Authors Note,
I don't know who is sticking along with the story to this point. We are roughly 20 chapters away from the end of this story. The characters are moving towards each other and the story is coming towards it's end. Three full books over the course of a year and I couldn't be happier. The last month has been making sure I have a plan for the end of the story and tie up my ends. Please stick with me while I finish this out. I will then devote my next year to my book Longpork. As always make suggestions if you have any.
Ed and For'Ten had moved their way up the coast keeping an eye on the water line for signs of a boat. They hadn't gotten a good glimpse of the pirate's vessel, they assumed that any boat headed north would need to be inspected.
This plan would have worked if the pirates hadn't already known this would happen and they were staying just over the horizon. The curve of the earth was protecting them currently, and because the only flying member of the crew was headed north with the elf woman they were safe.
If Morgan had done a fly-over for them they would have been discovered long before anyone had to make it up the shoreline.
Ed had been land-bound his entire life so he didn't consider making himself light enough to jump up and take a peek over the horizon. This failure of creativity gave the pirates the chance they needed to escape into the northern lands.
For'Ten was using his intuition to guess where the pirate would have gone. And it showed just how strong his instincts were. They were only a few days behind The Dirge. If they really pressed it they could have caught him easily. It was only the fact that The Dirge was such a skilled criminal with years of habits and experience that they hadn't caught him yet. Some people are good at what they do, Dirge just happened to be the best.
The two men were coming up on the northernmost city before they hit the desert. The agreement had been to head this far north and then follow the trade routes in. They both agreed that if he was part Mer-man like Morgan insinuated then he'd want to avoid the desert. Rivers are flowing swiftly under the sand, and skilled merfolk could have navigated unseen, however, The Dirge was used to being at sea.
The town looked like the previous dozen they had visited. Its houses were streaked with moss and mold from the damp waters of the ocean. The humidity gave everything a damp smell. It was only when Ed and For'Ten made it into the forest or inland that the smell went away.
The last city had advised them that a man had come and gone. They also warned that a lunatic had been chased from the town.
He was known around the coastline as the scholar. No one doubted that he held vast mounds of information about the sea. Most villages would tolerate his presence for information related to fish swarms and ocean currents. But once he got bored and started filling people's ears with talk of merfolk the town normally turned against him.
This time he couldn't shut up about having met one walking from the ocean. The townspeople had been forgiving at first until he became belligerent. The scholar had demanded they chase after the man. He was a national treasure, proof that the merfolk existed. The more the town guard refused to chase after him the louder the scholar became.
The breaking point was one night when the scholar tried to fake a break-in and attack to start a search party. The scholar was seen running from the house, covered in bits of broken glass and bleeding from the break-in.
The town guard had chased him out of town and lost him in the dark. The scholar had waited in an abandoned farmhouse until the guards gave up looking. He had shoved himself under a pile of molded hay that was being stored in a corner where a horse once lived.
He laid in the moist, hot, insect-infested corner until he was sure he was safe before he left for safety. The morning light was enough for him to travel safely before the daytime sun would make it easy for him to be seen. So he left and as quickly as possible following the roadway north. He stayed just off the road but close enough to see it so he wouldn't get lost.
This was where Ed and For'Ten ran into him.
They had stopped for the night seeking clues about the pirate. The town they had stopped in was already on edge from tall tales of merfolk walking from the ocean. It had taken For'Ten revealing his status as a knight before the city guard relaxed enough to tell them what had happened recently.
Ed and For'Ten's tale of chasing pirates had finally put the last nail in the scholar's reputation. Of course, he hadn't seen a mermaid, he had stumbled into a pirate making his escape from the law. And the rest of the story was just the old scholar's overactive imagination.
Ed and For'Ten escaped in the morning hours before anyone could see them travel out of town. They got far enough to be hardly visible before they resumed their method of running across the countryside. The idea that they would stumble on the scholar had never occurred to them.
The other thing that Ed hadn't considered was that the dot they had been chasing in his mind lately might be this scholar. For'Ten probably would have put two and two together and figured his next soul might be this scholar. Ed was getting road-weary and his lack of experience in tracking people showed in the smaller of ways.
So it wasn't until one afternoon that the two groups finally met.
The scholar was sitting in a clearing, near a running stream when the two men came up over a clearing and ran past him at unusual speed. Any other human or demi-human in the lands would have run away to hide from something so bizarre. The scholar lacked these self-preservation skills and took his chance to stand up and look for whatever had just buzzed past his head.
Ed screamed to For'ten, "We passed the dot!"
For'Ten came down towards the ground took a half hop to slow himself down. If he stopped all at once he took the chance of rolling forward. That had happened many times during their first days of travel. They had learned how to avoid it now. "How far past it are we?" For'Ten yelled back as he tried to turn around.
Ed was using divine power to slow himself as he swiveled his head back to see if he could find anyone or any obvious hiding spots. "Not far, maybe a few dozen yards. I expected to see this person before he passed them. Maybe they are underground?"
For'Ten was making a caution slowing turn of small jump steps until he came upon Ed who was slowly walking now. They were both facing the direction they had come from. For'Ten was about to bring his spyglass out when they both saw the silhouette pop up from the grass like a ghost.
"Well are who are you two?" The scholar yelled at the two men. "I have seen mermaids, flying people, even a dragon flying through the sky! But I have never seen a human and a.... half minotaur move that fasts! What races are you? Please I'm dying to know."
Ed looked at For'Ten. They both knew they had found mad scholar the whole town had been complaining about. Ed sighed internally and reached into his pocket. In his mind, the soul they had traced while looking for The Dirge wasn't moving. It also seemed close. Ed took a few steps to left, trying to look for a place to sit. It served another purpose two. When the dot in his head moved to his right he knew this man was who he was looking for.
"Found it..." Ed said out loud.
"Found what?" The scholar tiled his head to the side, trying to stay a part of the conversation.
"The mad scholar? Really?" For'Ten was ignoring the scholar and looking directly at Ed.
This agitated the scholar and made him more curious. "Excuse me," he tried to break into the conversation.
"Well I mean we saw that skeletal kid too..." Ed's tiredness snuck into his voice.
"Oh yeah. He had power too..." For'Ten hung his shoulders. "They come in all kinds I guess... But a mad scholar?"
"Excuse me...." The scholar held his hand up this time hoping to get their attention.
"Well it's not the pirate but he might be okay. Do we have to travel with him too?" Ed reached into his breast pocket and grabbed for one of the last few blank coins.
"EXCUSE ME!" The scholar finally stamped a foot like an ignored child.
Both men turned towards the scholar and looked at him with surprise on his face. "Can you hold on?"
"NO, I will not. My name is Fellias FooPaas! I am a scholar chasing a merman who walked onto land! He will prove my life's work! He will prove that we are all creations and that Demi-humans are just a form of golem. Tell me have you seen him?" The scholar put both hands on his hips and stood in the most authoritative pose he had.
For'Ten sneered, "I know a golem, and he is his own creation. He can't breed though..."
"You know a golem??" The scholar started walking towards For'Ten. "Tell me, how was he made? Was he human? Does he have a soul? How old is he? Is the creator aware of him!?"
Ed put up his hands to slow down the onslaught of questions. "First things first, I want you to inspect something. If you're a scholar you should recognize this and tell me what it is."
Ed held out a coin in his hand. The scholar looked at it and put it between his fingers. "Hmmm seems to be brass or bronze. It..." his words were broken when the coin vibrated. The letter F became engraved on one side and the image of a fish swimming through books appeared on the other. "It's definitely magic."
Ed stepped forward, "Something like that. Thank you." He plucked it from the grasp of The Scholar and put it back in his pocket. "I can tell you this much. He has one of these coins as well. He is human on the inside. And he is a fine person."
"Oh tell me more." The excitement on his face started to glow through the dirt on his face.
For'Ten sighed. "I guess we travel a little more slowly now..."
Ed waved his hand behind him. For'Ten got the message. The question was what was this man's power? Was it knowledge? They needed to know.