El wanted nothing better than to finish eating and be shown to his room to rest as questions did not cease coming.
“Take it easy, people, let the man rest a second!” Trim urged them as he saw El’s face darken. “Give him some food and drink, for love of life! Who knows when was the last time they ate or drank anything? And give them some space to breathe.”
As people slowly moved half a step back, Trim added, “I’m sure our friend here will explain all he can as soon as his lips and face warm up a bit.”
Trim added an innocent smile as he looked at El, and that earned him a smile back. Then, El sighed, nodded his head and started to speak slowly, and his deep voice soon filled the room completely, “You said the prophecy said that the world will end. I have no ground to debate that. But then, it has happened. And the world is still here. And the world will still be here tomorrow morning. So… Maybe the prophecy should not have been taken so literary. Maybe it meant something else, something completely different. Such is a trouble with words spoken a long time ago. They can mean so many things, yet people who originally uttered them are not here any more to explain them properly.”
People hearing his words had started to scratch their heads and bears, not knowing what to make of it all, but that was enough for Holgar to move through them and bring two cups of ale and permitted El to bring one of them next to his nose.
“Your good fortunes of course… is that we just have something that might help protect you all, from all the evil of green fires,” one of the merchants said proudly, raising himself up from the chair, with a small dark-blue flask in his hands. "This here has been tested to withstand any kind of malice that may-"
“You have your bags full of it, huh?" El interrupted him in an authoritative voice and then swiftly added before the salesman could answer his question. "You tried selling your sugar water in some other town, could not do it, so you said, what, let’s go up toward the mountain, we’ll find a fool there who would buy it? And now you’re desperate. With wind and snow, you'll have to go back. Bags full.:
The salesman shook his head in denial and opened his mouth to answer him, but El was faster again. "What was it that you were selling it in the town below, the same water? As a cure for everything? To make a man perform better in bed? Or at least longer?”
“Snake oil salesmen,” Alice uttered in disgust, words escaping her lips.
El twitched hearing them but then looked pleased and nodded his head. “Yes. Artists at stealing money from poor and gullible, praying on their fears and vulnerabilities.”
“We’re no such-”
“You said enough!” Trim interrupted him.
“That’s right, mister,” Holgar added, coming to stand beside his friend. “You said enough. Besides, you will not conduct your business in my place. If you want to sell something, do it tomorrow in front of Trader Jack’s house. I’m sure, for a small commission, he will not mind.”
The salesman was going to protest but suddenly his lips pressed against each other, started to quiver, and he tumbled down to find back his seat.
“You’re a wizard!” the growl suddenly came from the back and froze El from enjoying the brew. Everyone instantly turned to see the scared man from the corner with the dark hood still covering most of his face. He was sitting in the corner no more. Oblivious to anyone, he got up and walked to stand just behind everyone, his rope around the waste pulled back, revealing a muscular hand, full of scars, that was resting on the handle of his sword, fingers caressing its engravings.
What Trim’s words could not completely do, the dark stranger’s words did. Everyone instantly moved away from the table, taking steps back and leaving plenty of free room around.
“I’ve been accused of worse,” El said and interrupted the suddenly tense silence, calm in his voice. No malice or threat in his eye. Just a look of compassion, the kind that a worried parent may give to an ailing child. “But then, I do not know what you consider a wizard.”
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The man growled as an answer, muttered something to himself that nobody else could hear, but his hand let go of the sword’s handle as he reached to the merchants' table and picked one of the cups there that was filled recently.
Then growling some more, he turned around and walked back to his table, turning around to give El another stare before he set down and put the full cup to his lips.
“Maybe if I met the same wizards you had, I would share your opinion about them,” El said to the man, staring at him. Then, as the uncomfortable silence returned to the room, El shrugged his shoulders and said, his voice instantly returning to a more relaxed, even playful tone. “Maybe… hard to know. Now, can we have something to eat? I do not mind compensating you properly, but, it is true, we have not eaten properly for a while now.”
A silver coin the size of a large thumb was placed on the table, and everyone took a deep breath that did not instantly leave their lungs.
In the end, El and Alice got more than just potatoes. The silver coin made Holgar put some of his old sausages on the burner, a great idea since more of the fresh sausages were to be made that very night. And to further sweeten the dinner, the bread that was to be baked in the morning was put in the oven.
Holgar offered everyone one free round as long as they returned to their table and settled down. So, half an hour later, El and Alice ate in silence, with El just staring at his food plate. It was the young woman’s eyes that traveled around the place all the time, looking and studying it all, as if she was seeing the scene of an old tavern for the very first time. Trim was sure she was ready to say something, maybe ask a question of her own, but each time she seemed ready to speak, El nudged her, and she closed her mouth without uttering a sound.
“I’m sorry. I can only take half of your silver coin, stranger,” Holgar said in the end as he took out a sharp cleaver to cut the coin in half. “My rooms are all filled. And I do not charge people to sleep here next to the fireplace.”
El’s hand stopped Holgar before it could cut the silver coin. “No need to do that. And, like I said, I’m El. I guess not a stranger any longer.”
Holgar nodded his head, his lips trying to form a smile to return one from El’s face, but Trim's words swiftly turned their eyes to him. “I have my children’s room empty tonight. You can stay there. It would take half an hour to warm it up though since I have not started a fire in my home today. But… their covers are filled with goose feathers and they will keep you warm all night.”
“That sounds good,” El said and swiftly placed another coin into Trim’s hand, so swiftly nobody even saw it.
“It’s too much,” Trim muttered out, but his hand already had closed around it.
“If you think it’s too much, I’m sure there will be ways you can even it out,” El said and then added in the low voice that Trim almost did not hear, “We may need some assistance tomorrow. We are looking to get to the closest town as soon as we can.”
Trim’s head twitched as the implications of those words hit him at once, as a lot of questions had been answered right there.
But without uttering a single word, Trim just nodded his head and said, “I’ll help,” thinking that if that coin was pure silver, it could buy two sixty-pound bags of grain, enough for the whole winter for his wife and kids.
An hour later, Trim led El and Alice down the road toward his house through the snow that was still falling heavily. A big stream of water rapids was sloshing and splashing somewhere in the darkness to the left of them with small wooden homes lined up the hills to the right.
“If it continues to come down like this for the rest of the night, it will be knee-deep by tomorrow,” Trim said, not liking it one bit. Still, there was a lot to celebrate, and when they got to his small cabin, he was proud to open its door.
It was a sturdy construction, made of timber, mud, and moss, and could keep people warm and cozy inside even when the nearby river froze solid.
Inside, there was a table, a large stab of wood with smaller ones placed around to serve as seats. Two twig-weaved chairs were next to the fireplace, with the third one in the process of being made in the far left corner. It was a small but fully functional place with two rough wooden doors marking the right wall.
“I have to return and help Holgar. Will be there the rest of the night. But you make yourself at home here,” he said as he dropped the logs into the fireplace and sparked a dry moss underneath them. “Kids room is there on the right, so keep the door open and you will sleep like babies, just like they did, I promise.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll handle it,” El said as he saw Trim blowing into the smoking moss with a few flames already licking the logs above.
Trim nodded his head and headed toward the door. “You will be safe here. Hope you get a good night of rest.”
El waited for him to close the door behind, and then turned toward the fire, extended his hands, closed his eyes, and made the flames shoot up, keeping them burning hot for a few seconds, lighting every log in there before letting his hands drop down and the flames recede, not seeing how Trim pulled to the window to cast them one last glance and watched him with his eyes wide open, muttering to himself, “A wizard indeed. I’ve got a wizard in my house. What will Elma say to that?”
But then he pulled himself from peeking through and headed toward Holgar, squeezing that silver coin in his coat pocket really hard with the first true smile on his face in many days.