Niala spent most of the next day refining the memory-wiping poison, making sure it was as safe as possible to use, even brewing antidotes in case something went wrong. If the worst came to pass, she would not kill or even cripple a man for her own sake.
While she did this, David had gone to ask Anaakendi to attend the meeting with Leandro. He was left dumbfounded when she accepted with only a bit of grandstanding sent his way.
She was probably intending to profit from the situation somehow, and he just didn't see how, yet.
Still, the preparations were done, and the actors were ready. It was time to set up the set.
David had invited Leandro over for dinner, as they often did nowadays, nothing suspicious there. He even invited Karline, as he needed her to occupy one of the players later on.
Anaakendi was in her wind form, surrounding the house with a slight gust of cold wind that didn't seem out of place in the late Autumn.
The veteran showed just after the sixth bell, a bit before dinner. They all, Linzy included, enjoyed Niala's routinely excellent food, and spent a bell afterwards chatting about daily life and recent events, with cups of mulled wine shared over a pecan cheesecake, everyone warm and safe from the cold weather within David and Niala's cozy home.
An excellent evening all around.
Karline then invited Linzy to go play cards at the Boot Inn, the prospect of which made the little party-happy goblin woman cackle with glee as she began dragging Karline away and out the door.
This soon left Niala, David and Leandro alone, their discussion having died down after Linzy's exuberant exit.
David cleared his throat. “Hmm. Leandro, we'd like to have a talk, if you don't mind.”
The veteran quirked an eyebrow. “That sounds ominous. Is that why you had the courier girl drag away your live-in employee?”
David nodded. “Not ominous, but it's a personal matter. If you don't mind?”
Leandro dipped his head, helping to clean up the dining room before following both of them upstairs.
He sat on one couch, while Niala sat on the love seat opposite him. David remained standing beside his girlfriend. The veteran leaned back into the couch, but he remained tense.
“You have my attention.” He declared.
Niala and David shared a look before Niala began speaking, her eyes locked onto the veteran, her ears erect and pointed forward.
“I'm a weaver.”
The room remained silent. Leandro showed no reaction except for an errant muscle spasming along the side of an eye.
The windows softly rattled as the wind outside intensified.
The veteran's voice was flat as the bottom of a prison cell. “Who else knows?”
“The three of us, now,” Niala replied, hints of a waver in her voice.
The room was filled with the rustling of Leandro's clothes as he turned his attention toward David. “How long have you known?”
“Long before you showed up, about a week after meeting her.”
The veteran looked back at Niala, his face blank, his eyes deliberating. Another question reached his mouth. “Why tell me?”
“Because...” Niala hesitated. “Because I need your help with something.”
To this, Leandro couldn't resist arching an eyebrow. “Something even more damning than being a weaver?”
“Potentially, Niala admitted in a tiny voice.
The veteran kept staring at Niala's face, shooting passing glances at David several times. The courier's hands balled into fists, knuckles turning white, before he forced them to relax, repeating the process several times.
A light went off in Leandro's eyes. Judgment had been passed. He let a long, deep sigh escape from his lungs as he slumped into the couch, several years appearing to drain from his face.
He glared at David. “Boy, you sure know how to choose them, second only to knowing how to make me break my vows. It's been three times, now, and I feel that it has only begun.”
Leandro brought his hands to his face, letting them drag along as he muttered. “I am getting too old for keeping secrets...”
Niala's ears twitched as she shared a corner-of-the-eye glance with him, before addressing the veteran. “Then...?”
“Then I will not report you, girl. Saints know I have never enjoyed fulfilling that particular duty. Enough, I guess, to be willing to commit treason to the throne in my old age.”
David let go of the tension that had been building up within his body, letting out a long breath. “Thank you, Leandro.”
Stolen novel; please report.
The old man snorted. “Boy, why does it sound like I have just saved you from yourself?”
David fled Leandro's gaze. “We might have had a contingency in place.”
“Oh, this, I must hear.” The veteran said, straightening and leaning forward, resting his hands on his knees. “What were you planning, if I had refused to keep the girl's secret?”
David cleared his throat. “We were going to feed you a memory wipe poison.”
“Feed me? Ha! Boy! You and what army?”
David faced Leandro's gaze, defiant, before walking up to the nearest window and opening it, then standing aside.
Leandro's puzzlement transformed into incredulity as the very winds coalesced into a light grey stream, engulfing themselves within the room, coiling into a vaguely humanoid shape, before snapping apart into Anaakendi, who crossed her arms and levelled her stare at the veteran.
David broke the resulting silence. “We had outside help.”
Leandro blinked, looking from Anaakendi to David and back. “An old woman made of wind?”
Before the incarnation could berate the veteran, Niala spoke up. “An incarnation, and the source of the problem that I need help with.”
For the third time tonight, Leandro was shocked into silence.
Leandro massaged his temple, eyes closed, as he attempted to process everything.
He opened his eyes and looked at the catkin woman, who was fidgeting with her hands. “Let me make sure I understand. You are a weaver, and you were... possessed by that incarnation, who left a part of itself within you, which your mana pathways somehow absorbed without any apparent consequences, and now you are afraid of becoming an incarnation yourself?”
Niala nodded. “More or less, and it's Anaakendi; she has a name. And...” She hesitated.
“Out with it, girl.”
“I might also be able to turn into a lich.”
Leandro stared, before remembering to blink.
“A lich.”
“Ah, yes, but just maybe! And I don't want to! That's why I need your help!” Niala blurted out.
David spoke up. “You understand now why we wanted to make sure how you'd react to learning Niala was a weaver?”
Niala looked at Anaakendi, then at David, uncertainty in her eyes.
David shook his head. “She'd already figured it out, and she's the last person we could stop anyway.”
Anaakendi nodded, speaking with her heavy accent. “The boy is correct, you wouldn't be able to stop me, but I care little to reveal your secret, child. I am much more interested in your other condition.”
Niala's ears lopsided as she scratched her head, looking at everyone assembled. “Well, you all know then. That's the situation I'm in, and to be frank, my first reaction was to get, huh, rid of whatever it is Anaakendi left behind.”
She sighed. “But Hodge pointed out that the best way to do that would be to understand it first, so... help, please, Leandro?” She asked plaintively.
Leandro grunted. “It is not so easy, girl. For all that I know, this is unprecedented. I will look into it, but I will need help. Help from a specialist, and not just someone who learned of mana-physiology to train living weapons. Hmm...” He said, grabbing his chin.
“Got someone in mind?” David asked.
The veteran looked at him. “I might, but I will need to send a letter, and something to entice that person to travel all the way to this hole of a town.”
David and Niala looked at each other before David asked. “I'm guessing that person wouldn't be interested in outright money?”
“Unless we are speaking of a truly outrageous sum, no. Something rare, preferably useful in experiments relating to mana and the soul.” Leandro ventured.
David looked at Niala once more, as she nodded and got up, going downstairs and returning a few minutes later with a small pouch, handing it to Leandro, before sitting back across from the man.
Leandro quirked an eyebrow at Niala before carefully opening the pouch and peering within. His eyes widened, snapping up at Niala with a question already leaving his mouth. “Is this...?”
“Fairy dust, yes, 50 grams of it.”
Leandro was stunned into silence for the fourth time, and this time, so was Anaakendi.
The old woman was the first to speak up. “Girl! Where did you acquire this? Fairy dust is probably the most sought-after substance in all of the realms! And in such a large quantity!”
Niala crossed her hands in an X pattern. “Not me! It's all thanks to David!” She defended.
Both of their stares latched onto the courier, who might have straightened slightly under their gazes.
“You! How!?”
“Ah, well, did you know Niala's courtyard held a Weldtree?”
David secretly counted Leandro's fifth stunned silence and Anaakendi's second. They were on a roll, and he had to admit, seeing the shock on the old woman's face was incredibly satisfying.
They spent a couple of bells talking about Niala's situation, mostly answering Leandro's questions as he noted down answers in a notebook borrowed from Niala.
The large man had several guesses and hypotheses, but that was all he had at this time. As he'd said, he needed the help of a real specialist, but he was certain the prospect of a novel problem, along with a pouch full of one of the rarest mana-reactive substances, would entice his friend to travel all the way here.
When asked about the distance, Leandro had said it would probably take at least a few weeks for the letter to reach his friend, who lived in Abassara, the last great city before the southern desert, home of the Abassaran Institute of Arcane Sciences, perhaps the biggest university in all of Amberfall, if not the continent.
To this, Niala had proposed to use Violet, the mail avilem that her father had gifted her.
This brought on Leandro's sixth shocked face; not so much from seeing the military-grade cargo avilem, but at seeing it in Niala's basement. Apparently, simply purchasing one needed special permits, and Niala's model has been extensively modified, from what Leandro could tell.
Then came the issue of fuelling the avilem for this long a trip without having to resupply along the way, as, although it did have an internal store for mana pellets, even filling it to the brim wouldn't allow for a return trip.
That is, until Niala proposed David's Tears, which gave David his third Anaakendi shocked face when his girlfriend brought out a few.
Upon seeing the pure, condensed mana marbles, she had grabbed one as if a starving child seeing a loaf of bread, and inspected it in silence for several minutes, before David's throat clearing snapped her out of her infatuation. She feigned boredom after having sated her curiosity, but David couldn't help but smirk as he noticed the glances the old woman kept throwing the tear's way.
They judged the Tears as being more than enough to power the Avilem to and back from Abassara, and so a letter would be sent on the morrow.
While there were no solid solutions to either David's or Niala's mana-related problems, both felt they had plans enough in motion that they could refocus their activities on further training.
Niala did have to remind David that he had his first scheduled trip to the Fairlands coming up next week, which he had completely forgotten, but which also gave him an idea.
Recently, Burton from the Boot Inn had returned for a third purchase of Old Woman herbs, and their stocks were now running dangerously low, with their local supplies and suppliers unable to cover the growing demand.
Their trip to the Fairlands might present them with an opportunity. Jasmund had signed a supply contract with a Fairy company for herbs, so maybe, with the help of Totori, they could do the same.
After all, the Old Woman must flow.
Who's strongest right now?
