Chapter Forty-four

‘… and then you can go fillin’ ‘em small cotton pouches with the tea, puttin’ the same amount of dried civat into each of ‘em pouches. Then tie it off with a string, and you get what Kevin’s callin’ a tea bag.’ Kenta finished the explanation, repeating my words to Deni more or less accurately.

‘Hm. That certainly solves the problem of uneven distribution of the civat-shavings. Makes brewing quicker, too,’ Deni hummed thoughtfully. ‘Why has no-one thought of this before? It’s … simple.’

‘I know a place where people had been drinking tea for hundreds of years before they figured this out.’ I said, and Kenta repeated it to Deni.

Krissy and Tommy returned from the counter, bringing our orders on two trays. They sat down and distributed the loot: everyone received a cup of tea and a plate of crumbly scones that was apparently the the house special — I couldn’t taste it myself, but according to Deni they weren’t sweet, and they were a great accompaniment to tea. It seemed popular: almost every patron at every table had at least one portion of this non-sweet dessert-like thing in front of them. I didn’t understand why the elves disliked sweet things, but it was what it was. I couldn’t see anyone eating or ordering proper meals either, and I concluded that the Elvish word for this kind of establishment probably meant tea-house, rather than restaurant.

Deni was excited, already dreaming of opening a similar place. I didn’t want to stifle her enthusiasm so I didn’t say anything, but I thought it was more realistic to become a producer and distributer of Earl Grey tea-bags first, make some profit, and then — if things went well — she could think about opening a place like this. It would take time to set everything up and get things going.

Time passed quickly. They ordered more and more tea and different pastries, and I was beginning to enjoy our afternoon in town. It was a little cumbersome to talk to Deni through Kenta or Krissy, but it worked, and for the first time in who knows how long it felt like I really was a part of this small company of friends.

Unfortunately evening was coming, and the end of our outing along with it. Kenta and Deni put together the fifty-something Kyns our food and drink cost, then we took our time walking back to Deni’s place.

Krissy gave a good belly-rub to Akela and each of the pups. Misty of course didn’t let anyone touch her, but that was alright. Kenta and Tommy were staying a bit longer so I could still talk to Deni — she was going to start filling in the forms we had got from the committee clerks. Krissy said her good-byes and headed back to the barracks.

***

Fourteen seconds. That’s how long Krissy lasted against that guy, Tivarra Mor, when Hellspawn Fenar arranged their second sparring session two days later. The elf had obviously thought hard about how to fight against Krissy and how to deliver on his publicly promised two seconds. But so had Krissy.

Their third bout another two days later went pretty well for Krissy — nineteen seconds. Timo was furious, but he gave up on the idea of complaining about it: once the bout was over, he just left.

Yet another two days later, Krissy was on the ground after six seconds, her nose bleeding like a fountain, but even that wasn’t enough for Timo. The elf became completely fixated on the idea of those two seconds. I didn’t think it was ever going to happen, and it was clear even to someone like me, who had never held a sword, that his single minded determination to finish the fight with his first move was actually a detriment. Of course no-one was going to point it out to him, not even Fenar — probably some vain hope that the man would realise this on his own — and Krissy continued to take advantage of it. She lasted twenty-four seconds during their fourth bout.

I was worried about Krissy — over the past few months she had got used to pain to the point where she ignored it sometimes. I was sure it was a desirable quality for a soldier — the way she could now focus on the objectives before her, even through pain, was impressive. But I didn’t think it was healthy in the long term. As far as I could tell, she was already as skilled and dangerous as a human could get after almost half a year of training, and that was without my help. I hoped her training would be finished soon.

***

Another two days passed.

Krissy finished her morning endurance training with Toven, and the man went on his way to give a hard time to some other ranger trainees. Krissy headed to the usual clearing to wait for Fenar and Timo. She was ready for another sparring session — she had some new tricks up her sleeve, tricks that involved headbutting the annoying brat. I tried to advise against it, but Krissy was adamant that she had to do something new to throw the guy off balance.

But instead of the hellspawn and the prick, another elf came to us. I didn’t know the man’s name, but I recognised him as one of Fenar’s aides.

‘Misery, Master Fenar wants to see you in his office,’ the man said with a tone of absolute indifference, then turned around and walked away.

‘What does he want now?’ I asked, all sorts of trepidation bubbling up in me all of a sudden.

‘Only one way to find out,’ Krissy said with a sigh, and she started walking to one of the administrative buildings a couple of clearings and a lot of trees away from us.

It took a few minutes to get there. Krissy entered the building, walked up the stairs and knocked on the door of Fenar’s office.

‘Come in!’ Fenar’s voice came through, and Krissy opened the door.

She stepped into the office, then stopped and stared at the occupants of the room. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I did not like what I saw either.

The office was as spartan as always. Fenar sat behind his desk, the huge map of the Solace Islands on the wall behind him. One of his other aides sat at a smaller desk near the window. All of this was normal. What wasn’t normal was the presence of the three ranger trainees, standing at attention before Fenar’s desk: Timo the Prick, Arde, and a woman I didn’t know.

‘What are you standing there for? Shut the damn door and at least pretend you know how to present yourself!’ Fenar roared at Krissy.

‘Yes, sir,’ Krissy said, quickly shaking her momentary surprise off. She shut the door behind her and joined the trainee-line, standing at attention.

‘Right,’ Fenar said, looking at the four trainees. ‘The four of you are now Team Twenty-seven of the Third Ranger’s Training Company.’ The announcement clearly didn’t have the desired effect: Fenirig Arte narrowed his eyes at four bewildered faces before him, scowled, then said, ‘Did you not hear me, trainees?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the four of them chorused.

‘But sir …’ Timo started to say after the affirmative, glancing over to Krissy.

‘But what? You’ve been training for a year and you still don’t fucking know who I am?’ Fenirig Arte thundered at the man. ‘I happen to be the Master of the Third Rangers. Do you know what that means? It means I give orders, and you carry them out. Holy shit in a spirit-bucket, I thought this had been clear when you joined.’ Fenirig Arte looked at his aide. ‘Rican, why are we the ones getting all the idiots?’

The aide looked up from the stack of papers on his desk, shrugged, then went back to doing whatever it was he was doing, pretending nothing was happening.

‘I’m having second thoughts about putting you in charge of the team,’ Fenirig Arte said to Timo, then he turned to Krissy. ‘Misery! Any thoughts on the matter?’

‘No, sir,’ Krissy replied immediately.

‘Do you want to be team leader?’ Fenirig Arte demanded.

‘No, sir.’ Krissy said.

‘Then who should I put in charge of the worst training team in the history of the whole fucking world?’ he asked.

‘Whoever you see fit, sir,’ Krissy replied.

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Fenirig Arte’s mouth twitched — it was almost a smile, or at least I thought it was. Then the scar-faced elf turned back to Tivarra Mor.

‘Did you hear that, trainee? Those were good answers, and for all the spare grace in hell, that makes the human more qualified to be team leader than you.’

Timo opened and closed his mouth without a sound, and in the end he just gulped. I watched as a bead of sweat rolled down the prick’s face. While I did enjoy watching him panic and squirm, I wasn’t sure what Fenirig Arte was doing, but I was sure it wasn’t going to increase Krissy’s popularity. Arde and the so far unnamed woman seemed calm enough, and Krissy, who had been training directly under Fenar, was already used to the kind of tongue-lashing happening here.

Fenirig Arte picked a rolled up piece of paper from his desk, stood up and stepped to Timo.

‘Well, I guess you’ll be team leader after all,’ Fenar said to him and handed him the paper. ‘These are your first orders. I expect you and your team to carry them out to the letter. Are we clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Timo and his team replied.

‘Dismissed.’

***

Akela and the three pups were in the living room with us, getting belly-rubs from everyone. It was nice to see Thor, Loki and Freya growing up and enjoying the royal treatment as much as their father did. Akela of course privatised Krissy for himself, laying on the settee next to her, his head on her lap. Thor and Loki were with Kenta and Tommi, receiving small pieces of dried meat in return for little tricks, such as give palm or beg — the pups learned fast, and the sailors-turned-tea-merchants seemed to be pretty good wolf-trainers.

Deni sat on her armchair, Freya on her lap, almost asleep. And since it was a particularly cold evening outside, despite being early spring, even Misty was here, curled up in a corner and dozing off indoors rather than out in the garden.

Wolves were wild animals, their instincts as strong as their distrust of humans — or in this case elves — but Akela’s family had come a long way. In Akela’s case I was sure it had something to do with the connection I had with him. As far as the pups were concerned, it was probably upbringing, the good old nature versus nurture thing. And then there was Misty. My guess was that in her case it was a combination of Akela’s influence and just going with the flow. Whatever the reason, they were used to living in Toven’s garden, and I was yet to hear a complaint from them. If anything, I thought they were quite happy about getting regular meals.

Toven sat at the table, the string of a tea bag hanging out of his cup of steaming Earl Grey. He finally put Krissy’s new sword down on the table, and took a sip of his drink.

‘This is an old sword, made in Fayr-Sitan,’ he said. ‘And it’s a good one. Is this … from Fenar’s own collection?’

‘I don’t know,’ Krissy said. ‘He just said he didn’t want to give me one from the ranger’s armory, you know, since I’m not going to be a ranger. Then gave this to me.’

‘Makes sense,’ Toven mused. ‘So, when are you leaving?’

‘Tomorrow morning,’ Krissy said.

‘Did you manage to read the orders?’ Toven asked.

‘Arde helped me,’ she said, grmiacing. ‘Your runes are … difficult.’

‘Gonna be gone long, my lady? Business is pickin’ up, you know.’ Kenta asked, joining in the discussion.

‘Oh yeah, went makin’ a bunch of ‘em bags. Sold … dunno, a thousands already,’ Tommi said, almost singing in his excitement, rather than talking.

‘We made over two hundred boxes of fifty bags each,’ Deni said, then took a sip of her own tea. ‘Sold almost a hundred-and-fifty of them already. Fifteen Kyns a box. Remember the tea-house we went to? They are serving it now, and people are asking them where to buy the tea bags. I think soon we might have to hire some people to help making them.’

‘That’s … good news,’ Krissy nodded, scratching Akela’s head. ‘I wish I could help, but … you know. Orders.’

‘We’re getting off topic here,’ Toven said, then looked at Krissy. ‘So you’ve got Timo and Arde on your team. Who’s the fourth?’

‘It’s not my team. It’s Timo’s.’ Krissy said. Toven scoffed, but let Krissy continue. ‘A woman. Hisa … uh … Hiraken Sala, I think that was her name.’

Toven went quiet, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Krissy.

‘Hiraken Sala. Are you sure? He put Hiraken Sala on your team?’ Toven said, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

‘Yes, Hiraken Sala. And again, it’s Timo’s team,’ Krissy said, shrugging. ‘Why? Do you know her? Is she … uh … trouble?’

‘She’s not going to cause problems, she’s good,’ Toven said, sighing and then shrugging. ‘Don’t tell anyone I told you, but … she’s Fenar’s granddaughter.’

Silence fell on the room, even Thor and Loki stopped playing, looking around, no doubt surprised by the sudden absence of sounds.

‘Fenar … has family?’ I asked.

I didn’t know why, but I just couldn’t picture the man outside of a military setting. Or a battle. Or tormenting trainees. Family? Him? Come on.

‘Fenar … has familiy?’ Krissy repeated the question out loud, apparently just as skeptical about the concept as I was.

‘Why wouldn’t he?’ Toven said, bemused.

‘I mean … I don’t know, I’m just wondering how he might be at home, you know. I can picture everyone in his family calling him “sir” and shaking in fear.’ Krissy said, grinning.

I agreed with the notion. Toven, on the other hand, started laughing.

‘What?’ Krissy asked.

‘Well,’ Toven began to explain, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘Master Fenar’s wife actually outranks him, so I don’t think she calls him “sir”.

‘She’s a ranger?’ Krissy asked, gawking at Toven.

‘No, she’s not.’ Toven scoffed. ‘She’s a permanent member of the Solace Ruling Council. Oh, and she’s also on the Defense Committee. And she is older than Master Fenar.’

‘How old?’ Krissy and I asked at the same time.

‘Not sure … three-hundred-and-something?’ he guessed. ‘They are both First Wave Settlers.’

‘That’s … old,’ Kenta remarked.

‘Yeah. Old.’ Deni nodded, sipping her tea.

This was a new and shocking piece of information. At least to me. Fenirig Arte looked … hm … like someone in his forties. Over three hundred years old, though? Then again, they were elves, and I began to wonder why it hadn’t occurred to me before to ask how long elves lived, or how aging worked for them. And as if that hadn’t been enough, it sounded suspiciously like Fenar’s wife was some sort of politician, or high ranking government official.

‘How old are you?’ Krissy asked Toven.

‘I’m not telling you that.’ Toven shook his head.

‘He’s a hundred-and-seven,’ Deni said, looking at Krissy, grinning.

A hundred-and-seven. He looked to be in his mid twenties. So did Deni.

Toven gave his wife a murderous glare, then shrugged, and for a moment it seemed like he was going to let the matter go, but then he said,

‘She’s ninety-nine.’

‘It’s not a secret, Tovi.’ Deni shrugged.

‘No, but we’re getting off topic again. Misery!’ Toven said. ‘Did you understand the orders?’

‘Arde explained it, so yes,’ she said. ‘We’re to make our way North, to Sek Arthem, and report to Fifth Rangers for further training.’

‘It’s a long trek,’ he said, then his smile vanished and his face took on a serious expression. ‘Listen, look out for them, alright? Especially Arde. Her mother’s … Ardeela Erini’s death, was … harder on him than he shows.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I know Fenar told you not to use Kevin’s power under any circumstances, but if the situation calls for it, use it. Arde knows you’re a spiritualist, so he won’t mind. I don’t know if Fenar told Hiraken Sala about you. Maybe he did. Timo, well, he probably sees you as a human shaped hindrance, so be patient with him, and definitely don’t let Kevin pull the same shit he did with Master Fenar.’

‘What shit?’ Krissy asked.

‘You should ask Kevin,’ Toven said, his face torn between a grin and a scowl.

‘Oh, so good old Fenar told him about it, huh?’ I said.

'What is he talking about Kevin?' What have you done? Krissy asked.

‘Nothing. It’s all good. Fenar and I worked it out.’ I said, trying to make my thoughts sound like I was shrugging.

‘Alright, I don’t want to know anyway,’ Krissy said, sighing, then he turned back to Toven. ‘I think the issue will be if the team can be patient with me. I won’t be able to keep up with them, not without Kevin’s power.’

‘Don’t worry, we’re nice and agreeable people. And I told you, use power if you need to,’ Toven said.

Krissy just nodded, squinting at Toven's unusually serious expression.

‘Do you know something she should know? You’re acting all suspicious again,’ Deni asked him, scowling.

‘Uh … well… I’m not sure …’ the man fumbled for words, avoiding his wife’s gaze, trying not to look at Krissy either.

‘Out with it, Tovi!’ Deni demanded.

‘I’m not supposed to tell anyone,’ he said, but he quickly surrendered to his wife’s and Krissy’s glares. ‘Fine. So … have you seen Kitala Iwani lately?’

‘No. Who knows what’s she’s up to,’ Krissy said, shrugging. ‘What does she have to do with anything?’

‘She’s up North. Fenar sent her to Sek Arthem a week ago. To assist Fifth Rangers with something. Chances are you’ll bump into her at some point.’

‘Help them with what?’ Deni asked. ‘Don’t tell me there’s another evil spirit!’

‘No, no, it’s something else,’ Toven said, holding his hands up. ‘And that’s as much as I can tell you. Otherwise the training value of the trip will vanish.’

‘So … Fenar sent Kiwa up north, and he’s arranged for Krissy to go there, too? Why does he want two spiritualists there?’ I asked through Krissy.

‘You’ll see. Be prepared for anything,’ Toven said.

Krissy and I were in agreement: this was suspicious, but Toven refused to say anything more, and even Deni’s nagging failed this time.

‘You know, I thought Solace elves were hatin’ spiritualists,’ Kenta commented, sounding somewhat worried. ‘Now they’re wantin’ two of ‘em to do somethin’? Am I the only one findin’ it strange?’

‘Well, traditionally we do despise gods and spirits. But Fenar’s a pragmatist. And he used to be a spiritualist back in Fayr-Sitan,’ Toven said, as if that had explained everything.

It didn’t, but that was all we got out of him.

Going up North was going to be a long trek — it would take days, but it meant we’d have plenty of time to figure things out. Perhaps we could interview Fenar’s darling little granddaughter, Hisa. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but good old Master Fenar must have told her what was going on. I suspected she had been put into Krissy’s team to keep an eye on her and report to her grandfather. To be honest, I wasn’t overly worried about it — we still had to participate in the upcoming counter-evil-spirit drills, so I doubted this was a plot to harm Krissy or me in a roundabout way. Maybe it was exactly what it sounded like: Fifth Rangers needing a couple of spiritualists to deal with something.

The conversations went on for at least another hour, then fizzled out. It was getting late, and Krissy had to get some rest before the training expedition commenced tomorrow morning. She excused herself, attached her new, very real sword to her belt, and headed back to the barracks.