Chapter Seventy-six

‘… fifty or so teams are still out there patrolling the coastline, but it looks like the barbarians had left. That’s what I’ve been told.’ Toven finished his report, then stuffed another pancake into his mouth.

‘How long before the navy and the rangers are ready to pay them a visit?’ Krissy asked, eying the last pancake on the plate, but Kiwa and Deni seemed to have designs on it as well.

I concluded “Operation Impress the Elves” had been a success, and a second batch of twenty pancakes was in order, as well as more tea. So, I got to it while I listened to the conversation at the table.

‘Not sure. Two or three weeks I guess,’ Toven said, then took a sip of tea from a standard cup of the cafeteria variety, and I was becoming a little nervous, having second thoughts about my plan to return his favourite mug to him.

In retrospect, it might have been a bad idea to nick it, and perhaps it would be best to take the secret to the grave. But, Toven was a good man, and I had managed to hold on to enough decency of character to know that he didn’t deserve to be separated from his prized mug.

‘Surgeon says I’ll recover by then.’ Krissy looked at the cast on her left arm.

Deni reached out and took the last of the pancakes, smiling at Kiwa, who had been too slow to make that decision.

‘Ten minutes and there will be more,’ I told the self-appointed and crestfallen bodyguard-slash-care-worker.

Make it five. She sent a thought.

Well, I had now no doubt that pancakes would be popular in Solace.

‘Do you think I’d be able to cook?’ Tilry inquired. ‘I can use power, or Mana as you call it, to cover my hands. I can touch things. I could even lift objects.’

That was an unexpected question, not to mention more interesting to me than the speculations flying back and forth between Krissy and Toven about what an elven expedition to the orks’ homeland would entail.

‘Oh, you’re interested?’ I asked, excitement welling up inside me. But then I thought of the problem she would face if she were to cook. ‘Well, I’d be happy to show you a few tricks, but … you kind of have to stick to Kiwa. You don’t have the reach my tentacles have, so she’d have to be standing there in front of the stove.’

This probably wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but unlike her, I could venture quite far from my host. With each of my tentacles about seven and a half metres long, I could grab and use things fifteen metres away from Krissy, if I stretched myself out.

I’m willing to give it a try. Once. Kiwa stated, her disinterest evident in her thought-voice.

Still, it was nice she was willing to indulge her familiar, and I found it heartwarming that Tilry finally had something she wanted to do of her own accord. I wondered if most, if not all familiars were content to quietly accompany their hosts as invisible power-banks and never doing anything else.

‘Well, then maybe soon we can try and teach you some cooking.’ I offered.

Tilry nodded her ghostly head, a gesture only I could see, and we left it at that, details to be determined later.

The first pancake of the second batch was ready, and I held it up with my tentacles. It was perfection. Loki — who had been lying on the ground on my side of the counter with his father — looked up at the floating piece of food, his eyes glinting, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, and I didn’t have the heart to refuse him. He gobbled it up, fresh and hot, and if I was any judge, he liked it. Unlike his father, who couldn’t even be bothered to look at food if it wasn’t meat.

Then it occurred to me: with both Toven and Deni here, who was looking after Misty and the other two pups? But I knew the couple to be more responsible than to leave a wild wolf and her pups unattended. They had probably roped the neighbours, or Tommi, into feeding them while they were away. Or perhaps Misty was already teaching the kids to hunt. In the end, I decided making more pancakes was more important than to raise issues I was in no position to do anything about anyway.

I poured some batter into the pan, but then my attention snapped to the conversation at the table.

‘I hear you’re not coming back here after the expedition,’ Toven said, looking at Krissy.

‘No. We’re not.’ She confirmed. ‘Lady Wensah instructed us to go to the Fentys Alliance afterwards. She has business there that … we will have to attend to.’

‘That’s not good.’ Deni jumped in on the conversation, agitated all of a sudden. ‘Our business is just shaping up to be a very good one, and you’re leaving? Are you taking Quenta and Tommi?’

‘Uh, no, not really,’ Krissy said, looking around as if to see if anyone would come to her aid in calming Deni down. No-one did, and she said the sensible thing, ‘Only if they want to come. But I don’t think they will.’

‘Well, they can’t go.’ Deni stated with the most serious tone she could muster, but a little calmer. Then she leaned over the table, closer to Krissy, and whispered, ‘Business aside, Quenta has a lady friend. It looks serious.’

‘What?’ Krissy almost jumped up from her seat.

‘What?’ I almost dropped the frying pan.

‘Heh.’ Kiwa grinned viciously.

Now, this was news worthy of my attention — I was not above indulging in some gossip at the expense of others, even if it was Kenta.

‘Who is she? How far have they gone? Any talk of marriage?’ I demanded, and Krissy forwarded my question to the lady in the know, but her husband answered instead.

‘Ah, it’s that old hag, our neighbour’s mother,’ Toven groaned. ‘The one who’s feeding the wolves that shouldn’t be in my garden in the first pla…’

‘Well, she is old, almost four-hundred, but she is a well-respected woman from what I hear,’ Deni talked over her husband. ‘She isn’t terribly healthy, but she has another hundred years in her, I’m sure.’

Huh! A four-hundred-year-old elven woman? That meant she could probably compete against the fittest and prettiest of human women in their forties, and win. Kenta, you lucky bastard! I step out for a week or two and you end up bagging an elf just like that? Damn, it was something I couldn’t do even if I wanted to. Being a spirit was such an unfair thing. Well, I had my pancakes, and I kept on making them as I listened.

‘They met when she was visiting his son, who’s our neighbour, and Quenta was helping me make a new box for our tea at our place,’ Deni explained, and it was clear she was in her element talking about such things. ‘Haraven Niala then popped in to say hello. That’s how they met, and the rest, as they say, is history.’

‘Haraven Niala. Hm. Hani. As in … Honey? Really?’ I mused.

‘What does her son, your neighbour, think of all this?’ Krissy asked, thoroughly entertained by the look of it.

‘I don’t think he knows,’ Deni whispered conspiratorially, as if the above-mentioned son was eavesdropping from the shadows somehow. ‘He’s kind of dense.’

‘Like most men,’ Krissy commented, grinning.

‘Yeah? And what kind of experience do you have with men to make such a bold claim?’ I asked, offended on behalf of all men, spirit or material.

Before she could defend her position on this matter, Toven put his mug down and changed the topic.

‘Alright, enough of the gossip,’ he said, looking at his wife then at Krissy. ‘So, what is this business your god has in the Fentys Alliance?’

‘I’m … not sure if I can tell you, sorry,’ Krissy said, shaking her head, looking not even the least bit apologetic.

‘Fine. Gods do whatever it is they do,’ he said, shrugging, then turned to Kiwa. ‘Fayr-Sitan shares a border with the Alliance. Will you be going home?’

‘Home? I’ve got no home to go back to,’ she said, sneering.

‘Oh? How so?’ Deni inquired, intrigued by the new gossip, forgetting the old.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Kiwa said, shaking her head.

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Toven and Deni simply accepted it, nodding, and I thought it would be the end of this line of inquiry.

‘She is a wanted criminal in Fayr Sitan,’ Tilry chimed in out of the blue, sounding excited for some reason.

No, I’m not! Kiwa protested immediately, using the voice-chat, her head snapping upward where she probably imagined her invisible familiar would be, then glancing at Toven and Deni. She looked worried for a moment, then she sighed, probably remembering that Toven and Deni weren’t connected to our spirit-walkie-talkie-network.

‘But … I remember some people saying you were,’ Tilry argued.

She really was finding her voice, wasn’t she? And she was pissing off her host. This was turning into a proper gossip-night.

Now listen here you invisible menace! I’m not a criminal, and it’s my fucking choice to not go back there. Got it? Kiwa thought-screamed at the spirit, her face a mask of anger. Then she added. Forget cooking.

‘I think you need some more practice, or instruction on how to join in a conversation.’ I remarked, tapping Tilry’s back gently with a tentacle, just to show some support, risking a panicked reaction from her — I was still a Tentacle Horror after all. Instead of panicking, all four of Tilry’s spirit-shoulders sagged and she sighed in defeat.

Whatever the story was here, it was clearly a sore point for Kiwa. It made me curious, but Krissy beat me to it.

Why don’t you want to go back to you home country? She asked through my voice-chat.

It’s … political. Was all Kiwa said.

Oh, I see. I … can relate to that. Caught up in a power struggle?

Of course she could relate; the tragic story of her family’s demise was a story of politics, which essentially meant that one man, or perhaps a group, had wanted all the power, and wasn’t above silencing the opposition by any means necessary. Politics sucked. Unfortunately, Kiwa didn’t leave it at that and answered Krissy’s question.

No, it just turned out the Fayrguard doesn’t like it when you beat their members to a pulp. And they started it, not me.

How is that political? Krissy inquired, her expression changing from commiserating to annoyed.

They would have let me off had it been anyone else except those bastards. So, political. The reply came.

Which meant Kiwa’s run in with the art of power-grabs — also known as politics — was really just her assaulting what might have been police officers or something of the like. At this point I wasn’t even sure if Kiwa knew what the word “political” meant. On second thought, maybe she did. Perhaps this famed home country of the elves was a police-state? I mean, we had contemporary examples of it back on good old Earth, some of those examples too close for comfort. Even with the mild and agreeable demeanour of the majority of elves taken into account, I was sure they’d be capable of establishing near-dictatorships.

‘Are you all … doing that spirit-chat-thing?’ Deni asked, looking at Kiwa and Krissy first, then at her husband.

‘We were,’ Krissy said, then she decided another change of topic was in order. ‘So, how is our tea business going?’

***

‘It is popular. I mean, we had the initial rush for the new tea, just as I thought it would happen. We sold over six hundred boxes, so that’s about thirty-thousand teabags at a minimum. We made … let’s see …’ Deni started giving her status report, only stopping to crunch some numbers before presenting the results. ‘… about 9000 Kyns. Minus buying the tea, the civat fruits, the materials for the bags and boxes, paying the people working in the warehouse, paying rent for the warehouse, setting aside some for the taxes … so we have about 3000 Kyns in profit in less than a month, and that’s not bad at all.’ Deni sounded extremely proud of herself, and rightfully so. If I remembered correctly, the monthly stipend of her husband was about a thousand Kyns or thereabouts, and he wasn’t a rookie grunt. She continued. ‘It has slowed down now, but sales are still as steady as for any tea company. And that’s why I’m here. I think we can have a similar rush for the new, Grey Tea here in Sek Artem as well. I’ve got samples to hand out, the warehouse is stocked, and I’ve already talked with someone about transport.’

‘You … have a warehouse?’ Krissy asked, picking up on the new detail.

‘We have a warehouse,’ Deni corrected her with a huge smile on her face, emphasis on the word “we”. ‘But don’t worry, it’s not terribly big or expensive. We needed a place to make and store all the boxes and teabags. We can’t do this from home now, can we?’

‘Of course not.’ Krissy agreed, looking completely lost. It was obvious she couldn’t even picture the day to day operations of business and production. ‘How many people?’ She asked.

‘Well, Quenta and Tommy of course, two others I hired, and … uh … Hani.’

‘Honey?’ Krissy asked without me having to prompt her.

‘She has been coming to the warehouse to help for the last week. I think she just wants to spend time with Quenta, and she’s not asking for pay, so it’s all good.’

‘Well, if it’s alright with you, then …’

‘Listen, Misery … or would you prefer Krissintha?’ Deni said.

‘Krissy is fine.’

‘Right. Listen, Krissy, and I guess you too, Kevin,’ she said, looking over the counter where the frying pan and other mysteriously moving objects betrayed my presence. ‘This is your business as well as mine. You had the idea, you helped work out the product, and I set it up. So if you have any objections to how I’m handling things, you should tell me before you leave Solace.’

‘Okay, I … will. But I don’t really have any,’ Krissy said with a lot less confidence I was used to hearing in her voice.

In all fairness, I didn’t really have anything to say about the matter either. Since I’d been spending all my time with Krissy, my knowledge and understanding of how Deni had been building up and running the business had some pretty large holes. But we did trust her, plus Kenta and Tommi were there, too, so I was sure we could leave everything to her.

‘Good,’ Deni said, apparently satisfied with Krissy’s answer. ‘Now, this pancake thing. I like it. It’s simple, it’s not sweet, and it would go well with tea and marmalade. So … would Kevin mind sharing the recipe for it? And perhaps some others if he has more? I think we could serve this in a tea-house if we opened one,’ she said, grinning and rubbing her hands like an over-the-top villianess from an old TV show.

And she had come prepared. The moment I agreed to share my limited knowledge about desserts and pastries, she pulled a piece of paper and something that resembled a thin, charcoal stick, and Krissy had to write down the recipes for pancakes, cupcakes, muffins, scones, and even croissants.

Deni looked it over when we were done, made a comment about reducing the sugar content to make them less sweet, then she prattled on about her big plans for expanding the business by the end of summer. Well, summer was about to begin, and seasons were a little longer here than back on Earth, so if she was really serious about this, her and her warehouse-gang were in for a busy four or five months.

It was Toven who finally stopped her starry-eyed presentation about the bright future waiting for everyone involved.

‘Alright, alright, we’ve heard enough, darling,’ he said to her as gently as he could, but he still received a deathly glare from his wife. Then he turned to Krissy and Kiwa. ‘Do you know how long will it take to conclude whatever errand your god is sending you on? Actually, are you even planning to come back?’

‘Oh, will you miss us?’ Krissy teased.

‘Of course I will miss you,’ Deni said, almost pouting.

‘I know Solace isn’t your home,’ Toven said, ignoring the teasing as well as his wife’s outburst. ‘But have you considered making it your home?’

‘I have,’ Krissy answered without hesitation.

I was a little surprised by both the question and the quick answer, and I had a suspicion as to where this sudden — or maybe not so sudden — topic was coming from.

‘And?’ Toven pressed it.

‘Did Master Fenar put you up to this? Can’t he just ask me himself?’ Krissy replied with questions of her own.

‘Well, not really,’ Toven said with a theatrical sigh. ‘You know how the old man is. And it wasn’t even him, it was the councilwoman.’

‘What? His wife?’ Krissy’s eyebrows shot up.

‘Uh-huh. I believe she’d like to … uh, how should I say it …’

‘To try to tie me down here in Solace?’ she offered.

‘I mean, “tying down” is an exaggeration, but something along those lines,’ Toven said, shrugging as if none of this was of any importance. ‘News of your exploits on that ork ship are spreading, you know. Hell, the word “ork” is spreading, thanks to you. Most people don’t know who Krissintha Arlonet Dar Ghelain is, but more and more people are hearing about Misery the Ork-Slayer, or Misery the Ruthless. Oh, and these are compliments, not insults.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Krissy nodded, clearly not convinced by that last statement. ‘So why couldn’t Councilwoman Komi come and talk to me? I thought she liked me.’

‘She’s busy,’ Toven said, and didn’t elaborate.

Yeah, I could imagine she was. So could Krissy — I assumed that’s why she just nodded without commenting.

I could imagine Krissy settling here, to be honest. We both liked Solace and the elves, there was no doubt about that, and I could absolutely see her becoming a tea-tycoon doing a little bit of supplementary rangering on the side. She wouldn’t have a problem making a living here. But unlike me, who had no plans besides figuring out how to become a grand spirit and divorce myself from Wensah, Krissy had long-term plans. Vague, hazy plans, sure, but I remembered her saying something about returning to her home country, Thyssa, to look for her brother who might still be alive, and to overthrow the government while she was at it. The last thing I wanted was to stand in the way of her plans. As much as I liked the elves, I didn’t have to be here. All I needed was to eat more, grow more and learn more. I could do that anywhere.

‘Look, most of us in Third and Fifth Rangers would be happy to have you,’ Toven said, and before Deni could start protesting, he added, ‘And of course as a founding member of this tea-business you girls are doing, I don’t think you’d ever need to worry about money.’

‘It’s tempting, and I will think it over. But for the moment we’ll need to do what Lady Wensah wants us to do,’ Krissy said, and I guessed it was the exact answer Toven had expected, as he simply nodded and left it at that.

I sensed that the evening was coming to an end — everyone seemed to have run out of things to say, gossip to share, and the last four pancakes of the second batch had no takers.

And I was in a predicament. One part of me was adamant that in the name of self-preservation I should hold onto Toven’s mug forever. It was safe in Jack’s Room, no-one would ever know it was there. Another part of me, however, insisted that I should do the right thing, for once, and return it. That mug! It had somehow, in my mind, had transformed into a sacred relic over which two factions of Kevin were waging a war.

I sighed, and I decided I had done enough horrible things for the time being, and the mug had to be returned, consequences be damned.

‘Okay, I’m doing it,’ I whispered.

Doing what exac… Krissy sent a half-formed thought my way, then her eyes snapped to the mug as it appeared on the table. A second later her attention shifted to Toven. Shit.

The elven ranger’s face went blank as soon as he noticed his mug. He stared at it for long moments. I was sure the entire spectrum of existing emotions went through his mind during that time, but his expression remained indecipherable. Where was the joy? The anger? The accusation? I would have expected more of a reaction from him.

No-one said a word, we were all just looking at him. Krissy looked worried. Deni looked worried. Kiwa looked disinterested.

Finally, Toven moved. He slowly reached out for the mug, pulled it to himself to cradle it in his hands as if it was as fragile as an egg, but looking at it as if it was made of solid gold. He kept his eyes on the thing for a few more moments, then he lifted his head and turned to look at me first — somehow he seemed to know exactly where my invisible body was —then at Krissy. I had no doubt he had finished piecing this puzzle together, and while the overall expression on his face didn’t change at all, his voice sent a chill down my tentacles as he spoke.

‘You know, I’m leading the first team against you tomorrow.’