And though the priests were able to preserve the bodies through magic, they could not undo those dreadful wounds, for the dead cannot be healed. So on the day of Ramuh's return, the Sisters remained as lovely as they had been when they died, save for the injuries that had done them in, and Ramuh raged in his grief.
"How is it my daughters lie here slain, and yet you live?" he demanded of the priests and their guards.
The people quaked, for they had never seen their lord driven to such anger. Only one acolyte, too young to know fear, stepped forward to answer him, saying, "It was only through their sacrifice that any survived this destruction."
"A pox upon you all, for I would not have traded their lives for yours. Did none stand with them as they defended these walls? Did none even witness it?"
"They forbid it," the acolyte said. "They and Hildagarde together, and we could not gainsay the abbess. But take heart, my lord, for the abbess still lives. She has taken your sacred flame and fled the beast which killed her sisters."
"And she, too, is lost to me as if she were dead. For the souls of her sisters have veiled her from my sight as surely as from the sight of that beast which hunts her still. I will search for her, though I fear I could search a thousand years and never find her."
"A thousand years would be too long, my lord," said the acolyte, "for Hildagarde is mortal."
Ramuh said, "I know it well, and still I must search."
"My lord," the priests begged. "Pray, do not abandon us again so soon. Your temple is in shambles. You are needed here."
But at this, Ramuh's rage broke, and the thunder god began to weep. "Needed? Where were you when my daughters needed you? Had you banded together to help them, perhaps they would still be alive. No, I will not help those who cannot help themselves. I will seek my youngest child, and whether I find her or no, I will not return here, not until mortals prove worthy of the company of gods once again."
And though his lightning can still be seen in the spring and summer storms, Ramuh has not appeared among mortals from that day to this.
From "A Spell to Cure the Dead", The Ars Paladia, as translated by Melanie the Wise, Queen Consort of King Titus VI of House Plein.
Back at the Randells', they'd put Jack to bed. Despite his protests that he was fine, Kane noticed that Jack fell asleep within minutes of being horizontal. That angered Kane - or, well, further angered him - so he went outside and moved rocks.
He took the stones he had broken up for Miss Dahlia in the days before Jack's interview had begun, before his own interview, and arranged them as he thought Dahlia had said she wanted them. She wasn't there to direct him, having remained at the chamber with her husband, but Kane needed something to do.
Sitting on the garden wall, smoking his pipe, Kane's father watched him curiously. "Is that actually helping?"
"Yes," Kane said, dropping another stone with a grunt. "Hard to stay angry when I'm lifting heavy things."
"But you're still angry with me," Redden said. It wasn't a question.
"Gods, yes!" Kane said, choosing his next stone. "You and Orin both! You were in the room! How could you let it go on like that?" He paused as he got a good grip on the rock, as he lifted it.
Redden shrugged. "Jack can make his own choices."
"His choices are stupid!"
"But they're his, son. I won't take that away from him. If you want to argue about it, take it up with Jack."
"I would, if he wasn't unconscious!" Kane growled, throwing the rock into place with the others. He growled again as it landed wrong and he had to move it where he wanted it. "Stupid idiot," he muttered, unsure whether he meant Jack or himself. Now that it was over, he wondered why he hadn't put a stop to it sooner. I didn't know what they were doing to him, he told himself, while another deeper part of him wondered, how could I not know?
"Would it help if I told you Jack's skill with the other orbs has grown considerably?" Redden asked.
"No," Kane said, but then really thought about it. "Maybe. No. Gods, I don't know! He was bleeding! There was blood everywhere!"
"Mages get nosebleeds, son. It's a normal side effect. They look far worse than they really are."
"But he hasn't gotten them before!" Kane shouted.
"I'm sure he has," Redden said, his voice infuriatingly calm. "Even I've had them. They're common."
"Multiple times?" Kane challenged. "In a single day? Is that common?"
"No," Redden sighed. "But, again, I would remind you that that was Jack's choice."
Kane spat a curse under his breath and scouted out his next rock. Neither he nor his father spoke for several minutes. They were still not speaking when the house's back door opened and master Randell joined them outside. One of the other sages came with him, a stern-faced woman with dark hair cropped close to her scalp. Kane recalled that her name was Fiona.
"Kane," Randell said. "My colleague would like to speak with you."
"Well, I don't particularly want to speak with her. Did you see the condition Jack was in after 'speaking' with you and your colleagues?" Kane said, hefting another stone, dropping it into place. When he turned for another, Fiona had moved in right behind him.
The woman shook her head. "That was political. There are hierarchies here you don't understand."
"You're right. I don't understand. But I don't have to stand for it." He stepped around her, heading toward the rock pile.
"It was poorly handled! I'll admit that," the woman said, grabbing his arm. "But surely you don't think we would have let it go on for no reason! The things we've learned - about the orbs, their power! - could be the key to-"
Kane shook her off. "I don't care one bright fig about your reasons. You think reasons make it better? The Brotherhood has reasons for what they do. The necromancer had reasons. You're all of you no better than them." He picked up another rock and, with a grunt of effort, threw it toward its destination. It clipped the one he'd just placed there, and Kane was surprised when both stones broke into a cluster of fist-sized chunks. He stared at the mess, confused by his own strength.
"Please," said Fiona, seeming nervous despite her stern appearance. "I understand your anger, but we're not all of us against you. I think I can help you understand these powers, if you'll give me a chance."
"You're the expert on curses, aren't you?" Kane's father asked.
Fiona nodded. "Yes."
"Curses?" Kane said. "Are we cursed? Is that what this is?"
"I don't think so. But I can't be sure. There are similarities - Look, it's hard to explain to a layman, but if I could have more time with the orbs-"
"With Jack, you mean?"
Fiona looked sheepish. "Well, of course. I'd have to see them in use, and he's the only one who can make them work!"
"Not going to happen," Kane said.
"It doesn't have to be the fire orb! One of the others, the ones he can manage! If we could just untangle the focus spells-"
Kane threw his hands up. "You didn't even believe the orbs had any focus spells a week ago!"
"Yes, but they're aetherite!" Fiona said as if that explained everything.
"And?" Kane said.
"Aetherite is magic in solid form, son," Redden explained. "Trying to see a spell in it would be like trying to see a white cat in a fog. It's incredibly rare stone, and focus objects made from it are rarer. I think I've only ever heard of three in all my years of study, and one of those was Asura's crown."
"Your father's right," Randell said. "This village used to specialize in the creation of focus objects. Even now, you won't find mages anywhere who know more about focus spells than we do. But there isn't a mage among us who has seen an aetherite focus before. The data we've gained only in these past few days will take us years to analyze and understand."
"We don't have years!" Kane snapped. "Don't you get it? That prophecy is happening now. The world needs us now. Gods!" He rubbed his fist into his chest, knuckles digging painfully into his breast bone. "I can feel it. Right here. How can you not?"
"We're trying," Fiona said, hands clasped before her in supplication. "If you would just give us more time-"
"You've taken up all the time I care to give you!" Kane said, stepping around her toward the house, but he hadn't taken two steps before Randell grabbed his arm. Kane stopped, ready to argue more, but something in Randell's face, a trace of desperation, brought him up short.
"There is something you can do," Randell said. "Something that could help our research progress faster. If we had more aetherite… Well, we might know where you could find some."
"Oh, you might know," Kane scoffed. "Really? Some rare magical gemstone is just lying around somewhere and your lot haven't picked it up yet? What's the catch?"
Randell shrugged, seeming embarrassed. "The territory between here and there is wilderness. I don't know how dangerous the trip would be."
"I'm listening," Kane said.
It was only later, when Jack was resting and Lena had had a good cry about it all, that Thad realized he hadn't seen Sarda at the temple with Lena and Kane. He'd been too distracted. He hurried back to the town square, but the old man's aether trail had gone wispy and vague by then. Thad followed it as best he could, but he lost it in the forest south of the lake. He stood out in the trees yelling Sarda's name for more than an hour but it was growing dark by then. Thad had no choice but to follow his own aether trail back to town before that too faded and left him just as lost as the old man.
Lena grew frantic when he told her. She'd waited at Jack's bedside monitoring his unusually deep sleep, but nonetheless she seemed ready to run out into the woods and search for Sarda herself. Only Redden's calm demeanor held her back. "He's done this before," Redden said. "He's likely following some vision in the aether. When he gets hungry, he'll find his way back, mark my words."
"Yeah," Thad agreed, for he had seen that very thing himself only a few days before. "He can't focus on the past when he's hungry in the present. He'll turn up!" Lena seemed mollified, but Thad had to admit he was still a bit worried.
He went back to Lukahn's to sleep, but he went alone. Lena stayed with the Randells now. Though she said she could find nothing wrong with Jack, he still hadn't stirred. Thad worried about him too, but there was nothing he could do about it and he didn't fancy sleeping on the Randells' floor. He walked through the dark mostly unafraid, keeping to the well-worn path, keeping his aether sight up.
He was near the house when he noticed Sarda's aura. There was no mistaking it - Thad had yet to meet another person whose aura was such an odd shade of brown, sometimes orange, sometimes green, a riot of muddied colors. Relieved, he snuck inside and crept past Lukahn asleep in his chair by the hearth, thinking all the while of what he would say to Sarda when he found him, but there was no sign of Sarda upstairs.
He fell asleep in the soft bed in Iris's room, too tired to search more.
Lena woke in the chair by the bed, Kane's hand on her shoulder shaking her gently. He held a steaming bowl in his other hand. "Hey," he said, smiling. "It's a cold morning. Ms. Dahlia made porridge."
Lena rubbed her eyes, and though she took the bowl her attention was focused on Jack.
"He's still there," Kane said, chuckling. "You haven't lost him yet."
"Well, that's one of them at least," she said, spooning herself a mouthful of the cooked oats. They tasted of cinnamon and the sticky drizzle of honey on top. Lena savored that first bite, letting it warm her from the belly out. "Has Thadius come back?"
Kane shook his head. "Not yet. There's no news on Sarda."
Lena groaned, rubbing her eyes again. "I can't believe we lost him like that! How could we be so careless?"
Kane shrugged. "When we thought we were saving Jack from imminent death? I don't know. There's no excuse for it, really."
She cut him a glare.
He held his hands up in surrender. "Sorry. I know you're not in the mood for sarcasm. But the Randells say Sarda's unlikely to find any mischief around here. No savage beasts in the forests or anything. And father doesn't seem to be worried, so I'm trying not to be. Now, why don't you tell me I don't need to be worried about him." He waved a hand in Jack's direction.
"As you said, he's still there." Lena shrugged, eating her oatmeal, but she viewed Jack through her soul sight just the same. "No lasting damage," she said. "He's just exhausted. Physically, spiritually. I think this is merely a consequence of pushing himself too hard for too long."
Kane nodded. "Well, keep an eye on him all the same. I plan to have words with him when he wakes up. Can't have him wandering off."
"He's not going anywhere," Lena said firmly. She was planning a few words of her own.
"Good," Kane said. "I'm going with father to the library. Can I get you anything before I go?"
"No," she said. "I'm fine here."
Kane nodded again, leaning down to kiss the top of her head before he left. "I'll be back by midday," he said. "Take care."
When he'd gone, she finished her breakfast then sought around in Jack's things for something to read. She'd left the Ars Paladia at the temple in the square, though she was less worried about losing that than about losing Sarda. She found the satchel that contained Astos's book and she flipped through that, but not for long. The illustrations were intriguing, but the high Leifenish was incomprehensible to her, as were the spell diagrams. She looked at some of the loose notes tucked between the pages and was surprised to realize they were in Redden's handwriting, not Jack's. These weren't Jack's things, she realized, closing the book and putting the satchel back where she'd found it. She wondered when Redden had started studying that old book.
Eventually, she found a well-worn old book of white magic stories on a shelf - Heroic Tales of the Paladins of Olde - and settled back into her chair to read it. She considered reading it out loud to Jack while he slept, but quickly dismissed the idea. These stories were far too melodramatic to take seriously. Lena couldn't get through a single page without giggling. Oh, Thad would love these, she thought, for they seemed to be written for someone exactly his age. She was further amused to realize the book must have belonged to Wrede Randell - this was his old room, after all - and she couldn't stop smiling at the thought of the young man he must have been, turning from his black magic studies to take up white magic, his head full of stories of noble paladins.
She was so lost in her amusement that Jack's quiet whimper startled her as much as a shout. He still slept, but he twitched and shifted in his sleep, and Lena felt his growing fear, saw it in his face, bare now as it had been when they took him from the Circle Chamber.
A nightmare, Lena thought. She stood, leaving the book in her chair, and put her hand over his heart as she instinctively cast Cure. "Jack," she whispered. "Jack, you're dreaming."
"Chelah," he said. "Chelah!"
Leifenish. It meant "no." His heart pounded under her hand.
"Shh," she told him. "Shh, it's alright. You're alright."
"Chelah! Unichi!"
That one was "mother". He was anguished now; she could feel it.
"Jack," she said, cupping his cheek with her hand as she cast her spell again. "Jack, it's Lena. You're dreaming. You're dreaming."
His eyes fluttered open, looked around wildly before settling on her, but they were still unfocused. "Lena!" he said, trying to sit up. His body moved sluggishly, clumsily; Lena could feel exhaustion rolling off of him in waves, could see that he wasn't fully awake.
"I'm here," she said.
"Lena," he gasped. His lip trembled, and he began to cry.
"No, Jack!" Alarmed, she gathered him in her arms and he clung to her as he cried. "It was a dream! It was only a dream!"
He wept into her shoulder, gibbering rapidly in Leifenish, a string of words too fast for Lena to comprehend. She recognized "mother". She recognized "fire", and "gone", and "alone".
"You're not alone," she told him, guiding his head back to the pillow. "I'm here. Lie still. You're alright. I'm here."
"Chelah," he whispered. "Iyuwa sadu... aquachili..." He let out one last sob, and then his eyes closed again.
She held him for a time, laying in bed beside him until she felt his mind sinking back into a dreamless sleep once more. His heartbeat slowed, his breathing eased. Then, slowly, careful not to disturb him, Lena reluctantly pulled away. Though she wanted to hold him safe until he woke, she knew he would never have been so intimate with her if he were awake. She stood, feeling restless and empty without him in her arms. His sadness had faded with his consciousness, but she still felt it as an ache in her heart.
What had he said? Sadu was past tense. Iyuwa… she thought that was a possessive pronoun. But that last word… There had been a Leifenish dictionary in Redden's satchel, hadn't there? She sank to her knees beside the bag, sat on the floor as she looked inside. Yes, here it was. "A..." Lena muttered to herself, flipping through the pages. "Aqua... aqua..."
There. Aquachili.
"It was my fault."
"Oh," Lena gasped, nearly dropping the book from fingers that had gone numb. Mother. Fire. Gone. Alone. That pain. That guilt. Had it really been his fault? Or was he only blaming himself? It made no difference: the sadness was real. "Oh, Jack…" She looked up at the bed, but he slept now, his face as peaceful as if he hadn't carried this burden all these years on his own. She covered her mouth with one hand in an effort to stop herself from crying.
Then she buried her face in her hands and wept.
He'd adjusted the flow of time before he'd fallen asleep. Thad had intended to be up at dawn and out of the house before sunrise while still giving himself a full night of rest. With luck, Lukahn wouldn't even know he'd been there. But he blinked awake in the bright light of morning and he knew he had overshot. He cursed, but quietly, hoping he could still sneak downstairs and on his way without being seen.
His hopes were dashed when he saw Lukahn standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him. "I thought I sensed you," the old man said. "I'm surprised you came back."
"Why wouldn't I?" Thad said, not bothering to keep the rudeness from his reply. "I'm not afraid of you."
Lukahn shrugged, seeming unbothered by Thad's tone. "I wouldn't expect you to be. I mean you no harm."
"Yeah?" Thad said with a derisive laugh. "Just Jack then?"
Lukahn reddened. "If you were sitting in a cage with a rabid wolf, you'd listen when I cautioned you. It's not that I have anything against the wolf, but I'll not stand idly by while others insist on petting it."
"If Jack's a wolf, then you sages were the mean kids poking it with sticks while it was caged!" Thad said, his angry voice just short of shouting. "I was there! I was hiding in the closet and I saw it all. You were mean! All the sages were mean, but you were the worst!"
"I did what I had to do," Lukahn hissed. "If you understood the prophecy, you'd see that. The fate of the world could be at stake while you coddle that monster!"
Reflexively, Thad's hands clenched into fists so tight that they hurt. His muscles tensed to fight before he caught himself. Stupid, he thought, wondering where that reaction had come from. Lukahn was only an old man, and the distance of half a staircase stood between them. Lukahn hadn't even raised his voice, but still it took a moment for Thad to make his hands relax.
That anger must have shown in his face too, for Lukahn watched him curiously, saying nothing, waiting.
Then it came to him with a bolt of uncomfortable clarity and for a time, Thad couldn't speak, his jaw clenched so. When he finally did force the words out, his voice croaked through a throat gone raw. "You're just like my father. He used to beat me. He always said it was for my own good."
Lukahn's eyes widened.
"I hated him," Thad whispered before his jaw clenched shut again. It was that or cry, and he refused to cry in front of this man. He continued down the stairs, heedless that Lukahn blocked the way, but Lukahn didn't try to stop him. The old man stepped aside well before Thad reached the bottom step.
He was at the door before Lukahn spoke again, calling softly, "Young man?" Thad thought about ignoring him - his hand was on the doorknob - but that call was so pleading that he stopped, glancing at Lukahn over his shoulder. Lukahn still stood beside the stairs. He hadn't moved.
"I had a boy once," he said. "A son. You remind me of him a little. He was brave. Loyal. But he made the wrong friends, and those friends got him killed. Please believe me when I say I want better for you."
Thad struggled to control his breathing, to stop his hands from clenching again. "I don't care what you want," he said. Then he threw the door wide and fled out into the bright light of day.
There was a cave, Randell had said. An old mine. Geographically, Crescent Lake was far from ancient Leifen, he explained, but had still been important to the empire because of its aetherite mines.
"I thought that stuff was rare," Kane said as he walked with his father to the library. "They could actually mine it?"
"It collects in places," Redden said. "This was one of them. A convergence of ley lines. Do you know what those are?"
"Maybe..." Kane said, shrugging as he dredged through his limited knowledge of magic. He seemed to recall Jack telling him something about those during one of their chats. "Don't they only happen in the middle of nowhere?"
Redden sighed. "Exactly. That's why we have a journey ahead of us."
They met Orin at the library. He and Pearl were already surrounded by books and scrolls and brittle old maps, both men as pleased as pigs in muck. "It was our claim to fame back then," Pearl told them as he leafed through a thick atlas. "Every focus object in the empire was manufactured here. We still know the spells, of course, but the materials they used back then - the mines, the forges - they're lost to us."
"How do you lose a whole mine?" Kane asked.
Pearl shook his head. "Oh, we know where it is - it was in the mountains north of here - it's just impossible to get to now." He found the page he was looking for, laid the book open to a view of the continent, and pointed first to Crescent Lake and then to an unmarked spot to the north. "The people used to travel there by airship," he explained.
"Really?" Kane said, embarrassed by the squeak of excitement in his voice.
"Easy, son," Redden said. "These people don't have any of those lying around. We'll be going on foot."
"I rather think not," Pearl said. "That's why I wanted to speak with you." He pointed at one of the maps spread over the table, a riot of lines meant to show elevation. "That same journey would take ages on foot. You'd need to traverse these mountains here - most inhospitable country! And with the seasons turning colder? No, no! You might not make it down from the mountains before you were snowed in. But I believe I have a solution for you!"
Orin chuckled. "Alistair believes we can reach the mine by boat." He traced a line of blue on the map. "These waterways will be our path, the streams that flow down from the mountains."
"By boat?" Kane said skeptically. "...Upstream? I know you're from the desert, Orin, but surely you know boats don't work that way, right?"
"Yes, yes," Orin nodded, smiling so that his face scrunched up in wrinkles, "but we have magic to aid us!"
"Jack should be able to guide a boat against the currents," Pearl went on, "It's a thing our own water mages are capable of, though not for more than a few minutes. If he can use the water orb in the same way you tell me he's used the wind orb, he could theoretically maintain the spell for an entire day. And one day, maybe two? That would be all that was required."
"All well and good, if Jack were conscious!" Kane said. "He's not up to casting anything at the moment!"
"Jack will recover," Redden said. He rubbed his chin, studying the map. "But the problem I'm seeing? If this map dates back to the empire, it's centuries old. Waterways move over time. How can we know that this map is still accurate?"
"That, at least, is no problem at all," Pearl said, waving a dismissive hand. "We've mages in this village capable of scrying the landscape. Earth and water mages together, with the proper rituals, can extend their senses through the aether well enough to tell us if the map is off. I've already written up a list of candidates for the spell."
Kane snorted. "Are you sure any of them would want to work with us? We're not exactly popular around here."
"I'm willing to approach them on your behalf," Pearl said with a wry smile. "Though truthfully I believe many of them would jump at the chance for the sake of academic curiosity alone."
Kane frowned, pulling the map over to study it closer. He saw the key indicating the miles, the elevations. He traced the waterways that led to the spot Pearl had indicated, calculating the distance as best he could with the width of his thumb as a guide. It must have been more than a hundred miles, almost all of it uphill. "It's far," he said at last. "What if Jack can't do it? He's only just learned to use the water orb! What if it's not like the wind orb at all?"
Pearl shrugged, but he shrank in on himself, somewhat sheepish. "Well, it's not a perfect plan, but if you've a better one, by all means, feel free to do it your own way!"
"You don't have to commit to it now, son," Redden told him. "It's not as if we have any other leads to follow. Think on it. Put it to the others - Jack, too - and make your decisions together."
"Yes," Kane said. "But let's pursue that ritual in the meantime, just in case."
"I shall put the word out this afternoon," Pearl said.
Kane nodded, though he still felt uneasy. It was so far, and likely dangerous - why else would these mages leave such a resource unclaimed for four hundred years? - but his father was right: they had no other leads.
His mind woke long before his body did. He laid in the bed, aware of where he was, but his body stubbornly refused to move. He could hear his friends speaking, could sense their auras. I should join them, he told himself, but his limbs felt so heavy, and as he struggled to force them awake, he drifted out of awareness again.
He dreamed of his mother, not of her final battle as he had often dreamed before, but a memory of her standing at her work table in their tiny house, her back to him as she hummed softly over her work. A man in a black robe, tall and lean with long, dark hair tied in a tail, stepped close behind her, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. Jack couldn't see the man's face, but he knew it was his father. His mother leaned her head back against the man's shoulder, but she didn't stop working. "Was it supposed to be you?" Jack asked. "The prophecy - the orb - was it meant to be you?" But his mother only continued to hum that wordless tune, never once turning around.
The next time he woke, he heard the gentle patter of rain outside. The room was dark. His aether sight showed him Redden and Kane, asleep in their pallets on the floor, and Lena, sprawled across the armchair beside the bed, her head resting on one of the chair's arms, her legs elevated, draped over the other. The chair was small - Jack doubted Kane could have even sat comfortably in it - but it held her perfectly. A flash of lightning outside the window briefly illuminated her face. She smiled in her sleep, arms crossed over her belly. Jack closed his eyes, listening to the quiet susurrus of the autumn storm, of his friends' breathing. Comforted by the nearness of them, he slept again.
And then it was midday. Squinting against the light streaming through the gap in the curtains, Jack woke - truly woke this time - alone in Wrede's old bed. He could hear his friends in the next room and he sat up, keenly aware of his weariness as every move took slow and deliberate effort. Someone had left him a water glass on the side table and he gulped it down, barely tasting the water's brittle staleness before he wondered how long it had been there. He felt that he had slept a year and could easily sleep through another.
He still wore the clothes he'd worn for his interview - shirt, pants, gloves - but his feet were bare, his boots on the floor near the bed. He tried to pull them on, but his hands felt thick and clumsy so he gave up; his feet, at least, were one of the few places he had no scars to hide. He found his coat on the hook on the back of the bedroom door and put that on, though it seemed unbearably heavy and he immediately considered taking it off again. He patted his coat pockets - the orb, the shell, the drawing of his mother, all were there - and searched the room for his pack - a moment's rummaging turned up a clean scarf - then he opened the door.
They sat around the table - Lena, Kane, Redden - as Miss Dahlia stood beside the stove stirring a bubbling pot. They all looked his way as he emerged from the bedroom, variously smiling or exclaiming his name. He looked down at the floor feeling a blush heat his ears, embarrassed at the show of affection. He immediately worked to stifle that feeling but then remembered that, no, he didn't have to do that now. The interview was over.
Redden, reviewing what looked like a star chart, waved him toward a chair. Jack sat gratefully, already breathing heavily merely from the effort of crossing the room. "How are you feeling?" Redden asked.
"A bit stiff," Jack said, but then he realized Redden wasn't only asking about his physical well-being. "Better," he said slowly. "This... this is better."
Redden clapped his shoulder, gave it a squeeze, before bending over his stack of papers again. "Good. I'm glad to hear it. Really, lad."
"Are you sure you should be up?" Lena said.
"No," Jack said, shrugging. "But my mind was too restless to lie abed all day. I had such strange dreams..." The days on days of suppressing his emotions had been harder than he ever would have imagined on both body and soul; he hoped he hadn't fractured his mind as well. "How long was I out?" he asked.
"Two nights and a day," Kane said.
"Oh, is that all?" Jack said, looking toward the bedroom as if he meant to return to it. Lena giggled, smiling at his little joke, and he smiled too, though he felt himself blushing again. Yes, this was better.
"You really should go back to bed," Lena said, patting his knee under the table.
"Nonsense!" Kane said, shaking his head. "Now that you're up, we can tell you where we're going next!"
"You'll let me fatten him up first," Dahlia said, setting a bowl of porridge in front of Jack that was bigger than his head.
"I can't eat this much!" Jack protested.
"Not if you sit there talking about it," she said. She pointed at the bowl and then at him, a clear command.
Jack sighed, lowered his scarf, and took a tentative bite. The porridge was good. He realized he was hungry after all, nodding to show Dahlia his appreciation. She nodded back, accepting it as her due, then turned back to whatever she'd been doing at the stove. He took another bite before saying, "We're really leaving, then?"
"Not just yet," Redden said. "You rest as long as you need."
"We don't need to talk about that now," Lena said. "You really should-"
"Talking won't hurt," Redden said. He flipped through the neat stack of papers in front of him, then plucked one out and passed it over.
"Sure," Lena sighed, sipping a cup of hot tea. "What do I know? I'm only a white mage."
The paper, though warded, seemed old and delicate. Jack took it carefully and studied it, a series of concentric lines with a shaded, crescent-shaped area in one corner that Jack guessed represented the lake. "Some sort of map?" he said, though he couldn't make sense of all the lines.
Redden nodded. "Topographical, Pearl said. Shows elevations. This one's from the days of the empire, when they still had airships."
"Airships!" Jack exclaimed. "That would make this at least four hundred years old!"
"Five," Redden said. "Seems it's the only one of its kind we have left."
"And Master Pearl let you take it out of his sight?"
Redden rolled his eyes. "I had to offer him Lena's Ars Paladia as collateral. Even that almost wasn't enough to sway him. Look it over. See if you notice anything unusual."
Jack let his eyes rove over the map. As Redden said, it was mostly topographical, though there was a mark near the lake that seemed to indicate the village. There were other marks, identical ones, scattered here and there. Jack bent close, studying one of the markings. "Are these meant to be structures?"
Redden nodded. "Settlements, yes."
"Settlements? In the middle of the mountains?" Jack cocked his head, looking at the map again. "There's even one on Gulug!"
"You knew the Lake was once a major supplier of focus objects for the world's mages? This was why," Redden said. He pointed at the mountains north of the lake. "The fire mages used Gulug to power their forges - the volcano wasn't as volatile back then - but over here? That's where the earth mages had their aetherite mines."
Jack stared at the map in utter shock. "I had no idea!"
"Not surprising," Redden said. "There's nothing left out there now, not for centuries. Crescent Lake was once a metropolis as populous as Cornelia is now, though spread over a wider area. But when the airships quit working, those settlements were lost. It was a catastrophic loss of life."
"Do we know that?" Jack asked. "What if they're still there? What if there are still people there, cut off from the outside?"
"That's impossible," Redden said. "Those settlements were entirely dependent on the ships for their supplies. No farms, nothing but a few houses."
"A few houses and an aetherite mine, you mean!" Jack said, bending over the map. "A village full of mages, Redden! If they had aetherite to amplify their powers, they might have-'' He stopped when a wave of dizziness washed over him.
"Try not to over-excite yourself," Lena said, smiling as she squeezed his hand on the table top. "You're not well."
"Gods, Jack, what's got you so riled up?" Kane said.
"This could change everything!" Jack said. "I... I've never told you - I don't talk about it - but my mother, during the fire..." His hand rose to his face, to the scars along his jaw and down his neck. "She Teleported me away, then the sages found me. But they don't know where I came from. If there are still people in those mountains, if there are villages- What if one of them's mine?"
Lena's eyes widened in delight. "Oh, Jack!"
"What?" Kane said, grinning. "Gods, really?"
"It's true," Dahlia said. "We never have figured out where he came from. Iris found him near the base of Gulug, alone, as if he'd fallen from out of the sky."
"Jack," Redden said, a note of warning in his voice. His gaze was firm and steady. "These villages are leagues from here. Well outside of Teleport range. It's highly unlikely-"
"I Teleported Kane thirty miles once!" Jack said. "I didn't even know what I was doing! What if she thought she was sending me to one of these other villages?"
"Could she have used aetherite somehow?" Kane asked.
"Definitely!" Jack said, nodding. "I mean, just look what I'm able to do with the orbs! If I had something like that for a Teleport spell? I could probably hop to Cornelia and back!"
"If that's so, then why haven't we heard from these villagers by now?" Redden cut in. "It's just not possible, Jack. I don't want you to get your hopes up. Pearl has records, one of the old sage's journals from the time. They sent teams out there to seek out survivors and bring them down the mountains to safety. Those teams came back empty-handed, if they came back at all. Those mountains are dangerous, lad. Do you really think the people here would have left an entire aetherite mine unused if they had any chance of getting to it?"
"But you think we have a chance of getting to it, right?" Jack said. "We're going there?"
"You shouldn't," Dahlia said. "It's too risky."
Kane shrugged. "We need that aetherite, ma'am. It's our only lead."
"Yes, Jack, we're going," Redden said. "The sages think they can figure out how the orbs work if we find aetherite for them."
"They could," Jack said, nodding. "Gods, I could probably figure it out myself! When do we leave?"
"You'll need more time to recover before we go," Redden said. He pointed at the map, at a series of blue lines Jack took for waterways. "This path, it requires you to use the water orb to push a boat upstream for us. It's going to take more effort than you use with the wind orb to steer a ship. We need you at your best."
"I can do it!" Jack said, ignoring the way his vision was starting to go black around the edges.
Redden shook his head. "Just now, you don't look like you can even sit up straight."
"I told you," Lena said, clutching his hand as she infused him with a Cure. "You've overdone it already."
He grunted, unable even to protest. The room spun.
"He's gone pale," Dahlia said. "Kane, get him back to bed before he falls over."
"I've got you," Kane said, moving in under his arm, lifting him. "Come on. Don't fight me."
"I'm not," he tried to say, but his voice came out in a strangled hiss. It was just that his coat was so heavy. He tried to tug at his collar but his left hand - with those maimed fingers - wouldn't work. "I need to lie down."
"You don't say?" Lena said, voice full of frustration but no malice.
He felt Redden on his other side, supporting him there, casting a Cure on top of another from Lena. He tried to stand on his own, but his body seemed a foreign and alien thing, unresponsive.
He was in the bed before he knew it, with no memory of being put there. Lena sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over him, her hand on his forehead, the Cure in it settling into his skull. She looked so concerned. "I'm fine," he said, around a tongue gone thick and cottony. "I'm only tired."
"I can tell," she said. "Why don't you rest now?"
"This is the answer, Lena," he said. "She's still out there. That's why it wouldn't work for me."
"It… you mean the fire orb? Jack..."
He nodded. "It was supposed to be her. I'm sure of it. This will fix everything."
"Jack..." she said again, her voice heavy with concern. "Don't think about that. Just rest."
"You don't have to worry about me."
"I know I don't have to," she said, running her hand through his hair. "But I will anyway."
He wanted to tell her how good that felt, that caress, but the words wouldn't come. He felt himself slipping away. He slept again, and dreamed of that voice - not Lena's - humming a wordless tune.
Rain pelted the glass roof of the greenhouse, a steady rat-a-tat-tat. The sky outside was dark, with no trace of sunlight despite the afternoon hour. Still, the greenhouse glowed brightly, lit by dozens of lanterns. Moira had told Thad they used magic to make the lanterns burn longer and brighter but that maintaining the lights was at least half of the work of keeping the massive indoor garden. The building was larger than the clinic, with stone troughs around the outer edges holding raised beds. In the center, a single tree grew right out of the floor and bore bright yellow fruit. The rest of the room held row after row of long tables full of potted plants, mostly for healing, Moira had explained, but some for their beauty or their rarity, or - like the tree - for their unique flavors.
Thad knelt, looking under one of the long tables. Moira, standing at another as she trimmed leaves off a bushy plant, chuckled. "Expecting to find him there, are you? I'm sure I'd have noticed an interloper of his size."
Thad sighed, standing beside her once more. "It's the strangest thing. I'm finding his aura all over the place but I can't find him anywhere!"
Moira nodded. "Prophets have an odd relationship with the aether. Mages have written about it for centuries. I'm sure if you asked Alistair, he could point you to the relevant publications."
"He did already," Thad said. Not that it helped, he thought bitterly. The papers Pearl had given him had been wordy and pompous, and Thad had given up on most of them less than halfway through, learning only that, yes, this was a known phenomenon. But Sarda's aura seemed so close. The old man had been missing for several days now.
"Did I hear that Randell tasked some of the apprentices with looking for him?" Moira asked.
"Yeah, but they're not having any luck with it." Thad sighed again, leaning his elbows on the table with his chin in his hands as he watched Moira cut leaves from her plant, carefully selecting each one using some criteria unknown to Thad. "What's this one for? Another antidote?" There was still a wide-spread problem with the Lake's goat herds, though no one could fathom what the animals had eaten to cause it.
Moira shook her head. "This one's for eating, a recipe I learned from my master when I was little older than you. I wanted to share it with you before you go."
"Oh!" Thad said, taking one of the trimmed leaves from her pile and inspecting it. "It smells good. Can I taste it?"
"Only a nibble," Moira said. "It's a bit tart as it is. We'll grind it into a paste with some pine nuts to mellow it, then we'll spread it on toast." She laughed at the face Thad made as he tested his leaf. "I think you'll like the result. Just you wait."
They took their meal there in the greenhouse. A fat, pot-bellied metal stove took up part of one corner, providing continuous heat for those plants that couldn't survive the Lake's harsh winters. Though the day was chilly, the oven's heat made it not only bearable but pleasant. Thad sat near the oven's open door, using a pair of black iron tongs to hold his third slice of bread over the flame within. The recipe, it turned out, was delicious.
Moira sat on a blanket spread nearby, leaning back against one of the raised beds as she sipped her tea. "A born white mage, he was," she said, describing her late master. "One of the last to be born here. He wasn't keen to take me on, seeing as I was a black mage, but I had my heart set on it for as long as I can remember. He was like a grandfather to me by the end."
"And then you went to Cornelia?" Thad asked, for he knew she had gone to White Hall when she was younger.
Moira nodded. "Too many students. Not enough teachers. It was for the best though. No one here could have taken Master Nord's place, and they really are better at white magic over there though it pains me to admit Crescent Lake isn't the best at anything."
Thad retreated from the stove, using a short, stubby knife to spread the tasty green paste across his bread. "Were you there when the mage wars started?"
"Barely," Moira said. "I had just completed my training and was preparing to return home anyway. Apprentices had started going missing from Black Hall, and word was that they were being recruited - forcibly, some said - by the Brotherhood. Amandine had already lost her sister to them like that; the girl just up and disappeared one day, never to be heard from again. I wasn't anxious to see if they'd come to White Hall next. When I told 'Dine I was leaving, she asked to come with me. She didn't have any other family."
"Is that why she's so angry all the time?" Thad asked around a mouthful of toasts.
"Oh, she's not so bad. You're just not seeing her at her best since she knows you came here with Jack. Do you know when you're leaving yet?"
Thad shook his head. "Jack wants to go already, but Lena says he's not recovered yet and they argued about it. Kane sided with Lena, though. Said he'd tie Jack up in a sack if he didn't behave."
Moira frowned, sipped her tea, then said, "I may not care for Jack, but I don't agree with how the sages handled him. Good for Lena."
Thad shrugged. "She can't stand to have him mad at her, though. She'll give in sooner or later. I just hope I find Sarda before then."
He went looking again when the rain let up. Sarda had been in the garden outside the clinic - there was a clear trail in the aether - and Thad spat curses thinking the old man had been so near, out in that cold rain, while he sat warm and fed beside the stove. The trail meandered through the forest, along the lakeshore, all the way to the seaside harbor where the Sahagin Prince was still docked, and there the trail ended abruptly.
"Sarda!" Thad called, hands cupping his mouth. "Saaarda!"
"It's no good," Leo said, popping up from behind the old fishing crates he was searching. "He ain't here."
"But he was here!" Thad said, viewing the docks through his aether sight. "His aura's all over the place!"
"Well, it's a neat trick, then," Leo said, shrugging. "We had a watch posted all night, didn't we? And no one saw so much as a hair of him."
"Gods damn it!" Thad cursed.
He stomped up the docks, passing the empty jetties, to the little shack that stood on the shore, the home of Mr. Wedge, Crescent Lake's harbor master, such as he was. The Lake had few visitors, fewer still in the years since the seas had grown more treacherous. The old wind mage who ran the town's meager port had little in the way of business to take up his time, but Mr. Wedge kept himself occupied in the way of retired sailors the world over: with drink, with fishing, and with cards.
"Aye, but then Reedy, he comes up with a cow! And I says, 'What would you be wanting with that, then? You'll never get a cow home in a dory!'" Mr. Wedge was saying as Thad pushed into the shack. "And Reedy, he says, 'Well, you know, I've always fancied fresh cream in me tea!'"
Around the little card table, Redden, captain Gabbiani, and Mr. Biggs roared with laughter, their game of Onion Knight all but forgotten. Thad glanced at the captain's cards - three twos and a knight, Thad saw, a good start - as he passed toward the iron stove in the corner and held up his hands to it to drive away the chill.
"'e never did!" Mr. Biggs said, slapping his thigh as he laughed.
"He did! He did!" said Mr. Wedge. "Between that and the chickens, 't was the best salvage job we ever had!"
"Chickens!" Redden said, wiping tears from his eyes as he laughed clear and bright. "Titan! I can't get over the chickens!"
"Aye," Mr. Wedge sighed. Then he nonchalantly laid down his cards. "And you'll not get over this either, I'd guess. Straight flush on a tonberry, boys."
The others fell silent. Redden grimaced, laying his own hand on the table face down, the sign of surrender. Gabbiani threw his cards down with a curse - nothing could beat a tonberry. Mr. Biggs cackled, patting his new friend on the back. "Good show!" the old pirate cook said. "Jolly good show!"
Mr. Wedge nodded, sweeping up the tidy handful of coins at the table's center. "Now don't be that way," he said as Redden continued to frown. "Consider it the price of the tale! You found that entertaining enough."
"I did," Redden said grudgingly. He looked over at Thad. "There's warm broth in that kettle, Thad. Have a cup."
Thad nodded, taking a mug from a nearby shelf.
"The wind off the water'll get right in your bones this time of year," Mr. Wedge said, nodding. "That's why you ought to be off, as I was saying. You don't head out now, you won't be going anywhere for a moon's turn or two."
"Wait, what?" Thad said. "We're leaving now?"
"Seems like," Redden said, shrugging. "First thing tomorrow at least. Mr. Wedge here is the Lake's foremost authority on weather patterns. If he says frost is coming, we need to get to that cave and back before it gets here. We don't want to be in those mountains in a snowstorm."
"Boats won't do you any good if the waterways freeze up. And freeze they will, I'm sure on it. Gonna be a harsh winter, this one," Mr. Wedge said.
"But what about Sarda?" Thad said.
"We'll keep looking for him, boyo," said the captain. "'E's one of ours now. We won't stop til we find him."
Mr. Wedge sipped his drink and belched loudly before he added, "Might want to redouble your efforts at that. There'll be another rain tonight, a hard and cold one."
Thad sighed. He cradled the little mug between his hands, letting its warmth sink in a moment longer before he downed the broth in one gulp. It tasted of fish and salt. He set the mug down near the stove, then headed toward the door again, stepping back into the cold. The shack's thin wooden door, attached by springs, banged shut behind him, keeping the worst of the wind outside. Sarda was out there somewhere, with that cold wind. Thad wanted to find him before the rain came.
Cold and wet, Sarda stumbled out of the forest onto a path. "Finally!" he wept, falling to his knees, bending low to kiss the trodden dirt that showed he'd found his way back to civilization. "Finally!" He let his forehead rest against the ground, too tired to rise for several minutes. He'd wandered so long. He hadn't slept.
When he sat up again, he looked up and down the path trying to determine where it led and, seeing a glimmer of light on water in one direction, he followed it to Crescent Lake's seaside harbor which was bustling with activity. More ships had arrived at some point, and their crews thronged the docks, scarcely paying any attention to Sarda as they went about their business of loading and unloading. "Excuse me," he asked a sailor, "have you seen a ship called the Sahagin Prince?"
The sailor walked right through him.
Sarda panicked, looking more closely at the people, the ships - those were airships! Airships could land almost anywhere, but in rocky terrain like this, they were just as likely to land on the water and sail in like a normal ship. Or, at least, that's what the history books said.
History, Sarda groaned. No, no, no! He was still lost. He sat on the dock, defeated and weeping, as the shades of the past moved around him.
He became aware of the frantic pace, the uneasy voices. This was no normal day, it seemed. Something had happened here. Looking more closely, Sarda saw that one of those ships was damaged, the sailors scrambling over it busy with their repairs. Farther on, a line of people were being herded onto another ship, some of them crying, others clearly injured, and still others wearing the dead-eyed stare of people who had seen too much.
A figure stopped in front of him, cutting off his view of the crowd. It was a wolf - no, a massive black dog! - but a tame one, judging by the leather collar. Sarda looked up into its golden eyes and the beast chuffed lightly, not quite a bark, in acknowledgement.
"You see me," Sarda said, holding out a cautious hand for the animal to sniff. "Yes, you see me." But animals often saw things that people couldn't.
Someone whistled. The dog turned and obediently trotted away toward a black-robed woman near the foot of the dock. Sarda scrambled to his feet and followed it; the beast had seen him after all, and he didn't want to be alone again. The woman, obviously some sort of official with a badge on a thick golden chain around her neck, stood with a white-robed man. The woman held a ledger in one hand as she idly scratched the wolfish head with the other. The dog sat happily at her feet, tongue lolling, watching Sarda as he approached.
"And I'm telling you, they can't stay here," the woman said, face a stern mask, never once looking up from her ledger.
"I'm not suggesting they stay permanently!" the white mage said. "Be reasonable, Prishilla! These people are traumatized! They've just lost their homes!"
"They'll lose more than that if that naga comes down from the mountain," the woman said. "We can't prepare for a fight if we're busy with triage. They'll get the care they need in Leifen, and we'll do battle with fresh mages and a full stock of potions."
"Exactly! Fresh mages, Prish! They had, what? Five battle mages in Stonebough? And still they managed to wound the beast! We've ten times that number here! We can defend-"
"Five battle mages, and that priestess of theirs, all dead to this thing," the woman said, cutting him off. "Yes, they wounded it. But they only wounded it. All our reports say it's still alive. It's moved into the forge caves to recover, and when it does? I want our people focused on the fight."
"These are our people! And they've just lost everything! You would send them to Leifen with nothing but the clothes on their backs rather than help them?"
"This is helping them. Better a lean-to in a crowded Leifen alley than a shallow grave here."
"But-!"
"I'll not argue with you, Father," the woman said, lifting a hand to stop the man's protest. "The Circle has voted. Take it up with them." She stopped petting the dog long enough to tap her ledger with a well-manicured nail. "Look, I've taken their names. When the Circle says it's safe for them to rebuild, I will personally travel to the city to retrieve them along with Leifen's finest builders for their use, but that's as much as I can do."
Whatever the white mage was going to say next was drowned out by a sudden droning sound, an airship's engine warming up, massive propellers cutting the air. Sarda turned to see the ship, the one that had been taking on refugees, rise from its berth, ascending gracefully into the sky and arcing over the ocean at a speed that no modern conveyances could match. They really were beautiful, he thought, before they stopped working. A sense of dread settled over him. Oh, gods, no. Don't show me that. I don't want to see. He felt his heart beating faster.
The dog whined, stepping away from his mistress, closer to Sarda, as if it would press its comforting bulk against him, but of course Sarda wasn't really there. The dog stood beside him, nearly sinking into him, and Sarda felt nothing save his own growing unease.
"I don't like this, Prish," the white mage said. "We're meant to be better than this. The Oaths-"
The woman wasn't listening. She looked curiously at her pet, hand still stretched toward him. "What is it, Shadow?"
Then the dock went silent, as if a blanket of noiselessness had settled over everything. The white mage and the official looked at each other, confused, and then, as one, turned horrified eyes to the airship. The hum of its engines - the noise that had filled the air before, fading into the distance as it departed - had cut off abruptly.
"No," Sarda said, "I don't want to see!" But he looked. He couldn't help but look.
The ship hung in the air for a second that stretched out as if time had stopped, but then it fell straight down. The official was running before it hit the water, her dog barking, racing beside her. "Get these ships up!" she yelled at the sailors. "Get out there, now!" She hurried onto one of the ships herself, grabbing a sailor as she passed and shoving him toward the controls.
The crack when the ship crashed into the waves struck Sarda like a knife to his gut. He doubled over as knowledge came to him: the terror of those poor people in what they knew were their last moments. No one could have survived a fall from that height. But still the sailors scurried around him, swarming over their ships like ants, pulling levers and turning wheels that Sarda couldn't identify.
"Help them!" the white mage shouted, seeming rooted to his spot on the docks. "Oh, gods! Oh, gods, help them!"
But the only answer was more panicked shouting from the sailors. No hum of engines filled the air, no thrum of propellers. The airships were dead.
"All those people!" Sarda cried, watching the wreckage on the water as he fell to his knees. He didn't notice the dock's boards changing beneath him, growing weathered and replaced as the years swirled by, didn't notice when someone in another time tripped over him.
"Bloody hell!" a man shouted.
"Oh, hey, that's him, isn't it?" said another voice, a younger one. A figure bent down to face him, and though he seemed to peer out at Sarda through a fog, Sarda recognized Leo, the pirate. "Yeah! Here he is! Hey, Sarda!" The young man smiled a relieved smile as he snapped his fingers in front of Sarda's face.
Sarda couldn't respond to him. He only wept. He couldn't stop crying, couldn't seem to make his eyes focus on the present.
"Let's get him to the ship before he wanders off. Hear that, Sarda? You're gonna stay with us until Redden gets back."
"What's he crying for?"
"Ah, you know how he is. Probably saw some vision of the past."
Saw? Sarda thought. He could still see it, the last remnants of the fallen ship slipping beneath the waves. As the pirates hauled him to his feet and lead him away, he could still hear the white mage's frantic pleas to the gods, the curses of the grounded sailors. There were no answers from divinity, only the whine of a dog.
Author's Note: 3/5/21 - Shout out to "The Wreck of the Athens Queen", which is a song I, um, borrowed from a bit here for that scene with Mr. Wedge (a character I've been holding onto for ages now!). If you're going to look up the song, try to find the Stan Rogers version, not necessarily because it's the best but because I love him and everything he ever put out. And also it's the best.
Also, since I know you're all curious, here are the super simplified rules for Over Onion Knight! The game has four suits (staves, swords, shields, and rings), each with three face cards (gods, knights, and mages) and a single tonberry (like the deck's joker). The object of the game is to arm a warrior (one of the face cards). Each player gets a starting hand of 8 cards. 8 more go face up in the middle of the table. That's the pot. Players can sacrifice any card in their hand for one from the pot, but everyone's going to know what they picked up. The goal is to get one each of staves/swords/shields/rings, but various combinations of cards are worth different amounts of points (think poker!). Bonus points for same value (example = 2 of swords + 2 of shields) or for flushes (example = 2 of swords, 3 of shields, 4 of staves, 5 of rings). A knight or mage can't beat a god, but a knight AND a mage can. Tonberries are wild. (But you knew that.)