Chapter Ten Trouble Beyond Trouble
Chapter Ten
Trouble Beyond Trouble
Where Any Bridge Will Do
“Trouble? Trouble beyond trouble, and you brought it here, to Master Beguiling? Oh!” The harengon servant fairly quivered with indignation. Saeldian didn’t shrink or cringe, but Kell knew it was taking everything they had to stand firm.
They were afraid.
It wasn’t like the terror that froze them when they encountered the wandering witch. They were afraid to be here, asking for help. From their patron? And that fear was powerful enough that Saeldian Charmhand was fighting not to cower before an annoyed servant—
He stood beside Saeldian suddenly. “Naturally, we would be grateful for Master Beguiling’s cleverness and wisdom.
This is a situation that baffles us, but Saeldian has always spoken so highly of him and his understanding of complex situations.
He may be the only one who can see into the heart of the tangle we’re in. ”
Saeldian didn’t miss a beat. They never did. They could pick up whatever Kell was spinning and follow like they were dancing together. “Kell’s right. Osalor told me I should come to him if I needed him.”
“That’s the problem,” the servant—Nobble?—said. “The webs and the weaves, you don’t know what you’ve done, coming here after Master Beguiling said not to—”
“Unless there was trouble beyond trouble,” Kell said. Smooth and polished, but unyielding stone. “And it was trouble indeed.”
“What was it?”
Saeldian had steeled their nerve. “Why don’t you ask Master Beguiling if you may stay to hear the story? I have no reason to deny your interest.”
Nobble’s ears shot straight up, offended. “Come and tell Master Beguiling what you’ve done, then.”
Nobble turned with a sniff and led them over the flat stones that made the floor of an outdoor dining room, then over a little bridge that crossed a sparkling stream.
“The webs and the weaves are layered just so, and the crossing has been passed through by the one person who could walk through them like cobweb,” Nobble grumbled to herself. “Oh! All those strands, broken.”
“Strands?” Kell asked.
“Protection,” Saeldian said. “Osalor keeps his domain hidden.”
Nobble groaned in horrified ecstasy. “All those connections, broken, shivered apart, clicking like beads—who was in the place to hear them? What whispers beyond the garden Master Beguiling has tended so long? Who has heard his voice and remembered him? Who wonders why they remembered, after all this time—”
It clicked. Saeldian’s archfey patron had enemies. Saeldian, terrified and running for their life, had crashed through the protections on Osalor’s domain and made him vulnerable.
The witch didn’t follow them. Maybe because their spell barrage had kept her trapped, or maybe she hadn’t meant any harm.
But Saeldian wouldn’t flee like that for no reason.
And Saeldian’s fear would hang in the air.
It would seep into the land. That changing would be an easy trail to follow until it faded.
“We might have made a mistake. Saeldian just ran for it—”
“I handled it,” Lorzok said. “The land was happy to erase our trail.”
Kell sighed in relief. “I’m so glad someone around here is thinking.”
“I’m used to being the one who does the thinking,” Lorzok said, and that dissolved a knot Kell had been carrying since last night.
“Someone with wisdom for once,” Nobble said. “Nobble never thought the day would come when this scapegrace would meet someone handsome and wise, good orc.”
“That is kind of you to say,” Lorzok said. “But we’re all handsome, are we not?”
Nobble stopped. She turned around and examined Jubilee before she nodded and turned that attention to Kell.
“Nobble accepts your correction. They are handsome. But Nobble will reserve judgment on wisdom until wisdom is shown. Saeldian should marry a nice druid like you, but you’re probably too smart to step in that trap.”
Jubilee bristled. “What are you trying to say about my friend, Nobble?”
Kell spoke quickly. “Forgive us. We really are in trouble, and any assistance we can give Archfey Osalor in mending the protections is freely given, but I fear it must be swift.”
Saeldian said nothing in return as Nobble let them in, grumbling the whole while. Kell had to fight not to stare at them. Saeldian, accepting abuse? Disrespect? They looked at the gleaming white stone floor and followed, meek and quiet. Or afraid.
Nobble led them into the first room of Osalor’s fantastical glass house and held up her hand. “Wait here. Don’t touch anything. Nobble will know.”
There were benches among the fabulous clutter of old climbing roses, flanked by potted orange trees in bloom and a polished brass armillary sphere—did it track the wandering stars of Toril, or some other plane?
Jubilee sat at a table with two wrought silver chairs that held a lanceboard, the pieces still in the early game. The black queen, carved from shining obsidian—Shar, back in Faer?n—rested on the edge of the board with the white quartz king in check and unable to castle.
Saeldian didn’t move to sit. They took three careful, deliberate breaths, and then their hair untangled, all their tumbling curls perfect and shiny.
They twisted it up with nimble fingers, and it knotted around a silver rod, tendrils falling carelessly loose around their changing face.
Saeldian preferred a countenance that didn’t let anyone decide if that beauty was a man’s or a woman’s.
Kell watched Saeldian adjust the face that they had perfected over the years from elf-human to more elven.
A little sharper, with longer ears and the delicate, subtle angles that made an elf distinct.
Their ensemble grew and changed into a gambeson made of studded leather leaves, every buckle an apple blossom, with a shiny embossed gorget that rose to their chin. They stood straight and waited for Osalor in utter silence.
Kell tugged on his jerkin before he noticed he was doing it. “Are you all right?”
Saeldian kept their attention focused on the archway leading deeper into the house. “Your timing with handling Nobble was perfect. I’m glad to see you still have the dazzle in you.”
That was a thanks, Feywild style, and Kell swatted away the warmth of it. He’d stood up for them for the sake of the team because Saeldian couldn’t handle it. That was all.
But before he could choose coarseness or courtesy, the air changed.
The doors parted to welcome the lord of this domain, and the air smelled like roses and rare incense before he crossed the threshold. Kell fought the gasp, but he couldn’t help but stare.
The name Osalor the Beguiling was an understatement.
He was incredible. So ethereal, Kell had to check to make sure Osalor’s feet actually touched the floor (they did, resting in gleaming silver-toed slippers).
He looked like he was born from moonlight and learned to dance before he could walk.
One moment of his regard would leave Kell dazed for a tenday.
But every bit of Osalor’s attention was on Saeldian, who couldn’t look anywhere but at him.
He tilted his head. “The leaf pockets are clever, and they don’t disturb the line too much. But bring that gorget up higher, almost like a bevor…yes. Higher in the back…ah! Menacing. And it forces your shoulders into the correct angle. You’re getting better at this. But…”
Saeldian adjusted their armor instantly and waited while Osalor dissected their choices.
They used to be good at illusions and disguises, but now Kell would bet that no one in Faer?n was better.
Saeldian looked fey. They looked dangerous.
Their armor, their level gaze, and their dark, dark eyes made them gorgeous and terrible and starlight perfect.
Osalor’s eyebrows raised. He pursed his lips. “You look tired.”
Their complexion brightened. The shadows under their eyes vanished.
Kell pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It had been a criticism, not a concerned observation, and Saeldian’s reaction from the heist when they couldn’t hold their altered self while the two of them were trapped in their shadows clicked into place.
Saeldian’s natural face was not ugly—not even close. But compared to the uncanny perfection they masked themself with—and inspected by the most breathtaking person Kell had ever seen—Saeldian’s natural face didn’t meet Osalor’s standard.
Kell couldn’t punch an archfey. He couldn’t even shade his polite conversation with scorn. And Saeldian would not thank him if he did.
Osalor’s musing finally became a smile. “My dear protégé. To see you again at last, here before me—”
He opened his arms. Saeldian stepped into his invitation, and when his arms closed around their back, they relaxed—only to have to tense back into poised balance as Osalor withdrew to face a window.
Kell should not even think these thoughts right now. If Osalor noticed, that would be unfortunate. Jubilee’s face was a drawn-back fist before she covered it. Lorzok pointed his disapproval at the floor while he gathered his calm.
Osalor gazed out the window, where the white flowers that perfumed the air glowed under the moonrise.
He glowed in the moonlight too, standing perfectly still while they all waited for him to decide to act like they were in the same room again.
Kell never liked the patriars of Baldur’s Gate who made a game of keeping people waiting, just to prove who had the power.
He had to stop being angry. Osalor would notice, and he might not decide that Kell’s irritation was amusing. So he played “The Wavewizard’s Reel” in his head, imagining the chord progressions until Osalor finally spoke.
“Trouble upon trouble, Nobble told me. Report.”
“We retrieved the Kiss of Enduring Love.”
Osalor rolled his eyes. “Awful name. Go on.”
“I had to expend my most powerful spells to accomplish this. We delivered the gem to our employer, who promptly sent us to the Feywild through a crossing on the inn property that would only be accessible for a few minutes. We met someone on arrival.”
Timtim gave a pleased thump.