A Familiar Spirit

~ Taylor ~

Taylor's good-guy act for the paladin was just that: an act. Inside, he was seething. He wanted to kill the man so badly that his hands were shaking. Unfortunately, with his curse in play, Taylor couldn't go around killing everyone who hurt him. If he started doing that, he'd leave a trail of bodies in his wake.

Still, losing all of his books, tools, and materials was an awful lot to overlook. The little cut he'd given to Cadmius didn't compare. He hoped the church would punish the paladin soundly. And, he had to assume the church would destroy his satchel, let all the contents spill out, and examine everything. That could be a problem. He wasn't hiding anything illegal that he was aware of, but he had capabilities he didn't want the Empire to know about.

With Airwalk and minor stealth magic, he was able to get into his room through the balcony without being seen, one-handed. It wouldn't take long for wardens to arrive at the hotel, probably with warrants that allowed them to search the place. He had a few clothes and minor accessories he could recover, but they were expendable. He only came for the tree. And to pay his bill, so he didn't get a bad reputation.

A rectangular planter sat on the writing desk where the morning sun could reach it. He had planted one of the poplar runners in it, and a seedling had sprouted. It was all of several inches tall, but it was one of those items he wanted to keep private. Taking it with him would be awkward, but it was the only runner he had left. The rest were in his secure box, made by Varda. When the church tried to open it, the runners would be destroyed.

Taylor pulled the cord that was supposed to ring a bell for service. He had never used it before, but he hoped the response was quick. By the time he had gathered his few possessions, the concierge was at his door. If they sent her instead of a typical maid, it might mean they had heard what happened.

"I'd like to check out and pay my bill, without going to the lobby. Is that possible?"

"Of course," said the dwarven woman. "For a small fee, we can also give you cash against your Dwergbank account, to a limit of one thousand dori."

"Let's go with the maximum, please and thank you." Taylor smiled behind his mask. That kind of anticipation was what made the Black Peony worth its price. "If you can rustle up a spare knapsack, that would be appreciated. I suppose I could use a pillowcase in a pinch," he said to himself.

The concierge's eyes flicked to his missing hand. "I'm certain we can do better than a pillowcase for you, sir. I'll return shortly."

Taylor half-expected the dwarf to return with wardens in tow, but she only brought a shift manager and Dwergbank transfer tablet. Taylor was able to settle his bill, tip the staff, and get traveling money all in one transaction.

"Will you require a discreet exit, sir?"

"I'll make my own way out. But why do you ask?"

"A party of wardens is mingling in the lobby, asking questions. They lack the necessary credentials to pass reception." By credentials, Taylor assumed the manager meant warrant. "They appear to have come in a hurry and arrived without references."

"There's no need to do anything extraordinary on my account," Taylor assured the manager and concierge, while he awkwardly shoved his few remaining clothes into the backpack they brought him. The concierge stepped in and held the backpack open for him. "Once they show the proper paperwork, there's no need to divert or delay them on my behalf. I'm quite satisfied. Thank you for a lovely stay."

The concierge helped him don the backpack, and the manager handed him the plant, which Taylor stuck under his handless arm.

"Very good, sir," said the manager. "We look forward to your next visit." They bowed themselves out of the room and shut the door.

Taylor leaped skyward from his balcony, just as the sun touched the horizon.

Within the hour, he crossed the Sunglaze River, found the gate, and slipped into the Spirit Realm.

The last time he passed through the village, it was daytime. Then, it was thinly populated by many kinds of spirits going about their daily work, much like people in Aarden. Most of them had animal forms, and some could take human form, but the more extraordinary spirits had fantastic shapes and could be translucent, or amoeba-like, or stick figures, or bounce along like dust bunnies. Many of the larger spirits seemed to work as farmers or laborers, and wore conical hats woven from reeds that covered them past their noses. A loose weave over the eyes allowed them to see. Taylor had seen elves and beastkin wear a similar style.

The village was very different at night. All the field workers and laborers gathered at wooden stalls arranged in a few narrow alleys, selling mostly food and alcohol. Each stall had room for three or four human-sized spirits to stand at the counter at a time, so they tended to gather two deep. Each stall only sold a few dishes. The fun was circulating among the stalls, bumping into friends, and trying everything offered. Special accommodations were made for the very small spirits by setting doll-sized food stalls on the counters. Rows of stick-people, dust bunnies, and willow-wisps sat at the food-stall-within-food-stalls to feast on leaves or seeds.

The scene was lit with fairy lights strung along the top of the stalls. As Taylor watched, a group of lights took a break and alighted on a shallow dish filled with oil. For a few minutes, the spirits cavorted along the surface of the oil, then floated up to resume their duties. There was less oil in the dish after their break, and the lights burned brighter.

The language around him was Arcaic, thickly accented. Taylor passed through the wild mix of spirit people, gazing at them from behind his mask, growing hungrier by the minute. He wanted to do a full circuit of the stalls before deciding. Also, he wanted to know about their currency. Instead of coins, they used what looked like seeds or marbles, except they were full of mana. He was curious, but didn't want to get caught peering over someone's shoulder while they made change. Maybe they took silver, and he could buy a meal without going broke.

Among all the people greeting each other, one voice cut through the crowd.

"Well, hey! Look who it is! My favorite fisherman." Taylor kept walking.

"Hey mask-boy, I'm talking to you!"

Taylor turned to the voice to discover a woman's face inches from his own. The first thing he saw was her eyes: green-on-green and heavily slanted. Her face was very triangular, and her chin too narrow for any of the usual flavors of humanity and its branches. She balanced a basket of firewood on her head and seemed to know him.

"Wow! You're really here. Amazing!"

"I'm sorry, but do I know you?"

A giggle rose up from her that stirred a memory, but Taylor couldn't place it. "We're old friends, you and me. Don't worry, it'll come to you. I bet you're hungry, right? But you don't have the right money?"

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Mutely, Taylor nodded. The woman obviously thought she knew him, and there was something familiar about her, but he was sure he'd never seen her face. He'd remember those eyes, if nothing else.

"C'mon. You help me with this delivery," she said, and plopped the large basket of firewood on top of his head, "and I'll buy you dinner. Come on!" Taylor used his only hand to steady the basket while he followed her, weaving through the crowd of spirits. Singing came from the next row over, raucous but surprisingly in tune. Once in a while, the mystery lady looked back at him and smiled.

Not a lady. A spirit.

The only spirit Taylor had met properly was Silvain, who took the form of a massive griffon and (he surmised) made her home on the highest mountain of Rossignol. She was not a friend.

He'd probably seen other spirits and hadn't known it. Animals sometimes accompanied magicians, but it wasn't so easy to tell at a glance if it was a familiar, or tamed with contract magic, or a summoned spirit.

They arrived at the far end of the market area just as he was losing his grip on the planter. A boar standing on two legs had a pair of woks running, and was cooking something that smelled disturbingly like bacon. The strange woman carried the wood to a pile behind the stand and told the cook he could order whatever he wanted.

"What's cooking?" He asked the chef in Arcaic. His accent would stand out here, but maybe nobody would mind.

"Stir-fried noodles, or blistered peppers." His voice was gruff, but he looked friendly. For a boar.

"Let's have both."

"Meat or vegetable on the noodles?"

Taylor wanted to avoid a conversation about what kinds of meat a boar-shaped spirit would cook. He chose vegetables.

"Mind if I put my tree on the counter?"

The boar grunted while he threw food into fantastically hot woks. It didn't make sense that he could use tools without proper hands, and yet he did.

"I'm back!" His host had tall wooden cups full of fresh cider. Taylor carefully put his planted tree on the counter before grabbing the cup.

"Oh no! What happened to your hand!"

Taylor's voice turned dark. "I ran into a problem I couldn't talk my way out of today."

"The curse got someone? Has to be rough out there for you." The green-eyed woman reached for his stump, and Taylor flinched.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure it's clean."

He showed her the injury. "I sealed it up and cleaned it, so it's fine for now. But I'll have to regrow it the slow way. I also lost my satchel, which had everything in it." Before she could ask any more questions, he added, "Can I not talk about it right now? I'm so angry, and I'd rather enjoy the food."

"All right. I'd offer to find you a healer, but I know you can handle it."

"This is really going to bug me. Exactly how well do we know each other?"

"Better than you think." He experienced that same sense of recognition again, while she chuckled at his confusion.

"I'm Taylor, but I guess you knew that. What's your name?"

"You're not going by Bilius anymore?"

"I got evicted from the family, so I've been living in Midway."

"No wonder you've been away." That told him she was from around Mourne. By his best guess, she was dropping hints on purpose. "What happened? I thought you were doing so well."

"My so-called father came home."

The spirit people ate with sticks instead of forks, and he struggled to imitate his host, who seemed set on avoiding telling her name. They ate tiny flash-cooked peppers of all the colors of the rainbow, dipped in three kinds of sauces served in shallow bowls. The noodles weren't very plentiful, but they were easy to scoop up with the sticks and slurp down. They both downed their ciders, his host paid the boar with four black marbles, and they shouldered their way through the packed spirits. Taylor kept his tree carefully tucked under his handless arm until she pulled him to a stall that was grilling skewers of meat and vegetables.

"So what happened between you and your father?"

"Nothing happened. I never met the man until the day he came home and tried to kill me. Well, severely injure me at least."

The stall was run by a gorgeous woman whose skin was patterned like bark. Her hair grew leaves and blossoms. She placed wooden slats with beautifully charred skewers in front of them. Taylor lifted his mask to pull food from his skewer.

"Can I just … " his host reached for his mask, and Taylor pulled away from her. "You don't need that here. I promise. Your curse won't work on anyone here."

"How do you know?"

"Because it doesn't work on me, and we've known each other for years. Come on." She held out her hand, palm up. "Hand it over."

The grill cook pretended not to watch as Taylor cautiously removed his mask. He scanned the nearby faces for reactions, but none of the spirits seemed to care. Months ago, he had been in the realm without his mask on, and nobody cared then, but it was still nerve-wracking to attempt the same trick again. The cook smiled at him and went back to turning skewers. Not a single spirit gave him a dirty look.

"See? Now eat your food. You need to eat a lot to regrow your hand, right? Don't worry about the cost. Marbles are for spending."

He was rarely in a crowd, and never without his Riverstone pin, a mask, a watch, and a privacy screen in his bag. He felt exposed, like someone who hadn't been outside in months getting their first ray of sun. But it let him eat without navigating around his mask, and that was a definite plus. It might be a long time before he stopped scanning faces for signs of his curse taking effect. It was a habit he couldn't afford to break. Not yet.

As they prepared to leave, the cook spoke to him. "I like your friend," she nodded to his seedling. "May I feed him?"

Taylor glanced at his host, who nodded emphatically.

"Please do."

The cook held her hands over the base of the tree, and rich earth fell from them into the planter, until the planter was full. She patted it down gently. Taylor thanked her, and his host paid for their meal.

The village was humble, yet there were so many kinds of spirits and such a variety of foods that Taylor forgot to talk. He stared at everything while he ate, and his host was happy to watch him watching everyone else. They visited five more stalls before they started closing up, and still hadn't hit all her favorites.

She walked him toward the red-lacquered bridge across the Sunglaze, where they stood and gazed at the tower of lights that was the Resort. The building's design was similar to the Black Peony, but with twice the footprint and extended to eight floors. Music and laughter floated to them. They listened for a while, then she pulled him down the lane toward her house.

"Did you figure it out yet?"

It had come to Taylor slowly. The trick was to look at her without seeing her face; hear her voice without listening to her words; feel her brush up against him without touching her back. As a spirit, she wasn't just someone. She was somewhere.

"You're the creek behind my house. I carry a small piece of you everywhere I go." He touched his Riverstone pin. "You're the first place I ever thought of as home."

"I knew you'd get it." She took his good arm in hers and squeezed it, while she steered him toward a cozy-looking cottage with a thick thatch and a lawn that sprouted flowers. She was a head taller than he, but Taylor felt comfortable walking with her like that.

"Embarrassingly, I don't know your name! I've never seen it on a map."

"Saria." Her green eyes flashed in the moonlight. "Call me Saria."

"I have a thousand questions, Saria."

"Not tonight, you don't." She turned to him as they arrived at her door. "You've had a hard day, you're healing, and you need to sleep. It's straight to bed for you, young man."

He had dozed on her banks so many times before, he accepted her offer without reservation.

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