagger's box had been put down; there were two bottles of brandy on a chair, one half-empty, almost certainly what had been taken from the tavern along with the dagger. There was no sign of the dagger itself, of course - unless it had been responsible for that ripped-open torso, that is! We headed for a better area of town, found a decent, quiet inn, and I wrote out a report on what I'd found, twice, then paid a potboy a few coppers to have one delivered to the one-thumbed barman at Coker's entrance-tavern, for passing on to Man Coker himself, and the other delivered to Chance, who would no doubt be pleased to hear that the thief had come to regret his transgression, at least briefly. I gave Torner a medium-strength kiss, I don't think either of us were really in the mood for anything more after our discovery, and headed back here. So the thief is dead, but the dagger is still on the loose. I think tomorrow I'll check in with Man Coker, and also with young Ruby, because, beyond that, I have no idea what to do next... Day 29 My assumption was that Ruby would be an earlier riser than Man Coker, so Memree and I headed over to her house, and knocked on the door. She answered it herself, and came out into the street. "Perry's off helping my dad today", she told us. "Did you find anything at that address?" "The thief - dead", I told her. "So now someone else has got the dagger he stole, and we're not really any further forward." I sat down on Ruby's doorstep. "I don't know if we'll get any reward just for finding the body, I've not seen the tavern's owner yet, I just sent him a message last night about what we'd found." Ruby smiled. "It doesn't matter, I trust you, both of you. What we need to do is find out more about that dagger, if people are starting to get killed over it." And that is what I told Man Coker, a little later in the morning. He made a tooth-sucking noise, and slowly nodded his agreement. "I know very little about it, and I don't think Chase knows much either..." "Jasper must know something - but I got the impression he doesn't easily share his secrets. Just what sort of deal was it to be used to seal? Is there magic involved?" Coker sighed. "I'm starting to suspect that there is, especially from what you've told me about the corpse. You'd better leave everything with me, I'll have to send one of my best people to the town Jasper brought the dagger from, and call in a few favours over there... so you can have a nice quiet couple of days, unless you think there's anything else to dig up around here." "Not a lot", I told him. "Oh, have we earned anything from your friend Chase for our discoveries so far? It doesn't bother me, but the young girl and her family would probably find a good use for a few extra silvers, and they have been very helpful." Coker brought out a purse, and counted out a gold piece and its equivalent in assorted silver coins. "This would be about a third of what you've earned, so pass it on to, what was it, Ruby and Perry?" I scooped up the coins, and smiled. "That's them. I'll try to find out their surname, if you like." And off we went, back up into the daylight. Without any leads, there wasn't much else we could do today. The plan will be to take the money round early tomorrow, maybe even before the father sets off for his work - I can hardly hand that much cash to a ten-year-old. Well, maybe I'll go round at a more reasonable time, and get directions to the stable he works at. A bit more lie-in, a bit more exercise... oh well, if I stop writing this and go to bed now, I'll have a better chance of waking up early! Day 30 Perry came to us, in the morning, which saved me some trouble; he also told us which stables his father worked at, though he'd been sent out to a farm today to help sort out the purchase of some new stock. We handed over the money that Coker had given us, and he seemed happy enough. What else today? Well, I tracked down Torner, who was on duty, to see if there had been any mage-examination of the corpse, but apparently nobody was too bothered about the death of a known petty thief, so there hadn't been any investigation at all. Ashil knew all about it, of course, but couldn't tell me anything I didn't know. I told him that I was worried that there was some sort of magic involved, and that the dagger could be the focus for something nasty; I think he took the idea seriously, he said he'd do some checking of his own, but that doesn't really get us anywhere at the moment. Delinda knows a bit about magic, of course, so that gave Memree and me an excuse to go on over to her shop - I hope people realise that she's an old friend, otherwise the number of visits Memree and I make there would really get tongues wagging! I couldn't take her anything to run a detector-wand over, so there wasn't much that could actually be done at this stage, but if I do get hold of that dagger, or even just its blasted presentation case, I will be sure to take it to her. "It sounds as if it could be something bad", Del said, when I'd told her just about everything. "I don't like the extra decomposition speed of the body, and I especially don't like the way some knife, very probably that dagger, had carved its way through the ribcage." She drummed her fingers on her worktable, where she'd been adding an extra hole to a rather complicated, ornate leather belt. "Don't get that kid Ruby too involved in it, she's not old enough to be able to defend herself the way you can, remember!" "So who gives a special "presentation dagger" like that, to whom?" I scratched my head, though that never ever gives me any sudden inspiration. "I didn't like Jasper, but I don't think he was an evil, other-dimensional demon in disguise." Delinda smiled. "They're busy beasts, I imagine - so some jobs they like to delegate to mere mortals." Now that was a cheery thought...or not! Memree stayed with Del, and I headed off to go and drink in a number of taverns, and generally keep my ears alert for anything that could be involved with the dagger. Redwall isn't really that big a place, but there are traders and farmers coming and going all the time, the castle, the main market and a farm market, and always a few things going on. A mercenary band was recruiting, though from the glimpse I had of the people handling the sign-up, it looked only a step or two above a roaming bandit gang - I hope they keep on roaming! There'd been a sale of cattle in the morning, so there were some farmers around with a lot of money, and a few guards from the market keeping an eye on them, as having sellers mugged or murdered is bad for the repeat business side. A few wagons of trade goods, mainly medium-grade fabrics, had come in, not really a proper caravan, just an extended family really, and they were celebrating at the inn they always used. A pale and worried young woman was searching for her husband - ten times out of ten the missing man will turn up the following morning with a lot of explaining to do, but I got a description from her, and details of where she could be reached. Someone had completed his apprenticeship to a blacksmith, and was being got horribly drunk by his fellow workers, cheerfully oblivious to whatever humiliations were being planned for him later. The manager of one of the larger grain warehouses was furiously searching for one of his loaders, who he (colourfully) swore had stolen two bags of wheat from the loading bay. Prostitutes were picking up their customers, drinkers were peeing in the back yards - and after a dozen different types of beer, I knew how they felt, so a return home seemed the best idea. So, no progress to report today, and probably none tomorrow either, but we will see what a new day brings. Hopefully no more flies buzzing round corpses, for a while. Day 31 I was tempting fate with that last bit, wasn't I? Well, I'm glad to report a complete lack of corpses today, and very few flies. We are still waiting to hear some background on Jasper and the people he represents - it would be nice to know something more about the dagger, like what it can do, as well. The trouble with not knowing is that it is too easy to start making wild guesses. Does it turn into a demon at midnight, and rip people's chests open to feed on their hearts? Does it possess its "owner"? Or is this just some sort of out-of-town gang feud spilling into Redwall. I can't imagine that any out-of-towners could operate here for any length of time without Man Coker knowing about it - he may be crooked, but I trust him, and I trust his opinion of Ser Chase, I'm sure he wouldn't be involved in this. It would be nice to know why he called Jasper not just a guest of his at the Red Sunset, but a friend... they probably just had a few drinks together there the previous evening. Anyway, the day passed without any excitements that I can report. Memree and I did stroll through the town and call in on the tavern, but we followed Delinda's advice and didn't disturb Ruby or Perry at their house - if they do find out anything new, they know where to find us, after all. The death of the thief seems to have closed the chapter down as far as Ser Cookson was concerned. Ser Jasper had, unsurprisingly, left, and not said where he was going - so he might have moved to a more secure tavern, or left town. And that's how things stand. I didn't feel like another evening going round all the inns trying to keep an ear open for anything unusual, so it looks like an early night for us, for a change! Day 32 No news from Man Coker's investigations, which isn't too surprising, I suppose whoever he sent would need more than a few hours in the town Jasper brought the presentation blade from, after a day's hard ride, though I had hoped that they'd be able to at least send some news back pretty much instantly. It's just not knowing what we are up against that worries me, and I think it worries Coker too. I did drop by his place this afternoon, and he was arranging to send a few more of his men out, to, hopefully, meet his original investigator and his team on the trail and escort them back. The people he sent aren't overdue, there's nothing to worry about yet, except that the hair on the back of my neck does tend to try to stand on end when I think about it. All we have, I tell myself, is one dead thief, and one missing dagger. That's hardly worth losing sleep over. And then I think of the scene in the room where Torner and I found that dead thief... Oh well, I've been out and around, listening and smiling and buying drinks with Coker's money, and there doesn't seem to be anything unusual happening in Redwall, at least. That missing husband hasn't turned up yet, but the warehouse loader has, and is rather lucky to have a job still, the way I heard it. A few petty robberies, a few fights, and no, I'm not talking about what I've been up to! A perfectly normal autumn day... may we have many more such, before the first snows come. There is bound to be some news tomorrow - let's hope it is good news. Day 33 Well, where to begin? Coker had sent one of his most trusted people to investigate Jasper and the dagger, with three helpers and bodyguards, and when he later sent a larger team out to meet them on the road back, all they got was one of the helpers, a young woman called Chalker, wounded in the shoulder, bruised, and riding as if hell itself was after her. Not far wrong, that, as she was being pursued by two men, though, when they saw Coker's eight fighters, they reined in and gave up the chase, though not before sending a few crossbow bolts ahead. I found out about this at noon, when Coker called a meeting - and, to emphasize how serious he was, he actually came up into town. Besides Man Coker, Chase and Carter were there, and Coker's chief enforcer, Busby, who'd been leading that larger team. My guardsman friend Torner had been invited, and Ashil was there... I brought Memree with me of course. And there was Chalker... "I'd separated from the others", she told us, still looking pale and with her shoulder heavily bandaged. "They'd gone on to talk to a crimelord called Mullen, and my task was to break into the man's house, to see if there were any secrets to be uncovered there." She paused, and took a surprisingly delicate sip from the cup of wine in front of her. "I got in easily enough, it is my trade after all, and the upper rooms were entirely normal. However, I found a concealed door, which led down into a basement level, and a large room with a big pentagram inlaid in the floor. Big five-armed candelabra, with black candles... and a very nasty kind of altar-table in the middle, with chains, dried blood, you can imagine the rest." Ashil nodded. "And you got out of there without the alarm being raised?" Chalker gave a little nod. "Yes, and was I ever glad to get out into the daylight! I hurried back towards our tavern, and was just in time to see my friends being set upon by a group of at least ten thugs. I had a crossbow with me, I was able to pick off a couple of them, but before I could get any closer, our people were all cut down. I managed to get back to the tavern and get my horse, but as you can see, it was all a bit of a close thing..." I don't think I've ever seen Coker so angry - but it was a controlled anger, not anything for anyone in that room to fear. "Black candles, pentagrams, death altars, and murder", he began. "I don't know about you, but I don't want all that coming to my town!" "Well, Jasper's nowhere to be found", I commented. "You don't know anything about where he might be, Chase...?" Chase shook his head, looking sour. "Sorry - I shouldn't have said he was a friend, but we had a few drinks together a couple of times, and, well, he was friendly. I felt bad that he had that damned dagger stolen, though it looks as if it was lucky it was...except for the thief, of course." "Yes, at least we know that something is going on", Man Coker said. "Perhaps Redwall was meant to be neutral territory, but somewhere was going to have its own new pentagram and blood-stained altar, and if you're feeding souls or hearts or whatever to a demon, he's going to want to do you a few favours in return, which is bad news for the rest of the locals." "So it's possibly bad - but has anyone any idea where we should be looking?" Ashil looked up and down the table. "There's nothing suspicious close to where the body was found, where the thief lived, that area's been gone over very thoroughly." Memree made a little throat-clearing noise. "Actually, I was wondering how our informant got to find out about that address in the first place - nobody else knew a thing, but a cute little ten-year-old girl got us the information we needed in a few hours?" "She was a local kid", I said. "She could go anywhere without raising any suspicions." "And she went straight to the corpse?" Memree shook her head. "There's something not quite right there - like the way we've never seen the mother, or the father, though he does have a job we know about - hells, we've never seen the girl and her handsome big brother at the same time, and we've never seen inside that house." Coker punched one fist into his open palm, and grimaced. "The lady has a point - and it is the only possible lead we have, so I think we are going to have to act on it." Ashil nodded. "I'll bring three of my best, most reliable men - we don't want the whole town to know about this, I suggest we wait until after nightfall." Coker sighed. "Take four of my guards with you, along with Ser Busby - and, Sera Chalker, do you want to be in on this?" Chalker nodded. "I can still use my crossbow, though I don't promise to reload very quickly." "Memree and I will be there", I said. "If they are having some rituals in that house, to make sure we get everyone involved I suggest we wait for just after midnight...?" So, I will have a fair bit to report tomorrow. Not that I'm going to get any sleep in the few hours before we set out, but I'm sure I'll be too tired to write up a report when we get back. Ashil will be in command, plus seven reliable fighters, along with me, Memree, Chalker, Busby, Chase, Carter and Torner, and I got the impression that Man Coker himself would be close by, probably in the Red Sunset, and certainly with some of his own security people. We may find nothing at all, or a deserted building - but somehow I don't think so! Day 34 I'd hardly closed the book after writing the last entry when Ashil and Torner knocked on the door. Memree had been drowsing on top of the bed, ready-dressed, so I strapped on my sword, gave Memree a crossbow, and we both slipped cloaks on, then headed off to the Red Sunset, to meet the others. We were the last group to arrive. Chalker looked pale but determined, everyone else looked ready for a fight. I remember feeling glad that it wasn't my suggestion that we raid that particular house, Memree would have to keep a low profile if we found a respectable sleeping family there! Leaving Man Coker at the tavern, we moved off. Apart from the light from behind us, the night was as black as pitch, and the house where we'd first seen young Ruby on its front porch, eating some bread, was as dark as you'd expect any house to be at such a late, or early, hour. I put my ear to the door, and was sure that I could almost hear something, perhaps a low, cadenced hum. I shivered, and moved back as Man Coker's top enforcer, Busby, moved forward. I expected him to kick the door in, or use the deadly-looking double-headed axe he was carrying, but instead he knelt down, and inserted a lock-pick into the keyhole. I heard the tumblers turn, one by one, and then he smiled at me and stood up as the door swung open soundlessly. It is hard to describe the atmosphere there. It was a fairly old house, with two stories, quite well-built but past its prime and in a part of town that had gone downhill in recent years. But it didn't feel like a living family home, it was like walking into a long-deserted cabin that had somehow retained its roof. I headed for the stairs up, followed by Torner and Chase. We checked all the bedrooms; it was easy to tell which one belonged to a ten-year-old girl, which to a nineteen-year-old young man, and which to their parents, but the beds were smooth, the rooms alarmingly tidy. There was a fourth room, but that was just being used for storage, with a couple of old saddles, bundles of linen, and a couple of large wooden chests. They were locked - I didn't want to make any noise, so decided to leave them for Chalker or Busby's expertise later. The others had checked the downstairs rooms, which were as neat and empty as the bedrooms had been. The kitchen fireplace was cold, no cooking had been done there for days, obviously. I walked along the short hallway, trying to hear that humming again; I put my ear to the wood panelling on one side, and was sure I could hear it, like very distant voices carried by a night wind. Chalker came up close to me, and ran a dagger down a crack between panels. It clicked on something. "A hidden door", she whispered, and, working the blade some more, managed to work its locking mechanism... it drifted open, and suddenly the humming was a low chant, and dry, warm air gusted out into our faces. The stairs were wooden and steep and old, just what you'd expect for any old house's cellar, but there was that distant, deep chant, and a slight red illumination coming from nowhere. There were dusty barrels down there, and a heap of very old firewood next to a small pile of coal - but there was also a hole in the middle of the stone-paved floor, with a metal ladder firmly clamped in place. I looked around our group, and decided that, for size and stealth, I was the right person to go down first, though if Chalker had been unwounded I would have gladly let her have that honour. I sheathed my sword, as I'd need both hands for the descent, and threw my cloak aside, as it was getting unpleasantly warm. "I'll tap the ladder when I'm on level ground again", I said softly. "Don't follow me until then, as I may need to climb up again rather rapidly..." Down I went. It looked as if Man Coker had new neighbours, as this couldn't be too far away from his own more natural cave system. Luckily I didn't descend into the middle of any pentagram, but into a small circular room with a single door, which was half open. Gently flickering red light washed in from there, though the chanting had stopped now, and the silence was shocking. I used the hilt of my sword, drawn again now, to tap on the metal ladder, and almost at once I could here the gentle shuffling and breathing noises as the others began to come down. I moved over to the doorway, and looked out. The next room was square, around twenty paces across, with two closed doors over at the far side... but in the middle, in a yellow glowing cube, four human figures were suspended, floating just off the ground, vertical, eyes open but empty. They were young Ruby, her big brother Perry, and, I assumed, their parents. Me, Memree, Chalker, Torner, Ashil, Busby, Chase, Carter, and six more fighting men... suddenly I was none too sure that would be enough. This was something fairly big we'd stumbled across, something that had been going on for quite a while, and whatever was behind it would not be happy to have us dropping by. Busby unlocked one of the two doors, and leapt back as a flash of green energy flared up - some sort of trap spell, but he was unscathed. The room was just storage, perhaps worth investigating later if the idea of loot overcame the possibility of more traps. I looked at the four suspended figures... used as puppets by someone or something, and then replaced here when the task was done? There were four glowing red gemstones embedded in the floor where the cube ended, probably magically generating the stasis cube. Should we smash those and free the family, and probably alert the entity in control here? Probably not, until later! Chalker was working on the other door, which was larger, and covered in metal strips. "It doesn't want to move... there's some magical energy we need to displace..." I motioned for her to stand clear, and gently pushed the tip of my sword into the keyhole which, I saw, was the mouth of an ornately-worked little demon. My sword had a small amount of magic of its own, so might be able to negate a simple ward-spell. There was a brief flash of yellow sparks, and my hand involuntarily jerked back, my arm briefly numb, the sword glowing red and then fading. "That should have done it", I muttered, massaging my elbow. Chalker began picking the lock again, and we all heard the tumblers clicking back. The swordsmen were all ready now, Busby held his axe in front of him, and Memree loaded a bolt into her crossbow's groove, and wound back the mechanism. "It's cleared", Chalker whispered, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. Ashil looked round at all of us, and smiled. "We're as ready as we'll ever be, Sera - open it!" The room beyond was twice the size of the first room, square again, and with a pentagram full of insubstantial yellow-green flame. A hooded, dark-gowned acolyte stood by each of the five star-tips, another man with his hood down was reading from a book on a lectern - Jasper! And eight shadowy, not-quite-present figures, all carrying swords, turned from watching the ritual, and rushed towards us. It looked to me as if it would be a good idea if the men didn't complete their ritual, so I cut at the first shadow-man, and dodged round him, got to the first hooded acolyte and sliced my blade into his neck. He screamed and fell, gushing blood, and I moved on to the next point of the pentagram, where the second acolyte was only just reacting to my advance. He brought his hands up, they were crackling with energy, but while the spell built, I lunged forward, and almost delicately thrust my sword into his belly. His hands automatically went there to try to hold his guts in, and he screamed - there was a smell of burning as the spell he'd been preparing went off in a way he'd not planned. A quick glance told me that the rest of our side were fighting the shadows, and winning, but I moved on to the next acolyte, who had his hands raised above his head while he chanted - I leapt to one side as a tower of flame scorched the floor where I'd just been, I was hot but not cooked, then swept my sword round, cutting into his ribcage. He went down - it looked like a wound he might survive, but he'd not be fighting any more tonight. The fourth of the hooded men had summoned some sort of mountain lion, but it leapt high and I crouched low, then quickly pushed my blade up into the underside of the man's chin - the big cat turned, its claws ready to rake me, but as its summoner died, it vanished in a flash of pure white light. One more of the acolytes, now - he was holding a man-high black, crooked staff now, holding it in front of him vertically, and red energy pulsed up it, forming a fiery globe at the top, out of which lightning was starting to flash... until a crossbow bolt took him in the eye, when it snuffed out like a candle. I must find out if that was Memree or Chalker, I owe them one! The shadow-men were still fighting - a couple were missing, presumably just fading away, while two of our people were wounded, and behind the active fighters. But Jasper was my target, he was still chanting - if you summon a demon, it is, apparently, not good manners to stop halfway through! He was covered in a golden glow, now... a crossbow bolt hit him on the cheek and glanced off, its tip melted. His voice soared and boomed, seemed to fill the chamber, and suddenly his incantation was over, and a figure was visible inside the pentagram, still half-obscured by the spellflame. It was twice a man's height, and had horns. The shadow-men were all down, now; some of our men looked wounded, Carter was hastily bandaging one man's leg, trying to stop heavy bleeding. Memree had moved away from the group, heading for a pile of old books over in one corner - at least it got her further away from the conjuration, I thought, but it was also further from the exit... Jasper had a sword of dark red flame, now, and snarled at me. "Bitch! I might have known you'd come meddling!" "So, Jasper - got that dagger back safely, have you?" "That blasted dagger - if that bloody thief hadn't stolen it!" He whirled with unnatural speed and swept his flame sword at me, and looked astonished when my sword parried it as if it was mere steel. "We got it back, but I wanted to play games with you, use some of its power, ha, you even paid us a reward, piddling though it was!" The spellflame inside the pentagram was slowly clearing... the figure inside had horns, definitely, and, I could just see, a tail. This was not good. My sword and Jasper's clashed again, and we were lunging and parrying like a formal duel, trying to find each other's weaknesses. I caught a glimpse of Memree, she seemed to be searching the whole room... Chalker was checking the bodies of the acolytes. "You kill me, and nobody can control the demon", he yelled, as if him controlling a demon was something we were going to allow. "We'll take our chances, Jasper - so, any last requests?" He lunged, I ducked, the blade of flame roared past close to my face, and I managed to bring my blade up and catch him in the arm... the flame sword came loose from his hand, and the golden glow over his body faded, and I swept my sword round as hard as I could at neck height. His head soared away, trailing blood, and his body, after a long moment, started to collapse. Which just left the demon. Memree came up to me. "Here, I found that dagger of theirs - d'you think it's important?" I looked at Memree and the dagger, and took it, with a grin. "We can hope so - thanks!" I walked over to the edge of the pentagram, and looked up at the demon. How a creature that size could keep its balance on hooves, I don't know. "Hello, grandser", I began. "I suppose you're wondering why you were called here?" It chuckled, a rumbling that seemed to shake the floor. "Oh, I've watched Jasper and his cult, ever since they found a book I'd hoped had been permanently lost. I found their preparations intriguing, though I slowed them down a bit at the last, with inspiring that thief to steal their precious sacrificial dagger." Its voice was effortless and as smooth as honey, and filled the room. "Can we do anything for you, grandser?" It chuckled again. "Well, you'll hardly wish to open the pentagram, I suppose, and I have no great interest in ravaging your petty dimension. If you'd very kindly plunge that dagger into the book on that dead fool's lectern, I think we can all go home, don't you...?" So I walked over to the lectern, ornately carved in black wood to show all manner of human suffering, and plunged the dagger down into the book, carefully trying not to look at the pages, on which words squirmed and re-formed. The book exploded into tiny scraps of paper, going off sideways rather than in my face, mainly, and the dagger itself just...crumbled away to dust. The pentagram flared again, and, with a complete absence of noise - was gone. And my legs started to go rather weak, if Memree hadn't grabbed me I think I'd have sat down rather heavily. And that's about it... I'll attempt to tie up some loose ends in tomorrow's entry, but I'm too tired to write anything more now. You're lucky, my librarian faithful reader, I was tempted to stop for today at the bit where we opened that last door! Day 35 Well, nobody was too badly hurt, though two of the guards have been taken off to Mistress Indigo for treatment. We found some cultist cash, but no real treasure, and were able to free the family from their suspension - they didn't remember anything after about midsummer, which shows that the whole plot was relatively recent. The real Ruby seemed a nice enough child, but without the extra edge that the possessed version had had. Coker is planning to buy that added "basement level" from them, and tunnel through from his existing system, so they shouldn't do badly out of the affair, in the end. There may well be other cultists who weren't at the conjuring ceremony, but, with Jasper dead, we expect them to quietly leave town, and good riddance! I can't say that I'm entirely clear about how events went, and how the dagger and its theft figured, but presumably Jasper brought the dagger to Redwall, and made the mistake of not taking it straight to their underground hideout - maybe the demon was exerting its subtle mental influence, just to make things more interesting. Once it was stolen, Jasper couldn't stop Chance, Coker, and me investigating, though as the cultists were attuned to its emanations, they found it quickly enough. I suppose they thought that, if we discovered the thief's body for ourselves, that would draw a line under the whole thing, but they hadn't reckoned on the body being so obviously magically tainted, and they'd not felt that they could leave the dagger for us to "find" and return to Jasper, as we might well have realised that it was tarred with evil. Oh well, human actions aren't always entirely logical... as for the demon itself ( and I call it "it" despite screamingly obvious evidence of its masculinity!), well, I expect it was enjoying messing about with its own evil followers, but just wasn't interested in us ordinary people and our ordinary world, luckily enough. There must be much more important planes of reality than ours. Of course, the pentagram presumably kept it from leaping out and devouring us all there and then, but personally I don't have unlimited faith in a few white lines on the floor... It was Memree, rather than Chalker, whose crossbow bolt had killed one of the cultists for me - that was a pretty fine shot, perhaps before she lost her past, she was good at that sort of thing? Not as a soldier or anything, but at least hunting for small game, on a farm perhaps. We got home just before dawn, and I think both of us slept almost to nightfall. A note from Man Coker had been pushed under our door, thanking us both and saying that he'd passed a rather generous sum of gold over to Ashil for us. He referred to Memree as my "lady", which seems rather strange, but my brain is still a bit fuzzy after all the excitement, it's probably his way of being polite, he is rather old-fashioned in some ways. Well I've only been up and around for three hours, but I'm tired again already - chatting with demons does that for a girl, I find. I'm looking forward to a good few lazy days with nothing at all interesting to write about. Not that that stops me! Writing in this little book is strangely addictive, I'm finding. Day 36 The day I came down into the plains, as us barbarians and barbariennes do, some hill village lost its chance to have a prize-winning idiot of its own. I'm surprised I was ever taught to write - hells, I'm surprised my mother ever managed to teach me to squat on a pot! If a besieging army were ever short of a battering ram, they could borrow me, my head would certainly be thick enough, it must be almost entirely solid bone. When I think that, for three ten-days, the whole town has been assuming stuff about me that had never made the very short trip from one side of my mind to the other. When I look back at what people, in a friendly way, have been saying that I just didn't notice... well, my brain seems entirely qualified to fly south for the winter. Am I some sort of innocent, who shouldn't be let out alone? Well yes, obviously. And in the pages of this book I smugly went on about screwing Torner in a sleazy tavern bedroom. But still, even looking back through the pages here, I see things I reported, comments I made, that any rational adult would have understood... but I didn't! I'm an idiot, an absolutely hopeless case, thank goodness I don't wear shoes with laces, I'd keep tying them together and falling over... Oh, look at this. "I idly stroked her blonde hair"! And there's Del, referring to my "little friend", and me writing "I'll admit to letting her give me a sponge-bath", for Sunil's sake! "This golden-haired, beautiful creature, so gentle, so reliant on me", I blithely warbled - I can't go on looking at the old entries, it's too stupidly painful. My room becomes our room, my bed becomes our bed - you'd never think that Charol, that drooling simpleton, wore an old leotard in bed, and when a sleepy Memree rested her head on my shoulder, did I do more than smile drowsily? Did I even notice that Memree didn't wear anything in bed? Oh, and look, back on page two, "Saster said something, 'A man is for an evening's pleasure, a woman for a lifetime's love' - and I remarked that there was an equivalent male saying too, which also involved melons!" Well excuse me while I go and bash my head against the wall a few times. Hah! "But I'm young, an occasional evening's pleasure is all I'm aiming for at the moment", I actually wrote that down in my own joined-up handwriting. As you may have gathered, finally Man Coker's reference to Memree as my "lady" penetrated the thick fuzz surrounding my pea-brain. Delinda, Ashil, Coker, the women at the market, the blacksmith, they all know Memree and I are a couple, sleep together... so why didn't I know it? Because I am incredibly stupid, that's why! All that kinky stuff that the dear girl so happily went along with...she must think... well, what in all the nine hells can she think? She's grateful that I rescued her from that dungeon, so maybe she is just waiting for messages that reached my eyes three ten-days ago to finally reach my little brain, if it hasn't closed down and gone to sleep for the winter. Yes, I have had a drink or two, I was so wrapped up in myself I didn't care what the people in the tavern were thinking, at least not at first, and when one or two familiar faces asked where Memree was this evening, I just muttered something, I don't remember what. Del thinks I am biased, Ashil thinks I'm biased, and Man Coker, and probably Torner just thinks I fancied a change that evening. Screw it! No, that's not appropriate, Ser Librarian, is it? I can't even swear properly now. You must think Memree and I have been at it all the time and I just haven't mentioned it here. Ha! Ooh, tomorrow I am going to have such a hangover, but I'm going to have to talk to her, tell her that I'm stupid, that I'm terribly terribly slow, but - what? Do I ask her to go out with me...? Day 37 Oh dear, that is a bit painful to read - but it just, well, hit me, that the person I thought I was and the person that everyone else thought I was were two different people, and it looked as if I was the one who'd got me wrong... And I should mention that my entry in this book today is probably not suitable for librarians, and others, who are more interested in swordfights than kinky stuff. Keep the children away, if you have any! So, late in the afternoon Memree and I went to visit Delinda who, assuming that she and her two slavegirls don't spend the evenings and nights reading improving books and quietly embroidering wall-hangings, seemed to me to be the best person to confide in. And, over a cup of steaming-hot herbal cha, I told her, while trying not to look at Memree, what an idiot I was. She looked puzzled, when I finished my ramblings - maybe a little startled, while I continued to avoid Memree's eyes, and dreaded hearing her say anything. "You stay here, girl", she said after a pause. "Drink your cha, have another of those little cakes - I'm taking Memree into the back room for a little chat, and don't you dare try to eavesdrop!" So I drank, and I ate another cake, though I have no recollection what flavour it was, if indeed it had any flavour. And, after a rather long time, allowing it to start going dark outside, Delinda and Memree marched back in. "Well", Delinda began, "It seems to us that Memree has shown you a lot of trust over the past few ten-days, and we both agree that it's time you showed her just a little bit of trust, too." "And this has something to do with you removing my clothes?" Because Delinda was generally unbuckling, unlacing, and pulling my clothes off me as she spoke, briskly and efficiently. "Well, you've walked Memree about town in the nude - and now Memree is going to return the favour." I looked at Memree in shock - she looked back, smiled broadly, and winked. "Unless big bad Charol the Barbarienne is frightened...?" "Only petrified", I said, as I stepped out of the last of my underwear. "What do I say if I meet someone...?" Delinda chuckled. "Oh, that won't be a problem", she said - and produced a ball-gag and, before I'd managed to react, it was in my mouth, and fastened firmly behind my head. And then my arms were behind my back and some sort of handcuffs were being snapped around my wrists, I looked towards Memree, my eyes wide - just what was I letting myself in for? She was slipping dainty little shoes onto my feet, they had locking ankles-straps, and were joined by a hobble-chain... had I used something rather similar on her once? Delinda looked me up and down, with a very big grin on her face. "Oh yes, it suits you, I think! Memree is going to put a collar round your neck, with a leash attached, and you are going to be led out of here, into the early evening streeets, and you're going to trust that she's taking you home, rather than to the slaver, aren't you?" I nodded emphatically. "Yes, you're going to be ever so trusting, because you'll have this hood on!" The hood was leather, and laced up the back, and let not a scrap of light in. I felt the collar being buckled into position over it, and then felt a fairly gentle pat on my bottom. "And before that outfit comes off, Memree is going to give you just a little spanking - I assure you she's rather good at it, it's a great way to work off any minor annoyances!" Well it was very strange; once we were out of the shop's door and in the street, I had no idea where we were going, and had to make lots of small, quick steps to keep up with Memree, who occasionally tugged on the chain if I was lagging behind her. "Well that's one way to exercise a slavegirl like that, but I can think of better ways!" someone commented as we passed, and I was thankful for that blasted hood, as I'm sure I blushed crimson. I don't think Memree took the shortest route back here, but was I ever glad when we arrived - even with the hood on I knew the place, as Memree gently guided me across the room and pushed me across the bed, on my front, then held my cuffed wrists in one hand, pushing on my back to keep me down, and spanked me. I know idiot me deserved it, but it did sting, and it was so undignified, before long there were tears in my eyes... The shoes and hobble came off, the hood was removed... Memree used a finger to wipe the dampness from my eyes. "My barbarienne, I think I love you", she said, and kissed the end of my nose... then she undid the wristcuffs, and, finally, removed the ball-gag. "You're very special to me, and always will be." "I... you're very special to me, too, Memree", I replied, sitting on the bed. "I've been so stupid not to realise it, but it's crept up on me, and it probably is love, but it's, well, not something I've been used to. Just let's not go for walks like that too often, hey?" "Hardly ever", Memree agreed. "Now, you'd better write up your strange little book now, while I go and get us some supper - I guarantee that you won't have time to do that later!" Day 38 What a gorgeous, sunny day! I feel as if my life is coming into focus, and no I'm not going to take you through the events of yesterday evening, a girl is entitled to some privacy. I feel ready for fresh challenges of an adventuring nature - the idea of getting out of the town where I've been making a fool and an exhibition of myself, at least for a while, certainly appeals. I know the way gossip spreads here, and while I have no idea how many people saw my early-evening stroll, there must be a few who would have noticed that the hooded figure was about my size, and of course everyone has seen the two of us shopping and generally hanging out together. If challenged, I intend to lie and say I lost a wager - but the fewer opportunities for a challenge the better... Ashil is either becoming tactful as middle age approaches, or his contacts were busy elsewhere. While he didn't have anything definite on the jobs front, he did suggest that a trip down to the coast might be a good idea - plenty of caravans start out from the big port of Broadwater, and there's always the chance of joining a group of treasure hunters, as the area has a lot of old caves and tunnels where relics of an earlier age sometimes turn up. "If you stop off in Wealdstone, you could say hello to old Sergeant Tayne for me", he added. Tayne had been our sergeant on a number of minor campaigns over a year or so, and had saved our lives a few times - and we'd saved his, as well, though I'd still been a skinny youngster at the time. He'd retired from fighting, and rejoined his wife and children in Wealdstone with enough money to become a prosperous merchant - it would be good to see him again, and I was sure he'd be happy to see an old comrade-in-arms. Memree seems happy with the idea of a bit of travel, so the rest of today was spent in preparation. Our faithful Hengist is in good health, ready to carry our packs, and Ashil is lending us a pair of good riding horses which, he says, need to go to the coast to be sold anyway. We'll be leaving most of our money in Redwall under Ashil's care, we'll even keep our room on and leave some of our stuff in it, but tomorrow, if the weather stays good, we'll be riding out, and we probably won't be back here until the first snows fall. Day 39 Adventuring is about moving on, facing new excitements... and it can also be about long hours in the saddle. Today was certainly all about the riding part. I nearly wore my voice out telling Memree of the battles, forays, and skirmishes that Tayne, Ashil and I had been involved in, four or five years back. It's surprising how much louder one does have to talk, over the clopping of hooves and the other noises horses make, and of course we were further apart than usual, as the best part of the track was often only wide enough for one horse at a time. If life ever gets quiet and boring enough, I might even write one or two incidents down in this book, but no promises! It was another fine day, and we made good time. My best estimate is that we are just about halfway to Wealdstone now, with a tent pitched close to a stream way out in the middle of nowhere. We did pass through a few small villages, and they all had taverns of course where we could have stayed in a proper bed, but I've been bitten enough in such places to find the idea of a night under canvas rather more appealing - and anyway, we were able to ride on for a while after the last village, and increase the chance that tomorrow afternoon or evening will see us arrive in Wealdstone, rather than have to stop again or keep riding after it gets dark, which is generally not a good idea - if a horse puts a foot in a hole you and it haven't spotted, it can easily break its leg. We saw plenty of wildlife. I pointed out a distant eagle to Memree, there were plenty of deer, and we saw signs of wolves. A big mother bear and a couple of playful cubs watched us ride past with no great display of interest, and there were even some wild boar around. We did discuss the possibility of having one of those for our evening meal, but the preparation time put us off, and we did have some cold meat pies with us. So, the light is fading now, which means I'd better stop writing and check if the pot of water we suspended over a small but cheerful campfire has reached boiling yet. Time for food, after a long day in the fresh air I think we are both unusually hungry - maybe we should have roasted a boar! Day 40 We reached Wealdstone just before sunset, and the gate guard was able to give us directions to Tayne's house, quite an impressive stone-built, two storey affair on one of the town's best roads. Life had obviously been good for him lately, I told myself...but then, we had ended up on the winning side, and the dividing-up of the loot afterwards had been a truly memorable occasion. And as one of the few remaining sergeants, he'd done pretty well out of it! Tayne answered his front door himself - a few grey hairs in his beard, slightly more of a paunch than I remembered, but still looking good. His face lit up when he saw me. "Charol! By all that's good, it's wonderful to see you, my friend, come in, you must stay here with us here, we insist." He turned and called to a boy of about eleven. "Tid, get our guests' horses, will you, lad, and take them round to the stable!" "Right away, father!" He smiled at us, then edged past, and took the reins from Memree, before leading the three horses away confidently. "That's your Tiddler?" I shook my head in wonder. "He was scarcely more than a toddler, the last time I saw him, and now he's up to my shoulder..." "And Anjela is eighteen, and a beautiful young woman, as you will shortly see - but, talking of beautiful young women, I hope you will introduce me to your companion...?" Tayne looked at me questioningly. "Ah... this is Memree, my good friend and companion", I managed to say. "I've told her all about the old days, and what a fine sergeant you were." Tayne shook Memree's hand. "And a lucky one, too, in the friends I fought alongside. Any friend of Charol's is welcome here, Sera Memree. We've two fine beds in our guest chamber, we'll use the warming-pan to get them ready - after a long and leisurely evening meal, of course!" Memree smiled sweetly. "Oh, one bed will be quite enough for us, Ser Tayne." I blushed - well, I'm new to this! Tayne, to give him credit, paused only for the briefest moment, and then his face seemed even more cheerful. "Gods, that is excellent news - Charol was always a bit of a loner, and to tell the truth, I did sometimes wonder if she would ever find herself a soulmate." Somehow he had his hands around our shoulders, now, and was leading us along the corridor. "So be good for her, won't you?" Tiddler, or to be more formal Taddeon, brought up our saddlebags; there was ample time to tend the horses and to wash before dinner, at which the main topic of discussion was how I discovered Memree, and how we fought and defeated Atzmon together - I left out most of the kinkier aspects of the tale as both the children were there, plus Tayne's wife, though as Sharna had served with our company as an archer, I'd not have done so on her account alone. "Charol is the first person I can ever remember seeing", Memree commented. "That's one reason I want to hold on to her, though there are plenty more!" So, an enjoyable evening, and I think we will stay here for a few more days, as Tayne seems to have plenty of plans for our entertainment. A nice rest will do us both good, I am sure. Day 41 Well, "a nice rest" is what I'd hoped for, but when Memree and I came down for our breakfast, the place was in uproar. Well, there was the ostler, the cook, one maid, Tayne, his wife Sharna, and their young son Taddeon, but six people can get pretty upset, and these people were certainly all over the place. Taddeon, Tid, was bruised and having a cut to his hand treated; his jerkin was spattered with mud and a little blood, and his knee scraped. I assumed that this was the cause of the commotion, but no - he and Anjela, the lovely 18-year-old daughter of the house, had been out shopping early at the market, and on the way home they'd been attacked, and Anjela had been abducted. "It has to be slavers", Tayne yelled at me, before managing to moderate his voice. I'll swear that he was actually trying to pull out lumps of his hair, he was so distressed and angry. "There were reports of a gang nearby, but not actually in the town itself - where were the guardsmen? I'll kill them, kill them all!" He probably meant the slavers rather than the guardsmen, but I wouldn't guarantee it. "It has to be a quick snatch operation, a few hours and they'll be away", I said, loudly and firmly enough to be heard. "So we haven't got much time. We must get out there, and search!" "They'll still be at their filthy work", Memree put in. "Where would they be most likely to go, in search of unaccompanied young women?" "Anywhere on a route to or from the markets", Sharna said quickly. "But by the time people get organised, it will be too late, they'll have gone..." I looked at Memree. "I'm getting changed into my fighting gear - and Memree is going to put on something cute and figure-hugging, yes?" She nodded. "I'll be scout and, if necessary, bait - but you keep close behind, don't lose my track!" Taddeon stood up, his knee bandaged now. "They'll have been checking the town for days, and know their way around - Sera Charol, you need me as your guide, I know all the back ways and shortcuts!" Tayne and Sharna exchanged glances, a mixture of worry and pride. "Agreed", Tayne said gruffly. So, a few minutes later Memree, in a very short, figure-hugging dress Sharna had provided from the daughter's wardrobe, was casually walking through the early morning sunshine, basket in hand, heading for the market - and Tid and I were following, well back, Tid with a long dagger in his belt, and me with my sword strapped on, and a big hunting crossbow of Tayne's, ready-cocked. It could have taken hours, or not worked at all, but as Tid and I reached a corner and peered around, I could see Memree speaking to an old woman in a shadowy corner. And then the "old woman" threw aside her tattered cloak, to reveal a rather shapely young woman, with a heart-shaped cut-out in the front of her tunic, and curly black hair. Memree stepped back, dropping the empty basket she'd been carrying... and from an archway at least three men pounced. "They've got your friend!" Tid was excited, anxious, and eager to charge to the rescue. "It's working!" I held on to his arm. "So far it's working - but we need to get your sister, and anyone else they've caught, last night or this morning, so we must follow." Memree was being dragged away, back into the archway. "Where does that lead, Tid...?" He thought for a moment. "An overgrown old alley - a back route to old grain-stores, warehouses, that sort of thing." "Is there another way we can take?" He shook his head. "Only to the front of the warehouses - there are too many places they could be using, we need to see where they go." So we hurried forward, keeping to the edge of the road, and quietly went through the archway, just in time to see the group turn a corner ahead. We ran after them, favouring quietness over speed - I gestured for Tid to look round the next corner. He craned round, and gestured for me to stay back, then ducked back himself. "They went into an old basement, there's a wagon outside - and two guards." They'd see us coming, and raise the alarm. Not good. "Hmm... with your father's crossbow, I can take down one of them, preferably from a little closer than this." I looked seriously at the youngster. He was brave, and sensible, and Sergeant Tayne's son. "If you go and talk to them, distract them, I'll shoot one of them, then you kick the other, bite him, anything to keep him too busy to yell until I can get there." It would be quicker to run in than reload and rewind the bow. Tid took a deep breath. "That sounds the best idea", he agreed. "Wish me luck!" And with that he was off, walking jauntily down the road, a little boy without a care in the world. I waited until I heard voices, and edged round the corner, crossbow ready. Tid had their attention, so I moved a little closer, aimed, and fired - the bolt ran true, it took one guard in the chest, piercing his heart, as I ran forward, dropping the bow and ready to draw my sword. Tid was hugging the other man, nearly over-balancing him, I don't think he knew why his friend had fallen backwards. He didn't manage to draw his sword before I reached him, so I just punched him clean on the jaw, he fell, dazed... and we began to tie him up, stuffed his own dirty kerchief in his mouth and put rope over it. "Great work, Tid", I said, still panting slightly. "If he'd drawn his sword, I'd have killed him, so you saved a life." He crouched down - almost entirely overgrown, there was a barred, soot-stained old window at ground level. He cautiously cleaned a small spot with his finger, and put an eye to it. "I see your friend Memree, and Anjela, yes! And three other girls they've captured. Two men, that woman we saw and another woman." He got up again. "Is that man you shot dead...?" "Dead as mutton, Tid", I told him. "You stay here with the live one, once we've finished trussing him up - and if he gives you any trouble, slit his greasy throat!" "Are you going down?" He nodded towards the steps to the basement door. "Four of them - I think I'd better reclaim your father's crossbow if I'm to make a suitably impressive entrance!" So I did, and rewound it, clicked a fresh bolt into place, and, with a smile I meant to be reassuring but which might have seemed a bit predatory, left Tid, went down the steps, took a deep breath, and knocked urgently on the door. In my best imitation of mannish tones, I shouted hoarsely "Boss! We've got a small problem!" Bolts were drawn back after a short pause, and the other woman, wearing tights and a mail shirt plus a headband over pale brown hair, looked out, saw me - and got a kick in the stomach and a punch to the side of her chin. If she wasn't still out of it when the others were down, I'd have a problem, but I wanted some survivors from this bunch. I burst in, raised the crossbow, fired, and one of the men went down, the bolt in his thigh. I dropped the bow again. The other man ran forward, his sword raised high - easy to see he'd never been in an army, Sergeant Tayne would have had harsh words for anyone under his command who'd tried to fight like that. I ducked, stabbed, and gutted him, putting a permanent look of stupid surprise on his face. "It's just you and me now, Slaver", I said, holding my sword at the ready. The woman smiled, and raised her sword. She was rather pretty, and no older than me, not my idea of the leader of a slaver gang. "Oh, do call me Griffin, my dear - and what size slave-collar do you take...?" I do the jokes. "Well actually, I was hoping to measure you for one - if you'd care to surrender, Griffy?" She came forward, and our blades clashed. She was a pretty good swordswoman - I can't really inject much suspense here as I'm alive and writing this, but it was a good fight, quite even to begin with. I taunted her about the little velvet costume she'd be wearing soon as a pot-girl. "The material's expensive, but we won't be needing much, will we?" Griffin fought hard, but I think she soon knew that I was a better fighter, and she probably expected me to have some back-up people coming, as well. She tried a desperate kick to my groin, I dodged, she fell - and found my sword inches from her throat. "Now - death or slavery, it's your choice, Sera." "Cleve - protect me!" she said, and I knew she meant the other woman, the one I'd left dazed at the door. I couldn't turn to look. "You couldn't move fast enough, Cleve -- she'd be dead before you reached me." I tried to give the impression of someone who had eyes in the back of their head, and gazed into Griffin's eyes. "If I have to fight her, then I have to kill you first, Griffin!" Griffin stared at me for a moment, and then lowered her gaze, defeated. "Cleve...no, I surrender, do nothing." "Are you accepting a collar, Sera?" "I... Hells, it's got to be better than a slit throat," Griffin said, rather bravely. "Yes, I submit to you, Sera." So, that was the end of the adventure, really. All the girls had been tied or chained up and gagged, but Cleve silently handed me a bunch of keys, with one held high, pointing at Memree - I unlocked her, and she set about freeing the others. Cleve knelt down, and held her sword out to me, hilt first... "Cleve is mute", Memree told me. "I think she was imbonded to Griffin, so if Griffin becomes a slave, Cleve is free - and in need of a new employer." "Mine by right, in fact, as I defeated her mistress", I commented, and turned to Cleve. "I don't have a need for a fighter to obey me, Cleve - but you are welcome to travel with us for a while, if you wish." Anyway, I'll tie up the loose ends in tomorrow's report. Let's leave it here with Tid and Anjela hurrying off home to fetch Tayne and a few others, while Memree and I are freeing the victims of the slaver gang, and getting the remaining slavers into the newly-available fetters. Day 42 Besides Anjela, the abductees we'd saved were Amber, who works in a local tavern, a blonde who calls herself Roxxi and does her best work outside the local taverns, I suspect, and Mella, the daughter of a rather rich local merchant - his only child, in fact. So while Roxxi could only offer us her grateful thanks, and Amber promised us generous amounts of free ale where she worked, we've actually ended up with the prospect of a useful little reward from Mella's parents. And Tayne was effusively grateful, of course, though I'm sure that, rather later, I saw him tracing his finger over a couple of scratches I'd put on his favourite crossbow. The slaver with the bolt through his thigh has been patched up and sold into slavery, along with the surviving lookout from outside the basement; we've not actually sold Griffin yet, Tayne had her acting as slavegirl-waitress at our celebration dinner yesterday evening, in chains, collar, and a skimpy little two-piece outfit. She obviously wasn't happy with her change in circumstances, though the memory of the sword at her throat was probably helping her to make the best of it. Amber was back at work, but Mella was there, as was Roxxi, looking rather elegant... and one of the highlights of the evening was when she made Griffin crouch down and, without using her hands, eat a few bits of meat from the floor. And Griffin collapsed flat when I gave her raised rump a good hard slap at the end of that impromptu "meal", though Memree gave me a private telling-off later for that. So, our proper "nice rest" began today, with nothing more exciting than a ride out into the local countryside with Tayne and Tid to visit a small farm he owns, and speak to his manager - it looks as if Griffin's wagon will find a use there! Tayne and I did a little light sparring, with blunt swords, for old time's sake, and while he has slowed down a little, I was able to assure him that he'd still be welcome to stand alongside me in a fight. While we were still out in the countryside, Tid led Memree off to show her the local wildlife, and, as he had a small crossbow with him, they returned in triumph with a pair of rabbits, having shot one each. It's amazing how pleasant the countryside is when you know you'll be back at a warm house later that day, with the prospect of a warm and comfortable bed. A prospect that is getting ever closer, so time I closed this book for the night, I think. We will certainly stay here one more full day; relaxation apart, we need to decide what part the mute Cleve will have in our future plans. Day 43 Tayne did offer to get Cleve a job locally. It wasn't her fault she was imbonded to a slaver, so he'd be happy enough to employ her as a guard himself, or to recommend her for Wealdstone's own guard corps. But she seems to want to come with Memree and me, so we will take her on with us to Broadwater. It's a big city, with a lot of people passing through, thanks to its docks, so an extra sword can't hurt. Anyway, this has been a really lazy day. Memree and I walked around town with Tid, and browsed the market, which seemed not to have quite as much interesting stuff as Redwall's, though it passed the time agreeably enough. I noticed a shop that looked rather along the same lines as Delinda's, but as we had Tid with us, I ignored it. We bought some skewers of charred-looking meat from one stall, on Tid's recommendation, and found it to be excellent...so we bought some more, and wandered on, still chewing. Tayne seems to be doing well in his retirement, I'm glad to see, and has obviously been accepted as a member of the town's merchant class. He invests in caravans, he has that farm run for him, and he collects rent on some properties as well. It's good to see him prospering, I hope Memree and I are in some sort of similar position, ten years or so from now. But we set off for the big coastal city of Broadwater tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to seeing the place properly. I was only there once before, and as I was part of a lord's regiment, embarking from there for a port further down the coast, I really got to see very little of it. This time will be different! Day 44 We divided the saddle-packs between Ashil's two riding horses and Hengist; as Memree's the lightest of us, she gets to ride Hengist, while Cleve and I ride the bigger animals. As Hengist is really more used to carrying packs, tomorrow we'll probably change over and let Memree ride in front of me on my horse, which ought to be fun. We left Tayne and Wealdstone after breakfast, with some excellent packed food for the journey, and fatter purses, so today has just been a matter of covering the distance. We passed farms, and then we were out on the moors again; the road took us through woods, and skirted the edge of a rather thick-looking forest, before taking us through either a small town or a large village. It's strange having someone who can't talk in the party - I don't know whether to talk more, to make up for the silence, or to talk less. Still, Cleve seems to be relaxing a bit, and sometimes allows a smile to flit across her face, so the omens are good. Camp tonight was a clearing by the road, obviously frequently used; there is a clear stream close by, and a big black fire-circle, in which the fire we've made looks rather underwhelming. The water has started to steam, so it's time I put down my pen and claimed my share of the food we brought with us. Day 45 Sharing a horse with one's girlfriend may be bad for the horse, though the one I'm riding is a pretty large, powerful animal, but it has its compensations, especially on a cool autumnal day. Memree did suggest that she could sit astride the horse backwards, so that we'd be face to face, but I do have to give at least some attention to where the horse is going! So, a whole day on the trail. Considering that Wealdstone is a fair-sized town, and our destination, Broadwater, is a large and busy coastal city with its own harbour, I'm surprised we've not seen more people along the way - people on foot we're overtaking, people with faster horses and less time overtaking us, and all sorts of people, with and without carts, coming in the opposite direction. But, while there have been some travellers, including one merchant caravan coming from the coast, with everyone in sight obviously half-convinced we were bandits about to raid them, it does seem to me to be surprisingly quiet. The only interesting conversation started during our mid-day stop, just by a pleasant little stream so clear one could see small fish darting around from one clump of weed to the next. Cleve leaned in and picked some of the weed, then passed a few leaves to me - she chewed on a leaf or two, and smiled... it was watercress, so we had some with our cold game pie. Tayne's wife Sharna was an excellent cook, and the mixture of rabbit, chicken, and I think partridge, was extremely tasty. "Cleve's a mute", Memree said as we rested afterwards in the sunshine. "And I can't remember anything before you rescued me from Atzmon's awful dungeon, not so many ten-days ago - you're collecting some strange companions, warrior." "You think so? I'm getting used to it, it certainly beats travelling alone, or with some scruffy male who's convinced he's in charge." I made a silly face. "He may not fight as well as me, but... oh, forget it!" Memree chuckled. "Cleve says she's met too many men like that!" "Is there any other kind?" I rolled my eyes. "Good for just one - what did you say...?" Memree looked startled, not just from the change in my tone of voice. "She... she talked! With her hands.. sign language..." "Since when can you--" "I don't know!" Memree looked scared. "I didn't know I could, until just now, when I saw her fingers moving. It must have come from before... before Atzmon did what she did. Was it from me, or did it come from poor Marius Restormel, whose life-force that she-demon used to power her spell?" She shivered. "Someone hold me... I feel cold..." So I held her, and then we mounted up again, and rode, which meant I could continue to hold her, and Cleve hasn't "said" anything else yet, which is sensible of her, as Memree has had a bit of a jolt, an unpleasant reminder of a time best forgotten. But it's good to know that we can hold a two-way discussion with Cleve, I'm sure that will be very useful in the days ahead. Tonight's camp was, again, a place often used by wayfarers - the area for the fire had even been paved with large stone slabs, black from heavy usage over many centuries, I think. There was a pile of firewood ready-cut - we used some to start our fire, and then topped up the pile with a similar amount while we waited for the water to heat. So I can't really think of anything else to report today - though with any luck, tomorrow will see us arrive in the Big City! Day 46 Broadwater is certainly big. I suppose most of the bustle will be in the docks area, but we've found a decent tavern well away from there, on the feeling that it would be less noisy, less likely to be completely full already, and probably cheaper too. I chatted to one of the gate-guards, as mid afternoon is a relatively quiet time for them, and he recommended the place, and gave us directions. The owner of The Speckled Leaf, Armon Birch, is his cousin apparently, and Armon and his wife Athriel seem to be running a clean and welcoming establishment. Cleve has her own small room on the attic floor, and Memree and I, naturally, are sharing a slightly larger room on the main upper level. Hengist is in the stables, and the other two horses have been passed over to the people Ashil asked us to leave them with, so they are no longer our responsibility. We had an early dinner, with an excellent vegetable soup with fresh-baked bread, then some sort of baked fish, which was very tasty. Apparently Armon brews his own ale in the basement, and it was excellent, dark and smooth and not too sweet. We were offered some local cheese, but by that time all three of us were pleasantly full, so we just took further mugs of the ale to chairs by the fire. "So, we're here, in Broadwater", Memree announced, putting her mug down on the table. "Now what, my barbarienne?" "We look for a job worthy of our many talents", I told her, and grinned. "Maybe we join a party going into the underhills in search of treasure, or maybe somebody has a dangerous but rewarding mission that only we three can handle. A princess to rescue, a kingdom to save, an evil wizard to thwart - happens all the time, so why not to us?" Memree sighed. "My own fault, I should have asked you before you drank that second pitcher-full..." After our time on the open trail, I must say that I'm about ready to fall into bed. It's good to have some privacy, after having Cleve so close by, so that bed is starting to look very inviting. Oh, and I must remember to get some sleep later on, heheheheh... Day 47 Actually, we behaved more like wide-eyed visitors from the country today than adventurers looking for work - but it makes sense to explore the city and try and understand how it works. As you might expect, the main market is large and excellent; we will probably need to buy some cold-weather clothing before too long, and the range and prices were very tempting, but that's something we can put off until we're ready to leave the city and head back to Redwall, and that is unlikely to be very soon. I bought some trousers and a frilly-fronted white shirt, somehow in a place this size I don't feel as comfortable as usual in leotards and things like that, so I am dressing more "respectably", and my wardrobe is a bit limited at that end of the spectrum. The castle is really impressive, at least viewed from outside. There must have been a natural cliff overlooking the harbour, and the castle was built on top of it... and then the rest of the cliff, except for a gently curving ramp-road up to its main gates, was dug away, and the town itself built, or rebuilt, at a level not much higher than the docks, presumably making a fair amount of use of the rubble. No invading army has ever managed to take the castle by force, and I doubt if the castle will ever fall that way. We found a tavern used by adventurers, The Treasure Hunter - we had lunch there, just some fish soup with dumplings floating in it. The landlord could tell at once that Cleve and I were "in the adventuring trade", and has added the three of us to a wall he has there. I don't know if anything will come of that, whether ambitious dukes and deposed kings make a habit of reading tavern walls, but the landlord only gets a few coins if we do get a job we like because of it. Cleve seems to be a bit of a gambler when it comes to card games, and is tending to spend her evenings at a table in The Speckled Leaf, holding a fan of cards close in front of her. The players even stack up little piles of coins in front of them, honestly! She seems to be doing okay, and enjoying herself, I suppose it is a social thing she feels she can be a part of, even without a voice. I have warned her that, if she runs up a debt in my name, my easiest way to get the money will be to sell her to a slavemaster, so I don't think she is likely to do anything too rash. So, Ser Mage-Librarian, that is all I have to report to you today. Spending one's time doing almost nothing is easier to actually do than to write about! Day 48 Memree, Cleve and I ventured outside the city walls today, just to explore the area where some of the treasure-run tunnels and crypts begin. Cleve and I had our swords, and Memree carried a light crossbow, but we weren't dressed or prepared to actually go any distance inside, and made a point of acting like casual visitors, carrying a picnic basket. It seemed like a good idea to get a general impression of what goes on there, and I suppose it was, but in some ways it was a rather depressing place. We saw one group coming out of a tunnel, running and stumbling and half-carrying one of their number whose tunic was badly stained with blood - something had followed them, we heard the eerie screaming noise it made, but it wasn't going to come out into the open daylight. There is apparently always at least one healer on duty there, and we saw him administer some potions to the group, or its surviving members. There were two elven, or maybe half-elven, archers in the group, and I suppose a red-bearded dwarf with a large double-headed axe is a necessity, but the humans with swords looked like cannon fodder to me... a resource easily replaced in a city like this. The mage was young and female and rather pretty, and unable to stop crying, so the group must have lost at least one member precious to her. She'd presumably had a staff when she went in, and lost it, which would have just about halved her effectiveness as a spellcaster. There was a stall selling potions, though the colours didn't look quite true to me, I'd always buy from a proper shop or someone I was sure about, and the man and woman behind the table, while cheerful, didn't strike me as the sort of people who would be particularly careful about getting their ingredients at the right time, and generally going to all the trouble you have to if the various combinations are going to work to their full potential. We watched a large group going into a rather elaborate entrance - three women and a man with crossbows, a massive man or half-orc perhaps with a sword almost as tall as me, a white-haired but clean-shaven mage with a metal staff with a line of light up its entire length, his female apprentice with her own staff and a pack of books and spell ingredients, a couple of female human swordfighters, and a rather young dwarf, his beard cropped short, carrying a warhammer. They had a donkey too, its packs only half-full - leaving room for treasure, but I'd have taken a full load in, and discarded any surplus supplies if the amount of loot took up all the room. We sat on a stone bench to eat our lunch, and I offered a pie to one of the city guards, who was standing close to us, watching that group enter the tunnel. "Are they after any special treasure, M'ser...?" He smiled, and took the pie. "Oh, I expect they have a wondrous map, crinkled and fragile with age - or from being held close to a forger's fire! There is treasure to be found down below, but I'd rather stay poor and live a few years longer, myself, the tales people who make it out of there again tell are not for the faint-hearted." Memree took a spare beaker, and poured some beer from our flagon into it. "Are there actually monsters down there...?" "Thank you, Sera - just the one small beaker, I do have to stay alert, it's not unknown for something to come out of a tunnel, chasing a crypt raider." He perched himself on the end of our bench. "Once you get past the first tunnels, there are larger caves, and, with the hot water springs, there's vegetation, and a small amount of light, so the place does actually attract what we think of as monsters... and if you get lower still, there are massive snakes and spiders, and ruins of some early city built down there when the world was a bit younger." He paused to take another bite of the pie. "The original folk died out, but their magic became part of the very stones, and warps any creatures who attempt to live down there, so that a fugitive thief can turn into some sort of flesh-eating ghoul, and not one that you can stop with a couple of arrows." He shook his head. "One day we ought to clean the place out, many people are sure that innocent city children and drunks get kidnapped in the night and end up as captives down there, until they change so much that they become monsters themselves... but you could send a whole army in there, and still not find half the rooms... and maybe lose half your men, if you weren't careful." A little later another party of adventurers emerged - they'd got some treasure, it was obvious, but there was also business for the healer, and we could see him looking grim as a tall woman gently put down a slender half-elf she'd been carrying across her shoulders. Broken bones she could mend, cuts and bruises could be healed, but even the finest healers have their limits... So it wasn't just Cleve who was a bit quiet when we walked back towards our tavern, this afternoon. Day 49 Memree and I were still getting dressed this morning when Cleve knocked on our bedroom door. I unlocked it and she practically bounced in, smiling eagerly and carrying, you guessed it, a treasure map, which she triumphantly passed to me. "A genuine fake treasure map?" I looked at it sceptically, and noticed that, at least, it didn't pretend to be old. The name at the top was 'Castle Grishelm'... the sketchy diagram would presumably make sense if one was actually there, wherever 'there' was. "This 'Castle Grishelm' is part of the local cave and tunnel system?" Cleve's fingers were moving quickly, and Memree's eyes were following them carefully. "Cleve won the map at cards last night, so at least it didn't cost anything", she said. "The man sketched it out at the table, Castle Grishelm is an old ruin in one of the first big caves, a lot of adventurers pass that way - but it has dungeons, and those dungeons have...secrets? Secrets that only this map can reveal." "So we need to team up with dwarves, elven archers, and a half-orc or two, on the chance that this map is genuine, and that the 'secrets' involve treasure rather than deathtraps?" "Cleve says no - it's an easy cave to get to, the three of us can do it, the system's worst monsters never come up that high." Fine - we were going to take the word of a losing gambler, and stake our lives on it. I was tempted to ask around a bit, see what I could discover about this underground castle...but the face you chatted to over a tavern table might next appear behind a battleaxe in the underground, convinced that you were after a treasure worth killing for. Cleve was overwhelmingly keen on this project, and, well, if it was a less dangerous area than most, and there was a chance of finding something other people had missed...well, call me a sucker, but the idea was starting to appeal to me. So we made some preparations today, including getting plenty of bolts for Memree's crossbow, and a good supply of the best ointments and potions and poison antidotes from a reputable apothecary. Apparently the route we are taking is open enough for Hengist, so we'll be letting him carry all our stuff, including ample fresh water, biscuits, and smoked meats, enough provisions for a ten-day at least. And tomorrow, as quietly as we can, we'll set out on this ridiculous quest! Day 50 It's strange, but, now that we are underground, time just seems to be working differently. Following the map Cleve had acquired, we went through a pass inland from the main tunnel area where we'd been so recently, and it can't have been any later than mid-morning when we actually entered the first caves, but after crossing a cave or two inhabited by nothing more scary than a few rabbits, we were already beginning to feel tired. We brought torches and oil lanterns, but the light level is actually quite good at least in the big caves, once one gets used to it. The walls glow, just a little, it seems to be some sort of lichen, and there are some large posts with what look like real flames on their tops, encased in glass globes. Memree tells me they must be magical artifacts, they've probably been "burning" for centuries. When they were started, I suppose there were people living here, not just ruins and monsters. According to the map it's not much further to Castle Grishelm itself, but we've stopped, lit a fire for a bit of extra warmth and comfort, eaten what was going to be a noon meal, and seem just about ready to fall asleep... Day 51 I don't recommend being woken by a giant spider's palps brushing your face - though this particular specimen seemed more curious than malicious, and scurried away when I began to move. And boy did I move! With its long dark shaggy coat, it was probably about as bulky as Hengist, but rather more agile, and it was across the chamber and away into a small tunnel before I'd got my sword clear of its scabbard. The yell I'd emitted woke up Memree and Cleve, so we decided it must be morning, and had a quick, cold breakfast, before continuing forward. Grishelm Castle was in the next cave along, which was the biggest we'd been in. The roof of the cave had a blue glow to it, probably an old magic like the fire-globes, and there was coarse grass on the ground, and the overgrown ruins of an old town...and skulls, half-covered in soil, with lichen on them. "What happened here, d'you think?" I sighed, and pushed at a half-embedded piece of stonework with my foot. "Whatever it was, it was a good few centuries ago - look how deeply embedded these stones are. A castle, with its own small town around it - Hel, someone must have got annoyed." "Look, if what we're doing comes down to grave-robbing..." Memree looked very serious. "I don't think so, my love... it may even help to bring a sort of peace here." We entered the castle through its main gate, stepping over the remains of a rotted portcullis. The light from above was so like daylight, it seemed strange not to hear birds singing, to feel a morning breeze. Time had mellowed the stonework; in places part of the wall had fallen down, or been pushed. "What a beautiful place this must have been, once." "Just a castle", I replied, looking round carefully, my hand on the hilt of my sword. "I've seen better." And that was then a figure appeared on the stone steps down from the wall, a young woman with curly black hair in gleaming, old-fashioned armour, including a shiny breastplate, sword in hand...the final defender of the castle, a ghost? No, much too solid and real for that. "Today you die, Charol", she shouted. "You and your two accomplices!" She knew my name? "And you're the guardian of the ancient tombs, I assume - not as green and scaly as I'd expected!" "I'm here to end your killing days, assassin!" She lunged, and I backed cautiously, and parried. Now this was strange. "Assassin? The local cobwebs have affected your brain, brass-bra..." "Cuirass! Call me Cuirass, you cold-hearted killer - let it rattle in your dying throat!" She was good - I ducked away from a fast-sweeping blade. "Well if you don't like me, come right out and say it", I replied. "Has someone hired you to kill me, is that it?" "I'm protecting that gentle healer Rosella Atzmon from your hired blade, you murderer", she answered, and our swords clashed full-on, with sparks and general clatter. Now this was a development. "Atzmon? What lies has that she-devil been telling you, Tin-Top?" "She paused, sword at the ready. "No lies - but I'm her protector, and all who seek her harm must die", she shouted, "Starting with you!" And with her free hand she swung, catching me clean on the chin and knocking me back, nearly making me fall. "But... why are you here in Grishelm, Sera?" Keeping her talking seemed like a good idea, while the buzzing in my ears gently subsided. The point of my sword wobbled a bit, I wasn't ready to defend myself quite yet. "Grishelm?" She looked about, surprised. "But this is a ruin... I know Grishelm, it's a fine town, I have friends there..." She paused. "The shape is familiar, of the castle and the cave... but this place has been abandoned and rotting... for centuries..." Her hesitation was brief, however - too brief, and with an angry shriek she lunged at me, I tried to dodge, but her blade sliced down into my shoulder. I went down on my knees, dropped my sword, and she raised hers - but Memree ran forward, and dropped beside me. "No! Don't hurt her - please!" "She must die", Cuirass said, her sword raised over her head. I might have been able to dodge her first blow, but I was in no condition to to dodge a second. I mumbled something, telling Memree to run...hopefully Cleve, though no great swordsman, would be able to cover their retreat... "Why?" Memree asked, tearfully. "Has she done you any harm?" "She can't hurt Lady Rosella now", Cuirass said to herself. "You must..." she stopped for a moment, and then continued. "You must...look after her, and tell her never to threaten the lady again..." I think I lost consciousness for a little while; Memree has managed to stop the bleeding, and bandaged me, luckily it's not my sword or pen arm that's been damaged. Apparently Cuirass mounted some sort of huge bird and flew off, back to "Lady Rosella" Atzmon, who isn't going to be pleased that I am not dead yet, if I'm any judge of character. But I really can't write any more today. Actually Memree has been doing most of the actual pen-to- paper stuff, that's alright isn't it? As long as I dictate it... Day 52 I feel quite a bit better this "morning" - Memree used some potions and other supplies on me while I was out, and was pretty happy with my progress, starting the day with changing bandages. "I guess I... made a mess of that fight, didn't I...?" I moved the fingers of my left hand carefully... everything seemed to work, albeit stiffly. Memree gently smoothed some ointment onto my shoulder. "Don't worry about it. You're alive, and that's what matters." I smiled. The ointment was warm and numbing. "Use plenty of that stuff, love - I don't want to start a new collection of scars." "You keep quiet, and concentrate on getting better." "Yes, boss... but with Cleve silent, somebody has to keep the conversation going." Memree turned towards Cleve, who was tending a small fire on which porridge was being prepared. "Yes - you still haven't explained why you didn't help us, Cleve..." I watched as her fingers signalled her answer. "What's she saying?" "She assumed you wanted to fight one-on-one, and could handle that 'Cuirass' woman, so she held back...it all happened so quickly..." I nodded, and felt a twinge, grimaced. "That's true, we both under-estimated her. Just because she's a few arrows short of a full quiver, it doesn't mean she can't fight." Cleve spooned out a big bowl of porridge for me, and Memree added a generous dollop of runny honey, and stirred it in. I thought I was well enough to sit up and feed myself, but instead Memree rearranged some of our packs behind me, and then began to feed me. "I could get used to this life of luxury", I commented between mouthfuls. Cleve did some more of her finger-talk, and the spoon very nearly missed my mouth as Memree concentrated on it. "Sorry", she muttered, scraping some food off my lip. "You need to rest today, Cleve reckons it would be safe to leave you and Hengist here, while she and I explore the first couple of levels below the castle, make sure the map is right. You ought to take a sleeping potion - though I'm sure you want to write at least a few lines in that book of yours first." So that's about all I have to write, for now - "Felt a bit better, had porridge for breakfast, watched my best friend vanish into a crypt without me." I'd better drink that potion now, I'm glad I insisted on the wine-based version! |
