by L. Itram and Ben Yackley Main * Story * Setting * Cast * Illustrations * About * Comment

Chapter 6: Separate Ways (Posted on 10/25/02 )

The sun was just rising over the eastern edge of Aezo, but in the northern forests the shadows still lay thick beneath the trees, half-concealing the cloaked figure who stepped cautiously through the prickly undergrowth. A traveller who chose to hike through the wilderness rather than taking the well-travelled road could certainly be suspected of having something to hide, and the fact that this one had been out and about well before dawn would only serve to confirm this suspicion. But there was nobody around to question the cloaked one's motives.

Suddenly, the figure paused, attention caught. Gloved hands carefully pushed aside the leaves of a trailing fern to reveal a leafy green tendril snaking its way along the ground in search of a sunny patch of earth. A beardvine! Found only in these humid forests, they were not so much rare as elusive; their leaves only sprouted in the early morning and wilted away after a scant few hours of photosynthesizing. But those leaves could be used to make extremely potent anti-aging potions and a complete specimen fetched a high price from any apothecary. Fingers curled slowly around the vine, then gave it a gentle tug - enough to loosen the roots without snapping the stem. A second, slightly harder tug followed.

Suddenly the undergrowth exploded.

Luen stretched and crawled out of his tub. A quick glance out the windows showed that he had overslept. Not that I'm surprised considering the wild party last night, he thought sourly to himself. Wild brawl was a more accurate description; too many strangers, too much alcohol and the inevitable would invariably happen regardless of what any long-suffering Vadhan mages who just wanted a sound night's sleep might have to say about the matter. Moving silently out of habit, he slipped on his toga and slid out of the room with the intention of getting some breakfast before his late-sleeping companions awoke. Especially since one of them was going to be feeling the after-effects of said brawl.

At the corner of the hallway he paused. I'm forgetting something... He patted his belt pouches. Change for breakfast, check. Room key, check. Capture-crystal pouch, check... Not that anyone would steal an empty pouch, he added sourly. He glanced down at himself. And I'm not so far gone I'd have forgotten to get dressed... But he felt like he was overlooking something. Did he forget to close a window?

It was probably nothing important.

But he might as well go back and make sure.

Luen eased open the door and poked his head inside. There was his tub, in the far corner where no tired companions could step in it. There was the window, closed. There was Kinto, tangled in his blanket and sleeping the sleep of the very drunk. There was... an empty mattress.

In the time Luen had known her, Viola had always been the last one to wake up.

There was something small and square on the pillow.

Luen carefully picked it up. It seemed unlikely that Viola had been transformed into a piece of parchment in the middle of the night, but he honestly couldn't understand why anyone would want to kidnap her. I just hope they don't ask too much ransom, he thought as he unfolded the letter.

Fifteen seconds later he was shaking Kinto awake, an action he would very soon find himself regretting.

"Sznkrxnnngh...lemme 'lone."

"No time for that. Viola's left us!"

"...head hurts, go tell 'er t'wait." Kinto rolled toward the wall, only to have a blue hand roll him back.

"She's gone, Kinto. Left. Deserted."

"Don' wan' anny dessert...go 'way."

Luen gave up. "She took the map. And the money."

"Ngr?"

"Yes, that's what I thought you'd say."

Viola jogged down the road, occasionally teleporting herself a few feet ahead to keep up a fast pace without actually having to run. The sun was rising over the trees, turning the very air to gold, and Viola's heart was singing like the birds. What a gorgeous morning! What a day to be on the road, alone and free of those insufferable companions. They're probably still asleep, the sloths, she thought smugly, while I am actually making progress toward our goal. They're impossible to work with, she concluded. If I find that Shard alone, I'll bring it back to Featherglass alone. Kinto and Luen can take care of themselves.

A baritone scream from the forest the interrupted her thoughts. Someone on Aezo obviously couldn't take care of himself.

Viola halted. She didn't feel comfortable simply ignoring the cry, but was just starting to enjoy her newly regained independence and the last thing she needed was more delays.

There was another scream. It sounded almost like a cry for help.

Viola continued on a few steps; this was none of her business and she had places to be. But her joyful mood had been destroyed. With a sigh, she stepped off the road and into the undergrowth. I am far too kind for my own good.

Viola pushed her way through the brush and eventually came upon a small clearing. A large green-furred creature was stalking in circles around a tree, looking hungrily upward, tail twitching, as the scream repeated itself from somewhere in the branches.

"Please, help me!"

The creature's pointed ears swiveled in Viola's direction as she approached. It looked vaguely like a fox, but its limbs were long and stiltlike, its body whip-thin, and its eyes solid green. A genuine monster, and a hungry one at that. It turned its gaze to Viola, and sprang.

Acting on instinct, Viola teleported herself a few feet to one side, dodging its attack. The monster growled, baring far-too-sharp fangs, and turned to face the woman's new position. Its motions were those of a dedicated carnivore - a series of pauses to analyze the situation punctuated by sudden quick dashes. It jumped again, and this time Viola was not so lucky; it caught one of her wrists in its mouth before she could dodge, and proceeded to sink its teeth through the leather of her glove and into her skin.

Biting back the pain, Viola tried to grapple the creature, but its own claws cut gashes in two more of her forearms. She managed, at last, to get her three free hands around the monster's jaws and wrestle herself free. Tossing the creature aside, she teleported once again, just in time to dodge its next leap.

The two of them dashed about the clearing for a few minutes, one leaping, the other teleporting backwards or sideways, neither gaining much of an advantage, until Viola's next jump took her far enough away from the creature to buy herself a little more time. I'm unarmed, but I have been practicing with Indigo... Let's see if that thing's as light as it looks. Spreading her arms, she began to softly chant the words to a wind-summoning spell - the same one she had used to prop up the tower in Tenthys, and the one Indigo spell she knew the best. As her hands began to glow with blue-purple energy, the monster leapt, its next jump bringing it just close enough to receive a point-blank hurricane blast that slammed it against a tree on the opposite side of the clearing.

The monster shook its head, twitching, and stalked back off through the forest in search of less dangerous prey. Viola looked up through the branches of the tree to see just who it was she had saved.

Meanwhile, Luen had problems of his own.

"Ugggggh. I really didn't need this," moaned Kinto.

"That's what you get for drinking too much," said Luen absently, drumming his fingers on the table as they sat in the corner of the central atrium of the inn. He looked back at the note, then resumed staring into space.

Kinto leaned his elbows on the table, gripping his head in his hands as if he could squeeze the pain out of it. "Viola din't up an' leave 'cause I got drunk. If y'can't be sympathetic, at least talk quieter."

"I wasn't shouting," responded Luen tersely.

"Y'are now!"

Luen slammed the letter down on the table and unfolded himself from the stool. "Has it even occurred to you that this might be a bigger problem than a headache?" he hissed, looming at Kinto.

"Easy fer you t'say! Yer not th'one with th'eadache," Kinto tried to glare back but it's a bit hard to look angry and imposing when every bone in one's body wants to curl up in a corner and whimper.

"The headache will go away; Viola --"

"Will also go 'way, an' good riddance!"

"Along," pointed out Luen, "with our money. And the map."

"Nngh. I really didn't need this."

"You could at least try to be helpful."

"Yer th'one who's so worried, you figure out th'solution."

"Fine." Luen spun around on his tail. "I will," he said over his shoulder as he left. It is hard to describe someone stalking and slithering at the same time, but that was exactly what he did.

Great, thought Kinto, Now it's just me and my headache. He poked grumpily at the note, still sitting on the table where Luen had left it, then picked it up and unfolded it.

He had never been a great reader and Viola's ornate penmanship did not help matters. The content was essentially what he had expected: Viola was tired of having to compromise, of being slowed down when she wanted to scout ahead, of not being taken seriously and "fed up with your condescension and humiliation, Luen, and with Kinto's emotional breakdowns. His fragile ego makes him a liability to the whole venture and I see no need to spend my time repairing it when matters of more pressing importance await. In my opinion the two of you deserve each other."

A shadow fell on the page. Kinto looked up. "That's what I get fer drinkin' too much, huh?" he quoted without sarcasm. "That explains th'long letter."

Luen sat down, setting a mug on the table. "I wasn't going to tell you that part. You had enough to deal with already."

Kinto handed the letter back. "If she hates me that much," he said, looking at his feet rather than at Luen, "mebbe it's not such a good idea goin' after her."

"Hey, she hates me and you don't see that stopping me. What'd she call me? A smart-arse?"

Kinto grinned. "That's th'least of 'em."

"By the time we catch up with her, I'm sure things will have blown over."

"I dunno. Mebbe she's better off alone. And mebbe we're better off without her. We c'n write to Featherglass fer more money. She always was annoying."

"No," said Luen firmly. "We're not. We're going after her." He slid the mug across to Kinto. "Drink this."

Kinto frowned at it. "Whassat?"

"Coffee," said Luen. "And a guaranteed hangover cure. I've got a plan."

Kinto raised his head up with one hand and poured the drink down his throat. "Sure tastes like one," he grimaced. "So what's yer plan?"

"We're going trapping."

"We're gonna trap Viola?"

"We're going to trap maginaria."

"That's it? That's your plan?"

"Ye can come down now," called Viola.

"Uh. Gimme a second here." The man awkwardly made his way down the tree and turned around to thank his rescuer. "That was lucky you came along, miss. I'm in your debt." He was a young Ertseti with a white and brown pelt, looking to be around Viola's own age, with large ears and elegant back-curving horns. He wore a green tunic and trousers, leaving his hooves unshod in the custom of his race, and was quite tall; Viola's eyes were level with the bottom of his shoulders.

"I couldnae just leave a traveler in trouble."

"Some people might have," he responded, giving her a funny look which might have just been due to her unique appearance. Viola examined his face - he couldn't have known about her indecisiveness, could he? He didn't seem to be hinting at anything, though he did look oddly familiar. After a moment, as if remembering his manners, he bowed. "Oh - Kai Holliday, at your service."

Viola returned the bow, her cloak swirling about her. "Viola Longdawning."

"You're not a mage by any chance, are you?" asked Kai despite the obvious evidence. "From Featherglass?"

"Aye, that I am. How did ye know?"

"I think I've seen you around. Not many, uh, four-armed purple Levendish, even in a magic university."

"Ye be from there as well?" asked Viola with a smile, "Meeting a classmate in the wilds o' Aezo -- what are the chances o' that?" Inwardly she wasn't so pleased. She had just left a student group and did not really want to join another one.

"Yeah, well, it's a long story. Hey, that doesn't look so good."

"What?" Viola followed his gaze. "Tis just a few scratches...I'm sure..." she trailed off, looking at her shredded gloves. They were made of thick leather, but the creature had torn through them and left several sets of bloody gashes. Viola didn't want to think what might have happened if she hadn't been wearing them.

Kai shook his head, and gestured vaguely at the ground beneath the tree. "Stay right there. I'll have you patched up in no time. Uh, Metaphorically speaking," he added before vanishing into the undergrowth. Less than a minute later he re-emerged, carrying an enormous square multi-pocketed backpack which would've been unwieldy for anyone smaller than an Ertseti. He set it down next to her and pulled out a small opaque bottle. "Just the thing," he repeated. "Take your gloves off and let me see."

"What is that?", asked Viola, removing her gloves one by one.

"Healing potion, of course. Homemade so you know it's good for you." He poured a measure of the syrupy green liquid over her arm and the wounds vanished without any fuss. "Now the other one."

"Ye brew potions?" said Viola, more to make conversation than anything else. "What are ye doin' so far from school?"

"Fieldwork. Someone completely ruined my garden so I had to switch to a new project." Viola, like almost everyone else in Featherglass, knew about the student gardens where aspiring herbalists grew and sometimes designed their own plants. "'Tis a cruel prank," she sympathized, privately suspecting that the real culprit had been someone else's "project."

Kai shrugged as he poured more potion out of the small decanter onto another hand. "It was a lucky break, really -- okay, now the other one. See, now I'm out in the wild, actually getting a first hand look at the habitats of all sorts of rare plants. Who knows what new species I might discover? ...Now the other -- wait, I did that one already."

"I only 'ave the four."

Kai counted. "Oh." He capped the bottle and put it away again as Viola flexed her fingers and put her gloves back on. "So what brings you out here?"

"Special project, just like yerself. Treasure hunting, actually."

"Oh?"

"Ye know what a Shard o' Heaven is, right?"

"You don't like the plan?" asked Luen.

"I jus' don' see how huntin' maginaria fer you is gonna help us find that Shard. Or Viola, who yer so set on catchin' up with."

"Not for me; for him." Luen thumbed over his shoulder at a small crowd of well-dressed Aezites enjoying the morning sunlight. "He's offered to sell us a dozen capture crystals cheap provided we sell back any maginaria we catch. Well, 'cheap' compared to the usual prices; it just about cleans out my savings. But it's a fool-proof plan...assuming you can handle a bit of fighting."

Kinto bounced to his feet. "Well why didn'cha say that in th'first place? Sounds like fun."

Luen glanced over at the empty coffee cup and frowned. Then shrugged; at least his friend wasn't complaining about headaches anymore.

"Ooh! Viola, c'mere, you have to see this!"

Viola slogged through the undergrowth, following the sound of Kai's voice. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, she thought to herself, misapplying the old cliche. Upon hearing that her destination was the city of Estevas at the foot of Glyphic Mountain, Kai had cheerfully offered to accompany her. He'd never been up in the mountains of Aezo, he explained, and wouldn't want to pass up the opportunity to go plant-hunting there.

And plant-hunting was what he'd spent the rest of the morning doing, sometimes dashing off the road at a glimpse of a rare tree or fern -- or even an incredibly common one which he claimed was useful for this or that potion. I could have been halfway there by now. Why did I agree to stick with this buffoon? she fumed. He does seem to know a bit about healing magic, but does he really have to take so long getting his ingredients?

"What did ye find this time?" she sighed as he came into sight.

"Look up there."

"Aye, 'tis a tree."

"No, no, growing at the top of the tree. Wingbuds."

Viola peered up at the little green ovoids. They did look rather like flower buds but it was hard to tell from this distance.

"What about them?"

"They only grow in the northern half of Aezo. They're not actually part of the tree, see, they're the buds of a parasitic flowering vine which uses the tree to get to sunlight. Kills the tree of course, but it takes a few decades," said Kai, slipping momentarily into tour-guide mode.

"Fascinating, I'm sure," said Viola, who thought no such thing. A plant was a plant, parasitic or not.

"Yeah, aren't they?" Kai seemed oblivious to her sarcasm. "They're too high to reach, though. You think... well, if you don't mind, could you teleport up there and grab a couple?"

"And stand on what while I do that?" Indeed, all but the uppermost branches had already broken off and those didn't look strong enough to support a child, let alone a full grown adult. The tree was a cylinder of bare wood with the vine coiled around it and only a small tuft of withered branches at the top. "I canna hover, ye know."

"Oh. You've got a point. Hm." Kai scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"Tell ye what I can do, though." Viola flexed her fingers and prepared her usual spell. It wasn't that she really wanted to help Kai, she told herself, but the sooner he got his precious wingbuds the sooner they could be back on the road. Besides, she couldn't resist the chance to show off.

"Step back and hold onta yer hair," she warned as her fingers were outlined by a dark blue-purple glow. Focusing upward, she sent a gust of wind racing up the tree trunk toward the little buds...

Which nodded back at her in the breeze but refused to fall.

Viola strengthened the spell, sending leaves and debris scurrying about her ankles as the air around her was sucked into the stream of wind. The upper branches lashed about but the vine refused to break. She tried to narrow the spell but the air resisted as though the maginaria responsible knew it was working with a novice. As her own reserves of mental energy were starting to deplete and the migraine of overexertion began to take over, she was faintly aware of Kai waving his arms and shouting something.

"What?" she asked finally, letting the spell dissipate.

"I said I wanted the buds! I don't want you to kill the tree!"

"Well excuse me for bein' helpful!" she sniffed.

"I'm sorry," Kai's ears drooped. "It was a good idea, though."

Viola paused mid-sniff. Luen or Kinto would've screamed back; she wasn't sure how to handle someone who actually apologized. "Ye can return with a ladder on the way back," she said reassuringly, not mentioning that she planned to be long gone by that point.

Kai shook his head. "No knowing if I'll find it again. Oh well. I was hoping to save this for an emergency." He opened up one of the pockets of his bag and took out a small jar of salve, marked with the symbol of a snake. Before she had a chance to ask, he spread some of it along his left arm.

"What --?" As Kai reached up toward the tree, the question died on Viola's lips. His arm stretched in length like taffy or -- the thought crept in unexpectedly -- a vine reaching toward the sunlight.

"This might take a little while." His hand slipped past the upper branches and carefully snapped off a few of the buds. It was a process that seemed to take an inordinate amount of concentration - having an arm forty feet long meant that any tiny movement was amplified. Trying to pick the buds from that distance was like trying to pick up a grain of sand with chopsticks.

This also meant that Kai didn't hear the rustling in the bushes when a bandit stepped through, sword drawn and murder in his eyes. He was Aezite, with pale skin and matted hair, and wore armor apparently patched together from scraps he'd scrounged up on the highway. "All right, you two - drop the money and you won't get hurt much."

Viola narrowed her eyes at the bandit. Apparently someone couldn't recognize a pair of mages when he saw one. His loss. Throwing caution to the wind, she prepared herself for the second battle of the day.

It was over quickly - the bandit was too slow to keep up with Viola's ability to leap through space and land behind him, but once she'd wrested the sword from his grasp, the two fell to grappling. Despite having the limb advantage, Viola ended up pinned beneath a mountain of muscle. "Kai!", she hissed.

Kai was not as oblivious as he seemed, but having one hand stuck forty feet up a tree made him immobile. "Uh - gimme a second." There was a faraway snapping noise, and for a few silent seconds, nothing happened.

Then the top of the tree fell on the bandit's head with a hollow clunk, followed by a shower of half a dozen flower buds.

Viola slid herself out from under the now-unconscious bandit and examined the fallen treetop - despite being thick and heavy, it had been snapped neatly off, at a point just above where the choking wingvine ended. It hadn't looked that large at first, but it had been forty feet away at the time.

Kai shrugged his right hand, and began depositing the flowers into his pack. "Sorry that took so long. Anyway, I'm ready to go..."

As am I. This is a dangerous place to be..., thought Viola to herself. We'd best move quickly.

"I thought y'said this'd be a sure-fire way to get money," Kinto grumbled, pacing in circles. "I don't see any money. Don't see any maginaria, either. Do you? Mebbe they're hiding. Hoi, maginaria! C'mon out! We're not gonna catch you!" Obviously the caffeine was still going strong and Luen had long ago begun to regret that particular idea.

"Will you quit pacing, please?"

Kinto stopped pacing and bounced in place.

Luen sighed. "Look, just...I don't know...go find us some lunch, okay? I'll see if I can make a maginaria lure."

"A wha? Why didncha do that in the first place?"

"Because I didn't want to waste time. Now go find some food."

Luen breathed a sigh of relief as Kinto vanished. He's even making me jittery now. Okay, Luen, now you have to figure out what a maginaria lure is or fake one before Kinto gets back.

Fifteen minutes later Luen was building a pyramid out of some rocks, his few remaining chroma crystals and some very sketchy memories of the summer geomancy seminar he'd taken from that weird woman with the green goggles. Suddenly a scream echoed through the trees. Guess Kinto's found lunch.

About five seconds after that, Kinto himself ran into the clearing, chased by something whip-thin, green and furry with sharp teeth and a long tail. Luen uncoiled into a standing position and grabbed his chalice. "Stun it, don't kill it!"

"Yeah, sure, easy fer you t'say!" responded Kinto, spinning around and readying his staff.

The monster had been having a bad day. First it got its tail pulled while it was snoozing beneath some bushes. Then its food ran up a tree. Then some more food conjured some wind and made it go slamming into another tree. Then, after it had stalked off and was just about to dine on some yummy rabbits, some more food came through the underbrush and frightened its meal.

Kinto sized the creature up. Carnivorous, quick, wiry - he wouldn't be able to hit it with a conventional lightning spell; it would dodge before he'd finished casting. Besides, he didn't want to risk setting the forest on fire. But maybe there was another way...

The creature leapt. Kinto blocked its jaws with his staff, but its momentum knocked him backwards onto his tail, where he balanced for a few seconds, concentrating on getting the syllables to a spell lined up, waiting for just the right moment to release it. His staff took on a coppery glow with the stored power, but the creature held tight. It was determined to wrench the staff from his grasp.

Kinto crouched down, then released the spell - a spherical shockwave that emanated from his body with an accompanying sound like a thunderclap. The beast flew backwards though the air for the second time in one day, but somersaulted and landed on its feet, snarling.

"Kinto, look!" Luen pointed at the creature, and soon Kinto saw what Luen had seen - it was glowing bright green in patches. The shockwave had done significant damage to the creature, but - "Kinto, it's regenerating! Take it out quick! Now!"

"Right!" Raising his staff to the sky, Kinto began to channel power once again. "...Thunder, be my hammer; Lightning, be my spike; Rend the ground asunder with your power - Thunderstrike!" At the end of the invocation, he slammed his staff onto the ground. A trail of bright orange magic forked its way across the surface until it reached the monster, then exploded upward in a bolt of lightning that left a few smoldering leaves, a blasted patch on the ground, and a soot-covered creature.

"Your turn, Luen," smirked Kinto.

Luen eyed the unconscious monster as he slotted a trap crystal into his chalice and pointed it at the body. "Just as I thought. That's a monster, all right - an Instilled animal." A green haze suffused the air around the beast but was quickly sucked into the chalice before the maginaria could resume its own form.

"It's pretty small, but it's something," Luen held the crystal - now green and hexagonal, with a triangular engraved pattern - up to the light to admire it before dropping it into his pouch. "Good job, Kinto. I should've known you'd make a good trapper. Hey, are you okay?"

Kinto stopped his panting long enough to grin back. "Who, me? I'm just gettin' started. Let's find another one!"

"You sure you don't want to rest first?"

Kinto shrugged. "Well, if you're tired...." he glanced down at the unconscious and slightly charred fox, all that was left of the slavering green beast from a few minutes ago, "...I c'n make us some lunch."

"That doesn't seem very fair," commented Kai, "taking his stuff like that."

"Fittin' punishment fer sneakin' up on us, I say." Viola twirled her newly acquired short sword as she continued along the road. "And now we're properly equipped to deal with any o' his friends."

"I can't imagine a guy like that making many friends," said Kai, keeping several paces away from her so as not to lose any limbs. His left arm was still twice its normal length and folded awkwardly against his chest to keep it out of the way, but he had reassured Viola that the effect was only temporary. It was, after all, an experimental potion.

"One thing I dunna understand," she continued after a few minutes of silence. "Nearly all his equipment was climbing gear."

"If we'd known that ahead of time, we could've borrowed it for the tree," commented Kai, completely ignoring the laws of cause and effect.

"Mountain climbing gear," she responded testily.

"So he was a mountaineering bandit? So what?"

"The only nearby mountain on th'map is Glyphic Mountain. Was he headin' in the same direction as us?"

"You can go back and ask if you really want." Kai made a face. "I'd rather stay well clear of that guy -- especially after we just robbed him."

"T'wasn't robbing, I told ye. T'was...redistribution o' wealth."

"Suuure it was. I just hope we don't run into his friends in Estevas."

The sun was setting over the roadside inn as the two tired trappers trudged and slithered across the road. Half a dozen trapped maginaria bounced around in Luen's belt-pouch; a meager haul to Kinto's eyes but Luen had assured him that they would provide more than enough money to continue their journey.

They made their way across the atrium into the crowded dining hall. The debris of the previous night had been cleared away. Kinto noticed a couple of his former drinking buddies eating a dinner of lentil stew and flatbread at one of the far tables; he also noticed the landlord keeping close watch.

"You wait here and keep an eye on our gear," said Luen, leading him to an empty table. "And order us some stew. I'm going to see a man about a maginaria."

A few minutes later, Luen returned, eyes gleaming. "I managed to haggle him up a bit - I think we got a pretty good deal."

"So what's the haul?"

"Twelve hundred psephids. Plus this," Luen dropped a green crystal on the table.

Kinto peered at it. "That looks familiar."

"He didn't want it because the crystal was faulty." He turned it over and showed Kinto the flattened facet on one side as though something had chipped off. "He's a merchant, not a mage. I say it's still a perfectly good maginaria; we'll find someone else to buy it if we can't use it ourselves."

"Whatever you say. So...is twelve hundred a lot?" Since most of their time on Aezo had been spent either in the wilderness or running away, Kinto had yet to figure out the local currency.

"Enough to pay for a carriage to Estevas plus food and supplies. I already picked up a few chroma crystals from him but I'll need more once we get there."

"Estevas?" Kinto frowned. "I thought we were goin' into th'mountains fer th'shard."

"It's an old silver-mining town at the foot of the mountains. We can trap more maginaria until we can write to Featherglass for next month's stipend."

"Assumin' Viola doesn't steal that, too," Kinto snorted. "I don't like th'idea of spendin' lotsa time in town, tho. They must've heard 'bout Tenthys by now."

Luen leaned back in his chair. "I don't think we have to worry. The man I talked to said it was a really lawless town. He gave the impression that it was full of all sorts of wanted criminals and that nobody cared who you were if you had money to spend."

"Great, just great. Now we're wanted criminals? 'Stead of gettin' caught by guards we'll get killed by bandits."

"Come on, Kinto. It'll be fine. Viola's bound to be there; she wouldn't give up on the Shard this soon. We'll look for her as soon as we get there. Things are finally starting to work out."

Kinto eyed Luen curiously. "Why're you so set on findin' her? There somethin' yer not tellin' me?"

Luen stared at Kinto in surprise. "What? No! Why would I hide anything from you? She's part of the team, is all."

"Suuuure she is. Sounds to me like yer fallin' fer her."

"What?!"

"C'mon, Luen. I'm not dumb. Y've been pacin' around and frettin' all day."

"She did steal our money, Kinto. And the map."

"So? We've got more money an' we know sorta where it is. An' you said yerself that she'll be in Estevas. So why're ya worried?"

"I'm not worried!"

Kinto waited.

"Okay, maybe I am worried. She's a member of the team, Kinto. Like it or not, we were sent out on this quest together and now she's off by herself. Aren't you worried?"

"So, y'mean if I'd been th'one t'run off with th'money you'd be frettin' at Viola 'bout me and ready t'do anythin' in yer power t'find me again?"

"Well... yeah. I mean, of course. You're part of the team, too."

"Sure," Kinto smirked.

"Well wouldn't you feel the same way if I was lost?"

Kinto patted Luen on the shoulder condescendingly. "Yeah. Sure. I'd be runnin' after you like nobody's business."

Things are not working out, thought Viola, staring up at the darkened ceiling. Kai was already snoring softly in the next bed; she would've preferred a room to herself but the team's money -- her money now -- had been a bit less than she'd expected and roadside inns charged outrageous prices.

Tomorrow we'll be in Estevas for sure, she reassured herself, and Luen and Kinto are probably far behind. As soon as they reached the town, she promised, she would dump Kai off with his precious mountain-herbs and find that Shard. After that, things would just have to get better.