Tales Of Grimea (11 page)

“Nothing,” answered Percy. “I tried reading
him, but it didn’t work.”

The warrior pulled on his string of beads a
little in surprise. “How come?” he asked, “Was he trained like
me?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get anything, so
either he’s been well trained,” concluded the old man with a
scratch, “or he was protected by magical ways. Either way, I’m
staying here.”

“But-“

“At least for a while. Adra is starting to
investigate, and I’ll do the same. We’ll find out what the danger
is and avoid it. If we can’t I’ll run with enough time to
spare.”

Reluctantly, Hwosh agreed. His mind was
plagued with dangers befalling his friend as he left the city for
his next job, heading northwest. Despite what people thought or
said, these past few months were some of the happiest he’d had.
Without Percy and Adra in his life, the warrior didn’t know what
he’d do.

Contrary to what he’d expected, only the last
Sceggle caused him any trouble at all. He’d tracked and fought the
beasts before, so knew he could best one in open terrain. The
problem was leaving the beaks intact in order to preserve the magic
in their feathers. The human sized flightless birds employed their
beaks as the primary method of attack, seconded only by talons iced
over and foggy with cold. Moreover, the beaks were fragile, and so
Hwosh blocked blows with a soft wooden shield he’d brought along
for the job.

The last and largest sceggle, identifiable as
a sage sceggle by its golden plumage, broke that shield with an
ill-timed blow as Hwosh tripped over a rock. After a few seconds of
terror, the warrior was able to dodge left, right, then left again,
avoiding striking the bird on its beak. After minutes of tiresome
fights and bleeding the thing slowly to tire and enrage it, the
Sceggle lifted one mighty leg and Hwosh twirled beneath it, getting
scratched lightly on the left shoulder with a talon so cold it
stole his breath away. Just as it tried to bring the appendage down
on its would-be victim, the warrior stabbed upwards into the
thing’s body, severing its life in a heartbeat.

Unlike with the worg, Hwosh was incapable of
carrying four sceggles upon his back, and had arranged for a small
wagon just for that. Thus he arrived at Lor only two days before
the end of the seven day deadline Murata had given him. Luckily,
the gate wasn’t as crowded as it was a few days earlier, and the
man was able to get in without many delays. He found a warehouse to
store the carcasses in, gave the lady in charge of it three coins
for a day of storage, and went straight to Murata’s Tavern.

When he went through the swinging door it was
still high noon, and yet there were still a few patrons here and
there. The music was calmer than it would be at night, Hwosh
noticed, and realized that the effect must be deliberate. As open
as Lor was to other cultures, it would be problematic to have
people get too rowdy this early in the day. Interestingly, Murata
himself looked tired, and shied away from direct sunlight with
whenever a stray beam got too close to him. “Hello, sir,” Hwosh
greeted him with a slight sense of wonder. It was often the
opposite sort of interaction between the two.

“Good day, Hwosh,” offered Murata with half
of his good grace, which was about double the amount to be had from
somebody else. “I see you’re looking slightly grimy. Good news, I
hope? Ah, forget that,” he said suddenly, focusing on Hwosh’s
shoulder, “You need to get that looked at.”

The warrior’s well rounded shoulder was
sliced on one side, and although he had tried his best to bandage
it up properly and had taken a healing potion with him, it was
going slow. “Ah, I will, sir. It’s just that one of the Sceggles
was a sage.”

Murata perked up at that. “A sage? Excellent
news! I just got an order for some apteriffs, and the plumage would
work wonderfully with what I have in mind. And you’re two days
early, to boot. I’m sure me and you will speak in the future; I
have uses for a man who can do this kind of fine work. The
emissaries are going to be pleased.”

“Emissaries, sir?”

“Ah…” The bartender paused. “Well, I guess
it’s fine to tell you.” The man leaned over, so as to discourage
eavesdroppers. “The guests I’m to entertain are emissaries from
Indellekt. With both our countries looking over their borders as
they are, I hope my good service could remind them that Regalians
are worth being friends with. But truly,” he announced, allowing
his voice to carry loud once more, “great work, Hwosh!”

A few of the patrons were looking at the man
now, and he could see Xera coming his way. “uh, thank you, sir,”
offered Hwosh, not knowing exactly how to react and wanting nothing
more than to go home and avoid the attention. “How has everybody
been?”

“Ah, things have been well,” stated the
bartender, “although your friend has been ill.”

Hwosh’s smile stopped dead in his tracks. The
first thought that went to his mind was that Percy must have been
poisoned. It was the only thing that made sense. He had promised
him that no harm would come to him. Why didn’t uncle Salim say
anything? Why would Percy be poisoned? Without another word, Hwosh
ran out into the street, ignoring the alarmed shout from an elderly
lady he’d almost leapt over. The man turned immediately right and
raced through the street, arriving at their apartment building a
panting mess. Almost doubled over and with so many thoughts
sprinting through his mind, Hwosh knocked on Percy’s door hard. An
alarmed shout came from within, and a few seconds later the portal
swung open, slowly. The warrior forced it the rest of the way
through, eliciting a startled cry from Adra.

“Where is he?” the man demanded of her, and
she pointed at the bedroom.

“But what happ-“ she started to ask, but
Hwosh cut her off.

“I don’t know why they’d do it,” he told her,
“but I’m going to find out. It’s all my fault. I got that worg
poison, and now they went ahead and did him in! Uncle Salim told me
to get him out. They must have forced him to help.” He was pacing
the living room, hardly daring to go and see Percy’s dying body
just lying there in the bed. Adra was sitting on the sofa in front
of him, her back to the door, looking a flustered mess and with one
foot raised slightly up as if away from a rat.

Suddenly, Adra said, “Oh,” and started to
laugh, relaxing visibly. Before Hwosh could do anything, she
exclaimed, “He wasn’t poisoned!”

“What?”

“Well, I mean, he was,” she added, confusing
the man evermore, “But not in the real sense. He was the one who
wanted to eat something I made. So I tried making bread, and he ate
it, and apparently there’s a powder I thought was salt and turned
out to be something else completely and it got him ill.” For a
couple of seconds, nobody said anything, although Adra’s lips
trembled.

“Oh.” Hwosh looked over to where a pot of tea
was brewing at the corner table, atop a heating stone Adra had
purchased.

“Yeah, oh,” mocked a voice from the room.
Hwosh went over to check. Sure enough, Percy looked healthy enough,
if still a bit green. “He hasn’t been drinking his medicine
enough,” explained Adra, “Says it tastes like dog food. Don’t ask
how he knows.”

“Hey, you asked so I told you the story!”
objected Percy in as much of his cheer as he could manage.

“And that’s why I told Hwosh not to ask. Now
you,” this next part was aimed at the warrior, “Go and get yourself
cleaned up, we have to talk about what we found out while you were
gone.”

Hwosh was waved at with a hand as if he were
fly, but still managed to say, “There’s an emissary from Indellekt
coming here. That’s Murata’s client. Maybe he has something to do
with the poison.”

“We know, now go!” With that, the warrior was
unceremoniously shooed out by both of his friends.

The bath Hwosh took was before going back to
Percy’s was, perhaps, the most embarrassing one since that time he
was seventeen and sneezed into a girl’s face.
Ugh, what kind of
idiot goes off like that without checking?
he thought to
himself, sitting down curled up in about two and a half feet of hot
water.
Murata only said that Percy was ill, and yet you had to
go and…. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
If he didn’t watch it, he was
going to become a sentimental fool out of sheer care for the two,
he realized. Things were so much simpler when you were alone. And
yet, Hwosh found himself convinced that he would not be able to
live the same without Percy and Adra in his life. They were just
important, plain and simple.

About an hour later, Hwosh was able to face
the prospect of going to Adra and Percy’s room. To her credit, the
merchant kept her laughter to a minimum, yet it was still torture.
When they had settled in on the sofa, Hwosh asked, “So, what did
you guys find out?”

“As far as we know, Mikhlab is going to try
and poison an emissary from Indellekt by the name of Tamas Wedd,”
said Adra. Hwosh looked at Percy, but the man shook his head.

“I know the name,” he explained, “but all I
heard about the man is he’s a psion and a nasty man.”

“How did you find out?” asked Hwosh with
slight uncertainty. Business was good for Mikhlab. Why go for an
ambassador and risk war?

“A mix of business contacts and mind
reading,” answered Percy, “Although after she made me that meal, I
wasn’t able to go out and help much at all. This was three days
ago.” Adra grinned, perhaps stifling another “you asked for
it”.

“So, when does it happen? How do we find
evidence? What do we do?” The last question, the last of a rapid
fire of them, seemed to Hwosh like more of a general sweeping plea
than anything else. This all was growing a little too big for him,
and despite the rapid whirring in his head, nothing was making much
sense at all.

Adra said, “We tried notifying the
authorities. At first they didn’t want to help, but Percy,” she
pointed at her lover, who raised a lazy arm in acknowledgement,
“Worked some of his magic.“

“It’s not magic.”

“He did it on one of the lower tier culprits.
Walked right in and confessed everything he knew. It wasn’t enough
for them to do anything, but we got their attention.”

“That’s good,” offered Hwosh with hope.
Instead of answering him, Adra went over to the pot, where a
crimson tea was bubbling slowly. She gave a cup to Hwosh and took
another, but Percy received a murky green slimy looking liquid. He
grumbled and she told him he needed to drink it to feel better. The
back and forth ended with him drinking the foul stuff, murmuring
about how all medicines taste bad. Ignoring him, the merchant
elaborated, “Problem was, the next day he disappeared. So did the
guards on his case.” Hwosh frowned, surprised at this sudden twist
but remembering that if it were Saif’s men, they would be capable
of doing such things with impunity. The underground king had a long
reach indeed. “We think it was Mikhlab silencing them. Luckily, we
kept our tips anonymous and so they can’t find us for nasty hurt
times.” Disregarding the danger of what they were up against, she
seemed more concerned with Percy trying to sneak away his brew into
a plant pot. When he was properly chastised and she had once more
apologized for poisoning the man, he told her that the food was
delicious regardless and he was only so sick because he couldn’t
stop eating the bread. Then, all three sipped quietly for a few
moments.

Something about discussing battle plans
sitting next to each other on a sofa felt wrong to Hwosh, and so he
stood up and turned to face his friends. Adra and Percy each
stretched out a little in response, getting comfortable. “How about
uncle Salim?” he suggested quietly, knowing that he didn’t want to
explicitly connect the man who raised him with such a big matter.
“If they’re trying to assassinate Indellekt’s ambassador this
obviously, then it means Mikhlab has decided that there needs to be
another war, and Lor needs to be on the side of Regalia. This is
too big, we need to get some more help to deal with this
organization.”

“But would your uncle be willing to go after
his own brother?” asked Percy.

“He would. The father of Mikhlab is
terrifying, and nobody knows that better than uncle Salim. The only
reason he lets the man do as he wants is because Mikhlab has
promised to be on the side of the people. This is not the case
anymore. He would go against them, and his sons would help in any
way they can.”

At the very next opportune moment, Hwosh and
Adra went over to uncle Salim’s house. Everywhere, people were
going about their usual business: buying, selling, and chatting
with neighbours. There was even a new house being built right next
to an old disused water fountain. From the western side of town
Hwosh could hear bustle, where the Bazar would be in full throttle
about this time. It was difficult for the warrior, now dressed for
comfort and in sandals, to imagine that an assassination attempt,
designed to spark a war would be taking place in a few weeks. If
Tamas Wedd were to be killed, Indellekt would likely immediately
retaliate against Regalia and Lor, forcing a union against the
nation of knowledge and magic. At the very least, trade would
stagnate, cutting the life’s blood from such a trade reliant town
like as well as all of Ghata. If that happened, poverty and despair
would befall a folk so determined to better their own lot. Worse
still, Indellektians would be forced to leave the city or be swept
like ants before the flood of anger against the country. Even those
like Murata wouldn’t be able to remain neutral. Naturally, that
applied to Percy, one of those most determined to stop this entire
mess from happening. He would be forced to go away.

“Adra?” said Hwosh to his companion, who was
also dressed in brown comfortable clothes. It was unlike her to
forego extravagance and flair for the sake of practicality.