The Faery Godmother, page 1
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CONTENT NOTES
This story contains mature themes.
While never distasteful (one hopes!), you will encounter scenes of an ardent nature.
You will find plotlines which revolve around socioeconomic stress and violent international conflicts. Even magical worlds have their strife and struggle.
There is a storyline about the loss of family and being orphaned.
Some instances of harassment arise– though the heroine quickly puts a stop to that.
A spider plays a rather pivotal role in saving the day.
I hope I have identified all the potentially problematic content, and apologize if anything was overlooked.
For my mom.
(Even though dedicating a romance novel to your mother is a bit weird.)
Love you!
When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my mind's eye flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
–Keats
PART ONE:
UNFOLDING
“It’s not fair, ” the petitioner whined, getting on her last nerve.
“Life’s not fair,” Morath snapped back. “And complaining about it doesn’t do much to convince me of your valor. You’re here to prove your bravery by completing a series of quests. Do you think to impress me by whining about them before you even start?”
She rubbed her forehead with the heels of her hands, temporarily blocking out the sight of the sulky seeker leaning on the hilt of his sword, grimacing in her direction. No doubt this one would have gone to lodge a complaint about her at the Aspirant’s Guild if it had still existed.
There’s only me left, she thought, mood dismal with the dusty heat and the tiresome nature of her thankless task. Me, and a lot of third-rate adventurers who think they can become heroes because they bought a battered old sword and learned to swing it at petty tavern thieves and miscreants.
The sun beat down on the training-yard, sending sweat trickling down her neck. Her long dark hair hung limply down her back, and the leather jerkin she wore over a plain yoke and shirtwaist was beginning to stick unpleasantly close to her skin. Battered but serviceable boots and stockings she darned herself kept the dust and dung from her feet. A decrepit and stained hat that had probably seen several owners before Morath completed her costume.
It was an outfit that served well enough for the outdoor portions of the work she had to do. No doubt, though, that anyone told of her true identity would have laughed themselves silly.
After all, it wasn’t every day you found a former princess working in what used to be a barnyard.
“Again!” she called, resolutely ignoring the rude glare of the petitioner. The whip in her hand sailed through the air, its ear-splitting crack sending the grizzled, ancient catoblepas back to its feet just as grudgingly. It, too, would rather have been sitting in the shade close to the trough on a day like this.
Shaking its shaggy mane out of its eyes, it gave her a forlorn look before ambling over to the glowering man. Then it exhaled a great cloud of foul, cloying breath at him.
Too late, the petitioner tried to duck away. The cloud caught him full in the face. The transformation swept over him, turning him to granite instantly.
“A child could have dodged that,” Morath grumbled, fishing her wand out of a deep pocket. She pointed it at him as the catoblepas went back to the corner of its pen and curled up with a groan.
The magic shivered over the seeker, changing gray stone back into living flesh. He blinked stupidly. “What happened?”
“What happened is that you didn’t even appear to try,” Morath told him. She cast a glance over her shoulder, feeling more pity for the tired old catoblepas than the flashy young fool before her. Making up her mind, she nodded decisively. “You’ve failed this task, and the trials with it.”
He threw his sword to the ground petulantly, further confirming her impression that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. The very first point any swordmaster beat into the brains of his or her trainees was, “Don’t mistreat your sword if you don’t want to pay for a costly rebalancing at best–or lose a foot at worst.”
“I’m done!” the petitioner shouted. “I don’t need some woman telling me how to fight monsters.”
He looked her up-and-down insultingly, then sneered. “Not that you resemble one by much. A woman, that is. You bear more than a passing resemblance to that creature in the pen, though, covered with dirt as you are.”
Morath was sorely tempted to teach him a lesson by turning him into the toad his personality so charmingly resembled. Only the knowledge that magic cast in anger would rebound on her in ways she couldn’t anticipate kept her hand still on her wand.
It didn’t mean, however, that he needed to know that. “Take yourself away from here before I lose my temper,” she said, striving for an ominous tone. “You won’t like what happens if I do.”
A bolt of heat lightning split the sky suddenly, and thunder rumbled a few moments later. Morath didn’t bother to keep the grin from her face. The timing was too perfect.
Fear streaked across the face of the petitioner. Leaping on the back of his spavined horse, he wheeled around and left a cloud of dust in her face that left Morath coughing.
She reached down to pick up the pitiful excuse for a sword. As I thought. Full of pitting and badly in need of a proper blacksmith’s attention. I wonder if he won it in a card game and thought he’d try his luck here.
Shaking her head, Morath put it down in the pile of abandoned weaponry and picked up a pail of slops instead. She lugged it toward the pen and set it down inside for the catoblepas, which raised its head and sniffed the air.
Slowly, it ambled toward her and put its head down in the bucket. She stepped up on the bottom rail of the fence and reached over to scratch the beast between its horns as it slurped up the contents.
Morath braced her elbow on the top rail and her chin in her hand, looking off across the abandoned pastures to greener lands beyond. The rains had returned recently, which she thought must be a good sign. It didn’t signify much for her little spread, though. It was only her, and one person–no matter how willing or hard-working–was not enough to get a farm back in working order, even under optimal conditions.
And that would have been a difficult enough task even without the burden she’d been saddled with. Between caring for the animals and setting petitioners their trials, she fell into bed every night tired to her very marrow. There wasn’t time to be lonely or dwell too deeply on her losses when simply surviving took everything she had.
Morath looked down beyond the gentle incline of the rolling hills to where verdant slopes met the sea. When she squinted, she fancied that she could see the sun reflecting off the ruins of her family’s Summer Palace. Vague recollections of fashionable parties and glittering celebrations hosted there crowded into her mind. She remembered being allowed to stay up late and peek through the banisters of the high staircase, as if she wasn’t bundled off to bed yet, her governess could gawk alongside her at the visiting royalty and solemn dignitaries who came from distant domains to attend her family’s grand affairs.
It wasn’t that she missed being a princess, exactly. Along with royal blood came responsibilities such as unions of alliance. She was astute enough to know that her fall from high position might have saved her from one day being married off to someone truly dreadful.
Still, when she found time to seize a moment for herself, like now, she often found herself wishing for more. Of what, Morath couldn’t say. She only knew a vague sense of dissatisfaction that life should have had more to offer her than this.
Picking up the empty slops bucket, she set it in the pile to be washed. She methodically worked through her evening chores, feeding and watering the stock, cleaning their pens of refuse both magical and very much of the earth. She went inside and checked over her list for the next day, for she planned to go into town and make some necessary purchases.
Then, by the guttering light of a stubby candle, she wrote a letter to the Windshire bursar explaining for the fifth time that she required funds to hire an assistant, since her honorarium as Faery Godmother barely stretched far enough to cover the food budget of the magical menagerie.
After all, she thought crossly, it’s not as if I have so many free hours to earn extra money for myself. I’m hardly making ends meet as it is.
Almost too tired to wash off the muck of the day, she forced herself to splash the tepid water in the ewer over her hands and face. Finally, she fell into bed, pulling the coverlet over herself with a sigh. And if she shed a few tears in the darkness into her musty quilt, there was no one to see her other than the little carved unicorn statue that was one of Morath’s few remaining possessions from her old life.
Although she didn’t know it, tomorrow her life would begin to change beyond anything she could have possibly imagined. Unconscious to this fact, Morath slept on dreamlessly.
Bright sunshine streaming through the tiny window above her bed woke her to the new day, already warm and balmy. Because she had no notion that today would be different from any other, she got up in a rather grumpy mood and stayed that way through her morning wash-up and the chores that followed. She tossed a handful of millet to the chickens and jackalopes, filled the trough for a pair of ornery hippogriffs, and laid out a selection of fresh berries for the kitsune, who looked up from grooming herself to say, “A nice fresh rabbit wouldn’t go amiss once in a while, Mistress.”
Morath cracked a smile and shook her head. “When I can afford it, perhaps. Until then, you’ll have to catch your own if my offerings aren’t to your taste.”
When she was finished, she washed her hands, tidied her hair again–disobedient curls already slipping out of the knot she’d tied it up in–and put on her second-best outfit to go to town. The dull-green kirtle was hardly flattering, but she had no need of impressing anyone. The townspeople already looked at her askance for her strange profession. She was off to do errands, not to make alliances.
The town was an hour’s walk from her farm. No longer the whirlwind of high glamour it had been during her parents’ dazzling reign, Windshire still bustled with activity as the borough seat of commerce for the surrounding farms and hamlets.
“Pardon me,” she said to a woman who jostled her elbow as she passed by to enter the textile merchant’s stall. Morath received a half-fearful, half-appalled stare for her pains.
I don’t know why I bother being polite, she thought as she measured several lengths of rough-woven cloth intended for shading tender plants from the blazing sun. The townsfolk all think I’m some kind of wicked witch given over to mysterious powers.
As if I would have chosen this life for myself if there had been another option!
With her family assassinated in a surprise attack, Morath was the last survivor of a crumbled dynasty. Only her anonymity as a poor, obscure country-dweller protected her from persecution–or worse.
She had spent her entire young adulthood alone in the cottage, learning to eke out a living with the scraps of magic allotted to her–and an even stingier stipend. Snatched from the Summer Palace and abandoned at the cottage by a mysterious stranger, she had been tasked with her great responsibility at a mere thirteen years old. Stunned by her sudden change of fortune, she had been too terrified to ask questions or protest as the woman who brought her to the cottage bade her await further developments before vanishing.
When the last remaining Council members of Ket Alaa had arrived on her doorstep days later under cover of a secrecy spell, as the Seneschal had wrung his hands together in despair and the Grand Councilor laid it on as thick as possible, attempting to guilt Morath into accepting the position thrust upon her, it was the tiny, bird-like Intermediary whose point carried the day.
“There’s no one else who can do it,” Verath said, looking at her closely out of rheumy eyes. “Either you agree to act as our Faery Godmother and set trials so that we might find champions to rise up and take back our country, or we have no chance at all. Ket Alaa needs you.”
“But why me?” Morath had pleaded. “Couldn’t someone else do it?”
“It’s in your blood,” Verath said simply. “You’ll have to work long and hard to learn the magic, but without the bloodright that comes down through your family, we might as well try to train a pig. You’re not just the only one who can do this task, Princess–you’re the last one.”
Oh, yes, Morath knew a great deal about how unfair life could be.
When the Syndaryans ousted my family, they also put their henchmen in place all over the country. They steal our crops and have their long fingers in everyone’s purses.
Worst of all, they press our people into service in their armies to fight more of their wars for territory. Someone has to stop them–and like it or not, I’m the person to find that “someone.”
Another elbow took her around the midsection this time. Morath whirled, truly irritated now.
“Do try to look where you’re going!” she snapped at whoever had shoved her.
The person turned around, looking down at her from a considerable height. Morath tended to tower over other women, one more thing that set her apart from others, but it was unusual to encounter someone so much taller than her. Most of the folk in Windshire tended to be built short and squatly. The joke went that if their stock animals wore out early, the farmer could take over at the plow.
This man, however, had her height topped by at least a head, and half again of that. He was wearing a hat tugged low over his eyes, and what she could see of his face was rather dusty and dirty for a town-dweller. Those who lived close by to the public pumps were expected to use them regularly. But the grin he flashed her was cheerful and friendly enough.
“My apologies for not looking where I was going, Mistress,” he said, tipping the hat genially.
Morath felt a little silly for snapping at him, bruised ribs or not. “Apology accepted,” she said with a nod.
She turned to leave, but he caught her by the arm. “Could I ask you to wait a moment? I’m in need of directions.”
Morath sent a quick line of energy zinging down her arm along with a pointed glance at his hand. He let go. “Are you the sorceress?” he gasped.
If he was looking for her, then most likely he was a petitioner. The magic which protected her was the same spell which caused whispers of a great reward to reach the ears of anyone brave–or foolhardy–enough to take on the challenge of championing Ket Alaa. Only active seekers would know her as a Faery Godmother, keeper of mysteries and magic, apportioner of trials to would-be initiates.
If a quester failed the tasks she set, then much like for the rest of the townsfolk, Morath’s true identity would slip harmlessly from their mind–to be replaced by the image of a poor, obscure hedge-herbalist with scarcely enough skill or wisdom to claim the title.
Narrowing her eyes, she retorted, “Who’s asking?”
The man shook his head, but at himself, she realized. “I apologize for my rudeness. I wasn’t expecting to meet you in the street like this. One imagines a Faery Godmother living on a remote mountain, or–or in a castle, with her pet dragons to guard her.”
Something curled round her skirt with a high-pitched meow. Morath looked down to see Rogit , the local tavern’s tomcat, out making his rounds of the town square. The ludicrous idea occurred to her of having several Rogits, appropriately-dragon sized, to chase off annoying petitioners. She firmly squashed the thought and focused her mind on the man before her.
He had bent down to pet Rogit, who was not as unappreciative of attention from a stranger as cats are often wont to be. Now he stood again, removing his hat.
Morath was struck by his face. It was impossible to tell whether he was handsome or not, simply because you never got that far. His look was so open and guileless that you couldn’t help but be charmed.
She was instantly on her guard. A charm spell? That’s not something I would expect a petitioner to be wearing. Where would one even find such a thing these days?
Her hackles rose. Who is this man, and why is he looking for me?
“I have business here in town,” she said coolly. “So state yours–and then be off.”
He began to sweep a bow, but seeing her face, he thought better of it and cleared his throat. “Ah. I am… Padgett.”
He said it so quietly she had to strain to hear correctly. “And what are you doing here in Windshire, Padgett?”
The tips of his ears turned red. “There’s no need to repeat it so loudly,” he muttered. “After all, your parents probably didn’t give you a name scraped from the bottom of the family barrel.”
Wryly, she responded, “My name is Morath, so I’m sure you’ll understand why I lack sympathy for you.”
His face lightened as he laughed. “I suppose that’s reasonable.”
She reflected that it had been a long time since she’d heard someone laugh without any shadows in it. “Where did you come from?” she asked carefully.
“It’s a long tale that might be better told over a trencher,” he said. On cue, his stomach growled.
This time they both chuckled. “All right,” she acquiesced. “I still have more shopping to do, so I can’t spare much time. I wouldn’t mind breaking my fast, though.”
