LITTLE THINGS - Chapter 1

The Great River Lynne ran from the Ta’Quetzal Mountains in the north and flowed south, cutting the kingdom of Lysim in half. It carved a path through the foothills, meandered slow and wide across the Phantal Plains, narrowed as it rushed through the Bramblewoods, pooled into the Lake Lynnsrest, and then cascaded towards the southern sands, where it bore a deep canyon into the ground as it trailed off into the distance.

At exactly the halfway point of the Lynne’s journey through Lysim sat Merinbrook, the Bisected Cities.

It began with a single bridge. The first bridge to cross the Lynne, built at its narrowest point at a place between the plains and the woods, was a piddly little thing. It was barely wide enough for two carriages going opposite ways to pass each other, made of simple, unadorned stone. The waters underneath had been brown from all the mud and dust it had picked up across the plains, but the rocks on the shore were big and buried deep, sturdy enough to hold the bridge up for centuries.

That one bridge opened up whole new lands to the Kingdom, and while many explorers and adventurers poured across it to stake their claims and make a name for themselves, one family had the idea of dropping their things where they were and setting up right next to the bridge. They built a little shop there, and they sold supplies to those crossing the bridge at a modest price, and then bought back what they hadn’t used when they came back. Secondhand bedrolls and worn but functional knives were provided to those gungho trailblazers who had forgotten or misplaced their own on the journey up, and it was in this way that the Merin family made their fortune.

Not long after, an inn was built on the other side of the bridge, for those returning from the wilderness who missed sleeping in a real bed. Then a tavern. A post office. More shops. A map store built by those who had gone and returned. Houses for the families of the shopkeepers. More inns for merchants passing through to try their own luck here, and then houses and shops for them too. Fishing docks, farmland, a garrison for the local guards. By the time the second bridge was built, the town of Merinbrook was two thousand people strong, and it only grew bigger and bigger as time went on.

There were many more bridges up and down the Lynne’s length now, but Merinbrook was still considered the true gateway between east and west. There were much better and bigger bridges in the city now that saw thousands of crossers every day, but the Olde Town Bridge still stood.

That first tavern was torn down a long time ago, but the bar that stood in its place was nevertheless a decent place to drown your sorrows.

Simmons stared mournfully at his glass. It was only recently empty, condensation still clinging to the sides like dew on the morning grass. A drop formed and ran down the side, tracing a perfectly clear line behind it. The memory of that taste on his lips was intoxicating all by itself, and yet his mind was still as clear as the glass, and awash in abject terror at the task that loomed over him.

The bartender walked up next to him. “More apple juice, hon?”

“Please, Agatha,” he said, holding out the glass. “Maybe some cider instead.”

Agatha raised an eyebrow. “Oh ho? Forgotten your graduation party already, have you?”

Simmons looked up, confused. “My what? I didn’t have a graduation party.”

The woman snickered, taking the glass and replacing it with a filled one. “Oh yes you did. You drank Boris under the table and then spent the next three hours in the restroom declaring you’d never drink again.”

He blinked rapidly, and turned on his stool to look towards Boris, the bouncer, who sat in the corner and was three times his size. “I… don’t remember that at all.”

“That’s cuz you were drinking like a fish, Oz, I’d be impressed if you could.” She clicked her teeth. “Tsk. Such a waste, too. I brought out the good stuff for the occasion. I had that bottle in the cellar for thirty years…”

He grimaced. “I see. Apologies.”

Simmons took a long sip from his drink and pretended it was alcoholic anyway. He didn’t even like getting drunk, but it would be better than the nonsense he would be dealing with soon.

“So what’s eating you, Oz?” Agatha asked when he was done.

He groaned. “Agatha, you won’t believe it.”

“Try me, kid.”

He pulled the scroll out of his pocket and thrust it at her. As she read it, her expression shifted from mild amusement to annoyance.

“Oh, yikes.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking that,” he agreed. Simmons took it back and let his head fall onto the counter.

He felt her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s not so bad,” she offered. “Maybe you’ll succeed and get a big grant or something. Maybe a title even, who knows?”

“And maybe I’ll fail and be executed for disappointing the king…”

Agatha scoffed. “C’mon, that’s not going to happen. King Tarik’s grandfather, on the other hand, now there was a man who didn’t suffer failure. But the current royals are decent people.” The bar’s door rang as a group entered, and Agatha excused herself.

While she handled her customers, Simmons looked around. From here, he could see the old bridge out the window. It might not be the center of travel anymore, but it was still being used for foot traffic even now. Simmons watched them passing for a moment. One woman was walking a dog. A pair of men in similar clothing passed her by. A guard next, holding a spear in one hand and some manner of pastry in the other. Probably on break… or just relaxed. No one made trouble in the Olde Town.

“Alright.” Simmons took a deep breath, and pushed his tension down. It wasn’t helpful, it wasn’t useful. Do something useful. He opened his coat and reached into an inner pocket, coming away with a pen and notebook. “Where to start, where…”

The first thing, the very first thing he needed to do was learn magic himself. What constituted “basic” magic? He wrote that question down. Was learning magic expensive? Could he find someone to teach him, for a price? How would he even find someone? Wizards tended to be secretive at best, seemingly all of them taken by the urge to build a tower in the middle of nowhere to do all their magic nonsense in, so how was he supposed to find one?

He felt a chill. “Agatha, do you know any magic?” he asked, not looking up.

“Nothing a human could learn, I’m afraid.” The woman brushed a piece of lint off her arm, and a wisp of smoke peeled off her skin in response. “I never had much interest in all that.”

Simmons grumbled. “Of course, that would be too easy… Do you know anyone?”

“Of course I do.”

Of course she did. Agatha knew everyone.

She opened her mouth, closed it, and frowned. “Hmmm…” She looked up at the ceiling in thought. “...No, he’s dead… Her too… Oz, you wouldn’t be interested in meeting Nero, would you?”

Simmons choked.

“No, probably not…” She scowled. “Goodness.”

Maybe not everyone. “You really don’t have anything?” Simmons asked, despairing.

Another customer signaled for her, and Agatha wandered off without responding.

Growling, he turned back to his notebook. What was something all wizards did? What was the first thing he thought of when he thought of magic? …Throwing fireballs? He wrote that down. What was a good first step for that? Something small, with fire… candles? Something with candles? What else? Moving things without touching them, he knew magic could do that.

What about potions? That was a useful skill. Had uses in medicine, among other things. It was a pretty common field, usually doubled up with apothecaries, so surely he could find a primer on it somewhere.

• What did “basic magic mean?
  • Fireballs
    • Candles?
  • Levitation
    • ???
  • Potions

He stared at the list he’d created, and found himself at the end of his magical knowledge. He knew, of course, that thaumaturgy was so much more than this, but he was hard-pressed to think of anything. Simmons was a man of science, and Merinbrook rarely saw magicians outside of the adventurers passing through. They had potions, healers--healing, that was another thing, write that down--and not much else. It simply… wasn’t part of his previous experience.

The chill returned, and he looked up in time to get a sheet of paper to the face. He flinched and swatted it into the floor

Agatha laughed. “Ha, oops! Sorry, Oz, didn’t mean to do that.”

“What is this?” He retrieved the paper from the floor, dusting it off. “A letter?”

She nodded, still smiling. “Yes, from one of my nephews. He was doing some research in eastern Lysim, and came across this place here.”

Agatha pointed to a particular line. It was very impressive that she did it so quickly without looking, as the letter was written in tiny, dense, eyestraining letters. The writer had clearly been trying to pack as much information onto a single piece of paper as possible. Simmons had to squint and hold the paper mere inches from his face in order to make out what was written.

He had to make sure he read it correctly. “‘Hat Trick?’ What kind of name for a place is that?”

“Good question!” Agatha agreed. “Unfortunately not one he chose to ask, though. It’s a little village due north of Copperden just full of magicians.”

Simmons hummed. He read through the letter carefully. “...hm. Well, Copperden is a two-week journey, and the letter says this Hat Trick is another day out from there. That’s a not-insignificant chunk of my time, you know, and wizards have a reputation for being secretive.” He sighed. “Oh gods, this is going to be a disaster. There’s a reason, surely, that magic has remained such a rare thing for so long, yes? They aren’t going to want to give up their knowledge just because I ask.”

“Mmm, I don’t know,” Agatha sang. “They told Gaston everything easily enough.”

“But if I go there and they turn me away, plus getting back here, that’s entire month lost to nothing, and I--”

“They aren’t going to turn you away, Ozzie,” she soothed. “If you read a little ahead, you’ll see they open the town one day a week for tourists.”

Simmons paused. He looked up at her, perplexed. “Tourists?”

“That’s what he wrote!” she said, just as incredulous. “I don’t get it either, but Gaston wouldn’t lie about something like that, he’s not creative enough.”

He ran a hand through his hair, thinking. “Well. I suppose that, if nothing else, so many mages in one place means at least one of them has to be willing to talk, right?”

“Could be.” She gave his hand a pat. “You go on and pack, Oz. The faster you get going, the more time you have to figure things out.”

“You’re right, of course,” he sighed. He dropped a few coins on the counter and rose. “Thanks for listening, as always.”

“It’s nothing, hon. Stay safe now.”

Agatha watched him go. As the door closed behind him, her expression shifted. Her smile tensed, just slightly, and an observer could be forgiven for thinking she was worried.

In fact, one did. Two stools down from where Ozzie had been sitting, another regular raised his mug with a smile.

“Don’t you worry, Shreek, that boy’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’ll be fine.”

Her head swiveled towards him, and he leaned back from the force of her grin. “Worry? Why on earth would I worry?” She turned to get a bottle off the shelf behind her. “In fact,” her head twisted on her neck to make eye contact, and the man flinched, “I’m thrilled! This is so exciting!”

“Shreek, you know we hate when you do that,” he grumbled, but held out his mug for the refill anyway.

“Marv, I could not possibly care less about that right now. A nationwide education reform! History in the making right before our eyes, and my boy is a part of it!” She cheered and hefted a keg of beer onto her shoulder, forgetting to face her body forward again in the process. “Drinks on the house, everyone!”

Marv’s face lit up, as did his neighbors, and a cheer went up.

“Only the cheap stuff. I’m not crazy.”

The cheer was quieter, but no less enthused.

--------------------------------------

Moldy bread. Toss. One third of a cherry pie, slightly squished. Messy, but keep. A glass of milk, half-empty. Sniff. Hm, slightly soured but no chunks. Unpleasant but still potable. Keep. Half a sandwich. Keep. Sniff. Eugh, tuna salad? Nevermind, toss.

Squeak! Squeak!

Fine. Keep. But she wasn’t going to touch it.

An entire cooked turkey? What? Who would throw this away? She took a nibble, testing to see if there was something wrong with it.

The roast bird’s wing stretched out and slapped her in the cheek. She reared back, startled, and the lot of them watched, baffled, as the bird tried and failed to stand. On its third attempt it managed to balance itself on the bones where its knees once were and toddled away, crashing into every trash bin between here and the end of the alley.

I wonder what he was trying to do with that?

All he did was waste good food if you ask me.

Should we go after it? We could probably take it down if we worked together.

She tilted her head, tail lashing in thought. …No, I don’t think it’s a good idea. No telling what eating it would do to you.

But you ate a bit of it.

Her ears folded back, and she wiped a paw across her tongue. Then only I’ll suffer the consequences.

Was it any good?

A little bland. Unseasoned.

One of the others looked as though they were going to keep asking questions, so she cut him off by giving orders. At her direction they loaded up their haul so far into their pouches, and one by one peeled off in different directions. Too many of them moving at once might attract unwanted attention, but one at a time and they were easier to hide.

Nevertheless, she took a position at the nearer end of the alley, keeping watch while they dispersed.

She needn’t have bothered, really. It wasn’t a tourist day, so the road was basically empty. Just the shopkeeper, dusting her porch, and the one strange woman who insisted on running around the town once a day. Neither were inclined to notice anything that didn’t actively draw attention.

She kept watch anyway. It was a good habit to keep.

…Her mind did wander after a few minutes. Her ears were listening for anything amiss, but she let her eyes roam around. It was a pleasant day, she supposed, but they were all pleasant days recently. Rain clouds parted around the village like a river parted around a stone. It was odd, but everything was odd here, and not at all unwelcome. It kept the tunnels dry.

A squeak from behind pulled her out of her musings, and told her the others were all gone now. The last one was leaving now, which just left her and that cherry pie. It was pretty shapeless after its tumble in the trash, and between that and its size she was the only one equipped to carry it. How to go about it, though… It would just leak through her sack, and furthermore would leave all kinds of residue in the cloth that will rot, and mix with future hauls, probably badly… She needed a lining. Or perhaps a box… She could just carry it in its tin as it was, but that would be awfully conspicuous--

“Ernie, you’re not going to believe this!”

The shout startled her, and she reflexively ducked into the shadows to hide.

“Hello to you too, Ezekiel,” the shopkeeper said mildly. “What fake money are you using today? Seashells? Acorns? Those illusions of yours are never going to fool me, so--”

“They’re glass beads today, but shut up! Forget about that! My contact in the House of Lords sent me the craziest tidbit, and you’re not going to believe it.”

She peaked out, after it became clear that the yelling wasn’t directed at her. Curious, she went back to the mouth of the alley. A third person was out on the road now, disheveled as though he had just woken up. His clothes certainly didn’t look like they were meant to be worn outside.

The shopkeeper looked up at the newcomer. As he took in his appearance, his expression turned stony. “Ezekiel, why are you in your pajamas? You know the rules, no shirt, no shoes--”

Ezekiel looked down at himself, surprised at his own state of dress. “I’m not wearing shoes?”

“You are not, no.”

“No wonder my feet hurt.” The disheveled man rubbed his hands together, and a faint white glow built up between them, shedding sparks. He clapped, and with a flash of light his outfit was replaced by something more appropriate, his hair was fixed, and a pair of boots appeared on his feet.

The shopkeeper still looked unimpressed, and tapped his glasses. “Ezekiel, you know better. How many times do I have to tell you--”

“Morning, gentlemen!”

She pulled back slightly, but soon relaxed. The running woman came back around, beaming at the two men. She came to stop beside them and took a drink from a canteen hanging on her hip.

The shopkeeper greeted her warmly, but Ezekiel looked less enthusiastic. “Oh, it’s you.”

“It’s me! Good to see you, Zeke, Ernie.”

“Don’t call me that, Blest,” the younger man mumbled. “What are you even doing in that getup?” He gestured vaguely at her shorts and sleeveless shirt.

“Exercise! Does a body good, you know.” She ran in place for a moment in demonstration.

The other man scoffed. “Yeah, you’d know all about what’s good for bodies, wouldn’t you?”

The woman’s smile slipped into something more sarcastic. “Ooh, never heard that one before, clever clogs.”

Ernie cleared his throat loudly. “Ezekiel, are you going to tell me what you want to tell me or are you two going to keep flirting?”

Revulsion crawled across the younger man’s face and he shuddered. “Ugh. No, fine, okay. My contact is telling me that the King is starting a magical education program.” He splayed his hands in emphasis, waiting for a reaction.

Ernie’s eyebrows shot up. “That so?”

The woman gasped and clapped. “Oh, really? That’s wonderful!”

“What? No it is not!” Ezekiel argued. “This is terrible news! The King has no idea what he’s doing!”

“Now hold on,” Ernie said, holding out a hand. He let go of his broom so it could keep sweeping without him. “There’s more to this, right?”

“This is going to be a disaster,” Ezekiel said. “I don’t want random kids setting their homes on fire.”

“More than they already do, you mean,” the woman said dryly. “How can anything be worse than children suddenly developing powers they don’t know what to do with? I sure would have appreciated a helping hand, I nearly gave my father a conniption when my magic came in.”

Ezekiel huffed. “I’m sure you did, Blest, but the King has no idea what he’s doing. He hasn’t even had a court wizard in years, or I bet they would have told him what a bad idea it is. Magic is dangerous, and more to the point it’s important. We can’t just hand it out to whoever wants it!”

The woman started to argue that point, but by then she had lost interest and returned her attention to the pie. It wasn’t any of her concern what the humans were doing, with magic or without. Her concerns began and ended with making sure she and her kin were safe and well fed.

The only thing a mouse needed to know about humans was how to keep away from them.