Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress by Wesley Allison

Chapter One: Wherein I encounter the
sorceress for the first time.

    Antriador is quite a beautiful city. Sitting
on the coast of South Lyrria, which is to say the southern coast of
that land that used to be the Kingdom of Lyrria but is now a
collection of highly competitive city-states, beside azure ocean
waves, surrounded by olive trees and vineyards, it is one of the
most delightful spots in the world. More important to me was its
reputation as a center of the arts, for I am famed adventurer and
story-teller Eaglethorpe Buxton. After having held-up all winter at
an Inn in Brest, which is to say the country up north, writing a
play-- a most wonderful play, if I do say so myself, I had come
south to Lyrria to produce it. Antriador boasts some sixty
playhouses, so I was able to find one that was appropriate, which
is to say tasteful enough and yet inexpensive enough for me to
lease.
    Opening night was wonderful. The playhouse
was packed, the upper levels with nobles and wealthy merchants
along with their richly dressed wives or their scantily clad
mistresses, or sometimes both, and the lower house thronging with
commoners who paid two pennies for standing room. My play was a
success. Of course, there was never any doubt about that. The
actors all did their jobs well. The audience laughed in the right
places, sighed in the right places, and wept for joy in the right
place for it was after all, a comedy. “The Ideal Magic” was going
to secure the fame of Eaglethorpe Buxton, which is to say myself,
and make me rich at the same time.
    When the stage lights had gone out, and the
audience had left the theater, and the stage hands were putting
away the sets, I walked down the street to the Singing Siren for a
pint. It was very late and most of the patrons had retired, which
is to say gone home if they were locals or gone to their rooms on
the second or third floor if they had taken rooms, but the Siren
stays open all night. That is not to say that it is a noted hot
spot. The Fairy Font, or the Reclining Dog, or even the Wicked
Wench are much livelier in the late hours. But the Siren does stay
open all night. This particular night, there were one or two people
lurking in the shadows-- doxies and cutpurses who had finished
their evening’s employment mostly. I didn’t know the barkeep, which
is not surprising, considering the turnover at such establishments.
I ordered a tankard of ale and took a seat in the center of the
room.
    Suddenly the door burst open and a woman
strode into the tavern. She was striking. Tall. Blonde. Flashing
blue eyes. They were flashing-- literally flashing, which is really
not normal at all. Of course if her eyes hadn’t been flashing, I
wouldn’t have noticed them. There was all that bare skin to
distract me. She wore a leather outfit that was more of a harness
that an article of clothing. The lower portion was a sort of loose
leather skirt made of strips of material which, though hanging down
almost to her ankles, exposed most of her legs when she moved. The
upper portion was little more than pair of suspenders and two small
leather cups.
    “Which of you low-lives is Eaglethorpe
Buxton?” she snarled.
    I stood up and stepped toward her, at this
point still more aware of all the bare skin than either the
flashing eyes or the glowing wand in her hand.
    “What would you have with him, my lovely
lady?” I asked.
    “I am Myolaena Maetar, and I’m going to skin
him alive!” she hissed through clenched teeth.
    “I, um, oh. Well, he was here a minute ago,”
said I. “You just missed him.”
    “You are not him?” She pointed the wand at
me, its violet halo hanging just below my nose.
    “Allow me to introduce myself,” said I. “I
am Ellwood Cyrene, hero and adventurer.”
    I had been forced by the situation to think
on my feet. When I thought that a sorceress was going to kill me I
had, as you have no doubt surmised, substituted my own name, which
is to say Eaglethorpe Buxton with another name,