The Hob's Bargain

The gaming room was full of tables with strange markings on them. I picked up a ball from a large table in the center of the room and sent it spi

I moved to the next room. It was shrouded—covered against the lord's return, I supposed. Even with the sheets, I could tell that it was a bedroom, though it was larger than my whole cottage. I wandered among the ghostly forms, trying to decide what each was. A table. A desk. Near the far wall was an object that defeated my guessing. It stood a full head taller than I was, narrow and rounded in shape. Finally admitting defeat, I pulled the sheet free.

A fully articulated human skeleton hung on a frame from an eye hook drilled into its skull, which stared emptily at me, jaw gaping wide. A strange thing to have in a bedroom. This must have been the bloodmage's domain.

I wasn't bothered so much by the skeleton as by the strange double vision I had that tried to tell me it was a young man instead. Chills ran down my spine as I looked at the skull hanging some inches above me. His eyes were honey-brown, framed by hair a shade darker than my own. A small scar trailed from the side of his right eye, like a tear that had been etched in. Laugh lines lightly touched the corners of his mouth. Something drew my attention back up the edge of the scar to his eyes; but this time they seemed… almost yellow.

I stepped forward, lifting my hand to touch bone or flesh and see which one was real. Before I could touch it, the skeleton glowed green and red briefly before dissolving into ashes at my feet. Dissolved by magic so strong I could smell its acrid scent in the air. Hob's magic.

"By the mountain, lady," growled the hob from behind me, " 'twas ill-done. That poor lad had enough to bear without being summoned back as a wraith."

"What?" I asked. Even to my ears my voice sounded foggy. His words were plain enough, but I didn't understand the meaning. Still captured by the memory of the skeleton's eyes, I found it hard to think. "A wraith?"

He glared at me a moment more, then frowned. His ears flared widely and he shook his head.

"Tell me, Lady, what magic do you possess?"

I rubbed my face briskly with my hands, but the vagueness didn't go away. He took my hands in his and spoke even more slowly. "What powers do you have, Aren?"

"I see visions." There, that was right.

"Of what?"

"Things that happen." That didn't seem a good enough explanation, so I made another effort. Finally the fog in my head dissipated. "I used to get just feelings mostly. You know, that something bad was going to happen. Now I see mostly events that have already taken place or are happening somewhere else. But I saw the things that attacked us this morning before they did." I shook the last of the fuzziness out of my head and smiled ruefully. "Sorry, that wasn't very coherent. I guess I'm a little dizzy. Too much excitement, too little sleep."

"Too much ignorance." he said in a disgusted voice.

I was about to ask him what he meant when the sounds of horses in the courtyard below a

The hob said something in another language. From the expression on his face, I didn't think it was a nice word. I let him lead the way down while I tried to figure out what had happened in that room. I knew what a wraith was, or at least I'd heard stories of them. Nasty things that sucked the marrow from the bones of people and animals unfortunate enough to encounter them. Why would a touch transform a skeleton into a wraith? Was it something the bloodmage had done? Or was it—I looked down at my hands, which certainly didn't appear any different than they had before—was it me?

Merewich and Koret were waiting for us with the priest, Cantier, and Ice. They looked grim-faced and a little pale. It might have been this morning's battle, but I suspected it was the first sight of the hob.

I stepped around him and bowed shallowly in an imitation of court ma

As I stared at him, he gri

His good humor broke the tension a bit, enabling me to finish the introductions. "Goodmen, all, may I present to you Caefawn of the Hob?"

Merewich took over from there, as was proper. I took the horses and led them to where Duck grazed, hoping his good ma

By the time I returned, the elders had found seats on the stairs that led to the manor's main entrance. Caefawn sat unconcernedly on the ground below them, legs crossed in a relaxed fashion. I stopped, unwilling to intrude.

"Can the lord's harvests feed the people you've got for the winter?" Caefawn asked as I came close enough to hear.

"Aye, with a fair bit left over," replied Ice. "If we get the chance to harvest them."

"Right, then." The hob's voice became brisk. "What you need is help with the raiders, and with the creatures who are returning to this valley. Without help, it seems likely that you won't make it through the summer, let alone the winter. Am I right?"

Merewich wiggled his eyebrows. "I wouldn't have put it so bluntly myself, sir, but I suppose you've the right of it."

Caefawn nodded. "Well, then, I think I have a bargain for you." He flexed his hands on his thighs. "As I have demonstrated, I can help you with the bandits. I know a fair bit more than you about the returning wildlings." He smiled briefly, at some secret thought. "I can even help with the harvest. If I do these things, I require a gift in return."

"What is that?" asked Merewich.

The hob's face didn't change, but I heard a hint of bitterness in his tone. As if he liked what he was going to say even less than he expected them to. "The sacrifice of one of your women of childbearing years."

Dead silence fell.

Shock held me still. Clearly I remembered our conversation about the villagers—and about eating things. I wondered if he had been sounding me out for the position of sacrifice. Just how much did I owe these people? Gram would have said everything. I owed them because I was born as I was, with the power to see what could happen. I didn't need the sight to tell me this was the village's best chance for survival. Without the sacrifice the hob asked for, the village would die: I'd seen that last night in Koret's eyes.

"A sacrifice we ca

"Not if I'm the one you sacrifice," I said. Stupid, I thought, to die for the people who want you dead. Stupid woman. But if the villagers' dislike of me would aid their survival now, I was willing. "Few would regard my death as—"

"Death?" hissed the hob in surprise, ears flaring wide with a rattle of beads as he turned to look at me.

I looked from his dumbfounded face to Merewich's shocked countenance. I sat down where I was and began to laugh, though there was little enough humor in it. I don't know why I hadn't figured it out. He'd said he was the last one, the last of the mountain's children—and she, the mountain, was insisting he do something about it. He felt like a sacrifice to her cause, and so he asked us for another. "I take it you don't mean to burn me or cut out my heart as a tribute to the mountain?"