Shortly after passing through a heavily protected curtain of the ManaDome, guarded by no less than ten Border Guard officers in various states of readiness should those bearing the Exemption Tokens turn out to be hostile, the goblin skirmisher felt himself snap back to full attention. “Guys,” he said as they got about twenty yards beyond the guardsmen and close to the city’s outermost residential buildings. “I don’t think I was entirely in control back there.”
“What do you mean,” Melissa asked. Steve poked his head out of the pocket in which he’d been balled up and scampered out onto the goblin’s shoulder, grinning from ear to ear.
“You should have heard him, guys,” the rat said excitedly. “It was the sort of thing I wouldn’t expect out of the mouth of a mook like this! No offense,” he added quickly.
“None taken,” Azira replied dazedly, slowly recalling the little speech he’d given the werebear.
“He looks at the big guy, and he says, ‘I am Azira, the last son of Clan Batang, keeper of the final blood of my people. I did engage in war against the Kingdom of Graneck, under order and oath to my elders, and when I had the chance to walk away, wounded and left for dead, I did so. I will not be marked an aggressor for doing no more than was my duty, and my friends should not be looked upon with scorn for keeping me in their company’. It was brilliant, I tell youse,” exclaimed the rat, rubbing his forepaws together excitedly.
“And that worked,” Bruce asked, eyebrow cocked. “I must profess some incredulity about that.”
“Let’s just be happy that this worked out for us,” Melissa offered as they walked along, careful not to get separated among the thick crowds still making their way into the city of Palen. “Come on, we should ask some locals how to find this guild hall that Mano got his start at.”
**
The Border Guard sergeant held his broad arms wide to quiet the crowd of grumbling would-be petitioners, and once he had their attention, he cleared his massive throat. “It’s a changing of guard, nothing to be alarmed about, folks, but this will take a few minutes. Soon enough, you’ll all be able to state your case to my replacement, all right? In the meantime, officer Gilette here can get you all something to drink and snack on for a few minutes,” announced the werebear. He leaned toward the other Border Guard agent and whispered, “Doris will come let you know when she’s ready.” The storm tribe werewolf nodded and turned back toward the crowd, allowing sergeant Torvish of the Palen Border Guard to return to his office, locking both doors and casting a brief sealing spell on each to ensure the total privacy of himself and his guest.
The guest in question sat in the lone available chair offered to petitioners, one scuffed boot propped on the opposite knee in his faded blue jeans, his motionless, screaming skull mask reflecting the light from the two lamps behind the werebear’s desk eerily, as if they were guttering torches rather than electric flambeaux. Torvish eased himself down into his own seat and offered a sheepish grin.
“So,” began the guest in his plumy voice, hands clasped on his raised foot. “You allowed the quartet through without trouble?”
“As you requested, Simon,” said Torvish with a nod. “Though, I only counted three of them, the goblin and a pair of humes, a man and a woman.”
“The fourth was a speaking rat, tucked away in the goblin’s travel bag,” replied the guest, ‘Simon’, as it were. “It matters not, so long as he was not touched by the ManaDome’s energies. And you sent word to the main body of he city’s constabulary to keep an eye out and protect the goblin without his becoming suspicious, or aware of it?”
“I did. Simon, what is this all about,” asked the massive lycanthrope, and not for the first time. In his many long years serving the city-state of Palen, he had encountered this queer traveler of worlds on six different occasions now, and each time, he seemed only to get the least amount of information he required to grant the boons that the odd little man asked of him.
“Azira of Batang shall be required at another time for my purposes,” said Simon amiably, easing his foot down and slowly rising from the seat. “And, unfortunately, this will be the last time you and I shall meet, Torvish. You will never see me again.” The masked man reached into his voluminous black duster, and for just the barest moment, the werebear thought he might draw out a weapon and strike at him; the moment passed, however, when Simon withdrew a slender white envelope, offering it to him.
“What is this,” asked Torvish, gingerly taking the envelope and opening it. From within he took out a plain index card, with little more than a date, time, and location scribbled on it in finely curled cursive writing of the common tongue.
“Be there, at that time, on that day, officer Torvish, and you will meet her. Follow your heart, and the Histories shall record that you raise four proud and noble children with her, three boys and one girl. One of those boys will become a great leader of many lycanthropes,” said Simon, letting out a loose sigh. “But you must be there, or else the Histories shall not be changed, and a great and terrible thing shall befall the city of Palen. I have seen it, and it can be prevented, but you must do this one last task for me, and for yourself, and meet her,” said the masked traveler, rasping this last piece to emphasize its importance.
Torvish put the card back in its envelope, then tucked the envelope into his oversized messenger bag, a dutiful black canvas piece that had seen better days. “Oh, and for the gods’ sakes,” Simon added, putting a pair of platinum coins on the officer’s desk. “Buy yourself a new bag.” Torvish snickered and looked up to thank him, but when he looked, the traveler known to him only as Simon was nowhere to be seen.
**
In two hours of wandering the streets and asking everybody who would give them any amount of attention, all the group learned, essentially, was that outside of the Kingdom of Graneck, not a whole lot of folks knew the names of half of the group known as that nation’s Saviors. Sure, they all knew Talya Jacobson and Jack Ressling, and they recalled hearing tell of a lizardman warrior and elven mage accompanying those two, but they were the only ones who everybody seemed able to immediately associate with the conflict with Pal Droma.
And Pal Droma, well, it turned out he was quite well-known among Palen’s citizenry, oh yes. How many hobgoblin sorcerers come along in a lifetime, after all? Plenty of folks in the city were quick to claim that they had seen the greenskin mage’s potential when he was a younger man, but Bruce knew this to be utter faff and boastful lying; Pal Droma had been born and raised his entire life in the northeasternmost province of the Kingdom of Graneck, in territory that had once belonged to the Greenskin Nation. The hobgoblin had never studied in Palen.
Worn out from their hike from the train and their seemingly fruitless inquiries, the group found their way to one of the more affordable inns near the city’s legendary Manaworth University campus and secured themselves rooms for the night. A small dining room off of the main foyer served to host them for a small meal before they all nipped off for some much-needed rest, and during the meal, Bruce shook his head at one point.
“This city’s not as pleasant as everybody makes out,” he observed, chewing on a sweetroll.
“What do you mean,” asked Azira, himself taking his time with some kind of cheesy rice dish that, according to the limited menu, was a local favorite.
“I’ve spotted no less than three different people tailing us since we showed up, and all three get taken down swift and hard and shunted out of sight by the city’s constabulary. Efficient and effective work, believe me, but the officers around here seem pretty severe,” Bruce replied.
“It’s a city full of mages, sorcerers and wizards,” Azira pointed out. “I imagine coppers have to act quick round these parts or things are apt to get very hairy, very quickly.”
“He makes a valid point,” Steve added from his perch on the goblin’s shoulder.
“Anyhow, we have a lot of nothing beyond an idea of where to start asking questions,” Azira said. “The guild we’re looking for, what’s it called again, Mel?”
“The Elementalists’ Guild of Palen,” she answered. “Most guilds keep member rolls for at least the last couple of decades.”
“Sure, but Mano’s an elf, long-lived people,” the goblin replied. “There’s no telling how long ago he was a member there.”
“Regardless, it can’t hurt for one of us to go and inquire tomorrow,” said Bruce. “I’ll see if I can talk to anyone at a constabulary central command, assuming they have one here, ask around about public records they have on file for Mano.”
“And the third of us can maybe ask around at one of the schools about him,” Melissa chimed in. “Three different angles of questioning, someone’s bound to come across something. Az? Do you want the schools or the guild?”
“I’m not exactly the academic type,” he said around half a mouthful of food.
“Swallow before you speak,” Bruce grumbled, flicking a yellowed piece of rice off of his drinking glass. “I recommend we meet back with any findings around six tomorrow evening. Before I head upstairs, how are you guys sitting for funds?” Azira patted his pouches on his belt to indicate he was fine, but Melissa looked demurely down at her plate. “Mel?”
“I’ve got about forty gold coin left. It’s plenty to get me back home on the train and pay for a room for a few more nights, but otherwise, I’m scraping pretty close to the bone.” Bruce reached down to his weathered travel bag and came back up with a small purple pouch in hand, which he handed to her.
“There’s sixty-five gold in there. Try and stretch it where you can if you feel the need to do any sightseeing or shopping. Azira, you sure you’re good on money for now?”
“I should be just fine, once I can find a gemfitter or jeweler’s,” he replied. “I’ve got a couple of rubies and sapphires yet I can pawn off for some extra coin if it comes to that.” Bruce nodded, finished his meal quickly, and retired out of the dining room and up to the third floor of the inn to his rented room. The goblin and former waitress shared the rest of their meal in comfortable silence until she excused herself to her own room, leaving just Azira at the table, the talking rat returned to his spot in the skirmisher’s travel bag until such time as they would head up to his own room.
He found himself thinking back on the brief couple of minutes he had spent with the werebear Border Guard officer. The massive, ursine lycanthrope had seemed almost too eager to accept his hastily blurted excuse for Exemption from the ManaDome Marking in hindsight, and there had been something else very off about the fellow. Azira searched his memory for some notable sign of anything out of sorts, but he came up empty.
Well, he thought, there had been one thing, but there hadn’t been anything to it. The werebear’s eyes had been locked on Azira when the goblin first entered his office, but on at least two occasions, once when he was speaking, and once in the strange silence right after he was done, the officer’s eyes seemed to stray right over the skirmisher’s head, peering into the queerly lightless corner of the office at Azira’s back. On the second of these looks, the goblin had risked a glance back himself, but he’d seen nothing there to pull the officer’s attention.
“Why did he let me go so easily,” he asked himself quietly.
Tip: Jodie Beckford puts a button at the top of each episode linking to the beginning episode and I think also to the previous episode. Helps readers who are coming into the middle of things. You might try that.