Tom picked up a loaner sword from Arville, leaving a gold and five deposit. He could return the sword whenever he wanted to get a gold back. Next, he stopped by the Temple and bought six unfilled Amulets of Protection from Demons. That done, he grabbed himself a large meat pie, though the vendor laughed when he called it a snack. Apparently, the Temple wasn't able to keep buying all the food in town, which wasn't surprising.

The town was quiet in some ways, but noisy with arguments. Quazulin, Demon of Hate, huh? Tom brooded on that. And who are you, mysterious person who dropped off the note? What are you a Demon of?

He walked out through the West Gate, quietly bearing the scowl of the guard on duty, and headed north, working his way along paths between fields, houses and barns. He had explored some of the area while hunting for Arven's pack. Now, he went farther out, trying to find the path the other elves were mostly likely to take on approach.

The patches of woods grew thicker; the last homestead he found before the forest proper was an apple orchard. He could see a couple of farms to either side, but nothing farther out. He turned and looked back the way he had come, then ventured a bit farther into the woods and tried again. If I were coming this way, and caught site of the town or the farms, where would I stop to look things over?

Tom couldn't find any one perfect spot, so he kept moving around. I wonder whether I should try going deeper in? I don't want to miss them if they are arriving tonight.

The sun disappeared at ground level long before the tops of the trees would be left in darkness. Tom paced in the deepening gloom and frowned. They won't keep moving after full dark, even if they see the lights of the town in the distance, will they? Arven's confident that they'll arrive in the evening.

He decided to wait until he could barely see to make his way back into town, but the elves never showed up. He stumbled more than once as he slowly made his way back to town in the fading light. His stomach was growling by the time he got back to the West Gate.

"And where were you off to today?" The guard demanded.

"Looking for business deals. I lost track of time."

"What kind of business?"

"My own," Tom snapped. "I'm a merchant. I don't go telling my deals to anyone who asks. And right now, I'm a hungry, tired and cranky merchant, so if you—" Tom broke off and turned around quickly, pretending he had heard something. "Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"I'm not sure...Do you have a lot of wolves around here?"

"It wasn't a wolf, we kill all the ones that get close long before they get this far."

"I guess...It's probably nothing." Tom turned back slowly and gave the guard a look and a sigh. "It's late and I'm tired. Can I go now?"

"Get out of here."

Tom nodded and trudged past, keeping his head down. Stay out of trouble, he told himself. Hold on to your temper. You've got to protect the elves.

He thought about going to the Wandering Ax for dinner and news, but decided that he had had enough of hostile people for the night. He headed back to the house, signaled with a three-two knock, then unlocked the door and went inside.

The elves were all sitting around the fire, huddling for warmth, and looked his way. Tom shut the door quickly to keep the chill out. Diavla was the only one who looked tempted to leave the fire to greet him, but even she stayed seated and waited for him to come to her.

"Varga and they did not come tonight?" she asked.

"No."

"Is today good? Did you see dwarfs?" she asked when he came up and hugged her from behind.

"Yes." He knew he sounded tired, and didn't try to hide it.

"What happened, Tom?" Eubexa asked.

He described the discussion with Grangus Steelfire, going slowly so Eubexa could render all of it in Elvish. They passed the warning note around so everyone could peer at it. None of them had any insights. Eubexa almost dropped it in the fire accidentally, but Arven nimbly caught it in time, for which she thanked him profusely and apologized to Tom.

"Arven's a good man to have around," Tom commented.

"Yes, he is," Eubexa agreed before translating. Arven simply nodded at the compliment. His face looked worse than it had the previous day, but he said it was healing, something Tom had experience with himself. During his time as a guard, he couldn't always afford a healer, especially when it was something that would fix itself given time.

The elves had a vegetable stew simmering over the fire. They had waited for him, so he quickly washed his hands and Kervan served dinner. Kervan said something in Elvish that Tom got bits of, but Eubexa translated it into Western. "Kervan wants you to buy more bread, but only if you have to leave the house anyway."

Tom nodded. "I will. Anything else we need?" The elves discussed it and quickly shook their heads.

"We're using our supplies as if we were still on the road. It would be good to shop on our way out of town," Eubexa pointed out.

"Well, I'll grab a few things from the market tomorrow. I have to go out to try to meet the others anyway."

The elves spent part of the evening telling Tom more about Sheema, Brallik and Rillik, whom he had only known for a few days while he was badly injured. They shared more stories of their lives back in Kilder Vald. Then, they speculated on where the others were in their journey. Arven thought it very likely that they would arrive the next day near sunset.

Eubexa told them a little more about some of her less unpleasant experiences when she was owned by a noble in the Eastern Empire, who was by her report an idiot, but not mean to her. Apparently, she had been quite the beauty once upon a time, and had her Master wrapped around her finger for a while. It didn't sound like a bad life, at least for a while, and surprisingly she did not sound bitter. Tom would have thought that her former beauty would be too painful a subject for her to discuss.

"Tom," the translator asked after a while, "tonight, would you adjust my collar for me?"

"Certainly. What do you need?"

"I want to feel one-quarter of my pain, instead of one-eighth. It will help me to be careful with my foot while it is healing. I don't want to stress it too much because of thinking I am well when I am not."

"Of course."

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"Tom," Diavla called. "Will we have a magic lesson upstairs?"

Kervan snorted quietly into his cup. "A 'magic lesson'," he muttered with a grin, loudly enough that even Tom caught it.

"Yes, a magic lesson," Diavla chided the blond elf. "Tom did bring amulets. I want to teach Tom, so he fill amulets...too," she finished, after stumbling to find the last word.

"Tom has magic?" Arven asked, surprised. "He is a (something.)"

"He is not!" Diavla declared firmly.

"Eubexa, what does (something) mean?"

"It means...fighter."

He caught the short pause and raised an eyebrow at Eubexa. "Really."

"It is perhaps not the most polite term for a fighter, but that is essentially what he said." The veil as usual gave her a perfect gaming face.

Tom eyed her for another moment, then turned back to Arven. "Yes, Arven, I am a (something). I was also...um...surprised."

"Surprised," Eubexa filled in.

"Here, I'll show you," Diavla declared, then went and rummaged in Tom's pack until she found the Wand of Magic Detection, which immediately started glowing fairly brightly. She brought it over to Tom and handed it to him, then turned to Arven with a small smile of triumph as the wand dimmed but did not go out entirely.

"That's just the amulet," Arven scoffed.

Tom reached up and took off his amulet, setting it on the table in front of him. He could see Kervan tense a bit, but they were surrounded by allies, and it was just for a moment anyway. He leaned back and held the wand up high, showing that it had dimmer further, but still glowed faintly.

"I'm as surprised as you are," he told Arven, and let Eubexa translate for him. He tossed the wand onto the table. Diavla said something scolding as she snatched it up.

"Be more careful with magic items; they're expensive," the veiled elf translated. Diavla picked up Tom's amulet, then frowned and squinted at it more closely. Still looking unhappy, she brought it to Tom and placed it around his neck again, tucking it into his shirt and then wrapping her arms around him.

"Do you want to go upstairs?" she asked quietly, with a mischievous grin.

Tom grinned. "Yes."

Diavla tapped the end of his nose and stood up. "Don't forget the amulets." Then, she turned and swayed up the stairs, being deliberately provocative.

Minx. Varga's a bad influence on you; I approve.

Tom stood and moved over to Eubexa. "May I?"

"Yes, please."

Tom scooped the frail elf up in his arms and carried her up the stairs. He could very faintly hear Arven whispering a question to Kervan. Yes, I suppose it looks weird. I suppose it is weird, but Eubexa is only helping us.

Eubexa led them into meditation again, and he and Diavla practiced the strange, intimate sharing of magic. His love claimed that he was getting a little better at it, but Tom couldn't feel any difference yet. Still, anything that brought him closer to the brilliant, amber-eyed elf was worth doing.

"Our amulets keep leaking a little," Diavla murmured with a faint frown.

"They're just old," Eubexa told her. "I'm sure if you simply keep topping them up they will be fine. Nothing to worry about."

"Right...of course..."

They exercised their souls for a fair while, and Tom allegedly was managing to "splash" a little of his magic—that was still a very weird thought—into the amulet he was holding. He would have to take Diavla's word for it. Finally, they both got tired of trying to work magic.

Once Diavla had filled one amulet, they set the small items aside and embraced, doing what they most wanted, ignoring everyone and everything else, just as Eubexa suggested.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

Sevenday morning rolled around. Tom's dreams seemed normal, except for a brief moment when Vlad appeared. He simply said, "yes," and faded away again, in the middle of a different dream. Tom thanked the soul echo, and his dreams led him onward through more nonsense and fantasy.

When he woke, he happily spent much of the morning with Diavla, making several of those fantasies come true. After a particularly large wave of ecstasy shook her body, Diavla actually passed out. Tom worried a bit for a few minutes, but she woke up and smiled at him before long, reassuring him that nothing was wrong and a great deal was very, very right.

Honestly, he would gladly relax all day with her if his body allowed it, but hunger drove him to resist more temptation and wash up. Diavla wasn't having any of that, though, and managed to delay him for another half hour. Finally, they both washed up, got dressed, and headed downstairs, too hungry to do otherwise.

Over a very late breakfast, Eubexa asked, "So, Tom, are you staying in today? Until late afternoon, I mean?"

Arven muttered something into his mug and Kervan's lips twitched. The veiled elf didn't translate and Tom didn't ask. "Pretty much. I am eager to get hold of my sword, though. It might be ready today, Grangus said."

"The enchantment on the sword is specifically for killing Quazulin, right?" Eubexa checked.

Tom nodded. "Yeah, he was going to carve Quazulin's demon name into the blade for practice before he made the rod. But there's no guarantee it will work. Unfortunately, it also won't have any special powers over the other demons—except, you know, being a sword and slightly magical."

"Good. That's still good, I mean. Better to deal with the demon you know, so to speak."

Tom nodded. "And who knows? Maybe the anonymous source of knowledge will give us the name of another demon later. It would be worth buying another sword and getting it enchanted. We are heading into dwarven territory later, after all."

"Are we?" Eubexa sounded startled.

"Well, not deep underground, obviously, but Redhill is the land south of Baria and they have a lot of dwarves around. I hear that some of the cities have upper layers for humans and lower layers for dwarves."

"Have you ever been there?" Diavla asked.

"No, and I'm looking forward to it." Tom looked around the table. "What are you all going to do today?"

The elves sort of gave a collective shrug, and Eubexa translated the various replies. "More language lessons. Laundry. Checking over weapons. Going over the maps. Filling amulets. Not much else we can do sitting around in here."

Tom joined them for lessons for a bit, but then realized that with Eubexa there, he was slowing them down by asking for the Elvish words. He went into another room. He couldn't really do his exercises beyond practicing some stances, and slowly shifting his weight around. He was tempted to pull Diavla away for more sex, and he could tell she had the same idea, but he didn't want to take her away from productive work.

Finally, he was unable to sit around any longer. He cleared his throat, and announced, "I'm going to go buy bread, and then check at the Temple to see if Grangus had my sword delivered. Is there anything else I should buy while I am out?"

"A deck of cards," Kervan requested, to general approval.

"Varga might have already bought one," Diavla pointed out.

"Well, she's still in the forest, and it won't break us to have two decks, so I'll see what I can do," Tom promised. "I shouldn't be more than an hour, I think."

Diavla came up and gave him a passionate kiss goodbye, then hugged him and pressed her cheek to his chest a moment. It felt very right, and Tom suddenly felt something in his soul relax. "I love you, you know." She looked up at him, and he smiled. "Erotalsh and tolanor," he murmured. With that, Diavla pulled him into another long kiss, then stepped back, her eyes bright.

"As you say in Western...I love you, Tom Walker."

He could feel in his cheeks how big his grin was. "Stay safe. All of you," he added, with a glance around at the others, then left, listening just outside until he heard the door lock behind him.

He headed for the bakery first, picking up a couple of large loaves, then decided on a third. The other elves would likely be joining them by evening. He was going to the Temple next, but decided to stop by the carriage house and check on their things, including the last five bags of salt.

When turned the corner, he spotted a familiar-looking man at the door. It took him a moment to place the fellow, but suspicion helped—it was one of Biff Tanner's lackeys. The man had a prybar. "Can I help you?" he called loudly, and the man whirled, startled. Their eyes met.

"Are you bringing me the seven gold twenty Biff owes me?" Tom kept his voice raised as he marched up to the man. "He still has one more day, but I'll take it," he promised, putting as much menace as possible into the last words.

The man looked uncertain, then made a vague motion with the prybar. Tom swiftly disarmed him and pushed him back, twirling the iron rod casually. As he stepped forward threateningly, the man turned and hurried off.

"I'll tell Anna Houser you stopped by!" he shouted after the would-be thief. "Oh, you forgot your prybar! Don't worry, I'll hang onto it for you!"

Tom waited until the man had turned a corner, then sighed. Glad that didn't blow up in my face. Shaking his head, he looked through the contents of the wagons, making sure nothing was missing, and picking up a few things. There were a couple of unfamiliar packages tucked in the corner behind the wine cask Varga had brought along. He was tempted to go through them, but resisted. Let Varga have her little secrets. He left the carriage house and relocked it, then headed for the Temple.

He hadn't gotten far when he heard the clumsy thief shout, "He's the one! He stole my prybar!" He looked and saw two guards following the weasel, who was pointing at Tom.

"Didn't you just confess right there to trying to steal from me?" he called with a laugh, then got a good look at the guards' expressions. His heart sank.

Oh, demon shit.

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