Frank Poe

Month 12, Day 15, 9:00 PM

Frank lifted his components box over his head and put it through the roof hatch. He followed it up and removed a wooden framed tool chest with its shoulder straps from his back, then placed it next to the box. He used a disk from his pocket to cast a dim red light, and waited for his eyes to adjust.

He’d sent Marie to bed, but then he had decided, somewhat on a whim, that it was time to do a proper divination on who had sold Ennis Naught’s artifacts. Poe had reexamined the file, and he’d tested his will to see if it recovered from the stress of dealing with the aberrant, and he felt fine.

For the last few nights, he’d spent time writing and rewriting the kind of array he wanted to use. He’d start with appearance. If the Raven Queen herself had sold the goods, then this might be a dead end, but even if she protected herself from divination, the shopkeeper wouldn’t. Frank would scry the memories left in the wake of the sale.

With luck, he’d see the face of the seller. With some more luck, this would reveal someone that Frank could trace back to the Raven Queen or her location. From there, actual legwork could give him the opportunity to see the Raven Queen for himself. Her magic was becoming mythological in the streets. Rumors abounded now that it had been some time since her last public appearance; was she preparing for her next big move?

Canelo seemed no closer to finding her, although Frank would not be sharing his results with her, unless he could see some advantage, which he did not. The University wanted the treasure she’d stolen pretty desperately, but if they were competent, what plan did they have to scry for her?

Frank suspected that the Coppers or the University would resort to the the most powerful divination team they could get their hands on. A hundred and fifty thousand thaums or more, if they were trying to scry for an immediate location-based divination. In Frank’s opinion, Caidan’s Theorem had so many holes it could let an entire of school of fish through it, but it still worked. This would be a spell with Grandmaster or greater power. Still, the Coppers had blood and a head start.

Frank has some names in mind if he were to pick a group to scry for the Raven Queen, including the prognos Masters he’d known when he studied. If he didn’t act soon, they’d have her in hand before he’d even get a chance. But, he doubted even masters would find her. His fate scrying suggested the Raven Queen was more elusive than anyone had the right to be.

Frank planned a spell much less specific, and not based on location. The stars were out, but the moon had not risen. His divination would draw upon the starlight as a component. Night was for dreams and visions, secrets and hidden thoughts. Easier to hide, perhaps, but also a time for discovery and inspiration.

He grabbed his long bar compass, metal scribe, brush, and pale white moon silver and crushed conduit ink. Once he gathered his tools, he began to mark and draw out a massive tetragram. He worked slowly and precisely. Written instructions and runes went into place. He placed Ennis’ possessions as the focus, and selected components for scrying the past, but also items to give him a vision of the person he would be looking for. From the prospective of the shop owner and the objects themselves, he could expect fairly good detail.

And, he wasn’t far away from the events he wanted to scry, so this wouldn’t take the many thousands of thaums other types of scrying would. Still, the spell would take all the power he could muster, and over a thousand thaums; so he switched to his massive heirloom conduit to give himself plenty of buffer; his smaller conduit could handle a master-level spell, but there was no danger of exceeding the conduit at all with the monstrous heirloom.

Just as he sat crosslegged, and began to clear his mind, he heard the sound of the roof hatch opening.

“Master?” Marie called from behind him. “It’s past midnight. Why are you up here in the cold?”

“I am going to scry for the seller.” Frank thought for a moment. “Would you like to see what I see?”

Frank wasn’t looking in her direction, but he could her her excitement in her stride as she crossed to his spot.

“Yes! Please?”

“I offered. I’m not likely to go back on my word now.” Frank replied. He stood and added to the array as Marie looked on. In the starlight, she was a little smudge of midnight black, except her pale, moon-like, face. Her black eyes watched him with the curiosity only the very young still possessed. Frank hoped she could retain that desire to learn everything all at once. Curiosity would serve her well as a sorcerer. Understanding came from seeking, not finding.

“Are you dressed warmly enough?” Frank asked. “We may be sitting for some time as I build power.”

“Yes.” Marie replied.

Frank guided her to a spot next to him so that they could sit closely together, and Frank could share the divination vision with Marie. It might take a bit more will, but Frank felt he could manage it. He placed his ancient stone scrying bowl in the array, and it would allow him and Marie to watch the events of the past.

It had been hours in preparation, but Frank felt more alert and awake than he’d felt for days. He began to feed power to the spell from one of his larger beast cores, and shared the vision in the bowl with Marie. Together, they peered into the past.

This spell travelled backward through time, so the vision started from the shopkeeper’s perspective of handling the goods before Frank bought them. The curse seemed to have severed all memory in the objects of Frank or the trip from the shop to August Agency. Frank noted for himself this aspect of his curse; it was more than just memory the curse seemed to remove; it also removed him from history. He would have to consider how to counter this when he obtained the pearl.

Regardless, he soon had a clear look into the shop as visitors gazed at Ennis’ possessions, little knowing how important that they were. They were moments of haze as Poe tried to move through this quickly, but then he found the moment when the shopkeeper first put his eyes on the monogramed smoking box.

At first, it seemed like the shop keeper did not even look at the seller, which would have set Frank back to the first step, but then the image shifted as the shopkeeper haggled over the items and some men’s clothing.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The seller eventually came into view. Well dressed and tall, beautiful and melancholy, with black eyes and pale blond hair. The eyes struck Frank as reminiscent of Marie’s, or … the Raven Queen’s. Frank stopped the movement of time to carefully examine the image. His clothes and bearing gave him away as a young scion of a crown family or the son of a wealthy merchant. Frank couldn’t imagine a less likely contact with the Raven Queen.

But Marie gasped.

“Master Poe. I … I know him.”

Frank he felt a thrill of shock. Nothing so great to break his concentration on the spell, but he took a moment to make sure the spell stabilized before he spoke.

“How?”

“Well, um. I think I saw him at the University!”

Frank dropped the spell. He fixed the image of the young man clearly in his mind; that would be necessary for the next step of the spell.

“You think?” He asked.

“He might not be the same, right, but he walked in front of me when I waited on the bench.”

Frank thought about this for a moment. “Okay. We’ll try the next stage of the spell and see what we can find. Wait till after, and we’ll talk about it.”

Frank now knew what he was looking for, he would follow the flow of time backward to see where the boy obtained Naught’s trinkets. If it was too far away, Frank still might be able to move closer to the location and try again.

Frank began the attempt to scry the boy, and Frank felt the spell resist him. Frank began to pour on power, but the blonde refused to appear in the scrying bowl. Not even in the shop. Instead, the water turned dark, almost black. Frank tried to move backward in time in the history of the trinkets, but there was nothing to see. Not where they had been taken from, or anything that might have revealed where they had travelled.

Frank tried to use the tenuous connection with the objects to follow the young man out of the shop. The instant, however, that the spell would shift to him, the spell array would drain power and begin to glow, siphoning off into the null. Nothing.

Frank tried several different concepts; the boy’s memories caused the array to become dangerously hot and bright, the touch of his hands on the swag couldn’t seem to connect to an anchor, anyone else that may have touched the material, until it just showed Ennis pawing through the pack while the shape of a dark haired young girl blurred in the background. Frank couldn’t even tell how long ago that had been. Frank concluded that had the seller’s appearance, but nothing else. He let the array go; his will was tiring, and more power did nothing.

He turned to Marie.

“He is more slippery than an eel. His anti-divination wards seem formidable, especially if they even fight off time and memory magic. I have to link to him, but it’s not a powerful enough; he remains undetectable. Are you sure you saw him before? What can you tell me about him?” Frank asked.

“While I waited for you to send a message, I saw some students. One of them was a Westbay.”

“Westbay?” Frank’s eyes widened involuntarily. “This man is a Westbay?”

“No. This one was with Westbay. I think. A blonde boy who teased him.”

“Did you catch his name?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. Silver-something? I’ll remember it if I give myself some time to think.”

“One moment, I’m going to rework the array, and we’ll examine your memory.”

Frank stood up, rubbing the stiffness from his legs, and he busied himself changing the array and moving the components. He had a variety of components for memory already; after all, he had the recipe for a memory potion that would, at least temporarily, allow people to remember him: an ancient black silhouette of an forgotten lady, an empty cameo locket, delicate piece of storm elephant ivory, and other items that Frank swapped with the current time components he’d originally selected.

Frank sat Marie inside the circle, and he sat just on the outside, but in another circle, and he had her look him in they eyes.

“Marie. I will scry your memories. This is a safe spell, but you must trust me. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. It’s possible that if you were in the correct frame of mind, you would remember this anyway. So, first we’ll get you in the right mental state. I need to you to listen to my voice. Relax your body. Feel just your breath. Breath in.” Frank paused to watch Marie’s chest swell slightly. “Breath out.” Marie’s breath steamed. It had been colder lately. Frank continued to speak in murmuring tones, emphasizing that Marie focus on the sensations of breathing and relaxing. When he could see her relaxing, he moved on to the next step.

“This is a memory spell. You will share a memory with me, but first, I need you to focus on the memory. The sights of that day. The sounds. Are you focused on that moment?”

“Yes … I think I remember the name …”

“No need to rush. We will connect though our eyes. Eyes are the windows of the mind. You will look through mine, and I will look through yours.”

Marie had closed her eyes during the breathing, but she opened her eyes and stared directly into Frank’s own. “Will I see your memories?”

“No. We will just share your memory together.” Frank activated the spell array. It was precise and channeled his desire perfectly. After a moment of disorientation, it was as he remembered the day, walking the path with her. Her memory was crisp and clear.

“Now,” Frank said. “Let your memory travel through this moment. You sat on the bench?”

“Yes.” Marie replied. And Frank saw her sit, from her point of view. The memory was sharp and clear, and far better than Frank’s scrying of the junk shop.

“Now, go slowly and try to recall the sequence of events.”

The memory began to scroll forward, and Frank realized her recall was nearly perfect. It would be easy to fill in the incorrect details; memories had that sort of tendency, but Marie’s mind kept careful track of everything she’d seen. He realized that she might even have a eidetic memory. This spell would enhance recall, but it relied on the person to have a good quality memory to start.

Marie’s attention turned to a group of students. To Frank they were mostly ordinary, but he did see a young man that looked much like the Westbays he knew, and another that seemed like the young Gervin heir. Rarified company indeed. And among them was the same man that had sold Ennis Naught’s trinkets.

Even better, Marie could recall the exact words of their conversation.

‘Silverling, will you be passing on pointers to us in Burberry’s class?’ The Westbay asked.

‘Westbay,’ Sebastien Silverling replied, ‘if you’re inadequately attentive on your own, you can hardly expect me to make up the difference for you.”

Frank watched a bit more as the trio walked out of sight. He let the spell go. Marie swayed a bit.

“Shhh. Relax a moment. Let your body come back to the present.” Frank watched Marie carefully. She closed her eyes, but Marie smiled.

“Silvering! That’s his name.”

“Sebastien Silvering, in fact.” Frank said, unable to keep the shock from his voice. “Thaddeus Lacer’s apprentice.”

“How do you know him?”

“Lacer told me weeks ago, when he stopped by and asked me to find a way to meet the Raven Queen.”

“You think that Silverling is in contact with Raven Queen?”

“I don’t know.” Frank replied. “But now that I know who to look for … Scrying isn’t the only way to find a person. People have habits. Especially University students. They can’t help it; it’s just a matter of finding him when he is away from the University and following him. Especially easy for him, because those student tokens are designed to be tracked. It doesn’t matter how good Silverling’s anti-divination is.”