There was a second flash from the case showing a bright green which also circled the crowd twice but in the opposite direction and landed on his other shoulder. Tic was amazed, a magician. Tic had always loved magicians. He scanned the buildings behind and noticed that back drop was an empty warehouse he was in the process of purchasing for the business. He only noticed because a lot of the dingier children seemed to be coming from that very building. Nothing to worry about, he would have it cleaned out as soon as the sale went through.

  Leldeif came out and sat down next to him.

  “Who are all of those children over there?” Tic asked, pointing across the tributary that allowed access to the main river from his factory.

  “They’re the orphans, every couple of months the Magnificent Michael comes around and puts on a show for the kids. He bumbles through one trick after another and the kids love him.”

  “Well the group up front here surely aren’t orphans,” Tic said indicating the colorful group that was definitely cleaner and stuck together as a unit. Leldeif stared at him for a long time, searching his face, after a minute he shook his head.

  “Those are the dwarf orphans. You see, they don’t throw their own to the wilds of the streets. They take care of them and provide clothing and education because they know that someday they will be a part of the bigger picture. Elves take care of their own in much the same way, as well as do sprints and gnomes. Do you see the ones dressed in dingy rags, most without even shoes?”

  Tic nodded.

  “Those are the human orphans. Yours is the only race that blames the children and leaves them to live like animals.”

  “Well…it isn’t quite like that,” Tic started and stopped when the elf waved his hand.

  “I see what I see, Tic, and this isn’t the only place I have seen it. Nope, it is said that nobody treats humans worse than humans do themselves. I have yet to see it in a different light, though I have tried.”

  “Those are not simply humans that I see in that crowd.”

  “True, there are some breeds. Nobody really takes ownership for the breeds…eventually they find their place.”

  “Interesting little bit of self-righteous, racist hypocrisy you have there.”

  “Ha! Not as bad as your aerial friend,” Leldeif mocked. “Look, I don’t make excuses for my people, far from it. I am a perfect example of how my people can turn their backs on one another. But humans are neglectful of their lost children. By all accounts, they always have been.”

  “Okay, fair enough,” Tic said and continued to watch the show before he turned and asked his friend, “Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you probably shouldn’t keep referencing it in conversation.”

  “Fuck you,” he said and took a sip of his coffee to hide his smirk.

  * * *

  The sale came through on the second day after ten day and Tic became very busy. He knew his uncle and Tia would be home soon, providing nothing went wrong, and his newly discovered cousin, Enson, would be returning from Lemure eventually. Things would become very crowded at the flat, so he commissioned workers to turn the two levels of the four story warehouse into apartments where he and his new friends could stay. He figured having the top floor of the warehouse with roof access would give Nigel a little more freedom and Tic the privacy he would need. He also had plans for the second floor leaving the first and third floors for storage. He picked up four mules to operate the elevator, two being required per lift and had fence and stable work done on the lower level.

  His conversation with the elf had put him off, he wanted to accuse the elf of being biased but what he saw was true to the man’s words. Watching the magician’s show with the building as a back drop, he had an idea. He formed that idea over the next hour into a plan. There were some economic viabilities that he would be forced to work through, but he wasn’t worried about that. Money was Tic’s specialty and he had yet to make a deal that hadn’t turned out to benefit the company. The lobby area he had Leldeif landscape for him was more than covered by the amount of work his new system for manufacturing produced, it was currently producing an astronomical percent better than it had as a one-man operation. They were putting out more than twenty fully completed pairs a day and increasing every day; one really good man might be able to do two or three if the fires were banked right. The apprentices’ numbers increased every time Tic brought in more people to tend to non-cobbler tasks, thus freeing up the apprentices who were also some of the best compensated workers out there.

  Tic thought of things in mass scale as opposed to a singular task. It was that thought process that enabled him to see things on scale that was greater than other people. He knew he would take heat from the relatives for being so loose with the company funds, but they also weren’t here to see the needs. Both his dad and uncle had put him in charge so they were just going to have to stay out of his way and let him do his job. Worse comes to worse, he would show him their revenue increase and all of the tax deductions he had created. There was so much business here in Riverhouse and all they had previously was a single stall. This was understandable because Uncle Rowen was always traveling and making more money by selling large quantities out of the Lemure factory. This place had to be brought up to speed and Tic had a plan. The main set up would stay the same with a small extension on the back to accommodate the build line where the boots were actually made. He would also move the sap work across to the lower level of the warehouse that was stone and not wood like it is in the original site creating less risk of fire danger. A small brazier would be kept at the main site to assist with the pliability of the sap soles for attachment.

  He had tried countless times over the days to re-access the walls and weaves, yet he was denied. The house was still pissed but Tic knew deep down that it wouldn’t last. They had paid too many dues together, invested too much into each other to go separate ways now.

  It was four days from the incident that he felt himself being pulled away. He tried to be coy by resisting, but the call became so insistent that he had to stop and take a seat. He was going and there was nothing he could do about it.

  “Whoa, easy there kid,” Leldeif steadied the boy with a hand on the shoulder and guided him to a bench. He looked into Tic’ face. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch over you.”

  Tic didn’t know what was happening; his body appeared as if he had blacked out. In truth, he was drawn directly into the weaves instantly traveling a hundred and fifty miles to the southern gate. All of the junctions and connecting strands were damaged . Large blackened sections destroyed beyond repair. Tic’s life-force approached the damaged runes from all sides at once, he could feel the burning in his flesh from the damaged. He that he couldn’t leave this as it was. Not only would it allow unsavory things in but would eventually spread and start an irretrievable decay of Riverhouse’s very structure.

  He focused his own life force into the weaves filling them with life in hope that maybe he could patch it until he figured out how to fix it.. He then pumped more energy directly from beneath the river to strengthen them. It didn’t even dawn on him at the time that he had drawn directly from the source that had denied him and pushed him from the weaves just a few days before.

  If he could have screamed from the agony of it, he would. It felt like boiling acid being poured on his back and dissolving his flesh to the bone. Or red hot pokers were being driven between his ribs and his finger and toenails were peeling themselves from their appedages. His wails were not simply within himself and he could hear concerned voices standing around his physical form but he had to ignore them. This was too important; Riverhouse was definitely under attack…he had no doubts, his body and soul were taking the brunt of it.

  He felt his energies, for lack of a better term, join within the damaged portions of the portals and then the runes. He relaxed and began to draw energy back from the weave to heal himself. His body was not his own and Tic realized the severity of the violation that he committed by pressing for more. Before he had control and felt that he had some level of decision making. Now, he realized that he was nothing but a tool. He felt pain and regret and he felt the house soften toward him just a bit. He knew now that he was nothing but the hammer to pound the nail, he was the tool not the wielder.

  The energies surrounding him started to hum and his vision cleared to show the chamber below. A broad cavernous room fifty feet across, a widening in the tunnel before it came to the southernmost portion of Riverhouse.

  He saw someone in the chamber standing very still, facing out toward the exit, waiting. He looked closer at the meek, unassuming figure as it waited for whatever, noticing that there was something very familiar about him. He looked with more focus and realized that it was himself, his own body was now facing toward a door or entry in some portion of the house. The scene flashed and he was looking the other direction toward the exit. He had taken his own body, but it wasn’t his body, it was more like very solid smoke, he could push his hand completely through to his wrist without pain and it would simply flow back into its original form. Yet for the most part he was here in the flesh.

  He was dressed in a long robe and leaned upon a staff, his very own staff that he had in his closet, though he’d never worn the robe before, or carried the staff. Robes were not practical around forges and work benches and his staff was for walking as well as his only weapon, which he didn’t need, yet here they were. A sound from the entry hallway grabbed his attention and he waited.

  * * *

  “I have never seen this place so empty.” A female’s voice echoed off the walls in the distance.

  “They all left for Pine Hold, they had no choice. The compact between the five is their downfall, helping your neighbor isn’t always in your best interests. So… do you think that you can destroy it?”

  “With action to one junction I should be able to start a worm that will eat the weaves from beginning to end,” the woman said again, yet neither her words nor their implication made Tic nervous. He knew that he had already stopped their so-called worm that was destroying the junctions, or at least the house stopped it through him.

  “Good, a pitched battle in here would be costly; collapsing it from within would be much easier and devastate the economy for the entire continent.”

  “Well, well, well. It looks like there is a guard stationed here after all,” the woman said stopping them up short.

  “No, the check in station is just past me a little way, but I doubt that you need their services today,” Tic said calmly.

  “There is no telling what I need, little man, state your business before I squash you,” the man said, he was pale to the point of albinism, dressed in a black, floor-length cloak with black riding boots and an extremely wide brimmed skull shaped hat. His brim cast his entire face in shadow creating a contrast against his white skin truly, while the skull portion of the hat was nothing more than a small round bump within the sea of fabric.

  “I have been, summoned…to inform you that your presence within Riverhouse is neither welcome nor is it desired,” Tic said, knowing where the words came from, but having no idea as to the reason behind them.

  The woman’s skin shifted hues and Tic remembered her, she was the woman in the park back in Lemure. The woman who tried to take him for that thing in the shrubbery. It was safe to assume that these two were sorcerers of some sort, but what and who they were, he didn’t know. The two laughed at Tic and he knew it was genuine. These two did not see him as a threat. He knew that he could collapse the ceiling right on top of them, but that act would have been motivated by ego, motivated by the desire to prove to these people that he was more than they thought he was. He resisted the urge and listened to a calmer, more sensitive mind.

  It didn’t matter though, and Tic knew it. As confident as these two were, they were still posturing while Tic was not. Tic wasn’t even himself, he was the hammer or the shield. He was whatever the house wanted him to be and he had no choice in the matter. Strangely, he was okay with this. The confrontation that was forming was far beyond the spectrum of his own abilities.

  “Go away, little man,” the woman spoke. “You have no powers that can stop us.’ Is that fear in her tone? Leave now and we will allow you to service us as we…well, you’ll see won’t you.”

  “I’m sorry, maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I am the new cobbler here in Riverhouse and I have been charged with not allowing you entrance into this fine structure. I am sorry but that is the way of things, so I would appreciate it if you simply turn around and vacate these premises so that I may get back to work. I have a lot of orders to finish off yet today,” Tic said and moved forward a couple of steps leading with his staff held out in his right hand angled down with the top end hovering just off the ground the back following along the outside of his arm up past his shoulder.

  “Say, I know you. We met before didn’t we, little man?” She laughed as if he were the funniest thing she had ever seen. You tried to seize me with…what was it? Twigs and leaves? Or was it stems and seeds? I simply can’t remember now it was so long ago,” she said as her skin shifted from a deep golden with fiery red hair to a cobalt with a mane of pitch black. “Oh, do be careful Sambone, before little shoe man starts drawing his silly pictures in the dirt to cast a spell. Go ahead, cobbler, start drawing and see if you can build a rune before you are dead.”

  “I know, isn’t that silly,” Tic said lightening the mood. He had nothing to gain by jumping into battle with these two and everything to gain by putting them at ease. He smirked inwardly when she cocked her head curiously at his comment.

  “Do tell,” she pressed.

  “Well, drawing pictures in the dirt as if it is some kind of strategic battle plan or something, it simply makes me giggle when I think of it. They all rely on magic for many things, yet it takes them an hour to prepare, it is ridiculously infeasible, I mean when you need it, it has to be right…there like ‘boom’, there,” he said and slammed his fist into his palm giving it a slapping sound. The man and woman looked at each other confused by the statement, so Tic thought he would do them one better.

  “Truly, it is a wonder they actually think of it as magic,” Tic said and both of their heads turned to look at each other and then at him. “I would love to have you stay and talk longer on this, I mean I could go on for hours on the inaccuracies on their concepts of what they call magic.” He kept his tone casual as he approached them, his staff held in two hands with the lowered top pointed toward the pair. “However, I have been instructed to ask you to leave…immediately.”

  “Ha, you are nothing but a tool, boy, be gone with you,” the man said and waved his hand, releasing a flash of something but it dissipated long before it reached Tic.

  “Nobody knows that better than I do, sir, you can trust me on that. I am a tool; you might even say that I am the tool.”

  They laughed and both brought their hands up in grandiose fashions and Tic swirled the end of his staff once in a large perfect circle, amazed at the colorful patterns that flowed from the end. He soon recognized them from the runes and portals he had just repaired.

  They flung their hands out dramatically and Tic could see the raw power that flowed from their fingertips. It was surely at a level he had never mastered and it would have burned him to a crisp before he could even register pain. It smothered itself against a dancing swirl of twisting runes that floated slowly toward the pair who were just now noticing that something had been released from his staff.

  Tiny hovering runes had spread themselves across the entirety of the cavern and now condensed themselves down toward the man and woman who looked at it confused by the subtle strength that was slowly, persistently entrapping them. They stepped back to avoid it but more runes from the floor and walls pushed them back toward the swirling weaves from Tic’s staff.

  Tic couldn’t help but notice the perfect dark skin that seemed to bulge from her web like clothing, accentuating her curves. The runes pushed them tightly together until the only thing keeping them standing was the pressure of the tiny runes from Tic’s staff. Tic walked across the cavern until he was standing right next to them.

  “I don’t know who you are, nor do I care, you have done me no personal harm but things are out of my hands. Suffice it to say that you are not welcome here. Your…magic, if you choose to call it that, won’t work here and your sabotage will no longer be effective now that you have been read. Set your goals elsewhere; Riverhouse is off limits to you and your ilk, tell all your friends,” Tic said then simply watched as they were floated down and out the very same tunnel that they had come in.

  It was over and Tic felt the energy leave him and his ethereal presence start to fade. He opened his eyes to an ugly elf, an ugly dwarf, and a quite handsome aerial staring down at him in his apartment.

  “We were attacked.”

  35

  Breeds

  “You might want to hold up there for a bit, ranger,” a voice said from behind some rocks. Bobbick could see that there was more than one pair of eyes on his crew and just as many arrows sitting upon taut strings.

  “I just might, if’n it’ll keep me an me boys alive a mite longer,” Bobbick replied.

  “State your business,” a different voice said.

  “Since when did the breeds of Youlost become so hostile to outsiders?”

  “It hasn’t been an easy go of late, dwarf, state your business or better yet, leave,” another voice said.

  “I can’t leave, your services are needed in the south,” Bobbick replied in a tone that spoke as if he was offering some great opportunity.

  “We have no services to give, especially to the south.” It was a female voice this time which Bobbick found refreshing. There had been very few females that had survived the attack at Pine Hold, most having been captured and used in the hellish nursery Juin had destroyed.