Magik's Price

Jolf heard the splashing of water from the bucket he kept outside the kitchen door and looked up as Danby entered. " Stables are full already, I'm going to let Darvil know"

"Hold on, lad. I'll tell Darvil, I need you to go to the butcher for chickens. I want to make the stew for tomorrow. You know the one, right? On Market, not the one on Main St. The butcher on Market keeps some birds special for me" Jolf told the young man," and when you get back, start a fire for Darvil in the brew house. He needs to get another batch of ale brewing this afternoon." Jolf set down his knife as Danby headed back out the kitchen door, wiped his hands on his apron, and went out front to talk to Darvil. The color storms had returned this winter as hadn't been seen in decades. The rainbow colored lightning was the harbinger of changes to the land and even twenty years wasn't enough time to forget their effects. Travelers had been stopping earlier and earlier in the day for weeks now. No one wanted to risk being caught outside in one of them. All though, for now, no major change seemed to have happened anywhere near Chelwith. The common room was quite full for this early in the afternoon, even in winter when there was less work to do in the fields. Darvil was weaving his way through the crowd with a tray of tankards that seemed certain to go crashing to the floor at any second, but didn't. For all his grumblings about magik, Jolf again wondered if Darvil's abilities with a serving tray were completely natural."Stables full." He shouted to the inn keeper, over the noise of the room. Darvil nodded and waved one hand to let Jolf know he heard, and still everything stayed on the tray.

At one of the long benches a group of younger customers were gathered around Old Lelnard. Lelnard had served in the army of the Dukes of Haverlith In his youth, before the shatter, and before he lost his arm to the wars that had followed. He had become a talented storyteller in the years since then and clearly had this group of youngsters captivated. Jolf detoured past on the pretense of checking the pot of soup warming at the common room fire to listen in.

"Demons? Demons are just tales mothers tell to scare their children into behaving" scoffed one of the young men.

"Tell that to my right arm lad. And hope that you won't find out the truth for yourself one of these days. You've seen the lights and the lights always bring change. Rarely is that good for anyone. Twas a demon, a creature of fire and brimstone that took my arm. Burned it away in an instant with a crack of his whip. It surely was no mothers tale" spoke the storyteller. "They came during one of the worst periods of change. There was near to no stopping them at first. Herrolus, the archmage of the city of Verlyn was the one who kept them in check. It was he who created the spell to bind them to men's will. It was he who realized that the only chance was for all mages to learn the means of the binding. Rather than keep the secret to himself, he taught all who came the spells."

"Verlyn? Were is that asked one of the young men."

"It stood about two hundred leagues west of Chelwith" answered another veteran of the wars who had also moved closer to hear the conversation.

"We came from the west" challenged one of the travelers "there is no ruined city where you claim"

" I didn't say it was destroyed, like so much then, it was just gone. A casualty of the storms."

At the next table, sitting with his back to the group around Lelnard, a thin bald man in a heavy homespun tunic and hood had been listening carefully to the conversation. "Herrolus, did more than just that" the man injected into the talk."The demon plague was due to some slice of their hell being brought to this land. Simply binding them and pitting them against their brethren was just a stopgap, not a solution.  It was Herrolus who convinced all the mages he had taught, white and black, the naturalists and the ritualists, all of them, that a permanent solution was needed. It was he who lead the great work that sunk the hell land into the earth and bound the demons from freely walking the lands" spoke the stranger. "Magik must be paid though, and many say the loss of Verlyn, was the payment for their actions."

"Phaw... magik... no good comes of it. Lads do like I do and keep it as far away from you as possible" spat Darvil, who was collecting coins and replacing tankards around the table. "Jolf! Whose minding the roast in the kitchen?"

Startled, Jolf shook his head, smiled and headed out of the common room.

The man who had spoken was named Pharnyll, though no one in the Gryphon knew that. He settled back into his chair and pulled his hood tighter around his head. Perhaps it had been foolish to speak he thought. But the more time he spent in the room the more convinced he became that this time his spell would work. That here, where stories of the land had been traded since the great demon set the world on its current course, his spell would finally find a foundation to anchor it. Pharnyll would have the fame he had sought for so long, that would ensure that in years to come the storytellers would tell tales of him. And he had learned that the Inn keeper would not likely be a willing participant. So he had saved himself the blunder of asking or trying to pay for the use of the room. No it would have to be in secret, and by stealth. Finishing his ale Pharnyll pushed his chair back from the table and started for the stairs to the private room he had secured. Luckily he had paid for three nights. He would need to adjust his plan, and secure some additional supplies in town tomorrow.

It took visits to three apothecaries to find all the items Pharnyll was looking for, but by mid afternoon he had completed his preparations. That evening Pharnyll came down to the common room late. He sat, mostly by himself, listening to the conversations around the room. While he appeared to be drinking Darvil's famous ale all evening, had anyone paid close attention they might have heard the murmur of the mage's voice  and observed the golden liquid, prized by most in the room, vanishing from his tankard without his drinking it. While it was too much to hope that no one would be renting a bedroll in the common room for the night, Pharnyl was pleased that it appeared only three or four would be in the room. Not that it truly mattered, as his preparation would render any number of guests irrelevant. Heading up to his room, he listened for the sounds of the doors being barred and the inn keeper retiring for the night. Pharnyll carefully checked his equipment in the small trunk at the foot of his bed. When sufficient time passed to ensure all in the Inn were asleep he was ready. Casting a simple charm to muffle sound he opened his door and carried the trunk down to the common room. From the trunk he removed a small container of an ointment he prepared earlier in the day. He applied a generous portion of the thick paste under his nose before moving to the fireplace and throwing a bag of herbs and other ingredients on the embers. A thick smoke began to billow from the bag as he recited another incantation. Rather than traveling up the chimney as it should, the smoke poured out into the room. As if it was a sentient being the tendrils of smoke moved throughout the inn seeking it's targets. Soon everyone in the building would be in a deep sleep from which they would not awake for several hours. Finally Pharnyll was ready to begin his great working. He shivered with an excitement he could barely contain. Opening the trunk he began removing items, crystal lenses, a polished silver bowl, a small brazier, bottles of ink, bags of soil and wood, brushes, pens and more. Aligning the lenses with the four points of the compass he then placed a small glass prism at their center. Water from a leather bottle was poured out into the silver bowl. Gathering coals from the fireplace, Pharnyll carefully fed small pieces of wood and pinches of earth into the brazier and began his incantation. Over his shoulder, unnoticed by the mage, the flickering of the multicolored aurora began to condense into sharp bolts of multicolored lightning. Still he continued chanting, adding more pieces of wood, some clandestinely carved from the common room tables earlier in the evening to the brazier. His low chant continued unbroken. Finally a thick blue smoke began to form over the fire and a small whirlwind formed over the water in the bowl. Pharnyll carefully unrolled a piece of new vellum and spread it on the table top, his chant never wavering. The whirlwind gathered the smoke, the yet unused earth from its bag, it sucked in ink from the bottle and water from the bowl growing larger and larger. As he was about to release the whirlwind to complete his creation a bolt of purple lightning burst through the window of the common room knocking Pharnyll to the ground.

"Darvil, Darvil, wake up" shouted Danby while shaking the innkeeper to rouse him from his slumber. "Something is wrong, everyone is still asleep and its well past breakfast. No one has come to claim their horses! I don't know what to do. Please wake up."

Darvil slowly crawled up to consciousness as Danby continued to shake him. Finally fully awake he and the stablehand went to see to Jolf. This time a dunking in the bucket of water outside the kitchen door sped the process. The three of them went to the common room to see to the guests who had rented bedrolls for the night. Best to get them on their way before dealing with the customers in the private rooms. Entering the commons they found the remains of Pharnyll's equipment scattered across the  room. The mage himself was curled in a ball on the floor, laughing softly to himself, eyes focused on nothing and drool dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

"Magic!" snarled the innkeeper. "What has the fool done?"

"Darvil" said the stable hand excitedly pounding on Darvil's shoulder and pointing. "What's happened to the wall?"

Looking in the direction the lad was pointing Darvil saw the results of the nights work. Clearly emblazoned on the wall, rather than the vellum, was a huge map. Darvil could see Chelwith, the keeps of the Dukes of Harverlith and Graflynn, and further to the east were the mountains of Nerglin the dwarf 's clan. Beyond them were the Kingdom of Hroff and the Elfland of Imlarhan. All this occupied but a fraction of the map.

"Do you think its real?" asked Danby.

"Everything I know of looks right, but all this other land? I suppose. What I do know is this is dangerous. Who knows what trouble will come when people find out of its existence." As Darvil was speaking on the far left of the map it started to blur. Lines rearranged themselves and slowly where before the map had shown hills now a forest began to spread. Danby's face drained of color watching the map change. "Danby, I think this wall is in need of some fresh paint. Go mix up a bucket of whitewash."

Three coats later, Jolf, Danby, and Darvil gave up. No matter how much they tried the map reappeared on the wall. Instead they tacked up an old tapestry to cover part of the painting. Then they spent the next hour moving the bar and its shelves full of tankards to the wall to cover the rest.

"I always thought the bar would work better on this wall anyway" said Jolf.

It was nearly noon by the time they bundled up the mage and left him on the doorstep of St Ingvie's monastery. The monks, they figured, would do what could be done for him. Finally they woke the rest of the nights guests, served them a lunch of chicken stew (on the house), and sent them all on their way.