Immortal (16 page)

“Does he now? And you are okay with that?”

“Yes, I-I think I am.”

“That is great, Staysia. I felt you were in a little over your head. I didn’t want you to do something that you would regret. So, we will get the map and visit Tristen’s friends
, and then we will be on our way.”

There were women on the side of the road with their children who reached out to them as they passed by.

“I can’t bear the sight of them,” Staysia said, as she buried her face into Gabriel’s shirt.

“Then, don’t look! Do not look!” Gabriel said.

They passed a saloon. They could see inside the windows. They could see men fighting and whiskey being guzzled. Glass was being broken, and the whiskey was being given out for free by the demands of the men who were being served. Tristen and Gabriel held on to their swords as they passed.

“I believe we’ve found our hut on the corner,” he said to the others
as he pointed at a small hut.

Staysia peeked over his shoulder. She kept her head up after this. She remembered Griffon and became fearless again.

“I will get the map! I will demand he hand it over!” she said dauntlessly.

“Staysia, I want you to come in there with me. We will play it by ear, but I will not allow you to just go in on your own. We need s
omeone to stay with the—” Tristen paused and leaned in close to Jasper. “The baby!”

“BAH!” Jasper grumbled.

“I am going in with her, Tristen.” Gabriel insisted.

“I agree, I would like Gabriel to be there with me,” Staysia said.

“If you would like him to go with you, that is fine by me. Promise me one thing, if things get out of hand you must come and get me. Listen, I am sure they will get out of hand, when they do, come and get me. I can be there in an instant to help you,” Tristen said proudly.

Jasper sat up in his buggy and glared at them. “I don’t n
eed any of you to look after me,” he whispered as he looked left and right.

“Get down!” Gabriel, Staysia
, and Tristen all said together.

Tristen moved away from the door and waved Jasper over to him. Jasper kicked the buggy
, and Humberto glided into the darkness and stopped beside Tristen. Tristen peeked inside the window of the hut. “There are a lot of people in there,” he whispered.

“Ready?” Gabriel asked Staysia. She nodded her head and Gabriel knocked on the door.

A woman answered the door. She was a beautiful woman with thick black hair.

She looked at Gabriel for a moment and then moved her eyes to Staysia.

“Hi, uh, we’re here!” Gabriel spread his arms out when he said this, and then he looked over at Staysia, who smiled and turned to the woman. “Here we are,” she smiled and said.

“Are yo
u two friends of Griffon’s?” the woman asked.

“Yes we are! Where’s he at?” Staysia
asked as she stood on her tiptoes and surveyed the room.

“He’s here somewhere! Come on in.” The woman opened the door and let them in the house. “Griffon!” she called.

“Oh, don’t bother him. I am sure he is busy,” Gabriel said.

“Alright, if you are sure,” the woman said.

“Oh yes, quite sure, we will speak to him in time.”

The house was loud. There were people in each room. The house was filled with smoke from cigars. Gabriel grabbed Staysia’s hand and found two chairs for them. He pulled Staysia’s chair out for her
, and they sat down in front of a table. There wasn’t anyone else sitting at the table, but people were so close around them they were brushing up against both of them. They were stumbling around, laughing loudly and drinking whiskey.

Staysia smiled tightly at Gabriel. He leaned in and said
, “I’ll be right back, stay put.”

Staysia nodded briskly and watched him walk away. She hit her fingers against the table in a rhythmic fashion
, and looked around the room without moving her head to do so. She squint her eyes and moved her head forward when she saw a flash of light in the corner of the room. It moved from one corner to the next. She kept her eyes on it. It became clearer, but still drifted from one place to the next. It was the face of Nox. She began to feel sick at her stomach. She became dizzy.

Nox’s face was the last thing Staysia wanted to see at this point in time. She bit her lip and thought of Cove. She thought about Tristen’s words about faith. He was right. She hoped he was right.

A Thief in the House

Gabriel walked through a dim hallway. The loud voices from the other room were fading. There were pictures on the walls on each side. Only the ones with the small lanterns above them could be seen. The ones that could be made out were of men who stood with their swords held high. Dragons and other lifeless creatures lay beside them in the pictures. Gabriel assumed these were Griffon’s favorite pictures; the ones that had been purposely hung to be seen even at night.

He heard a voice at the end of the hallway, in one of the rooms. He listened. He tried to make out what was being said, but the voice was just too faint to be heard with the thick wall that stood between them. He gently placed his hand on the knob and took a deep breath before turning it. He needed to clear his throat, but it was too risky.

He turned his head and looked with one eye through the tiny crack; the other squeezed shut. There were two men who stood face to face. Their faces could not be determined, (as the room was just as lightless as the hallway had been). The figures stood in silence for a few moments until one of them spoke.

“I guess I’d be a fool not to go with you. Still, I don’t see how you plan to pull this one off. I don’t think anyone
could—not even you my friend.”

“All I have to say to you is that if I don’t get what I want, I will take what I want!”

“And you always have, but how do you take a gift—a gift that was meant for someone else?”

“Ha! You really don’t think I can do it! Stay behind then, but I swear—” Griffon pulled a knife on the other man. “If you tell a single soul, I swear, I’ll kill you!”

“I won’t tell anyone, I swear it! I won’t tell a soul!”

Griffon laughed and looked at the floor briefly. He jerked his head back up and screamed, “Get out of here then!”

The man stumbled over his feet as he hurried out of the room. Gabriel stepped backwards into a dark room across the hallway. When the man had made his way down the hall, Gabriel stepped out of the other room and took another peek at Griffon. He was now sitting at a desk. There was a lamp on the desk that was on. Griffon was looking something over very closely. He was looking at the map. He leaned in close to the map and studied it. He smiled, folded the map and kissed it. He then put it back in his drawer and shut off the light. Gabriel saw him headed to the door and backed up into the other room a second time.

Gabriel looked down the hallway and watched Griffon turn the corner before crossing the hallway and going into the other room. He slowly opened the drawer. There it was. He took the map and put it in his back pocket
, and walked to the door to leave the room. Just as he was exiting the room, he looked up to find Griffon entering the room as he was leaving.

“Thief!” he called. “There’s a thief in the house!”

The people from the other rooms shot down the hallway.

“I’ll take care of him,” a broad and hairy man with a deep voice said as he went for Gabriel, followed by several others who surged toward him.

“Stop!” Staysia called as she pushed through the crowd. “He’s not a thief! Griffon is the thief. He took my mother and father’s lives, and stole from my father. I have his tooth in my bag!” She pulled out the tooth and showed it to the people. “Have you been looking for this?” she asked Griffon.

“Sh-She’s lying to you! She’s lying to all of you!” Griffon said.

“Am I lying? What does everyone else think?” She looked around at the hardened faces that turned soft. “Griffon and all the others who claim this person and that is a thief, are only lying to excuse themselves. Look what has happened to Gnome Hills! No one is allowed to leave—”

Before she finished,
a tall man from the crowd said, “They are protecting us from the thieves—from the ones outside of our town, as well as the ones inside our town. We have not grown violent against one another! We have only become violent in the way of protection from the ones who take from us—the ones who are planning to kill our women and children! They whisper about it at night in their tents and huts. They sharpen their knives and growl at us when we walk passed them. We get them before they get us. We must!”

“That’s not true,” Staysia said.

“What has he taken from you, then? H mm?” a woman covered in fur, from the hat on top of her head, to the shoes on her feet asked. “Show us what he’s got in his hand, and maybe we will witness for ourselves if you speak the truth.”

Gabriel and Staysia both knew they could not reveal the mere existence of the map to anyone. They looked at one another without saying a word.

“Aha! You two are liars, liars and thieves!” the woman declared. The crowd went for Gabriel again. Griffon crossed his arms and smiled. He leaned against the wall and watched them commence their attack on Gabriel.

“Everyone get off of him now!” said a loud voice from the back of the crowd. It was Tristen. They turned their attention to him. “I am the son of Cove and I say she speaks the truth! Does anyone want to take this up with my father? Or do you take my —” he paused and held one hand out in front of him. He poured water on his hand and it became a sword. “Or do you take my word for it? What will it be? Is there anyone here who wishes to challenge me in a sword fight? Is there anyone here who wishes to speak to my father directly? Or do you wish to let all three of us leave with our own property which we came here to reclaim?”

The large man who had offered to get the map from Gabriel for Griffon stepped in front of Griffon. “I will take care of him! You three may go,” he said.

“Wait! I would like to look into the eyes of this murderer!” Staysia went up to Griffon and stared him in his eyes. “You are not going to get away with what you have done. You will never do what you have done to them to anyone else ever again.” She pulled out her sword and held Griffon at point. She put the sword in between his eyes. He backed into a corner. His knees became wobbly and began to shake.

“Y-You won’t get away with this.” He took his eyes away from Staysia and looked around the room. “N-None of you will g-get away with this!”

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” Staysia screamed. “Very well then, I will feel no pity for you when you get what you deserve. I should kill you myself! You know, that
is
why I came here.” Her eyes moved downward, when her eyes met his again, she laughed low. She shook her head and said, “You aren’t worth it. No, there is someone else who will see to it that you never harm another soul—someone who you will meet soon.”

She turned, but just as she did, she turned back around and stuck her sword in the wall, near his head, causing him to hover both of his flat palms over his face. He removed them and tears welled in his eyes. Staysia laughed and turned to the crowd. “Who pities this man?” she asked. The crowd groaned and sighed. They shook their heads and looked at the ground and walked away. She stared into Griffon’s eyes once again. “No one,” she said. She stuck her sword back in its place
, and nodded at Gabriel and Tristen.

The three of them left the hut. The others who thought they had known Griffon all so well
, were leaving as well. “Hey! Where’s everyone going?” Griffon called out his door. No one said a word to him. There were only two men who had sided with him. They stood, one on each side of him.

“Peace will once again thrive along the streets of Gnome Hills. It will shout from the rooftops and echo through the forest. It will roll down the mountains and flood through the valleys below! Your hearts will once again feel what was forgotten.” Tristen called out. “I will see to it!”

There were voices of hope from the crowd who had turned their backs on Griffon now. Their voices were tinged with joy that took the place of hatred and paranoia, madness and vengeance. The people had been under a sort of curse; a curse that was not compelled by sorcery or witchcraft, but by a common human trait: it was driven by a lie.

Tristen, Gabriel
, and Staysia walked side by side as they exited the hut. Staysia slowed her pace, until she finally came to a complete stop. Neither Tristen nor Gabriel noticed until she had turned. She barreled towards Griffon with her hand on her sword. When she reached the steps that led to the door, she pulled out her sword and held it in the center of his chest.

“Staysia! Wait! No!” Gabriel called.

Staysia extended one of her arms at him, and without looking at him, she said, “Stay back! His days of murder are over!” Griffon turned and tried to run into his house. He stumbled and Staysia threw herself on top of him. She raised her sword, and just as she brought it down to stab him, Gabriel grabbed ahold of it, and put his hands over hers. She tried to push him away and struggled with him.