ennyboy awoke to the sound of Parlock swearing at a frog.
This was not unusual.
What was unusual was the dimness of the morning. Their campfire had burned to embers, the mule was sleeping with its tongue hanging out, and Parlock stood hunched over a tree stump, shaking one fist at something Pennyboy couldn’t see.
“What happened?” Pennyboy asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“That,” Parlock growled, “was my lantern.”
Pennyboy blinked. “Who are you talking to?”
“This frog! He's been stirring up trouble with the lantern.” He kicked the stump with the toe of his boot. “Tell me where it has gone! Now!”
The frog croaked indignantly and hopped off into the underbrush.
Pennyboy looked around. There was no lantern to be seen.
“Where did it go?” he asked.
Parlock gestured broadly at the forest. “It walked off.”
“Lanterns don’t walk.”
“Well this one does. When it is having a sulk.”
Pennyboy stared at his master, waiting for some assurance that this was a joke. Parlock offered no more explanation.
"What does the frog have to do with anything?"
"The lantern likes frogs. Frogs are attracted to its light. That one," he pointed angrily in the direction the frog had hopped, "told my lantern to run away."
The Lantern’s Discontent
Parlock’s lantern was no ordinary lantern. It was brass, enchanted, and older than most tales. It had legs that allowed it to be set on uneven surfaces but also gave it some mobility, when it chose. Parlock claimed he’d won it off a river spirit in a dice game, though Pennyboy suspected he’d simply stolen it.
Either way, the lantern glowed without flame, hummed faintly when content, and sulked—literally sulked—when ignored.
But to leave camp entirely?
“Why would it leave?” Pennyboy asked.
Parlock shrugged. “We argued.”
“What about?”
“Whether it should stay lit during the night.”
Pennyboy spluttered. “It’s a lantern. That’s its job.”
Parlock spread his hands in a why-are-you-telling-me gesture.
“Try telling it that. Apparently after I went to sleep, that frog convinced it that it was being unfairly opressed. That shouldn't stay here! Then the stupid amphibian said I was taking advantage.”
They found tracks—small, round dents in the moss, like tiny hoofprints but arranged in a waddling gait. Parlock crouched to inspect them.
“Heading east,” he said. “Toward the center of the Wychwood.”
Pennyboy felt his stomach drop. “That’s where everything bad lives.”
“Not everything,” Parlock corrected. “Just the things that don’t fit anywhere else.”
Pennyboy didn't feel reassured by that distinction.
The Lantern’s Trail
They followed the little dents in the moss past gnarled oaks and fallen logs.
The deeper they went, the more the forest changed. Trees twisted into strange shapes, their bark carved with spirals that might have been made by nature… or knives. Mushrooms glowed faint blue beneath hollow roots. A low fog drifted at knee height, swirling in patterns that sometimes suggested faces.
Pennyboy clutched his cloak. “Master… what if the lantern was taken?”
“Lanterns with legs don’t get taken,” Parlock sniffed. “They get distracted.”
They walked for another hour before they found it.
The lantern stood atop a fallen tree studded with brown mushrooms, glowing brightly. Too brightly. Pennyboy shaded his eyes. The glow pulsed, as if excited.
“That’s not good,” Parlock muttered.
“Is it… calling something?”
“No, but it’s certainly inviting it.”
Pennyboy stepped closer. “Master, um...what’s around it?”
Beside the lantern lay an old leather shoe, half-rotted. In the hollow of the log were more things: a snapped bowstring, a tarnished buckle, a cracked piece of pottery.
Offerings.
“People leave things here,” Pennyboy whispered.
Parlock’s jaw tightened. “Not people. It's a hoard.”
Before Pennyboy could ask what he meant, the woods around them shifted.
Not the wind. Not animals.
Something else.
Something watching.
The Stranger of the Fog
A figure emerged from the mist—tall, thin, cloaked in moss and leaves. Its face was pale wood, smooth as carved ivory, features soft and unfinished, like a mask still being shaped.
It had no eyes. Just hollow curves where eyes should be.
“Master,” Pennyboy hissed, “what is that?”
“A Beggar-Thing,” Parlock said under his breath. “A creature that collects lost objects. Or steals them, depending on its mood.”
The creature tilted its head in their direction, sensing them without seeing.
The lantern brightened, as if eager to be chosen.
The Beggar-Thing walked toward the lantern but Parlock stepped in front of it.
“No.”
The thing leaned back from the sorcerer, hollow features unreadable.
Parlock raised his staff. “This lantern is mine.”
The Beggar-Thing cocked its head, listening to a voice Pennyboy could not hear although the lantern hummed and pulsed wildly.
Then it spoke—not with a mouth, for it had none, but with a breath that rustled the leaves in a single direction.
“You… do not appreciate it.”
Parlock scowled. “That’s beside the point.”
The Beggar-Thing lifted its hand—long, thin fingers like roots—and pressed them to the lantern. The metal hummed louder. Brightened. Vibrated.
“Master?” Pennyboy said.
Parlock glanced over at Pennyboy and that was all the distraction the Thing needed.
The Beggar-Thing picked up the lantern, held it close like a new puppy and stepped back into the fog.
Parlock raised his staff. His voice cracked like thunder. “STOP.”
But the Beggar-Thing did not.
The Bargain
Parlock strode forward, fire crackling along the edge of his staff. Pennyboy followed, but something held him back—cold fingers at the collar of his shirt.
Not fingers. Fog.
“Give it back,” Parlock demanded.
The Beggar-Thing paused and looked back at the sorcerer, the lantern glowing like a small sun in its hands.
“You do not cherish it,” the hollow voice whispered. “You command it. You scold it. You forget it.”
Parlock’s expression soured. “I own it.”
He started to lift his staff to cast a spell. The Beggar-Thing seemed to swell up, growing taller and tucking the lantern among the folds of its mossy robe.
The forest rustled disapprovingly and retreated slightly. The fog released Pennyboy.
He moved quickly to step between them. “Please, wait.”
Both Parlock and the Beggar-Thing turned their attention toward him but he could feel the tension in the air.
Pennyboy swallowed. “I understand. It left because it wanted to be… asked. Not ordered.”
Parlock’s mouth opened, then shut. He let out his breath in a huff. He looked unsure.
The Beggar-Thing nodded and extended the lantern toward Pennyboy—not Parlock.
The glow softened, warm and gentle.
“Ask,” the Beggar-Thing whispered.
Pennyboy understood. He bowed his head.
“Lantern… would you come back with us? Not as a tool. As… well… a friend.”
The lantern flickered once. Then it leapt from the Beggar-Thing’s hands into Pennyboy’s.
Parlock looked insulted. “It never jumped for me.”
“You never asked nicely,” Pennyboy said.
Parlock opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again.
The Beggar-Thing faded back into the fog, voice drifting like wind in the leaves:
“Take care… or next time… it stays.”
An Unsettled Return
They walked back to camp in silence.
The lantern glowed steadily, hanging from Pennyboy’s hand, humming contentment, casting little circles of light onto the moss.
Parlock eventually cleared his throat. "This whole thing has been ridiculous."
Pennyboy stopped and waited for the sorcerer to notice. When Parlock turned around he said, "It's not ridiculous. It's respect."
"No one asks me to do my job, I just have to do it."
Pennyboy thought about how to say what he needed to say.
"But wouldn't it be nice if someone did ask you politely sometimes? If they could?"
Parlock raised his arms in a gesture of frustrated surrender then turned and continued walking.
“Well,” he said stiffly, “try not to let it wander off again.”
Pennyboy smiled. “I’ll ask it to stay.”
Parlock snorted. “You do that.”
But Pennyboy noticed something odd as they returned to the clearing—the frog from earlier sat on Parlock’s stump, watching them.
The frog blinked slowly, turning to watch Parlock as he passed by. Then it croaked, in a voice that was not entirely frog-like:
“Ungrateful.”