Paladins of the Pickle Goddess

It was shocking how little three months of work accounted for, when it started to be broken down and packed onto the cheapest cart I’d been able to find. At least we’d kept the mule. A cart and supplies for the long trip north had taken up the rest of our savings.

She glared at me, chewing. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Tell it to someone else.”

Duran was approaching her slowly, holding out an apple. She hadn’t yet let anyone touch her. He held it out on the palm of his hand.

She eyed him suspiciously. There was no movement. “Please,” he said. “I could be your friend. We could go on so many adventures.”

She snorted and went back to cropping the grass. Her tail swung, once. I hefted the bucket in my hands again. “Maybe next time.”

“It’s always next time, and it’s never now! When the Bard sang his songs about being a hero, he never said the horses were mean and not your best friend!”

“Well, that was because he was a Bard and travelled on foot.” I screwed my nose up at the cart. When had it gotten so small? I needed to fit all of my knives in and still leave space for the hive and for all of us to sit on the cart. That mule wasn’t going to let anyone ride on her. “I should have spent more on the cart.”

“Why?” Apis was in full beekeeper garb. I nearly took a step back when he approached, the woven face-plate always a little intimidating. He reached up and pulled it off, waving at me, as he approached. “It should all fit perfectly.”

I pointed at the cart. “Bottles of mead. Our stored food. Supplies for the horse. Clothing. Books. Sword. Beehive. Duran, eventually. One of us, eventually walking alongside the horse. Where’s the third person?”

“….Oh,” he said. “Sorry, I should have told you. She likes peppers.”

“What?”

Out from his pocket- how had he been keeping it in there, it should have soaked the fabric- Apis pulled out a pickled pepper and threw it towards the mule. She snatched it out of the air, teeth clicking together so fast it startled me into stepping back. She whinnied in reply.

“I’m thinking of naming her Faustina. We need some luck around here.” Apis strolled up and rummaged in the cart, emerging with a pair of saddlebags I’d never seen before. Then, unafraid of the unfriendly mule, he simply put them on and began adding books. “That way you’ll have something to read on the journey.” I couldn't believe my eyes or my ears. We hadn't named her before. Why did she earn a name now, when all she was doing was pulling us north?

“Me?”

“Well, I’ll be monitoring the beehive. Besides, my legs are longer. And you made the pickles.”

He patted the mule once on her side, then trotted off. I stared at the mule, then folded my arms. “I can provide pickles,” I said. “But don’t think I trust you. This is a working relationship only.”

She snorted. I took that as mule agreement and turned to go help Apis.

Duran was officially forbidden from moving the beehive. Apis had, very politely, told him never to touch it again* (*after an incident where Duran had broken the bees out of jail, which was very polite but never to be repeated). Thus, I was stuck in the middle of a swarm of bees, cloak closed entirely and a basket over my head.

Apis didn’t have another beekeeper suit. This was his next-best system.

“I really don’t know why you don’t come and speak to them,” he said, earnest, as we heaved the beehive upwards. I had no idea how Duran had lifted it himself. It was heavy. “If you did, they would know you. They wouldn’t be afraid anymore.”

“I have other work to do,” I said. “Step!”

A step down. An increase in buzzing. I avoided Apis’s eyes through the weave. I didn’t like anything with more than two legs, as a rule. I made an exception for bees because of mead, which was very nice- especially when Apis brewed it.

That didn’t mean I wanted to be near the bees. They could have their space, and I would have mine. Perfect.

Except for, of course, Apis’s belief that his bees were lonely. “Just a few moments! It would make all the difference! Oh, watch out for that branch,” he said, a moment too late. I stopped, reaching up to detangle it. He reached over and pulled it out. “Sorry!”

“A little more warning next time.”

Together, we thumped the beehive on the back of the cart. I felt sure one bee was looking at me suspiciously. I swallowed. “Andrena,” I said. “Don’t take this as a sign of anything….well, religious. I’m just helping out my apprentice.”

The buzzing got louder. “Well, I’m not worshipping the Squid either,” I snapped. “No need to get possessive about it. I just wanted you to know. Don’t get any wild ideas. This is about me. Not about you.”

I stepped back from the hive. The bees hummed around the hive. “If I can find the Voice of Teuthida, though, I will,” I said. “Just to make sure the job is done. But don’t take it as me coming back. I’m done being a Paladin.”

It was difficult to tell what bees were saying. I took their lack of response as agreement and sighed, turning to watch the sparse woods behind the shack I’d called home for the last three months. Apis was already gone, checking the woods around the hive for any lost bees. Duran was in town somewhere, trying to bargain for some extra materials to repair the cart.

The sun was halfway up the sky. We were already late leaving.

“It’s just a temporary trip north,” I added, for Andrena’s benefit. “We’ll be back soon enough.”

In the dance-hall beyond, I could see the proprietress already nailing up a help wanted sign. I sighed. It didn’t seem like anyone else believed me.

“What do you mean, he’s not here?”

I folded my arms and glared in the darkness across the counter. We’d checked all of the inns, watering holes, pubs, and half-broken down carts within walking distance of the One-Horse Inn. No sign of Durandus the first. No one would even claim to have seen him.

I had never expected to have such a hard time finding him. Once, he’d barely moved from his position behind his desk. He’d even demanded I bring up his ale, so he didn’t have to walk downstairs. How had he escaped me so well?

We had finally retreated to the source itself. The original inn. I was staring across a counter I’d wiped hundreds of times, at a barkeep I didn’t recognize.

It wasn’t the new help that was strange. Durandus had never been able to keep barkeeps. It was what he was saying that didn’t make any sense.

He shrugged. “Told you. He went north.”

“Durandus the first?” I made a gesture, his approximate height. “This tall? Hates work? Always drunk? That Durandus?”

The barkeep sighed. “Do you want a drink, or not?”

“I want to know where the owner is!” I leaned across the bar, grabbed him by the collar. “And don’t tell me you don’t know. Otherwise, who’s paying you?”

He leaned back. “No need for that! I told you the truth!”

I kept the collar tight in my grasp. “I don’t believe you. Durandus would never go north. He hates the gods.” Hate was too strong of a word- it implied enough energy to feel things at all. Durandus the first felt a mild dislike of the gods, because they required effort from him.

That didn’t stop him from taking money from pilgrims, of course. That was just good business.

“Listen, lady,” wheezed the barkeep. “All I know is that some lady came in, they argued, and suddenly he was going north. That’s it! I thought it was strange too.” He shrugged. “He left everything here. Even told me how to re-order supplies. He was serious, for once. I thought he was planning his own funeral, or something. It was almost concerning.”

I dropped him. He stumbled onto the bar, grabbing for the self-defense club. Apis reached forward and pressed a hand to the back of his wrist.

“Now, now,” he said. “Let’s not get carried away. My companion is just worried.”

“Worried? She had me by the neck!”

The bar was empty, save for us. It was mid-day, and the one horse inn was doing even worse than it once had. It seemed that word of the Temple’s plight had spread; not a single pilgrim was here, whetting their appetites before the long trip north.

Only us.

“Carried away,” said Apis. He patted the barkeep twice on the back of the hand. “I’m sure you understand.”

“I don’t.” The barkeep reached up, rubbed at his neck. “It’s not like I care one way or the other,” he said. “It’s better that he’s gone. He was a horrible boss. Never did anything, forgot to pay me half the time. And never got the right orders.”

He was describing Durandus, all right. I was starting to have a very bad feeling about this. “The lady that came in,” I said. “What did she look like?”

He shrugged, avoiding my gaze. “Dunno. She didn’t order anything. Just stomped in with a group. She was wearing a big cloak, though. Carried two swords.”

“Her hair,” I said. “What color was it?”

“Bright yellow,” he said. “The kind of blonde you don’t see much. Like-”

“Her group,” I said, cutting him off before he could finish. The feeling I had in the pit of my stomach was getting worse. “What were they like?”

“Northerners,” he said. “Drank all the ale I had and didn’t tip.” He squinted at us. “Now, are you going to pay, or not?”

I threw a few coins on the bar. “Here. For the information.”

“You’re not taking a room?”

So he was doing everything here. I felt a brief amount of pity for him. This would have been my fate, if I had stayed; stuck at the bottom of the pit, trying to survive as Durandus abandoned me for whatever his whims dictated.

Thankfully, I was long since gone. I stepped away from the counter. “No. We’ve got to go to the temple.”

“The temple? Didn’t anyone tell you? The goddess went mad. She closed that place down.”

“Don’t care. We have to deal with it.”

It was only once we’d stepped outside, returning to the cart, that Duran spoke. He’d observed our conversation with a little too much silent reverence.

“What that man said,” he started.

“About that. Don’t do that. I got carried away,” I said, hurried. I stepped up to the cart, fumbling for a pickle. We’d have to bribe the mule very well to convince her to move again; she’d already settled in for the night.

“What did he mean, about the woman? Do you think my Da actually went north?”

There was a time for telling the truth. There was also a time for a bald-faced lie. I opted for the second. “I have no idea what he was talking about,” I told Duran. “But it seems your father actually went north. We might as well follow.”

When I finally climbed back on the mule, it was with a heavy heart. Why could I never find an easy solution? I didn’t want to go into any temples. Especially not squid-themed ones.

Durandus, I swore, clenching a fist around the reins. If you’re actually dead, I’ll kill you myself. I refuse to pay those taxes!