Chapter One
When heroes and heroines start on their journeys, they are given two things: a Map, and a List. The Map, as all maps do, showed them where they needed to go. Sometimes, it was a dark forest to slay a dragon that had been terrorizing a village. Sometimes, it was a bright village to slay the villagers that had been terrorizing a dragon. The Map guided heroes and heroines through labyrinths, across oceans, to the highest peaks and the deepest depths. Their tasks were wide and varied, as anyone could hire a hero or heroine to help them.
Now, as any good hero or heroine knows, no one can make it on their own. A rousing trade had sprung up around hero’s Companions, whether it was a faithful steed or a hunting bird. This Companion would keep the hero or heroine company on their journey, and would often become the most loyal and trusted of friends. They would assist the hero or heroine in any task, and never asked for a reward beyond the love that their hero or heroine could give them.
But of course, sometimes a hero or heroine needs a little more help.
That is where the List comes in.
A document that can only be read if the hero or heroine is well and truly stumped, the List is a compilation of everyone that has ever helped a hero or heroine in the past. This help can range from physical training (Wiles M. Scott, Tavern Street, Docks District, Calegonia) to somewhere to rest for the night and get a meal (Maura Dunleavy, The Farm On The Hill, The Countryside). The List only revealed the names that the hero or heroine currently needed, and as a result, Emily Carlisle (Magical Support, The Stacks, Olden Street, Portsmouth) was almost never visited.
Which was good. If a hero or heroine walked into her library at the moment, she would be more than a bit embarrassed.
“Orpheus!” she called out, trying to pull herself up. “I need you!” A small globe of glass floated around the doorframe towards the entrance to the library. In it was a lovely, navy blue betta fish glaring at her with every ounce of ire it could manage. “I don’t care if I interrupted your reading,” Emily snapped as the globe floated closer. “Help me get my wand out.”
The fish seemed to roll its eyes as its globe floated up towards the vines wrapped around her feet. The plants she had to keep the books company got very enthusiastic sometimes, and, well. Now she was upside-down and couldn’t reach her wand. She gritted her teeth and tried to swing up again, scrabbling at the boot her wand was tucked into. Her fingertips had just brushed the hard crystal on the end when her stomach muscles gave out and she flopped back down. “Orphy, come on,” she whined, her arms swinging petulantly. The fish obligingly nudged his globe closer to her boot, wedging it above the crystal. He started to swim down, pushing against the knob. It was tightly wedged in her boot and didn’t move at first. Orpheus swam harder. Emily strained up, reaching as far as she could with her aching stomach muscles and tired arms. Finally, finally the wand began to move, one centimeter at a time. When it was halfway out it started to wobble, the crystal weighing it down until it fell.
Emily’s hand snapped out to catch it, the worn handle slapping into her palm like a handshake from an old friend. She flicked her wrist, blue sparks cascading out towards the vines. They immediately furled back, and she fell.
She twisted to land on her feet, nearly toppling into a pile of books. Her arms flew out to steady her. “Phew…” she said after a moment, relaxing. “Thanks, Orpheus. That was more excitement than I wanted this morning.” The small globe floated down after her, the fish blowing bubbles out into the water. She grinned and tapped the globe with her wand. A few bloodworms spun out into the water where the wand met the glass. Orpheus darted happily after them, his fins flaring out around him.
“All right!” Emily stretched, all of her morning chores finished with the unusually hazardous watering of her plants. “Let’s see if we have any heroes coming our way, shall we?”
The fish swam towards the front of the library again, the glass globe flashing in the sunlight filtering down from the skylights. It kept her lighting costs down, and kept her plants healthy, even if it wasn’t always the best for the books.
Despite the skylights, the front of the library was far brighter than the back, big store windows letting in the morning sun and the occasional flash from the illusionists across the street. She walked over to unlock the door, giving them a cheery wave as she flipped the little sign around to “open”. The List was a great thing to be on, sure, but it definitely wouldn’t pay the bills, so she sold potions and little pocket spells too. They were little things, like a potion to slow hair loss or a spell to attract pigeons (the darling little old lady that fed them in the park was worried that some were going hungry). Nothing too huge. Just enough to keep her magic from overflowing.
The big things were for when a hero or heroine came by. That was when she broke out her candles and silver circles to enchant their weapon or to brew up a phoenix potion to revive them right when they needed it the most. Sometimes, light flashed out of her windows, bright, flashing lights that lit up the whole street. Sometimes, smoke poured out of the cracks, and sometimes there was a darkness that seemed to swallow any light that dared to pass the storefront. It was those times that made her neighbors’ smiles stretch a little too tight, made passersby walk a little too quickly, and made it that much harder for people to look her in the eye. “Stay away from the Witch of the Stacks!” the whispers said. “She howls on a full moon. She can curse you just by looking at you. She’ll turn you into a toad and feed you to her carnivorous fish!”
(Personally, Emily took offense at that last one. Orpheus was perfectly well-behaved, and betta fish were only carnivorous for other fish, not toads. The rest… well, a witchy reputation helped business. The more scared people were, the more “legitimate” her magic became. Though honestly, this was a world where griffons roosted in your barn if you weren’t careful. Was an honest-to-gods witch really too hard to believe in?)
Orpheus’ globe floated down next to her to slot into his usual spot next to the register. He blew a few bubbles towards the enchanted parchment that updated whenever her name appeared on a Hero or Heroine’s list. Her library was large enough that she needed all the time she could get after it notified her. There was no telling how far she would have to go to get some of the things they were asking for- on one memorable occasion, she had to go all the way down to Level Two to retrieve a text about Earthwyrms (the dragon kind, not the friendly garden kind). They hadn’t been seen for several centuries, and as a result, the only books on them were the deepest into her library she had ever gone. It was a several day journey, and the Hero that was waiting for the book almost died when the golem protecting it mistook him for a threat. In its defense- his sword was unreasonably large, and he was ridiculously loud and brash. Anyone would have mistaken him for a threat.
Shining ink scrolled it way across the parchment. Two names: Sah’el a’Hamad and Allison Sanderson. Sah’el was rescuing a princess from a dragon, which made for easy enough magical support. Just some fireproofing on their armor, and voila. Dragon-proof hero.
Allison’s was a bit trickier. “Retrieving a magical artifact from the depths of the ocean- what?” Emily muttered, staring at the mission for a moment. “Who in the world would hire a Hero for something that absurd? Why not hire a mermaid or something- oh.” She tapped the parchment with her wand, seeking more information on the mission. The man doing the hiring was widely known as an eccentric. He was known only as the Collector, and everyone at the Hero Academy had learned to dread getting one of his missions. Allison Sanderson, a first-year Heroine, hadn’t yet learned to decline missions like that. “Poor girl,” Emily shrugged at Orpheus. “Guess we get to put together a mermaid transformation for her. Remind me where I keep the sea salt?”
The rest of the morning was spent gathering materials for the spells those two Heroes would need. Phoenix ash and dragon’s blood for the fireproofing (plus some red-flashing candles, for effect. Hey, a witch’s gotta protect her reputation, right?). Seawater, ground abalone, whale song, and a mermaid scale for the transformation into mermaid, and clean sand and the smell of sunshine for the transformation back into human.
The fireproofing would have to wait until Sah’el arrived with their equipment, but the transformation could be brewed in advance. Emily stared at the ingredients laid out in front of her, and let out a sigh. They were too big to fit in her little portable cauldron. She had to use her big one. “Orpheus, mind the shop,” she called over her shoulder as she headed back into her library. A few blubs echoed in the silence behind her, his version of a thumbs up. She passed the first few shelves without incident. Those were the lowest level books, the ones she used most often. They made the least trouble- they were opened so often that they spent all their free time napping. The ones further back were a bit more troublesome.
She cracked her knuckles, drew her wand, and started forward.
The light filtering down from the skylights seemed to dim the further she went. This was only Level One. The easiest level of her library to handle. Still, anyone that hadn’t been trained as a Caretaker would have difficulty handling the things these books threw at her. She still hadn’t found the last Hero to think that they could find something in her library without her help. She and Orpheus actually had a bet going for what happened to him. She thought one of the vampire books drained him dry and left him to turn into a pile of dust in a corner somewhere. He thought that the Hero was still alive somewhere, surviving off of the questionable mushrooms and small rivulets of water that sectioned off a few parts of Level One.
She stepped over one of those rivulets now, whispering a small charm. It shimmered into place around her, an early warning system in case anything decided to get frisky. The shelves towered up around her, much larger than anything would think they could if they only looked at her shop from the outside. It was one of the most magical things about The Stacks. It was such a large place- the single largest collection of magical knowledge in the world- tucked into such a small space. It was magic, of course. The last Caretaker once told her how the Heart of the Stacks kept it anchored to the space, and kept all the power from leaking out into the world. If it ever did, she told Emily, it would spell disaster of the world-ending variety.
“The Heart of this library is as ancient of a power as you will ever encounter,” the Caretaker said, her voice as dusty as the books she looked after. “You will likely never have to encounter it. I never did, in my time, nor the Caretaker before me. Only in times of direst need will the Heart of the Stacks be needed, and even then, only a true Caretaker will be able to harness its power. One who respects The Stacks and all its power, and who takes care of it as it takes care of her.”
“Have any Caretakers ever been men?” Emily had asked, listening with wide eyes.
The Caretaker shook her head. “One was given the honor of training for it, once.”
“What happened?” Emily breathed, her blue eyes growing wider.
“The Stacks swallowed him,” the Caretaker replied. “He has not been seen since.”
Emily recalled the memory with a fond smile as she let her fingertips trail over the books’ spines. Multi-colored sparks danced over them in her wake, harmless and entertaining. The books enjoyed her magic as much as she did. They were like children, grabbing at the illusions with open hands and wide eyes, listening to her tuneless humming with the enthusiasm of a baby listening to its first lullaby. One of them sent out a tendril to grab playfully at her ankle. The charm around her flashed, and she sent the tendril back with a flick of her wand.
Her large cauldron was tucked into an alcove near her collection of potions books. These were some of the easiest books she owned. A few of them burped out colored smoke, and once she’d gotten knocked out for an hour because one was playing with a sleeping potion, but they were mostly harmless. They liked clustering around the cauldron, and as a result she had to wade through several stacks of books before making it to the huge, iron-bellied thing. “All right, guys,” she said, preparing a levitation spell. “I’ve gotta borrow this for a few hours. I’ll send it right back when I’m done, okay?”
The pages of the books she’d pushed aside fluttered, covers flapping indignantly. “I know, I know,” she released the levitation spell, making the cauldron hover a few feet off the ground. “I’ll bring a few of you up to the shop with me so you can watch me make the potion, okay?”
Immediately after she said it, she knew it was a mistake. The books started leaping up around her, so excited by the prospect of watching a new potion being made that she was soon the center of a book tornado. “Enough!” she yelled, calming the tornado with a flick of her wand. She closed her eyes and pointed. “You, you, and you! The rest of you will have to wait for the next time I make a potion.” The three books she pointed at leapt into her arms, and the others huddled in an ashamed pile. “Maybe if you behave, I’ll let you come up sooner,” she said, marching away, the cauldron hovering meekly behind her. The trek back up to her shop was as uneventful as the trek down to get the cauldron, and when she finally walked back into her shop a customer was waiting for her.
“Miss Kione! What can I do for you?” Emily brushed off her skirt, letting the cauldron float itself over to an unoccupied corner of the shop.
The woman’s face was a shade of red that was unusual, even for her. She came in a few times a week for various things, including a love potion on one memorable occasion. The shade of red on her face when Emily told her she didn’t make love potions was the closest to the shade of red on her face now.
“Do you know how long I have been waiting?” Miss Kione drew herself up to her full, unintimidating height.
“Um. About an hour?” Emily replied, suddenly face-to-face with the woman’s tufted curls.
“Exactly! That is unacceptable!” She tried to look down her nose at Emily, a fact made difficult by the fact that she had to look up at the witch. “I was waiting here for an hour while your fish blew bubbles at me!”
“Oh, that’s how he talks,” Emily walked over behind the counter, watching the bubbles he was blowing towards her. “He says he was trying to tell you where I was, but you weren’t listening.”
“I don’t speak fish,” she sniffed, clearly insulted that Emily would even consider the fact that she might be able to communicate with a betta fish.
“Well, if you did, you would probably have known to come back tomorrow,” Emily clustered the ingredients on the counter together again, grabbing the seawater and abalone for the mermaid transformation potion. “I have two Heroes coming in today. I can’t help you.”
“Am I just supposed to live with the gnomes infesting my garden, then?” Miss Kione asked, her nose curling up in disgust.
Emily sighed. “Here,” she grabbed one of the standard pest-removal charms from behind the counter and tossed it at the woman. “Hang that on something in the middle of your garden and they’ll be gone before daybreak.”
“Wha-? Hey!” she spluttered, grabbing at the charm.
“Free of charge!” Emily said, a bright smile on her face as she ushered her out of the shop with a flick of her wand. Another flick changed the “Open” sign to “Closed”. Normally, she wouldn’t change it, but mermaid transformation potions were tricky things, and she didn’t want any more irate customers storming in and ruining her concentration.
“Orpheus, watch the door,” she ordered, dumping the seawater into the cauldron and lighting a fire underneath with a single, long match. “Let me know if either of the Heroes show up.”
He blew a stream of bubbles and floated over next to the door. She shot him a grateful smile, and turned back to her potion. The seawater was bubbling away, the quick-heat charm she’d put on her cauldron four years ago still holding as solid as the day she enchanted it. She added the abalone shell in a counter-clockwise spiral, watching it sink into the water. “Abalone for strength to take to the deep,” she chanted, waving her wand over the mix. “Seawater to keep from eternal sleep.” She picked up the handkerchief that she captured the whale song with and carried it over to the cauldron. “Whale song for breath and to shield against chill,” she poured the beautiful, eerie song into the cauldron, clockwise over the ground abalone. Finally, she picked up the mermaid scale, dropping it into a vial with a sharp clatter. “Mermaid’s scale to hold steady, and keep the spell still,” She picked up a long spoon and stirred the cauldron, first clockwise, then counter-clockwise. The abalone shell and whale song whirled around in the cauldron, mixing with the seawater and flashing pure white. She lifted some of it out, the shell shimmering silver as it mingled with the whale song. “There we go,” she breathed, pouring it over the mermaid scale. It turned a deep, clear blue as soon as the potion hit the scale, filling the vial with something that would instantly turn anyone that drank it into a mermaid.
“Anyone there, Orpheus?” she asked, finally leaning back to check the door. Her fish floated there, blocking a red-clad Hero from entering. “Oh. Uh. Hi!” she waved at the Hero, pushing Orpheus’ globe out of the way and letting them enter. “Sorry about that. I was brewing a potion for another Hero and I wanted to make sure to get it right.”
“Let’s get this over with,” they pushed past her, setting their shield down on the counter with a clank. “I do not enjoy being kept waiting.”
“And I don’t enjoy dealing with rude customers,” Emily put the vial on a shelf behind the counter, raising her chin as she turned. “Even if they are Heroes.”
The only visible part of their face was their dark eyes. They narrowed as they looked down at her. Unlike Miss Kione, this Hero was tall-over six feet- and the all-red armor and face wrapping was more intimidating than Emily cared to admit. “I am here because I go to face a dragon-”
“Yep, and you need fireproofing,” Emily finished, enjoying the look of surprise that widened those dark eyes. “I have a List too,” she waved the parchment at them, the scrolled ink of their name and mission still dark against the pale paper. “So, let’s get started, shall we? Is it just the shield, or do you want the whole set fireproofed?”
“I…” they started, and those dark eyes closed. “I can only afford the shield.”
“Well then,” she picked up the shield, grunting a bit at the weight. “Let’s make this as fireproof as possible, shall we?”
She carried it over to the circle of pale silver inlaid into the floor, letting it fall with a clatter onto the stone. The candles went next, and she set them up around the circle with some ceremony-- just because she didn’t like how rude the Hero was didn’t mean she couldn’t impress them with a little flair. She brought over the phoenix ash and dragon’s blood last, stepping into the circle and closing it with just a touch of power. A snap of her fingers lit the candles, and the red flared up, lighting the shop with a suitably magical glow.
A sound of surprise escaped the stoic hero, and Emily let herself bask in it for just a moment. This was what she was good at, what she lived for. The dramatic flair of a spell, the power humming through her fingertips. Her library behind her as she ground the ash and blood into paste to spread over the shield. Fireproofing was an easy enough spell, but after the mermaid transformation potion, she needed a little boost.
The library was perfect for things like this. A magical entity in and of itself, it was excellent to bolster any particularly tricky spells she needed to do, or (in this case) give her a little extra push if she still needed to do magic after doing one of those tricky spells. She tried not to rely on her magic, though. Sure, it was handy, but magic wasn’t exactly an infinite resource, you know? It regenerated over time, but often that was overnight, or over a period of days, weeks, or even months. The last time she had tried a Great Working (which should be done with at least three fully trained witches, by the way, and she was just one mostly-trained witchling at the time), it wiped her out for a full six months.
So she reached for the power entwined in her library, for the great, pulsing river that she knew ran throughout. It was like plunging your feet into a fresh, cold mountain stream, instantly waking and sending shivers all up and down the body. Emily suppressed a tremor as the power soaked into her, feeding up her spine and sinking roots into the ground. Pure and perfect, stretching down through all the levels of the library, right down to the heart. They spread out like a great tree, feeding power into her as she spread the paste across the shield.
Suddenly, one of the roots spasmed, sending a jolt of pain up Emily’s leg. She jumped, letting out a cry. Another root shot forward to take its place, and that one spasmed and died as well, something dark and rotten swallowing it whole. A feeling of wrongness began to creep into the roots from there, not quite the toxic darkness from before, but a sort of decaying fatigue, draining off the power as it went. Hurriedly, Emily shut off the connection to the library, but the wrongness remained, a crawling feeling up her arms and the back of her neck.
“Is everything all right?” Sah’el asked, their dark eyes concerned.
She snuffed the candles with a snap. “Fine. Take your shield and go.”
“But-”
“Go!” she practically hurled it at them, residual strength from her spellcasting giving the throw power enough to knock them back a few feet. “Leave, now!”
The Hero grabbed their shield and hurried out the door. No matter how brave or chivalrous they were, no one was foolhardy enough to face an angry witch. Orpheus floated over in their wake, worried bubbles trailing up to the small bit of space at the top of his globe.
“I don’t know, Orpheus,” she snapped, snatching up the candles and stalking over to stuff them in a box behind the counter. “Something’s wrong. Something is very, very wrong.”
