Leah knocks on the door to Seffon’s library, and receives no response. Ah, of course; no guards at the door either. He’s not here anymore. She goes instead to the tower, but finds it likewise empty. Somewhat frustrated, she goes to the dining area where she has eaten with him and Sewheil before, only to find it, also, empty.
She stops a passing serving girl. “Uẽ es Lõ Seffon?” Leah asks, with very careful enunciation. The girl smiles a bit at the accent, then points and babbles off something that Leah cannot hope to understand. Leah catches the word “hospital,” relatively unchanged, and then “Teo.” Somewhat concerned that something may have happened, Leah gives a quick thank you to the girl and hurries off.
She finds Seffon, as promised, in the hospital; a group of scouts are clustered around a cot, giving moral support to a woman who is having an arrow withdrawn from her thigh.
Seffon notices her arrival, and leaves the bedside to talk to her.
“Attackers nearby?” Leah asks, and Seffon shakes his head.
“They went too close to shore while watching for ships, and got spotted. A Cheden archer got a lucky shot, is all. Over a hundred metres offshore and twenty-five metres down a cliff, fewer than thirty arrows fired, and still one found a mark.” He shakes his head, looking at the wound.
“How did they get here so quickly from the shore? I thought we were far inland.”
“The wind-walk spell; Teo knows it, and when I received notice of what happened I sent her to bring them back.”
“Oh really?” Leah keeps her tone light, but scans the room again for Teo, finally spotting her near the head of the cot, holding a ball of light in her hand for Sewheil to work by. “She’s quite useful in a pinch; you should have nominated her for legion leader. I bet she even speaks Devadiss, having grown up nearby.”
“Nonsense, she’s far too unreliable, always running away on quests. I never know where she is. If she weren’t such a prodigy I wouldn’t even keep her as a student.”
Leah smirks but keeps her comments to herself. “What’s the plan for tomorrow morning?”
Seffon takes a few steps further away, for privacy, and Leah follows. Teo notices, and keeps an eye on them. “I’ve written the letter, and will give it to you right before we send you off. We need to finish the elemental rune spell, first, but that’s just to confirm the whole…brain death, thing.” He seems uneasy as he says it. “Honestly I’m not sure I’m comfortable sending you off, if it turns out your body was the one that suffered the…”
“It was just because of the rings, and I’ve gotten over my phase of wanting to…stop existing.”
Seffon nods, looking only slightly reassured. “All you need to do is go to the keep, find some way in, and deliver the letter to Lord Valerid. Once it has been delivered, you’ll activate a message beacon,” Here he places into her hand a bracelet with a plain iron charm on it, “And we will know it is time to send the troops in. Everything is being assembled as quickly as we can, but even so it will be at least a day after your message before our troops can arrive to get you out of there, so if you want to leave Valerin earlier, it will be up to you and your wits.”
“And Vivitha?”
Seffon pauses, looking confused. “She would be permitted to return here with you, but I can’t imagine she’d want to. The woman does not feel comfortable around magic, that much is abundantly clear.”
“Will we have magic assistance getting in to Valerin?”
“Not unless your odd friend Solace shows up again.”
Leah’s cheeks hurt from the effort of not smiling. She can see Teo twitch from across the room, and wonders if she is somehow eavesdropping on them.
“I don’t suppose you could lend us Teo? She might enjoy this little quest.”
Teo’s eyes raise and glare at her, and Leah has her confirmation. She winks when Seffon isn’t looking, and Teo looks back at the surgery being performed.
“I suppose…no, she’ll be needed for defence, here, and the Cheden warrior-mage will be alert for any magic at all in Valerin. Even the message beacon is risky, but I trust you to use it wisely.”
“Yes, about this little friendship bracelet…” Leah puts it on and examines it. “I’ve seen you use yours to do different things; how does it work?”
“They’re made as matched sets. I have this one’s pair, so you can contact me directly. Just hold it to your palm, securely, and speak into it.”
Leah mimes the action. “Like this?” Seffon nods. “How will I know it’s working?”
“It’ll turn warm, and you’ll hear me answer.”
“Does it have unlimited activations?”
“The sound quality degrades over repeated uses.”
“Ahh, like vinyl.”
“I wonder if you realise how difficult it is to understand you sometimes.”
“I do it on purpose.”
“Of course you do.”
The surgery finishes. Sewheil is removing the last traces of the sinew-and-splinters spell, and an assistant is clearing away the blood on the floor. Once the woman stands from the cot and walks away, supported by her teammates, another assistant hurries in to strip the fabric off the cot frame and bring it to be washed.
“Vivitha’s horse could never be recovered in time to do that sort of a trip,” Leah says, stepping aside for the group to pass. Teo remains behind to help the hospital crew, though still watching Leah out of the corner of her eye.
“We can lend her a horse, but our herd is not so large that we can afford to lose one if she decides not to return.”
“I’ll bring it back, even if she stays behind.”
Seffon nods distractedly, watching the hospital clearing up. “If you leave tomorrow at sunrise, you would get to Valerin at midnight. You would be exhausted.”
“Do you want to put it off until later?”
“No, it needs to be as soon as possible. I will, however, provide you with what we can spare in terms of protections.” He turns and summons her to a door off the side of the hospital; beyond is a room full of glass-fronted cabinets, and something resembling a magically run refrigerator.
“Evocative, technically, but put to life-saving purpose,” Seffon says, gesturing to the stone box with frost forming at the seams. “Don’t mention it to anyone, either way.”
Leah follows him to a row of shelves at one end, the labels of each shelf written in Olues on little brass plaques. Seffon follows the wall, fingers fluttering as he looks for particular items, then stops at a unit labelled “streng – enerzy – endurans.”
“Strong, energy, endurance?” Leah asks.
“Strength, energy, endurance.”
Seffon picks up a small wooden case from the shelf and opens it, revealing what Leah first takes to be coins. Seffon pulls out four, and then takes Leah’s hand and removes the bracelet, stringing each one on.
“Lesson one: runes,” he says, as he adds each charm. “You’re going to need to memorise the material-shape-rune combination for each one.”
“Okay,” Leah says, with an excited gleam in her eyes, looking at them all acquisitively.
“Silver-square-Afram,” he says, showing a square silver charm with a squiggle etched into it. Leah tries to properly identify the squiggle as more than just ‘squiggle:’ Sort of a lowercase Y with a loop on the right upper bit. Not unlike the Greek phi, φ, only skinnier. “Wakefulness. If you feel you are about to collapse from exhaustion, this will give you another six hours of alertness.
“Silver-circle-Noi, heart strength. Increases your heart rate, lets you sprint long distances or fight without tiring, lasts an hour.” Leah looks at the lines, a sort of )|( shape, and thinks of blood running through arteries, then nods.
“Copper-circle-Diefe, muscle. I hardly think you will need it, but just in case.” He adds the charm, etched with something a bit like a crossed seven with dots instead of a cross, ∙7∙. Or, if looked at upside down, two tiny eyes and a huge nose. “It will increase your strength for half an hour.
“Tin-triangle-Kiess, resistance. If you must travel through anywhere with toxic fumes, or plague, or smoke, this will allow you to resist the ill effects of breathing in the air. It won’t totally protect you, but it will boost your tolerance level.” He adds the final charm, a squiggle with two dots under it, like {: but at an angle. “It lasts an hour.”
“Now…” He reattaches the bracelet and holds up the first charm.
“Wakefulness,” Leah says. “Silver square.”
“And the rune?”
She draws the shape in the air from memory.
“Not the shape, the name,” he prompts, catching her wrist before she can finish drawing the shape.
Leah blanks. “I have to know their names?”
Seffon smirks and lets out a breath – not quite a sigh, but Leah can sense the tested patience behind it. “Yes. For single-use charms like this, you need to invoke the rune name to activate the effect.”
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“Oh geez, okay.” Leah frowns in thought. “A-something.”
“Afram.” He holds up the next.
“Heart rate. Silver circle…N-something.”
“Noi.” He holds up the next.
“Muscle. Copper circle…Dafoe.”
“Diefe.” Next one.
“Resistance. Tin-triangle…Kess.”
“Kiess.”
“Can I have them written down?”
Seffon lets go of the bracelet and nods. “The names don’t have to be spoken loudly, they just need to be spoken clearly. The effect of each only extends to the wearer. Come by the library after dinner and I’ll have the written names for you to study.” Seffon leaves first, and Leah casts a last curious glance over all the other shelves before following after him.
Back in the hospital, Leah looks around for Teo, but she’s already gone. Leah leaves, trying not to look like she’s hurrying, and sees the hawk-nosed student turn a corner down the hall. She jogs after her and catches up to her around the bend.
“Hey,” she says, and Teo turns with a smile.
“Looks like I’m nau going with yu,” Teo says with a shrug.
“I guess that’s for the best, if Eschen is going to be looking out for magic users. I’m frankly a little nervous even about using these.” Leah jingles the bracelet. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
Leah explains about Vivitha’s memory of the song, and asks if, even though Solace said she didn’t know Algi very well, she might still try to listen to Vivitha humming it, to see if she recognises it. Teo listens, and takes the whole thing seriously. She asks if Leah believes it’s important, and Leah shrugs, saying that ever since she had the dream-memory of the flax fields, she’s wondered about the other Leah’s history.
“Actually, there was a song in that one, too…” Leah frowns, then shakes her head. “I can’t remember. At the time it seemed so obvious, that it was a work song, but – ”
Leah cuts herself short as Teo begins to tap out a little song, similar to a military march in its beat, humming along. Leah listens, then shakes her head. Teo asks what part of the harvest process they were at, and Leah says “breaking and scutching,” then stops, confused.
“How did I know those words?”
Teo shrugs it off, thinking. She starts up a second tune, still a march, but a bit faster.
“That’s it, I think!” Leah says, nodding along. “Something about…bringing people in, or something?”
“Calling cousins and neighbours together to help with the harvest. Fields are owned by whole settlements, and all the generations come together to get the harvest done in time. Each verse is a different generation, if I recall.”
Leah nods, the mood of the song coming back to her. “That sounds right…no idea how I know that, but it does.” She stops, and looks Teo over carefully. “I thought you didn’t know Algi well?”
“Not intimately, but I know the music. It’s been a while since I was last there in person.”
“Well you seem pretty knowledgeable to me. I’d like you to try and identify the other song, if you can.”
Teo totters her head, thinking, then nods. “If your friend can sing enough of it for me to identify.”
Leah grins and brings Teo along to the room she now shares with Vivitha. The deeply bronzed archer is inside, hair flopped around her face, lying on a bed made of spare blankets, reading the genealogy of the Enterlan.
“I’ve got a cousin who learned how to propagate and cultivate vanilla orchids!” Vivitha says, flipping over to a bookmarked page. “Sixty years ago, but still. And another who died saving a prize stallion’s foal from a flash flood, ten springs ago. That whole line of horses is named after his family now.” Vivitha looks up, and falls silent, seeing Teo. “Oh, hello? Teo, right?”
“Can you hum the song that Leah used to sing?” Leah asks, and Vivitha clams up, with a very slight blush. “Teo knows all sorts of songs, she’ll probably be able to identify it.”
“Um…sure.” Vivitha sets aside the book and takes a moment to ready herself, before beginning to quietly hum. Leah can barely hear it, and Teo neither, but that doesn’t seem to stop the student from following. Eventually Vivitha’s humming gets louder and more confident, repeating the same tune over and over.
“It’s six lines, repeated for four rounds, traditionally,” Teo says at last, and Vivitha stops, nodding in surprise.
“Well, sometimes she sang it longer, but it was never short. You know it?”
“Hai do Davrou iedo daina / Lebroi Do havatsed naida,” Teo says, from memory. “Something something, then…domair ev…houue? And then another three lines, with repeated phrases at the beginning. It’s been a while since I learned it, you’d do better to find a northerner to ask.”
“Is it Algic? Nentish? Bairish? What’s the genre?” Leah asks.
“It’s definitely Algic, but beyond that?” She shrugs. “It doesn’t sound like a vaudeville song…if you want to be sure, ask a northerner. Algi’s culture isn’t very popular beyond its borders.”
“But Volst’s pantheon has some from Algi, no? The harvest goddess?” Vivitha cuts in, and Leah nods along.
“Yes, the goddesses are borrowed from Algi, but not necessarily their songs or practices.”
Leah narrows her eyes. “I thought you said you didn’t know much about Algi?”
Teo sighs dramatically. “But I do know Volst; I’ve been there a long while. Besides, I do know some things about Algi. Over half the bards in the Gulf are from Algi, even Bair doesn’t come close, but I don’t live there. I don’t have the…” She waves her hand, looking for a word. “The human touch.”
Leah sits back on the bed, deep in thought. “Does Nent share Algi’s religious practices?”
Vivitha shrugs, and even Teo looks unsure. “Religion in Nent is…strict. They are isolationist, and only the Bolyars do business with the outside world. You’re unlikely to find a Nentish citizen in Valerin – ohhh.” Teo nods.
“Ah,” Vivitha says, a moment later. “Your other friend.”
Leah makes a sour face, and Teo looks between them confused. “We’re talking about Kimry, right?”
Leah pushes past this. “Could she know something? Would Leah have confided in her?”
Vivitha shrugs. “You seemed to have a soft spot for her. We all assumed it was because you’d been away from home for so long.”
Leah muses on the odds. “If we have to go inside the keep anyway, we’ll be able to detour and find her easily. Can’t hurt to ask.”
Teo raises an eyebrow. “I’ve pieced together most of what’s happening here, but I’m still not entirely sure what you’re talking about.”
“Fake Leah and I are delivering a missive to Lord Valerid.”
“So soon after the Jonkheer’s visit?” Teo looks very curious, and Vivitha offers no more. Teo accepts the silence with a nod, and gives a quick smile to Leah. “Good luck, and be back soon.”
“Unlikely, but thanks,” Leah says, returning the smile. Teo winks and gives a slight smile to Vivitha, then leaves.
Alone again, Vivitha goes back to her reading, and Leah sits on the bed, running through the charm names. Eventually Vivitha notices, and stops reading.
“What are those?”
“Spells, I think. I’m not sure how it works, exactly. They’re for when we break into the keep.”
“And out.”
“Hm?”
“Break in, and then out, right?” Vivitha asks, suddenly serious.
Leah hesitates. “Yeah. If we can manage it.”
Vivitha rolls over to stare at the ceiling. “You know, you never finished telling me the story. How you got out of prison.”
Leah lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling too. “Not a pretty scene. You ever been to Valerin’s dungeon?”
“Only once, when they wanted us to see the bent bars.”
“Hah, yeah…” Leah says, thumbing the copper charm. She explains meeting Solace, and escaping using illusions, and how angry she was at everyone for what they’d put her through. “I understand a bit better, now, why they were so scared that I might be ensorcelled. Possibly having had a secret agent in your court every day would be terrifying. I do sort of regret attacking the guard, but I was facing the reality that everything was falling to pieces around me and I had no power, and that’s scary too. Doesn’t mean I forgive them for that truth spell.”
“Meredith said it was pretty horrible.”
Leah nods. “It was scary, and it hurt. Not badly, just sort of…everywhere. Apparently it was a sort of necromancy, which I can’t quite figure out, but – ”
“Oh, I know that one.”
Leah sits up and looks at her in shock.
Vivitha nods. “Yeah, it’s from a ghost story, where I grew up. Parables about the dangers of magic. The story says that you basically freeze up, can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t even think, and the words just sort of come out of you like a ghost.”
“That’s…yeah, that’s what happened.”
Vivitha nods again, eyes still focused on the ceiling. “That’s horrible.”
“It was.”
Vivitha thumbs the pages of the book. “Would you like to kill Eschen, or shall I?”
Leah snickers a bit, then shakes her head. “I just want to go home.”
“Well, I can’t help you there, but if you change your mind let me know.”
Leah lies still for a few minutes longer, then gets up and goes to find Adan; she feels the sudden need to be prepared for a round two.
*
She and Adan practice wordlessly in the far corner of the courtyard, long after the usual crowd is done with their training. Adan is schooling her through how to grip a bow properly; they have given up on swords as being too energy-demanding, and are now doing the basics of archery.
“Jõ frien Vivit sou by traineng ju aun des,” Adan says at one point.
“Vivitha? I guess so…I just don’t think people want to see her with a weapon in her hands.”
“Sy’s fueng dely fe a bow.”
Leah gives Adan an odd look. “Did you just swear?”
“I tanau e personally. Sy fas reskjueng ju.”
Leah aims at the target, and Adan steps back to give her space to draw. The draw weight of this bow is not that high, but the arrow still flies with a surprising amount of force. It lands solidly in the target bale, though not on the actual target.
“Excellen,” Adan says, handing her another arrow.
“Not that great,” Leah says, disappointed.
“Jõ posceữ fas perfe.”
“My what?”
“Tri again.”
Leah aims again and fires. This arrow hits the painted target but bounces off instead of embedding itself in the bale.
The practice session continues like this until just before the dinner hour. Adan shows her how to unstring the bow and care for it.
“Is Vivitha’s bow around here somewhere?” Leah asks. Adan makes a questioning face. Leah thinks hard. “Vivit. Hẽ bow?”
Adan nods and gestures to the Hold with a ‘far away’ sort of motion. “E es afay lo’ somefẽ, jus lie jõ stuff fas fen ju firs came hỹ.”
Leah figures it will be returned to her eventually and leaves it at that.
“Ã ju lyveng?” Adan asks, and Leah stops on her way back inside, trying to parse the words. “Lyveng? Goeng afay?”
“For a bit, yeah.” Leah nods. Adan’s face is grim. “There’s a war on, Adan. I have a role too.”
Adan smiles a bit, though clearly not understanding anything more than the tone. “Come ba safe,” she says, with a little nod, and leaves to put the practice gear away.
Leah heads into the Hold, and takes a quick bowl of supper in the mess hall. No-one notices her, or questions her presence.
She stops by Jeno’s rooms on her way to the library, and finds the girl at her desk, reading a Ched text and drinking her bowl of soup. She smiles when she sees Leah enter.
“They made a meat-free version for me. I don’t need it anyway; I’m not going to be fighting, so I don’t need the protein.” She sets aside the book. “I’m not sure what I will be doing if war comes this way…”
Leah sits down beside her on the bench and takes one of her hands. “I’m going to go to Valerin tomorrow. Not forever, just to get past the siege, and then hopefully to get back out.”
Jeno gives her hand a squeeze. “Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely.” Leah lets go of her hand so she can continue eating. “I’m going to be carrying a message to Lord Valerid.” Jeno tenses a bit, but does not interrupt. “Lord Seffon is going to declare himself in the war.”
“Isn’t he part of Devad?”
Leah rocks her head on her shoulders. “Technically? But he maintains that since they have failed to govern for three hundred years, and his family has done so successfully for three generations, this region should be considered an independent state.”
“So he’s…joining separately?”
“We believe Devad and Cheden orchestrated this whole situation. Something fishy is going on, and they’re trying to blame it on him.” Leah hesitates over how to phrase the next bit. “He is going to offer relief to Valerin. If possible, we will break the siege, and the Cheden ships – and captain Eschen – will be driven off.”
It takes a while for Jeno to process this. She stares into her soup, in deep thought. “He’s going to declare against Cheden?”
Leah shrugs. “He’s declaring for Volst, so I suppose it’s implied that he’s going to be against Cheden and Devad.”
Jeno nods slightly, though she still seems distracted. “Will I have to leave? Or will I be more formally a prisoner?”
“Well, as I understand it, the marriage confirmation means that you are no longer an Auzzo; you are a Valerid. If Seffon declares for Volst, you will be kept safe here among allies.”
Jeno’s head hangs. “I suppose so.”
“Is there a problem?”
Jeno does not speak for a long time. “I’ve been thinking about that spell…the one Eschen put on me, to trap my memories. I know you said he couldn’t use it to see through my eyes, or…”
Leah rubs Jeno’s back and pulls her in for a hug. Jeno resists slightly, and Leah leans back.
“He knew I saw the memory of Samson’s death, but he didn’t see anything else,” she says gently.
“But what if…”
“No, Jeno,” Leah says, trying to be soothing. “He didn’t see anything else.”
Silence.
Jeno picks up the nearly empty soup bowl. “Seffon is going to force him away?”
“He’s going to send support to the keep. I haven’t seen his militia in action, I’ve only seen people training around the school, guards and such, on a small scale. I do know that they will be offering magic support to Valerin, so Cheden’s main tactical advantage is going to disappear.”
“Right…”
Leah stands from the bench. “Would you rather be alone tonight?”
Jeno swirls the soup in the bottom of the bowl. “I think that whole beacon thing…I couldn’t. I’d be too afraid. Even though I know he couldn’t…”
Leah leans back over and kisses Jeno’s forehead. “Take your time. Figure out how you feel. I’ll be back in a few days.”