“Don’t have to sing.” That was the night raven, Herr Fischer, his words low and hoarse and the curled fingers of his right hand still tapping nervously against one knee.
“Our guests like to share all of their talents at these gatherings.” This voice—unexpectedly high and cheerful—came from the other side of the room, where a two-foot-high kobold with a beautifully-oiled mustache and a neat cook’s apron stepped out from the shadows that had cloaked him until now. He must, Margaret presumed, be Konrad, the kobold cook, of whom her husband had spoken. “Music, poetry recitations, lively anecdotes...”
“Doom,” intoned the specter who floated behind him, eyeballs becoming visible and shining with despair.
Konrad shook his head at his colleague, the inn’s host, but a rueful smile stretched his wide lips as he said, “Come now, Erich, we haven’t had anytruedisastersfor at least eight months. So long as you don’t plan to perform any tricks for us with fire, Lady Riven, I won’t fear for the results.”
“But...” Margaret moistened her lips, looking from the kobold’s brightly expectant face to Olga’s slitted gaze, Leonie’s scowling, averted face, and finally her own husband’s sympathetic expression. “I don’t have any talents. I don’t evenreadpoetry, much less memorize it, and?—”
“You could tell us about your work.” Leonie blurted the words out and then scowled even deeper, as if they’d escaped against her will. Still, the nachzehrer braced her shoulders as if for battle and said, “Youclaimedto be a scholar.”
“She is,” said Lord Riven, “a scholar celebrated across the continent. My wife used her peerless skills to save me from my own binding curse, back in England, and the knowledge that she’s gathering across her career will do an enormous amount of good for all of us.”
It...would? Margaret blinked but didn’t question him in front of the others.
All knowledgewasuseful and good for the world at large, of course. She had always known that to be true. But as for which particular, tangible effect he was referring to with that comment...
“Well, then,” Olga drawled, leaning even further back in her seat. As the skirts of her gown shifted, the tips of her big boots were exposed, showing a diamond-shaped, scaled leather pattern. “Why don’tyou tell us all, your Ladyship, what exactly you’re looking for here in our little corner of the Black Forest?”
Margaret’s fingers tightened around her husband’s arm.
In instant response, he shifted forward. “I would be happy to tell you all the story of her last research project...”
But the look of disdainful expectation on Olga’s face was exactly the challenge Margaret had needed. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary.” She lifted her chin to stare the other woman down. “I amalwayshappy to discuss my work.”
She had never been offered the chance to lecture at her own university. She wouldn’t turn aside from the opportunity now.
As her husband took his own seat with the others, the spectral host and kobold cook both faded back into the shadows, but she still felt their tangible presence in the room. Standing alone in the center of the semicircle, Margaret took a moment to sort through her thoughts before beginning once again, as she had with Leonie before:
“Have you ever wondered why so many supernatural creatures first arose here in the Black Forest?”
This time, the nachzehrer seemed actually to be listening—and when Margaret came to the end of her list of known supernatural creatures who had originated nearby, there was an instant flurry of reactions from hersmall audience.
“You can’t possibly compare a wolpertinger to a night raven or a nachzehrer,” Olga protested, her thick, dark eyebrows drawn thoughtfully together. “Every wolpertingerI’veever come across has no more brain than any other random bunny in the woods, for all their fancy antlers, wings, and so forth.”
“Absolutely,” Margaret agreed, “because unlike those others—and,I would theorize,probably unlike the rare tatzelwurms as well, although no one has managed to study any of those enough to be certain—the wolpertingers first beganas ordinary animals, before they were affected by the same supernatural artifact that changed so many humans too.”
“A single supernatural artifact?” Leonie demanded. Her claw-like nails gripped the sides of her seat as she trembled with emotion. “You’re saying that some foul, sneaking messenger of the Devil set an actual, physical trap in this forest topoison all of our souls?”
As the nachzehrer’s voice rose to a hysterical pitch, Olga let out a weary snort, Lord Riven winced, Herr Fischer let out a half-choked caw of protest...and the werewolf at the end of the semicircle let out a low, warning snarl.
“Souls have nothing to do with it,” Margaret said firmly. “I am discussing only the physical changes brought about, much like those effected in my own country by the famous Rose of Normandy artifact before that was destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Olga repeated, her thick, dark brows lowering. “When? And by whom?”
Margaret didn’t need her husband’s warning cough to point out her dangerous slip of the tongue. As far as the world at large was concerned, the Rose of Normandy had merely gone missing many centuries ago...and that certainty would never be corrected, because the only other witness to its true fate could never testify to it without admitting his own culpability.
Alas, deception was not Margaret’s forte, as she was uncomfortably aware. Moistening her lips, she began, “Ah, what I meant to say there...”
“Oh,Isee!” Leonie’s eyes widened with what looked like hope. “NowI understand. You’re looking for the artifact here to destroy it too, and finally end our torment forever!”
The uproar in reaction was both instant and predictable—but Margaret raised her voice to speak over everyone else. “If you would all please listen to me! I amnot,” she pronounced, “planning or hoping forany such thing.”
Waving the others into silence, Olga narrowed her reptilian gaze and growled, “How do we know that you’re telling the truth?”
“First of all,” Margaret said, “I am a scholar, not a vandal. I would never damage any supernatural artifact outside of a life-threatening emergency in which there was truly no other option.” Her husband’s warm and steady gaze was all the remindershe needed of why ithadbeen necessary that last time, despite the agonizing scholarly pain of its loss.
Buoyed by his wordless support, she continued, “My purpose in life is to study and learnfrom these artifacts, the better to understand the world we all live inandend the dangerous ignorance and fear that threaten us all.”
