She and Seffon make the crossing on a fisherman’s boat, while Solace and Adan go by another to ready their departure. Climbing up the stairs to the street, Leah takes a moment to get oriented then sets off towards Wellen’s workshop.
Beeswax whinnies at her approach; Leah goes over and coos to her, petting her nose and checking her over.
“It’s been some time since I had to care for a horse that affectionate,” Wellen says, opening the door and looking out at them. “Does she always try to eat your hands when you groom her?”
“The dear doesn’t know what is and isn’t food,” Leah says warmly, giving her a pat on the flank. The horse grumbles. “We’re on our way out, but I wanted to stop by and say goodbye, and also ask you about any scansion-spells you may know.”
“Scansion-spells?” Wellen steps out, frowning in thought. “And who’s ‘we?’”
Leah grins and gestures with her head back to Seffon, who is crouched in the herb garden, enraptured by a small flowering shrub.
“Oh Gods,” Wellen says, stopping dead.
“How did you get it to grow in dry soil?” Seffon asks, prodding at the roots of the plant. “We’ve never found it to thrive in regular gardens; it likes the wet too much.”
Wellen stammers for a bit, then brushes off his hands and shrugs. “It’s a hybrid with a mountain strain, not a true pink bitter-berry. It’s got a little bit of snow-leaf bitter-berry in it.”
“Ahh,” Seffon stands with a smile. “How does that impact the strength of the remedy?”
“You have to use twice the raw material, and add a bit of acid to balance it all out, but other than that it’s…” Wellen swallows. “Of course I don’t get the chance to test it often, there may be side-effects I haven’t come across yet.”
Seffon pets Beeswax’s neck absently. “And that was a many-point aster in the front, yes?”
“That’s just decorative, though, I don’t use it for – ”
“But it’s quite good for scrys, if you don’t have a focus.”
“Oh? How so?”
Leah bites her cheeks to keep from smirking, as the two men enter the workshop, lost to the outside world for the moment.
Within, a pot of soup is simmering and the living area has been cleaned so thoroughly that no trace of Leah’s earlier Frankenstein-esque experiment remains. Wellen gestures for them all to sit, then serves out the soup, still looking a little rattled.
“I learned something from one of the Algic representatives, last night,” Leah says, taking over the conversation. Poor Wellen would probably have a nervous fit if he had to keep talking with Seffon. What is it? Fear? Awe? Just general culture shock? “I found out that before the accident, Leah Talesh was apparently quite religious, and knew the Algic songs of the goddesses very well.”
“Oh?” Wellen rubs his chin. “I never saw that in her, but to be fair I saw very little of her before the accident. Do you believe her faith may have had some role to play in her memories disappearing?” He sounds quite doubtful.
“Rather I believe it might have played a role in where they disappeared to,” Leah says. “I think it’s possible Leah – that she and I – ”
“You think she has been in your body while you have been in hers?” Wellen guesses, and Leah nods in confirmation. He hums pensively. “How could that have happened?”
“Well, as an outsider, totally ignorant of local customs and beliefs, I’m leaning towards the Goddess of Murk. One of her prayers in particular seems awfully relevant to Leah’s dissatisfaction with her life, and a desire to leave it for another world.” Leah grins bitterly. “Somehow, I got pulled into the mix.”
Wellen frowns in thought, stirring his soup absently. He stands and goes to fetch a series of ingredients, laying them out. Seffon watches with interest. “If we’re dealing with Algic magic…there’s an adapted form of Bitter Dream,” he says, musing as he sets out the spell. “Well, there’s several adaptations to every spell, that’s just the way of things, but this one…”
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He rifles through a drawer of candles, finally pulling out one with a strange scent. He lights it, takes out a rodent skull, and fills it with the usual concoction. Leah, inured by this point, readies herself for another round. He pours the liquid into the skull, carefully, then places it in her hands and sprinkles some crystalline powder over it. She inhales.
Again the dizziness happens, and the flash of blue. Wellen removes the skull from her hands, blows out the candle, and sets the skull into the hot wax. The smoke rises, stills, then sinks back into the wax. Colour seeps down into the wax: a sort of dark blue flecked with bronze, fading to normal blue flecked with brown.
“We’ve tried this,” Leah says, but then the colour continues to descend, and eventually – abruptly – turns to red with flecks of black. “Oh! Oh? Ohhh…”
“How far back does this go?” Seffon asks, watching the candle.
“A little under two months,” Wellen says, putting away the ingredients.
“We tried this, though,” Leah says, gesturing to the candle. “I remember. We tried this, and it just showed blue. It just showed my mind.”
Seffon picks up the candle and turns it over. “I’ve never gotten it to work so well,” he says, impressed. “The book that I took the spell from gave the exact same instructions, but it’s only ever shown one month of a person’s history – and certainly never two minds in one body, though to be fair that’s never been an issue I had to account for before. It’s not the ingredients; I use the same candles for other spells and they work just fine…”
“Well, the adaptation is by an Algic caster,” Wellen says, with a shrug. “Varoeta, right?”
“I got it from Varoeta’s book, yes.”
“Well,” Wellen shrugs again. “He was an Algic caster. If one of his spells calls for a candle, one must assume he would mean a beeswax candle, not a tallow candle.”
Seffon’s face falls. He groans.
“It’s an easy oversight,” Wellen hurries to say. “I don’t mean to imply – that is, sir – ”
“That is the single most obvious and yet most subtle thing I’ve ever come across in my studies,” Seffon says ruefully. “But I see now. Gods, yes, of course. So what does this tell us?”
Wellen returns to examining the candle. “There are indeed two different minds that inhabited this body,” he says, looking at the borderline carefully. “And no overlap. Some faint fading…”
“When I tried it, it seemed like maybe six to twelve hours’ worth of fading,” Seffon says.
“Oh? Interesting. So the switch was gradual.”
“But another spell told us that Leah Talesh’s mind first encountered my mind a few hours before the switch might have occurred, when I was still awake in my world,” Leah says. “Then, I fell asleep, slept for a while, and woke up here.”
“Fascinating.” Wellen sets the candle down. “And yet the true Bitter Dream worked. It returned some of Leah Talesh’s memories to you, I mean.”
“It did, yes.”
Wellen rubs his chin again, then goes back to his soup. “Lord Seffon, sir, I understand that you have mostly studied the school of enchantment? The magics of the mind?”
“I have,” Seffon says.
“Had you tried any of the adaptations of the Broiv mind-wanderer’s spell?”
“It’s Cheden, isn’t it?” Leah says, recognising the word. “Azzi-something Broiv…”
“Azzieda Broiv Haddh Enao,” Wellen says, accented but serviceable. “It is quite invasive in its purest form, but there are several adaptations; casters use them when Bitter Dream is not enough to recover a person’s memories, as it can allow you to selectively target moments in a person’s life. It is expensive to cast, but, well…” he trails off a bit, not quite making eye contact. “But there is one adaptation, used mainly for more high-stakes cases, instances where a person’s memories have been forcibly wiped clear. If Leah Talesh’s mind is truly gone, then it didn’t happen on a whim; someone must have sent it away, carefully and meticulously. If that is the case, this adaptation should be able to identify the method and the location to which it was sent.”
“And, possibly, a way of undoing it,” Seffon says, nodding eagerly.
“Only if you are quite confident in your abilities, sir,” Wellen says, and immediately looks away. “I mean, that…”
Seffon nods. “I would do nothing to endanger Leah; I could not forgive myself if she came to harm through my over-confidence.”
The conversation stops for a long moment.
“Do you have it written down somewhere?” Leah asks, to break the tension.
“Hm? The variation on Broiv’s…yes, yes, it’s in one of my folders, ah…” Wellen gets up again to fetch it down. “Here.” He pulls out a sheaf of paper and hands it to Seffon. “There are no trick steps in there, it’s all quite basic, only…”
“Gods,” Seffon mutters, “It’s been years since I’ve seen a spell that requires that much blood.”
“Huh?!” Leah asks, her spoon dropping in her bowl.
Seffon laughs. “Oh Gods, Leah, no; the blood doesn’t have to leave the target’s body, unless you are trying to cast it without the person present, as Eschen did to you the first few times.” Wellen looks to her in a deal of concern, but Seffon does not notice. “But yes, this is quite clear. I should be able to use this, once I’m back in the school.”
“Will it work?” Leah asks, quietly.
Seffon shrugs and puts the paper down on the table. “I can hardly say that until I’ve tried it.”
Leah looks down into her bowl. “So…I can maybe go home?”
Seffon is immobile. “We won’t stop trying until you are,” he says, gently. “I know that you’ve been worried for your family, and your responsibilities there. This is the best lead we’ve had in a while, and coupled with what you found out from captain Nedies…”
“Captain Nedies?” Wellen says, looking at Leah in shock. “How by the Gods do you know the Scourge of the North Seas?”
Leah blushes. “I’m not sure, but I’ll tell as much of the story as I can,” she says with a shrug. Wellen stares at her blankly, then starts laughing brightly.