The Tipsy Tofu Inn is nested in the very gorge that hides the road to Bonta, shielding it from the wind that whistles among the rocks. Not many travellers visit it, even though it's the last human abode they pass by on the way from baker villages to the nearby zaap. But then, most of those who want to get to Bonta go by sea.
Maybe it's because of the mountains that tower over the inn and the zaap, gray and crackled, as if Orgest himself threw them down here in a fit of rage. The few gnarly pine trees cling to the rock faces, and the narrow, windy paths lead more often into chasms than to the other side of the mountains.
Elgin tapped his pencil on the map. If he could get any information less than twenty years old... Blindly, he reached for his tea mug, but hit one of the scrolls instead, which rolled down to the floor.
"I hear you're looking for a team" the scroll landed on the paper-strewn table. Eniripsa propped himself on his elbows, craning his head to look at the newcomer. A sacrier. The dull amber shine of the lamp made his tattoos resemble streaks of shadow. One ear torn a little, a long whitish scar across chest. Smiling like someone, who knows exactly what he wants in life and gets just that, the sacrier pulled a chair up, turned it backrest towards the table and sat down, looking curiously at the eniripsa. Elgin gave him a friendly nod. He should do.
"What's the job?"
The eniripsa reached under the table. Then, with his foot, he pulled the haversack closer before fishing another parchment out and spreading it on the maps. The sacrier tipped his head and squinted in an obvious effort to make something out of the unfamiliar letters.
"This is dragon script" Elgin said quietly, trying to coax the other's curiosity into working, because everybody who ever studied would have known the dragon runes had been deciphered before the Flood. "From Silar's manuscript."
The sacrier leaned on the table, looking him in the eye. His ear tips were trembling, or was it just the light?
"Silar" Elgin went on "is out main source on the Dragon Brethren, the Elder Folk who inhabited this world before it was discovered by gods themselves. Along with his brother he tried to learn their wisdom-"
"Silar? And his brother - Karibd?"
"That's the two."
"Those madmen who dragged shushu into our world?"
"They also gave us the zaap network and several other useful things" Elgin snarked. He began to roll the parchment up slowly and carefully.
"True, Karibd and Silar did end up in Shukrute, but what they were looking for was allies in their revenge, first and foremost. Blinded with this purpose, they forgot what was really important. Consider zaaps" the eniripsa leaned over the table. "The Elder Folk must have understood the nature of space in ways we can't even dream of! They could use the geometry of the universe itself! How much knowle-"
With a screech, the sacrier moved his chair back.
"The brothers read about them in a book" said Elgin, straightening up. " A really old book that I have reasons to assume came to be kept here, after some adventures."
He pulled a drawing from his mound of papers, a cross-section of a gloomy looking castle, and pushed it towards the sacrier, who only deigned to one glance. He took a much longer time staring into Elgin's face.
"Katrepat. It's the Katrepat castle. You want to rob the Katrepat castle."
"Just a quick trip to the library.
The sacrier giggle. "The library in a castle that nobody got out of for twelve years?"
"Which is why I need an expert treasure-hunter" the eniripsa smiled his most disarming grin.
Grinning right back, the sacrier replied "What you need is a visit at your goddess's temple, one where they cure crazy."
With that, he got up and went to the bar, nodding at the inn-keeper. Putting his chin on his folded hands, Elgin watched the ecaflip woman, some twenty kilos beyond being called a kitten, pour a mug of beer.
He sighed. Expert help was hard to find in these parts, and he was running out of money.
The inn, cosily darkish, was nearly empty. In a corner, by a small lamp, a pair of ecaflips were trying to win a cardgame against a shiny bald enutrof. Elgin didn't think he could get the old man to give up stripping them bare, and the ecaflips had said no yesterday.
He picked his mug, cold like a corpse. Ugh. He was stiff all over, himself. Standing up, he heard his wings crack. Maybe I can find someone in the baker villages, he thought, putting the mug on the counter. He yawned and stretched. Or I could go on my own, without bodyguards. The castle has probably been abandoned for some entirely mundane reason, and a little care should suffice.
He didn't feel like going to sleep yet, but he wasn't really awake, either. Some fresh air would do him good.
The air outside the inn was definitely fresh, even crisp. Elgin buttoned his jacket up, pushed his hands into his pockets and walked briskly towards the zaap. He should be able to see the shape of the castle against the sky, although it was definitely too cold to read the signpost "Katrepat" and the addition made to it by someone with an odd sense of humour ("Don't go near the castle.. aargh"). There was a nice navy blue tone to the sky.
"Ugh, you ninny!" a bush beside the zaap said. Then it rustled wildly. The eniripsa pricked his ears, being a life-long researcher of all things odd.
"You only think of yourself" the bush accused. "No, you don't think at all. Mummy does the thinking."
Another voice, higher and sort of younger, but definitely wet, stated "You stole an ogrine and ran from home, that's very self-reliant."
"I've done something."
"Something. Sure. Could it have been a less stupid something? What were you going to do next? To hurt mum worse?"
Slowly, carefully Elgin skirted the bush, which gave an indignant snort.
"Right, protect her feelings. She already has me, why would she need a kid who opens zaaps with his hands?"
The bush rustled, as if tugged suddenly, while the voice went on, squeaking mockingly "Oh dear, oh dear, what's that, if mummy sees this, she'll be unhappy!"
A white silhouette glowed ghostly in the dark. Part of it seemed covered with a black cape. It looked almost, but not quite, like a stocky child - in any case it was humanoid and had its hands on its hips.
"Wanna go back to her?" it asked with a toss of its head. "Be my guest, make yourself a zaap."
Lady, Elgin thought, if that's what I think it is, I'll write you a sonnet or better. He cleared his throat.
The ghostly pale boy jumped and landed on all fours, staring at the eniripsa from below. His eyes were huge, round and black like deep, deep wells, deeply set over a longish snout.
"I come in peace" Elgin said, raising his hands, palms towards the dragon. Dragonette. According to what he knew from the old books, it couldn't have been older than fifteen.
"Who are you?" it hissed. Behind the dragonette's back the bush rustled frantically.
"Elgin Ravenwood, an eniripsa" he said, pushing his hat back a little, so the dragon could get a clear look at his face. "And you?"
The dragon tilted his head, studying him (was dragon eyesight more sensitive than human?), but the rustling intensified, as if a storm shook the bush.
"Calm down, Yugo" the dragon said.
"I can't get out" moaned his companion. In the tangle of black leaves and branches it was hard for Elgin to tell, but he thought he saw like a hat-wearing boy.
Lady of the words, two sonnets.
The dragon, with a long-suffering sigh, nodded at Elgin, turned and got to work extricating Yugo. Eniripsa, hands shaking, dashed to help. A poem came into his head, one he read in the library of a bontarian scholar, and he recited the line about running away and soaring in the air, but the dragon just snorted. A twig snapped.
"You don't like poetry?" asked Elgin.
"That was poetry?"
"Did I pronounce it wrong? I've learned your language from books, if you could-"
"My language?"
The dragon narrowed his eyes. Elgin hastily explained "Only the written form, obviously-"
"Dragons have their own language?"
"Well, not all of them, but the eliatrope dra-" The black wells were staring at him intently.
"You're not... an eliatrope dragon?"
The dragon shrugged. "No idea, really. Up, Yugo" he caught the boy's hand and dragged him out of the bush. Yugo cried out.
"You were talking about portals" Elgin said.
"Zaaps?"
He nodded. The other boy swallowed loudly.
"He doesn't like them" the dragon explained, a shade ironically, but Yugo sneezed, so Elgin offered "How about we talk about it over hot tea?"
Yugo had met eniripsae before. He knew for a fact that they speak softly, using long words, sit up straight, keep their hands in their laps and wear long, flowing clothes and plaited sandals.
"Exactly!" Ravenwood shouted. And he snapped his fingers in the air, over Adamai's head. Yugo gripped the edge of his chair, eyes on his brother, who didn't blow fire - he just grinned crookedly.
The eniripsa flicked his wings. He stretched himself over the table to tap a point on the map.
"Always knew dragons were smart" he said, and Yugo very much disliked the mad happy gleam in his eye as he looked up at Adamai.
An eniripsa in a leather jacket and boots, who kept his want tucked behind his hat band. Straw hat. Yugo wasn't sure why it was this detail that made him uneasy, but he did tax the hat hung on the back of Ravenwood's chair.
"So it's here, yeah?" Adamai squinted, staring at the map, and before the eniripsa had time to confirm, he said "I'm in. When do we go?"
"What?"
"Goddy-too-shoes wasn't listening" the dragon sing-songed.
"In a word, Yugo" the eniripsa cut in, sitting back, "you two want to be back home..."
"In Bonta" Yugo started, but Adamai elbowed his side, hard.
"and I'm studying the eliatropes, where they came from, where they've gone and all that" Ravenwood continued "so we have a goal in common, and this is the way to get there."
He tapped the map.
"Years ago the Katrepat castle was famous for its great library. They say" the eniripsa looked at Yugo solemnly over steepled hands "they even have an original copy of Karibd and Silar's book, with their notes."
"The inventors of zaaps?"
A light twinkled deep in the eniripsa's eye "Karibd and Silar didn't invent zaaps, Yugo. They read about the basics of how they work in a book."
"All right, but I don't know how they work" the boy's hand went to rub his neck "if you're trying to learn-"
"What I'm trying to learn about is your people."
"I'm from Bonta" the boy started, but Adamai interrupted him "People who can open zaaps in thin air, right?"
"Right. The eliatropes, Dragon Brethren, The Elder Folk."
"I don't think I'm one of them" Yugo mumbled to the paper-strewn table.
"I do" Adamai said with conviction. "You've got a dragon brother, don't ya?"
Yugo laughed awkwardly, but Adamai said "Do we have a plan?"
"Mhm..." Ravenwood dug his mound of papers for a large sheet. He spread it on the table. The drawing was a cross-section of a castle with tall spires, built on a rock that had lots of corridors in it.
"We come from underneath-"
"Why?" slipped Yugo's mouth. The eniripsa turned to him and the boy looked down, gripping the edges of his chair.
"Good question. See, the surface road, through the town, is most probably blocked or unsafe, since nobody's been out of the castle for some-teen years-"
"Nobody? What's in there?"
The eniripsa shrugged, moving both his shoulders and his wings.
"Who knows. Lacking eyewitnesses, we can only guess. The locals say it's a ghoul nest, that they kidnap babies and so on, but that's a typical story, every abandoned castle accumulates these. I'd bet on a sinkhole in the most inconvenient place, because enutrofs used to live in these mountains, until they carried all the ore out. Nothing to be scared of, as long as you walk slowly and mind your step."
"Come on, Yugo, don't be a girl" said Adamai.
"But..." the eniripsa, his hands under his chin, nodded slightly to show Yugo he was going to answer the question. "But you're just going to take the book?"
"Sure, why not?"
"What if someone's living there after all? And it's their book?"
"If we meet someone who cares about having it" Ravenwood explained "I'll ask to transcribe it. But this will take time, just so you're warned."
"See, Yugo?" Adamai elbowed him in the same spot he did before. "That's no stealing. That's adventure!"