The Inn

The story so far: Transported into the magical realms of his own fantasy novels, author Simon Kettridge accidentally detours his epic heroine, Juliette Ravendark, from the plot lines she's supposed to follow, creating a chain of events that will ensure her death and allow the dread arch-mage Necromanata to subjugate the entire world. With no way to contact Juliette and warn her, Simon is stuck at the Nestled Goose, a small-town inn where his only allies are a serving wench who moonlights as a prostitute, and a gouty old sage who hires Simon to scribe interminable copies of philosophical treatises. The only hope he can think of is to use his knowledge of this world and of the plots of his books to manipulate events through a few carefully planned letters, which he hopes can reach the right hands in time ...

* * *

I made it through the fifth copy of Galufrand's disquisition shortly after breakfast, at which point I turned to writing letters of my own. An evening to think on it had fired my imagination, so that I had to force myself to slow down, word things just right, and establish the proper level of credibility.

Who could manage the same feats I'd written for Juliette and Ymbrod in

The Doom of Necromanata?

Who could fill Pelfreyda's shoes, Halvard's, and Mikila's? I realized I didn't need a Halvard substitute -- he mostly played the part of rescue-bait in this adventure, being the one whose stumble led them into the Maze of Dissolving Eyes, and then later getting himself captured by Necromanata's orcish allies. He redeemed himself in the next book, but he was mostly a putz in this one, the other characters ribbing him about it to provide comic relief.

Pondering the group's talents and arsenal of magic items, then plotting out the straightest course through

Doom of ...'s

various dangers and detours, I arrived at a short list. Then I penned a half-dozen letters: one to a mage in the Kvarthian Isles, two to the imperial capital of Phaeratos, a couple to some dwarven undertowns, and one to Armasqua on the distant Worldedge Cliffs.

Galufrand came along as I was writing, and I handed off the work I'd done for him.

"Hmm." His nose twitched back and forth as he paged through the copies, but at length he nodded and said, "Fair enough. It's a bit of an odd style, but legible, and very neatly blotted, I must say. Well ahead of the post's arrival, too."

With that, he handed over four silver quarter-shilling pieces and ten copper pence. "I'll have my next paper complete in four or five days' time. That one's going out to six colleagues instead of five. Will you be interested in doing the hexicate on it?"

Hexi -- right, as in duplicate, but six times.

"Definitely," I said. "And about the post ... I'm working on some letters of my own here, but I'll need envelopes. Did you bring yours with you, or could I get some here in town?"

"I have my own," he said. "But there's a sundries shop right across the street. Haven't even poked your head out of the inn since you got here?"

Trying not to bristle, I pointed at the pages I'd given him and said, "I had a thing or two preoccupying me."

"Fair point," he admitted. "Well, you've time and money now, so good shopping to you."

With that, he nodded and trundled off, leaving me to finish my letters.

At the shop across the way, I discovered that "envelopes" meant broad sheets of parchment that you could fold yourself and seal with melted wax. A dozen sheets, along with a kit for melting and pressing the wax, cost a pretty penny -- or ten, to be more precise. Unbidden, some gonadal region of my brain said that was the same as paying Leyna to fuck her twice.

God, I hope I don't start translating every single expense into a sex-with-Leyna equivalent.

As if to rub it in, while shelling my money out to the old beanpole of a shopkeeper at the counter, I happened to notice a set of bottles labeled "Purity Oil" on a shelf behind her.

Don't even ask,

I told myself.

You're not going to 'buy Leyna a locketful' anytime soon. There's a fucking empire to save from about a million zombies and orcs.

"Women and shop masters have an eye for reading a man's gaze," said the white-haired merchant as she took my coins. I saw her give a smile and a tweak of the almost-invisible wisps she had for eyebrows. "Something on the wall back there catch your fancy?"

"Maybe for down the road," I said lamely. Then I cleared my throat. "I'm on a tight budget at the moment."

She shrugged amiably and thanked me. I left the shop and headed back across the road.

Without the magnetic figure of Juliette Ravendark to distract me, I took my first good look at the place I'd been staying the last day and a half. "Quaint" or "authentic" might have popped to mind if I'd happened across it in modern-day England near Lord Weltfordshire's estate. But in the context of pleasant young women casually prostituting themselves and an impending horde of orcs and undead, it had a reality that nothing on my trip to England in the "real" world could match -- heavy wooden beams, tan plaster, and a wood-shingled roof too weathered for a tourist place or a constantly maintained historical building. Swinging slightly in the breeze above the door hung the inn's placard -- a rough-painted image of a nesting waterfowl that gave the place its name: the Nestled Goose.

I've

got

to do something about those zombies and orcs,

I thought, although I admit it was partially to keep myself from thinking,

I've

got

to do Leyna the first chance I get.

Since a common-room table might not be the best place for folding envelopes and lighting a candle to melt the sealing wax, I took the stairs up toward my room. Leyna rounded the second-floor corner as I climbed, and she passed me with a smile and a "Hello, Simon," in her innocently honeyed voice midway up the steps.

I said hello back, and tried to tell myself that wasn't a gloss of sweat I saw on her forehead and on the open swell of her bosom within her dress.

Good lord, Simon. It's not like she spends every hour of the day spreading her legs for whoever happens along with a handful of pennies. If it

is

sweat, maybe she was just scrubbing a floor upstairs ... or maybe she lugged a pail of hot water up for someone's bath. They have to have some kind of bathing facilities here, don't they?

Half an hour later, with fingers smarting from drips of hot wax, I went back down to the common room, six self-made envelopes in hand. Thankfully, between the pain of repeatedly burning myself with wax and the aggravation of ruining my first two sheets of parchment, I managed to put my obsession with Leyna's medieval escort services out of mind.

Downstairs, at a table near the door, Galufrand sat talking to a sharply uniformed individual I hadn't seen before. On a seat next to the stranger rested an oversized satchel, so it didn't take Sherlockian deductive powers to figure out the man's identity. As I headed for the table, Leyna beat me to it and put a tankard down in front of the postman.

"Capital," he said, giving her a crisp nod and holding up a penny. "I know Burgham won't take money from the mails, but here's a copper for your trouble and lovely smile."

"Well, thank you very much," Leyna replied with a curtsy. Then she took and pocketed the coin. "Anything else for either of you gentlemen?"

"This will do," he said, raising the tankard. Galufrand merely shook his head.

The buxom girl turned, spotted me, and came over with her serving tray tucked under one arm.

"Oh, so you're a letter-writer as well!" she said, her eyes dancing across the envelopes I held. "Post-corporal Mestzel will have his hands full today." Leaning in with a conspiratorial verve, she added, "You know, someday, I'm going to know people in distant towns too and write the most eagerly awaited letters you could think of."

"About the goings-on here at the Goose?"

That made her laugh. "Oh, spurs of Klognar, no! I won't be

here

at that point. I'm off to Silver City or maybe even Phaeratos once I've made enough for the trip and resettling. The goings-on at the Goose indeed!"

Watching the lively light in her eyes made me twist through several unexpected emotions. First, surprise that Leyna had ambitions beyond the Nestled Goose and Piperville. Quick on the heels of that, a guilty embarrassment that I'd boxed her in as just a serving girl with a side business whoring. And finally, a kind of warmth mixed with anguish in my chest that said I owed this girl better than I'd been thinking of her, and that more than ever, I needed to find a way to keep Piperville and the rest of the Empire from Necromanata's corpse-fingered clutches.

"The mail carrier," I said, looking over at the table to break my eyes from her knowing, open gaze, "Post-corporal Mestzel -- should I wait for him and Galufrand to be done before I try to give him these, or ..."

"Only if you want to wait all through lunch," she said, following my gaze. "Those two will be talking the business of the entire Portleshire-to-Havenwold mail line until it's time for Mestzel to get back on his horse. No, if you've business with the post, just walk up and make your apologies for butting in -- and don't wait for a pause in the chatter -- there's none likely to come."

"Thanks." I turned back to find her smiling at me, pink lips in a friendly curve that I wondered what I'd done to deserve.

Nothing,

I told myself.

She really is just that nice a girl.

"Thank you, Leyna."

She nodded and spun to make her rounds of the other tables, the room starting to fill up for lunchtime. I watched the energy in her form as she went, the twirl of her blue skirts, the sway of her curves.

Good God, how could I pay five pence to get myself off humping between the legs of a person like her?

A dry hunger in my throat made me feel like a creep.

I shook my head and walked over to the table where the two men sat conversing. Mestzel slouched easily in his chair like a man who's made a skill of maximizing his limited rest breaks. Galufrand had one foot propped therapeutically in a spare chair, his arms crossed over his rumpled robes as he spoke.

"So Hartswan's still the librarian there? An incompetent boob like that? Libara's lofty shelves, I can't imagine why the --"

"Excuse me," I interrupted, trusting to Leyna's advice. "I hate to intrude, but I have some letters to mail."

The post-corporal shifted slightly, and just like that, his pose was all diligence and business. "Of course. Let me see them and I'll give you the rates. Are they going far?"

I handed the stack of envelopes to him. "A couple."

"Armasqua?" he asked, eyebrows raised at the top envelope. He shuffled to the next one. "The Kvarthian Isles! You've a broad acquaintance, haven't you?"

"I guess you could say that," I replied, less than reassured by the series of expressions he went through with each subsequent address.

"I guess as well," Mestzel said once he'd finished. "Is your coin purse as broad? It's strangling season in the Noose Woods, so the road through to the dwarfhills is closed until the trees go dormant again. Triples the distance those ones will have to travel. And there's no regular service to Kvarthia. A letter to the Isles requires a dedicated courier -- very expensive."

I stood blinking. Somehow my brain had not left the world of ten-dollar stamp booklets and three-dollar priority mail. Working up my courage, I asked, "How much?"

Mestzel spread the letters on the table and tapped each. "Half a shilling, half a shilling,

two

shillings, a

sovereign

... and these to the capital at least a tad cheaper, ten pence apiece."

My brain filled up with orcish war-horns and the moan and shuffle of undead battallions. I picked up the letters to Armasqua and the Karvathian Isles, both far out of my price range. I tried to think which of the two dwarven undertown letters would do the most good -- or if I should send both and skip the ones to the capital. Nothing came to me. Without Evador the Enchantress or Hireable Hal, my whole plan fell into disarray.

Then something else occurred to me.

"And how long will it take those four to arrive?" I asked Mestzel.

His head tipped one direction and his eyes went the other as he calculated. "Two weeks to Phaeratos, probably a month and a half or two to the undertowns."

I picked the undertown letters up as well and stuck my hand dazedly in my pocket to search for my quarter-shilling pieces. Necromanata would have almost everything he needed by the time a month and a half went by.

"Sorry to disappoint, sir," said the postal carrier. "It's no mean feat, I'm afraid, running missives the whole length of the empire."

"No, of course not," I said, putting down half my remaining money for the only two letters I could afford that would also reach their destinations in time to do any good. With a deep breath, I added, "Thank you. I apologize again for interrupting."

"No trouble at all, sir," said Mestzel. Galufrand gave an indifferent shrug.

I took my four unmailed envelopes to a table on the far side of the room to sit and stare at them and think. The letter to Duke Phurl contained an anonymous threat of blackmail, naming his three mistresses and threatening to reveal them to his wife if he didn't deposit a significant sum in a blind account at the Metropolitan Bank of Phaeratos. I knew he was subject to extortion, because the sixth book started off with him hiring Juliette to track down a blackmailer who'd been gouging him for a year. The blind account belonged to Kleburn Mandermorte, a bit of a rapscallion who could be trusted when well paid and had a talent for sneaking into places bare-handed and returning with full pockets. My letter to him revealed the resting place of Vark's Sword, a legendary enchanted weapon I intended for Laluthe the Lumply, one of the two dwarves I'd hoped to mail and a cunning swordswoman. With the money from Phurl, Kleburn would make a quick trip to Cymbelville, burgle the sword from under the floorboards of Vark's unwitting heir, and hold it in the capital for further instructions.

But what am I going to do with a magic sword and no warrior to wield it? And no Evador to whisk that warrior into Necromanata's keep? And no Hireable Hal to pick the dungeon locks and free Amia the Pristine?

Amia's fatal sacrifice played a critical role in Necromanata's plans, and getting her out would buy me another several months while the arch-mage searched for a replacement Pristine.

Leyna brought me dinner -- stew and a stiff wheat roll, with mint tea to wash it down.

Halfway to the bottom of the bowl, I noticed a shapely woman about to pass by my table, and my picked-bare brain decided to focus on her as a moment's distraction from my complete void of ideas.

And when I focused on her, I realized that she wasn't about to pass by my table at all.

"Can I fall to a seat?" she asked with a smile and a lilting, hollow accent.

My tongue sat like a fallen log in my mouth, because I had no idea what she was.

Above a sharp chin, her face rose pale and pinkish -- fading darker toward the ears and hairline. The effect created a kind of scarlet frame for her features, and I didn't think it looked like makeup. Glossy hair swept up from that frame into an asymmetric black ziggurat. Her ears and her eyebrows had a sharp cast like her chin, and the eyes under those brows glittered like a starry night. This exotic face hovered above a high, blood-red collar that perfectly matched her lips -- except that after a moment, I realized she had no collar. The red was the skin of her throat. It swooped down into a satiny purple top, open almost to the navel and full of carmine cleavage. At her waist, a golden sash bound the shirt and accentuated the swell of her belly and hips below it. She wore brown pants to mid-shin, where the skin again went pale.

Evidently, my helplessly goggling expression pleased her, because her smile widened and she sat down across from me.

"I hear your way with a nib makes note," she said, eyes sparkling. "I could use a quickly reproduction or two. How much do you charge to fill sheets?"

"Oh. It's a hafpenny each," I said, thankful to have something to distract me from the smooth, deep red flesh of her throat, which pulled at my gaze as I struggled to stay focused on her pallid face.

Her eyes went very large. "So very a pittance! Only a hafpenny? In truth?"

Something began to feel very odd to me. The enthusiasm in her voice, the way she leaned closer across the table, showing still more of the cherry decolletage within her tight, silky top ...

"Um, sure," I said cautiously. "Is it something unusual you want me to scribe?"

"Scribe -- this word I do not know."

"Copy," I explained, pretending to write in the air with my right hand. "Make a reproduction."

"Yes, really? For a hafpenny you make reproduction with me?"

"What ... kind of reproduction? Exactly?"

She neatly circled the thumb and forefinger of one hand -- the palm a cotton-candy pink the back fire-engine red. Then she inserted her other forefinger through.

With inquiring eyebrows, she asked, "Reproduction, yes?"

I coughed a little, and had trouble getting a breath in afterwards. "What -- where did you get the idea that I --"

She looked over her shoulder, to the far side of the room where Leyna stood chatting with a table full of wayfarers. "Serving girl. She gave a high recommendation of your nib-sinking."

What the hell?

I rose up almost without thinking, said "Excuse me please," and wove quickly through the tables toward Leyna, who'd apparently finished taking orders from the travelers and now headed toward the bar.

"

Leyna

," I said when I caught up to her.

She turned her head, enthusiasm brightening her expression. "Aha! Simon! Did the welf-woman come to engage you, then? Just a moment."

I had to wait as she relayed several quick drink orders to Burgham, who glared at me sourly before turning to fill them. Once I had her attention again, I said, "Did you really tell her I was hiring myself out as -- in the bedroom?"

She looked confused for an instant, then her face fell. "You aren't? But -- when Juliette left, after you and she -- and you said the two of you weren't involved with each other -- well, I assumed a woman who made that much noise and then paid the man's rent and then left without the intention of coming back ..." A hurt look pulled down at the full pink curves of her lips. "I've shamed you. I thought ... but I see in your face, it's not something we have in common at all. It puts you off entirely, doesn't it."

The disappointment in her voice hit me like a brick-bat of guilt. She wasn't just let down about us not sharing a profession -- she thought I disapproved of it, and by extension, of her.

I took up her hand without thinking. It felt soft and uncertain in mine. "Look, Leyna ... I don't judge you at all for what you do. I think you're a wonder. I just hadn't ever considered doing it myself."

Her eyes came up from where they'd fallen, vulnerable and unsure. "Well ... do you want me to go and apologize to her for you? I can tell her it was all my mistake. Only, she's

loaded

with money, Simon, and I

know

you're down to pocket-lint. Don't you think she's attractive?"

I gave an involuntary glance toward the ... welf, Leyna had said?

What the hell is a welf?

I couldn't for the life of me remember writing anything like that two-toned woman into my books. The sparkly black eyes met mine from across the room and the peaked eyebrows lifted in a question. I looked quickly back to Leyna, suddenly aware that I still had her fingers, warm and gentle, in my hand.