Summoner 5

by Eric Vall

“Can’t he leave to go find him?” I asked.

  “Technically, there isn’t anything stopping him,” Ashla sighed, “but he has no leads on where to look. He said there isn’t a point to start a fruitless hunt with nothing to go on.”

  I frowned, though I supposed Zyg had a point. His friend must have meant a lot to him for him to worry so much.

  “I’m the innkeeper, by the way.” The man on the other side of Karn introduced, and he smiled at me. “Glad to see you’re doing well.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled in kind. “I could use a bite to eat, though. My stomach made an awful noise on my way down here.”

  The innkeeper laughed. “I think I can help you with that. Let me see what we have.”

  With that, the man disappeared behind the bar and into the back. The Wild Reds continued their conversation around the table, and it was then I noticed the papers that were strewn across the surface of the large round table.

  “We can’t stay here forever, Ashla,” Karn told her. “Eventually we’re going to have to move on. There isn’t that much money to be made out in these parts, and we have to make a living.”

  Ashla pursed her lips. “I know that, but we’re doing fine here. We pay nothing but our services to keep the town safe, and it’s not a bad hub spot for us.”

  “There was nothing wrong with Varle,” Karn argued. “We should go back there, where there are more resources.”

  Drew scoffed. “Oh come off it, old man. You really think we can make a living in an Enclave? That place is military central.”

  I shrunk back in my seat when Drew’s eyes landed on me. I didn’t know the context of the situation, but I couldn’t help but feel as though I had done something wrong. It wasn’t comfortable.

  “Hey, I’m just a student,” I defended meekly.

  Drew shook his head. “I know that from Ashla, but my point remains. Us freelancers don’t stand a chance in Varle when they have mages like you coming out of their asses to take care of rifts.”

  I opened my mouth to fight back, but Doc cut me off.

  “Returning to Varle is out of the question, Karn. The military presence is too large for us small fries,” he reasoned.

  “We have to turn in our jobs to them military folks anyway,” Karn insisted. “Why not be closer? Maybe we’ll get more jobs that way.”

  “We might not stay here forever, but we aren’t going back to Varle, so if that’s what you’re expecting, you can shove off now.” Ashla put her foot down definitively, and suddenly, there was no more chatter or arguments about it. No one moved, either. It was settled one way or another for now.

  “What are we looking at here?” I asked quickly in the hopes of changing the subject before the silence became too thick.

  Drew gestured to the various documents and books. “Research. We’re on the hunt for something specific.”

  I picked up one of the papers and scanned over it. Immediately, I recognized the poems from the library in Tietra, and my jaw dropped. There were scribbled notes on these, possible meanings on what each of the poems might mean.

  “Where did you get these?” I asked excitedly.

  “They’re mine,” Ashla answered shortly. “You know these poems?”

  I nodded, but I was careful not to divulge too much. “My partner and I just came from Tietra. We found them in the ancient library.”

  Ashla sat back in her seat as the others settled into theirs. I could tell there was a story to be told here.

  “Part of the reason I left Varle was to seek out these locations,” Ashla started. “I recognized the corruption that was taking hold of the military, and I got scared. Marangur Sleet asked me to stay, to continue my work in the labs with Arwyn, but I couldn’t. Not when I knew we were going to be watched like hawks by the council. Arwyn was willing to continue her work, but I couldn’t take the pressure, so I bailed.”

  “So that’s why you left Varle,” I said slowly. The innkeeper returned then to set a bowl of hot potato soup and bread in front of me, and I thanked him.

  “That’s part of the reason,” Ashla continued. “I never stopped my research, though. I knew the council was corrupt, but I didn’t know how else to keep my ties with Sleet without being a part of the game he’s been playing with them.”

  My stomach lurched, but whether it was because I didn’t know what she was talking about or if I was hungry, I wasn’t sure.

  “What do you mean?” I asked timidly. “What kind of game do you think he’s playing with the council?”

  Ashla sighed as she hesitated for a moment. “Sleet knows about the corruption in the council. He’s been doing his own research and only giving them a little bit of his findings at a time. Arwyn was willing to keep up the charade and keep his secrets. It wasn’t that I disagreed with what he was doing, but I was scared. The council will stop at nothing to keep fear instilled in the people of Mistral, and I didn’t want to be caught on the opposing side.”

  I nodded at length as I took a bite of soup. So, we had a common goal after all. Maybe it would be okay if I told her about Gawain and I meeting with Elder Sterling. I felt like I could trust her, and based on how her men dropped their argument at the drop of a dime when she put her foot down, I thought I could trust them as well.

  “Sleet sent us to Tietra,” I began. “He wanted us to see Elder Sterling and gain as much information as we could about the ciphers.”

  Ashla looked taken aback, and there was an audible gasp around the table.

  “You know about the ciphers?” she asked.

  “I have two of them,” I told them cautiously, and I saw the light in Ashla’s eyes brighten.

  Karn barked out a belly laugh and leaned on the edge of the round table. “How do we know you aren’t lying?”

  “Oh, come on, Karn.” Drew rolled his eyes. “What reason does he have to lie about it?”

  “You can’t be too careful, Drew,” Karn warned. He then turned his eyes on me.

  “You want proof?” I asked, ready to beat him to the punch. I wasn’t going to sit there quietly and be called a liar.

  “Yes, that would be swell,” he answered in a condescending tone.

  I saw Ashla shoot him a nasty look, but his words didn’t bother me. I stood, left my soup, and climbed the stairs to grab the ciphers from my bag. When I opened the door to the room, Gawain was still passed out in the bed.

  Good. I wouldn’t have to explain myself to him. I searched through my things and pulled out a leather wrapping that held the ciphers.

  I slipped down the stairs again and strode directly toward Karn. Then I stopped behind him, placed them on the table, and slid them over to Ashla.

  She looked to me, then the wrappings.

  “Go ahead and open them,” I told her.

  Apprehensively, she reached for them and pulled at the twine that tied it closed. The leather wrapping came undone, and the group leaned toward the middle in anticipation. When the ciphers were revealed, there was a collective gasp, and Ashla looked to be in a state of shock. Satisfied, I sat back down beside her and reveled in Karn’s stunned face.

  “That settles it.” Drew clapped his hands and sat back in his chair with a smug grin. “We’re staying here.”

  “For now,” Doc added.

  Karn grumbled, and Joshua looked indifferent about the whole thing. Honestly, the guy looked like he was ready to take a nap, and I barely bit back the bubble of laughter that threatened to spill over at the thought of this short little man passing out at the table like a child.

  “Not so fast.” I dropped my soup spoon that I had just picked up again back into the crock and put my hands out defensively. “Look, I appreciate the help you gave my partner and me, but I can’t just hand anything over to you.”

  There was a bit of silence amongst the table. Had they honestly thought I was going to hand over what information we carried to aid them when we had our own quest to fulfill?

  “Name your price, kid.” Drew smirked.

  “
Not for sale,” I quipped as I grew aggravated, and my spine started to stiffen. I was in no position to be starting fistfights over bar tables, but I wasn’t going to let some smug freelancer walk all over me because he felt I owed him one or something.

  “That’s enough,” Ashla cut in before things could get too heated. Drew’s smirk remained, but he respected her all the same and let her take control of the situation at hand. As for myself, I was still on edge.

  “What do you want with the ciphers?” I asked tersely. Maybe I was being overprotective of the information I had, but Sleet had been clear this operation was covert, and I wasn’t going to blow it.

  “Same as you, I imagine,” Doc chimed in. “You want to end the war between men and monsters.”

  “Doesn’t that put you freelancers out of a job?” I asked though I felt a little cruel for doing so.

  Karn cackled and slammed his hand down on the table, which caused Joshua to jump. “He’s got ya there!”

  “It’s true freelancers would have to find something else to do with the time they have left,” Ashla reasoned, “but I’d rather be out of work because Mistral is finally at peace than wait for the monsters to do me in and having done nothing about it.”

  I raised my brows and looked back at my soup. I knew how Ashla felt. If that were why they were interested in the ciphers, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to compare notes.

  “It’s late,” she told the table. “You lot should get some sleep. We can come back to this tomorrow with clear heads.”

  The men around the table murmured, but the sound of their chairs as they slid them back to stand resounded in the otherwise empty tavern. Drew left without another word, and Joshua followed behind Karn as he yawned loudly.

  “Have a good night, Ashla.” Doc smiled at us. “Finish what you can of that soup, Gryff. You need to rebuild your strength, and part of that is regrowing your appetite.”

  I nodded my thanks with an appreciative smile, and Doc tailed the others up the stairs to their rooms. When everyone save for the innkeeper was out of earshot, Ashla sighed and put her head in her hands.

  “I’m sorry about them, Gryff,” she apologized. “They’re all tired, and I’ve been dragging them around for weeks now.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.” I frowned. “If anything, I should be the one who is sorry. I didn’t mean to come off as rude or insensitive.”

  Ashla shook her head, then sat back in her chair. Her long braids fell into her eyes, and she crossed her arms under her breasts. She herself looked tired. I didn’t know her well, outside of our initial meeting in the forest during my holiday with Braden and Layla, but we had kept up a light correspondence since then.

  “So, what is your interest in the ciphers? How did you find out about them?” I asked. I wanted to help, but I wanted to know what I was getting into, too. I had to know I could trust the Wild Reds.

  “Through my own research,” Ashla responded, “I’d heard stories from my grandmother when I was young about a power that could stop the monsters from coming, but all she knew about it were the poems that had been passed down through my family.”

  My eyes widened. “How did she know them?”

  Ashla laughed a little. “She claimed to have heard them from a bard when she herself was decades younger, but she could never recall any of the details about that encounter outside of the man playing a bright red sitar with eyes.”

  I laughed as well as the words left her mouth. “Really?”

  Ashla nodded, and eventually, her face lightened with a soft smile as she giggled. “Gram was an odd one, that’s for sure, but she isn’t here to tell me her stories anymore. I have to rely on my memory of her.”

  I frowned having heard the news about her grandmother just then, but Ashla waved it off.

  “Don’t be sad about it,” she insisted. “She was extremely ill for a long time. I’m glad she isn’t around to suffer anymore.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t quite relate. I didn’t know my grandparents, and I couldn’t remember my parents, but I knew if Maelor was ill, I wouldn’t want him to suffer either.

  “Anyway, they stuck with me through the years, and I came across them in an old book I’d found in the library at the Academy,” Ashla explained. “I wasn’t supposed to be in the section I was in, but the binding caught my eye. It was made of weathered brown leather, and the pages were trimmed in metallic copper.”

  I thought back to the books I’d seen in the Academy, not that I had any sort of extensive inventory on what was there. In fact, a lot of the books closely fit the description Ashla provided.

  “What was so special about it?” I prodded.

  “I couldn’t tell you.” Ashla shrugged as she laughed dryly. “I was just drawn to it. The Headmaster caught me, and when he asked me what I’d read, I showed him the book. He took it off the shelves and out of circulation immediately after that. My last year at the Academy, I finally convinced him to let me jot down copies of the poems and take notes. Five years, and I never stopped thinking about them.

  “That’s pretty impressive.” I smiled. “It shows how dedicated you are to what you believe in.”

  “That’s what I’d like to think, too,” Ashla sighed, “but I can’t keep dragging these boys around like pups. Most of them have families to feed and homes to go back to. If we don’t find a lead soon, I have no reason to keep them here.”

  “But isn’t your job as freelancers to travel?” I sat back in my seat again. “I mean, that’s kind of the point of being a free agent. You’re like a traveling monster protection squad.”

  “Yes and no.” Ashla cocked her head to the side as she contemplated how to answer my inquiry. “It’s more like the military deploys us. We go where they tell us. We’ve been off the deployment list since you closed the rift in Bathi Highlands because I caught a bug up my ass about these ciphers.”

  “That’s why you’re earning your keep by patrolling and cleaning up around Wildren,” I realized. “You’re not making any money.”

  “Bingo,” Ashla sniffed.

  I slumped forward again and folded my arms over the table. “That’s rough. I can see why they’re so eager to find a solution.”

  “You can see why they want you to share your information,” Ashla corrected. “They want to know if staying here is worth it, or if we should put ourselves back on the recruitment list.”

  I ran my hands over my face. I wanted to know what Ashla knew. I had a hunch it would be imperative for us to exchange notes, so to speak, but I wasn’t going to do so without a fair trade. That wasn’t right. However, my information wasn’t something I could give away so freely. It wasn’t mine to necessarily give away at all. This was something I’d have to consult Gawain about.

  With a deep sigh, I looked Ashla in the eyes. In them, I saw pain, conflict, but more importantly, I saw her desire to want to help others. In the end, that was our duty as mages. We were granted the gift of magic to do something with it, and who was I to fault her for wanting to put that gift to a good purpose?

  “Let me talk to Gawain,” I said quietly. “I can’t promise we’ll be able to help you, but if he and I agree to help … ”

  “I’d be happy to share what I know,” Ashla smiled tiredly. “For now, you should get some rest.”

  I chuckled as I kept staring into her beautiful eyes. “You can’t tell me what to do. I’m not one of your boys.”

  Ashla leaned close then. The tips of our noses brushed, and a smile crept onto my lips as she brushed hers against mine.

  “You could be,” she whispered, and I properly flushed at the insinuation, “but first, you should work on getting better.”

  I nodded and then moved to kiss her again. This time it was deeper, longer, and I relished in how she tasted of something wild and exotic, foreign to my tongue. I wanted more of it, but she pulled away from me, winked, and then gave me a nod before she walked toward her room.

  I turned in my seat and watched her long legs
and ass sway up the inn stairs. I knew that kiss was all I would get for now, but I was a patient man, and I could wait for a longer taste of the beautiful ice mage.

  Chapter 9

  “Absolutely.”

  I sat crossed legged on my bed and faced Gawain, who had a deadly serious look in his eyes after I asked him about exchanging information on the ciphers and their locations with the Wild Reds. He sat on his own bed, arms folded over his chest, and leaned against the paneled wall.

  “Really?” I asked, dumbfounded. “Just like that?”

  “Of course.” Gawain quirked an eyebrow at me. “Anything that will give us an upper hand in this is welcome.”

  I considered him a moment before I responded. “Yeah, I’d agree normally, but we should exercise a bit of caution, too.”

  The blond shrugged. “If you think so, then why did you ask me?”

  I opened my mouth to retort but faltered. Then I hunched forward and sat my elbows down on my knees.

  “So, no objections?” I clarified. “Once we do this, Ashla and her team are privy to everything we have. It’s only fair.”

  “Let’s be real here, Gryff,” Gawain started with a sigh. “We don’t have much to go on ourselves. We have a vague idea of where Sleet wants us to go and even less of a clue what any of those poems might be alluding to. At this point, we’re at the mercy of outside information.”

  “I suppose so,” I reasoned, “but what about Elder Sterling?”

  “What about him?” Gawain rolled his eyes. “You sound like you’re looking for reasons not to give those freelancers any information.”

  “That’s not it,” I argued. “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page so you can’t throw this back in my face later on.”

  We sat in silence for a moment while Gawain mulled over his thoughts. Finally, he sat up again and mimicked my sitting position.

  “We’re on the same page,” he affirmed. “We’ll give them what we know which isn’t much. In exchange, they’ll give us what they know. Who knows? They might not have much more than we do.”

  I nodded. That much was true. We had no real idea what kind of information Ashla had, though there were a significant amount of cliff notes on the margins of her findings.