A Hunt For Ogres
The raven-haired girl Miriam did not leave Sleepy Glenn right away. A few days after Orin and his companions had gone, she wished she had done it. Miriam thought she had a decent, beginner's grasp of magic, based on what two old witches, one passed away, the other ancient but alive, had taught her over the last few years. After having witnessed what the sorceress Sundri had done, however, all that Miriam had learned paled in comparison.
The village witch had been teasing her, the young maiden realized. She had told Miriam to be her apprentice, and to learn the many minor incantations to be learned. At the end of that, Miriam was promised, more than once, over a dozen times really, that an advanced form of magic would be taught to her.
The old witch had lied to her; that was the part Miriam was having trouble coming to terms with. Miriam pretended the old woman had been secretive because she was really a powerful mage in hiding, but it wasn't true. She could not guess why the witch had lied to her. Perhaps the witch wanted to control Miriam, or she might have become jealous and lost her customers if Miriam somehow ended up more powerful than her mentor. Whatever the reason, Miriam had grown frustrated after Orin's visit to her village, when she had merely been irritated before.
When Miriam had enough, she confronted the old witch and demanded to be shown how to weave more mystical energies than what she already knew. The witch said soon, as she always did, soon you will know it all. Miriam pretended to accept her fate, as she moped out of the witch's hut. She only had two sets of clothing; the set she wore, and a second bunch she'd hung outside on a branch. It was easy enough for her to bundle her extra clothes into a knot. That was all she owned in the entire world, as everything else belonged to the witch she served under.
And so, the pretty girl with the black hair set off, hoping to catch up with Orin, that handsome young man, and with Bartram, who shot arrows with a marksmanship she had never seen, and finally, with Sundri, because that old woman was feared and now Miriam had seen with her own eyes the good reason for that.
When she reached Tooker's Ferry, the ferryman demanded payment from her. She thought she would never get across, as she had no money. Since there were very few customers taking the ferry that day, the navigator took pity on her and said he would take Miriam across the river, because she was a gypsy girl and so was he. It was true. Miriam did not know much about her father, for his identity was largely a secret. Judging from her appearance of black hair and eyes, and the olive shade of her skin, Miriam understood that her father could have been one of those mysterious people, as certainly her mother, a brown-haired, pale-skinned sort who had long since passed away, looked nothing like her.
The ferryman took her into Tooker's inn and tavern, where Miriam was introduced to several servers who were truer gypsies than she was. From them, she learned about Orin's escapades in the gypsy camp. It was rumored that he bedded half the women there, and that when the men got up in arms about it, Orin and his friends had simply vanished into thin air and were never seen again.
Miriam did not let on that she practiced simple magic, for fear that her fellow gypsies would scorn her. She did, on the other hand, gain their confidence enough to get more details about what happened with Orin. He had gone into a hut, along with Sundri and Bartram, and he had never come back out. Some of it she could guess. The women in the gypsy camp were competing for Orin's attention. Surely, this made their men green with envy, enough that perhaps a brawl would have broken out, or worse. Then she was told that a man struck Sundri. Right after the sorceress was struck, she went into a hut with the two men, and only a short while later, poof, they were gone!
Sundri had used magic, Miriam was sure of it. She was so sure that she intended to leave right away, heading south because that was the only road away from the ferry town. The gypsies wanted her to stay, because she was pretty and she had caught the eye of several of the young men, and even of one or two older ones. Miriam let them feed her, and she went along when she was taken to the small marketplace and told to replace her worn clothing with fresher attire. The things Miriam needed most were a good pair of walking shoes. Once she had that, and while her new friends were busy with their work, she quickly left.
A wagon driver picked her up and took her to Red Rock Fort. There, she learned about the three wicked men that were really demons, and how Sundri the sorceress had vanquished those evil spirits. The wagon driver was ecstatic in announcing that the curse over the fort and mines had been removed, and that he was on the lookout for potential miners, farmers, soldiers and cooks. Miriam would be most welcome to stay, several men at Red Rock told her, but once again, her sights were not set on settling down, but on having an adventure of the sort that Orin and his companions kept running into.
Again, she abandoned the safety of an established place, for the possible perils of the open road, but such was her urgent need to leave her old life behind and to start up a new one. A few days passed, with Miriam nibbling on the little food she had taken from the ferry town, and hiding in the forest whenever she heard horses or wagons coming by.
The maiden Miriam scampered through the woods. She thought she had been close in following Orin's trail, but now she wondered if she had lost track of it. Oh, surely the three adventurers were somewhere up ahead, but who could tell how far? The raven-haired girl only knew that they were on a single rutted road that curved and dipped about, but that was the only road. There were no other paths intersecting this one, and so the others must have been on that same path somewhere. Unless they had gone off the road as wary travelers at times tended to do, the girl frowned. In that case, Miriam could have already passed them up. Even worse, perhaps there was some danger up ahead that other travelers had sought to avoid, but which she herself was going to walk into like a blunder-headed dunce.
"Good spirits watch over me." The girl prayed, as she scanned both ahead and behind. The many trees were casting their long shadows upon the road, she observed, as the sun went on its way westward. In a few short hours it would be night and she would be able to see nothing at all thanks to the waning moon.
More hurriedly Miriam strode forward, but the rustle of her own clothes was so noisy that it prevented her from listening to any approaching sounds. If any wagon or horseman were coming, they would certainly see her standing there alone and unarmed. Yet if she walked any slower, she might never come up to the travelers she sought, unless she had already passed them by without knowing it, as she often feared.
"Secure my steps, Holy One." She said, as she went on her way.
After a time, Miriam came upon a strange sight. Three hideous old men were seen sitting on a short log, watching her with guarded eyes and gnarled faces. The stares of these men seemed in a way unnatural to the girl. They were like statues, and yet they had the look of men. All three wore long robes that were weathered and faded of color. They sat there on their comfortable log as gargoyles would silently guard over stone towers and forts. Only their eyes seemed to move in accordance with her steps.
"Keep there, girl." One old man pointed a wizened finger in her direction. "If you take one step more, I will strike you down with lightning."
Miriam was a sane woman. She felt like running upon hearing that command, and not like standing still, as she suspected these were the three wicked men she'd been told about. Timidly, she asked, "Who are you?"
"We are simple travelers, the same as yourself." The same old man replied. "Our eyes are old and tired. We have decided that you are a pretty girl, and so we will gaze upon you until we have seen enough. Do not move, for my threats are no mere words. My threats are real threats!"
"Tell her to remove her clothes." The second old man said. "So that our eyes may feast upon her soft flesh."
"I will not!" Miriam defied them. "Strike me down if you must, but I will not be cowered by any man! I intend to continue further down this road. I am seeking out three travelers, two men and one woman. There is a young man, and an older man, and an aged woman of high standing. Have you seen them pass by this way?"
"We will not tell you." The first old man said.
"No, we will tell you," The second one disagreed. "Once you have removed all your clothes for us."
"That I will not do!" Miriam shouted. She looked to the third old man, who had not spoken at all yet. "Have you seen the three travelers I am seeking?"
"Come nearer, and you will find out." The third old man said.
"No, you mean to capture me." Miriam refused. "You are sorcerers or demons! I will step no closer to you."
"Then go back the way you came." The first old man pointed down the road.
"Or remove your clothes." The second chuckled.
They were toying with her, Miriam decided. She refused to go back, yet these old bastards had already threatened her if she went forward. The girl could always run ahead and hope they were only pretending to control magic, but one could never be too sure when it came to unknown sorts met in the wilderness. Demons and warlocks were known to use tricks and deceptions at times. Because Miriam found herself in a tight place, she sought to appeal to the third old man, who seemed to her the kindest. "If I step closer, will you tell me the truth?"
"Come and find out, girl." The old man motioned with his fingers. "Nothing ventured is nothing gained. Only those who search will ever find. What do your heart and mind say to you, girl?"
That was a wizard's doublespeak, truly. Bracing her will for whatever was to come next, Miriam took several strides toward that log with the ugly old men sitting on it. The very air looked to disperse before her like a cloud of dust. It was a cloud of illusion, the girl abruptly discovered. Once through it, Miriam saw that the third old man was none other than the sorceress Sundri. The archer Bartram was the first man, and the grinning swordsman Orin was the second. The moment the surprise registered on her face that she could see their true identities, all three began to laugh at her. Incredulous, Miriam stepped back, only to see the cloud of illusion fold back over the empty air, recreating the sight of the three old men. When the girl stepped through it a second time, again she saw the adventurers she was searching for.
"How is this done?" Miriam asked in wonder.
"First, you must remove all of your clothes!" Orin kidded.
"No, I won't do it!" Miriam answered. "Sundri, will you teach me this magic?"
"It will take many years of training." The sorceress replied. "It is all a matter of intent, you see. We created a deception of what your eyes would observe some time before you actually came down the road. You might have noticed that neither our illusions nor our true selves could move about freely, otherwise the movement might have been caught by your eyes and disrupted the illusion. I use this same sort of charm when I bring an animal close enough so that it will be caught. In essence, I create a sense of security around the animal and it steps right into the range of an arrow or a snare. I could very well have tricked you into seeing a chest of treasure on the ground if I wanted to, but these two men wanted to tease you and test your courage at the same moment."
Miriam looked to the two men. "Is it true? Have I passed your test?"
"You are brave, girl." Bartram nodded at her. "I expected you to run down the road after I made my menace known to you."
Orin's mouth widened out into a great grin. "You would have passed my test if you'd removed your clothes!"
"Enough, Orin!" Miriam pretended to snap at him. In fact, she was flattered that Orin had been paying that sort of attention to her. "I am not the sort of woman who will take off her clothes at the sight of any handsome man."
"So you think I am a handsome man?"
"You are slightly handsome." She returned.
"Do you hear that, Bartram." Orin elbowed the man next to him. "Slightly handsome is still handsome!"
"What if she thinks that turtles are handsome?" Bartram reasoned. "What if she thinks that trees are handsome? Did you take that into account, Orin?"
The youth sat there thoughtfully. "This is true, Bartram. Miriam, would you say that I am more handsome than a tree or a turtle?"
"You are as handsome as a stick." Miriam said, before turning toward the sorceress. "Sundri, I would like to travel with you for a time. I don't know if I can study magic with you for years, but at the very least you can teach me the simpler methods."
"Oh, do you think I am the one in charge here?" Sundri feigned a grand air about her. "Look to your stick for an answer to that question. That young man and his friend the archer have enlisted me, and not the other way around."
