The Falconer's Stairs

4. Palaver

4

Palaver

"Are you nuts?"

Melanie regarded Julian with a frank stare. "I beg your pardon?"

Placing his hands atop the counter, Julian leaned in slightly and gave her a hard, level look. "You aren't really planning to go off on a journey with Tolburt?"

Melanie sniffed softly and slipped the mark back into her geology book, then set the book down atop the ancient history. Adjusting her seat on the little stool she liked to perch on behind the counter, she returned his look with equal accusation.

"Is there some reason I should not? And more to the point, what concern is it of yours?"

Julian felt his mouth drop open. What concern was it of his? Why, she was… He was…

She raised an eyebrow, and Julian forced his mouth shut. He ground his teeth for a second before finally speaking.

"He's an untrustworthy rat. No telling what he'll do when he's alone with you."

The accusing stare faded a bit, and Melanie began to look amused. "Really." She gave a little toss of her head, and her hair settled more evenly about her shoulders. "So I'm incapable of taking care of myself, is that it?"

Julian knew better than that. If anything, Melanie was one of the most capable women he had ever met, if not the most. "Of course that's not what I'm saying. But you can't keep an eye out forever. He'll - "

"He'll what?"

"I don't know what exactly, but it won't be good. He can't be trusted, Melanie."

"Yes, you've made that abundantly clear."

"So you won't go, then?"

Melanie turned her eyes skyward, and for a second Julian got the distinct impression she was making an appeal to the gods. When she looked back at him, her expression had lost most of its amusement, becoming sternly determined.

"Whether I go or remain here is not for you to say, Julian."

He opened his mouth to reply, but she held up a silencing hand, and he stopped.

"You don't give him enough credit, Julian," Raedrick said, his tone dripping disapproval.

"Credit? After what he did to us?"

"His debt to the town is paid, and there's not a man in Povol's or Holb's groups who doesn't speak highly of him."

Julian scowled darkly at him. "That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it."

Raedrick said nothing, just returned his stare with a firm set to his jaw that broadcast entire levels of disapproval.

From the corner of his eye, Julian could see Melanie's confused frown. "What are you talking about?"

"You going to tell her, Rae, or should I?"

Raedrick's lips compressed for a second. Then he visibly relaxed and he nodded, gesturing with his left hand from Julian to Melanie.

"He sold us out," Julian said, his gaze still locked onto Raedrick's. "Not long after we all ran away from the Army. He found a patrol that had been searching for us and led them right in, to save his own skin."

Raedrick's lips turned downward into a little scowl, but he said nothing.

Julian snorted. "Didn't do him a lick of good, though," he continued. "They trussed him up with the rest of us. We lost…two? Three?…good men when we managed to make our escape."

"And we left him behind." Raedrick's voice was soft, sad.

Not this again. Julian jabbed an index finger toward his old squad leader. "And you beat yourself up over that for almost two years. I still can't figure why."

"He was one of my men."

"Bollocks. He stopped being your man when he betrayed us. Everyone thought he got what was coming to him. Everyone but you, I suppose."

Melanie frowned, tapping at her lips with her index finger. "That's why you were so determined to go up into the mountains after his friend last winter."

Raedrick nodded.

"And you almost got the lot of us killed over it," Julian growled. When Raedrick didn't immediately respond, he turned away from his friend and regarded Melanie frankly. "You see why Tolburt can't be trusted?"

"I see why you would think so."

Julian gaped at her. Had she not been listening at all?

"I understand he hurt you, Julian."

"Hurt me? He didn't hurt me, he - "

"Yes, yes." She made a dismissive wave of her hand. "Regardless, I have never seen or heard of him behaving except as a complete gentlemen since he came here. He's going to chase after this regardless, and it is all but certain, given what you two encountered in that cave and what I've learned about Hevergod and his sorcerers, that he will not survive whatever traps and tricks they left at The Falconer's Stairs without the help of a practitioner."

It was difficult to see the problem with that arrangement. He opened his mouth to say so, but Melanie continued speaking, trampling over his reply before he could make it.

"And even were that not the case, I have a responsibility. This construct, whatever it is, is likely very powerful. It should not just be left lying around where the gods know who might obtain it."

Julian snorted again. "The hell you do. That's the Magestirium's job, not yours. Besides, you just said any random fellow who tried to get it would most likely die. It's lasted there for five hundred years already."

Melanie's eyes narrowed. "The Magestirium does not have the information we do."

"All the same, Julian's right," Raedrick interjected.

They both turned surprised eyes on him, and he made a little shrug to match a wry half-grin. "Well he is. And besides, your truce with the Magestirium carries the stipulation that you not leave Glimmer Vale."

"I'm aware of that."

"Loran Haversted said he had used tracers to follow Telurian here. They probably have similar spells set to monitor you."

"There are ways around those sorts of spells."

"But you won't know for sure if you were successful until they come for you again, will you?"

She shook her head.

"Then why take the risk?" Raedrick must have seen the incredulous look on Julian's face, because he grinned a little bit more broadly. "Don't misunderstand my meaning. I thank you for your willingness to help. But you could do as much, maybe more, if you just sent a message to Haversted. I could hold Jared here until they send someone to assist, or maybe they could meet him in Mangin City." He raised an eyebrow. "You don't need to risk yourself over this. So…why?"

Melanie met his gaze coolly and replied, "Just because I am not a member of the Magestirium does not mean I don't have responsibility here, Raedrick." She drew a quick breath. "One thing Timon taught me early on is that all practitioners have a duty to the art, and to its posterity. That includes a duty to prevent its side-effects from adversely affecting the un-initiated." Her cool facade faded, slightly, as she grinned all of a sudden. "But beyond that… Well, I want to go for the same reason you do."

Raedrick blinked, and Melanie chuckled softly.

"Come now, you're curious about what Hevergod left behind for his son." She glanced Julian's way and arched an eyebrow. "You both are."

That was true enough. Julian had certainly pondered the puzzle a few times over the last several months. He grudgingly nodded. "I told you that before. But that doesn't mean I want to run off…with Tolburt…to find the bloody thing. Or that you should, either."

"I would go in a heartbeat," Raedrick said, "except - "

"It'd be a trip of three to four months at least, and you can't leave Lani for that long," Melanie finished for him. "No man worthy of being called one would." She drew herself up. "Look, you boys are not going to talk me out of this, so you'd best get used to the idea."

Julian knew that look on her face. He had seen it before, that tightness in the lips, the sharpness in her eyes. She wasn't going to budge on this one.

Looking back at Raedrick, he saw that Raedrick had come to the same conclusion. The other Constable shrugged slightly and spread his hands in a gesture that shouted helplessness.

Damn it.

Julian pushed himself up off his stool and, muttering under his breath, started toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Melanie sounded suspicious.

He sighed. "To pack." As he reached for the door latch, he looked back at her over his shoulder, and was amused to see the look of disbelief on her face. He put on his most winning smile. "You didn't think I was going to let you go off with Tolburt by yourself did you?"

Shaking his head in mock disbelief, he threw her a wink, then he pulled the door open and left her store.

As the door shut behind him, he let the act go. He ran his head through his hair and sighed, hardly believing that he was about to do this thing. And with Tolburt, of all people!

This was going to be a bad few months.