Pride and Prestidigitation

The day an orc wizard summoned me to his dimension started like any other: I ate breakfast with my parents. I dipped my toast in the silky yolk of my poached egg. Just as I sank my teeth into the delicious combination, Mother said, “Really, Mary? Have you no consideration for my poor nerves? That crunching, crackling sound is so jarring!"

Father's response aimed for a lazy, indifferent tone. “If toast is too jolting for your nerves, my dear, perhaps you will tell Cook to give us porridge in the mornings. It would certainly save you from the abrupt crunch of bacon.”

I placed the rest of my toast on my plate. For nineteen years, I would have performed miracles to gain half an hour of undivided attention from either of my parents. Now, three of my sisters had married and the other was visiting the eldest. Mother’s fuss and Father’s humor humiliated me by turns.

“Oh, Mr Bennet, how could you joke about such a thing?” Mother chided. “If it ever got out that we served porridge every morning, everyone would suspect you of failing health. The Collinses would come to visit, and Mrs Collins would…”

Mother ranted for some time. Father gave me smile full of conspiratorial mischief. I tried to return it, but his face quickly returned to neutrality.

I longed for a new book.

Unfortunately, Mother refused to send a servant to Meryton for my new book, nor would she get it for me when she took the carriage into town herself. I had to accompany her on a visit to Aunt Philips and a walk around town.

After forty-three minutes of frantic hustle and an unnecessary carriage ride down a smooth road on a pleasant spring day, Mother preceded me into her sister’s drawing room. Aunt Philips and her other guest stood to greet us. I did my best to smile when Mr Dinniman asked me how I liked the weather. I could do much worse for myself than find freedom from the Bennet household with one of my uncle’s clerks.

“It’s a perfect day,” I said. “The road between Longbourne and Meryton is in good repair, so our ride was very smooth.”

Mother started to say something about my “passionate insistence” on buying a new book, but her voice faded quickly to an indistinct murmur. Light drained from the world around me. Aunt Philips reached out for me, concern on her face. Her lips moved through the syllables of my name, but a terrible pressure overwhelmed my senses.

For the longest second of my life, I saw no light and heard no noise. I felt crushed, then twisted in impossible ways.

The next thing I knew, I stood in a candlelit stone room full of screams.

I forced myself to take a breath and assess my situation. The stench of my surroundings hit me first: bile, waste, the coppery bite of blood. I and five other women of similar age and dress stood in the center of the stone room. Six podiums encircled us, then a glowing line of arcane symbols.

Just past the nearest podium and the strange line, I saw a robed figure kneeling on the floor. His dark eyes stared up at me. His lips moved. I knelt down to better hear him. Terror twisted my guts when I realized how inhuman his face appeared. His features blended an old man with a large pig.

He said a few words I didn’t understand.

Suddenly, text appeared at the top of my vision and a masculine voice with a flat tone sounded in my mind. “By the Blessing of Ugland, you’ve learned a new language: Surface Orcish.”

As I stared at him, the swine-man’s ruddy complexion paled to gray. “We failed,” he said weakly. “No Gandalf. No Robin Hood. We failed.” He slumped over, motionless, eyes wide and glassy.

Someone retched behind me. I stood up and saw one of my fellow captives on her hands and knees beside her podium. The contents of her stomach hit an invisible wall marked by the glowing circle and pooled on the flagstones before her. On the other side of the circle, the corpse of another swine-man clutched a flute and stared at nothing.

Another of the women knelt to comfort the sick one.

A third asked, “Where am I? What is happening?”

“A little help?” this voice came from outside the circle, near the dim room’s only door. It belonged to a knight right out of Kitty’s favorite romantic novels: tall, broad, and clad from head to toe in brightly painted plate mail. The knight pushed against the heavy wooden door with all the weight of his large body, but something on the other side thudded against it with rhythmic force. “Seriously,” he said, “Can’t one of you lend a hand?”

One of my fellow captives stepped towards the knight and pressed her hand against the invisible wall.

“What can we do?” she asked in his language. “We’re trapped in here.”

The knight flipped around, pressing his back to the door and bracing with his thick legs. His porcine mouth switched from a snarl of exertion to a slack-jawed gape. “Oh no,” he said. “Oh no oh no oh no.”

I followed his gaze around the room: six women, six podiums, one magic cell, five corpses.

“You were supposed to be mighty heroes,” the knight said. “We were supposed to summon and mentor the Saviors of Seegur.” He groaned with exertion as the thumps against the door grew stronger.

“How do we get home?” demanded the sick captive.

“The Great Wizard Donlan was going to reverse the summoning,” the knight said with a nod in my direction. “After the Ravagers were defeated.”

I looked down at the corpse of the swine-man beside me. “Who else could do it?” I asked.

“Gandalf, supposedly.” The knight let out a small, bitter laugh. “It would take a powerful wizard. One with more accuracy than Donlan.”

The one who pointed out that we were trapped said, “Tell us the first step, then.”

The door shook and groaned. “The scrolls,” the knight said.

I hadn’t noticed the scroll on the podium beside me. Now that I saw the vellum covered in unfamiliar writing, I picked it up. It vanished.
The emotionless voice in my head read out the new text scrolling across the top of my vision: “Profession Achieved. All stats increase by one. Profession selected: Wizard. Intelligence increased by three. Starter Equipment Package granted.”

A slight weight appeared on my back, held in place by straps over my shoulders. A cloth-bound tome shimmered into existence before me, solidifying as I took it in my hands.

The podium had disappeared. I saw my fellow captives pick up their scrolls. The vellum and podiums vanished. Each woman stood still for a moment, then reacted to the sudden addition of bags on their backs and items in their hands.

The magical circle exploded into countless twinkles that faded out of existence.

The tallest of us joined the knight, pressing her back to the door. “What is trying to come in?”

“A Ravager,” the knight said. “We thought we slew the party that had come to stop us, but two survived and interrupted the summoning spell. I vanquished one. Put on your armor!”

“We can’t change clothes in front of a man!” his assistant snapped.

“This is a matter of life and death,” he insisted.

“Here.” Another woman draped a shawl over the knight’s head. “No peeking.”

“Thrinsfold save us,” the knight prayed.

I imitated the others and took off my pack to look inside it. “Trousers?” I asked.

“Life and death!” the knight repeated.

“Linen trousers,” I clarified. “Not armor.”

“I have armor,” the knight’s assistant declared. The other four women chorused that they did, too.

I considered remaining in my dress, but everyone else started changing. I’d always felt safest when surrounded by a handful of women engaged in similar pursuits. Now, I found myself in a strange room full of dead monster-people, with a Ravager pounding on the door, and I didn’t know what a Ravager even was. I put on the trousers.

Two of my new companions wore leather armor, one dark gray and the other rich brown. Both accentuated their figures to a degree that made me blush. The one who had been ill wore black leather armor with the extra protection—and glistening fashion—of bronze studs. The knight’s assistant slipped a mail tunic over her new linen clothes with a blue surcoat on top, cinched at the waist with a pale leather belt. The two in plain leather helped the last captive strap her green-painted plate armor together.

They all looked like lovely, capable heroines.

From what I could tell of my light brown trousers and dark brown shirt, I looked like the dowdy apprentice of an unsuccessful carpenter.

Well, we were all dressed. I removed the shawl from the knight’s head. “What do we do now?”

“If a few of you ladies work together, I think you should be able to brace the door. Let it open just a mere crack, and I shall slay the Ravager. Then we proceed with all possible haste out of Donlan’s Keep and into the safety of the nearest village.”

Two of the young ladies present inched into the knight’s place at the door: Mrs Julia Yates in chain mail and Mrs Henrietta Hayter in full plate armor.

The man cracked his back and drew a sword. “You other four may want to have your weapons to hand, just in case.”

We scrambled through our bags. My hand wrapped around a smooth wooden rod and I pulled. I continued pulling as it proved to be twice as long as the bag itself, then twice as long again, then taller than myself. I forced myself not to spend precious time wondering about the impossible. I simply threw my bag on my back and gripped my staff.

Mrs Jane Churchill in the studded armor and Miss Margaret Dashwood in brown leather each held a dagger in her right hand. Miss Eleanor Tilney in gray leather extracted two daggers from her bag and assumed a stance with both at the ready.

My throat clenched at the all-too-familiar sensation of being the least prepared, most awkward woman in a situation.

The knight caught my gaze. He said, quietly enough for only my ears, “Best stay behind the rest of us, Miss.”

After one more thud against the door, he unlatched the handle. With the next impact, Julia and Henrietta lurched forward by a few alarming inches. An… arm? Something slipped in from the other side and gripped the door. The wood groaned and started to crack.

The knight bellowed, “Light of Thrinsfold!” He thrust his blade between door and wall.

The thing on the other side screeched so loud I had to cover my ears. Three more appendages gripped the failing door. Eleanor slashed one of them. Pearlescent yellow ichor gushed from the wound, drenching Julia’s bonnet and making her gag.

Henrietta exclaimed, “Good heavens, that stench!”

“My apologies!” Eleanor said.

Margaret snapped, “Squeamish later, brave now!” She sliced through one of the limbs, lopping off its bulbous tip. More of the stinking slime gushed out, drenching both herself and Henrietta.

Another half-dozen arms sprang around the door, wobbling bonelessly as they reached out. One caught Jane by the hand wielding her dagger and another wrapped around her throat.

Again, the impossible happened. I was too far away to assist Jane, but I couldn’t watch a monster strangle her. I strode towards her and the floor itself folded beneath me, bringing distant stones underfoot for each step I took. I slammed my staff down on the top appendage. It dragged Jane to her knees, but released her.

Julia drew a dagger, slashed through one Ravager arm that had wrapped around the knight’s neck, and cut a small gash in another attached to the door.

Henrietta, unable to hold the door alone, repositioned herself beside the knight. She unsheathed a sword and jabbed it into beast, which roared in pain.

The knight slashed again, and the roaring instantly stopped. The Ravager’s limbs fell limp, then melted into the odorous ichor.

“Thank goodness it was still wounded from before,” the knight remarked.

Jane threw up again.

The ichor soaked into my slippers and squished between my toes. I held a handkerchief over my mouth and nose to stave off the odor.

“Run!” the knight demanded. “There’s no telling when more will come!”

I helped Jane stand. The seven of us slipped through the splatter of the monster’s remains. Slime clung to our shoes, making the narrow spiral of slate stairs even more treacherous. We dashed across a room full of wrecked furniture and sundered books and out another heavy wooden door.

Out in the starlit night, the knight ushered us off the gravel walkway, across an unkempt lawn and down a muddy riverbank.

“How deep is the water?” Henrietta hesitated.

“Can’t you swim?” the knight asked.

“In a full set of medieval armor?” she demanded. “I’m covered in steel!”

Henrietta and the knight each looked at the other as if they had never encountered such ignorance.

“Isn’t it alimant?” the knight asked.

“What?”

“Does it feel heavier than your dress did?”

A gigantic ball of fire flew through the sky and stopped abruptly over the tall, narrow building we’d just exited.

Without another word, we all waded into the frigid water.

Margaret and Henrietta proved to be proficient enough swimmers to help Eleanor, who could independently achieve little more than a stationary float. The rest of us paddled well enough.

The knight led us downstream. I did my best to make no noise and ignore the indistinct shouting behind us. Cold soaked through my flesh until my very bones trembled. After ten minutes, the river and our efforts brought us to the edge of a forest. Another three and half minutes later, the river intersected with a road at a little wooden bridge.

“Donlan? Arvid?” The masculine voice emerged from the forest’s thick undergrowth.

“I’m here,” the knight said. “Donlan and the others are gone.”

A man stepped closer to the bank of the river. He and the knight started helping the rest of us out of the river. By his clothes, and the rough hand that supported my arm, I guessed he was some sort of tradesman or farmer.

“Good evening, Miss… Miss… and Miss… here, Miss… Arvid, what in the names of the Four Princes…? Evening, Miss. Miss. You’re all frozen through. There’s blankets in the back of the wagon.” He whistled and a mule appeared from the undergrowth, pulling a wagon behind it. “It’s just ten clicks to Bolloford. We'll get you warmed, fed, and all sorted out.”

The other captives and I looked each other.

Margaret tilted her head upstream. “The further we stray from that tower, the harder it will be for our families to find us.”

I told her, “My brother-in-law can smoke out a scoundrel in Whitechapel. We must choose between the Ravagers, the forest, and the blankets in the back of this nice man’s wagon.”

Eleanor said weakly, “Blankets.”

In short order, the entire party sacrificed propriety on the altar of expediency. The tradesman drove the cart down a smooth road of packed dirt, through a forest illuminated solely by stars and fireflies. The knight, apparently Sir Arvid Thresher of Three Widow House, sat beside the tradesman. They spoke in low voices. The six of us ladies formed two piles in the straw-strewn wagon, shivering together under large woolen blankets. Henrietta and I wrapped our arms around either side of Margaret, blanket tucked around us, as if we were sisters and not strangers.

During our ride, we learned more about each other than our names. Similarities abounded between us. We’d all come from England, though different parts of the country. We were all daughters of gentlemen, but from her manners I suspected that Mrs Julia Yates’ baronet father had gained his fortune through trade. She, Mrs Henrietta Hayter, and Mrs Jane Churchill had all been married within the last nine months Miss Eleanor Tilney was engaged to be wed in a fortnight. Oddly, none of us could agree on the date from which we’d been plucked, ranging from the spring of 1804 to the autumn of 1815.

After we spent thirty-two minutes in the cart, Bolloford revealed itself to be a village comparable to Meryton in scale and in no other way. Shops and houses had been dug into the ground and woven into the roots of living trees. Watchmen with porcine faces and tusks, just like Sir Arvid and his tradesman companion, strolled the quiet dirt streets. Each held an oil lantern in one hand and rested the other on the hilt of a sheathed sword. When they heard us coming, they all approached the wagon in greeting.

“What news, Sir Arvid? Have the heroes come?” one asked.

The knight parried the question. “Ravagers have claimed Donlan’s Keep."

“What about the summoning?” a watchman pressed. “Did you get Sir Galahad? Mr Quincey Morris?” He grabbed the edge of the wagon and pulled himself up to peer at us. “Girls?”

Sir Arvid said, “Our guests were just torn from their homes and thrown into a cold river. Do you mind?”

“Sorry!” The youthful watchman released his hold on the wagon.

The tradesman drove us to a sizeable building at the end of a road.

“Tommy’s Pub has the best stew. You ladies can warm up inside and out.”

“Food, warmth, and a plan,” Sir Arvid promised. “We have to figure out how to change six girls at level one into a party of heroes.”

I wondered if I’d ever see my parents and sisters again.

Jane vomited.