“Aga, child, might I ask what precisely we have been scrying for?”

Three days had passed since leaving Amissopolis--three days of halting conversation between youths unused to the company of their peers, scoldings, stony silence, icy silence, and several previously undiscovered flavors of silence.

And walking. The palace stables had been, despite the spells, charms and profanity Ionia shouted, empty.

“The Amaranthine person, ‘course,” Aga said, rubbing the back of her neck, wincing as hairs escaped from her braids snagged on between a thick tangle of scrying-stone necklaces and her bedroll.

Xagar carried the bulk of their packs, spare what little Aga had been able to convince him to let her haul, while Ionia walked unencumbered and infuriated. Ionia was, as she repeated in the scoldings which punctuated her silences, far too old for so much fresh air and exercise. In some of her silences, she fantasized of a litter which would allow Xagar to carry her as well, in spite of her deeply plebeian conscience’s protests. Her feet, however, had begun loudly questioning if she didn’t deserve just a bit of noble privilege.

“Yes. Quite,” Ionia grumbled. “But by what means? I am not at all pleased with the terrain, and wonder at the stone which has sent us in such a direction. Might I have a look at it?”

Aga handed Ionia a cluster of rough, clear quartz lashed to a loop of string.

Ionia groaned.

“Aga, how many times must we have this very argument?”

“Regular quartz can do about whatever you ask it, you ask it right,” Aga argued.

“‘Asking it right’ is the rub, isn’t it?”

“Begging my lady’s pardon, I fear I have missed some vital information for the context of the present quarrel,” Xagar interceded. “It does seem like a rather nice stone.”

Ionia narrowed her eyes at Xagar.

“It is not a ‘rather nice stone’. It’s folly on a string. Aga insists on esoteric requests of plain quartz she takes a liking to. More complex concepts than such simple stones are capable of seeking.”

“Ain’t such a difficult concept.”

“What, then, does it seek?”

“Redemption,” Aga mumbled. “For bringin’ life what ain’t s’posed to be into the world an’ the fallin’ of the empire.”

Ionia rubbed her temples.

“So simple a child might understand, yes. Terribly simple.”

“It was the only word what I put to any stone that just set it spinnin!” Aga defended, “Try it yourself.” She pulled a thin chain holding a rough amethyst from around her neck and tossed it to Ionia.

Amaranthine oak, Ionia commanded the stone, watching it spin. She cycled through a dozen other focal words, her scowl etching itself deeper as the amethyst twirled in neat, tight circles.

“It ain’t hidden affinities, either. I tried ‘amaranthine’ on every one of ‘em. I tried a dictionary’s worth of focals what seemed sensible: ‘lich’, ‘gregory’, ‘danger’ ‘word of power’. I told Terry ‘redemption’ and he’s been right cooperative.Don’t even complain he don’t have a proper chain like the rest of ‘em," Aga said, arms crossed.

“Terry?” Xagar asked.

“Been callin’ him ‘Terry’,” Aga explained, nodding at the clear quartz Ionia held. "Makes regular quartz feel feel special, givin’ ‘em proper names. Really, all them other gems is just quartz what got lucky.”

“Stones have no personalities other than the magicks we put to them. Mothers and Sisters, I have been far too lenient with you in this matter. Choose a sensible sensible concept and a sensible stone and scry as if you were a sensible young sorceress!” Ionia seethed.

“I really think Terry’s doin’ his best,” Aga wheedled. “It’d make sense, the amaranthine oak what the Lich missed bein’ right remote, wouldn’t you say?”

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Ionia growled in her throat, turned, and pitched Aga’s quartz into the distance off the path.

Aga stared, open mouthed.

“Choose. Something. Sensible,” Ionia repeated through gritted teeth.

Aga’s lip quivered, staring at the dense brush where Ionia had thrown the quartz on its string.

Ionia’s face grew hot watching her apprentice fight tears.

“He was gettin’ right proud of himself,” she mumbled, closing her fist over the other scrying stones at her neck.

“Aga,” she began.

“Might could Summon him,” Aga trembled, “But might not, focused as he was on his job.”

Ionia sighed.

“Please, child, forgive me. I am over-tired, and in need of a proper meal, I am…” Ionia nearly said ‘I am not at all myself’, but thought better of it, as tossing what she felt to be inferior magic into overgrowth without considering the feelings of others was precisely the sort of thing she tended to do. “I am very sorry. You’ve proven yourself trustworthy with such magic. I should not have acted so rashly. Come, we shall search for,” she took a deep breath. “Terry. Xagar,” Ionia called, but Xagar had already shed their packs and left the path to comb the underbrush.

“I watched him fall, my lady, my friend,” Xagar called back. “Aha!” He lofted the quartz, still attached to its string, in triumph just as a shadow detached itself from the lower branches of a tree overhead.

“Butcher!” the shadow screeched, landing on Xagar. They tumbled forward, sunlight glinting off a short knife plunged into Xagar’s back.

“Xagar!” Aga shouted, running forward. She leapt at the shadowy figure only for Xagar to catch her, mid-air, and hold her fast against his chest. Ionia lifted her staff.

“Hold, my lady, my friend!” Xagar cried. “Ow,” he said, pulling his attacker from his back, holding them by their shirt collar at arm’s length. A small, very young elf kicked, swinging his short knife. “I feel I rather deserved as much, but I stand by my statement.”

Aga went limp, ceasing her struggles against Xagar’s restraint.

“You’re an elf,” she said, confused. Aga had never seen an elf like the child dangling from Xagar’s outstretched arm : chestnut skinned, raven hair in loose, shining waves, eyes glinting like polished onyx.

“As are you,” the elf boy snapped. “Yet you keep company with this monster?”

“Monster?” Aga challenged, swinging her legs to kick the boy, her arms pinned too tightly for a charm or spell. “I’ll show you ‘monster’, you scrawny little tree rat…”

“Athanka!” a woman’s voice, silvery and melodious even as it scolded, called from the forest. “You were meant to watch for our visitors! Aah! They come up here to listen to the perimeter charm and not even the Mothers know where they get their crazy little kid ideas! I’m so terribly sorry!” A tall, thin, elf-woman cried, unfolding herself from the shadows of a tree. Dressed in a shabby set of men’s work overalls, her sable hair trimmed in a short, sensible fringe around her round, walnut-dark face, magic poured off her like heat from a fire. She looked from Xagar, Aga and the young elf to Ionia.

“Honestly, Ionia, I set watchmen days ago. What delayed you? Ooh, but you’re angry, aren’t you? Oh, please, don’t be! You’d not have come if I hadn’t sent the raven with the Wayfinder,” she pleaded.

Ionia lowered her staff.

“How? Perhaps more saliently, why?”

Confused, Xagar let go of the elf-boy’s collar.

“You,” the strange elf woman pointed to Athanka, “Your father is looking for you. We will speak of this later. Now go on, shoo, shoo, shoo” she waved her hands, sweeping the boy deeper into the forest.

Ionia...smiled. Xagar scratched his head. An afterthought, he gently set Aga back on her feet.

“Ionia, who is this lady? And Xagar, how come these folks know you in such a way they want to go stabbin’ you?” Aga asked, stepping in front of the ogre.

Shelini and Ionia’s eyes met.

“Children,” Ionia said, “Shelini of the Hills. An old colleague.”

Shelini clicked her tongue. “An old colleague?”

“An old friend,” Ionia corrected herself, stepping forward to embrace the elf-woman. They touched noses, exchanging cheek kisses. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been more furious or more overjoyed to see anyone in my entire life.”

“Right happy for the both of you,” Aga said, “But that don’t explain much. And it certainly don’t fix what that brat done to poor Xagar’s shoulder.”

“Xagar?” Shelini said. “Oh, that’s a lovely, respectable old Ogrish name. Do you know its meaning?”

“Discernment, lady,” Xagar answered, looking down at the elf-woman’s sandaled feet, impassive as Aga dabbed his wound with a stinging cleansing rag.

“Ooh, not simple discernment. Discernment between good and evil, unless my Ogrish fails me,” Shelini said in a musical lilt.

“It is as you say, lady,” Xagar agreed in defeat.