Chapter 18

The next morning I woke up a bit late. I stayed up late last night recharging the mana-batteries but because I had been able to sleep a lot yesterday I wasn't feeling sleep-deprived. Today was the day of the council and I could already hear sounds of talking downstairs in the main room of the Inn. The Inn was set up similarly to the one that Richard and Angela lived in but this one had a much larger central area where the people ate. The sleeping quarters were on the first floor to the sides with rooms for men on one side and girls on the other side. Coming from the side where the men had slept I walked towards the central area of the Inn and as I stopped at the balustrade and looked down into the central area I could see that there were well over 20 guests who were eating their breakfast; some had even already finished eating. I then looked up and on the opposite side I saw Angela standing at the balustrade as well. I guess I wasn't the only one who slept out.

I then went to the stairs as did Angela and we picked a place to sit at after waving to Beakie to signal that we had awoken and were ready for breakfast. It was already past the busiest point so Beakie came to our table immediately;

'Did you sleep well?' he asked.

'I sure did, though a tad bit short.' I answered.

'I slept nicely as well; thanks for giving me the big room.' Angela said.

'of course I'd do that, it was the only free room on the female side anyways.' Beakie replied.

'So what do you want for breakfast?' Beakie asked.

Looking at me Angela saw that I was slightly distressed since I hadn't had a very good experience with the Tamarin cuisine so she said; 'We'll have some of the fish that we brought yesterday.'

'Oh, alright. Want me to add some lemon juice and honey?' Beakie asked.

'Yes, that would be wonderful.' Angela said.

Seems there was no need to worry. I wouldn't know what to do if I had come here alone.

Angela then turned to me; 'The council won't be until later today so we can take the time to look around the city. We'll need to buy supplies for the trip back anyways.'

'I won't be going back to the village, I said. I have to return home.'

'What for?' Angela asked.

'To make sure that my family is safe. I also need to find father.'

'You have a family? I didn't think you were that old.' Angela said.

'No no I meant my sister and father when I said family.'

'oh...' said Angela.

It was quite for a bit and we saw that Beakie was already returning with breakfast.

'That is quick.' I said to Beakie.

'Well some of the guests this morning also had some so I didn't have to prepare it for you since it had already been prepared.' Answered Beakie. Before he could say anything more he was already being called upon by another tenant. 'Excuse me' he said as he walked to help the tenant.

I took a bite of the fish and it seemed to taste a lot different from yesterday. Much saltier. I wonder why. 'Why is the fish salty? I thought it was a fresh water fish.' I asked.

'It is because you can use salt as a preservative for perishables.' Angela answered. 'We do that back at our Inn too though I guess you didn't have the chance to try it. Salt is a very bad combination with the Sloan and besides the Sloan you only had fruit which is sweet and not that good of a combination with salt.'

'Ah that is right. You have a lot of experience in the kitchen. Salt really does have a lot of uses. It helps people from waking up, it works against snow and snails and its used as a preservative.'

'Do you like salt?' Angela said.

'Yeah, why ask that?' I replied.

'Well its because you have only taken one bite of your fish. If you don't like it I can eat it.' Angela replied with a smile as she looked at my plate longingly. Somehow without me noticing she already finished her fish.

'You are a fast eater.' I said as I took a bite of the fish while looking at Angela's empty plate.

'Well I had to be a fast eater because there would always be guests during breakfast, lunch and dinner time thus I never had much time to eat.' Angela said. 'Not that I'm in a hurry now but it has become a habit of mine to eat fast.'

'Ah.' I said.

'Here, I'll help you finish that.' Angela said as she stole the remaining fish with lightning speed. I had no time to react. 'Ah!' I said with a mouth full fish reaching out my hand but I was too late. She had eaten it all in one bite. My eyes widened. I had never seen anyone take such a huge bite before.

After swallowing the fish I had in my mouth I said 'Why did you take my fish?'

'Well that is also a custom of the Tamarin. The strongest and fastest get to eat. You weren't fast enough and so I ate.' Angela said with a matter of fact demeanor.

I frowned.

'I guess you were not familiar with that but you will need to since you're undercover here so.. But I guess its too much since you haven't eaten a lot lately.'

I was still frowning. Angela laughed. 'Well I'm glad that you disliked that. I have actually come here to the council to promote equality. The weak and slow members of our nation are always hungry, after all due to our customs only the strong are to survive. Since you reacted that way about being treated like that you'll support my law proposition right?'

'What proposition is that?' I asked while still frowning.

'It is to share the caught food equally amongst the weak so that they may become stronger so we can grow as a society and as individuals.' Angela said excitedly. I was not amused.

'You could've said that without taking my fish.' I said while still frowning and with a grumpy voice.

'I'll make it up with you. I will buy some of those fruits at the market for you before we go to the council.' Angela said

My face lit up immediately 'If that's the case what are we waiting for!?' I immediately stood up as did Angela and we headed out. I was a bit faster than Angela as she turned around and waved to Beakie 'See you later.' When she turned back she saw that I had already exited the building.

Today is the day of the council so the market place was quite crowded. It was a large opening where the ground was hard because of people walking on it for centuries. There were a lot of stores all over the place selling various goods. Salt from the oceans to the west, fish from the rivers and the sea, various swords, bows and arrows at the weapon-store. But after walking around for an hour we had still not found any of those delicious fruits. We did however find a bookstore.

'Ooooh a bookstore!' I said as I noticed a sign saying bookstore at the entrance of what looked like an underground clay hut.

'Do you want to go inside?' Angela asked.

'Yes!' I felt like a bookworm in a library so excited was I to find a bookstore. We went inside and as my eyes got used to the dark I noticed that there was a flight of stairs that circled around against the circular wall down. I quickly and happily went down as Angela tried to keep up. Once downstairs I saw countless books all neatly arranged in row after row of bookcases. It seemed to go on forever in every direction. It almost seemed like the size of the market-square which was huge in and of itself. Kind of like the size of the room at the bottom of the golden tower where I last saw Mys Tara. I wonder what they're up to.

Angela caught up as I was standing still at the bottom of the stairs looking around excitedly not knowing where to start.

'Anything particular you're looking for?' Angela asked.

'How come there are so many books here?' I asked.

'Well, as the kingdom of Joren has taken these years of peace to develop weapons we have used that time to gather knowledge into these books for knowledge to be preserved for future generations. There used to be a lot of people that would only fight during the war but during the times of peace they didn't know what to do. Some became hunters, others became merchants or writers and those scarred by the wars or injured during hunts roam around the city without purpose nor means to reach any purpose.'

My mind blocked out the final words that Angela said to me as I was too excited by all the books to think of anything else.

'I wonder if they have 'that' here too.'

'What do you mean with 'that'?' Angela asked.

'My favorite book. I got it when I was young and I've read it over and over again. It has formed me to be who I am today.'

'What was the title of that book?' Angela asked.

'Iphiaeneira Grandsage' I said; 'Its a story about the grandsage Iphiaeneira who stopped the war with the help of her two golems Annie and Kannie she was able to make illusions of herself with those golems and she was able to change places with them. She was then able to teleport all the way to the capitals of Jin and Jagun and threaten their leaders to sign a peace treaty with Joren. They had no chance against Iphiaeneira and whenever they would make any move against Joren she would repeat the proces of teleporting and threatening the heads of state. I started making machines to try and make a golem as awesome as Annie and Kannie. I also made these mana-shields though I haven't ever made a golem yet.'

'You seem to be a grand-fan of the grandsage. But with the coming threat of war why aren't you relying more on the grandsage?' Angela asked.

'That is because the nation of Joren started producing and selling weapons. Iphiaeneira did not want to support war and because Joren profited from the war in the south she stopped supporting us and disappeared. My father used this as an argument against the king to stop selling weapons to the southern nations but that plan backfired.' I said.

'Your father must be in a high position to be able to do that.' Angela said.

'Yeah, my father was the diplomat of Joren in Jin. He always tried to complete the task that Iphiaeneira could not. That is to bring peace to the whole continent by mediating between Jin and Jagun but Jagun used the weapon embargo against us.' I looked down again. Seeing that Angela decided to try and cheer me up. 'Well if we are to see if 'that' is here we better go to where the books are which titles start with the letter 'I' right this way.' she said as she walked into a direction as she looked down on the floor. In the floor letters were engraved at certain irregular intervals. I quickly followed as she did not wait for me I had to tread a bit faster to catch up. Having reached the 'I' she started to look at the bookshelves in the bookcases looking at the title of the books in each row which were written on the sides of the books. They all seemed like relatively new books. I wonder how they were able to write so many books so quickly.

'Found it!' Angela said as grabbed a book off the shelves and turned around to give it to me.

It was a shabby looking book but it was in better quality than the one I had at home which had been worn out because of my fervent reading time and time again. Seeing the book in such good condition brought a smile to my face as I recalled the time when my book still looked so new.

'Ara, aren't you going to buy the book?' Angela said;

'Nope, I've read it a lot already so I must leave it here for others to enjoy the story as well.'

'Ow well.... are there any other books that you would be interested in?' Angela asked.

'Nope, I just wanted to see this book due to some nostalgia or something.' I had little interest in the knowledge stored here since I am sure there is more knowledge to be found in the database which I have permanent access to through my bracelet.

'Lets go find those fruits.' I said as I handed back the book to Angela.

'Sure.' Angela then put the book back and we went back to the market-square.

The market-square was square but with the library at the bottom and the shops up in the trees above it was much more than just a square. After going by all the shops in the actual square on the ground we concluded that they sold no fruits here whatsoever.

'Maybe they don't sell them here because you people don't like the smell?' I asked

'No, I'm sure they sell there somewhere. But maybe in a less crowded area.' Angela answered. She then looked around to find a less crowded area and thus she saw a group of people going up to the branches above.

'Oh, of course. They're saving the fruits up in the trees. That is the least crowded part of the market-square. Thus we went up. We used one of the platforms that were attached to the trees above with ropes. We waited for a bit to see if anyone else needed to go up but nobody did so we went up and we took turns pulling the ropes. What would normally be a climb of 20 minutes was now only a trip of maybe 10 minutes. Though going down should be a lot easier. It did not however bring us to the lowest branch but all the way to the canopy. Through an ingenious use of ropes the platform was guided around the branches all the way to the top from where we had a view of the entire jungle surrounding us. The tree we were in was by far the tallest and at the horizon I could barely make out the white-tip mountains. I really did end up way far from home. Though we lived there for way too short so it didn't feel like I was starting to get home-sick or anything.

Just as Angela had said there were all sorts of fruit shops here, she bought me a couple different kinds but none tasted as good as the one I had at the Inn of Richard and Angela. Eventually we found them and we bought as many as I could carry. Angela didn't want to carry any for obvious reasons. The look of the store-owner that sold us the fruits was very surprised. It seems that the people in the capital normally only use these fruits as a means to get rid of flies which get attracted by the scent or as a way to season meat though they use very little of it.

After getting back to the Inn Beakie asked me to keep the fruits in my room in fear of scaring off the customers with the smell. After I ate a bunch for lunch we went off to participate in the council which was set to happen inside the central tree which was located at the center of the capital. They had cut out a big hall that could house thousands of Tamarin with room to spare or so Angela said as we left the Inn once again. I was quite excited but also nervous for the upcoming events.