Кейт Новак - The Wyvern's Spur

To Tracy and Laura—

our family in Wisconsin

From the journal of Giogioni Wyvernspur :

Late last night I returned home from my duties as royal envoy, to find my kin in a greater uproar than the southern city I had left behind. Ten months of Westgate’s problems shrivel to insignificance when compared to the tragedy that has befallen the clan of the Wyvernspurs of Immersea.

How could the flattening of an entire neighborhood by a dragon corpse, followed by an earthquake and an underworld power-struggle, hope to compete with the theft of a family heirloom no larger than a zucchini and uglier than three-week-old sa usage?

“A hunk of junk” is what Uncle Drone has always called the wyvern’s spur (said heirloom), and, considering all the trouble it has been, I am inclined to agree with him. No doubt the family would have donated it to a church rummage generations ago if not for the detestable prophesy that came with it.

According to family legend, the wyvern who presented it to old Paton Wyvernspur, way back when, promised that the family line would never die out as long as we held on to the gruesome chunk of mummified beastie. Logically it doesn’t follow that losing the dratted thing guarantees our demise, but we’ve always been a superstitious lot, we Wyvernspurs, so there is a family conclave tonight in Aunt Dorath’s lair at Redstone Castle. Although I have not yet unpacked from my journeys on behalf of the crown, I am expected to attend.

Someone will need to comfort Aunt Dorath. An oldest nephew’s lot is never easy.

Giogi laid his quill pen on the writing table and left the journal open for the ink to dry. He didn’t feel it necessary to add that his great-aunt would find his presence comforting only insofar as it would give her something else to criticize. He planned to leave his journal to posterity someday, and there were some things posterity just didn’t need to know.

As far as Aunt Dorath was concerned, Giogi had dishonored the Wyvernspur family last year with his disgraceful—but, as Giogi would put it, dead-on—imitation of King Azoun IV, which had resulted in Giogi’s near assassination by the cursed sell-sword Alias of Westgate and the disruption of an entire wedding reception. Nor had Dorath, the matriarch of clan Wyvernspur, been impressed by her nephew’s tale of his subsequent hair-raising encounter with a red dragon named Mist. To her mind, any young man who could not avoid entanglements with assassins and monsters needed to be sent far away for an extended period. Aunt Dorath had assumed that His Majesty Azoun had exiled Giogi in disgrace for those transgressions.

What Dorath, and most of the general population, had not known, was that King Azoun actually had assigned Giogi a secret mission, to discover the whereabouts of Alias of Westgate, the king’s potential assassin.

Not that I needed to be assigned, Giogi thought. I seem destined to run into the woman—or her relatives—wherever I roam. Yet, after Giogi had spotted her near Westgate that summer, she seemed to have vanished from the Realms entirely.

Giogi rose from his writing desk and stretched. His fingertips brushed against one of the overhead chandeliers. He was a very tall young man, a legacy from both his father and his mother. Last year he’d been slender and clean-cut, but his travels had left him gaunt and his hair in desperate need of a trim. His sandy-brown locks straggled down his sunburned neck in back and into his muddy brown eyes in front. His long face made his features seem less plain than they were. He bore no resemblance, however, to the other living members of the Wyvernspur family, who all had thin lips, hawklike noses, blue eyes, pale skin, and dark hair.

Taking up his goblet of mulled wine, Giogi crossed the parlor to the fireplace, where he warmed his fingers by the flames. It would take a day or two of blazing fires to chase the last of the winter chill and damp from the parlor. Uncertain as to his master’s return, Thomas, Giogi’s manservant, had decided not to waste wood and effort heating an empty house. Giogi shuddered to think of the effect that ten months of such neglect had on the plush wool Calimshan carpeting, the brilliant Sembian satin furniture coverings, and the Cormyrian duskwood paneling. At least, it being the month of Ches, the returning spring sunshine kept ice from forming on the leaded glass windows. It had come as quite a shock to Giogi, though, to find no candle burning in those windows upon his return, neither literally nor figuratively.

The young noble wondered whether a mere fire laid in the hearth could burn off the strange and unwelcome feeling he now sensed in his home. Everything was familiar and in its proper place, but the townhouse felt empty. After months spent at inns, aboard ships, and in traveling with strangers, now being alone left Giogi disquieted. He took a long swig of wine to shake off his gloom.

On the mantlepiece lay the most interesting souvenir of his travels: a large yellow crystal. Giogi had found it in the grass outside Westgate, and he was sure there was something special about the stone besides its beauty and financial value. The crystal shone in the dark like a great firefly, and Giogi felt quite comforted whenever he held it. He considered showing it to his Uncle Drone, but he decided against the idea, afraid that the old wizard would tell him the stone was dangerous and take it away.

Giogi polished off his drink and placed the empty silver goblet on the mantlepiece, then picked up the yellow crystal. Cradling it in both hands, he flopped back into his favorite stuffed chair and propped his feet up on a cushioned footstool. He turned the crystal over in his hands, watching the firelight sparkle in each facet.

The crystal was roughly egg-shaped but far larger than any bird egg—smaller, though, than a wyvern’s egg. It was the color of the finest mead and faintly warm to the touch. Where the facets met, the edges were not sharp but beveled smooth. Giogi held the stone at arm’s length, closed one eye, and tried to divine if it held some secret within its depths, but he could make out only the firelight shining through it and his own reflection broken by the facets.

“Now, what would be the best way to display you?” he asked the crystal. There was no sense in having a case made for it, he realized. Taking it out every time he wanted to handle it would be a bother, but it was too large to wear from a neck chain. On the road, he had kept it tucked in the top of his boot, where most adventurers kept their daggers.

The boots would have to suffice this evening, he decided at last. Although he didn’t plan to show it to Uncle Drone and the rest of his family, he very much wanted to show the stone to his pals at the Immer Inn. With any luck, Aunt Dorath would dismiss him from the family gathering early enough for him to slip back into town before closing hour.

That matter resolved, Giogi bounced back to his feet and wandered from the parlor to his home’s entrance. With the stone tucked awkwardly in his belt, he rummaged through the hall closet under the stairs. He’d left his boots in the front of the closet, but they had somehow vanished. He rustled about the cloaks and capes hanging from their separate hooks, and kicked through a number of shoes that littered the floor. Then he began pulling from the closet all manner of walking sticks, abandoned clothing, and curios—which were gifts from relatives, and so could not be thrown away, but which were too ugly to place anywhere but in the relative darkness of the closet.