But I’m Looking For
© 2019 by Walter Reimer


Thumbnail art by  rabbi-tom


The equine mare lifted her mug and took a look around the tavern before taking a long drink of the ale she’d been served. The bar was crowded with furs of several species drinking, gambling and talking. One burly otter slouched at a table in the corner, snoring, and the bear tending the bar was giving him a tolerant, almost fond, look. A pair of minstrels was playing a tune on lute and tambor by the fireplace, and the tavern had an air of friendly familiarity.

Almost as fond as the look the kobold mage seated beside her was giving her. The paladin returned the smile and the two clinked their mugs together before drinking. As she wiped her mouth the bear shouted, “Ho, Meredith! Want a refill?”

The paladin shook her head and summoned all her charisma, as well as the goodwill earned from her and Varan making friends in the village. “I need information, Grimbold.”

The bear’s expression looked even more open and friendly. “Ask away, then!”

“Where is the Amulet of Husn?” She felt the mage cast a Truth spell as she asked the question.

“You’ll be wanting to find the stewed prunes, then,” he said, “but – “ He was abruptly hit from behind by an unsavory-looking canine armed with a cudgel. The hound fixed Meredith with a decidedly unfriendly glare, and behind her the mare could hear people getting out of their seats.

She and the mage were out of their own chairs in an instant. “We want no trouble,” she said, and drew her anointed sword.

“Want it or not, trouble you’ve got,” the hound growled. “Chuck ‘em in the Slough of Despond, boys.”

The crowd surrounded the pair, and began to advance. Meredith parried aside a thrown tankard.

Her armor alerted her to a mana buildup to her left and behind her. Varan was summoning power for a spell. “What – “

“SLEEP,” the mage commanded.

The paladin staggered, sword dropping from her nerveless paw as she slumped limply to the floor.


***


“Shit.”

Meredith glowered at the small simulacrum displayed on the desk in her quarters. And things had been going so well, too. She saved the game as the AI playing Varan started dragging her paladin out of the tavern and sat back, thinking.

The bit of game play hadn’t taken very long in real time, and hadn’t been completely bereft of results. The sleep spell hadn’t been Varan’s fault, but that of the AI’s predictive programming; it simply reviewed everything the vir had done and extrapolated a likely series of behaviors.

And there were now two clues: the Slough of Despond, and whatever Grimbold had meant about “stewed prunes.” She saved and closed the game, then began doing a bit of research.

The Slough was from an ancient Terran morality tale, a swampy place full of fear and sorrow. If the Amulet was anywhere, it had to be somewhere near a place like this. A check through the village map showed a swamp a few miles away, and the palomino mare marked it as a likely spot to search.

The phrase, though . . . Meredith wrinkled her nose in distaste at the definition, glanced at the clock, and set up a search that broke the two words into individual letters and moved them into different orders, then ran definitions. She set it to run in background, closed the game, and went to get a shower before her shift started.

The Kiss Me in the Dark was still on the way to Sol System and the route was well-marked, so her eight hours at the helm position might be considered routine. That is, of course, if the crew was bent on mass suicide; despite all of the new and recently-repaired systems aboard the freighter, no one was interested in taking chances.

She glanced up as Vinzen Garry and the two night shift engineers entered the compartment. The Scottish Fold stood beside Meredith’s chair and took in the monitor readouts at a glance. “How we doing, Merry?”

“Course nominal, speed’s good, all systems running green,” the mare replied. “we should be picking up Beacon One in about another hour,” she added, referring to the first and oldest hyperspace navigation waypoint, at the edge of the system’s ‘border.’ She twisted in her seat to smile up at him. “Relieving us early?”

Garry laughed. “We still have ten minutes. I’m going to top off my coffee,” and he left for the kitchen.

Her shift over, Meredith got a meal and went back to her quarters. She shed her jumpsuit and sat down at her desk to eat, and accessed an entertainment channel before noticing that the computer had completed its search and was waiting for attention. Intrigued, she tabbed it open and started reading it as she drank her iced tea.

“’Prewed stunes?’” she asked half aloud, and looked further. The computer had run the words through its databases, and had gotten a ‘hit’ when the two words were sounded phonetically. A quick cross-reference with Terran linguistics, and it gave her the answer.

The mare raised an eyebrow.

“Proud stones.” She called up the game map.

There was a stone circle near the swamp, and she clenched her chopsticks in a fist as she grinned.