Riss Cobalt, mercenary sorceress supreme, falls into possession of a treasure map and sets off to find the treasure.
Remember: if you like the story, check out the book Kismet and Tell
Treasure Hunt:
An Early Adventure in Sorcery
“Okay, now…” I muttered to myself as I walked along in the late morning light, looking at the sketched lines of the map on the piece of paper in my hand. I brushed blue bangs out of my eyes. “I turn left at the fork in the road.”
I looked up from the paper and looked ahead of me. There was mountain to the left of me and mountain to the right of me. And nothing ahead of or behind me but the rocky road I was on. And there was no fork in the road. The road went in only one direction for as far as I could see, which was pretty far considering my sharp eyesight.
My grip tightened on the parchment in my hand as I had a sudden urge to crumple the paper and toss it away in frustration. “Whoever drew this map must have been CRAZY!” I cried out. “How can I turn left at a fork in the road when there’s no fork in the road?! And whoever heard of putting a fork in a mountain road, anyway?! What am I supposed to do? Walk into the side of the mountain?”
I stood there and fumed for a minute. “GAAAHH!” I cried out suddenly in exasperation as I fell to a sitting position. “It seemed like such a good idea at the time! What went wrong?!”
I looked at the map again and my mind flashed back to the events of a couple of days earlier…
I was browsing through a display of recently acquired maps in a cartographer’s shop in Nortown that afternoon. I was hoping to find a map that would lead to some great magical or monetary treasure. But as I looked at the various maps, I could tell they weren’t the kinds of maps that I wanted. I wasn’t interested in what the lay of the land had looked like fifty or a hundred years ago – unless it had to do with a lost treasure, which these didn’t.
Sighing in disappointment, I left the store and I crossed in front of an alley. My keen hearing picked up a noise from the alley, and I stopped in my tracks. I instantly heard the noise again.
“Psst,” went the noise.
I looked inside the alley, and saw a hand motion to me from the shadows. Curious, I went towards it.
“Hey, girl,” said a voice from the shadows. “I saw you leave the cartographer’s shop disappointed. I have a map here that I think you might like.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said skeptically as I crossed my arms over my tunic-covered chest. “And how would you know what kind of map I would like?”
“Well, I know who you are, Marissa Cobalt. Your blue hair gives you away as the infamous bandit-thrashing, treasure-hunting, mercenary sorceress.”
I dropped my arms and blinked for a second. “Oh, uh, right. Okay. So, what kind of map do you have?”
“A very special map.”
I rolled my eyes. “Uh….Okaaaayyy…How special?”
“Very, very special. It shows the location of a secret treasure of great value.”
My eyes widened and a grin of greed formed of my face. “It does?! That’s great! I’ll take it!” I didn’t care what the treasure was. It was secret and had great value, and that’s all that mattered to me.
“Okay. You can have it for 100.”
My jaw dropped. “100??? How about 50?”
“50??? For a map like this? You must be joking. I’ll go 80.”
“65.”
“75.”
“70. And that’s my final offer.”
“All right. 70 gold pieces it is.”
“Great!” I took out 70 gold coins from my leather purse and handed them to him. “Now, GIMMIE!”
From the shadows, the figure handed me a rolled piece of parchment. “Here you go, Miss Marissa. Happy hunting!”
I smiled big. “Thank you!!”
Clasping the parchment to my chest happily, I left the alley and walked off.
Now, as I remembered the scene, I realized something that I hadn’t then. Hidden among all the city noise, there was the sound of a scuffle from the alley followed by a muffled cry. But I was so giddy as I walked away that the sounds didn’t register to me.
“Hmmm…” I said to myself as I sat there on the mountain road. “I wonder what that scuffle and cry was all about?”
“It was because we want the map, Blue-hair!” said a sudden voice from above me. “Malcolm had stolen it from us, but by the time we got to him, he’d already sold it to you. Now give it back to us, girl!”
“Huh?” I said as I stood up and looked around. I saw about ten men perched on mountain crags around me. If they were trying to intimidate me, it didn’t work. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at them. “Who are you guys, and what do you all want with a worthless map?”
“Worthless?? That map isn’t worthless! It leads to a great treasure that Don Gian wants, and we will get it for him like he hired us to! Now give us the map, girl, or else!”
“Oh, yeah? Or else what?” I know. It’s a cliché comeback. But I couldn’t resist.
“Or else you’ll be very sorry.”
“HA! I seriously doubt that! And I’m certainly not giving up this map to a bunch of stupid hired thugs like you!”
“Stupid? We’re not stupid, silly girl! We managed to track you here to the Bakar Mountains, didn’t we?”
“Yeah. But that’s not why I called you all stupid. You’re stupid because you’ve obviously forgotten whom it is you’re threatening. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Marissa Cobalt. I am the ruthless sorceress supreme, the bane of all evil in Andor, and your worst nightmare. RAZE BLAST!”
I activated the spell I had mentally cast while I was bantering with the men. There was an incredible explosion that sent rock and men flying HIGH into the air. The thugs crashed down a minute later, and didn’t move again.
Feeling very satisfied with myself, I looked at the map again. “Well, you’re a very important piece of paper, aren’t you?” I said to the map. “Don Gian, a big crime boss in Nortown, wants your treasure. And now, I want it even more than before. But how do I find it, if I’m supposed to turn left at a non-existent fork in the road?” I took a closer look at the map, and mentally slapped my forehead. “DUH! I miscalculated. It’s futher down the road.”
Half an hour later, I found the fork in the road. It wasn’t much. Just a little crevasse in the mountains on the left. But it could still be considered a fork in the road. So I entered the crevasse. The map said there was a cave in there somewhere. I looked for it as I made my way slowly along the quite narrow crevasse. Thankfully my slim figure made the going somewhat easy.
About three-quarters of the way into the crevasse, I found the cave entrance. It was high above me on the right. The climb up there looked like it would be rough. Fortunately, I didn’t have to climb.
“Levitation!” I called out, activating a simple, but somewhat powerful, little spell.
I floated up to the cave and landed on the edge. The inside was utterly dark, so I pulled out a small crystal globe from the magic pocket inside my little brown cloak and cast another little spell. “Light!” The globe lit up with a bright white light and floated up to the ceiling. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw that I wasn’t alone in the cave. Five huge brown hulks stood in the cave, facing me with red eyes blazing with hatred and bloodlust. Their long arms held huge clawed hands out at me, and fanged mouths opened in anticipation.
“Uh-oh,” I said softly. “Trolls.”
The monsters advanced towards me, and I took a step back. But that was as far as I could go without falling out of the cave.
“Yipes! Can’t go that way. I’ll have to face these monsters. Now, what did the people of the village down there tell me about these things? Oh, yes.” Runes flashed in my mind, and a ball of flame formed in the air before me. The monsters saw the fire and stopped moving. Fear showed in their red eyes. I grasped the ball of fire in a gloved hand and tossed it at the trolls. “Fireball!”
The Fireball exploded, setting the five trolls on fire. They screamed in agony and anger as the fire burned them alive. After a couple of minutes, all that remained were piles of ash.
Sighing with relief, I stepped into the cave and made my way to the wide opening in the back. I kicked the piles of ash, just to be sure they couldn’t regenerate. The villagers had to me about the powers of the trolls. They could only be killed by something that could burn them; fire, acid, and lightning work best. Their natural magic makes them very strong and their claws extremely sharp so they can slice through just about anything. And they also have the power to regenerate, unless they’ve been burnt. But I didn’t think I really had to worry about that now.
I followed the wide passage down twists and turns, my globe light illuminating the way for me. I had to jump some cracks in the floor, and crawl up some slopes, but it wasn’t that bad. Fortunately, I didn’t run into any spiders. And I didn’t find any more trolls, either.
The long passage ended in a big cobweb-covered chamber. I scanned the webs for spiders, and sighed when my keen sight didn’t find any. Then I check out the rest of the place. It was clear except for some rocks on the floor, and a carved stone table at the far end. On the table sat a statue of gold encrusted with diamonds and rubies. My blue eyes widened and I fairly drooled with greed as I looked at the thing. It had to be worth a foturne! Definitely a treasure of great value. From the proceeds of selling that thing, I could buy lots of magical goodies and eat well for a long time!
Giggling happily, I ran up to the table and grabbed the statue. But in my exstatic state, I didn’t notice the dust-covered runes on the table…or the thin string attached to the back of the statue. The string broke as I picked up the statue. My keen hearing heard a low click from the walls. Instantly, I realized my blunder.
“Uh-oh! Traps!”
Slots opened in the walls around me, and I dropped to the ground. Arrows shot out from the slots, crossing the airspace I had just vacated. When the volley of arrows was over, I stood back up, just in time to see a section of wall behind the table open up. The ground shook, and rumbling could be heard from the opening. I had a pretty good idea of what was coming.
“YIPES!”
I got a good grip on the statue and ran out of the chamber. The rumbling got louder as I ran, and I chanced a quick glance behind me. Yep, I had guessed right. A large boulder was bearing down on me rather fast. I picked up my speed, and backtracked back down the passageway, sliding down the slopes I had previously crawled up and taking running jumps over the cracks in the floor. All the while, the boulder got closer and closer.
I reached the cave opening with the boulder only a few yards behind me. I ran for the opening and quickly cast and activated a Levitation spell. I floated up out of the cave, and a few seconds later the boulder rolled out and fell to the ground with a loud CRASH that sent up a cloud of rock. I sighed with relief and Teleported myself back to Nortown.
Back in town, I went to a pawnshop. The owner, a middle-aged dark haired man, examined the statue.
“Exquisite,” he said.
“Yes. But how much is it worth?”
“I’ll give you 20 gold pieces for it.”
THUD! I hit the floor in shock. Quickly, I clambered back up. “20??? That’s all?? I thought you said it was exquisite.”
“Well, Miss Marissa, it is exquisite. An exquisite forgery. None of the items are real. It’s gold plated, and the gems are reproductions made with magic.”
I stared at him in shock for a minute, my mouth agape. Finally, what he said sunk in. “DAMMIT!! I nearly got killed for a worthless piece of junk???” Then I remembered that Don Gian was after the statue, too, and a wry smile crossed my lips. “Well, can you gift wrap it for me?”
The shopowner looked at me in confusion, but did as I asked. I scribbled a note and tied it and the map to the package, then crossed the town to the big estate of Don Gian. I left the package on the front step of his big mansion and knocked. Then I headed off for a restaurant.
What was the note I left him, you ask? It read: “Here’s the so-called treasure of great value you were after. Good luck selling this worthless piece of junk. Have a nice day. Marissa Cobalt.”
Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World is a novel in which nothing is quite what it seems and everything is loaded with shadowy dreams of the past and nightmares set to soul-pounding music of the future.
Valiant escapades, wicked battles, and heart wrenching loss await readers in this fourth installment of the bestselling Dragoneer Saga. Hold onto your dragon!
