Chapter 12

Naomi and Rionne dined in the raucous common hall of the inn. The atmosphere was cozy, warm with the smells of meat and alcohol, the sounds of rolling dice, and the occasional banter or curse from patrons. The elf went with a serving of fruits and seeds, and Naomi chose the same but also tried a bit of the house stew—and it was surprisingly good. “A bit on the greasy side, but tasty.”

The common hall was almost full. The patrons consisted overwhelmingly of humans, green-skinned orcs, and stocky dwarves—some strikingly hairless, which surprised Naomi a bit, used as she was to the stereotype of the bearded dwarf. There were some elves as well, and two groups of huge, burly dragonkin that could not have sat any further apart; the first ones were clad in worn armor and clothes over their steel gray scales, whereas the others dressed richly to match the golden hue of their skins.

Unlike a scant half an hour prior, Rionne’s presence was noted by a few people now. Both women caught a few curious looks and noticed the rumours that started circling as patrons glanced at the elf.

Only then did Naomi take stock of the table Rionne had picked, almost in front of the counter, in the middle of an aisle of sorts, and with an unobstructed path to the door. “Nobody can sit and eavesdrop on us here,” she pointed out quietly. “Was that on purpose?”

Rionne swallowed her mouthful of fruit and seeds before answering. “A wise dwarf I once met would say that negotiating from a position of strength did not preclude negotiating from a position near the exits.”

That elicited a snort. “That guy knew his business.”

“Shardivan the Black, Master of the Way. Almost certainly dead by now.” Rionne’s sharp eyes scanned the people in view. Some noticed her inquisitive gaze and turned away. “Some of the faces in view are already known to me.”

Naomi did her best not to do the same. “Anything we should worry about?”

“Word will spread of my return soon. If it has not done so already.”

“Including people you’d rather not learn of that.”

“I have made my share and more of enemies throughout my journeys. Mostly among dragons and their henchmen, but also some offworlders.”

As if to answer Rionne’s words, the door opened, and half a dozen armored and tan-cloaked people with swords and maces walked into the inn, half of them orcs, the other humans. Their leader was one of the latter, wore a patch over his right eye, and sported a four-day beard. His single eye scanned the tavern—and focused on Rionne immediately. He grinned coldly, his golden teeth sparkling under the lights of the glowing crystals. “Look at this, bloods. The chant was true after all. The silver witch has returned indeed.”

Rionne put a couple of almonds in her mouth before answering. “So flies have already laid eggs on your ears, Inshubar. Fitting.”

Voices died in the common hall as heads pieced together the elegant insult. Inshubar’s smile did not change. “What brings you back to our fine town? Planning to raise hell again? Your meddling in our affairs has irritated some big people here.”

“Did it?” Rionne pretended nonchalance. “That was a call made on the spur of the moment. A better than expected outcome if it has angered your bosses.” She gazed at him briefly before reaching for another almond. “After all, the boss of a slaver and bounty hunter who pursues runaway slaves usually is as unpleasant or worse.”

The smile was gone now, a cool glare in its place. “And a snide elf sticking her cute little nose where it don’t belong will someday get it ripped off. And that pretty mouth beat to a pulp.”

Naomi reached discreetly for the pistol holstered beneath her left breast, but her elf companion stopped her with a look. Then she regarded Inshubar and her violet eyes turned almost glacial. “And you will be the one to do it? It will take more than blades and sticks to achieve that. Now please look elsewhere. Your breath is fetid.”

“Fret not, we were just passing by. But we will be around… and won’t be far. I’d be leery of dark alleys if I were you.”

Rionne leaned back in her chair. “Inshubar, please indulge my curiosity. Are those fresh scars I see on your head? Is it that someone beat out of you what little sense remained in there? What did you hope to gain by coming to Finn’s very own tavern and threatening a wizard that could snuff you with a whisper?”

“You’re not the only basher who can cast a few spells. Our cullies can, too. And we got many of them.” The man turned on his heel and looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Sleep well, witch. If you can.”

Inshubar and his fellows left. The inn was a very still place afterwards.

Finn exhaled. “Thanks for not splattering his brains on the walls. That tends to stick to the wood and the stench never goes away.”

“Maybe that was what the situation called for,” Naomi muttered. “Bullies usually stop being bullies when they meet someone who’ll fight back.”

“Maybe,” Rionne allowed. “But I wanted to see if he would outsmart himself and reveal who is supporting him.” She exhaled slowly. “Unfortunately, he did not.”

“His mercenary band has found employment with the Ruby Roads Company,” Finn said. “So he’s the law now, so to speak.”

“He will have to be dealt with carefully.” Rionne did not seem worried, though.

Naomi asked, “What’s your story with him?”

“Inshubar is an opportunist—part bounty hunter, part sellsword, part slaver, all sadist. Usually I crossed paths with him because he was in the service of whoever I was opposing at that time. Regrettably his type is all too common in this town.”

Naomi woke up to the insistent call of her wristwatch when the sun was already on the horizon, her first night of sleep in that new world not any different from going to sleep in Tokyo. She freshened up, remembering Rionne’s warning about how a working shower was a luxury there, and put on one of the three military outfits she had assembled for this journey: tank top, flak jacket, tear-resistant cargo pants, belt with ammo pouches, and vest with pistol holster on the front.

Then she left her room and knocked on Rionne’s door. “Come in,” the elf answered.

Rionne’s room smelled of incense and smoke. The wizard herself looked upset. “What happened?”

“I just finished casting a few spells to try and contact Hilde and Tealoth.”

“And it didn’t work.”

“Wherever Hilde is now, she is unreachable. My message did reach Tealoth, but the mental processes of an Ancient are ponderous even with luck on your side.”

“So that means… we shouldn’t expect a prompt answer?”

“No. We must find a way to contact Hilde ourselves.”

“I suppose you tried to use some clairvoyance magic.”

“You used the right word. Good. And yes, I tried. But I could not reach her.”

A shrug. “Well, remember what Rumiko-chan said? About what happens when all you have is a hammer?”

“I answered then that I have other tools. And we will put them to use after breakfast.”

“What’s the plan?”

“There are some places we have to visit. First, the elven quarter; then the Arcane Association; and finally the marketplace. I have acquaintances at each that might know something of value.”

A nod. “Alright. What should I know? About Inshubar and his gang? I suppose you don’t want me to use them for target practice.”

Rionne thought about that. “Ironically enough, his advice is correct. As long as we limit ourselves to broad streets and avoid encounters with the watch, we should be fine. You should recognize them easily—they wear these long tan cloaks you saw on Inshubar’s men last night.”

“And if we can’t avoid them? Say they box us into an alley?”

Now it was Rionne who shrugged. “Then you can indulge in target practice.”

They had their breakfast of milk, fruit and seeds in relative tranquillity, except for some news Finn delivered. “A messenger came looking for you earlier this morning, Lady Rionne,” he informed as he saw both women enter the common hall. “Abbess Octavia sends word. She was pleased to hear you’re back in town and hopes you’ll visit her soon.”

“Definitely. I was planning on going to the elven quarter in any case.”

At one point, they were about to cross a street when they heard shouts in a raw language and a rumbling growl answering them. They looked to their left—and saw that a tumult had gathered. Sylvans and dragonkin also were around, but they rarely were seen on the same street. Now they had coincided. “What’s going on?”

Rionne watched carefully. “Turn back,” she whispered. “The watch is there.” Naomi obeyed. Then they went around the block warily to see what the tumult was about. Two sylvans, one of them large and burly as an ogre and the other resembling an elf, had run straight into a cadre of golden-scaled dragonkin. The latter had angrily ordered the tree folk out of the way, and the sylvans had not just refused—the smaller one was a spellcaster of some kind, and the big one was ready to stop anyone trying to attack his companion as she prepared her magic for a fight. The tan cloaks of the watch were between them, trying to get both groups to stand down.

“They sure don’t seem fond of each other.”

Rionne actually snorted at that. “You have a talent for understatement.”

“In my line of work, either you develop that kind of talent or you snap.” Naomi walked a few steps further in silence, her shotgun loose in her hands, before asking, “When you did that clairvoyance thing last night, I mostly saw sylvans.”

“You saw mostly sylvans because it is mostly them who live in the Cauldron. To see dragons, we would have to scry the circling mountains. And beyond Pioneers’ Landing, there are only a few settlements around the Pond. For the most part you will only find dragonkin or sylvans. Or their retainers or allies.”

The elven quarter was more or less in line with what Naomi had expected to see for a place where elves lived. The district was enclosed in an ivy-covered wooden fence, homesteads inside either gracefully sculpted in stone or seemingly grown out of living wood, with flowers of every color imaginable in view. Except for guards clad in very fine chain mail woven out of a greenish metal, the residents mostly wore simple but graceful tunics evoking the imagery of huge leaves layered one on top of another.

Rionne was the surprised one instead. The burned-out ruins of a large longhouse stood about a couple hundred steps from the fence. A few people were nearby, some of them clad in wizard robes, but Rionne herself approached one wearing a nun’s habit. “Lady Octavia? What happened here?”

The nun turned towards her and smiled. She was a human in her mid-forties, and the few lines age had etched on her face added regal dignity instead of weariness to her persona. “Oh, child, I was overjoyed to hear of your return. Days were piling up without word from you.”

Naomi gasped slightly. “Begging your pardon, your name—Octavia, right?”

“Yes…” A frown. “Maybe we have met elsewhere? Your face seems familiar to me.”

Naomi shook her head. “Impossible. I was born in an entirely different world. This is my first time here.”

“I see. Sorry. It’s just—I see so many people here every day.” Then she glanced sadly at the burned-out building. “Or at least I used to. But you seemed to have recognized me as well.”

Rionne eyed Naomi curiously. The latter blushed. “It’s that… well, you look almost exactly like another priestess I know back home. The mother of my best friend’s fiancé.”

“Oh?” A warm, endearing smile. “Well, I suppose that’s just a very rare coincidence. I have never left this realm either.”

Naomi nodded. “Forget I asked.”

“No, why, child? It’s always interesting to hear from such distant and different places. You’ll have to tell me sometime.”

Rionne’s eyes went back to the burned-out longhouse. Gently she repeated, “What happened here?”

“Oh, apologies, child.” Octavia walked to a stone bench nearby and sat there. “We suspect it was arson.”

“Arson.” The elf repeated the word venomously. “Tell me who do you suspect. And why.”

“You know that here in the orphanage we welcomed everybody. One of my children was a greyscale, a very rare one. I had never seen a noble one—I mean, a winged one.”

“Neither have I,” Rionne admitted, then explained to Naomi, “Greyscales are dragonkin born from two different lineages—clans with distinct scale colors. Greyscales are taboo among them.”

“Oh, so that’s why the grey ones and the golden ones didn’t mix up at the inn…”

“Correct.”

“And noble ones—I heard they have wings.”

Octavia nodded. “They do. And are much smaller and flightier than the rest of their kind. Kryzaal was tinier than the Lady Rionne here even.”

Rionne’s eyes narrowed. “‘Was?’”

“I do not know what became of him,” Octavia admitted quietly. “Kryzaal would occasionally go on escapades on his own. It’s not like I could really stop him, not with those huge wings of his. The night of the fire he vanished.”

Naomi was following intently. “If you tell us about this boy, I suppose it’s because he’s somehow connected to the fire.”

“Mercenaries on behalf of a dragon lord in Wyrmspire came demanding we surrender him. When I asked why, they answered that was none of my concern. So I replied that unless their request was properly documented and fundamented, I was obligated to decline it.”

“Who were the mercenaries?” Rionne was smoldering. “Inshubar, perhaps?”

“No, no. The leader introduced herself as Lenyra. She’s an offworlder, impossible to miss—blue skin, long black hair, yellow eyes.”

Naomi committed the details to her memory. “With that description, she’ll be easy to spot.”

“Agreed,” Rionne said. “But I surmise that was not the last of it.”

“No, it wasn’t. More people came for him. These were not mercenaries but dragonkin themselves, purple-skinned ones. They repeated their demand; I again asked why. This time they said that my refusal had offended their lord greatly. I replied I answered to a higher authority than them.”

“The Saint herself must have stood at your side then.”

“Perhaps She did, child, perhaps She did. And I wish I had heeded Her more closely… I had this intuition that bad things could happen, that they could be moved to act rashly. I alerted some of the elven guards. They agreed to keep an eye on our home, but even they saw nothing the night of the fire.” Octavia shook her head. “I should have been more determined, should have heeded Her warning more closely. I failed to do so.”

“You did not,” Rionne tried to comfort her. “We are all only mortal.” Then her gaze turned into a chilling glare, and even Naomi felt uneasy. “But some will not be when I find them. Do you need my help?”

“Our help?” Naomi seconded.

“Find Kryzaal,” Octavia asked at once. “Please.”

“That goes without saying. Anything you require now that we can provide?”

The nun shook her head. “Thank you, child. Your kin are hosting the children I could find that night and donors have covered the costs to rebuild our longhouse. A donation would never hurt, however.”

Rionne reached into her purse, then handed her a small leather bag. “I will always endeavour to support you.”

“May the Saint forever guard you for that,” Octavia thanked her earnestly. “And pardon my rashness. I didn’t ask what brought you here. Was it my message?”

“One reason. I must visit Aradia and Oryndor.”

Naomi asked, “Question—how does one call an abbess? Her Holiness?”

“Oh, no, child!” Octavia laughed kindly. “I’m just a lowly servant of the Saint; I don’t merit any titles. ‘Octavia’ will be enough.”

“Oh—okay.” Naomi blushed slightly. “I just—I meant to ask—I came here looking for someone. Maybe you would know something.” She reached into an inner pocket of her vest, and pulled out a photo of Satou Yoko’s son.

“My, that’s a very faithful portrait!” She squinted at the picture, then shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with him. I would remember—I mean, his eyes are like yours.” A puzzled frown. “Come to think of it, it’s the first time I’ve seen eyes like yours.”

“We are from the same country.” Naomi put away the photo. “Thank you anyway. Would you please send word to Finn’s inn if you hear anything?”

“Of course, child, I will.” She bowed her head graciously. “May the Saint bless you with Her strength and ward your soul against despair.”

Naomi blinked. “How do you know those words?”

“That is one of the Saint’s basic catechisms, child. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just—” She blinked again and turned towards Rionne. “I pronounced the exact same prayer. At the Maze. At the shrine in front of the park. You heard it.”

“I did not,” Rionne denied politely. “It seemed to me a very intimate and private moment. I decided not to eavesdrop on you.”

“Oh.” The answer dazed Naomi slightly. “It’s… it just can’t be a coincidence.” She shook her head emphatically. “No. One, perhaps, but two coincidences? Can’t believe it.”

“Well, child, I wouldn’t know why I resemble someone from your home so exactly. But about your words of prayer… Maybe the Saint reached out to you in your moment of need.”

Naomi held a hand to her chin, thinking. “Maybe,” she allowed. “Gods know I’ve been through some very dark times.”

“If She offered you solace, take it. Let Her shoulder your burdens,” Octavia counseled tenderly. “The Saint succors those in need of courage and inspiration. She never lets those under Her care fight their battles alone.”

With a touch of tender sorrow, Naomi shook her head. “I’m sorry, Octavia, but no god can shoulder the burden for me. I must carry it myself.” She bowed her head. “I thank you for your blessings.”