“…and can’t wait until you get one of your landing zones set up at Izzy’s.”
Malcolm waited until everyone had crossed the street. “You seemed to be a lot better. We only had to wait about half the usual time for you to recover.” He turned and led the group toward Izzy’s.
“Yeah, something about the buildup of magic. If I understand correctly—“
“Yes, your understanding is correct,” Ylnah interrupted. “But don’t forget this build up degrades over time. I didn’t study that aspect, so I can’t give you any parameters. If you don’t use my transport magic consistently, you’ll go back to how it affected you without the magic.”
“Which is why I can’t wait for you to get set up at Izzy’s. You don’t have to keep checking behind you.” Valgrin grinned.
Ylnah blushed, “Didn’t think I was that obvious. Anyway, the truth is, I’m surprised father said yes so easily. Sorta suspicious and part of me is sure he’ll do something.”
“With Valgrin’s pitch,” Malcolm called over his shoulder. “I mean, after blue boy shared his vision of your future, I’m pretty sure you could’ve asked for anything.”
“Blue boy is maybe a bit much,” Valgrin shook his head. “Blue dude, blue guy…I’ll take those. For some reason, blue boy doesn’t sound so good. But back on topic. All my pitch did was open his eyes to the truth in front of him. He saw Ylnah as a person, not the child he had to protect at all costs. Give him credit, he accepted the idea easier than I expected.” Valgrin paused for a second. “Easier than I did with my daughter.”
The rhythmic scrape of boot leather against gravel and cobblestone filled the awkward silence. Valgrin's azure fingers fidgeted with the hem of his cloak before he forced a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Didn't mean to kill the conversation." His voice carried a hollow cheerfulness. "At least Izzy's is just across the street."
"And a couple blocks up," Malcolm corrected with an exaggerated sigh that made his shoulders rise and fall dramatically. Topic change needed. "Wonder if Izzy got everything done she needed to do before heading to the swamp." His tense muscles loosened as Valgrin and Ylnah exchanged glances, then nodded, visibly grateful for the shift in conversation.
They all came to an abrupt stop. Black fabric—not just any cloth, but funeral crepe with its distinctive crimped texture—hung limp and defeated from wooden poles flanking Izzy's doors, the dark material fluttering slightly in the breeze like the wings of dying moths.
“What—“
“We don’t know.” It’s got to be okay. It’s got to be…
“There are oblorga on the ground.” Ylnah whispered.
“Oblorga?” Valgrin asked.
Malcolm’s shoulders tightened. He held his breath.
“Small tokens bought to honor the memory of someone. There seems to be hundreds or more.” Ylnah pointed at the entrance with a nod of her head.
“No!” Malcolm hissed. Then sprinted to Izzy’s. The rest of the group right behind.
Each jolt of his foot hitting the ground sent a fresh burst of dread and fear scorching through his core. Someone else? Honor old friend?
The door slammed into the wall and bounced back, closing behind him. He watched Deeah’s eyes widen when he slammed his fists down on the bar top between them.
“What the f…” Malcom pushed against the bar, clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. A couple of seconds later, he looked up, trembling, trying to maintain control. “Sorry, I need to kno…”
“I understand, but just because you are faster doesn’t mean that I don’t wait for the rest of ya to finishing making their way to the bar.” Deeah looked up and shouted. “Valgrin, please make sure the door is shut and then throw the bar.”
A clank sounded, “Bar thrown.” Valgrin answered, latching the bar across the door.
Malcolm curled his fingers into a ball and biting at his bottom lip while Valgrin and Ylnah stepped up next to him.
Deeah held up her hand, keeping everyone silent. “Kawli, do you need to check the oven?”
“Did that a few minutes ago.”
Malcolm’s fingernails dug deeper into his palms. Dinner plans! His hands slapped the bar. Deeah’s finger wagging in front of his nose, froze the shout in his throat, long enough for Deeah to turn and face him, a snarl on her face.
“Shut up and sit down.” Her bared teeth intensified her growl. “You just crash through the doors and make demands! You just got—We’ve been in the middle of it all.” Her voice continued to rise. A quick silence passed as she paused.
“My turn to say sorry.” She nodded to Malcom. Her volume dropped, the growl still present in her voice. “I will be blunt and then we can talk about why or whatever. Izzy is dead.” Her voice rose to be heard of the noise from the shock. “Basic points are magical bomb…”
The raging fires of Malcolm’s pain flared exponentially hotter, melting the world of pain, the instant swirling void, and the real world together. Sound mixed with smell. Hurt with numbness. A flood of half-thoughts fought for attention. He’d ask himself ‘why’ and float into ‘who’ or drift in blankness.
A few garbled phrases in garbled voices filtered through his thoughts. Some he understood. Malcolm’s need to know overtook the abyss of pain and loss. The fog lifted, for the most part.
“Hold on a second,” Malcolm mumbled, with volume.
Deeah stopped talking and turned to Malcolm.
“Just getting back…um…to…uh…this.” Malcolm’s stuttered whisper silenced the others. “If I heard correctly and right now, I wouldn’t trust anything I say is real. A bomb killed Izzy. A bomb sent by Tahlur?”
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Valgrin moved closer. “We were speculating on the who, based on current events. Tahlur and Drathnor would be our first guess. Tahlur is most likely the one directly involved.”
Malcolm nodded. The fire inside flipped. Ice contained the pain with ideas of revenge. “Agree. Tahlur. Already wanted to kill him. Now…” His voice trailed off. Malcolm drifted into thoughts of Tahlur's suffering.
His eyes snapped open, staring right at Deeah. “Who let the bomb in? That didn’t sound right or what I meant. How did it get to her? She’d have caught it—I’d woulda thought. ”
Deeah nodded. “Me too. She was in here by herself when it happened. Morning, and early enough for nobody else to be around. We don’t know if the magic Tahlur, or somebody, used masked it? If it was Tahlur, could there be enough residual traces that would confuse any readings cast on it?” She sighed. “Could she have been distracted? If so, by what?”
Malcolm looked down and traced the woodgrain on the bar. He felt their eyes on him, watching him process. What is there to process?
Lifting his finger from the bar to point upward, Malcolm shared his thoughts. “Tahlur needs to die. Go kill him. If we discover it was someone else, they die too.”
“Hmph, I’d say you understood everything.”
Malcolm barked out a bitter chuckle. “The ice elf speaketh in a tone of grating icebergs. Seems you understand to my friend.” He patted Valgrin on the back.
“We all do.” Deeah whispered. A few seconds later, she broke the silence. “I was upstairs and so was Kawlie, when it happened. We got down here in time to make an attempt at trying to heal her. She sent Kawlie back to her office to get some advanced healing stuff. While we were waiting for her to come back, Izzy gave me some instructions and last wishes. The magic seemed to be targeted for Izzy alone, nothing else was damaged.“
Deeah wiped a finger under her eye and sniffled. “A couple deal with who she wanted to be present for her rituals before cremation. So told me to keep her in storage in the basement. So, I’d like to go down there and do some prep work with you and I thought you may want to see her. The magic didn’t explode externally, so it wouldn’t be gruesome.”
Malcolm's hands trembled against the bar top, his knuckles white. A muscle twitched in his jaw as he swallowed hard, twice. "I would like to see her." His voice came out low, each word precise and brittle. He stared at a fixed point on the wall, not blinking. "I don't know about anything else."
Deeah stepped around the bar. “I understand. I’ve had two days. You’ve not had much over two minutes.” She pointed toward the back.
“Follow me.” She said to the others, already standing and waiting for her to lead.
Deeah rushed down the stairs, ignoring Malcolm’s questions. When they sprinted through the stockroom’s shelves, in a pattern that made no sense, he stopped asking the questions. Each second they spent twisting through the storage room added to his frustrations. He almost ran her over when she stopped in front of a wall.
She turned and faced everyone, fidgeting for a moment before she looked up. “When I open the door, go to the green space painted on the floor. The red zone is dangerous and you do not want to cross the yellow line until I get up there to deactivate the wards.”
She turned and opened the door with a couple of quick touches to the wall. With a couple of hand motions, she had the others through the doorway, allowing her to close it.
“Malcolm, give me a couple of minutes and I’ll answer all those questions. Give me that and please don’t explode.”
“Huh?” Malcolm cocked his head.
“Stay behind the yellow line.” She stepped by everyone to a small pattern carved on the wall. “Let me get the wards. Anyway, you look like your head is going to explode trying to be quiet—that’s all. And now safe to walk to the next painted pattern. We’ll get through that, then we can talk.” Deeah turned and jogged, stopping at the next yellow line—about twenty feet later, and turned to face the others.
“This yellow line is safe to cross, but don’t step past me.” She crossed the line and stopped about three strides further. She pressed a few points on a smooth wall and then announced it safe to cross. Proving by crossing the line, leading everyone to the right and stopping in front of a door.
“Okay, stopping here. There is a lot to cover, but first I need to let you in on something that you’ll be mad at me for, but I can explain. I can’t take the looks on your face. I just want to prepare you for the fact Izzy is waiting for us on the other side of this door.” Her trembling voice turned to sobs as she apologized repeatedly.
Malcolm joined in the moment's chaos, then stopped the moment Izzy stepped through the door. Rushing to her, nearly crushing her with a hug. Elated when she turned the hug into a kiss.
She pulled away and stood smiling at Valgrin, Ylnah. She bent down and scratched Skwilly behind the ear. “Come on in here and sit. I have a lot to apologize for. I hate what just happened. But I ask you to listen to our reasons before judging what I did.”
Valgrin grasped at his chest. “I’m hurt you’d think we’d not listen to you. I’m pretty sure I’m speaking for us three that you being alive outranks what we just went through.”
Izzy bowed her head to Valgrin. “Thank you, but the cruelness of what just happened bothers me. Sit, water and mulled wine are in the pitchers.”
A moment of clatter accompanied each getting their seats and drinks. Malcolm put his arm around Izzy’s shoulder. “Even more so than what Valgrin said, I’m happy with any reason you give—and we need to talk after we talk here.” He flashed a goofy grin as he took the seat next to her.
“Yes, we should.” She whispered back, then turned to address the others. “I’ll be brief. You know most of it, the big difference is I wasn’t distracted. The magic Tahlur used was good, but didn’t stand up to my scan. This crazy idea popped into my head—if Tahlur thinks I’m dead, it might make our lives easier when we go to get him. May or may not work, but worth the shot.”
She took a sip of water and continued, “He embedded a rudimentary tracker in the bomb—easy to disable, but disabling it would raise suspicions at the very least. So, we had to develop this charade—needed your raw emotional response, which is what it tracks. Kawlie recorded your response and we’ll use that to feed into our feedback to the tracker. Anytime Tahlur checks, he’ll get the responses he expects. Soon as we had enough recorded, Deeah brought you down here where the rooms are infused with magic that keeps us from being tracked. That way, Tahlur can’t get an emotional reading on me. We’ve swept through the place several times and there aren’t any other magics listening in. And that is it, in a reduction. We tried to get you to this point as quick as possible. We knew it wasn’t nice or fair.”
“Brilliant, if you ask me.” Valgrin raised his glass to Izzy. “And here’s to you being alive.”
Malcolm grabbed his glass to join in. “I’ll drink to that.”
Laughter and questions jumbled together as the toast completed.
“…and I guess father was so happy we brought back the water, he didn’t hesitate…much, to agreeing to me coming here.”
Izzy smiled. “He’d already agreed to have you come here. I want you and Kawlie to go tomorrow and set up a couple of your travel points. Now, the extended stay part, that wasn’t part of my deal with him.”
“That makes sense.” Ylnah sighed, then smiled. “I thought it too easy. Now, I hope he doesn’t change his mind once I finish what he agreed to.”
“Maybe Izzy can help us, if that comes up.” Valgrin suggested.
“Oh,” Izzy raised her eyebrow. “I’ll let him know he doesn’t have any issues with Ylnah staying with us longer, if the subject comes up. She’s already here, so it should be easy.”
Malcolm shook his head, catching himself staring at Izzy again. He let the conversation flow, listening to her voice. He watched the tension ease from around her eyes as she shared how important clients who owed her contributed to the protected rooms. She relaxed as Deeah and she recounted snippets of their exploits. Malcolm sat back, relieved, but no less driven to exact revenge.
Malcolm stood up. “I hate to be that guy. It’s been a couple of hours and the wine is flowing a little more freely. We should probably call it a night. Ylnah, you have an early morning and I’m guessing so do the rest of us.”
Valgrin and Ylnah both stood up, agreeing.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to talk?” Izzy looked up at Malcolm.
“First thing in the morning.”
Izzy’s hand covered Malcolm’s. “Stay for a little while?”
Malcolm nodded. Deeah led Valgrin and Ylnah to the hall, shutting the door behind her.
