Chapter Sixty-Eight: A Stab in the Dark.

  Selriph stumbled out lethargically with his now-empty plates, placing them on the meal cart that waited outside. From around the corner, he saw the silver-haired maid once more, almost conveniently timed to see him return his cutlery.

  As she neared the tray, she called out to Selriph, who had barely acknowledged her, his eyes heavy and his steps swaying, almost as if he had had too many ales.

  “Merchant Jorin…? I trust the meal was satisfactory?” She called as Selriph turned around.

  “Oh…? Yes, apologies. It has been a long day, and I’d very much like to retire for the night,” as he lowered his head in respect as he headed back into the room, closing the door behind him.

  He then straightened himself, his gait now taking on full alertness as he snapped himself out of the performative lethargy, which no doubt would travel to their ambusher’s ears in due time.

  Selriph walked towards the dire wolf, past the now calming flames, and a lump of protruding ash next to it. The scent of the woodsmoke and ash masked any hint of the meal that had just been concealed and disposed of there.

  Then he bent at the knee, placing his hand on the dire wolf’s ears, scratching them affectionately, his voice filled with gratitude.

  “Thanks, friend, if it weren’t for you…” His voice trailed off as the unwelcome thought of him having drifted off to sleep for the last time, his untimely end facilitated by the appetising taste of a noble culinary experience that would have rendered him sedated, tranquilised.

  The wolf growled back, a low whimper mixed with it, acknowledging his words yet also carrying a meaning the boy chose to interpret at will.

  “We cannot leave like this… besides, how would we justify it? That we suspect the butler poisoned our food?” A rhetorical flourish coloured his voice as a resigned sigh left Selriph’s lips.

  Emmett stared back, the muscles in his canine jaw tight, his gaze fixed with conviction.

  “Get some rest, friend… or at least, pretend to,” Selriph said, looking at the porch and the open window.

  No doubt they will come through there…

  He rose to his feet, staring at the bed, empty, but very much needing an occupant—one deep in a drug-induced sleep, blissfully unaware of the death that would be wrought upon him later that night.

  Then his eyes landed on the wardrobe that sat next to the bed, where the maid had extracted the oversized garments that he wore over the pudgy figure that was his merchant person. It opened to reveal an assortment of clothes, fabrics, blankets, and pillows.

  This will have to do…

  [A few hours later…]

  In the dim interior, the smell of oak and old fabrics from the wooden wardrobe was Selriph’s only companion in his solitude. Along his skin, he felt not just the fabrics he wore as garments, but also the magical energies puffed out his cheeks and stretched his waistline well beyond its natural slimness—a necessary precaution given he would soon be face-to-face with a would-be assailant.

  He also felt the paradoxical cold of the blanket of suppressed aura that hugged the magical disguise, a constant skin that allowed him to conceal the magical signature of his arcane modifications to his appearance, but also his innate, swirling well of magical energy.

  Around him was near pitch black, save for the sliver of light that came from the meagre opening in the wardrobe, the centre of it filled with a mass of mottled grey, illuminated by faint embers from the now silent hearth, mixed with the silver-blue mix of moonlight from the two moons in the night sky, filtering from the porch to the right.

  The last he saw, the full body of the wolf, Emmett had curled up in a restful state of repose near the porch table, his body rising and falling slowly as if it were in slumber.

  Or perhaps it had genuinely entered a state of unconscious restfulness? It was hard to tell; he’d intended for the wolf to only pretend to sleep, trusting that it implicitly understood the danger that would soon befall them.

  After all, by this stage of their acquaintance, the wolf had demonstrated nothing but uncanny intelligence and awareness of their situation as well as the content of his words.

  His warning about the meal, his growling at the butler,

  Hah… if only he had come with us to Caer Eldralis, perhaps then…

  Selriph shook his head as he bid away the forming unwelcome stream of thoughts, a meandering brought about by the monotony of his current situation.

  The youth had been in the wardrobe for what felt like the entire night, his eyelids heavy as he struggled to keep himself awake. The only things breaking the monotony that lulled him toward sleep were the gentle sound of his breathing and the faint presence of his magic, a form of meditation that prevented him from fully succumbing to sleep within the wardrobe, now warm and oddly comfortable.

  Was I wrong…? Was the substance in our food something lethal? Did they expect me simply to succumb in my sleep?

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  The pudgy, disguised mage fidgeted as he consulted his internal sense of time and the possibility that he’d just forgone a night of rest by some oversight.

  Then, just as doubt drew him into the unwise decision to emerge from his chamber of solitude and safety, the sliver of light from the room was suddenly eclipsed by something. Something black with a small flicker of an almost purple, amethyst-like substance on it.

  Something was already moving in the room.

  Wait what…! How did they already ?? My arcane senses…!

  Before Selriph’s hand drifted towards the estoc that lay on his belt, and his rehearsed motion of emergence and flurry of steel the moment his assailant appeared in his room, another sound came.

  Or rather, four sounds.

  A low growl, the sickening crunch of bone and a pained, masculine scream, along with the dull clatter of something on the carpeted floor.

  As he emerged, blade leading out of the wardrobe, the tip of the estoc grazed past the shoulder of the would-be assailant. That was courtesy of evasive action brought about by the sheer convenience of their pained recoil from having their shins bitten down by the full force of Emmett’s gaping maw, as opposed to an otherworldly perception of Selriph’s otherwise lethal strike.

  As another cry of pain escaped his lips, the figure turned around, exposing a mask that was typical of noble masquerades and concealed his face.

  He kicked at the dire wolf’s eyes with his other free leg, earning a pained yelp, then in a split second, they drew an ornate, cyan dagger—likely malachite—which landed in the dire wolf’s flank, making it howl again as it backed off, its blood staining the ground.

  Emmett!

  Similarly, the figure, dressed in black leather and faint glitter of violet on his armour, retreated towards the porch in the dimness, his masked eyes flickering between the plump merchant and the dire wolf, which had bared its fangs at the intruder after shaking the blow it had just sustained.

  For a tense moment, no one moved, their intentions masked, with only a low growl breaking the heavy silence, along with the faint dripping of bestial blood to Selriph’s left.

  He is outnumbered… just as long as we don’t fall for any tricks!

  The figure stared at Selriph, now standing almost proud, regal, as if taunting the pudgy merchant with a gesture of beckoning with his free hand.

  Bastard, I am not falling for that… just wait for him to make a move.

  Then a whine came from his left — the dire wolf, whose front right leg gave way slightly as if the wolf had lost its balance.

  Emmett?

  In a flash, the figure’s defiance came, and the ruby-adorned hilt at his belt was drawn with the sound of metal on leather, the silver glint moving in a fluid grace with the lunging motion of the black-leather figure.

  Not at Selriph, but the wolf.

  “Emmett, no!” as Selriph’s body followed a primal, almost protective instinct—one that even he didn’t realise he had—as the estoc jolted forward in an upward-facing arc in an attempt to parry the oncoming thin blade aimed at the dire wolf.

  As the clang of steel met his ears, Selriph then saw him throw something, his eyes catching up to the flint of blue that had just left his fingers.

  Selriph’s eyes widened as he realised what was making a beeline for his face.

  The dagger—now making a beeline straight for his face—the malachite dagger.

  Selriph desperately pulled back, his body instinctively attempting to pull the estoc back, yet the blade could not return in time, inhibited by the other metallic weapon; it found itself in a blade lock now.

  Shit!

  The moment stretched in his perception as he let go of his estoc, instead lunging back in an uncontrolled retreat in a desperate attempt to avoid the blade that was now a split second from finding its mark in his eye socket.

  That final decision spared his eyes and potentially his innards from reaching a slurry end.

  But it did not save his cheek from it, the same one that sustained the terramantic slap all those moons ago.

  Selriph once more felt a tinge of pain through the left side of his face, the feeling of cool blood being drawn as the dagger whizzed past his vision.

  “Argh,” he groaned, staggering backwards, a soft sizzling sound accompanying the sensation of static across his face; Selriph instinctively touched his face, feeling the blood on his hand.

  However, before the figure could capitalise on their well-thrown dagger, the mass of moulted grey filled Selriph’s reeling vision as it slammed itself into the assailant, knocking him back to the wall with a resounding thud.

  Then, at the same moment, Selriph’s vision blurred as he felt a wave of fatigue and lethargy well up from his face. His eyes landed on the crimson stain on his palm, with a faint green tinge mixed in its contents.

  Damn, of course it was poisoned.

  This gaze landed on his estoc, trusting the precious moments that the dire wolf had bought him to retrieve his main-hand weapon.

  As Selriph retrieved his fallen weapon, his eyes focused—as best as he could- on the onset of delirium from the poison, the same thing that afflicted Emmett—on the future that had corrected itself from the dire wolf’s primal lunge.

  We can do this … with his wounds, all I have to do is get past his bladework…. just concentrate…

  Instead of resuming his assault—one where he had already poisoned both his intended assailant and the canine companion — he stumbled back up, his free hand grasping his left shin as another protest of pain.

  Then he stared at Selriph, his eyes glittering with analysis.

  Why…? Why isn’t he attacking?

  Then the assailant lunged backwards just as Emmett pounced forth once more, its body now glowing with a faint green sheen, which seemed to coincide with a return to its vitality and alertness.

  The figure then hastily reached for his belt as he threw an object; in an instant, a golden flash filled the room, along with the distinct sound of a rune-powder bang.

  Selriph held his estoc up, expecting the figure to take the opportunity to lunge once more.

  Yet it never came. As the golden smoke and dust cleared, it revealed an empty porch, the assailant nowhere to be found. The only occupants in the room were? its intended guests: the dire wolf and the merchant.

  He... gave up? Just like that?!

  Selriph surveyed the surrounding carnage. A stream of crimson painted across the soft, light brown carpet and the wooden floor, the curtain near the porch hanging loosely due to the impact the assailant had with the curtain.

  Emmett looked at Selriph as it paced up to the boy, blood trailing from the wound in its flank.

  “Hold there, friend… let me fix you up.” As the youth bent down, closing his eyes, placing his outstretched palm over the wolf’s wound as blue-gold flared. Healing light’s tendrils fell like a heavy wisp of mist onto the wolf’s wound, rebinding and regrowing flesh where the wolf had been stabbed.

  Then he felt something wet against his cheek, and as he opened his eyes, he saw only Emmett’s outstretched tongue with crimson on it—Selriph blood.

  Seriph moved his palm once more to his wound, his voice soft yet fully protesting incredulously. “Emmett! You don’t have to clean up for me; let me—”

  A chill ran down his spine as he registered the sensation on his face.

  Skin and bone, no meat.

  No arcane energy.

  His eyes darted to the mirror—the reflection nearly unreadable in the night, now visible in the coming prelude to dawn.

  But the silhouette was very much recognisable, in the worst possible way imaginable.

  The thin, youthful silhouette of the facade of the runaway mage.

  With that came the latest unwelcome complication.

  Click, click, click, clraaaaaaak

  The distinct sound of the room’s door opening.

  Uh oh! What cover-up would you come up with?