Chapter 9

Part 4

She held a small gold ring out to him, so he took it and looked closely at it. It had no jewels, but it was inscribed all over with many tiny symbols or letters that he didn’t recognize.

“It’s a magic ring, and it’s probably worth more than everything else put together.” she told him. “It was probably made down in the empires, judging from the look of the writing, and probably during one of the wars there between men and elves, because it’s human magic and it won’t work for me. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work for any elf. Looted for sure, probably from a woman, judging from the size of it. Too small for him to wear; he had it strung on a loop of thin white silk rope around his neck, but that was all bloody so I cut it off.”

“What does it do?” he asked.

“I have no idea, but there’s no doubt that it’s human magic, I can feel it. Actually I know for certain that it’s magic and it’s not elven, so it could also be dwarven or from some other race, but that’s almost impossible so it’s a good bet that it’s human. And for a human magic item, it’s pretty strong. See if you can put it on. If you can, we’ll go outside and test it. Not that finger! That’s your wedding ring finger, it’s bad luck to wear any other ring there!”

“Oh. I guess I was gonna try that finger first because that’s the only finger my parents wore rings on, so that’s where I’m used to seeing rings. It wouldn’t fit there anyway; it only fits my thumbs.”

“That’s good, since you’re still growing.” she nodded as she stood. “It’ll be a long while before it’s too small for your pinky.”

“Hey! It got tighter after I put it on! Now I can’t get it off!” he told her as he struggled with it.

“Wow! Are you sure it got smaller?” she asked as she bent close to look at it, but he was still covering it as he struggled with it.

“Yes! I could feel it get tighter, and besides, it was almost too big to stay on when I first put it on!”

“Well then stop fighting with it. It won’t do any good, and if you really force it you’ll just injure yourself. It’s magic, after all. Does it hurt?”

“Uh, no, actually. It’s pretty comfortable, and… Hey! When I was trying to take it off it was too tight to go over my knuckle and almost too small for the thumb bone, but when I stopped it got bigger again! I can make it get smaller and bigger by pulling on it and stopping! Try it!”

“Wow, that is strange! The size change is completely obvious! I bet it was made for a child, not a woman. Children lose everything that isn’t stuck on, usually, so that would be a good sub-spell for a child’s magic ring.”

“Or it’s cursed.” he speculated as he stood.

“Yes, that could be too.” she agreed as she followed him outside.

“So how do I make it work?” he asked.

“Every magic ring I’ve ever heard of was invoked by the will of the wearer. You just want them to work, and they do. That might not work if you don’t know what it does though. If it casts Fire Bolts, you might have to think; cast Fire Bolt! Or whatever the spell in it is. Fire Bolts are pretty common because lots of wizards know the spell and they’re really destructive.”

“Invoke!” he called as he forcefully pointed his thumb at the mountain across the valley. “I invoke you! Work! Cast! Activate! Cast Fire Bolt! Make me invisible!” he picked us a piece of a branch and said; “Make me as strong as a dragon!” and swung it against the ground, with no unusual results. He shrugged as he dropped the stick.

“I don’t know very many stories with magic.” he stated as he looked at the ring again. “The only other spells I can think of either control the mind of another or make them fall in love, and I don’t want to try those on you.”

“There is another possibility.” she stated as she picked up a stone as big around as her finger, just barely too big to be a pebble. “One that would be the most common spell for magic rings for children. Hold still. I’m going to throw this stone at you, just barely hard enough to hurt.”

She did so, and just before it hit him in the head it suddenly reversed direction and flew back at her so fast that she had no chance to catch it or dodge it. It struck her on the side of her forehead with an audible ‘knock’, and she screamed as she fell to her knees and clutched her head.

“ Hey! Are you okay?” he asked in surprise.

“I’ll be alright, just give me a minute!” she told him, sounding angry and almost in tears.

Finally she stood and checked her hands to see if she was bleeding, but she wasn’t. She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“You’ve got a nasty little lump there.” he told her.

She glared at him, but he seemed as unaffected as ever, neither concerned for her nor laughing at her, just stating a fact. She took another deep breath and forced calm on herself.

“All right, as I suspected when I tried that, it’s a ring of Protection.” she told him. “I thought it was going to cast a Battle Shield or something like that to protect you from the stone, but it’s got much better spells than that. It turns an attack back against the one who attacked you. I’m not going to keep experimenting to find out what it does in any more detail than that. But remember this; the power of the magic in it gets used up a little every time it does something magic, even when it grows and shrinks to stay on your finger. So don’t use it up unnecessarily, and try to keep track of what it does if it protects you from something; try to figure out if it’s getting weaker so you won’t be caught by surprise if it runs out. The smartest thing you could do with it is nothing; don’t count on it to protect you from anything and do all you can to protect yourself with normal methods, and it’ll be your very last line of defense until its power runs out.”

“Wow, that’s very interesting.” he said as he looked at it some more.

“Yes, I suppose it is.” she agreed, gingerly rubbing her head again, then got back to business.

“I’ve got a pile of packs down there with the rest of their food and water skins. Do you think we should go get them?”

“I don’t see any point to it.” he said with a head shake. “There’s more than enough food for the two of us for months in the caches my family made, and it’s better than soldiers’ marching rations. By the time we’ve eaten it all our enemies will have sprung all the traps, and we’ll have lost most of the advantage we have for staying around here. It would take me a very long time to make any more traps that are big enough to work on men. If we’re going to hide after that then this land is a great place for it, since I can hunt here all year round and I know it all so well. But if we’re going to keep hunting Taldrian soldiers then there’s no reason to stay here after the traps are sprung.

“Besides, as far as the food goes, we don’t need to carry the weight. Taldrian coins are gold, bronze, and tin. They’re sized so that a gold piece is worth a hundred bronze, and a bronze piece is worth a hundred tin, and you can buy a nice meal in town for a tin piece and a half. So we don’t need the extra food. Five gold is enough to buy a nice little house and the land it’s on down in town. As you said, that amount was probably each of those soldiers’ entire pay for the whole war, beyond whatever they managed to steal and hide from their bosses.”