TRISTAN
Tristan fumed quietly. What was taking her so ghod damn long? Some expert.
The woman stared down at the scroll impassively. Tristan studied her delicate, almost porcelain features, her long blond hair. A knockout, no doubt about it. He would have been interested if she hadn't stared at him like he was a piece of furniture when they came in. Beautiful, but cold, so chilly Tristan couldn't even raise a smile with some old lines that he said smoothly enough to make them sound sincere. She had just leaned back, smiled without humor, and asked if they were here to purchase her services or if they were leaving.
Fast, outright rejection was not a response he was use to.
They had told her nothing significant, nothing about the fight, or the stay at Bradford hold for the majority of the night. Dark circles under eyes where the only indication that most in the group had less than three hours of sleep. Most were half heartedly cursing the decision to tell about everything other than the scroll at the interrogation, but the Bradford Hold Wardens had been atypically efficient in rounding people up who were witnesses to the incident, and they had not know each other long enough to have time for anything complicated.
Lack of sleep was not the only thing that made the night uncomfortable, either. Hegurn, Bradford's Chief Warden, wasn't someone Tristan was practiced at dealing with, or even seeing. Gold rings were a social class that generally despised his kind. Hegurn's harsh, angry voice, and the endless, repetitious questions about the attack, whether they had any idea who had been behind it, could describe the attackers that had escaped, noticed anything on the body of the attack's apparent victim; it was mind numbing.
Tristan had broached the subject of helping Bradford find the rest of the assailants, or any other task the hold wanted support for. Hegurn had merely looked at him in disgust, and said with teeth clenched, "I don't need help from a friggin' freeholder, unless you feel like paying for the privileges you get from the holds."
Tristan had dropped the subject. In retrospect, it might have been a better idea to have someone else deal with the man.
At the end, Hegurn had sat back. "You really know nothing." It was a rhetorical question, and no one answered. He thought for a moment, then obvious came to a decision. "You can go. Bradford hold will handle this matter. I do not expect to need you again. And do not, under any circumstances, get in the way of my people. Bradford hold has dungeons that you do not want to get aquatinted with. We will bring these dogs to justice." He said it, but it was almost by rote, with no real fire in it, and he was obviously deep in thought and distracted.
Outside, they had conferred for a while. Tristan noticed El Sid fingering his dagger unconsciously. "No trouble, El Sid" he cautioned.
El Sid had smiled back coldly. "Of course" was his only answer.
Tristan lead the party to Scoville's, a magic shop in Byran's Freehold. Far Seeing Tom was there. After exchanging a few pleasantries, they got down to business. Tristan had shown him the scroll. Tom had almost immediately shaken his head. "Not much I can do with this" he said, to Tristan's surprise. Scoville's was one of the hottest magic shops in Salta.
"Why?" asked Tristan, curiously.
"It's elvish, and I'd say fairly high level. Unusual, and clearly it's got some kind of language translation stuff built into the spell to let anyone use it, but none of the stuff I have here is good for that kind of work." Tom stopped and thought for a moment, then said "But you know, there is someone that might be able to help you. A woman named Krinn el Esta."
"el Esta? As in elvish for Daughter of Esta? Are we talking about an elf here?
Tom smiled. "Why do you think she can help you?"
But she wasn't an elf. She looked a bit like one, but some humans did. And she wasn't the tall, stick like figure an elf maiden would cut.
They met her at a small Takalakis temple, walking through the doorway with the stylized bull with horns dipping to make the doorway's arches overhead and finding her inside.
That was over a half hour ago. She had agreed to look at the scroll for five gold, which seemed excessive. But finding someone that knew elvish writing well enough to help them wasn't going to be easy.
Then they sat and waited.
"Can't you make this a little faster?" burst suddenly out of Tristan, his patience finally evaporating. She looked at him with those icy blue eyes, and he wished he had remained silent.
"No." She turned back to the scroll and sat in thought for several minutes.
"Bythe. Bythe or Hediro."
Tristan was confused. "Huh? I thought the thing was elvish... is it human? Did it come from one of those cities?"
"No." A wordy sort, was this Krinn.
"So... WHERE THE HELL IS IT FROM?"
"I don't know. But I can tell you someone that might."