Short Story: The Black Horn Signed Paperback

• A magical ram’s horn that’s probably fake.
• An approaching army of wildmen far too large to fend off.
• All the soldiers willing to fight anyway.
• And a woman who has only some vague ability to want something so deeply that it comes true.

Eliese hung the kettle over the fire and turned toward the table in the great hall where Keeper Oriana leaned back in her chair. The curly red head of her twin brother Rellien and Marcus's brown mop leaned over a dice game at the far end.

"Is the king as bad off as we hear?" Eliese asked, hoping the question wasn't impertinent, and hoping her voice didn't sound as nervous as she felt. Eliese's father had been a child the last time a Keeper had come to Stone Gap. There were only ever a few of them in Queensland. As preservers of knowledge and history, and wielders of magic, the Keepers stayed at court to advise rulers or witnessed and recorded the most crucial events in the land.

The fact that one was here at Stone Gap made Eliese's gut turn to stone. No one this important ever made it all the way here, to the edges of the civilized land unless there was something truly perilous happening.

Oriana nodded. "His mind wanders and his body weakens." Her hair was long and almost completely grey, but there was an alertness about her face that kept her from looking old.

"But the king is so young," Eliese said, setting out tea cups and a teapot. The king was barely older than herself.

"Too young. It began as a hunting injury, but has turned into a dreadful illness. And with no heir, the last thing this disaster of a succession needs is a warlord like Noreth invading."

Eliese's heart clenched at the name, the fear that had sat in her gut for weeks rising up again. The Wildmen had lived on the edge of Queensland for as long as anyone could remember, skirmishing with them. Occasionally attacking in force. A generation ago, in an attempt to establish peace, the last king's cousin married the Wildmen's war chief. And for a time it worked. Until their son, Noreth grew into power. Now his connection to Queensland didn't lead him toward peace, it gave him hopes of attaining the throne. As the present king lay dying, families with royal blood all across the country were angling for the throne, creating alliances. And in two days, Noreth would be here with an army of ten thousand to stake his claim. "Will the reinforcements from the king reach us before he does?"

The dice game stilled as both Rellien and Marcus listened for her answer.

Oriana paused. "I'm not sure."

"They have to come," Eliese said, clutching a cup in her hand so tightly that the ridge along the bottom dug into her palm. "We're a small garrison. We've enough men to keep the bandits in the hills under control, but we're not equipped to stop an army!"

"We'll stop anything that comes through the gap," Rellien said. "The keep is well positioned and no matter how large the army is, they still have to come through the pass a few at a time."

"But they will just keep coming," Eliese said. "They'll exhaust us and kill us and then nothing will stop them from reaching the plains."

"We just need to hold them off until the king's army gets here, El," Rellien said.

"How can you be so calm?" Eliese demanded, thrusting aside a lock of black hair that had fallen in her face. "We don't even know when Noreth will get here. We've had another whole day of this blasted fog, which is never going to lift, none of our scouts have returned--" Eliese shut her mouth, trying to quell the fear that ate at her. It didn't matter how close the reinforcements were. The sixty men stationed at Stone Gap couldn't hold the road against Noreth's force of Wildmen, even for half a day. They'd be slaughtered.

"We might not be enough," Marcus said quietly. "But we have to try."

She turned away from them and looked out the window, wishing she could see through the thick fog that had sat in the gorge for days. But the evening outside was a dreary haze.

Bread and cold meat were brought in and Rellien, Marcus, and Oriana served themselves. Eliese forced herself to put some food on her plate.

"I don't suppose the king's army is bringing with it a dragon," she asked Oriana, "Or some great magical talisman that can defeat an approaching horde?"

Oriana gave a small smile. "When I first became a Keeper, I thought magic could fix anything. In theory, there could be magic strong enough to stop an army, but practically speaking, it's impossible. It would cost too much." She shook her head. "Magic always has a price."

Eliese fidgeted with a piece of bread. "Always?"

She waited for the Keeper to offer a quick nod, brushing off the question. But the woman looked at Eliese for a long, thoughtful moment.

"All the magic I've ever heard of does. What you call magic, the Keepers call energy. And it can be manipulated. For instance I can draw heat from the fire, and put it in the kettle." She paused a moment and the kettle over the fire began to hiss as the water inside of it boiled.

Eliese glanced at Marcus and Rellien and saw their eyes wide, staring at the boiling kettle.

Oriana winced and rubbed her hands together. "But moving the energy...hurts."

"I've heard that." Eliese pulled the boiling kettle off the fire and poured the water into the teapot, watching it steam in wonder. It should have taken at least three or four more minutes to boil the water. "And if you tried to do too much magic..."

"It would kill me." Oriana looked into the fire. "Heating the kettle causes a little discomfort. But doing something strong enough to stop an army? There's certainly no one alive who could wield that sort of power and survive."

"What we need," Rellien said, grinning, "is the Black Horn."

Eliese started at the mention of the horn. She'd thought of almost nothing else for days. She looked up at it, sitting still in its place on the mantle. Her dreams had been haunted by it and her waking hours spent wishing the legends about it were real. Twice, when she'd been alone in the great hall, she'd almost picked it up, remembering the way it had pulled at her so many years ago, the way it had hummed against her hand.

"Is that it?" Oriana said, peering up at the horn. "I've heard the legend of the horn."

"So have we," Marcus laughed. "But it turns out it's just a horn."

Eliese measured tea leaves into the first two cups.

"And not even a good horn," Rellien added. "If you want to find anything magic around here, you'd be better off looking in Eliese's tea."

Eliese's hand froze and she shot him a scowl. How dare he bring this up in front of a Keeper? Joking about it among the family was one thing, but this...

She braced for a laugh from Oriana, but the Keeper turned to her, interested.

"Is your tea magical?"

"No," Eliese said.

"Maybe," Rellien said at the same time. Next to him Marcus nodded.

"It's just tea!" Eliese said.

And it was just tea. Usually. Although sometimes she was almost positive it wasn't. But whatever went on during those times wasn't anything she could explain. Or even anything she was sure actually happened. It certainly wasn't something she wanted to claim in front of a Keeper who actually could do magic.

"Why do they think it's magical?" Oriana asked.

Eliese shot her brother and Marcus a black look. "Sometimes if my father is having trouble sleeping, my tea helps him. But it's just the tea."

Rellien shook his head. "It might be more than that. If there's something Eliese wants from you, or for you. If she brews you some tea and you drink it, well, the thing...sort of...happens."

"It's just coincidence," Eliese said. "Marcus, tell her."

Marcus grinned at her. "It might be coincidence. But if you were mad, there's no way I'd drink tea you poured for me."

Eliese glared at him and pointedly poured water into one of the cups. The tea leaves swirled, staining the water a thin green. She leaned across the table and placed it in front of him. "Like this?"

Marcus eyebrows raised and he leaned back away from the cup. "Did I mention how lovely you look today?"

There was a scuffle under the table and a thunk. Marcus grunted in pain and grabbed his leg, giving Rellien a black look.

"That's my sister," Rellien said, "and she does not look lovely."

Eliese raised one eyebrow. She poured water into the second cup, leaned over the table, and set it firmly in front of Rellien. Her brother looked at her for a moment, then slid the cup away with one finger. "I mean, you are a vision. And I'm not thirsty."

"It's just tea." Eliese laughed, turning back to Oriana. "Would you like some?"

The Keeper studied Eliese for a long moment. She glanced back at the men, neither of whom had taken a drink. "Your mother was from a foreign land, was she not? I have heard that you take after her."

Eliese nodded and pushed her thick black hair over her shoulder, self-consciously. "My father met her on a island in the Southern Sea and she came back as his wife. She died when Rellien and I were born, but the people of Stone Gap say that they'd never seen a man so smitten as my father, that my mother bewitched him. But everyone agrees they were happy." Eliese paused. "She became a sort of...talisman to the keep. They would come to her to be blessed. She always did what she could to help him in their troubles and the people said her touch was charmed. But she never claimed it was magic."

Oriana looked at the teapot for a long moment, then met Eliese's gaze. "Do you think you brew magic tea?"

There was no mockery in the question, and its sincerity caught Eliese off guard. The honesty of the question made her feel...anchored. Made whatever it was within herself feel more real.

"I don't know. I know when I want something..." She looked at the Keeper, trying to put it into words. How could she explain the...whatever it was that she could find sometimes, deep within herself. The hidden well that she could dip into and splash out just the tiniest bit, somehow infuse it into the tea. "'Want' isn't a strong enough word. When I'm desperate for something while I brew tea...sometimes it happens." She paused, thinking about how mundane the results always were. "Although it's never anything that can't be explained another way.

"I love my father, and...sometimes I think he just feels that. And it calms him."

Oriana smiled. "It's astonishing how often love and magic are mistaken for each other." She considered Eliese for a moment. "Does it tire you? Or hurt you to brew it?"

Eliese shook her head. "It doesn't hurt."

"But she sleeps like the dead that night," Rellien said. "If she sleeps past dawn we know she's been up brewin'."

Eliese pressed her lips together, but said nothing. It was true. When it worked, when she could find that deep place inside of her, those nights she could barely get up to bed before falling asleep. She searched the Keeper's face for something, some sign of what she was thinking. It sounded stupid saying it out loud. "But it's not actually magic. It's just tea."

Oriana considered her for another long moment. "Brew me some."

Eliese laughed. "It won't work. I don't want anything from you."

"Nothing at all?"

Of course there was something. The worry that had gnawed at her for a fortnight shoved its way to the surface. This was a Keeper. Here. In Stone Gap.

Eliese set the teapot down and took Oriana's cup. She picked out some tea leaves and set them gently in the bottom of the cup. Then she let her worry rise, let the fear that she'd been carrying lift up to the surface, opening something up. And there it was, the deep pool filled with yearning and want. She tipped the teapot over the cup and poured out the hot water, adding to it her longing, dripping it out in drops of fierce desire.

"I want the men of the keep to be safe," she whispered, handing Oriana the cup.

Oriana took the cup and held it before her face, looking into it for a long moment before taking a drink. She closed her eyes, sitting very still. Eliese watched her, barely breathing.

"Do you not wish for your own safety?" Oriana asked, finally looking up.

Eliese let out a short laugh. "I am always safe behind these walls." She shot another glare at her brother and Marcus. "We could all stay safe behind these walls. It is those who would leave to fight that need to worry."

"The tea is delicious." Oriana took another drink. "And I have no idea if it is magical. I feel...something. But it may all be because I'm looking to."

Eliese nodded. "That is what I tell my father." And myself. "It's just tea."

"Hmmm," Oriana said noncommittally. "Perhaps." She glanced up at the mantle. "Would you mind if I looked at the horn?"

The foggy day left the room gloomy, and on the mantle the black ram's horn sat like a curl of blackness, darker than the shadows. Eliese reached up, her hand hesitating only a moment before picking it up. It felt like nothing other than a hollow horn. When she handed it to Oriana, the woman's hands looked thin and pale against it.

"Tell me the legend as you know it," Oriana said quietly, turning the horn over in her hands.

"When the mason's were building this keep," Eliese gestured to the walls around her, "before they had completed the outer wall, the Wildmen of the west came with their vicious war bands. With no protection from the approaching death, the people fled. The last to leave were a mason named Kellen and his younger brother Tann, whose legs were weak.

"Before the two could leave, Kellen was bitten by a rock snake. Kellen wouldn't survive the journey home and Tann didn't have the strength to flee on his own. The brothers knew they were doomed. But an old healer woman appeared as if by magic. She closed herself in a room with Kellen. When she emerged, Kellen had died and she held this Black Horn.

"'Your brother's final gift,' she said, handing the horn to Tann. 'His strength for you when you need it.' Then the woman disappeared.

"Tann got himself to the front of the keep. Below the bands of the Wildmen were winding closer along the bottom of the gorge like a stream of poison water.

"He lifted the horn to his lips, and blew with all his grief and fear and fury." Eliese paused. "And an army arose from the very rocks of the gorge. An army of warriors with Kellen's face, indestructible as stone. They swept down on the Wildmen and crushed them."

Oriana raised an eyebrow. "That would be handy about now." She ran her hands over the black ridges, then closed her eyes and bowed her head over it. Eliese watched for something. Anything. The Black Horn lay still and lifeless in the woman's hands.

Oriana looked up, her brow knit. "It holds no power," she said finally.

Eliese felt something within her sink.

"It holds no ability to make a horn call either," Marcus said. "It's the worst horn I've ever heard."

Oriana smiled. "I didn't mean it didn't have the ability to hold power, just that it's empty of power right now. Or it was, until I put some into it." She looked at the horn for a long moment. "It is holding that. It has an echo. A memory of...purpose." She shook her head. "But it's empty. And the emptiness feels very, very old.

"If it did once raise an army from the rocks, it doesn't have that power to any longer."

"Can you fill it?" Eliese asks quietly.

Oriana shook her head. "The amount of power this can hold is vast. Far more than I could supply." She looked at Eliese sympathetically. "If I were to try to fill it, it would kill me. And even then, I don't think it would raise an army. It's empty of more than just energy. It would need a spell to use that energy and turn stones into an army. Honestly, I don't even know if that's possible. If it were filled, it would just be a horn, holding a lot of power. And doing nothing else."

She stood and handed the horn back to Eliese. "But don't lose hope. There may not be armies of stone coming to your aid, but there is an army of men. More than enough to hold the Gap against any size army that Noreth can bring."

Marcus and Rellien rose too and walked with the Keeper toward the door while Eliese put the Black Horn back on the mantle. It was so light she could have lifted it with a finger.

"I will send a raven to the army, urging them to hurry." Oriana paused at the door. "And I can't fail."

Eliese turned to find the Keeper smiling warmly at her.

"You made me tea and wished for me to keep your family safe. How can I do otherwise?"

Eliese forced a small smile. The others left and she sank back down into her chair. The Black Horn sat on the mantle looking smaller and less black than it ever had. The worry that had taken up residence in her gut flared to life like a fire, burning her stomach.

She set some leaves into her own cup, picked up the teapot, and paused for a moment.

"I want my family safe," she whispered. The longing rushed through her, filling her chest like a surge of water rising from that deep, primal place. "I want my home safe. I want no enemy to come near."

She tilted the pot and the water poured into her cup, a smooth river catching the silver, foggy light from the window. Dipping into the well of emotion within her, she added her longing to the water. She set the pot down and picked up the cup. Her hand shook, sending ripples across the surface. She closed her eyes and took a drink.

The teapot had gone cold and a rush of tepid water flooded her mouth. It was so weak it tasted like tainted water instead of tea. Thin but sharp, and it cut through her mouth and sank down into her, slicing through any small hope that had grown.

Anger at the approaching army and the slow reinforcements and the useless tea surged up like a burning flood.

Eliese took the cup and hurled it into the fire.

• 58 pages