Poses!  You know the deal.  But this also gives us the chance to talk a bit about the character.  Laika is the youngest hero in the Tellest universe at the moment, which gives us some pretty interesting opportunities.  One of Aaron Canton’s creations, Laika has already had three stories that she’s taken part in, which is the most that any debut character has had in one anthology.

We wanted to give her a playful pose since she is so young and innocent at this stage.  Laika has the ability to take inanimate material and awaken them in the form of a golem.  here, we have her with “Goldie,” one of her creations.

In our final version, Hozure softened some of Laika’s features, while sharpening some of Goldie’s.

It’ll be interesting to see where this character goes.  She’s the first one that we’ve had that begins at a young age who we can see move along throughout her life’s journey.  She’s got a lot of positive influences in her life right now, and seeing where her studies will take her can be pretty entertaining.  Only time will tell.

We’ll be back in another three weeks with another Hozure character, but stay tuned next week for some kobolds from our upcoming Quantum Quest expansion!

The post Character Art – Laika, the Golem-Maker appeared first on Tellest.

“Mr. Bestle! Mr. Bestle!” called Laika as she ran up to the Vestigo Mage Guild. Arendal’s test was in just a few hours, but she’d finally finished putting all her plans together and was ready to advise him just as Mr. Renzeya had predicted. Of course, she had to get inside first. “Please let me in!”

Bestle chuckled as Laika reached him. “Hmm,” he said as he looked down at the girl. “That depends. What are you here for?”

“I’m here for Arendal!” Laika said. “He’s got a super-big test today, and he needs my help!”

“I see.” Bestle hesitated. “Unfortunately, we do not let guests visit our apprentices on days when they are taking tests performed before senior mages, as Arendal is today. Previous visitors distracted the mages who were proctoring the test and—”

“I won’t distract anyone! I promise!” Laika pressed her hands together. “During the test, I’ll be real quiet and sit up straight and won’t fidget or anything!” She didn’t know why adults didn’t like fidgeting, but guessed maybe mages were scared of it because if you were casting a big spell and moved your hands wrong you might do something silly like turn yourself purple instead of whatever you were trying to do. But whatever their reason, Laika knew she could make herself sit still if the adults insisted. “Please let me in!”

Bestle looked reluctant. “We really don’t allow…”

Laika waved a golem follower forward and took a box from its hands. Lily Naphkator, a capable warrior who hung out at the guild a lot, had taught her what she said was a very useful technique for when authority figures tried to get in the way of an important quest. Laika had never tried it before, but it seemed like the perfect strategy to get her past Bestle so she could find Arendal and stop him from being sent back to his boring old farm. “What if I bribe you?” Laika asked, giving Bestle the box. “Then will you let me in?”

Bestle’s beard quivered, and then he let out a deep belly laugh. “Typically you should not tell someone you’re trying to bribe them, Laika. Bribery is supposed to be more subtle.”

Now that Laika thought about it, she remembered Naphkator mentioning that. “Aww,” she said. “I’m sorry I messed that up. But, um, I can try again! I—”

“Do not worry,” said Bestle. He opened the box and blinked, then took out a very small golem. It was waving its arms and jumping around like a mighty brawler, even though it was only three inches tall. “Is this gold?”

“Uh-huh,” said Laika. “I made it out of my earrings and jewelry and stuff!”

Bestle inclined his head. “You must really want to see your friend if you’re willing to give up all your jewelry.”

“More than anything!” Laika pressed. “It’s really, really important!”

“Well…” Bestle was silent for a moment. “In that case…of course you can see him. And you can keep this.” He pressed the golem back into Laika’s hand. “Arendal should be in his room—”

“Third floor, I know! Thanks, Mr. Bestle!” Laika chirped as she raced past him and into the tower.

When Laika reached Arendal’s room and pushed through the unlocked door, she saw a scene of total chaos. Arendal was lying in the floor surrounded by planks of wood dyed several colors, boxes of nails, hammers, and other tools, and even a big tool chest in one corner. Half-completed crates and piles of rubble were scattered throughout the tiny room, including two on the desk and one at the foot of the bed. Arendal himself had raised his hands to the back of his head like he was afraid his hair would run away. “I can’t do this!” Arendal was groaning. “It’s impossible!”

“Arendal?” Laika ventured. “Are you okay?”

Arendal rolled over, knocking into another half-completed crate, wincing as he did so. When he saw Laika, a frown crossed his face. “Thanks a lot, Laika!” he snapped. “You got Master Cenard to think I can build these stupid magic boxes, and now I have to build a huge one tonight, and I can’t do it! All the older mages will think I’m bad at magic, and when they’re done laughing at me, they’ll throw me out! I’ll have to go back to the farm and—”

“Nuh-uh!” Laika held up a hand. “I have an idea!”

“Laika, you can’t have your golems build the box for me when the mages are watching. They know I can’t make golems; they’ll never believe it’s me doing it!” He shuddered. “A couple weeks ago I asked Master Cenard if anyone ever failed the test real bad. I was thinking of things like, I don’t know, using the wrong spell and turning the crate into a hungry tiger or something, but he told me about one time when the mages caught a student cheating. Apparently this kid had really rich merchant parents, and so she bought a magical crate like the one the mages wanted and tried to sneak it into the exam room with an invisibility spell she got from somewhere. The mages caught her and cast a spell to take her magic away! But they didn’t let her leave since her apprenticeship wasn’t done, and since she couldn’t do magic, the only way she could be ‘useful’ was by scrubbing floors and stuff. They kept her here until her parents gave the mages one of their summer mansions just so they could take her home.”

Laika shuddered as memories of her time slaving away for Mayor Maltra came back to her. “I wasn’t going to have my golems do it for you,” she said. “And I’m real sorry about doing it for you the first time. I got you in trouble, and I feel real bad. I hope you’re not really mad at me…”

Arendal said nothing for a few seconds before sighing. “Of course I’m not really mad,” he said. “I should have stopped you anyways, or at least told Master Cenard what happened. This is my fault too. And I know you were trying to help.”

Laika sat next to Arendal as her golems moved up behind her. “I still want to help you,” she said. “Because you’re a really good friend. And I know I can’t do it for you, but if I give you some advice, then you can do it yourself!”

“Advice?” Arendal smiled slightly. “Laika, you’re great with golems, but what do you know about wands or wards or other types of magic? This isn’t—”

“Not help like that,” said Laika. “I don’t know any spells for building boxes. But I know how to build stuff in general. Like these!” She waved her golems forward, and they obediently trotted up to her. “See? Before I put magic in them, I have to put them together! And if I do it wrong, they fall apart. So I got really good at learning how to design and build things.”

Arendal frowned. “But I can’t change the design of the box. I have to build it to look exactly like the mages want it to look.”

“You can’t change the final design, but you can change the middle design!” Laika scooted over to one of her golems. “When I had to build golems for Mayor Maltra, sometimes the people who bought them had real specific ideas of how they should look, but I couldn’t build them to look like that right away. Like, sometimes people wanted the wrists to be real long and thin like this so they’d look pretty.” She had her golem hold out its left arm; it had a very large hand, but its wrist was tiny and looked fragile. “But when I tried to build things like that right away, they always broke before I could finish magicking them to make them more solid! So guess what I did?”

“Um…” Arendal hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“I put other parts around the wrist first to brace it.” Laika traced the area around the golem’s wrist. “So the golems had thin wrists but also other pieces supporting them. Then I used magic to make the wrist real strong and tough, and when that was done, I could take out all the bracing stuff!” She reached out a hand, and the golem hauled her up just like she’d trained it. “And I bet you can do the same thing!”

Arendal tilted his head. “I don’t get it.”

“I’ll show you!” She grabbed Arendal’s hand and tugged him over to one of the half-built crates. “Okay, you need to put the red pieces at the top, right?”

“Yeah, but like I said, I can’t hold the wood and the hammer and nails at the same time.”

“So don’t!” Laika pointed at a spot in the exact center of the bottom layer of the crate. “Take a plank of wood and balance it on its end there.”

Arendal looked skeptical, but he picked up his wand and waved it. One of the pieces of wood shuddered and then floated over to the center of the crate before flipping about itself and balancing on its end. “What now?”

“Take one of the top pieces and balance it on top of that one!” said Laika triumphantly.

“…oh!” Arendal’s eyes brightened. He floated a red plank on top of the new beam in the center of the crate, then gently set it down and let it rest. “I get it! I don’t need to hold this one anymore because it’s balancing! I can pick up the hammer and nails by themselves to fix it in place!”

“Exactly!” cheered Laika as Arendal got to work. “That’s it!”

The nails soared into the air and positioned themselves over the plank as Arendal lined up the hammer. Then he swung it in a couple short, sudden thwacks to drive the nails through the top plank and into the planks that made up the walls. A few moments later, it was done, and he waved his wand one more time, removing the now-useless center post. “I got it!” he said, seemingly stunned. “I got one of the top ones done!”

“Yay!” yelled Laika, grinning from ear to ear. “See? You can totally do it!”

But Arendal’s smile faded almost as soon as it appeared on his face. “I don’t know,” he said.

“What don’t you know?”

“I mean, I can do one or two or a few…but the crate they want me to build is really huge, Laika.” Arendal gestured at the piles of wood all around them. “It’s got one hundred planks in it.”

Laika’s eyes widened. “One hundred? That’s a lot!”

“I know. And even if I can get some of the top ones up, I don’t know if I can do a hundred in a row.” Arendal sighed. “This is still better, though. Thanks.”

“Hey!” Laika shook her head quickly. “You can’t give up now; I’m not done giving you advice yet!” She trotted over to the crate. “I think there’s a way to make the planks real light and easy to move. You’re good at wards, right?”

Arendal shook his head. “I already thought of that. Sure, I know wards to make things lighter, so if I could write wards on the planks I could set up some to make the planks less heavy. But I already tried touching the planks with my quill, and my whole arm went numb. And then I thought maybe I could write out the wards on parchment and glue the parchment to the planks, but Master Cenard said I’m not allowed to use anything except what they give me, and parchment isn’t included. So what can I do?”

“You can be more resourceful!” Laika decided she really liked that word. Maybe, she thought, when she grew up and became a world-famous golem expert and people were coming from all the neighboring countries to see her golems, she’d give herself the title of “Laika the Super-Talented and Resourceful.” It had a nice ring to it. “Use your magic to pick up that nail there.”

Arendal did so. “Now what?”

“Carve the wards into this plank of wood with the nail!”

Arendal was silent for several seconds before a gigantic grin spread over his face. Moments later, he had lifted the nail with his wand and was busy carving a weird-looking sigil into one of the planks. When he was done, he let the nail drop as he swept his wand at the plank—and it rocketed to the ceiling, smashing into it with an audible crunch and sending splinters everywhere. “Wow!” said Arendal, marveling at the broken wood. “That’s easy!”

Before Laika could say anything, Arendal swept her into a big hug. “Thanks, Laika!” said Arendal. “You give great advice!”

Laika giggled as a warm, happy sensation flooded through her. She’d made up for her earlier mistake and given her friend real help. That felt great, even better than the feeling of biting into a freshly baked honey roll. “I know!”

Arendal eventually released her and began moving around the planks with his wand. They flew through the air in complicated paths, making Laika’s mouth drop, and slowly but surely, the crate assembled. After about fifteen minutes, both Laika and Arendal were looking at a freshly-built crate that matched what Arendal said the mages were looking for. “Perfect,” said Arendal. “I know for sure I’ll pass now. Thanks again, Laika.”

“No problem!” said Laika. “When’s your test?”

“It should be in half an hour or so. But I wish it was now; I want to get it over with!” Arendal beamed. “What are we going to do for half an hour?”

Laika thought for a moment. “Well, I have some honey rolls,” she said. “We could eat them and then play catch with my golems until your test! And I’ll be in the audience, of course. I’ll cheer for you when you pass!”

“That sounds awesome!” Arendal moved towards the door. “You’re a great friend, Laika. Let’s go!”

He hurried out of the room. Laika allowed herself time to grin wildly, profoundly happy at everything she had accomplished. Then she waved for her golems to follow her and hurried outside to join her friend.

The post The Golem Maker of the Tower, Part Three appeared first on Tellest.

“Just move up there…and slide over there…and—wait, no! Stop! Ahh!”

Laika yelped and darted away as the tall structure in front of her trembled, then abruptly fell apart and tumbled to the ground. A few pieces fell in her direction, but Laika dove behind a large tree before the debris hit the ground. The collapsing structure slammed into the grass with a series of loud thumps, and a heavy silence fell over the yard. When Laika summoned the courage to peek from behind the tree and saw the crumbled remains of the structure—a large box—she let out a groan in frustration.

The backyard of Viscosa’s Adventurers Guild was reasonably large, including a grassy picnic area, a copse of trees, and even a little stream running through the center, and the rubble from Laika’s latest experiment didn’t cover all that much of it. Still, there was enough debris that Laika knew it would take her golems a short while to clean everything and get the rubble sorted into nice neat piles. The only saving grace was the yard’s high fence prevented anyone from seeing her repeated failures, but of course people would see her failure when Arendal took his test if she didn’t come up with some way to help him. And that test was in just a couple days, so she was running out of time.

Her golems sorted the parts a short while later. Laika took a few sips of water, rewarded herself for her perseverance with a bite of a sweet honey roll she’d picked up at the market, and raised her hands again. The wood shuddered and began to move—

A door slammed shut in the guild, breaking Laika’s concentration and causing all the pieces to collapse to the ground at once. She let out a louder groan and fell back on the grass so she was staring at the sky and all the pretty clouds. That sight, though, failed to calm her like it usually would. “Agh!” she managed, “Stupid box! Mages probably don’t even make boxes! Why can’t Arendal’s test be on something mages really need to know? Like…like making pretty fireworks! That’d be a good test, not box-making!”

Footsteps approached from behind her, and when she rolled over, she saw the amused face of Cedric Renzeya. He was the man who owned and ran the Adventurers Guild, and he had adopted her after she had been rescued from a small mountain village. “Mages don’t actually make pretty fireworks all that often,” he said in a kind voice, sitting down beside her on the grass. “But they have been known to make magical boxes. Why, in one of my adventures, I needed to recover all the artifacts in a very large temple, but the temple was so remote I couldn’t get a wagon or a cart there. So I had a mage friend make me a special magic box that looked like it was as big as a regular pack, but that had enough space inside to fit forty packs worth of things into!”

Laika’s mouth dropped. She sat up abruptly and maneuvered herself into the cross-legged position she liked when hearing stories about Renzeya’s days as an active adventurer. “Really?” she gasped. “Forty? And he just made it for you?”

“Oh no. We traded: I helped him deal with another mage who was scrying on him and stealing all his best spells—that battle took four days, and one of his spells accidentally teleported us into the river—and when I was done, he made me the box in half an hour.” Renzeya chuckled. “It didn’t seem like a fair trade at the time, but believe me, the box turned out to be very useful in the temple.”

“How?” asked Laika when Renzeya didn’t immediately continue.

“There was this one statue in particular at the very top of the temple as tall as two of you lying head to foot.” He paused while Laika quickly lay back on the grass, marked the point where her feet were, and spun around in a half-circle so she could mark where her feet were there too. Then she got up and boggled at the distance she’d marked off on the ground as Renzeya continued. “Couldn’t have gotten it out without the box. Although it was still a little tricky—see, I knew the box’s inside could fit the statue, but the box’s opening was still only as big as a normal pack. So I had to shift and slide the statue in, and wriggle it to get all the little bumps past the opening. I must have spent two hours just putting that statue in the box—and I forgot the most important thing too!”

“What?” pressed the enraptured Laika.

“Getting it out when I was done!” Renzeya grinned as Laika burst into giggles. “When I got back to my client, I opened the box, turned it over, and realized I’d have to wriggle it out again! I had to buy my client a big dinner and several drinks just to get him to wait around for me to finish removing it!” He paused. “But on the bright side, after all those drinks, he got sleepy and didn’t object when I added ten percent to my bill for not warning me the statue would be that large.”

Laika and Renzeya shared a long laugh before Renzeya nodded at the box. “Anyway. I hope you don’t mind me asking—if you don’t like making boxes, why are you building this one?”

“I’m not building a box,” said Laika. “I’m trying to make a box golem, you know, a box that can build itself. But it’s really hard.”

As she spoke, she lifted a hand and focused on her golem magic. Again she felt it flowing through her, and again the box began to self-assemble, its pieces bending slightly to lift each other into the air. But then, at about the halfway point, the structure suddenly shook and violently disintegrated once more.

“Ah,” said Renzeya. “I was wondering where all my new lumber went.”

Laika blushed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But it’s really important.”

Renzeya gave her a warm smile. “I know it is—but still, you should ask before you borrow things.” Laika nodded, abashed, and Renzeya went on. “So why are you making a box golem?”

“To help Arendal!” said Laika at once. “He needs to build a really big box with magic to pass his next test, but he can’t even build a little box, and so I’m trying to help him!”

Renzeya was quiet for a moment. He cleared his throat then. “The mages are usually pretty good about not giving students tests unless the student has a decent chance of passing. Especially Cenard; he hates it when one of his students fails—he always says that’s the mark of a bad mentor, since a good one would have known the student was having trouble and would have trained him more. It’s odd for them to give Arendal a test he has no chance of passing. I wonder why they think he can do it.”

Laika blushed and looked down.

Renzeya gently put his hand under her chin and lifted it so he could meet her eyes. “Laika…” he began. “Did you do something?”

“I…I might have had my golems help him build a little box for one of his tests. And Mister Cenard might have thought Arendal did it on his own.” Laika looked away. “But Arendal was really worried he’d get kicked out and sent back to his village if he didn’t finish it! And he was trying real hard, and I wanted to help, but now he’s stuck! He can’t build the next box, and he can’t ask Mister Cenard for help without telling them he didn’t do the last one and getting in even worse trouble. So I have to build the box for him again and—”

She heard Renzeya inhale and trailed off, then cautiously looked at him. But to her relief, though his gaze looked a little disappointed, he didn’t seem angry.

Her foster father, Mayor Maltra, would grow very upset whenever she’d failed at creating a golem. Sometimes she’d had to go to bed with just a couple crusts of bread for dinner.

Renzeya wasn’t like that.

“It seems,” he said in a slow, measured voice, “that your building the first box for your friend put him in a tough spot.”

“But I was just trying to help him!” Laika insisted. “I didn’t mean to hurt him!”

“Nonetheless, you still did,” said Renzeya. “Of course I understand you did not mean to—and I am sure he did as well. But you made it seem as if he was more competent than he is, and now he is expected to do more than he can handle.”

“I…” Laika sighed. “I know. But I don’t know what to do besides helping him with this test too.”

Renzeya was quiet for a moment. “Wouldn’t building this second box for him make things even worse, though?”

“But if I don’t do it, he’ll fail the test!” insisted Laika. “I don’t want him to fail!”

Renzeya held up a finger. “But if you do build him the box—and get away with it—the mages will think he’s even better at magic than they already think he is. Their next test will be even harder, and once again he won’t be able to complete it or ask for help.” His mouth curled upward in a slight smile. “Unless… Do you plan to follow him around for the rest of his life doing all his tests for him?”

Laika had an image of herself old and grey, like some of the really ancient adventurers that stopped by the guild now and then to sip tea and talk about how they’d delved in this or that legendary ruin, running after Arendal and casting magic for him. “Uh-uh,” she said quickly. “No way.”

“Then at some point he’ll have to learn to do magic on his own,” said Renzeya. “Preferably now, when the task before him—though difficult—is not necessarily out of his reach.”

“But…”

Laika trailed off, but Renzeya didn’t say anything, and Laika felt herself grasping for words. “I want to help him!” she said at last. “Because he’s a really good friend! And I want to be a good friend too and—”

Renzeya took her hand. “Laika,” he told her. “You are an excellent friend.”

“Really?” Laika looked at Renzeya. “But you said I hurt—”

“Friends sometimes hurt each other by mistake. Certainly I’ve done or said things I shouldn’t have to my friends, and they to me. But the important thing is you apologize and try to fix it. If you do that, Laika, nobody could possibly call you a bad friend.”

Laika felt a little better at that, but after a few seconds, she shook her head. “I don’t know how to fix it, though!” she said. “I don’t know how to help him.”

Renzeya thought for a moment and then clapped his hands together. “Ah. Remember when those mage bullies were bothering you?”

“Yes?” asked Laika, puzzled. “Why?”

“Well, as I recall, they gave you some trouble, and you came back here.” Renzeya nodded at the guild hall. “Did the guild help you?”

Laika nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“How?”

“They gave me advice and tips—oh!” Laika jumped to her feet. “You’re saying even if I can’t do Arendal’s project for him, I can give him advice! I get it! But I’m not good at his kind of magic. It’s all wands and wards and chants that make my tongue hurt.” She stuck out her tongue, grimacing as she remembered the attempts she’d made to sound out his spells. “I don’t understand that magic, and he doesn’t understand how to do golem magic so I can’t teach him that either. What advice could I give him?”

Renzeya’s eyes sparkled. “Well, what else are you good at? For instance: when you’re building golems, you’re not just casting spells, are you? Aren’t you doing other things?”

“Sure, I’m picking materials and putting the golem together and…” Laika trailed off, and then a big smile split her face. “Hey, yeah! I’m good at building things, even without magic! I could give him tips!”

“Excellent idea,” said Renzeya. “Between you and me—and don’t tell Cenard I told you this—a lot of mages get too used to using magic for everything. They forget how to do practical things, like putting things together. So Arendal might not understand that very well, but if you do…”

“I do!” Laika thought back to when Arendal had been trying to build the box. He’d been trying to put each piece into its final position right away, but was that the best idea? Would some kind of middle position be more stable? It was worth thinking about. “Um, am I good at knowing about anything else?”

Renzeya laughed at that. “You’re ‘good at knowing about’ a great many things, Laika. But for example—when you were dealing with those mages, you were really good at figuring out how to use your skills to counter theirs, even though they had more magic. That makes you resourceful. I’m sure a few lessons about being resourceful could be useful to Arendal. After all, he must be good at some magic, or Vestigo wouldn’t have let him join the guild at all.”

“Resourceful?” Laika sounded the word out a few times in her head and found she liked it. “Yeah, I can do that! I mean, he’s good at wards—I’ll bet I can think of some way that could help him!” She got to her feet. “Thanks, Mr. Renzeya!”

“Anytime. Oh, and Laika?” The girl turned back just as she was about to run into the guild hall and up to her room. “You won’t do anyone else’s projects for them again, will you?”

“Nope. I learned my lesson.” Laika gave Renzeya a warm smile. “But I’ll give Arendal lots and lots of friendly advice!”

Renzeya climbed to his feet. “That’s the spirit,” he said in a warm, pleased tone. “Good luck, Laika. I have complete confidence in you.”

Laika flashed Renzeya one more grin, then rushed off to get to work.

The post The Golem Maker of the Tower, Part Two appeared first on Tellest.

The tower of the Vestigo Mage Guild was a tall, shadowy structure surrounded by a high black fence. Everyone in town had heard rumors of mysterious and dangerous experiments taking place inside, and many had heard about a friend of a friend who had supposedly stumbled inside, irritated a short-tempered wizard, and promptly been turned into a frog. As a result, most people gave it a wide berth as they went through the southern part of Viscosa. Even those who had cause to approach it did so quietly and snuck away as soon as their business was concluded.

The child and golem-maker known as Laika, however, had a slightly different approach. “Hello, Mr. Bestle!” she chirped as she skipped to the gate trailed by two of her best golems, both carrying wicker baskets. One was made of marble; its basket contained a tasty lunch prepared for her by Mr. Renzeya of Viscosa’s Adventurers Guild. The other, made of ash, carried some of her favorite toys. “How are you today?”

The mage on duty, Bestle, was an older man with green eyes and a puffy white beard. He adjusted his cowl a little so he could look down at Laika and smiled when he saw her face. “Excellent, Laika. Thank you. Here to see Arendal?”

“Uh-huh!” Laika waved her golems forward. “A bunch of us are having a picnic, and I thought maybe he’d want to come! And then—”

Bestle held out a hand, stopping Laika from skipping past him into the compound. “Wait a moment. Arendal’s master, Cenard, has given him a big project to complete. He does not have time to go picnic with you today.”

Laika frowned. Arendal, a boy one year older than her with platinum-blond hair, bright amber eyes, and a gleaming smile, was one of her best friends, but it was becoming increasingly hard to see him. Lately it seemed that whenever she and the rest of their group—Matthias, Thomas, Lyra, and so on—got together, Arendal would just send a message saying he was busy doing complicated magic stuff and he’d have to talk to them later. He’d said he would hopefully be free today, which was why Laika had come to his tower to get him, but now it sounded like he would be chanting or playing with newt eyes or whatever else apprentice mages did when they weren’t playing with their friends. “Aw, but he promised!” Laika protested. “He said he’d be around if we wanted to go to the park!”

“I know, but Cenard thinks Arendal may be ready to graduate to the next level of his apprenticeship and is giving him the final tests. Your friend needs time to complete them satisfactorily. Still…” Bestle scrutinized Laika for a few seconds before nodding firmly. “I think he should be able to squeeze in a visit from a friend, as long as it’s brief. Go on up, Laika.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bestle!” Laika grinned and waved her golems forward as she scurried into the compound. The tower itself was across a short yard, and she hurried through it, dodging the spots she knew were trapped with magical wards. The wards were spells mages had cast long ago and fixed to the ground so thieves trying to break into the compound would step on them and be stunned or frozen or made too heavy to move so they could be arrested. Arendal, though, had told Laika where the wards were, and she could quickly slip past them and arrive at the big wooden door of the tower. She pushed it open, let her eyes acclimate to the dim lighting like always, and ascended the stairs within.

The Vestigo Mage Guild’s tower was always cold and drafty, no matter what the temperature was outside, and Laika was convinced all the senior wizards had set that up just so they could wear thick, comfy robes all day. She shivered as she ran up the first flight of stairs towards the third story, where the apprentice mages lived and studied in little rooms. When she finally arrived there, she waited for her golems to catch up and then moved towards the third door on the left, just past a little torch flickering in its bracket. “Arendal!” she called as she reached the door. “Hi!”

There were footsteps from inside the room, and the door swung open to reveal the bright, smiling face of Laika’s friend. He wore a big brown robe and held a magic wand that sparked and fizzed in his hand. “Hey, Laika!” said Arendal. “Nice to see you! Come in!”

He ushered Laika and her golems into his room. It wasn’t large, but it had enough room for a little bed, dresser, and desk, as well as open space in the middle of the room where what looked like a half-completed crate sat next to a bunch of wooden planks and some carpentry tools. Arendal shut the door behind them and edged around the box to sit on his bed. “What’s going on?”

“You said you could play today, so I came by to get you!” said Laika. “But Mr. Bestle said you can’t. He said you have tests.”

“Yeah…” Arendal sighed. “Master Cenard gave me some big projects before he promotes me to the next level. I really wanna advance, but I gotta get this stuff done first.”

“But we’re all going to play now,” protested Laika. “Can’t you get promoted later?”

Arendal chuckled. “But when I get promoted, I get a bigger room, and I get to use better spell ingredients. I’ll be able to cast real magic and not just little stuff.” He waggled his wand, which sparked again. “Plus, you know if I take too long to get promoted or screw up the tests, I’ll get kicked out. I don’t want to have to go back to my family’s farm. I’ve wanted to be a mage ever since a scout came to my village and said I had potential. I’d be really upset if I had to leave because I couldn’t finish one stupid little test.”

As far as Laika was concerned, it was very mean of the Vestigo Mage Guild to throw out the apprentices who were slower to advance than their friends. When she got older, she decided, she’d try to do something about it. But in the meantime, she had a friend to support. “Well, what’s your project? Maybe I can help you finish it real quick so we can go picnic with Matthias and Thomas and Lyra!”

“I have to put this together with magic.” Arendal nodded at the half-built crate and the wood next to it. “And I only have two more days.”

Laika studied the box critically for a moment. “That doesn’t look too hard,” she said at last. “Here, I’ll put this piece here—”

But the instant she touched a wooden plank, her fingers felt tingly and then went numb. She yelped and stumbled back as both Arendal and her golems rushed to catch her. “Hey!” she said, shaking her fingers as feeling returned to them. “What’s wrong with the wood?”

“It’s bespelled,” said Arendal. “If anything living touches any of the pieces, they go numb. And their magic goes through gloves too; I already checked.” He sighed. “Like I said, I have to build the crate using magic. I’m not allowed to touch the wood or the nails or anything with my hands. And look.” He gestured at the pieces of wood, which Laika noted were two different colors. “You’d think I could just set up the four walls and then lay planks on top of them, right? But I’m only allowed to use the red planks for the top, and they’re a little shorter than the others. They cover the gap, but there’s no overhang, so I can’t rest them on top of the walls. Those planks go inside the box, and I have to nail them to the walls so they don’t fall out. It’s really tough.”

“Oh,” said Laika. She knelt and stared at the wood. “That sounds hard.”

“It is. I’ve never done anything needing this much focus at once before. Usually I do wards because wards you can break apart; if I want to write a ward that uses five sigils, I can write each one separately and focus on each one as I do it. But for this, I have to focus on the wood I’m controlling, the nails, and the hammer all at the same time, and it gets really complicated.” Arendal raised his wand. “See, I’ve been trying, but…”

As he spoke, his wand glowed, and after a few seconds, a wooden piece twitched to life. It wriggled a few times before floating to the top of the half-finished crate and shifting over so that its end was pressed against the top of a crate wall. Arendal grunted, and his wand sparked harder as a few nails floated too. His face twisted in concentration, and he waved his wand yet again to make the hammer begin to fly—but then the wood slipped down, clonking into the hammer, and everything fell to the bottom of the crate in a big pile.

“And usually when I try, I lose focus, and that happens,” Arendal concluded. “It keeps falling apart. I really don’t want to get sent home, but I’m stuck.”

The two were silent for a few moments. Laika was acutely aware of time passing and precious daylight minutes slipping away instead of being properly spent playing with friends, but she knew she shouldn’t be focusing on that. Her friend was in trouble, and she had to find a way to help him. She didn’t have much with her, just the food, her toys, and her golems…

She brightened. “Hey, I know!” she said. “My golems can help you! They’re not alive, so they can touch the wood! And they’ll be able to put it together in minutes so we can go out and play!”

Arendal brightened before suddenly hesitating. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m supposed to do this myself. If the golems do it for me, Master Cenard might get mad. But…I really don’t want to get kicked out, and I’m supposed to get this done by tonight…”

“Maybe they could just do a few pieces?” offered Laika. “Once we get a few more pieces set up, it’ll be easier to do the rest, right?”

Both children looked at the half-built crate in the center of the room and the substantial pile of wood next to it that still needed to be added to the structure. “All right,” said Arendal at last. “But only a few.”

“Right!” Laika clapped her hands. “Ashie! Speckle! We’re going to put more of the box together!” She waved at the crate and focused on her golems, and they immediately tossed their baskets aside and jogged over to the half-completed structure. Laika pursed her lips as she drew on her power to manipulate the golems exactly as she needed them to move. “Okay. First we’ll lift that wood there so it’s next to the top of that plank…”

The golems worked quickly, with the marble golem Speckle hefting each piece of wood into the air and setting it in just the right place so Ashie could hammer in the nails that kept it stable. After only a few minutes, several more pieces were in place, and the crate began to look nearly done. Arendal didn’t say anything, instead choosing to watch Laika’s golems with what looked like wonder in his eyes. Laika remembered him telling her once he really admired her instinctive grasp of golem magic, and she felt a little surge of pride as the older boy smiled at her constructs while they worked.

In the span of ten minutes, the crate was completed. Laika and Arendal both cheered. “It looks awesome!” said Arendal. “Although…I mean, I was hoping to do a little more of it…”

Laika frowned. Sure, she’d gotten a little carried away, but she’d hoped for something more along the lines of, ‘Thank you for helping me, Laika! Your golems are the best golems ever!’ But she reminded herself that boys were sometimes silly and didn’t react to things the right way. “But now it’s done,” she said. “It was a silly project anyways—and now you’ll get promoted, and you won’t have to go back to your village!”

“Good point.” Arendal was still for a moment longer before nodding. “Let me just tell Master Cenard, and then we can go. Uh, better hide your golems, Laika—just in case he looks around.”

Laika quickly gathered her golems in the little closet in the back of the room. It was a tight fit, but she finished just before she heard Arendal’s footsteps returning. She turned to see him reenter the room with Master Cenard behind him. Cenard scratched his big black mustache as he extended his staff into the room ahead of him. “Ah, hello, Laika. Come to give your friend moral support?”

“Uh-huh!” said Laika.

Cenard paced around the box a few times, tapping it with his cane and even bending over to examine it in more detail once or twice. “Well done!” he said at last. “This is remarkable, Arendal. Truth be told, many of the apprentices here struggle with the crate test. But yours is immaculate. You pass.”

“Yes!” cheered Arendal. “Thank you, Master!”

Laika jumped to her feet. “Now he can go out to play, right?”

“Of course.” Cenard turned towards the door. “Have fun with your friends, Arendal. But do return soon—you’ll need to get ready for your final test. Pass that and you’ll advance, and then you’ll get a much bigger room.” He turned back with a faint smile on his face. “I remember when I was an apprentice. The tiny rooms were always the worst—”

“Wait,” said Arendal. “What’s the final test?”

“Oh, you’ll be casting spells in front of a committee. You know, building a crate or shelf or dresser or another piece of furniture, but instead of doing it in your room, you’ll be doing it in front of several senior mages. It’s basically what you just did, except bigger, and there’s a strict time limit since the mages all have their own research they’ll want to get back to.”

Arendal gulped. “On my own?”

“Of course on your own. That’s how all the tests are.” Cenard looked puzzled for a moment, then shrugged and moved to the door. “But that’s for later. Have fun with your friend!”

When he was gone, Arendal looked at Laika with horror on his face. “Laika, I’m not ready for this! I couldn’t even build this box on my own—I’m not going to be able to build something bigger! And you won’t be able to help me with the mages around!” He put a hand to his head. “And when I fail, they’ll probably figure out I didn’t build the crate on my own either! I’m going to get thrown out of the guild and sent back to my village!”

Laika’s mouth dropped. And though she wanted to comfort him, she couldn’t think of anything she could do.

The post The Golem Maker of the Tower, Part One appeared first on Tellest.

The next day was bright and sunny—Laika’s favorite weather—and she smiled out the stairwell window as she descended to the guild’s lobby, a set of six one-foot-high golems in tow behind her. “I’m going out, Mr. Renzeya!” she called once she’d reached the bottom floor. “I’ll be back for lunch!”

“That sounds fine,” responded Renzeya, who had poked his head into the lobby with a knowing grin. “Just don’t get into trouble.”

“Who? Me?” Laika chirped, affecting an expression of injured innocence. “I would never!”

Renzeya’s grin grew as he gestured to the door. “Go then,” he urged. “I’m sure you don’t want to keep your friends… or anyone else… waiting.”

Laika giggled before hurrying outside—stopping for only a moment to let her iron golems by the doorway bang their staves a few more times than usual, just for a little added ceremony—and then rushed towards the square. Her new golems chased after her, with only a couple bits getting caught in the rough cobblestones of the road and breaking off. They were fairly simple golems which she’d whipped up just since last afternoon, but she knew they were good enough to serve her purpose. “Come on!” she urged them as they advanced. “We gotta go take back the square!”

The golems saluted as they ran—she’d got them trained to do that, at least—and as she sped up, they matched pace until they all were tearing through the streets at a rush.

They reached the square in just a few minutes, where the situation looked much the same as it had the previous day. Most of the kids, Laika’s friends included, were clustered on the square’s sides and staring longingly at its center while the half-dozen mage apprentices watched Brandon waving his wand in a tightly-controlled pattern. Normally, Laika might have been curious enough to wait and see what kind of spell Brandon was casting, but she had a mission to complete, and they were losing precious minutes of playtime.  Instead, she skidded to a stop by her friends and murmured to her golems. “Now! Go now!”

“What are you doing?” Matthias asked as the golems hurried away into the crowd, cutting between people’s legs and even knocking a few people aside as they ran. They were short enough that they vanished almost immediately, and within thirty seconds, Laika knew none of her friends could see where they’d gone. “They’ll break your golems again—”

“Nope!” Laika grinned at him. “I’ve got a plan to get rid of them!”

“A plan?” Thomas grinned. “Awesome. Need any help?”

“Nope! But if Lyra wants to write a song about it later, that’d be really neat!” Laika turned to Lyra, who blushed—she was comfortable performing other people’s pieces, but composing and playing her own made her lose her confidence, so Laika always tried to remind her how good she was at it—and then gave a quick nod. Laika beamed at her, then spun on her heel to face the square. “Here I go. Wish me luck!”

“Good luck!” said all three of her friends at once, and Laika’s smile grew. It was nice to have friends, she thought. She’d never had them before—she’d been stuck in a shed making golems from dawn to dusk—but now that she did, she wouldn’t let anyone hurt them. Not even big kids with magic like Brandon and his gang. After all, she was strong too—more than strong enough to stop the bullies in their tracks.

And she had just the plan to do it.

She squared her shoulders and then advanced towards the square’s center as she had the previous day. “Hey, Brandon!” she called. “I wanna talk to you!”

Brandon sighed then turned toward her as a lazy, cruel grin spread across his face. “Again?” he said. “Where’s the golems? Learn your lesson?”

Laika shrugged. “I wanted to make a deal with you!” she chirped, counting seconds in her head. “So that you can use the square sometimes and we can use it sometimes. How’s that sound?”

“A deal?” Brandon looked at the other mages, most of whom were chuckling by this point, before turning back to her with a sneer. “And why, exactly, should members of the Vestigo Guild listen to a little kid like you?”

“Well,” said Laika, trying to match the conciliatory tone Reynoll used in his diplomatic negotiations. “There must be something you want…”

As she spoke, she saw her little golems advance out into the open from the side of the square behind the mages, all of whom were looking at her. They crept closer, their leafy feet completely silent on the ground, and their vine fingers twitching a little as they neared the mages.

“Oh really?” taunted Brandon. “’Cause right now I’m thinking all we want’s to be able to practice our magic in peace. What else you got that we would want?”

Reynoll had described many times how it could be useful to keep someone talking, and Laika knew all his tricks. “I got a lot!” she said, spreading her arms wide and inviting them to waste time laughing at her instead of paying attention to their surroundings. And sure enough, the big kids laughed and teased her—and the golems crossed more of the square as they snuck up on the mages.

“Like personal golems to do all our cleaning and chores and stuff?” asked another mage. “’Cause that could be nice.”

Brandon thought for a moment, then grinned. “You know what? I could go for a cleaning golem—in fact, I bet we all could. And hey, I guess if we ever needed more golems to do other stuff, we could just come back here, and you’d make them for us, right?” He chuckled. “So that we’d leave you alone—”

Then one of Laika’s little golems rushed up behind him, reached out with its vine fingers, and ripped his wand from his hand.

Brandon’s mouth dropped as the other mages drew their own wands, but it all happened so quickly that Brandon’s friends had no time to look behind them, where Laika’s remaining golems were standing. In moments, her other golems pounced and snatched up the remaining wands. They then ran behind Laika, who took the wands and beamed—her magic had worked perfectly. If Mr. Cenard had seen her, she knew he would have been proud. “How about this?” she asked. “I’ll give you your wands back if you agree to let everyone else use the square!”

The mages gaped—except for Brandon, who flushed. “Give those back!”

“Not unless you promise to let us use the—”

Brandon bunched up his fists and took a big step forwards. “Give,” he hissed. “Them. Back. Now.”

Laika thought for a moment—then stuck out her tongue at him. “Come get them!”

The kids around the square gasped, and then Brandon rushed her with a roar.

He was a big kid, and Laika knew that if she let him land any blows he could really hurt her. But she also knew, from Miss Naphkator, lots of tricks for avoiding that. As he ran at her she waited until the last minute, then dropped into a crouch, and as his fists swung over her head, she swept her arms out at just the right time. He ran right into her grasp, and she twisted to redirect his momentum outwards and send him stumbling away, until he tripped and smashed into the ground. “Ow!” he screamed, rolling over and revealing bruises and cuts on his face. “You jerk! I’m telling!”

“Telling what?” Laika asked. “You attacked me! And yesterday you broke my golems first too! Everyone saw it!”

Brandon’s eyes flashed as he hauled himself back up to his feet. “That’s not what my friends will say!” he snapped. “They’ll back me up, say you started it—”

“And say I somehow got all your wands without you noticing?” Laika grinned and waggled the wands at him, though she kept an eye on the other mages—all staring at the scene in shock—just in case they tried to intervene. “Okay, go ahead! Of course, they’ll want to know what happened and I guess you’ll have to explain how my golems beat all of you.” Her eyes twinkled. “Sound good?”

Brandon’s eyes darted back and forth for a moment before his face took on a darker shade of red. “Then maybe I won’t tell. I’ll just wipe the smile off your face—”

“And we can do this again?” Laika dropped into a combat form Naphkator had taught her, and even though Brandon was bigger than her, when he saw her steady, focused stance, he faltered. One hand went up to his bleeding cheek, and Laika smiled. “’Cause you might have had a lot of magic school, but I’ve gotten lessons from a real knight!”

The mage stiffened, but then his shoulders slumped. “Fine,” he hissed. “Whatever. Just give us back the stupid wands, and we’ll leave.”

All around the square other kids burst into applause, and Laika almost cheered at her own triumph. If she’d just beaten him in a fight like Miss Naphkator had suggested, he could have tattled, but now he couldn’t do that without embarrassing himself by admitting he and his friends had all lost their wands to Laika’s magic. And if she’d just used her magic to take their wands like Mr. Cenard had proposed, Brandon might have attacked her friends in revenge, but now he was too scared to do that. So he was giving up… and she hadn’t even had to bribe him with any golems to do it. “See?” Laika teased as she sorted through the wands. “I knew I had something you wanted!”

The mages all swore, in front of all the other kids, they would never try to stop anyone from playing in the square again. A couple seemed hesitant, but then Laika threatened to break their wands over her knee and they quickly gave in. She returned the wands after that, but not before carefully carving a strip from each of them with a pocketknife so she could still prove she’d had the wands at one point by showing how the strips fit the damage to each wand. This way, if Brandon went back on his word and tried to tattle, she’d be ready. Brandon scowled when she carved a piece off his wand, but he could do nothing about it except jam his wand into his pocket when he got it back and then turn around. “Let’s go,” he growled. “This square sucks anyways.”

“Bye!” called Laika as the mages scurried away, the other kids jeering too. “Don’t come back unless you wanna mess with me again!” She grinned, then turned back to the other kids. “Okay, what do you want to do—”

“Three cheers for Laika and her golems!” yelled Thomas from one side of the square. “Hip hip hooray!”

“ Hip hip hooray!” echoed the other kids.

Laika grinned, and at that moment, she knew the day was going to be absolutely perfect.

*          *          *          *          *

When Laika returned to the guild a few hours later, she was still chewing the last of the warm honey rolls the others had bought for her, and at the same time, she was humming the new song Lyra had composed. She was just up to the verse about how Laika had thrown Brandon onto the ground with the force of a mighty avalanche when she walked into the guild’s lobby—and saw several adventurers looking at her.

“So?” Miss Naphkator asked, leaning against one wall and cocking a grin at her. “How’d the quest go?”

Laika quickly swallowed and then grinned at her. “It went great! The mages left, and I don’t think they’ll come back ever again! And then everyone bought me honey rolls and candy, and Lyra made up a new song for me, and now a bunch of kids want me to teach them fighting moves!” That had probably been the most fun part of the victory celebrations—everyone had been watching her as she explained and demonstrated how to do the move she’d used on Brandon, and then she’d had her golems help practice with the others until all the kids more or less had it down. “It was awesome!”

“I hope our advice was of some use to you,” said Mr. Cenard. He was leaning on his wizard’s staff near Reynoll, while Renzeya himself was waiting by the entrance to the bar and dining area. “Did you find it helpful?”

“Uh-huh!” Laika quickly nodded, and her golems behind her followed suit. “It was!”

“Well.” Renzeya stepped to one side so Laika could get through the door into the dining area. “In that case, I’d say it’s your turn, Laika.”

“My turn?”

“To tell us your story!” Miss Naphkator grinned. “We’ve told you plenty of ours—now you should tell us the great saga of how little Laika from the mountains beat a big, tough, Vestigo mage in front of everyone!”

Laika blinked, for a moment scarcely able to believe it. “You… want to hear my story?”

“Of course,” said Mr. Cenard. “After all, it does seem like you’ve had an impressive adventure.”

“Perhaps even worthy of being recorded in the guild’s journals,” Reynoll noted.

The golem-maker slowly grinned at the adventurers around her. And as she headed into the dining area, sitting down in the most comfortable chair and gathering her golems around her so she could point to them as needed during her story, she felt happier than she ever had before.

The post The Golem-Maker of the City, Part Four appeared first on Tellest.

Hours later, Laika had flopped down on her bed and was staring up at the ceiling when someone knocked on the door. “Laika?” called Mr. Renzeya’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“Uh-huh,” Laika managed. She groaned and looked up just in time to see Renzeya enter her room with a small tray of strawberries and cream. Even though that was one of her favorite dishes, she wasn’t feeling particularly hungry and didn’t smile or grab at the dish. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“I thought I would come see how you’re doing.” Renzeya set the tray on Laika’s nightstand and smiled down at her. “Have you figured out what you’ll do about the Vestigo Guild apprentices yet?”

She slowly shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Renzeya frowned, then shut the door behind him and knelt by her bed. He was a broad man with a muscular build that hadn’t changed since he’d been a mighty warrior with the Viscosan guard, but his hands were gentle as he helped slip a fresh pillow under Laika’s head so she could rest more comfortably. “You don’t need to be sorry.”

“Mmf.” Laika shook her head again and tried to push herself up, but she was exhausted—not least because she’d spent the past few hours pacing around her room as she tried to work out which of the three ideas the guild patrons had given her might actually get rid of Brandon and the other mages. “I know. I just… I should be better at this.”

“Why?” asked Renzeya, but his tone was gentle and not reproving. “Have you done anything like this before?”

“No, but…” Laika was silent for a long moment. Why did she feel like she should be better at this? If none of the other kids could solve the problem, why should she—who was still relatively new to town and who had rarely interacted with friends her own age before—be any better than her friends or any of the other kids?

“But I am really good at magic,” she continued at last. “I can do all kinds of things. And back where I grew up, the mayor always said, because I had power, it was my job to use it to help people. But now I can’t use my powers to do anything useful.”

Renzeya’s frown deepened. “The mayor took advantage of you. Just because you have a gift doesn’t mean you’re obligated to work without end like he had you do. And your golems are very useful. Don’t sell yourself short—”

“I know,” she quickly interjected. “But I still feel like I should be able to do something! I mean, I have all kinds of people helping me—Miss Naphkator and Mr. Cenard and Mr. Reynoll, and Mr. Grannick when he brought me here, and you—and I still can’t figure out which of their ideas is the best one!” She pushed herself up at that. “I don’t want to waste…”

She trailed off, but Renzeya tilted his head and said, “What would you be wasting? Not their time, surely?”

Laika turned away.

“Laika.” Renzeya moved around the girl’s bed so she was looking at him again. “Nobody here is teaching you anything expecting you to beat up a bully every month.” Laika did smile a little at that, and Renzeya went on. “They’re teaching you because they like it. Because you’re a good student who listens and practices and wants to someday use what they teach you to do amazing things. You’ve already repaid them, every time you come in for another lesson and remember everything from the last one. And Grannick’s happy just to know you’re living your life here, away from the village that did you wrong. He’s always eager to hear of what you’ve been up to, even if it’s just running around with your friends. You’re not wasting anything.”

A slow smile formed on Laika’s face, and she thought back to when Naphkator had grinned after Laika had learned a complicated blocking move, or when Reynoll had bought her a candy once she could recite a couple of his stories verbatim, or when Cenard’s eyes had actually twinkled after she’d mastered a meditation technique. And of course there was Grannick, whom Laika recalled was always happy to see her even if she really hadn’t been up to much since he’d last left. But then she thought of the other people she was worried about letting down and her smile slipped. “What about my friends, though? Don’t I need to help them?”

“And I know you will,” said Renzeya. “Because you are a very talented girl. But I’m sure they’d understand if you didn’t come up with a perfect plan the first day, wouldn’t they?”

“I guess…”

“There you go.” Renzeya patted her shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Laika thought for a long moment before slowly nodding. Renzeya had been a great warrior himself, and he’d probably fought loads of bullies. She knew he had to know what he was talking about. And even in her village, she sometimes had to take a day or two to work out a golem problem—surely it was all right she hadn’t quite figured this one out yet. “All right,” she said. “And I’ll think about it some more. Try to figure out which of the plans they told me downstairs is best.”

Renzeya paused and a slow smile crossed his face. “Do you have to use one of those plans?”

“Well, no, but… Naphkator and the others are real smart!” Laika insisted. “They could all make their own plans work.”

“Yes, but they aren’t you,” said Renzeya. “Naphkator likes fighting, so she’s tough enough to fight people and make them back down. Cenard likes magic, so he has experience using spells to win fights. Reynoll likes being diplomatic and making deals, so he’s great at negotiating with people standing in his way. What do you like?”

Laika blinked. “I like all those things. I really like using magic to make golems—but I also like Miss Naphkator’s fighting training, and sometimes I like just talking to people.” She paused as something occurred to her. “Hey… could I maybe use a little of all their plans?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Renzeya. “In fact, if it’s your own idea, it’s probably better suited to you than any of theirs. What did you have in mind?”

Laika described the ideas she was pulling together in her mind, combining little bits of Naphkator’s, Cenard’s, and Reynoll’s ideas. Renzeya occasionally chimed in with a suggestion of his own, but he didn’t seem to feel she needed many of those, and Laika felt her smile growing as the plan came together. “I think this will work!” she said as she finished, eyes gleaming again. “And Brandon won’t know what hit him!”

“It sounds good to me. Let me know if you need any help—although, personally, I think you’ll do fine on your own.” Renzeya stood and flashed a brilliant grin at Laika. “As for materials, we’ve got some stone and lumber out back for the new wing of the guild, but I don’t think it’ll be a problem if you take a few pieces. Want me to send some up?”

“Yes, please!” said Laika at once. “Thank you! And—if it’s not much trouble—maybe a few other materials?” She named them. “Please?”

Renzeya chuckled and agreed before wishing Laika good luck on her quest and leaving her to her work. A few minutes later, porters came up with the supplies, and Laika busily started creating everything she’d need to put her plan into action.

The post The Golem-Maker of the City, Part Three appeared first on Tellest.

Laika stumbled back to the Adventurers Guild, head drooping and feet dragging, and went right to the stairs to go up to her room. Normally she would have stopped in the bar and dining area first so she could listen to the adventurers talking about the awesome quests they had completed and the great battles they had triumphed in, or—if the bar had been quiet—would have curled up in a corner with one of the diaries or journals retired adventurers had donated to Renzeya’s library. But this time, her only goal was collapsing into bed and hoping the stupid day would just end already.

“Laika?” She turned to see Renzeya passing through the lobby with a great jeweled sword in his hands. “Are you all right?”

She was silent for a moment before shaking her head. “Some mage kids broke my golems,” she said quietly. “And they threw me an’ my friends out of the square so we can’t play there anymore.”

“What?” Renzeya looked baffled for a moment before frowning. “That doesn’t sound right. Why don’t you come in here and tell me all about it?”

For a moment, Laika wanted to keep going. That was what she’d done back in her hometown, after all. When she’d been sad or upset, it had been her duty to hide that from all the villagers, get back to work making golems, and let whatever was bothering her fade on its own. But she wasn’t in her hometown anymore, she thought; Grannick had brought her here. She could be sad in public now. “Okay,” she managed, turning to the bar. “That sounds good.”

The dining area was nearly full, a sign there was a big quest or job somewhere that adventurers were getting ready for, but Renzeya got her a seat in a big chair with a comfortable cushion. A few moments later a rich bowl of stew, a thick piece of cinnamon-spiced nut bread, and a big glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice were set in front of her. “So,” said Renzeya, sitting across from her as if she was his only concern. “What exactly happened?”

Laika quickly recounted the story as she dug into the food, and between the rich, savory taste of the chicken in the stew and the sweet spiciness of the bread, she began to feel a little better. But when she got to the part where Brandon had broken her golems, she felt her spirits drooping over again. “He said his magic was important and mine was stupid,” she murmured. “And then he broke them, and I couldn’t pick up the pieces because he made me leave the square.”

Renzeya nodded. “And so you’re upset because they broke your golems?”

The girl began to nod before stopping herself. “That’s part of it, but…” She thought for a moment as she carefully split off part of the crust of the nut bread so she could savor it by itself. “My friends still couldn’t use the square, and I felt really bad about it. Like I should have been able to help them.”

“Hmm.” Renzeya leaned back. “Well. That’s a very mature response, Laika. It sounds like you’re already thinking like a leader.”

Laika smiled a little, but it quickly fell when she looked back into her rapidly cooling stew. “What should I do, Mr. Renzeya?” she asked. “Back home the mayor wanted me to be happy making golems for him, so he stopped anyone who was being mean to me—I never had to do it myself. And they said adults can’t help now because the mages are super important.”

“Well, the Vestigo Guild is vital to the city,” mused Renzeya. “So they do have influence. And they may well be willing to hush up misconduct from their apprentices rather than let them draw the guild’s name into disrepute.” The guild leader grimaced, fierce anger visible on his face, and for a moment Laika could see why nobody even thought about starting trouble in Renzeya’s guildhall. “You may have to deal with this yourself—assuming you don’t simply rebuild your golems and find another square.”

“I don’t wanna find another square!” Laika insisted. “It’s not fair. We were there first, and we weren’t even stopping them from playing. We just wanted to play too!” She crossed her arms. “I wanna make them let us back into the square and to promise never to break my golems—or anyone’s toys—ever again. But I don’t know what to do.”

“Why not just punch him in the nose?”

Laika brightened a little and turned as Renzeya looked up at Lily Naphkator, who had moved next to their table with a tankard of beer and a plate piled high with chicken drumsticks and roasted potatoes. Lily was a tall, wiry woman with brown skin, a jagged scar across her right cheek, and a rapier at her side with a big diamond set in the hilt. As far as Laika was concerned, Lily was one of the coolest adults ever. “Punch him?” Laika repeated. “Would that be okay?”

“Why not? Sounds like that mage twerp hit you first by breaking your golems. ‘Scuze me, kid.” Lily dropped into the seat next to Laika and bit a large chunk off a drumstick. “Just give him one right in the face. He’s a mage, right? Most of them are pretty bad in a brawl—and unlike you, he hasn’t been trained by one of the best duelists in the land.” She smirked. “He’ll go down like a sack of potatoes, and he won’t bother you anymore.”

“But…” Laika glanced at Renzeya, who was frowning, before turning back to Lily. “What if he tells someone and gets me in trouble? Or Mr. Renzeya?”

“Just tell him that if he does that, you’ll come back and beat him up again.” Lily took a long draught from her tankard. “Did that myself once. A minor noble wanted my family’s ancestral lands, so he bribed a barrister—that’s someone who says what’s legal and what isn’t—to fake up a title deed saying he was the real owner of my manor. Then he had his goons try to evict me for trespassing.” Her eyes gleamed, and Laika—as she always did during Lily’s stories—leaned forwards so she could hear better. “I thrashed his goons, of course, but when I went to thrash him, he got all smug and said he’d have me thrown in jail. So—did I leave?”

“Uh-uh!” said Laika, who knew Lily never backed down from any confrontation when she was convinced she was in the right.

“’Course not!” Lily continued. “He had this big marble statue in his yard, so I grabbed my enchanted mace from my pack, went up to it, and bam!” She mimed swinging a mace. “Knocked it down in one strike, made him go all white and gape like a fish.” She bulged her cheeks in a fish-like way, drawing laughter from Laika. “Before I left, I told him that if he tried to have me arrested, I’d bring his mansion down on top of his head. Next day, I heard he’d taken an early visit to his summer home in Cranebridge. That was three years ago; I’m pretty sure he’s still there.”

Laika clapped at the end of the story, but as Lily took another swig from her tankard, the girl’s brow knitted. It was one thing for Lily to threaten someone, she thought, but Lily was really strong. Even if Laika could hit Brandon hard enough to make him not want to tangle with her again, she didn’t think she could make him so scared that he wouldn’t even tell his teachers what she’d done. He’d go to them and cause a lot of trouble for her and her friends.

“Aw, come on, Lily. You’re always about the smashing.” Laika turned again to see the wizard Averic Cenard approaching. He was a short, red-faced man who had a big black mustache and walked with a cane that doubled as his wizard’s staff. He was wearing his formal robes, which Laika knew meant he was meeting with other wizards that day. “Ever hear of the subtle arts?”

“Sure.” Lily grinned. “Those’re the arts where you chant for half a day to cast a spell on the bad guys, except by then all the real warriors already showed up, beat up the bad guys, and made off with all the loot.”

Cenard chuckled and sat next to Renzeya. “Ah, but when one spell can best an army of villains, perhaps spending the day casting it is preferable to spending a fortune hiring ‘real warriors’ by the dozen to fight them.” He steepled his fingers as Lily laughed and Laika smiled, familiar with their longstanding argument. “In any event, Laika, you have a prodigious talent for one so young. Why not beat this Brandon fellow at his own game? Show your magic is superior to his. Embarrass him off the field.”

Laika tilted her head. Cenard had taught her a few techniques, mostly for gathering up her magic to build stronger golems, but when she thought back to them, she couldn’t recall any that would guarantee her a victory. “But he’s got more training than me, and he’s older. What if he’s better?”

“You have a rare talent for one so young—I think it highly unlikely he can beat you, particularly as he’s quite likely to underestimate you.” Cenard’s eyes twinkled. “He won’t know what hit him, and he’ll be forced to back down… without any claim against you he can bring to the adults in his guild.”

Laika nodded, but her smile had faded. If Laika beat him in a magic show instead of a fistfight, then he might not be able to go to the adults like he would if she hurt him—he’d just look whiny—but he also wouldn’t be scared of her coming back. He’d just be embarrassed, and he might even seek revenge on her or her friends. Laika couldn’t have that.

Meanwhile, a third figure had stepped over from a nearby table. Renzeya nodded at the figure of Reynoll, an official whom Laika knew often served as the point of contact between the government and the mercenaries it occasionally hired. Reynoll had no weapons training or magic to teach Laika, but he knew more about the history of the city than anyone else Laika had met, and he was often willing to fill in the gaps—or correct the lies—in the adventurer journals Laika read for fun. “I couldn’t help overhearing,” said Reynoll, his northern accent perfectly crisp as usual. “And might I suggest a third option? That of diplomacy?”

“Diplomacy?” repeated Laika.

“Yes. He holds the square. You want the square. Surely there is a trade you could work out.” Reynoll munched on a piece of oat bread covered in melted goat cheese. “Perhaps if you gave him a golem, he would leave you alone. And then you would need not fear retaliation from him or his superiors.”

But that also felt wrong to Laika. Brandon was in the wrong, and he’d broken her favorite golems, so why should she give him anything? And besides, she didn’t want to be forced to make golems for people that would mistreat her anymore. She hadn’t done that since leaving her hometown, and she wouldn’t start again!

Renzeya glanced at her and seemed to notice her frowning. “I think we’ve all given her enough advice, lads,” he said. “Maybe we could let her be.” He then looked back down at Laika. “But if you do want to talk things over, I’ll be up later, okay?”

Laika nodded, and as the others got up to go, she returned to her food.  Although she tucked in with gusto and was as nice as she could be to Renzeya and everyone else who greeted her, Laika’s mind was still uneasy. She had to deal with Brandon, she knew, but despite all the advice she’d been given…

She had absolutely no idea how.

The post The Golem-Maker of the City, Part Two appeared first on Tellest.

“Mr. Renzeya, can I go out to play?” Laika beamed up at Renzeya with her brightest smile. “I finished my lunch, washed the dishes, and cleaned up my room. And a few of my friends and I were gonna practice sparring in the town square! So… can I?”

Cedric Renzeya, veteran of the Viscosan guard and current head of Viscosa’s Adventurers Guild, looked over his desk at her with an amused expression. They were in his office, a large room in the rear of the guild with racks of weapons, shelves of books, and several maps lining the walls. “I don’t know,” he drawled, leaning back a little in his chair. “Is that really the only reason you want to go out?”

Laika blushed a little—Renzeya was too good at reading her, she thought. “Well… there’s also a bakery with a special on honey rolls today, and I was thinking maybe I could stop in?” She clasped her hands together and looked right into his eyes as she smiled. “Please? Just to get one piece?”

Renzeya let the moment extend for a moment longer before flashing a smile of his own and gesturing at the door. “Of course. Have fun with your friends, Laika—but remember: one piece. If you’re going to be a great hero someday—”

“I have to eat right, I know. Thanks, Mr. Renzeya!” Laika was already scampering out the door and down the short hallway to the main lobby of the guild. “I’ll be back for dinner!”

She rushed through the lobby, greeting the various adventurers who said hello to her. Though she’d grown a couple inches since she’d been brought to the guild and now wore shiny, sparkling dresses instead of the faded brown ones she’d arrived in, she otherwise didn’t look too different from when she’d first arrived. She had the same long blond hair tied into braids, the same bright blue eyes, the same charming smile that had helped make her lots of friends. And so, even though some of the patrons had been gone for months on various adventures, almost everyone recognized and waved at her. “Hey, Laika!” called one of the regulars, a middle-aged mercenary named Lily Naphkator, known for her skill with a rapier. “Gonna go show your friends what I’ve been teaching you?”

“Of course!” chirped Laika, flashing a quick grin at Miss Naphkator before vaulting onto the stairs. “Thomas said he was a better sparrer than me, and I gotta prove him wrong!”

No sooner had she run into her room than two of her golems, Rosie and Lim-Lim, turned from their posts by her bed and trotted to her side, prompting another smile to appear on her face. Laika was a natural at making golems, and while she didn’t have to make dozens of them every day anymore—the warrior called Grannick had taken her away from the village where she’d been cooped up in a shed and forced to build as many as the mayor could sell to neighboring villages—she still liked experimenting with her talents and learning how to build better golems out of new materials. Both Rosie and Lim-Lim were basic humanoids about as tall as Laika herself and didn’t look much different from any other golem she had made.  Rosie still smelled as sweet as when Laika had first crafted her out of bits of rosewood, and the limestone that comprised Lim-Lim was so easy to work with that Laika found it simple to give him fun add-ons like cat ears and tails, so they were definitely her favorites. “Come on!” she called to her golems as they helped gather up sticks and wooden bucklers for sparring and coins for the honey rolls. “We gotta go!”

The golems saluted—Lim-Lim bonking himself in the head in the process, which Laika made a note to look into later—and then chased after her as she rushed back out of her room.

Laika hurried down the stairs and out the front door of the guild, passing the two iron golems she’d built as sentinels, which obediently banged their staves down whenever she or Mr. Renzeya entered or left the building. Once outside and on the sunny streets of Viscosa, she quickly straightened her green dress—a present from a guild member whom she’d loaned a housekeeping golem for a few weeks—so the flecks of emerald in its fabric sparkled in the sun. Then she was racing to the nearby town square where she knew Thomas, Matthias, and Lyra would be waiting. “Hey!” she called as she approached the square, her golems easily keeping pace with her and drawing interested glances from passersby. “Hey, Thomas, ready to play? Thomas—”

She reached the square but skidded to a halt when she saw it was almost empty. While the cobblestones were usually swarming with other kids running around and playing games at this time of day, now the only people in the square proper were a half-dozen kids—maybe two or three years older than Laika herself—standing in the center. They all wore green habits, which Laika recognized as the uniform of the Vestigo Mage Guild, and a blocky blond boy waved his wand around while the others watched.

“Laika!” called a voice. The girl turned to see her friends and several other kids standing against the wall of a nearby building facing the square. She approached them as Thomas, the one who had called to her, gestured at the young mages. “Can you believe this? They won’t let anyone else play!”

“Why not?” asked Laika. Her golems formed up behind her as she looked out into the square. “They’re barely using any of it!”

Thomas shrugged. He had brown hair, hazel eyes, and an athletic build that made him look kind of cute in Laika’s opinion—though she would never admit that out loud. “They just said nobody else can use it.”

“And they’re mages,” added Matthias, a short boy with scraggly black hair. “If we do anything, they could turn us into frogs!”

Laika frowned, thinking back to something another Adventurers Guild regular had told her once. “Mr. Cenard says that’s really hard,” she said at last. “And he’s a real mage, and he can do all kinds of cool stuff, so he’d know. I bet they can’t do any of that.” She looked at the kids. “I’m gonna go talk to them!”

“Be careful!” murmured Lyra. She was a lithe girl who always had her little lute with her and had appointed herself the de facto bard of the group. “I mean, I know you’re a super-powerful golem-maker and all, but… but those kids are scary!”

Laika just grinned and waved for her golems to follow her, then jogged up to the mages while the other kids watched. “Excuse me!” she called as she approached. “Um, my friends and I want to—”

“Beat it!” The blond mage snapped, not looking away from the others. “We’re using this square to practice magic. Go play somewhere else!”

A scowl crossed Laika’s face. “It’s not yours!” she insisted. “Everyone should be able to use it!”

“Are you deaf?” the kid snapped. “I—”

“Brandon, wait,” said another mage. “She’s got magic too. Look.”

Brandon finally looked up at Laika, and then his gaze moved to the golems behind her. Laika grinned and waved at the golems, who quickly ran through a series of poses she found impressed people. “Right,” she said. “I do also have magic! And me and my friends—and the other kids—want to play too. So—” A sneer ran across Brandon’s face, and she trailed off. “What?”

“We’re apprentices in the Vestigo Guild,” Brandon snapped. “You know, the most important mages guild in Raleigh? The one responsible for guarding the king and the nobles from any dark wizards that might try to hurt him? We’re learning important magic, and we have to practice. That’s a lot more important than letting a novice like you play with stupid constructs like those.”

Laika flushed red. “Rosie and Lim-Lim aren’t stupid!” she yelled. “They’re—”

“You named them? Wow.” Brandon twirled his wand for a moment, and then a wicked gleam came to his eyes. “Here, let me teach you some real magic.” With a snap of his wrist, two bolts of green light flashed out of his wand, and both of Laika’s golem’s shuddered and collapsed back into little pieces of wood and stone, their animating magic gone.

“What? No!” Laika’s mouth dropped as she stared at the ruins of her golems. “You can’t—you—”

“Why not? You gonna tell on us?” taunted Brandon. “Our instructors keep the city safe. I don’t think your family’ll want to mess with them—or us.”  He shoved Laika hard enough to make her stumble into the rubble that had been her golems. “Now get out of here, kid!”

The other mages laughed, and Laika was tempted for a moment to turn back and punch them in the nose.  Instead she lowered her head and slowly retreated away from the wood and stone that had been her favorite toys.

The post The Golem Maker of the City, Part One appeared first on Tellest.

The next morning was bright and sunny, though the mountain chill remained in the air and hit Grannick as soon as he stepped out of the inn. Rather than complaining, though, he stretched and tilted his head so the wind played over his face and helped rouse him. That, at least, was familiar; the inn with its draft-proof walls, luxurious mattress, and fine mulled wine he’d had with his dinner had seemed like another world.

“Do you need anything else, sir?” asked the innkeeper, a slight man named Nerril. “Breakfast? Perhaps you’d like to borrow some archery equipment to go goat hunting?”

Grannick looked back at him. “I don’t need anything right now. But if you could gather everyone in the town square in an hour, I’d appreciate it.”

Nerril frowned. “Why?”

“It is for…” Grannick trailed off, and for a moment he wondered how someone good at this, like Laika, would respond. “A surprise,” he finally said. “One that everyone in the village needs to see.” He smiled, trying to match Laika’s energy. “Nobody will want to miss it.”

Nerril still looked confused, but Grannick saw a hint of intrigue on the man’s face as well. “All right. I’ll tell my staff,” he said, then hurried back inside. A moment later, Grannick heard him call, “Madelor, get up! Meeting at the town square in an hour!”

For a moment, Grannick was reminded of his first real battle, when he’d gone up against a massive boar, survived its attempts to gore him, and ultimately smashed its head in. Like then, his heart rushed, and a fiery exuberance spread through him. He chuckled quietly, then caught himself and hurried off to tell others about the meeting.

Over seventy people were in the town square by the time the hour was up, Maltra—though not Laika—among them. There were also about twenty golems made of stone, mud, grass, and even one of marble present. The mayor walked up to Grannick before the latter man took the stage. “Mr. Aldermair,” he said. “I heard you called a meeting. Do you mind me asking what for?”

“I wanted to talk to the whole town about the golems I’m ordering,” said Grannick. He leapt onto the stage despite the heavy armor he was wearing, earning a few claps and whistles from the crowd.

Maltra frowned, and Grannick again felt a foggy confusion creeping over him, but he pushed past it. Laika, he guessed, would just start talking to people without getting sidetracked, and he would do the same. So he turned away from Maltra and called, “Everyone! I’d like to talk to you about the golems of this town! I—”

The crowd immediately applauded, and Grannick saw a few other children cheering on their parents’ shoulders. He winced and held up a hand. “I am a mercenary who hunts bandits,” he said. “But there is only one of me, and there are a lot of bandits.” He paused as a few people laughed. “So I want to buy some golems to help me. I was thinking…fifty or so.”

A hush fell over the crowd, and then the applause and cheers returned, even louder than before. Maltra’s suspicion fled from his face, replaced by naked greed, and he smiled unctuously as he climbed on stage and then bowed. “We are at your service,” he said. “And would be happy to provide you with all you might need for your duties.”

Grannick nodded. “However, I cannot stay long. There are too many bandits. And I must leave soon to fight them.” He paused, wishing he knew how to make his thoughts fit together better when he spoke, but he plunged on like he was sure Laika would do. “How long will it take you to fill my order? If longer than a week, I must—“

“We can do it in three days!” said Maltra, earning another round of gasps and whistles from the crowd. “Of course, there will be an express fee, but for an order of that size, I’m sure a sizable discount could be arranged.”

“Yeah, Laika’s real fast!” shouted a kid from the front row. “She can make a mud golem in two seconds!”

So the townspeople didn’t know what Laika was going through, Grannick thought. They believed she could whip up golems in a few moments, like she’d shown Grannick, and didn’t know that she took so long to make a saleable golem that she was working fifteen-hour days. “That works,” he said. “But first, can I talk to Laika again? I have, uh, a few more questions.”

“Of course, of course!” said Maltra, beaming. “Anything you say, sir!”

He left and returned ten minutes later with Laika stumbling behind him. Her hair had been styled into more elaborate braids, and she was now wearing a fancy blue dress, but the dark circles under her eyes were visible. When they got to the stage, Maltra nudged her, and after a moment, she pressed her hands together and managed to chirp, “Hi, Mr. Grannick! What would you like to know?”

There was forced cheer in her voice, and Grannick wondered if Maltra had threatened to increase her workload if she made him look bad. A white-hot rage coursed through him again, but he kept his hands off his war hammer and said, “I want golems to help me hunt bandits. If I asked you for fifty golems, could you make them for me?”

Laika looked down, looking small and exhausted. But when she spoke, it was with a bright, “Yes, sir!”

“Is that more than you usually make?” He looked back at Maltra. “What kind of orders does she usually—”

“I can do it,” interjected Laika, shooting a quick glance towards the smiling Maltra as she spoke. “I do orders like that all the time.”

“You do?” Grannick frowned and tried to look confused, which wasn’t hard. “How long does it take you to make each golem? I’ve heard that archmages spend weeks on a single one.”

Laika opened her mouth but then hesitated, and then Grannick saw a glimmer in her eyes like she knew what he was doing. “Not me,” she said at last, speaking a little more strongly. “I can make one golem an hour.”

Nobody spoke for a few moments, and then the crowd began to murmur as a few people worked out how many hours per day Laika would have to work to meet the deadline her father had set. For the benefit of the rest, Grannick added, “But your father said you could turn out this order in three days. If you do one an hour, won’t you be working…?” He took a few moments to do the math himself. “About seventeen hours a day for the next three days?”

The crowd started to look uneasy. Maltra’s smile slowly faded into a grimace, and then he said, “Well, she doesn’t usually work those kinds of hours…but you’re a special customer who needs our help to keep us all safe. After all, we wouldn’t want bandits to get through while we were waiting for more golems, would we? Now—”

Grannick turned away from him and looked at Nerril. “What was the most golems this town ever sold in a day?”

Nerril hesitated. “Well, three months ago there was that trade caravan that got lost and stumbled into our valley. When those merchants learned about us, they all wanted one…think they took home about twenty or so. Left the very next morning.” He paused, then turned to Maltra. “Wait. You said Laika could make one golem every few minutes. Now you’re saying she needed twenty hours for that order?”

“No, no.” Maltra forced a laugh. “The one-hour is just for the very best, hardiest golems she makes, the kind that this mercenary would need. For common, conventional golems she really does need just a few minutes—”

“But Mr. Maltra,” said Laika, “You told me I’m not supposed to make golems fast anymore because they fall apart too quick and you can’t sell them. You said that all my golems need to last for at least three months, and you know I need at least an hour to make a golem last that long.”

Maltra’s face had gone pale, but Grannick didn’t give him a chance to recover. “Laika,” he said. “How many hours a day do you spend building golems?”

“Fifteen, Mr. Grannick,” she said, eliciting gasps from the crowd. “Mr. Maltra says if I spend less time on it then I’m letting everyone down.”

“Now, dear, don’t tell stories,” Maltra hastily interjected, before turning to the others. “You know my ward has a very fanciful imagination. She told you all last year that I was overworking her, but you all saw that wasn’t true—”

“You told us it wasn’t true, and we believed you because you’re the mayor!” shouted an elegantly dressed woman. “But now you yourself said she needs an hour to make each golem and that you’ll have her do fifty in three days!”

“Liar!” screamed someone else.

Maltra hurriedly glanced between Laika, Grannick, and the crowd before settling on the latter. “Look, even if…even if the situation isn’t ideal, we can all see how essential my girl is for our economy. Without her, we’d still be a ramshackle collection of huts. Now we have a proper smithy, a full inn, two taverns, a cleric—”

“We didn’t know you were making your daughter work sixteen-hour days to get those things!” shouted an older man. “What’s wrong with you?”

The crowd surged forward against the stage, forcing Maltra to back up. He grabbed at his daughter, but Grannick stepped between them. “You should go,” said Grannick. “I don’t think they want you as mayor anymore.”

Maltra scowled, but when he advanced on Grannick, the hulking mercenary let his hand drop a few inches closer to his hammer, and the mayor’s face lost all color. He turned and rushed away.

Then Grannick realized Laika was hugging him. “Thank you, Mr. Grannick!” she said, leaning her head against him as if tempted to go to sleep. “Mr. Maltra says I have a duty to make golems for the town, but…”

“He was wrong,” said Grannick.

Laika was quiet for a moment. “Mr. Grannick? If I stop making golems, is the town going to be hurt?”

Grannick paused, wishing he’d thought further ahead. “I don’t know. I—”

“Excuse me.”

Grannick and Laika both turned to see a collection of well-dressed individuals Grannick guessed were the merchant class in town. Nerril was there, as well as a broad-shouldered man with soot-stained hands who was probably the smith, a woman Grannick had briefly seen that morning running the general store, and a few others.

“We wanted to apologize,” continued Nerril, looking at Laika. “We didn’t know how your father was treating you.”

“And we also wanted to say you don’t need to worry about golems anymore,” said the blacksmith. “We’ll be fine if you stop.”

“Really?” Laika asked. “Mr. Maltra said the town would collapse.”

The shopkeeper shook her head. “We’ll use the golems you already made to carve a road out of the mountains; they should last long enough for that. The inn, smithy, everything else you earned for us, we can use them to make this town into a base for whoever wants to come here. There’s always trade caravans coming over these mountains. A proper town with an inn, shops, a doctor, and everything else people might need will have plenty of business.”

Laika brightened and then straightened up as if a load had been removed from her shoulders. Grannick couldn’t help but smile. “That’s great!” she said. “That’s really, really great!”

The merchants apologized a few more times, which Laika accepted, and then the crowd dispersed. Laika stayed with Grannick, though, and after a few moments she asked him, “Where should I go now, Mr. Grannick? My parents are dead, and Mr. Maltra won’t want me anymore.”

Grannick hesitated for a long moment. “Would you like to come with me?” he asked at last.

Laika’s mouth dropped. “Really?”

“Yes.” Grannick knelt so he was level with Laika. “I was sent into these mountains to find the gold from that wagon. But you found it first, so you deserve a share of the reward. I can take you back to the city with me so you can get it, and then we can find a place for you to stay.” There were mages Grannick knew of that might want a talented apprentice and a few nobles who might appreciate the chance to have an heir with talents besides squandering the family estate. Social situations still weren’t his strong suit, but with Laika helping him, he was sure he’d find her something.

“Yay!” Laika hugged Grannick again. “Although…does that mean I have to give up Goldie?”

“Yes,” said Grannick. “It belongs to someone else. But don’t worry. In the city, there’s all kinds of toys and other things you could make golems out of, if you wanted. I could help you look.”

Laika was silent for a few moments, and Grannick worried she was upset over the loss of her favorite toy, but then she nodded. “I want a really good toy in exchange for Goldie, though.” she said. “Promise?”

Grannick grinned. “Promise.”

As Laika ran off to get her golem, Grannick rose. For the first time in ages, he realized, he felt good while within the boundaries of an inhabited settlement.

Maybe other people weren’t so bad after all.

*          *          *          *          *

“You have no idea how grateful we are,” Vanarl said from across the table. The merchant’s face was the picture of contentment, and he’d just set down a tip for the waiter that was more than the price of his actual meal. “Losing all that gold would have been catastrophic for my branch of the guild. Believe me, when we have any future jobs, you’ll be the first name we think of.”

Grannick grunted his approval, paused, and then said, “Thanks.” He was sitting at ease on a rough chair in the Renzeya Adventurers Guild and drinking a mug of ale. “Anytime.”

Vanarl nodded, then inclined his head as someone made a squeaking sound near the top of the staircase. “And how is she doing?”

“Laika?” A smile came unbidden to Grannick’s face. “She’s good. Thanks for understanding—”

Before he could say anything else, a gleeful squeal sounded, and Laika slid down the stairs on a few carpet squares which had been golem-ized and were gamely gripping onto Laika with their edges.  They also hovered just above the stairs, courtesy of a spell cast by one of the more magically inclined adventurers who frequented the guild. “Wheee!” squealed Laika. “Yay!”

“She seems to be fitting in well,” said Vanarl. “I suppose it’s a more hospitable environment than her home, anyways.”

Grannick had debated adopting Laika himself, but he knew it was impossible; he routinely went on missions into war zones, bandit strongholds, and environments so inhospitable they made the mountain valley look like pleasant farmland, none of which were any place for a young girl. So when he’d stopped at the Adventurers Guild and notified the couriers he’d completed his mission for Vanarl, he’d also mentioned to Cedric Renzeya himself that he had a little girl with him and needed to rent her a room for a few days while he worked out what to do with her.

But Laika was so excited during her stay in the guild—spending hour after hour listening to the other adventurers tell their stories, playing with children of the other warriors who sometimes stopped in to see their parents, or curled up with the journals of heroes who had left copies of their memoirs in the guild’s extensive library—that she didn’t want to leave. When Cedric Renzeya had seen her using a little golem to sweep out her room so she didn’t have to ‘waste time’ that could be spent playing, he’d broached the idea of having her stay permanently. Grannick, who could find no flaw in the arrangement, had agreed.

The most notable signs of Laika’s presence in the guild were the new golems wandering around. While Renzeya had pledged to never force Laika to make golems, he’d also given her access to various unusual stones, metals, and plants in case she wanted to practice, so she usually spent an hour or two a day making golems out of new things and seeing what they could do. The golems in turn were put to work at various little jobs around the guild, from sweeping out the rooms, to caring for an ill adventurer with a contagious disease that might have infected a human caretaker, to guarding the door. The latter task was handled by two iron behemoths who had been trained to knock down any intruder and to bow and bang their staves in unison when Renzeya or Laika herself came in to make for a more dramatic entrance.

Grannick also noted that a few new books about swashbuckling pirates had found their way into the guild library, and the backyard now frequently featured ”sparring practice” where Laika and a half-dozen other children dueled with golems while the actual warriors of the guild—most of whom had been charmed by Laika’s cheerful attitude and helpful nature—shouted advice and encouragement. “Yes,” she said. “She’s doing well. And she—”

“Mr. Grannick! Mr. Vanarl! Hi!” Laika scurried over. “Thank you again for the gift! I love my new dress!” She glanced down at the brilliant blue fabric of her outfit, which had been enchanted by a mage in Vanarl’s merchant guild to always sparkle and glimmer even in the worst lighting—their way of showing their appreciation, Vanarl had said, for Laika’s help in securing the gold and bringing it back to him. “It’s really pretty!”

“Thank you,” said Vanarl, smiling at her. “It’s good to see you again, Laika.”

Laika beamed and turned back to Grannick. “Are you gonna stay long? Miss Naphkator’s been teaching me some really cool sparring moves, and I wanna show you!”

Grannick nodded, and Laika’s smile somehow got even wider. “Thanks, Mr. Grannick!” she called before scurrying off. “You’re amazing!”

Vanarl chuckled. “I don’t remember you ever staying in town longer than you needed to before,” he said. “And for that matter…the job I mentioned, with that bandit ‘king’ in Warus I need you to stop before he intercepts our next shipment. I suppose you don’t need to leave for a few days since our convoy’s been delayed anyways, but…waiting around like this isn’t like you, is it?”

He trailed off, and Grannick shrugged. “I guess not. I’ve never really got along with other people. But…I’m learning that some of them are worth getting along with.”

He grinned and raised his glass, listening to the merry hubbub of the guild around him, as well as the happy laughter of the greatest golem-maker in the land.

The post The Golem Maker of the Hills, Part Four appeared first on Tellest.

The man who answered the door at Laika’s house looked nothing like the girl. He had brown hair that was going silver with age, a sharp, angular jaw, and piercing grey eyes that focused on Grannick with an unsettling intensity. “Howdy,” said the man with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You here for a golem?”

“…maybe?” Grannick hesitated, realizing from the man’s exasperated look that this wasn’t the right answer. “I mean, I heard golems might be useful but don’t know much about them, so…?”

That seemed to satisfy the man, who gave a sharp nod and pushed the door open all the way. Grannick found himself escorted into a comfortable living room with a big settee, two easy chairs whose like Grannick would have had trouble finding even in Viscosa itself, and a roaring fireplace which completely shut out the evening’s chill. The rural cabins Grannick had slept in before had always been drafty if not overtly leaky, but this one felt completely solid. “This is a nice house,” he managed.

“Thank you.” The man gestured for Grannick to sit on the couch, which he did, wincing as his armor dug into it. “A testament to my girl’s skill. This used to be a one-room cabin before she found her gift.” He waved his arm towards the window, which looked out towards the inn and a smithy. “So did most of the village. But when you have multiple caravans coming weekly…well, it does good things to the town economy.” He stuck out a hand. “Anton Maltra. Mayor.”

“Grannick Aldermair. Mercenary.” Maltra raised an eyebrow at that, and Grannick hurried on. “I’ll admit, I was surprised to see so much merchant activity given the remote location…”

“Most of our trade’s with other mountain villages,” said Maltra. “There’s lots of old mining paths around these parts which helps keep everything connected. So if the people in Hastral, the town a day to the west, want golems, they’ll all come over here, and we’ll trade favors…We make them so many golems, they fix up so many houses, or trade us so many goods, or whatever we need.”

Grannick slowly nodded. “Will you build a road next? So actual merchants can get here?”

For a split second, the mercenary thought he saw a frown on Maltra’s face. “Maybe,” he said. “But there’s something to be said for not being on everyone’s maps. We prefer nobody getting in our business.”

Grannick remembered how reluctant Laika had looked upon returning home, and his sense of unease grew. “Speaking of business,” he said. “What kinds of golems can I get?”

“Any you want.” Maltra grinned. “And for you, we wouldn’t even ask much. You said you’re a mercenary, right? We had a few problems with this one village, about a week north, selling us defective goods. If you could go over there and…recover our golems until they’re properly paid for…we’d be happy to trade you whatever kind of golem you’d like.”  He leapt to his feet. “Come—I’ll show you for yourself.”

He led Grannick out back to what the mercenary had assumed was a shed. Upon entering the room, though, he saw it was full of tables laden with every conceivable material. There were rocks, minerals, plants, even animal furs and skins. And in the middle was Laika, sitting cross-legged and slowly placing stones into the approximate shape of a person.

“Laika!” called Maltra.  His voice sounded calm, even kind, but his eyes maintained their hard, almost cruel glare. “This customer wants to see how you make golems.”

Laika turned, and her eyes—which looked much more tired than when Grannick had met her, though not even an hour had passed—widened. “Mr. Grannick?” she asked.

Grannick looked at Maltra, who had given him a sidelong glance. “We met up the valley. She was—” Laika’s face suddenly paled, and though Grannick didn’t know what that meant, he cut himself off anyways. Then Laika interjected, “Getting more materials for the Hastral order, Mr. Maltra.”

Grannick frowned. Though he rarely spent time with children, he knew they didn’t generally address their parents by their last name.  “Mr. Maltra?” he repeated.

Maltra frowned for a moment before sighing. “Laika’s parents passed away two years ago. It’s the village custom for the mayor’s family to take in orphans, and we did so, but she still thinks of her deceased parents as her ‘real’ mother and father. Of course, I’m hoping that will change soon.” His face said that it had better change soon, and the tense undercurrent in his voice concurred. “I hope you didn’t bother Mr. Grannick.”

“I didn’t,” said Laika before Grannick could comment. “I just needed to get some river quartz—”

“We should have plenty of that.” Maltra frowned, and this time he didn’t bother to hide it from Grannick. “Dear, we’ve been over this. You have a wonderful gift which is of such benefit to our village…and those with gifts have an obligation to share them. If you spend your time rushing over the mountains for raw materials which we already have, then you can’t make as many golems for the people who need them.”

Grannick frowned. “How many does she make in a day?”

“Well, she can do a simple one every few minutes, but those fall apart quickly. To make one durable enough to sell, she usually needs an hour, and she does about fifteen or so of those in a day.” Maltra saw Grannick’s shock and smiled genially. “Worried about being last in the queue? Don’t be. If you agree to help us with the ‘recovery’ job I mentioned earlier, I’ll bump you to the front of the line.”

Grannick, who hadn’t cared about the queue at all, tried to think of what to say. “The mountain villages need fifteen golems a day? When will they have enough?”

“Laika’s golems tend to last for about two or three months,” said Maltra. “After that they stop working, and their owner usually wants to buy another, so we’re expecting to be busy for the foreseeable future. Of course, if Laika takes longer. she can make them last for longer periods of time, and we’ll make sure she takes as long as she needs with yours to ensure it works for years.”

That meant Maltra was deliberately having Laika make weaker golems so they would fall apart and the village could sell more, even if it trapped his adopted daughter in a never-ending cycle. “I suppose she has a lot of golem toys?”

Laika again paled, but Maltra was watching Grannick and missed it. “She really doesn’t have time. There’s so many golems to make for the benefit of the village and the…the family.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry; she won’t put off yours because she wants to make a toy for herself. She’s very conscientious and understands that family comes first. Right, dear?”

“Right,” murmured Laika. She had been assembling the stone golem while they were talking, and Grannick saw it was now in the rough shape of a human. Then she took a deep breath and pressed her hands over the stones; after a long moment—longer than the mud golem outside had taken—it began to glow.

A hot rage creeped through Grannick, but the only response he could think of was to pulverize Maltra, and he was relatively certain that wouldn’t help. “I’m not a mage,” he drawled, “but I know some mercenaries with magic, and they told me that if someone overuses a gift like that, they could get hurt.”

Maltra waved his hand airily. “I won’t let it come to that,” he said. “I consider her to be my daughter, after all. Besides, she likes making golems. Now!” He clapped his hands. “What kind of golem do you want?”

Again, Grannick felt like he should say something, but his thoughts felt leaden and slow. “I don’t…”

“Well, you can put up in the inn for a couple days while you think about it.” Maltra ushered Grannick out, and the mercenary realized Maltra wanted his ward to get back to golem-making without being distracted. “Any stone, any gems, anything. Get our property back from that village which cheated us, and we’ll make you any type of golem you want.”

Before he could respond, Grannick found himself out in the backyard with Maltra closing the shed door behind him. He took a long breath and almost turned to go back inside but stopped short. He didn’t know of anything he could do. All his basic plans—killing Maltra, grabbing Laika and fleeing, smashing up the place until Maltra agreed to treat Laika better—would probably terrify Laika, not to mention make it impossible for him to convince her to give him her gold golem. But if he didn’t do anything, a young child would continue to work fifteen-hour days in a stuffy shed so her father could add another floor to his house.

Ironically, he thought, Laika would probably be better at this than he was. She was outgoing and gregarious; if she was the adult and he was the trapped kid, she could surely talk Maltra into doing the right thing and letting him go. She’d even been willing to talk to him, a total stranger, so…

Then he paused.  Maltra was bad, but he wasn’t the only person in the village. There were others who might help. If he could use Laika as inspiration and talk to them like she had talked to him, he might have a chance. And while this wasn’t anything like the challenges he was used to, he wasn’t going to walk away from it. Laika needed him as much as any of the merchants he’d served as a bodyguard or the nobles whose keeps he’d defended from monsters did.

And he would come through.

The post The Golem Maker of the Hills, Part Three appeared first on Tellest.