Marked, Chapter Thirty-One

I make use of the customer bathroom for its stated purpose, washing my hands thoroughly. The bathroom is relatively clean but I still refuse to touch the water knobs or the door handle with bare hands, using my paper towel to open the door before tossing it into the almost full trash can. I feel the caffeine hitting me and giving me the much needed alertness but I've got a touch of headache behind my eyes and refreshing myself with Second Wind doesn't do much to soothe the dull ache in my calves and lower back. I consider the new, probably healing power in my growing stable of abilities. Maybe this will help? I draw on it.

It takes a surprisingly long time-- if I had to guess, I'd say at least fifteen or twenty seconds. Yet after I finally finish discharging it into myself, I don't feel any different. Whatever the ability is, it doesn't fix fatigue headaches or body aches. I rub my itching nose with the heel of my hand, stare into the mirror from the still open doorway, and shake my head, watching the strands of my wig pretend to be real hair. The motion makes the bell's clapper contact the metal bell, a light jingle, and the unexpected sound reminds me I have things to do and places to be.

I head for the front of the store with renewed purpose, waving to Stephen on my way out as I set the bell and key on the counter. He nods back at me, continuing to clean the hot dog rollers.

I'm barely twenty feet out the door, when I catch sight of jacket guy, leaning up against the cinderblock wall next to the parking lot exit, watching the bus stop. He's fiddling with something, and it takes me a moment to realize that he's rolling a cigarette like in one of those old Westerns. He looks up and catches me staring; I smile weakly at him and hurry down Spencer Street towards the library.

I've only gone two blocks and am waiting for the crosswalk light when I hear a whispered, "Taylor! Don't reply, this is a spell. Turn right and meet us in front of the third building on the right." A spell? No need to guess who that is then, since Nax is more formal than that, and other than the three of us I don't know of anyone in the city who uses or claims to use spells.

Not to mention knowing my name. I look to the right down Hammond Avenue, and sure enough, in front of a small business park there's a figure partially in the shadows waving at me. I wave back, and start walking towards him.

"I'm glad you guys are safe," I comment as I reach comfortable talking distance. "I don't exactly remember what happened, I was worried I wouldn't be able to find you."

"I am a dragon, Taylor," Nax replies with an amused smile on her face. "I am not prone to panic in the face of the unfamiliar and unexpected. Besides, I had Chalmer with me."

Chalmer dryly comments, "While I would lay down my life for you, we both know that I'd only be protecting you if you decided to allow me to."

"I am known to be exceptionally permissive," Nax responds lightly. "I find it charming when you try so hard to protect me."

Ick. I think they're flirting again. Time to change the subject. "Well... I'd planned to take you guys to the gas station portal, but since I used it to get back to the Bay and had to go inside, I don't want to draw attention by going back there tonight and risk us being seen." I pause. "What happened when I disappeared? What did it look like?"

"Before we get into such things, I would prefer that we return home," Nax comments. "We have spent a great deal more time here than we should. I was over eager to indulge in the library. We did not test the time differential but if it holds true then we have been absent from our world for almost four days; as pleasant a diversion as it was, we should not have been away so long without planning for it."

I grimace and nod. "Sorry about that."

"It was not your doing. It was mine. We will plan more carefully for next time."

"We can check out a lot of the books, but some are reference only. As in, they don't allow us to remove them from the library." I think for a moment. "It shouldn't be too hard to get you a library card."

"Check out?" Nax says, perplexed.

"How much gold do you-" begins Chalmer, but Nax interrupts him.

"Dollars."

"-dollars do you need for one of those cards?" Chalmer finishes.

"None," I reply. "The library only charges a fee if you return books late or lose them." At their blank, confused looks, I add, "They're federally funded."

"Your government provides these all for free?" Nax asks.

"Well... not exactly for free, the money comes from taxes, but... yeah." I think for a moment. "I could just copy books inside the Mansion. Then you could access them at any time, even after hours."

"As alluring a thought as that may be," Nax says, raising her eyebrow at me, "I suggest we hurry. We still need to get you to Eranil for your instruction."

I nod. "Yeah, you're right. Let's find a dark corner or alleyway where nobody's watching, so I can open a door to the Mansion and we can get back there."

---

Within a minute we're all in the foyer of the Mansion. Stepping through the portal sweeps away the lingering, achy fatigue that's been nagging me despite the caffeine, and I feel much better in general. Both of them glance at my cheek where my mark now brazenly rests, but neither says anything. I'm not sure if I'm thankful for that fact or not.

Nax holds up a hand to stop Chalmer and I from sticking close as she steps about ten feet away. Then, with a shrug of her shoulders, she pulls off her top and lets it fall to the floor. I turn my head away quickly. Does she have to do that?

Chalmer, of course, doesn't follow suit, although his stare is less disrespectful than I'd have thought for a man staring at a woman undressing. It almost seems reverential. It makes me reflect on the weird relationship between them. Obviously there's deep affection and attraction in both directions, but that's all surface stuff.

Nine generations of service to the same being, it's incomprehensible to me, much less having an intimate relationship with someone from the same. I mean, yeah, they seem happy enough, but something bothers me about the whole thing, something I can't put my finger on.

And that odd reaction Chalmer had when Nax told him he could ask her to remember his book titles. I mean, I've read stories where the author used the turn of phrase, 'she was his goddess' but he really does seem almost religiously devoted to her.

While I'm pondering this, there's suddenly a leathery flap-crack sound. I look back to see Nax stretching her wings, head turning on her long neck almost like a dog flapping its ears when they itch. I can't help but smile at the sight. "Ah, much better," she rumbles. "Taylor, is it still dark out in Eberron?"

I call up the appropriate portal to the most recently created Hidden Lodge, looking through it. "Yeah, seems like it."

"Then the two of you will nap until daylight, before we return to our world." Her tone is one that clearly expects to be obeyed without question. She looks at me, as though reading my mind. "I am least impacted by low sleep, especially so long as I can bolster my energy with copious amounts of food. Which, here, is a simple endeavor."

"Would you like, uh, Second Wind?" I ask, holding up my hand.

She nods. "I will accept the offer, yes."

I reach out to the power, only to discover it's empty. That's right, I used it already earlier in the Shell station bathroom. "Uh... hasn't recharged yet," I admit sheepishly. "Got something new, though. Think it's tied to the healing mark ability somehow because the first ability increased in uses too."

"That is a reasonable guess, although as unusual as your mark is, nothing should be taken for granted about it." She tilts her head at me. "Including our likelihood of concealing its existence, I'm afraid. This may be problematic until I can procure a means of disguising you."

I sigh. "I never would've thought I'd miss the days when nobody gave me a second look."

With nothing else to do, I decide to take Nax up on her suggestion, and head upstairs. The servants step aside for me, one taking my jacket while another opens the door to the suite I'm walking towards. I don't even want to dwell on the implications of their autonomy. I just lay me down on the feather down mattress and let sleep claim me. After the day I've had I feel I deserve it.

---

Words pull me from the soundest sleep I can remember having. "Taylor. It is dawn."

Despite my general sleepiness, it only takes a couple of blinks to focus my eyes on the marginally ajar door. Nax is back in her human form and smiling at me, and something in her smile reminds me of seeing Mom standing at my doorway when I was little, on the rare moments when I woke up enough to catch her watching me sleep.

I feel... good. Really good. I don't hurt, I don't ache anywhere. I feel fully rested. The thought brings a smile to my face, and I sit up, stretching my arms. "I'm on my way."

Getting dressed helps draw my attention to the rumbling of my stomach. It occurs to me that with everything that happened yesterday, I haven't eaten since around lunch time. I hope Nax doesn't mind a detour for food. Especially if I hurry in getting downstairs.

Leaving my room, however, I see Nax sitting on her haunches, her head and neck through the portal into the Hidden Lodge. Which is one of the upper portals and not currently contacting the floor. "Nax?" I ask quietly.

She pulls her head back into the Mansion. "Taylor. Join Chalmer and eat quickly. Sunlight is burning." Her tone is unusually brusque.

"Are you joining us?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I have already eaten."

"We could eat while we travel," I suggest.

"I do not advise it. Something is wrong outside. I smell relatively fresh blood, and some distinctly alchemical scents."

Alchemical scents? "I think I know what that was. When I got here last night, there was a large wildcat, spiky, huge teeth, smelled awful. It was trying to get in the Hidden Lodge. I created some raw meat and had a Minion shove it out the side window to distract it while I made a portal back to the Mansion."

Nax sniffs imperiously. "While it is an unsafe precedent to teach a wild animal to associate humanoids with food, I do not see what you could have done differently. Although this only underscores the importance of teaching and equipping you with defensive magic as quickly as possible." She shrugs her shoulders, sending her wings into a ripple of motion. "Go. Eat."

"I'm going," I reply, a little exasperated. Her return look is flat, steady, and more than a bit alarming. I scurry to the kitchen.

Chalmer is eating some kind of dark-shelled crab legs, using a utensil that looks like a narrow, three-tined fork with what looks like a seam ripper or can opener or something on the back end. I watch as he uses the three tines to pick out meat from the legs, dip them in a pale yellow sauce the consistency of mayonnaise.

"You've done some serious work on your unseen servants here," Chalmer says between bites. "I'm interested in seeing the listed instructions you've laid out for them. Top tier work, we could split the profit by selling that work to House Ghallanda."

"Uh..." I sit down at the table, and one of the Minions looks at me expectantly. "I'll... have what he's having?" It DOES look rather tasty, truth be told.

The Minion nods to me, and heads to the kitchen, while I look back at Chalmer. "What IS that thing, anyhow?"

"Well, the actual name of it is a greater polvoros spider, one of the more common species of giant vermin native to the continent of Xen'drik," he says, using the funny end of his fork to split the leg further open. "Argonnessen has a reserve where they can be hunted, but that's both time consuming and a little dangerous."

I stare at the suddenly not so appetizing, not a crab leg. "That's... that's a spider?" That leg looks rather substantial. "How big is one of those spiders?"

"Mm?" He looks at me with his fork halfway to his mouth, a bit of pink meat dangling from the tines, smeared with that sauce. "About three feet from the ground when running, maybe a leg span of six or so. Call it thirty five pounds. Most of it's edible, although only the legs are really worth it."

A dog. That leg he's eating comes from a spider the size of a dog. And here comes the Mansion Minion with my portion, on a wide platter, two legs each about half the width of my hand and over a foot long. Next to the platter, several cloth napkins and one of those weird forks is set down, along with a tall flagon of something that smells suspiciously alcoholic.

For several seconds I wrestle with the idea that this is a spider leg. Except it looks like steamed crab on the inside, and Chalmer is eating it with a lot of enthusiasm. To hell with it. I take the fork and clumsily split one of the legs open. A spider is just an above water crab. Keep telling myself that as I pull out shreds of pink meat the consistency of well roasted chicken, dip them in the sauce, and take my first bite.

The flavor is a little jarring. The meat of the land crab is more turf than surf, less sweet than crab, with a nuttier aftertaste. The sauce tastes mildly of cream and onion. I try for more of the meat, and again only get shreds instead of the chunks Chalmer gets. On closer inspection, I notice that there are slender cords or tendons or something, running through the meat, a lot more than the two in a segment of normal crab legs.

"Oh, first time eating spider? Those are spars. Similar material to the shells, they give the muscles something to anchor to." Giving the leg a hard pull, Chalmer splits the end open. "Take the space between the fork tines, and just slide it alongside the spars like this." As he demonstrates, the meat pops away cleanly with a slide of the fork. I follow suit on one of the spars in my spider leg, and get a good bite's worth in one pass. Much easier than picking at it.

I'm just starting to get into it when Nax walks in, in her human form. To my surprise, though, instead of regular clothes of Eberron or Earth styles, she's wearing some sort of padded outfit. "Chalmer, I need your help getting my armor on." Armor? Wouldn't she be better protected as her normal, dragony self?

Chalmer immediately hops to his feet, washing his hands in a bowl on the table and wiping them dry on one of the napkins by his plate. "Yes my lady."

"What's going on?" I ask, looking between the two of them as Nax pulls pieces of curved and shaped metal from thin air, Chalmer securing buckles and straps Nax can't reach as they dress her for battle.

"The Hidden Lodge is broken into. I suspect the creature you spoke of attempted to return for more food, or else the scent of the meat you laid last night drew others." Her posture is tense beneath the elaborately decorative armor she's putting on.

"I was worried it'd be able to get in," I admit.

"It should not have been able; the magics of Hidden Lodge give the structure created the strength of roughly a foot and a half of solid stone. Because of this, I chose to briefly look around outside. There has been some sort of disaster in our absence. I believe Muckertown has been attacked and I want to know by what."

I barely taste what little of my breakfast I eat after that.