Chapter 15

"I don't believe you did that," Lynna had said on the way back to the Surf and Sleep. Stott had been simply astonished.

"I have enough to worry about without those two making things worse. I have been told often enough that the town is not my responsibility, but if I am going to do anything but my all, I may as well leave.

"Stott, there are things I will need for you to do later. I want you to get as much rest as you can today. Stay awake, but get all the rest you can."

But now Agmar stood in the dining hall. It had been cleared and cleaned, and was now going to be used as a place to house and treat the injured. All the pregnancies had been resolved. Many babies had been lost, but they were lost as human babies, and none of the mothers had taken any lasting damage.

Now it was time for the after-breakfast town meeting. Stott was in a chair with a book. Agmar supposed that was restful enough for now. He motioned for Lynna to follow him and he walked out onto the porch.

Quite a crowd was gathered. It was the largest gathering he'd seen yet. Many faces were still pale; they were the faces of those who had been face to face with...eggs. The crowd was getting restless. It was time.

"If I could have your attention, please," he said, boosting his voice magically. He made sure that everyone could hear him without him having to yell. It was more than just projecting with his lungs.

"Avern is busy and has asked me to take care of this meeting. There are a few specific points I want to address, and then I will open it up for questions. The events of this morning were something I had not been expecting. There will probably be other things, but I want to let you know what I am expecting for the next day or so. You deserve that." He waited, getting nods in return.

"Margaret, would you please bring me a few of the wounded that I have not seen to yet?" There were still a number with hurts, although the severe ones had already been tended to. Once five were gathered up on the porch nearby he addressed the crowd again.

"I will not lie to you. There will be other injuries, although we will do what we can to minimize them. But there is one other thing I do not want to come as a shock, so I want it out in the open now."

He reached into the five minds, picking the one that seemed the least nervous about him. He beckoned, and the man came forward. He was a strong looking man, and was holding a cloth to his torn cheek. He was the ideal candidate for what Agmar needed.

"I can heal a wide range of injuries, but I can only do so much. Margaret and Elsa are both wonderfully skilled, and you are lucky to have them. But in the coming days you will need more."

"What is your name?" he asked the man still holding the cloth to his face.

"Eddin."

Agmar gently took the cloth away from Eddin's face. The wounds were at the corner of his eye. The smallest infection there would destroy the eye. Agmar turned to the crowd again, leading Eddin forward to the rail. At his mental request, Lynna stepped forward as well.

"Gather close, everyone. If this wound is left alone, Eddin will lose the use of this eye. It is not something that Margaret, for all her knowledge and herbs, can prevent." He saw the reactions in the crowd, and in Eddin. They were exactly the reactions he expected and wanted.

"However, Lynna has the ability to heal it, and I have been teaching her. Before this is over, very many of you will be grateful for it." This time the looks were more of confusion.

"Lynna," he said, turning Eddin so they would be able to see best, "it is time."

Lynna's eyes were wide with shock and fear, and she stood frozen with her mouth half open as if she had been about to say something. Agmar heard a few people start to mutter things softly to each other within the crowd and he started keeping a light mental touch on those individuals to gauge their reactions. He getstured to Lynna that she should join him center stage.

She moved forward slowly, and for a moment he thought she'd swoon as her breathing was short and shallow.

Breathe, Lynna. It will be okay. I already promised your father that I will not let anything happen to you.

She put a hand tenatively towards Eddin, who looked as if he was about to step back, despite the fact that he was easily a half-foot taller than Lynna.

"It's okay, Mr. Shrone." she told him, her voice quiet and a little higher pitched than usual. Agmar found himself worrying for a moment that the girl would be unable to concentrate enough to succeed in healing the wound. Just as he was starting to consider giving her a magical push to send her along, he saw her square her shoulders and put her hand up to touch Eddin's cheek. She closed her eyes and he found himself nodding approvingly as the wound closed before the astonished onlookers. After a moment, the only sign that Eddin had been wounded was the blood still smeared on his cheek and in the cloth he'd been holding over it. Lynna took her hand away, and Eddin put his free hand up to feel the spot, blinking his eye repeatedly.

"Now the next one, Lynna," he said. He gestured to the next man and Eddin stepped back. "What is your name, sir?" he asked as he unwrapped the bandaging tied around the man's right hand.

"Nick," he answered.

"Well, this is not so bad that you would lose the hand, although you would need stitches. You would eventually regain use of most of the hand, but it would tend to hurt you when the weather changed, and would always be a little stiff. This finger, however..." For effect, he pulled the man's hand up high where the crowd could all see. The index finger dangled at an odd angle, and stream of blood ran down the man's arm from the open wound.

"Only a small amount of skin and muscle is holding this finger from falling off," he told them. "Even if Margaret could re-attach it with stitches and a splint, it is unlikely he would ever have feeling in it again, or be able to bend it. It would be limp and lifeless. Lynna?" he turned back to her. "Please heal this as well." He took the man's hand and placed it in her outstretched ones. She held the finger in place as she concentrated, her eyes closing again. This one took her slightly longer than the last, but the man was able to open and close the hand, flexing his fingers as he did, once she was finished. He even inspected the re-attached finger with some wonder in his eyes. He gave Lynna a nod and mumbled "Thanks," before stepping back again.

Agmar went through the same process with the remaining three injured men, inspecting the wound where the audience could see, and having Lynna take care of the healing. There was a shoulder wound, an arm wound, and another head wound, although this one was just above the man's eyebrow. He felt the reactions from the men she healed, and judged the reactions of the crowd. Although a couple of the ones he had been keeping tabs on seemed less concerned by the time they were done, there was a growing unease amongst some of the others. He heard one man in the back quietly ask those around him where Avern was, and a few others muttered agreement, sounding angry.

More voices protested, wondering where Avern was. Agmar was about to speak up. Lynna was looking at him worriedly. It was time to nip this.

Suddenly Stott stepped forward, a large book in his hand.

"What's wrong with you folks?" Stott asked loudly, and the crowd settled to a murmur. "What, you think Avern hid what she can do from you? Yes, he did. Lynna has been careful to hide her abilities through the years. She's all but hidden herself from view entirely. Heck, I myself hardly noticed her before. And that's a real shame, because as it turns out she's an amazing girl--woman.

"And tell me, how many of you don't have something you've never told anyone? How many of you don't have a secret, or aren't embarrassed about something?

"Well? I don't see anyone stepping forward! And since when has this town been so damned judging? I've seen this town welcome all sorts of folk. And look at you all. How many of you came here from somewhere else? And all of you were welcomed, no different than Lynna was.

"And you, Johann, when you first came here did you tell anyone you had accidentally killed a man and were being chased? No. And when the bounty hunters showed up for you, and we found out, did we accuse you of not telling us? No. Did we hand you over to them? No. Captain Alder stood up for you. Mister Mordan stood up for you. And Margaret Gretch bandaged you up. And whose spare bed did you sleep on for a week while you recovered? Avern Mordan's, that's whose.

"Now maybe you just don't understand what's coming, or why we should all be giving prayers of thanks that Agmar has come to warn us, or why we should think ourselves lucky to have someone like Lynna here. I'm going to tell you why, because looking at you folks right now I'm almost embarrassed to live here."

He held up the logbook. Agmar chided himself for not noticing which book it was from the start. He realized what the boy had in mind, and started monitoring the crowd for reactions. Now, of all times, he wished Avern were here.

"This is the logbook of a ship that passed directly through what's coming our way." He opened to a specific page and started reading aloud.

Gods help us all. Something terrible is happening. Men rose from their bunks and started killing eachother today. Some with their bare hands. The woman from the couple I'd taken on as passengers is dead, and last I saw they were raping her dead body. Her husband was thrown to the sharks. I couldn't save them, I'm not even sure I can save myself at this point, much less the ship. I've locked the rudder into place and barricaded myself into my quarters - the crew has gone insane. They are killing eachother. A few people have been tossed overboard and it was as if the sea was starving, they went under so fast. Objects have been moving on their own - a couple people have been strangled by ropes. The anchor rose up on its own and smashed my first mate's head open. I wish I hadn't taken on extra crew at the last port, though I'm pretty sure more than half the men on this ship are now dead.

"Pa, Etrick, and I were only at the edge of it. Roughly what we might start seeing today, I expect. Or maybe the beginnings of tomorrow, I don't know. Already things are happening here. People are starting to get angry for no good reason. At this rate, we'll fare no better than that ship."

"Before I set the ship on fire, Etrick was attacked. A shark literally jumped onto our deck and bit him. The thing was, the shark was already dead. It was being manipulated somehow. All the haul we'd had earlier had been dead as well, but the shark got itself on board and sunk its teeth into Etrick's leg. It took both Pa and I to get it off of him. Then I went back to light the ship while Pa got Etrick bandaged and set us up to get the hell out of there."

"I went back and set the fire, but it burned strange. I swear the flames had a life of their own, and they were hungry and after me. I was trapped by it until Pa came and smashed through the door that had locked itself to keep me in. He pulled me out just in time, and we got back to our boat as quick as we could."

"Whatever this thing is, it was trying to kill us right then and there. Bodies were suddenly falling out of the masts, where they'd been hanging. Others came sliding aross the deck to try and trip us up as Pa and I tried to get off that ship. I saw the woman that the captain mentions in the log, people. She was torn apart, as if animals had gotten to her. The deck of that ship was coated with a slick layer of blood from all the people dying on her. I'm surpised that we made it off alive."

"But, you see, Etrick passed out from his injuries. He didn't know what he was doing, but he went after Pa with one of those hooks we use to pull the bigger fish aboard. Pa was busy getting us underway, and I didn't see until it was too late. I tried to call out, but Etrick just started swinging that hook at Pa..." he stopped a moment and Agmar saw him struggling with his emotions for a moment before continuing.

"He tore that hook through Pa a few times before Etrick got him across the face and he went down before I finished getting there. I pulled him off, but it was too late and Etrick then turned on me instead. His eyes were coated in this unnatural red film. I tried to make him stop, to maybe tie him down or something, but I couldn't. I'd taken a couple of injuries myself by that point, and he lodged that hook in my shoulder first and nearly tore my leg off after that. Etrick was always bigger than me... tougher. I couldn't win. I knew it. I lost... I gave up." Stott paused again, and Agmar saw that his hands were shaking, and he clutched the log book to try and conceal it. His face had gone pale and his eyes were distant with remembrance. His audience, on the other hand, was rapt with attention. All eyes were on Stott.

"This evil, whatever it is, it took over. It used me. I watched, from inside myself, as I took Pa's machete and killed my own brother." He paused, a couple of tears escaping which he hastily wiped away as he let that last statement sink into the crowd.

"I loved my brother. Yeah, I envied him sometimes, 'cause he had this way with people so that everybody liked him. But it evened out, since he told me once he always wished he knew as much about the rest of the world as I did from reading all the books I read. I'd wrestled with him from time to time as exercise or in jest, but I would never have wished harm on him, much less struck him dead. But this thing that's coming... it wants us angry. We're good at sticking together in this town. When all hell breaks loose, this community has always pulled together. But this evil is going to test that, to try and break it down. It wants to kill us, but it doesn't have hands to do it with, so it's going to try and use ours."

"We all have our secrets. Now's the time to accept each other no matter what. Because if you don't, you might as well just lay down and die. Because if you lay blame, mistrust, and anger as the foundation right now, it's going to get the people you normally love and trust killed."

"So Lynna's got the ability to use some magic. So what? She used that magic last night to help bring me back. I was in shock, outside myself, replaying what happened over and over in my head. I was ready to die. Lynna reached in, with the aid of her magic, and saved my life last night. And then she healed my physical wounds too. The whole time she was scared about my knowing she had magic and that I might tell all of you. But she didn't let that stop her from saving my life."

"All those superstitions you have about magic, and how evil it can be - they're true, people. But not in the magic that Lynna and Agmar are using. The evil magic is coming in on the wind, and Lynna and Agmar might be the only two people who can keep it from killing us. I say let's give their good magic a fair chance, instead of jumping to conclusions."

Stott had a death grip on the log book by that point, and stepped back again looking shaken. Agmar could have just about hugged him at that point, not having expected the young man to be so vocal. From what he could tell, Stott hadn't expected to say quite so much either.

Lynna looked impressed as well and she hugged him. Stott obviously did not know how to react to that. For a moment he just stood there clutching the book pressed between them.

Lynna looked taller when she stepped back, and Agmar found himself checking to make sure no magic had been involved in that appearance. No, just confidence finally showing through.

"This evil will do anything in its power to hurt us," she said, addressing the crowd. Her voice carried effortlessly, magically amplified in precisely the way he had done. A quick probe showed she was not even aware of doing it. He was careful to keep out of her awareness, not wanting to interrupt her now.

"And its power in considerable," she projected. "If we let it, it will gladly use us as weapons, just like it can use inanimate objects. So now is the time to be patient, and understanding, and loving, and supportive of each other. Agmar will be spending his time and energy combating the evil directly. He'll try to prevent its moves, and counter them to his best when he can't stop them outright.

"Margaret and Elsa and I will take care of the injured, and we'll continue doing that here. My father will continue to try to keep everyone informed on what has happened, what's still happening, and what we still need to do.

"There are a lot of preparations left for today, I think. We need to make sure there are rooms we can gather into to stay together in groups. The three inns won't house everybody, so we'll need a couple other larger, sturdy buildings. The schoolhouse is probably a good one, maybe one of the warehouses. We'll need just about every object cleared out of those rooms.

"And we'll need to stay in groups, particularly starting tonight, I think. Father should be able to finalize some of that by the lunchtime meeting, but until then it would help him if people can form into groups. Fours or sixes or eights sound like good numbers, right, Agmar?"

Agmar nodded, and Lynna asked if anyone had questions.

"Why the groups if we're already going to be crowded together in the inns?" a man's voice from further back in the crowd asked.

"If we know who's in our group, then we know if someone is missing or in trouble," Lynna answered before Agmar could. He found himself startled by how suddenly she had acclimated to taking charge after the way she'd been hiding herself yesterday. He wondered if Avern knew just how much like him she could be.

"Also, we're going to have to stay awake. When we're asleep, or unconscious as what happened with Stott's brother, the evil has a way in to control us. Starting tonight, anyone who falls asleep could basically try to kill everyone around them in their sleep. Anybody who can't stay awake will probably need to be tied up to keep them from hurting anyone else. And the rest of that group will need to protect them from anything else that comes up."

"Tied up?!" an alarmed female voice from the crowd piped up, echoed by a few others.

"You've all seen how the animals are getting. We've needed to tie them up and house them separately so they don't kill us or each other. Anybody who falls asleep is going to be acting no better than they are. We've got to hold out for three nights before it settles down to what last night was like, where we can sleep safely. Right?" She turned and looked to Agmar for confirmation. He nodded and she turned back to the crowd again. "The people on that ship didn't know it was coming and they all killed each other. We know it's coming, though, so we stand a chance. Let's group up and make vows to try and keep each other safe and alive."

Lynna seemed to survey the people in the crowd for a moment, before honing in on one man in particular.

"Mr. Tarrence, could I ask you to make a list of everyone in town, who they are grouped up with, and which building they will be staying in?"

"Yes, Lynna," the man nodded.

"Thank you. For those of you who've come in off the ships and don't know Mr. Tarrence, he's our schoolteacher. Please stop by the schoolhouse at some point today before lunch and let him know who your group is. In the meantime, you'll want to gather what things you need to stay with your group for three nights. The inns won't have enough pillows and blankets available to go around for everyone so I suggest you bring those too, even if you are going to be in one of the inns. Food is also going to start being a complicated arrangement, so maybe each person could bring some of that as well, so the inns will still have enough to feed those of you in off the ships, or from further out of town. If fire is going to become a problem to control, as Stott saw on that ship, then we will have to be careful about cook fires and stoves, which means we'll all want to have foods that require as little cooking as possible. Maybe, once this is all over, we'll have a celebration and roast some pigs to make up for it." She grinned at the crowd and got nods of approval back at the suggestion, before she turned to look at Agmar.

"Is there anything else we can do to prepare, or anything else we should know right now Agmar?"

Very well done, he thought into her mind. She blushed just a little before hiding it. Her smile gave him all the thanks he needed just then.

"A feast will be an excellent idea. I think that covers it for now." He turned back to the crowd: "To the best of my knowledge, this evil has never come to a place where it was expected. We have that advantage. I believe that it feeds on anger and fear and suspicion and terror. All of the things it does it does to inspire those things. Those are the things it knows, especially anger and rage. It cannot understand trust, or faith, or selflessness.

"If we band together, if we support and trust each other, if we care about each other, we can weather this storm together. Whatever happens, it will be important to stay as calm as possible. Expect the unexpected. Now, there is time before lunch, let us all make the most of it."

Agmar reached through the crowd as if running his fingers through grass. They were calmer. There was still some worry and mistrust, but none spoke up with questions. Lynna had ably deflected those, and now they mostly felt as though they understood more of what was happening and that they had things to go do.

He took two steps back before turning and entering the inn. Lynna and Stott followed him inside. Agmar smiled at Lynna before turning to Stott. The boy did not shy away, and Agmar made a point of smiling before Stott would.

"That was a very good speech you gave them, Stott. Avern had read most of them the book last night, but your reading had much greater effect. Thank you for that."

Stott blushed and looked down at his feet.

"Stand taller than that, Stott. You have done a good thing."

"Yes, I was rather impressed," Lynna added.

"It was nothing. I had to say something..."

"Lynna," Agmar said, "you should remain with Margaret and Elsa today. The three of you can tend to medical needs as they arise. This afternoon we can do more training. For this morning, try to learn what you can about healing. Remember to concentrate on control and accomplishing exactly what you want to and not more. Remember I am only a thought away. I will need to speak with your father and Mary shortly."

"Oh yes, how are they - "

"No, Lynna." Agmar quickly blocked her from checking in on her father's status. He had already done a quick check on them as he had been entering the room, and suspected neither father nor daughter wanted her peering in on his current situation. Avern and Mary seemed to be getting along, although he wondered how they would react to each other after their moment of passion had finished. He found it slightly more difficult to block Lynna, as her connection to her father was strong, but he'd handled much harder tasks before. It proved easy enough, and her expression was one of suprise as he did so.

"Are they okay? What's going on?" Her expression turned to one of concern, and Agmar sighed.

"At some point the two of you are going to have to learn to let go of one another," he said bluntly. "It is not healthy for either of you to be keeping constant tabs on the other."

"What do you mean?" Lynna looked confused and somewhat taken aback.

"Your father needs his privacy right now. He and Mary are fine. However, they are sharing a moment that I doubt they would want you intruding upon, no matter how good your intentions might be."

She continued to look confused for a moment, before he saw the light dawn in her eyes.

"Oh!" She put a hand over her mouth, blushing rather vividly. Stott stood there looking a bit out of place, although Agmar was certain he'd understood the bulk of the conversation.

"For now, I am going to speak with Mr. Gannen, and then have a talk with Mr. Bentz before I talk to them. I will get over to Lloyd's later, but I want to speak with Captain Allder as well. I had probably better speak to that schoolteacher too. Let me know if anything important happens. I will not be keeping tabs on you specifically, so you will have to think towards me to get my attention."

She nodded that she understood.

"Good. I will be back here in time for the lunchtime meeting. Stay safe, both of you." He turned and strode quickly out of the room, making a checklist in his mind of all the things he hoped to have accomplished before lunch, as he went to try and find Allek Gannen and see if the innkeeper could accept taking orders from a wizard after all. He thought, perhaps, that curing the man's hangover might go a ways towards starting to build on that trust.