A Wizard’s Price

 

Gold-Nose the dwarf had a very unique talent amongst his folk. He could actually smell metals and jewels, which made him very useful when mining for gold and silver, diamonds, rubies, sapphires and other precious gems. To him they all had a very special smell and he could sniff them out through tons of solid rock.

 

Today was a holiday amongst his fellow dwarves and no work was being done in their mine deep in the Storm Mountains in the Kingdom of the Ice Moon. But he had wanted to check on a vein of gold he had sniffed out the other day, just to satisfy himself that what he had smelt was there.

 

He had his nose up against a rock face and he took several deep sniffs, gave a satisfied grunt and nod. Yes, there was a very good gold vein not too far away and from the smell there would be enough gold for several months of mining. He figured that another day’s digging should bring them within reach of it.

 

Which was just as well as mining was hard enough work at the best of times without making it worse by getting a smell wrong. Dwarves could be real grouches if they dug for several days and came up with nothing for their efforts. But Gold-Nose was sure he was sniffing correctly and it was time to return to the surface. There was a feast being prepared and cold ale to drink and he didn’t want to miss it.

 

He turned away from the rock face and began to walk back along the narrow mine shaft. It burrowed ahead of him, mixed with shadows and the dim light cast lanterns hanging on hooks nailed into the rock walls. He shortly came to a bend in the tunnel and had just stepped around it when the whole shaft gave a sudden lurch and shudder. The rock around him groaned with the shaking and dust fell from the ceiling.

 

Gold-Nose braced himself with his strong legs, not too concerned about it as dwarves were used to the earth moving from time to time. They were very good at digging shafts and it would take a really bad shaking to collapse one.

 

After several moments the groaning of stone and the shaking stopped and a deep silence filled the dust-filled air. Gold-Nose sniffed the air and gave a grunt. It had only been a small earth movement, not actually an earthquake and nothing to worry about.

 

He stepped on a little further until he suddenly stopped again as he heard another sound. It was a low rumbling sound that was not the earth shaking, but of something else, something that sounded like it was moving.

 

Gold-Nose broke into a run down the shaft toward the next bend and rounding it he suddenly slid to a stop, his face turning pale. A ladder was just ahead, reaching up into the entrance to a shaft above. But pouring out of the opening was an increasing gush of muddy water.

 

He realized in some nervousness that the shaking must have cracked open an underground water source somewhere and had begun to flood the shaft above him. Whilst dwarves were careful not to mine near a water source, sometimes they missed a smaller one that fed off a larger source.

 

There was another shaft branching off to the right and he slipped down it, hoping that another exit would be clear. But before he even got there he was wading in waist deep, muddy water and he realized in terror that he was trapped. The water must have flood the entire shaft above and was now filling his own. He knew was as good as doomed to drown.

 

He stopped as the muddy water steadily rose higher and gave a wall an angry slap with a hand.

 

‘Of all the rotten troll luck!’ he muttered in frustration.

 

Then he heard a sudden splashing behind him and turning around, stared in disbelief at the sight of a tall, dark robed figure wading toward him. Gold-Nose knew a wizard when he saw one, in this case a wizard of the Dark Order.

 

There are two types of wizards in Kingdoms. Those of the Dark Order and those of the Wizardry Order. Wizards of the Dark Order can be good or evil and are the sort to go on adventures or plot for power. Wizards of the Wizardry Order study a lot, invent enchantments or run Wizardry shops. Rather than dark grey robes, they wear colourful ones, usually with some kind of symbol on their sleeves, like suns or moons.

 

Frankly, Gold-Nose didn’t care which Order this wizard belonged to as a wild hope had flared in his mind. He could conjure me out of the tunnel… to safety, he thought!

 

The wizard reached him and held out a hand.

 

‘Take my hand and I will save you… for a price,’ he said, his dark blue eyes very intense on Gold-Nose.

 

Gold-Nose didn’t think twice about what the price would be. Any would be worth it to save him from certain death. He grabbed the wizard’s hand as the muddy water swirled up around his chest. The wizard muttered a few words and Gold-Nose was suddenly drawn into thick darkness. He felt as though all his fingers were being snapped and something sticking pins under his kneecaps.

 

Then light returned and found himself in a sunlit room, the light shining through a window in one wall with a bed in a corner. He dropped to his knees, gasping at the conjuring effects, his clothes dripping muddy water onto the floor.

 

‘Thanks… thanks very much,’ he managed to gasp. ‘The name’s Gold-Nose. I owe you my life.’

 

‘Indeed and payment will expected… later,’ the wizard replied and then waved a hand at an open door. ‘There is a bathroom to the left and a choice of clean clothes waiting for you. To the right you will find a hall where you will find food and drink. There will be others joining you later.’

 

Gold-Nose nodded, closing his eyes for a moment in relief. When he looked up to thank him again, the wizard had vanished.

 

* * *

 

Prince Elin was very miserable. Not just because he was a prisoner in a dank, wicked smelling dungeon cell. Nor because he had to share it with a family of squeaking rats and a bat roosting in the ceiling. Not even because he hadn’t had a bath for almost a month and his fine clothes were grimy and smelly.

 

He was miserable because he knew that he would eventually have to give in to his uncle’s demand. That he marry the Princess Celinda of the Kingdom of the Bitter Moon.

 

He would not have minded that so much except for the fact that the princess was almost seventy years of age, her face all wrinkles, eyes always bloodshot and it was said that she drooled in her sleep. She  was also was missing most of her teeth, had really bad breath and didn’t bathe all that often.

 

To make matters even worse she lived in a very bleak and mountainous kingdom where it rained most of the time, her castle was said to leak like a sieve and the people lived on boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes. Which was fine occasionally, but not every day for lunch and dinner!

 

But there was nothing Elin could do to avoid it. His own father and mother died some years ago and he had been looked after by his uncle since then. He wanted closer ties to the princess’s kingdom and Elin’s marriage to the princess would see to that. Elin had of course refused to marry her and had been thrown into the dungeon cell until he changed his mind.

 

He thought he was pretty tough to have survived so long on just thin soup and bread, but he had caught a chill a couple of days ago and it was getting worse. He knew that if he didn’t want to die down here, he would have to accept his fate and marry the princess. And he couldn’t look forward to her dying quickly as she had three younger sisters who would be his next brides.

 

He stood up from the corner of the cell, prepared to call for the guard and tell him to go and find his uncle. He looked up to take a step toward the solid wooden cell door, but gave a yelp at the dark robed figure standing before it. He hadn’t heard it open and looking past the figure, saw that it was still closed.

 

He rubbed his eyes, wondering if his illness was making him see things. But the figure was still there and he realized he was a wizard.

 

‘I imagine you don’t really want to marry the princess… do you, Prince Elin?’ the wizard said.

 

Elin shook his head.

 

‘Not even a bit,’ he replied.

 

‘Then I can save you from such a fate… but you must agree to pay a price.’

 

Elin didn’t care what price would be asked. Anything would be better than married to someone with bad breath and who drooled in their sleep. He took the wizard’s extended hand.

 

* * *

 

Mother Carnation was a very annoyed witch. She was annoyed because she knew she was about to suffer a rather unpleasant death and all at the quite young age, in witch terms, of a hundred and fifty years.

 

Now she wasn’t ill, in fact she was very healthy. But the horde of angry villagers somewhere in the night-shrouded woods behind her intended to make her very unhealthy by burning her at the stack, a witch’s worst nightmare. She could hear their shouts and cries she blundered her way through the dark shrouded trees, as well as the snarls and barks of hounds leading them.

 

What really annoyed her was that someone in Kingdoms Council of Witches had made a really bad mistake. It had all seemed like a regular job when she had set out for the small town of Pea in the Kingdom of the Winking Moon. She was supposed to have set up a Witchery shop in the town to cater for the health needs of the townsfolk.

 

Now before sending a witch off to open a Witchery, the council was supposed to make sure of a very important thing. They were supposed to make sure that the townsfolk actually liked witches and knew what good things their potions and lotions could do.

 

But someone had either not done the proper research or had got the town mixed up with another. She had barely arrived in the late afternoon when she learned that the townsfolk thought the best thing for a witch was to burn them.

 

She had managed to escape with the aid of a little magic, though only just. And she hadn’t been able to recover her broomstick, otherwise she would have been able to escape by flying away. She had barely made it into the woods with the townsfolk hot on her heals and had been avoiding them for several hours.

 

If it had just been the villagers after her, she might have escaped easily. But their hounds had never lost her trail no matter how hard she tried to fool them. And now she was tiring, her legs aching and she knew time was running out for her.

 

Ahead the moonlight revealed the ground climbing up a steep, rocky slope and shortly she was struggling up it. She reached a rock shelf and found to her disgust that there was no way of climbing beyond it. She turned and in the woods below she could see shapes of people lit by the burning brands they carried. She knew there would be no time to go back down the slope and find another way. She was trapped.

 

Mother Carnation gave a disappointed sigh and sat down on a large rock. She rearranged her black robes and straightened her hat with white carnations stitched on it so that she at least looked respectable. She thought she could probably turn a few of the villagers into newts or toads. But what good would it do but give witches an even worse name.

 

The torchlight grew nearer and she began to hear the angry voices of the townsfolk above the baying of the hounds. Then she became aware that someone else was suddenly standing next to her. She turned her head slowly to look at the tall, dark robed and hooded wizard who had obviously just conjured to her spot.

 

‘It’s never a good night for a burning is it, Mother?’ he said. ‘What say we disappoint them.’

 

Mother Carnation was silent for a few moments, gathering her thoughts. If the wizard was here to help her she knew that there would be a price for it.

 

‘I imagine there will be a price for such a favour,’ she finally replied.

 

‘There is always a price, Mother,’ the wizard responded bluntly.

 

Now you might think that any price would be worth being saved from being burnt at the stake. But a witch never likes to owe a wizard something. It’s a complicated thing, but it’s all to do with magical knowledge, pride and just plain stubbornness… on both sides. So Mother Carnation was silent for a few moments as she thought on this and then shrugging, took the wizard’s hand.

 

* * *

 

After a long bath and a change of clothes Gold-Nose went down to the dining hall and as he had been told there was food and drink waiting for him. There were even vials of pain potion to lessen the nauseating affects of the conjuring. Through the windows of the hall he found that castle was perched on a what appeared to be a small island of rock surrounded by a wind blown sea with no other land visible on the horizon. The hall windows overlooking a dizzying drop to waves crashing against steep, rocky cliffs.

 

He wondered what the wizard would ask for saving him. He might want to use him because of his special skill in sniffing out metals and gems, but wizards don’t really need anyone to obtain treasure for them. They can just conjure themselves into a vault of the nearest Kingdom’s National Bank or a local jeweller and take anything they wanted.

 

Gold-Nose shrugged. Whatever the wizard wanted would be revealed to him at some time, so there was no use worrying over it. So after eating he settled himself into an armchair before a blazing fireplace and dozed off.

 

When he woke there was someone else in the hall, a young man dressed in fine clothing that someone of royal blood would wear. He was helping himself to a plate of food and looking up, spotted Gold-Nose and waved.

 

‘Hi, there! I’m Elin. Any idea of where we are?’

 

Gold-Nose shook his head as he got to his feet and came over to the table, suddenly hungry himself again.

 

‘Not a clue,’ he replied. ‘We could be anywhere in Kingdoms. I’m Gold-Nose by the way.’

 

‘Were you brought here by the wizard?’

 

Gold-Nose nodded.

 

‘He saved me from a very grim fate.’

 

‘Me too!’ Elin said in wonder.

 

They swapped tales of how they had been rescued and at the end Gold-Nose shook his head, a thoughtful look on his bearded face.

 

‘I’m grateful to him, but I can’t help but wonder why he did it.’

 

‘Perhaps he’s just a kind wizard,’ Elin suggested.

 

‘Mmm… maybe,’ Gold-Nose replied. ‘But he looks like the type of wizard that goes off on adventures filled with lots of danger.’

 

Elin’s eyes grew wide.

 

‘You mean magic swords and rings and all that?’ he said in some excitement.

 

Gold-Nose nodded.

 

‘Yeah… but don’t get too excited. Adventures usually end up with some people dying… or so the stories go anyway.’

 

Gold-Nose went off to bed shortly after, but Elin decided to sleep in the chair by the fire for the night. He was woken in the morning by someone moving about the dining table and thinking it was Gold-Nose having some breakfast, looked around. Only to find a black robed witch picking at some food on the table.

 

‘Morning, dear,’ she said as she looked up at him. ‘Sorry if I woke you. I'm, Mother Carnation.’

 

‘That’s all right... I'm, Elin. Did the wizard save you as well?’

 

‘Yes… he did,' she replied stiffly, not really wanting to be reminded of it. 'I take it he rescued you from some kind of danger too?’

 

Elin nodded.

 

‘And there’s a dwarf here as well… named Gold-Nose.’

 

‘Mmm… all very curious...' she said, but was interrupted by the hall's door opening.

 

Through it stepped the wizard, with Gold-Nose a pace behind him.

 

‘Good morning,’ the wizard said, his voice deep and commanding. ‘I am the wizard, Nem-Nemon. I imagine you are all interested in why I have rescued and brought you all here?’

 

‘Most interested,’ Mother Carnation said firmly. ‘And I wish to remind you that I am witch and I’ll protect myself... and the others if you mean any funny business.’

 

A small smile creased Nem-Nemon’s lips and Gold-Nose got the impression that he didn’t take the threat very seriously.

 

‘I can assure you, Mother Carnation that there is no dark meaning behind you all being here,’ he replied. ‘If you would like to know why, then please follow me.’

 

And without another word he turned and stepped out of the hall through another door.

 

The trio followed him through the castle, passing down several corridors until a final door led them to a bright day outside. They found themselves in a small courtyard garden, a high wall protecting it from the sea wind, but allowing the morning sun to shine on beds of flowers and slender trees. A cobblestone path led to the left amidst the trees and Nem-Nemon guided them along it.

 

They shortly reached a small grassed area, square in shape and bordered by small stones. The grass was well tended and cut very close. Sticking out of the grass were metal hoops, looking very much like horseshoes Gold-Nose thought.

 

There were also four coloured balls about the size of oranges lying on the grass, one blue, one red, one black and the other yellow. Leaning against a couple of the metal hoops were four wooden mallets with long handles.

 

‘Is… is this some kind of game?’ Gold-Nose asked curiously.

 

‘Indeed it is a game,’ Nem-Nemon said. ‘It’s called croquet and is played in some kingdoms. I find it a very relaxing pastime, especially after a dangerous adventure.’

 

Mother Carnation eyed him, a stunned expression on her face.

 

‘You mean you rescued us all... to play a game?’ she asked.

 

Nem-Nemon nodded, a challenging look in his blue eyes.

 

‘Yes,’ he replied bluntly.

 

‘Do other wizards play it?’ Elin asked.

 

The wizard suddenly looked a little uncomfortable and nudged a loose stone on the ground with a boot.

 

‘Most other wizards of the Dark Order consider it… silly,’ he replied. ‘That’s why I rescue folk from time to time from unpleasant fates so they will feel obliged to play it with me for a few days.’

 

There was silence for some moments as everyone took in what he had said and then Gold-Nose burst out laughing.

 

‘Well, I don’t mind playing,’ he chuckled. ‘It’s a cheap price for saving my life.’

 

‘It kind of reminds of that game that’s played in taverns on those flat tables with long sticks and coloured balls,’ Mother Carnation said thoughtfully.

 

‘Anything’s better than the fate was I was faced with,’ Elin said.

 

‘Well then, that’s settled,’ Nem-Nemon said in pleased tone. ‘I’ll explain the rules over lunch and then we’ll play our first game in the afternoon.’

 

And so for the next several days Gold-Nose, Prince Elin and Mother Carnation played croquet with Nem-Nemon. Gold-Nose returned home afterwards, much to the delight of his fellow dwarves who thought him lost in the shaft flooding. Mother Carnation returned to report to the Kingdom’s Council of Witches and halt any plans of opening a Witchery in the town of Pea.

 

As for Prince Elin, he went on an adventure with Nem-Nemon, met a wonderful princess his own age and married her. They had several children… all of whom would grow up to be very good croquet players.