by Peri Akman
“Oh no, you’re staying here,” Asim immediately replied.
“Why?” Kole snapped.
“It’s a long walk and we’re going to the temple? With the empaths?” Asim explained matter-of-factly. “Do you want to pass out?”
That was a weird way to phrase it. Kole had been annoyed by the empaths, but she hadn’t passed out.
Kole, however, didn’t protest it. She sighed and motioned to Kay. “Can you lend Quinn your jacket for now?”
Kay jumped a bit, and for a split second gawked at Quinn. Quinn felt his face flush, and he made a rather ugly face at her.
She took off her jacket, and handed it off to Quinn. It was thinner than his cloak, but bigger. It draped over him like a misshapen dress. He probably looked ridiculous, but at least now he had clothes on.
Quinn picked up Kole’s walking stick and handed it to her. He gave a passing nod to Asim, who was still next to her. He felt a bit more antsy now, probably because Asim had just been willing to murder him over some misperceived slight.
Kole gripped her walking stick and stood up again. “I guess there’s no stopping it, then.”
“I can come,” Quinn supplied.
“No, you can’t,” Kole said.
Quinn stared at Kole in confusion until Kole gave her reasoning.
“You’re on watch, remember? You have to stay here and make sure the demons don’t come out and eat us.”
Right. He had promised that. He sort of forgot…
He had also kind of been hoping that he would have solved all the problems and there wouldn’t need to be a watch kept once his plan was executed.
Man, he sucked at thinking things through. He didn’t really conceptualize what would happen after he sicced Ser Hero on the orb. Even if he had succeeded, what would have happened? What if demons just came pouring out? It was a small air bubble; it could have been very dangerous.
How had Kole not stopped him from himself?
Did she honestly gamble on him just figuring it all out in the end? Sure, she was right, but she had no way of knowing that.
Asim and Dale conversed quietly with each other for a while before preparing to head out.
Dale motioned for Cosime to follow her.
“Let them sleep!” Kole snapped.
“I’d rather my apprentice stay safe with me. But if you’re gonna dictate my morality, we can go back to the fight,” Dale replied.
Kole said nothing, and began walking back to her tent.
Cosime, Dale and Asim left shortly, and Kole collapsed in their tent, dead asleep, still in her wet bandages.
Quinn sat on the beach, and prepared for a long night. Weariness began to set in. This had been a terrible idea.
“Hey,” Kay said from behind, sitting down next to him.
“You should go rest,” Quinn muttered.
“I’ve been keeping this watch for a few days, my sleep schedule is sorta tuned to have me up right now,” Kay said, smiling.
“Well both of us being up is kind of pointless. We’d be better off rotating,” Quinn replied with a shrug. Despite his protests though, he did enjoy the company. Or at least, hypothetically would enjoy the company. He and Kay had never really talked much, even at the Academy. They had been friendly enough, but never really friends.
“I’ll talk to you a bit, then I’ll nap, and you can wake me up in a bit, we talk some more, than you nap. It’s not that hard,” Kay responded.
“You wanna talk to me all of a sudden?” Quinn asked, furrowing his brow.
“…what do you mean?” Kay asked, frowning.
“Nothing, it’s just we never had a really long conversation, and now you’re planning an entire thing. I’m not against it… it’s just weird,” Quinn admitted.
Kay sighed. “I always liked you, Quinn, you’re a good guy. I never bothered to get to know you because I didn’t think there was much point to it. But now you’re the better warlock, you have the better master, and—”
“Whoah whoah whoah. What?” Quinn broke in. He wasn’t disagreeing with these facts, but the way Kay was saying it just struck him as off.
“Oh come off it, like you haven’t noticed. You can summon anything you want! Kole treats you like you’re some special prodigy, and whenever you speak people listen to you!” Kay snapped.
“Kay, I would have killed for your position!” Quinn shot back. That wasn’t true anymore, but he wasn’t going to elaborate on that. Wait, she probably wasn’t hearing voices. Yeah, he’d still kill for it.
“You’d probably be better in it. He hates me,” Kay said quietly.
“What?”
“Asim of Trell. He hates me. I can tell by the way he looks at me. He thinks I’m a disappointment,” Kay spoke quickly. She had probably been waiting for someone to listen to her say that.
Oh gods. Now things were making sense. Asim gave Kay space, Kay thinks that Asim hates her. How did he solve this? How did he help this?
“I… that’s… not true,” Quinn articulated. Wow, he was just the master of eloquence, wasn’t he?
“How do you know?” Kay asked. At first Quinn panicked, wondering if Kay suspected Quinn knew something he shouldn’t, but then he realized it was mostly rhetorical.
“Because… I know Kole. And she knows Asim. And I’ve heard her talk about him. He’s probably just trying to give you space,” Quinn said. Nothing was a lie, technically.
Kay shifted a bit, like she was mulling it over. She shook her head. “No, that doesn’t seem right.”
Asim had literally said it in front of him that was what he was doing! How did she just ignore what he was saying! Was this what it felt like to be Kole all the time?
“Well, it is. Take it or leave it, it doesn’t affect me,” Quinn said, trying his best to be restrained.
Kay sighed. “Sorry. I just… that can’t be right! It doesn’t match up to how he was acting.”
“In what way?” Quinn asked, now a bit curious.
“Even before we… even before we had a fight he was distant. It’s just now he’s purposefully distant. I don’t think it has to do with him giving me my space,” Kay grumbled.
“Kay, I dunno if you’ve noticed this, but he was kind of distant to all of us at the tavern too. Asim keeps everyone at an arm’s length. That’s not you, that’s just him,” Quinn explained. That sounded about right, considering how he seemed to put on a face every time he had to interact with people.
“That’s… astute. How’d you figure?” Kay asked.
“I dunno. Just been paying attention,” Quinn said with a shrug, honestly unsure if he should be considered an authority.
Kay groaned. “Sorry. I know I shouldn’t do that but… gods I hate when people say that! Pay attention, Kay! You’ll be fine if you just listen for once! Kay, this is your fault for not being smart enough to understand how people work!”
Kay’s voice was high, mocking, and full of pain.
Quinn winced. Welp, he'd messed up. “Do people normally say that to you?”
“Not a lot… but enough. Enough for me to wince at it. They don’t get it. They don’t get the fact that I can’t pay attention like they do. I try so hard, but no matter what it’s all just a blur. I can’t even tell people apart! I have to go with hairstyle at best. It sucks! But no one believes me. I just have to pretend I’m stupid or ignorant cause no one’s willing to listen otherwise,” Kay ranted.
Huh. The amplifier had trouble seeing details. Point for the Jestalt-Dwyer effect.
“I mean… that just means you’re a normal warlock, right?” Quinn asked, unsure of how to phrase this. Kole seemed way better at doing this than him.
Kay blinked. “I’m sorry, what do you mean?”
“Warlocks are way more likely to experience… sensory dopri--denri--derivation. Like, sixty percent more likely or something. Um, yeah,” Quinn nodded.
Quinn had been hoping for a smile of relief, but instead Kay just got annoyed.
“That’s a load of c
rock! If that was true, everyone would be acting like a freak. Instead it’s just me!” Kay spat out.
“Well, yeah, I didn’t know there was anything different about you until you told me. It’s the same with everyone else. They’re all… hiding and stuff.” Quinn’s voice hitched as he tried to explain.
Kay sighed again. For a while, there was nothing but silence between the two.
Then Kay stood up. “Going to bed.”
She left Quinn alone in the dark.
Quinn sighed and stared at the lake. It was as beautiful as ever.
He had no intention of waking Kay up. That girl deserved her sleep. He could pull an all-nighter just this once.
Besides, he felt calm. Hearing someone else’s problems made his seem less worrisome. He wasn’t alone. Everyone had just as many problems as he did. Heck, some seemed to have more. And that was okay. He was okay.
That night he dreamed of being a hero, fighting alongside stone statues against the demons. It was a good dream.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Wake up, Sleepy Summoner!”
Quinn jolted awake from his dream of heroics to see Ser Hero standing above him.
“How… what…?” Quinn muttered blearily.
“You fell asleep!” Ser Hero dictated, a bit too proudly.
“I didn’t summon you,” Quinn said irritably, as he rubbed his eyes.
“You didn’t summon me intentionally the first time either! Yet here I am!” Ser Hero posed dramatically and flicked their hair back.
This Ser Hero actually looked a lot like Quinn. Similar colors: the brown hair, the gray eyes, the dark skin, even Quinn’s flat and broad nose. But the build was completely different. Whereas Quinn was average height and fairly wide, this Ser Hero was nearly stick thin and quite tall. There was probably something important about that, although Quinn wasn’t about to start reading into it.
“How long was I asleep?” Quinn asked, looking up at the night sky. It was just a bright enough shade to worry him.
“About four hours. Ample time to rest for a hero’s less attractive sidekick!” Ser Hero proclaimed, extending their hand out for Quinn to take.
Quinn groaned and stood up. He had just rested his eyes for a minute, and here he was napping on the job. At least his instincts kicked in, he supposed.
“You show up a lot without me asking, huh?” Quinn asked, staring at Ser Hero.
“Yes. I am a very persistent hero,” Ser Hero replied, nodding sagely. “I am the greatest hero in everything I do, including showing up the second your mind calls to me.”
A more likely explanation was that since he had been summoning Ser Hero for upwards of a month, consistently, it was just the easiest thing to cast.
So his practice made perfect. Hooray for him.
“So why wake me up now?” Quinn asked.
“If I didn’t wake you up, you would have lost your connection to me!” Ser Hero said, frowning.
“So I can sleep for around four hours before you disappear? Cool,” Quinn said with a shrug.
Ser Hero grinned at him. Quinn suddenly paused in thought.
“Hey Ser Hero, you know things I don’t, right?” Quinn asked.
“I know all things heroic, indeed!” Ser Hero agreed.
“Do you know what’s the cause of the voices in my head?” Quinn asked, his eyes narrowing. This was stupid, so stupid, but he had to try.
“I only hear your voice in my head. I don’t know what goes on in yours,” Ser Hero replied. “It wouldn’t be heroic to spy on your brain.”
“Yeah… all right. Thanks,” Quinn said. It was worth a shot, but what was he expecting, honestly? Ser Hero was just some weird combination of space, nonsense, and probably his own mind. They weren’t going to magically have information that he needed.
He went over to the nearly empty crate and fished out one of the last bags of hard crackers. He tore it open and bit into the familiar taste.
If he was lucky, this was the last time he’d be eating one of these things. If he was unlucky… well, at least the mountains were pretty.
He banished Ser Hero and ate in silence for a while. He summoned a bird (the same green one from before) to go see if Asim and Dale were coming back any time soon.
He didn’t have to wait for the bird, however, as about half an hour later he could see them in the distance.
Quinn gave a half-smile and a wave, but something seemed wrong. They were moving quickly, stiffly. He got up and jogged to meet with them.
Asim wasted no time before explaining the situation once Quinn got into earshot.
“The temple was under attack,” he muttered, his eyes twitching.
Tsalir, who was being carried around by Dale’s disc, nodded. “Yeah, the second I stepped outside all these demons just started showing up out of nowhere and throwing themselves at us! I’ve never seen the statues being used like that but, gods, you should have seen it!”
Quinn felt his blood drain out of his face.
“What… is everyone okay?” Quinn asked, aghast.
Asim nodded silently, wiping his hair away from his face. Up close, Quinn realized he had been sweating profusely.
“Yeah, thanks to us,” Dale replied. “And a few guards who pulled their weight, but it was mostly us.”
“Oi. The statues helped too, ya know. Is everyone ignoring that they came to life and started slashing off everyone? And that Serho guy was amazing!” Tsalir cut in. “I never even saw him before, but I gotta tell Uleyn to promote him.”
“He was a danger, more like.” Dale replied, wrinkling her nose. “Did you hear him threatening to murder the gardeners for hiding under the table?”
“Seriously? He was nice to me. Weird,” Tsalir said with a shrug.
Whoah. Whoah. Whoah.
What.
“Did they have a giant H on them?” Quinn blurted out. It was probably a coincidence, the name, the dream that matched up to that description, the randomly competent hero bursting in, but all the same he had to ask.
“Yeah, how’d you know?” Tsalir asked, grinning.
Oh gods.
Oh gods oh gods oh gods.
That gods-damned summoned liar.
He felt his head turn fuzzy. This couldn’t be happening.
“The point is we need to rouse Kay and Kole, and attack that orb now. Whatever plans the demons have, they’re already enacting them,” Asim explained urgently.
Tsalir jumped off the disc. “You guys go on ahead. I wanna walk the rest of the way there. If I’m gonna be demon bait, I wanna stretch out my back.”
Asim kicked off the ground and he began to run across the air at a much faster pace.
Dale gripped Cosime’s hand tightly and used her other hand to wipe her sleep-deprived eyes. “Well, one good thing about this. My theory is they saw us trying to take Tsalir here out and threw a fit. We’re on the right track.”
The two of them took off after Asim, leaving Tsalir and Quinn behind.
Tsalir gave Quinn a toothy grin. “So you’re the mastermind, right?”
Quinn nodded. A mastermind who was hearing voices and had a summon who was developing a mind of their own.
“So do I have to infect you guys too? ’Cause that seems really dangerous. I’ll do it, but I don’t think cracked black skin is your color,” Tsalir said, smirking.
Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know, I didn’t think that far.”
“Well, you should. I don’t wanna go down to wherever this nest is, touch it, and have the rest of you guys just stare at me expectantly. I’m not a magey person, I know absolutely nothing about magic,” Tsalir said, poking Quinn on the forehead, and squinting at him. Or possibly half-winking at him. Quinn really couldn’t tell.
Quinn stared back at Tsalir’s dead blue eyes, mesmerized for a slight moment. He shook his head and stepped away from Tsalir’s head poke. “If it works, then you can infect us. You told us before that anyone who gets it from you can get cured, right?”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, lucky you,” Tsalir replied. They walked carefully to the lake, but seemed to do so solely with their lower leg muscles. They were clearly trying to avoid having their back move at all. “You get to get cured.”
“Sorry, is that rude of me to say?” Quinn asked, looking downwards in embarrassment. Leave it to him to mess up a simple interaction. He shouldn’t even be having this interaction! He should be panicking profusely!
“Nah. You’re right, you know? I’ve been like this for a while now, even Uleyn is beginning to get laxer on my confinings. If I’m gonna be in back pain for the rest of my life, good to know some use is gonna come out of it. It’s either this or leaving my life behind and becoming an assassin,” Tsalir said, taking a grand sweeping gesture towards the lake.
Quinn smiled, despite his worries. “What are you going to do after this, anyway?”
“Become an assassin, weren’t you listening?” Tsalir shot back, offended. Then their face broke the charade and they laughed to themself. “I dunno. What are you doing after this?”
“Going to the next job with Kole, I guess,” Quinn replied, shrugging.
“Well tell you what, give me a concrete answer about where you’re heading, and I’ll give you mine. Fair is fair, yeah?” Tsalir winked at Quinn and began to walk away at a faster pace.
Quinn stared at Tsalir’s braid for a few moments. He had no idea what had just happened. Tsalir was a weird grayshade of a man. One that was clearly gifted in looks, but weird all the same.
He had begun to make a few steps towards the camp when he stopped. There was something else he needed to take care of first.
Quinn ran in the opposite direction, just far enough away that no one could hear him, and he would be able to know if anyone was coming towards him.
Ser Hero popped in front of him, this time a foot shorter than Quinn and bald, but otherwise unmistakably Ser Hero.
“Hel—”
“Save it,” Quinn hissed, narrowing his eyes. “And shut up! Don’t speak unless I ask you a question, got it?”
Ser Hero clasped their hand over their mouth, and nodded vigorously.
“Did you go fight the demons a few hours ago?” Quinn asked, breathing heavily. His heart was pounding right out of his chest.