81. By the Lakeside (Patreon)

Ike shook his head at Wisp. Giving up, he settled down and turned to the lake. “There’s some monster out there?”

“There’s lots of monsters out there.” Wisp reached to her hip. A small pellet appeared in her palm. She lobbed it out into the center of the lake.

Before the pellet struck the water, a huge catfish leaped from the lake in a spray of water. Its enormous mouth snapped up the pellet, and it flopped back into the lake. An enormous splash washed over the surface of the lake, sending a wave of water all the way to the shore.

Ike jumped at a nearby tree, shimmying just far enough up into the tree. The wave broke, washing over where he’d been standing moments ago. Loup jumped, startled. She splashed down into the muddy water. Her ears swept forward. She raced into the lake and pounced on the wave as it swept back out.

“Loup, come back,” Ike called, stepping down on the bank of the lake. The marshy grass squished under his boots and mud closed over the tops of the leather, but the water didn’t reach his socks. He sighed in relief. Socks are nice, until they get wet. Once they get wet, they’re just awful.

“Worried about wet shoes? You should just go around in bare feet. They dry off,” Wisp opined from her tree.

“I don’t see you standing in this mud,” Ike pointed out.

Wisp spread her hands. “Even better than having wet feet. Just more proof that spiders are the truly superior lifeform.”

Ike sighed. He shook his head at her. “She says, in human form.”

She giggled. Nodding ahead of them, she indicated the entire lake. “The smell is somewhere out there. I can’t tell if it’s in the water, or something that comes to the lake to drink.”

Ike considered for a second. He stared out at the water, thinking. “If it’s in the water, it’s in the water. There’s nothing we can do. If it comes up to drink, we can catch it at the lake’s edge. You take the left, I’ll go right. If neither of us catch the scent, we’ll have to assume it’s in the lake.”

“How are you going to track the scent?” Wisp asked, putting her chin in her hand.

Ike nodded at Loup. “If you’ve got anything that smells like it, Loup can pick it up.”

Loup looked up from where she stood, knee-deep in the lake. She climbed out and sat beside Ike, looking up at Wisp.

Wisp scoffed. “A beast like that can’t compare to my nose.”

“She doesn’t have to compare, she just has to be good enough,” Ike returned.

Wisp raised her brows. She nodded. Crawling lower in the tree, she took a scrap of hide out from her hip and offered it to Loup. Loup lifted her head and sniffed deep, snuffling it a few times.

“I can’t guarantee she won’t key on to the hide instead, but if neither of us find anything, I’ll loop around your part of the lake,” Wisp said. She tossed a small box to Ike. “Light one of those if you find something.”

Ike caught the box. The tin fit in his hands, only a little bigger than both hands put together. It had a hinged lid. The surface was painted with an idyllic scene of a garden, replete with flowers, birds, lakes, and lilypads. He flipped the lid open to find eleven small paper scrolls lined up inside the box, their edges pointed out. There was a gap at the end of the box where one scroll was obviously missing. Red text marched down the scrolls, painted in a fine hand. An aura burst out from the opened box, so much that Ike almost flinched away.

“I light these?” Ike asked, closing the box against the overwhelming aura.

“One of those. One,” Wisp stressed. “They’re rescue talismans from some powerful city. The city master probably won’t come to rescue you from the Abyss, and they make a nice red light for me to find you under.”

“From the city lord?” Ike dropped the box and jumped back, as if burned.

Wisp sighed. She pointed her finger, and a spider thread leapt from it and caught the box before it hit the mud. It swung toward her tree, then back out, penduluming back and forth. “A city lord. Not the city lord. It’s from a city far, far from here. From my youth. I’m not even sure the city exists anymore.”

“Oh.” Ike caught the box as it swung toward him again. He eyed the box warily, then shrugged to himself. If Wisp says it’s safe, it’s probably safe. One’s already been used, anyways, so she’s tested it. It’s certainly fine.

“Didn’t work for the guy I found ‘em next to,” Wisp muttered, half to herself.

Ike raised his brows. He regarded the box with worry again. I guess if the city lord abandoned his own underling, he’s not likely to come after me for using one… right?

Let’s just hope Wisp finds it before I do. He nodded at Wisp. “If you find it, how will you signal me?”

“I’ll shoot a kite of web into the air. You can’t miss it,” she said, nodding.

Ike nodded. He gave her a salute. “See you on the other side.”

Wisp nodded. She climbed up to a strong branch, fired a bit of web to the next tree, and swung off.

“If bare feet are so superior, you’d walk!” Ike called after her.

“If I was an inferior human, I’d have to!” she shot back, her voice fading as she swung off.

Ike chuckled. Shaking his head, he turned to Loup. “So? Where are we going?”

Loup sniffed the air. She took a few steps forward, then lowered her nose. Slowly, she set off, letting the scent guide her. Ike followed along, in no hurry. The two of them ambled along the edge of the lake, just a boy and his wolf.