With the city of Tirne now well out of sight behind him, Elevar pulled on the reins with his right hand, leading Regga off the road toward a lone tree which stood guard over a vast field of grass. Its leaves, orange and gold, formed a welcoming rug at its feet. It would protect him from the sun if nothing else, and that was, in itself, very much a worthy task for such a beautiful sentinel.
Pulling his two new books out of the bag he kept tied to his saddle, he climbed off Regga's back and sat down in the shade of the tree. He started with the Olem, flipping past several pages of materials with which he was already at least vaguely familiar until, at last, he came upon one he didn't know. It was called ghost diamond, and, at the time of the Olem's writing, no one had found a good vein of it in over a thousand years. The Olem having itself been written over a thousand years ago, that made it at least two millennia since the substance had last been mined. Certainly, though, it had not been missed in civilized society, for ghost diamond, evidently, was useful only for necromancy and demon-summoning. Elevar shuddered as he read a list of the runes most commonly associated with the material—runes so evil the writer of this volume had, arguably, acted irresponsibly by merely committing them to paper.
After reading the entry on ghost diamond, Elevar went through several more pages of obscure materials of which he had never heard before. Eventually, however, deciding it was time for a change of pace, he set the Olem aside and picked up his Sanguinaria. As soon as he opened it, a small slip of parchment fell out from the middle of the book. He picked it up.
The handwriting on the note was perhaps the most graceful Elevar had ever seen. It read simply:
Marenir,
Your work thus far has been greatly pleasing to me. I would, however, like for you to take up a new task. For our purposes, many more bodies will be sorely needed. Seek out the following mercenaries and send them to me.
What followed was a list of names, all of them unfamiliar to Elevar. He stared at the note for a long while, his eyebrows furrowed. Any user of a book such as the Sanguinaria was potentially a serious threat, so a blood magician who was seeking out mercenaries could hardly be good news.
Elevar was not and did not want to be a hero. He was a student, a man of learning, and nothing more than that. Still, if nothing else, he was now curious. And, besides, he was holding in his hand a piece of information which could possibly have held dire implications for many lives (at the moment, he couldn't even begin to guess how many). There was a very strong case to be made that failure to act would have constituted a grievous ethical transgression. He may not have wanted to be a hero, but even less than that did he want to be a villain.
He stood up, climbed into Regga's saddle, and returned to Tirne.
The city gates were guarded by the same two spearmen as had been there when Elevar had visited Tirne for the first time. As he approached, the two men looked at each other and stepped toward the middle of the entrance, leveling their spears toward him. Elevar stopped Regga's slow walk just a few feet from the two spear-tips.
"Did I say something wrong the first time?" Elevar asked.
"Shortly after you left here," said the guard on the right, "we received a complaint from the local bookseller about a spellmaker getting inside his head and cheating him out of an expensive item. Tell me that was a coincidence, spellmaker."
Elevar shrugged. "I know nothing of it. Please, let me pass. I've business to attend to—nothing shady, I promise."
Both guards took a few steps closer, until their spear-tips hung in the air only inches from the runespeaker's abdomen.
"In the name of King Boril, I am placing you under arrest," said the guard on the left. "Feet on the ground. Now."
"Al-alright," Elevar stuttered, hiding a sly smile behind a frown and a pair of eyes that darted all around in what looked like panic. The act of climbing off of Regga's back afforded him the perfect opportunity to brush his hand against a pouch which hung on his left hip, in which he kept an emergency store of speakingstones inscribed with an oscura rune. He snaked a finger inside, hooked a stone, and whipped the rune out of its bag, spilling a few others out onto the ground as he did. The guards lunged at him, but he dropped to his knees and rolled underneath the horse. As the guards ran around the animal to reach him, he whispered the rune's name. He could not let the stone hear his panic, for a speakingstone responds only to a gentle voice—a lover's voice. He tossed it down, and a cloud of smoke burst outward, filling the gateway.
The two guards who had a moment ago been trying to arrest him were coughing and stumbling around in the haze. Once their shock wore off, Elevar would lose his advantage, but he didn't give them that long. He hopped back into the saddle and spurred Regga forward. By the time the guards had returned to their senses, he was already moving.
Nonetheless, he wasn't out of his mess quite yet. Several other armed men came running, drawn in by the great cloud of smoke issuing out of the gatehouse. However, Elevar was the only one on horseback, so he was able to tear past most of them without any real difficulty. When one of them stepped directly in his path, his shield raised and his spear ready to skewer Regga through the chest, Elevar reached down into his oscuris pouch. His eyes widened. It was empty. The stones must have fallen out when he rolled away from the first two guards. He pulled back on the reins, harder than he ordinarily would. Regga reared up, lashing out with his front legs. The man in front of him staggered back, and Elevar sent the horse flying forward again. Off balance now, the guard jumped out of the way rather than trying to fight.
By the time Elevar looked back around, he'd lost his pursuers.
***
Elevar hid in an alleyway near the bookstore for about an hour, watching to make sure no soldiers went to speak with Berrit. Considering that was where the city's trouble with the runespeaker had begun, it seemed logical to suppose they might want to pay the bookseller a visit in case he returned there, or at least to warn the poor man that the evil magician had returned. Strangely enough, however, no one came by, so Elevar eventually left the shadows and walked inside.
Berrit saw him immediately. The bookseller's face contorted into something Elevar had never seen before. "You."
"Me," Elevar said with a smile. "I had a question about that Sanguinaria you sold me. Do you have a minute?"
"Get out." Berrit's voice was a low growl.
"Well now, that's no way to treat a paying customer," said Elevar. "Besides, it'll only take a moment. I just want to know who sold you the book."
"OUT!"
Elevar sighed and removed two speakingstones from a pouch tied over his right thigh. His task would've been simpler if he could have used miril to force the bookseller to answer his question, but that rune was ineffective if the target was expecting it. The only way around this would have been to inscribe it on mindrock—a rare material with powerful psychomantic properties—but that was well beyond his means.
"Books," Elevar said. "What are they made of?"
Berrit's only response was to glare at him.
"Paper, yes?" Elevar said. "I hear paper burns easily. Is that true, Berrit?"
The anger left Berrit's face to be replaced by pure fear. "You wouldn't."
"Oh, but I would."
Silence. Berrit stood behind the counter, frowning, sizing up his unwanted customer. At last, his frown was replaced by a smile. "You runespeakers respect books. Anyone who would ever think of coming to visit me has to respect books, or else he wouldn't want to be here. You won't burn my books."
Rolling his eyes, Elevar pressed one of the two stones to his lips and whispered, "Ethliin." He dropped the stone, and it burst into flames as soon as it hit the floor. "That's quite a bet you're making, Berrit," he said as he stomped out his small fire. "How many books are you willing to put up as your opening wager?"
The bookseller's lips moved soundlessly until at last he managed to speak. "Sells fish in the market square. One eye. I don't know his name."
Smiling, Elevar turned to leave. "Thank you, Berrit."
Just as Elevar was starting to pull the door open, Berrit called him back. "Runespeaker?"
"Yes, Berrit?"
"Please don't come back."
A simple nod was all the answer the bookseller needed, and the runespeaker was gone.