Chapter 10
Brightening Day – a widespread holiday in the Sunlit Lands of An Lar, but not a common one among the Dragonkin. The festivities start on the last evening of the Ice Month, to mark the lengthening of days that are becoming noticeable after the dark of Ice Month and Darktide month before it. It is celebrated with big bonfires, feasting and exchanging small gifts. Courting couples may jump over the fire together, and some Bauchan traditions parade their livestock next to the flames for good luck. The next day continues the feasting, with family meals to mark the day and conversations about what to look forward to in the warm weather to come. In much of An Lar, there is still snow on the ground, but in the more temperate areas, the grounds may be already greening. There is a legend about the Winter Queen spirit going out that day to see if she needs more firewood. If she sees a bright day, then she’ll get ready for her long summer nap and spring will come early. Records show that isn’t necessarily so.
Holidays of An Lar, Supplement to the Investigator’s Manual - DIC
Melusine, the beautiful Lake Woman with green hair and the habit of magically doodling while she was thinking, sat in a little cafe in Comrie. Outside it was sunny, but still cold, and a layer of now dirtied snow edged the street. Even with the cold, the street and the cafe were filled with people. It was Brightening Day eve, the children were out of school, and the shops were busy with people buying supplies for the bonfire parties that would spring up all over town after night fell.
Melusine, though, didn’t seem particularly joyful. If anything, she looked stressed, tired, and her thoughts turned inward as she stared into the hot spiced tea in front of her, thick with cream. She gave it a stir and took a sip. Normally this drink helped brighten up her day, but at the moment, it couldn’t budge her dissatisfaction.
The door to the cafe opened up, and two women, one a tall, graceful Daoine woman dressed in a winter cloak trimmed with white fur, the other smaller, almost Bauchan looking woman dressed in a far less flashy woolen coat entered the building. The shorter woman looked around and spotted Melusine, and waved, although the Lake Woman didn’t see it. Still, they moved through the crowded room towards her table.
Gan Thistleberry took one of the seats, and sat down. “Mel, are you all right?”
Melusine suddenly looked up. “Oh Gan! Happy Brightening day! I was just lost in my thoughts. You know how I get.”
“They must not be very nice thoughts,” Gan said. “You look like you haven’t been getting enough rest.”
The Lake Woman shook her head. “It’s been a rough month.”
“I’m sorry. Grendal?” Gan said.
Melusine nodded. “Orvan and Tisha quit right before the holiday break. We’re down two instructors and three assistants. And that’s just the lower levels. I wonder how many people the board of directors is willing to lose?”
Elaine, taking off her cloak, grimaced. “Grendal always was a jerk. It’s not that he’s not smart. But I don’t think he likes people.” Laying her cloak over an empty chair, she settled down next to Gan. “I ordered. I hope you like my choices!”
Melusine looked at Elaine. “You know Grendal, too?”
“Of course she does,” Gan said. “Back when we were young and students, Elaine, Violetta Greenleaf, Grendal and I got the nickname of the Golden Terrors, for all the troubles we got into, while keeping top grades at the school. Grendal and I came back after our higher studies. Violetta went off for work for Briarwood and Flysch. We all thought she was a little strange, but that sort of sealed it for us. You missed a lot getting sent to the Lake People school your parents sent you to.”
“I was being brave enough studying to become a teacher,” Melusine said. “Oh you should have heard the fights about that one. ‘What about our family traditions!’ My mother was such a nag. Third child was supposed to specialize in fish management. But I hated fish, so I ran away and joined the Alder Branches. Now all she nags me about is getting married and giving her a green-haired grandchild. I think she’s plotting on passing the fisheries job to her.”
“Oh, that’s almost what happened to me,” Elaine said. “Except my mother is an administrator at Greenholt with the Alder Branches and got mad at me because I wanted nothing to do with them.”
The waitress came back with a tray laden with sandwiches, small cakes, and two steaming mugs of spiced creamy tea.
“Oh what nice sandwiches,” Melusine said, as the waitress placed a plate in front of her. “Asparagus and fried fish! You remembered!”
“I thought you said you didn’t like fish,” Gan said, chuckling.
“To manage, you silly woman. What Lake person doesn’t like fish to eat?” After all the meals had been passed out, and the waitress left, Melusine took a bite of her sandwich and continued.
“So, what’s your story of mothers and careers, Elaine?” she asked.
“Well, after I finished my time at Master Gwaher’s, Arris, my father’s steward, who was really the one running the estate took me under his wing. Neither of my parents were very interested in the day to day running of the place. It’s a big job, running a place like that, and Mother was far more interested in doing what work she could with the Alder Branches locally than that, and my father was, as usual, stuck in his history researches. But me, I had missed the old place so much during my schooling. I started going with Arris when he made his rounds, and learned a good bit about the people there, the needs of the farmers, the costs of management. Arris was a good steward, but I could see he was having a rough time with it.
“My mother almost had a fit when I told her I wanted to study with the Greenfellows. She, of course, had just assumed I would study with the Alder Branches, like her, because of family tradition and all that, but the Alder Branches don’t teach much about estate management or the magics involved with agricultural production. ‘Why would a high-born lady go to Greenfellows? That’s just a school for stewards and yeoman farmers,’ she said, more than once. “It’s not for great ladies of the realm.’ She started to tease me and call me Farmer Ellie, but that just made me more determined.
“Was I just living up to being one of the Golden Terrors and refusing to follow tradition? Maybe, but I really think this is my calling. Shortly after I finished there, Mother got the call to go to the White Isle, and called me in to tell me the estate was now mine to play with. I think she expected me to be scared or frightened, but I was so excited. She still doesn’t understand why I like this life.
“When Gweir and I wed, part of our agreement was that the control of the estate was mine, not his. I’ve seen what’s happened to some estates when the owners don’t care ...Allynswood was heading that way, and would have been there if it wasn’t for Arris. I popped up in the nick of time. And although Gweir is an excellent man, he is not cut out for this work, either.”
“Parents. May we all remember these stories when it’s our time to let go,” Melusine said.
“How is Gweir doing, by the way?” Gan asked. “You said he was down at Greshold’s Keep?” Gan shivered. “Not a place I want to be ever again.”
“He was there, but last week he told me he had been moved to a special assignment, and not to expect him to contact me for a while.” She sighed. “I wish he’d leave military service, but I guess that’d be like asking me to give up my estate.”
The conversation ebbed for a few minutes while they finished their lunch. Elaine took a sip of her tea. “My, that’s good. It’s nice to know this old place has kept its charm all these years. We used to spend so much time here when we were in school. Remember, Gan? Think of all the mischief we used to plot right here!”
“I think listening to you two talk, I’m glad I’m not in charge of the upper classes,” Melusine said. “The little ones take enough work to keep out of trouble, and Grendal’s not making it any easier with what he’s been doing.”
“May Grendal be gifted with the Platinum Terrors, not just golden ones.” Gan said, lifting her cup. “And may those children all go onto wonderful lives for doing it!”
The other two women lifted their cups in agreement.
“But seriously, Gan,” Melusine said. “Is there nothing I can say to tempt you back? The children keep expecting you to come back. They ask me every day.”
Gan reached out and patted her friend’s hand. “I’m truly sorry about how things turned out, but it’s a bit late for that. Today we’re not just here to celebrate Brightening day and the return of longer days, and the spring that will follow, but also, I sold my house, and have a month to move.”
Melusine looked shocked, but Elaine beamed.
“You two are still terrors, “Melusine said.
Shortly after that, Elaine and Gan said their farewells to Melusine and headed out to the countryside. Their carriage pulled into a long driveway and through a gate that announced “Huldra’s Livery Service”
It looked like a farm, which it wasn’t, not really. At first glance, it was more of a cross between a farm and a stockyard. A set of buildings, barn, stables, tack. A fenced area where there was all sorts of carts, wagons and other wheeled equipment, a carriage or two, mostly covered with tarps. In the fields surrounding the buildings, there were sheep, goats, horses, ponies, cattle, and even a few camels. Even with the light scattering of snow in places, it was easy to see how busy the place was, with all the tracks across muddied and snowy ground.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’ve never been to one of these places,” Mistress Gan said.
“Never?” Elaine asked. “Not even when you left the White Isle to go teach?”
“Every time I moved, I just had a few things, or it was taken care of for me. First time I’ve had to move a house’s worth.”
A woman came out of one of the barns. Obviously Fae but neither Daoine nor Bauchan, she was as tall as Lady Elaine, but instead of being willowy and slender, she was solidly built. She looked strong and capable and her face had a handsome, sun-touched look to it. Instead of flowing silk robes or practical woman’s dress, she wore heavy work pants and sported a vest with multiple pockets and a heavy wool shirt against the chill, an outfit not uncommon for working Gruagechs, faes that specialized in animal husbandry.
“Welcome, Lady Elaine, Mistress Gan. Prompt as usual,” she said, with a nod of approval.
“You came highly recommended, Huldra” Gan said. “Lady Elaine,” she said, nodding to her companion, “said she got her favorite riding horse from you.”
“I did indeed,” Elaine said. “And my husband Gweir was impressed enough to start buying animals here for the officers in his unit.”
“That’s high praise that you think that about Grif. I loved that horse. It was hard to let’em go.”
“So, were you able to handle our request?” Elaine asked
“Come on and meet the girls,” she said.
They walked up the path to where a decent sized wagon with two oxen harnessed to it.
“These girls are all-around gals,” Huldra pulled on her gloves as they walked. “They’re trained to cart and plow, but if you put’em around a fine laddie when it’s their bully time, they’ll give you a fine calf and the best milk. Both of’em are sweet tempered and don’t mind other animals, either. Goats, cats, dogs...even chickens.”
They stood in front of the wagon. Both cows were red, with a few light patches. The one on the left had a white patch on her nose. Huldra walked up to her, and gave her head a pat.
“This one is Blowie, and that’s Cin,” Huldra said. Cin got a little scratch behind the ear.
“Ah, my girls, meet Mistress Gan. She’s going to be taking you to a new home in a few days, where you’ll have a nice pasture all of your own. She’s a good woman. You’ll like her.”
Blowie flicked an ear and lowed. She seemed to be interested, and nuzzled Gan’s hand. Cin blinked, not quite as sure.
“Blowie seems to have taken a fancy to you,” Elaine said, chuckling.
Huldra turned to Gan. “Do you know how to drive a team?”
“Not really,” said Gan. She gave Blowie a pat, then walked over to Cin and gave her a little scratch. “I had done it a little when I was younger, but never as far as I’m going with this one.”
“Well, that’s a good start. Some of my customers have come in here terrified of the animals, and barely ever rode in a wagon, much less ever handled a team,” Hulda said. “Spend some time here before you go, and see how they handle.”
Gan nodded.
While Gan walked around the wagon, a solid, well built vehicle with well made, iron-rimmed wheels, Elaine turned to Huldra.“Have they ever been shipped through the Dragon Web?”
“Once. Blowie handled it just fine. Cin got a little nervous about it all, but nothing that caused any problems. You’re planning to go take the web part way?”
Elaine nodded. “Otherwise it’d take two weeks on the road, and there’s no way I’d let her do that alone. For some reason, Gan thinks she needs to arrive at her destination without a driver. I haven’t been able to argue her out of it. If they couldn’t handle it, we’ll have to make arrangements.”
Huldra raised an eyebrow, but decided not to question the women further. “They can handle it, I’m sure. Kind of pricey, though, what they charge to ship wagon loads and animals.”
“That’s the dragonkin for you. Charge just enough of an arm and a leg to put you into shock, but not so much you won’t pay for it,” Elaine said.
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On the island of Sunderland, not far from the great shrine of Gandaran, is a rather plain stone building. The wall facing the street was windowless, smooth and gray, vitrified in old dragon technique. The front was distinguished only by a large red door emblazoned with a single eye. Above it were the words Dragon Investigation Agency; below it was the slogan: “We Never Stop Investigating.”
Anybody entering through that door would pause for a moment inside of a small, nondescript entry room, lit with a single dragonfire lamp, and a door with no handle. On it, was a sign. Please ring bell for entrance. A person ringing the bell would feel the sudden lurch of no space transport, then momentarily the door would open to the depths of DIC security. Where the nerve center actually was built was a closely guarded secret, but it was nowhere near the shrine in Sunderland. The light that percolated through the skylights always seemed thinner and less bright. Rumor was that it was actually in the old Dragonhame lands , but that probably was just a rumor.
A pale blue dragonkin in a gray uniform walked into that room, carrying a leather satchel in one hand. As if totally used to the drill, he walked right up to the door and rang the bell, ignored the no space lurch, and when it was done, opened the door.
The room he stepped into was rather utilitarian, filled with desks, about twenty of them. There were maps and noteboards on the walls, and the room was mostly lit by skylight, giving it a brightly lit feel, even though there were plenty of dragon fire lamps on the walls and some desks.
A few heads looked up as he walked in, then turned back to their own work. The faces were mostly dragon kin, one full dragon, and a couple of Fae. About a dozen at their various tasks.
A young female dragonkin was seated next to the front door. Her ruff colored a bit as she recognized him.
“Ah, Officer Byrony. Back to Headquarters again?”
“Just for a little while, Tansy. Still mostly doing field work right now. Is he in?”
“You’re in luck. He just got back from a meeting with Chairman Grimsbeard.”
“Lucky me,” Byrony said. “Hope the old man hasn’t set him off on another wild goose chase.”
Tansy shrugged, and he headed for the back.
There was a plain wooden door with the words Master Investigator on it. Byrony knocked twice.
“Come,” said a soft, just a little stern voice.
Byrony opened the door. The Master Investigator sat by one of the few windows in the building, looking out over an expanse of sand and rock, dotted with some dryland shrubs. There was a wall enclosing it in, but beyond the wall, mountains rose in the distance. He glanced briefly at his visitor, then turned back to the window.
“Do you ever get the feeling that the world is like a bit a sand dune. Oh, it looks stable enough, until the wind starts blowing, and everything shifts round. Sometimes, it adds, sometimes subtracts, but it’s never quite the same two moments in a row?”
“I...I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Byrony said.
The Master Investigator sighed. “It’s been coming to me for a long time like that. He rolled his chair away from the window and back toward his desk “What have you got for me?”
“Something unexpected. Someone used Blazendraught to kill two isolated miners off in the Graylands.”
“Now that’s unexpected. And so the dune shifts again. And this time in a real desert. Come tell me what you know.”
“Not much yet. I need a better team on it.” He handed the Master Investigator a small set of papers.
“Let’s go see who’s available.”
The two disappeared into a deeper office.
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As night fell, bonfires were lit up across Greenholt and other places on the White Isle, a small cluster gathered around the Oldest.
She looked at each of them. Ruell standing tall and and looking efficient, on guard and ready for anything. Sammisa, her green hair hiding beneath her hood, her robe hiding the extra warm layer she wore against the night’s chill. Druan looking sharply at all of the people gathered here, because this type of magic made him nervous. Arash, from Harani – black-eyed, like many of the people there, with bloodlines of the Jinn. Wise and cautious, able to whisk his way into almost any location unseen. Calm. Enide, small, slight, with huge blue eyes and a long mass of brilliant red hair. Her special skill was seeing the hidden. Merith. A Corrigan, a beauty when she wanted to be, a hag when she chose otherwise. Tonight she chose beauty in honor of the moment. Dylan, a loremaster whose delight was finding every new thing to learn. And there was the Youngest, Arriane, whose name would not be called by this circle for a whole year, nervous, anticipating, eager.
The Oldest began the night’s event with what had become for her a ritual statement. “Tonight is the night of Brightening Day bonfires, when we are reminded that after the dark winter, the sun comes again, and after that, Spring must follow. It is a time to open up to the new.” She looked at each of her followers once again. “It is also a night when the gate between the worlds was thin. Questions asked in the right way, at the right place can get answers. Perhaps not the answers we want; perhaps not the answers we understand. But still we will go ask, because that is one of the roles of the White Circle, to do what we can, to protect the land and the people on it. You, my friends, are my inner circle. Are you ready to see what we may find?”
Each member gave their assent with a nod.
Not far, an hour’s walk from the White Circle’s compound, was a special well. Water in this well was used for one thing only, and it was enclosed by a small dwelling.
The well’s guardian, on this night stood outside, watching as the questioners came. The guardian knew well to expect them.
They walked into the sacred space in single file, all nine of them a silent line of hooded figures, all dressed in identical white cloaks, heads covered with white hoods. A fox popped his head up from behind a log as they neared, feeling the magic they were raising as they traveled, forgetting about the prey it had been tracking and bounded away in the dark.
The line reached the door, then stretched out in a row, with the Oldest and the Youngest in the center. It was part of the ritual. Most of them had done this many times. Only for Arriane, and to a lesser degree, Sammisa, was this still new and touched with the awe of new potency. Arriane trembled just a little, because she, like the Oldest had a speaking role.
The guardian helped up a torch. “Who comes seeking knowledge this night?”
“I, the Oldest do.” She stepped forward.
Arriane stepped up as well. “I, the Youngest do.” There was the slightest waver to her voice.
“The road to knowing can be dark and hard, and sometimes, it can be better not to know,’ the seer said.
“We accept what the powers will give us,” the Oldest replied.
“May they lead us to light,” Arriane said.
The guardian nodded and opened the door.
Inside there was no light, except the light glowing from the well’s waters. In the pale blue light, they could just make out a shadowy figure. “The Waters of Fate await you,” the voice of the figure, a woman, said.
They filed in, making a circle of hooded figures around the seer in her seat.
“This is the Well of Fate,” she said. “It draws from the waters that rise from the spring at the base of the Lifegiver’s feet. Foreknowledge can be a tricky thing: is it warning you to get ready, or forcing you into the actions that lead to what it foretells?
“We have need to be warned,” said the Oldest.
“You do not get to choose which game Fate will play with you,” the seer warned.
“So be it,” Arriane responded.
The ritual warnings over, t he seer nodded. She stood up, dipped a bowl into the waters of the well, then passed her hand over the bowl and chanted.
“Water is life,
water is the birth
and where all ends.
Water be the mirror,
water, open the gate,
sacred water, show us!”
The bowl of water began to glow, enough to hurt the eyes of the gathered questioners. It cast blue highlights and deep shadows over the seer’s face. She breathed deeply of the light, of the scent of the water, and its glow seeped into her.
It was an amazing thing to watch. Her body looked like it grew, grew, grew to fill the room, passing through each of the gathered circle, and beyond, an ethereal mist that engulfed them in an icy cold. Her face contorted, above them as if in pain, growing too long for its shape. She shuddered from head to foot, dropping the bowl, and collapsed into the chair, small again, the moonlight reflecting in the spilled water.
“I have seen,” she said.
“Tell us,” The Oldest said.
“We are ready,” said Arriane.
“A scholar with no school approaches. You will know her by a cloud of lights innocent as day dancing in the sun that will surround her,” the seer began. Her voice was tired, not much above a whisper. “She searches for the missing, trapped, trapped by a lie, trapped by greed.” She took a deep breath. “Brown hides behind black, black behind brown, confusing all. She will be given a key. Use it wisely, but beware the price.”
The seer, her voice barely above a whisper at the end, collapsed into her seat fully, her head resting on the well’s wall.
The guardian stepped in. “The seeing is over. May Fate look kindly on you.”