Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

‘Oh, I’ll fix it,’ he said. ‘It seems I’ve rediscovered a few vagrant skills here at the old homestead.’

‘I’m glad to hear that,’ Steven said. ‘We’re going to need them to find that table.’

Gilmour’s enthusiasm faded.

‘Sorry,’ Steven said, ‘I didn’t mean to remind you.’

‘Oh, it’s all right.’ Gilmour forced a smile. ‘But I do love it when we take the fight to them!’

From somewhere on the hillside, the almor screamed, a raging cry of anger and frustration. Its hunger wouldn’t wane until it had taken them all. Steven winced as the inhuman shriek resonated along his spine, chilling him through his already wet clothes.

‘Let’s get inside,’ Gilmour said. ‘We’ll have to be careful drawing water while we’re here, and even more careful when we leave.’

Steven fell in beside the old man and they carefully picked their way down to the palace gate.

Rob Scott Jay Gordon

Lessek's Key

‘Thank you, Alen.’ Hoyt’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Where did you get these?’

Alen gestured as if all of Eldarn were within his reach – yet Hoyt had never known the old man to be anywhere but Middle Fork. ‘Oh, here and there.’

‘But these are vintage – nothing like this has been printed in over nine hundred Twinmoons.’ Hoyt brushed the cover of the top volume in the stack of thirty or more: the most comprehensive collection of medical texts he had ever seen.

‘There are more,’ Alen said.

‘Where?’ Hoyt immediately hated the fact that he sounded so greedy and tried to curb his enthusiasm slightly. ‘Sorry, I mean- thank you so very much for these, Alen. It would have taken me ten Twinmoons or more to steal this collection – I’d love to know where you managed to find them. And if there are others, well, you know I just want to be as thorough as possible in my training-’

‘Please stop apologising,’ Alen said with a smile. ‘There are more, and I want you to have them. They’re doing no one any good where they are. Once you get this bunch stashed away somewhere, I’ll show you a significant private library here in Praga, and another over in Rona.’ He considered his pipe and rapped the bowl against the fireplace to empty it, then stored it in a rack on the mantel. The old man’s dog wandered in from the hallway, nuzzled against Hoyt’s hip until he patted the big animal behind the ears. Satisfied for the moment, it padded over to a rug near the fire to sleep away the morning aven.

Hoyt had dreamed of such books. He had wanted for so long to be a healer – more than that, he wanted to be a doctor. Stitching a wound, setting a bone, even delivering a baby: these skills he had learned during his travels, and he was respected in Southport as a talented healer, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. A thousand Twinmoons of Malakasian rule had seen the deterioration of so much in Eldarn – education, public health, welfare, scientific research, and especially medicine. Given the opportunity, Hoyt Navarra of Southport was happy to burden himself with the resurrection of medicine in Eldarn. These books were a good start.

Being found with even one of these publications would mean death; being detained with thirty ancient medical treatises would almost certainly ensure a slow, tortured death: a tag hanging. He would be forced to wear a placard naming him as an illegal smuggler of outlaw writing, and then hanged for an entire Twinmoon until his body rotted. Hoyt had seen tag hangings before; by the end of the Twinmoon, the foul stench of decay was overwhelming. Once he had seen a woman caught with fennaroot; she’d refused to put on the placard so the Malakasian officials had acted swiftly. A soldier nailed the placard to her chest.

Getting Alen’s generous gift home would be challenging, but… ‘I can get these back,’ he said confidently. ‘Thank you, Alen, thank you!’

‘It is my pleasure,’ he smiled. ‘Use them well. Teach others. Make it your goal in life to see this information applied throughout Eldarn, and then update them, Hoyt – it’s been nearly a thousand Twinmoons since anyone has published anything new. Even more important than becoming a doctor: your charge will be to find the right people to add knowledge.’

Hoyt ordered the tenderloin, a first for him in a public house. It was expensive, and a rarity – few people had spare silver to be ordering such elaborate meals from a tavern – but this was a celebration, after all. If anyone tried to roll him, they’d get a bit of a surprise: Hoyt invariably carried a homemade scalpel in easy reach; any would-be assailant would get more than he had bargained for. Still, neither the two elderly gentlemen throwing multi-sided dice, nor the young couple talking over a flagon of wine, nor the small group of men engrossed in some business discussion looked at all interested. He turned his attention to his meal.

He had waited for this day half his life; now Alen had made it a reality. All he had to do was work out how to get this treasure trove back to Southport. That would need some planning.

While he was contemplating options, a young woman approached and, without asking, took a seat across from him.

‘Good evening,’ she said.

Hoyt, both his thoughts and his meal interrupted, was irritated. ‘Not tonight,’ he said shortly as he reached for the wine, and gestured towards the door. ‘Go find someone else.’

The woman, several Twinmoons older than Hoyt, was wearing a simple wool skirt and a light tunic with loose-fitting sleeves. She had a thin leather strap of some sort around her neck. She ignored him and motioned for service.

‘I’ll have the same,’ she told the barman, ‘and another flagon of that too, please.’

Hoyt reached for his goblet again, and said, ‘I’m sorry, maybe you didn’t hear me. I’m not interested. And I am not buying you dinner.’

She tossed a leather pouch onto the table which jangled with the unmistakable sound of Mareks – a bold move, showing off that much money. Despite the fact that no one appeared to have noticed, Hoyt was uncomfortable with such a public demonstration of wealth.

‘I’m not a prostitute; so relax,’ she said softly. ‘I can pay my own way. I was just looking for someone interesting with whom to have dinner.’

Hoyt raised an eyebrow. She was straightforward; he appreciated that quality, and as he sneaked a longer look he realised that she was not unattractive. Her curly hair was closely cropped, her eyes were large and wide-set over a narrow nose. Her face was scarred – beneath one eye, across her chin, and through the gentle incline of her upper lip; Hoyt found that curiously endearing: the perfect women who cavorted with Malagon’s generals or lived in his palaces could learn something from a woman like this. Maybe this woman’s scars came from a rough-and-tumble childhood; maybe from her more recent past – either way, she had captured his attention.

He pushed his chair back and turned to order more wine for himself, and as he did so he caught sight of her tanned deerhide boots rising halfway up her calves, the soft double-wrapped type popular with those who spent much of their time on their feet. In one was stashed a bone-handled knife, sheathed in an inside flap for quick access, not the type of blade one used to slice bread or cut meat from a spit.

Hoyt smiled. His attractive dinner companion smiled back. Her teeth were straight and clean; she had obviously grown up in a privileged community, probably somewhere in Malakasia. ‘So no chance I can get you to leave?’ he said, this time bantering.

‘Oh no, not now I’ve just ordered dinner. That looks delicious. How is it?’