CHAPTER 1

It was autumn, the first weeks of September. The winds were getting colder and the mead was getting warmer, the cloaks heavier and the people tighter. In the North Empire, everything seemed to be seasonal, like events were placed on a spinning wheel and came about once in the annual cycle. When the wheel spun wrongly, it was the talk of the town. That day, there had been a tiny fluffy outside, and, though no snow had stuck to the ground, people were worried about the last of their crops freezing over. I was a barmaid in the Riverdell Inn, in the town of Wittman's Creek, a community of mostly-farmers, so I knew how anxious everyone was.

Perhaps that was why we were so busy that. As Eorlund, my friend and owner of the Inn, always insisted, people drank more when there was more to drink about. It was true. Every time there was something odd about the weather in the few months I'd been there, people crowded the tavern to drink. Eorlund Winter-Born had lived here all his life, and had run this Inn for nigh on fifty years. He knew. He always knew.

I sighed and looked down at my hands as they poured a mug of beer. The palms were red from washing dishes and carrying firewood. But they had seen worse, and a bit of pre-winter chapping wouldn't hurt them. I scanned my eyes over the scars on my hands, remembering each stroke of a blade, each fall onto stones and marble which I had braced against. The long one on the back of my left hand, from a red-hot poker. Yes, these old hands had seen much worse than dishes.

"Talia, dear," Eorlund called from the kitchen.

"What is it?" I replied, turning around and wiping my hands on my apron. He poked his head around the corner looking confused.

"Where did I put my oven gloves, Talia?" I smiled. He was always forgetting something. It came with the age I suppose. He was, after all, a few winters over seventy by now.

"They are next to the oven, Eorlund. Next to the kettle." He gave me a rumpled look.

"Now, Talia, I think I would have seen them if they were in such a place! Watch, I will look right now, and they will not be there." He turned his head towards the oven, ducking back inside the door frame. When he reappeared, he was embarrassed. "It, err ... Seems to be that they are, indeed, right there." I laughed and turned back to my customers. The door opened and a blast of chilly air hit us. People grumbled and looked up at the newcomer.

He was tall, dressed all in black, with a cloak that hung over him like death and made him seem like a living shadow. His cowl covered his face, making his figure all the more eerie. Everyone in the room thought the same thing; "Weird."

And I heard them, all the thoughts. Ever since I could remember, I could hear what people didn't speak, only chewed over in their heads. Every sullen remark, every dirty comment, and every passing inkling. Nothing escaped me, nothing ever had.

I had been out on the road since I was seventeen, nearly eleven years. I wandered, I taught, I did jobs for people, some of them less than legal. I had been inside the heads of thousands of people. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and everyone in between. I dived into a brain, looked around, got what I needed, and left, all in a few seconds, and all without leaving a trace. I was the world's most efficient blackmailer, ever since the age of four, when I would extort candies from neighbor children by threatening to tell their parents about broken toys and hidden pets. Really, when I thought about it, the only thing that changed in those years was the value of both the broken toy and the candy I received in return.

Of course, I didn't just blackmail people. It was simply a handy capability. No, mostly I dug around inside heads because it was interesting. Through harmless looking I had lived a thousand lives, done nearly everything there was in the world to do. The name my parents gave to me was Talia, and the surname I gave myself Storm-Cloud. But so many names have passed through my head that sometimes I forgot which was which.

A customer spilled his drink and swore loudly. I looked up, snapping back into reality. I noticed the stranger with the cloak had not moved from his table near the door.

"Hey mister," I called at him. "Come have a drink! This is a tavern, not a convent." Drunken guffaws erupted around me and I smiled. I saw a frown form under his dark cowl. I frowned too, wondering what made a man come into a tavern, if not to drink away his coin. I decided to try and hear what he wasn't saying. I tuned out the men around me and reached my mind out to his, looking for a way in.

"Should'a left my wife home ..."

"One more drink ..."

"Damn! Coin's out ..."

Everything faded and became a faint collection of white noise. The tendrils of my mind grew out towards the stranger, getting closer and closer until ...

I felt myself gasp.

Nothing.

His mind was completely blank. Or, at least made to seem that way. My mind recoiled at the barrier that blocked my path. Cool, hard to the touch, like glass on a winter's morning. The longer I touched it the more I wanted to pull away. But I refused, instead pushing and prodding, looking for a weak spot desperately. It felt like hours as I searched his mind's peculiar surface, pressing my subconscious against his until I felt woozy. I sighed dejectedly and retreated, snapping back into my own body. I had to grab the edge of the bar to steady myself. Eorlund slipped past me to give out the free bread that came with dinner.

A wariness grew in me. Never in my years had I ever encountered a man with such power over me. Every now and then there happens to be a wizard or warlock with a bit of psychic training. Those kinds of simple mind tricks are easy to break. I think of them as a wall made out of straw; there are gaps which can be slipped through if one knows where to look. But to completely block me out? Who was this stranger? I looked with a furrowed brow at the frightening being and took my leave into the kitchen.

There was still a lingering chill in my bones from his odd, freezing blockade. I shivered, feeling the heat leech from my flesh. I stood before the oven and let it warm my body. It seeped into my skin and relaxed me. My nerves settled and my mind became a little clearer. Perhaps there was nothing very odd about him after all. Maybe he was simply another magick user that was more advanced than those I'd seen before. Or, could it be that he was another telepath like me? Maybe that was what my mind looked like to him, too. Hell, there had to be more psychics than just me running about. I knew that the Elves had a bit of knowledge of physics, and just because I'd never seen one didn't mean that there were none to be seen.

Yes. That was the answer. Another telepath had wandered into the Riverdell Inn by chance. With my head clearer on my shoulders I stepped back out into the dining room, further convincing myself that this was the case. Still, I thought, he frightened me. Something about him told me he was no good. I scolded myself and looked back at the place he was sitting.

But he wasn't there anymore.

My stomach did a flip and I frantically looked around for him. I nearly vomited as I saw him placing a few coins into Eurrie's hand and going upstairs. I took Eorlund by the arm and led him to a deserted corner.

"Eurrie," I whispered frantically, "who is that man?"

"Oh the quiet one who just rented room eight? He said he's from the capital. Name's ... Jorgen, I think." I twisted my apron in my hands.

"Eurrie, we can't let him stay here."

"Talia," he began sternly, "you'd best have a good reason to turn away a paying customer."

"He scares me, Eorlund. I can't hear him. There's ... There's a wall, of sorts. It's wrapped around his mind so I can't hear him." Now he looked a bit worried.

"That's impossible," he murmured. "You hear everything. How can someone keep you out?"

"I've never seen it before, Eurrie. Maybe he's like me. But I don't need to hear him to be able to tell you that he's no good. Please, Eorlund. Don't let him stay."

"Well, if he has the same gift as you, he's damn good at hiding it. I ... I suppose that I'll speak to him." Eurrie patted me on the arm and gave a half-hearted smile.

"Please be careful," I said. "He could be dangerous."

"I'll be okay, Talia." He touched my shoulder and kissed my forehead. "Hold down the fort, would you?" He winked through the nerves and left to go after the strange man. I waited at the bar, nervously tapping my nails on the wooden surface. I couldn't hear the thoughts from upstairs, they were just out of range. It felt like I was going to crazy as I waited for Eorlund to come back. I only grew more nervous as the minutes ticked by. Someone asked for a drink and I absentmindedly tipped the pitcher of mead into his flagon.

There was a sudden scream from the upstairs. My stomach lurched, and, before I could think, the pitcher had clattered onto the floor, spilling the mead everywhere, and I was already halfway up the stairs. I tore down the hall and flung open the only closed door I found. Inside I found Eorlund lying on the floor in a pool of blood, a knife lying next to him and blood gushing from a hole in his stomach. He was sputtering and gasping for breath, and his wound spurted more blood every time his heart would beat.

"Call the doctor!" I shrieked, nearly falling as I made my way over to him. I knelt beside him and tore a strip off my dress to press it on the wound, holding with one hand and ripping more and more strips of cloth off of my dress. One by one all of the cloths turned to blood in my hands. Eorlund was gasping and trying to talk to me.

"No, please Eorlund, you mustn't speak," I scolded, hands and voice shaking. "Don't talk, you'll be okay! You'll be okay. Okay. Okay." I murmured my mantra over and over, ripping and pressing and soaking up more and more of his blood.

Finally the doctor rushed into the room, carrying a leather case. He shoved me out of the way and started to try to stop the bleeding, using a more proper set of sterilized rags. I crawled to a corner and sat there numbly, watching the man press more sterile cloth into the wound. His name came to me; Hjond. Hjond Raskun.

My mind seemed to be going three dozen directions at once. I couldn't tell if what I was seeing was real. My chest hurt and my head spun around faster than I could keep up. I looked at my bloody hands, my bloody skirt, my bloody knees, and I cried.

CHAPTER 2

The next few hours passed as nothing more than a blur. I remembered pieces of the time in the days that passed after the attack, but nothing more than flashes, and none of it made sense. The next clear moment I had was being next to Eorlund, and seeing him lying in his bed with a corset of bandages around his abdomen. I was sitting in a chair next to him with a small glass bottle in my hand. There was a note from Hjond on the nightstand instructing me when to administer the medicine in the bottle I clutched.

People came to visit me, brought food for me, and offered their sympathy. The guards were saying that the attacker must have fled out the window in the seconds it took me to get there. Or, perhaps, said a few people, he'd slipped out the back exit while everyone was rushing around. I didn't care much for theories, myself. All I knew was that my friend was mortally wounded, and hadn't been able to speak yet. He laid silently, save for occasional groans and whimpers. I gave him his medicine diligently, even attempting to learn a healing spell. It failed, though, and nothing changed. Days passed and he grew paler, and his wound began to fester with putrid infection.

Hjond came back four days after the incident and declared that the blade must have been poisoned, and that the infection had spread to the blood. He told me sadly, with a stony face, that Eurrie was going to die.

"Please, Hjond," I pleaded. "There must be a way to save him. We ... We'll go to the temple up north in Silmen, and get the wound blessed. The priests will save him!" He shook his head wearily.

"You know as well as I that he will not make the journey, Talia." I did know, but I refused to believe.

"I cannot sit here and watch him die, Hjond! It's only thirty miles to the temple; we can get a wagon, fill it with straw, pillows ... Please, Hjond. I've saved my wages for two months!" I knew I was getting hysterical, but I couldn't calm myself down. My eyes were filling with tears, my heart was pounding, and my hands shook.

"Talia." Hjond took me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes. "We can't do anything now except make sure he isn't in pain. The poison is pumping through him as we speak. I'm sorry, lass. He's gone."

I fell to my knees at his bedside and cried. Hjond thought of pity for me and my sorrow. I cried harder.

Two days later, Eorlund died. The official cause on his death certificate was written as complications from the stab wound. It was six days after the stranger had come. After the burial, I sat in the kitchen of the Riverdell Inn, surrounded by baskets of cookies, trays of bread and cakes, wheels of cheese, and a few meat pies. I sat with my hair curled (by the neighbor, in hopes it would cheer me up), my makeup done (by the herbalist down the road), and new clothes (a gift from the tailor). I put food into my mouth absentmindedly, barely caring what it was, and wondered what in hell I was going to do. There was a knock at the door.

"Yes?" I called hoarsely. Hjond's face appeared in the doorway.

"How do you feel, lass?" he asked softly, pulling a chair in with him and sitting across from me. I forced a small smile.

"I'm ... All right," I sighed. "Food helps. So does this," I raised a bottle of a curiously-spiced distillate from a company called Ash Barrel Brewers. The local trader had snuck me the bottle during the wake. Hjond shook his head.

"Poor lass," he thought, "I won't feel right if I leave her alone."

I popped out the cork and looked around for a glass. I couldn't see one, so I shrugged and tipped it down my throat. The burn felt good, and after the fire it tasted like honey and all-spice and molasses.

"Be careful with that stuff, lass. Strong as all hell. Knocked me on my ass two decades or so back, right after I got my license from the Physician's College. A few friends of mine bought a bottle or two and we all woke up a day and a half later in a completely different province with the Smajen guards on our asses and a goat that didn't belong to any of us."

"That's why you're here, Hjond," I said, chuckling. "To make sure I don't steal any goats." I took another drink. He smiled softly.

"Talia," he began, "Eorlund left you the inn in his will, you know ... And I hate to ask at a time like this, but only the Divines know what time will be a good one ... So, what will you do with the Inn now? Will you stay here, in Wittman's Creek?" I sighed.

"I don't know, Hjond. I'm not exactly the type to settle down."

"Ahh, I understand, lass ... I heard the Meadery is looking for another inn to expand their franchise." He didn't have to say which one. He meant the Gold-Flower Meadery. Three brothers bearing the same surname ran it out of Silmen, the capital city of Adaima, to the north. They'd already made deals with two innkeepers to take over their businesses, and were apparently looking to spread their wings even more.

"I might sell to them," I conceded. Hjond imagined a Gold-Flower Inn in the middle of town, and thought about the money it would bring to the town. He decided it would be good business, but then thought about the injuries that it would bring to him, and made the smallest bit of a frown. Burns from the hot mead, broken limbs from falling off ladders, honey bee stings. He sighed. I took another drink, and sucked in a breath through my teeth when it went down.

"Didn't think you could drink like that, lass," Hjond commented.

"Please," I huffed. "You think I traveled around the entire continent without some drinking contests? I've out-drunk Dwarves, Nords, Elves and giants alike."

"You've drank with a giant?" he asked, astonished.

"You bet. His name was Skaldjur, and his tribe was roaming The Neck while I was on my way to Highland two summers ago. I stumbled across their camp and offered them half of a deer I had shot earlier that day. Long story short, I'm now a Glukshul to their tribe."

"What in hell is that?"

"It means `wise one' in the giants' tongue. Well, that's the closest it gets in translation. It really means `one who is worthy to tell the word,' or something like that. It's kind of like an elder in their tribe, one they can come to for advice and wisdom."

"So ... You're a wise woman to a tribe of giants?"

"Yup." Hjond just shook his head.

"I thought, being a doctor, I'd heard everything. That was, until I met you, lass." I was struck with a sudden sadness. Eorlund used to say that, too, when we'd stay up until the wee hours of the morning and I would drink and tell him about the things I'd done and places I'd gone. I took a long drink to fight the tears.

"I guess you have more adventures to go and have, though," he said quietly.

"I suppose. I might ... Do some errands first," I said, flashes of blood running through my head. Hjond furrowed his brow.

"If you think I'm going to let you go after that treacherous bastard alone --"

"It's not like that Hjond," I said, even though it was exactly like that. "He must be found. He was ... A lot different than anyone else I've ever seen in my travels. Too odd to be left alone."