“No. Just interesting.” Ilyndra shrugged, smiling at her wife. “Sorry to disappoint, my love.” Vaelith loved nothing better than a good spot of danger.
The road to River Bend curved gently past a mill where the water wheel turned with enchanted regularity and through a stretch of oak forest that turned the afternoon golden and dappled.
A woman sat on a cart six miles from the border, her pony grazing on a nearby patch of grass. She was small, sturdy, and grey-haired. A human, well into her later years. She squinted up at the four of us with a frown.
“Good day, madam. Are you the one who sent the missive to Feravael?”
“Oh! You came!”
“The realm’s security is our responsibility.” And the Queen was craving some entertainment, but I didn’t need to tell her that. “Can you show me the dangerous apparition you sent word about?”
She pointed down the road with her stick. “He’s that way. Took you long enough, by the way.”
“He?”
“A young man.” She saidyoung manthe way you’d sayunattended fireorsuspicious package. “In scant clothing. Magical, I think. I was on my usual route, on the way home from River Bend, when I passed him. Naturally, I slowed down and kept an eye on him, from a safe distance.”
“Naturally.” I nodded. “Could you give us more information?”
“He stumbled into the road as if from thin air!”
“Could he have been behind something?”
“Heck if I know, but he was suspicious.” She frowned. “He tried to speak to me, but it was no language I’ve ever heard. Definitely magical.”
“Did you respond?”
“I don’t deal with magic.” Humans often said that, right before demanding magic solve their problems. “He looked enchanted. Dangerous. Kept smiling.”
“Dangerous.”
“And beautiful,” the old woman said, as if this were damning evidence. “Too beautiful for Clovermere.”
I supposed that was fair. Clovermere was a sensible, gentle place, not known for beauty. Pretty, sure, but not beautiful.
Vaelith shifted in her saddle, looking around. “What was he wearing?”
The old woman’s mouth worked for a moment, as if the answer was physically difficult to produce. “Pink,” she finally said. “Sparkly pink. I think he forgot to put on his trousers; his lower half was clad only in short drawers. And a tunic that —“ She gestured vaguely at her own chest. “It ended here.”
I couldn’t imagine that at all. “Thank you for your service to the kingdom. Making a report was the right thing to do. We’ll investigate.”
“Careful. Anyone who smiles that brightly is sure to be dangerous.”
“We are always careful, madam.” I turned back to my soldiers. Vaelith looked like she was going to laugh. Ilyndra was peering down the road, her horse so close to her wife’s that their legs touched. I cleared my throat. “Thyren, take down the witness information in case we have more questions.”
Vaelith snickered. I shot her a hard look. She shrugged and smirked at me.
This was, perhaps, the most absurd missive we’d gotten recently, but I didn’t want the locals to think we laughed at their concerns. Giving the woman a little salute, I steered Bram around her cart, and coaxed him into a trot.
Within minutes, he appeared. I understood why the woman was concerned. This person was something none of us had ever encountered before. He didn’t look dangerous, just… strange.
It was the sparkle that caught the light first. The man’s clothing caught the sun and threw it back in tiny prismatic bursts, as if he had jewels sewn into his tiny trousers. He was walking with the wide-eyed determination of someone who had no idea where he was going but had decided that going somewhere was better than standing still.
He was a human-shaped adult, smallish with a slim body. His clothing would barely pass for undergarments in Qoksmere. The top was a tunic in the loosest possible definition of the word. It ended several inches below his chest, leaving his flat, toned stomach bare down to his waistband, which was well below his navel. Two lines of muscle angled down from his hips, and a thin trail of hair pointed the way to where a sparkly garment hugged a nice-sized bulge between his legs. His arms and legs were bare, except for some unusual footwear.
He looked up at us, at four mounted warriors in armor, weapons visible, riding in formation on warhorses that would dwarf most creatures, and he waved.
And it was not a tentative, uncertain wave. It was a full-armed, frantic wave, the kind a person used to call for help, accompanied by what appeared to be a full-body wiggle of relief.
