It took the better part of four days to reach the ridge where they could spy down on the lost city of Pine Hold and it made Drick’s stomach turn when he saw halfmen, trolls, and muridai occupying the city of his youthful excursions. There were thousands of them and more arriving every minute.

  Bobbick guided them below the ridge line until he came to a hollow, bowl shaped valley that Drick knew very well from his days of hunting. The glacier where the kings were trapped, if they still lived, was less than two miles east of where they stood. A lone elf stood out in the field watching them, sitting astride a mare that was every bit as brilliant as Ice King was and Drick knew it to be Molly and his prince Juin, the Karoome.

  “I am glad to see that you have finally made it back to me, Har Karoome, though your choice of steeds has me more than a little concerned,” Juin said having last seen Drick upon the back of Ice King, his sister’s horse and the twin to the steed upon which he sat.

  “He was with me but a few days hence, Karoome. Then he caught wind and was off, there was nothing I could do to stop him, seeing as how we were under attack at the time,” Drick said and then went on with an explanation of where he had been and Ice King’s reactions to everything.

  “Well, I am choosing to take this as good news. His need to leave you must have been inspired by the fact that Juil still lives, hopefully we will see her soon.”

  “I pray that it is so, her magic would be very useful to us in our next endeavor,” Drick said, not quite sure how he should approach the next subject. “The kings…?”

  “The kings still live, though they have to be getting low on stores, especially for the horses. The muridai seem to be content with waiting until starvation drives them out.”

  “Surely we will have more help by then,” Bobbick said.

  “I don’t know from where that help will be coming, ranger. I have counted over twelve thousand foul folk in the area and those are just the ones that I can see. A few hundred outlanders have straggled into my camp and they are strong as well as eager to fight, but against twelve thousand it would be a bloodbath that wasn’t in our favor.”

  39

  Recovery

  “Attacked? What are you talking about, we were just talking about your plans for the new building and then you went blank,” Leldeif replied.

  “You know they were upset if they sent a kid running over to me for help,” Frodeg said. “Lucky they did or your uncle would have had them all arrested.”

  “My uncle is back?”

  “Aye, and yer sister,” Frodeg replied.

  “Oh crap, what did they say about him, or him?” Tic asked as he pointed toward Leldeif and then toward Nigel.

  “Well, he hasn’t met them yet. I directed him to the harbor coordinators to sign papers for this building. That upset him a little but when I congratulated him on increasing his production by ten-fold, he just shook his head and muttered something about you being too smart for your own good.”

  “Is that even possible?” Nigel exclaimed. “I mean seriously, to be too smart for your own good is somewhat of an oxymoron, don’t you think? Bloody humans make no sense.” His rant would have continued if a loud gasp wasn’t heard from the apartment entry.

  “An aerial?” Tia said in shock, her eyes were wide with fear and wonder.

  “Hi T, come on in and have a seat,” Tic said as casually as he could.

  “How about me, do you mind if I come in and take a seat?”

  “Uncle Rowen, I’m glad to see that you made it back safely. Yes…by all means come in so I can introduce you to my friends and coworkers,” Tic said cheerily though his stomach was tying itself into knots. He wanted his uncle approval, but in truth, he didn’t need it. He was put in charge to set this up as a corporation, and though the warehouse he purchased expanded their Riverhouse holding by more than double, it was still merely a smudge on what they had back in Lemure. The facts remained that to increase production significantly one needed to have product, product needs to be stored.

  “I think you have to open up to me, Tic,” his uncle started seriously. “We have a lot at stake here and I need to know, do you have a drinking problem?”

  “Drinking problem? I rarely drink, Uncle, and I don’t toke either if you’re wondering. Why do you ask me something as absurd as that?” Tic exclaimed in shock.

  “I have a drinking problem.” Nigel threw in then continued as if it were all some big joke. “you don’t keep enough on hand.” He laughed then but he laughed alone.

  “I had a full bar in the apartment and it is practically empty right now,” Rowen said.

  “Oh, ah…I think that I could explain that a little better than he could,” Nigel said with a smile then frowned as he looked toward his feet as he tried to think of something to say. He turned to Tic. “Do you remember when I told you that we needed something for the kitchen?” he said and Tic nodded. “Well, I made a list.” He lifted into the air to perch on the back of the couch next to Tic where he handed him the note.

  “Oh crap, Nigel…I don’t even…how can someone drink that much, you have only been here for a week for Pits sake.”

  “Aerials have very high metabolisms,” Nigel replied.

  “Tic!” Rowen shouted to get his attention. This would be the point where they all left to give them some privacy but none of them did. “Who are these…people?” His tone bordered upon a shout.

  “Oh, this is Frodeg…he is…”

  “I know the bloody sheriff, you—”

  “Relax, Uncle,” Tia interrupted him. “If you make him too nervous, he clams up. Now how did the accounts look at the bank when you checked?”

  “Beyond my expectations actually and he got a better interest rate on this building from the House itself. Riverhouse ain’t accustomed to giving humans a fair shake.”

  “Yeah, that was tough actually,” Tic interrupted. “I had to establish an orphanage on the second floor and hire two teachers for the school, but that will be a wash with tax credits and rebates and we can hire them as cheap laborers as we need them, the orphans that is.” Tic stopped and noticed that everyone around him was staring at him like he was insane.

  “Um, if you gentlemen would excuse us, we have some family business to attend to,” Tic said fully expecting them to leave. Leldeif didn’t even budge from the sofa, Frodeg took the seat next to him while watching Tic with rapt attention. Rowen pulled over two chairs for him and Tia and Nigel asked, “Do we have anything to drink?” then flew over to the cabinets in the newly formed kitchen. He must have had a nose for it because he went right to the correct cupboard and grabbed the bottle and several glasses. Rowen barely glanced at him as the aerial poured him a drink. “It seems my kind doesn’t upset you as much as it does other people,.” Nigel plied.

  “I travel a lot and know of three aerials that I have regular contact with, good people for the most part, though they aren’t nearly as eloquent as you, Nigel is it? You also don’t buy much foot wear.”

  “Um yeah, it’s the talons you see…very hard to accommodate. It is, a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mister Rowe.”

  “I hope that the pleasure will be mine, Nigel. Now…back to you, Master Rowe, my nephew. Out with it.” His uncle’s eyes were fierce though they had cooled some and he didn’t know where to start so he began in the beginning, way back to when he first found the stone down in the hall of records.

  “You were startled? What startled you?” Frodeg asked as if it were some important clue.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you said that you were startled when you dropped the stone, what startled you?”

  “I didn’t drop the stone, well not really…I never even held the stone before it fell on to the floor. I don’t know really, there was a strange kind of jolt that just went through me. I recall a quick flash of light, but I think that is actually just in my head. I heard the stone fall and picked it up. There was something etched into it so I put it in my pocket to look at later.”

  “And this was all from that envelope that you inspected under official capacity?” Frodeg pressed and his uncle’s brows furrowed.

  “Yes,” Tic replied sheepishly.

  “Why didn’t you return it like you had planned to?”

  “I wanted to, and I kept planning on it but…I couldn’t do it. Not even willingly. I would go down there with the specific intent to return it and simply forget to do so.”

  “Because you’re a theif,” Rowen said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Frodeg said, analyzing the young human. “I mean look at him. He has his flaws, but being a thief isn’t one of them. He was compelled. This is very interesting, Tic. I have heard of something like this before. In fact, one of the major contributors to Riverhouse had a similar such compulsion at a young age.”

  “Mortiss Hilistag,” Tic replied.

  “Oh, you know of him?”

  “No, but I see his weaves and the House has mentioned him several times.”

  “Carry on, Tic.”

  Tic went on to tell them everything, even the part about the meeting in the park with the sentient brush and the multi colored woman. He got to the part about the armada and how he and Tia not only evaded it but took out better than half the ships and crippled the rigging on the rest.

  “Wait a minute,” Rowen interjected. “You mean to tell me that you were responsible for the freak storm that saved Lemure from invasion?”

  “I guess so, I don’t—no, I guess it had to be me.”

  “It’s true, I saw it happen and I couldn’t even believe it. He was literally casting thunder and lightning right into them. The sea raged with violent waves ten feet high, yet stayed calm just where we were at,” Tia added, causing everyone to look at Tic in a new light.

  “Nice job with the landscaping,” Rowen said when Tic got to that and Leldeif nodded thanks.

  “So, to sum it up, on the business end things have never been better, we are growing and more than servicing our debt. On a personal level, things are pretty messed up and Riverhouse itself is at risk. I know I told you that I forced the sorcerers out, but people like that don’t just go away. I am sure that I will know it if they enter the House again, but I am sure that they have other agents too.” Tic’s shoulders sagged with the admission.

  “We’ll just have to keep our eyes open, it’s all that we can do,” Frodeg said then stood. “There are some things that you mentioned that I would like to research a bit, so if you gentlemen don’t mind, I will be taking my leave.”

  “So I am sure that you have arranged different sleeping accommodations now?” Rowen plied.

  “The apartments are yours and Lili’s home and I wouldn’t feel right living there, especially when you consider the friends I tend to attract,” Tic replied with a side eye toward the aerial.

  “What about me, Tic?” Tia asked, but this time he was ready. “Your apartment across the hall will be ready by the end of the week.”

  “Fine, I’ll sleep on the couch until then.”

  “Tia, you can stay at the apartment,” Rowen protested.

  “No, Uncle Rowen, we have been living pretty tight for over a month now. I need a little space. No offense, it’s a girl thing.”

  Rowen nodded and left.

  “I’ll get you some blankets,” Nigel said. “It will be nice having someone with a personality around for a change.”

  “Thank you, were you really trapped with a princess for three hundred years?”

  “It’s not quite like that, why don’t you get settled in and I will relate the story properly.”

  “I will, so you’re an elf?” Tia switched the conversation to Leldeif.

  “I am.”

  “You’re not like the other elves I met, they were a lot shorter than you.”

  “You met other elves that were shorter than me? How much shorter?”

  “Couple of feet at least,” Tia replied as she took another pull on her drink enjoying the burn as it slid down her throat.

  “Oh, you met some wood elves. Tell me, did they dance for you or juggle or perhaps offer to bed you?” Leldeif said, his disgust for the diminutive elves obvious.

  “Not at first, but on the way up here there were a lot of advances, especially Rain,” Tia said.

  “Rain is with them?” Leldeif asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yes, is that a problem?”

  “If you only knew. Where are they?”

  “They got off in Skorsdale when we off loaded some product for the city. They’ll be coming here though; they seem to have a great interest in Tic.”

  “Me? What do they want with me?”

  “Not sure, they seem to think that you’re some kind of messiah or something,” Tia said with a hint of humor in her tone. Tic sighed, Ledeif laughed and Nigel arrived with a steaming plate of something that smelled incredible.

  It was early the next morning as Tic was enjoying his new view of the small tributary that flowed into the main river that he had an idea. He was thinking of having Leldeif do something with the bridge, however they all had to be levered up to allow cargo to pass beneath, when Nigel grabbed himself a cup of coffee and sat down next to him.

  “Good morning,” Tic said.

  “And to you, sir,” Nigel replied and then just sat there silently for a long while, it was actually the longest period of silence that Tic had ever experienced from the man.

  “Is something on your mind?” Tic queried then waited as the aerial struggled with his own thoughts. Finally, as if he had made a decision, he spoke.

  “So, are you going to keep us around then?”

  “Us?”

  “Me, and the ugly elf?”

  “Well, Leldeif is an employee and can stay as long as he likes.”

  “What about me then, what are you going to do with me?”

  “You’re a free man, Nigel, you can come and go as you wish.”

  “Go? There is nowhere for me to go. You heard your uncle, my people are living in squalor, a broken race with no future. I can’t be a part of that, it would suck the life right out of me.”

  “Well, I did not hear my uncle say that exactly, he said that he has had contact with them and they are good people,” Tic replied not really knowing what the aerial wanted him to say.

  “Oh read between the bloody lines for pits sake. The point is, I have nowhere to go and I have no people to go to and I just don’t know what you are going to do about that.”

  “Me do about that? How do I figure in to all of this?”

  “Why, you’re responsible for me, you brought me here, you dolt,” Nigel said and Tic almost laughed out loud. Nobody had ever called him a dolt, instead choosing things like brainiac or bookworm, but not Nigel, no…definitely not Nigel.

  “Well, I could send you back if you want,” Tic lied. He couldn’t find that place if he wanted to. It was the combinations of his magic, occurring at the same time as that of the princess that made the connection in the first place.

  “Don’t be insane. That place was death, not to mention insanity. Just answer my question.”

  “Which was?”

  “What are you planning on doing with me?”

  “Nothing, no plans at all,” Tic said calmly.

  “So, you’re going to kick me out then?”

  “I’m having an apartment built for you, does that sound like someone who is going to kick you out?”

  “For me? You mean the one upstairs in the loft?”

  “It’s going to be too drafty for anyone else and too high for storage so…yeah.”

  “You’ll provide me with food and shelter and expect nothing in return? Why?” Nigel pressed and Tic paused as he looked down into his mug not really knowing the answer and then Nigel filled his cup from the steaming pot and he had an idea. He knew that Nigel didn’t want to leave, but he also didn’t want to feel like a freeloader and needed some sort of self-respect.

  “I need a cook.”

  “A cook? Like a servant? Me? An aerial who is a member of the greatest race to ever exist on this planet as your servant?” His tone was harsh.

  “No, more of a property manager. You will have to see to the day to day functions of this warehouse as well as get the meals on the table.”

  “How can I do that when I am not allowed outside of the building due to what people may say?”

  “I have Frodeg working on that. He is writing up a permit that will limit your actions, but will also allow you to move freely throughout Riverhouse.

  “Limit my actions, how?”

  “You know, the usual debauchery your kind is famous for. No raping or pillaging, and especially no dwarf hockey.”

  “Oh sure, all of the fun stuff,” Nigel said and sat back with a smirk. “Will I be paid?”

  “No, you will be given funds to operate the property and I will buy you some things like clothes and such, but for the most part…no. I just can’t fit it in the budget right now,” Tic said and waited for the aerial’s response. Nigel stared at him for a very long time as if he was pondering something very deep.

  “I’ll take it,” he said and held out his hand for Tic to shake, which he did. Tia was suddenly next to the aerial and bent down to kiss him on the cheek.

  “Nice to have you on board, Nigel, you’ll make a great addition to the menagerie that Tic seems to attract,” she said as she sat down and Nigel poured her a cup of coffee. The pot emptied and Nigel looked toward Tic.

  “It’s empty,” he said.

  “Yeah, well…didn’t I just hire a cook?”

  “Oh, right…you did at that. I guess I didn’t know that coffee fell within those parameters,” the aerial said as he stood and made his way over to the stove.

  “Where is the elf?” Tia asked.

  “Oh, Leldeif doesn’t sleep much and is probably patrolling the grounds or setting up for another landscaping project.”

  “He doesn’t seem like a landscaper to me, he moves like a warrior or a dancer.”

  “He says that he can fight, though I have never seen it. He is an excellent gardener though and is growing most of our foodstuffs right behind the main apartment. He will have to move his garden when we extend manufacturing back there.”