Chapter III - Reinforcements

Just another short update of the conversation with Gideon and Ealm in the side streets of the Trade District. I think this is the first ever heated conversation/argument I've written that I'm actually happy with. I also hope I've not given away too much of who Ealm actually is... I'm finding it difficult to hold onto that secret - whilst writing this I actually had it directly revealed in the prose, but I edited it out each time. It's something I want to reveal later on as a bit of a twist... Really hope nobody will guess it just yet!

Gideon led her down off the roofs and back into the streets below, the noon sun was shining and the white-grey stones of the streets and the blue slate roofs of the trade district looked vibrant and clear. Sunlight twinkled and danced off the clean and clear water of little canals that criss-crossed the district, little boats being rowed up and down them stacked high with various goods from colourful fruit and vegetables to bolts of pastel coloured cloth and exotic silks. The district was bustling, and Gideon led her through the crowds, being careful to avoid walking too close to any of the city guard, and down a quiet little sunny side street to an establishment with white wooden tables and chairs outside, shaded with large blue umbrellas. A fountain nearby tinkled musically, water running from a statue of the water goddess Isobel, being poured from a simple clay earn.

He pulled out a chair for her and bid her sit before he took one himself, facing out down the street. A young waiter, likely not older than nine winters, came and took their order and the two sat in silence until the boy returned with a pot of scented tea. They were alone, the street was silent. Gideon poured Ealm a cup, and then one for himself, sipped it gently and sighed.

"Well?" Ealm broke the silence with impatience in her voice, "Don't tell me you brought me here just for tea?"

Gideon lowered his cup slowly back to the table and shook his head sadly, "Always so direct, Ealm. It's been, what, must be a year since we last crossed paths, and this is how you act? Don't be so ungrateful."

She sighed, and buried her face into her cup in silence.

"So?" She pressed again, "Why did you come here, old man?"

Gideon raised his hands in capitulation, "Fine. I was only trying to be polite."

"Get to the point."

"Things are happening in Berican, Ealm, strange things."

"You're not trying to get me to come back and study, Gid, because you know-"

"No, Ealm, I'm not. You made that choice years ago to leave Berican, to throw away your potential for this... This 'street rat' life."

"I chose freedom, Gideon." She snapped sharply, "I wanted a life without bars."

"Yet you spend every day running a gauntlet that will put you behind them, literally."

"I live by my own way."

He sighed again, "Look, Ealm. I'm not here to argue. I'm not here to take away your 'freedom'. I'm here because I need your help."

Ealm swallowed hard to avoid spraying tea across the table in shock, "My help?! You come back here, threaten me, abduct me against my will, and you seek my help?!"

"I didn't abduct you-"

"You forced me here with your... Your magic..." Her voice was rising, both in volume and pitch.

"I took necessary precautions."

"So can I go?" She rose from her seat.

"You don't even want to hear me out?"

"I..." She sighed exasperated, both palms flat to the table and slid back into her seat without looking up. After a long pause she sighed again and sat back in her seat nonchalantly. "Go. Tell me. It must be important, right, to go to all this trouble?"

He nodded, "Yes. Very." He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "I'm sure you've heard the rumours on the streets. The drained Huszari, and the unrest in the north?"

She nodded slowly.

"Last night, a girl was attacked in the Berican Orphanage by something straight out of the nightmares of the insane. This morning, Amlec's Obsidian Tower was missing."

"Missing?"

"Gone."

Ealm paused for a brief moment in thought, "Nightmares stalk the night in physical form, and a tower of Void Sorcery disappears entirely... Do you think these things are linked?"

He nodded slowly and took another long sip of tea. She seemed to be calming down again, Gideon noted with not a little relief. She was engaging with the conversation, just as he had known she would if he could pin her down long enough to listen.

"You tell me, Ealm."

"What did this creature look like? What happened?"

So he told her everything, both what he himself had seen and done, and what Folk had told him. He described the fiend in great detail, Ealm was listening intently, nodding constantly.

"Is the girl alright?"

"Remarkably so. She seems to have bounced right back. When I left her this morning she was bouncing up and down at getting to see a dragon. Mozu-Beric summoned her to discuss the matter."

"I don't know, Gid. This all seems too close to be coincidence, but I hate to think of what that means."

He nodded heavily with a hum of agreement.

"However, I still don't get what this has to do with me. I'm done with all that, I left Berican and put all that behind me."

"You still have your talents."

"Gid..."

"We need you, Ealm. I've called a Council of the Colleges tonight at the Temple of Arosius, I want you to be there. I want your opinion on events and I want your voice heard."

"I don't know, Gid. This is all so much... What you're telling me... What it could all mean."

"The Council is at sundown."

"I'll consider it. I... I need to go."

He nodded understanding and consent. She rose to her feet and turned to leave.

"Thank you." He said. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped, turned away again and ran off down the streets. Gideon gestured the young waiter inside the building over, then turned back and watched Ealm disappear off down an alley. 

She'll be there, he told himself, though he wasn't sure whether he meant it or if he was clinging defiantly to a weak hope