* * *
Parcifal straightened her hair, adjusted her armor’s bindings and straps and walked back out into the bustling promenade. In the natural alley that formed behind her between two immense branches of the giant oak, there were three figures trying to pull themselves together. They were all beaten up, nursing a bloodied nose, a couple of broken fingers or a cut above their brow. Their teeth had been invariably lessened in number; their flimsy-looking knives, fists and chains thrown out into the void of space. Parcifal though wasn’t smiling as much as she had hoped she would. Even when she saw them stagger and get lost in the crowd with real fear creeping over their eyes.
“They know nothing. At least, I don’t think if they had really known something they’d be that good at keeping secrets.”
She stretched her back casually. Ned shook his head and sighed.
“I said be forceful. I didn’t ask you to frighten the living daylight out of them.”
Parcifal was adamant in her view of things. Her gaze was still following the victims of her manifest wrath.
“I didn’t. I actually think I went soft on those scum.”
“If you push a man too far, he might admit to everything. Make stuff up as well. I know I would,” Ned admitted sincerely. His point and effort was somewhat lost on Parcifal who sounded a bit angry at the thought she wasn’t getting the respect she deserved even after a thorough beating had been dealt.
“You think they would dare lie to me?”
“I would certainly lie to you if that made you stop trying to turn me into a pulp,” said Ned and nodded to himself thoroughly. Parcifal’s nostrils flared up.
“All I wanted was answers. I tempted them to provide some.”
“Listen, some people.. Well, orcs even, have already tried to kill us. Theo is missing and Bo has been abducted. This isn’t the time for heroics,” said Ned in what was his most reprimanding tone. That meant he simply sounded a bit disappointed, but Parcifal seemed to take it badly even so.
“I’m only trying to help. Me and my sister.. We were only trying to help.”
“Well, Lernea does help. She’s easy to work with, she understands timing; she’s familiar with my line of thinking.”
“Perhaps then her help is much more sought after. After all, she is the Queen.”
“I thought she’s the former queen in exile.”
“A queen still. Not a princess regent,” said Parcifal with evident bitterness in her voice.
“Are you.. Are you pouting?” asked Ned.
“That is a silly notion at best. I do not pout. A princess of Nomos, does not pout.”
“You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“Your conclusions are ridden with nonsense of the worst kind, sirrah!” she exclaimed and looked the other way like a child would.
“You’re jealous.”
“That is an insult! I’m not jealous!” she insisted, while her face had become taught, hard-lined.
“I’ll just leave you be, then.”
“I’ll just leave you first if I can’t be of any help. Do not fret, I won’t go missing!” she shouted and simply shot off into the milling crowd, never to return a stare. In very few moments, Ned had lost her from sight. One thing he had head out on the streets of Tallyflop seemed certain to him now: people could just disappear or be made to just disappear in the blink of an eye. Ned somehow didn’t really worry that Parcifal would really go missing; he knew she simply had a flair for the dramatic.
Whatever her issues, they would have to wait, Ned thought to himself. In his heart, Theo and Bo took precedence, even though it was Theo’s woodking people that they were supposed to be trying to save. But there was no talk of them either. Perhaps Culliper had managed to fool them.
Ned’s mind raced: the throne from the ship and Theo’s crystal were perhaps a lot more important than any of them had thought. The fact that these people who called themselves Culprits had snatched the chair first and foremost, strengthened that perception. Their note said they’d return Bo once they were done, and that did nothing but make things more complicated. Done with what, Ned asked himself and feared something very bad was about to unfold.
“I thought I’d never find you,” said a sweet, familiar female voice. Ned turned around and saw Lernea standing there, full of smiles.
“I thought you were with Wince,” he said and try as he might, he couldn’t see the halfuin anywhere nearby. It was a busy, packed time on the promenade. There was a Trading Circus in town; the streets were filled with exotic pack animals, laden with riches from around the cosmos. The sight caught Ned’s eye as a small caravan passed. A beautiful, elephant-like creature of a smaller size caught Ned’s attention.
“Will you look at those things? I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“They’re just beasts from a far away place. Not unlike mules. There’s hundreds of them in the streets. Who cares?” said Lernea and did not bother to even glance their way. She had a strange grin; it looked as if she’d been drinking. Ned noticed and couldn’t help asking:
“Where’s Winceham? You didn’t have any drinks together, did you?”
“Would that be wrong?” asked Lernea with a furtive look in her eyes.
“I’m just saying, he didn’t convince you into going off into a wild drinking binge, did he? It’s a tendency of his. A condition, he calls it.”
Lernea nodded thoughtfully for a moment. Then she smiled widely and put a finger to her temple, as if she had just remembered something.
“Does he now? Well, he did stop for a drink on the way,” she said, trying to make it sound as if it was really just one drink, while in fact multiple drinks were being implied.
“That’s just great. Your sister ran off just a minute ago. I don’t think she’s gone missing like Theo though; she just needed her head cleaned up. For all I know, she just might drink her mind off it with Wince,” said Ned gloomily and shrugged. He went on as the magnificent beasts of the Trading Circus rode past them:
“It’s probably just as well. We didn’t get anything useful; just a few street thugs with broken arms, bruised bodies and rotten egos. What about you?” said Ned, looking at Lernea with a hopeful smile.
“Nothing at all. Everyone is so tight-lipped. You didn’t get anything? Anything about the Culprits? Anything about Theo?”
She sounded anxious all of a sudden. Her eyes searched Ned’s face thoroughly, inquisitively.
“Zilch. Parcifal was rather efficient at making people run on sight. Still, what low-lifes we could get our hands on seemed like they really knew nothing about the Culprits. In fact, most of them didn’t seem to even understand the word,” said Ned and shrugged.
“I see. Well, in that case, I think I need a word alone with you,” said Lernea, her voice tuned down a notch.
“Alone? We’re pretty much alone,” said Ned and waved at the indifferent crowds of people that surrounded them.
“There’s something terrible going on.”
“Go on,” said Ned and nodded with arms crossed over his chest, his eyes locked onto Lernea’s worried face.
“It’s Parcifal. She’s really not being herself lately.”
“Well, you certainly know her better than I do, but if I were to make an educated guess, I think she’s just being jealous of you.”
Lernea sounded surprised and oddly excited at the same time. She touched Ned’s arm with a sense of purpose.
“Well, why should she be?”
“I don’t know, I’m not sure. I must’ve said something about you that ticked her off. But I’m not sure what or why for that matter,” said Ned and his gaze came to stand at Lernea’s hand. She was practically leaning against him.
“Well, that’s just like my sister now. Ever since she was a toddler.”
“What do you mean?” said Ned and felt her warm breath inching closer to his face.
“Since she was little.”
“You’re only a minute apart,” said Ned with a baffled look. Hi
s eyes fell randomly at Lernea’s chest, but it didn’t appear to be so random. She saw that and twisted her gaze away from him suddenly in a dramatic fashion.
“Still though, she’s the little one. But enough about her. I think I might have a lead about the elves.”
“You just said you found nothing,” said Ned feeling perplexed. Something bothered him, but he couldn’t pin it down.
“But there is a lead! And we need to follow it!” Lernea said with urgency, both her hands gripping Ned’s arms.
“Alright. We need to pick up Winceham first. It’ll be easy to spot him; he might be small but he can make a lot of noise. Especially when he’s had his version of a couple of drinks.”
Ned made to turn and leave towards the direction Lernea came from. She grabbed him by one arm; there was a tone of instant anger in her objection.
“There’s no time for that. After all, he’ll need to get sobered up before he can be of any use.”
“Well then let’s find Parcifal. She’s bound to be somewhere near,” said Ned and started off toward the main boardwalk where Parcifal had lost herself. Lernea would simply not have it; there was an edge to her voice that had never been there before.
“You’re not listening; there’s no time. Our lead is leaving on a ship!”
“A ship? What’s the plan then? Jump him in the docks?” asked Ned incredulously.
“No, no. Just follow me. I know a short cut. We can catch him on his way there,” said Lernea and went right into the same alley where Parcifal had dispensed her sort of justice to the poor thugs of Tallyflop’s trade district.
“What? Just the two of us? Is he alone? What sort of lead? Can’t we just talk about this first?” asked Ned while Lernea was already making her way to the shadowy cleft.
“Through that alley?” asked Ned once more, pointing a hesitant finger.
“Yes!” Lernea insisted with a broken voice, and an alien, ice cold gaze. Ned shrugged warily and followed her from a distance. He saw her bow strung across her back clearly and noticed something odd: she had her bow on the opposite way.
“Something wrong with your bow?”
“Why do you ask that?” Lernea said with a shallow voice.
“I’m just saying. It looks like you have it on wrong.”
“Oh, I’m just trying out if it works better this way,” she said and kept walking towards the shadowy alley.
“About last night..” asked Ned and let his voice trail off. Lernea came to a stop and turned around to face him slowly. There was a strange grin on her face. Her voice was little more than a whisper.
“What about last night?”
“Don’t you remember?” asked Ned with a frown.
“Of course I do! But now is not the time to reminisce!”
“Isn’t it? I thought it was a special night. I thought you loved me!” he said with a voice full of hurt. His hands went to his waist, near his crossbow.
Lernea looked at his blurry eyes intently. Her face warmed up, her eyes shone with sweetness.
“Of course I do! We can get together again later, but right now we must --”
Then he knew. Ned suspected it, he had felt it in his gut, but it was at that moment that he knew whoever that was, it wasn’t Lernea.
“Even odds suck, don’t they? Just who the hell are you?”
The impostor changed his body stance. She now stood defiant, a mad grin on her face. She cocked her head sideways and looked at Ned with a crazy, wide-eyed look. Her eyeballs turned pitch black in the blink of an eye.
“I’m just a messenger.”
“Really? What’s the message?” said Ned, the crossbow now firmly in his hands.
“Hobb sends his greetings!” she said and backflipped into the shadows of the alley with blinding speed, in a cat-like fashion. Ned let fly the loaded bolt but he was more than just a heartbeat too slow. The bolt failed to hit; what was more alarming, it was as if the shadow had eaten the fake Lernea alive. Not an edge of her shape was to be seen.
Ned put away the crossbow and took up his machete; a gift from Theo. Again, he was too slow; a tentacle reached out from the shadows and twisted itself around his arm. It reeled him in with such force that he flew in the air, his arm nearly pulled out of his socket. He saw the flash of cold steel and the glint of four evil, frosty blue eyes. He tried to flex his body out of harm’s way but he knew that metal flash was meant for him; he knew those eyes. He’d seen those kind of eyes before.
Another flash of metal nearly blinded him; he felt something cold cover his face in spurts. His arm was free and he was laying on the ground, half-covered inside the shadow. He tried to stand up, the machete still firmly in his hand. He saw another tentacle shoot out from the darkness, but it wasn’t meant for him. It was aiming for someone wearing dark, tight robes and wielding two short blades that seemed too thin to be real. A hood kept the stranger’s face hidden from view.
Ned saw the tentacle cleanly cut away, squirming and spurting a thick murky liquid, like milk of some kind; it was the same liquid that was dripping down his chin. The robed figure then let his blades fly blindly inside the supernatural shadow; instead of crashing against the alley’s bark-skinned wall, two huge spurts of that same white liquid shot in the air. A hollow, otherworldly shriek was heard.
Lernea’s impostor then shot out from the shadow with unnatural alacrity, cartwheeling past the robed figure faster than before. She was trying to escape; Ned was on his feet and running after her. A few heartbeats later she slumped on the wooden plank floor of the promenade like someone invisible had tackled her. Three star-like pieces of metal were stuck on her spine. A shiny metallic sort of liquid oozed from her lethal wounds.
Ned stood there for a moment, unsure of what had just happened. He gathered his wits about him and turned around with the machete in his good hand, as ready as he could be. The distinctly calm voice of a woman sought to allay his fears.
“You’re safe, at least for now,” the woman said.
The robed figure drew its blades from the shadow and waved violently them in the air; white droplets of blood sprinkled the promenade’s floorboards. The rest trickled down the flawless blades with ease. Ned realised his heart was beating fast; his hair was standing up.
“Calm down. We need to find the rest of your party; they could be in danger as well.”
“Who are you? What were those things?”
“I’m an ally. Those things were a doppelganger and his assasin pet, a Sidian starfish.”
Ned looked at the fake Lernea’s dead body and shook his head in disbelief. There were so many things that begged explanation, but it felt like they had to wait. He looked at the woman in robes but was almost too afraid to ask.
“I know you didn’t want me killed, that’s for sure. I probably owe you my life. That kind of an ally shows her face.”
“Not here,” said the robed woman and with a sudden burst of speed, she sprang right next to Ned and hugged him tight as a baby. Ned’s response was to freeze in surprise. So close to him, he saw her cheeks under the limelight and knew she was grinning. Barely a breath later they were climbing up the giant oak’s bark, pulled up in the air by a shiny silvery line, thinner than a strand of hair. Ned would have loved to sound more courteous, but the extraneous circumstances didn’t allow for it.
“Just who the hell are you lady?” he shouted through the rush of the night air.
“Just call me Judith,” she said huskily as they rose higher and higher. Below them, at the spot of the pretty uneven fight, a cart pulled over and a tall, lank man began loading the bodies. He had some trouble when he came upon the one with the tentacles. “Mack did the smart thing; this job’s getting weirder and weirder all the time,” said the man, tutted and went back to work.