OP Max Mage - Chapter 2

Three days after the troll, the egg vendor was back.

Different spot this time. He'd moved his cart closer to the fountain, away from where the fish stall used to be. The fish merchant hadn't returned. Max had heard he'd packed up and moved to his brother's farm outside the city. Couldn't blame him. Watching a troll eat your entire inventory would shake anyone.

The egg vendor saw Max coming and went pale.

"I'm not here to cause trouble," Max said. "I just need eggs."

The vendor swallowed. He was young, maybe nineteen, with the kind of thin beard that said he was growing it because he could, not because it looked good. "The... the eggs."

"Yes. Eggs. Do you have better ones this time?"

The vendor glanced around like he was looking for escape routes. Max wasn't sure why. He'd been perfectly polite last time. He'd even paid, which was more than some customers did when trolls showed up.

"I talked to my uncle," the vendor said. "About the feed."

"The oyster shell?"

"He said you were right. The calcium. He's fixing it."

"Good." Max picked up an egg, held it to the light. The shell was still thin, but maybe slightly better. Hard to tell. "These are from before the fix, though."

"Yeah. It takes a few weeks for the new feed to... you know."

"I know." Max set the egg back. "One copper bit for a dozen. Same as last time."

The vendor nodded quickly. Too quickly. He was agreeing to anything Max said, which meant Max was probably underpaying, but he wasn't sure how to fix that without making things weird.

"Are you sure one copper is fair?" Max asked.

"It's fine. It's good. Whatever you want."

Max picked out his eggs, left a copper bit and an extra half-bit because the vendor clearly wasn't going to negotiate properly, and moved on.

The market was quieter than usual. The troll had spooked people. Fewer farmers had come in from the outer villages, and the ones who had were packing up early, glancing at the eastern gate like they expected something else to come through. Mirella's tomatoes were down to one and three-quarters, which was almost reasonable, but Max didn't buy any on principle. She'd gouged him during the crisis. He remembered.

He was examining a wheel of cheese when he heard the wing-beats.

Not bird wings. Too heavy, too slow. A deep rhythmic thump that Max felt in his chest before he heard it properly. He looked up.

The wyvern was coming in low over the eastern wall.

It wasn't huge, as wyverns went. Fifteen feet, maybe, wingtip to wingtip. Dusty brown coloring, which meant it was from the scrublands past the Greenwood. Its tail had that distinctive barb the venomous ones carried. Two legs, no front arms, which some people got wrong when they told stories. Wyverns weren't dragons. Different family entirely.

Max watched it circle once, twice. It was looking for something. Prey, probably. Wyverns didn't usually come near cities unless they were desperate or confused.

The Greenwood again. Something was pushing everything out.

People were running. Of course they were. The vendor with the cheese had abandoned his cart and was sprinting for the nearest building. Max was alone in this part of the square, which felt like an overreaction. The wyvern was circling, not diving. It hadn't picked a target yet.

He should probably move. Find cover. Let the guards handle it, or whoever the Coalition had sent.

But the cheese was right here, and it was a good wheel, hard rind, probably aged at least six months. The vendor had been asking too much for it, but with him gone, there was no one to haggle with.

The wyvern dove.

Not at Max. At a cart full of chickens on the other side of the square. The birds were screaming, that awful sound chickens made when they knew death was coming. The wyvern's claws extended, aiming for the wooden cages.

Max sighed.

He raised his hand, thought about pushing.

The wyvern... left.

That was the only way to describe it. One moment it was diving, claws out, mouth open. The next it was a distant shape heading east, wings beating frantically, like something had grabbed it and thrown it toward the horizon.

Max lowered his hand. Looked at the chicken cart. The birds were still screaming, but they were alive.

He turned back to the cheese.

The vendor was gone, the cart abandoned. Max thought about leaving money, but he didn't know the price. Leaving too little would be stealing. Leaving too much would be stupid. He decided to come back tomorrow and pay then, assuming the vendor returned.

He bought bread from Marta's stall instead. Not as good as his own, but she did something interesting with caraway seeds that he'd been trying to figure out. The crumb was denser than he preferred, but the flavor was there. He bought a small loaf and a roll, planning to take them apart at home.

"Did you see the wyvern?" Marta asked.

"Briefly."

"They're saying someone drove it off. Same as the troll."

Max bit into the roll. Good caraway distribution. She was mixing the seeds into the dough early, not folding them in later like most bakers did. "Probably the wind."

"The wind."

"Wyverns are light for their size. Hollow bones. A good gust can throw them off course."

Marta stared at him. She was an older woman, grey hair pulled back tight, hands rough from decades of kneading. She'd been baking in this market since before Max was born. She knew bread.

She didn't say anything about the wind. Just wrapped his purchase in paper and handed it over.

"You should try a longer proof," Max said. "The crumb would open up."

"The crumb is fine."

"It's dense."

"It's supposed to be dense. It's peasant bread."

"Peasant bread can have an open crumb. You just need more time in the first rise."

"Max." She leaned forward. "Did you throw that wyvern?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"The troll last week. The wyvern today. People are talking."

"People talk about all sorts of stuff."

She kept staring. Max finished the roll, brushed crumbs from his robe, and picked up his purchases.

"I'll see you next week."

"Max."

"Your bread's good, Marta. Just think about the proof time."

He walked away before she could say anything else.

The rest of the market was chaos. People were emerging from buildings, clustering in groups, pointing at the sky where the wyvern had been. Guards were running toward the eastern gate, though what they planned to do about a flying creature, Max couldn't guess. Someone was crying near the chicken cart, probably the owner, overwhelmed by the near miss.

Max made his way home.

His apartment was warm from the afternoon sun. The sourdough starter had risen and fallen while he was gone, which meant he'd missed the peak. Not a disaster. He could refresh it tonight and bake it tomorrow.

He set down his purchases. The eggs went in the cold box. Marta's bread went on the counter for dissection.

He cut the loaf open, examined the crumb. Dense, like he'd said. But the caraway was evenly distributed, which took skill. She was mixing longer than most bakers would, probably fifteen minutes instead of ten. That explained the density. The gluten was overdeveloped.

He took notes. Drew a little diagram of the crumb structure. Added a reminder to try a shorter mix time with his own caraway loaf.

The light faded. Max lit a candle, then remembered he could make light without candles. He let a small glow form above his workbench, just bright enough to write by. The spell was easy. He'd taught himself years ago, tired of burning through candles during early morning bakes.

Someone knocked at his door.

Max set down his pen. He didn't get many visitors. The occasional customer who'd tracked down where he lived, wanting to place a special order. Once, a debt collector who'd had the wrong address. That had been awkward for everyone.

He opened the door.

The young guard from the other day stood in the hall. Different uniform now, off-duty clothes, but Max recognized the face. The frown was the same.

"Can I help you?"

"You're Max Thorne."

"Yes."

"Copper-rank adventurer. Registered three years ago."

"Also yes. Is there a problem?"

The guard shifted his weight. He was nervous about something. "My captain wants to talk to you."

"About what?"

"The troll. The wyvern. There's been... talk."

Max leaned against the doorframe. His back was starting to ache from the walk home. The flour had been heavy. "What kind of talk?"

"People are saying you stopped both of them. With magic."

"The troll stopped itself. The wyvern was caught by a wind gust."

"There wasn't any wind today."

"There's always wind. You just don't notice it at ground level."

The guard's frown deepened. He looked young, maybe twenty-two, with the kind of earnest face that meant he'd either become a good man or a bitter one, depending on how the next few years went.

"My captain wants to talk to you," he repeated.

"When?"

"Tomorrow. Midday. The main guardhouse."

Max thought about his schedule. He'd planned to bake in the morning, proof through midday, bake again in the afternoon. A meeting would interrupt the second bake. He'd have to adjust his timing, start earlier, maybe skip the overnight proof he'd been planning.

"Fine," he said. "Midday."

The guard nodded. He started to turn away, then stopped. "What you did. With the troll."

"I didn't do anything."

"I was at the gate when it came through. I saw it charge you. I saw it stop." The guard's voice had changed. Quieter. Less official. "My sister was in the market that day. She sells ribbons near the south entrance."

Max didn't know what to say. He waited.

"She would have run," the guard said. "She's not fast. Bad leg from when she was a kid."

"I'm glad she's okay."

"Yeah." The guard looked at him for a long moment. "My captain thinks you're hiding something. He wants to know why a Copper-rank can do what you did."

"I can't do anything special."

"Maybe. But my sister's alive, so." He shrugged. "Thanks. I guess."

He left before Max could respond.

Max closed the door. Stood in his apartment, in the glow of his little light spell, surrounded by baking supplies and half-dissected bread.

The captain wanted to talk, and people were asking questions. The guard apparently had a sister who sold ribbons.

He went back to his notes. The caraway loaf. Shorter mix time. Maybe a wetter dough to compensate for the reduced gluten development.

Tomorrow he'd deal with the captain. Tonight, he had bread to think about.

The starter bubbled on the windowsill. 

Max made a note about hydration percentages and didn't look up.