Chapter 436: Reading People

As days went in Alex Roth’s life, there were few as important as the day he received the Mark of the Fool. That day had altered his lifepath forever, and the only other that could compete was the night his parents’ alehouse burned.

But this day?

This was close; the dungeon core attack earlier, Claygon’s awakening, admitting that he was the fugitive Hero to Drestra…and now, steeling himself to tell Hart and Cedric that he was the missing Fool.

It wasn’t exactly the day he’d been expecting when he got out of bed in the morning, and it wasn’t even over yet.

‘Father…will you be safe?’ Claygon asked in his mind. ‘Drestra was nice after all…will Cedric and Hart be nice too?’

‘I hope so, buddy.’ Alex answered as they landed in the castle courtyard. ‘And I’d like to think so. One thing you’ll learn is that when you fight by someone’s side, you kinda build trust. Well, most of the time: there were these guys named Derek and Minervus—from before your time—and fighting by their side kinda wrecked any trust I might’ve had with them. But Cedric and Hart? They’re good…well, they’re alright.”

‘Father…’ Claygon said as he, Alex and Drestra walked toward the keep’s gate. ‘If they…hurt you…or any of your friends—’

‘Our friends, Claygon,’ Alex opened the door. ‘They’re your friends too.’

A flicker of emotion reached through their link, and then silence.

Alex looked up at his golem with a question forming in his mind when—

“Maybe I should do the talking, first?” Drestra quickly looked over her shoulder; she’d taken the lead without them noticing. “I know you should be doing most of the talking since you're the one who has to say what needs to be said, but maybe I could soften them up a little.”

“No.” Alex shook his head, looking around the entrance hall. It was almost empty now; the wounded, their caretakers, the planners and strategists were gone—likely to different chambers—replaced by a few guards and the remaining golems.

There was no sign of the Heroes anywhere.

“Hart and Cedric are brave men.” Alex climbed the stairs behind Drestra, hearing a commotion coming from the dining hall. “And it’s my secret to tell, and from my read on them, I don’t think they’d react well to you ‘softening them up’. They’d probably take it better if I just came out with what I have to say.”

She frowned. “Your ‘read’ on them—Wait. I think I hear Cedric.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, pausing at the top of the stairs, cocking his head. There was a familiar voice booming from down the hall. “That’s Cedric, alright.”

“So the meeting must have finished.” She started for the hall. “I wonder what they decided. Anyway, what do you mean by ‘read them’?”

“Well, I suppose ‘reading them’ isn’t the nicest way to put it,” he said. “But, you know how you can tell a lot about people by looking at their body language?”

“Hm? A bit.”

“Most people do it subconsciously,” Alex said. “You know, like how you can sort of tell that someone’s angry at you without them even opening their mouth. If you focus on reading people enough, you can learn a lot about a person just through their nonverbal manner. It’s not perfect, of course, but…if you ‘read’ someone’s body language you can kinda get an idea about how they might react to certain things.”

Drestra went silent. “Oh…I don’t know what to think about that. It does sound useful, though. What does my body language say about me?”

“Uh…” Alex paused, completely caught off-guard. “Well, it’s less like you can look at a person and see their entire life story play out before you, but given enough time, you can put together certain details when you compare them alongside what people actually say and do. Funny thing, though…”

He peered at her. “And I do mean this as a compliment, but your body language is sometimes a bit harder to read.”

She paused. “Oh?”

“Yeah, everyone’s body language is different, but yours can be very different at times,” he said. “I remember when I first met you I couldn’t make head or tail of it.”

“Strange…” Drestra said quietly, and before Alex could reply, they reached the dining hall.

Where there’d only been a few wizards lingering at the tables earlier, now the room was overflowing with castle staff and Thameish soldiers taking a late supper. For the better part, the atmosphere was boisterous and friendly. Alex’s friends were still crowded around their end of a long table, but they’d now been joined by a couple of new additions who seemed right at home scarfing back hunks of meat and weak beer like it was the eve of a long predicted famine.

Despite their feasting, Cedric and Hart’s usual cheer was absent.

They shared grim expressions while discussing something with Khalik, Isolde and the others, until the booming voice of the Chosen revealed the subject of their concern:

“Never seen an invisible Ravener-spawn.” Cedric swallowed a piece of roasted fowl. “And I’s not tryin’ t’ be cute wit’ a clever joke or nothin’ like that. I mean, we’ve never fought anythin’ like that.”

“And it was real fast too, you say?” Hart rumbled. “Every Ravener-spawn we’ve come across that are on the bigger size are usually on the slower side. …either this isn’t a Ravener-spawn, or it’s something new. Something we haven’t seen before.”

“And you have read nothing in your copies of the bestiaries?’ Prince Khalik leaned in closer, lowering his voice even though the Heroes hadn’t. “You do not need to answer, if that is confidential, but—”

“Oh we’d tell yous, right quick,” Cedric said. “There’s gettin’ to be less an’ less of a point in secrets as this whole bloody thing goes on. An’ I tells yous, if’n we’d heard a whisper about great, dirty invisible beasties that turn folks t’stone, best believe you’d be hearin’ about i—Oi, what’re lookin’ at?”

Prince Khalik and the others had spotted Alex and Drestra from across the room, and both the Chosen and Champion turned toward the newcomers.

“There yous are!” Cedric shouted, then frowned, his eyes shifting between Alex and Drestra. “So what’s all this urgent business about, then? From what I sees, y’just went off to go pal about.”

“We need to talk,” Drestra said.

“Yeah.” Alex looked at the Chosen and Champion. “The four of us, together.”

‘A gathering of Heroes,’ he thought dryly.

“Is everything alright?” Theresa asked pointedly, her eyes flicking to the Sage.

“Yeah,” Alex said, giving her a reassuring smile. “Just fine. Better than expected, really.”

“Should we come along?” Isolde asked.

“No,” Alex said quickly.

He didn’t think having Isolde with them was the best idea; she and Cedric…well, they liked each other, and if the Chosen didn’t react well to his revelation and turned on Isolde, things would get even messier.

Alex thought well enough of Cedric to believe that wasn’t likely, but people could easily turn against each other if they felt they’d been betrayed. If the situation involved a romantic relationship and the notion that one of them had been manipulated by the other…

If Cedric got it into his head that Isolde had manipulated him to keep him from looking too hard at Alex, things could end before they even really got started between them.

It all depended on how he and Hart reacted.

‘Can’t believe I’m bloody doing this,’ Alex thought, before a chair scraped.

“Can I come with you? Or is this conversation private again?” Theresa asked, already part way out of her seat.

She gave him a look, a look that said: ‘do you need help?’

And…in that moment, his answer was—

“Yes, it’d be great if you came with us,” he said. “You might be able to help.”

Isolde, Khalik and Thundar gave each other confused looks.

Cedric raised an eyebrow.

“Good,” the huntress said firmly. “Let’s go.”

‘Good that she is coming…father,’ Claygon said. ‘It will be easier to smash those two…if they try to hurt you.’

‘Claygon,’ Alex thought. ‘You and I are going to need to talk about a few things before I build you something that’ll let you speak.’

‘Good…that can be after we smash our enemies.’

Alex chose not to respond.

“If I didn’t know better,” Hart rumbled as they flew above the snow. “I’d think you were bringing us out to the woods to kill us.”

“Aye, this s’got a whole lot o’ an ominous air about it, now don’t it?” Cedric looked around the moors.

“It’s here,” Drestra said, pointing down to the earth before anyone could respond. “We’ll land here.”

Cedric and Hart shrugged and followed the Sage, descending to the exact spot where she and Alex had their talk earlier. Theresa caught her partner’s eye.

‘What’s going on?’ she mouthed.

He tapped his shoulder meaningfully.

The colour drained from her face. “Really? Here? Right now?” she whispered.

“Drestra already knows,” he whispered back.

“What?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said. “It’s been wild. Just…watch my back, just in case.”

“Oookay,” she said, grimly sizing up the Champion with a nervous gulp. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Me too.” He floated down from the sky. “Me too.”

They landed in a circle, with Cedric and Hart peering at them curiously.

“This really feels like we’re about to plan a regicide or something,” the Champion said. “All we’d need to do is put on white, then go off to kill a king.”

“Put on white?” Cedric raised an eyebrow.

“Snow.” Hart jerked his thumb at a nearby hill. “It’d help us blend in. Sneak up on King Athelst—”

“Alright, alright, maybe let’s back off the treason talk for a minute.” Cedric rubbed his temple. “S’not even funny: maybe we already got the priests an’ maybe even Uldar hisself as an’ enemy. We don’t bloody well need t’ add any more conspiracies an’ secret enemies.”

An awkward silence hung in the air as the Chosen looked from Alex to Drestra. The Sage avoided his gaze.

Cedric’s face dropped. “Oh bloody hells, what? What’s it y’ve learned now? Ya about t’ tell me that me da’s some sort o’ great, dirty demon or somethin’ o’ that sort?”

“It’s definitely regicide.” Hart nodded sagely. “The king’s in on it, and now we have to kill him.”

“It’s not regicide,” Alex said.

“Do y’just wanna kill the king or somethin’?” Cedric snapped.

The Champion shrugged. “We might have to kill our church and our god. Why not complete the set?”

“If’n…that doesn’t make any…nevermind,” the Chosen turned away. “So let’s jus’ rip the bandage off, why don’t we?”

“Rip the bandage off, is it?” Alex sighed, stepping forward. “Yeah, that’s a good way to do it.

From his read of Cedric’s and Hart’s temperaments, he had a feeling he knew the perfect way to tell them.

So he began by taking off his cloak.

“Oi…what’s this you’re doin’ now?” Cedric’s eyebrows rose. “We havin’ another liftin’ contest? Is that why y’ dragged us all out here then?”

Alex handed his cloak to Claygon, then undid his shirt.

He also handed that to his golem, flexing his sculpted torso.

‘Well, here goes nothing,’ he thought.

“What I’m about to show you,” Alex said quietly. “I’ve shown to…almost no one else. Claygon, could you stand between me and the castle?”

‘Yes…father. Be careful.’

The golem’s marble feet crunched through the snow as he interposed himself between his creator and the research castle. Cedric and Hart were staring at him like he’d lost his mind.

Alex sighed, turning his right shoulder to them. “Well, here it is.”

And he dispelled the illusion.

There was a shimmer.

And then a jester’s face was revealed, like a smiling brand on his shoulder.

For a moment, the world seemed to stand still.

The colour drained from Cedric’s face as he squinted as though his eyesight was failing. Wordlessly, his mouth opened, then closed.

“Huh,” Hart grunted.

“Yeah, it’s what it looks like,” Alex said, reading their body language.

Hart’s was impossible to read as always.

Cedric was about what he’d expected: surprised, shocked but, luckily, with no hint of anger.

‘Right,’ Alex thought. ‘Things are going well. No screaming, no raging, no crying. Good, that should give me enough time to start explaining while he’s still caught off-guard. Then, we should get through this.’

He opened his mouth to speak.

Cedric was still completely frozen.

Which was why Alex didn’t see the punch coming until it slammed into his face.