Death Comes To All (Book 1) (51 page)

Raine
insisted that everything was fine, but Drom had trouble believing
that. He could sense that the woman was as worried as he was, but
didn’t want him to be concerned. He didn’t think that
anything was likely to have happened to the resourceful assassin, he
was far too skilled for that, and surely he wouldn’t have made
another mistake like the one he had made in Port Tam.

What
could be detaining him?

That
was not the only worry that Drom had about his friend either. He had
no idea what Raiste might think about what was going on between him
and Raine, especially since Drom wasn’t completely certain
himself what they had between them. He didn’t think that the
assassin would really have a problem with it, but he didn’t
really know him all that well either.

As
much as he wanted to ask Raine what her thoughts about things might
be, he didn’t want to risk loosing whatever it was that they
had. Asking unnecessary questions had only gotten him into trouble in
the past, and he hoped he could say he had learned from his mistakes.
Eventually, when Raiste finally returned, he would learn his answer
one way or another. Until then, it would probably just be best to
leave well enough alone. Still, the question continued to nag at him.
Finally he could take the waiting no longer.

“
What
do you think we should say to Raiste when he gets back?” he
asked Raine one evening while they were cooking dinner. She was
cutting vegetables for his stew at the time, as she often did for
him. Her meals only required a quick seasoning and a place over the
fire after all, while his generally required a bit more effort.

“
I’m
going to ask him where the hell he’s been over the past two
months, first of all,” she answered with a toothy grin. “He
was supposed to be back two months ago. He should know better than to
keep us waiting like this. He better have a good reason for it.”

“
I’m
sure he does,” he returned, hoping to reassure her. “That
wasn’t really what I was talking about. I meant, what should we
tell him about us? I’m sure he’ll notice that we’ve
been sleeping in the same bed. Things aren’t really the same
between us as they were when he left. Don’t you think he’ll
want an explanation or something?”

“
I
don’t think it would be any of his business,” she stated
bluntly. “Him and I are nothing more than friends. We’ve
never been anything more than friends, and regardless of what you
might think we would never have been anything more than friends. It’s
not any of his business what I do or who I do it with. It’s not
any of his business who you spend time with either. There’s not
any reason for you to get defensive or jealous.”

“
I
wasn’t thinking that,” he said quickly. Things had been
going very good with Raine, and the last thing he wanted to do was to
make her upset. She could hold a grudge for quite a while if she
wanted to, he recalled. “I know that there was never anything
between you two. Besides, I’m not really the type of person to
get jealous anyway. You know that.”

“
Good,”
she replied, though whether or not she was really convinced, or if
she was just going along with it for now, he didn’t know. She
was usually fairly predictable, but he had also seen her mood change
at a moments notice at times. “I don’t like jealous men.
If it turned out that you were that way, I might have had to
reconsider our arrangement.”

He
didn’t bother to mention that he didn’t have the
slightest idea what their arrangement actually was. He had gone out
of his way to avoid that question, not certain if he really wanted to
hear the answer. His feelings for the feral woman had grown deeply
over the past few weeks, and he didn’t want to do anything that
could ruin that.

“
I
was thinking more about what he might say about it in general,”
he said after a moment, choosing his wording carefully. “He
seems to have rather specific ideas about how things should happen,
and I don’t think that this was a part of his plan, whatever
that
might be.”

“
Why?
Would that really make a difference? I’m enjoying myself, and
there hasn’t been too many moments in my life where I can say
that. What he thinks doesn’t make a bit of difference to me. It
shouldn’t make any difference to you either.”

“
It
doesn’t,” he replied quickly. This was turning out worse
than he thought it would. His questions were meant innocently enough,
but somehow everything had been turned around. He should have gone
with his original thought and kept his mouth shut. “I was just
wondering is all. Never mind, it’s not really important, like
you said.”

“
You
two act too awkward,” a voice observed from the back of the
room. It was not a voice either of them recognized. They both turned
toward the sound quickly, searching for the mysterious source of the
unexpected statement. After several seconds they spotted it. A small
human-looking creature, less than a foot tall, sitting on top of one
of the cupboards, barely visible in the shadows.

The
figure appeared to be, apart from its extremely small size, a normal
human man in all other regards. If he had been of average size, Drom
would have believed him to be a young man of perhaps sixteen. He had
long, black hair, tied tightly behind him in a tail that reached
halfway down his back. He wore a dark grey tunic, with breeches of
the same color, and tiny black boots that appeared to be made of
leather.

Raine
reacted first. She grabbed the knife she had used to cut the
vegetables off of the counter and sent it hurtling at the creature.
The knife flew straight and true, to strike....nothing at all! The
figure that had stood there had disappeared completely!

Had
it really been there at all?
Drom began to wonder.

Surely
he should have seen it move if it had dodged the knife, but he hadn't
seen it move at all. It was as if one moment it was there, and in the
next it was gone.

“
It's
not very nice to throw knives,” the same voice observed again,
this time from the doorway behind them. “Bree doesn't think you
should do that any more.”

Raine
grabbed a second knife and threw this one as well, directly at the
small figure that now stood in the doorway, leaning against the
inside of the frame. Once again, the figure winked out of existence.
This time Drom had been staring right at it. It had been directly in
the light of the room, so there wasn't any question that it had been
there, and he hadn't seen it so much as twitch a muscle before the
knife reached it. It just ceased to exist; there in one moment, gone
in the next.

“
Bree
can do this all day, but would rather not. It gets annoying trying to
dodge knives all day long. Bree hopes you stop throwing knives at him
now.” This time the diminutive man spoke from the kitchen
windowsill, where it sat in a relaxed manner, swinging its legs back
and forth over the edge.

It’s
like a playful child,
Drom thought.

“
Hold
on a second, Raine,” Drom asked before she could find another
knife or some other object to throw. There were plenty of things
within her reach. It was already obvious to him that they weren't
going to get anywhere this way.

It
was probably best just to find out who this man, who called himself
Bree apparently, wanted of them. Raine dropped her arm and let the
heavy skillet she had already picked up drop from her fingers. It hit
the floor with a loud bang and bounced across the floor.

“
Who
are you, and what are you doing here?” Drom asked.

“
I
am Bree, and Bree is me,” the tiny man replied. “Right
now Bree is sitting on a window and talking.”

Bree
is horribly confusing,
Drom thought irritably.

The
small man's answer was certainly true, he was sitting on a window and
talking, but it didn't really tell them anything.

“
No,
I mean why are you here?”

“
Bree
is here to talk, of course,” Bree replied casually. “Bree
wants to meet you too, so Bree sent Bree here to talk with you and
see if you will meet with him.”

Now
Drom was completely confused.

What
is this little man talking about?

Bree,
it seemed, tended to refer to himself in the third person, which was
strange and confusing enough. Now, however, he seemed to be saying
that he sent himself to talk to Drom and see if he would meet with
him. The whole thing made no sense whatsoever.

“
OK,
Bree. I’m here now. I wasn’t exactly planning on meeting
with anyone at the moment, but since we’re both here, I see no
reason not to meet with you. As long as you agree not to bother us
again, at least not without announcing yourself first anyway.”

“
It’s
not Bree that wants to meet with you, though it is a great honor to
meet the battle mage in person. It’s Bree that wants to meet
with you. If you agree to meet with Bree, Bree will go back and tell
Bree, and then Bree can come here and meet you.”

More
confusion it seems,
Drom thought sourly.

He
had been looking forward to another quiet night with Raine, but it
seemed that he wasn’t going to get his wish. A sudden
realization came to him, so obvious that it surprised him that he
hadn’t noticed it right away.

Did
I just hear that diminutive man refer to me as the battle mage? How
could he possibly know that?

Raine
must have heard the same thing, because as soon as the man had
referred to him as the battle mage, she had started closing the
distance between herself and the tiny person. Moving ever so slowly,
she stalked him as if she were a house cat with a mouse in its
sights. As soon as she was within a few feet, she leaped toward the
small man at full speed. Drom had seen Raine move before, and knew
that at that distance the little man wouldn’t be able to move
an inch before she would be on him.

“
Gotcha!”
She cried, her arm nothing more than a tan and black blur as she
struck. Once again, however, the tiny human-looking creature
disappeared without so much as a twitch. Raine stared unbelieving at
her empty hands. It shouldn’t have had a chance at getting
away, she knew.

“
You
should really stop doing that,” Bree said seriously. “You’re
going to hurt them if you keep attacking Bree that way. You need to
be more careful to keep them safe. You should sit down on that chair
over there, instead of attacking Bree.”

Now
what was this little man talking about,
Drom wondered?

Whatever
it was it seemed to stop Raine in her tracks. She immediately did
what she was told, sitting down on the hard wooden kitchen chair.
Drom didn’t know what to think. He had never seen Raine stop
herself in such a way, and had certainly never seen her take orders
from a complete stranger.

She
wouldn’t even take commands from me like that!

“
Much
better,” Bree commented. “Now, when would be a good time
for you to meet with Bree? Bree will be waiting to hear from Bree by
now.”

“
OK,
so let me get this straight,” Drom began, trying to sort
through the confusion of this little man’s speech. “Your
name is Bree, right? And you were sent by someone else, who is also
named Bree. Have I got any of this right so far?”

“
Yes,
isn’t that what Bree has been saying?” Bree asked as if
it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I
wonder if he knows just how hard it is to understand him,
Drom
wondered?
Could it be that he really doesn’t know?

“
Well,
what time would be good then for Bree to meet with me?” he
asked.

It’s
not as if I have much else to do,
Drom thought.

Whoever
this other Bree was, he might have other places to be or things to
do, especially if he sent this Bree to come talk to him first.
Perhaps this other Bree was the king of this strange race. If so, he
would surely have a fairly busy schedule.

“
Bree
can meet with you whenever you wish,” Bree assured him.
“Meeting with the battle mage is the most important thing for
Bree to do.”

There
it was again. For the second time, Bree referred to him as the battle
mage, and this time there was no way for him to possibly mistake it.
Somehow, this little man knew more about him than he should be able
to. The only people who should know who and what he was were Raiste
and Raine.

Could
this little creature have spoken to Raiste?

Drom
didn’t think it likely. Raiste was normally tight lipped, even
when speaking to his friends. It was very unlikely that the assassin
would tell anything to this little man.

“
I
can meet with Bree whenever it is convenient for him,” Drom
answered finally.

Bree
had never mentioned Raiste, and with the mages hunting for his
friend, he didn’t want to say anything that would give away the
fact that this was the place that the assassin called home. He would
have to be equally careful not to give away anything to whoever this
other Bree was, he felt certain.