Riss Cobalt, sorceress supreme, suddenly finds herself having to take care of a baby in this short adventure taking place before my novel, Kismet and Tell.
Remember: if you like this and my other AiS stories, then check out the novel they're based on. Just go to the "books" link for the info on KaT.
Adventure in Babysitting:
An Early Adventure in Sorcery
Well, when I set up camp and went to bed that night, I was alone. No one was nearby. What all happened between bedtime and morning, I don’t really know. I’m a fairly sound sleeper, you see. All I know is that I was having a very nice dream about raiding a bandit camp, and then there was a loud “WAAAAAHHHH!” in my ear, waking me up.
“Okay, okay,” I said groggily as I sat up. “I’ll fix your bottle….”
Then it hit me.
“WAIT A MINUTE!!! Since when do I have a baby???”
I turned around and found a crying baby girl lying on the ground beside me. My jaw dropped. I thought, What in the name of Dumarh????
Instinctively, I picked the baby up and cradled it.
“Where did you come from, little one?” I said as I rocked the baby soothingly, and she finally stopped crying. “Where’s your Mama and Papa?”
Twigs cracked in the forest before me. I looked, and saw a group of seven bandits walk out.
“They’re right here, Marissa Cobalt,” the lead bandit said. He held up two severed heads, one a brown-haired man’s, the other a blonde woman’s. Expressions of terror were frozen on their faces.
My eyes widened in horror. “My gods!” My mind flashed back to seven years earlier when bandits raided my town right before my little eight-year-old eyes, and first attacked and killed my parents. Fury took over, and my eyes narrowed as I stood up. “You bastards! What did you kill them for?”
“None of your business, Blue-hair! Now, hand over the baby!”
I blinked a couple of times. “Why? What do you want a poor, helpless baby for?”
“For the money, of course!”
“Money?” I asked, curious.
“Yes! The two fools we killed,” he said, raising the heads for emphasis, “were Lord Etain’s son and daughter-in-law. We want the baby to hold for ransom.”
My mind whirled. Lord Etain was my main employer, the top lord of Westover. I’m held on retainer for Etain and the lords of Westover, working whatever “odd jobs” they want me to do, and in return they pay my bills in the city as long as I claim the city of Westover as my residence. Now these fool bandits had just killed Etain’s son and the son’s wife, and now wanted the baby girl to ransom off. Well, I wasn’t about to let them get away with that injustice. Oh, no. Not by a long shot. Not me, Marissa Cobalt, the ruthless mercenary sorceress supreme and the bane of all evil in the world of Andor.
“You’re going to ransom the baby yourselves?” I asked, sounding incredulous. Which I was. Bandits normally aren’t smart enough to come up a plan like that themselves. Someone had to have put them up to it.
“Not us specifically, no,” the bandit in charge said. “Our employer is going to ransom the baby.”
“Your…employer? And who’s that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“DUH! Of course I would. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
“Oh. Okay then. Well, our employer is Lord Dallinn. Now, hand the baby over!”
“HA! If you think I’m going to hand over this baby to a bunch of third-rate crooks like you all, you got another think coming!”
“Have it your way, then! CHARGE!!!!!”
Uh-oh! Now I was in quite a predicament. Seven bandits were rushing at me with their swords drawn, and I had a baby in my arms. Oh, what to do, what to do?!
The runes flashed in my mind and I quickly chanted the spell for a Fireball. But, to my horror, I felt no buildup of magic power like I usually do. Oh, great! Now I had another problem added to my predicament. It was THAT time of the month! No wonder I’d slept so soundly and had felt exhausted the past few of days. Dammit! Now I had the choice to either use my shortsword one-handed or to run.
Well, seeing as how I’m not the type to run, I held the baby in my left arm and drew my short sword with my right hand.
The bandits charged at me head on. They had their swords raised high over their heads in an idiotic move that left them wide open. When they were close enough, I tossed the baby high in the air. Then with three very quick slashes of my short sword, I disembowled two of the lead bandits and nearly decapitated the chief. Then I jumped up and caught the infant while it was still in mid-air, did an aerial sommersault, and landed in a crouch behind the remaining four bandits. They turned to me as I was standing up, and my sword struck with the speed of a snake, piercing two bandits through the chest and slitting a third’s throat. The remaining bandit wisely fled the scene.
I wiped my sword on the grass and then sheathed it. Then I looked at the child in my arms. She looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back. I couldn’t help it. She was just so cute! And unlike her elders, she had no idea who I was. She didn’t know my bad reputation. All she knew was that I had helped her. So she liked me. Just my luck that the first person who liked me and wasn’t afraid of me would be a little baby!
I headed off into the forest to look for the scene of the horrible crime committed against the child’s parents. Using my keen sight, I tracked the bandits’ movements back to the road where I found that an ornately decorated carriage had been overturned. The white horses were dead, their throats slashed. The decapitated bodies of a richly dressed man and woman (Etain’s son and daughter-in-law, I guessed) and the dead bodies of their attendants lay in the middle of the road. It was quite a gruesome scene, actually. I took heart in the fact that I had managed to dispense at least some justice for them. I figured the baby had somehow managed to crawl away during the fracas and somehow find her way to me. Maybe Dumarh, the god of Goodness and Light, had led her to me. I don’t know. But at least she found me so I could take care of her.
I dug through the items scattered in the overturned carriage and found a bag of the baby’s things. I slung it over my shoulder and hit the road, heading for Westover, intending to return the baby to Etain and explain what had happened. After I took care of Dallinn first, of course. Luckily both lords could be found in the port city, since Dallinn was one of the lesser lords of Westover. At least it wasn’t too far to the city. Only a couple of days. I shouldn’t have any trouble taking care of the baby for that long, I thought. Right?
Who was I kidding?? Travel during the day was fine. It was no problem carrying her while I walked. And she gave me no trouble at all. But that night…. I tried to feed her. I mushed up some vegetables I had stored in my magic pocket. More of them got on me than in her mouth, and what she did eat she immediately threw back up. And I didn’t have any milk for her, so I had to give her water. She didn’t like it too much, but she kept it down, thankfully. But oh, what I would have given to have a wet nurse with me! Then came time to change her. That was fairly easy. The only problem was the SMELL! I didn’t think a baby could do that much! And then she didn’t want to sleep when I did. So I stayed up half the night with her until she finally fell asleep. I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before she woke me up again to feed her. So I had to mush up more vegetables. Thankfully, she managed to eat and keep most of them down that time.
Come morning, I hit the road again, and the baby gave me no trouble while I walked. By noon, I came to the gates of the port city of Westover. Everyone I passed as I made my way into city and down the streets gave me odd looks. But that was completely understandable. Me, Marissa Cobalt, with a baby?? A very strange scene it certainly was.
I approached a rather large, fancy house on the eastern side of the city. A pair of guards stood by the gateway of the wrought iron fence that enclosed the house and acres of surrounding land. When the guards saw me approach them, fear crossed their faces.
“Ma…Marissa Cobalt,” one stuttered.
“I’ve come to see Lord Dallinn,” I told them frankly. “Let me pass.”
“Y…Yes, ma’am,” the other guard said.
They stepped aside and allowed me through the gate. They said nothing about the baby. I guess they didn’t even notice it. I followed a curved path through a flower garden until I came to the front door. I told the doorman that I’d come to see Dallinn and he promptly escorted me inside and down a long hall to a large and elegantly decorated receiving room. Lord Dallinn himself rose from his plush chair by the big bay window and approached me. Lord Dallinn was a tall, middle-aged, dark-haired man with a fine green velvet suit on. He bowed before me.
“Miss Marissa Cobalt,” he said with his deep voice. “It is a pleasure to see you. To what do I owe the honor of your visit to my humble home?”
“I just wanted to tell you that I won’t let you get away with your plan to ransom off this child to Lord Etain,” I told him.
A brief look of shock and anger crossed his face before he caught himself and put on a look of innocent surprise instead. “Oh? I…I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Marissa.”
“Don’t think me such a fool, Dallinn! I know all about it! I killed the bandits you hired, but not before they told me the plan. Do you honestly think I would let you get away with assassinating Etain’s son and daughter-in-law and then ransoming their child off?”
“No…I guess not,” he said.
His left arm moved slightly. Before I could figure out what it meant, someone stepped up behind me and hit me in the back of the head. I slumped to the floor, and saw Dallinn take the baby from my arms just before I passed out.
How long I remained unconscious, I’m not sure. But when I finally woke up, I was furious. Dallinn would definitely receive my brand of swift justice. I just needed to find the bastard first.
I looked around the vacated room for clues but found none. Not giving up, I wandered around the room, taking a closer look. My persistence paid off. I notice a disturbed patch of dust on the floor by the wall. It looked like a door had scraped across the dust. But it was just a wall. There was no door. Or was there?
I studied the wall, and touched one of the whitewashed bricks. There was a small grinding sound, and part of the wall swung out. The sound of a baby’s cry echoed out to me. I took off into the torchlit passageway at a full run.
The long passage ended and I came to a sudden halt in a small chamber. The scene before me gave me chills. The baby lay on an altar that was set up in the middle of the room. A magic circle had been drawn on the floor around it. Torchlight illuminated the magic runes and symbols that had been drawn on the walls in chalk. Dallinn and another man stood around the baby. They wore black robes. Dallinn held a curved knife over the baby. Though I’d never seen this before, I’d read about it and instantly recognized it. I’d hoped I’d never see it. Dallinn wasn’t going to ransom the baby. He was going to sacrifice her to Lord Yangul, the Dark Lord and god of Evil. But why?
“DALLINN!” I yelled. “STOP!!”
Dallinn looked up at me. “You can’t stop me, Marissa Cobalt! I WILL be the head lord of Westover! Yangul will grant that position to me! I only have to sacrifice Etain’s granddaughter to him to get it! HA HA HA HA HA!!!”
He raised the knife high, preparing to strike.
“NOOOO!!” I cried out in horror. A thought crossed my mind: Oh, why can’t I use my magic at a time like this? Wait! Maybe I can. I think the week is up today!
I pictured the runes and chanted. Magic power built up within me, and I felt a flash of relief. I pointed one finger at Dallinn, another at his cohort. “Dagger Bolt Shock!”
A bolt of lightning flew from each finger, striking their targets. Then men cried out in pain, dropped to the ground, and spasmed and passed out. I heaved a huge sigh and tied the two men up with rope from my cloak’s magic pocket. Then I picked the baby up from the altar. She smiled up at me as I left the chamber, and I smiled back at her. She was so cute!
I went to Etain’s castle at the center of the city. The guards saw me coming and immediately got out of my way. I made my way into the castle and down the maze of corridors to the central chamber where I found Etain in audience with a few of the other, lesser lords. He saw me come in, and immediately dismissed the others. The big, aging, brown-haired lord motioned me forward. I stepped up to him.
“Miss Marissa,” he said. “Would you kindly explain your presence, and why you hold my granddaughter in you arms?”
I quickly told him all that had transpired and handed his granddaughter to him. His face took on an angry yet sorrowful expression at my story.
“I will see to Dallinn’s punishment at once,” Etain said. “As well as send a group out to retrieve the bodies of my son and daughter-in-law. Thank you, Miss Marissa, for saving my granddaughter.”
“You’re welcome, Lord Etain.”
I curtsied and left. Once outside and back on the street, I paused.
“Now,” I said to myself, “where’s a good place to find some lunch? I’ve managed to work up quite an appetite. Ah! I know! Bela’s Tavern is nearby. I’ll go there.”
I set off to get my lunch. At Etain’s expense, of course.
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