Tales of Ethshar

“Can’t you do something?” She was starting to go hoarse from shouting.

“The countercharm needs oak leaves from the very top of a tree ten times the height of a man,” Deru called back, his voice sounding weaker. “That’s what the tea is made from. Even if these trees are oaks, I can’t climb that high when I’m this size!”

“Can’t you levitate?”

“Where the owl can see me? Besides, I lost my lantern.”

“So what do we do?” Her voice cracked on the final word.

“We wait until the owl goes looking for easier prey, and then I fetch my pack from the clearing.”

That didn’t sound so very difficult — but what if the owl was stubborn? What if Gar noticed her absence and came looking for them? What if whatever lived in that hole came out? Kirna eyed the black opening fearfully.

She didn’t really have much choice, though. She looked up.

The owl was still up there. It seemed quite persistent. She wondered if perhaps Gar had put a spell on it so that it would guard the tower.

She waited for what seemed like hours, but which the motion of the greater moon told her was only minutes; then Deru’s voice called, “Your Highness?”

“What is it?” she snapped. She was afraid that their conversation was keeping the owl interested, and that it might wake whatever was in that hole.

“I didn’t want to worry you, but I think I had better warn you — I hurt myself in the fall. I landed on a thorn. I bandaged it, but I’m still bleeding pretty badly, and I’m not sure I can walk.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” Kirna shrieked.

“I thought you should know,” Deru called back weakly.

“Idiot!” Kirna shouted. She rammed her fist against a branch of the bush.

This was a nightmare. Everything had gone wrong. When she had followed Gar from Quonmor she had thought she was bound for love and adventure and a life of magic, and now... well, she had gotten some magic, anyway, but she was alone in the dark, dirty and bruised, stuck between a monstrous great bird and a mysterious hole-dweller, with the only one who could help her probably bleeding to death a few feet away.

It wasn’t fair! She was a princess. These things weren’t supposed to happen to her. People were supposed to obey her and protect her, not lock her up or steal her blood and tears or shrink her down to nothing or carry her around like a sack of onions — and drop her!

It just wasn’t fair at all. The World was not treating her properly.

If she could just find Deru’s pack and get the antidote she would be fine, she could go home to her parents and pretend this was all just some grand lark — but that owl was out there, and she didn’t know where the pack had fallen. If the owl would just go away...

But it was hungry.

And whatever lived in that hole might be hungry, too. It might come leaping out at her at any moment.

She frowned and looked at the hole. She had had quite enough unpleasant surprises. At least if she knew what lived in there she’d know whether it was dangerous. Whatever it was, it was probably asleep; she could creep down and take a look, then slip back out.

She picked up a big stick — a tiny twig, actually, but to her it was as thick as her arm and somewhat longer than she was tall. Thus armed, she crept across the dead leaves and down the sloping earth into the hole.

She had only gone a few steps when she stopped; ahead of her the hole was utterly black. The moonlight did not reach that far. Going farther suddenly didn’t seem like a good idea.

She suddenly wanted to cry. Here she was trying her best to do something useful, something to improve her situation, and it wasn’t working. She sniffled.

Then she sniffled again.

There was a smell here, a smell she recognized.

Rabbit.

She suddenly relaxed. This was a rabbit hole! Rabbits wouldn’t hurt her, even at this size — they were harmless vegetarians. All she had to worry about was the owl.

That was quite enough, though, if it wouldn’t give up and go away. Then a thought struck her.

The owl was staying around because it was hungry, and knew there was prey here. All she had to do was feed it, and it would leave.

She gathered her courage, raised her stick — she was trembling, she realized — and charged forward into the blackness, shouting. “Hai, rabbits! Come out, come out! Get out of here!”

There was a sudden stirring in the warm darkness, a rush of air, and she found herself knocked flat against the tunnel wall as something huge and furry pushed past. She flailed wildly with her stick, but whatever it was was gone.

After a moment the racket subsided. She hoped that at least one of the furry idiots had fled out into the open.

She turned and headed out of the tunnel — or started to. At the mouth of the hole she abruptly found herself face to face with a rabbit that had apparently decided its departure had been too hasty.

“Yah!” she shouted, jabbing her stick at the rabbit.

It turned and fled, kicking dirt and bits of leaf at her; she blinked, trying to shield her eyes. Then she pursued.

When she emerged into moonlight she saw that the rabbit was still under the bush; she ran at it, screaming and waving her stick.

The rabbit fled again, hopping out into the clearing...

And then, without a sound, the owl struck.

The rabbit let out a brief squeal, and then bird and prey were both gone, vanished into the night.

For a moment Kirna stared at nothing; the strike had been so fast, so silent, and so sudden that at first she had trouble realizing it had happened.

And when she did, she also realized how close she had come to following the rabbit out of the bush, trying to herd it further. She flung away her stick and let out a strangled gasp.

For a moment she stood there, looking out into the night — first at the clearing, then up at the sky.

The owl was gone. The rabbit was gone. Everything was still.

And Deru’s pack was out there somewhere.

It was several minutes before she could work up her nerve to go find it.

She was still searching when Deru staggered out to join her. His face and bare chest were deathly pale, and one leg was wrapped in a bloody bandage made from the tunic he had doffed.

“There,” he said, pointing.

She hurried to the spot he indicated, and a moment later she held the precious flask. She turned to Deru.

“Is there any ritual? Anything special we have to do?”

He turned up a palm. “Just drink it. One sip.”

She opened the flask and sipped, then handed the rest to Deru — barely in time, as she began growing the instant she swallowed.

The oak-leaf tea had a harsh, slightly nutty taste, but she hardly noticed as she watched the world around her shrink back to normal. The bush she had sheltered beneath, which had seemed as big as a castle, barely reached her waist; the tower wall, while still massive, was no longer the vast World-girdling thing it had been a moment before.

It was also far closer than she had realized.

She looked up at the barred window of her room, and saw that their entire adventure had only taken them a yard or so beyond the bars.

Then Deru, who had been nowhere to be seen, shot up to his old height beside her; she stepped back to avoid catching his elbow in her chest. He staggered.

He looked awful — and, she realized, it was her fault. He had come here to save her. And it had been her own fault she needed saving in the first place.

She hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt. And no one had really meant her any harm, either. She had