Calistril 18, 4713 (Ordu-Aganhei, late night)

My memory of this is still clear because we just finished the reading, but … memories fade, and those that don’t? They often get muddled. Memory is just so unreliable, and it only gets worse with time. The details are important here so I need to get them down while I can. While I still have it right.

I should back up first, though, because I didn’t have time to do that earlier. That, and I felt like I was on the verge of an anxiety attack or something. I had really worked myself (perhaps unnecessarily?) into a panic. How was I even able to talk to anyone? I suppose it could be that I am remembering it as worse than it really was. Maybe. I am not exactly doing well right now. Far from it, really. But I don’t know. See above.

After talking to Radella on the walk back from dinner, I asked Ameiko if she would stay with me tonight. “I don’t want to be alone right now,” I said. “I need someone with me. I … can’t really explain it.” I still can’t

“As if you need to even ask. I can tell you’re troubled. Of course I’ll stay with you,” she said with a smile. Probably so that I wouldn’t think I was being a burden to her, she added, “It would be nice to have the company, anyway. The feather beds here are comfortable, but after all these months of being crammed in the wagons? Nights alone in a room are both a luxury and … a bit unfamiliar.”

I was kind of feeling just the opposite. Or I had, until this morning.

“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t think anything will happen, at least not directly, but …” I didn’t have to add that I could be coerced or manipulated, and no one would be the wiser. And of course, everyone here seems to live in fear of him. Even if I am safe, the people here may not be. I could easily get someone killed, I thought. Lots of someones. I shuddered at that.

Ameiko thought about this for a moment. “I—I don’t think the Prince would kidnap you or … probably … outright force anything. He does seem to value honor and etiquette—to a fault, if you ask me—but I still don’t trust him or know how far he can be pushed before he drops the facade.”

“I need to ask. Is there anything you can do or provide that can help me? In case I have to talk my way out of trouble, or slip away if I can’t teleport.” I hesitated, not exactly sure how to phrase the rest of it. “The catch is, I don’t know when it would be needed, so I can’t completely rely on spells.” This is why I was borrowing Radella’s circlet. Every little bit helped.

It didn’t matter, though. All she had to offer was advice. But. It was good advice. “I would not outright refuse him, especially in front of others. Find a way to string him along, perhaps, until we know we can make our escape or find out what his true motives are.”

“In other words, stall,” I said.

“Yes. Stall. It’s a delicate and dangerous line to walk.” She sighed, then said, “I never imagined you would get entangled in the political intrigues of court when we started this journey. But, such are the perils of court.” She spoke as if she knew how these things worked. Exactly when was she an expert on political intrigue? I bounced that around in my head. Has Ameiko been holding out on me?

I’d have plenty of time to ask her later, and I snapped back to the present. Stay focused, Kali. “I … I think I need Koya’s help on this, too,” I said. “I am rudderless here.”

Ameiko got Koya’s attention with a small wave and then gestured for her to join us. When she did, I explained what that I intended to do and why I needed her there. “I can manage the spell, but I still need help with interpreting the cards.”

Koya looked lost in thought briefly. “Well, it’s not usual to combine the spell with a reading, but I think that’s because most people don’t take the time to learn both. There’s certainly no reason why you can’t do it.”

I said, “It will take me some time to prepare the spell, but I’ll start as soon as I get back to my room.”

Ameiko interjected, “As soon as we get back. We’ll wait with you until you are ready to cast. Though I believe Radella has suggested a ladies’ night in your room, so it might get a little crowded there.” The more the merrier.

The rooms weren’t far. While they settled in, I hastily wrote what I wrote earlier, got down to memorizing the spell, and then announced, “I’m ready.”

Koya came over to sit next to me. She handed my her deck (mine is not yet finished), and waited for me to start. I pulled out the nine Crown cards for the Choosing, and then I just stared at them. Are you sure you want to do this? I remember thinking. I must have been like that for a while, because I felt Koya’s hand touch mine, gently. I snapped out of the reverie, spoke the words to the spell, and drew the first card.

I was looking at a dragon. It was The Tyrant.

My heart sank and Koya sighed heavily. “That is … not a pleasant card. It indicates one who rules but who does harm to those over whom he holds sway.”

It meant my role in this was linked to the Prince. It was confirming my fears. I stared at it for a while. I’d not studied the art on this one yet. Is it … eating its own egg? I shuddered.

I shuffled the Crown cards back in the deck, and laid out the Tapestry, face down. Starting with the Past, I revealed The Eclipse, misaligned.

“The Eclipse. A hidden place revealed, or an unheralded ability. The necropolis? Shelyn’s gift of Hon-La?” I asked.

“Possibly. Both brought us here in some fashion. Though I have learned not to be too certain in Harrowings.”

The next card was The Snakebite. “A weapon used against us. Any of the oni or ninja could fit here.”

“Less certain is this one, but your interpretation is as good as any,” she replied.

A wave of dread washed over me when I turned over the third card. “The Rabbit Prince,” I said quietly.

“Our host is the younger brother of the Khan, is he not? This hints that he is slippery and clever as an adversary.” Well that’s just great.

It got worse on the next column, which represented the present. Much worse. I turned over the first card and immediately thought I was going to be sick. I could barely speak, but managed to croak out, “The Marriage. Oh, gods, Koya …”

“Now, child, don’t take the cards too literally; these are merely … images and shadows. In this case it means that something will change in a permanent way, but what that change is we cannot be certain.”

But I couldn’t get past the literal image. It was like I was being sent a personal warning. I could hear and feel my heart pounding in my head. I fought to keep the world from fading into the distance.

My hand was shaking as I turned over the next card.

I wouldn’t have thought I could feel any worse, but then I was staring at The Beating. I sniffed and wiped away the start of tears, then said out loud what I was thinking. My voice weak and hoarse. “I—I shouldn’t have done this.”

“The seasons change whether we read the cards or not,” she replied. Well, sure, but logic is a cold comfort. “In this position, though, I think it represents how you are feeling now. A dissolution of self.” I admit that this actually made sense, and the thought helped me compose myself. I nodded and moved on.

“The Unicorn, misaligned. A false friend. I think I know who this is.”

“You are probably right.”

The Tapestry

The slow approach was killing me so I turned over the cards in the last column, representing the future, in rapid succession.

Koya let out another sigh, and that feeling of almost being sick reasserted itself. The top right card was The Courtesan. I knew what it represented, but I just sat there shaking my head slowly in denial so she took the liberty of explaining. Maybe for Ameiko’s benefit more than mine.

“I think it’s telling you that your future requires you to continue in this role. You must navigate the politics of this place, and there’s some peril if you slip or falter.”

I still didn’t say anything. I just sat there and stared. Koya added, “I’m sorry, child, this is a heavy burden to place on you.

“The Sickness is difficult to interpret,” she continued, though with less certainty. “It could mean the moral decay of a place, or the corruption of an individual of importance in your life.”

I waved my hand dismissively, blowing that card off. It didn’t feel like it had anything to contribute here. Honestly, I just didn’t care. But the last one …

I took a long, deep breath and said, “The Inquisitor. I can’t cheat my way out of it. I have to face it head on.”

“With the help of your friends,” Ameiko added. She’d been watching the reading quietly this whole time. “Don’t forget that.”

Other than a hint of a smile, Koya ignored the interruption. “Normally we only interpret a few, key cards in the Tapestry. But in this case, most of them had something to say. What is the spell telling you?”

I could feel its effects now, and was trying to characterize them. “I am being … encouraged … to use my wits.”

A long silence followed. I could feel them watching me. “We have to tell the others,” I said. “Any information we need to get, about the road ahead, Minkai, the Forest … We need to do it tomorrow. Just in case.”

Calistril 3, 4713 (morning, Uqtaal necropolis)

We are leaving today. I can’t say that I am sorry to go, and if we could have left yesterday we would have. We never intended to come here, we certainly didn’t want to come here, and pretty much everything about this place has been horrible. Making peace with the yeti was a welcome change from how we started, but it doesn’t bring Bevelek back to life. And while the chief is grateful to us, I worry that not all of his tribe is on board with that. Katiyana may have been the catalyst, but several of them still died at our hands. I am anxious to put all of it behind us.

I spent hours and hours yesterday cleansing this place with Ivan and Koya, removing all traces of Fumiyoshi and restoring as much of the Desnan iconography as our spells could handle. Even that was unsatisfying. It feels like a job half finished, but there is just no way we are backtracking 30-some miles to remove all of those skulls. That, and no one understands, much less knows how to deal with, the pool with the tree. Other than using the specters for target practice, which I doubt was the original intent.

I am tired. I didn’t sleep well. And I hate it here.

Calistril 6, 4713 (Path of Aganhei, Wall of Heaven, evening)

We rejoined the Path of Aganhei around mid-day today after over three days of winding through the mountains. We’ve begun our descent to Ordu-Aganhei, though according to Ulf (and our maps) that is still over a week away.

We finally have pleasant weather. The sun is on a reasonable schedule, the skies are clear, and while it’s still cold we aren’t anywhere near the sub-freezing temperatures of the arctic.  I should be happy about all of this, but I’m not. I promised mom and dad that I’d check in once we got this far and I have been putting it off because I don’t know what to say to them. There’s no way for me to tell them that Bevelek’s dead without confirming their worst fears about our journey, but I can’t not tell, them, either. So, the mature adult that I am, I’ve been avoiding it.

Calistril 8, 4713 (Path of Aganhei, Wall of Heaven, evening)

Ivan has been making small repairs to the caravan using magic as we go. The wagons took quite a beating in the storms, and then again under the mountains. As we learned in Ul-Angorn we don’t want to look like we’ve been through…well, all that stuff we just went through, I guess. Of course there’s no avoiding the obvious, which is that we are coming down from the Crown in late winter. At best, people will think we have lost our minds, but with the wagons beat to the Abyss and back, we’ll look like fools who didn’t know better and are lucky to be alive.

These mountains go on for hundreds of miles inland. They call it the Wall of Heaven. The coastal range stretches from the divide between Tian Xia and the Crown all the way down to the equator. At every point it’s at least a hundred miles across—in most it’s at least twice that—with peaks towering to 30,000 feet and beyond. Except at Goka, the only port city on the west coast, at the only break in the range. It’s no coincidence that it is also one of the largest cities in the world.

It’s said that there’s a lost valley somewhere in the northern expanse of the Wall, maybe a thousand miles or so from where we are now, where the people live an idyllic life, isolated in, and by, the mountains. It’s a Nirvana on Golarion, with no rulers, no war, no evil, and no sin. It sounds like any one of a dozen other legends we have back in the Inner Sea. I don’t believe any of them, either, but who’s to say? Maybe there really is a paradise out there, and humanity is just too jaded to accept it.

Calistril 10, 4713 (Path of Aganhei, Wall of Heaven, small hours)

I finally talked to mom and dad. It could have gone a lot worse.

“Bevelek? By the gods, Kali…what—”

I cut him off. “It was our fault. We…we made an assumption that…it was a terrible mistake. I—I don’t know how else to…”

I had to stop to wipe my eyes.

“It didn’t have to happen. We could have prevented it. I…”

Another long silence. Then mom spoke.

“Do you want us to tell someone? Do you know where their family lives?”

“Give us…give us a week,” I said, sniffing, and wiping my eyes dry again. “Qatana says she can…bring him back.”

A much longer silence this time.

“You don’t approve.”

This time, dad spoke. “That is not it at all. We are just…surprised. Qatana? Your friend, Qatana. Qatana Marchand.” he asked, clearly incredulous.

“Yes.”

Another long silence.

“Now I do not know what to say.”

Calistril 14, 4713 (Path of Aganhei, Hongal, evening)

We spotted a hunting party not far from the road today. They didn’t approach us, and we didn’t approach them. Ulf suggested that was for the best. He explained that the people of Hongal are suspicious of foreigners, and accept the trade route, and the travellers on it, as a kind of necessary evil. As long as we stay on the road and keep to our business, they’ll leave us alone. Stray too far from it and we’ll be trespassing, and around here that is like asking to be executed without the added burden of having to ask.

They are mostly a nomadic people; even their king lives in a sort of traveling tent city. They are famed for their horsemanship, and live in a land that is equally famous for the quality of its horses. The city we are headed for, Ordu-Aganhei, is one of only two permanent settlements in the entire nation. Unsurprisingly, the other one lies along the trade route as well, on the border with the Forest of Spirits.

Calistril 16, 4713 (Ordu-Aganhei, late afternoon)

Prince Batsaikhar, the brother of the Khan, has made us his honored guests in the palace. In less than two hours, we have gone from living like vagrants and transients—literally living off the land by our wits and skills for months—to luxury the likes of which I have not seen since Niswan. And back then, I only saw it. As the Prince’s guests, we are living in it, and I lack the words to properly describe the contrast between where we were and where we are. Less than three weeks ago, I was in a frozen wasteland isolated from humanity. Now there are servants attending to my every need, following me like a cloud of gnats.

They don’t seem eager to please so much as terrified to not. Or, perhaps more accurately, terrified of not satisfying their ruler’s demands. The Prince makes me uneasy; he’s always smiling and overly polite. I think Ulf summed it up pretty well: “The Prince can be a powerful ally, but he is also known to be ruthless. So be careful.” A point that is underscored by the severed heads adorning the walls of the city. Chua said that “they were robbers, preying on traders along the Path of Aganhei.”

Still, our situation now is something of an improvement over our arrival. Because I couldn’t keep my temper under control. Yes, the guards at the gate were not just rude, but belligerent, accusing us of everything from being smugglers to spies to assassins. When they started climbing all over the caravan like rats in search of food, I let it get to me. Challenging their authority was, perhaps, not the right decision. Fortunately, Chua intervened before weapons were drawn.

Chua is the…well, I am not really sure what he is. Perhaps a chancellor or vizier or whatever title they give here to the one who is closest to the Prince and responsible for making things happen. He interrupted the guards and extended the royal invitations to us. Naturally, I accepted on everyone’s behalf without consulting them because it didn’t seem wise to refuse or even put the matter up for debate. It was Chua that gave us our first hints of what the Prince might be like: he handed a black rose to each of the ladies in our party, and uttered some artificial and demeaning remark about the beauty of foreign women. (A black rose is, of course, a terrible insult to a Shelynite, but Nihali takes the form of a black raven and that earns me my own share of stares. So, I guess I am not in a position to complain.)

After listening to the highlights of our travels across the Ice in the dead of winter (Radella says he was bored by them, but good at hiding it) Prince Batsaikhar declared he would be hosting the Five Feasts of Hongal in our honor. So I guess our little stunt isn’t pulled very often. Arriving in mid-Calistril was something of a red-letter day.

The first dinner is in a couple of hours. I asked Chua for advice on not accidentally offending our host. He said, “Be polite. Speak your own language, because he prides himself on his expertise in Common. And use chopsticks.”

Ameiko and I will be giving everyone a crash course on the latter.

I already screwed up the second one by speaking to him in Hon-La. I am not sure what Shelyn has in mind for me, but apparently it involves drawing attention to myself, good or bad.

(late night)

Dinner was, in a word, disgusting. I have a little cantrip that covers up a lot of sins, and I got plenty of use out of it tonight. Look, I pride myself on having a wide palate, OK? You can’t travel like we did when I was young without adapting to the local culture’s food. I’m not even a vegetarian for gods’ sake (I’d practically be a pariah in Vudra for that, alone). But every culture has some bizarre “gourmet” dish that is truly foul, and the chefshere  went all out to ensure that was all we ate.

It also doesn’t bode well for the next four nights: if bird brains and chicken feet aren’t off limits, then there is a lot of ground that they can cover.

To make up for the food, we were treated to cultural entertainment. It was actually pretty impressive: the Prince’s royal guards performed an exhibition of what they called the “Three Games of Hongal”: mounted archery, bareback horse racing, and wrestling. It’s pretty obvious that their reputations as horse masters has been earned.

The big surprise of the night was the Prince asking us if we could do these same things. Like, literally, the same games. After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we actually put on a pretty good showing. Ivan says he got lucky, but I’ve seen him shoot and you make luck like that. Two arrows struck their target, dead center. Sparna was challenged to wrestle their champion, and he managed to pin the guy to the floor. It was a close match—I don’t know the rules of wrestling, but it was pretty obvious they were somewhat equally matched and it went back and forth a couple of times—but Sparna got the upper hand and that was that. I remember saying, quietly, “He probably just executed that guy.” Which was not intended as a joke, but rather a factual observation. Olmas, for his part, almost pulled of the horse racing with Kasimir, but Kasimir is a warhorse and I guess he just didn’t see the point of it.

Still, two out of three wasn’t bad for people who were put on the spot like that. The Prince obviously agreed and—

There was a knock at my door just now. When I answered there was no one there: just a gift box sitting in the hall. An ornate gift box tied with silk ribbons. I opened it, and inside was an absolutely stunning, Tien-style evening gown. One that is, shall we say, fairly revealing. It was accompanied by a note from Prince Batsaikhar saying, and I am quoting this, “Your exotic beauty graces his palace and will shine all the brighter in this fine gown,” signed “with his humble compliments”.

OK. I’ve been sitting here for several minutes, dumbfounded. I don’t know what to write. I can’t process this.

Calistril 17, 4713 (Ordu-Aganhei, morning)

I am pushing all thoughts about dinner tonight and that gown out of my head for now. That is the plan for today, anyway. Shalelu says she found a suitable shop where we can purchase the diamond Qatana needs to raise Bevelek, and we have all agreed to meet at roughly 5 o’clock tonight to get it done. Until then, we are going to be unloading this collection of crap we’ve been carrying since the Storm Tower and then use the money to do some shopping. It’s just the sort of distraction I need.

I did come to one decision, though: I am wearing the gown tonight. I decided it would not be in our best interest to refuse a gift from the Prince. At least, one that is, aside from the modesty (or lack of it), fairly innocuous. We need more time here, and we need to keep him on our good side if we are going to remain here as royal guests. I intend to do my part.

Last night after dinner, the Prince announced what tonight’s feast would be (The Feast of the Ancients), and as soon as Chua came to escort us back to our rooms I asked him what the entertainment would be (because we are not going to be caught off guard like that a second time).

“Theatrical performances with story-telling,” he said.

With Ameiko’s help, I think we can have that covered.

(evening)

Bevelek breathes again.

It’s hard to fathom that one among us possesses the power to raise the dead. It’s even harder to fathom that it’s a Cleric of Groetus, and harder still that she willingly used it. I mean, it seems like a contradiction, but then again so is Qatana.

Besides, she points out that Groetus is the god of the end times, not the god of death. The latter is Pharasma’s job.

Touché.

Not that Groetus has an opinion on what she’s done. Among theologians it is widely believed that Groetus does’t intend to create followers, and either doesn’t know he has them or doesn’t care. In short, Qatana is given divine power with no guidance on its use; immense power that flows freely, unhindered responsibility.

Vankor was especially grateful to have his brother back. And of course Sandru and Koya were almost equally emotional. The brothers have been with Sandru’s caravan since it’s beginning. I’ve known them nearly as long, but what I felt was quite different. I felt the weight of guilt lifting off of me. Just a bit.

(late night)

My predictions about dinner were, unfortunately, spot-on. The assault on our senses resumed with such delicacies as goose stomach, fish lips, and solidified blood. I consider not throwing up to be a major victory.

The entertainment was a play whose title translated to “Why the Marmot Doesn’t Have Thumbs”, told through shadow puppetry and accompanied by throat singing to music on the horsehead fiddle. As expected, Prince Batsaikhar asked us if we could put on a performance to match, and this time, we were ready.

Ameiko told the story of the white dragon, through music and song. Ivan and I opened her performance with a few special effects courtesy of our spells, and as she got underway I began interpretive dance, interacting with imagery from Ivan’s illusions.

The accolades we received were enough for me, but the Prince already had two things in mind. First, we were gifted one of the Hongal performers’ fiddles (and I suspect we have executed her, too). Second, he thanked us all personally, but me especially, and then he asked me to join him for breakfast in the morning. I am not really fond of the idea, but refusing the Prince in front of a couple hundred of his nobles and subjects seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea at the time. So I said yes.

Note that I said, “at the time”. As Chua was escorting us to our rooms, Olmas struck up a conversation with him, and he asked a few questions about the Prince that have me regretting that answer.

Among the stories Chua told us was this gem: “Once he stacked seven people on top of one another, just to see if he could sever their heads with a single stroke of his katana. Which, of course, he did!”

“We’re they prisoners being executed or something?” Olmas asked.

“I don’t know. I suppose they might have been. But whoever they were, they weren’t important. Should that matter?”

Chua will come by at seven o’clock in the morning to take me to breakfast. Sparna volunteered to escort me.

Calistril 18, 4713 (Ordu-Aganhei, morning)

Gods, I feel sick. I’m still trembling. I managed to keep myself together until I got back here but then I started shaking and I couldn’t stop. Even Nihali couldn’t help me. I’ve calmed down since then but I can still see the tremors in my hands and my stomach won’t stop aching.

On the way out, as I was about to walk through that door, I felt him run his hands through my hair. I was not OK with that. Not in the least. I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t want it, but I could at least ignore it.

And then his hand continued down to my back, to my skin, and I was back on that beach with Jeffy Theern looming over me. I could feel the wind against my face, smell the ocean air, and count the grains of sand against my palms.

Nihali tells me I froze for just a second. I don’t remember, and the Prince didn’t let on that anything had happened, but I have no reason to doubt her.

On the way back, I whispered to Sparna using one of my spells, and told him what happened. Told him I’m worried what the Prince might try next. Then we met with the others when it was safe to talk.

We’re getting the caravan ready to move. I can get out with magic, but the caravan can’t and if my hand is forced it could put everyone in danger.

I have no problem admitting this: I am scared.

(late night)

I am writing this hastily as the girls are waiting for me to begin. But I need to get this down while I can still hold myself together.

Tonight was the Feast of Fire. I barely remember any of it, just the part where I was, once again, asked to perform. Dancing on burning coals (under the protection of fire resistance, of course) in a not-at-all-revealing dress of fiery reds and golds that I had chosen. Once again, we were rewarded with gifts from the Prince. I played my part.

He announced the next two feasts. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Honored Visitors, and we are expected to help his kitchen staff prepare a traditional Varisian meal, and provide all the entertainment. Because of course we are. The last is the Feast of the Dragon, a city-wide celebration with food, music and dragon-dancing.

It struck me on the walk back to our rooms. The Feast of the Honored Visitors. None of us has been “honored” more than I have, and we won’t be dining in the palace the night after. Whatever he’s planning? It’s going to happen tomorrow.

But just in case I am wrong, the other girls and are staying with me tonight. I don’t want to be alone.

Calistril 1, 4713 (Uqtaal Necropolis, evening)

The counter-attack I was expecting never materialized, though we did get the next best thing, I suppose: several yeti emerged from the pool room and stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the cavern, forming a living wall between us and the necropolis. Why did they take a defensive position instead of making an assault? I don’t know, but I can speculate: they didn’t want to fight us on our terms. A theme that has emerged with them is “come see our king”, followed by some variation of “so he can kill you”. And if we were to be surrounded by yeti deep in their territory I have no doubt that they could follow through on that.

Obviously, they plan to ambush us when and if we do as they ask. We figured that one out even before they explicitly said so. They are not very subtle, nor are they particularly skilled at intrigue,

According to the others, the yeti just stood there watching us. After a while, Sparna and Ivan got bored and started a ridiculous pissing contest with them. It began with tossing pebbles at each other and then escalated to whatever was on hand, including the revenant’s corpse and Katiyana’s head. Because of course it did.

I think Sparna was trying to intimidate them into leaving, or going to get their chief, or something. Whatever his intention, this was making them agitated. I wasn’t sure this was the best use of our time or resources—we were supposed to be resting, healing, and planning, not starting another fight—but I didn’t want to be accused of not being a team player again. So I participated in the silly game until it stopped being silly. That would be when Olmas actually took a shot at one of them, burying an arrow in a yeti’s chest.

For all Olmas’s and Sparna’s talk about a discipline and order, it all comes down to the pot and the kettle both being black. I may have my moments of immaturity, but at least I don’t shoot people because I am bored and out of ideas. Desna was with us, however, and the yeti retreated before anyone died. On either side. Yours truly may have had some influence over that.

I was not in a good mood. I am still not. My wonderful theory about the Yeti chief? I couldn’t convince anyone at all, and after talking to Koya I was beginning to doubt it myself. It took the wind out of my sails.

It all came down to what the yeti meant by “two moons ago”. She suggested that the spirits they worship may be connected to the moon, or that they might find the moon sacred in some fashion. How they count days is still a mystery, but the suspicion was that their chief ventures outside from time to time for whatever passes as worship or ritual.

This is where the idea that the chief was not possessed, but rather replaced, started to take root. The Five Storms knew, more or less, where we were and where we were headed. It would not be unreasonable for there to be oni waiting for us at the pass. Faced with the same storm, said oni might have turned to the Path of Spirits as we did, only from the Tian Xia side where he or she encountered the chief. We know an ogre mage can assume a human form, but there’s no reason to believe that it must be strictly human. They could just as easily take the form of a large humanoid, like, oh, say, a yeti.

An oni in the chief’s place would be just as reasonable, if not more likely, than my theory of Katiyana’s ghost. It all makes perfect sense.

Except it doesn’t explain the storm, and there is this big hole in the logic. I get that the others believe this oni theory. I get that they want to believe it. But we all heard that voice on the wind. We all saw the storm expand behind us as if it were following us. That, and Sithhud and the Five Storms working together just does not make sense. How would they even make such an agreement? How would that even work? What bargain could they possibly make with one another? Demonic beings working together is a stretch on its own, especially when they don’t have common goals.

So I wasn’t ready to give up yet. And I made a proposal: that we test the theories.

They think I am out of my mind. They … may be right. What I suggested we do—that I do—is unbelievably dangerous and bordering on suicidal. It is an idea even worse than my plan for the white dragon.

“I can fly in under invisibility, and use a spell to mask my scent. The wand will give me the ability to see in the dark. I’ll have a protective spell up that will prevent mental control over me. And I’ll use another spell that will let us exchange whispered messages, if needed. I can get in to the chief’s throne room completely undetected.”

To what purpose? To find the yeti chief, and see what spells, if any, were on or around him. I would be able to tell the difference between mental control and shapeshifting. It would give us valuable information.

Sparna didn’t like it. Neither did Olmas. What if I was discovered? What if I was hurt? I’d be surrounded, with no real hope of rescue. I could be facing the chief, who is able to cast spells, and the entire yeti tribe. The objections kept coming.

“I can always teleport away. That’s my escape plan.” And it was a pretty good one, too. It was enough to get them to agree to it.

The problem, of course, is that it wasn’t foolproof. Meet a yeti’s gaze, and I might be overcome by the magical fear it instills in you. Alone and paralyzed, I would not be able to do anything except fall to the ground. I didn’t point this out. Because they’d never let me do it if they knew it could fail. But “certain” can be an impossible standard. You could waste your entire life waiting for “certain”. That, and, I am not some gods-be-damned fragile child! I wasn’t then, and I sure as hell am not now.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to do this. I mean, I do, but I don’t. But the thing is, I don’t want us to have to kill every living thing here in order for us to leave (am I the only one?). This may be our best shot at that.

Calistril 2, 4713 (Uqtaal Necropolis, morning)

Nothing happened over night. I was worried they’d come after us while most of us were asleep, but it seems they are confident we’ll come to them eventually. Where they assume they’ll have the upper hand. They are right about the first part; the second remains to be seen.

I am more than a little nervous. One unpleasant side effect of these rings is that you have lots of time at night to fret and worry. I spent what felt like hours thinking of all the ways this plan could go wrong and what to do about it, which was nowhere near as productive or helpful as it sounds. I used to be able to break these mental loops through meditation, but…that was a long time ago.

We’ll stay together until we reach the anti-life shell inside the necropolis. Then I am on my own. The plan is for them to give me time to enter the throne room, then they’ll launch a raid to provide a distraction while I figure out what, if anything, has happened to the chief. I’ll have very little time to do this. If l screw it up, if I am discovered, or if our theories are just outright wrong, then we’ll be completely surrounded and fighting the entire Yeti tribe.

Please, Shelyn, let this work.

(afternoon)

I am still in shock. It worked. It worked! My muscles still ache, I was so tense, but it worked! And it’s over.

Panic almost set in when I reached the chief’s throne room and he wasn’t there. I knew what he looked like because I had seen him before, and there was no sign of him at all. But, if we was invisible or shape-shifted or hiding through magic, it was only a matter of time before I found him.

The yeti knew we were coming and they were waiting for us in absolute silence. It was unnerving. The tension was so thick it felt like I was swimming through it. I couldn’t so much as whisper without giving myself away and that meant that I couldn’t warn the others, either; couldn’t tell them I needed just a little more time, that there were more than we thought, or that a group of them could make a run at the caravan if they felt so inclined. I just couldn’t risk being heard. The yeti didn’t know I was there, and I was not about to lose that advantage and make myself a target.

In the end though none of that mattered. I was still sweeping the room when the others came in. It was too soon, which meant that they had been able to just walk in. I guess we should have expected that; this was supposed to be a trap after all. As the saying goes, we had them right where they want us.

I didn’t see where the chief came from or how he had remained hidden, but I saw the first spell go off and then I knew, I knew, it was Katiyana. She’d used that lightning strike on us before, and the chief was using it now. What were the odds? And then Olmas called out where he was and I turned around and saw him.

The start of the skirmish, though a ways away, made just enough noise that I could risk a whisper. I messaged to them that I was sure it was Katiyana as I flew to the yeti chief’s position, still under the cover of invisibility. I stopped directly above him, letting the protective ward that was surrounding me envelop him.

And then chaos erupted.

The chief stumbled back, almost falling over, then cried out “Stop fight! Stop fight! Bad spirit! Friends, if you help me!” He was struggling against something that we couldn’t see. It was Katiyana, of course, fighting to regain control. But as long as the ward was up she couldn’t do it.

I reached down and placed a similar ward directly on him, so he wouldn’t be dependent on me being so close. I saw that Sparna had the nine-ring sword out, intent on exorcising her spirit. “This sword can force her out,” he said, “but I have to strike you with it.” This seemed like a bad idea to me, but the chief not only consented, he pleaded to Sparna to do it. “It’s trying! It can’t take me! I give you magic rock if you get rid of bad, bad spirit!”

Lightning kept striking around us. That spell she had cast was still active, and she didn’t need the yeti’s body. It took only her will to unleash each bolt.

Sparna struck, but to no avail. “Oh!” the chief cried out as the blow landed. “It’s hanging on!”

Spells were going off everywhere now: I remember seeing at least one to protect Sparna from lightning, and another to dispel the protections Katiyana had cast on him.

Sparna struck again, and finally it worked. Katiyana’s ghost was literally flung from the yeti’s body. Then more spells went off as we tried to take her down. I fired blasts of pure force, and two spiritual entities appeared next to her and pressed the attacked. Some of these bounced off her harmlessly, and some struck true. A lightning elemental materialized and came to her aid, but just as quickly it was banished from the material plane. I lost track of what was happening until Radella moved in and struck the ghost down. Katiyana cried out something about being the Avatar of Sithhud, and then she was gone.

And it was over.

The yeti chief or king—I am still not sure which is correct—was true to his word. He thanked us for what we had done, for expelling the spirit that had forced him to confront us, and offered his ioun stone to Sparna in thanks. We forged a welcome, if awkward, truce. Several yeti were dead. Bevelek was dead. It was not their fault or ours, but that doesn’t undo what was done.

It’s some 700 or 800 miles to Ordu-Aganhei. It will be two weeks before we can raise Bevelek. But at least we’ll be moving again. We won’t be able to leave until tomorrow morning, though—it will take a few spells we don’t normally prepare to get across the chasm and out of the Necropolis—so I’m going to spend some time with Koya and see if we can’t remove the stain of Fumeiyoshi from this place. The necropolis was originally built to venerate Desna, after all. We shouldn’t leave it like this.

Abadius 31, 4713 (Uqtaal Necropolis, night)

I spent some time pouring through the books I brought with me, looking for every scrap of information I could find about yeti. I really wish Etayne was still with us. What took me close to an hour she probably could have done from memory, and maybe she could have given us something we hadn’t already learned from personal experience.

They are well adapted to the cold, obviously, as well as the dark. As we’ve learned, their bodies actually radiate a bitter cold, and if you are unlucky enough to meet their gaze you are hit with a paralyzing fear. On top of that is their incredible strength, rivaling that of even dire apes, and a ferocity to match. They don’t really have any weaknesses, either, except perhaps to fire. They are, in a word, dangerous—extremely dangerous—and there are dozens of them here.

They’re also intelligent, or rather, intelligent enough. One of the books I have suggests they speak aklo, a language of the darklands. In theory we would try and talk to them, but of course none of us understands it.

I have an idea about that.

Calistril 1, 4713 (Uqtaal Necropolis, early morning)

In my dream, I was standing on a hill at the feet of the Wall of Heaven, staring out at the expanse of Tian Xia below. The Path of Aganhei faded into the rocky plains in the distance, and a chill wind whipped around me. The caravan was behind me, silently waiting, the animals still in the cold air. I would find the way. The Path was important here. Stray too far from it, and the horse riders would no longer be bound by the traditions that protected us.

We had to stay on the road, but we couldn’t follow what we couldn’t see. I approached the two figures that were up ahead. I hadn’t noticed the tents making up the small village just beyond them. The Tian-La are a nomadic people, and move their villages with the winds and the seasons, following the wild horses that they would capture for breeding with their own.

The woman looked up at me. I skipped the introductions and pleasantries, and got to the matter at hand. In Tien, I asked, “How do we follow the Path from here?”

She looked up at me, smiling, and answered, “Chi bol gadaadyn khün shüü dee.” I didn’t know what it meant, and didn’t have the right spell prepared.

I tried again. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. How do we follow the Path from here?”

Still smiling, she said, “Tanyg tusalj chadakh khün bii. Namaig daga,” and then gestured with her arms as she turned around and began walking away. I still didn’t understand, but she obviously wanted me to follow her, so I did. She occasionally turned her head back to check on me, to make sure I was keeping up. “Ireerei! Namaig daga!”

An enormous field of flowers spread out around us. There was no sign of the village or the caravan, just flowers as far as I could see in all directions. We were walking in between low hedges of flowers and thorns, and up ahead was a tall woman tending to her prizes. I was alone now, and she looked up and beckoned me towards her.

She had long, black hair, curly like the others I had met, but different somehow. It was much longer than I realized: it hung down around her ankles, and I thought I could see hints of red, green, and gold there out of the corner of my eye. When I looked directly it, though, there was just black.

“Bi tand beleg ögdög,” she said. I still didn’t understand, but she held out a flower to me and I knew that she wanted me to take it, so I did.

“Ene beleg tany ayalald tuslakh bolno.” This gift will aid you on your journey.

It was a delicate, red rose, the most beautiful rose I had ever seen.

“Bayarlalaa,” I replied. Thank you.

It needed a vase so I reached for one of the tall, empty glasses on the table in front of me. The glass was made from a lead crystal, extravagant for drinking but perfect for this. The table stretched nearly the width of the hall. It was a lavishly decorated palace, and also immaculately clean. The white table cloth that covered it looked as though it had been made just for this occasion, but I knew that it had been used many times, and fastidiously cleaned to return it to this state. There was not a speck of dirt anywhere. Not on the table, not on the people seated with us, or even on those we had met since entering the city.

“Tavtai morilno uu!” boomed a voice from one end of the hall. Welcome, travelers! I didn’t recognize the speaker, but everyone stopped talking and turned to face at me. I couldn’t see my friends anywhere, just hundreds of apprehensive faces.

I rose from my seat, and replied, “Urikhad bayarlalaa. Bid tantai uulzakhdaa bayartai baina.“ Thank you for inviting us. We are pleased to meet you.

Their expressions turned to smiles as the dream faded.

Our travels will takes us through Ordu-Aganhei in Hongal, and Hon-La is Shelyn’s gift to me.

Now we just have to live long enough to use it.

It was a long night. We faced threats from both ahead and behind, and the shadows and mummies had taken their toll on us. Qatana used the last of her spells to block the rear, while I conjured a stone building to partially block the passage a ways ahead of us. It’s normally used for shelter in the wilderness, but we needed a wall that we wouldn’t have to break through later and this fit the bill, especially since it lasts for several hours. Of course the yeti can just climb over it, but it was still useful as a bottleneck.

From what we can tell, a few of the yeti did, indeed, spend part of the night on top of the structure but stopped short of approaching us. They simply sat on the roof line, watching us as we watched them. Eventually, they got bored and left. Amateurs. Keeping a night-long watch is kind of a whole thing for us.

(Uqtaal Necropolis, morning)

People are upset with me. I get it. I changed tactics in the middle of that fight, and didn’t really have time to explain what I was doing while I was casting spells. We can’t function effectively as a team if we aren’t communicating with one another. The problems didn’t end there, either: afterwards, when I explained what I had done and why, it seemed as though they still weren’t hearing me. I was not trying to press an attack, nor did I think it wise to do so, but somehow that is the message that was received.

I don’t know how to fix this. I am not a tactician, and I don’t really understand the finer points of combat save for what I have learned from watching Sparna and Olmas. It’s difficult for me to explain my thinking in the heat of battle, especially when I’m reacting to a situation that no one else can see, and I don’t know when I am causing alarm or confusion.

All I was trying to do was stop those two yeti from getting away. If they could make it back to the rest of their tribe, they could rally a counterattack with more force than we were prepared to handle. I tried, but they were too fast and the caverns were too difficult to navigate. And then I found myself in the middle of a conjured storm of ice and sleet. I recognized the spell immediately—I actually know it, myself—and it was hardly dangerous, but it meant that a spell caster of some sort was coming. It meant the counterattack may be coming.

I did the only thing I could think of: I summoned a small cadre of fire elementals and sent them running amok through the caverns. My idea was to get the rest of the yeti tribe panicking so that the warriors and the spell caster would be forced to deal with it. I wanted their attention on the chaos, not on us. Qatana was up near me at this point and had a spell running so she could understand their language, and from what she told me this hasty, desperate plan was working. There were definitely panicked screams of “Fire!” and “Get water!” along with the unmistakable sounds of battle.

The others, though, seemed to think this was a waste of time and resources. I didn’t, and still don’t, understand. There was also this tense moment where they wanted to go on an offensive to take advantage of the chaos. Again, I didn’t understand. There were still far, far more of them than there were of us, and we could very easily be surrounded in caves which the yeti knew and we didn’t. But, eventually, Qatana and I were able to convince everyone to withdraw while we could, and use the time to prepare for retaliation.

I am not sure how I could have done things differently, how I could have prevented this confusion. But I need to figure it out; our lives are at stake.

Obviously, having had a skirmish with the yet more or less implies that our attempts to parley with them were not successful. Not entirely, anyway.

We were able to solve the communication issue with that spell Thadeus taught me, the one that creates a shared language among the participants. It’s the same one I used with mom and dad back when all of this began. But communicating turned out to be the easy problem: the hard one was making any sense of what was going on.

Qatana and I sat opposite two of the large creatures, separated by one of the necropolis’s anti-life barriers. The conversation, if you can call it that, was mostly a mix of threats and bravado, all of it directed at us. It was not a waste of time, however: we learned that their chief insisted on destroying the caravan and killing the people that he called “the outsiders”—that would be us—and that his subjects fully intended to carry out his orders. Negotiation was clearly not in the cards. This bothers me. There’s no reason to have to fight our way through here.

Two more things came out of the exchange. The first is that the chief normally did not talk like this, and that even the members of the tribe found this to be unusual. The second is that this whole change started “two moons ago” when the chief was “blessed by the gods”.

What does that mean, “blessed by the gods”? I don’t know, but I can’t help but wonder about all the little coincidences that are piling up.

Back at Dead Man’s Dome, I know, I know, I heard a voice laughing out in the darkness, almost as if it were the wind itself. That laughter turned to rage when the last of the frozen dead had fallen. More recently, we had that massive winter storm—we may as well call it a morozoku—parked over the only mountain pass into Tian Xia, and doing things that storms just did not do. Like, staying in one place for days. And following us. And that laughter; the same voice we heard at the Dome.

I admit that this sounds crazy, but I have a suspicion that we are still dealing with Katiyana here. Look, I know she’s dead—we have her corpse, for gods’ sake!—but maybe what we’re up against here is her spirit. It would explain the laughter. It would explain why all of this seems personally directed at us. It would explain the chief’s recent change in attitude if he was possessed (and, to the yeti, that might look an awful lot like “being touched by the gods”).

It’s not a perfect fit, admittedly. I can’t explain the storm, nor the timing of “two moons”. But I’m not an expert, and the one person in our group that should be an expert knows even less than I do and has no interest in changing that. The basics line up, though.

And remember that this place used to be a shrine to Desna. In one of the chambers we found armor and a sword that were made to destroy spirits, as well as exorcise them from the bodies they possess. What if the exact things we needed were sitting right in front of us? Wouldn’t that be some amazing stroke of good fortune? The odds of that must be astronomically small. If only there was a goddess of luck…

The others are skeptical. Ivan sees Oni and Five Storms everywhere. Olmas is on board with the possession idea, but is pretty sure it’s not Katiyana because she’s dead and he doesn’t understand how ghosts work. I don’t even know where to begin with that. I’m afraid to ask Qatana’s opinion because she’ll give it to me. Maybe I should work up the courage to talk to Koya.

I hate this place.

Abadius 31, 4713 (evening, Uqtaal necropolis)

The Hidden Truth symbolizes the ability to see past the obvious and the banal to a greater truth within. Sometimes this discovery is an esoteric one, sometimes it is a literal find, such as an item revealed within a room. Regardless, it is a card with the power to reveal secrets.

Misaligned, it can mean a secret being revealed to the subject’s detriment.

Seven months. Seven months, we’ve been traveling together. We’ve watched over one each other, cared for one other, broken bread together, and when it was called for, fought together to protect ourselves and our charges. For seven months, across some sixty-nine hundred miles, we’ve done all of that, sometimes in the face of seemingly unbeatable odds, and not one of us had fallen. And then, today.

Not Olmas (in spite of his best efforts to do otherwise) or Qatana (who we can’t seem to keep from wandering off) or even Ameiko, but Bevelek. Bevelek.

This is not his fight. He and his brother have no quarrel with anyone. They are just here to do a job: to help get us from where we were to where we’re going. They’re not involved. Nothing was supposed to happen to them. It’s not right.

And it’s pretty much our fault. We thought the passage behind us was safe. We had every reason to think it was safe. Obviously we were wrong. Did we miss a side passage? A secret entrance somewhere? Were we being followed without realizing it? I guess it doesn’t matter. Those are just excuses, and they don’t change the fact I am staring at a funeral shroud. We’re supposed to keep these things from happening.

I feel sick.

I’ve known him (and his brother) since I was, what, seventeen? They’ve worked as drivers for Sandru’s caravan since the beginning, and I met them in mom and dad’s warehouse that spring when Sandru finally returned to Sandpoint. I’ve always liked them, the little I saw of them. They were friendly, kind of talkative—Bevelek more so than his younger brother—and always made a point to say hello when I was around. Bevelek was especially good at working with the horses, and he’d invite me to come pet them or even help groom them as we were waiting for the wagons to load. This is how I repay that?

I didn’t get to know him or Vankor very well back then, but in the past several months a lot has come out. Their dad used to run a small courier service of some sort back in Magnimar, but he ran in to hard times and that was that. I’ve actually met their sister—I didn’t know who she was at the time—at the Old Fang. They’re still in Magnimar, all of them. Every now and then I see Bevelek writing to them.

What else is there to say? Bevelek in particular just seemed to like people, much like Sandru does. He loved being around them, talking to them, hearing their stories. He was so quintessentially Varisian that way. And he loved to travel. This trip was exciting! Dangerous, sure, but that’s why we’re here, right? And now we’re talking about him in the past tense.

Vankor was distraught, practically in shock. Honestly, I could barely face him. Sandru was unreadable. It’s just as well. I don’t know what to say to him.

At least we can do something about this. I am determined to, anyway. This journey has been a trial for everyone, in all senses of the word, but there’s also no denying that we have enriched ourselves in the process. We have taken the lion’s share of the spoils since this began. Yes, we have also taken most of the risks, too, but we are not the only ones here. We need everyone, and we can’t just turn our backs on those who are supporting us and making this trip possible. We can’t just put Bevelek to the earth like he doesn’t matter.

It would be wrong to assume, though, so I broached the subject with Vankor.

“I am sorry about what happened to your brother. We…we may be able to bring him back. But, we don’t want to do this against his wishes or yours. I need to know. Is that something you want us to try?”

This took him aback. He looked up at me hopefully.

“If you can bring him back…Yes. Yes! Please! This was…it’s too soon.”

I nodded, solemnly. “We can’t do it right away, but—we can do it. We do have to know, though…people get a choice when you try to call them back. It’s a difficult and costly spell. Before we commit to it, do you know…would he want to come back?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes! I am sure he would. He loved life.”

We don’t have the money. Or rather, we do, just not in the right form. According to Qatana, the spell consumes a single, valuable diamond and ours our too meager fill that role. There are no gem exchanges or diamond deposits here, obviously, which means we will have to wait until we reach Tian Xia. Koya has agreed to preserve his body using a spell. This will give us the time that we need.

The more pressing issue is, however, is preventing today’s disaster from playing out again. We can’t be in two places at once, nor can we fight a battle on three fronts. We need to be able to explore ahead and secure our passage through here without worrying about the safety of our camp.

The necropolis seems to be guarded by undead. The headless mummies we’ve encountered both along the Path of Spirits and here in the burial chambers seem to be the resident hall monitors, attacking any living thing that enters. What makes them especially dangerous is the aura of paralyzing fear that surrounds them. Get caught off guard, or worn down by the relentless assault on your psyche, and you are overwhelmed by terror and magically rooted to the spot. This is what happened to Olmas two nights ago, to me and several of the others today, and probably to Bevelek before he fell.

Our first priority is keeping more of them from coming up from behind us like they did today. Qatana and I have some ideas, but the best ones can’t be acted on until tomorrow so we’re in for another tense night.

Next on the list are the yeti. Obviously, they did not build this place, but they’re here now. The truth of it is that they are squatters as much as we are trespassers, but from their viewpoint we are invading their home and they’ve been rather aggressive about delivering that message. Not that they’ve actually said anything to us, but nothing communicates intent quite like an ambush.

Kali’s Necropolis sketch

The necropolis and the Path of Spirits were carved out of the mountain, and the latter occasionally intersected with naturally formed caverns to form those side passages I spoke of. A rather extensive network of caverns and fissures adjoins the catacombs, proper, and the former is where they’ve made their home. They seem to move back and forth between the two. The Uqtaal excavators apparently didn’t care if their necropolis simply opened up to the caverns in places—they may have used the voids in the rock to save time and labor, for all I know—probably because there weren’t yeti living there at the time, and the residents were not alive to complain about the decor.

I used one of my newest spells to project my sight and was able to explore much of it, albeit sloppily, until the magic expired. That is how I know all of this. Yes, it was an invasion of their privacy, and yet another trespass to add to our list of sins (one that is much worse than the first, if we are keeping track, since it was intentional). I am sure it won’t be the last, either.

This actually bothers me. There are wizards who specialize in these sorts of divinations and I am not comfortable around any of them. There is more to the school than what I am doing here, of course, but my problem with it is that there isn’t much more. It is a field that is ripe for abuse. All it takes is something you owned—even just a piece, really—and someone can spy on you from a distance with a reasonable expectation of success. Possess even the smallest piece of their person, such a bit of hair or even a nail clipping, and you can nearly do so with impunity. It’s distasteful.

And of course I am doing something much like it now. I can argue it, justify it, point out that we were attacked first, but I am still crossing that line. It’s a struggle at first, but each time it gets just a little easier. Mom, and probably dad, would say that the world isn’t so absolute; that it’s a messy place, and circumstances matter. That the stakes matter. Sometimes doing the right thing is not the same as doing the right thing. This…is probably true. But, sometimes I wonder. What if there really is an absolute right and wrong, and all this talk of nuance is just something people use to excuse their own moral failings? Or worse, to justify them. Maybe the world isn’t messy; maybe just people are.

But, we need more information about the yeti here, and we need to get it without risking our lives. I’d also like to not risk theirs. Where this falls on the axis of right and wrong, I don’t know, but it’s the best idea I have on a very short list of ideas. So, excuse or justification, I’ll probably be doing this again.

Before that, however, we need to stop them from raiding us as we explore the pool room. Much like the mummies we need to block them off, only whatever we put up we need to be able to pass through in the future. That limits our options. I have some ideas here, too, but none of them are particularly good.

The pool room is the real mystery here, and we need time to uncover it. The revenant…whoever it was in life was almost certainly slain here. A revenant is born out of hatred and a single-minded purpose: avenge their own death. It’s said they can’t be destroyed until their killer is slain, and we can thank Qatana for validating at least the first half of that theory. (I have to wonder what would happen if you were killed by a revenant and became one yourself. Would the two of you be trapped in an eternal battle, neither of you able to destroy the other?)

We don’t know how it (he? she?) died originally. We only know it wasn’t the spectres: the body is too far from the water, and the spectres don’t seem to be able to cross beyond the edge of the pool. So, whatever did this is obviously still alive (or given where we are, still undead), and able to move around. Which leaves three things we have to worry about tonight: mummies, yeti, and something else that we haven’t seen yet.

Because what we need after today is another challenge.

Abadius 15, 4713 (evening, Ovorikheer Pass)

The barren trees of the Domagalki Forest are coated in windswept ice. In the waning twilight it takes on a sinister appearance: frozen teeth glistening in our lights, claws reaching for us as we narrowly slip from their grasp. It’s said that it used to be a lush forest, tended to by a family of fey. A few years before I was born, they left for reasons known only to them—the fey are a fickle lot—and this was the result.

We left the frozen piling and the still-smoldering corpses of the spiders behind us and resumed our ascent to the summit of the Ovorikheer Pass.

Twenty, maybe thirty miles of ice lies ahead of us, and then we are done with it for the foreseeable future. Our days are mostly twilight now, a welcome change from the perpetual night. This part of the world is equal parts beautiful, deadly, and peculiar. I will miss the astonishing sights, but not so much so that I wish to return.

Abadius 19, 4713 (morning, Path of Aganhei, Osman Confederation)

We will reach Jaagiin tomorrow around midday. It sits on the shore of Lake Buriyiim and is the seat of the Osman Confederation. According to Ulf, the Erutaki settlements here are formed around clans, and each one sends a speaker to Jaagiin to serve in an assembly. Jaagiin itself is a large trading village, about a third again the size of Sandpoint. At this time of year there won’t be much trading, though, which means we will once again be attracting attention.

Does that matter? Probably not. After Ul-Angorn it’s not exactly difficult for the Five Whoevers—we now have both Winds and Storms in our retinue—to figure out where we’re headed, or when we’ll be there. There’s no hiding at this point, so all we can do is be prepared.

We did learn one other lesson from our last stop, however, and that’s to keep the caravan looking somewhere between good repair and well-traveled. Ivan has been using spells each day to fix the worst of the wear and make sure the small stuff doesn’t get out of hand. I do some cleanup as well using cantrips that help keep it looking neat but worn. Obviously, if it always shined like new that would be suspicious, but we don’t want it looking like it’s been through the Abyss, either. We won’t have to tell stories if it doesn’t look like there are stories to tell.

Abadius 20, 4713 (night, Jaagiin)

Astonishingly, we seem to have made it through the evening without someone or something trying to kill us. Of course, the night isn’t quite over yet so there’s still time to be disappointed.

We visited a few taverns tonight and Ameiko played a couple of sets in the first. We more or less knew this was coming so no one was surprised when she announced her intentions, but it still put us all on edge. After she was out of ear shot, I suggested that we “come up with a plan for defending the pub without burning it down along with the people inside.” This earned me a number of stares. No one appreciates my sense of humor.

We kept a close eye on Ameiko, the patrons, and pretty much anything that moved or looked like it might, especially while she was playing. I also listened in on as many conversations as I could—discreetly, of course—using one of my oldest spells to compensate for the fact that I don’t speak Erutaki.

This was more or less a waste of effort. Not listening to Ameiko’s music, that is, but being a party to the drama and intrigue of Erutaki life at the Crown of the World. Did you know that the caribou herds were thin last year, almost certainly due to the colder than usual weather which limited the meltwater in the river valleys? Also, the trappers from the clans to the south have been working farther up the lake in recent years—some would say “encroaching”—in order to boost their seasonal harvest, at the expense of those who have had an unofficial claim on this territory for generations. And Assembleyman Aninnuk’s son, Noahtak, disappeared two weeks ago and it was thought he had fallen prey to wolves, but really he had just eloped with Assemblayman Silaluk’s daughter, Salak, who was supposed to be back at home tending to the family’s herd of goats. Gripping stuff, no?

OK, I am being unfair here. We actually did hear two pieces of news that were of interest to us: The first was that there are unusually fierce and persistent storms this season that are making travel extremely difficult. The second was about a village named Iqaliat, whose people were recently freed from a relentless, months-long siege by a white dragon. They managed to slay it somehow, which only goes to show that the Erutaki people can’t be kept down for long. There was also some kind of kerfuffle—they actually used that word in Common—with their shaman, but the details there were a little sketchy.

You get the idea.

Qatana was genuinely curious how the bits about Iqaliat had traveled so fast, given that we had just gotten here ourselves. The answer?

“We have these things called ‘dog sleds’.”

Qatana looked confused. “We were told no one crossed the ice in the winter time.”

“Caravans don’t. But the Erutaki are hardy folk, and we know this area.”

I mean, it makes sense: one person with a team of dogs can easily outpace musk oxen pulling wagons, especially when the former has to rest for a month just to breathe. And they can probably do it much more discreetly. I have to remind myself, and the others I guess, that Tunuak walked to the Nameless Spires. By himself. And he was probably about the same age as Koya. We don’t give these people enough credit.

What we didn’t get was information about the pass, Atlan Zuud. Almost no one makes the crossing at this time of year, and no travelers means no news about the pass conditions. That’s concerning because the bad winter weather has apparently been everywhere, more than we can definitively attribute to Katiyana’s antics. On the other hand, all of those reports are pretty generic and none of them are exactly timely. So there’s no specific reason to worry, and no hard information to act on. Famous last words?

Earlier in the day, I hunted down a wizard, which, thankfully, Jaagiin does have. Imnek was nice enough, and our skills are about on par. We each had a few spells that the other could use and we swapped a pair of them today. We made arrangements to do it again tomorrow.

Sparna and Radella both vanished shortly after we arrived. That’s pretty typical for Radella, but we weren’t used to it from Sparna. By late evening people were getting worried, and Ivan went off to find him. Turns out he had found a swordsmith and lost track of time while talking shop well into the night. Good for him. Maybe this will make him less grumpy.

Abadius 21, 4713 (evening, Jaagiin)

Jaagiin doesn’t seem overly interested in who we are or what we’re doing, and that has helped put me at ease. They are happy to take our money without tacking on a surcharge paid in invasive questions.

Sandru and I topped off our provisions for the final leg into Tian Xia. This wasn’t strictly necessary, but we weren’t about to start the next leg of this trip without being fully provisioned, especially since it’s the dead of winter and we don’t really know what we are headed into. Glad we are on the same page, there.

Next up was seeing a jewelry maker about the talismans I’ve been carving. Each disk is about three inches in diameter, very slightly domed, with a leaf pattern adorning the inner rim. The leaves are polished smooth and the gaps between them are roughened. I’d completed the second of them just a couple of days ago, and though I still had more to make it was time to start thinking about settings.

I need a silver mounting of some sort for each, along with a silver chain, so they can be worn like an amulet. The bigger challenge, though, will be studding them with small stones made from the fragments of the gems that had powered the Storm Tower before they shattered. I don’t know how to set stones yet. I mean, I barely know what I’m doing in general when it comes to making jewelry. But I’m learning.

There was no avoiding it: I had to show her one because I needed her help. She slowly traced one of the leaves with her fingers. “Is this a remorhaz scale?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She paused, probably expecting me to elaborate. I didn’t.

“This is your work?”

“Yes, it is. It’s taken me a couple of weeks. I do the carvings from the smaller ones.”

She looked up at me sharply, clearly surprised by the implications of that response. It may sound like I was showing off, but I wasn’t, really. There was no hiding the fact that I’d need materials for making more than one setting. Though I suppose I could have been less coy about it. What’s the fun in that, though?

“It’s good. Especially for a kavdlunait. Yes, I can help you create settings for these.”

That took the rest of the morning, but now I have what I need.

The afternoon was spent trading spells with Imnek. There’s not much to say there. He’s still Imnek. He’s still a wizard. He’s still nice enough. We both have a new spell.

Tonight, Sandru, Bevelek, Vankor, and I will start prepping the caravan for our departure tomorrow. We leave in the morning, just an hour or two before twilight. Yeah, that’s right: there is still no sun. Thank the gods that will be changing very, very soon.

You don’t see many temples to Sarenrae up here.

Abadius 24, 4713 (evening, Path of Aganhei)

We passed a cabin today that had a few trappers staying in it. Or, at least, I assume they were trappers; I don’t really know these things. They opened the door to watch us as we went by and they looked like trappers to me, so executive decision: they were trappers.

What does a trapper look like? Like a surly Erutaki dressed in heavy furs standing in the doorway of a cabin in the middle of nowhere. And that’s “surly” by Ulf and Sparna standards, by the way, which—let’s face it—is awfully surly. I thought I saw Qatana wave to them as we passed but they just stared at us in still silence. Having already had our fill of “surly” we didn’t stop to visit.

Watching caravan migrations must be what passes for entertainment around here. They probably have some game that they play for each one that they see, maybe the reverse of travel games like the ones that mom and dad used to play with me when I was really young and easily bored. In one of them, they’d say, “I see something that starts with the letter G” and I’d have to guess what it was as they gave me clues. When I was six my first guess for “G” was always “grass”, even when we were in the middle of the ocean (give me a break: I was six), but eventually I branched out to naming things that were actually there.

These trappers probably looked at us and pulled out their game for Abadius, where you try to be the first one to, I don’t know, spot the half-frozen corpses of the dead traveling companions, or some equally hilarious variation of that.

Abadius 25, 4713 (afternoon, Path of Aganhei)

Nihali is happy to be able to spread her wings again. Even with the tag I enchanted for her, the weather on the ice pack was simply too extreme for her to fly safely, and there were even days when I had to keep her wrapped up in the wagon for warmth. And of course it was perpetually night. We got a reprieve from the former down in the basin, of course, but there were only a couple of hours of twilight each day back then so that only solved one of two problems.

I do wish the circumstances were better. One of our scouts, Shalelu I think, saw a heap of something a little bit off the path. She thought it looked like a pile of animal corpses, so I sent Nihali up to have a look. Short version: that’s what it was.

We saw something like this back before Iqaliat, only the bodies were human. And I’m not really up for telling the long version because it’s horrible, so I’m just going to leave it there.

Abadius 26, 4713 (night, Path of Aganhei)

Qatana cast a spell for Ivan so that he could exchange a short message with someone. First, the obvious: I had considered that as an option for mom and dad, but as I understand the spell you only get a couple dozen words, each. I had better options. Second, I had assumed it was so he could talk to his sister, Abby. But, I caught his body language and thought to myself, that was not his sister.¹ I have no idea what the story is there, and it would be rude to ask.

In the few hours of daylight today we could, for the first time, clearly see the mountains that form the Wall of Heaven in the distance under dark, grey clouds.

Abadius 27, 4713 (early afternoon, Path of Aganhei)

A huge winter storm has engulfed the pass and we are getting heavy snowfall and high winds even here in the foothills. I am going to go ahead and call this a blizzard just because I can.

This right here is pretty much what I was worried about. The only good news is, if we hadn’t stopped for a couple of days we’d have been up there when it hit. So, small victories, I guess.

We’re either going to have to wait it out or push through.

(evening, Wall of Heaven)

We decided to push through. I don’t know who “we” is and I can’t even begin to describe how much I am regretting that decision. This was a terrible, terrible idea.

The lightning is ferocious and relentless. There is so much of it that the thunder is a constant roll of crashes and echoes (the only silver lining is that it’s possible to tune it out, but that’s only because it just never stops). And then there’s the snow and the wind. I don’t even know where to begin with that.

A while ago, we thought we might have heard an avalanche, but it’s hard to tell because, come on. Though it sure sounded different than constant, rolling thunder, which is a thing we’ve recently become experts on. We need to see to be sure, though, and that means having a closer look. Even if it were light out, though, all we could see from here would probably be blowing snow.

At one point I thought I heard voices on the wind. Qatana must have heard them too because she looked startled at the exact same moment that I did. Normally, I wouldn’t use Qatana as a litmus test for whether or not I am hearing things, but this was different. We both agreed it was reminiscent of what we heard at Dead Man’s Dome when the last of the undead fell. This can’t be a coincidence, and it can’t be good news.

Abadius 28, 4713 (morning, Wall of Heaven)

We’re getting out. This time, it wasn’t just Qatana and I that heard it, but everyone else, too. And it was more than once: laughter on the wind. We’d had suspicions that this storm wasn’t natural, and now those aren’t just suspicions.

The weather didn’t let up at all over night. If anything, it got worse. We decided to trek up the pass, on hoof and foot, leaving the caravan somewhat sheltered against a cliff face. Ivan graced us all with spells so we wouldn’t slip on the snow and ice, and I summoned a phantasmal horse to ride so I wouldn’t have to walk in this crap. It didn’t even take us an hour to figure out that the pass was closed. It wasn’t just avalanches of snow, but rocks as well. No one would be coming through here for a while. And it intensified as we got closer. It felt like it was a personal vendetta.

We delivered the bad news to Ulf.

(evening, Path of Aganhei)

This day just keeps getting better. Sandru and I had a little chat with Ulf. Storms do not rage in one place for days. This was all wrong.

“What are our options here?” I asked.

“There aren’t any.”

Ulf wasn’t being facetious. We could, maybe, go around the Wall of Heaven instead of through it but Ketskerlet is hundreds of miles to the east and the storm has expanded in the last few hours.

Sandru said, “There’s no way we could even make it that far. The caravan literally wouldn’t survive it.” Ulf agreed with that assessment, and added that even if we did, we’d still have to cross the Gulf of Khorkii somehow, which is thick with icebergs and floes this time of year.

Going west to the Ivory Sea might be better, but that trip is over a thousand miles, and every single one of them is in the wrong direction. Most of them through barren, frozen tundra. To quote Ulf, “No one goes that way for a reason”. The only realistic route to the coast is a couple of weeks behind us.

There pretty much left turning back for Jaagiin, but given our run-in with the oni in Ul-Angorn that is not a particularly attractive choice. Whether or not it’s attractive, though, is irrelevant if it’s our only choice. Which means it’s not really a choice.

And then I had a brilliant idea because I am an idiot.

“Let’s try a Harrowing. This is why Varisian caravans have fortune-tellers, right?” I was met with everything from silence to eye rolls, but I pressed on because I am a glutton for punishment. “What do we have to lose?”

There was general agreement, but while I think most of that qualified as humoring me Koya did seem genuinely excited about the suggestion. She disappeared into her wagon and emerged a couple of minutes later with her cards. I found out why she was so enthusiastic when she handed them to me.

“You go ahead,” she said, smiling, “Just like I taught you.”

Well, I walked right into that, didn’t I?

This was not the easiest way to start my budding career. Harrowings typically focus on individuals, and what we needed was a direction for our group as a whole. So I was already feeling in over my head. But Koya was there to help and she had never let me down before, so I dove in.

I laid out a bridge. I could clearly see Ameiko’s story revealing itself here, both the past and what she would face in the future. The problem was, I couldn’t make sense of the present.² Or, perhaps more accurately, I didn’t understand what it was telling me. There was something about the mountains or the storm that we were missing. Some key information, and it was crucial to our survival. Even worse, the Hidden Truth card was misaligned. But the larger problem was, the reading didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. What we needed was guidance, not our failings laid bare.

To quote Sparna, “But what does it mean?”

Even Koya couldn’t make sense of it, and that’s when I got worried, and when everyone else got frustrated. This isn’t how this is supposed to go.

I don’t know what to do.

Abadius 29, 4713 (small hours, Path of Aganhei)

Koya emerged from her wagon around 1:00 this morning, all aflutter. She found me working on one of the talismans in the center of our camp, and was practically manic. At first I couldn’t makes sense of what she was trying to say because she was just short of babbling, but eventually she got a coherent sentence out.

“I had a dream and…there’s something I can’t shake. I had an epiphany, or Desna’s speaking to me, or something…” The excitement in her voice was climbing again “The reading you did…where are the cards?!”

I still had them and set them out in order.

“There’s something with the Empty Throne and The Hidden Truth, something we’re not seeing. But, what really strikes me, is at the end of the bridge with The Big Sky and The Queen Mother.”

She explained, or tried to explain, that there may be some meaning to these cards, or to the way that they were brought out, that is not usual. That these cards appeared here as a message to us. I just nodded my head because I had no idea what she was talking about, but she’s the one who follows Desna. This was her thing.

“I’ve studied the peoples that worshiped Desna for years, and there is a story of a traveler that came through this land quite some time ago…that he insisted that what he saw was real.” Her thoughts were bouncing all over the place. “The Uqtaal people that used to live here, they worshiped Desna. They called her the Queen of the North Star. That’s what struck me about this.” She pointed to The Big Sky in the bridge.

She had my full attention now, as well as that of several of the others.

“What I remember is that they followed the north star. Even in death, they tried to follow the north star to be taken back to Desna and spend eternity with her. This traveler…wrote this story that the people here delved a nercopolis and a passage through the Wall of Heaven. It’s called The Path of Spirits. It was so their dead could find their way here. There’s an entrance we can look for…That’s got to be it.”

It was crazy. Even Koya thought it a fantastic story. But it’s not just a story, is it?

We got Ulf and Sandru and talked this over. Ulf had never heard of anything like this, but he was not exactly skeptical either. “No one goes to the west. At all. Because there is nothing there. Something like this, though…it could easily be that no one has heard of it because…no one is around to look.”

We let that sink in. It wasn’t proof, but he wasn’t ruling it out, either.

Lightning continued to flash in the distance. The storm was clearly expanding, getting closer. This would be a huge risk, taken solely—and literally—on faith.

I asked, “How would we even find it? One cave in an entire mountain range…”

According to Koya, the traveler’s story spoke of two statues, facing due north, that marked the start of the path into the mountains, and that path would lead to the passageway. It was…something. Better than something. It was enough to make a plan.

There will be enough light for Nihali to see by in a few hours. We’ll send her ahead of the caravan to search by air while we move west and search on the ground. All we’d need after that would be Desna’s blessing.

(noon, Wall of Heaven)

Nihali found it! Or we’re pretty sure she did.

We’d gone about twenty miles when I felt her coming back. There was a sense of urgency and excitement about her. A couple of minutes minute later, she landed in the covered wagon.

“There is a statue of a human, carved in rock. Not far from here.” One, not two. But it’s been hundreds of years…

“Can you lead us there?”

“Yes.”

And off she went.

The storm seems to be following us.

(evening, Path of Spirits)

There were two statues, but one had broken off at its pedestal. The one that was intact was clearly of Desna. They both faced due north and marked the start of a path that led about a quarter mile to a cave entrance in at the base of a towering cliff.

It’s a tight fit, but the caravan can manage with the wagons single-file.

This place… It may have been built by people who worshipped Desna, but something changed. The tunnel is lined with pillars decorated with star carvings, and the walls themselves bear stars and butterflies applied in faded paint. But on top of each pillar sits a skull, bleached then painted red, bolted into place. The skulls face north. Always north.

This is not Desna. Not any more. The symbology, assuming the Uqtaal clans were influenced by their Tian neighbors, is reminiscent of Fumeiyoshi, god of dishonor, envy, graves, and the undead. It’s said he murdered his brother, the moon god Tsukiyo, in a jealous rage and was punished by Yaezhing for his crime.

On a whim, I asked Suishen what he knew of Fumeiyoshi. He said, “His religion was banned in Minkai. Fumeiyoshi’s followers enjoy death and desecrating the graves of the dead.”

I don’t know what we’ll find here, but I suspect there’s a sinister explanation as to why so few have heard of this place.

Abadius 30, 4713 (morning, Path of Spirits)

We were rudely awakened in the early hours of the morning when four, headless mummies approached the caravan from the southern end of the passageway. Fortunately, I was already prepared for undead, and Ivan and I literally burned them nearly to ash, the others picking them off as they tried to escape the layers of flame.

This is just the beginning.

Abadius 2nd, 4713 (night, The Path of Aganhei, The High Ice)

The Path of Aganhei lies ahead of us; the frozen remains of the undead, behind.

I spent most of the night finishing a headband for Qatana. She approached me with the request the night that we left the Storm Tower.

“Hey, do you have a minute?” she asked sheepishly.

“Of course. What’s on your mind?”

“I picked this up way back in Kalsgard, but forgot about it until I found it while rummaging through my pack this morning.” She held up a simple bronze headband studded with half a dozen gems of swirling green malachite. “I was wondering, uh, if you weren’t too busy…if you might be able to fashion this for me into a headband that can strengthen my will.”

I took it from her and studied it under the caravan lights, turning over and around. Qatana’s tastes tended toward minimalist. “It’s lovely,” I said, and I meant it. “I like the malachites.” The simplicity of its design had a certain elegance.

She made a small squeak, shifting on her feet is if someone had prodded her. I looked up expecting an explanation, but none came. Instead she added, “I have enough diamond dust to complete the work…at least when supplemented with some of the crystal shards we took from the tower.”

We had piles and piles and piles of purple shards. The unidentified gemstones had powered the storms above the Tower, and we destroyed them by literally bashing them to pieces. They shattered into clouds of tiny fragments as the magic infused in them was released. They almost certainly have no trade trade value, but that does not make them useless.

“Of course!” I said. “It will take me several days, but I can do it.”

The magical cubes we’d found made this process both faster and easier. Spells and furs might keep me warm, but my tools and equipment have no such protection. With the cubes it was like working in a heated cabin, only without walls or a roof. No matter how cold it was outside, once you crossed the threshold the chill was just gone. Which was weird until you got used to it.

Qatana looked excited when I presented it to her this morning. “You used the tourmalines!” she said. “And you’ve made it beautiful!”

I smiled at this. I didn’t strictly need them, but the headband itself came from Kalsgard, the ornamental wire from Unaimo, the gem fragments from the Storm Tower…I could go on. “I wanted this to tell a story,” I replied. Almost everywhere that we’d been was represented in some fashion.

I was actually worried that I had overdone it. The design was a little more ornate than pretty much anything she wore and I was more than a little relieved that she liked what she saw. One very refreshing quality about Qatana was that you always knew where things stood with her. If she said it was beautiful, then she thought it was beautiful.

After making camp tonight, Ivan conjured some fire for the sole purpose of melting the ice and snow around us. “We’ll have a snow party!” he said, clearly excited.

It was actually pretty fun, much more than you would think. For weeks the landscape has been a trial at best, and this was a chance to see it not as an obstacle to overcome but instead something to play in and enjoy. It felt good to just be silly for a while.

I spent a couple of hours creating an ice sculpture of the Dead Man. It won’t win any awards, but that’s not really the point.

Abadius 3rd, 4713 (noon, Path of Aganhei, The Crown of the World)

We’ve dropped down into a basin on the Tian Xia side of the plateau. It is enormous: according to the map, it’s roughly 100 miles wide here, at its narrowest point, and four times as long. At the wide end, the town of Ul-Angorn sits on the shore of the Ruun Uvas, a huge saltwater lake which is fed by melt water coming off the ice sheet. It will take us nearly a week to reach it.

Vankor is still not doing well. Qatana, Ivan and I talked this over and we’re going to use the restoration spell on him again. We have plenty of diamond dust, Ul-Angorn isn’t that far away, and we really need him back. This second casting will take care of it. Qatana will prepare it in the morning.

Abadius 6th, 4713 (evening, The Path of Aganhei, The Crown of the World)

Qatana cannot always be relied on to help us maintain a low profile. That’s just something we’re going to have to accept, I guess. Part of the frustration is that you never really know which Qatana you’re going to get when we meet someone new. Will she be cordial? Suspicious? Friendly? Hostile? I’ve given up trying to predict how she’ll react to strangers. Honestly, at times it just seems to be completely random.¹

She wasn’t always like this. I still remember, very vividly, the first time I saw her after she and her family had vanished and were presumed dead. It was in Korvosa of all places: she was the only one who had survived, and it was Shalelu that had found her. I have no idea how or why they were so far east; I never asked. I was eleven then and Qatana and I spent a couple of days exploring, me showing her the best parts of the city from a child’s perspective. She was distant, hesitant, guarded, and grieving, but also curious and excited. And more importantly, what she did also made sense, even to an eleven-year-old. At least, once I fully grasped what was happening. Even a decade later when we would see each other in Magnimar, she was still the Qatana I had grown up with. Yes, she may have come across as rude to people who didn’t know her—OK, and sometimes to those who did—but she was never erratic.

This…what I see now is something new.

Sometimes I feel like there was more I could have done, or something I could have done differently, once she was back in Sandpoint. Those first years were hard—how could they not be?—and they were the years that would have made the difference. Without a family of her own she needed support wherever it could be found, but the thing is, neither of us were particularly rich in friends before. Logically, I know this doesn’t make sense, that this isn’t about me, that there’s more to it than that. But logic has nothing to do with it. It’s how it feels.

I bring this up now because we’re only a couple of days out of Ul-Angorn and we’re starting to see signs of human and humanoid settlement. The most significant of them came about mid-day today, when we passed a cabin fairly close to the Path of Aganhei. Even in the faded twilight we could see the smoke coming from its chimney so we decided to stop. I mean, why not? Not counting Katiyana (why would you?), this was the first sign of civilization…gods, in nearly two months.

The owner was a halfling gentleman named Kobi, and for reasons known only to Qatana she decided she liked him. After an awkward little greeting where he thought we were headed onto the High Ice—we were clearly headed south, but people see what they are expecting to see, I guess—and tried to talk us out of it, he invited us inside just to visit. There was no hiding that we had just crossed, of course, but Qatana just could not help herself. She gave him the highlights of our exploits across the Boreal Expanse: the storms, Katiyana, the Storm Tower, Iqaliat, the white dragon, and even the Dead Man. What do you do at that point?

It’s not the events so much as it is the attention. Realistically, one halfling living 100 miles from the nearest settlement does not seem like a huge problem, but eventually he will talk to someone, who will talk to someone else, and so on. Word spreads. We were supposed to come to the Crown and disappear, not develop a reputation that calls us out.

Abadius 9th, 4713 (night, Ul-Angorn)

I give up. Honestly, I do. It is impossible to keep a group of thirteen adults, including the ones who should know better, from drawing attention to themselves. So I am done trying. I can’t be everyone’s nanny, and I wouldn’t want the job even if I could. I don’t want to be my grandmother. I love my grandparents, but that is not the same as loving everything about them. That is no way to live my life.

People will either learn or they won’t. Ameiko obviously hasn’t—at this point, whenever she says, “No one here knows who I am,” it is reasonable to assume that we are in imminent danger—and even Suishen has stopped offering advice on what to do about it. The sword and I finally share a common bond.

We are a danger not just to ourselves, but also to those around us. If we’re going to continue to tempt fate like this, then I’ll just have to be prepared for when someone takes advantage, especially in environments that put others at risk, as happened tonight. I have to pick spells that I can use in close quarters, without harming people and structures, even incidentally.

Speaking of tonight, that ogre mage was foolish to try and take us all on like that, but hauteur seems to be a running theme there. I mean, he had to know we were not going to roll over and die given what had happened in Kalsgard, right? But I guess he thought he was different.

In all honesty, his gambit was a good one. While we were all wary, we weren’t really on guard for an oni disguised as a human (though I suppose we should have been, yes?), and even if we were could we reasonably have kept it up for hours on end? Which is how long he was willing to wait. That part was smart, as was the attempt to lure Ameiko away through an enchantment. He just didn’t have a contingency plan that was better than “hack-and-slash with sword”, which is what surprises me. But if our enemies want to make it easy on us, I guess I shouldn’t complain.

The worst part of that was having it all happen in the middle of The Frozen Spike. One second we have Mr. “Why Don’t You Come See My Music?” surrounded and magically held, and the next there’s an ogre mage standing in his place, chairs and tables pushed aside and bar staff and patrons scrambling to get the hell out of the way or cowering in terror.

Ten seconds later we had cut him down on the spot. Ameiko landed the killing blow. That may end up being important.

The owner or proprietor, I think her name was Gerta, was pretty distraught. I guess I would be too if something like this happened in my bar. Ivan and I used our spells to fix the chairs and tables, and of course expunge the blood. There was a lot of blood. In less than 15 minutes, though, there was not a trace of it left, and I think the bar was even cleaner than it was before we got there. A little music, a little dancing, and a round of drinks for everyone, and things were more or less on the road back to normal.

Maybe I am being hard on Ameiko and the others. Yes, a Tian woman playing a samisen is an obvious giveaway, but so is a five-wagon caravan rolling in at this time of year, looking battered and battle-scarred. There is a reality here that there’s just no way for us to hide or be discreet. Drawing attention to ourselves was just pouring water in the ocean.

You know who else is well known here? Ulf. I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. I imagine every caravan stops in Ul-Angorn on the way to Tian Xia so they probably get to know all the Crown guides fairly well. Gerta’s professional assessment? He can hold his liquor. That, and he can be “surly”. That’s it. That’s what came to mind. Obviously, she bases this opinion on how he spends his time between jobs, or on overnight stops. Which is a little unfair. The drinking he’s done on the road with us has hardly been excessive, and you can be surly and gruff if you have the skills to back it up.

We more or less knew the “surly” bit already, anyway. It was pretty clear from talking with Uksahkka that Ulf had his way of doing things, and you either did them his way or he wouldn’t do business with you. But like I said, his reputation spoke volumes. Even Greta eventually, albeit grudgingly, admitted the same: “He obviously must be good at what he does because gets people across.”

We’ll be here another night.

Abadius 10th, 4713 (evening, Ul-Angorn)

Sparna has made arrangements to have some maintenance and repairs done on the wagons. Strictly speaking, this isn’t even remotely necessary, but given last night’s events a little added good will can’t hurt. I spent the morning getting us re-provisioned and learned the locals were divided on whether we were saving the day or the source of the trouble. Of course, we know the answer to that but we’ll be keeping it to ourselves.

Qatana interrogated our corpse because that’s just a thing we do now. Like that sort of thing is somehow normal. For once, we got direct answers.

“Who were you working for?” she asked.

“I am an agent of the Five Winds.”

The Five Winds? We have no idea who that is, though it’s certainly a good guess that they are related to the Five Storms and bad with names.

“How did you find out we were here?”

“I was waiting to see if you would come.”

“How did you get here?”

“Traveled by magic.”

Her last question was the one we most needed to know: “Did you communicate our presence to others?”

“Yes,” he said. And that was that.

Obviously, this is not good. They know we’re right here, right now, and will soon learn that we survived. If it was up to me we’d have left on the spot, but no one asked me for my opinion.

Ivan took care of the body. He conjured a ring of fire around it and just let it burn until there was nothing left but ash and blackened, brittle bones.

Sparna found a set of jeweler’s tools for me while I was running my errands. I’ll need them for our talismans, which I want to set with some semi-precious stones just to give them a little flair. We still have weeks of travel ahead of us, and this is a good way to use the time.

There are a handful of dwarves here and they and Sparna have more or less gravitated to one another. A couple of them were in the Frozen Spike last night and I overheard them talking to Sparna, but I played dumb. For one, I’ve learned not to tip my hand just to show off, and two, I didn’t want to butt in on their conversation. And, I suppose there’s a three, as well: people talk pretty candidly when they don’t think you can understand them. You never know what you might hear.

Ameiko, Qatana, and I spent the afternoon together and, predictably, it descended into mischief. I like a little mischief now and then, and the three of us were pretty good at it when we were kids. There was this one time, back before Qatana…well, back before, so I must have been 9 or 10 years old. The Flinch brothers had this horse and they were obviously not taking care of it and she was very upset. We came up with this crazy scheme to liberate it without it being obvious that it had been taken. Qatana spent days making an enormous, fake cocoon, and one night—anyway, it was so brazen and ridiculous that it made sense only to a kid, but amazingly, it worked. Well, it worked long enough for the horse to find a new home far away from Sandpoint, which was good enough.

Today, we visited a little shrine to Desna that was tended by a druid. I was a good girl, and did not burst out laughing when Qatana asked, “Would you mind if we erected a small tribute to Groetus behind the temple?” If you want to really catch someone off guard, that’s a pretty good opening line. From that moment on, I was on board with her idea.

Qatana’s formal religious education may have stopped a few years ago, but mine has not. Some random druid was not going to win a theological debate with me, and they relented in short order. “Just make sure it’s far behind. Maybe on the other side of that pond over there?” That was a little extreme, of course, but I didn’t want to upset Desna, either, so I chose a respectful distance for my task: making an ice sculpture of a grinning skull.

Side note: it’s really hard to do that when you’re fighting fits of hysterics.

Abadius 14th, 4713 (evening, Ovorikheer Pass)

We started the climb to the Ovorikheer pass today. This whole area is geothermally active and it just smells terrible. We had to navigate the fumarole fields of Baruun’s Breath carefully to avoid being overcome by the fumes.

Radella unpacked what looked like a portable alchemy lab and spent much of the evening extracting chemicals from the hot springs near our camp. It’s the sort of thing Etayne would have done.

When she was finished, she had four vials of what looked like three different substances.

“What did you end up with?”

“Sulfuric acid, arsenic, and cyanide.”

I am sorry I asked.

Abadius 15th, 4713 (midday, Domagalki Forest)

Everyone’s pretty shaken up, including me. Gods! Two enormous spiders, the biggest I’ve ever seen, hit our caravan. We didn’t even see them until they were practically on top of us. How do you miss something that big? How do you miss two of them?

I didn’t even think. One of them was bearing down on Ameiko’s wagon and I just started dumping everything I had on it. When it backed off, I turned to the other and didn’t stop until it was engulfed in flames.

The others had to intervene to keep me from incinerating the first one, too. Why? Because they wanted to harvest its venom. Again, sorry I asked.

Olmas went down during the skirmish, barely clinging to life. Sparna, too. We were mere seconds from disaster.

People are giving me that look. Especially Sparna. What do you want me to say? What did you expect me to do? They were gods-be-damned spiders the size of a whale. What part of this don’t you understand?

Kuthona 22, 4712 (evening, The Storm Tower)

Ameiko and Koya wanted to see the tower that was at the center of all this turmoil, so we obliged. I mean, why not? We had cleared it out so it was safe—aside from the sludge—and it was completely alien in design and construction, unlike anything any of us had ever seen or were likely to see again. Ultimately, this journey is about restoring Ameiko’s rightful place as heir to the empire of Minkai but it is also about traveling far away from home and seeing the world outside of Avistan, and all the strange and wondrous sights it has to offer. A piece of that world was staring at us right here, right now. When we would have another opportunity?

Ameiko seemed just as interested in the remorhaz as the ancient, basalt spire. I understand the appeal, especially after having stood in close quarters with two of them. They have a reputation in this part of the world that is, frankly, well deserved. And, Sparna offered what I thought was a pretty good idea, inspired by the talisman that Ulf carries. We could fashion a few of our own from their scales and use them in much the same way as Iqaliat. When we arrive in Tian Xia we may need a system for identifying who we can trust, and fetishes of our own may be the answer. That, and trophies made from remorhaz scales kind of send a message about who people are dealing with. I have little patience for convincing others to take me seriously and I suspect Ameiko has even less, so why not make that first impression count?

Ulf wants to pick up the Path of Aganhei again and according to him the best place to do that is at Dead Man’s Dome. I imagine this has a lot to do with the fact that it’s one of only a handful of identifiable landmarks around for literally hundreds of miles. Once we clear the Alabastrine Peaks, Ulf says we turn right and head south. Though just about everything is “south” from where we are, so I’m pretty sure that “head south” was meant as a gag.

I almost wrote “We leave at first light”, but of course there isn’t one and there won’t be for several more weeks.

Dead Man’s Dome used to be a fortified tower of some sort, an outpost along the Path of Aganhei that extended the protection for travelers onto the Ice itself. A couple hundred years ago, though, it was attacked by a small army of giants and frozen dead while several caravans were sheltered there. It threatened to be more of a slaughter than a battle, but a soldier whose name has long been lost to time mustered a brilliant counterattack that shattered the attacking formation. As the giants regrouped, the surviving guards and caravans managed an escape, but that one, lone soldier stayed behind and lured the attackers into the tower before collapsing it on himself and them. It is a seemingly fantastical story that, as near as I can tell, is absolutely true, and it hasn’t even been embellished.

Ulf says that, according to legend, the ghost of the Dead Man protects the dome to this day. Six months ago I would have scoffed at such a notion, but not now. Etayne and Koya would be pleased.

We’re going to try and speak with Katiyana’s corpse before leaving tomorrow. It’s become a disturbing ritual, but it has to be done, right?

That’s what I keep telling myself.

Kuthona 23, 4712 (midday, The High Ice)

Katiyana’s essence was about as cooperative as I’d expected. She (it?) gave circular answers that told us basically nothing, though that may have been in part because we didn’t know what to ask. This spell seems to work best when you are seeking to confirm that which you already know or at least suspect. The more general or vague you are the less likely you are to be satisfied.

One of our questions was answered with a threat of sorts.

“Who are the others you were working with?” Qatana asked.

“I was allied with felled creatures of the frozen north, raised from death”, she replied in that hollow, lifeless voice we’re used to from this spell. And then she laughed. An eerie facsimile of a laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “My allied creatures may yet thwart you.”

So that is something to look forward to.

She also implied rather strongly that she wasn’t associated with the oni of the Five Storms. As she put it, she served “the Frozen Lord who shall return.” Uh huh. Good luck with that. It’s reasonable to assume that she was working alone up here until very recently, and Tunuak seems to have been a lucky break rather than part of any kind of master plan. He was probably the only one of her victims that was useful to her alive, and I doubt that hoarfrost spirits and whatever other undead she’d created from the rest served as anything more than brute force. Sithhud is going to have to get used to disappointment.

Kuthona 24, 4712 (evening, The High Ice)

I talked to mom and dad today. I actually tried last night but it didn’t work, or rather, not all of it did. I could see mom and even hear her, but when I tried the spell that would let me talk to her? Nothing. All I could do was sit there and watch as she worked in the office.

I actually did that for a while—watch her as she worked. I couldn’t let the image go. And then I realized how voyeuristic it was. As much as I wanted just to see them again, doing it this way suddenly felt horribly wrong, and I let it go.

Tonight, though, I got through.

“Mom.”

There is a difference between knowing something might happen and actually having it happen. She and dad knew what to expect because I’d made these plans with them that day back in Magnimar, but she still nearly jumped out of her seat. I mean she literally jumped. So I guess I surprised her.

“Kali! Thank the gods you’re OK!” There was a pause, then a look of concern on her face as she looked around reflexively. “Are you OK? Where are you?”

“Near the north pole. Yes, I’m OK. We all are.”

It took a couple of minutes—precious time I didn’t really have with this spell—for her to find dad and get back to where they could talk privately. I was treated to a short tour of the office, though I could only see a small bubble around her as she walked. Unsurprisingly, it hadn’t really changed since I’d left.

“We received the letters,” dad said. “There were three?”

“Yes.”

“They gave us quite a scare. What happened up there?”

I was more or less expecting this question and had prepared an answer. “We guessed they’d be watching for us and they were. They’ve been there for decades, patiently waiting in case someone from Amieko’s family turned up. They’d formed a small criminal empire of sorts using a trading guild as a front. Like the Sczarni in a way.”

Mom spoke up then. “We’ve heard rumors of a guild coming into trouble with the king there.”

“Yes. That was us. And them. You won’t hear our names, though. The public face of it is an Ulfen merchant named Lute Haggersly. If you are looking for new business contacts up there, by the way, he’s someone to trust. He’ll remember my name.”

We didn’t have much time so I quickly recounted the highlights from Kalsgard to points north. More surprises, more alarm, especially after I got around to Iqaliat.

Dad interrupted this time. “A dragon?! Kali—”

“It was a small one. If that helps.”

“Kali…” He paused, and I got the sense he changed what he was planning to say. “We are both immensely proud of what you are doing, and what you have accomplished. Both you and your friends.”

But.

“But, we worry that events continue to escalate.”

Mom spoke up, then. “So far you’ve been able to handle it. But it feels like things are on the verge of spiraling out of control. How will you know if…?”

She trailed off, not able to put the question into words. It didn’t matter though because I knew what she was asking me. And I didn’t have an answer for it. Not one that would satisfy them, anyway.

“You might be right. I—I know that’s not what you want to hear. I can only say that we’ve all agreed not to take needless risks. That this isn’t worth our lives. I know that’s not much, but…it’s the best I can offer. We learned a lot from Kalsgard.”

They asked how Ameiko was doing so I told them. It was an abrupt and awkward change of subject, but I get it. In their position, I would have wanted to do that, too.

I am probably making this conversation sound like something of a downer. It wasn’t like that, really. It was just honest. But it’s not something I’m used to doing with them, and if I feel and sound a little numb I guess that’s just me coping with it.

“When will we hear from you next?” dad asked.

We had just a few seconds left and I could feel the spell coming to an end. The image of them in front of me was starting to fade.

“We should reach Tian Xia in a month, plus a week or two to get through the mountains.”

“Take care of yourself, and your friends,” he said.

“We miss you and love you. And we want you to come back to us.”

“I miss you and love you both. I will make it back. That is a promise.”

The uncomfortable truth is that this isn’t a promise I could really make. I mean, how did know that I could keep it? We didn’t know what really lay ahead of us. But the point is that I meant it. They knew that, too, and that’s what mattered.

I managed to hold my composure until after the spell expired.

Kuthona 28, 4712 (night, The High Ice)

For the last several days we’ve had clear weather that would qualify as pleasant if it wasn’t so cold. I was beginning to think we might actually make it to Dead Man’s Dome without incident, but tonight as we were making camp word started spreading that there was a figure of some sort just out beyond our light. A woman walking alone in the freezing darkness. Naturally, this put everyone on edge because, really, how could that possibly be what it appeared? Olmas rode out on Kasimir to investigate, with Qatana and Ivan close behind.

The short of it is: it wasn’t a woman. Surprise. Not a living one, anyway. She was a malevolent spirit of some sort, and was trying to draw people away from camp. Mostly it was the others that dealt with it. There just wasn’t much I could do to contribute. This has me rethinking some decisions I made about which spells I have chosen to learn. Each one takes precious time, and of course money in special ink and fees, so when I was starting out these decisions were difficult to make. Now that money is less of an issue, and time is something we have far too much of, I don’t have to make tough choices. The problem I have now is even more frustrating: no resources. I can manage a couple of news spells on my own as my skills grow, but that is about it for self study. It could be weeks before we are in a suitable town or city.

I am a little surprised we haven’t attracted more attention. Our caravan is putting out a lot of light. We knew we’d be crossing the Crown in the dead of winter, and that we’d be going a couple of months without the sun. If we wanted to see by we’d have to supply our own light. Qatana, Ulf, Ivan, and I made up plans for a couple of bulls eye lanterns for the covered wagon that Sandru drives, and regular lanterns to go on the others. Each one is lit by a magical flame that Qatana produced. It was expensive—each casting consumes a small ruby—but they never go out unless magically extinguished. We can see as far as 100 feet away in all directions, and even farther in front due to the head lamps. We’re a very visible beacon, one that can be seen for miles and miles in the darkness. Not everything up here is blind.

Kuthona 31, 4712 (mid-day, The High Ice)

The Silver dragon flew over us again while we were stopped for lunch. I assume it was the same dragon, anyway. How can one tell? It was big, it was silver, it was a dragon. That was about as far as I could get on distinguishing features. It didn’t stick around, either, which I assume is a good sign. No news being good news, and so on.

Other than that, it was shaping up to be an uneventful day. And then we broke camp.

Vankor, one of our drivers, was pretty visibly shaken. I remember thinking he looked a little nervous this morning, but didn’t think much of it at the time. After only a few hours he was clearly doing much, much worse. He wouldn’t go near any of the wagons, or rather, the musk-oxen that were pulling them.

Both Ulf and Koya are sure it’s Howl of the North, a form of madness that comes from being without the sun for weeks on end, and I agree.

His brother Bevelek said, “I noticed he’d been a little slow to get moving in mornings. Reluctant, even.”

Sandru nodded his head. “I had, too, but I didn’t want to give him a hard time. I just figured…I guess it was getting to him, only a lot more than I realized.”

Qatana pulled out some of our diamond dust and tried a restorative spell that works on these sorts of things. It produced some results, which is encouraging, but it didn’t cure him completely. We may give it time, or we may try the spell again.

For now, Sparna will take his position as driver, and Koya will watch over him. That meant we needed someone to perform the divinations for the caravan, and I think just about everyone was shocked when I said, “I’ll do it.”

Koya looked at me skeptically for a moment—Yeah, I would doubt me, too, I thought—but then she smiled, nodded, and said, “OK. Come with me.”

Why am I doing this? I guess I’ve come around. Koya is no charlatan, and I’ve learned to respect that there is real magic at the core of what she does for us. That, and if we were counting debts, I’d be in hers many times over. This seems like a step towards balancing those scales.

New Year’s Day, 4713 (mid-day, Dead Man’s Dome)

Our scouts tell us that a large group of undead are trailing us, and I can just barely make out a handful of figures lumbering behind us at the far reaches of our light. The first skeleton was spotted early this morning, just a few hours after we set out, but as the day drew on more and more undead were seen converging on our flanks. It doesn’t appear that they can get ahead of us, but they really don’t have to: we and our animals have to stop and rest at some point, and they do not. We’re going to have to pick a time and place to make a stand.

Ulf has suggested doing that at Dead Man’s Dome. It’s where we are headed, anyway, and we should arrive in a couple of hours if we just continue on. The Dome will gives us some defensive terrain which sounds much better than trying to do this out here in the open. Plus, the longer we go the more likely we’ll be to draw them all out and get them following behind us instead of converging from all around.

That doesn’t mean this isn’t tense. I’m told there are at least a couple of dozen of them out there, now, and I have no doubt that more are coming. A few skeletons, wights, and even hoarfrost spirits are not a threat to us, but a few dozen is a different matter. And, it’s not just us: it’s the wagons, the animals, Vankor who is essentially helpless, and our provisions. It is on everyone’s mind and the wait is not helping. We also don’t have much of a margin for error. If another wagon axle breaks, if we wander off the path and get stuck, if anything slows us down at all… We have to be ready to face them at a moment’s notice.

We are fortunate that the weather has been good, and the packed ice and snow here has been fairly level and smooth. It was not easy, but I was able to spend the last 20 minutes or so memorizing some spells, filling the reserves I had held back for the day. There are some spells we’ll want that I do not normally prepare.

Thank the gods I have fallen into that habit.

(evening, Dead Man’s Dome)

The ground below us is littered with the shattered and charred remains of the undead. I am, frankly, stunned by the combined destructive power that we can bring to bear. We have obliterated some three or four dozen of them in a matter of minutes, and much of that time was spent preparing for the second wave of the attack.

Granted, as Olmas and Sparna would say, this was probably the best possible scenario for us. We had the higher ground. We more or less knew what we were up against. We could define the encounter. They had limited capacity to plan or respond. We had more resources at our disposal, from abilities to weapons to magic. And, most importantly, we had time to prepare.

I am beginning to understand why powerful spell casters are as often feared by the common man as they are revered. I am also more than a little frightened by my own potential. Since this began, I have spent most of my energy and efforts supporting the others, either through direct action or by hindering our foes, giving us small advantages wherever possible. Actually participating in a fight directly has always been a last resort, when there was nothing better for me to do. This time, direct action was called for, and I rained down earth and fire, over and over again after the aurochs had flattened the front lines.

Granted, these creatures were undead and no one will mourn them, but what lies ahead of us? How often will I be facing living, breathing beings? I’ve done it a few times, and it has never sat well afterwards. Mom and dad are worried that we may face a situation that is beyond our abilities. I guess my fear is different: I worry there will be a day when it no longer tugs at my conscience.

The biggest surprise of the day came from Dead Man’s Dome, itself. Just as the first wave began its assault, a ghostly figure rose from the ground ahead of us and took a place in our defensive line. It did not take long for us to understand that this was the spirit of the Dead Man, himself. I did not get a close look at the manifestation, but it reminded me of what we had seen back in Brinewall: energy given physical form, only protective instead of destructive. As it stood there waiting for the second wave, someone quickly brought Ulf down to see. I understand that it was quite a shock.

Later in the evening, after we had made camp and the Dead Man had sunk back into the earth, we were sitting around the campfires, eating and talking. Just on a whim, I asked Ulf what he thought about what we’d witnessed.

“By the gods, do I have a story to tell! No one will ever believe me, but—You know, I had my doubts about leading you fools across here at this time of year, but this here made it worth it.”

I decided to let the “fools” comment go.

Kuthona 22, 4712 (afternoon, Storm Tower)

Stupid, stupid, stupid! I need to stop making little mistakes like this before they get someone killed. The speed with which one bad decision can cascade into a crisis is alarming. It is basically my fault that both Ivan and Sparna ended up in danger—I could have dealt with it if it was just one of them, but both? How do you make that decision? Gods, we got lucky.

How did all this happen?

I summoned a small air elemental and sent it up the core to just scout around for us, and it told us about the winds, and the frozen dead aimlessly wandering about. The former were strong and would hamper our flight, and that meant we couldn’t ignore the latter. After discussing it with the others, we tried a simple, opening salvo to thin their ranks: a fireball sent up the bore to detonate in the room, followed by earth elementals to push one or two down. This mostly worked. Two bodies flew down the central shaft, one crashing onto the floor we were on and the other dropping all the way to the bottom. When we ascended, we saw the burned corpses of two more.

Almost nothing went right after that. Before we even stepped off the platform we were hit by something—a spell of some sort. My air elemental hadn’t scouted the whole room—I needed it to survive or the scouting would do us no good—so naturally it didn’t see Katiyana. She had just announced her presence.

She flew through the air as nimbly and gracefully as can be. It was like the wind wasn’t even there, and yet it was all around us like some raging storm. It was a spell, obviously, and I felt my stomach sink. We’d had access to it, with the emphasis on had. Tunuak’s staff carried it, but we sold it in Unaimo. It never occurred to me that we might need the thing, or that traveling to a place called the Storm Tower might involve, well, storms. It was foolish of us.

Here’s the thing: they count on me to think about stuff like this. If I can’t make these obvious connections, then what purpose am I serving?

I watched from the ground as Olmas was literally blown into the walls by the winds. The others were struggling against them as they flew up to meet Katiyana. It was a losing battle from the very start, with her tossing spells at us at her leisure and us unable to respond. I stayed on the ground too long, moving undetected among the frozen dead thanks to Ivan’s spell. Then someone finally got a shot at her and the spell collapsed, and I was suddenly surrounded.

Ivan called out to me. “Are you OK?”

And I wasn’t OK, but I shouldn’t have said so. Ivan came down to help, and then he got hit and went down. And then Sparna did the same. And I couldn’t help both of them. It was an impossible choice. I did what I could, trying to get the demon Katiayana had summoned away from Sparna while I engaged the frozen dead to protect Ivan, but it was only delaying the inevitable. Then, miraculously, Ivan broke free of whatever magic was binding him and we just barely turned it around before killing blows arrived. It was that close.

And that’s the other thing: they count on me to tip the scales in our favor, and I can’t do that if I am occupied saving myself, or worse, salvaging some debacle of my own creation. We lost valuable time—time that needed to be spent eliminating Katiyana’s advantage over us.

When that time finally came, it took me a couple of tries to get it right. I’m not going to be hard on myself on this one: it was not an easy problem. How do you stop gale-force winds blowing down out of a 20′ hexagonal hole in a ceiling with lightning arcing through it? On the second go at it I had an idea that worked. Those platforms Radella had managed to operate? The one leading to the third floor? Sometimes she was able to create one that had a dome covering it. It looked an awful lot like a spell I had picked up but never had occasion to use.

It’s mostly a camping spell, but I am told that some wizards use it for defensive cover because it creates a dome that you can see out of while those on the outside can’t see in. It doesn’t block spells or weapons, but what it does block is wind—just like the little platforms we used to go up and down in the Storm Tower blocked the wind—because when you’re camping, who wants the wind blowing in your face? And that dome? It’s not actually a dome: it’s a sphere. It just looks like a dome when you use it on the ground.

That spell was my answer, except for the small detail where I hadn’t prepared it for the day. So I pulled that trick Eudonius had taught us, morphing a spell I had into the one I needed. (What would he think of how often I’ve been doing this? I’ve certainly felt the toll it takes on me. I don’t think I’ve done it lightly.) In an instant the winds stopped, and I looked down to see my friends converge on Katiyana in the air. If only I could have done this sooner.

Katiyana was a sylph, a being connected to the plane of elemental air. They are genie-kin, born from the mating of a djinn and a human. How a sylph ends up in the service of Sithhud, though, is anyone’s guess. I am sure it’s fascinating story that we’ll never get to hear.

Of more immediate concern is whether she was working alone or had help, and we’ll take a shot at getting some answers to that tomorrow. The Tower itself had no obvious living quarters, and there are no other structures for hundreds of miles that we know of. So if she wasn’t living there, then where? And if there is a somewhere else, is there a someone else to go with it?

For the immediate future, at least, it seems our problem has been solved. As soon as the sphere collapsed on itself the weather broke overhead. It’s been positively pleasant, with stars shining on us through clear skies.

Or maybe it’s not. A few days ago, before we even got here, I overheard Ivan talking with Koya around our nightly campfires. He’s been having these recurring dreams about being surrounded by frozen undead. In those dreams, I send a ball of fire into the advancing hoard, but the spell he manifests is strange and ineffective. Dreams are like that sometimes, but what troubles me is not his distress over his spell so much as the whole setting. I didn’t used to put much faith in dreams as omens or as being somehow prophetic, but my time with Etayne has taught me not to be so dismissive. It could just be coincidence that we found ourselves on the third floor of the Storm Tower surrounded by hoarfrost spirits, or it could be that his dreams really are a warning of sorts about the road ahead. We are only half-way across the Ice, after all, in the winter season when unknown dangers abound.

I said earlier that my friends rely on me to think ahead, and to make connections that might otherwise be missed. Is this one of those?

I think it is. The question now is, what do I do about it?

Neth 10, 4712 (night, Iqaliat)

Ameiko and I spent a little time in the village square this afternoon, generally taking a break from the caravan preparations. Most of them had been done before we left for Unaimo, anyway, and we were about to spend two months—possibly more—in complete isolation. No matter my feelings about Iqaliat, I wanted some time around people before leaving in the morning. We sat and talked as the villagers went about their business in the glow of the torches both magical and mundane that dotted its perimeter, and protected from the cold by the spells on the sashimonos which stood guard at opposite ends. Most of them made a point to look at us and smile as they walked by, and a few spoke to us either in greeting or in thanks.

We were talking about nothing of consequence when she unexpectedly switched to Tien and said, casually, “You have an admirer.

The sudden change in topic and language caught me off guard, and I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly. “Excuse me?”

“An admirer. You have one.”

“Please.”

“I’m serious. He’s been watching you from across the square for a while now. Don’t look right at him, silly! Be discreet.” She admonished me when I turned my head to see who she was talking about. A little more nonchalantly, I looked around as if taking in the village. There was a young Erutaki man sitting on the other side of the square that looked away as my gaze swept across him, but in my peripheral vision I could see him turn back.

“He’s probably looking at you,” I said.

She smirked at me. “Ooohhh, no. It’s you he’s trying to work up the courage to talk to.”

“Pfft. How can you be sure?”

Smiling mischievously, she stood up abruptly and said, “Let’s find out, shall we?” And before I could object, she walked across the square to where he was sitting, spoke to him briefly, then strode off into the darkness towards the front gate. She had not gone more than a half dozen paces before he got up and approached me. I am going to kill her, I remember thinking. I am pretty sure Suishen will understand.

“Unnusakkut, Kali. I am Anerk. It is an honor to meet you,” he said, kneeling at my feet. My face suddenly felt very hot; I must have turned beet red. Somewhere out there, Ameiko was probably watching this scene and laughing. Death is too good for her.

He was just a kid, probably only a couple of years older than Ivan. He limped slightly on his left leg as he walked. I didn’t ask. I probably already knew the answer, anyway.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Anerk,” I replied. I gave him a smile that I hoped was friendly but not encouraging.

“I want to thank you for saving our village.”

I bowed my head slightly. “You’re welcome. It’s terrible what happened here. We knew we had to help.”

He looked down at the ground for a moment, long enough that the silence was awkward. Finally, he said, “I wanted to thank you during the celebration, but Ivan did not know where I could find—”

“It’s OK,” I said, cutting him off. I really didn’t want to know what “thanking me” would have entailed that night. He looked up again, looking right at me. He had that sort of nervousness that comes from talking to someone that you have a crush on. Way, way too good. 

“Ivan says you stood face to face with the dragon. You were very brave to confront her with no armor.”

Personally, I could think of a few other words for that and none of them were as flattering. Still, I felt like I was being placed on a pedestal or something here and I was not comfortable with it, or where this might be headed.

“I am not defenseless, Anerk.”

He winced slightly at that. It must have come out harsher than I’d intended.

“I did not mean to offend. Of course you have magic.” He stopped there, suddenly reminded of Tunuak, I am sure. Another awkward silence followed.

Then, in a soft voice, he asked, “Is it true what they say? That he smashed her eggs?”

“Yes, he did.”

His expression turned somber. “I can understand her rage.”

“Yes. But…it was not going to stop. She didn’t care about justice; only wrath. She was going to level this village, then move on to the next. And then the next.”

He nodded. “And—”

“Kali! Sandru needs you!” Ameiko was crossing the square, coming to my rescue with perfect timing. The kind of timing that is manufactured. Sandru absolutely did not need me.

“I’m sorry, Anerk. It was a pleasure to speak with you, but I must go.”

“Tavvaujutit, Kali. Naammaktsiarit.”

Later, I learned from Ivan that his family was killed in the first attack on the village. So, naturally, now I feel like a heel.

Neth 11, 4712 (night, the ice)

Ulf is confident he can get us to this Storm Tower. It sounds so easy when you just say it like that, but it’s just one structure standing alone in thousands of square miles of frozen nothingness. Sonavut says it’s closer to the Alabastrine Peaks, which you would think would be hard to miss, but day and night are one and the same now, and under overcast skies the landscape is an ink so black we’d never see them on the horizon.

But, as I said, Ulf is confident he can get us there. I don’t know how, but this right here is why we hired a guide and if he says he can do it then he can do it. Who am I to argue?

What are we going to find there? The paintings in Tunuak’s makeshift altar are vague, even the one of the woman Katiyana. He depicted her as essentially human, only blue-skinned with black wings, and I don’t know what this means. The only blue-skinned beings I have seen that could otherwise pass as human are the yamah that occasionally visit Magnimar, and something about Tunuak’s depiction of her (and, of course, the whole connection to Sithhud) just doesn’t say “azata” to me. A tiefling, perhaps? Geniekin? (Aasimar? But what are the odds of there being two Nualias in my lifetime?) Not that it matters; I am just curious. Whatever she is, if the elders of Iqaliat are right, we are likely to encounter either her or her sway.

The Nameless Spires are supposedly the ruins of an ancient civilization, one that even predates Thassilon (which is as far back as my knowledge of history goes). The Storm Tower is rumored to be much like the spires of that place, only off by itself because…because otherwise, it’d not have a name, I guess. If Katiyana really is responsible for the growing ferocity of the storms, then it stands to reason that the tower, itself, figures into her plans. Perhaps she is harnessing some ancient magic or power that was once dormant inside, or maybe the purpose of the tower was to influence the weather and she has merely appropriated it for her scheme with Sithhud.

Sithhud. Not much is written about him. Legend says his domain was taken from him by another demon lord. Clashes among the ranks of the Lords and the Gods are rare, but decisive ones are even more so.

I imagine he did not take it well.

Neth 14, 4712 (evening, the High Ice)

We have reached the High Ice. Honestly, it mostly looks the same as the regular ice (the low ice?) except of course that it’s higher, and the only reason I know we’re here now is because Skygni said he’d accompany us this far and today is the day he took his leave.

The air has been getting thinner as we climb in altitude. The whole ice shelf slopes upwards towards the north, and every day it is a little harder to breathe than it was the day before, and we are a little quicker to tire. Ulf says it takes about a month to adjust to the conditions, and we’ll have to decide soon how we want to progress: stop and camp, travel slowly, or just push on. Strictly speaking there is nothing wrong with doing the last one—we are just as vulnerable spending that month traveling as we are sitting still—except for that part where we’d reach the Storm Tower still short of breath and easily exhausted.

Our progress has been slow thanks to the storm that rolled through on our way to the dragon’s lair and buried the ice road in several inches of snow. Of course snow doesn’t melt in subzero weather, but eventually the wind blows it off the shelf into warmer zones. “Eventually” just hasn’t happened yet.

Neth 19, 4712 (evening, the High Ice)

I am really feeling the effects of the altitude now, along with everyone else. We’ve chosen the “slow travel” option, and will be moving the caravan one or two days out of every week for the next month. This will keep us from going stir crazy without running the risk of pushing ourselves and the animals to the point of exhaustion. It’s not ideal as no one wants to spend this much time just camped in the middle of nowhere, but we are all too aware of our physical limits and know it’s the right thing to do.

It’s beautiful up here in it’s own way.

Nihali is less impressed. The magical devices I made keep us warm most days, but the spell that powers them has limits and every so often it is cold or windy enough to exceed them. She is forced to stay wrapped up in one of the covered wagons until these cold snaps pass.

Neth 25, 4712 (afternoon? evening? daytime? who can tell?)

A wagon axle broke today. The constant buildup of ice had made it brittle and that was that. Fortunately, we have plenty of wainwrights among us and their knowledge plus a few spells had us back up and moving in short order.

It’s not enough to mend broken objects with spells. This is something I learned long ago watching the occasional repairs in mom and dad’s warehouse. An axle, for example, is but one piece in a system of moving parts, and there is more to the repair than just making the spindle whole again: the surrounding pieces must inspected for secondary damage and the whole unit properly reassembled. It takes skilled hands and a skilled eye. It also takes time. Spells just accelerate some of the steps.

It’s been three months since I sent my last message home. Do they worry about me? I think they must, even though they know not to expect to hear from me again for several more weeks. I purchased a scroll in Kalsgard for a spell that, if I understand it correctly, I can use to see them and even exchange whispered messages, but it’s still beyond my ability. Every few days I give it another try—I want to learn it, not cast it—but progress has been agonizingly slow.

Kuthona 6, 4712 (night, the High Ice)

A couple of nights ago we were attacked by one of those glowing lizard things Skygni had warned us about. We’ve seen a couple of them from a distance since reaching the Crown, but this was our first close-up encounter. Qatana and I were on watch when we saw it streaking across the sky, only instead of circling in the distance it made a turn in our direction. We had just gotten everyone woken up as it passed overhead.

Skygni said that they were dangerous, but not precisely how so we had to learn the hard way. Olmas, once again, was critically hurt. After the fight was over, we determined that it probably sensed the world entirely through sound much as a bat does, only it could also send out sonic pulses in far greater strength and intensity than needed for navigation. This is what struck Olmas. And a few others. And our encampment.

It stands to reason that some of the creatures that live up here have adapted to the long winter night by not needing to see at all. We’ll have to be mindful of this.

Kuthona 12, 4712 (night, the High Ice)

I am not tiring as quickly and as easily as I used to which probably means were are close to having adjusted to the altitude, if not there already. As soon as Sandru and Ulf give the word, we’ll head to the Storm Tower at our full speed.

When skies are clear, we can just make out the Alabastrine peaks under the stars, far on the horizon. It shouldn’t be much longer.

Sparna presented me with a gift. It was one of the nicest, most thoughtful things anyone outside of my family has ever done for me. He said it was in thanks for a spell I’ve been casting for him every few days, but this goes far beyond that.

Some time ago he asked to borrow my crossbow, which I hardly ever use—I think the last time was in Brinewall—and when he returned it, it had been enchanted in a way that I had not thought possible. Bolts shot from it no longer draw blood. When he explained this to me I thought I was going to start crying right in front of him. Few people understand. I mean really understand. Ameiko, Qatana and Koya, for sure, but Sparna?

I actually thought he didn’t like me all that much. You just get that sense, you know? But as I get older the more I am coming to understand that I’m just not any good at reading people. I’ve also come to terms with the fact that I was not a particularly pleasant person to be around when I was a child. I was quick to anger, easy to offend, and prone to small outbursts. I still have shades of all three. I am my own worst enemy at times.

Crystalhue, 4712 (evening, Alabastrine Peaks)

Sandru took the caravan to within a few miles of the Storm Tower and then brought us to a halt. I don’t blame him. The first priority is to keep Ameiko safe, and that means keeping the caravan safe. We will set out on foot early in the morning.

There’s no question we are at the right place. A strange, blue glow emanates from the top of the tower and it was this light that guided us in. As Sonavut and Iqaliat’s chief had told us, storms swirl about its spire even when the weather is clear around us. The tower seemingly gives birth to each morozoku, feeds it until it is weaned, then sends into the perpetually night sky. The blue light from the tower illuminates the cycle for us to see, reflecting off the snow on the ground and the peaks on the mountains, and bathing everything in a soft, violet light.

Today is Crystalhue. There is no sunlight to shine through my prisms and no community festival to attend, but there is the central fire where the caravan is encamped, the magically-enhanced lanterns that provide our light, and of course my friends. I took out the small, glass and crystal bead sun catcher that I purchased in Kalsgard before we left, and hung it from the covered wagon so that I could watch the fire sparkle through it as the others ate. In memory of Asvig and in honor of Helva.

It is somewhat apropos that we have come here on the winter solstice.

Kuthona 22, 4712 (morning, the Storm Tower)

The Storm Tower rises some three hundred feet into the air, a hexagonal column of basalt cut like glass growing out of a pool of black slush. A ball of blue light crackles at its apex, feeding a budding storm overhead.

We’ve seen the slush before. According to Ulf, it’s a common sight around the Crown of the World and is one of the region’s more deadly hazards: a highly toxic, poisonous sludge that flows out of cracks in the ice. Its source seems to be the Nameless Spires, but what created it is a mystery.

We weren’t really sure what we’d find here; I reserved some of the mental energy I use for learning spells so that I could adapt to the situation at hand. Just a couple of months ago, I couldn’t afford to do this because I needed every spell I could possibly learn each morning, but as my abilities grow I find that each one takes less effort to commit to memory. I spent some time preparing for the assault on the third level now that we know what it is that we don’t know.

While I did this, the others began the tedious task of pulling gems out of the walls. This room is filled with them, the stones connected by an intricate network of wire. The crystalline entities that were inside seemed to be operating or maintaining this bizarre display as though it were some sort of machinery, but of course there is no mechanism. Just the gemstones, wire and magic of a type that I could not identify or even make sense of. How long have they been here? What were they doing? What was the room’s purpose? We have no answers, but this could very well date back to when the tower was created; the crystalline beings eternally performing a duty that has not been relevant for thousands of years.

The remorhaz were more recent occupants. Both bore the mark of Sithhud, each etched into one of their scales. Someone (Katiyana?) purposely brought them here, almost certainly to serve as guards for what lies above us. It was a lovely trap that produced a tense moment for Ivan.

We keep getting tripped up by the unexpected.

Much like the ground floor. A giant, carnivorous flower had taken root. How it manages to survive here with, I assume, no source of food is a mystery (another reason why I miss Etayne). Qatana got “swallowed” whole (do carnivorous flowers swallow? Is that even the right term?) and ejected in a constricting, digestive pod. I’ve never seen anything so alien. We had to literally cut her out of it to save her life.

The others are almost done collecting gems. It is time to move.