Erastus 24 (Morning, Riddleport)

I showed Ameiko the play Kikonu had been writing, or rather, the drafts of it that I had grabbed. I couldn’t take all of it—there were stacks and stacks and stacks of revisions—but what I had was certainly enough.

“I have seen some very bad plays, some of them spectacularly bad, but this? This exists in a world of its of its own.”

“It gets more unhinged with each revision, doesn’t it? Not that it had a great starting point.”

“If I had to endure watching this over and over, it might drive me to murder, too.”

I plan on keeping it. For the memories.

OK, that is not very Shelynite of me, I admit, but Kikonu’s motives were far from pure, here.

While most of my companions don’t have anything tying them down, both Anavaru and I still have family that we are close to. Am I supposed to just disappear for several months, with no word as to where we are going? I can’t do that to them. Sending a letter is an option, of course, but not one that I’d feel particularly good about. Mom and dad already had a hard enough time with what we did. And what we are about to do? I just can’t leave that way. I just can’t. Besides, how smart would it be to put this in a letter? Knowing what we know?

Fortunately for the two of us, Ameiko also has responsibilities back in Sandpoint that she can’t just abandon. Both the inn and her home need to be put under stewardship if not outright sold, and she can’t do that from here. Since time is likely not on our side, she has sought the services of a wizard up in the Windward district for teleports to and from, and she offered to bring Ana and me along. The logistics are complicated, but since he will essentially be on retainer for three days, I will pay his travel expenses to Magnimar from Sandpoint so that Ana and I can visit family, and for the return teleport the following day. Then we all come back here on Ameiko’s coin on the 26th.

The wizard, a personable and handsome Taldan named Thadeus, agreed to this arrangement and he didn’t even overcharge us. Not that his services were cheap, of course, but I think he simply found the proposal interesting enough to actually want to do it. Later, Ameiko opined to me privately that “the opportunity to travel with three young women probably had something to do with that.” I suppose. Maybe.

He needed about a half hour to get prepared for the trip. He works out of his home, so we are waiting in his sitting room while he packs and does whatever else it is he needs to do. As soon as he is ready, we leave.

(Late Morning, Sandpoint)

Ana secured passage for us on the noon caravan to Magnimar. While she was doing that and tying off a couple of loose ends in Sandpoint I ran an errand of my own.

Sheriff Hemlock was in his office when I arrived. He looked very surprised to see me.

“Kali! I heard some ridiculous rumor that Ameiko had talked you and your friends into going to Brinewall. On Sandru’s caravan, no less. Thank—”

I dropped a small stack of books and papers onto his desk with a light thunk. The top one read, “A History of the Brinewall Colony” in my handwriting.

The trip to Riddleport had taken four days, and I spent nearly all of it writing. So much so my wrist was still aching. No one else may have cared about what happened to Brinewall after we left, but I did.

He stared at me.

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

He picked up the top booklet, one of my blank journals which I had repurposed for this task, and started flipping through it.

“The part you want is at the end.”

“Tell me,” he replied as he jumped to the back and worked his way through the blank pages at the end to where my handwriting had stopped. He then flipped through them one at a time, briefly scanning each.

This is where I had to be careful. I was deliberately vague in my writings and needed to do the same here.

“We don’t have all the answers, but we have enough. It was invaded by foreigners, and they had help from outsiders. As in, literal outsiders. We can’t say why, but we suspect there was something in the castle they wanted. We know they attacked the town first, killing everyone there, then the keep. They took both by surprise. The corbies were opportunists, I think, moving into the castle after the invaders had left. But that’s speculation: the colony had a history of trouble with corbies. Over time others moved in, forming a happy little cult of Pazuzu.”

His face whitened at that.

I pointed to the stack of papers. “Original letters, logs, pieces of letters, any scrap of parchment we could find that seemed relevant. We restored what we could with magic. I reconstructed all of them as well, so you have copies. Also in there are blueprints and maps of the keep. Some of the rooms are still dangerous and I’ve marked them as such. And at the very bottom are the original records that the colony’s annalist kept.”

He started to ask a question but I cut him off.

“I don’t have much time because I’m leaving soon. I am telling you this because someone needs to know. Someone who can do something about it. Brinewall is currently unoccupied. For over two decades it’s been in the hands of these beings, and strange stories have circulated about its fate, and yet neither has stopped people from looting what’s left of the town.

“Now that it stands empty again? Someone will reoccupy it. I want them to be the right people.”

I didn’t want to stay any longer. I didn’t want to have to answer questions. I’d already told one half-truth and if I didn’t leave now I’d have to do worse.

“I have to go. I’m sorry. I know this a lot to dump on you and leave, but I also know it’s in good hands.”

I walked out without listening to his reply.

(Night, Lost Coast Road)

The three of us are sharing a coach on the trip down to Magnimar.

These passenger caravans are all about comfort and speed. They can make the run in just under fourteen hours instead of the usual twenty, and though they still have to spread that out over two days there is just eight hours of travel on the first, leaving Sandpoint at noon, and six hours on the next so that you arrive almost exactly one day later. Each coach seats four; the extra passenger in ours was a man of Chelish descent that dozed off an hour outside of Sandpoint and slept almost until we reached camp that night, snoring lightly on the seat beside Thadeus.

Thadeus, Anavaru, and I talked for much of the journey on the first day though eventually the conversation turned to wizardry, of which Ana had only a passing interest. He used to be part of the Order of the Cyphers, technically making him a Cyphermage. The Cyphergate is the defining feature of Riddleport and the only reason why the city was slowly evolving into more than just a haven for thieves. Despite that, my family had never visited. Mom was normally crazy for anything Thassilonean, but the Cyphergate was much too big to put in a museum even if you couldn’t just go see it for yourself, so I guess that took it off her list.

I asked him what it was like being a Cyphermage and why he left the Order. The answer to the former was about what I expected and sounded mostly like dull routine, but the latter was far more interesting.

“After years and years of study, I felt like I might be wasting my life if I stayed, to be honest. Few will admit it, but we were no closer to understanding the Cyphergate when I left than when the Order began. If there is even anything to understand at all.” He paused and then added with a fleeting, half-smile, “It also didn’t pay very well.”

I acknowledged that last bit with a polite laugh, then asked, “You think the runes are just…decorative?”

“I don’t know. But that’s really the problem, isn’t it?”

He was silent for a moment, then continued.

“I don’t mean that it was all a waste of time, of course. Just that it was time for me to move on. There were some distinct advantages to being a part of the Order and I picked up some nice tricks while I was with them.”

Curiosity must have gotten the better of me. He saw something on my face, I think.

“Would you like to see one?”

“Oh, absolutely!”

He asked if I had the most basic spell to read and understand languages, and I said that I had it prepared.

“Good,” he replied. “And it’s late in the day, so we can afford to splurge.”

He took out a piece of parchment, tore off a small strip, and drew a strange and intricate symbol on it that I didn’t recognize. When he was done, he placed the strip under his tongue and then spoke the words to a spell.

“Now the three of us can speak a shared language, which cyphermages call codespeak, that only we three can understand.”

As he spoke, I was aware that the words he was forming were gibberish, but I could understand their meaning perfectly. Ana sat forward, suddenly as interested in this conversation as I was.

He wrote a message on the parchment, next.

“It is also a language that the three of us can read and write. Notice that you can understand what I have written on this parchment.”

We looked down and read, This message can only be understood by the three of us.

“It gets better,” he continued. “This is unique to me as the caster and the two of you. No other combination can produce this same language. Furthermore, the spell that you have memorized can’t decode it, in either the spoken or written form. Only the more powerful form that grants the ability to speak and understand tongues can do so. But, of course, it does not enable you to read language. So it can’t read this writing, either.”

“So, it’s a written language that only we can use.” I started thinking of the possibilities immediately.

“Exactly,” he replied as I felt his spell drop. “Now. Cast your spell and try to read the message.”

I did, and sure enough, it remained, stubbornly, incomprehensible gibberish. I could see him smiling out of the corner of my eye.

“And as you can see, it’s repeatable. As I implied earlier.”

He cast the spell a second time, and the writing on the parchment was intelligible once again.

“I’d be willing to let you copy that from my spellbook. For a fee, of course. It’s obviously rare so I would have to charge you more than the traditional amount. Unless you have some spell you can offer in trade to offset it.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer, and I understand that it’s rare. I…I don’t know if I have spells that are of value to you, though.”

“You might be surprised. I see few adventuring wizards and my needs are often completely different. May I?”

Adventuring?

He pointed to my pack where he assumed, correctly, that I had my spell book. One copy of it, anyway. I pulled it out and handed it to him, and he cast the spell to read the writing.

It was uncomfortable to watch another wizard look through it. It felt like I was being judged based on my spell choices. He would occasionally nod, or make sounds lightly to himself like “Mmm hmm” and “Mmm”. It was just an unpleasant feeling in general.

Again, he must have seen something in my expression.

“Please, don’t take it personally. Believe me, I know how it feels.  It’s not just about what’s new or interesting, it’s also about what’s useful or can be—”

He stopped suddenly when he reached the last spell in my book. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. He looked at me. Right at me, for what seemed like forever.

“You don’t like to have blood on your hands.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry,” he replied hastily. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that… What I meant was, save for the silly cantrips we all know, none of your spells directly cause any lasting harm. None of them. And then there is this one, which, like most of your others appears to be one that you researched on your own. Meaning, you sought this out.”

Ana turned to me and asked, “What does it do?”

Thadeus responded, still looking at me. “I’ve not seen it before, myself, but it appears to summon a deluge of rocks. Over a rather large area. Bludgeoning everything and everyone exposed. It’s rather…indiscriminate. I am intrigued, but…well…given the rest of your spells, it seems to be out of character for you.”

Ana said something to me in response to that but I wasn’t paying attention. I was still focused on Thadeus. What he said was uncomfortably accurate and it got my hackles up. I tried to stay calm. I honestly didn’t think he was trying to be rude. Was it an automatic response to being called out like that? Even after all these years.

I tried to not let any irritation show, but I am not always good at this.

“But not ‘out of character’ for you?” I asked.

“I grew up in Riddleport,” he responded casually. As if that was sufficient enough an explanation. Which…I suppose it was. He seemed to ignore my tone, if I had one.

I decided he deserved an answer. I mean, I actually liked him. He was friendly, honest, and pretty respectful of me despite being several years older and much more experienced in magic. How often does that happen? So I told him the truth.

“My friends and I will be doing more traveling, and…I need to be able to contribute. Especially outdoors.”

He studied me for a moment and then said, “Fair enough.”

And after another short pause, he added, “Well, Kali, I think we can work out a trade arrangement here.”

We spent the first couple of hours tonight copying each others’ spells under the Lover’s Moon. There’s probably a cosmic joke in there somewhere.

Erastus 25 (Evening, Sandpoint)

It’s been a long day.

We arrived in Magnimar just after noon and made arrangements to meet at 6 pm in the Seerspring Garden for the teleport back to Sandpoint. I knew my parents would be working, so I headed for their business office in Dockway. It was not the best place to have this conversation, but what choice did I have? A rhetorical question, obviously. None at all.

I wanted to get this over with, so I walked quickly and made only one stop on the way there: a bookstore in order to purchase two identical copies of a modest gazetteer on The Inner Sea. I would need those first. They were innocuous enough to not arouse suspicion, and a cursory scan of the text turned up enough of the right sort of words that I was confident they would serve their purpose.

Nothing really fazes mom and it’s something I’ve always admired about her. She was meeting with someone I didn’t recognize, a short, balding, middle-aged man, when I entered. She looked up, made eye contact with me, and then very casually said to him, “My next appointment is here. Can we pick this up again at a later time?”

“Of course! Of course! I’m sorry. If I had known…I’ll come back tomorrow morning.”

Everyone always apologizes to mom, whether it is their fault or not.

She left a clerk in charge up front and guided me back to their office where dad was working on something at his desk. He is a bit easier to surprise, but amazingly he held his composure until mom shut the door behind us.

And then I received the two biggest and longest hugs from them in recent memory. We all wiped away some tears.

A lot of people think mom isn’t very…affectionate? Maternal? But she really is. She just always has this facade up when she’s in public. There’s mom, and then there’s the person she wants you to see.

Our conversation is a jumble in my head. It started about how I expected, asking how I was, if everyone was OK, what happened, and of course, how I was back nearly two weeks early. I avoided the details at first, just reassuring them that, yes, we were all OK and had made it back from Brinewall without lasting injury, and then settled in to tell the whole story. All of it.

I cast the spell I learned from Thadeus. Was I being paranoid? Maybe. My original intention was to have this entire conversation in Vudrani but opportunity had landed in my lap and I was not going to pass it up. This was much safer for all of us.

Both mom and dad looked concerned—very concerned—as I started, but I said, “For privacy,” and they understood. And you could feel the tone shift in the room. I must have looked very serious at that moment.

“This spell will only last about forty minutes. Dad, you were right when you said I hide things from you. I…Never mind. It doesn’t matter why. No more secrets.”

And I told them. Everything. It took nearly a half an hour with their questions, but I told them. When I got to the Seal, they both turned pale. I remember thinking to myself, Living through it wasn’t much fun, either.

They were silent for a long time, just looking at each other. And then dad nodded ever so slightly, and then mom did, too. I wish I knew how they did that.

Dad said, “You are on the cusp of something of great importance.”

“Yes, I think so,” I said softly. “This is a lot bigger than we ever imagined it would be. Her family…”

“Her empire,” added mom.

I nodded.

Dad summed it up. “And you are committed. Whether you wish to be or not, you are committed to this path. Though, I suspect that these are your wishes, are they not?”

“Yes. Yes they are.”

Silence.

There was more they wanted to talk about here, a lot more, but I only had a few minutes left in the spell and I needed to get this next part out. So I cut them off. It hurt to do that, but I had to.

“I need a way to send messages to you that others can’t read. At least, until I’m able to master the spells to do it directly.”

I pulled out the books and taught him the code: triplets of numbers, representing page, paragraph, and word number. It would take me forever to write, and I would be limited by the text, but they could decode it quickly and easily. It was not very sophisticated, but the meaning could not be revealed with magic and you’d have to know what it was and which book to use (the one I’d chosen wouldn’t stand out as being unusual for either of us) to do it by hand. And, the numbers could be disguised in a phony business letter, or just sent as cryptic jumbles. It really didn’t matter how. Sure, it was simple and stupid, but it would do. And we wouldn’t need it for long, I hoped.

They left work early and we spent the rest of the afternoon together. We talked a lot, of course, though I was careful with the details. There were more questions. More worry. More reassurance where I had it. It was not easy to do. We also shopped together, purchasing a couple of books on the Linnorm Kingdoms including a small gazetteer that didn’t look terribly out of date, a stack of maps ranging from the practical (for the caravan) to the fanciful (for myself and Koya, as keepsake memories), and so on. We had an early dinner in Naos. And then…it was time to say good-bye. There is never enough time.

I think I can count the number of times I’ve seen mom and dad cry on one hand.

Erastus 26 (Evening, Riddleport)

I decided Alex was right, so I visited Sefa this morning. When was I going to have another opportunity?

I took a page out of my parents’ book and dressed to the hilt. Why not? I was derided by this family because of my heritage, so naturally I flaunted it. I chose my best sari, a deep red with gold accents and a 9-foot drape, over a matching choli.

I have no idea who the woman was that opened the door. I just announced myself as if I didn’t care (and I didn’t).

“Miss Kali Nassim of Magnimar, requesting an audience with Mrs. Sefa Scarnetti.”

The key is to be gracious and polite, no matter how many scowls it earns you. The worse you are treated, the more formal you become. Watching Titus glare at me as Sefa showed me to her wing of the manor was the highlight of my day.

After gently ribbing me for being overdressed for just a casual visit (“I felt like making an entrance,” to which she replied with a giggle, “You most certainly did that.”) we talked for a couple of hours. For me, it was, for the first time in over a month, a regular conversation about nothing of consequence: motherhood in general, her baby specifically, living in Sandpoint, and more than a little reminiscing. Between that and watching her with her son, and then holding him myself, it was one of those moments that almost had me re-examining my life choices.

Almost. I had chosen my path and I was happy with it, but I could certainly appreciate hers.

“Sefa, can I ask you something personal? You don’t have to answer.”

“Of course you can.”

“What made you decide you liked me?”

This was a question that had been on my mind for years. Making friends with Sefa had been something of a turning point, the beginning of the end of being an outcast, harassed and bullied for whatever reasons that children are labeled as outcasts, then harassed and bullied.

She thought for a moment, then said, “At some point, I realized that what was happening was just…cruel. I saw it for what it was.” She shrugged, then added, “And then I got to know you.”

“Our friendship…it changed my life. I wanted you to know that.”

“Thank you, Kali. That means a lot to me. And I met Alex because of you, so…it changed mine, too.”

I kept this same outfit on for the remainder of the day. I felt like returning to Riddleport in style.