Chapter 50: CHapter 49

Tibs missed Carina that morning in their room. Or, he suspected, she hadn’t slept there again. He walked the roofs, trying to figure out where she might be. He didn’t hide where he was, roof walking was allowed, but it meant the guards paid attention to him since it wasn’t a normal thing to do. So long as they didn’t see him when he did it at night, he didn’t mind.

The height gave him a sense of places where gaps were. Most were planned spaces, like courtyards some houses shared. Another was an opening where potential shops would be added. A market square, Tibs expected, for once the town produced enough to sell.

What it also showed him were places where construction wasn’t done, and it was in one of those Tibs found her. The site looked halted, with the way lumber was stacked and some foundations partially built. The guild no longer governed how buildings were built, it was the responsibility of the people who bought the parcel of land from them. So it led to some buildings not being finished because the money ran dry first.

Tibs didn’t understand most of it, but he picked a lot from listening to people talk in the inns and taverns, and hanging around the guild building when he had nothing else to do. It caused Harry to glare at him anytime he saw Tibs there, but he was doing nothing wrong. So the guard leader left him be.

Carina moved about the space, almost like she was dancing, and where she went, the air moved with her, not just close to her, but he saw a wave in the sand move away and back, fly up, and moves around her.

He stood watching once he was down from the roof, amazed at what she could do. He’d seen none of the sorcerers do anything like that. Studying the essence inside her, he thought it was different, had a darker tint than the first time he’d looked at it. What she did now certainly showed she was improving.

She noticed him, stumbled, and the sand fell. A lot on her, and he had trouble not snickering. With a huff and a stomp of the foot, the sand blew off her, and her long hair went in all directions before falling back. He set his face into something neutral.

“Tibs,” she greeted him, the joy he’d seen on her moments before gone. “How did you find me?”

“I asked around. Someone mentioned you wanted a place with space, I can see those from the roofs. I walked around and found you here.”

“Why were you looking for me?”

“Because you’re my friend, and I don’t like that you’re avoiding me and the others.”

“Tibs,” she said in annoyance, “has it occurred to you there are reasons I’m not spending time with anyone right now?”

“You’re angry at me. Jackal pissed you off and Khumdar’s comment about you having white blood scared you.”

She stared at him, surprised. “I forget how observant you are sometimes.”

He shrugged. “It helped me stay alive. I can’t do anything about the others, but I’d like it if I could fix things between us. I don’t have a lot of friends.”

She sighed and looked around. “I don’t know if it’s something that can be fixed. I’m not angry anymore,” she added as he felt his hopes crumble. “I’m more annoyed, in part at you, but at me too. I think I’m expecting too much from you.”

“With the letters.”

She nodded, motioned to a pile of lumber stacked to sitting height, and the sand flew off it. She sat and patted next to her.

“You’re so curious about everything, except letters. It’s frustrating.”

“Letters are hard,” he said, unable to keep from sounding mournful.

“But they get easier. And they open up so much. Think of the books you’ll be able to learn from. I explained about contracts and how the guild uses them.”

He said nothing until she looked at him, then he went slowly. “I’m not a sorcerer. What I do isn’t in books, it’s out there.” He motioned to the town. “A book isn’t going to tell me how to get in a house. It didn’t tell me how to get through the traps in the dungeon. I know they’re important to you. But to me, they’re mostly something valuable that’s a little too heavy to take.”

“What about the contracts? What are you going to do when you’re offered one if you can’t read it?”

“I think the guild will make sure I know enough to do that before they send me out.”

“And you trust them to do it, right? Or to not teach you the wrong things so they can take advantage of you?”

She had him there. He depended on them, since he didn't have a choice, but he’d never really trust the guild.

“Tibs, what if I could find you a book that had information on traps? If I can show you that books aren’t just for scholars and sorcerers. Would that change your mind?”

He shrugged. Why would a book have something like that? Thieves didn’t talk about what they did and he didn’t see guild Rogues talking about it to people outside the guild.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess I shouldn’t expect you to change your mind just because I tell you so.”

“So we’re friends again?”

She pulled him against her. “We were always friends, Tibs. If someone stops being your friend just because they’re angry at you, they never were.”

He hugged her, relief flowing through him. “What you were doing was impressive,” he said when she let him go.

She beamed. “It was so fun!” she laughed. “When you got Jackal to push his essence out without the earth; when you said that essence isn’t the element, I worked on it. I wasn’t letting that jackass be the only one who could do it. And something happened; the storm inside me stopped.”

“Your reserve?” he asked, confident it was what she meant.

She nodded. “My air always acted like a storm. Anytime I used it to do something, I had to fight with it. Pull when it pushed, pushed when it pulled, corral it into the shape of what I wanted. It was exhausting, but it was part of being a sorcerer. We all dealt with something like that; the elements having a mind of their own.”

“Didn’t your teacher explain about your reserve not being the same as your element?”

“The world isn’t what you see, it’s what you make of it,” she said in a deep voice. “Like that makes any kind of sense.”

Tibs chuckled. He realized that for as obtuse as the way Alistair had explained it to him had been, at least he’d tried some form of explanation. First Mez and now Carina. It sounded like their teachers just spouted what they’d been taught without thinking about it.

She extended her hand, and a funnel lifted sand a few feet away. “Now, it’s almost effortless. And I can sense how much I’m using, but it’s not just that. With sensing the essence of air around me, I can move that too. I don’t have to only push my essence out to move the air, I can get what’s around us to do most of the work for me. Tibs, if I’d known about this when you tripped, you would never have fallen off the mountain, I would have been able to get the air around you to pull you back.”

He stared at her. “You can do that? Feel the essence and move it around?” how fair was that?

“Yeah,” she answered in wonder, then looked at him. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t do it.”

“But you can recharge faster; like I can now because of it.”

He shook his head. “It’s not the same thing. It’s not like I’m getting the essence to do anything. It’s like I’m taking a table and tilting it. It just falls toward me.”

“Like you’re a magnet,” she said.

“I don’t know that word.”

“You would if you knew how to read,” she said lightly, and he rolled his eyes. “It’s a metal that attracts other metals. People with metal essence can do something to iron that makes it do that, and it keeps doing it even after they stopped. It’s not imbuing, they don’t leave essence there, it’s just something that iron can do if the right thing is done to it.”

Tibs rubbed his temple. “See, I’m getting a headache just listening to you say that. If it came from letters, I’d die.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes. “What happens when you try to move and feel it?”

“I lose the sense of the one I’m focusing less on.”

She nodded. “It might be because of how hard it was for me to control my element at first. I had to divide my attention between what I wanted to do and get it to stay under control. Doing this feels sort of the same.” She hugged him. “You’ll get it. I have no doubt.”

He nodded. He felt better knowing it hadn’t just been easy for her, that she’d had experience because of how her element behaved.

“Now, do you want to tell me what’s going on between you and Jackal?”

“Nothing,” he said reflexively.

“Tibs, he’s been avoiding you like I have, and you haven’t gone looking to fix things.”

He sighed. “I’m just getting tired of how he doesn’t take him and Kroseph serious.”

She stared at him. “Tibs, you do know Jackal is thoroughly in love with the man, right? If he isn’t with us, or training, he’s with him.”

“I told Kroseph that the reason Jackal trains so hard is that he doesn’t want to die and cause him the pain. That made Kroseph all loving, and he took Jackal to a bath for some them time. That evening Jackal asked me to tell Kroseph whatever it was I had that morning so they could do it again. He doesn’t get how much Kroseph cares, he thinks it’s just about having fun.”

“He gets it, Tibs.”

“No, he doesn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t act like it’s just for fun. He’d be more careful. He took on three golems. What if we hadn’t been able to help him? He could have died and Kroseph would have lost him. It would have hurt him so much, how would he have continued after that!”

“Ah,” Carina said, looking at him and nodding slowly. “I think I get it now.”

“Then explain it to me, because I don’t.”

She pulled him against her again. “You’re not going to lose him Tibs.”

“It’s not about me,” he replied, trying to push away. “It’s about what he’s doing to Kroseph.”

“He’s the first teammate you’ve had who didn’t die, right?”

“So?”

“I came after him, then Mez and Khundar. So long as he’s around, we aren’t going to die either.”

“But he is going to die! We all are! He keeps doing stupid stuff that’s going to get him to die sooner.”

“It’s okay to be afraid, Tibs.”

He couldn’t believe she’d just said what Jackal told him back in MountainSea. And he wasn’t afraid, he was angry.

“When Jackal dies,” she said. “You’re going to keep going on because that’s who you are. You didn’t let any of your other teammate’s death stop you.”

“None of them were around as long as Jackal,” he grumbled. “You’re my family now, and it’s going to hurt more.”

“But you aren’t going to let that stop you. What we’re going to do is keep an eye out for our jackass to make sure it isn’t something stupid that’s going to kill him.”

“We should tie him up and leave him in the room to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”

“Kroseph might have a problem with that.”

Tibs shrugged. “Some people enjoy that.”

She stared at him. “How do you know something like that?”

“The danger in breaking into houses is that you don’t know what you’ll come across. Sometimes the people there are… busy.”

“Sweet purity,” she whispered. “Maybe I should tie you down to make sure you don’t see stuff like that again.”

He shrugged. “I’d get out of it.”

* * * * *

Tibs marched up to Jackal. He’d waited until Kroseph was back in the kitchen. The fighter watched him warily.

“You’re a jackass,” Tibs told him, turned around, and left.

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* * * * *

“Technically, it’s Jackal,” The fighter said once he’d closed the door to their room. Tibs was sitting, letting the headache from training with his essence pass. He’d had one success in that one of his knives was imbued, but he did not know how he’d managed it.

“I’m surprised you remember what I said, that was hours ago.”

“I’m stupid, Tibs, but I have a good memory.” He sat on the edge of Tibs’s bed. “Does it mean you’re ready to tell me what I did?”

“You almost died.”

Jackal’s brows furrowed. It would be comical how deep they went if it wasn’t for the fact Tibs knew the fighter was trying to figure out what Tibs referred to and wasn’t coming up with anything. Jackal didn’t see what he’d done as putting himself in danger. He’d just done a Jackal thing.

“The golems,” Tibs offered.

The brow creased further. “I don’t get it. We won.”

“That why I was angry. I’m still angry. You don’t understand how dangerous that was.”

“We won,” Jackal said slowly; as if the slowness added to the explanation, which in his mind it might. Tibs wasn’t putting that past the fighter.

“Khumdar got hurt bad, and if we had been late to help you, they would have killed you.”

“I knew you’d act.”

“You didn’t even think about it,” Tibs snapped. “You wanted to prove we could do it, so you just started it and didn’t leave us any choice. You’re usually better than that, Jackal. You asked us how we were going to go. The team made a decision, and you ignored it to do your thing. A Jackal thing that could have gotten you killed.”

“And then Kro would be hurt by it,” Jackal said, reaching the wrong conclusion, but Tibs comforted himself with the fact he’d reached one that mattered.

“And me, and Carina, and the team, and probably others in the town.”

“I trusted you and the team, Tibs. That’s why I did it. I knew—”

“You didn’t trust us enough to do what we’d agreed to,” Tibs snapped. “You’re the leader, you asked us what we’d do. You shouldn’t have agreed if you were going to do something else. You should have told us we were going to do things your way, anyway.”

“You would have been angry if I did that.”

“Jackal, I am angry. At least then I wouldn’t feel like you don’t care about how your dying is going to feel.”

“I did say I wasn’t a good leader.”

Tibs snorted. “Too bad, because you’re still our leader and now you’re going to have to do a better job.”

Jackal nodded. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Tibs. That wasn’t what I wanted.”

“Just stop doing stupid stuff like that, okay?”

“I’m never going to do that one again, I can promise that.”

“Stop doing stupid stuff like that.”

“Tibs, this is me you’re talking to. The only way I can’t do something stupid is to lock me into a cellar and first make sure it’s empty.”

Tibs narrowed his eyes at the fighter. “You’re an earth fighter.”

“Right, better lock me into a fifth-story room then, I’m not the one on the team with a habit of throwing himself out of windows.”

* * * * *

The meal was quieter, but at least the team was eating together again and that made Tibs happy. Carina hadn’t spoken to Khumdar. The glares she sent his way made that clear, but the cleric ignored them. He seemed pleased with her reaction, in fact.

“Before I bring up what we need to discuss,” Jackal said. “Is everyone back on talking term again, or does anyone else have something they want to hit me with? I won’t turn to earth, I promise. It was made clear I screwed up and I will take my punishment like a fighter.”

“You could go tell that to Harry,” Khumdar suggested. “I am certain he would appreciate the admission.”

Tibs stared at the cleric while Jackal gawked.

“I didn’t screw up that badly, right?” Jackal asked Tibs.

Tibs caught the almost-smile on Khumdar’s face before it was gone. He was going to have a talk with him after this. “No, you didn’t.”

“I don’t know,” Carina said. “I think—”

“You said we were fine,” Jackal said, sounding horrified.

Carina grinned. “Now we’re fine.”

“You’re going to cause my death before the dungeon gets to it,” Jackal said. “We need to talk about how we’re going to go handle the next list for the dungeon. We don’t have as much coins this time, so we’re going to have to be more careful.”

“Isn’t that like weeks away?” Mez asked.

“Yes, but if we start now, we might come up with a way to maximize how early we can go in.”

“May I ask something,” Khumdar said.

“No, I am not talking to Hard Knuckles.”

“Something relating to the practice of spending money to go in before the other teams.”

Jackal sighed. “Go ahead.”

“What exactly is the point?”

“To be the first to clear the floor,” Jackal said.

“So it is simply about paying for the privilege of being able to brag about being the first?”

Jackal thought about it. “Well, now that you say it that way, I’m questioning why we’re doing it.”

“Let me ask it differently. Why does the guild do it?”

“To get our coins,” Tibs said without hesitation, and the others nodded.

“Wouldn’t that be reason enough to not take part?” the cleric asked.

“But the later we go, the stronger the dungeon is,” Mez said. “What if it’s too strong by the time it’s our turn?”

“But will it really grow that fast?” Carina asked. “Count everyone the dungeon ate on the first floor and look at how hard it got. Can we expect something that different now?”

“We got conned,” Jackal said breathlessly. “I got conned by Hard Knuckles.”

“I thought you said he didn’t lie,” Carina said.

“He didn’t, that’s the beauty of it, and how he got me. At no point did he say we had to, he let me decide that we had to be in early. I wanted to know the layout, and to be able to brag we did all it before anyone else, just like with the boss room.”

“You couldn’t brag about it,” Tibs pointed out.

Jackal waved it aside. “Eventually I could.”

“Are you saying Harry Hard Knuckles did this specifically for you?” Khumdar asked too innocently for Tibs’s liking.

“Of course not. I should just have known better. I grew up with that kind of stuff.” He leaned in his chair. “And I’m the greedy one in the team. I can’t believe he got me to hand over all my coins like that.”

“So we’re not putting money into the next one?” Carina asked.

“Unless one of you smart ones can think of a reason to do it.”

“I don’t feel particularly smart right now,” Tibs admitted. It had sounded like a good idea to him too, to go in as early as they could.

“It’s going to give us more time to train,” Mez said. “I was talking with an old teammate of mine, and his team would like to train against us too, and Pyan’s team if they’re interested.”

“Do we tell the other teams?” Tibs asked in a low voice. “About not spending the coins?”

“We tell Pyan’s team,” Carina said. “They’ve been helping us, we owe it to them.”

“We tell one team,” Jackal said, “they’re going to tell another and soon every Runner in the town will know not to do it.”

“Which means only the nobles would be giving money to the guild,” Mez said, a smile forming. “I am definitely on board with that.”

“Alright, then we need to be discreet about it.” Jackal looked at Tibs. “Which means you’re the one getting in touch with Tandy.”

* * * * *

Tibs grabbed the cleric’s arm as they left the inn and pulled him aside. “You stop it now.” Khumdar raised an eyebrow. “I’m a Rogue, I see what you’re doing. You’re poking at Jackal about Harry.”

“Are you not curious about what is between them?”

“Yes, but he’s on our team. He’s my friend. He’ll tell us when he’s ready. I know you can tell when someone has a secret, which means you know everyone has them. Let them be.”

“You understand that is it in the nature of darkness to want more. To want to find those secrets. I am certain your darkness Rogue friend has told you what his darkness lets him sense of secrets, but I am bound to darkness. I am its cleric. I have to know.”

Tibs nodded. “Okay, then leave our team for last. We’ll probably tell each other everything before you’re through with the whole town.”

“Will you tell me your secrets?”

“You already know it.”

Khumdar smiled. “Nice try. I know one. You have more.”

Tibs swallowed. “Once you’re done with the town.”

Khumdar looked around, his smile broadening. “It seems a challenge is what I was meant to find. I thank you for this, Tibs.”

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