Ye Olde Not So Lengthy Author's Note: Kudos to anyone who can spot the video-game reference n.n
Chapter Ten
Lina Inverse. The person who had single-handedly inspired Aric Winterbourne's whole career. Who had prompted him wordlessly from afar to study Black Magic. Who had, unintentionally and entirely unknowingly, given him a long-term goal in his life of wandering magic-accumulation. That goal: to become the next "Lina Inverse" of the sorcery community.
No, it wasn't that he hoped to follow in her footsteps--though his embarrassing stature seemed to want to state otherwise. There were simply too many differences for that, not least of which being gender, a respect for property-damage and a decidedly average appetite that could never hope to compete. Rather, it was the notion that a real person could become so infamous, so common a household name that even those not versed in the study of magic knew of it. Not since Lei Magnus, had there been such a person. Not until Lina Inverse--a seemingly inconsequential girl from Zeifilia, to look at (not that a wise man would say so to her face) and not too far from his own age.
If she could do it...why couldn't he, someday?
Thus, indirectly, he owed the girl a great deal. He had never expected to owe her his life, of all things.
Which was why he fell flat on his face when Ellisia spoke, his grip on her arm forgotten. "How dare you butt into our business, you uncivilized little guttersnipe?! We were here first and we could have handled it ourselves! Shouldn't you be off playing with the other children?"
Aric found himself wishing he could dig a very, very deep hole and hide there for about a millennium. He also found himself glad they had left Selaena safely back at a new hidden campsite--since the last one had surely drawn quite a bit of attention with that flare of light and all.
He could have sworn he saw a vein beginning to bulge on Lina's forehead. He was positive he could hear her teeth grinding in the silence that followed, could even hear the material of her gloves creaking softly as she curled her hands into fists. Eyes narrowed dangerously, an eyebrow twitched in signs of deadly promise. "...Ell, you're a real idiot sometimes..." Aric mumbled, swallowing hard. "We are so dead..."
"What are you talking about? That was just a lucky sh--"
"Mega Brand!!"
Aric suddenly had a very significant glimmer how Emilio felt, as the ground exploded beneath their feet, chunks of ice and frozen bandits flying like droplets of water after chucking something very large into a lake. They sailed through the air with the greatest of ease, trees whizzing beneath them, and then approaching at an alarming rate as they began to descend.
It was around this point that Aric found himself wishing that someone had invented painkilling magic. He was really, really going to need it tomo--
He awoke with a thump as he struck the ground, and blinked dazedly as he tried to make the bleary surroundings focus. The first thought was how odd it was that the surroundings were all browns and greens when he had just clearly fallen out of bed. The second thought was that it had been an awfully long drop for falling out of bed, and the third was that he ached all over.
As the blurred environs resolved themselves into trees and brush and Ell and Selaena, clarity and recollection came. But before he could sort these out in the proper order, Selaena herself spoke with a little flinch, cringing and clutching her staff close. "S-sorry...But you were still stuck in the tree, and..."
"And I had her poke you out of it," Ell finished dryly, clearly nursing some sore spots of her own. "How dare that little tart do that to us? I've half a mind to--"
"Shh!!" Aric hastily "shh'ed'. "Are you crazy?! Do you realize who that was?!"
"I'd imagine some little waif who'd gotten into her mother's spellbooks," Ell muttered in annoyance, plucking at her dirt-stained clothing with dismay.
"That was Lina Inverse, you twit!" Aric hissed, softly.
Even Selaena blanched. "The E-Enema of All who Live...?" she stammered.
Aric nearly choked, and hastened to correct, "Enemy, but what's a--"
Ell cut him off, this time. "I don't care if she's the Knight of Ceipheed, herself! Next time I see her, I'll--"
"Her sister's the Knight of Ceipheed." Naturally, Aric had done his homework.
"--apologize most profusely and offer her half my dowry," Ell hastened to finish. Then she sighed, tiredly. "Well...that was a bust."
"Yeah," Aric agreed with a sigh. "Not only are we still broke but now we've also managed to piss off Lina Inverse. So much for that brilliant get-rich-quick scheme."
"...well, I was the one who irritated Inverse..." Ellisia admitted, startling Aric and even Selaena. Aric frowned just a little, thoughtfully, then cleared his throat into the top of his fist.
"Well, anyway, since none of us has any better ideas...why don't we just move along and see what happens? Maybe we can appeal to a priest's sense of charity. ...or leave an I.O.U. in the collection plate." Both young women looked over at him for a moment...then nodded slightly, as he turned with a swirl of his rather ragged-fringed cape.
Like Obscurity, Bordertown was aptly named. A rather pleasant little village, it sat directly astride the border that separated the country of Seyrune from the territories occupied by what had once been Sairaag. While attempts to rebuild the city had been made since the two disastrous sequences of events that had decimated the locale, it would take a great deal of time to build up quite the level of city that had once reigned over the region, just on the verge of becoming a kingdom in its own right. Many of the surviving former residents had felt it simply too much time and too little reward to focus on rebuilding yet again, and so reconstruction sat in a sort of perpetual hiatus, with occasional rare bouts of work inspired by patriotic zeal.
In spite of the stigma surrounding the once fabulous former city, the citizens of Bordertown--a mingling of Seyrune inhabitants and Sairaag-territory natives--seemed perfectly content with their lot in life. So much so, even, that Aric was surprised to notice relatively few odd looks in Ell's direction, even though in a placid place like this she stood out like a green tomato in a basket of red apples.
Selaena seemed quite content, the bells on the head of her staff chiming merrily as she walked beside them, and Ell was too busy keeping her eyes low and her walk as inconspicuous as possible under the circumstances to react much, but Aric couldn't help but find it distinctly odd that the town seemed so...blatantly cheerful. He wasn't sure if it was necessarily a bad sort of odd, but not necessarily good either. It just all seemed almost...artificial.
Thankfully, however, it brought their goal that much closer. The first few strangers on the street they queried at random (the tried and true method for obtaining information, for all that it had been absolutely useless in Atlass City) couldn't help them, but had been willing to direct them to others who might. The shopkeepers in their tarp-covered, open-air stalls on Market Square cheerfully spoke of the wandering White Sorceress who had recently come into town, performing miracles for those in need. Selaena's smile grew broader at this, Ellisia brightened for more self-oriented reasons...and Aric crossed his arms with a slight frown of thought. It was entirely possible that this was the source of the air of good cheer about the village, but...
"Any idea where we might find her?" Aric asked the merchant across the simple wooden counter, who had gone back to inspecting the rind of a melon for flaws or cracks once the question was answered.
"Well, sonny boy," the near-toothless old man said, in a slow, lazy drawl that nearly made Aric want to choke the words out of him. All this incessant smiling and laughing from all sides was beginning to grate on his nerves. He had nothing against being happy and prosperous, but one could only tolerate having his nose rubbed in it for so long. "Can't say's I rightly know. After all, she's a wand'rin' White Sorc'ress for a reason. Never seems to sit still in one place at a time. Far's I know she's still in town, but the where of it's another matter. Don't worry s'much about it, son. If'n you've a need, she'll find ya sure 'nough. 'At's just how she is."
"Well, we have a need," Aric replied as patiently as possible, albeit through clenched teeth. "And we've been wandering around this town for quite some time with no sign of any other White Sorceress. Is there anything you might possibly be able to tell us?"
"Well'sir..." The old man paused, smacking his jaws as the near-toothless elderly are wont to do for indecipherable reasons. Aric felt his fingertips digging into his palms right through the gloves, as his fingers curled tighter. "Y'see, 'round here? We like t' think what's meant t' be will be. If'n yer meant t' find 'er, you'll find 'er sure 'nough. Problem wi' you young folks these days is you 'got no patience, you know that? Why, I remember way back..."
It took both Ellisia and Selaena to hold Aric back from vaulting over the counter and breaking a watermelon over the man's head. "Let go!" he demanded through gritted teeth, "Must...make...talking...stop!! Five minutes, just five minutes is all I need!" Both of them dragged him away around the street corner by force, the bells on Selaena's staff jangling loudly since she refused to release it. Thankfully, in spite of the proximity, it didn't come close enough to Ell to set off the runes again.
Once safely out of sight--and more importantly out of earshot--of the talkative storekeep, Aric managed to recover his composure, fingers raking through his hair as he attempted to calm himself. Nevertheless... "Well, seems like we're still in the hole."
"But we're closer," Selaena put in reasonably. "Besides, as a famous philanthropist once said, 'the journey is, in and of itself, half the reward'."
"I think you mean 'philosopher'," Aric mumbled, wondering why he bothered even as he did.
"That's what I said."
"And anyway," Ell broke in, before Aric's urge to strangle could be redirected to a conveniently closer target, "'half the reward' in this case still won't bring me back to normal. Still, I have a feeling that's probably the best clue we're going to get. So I suppose our only remaining recourse is to wander aimlessly around town until we bump into her."
Aric opened his mouth to protest...closed it, opened and tried again...then simply sighed and shook his head. Try as he might, he simply couldn't think of an intellectual alternative, something likely to have more success than "Bite me, I'm not walking around all day long". With Ell's current strength effectively tripled, he had decided to try a less aggressive approach to getting out of manual work for the time being. Her strength was intimidating enough in her full-human phase.
"Better idea," he said, crossing his arms firmly and shifting his weight in a significant manner. "You two can wander aimlessly around town until you bump into her. I'm going to go check into the inn and sleep. I have gotten nowhere near enough sleep lately, and every time I've tried I've been rudely interrupted."
"I sincerely hope you aren't making an attempt at beauty-rest," Ellisia fenced, the smirk almost visible against the folds of her scarf. "Besides, what are you going to check in with? I don't think they accept lint as a form of currency in any major human country." This time it was Aric's turn to exact physical revenge, hefting an empty crate standing conveniently against the wall at the corner and bringing it crashing down on her head.
As she rose back to her feet while Selaena watched awkwardly, Aric turned to stomp off down the road in irritation. Ordinarily he wasn't the sort to resort to non-magical violence, but this place just had him on edge, and the longer he remained, the stronger the feeling got.
He wandered aimlessly for awhile, in spite of his best intentions, since he really had no idea where he was going--Ell was right, though he was loath to admit it: they still had no money and thus no way to check in. Ell was just beginning to drive him nuts, for no particular reason he could put his finger on, and as edgy as this place alone made him he really didn't feel like dealing with that right now too. He'd simply had to get away for awhile.
Now, however, he was beginning to regret this sudden attempt at lone-wolf brooding. He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination preying on his already significant paranoia of the place, or simply a sheer matter of coincidence coupled with his normal ill luck...but he was almost positive he was being shadowed. Every so often, he would stop and glance around, as casually as possible, as though simply trying to pick out landmarks from a set of directions. And every time he would stop, the feeling would pass, with no evidence to found his suspicions in sight. He couldn't help but notice, however, that the longer this went on, the fewer people there seemed to be in the streets...which began to truly concern him, when they begin to dwindle to a bare few. None of them seemed to notice, themselves, or even to notice him; they simply went on about their business with the usual placid smiles, some even whistling or humming merry but unoriginal little tunes.
Thus it was little surprise that he reacted to the sudden, stark and unmistakable sound of footsteps directly shadowing his by whirling with a burst of spontaneous Water Shamanistic Magic, sparkling blue light exploding from his palms with a shout of "Lah Freeze!"
Though the individual behind him stood encased in a jagged rectangular prism of solid ice, the features on the face stretched into a rather self-satisfied smirk, the green eyes narrowing smugly, as a very familiar voice spoke as though absolutely unhindered. "Good reflexes, my boy."
Taking a stunned step back, Aric's scarlet eyes went wide. "Galamoth!"
The Mazoku's human form was surprisingly innocuous. He took the form of a warrior, noticeably taller than Aric (of course) with brilliantly scarlet hair that was slicked back in smoothly curved spikes. His attire was a jigsaw-puzzle of mismatched armor pieces, scale mail lashed together with patches of chainmail riveted to metal and leather plates, all of different designs. The effect came off as though he had scavenged a battlefield of two slaughtered armies, picking out what he found most interesting and leaving the rest, then meshing it all together over a simple shirt and trousers. Slung over his shoulder, laying against the forest-green cape, was a broad sword comparable in size to Lhynn's own.
Abruptly, as recognition came, the Mazoku's expression shifted from wryly amused to faintly irritated. "But what in Shabranigdo's name do you think you're doing? This is the second time in as many days that you've strayed from your charge! What if something happens to the fool girl while you're otherwise occupied with yourself? Allow me to remind you that if anything of a permanent nature happens to her, you're not seeing one cent nor ounce of your reward."
With a casual tensing of muscles, the ice shattered like glass, the shards tumbling to pile up around Galamoth's mismatched greaves. Aric took another step back...then nerved himself, crossing his arms stubbornly. "There's still a few things I don't get. Why the hell is a Mazoku so interested in preserving the life of a half-Dragon? Especially one searching for an artifact to fight Mazoku?"
"We've been over this, m'boy," Galamoth replied offhandedly, even as he lifted up one gauntlet and flexed the fingers, flecking bits of clinging frost off the metal. "You are not brought upon this world to 'get' things beyond your potential comprehension. What does it matter to you? I should think it would ease your silly conscience to become an independently wealthy power in the world just for preserving a holy being's life."
Aric chose not to comment on the "holy being" part. "Why should I trust a Mazoku? It's not like I have any guarantee that there'll really be any supposed reward."
"Ah, but you knew that before you agreed to anything, didn't you?"
"This is turning out to be more work than I expected."
Galamoth rolled his eyes, slowly striding toward the nearest wall and turning to rest his back against it, with crossed arms. "Such a lazy human. How do you ever expect to achieve real power without the inclination to work for it? Even Mazoku know that."
"Bite me, Gal," Aric tossed off, turning his back and beginning to walk. "I don't feel like it. I'm gonna find someplace to get some sleep."
Lightning cracked down from the clear blue sky, blacker than night, causing Aric to stumble back as it struck the street in front of him with a flare of black light. When he could see again, there was no actual damage to the street--and, almost as startling, no windows flew open and no people came running to see the source of the commotion, nor to flee it. Of more significance, Galamoth was standing in the place where the bolt had struck.
"I'm afraid you misunderstand; this is not a debate. Go and find the girl. Now."
"Hey, hey, hey," Aric tried to defuse the situation, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Let's not go overboard with this. I'm just gonna go catch some winks while the girls go try to fix Ell's...problem. What's the worst thing that could happen to her in a little dirt-ball town like this?"
Galamoth did not seem to be in a placable mood. "You'd be surprised, human. Now go, unless you'd like to find out for yourself." Slowly, a breeze Aric could not feel began to play about with the trailing ends of the Mazoku's cape, stirring dust around his feet as invisible but tangible power began to gather around him.
Narrowing his eyes, Aric took a defensive step back, fingers slowly half-curling. Damned if he was going to let this pretentious musclebrain push him around, demon or no. "I'm gonna say this one more time," Aric said quietly, ominously, as sparkling blue light began to gather around the claw-curved fingers at his sides. His knees half-bent, tensing, ready to move. "And then I'm gonna stop being polite. Bite me, Gal."
"Well, if you insist." Indolently, the Mazoku lifted one arm, palm facing Aric--who blinked in momentary surprise...until the appendage changed form, from the elbow forward, dissolving into a near-amorphous tendril of roiling darkness. This then lurched toward him like a striking serpent, its forward end even taking on the vague aspect of toothy snapping jaws.
Aric dove to the side, rolling over his shoulder so the dagger-sized black teeth closed on empty air. When he came up, he cast his hands forward, suddenly changing tactics as he recalled the lack of effectiveness Elemental Shamanism had on Mazoku. "Bram Blazer!"
Astral spells were far from his area of expertise, but even he was capable of firing the fist-sized beam of Astral power from his palm. It struck home as Galamoth was busy retracting his attack, catching the Mazoku in the armored side--and since the armor was part of his Astral substance just like the rest of his body, the patch where it hit dissolved into formless blackness for just an instant, as Galamoth staggered with the force of the blast.
"Why this sudden, pointless defiance?" the demon asked, actually seeming genuinely baffled as he turned to face Aric, his arms both normal again. To the ruby-eyed sorcerer's distress, Galamoth seemed scarcely annoyed by the attack. "As I recall, not more than a week or two a go you were profoundly eager to line your pockets and broaden your magical horizons."
"Yeah, well, I'm gonna do it my way," Aric retorted, already beginning to realize that this was a losing battle. "If you don't like it, we'll throw down. It's gonna get done, so why not just leave it at that?
Galamoth actually laughed. A good, hearty laugh that lasted for a significant moment, his head thrown back and his broad shoulders shaking with the sound. Then, lowering his gaze again, he slowly shook his head...then he raised a finger, and waggled it admonishingly. "You know something? You've got something of a spine after all, Aric Winterbourne. I'm a little bit impressed. So I'm going to let you live today. But I'm afraid a lesson in discipline, and respect for your betters, is still in order."
Not even altering his posture, Galamoth struck again--this time it was his cape, the forest-green "fabric" dissolving into tendrils of malleable darkness and curving around past him. The jagged ends drove themselves into the street, piercing right through the paving-stones as Aric danced back to avoid them, each coming just shy of skewering him quite fatally. Realizing his back was coming dangerously close to the wall across the street, he slid to the side to avoid one of the last--a mistake, for it pierced the white fabric of his cape, pinning him in place as he tried to fumble the clasp at the collar loose.
He saw the last one coming, eyes wide. Galamoth had said he wasn't going to kill Aric, but a Mazoku's word was hardly trustworthy even in such a matter. He tensed, unable to even close his eyes as he waited for it to impale him through the torso...
...but then, something happened. Aric wasn't even sure what--one moment, the spear of blackness had been coming, ready to pin him like a bug in an insect-collection. The next, it was as though a strange, red haze had come over his vision, obscuring everything, even blurring the seconds together into an incomprehensible swirl in his mind...and then, he could see again. His cape was free, and even whole again--and Galamoth was sitting on his rump as though knocked back, his own deep green mantle in tatters, though slowly reforming itself.
The Mazoku seemed unharmed, as he pushed himself up to his feet with ease that would have been impossible were he wearing real armor, and oddly enough he even looked somewhat pleased. "I see I was not mistaken..." he murmured thoughtfully, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as a gauntlet lifted to dust off a plate at the chest of his armor (it couldn't very well be called a "breastplate", for it only covered half the upper-chest, with segments of leather armor and chainmail riveted to its fringes). "Excellent show, m'boy." The demon opened his mouth as though to speak again--but suddenly, his eyes widened, and he stole a hasty glance over his shoulder, before returning his attention forward. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other matters to attend. If you can make it out of this town alive, I imagine we'll be meeting up again...in Elmekia." In spite of his tone, Galamoth actually looked as close to "unnerved" as Aric had ever seen him, briefly glancing over his shoulder at something Aric couldn't clearly see.
"Elmekia?!" Aric blinked, momentarily distracted. That was all Galamoth really needed. The Mazoku smirked at the sorcerer's disconcerted expression, slowly fading into nothing until only his cape was left, and then that too disappeared. Beyond where he had been, Aric could see a figure running, emerald green cape and long indigo hair flying as the remaining distance was closed.
When the woman came to a stop before him, roughly where Galamoth had been standing, she paused for a moment with her hand over her heart, to catch her breath and glance around for any lingering sign of the demon. "I'm...sorry I was late," she panted out, concerned compassion in her deep indigo eyes, a small worried frown on her face. "I heard the noise, but then it stopped and I couldn't find where it had come from until too late. Are you alright?"
The woman was beautiful, heart-stoppingly so, in a manner that could compete with Ellisia in a subtler, less extravagant manner. Long hair and large, soft eyes, both the same rich and deep shade of indigo-purple, was cut almost militantly straight along her brow and where it fell forward over her shoulders. Aside from her emerald cape, her clothing was all in shades of violet and lavender, trimmed with gold--even the shoulder-adornments that helped hold the cape in place were deep purple, ringed with gilded tassels that swayed gently with even the subtlest movement. In one violet-gloved hand was a priest's rod, its shaft adorned with golden leaf-like filigree, the leaves cradling a large, pale-blue crystal sphere at the very top that was nearly as big as his head.
"Uh...ah, well..." Aric tried to force himself to stop staring, to get his tongue back in gear, and to his credit it took only a brief moment of stammering to answer before she could mistake him as brain-addled. "I'm, ah, I'm fine. Just fine. Really. Um...you?"
She released a small breath of relief, the hand rising to her heart again, before falling to her side. The rod in her other hand seemed to shrink, dwindling to a tiny point and then vanishing into nothingness. "I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is Sylphiel Nels Lahda. Formerly a shrine maiden of Sairaag..." Her eyes clouded over, for the briefest of moments, but then she shook it off and her small smile returned. "I'm just glad you were able to drive him away. That was a very powerful Mazoku--I could feel it before I even saw him."
"Yeah, well..." Aric murmured, silently wondering something similar himself, "...guess I got lucky." It made him feel a little guilty, almost like lying outright to a shrine maiden, but he strongly doubted that telling her he'd struck a bargain with the Mazoku would earn much in the way of sympathy or aid.
Sylphiel nodded, accepting that at face value, as her eyes lifted as though to scan the rooftops for something. Suddenly, she blinked and took in a gasp, and she hastily reached to take a gentle but firm hold of his elbow. "Quickly," she said, urgent but at the same time composed. "We must leave here. The sun is beginning to set, and this place is...dangerous, at night."
Blinking in bemusement, Aric lifted his own ruby gaze. Sure enough, slowly but inexorably, the sun was making its descent overhead; he hadn't realized that so much time had passed during his walk and subsequent confrontation with Galamoth--and half-suspected that it was in some way the Mazoku's fault.
"Wa-wait!" he protested, as Sylphiel attempted to drag him along down the street. "Wait, I can't just leave...I've got a couple of friends here. If this place is so dangerous I can't just leave them!" Ellisia may have gotten on his nerves, especially lately, but there was still the matter of his...accord with Galamoth. And besides, he couldn't just abandon her and Selaena, even so, not if the matter was so serious that a shrine maiden herself was concerned.
Sylphiel hesitated a moment, apparently torn...but then she gave a brief, decisive nod. "All right. We'll find them, first. Where did you last see them?"
"Market Street. Actually...looking for you, I think," he said, frowning. When the indigo-haired shrine maiden looked briefly confused, he elaborated, "Well, see, we sort of came here looking for a priest of some sort. Or directions to where we might find one. And everybody kept talking about a White Sorceress in town, but nobody knew where, so..."
Sylphiel frowned and nodded, slightly, and then proceeded to lead him down the street. Releasing his arm after a moment, she strode with a confidence that almost seemed unbefitting her demeanor in conversation, though he had difficulty putting his finger on why.
The shrine maiden obviously had a much better working knowledge of the town layout than he, as she lead him along streets he couldn't remember taking. But then, that could have been related to the fact that his head was still spinning. What had...happened back there? He'd been so sure he was dead; there was no way he could have dodged that last spear of Mazoku substance. And yet somehow, he had survived. Not only survived, but blown Galamoth down...and more disturbing still was the fact that the demon had seemed to expect it, had even provoked him for the sheer purpose of eliciting such a response, proving something to himself.
Thus it was that he was scarcely aware when they actually arrived at Market Street, startled to awareness only when Sylphiel came to a sudden stop and spoke. He was still a little dazed, so he had to ask her to repeat herself.
"I asked what your friends look like," she replied patiently, though she cast a wary eye toward the descending sun--which was coming dangerously close to the level of the rooftops.
"Ah..." Hastily, he focused himself again; this woman was as frustratingly distractive as Ell. "Two women. A prissy blonde and a lavender-haired girl with a staff."
The shrine maiden nodded again and began to peer around, as did Aric. Oddly enough, even this place was now nearly devoid of people, save for a few of the shopkeepers lingering behind their stalls. Aric had thought he had simply been entering a sparsely populated part of town, but it seemed that instead there was something...else going on. Unnervingly, all of the merchants still in their booths favored the pair in the middle of the street with an odd, unwavering, unblinking gaze. It was starting to make his skin crawl.
"I don't see them," Sylphiel interrupted his thoughts, for which he was thankful because they were starting to take unpleasant directions under all the odd attention. Nevertheless, he frowned a little.
"Where could those two have gotten off to? Surely this place isn't all that big..."
"We must hurry," Sylphiel insisted, frowning worriedly as she looked around once again. "If we don't find them soon, before the sun sets, then..."
"Well'sir," a gravelly voice drawled, making them both jump and turn, "I'm afraid you're just a mite too late, young lady." It was the melon merchant that had directed them earlier. He was still behind his stall but the melon he'd been examining earlier was now split in two, one half on the counter and the other in one of his hands.
Immaculate as the rind had been, the inside of the melon was revolting. The meat was rotten, looked as though it had been for a long time. Flies buzzed in the air above both halves, and Aric nearly gagged from the smell even where he stood--quite a distance from the stall. As the old merchant reached a wrinkled hand to scoop out a handful and shovel it into his mouth, Aric lurched back a step and fought to retain the contents of his stomach, thankful he hadn't eaten since breakfast at camp this morning. After swallowing the disgusting stuff, the near-toothless old man tipped the half in his hand toward them, his expression mock-genial. "Mm. What a horrible night to have a curse. Melon?"