Chapter 9 – Part 3

Parnain ascended a wide set of stairs, dimly light by a single torch in the pre-dawn. His boots made little sound on the polished wood as he walked, both because he was trained in stepping lightly and because of a muffling enchantment in them.

Few were up at this hour, as Vadalis was primarily a house of humans. He noted the sounds of slumbering, the snores and fits of those stirring to wake, and the other minor, whispers of sounds.

Nothing escaped his notice. He was Medani. He was the ultimate Medani.

And he was doing his best to hide the flip-flops in his stomach.

He passed by what he knew from an aerial sketch was a secured wing of the Vadalis compound. A small antechamber with no doors guarded the passageway down that wing. Parnain saw no guard, no pressure plates or glyphs or other sign of a trap.

Although there was a large, raven-like bird on a perch, eyeing him, and eyeing a peg holding a panel on the wall closed. Parnain suspected that should someone enter the room and not speak the right command to the bird, it would fly off of its perch and pull the pin, likely releasing some extremely poisonous reptile.

A trained animal trap. How very Vadalis.

Parnain walked on. Portraits of House elders began appearing on the walls, setting off his thoughts on his own House supervisors.

You are Medani, the old man had told him. Parnain had been young, and he had been set upon by a band of thugs in Wroat while he was tracking a lead. He’d fought them hard, refusing to back down, rolling through a store window. Medani notice things, the old man had said. Whack! The hard cane in the old man’s hands had smacked down on Parnaian’s shoulder’s, but the young, angry half-elf did not flinch. Medani notice, but do not make themselves noticed. That foolishness is for our Lyrandar cousins. Whack! Master Hassan was driving his disapproval home with a painful lesson.

A year later, Parnain had infiltrated, then studied with, an assassins guild that worshipped the Mockery. Two years after that, once he’d learned all their secrets, he’d killed every single one. Only then had he returned to his House, who had written him off as dead when they hadn’t heard from him in over eight months. Only then did he slip into Master Hassan’s room, and smother the old man with a pillow.

He frowned slightly. That he was mentally revisiting the crucial time in his life, the time that made him - was a sign of insecurity. He was trying to reassure himself of who he was. The druid's invitation had rattled him, and he didn't want to admit why.

Parnain had carefully cultivated a reputation as being implacable. He was not flashy, Master Hassan had been right that such an attitude was for Lyrandar, but he made sure – sometimes through action, sometimes through carefully massaged leaks to certain newspapers and intelligence agencies, that he always found who he wanted to find.

That’s why Breland was paying such a large sum for him to find every single changeling spy in Aundair’s employ. They knew that he either would find them or they would run on hearing of Parnain’s presence.

That’s why he couldn’t afford to ignore an invitation from a highly-placed druid. He couldn’t afford to be seen as, well, uninterested.

But he did not like this. Some Druids could change shape, like shifters, like the changelings. The filthy, disgusting changers.

And most importantly, the druid's invitation did not fit. Why should one of the Gatekeeper sect care about changelings? They were supposedly obsessed with swamp monsters. And if this wasn't about changelings, why contact Parnain?

Parnain didn't like that he didn't know why it fit, and that made him - nto nervous, surely not that.

But if Aruunis hadn't sent him the invite, Parnain wouldn't have come. In fact he would have left Varna as soon as possible. No point in staying in one place too long.

Parnain went up another staircase, and saw a human male in a chair. The human male had both a wand and a sword, and a wolf sat at his feet.

“Stop,” the man said, very quietly.

“I’m invited,” Parnain said. But he stopped nonetheless, and stared hard at the man’s earlobes. Those were usually not formed well, they were the afterthought. They seemed real enough, this was likely a real human.

“Your name?” the man asked.

“You don’t know who I am?” smirked Parnain.

The human looked at him for a moment, then waved his hand. “The druid is in the library, unless he’s resting in the loft above it. Don’t make trouble and don’t damage any books.”

Parnain pursed his lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

“F’test you!” snapped the man, his hand drifting towards the wand. “You’re in our House now, you –”

“Sleep,” Parnain insisted, scattering a pinch of sand at the man and his wolf. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he leaned back, unconscious.

The wolf resisted the spell, but since its master seemed to have relaxed, it didn’t bother the half-elf. Parnain flexed his fingers, then stepped forward and pushed the library open.

I Shall Return!

Okay, I am sorry, first and foremost. You don't know how many times I've attempted to rewrite Parnaian's meeting with Aruunis, or other things.

On June 1, my family mvoed into a new pat. We still haven't finsihed unpacking or egtting everything out of storage. Also, given that I practcie foreclosure defense and bankruptcy law, my work life has been a little out of control.

Here's the good news: The next part of this chpater has been written and I like it! The bad news, it's still on my home computer, I forgot to put it on the UBS key.

So, um, hang in there with me, okay?