The Drudge

1

THE DRUDGE

L

ar waded through drifts of snow and into the sleepy village with several goals in mind. First, a roaring fire so he might defrost his icy fingers. They felt dead, despite the lined gloves he had conjured for himself. Next, he hoped for a good meal. He wasn't much of a cook and eating out on the bare, windblown prairie, deep in the snow one more night had absolutely no appeal. A warm bed also might be third on his list, but that depended on how his other goals turned out. The real reason he had come to Halfway across this desolate wintery plain, had been the magic.

Something mysterious had attracted him here, and it must be in this hibernating town that huddled under the biggest tree in the entire Land. He crept under the broad, winter-bare branches and saw the lights of an entire village glowing warmly. He scented within the only inn the town boasted. Lar didn't fight its direction. Yes, warmth, food, and magic, in that order.

Someone there was about to die.

As Lar opened the heavy door, he could barely see in the smoky room, crowded with locals. Very few travelers like himself had also come in off the plains at this miserable time of year. Few were insane enough to be out in this blizzard. After Lar’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, he could identify traders, locals, barmaids, a few dirty drudges, and the proprietor of the establishment, all crowded in for comfort and warmth.

Four huge hearths, all blazing away with half a tree’s worth of wood on each one filled the space with wondrous heat and light. One of the pretty barmaids spied him and pulled him out of the doorway, divested him of several layers of furs, and had him at a table near one fire before he could say a word. At least Lar could tell she wasn't the source of the magical pinging nor the one about to die. He gratefully ordered a bowl of whatever warm meal was being served and while she went to get his supper, Lar looked around more closely for the magic hidden here.

His sense of someone dying drifted from the left, behind the bar from the portly proprietor or the cook washing the dishes.

The source of the magic signal came from the farthest hearth directly across from the door. Since the one probably caused the other, Lar took the bowl of stew he had been served and began to move across the room toward the magic, weaving among the crowded tables and past gambling games to draw near. He sat in the dark corner beside the hearth at an isolated table to eat his supper and test these magical waters.

As the King of Death, Lar had several years of experience now and while he was better at tasting death than preventing it, the magic actually drew him in, not the death. Long ago he had learned that he could not and should not prevent all death, just the unjust or supernatural kind. If someone like the proprietor were going to be murdered, Lar could prevent it, especially if magic did the murder, but he could not stop a disease or an accident. There were simply too many people dying at any one time and so instead, he concentrated on the magic deaths to confront.

This magic was strange, Lar realized, muddled, hazy, and shifting. He looked for someone who moved around the room the way his sense of the magic did, but he could identify no one who drifted with it. Lar closed his eyes with concentration, tasting the sorcery in the air. It carried a bitter tang, a little like a demon, but oddly this shifted, then was briefly absorbed back again in a sudden flash of light, leaving behind the pleasant scent of rain on the stone after a long drought. He had never traced magic like this, and he could not account for it.

“Oy there,” someone shouted, and Lar's dark eyes drew to the disturbance. The owner of the inn came from behind the bar, growling, stomping across the room. At first, Lar thought the huge man came to confront him, but the innkeeper’s further comment redirected that thought.

“I saw you take the gentleman's things. You are a thief!”

The innkeeper barreled down on a huddled pile of rags squatting right behind Lar. He had barely recognized this drudge as human, for he or she crouched next to the hearth and hadn’t moved. The instant Lar concentrated on the figure, he perceived this

was

the source of the scrambled magic. Before he could react, however, the innkeeper fetched the figure a slap across the head. The drudge didn't utter a sound at the blow, but Lar spied a clutched hand, dirty and scratched, grasping a bag…Lar’s bag. He instinctively felt for the leather satchel where he kept his money and Heart Stone, the key to his magic. The drudge had picked his pocket. Lar rose immediately to intervene, but the innkeeper had already slapped the slave again.

“Sir,” Lar spoke up in protest, putting his hand on the proprietor's raised arm. “The bag is mine, but I won't have you beating your drudge.”

“She's a thief,” the innkeeper countered. “If you want your things, take them, but I'll do with my staff as I see fit. I can't have a thief in my establishment. I'll call for the constable.”

“You do that,” Lar replied, and the innkeeper turned away to find a lawman. Meanwhile, Lar knelt down to look more closely at the silent drudge who still sat crouched, face to the stone hearth, and was still rifling through the satchel. Lar couldn't identify the gender of the creature, but by the fine lean fingers, and despite chipped nails and dirt to the point no skin actually was visible, Lar guessed female as the innkeeper had claimed. The rags covered her face from view, and the ash bucket over one arm attested to her duties at the inn. Her quick hands removed item after item from the bag, putting the coins with gentle clinks into her empty ash bucket. Then he heard a thud as one of the Heart Stones, the magical key that made him a magician, followed into the container.

Curiosity, not unlike the drudge's inquisitiveness over his things, urged Lar to explore what was happening with this creature. She was definitely the source of the power, but he could not quantify what he was sensing, so he brought his own power to bear on the dirty thing. He crafted a spell of truth and cast it over the drudge so that only he would be able to see her true nature.

The spell took hold and Lar scrambled back in surprise at what he saw. Instead of a huddled drudge, a towering swarm of fiery red lights swirled like a hive, filling the corner where she crouched. Demon flies, like sparks, buzzed angrily and occasionally zipped away across the room, bit someone, and fled back to the hive that was the drudge. These must have been the bitter tang Lar had first sensed.

They had been traversing the room and then returning to their home demon. Lar peered more closely through the fog of lights, trying to see the human inside the cloud of the demon. He could only vaguely make out the silhouette of a woman, tall and straight, but he could see nothing else.

Lar's fascination with the demonic spectacle distracted him from what was actually happening in the non-magical plane, and he did not realize that the drudge had retrieved another Heart Stone from his bag and now grasped the magical orb as if her life depended on it.

The contact with this second Heart Stone changed the silhouette within the demon cloud. To his amazement, the figure under his spell erupted in fire, burning, and yet was not consumed. Lar stood up now and with wonder dropped his truth spell. The drudge changed back in his eyes, into the dirty cowering servant who greedily took out his utensils and an extra shirt.

The dirty woman still huddled and remained miserably silent. Wordlessly, Lar reached out and took her bucket from her. He half expected a screech of protest, but the poor creature finally turned to see who had stolen from the thief. Lar was confronted by boldly bright golden human eyes. Lar knew immediately she was an innocent. The demon inside her made her steal his things. He wondered at the golden glare that stabbed him in the heart.

The innkeeper, accompanied by the constable who must have been dining somewhere nearby, interrupted Lar's frozen amazement.

“That's the one. She stole from this gentleman. I've caught her at it before. I won't have it. Take her away.”

Lar began to protest, but the constable didn't listen. The lawman roughly plucked the drudge up by the arm and began dragging her out of the inn.

“I don't want to press charges,” Lar argued, but the innkeeper only turned away with a harrumph of satisfaction.

Suddenly the demon within the drudge erupted. She began scratching, shrieking, kicking, and clawing like a wild animal in a trap. The constable dropped her arm in surprise, and she bolted away through the tables and chairs rushing at the innkeeper. She raised her hands like talons, and they flared in a fire as she reacted with murderous rage. The innkeeper stumbled backward as diners scrambled away and out the door. Lar saw it happening and reacted as quickly as he could. He leaped at the drudge, pinning her arms down and dampening the fire within a magical bubble of airless silence, the silence of the tomb.

His magical shields prevented him from being harmed by her fire. However, the pain of the fire still licked at him, and the demon swarm continued biting at him. He also sensed the pain of the burning of the girl underneath his arms. She ached in a furious rage. It rippled, alien to him, and flashed through them both. Without thinking about it, Lar swallowed up her magic in a cavern of dark death, smothering her flames. Lack of air did the trick. The drudge calmed in his arms and the fire of her hands dampened.

The frightened innkeeper had flattened himself against the far wall and the customers had all fled out of the common room, terrified by the insane attack. Such magic here in the Land was almost unknown. Lar sat on the floor, holding the drudge bound as if that were the most important thing in the world. Then he looked up at the innkeeper.

“What's her name?” Lar asked. The pathetic drudge seemed incapable of speaking for herself at this point. She had begun rocking and humming in Lar’s restraining arms, but unless the demon was reacting, he doubted that she was able to answer.

“I never knew. She doesn't speak.” The innkeeper sighed, finally straightening up, lifting an overturned chair, and sitting at least arm's length away from them. “She has been here longer than me. I bought the inn ten years ago and not once did I hear her make a sound until tonight. She knows how to remove ashes from the hearths and that's all she can or will do.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked the constable who still remained in the otherwise empty room. Even the barmaids had fled, unwilling to return to clean up the chaos. “I'm not sure throwing her in our cell will…will contain her.”

“It probably won't, but I won't have her back here,” the proprietor grumbled. Then his frank eyes looked down at Lar. “Sir, how are you…doing…the fire…she’s…”

“She's mad,” Lar confirmed, “but she doesn't know what she's doing. It wasn't her doing the stealing. She’s possessed by a demon.”

“Stealing!” barked the constable. “It's the fire that would concern me. I don't want her to set my cell afire. She could char the whole town to the ground.”

“Sir?” the innkeeper turned to Lar desperately.

“You seem to have a gift for calming her. Can you take her? I can't have my establishment burned, customers frightened…or robbed. I don't want to turn her out on a night like this. She'll be dead by midnight, but… Can you…?”

Well, this was why he had come to Halfway, Lar reminded himself.

Reluctantly he turned the drudge's face toward his with a firm grip on her chin. She still hummed and rocked with her eyes scrunched closed as if she didn't dare look anyone. With more care, he reinforced his personal shields, kept the bubble of airlessness around her, and then reapplied the truth spell, all without his audience able to see his work. He had to know the person beneath the demon swarm.

In his arms, within the angry red glow of the demon, he saw a beautiful woman, dressed in fiery red silk, with gold embroidery. She boasted red hair in long, luxurious waves. Her eyes, wide with wonder, looked back at him with a barely contained anger. She knew nothing but pain and harassment from her torturing demon, so it was no wonder she didn't speak. With magically reinforced privacy, he leaned in close to this woman's ear and mentally whispered one word to her.

“

Ingri

?”

The drudge started squirming in his arms, fighting him violently, but the reaction was what he wanted. It was the sign he needed. He had found the most important person in the world to him.

He looked up at the men and nodded. “Yes, I'll take her.”