A Wizard's Hookah

With an extra big snore, Travin startled himself awake.

He gathered his bearings. Daylight. He was sitting in a big wooden
chair on a porch that looked out over a lawn, beyond which was the
woods, with many white birch trees at the fore.

He checked for any dangers. Holding his breath, he listened
carefully. Birds chirped. The wind whistled through the trees.
There were no footsteps, tapping over wood or shuffling through
foliage. No snorts, growls, hisses, or whisperings.

He double checked it was all real--fool him three times, and all
that. He smacked his arm up and down against the arm of the wooden
chair he sat in. He could feel the arm smacking, and even more
importantly, he could feel full control over the arm's movement,
no paralysis, no forced inaction. He looked at the nearest tree in
the woods, a skinny birch, and willed himself to teleport to it.
He did not. He stayed put in his chair. He reached for the deck of
cards in his left pocket to give the cards a shuffle. There was no
deck, nor did he ever carry one. It all seemed to check out, so
far.

He counted his friends. Lief. Anda. Rin. Jerritz. Kee. Tegg.
Lohss. Loh. Dellia. Lyle.

There. Done. He was here. He was safe. It was real. His friends
were all counted.

He turned his head and looked around. He sat on his own front
porch, at his house in the woods. Indeed, he had woken up
similarly enough for two, nearing three years. He looked down at
his feet, saw a half finished pint glass, and leaned down and
picked it up. Settling back in his chair again, he chugged the
remaining half of the pint, the taste of it a delightful and
refreshing resumption to his day, the nap he had just awoken from
a good rest. He ran his fingers through his scraggly beard, and
scratched at the chin underneath.

He stood, stretched, yawned, and walked to the other side of his
porch, where there was the bar. His hip was a little bit stiff,
from sleeping on the chair again. He so rarely slept in the master
bedroom. The bed in there was very comfortable, but with it being
up on the fifth floor, it was quite a lot of stairs to bother
with. The couches inside on the first floor's sitting room often
proved a good middle ground, for convenience and comfort. And the
gloves which hovered through the rooms, carrying brooms and
feather dusters and neatly re-straightening the furniture, well,
they had no mind to comment on it if he slept here or there.

Stepping behind the counter, Travin refreshed his pint glass, had
a few big gulps from the new drink, and then wandered off of the
porch, down the steps, and around the house to his open air
workshop. He sauntered up to his work table, had another sip of
his pint, set it aside, and looked at where he had left off.

On the table was a wooden race car, resting upside down. If
upright, it would be a sleek black specimen, the hood all coming
to a sharp wedge, and ripples going back along the body that
resembled a flag caught in the wind. Into the hood, on the upper
surface of the wedge, were shallow carvings of two big eyes and a
linear mouth, also painted over with same coat of black as the
rest of the body. Blackest Trout, he had named this one.

In spite of Blackest Trout's grand appearances, this one had not
done very well on debut, and so Travin had brought it back for
more work. The car was presently upended, and showing a hole he
had bored in the underside. The hole, cutting through the paint
and into the pale wood inside, was not so deep as to come all the
way out through the top of the car, yet was still wide enough to
get some appreciable weighting in there. Travin picked the car up,
held it up to his eyes, and looked at it at an angle in the
sunlight, gauging the circumference and, more particularly, the
depth of the hole he had made.

He nodded, set the car down, had another sip of his pint, and then
walked across the workshop to a wooden crate. He picked the crate
up in one hand and began rooting through its contents. Inside it
there were bits and bobs of iron--bent nails, scuffed spoons,
found buttons. Sifting the contents around and brushing things to
one side and the other, the muscular man gave a triumphant cheer
at finding a thick iron filling, cylindrical. It looked to be the
exact circumference needed--he had bored the hole with this
discarded part in mind--and, on holding the filling up in the
sunlight, he gauged that it would fill the depth of the bored hole
very neatly, as hoped.

He dropped the crate back to the ground and returned to his
workbench.

Taking Blackest Trout up in one hand, he used a little mallet to
tap the filling into the hole. It fit perfectly snugly. The extra
weight would be good, give the car a fighting chance on the track
--a newcomer, it was to be expected that Blackest Trout had been
unequipped to go toe to toe with the likes of Firesteed VI and
Mordecai. It was more-so the fact that Blackest Trout had only
barely beat out Driftfeather that gave tell to real need for
improvements. Travin smiled to himself. With this extra weight
alone, unless something very interesting occurred, like a wheel
malfunction or an act of the gods upon the track, Blackest Trout
would leave Driftfeather in the dust, and would stand a chance to
place among the rest. He would have to see it though, to know it
all fully.

With the extra weight slotted in, Travin picked up Blackest Trout,
and wandered around to the back yard. There, running down one side
of the yard, was a big wooden track. The side nearest him was
raised twenty feet off the ground, with a stairway up to a
platform where he could walk back and forth up there and arrange
the cars in their starting stalls. From there, the track sloped
downward, each car having its own walled off lane, each lane
having its own unique descents and rises, straightways and
plunges, until all eventually came to a stop at the end, the
bottom of the slope.

Travin climbed up the stairs and walked to the far end of the
platform, where he placed Blackest Trout in the last stall. The
competition in the other seven stalls already waited, with a red
and white awning overhead to keep them in the shade. There was
Firesteed VI in the champion's slot, the first track, and the
solid iron body of Mordecai, a car of Lyle's construction, in the
second. Then in an order determined by random lot, Twilight
Torchbearer, Swift Hart, Good Messenger, Driftfeather, Firesteed
V, and of course now in the newcomer slot, Blackest Trout. Other
cars, not in play for this current race, sat in their own cubbies
at one end of the platform, a sheet over all of them to protect
them from the elements. Some were more or less retired, others,
only resting.

Hand in his beard, fingers combing the wiry hair, Travin paced the
platform back and forth. He paused behind Good Messenger, a race
car that was carved out into the shape of a ship, masts and all,
though with ribbons instead of sails--the cannons aboard, and the
cargo of tiny gold bars, gave the whole thing a mean weight to
throw around. Getting his eyes down low with the car, he examined
the track beyond from the car's level, pictured how it would go,
and then nodded. He walked a little more, picked up Swift Hart,
and rubbed the wheels so they spun back and forth. The front left
wheel squeaked a bit. Foreboding. He set it back down.

With the race cars all in place, Travin went back down the steps
to the ground, and wandered up to his back porch. There, eleven
treasure chests stood on a long table. He went to the first chest,
marked "Travin," and opened it up. From inside, he counted out
eighty golden coins, a pearl necklace, and a jewel-encrusted
silver crown. He brought those items over, a few pieces at a time,
to a round table out in the back yard, where there were eleven
seats. The table at each seat was marked for betting. At his
chair, he placed sixty golden coins, the pearl necklace, and the
silver crown on Firesteed VI. He placed nineteen golden coins on
Mordecai. And, in the spirit of taking a gamble, he placed the
last one golden coin on Blackest Trout.

He then went up to the next chest, marked "Jerritz," and took a
stack of ten golden coins out from inside. Travin chuckled to
himself as he walked the coins to the table, shaking his head. If
all the currency to buy them a needed night's stay at an inn were
on the line, Jerritz would have insisted on betting it on Swift
Hart. "It screams to us its sign, and you would ignore it!" he
would say, even teasing himself in the dramatic delivery, but all
the same entirely intent on what he was saying. Travin could hear
it as he walked. "The underdog! Aren't you the least curious about
its call?" No one would have been able to talk him out of it,
short of holding his or her own coins tight, and only allowing
Jerritz to risk just his. At Jerritz's seat, Travin placed ten
coins on Swift Hart.

One by one down the line--Anda, Rin, Lief, Lyle, Kee, Lohss, Loh,
Tegg, Dellia--Travin carried the bets over and set them down.

Then, he went back to the head of the track. There on one of the
struts, there was a lever that lowered all the gates above, and
sent the cars going.

Travin took a slow, deep breath, smiled at the precarious about-
to-happen nature of the moment. He looked over at the betting
table with all of the gold and silver and jewels shining in the
sunlight. And then he pulled the lever, and quick as he could ran
along down the track, until he could see the cars racing down.

By the time he even got in a position to see anything, Firesteed
VI was nearly at the end and Mordecai was fast behind: indeed, the
two of them slammed into their respective finishing plates and
then rolled up the curved slope beyond. The two of them came
rolled back down from the steep slope, and managed to each
backtrack over the finishing line in a sort of victory lap, before
third place, Good Messenger, came over. Fourth was Firesteed V,
then fifth Blackest Trout. Travin, seeing Blackest Trout place
fifth, clapped heartily at the improvement. Torchbearer and Swift
Hart crossed at nearly the same time, and Travin was entirely
pleased that he would have to check the official recording
mechanism. Last, Driftfeather rolled across.

Down at the end of the track, Travin knelt down, and opened up a
chest that was tucked away underneath the course. From inside he
pulled out the logbook, which was a very large tome, and a pencil.
With those items in hand, he turned, and looked at the recording
mechanism.

It was, he felt, maybe the cleverest thing he had ever come up
with. In some ways a shame that such an accomplishment wasn't made
until recently, but in other ways even that was a victory. New
days in his life, new leaves to be turned. Lyle himself had
complimented it, and not just in a way where he was being nice, he
had gotten down into the mechanism and looked around at it from
all sides, and said, "By the gods, what a perfect solution to
this."

Below the track, near to the finish line, there was an octagonal
glass prism. Inside of it presently, now that the race was
finished, were stacked eight spheric gems: a red ruby from the
first lane was at the bottom, then on top of it a purple amethyst
from another lane, then a blue sapphire from another, and so
forth, each gem corresponding to a lane, stacked in the order of
first place at the bottom, first to fall into the prism, and last
place at the top, last to fall into the prism. At the top of the
prism were eight gates, one on each of the prism's eight sides,
all equally high. Behind each gate was a steep slope in which each
lane's gem had rested, waiting for its gate to come open so it
could fall in and mark its lane as finished. The gate mechanisms
at the top of the prism where each connected with wire to plates
at the end of each lane, such that when a car hit the plate in its
lane, the wire was released, and the gate was instantly opened,
and the gem could fall in.

The original idea for the mechanism had been to produce eight
slopes below the track, one below each lane, and have the gates
open and allow the spheric gems to fall from below each lane, down
their own slopes, and into the prism. There was no way to arrange
it though, where each gem would be certain to take the same time
to get to the prism: if the prism was placed at the center, the
center lanes would take very little time while the outer lanes had
to roll some ways; if the prism was placed at the far left side,
that left lane would have its gem in in no time at all while the
right lane would be sure to be marked as a loser, even if the
right lane had won by a mile. The wires made any lane quick as a
flash to drop its marble, regardless of whether some wires were
shorter or longer.

Lyle, when he had been looking at it, had even asked, "Do I have
it correct, that it was you who came up with this?"

Travin had given a pleased laugh at that. "I was bouncing the
ideas off of Rin, but yes, the ideas were mine."

Lyle had again remarked that it was very good work.

Looking at the results of this latest race, Travin marked the
competitors and victory order all down in the logbook. First a
table for which race car was on each track, and then a table for
which race car had taken which place.

The victory order, as marked definitively by the recording device,
was Firesteed VI, Mordecai, Good Messenger, Firesteed V, Blackest
Trout, Swift Hart and then Torchbearer, and Driftfeather in last.

Travin put away the logbook and the pencil, closed the chest, and
reset the mechanism, reattaching the wire loops to their hooks and
sliding out the bottom of the prism to collect up the gems,
replacing the bottom of the prism, and putting the gems each back
into their stalls.

He stood at the finish line for a moment, and looked at the cars,
hands on his hips. He let them stay there for now, glad to let
them revel in their achievement at getting to the finish line,
even Driftfeather.

Leaving them there at the end, he returned back to the betting
table, collected all of the lost bets into the center, and
redistributed the pot according to the winning bets. He himself
had put the most up, betting sixty gold and some accessories on
Firesteed VI, and so he regained the most for himself--though he
did make sure not to give himself back the specific coin that he
had lost on Blackest Trout. That, he distributed to Lyle, who had
bet on Firesteed VI as well: even though Mordecai was Lyle's own
creation, Lyle was not someone to be prideful. Knowing race after
race that Firesteed VI in track 1 beat out Mordecai in track 2,
Lyle was not one to think, "Oh, but mine will surely win next,
because it is mine." Maybe he had once been. But after the march
across the dread woods, Lyle became such a person to abandon all
follies, and fit hard wisdoms into their place. Even after Lyle
had more or less singlehandedly gotten them across those woods by
his brilliance and leadership, the man had remained a changed
person. He took no joy at all in failings.

Travin brought the won treasures back to their appropriate chests.
He had made out very well indeed on this round, and Lyle had as
well. Rin, though her bets were often very small, all the same
very often did come out profitably on them, and her treasure
chest's content was nearly level with its top.

With that all done, Travin walked down to the end of the track,
grabbed up each of the race cars, and began walking with them in
his arms up to the head of the track again.

As he was halfway back, he saw Lyle coming around the house, to
the back yard. The robed man waved.

Travin, his arms full, called ahead, "Good to see you!"

Lyle gave a bow, and waited at the head of the track.

Travin, once he was standing before Lyle, informed the robed man,
"You did well in this last race."

"Did I?"

"Firesteed VI has been the one to finally beat out Mordecai. You
have been very wise to notice, and bet as things are, not as you
may hope them to be."

Lyle's cheeks raised up in a smile.

Travin went up the stairs, and put the race cars away in their
cubbies.

Coming back down the stairs, Travin asked, "Would you like a
pint?"

"I brought you yours," Lyle said, and from behind his back
produced the partially finished pint glass.

Travin gave a pleased laugh, took the glass, and had another sip
of it.

"Today marks the start of the month of second salt," Lyle said.

"Ah," Travin said, and nodded. "I've lost the particular count of
the days, my apologies."

As part of Lyle's devotions, the man did not drink on certain
months. Had it occurred to Travin that the month of second salt
had begun, he certainly would not have offered anything. In fact,
he finished his own drink quickly, and hurled the glass off into
the woods.

Lyle, holding his hands behind his back once again, asked, "Have
you your sword, Travin?"

"Inside, yes. Why?"

Lyle answered, "One of Farmer Jen's boys was out playing and says
that he came upon a hydra, guarding the entrance to a small fort.
Other townsfolk went to investigate, and confirmed that they have
seen it too."

Travin asked, bewildered, "A tame hydra?"

"One guarding the entrance to a small fort, that is what they
say."

"And they say it is a hydra, oh..." Travin trailed off, and
scratched his head as he gathered some estimation. "What do you
suppose, nearly a thousand miles from the nearest ocean?"

"One thousand and twenty three, I think. I did some reckoning off
of Brother Fenis's atlas on that very matter before coming here."

"So the hydra is illusory."

"Yes, I think."

Travin laughed, and said, "Sure, I'll fetch my sword. Come in,
come in."

The two of them proceeded up the steps of the back porch, and into
the beaded curtains that led into the house this way. As they
walked through the house towards the front door, Lyle mentioned,
"From what I could gather, according to the reports of the
townsfolk, the fort is very interestingly tucked away in the
hills. I could believe that no enchantments disguise its location,
but that it simply has good obfuscation through the leafy trees on
the hills surrounding, and is among a network of valleys that
could make one think, 'Oh, but I have explored that one, already,'
even when one has not. Do you think that makes any sense?"

"Very much so, yes," Travin said, nodding. "It reminds me of that
time with Kee, around Yellow Lake. Or that time with Lohss and Loh
in the western goblins' quarry. Or that time with Rin on the side
of Heaven Scar."

Hands behind his back, cheeks raised in a smile, Lyle added, "Or
that time with Tegg by Locke's River."

"Yes!" Travin agreed. "In the caves."

"Were they caves, or trenches?" Lyle asked. "I had mixed
impressions from the stories I heard. I was with Dellia and
Jerritz in Fall Keep at the time, remember."

"They were caves," Travin assured. "Dug caves. They began as
trenches, at first, but burrowed down into the ground, it was very
cold and you would need a light to see by."

"Were they tunnels?" Lyle asked.

"Tunnels! Yes, maybe you would call them tunnels. I will call them
that from now on, in fact."

The two arrived at the front door. There, resting against the wall
beside the front door, was Travin's rucksack. He had set it down
there two, nearing three years ago, the same with his sword that
was in its scabbard on the ground beside it.

"Are we going far?" Travin asked.

"No, not too far," Lyle answered. "If it suits you, I hope we will
rest at Farmer Jen's house tonight and go forth to the fort in the
morning."

With that information, Travin picked up just the sword, and
strapped the scabbard about his hip. He held the front door open
for Lyle, closed it behind the both of them, and the two set out
on the road through the woods, that led from Travin's house to
town.

Along the walk, Lyle spoke about the fort. "I have an inkling as
to how an illusory hydra could have come to be there. Brother
Fenis, when he was just a boy--he is old now--heard a wizard of
the temple muttering about an enchantment. Apparently, the wizard
had enchanted a hookah, such that the smoke would show an image of
your truest love--very powerful divination, if it indeed worked.
And perhaps it did, for all young Fenis heard from the wizard at
the time was the wizard's incessant complaining about the item.
'People won't like what it says,' the wizard muttered, time and
time again, as he was going about his day. And then one day, while
Fenis was minding his chores, sweeping I think he said he was
doing, he overheard the wizard saying to another member of the
temple that he had locked something up. Young Fenis had not caught
what the wizard was referring to, but did realize that from then
forward, the wizard never muttered of the magical hookah again."

Travin absorbed all of the information, nodding.

When Lyle had said his piece on the wizard and the fort and the
possible nature of the fort's contents, Travin asked, "When we
face the hydra, will we use all of our same signals?"

"Yes, I think that would do wonderfully," Lyle agreed.

The friends, at times before, had faced all number of challenges,
including the liberation of a town that had been beset by an
illusionist. The tricky thing about that had been that for the
townsfolk, it was best for them if they still saw the illusioned
threats to be defeated, even after the source of them had been
stopped. And so the friends had some systems, for telling each
other things that they marked about illusions, without saying
anything so obviously out loud.

Likely, for this hydra, Travin would step forth with his sword and
stand there, pretending to muse on the upcoming battle himself,
while Lyle, who had a far better knack for discerning magic, would
be behind, finding out if the hydra or the circumstances posed any
real threat at all--sometimes, besides the illusions, there were
booby traps. If Lyle came up to stand to Travin's left, the hydra
actually did pose some danger or complication, and Travin was to
step back. If Lyle came up to stand on Travin's right, then Lyle
had in fact assumed control of the illusion, and Travin could step
forward and put on a show of fighting it, for the townsfolk.

Travin and Lyle walked through the forests and hills.

In the evening, they came upon Jen's farm. A number of men and
women from town had gathered there, congregating in the yard with
tents and a fire. As Travin and Lyle neared, many townsfolk raised
their hands and applauded. "They're back!" one man shouted, and
another man whooped at that. Another commented, as Travin and Lyle
were walking past, "It's the non-swordsman you've to look out for
with this sort."

Travin was glad on the inside at hearing all of this, but he and
Lyle kept a stern and skeptical demeanor as they walked up to the
farmer's front porch. Travin knocked at the door. The farmer
inside swung the door open, and, seeing who it was, stepped aside
to let the two in. Travin and Lyle spoke with the farmer, and with
the boy who had found the hydra, and it was agreed that the two
would spend the night in one of the bedrooms, and in the morning
go out and see the fort.

In the bedroom, Travin put his finger in his left ear as though to
take out earwax, and twisted the hand three times, then rubbed at
his forehead with his thumb as though getting an itch.

Lyle smiled at that, and said in a very quiet voice, "No, I don't
think that will be necessary at all. If there is danger, it should
yet be far from us."

Travin had asked, in their codes, if they ought to sleep in
shifts, and had offered to take a longer shift awake, keeping
guard. Being told by Lyle it was fine, though, he tucked himself
into one of the beds, and slept through the night very soundly.

In the morning they all ate eggs, and then, Travin and Lyle and
the gathered townsfolk set out into the hills. "Just this way,
now," said one man, and then later another, "Just through this
valley," and then, "Now is it this way, or that a'one?" and "That
a'one, that a'one, the stump at the mouth marks it," and "Ah,
right you are, right you are indeed miss," and "Are you ready,
sirs? The hydra will be down a hill a little, but it will see us
before much farther, and it's likely heard us from miles off."

Lyle answered, "We are prepared, I think."

Travin, as they walked, began doing stretches for his arms.

Travin and Lyle and the townsfolk all came to a bend in the
valley, and indeed, farther ahead, down a long slope, at the
deepest part of the valley floor, there was a stone fort, a boxy
main building and a round tower above it, and in front of the
fort, on a stone brick plaza, there appeared to stand a scaly
green creature with five heads. Each head snarled, showing pointed
teeth. Lyle took in a sharp inhale, and pursed his lips tightly;
Travin's reaction was even stronger, he needed to turn back and
face away from the townsfolk to keep from visibly laughing.

The hydra's heads all moved on the same pivot, all left, and then
all right, scanning back and forth, and not even observing
anything in particular. It was lost on the townsfolk, but
extremely funny to the two who had dealt with true hydras before,
heads moving about independently, trading off jobs from one to the
other, one body yet many minds, and hyper keen perceptions intent
on staring at the objects of their fixations.

When Lyle had composed himself, he asked, "Be you ready, O
Travin?"

Travin steeled himself with a solemn exhale, thumped his fist
against his chest a few times to ground himself, and then drew his
sword, and turned and marched forward. As soon as he came forward
to a certain threshold, the five heads stopped rotating left and
right, and all fixated on him. He did grant that if the illusion
weren't so apparent, it likely would be very frightening to see
five toothy heads eyeballing him.

After a few seconds, the two left heads turned away and began
looking off into the trees, the rightmost head looked up into the
sky, and the second rightmost head turned down towards the stone
brick plaza. Only the center head continued to stare. Lyle stepped
up on Travin's right side.

Travin smirked, and then charged down the hill with his sword.
With his first swing, the hydra's center head reeled back, and the
leftmost head came over. Travin took a slash at that one, and a
burst of smoke exploded forth from the wound--Travin laughed out
loud at Lyle's absurd effect, but was able to save it and make the
laugh sound like the beginning of a victorious battle cry.

Continuing to yell and taunt, Travin defeated each head as it came
to him, each one bursting out smoke as it was struck with his
blade--the blade cut through the illusion like air, as that was,
in fact, all that was present. By the end, Travin realized the
cleverness of the smoke--as he defeated more and more of the
hydra, more and more pieces of it went away into dissipating
clouds, until he cleaved again and again at the body, and the
illusion was gone. Lyle would not have to maintain it in any way
after this showing was over. Clever.

With a final shout and strike, the last of the illusory hydra went
away in smoke. The townsfolk roared and whistled and clapped.
Travin turned, and bowed.

Lyle, facing the townsfolk, instructed, "I request that all of you
stay back, for now. Travin and I will try to venture in and
neutralize any danger."

The townsfolk did stay back as Lyle went down the hill, nearly
slipping on the wet grass.

As the two went in, Travin briefly clasped an arm around Lyle's
shoulders, and gave the robed man a firm jostle. "It's good to be
at it again," Travin said.

Lyle smiled.

Travin took his arm off of the robed man's shoulders, and stepped
ahead to venture forth into the mouth of the fort first. Lyle
followed behind closely. Just inside, the hall turned and
descended in a winding staircase--the fort as visible from outside
seemed to be nothing more than a vacant room, to serve as a
daunting cap to this tunnel down. Down and down Travin and Lyle
ventured, until the floor leveled out into a passage that was
straight, not bending or descending.

Lyle conjured up a flame, which hovered above his cupped right
hand.

By the flame's light, Travin continued forward at the lead, Lyle
close behind. The tunnel's walls were of stone bricks, and came to
an arched ceiling, with a level floor of stone bricks underfoot.
It seemed that nothing much had disturbed this place since its
construction, as every brick overhead and underfoot was perfectly
in place, untouched, and there was no detritus to indicate anyone
coming or going.

"I ask that you stay a moment, Travin," Lyle said.

Travin did stop, and kept a watch glancing ahead and behind as
Lyle knelt down, and put his free left hand to the ground, then
stood up and placed the hand flat against the ceiling.

"By my best discernment, there is a faint enchantment at work in
these stones," Lyle reported. "I think it shouldn't be anything
that concerns us too much, only a mild subduement of life, to keep
mold or moss from growing here. I imagine that water from the
valley does flow down through this passage regularly, if the fort
is at the lowest point."

"That would make sense to me," Travin agreed, imagining his race
cars.

"I ask that we resume, if it suits you, Travin," Lyle said.

Travin, sword in hand, continued forward deeper into the tunnel,
by the light from Lyle's conjured fire. At the end of the straight
section, the entire passage took a curve to the left. As they were
just nearing the start of the curve, Lyle shrieked, "FREEZE, I
DEMAND."

Travin froze exactly in place--when someone as attuned to magic as
Lyle said to freeze, that did not mean "Finish your step and then
stop walking" or "First let me ask why we are halting, and then I
will stop when I have heard the answer." It meant "Do not move
your body an inch from where it is right this second, or you may
trigger something that will disintegrate all of us."

On the walls of the tunnel, Travin saw lights of many colors
illuminate the stones, as Lyle behind him coursed through
different schools of magic. Finally, it was back to the firelight,
and Lyle said, "I release my demand that you freeze, and I thank
you for having done so. We have just gone somewhere."

"Oh, I think I agree. Is that how I smell the salt of the ocean,
and hear the crashing of waves?"

Travin and Lyle inched forward around the corner in the hall. Just
around the curve, the hall opened to a sheer cliff face over the
ocean, such that one walking thoughtlessly through the hall would
step right over and fall to their death.

Lyle looked out to the sea, stepped back, looked at the hall they
had just come down, and then stepped towards the opening to the
sea again, and stuck his arm through the mouth of the opening to
be sure. "I am astounded," the robed man said. "This magic may
prove more lucrative than the hookah the wizard seemed so obsessed
by. The town will be quite interested, I think."

Travin agreed, "Yes. Let's go back though, and find the hidden
entrance."

Lyle smiled. "I would like to find that. I do not object to that
plan at all, sir."

The two of them stepped back into the straight passage, and began
feeling and prodding at the bricks.

"Here," Travin called, finding one brick that was loose. He
pressed it into the wall, heard a latch click, and then a section
of the bricks swung forward as a loose doorway.

"Well, that was quite normal, in my opinion, after all of the
eccentricity of the rest of it."

"The secret brick door is a classic," Travin said fondly.

"Oh, please be assured, I did not mean to imply that I faulted the
man for it."

The two proceeded into the hidden room. In was about as big inside
as a chapel, though rather than two rows of pews, there were
numerous crates of quite meager treasures. Brass coins, lumps of
copper, and the majority of the crates filled with rather mundane
rocks such as granite and limestone.

"Among other interests, he was an alchemist," Lyle noted. "Perhaps
not a very good one."

At the end of the room, there was an iron box shaped much like a
coffin. Lyle's eyes glowed green for a moment, and then he said,
"That iron holds the item. Aside from the item contained in the
iron, there are no enchantments in this room. I would feel safe in
allowing the townsfolk to come in, with the stipulation that we be
the only ones to handle the item for the time being."

"Very good," Travin said, and then clapped Lyle on the shoulder.
"Another verse for our grand song of accomplishments. I wonder
what treatment Lief will give it."

Lyle patted Travin's hand that was on his shoulder.

Travin took the hand off. By Lyle's firelight, they returned out
into the straight passage, up the winding stairs, and stood at the
mouth of the fort. Travin waved to the townsfolk who looked
cautiously down from higher up the valley floor's slope. "You may
come in!" Travin called. "It is safe!"

The townsfolk came nearer. Lyle explained the geography of the
fort's depths, and warned against investigating the way to the
ocean for the time being. He told that there were items of a
little value for the taking, and that he and Travin, for their
part, wished only to claim the item inside of the iron coffin--
this garnered no protest at all. With all matters at hand covered,
Travin and Lyle led the way back down, with the townsfolk
following--some lit torches of their own, freeing Lyle to go back
to holding his hands together behind his back, conjuring no magic.

The group moved down the winding stairs, and through half of the
straight passage until arriving at the door in the bricks, which
they all shuffled through in a line. Inside, the townsfolk got to
dividing up what there was. Perhaps aided by the watchful eye of a
brother from the temple, the townsfolk did act fairly among
themselves in dividing up the spoils, even paying mind to others
from the town who had not been able to spare the time to come
along. They divided claims to the crates of stones as well, if any
man should want to come back later, equipped to haul them away,
though even to themselves they joked that it was unlikely that
anyone would go to the trouble.

Travin, standing beside Lyle in the corner, said very quietly,
while there was enough chatter for the remark not to be the sole
echo off of the stone walls, "Should we investigate the item in
their company?"

Lyle answered, "I would prefer to be very open about the item's
function. I worry at what mistruths might spread otherwise."

Travin and Lyle stepped forth from the corner, and both came to
the iron coffin.

"It is safe?" Travin asked, no longer at a whisper, aware that
they were now well in the eyes of the townsfolk.

"To the utmost of my abilities to discern, you will not be harmed
by opening this."

"You never say 'yes' or 'no' anymore," Travin noted.

"I have become very interested in accuracy."

"Huh."

The townsfolk had stopped talking among themselves, and were all
watching the swordsman and the robed man from a cautious distance.

Travin lifted open the coffin's door. It made not the slightest
squeal. Inside, there was a hookah, as they anticipated. Travin
lifted the item out, and held it up. It did have a rather fancy
look to it, and showed curvy thin writing engraved down the entire
body of it, the line of text spiraling down and down.

Lyle turned, and asked, "Would anyone lend us a light?"

One townsperson stepped forward, and held out a torch.

"I thank you," Lyle said, taking the torch.

The townsperson nodded, bowed himself to make himself scarce, and
stepped back.

Holding the light near the hookah, Lyle squinted, and placed a
finger to the lettering. Travin rotated the object as needed while
the robed man slowly spoke. "I read the writing as this: Behold,
The Hookah of Superlative Matrimony! Smoke may be drawn from it
until the day it is cracked! When breathing out its smoke,
identify by speaking any person whose company is present, and in
the smoke, all present shall see who loves that person the most in
all the world! Love, of course, comes in many forms, but this
device casts aside familial and friendly, and cares only of
romance!"

Travin commented, "It doesn't rhyme."

"Well, many enchantments do not."

"I like the ones that rhyme."

Lyle smiled without comment, walked back to the townsperson and
returned the torch, and then came again to stand near Travin.

Travin asked, hookah in his hands, "Should we see if it works?"

Lyle answered, "I think we should. Do you know how to use it? From
what was written on it, I think it is ready."

Travin held the stem in one hand and the mouth piece in the other,
and drew in a big breath from the item. He held the breath in for
a moment, and then began exhaling a stream of smoke, which came
forth in a huge cloud, bigger than when they had been in frozen
wastes well below zero, and he and Lief had taken turns lowering
their warmth-enchanted scarves to breathe out into the frigid air
as they walked. As Travin exhaled the smoke, midway through the
exhale, he whispered the word, "Myself."

The smoke swirled around in the form of a dust devil which reached
from floor to ceiling, and then flung itself against one of the
walls: there the smoke all spread out flat, and among the smoke on
the wall, there came to be an image as though looking through a
window. In the image, there was a Golden Retriever. She laid in
the shade of a tree in an otherwise brightly sunny scene, panting
as she kept her head up, glancing around left and right at the
goings-on in the field around her.

"Um, well that," Lyle began, and then had nothing. "She is
gorgeous, sir."

"Did I use it right?"

"As best as I can tell. Would you show me it again? Oh, and if we
could have the light once more--thank you, hold it just like that.
As I read it, once again: and in the smoke, all present shall see
who loves that person the most in all the world! Love, of course,
comes in many forms, but this device casts aside familial and
friendly, and cares only of romance! Yes, sir--oh, I thank you for
the light, that was all I had request of it for--Yes, sir, this
image would then be... as described."

Travin began drawing in another big breath from the hookah.

Lyle noted, "I don't believe there was any stipulation at all that
doing it a second time would change the results, but please, do
not take that as me stopping you from investigating the device's
consistency for yourself."

Travin exhaled, and whispered, "My friend Lyle."

Lyle gasped, and shot a glare at Travin.

The smoke swirled around and around, and then flung itself at
another wall, and in that image stood a horse in a stall, tail
flicking at flies who were pestering him--the 'him' of it was very
apparent, as the stallion's endowment hung out down under himself.

Travin, and many of the townsfolk, began to snicker.

"I think," Lyle said, "that I am beginning to understand what the
wizard had in mind, when he said that people would not like what
this item showed them."

Travin asked, "How long have you and him been seeing each other?"

"I could ask you just about the very same, you know."

Travin looked again to the image of the Golden Retriever, which
still lingered on a wall in smoke. "I do remember her," he said.
"When we were coming here, we stayed at a farm for a month, so
that if anything from our travels was still tracking us, it would
not befall all of the townsfolk--we paid the farmer more
handsomely than I would have ever thought to for lodging, even for
such an extended time. This dog belonged to that farmer. Her name
is Acorn. She slept in my bed, she wasn't allowed to sleep on the
beds with anyone else, but I didn't mind, it reminded me of
sharing a tent with Rin, or with Lief when he still camped with
us."

Lyle interjected, "Are you about to tell us that one thing led to
another with the dog too?"

Travin gave an amused laugh, and said, "No, no, no. If her
feelings for me really were that strong, I suppose I missed it.
All I can say is that I let her sleep on the bed. Was that all it
took?"

"I would not know," Lyle responded.

"More of a horse person," Travin said, nodding.

Lyle rolled his eyes, and said, "By my brotherhood, if I speak a
lie then the fires of Chthuth will forsake me." The robed man
brought his hands forth, and conjured a small fire in a cupped
hand. "I do not know that stallion."

The fire remained strong.

Travin prodded, "Are you fond of horses generally?"

"I am not averse to providing for them, or to making practical use
of a beast of burden, but only in intrusive boyhood thoughts long
ago did that ever extend into lust, and even then those thoughts
were only briefly held, and never acted upon."

The fire, again, remained strong.

"In truth," Lyle went on, "I think very little of lust or romance
anyways. They often feel more to me like devices that other people
have, but not I. They are alike to another man's religion: real to
him, a passingly interesting fiction to me."

The fire held as true as ever.

Travin said, a bit shyly, "I do not have any fire to prove it like
you did, but I too have never cared much about lust or romance in
the same way others seem to. All that ever happened with Lief, or
Rin, to them I think was something deeper, to me, I don't know, it
was a bit of fun to have with a friend. I didn't mind it, but it's
nothing I've sought out on my own."

With piercing sincerity in his eyes, Lyle said to the swordsman,
"I believe you, and I thank you for sharing."

"Happy to. Anything that helps."

Lyle dismissed the fire, and put his hands behind his back once
again.

Turning to the townsfolk, the robed man asked, "Would anyone else
care to see what the item says about them?"

There was brief silence. Then one townsperson, the miller, said,
"There uh, what was it now, how did the smoky thing say exactly it
eh, functioned? Shows you who you are the most in love with, or--"

"No, Miller Mardo," Lyle interrupted. "The hookah, irrespective of
any of your own thoughts, shows who in the world holds the
strongest romantic love TOWARDS YOU."

"Right uh, yeah, huh." The miller shrugged. "Yeah why not, give my
name a whirl there. Can't hurt to know."

Travin drew in a breath, spoke "The miller Mardo," and the smoke
spun away and hit another part of a wall. There, a donkey was
shown, grazing in a field.

Many townsfolk laughed openly, especially the miller's drinking
buddies.

The miller though, without even feigning an inkling of surprise,
said, "Yeah I told every last one of you laughing now, didn't I,
how much that jenny loves me, yes I did."

Lyle, interest piqued, asked, "Is it then true that you do know
this jenny?"

"Yes sir," the miller said. "She stays by the mill, I see her
about every day rain or shine, mind her, feed her, and yes I
didn't need this item to tell me she feels powerful urges towards
me, if it gets to about that time of day again she can't be
ignored on the topic, and I help her plenty gladly, I feel the
same way towards her."

The miller's wife shrugged, and said, "It's all true."

The townsfolk roared, and then another townsperson called out, "Me
next!"

Travin on that breath spoke "The farmhand Ishek," and the smoke
blew to a wall. In it was shown an image of another townsperson
present, Lui.

Ishek gasped, and looked to Lui.

Throwing up his arms in faux drama, Lui proclaimed, "It's true!"

Ishek asked, "Okay but is it though?"

Voice then entirely straight, Lui said, "Yeah I mean, I do love
you man, so probably."

"Right back at you."

"For really real?"

As the two had been speaking they had been inching cautiously
closer together, and by that point were face to face. Rather than
any further words, the two cautiously shared their first kiss. The
other townsfolk and Travin and Lyle all clapped.

Looking into his new love's eyes, Ishek suggested, "Wanna get out
of here?"

Lui nodded. The two men scampered off, each snatching up their
sack of meager treasures they had been allocated, and disappeared
out of the brick door, and ran up the stairs and off into the
woods.

Travin pointed out, "It can show humans."

Lyle added, "And it seems to be accurate, at least in cases we
have more knowledge on."

"Why did the wizard not like this?" Travin asked. "I think it's
rather sweet, to know that the creatures of the world care about
us so much."

"Amen, sir," chimed the miller.

Lyle asked the group, "Would anyone else like to try it?"

The room very suddenly became silent.

"Hm," Lyle intoned. "I thank you all for coming. Before you all
go, does anyone, ah..." The robed man gave a quick bashful glance
at the image of the stallion.

The miller's wife offered, "I don't know the horse, but that looks
to be Farmer Yenet's land, out of town southeast a little."

"I thank you. Hm. He and I likely have crossed paths then."

The townsfolk all began to chatter among themselves again, as they
all moved and collected up their treasures. Travin and Lyle turned
to one another.

Travin asked, "Are you thinking of going to see him?"

"I am thinking of it," Lyle affirmed. "I do not recall any time
that horse could have met me, long enough to garner any strong
impression. To the best of my memory, I might have only seen a
horse from that farm in passing on the road now and then."

"Maybe you are very beautiful to horses."

Lyle smiled.

"I mean it!" Travin said. "How many love stories begin with one
lover seeing the other's beauty at a distance, and falling in love
instantly?"

Lyle considered it, and then answered, "I can think of quite a
lot, now that you mention it. How about you? Do you even like
dogs?"

"Of course!" Travin bellowed. "What kind of question is that? Dogs
are wonderful."

"Have you any plans with this, then?"

"I have some ideas," Travin answered.

A month later, Travin stood at the top of his new track. Ten times
the size of the old one, this one ran all the way down the length
of an enormous hill, down towards the farm below. Travin had a
hand on the lever, and stood at a slight crouch, prepared to begin
running.

"Are you ready Acorn?" he asked.

The Golden Retriever wagged and lowered her front half playfully.

"Are you sure? We can walk back down, take our time--"

Acorn barked and hopped, her wagging betraying that her intent
could only be friendly.

"Alright. Go!"

Travin pulled the lever, released the race cars, and he and Acorn
sprinted down the hill, wagging and laughing.