There are gifts, and there are gifts. There are boxes with ribbons and bright painted paper, there are small unwrapped items slipped annonymously into pockets, gestures grand as a castle ball and quiet as a warm drink offered to the cold and tired, and all these things are joy in giving...and then there are gifts that wind around a soul and forever become part of its song. It is such a gift he has just received and the power of it leaves him speechless. A woman has just taken Ilsare into her heart, not as a symbol to be thanked or perhaps prayed to for some occasional desired outcome but as a true guide of spirit, and he's been allowed to witness. "She saved me for you to find..." If that is true then he's more blessed than he knows but he believes she would have been rescued by someone, sometime, and his guild brothers and sisters are entirely as responsible as he. It is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to him though.
The sound of her pipes linger and Amati's strings find the notes and repeat them. The music she's made is to him an emotional statement of love, confusion, hesitation, and gratitude. There is a lot of struggle in the starts and stops, sharps and flats. She's struggled to express herself - trying as hard as she can, as she had to try and please her masters, try and keep her sanity, try and master her instrument. Every journey in faith has ruts and bumps and he believes the one most difficult to her will be to stop trying so very much and simply start doing. Opening one's heart requires trust and trust is something a former slave has precious little of. He is grateful that his Heartsong has placed he and his Ilsarian brother SehKy to help her; if there is one thing the both of them are good at it's expressing themselves. He prays through his violin that they can help her learn to play without reservation or fear of judgement as well.
Behind him, he knows, things are not necessarily running smoothly despite the wonder of faith's discovery. The man whom the woman loves has also been discovered, by a god who is not so fond of Ilsare, and even as they snuggle together now their hearts will sometimes diverge and sometimes mirror the challenges of the path his bardess friend has set herself upon. Glancing into the night sky, he remembers words spoken to him long ago; his Goddess is not an easy one despite the illusion of softness in love and art. Desires of the heart defy logic and often duty. He will pray for her and her chosen; they'll need it.
“…in his office, check there first.”
“Thanks.”
Light footsteps; a knock, once. Firm.
“Hello, who is it? Come in. I’m not naked.” Wood on wood; a hinge squeaking out protest at being woken from rustful slumber. “By the Muse…”
“Hey Dad.”
“Praise Ilsare – “
“Hey, easy…”
“Easy hells. I’m getting a hug! I have not seen you in over a year, Ty!”
“Alright, alright.”
“Let me look at you.” A pause. “Dear gods, son. Where did you get those arms? Can I borrow them?”
“Digging clay and sand. Been building my business.”
“I’ve seen fliers – ‘the Clay Man’. Do you know if I told your grandparents that they’d burst with pride. I must write mother. Have you been there lately? You might pick up some good tips. Your grandparents have been working clay for five decades now.”
“No but that’s a pretty good idea, Dad. I’m kind of busy but I’ll drop by next time I’m on the islands.”
“Make time. They’re not young or even just old anymore. And your grandfather has some health problems.”
“Okay…yeah. “
“Good. Ty, I am absolutely delighted to see you. What have you been doing? Whom have you been doing it with? Sit, can I get you something to - ”
“Dad, don’t fuss. Just came to see how you were and how things are going. Donate a little. I mean, a little little…it’s not much.” A soft, rattling thump. Rustling.
“Seed…Muse we need this. Every bit helps. Thank you son.”
“Good stuff. From Belinara. Daniel told me you’re a farmer now.”
“Well, that’s pushing it. I’m a skinny bard trying to learn how to use a rake. Charlie in fact is the farmer.”
“That’s too funny.”
“I do not jest. If it were not for the Buckle residents none of what we’re trying would have gotten off the ground.”
“Cool. Say hey to them for me.”
“So you’ve been on Belinara? Tell me, who are you traveling with these days?”
“What.”
“What what?”
“You look like Buttercup when she catches a mouse.”
“You imagine.”
“Do not.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“I know who you’re implying and none of your business. And stop with the grin.”
“Can a father not be happy for his child?”
“Seriously, Dad. We’re friends.”
“I want grandchildren.”
“See, this is why I don’t come home. Quit laughing.”
“I’m kidding, Ty. Sort of. Alright, enough of things I have no business asking about. What about your business, tell me how molds and ingots sell these days…”
His name is Sean. He was in his late thirties to mid forties a few years ago. He had dark red hair with orange highlights, was probably deeply tanned, and fished the waters off the Hold. He's been missing for about two years.
Sitting back in his mahogany desk chair, the bard taps a quill against the desk. Dead at sea, most likely, and there is precious little chance anyone will ever know for sure. Abandoned his not-quite-yet-of-age daughter and taken off to greener pastures? Also possible, although less so. Captured by pirates? Depending on what kind of fishing boat he owned, perhaps. The boat wasn't a large one - Maeve, she'd said. It was named for her mother. Famine could make fish stealers out of pirates, but this is not the second most likely option next to being caught in a storm and given up to Mist's justice. The second most likely is the one he prays didn't happen. It is something he might be able to check on, however, with a lot of prayer to Ilsare that Mist remains feeling friendly toward him after the drowning of part of the Cult fleet and his aid to Hardragh. Somehow he doubts it.
A final tap and the quill is dipped in ink. He is not sure if these letters will reach their quarries and so may have to deliver them himself, but at least he has a better than average chance of not being killed on sight.
To: Crew, Kenshad the Righteous, c/o Siege Perilous
To: "Twelve Pint" Quaid, Retirement Paradise, Somewhere in the Dragon Isles
To: Tide of the Northwest Murray...
Around the scrying pool in the Silver Buckle, Janra, 1512
"Minu, keep an inner ear out for anything trying to stare back? I've spent some time while we slept going over the bits and pieces, trying to put all the notes together. I'm going to start back a bit further in the timeline so we have a bigger overview of the entire situation.
"First, what we know of the Stone of Chitomaru. This is from Kaelan's and Minu's research; love, correct me if I get anything wrong. The stone is roughly two human fists large, and made of a crystalline material dark as obsidian. It is capable of turning the powers of the magic-sensitive against them, affecting them with powerful hallucinations, placing their minds in a sort of alternate reality. The primary source cited by Kaelan is a Toranite who documented the stone's presence to the fall of Port Hempstead to the dark elves. Additionally there may be some history between the Tower Academy building and a dark elf, and some speculation about tunnels beneath where the stone may have once been. It is my belief, having been near this thing more than once - more on that later - that it does not have a tremendous range, however. That much we can be thankful for. Now, some more background." Pours a glass of wine and sets the bottle near Elly.
"Before we knew of the stone, the Angels attempted to secure patronage to further our Arts Center construction. It involved travel to an island that surfaces only rarely, a sea-elf isle containing, our patron hoped, art objects he might add to his collection. The travel was difficult however, and the island lay near undead-infested waters. The island itself seemed to radiate a malaise that affected most of us to some degree and our guild captain Jilseponie drastically, putting her in a state of near catatonic depression. We were never able to broach the defenses of this island and had to turn back empty-handed, rather than risk the crew's sanity in that constant emotional gloom. Well, that and our brilliant idea to jet over the moving corals ended up with some of us...alright, myself, in pieces. I'm not the diver I once was." Sighs.
"Having failed at that we returned to Port Hempstead, Jil was saved from her suicidal state of mind with help from Minu, and we put the Arts Center back on hold. Bear with this preamble, it may have some relevance.
Begins pacing as he speaks, running a thumb over his upper lip. "It was some years later that we became personally enmeshed in the Stone's workings. It started with a seer named Rose, a...friend of mine..." Eyes shift to Elly for a second, then back to them. "She was nearly driven mad in Center by the crow-haired man, or the bird man. This is important so let me again recount. She was having a drink in the Bull's Eye, and this man entered. She has since identified him as Kaelan. He asked her to read cards for him as she has gifts in divination, and upon doing so she remembered, let me see - 'pain, and dropping the cards, and he changing into something else'. She saw everyone around her dead or dying, and it was dark.
"Rose said she was carried somewhere and at some point did battle with the crow-haired man, she trying to stop him and sending images of death to him - 'there were screams and dead women, and shouting, then people grabbing her...they took away her name and she was somewhere dark. They bound her hands, tied off her mouth, and locked her away'." Long breath. "Those of you familiar with that time in Center will remember that she in fact was sending her images of death to the people of Center, unaware of what she was doing. She was given chase and captured, and held in a Fort Wayfare asylum awaiting trial until she was exonerated and legally removed by a guardian. Minu can tell you more, as I did not see her in Fort Wayfare although I ah, did see her after." Cheek twitch.
"My point in this recounting is that she was affected by the crow-haired man and therefore possibly the stone through powerful hallucinations, to which she is already susceptible. And although your situation, Milady Calylith, isn't quite the same, I think the similarities outweight the differences.
"Next came the witch troubles where many other magically sensitive individuals went insane, all around Center. Not long after came raids on the Port Hempstead fields which resulted in the abduction of dozens of people. Kaelan and Minu and some others including a gentleman named Millon were part of a group that cornered and dispatched some raiding dark elves. During this they also encountered a witch named...Muse, I have two names - was it Rolanda or Solana, love?" Waits for her correction before going on.
"This witch took one look at Kaelan and thought him a nightmare and in possession of the Stone, and thus took her own life. Hallucinations, again. She had in her possession a journal, in which she named a man in Center that she was to meet to find the stone - Naan, or Nale, Kaelan could not remember clearly. He remembered hearing whispers, or being whispered to, before they met the witch but we never got further detail on that. Millon shared with me some of the journal, a passage of which read 'The stone must be found...that is the way to get rid of this...he's comming back...He's comming back...Oh no... ... NOOOOO...'." Looks up from his notes. "Who actually writes 'nooo!' on a piece of paper?" A wry smile.
"It was also during this time that Minu was abducted, and her hair and skin taken as well as her holy symbol of Aeridin. As you, Calylith, she has almost no recollection of the time. I had already been taken, duplicated through powerful transformation magics on my holy symbol, drugged into telling my entire life story to my double, then tortured daily along with my friend Raina for some six months until we escaped and were by Ilsare's grace lucky enough to die in the path of our rescue party." Bends to kiss Elly. "Which is why I invented Frostbeard Ale, as a thank-you to one of my rescuers." A quick grin, but it does not reach his eyes. He rubs his left shoulder.
"I digress. After the dark elf raid, Kaelan took the severed head of one of the things into Port Hempstead, which was not met with the reaction he expected. He became a person of interest, and as his mental state was already tenuous he went full-bore crazy. As I was checking my notes, I found some passages I took directly from a conversation with Kaelan while he was still being hunted - yes, I sheltered him briefly, he was sick and hungry and I am not cruel, nor did I think his punishment fit his crime. Calylith, some of this is not going to sit well with you, I should warn. Here is what he said to me that day. I quote: 'The woman killed herself...she...she said that nothing was real and all a dream and such, and that I was the dark evil man from her nightmares.'...'Rolanda died. Killed herself. Because of me, you know. She said I was the one from her nightmares. Deluded. She could not separate dream from reality'."
"He spoke of visiting Rose while she was in Fort Wayfare and said, let's see...'she died before my eyes and I dream of burned flesh since then, the people I burned...Caly I hate you...' I am leaving out his stutter, for clarity." Looks at the slender elven beauty. "He dreams of burning as well. He could not have made that up as he could not know of your dreams. He also said Rose tried to kill him."
Finishes the glass of wine with a soft aah, clinks the empty glass on the stone lip of the pool, then perches on the edge, lighting a cigar. "At some point the various compromises and Kaelan's situation alerted Captain Rae of the Silverguard. We were all requested to meet with him and Minu convinced Kaelan to come turn himself in. Having been in that situation I can say it's not all it's cracked up to be." Dryly. "We arrived and met with the Captain and one of the Tower's former students, now a Silverguard herself. I won't go over the entirety of the conversation as I shared quite a bit the other night but at some point I became extremely curious about why Kaelan kept ending up in the middle of this. Why he? And he doodled the entire time we were there, so I naturally wanted to see his artwork, knowing there would be more of it and thinking that something might come of the analysis - the mind often inserts things of significance in artistic endeavors. He resisted then relented, and we obtained artwork and doodles he'd created from the Tower Academy. Well, he obtained them, I just needed a cigar break.
"Upon examination, two pictures inked in blood slid from the stacks." He shows them again his recreations from memory. The first shows the fine-boned frame of a well detailed female elf maiden, blonde by the lack of shading in the hair. She appears peaceful, her eyes closed and a bright and calm smile, her hair loose and her flowy dress simple yet stylish. She is holding a crystalline stone on her hand, roughly the size of two human fists - the object seems to have been broken from a greater structure. The woman, obviously Calylith, holds it tenderly as if were something that was bringing her peace. In contrast to the woman's repose, the actual pen-strokes are carved into the paper as if displaying rage or anger in the moment of drawing. While the pictures in the bard's journal are done with charcoals, he used a quill to imitate the angry strokes and colored charcoal to mimic the color of the deep red, nearly black blood used as ink on the originals.
The second drawing is a detailed close-up of the stone in a pair of hands. Deep, strong brush strokes define the edges. Better detail can be observed upon the facets of the stone and it appears as a prism or obelisk with six faces and one tip, the facets plain. The detail of the small impurities over the facets indicate a black transparent material. With great detail are drawn the hands holding the stone. While the perspective is correct and the size also correct, the hands in this second drawing bear an innumerable small scars over the surface that are not on Calylith's hands in the first.
"His hands were not nicked or cut, nor scarred, during that audience. I checked. We questioned him and he was quite sure Calylith did not have the stone, which I believed then and now to be true - he was hallucinating when he drew it. While we questioned him, he dripped into onto the page and it reacted most strangely. It spread in disproportion to the volume. It was as if...as if the paper had veins, and the ink flowed through them, forming a face. The skin by the density of the ink was dark but not the black of a dark elf, the eyes terrible not in form but in the sense that there was no mercy, no pity, no human emotion behind them...cold, blank, calculating black irises that seemed to follow you no matter where you were sitting. Not unlike Jetta's." Mutters in Old Tilmarian, then resumes. "The hair was feathery and dark and we could see the bridge of the nose but not the end of it. Very avian features in fact, as this poor copy I did shows. Kaelan, at this time, had a very sudden and prolific nose bleed, the timing of which was far too cute to be coincidence, and he spoke in a voice not his own. His voice was at that moment as cold as the eyes in the picture. I won't forget what he said - 'We are compromised, I am afraid." He did not stutter, not a single letter, in saying that. Kaelan tried to weave a protective spell around himself and I had my eyes closed attempting to aid him in resisting, but apparently Rae's Silverguard mage - Silverguard Emily - used a gust of wind spell to get the picture away from Kaelan. We were caught by surprise and turned to ask her why, and Kaelan punched her hard enough to knock her out. We took some time to sort ourselves after that, I was frankly furious with him - I do not take to punching women. He said that he was 'not taking chances with spellweavers', and that he felt her action was hostile.
"Both he and Minu felt someone was scrying us in that room, which of course they were, so the gust may have disrupted that. Kaelan said that he felt someone reaching for his mind and that is why he said we were compromised, but I'm still not sure if he spoke the truth.
“After that and Silverguard Emily was tended to we had quite a bit of discussion about what to do next. It was determined that Kaelan would head to Center, Minu would contact Omer at the Tower Academy to set up investigation of the substructures, and I would head to Center with a detour by the store for business reasons. Except Kaelan never made it to Center as far as we know, and we have not seen him since. That was a few years ago.
Pours some more wine, pacing again. “There is more. Not long after that I traveled to Echo in Trelania. My pursuit led me to places I didn’t expect – I was chasing a sound, which I have since found in unexpected places much closer to home. I won’t detail my trip there as it’s not at all relevant except to say I became increasingly erratic myself during the time there. Minu can tell you, I was not myself. I felt I was being watched and being outside was dangerous and I was quite the spectacle, let me be the second to say.” A smile for his wife. “It occurred to me only after I left and began to return to a right state of mind that the effects were very, very similar to that described of the stone.
“I have so many thoughts on what could be happening, but from the beginning…the stone existed in Port Hempstead and went missing. We encountered an island that only rises from the waters of the ocean off Port Hempstead every few hundred years, and were affected by…something that was able to bend our emotions. Then this crow-haired man is seen and magic-sensitive people have reactions similar to our experience by the island. People think they see one thing when they are seeing quite another or are in alternate realities. A seer says one demon is coming, just one. Harm is done.
“Of greater interest are the abductions because it occurs to me that those most affected may have been taken prior, which means it may be dark elves, it may not. The crow-haired man may be involved in that instead, or in conjunction with.
“The stone’s effects are so far confined to Mistone as much as we can tell, but the stone is moving. Kaelan is tied into this somehow, and you are affected.” Nods toward Calylith. “And so once we secure the location, we must find him and pray he’s alive, because he may be the link we need to find the crow-haired man.” Finally, FINALLY pauses for breath and to take a drag on the cigar.
Center and outskirts, late Febra, 1512 – Elan, interrupted.
Notes from the road.
I met with Calylith and Celador in Center whereupon we split up to find information about Nale or Naan…Honey knew nothing, Celmade off with a local girl after tacit approval to flirt, and Calylith interrogated the Center crier with a low-cut dress and thigh high boots. That we men could have half as much power in a garment.
The crier told Calylith of a flamboyant man named Elan in relation to the witch incident. Taran, the largest pawn owner in town, verified the name – at this point we picked up Terayse and Xianreau, who came along to lend perspective and just because. Elan was purported to be a singer and fletcher who visits Center often. We found him just north of the Bulls-Eye. He seemed a defeated man - sad, hunched, with a touch of charima peeking out now and again like sun behind clouds. I was surprised to recognize him as someone who visits the Breath of the Muse, a singer who fletches to overcome a personal tragedy. He has a daughter. He found inspiration in his fletching the story goes and it’s all that keeps him alive aside from his child. I know the official story, that he accidentally shot his wife with an arrow one day. I can’t imagine that burden and he clearly has never recoverd from it.
Calylith questioned him, bringing up the Stone of Chitomaru and Kaelan. He remembered Kaelan a few years back, during the burnings and kidnappings in the Port Hempstead fields – in Center just one day, if the descriptions match. A rather remarkable memory if true. I handed Calylith my copied recollection of the picture of the crow-haired man, and he reacted instantly, backing away from it, saying they were just dreams and they’d gone, years ago. He remembered a dream where he must have been under the influence of the stone, whereupon he felt the stone would solve his problem if only he could find it. This matches what Millon told me. Elan said he dreamed of the stone in his daughter’s hands. The crow-haired man tried to convince him he’d have hurt his daughter to get the stone and getting the stone would “save him” from the madness. He had a dream whereupon he fought, much like Rose, not knowing what he was fighting, but he would not hurt his daughter. He says it happened just once, then it ended. A woman, he said, was in the Bulls-Eye who had research on the stone. We should find her and he didn’t want anything to do with it. As a father, I understood.
We took our leave and headed into the Bulls-Eye and had a look around but it was not for some time that the lady appeared, a gnomish woman named Melaa. At the same time that festering boil of a dark elf Nym/Sar’thal came through the door. Melaa tried to play as if the name I called was not hers, but when I inserted myself between her and Nym, I whispered “Chitomaru” to her and she immediately touched me, sending me invisible. She vanished herself and led me from the inn, upstairs, and through a window to the barley fields beyond the herbalist’s. We spoke briefly and she said her master and teacher was near, they were both members of the Reaching, and her master Mr. Marin could help.
I returned to get Calylith and she became stubborn over my insistence that we leave the dark elf. She says he loves her – right, and I’m a size thirty-six double D – but I was able to convince her to leave him out of this adventure, at least this time, thank the Muse. We assembled and shrouded and I took them to Melaa, warning them that I have no idea who she is except what she says.
Upon meeting Calylith they spoke at length of her symptoms, her dreams, the burning, being “lost”. When Calylith was satisfied it was not a trick, we followed her. We came, after some time walking, to a smallish home – only a bit more than a hut – and were ushered inside. It was cozy, warm, with a bright fire. Melaa said something most interesting to Calylith – “welcome home”. I sensed only hints of transmutation and abjuration, and felt relatively at ease despite my paranoia.
Melaa left to bring to us a man, Master Marin or more specifically Marin Smithson of the Reaching. He was middle aged and in good health, with simple but well-tailored clothes. Not a man to flaunt. His manners were impeccable. He asked us in to the dining and living area whereupon I saw several well-stocked bookshelves. Immediately upon the ladies seating he began to pepper Calylith with questions…did you have confusion in dreams, feeling you were places you were not? Memory loss? Losing control of your abilities? And of those dreams, Calylith added her own issues, that of dreaming of “blowing up villages and liking it” and “killing people and enjoying it”, as well as the crow-haired man watching her and the red eyes.
Marin spoke of things having settled down several years ago, this would have been not long after Kaelan left for Center from the Silverguard guardhouse and I began to be driven to obsession by my search for the bebelith silk. He was most interested in Calylith’s experiences, saying they were deeper and more intense than he expected. He felt memories were part of the solution, and despite mounting impatience from some of the others, I felt at ease. I find Lucinda’s children quite interesting, their techniques and solutions – a mix of gut instinct and careful research. Marin was quite pleased that Calylith felt responsible for the use of her magics for harm, even if it was not her fault, which is perfectly in tune with what I know of Lucinda’s church.
Marin surmised what I had said earlier – magic is that which links all of us who have felt the stone. Although, he believes it to be magic users untrained in the art, gut instinct casters and singers. I think differently now, knowing Jil and Kaelan both to be studied users rather than off the cuff. Marin said the true effect of the stone was to expand the user’s powers past where they can control it. Marin indicated that he might be able to help Calylith, as Melaa says he helped her, to recover lost memories and face what she’s forgotten. He gave her standard disclaimers on memory loss, facing old fears as if they were happening, nothing that Cel and I hadn’t when I was providing her with some stronger stuff to help her reverie. She gave him the same answer she gave us, with the same lovely defiance – ‘let’s do this’. And Marin ushered us into his private study through a secret door.
As Marin went over the potential downsides yet again – such as permenantly losing memories, not just the bit she’s not able to remember – Cel worried like a mother hen, demanding specifics that Marin could not offer. It was amusing, he pecked and pecked at Marin while the man could but say ‘I don’t know, we’ve never seen a case like hers’. During this he was asked to cut Calylith’s hair which started a fresh round of “what if...”. But in the end he will do anything for her, so he took his place outside the magical protection circle Calylith now stood in – there is a sketch of the circle here – and prepared to be her anchor. Cel asked me to pray toIlsare for Calylith, and Terayse and I sang our hearts out for Ilsare and for our friends in the room, and Melaa tossed the lock of golden hair into a cauldron in the center of the room. Inserted between the not-so-neat italic script is a rough sketch of the room.
Her memories appeared in the cauldron…I admit I was hoping to see at least a few of hers with Cel together, they have such passion and I have a perverted side I sit on far too often. No such luck. What I did see in those rippled reflections was her leaving the Saddlebag on a sunny day, and very suddenly she is covered in a shroud, her vision blocked – a glimpse of people in cowls and tunics – she struggles and is restrained and carried away. I think of Rose here, her description…I thought they were her detention, but now I think it’s more. Back to the memory pool; the leader appears to her to be a silver-haired elf with glazed, lost eyes but no hesitation; he kidnaps her with purpose. Kaelan.
Now she is lying down in some other place, not Haven – a very fast sketch of the few details of that location - and he is near, observing her prone, kidnapped body with a loving look. It made the hairs on my arms stand up. He speaks to her, draws pictures of her, paints her – paints pictures, I should clarify. At one point he appears to be painting something on her, on her lower back, but I could not see details in the water. He gets up and walks away, stuttering as he does, and limping. He returns and cuts some of her hair. After this she is once again shrouded, lifted, returned to the Saddlebag pawn by him, and left to wake.
A pause, then the waters shift again, a new picture forms of her waking with “lost” eyes – I don’t know how else to describe it but to say that Melaa’s description is how it looks. The pupils don’t react correctly, the irises are dull. We see her wander Mistone in this state. We can see her fearful and hiding, buring people…she did kill them…witchhuners, and others. She would merely look at them and burn them as if her powers had swelled out of her skin and wrapped around the victim. Her face would light up as well, joy, not fire – pure true joy. Tera points out to me that there is always one cowled woman or man, different people by body type, in each village Calylith destroys in her perception-altered madness. During one memory of burning down a village, the crow-haired man appears, gives chase.
At this point her breathing became labored and she sweated in that magical circle. The visions for the first time show the stone itself. Six prismatic factets with a tip, roughly two fists large – exactly as Kaelan had drawn it. The waters slosh as the image shifts, and the stone shows two Calyliths – one on either side, moving independently but concurrently. Kaelan – Elan – who knows who else – split. My hunch was correct, it’s a separate entity. Calylith’s eyes look invaded by bright light, spilling it out as though the whites were made of thin candle wax. The waters shift again – violently – as if someone stirred them, as Calylith standing in the magical circle raised her hand. The stone appears in the water and the two Calylith’s vanish in a blink. Kaelan appears, in a gloomy mood. He walks, defeated, shrouded in misery, until he collapses. Two red eyes are visible to the perspective of the horizon and Kaelan twitches in seizures on the ground. He is split, two Kaelans, two personalities – a shy stuttering student, and also a determined, plotting, arcane-studying, driven elf. As he shifts, half of him appears as a blue-skinned man with feathery crow-black hair. The pool shows Kaelan kidnapping another elf that looks like Calylith now, the same kidnapping scene the memory pool saw earlier, using magic and torture on this one to make her look like Calylith, with her personality and looks, all of it. I thought of Andeux and felt sick and miserable myself – I must find and free that man. Kaelan travels with her, lives with her, making her the very image of the elf who said no.
There is much of the travels with the not-Calylith, then things move quickly, I can’t write it all down, the Crow-Kaelan heads to the mountains. Not-Crow-Kaelan waits in Center, where he must have gone after we met with Captain Rae, and sees the other silver-haired elf who is looking smug and amused. They walk together toward a cave. Wretchedly fast sketch of the cave, not well done.
Now a dark elf appears. Both Kaelans fight the dark elf – by the lost look in the dark elf’s eyes, he too is affected by the stone. I have no pity and root for the Kaelans to kill him. However, the dark elf kills one of the Kaelans, I cannot tell which until the survivor moves forward and is not the crow-haired Kaelan. Calylith is in the scene now, created one. Let’s call her Not-Calylith. She is waking in rags, holding the Stone of Chitomaru. He speaks with her, she is afraid of him – no bloody wonder – and they start to talk. He seems confused and angry and she starts to run. He chases, seems concerned. They cross a room and there is the larger stone that the smaller came from. I knew it was part of a larger object! My joy at being right is muted by its very existence though, so I shall refrain from celebrating my intellectual victory just yet. As they approach the stone, they talk further, and calm, and peace decends until they hug.
Very suddenly the woman yells out and falls, and behind her as she bleeds is the Kaelan we saw the dark elf kill. There are words but words are merely a preamble to the fight that must come, and come it does, close and merciless. Not-Crow Kaelan pulls every trick in the book and finally stabs something delicate in Crow-Kaelan, who falls to the ground and mingles his blood with that of his last victim. Non-Crow Kaelan takes not-Caly into his arms and I can see…I must lean but I can see him saying “I’m sorry” over and over. The body of Crow-Kaelan vanishes in a dark mist, sucked into the larger stone in the room, and not-Calylith vanishes as well. The walls shake and in fine literary tradition the room starts to cave in. Kaelan gathers his will and runs. That is the last I know of his whereabouts or fate.
Images now of Crow-Kaelan putting books, notes and clues everywhere. The Tower Academy in a file…the Great Library, by the Muse…an Aragonite temple, a local library in Fort Llast by the big Toranite symbols and the wording on the coat of arms, and many other places. This appears an earlier memory, of course. And then the waters still, the image fades, and Calylith in the circle of magical protection awoke. The ritual was over.
Marin collapsed, and Terayse, Melaa and myself helped him up. After some liquid he seemed better and Calylith wished to know what was on her lower back. Cel, holding her outside the circle now, moved her to Marin and Marin took out a wand and a belt-ish thing, and did an incantation. How the man had the energy after that ritual I don’t know. There was residual magic from an invisible tattoo on her lower back but it was gone in a blink. He thinks it reacts to a different pit frequency, and I think I know which one. Kaelan may have one. Minu as well, for that matter, and Rose. I will send a bird from Center for Minu to join us soonest. I will have to find Rose myself.
Rose told me a demon was coming, just one. The tattoo resonates to a different pit. This Stone is tied to this demon pitdweller, who is the blue-skinned, crow-haired man. I am starting to know him and that means I am closer to undoing him.
My hand is cramped into a claw. I have done a twenty-four series of Cadenzas in a row with less pain than this transcribing. I will speak with Calylith when she’s rested and I must put this quill down and have a cigar. Ilsare, thank you for this unique experience.
AWTR, somewhere outside Center.
Lot of stomping out there.
"What brick? This one? Gimme a minute." Ed's rough bass, a grunt, rasping of stone on stone. A thunk, then a prayer in Kat's beaujolais voice, sweet but gracefully aging to a dry wit - another prayer to Deliar for sunlight.
"There's one! There!" Lola.
"I got it." Ed again. Squishing, and Lola's extended 'ewwwwwwww'. "You never seen one of these before?"
"Nope. The masters killed dangerous stuff first, or the Shiney Gnome did." Listening from his office, the bard knows she refers to the Toranite paladin who protected her and her fellow slaves. "Do you hafta kill them? They're cute!"
"Yeah, Lola, these things don't stay cute. And when they get big, they eat little girls in ONE BITE." Ed. The bard shakes his head causing the sparse light in the room streak across his vision, pinches the bridge of his nose, bumping his spectacles off accidentally. Not exactly true - myconids use the dead bodies as logs to spore more of their kind, from what he knows - but a simple answer will do if it keeps her from trying sneak one into her room in a box.
...Muse, what a day, yesterday. Patrons and guests running and screaming as juvenile fungus-men poured from the door to the basement. Well, not so much poured as wobbled. The sight of them and the irony of it all nearly left him laughing, except for the very real possibility of someone being hurt. But, between Ed, Jetta, and Michael, everyone was ushered out safely, thank Ilsare for small favors, leaving what looked like hundreds of myconids knee-height and lower to mop up. They were everywhere; the tavern, the Residence Halls and filling the basement, though thankfully not the tunnel. It took all of them, Michael, Keela, SehKy, Katyln, Charlie, Ed, Minu, Jetta and himself, to de-stem the tide.
De-stem the tide. He giggles. That’s funny.
There were so many little fungus bodies that Charlie took it upon himself to have a good few bites raw, in case they were edible – ‘This’d solve the food problem for a long time, Boss!’. Yes, but how the hells did they get into the inn in the first place? He believes he knows the answer to that question now. Friends, not the least of which Vell and Galathea, arranged for specimens of the large, tasty Deep mushrooms shipped to them and they immediately lugged the boxes to the damp and mold-splotched basement and set to sporing. Deep mushrooms, however, do not grow easily on the surface and most especially not Mariner's Hold, a very warm coastal climate. And so not all the boxes were opened nor examined. And, a month later, hoardes of myconids on the heels of the increasing mold and fungus problems plaguing the Buckle which has Heloise near to apoplexy. Examining the Deep mushrooms showed tiny footprints around them but not the surface varieties Glitch has been supplying them with. Ah well. Live and learn.
Despite the march of padded shroomy feet, some good has come of this, although not in a form he is comfortable with. Before Charlie felt the effects of his gustiary experimentation and while he, the owner of the tavern and therefore the liable party in the guest's eyes, was refunding monies and giving assurances that of course this would not happen again...(It will be some other emergency, don't you know? It's the Silver Buckle after all)...an elf walked into the inn, very much bucking the egress trend. Eyes reflecting a hint of red, skin the color of chimney smoke and hair too purely white to be the result of age, they were all on their guard; but he was looking to hire, not to kidnap or kill. A half dark-elf, rare enough to stay the bard's hand on sheer curiosity. The smoothing of Minu's forehead, the relaxing of her shoulders, after a moment of prayer to Aeridin was the deciding vote. It was shaping up to be one hells of a day and he decided to trust her judgment; running their lone customer through right before the entire town would doubtless be speaking of the events here seemed counterproductive.
The elf turned out to be one Captain Fames Yzzirtorg, owner of the Baskethead Shipping Company. The bard has heard of it, a bit shady but excellent if you wish no questions asked, which bothers him not at all since the reputation doesn’t include piracy that he knows about. Three Sea Devils in the fleet, all good cargo ships. Seems Captain Yzzirtorg...he rolls the z's, not realizing he is speaking out loud - the good Captain tried to capitalize on the famine by purchasing mushrooms from the Deep. It is possible, the bard thinks, that Yzzzzzzzzzirtorg brought the boxes the Buckle received, in fact. And the Buckle’s problem is indeed the elf’s problem – a good bit of his crew have been eaten by mushroom men, all three of his ships are infested, and two warehouses besides. Keep his name out of it, clean up the mess, and he’ll offer years of cut-rate shipping.
Give me the edible mushroom cargo on top of the shipping discount and it’s a deal.
Yes, well, done then – they shook but Rook was trying to get him to sign a contract. The man denied having his letters and signed the contract with a big X. The bard got scolded for not getting the deal in writing. Fine, Rook, you go first next time.
“Andy! Who are you talking to?”
“Err…noth…nobody, merely working through some thoughts…” She moves away from the door as Kat calls to her. He blows out a breath – it feels as though he’s exhaling unsung tensions, he can see them floating in the air before his eyes – see, sight, his spectacles, where did they go? He's forgotten. Returning to his musings, he tries to keep his mouth shut. His mind flips to the page it was on and it feels like that – flip. His hand reaches up to move a bookmark that only he can see.
The warehouses were badly infested and not all the mushrooms were the more common type of myconid. Some were those bleeding spores from the Deep, tentacles lashing out like hell’s own whips and knocking them all over the place. Thank Ilsare for SehKy’s arrows and thank Ilsare that they all had the presence of mind not to use magic, lest the warehouses be blown to bits. As much as adventuring types have a penchant for big booms, yesterday was not the day for that, no no no. It took hours to wade through the mushroom men and gather up and dispose of the bodies. He recalls the boxes in the warehouse; some showed both Deep mushrooms and myconids, as they’d seen in the basement of the Buckle, but some did not have any sign of the tasty fungus, only the damp prints of rounded feet.
Then it dawned. They’ve been sabotaged, both the Captain and himself and likely others. Someone down there is putting baby myconids into the mushroom shipments, and just this once he does not blame dark elves. No, this has the stamp of a different villain. One who worships mushrooms and feeds them to the hungry in Prantz. Gods, he hates that guy.
By the time they finished cleaning the Baskethead ships, Charlie was starting to act erratically in between holding his stomach and moaning. Kat and Minu hustled him back to the inn for examinations while Captain Yzzzzirtorrrrg – the bard sounds like Argali, which makes him laugh – Muse, he’s speaking out loud again – left after they recovered the crates of edible mushrooms from the cargo holds and warehouses.
They're on the floor! He tries to reach the spectacles from his chair, can't, gives up. His hands sparkle and he waves them in front of his face, blinking slowly. So, the myconids are in fact edible in the loosest sense – what the ladies determined had Charlie alternating between distress and wide-pupiled incoherence was the myconid flesh. When he did not end up visiting his bindstone they had thought the things possibly safe to consume. However, back at the Buckle clinic, the normally overactive man sat staring at a candle in between bouts of stomach cramping. He insisted the candle was talking to him in flame language. That was their first hint that myconid soup might not in fact be a good idea. Now that things have settled down he's decided to test it himself, "for research purposes", which earned him a standing-ovation-worthy eye roll from his wife, but Charlie wasn't kidding. Intermittently he doubles over as his digestive tract roils; between those nearly crippling cramps, his office is a great deal more interesting than usual. The candles do not speak but the fountain whispers and sings in water kanji. He can see musical notes in the shadows. And his hands sparkle and trail, perfect for conducting an impromptu concert to himself. Facinating and wonderful except for the pain, but not worth a repeat. There are easier ways.
“I told him, I TOLD HIM it was a bad idea. Did he listen? He did NOT. Honestly, Elly! Fungus! IN THE BASEMENT!” Ohhhh…guess Helly’s still mad, then…he’ll be hearing about this for a while. His wife’s answer is too soft to hear, and partially drowned by Kat’s chanting. They had the idea in one of the warehouses to use dry heat and the clerical prayer of sunlight to combat the fungus, and Helly added copious amounts of a lye solution to the spore war. Said warfare requires getting into the walls, however, and thus Ed is yanking out brick or prying up wood where spaces exist. His office has already been sunshined by Minu to within an inch of its life, every corner and the spaces and cracks behind the walls literally blasted with Aeridin's light. It seems to be working, the patches of fungs shriveling black in the sun's prayer-driven purity. He may even be able to re-open for business this week.
He can’t tell if the myconid effects are lessoning or not, but the cramps seem to have eased – he ate a much smaller portion than Charlie did, and none of the Deep myconid tentacle. A pity they can’t serve fungusman flambé but the mushrooms they did obtain will carry them through a few months, a little more if they stretch it. That plus the heavily discounted shipping and the contacts they’ve made buying food and they’ll be able to feed themselves, their customers, and have a little extra for those in need until the crops come in. The next spring looks good, Farmer Part says. Wait and see but there is a hymn of optimism in the air. With their own plot they’ll be able to feed more, although not nearly enough to run a soup kitchen. That dream faded as quickly as a young shoot in this year’s spring. But – the Buckle won’t go down. Not this time.
He sincerely, sincerely hopes Mariner's Hold likes mushroom stew.
Power and Prestige, Part I - Home Again.
His coat draped across a simple mahogany chair, the ink-pot dry, the candle on his desk lit for the first time in so long that dust burns on the wick. It is past midnight and the inn's timbers shift, creaking and snoring with each minute movement of the land beneath. He is beyond tired, physically, but his mind slips down gulleys and ravines, across trails and battles, beside kings and dwarves and over ancient curses and men in barrels and women whose beauty is a masque for what lies beneath, one of whom prowls the old building at this moment. Yet he is glad of her more so now than ever before - even if the veil has been lifted, if only a little.
He cannot sleep yet. The body may weep for a bed that reaches beyond the end of his feet but the words demand release. Parchment is laid, ink reconstituted, quills sharpened with shaking fingers; a leather-bound book of pages jammed with bits of paper, all with the same neat, or sometimes, not so neat, italic script is spilled across the swirled oak surface. A perfect reflection of his thoughts, and he smiles. It will be a long night and morning and perhaps next day. But - oh, but - to have been there, and back again...to have lived that. To have made a difference.
To have been the first human bard, no - better - the first non-dwarven bard, to have played concerts in that place below the hills where few of those over four-King's foot-five dare to tread, what a coup! Dizzying, really. That then shall be recorded first, yes. The order is less important than the narrative after all. The show must go on.
In a tomb of kings and warriors, footsteps in the dust
Ivory bones shuffle past
Dried red streaks of blood, or rust
There they rest but rest they don’t, trapped in rocky cages
Carefully nurtured vitriol
Distilled down the ages
Curses screamed from wall to wall / Echoing down carved stone hall / Crimson spray and broken crawl - final hate from grey lips fall / A lock made of a death rattle…
How long did they stay that way, barred from final night?
No one left to apologize
No one left to set things right
Dust like snow as dark forgets, this place you cannot tread
Until steps echo long and short
Odd companions to the dead
Elves and humans, kith and kin / Not of the past and so let in / Inside a rage as dense as tin yet gaseous, diluted thin / A cloying mist across our skin…
Racing time the odd ones out, to pull life from angry ashes
Each step heavier than last
Then and now in desperate clashes
New blood conquers what has gone, the lost are finally found
Still that rage and pain a boot
Crushing them onto the ground
What can fix the centuries / Who among us would be keys / In three small words the anger ease and ghostly memories are pleased / “I forgive you…”
“I forgive you…”
More power than in any spell and sharper than a blade
Elf and kin dissolve
The curses that ancestors made
From an opening of doors and hearts the living are brought out
What other good might come of that?
Seems to be worth thinking about…
//to be continued
Power and Prestige, Part II - Burning Midnight Oil
There are so many things more desirable in life than following a manure farmer from downwind. I can think of several dozen within a few eyeblinks, any one of which - up to and including scrubbing the Buckle floors by hand - I'd rather be doing, and yet there I was, creeping along behind the cart of this suspicious man, my eyes tearing from the stench and wondering if I'd ever get the smell out of my velvets. But let me take a stride back and tell you how I got to this place.
First a bit of history - stay awake, it won't be as bad as that or I'm not a reasonably well-known and sometimes talented bard. There is a war on, you see. Yes, another. Or shall I say an ongoing, as it's been several centuries now. Sagewald, my adopted home - with whom I am most cross, let's not mince words - was displeased with the hills east when Taur'en declared itself a kingdom and consolidated power. They treated the rich resources of the Taur'en Hills as a bit of a metallurgic larder, or that what they could get their hands on, for the dwarves under the hills defended their territory with the fierceness that only those as broad as they are tall can. The first King of Taur'en was a dwarf, one with demonstrated ties to Milara, may each and every god and goddess in turn reject his withered soul...ah, there's my soapbox. I thought I'd lost it.
I digress. King Kraklin Stonefist the aforementioned pulled most of Taur'en together with the noted exception of his kin in the Hills. With his strong-arming he encouraged surface trade, wrung trade concessions from the dwarves, and established human settlements. From the perspective of we of the long bones and short life, not a bad job if you exclude the sucking-up-to-a-dark-elf part. Dying without an heir, a human he'd personally trained took the trappings of power and thus Bydell became synonymous with Taur'en. Of course that honking huge library full of dust-sucking Aragenites doesn't hurt for name recognition. Perhaps I should fund a library? A bardic library! Full of sheet music...!
Moving on before my mind wanders away again. Disgruntled with their suddenly determined and organized neighbors, Sagewald declared war. I haven't the faintest as to the original declaration, no doubt carefully crafted language on assumed land holdings and imagined trade agreements and whatnot, but I opine it was in fact sour grapes at the loss of resources. Sagewald has fish, shipping and lands galore for growing but is skint on the mines that Taur'en is riddled with. And so it was War! Or, really, it was the occasional boarder skirmish and a lot of hand-wringing, for in actuality the war was more of a sniping contest...until recently. Thus endith the history lesson for today.
Having written all that I'll put something up right from the start as I think it is the crux of the matter. The question must come to mind, what shifted the scales? Why suddenly did Sagewald become so earnest about their attacks while also, as I have just found from some of my local sources, blaming Taur'en for being the aggressors? One word, one concept, one single evil.
Rael.
It is not a coincidence the timing of his slow, venomous snaking through Sagewald's governance and the increase in violence. Sagewald wants something they cannot have. Rael, by offering his "benevolent" assistance to Mariner's in the wake of the tsunami, was given an opportunity for a foothold and a chance to strike at a powerful city of surface dwarves which is quite the oxymoron if you think about it. However - those tactics of attacking and blaming the victim for the crime? Purely Rael's, from both anecdotes and personal experience. It's brilliant if you can ignore the body count; commit atrocities and then lie so hugely, so brazenly about who was responsible that the lie itself brings doubt to the mind of the listener. In other words, who would lie about something like that? I can tell you who. Keep Rael in mind for we'll return to him as this narrative continues.
Over the last few years things between Sagewald and Taur'en turned dark, and ugly, and large numbers of people genuinely were hurt or killed. Suddenly there were coordinated, professional attacks on caravans and villages all around the country. Suddenly the skirmishs were gathering steam and frequency. The iron was well and truly in the fire and so King Thomas Bydell passed word down to hire the "specially skilled" as caravan guards. A group of us, most known to each other and varying degrees of respectful and of right mind in regards to religion - eyes on you, Voraxians - were hired to escort relief supplies to Fort Angle. Guard duty. Easy, yes?
Written like a true adventurer. From a wagon train twenty-plus long we barely had half when we finally made it to the fort. Their first attacks were staged from the trees and directed at the pack animals and cart horses. Bloody hells! We'd thought of everything except how we'd move carts that had no hoofed motive power and let me tell you, those things are HEAVY. They also scared some of the animals knowing full well we'd give chase. Predicable, we are. Painfully so at times. And then they swooped in as bloodthirsty raptors to claw the severed halves of the party.
Fortunately we had in numbers what we lacked in planning, but that is cold comfort to the families of the Taur'en guards who died. We were hailed for what supplies we were able to stagger into the fort bearing and I think I was not alone in being ashamed that it was so little. But we'd now seen first-hand the problem and that the tune was shifting to favor Sagewald by several octaves. So, once in the fort, we split up to get a better feel for what was going on. It was as we were in this eye of this storm that my senses tingled regarding the dung man. Information inside the fort had to be leaking to the mercenaries somehow, and who would suspect a simple fertilizer cart? And so I followed, and thusly we come full circle to the paragraph you left behind so many words ago, which you will now have to wait for as I'm simply too tired to continue. And so...
Power and Prestige, Part III – Death and Taxes
I sang, quietly – under my breath – a thanks to the breeze, the very same breeze that also slid over and around me in a mix of hazy day sensuality and the miasma of overripe animal feces. I didn’t hear bells or chimes or the jingling of keys, not with my ears, but I imagined I did. I had worn bells once, at the wind’s suggestion. I had worn bells and chimes to learn to hold my sway and check my stride, to not swing my arms and to set my feet just so, so that I became, for a tall and gangly man, remarkably hard to hear coming when I wished to be. In that moment, in that heat, I wished it to be; and so it was that the man on the cart ahead of me didn’t appear to notice as I followed. He drove his cart of manure directly, or as much so as the hilly landscape allowed, to a vegetable farmer off the beaten path. The farmer, as weathered as my riding boots and puffing a pipe, was greeted by the name Wicky Fennel, while the cart driver was in turn greeted rather amusingly as Girntif Smazor. There was gossip about the mercenaries and talk of Sagewald, and something about kenku as well, which harkened me back to Quark and his brother and the near-taking of Mariner’s Hold by the most thankfully demised Edna. Yet that was all there was and I divined nothing from the chat that would be a clue. Not that I would know what one sounded like even if it’d been sung in four-part harmony.
A lot of words for what ultimately was nothing, eh? There is a lesson here – not all diversions have a real purpose, a lot of what we see, hear, and do is worthless. Truth isn’t rare but relevance can be and the smallest crumb can feel like progress…hm, the makings of a song there. Must revisit. But to return to my point, my careful shadowing in the end gave no insight. I returned to the fort much the same way I left it, still walking carefully and now smelling of dung.
As it was we were hired to make the return journey along with the kingdom-hired mercenary group L.E.G. – forgive me as I cannot remember what it stands for, let’s make something up shall we? Large Elite Guards? Legion of Elite Grumps? Limbs of Extreme Growth! They were strapping lads and lasses, is what I’m saying. They, and we, were to escort the taxes collected from the local areas back to Bydell. After the gauntlet we’d run to get here we were all tossing off ideas to make the return trip less painful and I sensed, perhaps for the first time, a touch of humility in the voices of my peers. Well, except for Kurn Blackwater. His humility could fit on the head of a pin that was already completely full of angels. At which point they’d realize it was him and run screaming.
I jest, Kurn’s a grand fellow. Try not to let him follow you too closely though.
Amid the kerfuffle of ideas and preparations and during one of my periodic searches I had reason to sit on a bench. Upon sitting, I spied a piece of trash fluttering underneath – paper trash, not terribly common in this mostly uneducated rural area. Plucking it up, I smoothed the crumpled and weather-stained page and read. Even as I heard the words aloud in my mind, enunciated in my interior-monologue gruff mercenary voice, I realized I’d found an actual clue. If I had left the dung man alone and simply sat down right here I could have saved the local washer-women the aggravation of cleaning my coat and saved my boot leather some wear.
The note read:
if the old mines were reopened maybe more gold means more money dwarves what happened to the the halfling could help
Of course the blank bits had been reduced to grey-washed parchment by virtue of having been located near an exposed bit of crumple. Still, it was a larger crumb than I expected under the circumstances, and I passed it on to the group for review. As we had no frame of reference, it was debated briefly and set aside in favor of a plan to get the taxes back to Bydell. Tidbits from the others flooded in amid ideas both wild and less so; my wife discussing what she’d heard about the Sagewald royalty, another speaking to the rumor that fort officers were forfeiting pay, others recounting the flirtations of the local pleasure woman. I would say here that without a doubt said prostitute is a spy if anyone is. The double dip of being female and doing a job considered less worthy than that of the dung man by many; I’d bet she hears far more than the best agents of any kingdom.
It occurs to me I should re-label this chapter What to Expect When You’re Expecting An Adventure. Hurry up and wait; sneak about or bash in doors to find nothing at all; hours of arguments on how and what to do and when, and who should lead. And in tension-filled moments with lives in the balance, dealing with those who get sick of the circular arguing and just DO SOMETHING - myself on occasion included - and the fallout of those spontaneous actions. In interventions of things that Don’t Concern You, diplomacy is so underused a skill that when it is employed it rather shocks the locals and yet in most cases returns results far beyond hammer-fisted bluster. Remember this. And that is today’s lesson ended, my pedantic hyperbolic hypocrisy as spent as a handsome sailor on a maiden-only island.
Honestly – where all that came from I have no idea. A strong hint I should leave this for the next day’s writing and get some rest. Then shall tomorrow bring battles…
Power and Prestige, Part IV – An intelligent guard. Didn't see that one coming.
A plan was finally composed, to be carried on unadorned and plainly clothed shoulders. Taxes in tow, we decided on a low-profile return trip to Bydell. Flashy jewelery and expensive swords were hidden under simple tunics or tucked away; clothing that blared Al'Noth to magic-sensitive hearts rolled and stuffed under benches or in sacks; the caravans, including five decoys, were each equal in protection and guards, no one standing out. Markings found on the caravans were left as is. Chests were switched by the most trusted of Dan Portello's guards each night, while we hired hands hid inside the creaking horse-drawn buckboards to mask the true compliment. Our combined might was so little a deterrent during the initial trip that bobbing along concealed felt like comeuppance; yet, I'm either ashamed or pleased to say, it worked.
Most of the journey was uneventful, with two notable exceptions. Early on, during a nervous evening's attempted rest, a lone man was captured marking wagons - upon interrogation, he revealed he was marking them for one Darius, the surprisingly organized bandits' leader. And by interrogation I mean "Kurn chopped his legs off". I was with Minu defending the horses or I'd have stopped it, by Ilsare. Upon discovering that Darius was a halfling, I remembered the scrap of text from the scrap of paper I'd recovered earlier. "The halfling could help." A long shot, of course, but let no tidbit go unpondered. I should note, as it will become important later, that we had also recovered two scraps of paper containing numbers written out in seeming random order during a scouting mission on the intital trek; one note bloodied by the capture of it (although not with the blood of the captors, thank the Muse) and the other without blood. Both were in the same handwriting, paper, and ink. A steady hand. Not the writer of my crumpled note, I don’t believe. Lacking any sort of key to decipher the cryptic numbers, they were folded and slipped into Lance’s tunic.
The second notable disturbance was the ambush that we'd all sensed coming. This was only a few days out from Bydell. I cannot treat this attack with levity - many L.E.G. died permanently and a few of our own risked soul plucking, all in acts of pure heroism, the kind I should be singing about rather than larking around this office while I scribe. Samantha, uptight Dragon lover or not, covered Don Portello with her own body to protect him, and even the dust-sucking Aragenite did her level best to heal at the risk (and eventual loss) of her own life. They used ranged artillery to devistating effect, those skulkers in the woods. Wagons were rent to bits in massive explosions along with bodies. Taxes rained down as pence from the heavens in the fiery afterglow of meteoric magic. There were too many hostiles for even our inflated numbers - they meant this attack to be a final blow. And so I did what any self-respecting singer of songs and teller of tales would do when his back is to a tree trunk and the screams of the dying are in his ears. I lied.
To be specific, I spent every ounce of my admittedly random concentration and every shred Ilsare's inspiration to conjure up the sounds, smells, and some limited visuals of a Bydell cavalry squad closing in. Praise the Muse, it worked; the vexingly competent bandit forces fled, giving our fighters that were still swinging time to mop up and clearing the way for my wife and others to raise and heal. I have never maintained so long and so complicated an illusion before and I could barely stand, in fact I could not, in short order. I had to continually manipulate the visuals, not my strongest suite, and change the sounds to reflect distance and numbers. I'm tired just remembering it. But, in the end, the taxes were re-collected and placed in a chest reparied by Jako, to be borne to Bydell on a wagon repaired by Jako. We so often take him for granted, that large and quiet man. I should tell him how much his skills beyond the sword mean to us.
Our desparate but ultimately successful defense brought us to Castle Bydell at last, and this time with more than a few battered wagons to show for it. Two more than our first attempt, to be specific, but all taxes included. Somehow when I contemplate the number of burlaped dead piled on the wagons that followed in our road-ruts it doesn't feel like we in fact succeeded, but I am assured we did.
Bydell. I have mixed feelings. Joy, certainly, at the thought of rest, and also distaste at the religion that molders over those mossy stone walls. Why Aragen? I like a good book as much as some and better than most, but by the Muse, there are better ways to enjoy them. Which briefly reminds me that I am still missing my copy of Sexy Mistite Priestesses. Damned annoying, that. I must ask if Minu if she hid it anywhere.
Upon entering the castle's shaded walls there was the expected recounting of our steps which I left to those expert at making reports and snapping to attention and such. I spent time observing more than talking. Something was tapping at – or possibly from – or perhaps both? Could it do that? It’d be like scratching yourself but not recognizing your hand – Muse, I digress. Something was tapping my subconscious, after listening in on a conversation that Jetta was having involving the bandits and just how were they finding out so much about the movements of the caravans? Books. Keys. Books and keys. BOOKS. BY THE MUSE. It struck me like a scorned woman wielding a frying pan. I first obtained the notes containing the numbers from Lance and then I nearly ran – nearly! - to where I’d seen Samantha getting chatted up by Don Partello, who was of course grateful for her efforts to protect him. It doesn’t hurt that she’s quite lovely, except for that Rofireinite pucker of distaste they all seem to wear. Well, at least I always seem to see it. Maybe they learn it at Dragon school. I interrupted her tete-a-tete with an urgent request for the Quiet Laws which she brought to me despite my somewhat jumpy rudeness. Laying both book and notes side by side, I began to compare.
4.2-120.3-4.1-3.3-1.2-2.4-3.1-6.1-4.6-9.3--7.1-13.1--3.4-2.2-15.3-7.2-4.5-2.3-8.2-5.1--4.3-14.1-15.5-8.1-11.7--4.8-19.2--1.1-3.2-15.2-14.3-4.9--22.6-27.3-18.1-5.2-5.1--4.4-5.4--17.1-32.1-5.3
4.1-1.3-12.7-4.5-4.2-2.2-15.3-2.4-9.3--1.2-4.6-3.2-19.1-2.3-4.8-12.10--8.3-8.2-5.1-1.1-10.1--2.5-14.1--8.1-15.5-4.4-6.1-3.4-19.2-9.2--11.6-5.2-12.3-12.4-7.2--12.2-10.2-12.6-11.7
The Quiet Laws
Rofirein's laws may be constant and his justice unchanging, but one's experience with laws, rules, courts and the treatment of criminals may differ from realm to realm. The organization of the law in most realms is in the hands of the Church of Rofirein, but while many realms rely on Rofirein's church and clergy to keep the laws and punish criminals, not all realms recognize the Church of Rofirein as the sole body possessing the power to set the laws and some realms possess nothing at all resembling Rofireinite justice. The Zuan Kingdom on Alibor, for example, has only those laws set by its ruler and justice is meted out at his whim, while the more civilized kingdoms like Brelin, Trelania, and the realms on Corsain follow the law books of the Divine Court nearly to the letter. In these realms where the laws of the Divine Court are recognized, a difference in interpretation of the laws is settled by the Rofireinite church, which has the final say in all matter of justice's interpretation.How the local laws — whatever they may be — are enforced also varies from realm to realm; some nations have their militia enforce the law, some have a special guard for this task, and others hand the responsibility over to the capable hands of the Rofirein church. Certainly the fate of the criminals, once apprehended, usually falls to the Rofireinites. Judges of courthouses in the larger cities are almost always members of the church, as are most of the other staff working in the large courthouses.In small towns, villages and settlements, if a judge is present, he or she may not always be a member of the Church of Rofirein. However, these rural judges may still have been trained in one of the Rofireinite temples.
By this time my friend Argali had wandered closer, attracted by the scent of a puzzle. She’s quite good at sniffing these things out. Let me see if I can remember her exact words:
"Aye, thar 'word-number, letter-number' pairs," indicating the number-dot-numbers, "and tha' indicates a word," pointing to the double hyphens. Och, an' jus' remindin'. We intercept'd tha second message. Somewun doesnay know thar head'd fer Crimson, at least un tha short term."
At least that is my best jab at spelling her speech. She decoded the message in a flurry of “och’s” and “ayes” and a great deal more nearly understandable Common words mumbled between. We’d found the key to the messages! Crimson Cache Nine!
A proper cliffhanger, I think. That, and Edward needs me for something. To be continued…
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Topic: Andrew Reid - Letters Home (Read 7077 times)
