Lightning. Fountain of rocks. Feathers.
The Hand.
We will keep her.
Addie awoke in what she was certain was a pallet bed. She lay in it for ten beats, or for twenty, or an eternity. Of this she had no certainty. When vision came to her, she found herself staring quite blankly at a ceiling. Fingers of pale white light were spilled on it. When finally sound came, she heard the rush of what was unmistakably a river.
Her head turned on its own grant. Curtains. This room - room? - had curtains.
Velvet curtains, seafoam banners, fire, blood . . .
She felt for her Wolf. His paw unlatched the cellar door, and mageic flooded her soul.
Then light was ubiquitous. The shape of a man appeared out of the light, then the man himself. He was slouched on a chair besides the bed in black robes. Around his neck hung what looked to be a small, bleached conch shell. He had grey hair and grey eyes. He looked terribly young.
"River Orves doesn't run with blood yet, if that's what you're wondering." The man smiled. "For all their might, Ptirre is stupid as fuck."
"Who . . . are you?"
"That is your decisive first question? Very well then." The man got to his feet. "Normally, my answer to that question would be that I am a cobbler. But since we are not so different, you and I, I shall confide in you the truth. My name is Sadh Bornak and I am a Jen."
"Is this . . . a dream?"
The man who called himself Sadh walked over to the feet of her bed, laughing humorlessly. "Only you, I expect," said he, "can answer that question."
She could feel a residue of the night on her skin, thick as a binder of faerie sightings. Had it been the night afore, or a night gone nine maes? It did not matter.
". . . finest inn in Gorpal, dear man," a voice was saying. "If the room service hasn't been up to mark, we can put in a couple more squalls. That is inconsequential to us."
"I don't care about the pots darn money or how soft my pots darn pillows are!" This voice was vaguely familiar. "I will not let you have the girl, not while she's in no state to make decisions for herself!"
"And you are?" said a third voice, a female one. "It was her life's goal to join our guild, you said so yourself, and you want to deny her that? After all you tell me she's been through? After all you say she could be?"
The familiar voice snorted. "If she doesn't want to go with you, then so help me Nherse, I should like to see you take her off my carcass."
"Don't be stubborn, dear man," the first voice spoke again. "You knew her for what, seven seconds, and you think you know what's best for - ?"
"Be quiet," said the female. "She's awake."
Her eyes weren't open, but Addie was sure that three other pairs were plastered on her. May be more. She scratched the itch in her arm absently. She thought of Poe and Pedgram and other things she did not hanker to think about.
"Shren-aef! How do you feel? Can you hear me?" A hand shook her violently, rattling her organs.
"Step away, minstrel!"
"I'd like you to make me."
"Is . . . is Master . . . is he . . .?" Addie could not bring herself to finish the sentence.
"Yes," said the familiar voice, solemn.
It was a struggle to lift her lids, but the Wolf lent a hand, and next they were lifted.
Gryphik's features were so close to hers, she could see her face reflected in his onyx-black eyes: it looked like the face of a phantom - pallid, crushed, defeated, not unlike his own. His hair was glossy as ever, his nose crooked. His arm was limp in a cast. The contraption holding his flute was visible besides the added split.
A broken bone? Two? Why couldn't he just remedy them with his mageic?
Over his shoulder stood not two but three persons Addie believed had no reason to be in the same room as herself. The man from before with the grey hair and eyes; a girl who looked like a princess; and a dwarf.
"He died honorably," said the grey-man Sadh.
"How do you know how Eris died?" snapped Gryphik. "You weren't there."
"Doesn't hurt to presume."
"Eris?" Addie felt too spent to heave herself up. "No . . . I'm talking about . . . about . . ."
"Yes, yes, you're talking about Harl," completed Gryphik. "He has had many names. Used to go by Eris back in the day. Good man. Stoic, but good! Alas that he is gone, but I will take care of you for him, Adeline, Casteless by the stars. This I swear by the mageic in me."
"I don't need you," Addie said.
The princess-woman gave a soft laugh. "Well, there you have it."
"Do you want to become a member of the Gilded Fingers, Adeline?" It was Sadh Bornak who asked this question. His robes braced his arms in anticipation.
"Are you Tehzvan?" asked Addie.
"In fairness, no. I am a Jen. That is my caste and creed."
"You . . . what happened?"
"We were coming to - "
"No . . . I want to hear from him." Her mouth felt a staggering lack of saliva, so she pointed a weak finger at Gryphik.
His chest swelled conspicuously. "The Rys Ami were after you, Addie. That's the conclusion we keep coming to. They wanted to conquer Dassan, sure, but their primary prize of doing so was you. Or that is how it was supposed to be, until Keshar decided to have us evicted to Fehnia."
"It wasn't that Keshar did it independently," said the princess-woman. "Seer Kaelane Damon pushed him to that decision."
"Seer Damon?" Addie failed yet again to prop herself onto her elbows. "Master Seer Damon?"
"The very same."
Gryphik laughed in that dry, withholding voice of his. "He died years ago at the Battle of Craycht! It was the Scorpion King himself who did it!"
"I see," said Sadh, his voice tranquil, "that even the Gorub Pahnk can recollect events wrongly."
"Never!" said Gryphik.
"Lord Commander Sebti - or the Scorpion King, as you refer to him - undoubtedly pounded the baked beans out of Damon's asshole, and any other Seer or magus he could find. But Kaelane Damon had a guardian who smuggled him to safety. Unfortunately, later in life, an enthusiastic young hunter captured him in the Dassan prairies. In turn, the hunter was knighted and Keshar Biseri put the Master Seer in a grubby little cell."
"How do you know that?" asked Gryphik.
"Because my friend Balwen son of Buleth son of Baleen here," Sadh pointed at the dwarf, "was the guardian who rescued Damon from Craycht. That's where you lost that toe, isn't it, my friend?"
Balwen the dwarf grunted. Addie twisted her neck to strain to see that he had many chins, brutish arms and legs like stumps. In addition, he was crowned with brown hair and a matching lion's mane. He was also missing a ear.
"Well, what does it matter?" said Gryphik. "Damon told Keshar desertion would be best for Dassan or not, it happened."
"Oh, it matters," said the princess woman. "It matters, all right. Seers can't lie about what they See."
"And?"
"How, I implore, how was clearing out the better outcome for Dassan than employing every citizen in the fight?"
"The people are safe," said Gryphik. "In Fehnia."
"You're welcome," said Sadh.
"What're you getting at, you arrogant shits?"
"Whoa there, minstrel," pronounced the woman, stepping towards Gryphik. She towered over his sheeny hair by an easy hand. Her own swung in ringlets. "Watch your language. These arrogant shits saved your life."
"And," Sadh added, "these arrogant shits are explaining to you the noteworthiness of why this girl should accompany us to Nerba."
"You see," the woman said, "Dassan has been defeated. The people . . . well, you know Fehnia. They aren't safe there, not one of them."
Nayari . . . Aeri . . .
"What I think Disha is trying to say," said Sadh, "is that the best outcome for Dassan - nay, the world altogether - wasn't for the keep to ward off Ptirrens or the citizens to be safe. It was the girl whose life downed the scales."
Addie felt eyes plaster on her again. She felt breath move her lungs. "Why?" she breathed at last.
"No way of knowing," said the princess-woman. "Yet. You are strong, oh yes, that I can feel. Mageic flows through you even when you think it doesn't. I haven't seen power like that for a long time."
"How can you tell?" Addie inquired.
"I am called Disha, Tester and Jen. I can sense mageic in its many shapes and forms. In pavagwe, in people. And you, you poor abiding thing, are filled to the brim."
"Prove it." Even as she said this, Addie remembered how Gryphik's demonstration of his power had been. "Prove . . . that you're Jen."
Balwen grunted. Sadh pulled up the left sleeve of his robe. Disha looked coy.
Addie squinted.
"Wait for it," said Sadh. Beneath the exposed terrain of his arm, something stirred alive. A quill scribbled against the in of it, faint black lines embossing out the skin from within. Fifteen - yes, fifteen - heartbeats passed. The lines grew fixedly darker. Now a circle with the Trident enclosed inside it was etched on the grey man's arm. A tattoo from within, like a raised scar. The glyph of the Jen.
"There you have it," said Disha. "Attestation approved?"
"You too." Addie gulped.
At this time the head of a man with amber hair cropped short popped into the room.
"I am certain," said the head, "that you people have all the rights on Heim to act wild as storms. But reason has it that you must break your fast first."
Then the head vanished behind the door thudding shut.
Balwen waddled out grunting. Disha at his heels, her ringlets springing.
Sadh beamed at Addie, his arm restoring normalcy. "He isn't wrong, you know. There will be plenty of time for idle talk. Come, let's fill you up."
"Give us a moment alone," said Addie.
Reluctantly, Sadh exited. Gryphik bent over her pallet.
"What would . . . he have wanted?" said she.
"Certainly not for you to grieve," Gryphik replied.
"Tell me . . . about him."
"About Eris?"
"Yes. Something I don't know."
Gryphik chewed his lips. "Eris - Harl - was . . . he was an exceptional magus. We both trained together under a man named Marner. Old Marner had radical ways of punishing all who believed mages were subservient, docile. I expect he told you that?"
Addie nodded.
"I suppose this can't hurt to tell now . . . Marner got us both, Eris - Harl - and I, to the Pheeliax. Your Master got accepted into the Guild. I did not."
She drank in the words slowly. I was trained by an actual Jen?
"Here's something you must know about the Guild," continued Gryphik, "if you are to be a part of it. They call themselves the Gilded Fingers because they believe all mages carry the blood of the Seohrah. Eight of them drowned in the Shadneer and became anointed gods, but what of the rest? Their kin carried on dormant, they say, and chose to show after the Second Quenching because the Holder deemed it fit. So for true acceptance into the Guild, to become a Jen in essence, one is made to . . . face unflattering situations, synthesized by Seers or otherwise. Moral dilemmas.
"In Eris's case, there was one already primed. You see, he was submerged neck-deep in love. It was love, even though I fooled myself into thinking it was paltry infatuation. Most love is infatuation, I suppose. Anyway, there was this woman - this wilding - we had encountered on our journey to the Pheeliax. If you cut her legs, she was liable to walk on evil. But somehow she had charmed crotchety young Eris. Eris who was all for the eradication of prejudice in the world."
"What was her name?" Addie asked.
"Kashkaya." Gryphik's eyes were misty. "That was her name. She was a basilisk to my eye, full of poison and twists. Eris hid it from Marner, from all others, that he loved her, but he could not from me. I began to fear for him. I never said anything to his face because I didn't want to anger or upset him. He helped teach me things Marner did not, see, like making gaudy reeds out of grass or making your stiletto appear like a sword.
"She was only with us for a few weeks as we forged deeper into Nerba, searching for the Jen. I saw her doing shady deeds on more occasion than one. I would catch her euthanizing beasts without reason, or talking foul to her wilding mates in private, but still I held my tongue. Things would have been different had I spoken something then. Maybe Eris would've still been alive . . ."
Addie closed her eyes. She saw his ruby Relic exploding on her mind's canvas.
"For the final stage in his acceptance into the Guild - I was allowed to stay and watch even though I had not qualified - Eris was made to face his moral dilemma. The Jen had ensnared Kashkaya and some of her wilding friends for the slaughter of an entire nearby village, in a coup to . . . gain respect, as it were. 'True respect is nothing but fear,' she said, that bitch. 'If they're afraid of you, they'll know their place. Our Abefan ways are better. You understand me, don't you, love?'
"Eris could not kill her when he was asked to. Could not deliver justice. That had been his final assessment, and he failed it. For all his preaching, for all his diligence, she was the end of his dreams. Women, I suspect, have brought down more powerful men than any number of spears."
Gryphik fell silent.
"That is not the whole story," Addie said.
"What do you mean?"
"I may not be of the Gorub Pahnk, but I can tell when a story is complete and when it is not." Addie thought of Loras Knobs and Terrim M'Kaou, of Master Harl hiding himself from the minstrel in the woods. "There is more to this one. Something happened after . . . some rift between you two. But why would you hide a simple rift now? Perhaps you fancied Kashkaya too? No. Your disdain for her is too high to be faked . . . then what, I wonder?"
"You are sharp, shren-aef," Gryphik said.
"Or I am used to liars and their lies."
"You will not think of him the same way again if I tell you more. Do you still want to hear?"
For all that Master Harl had done for her, he had now joined the list of people who had left to hang her out dry. She wished him well in Vaven. Addie nodded.
Gryphik sighed reproachfully. "We stayed at the camp that night. We were to leave at dawn's first light, now that neither of us had become a Jen. I spent the night shivering of cold and fear - fear of Marner's scolding soon as we left. I was still shaking when Cupar sank in the sky and I heard the laughter.
"I would recognize that laughter - her laughter - anywhere. Eris was not in bed. Worried, I ran outside to see what was happening. The whole camp was awake by the time I figured it out.
"Kashkaya had killed the chieftain of the Pheeliax and took flight. When I saw Eris afterwards, I knew that he had helped her escape. He looked so . . . broken." Gryphik looked at his arm as he said this. "Like a man with a dying flower in his heart.
"We parted ways. I went to the Gorub Pahnk to train as a minstrel like my father before me - there I found my Relic, my pava - and Eris to his unfettered path in life. It was a pleasant surprise to see his grumpy ass after so long . . . only to lose him right after. He spoke highly of you. He cannot flay me now, so I will tell you this. He believed you would be the wheel to the carriage that would change the world."
No sentence would manifest itself. Addie succeeded in infusing life back to her limbs. Her pallet creaked moodily.
"What are you doing?" Gryphik asked, snapping into the here and now.
"Going to fill my belly so my thoughts process better. Carriages don't run on hungry wheels. Nor do they run on one, if we talk as adults."
"I quite agree." Gryphik made to support her.
"I can walk," she protested.
"Pride is the fool's luxury; let me call for them to carry you."
But she was firm in insisting him to not.
Each leg a turret of twigs, Addie reached the landing below independently, where she was welcomed by the sweetest sound she had ever heard. She saw on one corner Disha and the man with the amber hair singing a strange, upbeat ditty in a strange, upbeat dialect. The harmonious synchrony of their voices made to cradle one another, as well as Addie. Gryphik's Relic flute held nothing on this.
Save for their selves, the landing was principally vacant. It was lit by tallow candles. Two men were sipping Banesbeer and muttering in low conversation at another corner. A sirrah was scrubbing the wooden tables about the place, while an innkeeper's eyes raped him from behind a counter.
Gryphik helped Addie to a chair with his arm that wasn't fractured on the table where Sadh and Balwen were seated. She collapsed on it, thorns pinching every breadth of her skin. She let her lids dive and let herself drop into the music mire.
After Holder knew how long, mutton stew was served and the song ended. Disha and the amber-haired man fed each other. They ate in silence. All but Addie. Her tongue refused to taste the food, her nose refused to smell, her throat refused to swallow it.
Gryphik took note. "Perhaps this will help," he said, and brought forth his black flute, and played a dirge for his old friend.
Addie felt like she had been plunged into an icy lake of requiem. Her lips moved in the lyrics she had memorized from her days in the slums. Sadh joined in, and Disha and her man with their angelic voices. Balwen was focused singularly on his stew.
In siege may men be lost
In our hearts they live
Like embers from a dying flame
Their spirit lives on still.
Afterwards, Addie ate voraciously. The innkeeper brought them also a few pickles and a sloppy rice salad with stuffed peas and lentils. She scorched her tongue on it. It was the best meal she ever had.
"I'm Doin, by the way," said the amber-haired man to her, once the sirrah had cleaned up their clutter. "You don't know me, but I know you. Changed your clothes, after all."
Addie looked down at her chiton.
"I kid, accourse," said Doin, snickering and clapping Disha on the shoulder. "She did it. Didn't you, darling?"
"Indeeth," said Disha while quaffing beer.
"Are you a Jen too?" asked Addie.
"On the nail!" said Doin. "That reminds me: meet Tammy." He showed her his swordhand forefinger nail. "And this is Jack, Bhoo, Gitsy, Airbuddy . . ."
Doin had named each of his nails, even the ones on his feet. He chittered with Addie on how she had mumbled nonsense in her drowse. She had been knocked out cold for two days. Doin told her how he had aspired to become a bard, but had aspired to become a good person more so he had joined the Jen. Still, his passion came to use in circumstances like these - the innkeeper was feeding them free food, after all, in exchange for the songs. Not that money was hard to come by for someone with his talent.
Eventually a man in bloodied full-plate armor strode into the inn. A knight, by the look of him - or at least a high-ranking official of the King's Division, if the insignia on his plate spoke no lies. He surveyed the place listlessly, then occupied a table on the end farthest from theirs. The Jen stopped talking.
"Perhaps," said Sadh, eyeing the newcomer, "it would be best if we retired to our rooms now. I have something to show you, Adeline."
She was helped, despite her outcries, up the stairs and to the rooms. Gryphik remained down in the landing. As had Disha, possibly to coax information out of the knight by batting her lashes at him.
"Let's hope he isn't Ptirren," joked Addie.
"Best not to speak of that now," Sadh said, quite seriously. "Nevertheless, I do have something to give back to you. Balwen?"
The dwarf came forward with a scimitar in one hand and a knife in another. Addie took them eagerly from his grasp. Humph, you keep it, and you keep it well, Master Harl had said to her. I shall be greatly displeased if you misplace or mistreat it.
"Thank you," said Addie thickly, tracing a hand across the fuller. The Trident glyph on her precious knife sparkled at her.
Balwen grunted and waddled out.
"Your cloak, unfortunately, was tainted," said Sadh. "I have been told by the minstrel it held a lot of valuables. We barely got you out of there in a single piece. You won the lottery, Adeline - one can never be sure with head wounds."
Addie thought of Master beating poultice and rect-honeysuckle into the mortar-pestle for Aeri's infection. She hoped the latter was sheltered from harm with her pale-haired mother in Fehnia.
"Why were you there anyway?" Addie interrogated. "How could you have been there right when we were ambushed?"
"We received a note of help," said Sadh.
"A note of help . . . from Dassan to the Pheeliax, a place no one knows the precise location of? Then within a month of Ptirre marching, you're here?"
"I should have been more specific. We received a mental note. From Master Seer Kaelane Damon. He sent Seer Yuween - a budding young man of the Guild - a . . . metaphysical message."
"Seers can do that?"
"Master Seers can."
"And you expect me to believe the Guild sent, what, four of you to fight off Ptirre?"
Humor snuck into Sadh's grey eyes. "We came here to negotiate, not fight. We did not know Ptirre was on the move, or that their party would be polluted with Rys Ami, or that a battle would be ensuing."
"The Jen negotiating with southern princedoms? They sent you on a suicide mission."
"We'd have managed by the will of Nherse."
Addie touched the curtains. Sunlight had warmed them. "I didn't get battered by the . . . the Rys Ami," she said in a low tone. "My own shadow grabbed at me and I passed out. Is that explainable?"
Sadh had the most curious look about him then. "Everything at best has an explanation. At worst . . . I will need to know more about your upbringing, Adeline."
"Why?" Addie frowned.
"Because most unusual things happen to and with you! Even I can see that, and I know you about insofar as a penguin knows flight! The Rys Ami leave the battlefield and to the rut you were on. Gryphik tells me how highly your Master thought of you, and how well you fought for all your exhaustion. He tells me you can fight a Bactract, for Frunota's sake! Disha senses a monolith of power in you. Then your shadow . . . I fear I need answers just as badly as you, Adeline, for it is not in my nature to let intrigue pass me by."
Addie riled up the curtains. Her nails suppressed speech.
"Are you sure you don't have royal blood in you?" Doin questioned.
"I am sure," Addie replied.
"Do you wish to become one with the Guild or not?" said Sadh, hand grazing the conch shell around his neck.
"Yes. I do seek answers."
Sadh seemed pleased. "Then from now on, we are your correspondents. All Jen are family . . . although you will have to pass the Acceptance Ceremony once we reach base. Still, we are at liberty to answer any question that you might now have to the height of our abilities."
She had a thousand, but in that moment none of the important ones touched her tongue.
"What are those shells around your neck?"
"A souvenir from the Battle of Ations. First battle I ever fought in. Found out I was a magus."
"Is it your Relic?"
"Hazard a guess."
"You are Tehzvan, right?"
"Sure as the sun shines. I think it's pretty evident. No one sports grey like we do."
"I thought you would be more muscular."
Doin snickered. "The day Sadh displays any physical prowess will be the day I break up with Disha. Bereft of his Skill, he'd yield to a handicapped babe."
"I had rickets as a child," said Sadh defensively. "Besides, there is always metal nearby. Remz Guzta could move the world from its core. Besides, I am an exceptional forager."
"You're a Skiller too?" Addie said.
"Yes," said Sadh before Doin could butt in. "Me, Doin, Balwen son of Buleth son of Baleen. All but Disha, who as you know is a Tester."
"Why do you feel the need to say the dwarf's whole lineage with his name? Is he nobility?"
"Nobility? Balwen?" Sadh laughed. "No. His ancestors are fletchers, all."
"Then why the regard?"
"They were honest people." Sadh shrugged. "Balwen thinks that's reason enough for acknowledgment."
"Withal it's a running joke," said Doin. "Gitsy tells me it started when - "
Hasty footsteps in the hall, accompanied by whispers.
A hand on Doin's shoulder. Addie noticed a dagger fly to Sadh's hand even as she raised her knife. But the hand belonged to Disha.
"The knight," she said. "He's a fucking Commander. From Pardel."
"Have you considered the possibility that he might be being dishonest?"
"I don't know, Sadh. Why would he lie about something like that? Besides, it makes perfect sense. Were you King, wouldn't you send someone to see your princedom being attacked?"
"Were I King," speculated Sadh, "I would have a gold mantle on my chest and fine wine in my belly. Let us not speak of 'were wes'."
"One man?" said Doin suspiciously. "You imagine one man would be sent, not two, or a full host?"
"He's worse for wear," Disha riposted. "His armor is broken and bloody. I'd say he lost his men fighting."
Addie spoke up: "Even so, what if he's a Commander? What are you so afraid of?"
They gave her a vapid stare. "Because," said Sadh, "he's a Commander. He can arrest us just for existing, let alone being mages, let alone Jen."
"Yes, but he doesn't know that, right? Just keep your head low. With a scrub or two, us beggars of Charmat used to sneak into regal temples. And if he really is from the Pardel, he will be riding back soon to report."
A pause. Then: "That is rational." Sadh turned to Disha and Doin. "But we ride tomorrow. The Rys Ami still loom large, and we need to catch a ship sans delay."
"I'll get to packing my bag then." Doin steered Disha away.
"Will you be able to ride to the docks, do you think?" Sadh questioned.
Addie nodded reassuringly.
"The minstrel has a broken arm as well, but that shouldn't cause much inconvenience. I should hope the Commander doesn't probe too much into our affairs while he's staying at the Stayback. Complications are most unbidden at this stage."
"Loosen up," Addie said. "You're a Skiller. Surely you can take on a man in metal."
A transition chapter! Questions answered, questions raised.
Anything you think I should alter about this chapter?
Update frequency should increase now. Chapters should get more fun ^^
Let's see where Addie is led to with these Jen, shall we?