His orb suddenly blossoms to life as he breaks the seal and unrolls the letter.
“What does it say?” Dave asks as he pulls up next to him.
“It only has one word,” he says.
“What?” Illan asks.
“Ironhold,” he tells them.
“Ironhold?” Illan asks.
James glances to him and asks, “Ever heard of it?”
Shaking his head Illan turns back to the others and raises his voice, “Any of you heard of a place called Ironhold?” When he gets nothing but negative responses, he turns his attention again to James.
“I told Ellinwyrd of what happened in Saragon and of the cryptic message that I discovered there,” he explains. Holding the letter up, he adds, “This must in some way have to do with that. Just have to figure out what.”
Shortly after leaving town, they come to a crossroads. They can either continue along the coast or head due north, James chooses to go north. “The coast road would lead us back to Cardri, and after all that’s been done there, I think it wise to avoid the place for awhile.”
“Plus this road should lead more directly home too,” adds Miko.
An hour later, they come to a cluster of buildings, one being an inn and they decide to stop for the night. It being so late, the inn is all but deserted. Only two workers are cleaning up and getting the place ready for the morning customers.
James and Illan enter and get rooms for everyone. After stabling their horses around back, they head up to their rooms and go straight to sleep. Dave shares James’ room again.
“Why do we need to find this Ironhold anyway?” he asks as they get ready for bed.
“There are many questions that have arisen since I’ve come here,” he explains. “and I need to find the answers.”
“Why?” he asks.
James opens his mouth to reply when he suddenly realizes he doesn’t have a good answer for that. He doesn’t know why, he just feels he needs to. Turning to Dave, he says, “If I do what I’m here to do, maybe we can go home.”
“You haven’t really explained it all to me yet,” he says. “I’m your best friend and I think you should clue me in as to what is really going on.”
“You’re right Dave, you are my best friend,” he says. He then gives him a general rundown as to what’s going on and the visits by Igor. He makes no mention of the Fire or anything about his experiments. When he’s done, Dave is satisfied and they drift off to sleep.
Early the following morning, a commotion outside wakes them and Dave goes to the window overlooking the rear courtyard. A group of people are congregating near the rear of one of the other buildings. “Something’s going on,” he says.
“We better go check it out,” James says as they begin getting their clothes on.
Before they’re finished getting dressed, there’s a knock at their door.
James hollers, “Come in,” and the door opens. Illan walks in and says, “Some girl was murdered last night.”
“What?” asks Dave and James at the same time.
“It was the younger daughter of the innkeeper,” he says. “She was torn up pretty bad. At first they thought it was an animal attack, she looked like she had been chewed on. But then they found bloody tracks from some man’s boot walking away from the scene.”
“That’s terrible,” James says.
“We better get out of here before anyone starts asking questions,” he says.
Nodding, James gets his pack and stands up. “Yeah. Good idea.”
As they leave the room they begin to hear yelling coming from downstairs and they rush down to find Qyrll encircled by an angry crowd. His hood has fallen back allowing all to see his extensive tattoos.
“Monster!” one woman cries as she breaks down into tears.
“He is not to blame for the death of the young girl!” Jiron shouts to be heard above the noise of the crowd.
He and Qyrll have their backs to the wall as they face the angry people. They haven’t yet pulled their weapons out, but James can see he’s about ready to if they get much closer.
One man draws his sword and says, “He killed my little Elenda!”
“He was with me all night,” responds Jiron.
James can see the situation beginning to blossom out of control. If he doesn’t do something, it’s going to escalate into a flat out riot and all these people are going to get hurt. Jiron and Qyrll could wade through them like a hot knife through butter.
Summoning a little bit of magic to magnify his voice, he yells, “Enough!”
His voice rolls over the crowd and Jiron looks to him in relief. As one, the onlookers turn to face him. Their anger is plain on their faces and he hasn’t long to diffuse this situation.
“This man is not to blame for the death of your daughter,” he says to the innkeeper as he makes his way through the crowd to stand before them. “I have known him to be only a gentle man. Let not his visage frighten you. From where he comes from, these markings are a sign of manhood. His people are not bloodthirsty killers.” Well, they are but not in this way.
“Before you kill an innocent man, make sure of the facts!” he hollers to them. “You say that whoever killed your daughter walked away through blood?”
Several heads in the audience nod in agreement.
Turning to Qyrll, he says, “Remove your boots.”
While he’s removing his boots James turns his attention to the crowd and says, “If he did in fact walk through blood, then there should be some indication on his boots that he did.” He’s thankful to see a couple people nod their heads at his logic.
“Here,” Qyrll says as he hands him his boots.
James examines them and with profound relief finds them completely devoid of any blood. He didn’t know what he would do if there had been any on them. Holding the boots toward the crowd, he says, “See. There is no blood!” He moves them first one way and then another as everyone in the crowd presses forward to see.
Unconvinced, the innkeeper says, “He could’ve cleaned them off!” Several, people grunt their agreement.
Despite the fact that some of the crowd are unconvinced, he begins to notice the overall mood has changed from one of mob violence to restless curiosity. He has to keep this going or that innkeeper will stir them up again.
Pulling an idea from a crime drama on television, he says, “Let’s go and compare this boot with the one which walked away from the scene, to see if he could even have made the tracks.”
“Alright,” the innkeeper says. “But if they’re the same, he dies.”
James isn’t too worried about that, this Parvati is larger than most and it’s unlikely his boot is going to match that of the killer’s. Unless of course he really is the killer. There is a kernel of doubt in his mind, he remembers the deaths back in Cardri that seemed to have occurred around the time they were all there. He knew Parvati’s were not murderers. Killers, yes, but not murderers.
Leading the crowd out to the scene of the crime, he carries the boots. Qyrll and Jiron follow along behind him.
“The tracks are over here,” one person says.
James follows him and they come to three very clear imprints in the dirt. Bending down near the clearest of the three, he says, “Now, let’s see.” Putting the boot on the ground next to the print, he lines up the heel of Qyrll’s boot with that of the bloody imprint. Once aligned, he looks up to the crowd.
A murmur begins running through the onlookers as they see the toe of Qyrll’s boot extends two inches past that of the imprint. One says, “He couldn’t have been the one.”
The innkeeper’s anger toward Qyrll dissipates quickly. Looking to the Parvati, he grudgingly says, “Sorry.”
Qyrll makes no reply as he puts his boots back on.
“But who killed my daughter?” he wails as his wife comes over and embraces him, her sobs adding to his own.
“I don’t know,” James replies, “and we’re all sorry for your loss.” To Fifer, he whispers, “Get the horses ready to leave.”