Singer Sailor Merchant Mage

Chapter 243: Cat Got Your Tongue

“The phrase, ‘Cat Got Your Tongue’ is used to describe when someone is at a loss of words or being unusually quiet.”

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Namir’s POV

The town did not take a long time to traverse. There seemed to be nothing unexpected, and he enjoyed scouting out where they would be walking on the morrow: the church, the market, and the departure dock that ran out of the town on the western side. As much as he would have liked to have avoided the river entirely, it simply made too much sense for them to be taking it, and if they did not, they would only draw more attention.

Having completed his circuit of the town, he returned to the Ice’s End, the no longer appropriately named tavern, when his hackles rose. He could smell blood. The trail ended outside the tavern but started and led back inside. Dashing forward he flew up the stairs following the sent of the blood back to their shared room. Why had he been foolish enough to think Kai would not still draw trouble toward himself simply through existing, even if he was ensconced in his own spatial vault and locked in his own room? If the boy had precipitated this . . . he clenched his jaws in frustration.

Kai was increasingly capable of looking after himself. However, he was looking forward to returning to his family unharmed so that the rest of his family and advisors could take over looking out for him. It was exhausting doing it on his own, and the short break he had taken was already proving disastrous. Opening the door, he was confronted with a slowly drying pool of blood in the middle of the room. At least he could tell from the scent that it was not Kai’s or Nyx’s. He followed the trail back to the privy door. Carefully opening it and calling out. “Kai?”

An opening to the child’s spatial vault swiftly opened: “It’s not my vault.” These were the first words that emerged from the open doorway as I saw the child with his hands up and a sheepish grin standing above his most recent.

“Hilarious.” I deadpanned back.

“I never said it was. Now, what happened?” I asked, a little exasperated. I had only been gone a short while.

“I think the man came to rob us,” Kai explained as Namir stepped through into the spatial vault.

“Rob us?” We had nothing of visible worth. Well, Kai had a lot now, but none of it was visible when we arrived in the town.

“Well, he arrived, picked the lock, then made his way in the darkness to the privy where I had left the entrance to the vault open.” Kai explained, “That is hardly normal behaviour, is it?”

“And then?” That was hardly the whole story.

“Well, when he tried to enter the vault, I closed the door, and it may or may not have cut off his lower leg,” Kai continued.

“His leg?” I raised my eyebrow.

“It’s not like I knew that was going to happen.” Kai defended his action. “I thought it might trap his foot, not slice the thing clean off when the aperture closed completely.”

“Your vault sliced straight through his leg and bone.” I quizzed. The skill was already completely ridiculous with its versatility and size. Now it even had combat applications, too!

“Yes, it's just here,” Kai revealed a man’s left leg still partially dressed in shoe socks and half a trouser leg, although the trouser leg did not stay up without the belt to keep it up. “It has stopped bleeding now.”

“And what were you planning on doing with that?” It was a little bit morbid the way in which he was waving it around.

“I was hardly going to let Nyx eat the thing, so I put it on ice.” He answered, referring to the ice core hidden in the basement, which was keeping the meat from their hunts frozen.

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“Why on earth would you put it on ice?” I asked, a little worried about his answer.

“Well, I thought we might want to reattach it.” He said as if that made everything make sense.

“Why on earth would you reattach it? The man is a thief! You don’t even know where the man hopped off to.” I objected on several levels.

“That wouldn’t be too hard for you to work out, but you needn't bother. We watched him hop to the Church of the Lodestar. I doubt he is going to go much further than that tonight. And even if he gets the most basic first aid and healing there, they or rather, he is hardly likely to have the funds to pay for more. He’ll need his leg back as they are not going to regrow him another one.” Kai explained as if it was obvious.

How was I going to get through to him? “Firstly, he does not deserve his leg back. Secondly, what does that have to do with putting his leg on ice?” He still hadn’t answered the ice question, and it was annoying me. There were so many different reasons not to reattach it, not least the level of scrutiny it would put us under if people were to become aware of it.

“Keeping the flesh cold helps to prevent it from deteriorating. It gives me longer to reattach it, although we probably want to get going now, as the longer we leave it, the harder the healing will become.” He explained as if that made it all make sense.

“Why Kai? Why?” I asked.

“I feel a little guilty; I mean, I didn’t mean to take his leg off and cripple the man.”

“Altruism is the prerogative of the powerful. For the powerless, it will mean a knife in the back. We still have a long way to go. Let’s not create too many complications.”

“It won’t take long to reattach; the cut was very clean,” Kai answered back. “And I did wait for you to return as requested.”

“If we do this, we leave tomorrow,” I demanded, flexing my claws. A night awake was not a struggle for me with my stats. Changing the subject, I asked, “How’s the boat coming along?”

“Nearly finished.” Kai stepped to the side to display a 16-foot two-man prospector canoe. The wood had been salvaged and repurposed from the sledges to form the frame, while he had been growing more from the trees to fill in the sides. “I just have the paddles left to do.” He said proudly. Watching him work the wood flowing beneath his fingers into the form he desired was truly magic.

I thought for a moment, “Finish the paddles first. Then we can look for your one-legged thief. If this causes too much of a fuss, we might need to leave tonight.”

“What about the market?” Kai whined at missing out on a profit.

“We have plenty to make it to the next town at our travel speed. It was more for appearances than purpose.” We might need to miss out on stopping too often if this was going to happen in each town we visited.

. . .

Kai’s POV

The paddles were done and we were packed up again, ready to go. I had waited for Namir to return but grew guilty as I waited. A missing leg might not be the death of a man further south with a family to support him, but somehow, I suspected that was not the case here. A missing leg meant that he would most likely soon be dead one way or the other. I was supposed to do some sort of good deed for Fortuna in the towns we visited on our circumnavigation. This could be the deed of the day counterbalancing the fact that I had removed it in the first place.

Namir was not happy. But I would feel a lot better once I had reattached the leg he was carrying for me.

Still, we quietly left our empty room and made our way to the church. The thief’s tracks were laid out clearly in the snow at the edge of the road, giant hopping strides that went all the way to the church’s door. From the outside looking in, it was rather funny, although I doubted the man felt that way.

A knock at the door and a short wait later, we had an Acolyte opening it up.

“What now!?” He asked, frustrated at the lateness of our arrival or the repeated knocks.

“We have something one of your petitioners might be missing,” Namir said, holding up the leg.

The acolyte, speechless, let us enter. The cat had gotten his tongue in addition to another man’s leg. Leading us deeper into the church, he politely knocked on a side room’s door before entering and gesturing for us to follow.

“Quiet, Cami; Jor is asleep now.” The priest commented without turning to take us in. “What did the supplicants want?” The body of the thief lay on the slab in front of us. Is wound healed, although the leg was still amputated. Exhaustion and pain had etched lines across his face that were still visible even as he slept.

Cami, still speechless, waited for us to introduce ourselves.

“We came to return something your petitioner lost while looking through our room,” Namir answered for the pair of us stepping forward, still holding the leg.

“He lost . . .” The priest turned and stopped speaking as he beheld the lower leg of the thief, Jor. “His leg?” he questioned, confused. However, who else’s leg might it have been given the circumstances?

“His leg,” Namir confirmed tiredly.

“And just how . . .” the priest owlishly blinked.

“He put it where it didn’t belong and lost it in the process.” He avoided explaining the specifics as he handed it over.

“And why are you returning it?” He looked down at the leg in his hands.

“We are completing our circumnavigation, and my companion,” he gestured to me, “Felt it was the least we could do. He seems to believe it can be reattached.”

“It was a remarkably clean cut.” The priest examined the end of the severed appendage. “It’s not impossible.”

“Then we will leave the leg in your capable hands.” Namir turned as if to leave, but the Priest objected.

“Come now, come now. Cami, er . . . food for our guests while I work. We so rarely get pilgrims. How could we let you leave without the most basic of welcomes and some provisions for your onward journey? Do you plan on leaving soon?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Then stay the night. I’m sure Jor will wish to thank you when he wakes for the return of his leg at the least.”

“There’s no need; we have a room at Ice’s End.”

“Well, at least stay while I work and Cami gets the provisions.” The priest focused on reattaching the leg of the unconscious Jor, and Namir and I found ourselves waiting for the provisions while he chatted away.

“We so rarely get true pilgrims. Most simply cut the corners, counting it done if they have visited all eight of the kingdoms. I hear some nobles simply make a circuit of the central compass road as if that were a trial and claim to have circumnavigated the kingdoms.” He nattered away as he worked. The leg must have been numb through some skill or numbing agents as Jor did not awaken as he reattached the leg. “Are you travelling to petition one of the eight in particular?”

“Not one of the eight, no,” Namir answered.

“And you?” he asked me directly. Up until now, I had stood in Namir’s shadow, although I was quietly watching the priest work and following his magic and skills as they stitched up veins, arteries, muscles, and skin. The man was a master at his craft.

I felt a calm pressure to answer honestly. “Not one of the eight, no,” I repeated Namir’s answer word for word as I contemplated the pressure.

“Then another,” he asked, still focused on his work. “Not many believe in those beyond the cardinal and ordinal. But I hear nowadays that the compass is being divided even further than 16, even as far as up to 360 different bearings. Who are we to say we know all of the aspects of the divine.”

Pulling the pair as if out of my bag in front of me when, in reality, I had carefully plucked them out of my spatial vault, I offered them up, “I have some statues.”