Lamashan 26, 4712 (night, Iqaliat)

Iqaliat wants to celebrate, and I get it. I mean, if my village was being terrorized by a dragon or some other monster, and strangers arrived out of the blue and just “took care of it”, I’d probably want to celebrate, too. In fact, I’ve been there. I grew up in Sandpoint, right?

And, maybe if I had tried to persecute and even execute those same strangers when they first showed up on my doorstep, I might go a little overboard in trying to make them feel welcome during round two. So I don’t want to say that this little gala is wrong. It’s just that…I expected there to be at least some acknowledgement that we’re throwing a party over the death of something that shouldn’t have had to die at all. That wasn’t even a threat until someone went out of their way to provoke a fight. Can we at least acknowledge that?

When I tried bringing this up to the chief and the hearthmistress? Blank stares. OK, fine, we’re just going to ignore all that, then.

They pulled us aside to talk about what they had learned from Tunuak’s secret shrine while we were away. Fine by me. I couldn’t take one more minute in the village, anyway. Iqaliat would just have to celebrate their heroes without the heroes.

For what it’s worth, the village elders had been busy trying to figure out what their former shaman had been up to. What he was unwilling to give us through his spirit, they had been busy working out from what he left behind.

“The morozokus are the scourge of the demon lord Sithhud. The dark-haired woman, the one he calls Katiyana, may have found a way to restore his power.” When we first arrived, we’d been told that strange, black monoliths had been appearing on the landscape. No one knew what they were for, but given Tunuak’s pictograms? The general consensus was that they were connected somehow. I couldn’t fault the logic.

“The tower in this pictogram may be the Storm Tower. It is similar to the towers in the Nameless Spires, but it stands alone near the Alabastrine Peaks.” It’s called the Storm Tower because, yup, storms always seem to be swirling around it. No one puts any thought into these names.

We were told that the storms have been getting worse each year, slowly working their way farther and farther south. Whatever plan this Katiyana has? It seems to be working. She’s not just a threat to the inhabitants here, but to Avistan and Tian Xia, too. She’s been operating up here unopposed for quite a while. I think it’s time for some opposition.

Don’t get me wrong: I am no crusader. We were pulled into this mess and all but forced to do something morally repugnant to fix it. This Katiyana person is the why, and I aim to do something about it.

Neth 2, 4712 (evening, Unaimo)

About half way to Unaimo, we lost the sunlight completely. The next three months will be in total darkness save for the lights we bring with us. It’s unnerving.

We’re in Unaimo just for the day to resupply for the trip over the ice. If it wasn’t so late in the year it would be a busy trading town, but being the off season it’s more subdued. I got my share of inquisitive looks when I was filling every inch of cargo space with the provisions we purchased there. I think they were waiting for me to volunteer the answer. Fat chance. I wouldn’t have said anything even if they’d come out and asked.

We leave for Iqaliat in the morning. Then? It’s up onto the Ice.

Lamashan 17, 4712 (evening, Iqaliat)

Our suspicions about Tunuak are all but confirmed, and though we still don’t understand exactly why we have at least been given a glimpse at the larger picture. The altar he had made for himself at the base of the chimney was decorated with a number of paintings that he, himself, had created. Not all the details are clear to us, but collectively they tell a story about storms being unleashed on the northern reaches of Avistan and Tian Xia, swallowing people, ships, cities and countries in a permanent winter that would rival even Irrisen. At the center stood a winged, blue-skinned woman that none of us recognized, but who Tunualk had named: Katiyana.

The symbol of Sithhud was everywhere. Tunuak had drawn Katiyana grasping the three fingered claw in her hand. The floor of the cavern was littered with bones, and the ones large enough to hold it had been etched with his rune. The nascent demon lord of the frozen dead, ice and storms.

The storms. The Erutaki here call them morozokus and speak of them as though they are living things. “The old gods of the wind oversee them,” Sonavut said. Maybe, maybe not, but they may not be far off the mark, here. I found a reference to them in one of the books we picked up back in Kalsgard. They were named after the druid who first saw and described them, and he wrote that they seemed to be guided by some malevolent intelligence. So, gods of old? Maybe, but Sithhud feels closer to the mark, and he was all around us down there.

How did this happen? How did Tunuak go from village shaman to all of this, whatever the gods this is? The answer, apparently, is a vision quest.

I’m not an expert on these things—it’s times like these that I really miss Etayne’s counsel—but I understand the broad strokes. I lived most of my life in Varisia, and you can’t spend that many years there without learning a thing or two about the Shoanti. Some of their tribes have rites of passage that sound like much the same thing: you spend several days in the wilderness, alone, fasting, waiting for the spirits to send enlightenment and revelation. Among the Erutaki that live here, according to the hearthmistress, those seeking vision quests seek out none other than the Nameless Spires because “that is where the wind spirits live”. The same Nameless Spires that appeared in the paintings in Tunuak’s cavern. The same Nameless Spires where Tunuak went on his vision quest.

He went out there seeking guidance from the old gods, heard voices on the wind, and came back towing hoarfrost spirits, smashing dragon eggs, bargaining with quasits, and spreading the sign of Sithhud like seeds. What in the name of the gods happened out there?

The chief has agreed to let us speak with his spirit, like we did with Kimandatsu. Obviously they want answers, too.

Lamashan 18, 4712 (morning, Iqaliat)

Kimandatsu wanted to gloat. She wanted to talk. She wanted to tell us everything, even in death. But Tunuak? His essence was evasive. He admitted to his crimes, he just wasn’t forthcoming with the details. But he told us enough: Sithhud wants to reclaim his place among the demon lords, and Tunuak intended to help him. We just don’t know how the pieces fit together.

“Why did you smash the dragon’s eggs?” Qatana asked.

“I did what must be done.”

See what I mean?

I am distinctly uneasy with the situation we’re now in. As the chief was quick to point out, “Regardless of what Tunuak has done here, the dragon is still attacking our village.” Yeah, sure. And how would you respond if someone killed your children?

Gods.

We’re going to try and bargain with her. We don’t exactly have proof, but we have enough of the story, and Tunuak’s remains to show her, so she might be willing to listen. I admit that it’s probably not going to work, but if there’s even a chance we can put a stop to all of this then we have to try. But we also have to prepare for the worst.

It’s going to be a four-day hike to her lair. That’s one way. I wanted to use the caravan to get us most or even part of the way there, but Sandru would not budge. Which, I suppose, is understandable: the caravan might prove too attractive a target should she pass overhead. And, this way, if she gets away from us and tries to seek revenge on the village, Ana and Shalelu will be there to help. But regardless of how much sense it makes? I just don’t want to walk.

It’s Lamashan, and that means the days are quickly growing shorter as the nights get longer. The sun rises (if you can call it rising) late in the morning and hangs low in the sky just above the horizon for only a couple of hours. Most of our waking time is spent in dawn and dusk light, and when the weather is sour it’s as good as dark. There is something isolating about walking across the frozen landscape in a fading sky, no matter how many people you are with.

Lamashan 22 (evening, dragon’s lair)

She’s dead. I don’t think it’s what any of us wanted, but that’s how it ended. We tried to parley. We brought her the proof that Tunuak had paid for his crime with his life. Whether or not she believed us didn’t matter, however. What he had done to her was unforgivable, and she was going to punish “all two-legs”, everywhere, in retribution. Iqaliat was almost certainly just the beginning. She would have been hunting and killing humankind for as long as she was alive and able to do it. Even when we had her bested, and she knew it, she refused to give, so deep was her anger. This. This is what he had done.

I actually stood face-to-face with her. It is a position I never want to be in ever again, but I did it. Was it foolish of me to walk into that cavern alone and call out to her? Probably. But if we were going to try to talk to her, it had to look that way, too. By appearances, I was the least threatening so I volunteered as spokesperson. I never even heard her coming, and I bore the brunt of the ice and sleet from her breath, protected from harm solely by the spells we had prepared. Fortunately, Radella was beside me in an instant. The bitter cold I could handle. Her teeth and claws would have been another matter.

Mere seconds later, most of the rest of us were on her. For a terrible moment I thought she was going to get away. We made the mistake of not holding someone back in reserve. I had images in my head of her bearing down on Iqaliat, only this time not stopping at just a few Erutaki and their goats. After what we had done to her, she would not have stopped until the village was buried in blood and ice.

I took a cue from the harriers of my youth. I went after her pride, taunting her the best I could, hoping it would be enough to turn her back at us. It was to no avail. Fortunately, Qatana was just fast enough following her up the chute and she did something—I am still not sure what—and the dragon fell, lifeless, just as she was clearing the top of the rift.

Testament to Tunuak’s sins was found in a small cavern: shattered eggs, a stone hammer, and a tribal talisman. It was, in all honesty, a clumsily staged scene, but how sophisticated did it really need to be to enrage a white dragon? That is a rhetorical question.

We’ll be taking her body back with us. In the morning, I can prepare the spell to shrink it down. I also suggested to Sparna that he make armor from her hide. This whole thing has been such a waste of life. Why compound it further by letting her body rot to no purpose?

Or maybe I am just fooling myself. Pretending to still have the ideals that I left in Avistan. I know I’ve changed since this journey began. The question is, how much?

I’ll have four days walking in the gods-be-damned snow to think about the answer.

Lamashan 23 (morning, dragon’s lair)

Skygni was actually impressed. I get the feeling that this doesn’t happen often. He kind of looked at us for a moment, then said, “You may make it across the ice after all.”

Lamashan 9, 4712 (late afternoon, Path of Aganhei in the Hoarwell March)

The silver dragon returned today. It flew in from the east directly overhead, and then spiraled down towards our caravan. This was another one of those tense moments that had me second-guessing myself: Are those scales silver or are they white? It got close—uncomfortably close—and then called out to us. “Ho! Caravan! Ice trolls ahead of you!” Several of us shouted gratitudes in some form or another in response, and it flew off.

Silver dragons are known for taking a protective role around humanity. Actually dealing with the ice trolls directly would have been better, but that is probably a bit too much to expect. It is not it’s job, and I think the species in general takes the same philosophy as parents when looking after children: it is important to learn to fight your own battles. A little nudging here and there is fine, but intervening directly makes you soft and dependent. I admit I have mixed feelings about this approach to pedotrophy, though, probably because mom’s definition of “a little nudging” differed significantly from the norm: she left the hen house open to the fox and the extent of her guidance was “figure it out”.

Sandru stopped the caravan so that we could work out a plan and the first thing we did was consult with Ulf. “Ice trolls are smaller and weaker than regular trolls, but they are adapted to the cold. And, they’re smarter.”

Of course that is a relative term. It’s not difficult to be smarter than a troll, but he didn’t mean for it to be a backhanded compliment: ice trolls really are cunning, or at least cunning enough, and have been known to create skillful ambushes. We could very easily have stumbled into one if the dragon hadn’t warned us. We needed to know what we were walking into.

I asked Nihali to scout ahead and see what she could learn. This earned me a number of stares. Every time I send her out or involve her in our activities I get questioned about her safety and my apparent disregard for it. I never know what to say to this.

Etayne treats Ling like he is made of glass, and I get it. Much of that is simply the reality of being a witch, but on top of that she has her reasons—very personal reasons—and I don’t question that. But it seems everyone has the same expectation of me, and that is just not how it is. I am sorry to disappoint you. My relationship with Nihali is no less important to me, but what I need from her is not the same as what Etayne needs from Ling.

Whatever their opinion, no one argued with the results. Nihali returned in short order with the rough location of the ice trolls’ camp, and we dealt with them.

Were they as smart as Ulf suggested? More or less. They attempted a respectable, albeit unoriginal, ruse that certainly caught our attention. Their only mistakes were assuming that we didn’t speak giant and wouldn’t recognize flanking maneuvers. In all fairness, I suspect few would pass the first test, and though the second was fairly obvious, if you were close enough to see it you were probably in trouble, anyway. Unless, of course, you were equipped and prepared as we were.

I would never say this to the others, but this skirmish nags at me. It was the first time we have gone out of our way to engage—to kill—creatures native to this part of the world. Logically, I understand that they are a menace, dangerous not just to us but to everyone who lives here, and we saw enough human bones in their camp to reinforce that point, but there’s this fine line between preemptive and aggressive. On which side did we just fall?

Lamashan 11, 4712 (evening, Path of Aganhei in the Hoarwell March)

Snow has been falling steadily since late this morning. This would be lovely if it weren’t for the winds. By mid-afternoon heavy white flakes were blowing all around us making it difficult to even see the road much less make any progress on it. Until they died back it wasn’t possible to tell if the snow we were seeing was newly falling or merely being relocated from points north.

“Died back” is not the same as “stopped entirely”, however, and drifts have started to form on the windward side of the wagons that mark the perimeter of our camp. We’re going to have to dig out in the morning before we can get moving, and that’s assuming we’ll be able to move at all.

I’m not exactly a stranger to snow or even blizzards, but such things are rare occurrences along the Lost Coast and I’ve never been in snowstorms as intense and heavy as this. Growing up we’d get at most an inch or two here and there, and maybe one big snowfall every few years. It was fun as a kid but it’s less so when you can’t just go inside to get out of it. The campfires created from the beads are helping to keep us dry, and our spells and enchanted items are keeping everyone warm, but these things do not keep the wind from whipping the canvas of our tents and the covered wagon, nor do they keep the snow out of our face and hair. The latter in particular makes guard duty particularly unpleasant. I predict a long, damp, and restless night.

Lamashan 13, 4712 (evening, Path of Aganhei in the Hoarwell March)

The storm has been our faithful companion for three days now. Only a few inches of snow seems to be falling overall, but the winds have been a constant presence whipping up to blizzard and whiteout conditions for hours at a time. Yesterday it took us much of the morning to dig out and de-ice, and I doubt we traveled more than a dozen miles afterwards.

Today, we didn’t even try to move. The drifts were several feet high, nearly burying the supply wagons, and the wind was gusting heavily. We’d get one wagon cleared, but in the time it took to do another the first would be inundated with more snow and ice. It wasn’t worth wasting our energy on a pointless activity. We have opted to wait it out until morning and see if the weather improves.

I suspect this is just a taste of what is in store for us in the coming months.

Lamashan 14, 4712 (morning, Path of Aganhei in the Hoarwell March)

The storm finally broke over night. After days of gusting winds the air around us is eerily still and silent. We are surrounded by an ocean of snow, with drifts like waves stuck in time. We are supposed to turn off of the Path of Aganhei today and head for the village of Iqaliat but I don’t know how we will be able to see the road we are currently on, much less the next.

Skygni dropped in on us as we were de-icing the wagons in preparation for leaving camp. We asked in passing what he thought of the storm. “Get used to it,” was his reply. I thought that pretty much spoke for itself, but he had more to add. “It’s not common to see this so early in the year, but we’ll get more of it as we head north.”

So that is something to look forward to.

Lamashan 17, 4712 (morning, Hoarwell March)

We can finally see it clearly in the distance: the cliffs that form the edge of the arctic plateau. The High Ice. After two months of travel we are nearly there.

Ulf says we will make Iqaliat by noon. I asked him what we should expect.

“They are mostly a nomadic people. The main caravan route bypassed their village, and they are generally suspicious of outsiders.” He paused and then said, “They have their own ways.”

I interpreted that to mean we would not exactly become close friends during our stay. Ulf concurred. “Don’t expect them to be friendly until they get to know you, and you them.” He pulled out a strange talisman that looked like it was made of remorhaz scales. “This was a gift from their hearth mistress. It’s a token of friendship between me and their tribe.” Which meant he would do most of the talking.

Why make the stop at all, given the cold (ha!) reception we are likely to receive? Because they can tell us what the conditions are like on the Ice. If we ask the same question in Unaimo—which is the last village along the main caravan route on this side—they will in all likelihood (and rather sensibly, I might add) just tell us not to go and leave it at that. Unfortunately, this is not one of our options. We need information, not a nanny, so Iqaliat it is.

(Afternoon, Iqaliat)

There are basically two decent people in this entire village: the hearthmistress, Sonavut, and the chief. Two gods-be-damned people in a village of over one hundred, and truth be told? I think the chief is just being polite. What is wrong with these people?

That’s a rhetorical question. What’s wrong with them begins with, “what is wrong with their shaman, Tunuak?” He is an old, bitter, angry man. Every misfortune is a punishment sent by the gods for some transgression; every penance requires some form of sacrifice (the barbaric variety where you kill some hapless animal and let it go to waste). All his solutions involve returning to the “old ways” and spilling blood.

The Erutaki worship elemental spirits, and if Radella and I are right they believe these spirits control the seasons and the weather. Please the spirits and you are rewarded with sunny skies and a balmy subzero day. Anger them and they park a storm over your head. Or worse.

They are currently dealing with “worse”. In the past four months, a white dragon has raided their village three times, flying nearly 60 miles one way to do it.

Their shaman tried to use us as scapegoats. We stepped out of Sonavut’s home and into a lynching. “It is as I told you,” he cried out to the crowd of villagers that had gathered around him. “We need a grand sacrifice! One of the outsiders must be killed!”

It was almost as if we weren’t welcome here.

He was whipping the villagers into a frenzy, and was not above using a little magic to improve his delivery. Well, sir, two can play at that game. I had prepared for the possibility that we would need similar help ourselves, so when Olmas stepped up to try and reason with the people and their chief, I figured there was no better time than the present. The shaman then tried to bully us with veiled threats, but Sparna would have none of that. Finally, he resorted to the time-honored tradition of outright lies, and that’s when Qatana joined the fray.

In the end it was something of a draw. “We are not going to sacrifice anyone,” the chief said, which sounded pretty good, but then she turned to us and added, “You may stay the night, but you must leave the village in the morning.” Hardly a ringing endorsement. As for the shaman? He expected his performance to end with, I don’t know, a public beheading or something. When it didn’t, he stormed off in anger.

I wanted to leave this village to rot and its wounds to fester right then, especially given the welcoming party, but two things have turned their problems into our problems.

The first came from the hearth mistress. The usual caravan route is completely blocked by what she called the morozokus. “They are terrible storms that come down from the north, from the center of the High Ice.” It’s been an unusual year. Not only is this not their normal season, but they are traveling farther and farther south, and are fiercer than ever.

If that sounds a little like she thought of them as being alive, I had the same question. “The old gods of the wind oversee the mighty storms. Our shaman has been chastising our people for not doing the normal homage to them.” More elemental spirit mumbo-jumbo. Regardless of the reason, though, the result is the same: the caravan route is blocked by the storms, and that leaves only the alternate route—the passage north that Ulf spoke of. The problem is that this northern route will take us near the dragon’s lair.

Of course, we could just take our chances on that: three attacks in four months sounds like pretty good odds for just passing through. But there’s that second thing I mentioned.

It came from Radella, who had the wisdom (and the skill) to follow our shaman friend after he left his impromptu town hall meeting. With a little help from some invisibility, courtesy of yours truly, she was able to tail him all the way to his secret lair hidden in the cliffs above the village. No, really. That is actually a thing.

Tunuak has been a busy man, and we’re pretty sure no one else in the village knows what he’s up to. We’re certain they don’t know he’s been creating or controlling undead. This little but of news was enough to grab our full attention, and even Ulf had something to add after Radella described what she saw. “They say the souls of those who die from the freezing cold come back as frost spirits.”

Qatana and I looked at each other and I could see the look of grim resolve and determination on her face. She started in Pharasma’s church before…well, before. Unlife is the very antithesis of Pharasma’s domain. Willing souls use it to cheat death and avoid her judgement. Unwilling souls are ripped from her grasp. Qatana may no longer be part of that faith, but her views on this particular matter haven’t changed. If the shaman is using this brand of necromancy then he is up to no good, and we are getting involved.

I admit I am concerned, though. They insist on doing this today…on doing it now. I don’t have the right spells for this. I am going in unprepared.

(afternoon, cliffs above Iqaliat)

He smashed the eggs. The bastard smashed her eggs.

OK, I don’t have proof of that, but something tells me those eggshell fragments are not some  grand coincidence, and he wasn’t trying to hatch a dragon of his own. And if I am right…

Gods! What if I am right? What if this is exactly what it appears to be? She’d just be defending her nest. Can we blame her? Should we be surprised if she blamed the village for this crime? They don’t all deserve to be punished for what happened, but isn’t this her nature? If we kill her, are we any better? Are we even doing the right thing?

Gods, I feel sick.

Can we do this? Should we do this?

Arodus 18, 4712 (evening, Kalsgard)

Today we confirmed that Kimandatsu killed Silverskorr. Qatana used a spell to speak with the dead, and the ogre mage’s eyes opened and stared blankly into the distance. The whole thing was a macabre puppet show. Her eyes and mouth twitched as she spoke, and we saw unnatural flashes of her tongue as she answered Qatana’s questions in a rasping, lifeless voice.

This is what our lives have become.

I sent word to Lute in case it would help. Not that it was proof he could use, but at least he could make the claim with confidence.

On the way over, I also stopped to send a letter home, and to hire a solicitor to deliver a small package to Helva. I am sure she’ll appreciate the contents. I have had enough of Kimandatsu, Snorri Stone-Eye, and the Rimerunners Guild, and right now I just want to watch it all burn. Part of me wishes we could witness the fallout from Lute’s little meeting with the Crown, but of course it would be foolish to stay here too long. It is just a matter of time before the Five Storms figure out what happened and come looking for answers. We need to disappear long before that.

The Five Storms. Who comes up with these names? That is what Ameiko, and by extension, we, are up against. Apparently the divine right to rule is taken fairly literally over there. From what we could piece together from Kimandatsu’s answers and Suishen, they were responsible for a widespread, and highly successful, assassination campaign against the five royal families of Minkai. Ameiko’s grandfather had the foresight to see what was unfolding around him, and got his family out before the oni caught up to them.

Whatever puppet government rules there now is apparently unpopular, and more importantly, suspected to be illegitimate. The return of an Amatatsu, someone with that divine right to rule, could serve as a catalyst for a genuine uprising. We just need to get her there.

We’re going to make the crossing now, at the worst possible time. The idea is, if we wait until the right season, we’ll probably not live to see it. If we leave now, on what looks like a suicide journey across the Crown in the dead of winter, and take our time doing it, it will look like we ran off in a panic and died in the attempt. The trick will be surviving our own cleverness.

Arodus 21, 4712 (evening, Kalsgard)

Ameiko joined me at the Shrine again today. She has been playing her samisen while I practice with Shiro. Which is actually kind of amazing. Dancing to her music is very inspiriting and also kind of nostalgic. It recaptures some of the feelings I had when we were growing up.

We had a long talk on the way back to the caravan.

“You know, I never thought I’d see the day when you swung a weapon. I mean, really swung one.”

“I prefer the dance. And I know. Please don’t remind me.”

She grinned at me. “Maybe I should have tried music back then.”

When the bullying turned violent—genuinely violent—Ameiko didn’t teach me to fight: she taught me to avoid fights. How to be alert for trouble; how to get away if I was cornered. It worked most of the time. When it didn’t, she was usually there with a potion lifted from her dad’s storeroom.

“I’m glad we did it the way that we did,” I said.

“Yeah. Me, too.”

We walked in silence for a bit and I could tell she had something on her mind. She gets this faraway look when she is deep in thought. I decided not to press her on it. She’d tell me, or not. You didn’t force things with Ameiko.

After a couple of blocks like this, she finally said, “When we left Riddleport, I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t know if I could do this.”

I smiled. “Tell me about it.”

“No, not the trip, Kali. The whole thing! The ‘ruler of my empire’ part. At first I didn’t even want to say the words.”

What do you say to that? There were no secrets like this in my family. No one was hiding their past from anyone. I had no idea what she was going through. Fortunately, she saved me from having to come up with some kind of a response.

“But, and this is what’s strange, as we get closer and closer to it, I actually feel like…I don’t know. Like, it’s what I am supposed to do. It’s just gradually feeling more…normal. More right.”

This actually took me aback. The first time Olmas had a conversation with her about her role and importance, I thought she was going to lose it. Like, it might actually come to blows. Even Suishen had stopped baiting her on the topic, and baiting people is all Suishen seems to do.

“This is a long way from almost punching the last person who called you ‘princess’,” I said.

She grinned at that. “Yeah. I guess I have just grown more accustomed to it. Still, it won’t be like the old days, will it?”

“That’s an understatement if ever I have heard one.”

“Do you think they’d let me sneak off for an adventure, or a night of singing in a tavern?” She gave me a wry smile, but I knew she was only half-joking. I played along, anyway.

“Oh, Gods, can you imagine? You’d put the entire country in a panic! I don’t know what would be worse, you disappearing, or them finding their empress in a common tavern.”

We had a good laugh over this, imagining the possibilities. Then the laughter stopped as abruptly as it started. I looked over to her and saw that her face had gone completely pale. She looked nauseas.

“Ameiko? Are you OK?”

“I almost ruined everything.”

“Huh? What do you mean?” Genius that I am.

“I really screwed up, Kali,” she said, in a shaky, faint voice. There as a small park up ahead and I steered us over to a bench as she spoke. “I just wanted to get out to the Jade Quarter, you know? To learn some more about…” Her voice trailed off.

She sat down on the large, wooden bench. It was probably sized right for an Ulfen, but for us it was big and uncomfortable. But it was a place to sit.

“I even disguised myself, you know? I am still pretty good at that. And I thought I had done really well and could just…blend in. Not be noticed. Like I used to do. And instead…” Her voice broke then. “I am so sorry, Kali. You all are doing this for me, and I almost wrecked everything!”

She buried her face in her hands. I put an arm around her and she leaned into me. We sat there for I don’t know how long. A few minutes, I think. I knew better than to say “it’s OK” because, well, because it wasn’t OK, and she knew it, and patronizing her wasn’t going to help. But neither would lecturing.

I finally worked up the courage to say something.

“Ameiko, when we raided Ravenscraeg, we went in there without any protection against poison. None. I mean, that very morning before we left, they put that arrow into the side of the wagon, and it was coated with the most expensive, most exotic, most deadly poison known to man. You would think we would have gotten the message.”

Ameiko looked up at me, her face red and a little puffy, and said, “This is not making me feel better, Kali.”

I ignored her and went on. “The point is, we all made mistakes. Mistakes that could have gotten us killed. Ours almost got Olmas killed. No one blames you. I don’t blame you. We all ended up in over our heads.”

She thought about this and I watched a tiny smile appear at the very corner of her lips. “That was pretty stupid of you all.”

“That’s the spirit,” I said. “Anyone who wants to give you a hard time over this needs to look in a mirror first. And, they’ll have to go through me, too.”

Her smile became a tiny snort. “Gods, Kali, I can go through you.”

“Me and Qatana, then.”

I got her to laugh, which was a good sign, I think.

Her voice was steadier now. “Let’s get back.”

Arodus 26, 4712 (night, Turvik)

We had a going away party for Etayne tonight. Is that the right word? Party? It didn’t feel like a celebration. Or rather, it did until it didn’t. I guess it just really hit me, right then and there, that she was leaving. I got up to get another drink, but instead just kept walking out the door.

Qatana found me several minutes later, sitting out front.

“Is everything OK?” she asked.

“No,” was all I could muster for an answer.

She looked at me and then, in what I can only describe as classic Qatana fashion, asked, “Does this have something to do with your hair?”

I had given it the first of what will be several growth spurts the day we left Kalsgard. I didn’t expect it to go unnoticed, of course, I just would have preferred better timing for that conversation.

“No, it’s not related to my hair. I am just growing it out. I am literally growing it out.”

This is not what I wanted to talk about, but it’s Qatana. You have to answer the question. Thoroughly.

“It’s just a spell I learned,” I added.

“Oh. So what’s wrong, then?”

“People keep leaving.”

I don’t know why it was affecting me like it did, but it was. I didn’t really expect Kelda to stay on with us, of course, but then Herlgarval announced it was time for him to move on. Then Spivey was next. And finally Etayne, who had been with us since the beginning.

“I saw some mice in the building out back. Do you want to go try and catch them?”

And, believe it or not, that actually sounded comforting. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.”

We returned to the party a while later with several in tow.

Rova 14, 4712 (noon, The Path of Aganhei in the Middle of Fucking Nowhere)

The last few weeks have been a grind. The days are all running together, and the landscape has barely changed since crossing the mountains, just like the routine. Each day we get up, break our fast, travel 5 hours, stop for lunch, travel again, and then stop for the night and for dinner. (Well, the others eat. Thanks to the ring, I only nibble here and there for the tastes.)

My day doesn’t end there. I work the next several hours enchanting one in a seemingly endless string of items for myself and the others: earrings that protect me from the elements, boots so Sparna can keep up with us, a huge extra-dimensional storage bag, beads to make campfires, even a halter for Kasimir. As I said: a grind.

The catch? I can’t really complain because we need all this stuff. You know, if we want to live. Gods, that sounds so trite. But it’s true.

I need a change in scenery. I am trying not to think of what it will be like on the ice.

Rova 20, 4712 (evening, Path of Aganhei, Rimethirst Mountains)

Skygni met up with us in the foothills of the Rimethirst Mountains. So far he seems content to simply shadow the caravan from a distance, disappearing from time to time to hunt. It’s only been a couple of days, but I have to admit I feel less trepidatious about his presence than I did back in Ravenscraeg. The few times he’s interacted with us he’s actually been polite.

What does it say when the winter wolf has better manners than the sword?

Rova 23, 4712 (night, Path of Aganhei, Urjuk)

Is this what our journey is going to be? One sad and depressing scene after another? The frost giant that attacked us wasn’t just old, he looked haggard. Worn down. One of the others, Sparna I think, inspected his axe and said it was so rusted and decrepit that it wasn’t worth repairing.

We tracked him back to the cave where had had been living with his winter wolf companions (what a tense moment that was: my fear was that Skygni was not going to take to us fighting others of his kind, but it was clearly not an issue). This was about what you would expect. Rags, bones, and not much else. He was living the dream.

Not too far from the cave entrance was a wrecked caravan wagon. Inside we found the remains of a man that, amazingly, Ulf recognized. Apparently he was another Crown guide. We asked Ulf if he would like to bury the body and he said yes, so we held a small ceremony and put him to rest.

Welcome to the Crown of the World.

Ramashan 6, 4712 (evening)

We spotted a silver dragon today. At first I was scared to death, because it was a dragon, but then once we figured out it was silver instead of white most everyone, including me, relaxed. It shadowed us for a while, doing lazy circles and loops in the sky above us.

Dragons are quite beautiful once you stop being terrified.

Ulf wants to visit a small village off the main path before hitting the ice. He has never traveled during the “off season” (as he calls it) so he wants to get some more information on the road ahead. Fair enough. We have a guide for a reason.

Arodus 17, 4712 (night, Kalsgard)

I left Irori’s church when I was fifteen. I want to to say that it was not an easy decision, or that I struggled with what to do, or even that I felt guilty about it afterwards, but in all honesty none of those are true. It was an easy decision and I knew I had done the right thing. Irori’s path was not right for me, and I probably stuck with it far longer than I should have because I felt giving up was an admission of failure.

The thing is, mom and dad never pressured me, that I remember, when it came to religion and worship, though I am sure it pleased dad to see me follow his path. When I turned eleven we traveled to Jalmeray, one of the earliest trips to see dadi and dada that I remember, and for the first time I really felt connected to my Vudrani heritage. Obviously that was only on dad’s side, but I looked Vudrani and that is what mattered to me. I stood out in Varisia, specifically in Sandpoint but in Korvosa as well, and I came home from that trip taking pride in looking and being different, and in identifying with a completely foreign culture.

It also made me a little more arrogant, a little more obnoxious, and probably a lot less tolerable. It’s embarrassing thinking about what I was like 10 years ago, but what kid isn’t awful in some way at that age? Though with all that was going on back then, this sort of thing obviously did not help. But that’s another story.

At first I found Irori’s teachings to be enlightening and inspiring (confession time: I actually still do, mostly) but ultimately I was fighting my own physical limitations. The diet, the physical and mental exercises, and the emphasis on discipline and control I could manage, but when it came to “strength of body”, at least in the literal sense, I struggled. Struggled and failed, whether I wanted to admit it or not.

Why bring this up? Because I always get asked how a Vudrani came to Shelyn. I mean, it must be pretty unusual if it keeps coming up. Either that, or people just genuinely don’t know, and all they have to go on are stereotypes about Vudrani, Irori, and the pantheon of a thousand gods.

“Do you ever get tired of having to tell that same story, over and over?” Ameiko asked.

“It’s hard to talk so openly about my flaws, especially with strangers. But it’s where I ended up that matters the most. So, I guess I don’t.”

The thing about Shelyn is, she teaches the value of appreciation. Appreciation for what is around you, for what you can create, for what others create, and for what you can build together. I feel like I am a part of something.

We came to the shrine today in part to donate to the reconstruction effort, but mostly we just wanted to have that shared, communal experience that only Shelynites can provide. They were renting a temporary space just a few doors down to serve as a place for worship and gathering. Colored silks and other fabrics draped the walls and entrance, small but dramatic floral arrangements and greenery added splashes of color and a pleasant fragrance to the air. And then there was the music and dancing.

We were there most of the day. I needed to purge Ravenscraeg and Kimandatsu out of my head. Ameiko probably did, too.

One of the handful of people that asked me the question I always get asked was a Tian man named Jukodo Shiro. Here’s the thing: he was different, and I bring this up because it has become a sort of turning point for me. Most of those who are active in Shelyn’s church, the ones who aren’t clergy? They tend to be performers or artists of some sort. But like me, Shiro didn’t fit that mold. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how. He was just different.

He apparently sensed something in me, too, because we talked for a couple of hours. The whole time, I had this feeling he was trying to take the measure of me in some fashion. It wasn’t rude, it was just…it was like he was probing for something without really coming out and asking what. Like he was testing the waters. Whatever it was? I guess he found it because out of the blue he asked, “Have you ever wielded the glaive?”

I almost opened my mouth to blow him off. I mean, are you shitting me? How did I possibly look like “glaive” material?

When I was twelve years old my dad tried to teach me how to use the khopesh and it was a disaster. It was heavy and clumsy, and I was barely strong enough to hold it much less swing it with any purpose. I would eventually start wearing one strapped to my back, but that was just for show (because it looked wicked, and in Magnimar I needed the deterrent). But actually use it? Hell, no. So, the glaive? Me? Really?

But I figured he was getting at something, and maybe it was important that I actually listen for once, and wait to hear what it was. So instead, I answered politely and honestly. “Never. I doubt I could even hold it properly.”

By this time, Ameiko was off playing her samisen, accompanying a couple of other musicians. The melody filling the space was light and playful, and the tempo upbeat; music that was perfect for dancing. So I was only a little surprised when he abruptly changed the subject again, and asked, “Do you dance?”

Mom and dad—mom, especially—were not going to raise a daughter that couldn’t dance. So, yeah. “I can. Are you asking me?”

He smiled and said, “Something like that. May I?”

I nodded and stood up with him. And, I kid you not, he picked up his glaive that was leaning against the wall behind us. And he proceeded to teach me how to swing and even twirl it in time with the music.

I am still more or less in shock. The pole alone was over a foot and a half taller than me, and yet he was swinging it gracefully in time with the music. I remembered seeing something like this before, back when we visited Andoran several years ago. Dad called it the Color Guard, but while that was mostly for show what Shiro started teaching me went beyond that. He could swing the pole and the blade around, fluidly, into what was clearly a strike. My motions with it were less polished and confident, but I was amazed at how swiftly it moved in my hands, at first under his direction, and then on my own. This was most definitely not the heavy, clunky khopesh,

“Dancing and fighting are not that far apart,” he said. “At least, not with this. The glaive is a weapon of grace and beauty in the right hands.”

Except for the part where it kills people. But of course I didn’t say that.

“You would make a good missionary for Shelyn. Her church needs more than just clergy and artists: it needs faithful from all walks of life to serve as role models. It’s something I think you should consider.”

This, too, took me by surprise. “Me? I never considered myself to be a role model for anything.”

He smiled at me. “Most role models don’t.” After a short pause, he went on. “You should look the part, though. It’s important. Come back tomorrow, around noon, and I’ll show you some more.” He tapped the pole of his glaive with his right hand. “If you are interested, of course?”

I said yes.

Arodus 16, 4712 (night, Kalsgard)

I pulled Lute aside this morning for the conversation that we’d all been somewhat dreading but knew would have to happen. The problem here was that we just didn’t know how he was going to react or what questions he would have about our involvement. We were able to more or less hide the fact that we spent much of the evening quite literally looting Kimandatsu’s treasury down below, a treasury filled with coins and bullion that had been embezzled from the Rimerunners Guild that he was still a representative of, but any reasonable person would certainly suspect that we were not being entirely forthcoming about why were here or what we were doing.

It was too late in the day to head back to Kalsgard, so we spent the night in the living quarters on the main level. The ninja’s former bunk rooms were nicely laid out, and even the others were comfortable if a little sparse. Not as inviting as home, but several steps up from the caravan and the coat closet.

The rooms all adjoined the main entry hall, and the latter was as good a place as anywhere for us to talk.

“You realize the guild is in trouble here, right?”

Luke practically laughed in my face. “Oh, the Guild is in more than just trouble. You have no idea. I’m taking this to the King.”

I nodded at this, and then asked, “And how about you? Are you going to be OK, financially, when the Guild collapses? I suppose you are technically owed a weregild, but I don’t see one coming out of this.”

“Oh, I’ll get by,” he said. “I have my own business. My finances were not completely tied up here.”

This was about what we wanted to hear. It meant Lute was not going to try and claim everything we found in Ravenscraeg as a Guild asset, or try and help them recover from this debacle. More importantly, it meant he probably didn’t care what we did so long as we were discreet about it. Discreet, we could manage.

Lute expected all the assets of the Guild to be seized by the Crown, including Ravenscraeg, just as I suspected. That seemed to satisfy Qatana. What she really wanted was to make sure the Guild got nothing out of this, ever (trying to claim the place as ours and then sell it was more of a secondary goal, I guess). In a lot of ways, leaving the copper down there worked to everyone’s advantage, as it left physical proof that Guild money was used to finance the Frozen Shadows.

Our motives for doing that were hardly altruistic, though. We counted five crates filled with copper trade bars, and the main reason we left them behind was because, logistically, it would have been a ridiculous amount of work to remove some two thousand pounds of metal that barely totaled a thousand gold in value. We could easily have spent half that just getting the damned things out of there—not to mention the time—and we’d still have to deal with the Guild marks after we were done.

“What do you need to help sell the story of what happened here?” I asked. The head of Kimandatsu was certainly shocking, but ultimately it proved nothing. We talked about this briefly, then Etayne blurted out, “What about the journals?”

I made a mental sigh right as Lute asked, “What journals?”

I was planning on turning them over, of course, but I wanted just a little more control over the narrative. But the cat was out of the bag now. “We have the Rimerunners Guild’s business ledgers and they show numerous transfers of large sums of money, all marked as ‘development expenses’ for Ravenscraeg.”

“Yes! That! That is exactly what I need!”

It turns out Lute is a pretty shrewd businessman, which I guess should come as a surprise to no one. I made it clear we weren’t going to tell the story of how we got it, and that in general we didn’t want our involvement in this to be widely known. He turned that thought on it’s ear. “Once I get back and show them what I’ve accomplished here, you won’t have to worry about that.”

And here we were concerned we might have to buy him off.

It was a brilliant idea, really. We quickly crafted a nice little story about his investigation into the Guild’s misdeeds and their ties to the Frozen Shadows. We were his anonymous agents, hired to help uncover the evidence so that he could bring them down from the inside, and he had set himself up as bait. I wish I had thought of it myself. None of us wanted or needed the glory, and Lute really did deserve to be a hero here. Despite threats and intimidation he had stood up to Silverskorr, and he did it without anyone to look out for him.

To complete the picture, and also keep him safe just in case, Radella and I escorted him to his home when we got back to Kalsgard. He had been gone for several weeks so it was quite a shock when he returned. Even more so that he was accompanied by two young, foreigner women, one of whom radiated an aura of do-not-fuck-with-us. This story will likely last him a lifetime.

The repercussions from this will apparently be huge. According to Lute, the Guild was closely tied to the Linnorm King of the Thanelands, Sveinn Blood-Eagle, and of course Silverskorr was well-connected in Kalsgard society in general. This won’t be a simple matter of just shutting down the Guild operations: it will be a scandal that is talked about for years to come. We’ll be here for at least a week as we prepare for the trip north, which means we’ll get to watch the start of it unfold.

Other changes are on the horizon for us, too.

Tonight, Etayne announced that she’ll be accompanying us as far as Turvik and then taking her leave. Apparently, she has been having troubling dreams for the past few days and is concerned about what they might be telling her. I know very little about witchcraft, and even less about interpreting dreams, but I do know Etayne: her journey with us began with dreams much like the ones she is having now, and that they are back is something to take seriously. Another change is coming for her life, one that will take her on a different path than ours.

Regardless of the reason, this was hard to hear. We’ve only been together for a few months, but it has been an intensely personal experience. I have told my friends here things about me that I never thought I would tell anyone, and the abruptness of this feels like a physical piece of me is being cut away.

And in another of life’s strange twists, though we are losing a friend we seem to be gaining a winter wolf.

I was not happy about this and I don’t know how it happened. When I left to check on Lute, the others were working on a plan to safely deal with what was behind that door—the aforementioned winter wolf—and when I came down they had gone from giving it a clear escape route and negotiating a truce to practically inviting it to come with us. They are out of their damned minds.

OK, I am lying. I know how this happened. Skygin hated Kimandatsu. And I do mean hated. She captured him and was trying to train him as a pet, apparently, because I guess she was an idiot. I mean, can you imagine? And, how humiliating would that be to be treated as just some simple animal? When he learned that we had killed her the whole tone of the conversation shifted. Then Qatana starts chatting with him as if doing that was somehow normal and the next thing I knew he was all, “It may amuse me to travel with you for a while.”

My stomach sank. Skygni is scary. A wolf the size of a damned bear, snow-white with what looks like a layer of frost around his muzzle. I get that feeling he could kill any one of us and not give it a second thought. It’s not that I don’t see the value in having him allied with us for a while—there are certainly advantages to that considering where we are headed—but he isn’t going to place the same value on life that we do. You also don’t just show up in someone’s fishing village with a giant, man-eating carnivore as part of your greeting party, particularly one of the variety that likely terrorizes them in the first place. What kind of reception are we going to get when we stop to resupply?

And besides, this meant traveling with a gruff, arrogant wisenheimer, insulting us and pointing out all the flaws, faults, and weaknesses of humanity. Doesn’t Suishen already have that job?

Helgarvel had more immediate objections. This sort of arrangement was in direct conflict with his very nature. Qatana and Olmas countered that Skygni would be unwittingly serving a higher purpose while traveling with us. And they did have a point, one which Helgarvel seemed to accept at least for the time being. But I can’t help but see this argument as a thin veneer.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll come around.

Or maybe I’m just in a mood. Here’s the thing: the last few days have been hard. We certainly have a great deal to celebrate here, and I don’t want to take away from that, but there have been all these crappy moments. Watching Shelyn’s temple reduced to rubble. Seeing Runecaster just sort of…slump over and die, alone. Weighing down bodies in the freezing darkness and then dumping them in the river, one by one. Etayne, telling us she’s leaving. Asvig choking on blood in front of his wife. Finding Ameiko’s samisen in that trunk.

This morning we ran into a pair of spider eaters as we descended the rickety stairs from the front entrance of Ravenscraeg. Lute was more than a little frightened so I took him on the express to the ground while the others dealt with them. When they finally came down I could immediately tell something was wrong. Radella and Qatana looked positively grim.

“What happened?” I asked.

For a while no one said anything, but eventually I got the story. Spider eaters, you see, lay their eggs inside of living hosts, kept paralyzed by their venom. When the eggs hatch, the young eat their way out. The two we fought had created a nest out of a fissure in the cliff face. The elf that Qatana found inside was technically still alive.

We get front row seats to all of this.

On the return trip Olmas and Ameiko had what I would consider an argument. At issue was Ameiko’s status as the heir to the kingdom of Minkai, and to our knowledge, the only surviving member of the original royal families. The Seal may have granted eight of us the divine right to inherit that position, but that is quite obviously Plan B (and I am pretty sure that none of us want that job, anyway). Coming to terms with this has not been easy—how could it be?—but also largely irrelevant.

Her literally unique position is by nature a fragile one. The commitment we made to take her to her homeland is also a commitment to get her there safely and do everything in our power to retake her kingdom from the oni that have usurped it. To accomplish the latter we must first do the former. That was the point Olmas was trying to make.

Ameiko is my friend, though, and this put me in an uncomfortable position. This all started because Ameiko had been growing restless in Sandpoint, looking for some excuse—any excuse, really—to adventure, explore, test her wits and skills, and hone them both. She still thirsts for that. And I get it. But the thing is, Olmas is right. I just couldn’t say it, because my role is to support my friend, not gang up on her.

There’s also counter point to be made, and it’s this: we can’t lock her away from the world (that’s what my grandmother wanted to do with me, and thank the gods mom and dad had more sense than that). As a corollary, we can’t permit her to grow soft, either. Everything she and I have learned about Minkai suggests there is growing unrest among the people there, and the regent that currently occupies the throne is deeply unpopular. Given what we know now about the Five Storms, that illegitimate government is a puppet of their making. When Ameiko gets there, she will have to be equal parts princess, leader, and warrior to take her rightful position as ruler. And I think that is the point she was trying to make, just not in those words.

In the end, they agreed that she would not take needless risks with her life. I think that’s fair.

I actually don’t envy Olmas’s position here, as he has to both answer to Suishen (who is acerbic at the best of times) and take all manner of shit from Ameiko. She can be merciless.

To: Mme Helva Longthews,
Kalsgard, Thanelands

Madame Helva,

I apologize for resorting to an advocate as an intermediary instead of personally delivering this package to you, but though we have never met I still feel I am bound by a promise that was made to you and I intend to keep it.

I know that this has been a difficult time. At the risk of salting fresh wounds, I felt it important for you to learn the full history of the events that led to your husband’s death. You may not find much solace in this, but you will at least find some answers both to questions you have, and to questions you didn’t know to ask.

There are two parts to this story. The first, you may think you know because it begins with your ring-giver, Snorri Stone-Eye.

Snorri was, of course, a rather famous Ulfen warrior, widely renowned and feared for his successful raids on the soft lands to the south. Of course, mounting such raids is, itself, an expensive undertaking as one must pay for provisions, equipment, men, and the time to train the latter with the former, with no guarantees of the returns. In his early years, Snorri’s prowess as a warrior with strong leadership skills and a keen eye for strategy was enough to convince investors to provide him with financial backing, and one of the earliest of these was an up-and-coming trade group named the Rimerunners Guild.

For years, the Rimerunners Guild financed Snorri’s increasingly successful raids, lining both their coffers and his, and allowing the Guild to expand their operations in the Thanelands and eventually beyond the Kingdoms across the Crown of the World into Tian Xia. As Snorri’s fame and fortune grew, so did his ambition for even more spectacular raids and more exotic returns. Unfortunately for Snorri, this constant drive to top his earlier successes took a heavy tool on both his body and his mind.

I know that this may be difficult to hear. Or maybe it’s not, and you had suspected this all along but did not say anything publicly out of respect for your lord. I don’t know. But this toll on Snorri Stone-Eye was punishing. He traveled to the farthest reaches of the Steaming Sea, into some of the most extreme and exotic locations in this part of the world, and the stresses of these endeavors proved too great even for him. I don’t expect you to take my word on this, which is in part why I have enclosed his personal diaries (the other part is because his immediately family hid his condition from the world, and sending these diaries to them would serve no purpose other than to suppress truths that you have earned the right to know). My intent is not to disparage Snorri’s reputation, but rather place the evidence of this in your care.

Snorri Stone-Eye believed that his false eye gave him the power to see across time, both into the past and the future. As he grew older, so did his obsession with his mystic, prophetic powers. He had visions of the end times, and in his diary he wrote this: “In the winter of the world, the gods will come down to fight, and the rough beast will be released”. Fearing that all civilization would be destroyed, he made increasingly desperate voyages to remote and dangerous corners of the Steaming Sea, searching for artifacts that would help him survive the fall and the period of desolation that would follow. His final voyage ended in an illness so foul that it would corrupt his soul.

You probably noticed Snorri’s decline in health over the last year. This disease was supernatural in origin. Afflicted with some unusual form of zombie rot, Snorri Stone-Eye died a slow death, gradually wasting away until he rose as a draugr: the walking corpse of a seafarer doomed forever to unlife.

You may find this difficult to believe, and once again I do not expect you to take me at my word. I will offer proof, or at least evidence that you can follow up on, to confirm my claims.

His immediate family and servants hid this condition from the public for obvious reasons, not the least of which was that it would taint the image of the legendary man who had earned the nickname The Mad Reaver. They went to great lengths to ensure his secret would not be discovered, even at his wake. His funeral ship, a longboat of otherwise unremarkable design, was modified to create a deck above the rowing positions and the draugr that was formerly Snorri Stone-Eye was chained inside the makeshift hold. To complete the illusion, a manikin was covered with a shroud and placed on the deck next to the funeral pyre. This would accomplish the task of destroying the undead abomination he had become while still maintaining the illusion of an ordinary funeral. The boat itself was heavily guarded not just to protect the grave goods from ambitious thieves, but also to protect his secret from public exposure. I am sure if you ask the right questions at the docks, you will find dock hands that could hear the faint sounds of dragging and rattling chains coming from the hull of his boat.

As I said earlier, there is a second part to this story. This part begins in Tian Xia, and the repercussions of it will soon be made very public. I can’t predict the accuracy and completeness of what will be said and what you will hear, so I will tell you what I know to be the truth.

Some years ago, a young Tian woman by the name of Kimandatsu came over the Crown of the World and into Kalsgard. She found her way to the Jade Quarter, and eventually into the auspices of the Rimerunners Guild. Over the years, Kimandatsu would grow to become a trusted friend and adviser of Ms. Thorborg Silverskorr. As Silverskorr’s influence in the Guild grew, Kimandatsu’s grew with it and when Silverskorr was eventually elected as chairman of the board, leading the operations of the Guild, Kimandatsu sat at her side.

On a fateful trading voyage at sea roughly one year ago, Silverskorr’s ship ran into severe storms and Kimandatsu was lost. Silverskorr was, of course, devastated by the death of her friend, and it forever changed her as a person, and as a leader of the Guild.

That is the story you have heard. This is the real story.

Kimandatsu was not human. She was, in fact, an ogre mage, one with deep maroon skin. Her reasons for coming to Kalsgard were to establish an organization of assassins backed by magic in order to increase her power and influence in the Thanelands and beyond.

As an ogre mage, Kimandatsu also had the power to alter her form. It was not Kimandatsu that perished at sea, but rather Thorborg Silverskorr. It is believed, though not proven, that Kimandatsu murdered the real Silverskorr and used the storms as a convenient cover for her action. She then assumed Silverskorr’s identity and returned to Kalsgard to take control of the Rimerunners Guild, and used it as a front for her underground operations.

It is here that Snorri Stone-Eye’s, Kimandatsu’s, and Asvig’s lives converge.

With his health failing, Silverskorr was now in need of a capable henchman, troubleshooter, and lieutenant. Snorri Stone-Eye’s most trusted subject was your late husband. When Silverskorr needed work done that neither she, nor the Guild by association, should be directly involved in, she turned to Asvig.

Unfortunately for your husband, Silverskorr made a demand of her trusted followers. In exchange for the rewards in both money and influence they would receive in her service, she used her magic to place each of them under a unique form of geas, a spell that bound willing subjects to certain actions and extracted a price in blood should its terms be broken. I would be remiss if I did not emphasize that Asvig agreed to this condition.

While the specifics of Asvig’s terms with Silverskorr may never be known, the penalty of the geas was triggered on the night of Arodus 11th, 4712, and it cost him his life.

Again, I do not expect you to take me at my word. As I said earlier, this information on Kimandatsu and the Rimerunners Guild will soon become public (if it has not already). I cannot offer proof of everything that I have written here, but you will be able to confirm much of this with the right investigations. Whether or not you choose to do so is, of course, up to you.

Shelyn teaches us that love is the greatest of all things. Nothing can ever replace your loss. But the coming months will offer a number of opportunities for a woman of your stature, particularly one that has the advantage of being armed with the truth. I can’t say that you and I would ever see eye to eye on certain matters, or that we would have ever called one another friends even before your husband was taken from you. I can say, however, that you have suffered because of a force outside your control, one whose sole purpose in life was to rain misery and hate on others, including those who supported and helped her. You have been taken advantage of and wronged.

No weregild has been offered as compensation for your husband’s death at Kimandatsu’s hand, and in accordance with your customs you are entitled to blood vengeance. Interested parties have saved you the trouble. Enclosed is a piece of her remains.

I will hang a prism for you and your husband on Crystalhue. May your heart, eyes, and mind be filled with the beauty of the world.

 

Respectfully yours,
K.

Tindertwigs. Chain shirt. Sword. Furs. Snow shoes. We knew, we knew, these were Ulf’s things and we knew he was here. We picked through the trunk some more, just to be sure. Axes. Climber’s kit. Check. Check check check. And then. Gods, and then. Leather armor. Rapier. Samisen. I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. Hollowed out inside. Ameiko. I thought I was going to be sick right there.

I’ve felt real panic before. Dread. Fear. I mean, I thought I had. I grew up in Sandpoint after all. When I was eighteen we were trapped in our home when giants raided the town. We had heard the rumors for days, and were preparing that morning to leave but we weren’t fast enough getting out. And, BOOM. From the north gate, just a stone’s throw from our house, they were there. We weren’t ready. We hunkered down in the center of the house for what felt like hours, mom and dad lying to each other and to me that everything would be OK.

It’s one thing to feel fear and panic because your life is in danger, because you don’t have control over events around you. It’s another to know that you had basically one job, one gods-damned job, and you blew it. We hadn’t kept Ameiko safe. I hadn’t kept her safe.

My head spun. What had we done wrong? A thousand things. We left her with very little protection. She didn’t have Radella’s ring. The caravan was no secret. We’d been spied on for days. They probably knew what she looked like. The list goes on. What hadn’t we done wrong?

Of course she would go out on her own. We should have known. She just wanted more information about what lay ahead. About what should be her kingdom. And she’d been cooped up since we got here. Wouldn’t I have done the same? Hadn’t we both done this countless times when we were kids? At the very least we should have left her the ring. Stupid. Stupid! But maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. I don’t know.

Is this what mom and dad felt? Every time I came home with a bruise on my face, or a tear in my clothes? That they had failed me somehow?

They grabbed her they day we left. The very morning. She must have been brought here in the middle of the night while we were holed up in the cloak room. We had no idea. (Yet another failing. Why hadn’t we purchased a few scrolls so we could stay in touch with the caravan?) It explained how reinforcements had gotten here so quickly: they were already on the way, just a few hours behind us. They just didn’t realize that’s what they were when they left.

We got lucky. Ameiko wasn’t here long enough for Kimandatsu to do anything more with her than just throw her in a cell, more or less. I imagine just having the heir was not enough. Kimandatsu probably needed the Seal, too, as well as the scions. Us.

Well, she got us, just not in the way she was expecting. And now Kimandatsu is dead, and Ameiko is safe, and the Frozen Shadows are finished.

To get to Kimandatsu we had to push our way through Runecaster. He resisted. Violently. He put up quite the fight, too, despite being outnumbered. With some well-placed spells and quick thinking he was able to spread us out, taking us on just a couple at a time, but in the end it only delayed the inevitable. We caught up to him before he could get help, and that was that.

Runecaster was an odd creature, a half-troll of some sort. I’ve seen a number of breeds over the years, but nothing like him. The troll half was obvious, but the other? Not so much. I can’t help but feel saddened by how this turned out. I mean, the circumstances of his birth were probably not great (how could they be?) and I doubt he was a popular figure here or anywhere just by the nature of what he was. His life was probably difficult. The Frozen Shadows was likely one of only a handful of options for him, all of them bad. How much of this life had he chosen for himself? How much had been chosen for him, just by limiting what he could choose? Did that leave this place as the best of his options?

Kimandatsu I have less sympathy for. And by less I mean none. As Lute had claimed, Silverskorr was indeed the purple ogre–her skin was a dark maroon and two large tusks stuck up from her jaw–and as we had suspected she was an ogre mage and oni from Minkai who had come to Kalsgard for reasons unknown (almost certainly in pursuit of Ameiko’s grandfather), worked her way into the inner spheres of the Rimerunners Guild, and taken Silverskorr’s identity. We don’t have proof that she murdered the real Silverskorr at sea, but what other conclusions are there to draw?

She was surrounded by over a half dozen of her Tian ninjas, having some absurd social gathering, and we cut through them like paper. Kimandatsu, herself, was the bigger challenge, first figuratively and then literally as she reverted to her true form, but Olmas had Suishen and I had my spells and enough of the others were able to hound her until she fell. She tried to hide using invisibility, but Suishen granted Olmas the power to see, and of course we had spent far too much time around these Frozen Shadows vaunters to not have learned that they only have two tricks. I had purposely prepared the same spell multiple times, and unleashed bursts of glittering dust into the room, coating her form each time Olmas called out her position. I exhausted all of my spells, bringing in a giant bat, and even drawing upon my own élan vital to manipulate a scroll to a more advanced summons, just as I had done at Brinewall. This last part was, I suppose, overkill but I felt like being thorough.

Ulf and Ameiko were held captive in a stinking cell filled with stagnant water, guarded in a manner of speaking by giant frogs with glowing eyes that nearly blinded us just as they had blinded their charges. Ulf looked particularly bad having been here for several days. We’ve given them healing and food, but only time will restore their vision.

While we wait, we’ve been discussing the future: both ours, and the Rimerunners Guild’s. The latter will almost certainly cease to exist. Once Lute returns and tells his story, backed by the physical evidence we will take from this place, they will either collapse on their own, or be crushed by the Crown. What little legitimate business they had will be overshadowed by the organization of assassins they had been unwittingly fronting (and I suspect the “unwitting” part will earn them very little sympathy).

As for our part, we are taking the money. That vote was almost unanimous, and though there were some objections raised about the money belonging to the Guild, it will almost certainly be seized if we don’t seize it first. When the objections continued, Suishen actually spoke up.

“You humans are terrible at managing your finances. I languished in a collector’s hoard instead of defending my family for decades because some idiot didn’t have enough money with him! I say get enough money to accomplish your mission this time.”

This did put an end to the brewing argument, I’ll grant it that. But. Fuck you, too. I manage my finances just fine, thank-you-very-much.

More problematic is the matter of  Ravenscraeg itself. Qatana insists on selling it as if it were our property just because we are standing in it. There was a legal sale, title transfer, and so on, making it formally property of the Rimerunners Guild. There is no skirting this. If the Crown does step in, which I am sure they will, there will be no finders-keepers rule. I’ve tried to explain that multiple times but she won’t hear it.

I eventually just dropped the subject. The realities of what we can and cannot do will become clear in due course.

(Ravenscraeg, noon)

Hard day, indeed. My hearing is returning, albeit very slowly. Everything is muffled and it feels like my ears have been filled with cotton. I can barely hear the others’ voices through it, and even when I do I can’t recognize who is speaking unless I am looking directly at them. Still, this is an improvement from half an hour ago when I couldn’t hear anything at all.

We learned about these stupid thunderstones during my studies but of course I never gave them much thought. The idea of exploring the remote corners of the world as part of some grand gest, facing off against man and monster, alike, seemed so ridiculous back when I thought the worst I would contend with in life would be the vagrants and vagabonds of the city, and yet here we are. Eudonius had said that arcane power is as much practice and experience as it is study, and that those who break from the solitude of the library, and the security and stability of civilization, will find themselves rewarded with power that flows faster and freer than they could imagine. He was certainly not wrong about that. But he was also quick to point out that the price of this path could be severe; that “countless numbers have paid it with their bodies, their lives, or their souls” and he does not appear to be wrong about that, either. I am making good progress on the first.

The others are not wasting the time it is taking for Etayne and I to recover. The pile of items to be analyzed and identified continues to grow as they search the numerous living quarters attached to the dojo. Between what they are turning up now and what we have found since last night, she and I will be busy for some time. I have taken a cue from their efficiency and given Lute parchment and quill, and he is busy scribbling down some history of the Rimerunners Guild. This isn’t strictly necessary but the distraction and focus seems to be calming his nerves. He said he wanted to stay with us, but it’s obvious we can’t keep him completely out of harm’s way, formidable though we are. As soon as I can engage in conversation again, I’m going to suggest that we use the eggs to hide him somewhere secluded until we are finished here.

I’m also going to suggest that we distribute the remaining stones among us, and turn them against our adversaries. As we weaken them, we strengthen ourselves. Why shouldn’t we put our gains to use?

When we are out of this place I think I am going to learn to speak some Giant. Not that Sparna didn’t do well bluffing our way past the trolls with some prompting (I thought suggesting he ask “Do you need more coal?” was a delightful touch), it’s just that I hate almost being able to do something. As much as I complain about mom’s insistence that I learn Thassilonian, it is either an ancestor to or component of Giant, Varisian, and Shoanti. Speak it and any one of its descendants and you can more or less follow what someone is saying in the others, though of course there are gaps. It’s those gaps that are frustrating, and they are the largest with Giant. That, and it just keeps coming up. As we head north towards the mountains, I suspect it will continue to come up, and perhaps at a faster pace.

It’s a shame the bluff didn’t hold. Well, I suppose it did hold, it was just spoiled when the monks in here called out for help. When the first troll burst into the room—literally bursting in by destroying the door—I thought we might be in trouble, but I was able to use a water orb to keep the others from following suit. Only fighting one at a time was still dangerous, but it was more of a battle of attrition than anything else and we had more resources at our disposal. I also learned that my little acid darts stops them from regenerating, which meant that I could contribute more directly to the effort.

I am not sure what to make of the Tian woman. She apparently stayed in her quarters, despite the loud and obvious skirmish happening on the other side of her door. If she had joined in we would have had a far more difficult time, but instead she bode her time, waiting for an opportunity to escape. It was obviously a miscalculation, but more importantly I think it is a sign of these peoples’ true loyalties, which are first and foremost to themselves. I am hardly surprised.

(Ravenscraeg, mid-afternoon)

We have found Suishen! And the raven with the red feathers is dead! For the first time I feel as though we have regained the upper hand here, and I am growing more optimistic that we will finish this before nightfall. We are closing in.

Lute is hidden away with a small stash of eggshells and a potion to render him invisible. When the former are expended, he will use the latter to escape out the front door. It is risky, but on the other hand there is no one left here to challenge him. That we know of.  I am not entirely comfortable with the situation, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances. But if our momentum holds, it won’t come to that.

His history of the Guild has been invaluable and it has fueled the speculation about Silverskorr. Though he was elected to the board fairly recently, he had known or at least been familiar with her for as long as she has been the head of the guild. About a year ago, she and one of her close friends and advisers, a Tian woman by the name of Kimandatsu, were on a trading voyage somewhere to the south. Their ship ran into a series of powerful storms and Kimandatsu perished at sea. Silverskorr was very shaken up by the experience, and after a long period of mourning she slowly became, in Lute’s words, more focused and driven. He describes her as a formidable opponent.

This is too many coincidences for me. On its own this story sounds perfectly reasonable, but when added to purple ogres or ogre magi, shape-shifting oni, Tian strangers, and everything else that has happened to us, we can make a good case that it was not Kimandatsu that died on that voyage, but rather the real Silverskorr. There is no way to prove this (not yet, anyway), but what other explanation makes sense?

You would think that we would have learned by now not to walk into the same ambush twice, but that is exactly what we did. This time, as we emerged from the cloak room we noticed a large number of ravens and crows gathering among the rafters in the main hall. I felt my hair standing up along the back of my neck and before we could react we were struck by a brilliant arc of electricity. Olmas spotted the bloodfeather raven among the flock and called it out. Ivan pulled out the slaying arrow we had found in the armory here, the one keyed to magical beasts, and nocked it while asking me, “Is that it?”

“Yes,” I replied. And he let it fly. Seconds later, the raven was lying dead on the floor below. The ravens and crows scattered through the smoke holes in the roof. And that was that.

It seemed so anticlimactic. After all that creature had done to us, after all the grief and misery it had caused, it died before the fight had even begun. Don’t get me wrong: I am not complaining. If anything, I see that arrow as a gift that was given to us to use. To use here. We’ll never know what circumstances brought it into the armory, but this sort of luck goes beyond coincidence. Desna’s hand, perhaps?

What especially caught my attention afterwards was that the raven was still a raven even after it had died. My (albeit limited) understanding of shape-shifting spells and abilities is that they expire when you do. Our prevailing theory had been that the raven was really a druid in animal form, but now we had proof, more or less, that this was not the case. I was troubled, enough that Nihali could feel it and she came to me in the hall.

“What do you make of this bird?” I asked her after she settled on my shoulder.

She looked it over and replied, “There is something not right about it. It’s a raven, but it’s wrong.”

“‘Wrong’ how? Other than its size?”

“It just feels inherently wrong.”

I don’t know what this means. Yet another mystery we’ll probably never solve.

Back when Uksahkka was kidnapped, Helgarval had floated the theory that the raven was Runecaster’s familiar. I am not convinced of it, though. Wouldn’t Nihali have been able to tell? I think so, but I don’t know for sure.

I am more confident in my belief that Runecaster is a sorcerer and not a wizard, and I mean that in the literal sense (to the common person, the terms are colloquial and interchangeable). We found his living quarters, and neither they nor his research lab said “wizard” to me. There are just certain items you need when you have to research and memorize spells, and such things were conspicuous in their absence: no spell books, no research tomes, no library at all in fact. It just had that feel of someone who has an innate connection to magic, and is working out spells through trial and error.

And this brings me back to the “raven is his familiar” theory: most sorcerers do not have familiars. It’s not unheard of but it’s rare, and those that do usually come from families with a legacy of traditional, arcane magic. It’s not impossible that Runecaster had a giant, innately wrong raven as a familiar, but it just doesn’t seem likely.

What Runecaster does have is hands. Giant, disembodied hands. As pets, or something. Gods, these people. They were apparently hiding under his bed, and scampered out to attack when the first of us entered the room. The smell was disgusting and it made several people ill. At one point someone said “blunt weapons only” so I brought in a small earth elemental to help. Blunt is more or less their whole thing.

When the skirmish was over I used the elemental to settle a disagreement I had with Qatana earlier. I wanted to return to the water room, but she insisted on looking for a back way in. In the end I relented. In part it was because her reasoning made more sense even if it meant putting an unopened door at our backs, but I also didn’t want to cause a problem. I feel like the others sometimes get irritated with me. When even Qatana is getting frustrated maybe that says I need to do a better job of picking my battles.

In the end, the elemental reported there was only one way in and that was the one we already knew. Behind that door was a narrow well, and lodged deep down in that well was an item that radiated powerful, powerful magic: Suishen. Silverskorr had apparently found herself at a loss for what to do with a sword she could neither use nor destroy, and settled on “toss it in a hole and hope no one finds it” as the answer. Her impatience may end up being a costly error.

As soon as it had cleared the top of the well, carried up by the force summoned by my spell, a booming voice echoed in our heads: “I SENSE AMATATSU SCIONS AT LAST.”

Just as our visions had implied, Suishen is an intelligent sword. Ecstatic to learn that an Amatatsu still lives, it announced that it considers us Ameiko’s protectors and will allow us to wield it (I remember Fynn saying that the sword “never felt right” to him, and according to the others Helva had said something similar). Assuming Ameiko doesn’t wish to carry it herself, Olmas has stepped forward.

One more thing. We asked who threw it down in the well. The answer? “The oni.”

I just had to know. “A purple ogre?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Too many coincidences.