Year 1, Month 1, Week 2, 1st day of the week

Azrael

“...can’t see him--can see you...be wingless until the day you d--”

Azrael woke up and shielded his eyes from the sunlight that was streaming through his front window. Was he just dreaming a second ago? He felt like he was, but he couldn’t quite remember the details. He started to sit up and winced. Pain shot all through his body. It felt like he had pulled every last muscle he had. What on earth happened?

Last night, he was--last night he was… The last thing he remembered was the raven, as its stare bored deep into his soul, and it said--and it said… He shook his head. Why couldn’t he remember? And how did he get back home? Azrael grimaced and pulled himself up, slowly, painfully, then pushed himself up, off the couch. Walking to the washroom, he set out a change of clothes, pumped some water from the basin, washed up, got dressed, and decided that he was certainly not going to go to work today. But since he did see Eden and Sael the previous day, he was certainly going to find them and talk to them. Well, not Sael. Hard pass. Eden was annoying, but she wasn’t a brat. Eden it is. He walked to the door and found the latch unlocked. Well, it definitely wasn’t Sael who had him brought home; she would have had one of her guards break the door, for sure. As it was, the door was just unlocked. Definitely Eden. He opened the door and walked out.

It was a clear day with few clouds to offer any shade. Azrael passed a group of fur-clad monks that literally shuffled their fur-lined slippers along and chanted as they went. What was that language they were chanting? Was it the language of dragons? He had heard some sanpinsani speaking that language to each other. He wondered why the monks would be using that language.

He rounded the street corner, still musing, glancing, unseeing, at the passer-bys. Absent-mindedly, he made his way through the bright streets until he wound up on the far side of town, in front of a seedy-looking pub cut into the white-stone wall. Instead of the uniform city stone that dominated most other places of storefronts and restaurant balconies, what appeared to be grey driftwood made the front of the business. A sign hung from a wooden shaft that started out narrow at the end and grew wider until the base meshed with the business front; it looked like it could possibly be a bowsprit. The sign read “Poseidon’s Parlor”.

Stepping in, he glanced around. Four people actively seated, in a place that could probably seat upwards of 75 if everyone became quite comfortable with each other. It probably was fairly early in the day, and people usually started drinking around thirteen chimes or so.

“Hey, L!” He heard from the back. Eden had stepped out from the kitchen, sporting a nice jade color. “Come on in and have a seat!” You want vodka?”

“Just beer will be fine.” he replied, dryly.

“Vodka and beer it is!” she exclaimed cheerfully. No, he decided, he would not be drinking the vodka she provided. Beer was pushing it for this early. He claimed a seat in a nearby booth. Eden dove behind the bar and produced a tray, a pitcher of beer, two glasses, a bottle of vodka, and a bowl of pretzels, making her way over to the booth, and sliding in to the opposite seat.

“I said I didn’t want vodka.” Azrael grumbled.

“It’s not for you, idiot.” Eden scolded, “I’m not allowed to purchase anything stronger than beer on my shift, and, to deal with the crowd later, I’ll need something a little stronger than beer.”

Azrael rolled his eyes. “Quick question, while I’m thinking about it. Who are the monks who always wear fur, even if it’s hot out?”

“Oh, The Brotherhood of the Static Supplication. Zeus worshippers and known philanderers.”

“Ah. That makes sense. That fur is sexy.”

“Funny. They’re philanderers because their patron god does that, not because the fur is the height of fashion. And, let’s be real, the fur is hideous.”

“So,” Azrael started, “about yesterday-” He stopped because Eden had just filled a jumbo beer mug to the brim with vodka. “...I’m not sure that’s how you’re supposed to-”

“Shut it.” She cut him off. “We’re talking about yesterday; I need a beer mug.”

“You still have your whole shift ahead of you…”

“Another reason I need a beer mug.” Eden confirmed. Azrael raised an eyebrow.

“...oookay. So, I’m assuming you took me home.”

“Me and Frintak, yes.”

“Is Sael okay?”

“Yeah, she is. Why would she not be?”

“I mean, I turn and look at the raven, and next thing I know, I’m staring at my front window from the couch.”

Her mouth formed an “O” and she put her hand up to cover it. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“I… guess not? Care to fill me in?”

She took a big gulp from her glass. “Okay, well, you just froze; Sael couldn’t get your attention, and she couldn’t move you. We got her bodyguards involved and they couldn’t move you, and I just knew that bird was going to swoop in and kill us, one by one.”

“Yeah, I agree with you: on a list of things that are not okay, having a friend get the basilisk treatment is pretty high on up there.” Azrael said.

“You weren’t stone, though. At least that would have been identifiable and there are remedies for that. We didn’t know what was going on with you, and that bird continued to stare you down, all hunched over, like it was about to take flight at us. I was a bit of a mess at the time.”

Azrael poured himself a glass of beer. “You cried?”

“Being from the twilightlands predisposes me to… overreaction, I want to say?”

“Hence the vodka in a beer glass.”

“Shut up.”

“Being amongst the fairies makes you a drama queen. You know, I think I can see that.” Azrael chuckled. Eden dipped her fingers in her glass of vodka and flicked droplets at him.

“Anyway,” Eden continued, “one of the bodyguards got it in his head to cover your eyes and that seemed to do the trick. You slumped over and we bugged outta there. You woke up when we got to the second floor and said something about a vision.”

“Do you remember what I said?”

“Something about being in a grey sewer, a broken flask, and a scaly, red arm coming up from a puddle of blood. Pool. I think you might’ve said ‘pool’.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember any of that. Anything else of note happen?” he asked.

“Well, you passed out again at some point, we headed out the door, and the time of day had changed.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure we went from like fourteen chimes to twenty chimes, and I know for a fact that we weren’t up there longer than an hour. Other than that, once we made sure there was no black bird of doom flying at us, Dexian took Sael home and Frintak escorted me to your house, and nothing really else.”

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me, next time, lock up when you leave.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t know where the spare key was. You’re welcome for taking you home, by the way.”

“It’s under the front door welcome mat, same as every other normal person in this city.” Eden just rolled her eyes at this.

“Anyway, as soon as I’m done here, I’ll head to the temple of Odin again and browse their library. They’ve got to have something that’ll help me understand what happened.”

“I have a better idea.” Eden said. “I think the priest knew something was up, and I don’t feel like having a priest mad at us, and if you go to the temple, you’ll probably have to explain your interest. So to prevent any sort of hurt feelings or deception, I have another solution.”

“What’s that?” Azrael asked, genuinely curious. Eden reached into her apron and pulled out what looked like a flat, brownish stone the size of her palm, along with the quill she used to take orders, and began scratching onto the stone.

“A rock?”

“A message stone. One of a pair. Scratch what you want to say on the stone, and the holder of the partner stone is alerted, and the message appears on the partner stone. A reply can be made on the opposite side. The person holding the other stone is a scholar, and he should have the resources to discreetly help us out. It also happens that he owes me a favor, so he will be inclined to do so.”

“So, Eden, what does he owe you a favor for?”

“I introduced him to his now-wife. In fact, I think they were married about a fortnight ago.”

“That’s useful.” Azrael said. “Was he a patron?”

“Eh. He comes in every so often.” Eden checked the stone. “And he says he’ll be here in a couple hours, so make yourself comfortable. Also, keep him filled with beer, and he should be amiable enough. I’ll get you one of the large mugs and an extra pitcher.”

“He’s a dwarf, isn’t he?”

“He’s a dwarf.” she confirmed.

***

The conversation died off, Eden went back to work, and Azrael waited for about an hour and a half, watching Eden strike up conversations with each of her patrons, prodding them for stories and bits of gossip. Azrael wondered why she did that, why she was such a busybody. Not that it mattered that much to him, but it certainly wasn’t a trait that most people shared. More patrons had come in. There were probably close to twenty. He looked around. Three d’kapri, four elavis, two elves, and a gaggle of humans, all conversing with each other, enjoying drink and each other’s company. Eden’s petite form whirled through the Parlor, balancing three pitchers of beer on a tray while collecting coins from the patrons with her free hand, stuffing them into the cashier’s sack she wore when on duty. She suddenly called out,

“Grenfert! How are ya!” Azrael followed her gaze to the front door, where stood one of the thinner dwarves Azrael had ever seen. He wore a set of particularly itchy-looking cotton robes, emblazoned with a triangle symbol designating his association with some scholarly society or another. Slung across his chest was a messenger bag overflowing with books and scrolls. Eden must have gestured to Azrael, because the dwarf looked over to Azrael and made his way to the booth.

The dwarf opened his mouth and said something in dwarven. Azrael frowned. Starting a conversation off in anything but the common tongue when one isn’t sure that the other knows it seemed rude. Still, Azrael had never had that happen before, so he wasn’t sure of the general wisdom regarding a situation like this. He paused, thought for a moment, and said,

“You know, I speak a little dwarven.” The dwarf cocked his head. Azrael picked up the spare pitcher of beer. “Yeah, I’m not sure of the exact pronunciation, but I think it goes something like this.” He then proceeded to pour the beer and fill the great glass mug. The dwarf started to laugh.

“That was clever!” The dwarf exclaimed. “I appreciate your sense of humor. Keep the bronze flowing and we’ll have no problem understanding each other. I’m Grenfert, of the clan Stonekilter.” Grenfert was really quite well-spoken, having very little of the usual dwarven accent, but that wasn’t any surprise to Azrael, since the dwarf was supposedly a scholar. But a scholar of what?

“Azrael. Thanks for making time to meet with me.”

Grenfort shook his head. “Ah, anything for Eden. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay her. She set me up with my wife. Did you know that?”

“She mentioned it to me.”

“Maybe I can set her up with somebody. Are you single?”

Azrael smiled. “I’m not looking.”

The dwarf scoffed. “Not looking for a lass like that? Your life would never be boring.”

“It’s exciting enough as it is. Besides, romance doesn’t really interest me.”

The dwarf waved his hand as if fanning away a bad idea. “As you will.” He frowned, dropping the subject to focus on Azrael. “Are you an elavis?”

Azrael nodded. “Since the day I was born.”

“Your eyes are silver, though. Doesn’t that usually mean that you’ve grieved your guide? That is what Maester Melgan’s latest tome, ‘On Elaven Biologies,’ had to say.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had a guide.” Grenfort stared at him like Azrael had given him the location of a pot of gold.

“Fascinating. Can you speak the heavenly tongue? The speech of angels?”

“We’re not here to discuss my biology, honored scholar. Or biologies, either.”

“What are we here to talk about, then?” Grenfert asked. “All that Eden inscribed on the stone was ‘Come to Parlor; earliest convenience. Bring your books. Call him L’.” Azrael scowled at that last part. “I’m assuming by your demeanor that she teases you with that name?”

“Yes, and I don’t like it.”

“Obviously not.”

“No, what I mean is, the first syllable in my species’ name is ‘el’, while almost every elavis in existence has ‘el’ somewhere in their name. You could call any elavis ‘el’. Calling me ‘el’ would be like calling you ‘beardy’. Most other dwarves cultivate beards, and calling you by a trait not uncommon to your peers is hardly flattering.” Grenfert stroked his beard as if he were suddenly aware of it.

“I see what you mean. Azrael, it is, then. So, what is the topic of discussion today?”

“Gods.” Azrael said, flatly. The dwarf raised an eyebrow.

“While my field of study is the effect of divinity on mortal societies, you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had to simply refer people to priests because really, all they wanted to know was how to get in the good graces of one deity or another.”

“Well, it might come to that, but I want to at least hear your opinion first.”

“On?”

“The story I have to tell.”

And so Azrael recounted for Grenfert the events of the night previous, while the dwarf continually refilled his mug, occasionally interjecting “ah,” or “Mm-hmm” as was polite. When he was done, the dwarf leaned back and whistled.

“I’m not sure if you know this,” Grenfert said, “but well-documented accounts of divine action are few and far between. Sure, you get people that claim the divine spoke to them in a dream, or in other ways that inherently can’t be verified, but each member of your group saw the same thing and are explicitly not taking the opportunity to gain clout from it. In fact, judging from your tone, I’d say you haven’t told a soul. You and Eden went straight for me. That indicates to me that you’re telling the truth. But I bet you want to know what happened to you, specifically, and why.”

“That would be helpful.” Azrael’s mouth was tired. He was quite sure that he hadn’t spoken for as long as he had in years.

“My initial answer is ‘I don’t know’, but I do know where to start looking. Give me a week to let me gather my resources and see if I can develop a sensible answer for you.” Azrael nodded, silently. “In the meantime, my elavis friend, have these read before we meet next.” He pulled four books out of his bag and stacked them on the table.

“You’re giving me homework?” Azrael asked incredulously.

“I’m preparing you for our next conversation. If you haven’t read those books and understood at least the base premise of each of these books, it will seem to you that I am speaking dwarvish, and I’ll be wasting precious time explaining these concepts to you that I could be spending drinking.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You’re a smart lad, you’ve got this.”

“So next week?”

“Yes. That should be plenty of time. Sunday, one week from today.”

“We’ll do that, then.” Azrael said. The dwarf stood up, grabbed his bag, secured the scrolls he had in his bag, placed three gold coins on the table, and left.

Azrael sat for a few minutes, sipping his beer, mulling over the conversation and flipping through the top book of the stack, Treatise on Demi-Godhood and Other Partial Grasps of Divine Power. Each book looked about four inches thick. Reading these was likely going to be less than fun. Eden seemed to suddenly appear beside him, a pumpkin-orange color that stood out from her burlap slacks and brown wool shirt.

“So how’d it go?” She asked, curious as ever.

“Not terrible, I suppose. Where have you been? I could have used a busybody to do some talking.”

“Working; unlike some people, I live hand-to-mouth and I need the tips.” She reached over for the beer pitcher and knocked it over, spilling the liquid on the table, where it quickly spread to the books.

“Eden!” Azrael protested, picking up the books. Gods, they were heavy. Eden pulled a towel from her apron and began mopping up the beer.

“Are the books okay?” she asked. Azrael felt the bottom of the books. They were completely dry. Strange. He knew the bottom one had to have at least a couple of soaked pages, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“They’re fine.” he assured. “You’re fairly clumsy at times, aren’t you?” She shot him a look of pure annoyance.

“Just like most people.” Eden retorted.

“Yeah, but aren’t elves supposed to be fairly graceful?”

“ArEn’T eLvEs SuPpOsEd tO bE fAiRlY gRaCeFuL?” she mimicked back in her best dumb-Azrael impression. He smiled. Then an idea occurred to him.

“Hey, hold up.” She looked even more annoyed still.

“I need to get a bucket anyway so I can wring the rag out.”

“No, wait.”

“What?” She demanded, starting to turn red. Azrael set the stack of books down on the table behind him and picked one up. He opened it up about halfway, flipped one page up, gripped the rest of the pages and turned the book paper-faced-down towards the table, and lowered it to where the beer was. Eden’s eyebrows raised somewhat. The page that hung loose dipped into the beer and the beer immediately dried up around the paper; the beer never touched it–it just disappeared. “That’s not normal.” She said, turning to a lighter orange.

“No,” he agreed, “that’s definitely not. But it is useful, especially for books that you take around with you.”

“Right. Yeah. No, that’s definitely the sort of thing you’d want to have if you stay up at night reading books and drinking beer. So… try cleaning the beer up with it.” Azrael did, gingerly, at first, but the more beer disappeared without harm coming to the book, the more he swept the book across the table, until the beer was gone, and the book still looked pristine. He even dried the coins off that Grenfert left. “Can I…”, Eden asked, “use one of those to help me clean up the latrines at the end of my shift?” Azrael frowned.

“No. Beer is one thing, but I’m not about to stick my face close to something that has been used to clean latrines. Also, I’m borrowing it, so I think beer is the limit.” Eden pouted at this. “But it will be a good thing to ask Grenfert at our meeting next saturday. Perhaps he has something else with the same enchantment that he’s willing to part with.”

“Maybe so. You settling up?”

“Yeah, I am. I’m going to take some time to read these in the comfort of my own home. Looks like Grenfert paid, though. Three gold. How much was the total?”

“Two gold, one silver.”

“He left a tip, too, it seems. That was nice.”

“And,” Eden said, swiping the bottle of vodka still on the table, “There’s enough left over to last me the night.”

“You sure your boss will be happy with that?”

“I’ll tell him it was a donation. Technically, that’s how it turned out.” He shrugged in response.

“Later, Eden.”