Adamagika: The Spirit Within - 10. Ch 10: The Ice Queen's Taverna

CHAPTER 10: The Ice Queen’s Taverna

Jacob met me outside the shower room with a somewhat confused look.

“Ready to go?” I asked him with as friendly a smile I could muster. I didn’t want to have to explain to him why I rushed out.

“Sure,” he replied and seemed to drop what was bothering him.

We deposited our clothes back in the room and left. Jacob asked me whether or not we should lock it and I explained to him that doors around the castle were enchanted. They will open only for those who have the right to open them. In our room’s case, when the door is closed, it will remain locked for anyone except Jacob, myself, and mostly likely the cleaning staff.

We walked out of the castle into the grounds that surrounded it. Several students probably on break between classes were in the grass talking, playing, or casting a variety of (mostly) harmless spells. As I wasn’t close to any of them, I decided to bring Jacob away into another part of the city without making any introductions. He didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with that.

We walked along the main road that led past the castle’s walls into the mage community. I showed him some of the nicest houses. I knew who owned some of them but mostly I didn’t. After awhile, I figured I’d lead him to one of the busier parts of the city which was the Trade District.

I brought him to my favorite part of the Trade District which is the Town Square. I found that name odd because the place wasn’t a town, it was a city, and the shape of the area was more a circle than a square. In the middle of the “square” was a large fountain on which stood several mages. According to the description, it was Arantius along with several of the mages that fought in the war with him.

“Hi Adam, what brings you here today? Magister Aenhol hasn’t ordered anything from me yet.”

I smiled at the elderly woman. Her name was Nileandra but she always insisted that I call her Nila. She said she always hated her parents for giving her that name. Make no mistake though, she was one of the sweetest ladies I knew although a little weird. She was the apothecary shopkeeper and Magister Aenhol would frequently send me to her for supplies.

“Good afternoon, Madame Nila. I’m just showing my friend around the city.” I nodded my head towards Jacob.

“Oh! You have a friend!” She said in a tone that was filled with too much surprise for my taste. “What’s your name dear?” she said to Jacob.

“I’m Jacob, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”

“Why, you’re such a perfect gentleman now, aren’t you?” She then proceeded to pinch Jacob on the cheeks. He flushed and looked uncertainly at me. “So where are you boys going?”

“Nowhere in particular, really. I just wanted to show Jacob around.” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Well why don’t you visit my daughter’s inn and have something to drink? It’s just over there down the road.” She pointed to a dodgy looking building that had the words The Ice Queen’s Taverna hanging on the side over the road. “Tell her Nila sent you and not to be stingy. She better do some good the way she behaves!”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. I didn’t even know she had a daughter because I never really bothered to ask. I looked uncertainly at Jacob and he shrugged at me. I turned back to Madame Nila.

“Uhm, I’m not really sure we’re supposed to…”

“Nonsense!” She waved her hand to my face almost swatting my nose off. She then turned towards Jacob. “You want to go now don’t you, hun?” She smiled an almost toothless smile at him in a way that left little room for objection.

“Uhm, I guess so,” he said uncertainly.

“That’s a good boy.” She then proceeded to pinch Jacob’s cheek again before pushing us down the road. “Don’t forget what I told you. Tell her not to be stingy!”

We proceeded down the road towards the inn but didn’t get a few steps too far before she shouted towards us.

“And I will know if you didn’t pass by to say hello!” She cackled a mad laugh. I felt goose bumps on my arm.

When we were clearly out of earshot from her, Jacob turned to me and asked, “is she always that weird?”

“Not always,” I replied with a smile.

We arrived at the Ice Queen’s Taverna and it didn’t look any better up close than from afar. When we entered the “inn” as Nila referred to it, it quickly became clear that she was being nice. This place was something closer to a place to a brothel.

Left and right, women (mostly older ones) were flirting with men – some across tables, others on the men’s laps, and some looked like they were doing more than talking behind those table sheets.

“Oy! What are ya yungens doing in here?”

I looked towards the source of the question and found myself staring at a familiar face behind a bar.

“Oh hi, uhh, Jorik,” I said to the man. He studied my face closely and recognition seemed to dawn upon him.

“You’re that Adam boy, eh? I see you’ve come back. Everything go as you expected?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. I didn’t even know what to expect in that trip. “I guess,” I replied somewhat uncertainly.

“Good,” he said. “Now get outta here. This ain’t no place for ya. And take your friend with ya.”

I looked over at Jacob who seemed to be studying a table where a not so discreet pair was examining one another. I suddenly remembered why we were even in there.

Turning back to Jorik I said ,“uhm, Madame Nila sent us. She told us this was her daughter’s inn.”

Jorik let out a mad bark of laughter. “Inn, eh? That woman only sees what she wants to see. So you want Nila’s spawn, eh? You’ll want the Ice Queen herself then.” He nodded towards one of the table. “There she is.”

I looked over to where he nodded and found the most unusually dressed woman I had ever seen. She was wearing what looked like half a dress that went up only as high as her breasts and only as low as to cover her pelvis. It was completely black with what looked like red lace embroidered into the cloth. She was also wearing what looked like a net made of black cloth that hung tightly to her very unflattering legs.

She was also wearing what looked like a dead bird on her head. The man she was talking to couldn’t seem to take his eyes of it.

“Oy Nila!” Jorik shouted towards the big bird.

“Whaaaaaat?” she responded in the most un-lady like manner imaginable.

“These boys are looking for ya. Your momma sent them.”

Her face seemed to grow stiff and her eyes narrowed on us. She whispered something to the gentleman she was with who seemed to be glad to have a reason not be plucked to death by her hat.

She came over to us and I managed to get a better look at her headpiece. It was made of a red feather-like substance that stretch maybe three feet up into the air and seemed to shake with each step she took. At the very base was what looked like a chicken head holding its final expression of terror as a butcher’s knife sliced through its neck. Its mouth was opened wide as though in a silent scream of terror.

“You like it?” she said in that same thick and rough accent. She gave her head a few pats with her outstretched hand.

“It’s uhm…”

“…big.” Jacob finished for me.

She narrowed her eyes on Jacob then on me and began shouting at us. I think she thought we were deaf or something. “So, did she send you here for business or to get free stuff?”

“Uhm…” I looked over at Jacob as though he would have an answer. Unfortunately he was still entranced by the decapitated chicken. I said the first and only thing that came to mind. “She said not to be stingy.”

Big bird rolled her eyes and said (no, shouted really), “uhh, freebies again. That woman’s gonna drive me out of business.”

Jorik snorted. “The money you make here doesn’t come from what people eat or drink.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she said as she began adjusting her half-a-dress. “Just give them free drinks and some chips then send them on their way.”

She then promptly turned on her heals almost smacking us in the face with her three feet long feathers and headed towards the table where she left the man earlier. The man’s eyes seemed to bulge in terror at her approach.

“So, whaddya boys wanna have to drink. And don’t say anythin’ with alcohol either. I know yar students so ya can’t be old enough for that yet.”

Jacob and I took two elevated seats in front of the bar. “What do you have?”

“Apple cider,” he replied.

I waited for him to continue but it soon became clear that that was all there was. “I think we’ll have apple cider then.”

“Good choice,” he said. He then proceeded to pull two dirty looking mugs from the shelves placed them each under a tap and filled them with a thick murky brown liquid that I assumed was the apple cider. He then yelled into to the open doorway behind him. “Oy, Phillip.” He pronounced it somewhat unusually as fee-leap.

A boy probably not much older than me came out. His face looked somewhat dirt stained but there was no mistaking that his features were very handsome. His hair was dirty blonde, his neck thin and accentuated by his pointy chin. His body build was very thin and slim as though he never got to eat enough. He had a strange attractiveness about him though. His face also looked like it was stuck in a perpetual smile.

“Yah?” He said in a very deep voice. I felt goose bumps slide across my skin at that one word which wasn’t even a word really – more like a proclamation of love.

“Make this cold, will ya?” Jorik said. He then promptly placed the two mugs on the bar in front of us and stood aside.

Phillip walked over to us still smiling. He looked us over but his eyes seemed to linger a little longer on mine. I could have sworn I saw happiness in those deep, black pupils of his.

He placed one hand on each of our mugs then seemed to squeeze them tightly. The glass immediately began to chill as ice covered the mug. The apple cider congealed to something that looked remarkably like mud.

“You’re a mage?” Jacob asked, surprise clearly evident in his voice.

“Yes, I am,” he replied as though glad that someone finally noticed.

“Do you go to school with us in the Academy?” Jacob asked excitedly.

Phillip’s smile seemed to falter a little as he looked down. I think I noticed some sadness and disappointment pass across those eyes that moments ago expressed how happy he was.

“No,” he said, “we’re not rich enough to afford for me to go to the Academy. I do have a tutor though,” he added as his smile seemed to widen again. “He graduated from the Academy and he’s teaching me everything he learned. So I guess I’m kinda learning the same things you are.”

I offered him a smile. In truth, his revelation perplexed me. I always thought that all mages in the city had to send their children to the Academy to learn. I guess it was really only for those that could afford it. Suddenly, I felt even more grateful for what Magister Aenhol has done for me.

I was disrupted from my reverie when Jorik promptly dropped a bowl of chips between Jacob and me.

“Eat up,” he said.

I took a bite and found the chips stale as though they’ve been in that bowl for several days. I began to fear for what was in my mug.

“So,” I said hoping to strike up a conversation and perhaps give Phillip a reason to hang around, “what’s with uhm…” I paused not realizing that I didn’t know the name of Nila’s daughter.

“The Ice Queen?” Phillip offered.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Oh she has her quirks,” Jorik replied for Phillip. “She always wears them strange things. She says them were clothes during the ancient times. If the clothes were anything like that back then, then Imma glad I live in the here and now.” He nodded his head as though agreeing with himself.

“So she’s always been like that?” Jacob asked.

“Not always,” Jorik replied. He paused as though trying to recall a certain memory. “She used to wear more decent clothes back when this place was more respectable.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“Oh, maybe twenty, twenty-five years ago,” he replied nonchalantly.

“This place has been here that long?” I asked somewhat surprised. For some reason I haven’t noticed this place in the many times I’ve gone to the Town Square.

“Oh yeah,” Phillip said in such a smooth way that I felt like jumping over the counter and hugging him. “It’s been here since Old Nila was a little girl. She used to run it as an inn which is why I think she still considers it one.”

“Hah!” Jorik barked out. “Seems to me her daughter had other plans for this place. We used to have some of them High Mages here ya know like High Mage Lord Alexus, bless his soul. And, we had our current High Mage Lord, the respectable Magister Khael as a guest here before he took office. We even had some of them teachers here like your very own Magister Aenhol and uhm… uhh… what was her name… I think it was Roose.”

“Madame Rooste?” I offered somewhat intrigued by this information.

“Oh yeah, that be her name,” Jorik said. “I remember her. She wasn’t a teacher back then of course. She was just a stranger that came to the city from who knows where. She met a lot of them officials here though and she quickly made her way up the ranks to the mage council.”

He leaned in conspiratorially. Jacob, Phillip, and I leaned in close to his face. I couldn’t help but shudder when I felt Phillip’s hair brush my face. I swear I felt it!

“Rumor back then though was that she was blackmailin’ some high government official which helped her rise the ranks pretty quickly. She wasn’t that good from what I hear and yet she became a member of the Mage Council within three years and for a newcomer outside the city, that was pretty damn fast.”

“Is that true?” I asked.

“Is what true?” he replied.

“The rumors.”

“Well, they wouldn’t be called rumors if them were true now would they?” he replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Are you done?” I heard a squawk from behind us. It was the Ice Queen and she was looming over us threatening a slow feathery death.

She looked over at Phillip. “Don’t you have work to do, boy?”

“Of course ma’am,” he said to her, smiling the whole time. Phillip then proceeded to bow to us with a somewhat apologetic look then disappeared back into the room behind the bar. For some reason, I wanted to disappear with him.

“Well, are you done?” she turned back at us again. “I have other customers that could use those seats you know.”

I heard Jorik suppress a disbelieving snort behind the bar.

I looked down at my untouched apple cider and contemplated if I should try it before leaving or just make my way out. I opted for the latter.

“Yes,” I said as I turned back to her, “we’re done.” I hopped down from the seat.

“Uhh thanks,” I said then offered her a smile. She seemed to glare at me even more. “Let’s go, Jacob.”

“Well, see yah around,” Jorik said as we made our way to the door.

“You better not come back here unless you have money to pay with,” the Ice Queen squawked just as we exited the door.

“That was horrible,” Jacob said as soon as the door closed behind us.

“What was?” I asked unsure what he meant.

“That apple cider,” he replied. “Tasted like crap.” As though to emphasize his point, he slipped his tongue out and began brushing it with the back of his hands.

“It probably was crap,” I offered and laughed as I saw the incredulous look on Jacob’s face.

“Come on,” I said as I placed one arm over his shoulders. “Let’s go back to the castle and get some real food and drinks.”

As we made our way back to the castle, I couldn’t shake my thoughts away from the strange rumors regarding Madame Rooste. If she became part of the council within three years upon arriving here as a nobody, then that was certainly strange. She certainly didn’t have a pleasing personality so it couldn’t have been that. And if they say she wasn’t that good then what else could it have been?

Perhaps those rumors weren’t rumors after all.