River Of Life (Book 3) (29 page)

“There’s still some bad personalities back home, troublemakers,”
Easton agreed.

“Not happy with the abrupt end of the last regime.  There still
is some bad blood, and they do not like me,” Erelon said with a grin, “Try to
make my job harder than it should be.”

The wizards looked at Sine from the rise of a hill.  Erelon had
tried to light his pipe, to smoke while he watched, but not even a dwarvish spell
of fire said in hatred could overcome the rain that saturated everything.

Erelon wanted to make sure that nothing was hiding in the city
that he wanted to know of first.  Erelon sat bareheaded, allowing the rain to
rush through his hair.  He was squatted on the ground, one hand pressing into
the mud, which oozed over his fingers, the rain rushing down his arm, mixing
with the mud.  Erelon was trying to bind with the natural elements, to listen
to what they had to say.  Easton hid below the eaves of the trees glaring from
under his hat at the weather that surrounded him.

“It is safe,” Erelon said, leapt onto his horse, and started
Draos down the slope.  Easton quickly followed, impatient to be inside a warm,
dry room.

Draos slid down the hill.  The horse dug his feet into the mud,
trying to slow his descent.  The mud only made the horse’s iron shoes wet and
slick, and faster the creature slid until the slope ended and Draos came to a
halt in a sitting position on the ground, his back flanks caked in a layer of
mud.

Erelon pulled at Draos’s reins so that he stepped up and out of
the path of Easton, who slid beside Erelon.  Erelon led up the muddy path.  The
horses sank with each step, their hooves sucking as they came out of the mud
and plopping back down into it.  As they neared the little town, they saw rocks
and straw had been thrown into the road, helping to make a firm surface.  The
horses were already half covered in mud, their swinging tails scattering it.

The citizens of Sine rushed around as they conducted their
business, wearing boots that rose to their thighs.  Most of the year was wet
like this, and so they had grown accustomed to working with the climate.

Erelon wove a path in and out of the citizens, trying to avoid
interfering with the daily state of affairs.  Erelon walked his horse into the
stables they had used before.  The older wizard disappeared into another room
to pay for three horses while Easton started bedding the horses down.  When
Erelon came back out, he helped Easton rub the horses down with straw and feed
them grain, knowing the younger wizard’s impatience to see the girl he had left
behind.

Erelon had to run to keep up with Easton as the younger wizard
bolted from the stables.  Mud was flying in all directions.  On occasion, Easton’s heavy step caused him to sink into the mud, and when possible, Easton raced
across a walkway made of wooden planks.  With mud flying and leaving huge piles
where his boots landed, Easton raced into the tavern where Kit was waitress.

“Easton’s eyes scanned the room, and then his lungs bellowed,
“Kit! Kit!”

Easton plunged into the mob.  Looking around, he sighed with
relief upon seeing the red head.

“Kit,” the name escaped from Easton’s lips as a whisper.

But the whisper was easily heard by the girl.  She jerked
around, her face a mix of surprise, anger, joy, and sadness.  Her tray of
drinks slipped from her hands and fell to the floor, the glass and pottery
turning to pieces.  The beer they had contained bounced back up and turned like
a ballerina during a dance.  The liquid caught the light of the many candles
and lamps, almost seemed to smile, and then crashed back to the floor.

“Ugh!” Kit screamed and raced toward Easton. “I thought you said
you were gonna to be right back.  You know how old I’m gettin' ta be?  I almost
give up on you.  If I had ta wait any longer!  You know it won’t be too many
years that I’ll be an old fat woman without any children, running this greasy
hell tavern, especially if I have to keep waitin' on ya. And then how much of
the world will I get to see?  Where will my life have gone?” Kit rambled on and
on, accusing and consoling.

“Well. . . . . I’m not quite back for good,” Easton said,
reluctantly breaking her rant.

“Whatttt!” Kit screeched.

“I’ve just got to finish something, and then I’ll be back.  It
won’t take long,” Easton promised, trying to ease her anger.

“But I’ve already waited a long time, and you said that last
time,” Kit complained.

“It won’t take long, I promise.  But it has to be done,” Erelon
told the girl firmly.

“This is your fault!” Kit screeched, leaping into Erelon’s face,
“You took him away from me!”

Erelon looked into the eyes of the red head with no fear, no
emotion at all.  The older wizard just stared into the fiery eyes filled with
hatred.  He never flinched.  Long ago he had ceased to fear the wrath of the
opposite gender.  He had faced a dragon, an army of trolls, an army of goblins,
the undead, the warlocks themselves.  What else did he have to fear?  Finally
Kit broke into tears and raced into a back room, Easton following quickly.

The tavern went silent and all eyes turned toward Erelon, almost
in an accusing manner.  Most of those eating and drinking knew Kit and her
family and did not enjoy seeing her upset.  Naturally they looked toward the
last man she had been screaming at as if he was the source of the agitation.

Several of the men even began to stand up.  A few more were
reaching for their blades.  Erelon’s eyes got narrow and began to glow.  His
left hand swept his cloak out of the path to the sword on his hip, while his
right reached to pull the sword on his back from the sheath.

“Do we have a problem?” Erelon growled.

The patrons looked at the large swords and the slow glow that
seemed to enshroud the wizard.  Their eyes took in the eye patch and the scars
that glared from his face, the mashed hand that seemed to still know how to
grip his weapons.  Slowly they understood that he had seen more battles than
all of them combined, and they realized that they did not know how many would
die in the attempt to beat the stranger.  Slowly the men eased back into their
seats and conversations.  They were farmers and poor local merchants, not
fighting men, not warriors.  The few that had touched a sword had mostly
wielded one in play, and even fewer had drawn a sword in battle for the
protection of his own life.  Unconsciously they all agreed to leave the beaten
warrior alone.

Erelon walked across the muddy floor and stood before a square
table at which several men sat.  For a moment they all stared at the wizard
who also gazed sternly back.  Slowly the men, without Erelon uttering a threat,
stood and took their ale with them, wandering across the room and into some
other corner.

Erelon dropped into the seat, putting stress on every joint in
the old wooden chair. He brushed away the trash and sat his sword on the table.
His gaze covered the entire room.  Erelon watched the customers and the doors,
especially the one through which Easton had raced after Kit.

A middle aged woman came over to Erelon and, in a flirtatious
way, asked the old wizard if she could get him anything as she rubbed her hip
against his shoulder.

“No thanks,” Erelon said quietly while trying to look around the
big woman.

“Come now old timer,” she replied, “Surely you didn’t just come
in here to set.  Beer, food, information, something?”

“I came for a friend,” Erelon tried to pacify her.

“Huh. I don’t see anyone,” she said angrily, “Invisible?”

“Yes, yes he is,” Erelon replied, his patience wearing thin.

The waitress threw her head and flounced off, flirting with the
men as she danced by.  Her fingers would pass along their back or grope low
between their legs.  Many of the patrons hooted, calling out sexual comments
mostly about her rather large bosom that threatened to explode from her thin
dress.

Erelon ignored the local conversation.  His mind again focused
on the more important events that went unnoticed by most.  In the back corner
a man who looked like he could be half goblin dropped a couple coins below the
table into the hands of a dark bearded man.  A man who talked about farming but
smelled too much like incense and perfume whispered secretively to another man
in a back corner whose clothes, though those of a farmer, had seen much too
little use to belong to a common laborer.

Easton reappeared from a door, slipped up to Erelon, and
whispered, “Kit said she could find us a couple empty rooms.  Come on.”

Erelon watched those in the tavern, never turning his back on
them as Easton led the wizard to a back door and down a hallway.  Easton stopped by a door labeled with the numerical symbol of five, handed Erelon a key,
and then turned back down the hallway.

The older wizard wanted to ask Easton about where he was going,
but Erelon smiled as he could guess.  Erelon slid the rusted key into the lock
and pushed the door open.  The door was heavy.  The hinges and lock were rusted
and old.  The lock would keep a normal man out, or at least present a great
enough obstacle that the one within the room would be alerted to someone trying
to enter.  But someone with power who desperately wanted in, the door would
never have held out.

The room was dark.  Erelon left the door open long enough to let
in light to find candles.  He illuminated the room in a dull glow so that he
could see what lay around.  The room was filled with a dull, pale yellow light,
but the room was the dark brown of wet wood.

Erelon took a chair and, after locking the door, also pushed the
chair under the knob.  He sat on his bed with a sigh.  It was no more than a
wooden frame that held a large casing filled with feathers or wool off the
floor.

Erelon pulled his cloak and then shirt off, the wet cloth
clinging to his skin, and dumped them into a pile on the floor.  The wizard
looked down the length of his grubby arms, stood, and walked over to a basin
filled with lukewarm water.  Erelon rinsed his arms and chest.  As he splashed
water onto his face and looked into the mirror, he realized that it had been
weeks since he had last shaved. His eye wandered over to his saddlebags.  His razor
was in there.  As soon as the thought entered his mind, it also passed on
through.

Erelon sat on the bed, kicked his muddy boots off, pulled off
his wet socks, and laid them out on the floor.  Erelon proceeded to stretch out
all his wet clothes along the furniture and floor.  The wizard curled into
bed, pulling the thin sheets tightly around his body.  Erelon snapped his
fingers, and the candles were out.  The room began to grow cold, and Erelon
shivered.  His arm groped around in the dark until it found his saddle blanket
which he jerked over the top of his body.

A line of light came through the seams between the door and its
frame.  Erelon thought about putting a spell on the door to curse anyone who
might come through it before light broke the black sky of night.  But before
the wizard had a chance to act on this thought, his eyelids pulled downward.

Erelon’s eyes popped open.  Light had begun to fill the room
even though the wizard knew that clouds would still fill the sky.  It was late
in the morning, but it had felt good to sleep late.  It would not be long now,
and he would be in the home of dwarves, and then finally his own.  It would
not hurt to take the one morning easy.  Besides, he did not know how much sleep
Easton had gotten.

Slowly Erelon got to his feet and walked to the basin, splashing
his face with water that was now bitterly cold.  A thin film of ice had begun
to form on the surface.

Erelon sat on his bed and pulled a few extra clothes on.  He looked
at his cloak and his scattering of belongings and, leaving it all lay, went out
the door, only taking Rivurandis with him.  There would be very few in the
tavern at this time of day.  Erelon assumed he would not need his entire
arsenal of weapons or all his belongings on him.  Erelon was not planning for a
quick retreat; he would pack his saddlebags after a healthy breakfast.

Erelon looked down both ways of the hallway before stepping out
and locking the door behind him.  His boots echoed against the walls.  Nothing
moved.  If anyone was left, they were asleep.

Erelon entered the main room.  Only a few people remained,
completely opposite compared to the night scene.  The loud voices, irritated
farmers, over exaggerated stories told by drunken heroes, were all gone,
leaving only a few men with heads that throbbed to a beat that did not belong
to their heart and a stomach that hated everything it was fed.

Erelon gave his order to a waiter whose existence the wizard
barely observed.  The wizard watched those entering and exiting, expecting Easton to appear at any moment.  Minutes passed and Erelon’s food came, a huge mountain on
two plates.  Slowly Erelon consumed each, wishing to enjoy every moment.  This
was food he had not prepared, not shot by his bow out in the open world.  The
mountain of food disappeared, and still there was no sign of the other wizard. 
Erelon saw nothing of Kit either.

As Erelon sat at his meal, he became aware of someone in the
back corner of the room who had stared at him constantly.  It was a dark hooded
figure that was not drunk from the night before and who did not groan because
of the previous night’s activities.  Erelon had almost decided to confront the
strange figure when Easton came out of a back room and plunked into a chair in
front of Erelon with a plate.  Easton’s eyes were bright and filled with an
emotion Erelon had never really been given the chance to feel.

The scrape of the foot of a chair alerted Erelon that the
strange dark figure had stood.  Erelon turned to watch it move closer, sure of
itself, not hesitating.  The figure removed its hood to reveal deep blue eyes
set within an ivory colored face with blond hair.  All the smooth, rounded
curves of the body revealed that the foreboding figure was a woman.