Month 11, Day 30, 7:30 AM

Frank Poe

Frank Poe left his office and took a right to begin the long trudge up from his ground floor office, up the building’s stairs, setting out for the roof.

When Frank first started this detective agency, he had always consulted a a Raven Oracle before he took a case. Then, he’d found Marie. She insisted he take more cases.

Frank found it very nearly upsetting that a mere thirteen-year old had a mind as sharp as an obsidian scalpel, was tough as a steel safe, and had will so clear and forceful you could practically feel it in the air around her. If he’d taught her how to channel magic, he was entirely sure she could channel a dozen thaums into her first spell. Some people just had talent.

But.

Ought she learn magic? And, ought he teach her magic?

He’d come out of the Retreat at Willowdale just a year ago. He could have stayed; his family might have wanted him to. He was … not cured, exactly, but he still had the Will sufficient to continue magic. The healers let him keep his journeyman certificate. On the other hand, he’d was unsure if he’d ever return to studying free casting.

He was still young for a thaumaturge; he would heal. Probably.

In their private conversation, Professor Lacer seemed to know Frank Poe was considering an apprenticeship for Marie. Lacer had called him an idiot. But Lacer implied that he also was considering an apprentice, and Frank couldn’t have been more shocked. Everyone knew Lacer would never take an apprentice.

Whoever they were, they must have been an exceptional talent.

In contrast, Professor Lacer never showed any fondness for Frank Poe as a student. As a matter of fact, Frank had been surprised that Lacer thought to ask him to find a way to contact this new “Raven Queen.”

That Frank was worthy of some sort of employment from Lacer made him feel oddly satisfied. Frank had only been visited by a few of his former classmates and friends while at Willowdale Retreat, and all of them stopped coming in short order. Too much of a reminder of the dangers of will strain and experimental magic. Lacer’s presence was an enigma, because he had never visited.

But, none of that would change the way Frank worked. He wasn’t a normal detective. He didn’t look for “clues” or “follow” suspects. He considered himself a detective of the gestalt. People would come to him and ask him about the details. But, everyone was a part of everything. Seeing the big picture would help him find the details, which would pay the bills. Clients didn’t want to know the whole picture. But, for Poe, examining the larger pattern was essential to getting to the truth.

His cases were like a painting; each stroke followed another, cause and effect until the painting was complete. Another way to look at it was, by twisting the lines of cause and effect backward, if one just immersed themselves in the picture they could see how the picture had been painted in the first place. But, to see a picture you needed to look at it first, and to do that, Frank had a method. It took a little trial and error, but after Willowdale, normal divination magic was just too hard anyway.

Thus, Frank always consulted with the raven he called Frigg before taking cases. He called her Frigg, because she was the name of an ancient Queen, and this raven was the most royal bird he’d ever known.

He climbed the three flights of curving and twisting stairs, which had their own niche in the back of the building. He trudged past the his apartment above his office, the empty apartment above that, into the attic, and he eventually shimmied through the roof hatch. It was here, on the cool and gently sloping metal roof, that he would consult with his own queen of ravens.

Magic could have brought Frigg to him. After all, “summoning” magic was possible if you knew how to manipulate fate. Frank could do it. But Frank also disliked it. Like weather magic, if you brought rain to a farmer in one place, were you taking water from somewhere else? What if those distant farmers needed rain more badly than your farmer? Cycles of growth, cycles of death, and cycles of fate; Frank learned from bitter experience: they weren’t for messing with.

Likewise, Frank had been told “luck” magic did not exist, but he knew putting the thumb on the scale of probability could be done in any number of ways. Not the least of which was to simply be prepared to find luck when you saw it.

And when it came to the Raven Oracle, Frank had found Frigg would always arrive when she was supposed to.

Best not think too carefully about how it worked, because if you did, it might not work at all.

He meditated for a moment. He defocused his eyes and just let himself be: feeling his breath, seeing motion of the sky, smelling the sour air of the Mires.

Up there, in the cold wind, he communed with the flow of the city. Spreading his will out lightly to feel it: the mice in the apartments, the pigeons wandering the roofs, and the people trudging along the streets below.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Frank found his gaze settling down the street at the colorful green ribbon on the street corner. The thaumaturge who had set those up was just scratching the surface of connection; but their will had been clear and strong and the ribbons were becoming an important part of the pattern near him.

The roots of a new tree of fate hung below that ribbon, and the branches were growing up, up, up to the sky. There were voices calling to him up there.

Inhaling sharply, he eased away from the leaves and branches of fate. He would not allow a relapse. That was the way of madness: hearing the whispers again, catatonic, unable to control himself or the hallucinations. Instead, he turned his meditation to his offering.

He needed to give Frigg a good clear offering for this case given to him in threes: Coppers, Grandmaster Lacer, and the probable professor who sponsored that blond girl.

This last was definitely trouble. The blonde had covered her arm’s injury with her coat, but there was an obvious bandage. If it hadn’t been for her student token tucked away in a pocket, Frank would have thought she was with a criminal element. Not the Stags, presumably, but if what the copper said was correct? The Morrows wouldn’t be well pleased with Siobhan Naught.

Lacer’s interest surprised Frank. Lacer was like a lodestone; he unconsciously bent fate around himself all the time. Even his mild interest showed that something big was happening in the Gilbratha.

And the Coppers. That made some sense, Frank reckoned. Frank was sure Tidus Westbay, was well embarrassed. Frank didn’t have a close association with the nominal head of the coppers, but they must have been getting desperate if they were inviting local thaumaturges to join in a ritual divination. One would think the University was a better choice.

The whole search seemed like a bit much, though, for just some academic artifact. Frank thought the innovation of ancients was rarely as innovative as people thought.

If, however, Frank could find the connections, then he might see the whole picture. And if he did, he might understand what was going on. At that point, he hoped answering his clients questions would be trivial.

At least Marie would be happy that they would make some money.

Turning his thoughts back to the task at hand: Who was Siobhan Naught? What did she want? Why was she given the name, Raven Queen? What would represent her best?

Frigg liked her offerings to be different each time, but Frank had figured out the trick of it. He needed to give a gift that represented the case; or in this instance, cases. So, if Siobhan Naught was a “Raven Queen,” then to ask about her, Frank would have to give Frigg a kind of symbol of who a raven queen would be.

Alone, a raven was a creature of the dawn and dusk: a competitive gatherer of things that was also proud and social.A Queen of ravens would be attracted to something valuable, and maybe something to represent her cleverness. Siobhan Naught was a thaumaturge; everyone agreed on that.Poe sifted through the pockets in his coat and found something that suited this new Raven Queen.

On roof, Frank kept an iron bowl. In it he offered the gold nib from a pen.

Frank sat patiently. Frigg would come, drop a gift, answer a question, and take the offering. Hopefully. When Frigg left without taking the offering behind in the bowl, Frank reckoned that was inauspicious. That had happened a few times before.

When he’s hired Marie, Frigg left a cracked monocle for him but refused to take what he had offered, which was a black ribbon. Of course, he could have gotten the offering wrong. Asking an oracle a question was not entirely reliable or easy. Still, If she’d really disapproved, Frank reckoned she would have taken the monocle back, even if she didn’t take his offering.

But Frigg did not control him; he’d hired Marie anyway. Augury could only take his decision-making so far. One couldn’t abandon judgement.

Like usual, it didn’t take long for Frigg to arrive. Gliding on iridescent black wings, over the roofs and chimneys, she landed next to Frank like a kiss on a lover’s cheek. She gave the little golden nib in the iron bowl an unblinking glare.

Frigg did, indeed, have something wedged in its beak. She hopped over to Frank, and dropped a smooth black stone. The Raven didn’t always have something to exchange, but what she did leave was rarely as mundane as a rock. Frank resisted the urge to pick up the stone; the bargain wasn’t complete.

Frigg hopped back to the boat, then worried the little golden nib with her beak, tossing it up and down and letting it fall and making the little iron bowl ring softly. Frank watched her, unmoving. He did not want to upset her.

“So, what do you think Frigg? Do I go looking for the Raven Queen?” Frank asked conversationally.

Frigg looked at him with one eye, then turned her head and looked at him fully with the other eye. Frank knew that she was the wisest raven he’d ever met, but she still didn’t talk. Mostly. After a few moments of seeming contemplation, Frigg regally nodded her bill once.This done, she picked up the nib piece and flew off toward the Mires.

Frank reckoned that the nodding and taking the golden nib meant yes. Marie had insisted that he take the case; now, he knew that he must. The raven took something, but she’d also left something intriguing behind: a polished black stone.

Frank carefully picked up the stone she’d left. He laid it flat on his palm, then brought it close to examine it. It was perfectly smooth, and glimmered with an inner light that became a star when he held it up, even in the overcast early morning. A black star sapphire. Frigg had never brought him anything that valuable before.

As he gazed into the depths of it, he felt for a moment that he couldn’t breathe. Heart racing and his own breath choking him, whispers without sound flooded his thoughts, and swirls of silvery white lines blinded.

…

Some time later, he found himself curled up next to the iron bowl. It didn’t feel like he’d lost a lot of time. Just enough to dry the tears. They had left salty tracks over his face. The black star sapphire had fallen from his fingers and rested in the crook of his arm. Carefully sitting up, he took out a pure white square of cloth and used it to pick up the sapphire; he folded the sapphire into it, and he tucked it into one of inner pockets of his colorful koi-decorated overcoat.

He dug through his pockets and found a handkerchief to scrub his face. Shame he hadn’t collected the tears; the tears of madness could be a pretty useful spell component.

He scooted carefully off the roof, back down through the little hatch, and down the twisting stairs to the office.