“You’d better ask Mistress Ruskettle,” Cat suggested.
Giogi turned around and faced Olive with confusion, holding the spur out for her to see.
Olive looked at the artifact with a bit of confusion of her own. She’d presumed, as Cat had, that the spur would be a metal prod to strap around one’s ankle to spur wyverns into the air or something. It took her several moments to recognize the hunk of mummified flesh as one of the pieces of dried meat she’d tied into the bundle she’d given Cat.
The halfling had some explaining to do, she realized. Olive needed time to figure out what to explain first. She looked up into the clear blue sky. “How about you tuck that away, and as soon as we’re safe indoors, I’ll explain about the spur,” she promised. “Flattery could always fly over in the shape of a bird or something.”
Giogi looked up nervously. The sky was empty. The lone cloud that had shaded Spring Hill had vanished. He didn’t see any birds. Still, he was inclined to take Olive’s suggestion. “I’ll tie Poppy to the back of the carriage, so you can ride with us,” he said to Cat.
“Can’t you explain on the way?” Cat asked Olive with pseudo-innocence.
“No,” Olive said. “I think I’d better stay in back with Mother Lleddew. She’s not well.”
“Mother Lleddew? What’s wrong with her?” Cat asked anxiously. She peered into the carriage window and pulled back quickly. “Giogi,” she whispered, “there’s a bear in there.”
“Don’t worry, dear,” Olive said. “She’ll sleep it off. If you would be so kind as to open the door for me, we can be off.”
Once they were all loaded back on the carriage, Giogi and Cat on the driver’s seat, Olive inside with Mother Lleddew, and Poppy clopping along behind, Olive began racking her brain for exactly what she would tell Giogi and Cat. At the same time, she kept an ear on the conversation between the nobleman and the mage.
“I thought it was some sort of metal spur, such as for a horse,” Cat said. “It’s been sliced off a real wyvern’s foot, though, hasn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes,” Giogi said. “It was a gift from a female wyvern to Paton Wyvernspur for rescuing her children. She sliced it off her dead mate.”
Yuck! Olive thought inside the carriage.
“Yick!” Cat exclaimed. “How gruesome.”
“Well, yes. Speaking of gruesome, are you sure you’re all right? That’s a nasty bump you’ve got there,” Giogi said.
“You should talk,” the mage laughed. “You’re three colors that humans don’t generally come in,” she said, poking at a large bruise on his cheek. “You’re bleeding, too. What happened?”
“We ran into a few undead,” Giogi said with a shrug. “Nothing we couldn’t handle. The potions you gave us helped a lot, though.”
Olive mentally amended: An army of undead that we beat only with help from a werebear and a goddess’s powerful minion. And the potions helped only as long as the right type of undead attacked us.
“So, how was your afternoon?” Giogi asked the mage.
Cat related the events at Redstone in detail.
Giogi looked astonished by her story. “Is that all?” he asked with mock ennui.
“Is that all?” Cat echoed. “No. One more thing.”
“What?”
“I missed you,” the mage admitted.
“Really?” Giogi asked, feeling his heart pounding in his chest.
Olive shifted uneasily inside the carriage. Despite the mage having loyally handed the spur over to Giogi, Olive could not trust her. She hadn’t leveled with Giogi about being Flattery’s wife, but she continued to flirt with him. The halfling had firsthand experience at betraying people. She couldn’t help thinking that Cat still had some sort of scheme in mind that required Giogi’s cooperation.
18
Mother Lleddew’s Tale
From the Journal of Giogioni Wyvernspur:
While it seems like an age ago, it was only the day before yesterday when our family heirloom was stolen, and it was only yesterday that my Uncle Drone died—foully murdered, as I now suspect, by the evil wizard Flattery The spur has been returned by the remarkable Harper bard, Olive Ruskettle, who has suffered the loss of her partner, Jade More, at Flattery’s hand.
Mistress Ruskettle is still uncertain of the details, but she believes Jade removed the spur from our family crypt at the request of my Uncle Drone, convinced as he was that I was destined to use the spur. Jade, Mistress Ruskettle has explained, was a Wyvernspur from the same lost line as the mage Cat, which my Uncle Drone must somehow have known, or he would not have sent Jade in to face the guardian. One other attribute made Jade perfect for the task—apparently she could not be detected magically, which would have kept the spur’s location a secret as long as she held on to it.
Mistress Ruskettle claims Cat also possesses this remarkable undetectability, which is why she hid the spur on Cat early this morning, disguised as a magical amulet. Jade gave the spur to Mistress Ruskettle moments before being killed, but it took the bard a day to discover that she was carrying the most sought-after item in Immersea. She has apologized for not trusting me with its location sooner, but she feared that once I knew it was safe I would abandon my quest to learn its power and neglect my responsibility to use it. I cannot deny that she might have been right.
Having fought my way through Flattery’s minions to reach Mother Lleddew, I would feel rather foolish now not asking about the spur. I have an uneasy suspicion that I may need her knowledge not only to ensure the spur’s safety but my family’s safety as well.
Giogi laid his quill down on the desk and put his head in his hands. While he shared Olive Ruskettle’s thirst for justice and had no intention of backing down on his promise to do all he could to help her, he felt uncertain that he could really bring himself to use the spur.
There had to be something bad about the artifact if Aunt Dorath believed it to be cursed. Moreover, the fact that a wizard as evil as Flattery desired its power for his own did not bode well concerning the nature of that power. Hopefully Mother Lleddew could shed light on the mystery of the spur—perhaps on Flattery as well—as soon as she recovered from her wounds sufficiently to speak.
Olive sat all alone in the dining room of Giogi’s townhouse, wolfing down tea and crumpets. Giogi was in the parlor, scribbling in his journal. Cat was still changing into something clean. And Mother Lleddew, who had shaken off her bear shape before they’d arrived home, was still resting in the guest room.
The halfling leaned back and sighed with satisfaction. After helping Mother Lleddew to her room, Olive had managed to present Giogi with a brilliant explanation for having the spur and for giving it to Cat. It was an explanation that not only concealed her own ignorance of the spur’s appearance but convinced Giogi that her motives were completely noble. Cat hadn’t seemed too pleased with her story, but it had satisfied Giogi completely.
The door to the hallway opened, and Mother Lleddew stood on the threshold. With her massive frame, thick black hair, taut muscles, and shy eyes, her human appearance was still rather bearlike. She wore only her brown shift and leather sandals, but the dirt had been brushed from them, and as a further concession to society she’d tied her mane of hair back with a ribbon.
Few people could make Giogi’s house look small the way she does, Olive thought. The priestess walked stiffly into the room, though—not as spry as she’d been when engaged in combat. It was obvious that, despite the power her were-nature granted her, Mother Lleddew was a very old woman. Her face appeared all the more drawn and haggard for the wrinkles in it, and she twitched from aches and twinges in her muscles. She could heal the injuries she’d received in battle, but she would never recover from the ravages of time.