"Aella, are we going to take Brian with us?" asked Alfred, with a concerned look on his face."I intended to leave him in the palace, where he could be comfortable, and watched."
He nodded as she joined him. Brian was finishing the last of the summoning, as they arrived at the portal.
"Brian, the general would like to speak to you about when you contact the church, and with what message you tell them," Aella said, giving him a smile.
"Oh! Okay. Is he in the cave?" asked Brian, rubbing his hands nervously as the demons behind him killed the deer and hauled them off.
"Yes, I"ll take you to him," said Alfred, motioning for him to follow him.
Taking advantage of having a few minutes, Aella jumped back to the library. She could hear Bridgette mumbling to herself about something on the second floor.
"Bridgette?"
"One moment!" Her head popped out from behind one of the shelves, and she waved to let Aella know she saw her, before disappearing back behind the mountain of books.
The library was a mess. There were books piled up all over the place. It almost looked like Bridgette had decided to organize it. The thought of trying to do such a thing make her head hurt, so Aella focused on waiting for Bridgette to come down.
"I found some books that had some more of that writing, and I was trying to compare the letters to figure it out," explained Bridgette as she came down the stairs.
"I was wondering if you could come read some words that we found written on some walls? We think one is elven, but we couldn"t read it."
"Oh, yes! As long as we teleport, though. I don"t want to be away from my books for very long."
Aella opened her mouth to correct her, but then shut it. These books may as well be Bridgette"s. She was the only one who would be reading them like she did. Taking her hand, Aella picked her up and teleported them to the room her father had shown her.
Bridgette spied the scrawled writing immediately, and hurried over to investigate.
"This one is elven all right. It says it took the carving for safe keeping per the king"s request, until heroes showed up to retrieve it. There"s a date here, too, but it"s from almost two thousand years ago!"
"That long ago?" asked Aella, scrunching her brow in confusion.
"Unless the elves have a different way of telling time, but I"m pretty sure that"s right. This one is from the dwarves and says the same thing. This one is gnomish, and I"m not sure what that one is, but I imagine it says the same thing. I wish the language I had found were here, but I guess I"ll just have to keep working on it. Anything else?"
Bridgette turned to her with an expectant look, and Aella almost told her about the portal. With a shake of her head, she smiled.
"Nope, that was it. I"ll take you back now."
"Okay! That was fun. I like this teleporting thing."
Leaving her back in the library, perusing her books once again, Aella jumped to the main hall. It was empty, as it normally was, and began walking. It didn"t take her long to get to her destination. Looking around, she shook her head in amus.e.m.e.nt.
Aella stood in the middle of her own bedroom. She had wanted to bring the Hero of Earth to the palace, and this was where the crown thought he would be best housed. With a shrug, she turned around and waited a few minutes as Firion walked through the door.
His pause of surprise was so short, no one else would have ever noticed it, but Aella did. She gave him a smile, and asked, "Have anything to report?"
"A bit early today, aren"t you?"
"Did I interrupt your nap? You could sleep in your own room, you know."
"Do you mind if I sleep in your bed? You"re not using it."
"I am from this day forward. I"m about to have a guest I want you to keep an eye on."
"Let me guess, this guest is going to be staying in your room?"
"Why not? I"m not using it."
His eye twitched, but he nodded, and turned to the chair. "The counselors you gave me have been very entertaining. I have to be careful not to kill them, as you want information, but they are so determined to flinch into the knife, rather than away it. You would think they wanted to kill themselves."
"I don"t know why they would want to die. Have you learned anything from them?"
"The one that"s old, Gugrith, seems to like you, but doesn"t like the system. He claims his father was a former king, and that claim is what allowed him to become a counselor. Take that with what you may."
"The old one was nice to me, but that doesn"t explain why he would be involved with sending a.s.sa.s.sins after me. I imagine there are many kids who can claim lineage back to a former king. What else?"
"The female, Jugthu, likes money. She has been stealing it from whoever she could. It seems that if the money sits in one place for too long, unused, it magically disappears. She seemed to think there was magic in the kingdom that was designed to bring it to ruin. There"s a kid, somewhere, that she has, but I can"t get her to tell me where. I"ll break her soon, though."
"Magic that steals money when it isn"t used. I could see the greedy Advisors doing something like that and then leaving it in place as magic use was lost. I"ll check on it. What about the last one?"
"He"s a bit more complicated. He says his name is Zalgor, but I"m not sure about that. He"s proving to be harder to get information out of, because he doesn"t seem to feel pain. When he sees blood, he gets excited, so I have to change my normal tactics with him."
"Sounds demented," she mumbled with a shake to her head.
"Who are you bringing here?" he asked, motioning to her bed.
"A human named Brian. He"s either not right in the head, or really good at pretending, but I need him to be kept here as a kind of political prisoner. He claims to be a hero, but doesn"t have any powers. I can"t kill him, or his powers will go to his kid, a.s.suming he has one, and the church will know he"s dead."
"Sounds annoying. You giving him to me to babysit, too?"
"Oh, heavens no. I don"t need him tortured or killed."
Firion frowned. "I don"t torture and kill everyone. I"m capable of pretending civility."
With a laugh she said, "Alright. Keep him contained, fed, all that good stuff, and safe. If he gets loose, or hurt, it will be your fault. If he proves to be too much for you, then I"ll find someone else."
Firion"s eyes glinted, and she knew that he wouldn"t back down now. "Does he like to kill things?"
"I don"t think so, but you can ask him, I suppose. He"s used to killing animals to eat, so he knows how to kill."
"Then I"ll be fine," he said with a wide smile.
Feeling unsettled at his grin, she teleported back to the northern mountains. Alfred and Brian were just leaving the cave when she appeared in the tunnel. Brian gave a start, taking a half step back, before he realized it was only her.
"Making arrangements?" asked Alfred, grabbing Brian"s elbow to keep him from disappearing into the cave.
Brimsey appeared behind them, carrying the communications device under his arm.
"Your Majesty, I hope to be able to speak with you again, before you leave," he said, glancing at the two heroes briefly.
"That"s fine, General," she said, nodding for him to leave. "Brian, I"m going to take you somewhere safe. You won"t have to worry about the church, or the monsters anymore."
"Where are you taking me?" he asked, obviously not comfortable.
"I"m taking you to my home, where there"s a real bed. It"s so soft and comfortable, it will be like sleeping on a cloud."
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"Clouds are cold and wet. I don"t think I would like sleeping on a cloud," he said with a frown.
"It"s not cold or wet, Brian. I can show you?" she held out a hand for him to take it.
"Is your home a good idea?" asked Alfred as Brian hesitated.
"It"s safer than anywhere else. Besides, I have someone there I trust more than even you, who will be watching over him."
Alfred nodded thoughtfully at that, and Brian took her hand quickly.
"I get a new friend? Why didn"t you say so! Can I have a hot bath and new clothes, too?" he asked excitedly. "I heard about those when Janice was here, because she constantly complained that those would be so nice."
"Janice seems like an interesting person. I have a friend named Firion who would love to know all about Janice," Aella said, picking up Brian and quickly stepping forward into the room she had just left.
"What?!" Brian said, looking around frantically, then spying Firion, still sitting in the chair, fast asleep with his feet propped up on the desk.
"This is Firion, Brian, he"s a demon, but you don"t have to worry about him hurting you, because he promised me, he would look out for you. This will be your room, but I need you to try and stay inside of it, and not go wandering. There could be bad people who want to hurt you if they saw you. Okay?"
"Wow, this place is amazing! The walls are flat and don"t have the swirling motions father put in our walls. And this floor is just as flat as the portal is! This bed! Look at how nice the blankets are! Is this a pillow?" he asked, holding up the pillow. "Janice told me about those. She didn"t like my bed too much. I bet she would have loved this bed! It"s huge!"
Aella stood there as he prattled on, the excitement obvious in his voice and movements as he investigated every inch of the room. Interestingly, when he opened the closet, where her clothes had been stored, it opened to a room with clothes suitable for him. There must be magic involved somehow.
"I"ve got it, if you need to leave," said Firion from his chair.
Aella nodded at him, and made sure Brian knew she was leaving, before returning to see General Brimsey. She needed to get Alfred and catch back up with Josephine and Curt before the day was completely gone. It was hard to believe it was only mid-afternoon!