The Warden

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To Elizabeth and Abby,I know you will both be as smart, as fearless, and as strong as Aelis.Maybe cuss less. 1THE TOWERNow, standing in front of the tower, it was far too real.“It’s in ruins,” Aelis said, trying desperately to grab at authority by turning her dark eyes on the village boy who’d led her to the place.“The walls are sound,” the boy protested, feebly. “It just needs a roof, is all.” He was already backing away from her, and once he was a couple of yards away, he turned and ran, his feet pounding dust and rocks into the air.Aelis turned back to the squat tower. She could see cracks and holes snaking up the gray stone structure, crumbling mortar, and rugged ivy climbing up the rounded wall. After two weeks on increasingly bad roads in a mail carriage, she had hoped there would at least be a comfortable bed waiting for her. Might drown inside that tower in a storm.Crows hopped about, squawking, eyeing her as she jerked on the lead of the borrowed packhorse to get it started up the track that wound toward the rotting doors. The tower was a good mile or more from the village’s center, situated on a hill that overlooked the path that led to the cluster of homes that surrounded the green of Lone Pine.“Enough for privacy. Close enough I can be fetched quickly in a crisis.” Aelis took a deep breath. “Far enough away that they can pretend I’m not here.” If only I wasn’t. Aelis had a brief vision of the cobbled avenues of Antraval, wide enough for carriages to pass one another without troubling the foot traffic, and she thought briefly about knocking down the tower and using it for paving stones just to have the feel of them beneath her feet.“At least it’s far enough away not to smell the sheep shit.”She gave the packhorse another tug and was delighted to find an intact hitching ring bolted to the front wall. The tower was perhaps twenty-five feet tall, with the door—that had once been strong, solid oak bound in iron but was now rotting boards bound in rust—six feet of that.She looped the packhorse’s lead through the ring and gave it a light hitch. She tested the ring itself and was rewarded with a shower of dust and stone chips as she pulled it out.Carefully, shielding the horse from it, she tucked the ring back into the now gapingly empty spot in the stone and bit her bottom lip as she considered the problem.Raising her hand and flexing her fingers, she spoke the single word, the simplest expression of the abjurer’s art; a ward. It wasn’t much—a conjurer could’ve fixed it rather more permanently—but it should stop the ring from pulling out easily. She tugged again, found it snug.“Well. Won’t last forever, but at least I can get unpacked without chasing this horse.”She decided to leave the silver- and brass-bound chest atop its back for later and instead gathered her saddlebags, bulging with books, and slung them over one shoulder. Then she untied a wooden writing case and tucked it under her free arm.Aelis thumped the door with her bootheel, and humphed as it swung open without so much as a proper ominous groan, though it did tilt badly.“Hardly appropriate for a wizard’s tower.” The interior was a mixture of light and dark, mounds of furniture hidden beneath dust-covered sheets. A sudden shadow darted in the murk.Aelis threw down her burdens, whipped her leaf-bladed sword clear of its sheath, and was halfway into a personal all-purpose ward when a small goat pranced up to her, yelled at her for disturbing it, and went clattering out the front door.Not before treading on her bag of books and leaving a fragrant trail of piss right down the front steps, though.Carefully, very carefully, Aelis lowered her sword till it touched the ground before her, and spoke a two-word dispelling—just enough to make sure the spell she’d gathered discharged harmlessly.The goat, standing a few feet outside the open door, turned back to stare at her.“I’m going to have you for dinner,” Aelis said, pointing the tip of her sword at it before sheathing it with care. “And I’m going to wear your hide when it gets cold.”The goat yelled again, an ugly and grating sound, and trotted off, unconcerned with her threats.“As if I’d ever wear goatskin,” Aelis murmured as she bent to pick up the dropped books and case.It took her till near nightfall, and many a curse and a fervent wish that she could whip up an undead servitor or two—just one would’ve gone a long way—but Aelis got her gear unpacked, or at least stowed carefully, and one of the two rooms in the bottom floor of the tower swept and washed. She was leery of the rotting ladder leading up to the second floor, not to mention the suspicious-looking buckles in the boards that she could see a foot or so above her head. There had been nothing usable in the tower save the niches built into the walls, where she’d