A Wizard’s Way

A Dissertation and Chronology by Horwendell of Ilianath

Benjamin Karcher

April 5, 2023

Cover image: “Map of Oases and Villages Along the River Nile as Far as Sidi Musá”, Piri Reis, 1525 CE.

Prologue

Magister Montigo of the Court of Ilianath has always said that a story is properly told from its beginning. In medias res, she holds, is a glitzy trick that cut-rate writers use to cover up their slipshod interrogation of the truth.

So, out of great deference and respect to my mentor, I shall heed her advice and tell this story from its beginning.

I: About the Author

I was born in Postfoedus 242 to a miller and her husband in the little town of High Vale, near the north shore of East Arc. In a just world I should sing their praises for the next twenty pages, for I owe everything (not owed directly to Montigo) to their tireless upbringing and their patient indulgence of my talents. But readers are always very insistent on matters of “pacing” and “economy of words” and “respect for their time”¹ so I must promise to be brief.

My siblings and I read and read and read—the priest at the nearest academy up the road in Kingsworth was at first delighted and then a bit mortified that a trio of precocious bumpkin children had exhausted his library. Not just of fairy tales and little pedagogical devices. We had plowed through the books on foreign theology he kept locked in a curio cabinet lest they burst forth and torment him as they had in his seminary studies. Soon, he was requesting additional material from the larger academy at Arcpalace, and my dear mother began to worry about which of us might deign to see after the milling business².

One evening found me sitting atop the wooden fence to the mill yard. I was facing the sun as it set, a painful blaze of beautiful orange melting behind the hills to the west, but of course I wasn’t actually looking at it. Instead, I was hunched over so its last rays of light would illuminate the pages of the little manuscript in my hands—a bundle of notes that had been left behind in the back of Logos Metallicum that I had found interesting.

Behind me, the gristmill turned and turned, grinding rye into flour, pulled in its steady cycle by our patient donkey.

“Shouldn’t you be working?” someone said.

I looked up. A sturdy-looking woman in a thick, long travel coat (gathered at the waist by a purple sash) and a wide-brimmed hat was leaning on a staff and regarding me with a stern look in her eyes.

“Should I be?” I remember saying.

“You tell me,” she said.

“Wait, didn’t you…”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

“Oh. Then, no, they don’t need me right now. I’m reading.”

“I can see that.” The woman seemed amused. “And it’s clearly not the Word of Ae. How old are you?”

“Twelve, and I’ve studied the Word, I swear!” I answered, taking a quick look around. My mother was inside, minding the mill, but my brother and sister were on the road back from the Kingsworth market with my father. The cheery little heart of High Vale, a little cluster of thatched-roof homes along a single packed road, was in shouting distance, but our view of it was well-shielded by the mill house at my back. It was just the two of us out there by the road.

“Of course, of course. And how does a twelve year old come to understand what a rhetorical question is?”

“Um. I read about it somewhere.”

“I see.”

“You’re Magister Montigo, aren’t you? Of Ilianath?”

“Oh,” she said, her silver eyebrows rising. “You read about that, too?”

“Yep.”

“That was also a rhetorical question. I mean to ask how you can tell.”

“Oh. I mean… the hat. It’s a wizard’s hat. And Brother Marinus wrote in the History of Court Wizardry about you!”

“Oh, I’m in a history book, now, am I?”

“Recent history!” I said quickly. “You’re the only old lady wizard in a hundred leagues,” I continued, completely undermining my initial effort.

Montigo laughed. “Well then. Have you read about the Golden Lion of the Eighth Hill?”

“… No.”

“Hm. You might try the Rexiary by Hebon, if the academies here have a copy.”

“Oh,” I said.

There was a pause.

“They don’t, do they?” she said.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You would know, I suppose.”

“Yeah. If it’s there, I’ve seen it.”

“Hm! Anyhow, I’m off to find him.”

“Are you? To do battle with a monster?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Oh! Wow!”

Silence settled over us again. I fidgeted a bit.

“Not much one for adventure, are you?”

“Um,” I said. “I prefer history, mostly.”

Montigo sighed and shook her head, her wide-brimmed hat briefly obscuring her facial expression.

“Suit yourself,” she said. She had a look around: verdant hills rose in the distance over the treeline to the west and south, and the road rolled and wound over a wide vale to the north and east.

“You know, his great palace used to sit on that island, over there,” she said, gesturing at a wide mass of green land situated in a river fork near the other end of the valley. “It was said to be built from oaks he enchanted to grow into the shape of a palace and then harden into steel. He made a hundred rooms for his plundered treasure, and a great kitchen whose wicked fires roared all day and night to roast boars for his feasts.”

My eyes widened a bit. “Ohhh. Is that in the Rexiary?”

“Yes, but Hebon had most if it wrong. It was forty-six rooms and the lumber was dried spruce hauled in from the Hyng. By his subjects. You know he was a proper king once? With a domain and an army and such? The treasure wasn’t plunder, either. Mostly tribute.”

“Wow. Where’d you read that?”

“I heard it. From the Golden Lion. I asked him once.”

I stared.

“You can’t just believe everything you read,” she said.

She gave me a tilt of her brim and made to carry on her way, but just then, two men came plodding up the road from behind the mill. Both wore swords and mail under brown-and-white quartered tabards: the baron’s men, from Kingsworth.

“Magister,” one of them wheezed. “Your presence is requested…”

“Poppycock,” she said, sighing. “And it was poppycock the first time you said it, too.”

“You’re coming with us!” the taller man shouted. The smaller one noticed me, acknowledging me with a hasty, awkward smile that was meant to assure me of… something, I guess.

“That’s more like it,” Montigo said. “But I shall not. I do not need your lord’s permission to travel in this country. More to the point, I shall not be a hostage in his stupid game with Henri.”

“How dare you speak that way of Lord Ha—” the tall man was screeching. “Um,” the shorter man said at the same time. His gaze was fixed on the tip of Montigo’s staff as she held it aloft.

A peal of thunder split our ears and rattled our chests. I fell backward off of the fence and tumbled into an unkempt knot of tall grasses.

I gathered up the pages I had dropped, scrambled to my feet, and peeked over the fence. Montigo had vanished. She had left behind a little divot of churned earth in the road and a slightly burnt odor on the air. The shorter soldier stared, his shoulders slumped. The taller one danced about in a fury, emitting a great and voluminous stream of words I feel compelled to omit from this document.

I slowly backed away from the fence and slipped into the mill house to tell my mother what I had seen.

When I turned fourteen, I received a recommendation from the priest at Kingsworth and the happy consent of my family to be apprenticed to the next Magister accepting a student. That turned out to be Magister Montigo.

The physical limitations of the shelves of the Kingsworth academy ceased to restrain me. History was and remains my soft spot—both the hearty meal to keep the mind sated and the candy to sweeten the night—but arcana and logos became equally important fields of study and tools to the vocation I was being raised into. That vocation being, of course, Court Wizardry, which Magister Montigo practiced on behest of Marquis Henri I of Ilianath. They were happy years of fruitful study, which came to a rather sudden end.

1. Damnable ingrates, readers are. Happily, they don’t tend to bother with endnotes.

2. A matter still undecided and a matter of… frequent correspondence between myself and my brothers and sisters.

II: Self-Directed Study

I was twenty six years of age when Magister Montigo assigned me to my wayfaring and when I subsequently met Lord Hester and Sister Gena… and Lady Iltara.

That morning, I sat on the stool beside the workbench, freshly cleaned of the evidence of the herbalism project of the night before. Painstakingly cleaned, I might say. Saint Thal’s Wort stains wood eagerly and I was in no mood to sand the entire three yards of walnut yet again.

“So, you are nearly my peer in fundamental alchemy,” Montigo mused.

“If you say so,” I humbly replied.

“Quite the talent for astronomy.”

“Yep.”

“You are my equal in logos, as I cut the field, anyway. As well as the histories, both mortological and theological.”

“I’m quite proud of that!”

“Yes, yes. And then there’s the Acts themselves. Astromancy, linguimancy, elemancy. You try too hard at the elemancy and make a damn fool of yourself, but you’ve still matched my expectations in all of them.”

“I’m, uh, flattered.”

“Do you know what the problem is, Horwendell?”

This turn in the conversation did not surprise me much. Magister Montigo was sparing with compliments, which she seemed only to employ as rhetorical whips or pulleys.

“What is the problem, then, Magister Montigo?” I replied, bracing myself.

“You haven’t done a damn thing by yourself. You’ve learned all this under my careful instruction…”

“… and my diligent studies!”

“Which you undertook as necessary, indeed.”

“Is that… should I have diligently studied unnecessarily? That doesn’t seem so diligent…” I ventured.

“That’s what we wizards are, you clod. We’re the obsessives with the fancy hats who make diligent study of anything, whether or not the world might scoff at it. And only,” she said, raising her index finger to physically punctuate this next point, “once you understand that…”

“… will I possess the skills to be a wizard and not merely a student,” I chanted wearily.

“Just so.”

“So I shall need to… study. Something. To no real end.”

“That’s the traditional rite of passage. Self-directed study, a dissertation that nobody shall read, that sort of thing. But you’d just try to con me into assigning you a problem.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“… Maybe.”

“So instead I shall recommend that you do that which you have always said you wanted to do. Go out and leave your mark on the world. And don’t come back until you have.”

“Wait. What does that mean?”

“It’s not a trick, Horwendell. It’s exactly what you’ve always wanted to do. Transparent, really. Change lives. A lot of them. You want to matter, right? Well. Everyone is born with the ability to change lives. But at my direction you have practiced a set of skills—and you have a knack for them—that gives you the blessed opportunity to do even more. So go do that, you lazy frosh.”

“But…”

What I wanted to say was “I don’t know how.” I wanted to ask “where?” Or “aren’t those opportunities hard to find?” But, hard-headed though I could be, I was clever enough to see that her trap lay exactly in that path. Unfortunately for me, by speaking even one word, I had already sprung it.

“No buts. Get out of my sight, Horwendell. You have important work to do.” Montigo lowered her gaze to her book.

“Yes, Magister.” I slid off the stool and dusted off my robe.

Which, apparently, I did not do in satisfactory haste, because Montigo looked back up at me with a glint in her eye.

“But you could use my help, I’m sure. Tell me, Horwendell, where do you think you’ll start?”

I fought to keep my voice level and free of frustration. “Not here. Dijain, maybe? Or Anteianum. There are resources there. Can study and find the…”

“Anteianum, eh? Not the worst idea, all told, but you’re liable to get stuck in the libraries. Try not to. Ta-ta, Horwendell. Go in Ae’s light. I expect great things.”

And then Montigo cast me from her office.

Rather literally, in fact. Montigo raised her right hand in a sign of mortal binding, pointing her index and middle finger toward the stars¹, with her palm aligned to the plane that could be drawn between our two figures and the sky above. A series of arcane secrets unfolded in her mind like spring flowers blooming in a single perfect instant, and she tugged with her mind at a single taut line of meaning that lay between myself and the stars.

And before I could even yelp with alarm, the world was changed. Specifically, my location was changed. In one moment I was standing in Montigo’s study, just a few inches from the stool before the wide workbench, and in the next, I was standing in the great square at the heart of the holiest of the Seven Kingdoms.

Anteianum is a highland capital at the heart of the kingdom of the same name. The city is a blanket of earthy orange-red shingles atop moon-white plaster, spread over a saddle of land between two tall mountains.

I stood in a city square directly in the center. Behind me, over the rooftops and the little haze of hearth fire smoke, rose the great castle of Anteianum, near the crown of Mount Tethia. Before me, a street led out of the square, then into a dense cover of pine trees. From there it would climb up, up, and up, until it reached the white-walled College of the Apostles, huddled like a fat snowy owl on the northeast face of Mount Caelias.

I was shocked. Not because I didn’t know what had happened. Of course I knew what had happened. It’s generally called an adversarial transposition: a spell that moves an unwilling or unaware subject great distances (the spell that moves willing subjects is somewhat simpler). I was shocked because for all Montigo’s talk about my having reached attainment in astromancy, she had just cast a spell on me that I would have struggled to prepare for weeks, and she had done so without the barest hint of difficulty or hesitation.

I had seen that old lady pull off plenty feats of magical strength, plenty of dazzling displays of wit, and even her fair share of dirty tricks. But that one topped them all.

I wondered briefly how long she had been arranging that little surprise for me, but then I realized I had more pressing matters to attend to.

It was noon, I hadn’t eaten lunch, I had a few silver and my student’s robe to my name, and I was standing in the middle of King Lotreas’ Square.

A cold highland wind whipped at my robe. My ears popped, adjusting to the thin, high air. And then the smells: pine, spruce, bacon, lumber, horses and their feed and their waste. And then the sounds: children laughing and yelling, farmers hawking their produce, a holy chant, in two-part harmony, from the north end of the square.

I sighed, and I started toward the west end.

Libraries have a sort of gravitational pull on me. Especially the ancient, storied sort, filled to the brim with original tomes and overindulgent architecture, beautiful walnut shelving and tasteful (if sometimes inexplicable) filigree. Having been sent on the traditional wizardly wayfaring but lacking any sense of where I should wayfare, I found myself sucked into one of the greatest libraries of them all: the collections of the College of Apostles.

I felt shabby having no proper offering to make at the narthex, but it was still invigorating to attend mid-morning prayer and be welcomed as a guest to the monastery.

Apostles and their guests bustled about at the college, all of their robes and cloaks set to flapping in the zealous breeze. Just a quarter mile farther up, the Chapel of Ae² crowned the summit; seen from below at the college it cut a knife-sharp silhouette against the infinite blue afternoon sky.

The tall west windows of this library I sat in looked up the mountain toward the chapel. The east windows faced out to a cozy little cloister, sheltered on all sides by more of the college buildings (mostly residences by their looks).

And I, characteristically, was staring at none of this civilized beauty, but instead at Interhemispheric Astromancy, the magnum opus of one High Wizard and Scholarch of Hyngvaryr Pirhan. My eyes slid over the pages. I wasn’t taking much in, really. It was more like I had chosen this inspiring and highly strong-willed volume, written in the most staid and formal of Classical Ivian, to accompany me in my brooding.

Where in all the Seven Kingdoms would I start? How does one even begin to leave their mark on the world? History is full to bursting with people who had, but it was so dreadfully impossible to imagine myself as one of them. How would I find myself in the history books? Even if Montigo approved of the results of this expedition, it was just as likely that some twist of Marquis Henri’s rule would involve my service and that would be how I would ultimately be remembered, I thought, sourly.

What if the Seven Kingdoms weren’t the right place? Here, I was a trained apprentice wizard, destined for service, and that’s what everyone would see me as. That might limit my opportunities. But elsewhere I would be an unknown agent with considerable magical power, which could serve as a resource to leverage, to turn into more resources, to gather possessions or power to myself. To do… something… with. So I could journey North, or East, and make my name as a wandering hero, perhaps. But difficulties presented themselves readily. Foreign languages, for one. Surprisingly few of the sagas really bothered to dwell on how many foreign languages are involved in saga-ing. And that’s the thing about wandering heroes: you have to be a hero and not just an alien madman with a talent for violence, and not knowing the local tongue doesn’t do you many favors in that regard.

Wasn’t this entire train of thought stupid anyway? Wandering hero? What was I thinking? My talent was for magic and history. Surely, I thought, I should be pushing the bounds of mortal knowledge. Surely that was what I was meant to do. My mother would send me fewer reproachful letters about getting into trouble in foreign lands that way, anyway.

Leading research. That was something. I could stare at this Interhemispheric Astromancy dissertation for a while longer looking for gaps in knowledge to apply my research to. But my mind had gotten away from me. The book wasn’t holding my interest, and that was a bad sign for an effort that could require years of held interest.

I closed the book with a satisfying whoomph and took it to the librarian.

“Where do the symposia meet?” I asked. My Late Ivian was good, but I had a pretty thick accent³.

He eyed me suspiciously. “You’re not an apostle.”

“No, but the symposia are public, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but…” he adjusted his spectacles and squinted at me. “I have never met a single layperson who wanted to attend one. Even most apostles barely tolerate the ones they put together themselves.”

That was how I knew I was headed in the right direction. “Send me to the next one.”

The librarian reached down beneath his desk to retrieve a paper and then slid it across to me. “Your funeral.”

“Isn’t that a bit melodramatic?”

“See for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

1. Specifically, I believe it was the star Redilius Teli at the tip of the constellation Serenity.

2. Central Ivian tradition prescribes that writers should refer to Ae as the Lightbringer if they write by night and as Ae if they write by day; many also insist on mutating quotations and the like to match the correct name for the time of writing. This is, frankly, lunacy. I have adopted the northern tradition where we honor Ae by her name or her title according to the internal timeline of the narration.

3. Court wizarding almost invariably involves education in Classical Ivian, the written language of most of our historical sources; and Late (or Low) Ivian, the living language of Anteianum and most of the courts of the kingdoms. Most court wizards also come by some Yaria, although at this point in this chronology, mine was quite pathetic. I am a native speaker of Orlan, which is featured regrettably little in this narrative.

III: On the Perturbations of the Measurements of the Arc of a Uniform Body

The next morning, I attended a multidisciplinary symposium led by a young apostle who greeted each attendee graciously at the door.

She glanced down at my gown and back up at my eyes. She was expecting all of her attendees to be wearing, like herself, simple grey monastic robes befitting an apostle of Ae, and mine, while similar in form, were cut of black, and they were festooned with pockets and pouches.

“A… public attendee?”

I mustered up my greatest earnest enthusiasm. “Yes! Interested in the field of physical logos myself.”

“Surely not.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Nobody is interested in calculating the bounding of accumulated perturbations.”

“And… why shouldn’t I be?” I crossed my arms, determined to fool her (or perhaps myself) with this show of polite interest for the subject.

“It’s quite… multidisciplinary, you see. In the most excruciating way. Does the hydrologist really, truly have an interest in the works of the anatomist? In astronomy and in thermology? No. But our study of Ae’s great project demands that all fields must contribute. Or else how will we ever know where the ball shall land when thrown?”

“Throw it,” said the man behind me.

Both of us turned to face him.

What a sight the three of us must have been. Myself, apprentice wizard: an understated (okay, kind of short) young man with the beginnings of a fine beard, wrapped up in the black gown of study. The grey-robed scholar, a lanky junior apostle with a dark complexion and bright eyes that missed nothing. And the newcomer, a fair, strapping lordling in an exemplary travel cloak, craftsmanship so fine it could preserve the air of noble luxury even through months of obvious hard use. His clean-shaven face had a guileless look about it from under his mop of sandy-colored hair.

“What?” he said.

“It’s… a manner of speaking,” I mused.

“A way of saying…” the scholar began, searching for the words.

“The principle of the thing!”

“It’s not really about the one ball…”

The lord’s brow furrowed in deep calculation.

“We wish to understand why the ball travels as it does,” the scholar explained. “Why and how anything travels through the air as it does.”

“Perhaps… it was thrown?” the lord ventured.

We made brief introductions after clearing up the purpose of the symposium a little bit. I, of course, was (and am) Horwendell of Ilianath. The leader of the morning’s symposium was Sister Gena, a junior apostle and librarian who saw herself as something of an omni-scholar, dabbling in this field and that and undertaking the thankless work of bridging disciplines and correlating their ideas. It was a task in some ways alike to the one performed by court wizards, who are educated in a dizzying variety of fields in order to better serve the rulers of the realm. But in other ways it was different: for one thing, her service was only to Ae and her divine project, not to mortal lords. And for that reason, it was delightfully—alluringly—unconstrained by the practical demands of worldly work.

Our new aristocratic friend was Lord Hester, a guest of the college like myself. He clearly did not belong. Whatever his virtues may have been, it was obvious to anyone that academic attainment and erudition were not among them. But he told us that he was sure, deep in his bones, that he needed to be there. It seemed… far-fetched. But seeing as surety was something I sorely lacked in that moment, it felt unkind of me to belittle his own.

Hester and I sat beside each other in the back corner of the auditorium and watched more apostles file into their seats in silence. The two of us were silent, I mean. Apostles are famously chatty. Hester surely hadn’t noticed, and I half suspected he wouldn’t have cared, but I marked that nearly all of the attending apostles, wearing their grey robes with this stole or that sleeve band, were senior to Sister Gena, most by several degrees.

With about forty attendees present, Sister Gena stepped up to the lectern, cleared her throat (which settled the chatter surprisingly quickly), and began.

“May the wisdom of Ae and her justice guide our eyes and hands,” she said.

“May we hear and speak the Word,” we replied in unison.

“We begin with a description of the problem: a ball is thrown in a direction with an imputed speed. We have the logical tools to predict where it lands… roughly. Depending on the speed and additional factors, such as wind, we may be off by greater or lesser spans. Now, we wish to improve our predictions. It stands to reason that each perturbation contributes to the final deviation. But do they all layer in a simple, interchangeable fashion? Or does each perturbation also perturb subsequent perturbations?”

She paused a half-breath, a tiny verbal paragraph break.

“I call upon Brother Ilin-To, algebraist, to elaborate upon the possibilities.”

It was a brisk introduction to a tangled topic. I was surprised by how abrupt it was. It felt clipped, even. But as I listened to Gena’s brother- and sister- scholars take their turns with the topic, it all began to make sense.

“Perturbations is likely to be a gross oversimplification of the idea,” Ilin-To began his remarks with.

“It is unthinkable that the dictates of physical logic should be perturbed by such things as wind speed,” Brother Ymal declared a few minutes later.

“The simple form of a ball under-specifies the problem,” Sister Ilara sniped, halfway through her speech.

Just about every word Sister Gena had uttered was a handhold for some new bit of scholarly grumbling, academic turf-warring, or just good old-fashioned petty sophistry. The preamble was terse not merely on purpose, but by thorough and exacting design. Had it been any longer, the symposium wouldn’t have stood a chance.

I chanced a glance toward Sister Gena as a philosopher belittled, intrepidly, the very idea of “improving one’s predictions.” The practiced smile on her face and been replaced with a practiced look of contemplation. I knew that look well. It was the look I tried to put on when Magister Montigo was lecturing me about a mistake I already knew how to correct for and when I didn’t want to look pathetic by pleading that I was already trying to do better. And I had learned it, in turn, from Magister Montigo herself, who deployed it when she was being lectured on something she knew far, far better than the lecturer, and as she was preparing to embarrass said lecturer so deeply they would wish that they had sewn their own mouths shut with needle and thread.

Gena’s practiced smile might have been gone, but her eyes, perched over her steepled fingers, continued to perceive all.

I gave a start so sudden that I almost fell backward out of my chair. Hester glanced over at me. “Something wrong?” he whispered.

I shook my head, and he gave a small shrug. Nothing was wrong, per se. But I was surprised with myself. Never before had I caught myself ignoring a lecture to, instead, watch the reactions of those in attendance.

Whatever else it may have meant, it answered the question I had come here to ask. Studies of The Perturbations of the Measurements of the Arc of a Uniform Body were not going to be how I left my mark on the world.

As we descended from the back seats of the auditorium, Hester told me he wanted to speak with Sister Gena.

“Why?” I asked, blankly.

“I have to.”

“Oh.”

Lacking anywhere better to be, I decided to satisfy my curiosity the old fashioned way, by eavesdropping on their conversation. I’m still surprised I even bothered to do this. Eavesdropping on their conversation meant forcing myself to pretend to carry on a conversation of my own I really couldn’t care less about with one of the apostles in attendance. I picked Brother Pemfort, the thermologist, who had seemed much more agreeable than his interdisciplinary counterparts and who had supplied a few reasonable ideas to be integrated into the study’s main focus area. Unfortunately, my theoretical background in thermology was… well, the only word for it is pathetic. Wizards are infamous for filling in the gaps with magic, and we are famous for magic involving combustion, and, yes, where my working knowledge of thermology belonged there was instead a fondness for explosions¹.

So I was in the middle of saying the third or fourth unforgivably dumb thing to a very gracious Brother Pemfort when Sister Gena rolled her eyes and waved me over. “Come on, wizard—”

“Apprentice!” Never let it be said that I claim the prestige for titles that aren’t mine.

“Apprentice wizard. Quit holding Brother Pemfort hostage and come over here.”

“I was not eavesdropping on you.”

“Just come over here.”

“… Fine.”

“Now. Lord Hester?”

Hester chuckled at the proceedings and then carried on. “Right then. Admirable job in there. Tough… simultaneous? Simpleton?”

“Symposium,” I offered.

“Right. Tough simple-sum. But you did well, Sister Gena.”

“Why, thank you. But…” Sister Gena and I shared a glance. “I’m surprised you could tell. The subject matter was fairly dense.”

“Subject matter never bothered me.” (Clearly.) “But anyone could hear their voices and see their faces. Many of them resent you but can’t express it. Aren’t allowed to, I guess.”

“Yes,” Sister Gena muttered. “Many of them see the effort as beneath them, beneath their time. And since I’m responsible for the effort…”

“Are they not all scholars?” I picked up the thread of conversation as she trailed off. “Shabby sort of scholars that can’t appreciate the pursuit of a new cache of knowledge. A new domain, even.”

“Stuff it, wizard.” (“Apprentice.”) “I saw you falling asleep in the back.”

“I wasn’t falling asleep! The subject matter was difficult! Why were you looking back there?” I never got to use any excuses on Magister Montigo. Being in the position to deploy excuses was thrilling to me, apparently.

Gena sighed. “Look, will you two tell me why you’re here?”

The three of us fell silent for a beat. Then Lord Hester lifted his chin almost imperceptibly, looked Sister Gena in the eyes, and said:

“I’m on a mission from Ae.”

There was a brief silence, and then Gena and I both spoke at once.

“Ae?” I asked.

“You?” Gena asked.

“Yes, of course. And yes,” replied Hester, matter-of-factly. He noted that we were gathering a few odd stares from passerby, although it was hard to tell whether that was because anyone heard or because we simply looked odd in company. “Maybe we can talk somewhere else.”

I thought to myself: why not? This would probably be a quick diversion. The great and ponderous works of the research library would still be there, awaiting my moping company. They could wait a bit longer.

“I’m busy,” Gena replied, rather tartly.

“No, you’re not,” said Hester.

Gena, her arms still crossed, lifted her eyebrows skeptically in reply.

“I can tell when you’re lying,” said Hester.

“Fitting, for a man on a mission from our goddess, don’t you think?” I asked, probably smirking. Hester nodded solemnly.

Gena sighed. “Fine. There was supposed to be a question-and-answer section as a matter of formality, but there’s not much need to direct questions to myself about that topic. So… come with me.”

Sister Gena took us down the east hall and to the kitchens, where we procured some sweet beet stew from a terrifyingly large, jolly, and be-aproned brother-apostle. Rather than taking it in the refectory for an afternoon snack or early supper, we set out for the nearest cloister, where we sat in the clear, chilly highland spring afternoon.

Gena led us in a short prayer, and then not half a minute passed before Hester had finished slurping down his stew. And not a spot of it on his gorgeous cloak. He waited politely for us to finish, watching the infinite blue with a serene look on his face.

“No, no.” Gena mumbled through a mouthful. “Go on. I need to hear about it now.”

“Very well,” Hester nodded. “Have you heard of the Library Doctor Temple?”

“… What?”

“The Library Doctor Temple.” Hester’s brow knitted in a familiar fashion.

“No.”

“Wait,” I said. “Is it a book?”

“A tome,” replied Hester.

“Book… liber, sister.”

Sister Gina made that motion one makes with their head and neck when they’re trying not to spit out or choke on their food in surprise. “Liber!”

“Doctor… Temple?” repeated Hester.

“Liber doct… hmm.” Gena considered. “Liber doctrina. Liber Doctrina Tempestas.”

“That.”

Gena, having safely swallowed her food, laughed. “The Doctrina Tempestas. One of Ae’s Great Works. And your mission is…?”

“Yes, that sounds right. I have been sent to reclaim it.”

“The library has it. The library I work at here has it, and about a half dozen copies,” Sister Gena replied.

“Then I wouldn’t have been sent to reclaim it,” Lord Hester declared. “It is missing, I know this.”

“You’re kidding me, right? Who put you up to this? What do you really want?”

“This is my mission. It came to me in a dream. The… the tome is missing, and it is my holy mission to reclaim it. Perhaps our holy mission. I saw the auditorium and you speaking in it. I was called to you, perhaps…”

“Nonsense.”

“Oh, won’t you humor him, Sister Gena?” I said. I must have been feeling mischievous or bored or maybe even a little taken with the seeming earnestness of the lordling. “You have another half hour left in your Q&A session, anyhow.”

Gena shook her head in disbelief. “You too? And what stake do you have in this?”

“None, really, which is why I shall encourage it.” I smiled. “But really. Lord Hester doesn’t seem like the lying type. What harm could it do?”

What harm indeed.

“Ugh. Fine.” Gena stacked her empty bowl onto mine. “Come on.”

1. Which, if I were better at thermology, I might call “rapid depressurization processes.”

IV: Our Noble Quest

Sister Gena, as it happened, served as a librarian at the central library in the College of the Apostles. Ae’s Great Works could be found here, and studied, even, under the watchful eye of the Librariarchs. The collections also held the originals of some of the most important documents in the history of the realm.

The public nexus of the library was a single long north-south hall with a vaulted ceiling and glossy wooden bookcases climbing up every available wall. Eight smaller halls branched out from here, four to each the east and west. Each of those would be flanked by rooms for as long as they continued, and within those rooms were kept the bulk of the library’s volumes.

The main hall itself hosted most of the study tables and therefore most of the traffic. Apostles and guests milled to and fro, conferring on subjects of study, ferrying books back and forth, and penning treatises of their own at the work tables. As Hester and I waited at a desk there, the whole hall was bathed in the afternoon light emitting from the windows near the apex, but what a sight it must have been at night, speckled with the little points of warm arcane light¹, like dozens of bobbing fireflies about the shelves.

Sister Gena had disappeared past the counter at the north end crewed by no less than a dozen busy librarians. Behind that counter, and the halls beyond, could be found The Decree of the Dawn King, The Covenant of the First Wizards, and the Arcana Mundi, just to name a few.

I’m sure you can guess what was not back here.

Sister Gena returned to us. She looked just a touch pale.

“It’s not there,” she said.

Lord Hester nodded solemnly.

Gena met his eyes. “If someone had checked it out they’d be at one of the carrels here with three librarians fussing about them.”

“It is missing,” declared Hester.

“It is missing.”

Gena was watching Hester the same way a mountain lion sizes up prey. I fit together some truths and some logic through my mind, and I, in my youthful intrepidity and wisdom, intervened.

“Hester… Lord Hester? If this is what it seems to be, we should speak more about this dream of yours. In one of the study rooms.”

Gena’s predatory gaze fixed onto me.

“Should we not set about our quest to reclaim the tome?” Hester asked.

“So we shall,” I said, standing and grabbing a firm hold of his cloak. “And our noble quest brings us to the privacy of a quiet room over yonder for a moment of noble reflection. Sister Gena, I think we need to hear what he has to say.”

Hester and I sat across from each other, I at the chair and he upon a borrowed stool, huddled about a desk meant for copying and illumination work. The desk looked comically small in its current capacity as a two-person table, not to mention beneath Hester’s considerable height. But I’m used to having something to lean my elbows on when I talk, so the desk remained.

Gena perched at the corner of the tiny room near to the door. She had a duty to report this, immediately, to one of the Librariarchs, and I knew the only things keeping her in the room with us were Hester’s air of good charm and the power of her own curiosity.

“So,” I began². “You are Lord Hester, and you have correctly identified that the Doctrina Tempestas is missing from the college’s central library. You say this came to you in a dream that also led you to a symposium led by Sister Gena.”

Hester crossed his arms and eyed me quizzically. “Yes.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Hester. But you might be able to tell that the good sister here does not. And if you look at those facts, you can see why, right?”

Hester thought. “I can tell she doesn’t trust me, but not… why.”

“The Goddess of Knowledge does not speak to us through dreams,” said Gena.

“So,” I said, before what I imagined might become Hester confronting her with a she does too, “if she doesn’t believe you could possibly have heard it from the goddess’s own voice, she believes you came across the knowledge in some other way. Perhaps some incriminating way.

“AND SO,” I continued with hopeful gusto, “I propose that you tell us more about yourself and your dream. There are any number of things we could learn that might cause Gena to reconsider.”

“You trust him?” Gena asked.

“I…” I sighed. “Well, yes. I’m a trusting sort. But look at him, sister.”

She glared at him. It didn’t seem to have a perceptible effect on her palpable aura of suspicion.

“Oh, come on,” I grumbled. “He’s… he’s not like us, Gena. He’s not well-read. He hasn’t been coated with the dusty cynicism of history or the tangled politics of academia. He doesn’t know about this stuff and wouldn’t be able to lie about it.”

Hester nodded solemnly, as was his habit. This was gracious of him, I thought; all of that had felt a bit insulting to say. I would have been insulted to hear that said of me, anyway. I’ve earned my dusty cynicism.

“He’s not a newborn babe, wizard.” (“Apprentice wizard.”) “You’ve seen how he can read a room. Read people. He knew how I lied making an excuse to not hear him out, earlier. Liars know each other.”

“Iiiimplications aside,” I began, already regretting that choice of prelude, “maybe he has an alibi, as a manner of speaking. We can learn here, Gena. We can get to the truth. Forget about me, if you think I’m some sort of doddering pointy-hat. Do you think you can’t get to the bottom of this?”

Gena smiled. It was the sort of smile with lots of edges and points. “Touché. Let’s hear it then. Ae’s wisdom and justice guide my eyes and hands.”

“Alright. Hester, tell us more about yourself. Lord Hester, I suppose?”

Hester leaned back slightly. “Yes. I am Lord Hester I of the House Eastmost.”

“You might have mentioned that earlier!” I smiled. “Magister Akabu Ai. My mentor says he’s a good sort.”

“Magister Ai always referred to me as the ‘adorable idiot’. I mislike him.”

“Well, doesn’t mean he can’t be a good sort.” Magister Akabu Ai, court wizard pledged to the House Eastmost, had a nickname for me, too, and it was timid youngling, a fact I was not eager to share. “Anyway, sorry, go on.”

“The House Eastmost, you may know, is a proud and powerful house. Ever a bastion against marauders as well as a protective shield for travelers and traders, Ivian and Yaria alike.”

“And you are Duchess Joan’s?”

“Yes. Her firstborn.”

“What are you doing here?” I said. I chanced a glance at Gena, who also seemed a bit taken aback by this revelation.

He grinned. “I think I know what you mean. I am here alone, yes. I was called to this place in a dream two weeks back. I informed my household and left that day.”

“And… your mother and father are not completely beside themselves?”

Hester shrugged. “My father was, anyway, and it pained me to see him that way. But I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Didn’t you?”

“If you think of it that way. I was called here by divinity; I know it. I knew I must heed the call. Everything else pales in comparison. And besides…”

Lord Hester of the House Eastmost paused, searching for the words.

“… I have always sensed that I am not yet fit for the mantle. We are the sword and the shield of the east. It would not be fitting for the duke to be fat and lazy.”

I stuffed my dusty cynicism away for a moment. “Admirable! So… the dream, then.”

I spared another glance at Gena, whose fierce gaze seemed somewhat less violent, yet no less intense. Her cougar-like eyes had become more falcon-like.

“Right, the dream,” said Hester. “It was a simple thing. It’s been… hmm… thirteen days and nights of tireless travel since that night. I was sleeping in my bed under comfortable sheets. I suddenly felt as though I were not sleeping. I was awake. Clothed. Armored, for that matter. My jousting outfit. I stood beside my horse, preparing to mount. My lance held by a squire nearby, though…” he thought for a moment. “No squire was present. Just myself. I was in a grassy plain of the veld, not a soul in sight.

“And then a voice called out to me. Only, I couldn’t make it out who it belonged to. It sounded almost like a choir in such a perfect unison that it could be a single voice. It boomed from above and below. It said, ‘Seek the missing work. Make whole the knowledge that is missing. The House of the East depends on it.’ Then, I woke with a start. Two things sat at the forefront of my mind. The words, whispered in my ear… Liber Doctrina Tempestas, and a vision in my mind, of Sister Gena speaking at the head of that auditorium.”

“Implausible.” Gena shook her head. But she was not running out the door. And she had not out-and-out called him a liar.

“How much of this did you tell your family? How much of this did you tell Magister Ai?” I asked.

“All of it…” he hesitated, then he turned his face up to Gena. “Except the part about Sister Gena. I did not know the meaning of it and it felt wise to hold my own counsel.”

“Your mother wants you to court one of the barons’ daughters, doesn’t she,” I chuckled.

Hester grew slightly red. “Something like that. I told them the rest, I promise you both that. What does Magister Ai have to do with this?”

I couldn’t contain my excitement. I felt that coiled, electric feeling you feel in your heart and at the very top of your throat when your anticipation for a gift or a victory reaches its peak.

“You’re not lying,” I declared. “We have a mystery afoot.”

Gena shot me a look.

“I have a feeling about this, Gena. And the good magister will be able to vouch for his wayward lord, won’t he?”

A few hours later, we reconvened in the study room. I banished Hester to the back corner of the room, opposite Gena who had resumed her roost near the door, to have the little desk all to myself. I unfolded a borrowed book: a book of astronomy and of meaning. Of astromancy.

It was not one of Ae’s Great Works, but it was still sufficiently rare that I was required to have a librarian accompanying me. Gena was kind enough to be that librarian, allowing us to carry on our little conspiracy without having to try to explain things to a Librariarch.

A spell is a complicated thing, and books of arcane secrets are a crucial element to the enterprise. To cast a spell is to unfold, mentally and in some ways physically or spiritually, layers of truth and meaning that normally lie dormant beneath the surface of the mortal world. And there are a lot of layers. Only the simplest spells can be truly, durably memorized. Most arcane magic worth performing requires either an amount of preparation at the moment it is needed, or else to be freshly remembered and frequently practiced, something like a musician and their repertoire. A wizard who doesn’t mind a spell for a few days quickly loses it and needs to study it anew in order to be ready to cast it.

And that’s what I was doing now. Magister Montigo had not been kind enough to send me here with my own book of spells and secrets—something I would be thankful for, but only much, much later³—so I would have to make do with what was on hand. Maybe that’s why I’m almost never far from a library.

An hour after that, I was ready. To the ancient stronghold of the House of the Eastmost, a metaphorical bedrock of the seven kingdoms since East Arc was first formed out of the squabbling petty kingdoms of the East, I flung a message. A tiny bit of meaning, flickering like a candle in the darkness, darted across the skies, over the foothills of Anteianum and over the vast green veld, over the hill country of western Orland, over the mighty Orlan Blue, and over the great Eastern Range, all in an instant.

Magister Akabu Ai would not miss it.

Apprentice Horwendell of Ilianath would ask Magister Akabu Ai. Hester has arrived at the College of Apostles, seeking a Great Work. Is this true?

When casting a sending spell, more is heavier, harder to carry. But it’s not about the words; it’s about the weight of the meaning. I began with three concepts: my identity, Akabu Ai’s identity, and the relation of our conversation (I would ask of him). Four more concepts: Hester’s identity, his whereabouts, that he is seeking something, that the object is one of Ae’s Great Works. One last concept: the question of truth. A pretty tidy little message, I thought. Lightweight, easy to send, and few ways for the Magister to misinterpret it.

The Magister’s reply was instant, the meaning drifting in the firmament before me. My glee and anxiety warred within me. I translated to my comrades:

“Magister Akabu Ai shall reply. He does so quest. The motive is mysterious, and in the mystery is danger.”

Hester nodded. Gena stared in disbelief. Gena would tell me later that I looked like the world’s finest idiot, torn between pride at my strategy and execution having worked and incredulity at the entire situation—a Great Work, simply missing, with none the wiser?—and so in the moment I looked simply astonished that I had successfully cast a spell.

We sat in silence for a few seconds.

“So… what now?” was the question I cast into that empty moment.

“We find it,” Hester replied.

“Oh.”

“Isn’t that… what is your deal, Lord Hester?” Gena sighed. “Shouldn’t we be reporting this to the Librariarchs?” But her complaint was limp, struggling even to leave her lips worded, as it was, as a question and not a statement.

Gena had joined the quest.

“Perhaps we should,” he said. “I see no reason to leave the faithful and righteous in the dark.”

Gena was staring at the door. “They’d task me to the archives looking for it for at least a week.”

“That will not do,” said Hester. “I was called to find you. I am sure you have a part yet to play.”

“I’m sure I do,” Gena muttered.

“In the mystery is danger,” I repeated. Both of them turned to look at me from their opposite corners of the room. “Magister Ai wouldn’t be wrong about that, of course. This message from Ae, or one of the other high powers, left a lot unsaid, don’t you think?”

Hester scratched his chin. “Such is their ways, I am taught.”

“Yes, exactly right,” I said. “This is a mortal quest, surely filled with mortal peril, which by its nature looms until fills every corner of the shadows of the unknown…”

“Such that every ray of the light of knowledge cast into it will drive them back. You’ve made good study of the Word, wizard,” Gena admitted.

“Apprentice.” I was showing off, so it was only right to be humble about it.

“Apprentice wizard. Nevertheless, your point is well taken. Lord Hester is asking for my help in earnest, and he likely needs that help. I’ll… contrive to have some other librarian examine the archives where it ought to be.”

“And the three of us will travel east tomorrow morning.”

“What?” Gena and I replied in unison.

“You’re coming too, Horwendell. You have proven yourself dependable and worthy already, I should think. More light to push back the darkness.”

“Oh, well, that, I suppose we needed to talk about too, but…” I began, fumbling.

Gena arrived at the point before I did. “Why eastward?”

“Oh. My vision placed me in the veld. I came here because of the vision of Gena at the auditorium at the college here, but now knowing that the tome is missing, I expect our journey to take us to or across the veld.”

I whistled. “Long way to go. Good thing I don’t have much else keeping me.”

“You don’t?” asked Gena. “Don’t you have apprentice wizarding to do?”

“This shall suffice.”

“Oh. Anyway,” Gena cut back in, shaking her head, “we have business here, first. Rays of light against the darkness, right? We should learn what we can here about the work’s disappearance before we leave this place. And I have arrangements to make for travel.”

Hester looked pleased. “So, tommor—”

“Lots of arrangements.”

“Oh. So, wh—”

“Both of you will want to seek out Brother Pious at the dormitories in the east hall. Make arrangements to stay here a few days. There should be ample room.”

1. Much better than candles when the thing you want to illuminate is as precious and as flammable as paper.

2. Why do we begin things like this with the word “so?” I suppose it has something to do with the fact that they’re not true beginnings. So is the prelude to words and sentences that belong only in the right context. Something must have come before. So if you begin your story with “so there I was,” aren’t you leaving something out?

3. And even then only in the abstract. When you really get down to it, it’s kind of a dirty trick even in the best light.

V: Appointment

Sister Gena was not wrong about there being room, but one could quibble over just how ample it was.

I awoke, stretching my arms out of habit and banging my knuckles and wrists against the hard stone. After the start that gave me, I laid there, collected my thoughts, remembered where I was, and began the laborious effort of shuffling my way out of the tight bunk.

The College of Apostles is, above all, a monastery, where men and women commit their lives wholly to the study of Ae’s divine works and of that greatest work of all the gods, the Mundus Medias itself. The severity of this dedication does vary from apostle to apostle, but even the lowliest and least responsible among them ought to be impervious to accusations of laxity or excess. They call their residences “cells”, and I was finding out why.

A monk is not locked into their cell, but I’m sure they find them quite confining, all the same.

I adjusted my gown—now getting slightly musty in a way that I hoped only I noticed—as I found the ground with my feet, and turned to see Hester, reclining with his hands clasped behind his neck on the bottom bunk. The bunk was completely insufficient for his warrior’s frame, but he made it seem somehow comfortable anyway, like a bobcat squatting in a rain pail several inches too small for it.

We said our “good mornings” and stood, puzzled, for a moment, while it dawned on me that I had no things to collect or hygiene to practice, since I had slept in my clothes and possessed nothing else. So instead I made for the door in an awkward silence, and Hester followed.

We attended morning prayer as guests, had breakfast in the refectory, spent most of the morning at our own leisure (myself in the library with a copy of Castrum Astronomica; Hester said he’d be touring the grounds), and returned for lunch¹, where we were to meet Sister Gena.

Gena arrived late, wearing a courier’s document satchel. As ever, she strode directly toward us as if no man, mountain, or mayhem could deter her, and she wore an expression of steely—possibly smug?—determination. She sat, the satchel resting on the seat before her.

“Already?” I asked, eying the satchel. “You had us ask for the cells for three nights.”

“Oh, this?” Gena said, lifting the satchel and laying it on the table with a leathery thud. “It’s not mine to travel with. It’s for you today.”

She unfastened the single brass button on the satchel and a ream of papers burst out of it. I realized immediately that the entire weight of that thud was paper. How many hundreds of sheets could be in twenty pounds of paper?

Gena swiveled her head to ensure we weren’t being overheard, and then she smirked. “Hester, you’re going to request to view the Doctrina Tempestas today. Well, you’re going to make the request today. You will request a viewing date tomorrow evening with Librariarch Justina.”

“But the tome is not here; you said so,” said Hester.

“Exactly.”

Hester seemed troubled by this.

“I have been thinking about this,” Gena said, watching his face. “I still can hardly believe what you say about your dream. I know not whether you are lying or perhaps you are too young, noble, and dim to perceive this vision with clarity. But I do know that one of the holiest treasures of the college is missing and the college itself stands no chance of recovering it. You and I are going to go find it. But I’m going to do my duty to the college, even if it’s somewhat… circumspect in manner.”

“You make this request and wait for your viewing opportunity,” I explained to Hester. “Eventually someone shall have to find the book and learn that it is missing. Meanwhile, I suppose, Gena will arrange to be away from any of the librarians who might think to get her involved in this investigation. Sabbatical?”

“I wish I had that sort of tenure. I’ll call it a family summons and plead the college’s forgiveness later.”

“So,” I finished, “once the librarian bears you an apology, we rendezvous with Gena at a chosen place outside the college and begin our journey to the east.”

“Not so fast, Horwendell,” said Gena.

“… Oh?”

“We’re not going east until I’m sure east is where we need to go. I’m not going to journey a thousand miles through the highland forests and into the grassy empty of the east just on Hester’s assurances that it’s vaguely in that direction.”

“Fairly judged,” Hester said. I couldn’t tell if he was speaking from boundless grace or from obliviousness. He had completely ignored how Gena had called him “dim” earlier, a fact that did nothing to shed any light upon this mystery.

“So you, Horwendell,” she said, “may need to help me with this part. It may be easier than it seems to learn what happened to the liber.”

“You have a plan, I presume?”

“Blackmail.”

I felt my eyebrows rise involuntarily.

Gena’s smirk returned. “It’s a simple solution for a simple problem. The problem is this: the Great Works are shelved in the main collection, at the very center. The center shelves are fashioned of steel and the tomes themselves are chained in. The three Librariarchs are the only ones with the keys to the locks.”

The thought hit me like a sack of bricks thrown through a stained glass window. “You suspect them?”

“Naturally. Outside theft is possible, sure. But the lock had not been sawed off or damaged, and I have found no other reason to think a thief has been in the library. Which leaves the Librariarchs. So, which one?”

“I must say, Sister Gena, that you are remarkably… cynical about the most holy institution that you are dedicated to serve.” I would have expected an earful from her had I been the one to level an accusation at a Librariarch.

“I disagree.”

“Oh. Um.”

“I take my holy vows very seriously. Because I do, I can readily see how not everyone around me does.”

“I think I see your point. So, uh, blackmail?”

“Right. The idea is simple, but timing will be everything. We send each of the Librariarchs an anonymous letter informing them that we know what they did, and we watch to see which one panics. They’ll probably try to flee the college.”

“You think they won’t try to call the bluff and stay put?”

“Perhaps. But that’s partially why Hester files his request with Librariarch Justina. Again, we choose her because she’s the soonest appointment we can get. She’ll need to retrieve the book itself tomorrow evening. If she is the culprit, she might try to forestall or reject the appointment on some technicality in the request paperwork. If she’s not, she discovers the book is missing. In that case, that’s when we plant our letters.”

“But you’re gone to avoid getting wrapped up in the investigation.”

“And in whatever politics fall out of the arguing between the Librariarchs. It could get pretty bad. Remember the symposium?”

“Acutely.”

“Imagine that but with three noble-born co-moderators, all suspicious of each other, and with life-or-death stakes.”

“I won’t, thank you.”

“Right. This, of course, means that you need to watch the Librariarchs for me. Hester might help you, but…”

We both turned to Hester, who was already working through the stack of papers with a fountain pen. He flipped a page and began examining another formidable mountain of legalese.

“… Are you sure you should be trying to take that on alone?” Gena asked.

“I sign dictionaries for my father all the time,” he said mildly.

“You mean edicts?”

“Right.”

Gena and I shared a look.

“It doesn’t matter that much, does it?” I mused. “Justina will find a pretext to reject it if she needs one.”

“But we’d rather her not find a reason to reject it when she might be of a mind to accept it. You’ll proofread for him while I draft the notes and make travel arrangements,” Gena said.

“Right, right,” I said, crestfallen.

“I’ll get the letters delivered tomorrow. You’ll be in the library in expectation of your appointment. Watch the entrances and wait.”

The rest of the day was dreadful. I have experienced quite a bit of pain in my life, but few things have ever been as painful as that stack of forms was².

Access to the Great Works is, ostensibly, available to any soul of good intent. The college goes to great lengths to establish good intent. And soul, for that matter. Lord Hester I, Son of Joan, Heir to the House Eastmost provided their grasping, probing process with innumerable handholds with which to question these things. His signet, we thought, might suffice to prove his personage and his good faith, but verification would be subject to an interview with the Keeper of Banners and Arms in the office of the chancellor. To be permitted in the chancellor’s office he would be required, as a guest of the college, to submit to a personal interview with one of the chancellor’s sub-secretaries. I pursued these appointments while Hester forged on in the paperwork (leaving a formidable trail of spelling errors and mischievous homonyms), only to learn that by identifying his relation to Duchess Joan he would be required to furnish a letter of sponsorship from her ladyship or from another in her household.

That being impossible in our time frame, we resolved to submit him as a studious, inquiring student from the House Eastmost, bearing their signet as a token of his errand. This required the verification of the signet as before, but now also we would be required to furnish three generations’ worth of family tree (which we borrowed from one of Hester’s closest friends back home, a stable hand). He would be required to interview now also with one of the sub-secretaries of the Librariarch, for reasons unclear to me, and post collateral (requiring a separate set of forms Gena had helpfully included in the heap). No appointments were available besides one that conflicted with our visit to the chancellor’s office. So I would submit the signet for verification on his behalf, adding another ten sheets of paper to that set of forms.

But we would not be deterred, and by the time the last bells were tolling to return the contemplating apostles to their cells, we had a letter confirming our appointment with Librariarch Justina at the front desk in the central library, Just shy of a day from that moment. We also had cramping hands and aching legs. We slept well.

1. Both times, the gigantic, mirthful apostle was there to dole out the stew. Always stew. Was this another facet of that dedication, I wondered? Was stew the meal that best befitted the servants of the goddess?

2. Among the experiences to which this dubious honor belongs: being stung by a veld spider, accidentally substituting a concept in a spell which caused me to well up with pain instead of creating a well in a plain, a handful of events occurring later in this chronology, and being very badly beaten by Magister Montigo in front of my friends in Ilianath. In a game of Ten Crowns High. It was a mental anguish.

VI: Apostate

The next day was mercifully uneventful, right up until dinnertime. Hester and I shared stew (again) and slightly nervous small talk about the weather and my readings and his wanderings. I was nervous, anyway. Hester seemed as unflappable as ever. Or oblivious?

Finally, we stood and returned our bowls, and then we strode to the central library.

Gena intercepted us in one of the galleries, and pulled us (literally, by my sleeve) out into the grassy center of the cloister. Out there, we were partially shielded from the gallery traffic by gangly, freshly-mulched and bare rose bushes. We were also mostly shielded from the rush of the winds that seemed to tug at gowns and robes at all hours in this mountaintop sanctuary.

“I’m cutting it close; any moment they’ll notice the problem and begin rounding up as many librarians as they can find to help with the search. You didn’t see me here.”

“But we—” began Lord Hester, concern writ on his face.

“Shush. You explain that later, Howe. Remember, you’re looking for any of the three Librariarchs. They usually wear golden stoles with black stripes. Justina is a middle-aged woman with copper hair. Theodric is a tall, elderly man with long, grey hair and a beard. Effelham is the youngest, barely older than me. Shaven bald. Got it?”

“Yes,” I replied, as Hester thought.

“Good. We’re going to spend tonight in the Crown and Clasp in Anteianum. You can thank me later. Meet me there as soon as you can. Ae guide your eyes and hands.”

With that, Sister Gena bustled out into the flow of apostles in one of the arcades before Hester could think of stopping her with questions, and the two of us were left with our duty.

We had a seat in the library. Hester hung his cloak over his chair and I folded my hands in my lap and settled in with a sigh, preparing for our long watch.

That was when a man with a golden stole burst from the back room and hurtled past us, soaring on wings of pure terror and trailing a tangle of fine white robes and beard behind him as he went. That was Theodric, by the length of his beard, achieving a speed I had not thought possible of an elderly librarian. A woman matching Justina’s description shouted from behind us, having emerged from the back collections of the library after him, “COME BACK HERE AT ONCE, APOSTATE!”

“I thought that would be harder,” I said, scrambling to my feet.

“We’re not done yet,” Hester replied, reversing the motion he had used to doff his cloak. We hurried out the front door after the retreating Librariarch.

But the old man had made good his escape. Hester and I stood atop the stairs at the entrance to the central library. Before us was a wide quadrangle of grass swaying in the highland breeze. One of the great halls (the Hall of the League, perhaps?) rose across from it. Beside us on our right, an arcade leading to a residence building, and to our left, a cluster of lecture halls clumped around a chapel. No less than three dozen apostles were in our sight, but none of them were Theodric.

“How…” we both mumbled, blinking in the late afternoon sun.

I shook some cobwebs out of my head. “No, actually, I’ve seen stranger things.”¹

“Nothing to it but to meet Gena, right?” Hester wondered.

I thought. “No, no. The trail is still fresh.”

“What trail?” Hester asked, staring glumly at the rippling green grass of the monastery grounds.

“He had to run because Justina knows his face. He can’t stop running until he’s beyond her reach—well beyond the walls of this monastery. His life depends on it.”

“So… a watchman will have spotted him!” Hester exclaimed.

“Or will be spotting him soon. Let’s be on our way!”

“There’s no watchman?!” Hester exclaimed.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not this poor fellow’s fault.”

“Oh! Oh. My apologies, good brother of the apostles,” he said, taking a few steps back from the apostle’s personal space. Being a good foot taller than the man, I was afraid he had made the wrong impression in his haste.

The apostle’s posture possessed a hint of defensive crouch mixed liberally with the arch of a cornered house cat. He took a moment to regard Hester’s retreat, and after a beat, he straightened up. “Oh! It’s, um, no problem at all. The monastery doesn’t keep a watch at the gates. It doesn’t need to. Ae interferes little in the politics of the world, but she would certainly warn us of wolves on the prowl.”

I had a gander about. The monastery was surrounded by an immaculate stone wall, each block shaved to perfect holy proportions and polished to shine in the afternoon sun. The monastery would literally glint like a gem in the distance when viewed from down the hill in Anteianum on some days. This section consisted of a long, straight stretch at the top of a tall embankment that sloped bare for some distance down into a floor of pine and spruce. The tips of those trees were below our toes now. The stone we stood on was not merely an extravagant stone walkway as I had assumed earlier: it was, itself, a grand stone stair bridge that rose from the mountainside floor to the height of the trees around it to meet the gate.

“I don’t imagine you get many wolves. Metaphorically speaking.” I added. “No sane commander would dare assault walls like this. Or this gate… marching an army three abreast up a bridge into the teeth of these parapets and arrow slits? Madness.”

Hester gave me a strange look, then turned back to face the apostle. “Ahem. Have you seen Librariarch Theodric? He was in a hurry. We wished to speak with him.”

“Afraid not. This is the only path down. If he was past in the last half hour I would have seen him.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry for the fright; I’m afraid our business has me quite excited.”

“No harm done. Ae guide you,” he said, walking on.

“But such strong fortifications? In a mountain? Trivially easy to siege,” I muttered. I had spotted the end of the path; I needed only to walk there. Hester stared at me despondently, like his only ally had descended into lunacy in his hour of greatest need. “Camp a dozen men at the foot of the bridge and you could starve hundreds out of the fortress. The gardens? Pah. Won’t feed but a few of them. But imagine if your siege subject included Anteianum. Nobody could encircle that. The whole city, with two fortresses? Not to mention the political problems. Laying siege to the apostles…”

“Wait,” Hester said, piercing his own fog. “You mean… you’re right. You’d be insane to assault this fortress… but you’d be insane to even build this fortress. No harbor, no sally ports…”

“Unless you could resupply from Anteianum during the siege. Which means…”

“Secret tunnels.”

I sent Hester back to the central library to receive Justina’s apologies that he would be unable to view the great work, while I questioned some apostles. I returned to the central library to discuss.

“She said that the work had been stolen and she promised to contact the House Eastmost when it was recovered,” he reported.

“That was very honest of her. A bureaucrat’s instincts would normally be to offer some vague excuse about an inability to keep an appointment.”

“Are these a boar-o-cat instincts or are they your instincts?”

“Hey. One of these Librariarchs is a grand larcenist. Is it so strange to imagine that the others could be careerists or mediocre functionaries?”

“Fraction-fairies…” Hester chewed on that, then apparently decided he had enough context clues to have a guess at it. “Not strange, but unkind. Anyhow, did you learn anything?”

By questioning a few apostles with duties near to the library (a stable keeper, a gardener, a winemaker’s assistant), I had narrowed down the trajectory of Theodric’s great escape to, roughly, the southeast quadrant of the college. Several important elements of the greater whole of the college could be found there, including the Hall of the League, the gardens, a few yards outfitted for calisthenics, and the East Hall: a huge building hosting libraries, lecture halls, and offices. I told as much to Hester.

“Hmm,” he said. “In most fortifications, sally ports and secret exits have their interior entrance not too far from the wall. It’s laborious and wasteful to dig long tunnels.”

“True, though I will note that this place is not most fortifications.” I noticed myself speaking with an urgent, conspiratorial hush.

“Aye. It is overdone. Admirably overdone,” he hastened to add, “in its holy office. Still. Overdone or not, it is probably done right. Supplies taken through the tunnel need to get to a destination, and the less exposure to the elements or to prying eyes the better, usually.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much. In a siege they could employ either of those main halls as places of storage and as inner keeps.”

We sat in silence. The hubbub in the college had been steadily growing louder around us in the last few hours, and I marked it then, sitting in the central library. News of Brother Theodric’s flight, rumors of his apostasy, and the scandal of the missing Great Work buzzed in the air. The prospect of combing two large—and famous²—buildings for secret passages during a crisis sure to spur the vigilance of every bystander weighed heavily in the air over our little study table.

“Let me… try something, shall I? Give me a moment,” I said, standing. Hester nodded seriously.

Just a few minutes later, I returned to the table, feeling a bit better already. Books have that effect on me.

“Good news?” Hester asked.

“Yes,” I said, grinning, and plopping down the History of the House of the Goddess: The College of Apostles in the Time of the Three Bishoprics.

Hester eyed the title. “Not news about where Theodric went, then.”

“Well, yes! No, but also yes,” I said, a bit annoyed that all I had to mark my moment of triumph was that brick of a quip. “The East Hall was an addition, commissioned by High Bishop Ulthos and finished by High Bishop Trent.”

Hester, who seemed much more in his element talking about castles than he seemed talking about the perturbations of uniform bodies, caught on immediately. “An addition! The walls were already standing?”

“The walls predate the East Hall by decades.”

“So you suppose the secret tunnels were built, or at least designed, when the walls were built. Before the East Hall. Hmm. Could the East Hall have the entrances anyway? Could it have replaced whatever building originally served as the entrance?”

“Unlikely,” I said, thumbing through the thin, high quality pages of the book to find the relevant passages. “Chronicler Yla claims that Ulthos faced the wrath of the gardeners³ when he commissioned the East Hall over top of their gardens. He had to go to great lengths to placate them and avoid losing his chancellorship. This was apparently a matter of great debate at the time.”

“So… not the East Hall. That leaves the Hall of the League.”

“One of the most historic places in all the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Do we know what lies below it?”

“Secret passages, I hope.”

Hester and I made directly for the Hall of the League. An arcade ran from the library, past the refectory, straight to the front entrance of the Hall. And what an entrance it was: soaring oaken doors, ten yards tall, bound in heavy bronze that had been sculpted into the shape of faceless angelic warriors, resting their hands on hip-high round shields and holding their spears at perfectly measured verticals. Each of the two doors must have weighed thousands of pounds.

But after being unlatched, they swung on their hinges with the barest touch.

There was something to that as a symbol of the place itself. The Hall of the League is, like much of the college, a public place, an artwork dedicated to the people of the Seven Kingdoms and their patron goddess in equal measure. But it was also a place of true substance. Ae had brought her Word here, to this mountaintop, to the simple highland shepherds who would take it to heart and deliver the mortal souls of the world unto a new era. The Ivian League had been formed here. Sefnir the Mighty had bent his knee here, bringing and end to the rampage of the Hyng and pledging hundreds of thousands of new faithful to Ae. The sixth session of the apostles had ratified the Commandment to the Literate here. The league had been dissolved here, and Ae had cast aside her spear.

To look upon the place was to feel the history, to see the ghosts of the past stirring in the galleries even now. Here was the font from which the present world sprung. History seemed to eddy about, if you just looked closely enough at the perfect stillness.

The entrance gave an unobstructed view of the chancellor’s podium facing it. The galleries rose in seven tiers to the left and right, wooden masterworks in their own right constructed to perfect proportions in order to provide comfort in long sessions, ease of access for elderly apostles, and small, level working spaces for examining materials or taking notes on ongoing deliberations. The evening’s waning natural light sifted in through gigantic arch-shaped windows, each peaked by a sun-shaped stained glass window. Currently, the west set were casting gentle kaleidoscopic shadows in a neat row across the east wall.

By the time I snapped myself out of my reverent trance, Hester had already located one of the two doors behind the podium (well behind it; there were about twenty yards of empty floor to traverse behind the podium) and was striding toward it as if I were still following. I caught up, awkwardly.

“Those doors…” I began, awed by how my own voice rang so loud and clear in the enormous hall.

“Lead to back rooms, I should think. Each is large enough to move supplies through if the hall is to be made a storehouse.”

“… might be forbidden to guests,” I finished.

“Just as likely it’s permitted. We shall ask forgiveness instead of permission,” Hester said, not breaking his stride.

“Oh.” I looked around at this place. We seemed trivial within it. To me, that meant that it refused us; that we were unworthy. But to Hester… perhaps it just meant that he was carrying on unnoticed.

The back rooms were not at all what I had expected. Rather than the expert masonry that dominated the rest of the architecture of the college (and indeed the hall itself), these hallways were full lumber. They were simple and cramped, relics of the early college, perhaps.

They were utterly empty. Hester turned west past a pair of unremarkable doors and then north again, and I followed close behind, wondering if perhaps he had some sort of… knack for this, the finding of secret passages.

“What are we looking for?” I asked.

“Stairs down.”

“Oh.”

But after a few more minutes of plodding around in silence, we had canvassed the entire building. It was smaller than I imagined. There were probably about three dozen small rooms here, each not much larger than a monk’s cell, laid out along two main north-south halls, one east-west hall, and a secondary hallway that wrapped around the back side of the westmost rooms.

We stood in the dead center empty halls and looked around for a moment.

“We’re close,” Hester said.

“How do you figure?”

“The building’s not very large.”

“But there aren’t any stairs down.”

“Which means the entrance must be on this floor instead of the basement. There being no basement.”

“Right then, I guess.”

“We’ll have to start into the rooms.”

“Hold on,” I said. “I’m not sure we have that sort of time. We might not be the only ones searching, shortly. Or, worse, the apostles might call a session…”

“On so short a notice?”

“Probably not, you’re right. But we don’t belong back here, and we need to hurry.”

“Fair. Have you an idea? Otherwise I shall hurry to begin the search.”

I thought out loud. “So we’re looking for supplies. Secretly delivered, like to be stored or distributed in the hall itself. But all these doors are too small; much smaller than the two leading back here. Unless one of them wasn’t…”

I rubbed my forehead.

“There’s another door here somewhere. Hidden somehow.”

“I am afraid not,” a deep voice declared from somewhere very near to me. “There are no doors here.”

I turned to face Hester, who was obviously not the source of the voice. We shared an alarmed look.

“Face me, young men.”

I turned around to the north, and a huge golden-bearded man in a monk’s humble garb stood before us. He wore a short sword in a lacquered scabbard on his hip.

“I uh… wh… what’s that…”

“Be at ease. We are all good men under Ae’s aegis. But I must command you to leave.”

“But there is a door!” Hester said, striking a note of triumph.

The man frowned.

“You were watching us,” Hester continued. “You only intervened because we’re about to find it.”

“Do you… why are you telling him? Everything? Shouldn’t we be a bit more circumspect?” I complained.

“No. What should we be hiding?” Hester said.

I stammered uselessly, I am disappointed to report.

“Leave,” the man said.

“No,” Hester said.

“He has a sword! That’s prohibited in the college! He might use it!” I said, my personal level of alarm growing well beyond the meager bounds I had previously set for it.

The man shook his head. “It is against the code to wear weapons here, yes. Consider me an exception. I am a man of Ae’s Word.”

“The door is probably right up there in the north hall. You’d put yourself between us and it, of course,” Hester said.

The man’s frown deepened, and he rolled up his sleeves. I took a pace back.

But Hester was already on the move. I felt a sudden rush of cloak and mass at my side as he leapt forward and a fight erupted in front of me.

It was over before I knew it. My eyes only registered a swift, violent twisting of two bodies, partially obscured by the whipping of long, flowing garbs.

Hester, later, offered me a thorough account of the fight. At the first sign of confrontation, he closed the distance as fast as he could, grabbing at the man’s habit with his left hand. The monk backed away a step, protecting his scabbard with his left hand and sweeping away the attempted grab with his right—an important confirmation of Hester’s suspicions that his opponent desired not to bare steel and shed blood. Knowing this, Hester continued with his bare-handed attack, throwing two punches to force the back-stepping monk to defend and then barreling into a tight grapple. After each took some attempts at muscling the other to the ground with raw strength, the monk tried grabbing Hester’s wrist to pull him forward and trip him over his instep, but Hester anticipated this and met the monk’s momentum with an exquisitely placed (I am told) elbow to the face.

At the end of it—and this is where my own senses caught up—Hester kneeled over the man.

“That’ll bruise, but no blood loss. Help me tie him up.”

I knelt down to help. The man was dazed, numb. Hester rolled him over and held his hands behind his back as the man offered clumsy, useless resistance. “Why?” I asked in panic, even as I took the rope Hester produced from somewhere on his person.

“He’ll get up in a few seconds unless we do. This will buy us a few minutes to get going.”

“Oh. So…” I pulled the knot as tight as I dared.

“He was an apprentice warrior, I think. Fine and thorough training, but he’s not mastered it yet. Sort of… following the dance steps to the number, right?”

“Right, obviously,” I glanced about, anxiously. “If there’s an apprentice, won’t there be a master somewhere? We need to be going.”

“Unnf,” the man said.

“You are right, of course,” Hester said. He stared directly up the hall. “Those doors there. See it? The seam in the masonry between them. That entire wall opens up somehow or another.”

I saw it then. The door set facing us directly in the T-shaped intersection was set within a section of wall that, if you looked closely enough, appeared to be parted from the rest. “How in the world…?”

“When people bar your way you often need only look right behind them. When I looked there it was plain as day.”

“Right. So that’s certainly wide enough for a wagon of supplies to come through. Let’s be inside, shall we?”

Through the door was a meeting room. There were no windows, so I lit a tiny arcane light—one of the few spells I had durably, permanently memorized⁴—so that we could close the door and better hide our snooping. The room was dominated by a square, unfinished oak table. A few unremarkable stools huddled around it.

“It lacks a certain grandeur, don’t you think?” I remarked.

“Well, yes,” Hester said.

“Seriously. In a place like this, where every woodcraft exalts the goddess’ works? This hastily built thing?”

“Maybe it has something to do with the passage,” Hester said, probably indulging what he thought was a silly line of thought.

I held my little flickering light closer and examined for a minute.

“Hmm.”

Hester was feeling around the floor in the back for knobs or further seams. “What?”

“Something isn’t right here.”

“Out with it, then,” Hester said without looking up from his work.

“This…” I squinted at the table in the dim light. “The legs aren’t joined. They’re… well, how do you describe this? It’s like they were carved…”

Hester stopped and turned to face me, still kneeling. “Skilled carpenters can disguise their joints pretty well, can’t they?”

“Well yes, but…” I began, scratching my beard with my free hand. “Just look.”

Hester stepped over. “I thought we were in a hurry.”

“We are, just… look at this, will you?”

“What, you don’t see a joint? I think I see, it’s slotted in from the bottom here…”

“No, that’s just a crease,” I insisted. “You can see if you look closely…”

“Hmm. I can’t see there very well. What about here? Give me your light.”

“Well, I can’t, but…”

“Oh, fine.” He took my hand by the wrist and pointed my index finger toward a point on the other end of the bottom surface of the table. We were both kneeling beneath it now. “Right here…”

My index finger, and the little point of light at the tip of it, touched the underside of the table.

And then we both fell.

1. And I was about to see even stranger things.

2. Fame in the postfoedus era is a funny thing. As the languages of the Seven Kingdoms have drifted apart in their dialects, now united almost as much by the trade-tongues of the veld as they are by their heritage in the old Ivian League, the literati find themselves reading and writing in spheres. For every object of interest in a realm—the East Hall, the King of Anteianum, a great winter storm—there may exist half a dozen reflections of that object in different languages, emphasizing different parts or indeed flipping the orientation around entirely, if I may indulge in the metaphor.

There do exist scholars and officials in far flung realms who correspond with each other frequently, of course. Whereas foreign merchants struggle with each other by flinging bits of mutually intelligible nouns back and forth, strung together by wild gesticulations and occasional Yaria phrases, foreign written correspondents are almost always initiated into that storied fellowship of writers of the stately and holy hand, Classical Ivian, and we are all quite proud of it. I must admit, though, the merchants probably end up getting their points across better. Most correspondence written in Classical Ivian has all the stately dignity of an adolescent boy with too many knees and elbows trying to ride an unbroken horse. I should know; I write quite a bit of it.

3. Never cross men and women of infinite patience, no matter how mild their manner.

4. Arcane light is, essentially, an extremely simple projection of one of the distant flickering elements of the majestic sea of stars down onto Mundus. “That star, as I see it, belongs here” is the basic conceptual formula for the spell. How elegant! “As I see it,” by the way, is how it becomes such a tiny point of light in one’s hands. A star is much too majestic to project in its wholeness anyway.

VII: The Halls

Falling without landing is an extremely strange sensation.

It’s not that we fell forever, it’s that at some point we were no longer falling. And yet at no point were we abruptly stopped by contact with the ground.

Nevertheless, Hester and I found ourselves each on all fours on a patch of dirt amidst a tangle of roots. He looked about as dizzy as I felt, and it was what felt like an eternity (but was probably only a minute or two) before either of us had regained enough composure to kneel up and survey our surroundings.

It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

We knelt beneath a towering oak tree. It was enormous, out of proportion of anything I had ever seen, taller than any building. Rivaling a mountain. Or perhaps, I thought, it was a normal tree and I had become the size of a mite. Its colossal roots twisted and undulated out for a great distance around us. A canopy of golden leaves glinted above us, bright and vivid like the setting sun reflected on the sea. And beyond that was the night sky: beautiful stars suspended with infinite depth in the midnight black firmament. There was no sunlight to cause the metallic leaves to shine so, but so they did.

This tree marked the center of a clearing, and a treeline of large but not quite as titanic trees surrounded it. Their leaves, too, glittered in the strange non-light, as if to rival the stars above them. The forest clearly went on for some ways. A few other gigantic trees could be seen towering above their peers in the distance.

We sat in silence—perfect, still silence, for not a single bird, bug, or breeze could be heard—for another minute or two, before Hester finally said, “where could Theodric have gone?”

Some part of me resented that he had asked the question and interrupted my meditation on the otherworldly beauty of this place. But he was right. We had something important to do.

“Anteianum,” a clear, still voice said.

Hester and I looked at each other. Then around. Then behind us, at the tree.

“I am here,” said the tree, from no mouth.

We stared at the gargantuan trunk.

“I am not so different than you. I am as Ae wills me. I am a will and a way.”

“You’re a…” I halted, suddenly realizing. “You are in the college. That was your bough, or perhaps root, we touched. That was not a table at all.”

“Indeed.”

“You are a will and a way, you say,” Hester said. “You are a… door… that Ae has willed to have a spirit?”

“Yes,” said the spirit. “I am a spirit first, in truth. I am here to make the way. How better to make a way than to become the way?”

“Huh,” I said, having a hard time grasping all of this.

“It is well. This is your first passage. As Ae wills it, perhaps you shall come to know this place better.”

I looked at the beauty around and above me. “I hope so. Say, this isn’t our night sky, is it?”

“Well marked. It is the same firmament, but different stars may be seen within it from here.”

I bit my lip, struggling to fit that knowledge within my working understanding of astronomy and astromancy. I hadn’t ever had the chance to see it, of course, but the great astronomers of the east wrote that the stars visible in the night sky of Cthonus (the “Umbral sky”) were different than those we are familiar with (the “Astral sky”). Did that mean, I wondered…?

“The Astral and Umbral skies have many more siblings. Few have studied them.”

“Interesting… wait.” I hadn’t said anything about the Astral and Umbral skies. How had…?

“Your thoughts are plain upon your mind.”

I had a million thoughts all at once, and I had the good sense to be quite embarrassed.

“Are everyone’s… thoughts… so plain to you?” asked Hester.

“To anyone in this realm. It is a place where thought and will flow freely. You need only learn to see and feel them.”

“We have a favor to ask,” declared Hester.

“You do.”

“Did Librariarch Theodric pass through… you? Here?”

“Yes.”

“Will you help us find him?”

“Of course. He was in flight from his sins, and you are engaged in righteous pursuit. As I have said, he made for Anteianum. He seeks refuge.”

“You did say that, didn’t you,” I mused. “But where?”

“Refuge. Conspirators.” Hester breathed.

“Just so,” said the spirit. “He has confidantes in the city to whom he flees. It was not clear to me who or where.”

“You have been very generous and helpful, friend,” Hester said. A thought popped into my head, unbidden, about whom else our friend might be helpful to.

“Yes, the order will be interested in finding the warrior who bested their understudy,” said the spirit. “They would surmise, even without my help, that you seek the apostate the same as they do. I will justly tell them the truth of what I have seen here. They will know that you are people of good intent.”

“The order?” I asked.

“It is a closely guarded secret, and I shall say no more. They serve Ae, as do you.”

“Then we should be going, ere they arrive. What is the path to Anteianum?” Hester asked, practically striking a pose to frame his graceful, conversation-closing initiative.

“My lowest branch points toward another of the tallest trees in this forest. Go there and speak with them. Should you lose your direction, there are twin red stars that sit high in the sky in a direction you may reckon as north. Anteianum is east of here, just as in the Mundus Medias.”

“And before we go… where are we?” I asked.

“The Halls.”

I had thousands of questions for the honorable spirit of the way, but we had an urgent mission to undertake. Theodric was a few hours ahead of us already, and every opportunity we gave him to widen that gap increased our chances of losing him… and, I worried, our chances of learning more about the location of the Great Work. Hester, however, had implacable faith. He was certain that the gods would not allow us to lose Theodric, and he was certain that, if we did, the gods would grant us the insight to carry on with the quest nonetheless. This was an extremely curious argument in the alternative, I thought, but having weighed that observation and tried it on for size, I decided to keep it to myself.

Instead, as we walked through the beautiful and perfect stillness of the Halls, I shared some of my many questions.

“Does anything habitate here, do you think?” I asked aloud.

“Rabbit-ate…?”

“Live. Do any animals live here?”

“Why animals? Perhaps people.”

“Not very many good places to sit.”

“Why not the shade of every stately tree?” Hester gestured broadly around.

“You know what I mean. And besides, what shade? No sun nor moon lights this forest.”

“Fair. Perhaps it lights itself.”

I considered this. “The leaves, maybe?”

We both glanced up. “Seems possible,” Hester said.

“No animals, though,” he continued, after a few seconds’ silence. “We’d hear them.”

“Suppose so. No animals, no breeze…”

“‘A place where thought and will flow freely,’ that tree said. No animals will to be here?”

“Or nobody wills them to be here. Or someone wills them not to be here.”

We carried on in silence as we made our way through the trees, wondering which of them might be watching, and what they might will.

When we arrived at the great tree that we had been guided to, we found ourselves quickly at an impasse.

I cleared my throat. “Hello?” No response was forthcoming.

Hester stepped forward and said, “noble spirit, we seek the path to Anteianum.” He, too, was met with silence.

Nonetheless, I felt a tremendous presence before us. I glanced over at Hester. The tense look on his face told me he agreed.

“My thanks,” he said to the titanic tree, with as much rigid formality as he could gird two words with. Then he stepped forward and touched the bark with his bare hands.

What happened next was almost completely unaccountable. At the time it was so alien that it essentially bounced off of my perception entirely, and I was unable to retain any useful impression of what had unfolded. I blinked, something happened (but what?) and he was gone.

Having had a few more opportunities to study events like this, I am now empowered to describe them a bit more effectively. What happened was that he touched the bark, and in that instant he began traveling. He did not travel up or down or forward or backward. He instead traveled out. He was within something, and he began to come out of that, and has he did so, he faded from view (myself, of course, still being within). The sensation was almost as though he were rapidly traveling into the distance, but if objects in the distance were perceptible with more clarity than objects nearby. And if the distance were physically quite close to me.

I’ve done it as much justice as I can do in my meager, vulgar hand. If that description leaves you wanting, you’ll just have to see it for yourself sometime.

Once I had gathered myself and it had sunk in what had happened, I took one last look at the golden glory around me. Each of those giant trees, a nexus to the realm. Each a spirit, each perhaps millennia old if their physical forms held any clues. And the smaller trees? What secrets did they hold?

But that would be for another time. For now, I reached out to the silent spirit before me, and asked to take its way.

VIII: The Crown and Clasp

I immediately wished I hadn’t.

The familiar not-falling experience was repeated, at a slightly more modest intensity owing to my ability to prepare, mentally and physically, for it.

What I was not prepared for was the rush that followed in its wake. My nostrils filled immediately with a familiar sickly-sweet metallic stench, overlaid with pine and smoke. My eyes took in a blur of human movement and a smear of fabric through their dizzy swirl. My ears were buffeted with pounding and yelling.

And then I took an elbow to my temple.

The shock robbed the strength from my limbs for a moment, and I fell. As I was already sprawled on all fours on the wooden floor, slick and slightly sticky, I didn’t have far to fall. The other side of my head crashed against the floor, and then raw, animal fear seized control of my mind and body. I flailed and rolled, first onto my back and then onto my side, scrambling out of the way with frantic violence, just in time for a large cloaked figure to land hard where I just was. I rose into a fearful defensive crouch, arms in front of my face, and I read the scene.

I was in a small room: floor, four walls, and ceiling were finished pine, with a closed door opposite myself. Lord Hester was rolling to his hands and knees in front of me, having just been knocked down by the two violent-looking men who stood between us and the door. There was a shuttered window behind us, a lumpy bed beneath it, and the floor (and now my robes and the left half of my face and beard) were soaked in fresh blood.

The men wore black, hooded cloaks, though both hoods were thrown back revealing deeply tanned bronze skin and shaven pates. The one on the left had his cloak partially torn, revealing a turquoise-blue tunic of exotic dye and cut beneath. He held a bloody dirk in his left hand. Both had steely, contemptuous gazes and gritted teeth.

I yelped and scrambled back against the bed. I began clambering up onto it, my ultimate objective (before even thinking it all the way through) being the window: the most direct path away from these would-be murderers.

Hester had different ideas. He rolled to his feet with abrupt, martial grace, and he leapt, gods help him, for the man with the dagger.

The man was no fool. He was ready, and he offered his right hand and shoulder to absorb Hester’s charge, his left side away and winding up a mortal thrust of the blade.

But Hester was even more ready. He crashed into the man and grabbed the blocking arm, and as the man attempted to slay him with the dirk, Hester gave a yell that shook the floorboards and wrenched. The man screamed in pain, his right arm bending in anatomically impossible angles in two different places, and his planned thrust of the dirk with the other arm became a feeble, distracted thing, failing to bite into Hester’s coat.

The man’s comrade was shouting something unintelligible, trying to find a way in to the fight. Hester kicked his dance partner’s leg out from under him and twisted his arm again, extracting another scream, and dropped him. By this time, the second man was closing in with a whirl of the black cloak. The fight pivoted and I chanced a glance at the window shutters. As I did so, the first man’s screaming terminated in a gruesome, hair-raising crunch. The shutters were barred, so I threw off the bar and glanced back in time to see Hester begin exchanging blows with the second man.

I tried the shutters and they were stuck. I never did find out why; perhaps the hinges were damaged or perhaps the motion was obstructed somehow. But my mind, in its zealous fear, discarded the window as an escape route immediately. I looked back at the fight: Hester’s midnight blue cloak and coat in a visual tangle with the black of the attacker. The only way out was through that.

Gods help me, I ran up, I grabbed two handfuls of the man’s black cloak, and I pulled with all of my might.

He gave a muffled yell as it caught around his shoulders and neck and pulled him to the ground. Hester was on top of him before I could think of what to do next, and he balled his two fists together above his head and pounded down with one more mighty yell.

The man lay still and bloody.

After a few seconds of breathing, just breathing, Hester and I checked each other for injuries. I would have a nasty bruise on my head, and his left arm had a shallow laceration that would take some time to heal, but it blessedly did not seem to impede his use of the arm too much.

“It’ll make a fine scar,” he quipped.

I looked over at the horror he—we—had just inflicted. Of the first man: one arm and shoulder was contorted in a way that was painful to look upon, for the involuntary imaginings it produced of ones’ own body in a similar configuration. And from the looks of it, Hester had given the same man a blow to the back of the head strong enough to break skin and bone. The other man’s face was pulverized, nose and one cheekbone broken. Both were breathing. The latter’s sounded pained and shallow.

Those scars would not be so nice, I thought.

“Oh. Horwendell…”

I followed Hester’s gaze over to the bed.

It was lumpy not by long years of wear or by uneven stuffing. It was lumpy because beneath the scarlet-stained wool blanket was the source of most of the blood that now decorated this room.

Librariarch Theodric’s body lay on the bed, positioned as if he were sleeping peacefully.

“Oh,” I said.

Hester stood abruptly.

“Where are we?” he demanded, as if a handy squire might be available to provide an answer.

I let it sit for a moment, as if to reinforce that we had no handy squires. Meanwhile, my finer thinking skills slowly emerged from their hiding places somewhere deep within my roiling stomach.

“Say,” I said, “I’m surprised someone hasn’t burst in here yet.”

“That’s what I mean,” Hester said. “Shouldn’t we be in Anteianum? In the city proper? The shouting in this room can have reached no less than a dozen ears in nearby rooms or buildings.”

“I should think.”

“Now not only will we have to explain a fight with two injured ruffians…”

“If they’re not dead by the time we’re doing the explaining. Those are ghastly injuries,” I remarked.

“… but now also a dead high-ranking clergyman. Are you not worried about this, wizard?”

“Apprentice,” I corrected, much to his consternation. “And no. They’re not coming. If nobody came within two minutes…”

Hester relaxed. It was nearly a slump. You could be forgiven for thinking that he was eager for the oncoming trouble. “… It can only mean nobody is coming at all. But how?”

“We shall need to find out shortly,” I said, sounding a note that I hope sounded like agreement to make up for a few bars of being a smart-ass. I looked over the bodies, did a mental calculation, and resigned myself to some conclusions. “Check the door,” I asked Hester. “Hide your injured arm if you can. Determine where we are, besides Anteianum. I’m going to see if I can figure out what happened here.”

“Right.” Hester stood, shifted his cloak a few times to try to hide splotches of blood and cover up his arm, and made for the door.

Meanwhile, I set myself about the task of examining the three bodies—two living, one dead—in this room¹.

I didn’t imagine I would need to cut anything open, but inspecting Theodric—and worse, the men Hester had bested, who looked as though they would live but could perhaps be breathing their last even now—was quite a bit more repellent than any examination I had ever made of any cadaver.

But inspect I did. I began with the two men, as theirs was the more urgent, time-sensitive case. Their injuries were severe. The first’s broken arm would require months of convalescence and expert care to heal properly. The blow to the back of his head was bleeding terribly where Hester’s boot had cut the skin open, but the bone was intact. Even mild head wounds bleed an alarming amount, I recalled—the body provides for abundant pressure and circulation up there. This man would live.

The second man, however… his breathing was steady, but his face was a bloody mess and he would do well to receive care within the day lest he choke on teeth or blood. I still wince to recall the damage Hester had inflicted upon his face.

I was rolling him over to clear his airway when the door opened. “We are at the Crown and Clasp,” Hester said.

“That was fast. Did you…” I replied as I turned to face him… and Sister Gena. She took in the scene with cold, practiced, analytical eyes.

“Explain,” she demanded.

“We were attacked!” I squeaked, right as Hester said “the gods have entrusted us with a life-and-death mission.” I felt a bit undermined.

“We… Hester, what happened?” I said, my voice giving a single tremble as my heart quailed with enough vigor to send tremors through a whole choir.

Hester nodded. “Sister Gena, we followed your instructions and, in the library, we spied Librariarch Theodric fleeing Justina’s wrath. He ran with unnatural—diabolical?—speed, and we were unable to make good the chase. But…” he looked to me, handing this part of the explanation over.

“We asked around a bit. Spoke with apostles, did some supposition and some reading. Theodric hadn’t been seen at the front gate, which meant he had to have made his escape through some sort of secret passage or sally. We found it by the Hall of the League. It wasn’t what we expected. I think it was… a coterminous firmament, but never mind that.”

“We expected a tunnel under the mountain,” Hester clarified, “but we found instead a path through a strange and beautiful… world. One of the exits was here.”

“And then… well, Hester went through first. What happened when you got here?” I asked queasily. I had arrived here with the fight in progress, and I had trusted Hester’s good faith and good judgement without second thought. Well, at the time. By the time we had gotten to this part of the story, the second, third, fourth, and fifth thoughts were running amok in my head.

“When I arrived, this man,” he said, gesturing to the first assailant he had downed, “was standing over the bed, there. The other was leaning by the door. My instincts told me all was wrong. I grasped this man’s shoulder to pull him back so I could see the bed, and I immediately marked a corpse. He bared steel. We struggled. Horwendell arrived through the entrance moments after I, and the two of us prevailed over the two of them.”

“Afterward we identified that body as Theodric’s,” I finished, breathing an enormous sigh of relief within. I had been right to trust Hester.

Sister Gena took a beat to reflect upon this—to correlate the claims, array them alongside the evidence, to judge them. Then, she said, “you did not think to speak to the men?”

Hester shook his head. “I listen to my instincts, which told me that these men were threats. In such cases one must act swiftly and with no forewarning.”

Gena nodded, the movement precise, measured, and measuring. “The scholars of war tend to agree. In any case you seem to have been vindicated, if the man replied to a rough shove on the shoulder with deadly violence.”

“This was the blade he tried to kill me with,” Hester said, offering Gena the dirk. “It was probably Theodric’s doom.”

Gena looked over the blade but did not take it. “We’ll see the body, then.”

“Wait,” I said. “This is a travel house, is it not? Shouldn’t there be about a score of people to have heard what happened?”

Gena’s eyes flickered with interest. “I heard nothing. I was surprised to see Hester come down the stairs. I supposed it meant he had earlier passed through the common room without my notice.”

Hester and I shared a look.

“Nobody heard? There was… a great deal of yelling,” I said.

There was silence between the three of us.

“Count yourself lucky, Howe,” Gena said. “You look like an ogre getting finished with dinner.”

I probably blanched a little at that. “Yes, probably. There’s not much in this room that isn’t soaked in blood. I’ll need some help cleaning up, but first… first I need to know what happened here.”

“Right.” Sister Gena tiptoed over to Theodric, trying to avoid the pooling blood. I returned to work on the two assailants, and Hester searched the room itself.

At the end of our inspection, we shared our findings.

“Stabbed, with that blade, I would say.” Gena said, gesturing to the dirk in Hester’s hand. “Three times in the abdomen and once in the chest. A painful way to go.”

“And not an accident,” I said.

“Certainly not. There might or might not have been a struggle. But what’s more interesting…” Gena opened a small coin purse filled with glittering bronze coins. Each was rimmed and struck with a face in profile with a long, braided beard and a tall crown.

“The God of the East,” Hester muttered.

“Yes. Desheret-Nemes, The Old King. And I expect…” she prompted, looking to me to continue.

“It’s just what you’re thinking, sister. Odds-on they’re easterners themselves. One of them shouted something to the other during the struggle, and the language sounded… right, anyway, judging from names and transliterations I’ve read. The hardest evidence, all told, is their clothes. The dyes used in their tunics originate in the east. Crushed and processed turquoise and rubyroot extract.”

Hester’s eyebrows rose. “Spoken like a true-born merchant’s son.”

“You pick things up when you read as much as I do. And it’s a breathtaking color if you can look past the, uh, bloodstains.”

“So,” Gena said, “You outed Theodric by requesting the Great Work. When Justina noticed, she confronted him or both him and Effelham, and either way, Theodric crumbled and fled. He came here, to his friends…”

“His friends?” “Who killed him?” Hester and I exclaimed in bewildered unison.

“Shush. They’re his employers, or, more likely, his handlers. Why they’d offer to pay him in their coin I’m not sure, but with some hassle he’d be able to get some use out of it. Anyway, he fled to them…”

“Employers?!” It was a little late, but as my hopes she would explain were beginning to expire, the question just burst forth.

“Yes, now let me finish, you clod. He fled to them thinking he could ask them to take him east to safety. He brought some coin back to bribe them or get started on his new life or both. But the easterners saw his haste and knew he would be followed.”

“The order,” Hester said.

Gena’s eyes narrowed. “Only Theodric would have known that; his friends would only have a guess. A good one, however. At any rate, if he’s being tailed, Theodric is an immense liability to them. And if he’s outed, what further use is he? I can’t say exactly how it ended up like this, but you could see how it might.”

“It all seems plausible, but isn’t it a lot of supposition for a few coins and some foreigners?” I wondered.

“I have a question for you, first,” Gena said, rising.

“What’s that?”

“What do you know about the order?” Gena hissed. Her voice was low, concealed, and nearly as deadly as the bloody dirk. I froze in terror.

“A tree told us,” Hester said.

“The firmament! The coterminous firmament!” I shouted in a mad scramble to save the situation. “Theodric fled through it to get here. We had to find it to tail him. There was a man guarding it, who Hester had to, ah, wrestle out of the way. Finely done, that. Quite safe and sporting and he’ll have naught to complain about but a headache. Anyway, the… spirits of the… firmament, the Halls, they called it, seemed close to the Lightbringer and her college. They warned us that we would be followed, given what happened.”

“That’s both ludicrous and impossible for me to believe you’re clever enough to fabricate.”

“Honestly I think I would rather be a good liar in this situation,” I said with a despondent sigh. “We don’t know anything else about this order, other than that the man, who we suppose was one of them, was armed, honorable…”

“And quite well-trained for an apprentice. The master-at-arms of your order is formidable,” Hester added.

“And I shan’t breathe a word more about them,” Gena ruled. “Hester, what did you find?”

“Little. The passage back to the Halls is under the bed, there. Theodric and the easterners may have struggled. There’s a wall panel there by the door that’s splintered; you can see out into the hallway. Can’t see into it, though.”

“What do you mean?” Gena asked.

“I mean,” Hester frowned a bit, not sure how to explain. “There’s no… you can’t see through… come see. Or not, as it were.”

My heart caught in my throat. “I want to see. Hester, make sure the hallway is empty for me; I can’t be seen like this.”

Hester gave the all clear and I leaned out through the door into the hallway.

There was no hole in the wall out here.

“Gena, you can see me through this, yes?” I asked, waving my arm around the undamaged, opaque wall.

“Of course,” she said, from inside the room.

“Come here.”

The reverse was clearly not true, much to Gena’s surprise. I pulled them both back into the room.

“You’re right, they were his handlers.” I said, lobbing out the conclusion my instincts had reached while my mind raced to fill in the logic behind it.

“And?” Gena said with a grain of impatience but a heap of curiosity.

“This,” I began, “is a mirage. The room has had a very… simple, but fine and powerful spell cast upon it. Like an expertly forged spear: simple, but fine. The principle is the simple part: the place—in this case, the room, give or take—should appear as if all is well and peaceful, even if it is not. That’s why nobody heard the thunderously loud fight we had in here, and that’s why the damage to the walls is undetectable from without.”

“And the fine part is that it requires a deft hand, I take it,” Gena said.

“Right. I don’t think these goons could have done it.”

“Why not?” Hester said.

“Call it a hunch. But there are a few dozen court wizards, a dozen apprentices, and another dozen or so known people with the Talent. Certainly there will be a few more sorcerers and hedge magicians running about, but what are the chances that these poor sods, who couldn’t handle Lord Hester in a two-on-one…”

“I didn’t do it alone,” Hester corrected.

“… are arcanists with the skill to cast a mirage?” I continued, reddening a bit. “And had nothing to show for that during a mortal struggle? I rate it unlikely.”

“But whoever is behind this—possibly behind the theft of the Great Work—is such an arcanist with this skill,” Gena said.

“Yes.”

“That’s worrying,” she said.

“Well, yes.”

“It’s worse than you know. Horwendell—apprentice wizard you are—forget, for a moment, that the Doctrina Tempestas is a holy relic. Suppose it were a nicely-bound, heavy codex written by just anyone. If you, my friend, were an arcanist, which you are, and you were paying a librarian to steal for you a book, any book, what sort of book would you steal?”

“I… oh no. Is it?”

“It is. They all are.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“What?” Hester said, not quite following the logic but his voice betraying that he knew we were about to tell him something very bad.

Gena closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “The Doctrina Tempestas, as you know, was written by the Lightbringer herself. The title translates to The Law of the Storm.”

“It’s one of her seven spellbooks,” I told him.

We resolved quickly on our next course of action: we would leave Theodric and his murderers for the order (or the king’s men, if it so happened) and we would not be there when they were discovered. Distressing as this was for all of us, Hester was firm in his belief that he was chosen for this quest and would not allow the order to force him to surrender the mission to them, and Gena seemed to still somehow believe that we might accomplish it where the college’s agents and hierarchy might not. For my part, joining them just seemed natural. It would be a few days before the lunacy of undertaking such a quest without a particularly good reason—or my spellbook—would sink in.

This meant that we would not be following through with Gena’s planned stay at the Crown and Clasp. “Besides the proximity to the scene,” she said, “many apostles frequent here. It’s why I chose it, and probably why Theodric chose it. They’d be thorough about this place for possible witnesses and connections.”

“Well, the street at night makes for a poor hiding spot. In our case, anyway,” I replied. I was hurriedly changing into a plain black tunic Gena had given me after speaking to the inn keep. It smelled unpleasantly of lard soap, but I wasn’t complaining.

“We’ll ask the princess,” Hester said.

“We’ll do what?” Gena asked.

“We’ll ask Princess Lorea for her hospitality.”

“The Princess of Anteianum?”

“Yes. She is the king’s eldest and heir. You know of her, right?”

“Of course. But we’re just going to ask for a room for the night?”

“Well, no, it doesn’t quite go like that. We present ourselves as guests in their realm and ask the courtesy of their hospitality…”

“I don’t think she means the form, really,” I interjected. “We’re just surprised that you think we could ask to stay at the palace and they would say yes.”

“Well, of course she would,” Hester said. “I am the heir to the House Eastmost.”

After we snuck me into the washroom to get the crusting blood (mostly Theodric’s, though possibly some of it belonged to the easterners) off my face, Gena pulled us back into the room. Hester and I stood awkwardly in the middle, watching her watch us from the doorway.

“Now, before we go,” she said, “show me the Halls.”

“I… what?” I said with a grimace. “That’s where the order will be coming from. We can’t go that way.”

“We can. We will.”

Hester had a keen look on his face. “You agree with me, do you not, fair sister, that we cannot have the agents of the college detaining us? They’d spend more effort on your… whatever passes for a court-martial in that place.”

Gena remained still in the doorway, a mass of ice to rival Mount Caelias. “Do not ever waste a word calling me ‘fair’ again, good sir knight. Yes, I am sure a disciplinary committee would be convened. And we would lose the trail on the Great Work. It’s a risk I am willing to take.”

“For what reward?” I asked.

“To know the truth. You tell tall tales of coterminous planes and spirits and divine visions and epic struggles, all conveniently out of my sight. I have seen pretty-boys like the lord here and their lackeys before. I have been trying to determine the truth of this all since we first met. So show me.”

Hester replied immediately. “We’ll show you.” The pang of anxiety, the thought of heading toward the goddess’s mysterious armed enforcers, almost hurt worse than being called a “lackey.” Almost. I eyed both of my companions, and then scraped together what was left of my dignity.

“Hester, you enter first. The natural vanguard and all. Also, I think I know how to explain what to expect to Gena. She can decide whether to enter second or third.”

“Aye,” Hester said, before reaching down and grasping at the mystic bough beneath the bed.

Nothing happened.

“Huh,” he said.

Gena was watching, unmoving, unblinking.

“Gena, perhaps you and I must go first,” I said, suddenly understanding. “Hester will remain here. I’m the key to open the door.”

“Explain,” she said, the word wedge-flat and sharp.

I produced a sign in my mind and in my hand, and the little magical wizard-light shone from the tip of my right index finger. “The spirits allowed us to exit without any special effort, but entry… they must be reactive to magic. That’s how we got in half by accident last time.” I offered her my left hand.

She stared at it, then at me.

“Gena,” I began. “We need to be able to trust each other. Hester and I are what we seem.”

“Are you? Is he?”

Hester leaned cooly against the wall. I’ve come to admire how, in this critical moment, he chose valiantly to remain there, to allow me to finish the fight.

“You see him for what he is. You see me for what I am. You have trusted us, practically speaking, for the last two days, have you not? You’re asking for the proof now not because you need it, but because it presents itself.”

“And why shouldn’t I? Certitude kills.”

“Of course. That is quite wise of you. But if you want to see the proof, you need to trust me. Ironic, hm?”

She sighed and took my hand. “Or take a risk. Suppose I don’t trust you?”

“Suppose you don’t, then,” I said, looking at the little white light on my finger. “Will you believe me when you see the Halls?”

“I couldn’t say. Can we choose what we believe? What we really believe?”

“Perhaps not. Anyhow,” I said, changing the subject. “I will grasp this oak wood that Hester says is to be found under the bed. It is the root of the tree, which may have been fashioned into something like furniture on this end. When I do, we will sense a place on the other end and we will move toward it, as if a hatch has opened and we’re falling down it. But it’s not… down, quite. It will feel disorienting and alarming. When you land, I’ll be nearby. Hopefully just me, and not a disciplinary committee.”

Gena ignored the gag, to my mild disappointment. “I’m ready.”

So we went.

My anxiety to avoid a confrontation with the order—how far were they behind us? One hour? Six?—kept our time in the Halls brief. Gena’s determination to maintain her composure was commendable, though she did look a bit green after the transport. And her eyes—the eyes that saw everything—saw the otherworldly beauty of this other world.

I gave her a minute to recover, and then I discussed with her what little we knew about the Halls: (“a place where thought and will flow freely,” the tree-spirit-gateway to the college, and the unfamiliar sky²).

At the end of it, she gazed back out over the forest.

“And each of these with its roots in the Mundus Medias.”

“I had thought that perhaps only these huge sentinels were the gateways,” I said.

“Simply because they’re smaller? Think.”

“You imply that they, too, are gateways, but smaller? So many ways to this place, and nobody has noticed?”

“Of course.”

“Hmm.”

I took one last look at the strange stars. With that, it was time to go.

1. I have worked with cadavers in a handful of cases. One macabre benefit of the wizard’s relationship with the lord is the legally sanctioned access to dead bodies, and Montigo did make occasional use of this. After a few of these experiences, I found it easy to not regard the cadavers as people, which sounds distasteful but is perhaps correct. Is, indeed, a dead body a person? Or merely the corporeal leavings of a greater whole that was once a person?

2. For most people this would be the least important detail, but, astromancy being my specialty, a sky with new stars was like a world whose grass screamed when trod upon and whose sky glowed red like fire.

IX: Friends in High Places

We snuck out of the Crown and Clasp and into Anteianum. Hester reminded us that we were not sneaking and should in no way look or act like we were sneaking, but that felt like what we were doing.

It was a cold spring night in the mountain lands of Anteianum, and suddenly I realized I had been taking the warmth and bustle of the Crown and Clasp for granted. The black tunic I was wearing was insufficient for the weather and I found myself wishing I had my nice, long, wooly gown. Well, wishing I had it on. I had it, but it was tucked in a roll under my left arm, heavy and damp with other people’s blood¹. I almost considered putting it on given how empty the streets were and how dark it was, but I thought better of it. Beside my companions, Hester the fearless and Gena the unflappable, it felt stupid to run a risk like that because of a little cold nipping at my ankles.

At any rate, it was a short walk to the king’s castle, which loomed up over the city from the top of the ridge. A little less than a league separated it from the college, that ground split between the forested slopes below the college and the urban jumble of plaster and terracotta that climbed the hill to the castle.

The castle itself was a work of art. tremendous stone walls crowned the ridge, topped with ornate crenelations and carved angelic sentinels. Then, rising from amidst the walls, the palace itself clawed toward the heavens, an edifice of marble arches and columns that would shine like a snowcap on a clear alpine day. Tonight, the mingling white and grey was an eerie presence, ghostly yet solid, set against the stars.

The portcullis was down, and a crest-helmed sentry peered down at us from atop the gate, flanked by the angelic statues.

“Evening,” she said.

“Good evening,” Hester replied. “I am Sir Hester I, Heir to the House Eastmost, here to ask a favor of His Grace.”

It was dark and her face was shaded, but the sentry’s helm and crest gave a perceptible tilt of interest. “Your companions, then?”

“Right. Horwendell of Ilianath, apprentice to Magister Montigo of Ilianath. Sister Gena, Apostle of the Third Degree.”

The sentry paused for a beat. “A moment.” Then she disappeared from the battlement.

“Smoothly done,” I said to Hester. “As if you’ve known us for years.”

“I never told you what degree I’ve attained,” Gena said.

“I asked someone at the sump posey. Know people both how they know themselves and how others know them, mother says.”

“And titles matter quite a bit in your world,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you say we’d be asking for Lorea?” Gena asked.

“Yes, but… you’ll see,” Hester said.

We heard the sentry’s voice calling on the other end, which apparently spurred someone in the gatehouse to begin raising the portcullis. She reappeared at the battlement.

“Come through. Venali down there will take you inside.”

A tidy young man in a similar red-crested helm and a well-cared-for lorica greeted us under the gate and led us within. We navigated a wide and dark courtyard for some minutes before we began passing between titanic marble columns and into a reception hall.

Anteianum has been, of course, the cultural heart of the Ivian League for well over two centuries, and its palatial style has been exported as the architectural signature of righteous power all over the League. But standing in its storied castle now, I saw it with different eyes. All those little fortresses and mansions, examples of so-called “classical architecture,” now seemed less like “textbook examples of core-periphery cultural dynamics” and more like pale imitations.

The reception hall was massive, wider than a city street and several times longer than that, and its canted ceiling was lofted to dizzying heights by tremendous, fluted marble columns. Their upper reaches were draped with red velvet, which at the ends of the hall hung all the way down to kiss the shine-polished floor. The hall was occupied now by a few dozen benches and tables, lined up like pews stretching down either side of the crimson red carpet. All were empty. A few spaced-out lanterns provided a dim, warm light for the gigantic (and somewhat chilly) space.

By the time I was done gawking, we were about a third of the way into the hall, and I looked down and was stunned to see the King of Anteianum standing before us. He was an old man with a leathery, worn complexion, bright eyes, and a great deal of snow-white hair. One wiry mass cascaded down the back of his neck to his shoulder blades, and another flowed from his chin halfway down his chest. He wore a doublet, cloak, and riding pants, and a sword, even at this time of night. I had never seen the man before, but the crown of Anteianum—an iron circlet festooned with a laurel of emeralds—was unmistakable.

Venali held his body rigid in salute. I wondered anxiously if it was customary to kneel before a foreign king. I’d never met one before!

But before I could think to do something awkward and possibly embarrassing, King Nico of Anteianum said something in Yaria to Venali. Venali chirped a reply, and Nico nodded. “Welcome, friends,” he said, with a thick nomad’s accent and a smile.

Hester had, I swear to the gods, a shit eating grin on his face. He dipped a quick bow and said something in Yaria. Nico nodded and laughed, and then he strode past us toward the courtyard.

“This way, friends,” Venali said, motioning down the hall to the right, somewhere past the right flank of columns. We went.

Gena seemed to be of a mind to remain silent, so I burst forth with the obvious. “I had no idea.”

“What?” Hester said, enjoying this.

“The King of Anteianum is a Yariagar²?”

“No, he’s Anteainic. He’s the king, isn’t he?”

“But he speaks Yaria, not Late Ivian. Or much better than he speaks Late Ivian, anyway.”

“Sure.”

“Could you explain that to me?” I said, exasperated. I’m sure I heard Venali chuckle.

“Well, you see…” Hester began mischievously, before he heard Gena groan in annoyance. “Fine, fine,” he said. “King Nico was Lotreas IX’s second born. He was a hostage sent to live with the Windvalley Riders at a very early age. A few of the Riders’ sons every generation, in turn, are raised here. I’m told this is terms of their alliance, which was forged a long way back in a very hard time. Anyhow, Nico’s older brother, Lotreas X, inherited the throne, but he took ill and died childless not long thereafter. Nico was summoned back to Anteianum.”

“The Windvalley Riders…”

“A band of the Yariagar who winter near here. They are steadfast friends of this kingdom, of course. But many also travel out east during the summer season. I count some hunting partners among them.”

“Why didn’t I know this about Nico?” I asked the cavernous room, but mostly myself.

Hester answered nonetheless. “Why should you?”

I thought about that. “I suppose there’s little reason to go shouting it out on the streets. It seems like you lordly types know about it by having personally met with him.”

“Gone on a hunt with the man. Great company, even if you don’t speak the same language. And I don’t have to tell you he’s an excellent horseman.”

“And I’m only privy to correspondence, and he has all sorts of courtiers to take dictations and translate his meaning. As a fellow who receives edicts and missives secondhand, I’d never know him from a scholar trained on Ivian literature.”

“Right.”

“Did you know, Gena?”

“No, but I try not to gawk and gossip about my hosts in their homes.” She was giving Hester and I a sly side-eye.

Venali laughed at that. “We get it a lot,” he said. “And Nico knows how people see him. If he didn’t he wouldn’t have done so well for himself and for us.”

“Well, someone needs to teach these two some manners,” Gena replied. “Anyhow, I suppose I now know why you said we’re asking the princess for her hospitality.”

“I suppose you do,” Hester said. “I like Nico well enough, but she’s easier to hold a conversation with.”

“But you know Yaria,” I pointed out. “So… I suppose you’ve chosen to speak with Lorea instead of Nico for our benefit, then?”

“Aye. And who says I need to be taught manners?”

Gena rolled her eyes.

By then we had passed into a side hall, a smaller and less reverberating affair lined with portraiture and darkened windows. The ceiling bore a mural—depicting what, I don’t remember—in warm reds and yellows. Venali opened a door for us and bowed to Hester as we entered.

The room was small, but in the most palatial way. By the standards of any normal room—any room I could hope to call my own in the future, anyway—it was quite large. But within a palace, it seemed positively intimate. It was a sitting room, complete with elaborately upholstered chairs, lush carpeting, and velvety curtains. The windows faced west, peering just over the castle wall to see the sleepy city below with its scattered lit windows and thinning plumes of smoke.

Upon a chair, at a tea table, sat the young woman I presumed to be Nico’s daughter. Her blonde hair fell in gorgeous curls and her hands were folded neatly over her crossed legs. The silhouette of her hair and straight, lean body were much like her father’s, but she had a soft, refined look about her, which I thought a contrast. Nico was a nomad who wore the mantle of royalty. He wore it well, he wore it with practice, but he wore royalty. His daughter seemed to be royalty, in the very way she sat, clothed in a pearl-white dress with a mantle and a jeweled hem, watching and waiting to receive our plea.

Hester bowed, and some motion of his hands or shoulders or something must have indicated to me that it was time to do the same, because I remember doing so. We stood and waited while the young woman briefly looked each of us in the eyes. Hester wasn’t speaking, so I supposed we would be waiting on her.

“Please, have a seat,” she said, finally. “It has been some time, heir to the House Eastmost. I trust you and yours continue to meet the trials of rule in a march province with aplomb.”

“Of course,” Hester replied as we chose seats around the table, leaving the two directly on either side of the princess empty. Venali remained at ease at the door. “It is a difficult duty, to be sure. Military affairs… they are a great and sobering duty, and we must rise honorably to the occasion so that others need not. And we do.”

“Good.”

“And your own? The High Throne has ever been the rock of the faith, a model for a realm well ruled. A high standard in justice is no easier to maintain than the standards that flutter above a battlefield.”

“Of course. We are ever up to the challenge.”

“That is well.”

There was a silence.

A tiny bubble of panic rose in my throat. Was I expected to speak? Gena’s perceptive stare was hardening—if I had to guess, she was worrying about the same thing.

The princess broke the silence with a giggle.

“It’s good to see you Hester.”

“And you, Lorea.”

Gena was holding her head in her hands, trying not to be noticed. I, taking a different tack, sighed in shameless, audible relief. “Must you always do this?” I asked.

“Well…” began Hester.

“Of course! There are appearances to keep up, you know.” Lorea said.

“She’s right,” Hester said. “The forms are… a lot. But…”

“They are important,” Lorea continued. “We cannot afford to fail to observe them when it is critical. Too much is at stake.”

“So we keep in practice, even with each other.”

“But you are among friends here,” Lorea declared. “Hester vouches for you, and I have never known him to be wrong.”

“Truly?” Gena asked. “I have a hard time imagining that.”

Lorea laughed. “I should clarify. You are a scholar, no? His study habits have always left something to be desired. But he is an excellent judge of character.”

“You learn many things about men and women on the battlefield,” Hester said, applying a Hesterly cast to the compliment.

“He tells me that. I have little choice but to believe him. Anteianum is blessed with affairs of state such that my education involves far less mortal danger.”

“But your fair share of training, nonetheless. She’s a fine rider and fencer, have no doubt,” Hester explained.

“I’ll accept the compliment and leave it at that. Now… Sister Gena, a good apostle of the Lightbringer. It’s always a pleasure to host one of yours.”

Gena nodded stiffly.

“No, I mean that,” Lorea pressed. “The kingdom owes almost everything to the Lightbringer, and most of what it doesn’t owe to her it owes to the tireless faith and works of her apostles. Won’t you tell me of your work?”

She had Gena smiling a sly smile at that. “Well said… and practiced, I suppose.”

“It is one of the forms. But didn’t I say that we practice them because they’re important? They’re never more important than when they are true.”

After a few fits and starts, Lorea was able to extract the tale from Gena. Where I would have expected feigned interest, Lorea had a graceful humility about her limited knowledge of the scholarly life, and that was enough to charm Gena into speaking a bit more about her studies, about her difficult but fulfilling career as a generalist. When my turn came, I thought to protect my conversation partners from the worst wizardly excesses (which is to say, extended digressions into the details of astronomy, meteorology, or geology), but somehow I ended up describing a night of stargazing with Magister Montigo, cosmic details and all. Lorea apologized that their court wizard, Magister Cornelia, was traveling³ and was unable to revel in the tale with me, but I didn’t feel as though I was left wanting by the present company.

Soon, though, it was time for our mission.

“… which is how I spent an evening oiling my riding leathers myself. Messy business; can’t say I care for it,” Lorea was saying. “And… say, Howe, I’ve been meaning to say. You could’ve asked to hang that cloak rather than tote it around. Venali could call for the help.”

The four of us fell silent.

“I, uh. Wouldn’t,” I stammered.

Hester shook his head. “Lorea, we have some explaining to do.”

She looked between us, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

Gena began by explaining Theodric’s theft of the Doctrina Tempestas, Hester detailed the encounter in the Crown and Clasp (which was the proximate reason I was wearing a borrowed tunic instead of my cherished student’s robe), and with a nod from the two of them, I explained the stakes.

Lorea’s prim and practiced brow furrowed. “The Great Works are available to the public. Why not simply view them?”

“Two reasons I can see,” I began. “First is that the thief—or perhaps thief-patron, however you want to think of them—may not be welcome in the college. Or the very realm, for that matter. Sneaking in with a disguise isn’t out of the question, I suppose, but there are complications with that depending on the circumstances. The second reason is what I think is more important. One cannot simply borrow or view a spellbook and know its power. Even arcane secrets and spells that could be mastered by an apprentice or journeyman wizard cause the mind to fairly overflow with their sheer breadth and depth of meaning. It can take months of study with a particular arcane thesis to reliably bear its burden wholly in one’s mind, and even then constant refreshers are necessary.”

This is the first I had explained this to Hester and Gena, too, and they were deep in thought. Gena tested her understanding first. “So it’s one thing to admire a Great Work’s grandeur or to glean some specific insight from its pages,” she said. “But to understand the true power described it would require possibly years of exclusive study. You need to have it.”

“Right.”

“And not a copy?”

“Copies are unreliable,” I said. “Star charts and diagrams and calligraphy are subtle but critically important, and a single transcription mistake could foil years of effort. If you want to learn something, you learn it from the original source. The one that’s proven it works.”

“But it’s some comfort that this evil wizard may need years of study before their theft is truly complete,” Lorea said.

“Yes, but…” I mused. “Well, they’re not necessarily evil, right? Thieving, yes, but we don’t know…” I read the room and thought better of it. “Well, evil is a fair guess,” I hastily concluded.

“And we don’t have years, I’m afraid,” Gena said. “Our departure from the college was not graceful, and the… armed agents at the college’s disposal would be just so pleased to arrest us while the trail grows cold.”

“Why not let them, then?” Lorea asked. “The truth shall speak for you if they have questions, and if the college has such agents, shouldn’t they proceed with the recovery of the relic?”

“I have been given this quest by the Lightbringer herself,” Hester said.

Gena and I waited a beat before elaborating. “A vision, he said,” I offered. “I believe him, as outlandish as it sounds,” Gena added. “And besides… I’ve never known the soldiers of the college to travel to distant locales. And if I have doubts that the college will prevail, my duty to the Lightbringer calls to me, does it not?”

Lorea’s eyes flashed with some sort of insight—what, I couldn’t tell. “Strange circumstances indeed. You have all had a difficult day, and it was rude of me to have detained you here for small talk.”

“Proper and entertaining conversation,” Hester corrected with a smile. “It was genuinely a pleasure, Your Highness.”

“Ever the bold one, disagreeing with your hostess,” she riposted.

“Allow me to agree then,” I said, “with, uh, both of you. Proper and entertaining, and time for bed, if it still… pleases you to… grant that.” I thought my manners were reasonably well-improvised given my lack of practice.

Lorea nodded to Venali, who opened the door to lean out and call to someone.

“Have the servants care for your cloak, Howe,” Lorea said. “Best tell them you helped deliver an infant, I suppose.”

“R-right.”

“Rest well, friends. We shall break bread in the morning and speak more. I look forward to it.”

I didn’t bother to ask for the time before the servants left me alone to my guest room (another room that was larger and more richly appointed than any place I hoped to call home). The only thing I did ask for was a pen and a small sheaf of parchment, paper, or vellum, whichever might be conveniently provided.

Pen and paper in hand, I sat down at the desk and began transcribing notes from memory.

1. Regrettably, not for the last time.

2. In the Seven Kingdoms of the Ivian League, we have a bit of a habit of thinking of the nomads of the veld as a single group of people, distinct from us settled folk. But really, they are many: united by a pastoral lifestyle on the wild plains but no less diverse in culture and spirit than the many peoples of our many kingdoms. One result of this is that, centuries ago, “we” had a name for “them” (vagum, literally “vagrants”) but “they” had none for “themselves,” as they hadn’t needed a sense of “themselves.” Eventually they caught on to this, and as a matter of convenience they rallied around the moniker “Yariagar,” that is to say, those who speak the language, Yaria. Vagum is considered somewhat rude now that we have a better option.

3. Apparently, aboard a Cinisian long-distance trader, bound for the empire of the northern continent, to learn from the famed dragon-officers in that land.

X: Visions

When we met again in the morning, it was at a shaded overlook outdoors on the second story of the palace. The morning was gorgeous, although the fierce spring wind made me even more pleased to be reunited with my student’s gown. A brief flurry of servants laid out an impressive breakfast of fruits, greens, and sliced ham while we watched the alpine forests sway in the breeze.

The small talk was unusually spare given how lively the conversation had been the night before. Then, the final servant left with the empty water glasses.

Princess Lorea set her cutlery down. She had braided her hair up and was wearing what appeared to be the same white mantle as the day before, but atop a flowing blue morning dress. “Ae spoke to me in my dream last night,” she said.

“I heard her voice in my dreams, too,” Hester replied.

Gena nodded, looking reticent.

“I… had trouble sleeping last night,” I deflected.

“Hard travel does that sometimes, unlikely as that sounds,” Hester said. “Last night counts as hard.”

“Nevertheless, it is as you say, Hester,” Lorea said. “You are on a mission given to you by the goddess herself, your strength arrayed against the forces of evil.”

Hester nodded. Gena stared at her plate. I ate quietly.

Lorea looked across us. “It’s a heavy burden but I hadn’t expected you to look so glum about it.”

“Hard travel! Just as my friend here said. Very sorry,” I said between bites, trying to make a point of snapping out of it.

“Right,” Gena said, meeting Lorea’s eyes. “Forgive me, this is unbecoming. I am just unused to… this.”

“Hm?” Lorea prompted.

“It’s much to come to terms with. A noble quest. Ae speaking to me in a dream.”

“You wouldn’t be the first apostle to have heard her word firsthand.”

“Of course not,” Gena laughed. “By definition, almost. But the modern college is not the ancient following. Ae is satisfied that she has already said much of what is necessary to say. So every scholar devoted to the study of her world and her Word knows that much the meaning is found in the very effort of the search. A difficult undertaking requiring great discipline. But the goddess spoke to me in her own voice last night. Why, when she has been so silent for so long?”

“You worry for your studies,” I said, piecing it together in my own way. “That they seem… mooted by this.”

“You could say that.”

I also wondered if her pride had been wounded. At the start of all this, she had chided Hester for speaking of visions of Ae—she seemed so sure that the goddess did not favor mortals with visions or prophecies. It was one thing for Hester to have been vindicated by the evidence as he had. But it was another thing entirely to be visited by a vision of her own. I decided not to press this… not yet.

“There are mysteries yet unsolved here,” I said. “I expect the choosing of our persons was no accident. Well, yours and Hester’s, anyway.”

“Nor was yours, Howe. I’m sure of it. And I expect Lorea…” Hester was saying.

“I believe I have been called and I hope to live up to it. I shan’t be journeying,” Lorea hastened to add, “but you have a long way ahead and I know just the man who can get you started right.”

Hester lit up. “Nico?”

“He’d be happy to send you with the Windvalley Riders. They go to the east end of the plateau frequently, and from there you might be able to meet a caravan or another band.”

“Thank the goddess. You have no idea how many times I almost died coming west,” Hester said, much to my consternation.

“I have some other news. I sent a few trusted members of the household to inquire at the inn. They found it undisturbed from the outside, but real mess on the inside, just as you promised. But…”

“But…?” I said.

“We didn’t find anybody there. You said you left Theodric and the two men there, right?”

“Right.”

“Then the agents of the college have found them. I expect I will receive a missive announcing an inquisition in the next few days. I shall tell them quite truthfully that I have no answers that they do not already have themselves.”

Gena stared intensely at her plum tart.

“Lorea, Your Highness, this is a boon neither myself nor the House Eastmost will soon forget,” said Hester.

“There is no debt to repay. We have all been called upon to serve, have we not?”

King Nico was, indeed, happy to vouch for us to the Windvalley Riders. Hester was eager to begin the journey the moment Lorea told us, but she was forced to rein him in. We were fortunate to be striking out just as the riders were to begin their journey to their summer pastures, but that day was still three days away. I pointed out that this was much more convenient than their departure having been three days prior, but that seemed to do little to dilute his sour mood.

What did help was that Lorea offered to re-introduce Hester to Chethe, one of the riders’ elders and frequent hunting partner of the king. Hester seemed pleased for the companionship of a peer equestrian and no doubt was eager to talk his ear off about the quest and the journey.

This left me with an important opportunity that I seized immediately.

Afternoon tea was ending, so as Hester left with one of the household staff to seek out Nico and Chethe, I excused myself to my room—and my bed and my notes—and waited a short span of time. Then I knocked on Gena’s door.

“You have the look of business about you,” Gena said.

“I suppose I do,” I replied, feeling awkward. Gena motioned for me to have a seat, so I pulled up the little wooden stool, and I got right to it.

“What was your dream like last night?” I asked.

Gena paused, looking me in the eyes as she considered her reply.

“You can trust me, Gena. Please. I’ve been honest with you in truly the most absurd of circumstances.”

Gena couldn’t help but smirk. “True. You are honest. You have my respect. But…” the smirk had already faded. “It isn’t about you. I have duties to consider.”

“My dream was quite a bit different than Hester’s,” I offered. “I suspect your duty would compel you to interrogate that idea.”

She laughed. “Fine. Yours for mine.”

“Deal.”

“It was a simple vision,” she began. “It was the Doctrina Tempestas upon a lectern, open to a page dense with diagramming and labels. Dense with knowledge. A shadow seemed to loom over it, over the whole room—though I couldn’t tell you what the room itself looked like. The shadow… it was watching. It was at home. It must be the evil in possession of the tome.

“Hester entered, driving the shadow back, but as he stepped forward to claim the tome, he was struck by lightning. It was gruesome; he… convulsed. His skin cracked and split with the heat.

“It seems separate somehow, but when I awoke, I had a final memory lingering on my ears. Ae’s own voice, saying, ‘The knight needs your aid. The power needs a regent.’ And I could see myself, at the lectern, bathed in her light.”

“Astonishing,” I said.

“Yes. But… yours, now.”

“Right. Much shorter. I saw the lectern. The tome. What I supposed to be the tome, anyway. Have you seen it in person?”

“Yes. Bound in vulcan salamander leather¹, dyed blue. You wouldn’t mistake a tome like that if you’re familiar with bindings.”

“That was it, then. I saw… it’s hard to put it. I experienced the vision as though I were in my body seeing with my own eyes, but I was simply a visitor in that body. Or as if I were remembering something that had already happened. I stepped up to the lectern, driving out the shadow with my will, and then I claimed the tome, and darkness overtook me. My body, my mind, my soul. Complete oblivion. It didn’t hurt, physically. But the feeling of being destroyed, completely… it was terrible.

“And then I woke up.”

“No voice?” Gena asked.

“No. I thought the symbolism was quite clear, though. That I should not dare seize the power in that tome.”

“And yet…” Gena hesitated.

“And yet your vision was the inverse. That you should wield that power. No better way to interpret the word ‘regent,’ no?”

“Yes, as much as it pains me to say it.” Gena’s frown tightened. “Howe, every mortal to have ever claimed that they were meant to assume Ae’s mantle of godhead… every one I’ve ever read about, anyway… they were all heretics.”

I looked at her hardening eyes and then down at the floor in glum acknowledgement. The histories I had been educated in very much agreed on that point.

“Most of them get put to the sword,” she continued. “By an inquisition.”

“Well, the ones that don’t tend to disappear into obscurity. Maybe…?”

“… No, I’d rather not even that. I’d rather study her Word than flee into exile. I was meant for the good work. So suppose I reject this… quest. I avoid making a heretic of myself, and I return to my work. What am I supposed to do back at the college?”

“What do you mean? Study, as you have been.”

“What if I can no longer trust my senses? Trust my connection with my goddess?”

“What if,” I began slowly, making last-minute assessments on whether this was wise to say or not. “these weren’t visions from Ae at all?”

Gena tapped agitatedly at her chair. “What if… hm. What reason could we have to think that?”

“I was afraid that saying this would be an insult to you. And to Hester, and now Lorea. To imply you have all are mistaken. I pray you forgive me if I am wrong.”

“Get on with it,” Gena said. “You’re forgiven.”

“It’s a tenuous theory. But you said it yourself; Ae does not typically deal in visions. And if she were going to… why deliver three separate, different visions?”

“Three separate recipients because each plays a different role?”

“But these conflict. If these are divine omens, I am being warned away from the Doctrina Tempestas. In fact, I believe I am being warned to decline this quest altogether; the temptation toward the darkness might be too great if I am on the path. You, however, are being chosen to take the tome. And Hester… to deliver it back to the college.”

Gena was thinking hard now. “There is a theory consistent with all that, is there not? Suppose you are not pure of heart or faith. Suppose, further, that I am, which means I am a candidate to study the tome, and Hester is meant to protect me.”

“It’s plausible. But… does that seem true? That this is how Ae meant it all? Would she arrange for such a quest with these muddled prophecies? Or…?”

“Alternatively… this is not Ae’s will at all.” Gena’s eyes flashed. “Someone else sent these visions.”

“Like an evil wizard. I think so. Sister, I think this is a trap.”

1. A rare creature, native to the Antillayan range, its hide used by the people there to fireproof their homes.

XI: The Heart of the Matter

“Hester, I think these visions have been false. I fear we are being led into a trap.”

It had been a long day at the palace. Life there seemed to consist entirely of interminable stretches of social visits. Or formal liaisons. Often both at the same time. Being guests in Lorea’s care, we were spared the most sensitive of the realm’s business, but we were expected to join in the eating, sitting, and entertainment.

Today’s visitors included Mayor Plina of one of the outlying towns, Chethe of the Windvalley Riders, and a band of dry goods merchants who had recently brought a fabulous shipment of textiles and clothes from weavers overseas to the north. We took our meals with them, sat over tea with them, toured the grounds with them, and sat for music with them (a hearty, if unrefined, performance by Lorea’s young brother). In return, they—along with Nico and the household—bore witness to a formal reception for Hester, Gena, and myself. There, Lorea commended us for our service to her Word and our steadfast commitment to such an uncertain and dangerous quest against nefarious forces. She presented us with gifts, even: clothes fit for travel (and especially for the saddle) for the three of us, an indigo tabard charged with Ae’s sigil for Hester, a beautifully bound and illuminated copy of the Word for Gena, and above all, a fine, thick tome for myself, every last page blank.¹

It seemed—and still seems—ill-mannered to complain about a full day of honor and leisure with fine company. But it was exhausting, and by the time I finally had a moment with Hester apart from Lorea, the sun had set and my eyes were bleary. When I was finally able to put my theory to him, it was in the privacy of his room.

He gave me an odd look. That reaction was better than I had feared, but not what I had hoped.

“I am disappointed. I thought your faith sturdy,” he replied, after a brief silence.

“It’s not about my faith, it’s about… how this has all happened.”

“Are we not charged to study her Word closely, and with zeal?”

“Well, yes, and that’s why…” I began, making my fatal mistake.

“There is no doubt in my heart of this vision or of Ae’s Word ringing in my ears.”

“None? No chance that there is an interloper impersonating…”

“None.”

I gaped helplessly.

“The road to Ilianath… I suppose it is far,” he said, looking at a map unfurled on his small desk. He had offered to dismiss of me so swiftly, so matter-of-factly. It hurts to recall even now.

“No, I’m coming with you,” I said, electing for “I” instead of “we” to avoid implying I had already had this conversation with Gena.

He looked back at me.

“Well,” I said, “The Doctrina Tempestas is missing, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he replied, smiling.

“Consider it an expression of my faith.”

He said, “I suppose I shall.”

A few minutes later I returned to my room and sat on the bed. I waited, looking around the little room, and I listened. It was very, very quiet. The bustle of the household and staff had long faded, and the night just outside my window was mysterious, dark, and still. Even the normally windy uplands held their breath in anticipation of our journey. No footsteps nor conversation echoed through the hall outside.

It was just what I was hoping to hear.

I retrieved my notes from the drawer, crept up to the window, and took a few mental measurements of the night sky. I checked my notes and then the sky again.

And then I took my notes and my empty tome and I left my room. I made for the wine cellar.

I had marked it earlier, when Lorea had sent Venali down there just a few hours prior, a duty I had assumed would be beneath him as a soldier but he had accepted sportingly. He had turned the corner, and the clomping of his greaves told me that he had soon turned a corner after that, opened a door, and descended a long set of stairs into the heart of the mountain. Climbing down those stairs myself, I pitied the fortress’s builders. It would’ve been long, backbreaking work to hew this into the granite mountain. And all that for a wine cellar?

No, I thought with a tiny surge of excitement. They wouldn’t have done all that just for a wine cellar. I was on the right track.

At the bottom, I found another door, and I pushed on it with great gingerly caution. The door rewarded my tender care with a cringe-inducing creak. To appease the door, I opened it only as far as I needed to, before sliding it swiftly (with another painful complaint) shut.

It was pitch black in here, which I hadn’t, strictly speaking, considered before closing the door. No matter: I called upon my arcane light. A whisper of the correct incantation produced the tiny point of light on my fingertip, and the casks and frames and their long, stark shadows sprang into my sight. I can’t tell you how long I took to find what I was looking for in there, nor could I have said, right then, what it was I was looking for. But after long minutes (hours, maybe?) of feeling about the cellar, under and around casks, behind discarded furniture and in dusty corners…

The door swung open behind me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed that it didn’t creak so atrociously that time. I felt a bit betrayed.

“Howe?” Gena inquired of the dark room.

I trudged out from behind a rack of bottles, carrying my little point of magical light with me. “Yes, it’s me.”

“Good,” she said. “You’re not very sneaky.”

“Apparently not. I’m not after the wine, if that’s what you’re…”

“I can already see that, you doofus. You came to find the Halls, didn’t you?”

“… Yes. How did you know?”

“It’s all I’ve been able to think about for the last three days. I knew you would have a fascination, too. I can’t sleep; I heard you coming down here, and I knew right away.”

“Well, I hate to disappoint…”

“Oh, don’t worry. I knew you wouldn’t find them down here.”

I was, simultaneously, a bit intrigued and a bit embarrassed. “A step ahead of me, are you?” I said, a bit more hotly than I intended.

“Horwendell, Apprentice Wizard,” Gena chuckled. “You wizardly types forget that intelligence can be found outside your fancy hats.”

“I don’t mean to belittle or underestimate you,” I huffed. “I’m all ears.”

“You came down here, I suppose, because you found the other way down low—the ground floor of the Hall of the League, I think you said. And the living quarters of this castle are all quite high up. And anyway, down low is a natural place to go looking for roots, but… that’s… erroneous. Not the right way to think of it. This isn’t a physical alignment of cosmoses we’re talking about.”

“So there’s no rhyme or reason to the ways? That would be disheartening.”

“No physical reason. Which leaves…”

“Ment…no, you mean…”

“Divine.”

“Hmm.”

“The Halls. ‘A place where thought and will flow freely’. Spirits willed into being by the Lightbringer. A place of serenity and solitude. What else could it be but her own refuge?”

“And so, you suppose, its connection to this realm is contingent to her will.”

“Right.”

“Are you sure…” I began, calculating. “Are you sure? Forgive me, but… the good apostles are famous for seeing the Lightbringer’s will in everything. It’s your job.”

“You would count on us to correctly identify the Lightbringer’s will in the places it is, indeed, present in, no? And besides…”

“I know, I know. I went looking for it in a wine cellar.”

Gena laughed. “I wasn’t going to say that, but it’s nice that you admitted it. No, I was just going to remind you of your own opinion of me. My relationship to the college.”

“I… initially I had wondered if you were less fervent than your colleagues, but then settled on… less insular.”

“The word you used at the time was cynical.”

“You have a good memory,” I said, reddening. “And… look, I’m sorry. I think I have been unfair to you. In more ways than one.”

“Forgiven.”

“I owe it to you to lean on your judgement, then. I want to return to the Halls.” I drew to a verbal halt, and I thought. “Is that even wise?”

“Oh, you needn’t my permission, you silly apprentice. I want to return to the Halls, too. There is nothing I would prefer to do. And there’s no gatekeeper that I saw.”

“Unless those… ways… could deny entry. Or the Lightbringer herself could.”

“True, though if they could have denied Theodric I am supposing they would have.”

“So the question is, then, where might we find entry.”

“Right. And the answer will require careful study.”

“I suppose it was too much to hope for that we might simply find it in the courtyard, instead.”

“Unlikely that there are any entrances around here. I have… theories. But I need time to work on them. If you want, we can discuss tomorrow. It’s late.”

“Right,” I said, suddenly remembering that Gena and I were alone in a dark wine cellar in the middle of the night. “Would rather not need to explain this to anyone who came down here for a bottle, I guess.”

“Agreed. Have a good night, Howe.”

My hand brushed the band of her bodice and traveled down her side, relishing in her warm, smooth, firm skin as it went. It passed over the silken skirt and came to rest on her mid-thigh, and I felt a new surge of desire drawing me closer to her body and her face…

… Whose face, again?

The past raced to catch up to me. I winced to recall the stinging wave of hot pressure I had felt just before touching this woman. The heat was still there, under my hands, just between her lips and mine. It was as if she had emerged from the very forge of passion, and I had been standing there as she had done so.

I could feel the desperate longing in my mouth and down through my heart, stomach, and between my legs. But my mind, racing in from somewhere behind me, caught up as I began to lean in.

“Who are you?” I whispered, my voice wavering.

“A friend,” she purred. I could feel her breath on my cheek.

“Nobody…” I grit my teeth against the crushing disappointment I was delivering myself. “… Nobody I know talks to me like that. Who are you?”

“Ah,” she said, with a lilting, sly laugh. She was apart from me now, sitting, and she crossed her legs and reclined onto her palms. She was of indeterminate age, though likely a young adult based on her physical condition, which was nothing short of complete perfection. Her skin was an unblemished and untarnished bronze cast over a fine dancer’s figure. She wore a clasped top that revealed most of her midriff, an exotic layered and banded skirt whose colors (including no trivial amount of gold thread) suggested flames like those I had felt. Her long, shoulder-length dark hair flowed freely beneath a winged golden circlet. Her eyes smoldered within dark makeup, and the confident smirk seemed natural on her lips.

“You do not know me, it is true. But I am a friend. Lady Iltara.”

“Horwendell of Ilianath,” I recited. “Where…”

Were we… was this Lorea’s sitting room? Intimacy, luxury… how did we get here?

“… Oh. I’m dreaming.”

“It’s rather more enjoyable if you don’t notice. Dreams can be so sweet.”

“Forgive me if I’m on alert for an evil wizard sending false messages. In dreams.”

Lady Iltara smiled.

“Oh,” I said. “Evil wizard. Pleased to meet you; I’m an apprentice wizard.”

“Well, they’re not necessarily evil, right? Thieving, yes, but we don’t know…” she said, mimicking my cadence. She tilted her head playfully, as if to bounce this volley my way.

There was a lot that had just happened there, so I stood there sort of dumbly.

“I do have the spellbook,” she said. “I stole it, if you must put it that way. But what do you suppose I shall be doing with it?”

“Well… we don’t know.”

She sat up and raised her hands, half there you have it and half a gesture of innocent appeasement.

“But you’ve been watching us. You have been withholding your identity and intentions and spying on ours.”

“There’s nothing so wrong with that, is there?”

“You might admit it’s suspicious, at least.”

“Granted. But I have responsibilities, Lady I am. The young warrior is on an expedition to find me. I should think it quite reasonable to learn what I can about him before provoking an encounter.”

“Sure,” I said, thinking ever more clearly with each moment that passed, finding my feet better with every mental step. “The false visions. Those were yours, too. And this seductress business,” I started, feeling hot under the collar for more reasons than one. “That’s pretty reprehensible even on its own, means to an end or not.”

“Oh, my friend.” She leaned forward a bit. “It was an introduction. I believe, truly, that we should have what we want in dreams. We can, here, in ways impossible outside them.”

“I didn’t want that.”

“You did. Very much so,” she said, gliding a fingertip down my chest. I was becoming aware of the way the physical distance between us wasn’t tethered to any physical reality. It seemed to come and go freely and imperceptibly. One moment she would be sitting politely across this room, and the next we would be nearly embracing, the heat of her body playing in the very air between us. But I was determined not to let the gap close any further.

Did I want that? Didn’t I not want it? Could it have been both? I deflected, my stubborn instincts warning me not to argue on difficult territory. “Do not give my companions the same introductions.”

She sighed, heaving her chest in a highly distracting way. “I haven’t; I won’t. Just you, wizard.”

I thought for a moment, sitting back in my dream-chair and crossing my legs. “Apprentice wizard.”

“Yes, yes. The point is, it seems you have studied lucid dreaming, as most of your kind do. That means we may converse. So I thought to… reveal myself to you.”

“Um! So let’s, um, converse, I suppose. ‘Your kind’, you say. You are not, I suppose, a court wizard.”

“No.”

“So…?”

“I am a Lady.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Well, it’s true,” she said with a shrug. “I rule a demesne in the Valley of the Sun. But more than that, my domain is here, in hot passion and lovely dreams. In both places my will is done.”

“Somnimancy? Oneiromancy? Whatever the term might be for it, what an interesting field.”

“Field! Ha,” she giggled. “I do prefer domain.”

“Who trained you?”

She shook her head. “No training.”

“You were born with it?”

She shook her head again, this time with a smirk. “Nor that. A lady’s secret, I’m afraid.”

“Fine,” I said. “What do you want with the Great Work, then?”

“I want to know. I want to drink of the secrets within. Wouldn’t you?”

“You have me there. I would.” I could tell, deep in the back of my mind, something was wrong. What was it? “But it’s stolen. It was carefully guarded for a good reason.”

“And what reason might that be?” she asked.

“Danger, I suppose.”

“And you don’t study dangerous things yourself?”

“Of course. I see where you’re going with this. But shouldn’t we ask nicely, instead? Perhaps borrow the work?”

“Have you asked anything of the Lightbringer? No answers are forthcoming. You shall ask, ‘what is so dangerous within?’ and she shall say, ‘I shall not speak of it, for even that is dangerous to know.’”

“Maybe I shall. Why, we even spoke with the Librariar…” my stomach knotted. That’s what was wrong. The mortal peril.

Lady Iltara waited, watching. Her sly, welcoming smile did not waver. But I came to sense, at the edges of the warmth of her beauty, a corona of menacing heat.

“Your goons killed Theodric,” I said.

She tilted her head conversationally. “Your warrior friend would have. Your sister’s order would have.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

“Perhaps not. You have little responsibility to this matter. The knight, the apostles, myself… we have our many responsibilities. Surely you can see that,” she protested.

I stood with a jerk. “And you’ll see me dead without a second thought.”

“Come now.” She rose too. “You’re all worked up. Not thinking clearly in the heat of the moment. Shall we relax?” She reached out to take my hand. “Please,” she said.

But this was my dream. Her concern was sharp and fake, her hand an instrument of violence. Her heat pressed in, threatening to suffocate. I had to get away.

But I had studied lucid dreaming, hadn’t I? Many a wayward wizard finds themselves in a distressing dream and can’t bear to continue the inquiry. One of the skills we practice is maintaining the presence of mind to realize that. And there’s a simple, reliable escape hatch: just cast a spell. Just about any spell will do. Most are too carefully constructed for a dreamscape—too many right angles and hard edges in a world where space and meaning are ephemeral, sheer. One of those sharp corners is bound to puncture the veil.

So I did. I blurted out the first incantation and summoned the first meaning that came to mind: a simple spell, almost a toy really, that causes water to splash and leap as if a handful of pebbles have been thrown into it. Water, I suppose, was my remedy for the deadly heat².

And so I woke, shout-muttering to myself. My last memories of the dream were of scorching heat and a captivating peck of lips on my left cheek.

All was quiet in my guest room in Castle Anteianum.

I scrambled with my numb, graceless limbs to find my pen and paper.

1. I never did get to ask if—or how—she knew what a valuable gift that was.

2. Not that I could say for sure that there was any water on hand in this dream. But what mattered was the act of casting the spell, not whether it had a subject to affect.

XII: Eastward

The next morning was an unusually active one, for myself, my companions, and for the whole household. Chethe stood at the position of honor for an early morning court session, attended by a number of his fellow riders who had arrived through the front gate just after dawn (the commotion of their arrival and the hasty stabling of their dozen horses had awoken both Hester and Gena, though of course I had been awake for hours already).

The Yariagar, the nomads of the veld, are, in very broad strokes, a lively, boisterous people, fond of physical contact and wordplay, widely traveled and conscientious. Settled folk of the Ivian kingdoms frequently remark on how the nomads will greet each other with shoulder taps, forearm grips, embraces, and inexplicable meetings of elbows and knees, and seconds later turn to greet their Ivian counterparts with polite and measured hellos.

The Yariagar live and travel in bands of several hundred people, most of which travel great distances over the veld every year, pasturing their flocks on fresh grasses and exchanging trade goods and tales with their seasonal neighbors. Most bands are riots of color: nomads tend to have fewer physical possessions than settled folk, but everyone has clothes, and with good access to rich dyes and excellent craftsmanship from across the continent, the nomads have become masters of sartorial expression.

Nico greeted the gathered folk—the household, the riders, the guests, a few regular courtiers, and a handful of petitioners—in that great hall with a hearty “good morning!” and then Lorea gave a proper and refined speech about the joyous bond between the nomads of the valley and the settlers of the plateau. Nico and Chethe led a bouncy duet-jig in Yaria, traditional to the Windvalley Riders, I suppose, and then the morning wine got around and everyone got to business.

Our business that morning, of course, was taking our leave.

Lorea and Hester shared a tight embrace as Gena and I looked on.

“No forms?” I teased.

“Pffft.” Lorea said as she finally released Hester.

“By the grace of our guardian Ae we shall meet anon, Your Highne…” Hester began, before Lorea punched him in the shoulder.

“Not important this time?” I asked.

“Haha. No, rather, I would say not appropriate,” Lorea said. “What? You didn’t notice the song we all just sang? You joined in the chorus and everything.”

“I can follow a tune; don’t know a thing about what it meant.”

“Oh. Go find one of the riders and have them translate. Tell me you’re still going to put on airs after that,” Lorea said, grinning.

“Maybe I will,” I replied. “Thank you for everything. Seriou…”

“As I said before, there is no debt to repay. Go in the light of her wisdom!”

Lorea was promptly swallowed by the bustle of the courtly crowd, which was an excellent way to make an exit. I realized then that it must be a skill that her sort of people practice. At that same moment, Hester was greeting two people dressed in the nomadic style. There was a hand clasp and embrace, then some exchanged words as they parted.

“… And my companions, Horwendell of Ilianath and Sister Gena of the College of Apostles. Horwendell! Gena! Meet Ariké and Eidahn of the Windvalley Riders.”

He identified them with his gesturing right hand as he spoke, welcoming us (formally, I suppose) into their company with a graceful sweep of his left. Eidahn was the taller of the two, having a stern, observant face partially obscured under a mop of dark hair, itself barely restrained by a purple band across the forehead. Ariké was a hand shorter, seemed to prefer brighter colors in dress (vibrant yellow woolens and a lilac coif decorated with feathers), and had neatly braided hair.

“Greetings,” I said, pairing it with a stiff bow.

“Hi,” replied the nomad Hester had identified as Ariké. Even that one syllable was enough to reveal a thick Yariagar’s accent. “Our tent is yours for the journey east. It will be our honor to serve good Nico’s friends.” Eidahn said something in Yaria, which I knew to be a mild but earnest greeting, and Ariké translated. “‘Well met,’ he says. He knows more Ivian than he lets on, but he’s embarrassed to be caught speaking it.” That prompted a surly elbow from Eidahn, which Ariké laughed at. “He’s used to being good with words. Doesn’t much enjoy being bad with them,” they said with a wink.

“You spend a lot of time around Anteianum?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” Ariké said. “We come in the winter and graze the flocks here. Better grass up here, even in the cold, somehow… the wet fall winds you get, I think. I like the city, the people. Strange foods and strange lives. Eid doesn’t.” Eid muttered something. “It’s true, you have to be off the saddle far too long when you’re in a city.”

Suddenly I was keenly and ruefully aware of my new riding breeches, fit snugly at my calves in a way that was completely foreign to me.

“Uh, I, ah…” I said, eloquently.

Eidahn smiled for the first time I had seen. I swear there was a gleam in his eyes. He said something, and Ariké translated: “you have not ridden, have you?”

I am not proud to admit that I briefly considered lying. If I had, it would have been one of the dumbest things I had ever done¹. Fortunately, I thought better of it.

“Once. On a pony. Led by my father.”

Eidahn gave a magnanimous shrug. “So it is with most riders.”

“Will we be riding… everywhere?” I asked. I had been dreading this morning for fear that the answer would be yes. I tried my damndest not to betray my anxiety in my expression, diction, or tone of voice, but I’m fairly sure I failed. Eidahn laughed. Hester stifled a giggle. Gena was trying not to be noticed near me.

“No,” the tall nomad replied in translation. “Most of the finest things in life are done on horseback. You should learn; I will teach. But you may walk on your own two feet. A band travels the plateau at a walk, not a gallop.”

“Oh,” I said. I tried, again, to conceal my relief, wondering if it would be unfair if, having failed to hide my anxiety, I successfully hid my return to ease. I probably didn’t, anyway.

“But we will make fun of you,” Ariké said. “True men and women of the veld ride everywhere.”

“Oh,” I said.

“No they won’t,” Hester interjected, grinning. “They travel with too many dignitaries and merchant caravans. They have manners, you know.”

“Oh, don’t spoil our fun,” Ariké replied. There was a perceptible crescendo in the commotion in the great hall. “We will be going soon. You have your things, I hope?”

I was leaving Castle Anteianum just like I had arrived at Castle Anteianum: carrying my robe balled up under my arm and wishing I was wearing it.

There were no further farewells; Lorea and Nico left our lives as suddenly as either of them had entered them. We went with Ariké and Eidahn out to the courtyard, retrieved their horses², and joined in the great and noisy procession out the gate and down the road.

We were fortunate that the chosen day was bright and clear, though of course the spring highland wind was cold and insistent, and our faces would be numb and our voices hoarse by the middle of the afternoon. We cast long shadows ahead of us as we descended the road to the west, south around the castle town and on a gentle slope toward the trails. We followed that for an hour, then took a rocky trail south, at which point the city disappeared from view—only granite and highland pine now. This involved some annoying climbing, which was difficult for the horses and drew no small amount of frustrated oath-swearing out of the Yariagar, whom I realized now had already done this once today in the darkness. Then, with that mercifully behind us, we turned east, over the great, broad, grassy plateau.

The veld was, and is, a sight to behold. From up on the ridge, from Anteianum and the college, the view of these grasslands was sweeping and impressive. But being down on the infinite grasses, watching them sweep and roll in waves under the breeze, admiring the titanic clouds and the grand patchwork of shadows that drifted across them, the word that comes to mind is gargantuan. The enormity of the earth and its verdant cover seems to dwarf you from beneath your very feet. Even a proud caravan of hundreds of riders and thousands of herd animals is simply tiny atop its majesty.

And you walk, and across every new horizon, there is ever more.

All this time, I walked with Gena in relative silence, save for some small talk. Hester and our two nomad friends were nearby most of the time. Of course, I had much I needed to talk about… and something about Gena’s demeanor suggested that she did as well. But not here, we decided, agreeing in our silence. Not around two dozen perfect strangers.

Not long after noon, as the sun reappeared from behind a bank of tremendous clouds, we spotted a thin, colorful crest on the horizon, reflecting the sun’s light in a little array of reds, yellows, and blues. That was the Windvalley Riders’ camp, and as it grew closer, we began to see its movement and bustle. Those little spots of color were tents—quite a bit more comfortable than what passes for tents among settled folk, Ariké assured us—and one-by-one they folded up and disappeared into packs and wagons.

By the time we were there, the camp was no more. The band was ready for travel, and indeed, at a first glance one might mistake it for having already been traveling today. The marked and worn earth beneath our feet, however, told the tale of a semi-permanent winter settlement, the heart of a circulating little swarm of sheep and goats.

Some of the riders who had traveled with us broke off on horseback to ride south, away from the massive peaks that dominated the horizon to our north. I supposed they would be off to find the shepherds and establish a rendezvous… somewhere, somehow. Everyone seemed busy and I wasn’t in a mood to interrupt with questions.

When the herds and their minders met us an hour’s travel to the east, the the band numbered about three hundred, just as many horses (both juvenile and mature), many goats and cattle, and an uncountable number of sheep. Ten times as many? I was in awe. Ariké confirmed for me that this was more or less the entirety of the Windvalley Riders and further explained that they were frequently—more often than not, actually—dispersed over a wide distance to better graze the flocks. Winter, however, called for a gathering, for safety and for trade. Toward the end of our upcoming journey, as we neared the late summer pastures, we would be parting ways with parts of the band every day, until Gena, Hester, and I left the band for the far east.

Gena and I journeyed on foot. Hester rode (a horse on loan from whom, I was unsure). We were not, to my knowledge, made fun of. We were, however, surrounded by the chatter of families. Friends talking about their last visit to the city, little kids running amok and falling asleep on their parents’ shoulders, slightly older kids learning on patient steeds, and the tall, watchful warriors riding a perimeter in the distance.

This went on, with little change, until nightfall.

The sun had but grazed the green horizon when the commotion built up again and the sudden flow of the humans and mammals around us broke into a confusion of eddies and countercurrents.

“Most days we travel further, longer. Maybe three more hours before the horses tire. But we started late and we respect the nights here,” Ariké explained.

“I see,” I said, yawning. “It can’t be that hard to find one’s way at night, though.”

“If pressed, you are right. Quite easy in weather like this,” the rider said, with a glance at the sky³. “But the predators and spirits, you see.”

“Well, we don’t,” Gena elaborated. “Not well, anyway. The dracobovis has keen vision and hearing at night. As fast as it moves, you want to see it well before it sees you, which is difficult on any but the brightest nights.”

“The… dragon-cow? Seriously? You’re pulling my leg,” I said.

“Perhaps ‘dragon-bull’ sounds more menacing. Silly apprentice, mistaking the name for the referent,” Gena teased.

“Fine. But…”

“No, she is not… pulling your leg, my friend,” Ariké said. “We call them the horned kings and horned queens. The largest are three times the weight of a draft horse and nearly as fast as a fine riding horse. Very dangerous to outriders, who you have seen must ride far apart to keep a good watch.”

“And spirits?”

Ariké chose their words carefully. “Spirits are borne on the wind and are best left in peace if you chance a meeting,” they said. The tone of voice warned me off of further questions.

Eidahn and Hester pulled up on their horses and dismounted, sharing a few quick words in Yaria with Ariké.

“Help put up the tent,” they translated with a grin. “We shall get you used to the life here.”

My first lesson on life in the veld was that it is as ceaseless as the grasses and the skies. You wake, work, travel, work, and sleep in great, ever-turning cycles.

The tent—Ariké and Eidahn’s home, and our lodging for now—was poorly served by the name “tent.” Thin highland pine went up for columns, about which we fastened a set of latticed panels, which held up the wooly covering that ultimately held out the wind and rain. This was hard work after a hard day’s journey: the overall construction may have been lighter and thinner than your typical Orlan hamlet hovel, but it was still a huge stack of lumber that needed to be hauled about and driven firmly into the earth. Hester led Gena and myself at the effort, freeing up our hosts to some miscellaneous duties about the flocks or the rest of the band.

Inside (once there was an inside to speak of), Hester laid out a set of beds that looked partly like cots, partly like sleeping sacks, and entirely like a gaggle of overfed sheep, and then he ducked out, promising to fetch dinner.

I had spent the entire day anxious for time alone to speak with my companions. But I had also spent the entire day awake and on my feet, and that has a way to crowding its way to the front of one’s mind.

Someone came by to ask after Ariké and Eidahn, and Gena stepped out to try to point them in the right direction. I was alone in the tent. I collapsed onto the bed in the far corner.

“Mmh. Where did we leave off?”

I caught myself with one hand around her waist and another on her cheek.

“Shhhhh.” Lady Iltara tapped an index finger to my lips. “Just relax.”

It happened pretty quickly. I began to stammer out a denial (or an incantation, or both), and the next moment she had pushed me back onto a downy bed and lay astraddle me, her hands pressed onto my shoulders.

“Shhhhhhhh shh shhh. Don’t go anywhere.”

The suddenness of the motion and the breathless thrill brought by the new arrangement of our bodies had their desired effect. I froze.

“Good man,” she said. “I offer only what you desire.”

“I… don’t,” I croaked. “Every night?”

Lady Iltara’s lips shifted in disappointment. “I am a generous lady, and every night is mine to give. But that’s not what you mean, is it?”

“No. Do we need to do this every single night?”

She released my shoulders, drawing herself upright. To look upon her was to regret, on a primal level, that I could not feel her heat.

“I have returned because we left last night’s business woefully unfinished. We have much to discuss, you and I.”

“I… maybe. But first, let’s…”

“Ask nicely,” she said.

“Okay. Please, let’s stand up. I’d be much more comfortable.”

So the dream proceeded and we were standing.

“If you say so,” she said. “But I think you’re lying.”

I shook my head as if to banish the thought. “And please, no funny business.”

Lady Iltara sighed. “I am a lady and you dishonor me. I will forgive you this once.”

The implied rebuke stung, so I avoided it. “So, you say we have much to discuss. I fear there is not.”

“You worry that I will order my soldiers to stop you.”

“You know that I accompany a capable warrior whose intention is to seize something from you.”

“Of course.”

“So…?” I said.

“So of course I shall not merely hand it to you. But I do not enjoy bloodshed. I would prefer to persuade you that the book belongs with me. It would be much more pleasant.”

“Like you persuaded Theodric?”

“Theodric… well,” she frowned. “He was a danger to myself and my men.”

“And Hester isn’t?”

“Fine, Horwendell.” Lady Iltara said. “If you and yours turn your arms upon me, I shall prevail. Is that all you want to talk about; swords and mortal combat? Isn’t this just so tiresome?”

“I told you we didn’t have much to talk about. We’re enemies.”

“We needn’t be.”

“Can’t see how.”

Lady Iltara, her legs crossed, tapped her index finger on her cheek. Her gaze strolled casually across my face as she thought.

“Perhaps you are not in the mood tonight. We should speak again. Before you go, there’s something I would like you to think about. The good sister in your company, even now, dreams of inquisitors. For now, they are sour dreams, of censure and expulsion. But they will soon become nightmares of stakes and pitch.

“I killed Theodric for the good of my realm. the Lightbringer’s own would kill their wayward sister merely to make an example of her. Whose company would you prefer?”

She reclined, watching and waiting for a reply, inaudibly but expressively tap-tap-tapping her cheek.

I met her gaze with a certain petulant anger, and this time, I cast a spell to vanish in a gout of smoke⁴.

1. For the sake of the clarity and good chronology of this account I cannot yet tell you about the dumbest thing I have ever done.

2. I wondered, then, if this was the real reason for the enormity of the courtyard: the ability to garrison an impressive host of cavalry. Nico and the many Kings Lotreas before him surely treasured that as a valuable asset, one that could even be the deciding factor in a war for their kingdom. What would they think of the rest of the old league, we starry-eyed provincials who thought it was simply a feature of “classical architecture?”

3. Did the Yariagar independently develop celestial navigation from the settled folk of the Seven Kingdoms, or were they its progenitors altogether? Or was this knowledge in direct transmission from the era of myths? I have yet to find a satisfactory answer.

4. That was the idea, anyway. The smoke would have erupted at my feet, but when someone leaves their own dream, do others present perceive them to vanish, or…?

XIII: The Delegate

It was dark, and the only sounds were of shuffling, breathing, and the dull thrum of the wind against the tent.

As I came to, I began to perceive, first by feel and then by sight, that friendly figures were looming, worrying, over me.

“Hard dreams?” Hester muttered just above a whisper. “You gave a pretty firm thrash there.”

“It was a spell, wasn’t it?” Gena said.

“Mmfg,” I began, sitting up slowly as the two of them gave me the space to. “How’d you know that?”

“Even the most obsessive bookworm doesn’t chant in Classical Ivian in their sleep.”

“Oh, right. Gena, Hester, we need to talk. I was hoping to do so in private.”

They exchanged a look, probably deeply alarmed about how “casting a spell in a dream” had anything to do with “needing to talk.”

“This will do,” Hester said.

“Our hosts?”

Ariké had begun to say something from their bed across the tent, but Hester ran over top. “We can trust them with our lives. We are already.”

“Guess I can’t argue. Gena, I had another vision. The being who sent them introduced herself to me.”

Hester’s eyebrows shot skyward. “The Lightbringer herself?”

“No,” I hastened to add, growing a little red in a way that I hoped was hidden by the night. “She introduced herself as Lady Iltara.”

Hester crossed his arms. Gena said nothing.

“She…” I said, hesitating before I took the plunge. “She appeared as a beautiful… lady.”

The silence was thicker than even the darkness in the tent.

I don’t remember exactly what I said after that, but after overcoming the basic mortification of the whole situation I recounted the basic facts of the two nights’ dreams to my companions.

I will never forget the way Gena’s eyes twinkled with amusement while Hester’s face grew ever more leaden with every passing moment.

“A temptress,” he declared after I finished, gaze fixed furiously at the foot of my bed as he spoke. “It explains everything. Theodric. Strange foreign agents.”

Gena said, “Howe, you really should talk to her.”

I winced. “What? But… she’s dangerous, I don’t…”

Hester looked up, his eyebrows still holding a tight angle. “And let her fill his head with poison?”

“Oh, honestly,” Gena replied. “We don’t have to trust her. But what is there to be afraid of? Her feminine wiles?”

“Many a famed hero has done battle with temptresses and their minions,” Hester said. “They deceive. They entrap. They… bed isle.”

“Beguile?” I offered.

“Bed-goyle, right.”

“Ye gods,” Gena said. “You can’t go on taking old romances at face value. Look. The next time she appears to you, talk to her. Ask her what she wants. Tell her what you want. If she truly is our enemy, we’d best know her.”

“She is our enemy, and I mislike it,” Hester said.

“Howe?” Gena pressed.

“Know her… ahem. That way?” I said.

Gena buried her head in her palms. I noticed—I’m not sure Hester did—a twitch of the chest and throat suggesting that she was heroically stifling a laugh.

She looked back up. “You know what? She’s a beautiful woman propositioning you in a dream. You tell me.”

“Um,” I said.

“My point is that this temptress characterization, while perhaps not completely meritless, is thin. We should engage with it with a critical eye. Do you not trust yourself to remain true to yourself?”

“I… do, I guess?”

“You do. And she cannot make you do anything you do not want. You said it yourself, spells do not survive the constraints of a dream. It’s not like she can simply enchant you to act contrary to your will. So take the opportunity. Speak with her.”

“And you trust me? Theodric betrayed you at her behest; why shouldn’t I?”

“That question is non-responsive to my claims. Why should you betray me?”

“Fair…”

“Don’t do it,” Hester said. “A champion of the Lightbringer ought never put themselves in the clutches of their enemies.”

“Also… non-responsive to my claims,” Gena said.

“I’ll… I suppose we should,” I decided, finally.

“You should,” Gena corrected. “She hasn’t deigned to offer me the opportunity.”

“But we—you and I—should also talk about what we might now know, supposing I am not simply mad. Lady Iltara sent these visions…”

“Yours maybe, but not mine,” Hester said.

There was a brief scrum (“Surely…” “But…” “No, you see…”) which Hester cut short again. “Say what you will. I will hear no more of it.”

“… Fine!” I said. “A self-proclaimed lady who rules some polity in the Valley of the Sun and who can communicate through our dreams, presumably over great distances…”

“… paid Librariarch Theodric through intermediaries to steal for her one of the Lightbringer’s divine treasures,” Gena finished. “Evil wizard, I suppose.”

“She insists she’s not, and she has some sort of good reason, but…” I remembered the stench of blood and death.

“All the more reason to talk to her.”

“She may lie, but… ‘When people bar your way you often need only look right behind them,’”, I said, glancing over at Hester. He nodded.

“I wonder,” I wondered, remembering my Histories. “She said she rules a domain in the Valley. We’re headed in the right direction, then. But the Old King’s rule is… absolute, I thought. Sometimes delegated to governors, but ultimate authority comes from him alone. Is she perhaps one of his governors?”

“Or a hedge wizard on the margins with a few followers. Wouldn’t be unlike a wizard to talk big about it.”

“Desheret-Nemes is not fond of magicians. She must practice in secret,” Hester said.

“Hm. Speaking of which… she is, perhaps, not a wizard at all.”

“Oh, don’t tell me this is about wizardly pride, apprentice,” Gena said.

“Well, no. But also yes. I am proud of how long I had to work for my skills, and she would be too. Unless she were born with the Talent, but then that would be a terrifying prospect on its own. Such an effortless invasion of my dreams. Unsettling, I call it.”

“But then she said she wasn’t born with it,” Hester said.

“Right. One of those has to be a lie, right?” I postulated. “She was trained in wizardly magic, or she was born with the Talent. Can’t be neither.”

“Self-taught?” Gena asked.

“I… guess? Difficult to imagine. And that’s not just my pride speaking.”

“Haha. No, I know.”

With that, we had exhausted our well of speculation, and the three of us settled back in for a short, quiet rest of the night.

XIV: Initiation and Inquiry

Toward the end of our afternoon break under the endless blue of the veld sky, Eidahn stalked over, leading a gigantic horse by the reins. He looked at my mutton shank, nearly finished, and back at me.

“Ride?” he said.

“Um,” I replied, looking about. Hester beamed at me encouragingly, Gena looked like she was quietly laughing, and Ariké was nowhere to be found—perhaps with the outriders today.

Ariké was the one I was really looking for, to help translate. But without them handy, I decided it was rude to shrug off Eidahn to go looking, so I decided I would honor our hosts and… well…

“On that?” I gulped, looking up at the immense creature.

“He,” Eidahn chuckled. “He is working horse. Pulls wagons. Strong, gentle. Easy.”

“On… him, then. All right.” I glanced about and found myself alone with Eidahn and his titan of a steed in this little grove of the Riders’ tent forest. “Say, where did they go? I was just eating with Hester and Gena.”

Eidahn shrugged and handed me the reins.

My first proper lesson in riding was, upon later reflection, a stirring success. The beast was docile, we trotted about on an infinite sea of unproblematic grass, and I was never in much danger of falling off. But at the time, I was filled nearly to my very capacity by fear. Fear of embarrassing myself. Fear of injury¹. Fear that I would prove unable to learn and unworthy of my present company. Even a meta-fear that I was near to the point that fear would overwhelm me and I would involuntarily toss the reins aside, dismount, and flee idiotically on foot into the distance.

But the most menacing, most sinister fear lurking in the menagerie of my fears was the fear of the future. The veld is the storied land of legendary horsemen, but it is also a harsh land. It crushes the unprepared, it swallows mighty heroes, and it ambushes and gobbles up even its native sons and daughters. Was I next? Would my life depend on my ability to fight and ride as the Yariagar do? If so, each minute in this saddle was one of the most precious minutes available to me.

But, as it happens, the hardest part of my day to come was not one I had been fearing at all. Eidahn helped me down from the saddle as the band began to stake out a camp for the evening. I spent a decent portion of a minute fully concentrating on keeping my noodly, quavering legs beneath me. Then I looked up to see Hester.

He was offering me a sword.

I looked around. Gena and three of the riders’ teens stood in a loose circle just behind Hester, also holding swords.

I looked back at Hester, pleading silently.

“Oh, no, this is a favor, my friend,” Hester said, a drop of reproach at the tip of his tongue. “New training at the point of exhaustion settles in the fastest.”

“You jerk,” I said.

The shit-eating grin crept across his face. “But it’s true. Come on.”

He lofted the sword at me and I caught it with a great theatric fumble. It was some relief, at least, to realize that the scabbard was not a scabbard at all—it was the sword itself, which was a wooden trainer.

Finally, the sun dove behind the distant ridge to the west. I left Gena and Hester and stumbled back to our tent, and when I collapsed onto my bed I realized I would barely be able to get up even if pressed. I suppose Hester had known that, too, which is why he hadn’t allotted any breaks during the exercise.

Ariké and Eidahn bustled about the tent; Hester remained out on some unspecified business (or perhaps simply for a drink around a fire somewhere else at camp). Gena, eventually, lifted the flap and came in with a little ceramic flagon, which she carried by the neck, and a pair of little matching cups.

“Here. Don’t have too much, you need to sleep, but…”

“Oh, gods, thank you. Don’t trap yourself in here on my acc…”

“You needn’t worry. Here on my own initiative.”

I took a smell of the steaming liquid she offered.

“A rice liquor. From the south end of the Valley,” Gena explained.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“I don’t… um. Drink very much,” I said, wincing a bit at the sweet strength of the stuff.

“Neither do I. Do you plan on doing something stupid?”

“No, but…”

Gena snorted. “‘But?’ Oh no.”

“Yeah. I said something… very regrettable to Henri once at a feast.”

“Good thing you’re still an apprentice. Youthful proclivities get overlooked, right?”

“I suppose. I rather suspect that some lords overlook… youthless proclivities, too. But I’ve never once seen… I can’t imagine Montigo… I have to fill her shoes.”

“Is that how it works?”

“What? No, not technically; I’m not required to fully abstain, but…”

“No, I mean; are you to be pledged to the service of the court of Ilianath? Isn’t that a very serious engagement?”

“Well, yes, it’s very serious. The Court Wizard’s Oath isn’t just a set of words, it’s a whole ceremony that a senior wizard officiates and spell cast by the oath-taker. The oath-taking wizard is bound in fealty and service to their lord, and the lord is bound to heed and protect their wizard. The spell ensures hair-raising punishments for either party breaking those bonds.”

“So is that what you’ll be doing?”

“I suppose so.”

“You suppose so.”

“I haven’t given it much thought.”

“But it’s not an inevitability.”

“Suppose not.”

“Hm.”

There was a gentle silence as Gena refilled our drinks.

“I’ve been making progress,” she said.

“On…?”

“Oh, right. You’ve had a lot on your mind,” she chuckled. “I’ve been studying the Halls.”

“How?”

“I’ve been thinking, with my mind. Do they not teach apprentices that?”

“No, but… I mean yes! But where have you found the time? In all this travel? The resources? I want to find my way back to the Halls just as badly—even worse lately—but I’d need a stack of books the size of one of these wagons…”

“I’d wish for the same, but we have to do without.”

“So you have, I guess. Let’s hear it, then, eh?”

She laid out the basic points of her hypothesis to me. I began to feel a bit lightheaded with the implications. Or was that the liquor?

The Halls were a realm of the Lightbringer’s creation, Gena postulated. This came as no particular surprise. But, further, she said, consider its bare and alien nature: it was a realm of the Lightbringer’s own meaning, a meaning unfettered by the minds and wills of her peer divinities. A realm of meaning, then, would make contact with our own not in physical ways, but in conceptual ways.

To understand the Halls, we could start by better understanding our own world.

I regret that I am unable to reproduce the hypothesis in its entirety. Gena’s first bit of genius was the little twist of inverse thinking that inspired her to think of studying Mundus to understand better the Halls. The rest was an exercise in dogged polymathematics. Each idea was supported by other observations and further theories. She had checked every supposition against an array of sources—whatever sources she could simply remember. Three of which she quoted (by memory!). Every stray thought was collected and constructed, and I could sense the invisible mass of ideas that didn’t fit and had been ruthlessly discarded. It would be so easy, in the hypnosis of passion, to let just any charming thought cling to one’s argument and fail to see its deficiencies, and then let it weigh the whole enterprise down. Not Gena. She had harnessed her passion for this search into a razor-sharp perception, carving away what was wrong from what was right.

There was just one aspect that I thought was under-examined.

“This invites obvious comparisons, don’t you think? Mundus. We think of it as a world below the Garden and above Chthonus². But what if instead, it’s between…”

“Between a cadre of divinities, yes. That they may push and tug.”

“We’re going to make a heretic of you after all, I think,” I mumbled.

“I follow only her commandment to study,” she said uneasily.

“You don’t think you’ll get objections from the… uh… doctrinists? Big thing, that ordering of the cosmos, with the ancient gods and their grand architecture.”

“The theories aren’t inconsistent.”

“In a basic sense, sure, but… this is an entirely new characterization of Mundus! Every last little fixture of our current logos seems suspect in its light, if you ask me.” Gena shrugged, so I barreled on. “You know I was there for the bitter infighting over where a rock goes when you throw it. Imagine the politics over questions like, ‘was the original godly design meant to be so… malleable?’”

“Fine,” Gena said. “I get it. Nothing I can’t handle.”

I was suddenly feeling a little disoriented for a new reason. “Gena! This is marvelous insight, potentially world-shattering³ work ahead. This is a new frontier for mortal understanding of… everything, and it came to you on a stroll across the grasslands. Shouldn’t this be exciting?”

“It is, Howe, don’t get me wrong. It just doesn’t change everything. Not yet. We still have work to do to get back to the Halls.”

I eyed her. “Maybe you express excitement differently than I do.”

“Years of reclusion in a monastery might do that.”

“Sure,” I laughed. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“So,” I said, finishing my little cup. “We find places where the meaning here, on Mundus, has contact with the meaning there, in the Halls.”

“Right.”

“But since we can’t see the ‘geography’ over there, we have to make do with our best guess.”

“Also right.”

“I have a partial star chart; it’s what I could draw down from memory from our last visit. I’ll make a study of it.”

“A star chart?” Gena asked, tilting her head.

“Right. History is my favorite subject of logical study, but astromancy is my favorite subject of arcane study. The stars are… ‘fixed’ is perhaps an oversimplification, but they are nearly so. They are there, always there, whether they are in plain view or hidden behind the clouds or invisible before the sunlight. They have been so for millennia. Their arrangements contain meaning, meaning which is extraordinary because it is shared by every inhabitant of the Mundus. Well, on the southern continent anyway.

“Many of the spells I have trained on in my years are derived from the stars. Find some number of them that bear relations, in position, size, color, harmonics; detect their meaning; relate that meaning to latent correspondences in the Mundus… once all of these ideas are correlated in one’s mind and those lines of correlation are sensed down here, a spell may be formed from them.

“Anyhow, with so much power in the stars… it stands to reason that if the stars there bear any relation to the stars here, they should provide valuable clues in our search.”

“I see,” Gena replied, sipping, learning. “A fine start. Do keep me apprised.”

I handed her my cup. “I will. But you’re right—first I need to stop drinking and get some sleep.”

“Right. I’ll contemplate the Word. In some new ways, mind.”

“Gena, I just wanted to say… well, thank you for the drink; I needed that, and… I meant it; this is a stunning and impressive idea you’ve had.”

“Happy to, Howe.”

It felt unbecoming of me to complain about it, but it seemed to me like she hadn’t taken the damn compliment and I wondered why. Did she see it as pointless fawning? Did she not enjoy my company much? Did she suspect my motives?

The tiny knot bubbled around a bit in my chest for a moment, but I didn’t end up having the time to fret over it. I’m sure I fell asleep immediately, because I remember nothing other than a brief and happily dulled creak of pain my sides gave as I lowered myself, still clothed, onto my bed.

I slept blessedly free of any dreams.

1. I could sense the horse’s latent, cosmic strength beneath me. But while strength would certainly be a causal factor in any injury I sustained, my sense of fairness toward the kind creature compels me to clarify that his strength would not be the culprit in any injury.

2. Hence, Mundus Medias, “the world between.”

3. In a sort of less-metaphorical-than-usual way! Ha, ha.

XV The Sword

The next week sped by as though it were a dream of its own, though. Gena and I learned and learned and learned. Our hosts taught us to ride and care for and groom the horses. We pitched and packed the living space night and day. We walked, marched, rode, and sang¹. Hester, every damn day, would whack us with the wooden swords. It was very much like the first few weeks of learning Classical Ivian under Montigo’s tutelage: not noticing the building exhaustion until you halted and it caught you from behind like a wave crashing over your back and driving you face-first into the sand.

Which is when Gena and I would try out new theories. How did these two realms contact? And did we have any hope of finding any of the ways out here on the veld, or closer to our destination in the east? We had a few workable ideas: to study natural geography, for worldly transition zones may reflect transitions in worldly meaning; astromancy, for perhaps a spell or formula might be devised to derive the location of the ways from some relationship in two cousin skies; or perhaps history, given that the first of the ways was to be found in the storied College of the Apostles.

The eighth night, we were bandying about one more theory (radix lex²) over tea. The tent was crowded; Hester, Ariké, and Eidahn were all inside and we were joined by Chethe and his young grandson, a round-cheeked and cheerfully waddling little lad named Ormu.

“Are all of you kingdom folk so energetic?” Chethe said. His smile drew out the crows feet at the leathery corners of his eyes.

“I’m not sure any of us are actually Anteianites!” I said. I looked to Gena.

“I’d say the apprentice wizard is right,” Gena said, “though it depends on who is counting. Nico would count me as his subject, but my binding to the college is much stronger.”

“And I’m and Orlander. Hester an East Marcher.”

“Ah, but… Nico is a king; Emault is a king; Joan is a… she’s a king, basically,” Chethe said. “Makes you all kingdom folk.”

“Well, then,” I said. “No, we’re not all this energetic. I’d say these are unusual circumstances. I’m worried I’m going to collapse into a heap of bone ash when we reach the Orlan Blue, I’ll be so tired,”

“I ought to tell you to speak for yourself,” Gena added, “but I don’t imagine I can keep up like this forever either.”

“But it’s been immensely rewarding! Our gratitude for your hospitality and your teaching.”

“Of course. You are worthy students of the horse, I have seen.”

“I felt more worthy yesterday. Eidahn put me on that new mare today and…”

Eidahn was laughing. “You try too hard!”

Chethe waved an amiable dismissal. “We do it so much we forget the feeling. The first time you switch steeds you wonder if you have suddenly forgotten everything, no?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling a bit red. “At least she was a good sport about it.”

“We keep youngsters away from the stallions for a few years for a reason,” Ariké said.

As Ariké was saying this, Ormu, who had been sitting at his grandfather’s side, stood and waddled over to the entrance to the tent. Someone was outside, and Chethe had apparently bid Ormu give the welcome. Ormu was thrown aside, and a man and a woman flung themselves through the tent flap, swords drawn.

Hearing Ormu gasp, Eidhan screamed in a sudden bloody fury and threw himself, unarmed, at the first man. Gena and Chethe and I scrambled to our feet. I didn’t make out Ariké’s response in my own haste. The two assailants were themselves Yariagar by dress, wearing distinct colors: crimson red and copper green, across their sleeves and chaps. The man tangled in a brawl with Eidahn, and the woman seemed to look about, searching frantically for something… or someone. I found a training sword, one which I had taken back from the last round of sparring. Thinking quickly, I advanced two paces on her, locking eyes, keeping the sword “in its scabbard” by my side³.

She called my bluff and swung a lightning strike at me. Adrenaline seized my muscles and heart, and as if it had a mind of its own, yanked my training sword up and overhead. I met her blow. Her sword severed mine, but the odd angle blunted her attack enough such that it sliced along my outer arm, instead of my head at the neck.

She returned to her one-handed guard stance and prowled left. She glanced beside me, and I noticed Gena there, herself in the one-handed guard stance Hester had been teaching us, but holding a saw.

She watched us for a beat, eyeing our sorry weapons and our difficult footing. That’s when Ormu appeared at her side with a fork, driving it deep into her side. She screamed and aimed a wild backhand at him, but missed, and he stabbed again with the fork. Gena and I were scrambling forward over the beds and clutter of the tent to take advantage of the situation when Ormu was yanked from behind by the unknown man, who apparently had freed himself of Eidahn. The woman scrambled for the exit, leaving us a view of the situation: Chethe and Eidahn sprawled on the ground, and the big man hoisting his sword overhead above the child, just out of our reach.

There was a roar from behind him.

The first I saw of Hester was a steel blur at the man’s knees, just as the man’s saber reached its apex. The man buckled, and Hester was upon him, howling, driving his blade into the man’s chest until the hilt met his ribcage.

Thinking quickly again—one down, one to go—I bolted for the exit. As I left, I glimpsed Ormu scrambling away a panic, while Hester had his forearm to the man’s windpipe, crushing the last of the life out of his body in a demonic fit of rage.

Even in the strange, disorienting lights of the camp, a patchwork of random cook fires and torches, I found what I was looking for instantly: the woman, swinging herself up onto a horse, chased by Ariké and a pair of women I recognized as shepherds.

The horse looked a bit jittery, but the woman swung it about to try to take it out the near side of the camp, to the east, directly past me.

Ariké and the shepherds were struggling to try to keep the horse from fleeing. The woman was wresting at the reins in an attempt to navigate the beast, and herself, out of their clutches. So I had just enough time to lope over to a nearby brazier, stick the end of my severed wooden sword in, and pray for it to catch. Realizing that wouldn’t work, I tore off my shirt and bundled up a half-armful of flaming coals⁴. The woman freed herself and her steed from the scrum and they began barreling down the aisle of tents and wagons. I hurried over and flung the flaming coals in their path.

The horse veered over and ran through me at a gallop. I felt the impact of the huge creature’s breast against my face, and then, somewhere more distantly, my body twisting as it fell.

1. My Yaria, today, remains as Eidahn’s Ivian: serviceable but embarrassing. And armed with a terrifying arsenal of equestrian nouns.

2. An esoteric magical doctrine analogizing Mundus to a great tree whose roots and branches were the natural law and its outgrowths, growing slowly and imperceptibly year-by-year.

3. This is still not the dumbest thing I have ever done.

4. This is the dumbest thing I have ever done.

XVI: Lucid

The very first kiss of dawn was on the sky when I awoke.

When I recall that moment, now, the first thing I remember reaching my senses was a vision of Hester’s tear-streaked face. My head was slightly elevated and he was sitting beside, hunched over me.

The second thing was the gods-awful pain.

Then the fear.

“Hester… ow. Am I…?”

“You’re alive,” he sobbed. Sobbed. “You’re alive, you’re alive.”

“Yeah,” I said weakly. “Yeah.” I tried to feel good for that; it was hard to get any gratitude to break the surface of the pain, but it felt like I owed him that.

“And you’ll stay alive,” Gena said, from somewhere else in the tent. She walked over and sat at the other side of my bed, smiling as warmly as she could manage. “Howe… now or later?”

“Might as well be now,” I mumbled. “Tell me.”

She nodded. “Your leg is broken. Part got crushed by a hoof. It will be months to heal. That’s the worst you have to worry about now.”

The fear surged. “What else?”

“Nothing permanent, thank Ae. The bleeding was very bad. You’re going to be weak for a while. We’ll need to mind the concussion as it heals. But we had help in the immediate aftermath, so everything’s gone as well as can be hoped.”

“Help… wait. Wait. What about…”

“Ormu is fine. Not a scratch. Chethe may lose the good use of his left hand but he’s well otherwise and in good spirits. Eidahn… we’re worried. He took a bad wound to the gut. We’re watching him and doing our best.”

“Ugh.”

“It may be days while we wait to see; best not to worry about it.”

“Hard not to.”

“I know. But you need rest. Think of your state like a physician would.”

“Yeah. My idiot patient can’t spend all his vigor getting worried,” I admitted. I took another look around. This was the tent, our tent, we were having tea in last night, probably just eight or so hours ago. Gena sat beside me. She fidgeted at a piece of gauze in her hands. She was trying not to show it, but she must not have slept at all. Hester sat on the other side, wearing a cloak half soaked in blood, caked with dirt. He was looking off toward the entrance, eyes still glistening. He turned back to meet my gaze. He looked so grateful.

Hester. The man who had butchered the would-be murderer last night. It had begun with the clean application of a blade technique, but it had ended with astonishing, perfect savagery. The knight’s skill and the warrior’s rage.

And here he was weeping for me at my bedside.

“What happened…” to the other attacker, I began to ask, with tense curiosity. What martial hell had he visited on her? And why? Did they know what had driven the two of them into our tent with steel bared?

“Nuh uh. You heard Gena,” he said.

“Yeah. Yeah.” I relented, and, ceasing to cling to my questions, I lay back down on bed.

A few hours later, satisfied that my concussion wasn’t so bad that I might expire at any moment, Gena left me to sleep. I was gone before she reached the tent flap.

I noticed a sensation of irresistible warmth and sweetness upon my chest, abdomen, thighs, under my fingertips and palms. I noticed that the sensation was eerily familiar.

Next I noticed I was in trouble.

I threw¹ Lady Iltara off of me in a panic.

“Hey,” I snapped. “No.”

She bore a smug smile now, standing in the center of the dream-tent. She wore an elaborately pleated and wrapped gown, dyed turquoise, that wove up around her hips and over her shoulders, producing elegant shawl-like drapes over her upper arms and a low, flowing skirt.

My gaze was drawn directly to a trace of perfect bronze skin that the gown revealed from just below her belly button straight up to her neckline. As soon as I noticed, I hastily averted it. I noticed instead how complete the tent was. The tray of tea, the sat-upon beds, the stray bits of equipment—the training sword—were all just as they had been the night before.

“You are unwell,” she said. “Sleeping at odd times. We have the most vivid dreams when we are like that.”

“Right. Right. Look,” I said, still not meeting her eyes. “It’s been a tough day.”

“I can see that.”

“Can you?” I said, still letting my instincts converse for me while I shepherded my scrambling thoughts. “How?”

“Well, it’s plain to see in your expression, for one thing. Besides that, I have my ways of seeing and knowing.”

“Oh, sure. Is it… the Hyng Oracle? I know the theory but haven’t performed one. Or perhaps something from the northern tradition. I hear the emperor’s dragon-officers have a similar seeing that they do.”

“Why should it be those?” She rubbed her chin, amused. “You think I cannot simply see?”

“Well, no…” I said. Inspiration struck. “But you went through great lengths to get a hold of a spellbook. A goddess’s spellbook, sure, but her works are the foundation of our tradition anyway.”

“True.”

“The knowledge must be useful to you. Which means you must practice magic like mine. So which is it?”

The lady watched me for a second. “I do. I take part in Ae’s knowings, just as you do. But I also wield a power foreign to you. Larger. Older. And it is mine.” She paced over and sat at my bedside, where Hester had been. She sat with her back, distractingly revealed, facing me, her head turned to watch me over her shoulder. “But between you and me, when I need to see, I use the old Hyng ways.”

“Oh,” I said, completely unprepared for a straight answer. “Well. What did you see last night…? Wait. They were yours, weren’t they?” I sat up a little bit.

“Heavens, no. You’re in a dangerous place, my friend. Your corporeal body, anyway. Here is safe.”

“I don’t… I’ll be honest with you; I don’t trust you.”

“I know. Can’t we fix that?” She rested a hand, gently, on my mangled left leg.

“You know that Gena wants me to treat with you, I presume.”

“She is a smart woman.”

“She’s impressive. I guess I’ll take her advice. What do you want?”

“I want to give you what you want, of course.” She stood, offering me her hand. “Haven’t you been listening?”

I accepted her gesture and stood. That’s when I looked down at my feet and realized that one of them should have been… well, I hadn’t actually looked under the dressings at it, but the word crushed had been used. I nearly fell over, but Lady Iltara caught me with an arm under my left shoulder. With her other hand, she used a fingertip to lift my chin to face her.

“Come now. Stand. It’s a dream, Horwendell.”

I locked eyes with her and put my weight back on the leg. It held. I chose to believe, for now.

“Good,” she said. “Now. The veld is a hard, dangerous place. The assassins were from a different band of Yariagar, who call themselves the Morul-Om. They came for your knight, believing that they could kill two birds with one stone. Weaken the House Eastmost by disposing of its finest heir, and drive a wedge between the Windvalley Riders and Anteianum by embarrassing Chethe. Killing a man under his protection, you see.”

I nodded, remembering how the woman had seemed to have been searching the tent for something. Of course: she had been looking for Hester, who hadn’t arrived until after she beat her retreat. As I replayed the encounter and worked through the logic, I forgot my leg.

“Both are dead,” Iltara continued. “Your knight is simply too valiant and too deadly. Your hosts will soon discover, if they haven’t already, that one of their outriders was killed last night. The assassins overtook him before he could give the cry; that’s how they got into camp.”

“I… see. Why are you telling me this?”

She smiled. She was still holding my hand, I noticed, and now she twined her fingers with mine. “Well. I want the best for you. And I want you to trust me. I have told you some truths; when you awake you may go see them for yourself, and indeed, make use of them. Go tell your companions about the Morul-Om. They will be glad to know.”

“Okay. And the other reason?”

“I have been building to the point. The veld is a dangerous place. Dangerous mortals, dangerous beasts, dangerous lands. And the east is no more placid. Your leg…”

I thought about it, which was a mistake. I fell. She caught me, holding me in a dancer’s dip. Showoff.

“Oh, so sorry. Your leg, as I was saying, makes you quite vulnerable, now. I want to help.”

“And how do you plan on that?”

“You are an arcanist. You know how meaning and mind conquer the material world. Dreams can be much more than dreams.”

I caught on. “You’re saying that your power here…”

She began to lower me gently onto my bed. “Go on.”

“… can have effects out there. Probably… ah. My body. You are proposing to heal my leg.”

“Yes, but more than that. I am proposing to allow you to heal your leg. It is the power of your own dreams over yourself. I can give it to you. It is a power within all of us, and I am the one who can see it. Unleash it.”

“But you’ll want something in return.”

“Enter my service.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” She smiled. She was sitting bedside with her back to me again.

“I… can’t do that.”

“And why not?”

“We’re… on our way to recover the Doctrina Tempestas. From you. I don’t suppose I can do both. And besides, I… have other things to do,” I finished at a lame mumble.

“I’m sure if those things are so important, you could tell me all about them.”

I opened my mouth to try to say something, but she put a fingertip to my upper lip. “Oh, but not yet. You need to give this some thought. If your ‘things to do’ turn out to be petty excuses, won’t you feel silly losing the argument? Think, my friend.” She leaned in a little closer. “Think about what you want. What you have, and what you, truly, must give up. Think of the inner power you could have. Think of a life with it.”

She removed her finger, put her lips to mine, and the dream faded.

It was night in the tent. I lay, heart drumming, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the surroundings. These surroundings—the beds, the furs and seating pads, the boxes of tools and utensils—that felt like home. These surroundings I was beginning to fear I could never leave, not even in my sleep.

Gena and Eidahn were asleep beside me. I rolled over to nudge Gena awake, and then gasped in agony. I had forgotten about my leg. A testament more to the power of the dream, or to its limits?

The pained noise I made did have the effect of waking Gena up, so that was something.

“Howe. Are you okay?” she asked, above a hush but below the threshold for rudeness at this time of night.

“I was better a second ago,” I managed through gritted teeth. “For that matter, this afternoon.”

“What is it? Swelling? Shooting pains?”

“No, sorry, I shouldn’t scare you like that. Leg’s… not fine, but not… you know. Anyway, I can’t sleep. She’s back.”

“Oh. I take it you still don’t much enjoy her company.”

“No!” I said just a bit too loudly. “I mean…” I sighed. “Look. You asked me to speak with her. I did. But I can’t just… take what she’s offering. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Did you learn anything?”

I hauled my sleepy upper body up to a seated position and took a glance about the dark little abode. Everyone else was asleep… or pretending to be so. It didn’t matter either way, I supposed; they all knew. So I recounted the encounter to Gena.

“Damnit,” Gena said. “She’s good.”

“Um,” I said, failing to see past the obvious but obviously incorrect interpretation. “How do you mean?”

“She manipulated the conversation well. She was able to bully you into talking what she wanted to talk about.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt heat building in my cheeks and jaw tightening with frustration.

“Notice what she wants to avoid conversation about—the tome. She’d rather talk about you. Your allegiance. What she can offer you. She came back there every time, and you let her.”

I said nothing.

“She’s not manipulating you the way you think she is. She might just be trying to unbalance you with the unwanted intimacy. Have you fixate on that. Then…”

“Gena… come on.”

“… What?”

“Do you think I’m not trying? I’m half delirious with exhaustion and getting ambushed by a practiced manipulator during my only time of rest. What the Hell do you want from me?”

There was silence. I couldn’t make out Gena’s face very well in the darkness. But I could clearly imagine her sharp, thin brows at an angle, her eagle eyes watching, her mind perceiving.

“Maybe you’d like to do it yourself,” I said. “Break a leg.”

“What if I did?” she said. But then I was completely caught off-guard: there was not a hint of sarcastic or defensive bite to her tone.

“Wait. You mean that?”

“Not about breaking a leg, no. But there’s one person in your dream. Why couldn’t there be two? It would put her off her guard.”

“She’s an experienced spellcaster. You’re not. You’ve never studied any of this.”

“You have. Can you teach me to enter your dream?”

“No. It’s clearly possible, but it could be months of study to discover and master things like this. And that’s with a good library and the ability to write my peers for ideas.”

“Then… teach me lucid dreaming and tell her to talk to me. No guarantee she will. But it’s worth a shot.”

“I can’t imagine Hester would approve.”

“He thinks she has the upper hand when we do this. But I think we’re giving her opportunities to reveal her hand.”

Or other things, I thought, unbidden.

I sighed. “Maybe. It’ll take time.”

“We have time. Please. I want to start as soon as you think is appropriate. Provided you’re feeling well enough to.”

“Do we have time? Gena, the band has to ride at some point. And then…”

I trailed off. And then where would I be? There was silence again.

“We have time,” Gena said, finally. “One week at a time. Nomads take injured and sick on their wagons all the time. And you may be well enough to ride soon.”

“And when we reach their summer pasture?” The words dripped out, acid with fear and frustration.

“One week at a time. Howe, we’re in this together, aren’t we?”

That caught me by surprise. “I don’t know how to answer that. Are we? I don’t know.”

“I…” Gena paused. There was, again, nearly perfect silence. The low, faint rush of wind over the grass and camp only seemed to give the silence a body.

When Gena spoke again, it was quiet and steady. “I’m sorry, Howe. I’m asking a lot of you. And in some ways I’m not giving you much in return.”

I waited to hear her out.

“I’m relying on you. Your expertise. Your good will and your determination. And you’re right, I’m asking it of you in the most difficult times. But I haven’t given you much of a chance to rely on me, have I?”

I took a deep breath. “Well, I gather you’ve been caring for me since the fight the other night. Took part in saving my life, if the damage is as bad as you’ve said.”

“But you don’t know if you can rely on me to see this through… to not to leave you with your broken leg at some shelter while Hester and I forge on. You all but said it just now.”

“… Yeah.”

“I’m here for the truth. Hester is on his holy crusade. I think it’s just as important as he thinks, but it’s not all as it seems. Not to us, and especially not to him.” She glanced over. Was she confident he was asleep? Was she willing for him to have heard that? “I need your help. I need someone to see this with me, so I can know. Truly know.”

“You can’t do that yourself?”

“I’m not used to being a heretic,” she said quietly. “And for another thing…” she continued. “Howe, you’re… I think of you as a friend. I know it’s been a short time and I’ve been unkind at times.”

“Gena, thanks, but you don’t need to…”

“No, I ought to say this,” she said, waving me off. “The Word is clear that we protect and uphold those close to us. And beyond that… it would be personally… repulsive to me. To simply leave you behind.”

I did feel better, but also a bit anxious that I didn’t know how to respond. “I, uh… thanks.”

Then I filled the silence with, “I’ll… we’ll figure it out. I’ll see what I can teach you about dreaming.”

Suddenly I was afraid that the offer that was supposed to emphasize our reconciliation may have come off instead as… transactional. A cookie for an apology. But if Gena heard it that way, she didn’t show it. “I look forward to making introductions with the lady.” Was she smiling?

“Ugh. I don’t get how you can be so cavalier about her.”

“Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s a dream, isn’t it?”

“Sure, but we know she’s a dangerous… whatever kind of person she is. Ruler, sorcerer, magi, what have you. And I can’t help but feeling…”

I could see Gena open her mouth to tease me. “Intimidated?” she might have said, or perhaps “all hot and bothered.” But she caught a glimpse of something in my face and bit it back, allowing me to continue.

“… you know what she said about the power of dreams?” I said. “She made it as a promise. But I think it was a threat.”

1. To whatever extent the idea of “throwing” makes any sense in a realm whose physical actions, movement, and distance were all of dubious coherence.

XVII: The Mysteries

I awoke again around noon, and we told Hester and Ariké about the Morul-Om while Eidahn slept. Hester expressed his doubts and concerns, tut-tutting us from behind a scowl, but he couldn’t deny any of the verifiable details: he had killed two attackers, natives of the veld, by his own hand, and the outriders had recovered their fallen comrade about half a league from camp. He did get Ariké to promise to be frank about the source of the information when providing it to Chethe, who would be meeting with the elders that night.

After this conversation, a handful of riders arrived to help Gena tie my leg to a splint, which had been carefully carved to the proper angle and planed to a pleasant, cool smoothness by one of the riders’ carpenters. Ariké corrected me when I expressed my thanks for this moving generosity, asserting that it was simply good hospitality, and also that I shouldn’t thank them yet.

“Why?” I wondered aloud.

“They,” Ariké began, gesturing to the two men, “are here to hold you down.”

“… Why?” I said again, a bit more quietly.

“Setting the leg is going to hurt.”

I did manage to whimper a thanks to them afterward, though, while the man who had tied my leg lowered it to the ground and waved the others off. They let me go, and though I ceased straining against them in the previous minute or so, I had still been straining in general, and I did my best to relax.

The last man stayed with me. He was a slight, short, middle aged man with a long mane of black hair issuing from beneath a feather-adorned skull cap. He had a hard, finely-focused look to his eyes. He reminded me of…

“Hello,” he said. “I speak… poor Ivian.”

“Ah. I speak terrible Yaria, sorry,” I replied. It was a phrase I had worn well lately.

“Sorry, sorry. Yes. We will try Yaria, sorry.”

“Alright,” I said, and then I switched over to my halting, groping Yaria. “Thank you. For… foot.”

“Our hospitality, friend. You deserve not to be bed-bound.”

“Mmm.”

“I am the Salkhin Duuchin¹. My name is Tof, but few call me that any more. When I became the duuchin, that became more important.”

That’s who he reminded me of. Magister Montigo².

“You do… magic?” I said.

“Yes, I do magic. I care for the band, all my children. Magic makes for good care.”

“You’re… young, for all them, the children.”

“Well, we can’t just make the oldest rider the duuchin, now, can we? The duuchin has to care.”

I thought I saw the point, though I worried the language barrier was doing some mischief.

“And you, too,” he continued. “While you ride with us, you are my child, too.”

“Thank you,” I managed again.

“Erdemten Gena spoke well and honestly of you.”

That word I didn’t know, but I guessed it was an honorific. And what did he mean by honestly? “She is… eager,” I said, substituting in a word for a spirited horse with fond undertones. That was probably pretty rude, I thought, after I said it.

The duuchin chuckled. “Oh?”

“She wants… sleep-teach.” I was making it worse. “Magic. Sleeping-awake. Teach,” I sputtered in a mild panic.

“Hah.” He shook his head. “She wants you to teach her magic?”

I nodded. “Sleeping-awake,” I said, pitifully. How was I supposed to convey the idea of lucid dreaming? “See-sky, closed eyes, sleeping,” I tried.

That seemed to do it. I hoped, anyway. “Night-flying,” he said. “I see. She did not mention this. She did think you might like to speak to me.”

“I do like, but…”

We worked it out slowly. I was to be under his care, and so Gena had told him about my frequent encounters with Lady Iltara, as it could affect the quality of my rest. He had pressed for more, and she and Hester had explained what little we knew about her, as well as the context and text of my conversations with her.

Understandably, this had piqued his interest. He had asked the others for some time to speak with me alone.

“She…” I began before trailing off and shrugging helplessly.

“It’s all right. They told me. She is very chickher, yes?”

“I don’t know that word. Maybe.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, chuckling to himself again. “We know of Iltara.”

“Yes?” I blurted. My heart caught in my throat, and the whole effort of being excited was causing me to feel a bit light-headed.

He paused for a second, considering his words³. “She is far away, but we have heard. She is an ekhlehk.”

“A… what?”

He frowned. “This word is difficult. She is a… salan daichin. Urvagch. Wild horse.”

My eyebrows shot up. I had been leaning back on my elbows, but now I was bolt upright. “No king?”

He nodded. “She bucked him.”

“Wow.” Desheret-Nemes had been the King of the Valley of the Sun, the Old King, since the beginning of history⁴. And my nemesis—my friend?—had the gall to defy him.

“She is not the first ekhlehk. Maybe not the last.”

“Oh? I had not know of… ekhlehk.”

“She is only one we know of now. Every few korinjil… er, two-ten-years, you see. Distant towns buck him. Not for long.”

“Yes,” I said, substituting for I see. In the west we tend to think of the Old King’s rule as absolute and spare no further thought to it. But the truth is more robust than that: sometimes, his subjects do defy his rule, but any time it begets open conflict, they are crushed, and his rule remains unbroken.

“Will she… beget open conflict?”

“Foolish. She has been alive too long to be so foolish.”

“Will he, then?”

“As surely as the sun rises over the valley.”

“I…” hoped we wouldn’t be there when that happened, but I failed to find the word for hope. So I settled for “I see.”

Tof—the duuchin—and I spoke more that afternoon. As a wise man and a magic practitioner—a very similar role to the one I was being trained for, as it happens—he had amassed an enormous variety of skills and breadth of knowledge. As a lifelong member of a traveling Yaria band, he had walked and ridden across much of Anteianum, Orland, and East Arc. He had spoken to thousands of people in all walks of life, and he had the ability to borrow and read written works (and, indeed, was often entrusted to bear them from one place to another) from all over the kingdoms. His ear for Ivian was rough, but he had a knack for reading it (mostly by way of long hours and dogged patience).

His learning defied the academic structures I was used to. Instead, he seemed to give all of his knowledge, collectively and individually, two aspects: the nuut, or the mystery of the knowledge itself, and the üildel, the acts supported by that knowledge, like leaves on a tree.

His mastery of magic was primarily the understanding of the interconnected nuut of the wind and the skies and the flow of life throughout them. And the üildel were many and delightfully diverse. The first he had learned were spells that would calm wild animals and still turbulent winds. Neither he used much now in their original forms. But the skill to calm animals could be used on humans just as well, though generally only on willing subjects (such as certain nervy strangers who were in desperate need of convalescence). “People’s minds are even more stubborn than goats’”, he remarked.

His most important duty as a magic practitioner was as his namesake: influencing the wind and weather.

It was a delicate job to be undertaken with great caution. It would be tempting to work magic to keep camp dry at all times—warm fires and dry clothes are welcome all times of year—but too much of that, he said, can distort the land and even the skies over the long years of a duuchin’s life, and especially across the long centuries of a band’s life. It would do the band little good to be dry for one night if their sons and daughters would trod barren earth in thirty years.

That night was a night worthy of the effort. A funeral was to be held for the fallen outrider (a man named Kyrgh, survived by a wife, four children, a brother, and two sisters) and the assassins. I was surprised that the murderers would be accorded honors, especially alongside one of the Windvalley Riders’ own. The duuchin replied that it was really a two-part rite: the assassins would be given last rites and buried, and then Kyrgh would receive the honors befitting his long life as a dutiful father, husband, and member of the band.

We both glanced over at Eidahn. He was still asleep. He hadn’t been awake very much.

I shook my head. I still didn’t know the word for “hope.”

“We do what we can,” the duuchin said.

The band would rest for as long as necessary for Eidahn and myself to be fit to travel again. For me, it wouldn’t be long. My rattled head was healing nicely, and though a few days of bed rest wouldn’t heal my leg, I was expected to regain enough strength to ride on a wagon, or even perhaps spend a few hours on donkeyback or horseback. For Eidahn… it was uncertain. The duuchin seemed to think it would be a week before we knew more. He had been plying his trade the best he knew how—thorough care, constant examinations with the aid of Gena’s second set of trained eyes, and sweet sky breezes enchanted with life. But Eidhan’s abdominal wound was deep and treacherous, and all depended on whether his organs could continue to sustain him while they repaired.

After resuming our journey, we would be only a week shy of our first major destination. We would pass through a small stretch of Orland, skirting the hinterlands (being careful not to trample any farmers’ fields) and stopping by several small villages. Then, we would part ways with the riders, who would pass north to their lowland summer pastures. Gena, Hester and I—if I were in any condition to—would cross the Orlan Blue at Paupersbridge⁵ and follow well-traveled roads through East Arc to their terminus at Hester’s ancestral home, The Watch on the Rock.

And then, we would hazard a perilous climb up and then down through the Wituk Pass. And then we would be in the Valley of the Sun.

“My worries are… small, for his,” I tried, gesturing at Eidahn. “But… I need my foot.”

The duuchin turned from his own contemplations to meet my gaze.

“Iltara may give… sleep…” I gestured at the leg, trying to indicate “healing” somehow.

The duuchin nodded.

“Is… can do?”

After a brief pause, he said simply: “Do not accept.”

“But… can? But don’t.”

“Perhaps she can. We know her to be a mighty ilbechin. But fearsome.”

“Fearsome?” I had my suspicions, but I wanted to hear it from him.

“She defies the king, for one thing. No small act.”

I nodded, taking his word for it but not truly appreciating it. Not until later.

“And for the other… she gathers up friends. And the friends she gathers… are ill friends indeed. The Morul-Om. The Teeth of the Mare.” At my inquiring look, he elaborated. “A band like ours in the dry northwest of the valley. They are eager to fight. Raid. Take. And her other friends are… in Ivian they call them road fellows?”

“Highwaymen,” I said in Ivian, tickled.

“Right. She gathers up these. She surrounds herself with swords and bows.”

“What’s she give them?”

“What they want,” he said, shrugging. “Gold. Power. Good morodol.”

Dreams.

“So… I do not want to be her ill friend,” I worked out. “No.”

“I am glad you see.” He scratched his chin. “Perhaps you would instead do your own?”

“I am a young learner,” I said. Apprentice wizard. “And…” I shuffled around for my pack, and in it retrieved the bound tome Lorea had given me. Beautiful, but empty. Empty, but thereby beautiful, by another perspective. I showed it to the duuchin.

His eyebrows rose. “Did you lose yours? Or are you younger than I thought?”

“Lost. Maybe,” I said. “I have some remembered. But need to… remember others.” I sighed.

“Let me help. We will cshynix together. Work-learn.” Study.

“That is good for me. Thank you. But I do not… cannot… leg. Not with what I can remember.”

“Ah. No matter. Magic… nuut and üildel, they are good for the spirit. And…” he said, before adding in Ivian: “Be patient. The correct problem to solve is not always the one before you.”

“Magister Montigo.”

“The Wizard of Ilianath is wise.”

“… Yes.”

The funeral was held that night. The assassins were buried with terse respect, and then Kyrgh was laid to rest as a warrior fallen at war. The Yariagar know no greater honor⁶.

All who could stand stood upon the wild grasses. I was not expected to, but I wanted to. Gena and Hester helped me make the effort to join them.

Kyrgh’s widow rose above the crowd, facing the pyre, saddled atop her husband’s favorite horse.

The duuchin stood alone, a dark figure about five hundred paces away. There, he stared at the sky, holding back the rainstorm that had swept over the plains that evening. A wide, cylindrical sheet of rain surrounded us, its edges occasionally crackling with tiny branching darts of lightning. Mist flooded through into the gathered band, filling the scene with a dense, billowing fog, mingling with smoke.

I do not feel disposed to write much more about the night. The grief belongs to them—Kyrgh’s family, his friends, his folk—not to us.

1. literally “Gale Singer,” I would learn.

2. I had once asked her if she resented the fact that visitors to court, especially plain folk, called her just “wizard” more often than not. She said: of course not. That was what was important about her to them. In a way, it was more true a name than her given name was. There was a certain kind of respect to be found in that. And, anyway, it was a waste of her time and energy to be offended by the truth of what she was.

3. All told, he did an impressive job adjusting for my vocabulary. You never really get to appreciate things like that in the moment.

4. Quite literally. The earliest surviving records on the southern continent, besides the Word itself, are construction proclamations and corvée orders issued by the Old King himself.

5. Properly, “The Wyde Crossinge As Provisioned By Ye Goode King Trulieaux I,” but Trulieaux II had undermined that legacy by imposing an outrageous toll on the bridge.

6. The nomads of the veld and their cousins on the northern continent, the donghu, both claim to be the heirs of a tradition going back to the God of Wandering, Tormus-Iliath, who was slain as he led the great cavalry charge that broke the Lord of Agony and ended the Century of Torment. The Yariagar in particular are short on ritual and explicit acts of piety: their god is long gone, they do not feel it necessary to flatter him with words. Rather, they hold that their very way of life, that which he bequeathed to them, is holy: to ride upon the endless grasses, to sing under the open sky, to give one’s life to the battle against evil.

XVIII: The Acts

I spent much of the next few days with the duuchin, studying magic. It was his magic, magic learned through wide experiences and travels, a wild vista of observations and connections rather than the scrupulously built cathedral that is academic wizardry. Nevertheless, there were familiar treasures to be found. By the second day, I was able to reconstruct my spell for Sight: one of many ways for seeing things as they are and not merely as they appear. That was about the time Gena, laughing, declared my recovery complete and told me she wouldn’t hear any excuses about teaching her how to dream. So I did, briefing her on the basics and waking at odd hours in the night to help her capture her observations, a crucial step in helping to crystallize her attention. I noted with some interest that somehow I had found myself just as busy now, living in a stationary camp with a broken leg, as I had been when training with blade and steed in a moving band of nomads.

Ariké and the duuchin were busy, too. They spent long hours, at all times of the day and night, by Eidahn’s side.

I awoke to the groan of a horn, blown twice. In the next moment, the camp outside the tent was commotion.

Caught up in the urgency myself, I tried to roll over and stand. Instead, I face-planted when my immobilized left leg failed to mobilize.

Chethe burst into the tent and belted out some orders in Yaria. Ariké and Hester were assembling their gear in haste. Gena and the duuchin were elsewhere.

Ariké was gone through the tent flap by the time Hester noticed me. He knelt down by me. “Howe, you… you’re awake. You alright?”

“Yeah,” I said, rolling back into a seated position. “What’s going on?”

“Horned kings. Two of them. Howe… Tof and Gena are needed out there now. Can you ride?”

“No, but…”

“That’s just as well. You’re with Eidahn. Be safe.”

Hester bolted, hand steadying his sword belt, before I could get a word in. I was alone with Eidahn, listening to the sounds slowly drain out of the camp.

I looked at the tent flap. Darkness clawed at its edges: it was deep into the night. Out there somewhere, there were two horned kings hunting. And if they had summoned the entire camp… there were two horned kings fighting. Rampaging. Clashing with the best part of the band’s fighting strength.

Horned kings are huge haired creatures somewhat resembling gigantic bears in silhouette, although their reverse-jointed ungulate hind legs give away that they are more closely related to horses or cows than true bears. They have huge, keratinous plates on their heads and jaws, molded to their snouts, with protrusions on the fore that serve like beaks for tearing food and gouging prey.

This description is as useful and important as it is terrible disservice to the true nature of the beasts. Horned kings are fearless, merciless, and cunning. Unlike nearly every other creature to be found in Mundus, a horned king sees humans—even humans riding horses—as prey, to be hunted, chased, an devoured. And they seem to relish in a fight. Some say that they wish to give a true test to their awful strength and speed. Others say that they simply lust for blood above and beyond their need to feed. Underlying both ideas is an agreement: there is a keen, cruel mind that drives the titans the dominate the veld.

Every band on the veld has done battle with a horned king. Every band on the veld has lost siblings, parents, children, and cousins to horned kings. Much of their order to their lives is influenced by the threat of the great beasts. When one is spotted, the nearest riders will flee in separate directions, every able rider is summoned to readiness by way of hunting horns, and the dance begins. Any rider not fleeing attempts to keep up, shooting arrows at the beast in the hopes that one will penetrate the creature’s thick hide and injure it. Few do.

The chase will thunder on like this for a minute or so. The horned king does not tire, but horses and humans do. Before long one of the other riders will need to taunt the horned king, enraging it with a well-placed arrow or blow of a lance, or by presenting too enticing a target for the horned king to ignore. The horned king will buck and haul around, the taunting rider will whip the reins, and the chase will continue.

This can go on for hideous stretches of time. The horned king does not tire, and its hide will not yield to any but the most perfectly placed arrows.

In the distance, I thought I could hear the thunder of the hoofbeats.

Two horned kings. Weren’t they solitary hunters? Did mated pairs hunt?

I had nothing to do but wait. My heart pounded. I felt ill.

Then Eidahn stirred.

He began to mumble. I forced myself back up, thrashing awkwardly with sickly adrenaline.

“Eidahn. Hey. Are you all right?” I said. He did not reply, though he was moving somewhat, side to side. I repeated myself, louder, but still received no reply.

I looked around. Just me.

I looked back down at him. Was he all right? He didn’t look it. I set my jaw, as if that would keep back my fear that this was all about to go wrong. What else was there to do?

What would Gena do?

I began my examination.

His eyes were still closed. He wasn’t responding to spoken questions or commands. If he was conscious, it was barely so. But he had just been asleep, right? Whatever this new condition was, it wasn’t sleep, then. I felt his forehead: cold and clammy. Blueish lips. All signs of… general malaise. What was I supposed to do about general malaise? Was he going to die here?

Pain, I guessed. He was being disturbed by the pain. Something had happened inside his body, and someone needed to…

I swallowed, trying to keep from throwing up. I took a few deep breaths… then noticed that Eidahn was not doing the same. His breathing was fast, shallow, desperate.

That was it.

I looked around. All the flaps on the tent were closed. The air in here was still. Stale. Lifeless.

I crawled over to the top of my bed and drew myself up to a kneel upon my right knee, my left leg swung stiffly out on its splint. The pain stabbed at my calf, within my calf, rampaging up my leg and spine, and I nearly passed out.

But I didn’t. Trembling with the effort of staying up, my consciousness buttressed by sheer fear, I was able to tie up the window-flap above our beds, opening our tent to the night sky. The wind and pressure began to thump against the tent wall. One step forward, but we needed another opening for good flow.

I threw myself down to my knee, wincing with the pain. I looked across the tent, over at the entrance flap.

Eidahn gave a half-gasp of struggle.

One arm and one leg at a time, I crawled across the tent to the entrance flap. I gave one last awkward reach and ripped the flap aside.

The tent stopped thumping and filled with a sweet, cool night breeze.

I said a prayer for the winds, that the mysteries of the air and skies would favor us tonight.

By the time I had dragged myself back to the beds, Eidahn’s breathing had slowed. The big man was taking comfortable, deep breaths, and his eyes were open.

“Hmm?” he said.

“It’s night, friend. Sleep,” I managed, pretending nothing was wrong.

“Where… hmm.” He knew something was wrong. Had the tremble in my voice given it away?

“Rest, Eidahn.”

“No. Where is everyone?”

He was suddenly more lucid than we had seen since the night he had thrown himself at the assassins. I remember wondering if I was dreaming.

But I wasn’t. He had been at the last gate, and I had but to unlatch it for him.

He had made it.

I couldn’t just lie to him, now. “Eidahn… it’s been a few days. We’ve been worried about you. But… they’re out fighting off a horned king.”

“Oh. Can I…”

“Absolutely not.” I almost had to laugh at the insanity. “All able riders have been summoned. You did your good turn. Rest.”

Thunder and hoofbeats rolled over the winds.

So the both of us rested in a tense, worried silence.

When Ariké returned to the tent, they burst into tired, grateful tears, nearly falling onto Eidahn in their surprise to see him awake.

Hester, Gena, and the duuchin followed shortly thereafter. We all politely averted our eyes from the joyous reunion. Dawn was on the horizon.

Hester had his shit-eating grin on.

“By the… really?” I said.

“Really.”

“You…?”

“Oh, no, not me,” Hester interjected. But everyone made it back.”

“By Ae’s aegis.”

“By her will.”

“Gena, did you…?”

“Oh, no. I rode with him,” she said, gesturing to the duuchin. “He needed some help.”

“The skies favor us,” he said¹. “And the thunder answered when I called. And I see…” he said, noting the window and entrance tied open, “… someone else has called the winds to them.”

“Nothing so dramatic,” I said. “How did you help, Gena?”

“I kept watch while he worked his magic. He’s vulnerable without another set of eyes.” The duuchin nodded to confirm this explanation.

That had turned out to be the Windvalley Riders’ great asset. The chase had begun mostly as normal: one of the outriders, patrolling close to the camp, had spotted the horned king and began leading it away from the camp. But then she spotted the other horned king, and made a desperate and skillful turn to avoid being sandwiched between the two.

Other riders began to arrive on the scene, and they tried to split the beasts up, but the chases became a beehive of havoc. Fortunately, the duuchin was on hand, and with Gena to guide his horse at the periphery of the chaos, he called the thunder to his aid. The terrible, unstoppable force he summoned enraged, then battered, then pulverized the predators.

With the crisis defeated, we sank into exhaustion. Gena left the tent to inform Chethe of Eidahn’s good turn, and before she returned, most of us had fallen back to sleep.

1. Magic users are forbidden from simply saying, “I had to cast some spells.” It’s a professional ethos.

XIX: The Evil Queen

I was sitting, thinking. Brooding, frankly. Perhaps not happily alone, but contented with the solitude.

Then I realized I wasn’t alone. Damnit, I thought.

“What, aren’t you happy to see me?”

We were sitting on a large oak root. For a moment I wondered if I was dreaming of the Halls, but I lifted my chin to look around. The oak we sat beneath shot up from the center a humble little hill, making it the tallest of the scattered oak and beech trees around. The undergrowth was thin. A packed dirt road could be seen through a few layers of branches and trunks, winding its way below a ridge and above a little pond.

Lady Iltara sat beside me, her hip and shoulder against mine, her head at rest on my right shoulder. Her eyes, I could feel, traced the road. The road south to Ilianath.

“Why bring me here?” I asked.

“I asked my question first.”

I conceded and considered. “Honestly? No, I dread it a little.”

She made a hurt little whimper, gently saccharine with irony. “I have treated you with the utmost respect. I have been forthcoming and honest!”

“No you haven’t.”

“Did I not speak the truth last we met?”

“You did, but… that’s not the point. You ask a lot of me, to stumble and make decisions in the dark. Enter your service? How am I to…”

“Horwendell.” she said. She swung her hips over mine, kneeling astraddle me, her breasts at my eye level.

“Oh, come on,” I said.

“Shhh.” She leaned back a bit to make better eye contact. The view was even more alluring with her smoky eyes at the focus. “Listen. This is your problem, my dear friend. You stumble and make decisions in the dark every day of your life. You feel as though you make no decisions, but what have you done? You have followed the good sir knight on his quest. You endorse his misguided crusade. You assent to his training, his order. You are a fine sword hand, for a novice, I’ll admit. But think. You could have been pursuing your dreams with that time. But you decided not to.”

“If you mean to turn me against…”

“Oh, no, Howe. He is a fine man and I must admit some jealousy to the Lightbringer in whose service he labors. What I ask is: if I had asked you, a week ago, if you would prefer to train with a Yaria cavalry saber or drink deeply of the mysteries of the world, what would you have done?”

I said nothing.

“Especially given your current condition?” She drew two fingertips across my thigh. Remembered pain coursed through it, and I flinched under her hips.

We were getting off-track, I realized. “My question first. Why’d you bring me here?”

She smiled. “You’re the dreamer. Why’d you bring us here?”

“You have nothing to do with this?”

“Not at all.”

The road home. In a few days the band would be passing through the upper reaches of the kingdom of Orland. Ilianath would only be a short way south, along safe (if rough) roads.

Was she lying, or was I really thinking about home? I supposed both could be true. And, certainly, with my leg the way it was…

I regarded the road somberly, unwilling to admit to Lady Iltara the predicament. I didn’t have to, anyway.

“Horwendell of Ilianath,” she said. “I know where we are. I know what has transpired. You’re a good man with bright, bright promise. But your broken shell betrays you. You couldn’t help them when they went to fight, could you?”

“No,” I admitted. “Shame,” I added, trying to dispel the gloom. “Would’ve liked to see the beasts.”

“You worry. They deserve help like they got from the band’s own wise man. Help you could give… were you not a hobbled novice.”

“I get it; I get it,” I grumbled. She was right and it was making me crabby. But then I realized why: I was crabby because I felt as though I should be doing better. Because Gena had been asking me to do better. Because Gena knew I could do better. If I asked her what to do, I thought, what would she say?

Well, probably to quit moping, for one.

“Make a choice, for once, Howe,” Lady Iltara was saying, leaning in close. “Seize your dreams.”

“No,” I said, realizing what I wanted to talk about.

“… Oh?” She drew back, regarding me. Was that genuine surprise? A crack in her armor?

“Dreams… yes, all well and good. But I decline to enter your service.”

“It’s a long and lonely road home.”

“Sure,” I said, my mind somewhere else.

She watched me, looking me directly in the eyes, her eyebrows quirked. When I declined to elaborate, they peaked in a sort of facial shrug and she gave a sigh. “I think I have merely yet to convince you of the merit of life as a dreamer. Please. Think on it more.”

Her eyes were closed and lips were nearly at mine, and I hadn’t yet really figured out what I wanted to say. Or, rather, how I might best put it. So I just blurted it out: “you are an ekhlehk?”

She drew back, eyes flaring open then narrowing. “That is exceedingly rude. I will forgive you a second time. Do not ask me to forgive you a third time.”

“Oh! I’m sorry. My Yaria is terrible. What does it mean?” Then, rather than give her any room to deflect, I stuck my hand in the fire: “you rebel against your king?”

Her mouth twisted in distaste. “It means upstart. The wise man of the band has been speaking ill of me, I see.”

“Well, no, he merely says…”

“Do not heed the ramblings of an ignorant outlander,” she snapped. She was still close, but it was a decidedly different tension between us now. It had become less of an embrace and more of a grip.

“My master always taught me to see things for myself, and see them for as they are,” I said. “So…”

“I am a lady who serves my people, and he…”

“… you have declared yourself and your domain against the king…”

“… indulges in this jealous heckling…”

“… and you mean to seize his throne with the stolen power of the storms. To fell a god?”

Her eyes began to burn. And her hands, so firmly on my robes, began to burn. We began to burn. “You think I cannot?”

My instincts were screaming at me. The heat of her hands was stinging at my shoulders and chest. And the sting would soon become a sear, and then a scorch. I was already trying to worm free. “I’m just trying to see the truth of it,” I stammered through my animal fear.

“I have given you the truth and offered so much more,” she snarled. I toppled backward, and she atop me. Her eyes were bright like stars, and dreadful wings of flame spread behind her. I was still trying to wriggle away, but I found no purchase on whatever surface we had fallen back onto. My leg seized with pain. “But when so generously I bade you decide, you decided to reject the truth. Perhaps I must show you.”

I couldn’t get away. I was going to be consumed by fear and the flames, all at once. My skin would crack and bleed, then cauterize, my lungs would be quashed with smoke and airless heat, and I would reduce to ash and bones while the sorceress held me to the flames.

She said nothing now, only willing my anguish with her shining eyes.

My training. It was a dream. Through the fear and the pain, I wrested control of my fear-flailing arms and mind, and I cast the spell for seeing.

As the spell culminated in its final signs of meaning in the forefront of my mind, I awoke in the tent.

Gena stared eastward, deep in thought.

The camp was abuzz with the news of Eidahn’s recovery, and the tent fairly thronged with visitors that morning. Hester had been near when I had awoken making embarrassing, rapid, groaning exhalations of fear, and he had been kind enough to help me outside, to the edge of the camp, when I became coherent enough to ask for it, and then he had gone to fetch Gena. I had recounted the tale of my night and then sat, hoping the cool breeze might soothe my imagined burns.

“She more or less confirmed your hypothesis,” Gena said, finally. “Well done.”

I just kept drinking in the fresh air.

“She means to usurp the throne of the Old Kingdom,” she continued.

“The House of Os-Kedis, formally,” added Hester. “That’s how the king signs his letters.”

“She’ll fail,” Gena said, her brow tightening. “One spellbook and a mighty hubris? If that’s all it took…”

“Gods have been felled before,” Hester said.

“By peer forces. Other gods. The Lords of Hell. It took the Lord of Agony and his entire army to kill Tormus-Iliath, and at the end of it they were all destroyed themselves. This is one woman. Formidable sorceress she might be; potential access to formidable wizardry she might have, but… Howe, do you have a read on her? Do you think she’s unstable? Howe?”

Gena turned to look at me. I was only just catching up to her line of thinking. Mostly, I was hugging my good knee and feeling the cool air in my lungs and on my bare back.

“Gods, I’m sorry Howe.”

“No, no, I’ll be fine,” I said, at the sort of low volume that might’ve made her wonder if I would be fine. “I just…”

I trailed off, and we were silent for a time.

“Howe?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to ask a favor. A big one.”

“What is it?”

“I have a hunch, and we have an opportunity. Am I close? Can I be ready to talk to her tonight?”

I stared at her dumbly for a second, then managed to ask her to elaborate with a twist of my head.

“Remember that she called us out here.” (“You two, maybe,” Hester mumbled.) “You declined her service. I have not.”

“You cannot,” Hester belted out.

“She’s watching, you know,” Gena said, pausing for effect. Shut up; I know, Hester was what I took that to mean, but did he get it? “She must know you’ve been teaching me the art. She’ll appear to me with an offer, won’t she?”

“Probably,” I said. But the logic seemed… abstract, insubstantial. I wasn’t so sure.

“I need to be on my best footing for a negotiation.”

“For a what?” Hester demanded.

“A negotiation. I hope that she should offer me something similar to what she has to offer Howe. Maybe she’s willing to explain why.”

Hester shook his head and stood. “This is a dangerous game you play.”

“Think of it this way,” Gena replied. “I wager she plans to appear before me, whether I like it or not. I can prepare for the audience, with Howe’s help, or I can show up impaired. Drunk, basically.”

Hester sighed miserably. “Fine. I mislike that idea even more. But I know in my heart: we must fight this sorceress, and we must be the victors. Don’t lose sight of that, will you?” He stalked off, trying to look like he wanted to take a stretch.

“Howe, we can do it, right?” Gena said, turning back to me. She paused. A brief movement of her eyes told me that she was looking inward. “Wait. Howe?”

“Hm?”

“What I’ve been meaning to say is… I’m sorry that… well, I’ve been dismissive, haven’t I? Even in this dream-communion, this is harder on you than I knew.”

“Is it that obvious? Ugh, no, I’m…”

“Howe, no. You don’t need to hide it. You’re feeling real pain. And it’s because I asked you to. I’m sorry. So help me do my part. Please.”

I nodded. I wanted to ask, you’re not going to take the offer, right? but remembered that we were being watched. But why did I want to ask that? Didn’t I know the answer?

“We’ll go over the theory and exercises again today, then,” I said. “One last thing I haven’t taught you… well, how to cast a spell. That’s normally the most reliable way to break a dream, if it is necessary. And it has been… necessary. But even with your academic background…”

“Not in one day? Are there alternatives?”

“A few months, maybe, but not one day. But instead of a spell, perhaps we can… fall back to the general principle. Anything too… heavy, too real, can be used to break a dream. But it should be something that’s reflexive. Which is why a spell is perfect for it.”

“Perhaps the Word? I can recite The Vigil of the Second by heart.”

“The…” I almost had to laugh. The Vigil of the Second is one of the most notoriously difficult passages in the Word, consisting of a series of poems with strange meter connected by prose narrative that is rich with allusion and all but impossible to truly appreciate without a deep understanding of Heroic-Era literature¹. Of course Sister Gena would have it memorized. But obviously this conversation had done a lot to nourish me back to health and coherence, because I displayed the presence of mind to not laugh. Besides being difficult, The Vigil of the Second is a tale of a man outcast from his home, with no family to call his own, and who must find meaning in the world with only his memories and the Mundus Medias to guide him.

“Gena, is that…” I began, apologetically.

“It’ll do, right?”

“Yes, if you know it deeply enough that you’re making meaning, not just reciting empty words,” I said. “Gena, I don’t mean to be nosy, but… the Vigil means a lot to you?”

“Oh. No apologies necessary,” she said a bit distantly. “Yes, it’s what you might expect. I was raised by the priests at the Academy-Temple at Ilium.”

“Were they…”

“Kind? Yes.”

“You must be disappointed with academia, then,” I joked, remembering the symposium.

“No,” she said with a soft laugh. “I’m a quick study. By the time I was a teen and beginning my studies as an acolyte I had already noticed the way men and women treat each other when their pride is on the line. And when they think the children aren’t watching.”

“You knew what you were getting into.”

“I’ve told you; I was made for this life. I’d never let any of the mediocrities get in the way of the search for the truth.”

1. No Heroic-Era literature survives besides the Word itself. This, you see, makes it difficult to develop a deep understanding of Heroic-Era literature.

XX: To Be Honored

The band resumed its journey the next day, buoyed across the plains on high spirits. Eidahn and I shared a cart that day. I felt well enough to ride, but it wasn’t until the afternoon of the day after that the two of us tried a few leagues on donkeys. Both of us were swaying and trembling with the effort by the end of it, but to be on a steed again was a tremendous relief to him.

It was less a relief to me. I hid behind a wagon to vomit as soon as we dismounted.

That night, Gena was visited by Lady Iltara.

And the night after that.

And the night thereafter.

It was as Gena suspected: having failed to entice me into her service, Lady Iltara focused—lavished—her attentions on Sister Gena. With this confirmed, a few more facts came into clearer focus. She had chosen me not for any other reason but for that it was possible to speak and reason with me, and that she thought that would be more profitable than sending insubstantial, dreamy visions (no matter how vivid) to the three of us.

So why was she so interested in obtaining our fealty? Was that simply the simplest way to remove us as threats?

She did not venture to cultivate a sensual relationship with Gena, though Gena’s physical description of her appearance matched my memory of her (I had been wondering to what extent she might alter her presentation. She had the power, I presumed). What she did try to cultivate, it seems, was a sense of intimacy. Gena rolled her eyes as she described the flirtatious banter, but it was impossible for her to disguise her admiration for Iltara’s sharp, frankly unimpeachable wit.

Lady Iltara, Gena said, spoke “pityingly” of me, insisting that she had “revealed the truth” to me and dismissed me until such a time as I would return to “receive of her succor.”

And having seen firsthand how difficult it was to pry useful information from the lady, Gena apologized again to me for being so demanding on me. I deflected, urging her to think nothing of it, but the soft, petty inner organ of my ego was greatly pleased to have the “I-told-you-so”.

The band reached the north end of the Lignem Valley by the end of the third day—a spade-shaped river valley whose northern point represented, though not the northernmost extent of King Emault’s legal claim, the furthest that any of his vassals would risk sending a tax collector. The band had a customary route that transited a short length of the Lignem, through the foothills the bounded it to the west, and then north out of the tip, down the Orlan Blue. While in Orland, they (we) would visit one large township (Clerriol) and a hamlet that barely rated the description (Itun) and then carefully bypass two villages¹.

The band erected its camp within sight of Clerriol. The town had raised a merry little forest of flags and banners, and so too did the Windvalley Riders. The field between the two became a non-stop festival of music, dancing, haggling, and sport.

Hester, naturally, seemed to be the epicenter of the gaiety, day and night. He regaled children of his (and our) adventures, led songs, refereed wrestling matches, entered and won several of them, and raced the horses. I took the opportunity to practice my Yaria as a translator and seek out a few nice bowls of bread porridge² as prepared by the Orlanders. Aside from that, I spent more time with the duuchin, fretting over my broken leg. I was beginning to fear for the rest of my journey: carts and donkeys were all well and good, but what would I be doing once we reached the river and parted with the band? How was I to defend myself from mortal danger, which seemed to dog us on a weekly basis?

“What will you do, then?” he said, turning the question back on me. We sat at a quiet edge of the camp with a good view of the festival field. Some performer with a bowed string instrument was leading a lively, drunken-sounding waltz. Occasional cheers bubbled up from the crowd and floated to our ears.

“Hm. Buy a horse. No, a donkey.” It was almost reflex, answering my own questions when prompted like that. Magister Montigo had made sure of that.

He chuckled. “Ask for one.”

I looked up. “Oh? That is a lot to ask.”

“Animals are valuable, yes. But so too are the bonds between us.” At my evident lack of understanding, he continued. “It is… ah, you are a historian”, he said, using the Ivian word. “You should know this. Ties of homage. Reciprocal debt.”

“I see,” I said in Yaria. “Allied Nico?”

He made a tilt of the head and a shrug. “Close enough. We are bound, first through Nico but now directly to each other. We have shared enough to say so. A donkey would be a large favor. But not a debt to be repaid. A boon to be honored.”

“I see,” I said again, thinking it was more true this time. “But I fear… to fight, like this.”

“You have Hester to fight for you.”

“What if I am called to fight?”

The duuchin regarded me critically. “Filly at a tent-wagon, I say.”

“What?”

“Why should you fight? You are a poor choice for a fight.”

“The fights come to us,” I complained.

The duuchin considered this. “It is true. But do not forget: filly at a tent-wagon. Novice swordsman, broken leg. You should not seek a fight.”

“But Hester, and Iltara…”

“He seeks a fight, yes. Should you?”

“… No?” I ventured, lacking the vocabulary to complain further about it all.

“Good,” he said, as if that were that.

Late at night, I charted, worked and scribbled, distilling the nuut of the skies into üildel. And, despite our conversation, I did not skimp on the more warlike acts of wind and thunder.

1. This didn’t surprise me too much: Orlanders have an uneven relationship with the nomads of the veld. To me, a student of history deep in the interior of the kingdom, the Yariagar were a people with a strange lifestyle, traditions, and governance—an interesting topic of study!—but at the bottom of it they were certainly people. And sure enough, I had been able to enjoy my time with them like they were people. But to some northern Orlanders, they were monsters. And on some level it makes sense: if your grandfather was killed by the men who rode horses and drove sheep over the endless sea of grass, that’s going to be a lot more important to you than some abstract notion about the politics of periphery interactions.

2. The kitchener at Ilianath often had this simmering in a pot for anyone up and about late at night, such as the garrison’s night watch and certain apprentice wizards with studies to conduct. It was thick with vegetables and a pleasant wheaty sweetness. When you’ve been away from home for a long time, sometimes it’s the day-to-day foods you miss most rather than your favorites.

XXI: Epistemology

In Itun, we passed the road from my last dream with Lady Iltara: the road south, past the gentle beech trees and sleepy pond. The road that could’ve taken me back to Ilianath. I wish I could record here that I even considered it. That, as the little cadre of nomads mingled in the square with the villagers of Itun, I stood, brooding, upon the diverging paths and reflected upon my diverging futures. I suspect that it might’ve saved a lot of trouble: to return to Montigo with a broken leg and my “mark on the world” yet unmade, but with a new understanding of where and how it might be done (perhaps an exploration of the Halls). It would have bruised the ego to arrive at her tower with my work undone, to be sure, but bruises are to be expected in any great endeavor. And anyway, one bruised ego would have been a fair sight gentler than what came next for the three of us. All that came next, all because I simply kept on the path east.

But no: I spared a glance for the road, noted the canopy of lovely, bright spring leaves, remembered the searing threat that the Lady had made to me, and gave it no second thought.

The evening we visited Itun was when I noticed how distant Gena had been. I couldn’t remember seeing her at all in Clerriol, and she had been returning to the tent, late, wordlessly, every night.

I cursed myself for my inattention and swore to make up for it.

That night, I explained to Hester what I was doing and propped myself up at the entrance to the tent. I watched the dragonflies flit about in the twilight for a few hours until, finally, Gena arrived, stalking her way toward the tent. She didn’t seem to notice me.

I slammed my spellbook shut—not that I had been able to read it for the last half hour—and met her eyes. “What’s she been telling you?” I demanded.

Gena stared at me, surprised. Then she shook her head.

“Come on,” I said. “This isn’t like you.”

“Isn’t it?” She said. “It’s a…” she began. She was calculating her reply. “It’s a problem. To solve and study. And…”

“And you’ve been doing a great lot of solving and studying, have you?” I said. I sounded heated, even to myself.

She looked downcast. It was the effect, apparently, I had desired, but I found that obtaining it felt rather less rewarding than I had hoped.

“Let… let me help. What has she been telling you?”

Gena sighed. “It’s not what she’s been telling me. It’s what she’s been showing me.”

“How do you mean?”

“And you,” she continued. “The lucid dreaming. Howe, this… other world, of dreams…”

“Of meaning and insight, normally,” I added to her pause. “Sometimes of pleasure or of fear.”

“Howe, it’s just as real as this one, isn’t it?”

“Well, the experience is real, in a manner. It’s not as though…”

“No, Howe. I mean real. Indistinguishably so.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know how to reply, but…

“Howe, it can’t be, right?”

“No,” I started. “Nothing done there has any lasting effect. No injuries. Most memories fail to persist, but for our training. A dream-world itself… it vanishes upon waking. This one does not.”

“So?”

“So… so… those make it not real, Gena. We can call it ‘real’ in some senses. But it’s not the world we inhabit.”

She shook her head. “Suppose we inhabit it just as plainly as this one, but the law is different.”

I paused. “Gena, this is ridiculous.”

“You’re a student, right?” She met my eyes. Hers were firm, burning. “Your discipline is scholarly, like mine. Argue the point with me.”

“Fine, then. The real world is the one in which we truly perish when killed.”

“Have you ever died in a dream? Has that event been described to you?”

“What, you think you could be killed in a dream?”

“You have as much reason to believe you are immortal in your dreams as you have to believe you are immortal in this world.”

I sat there, mouth agape for the span of a half-second. “I concede, I suppose. Our knowledge of death does not help us make a determination here.”

“Agreed.”

“Consider then the stubborn persistence of, ah, reality. From one day to the next.”

“Full as it is with completely explicable phenomena, I imagine you want to say.” Gena replied.

“I would, but I know I’d be forced to concede that point, too. Forget the fact that the Mundus Medias seems to outgrow our understanding daily. Focus on the daily part.”

“Why should an intermittent world be any less real?”

“It certainly seems to have less bearing on our birth and upbringing for that fact.”

“Do you need me to make the point about being born?”

“I suppose it’s just like death, as you say. But have you ever seen anyone else born in any of your dreams?”

“No, but…”

“Or eat and grow? Learn and prosper?”

“No.”

“Surely you see.”

Gena sighed and stroked her chin. “I… well.”

“Well?”

“Return to your first point, if you will. This is ridiculous.”

“Huh? I’m sorry if that came off badly; I didn’t mean to…”

“No, you’re right, though. It is ridiculous.”

I froze.

“What, that this inner world of dreaming is an equal to the gods’ greatest work?” Gena continued. “It’s nonsense, surely. But I can’t shake the feeling… I can’t… disprove it.”

“Ohhh.” It clicked. “Iltara has been trying to convince you of her power. Don’t forget, right? The whole temptress act? It’s an effort of manipulation. Sophistry, if we’re feeling generous.”

“These concerns are duly noted,” she said. The dry, gentle rebuff warmed my heart—that felt like the Gena I knew. “But Howe, that’s thinking like a knight. Like Hester. Think like a scholar, like we just have. It is a knotty question.”

“Admitted, if we take her at face value.”

“I have to trust my senses, do I not?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“When my eyes, ears, and heart are all in agreement, I am at my best. I do my small part to bring greater glory to the Lightbringer’s work. It’s… well. My eyes and ears… they… are captivated by this idea. This other world. But my heart quails. It fears… knows this can’t be right. What kind of scholar, then, cannot trust her own eyes and ears?”

“An ordinary one, right? Don’t we all…” I began, but my voice was already betraying me. I knew her fear.

We sulked in the silence for a moment. She stood, gazing at the ground; I sat, my left leg stretched out on its splint to my left, staring off into the middle distance somewhere to the west.

“Well,” I said, thinking idly on it. “If you doubt we belong in this world, you can break free with the Word, no? And I with a simple spell.”

“Howe, I can’t. And… Howe… she taught me…”

She bent down and grabbed a loose stave of wood, an unused tent pole, from nearby. She held it in her two hands and stared at it, and began saying something in a foreign language. She looked and sounded grim. A dozen or so syllables unfolded, and I began to recognize phonemes from the east: the language was Uri-Kedis, or a close relative. Then I recognized something about the cadence… Then she stopped.

“That was a spell,” I said.

A sandy brown serpent lay draped between her hands where the stave had been. Its tail coiled lazily, its head searching, probing the air with its forked tongue.

She nodded slowly. “An illusion. It cannot bite.”

“What does it… How… I have very many questions.”

“It works there, too. In the dream-place. And when it does, I do not wake.”

XXII: The Watch

This revelation was cud for us to chew for the next two days as the band made its way along the northern edge of Orland. Gena and I returned to the subject frequently, sparring over the nature of reality.

Well, as best an apprentice wizard and a junior apostle could, out in the middle of nowhere (or the edge of somewhere, as it were). Effective academic debate is done with access to other written commentary—the giants who came before—and more ready access to tea¹. Not to mention that it ought to be conducted between experts in the field. An expert in metaphysics I was not², and Gena was an extremely formidable mind but she had no particular depth of experience in the study of metaphysics. So it was sparring: a sort of ritual training, a signal that the subject was of interest to us, rather than a true effort to untie the knot.

Most of the band was riding cheerfully after the festival at Clerriol, but a dark cloud of worry hung over the two of us. And at the edge of it, Hester scowled.

At last, the band came to the Orlan Blue. Hundreds of riders, working animals, and livestock all clumped up on the river and drew their water, drinking, then washing and splashing and resting. To settled people, the river is a constant companion which we revere and depend on. To nomads, the river is a paramour to be cherished and celebrated for what little time can be spent in its nourishing midst.

It was time.

We put aside our debate to track down and say our goodbyes to those we had met and shared tea, food, tents, and steeds with. We found Ariké and Eidahn (who had been riding with ever more frequency), Chethe and his family, and several of the young hell-raisers whom Hester had befriended, all in turn to give them our well wishes and heartfelt appreciation³. Eidahn nearly offered to come with us to aid in our quest for the tome, but I was able to talk him down by reminding him of all the time he had to make up with Ariké.

The duuchin asked me to stay with him as Hester and Gena went downstream to find Ormu.

“You are going, yes?” he said in Yaria.

“Yes?” I said, evincing as much surprise as I could with the pitch of my voice.

“Good,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know if I should be pleased you are fearless to continue, or disappointed that you gave it no thought.”

“Why should you be disappointed? You are not Montigo,” I said.

“So I am not. All the same, young student. Filly at a tent-wagon.”

“I will not try to pull weight, thank you,” I replied, smiling.

“Do not let the eager young warrior hitch you to the wagon, either,” he added, returning the smile. “Farewell, and may we meet again.”

We traveled upriver and crossed Paupersbridge that afternoon, where we met a moderately-sized travel party destined, happily, for The Watch on the Rock.

I wish I had more to report of the next four days. Our travel companions numbered ten: two couriers, six wagoners with a hefty load of foodstuffs (mostly, of course, wheat grain), one mendicant (who had come from the far south, beyond Orlan, beyond the Antillayan range, in the rocky lands near to the great southern seas), and one mysterious looking man (dressed something like a forester) who seemed polite enough but declined conversation at every turn. We all had our separate business and little to discuss beyond the mundanity of overland travel. Gena continued to gaze inward, seeing little of the road pass beneath and beside her, and we seemed to silently agree that we didn’t want to hazard re-opening our stalemated debate in the company of these strangers. Even Hester only found small talk to make with the wagoners and the couriers. So he spent most of the journey beside me, atop my tottering, amiable donkey, either walking in silence or sharing a drinking story, like the ones he might have been telling the Yaria youths. I tried to make for a good audience, but I could tell it wasn’t quite the same.

On the fourth day, we rose, as we reached the jagged feet of the Eastern Range. The green, densely forested mountains had long dominated our view of the horizon and blanketed our mornings in shadow, but now they towered above us and beside us. We climbed, we clambered, we huffed and puffed atop a well-marked but rough and winding trail. There were several difficult sections—the wagoners had been dreading this, and everyone else was kind enough to help them as it arose—that the wagons could not be simply rolled across. I was not even spared the effort: there were scrambles that even the donkey had to be led up without its rider. Of course I had Hester and Gena to help, but even so, climbing with one leg and driving equally with the opposite arm atop a friend’s shoulder is exhausting, painful work.

By the time we reached the Watch on the Rock, I may have been more tired than the donkey. I had more bruises on my underarms, anyway.

The Watch on the Rock is the finest fortress in the Seven Kingdoms. This has nothing to do with its architecture, which is austere to the point of absurdity⁴, and it is not even chiefly owed to the extremely defensible mountain passes and thorough network of painstakingly bored passages that enable options for sally and entry even during a siege.

No, the most superlative quality of the Watch on the Rock is its view of the east.

The Eastern Range that bounds the Lignem, as you see it from down in the fertile lowlands, is a set of broad, tall massifs rising out of the greenery. But seen from the eastern side, from the arid Valley of the Sun, the ridge is a titanic set of summits atop a precipitous wall of stone and sand. Put simply: the climb up from the west is hard, but the climb up from the east is much, much harder. What this also means is that the Watch on the Rock commands a breathtaking, sweeping view of the scrublands and dunes to its east. A watchman on the keep ramparts can see for dozens of leagues to the north, south, and east. No man, woman, or horse can reach the ridge without being first made by the watch, sometimes days in advance.

No army, of course, had dared the approach since the Old King’s last attempt a millennium ago. And so long as the watch was garrisoned, so long as the House Eastmost upheld its sacred duty, it seemed unlikely that anyone would dare it again.

We were welcomed into the great hall to fanfare, announced by a trio of trumpeters near the entrance. The east wall, opposite our entrance, consisted of a single thick pane of glass which stretched from the floor to the ceiling and from wall to wall. As such, the vast landscape to the east, crowned by the wide, flat horizon, served as a backdrop to the throne.

Duchess Joan of the House Eastmost sat atop the throne. She wore a long curtain of straight, black hair bound by a silver crown and a simple, velvety blue gown bound by a thick sword belt. The sword itself lay across her lap, a long hand-and-a-half sword⁵ in its shining bronze scabbard. Magister Akabu Ai stood at her right hand. He was an imposing man, dark, broad at the shoulders, and tall, wearing a traditional court wizard’s cloak and sash in the House’s blue. I think he intended to mute his presence by maintaining a level gaze with the floor. But it was hard to hide a dark silhouette that large, set against a backdrop that grand.

“Hester,” Joan said, wearing a regal smile.

“Mother,” he replied. “I am much pleased to return home safely and in the boon company of new companions, on whose behalf I now beseech for the hospitality of the House Eastmost.”

She seemed to consider this. “What hospitality our house has to give, it shall.”

“It is well. I fear our business carries us forth soon. Is there aught of abroad we may tell?”

Joan raised her chin a degree. “Yes, as it happens. How fare dear Lorea and Nico? I hope she is as sterling and… proper a conversationalist as ever.” She seemed to be looking at me.

There was a silence in the room. The three of us, the trumpeters, the wizard, the duchess, and the bored courtiers in the gallery, all stared at each other lamely for a beat.

Then I said, “buh.”

Hester wheezed so hard that I think he sprayed spit on the carpet. Joan laughed, a little more sensibly but not by a whole lot.

“Stupid forms,” I moaned.

When our hosts had properly recovered, Hester approached the throne. Magister Akabu Ai accepted Joan’s sword so that she could stand and embrace her son. That’s when I noticed that she was just as tall, and probably nearly as athletic in stature, as he was.

“Welcome home,” she said into his shoulder. He mumbled something I couldn’t hear in reply.

“I knew the crossing could not deter you,” she said, beaming, as they released. “Your father was worried, though, and it’s hard not to blame him.”

Hester sighed. “I know. Would that he could see the necessity of a journey like this.”

“I’m sure he will. Enough of that for now. We observed the first half of the formal greetings, but introductions were in the second.”

We had introductions and spoke of our journey—mostly of the Windvalley Riders and their generosity—before we left the great hall to allow the court to conclude the day’s business.

As the three of us left, I had a glance back at the breathtaking landscape behind the throne. But I saw none of it. Instead, I saw Magister Akabu Ai and his fierce eyes locked with mine.

1. Not that the Windvalley Riders lacked for either tea leaves or generosity. It’s just hard to steep when the band is on the move.

2. Most people seem to find it surprising that wizards and their apprentices, as a rule, have so little formal training in metaphysics and phenomenology. Why should they be surprised, though? Isn’t that the one thing we are famous for: not caring one whit about the traditionally proscribed bounds of reality?

3. As has been pointed out, “gratitude” would have given an incorrect impression of the roles being played as the nomads welcomed us to live and travel with them.

4. Lesser critics, such as myself, might call it ugly.

5. I thought it looked dreadfully out-of-proportion when I first saw it, but Hester would later point out to me that I should only think that only because I had been training with a stubby cavalry saber a few weeks prior. The hand-and-a-half sword is not only a symbol of knightly valor, it is a versatile weapon for dismounted fighting, where its length provides opportunities to slash with great reach or to “half-sword”—taking a grip with one hand on the haft and another halfway up the blade—for devastating, armor-breaking force.

XXIII: The Law of the Storm

Joan and her husband, Claude, joined us shortly thereafter for dinner. It was a dark room, interior to the castle, half-timbered and lit with dozens of candles. Young pages laid out a feast while Hester embraced his father, and then we took our seats and began eating.

“So I understand my son’s two companions are accomplished scholars?” Claude was saying between measured little bites of bread pudding.

I glanced over at Gena. She met my eyes, but after a short beat, and only for a fleeting moment. Her mind was somewhere else.

“Speaking for myself,” I began, speaking for the both of us, “I like to think my major accomplishments lie yet before me. Most of my studies have been formal tutelage under Magister Montigo. I only now am entering the final phase of my apprenticeship.”

“A dissertation, perhaps?”

“Y… yes,” I said at length. “The details are somewhat esoteric.”

“Oh, you needn’t spare him,” Joan said. “Claude is a man of letters himself.”

I was hoping that would prompt him to offer some sort of explanation which might serve to buy me time to construct my own, but only a look of earnest interest was forthcoming from the duke-consort. I fretted at once that I both owed the man the honest truth and also that I owed him a better explanation for what the Hell I was doing in his home.

“When I say dissertation, I mean… I do not think Magister Montigo cares much for the written output.” A look of confusion: Montigo was a gifted writer and it seemed that everyone here knew it or had heard of it. Wouldn’t she expect the like from her student? “I mean the act itself would be the more important thing.” This seemed to add little clarity. “I mean…”

Gena put her hand on my shoulder. “The good magister sent him out to go achieve something. To ‘leave his mark on the world,’ as he relayed her words to me.”

I looked around, torn between hiding my sheepishness and eagerly evincing it. I had always thought it sounded so silly put that way. But Joan and Claude were nodding with an air of commendation.

“I usually just call it self-directed study,” I added.

“And I dare say the search for purpose has you swept up in my good son’s quest?”

“Something like that.”

He twiddled a toothpick in his hands for a moment, then he smiled. “Well, I suppose the good fortune is as much as I can ask for. Keep him safe, will you?”

Joan shot him a reproachful look. I felt my eyebrows rising. Hester buried roast duck in his mouth trying to cover up some sort of expression of dismay.

Claude sighed. “Hester, you’re a fine young man and a capable warrior but not all problems can be met with steel. Shush, shush, I’m not going to ask you to stay. You must do as you are called to do, I suppose. But… hold your allies close, will you?”

“Have no doubt,” Hester eagerly declared. “Ae has chosen a path for me to walk in great company.” His mother was scrunching her face in a way that suggested that he had just headed off a long and dreaded rehashing of some argument or another.

“Yes,” Claude said. “And of the goddess’s works… Sister Gena, I would like to hear of your studies, too,”

Gena looked up. “Most don’t,” she said simply. It wasn’t a surprising sentiment to hear, but somehow it still sounded a bit odd on my ear: thin, unconvincing, like the sound of a drum tensioned too tightly.

But the conversation proceeded. Gena spoke of her short, hectic career in the College of Apostles, where she’d had to cut a trail through the weeds to find—or create, really—the interdisciplinary work that the stewards of the Word so badly needed. Claude proved to be an interesting inquirer, being, as promised, a man of letters: formerly a lay emissary on behalf of the college in the east. The two clearly shared sympathies concerning the college’s somewhat ossified hierarchy and its reluctance to accord prestige, resources, and even attention to anyone not on the track for a high degree of specialized attainment. But more than that, Claude showed an interest in the nature of her work, the unusual studies and the generalist’s talent required to make them feasible.

I watched quietly, fed and contented.

Gena and Hester both withdrew to their bedrooms. The house page who had been assigned to aid my hobbling about the fortress was likely surprised to learn that I had no such intentions. We made our way to the library, where I assured her that I would be happy to remain all night if she wished to retire herself. She accepted the deal with some clearly divided reluctance, leaving only after finding a cane and receiving my assurances that I would send for her if I needed further help.

The library was small, but dense, if a library can be described so. It was an interior room upstairs (up a set of narrow, regrettably steep stairs) that smelled pleasantly of parchment and pine. A velvety green stuffed chair and a small desk sat askew in a little space near the entrance, and behind them the room narrowed considerably into the bulk of the shelves. The little walkway between them stretched back between them all the way to the opposite wall.

Claude was sitting in the chair. I hadn’t noticed him until after resolving matters with the page. His smile flickered warmly in the candlelight. “Good evening, Horwendell,” he said.

“Oh! Good evening. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Of course not. Come in.”

“I was supposing I might find Magister Ai here as well; I have questions I mean to ask him. I suppose they’ll wait.”

“He visits this library… infrequently,” Claude said at length. “It does not suit him, I do not think.”

“A wizard? Unsuited by a library?”

“Do not misunderstand. Knowledge is very much his domain. He simply need not… spend so much effort on the pursuit.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Maybe he can explain better; you might not believe it from me. Enough of that. Anything you may be looking for? I’m happy to introduce you to the collection.”

I thought for a second. He seemed like a fine fellow, but I’ve always been averse to having my research done through someone else. But then I squinted down the row of shelves, dancing in the eye-watering darkness of dim candlelight, imagined hobbling up and down and back up as I searched the rows of tomes, and wondered how else I’d get it done.

“Yes, actually,” I said. “I want to know about the history… here. Classical era. As relates to the Lightbringer, especially.”

Claude gave a little exhale of amusement. “I suppose this is more than a passing fancy. But you might try the Word. I believe the fourth and eighth chronicles detail events that occurred just north of here.”

“Well,” I said, leaning on my borrowed cane. “Yes, it is more than a fancy. But—and forgive me for the, um…”

“Speak freely,” he said, noting my reluctance. “You’re a friend of my son’s and his best hope at survival. I am indebted.”

“… well, some might call it heresy.”

Claude laughed thinly. “Oh. Well. Is this a search for truth?”

“Yes, without a doubt.”

“It cannot be heresy. Whatever the old doctrinaires might have of it.”

“I want to know what was important to the Lightbringer, here. The Word, of course, is what she deemed important to us; what she has ordained to be preserved for all our lives. But what of her? What would she remember, herself? A simple chronology would be a good place to start, I think.”

“Ah. An intriguing and unusual topic. And very interesting that it is not a passing fancy,” Claude suggested. “And doubly so that the apprentice wizard should come asking of it without the talented scholar in his company.”

I squirmed. “She’s feeling unwell. Needs rest.”

“Nonsense. She made the western approach yesterday, and seemed hale enough at dinner. Horwendell,” Claude said. His voice was firm, held up by some inner resolve. “I need the truth from you. I am not a great questing knight like my son or his mother. I am a small man and my only comfort is my faith in them and their allies. I need to know.”

I shook my head. “I… that was unkind of me. It was misleading. But it is true. She is feeling unwell. She does battle in her own way. If I answer you straight about what I seek, will you be satisfied to ask Gena yourself about her struggles?”

Claude thought. His small, hard eyes glinted, like they had been fixed into their sockets by a jeweler.

“I will. Answer, then,” he said.

“The three of us, in Anteianum, stumbled upon a place of power. A realm that seemed to reflect, uniquely, The Lightbringer’s will. I want to find the way back.”

“And this effort is secret?”

“Truthfully? I don’t know anything about it. And who would believe me? Another world, another realm within our own? Anybody sufficiently learned might even believe I had been to the underworld and am a revenant, cheating death with every breath.”

Claude said nothing.

“And frankly, I feel stupid talking about it even now. Don’t I look stupid? A new world, discovered by none. Tell me you believe that sounds stupid.”

Claude chuckled. It was wan, it was grim. But it was genuine.

“Perhaps a bit. But you might be pleased to hear that I have ideas for you.”

“Oh?”

“The Charge of the Fifty Lords.”

I racked my brain. “Not familiar.”

“What else would be so important to the Lightbringer out here, at the edge of her realm? Where the lands of her flock meet the territory of the wolves? The Dawn War, of course.”

“There was a battle here,” I said, remembering. “The Lightbringer’s united Ivian League army routed the Old King’s army vanguard. Was it in the pass?”

“Yes. It was the only sortie the Lightbringer ever made herself,” Claude added.

“I didn’t know that.”

“The Word isn’t specific about it. But the chroniclers in the east could never forget something like that.”

I nodded. “Of course. It would have been terrible, would it not?”

“Yes. I possess some chronologies that include it. Do you read Uri-Kedis?”

“No.”

“A shame. I’ve made a mediocre translation of one that may suffice. You may also be interested in Thrain’s account.”

“Thrain? I know of him; he was no easterner.”

“But he was well-traveled, no? He was in the southern valley when the news reached him. He claims to have heard it from a veteran, which is doubtful given the commonly accepted dates of authorship but not impossible. This does cast further doubt on some of the details, which… well, read it for yourself.”

So we did.

That the King’s army would need to traverse the Black Range, that the ridge lacked reliable means of forage, that the ridge was treacherous to travel and difficult to reconnoiter, these were all clear to Him, and He knew, too, to His adversary. If, however, the Lightbringer could be induced to offer battle, these risks could be reduced or mooted. Thus He sought to employ a deception, though He is normally not given to the approach.

The King brought His vanguard to the Ridge and divided His reserves into three parts. The van was to traverse the ridge toward the west, followed by two elements of the reserves. They were to summit the lowest peak, the fourth counting from the south, near the most amenable pass through the ridge. The two elements of the reserves were to trail the van by one half-day’s journey to better disguise their presence. The third element of the reserves was to disperse north and south along the ridge, visiting towns in the valley. Arranged thusly, the King would represent His armies as holding a defensible forward bastion at the summit with the vanguard while His reserves amassed baggage and levies from the valley below. If the two parts of the reserves behind the vanguard could remain hidden, the vanguard encampment might appear untenable to Lightbringer, who might then assault it. The vanguard would be tasked with holding the summit for only a half-day or less before the King’s superior reserves could arrive and rout the western army.

He gave these orders to His superior officers and, in His normal manner, which is terse and without question, bade them act. The division was so made and the vanguard of His army made the summit six days into the ninth moon.

The Lightbringer was not fooled. She was unable to wholly assess the true disposition of the King’s forces, but when Her scouts reported to Her of the encampment at the summit, Her estimates of His total men-at-arms gave Her pause, and She surmised the existence of the two elements of reserves elsewhere in the pass.

Nevertheless, this posed a difficulty for Her. Indeed, His armies would be greater in number than Hers, and the mountain passes offered one of the only contrivances to moot that advantage. Should She have allowed Him to march through the ridge, into Her lands, Her effort may have been doomed from that moment. But attacking into the maws of a trap seemed a dangerous gambit.

She resolved, and history would bear that this was the correct device, to assault and defeat the King’s vanguard before aught more could reinforce it. To do so, She decided to order the army to remain at camp in Tanpium. From amongst them she selected seven equestrian knights from the seven realms of the west, and bade them each select six more of their own to accompany them. So seven-by-seven numbered their army, and at the war council She informed them that She would ride, speeding their hooves with the wind at Her call and breaking the King’s first line with Her holy fulmination.

The battle was met at dawn on the seventh day into the ninth moon. Sekmet, the commander of the vanguard, was surely astonished by the report that the Lightbringer led the company in assault, but in the style of the eastern officers he merely gave orders that they should form for battle. Some small number of heavy infantry and cavalry formed at the foot of the pass, while the bulk of the forces arrayed atop the nearby rock. There, they could engage as skirmishers, throwing javelins and slinging stones, and some number of them could descend the walls as was advantageous to produce an encirclement. So the King’s forces did array themselves.

The battle was begun as the Lightbringer’s riders approached the narrowest part of the pass, and at Her orders, they urged their horses into a gallop. The westernmost positions of the King’s armies began their volleys, though at the great range their stones and bows produced little effect against the faultless armor and barding of the Lightbringer’s equestrians.

When the Lightbringer’s riders reached the pass below the nearest of the soldiers positioned atop the cliffs, Sekmet’s chief lieutenant, Ki, seeing that the Lightbringer did not intend to reduce the pace of Her advance, issued orders for his troops to descend.

The Lightbringer, cued by the first movements of Her enemies in descent, observing their ranks preparing their hand-to-hand arms and proceeding over the crest of the cliffs, gathered up a storm, and, gesturing to the skies above, set it upon the cliffs. A fierce wind, strong enough to carry men, horses, and trees aloft, swept the upper cliffs, and lightning struck at men and earth. The soldiers atop the cliffs were routed, and a small number were able to descend to the safety of the pass, insufficient to act their part in the battle.

Sekmet, alarmed by the utter defeat of the ambush, yet possessed of obedient valiance, ordered his heavy infantry to break ranks to attempt to slay the goddess by any means necessary: now perceiving that as the only chance for victory. But they could not find victory; at a word from the Lightbringer they were blinded by radiance and, to the man, fell to the charging cavalry.

The result of this battle was to enable the Lightbringer’s command of the pass and to prevent another incursion of Desheret-Nemes’ armies into the west, having gradually expelled the last of the garrisons from the Orlan river valley some decades before. Desheret-Nemes ordered no further armies that far west, and the two realms reached a modus vivendi. Sekmet fell, executing his duties faithfully and commendably to the end. The scattered soldiers loyal to the King who had surrendered…

I reread the pages one last time. The old Fernen school of historical analysis prescribes three readings of a source: once for what was said, once for what was unsaid, and once for who was saying it and who is reading it. The last is often the most important, because in its most elemental form, the question is: is this author telling the truth? Are they exaggerating? Are they, themselves, being fooled?

But sod the old schools of analysis. I already knew Thrain was telling me the truth.

“You say you’re unsure of Thrain’s claims,” I said, unable to conceal my giddy giggling.

Claude gave me an odd look. “He says he heard it from a veteran in the east, but we believe he wrote this far too soon after this battle for that. He writes strangely intimately of the western point of view, of the Lightbringer’s war council…”

“… be that as it may, he has the right of it. Consider it my professional opinion.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“The Doctrina Tempestas, Claude!” I said!

He searched my face desperately. What would he have seen in the shadows of my face in that dim candlelight?

“The Great Work is a spellbook,” I breathed. “A weapon fit to smite a god’s army. The Lightbringer omitted this from the Word. But the easterners never forgot.”

Claude’s eyes widened briefly, and then he recomposed. He seemed to sag slightly in his chair, looking down at his hands, upturned in his lap, and said nothing for a long time. He fit the pieces together in his head—most of the same ones Gena and I had been assembling for weeks.

“I want you to bring my son home safe,” he whispered. “There has been an attempt on his life once already. And with stakes like this? We should speak more in the morning.” He stood and took his leave.

I was alone with the library.

XXIV: Communion

I made my way through some of the other materials Claude had left me. It included some other histories of this ridge—the Eastern Range, it was usually called in Ivian-speaking places; apparently the “Black Ridge” in Uri-Kedis. Geography. Climate. The law in Desheret-Nemes’ Kingdom¹. Flora, Fauna. The history of the House Eastmost (beginning with one of those forty-nine mortal cavalrymen, who had been made its lord dynast and enjoined to raise a fortress on the ridge) and its relation with the Seven Kingdoms to its west and the Old Kingdom to its east.

With only a few hours available to me before I would need to rest, I spent only a brief time on each subject, promising myself I would return later.

When some time—don’t ask me how long—had passed, two heavy footfalls announced a new arrival in the library.

I looked up. It was Magister Akabu Ai.

“Magister Ai,” I said, reaching for my cane, as if I were anticipating being asked to go somewhere.

“Apprentice Horwendell of Ilianath. You have been welcomed, but allow me to welcome you again.”

“… Yes, thank you,” I said. “I had hoped to speak with you.”

“The lord consort said as much. What is it?”

“You told us, in the motive is mystery. I took it as a caution against the… well, the straightforward acceptance of the vision. Is that what you meant?”

Magister Ai thought. “It matters little what I meant, but you were correct not to merely accept the vision.”

“But what did you mean, then?”

“It matters little. We shall therefore pay it no heed.”

That was like him, I thought. Magister Ai had always been cryptic, rigid, and somehow unfailingly correct. I shrugged. “So be it. What do you know about Lady Iltara? I suppose Hester has filled you in.”

“Yes. She acts from a position of weakness. Desperation. And she is more powerful than you imagine, and yet more powerful than that.”

I lowered my chin and leveled my gaze in proper, wizardly thought.

“You should not go,” Magister Ai said.

I raised my eyebrows. That was unlike him. “Why not? Besides that she makes for a powerful adversary.”

“Need you another reason?”

“Hester would.”

“So he would. The lord heir believes himself invincible when armored by justice. All the more reason the three of you should not go.”

I paused. “Tell Joan, then.”

“I have.”

“So…”

“He will go, nevertheless. The duchess will permit him.”

“Oh.”

“And if he is to go, you ought to go with him. It is a wizard’s duty, after all.”

“I am an apprentice, and unpledged. But I suppose you are right, about the duties in general.”

Ai smirked, which also seemed unlike him. It was all making me uncomfortable. “Magister Montigo has taught you well in that regard.”

I shrugged off the compliment; it didn’t seem worth lingering on. “What do you mean, Iltara acts from a position of weakness?”

“Her enemies close in on her, and her time is running out. She now possesses a great weapon to fend some of them off, but not all of them.”

“Desheret-Nemes?”

“The Old King, yes, and his armies. The harsh elements of the valley. The administration of her lands. The discontents within them. Her rivals to the west.”

“Rivals to the west… you mean, you? is that what this is? Did she send the visions to lure Hester in as a… hostage? Or a husband?”

“It has crossed my mind. We do not know.”

“And with that as a possibility, Joan is going to let him go anyway?”

“Joan and Hester never turn from the path of justice. They are to be commended for it,” Magister Ai said with a tired sigh.

“Yes,” I agreed, hoping to convey boundless commiseration in my tone of voice. “It remains for the rest of us to keep up. Or help navigate.”

“Spoken like one worthy of his vocation,” Magister Ai said.

“Thank you, but…”

“You will not be sleeping tonight. Do you need for anything before we study? Shall we summon the page?”

“What?”

“It is within my power to confer upon you the title of wizard, Horwendell of Ilianath. I deem it to be right and fitting.”

“What? Isn’t this all very sudden? I’m still attending to the last of my studies…”

Magister Akabu Ai stood square to me and looked me in the eye. “Your duties arise just as suddenly and, as they often do, before the desired attainments. If you go east with the lord heir, you will emerge a wizard, self-evidently worthy of the honors, or you will perish.”

“It’s hard to argue with that,” I said with a wince. “What will we be studying all night? What’s so important?”

“You will learn the Communion.”

So it was that I woke Gena up myself, fog-headed, impetuous, and not altogether my normal self.

She cracked the door to her guest room and met my eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept well either, her shoulders drawn tight under her heavy sleeping gown and her face drawn tight under her hair (also, as it happened, drawn back tight).

“Howe? I’ve never known you to be up before breakfast.”

“Gena! I know where to get to the Halls.”

Gena paused for a beat. She looked less tired now. “Tell me.”

I relayed what I had learned about the Battle for Black Ridge: the eastern account of Ae’s sortie, largely unknown in the west.

“If we were looking for a place of deep meaning…” I was saying.

“… Where else but the site of her greatest military victory? And the only place she is known to have taken up arms herself?” Gena finished.

“Exactly.”

“But why leave it out of the Word?”

“To hide the Doctrina Tempestas, perhaps. Or, if not, maybe the Halls or their entrance might hold clues to that.”

“That pass may be our route to the valley anyway. Fortuitous, if so. Let’s ask Hester.” She made to step out of the door into the hall to lead on.

“First!” I said, stopping her. “How is it with the lady? You’ve been distant. Still.”

Gena pulled up to a halt, startled. “I… it is much the same. The world the she shows me is mesmerizing. I am torn between its manifest reality and its… necessary, perhaps, paleness when compared to this one. It remains a tough question.”

“But how is it with the lady?”

Gena glared at me. She paused, for too long a time, before stating: “well enough. She thinks she may yet have my service. As long as she does, she gives knowledge with a free hand. Maybe it will help.”

“And shall she have your service?”

Gena’s eyes narrowed. “Howe.”

“Say no, then,” I said. Or maybe I heard myself saying it. I was so tired I almost felt as though I were watching from somewhere behind and over the shoulder of whoever this madman was who was so determined to sate his curiosity that he’d court Gena’s rage like this.

Her glare deepened.

But before she could open her mouth to speak, I barrelled on. “You can say maybe. Trust me. Trust me, trust me.”

“And what if I do?” she said.

“Then it is only natural,” I mused.

“…Are you all right?” Gena said. Her teeth were gritted but her eyebrows had lifted perceptibly from “dagger-sharp pique” to “steely inquisition.” “I trust you, Howe, I have to. But why ask questions like that, now?”

“I need to know, is all. The more I know, the more peaks on the ridge, the more I might see.”

Gena leaned forward and peered into my eyes. “Wizard or not, this isn’t like you. Are you… you haven’t slept, have you?”

“Apprentice! Wizard! But not for long, I hope. Or perhaps… I fear.”

1. Desheret-Nemes’ law is uniform throughout his kingdom and bears a great deal of similarity to the legal regimes of the seven kingdoms. The difference is in the severity of the punishments and the precision and zeal with which he, personally, prosecutes offenders within the jurisdictions dearest to him.

XXV: Valor

Within a few hours we had bidden our farewells to the household. Armed with a greater familiarity with the house, I could better sense now the ebullience of Duchess Joan and the caring warmth of her husband both reflected in their wayfaring son. And so, too, I could sense the shadow of fear, the bitter knowledge of risk and danger that lurked in the corners of Claude’s smile, in the lines on his face. And looming distantly above it all, the great mountain atop the Eastern Range: Magister Akabu Ai.

We were accorded use of one of the sally tunnels, which was cramped, damp, and dark, but overall much preferable to having to dismount my donkey and conduct an exhausting and dangerous climb down the mountainside first thing in the morning. We had plenty of that to look forward to later. The tunnel emerged not far from the castle town, a sleepy, orderly little affair whose four little rows of wooden buildings seemed to smell pleasantly like pine, wood smoke, and bacon day and night.

The road up the pass began at the edge of town. As we tottered away from the town—the last I would see of the Seven Kingdoms for a very long time, perhaps many years—Gena and I explained to Hester our plans for an afternoon detour.

“The site of the battle is given as a pass. The defenders chose to defend an encampment upon the fourth peak from the southern end of the ridge. As so happens to be the peak we will transit in our journey. We were hoping you might be able to identify the site of a likely military encampment. Hoping that the geography has not heaved too much in the intervening centuries,” Gena was saying.

“I know the place,” Hester said. “No need to search.”

“Oh! You do?”

“It’s family history, of course. The Joan è Odyssey traces itself…”

“The… what?”

“The Joan è Odyssey. The… family tree.”

“Genealogy,” I whispered to Gena.

“The origin of our house is in the battle. Sir Griff of Eastshore was among the Forty-Nine, and for his demonstrated skill and loyalty he was given a small realm and a sacred duty on the Eastern Range.”

“Do you think he liked it?” I asked, looking around. In a few hours the cool and pale morning sun would crest the ridge before us, and that would be a beautiful sight indeed. But in the pre-dawn gloom, I saw only jagged grey sandstones and scrub brush. Behind us, a peaceful little town that survived only on grain imported from Orland and livestock exchanged with the Yariagar, a town which existed only to maintain the fortress. An arm to hold up the shield. A life dedicated to the watch.

Hester was eyeing me oddly, generously declining to take offense by the question. “He must have. A blessed thing it is, to be given a sacred duty.”

“Speaking of which,” I said, lurching to the next topic. “We all have one.”

Two odd looks.

“Hester,” I said. I felt the thread of the idea in my mind and pulled at it. “Your father loves you.”

“I know.”

“More than you know. He fears for you. It’s an aching fear.”

“Don’t I know?”

“More than you know.” I shook my head. I kept pulling on the thread. “He has aided Gena and I in the hopes that it will keep you safe. I know… you know. But driven by fear, he joins our quest in this way. Fear born of love. Valor born of fear born of love.”

“Can you say what you mean, Howe?” Hester said.

“He’s delirious.” Gena laughed. “All of that valorous study last night and not enough sleep.”

“I will, then,” I said. “Hester, I am all but certain now. This is a trap. Lady Iltara sent us these visions from the very first. She called you west to the college, and then the three of us east toward her domain. We don’t know why. That is dangerous. This is not fear or cowardice—this is knowledge, which we have gained in the godly pursuit of our duties. Valorous.”

We listened to the crunch of our footfalls (well, their footfalls and my donkey’s hoofbeats) on the rocky path.

Finally, he said, “I do not doubt the valor. But…”

“You did, but now you do not.”

“Fine! I no longer doubt the courage of your faith. Neither do I doubt mine, however. But leave that aside. What would you have me do?”

“Not march into your peril,” I mused. The thoughts swam out of my mouth as fast as they swam through my tired mind. “For your own safety. Your father would appreciate seeing you home safe. Your house depends on you.”

“And then?”

“And then? Bear the shield of the kingdoms, as you should.”

“Stay here? And leave Ae’s knowledge—and her weapon—in the hands of a thief?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“I see.”

“Don’t you?” Hester said. He was smiling. “Come. You, you both, are among the smartest people I have ever met. So surely you understand the good life lived well?”

“Lived long, I should think.”

“Or not, as called. Howe, my friend, maybe life is not so complicated as you think? It is as my mother and father both taught me. Do right, and little else matters. What do I care what suffering comes to me? What do I care what others may say about me? Call me fool? Question my rightness? I have no reason to. As long as my legs carry me and my hands serve me, I do what is right with them, and what comes of it back to me… either rewards that I use only for further justice, or reprisals that I can endure. Must endure. Or I cannot, and I perish nobly and in Ae’s service.”

I sighed and returned the smile. “Yes. They taught you well. It is very noble. I just hope you’ll forgive me for my stubborn belief that what is right to do might be more complicated than you imagine.”

“I shall forgive you with all the grace due from a lord heir to his dear friend.” That elicited a snort from Gena.

We spent most of the morning on a well-marked but little-used trail climbing toward the peak. We went over our plan. We would spend this afternoon near the summit to learn what we could of the ancient battle and if it might give us a window into Ae’s realm. The descent into the valley would be both tortuous and torturous, and where a single strong climber might only need a day (Hester had done it himself once), we had allotted three days to our band of two capable travelers and one less-than-capable-traveler atop a docile, friendly, and less-than-brisk pack animal.

Once we reached the scrublands of the western valley, we would make for the nearest settlement and pray for a friendly reception. Being able to receive guidance, exchange favors, and buy provisions on the journey into Iltara’s domain would be critical. If we couldn’t do these things, we were doomed to a short, confused wandering, leading either to a swift retreat or a slow death in the harsh elements of the arid lowlands.

I was rather hoping Hester would be less philosophical about the nature of a suicide mission if the suicide was by dehydration rather than combat.

Of course, being as sleep-deprived and punchy as I was, I couldn’t help but vocalize this fact.

The sun hung high above us, and even in the thin spring air it fell warmly upon our heads and shoulders. A short cliff loomed over us to our left; to the right ws a dry stream bed full of pebbles and a gentle, smooth slope that crested some ambiguous distance away and above.

Hester was squinting ahead, looking for a particular marker in the trail that would show us to be near to our first destination: the ancient encampment that Ae’s cavalry had approached.

“Oh, it won’t be so bad, Howe,” he said, replying to my remarks about being lost in the desert without help. “The people of the valley are good folk. Near the range, anyway. Haven’t been as far as out as the river itself; I hear the harshness of the law there makes men dour. And as for Iltara…”

“You mean to tell me you don’t think she’ll be a formidable adversary?” Gena said.

“Oh no. Formidable, sure. But to call it suicide?”

“Hester,” I said, unable to stop a thought from snaking through my heart and head. “I’m worried. The more I read. A lady who dares defy a god and a goddess, who has sought out a weapon wielded by one, who inhabits realms of thought as readily as this one. Suppose she is…”

Hester shot his left palm up. His right found the pommel of his blade. “We’re not alone.”

We weren’t. There was the faint crunching of rock on rock in the air, the kind of grinding complaint that small pebbles and stones give only when forced down by the weight of boots and the bodies that wear them.

“Take them,” a voice boomed above us in Yaria. Then, a dozen men sprang over the cliff side, all wearing expressions of violent greed, all wearing the traditional nomad’s furs in bold crimsons, copper greens, and bone whites, and all brandishing weapons of war.

Hester was at the first of them in a flash of steel, and the man, who had the misfortune to be wielding a spear, had it severed in his hands and was driven back clutching a badly mangled arm. But three more were behind and beside him, and Hester found himself fighting, for perhaps the first time I had ever seen, a retreating battle.

Hester’s gallantry stirred similar action in Gena and myself. Gena held her walking staff as a sword and swung, making contact with the side of a broad-jawed face. I gripped the reins of my donkey and urged it forward, trying to shield their backs with its bulk, but the donkey, for all its patience and loyalty, had never been particularly agile, and soon I was surrounded and being pulled from the saddle.

The world spun about me, and I caught one last glimpse of it as I hurtled down. A dozen red-green-and-white clad bodies swarmed the three of us. Less one: Gena had knocked one of them straight to the ground. But one had seized her staff and two more had her about the shoulders. Hester kept four more at bay with his longsword, but even the deadly threat could not keep all of them out forever. My back hit the ground, and I stared up at two men, one of whom was about to kill me with his saber.

Darkness came.

XXVI: Theophany

Ah, but that was a cheap trick. Darkness came not because I was dead. Darkness came because night fell. And night fell suddenly. Most nights come at the end of every day, dusk gently settling in upon itself like a winter snow. But this night came at the beginning of the day, as an avalanche of shadow crashing down onto the mountain range.

All of us locked in our mortal struggle stopped.

Something was wrong. It was so urgent, so menacing, that our attackers could not help but stop to face it. It was more terrible than my impending death. We all felt it.

But I did not just feel it. I knew it. A leak had sprung in the dam, and my mind was flooding with terrible understanding.

I turned my head—distracted even from the sight of the blade that should have been about to sever my neck—to face where the sun had been. It should have been high over the ridge to our east. But it was not there: it had never been there.

The great, vast sea of stars shone in its velvety richness all above. I am an astromancer: the stars are my oldest, most constant friends. But one-by-one, they were vanishing, like the sun had. They had never been there.

Every star that vanished took with it some of the meaning in the world. Something I understood about it. Something we all agreed was true. But soon, they were all gone.

Only one star shone, blazing at the very zenith of the nearest mountain. Miles away though it was, I knew: there Magister Akabu Ai stood, his third eye opened, the only star fixed in the perfect blackness of the night sky.

It had always been there.

Our attackers shuffled nervously, dimly but grimly aware that this awful sight was connected to their attack. They didn’t know what to do about it. They didn’t speak. They seemed to await the next developments in order to make a response.

The ground began to quake, and then it tore asunder. Our ears were pounded by roaring and grinding, and I was tossed aside with sudden force from one of the faults that had ripped through the ground. I rolled to a halt, a little worse for the wear, rolled prone, and pushed myself up to get a better view. Everyone had been tossed to the ground: the Yariagar, Gena, Hester, even my noble steed. Some of the nomads were scrambling to their feet, but then the entire mountain beneath us gave a roar and a sickening, painful heave, as if it had dropped away ten feet and then rose up to meet us again halfway.

“No!” one of the nomads cried, again scrambling to his feet. “We yield!¹ We will leave!”

The mountain began to feel tense with power and horribly heavy beneath us.

“No! No! Stop! Stop! Stop! Please!”

His pleas, though shouted at the top of his lungs in desperate hysterics, sounded distant and quiet. They were drowned out by the weight of the earth.

And then our attackers began shrieking and falling dead.

“Are you all well? Good.”

Magister Akabu Ai stood over us in the gentle morning sunlight. He was offering Gena his hand.

I lay doubled over, facing away from them. Tears dampened my eyes. I didn’t know if I needed to laugh, cry, or vomit. Well, I needed to do all three, but I didn’t know which one would come first.

When Magister Akabu Ai came for me, I pushed myself up to a sitting position. Everything hurt. Muscles ached, joints creaked, my bruised skin flinched at every touch. I met his eyes: just the two of them.

“No mercy,” I observed.

“None.”

“You could have let them go. He said they would leave. Do you think he was lying to you? Did that sound like a man who was lying to you?”

“Of course he was not lying. Should he have been allowed to leave, he would have left. That does not mean he could be allowed to leave.”

“Of course it does! You killed them! Every last one of them. Those people… how many of them had spouses, children? How many parents lost their sons just now? They didn’t need to die.”

“They did, boy.” Magister Akabu Ai snarled. “You know the duty of a wizard. You know the Oath of Binding. Or do you?”

“Of course I do,” I shot back. “Don’t you know your duties to your fellow man? To the Ae’s wisdom?”

“Fool boy. The law is the law. I am disappointed.”

“Is that supposed to chasten me? I suppose you’ll tell me next you assumed Montigo would have taught me better.”

“Pah. Get up, fool. Displeased though I may be at the prospect, you must make yourself useful yet.”

“We’re off to fight a goddess, then?”

He stared back at me. He would love nothing more than to make further rebuke of me, I knew. But I had spoken too truly.

I felt Gena’s and Hester’s eyes on me². I pressed the point. “We’ve seen it now. You, the god of this mountain range. Iltara is surely the rebel goddess of the valley.”

“Howe,” Hester said. “He’s no god. He’s a wizard of some accomplishment. Shouldn’t you know?”

“Shouldn’t I!” I shouted. “I saw it. You saw it. He willed them dead. He forged a world of his own meaning here on the Mundus and therein erased their souls.”

Magister Akabu Ai stood silently. One hand held a staff, the other touched his chin in thought.

Hester shook his head. “He’s a wizard. This is nonsense.”

“The young lord has the right of it, apprentice. I am no god,” he said. “Their souls were not erased.”

“Nonsense to your nonsense!” I bellowed. “Or I should say: if you are no god, what distinguishes you from Ae? Mere degree?”

“I am pledged in service to the lady of the house who pledges her own service to Ae. I am no god.”

“You evade the question! You could be! I’ve seen it. You cannot make me un-see it, Magister.” My mouth had successfully untethered itself from the foggy froth of thoughts in my head. I do not imagine I sounded particularly convincing in this moment.

“I cannot be a god.”

“Cannot, fine then. I get it. I only see further, now. You are the law here, no? Say no more.”

Magister Akabu Ai said no more.

1. I didn’t know the word, but it was terribly clear even in the moment.

2. The donkey chewed happily on some weeds a few yards away. Good for it, I thought.

XXVII: Hierophany

We had practical matters to see to for the next hour. Our injuries were not severe. Our attackers, their bodies laying sprawled peacefully about, almost as if merely sleeping, would need to be buried. Magister Ai would see to that. They were, of course, Morul-Om, as Magister Ai was able to surmise by their clothing and accents.

We noted that they had made to capture Gena, but seemed willing to kill me. Lady Iltara had insisted to me that they were not hers, but this gave us good reason to doubt her: these would be the orders we would expect her to give if she wished us ambushed now.

We regained the trail through the pass and made steady progress: more achy and weary than we had wanted to be at this time of the morning, but altogether tolerable.

It wasn’t long before we arrived. The short cliff faces beside and above us parted as we came to a smooth slope down, just a few dozen yards, onto a wide shelf in the eastern face of this mountain. This would have been the camp. Behind us, the narrow pass, where a hundred heavily armored soldiers would have packed into ranks to try to block the charge, while above them on those cliff faces the doomed skirmishers lay in ambush. On this wide shelf, a camp for thousands of soldiers. The sick and injured, the camp followers and pack animals, and perhaps some reserves had been waiting here. Had it been blown clean of the mountainside by Ae’s fury?

And looming above us, the fourth summit from the south, where the god of the range had pronounced death just an hour ago.

“This is it,” Hester said. “A way to the Halls, here? I don’t see…”

“It’s probably not a tree this time,” I said.

“I have a feeling,” Gena said. “Hester…”

Between Hester’s knowledge of military affairs, Thrain’s account of the battle, and Gena’s quick and precise reasoning, we reconstructed the scene: where General Sekmet would have stood in command; where he would have positioned his forces and his lieutenants so he could effectively signal them, and where they would have first made out the charging cavalry and the goddess at their head. From there, we worked out where they would have known that her forces were fully committed: the point of no return. Then, where they would have ordered their ambush; finally, where Ae would have been the moment she laid them low.

Retracing our steps to that point, it was clear. A beam of sunlight shone on the rock, wide enough for a woman and her horse.

“In we go,” I said. “Take my hand.”

We stood in the beam of light, and I cast the spell to call a mote of light to my fingertips. We crossed over into the Halls.

The three of us glanced about. The air was thick and damp, and a chorus of birds, bugs, and frogs pressed in on our ears, seeming to fill the mass of air to its capacity. We couldn’t see far in any direction on account of the verdant, leafy undergrowth. A thick canopy completed the rainforest, providing nearly perfect shelter from the sky. Except for one clearing, which we stood in. From here, we could look directly up into a hole in the canopy, and there the strange stars were suspended.

A path through the brush, laid in flagstone, led away from there, in what felt like was the east.

I felt something else odd. I felt rested. My foggy-headedness, my giddy and eager embrace of the excitement of the day, had parted, leaving behind only a crystalline understanding.

We stood, after all, in a realm of thought and will.

“Hester, I need to explain something,” I said.

I glanced over at him. His brows were even with concern, but not disgust. I hoped it was an early premonition of victory.

I glanced over at Gena. She met my eyes squarely.

She knew.

“Before I go on,” I said, turning back to Hester, “I need to ask you to forgive me.”

“I tire of this,” he said, with a nip at the edge. “We have important things to be doing.”

“Lord Claude said to me—he must have said to you, too—that the search for truth cannot be heresy. Do you believe that?”

Dismay colored Hester’s face. “I believe; that is enough. And my father is a good man. Out with it.”

“The point is… I’ve gotten to the bottom of it. We’ve gotten to the bottom of it. Our first clue was Lady Iltara’s mastery over a domain of dreams. Dreams, malleable, strange, and ephemeral though they may be, are… tangible, in some ways. Think of it as a realm, alike to our own.

“Our second clue was our passage through the Halls. Ae’s realm, strange, remote, and, we suppose, reactive to her will. Here we are again.”

Hester was not a man of logos or letters, but they say that the warrior’s cunning is to see the thrust in the two steps their opponent takes before delivering it. His brow twitched, and he drew a little, irregular breath of realization.

“And that Lady Iltara would seek out a goddess’s own weapon for her ends,” I continued. “And that she would declare independence from her god-king. It’s all been before us all along. Magister Akabu Ai’s judgement, verdict, and execution was just the final confirmation. He, too, rules a realm, in a way. He brought us to it. And there, his word was the only law.”

“I have never known Magister Akabu Ai to lie. He says he is not a god, no?”

“A matter of semantics, I believe. Say he is a god, say he is not a god. The name does not matter. You saw! He commands life and death where his will might be felt.”

Hester was silent, staring into the undergrowth, his hand resting on his sword’s crossguard.

“He has sworn himself in service, so he thinks himself not a god, is all. But perhaps we shall take his word for it. Then…”

“You are saying they are alike. If not gods, then you mean to say that Ae is a mere wizard?” he muttered.

“Yes. Mere only if you think such things… mere.”

Hester shook his head. His face was drawn tight.

“That is not a flight of hubris,” I said. “I’m not boasting on behalf of all wizards. I’m an apprentice; I’m not supposed to. But the point is, what are they, if not magicians more powerful than I?”

“Sister,” Hester said, turning to her for backup. Then he saw the steel in her eyes. “… Sister?”

“Well?” Gena said, a faint smile on her face illuminated by the eerie nightly light of this realm. “Pray hear his wizardly counsel, even as you forgive his wizardly… idiosyncrasies.”

Hester gaped. “That’s not a very nice thing to say about him, even if what he says…”

“Idiosync… you know what, never mind,” Gena said.

It seemed natural to take the laid path, so we did, venturing out to that-which-we-supposed-to-be-the-east. The jungle to our sides seemed impenetrable but still and peaceful. The strange un-light permitted a certain tasteful blanket of shadows in the undergrowth, but somehow it seemed clear that they harbored no hazards, or predators, or ambushers. Just an incredible population of frogs, judging by the ambient noise.

This was good, because my donkey had not made the transit into Ae’s realm of thought and will. Gena and Hester had to take turns helping me along.

Fortunately, was only a few minutes before we turned a gentle corner and saw the sudden clearing. It was hard to make out what we could see between the trees and brush until we got closer, but soon it became apparent that it was a great, broad coastline, and that the path we walked upon led out along a small, sandy cape. At its end, at the top of a built-up hill, stood a lighthouse. It shined in the un-light, glinting beneath the stars, a spike of steel driven into the tip of the cape. At the top, a wizard’s light shone, bright and perfectly clear. The seas beyond it were flat, still, and empty, reflecting the stars above in a mirror shine. So still they were that only a careful look at the horizon revealed their presence, else one might have thought that the coast and cape were suspended above empty sky.

As we lurched along the path, we were approached by two figures. Both wore bronze cuirasses ostentatiously molded with ornamental muscle, loose tassets, knee-high greaves, and red-crested full helms. Both carried spears in their hands and short swords in scabbards. Students of history and students of war (and all of us were one or both) would recognize at once the full war kit of a classical-era soldier.

Then a few steps later we saw that there were no soldiers beneath the armor. Anywhere you might have expected to see skin—the thigh above the greave, the shoulder below and the cuirass, the neck below the helm—instead there was nothing.

And still the figures marched toward us, until we met partway along the cape, closer to the jungle than to the tower.

We stopped. They stopped. The empty helms rotated slowly, as if to have a look at us.

A voice rang directly between my ears, a voice that might have belonged to a big man, with a slight overtone of amusement: “on Ae’s business, eh?”

“Yes,” Hester said without hesitation.

“This way.” One of the figures turned on its heel and made back toward the lighthouse. The other silently gestured toward me, offering a disembodied vambrace to use as a crutch. Unlike Gena or even Hester, who could be felt shifting their backs and bodies to take my weight, the floating armor seemed immovable, able to take any load with infinite, unyielding strength. Despite the bare bronze I had to lean on, it made for a much smoother, more comfortable walk the rest of the way down the cape.

The soldiers led us straight to the door of the lighthouse, an archway into whose stones had been carved an elaborate relief depicting a battle: rearing horses, human bodies in strong, dynamic poses, and breaking weapons. At the keystone was a horse and its rider, in her hand a tome unfolded.

Directly through the archway was the top of the lighthouse. It was a strange sensation: we looked into the archway expecting to see the interior of the lighthouse, but instead we saw an open sky, a steel floor, and a railing, all of which should have been several dozen yards above us.

We walked through onto a wide steel disk. The sphere of light, bright and blue like the jagged edge of a lightning bolt, hung above us, its lowest point about eight feet above our heads. It was painful to look upon, so we kept our eyes down instinctively (our armored hosts seemed to have no need to do so). Behind us stood a freestanding archway, this one composed of plain, smoothed stones, leading back out toward the jungle.

Opposite us, visible only by squinting to keep out the magelight, stood a figure in a helm, topped with the ancient lieutenant’s blue crest, and a cape. It turned. Underneath the cape was another identical muscle-cuirass and assorted bits of armor.

The six of us stood. The caped figure seemed to regard us.

“What brings visitors here? We receive few,” it remarked. Its voice was feminine, high-pitched and even, like a horsehair bow across a string.

“What is this place?” Gena asked, answering the question with a question.

The figure glanced up at the orb of light, then back at us. “A place of the past,” it said, its empty voice coming from somewhere above my neck. “That might be easily found. Or perhaps never lost at all.”

“You are the spirits of this place, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“This was the site of a great battle.”

“A great triumph!” The “big man” armor boomed. “Never has there been a more resounding blow struck.”

“A terrible triumph,” whispered the armor upon which I leaned.

“And a… lighthouse,” I observed.

“That it might be easily found,” the lieutenant repeated, nodding.

“The Charge of the Fifty Lords wasn’t only Ae’s first battle,” Gena said, “it was her last one. And the last time she would even order armies into the field at all. She has not been to the field in many centuries. But she remembers clearly, I take it.”

“Of course,” said the boisterous man-armor. “Would be hard not to remember the glory and the thrill! Even having been gone for fifty score years! Or was it fifty-five score?”

“She remembers. That is why we doubt she shall return,” the quiet one breathed.

Hester and I stared. Gena seemed unsurprised.

“He’s right,” the caped armor said. “You know, of course, that she abdicated rule centuries ago and withdrew to the monastery. Why would she need to make war?”

“A threat? The Old King on the march again?” Hester ventured.

“Her children are more than match for that dusty old relic. Shouldn’t you know, lord heir?” The energetic armor elbowed Hester convivially with a bronze vambrace.

“And she thirsts no more for conquest,” whispered the armor at my elbow.

“And there you have it,” their blue-crested leader said. “We three behold this place, for what is a place of meaning if it is not beheld? And now you share the view. It does gladden me.”

I stared into the stars, strange and infinite.

“Tell us. Is Akabu Ai a divinity?” Hester said.

“Humph!” said the man-armor.

“No, he is not a divinity,” opined the blue-crested lieutenant.

“But of divinity,” whispered my aide.

“Ask mysterious questions, get mysterious answers,” said the man-armor. The tone seemed to bear a shrug, though he had no shoulders to physically shrug.

“Surely you don’t mean he is her son,” Hester said.

“He does mean that, but only in the same way you are her beloved child,” the lieutenant replied.

“So then…” Hester muttered, thinking.

“We have heard your debate plainly,” the lieutenant said. “You carry it at the forefront of your minds.”

“You needn’t ask,” whispered the aide.

“She is, of course, a divinity. The divinity,” declared the man-armor.

“And yet it is all so much semantics. What is divinity? What sets her apart from you, or from Magister Ai? We cannot say for you. Not that we are not permitted. We but lack the ability,” concluded the lieutenant.

“But behold, her place of meaning,” whispered the aide.

Our debate so non-resolved, we spent some time in quiet rest. Hester was, of course, eager to continue, but I wished to behold (and make notes) of the stars, and Gena seemed to find a simple, genuine pleasure in the place, content to gaze at the beautiful and eerie land, sea, and sky. The suits of armor resumed their posts as we did so.

When it was time to go, we descended the tower by way of the archway, and we asked of the sentinel spirits if there might be a path east.

“I would hardly consider it a path,” the loud one rumbled. “But you may find a way east. Why should you not?” It gestured out over the unbroken plane of the sea. “And perhaps, even, an easier journey than the climb down the mountain, what with your broken leg.”

“I’d say so,” I said. “We would be grateful to make use of a boat. But…”

The normally talkative spirit soldier was suddenly silent. It pivoted slightly to face Gena, who stood facing the sandy shore of the cape. She looked up at us, then gestured back at the shore, where a small boat, not more than twenty feet with a removable mast at its center, lay, ready to be pushed into the water prow-first.

“A realm of thought and will,” she said. “We will make our way.”

“We will see to your pack animal,” the soldier said, anticipating the rest of my thoughts. “We have our ways.”

“Go in her light,” the whisperer bade us as he lowered me into the boat.

“Always,” Hester beamed. “No matter what the man-ticks might say.”

“Pardon?” the helper whispered.

“Semantics,” I whispered back.

XXVIII: Bliss

We were carried by a gentle and insistent breeze over the glassy sea, which broke for us in a smoothly rippling wake. It wasn’t long before all that remained of the lighthouse was a point of light atop a dark mass on the horizon. Or else, it felt like it hadn’t been long, the time we spent regarding the sea and the stars, one reflected perfectly upon the other, a doubled infinity of motif¹.

How much time had passed, I cannot recall—and, indeed, was there even a quantity to the time that had passed?—but soon the three of us became aware that we were nearing the end of our journey. I sat on the aft bench mast while Hester drew up the sails and Gena prepared the mooring lines, and then we beached.

It was bright and hot.

Behind us, the Eastern Range (or, I suppose, the Black Ridge) dominated the horizon. It was the horizon, and the horizon was higher and more colossal than it had any right to be. The range threw an immense shadow across miles of arid, cracked scrubland, bereft of the spring rains of the Lignem, denied them by the barrier of stone.

Before us, the scrubland descended one final slope toward a small canyon, which must have been carved by a respectable river… some centuries past. It was dry, now, and silent, but for the whisper of the wind over its lip.

We stood before an ancient stone arch bridge which been erected over the canyon, perhaps when a river had graced its bed: neglected, covered in blown sands and its decorative faces cracked in places. But the architecture was sound and had lasted the years. On the horizon, a dark irregularity dancing in the heat haze suggested that something, perhaps a town, lay beyond the bridge.

Atop the bridge stood a figure. It was tall, broad-shouldered, resting its two hands on the hilt of a sword, point down upon the apex of the bridge. It wore a white robe tied at the waist, its tails flying gallantly in the wind, a certain loose billow at the chest suggesting that it was being worn over some form of upper body armor.

The three of us agreed that Hester would approach the person while Gena helped lug me a bit closer.

We found a seat on a rock about thirty paces from the bridge just as Hester was slowing to a halt. We could see now that the figure was a woman. Her complexion was dark, her expression clear and appraising as Hester drew level with her on the bridge. Her black hair was drawn back into a single long braid, and she seemed to express amusement in the slant of her chin and the casual bearing of her arms.

They exchanged words as Gena and I watched, impossible to make out over the wind. Hester seemed to ask questions; the bridgewoman gave short responses. Hester gestured behind her, to the east, his long shadow sweeping over the far rim of the canyon as he did so. She nodded.

Steel glinted and they were at each other.

“Oh,” I said. “Hm.”

“You expected something else?” Gena asked.

“I suppose. Though I don’t know why I did.”

They met at the apex of the bridge with a binding of blades. Both used hand-and-a-half swords, versatile weapons ideal for a duel in open air. Hester pushed and the woman pulled, freeing the bind, and they backed away from each other and circled a few paces. There was just enough room width-wise on the bridge for this footwork. The woman stepped in suddenly, feinting high with a dramatic, dancing sweep of her blade to disguise an elbow aimed at Hester’s chest with enough force to send him off the bridge. But Hester had prepared to intercept the feinted sweep in a cautious way, giving him plenty of time and room to circle outside of the elbow. He aimed a hilt blow at her head, which she ducked.

“She’s good,” Gena observed.

“I’ve never seen anyone go toe-to-toe with Hester,” I said. “He finishes most fights quickly.”

They reset; now, her back faced us. Was that a smile I saw on Hester’s face, beneath the sweat on his brow?

“He doesn’t seem to have done so here,” Gena said.

“I don’t think he tried,” I replied, thinking further.

She pulled her blade back into an unusual stance, tip backward behind her left hip, her body low and crouching, swaying ever so slightly on the balls of her feet. Hester held his ground, assessing. She took an ungainly pace a few inches forward, and then another, before she wheeled around with a wide left-to-right slash of the sword. Hester blocked this with his blade, but for his trouble took a kick square to the chest that sent him stumbling backward. He barely righted before falling off the span of the bridge onto the far side.

“He overwhelms lesser opponents with aggression,” I commented. “But he hasn’t opted for that here, against a more formidable opponent, where one mistake can get you killed…”

Hester charged back up the bridge, yelling.

“Oh,” Gena said.

The woman crouched low, blade back again. She leapt forward, ducking to her right and pulling the blade across with her…

… which Hester deflected. Rather than a brutal overhead swing, he had brought his blade tip down for the parry. Both swords wheeled in great steel half-circles as the fighters recovered their footing, unbloodied.

“And neither of them are committing to serious mistakes,” I said.

They met. Blades clashed. Hester pushed, trying to drive her foible with his forte. She released the bind, aiming a cutting blow at his shins. He leapt away. They reset for a beat.

“Classical and polished,” Gena said.

“I’d say so.”

She stepped and sliced, he parried. But this time, she stayed in, seizing his wrist with one hand and aiming a punch across the jaw with another. He braced quickly, taking the blow on the cheekbone² and twisting with the blow, throwing her off. She landed in a roll to her feet; he landed on his back.

I felt my breath catch. “Gena…” I said.

She was on him as fast as lighting. She showed the blade overhead: a killing blow from above.

Then Hester made his one mistake: he went to deflect it.

With a flick of the wrist and a deft twist of the blade, hers slid under his and toward the crossguard at a keen, terrible angle. He was forced to throw his arm wide and lose his grip on his sword as her blade caught its crossguard and sent it spinning, clanging down the bridge.

She leveled the point of her blade on his throat.

But that was her one mistake.

There would be a beat of silence there, normally, where the beaten fighter would be made to offer their surrender, or else be executed where they lie. Hester, experienced half-sworder he was, grabbed her blade right at the terso and wrenched it from her grip, flinging it away.

The duelists stared at each other, both disarmed.

And then they began laughing.

She offered a hand, and he took it, and together they hauled him to his feet.

“Oh,” I said, breathing again.

“I am Aliyah, sworn to the Queen of the City of Bliss. It is an honor to receive our guests,” she said. Her eyes spoke of curiosity and gladness. Her accent spoke of Ivian learned as a second language and practiced diligently.

My eyes, I’m sure, spoke of suspicion and surprise. “Lady Iltara, of the City of Bliss?”

“Of course,” she said.

“You know that… uh…” I stammered, looking to Hester.

“I seek to return something she stole,” he said, nodding. “I said so.”

“All the same, he is to be welcomed as an honored guest at her court,” Aliyah said. “This seems strange to me too, have no doubt. But I see no reason I should question my duty. And I can see he is an honorable man, besides.”

“May we… seek redress, then? At court?” I said.

“Perhaps.” Aliyah shrugged. “That is not for me to decide. My duty is to accompany Sister Gena and Sir Hester to the city.”

“Accompany, or capture?” I asked. “And am I to be turned away?”

“Why should I need to capture you?” she said with a laugh. “You have been coming this way. And you may come and partake of our hospitality, too. But Her Highness tells me you have no business with her, and so it is not my duty to be your aegis.”

“Oh. Anyway, what was the bridge about?”

“I was told to find you there.”

“And you and Hester fought because…?”

“Because it would be fun,” she said.

“A friendly spar,” Hester added.

“No, really.” I said.

“Well, when you encounter a knight on a bridge, there are forms to observe, you see…” Hester explained.

The valley forelands are a mesmerizing place. Of course I would say that; I find any night under a cloudless sky to be a salve for an troubled mind. And every night in the valley forelands is under a cloudless sky. But even during the day, under the great pale blue, the arid landscape is a wonder of its own, transforming beneath you.

The cracked dirt and short, hardy scrubs gave way to, at first, little rivers of sand, and then great pools of it, and eventually a sea of tremendous dunes. That was the third day. The provisions Aliyah had brought (water, bitter nuts, salted goat, dried flowers she identified as seba) were running thin, and the four of us were drenched with sweat every minute of daylight, each of them taking turns at the miserable labor of helping me limp across the desert. I did not have the luxury of taking turns. Time after time, I wished I could cut the splint and test my weight on the leg, but I knew it would only be a wasted effort and a wasted splint.

We arrived at a small town, Jofia, huddled about a smaller spring. It was fully walled in red granite, giving it the appearance of a tiny toy fortress that had one day long ago slid down to rest at a low point amongst the dunes. Aliyah, at the lead, saw us in the gates and greeted the townsfolk, not quite as kin but certainly not like a stranger. None spoke Ivian and only a handful spoke any Yaria, so Aliyah interpreted for us as we exchanged greetings, spoke briefly of our mysterious business, and prepared for the next leg of our journey.

Aliyah informed us that we were only a day away from the city of Bliss, but she expected the journey to take somewhat longer. The townsfolk of Jofia were unable to part with any pack animals³, but a creative young tradeswoman was able to improvise by specially crafting a crutch featuring a wide foot for use in the sand.

The livestock, as it happens, had been taken west by the Morul-Om. We had missed them by just a week or so, one villager told us.

So we left Jofia with an ever-so-slightly brisker pace (although the effort of walking was still painful and laborious) and three days of supplies for another journey through the lonely desert.

In the vast twilight of the second day, we reached the edge of town.

The city of Bliss didn’t look like much from the west. A few modest columns of smoke from cook fires and forges drifted up on the dry breeze. The buildings were wide, dark, and squat, appearing on the horizon as little more than a homogenous spread of brick and limestone, their finer details washed out in the deepening shadow.

A jungle of trees and fronds was visible on either side of the city, clinging to an unseen riverside, silent and still.

It was dark, unadorned, and very, very quiet. There was not a soul in sight.

“Is this the city of Bliss?” I asked as the low, dark mass grew near.

“Yes, and no,” Aliyah said. “This is its shadow.”

“Hard times?” I said, lurching forward through the sand.

“Yes.”

Like Jofia, the city was fully walled. A lone sentry poked his head above the gate, exchanged some words with Aliyah, then vanished. A minute later, the portcullis rose, and the gate swung open. The same sentry—just one man to watch and open both gates—saw us through, giving a casual salute to our escort as she passed, which she returned, smirking.

The buildings of the city proper clumped near the wall, as if pushed there in a wave issuing from the center of town. Close up, the architecture was faded glory: splendid stonework, weathered and sandblasted by the ages, chipped paint and crumbled statuary. Every door was shut against the wind and darkness. Aliyah led us past empty stables and a darkened way-house, then turned to the right into an alleyway. She stopped and rapped on the second door to our left. The first touch of warmth in the cold night greeted us as it cracked open, and she led us inside.

There, she greeted a man, tall and broad, wearing a dusty apron. They embraced, and he bore a smile nearly as wide as his shoulders. Behind him lay a pile of battered shields, and behind that a heap of chainmail, and beside that a neatly sorted collection of nicked and bent short swords. Six cots were laid out however they could be made to fit upon the floor and, of course, the forge itself took up what little space was not occupied by everything else.

“This is my brother, Utba,” Aliyah said. “Utba, these are the guests.”

“Well met and honored,” the man rumbled, like a cheerful boulder.

“The others will be here shortly,” she said. “Your… honor guard.”

Gena smiled. “Our jailors.”

Hester and Aliyah shared a look. This puzzled me greatly.

“A cynical way to put it,” Aliyah said. “But I shall not quibble.”

“I’ll… quick-bull, then,” Hester ventured. “Just because you’re being escorted by soldiers doesn’t mean you’re being jailed. We needn’t be rude about that.”

“Oh, but we’re not being escorted,” Gena countered. “We’re staying right here.”

This puzzled Hester greatly. “We’re going to meet Lady Iltara… here?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Gena said.

Aliyah nodded, her lips pursed in appreciation. “Indeed, as soon as you are ready.” She gestured to the cots.

My heart caught in my throat. Wings of flame and eyes of hatred flashed before my inner eye. Not again.

“We cannot… could not simply meet her here, in the city?”

“You will meet her at her own court in the city. You would ask a queen to leave her throne to meet you?” Aliyah said. The smile on her face only sharpened the reproach of her question.

I stammered. There was no place for me to find purchase in the argument. I had a choice: stay, or go.

So, of course, I chose to go.

“…No, I would not,” I said. “We will go.”

Hester seemed to perceive the shift in our fortunes. He no longer leaned on the wall with his arms crossed. He stood gallantly beside the door, as if by the angle of his hips and the ready hang of his hands he could send danger skittering away, thinking better of it. “Yes. We will go, then, to meet your lady.”

Gena shrugged and picked herself out a cot. I lowered myself down on the nearest one, trembling and aching. Hester seemed to fume silently, before he, too, was laying his kit aside so that he could make himself comfortable.

“You have my word,” Aliyah said. “I, and my brothers and sisters in the queen’s service, will keep you safe from this side. We have sworn so.” After meeting Hester’s gaze, she added: “I do not know much about your quarrel with Her Highness. Nor your invitation to her court. But I know my duty. You should trust me to do it, I say.”

Hester nodded with a lopsided, mild scowl that I think was supposed to convey I am unconvinced, but that was a good speech about honor and duty and I must respect that, at least⁴.

“Go to sleep already,” Gena mumbled.

Sleep did not come easily for me. I lay on my side, staring at the doorway, away from any faces, resisting the urge to roll over—firstly because it was tedious to turn my whole body over with my left leg still immobilized, and secondly because it seemed preferable to hide the fact that I wasn’t asleep. Or at least not announce it.

After an hour had passed—maybe more—the hinges on the door gave a tiny creak as it swung out, and I half-shut my eyes. Four pairs of boots treaded into the room. Quality boots for long wear and long distances: thick-soled, tall, supple at the ankles. Their wearers were walking carefully, their feet falling gently all about the room as they entered and walked about the cots and their sleeping (and not-quite-sleeping) occupants.

The person atop one of the pairs of boots—a man, reedy-voiced and quick-tongued—exchanged words with Aliyah in Uri-Kedis. Their voices were soft with respect for our sleep, and their tones were steady and brisk. Something about the cadence told me it was a simple exchange of facts and instructions: a soldier’s report (Aliyah) and an officer’s orders (the man). Aliyah had a few questions of her own for the man, and something she said caused a murmur of a chuckle to ripple throughout the group. There were a few more words, and then three pairs of boots left: one remained in the room.

The man said something else, and then Aliyah said, quietly, but in clear Ivian: “it can be hard to sleep after a long journey, no? But they are honest. They are sleeping.”

1. Later, I would ask the others about this experience and whether they found it as captivating and sublime as I had. Gena told me that it was a moment of great meaning for her, which she contemplated deeply at the time and many times thereafter. Hester expressed his admiration for the beauty of the place but remarked that he rather wished he had a rod and tackle with him.

2. Which assuredly hurt her just as much as it hurt him.

3. I will freely admit that the economy of the little town escapes me completely. What caused anyone to settle atop that spring? Water in the desert is all well and good, but there was not nearly enough to irrigate any crops.

4. It’s impressive what a person can communicate with the slant of two eyebrows and a certain tightness at one corner of the mouth.

XXIX: The Lady

“This way, sir.”

A man wearing a mortarboard cap, a diagonal shoulder sash in velvety turquoise, and a magnificently oiled mustache above a broad smile was gesturing down the steps.

I looked around.

The moon and stars glinted above the city like gemstones studded in a diorama, bathing the two of us in a soft blue light. Around us, the city itself was of a form that could, if one squinted, be compared to the squat shape of the city I had fallen asleep in. But here it was as if it had awakened from hibernation. Torches flickered in every street; crowds thronged. In the place of the short, stubby buildings with flaking paint stood great towers and domes, arcing gaily toward the sparkling heavens. Even the great heights above us bore human traffic; silhouettes could be seen conversing in lit balconies, and traffic moved across great bridges that spanned nearby towers. Every space and every corner was filled with light, color, noise, and life. We, ourselves, stood on some wide, raised, tiled patio overlooking the city, ringed by an intricate brass railing. A set of steps directly in the center of the railing opposite us led down a story to street level, which was thick with revelers.

It was, in a word, magnificent.

“This is your first time, I know. It is captivating, is it not?”

I laughed; it sounded hollow and lightheaded to my own ears. I was just so surprised.

Then, as I thought about walking where he had gestured, I collapsed, remembering my leg.

“Oh!” the man said. He rushed to my side and began helping me to stand, and then he had a crutch he was sticking under my arm. “My apologies.”

“None needed,” I replied. “I just thought captivating was a funny choice of words, is all.”

We spoke more as he helped me down the steps and then through the city streets. He was Sahid, a spirit of this place, an extension of Lady Iltara’s will. I was not speaking to the lady directly just yet—the lady’s will was Sahid’s will, but he was independent in senses and thought. Sister Gena and Sir Hester had been through just before, he mentioned. I asked if this meant that they had fallen asleep earlier—that this realm of dreams was entangled with the physical realm by the passage of time. He nodded, wearing that same cheerful, enigmatic smile. “I cannot say Her Highness has gifted me knowledge of the… true nature of it all,” he said. “But a minute as passes here is a minute as passes there, it does seem.”

We were in the thick of the crowds then. It was by no means a crush, but it was a rather larger number of people than I had been used to seeing in one area, after long weeks in the desert and the open veld before that. I was struck by the wealth and glamor of it all. Richly dyed and exquisitely woven clothes were draped across every body. Fingers were adorned with gems and clasped around gorgeously smithed goblets. People lounged on chairs before the buildings, exchanging gossip and song. One couple of friends was hauling their pleasantly drunken friend somewhere, perhaps home. A group of six children played some sort of street game with balls and chalk.

Many of them glanced our way. There seemed to be interest in my garb, which would mark me for a traveler, and my style of beard, which would mark me for an outsider. But nobody interrupted our journey, stopped us for questions, or so much as scowled at me before returning to their celebrations.

I was about to ask Sahid if this was because of his company, but then a more important question occurred to me. “Are they all…?” I began, not sure if what I was about to say was rude.

“The fair citizens of the city,” Sahid finished. “Mortal folk like yourself, yes.”

My mind turned over the possibilities. I forgot my aching body, lurching automatically along the street at Sahid’s direction, while my brow furrowed in thought. “Of course, I suppose. The Lady of Dreams. But… why? Why else? Or perhaps why not?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“They dream. I have the sense that they have not awakened for a long time. I don’t know what to make of that.”

Sahid’s smile faltered for the first time. “It is… perhaps best that you ask Her Highness about that, if you wish to know.”

He quickly returned to his usual cheer, though, and he introduced me to the geography of the place as we wove our way along the patchy grid of streets into which the grand towers and temples had been set. He pointed out places of worship, civic administration (architects, planners, tax officials, and a few he was rather more circumspect about), taverns, workshops, wineries, manufactories, places for gathering and for artwork, and public squares for dancing and for festivities.

We crossed the last of these squares, ringed by golden braziers cradling bright-red flames, and we began the long, slow climb up the steps, through a line of grand marble columns, across the wide porch, and into the temple proper.

The temple took the form of a cylindrical tower, admirably proportioned so it would feel both tall and broad. The ground level here (or, I suppose, the first story above street level, given the climb up to the entrance) consisted of a raised dais in the very center, about half the diameter of the structure. Down two wide steps from the dias, in every direction, was a reflection pool, and a brilliant rainbow ring of torches blazed above it¹. Here and there, mostly near the edge of the pool, devotees were carrying out little rituals, or prayer, perhaps, or other acts of faith with which I was unfamiliar.

In the center, a few stiff-looking woven mats had been laid out. Sahid led me onto one, and standing upon it himself, he looked up, and I with him. Balconies ringed the tower for ten stories up, and in the shade of their colonnades more people could be seen sitting, standing, or moving to and fro in unknown activity. Then, the balconies began to grow closer: our mat was rising in the air, carried by an unseen force. Sahid smiled at me, and I realized that he had placed a hand on my back to steady me.

A few minutes later we disembarked on the top balcony. Voices, footsteps, and gentle laughter echoed up here beneath the dome. I had the sense that one need only lean on this balcony and look down to hear and know of the whole bustle of goings-on in this splendid place, even if the specifics of any given activity were indistinct. We climbed another set of stairs, and the sound faded as we passed through an archway, outside into the night.

The overlook was quieter, more intimate. The sounds of the temple were audible, but distantly, as if to remind you that they were there, close, but you were in pleasant seclusion. It was laid out in the pattern of a throne room: a broad space, laid out in depth, watched over by a gilded throne upon a dais directly opposite the entryway. Sahid and I stood only about a dozen paces from the throne. There was seating: woven chairs with cushions. A gentle night breeze tugged gently at the white-and-lilac-flamed torches set into the balustrade.

Lady Iltara sat idly cross-legged upon the throne, just as I remembered her—leisurely, dressed exquisitely (tonight, a swan-white gown laced with gilded pearls), and confident. Her left hand ran benevolently through the mane of a tremendous lion that lounged by her side. The lion had gigantic wings, tawny-feathered like a desert eagle. It must have had a wingspan of at least twenty feet unfurled. It looked well-fed².

Gena and Hester sat in two of the chairs, in audience with the lady, and a few servants clothed like Sahid were engaged in various servantly activities at the margins of the room.

The three, and the lion, turned to regard us.

Iltara offered a smile and an intrigued tilt of the chin. She motioned for some servants to bring me a chair and help me into it, relieving me of my crutch and replacing it with a goblet of wine in a well-practiced waltz of service. Sahid had vanished.

“You come late,” she said. “But welcome to this great house. Please,” she said, gesturing to the wine in my hand.

“I told you he would come,” Hester said, satisfaction writ plain on his face and his crossed arms.

“The point is yours,” she said. “And now that he has come, we should waste no more time.”

“I agree,” Hester said, which struck me as a frighteningly impertinent note of agreement.

The lion shook its great mane (also bringing about a voluminous ruffling of feathers) and huffed.

“I welcome you to this court and this city to solicit your service. Pledge your fealty and render unto me your talents. Partake in the splendor of my vision—our vision.”

“Why?” Gena asked.

The lion’s ears twitched. Lady Iltara took a sip of wine. “Should I not think you talented? Your services worthy of me and my people? You have come far and braved great danger.”

“But you wanted our service before that. Before the great journey, before the great danger. We’ve known all along.”

“And you’ve known, too,” I added. “You’re not asking us just because we’ve handled the journey here.”

Lady Iltara swirled her goblet around, her lips hidden behind it, her eyes peering over at us.

“You want my service,” Gena said. “You did all this to get to me. Why?”

I remember thinking that when Gena solved riddles before I did, the solutions were often very, very scary.

Lady Iltara smiled, fierce and hot like the desert sun. “I will admit it, then,” she said. “I need you. An apprentice wizard and a fine knight have accompanied you and they would make fine agents of my court, no doubt, but they are not the object of my desires. You, Sister Gena, are a scholar of impressive raw ability. You would surely become among the finest in the realm if left to hone your skills at that monastery.”

I felt my limbs growing numb and cold with fear. Hester knew something was wrong, too. His jaw was set, ears pulled back, face paling. What had we done?

Had we been simply escorting Gena into danger this whole time?

Lady Iltara stood and turned her lovely back to us, leaning onto the rail, overlooking her domain. “You are needed here. This city, this place of life and splendor, will come under siege, soon. The king in the south will march on it.” She turned and locked eyes with Sister Gena.

“And you need me to arm you with Ae’s weapon,” Gena said.

“What?” Hester yelled, bolting to his feet.

Three pairs of eyes fixed onto him.

Four pairs, counting the lion’s.

I bolted to my feet, too, only I didn’t, because one of them was still held in place by a splint, and my chair pattered out from under me as I fell. Hester was moving, his two feet pounding on the tile, tap-tap-tap directly to his doom. And what was I going to do about it, grab him by the shoulders and hold him back? In the moment as my chin sailed toward the tile, a better idea popped into my mind, buoyed from my heart to my head by a wild froth of fear.

I shouted the words of power and seized their meaning in a frenzy, and I clung to them as they pulled me from the realm of dreams.

“Mhhhhuuuuu,” I mumbled, as the muscles in my face thawed from sleep. “Hessssss-Hester. WAKE UP.” I yanked with my left arm to roll over onto my right side. “Before that cat can…”

“Don’t move,” Aliyah hissed, holding her blade to Hester’s throat.

1. A similar effect can be produced, of course, by adding a variety of carefully selected, strictly purified metals to the torch fuel. But I could only have identified a handful of the necessary metals, and I was unsure if the process was even necessary in a realm of dreams and wonder.

2. This may sound like an ominous observation to make, but let me assure you, the opposite observation would be much more concerning.

XXX: The River of Faith

I froze.

“No,” I breathed. “He’s going to die in there. Please.”

Aliyah crouched over his form. Her blade remained, the middle of its outer edge pressed gently just beneath his chin. She spared him a glance. “His life is only in danger if he puts it there. The queen does not betray her hospitality.”

“Hester!” I yelled. “HESTER!”

Aliyah’s eyes flicked back up to me.

“HESTER.” I dared not risk provoking the execution by getting closer. But he did not stir.

“HESTER! HESTER! GENA!”

“Shhhhh, wizard,” Aliyah said. “He will not wake.”

I looked over to Gena. Her body also lay motionless.

“No,” I breathed. “Do you mean…”

“Hm? No, they are alive. More alive than we are,” she said, with a rueful shake of the head. “The queen’s gift is strong here, and many of us now sleep. For days at a time, even.”

For a while—ten minutes, three hours, I don’t know—I buried my face in my arms, hiding my fear, or smothering it, or wallowing in it. I don’t know. I only looked up from time to time to stare silently at my companions, whose chests rose and fell steadily. Wherever they were, whatever condition they were in, they were alive. We had made it through so much. We had made it this far. We could make it a bit further.

I was interrupted by the door, which swung open behind me, close enough to my back that I could feel the stale, hot desert air upon my neck.

I stirred and lifted my head to watch. Two men filed in and greeted Aliyah. The man whose voice I recognized from before—a crisp tenor, spoken in military rapidity—frowned down at me. His eyebrows were jet black and bushy, shading hard eyes set deep back and apart. He wore a diagonally-cut robe over a cuirass of richly colored lamellar plates. His mustache was the spitting image of Sahid’s.

Still looking at me, he said something in Uri-Kedis. It seemed that it was directed at Aliyah, because she replied in kind, and then (I think) repeated in Ivian for my benefit: “yes, awake. He has not explained, but I gather he excused himself early.”

That was a cue to me. All three of them were looking at me expectantly. Aliyah stood above Hester’s still body.

I thought to myself then: what now? It was time to tell them something, but what? I felt a surge of anger, driving my teeth against each other. Lady Iltara had made a fool of us. Of Hester, for tricking him with such an obvious bait. Of Gena, for luring her into her snares with her sophistry about dreams and worlds, just so she could use her in some petty war for territory. And above all, of me. I had all of the facts. I should have seen this coming. I could have did something. Anything. But time and time again, I had not.

I certainly didn’t owe her servants the truth—I would give them only whatever suited my needs. And what did I need? Perhaps I should have been thinking of that rather than indulging in my self-pity. But then it came to me.

The tome.

If Hester and Gena could not recover the Doctrina Tempestas, I would.

And who knows? I thought to myself with a giddy rage. Maybe I would undo this so-called queen with it myself.

“I did,” I said. “The queen has much to offer. But I must… see more, first. I wish to know more.”

Aliyah and the man frowned at each other, faces drawn with suspicion.

I sat up. “Show me your home. She has asked me for my fealty, but it would be fealty to you as much as to her. Indulge me. I am a wizard, aren’t I? An endlessly curious creature, I am.”

They shared a look again, and then Aliyah shrugged. They shared some words. “Bah,” the man said, in the universal human language. He spoke with the other man and they took up positions in the room.

“Come with me, wizard Horwendell,” Aliyah said. She helped me up and out of the little forge, leaving Hester and Gena in the care of her two comrades.

I limped out into the streets, leaning on my crutch. The wide foot was more difficult to maneuver here on stony streets, but it was still better than being half-carried about the whole world. We looked up and down the alley: shaded from the morning sun, dusty, long, and absolutely silent. We turned up onto one of the wider streets, one that crossed with the main avenue in from the gates.

We walked for ten minutes, passing worn buildings of low construction. They were homes, public places, places of business, places of worship, and places of meaning to their inhabitants.

So I imagined. The truth was, I could only guess. We walked for those ten minutes without meeting a single other soul.

There was only one place they could all be.

“How long have they been sleeping?” I asked, as we turned a corner. I recognized the place: one of the grand squares at the heart of the city. I had seen it in the dream, ringed by fires, its wide surface a glittering mosaic that swirled about a silver-plated statue of a swan alighting. Here, in the mundane world, the mosaic was splotched with heaps of sand, and what was visible between the drifts was overlaid in a brown-grey sheen of dirt. An empty statue pedestal lay dormant in the center. The sun burned sternly down upon us.

After a pause, Aliyah finally spoke. “Ten days.”

“Ten days… we were in the veld, ten days ago.”

“Of course.”

“Ten days is… remarkable. No food. No water. Are they all…?”

“All still alive.”

“How long can they go like that?”

“How am I to know?” she said, still gazing out over the empty square. “They will endure longer asleep than awake; that is all I must know. My faith is unshaken.”

I joined her in looking out over the square, leaning on my crutch and sweating deeply into my travel clothes. There were no towers here, no grand porticos or lovely ballads or dancing figures. And so it was that much easier to pick out the mundane details: three streets to the north, south, and west, clusters of buildings at the corners, and a colonnade along the east of the square whose center pillars flanked a small arch bridge that crossed a dry riverbed.

My gaze settled on the dry riverbed, and then fixed, burrowing into it. Nowhere did the air of death here hang so heavy—not upon the dusty buildings, not upon the cracked roads, not upon the empty streets—as it hung upon the still, empty channel.

“That’s it,” I said. “The river.”

Aliyah’s eyes slid to meet mine, though the rest of her body remained perfectly still and poised, as though she might be the statue upon this square.

“The king diverted it. This was…” I glanced southeast, upriver. I thought back to some of the reading material Claude had selected for me back at the Watch on the Rock. “… a distributary of the Lakalka.”

Her eyes returned to the river. “I suppose that is his power.”

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t question. The river dried.”

“And the queen protects her people.”

“You’re catching on,” she murmured. “The river dried. She brought the sleep upon us that we might weather the drought.”

“And I think you’re catching on, too. You can’t deny it. The king did this. The queen told me the siege is coming. But really it’s already upon you.”

“I will not deny it, then. If you say the king has taken the river from us, I say you are probably right. And I say it makes me more glad you have come. The queen says that your friends will be a great boon to her.”

I held her sidelong gaze for a few seconds, then I looked back out upon the square.

“I suppose it has not always been called the city of Bliss.”

“We are forbidden to speak the old name,” Aliyah replied.

“Oh. Do you have family?” I asked, changing the subject quickly. Anything I could learn…

“Many. My brothers and sisters in arms. My mother, my brother and sister by blood.”

“Utba, right?”

“Yes. My younger brother.”

“The others are asleep?”

“My mother and sister, yes.”

I wanted to ask if it had been hard or offer my condolences. But the words forming in my head sounded hollow, saccharine. I hoped a somber silence would do.

“Will you be a great boon? You are certainly curious, as promised,” she said.

“You know our qualms.”

“I do.”

“The weapon is stolen, and your queen means to fell a god with it.”

“You have said it yourself; the battle is met already,” she said, gesturing out over the riverbed. “So we fight with stolen weapons. So our foes are mighty. So what? We will fight. If amends are to be made, let us make them after we prevail.”

I thought about Hester’s holy quest, and I thought about their sparring match—a little ritual meeting of knights-errant. Hester, who assented to Aliyah’s escort because it brought him closer to his destination; Aliyah, who brought him closer at her queen’s command. It had been all too obvious that they were arrayed in opposition, and yet…

“So what is it, wizard? Will you be a boon?” Aliyah said. Her eyes were forward again, over the sun-blasted square.

“Apprentice,” I said.

The arrangement of the rest of the day proceeded from one bare fact: I would return to sleep in the evening, and I would do so under Aliyah’s watchful eyes¹. With time to spare during the daylight, and with few other options available to us in the catatonic city, Aliyah invited² me to her home on the eastern bank of the river. It was a small, narrow affair, with canted walls and tall, slit-like windows allowing shining stripes of light in, where they fell upon a small room that occupied most of the first floor. The expansive quiet of the outside was replaced by the lonely metal-on-wood sounds of food preparation coming from a room behind a tall half-wall the far left corner.

As Aliyah helped me down into a cane-woven chair, Utba emerged from the kitchen.

“Our guest!” he said, beaming as he wiped his hands on a towel hanging out of his apron pocket. It was the same apron as before, blackened and smelling permanently of soot. The towel, at least, seemed not to have come straight from the forge.

“Yes,” Aliyah replied. “Our doubtful friend.”

“Cheese?”

“No, thank you, I’ve had enough cheese for a lifetime.” Two weeks on the veld will do that to you.

Utba thought. “Stale bread?” he wondered aloud.

Aliyah chuckled. “He can have cherries from the garden.”

“That’s very generous of you,” I said as Utba vanished through a door leading out back. “This is…” I looked around. It was small, it was cramped, but it was on the river (such as it was) and appointed luxuriously. “It’s grand.”

“Pardon the… state.” Aliyah said, sighing. “We are not used to it.”

She was right. Rich as their possessions were, the room was dusty—sandy, even, in places. “You are busy, I am sure…” and had no servants, I observed silently. Not just because everyone was asleep; the place was simply far too small to accommodate a full household of pages and maids.

“Up-jumped, you might say.”

“You are new nobility, then?”

Aliyah had yet to take a seat, and she stood facing a window by the entryway, a stripe of sunlight illuminating the left half of her face and a length of her body down to the tip of her white half-robe.

“No,” she said, finally. “Not like your good sir knight.”

“No? Then…”

“It is different here,” Utba said as he thumped back into the room with a few clusters of cherries in a ceramic bowl. “We are artisans. On the occasion we have had to do the Queen’s Labor, our work was recognized as befitting and honoring her.”

“Quite the honor it must have been,” I said. “Your smithing for her army?”

“Ah, no. My talents were and still are appreciated, but it was Aliyah’s that earned us our fame and the queen’s favor.”

“I see. She is a fearsome swordsman,” I said.

Utba laughed. Aliyah winced.

“She is, but she is an artist.”

I looked at Aliyah. She stared directly out the window.

“It’s true. Painting and calligraphy,” she said.

“But…”

“But I am such a fearsome swordsman? I am.” She smiled, and yet her voice was edged with irritation that she was not in the mood to hide.

I munched on cherries—plump, pleasantly tart, staining my fingers red—while Utba explained. “The Queen’s Labor. In the west you pay tax, gold or grain, to your lord, yes? That is what we did when we lived in East Arc—briefly, many seasons ago. But here, in the Valley, it is the King’s Labor… or, for we lucky souls, the Queen’s Labor. We are each summoned away from our mortal masters or landholders, for two moons out of the year, to contribute directly to her greatness.”

As Utba said this, he wiped his hands on his towel, and he leaned over and began rummaging through a chest that sat beside the near wall.

“There was a time Aliyah was called to produce great works of art for our queen. Her devotion, her vision, are second to none, and out of that well sprung… incredible beauty.”

He retrieved a rolled-up canvas, about as wide as my shoulder span, and handed it to me. It was a manuscript; I couldn’t read the writing but it seemed to have the layout and cadence of a history or narrative. The bottom half of the scroll was illuminated by a map of the Valley of the Sun. It was breathtaking: the glittering golden landscape, rendered in gold leaf and sepia, was tattooed with crimson illustrations of towns and villages. A vein of ultramarine ran through, wandering from its rich source in the south to the indigo seas of the north.

“But the queen does not need incredible beauty, not now. She needs blades,” Aliyah said. She turned to me. Her eyes were hard and her voice even.

Utba broke the silence. “Don’t be alarmed by her… zeal. She misses her great work and wishes to return to it. But she also…”

“Utba,” Aliyah pled.

“… misses her little sister, Naya.”

“Utba.”

“What? I do too,” he said, filling the little room with a great shrug. “Even an afternoon is too long to go without her sweet little babbling.”

“A baby sister?” I said.

Aliyah sighed.

“I hope you get to meet her, Horwendell,” Utba said, his eyes distant with daydream.

Again, I lay on my side, facing away from Aliyah, awake. Hester and Gena were alive. As Aliyah had been settling me down onto a cot, I had been pestering my captors, and finally the thin man with Sahid’s mustache had checked my friends’ pulses and breathing. He seemed to have thought that this was ridiculous. If Aliyah had agreed with him, she had not shown it.

What now, I thought? I was to return to the dream. I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Gena and Hester still slept, and they would, no doubt, remain asleep for days. That left me alone in the mundane reflection of the city of Bliss, a dusty, dry town filled with sleeping bodies and crowned with a skeleton patrol of soldiers. They would ensure I returned to the dream. And even if I had fearsome war magic at my disposal—and I had little of that—I could not imagine a scenario that I could create, no path through these dark forests, that I could follow to escape. Not in my physical condition, anyway.

Sleep closed in on me, and the leaping, coursing, darting thoughts in the fore of my mind slowed and smoothed, becoming eddies and flows. And in this dark place of slow currents between wake and sleep, I felt a new tug of thought. The dark forests. Looming trees and hidden paths. The steps, motions, and decisions, the path we had taken, cut, and followed, leading here, where I lay…

Why hadn’t I thought of it that way before? We three had moved through the dark forest, at Hester’s direction: his faith, a great river. Shadows drifted thickly through the trees at either side, but upon the river none had impeded our journey. None could.

Lady Iltara had been waiting at the end of the river, waiting for us with great wings and paws and a mane. Hester, his hand on his hilt. Gena and I had known she was there, all this time. A coming clash. But only now, now that she was within view…

Why had we followed the river? Just because it would take us forward? It should have been obvious where forward would lead.

It was not too late. The great lion and the mighty queen waited and watched with hungry eyes and hungry fangs; the good knight drifted forward his quest to vanquish them. Eyes, watching from the forest. From the river. From the skies. Awaiting the outcome. Hopes and aspirations pressing in from all sides, turning on this battle upon the river of faith. But…

There was still time, still a few precious moments to grab the oars and beach into the shadows.

The map Utba had showed me flashed across my mind. A bright blue river in a golden valley. Hester, Gena, and I upon it…

I withdrew from the edge of sleep, and a smile crept across my face. My thoughts rose, and I began forming a plan.

1. Left unspoken was the fact that I would be sleeping under her sword if I made an issue of it.

2. You know, for a certain definition of “invite.”

XXXI: Realm of Thought and Will

Sahid stood atop the patio above the city to greet me. His smile was broad, but flat. It seemed to lurk behind the mustache.

“Apprentice Wizard Horwendell. I am glad to see you back. Please,” he said, approaching just a bit too quickly. “Let’s be off.”

No. It may have been Lady Iltara’s city of Bliss, but it was my dream just as much as it was hers.

And I was practiced in lucid dreaming.

I took one step toward him, then planted my left leg and drove, swinging my crutch like a solid, extended fist. It cracked Sahid clean on his cheekbone and sent him sprawling, his mortarboard cap tumbling away down the stairs. He hit the floor with the muffled whumph of a heavy body wrapped up in silks and jewels.

As he struggled to regain his composure and right himself, I ripped off my splint and threw it aside. I broke off into a sprint, hurtling down the stairs into the crowded streets below.

I hit street level and began weaving between people with exhilarating abandon. I was running, on my own two legs, for the first time in weeks. The freedom, the ability to simply do, was as good—no, better—than flying. It was not just the ability to move as I willed. Is that I willed to move as I will, in the realm of dreams, where that was the only thing that mattered.

I took a few minutes to simply run. Not just because it was fun. It was quite necessary. Sahid’s voice rose indignantly into the night sky as he shouted the alarm, audible in brief snatches amidst the hubbub of the streets. I sidled past the wrong side of a street food vendor, trying to avoid blasting directly through the queue for the steaming kebabs and instead nearly bowling over the woman serving them. As a handful of roasted peppers arced through the air over my shoulder, I thought to myself: if Sahid is a shard of Lady Iltara’s will, should he need to shout? How autonomous was he, really?

I reached an intersection that had been cleared out for a fire dancer. In this realm of will and beauty, he had no need for batons or sashes: he wove pure flame through the air, trailing it about and between his graceful, whirling limbs. The crowds beheld the spectacle from a safe distance. I forced myself to the edge of the audience and craned my head to and fro, trying to get a view of the cross streets. I saw green mortarboard caps bobbing and juking angrily toward the clearing, left, right, and ahead. That kind of rapid, unanimous response seemed unlikely from a single hue and cry. So it wasn’t seven men bearing down on me so much as it was a single will, taking the form of seven men. A single keen, ambitious, deadly will. A deadly will I had rebuffed, insulted, and finally, slapped in the face.

But I didn’t have time for regrets. I had to act.

I was still riding the high of carrying forward on my own two feet, but the solution came readily to me despite that. Or because of that, really. This was a realm of will, wasn’t it? I had but to will to escape.

“Pardon me,” I said, to the two people just in front of me, as I shoved them out of the way and threw myself into the center of the intersection.

The dancer continued to dance, crouching low and spinning fire in great figure eights with his sinuous, uplifted arms. His eyes met with mine for a flash of a moment. But the show must go on, he decided, and his body whirled with the flames uninterrupted.

As that moment was ending, another began: one of the capped attendants stumbled into the ring with me. Just one? I looked side to side trying to spy the other caps in the crowd, but couldn’t pick them out in a hurry. They must have been hesitating. Reluctant to disturb this little piece of paradise for one runaway apprentice wizard, perhaps?

So I chose my escape: I ran directly at the sashed and be-tasseled man and thrilled in plowing him over. I hit him with my right elbow square in his chest and he gave like a sapling in a storm, his mustachioed face contorted with surprise. I escaped over top of him into the crowds to the east.

I sprinted down this new street, the length of my stride constantly changing, my feet always working to pick out a path between the passerby. This street was dense with obstacles, overrun with outdoor seating for some sort of public place—a bakery or winery. But furniture, occupied or not, is stationary, easier to move about than moving crowds, and I was able to fly with joyous speed down the street.

I turned one corner, then another. This entire district, filled with lights and colors, seemed dense with public amenities and thronged with the attendant crowds. It would be an easy thing to lose myself here. If I only sought out a path to escape, if I spent all of my momentum on just getting ahead of Sahid and his reflections, I wouldn’t get out. I’d only get lost, penned in, and caught despite it all.

I glanced upward at the night sky, which had a faint paleness to it, its depth washed out by the glow of the city’s lights. To follow through on my plan, I would need to navigate, and the stars were out of the question¹. I threw open the next door I saw and swung myself into the interior on the bronze handle. The sounds quieted around me, and my eyes adjusted to candlelight as I took two slowing paces into the ground floor. I could hear a rhythmic, hollow thump-thump-thump: delayed here, rapid there, absent for a span, then returned with gusto. There were people here, standing, shoulder-to-shoulder, dark shapes in a dark room. I hurried quietly to them: they were all facing away from me, looking to the center of the room. I worked my way around, searching for the stairs in the back. I finally saw the source of the thumping: some handball game, played between doubles, a man and a woman each darting to and fro, their sweat flashing in the low light.

I found the rear stairs. Not a soul had paid me attention… not until the front door burst open again. The many Sahids, hot on my trail. I hurried up, and the game disappeared from view.

I thundered up three more flights of stairs, passing utterly silent spaces obscured from me by walls and curtains. Then, I flung the door open on the roof.

The view here was no less breathtaking than it had been from the patio I had entered the city upon. One of the tallest towers, a quadrangular colossus of paint and motif capped by a dome and a spire, stood to my right. A broad palace of some sort faced me from the distance a few blocks away to my left—the entry patio, I guessed. One more glance about was all I needed to find my destination: Lady Iltara’s court, the great temple tower before the wide public square.

Feet were pounding their way up the stairwell behind me. Even if they were coming to escort me to my chosen destination, it wouldn’t do me any good to get there in their company. Could I go back down the stairs? Could I bowl through more than just one of them, even with gravity on my side? Did gravity matter in this realm?

No matter, I thought. Giddiness seized my limbs and throat again. I wanted to go forward, right? Why not do it?

By the time the first attendant crashed through the door behind me, I had gotten up to a full sprint. I planted my right foot on the edge, placing it perfectly, and I leapt.

This improbably long jump seemed to defeat the many Sahids, at least temporarily. I wormed my way down through the bath house I had landed on and worked my way through the streets to the northeast, finding that they had given up the chase. But I could still spot them here and there in the crowd, on the lookout for their runaway guest.

So I kept low and I kept quiet, losing myself in the citizenry and avoiding causeways and empty lanes. It was easy enough: with so much beauty to behold in the city, how could anyone hope to find one plain man in a hat and a travel cloak? But Lady Iltara was a goddess, though, was she not? For someone—or something—who was capable of creating a place like this, finding someone within it would be child’s play. The many Sahids were a shard of her will: limited, lowly. That they could not find me meant only that she had something more important on her mind.

Gena and Hester.

I hurried along until I found myself at the edge of the last square. The flames ringed the square, the ever-burning symbols of Iltara’s beauty and might. I stood in the shadow of a nearby stall, unused at the moment, and looked across. A pair of attendants stood on the porch, in the shade of the great entablature. They hadn’t been there the day before.

I looked at the buildings that ringed the temple. To the right, past the braziers, I spied the colonnade and the river, high and fat on its banks. I remembered its sibling in the Mundus, dry, dead. To the left, I found wide stone buildings with slightly canted walls and high slit windows, the flickering firelight teasing at images that might be visible within. One attendant stood at a high, arched wooden door in the very center.

That was my destination.

The attendant presented a difficulty, I thought, frowning from my dark little roost. Of course a civic building like this one would be watched at all hours. But just because it was difficult—just because I hadn’t anticipated the difficulty a bit sooner—didn’t change my task.

I backed out from the stall and slipped into an alleyway, navigating carefully up the west side of the square, behind that building.

I waited for an attendant to pass, then I stepped out into the street behind the building. It was quieter here. The hum of the crowds issued down side streets and alleyways, but here a spoken conversation could be heard for a long distance. A few people moved quickly up and down on business, carefully holding their gazes straight ahead. My heart leapt and quailed to see why: iron lattices were set in small rectangular windows, the windows marching down the side of the building in triplets, one each at ankle level, waist level, and eye level.

It had been exactly what I had been hoping to find: the jail. But if it was one window to a cell, these cells would be little larger than coffins.

It wouldn’t be long before another attendant came by, I reasoned, so I hurried down the street. “Hester,” I rasped, toward each triplet of bars. This elicited a few muttered curses and at least two awful moans of despair, emerging from perfect darkness in which I could not make out their sources. My skin crawled. I got a dirty look from a passing woman. With each column of cells I passed, I worried that I was in the wrong place. With each prisoner I set to oathing or weeping, I worried that an attendant would be by to renew the chase and foil my plan.

But then: “Howe?”

That was him, in the bottom cell. His voice, issuing from the perfect darkness. I knelt down.

“Hester,” I whispered, casting a glance left-to-right. “What happened?”

“A minor setback,” the voice mused from the shadowy cell. Even if I couldn’t see him, that answer was proof positive that he was in there.

“No, truly, what happened?”

There was silence in the darkness for a beat. I glanced over my shoulder again. Finally, Hester said “I tried to fight them.”

“But… why?”

“The odds were never going to get better.”

“Well, now they’ve certainly gotten worse.”

“See what I mean? Anyway, what happened to you?”

“I tried to get outside the dream and wake you up. You can’t be woken up.”

Another pause, this time of comprehension. “It’s an enchanted sleep,” Hester’s disembodied voice said.

“Right. But think, Hester. From here, I can pass into the Mundus with magic. Much like I can pass into the Halls with magic. But when I pass into the Halls…”

Hester laughed. “You can take someone with you.”

There was a shout from down the street. A well-appointed man was hustling down the lane toward me, shouting for help in Uri-Kedis.

“We’d better hurry,” Hester said.

“Hester, I have a plan. You have to trust me. Okay?”

“I trust you,” he said. I could hear a twist of anxiety in his voice. He knew he had to, and feared that I would ask something difficult of him.

But all I said was, “do what you do best. Strike when the iron is hottest. But leave the queen for me. Now, grab my hand.”

1. And besides that they were difficult to see, I also hadn’t found any time to make a proper study of them. Were they the same here as they were in the Mundus? It seemed unlikely.

XXXII: Sword-point

I awoke to the edge of a blade pressed into my throat.

“Do not move,” Aliyah said.

I froze under the ice in her voice. I was desperate to meet her eyes but even more desperate not to die instantly.

“I won’t,” I said.

“You betrayed my trust, wizard Horwendell.”

I supposed I had, by the ordinary accounting of things. I said nothing.

“You will stay here, and you will return to sleep. I will not move from here, no matter how long it takes. If you but think to do otherwise, I will be very cross to be forced to explain to my queen why I was forced to bring her your corpse.”

I said nothing. Happily, I had fallen asleep looking directly at Hester, so I lay facing him now. He lay still but for steady, regular breathing. There was no mistaking it when I had cast the spell that anchored me to this realm: I had taken him with me. So Hester was putting on a very convincing show of being asleep right now.

“So, wizard?” Aliyah hissed.

I remained frozen. This was it. Even if the dutiful knight with her sword at my neck could be tricked into relenting, a fight was a doomed effort. Hester and myself, unarmed and having only three good legs between us, against a woman who was Hester’s peer in the art of the longsword? And however many comrades she might have at hand?

My world had shrunk. There was the dreaming city, within it the many shards of Lady Iltara’s will that would hunt me until I had been penned and tamed, and there was this dusty room on Mundus, this cot from which I may never stand. Every step I had taken on the journey east, my world had receded with me, not stopping to think about it until I had taken the final step into the queen’s perfect snare.

My plan was dust, another heap of detritus to stir aimlessly through the desert. I would have to resign myself to life here, somehow. Life alongside the thief-goddess. Perhaps a very short one. Hopefully I could find a way to keep Hester from getting killed.

“I…” I began to say.

The door burst open. I almost started, but I was held still by the icy grip of self-preservation.

The thin man with the moustache—I could hear but not see him. He was breathing hard and speaking urgently. Aliyah conversed with him, her voice hard above my right ear. The sword at my neck did not waver as she spoke¹. He gave an order; she replied with annoyed obedience. They exchanged a few more words, and it was his turn to respond with frustration before he slammed the door. His boots pounded away on the dusty streets outside.

“We will speak more of this later, wizard Horwendell. I have orders, and you must come with me. Utba!”

“Yes?” Utba boomed. It was unnerving to think that a man so large could have been sitting in that room for so long without making a sound.

“Carry the wizard.” In one swift motion, her sword vanished from below my chin and I could hear it sliding into its leather scabbard. “We will go faster that way.”

I offered to walk with my crutch, but Utba, frowning, swept me up and hauled me onto his shoulders like a sack of hay. We were out the door before I could issue a complaint, hustling after Aliyah. I spared one last glance for Hester, carefully unmoving, on the way out. There was an ever-so-faint smile on his lips.

We hurried through the sandy alleyway. I bounced painfully atop Utba’s shoulders in his haste. We took a left back out onto the main street and then made directly into the gatehouse. Utba hauled me up the stairs, bounding three at a time even with my full weight upon his back (again, painfully), and then we emerged on the battlements.

I stopped breathing.

A band of soldiers stood in shouting distance from the gate. Sixty of them gleamed in the desert sun, arranged in two long ranks, armored in the old Ivian style—glinting copper scales worn beneath red tabards, long spears held erect in each left hand, each right hand resting on the pommel of a short sword. Each fifth spear was adorned with a pennant flapping militantly in the breeze.

Before them stood two apparent officers, wearing the same kit but with spotless white tabards. One bore a chin chiseled out of stone and eyebrows that could discipline an entire army without a second word. The other…

The other I recognized. He was huge—Utba-sized, but fairer of skin, the color of folk from the Hyng in the far west. And his beard was long and golden.

“What good fortune,” the hard-chined woman shouted over the distance. “Horwendell of Ilianath, right?”

Aliyah gave me a deadly look and nodded.

“Yes,” I shouted. “I don’t know…”

“On the behalf of the Fifty-Second Inquisition of the College of Apostles, I am here to bring you before the college. For answers.” That was the golden-bearded man. The man who Hester had knocked numb (and who I had helped tie up) as we sought the secret passages beneath the Hall of the League.

I took a deep, shaky breath, my first one in several seconds. When I had been rushed from the forge, I had thought Aliyah might have received the go-ahead to summarily behead me for being a useless pest. But it had somehow become even worse. I was going to be beheaded by the college and my mere existence would damn the people around me.

“Answers?” I managed.

“You know what this is about,” he replied. “And Theodric would, too, were he alive to tell of it. Now, would you be so good as to translate for us? It would be…”

“I understand you, knight of Ae,” Aliyah shouted.

“Even better.” That was the other inquisitor, now. I thought she seemed like she might be the commanding officer. “We have come to take Horwendell of Ilianath, Lord Hester of the House Eastmost, and Sister Gena, Apostle of the Third Degree for the College of Apostles back…”

“No.”

“… to Anteianum for questioning. And we demand the return of the relic known as the Liber Doctrina Tempestas.”

Aliyah laughed. And then she shouted “No” again.

“We are prepared to take this city by force,” the golden-bearded inquisitor shouted.

“An entire city? With sixty men?” Aliyah shouted.

“Ordinarily that would be unwise, yes,” he replied. “But you have a garrison of less than two dozen soldiers, no?”

Aliyah’s jaw tightened. She shot out something in Uri-Kedis. The thin man swore quietly.

“Your estimation is faulty. And every one of us who fights and falls will take ten with them. That is our promise to our queen.”

“Let us avoid a battle, then,” the commander shouted. “Who is in command?”

Aliyah translated and the thin man, who she introduced as General Amenem, stepped up to the parapet, and they began to discuss, with Aliyah serving as translator. I glanced up and down the battlement, leaning on Utba who had set me down on my own two feet only a little bit after mounting the wall. The inquisitor was right: the garrison was precisely sixteen soldiers, two of whom seemed nearly elderly. They stood with affected nonchalance between the merlons, but I could see them fidgeting at bowstrings and allowing their hands to drift to their quivers, searching out the fletching of their arrows. I knew that this was all of them because why else summon both Aliyah and Utba to the wall? They could just as easily have left one to watch over me.

What was sixteen ragged soldiers, a skeleton garrison for a ghost city, against a disciplined expedition of sixty-two? I caught snatches of the conversation. It was supposed to be a negotiation, but at best it was a piece of taxidermy. A long-dead negotiation that had been skinned and stuffed and posed as if it were a live negotiation. The inquisitor hurled, as best she could, carrots and sticks up the wall: that perhaps they might accept a formal delegation on the next month, that if any of us were charged with crimes against Lady Iltara that we could be returned to her custody after questioning, and so on. But Amenem wouldn’t have any of it. He was sure, it seemed, his skeleton garrison could hold these walls.

Walls were surely an advantage, I thought. But, according to military theory, physical obstacles are of sub-marginal value without effective overwatch. Or, put normally, a wall is useless if someone can climb it and throw down a rope when you’re looking the other way. Sixteen soldiers for the entire perimeter? It would take only one mistake for the entire defense to crumble. Sixty-two regulars…

… Regulars? I chewed on that thought as Amenem presented his own set of offers, also, inevitably, unappealing to the inquisition. How in the world did a small company of soldiers make such good pace east? They had originated in Anteianum, per their gear, and were presumably affiliated with the college itself. Would the college have detached a force like this weeks ago, when all that was known was that Theodric was dead? Perhaps they had used the Halls to catch up. But even so, how did they know about the city’s garrison?

Something didn’t add up.

But what did that mean for me? I looked around again. Ae’s soldiers out and below us were gleaming in their perfect ranks. Iltara’s soldiers were leaning uneasily on the parapets. Amenem continued to issue barely veiled barbs from his spot atop the gate. The golden-bearded man was beginning to fume; it was obvious even from here. Even Utba looked grim.

This was going to get bad. The arrows were going to start flying, the inquisition would look for an opportunity to breach the defenses, and I would be stuck in the middle of it with a broken damn leg. I needed an opportunity to…

“What will you do, wizard?” Utba asked, suddenly and quietly.

What would I do? I took a deep breath, gratitude for Utba’s simple question filling my heart and lungs. Just a few minutes ago, under Aliyah’s sword, I thought my final effort had been doomed. But the question served as a reminder that things had changed. My world was growing again. Great desert horizons and azure skies, to infinite depth in either direction. A slumbering city full of people just behind me. I had room to move.

But that room to move was thick with swords and spears.

Back to the plan: I needed to get to Gena. I had a way of getting to Gena, but I had to be alone.

I had my opportunity right here. I saw one way to seize it.

“Let me negotiate,” I said.

Aliyah was still translating some denial from Amenem, but Utba nodded. “You would?” he said. “It would be good if you did. If you could,” he said.

“Tell the general,” I said.

At the next opportunity, shortly after General Amenem had finished shouting something particularly acid down to the field, Utba mumbled something to Aliyah, whose eyes widened and then narrowed. She shot a “let me handle this” glance at the general and stomped over to me.

“What sort of nonsense is this, wizard?” she hissed.

“Let me negotiate,” I said, holding my chin up and meeting her eyes. Leaning awkwardly on Utba for help notwithstanding, I was not going to win this contest by looking or feeling puny.

“Do you take us for idiots? Do you take me for an idiot?”

“No,” I said. “Which is why you know you can’t hold a proper negotiation like this. You receive messages from Her Highness, of course—that’s how you knew I had fled. She can observe things in this world from her throne of dreams; I know that first-hand. But if she doesn’t happen to be watching right now, you can’t speak back to her. You can’t relay any of these terms to Her Highness. Not in a timely manner. Let me do that for you.”

Aliyah drew up. “We have simple orders. I intend to bring you to her.”

“There is no shame—there is no cost—in asking. You know I am to be a great boon to your people, no? I think I know how.”

“I have no trust for you, wizard. You made sure of that.”

“I know,” I said, wincing. “But you have to. Your other choices are so much worse.”

“What makes you think…”

“Aliyah,” Utba said in a deep, whispering bass. “We can’t die up here like this.”

Aliyah stopped.

“Look, sister. Sixty-two. Shall we slay sixty-two? Even if we could, half of us would die. Or more. Shall I bury you, or shall you bury me?”

Aliyah’s rage waxed, and then subsided. For a moment I thought she looked fit to break her own sword over her knees just to give vent. But instead, she closed her eyes, and then she opened them.

“Hayha Amenem, sut shyian was vizem Horwendell, thit ilaj,” she said, looking at me but speaking to her general.

“Fa?” was his reply, an utterance of total surprise.

Aliyah and Amenem conferred. And as the others gathered what was happening, I felt all eyes settling on me.

Amenem and the inquisitor exchanged the news via a a good deal more shouting. Aliyah told me the terms I would be carrying, and then I explained to Aliyah what I would need.

So it was that Utba and Aliyah lowered me onto the cool, smooth stone floor of the gatehouse while Amenem watched sourly on, an armored silhouette in the doorway. I sat, taking just a few seconds to make myself comfortable, I folded my hands in my lap, and I began the Communion.

The Communion is the signature work of the Wizards of the Seven Kingdoms, handed down to us by Ae herself. The Communion, properly speaking, is not just one spell, but is many spells and a great body of knowledge all supporting a comportment. A way of being. The wizardly way, if you don’t mind me saying. But the most important spells therein are the spells that unite minds and wills.

The one I was performing now was the most commonly used one: a spell that could briefly unite one wizard with any other wizard in existence.

Conceivably, I could have used this to bring the inquisitor’s terms to Lady Iltara: that the inquisitors be allowed to interview Gena, Hester, and I beyond the walls of the city, with a good faith promise that we would be returned to Lady Iltara if she would see to carrying out appropriate sentences.

That is not what I had in mind.

1. For better and for worse.

XXXIII: Communion

Our minds touched, and there I sat, in a calm, empty mountain glade, like the ones in Ilianath. The sky above was alive with stars. Gena stood a few feet away, gazing up at them.

“You called me,” she said with soft amazement.

“Yes,” I said. It seemed only polite to give her a moment to get her bearings, though she already seemed to have adjusted well. She regarded her new surroundings with a cool appreciation.

“What is this?” she asked.

“The Communion. I called you to this place—not quite my mind or my realm, but a place where we can both be. Magister Akabu Ai taught me.”

“Not so different…” she began, trailing off as she took a seat in the grass.

“From the city of Bliss? Maybe, maybe not. How similar is a bucket of water to an ocean?”

Gena smiled at me. She looked a bit sad. “So.”

“So,” I said.

“Have you found Hester?” she asked. “What will you two do?”

“I have. We’re going to recover the tome.”

Gena sighed. “I have the tome now. But Howe, don’t you think I’ve been thinking about this too? Maybe I could recover and return the tome.”

“But you haven’t,” I said.

“I haven’t.”

“Might I know why?”

“The people here need it. They’ll be crushed without it. Dead, every man, woman, and child, for rebellion against the king. I’ve done a great deal of praying, Howe. It’s not how I would have gone about this, but…”

“Well, I happen to agree.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

“And you still wish to recover the tome?”

“Yes.”

“Why should I allow you, then?”

“I have a plan.”

“Do tell.”

I told her.

“How soon can you do it?” I finished.

“Right now,” she said.

“No, I mean…”

“Right now,” she said, smiling.

“Seriously?”

“I have done a great deal of praying.”

I awoke. Only a few minutes had passed.

“Aliyah,” I said, straining to get my limbs—the three of them, anyway—limbered up and ready to move. “Tell the general to get everyone inside, on the ground level. Right now. Take me to the south side of town. There is a tower there, no?”

“Yes. What is the meaning of this?”

A low, distant rumble of thunder shook Aliyah, Utba, and Amenem out of their suspicious glares.

“I’m doing what I promised. Aliyah, get me to that tower.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to save us all from divine wrath. Please, Aliyah!”

Aliyah hauled me to my feet and out the door of the little gatehouse in one swift motion, and we emerged onto the walls and into total commotion. Amenem was shouting orders to his little band of soldiers, who were plucking up any supplies within arm’s reach and trying not to stumble over each other over to the stairs and down ladders. Outside, the flashing of metal showed that the inquisition soldiery had broken ranks and were hustling to shelter by the wall, seemingly under orders of their officers.

Behind them, a titanic mass of onyx storm clouds was rushing over the western horizon.

The crenelations rose to obscure them from view as Aliyah and I lurched down the stairs and barely managed to avoid face-planting at the bottom. We turned up the main street, and just a few paces after we left the cluster of buildings huddled up against the wall, the wind began to tug at our clothes and the sky above us grew dark and cold.

We reached the square by the river as the first drops of rain began to fall. Little wet spots began to dot the dusty mosaic beneath our feet.

By the time we threaded through the last of the buildings to the south of the square to reach the tower, we couldn’t see across the street through the sheets of rain, and we had to shout at each other over the howling wind.

The building creaked and swayed beneath us as we made it to the first set of stairs, the second set of stairs, the third. My arms were burning with the effort, and Aliyah’s shoulders were hard and tense as she strained to push me ever faster upward.

“Get to safety,” I yelled over the groaning building. We were at the door to the highest balcony. “I can do it from here.”

Aliyah shook her head and pushed on, holding me up under my left shoulder as she had been the whole way. We were instantly submerged in the driving rain.

I glanced about to regain my sense of direction. We were facing east, out over the riverbed as it ran into the city through an opening in the walls. Two large black chains drawn across the river leapt and clattered against their anchors and each other, completely inaudible beneath the roar of the storm.

I cleared my mind. I looked north, and then south. I visualized the stars, a mental astrolabe overlaid on the roiling clouds. A gust of wind nearly took me off the balcony, but Aliyah held on tight. I wanted to ask Aliyah if she was sure about this, about risking her neck for me, but it was too late for that. All that was left to do was to do right by her. By Utba. By Hester and Gena.

I thought back to the veld, to the steady, swift winds: winds that bore wings and brought life. I thought back to the man who had taught me to call them, and I wondered if he knew, or if he had ever dreamed, of what I might do with that knowledge. I pushed that out of my mind.

And then I called to the storm.

The plan was simple. It was so, so simple. We had been thinking of the Doctrina Tempestas as one of Ae’s great weapons. But it’s so much more than a weapon. It is a law. It is command over the wind and rain. Forget, for a moment, crushing your foe’s army with the mighty wind and rain. You need wind and rain to build a kingdom that can raise an army in the first place.

So Lady Iltara wanted a weapon to overthrow the king with. But what she needed, I thought, was a city full of life and vigor. A people with water to drink and a river to sail.

“So we cause the river to jump its banks, back onto its original course,” Gena had said. I had been able to sense her sadness thawing, her excitement kindling, even in the ethereal Communion.

“Right. Just once,” I had said. “It’s a risk. Perhaps the king diverts the flow again. We can figure that out when we get there, though.”

“There’s a more immediate problem,” Gena had pointed out. “I don’t know this desert very well. I can command a storm, but how shall I know how and where to place it? I don’t know if I can get away with lying to Iltara about what I’m doing in order to study the river.”

“Leave that to me,” I had said.

Gena was able to summon the entire might of the spellbook’s most famous spell in an unbelievably short amount of time. “I’ve done a great deal of praying,” indeed. She had help, I would learn later. Even so, her part of the plan was the hard part. She had to channel the power. It was her mind that had to unfurl the knowledge and her will that had to bear the weight of the understanding.

All I had to do was call the wind as the duuchin had. The eye of the storm needed to be south-by-southeast of here—a little canyon rendered in gold leaf and ultramarine in my memory—and the winds needed to be northerly.

So I did, breathing a simple request into the mighty tempest and hearing its titanic howl change, ever so slightly, in response.

I held on tight to Aliyah, wiped water from my eyes, and watched. The building gave an alarming groan beneath us as the winds shifted, but then it held still.

As the winds settled on their new bearing, subsiding in their violence, I shuffled slowly and carefully, pivoting around Aliyah until I, too, was at the balcony railing she was holding, gripping it tight with my other hand. Aliyah and I looked down.

And there it was: a stream growing in the riverbed.

XXXIV: The Wizard and the Evil Queen

Sahid withdrew from my side, plainly relieved to have accomplished his duty without complications this time.

I was alone with Lady Iltara. The gentle night breeze of the dream-city played happily at the pretty torches that ringed this overlook. She sat upon her throne. A high, winged headdress in gold leaf sat upon her head, and a death-black gown hung from her shoulders, belted neatly at her hips.

Her nails dug ruts into the gilded armrests of the throne.

“What do you have to say for yourself before I sentence you to death?” she said, lifting her chin slightly to better look down upon me.

I paused to choose my words. “I suppose Hester made off with the tome. And with Gena.”

“Do not play dumb.”

“Oh, I’m not.” I grinned. “That was everything I had hoped. How did it happen?”

“Easily, I am told. The scholar cast the spell from within the sunlight realm, of course. The knight needed only to locate her and hurry with her out the nearest gate. Amenem tells me they were spotted traveling west with the inquisitors.”

“He must’ve done it at the peak of the storm. Well done, Hester,” I mused.

“You planned it yourself, yes? So, you are to be executed.”

“Well, think.” In a day of wild gambits and desperate measures, it seemed only fitting that I would try one more before dying. “I planned it myself, yes?”

“I just said that.”

“My point being that I can be useful for planning a great many things. You lost the scholar. Perhaps you would like to gain a wizard.”

“You insolent…”

“… intelligent…”

“… untrustworthy…”

“… capable…”

“… fool.”

“… wizard!”

Lady Iltara paused. “Apprentice?”

“Not any more, no.”

She shrugged. “I am not so proud that I fail to see when I’ve lost. But I am proud enough not to suffer fools and liars. You die tonight.”

“Before you do that, know a few things,” I hastened to add. “If you believe you have lost here, then you perish when the king marches. But it may not be so. Awaken the city. Build its strength and add it to your own. Add my strength to your own. And if it all goes wrong and the king prevails, maybe then you can behead me as one final comfort at the end of your reign.”

“I prefer death by cobras.”

I shuddered.

“Perhaps I could negotiate the release of Seneseret and and Duhan. I believe you know them as my ‘goons’. If snakes are not to your liking, we might give them the honor.”

“Nope! That’s fine. Death by snakes sounds splendid,” I lied. “Kill me with snakes then. Save it for then. Let me serve you now.”

She laughed. I hoped that was a flavor of true mirth I detected beneath all the venom. “Amusing though that thought may be, I cannot trust you.”

“You can. I can prove it.”

“Are you going to regale me with tales about how loyal you were to the knight and the scholar? Spare me.”

“Then I shall spare you. I’ll skip the tales. Take my oath. You know the one.”

One of her eyebrows arced in deep suspicion. I had to keep from cheering out loud right in front of her.

I had hooked her. I was going to live to see another sunrise.

“The Court Wizard’s Oath,” she said. “I did not expect to ever be offered such a thing.”

“Akabu Ai taught me the Communion spells. I can cast it right this moment. My knowledge bound to your will,” I said.

“And my will bound to your knowledge,” she murmured. She stood and took a few steps closer to me. “Curious. So you can prove that I could trust you. But should I expect you to trust me? You have not, thus far. I cannot have a doubter, a naysayer in my court.”

“Well, of course the spell protects me from betrayal much the same way it protects you, so I can trust you not to simply discard me. But beyond that…” I took a breath. “I have but to trust myself, no? My knowledge goes into the binding. You will know what I know. When you know what I know about the world… will you still need to do things such as you have done? Manipulate people? Steal weapons? Murder librarians?”

An evil smile crept across her beautiful face. “We will see, won’t we?”

Appendix I: The Plan

Author’s note: with Gena’s permission, I have transcribed this message selected from our recent correspondence and included it here, unedited.

My dear Horwendell of Ilianath,

I would be pleased and honored to provide an account of my endeavors leading up to the storm in Bliss. I shall enclose it separately for your convenience. The college is watching my correspondence closely—this is just the sort of thing that the censors would be looking for and which would be relayed to the inquisition and be viewed disfavorably by my peers at trial—but, as you may have noticed, I have made my reply in such a way that they will never see it.

I hope the dream courier finds you lucid and well.

Please, do not worry about me here. I knew full well what I was getting into. I am confined to my cell, but I am allowed to study and to receive news (such as your letter). I eat as well as any of us ever have here. Hester assures me that not a thousand holy soldiers of the order and inquisition combined could stop him if he learned that I was in danger and needed his aid. With assurances like that, what have I to worry about?

Is not your situation the more precarious one? I am detained, but by people like myself; devotees of the same cause. You are served, but by perfect strangers; under aegis, but by a dangerous and formidable power. I am glad to hear that your plans have unfolded auspiciously, that the city now wakes to sow new crops and the Old King has hesitated to make reprisal. I will be eager and anxious to hear more good news in the coming months and years.

Yours in the Word,
Sister Gena of the College of Apostles

Iltara’s great gamble was to teach me. She invested in me her effort and her power in the hopes that I would do as she asked and become her perfect weapon. The entire day after our meeting with her, where Hester made that headlong charge and was tackled by a half-dozen servants and a lion, Iltara and I continued our studies. One aspect of her realm is the dream-like trance she can impose, where both meaning and the mind can become malleable, changeable, shapeable from without and within. It is a dizzying and breathtaking way to learn many things—profound things—very quickly.

What she didn’t anticipate is that, when you called me to the Communion to speak of your idea, the power she had loaned me would be the last piece of the puzzle.

I had languished for weeks on the question of these realms and their reality, their immateriality, and their meaning. The Communion introduced to me yet another factor and more questions. Then, suddenly, I realized just how close these realms were to each other. The dreaming city of Bliss and the Halls seemed to have specific, limited points of entry, but not the Communion.

Or perhaps, I reasoned, the points of entry were not so limited.

And there was someone I could ask to help verify my theory.

The next moment I had alone from Iltara, I knelt for prayer. But rather than withdrawing into my own contemplations, focusing on the recital of the Word, instead I drew from Iltara’s power and transformed my prayer. I withdrew into the prayer itself, into another realm.

It was an orchard under a starry sky. The leaves glinted and ground was lit as if in full sun, but only the stars shone in the midnight sky. The Halls! They had been so close, this entire time.

There was a figure there, walking between the rows of trees, wearing a snow-white cowl. She noticed my arrival, turning to face me, but her face was shaded by the hood. She waited for me to catch up: an invitation.

I caught up quickly. “Holy Mother?” I had not done any of the prayers or the anointing rites. But I had been invited, and I was excited for the meeting. “I have many questions,” I said.

“Very good,” she said. Her voice was as clear and bright as the light reflecting from the golden leaves. “It would be dull to not have any, don’t you think? And please, the formal address is not necessary. It makes long conversations dreadfully tedious.”

“Yes, of course. These realms,” I said, walking beside her, regarding the trees. “Are they mere illusions?”

“You spoke of this with the apprentice, no? You are not born here. You shall not die here. The way you have come to this place, nothing here shall affect your corporeal body, at prayer in the sorceress’s temple.”

“I should have known,” I said. “These realms are real.”

The goddess beneath the cowl laughed. “That’s not the reaction I usually get from the method of elenchus. Nevertheless, go on. Tell me what you think.”

“I was not born in the College of Apostles and shall not die in the College of Apostles—or, at least, suppose that for the time being. But the college being real is not in dispute. Unless our notion of reality relies on all three of those points being true—birth, death, effects on the body—then we may discard the first two immediately.”

“Spoken with clarity. Improved from the last time this question was put to you, I might say. And the third?”

“I have a similar illustration. A symposium in the college is likely to have no effect on the corporeal body. And yet: indisputably real.”

“The one time Chancellor Inoch had his jaw broken by his secretary, perhaps?”

“Then we place that in a separate category. That was a fight on the college grounds. Quite sacrilegious. What about a symposium? Just a conversation. If my body experiences ill effects from the symposium, then attribute those ill effects elsewhere and refine the definition of symposium. We shall still find something at the bottom there. A pure exchange of ideas. A pure veneration of the Word. Is that thing real? I say it is. Maybe, even, more real than the rest of the college, no? Truer to the purpose, the spirit of the place.”

We walked for a few paces.

“Well argued,” she said. “Although most students give me more opportunities to ask questions.”

“You never did answer my question, though,” I observed.

“Correct.”

“You won’t, will you?”

“I cannot.”

“… Oh?”

“I mean that. I cannot tell you what is real and what is not. Suppose this realm is not real. Then what shall I say?”

I thought. “So I must find my own confidence in my answer.”

“Seems so.”

“Speaking of which…”

“Ah, the matter at hand,” she said.

“Yes. I wish to wield the power.”

The cowl shifted. I had surprised her.

I felt a tiny speck of shame. Of course she could be surprised. So much of the Word—so much of her history—did not comport with the silly college doctrine of Her Perfect Foresight. Of course the doctrine was faulty. How could I not have known?

She was surprised.

“You wish to wield the power on behalf of the desert sorceress? I did not expect this. She has wronged you.”

“She has.”

“Even now, the apprentice wizard has made a daring sacrifice to free the knight, who is on his way to meet with you. You need not study the work to become her weapon. You may come home, safe.”

I owed her a reply, but I could not ignore the question at the fore of my mind for any longer. “Was this your plan? That we be allowed to follow Iltara’s lures east to retrieve the tome?”

“That was not some specific tactic I had devised. But it was my plan, in so far as that it is always my plan that my children spread and honor my Word. Now, you know the Word. I have laid aside my weapons. The sorceress wishes to take one of them up, but I must not allow it.”

“I do not wish to be her weapon. But I wish to ask, to pray, that I be permitted to use it once. Horwendell had an idea for how I may do so before I escape with Hester, and I see the wisdom in it.”

She stopped. I stopped with her.

“Against her?” she asked.

“No. Merely to divert the river and lift the siege. Hah… ‘merely,’ as if that is a mere thing.”

She thought about this. “I see. And you need my help. Even if you could trick the sorceress into aiding you, even with her power, you have not enough time to learn and prepare. Not before the knight arrives and you must go.”

“Right.”

“You understand what you are asking to undertake, right? I cannot lighten the burden for you. I can only strengthen your back, for a short time. What you take of the law, you cannot return. You will learn things that cannot be forgotten. You must bear the weight of the power and the consequences that come from this. Are you willing?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You could leave. Why do this?”

I smiled. “The realms are real, Holy Mother. And the things I’ve seen and learned in them. From there, all I need to do is trust in the plan, that I shall spread and honor your Word.”

The cowl dipped in a slow nod. “Very good. Come,” she said. She gestured for me to come sit beside her, and her hands rose to her hood. “See me face-to-face. Know me, and understand the law.”

Appendix II: The Crusade

Author’s note: with Hester’s permission, I have transcribed this message selected from our recent correspondence and included it here. I have courageously refrained from editing it.

To the Esteemed Storm-Caller Horwendell of Ilianath, Court Wizard to the Lady Iltara of Bliss,

Do you like the new title? I know you have a troubled relationship, at best, with Iltara. But a full Court Wizard is something to be proud of anyway! I made up the Storm-Caller part. I know you say that Gena summoned the storm from nothing and that is the most impressive thing, but you need not be so humble as to ignore your own part. I say you should take it as part of your name. She should too, but she is very proper about her title of Sister, and I suppose that is good of her.

Here, as you ask, is what happened after we parted ways in Bliss.

My attack on Iltara was doomed. I was outnumbered and surrounded, and quickly caught. I am fortunate that the lion-creature was well trained. It did have poor breath, which is an odd thing to remember but the rest of the city smelled of such sweet perfumes and pleasant cook-fires that it comes very clearly to the mind.

They hauled me down to the jail you found me in and stuffed me into that cell. I almost got stuck at the doorway as it was very tight at the shoulders.

I lay there in count-in-place-ion for some time, but then I heard someone in the next cell over. We made some small talk about the weather (there wasn’t any) and the food (there wasn’t any) and then we told each other our names. He was Tanshui of the Morul-Om. I told him I was Hester of the House Eastmost. He was suddenly very quiet. I understand. But I was able to get him to talking again.

At the same time the Morul-Om tried to have me killed in the veld, they sent Tanshui and others to the city to speak with Iltara. The band didn’t know if killing me had worked or not; that man and woman who tried to kill us were still traveling when Tanshui left. When Tanshui arrived in the city, Iltara knew before he did that the killing had failed, so she threw him in jail. He commented on the lion’s breath, too.

As it turns out, the Morul-Om were not acting on orders from Iltara. She was telling the truth about that! It was something the band had voted on. They had learned about the three of us and thought that delivering Gena to Iltara (and being rid of me and you) would be a way to gain her favor. Iltara was displeased, as she was hoping to handle it herself.

A few days later, Tanshui learned in jail that the Morul-Om had left the valley. The river had dried up. Iltara was losing power, and they did not want to be smashed by the king. They were not loyal enough to her to die with her. They left Tanshui behind. He understood, but it hurt him a great deal. He also learned that a good part of the band had tried again to take Gena. That would be the time Magister Akabu Ai defeated them on the mountain. That time, rather than trying to gain Iltara’s favor, they were going to try to get a ransom from her, using Gena.

He must have leaves-dropped a lot of gossip in that jail cell.

Anyway, when you came, I grabbed his hand, and when you took him away from the dream, I took him with us. He said he was going to be killed by a pit of snakes when Iltara found the time. I don’t think he should be killed by a pit of snakes. I’m not sure anybody should be killed by a pit of snakes. I don’t know where he woke up, but I do hope he wasn’t killed by a pit of snakes.

When I woke, I saw Aliyah and Utba take you from the room. I know you know I was pretending—good, eh? Once you were gone, I snuck out. There was nobody left awake in the city, so I didn’t need to be very sneaky.

I was able to find the palace pretty quickly. There were no guards. They must have been all on the walls to give the appearance of a big garrison. By then it was beginning to rain. I didn’t know what was going on at the time, but I knew what deserts are about, so I found that a bit concerning.

I went inside and searched. It was a small palace, and even so a lot of it was unused. I finally found Gena and Iltara in what I think was Iltara’s own chambers. They were large; both a bedchamber and a study, with a lot of rugs and cushions and two canopy beds. Gena sat cross-legged on the floor with the tome opened before her. She had finished reading the spell, I think—her eyes were open, looking upon the page, but she didn’t seem focused on it. It was almost more like she was thinking of something else.

Iltara lay on one of the canopy beds. Gena noticed me, but I was looking at Iltara. She wasn’t moving, except for her breathing. She looked different. Her face was the same, but thinner, hungrier, and crueler. Her body from the belly down was like a serpent’s, with dull green scales, curled up on the bed.

“Let’s go,” Gena said. I hesitated.

“Don’t,” Gena said. I think she thought I was going to try to kill Iltara in her sleep.

“I’m not going to kill Iltara in her sleep,” I said. “I thought I might wake her up, fi…”

“What! No! Don’t do that either! That’s insane! Let’s go,” Gena said.

It didn’t seem very insane to me, if I’m to be honest with you. It was really pretty simple. Iltara was our enemy, and what you do with enemies is vanquish them. Especially evil murdering sorceresses! But killing anyone in their sleep is a pretty vile thing. So, I thought, we should wake her up, when our opportunity was finest, and best her in arms the right way.

“But…” I was about to say.

“Think, Hester!” Gena said. She looked worried. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her so worried.

But I did think. And I remembered what you had told me. “Leave the queen for me.” And I think I realized then: You were probably right, weren’t you? Finding me in the jail was well done, however you had done it. However crazy your rants were about Akabu Ai, the Lightbringer, and Iltara were, you always seemed to know what your business was. You had saved Eidahn’s life. You had helped me find the trail so many times when I might not have alone.

I didn’t actually know what would happen if I woke Iltara up. Was her power in our realm as mighty and terrible as it was in her own? Would I be outnumbered by her soldiers again?

But I knew what you had asked. And I knew you had a reason. I thought, somehow, I knew that if I did leave it to you, it would turn out the right way.

“All right, Gena, let’s go,” I said. She took the tome.

We ran through the blinding rain until we reached a gate to the north out of town, then we went through that and worked our way around just below the wall until we round-A-boo’d with the inquisitors. I asked Gena if she was sure about this, and she said yes. It turns out there were just two of them: Sister Shoa, Apostle of the Fifth Degree and First Officer of the Fifty-Second Inquisition, and the man we fought in the Hall of the League, who told me his name was Bernard. Just Bernard. The sixty soldiers they had brought with them were some sort of trick, conjured by Shoa. Clever!

We made haste away from the city, and we journeyed back to Anteianum.

They seem noble and driven, but they were very quiet on the voyage. I don’t know what their business is, and that frustrates me. They will not bring harm to Gena. I will be sure of that.

I do hope things have been well for you. My father wishes to visit you very soon, if Iltara will permit it. You’ll be sure she does, won’t you? It would mean so much to him to thank you in person. Once I am released from this business in Anteianum (the inquisition says it wants my testy money) I want to do the same, but I won’t make him wait on me.

Gena says she’s more concerned for you than for herself. I’m not sure. She’s going on trial, and you have that oath to help you out. Iltara is a fearsome person to be sworn to, I do not doubt, but it seems like Gena has more immediate threats to contend with.

I will pray for safety for the both of you. You have both found strange but noble ways, and I am sure we will meet and stand shoulder to shoulder again. I will be proud to do so.

Loyally Yours under the Lightbringer’s Aegis,
Hester I of the House Eastmost