Joseph’s body reacted before his brain even processed the sheer ridiculousness of what just happened. The floor smashed into his backside, causing his face to frown.
He lifted his eyes up. Zaid stood behind the counter without a single trace of harm on his clothes. His fingers caressed against the tanned chin, calmly inspecting the face of the fallen person.
“Interesting. Say, Ralf, when did he join your crew?”
The armsmaster hesitated. His attention was switching between Zaid and Joe with increasing suspicion.
“...A week ago.”
Zaid nodded. He diverted his eyes away from Joseph, who was getting himself up from the floor, quietly swearing.
“I am not selling you these.”
“What?! Why?!!” Ralf shouted.
The tanned man shrugged and put away the gemstones. Joseph was stunned. He had never seen the merchant, who refuses to sell his own merchandise outright. What did this Zaid person plan?
“It would be detrimental, Ralf. Instead, I want to hear the reason for why you need the protection in the first place.”
The armsmaster stood completely still for what seemed like an eternity. Joseph decided to ask some questions of his own.
“Why detrimental, and why is the reason important? Isn’t Mind defence useful in any situation?”
The grey eyes carefully slid over Joseph from underneath the bushy brows. Zaid wasn’t looking directly at him, but the man felt that all the attention focused on him and him only.
“Why, indeed… I am not confident that I want to share that yet. I want to hear the reason first.”
Joseph glanced at Ralf. The cook scratched his head and slowly nodded. Joe inhaled and laid out the abridged story of his night adventures. When he finished, Zaid ambled back and forth, then put his elbows on the counter and placed his head on the fingers.
“Evalyn and ‘Firelight’. Fascinating. You have managed to escape from her grasp unscathed, didn’t you? Then, I have advice for the likes of you - one that will help you way more than a useless trinket ever would. First and foremost - do not think about her as anything else but the opposition. The foe. The enemy. Your Mind will reject her influence with impunity for as long as she remains a threat to you and you recognize her as such. While it is not ideal protection, it will go a long way towards developing the resistance naturally.”
The man spoke with the conviction of titanium. Joseph couldn’t help but follow the authority in his voice and agree that it would probably be for the best. If he works on strengthening the stitches over his tottered psyche, he would be able to flip a bird at her ivory face and laugh about it, while busting out the cossack dance.
He just met a woman last night, yet he was already up in arms and ready to humiliate her at any cost.
Talk about being an obsessed fan, Joseph. That would help to reject her for sure, wouldn’t it?
His nails pierced into the palms through the gloves. Joseph coughed under the humiliating smile that Zaid watched him with.
“Done reminiscing? My suggestion is to forget about her at all costs. Frankly, you have taken far more harm than you think you did. Against the user of the Mind, emotions are not weapons. They are deadweight. A trap, if you want.”
If Joseph got this advice the night before, he would have printed it in golden ink, put it under glass, and immortalized it inside of a platinum frame. Now, his pride and memory beat him on the head over and over again. Any mention of the forbidden name caused the ugly demon of fury to look from the abyss with its flaming eyes and smile in intoxicating delight at the imagery of her demise by his own hands.
He shook his head to get rid of the bloody noise, when his mind caught a tail of a thread with an intriguing thought written on it…
“Does he always stare at the wall and stop responding?” the unexpectedly deafening voice of Zaid broke through his barriers and burrowed into his mind. Joseph gritted his teeth and tried to summon the thought again, but it disappeared without a single trail behind.
“He does get lost inside of himself sometimes. But it doesn’t get in a way of his duties,” he heard Ralf’s proud speech.
He felt proud himself, even though he had no idea why. It was just a simple fact the armsmaster stated, nothing more.
Zaid, for the first time during their visit, smiled. The smile looked like it escaped from the mad scientist, and all attempts of the merchant to hide it did next to nothing.
“Keep it that way. Being able to search inside of oneself is a priceless ability. Not many can wield in a proper way. It will be of great use to you in the future, only remember not to turn yourself off during a fight.”
Joseph sneered. The only way for this advice to be more obvious would be Zaid saying the same sentence in Python. Or in ‘U no sleep during a danger, he-he’.
“And one last thing. You should try to start a fire without a tool.”
Joseph’s head reeled back. What did he even mean by that?
“Care to elaborate on everything you just said?”
Zaid’s smile darkened for a moment.
“Nope. I do not sell the knowledge for free, and I am sure you wouldn’t be able to afford the price I would ask. I am sharing these words out of the leftover goodness of my blackened heart. If you haven’t figured it out already, it will be obvious soon enough.”
Joseph hated people, who thought that speaking in riddles and being all mysterious about it would win them points in society. From his experience, the resulting infuriation that was leaking into his state of zen, like coins into a piggy bank, was potent enough to break his limit of patience during the interviews. It wasn’t a good look for him and his company, but what else he was supposed to do when a freshman from college has a tone like he is the next CEO of Google? Of course, he would give them the boot! Politely. Thank god, Jack had his share of normalcy and humbleness…
“Thank you for the advice… I guess…” he muttered the last words behind the closed mouth, not willing to come out like an ungrateful bastard. This advice was as vague as the Voynich manuscript, except calling it ‘useful advice’ would be giving it too much honour. He would try to follow Zaid’s words regardless, but he was sceptical about their effectiveness beyond the obvious.
Unfortunately for him, judging by Zaid’s sidelong glare, the merchant heard him perfectly well.
“Thanks, mate!” Ralf came to his rescue. “We will clear your store from our presence then, if you have nothing else to offer.”
“You want a Mind protection charm for yourself, Ralf? My stock is running out for his month. Until August, no new merchandise.”
“You going back to Forgotten Ridge?”
Zaid hesitated to answer Ralf’s question. His look became troubled.
“I don’t want… well... whatever. I am going back there, but don’t expect me to return to Ghastly Wail any time soon.”
Joseph had seen a few times when Ralf was surprised, so it wouldn’t be a new event for him. But the current expression made his body feel uneasy. Ralf’s face did not reflect any emotions at all.
“Why?” the armsmaster of the ‘Morning Star’ asked with an empty voice.
Even Zaid looked perturbed.
“I… some things have caught up to me. Before I move on, I have to clean up. Ghastly Wail is not the best place for it.”
Ralf furrowed his forehead. The prehensile look caught Zaid in place, making the previously confident merchant squirm under the pressure.
Finally, after a long pause, the cook sighed and the grin returned.
“Well, good luck with your endeavours! If you need some help, just ask!”
Zaid grimaced, but lowered his head, acknowledging the words. Ralf pushed the door outside, and left.
Joseph glanced at the merchant. The tanned man slowly moved his lips. Then he raised his sight up and met eye-to-eye with wondering Joe.
“Still here? Then, one last word from me. Pay attention to the visuals. That will help you.”
“The vagueness still doesn’t help me in any way, ‘professor’.”
Zaid lifted a corner of his mouth.
“Professor? Never in my life! Just keep attention. A lot of nonsense that will happen from now on, will happen for a reason that might not be obvious at first. Everything you see and experience is important, just not in the way you think. And don’t forget about the fire.”
Joseph shook his head and left the store. The merchant followed him out with his gaze.
Ralf stood near the entrance, tapping his foot.
“What took you so long, kid?”
“It’s not even been a minute.”
The cook grinned.
“Time is a valuable commodity. Did he say anything useful to you?”
“More of the same. Told me to remember about making a fire without any tools. How would that help me?”
Ralf shrugged and glanced at the lonesome ray of the sun, that found its way down into the narrow passage. The clouds kept the sky to themselves still, but at least some colour sprouted around them again.
The main road saw the sailors return from their ships. Ghastly Wail stirred, quivered its stone wings, and accepted the life back inside of itself. The settlement filled up with words and laughter, bottles clinking and juicy smacking, when some idiots decided to brawl right on the main street, to the amusement of bystanders. A couple of people began placing their bets.
Joseph would have enjoyed watching the spectacle too, but Ralf’s troubled expression occupied his mind. He saw the cook energetic, stone cold, and intense before, but his handler never looked like he had no idea where in the void he even was. The armsmaster was throwing his gaze onto nearby roofs, narrow passages, and faraway corners. With each metre they passed, the darkness in his eyes grew.
“Is something wrong?”
Ralf froze on spot.
“Wrong?…” he moved his lips as if tasting the word. “Wrong… You could say that. Remember the first day?”
Joe nodded. Ralf squinted his eyes.
“The watchmen. They were not supposed to be working yesterday. Yet, they were. They are not supposed to watch over the streets today. And they don’t. Something is weird here, and I don’t know what.”
Ralf sat down on the closest crate near a dirty wooden hut and rest his head on his hands.
“It’s inconsistent, right?” Joe asked the obvious.
“Quite the big word here, but you speak true. I don’t like what is happening. Too many discoveries today. The weapon stash, the shady group that has something to do with Karl…”
“Karl?”
Ralf waved his hand.
“The ‘Boss’. The biggest thug around. Well, calling him a thug is a bit unfair, he did help build Ghastly Wail as it is now and established most of the rules for trading and whatnot. But you’d never guess it just by looking at the guy. He is also in command of watchmen - as in, he pays them and gives them orders, when necessary. Not like we have any military structure here.”
The last words Ralf pronounced in a weird husky tone, as if it physically pained him to utter them at all. The cook sat for a while, letting silence fill up with the voices from the background.
“What time is it, Joe?”
“You don’t have a watch?”
“I do, but I can’t be bothered.”
Joseph shrugged, stretched his stiff arms and pulled out a watch.
“Almost 3 o’clock.”
Ralf nodded from the crate.
“Which means that we still have a lot of time to sniff around on our own.”
The cook's tone contained hints of worry.
“Is something going to happen if we don’t?” inquired Joe.
Ralf tilted his head to a side. He had a look of uncertainty.
“There is going to be a meeting at the fall of night… And after that meeting, we might need to leave the island for a while, depending on the conclusion. I want to cross everything I need out, before we move on. One of the things were…”
Ralf drummed on his knees.
