Eric Guindon Writes

Alright. Today you get a rough draft late novel Velkin section. Its a lead into the concluding parts of the book.

The next morning Velkin felt apprehension at the thought that this day might actually be the day he managed to find the girl and the bow she wielded. He realized he had spent remarkably little time on what he would tell his quarry when he did manage to reach her. She definitely seemed skittish, perhaps even unstable, and she carried a deadly divine weapon that she could easily use to kill him should she not like how he approached her, assuming she did not simply assume he was a danger to her at first sight and killed him without his having had a chance to utter any convincing arguments for her to do otherwise. He mulled this over as he forced down some of Missus Frank’s gruel, which today seemed rather thicker than usual. His conclusion did not please him any more than did the gruel. He simply could not predict how the girl would react to his approach and so he would have to try to adapt to her behaviour and reactions as best he could. Improvisation was one of his strong suits, yet he did not feel comfortable with his skill at it being what stood between him and a bolt of lightning to his heart.
“Nothing to be done for it,” he told himself and set off from the flop house briskly, deciding to just do rather than overthink until his nerve gave out.
As before, he had no trouble perceiving the chain connecting him to the one he sought once he took the lightest dose of thaum possible. In preparation for the unforeseen, he had also prepared a bigger dose of it that he had wrapped in wax from his candle, sealing it up in a little ball no larger than a pea that he then popped in his mouth, ready to crush it at a moment’s notice to release the thaum and its power.
Pursuing the girl was no easier than the last times he had tried it, the link between them being a straight line cutting across buildings caused him trouble, slowing him down. Despite this, by the ringing of the bells marking the end of morning and the beginning of afternoon, he had found the place he guessed she hid within while she slept. The chain from his chest vanished into the attic space of a small house much like the others nearby. It seemed like it might be unoccupied, which might well have been why the girl had chosen it as a place to hide within. Now he wondered if he should simply barge in or wait until she emerged.
He feared that intruding into her hiding place would make her defensive, and probably unfriendly. If he approached her out in the open, he judged that she may well be less startled and less likely to lash out at him before he had a chance to speak with her. Velkin took an hour to get to know the area where the girl had decided to make her roost. It seemed a normal enough neighbourhood, perhaps even better off than most in Mountainside, with houses that looked better built and maintained, even seeming structurally sound. There was a small tavern and inn combination a corner away which operated under a blue sign depicting what looked to Velkin like a black snake with strange lines besides to which he repaired to wait until the link between him and the girl showed signs of stirring. Velkin was sure he would see the links move if the girl moved more than a few metres from where she currently lay. It made sense to him that she would sleep during the daylight hours, since it was not safe for her to be seen. For the girl with the antler bow, nighttime was freedom as she roamed the rooftops in search of her own prey, and Velkin felt she would react best if he came to her where and when she would be most comfortable.
The tavern with the snake sign did not do much business in the middle of the day, but it was open and the barkeep was friendly when Velkin entered, greeting him from across the taproom where he swept the floor of last night’s detritus. The short, plump man with a face that seemed used to smiling—which it did just then—left off the chore to welcome and serve his customer, moving behind the bar as Velkin bellied up to it.
“Top of the day to you, Stranger, what can I get you? We’ve a few rooms to let still, or is it a drink or sandwich you crave?” He asked.
Velkin sat on a stool and found that his stomach rather thought a sandwich would be delightful. He asked for one from the man across the bar along with something to slake his thirst. “Surprise me,” he told the barkeep.
The man nodded then disappeared through a door to a kitchen Velkin briefly glimpsed. A few minutes later he returned with a plate bearing what was evidently a newly made sandwich. The bread was fresh, the meat chicken, and the spread and butter generous. Velkin tried not to drool as he took in its wonderful aroma.
“I have lived on gruel for too long,” he told himself.
As he took his first bite and lost himself to the textures and flavours regaling his tastebuds, the barkeep poured out a tall mug of something with a sharp fruity smell for him. A few bites later Velkin managed to tear himself away from the sandwich enough to try the beverage which turned out to be a slightly alcoholic apple cider whose tart taste he found rather refreshing. He failed to keep a belch from escaping him as he put the mug back down and reddened with embarrassment. The barkeep smiled ever wider at this.
“Compliment accepted,” he said with a mock bow.
Velkin laughed and surprised himself to find that he liked this man and his manner more than he had expected. Perhaps he had been lonely these last days. This made him miss Lem and he shied away from the thought, instead engaging the man in easy chatter. Within the hour he learned the man was the owner of the establishment, a widower with two children, now late teens, who helped run the place with him. His name was Pressen and he was easy to converse with, keeping the conversation going with ease as he willingly shared his story with any who wanted to hear it. He was seemingly just as willing to listen but wise enough to read his conversation partner to know when a man preferred to follow rather than lead their talk.
By the time Velkin started his second mug of cider, he asked the question he’d had on his mind since he’d seen the sign outside Pressen’s establishment. “What is this place called, anyway? The sign is rather puzzling. Is this the Black Snake or some such?” It did not seem to him the sort of place to bear such a name.
Pressen frowned with confusion for a moment. “Why would you think that? Oh—“ then he laughed. When he recovered, he said, “I see what you mean. I’m not used to new customers trying to decipher it. Most of my customers are regulars and I guess the new ones don’t ask or come here with one of the old guard. It’s a wagging tail, like a dog’s. The name’s ‘The Wagging Dog’, but most just call us ‘Wags’. We used to have a dog, but poor Marlon passed last year and we haven’t had the heart to get a new dog.” That last sobered the man and he gave Velkin a sad smile. “Maybe in the new year if we all feel up to it.”
“I am sorry to hear about poor Marlon.” Velkin rather liked dogs and felt genuinely regretful to have missed the inn’s mutt.
“Anyway, that’s the story of the sign, my friend. Want another drink?”
Velkin did, and then another as he whiled the afternoon away with pleasant conversation in the charming public house. All too soon, Velkin knew, he would have to face the girl with the bow and he had no idea how that confrontation would turn out. He feared it possible this might be his last afternoon alive, what with the girl’s penchant for incinerating hearts with her lightning.
After three of the drinks, Velkin grew lax about monitoring the tether to the girl and failed to notice movement from it when it first happened. By the time he noticed its oscillations, he was unsure how long it had been since he had last checked it. “Excuse me,” he apologized to Pressen as he left a few coins on the bar and hurried from the man’s delightful tavern and onto the street, his thoughts racing.
How could he have let himself get so lax in his vigilance? He railed against himself as he scanned where the chain linking him to the girl led. It seemed she had not gone so far, having only now left the attic she had occupied. From the rate at which the links of the tether grew tauter, he guessed she was heading slightly away from him. Velkin was surprised to see that it was not yet dark, merely suppertime, defying his expectations as to when the girl would leave hiding. He reasoned she might well have needed to visit a market or other business open only during daylight hours. Regardless of her reasons, she was out and about now and he had to follow her, and hopefully catch up to her. To do so, he hurried along a parallel street, hoping to predict where she was headed based on her current movements. He was caught completely off-guard and stunned when he heard someone calling to him, “Velkin! You are Velkin, correct?” It was a man, a stranger to Velkin. He looked like a hunter who had somehow gotten lost and wandered into the city and the slum by mistake. The figure was accompanied by two others, a man who looked like a local hood and another who looked like a foreigner from his dress. He had no time to ponder who these strangers might be or what their business with him might be because then all hell broke loose on the nearby rooftops.
It began with one thunderclap and then another and another, all in unnaturally quick succession.
Heartseeker! Velkin knew at once. I have to get to the rooftops!
Thoughts whirled in his mind as to what might be happening, because surely the girl had run into trouble if she was invoking lightning with her bow, especially so often in succession. Getting to the rooftops quickly was a challenge for the less-than-agile Velkin though and he tried to weigh the drawbacks and benefits of using thaum so early before even knowing what was happening. He feared losing control of his faculties in a situation that might require his wits and possibly diplomacy. When he heard Heartseeker’s lightning a fourth time he decided to damn the consequences and worried away at some of the wax in the ball of sequestered thaum in his mouth, just enough to allow a small trickle of it out at a time and sucked out a tiny amount from it, then plugged the hole up with the tip of his tongue, hoping that he might keep a reserve that way. Of course this was contingent on his remembering not to just swallow the whole thing once the euphoria hit.
Then, the euphoria hit.
It was not too overwhelming, he judged, but his judgement was compromised, though he hoped not too badly.
Now master of the world and filled with what at that moment felt like all the power of a god, a giddy Velkin levitated up into the sky to get a better view of the situation that he was about to dominate with his might. Once his eyesight cleared the rooftops and reached the site of the disturbance his assurance left him and Velkin felt confused and shaken.
Confronting the girl with the bow was a man who could not be any simple man. It was obvious from his charred clothes that he had been Heartseeker’s target at least once and probably all four times and still stood, reasonably unaffected. Who was this? What was this man?
Velkin’s high fought back with a vengeance, filling him with false assurance which he used to lash out at the man with the immense force of the magic at his command, sweeping him off that rooftop like an ant caught in a hurricane, slamming him with a wind that drove him off his feet and a hundred feet away in a blink into the wall of a neighbouring, taller, building with which he collided with a sound not unlike that of an explosion. After that devastating, surely bone-crushing, impact and then fall to the lower rooftop below that, the man stood up once more and turned a hateful gaze toward Velkin’s floating form.
Shit, he thought.