“That’s great; I’ll be back to see you all in a little while,” Silas promised, before he turned and walked away, hurrying across the palace grounds until he came to the protective wall. He used his powers lightly and lifted himself over the wall, out into a busy street where a woman screamed as he landed directly in front of her horse, making the creature rear up in surprise and throw the woman into the air.
“Float gently!” Silas commanded as he pointed at the shocked woman while she was still at the apex of her flight into the sky.
“Come down here!” he ordered as he ran to a spot directly beneath the woman and caught her as his power lowered her to the ground.
“Oh Kai!” the woman screamed as she landed in Silas’s arms and immediately buried her face in his shoulder while he tightened his grip on her.
“My lady, are you alright?” a man approached Silas and addressed the woman at once.
She took a large gasp of air, then raised her head and looked at the man. “I’m surprisingly alright. I have no idea what just happened, or who this is!”
The woman was older than Silas, though younger than his mother. And she was much more elaborately dressed and made up, a woman obviously of the ruling class in the city.
“You may put me down young man, and explain what just happened, please,” she spoke to Silas in a crisp voice, already past the momentary shock of her experience. “And go grab my horse, Bordin,” she directed the man who had approached her and Silas.
Silas lowered his arm that held the woman’s legs, and she came to stand on her own. She was a tall woman, Silas realized as she left his support; she was eye-level even with him. She was attractive, calm and composed, despite the moments of frightful action she had endured.
“So, what just happened?” she repeated her question.
“I’m a Mover,” Silas answered. “I have the ability to make things move, just using my voice. I jumped over the wall and scared your horse, then I used my ability to make sure you didn’t get thrown to the pavement and hurt badly,” he explained.
“You’re a Mover?” the woman asked incredulously. “You’re a Mover?” she repeated the question in a more thoughtful tone, as she began to circle around Silas inspecting him, and making him feel nervous. “I’ve never heard the term before. Would you please explain?”
“It’s sort of like being a Speaker,” Silas told her. “Except I use my voice to make things move. There haven’t been any in a long time.”
“And you were in the palace? You used your power to jump over the wall? Were you in there to rob someone or assassinate someone?” the woman was standing in front of him once again, her circling of him complete.
“No! I’m a guest of the palace. I just came out to have a walk around the city, to see a friend,” Silas protested.
“Such beautiful eyes,” the woman was studying his face intently.
“Your horse is here, my lady,” Bordin was present, with the leather lead to the horse held in his hand.
“Thank you, Bordin,” the woman took the lead and stepped back from Silas.
“I hope I’ll see you again soon, young Mover,” the still nameless woman said in a low voice that made Silas’s head feel dizzy.
She expertly lifted herself into the saddle, took the reins, studied Silas with an enigmatic smile, then resumed her journey along the road.
Silas watched her for a moment, then hastily stepped off the road and took a moment to compose himself. He had never seen the woman before – her face was unknown to him, though her manners seemed somehow familiar. But he couldn’t place how or why, so after a minute more, he paused to reorient himself, then resumed his journey to the Healers Guild.
When he arrived at the gates, he found that Dianu and her husband Stout were waiting for his arrival, Stout speaking to officials of the Guild while Dianu glanced hopefully out at the street, seeking some glimpse of Silas.
“You really are back!” she exclaimed, as she ran past the guards to hug him gleefully at the gates. “See Stout, he really is back!”
“And he doesn’t need any healing this time, I see,” he husband noted humorously. “Come in and have tea with us and tell us what brings you back to our fair city.”
Silas joined the group as they walked back to the Master’s lodging, and gathered in a sitting room, while Silas cautiously told portions of the story of all that had happened on Amenozume.
“I’ll have to leave soon,” Silas noted some time later, as the shadows started to lengthen from the changing angle of the setting sun. “There’s a dinner I promised to attend at the palace tonight.”
“How convenient! We’re going too!” Dianu gushed. “I must run upstairs and change. You can ride back to the palace in our carriage, can’t he dear?” she asked Stout.
“Certainly,” he casually agreed, as Dianu rose and left the room.
“What are your plans in the future? You don’t seem like someone who will settle down into a comfortable, quiet life,” Stout asked Silas.
Silas hesitated for a moment, not sure of what to say. Stout was a trustworthy person, he knew, and Silas decided to answer with the truth.
“I’m going to go with some friends to Heathrin, and drive Ivaric out of the Speakers Guild, so that the Speakers can be free again,” he admitted.
Stout looked at him with wide eyes. “That sounds admirable, but it’ll be dangerous, won’t it?”
Silas nodded his head in agreement, just as a noise in the hallway indicated Dianu’s return.
“Shall we go?” she asked as she entered the room.
“You look stunning as always, my dear,” Stout said mildly as he rose to his feet.
Stout spoke with understatement, Silas thought to himself as he rose too; Dianu wore a metallic-looking material in a dress that was tightly wrapped around her figure, leaving her shoulders bare. Silas had never seen anything as elegant in his life.
“You look like a queen,” he said reverently.
“Silas! Stout! You two are too kind,” her laughter was light and delighted with the praise.
The trio found a carriage already drawn up outside the home, and they climbed inside its snug interior for a laughter-filled ride back to the palace. When the carriage pulled up in front of elaborate stairs at the palace, Silas got out and made his exit.
“I have to go back to my cabin to change,” he explained to the Healers. “I’ll see you at the dinner.”
He walked around the exterior of the palace until he found familiar scenes and led himself back to the garden with the guest cabins, where Jimes was just leaving one of the two buildings as Silas arrived.
“I was about ready to call you!” Jimes exclaimed. “Your clothes are inside our cabin on your bed. Stash and Lexy already started on the way to the dinner.”
Jimes waited while Silas hurriedly dressed in the exotic formal clothes, and the two then walked into the palace and were directed to the large public room where dozens of people were seated for dinner at large round tables that filled the room.
“Your seat is up there,” a servant saw Silas’s eyes and began to guide him towards a table near the front of the room. “You’ll sit with one of the members of the Traders Council,” the servant spoke confidentially as they approached the table. “It’s quite an honor for a visitor,” the man said as he pulled the empty chair from the table to allow Silas to join the others who had already been seated.
“We’re so glad you could join us,” a rich, feminine voice spoke as soon as Silas sat down. He looked up and looked around the table at the others seated there, but stopped his search when he saw the enigmatic smile on the face of a woman who was staring at him – it was the woman whose horse he had spooked in the street when he’d started on his way to visit Dianu.
“You were so eager to leave the palace I was afraid we weren’t going to get to see you,” she added.
“Is this the boy you spoke of?” a man to Silas’s left asked. “He’s quite a bit younger than I imagined, based on
all the things you’ve said about him.”
“Yes, there’s quite a bit packaged up in that fresh young body – a surprising amount,” the Trader woman said. “Let’s all introduce ourselves to our young dinner companion.”
The people around the table proceeded to share their names politely, smiling as they addressed Silas, and the woman was the last to speak.
“I am Katjen, a member of the Traders Council,” she explained to Silas. “Welcome to our city.
“Our young guest is quite an accomplished adventurer,” she panned the table as she spoke to the others at the dinner. “He is the great sorcerer who has confounded Ivaric on more than one occasion,” the powerful woman stated, “up to and including the use of great magic to destroy the entire invasion fleet that was meant for Amenozume.”
The others at the table looked at Silas in disbelief, then looked back at Katjen, waiting for some explanation of the comment, sure that it was not literal.
“It’s true, isn’t it, Silas? I’ve spoken to our palace Speaker about you, and been told many fascinating things,” Katjen spoke to Silas. “Of course, after you demonstrated your abilities with me this afternoon, I was ready to believe nearly anything I could learn about the boy with strangely-colored eyes.”
Silas looked down at his lap for a moment, wondering if there was any danger in acknowledging the tale the woman had spun.
“It is the truth,” he decided to admit.
“Well done!” the man next to him immediately said. “Extraordinary and hard to believe, but if Katjen believes the story, then it’s credible. Well done!”
“You’re spending the night here at the palace?” Katjen asked.
“In a cabin in the garden,” Silas confirmed. “Vertuco arranged it.”
“He’s a very productive Speaker,” Katjen commented. “He understands how to accomplish so much more than just his official duties,” she added cryptically, as servers began to deliver plates of food to the diners.
Silas found that his companions on either side were keenly interested in hearing stories about the battles on Amenozume and the behavior of the Ivaric forces.
“We’re fortunate they weren’t able to try to conquer us as well as Avaleen,” the lady on his right opined.
“And now they’re going to have trouble holding on to what they have,” her neighbor commented as he listened in.
“I hope so,” Silas couldn’t resist saying. “I’m going to do my best to give them more trouble.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Katjen interjected from the other side of the table.
As the meal ended, Katjen rose from her seat, as several other men and women rose from nearby tables, and the members of the group collectively filed up onto a dais at the end of the banquet hall.
“Your Council of Traders thanks you for joining us here tonight,” a dignified man began to speak, and he described the Council members in glowing terms, while Silas’s attention began to wander.
Mata would have enjoyed attending the event, he judged. The sophisticated food, the fine clothes, the glittering crowd – all would have appealed to the woman he had come to know so well.
“And so, we welcome our surprise guest to Barnesnob, Silas, the Abomination!” the man’s words suddenly penetrated Silas’s attention in midsentence.
“Stand up and wave!” the woman sitting next to him hissed as she pinched his bottom to get his attention, causing him to lift suddenly and set off a new round of applause.
“They all are glad to have a hero!” the man sitting on Silas’s other side spoke loudly as he joined in the applause. “And we get to sit with one!”
“Those who wish to remain and dance are free to do so, but the formal program is ended, and everyone is free to go,” Katjen was back down on the floor suddenly, standing over her table.
Musicians who had waited unnoticed in the corner of the room began playing music on cue, and people began to rise from their seats. Some moved towards the doors to leave, while others strolled forward to an open space of flooring waiting for the dancers.
Silas watched the others at his table rise. Some went to dance while others exited the room, leaving only he and Katjen at the table within moments of the adjournment of the dinner.
“Well, great hero, what do you plan to do?” Katjen asked him with a raised eyebrow.
Before he could answer, diners from other tables descended upon the table, some to talk to Katjen, and others to talk to Silas, to inquire about his adventures, or to thank him for defeating Ivaric, or to learn about conditions on Amenozume. He listened and responded politely for several minutes, then looked across the table and saw that Katjen was gone, taken out on the dance floor by one of the others in the room.
Silas had felt that the two of them were going to talk about something, though he didn’t know what the topic would be. With Katjen gone, Silas felt weariness begin to creep over him after the long day of adventure and returning to Barnesnob. He began to edge towards the door as he answered more questions, and finally excused himself so that he could go back to the guest cabin in the garden and relax.
His sharp night vision meant that he had no need for a lantern or candle as he left the palace and walked through the garden. He spotted sporadic pairs of lovers who felt safely covered by the garden’s night darkness and passed silently by them before he reached his cabin and went inside.
There was no need to turn on lights. He re-entered the room where he had found the formal clothes he had worn to the dinner, and he gladly stripped the heavy material off, felt a relief, and then crawled into his bed and enjoyed the exquisite luxury of a mattress, clean sheets, and a plump pillow.
His mind whirled with uncertainty even though his eyes were closed, and his body relaxed. He had reached Barnesnob. That had been his explicit goal, one that had covered for his self-serving goal of escaping from the emotional turmoil he had felt in Amenozume. He hadn’t been comfortable with his relationship with Mata or with Princess Lumene, and so he had run away. He had run towards the destiny he knew awaited him in some form – another round of battle against Ivaric and L’Anvien. He hadn’t been sure how the battle would be arranged, but he knew it would come. He didn’t know if he was ready for it, but he knew it would come.
But now he needed to know. He needed to make a decision. He had decided he would help Jimes on his quest to reach Heathrin, but that was just a step along the path for him. Going to the Wind Word Guild headquarters was just a way to further put off making a decision about how to begin the battle against Ivaric, a battle that would presumably involve helping Avaleen liberate itself from control by its aggressive neighbor.
Silas heard a sound as he tried to analyze his dilemma and realized that Jimes had stumbled into the dark cabin. Silas heard the door close, footsteps, and then a collision with a table in the hallway, before the muttering Jimes entered his own bedroom and grew silent.
Stash and Lexy had the other cabin, Silas realized. Lexy was unlikely to feel comfortable in the palace among the nobility and grandeur, while Stash was likely to be picking pockets. Silas laughed at the notion, then stopped, as he heard the sound of the cabin door open again.
Someone was entering the cabin, someone who was not a guest staying for the night. Silas sat up.
He faintly heard light footsteps in the hallway, then a pause, and the sound of more footsteps.
“Don’t say anything,” a woman’s soft voice was just barely audible. Silas heard nothing more distinct for several minutes, until there was a sudden, loud outburst.
“You’re not Silas!” a woman’s voice exclaimed.
“I never said I was!” Jimes responded just as loudly.
Silas heard a pause, then a rapid clatter of loud footsteps, followed by the opening of the cabin door, and then silence.
Silas shook his head, then rose from the bed and went to the bedroom door.
Jimes was standing in the darkness.
“What was that?” Silas asked.
“Some woman came into my bedroom,” Jimes answered immediately, in a hurt voice. “She told me not to say anything, and I didn’t. Then,” Jimes paused, “well, anyway, a few minutes later she shouted, and she left.”
Silas felt himself grinning.
“I’m going back to bed,” he told Jimes.
“So am I,” Jimes replied. “Alone,” he muttered, and the pair parted ways.
Silas slept soundly after the occurrence, his eyes closing and his mind calming immediately.
When he woke in the morning, he heard a servant deliver a tray of breakfast food to the front parlor of the cabin, and he sat down at a table to enjoy the meal. As he sat, Lexy entered the door and sat down with him. She appeared worn and under-the-weather.
“The wine they have here is stronger than the wine on Amenozume,” she complained as she slumped down into a chair across from him. “Or maybe I just drank more,” she considered as she sat slumped backwards, her neck craned and her face looking up at the ceiling, though her eyes were closed.
“What are our plans today?” she asked.
“I thought we’d pack up and leave in about fifteen minutes,” Silas couldn’t prevent himself from trying to shock the girl.
She lifted her head and stared at him in disbelief. “Fifteen minutes?” she moaned.
“No,” Silas laughed. “I told Vertuco I’d have lunch with him, so we’ll be here all morning, and leave this afternoon.”
“Oh good,” Lexy was too tired to express indignation at Silas’s falsehood. “I’m going to go lie down; which bedroom is yours?” she asked as she unsteadily stood up.
“Mine is the one on the left. What’s wrong with your own room?” Silas asked.
“Stash snores too loud. I hardly slept last night,” she answered as she walked to his room and disappeared within.
Silas ate some fruit and reflected. He didn’t recall hearing Stash snore, but he’d not spent much time with the thief in the evenings, except when they had sailed together in the fishing boat early in their time together, and Stash had not snored then. But perhaps Stash had drunk as much as Lexy apparently had, he speculated, and had slept more noisily. Whatever the situation, Lexy was in Silas’s bed as a result.
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