Return of the Runebound Professor-Chapter 826: Monsters

Noah let out a surprised cough.

She can sense my soul? No way. That’s not possible beyond a surface-level sense for its strength, is it? Did I mishear her?

“What?” Noah asked.

“Does the damage extend to your hearing?” Eliana asked. She cocked her head to the side, then slipped over to a mannequin clad in a full suit and wearing a shimmering purple sequin-covered masquerade mask. She plucked the mask from its head and gave it a quick glance before gagging and flinging the garment over her shoulder.

“No,” Noah said. “But I don’t think I heard you right. There’s nothing wrong with my soul.”

Eliana stared at him. A second dragged by without either of them moving. Then she gestured expectantly. “Are you going to finish that with a punchline? You can’t start a joke and drop it halfway through.”

“I was not joking,” Noah said. “What makes you think there’s anything wrong with my soul?”

Eliana blew out a slow breath. Then her shoulders dropped and she crossed her arms in front of her chest. An eyebrow crawled up her forehead until it nearly disappeared into her hairline. The disbelief in her expression was painfully evident. She certainly didn’t bother hiding what she really felt.

“Your soul is like a quilt sewn by a grandmother with severe hand tremors,” Eliana informed him. “You can’t expect me to believe you somehow haven’t noticed that. You’ve got so many rough patches and holes that it’s a miracle you can stand here at all. That’s half the reason I agreed to speak to you. I’m baffled as to how you aren’t dead.”

The hair on the back of Noah’s neck stood on end. That confirmed it. Eliana could somehow see his soul. And more than just a little. She was describing the gaps left by the patches of Beyond melded into him.

“You think there are holes in my soul?” Noah asked.

“There’s no think about it,” Eliana said flatly. “You’ve got something like half a soul. The rest of it is just completely missing. A surprisingly large half-soul, though. Its stretched disproportionately beyond what should be possible. It doesn’t add up at all. You’re an oddity.”

Noah studied Eliana’s features for a moment. There wasn’t any malice in her words. It didn’t seem like she wanted to hurt him. But, more importantly, he was pretty sure she was just straight up wrong.

She can’t sense the Beyond, can she? There are no missing parts to my soul right now. It’s about as whole as I’ve managed to get it in a while. Those missing parts she’s seeing have to be the Beyond.

“What makes you so certain?” Noah asked. “If half of my soul were truly missing, then I don’t think I’d be standing here and speaking to you.”

“A very good point. You should be dead,” Eliana mused. “A dozen times over, for that matter. Maybe more. I’ve never seen someone survive such a degree of soul damage, much less be walking around and chatting as if nothing was wrong.”

She blurred forward, arriving a foot away from Noah in an instant. Her bright purple eyes bore into his unblinkingly. Something about her gaze sent an uneasy worm down Noah’s spine. It was more than a little ironic for someone as strange as Eliana to be calling him odd.

Still, she didn’t seem like an enemy. Not yet. It didn’t help that Noah’s curiosity called for answers.

“How exactly is it that you can see my soul?” Noah asked.

“I’m old,” Eliana replied. “Much older than I look.”

“Corban did call you old,” Noah said.

Eliana didn’t respond for a moment longer. She stood a few inches away from him, frozen completely solid. Her eyes shimmered. Deep within them, a vortex of pale energy shuddered. It sputtered and hissed.

Then Eliana let out a strangled curse. She yanked her gaze away from Noah’s and took a step back. When her eyes met his again, she had changed. It was as if she had aged fifty years in an instant — though the shift wasn’t a physical one. The woman’s countenance was still that of someone in their mid-twenties.

It was something deeper. The weariness in her eyes and the weight on her shoulders were not those that could be born on the back of someone her apparent age. Her very air seemed to have grown ancient.

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“I’m old,” Eliana said again, the vitriol no longer present in her voice. “But not nearly so much as you. What areyou?”

The two of them stood in silence for a long second.

“You first,” Noah said quietly. “And I am human.”

“No,” Eliana replied. “You are not. Not in whole. Maybe not even in part. As for me… I am more human than you.”

“But not entirely?”

Eliana studied him for a moment longer, but Noah couldn’t help but notice that her eyes didn’t meet his again.

“No,” Eliana replied. She turned to a mannequin in the puffy robes of a pompous noblewoman and pulled its top down with a sharp tug. There was a small compartment latched shut on the wooden statue’s chest. She flicked it open and plucked free a glass bottle full of brown liquid and two tiny glasses before turning back to Noah and raising them. “Drink?”

“What is it?” Noah asked.

“Nothing fun,” Eliana replied as she popped the cork off the bottle and expertly poured a small amount of the drink into one of the glasses. “Harpy.”

“The drink?” Noah asked.

“No,” Eliana said. “Me. My mother was a harpy. I’m halfway there, something between human and monster.”

Noah blinked.

“That’s—”

“Possible?” Eliana arched an eyebrow. “My father was a bold man. I was lucky. Got all his features and all of my mother’s magic. No feathers or wings. My sisters weren’t quite as lucky. Humans aren’t kind to those different to them.”

She threw the shot back into her mouth, swallowing it and grimacing before pouring two more and holding one out to Noah. He hesitated for a moment. Then he took it. This would be far from the first time he drank what might be poison — and it certainly wouldn’t be his last.

“This better not kill me,” Noah said. “I would be really annoyed if it did.”

“It’s not killing you unless you drink too much of it,” Eliana said with a snort. “I don’t have a death wish.”

Noah threw the shot back.

It was terrible. Calling it paint stripper would have been a compliment far too great for the swill he’d just poured into his gullet. Even despite himself, he gagged.

“That’s awful.”

“Thank you,” Eliana said. She drank her shot, then poured herself another one.

“Your sisters were… what, partially monsters, then?”

“We’re all partially monster. But it was far more apparent for them than it is for I,” Eliana said with a one-shouldered shrug before gesturing around the tightly packed shop. “That was why I learned how to craft garments that could conceal such things. But you… I cannot conceal. Not fully.”

“I don’t think most are quite as perceptive as you are,” Noah said.

“Most are not. But some are,” Eliana agreed. “Your eyes will give you away. What manner of monster could have created such an effect?”

“It wasn’t a monster,” Noah said. He looked at the glass in his hand, then set it down on one of the mannequin’s head. “And my soul isn’t nearly as damaged as I suspect you believe it to be.”

“Clearly,” Eliana said. “But more damaged than you would like?”

“Possibly,” Noah admitted. “But I really am only here for a mask.”

“And yet, there is not a single robe I weave that is only anything. I take pride in my work, traveler. Enough to refuse to allow even you to walk out of here wearing anything but an object that I am proud of creating.”

“You mean something imbued?” Noah asked.

“Every thread,” Eliana replied. “I would typically create something that completely conceals the wearer. There are a great number of people who do not wish to be sensed. But too many elements would seep through. The abnormality would draw more attention than it slipped past.”

“Like a poorly shaped soul?” Noah guessed.

Eliana nodded. “Precisely. A bad concealment is far, far worse than no concealment at all. You said it yourself. Most are not as perceptive as I. They do not know the thief in plain clothes that walks by them on the streets. But the one partially in the shadows… he is easily identified.”

“Then give me something that doesn’t disguise me,” Noah said. “I’m not too picky. And don’t worry about my soul. The concern is appreciated, but it’ll be fine.”

“That is like telling someone not to fear the army bearing down on the doorstep.”

“I have no quarrel with you.”

“An army does not need to dislike a town to destroy it in a battle against their foes.”

“I don’t have any enemies here.”

Eliana snorted. “Then you are delusional.”

“Look, if you want me to leave, I’ll leave,” Noah said. “I’m really not that bothered about this one way or another. No need for me to start trouble. I’ll get a mask elsewhere.”

“Stay right where you are,” Eliana said sharply. “You came into my shop. You’ll not be leaving unsatisfied.”

“Actually, you pulled me into it.”

A small smile played across the strange woman’s lips. “And you let me. Everything is a choice.”

“Except—”

“Except for leaving,” Eliana said with a nod. She put the bottle and both shot glasses back into the mannequin before pulling its dress back up and giving it a pat on the shoulder. “You’re staying until I find you something suitable. I’ve dressed mages. I’ve dressed monsters. You… I’ve never done anything for something close to you. That means its an opportunity that I cannot allow to pass. But for the love of all that is good and holy, throw those rags away. You can do far better.”

At this point, Noah couldn’t help but be intrigued. He shrugged. After all, he still had to kill time until Lee made it back with the earnings from the fang she was turning in. There were worse ways to do it.

“Fine. Show me what you’ve got for sale, I suppose.”

A smile stretched across Eliana’s lips.

“With pleasure.”