Diavla listened to Eubexa's translation as Tom came out and climbed back up onto the wagon seat. “We can stay here. We need to drive the wagons around back.” Tom suited action to his words. A young man came out a back door of the inn and waved them over to a small barn. Varga hopped down and helped the man unhitch the oxen and lead the animals inside.

“We will have to set a watch over the wagons tonight.”

“Can we hire guards?”

“I'm not sure I could find someone trustworthy on short notice.” Tom stepped over to the barn and stuck his head inside. Diavla could hear him calling in Elvish. “Varga? You stay wagons, please? I come soon.”

“Sure thing, 'Master',” Varga answered in a mocking tone.

“Varga?”

“...Yes.”

“Thank you.”

Tom turned back to the others. “All right, let's get the things we need for the night inside. Varga will stay with the wagons. I'll go in until I'm sure you're all set with dinner and rooms, then I'll come out to watch the wagons.”

Eubexa stayed behind for the moment. The rest of them grabbed their packs and followed Tom indoors. The common room was narrow, so they had to pass close by about twenty humans, nearly all of whom turned and stared or made comments. We are going to be an unusual sight everywhere we go, Diavla mused. Tom took a long table on the right side close to the back, near the stairwell. Instead of taking their bags to the rooms, he set his pack on one seat.

“Tom? Bag in room?” she asked, keeping her Elvish simple.

“No key,” he answered. “Um, what's the word...Wood stop door.” He gestured and Diavla realized that the rooms had doors that barred but didn't lock. Well, that's annoying. After a moment, she shrugged and nodded. Then she looked around.

Due to the shape of the room, not many of the humans were nearby. The closest one was a young man who seemed to be setting up to play a stringed musical instrument. He looked at Diavla, then called out a question to Tom—apparently, he was asking for permission to speak to her, which Tom gave readily.

“I'll be right back,” Tom told her.

“You come soon?” Diavla asked in his language, to confirm.

“Yes. Yes.” Those were actually two different words, but so far as Diavla knew, they both just meant 'yes'. Tom headed outside. At once the musician cleared his throat for attention, and she turned to look at him.

“Hello. I'm Wade Singer. What's your name?”

“Hello, Wade Singer. My name is Diavla Urula. My Master is Tom Walker. I do not speak much Western yet.”

“(Something something) Tom Walker (something something)?”

“I am sorry. I do not understand that. Please say very small.”

“When... you... (something)... Tom?”

Diavla suppressed a grimace. It was much harder to understand humans other than Tom. She took a guess. “Small time, we and Tom...” She groped for the word, and finally recalled it. “Together.”

Wade Singer nodded. “Did...you...come...from...Rivermarch?”

“Yes.”

“I...am...going...to...Rivermarch.”

Diavla nodded politely. “Sally's Sweets is very good.” That got a smile from the man.

“Good to know. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“Do...you...(something)?” At Diavla's blank look, Wade sang a few notes, in some sort of scale that sounded a bit odd to her. The word she had missed was 'sing'.

“Saa. Yes. I sing small.”

“Tonight... I... sing. Maybe (something) you sing, too.”

Diavla gave him a polite smile. “Maybe.”

Just then the front door opened and Tom entered, carrying Eubexa. “Do you want (something) eating with us?” he was asking her.

“No, Master.”

“All right.”

Several humans called out questions to Tom, at the odd sight of him carrying a woman completely bundled up. One loud man asked,“Is (something something) elf?”

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“Yes. She is sick,” Tom answered without stopping. “Diavla? Help, please?” He quickly disappeared up the stairs, and Diavla hurried to follow, leaving Kervan and Orvan at the table to face all the humans.

There was a long corridor running forwards from the top of the stairs, and Tom walked all the way to the end before entering the last room on the right. Diavla followed. The room was about twice the size of the ones in Vinder Hall's building, and a lantern was already lit in the hall.

“We only have three rooms,” Tom explained through Eubexa. “I figure Varga and Eubexa can share this room, you and I take the one next door, and Kervan and Orvan share the third.”

Diavla smiled and her heart beat a little faster as Tom made their sleeping arrangement official.

“Diavla, can you stay with Eubexa for the moment? We can't lock the doors.”

“Of course.” They were operating under the principle of “no one goes anywhere alone” as far as possible, trying to avoid incidents. They had already suffered one attack while still in the city.

“Master, (something something something) we all eat (something.)”

“I will ask the (something,)” Tom answered after a moment. “Thank you, Diavla.” He turned and headed quickly back the way they had come.

“What was that last?”

“I suggested that we might all want to eat up here in the rooms, and Master said he would ask the innkeeper,” Eubexa explained.

“It almost feels as if camping would be simpler,” Diavla observed.

“It would, but I am grateful for every night in a bed I can get.”

“How are you holding up? Do you want Tom to cut your pain in half again?” Hidden under her veil, Eubexa was wearing a very expensive magical slave collar in the form of a necklace. Among other features, the collar could give pain—or suppress it. At Eubexa's request, Tom had set the collar so that Eubexa would feel only one fourth as much pain from her illness as she normally would. Diavla was asking whether one eighth would be better, given how Eubexa was suffering.

“It's very tempting, but no. I don't want to be too dependent on this thing.”

“Do you feel any improvement after all the Healing?”

“Definitely. But if we're going to be gaining a Healer of our own soon, I'd really rather Master not spend any more gold on my health. Unless our Healer is willing to be public and set up shop, we don't have any way of getting that money back.”

“Now that you're in somewhat better shape, I'm inclined to agree. When we first found you a few days ago, though, it looked as if a stiff breeze might carry your soul off.”

“I will do my best to last until Master gets his money's worth out of me.”

Diavla narrowed her eyes at the veiled elf. “Sometimes, I can't tell whether you actually think so little of yourself, or whether you are just pretending.”

“I have trouble with that myself, some days.”

Diavla snorted. “I know lying was a survival method in your old situation, and I don't expect you to be a sunny optimist, but you should know that there's at least a slight chance that we manage to cure you.”

Eubexa scoffed. “That's impossible. The red pains is too advanced. If you'd found me two or three years ago, maybe, but...”

Diavla thought about it, then shrugged, unconvinced. “We'll see.”

There was a long pause. Diavla could get no indication of what the sickly elf was thinking or feeling. Finally, Eubexa spoke, her voice soft.

“Is your Healer that good?”

Diavla frowned, trying not to stir too much hope at once. “I can't promise anything, of course, but—much as it annoys me to admit it—Sheema is an exceptionally good Healer. Probably the best I've ever met.” She sighed. “So...hang in there. At the very least, we'll likely add more months or even a year or two to your lifespan, and with that necklace on, you might even find that time worth living.”

A few moments later, they heard several sets of footsteps on the stairs. The men showed up, carrying the packs, and stashed them in their rooms.

“I paid a little extra, and we'll all get served food and drink up here,” Tom explained. “As soon as I eat, I'll go out to watch the wagons and send Varga in.”

“Would you like me to take the second watch?” Orvan offered.

“Yes, thank you, Orvan,” Tom answered in Elvish.

“I'll take third,” Kervan volunteered.

“Thank you. I'll go check on Varga while we wait for the food.” Tom leaned on Eubexa again. Diavla could understand the decision—it was so much easier to use the translator than to speak the foreign language oneself. Tom smiled at Diavla and laid a hand on her shoulder in passing before heading downstairs.

There was a short pause. Diavla asked, “did you order drinks?”

“Ale for the men and wine for the women. If you want something else let us know, but it's what you've been ordering,” Kervan answered. “Eubexa, are you sticking with water again or do you want something else?”

“I'll stick to water. Drink makes some merry, but not me.”

If drink saddens her, I can see why she would avoid it, Diavla mused. She really cannot afford to feel any lower than she already does. Plus, when wits are all you have, dulling them must seem very foolish. That's probably part of why she was so resistant to taking her medicine before we got her the necklace.

“The rooms are nice,” Kervan observed idly. “Much better than our quarters in Rivermarch. I wonder what the amenities will be like in Oak Mill.”

“I suppose it depends on how long we stay there, and how much hostility there is toward elves,” Diavla answered. “We might end up in a cheap place again. Or, if there are few options, we might be lucky enough to be forced into a nice inn, like here. Also, I expect it will depend on how well Tom does selling the salt. In the worst case, we can camp. It will be a lot nicer with our new gear, and—”

Everyone heard the loud crack of someone getting slapped.

Shouting started downstairs. Amid the human babble, Diavla could hear Varga yelling, “Hands off, Grabby!” Kervan started running for the stairs. A few moments later, Varga shouted, “Tom Walker is going to kill you!” Diavla looked at Orvan and Eubexa.

“I'll watch her—go,” Orvan said simply. Diavla went.

“I should get down there to translate,” she heard Eubexa protesting behind her.

It was too hard to understand the humans, with so many talking at once. She caught the word guard in there, and felt a chill of apprehension. She leaped down the stairs four at a time and stopped a few steps above the floor so that she could see over people.

Kervan wasn't visible, but she heard him calling for Tom somewhere outside. Three men were standing around Varga. One had Varga by her throat, and her hair. The innkeeper was yelling something at the men, probably telling him to stop. Varga looked furious and wanting to attack, but also stunned.

Diavla eyed the humans in the room. There were about twenty. Most were watching Varga and the man, many with angry expressions. She couldn't tell who they were mad at, though. Wade Singer was moving towards the fight. The innkeeper was still yelling. Varga's attacker was yelling something back.

There was a muffled slam behind Diavla. She leaned over the railing and looked back just in time to see Tom burst into the room from the kitchen. He took one look, stopped and yelled something in a commanding voice full of menace and rage.

Diavla's heart was pounding, wondering what would happen next.