by Laura R Cole
CHAPTER 25
Layna and Gryffon rode into the city of Avonmora with trepidation. The guards nodded to them as they passed, but gave no indication that they were watching for anyone, and Layna relaxed somewhat. The two made their way through the streets undisturbed. Apparently, either the news of their actions back home had not yet reached here, or as they had assumed, it was too large a city with such constant traffic that it was simply impossible to ask the guards to watch for two specific people. They rode to a tavern that Gryffon knew, and bartered with the inn-keep for rooms. Once they had established their rates, they stashed their belongings in the rooms, and Gryffon and Layna claimed an unoccupied booth in the corner of the tavern.
A bawdy redheaded girl came over and asked if they wanted a drink, with a no-nonsense attitude born of years of dealing with drunken louts. They each ordered a round of the house ale and settled back to regroup. Gryffon told her that there was a place here that was a drop - a place where he could leave a message to be picked up by his countrymen.
“What kind of message are we going to send them?” she asked him.
He leaned back, letting the waitress set their drinks in front of them, and then nodding his thanks. He waited for her to saunter out of hearing range before answering. “I'll have to let my handlers know that my previous position was compromised, and they'll no longer be getting the reports they were used to. I'll have to let them know about the hellhounds too. I think our encounter pretty well proves that blood-magic is being used again, don’t you?”
Layna nodded soberly.
“If Jezebel has gotten her hands on the knowledge to create them, it leaves little doubt that the knowledge has been unearthed, and is available to be used to recreate the beasts of old. Unfortunately, now we'll have to rely on information that we can pick up from the streets,” he paused again looking at her sheepishly. “That is, of course, if you'll be alright with my continued work and want to help with it.”
Layna nodded. “From what you've said, it sounds like the people you've been watching need to be stopped, whether by your country or mine. They're just plain evil, so yes. I didn’t want to believe it about the blood-magic, but I don’t think I can pretend like it doesn’t exist anymore after seeing it firsthand. I’ll help however I can to stop it from spreading any farther.”
Gryffon smiled. “Good.” They sat drinking their ale and listening to the chattering around them for a while. They made some small talk, but their hesitant speech betrayed their discomfort. Layna felt more nervous than when she had first found out she had talent and had spent the first week looking over her shoulder expecting there to be a priest behind her. She laughed at herself. It seemed like forever ago that she had been a simple maid. How much had happened in such a short time. Even using magic seemed to be something she had been doing for years rather than the reality of a matter of weeks.
Gryffon looked around the tavern and said, “We'll have to come back here tonight and pick a good spot to sit and listen. Places full of drinking people tend to find them loose-lipped and bragging, so we might learn something useful.” He waved the waitress over then, and asked if he might have a mug of milk.
“It'll cost ya extra,” she told him, and he nodded his understanding. Layna looked askance at him and he held up a hand, motioning that he'd tell her soon enough. The maid came back with the milk and Gryffon thanked her, rising from the table and nodding his head towards the stairs for Layna to follow. They made their way back to the room and shut the door.
“Alright,” Layna said, “you got me. What's the milk for?” Gryffon muttered a word and the air around him shimmered for a second. “And what was that,” Layna added.
“That,” Gryffon answered, “was a shield so that no one can overhear or look in to see what we're doing. And the milk,” he said, setting it on the desk next to a parchment, “is for the note.” He picked up a quill and dipped it into the milk, scrawling out a message. Layna watched dubiously as the liquid was absorbed into the paper and it disappeared. Gryffon finished writing and held it up, revealing a damp, but blank-looking parchment. “See?”
“Okay,” Layna said, “and how does that help us?”
Gryffon grinned. “When it dries it's invisible, but if you hold it up to firelight,” he held it over by the fire, and the light behind it revealed the note he had just written, “you can see what was written. Not all that complicated, but since no one but me and the person picking it up should know that there is a message here, most people would just see an empty piece of parchment and not look at it further.”
“That's useful,” Layna said, but then asked, “Why not just use magic?”
“Ah-hah,” said Gryffon, “a question I myself have asked. And the answer was twofold: One, that not everyone can use magic to the same extent; and two, that magic itself can be traced. Whereas this piece of parchment right now is nothing more complicated than paper and milk, were I to enchant it only to become visible when a certain word was uttered, say, it would suddenly radiate power to anyone else who happened to have a talent greater than my own.” He guessed her next question and answered it before she asked, “because you can 'hide' your work with magic, but those with more talent than you can always break through those barriers and see what you did, so unless I was the most powerful out there, which I am not, it would be like a beacon to anyone with more talent than me that this piece of paper was no ordinary blank sheet.”
“Huh,” said Layna, impressed.
“There are a lot of different ways that you can hide messages, either by encoding the message itself so that unless you know how to decipher it, it will mean nothing. Or, like this paper, concealing the very fact that there is a message at all. A lot of my work consisted of trying to break codes or read messages that I intercepted and then recoding them to send home.”
They made their way out into the busy streets and made a tour around the city. They took a round-about route to the drop point, both to see what they could find out and for the purpose of being less conspicuous, just in case.
The weather was somewhat warmer here than back at the capital and a breeze blew through the city that smelled strangely salty to Layna. When she commented on it, Gryffon told her that it was because Avonmora was a port city; its southern side was the sea coast. The whole section was encompassed by wharfs where trade ran to other places, even Treymayne, though very limited and only by way of certain merchants. This was why he would be able to get a message through more easily here since routes of communication were possible, whereas along most of the border they were not.
They meandered around an isolated wharf, where Layna was impressed by the sight of the sea. “It goes on forever!” she exclaimed to Gryffon.
He laughed, amused by her appreciation. “Well, not forever. But it is a relatively large body of water. You ever been fishing?”
Layna shook her head negatively.
“I love to fish,” Gryffon said. “Back home, I grew up on the edge of the Great River that feeds into the sea.” He nodded towards the water indicating that it was the same. “We used to fish all the time. It was the livelihood of a lot of people there.”
“This is the first time I've ever been anywhere other than my family's home out west and the capital” she confessed.
Gryffon quickly glanced around and almost imperceptibly drew the note out of his pocket and dropped it into a barrel. “Really,” he said to her, making no outward sign that he had just made the drop. “You've never been anywhere?”
Layna thought back as far as she could remember. “Maybe when I was little, but nowhere exciting, and certainly not that I remember well.”
Gryffon turned down the corners of his mouth. “Hmph. Well, enjoy the wonderful sights,” he said with a grin, pointing around to the abandoned docks.
Layna pursed her lips at him, trying not to smile. “Well, it actually is quite beautiful if you look ou
t over all of the barrels and dead fish.”
Gryffon laughed and went over to a post and picked at a nail. It came loose and he let it stick out, moving on along the docks. Layna gave the nail a glance, but didn't comment, making a mental note to ask him about it later. She was intrigued by the secrecy of his movements, and wondered if perhaps he wasn't just a bit over-paranoid as no one should even know they were here. She knew first hand, however, that depending on who found out they had some pretty harsh punishments if you were caught. She didn't know what the official punishment for espionage was, but she shuddered to think of what Jezebel would do if ever she got her hands on them again. There certainly was a lot more to life than she previously known, and it was nerve-wracking how close Layna had been to such vile events without even having been aware of them.
They wandered back to more populated streets and wound in and out of the people, making quiet conversation with one another, but mostly just listening to the talk around them. Gryffon had advised her to try and listen to people's conversation without overtly turning her attention to them to gather information. She caught bits and pieces of people's lives, mostly babble that meant nothing to her out of context, and she felt herself wishing that she could follow some of these people and see what a day in their life would be like. As they came around a bend, she heard a portion of a sentence that caught her interest, and Gryffon gave her a slight nod that he had heard it as well. They made their way over to look at the goods on a cart that was fortuitously close to the speaker.
“Why would they attack us now? We've done nothing to them,” a woman was saying to another.
“Why not?” asked the second, shrugging. “Maybe they've gotten greedy and want our land.” The ladies walked farther away and Layna started to follow but Gryffon waved her over instead to what must have prompted the conversation. A poster was hung on the side of a cart which implied, without actually saying it, that Treymayne might look at Gelendan as a way to increase their living space. It also pointed out that behind their closed borders they could easily prepare for war without anyone here being the wiser. Without comment they moved on and Gryffon led the way back to their rooms.
“That's an interesting new development,” he commented. “The new King is wasting no time in spreading propaganda.”
Layna shrugged. “Might Treymayne actually think of it that way, or consider attacking us?”
Gryffon looked ready to argue with her, but changed his mind. “I don't know for sure I guess,” he admitted, “But I don't see our government as ready to try and take over yours, if for no other reason than you are still a much bigger country and no doubt you would squash our attempt, especially if even a select few are dabbling in the blood-magic.”
“You've been cut off from us a long time. That could make it very easy for a lot of people to build resentment towards you if given these types of implications as their only source of information about you. After all, we don't all have our own personal Gryffon convincing us that you Treymaynians aren't big bad wolves hiding behind your borders that for all we know you've been expanding north.”
Gryffon looked serious despite her attempt at humor. “No doubt,” he said soberly, “it could really be a problem if that's what they're gearing towards.”
Layna was thoughtful for a moment. “What was the reason for the nail you pulled out at the wharfs?” she asked. “If it had any significance.”
“Indeed it did. Good eye,” Gryffon answered and went on to explain. “It's the indicator for the person I'm sending the message to that there is a message available to be picked up. That way he's not checking it all the time when there's nothing there and drawing more attention to the spot than is necessary.”
“Ah,” said Layna, her curiosity satisfied. “So what do we do now?”
“We wait.”