It was a relief to be bored.
The stacks in the Nict temple's small library were quiet and dimly lit, and smelling of old parchment and candle wax. It was the closest to peaceful Jordan had been since he landed in Nictaven, once he'd stopped expecting Arlen to jump out at him from behind every bookcase. The other workers in the stacks ignored him completely unless he needed help with something or if Ren got under their feet, which was just fine. He found them as disturbing as they found him.
He hadn't known what to expect from a temple dedicated to a death god, and while the huge stone cadaver in the courtyard had been a shock, it had otherwise been fairly ordinary. It was a tiny little temple, with only a few rows of pews and an altar with a single grey candle. Jordan suspected the candleholder was carved from bone, but hadn't dared ask. He was just grateful that Callan was absent at some castle dinner, because none of the other priests paid him more attention than they had to. The head of the house gave the impression that he knew more than Jordan would want.
As far as community service went, it wasn't bad. He couldn't read, so the more arduous tasks were left to the priests and acolytes. All he was doing was removing papers from boxes and sorting through them to find pages that were faded and needed copying out.
He reached up and took another crate from the shelf above him, holding his breath against the dust that cascaded down. He wobbled, but managed to avoid dropping it; he hopped back from the desk, trying to shake out the pain in his wrist, and ignored the glares from the priests at the racket. The crate was heavier than the others; as he poked a few papers aside, he came up against something sticky and quickly withdrew his hand. Most of the crates varied from dusty to crumbly, but sticky was new. He pushed Ren's face out of the box as she padded across the table to investigate. He hadn't been able to convince her to stay inside his hood the entire time, but to his relief the shadow-runner was getting better at responding to cues; as soon as he got annoyed with her, she stopped.
"Alf," he called quietly to the priest who was acting as his supervisor. The dour old man appeared from behind one of the bookcases, scowling.
"What?"
"There's something sticky in this one."
"Nict's balls," the priest muttered, and gestured over two acolytes. "Check it for worms."
Jordan recoiled from the crate. One acolyte passed him a scathing look and the other ignored him entirely, taking over in picking through the papers until they hit the sticky dome clinging to the spines of several logbooks. It was dark brown and gleamed with mucus. One of the acolytes withdrew a quill from the pocket of his robe and jabbed a hole into the dome; as soon as the quill left the opening, a wriggling purple maggot oozed out onto the table, a ring of sharp hook-teeth the only distinguishing feature. Even Ren didn't seem inclined to go near it.
"Don't touch it," Alf sighed, peering round the acolyte's shoulder to inspect the emergence.
"Wasn't going to," Jordan said, and took another step back as Alf removed the topmost logbook from the crate and slammed it down. Ren scurried up Jordan's arm and sat on his shoulder, gently growling, and a thin whine started up from the nest. Alf lifted the logbook, scraped acid-green goo off the cover using the edge of the table, and then gestured sharply. The acolytes hefted the crate and carried it quickly from the library.
"That's at least ten years of records gone," Alf muttered. He had eyes like a basset hound, doleful and bloodshot, and Jordan always felt like his gaze was accusing him of something. "See you next week."
Jordan blinked. He hadn't realised time had gone by so quickly, but before he could say anything or ask what those creatures were, Alf had disappeared back into the gloom of the stacks.
Yddris was waiting for him in the courtyard when he stepped out. It had been dark when he arrived, and it was dark when he left. He was already tired of it. He missed the sun. He missed normality. He missed libraries where shrieking maggots didn't hide in the crates.
He sighed. Yddris was facing the other way when he left the temple porch, but turned just at the moment Jordan reached him, a sandwich wrapped in wax paper in one hand. Jordan's stomach growled. The priests hadn't offered him anything to eat or drink all day.
"Vek's?" he asked, grinning when Yddris nodded. He unwrapped his food with feverish desperation, posted a sliver of meat into the depths of his hood which was snatched up immediately, and then dug in.
"How was it?" Yddris asked, leading them out of the courtyard and into a narrow street. They plunged into total blackness, the light from the streetlamps not reaching this far, and Jordan stopped dead. Slowly, Yddris released his gift, and the world glowed with magic.
"Quiet," Jordan replied around a mouthful, and began walking again. "Boring. Best day I've had since I got here, honestly." He sensed anticipation in Yddris's silence, and added, "I didn't see anyone."
"Good," Yddris murmured. "I think."
Jordan frowned, but didn't press it. He didn't want to get into this conversation again.
He screwed up the paper from his sandwich and shoved it in his pocket, then thought for a moment. He'd managed to piece together a few words he'd read in the logbooks, based on letters alone; names, mostly, since they didn't require any complicated grammar. He'd been half-looking for Nictavian names that weren't too unbearable or alien in the event of being pressed to choose, and one had stuck out to him.
"When you choose a name," he asked slowly, "Do you just kinda know when it's the right one?"
Yddris glanced at him. "Sometimes."
"Is it..." he was bound to sound stupid, but he asked anyway, "is it a kind of magic?"
"Some would argue it falls more into the category of spirituality," Yddris replied. "Depends on if you believe in a greater purpose or not. The oldest books in our guild's records, from the first Unspoken, liken it to part of a puzzle; there are myriad ways to live, a million people you could become, and the pieces to make you you are scattered across the universe. Which pieces you find, in what order, and whether or not you discard them are the decisions that shape your soul. Some believe that, when your life has made the divergence into the ranks of the Gifted, it helps you find one of the pieces. A true name. Most people never think to look."
"Do you believe that?"
"It has its appeal."
"But you don't actually believe it?"
"If we all had fractured souls, Geists would have a much harder time getting a full meal. But they seem to do just fine for themselves."
"You had to make it morbid, didn't you?"
Yddris snorted lightly. "We're talking about missing pieces of soul, boy, it was already morbid. What were you angling at? If it was just an errant thought, then, no, it isn't magic. The selection of a name could be spiritual, if that's your thing, or you might just really like it."
"Just asking," Jordan said. He hoped Yddris couldn't tell he was flushed with embarrassment.
"If, however," Yddris said after a moment, "you have stumbled across one that you like, make sure that the first person you speak to is Ortin, in private."
"Okay... Why?"
"Precautions."
They emerged from the dingy grasp of the dead quarter, the river stretching out before them. Jordan couldn't get across the bridge fast enough; inside the stacks there had been some sense of security, but the quarter itself had earned its name several times over. The dead quarter wasn't dead in the sense that nothing was there; the dead quarter was an atmosphere more than a place, cold and hostile. His magic-assisted sight picked out figures crouched in doorways and alleyways he would have missed otherwise, who watched them pass with greedy eyes. If it wasn't for Yddris, Jordan was sure he would have been robbed by now – and by the looks of some of them, that was if he was lucky.
The bridge was a rune-warding dead spot. The quarter they had left had enough intact rune work to be comfortable, but Jordan gasped as he stepped onto the bare stone of the bridge, feeling like some of his magic had been siphoned out through his feet. He wished Yddris would allow him his sight more often. He was fed up of being surprised by everything.
"There's a meeting tonight," Yddris said, speaking for the first time since they'd left the temple district. "A few more of us than usual will be at mine this evening."
Jordan frowned. It was bad enough with eight of them crammed in there.
"You don't have to attend if you don't want to," Yddris said, amused. "But as a member of the guild you're more than welcome to join in. There won't be a lot of us, mind. Patrols still need to happen."
Jordan shrugged. It didn't matter if there were ten Unspoken or thirty; he'd still have no idea what was going on.
"It's also my turn on a city patrol tomorrow," Yddris said. "You'll be coming with me. We've set up the rota so that Nika will also be out at the same time, in the event of a job I don't think you're ready for."
"What kind of job would that be?"
"A whole pack of wights, for example," Yddris said. "Solitary demons only when you're with me. On some nights you'll be going out with Hap and Koen."
"But I can't do anything." Jordan didn't like how accurate it was, even as he was using it as an excuse.
"You don't learn by sitting on your arse, boy. Strike up for me."
"Strike... What?"
"Flame. Make one. Now, please."
They reached the other side of the bridge, and the rune net lit up around Jordan's consciousness. Between the orange lights of the material city, there was a network of vivid green, magic gently pulsing through it like blood through veins. Jordan withdrew into his head, tried to feel the same magic inside him, tried to draw it to the outside, but his hand remained unlit.
"How?" he asked, defeated.
"Work it out."
"It won't come."
Yddris only withdrew his pipe and propped himself against a mooring post along the side of the river. Jordan sighed and shut his eyes. This time he prodded cautiously at the magic he felt around him, trying to hold an image of his hand ablaze in his brain at the same time. He cracked an eye open. There was nothing.
He hadn't imagined it would be so hard to summon magic without being terrified or angry, but he tried everything he could think of. He tried to push it down his arm, to no avail, and then tried to simply think a flame into existence. He pictured some of the runes he'd seen in Draskell's Manual, tried to make himself angry on purpose, and tried glaring at the rune net. He even tried asking nicely, though he'd never admit it aloud. Yddris would give him no end of shit for it.
"I can't do it," he said. He was out of breath from his latest attempt at trying to pop it into existence the same way one popped their eardrums. His hand remained stubbornly not on fire.
He almost laughed. He never thought he'd be annoyed that he couldn't find a way to set himself on fire.
"I didn't think you would," Yddris said. He'd been through three fully-stuffed pipes while watching Jordan struggle.
"Oh, fuck you."
"It's not a criticism. I'd have been surprised if you had. Never known anyone get it on the first try." He paused. "Well, except Cara. But she's the head of the Guild for a reason."
"So how do I do it?" Jordan asked through gritted teeth, trying to hold down his temper so he didn't flare up from that instead.
"Find Nictaven, draw from it, and channel the energy into whichever form you're aiming for."
Jordan glared. "Oh, wow, why didn't I think of that?" His teeth ground together. "Alright, smartarse, how do I find Nictaven?"
"You won't like the answer."
"At this point that's a given."
"Meditation."
"Fuck off."
"I'm serious."
Jordan scowled. "It's just sounds like mystical demonshit, is all."
"It's all mystical demonshit, boy," Yddris said with a chuckle, and began to walk again. Jordan followed, dragging his feet. Despite not having managed to conjure any flame, he felt drained. "But that doesn't mean it's not real. Your mystical demonshit will save lives one day."
"Is that what Nika does all the time?" he asked, trying not to sound sulky. Yddris had set him up to fail, and he already didn't believe he'd ever reach the end of the apprenticeship. "When he's squatting in the corner?"
Several times over the weeks Jordan had spent at Yddris's house, he had encountered Nika tucked into the corner of the front room, totally unresponsive. No loud noise bothered him. Nothing would get him to move. Jordan had just assumed Nika was very good at falling deeply asleep in uncomfortable positions.
Yddris snorted. "Aye. Never understood why he likes it there. He meditated there when he was my apprentice, meditates there when he visits. I have asked."
"And what did he say?"
"I believe the term was 'mind your own dark-damned business, you nosy old fucker.'"
Jordan frowned. That didn't sound like Nika to him.
"He's nicer to everyone else," Yddris grunted, by way of explanation. "You should hear him when it's just me and him, cusses like he's got some kind of quota to fill."
Jordan wondered what Yddris was like when he wasn't there.
Despite Yddris's assurances, the meeting was standing room only. He and Yddris barely got through the door; black cloaked figures crowded the front room. They had spilled over into the passage leading to Jordan's room. The whole spectacle was overwhelming. Jordan's head buzzed with the low hum of conversation and magic, and he could see it in the air, too. Yddris hadn't withdrawn his sight, and Jordan watched thin ribbons and drifts of ambient magic weave through the air, coalescing around the Unspoken themselves. Some attracted more of it than others. He no longer felt drained, like a well inside him had been filled by the sheer concentration of magic, and suspected that Yddris getting him to burn himself out might not have been such a pointless exercise, after all.
It was impossible to get through the crowd without brushing up against other Unspoken, and impossible to blend into the background when your cloak was a different colour to everyone else's. Feeling distinctly harassed, he pushed through in Yddris's slipstream and made a beeline for Koen, Astra and Oloe, who were all sitting on the floor together near the centre of the room. There was a circle of space the gathered Unspoken had left clear, and apprentices got the front seats. As he sat down, relieved to have a few inches of space to himself, Oloe waved in a good-natured manner and Koen clapped him on the knee. Astra only acknowledged his existence with a glance. He left Ren inside his hood, where she seemed to have fallen asleep anyway. She'd made enough trouble with the priests.
"You survived then?" Koen whispered. Jordan almost felt the Unspoken behind them tune in to listen to his answer.
"Yep." He pretended he hadn't noticed. "Wasn't that weird at all, really. Apart from the maggots."
"Maggots?" Koen repeated blankly, and then, "Oh, pulpworms? Yuck. You have to work really hard at never cleaning anything to get pulpworms."
"They squealed," Jordan muttered, shuddering at the recollection.
"It's to deter hunters," said one of the Unspoken behind them. "They imitate the sounds of a thrall nest to put off scavenging shadelings and such."
A hush fell as Jordan contemplated that with mild revulsion. Yddris stepped into the central space.
"Welcome," he said. "Even though you all pretty much invited yourselves."
A collective chuckle rippled around the room. Someone called out, "Was up to you, Yddris, you'd go years without seeing a soul."
"And I'd enjoy every dark-damned minute of it," Yddris retorted. A few people jeered light-heartedly, before the hush fell again. Jordan had only known the meeting was happening for all of an hour, and he had no idea what to expect from it, either, but all the same he found himself tense with anticipation. There was something in the atmosphere of the room. Something expectant, that he wasn't sure he'd have detected if Yddris had reined back his magic again. He wondered if they all felt like that; that their anticipation was fed by the anticipation of the others, like a hive of emotion.
He hastily rejected that thought. It sounded creepy when put into words.
"As I wasn't the one to call this meeting, I'm going to hand over to someone who did, but before I do that," Yddris swept the room with a glance, "I don't want to find crusts and rinds under my floorboards. Nobody pisses in the gutter. The one who fills the privy bucket empties it."
"Aye, sir," the gathering crowed as one. Yddris nodded, and then dramatically bowed out to allow another Unspoken forward.
The atmosphere quietened. This was what everyone was here to hear.
"Some of us have come from the Guildtown this year," the stranger said. "The Barrens are becoming almost impassable. Even the Varthian tribes are keeping to the villages."
"The city has also been bad," one Unspoken said from the crowd. "It's a bad year."
"I've never seen it this bad," Hap said gravely. He leaned heavily on his walking stick, propped against the wall near the fireplace. "I came to the city early, but even then the Barrens were swarming. And my first night here, we passed an attack from a pack of Rock Wights and a Firebull."
"A Firebull? In the city?"
"Before the dark season?"
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure," Nika put in, in the tone of voice that quieted the disbelief in the room. "I was also there."
"A Death was sighted in the slums," Yddris added. "It's not just the Barrens. The demons are behaving strangely this year. And there are a lot of them."
"Night take me," someone behind Jordan muttered. Jordan shuddered, too. He had seen the Death, like smoke with a beating heart. He'd seen its victims.
"Do we have any ideas why?" the first speaker said, appealing to the room. "There must be a reason. A change in the currents, perhaps."
"It's something to do with Nictaven," someone else said. "Why else would there have been a portal that size now of all times, after decades? Too many demons, demons in the wrong worlds, demons turning up too early, the dark season arriving weeks before it's due. It seems too much like coincidence. Nictaven is imbalanced somehow."
The room seemed to contemplate that as a whole. Jordan tried to make himself as unnoticeable as possible following the mention of the portal. The conversations that followed were never comfortable, and he worried that they might expect him to provide answers he didn't have.
"Demons are more sensitive to changes in the currents than we are," Nika said. "All we can do is take note of their new patterns and see if we can work out what changed."
"In the meantime," Hap said, "We're stretched here. The city is barely covered by our patrol routes."
"The guildtown is down to the bare bones," someone said. "It's only the elders and the scholars left. Everyone is spread out through the settlements, and most of us are here."
"I heard there was one apprentice this year," someone else near the back said.
Yddris gestured for Jordan to stand. The first speaker stepped out of the circle to allow Jordan in, and he entered the space reluctantly, aware of all the eyes on him that he couldn't see. He hesitated, unsure what to say, but Yddris didn't let him flounder for too long.
"This is my apprentice," he said to the room, "I took him on a few weeks ago. He has no new name yet."
Someone in the front row chuckled. "Don't look so tense, boy, we've all been where you are. You're with friends."
Jordan blinked, and then nodded. "Th-thanks."
"The only one this year," the man mused. "Might turn out you're the biggest surprise of all."