Diavla's heart was racing and her soul was soaring. She could barely keep from skipping or dancing as they crossed the street. It was hard to remember to stay a step behind Tom. Her jaw ached a bit from smiling.

Varga looked up from the cake she was spooning into her mouth, and grinned when she saw Diavla's expression. “Good news?”

“So much gold,” Diavla loud-whispered. “So much gold! And I have permission to take it out!”

“How much?”

Diavla wasn't sure. “Tom? Number gold?”

Tom took a shaky breath. Diavla looked closely and realized that Tom was close to panic again, even though the news was good this time. His voice strained, he answered in Elvish, “hundred and three tens and seven.”

What.

Both women stared at Tom, who was starting to smile nervously.

Varga turned to Diavla and pointed at Tom. “Did he just say 137 gold?”

Diavla nodded.

“I'm getting another cheesecake.” Varga headed back inside Sally's Sweets.

Diavla burst out laughing. “Get me beet cookies!” she called after her.

We're rich, and her first thought is to get more desserts. That's…exactly Varga.

Then she turned to Tom and shook her head slowly in amazement. “How? Twenty-five and fifty is seventy-five? The last cask was supposed to be forty or so. How?” She was a little too flustered to use pidgin for him, but he got the gist.

Acting with two voices, he performed a repeat of the negotiation for her, and added up the numbers. Diavla felt the gold coin that she had claimed as a test, still clutched tightly in her hand. He was this scared, and negotiated that hard. His spine must be mithril. Diavla felt warm. He did that for us. “Tom, you are amazing.”

Her human was looking a bit less shaky, and his smile grew more natural. “I get ten and five gold. I have big money now. I am happy.”

Diavla blinked, staring at him until her soul caught up. He's still splitting it nine ways. We needed 120 gold to get all eight of us on the boat, and now we have it, thanks to the skills of an eighteen-year-old human. He's still trying to get all of us home.

Diavla cleared her throat. “T—Master, what do we do next?”

Tom seemed to consider a moment. “We go. We get Kervan and Orvan. We go to…guardhouse. We talk to guard, guard see you, guard see you and me. Guard see I am Master. I say story, four elves.”

“We sell wagon?”

Tom shook his head. “No. We want one wagon. We will go forest, get Sheema and…” he gestured vaguely.

“ ‘The others’,” Diavla finished for him.

They pried Varga out of the shop, after she invested in more sweets. The redhead beamed at their human. “Tom, I could kiss you. Spirits, I could—”

“I see the scene, Varga,” Diavla cut off her friend before she said something lewd.

Diavla finally tasted the cheesecake and immediately had a huge craving for it. “Too bad we couldn't give some of this to Sheema,” Diavla lamented. “We'll have to bring some with us when we leave town.”

“Dee, don't make yourself sick. You're eating a lot of sweets.”

Diavla looked at the dent she had already made in the cheesecake. “You're right, I should stop. But my body really seems to want it. I'll have to ease off once I get back up to my healthy weight.”

They packed up their sweet loot and headed back to their rooms. Orvan was awake and was receiving a lesson in Western from Kervan when they arrived. “Welcome back,” Kervan called.

“Everything all right here?”

“We are good,” Kervan said with an eye on Tom. “We want, go give coin, get things. We wait for you.” Tom nodded to show that he understood.

“Tom's going to show us off at the guardhouse. I think it might be an inspection to make sure he's treating us right.”

“Maybe we should be nibbling on sweets when we go in, so they can see we are eating well,” Kervan mused. “How did the selling go?”

“Tom and I both have access to a box in their bank, which currently has 137 gold coins in it.”

Kervan blinked twice. “That's impressive. I was expecting about a hundred.”

“Tom got seventy gold coins for one cask, and fifty for the rest.”

“With the twenty-five from the grain and such, that would make 145 gold.”

“Apparently, he had to pay tax, and I withdrew one gold just to check that I could.”

“You went into the bank?” Orvan asked. “I thought we were trying to stay low in the grass?”

“Only briefly. We didn't run into any nobles.”

“That's good, but word will get around about us.”

“It was going to happen anyway.”

“Fair enough.”

Inwardly, Diavla cheered that Orvan was thinking about their situation. Maybe he will be able to put aside some of his grief and work with the rest of us. Diavla hoped so.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

They visited the bathhouse again and made sure they were as presentable as possible in their new clothes, then walked to the guardhouse that Tom apparently had visited before. Diavla couldn't follow much of the conversation, but Tom explained afterward.

Tom apologized to the Captain of the Guard for leaving important details out of his earlier report. The Captain did not seem very upset and actually looked impressed with Tom's actions. Tom seemed fairly stiff, and said, “Thank you,” several times. The Captain checked that none of his men spoke Elvish, then they made do in Western.

Diavla told their story in much the same way she had to the Carvers. The Captain asked for more details. She explained that the elves hadn't seen anything for months until six bandits looked in on them, and argued about whether to abuse the women. The Captain asked Tom to wait outside, then pulled out a rough book of drawings of human faces. Taking the hint, Diavla called Kervan over to make use of his excellent memory, and together they pored over the pictures. When they found one that looked very like the bandit leader, the Captain did not look surprised.

The Captain examined them as if he were inspecting cattle, but the elves put up with it, knowing that it was important. He asked if they were getting enough food. Varga burped happily at that point, causing a bit of laughter on both sides.

“Tom Walker is very good man,” Diavla told him. “He is very good Master. We are very…happy.” The Captain's response was made entirely of words she didn't know. He brought Tom back in, and the humans spoke for another couple of minutes. Finally, they were allowed to leave.

Tom looked relieved, as if a burden had come off of his soul. Did it bother him to lie about the caravan before? She wondered. He seemed fine with lying to strangers. Maybe it's because he used to be a guard himself.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

By the time they left the guardhouse, it was getting on towards evening. Tom led them uphill without asking directions, and they soon reached a large square building fairly close to the Keep. It was all white stone and had minimal decoration on the exterior. Huge double doors were open wide, and every so often, people would walk through. They followed Tom up three marble steps and into the building.

Just inside, a hallway stretched left and right. Several doorways were spaced along the inner wall. Some had doors, while others had curtains of cloth or beads. A few were open, and led to a larger room further in. A mother and young daughter walked out of the central area and headed outside without looking their way.

Tom was looking for something, or someone. He held up a hand to signal them to wait, and walked off, first in one direction, then doubling back in the other. He peeked into the inner space, nodded, then turned and looked at them. He made an odd gesture, signaling something, then walked in. They followed him through the entryway, then hesitated nearby, while Tom walked over to a man wearing white robes and started a quiet conversation.

Diavla looked around curiously. The inner room was circular, and lined with alcoves filled with statues, art, or symbols. Several alcoves had people kneeling in front of them. She puzzled over the building's purpose for a few moments before she got it.

“I think this is where they praise their gods,” she murmured quietly.

“Ohhh,” Varga murmured.

“I think you're right,” Kervan added after a few more moments of looking around. “I don't know anything about the human god Ideas.”

“They're not like spirits, here. I think they believe an entire Idea is an aware being, a god. Or something like that.”

“What, so they think all the spirits of an Idea get on each other's shoulders under a cloak?”

Kervan snorted at Varga's joke, then coughed to cover it up.

“Don't be disrespectful,” Diavla murmured.

Varga was quiet a moment, then quietly asked, “Is Tom spirit-touched, then?”

Diavla thought back to the moment Tom was showing them the crystals. Somehow he knew not to touch them. Is that a human thing? Or is Tom special?

“I don't think so,” Kervan answered Varga's question. “Look, all sorts of people are coming and going here. They can't all be spirit-touched. Elves as a race are more spirit-touched than humans, right?”

“That's what we were taught,” Diavla murmured. “I wonder.”

She watched Tom follow the man in robes over to the other end of the chamber, where a woman in white robes was standing, watching over the room. If Diavla were going to stay here for a long while, she might have been tempted to call spirits of Curiosity to see whether they could tell her anything about this place and the robed people.

After a minute, Tom pulled out his pouch and handed some amount of silver to the woman in robes, then bowed respectfully and backed away. In a few moments, he had rejoined them.

“Soon, we go. One, I …(something something). You want, you do. You no want, wait.” The elves looked at each other for a moment. Kervan looked just as lost as she felt with the words Tom couldn't translate.

“We wait and see. No…wait and…watch,” Diavla corrected, proud of herself for recalling the word. Tom nodded.

“We go soon.” Tom turned and walked over to one alcove in particular. He dropped to one knee in front of a statue of a fierce-looking warrior woman. He bowed his head and stayed still.

Is that how humans meditate?

Diavla was just starting to wonder if it was going to take a while when Tom stirred. He approached the statue and placed a coin in a box beside it. He backed away a couple of steps, then turned and walked diagonally across to a different alcove and repeated the process. That alcove contained a strange painting that Diavla could not understand.

I should come back here when I have time, and see what I can sense.

Once Tom finished, he rejoined them. “You wait. Thank you. We go now, yes?” They nodded, and Tom led them back out of the temple and onto the street.

“Now what, Tom?” Kervan asked.

“Tomorrow morning, magic person go wagon, see wagon, say what is wagon.”

Tom muttered to himself in Western for a few moments, clearly thinking, then made a snap sound with his fingers. “Kervan, you want (something)?”

“We give coin, get…things.” Kervan made a vague gesture with his hands as if holding something small. “We ‘buy’ things. They sell things.”

Tom didn't remember the Elvish he needed, and started getting frustrated. He's been pushing his soul all day, Diavla thought. I don't want to see what Tom losing his temper looks like. She listened to the conversation and waited for an opportunity to help. However, Tom seemed to settle himself without assistance, and eventually they managed to go buy lanterns and oil, and another spare rock light, along with a few other sundries.

The worrisome thought stayed with Diavla, though. Tom is generally really nice, and kind, and patient, but if he loses his temper while we're wearing the collars it could be disastrous. I really need to remember how everything depends on him. The thought made her more hesitant about trying to flirt with Tom. She still wanted to, but Tom's reason for not kissing her did not seem quite so trifling any more. Not that it ever should have, but with Tom being so nice constantly, it was too easy to forget what could happen if that ever changed. Our lives are in his hands.

They headed back to their rooms and unloaded their purchases. Tom said that they would be going to dinner soon, and asked whether they wanted their collars off briefly before then, or if they were willing to just wear the collars until they got back. They decided that it was acceptable to keep the collars on for the moment, although Diavla hesitated a bit.

Kervan spoke with Tom about amounts he spent and received recently and did some accounting. While that was going on, Diavla sat with Varga in their room. “What else do we have to do?” Varga wondered.

Diavla considered. “Well, if the crystals are getting inspected in the morning, we might be called upon to do something with them, transport them or get rid of them, maybe. We need to find this ‘library’, whatever that is, so we can find a destination on the coast, somewhere with an elven embassy. Then we need to plan our route, provision, and go try to find the others.”

“They might not be easy to find,” Varga observed,

“I'm aware. But Arven told me that he would leave a few marks that humans shouldn't be able to interpret. If we can find a map of the forest, we will get a better idea of what they might run into there.”

“Do you suppose Tom will let us get better weapons and armor?”

“I think he considers each of us to have fifteen gold to do with as we will, but it might take all of that to get us on the boat, so we should be cautious about spending.”

“But Tom gets to throw his fifteen gold away however he wants.”

Diavla nodded. “He told me that he worked for four years to save up two gold coins. Now he has seventeen. I wonder, what will he decide to do with all that gold?”