Brambles and Briars

By R Coots

Jack used to be one of the best Spinners in the business. Able to open and close pathways to lost fairy tales, he and his team were a well oiled machine.

Until they ended up in a reality that wasn't as abandoned as they thought.
Until their survival depended on him leaving someone behind.
Until he lost the way back.
Now, years later, he has a chance to return. To find the missing member of their team. To heal his family.

To do that, he'll have to get past the monster waiting for him. Harder, he'll have to convince the team to make the attempt.

If he can manage both, he gains the world. If he can't, he loses everything that matters to him, for good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arts Eklektos
• Release date: Sep 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201937898

Book preview

Brambles and Briars

Robin M. Larson

Copyright © 2021 by Robin M. Larson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

Robin M. Larson

Cambridge, MN 55008

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

Brambles and Briars/ Robin M. Larson.—1st ed.

Contents

Shiny Treasure

Seventeen Years

Counterclockwise

Don’t Look

Cursing, Bad

Be Quick

This book was written as part of the Inkfort Press Publishing Derby - check out the community and other entries here!

Shiny Treasure

Late afternoon sun gleamed dully through the dirty window, illuminating the dust motes, stray feathers, and pixie dust that floated in through the open door. The smells and sounds of the market filtered in too. The owners of the stalls across the way haggled with their customers, cooking oil burned, a dog barked, a horse left a fresh pile of apples just outside the door, and somewhere down at the end of the street, a mimic-bird shouted false curses at the passersby.

Jack propped his elbows on the counter and rubbed his temples. One of these days, he was going to kill that bird and put everyone on the street out of their misery. Maybe even bring up business. Half the tourists to the Market didn’t know a true-magic curse if it bit them in the face. But would Heinrich listen and muzzle the damn bird? No. Keeping the riff-raff out, he claimed. And If they don’t know the bird is yelling nonsense, they don’t deserve our goods.

May your mother fall and break her back and the crack she rode in on! screeched the bird through a lull in the general noise.

Yup, definitely going to kill the bird one day. Heinrich be damned.

Someone stepped into the shop, brushing through the strings of bells hanging from the upper sill of the door. Jack straightened and tried to look like he hadn’t been contemplating murder. Hello, he said. Welcome to Jack’s Emporium. How may I help you? Then the customer threw back his hood and Jack sighed. What do you want, Igor? I swear, if you have another piece of dented tin magicked to look like gold.

No! Igor, tall and lanky, but bent by the pack he never took off, lurched across the shop. He nearly took out a whole stand of willow work china and the rose in its bell jar on his way. The rack of glass blown sweets in front of the counter escaped by a bare whisper of air. No, Igor said again, bracing himself on the counter. I have something for you, Jack. You want to see this, I swear. He reached around behind himself, nearly disjointing his shoulder in the process, and dug around in the pack. If I could just. He grunted and twisted. Just get to it. Ah! There. He pulled his hand free and say something down on the counter with a solid thud. Look!

Jack looked, eyebrows raised. It’s a plate.

Igor nodded. It’s a special plate. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

Which told Jack nothing. Igor was a Carrier, someone who could handle all sorts of magic and keep it from exploding, or exploding in proximity to other magics. That made him useful on expeditions into the Other, the pocket realities that had revealed themselves to humanity after the Reawakening of Magic almost thirty years ago. But it also meant he worked for a lot of people, hopping from pocket reality to pocket reality like a hyped-up ferret on a pogo stick.

Jack sighed. Where’d you find it?

I didn’t, Igor said. My brother did.

Jack just looked at him. Igor gave one of his hand waves that should have been a huge gesture, but got abbreviated by the way the bag weighed him down. It’s legit, ok? I checked! Ask where he found it.

Fine. Jack squinted down at the plate and its fine engraving. Where did he find it?

In a Sleeping Beauty castle.

Those are as common as dirt, Jack said. The plate wanted him to pick it up. He resisted. Who knew what sort of curse it carried? Although the pull meant that this time Igor had actually brought something real. Mark one down in the Professional Henchman column.

Common, yes. Igor flapped one long, bony hand. But you need to ask where it’s supposed to be.

The plate glittered as a stray bit of sunlight struck one gilded edge. Jack leaned closer. Where’s it supposed to be, Igor?

Igor straightened as far as his pack would let him. In a koschei’s hoard.

Suddenly, Jack’s knees weren’t so steady. The accumulated magic that filled the shop gonged in his head. Several of the bits of floating pixie dust erupted into sparks.

Igor looked smug.

Jack cursed. He was out of practice, damn it all. He’d never get rid of the man now.

It’s ok if you want to sit, Igor said, mouth tilted in a half smile as he braced his hands on either side of the plate. I get it.

Bastard. Jack knew he got it. But Igor was also more than a little Puckish. That used to be a funny quirk, something to ignore or deal with on the job. Now? Now Jack wanted to knock the smirk off his old friend’s face and dump him in the street with the horse shit.

The plate, entirely on its own, glinted. Jack glared at it. He wouldn’t pick it up. He wouldn’t. It couldn’t sink its hooks in him that easily. At least not magical ones. But the memories it’d unearthed wouldn’t quiet. Screams and blood and pain. Panic and desperation. The tiny itching crawl of hope that maybe, maybe, they’d make it out of this.

It could be from any koschei, Jack said between gritted teeth. Those legends covered a lot of territory.

True. Igor dropped the smug act, lined