“I just … I just ...” Draken stammers, pulling the reins on his galloping emotions. A few deep breaths brings him back under control. The sobbing stops as he pushes the bad feelings to that dark corner of his mind he never wants to visit.

‘It’s just another job,’ he tells himself. ‘Track and grab, find the golem and snatch it without getting caught.’

“You got some way to track this thing?” He asks, all business.

Hood already has a few things laid out on the coffee table.

***

“The magicyte compass is loaded with a sample of the clay. It’s not incredibly precise but it should lead you to the general area where the golem is. From there you may need to search several houses for it. ” He hands Draken a silken cloak emblazoned with stars. “Your apprentice cloak, you’ll need to wear it if you expect to get into wealthy people’s houses unopposed.”

A knock at the door and a shout.

“You better not have hurt him, you magic bastard!”

“What now?” Hood asks.

Draken, recognizing his friend’s voice throws open the door and is instantly wrapped in long arms attached to a tall, sweaty teenage minstrel.

“Thank gods your alive!” Warren shouts as Draken tries to squirm out from his moist embrace.

“What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“I heard your voice in my head.” Warren says. “You were screaming for help like you were dying. I came running, we all did.”

“You all heard my voice?” Draken asks, looking past Warren to Lily and a widely grinning Jacob.

Throwing the apprentice cloak over his shoulders he pushes past Jacob out into the sunny street.

“Fall in, boys we’ve got a job to do.”

Warren catches Draken’s arm.

“We all hear you sounding like you're being tortured to death and run to help and when we get here you wanna do a job?”

Draken shrugs. “I was in one kind of trouble now i’m in a different kind. The kind where if I wasn’t in this cloak I just might end up dancing at the end of a rope. This job’s the only way to avoid something worse.”

“Sounds like your in deep shit again.” Jacob chimes in. “You sure know how to step in it.”

The compass needle suddenly spins, pointing west. Attuned to his body language, Draken’s crew sprints the moment he does, following one step behind each sharp turn.

“Are we where I think we are?” Lily asks as they stop by a fountain at the center of a broad cobblestone street. Cool spray mists into the hot summer air. Gone are the tightly packed buildings of the inner city, replaced by an unsettling sense of space. Surrounding them on all sides are Imposing homes set apart by acres of stunningly green land.

Birds sing in the trees, dogs bark in the distance. Children laugh and run through gardens as someone plays scales on a piano. Towering hedge sculptures and stone monuments dominate the vast lawns. Tall, spike edged fences surround each small palace and each walkway is universally flanked by guards in custom livery.

“We are operating way out of our territory, boss.” Warren says, voice trembling. “They’ll flog us for sure!”

“These nobles don’t even wait for a trial, they just strip you down and beat you themselves,” Jacob wimpers. “I don’t wanna get whipped!”

Draken smacks his friend hard across the face.

“Better now?” He asks. Jacob nods, rubbing at the red mark.

“Good, no one’s getting whipped, were here on legit business. Look what i’m wearing.” He preens in his apprentice cloak. “Have you ever heard of an apprentice mage being whipped?”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t whip his friends.” Lily grumbles, scratching at a scab on her arm.

“It’ll be fine, you’re my assistants.” Draken says. “What we’re looking for will be in one of these houses.”

He confidently strides up the walkway to the nearest house, waving his friends to follow and hoping they don’t notice his stiff and nervous gait. Intimidating does not describe the gilded manor’s atmosphere.

A pikeman levels his long blade at Draken causing him to leap back three feet, falling over as he lets out a girlish scream. The guard clears his throat as Draken cowers.

“Young master mage, please state your name and the purpose of your visit that I might announce you.” Ignoring the snickering from behind him, Draken dusts off his cloak and stares the pikeman in the eyes.

“Draken Crowe, apprentice to the wizard Blackard Hood. There is possibly a runaway spell loose in your master’s home.”

“Follow me quickly.” The pikeman says, breaking into a brisk march. Draken turns to his crew waving them forward. “You heard the man.”

Keeping up with the pikeman’s long goosesteps is more difficult that he imagined it would be and by the time they close on the lady of the house the boy has broken a sweat.

“What’s this?” The lady stands from her chair so fast that her massive wig falls sideways.

Draken begins to step forward but the pikeman’s extended arm shoves him back.

“Presenting, Draken Crowe apprentice to the wizard Blackard Hood and his trio of assistants. There appears to be an emergency in the house of the magical nature.”

The lady stifles a shriek with a trembling fist as all color drains from her face.

“What? How?” The noblewoman stammers, shaking visibly.

Draken steps forward, bowing the way he’s seen in plays and assumes is proper etiquette in the circles these nonsensical nobles run in. The slightly gratified look in her eyes suggests his guess is correct. “There was a runaway spell, my master has sent us to retrieve it before it explodes.” The lady braces herself, clutching the back of her chair. “I’m dizzy,” She says. "I need air!"

Startled by a loud buzzing it takes the boy a moment to realize that it's’ coming from the compass in his hand. A thrill runs through him as he realizes what it means.

“Spread out!” Draken shouts. “It’s in this room someplace.”

“Oh my gods!” The lady screams, unable to contain her horror.

“It’s by the bookshelf.” Lily shouts, as she darts in that direction. Draken grabs her by the collar yanking her back mid dash.

“Wait, I almost forgot!” Fishing in his pocket he pulls out a handful of small crystal beads. “You’ve each gotta keep one of the talismans on you or the thing will blow up when you grab it.” Shooting him daggers from their eyes they each stop and take one.

“Way to nearly kill us, dumbass.” Jacob says, shoving his into his shoe where he knows he won’t drop it.

“By the makeup desk in the corner!” Draken and company begin pulling out drawers, dumping makeup and jewelry everywhere as the follow the implike snickering.

“I got it cornered.” Warren shouts. “Shit, how the hell!?!” A sparking blur shoots past his feet and behind the bookshelf.

“Get the books off the shelf,” Draken commands. Lily and Jacob fling handfuls of books to the floor. Pages flutter loose as Draken kicks a pile of books out of his way and climbs up to pull everything down from the top shelves.

“The bugger wont stop moving.” Warren grabs the shelf by the side. “This ain’t working, we’re gonna have to pull the whole sucker down.” Draken hops down to grab the other side of the massive oak shelf. The loud crash of splintering wood echoes in the chamber as the shelf hits the floor sending shredded books and torn pages fluttering in the air.

“There it goes!” Jacob cries as the golem springs into the china cabinet.

“No! Stop it, you urchins are destroying my house!” The lady shouts, color coming back to her face as it turns bright red.

“You heard her,” Draken says, waving the others to stop. “The lady wants to deal with the exploding golem herself.” The kids come to a slow and ambling stop, looking to Draken uncertainty. Something in his eyes says ‘play along’ and they follow his lead.

“You can’t be serious!” Warren shouts a bit too dramatically. “Leaving something like that in this nice lady’s house is just wrong.”

“It’s her decision.” Draken says coldly as he fumbles around in his hip bag. Finally he produces a crumpled parchment and slaps it down on a nearby table.

“You’d better write a note saying I aint responsible for what happens and you’d better do it quick, I don’t wanna be standing around here when this place goes up in smoke.” The lady’s pale purple eyes focus on the wrinkled parchment laying flat on the tea-table. She nervously blinks and bites her lower lip.

“You’re just trying to scare me.” She says. “Have a bit of fun at my expense, I know what boys your age are like.”

Draken hands her a quill from his bag and slaps a stoppered bottle of black ink down on the table. His face is stony and unwavering, his eyes hard. “Write the note, sign it and date it. You might be willing to take your chances but I’ve got too much to live for to hang around here waiting to get blown up.”

The lady lays the quill across the parchment with a sigh. “Do what you have to, get it out of my house.”

Quickly he spins on his heel to face his waiting crew. “You heard the bitch, catch that fucking thing!” The china cabinet swings open with the relentless crash of dozens of plates shattering on the floor as the golem jumps free.

“Grab it!” Jacob shouts at the top of his lungs.

Warren lunges at the little green monster, snaring it by the leg. “I got it!” He shouts, grasping and groping the squirming humanoid clay.

The golem from a purely artistic standpoint is frankly embarrassing. Draken can’t help but inwardly cringe at his own poor workmanship. One leg is longer than the other and the head, rather than being round is a kind of squashed oblong shape, with the eyes and mouth being crooked and overly large. All of this is of course secondary to the fact that it’s clearly taken his orders to heart and draped itself from head to toe in rings, pendants and bracelets. The clearly priceless jewels are fully embedded in it’s clay body, necklaces jangling as they hang from it’s arms and legs. Draken pulls a silken sack embroidered with crystals from his pocket, opening it as he sprints to Warrens’ side.

“Quick, put it in.” He says, holding up the open sack as Warren flails about, struggling to keep hold of the golem. “Whatever you do, don’t let go, it might blow up and kill us all!” Warren gives him the kind of look that says ‘no shit, Sherlock’, his mouth being preoccupied with a torrent of the most imaginative curse words. A series of vulgarities and anatomical impossibilities as confusing as they are shocking to the ears of the noblewoman whose face now burns crimson. “Ow, this little ass eating piece of shit bit me!” Warren shouts as he tosses the golem into the bag. The string draws tight, sealing it in as Draken chants a rhyme.

“Power found is power bound, return this spell to the ground!”

He tosses the bag to the floor and the squirming thing inside it stills. His foot comes down with a crunch.