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Act II: A Mysterious Stranger's Return Home
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Half a week passed after the Quarterchief’s departure. The elders were well-versed in traversing the swampy lowlands and rocky high ground of the Stormheaths. They should’ve crossed beyond the low-lying rainforests and over to the island’s arid leeward side now.
Ma’at and company had little to do for this long, boring half-week. Due to present circumstances, they were largely stuck to the vicinity around Secondhome. The Quarterchief wouldn’t be there to rescue them from another Laval raid. Lloyd kept chatting about taking to the river shallows for some kind of waterborne adventure, but nothing had come of it yet.
It wasn’t obvious in that moment, but everything changed when the stranger came home.
In the relatively cool early morning, the area outside the walls was used as petitioning grounds. Exiles and low-caste outcasts from various Stormheath clans would arrive at the gates. Typically, they had nowhere else to go, having either been exiled or otherwise found life in their clan’s subaltern pit to be unbearable. Ever since the Laval’s brief raid, few petitioners had shown up to request asylum. A relative lack of visitors was not unheard of, but this lull was like those experienced before the largest of rainy season typhoons. Almost like something was delaying movement along the usual foot paths and centurion bird trails.
Secondhome also received the occasional trader from overseas. The odd shipwreckee too, where most of their non-outlander human stock came from. Fewer of the latter were also appearing as of late. But there were still a handful of traders trying to wiggle their way into the isle’s inter-clan trade networks. Perfect for gathering rumors.
“Ever seen a sword before?” Maat asked once such trader.
Attempted negotiation started out with the closest-approximate pidgin appropriate for the nearest isle. Few in the Stormheaths bothered to even learn the name. But at any rate, the trader did not understand a word coming out of Maat’s mouth.
They cycled through various gestalt, slapdash languages and got nowhere. It seemed the only traders daring to make inroads on the isle were from much further away than usual.
“You trying to hear word from the other islands?”
A man with a curious, wide-brimmed hat in a style Ma’at had never seen before stood at the tree line, his back against a juvenile whitewood. He was cleanshaven beyond a few greying bangs peeking out beneath the hat. He wore treated bird-leather as was the style on distant islands, but his jacket was studded with some shiny golden baubles both on the surface and interlaced within interior pockets. What’s more, the hat’s wide brim perfectly masked his ears.
“That’ll cause the tree to grow stunted,” Ma’at said.
“Oh?” The strange trader stood up straight.
Ma’at nodded. “They grow up mighty, but in their sapling stage they need to be undisturbed before they’ll shoot up straight. Otherwise, they die in their infancy.”
This stranger gave the tree an exploratory shake, judging Maat’s reaction.
“You look…” the stranger began, then swiftly changed the subject. “Eh, never mind. I, uh, understand that this settlement is made up of local untouchables?”
“It’s not that.” Ma’at frowned. “We’re made up of all sorts of people. Lot of subalterns from the other clans wind up here. Those are the, ah, low caste types you’re probably referring to. We don’t really use that designator here. I’m a human outlander-”
“Yeah, I could tell,” the stranger interrupted.
“… but my two best friends are half-clan, their mother is a Stormlander, think she came from a Laval subaltern caste? Not sure, we don’t really talk about it.”
“Well, looks like you all just get along peachy.” The stranger chuckled.
Their conversation was put on hold as a fresh group of off-islanders wandered into camp. Their garb was more standard, lighter, as if they’d been to the island and were aware of its customs and climate. One of their number was being carried by the other two. Acid stung at their bird-skin outfits, evidence that they’d been carrying their wounded comrade through uncharted jungle paths for some time. Indeed, the wounded man’s leg was broken, bruised, and swelling. He’d need help fast.
“Guards, go alert a healer,” Ma’at yelled. “Find an outlander, one well-versed in splint-magic!”
“Splint-magic?” The stranger in the wide hat chuckled. “That what they’re calling it? Let me help.”
The Stranger stepped towards this new trio of off-islanders. They traded a few words in a foreign dialect Ma’at had no hope of understanding. Whatever it was, the trio dropped their guard. Recognized the Stranger, if only by reputation. Foreign island phrases for “forge” and “priest” were used.
This stranger then gathered a particularly large set of sticks, cast off from the tips of nearby whitewoods. He daintily measured them against the injured man’s leg, as if about to engaged in this outlander splint-magic. And yet, instead, the Stranger muttered something. Ma’at caught about half of it:
“Mend to bone… Do not release until this flesh is healed.”
The was a crackling of wood and some foul-smelling, smoldering scent. The wood wormed its way into this injured man’s leg, eliciting pained screams on instinct. From the reaction of his fellows, this still appeared to be an ordinary part of the process.
When it was done, mighty whitewood sticks wound into, and around, the man’s leg. Like a splint, only more sturdy. Wood fused with the shattered bone. By the time Secondhome’s sentries arrived the screaming had stopped, with the patient thanking this Stranger in that foreign tongue.
“More efficient than some old down-home medic’s splint, yeah?” The Stranger had a self-satisfied look on his face.
Ma’at raised an eyebrow. “You some kind of wandering soothsayer?”
“Nothing of the sort. Just a little trick I picked up on my travels. It’s a pretty common treatment on the Core Isles.”
“No clan on this isle has medicinal magic so… thorough.”
Ma’at eyed the injured man once more. He wouldn’t be walking under his own power for some time, but he was certainly in good enough condition that his leg would heal within a week or two. It was like a splint, but with minimal manpower required and applied in a fraction of the time. Why, even outlander bone-mending magics required physically tying stakes to the injured limb. Here the tree just did it automatically. And, as the Stranger went on to explain, the wood would fall off once the bone was suitably repaired.
“Core Isles have all sorts of advanced, eh, magic,” said the Stranger with a masked chuckle. “Entire universities and patent offices devoted to developing and capitalizing on them too. Printing presses and motor engines, ever heard of them?”
“Never,” Ma’at said.
“Eh, well, guess your disparate clans can’t really devote resources to the development of more advanced techniques. Hard to conduct research on birdleather parchment. Still, maybe they’ll reach this island one day,” said the Stranger with a subdued exhaling chuckle. “Now, I believe I heard you were asking around for strange foreign metals?”
This man’s accent wasn’t like any of the other foreign traders and shipwreckees who wandered into the settlement. There was something more familiar about it. Closer to home.
“You sound like my father.” Maat tilted his head, curious.
“Is that so?” The stranger let out a chuckle. “What gives that away?”
“Your voice has a twang to it.”
“Surprised that’s still there. Ought to have faded eventually. Clever one. I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name, kid.”
“Ma’athiel, son of the Quarterchief.”
The Stranger’s gaze was a deep, sunken-in stare. His mouth parted in what could have been a grin, maybe. It lasted only a moment before the Stranger stifled a deep, uproarious laugh.
“Quarter-who? Is that… that what they’re calling him? Curious.”
Maat’s eyebrow tilted further still.
“Yes, yes, I see a resemblance here.” Again, with a strange, stifled laugh, then the trader immediately became all business. “Well Ma’athiel, I’m but a humble merchant new to these lands. I would quite like to make inroads with your settlement. Have anything good to trade?”
“You speak our language,” Maat said, deadpan.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Or something close to it.” The Stranger grinned. “You’ve spent twenty years mugging the Laval dialects for loan words. Ah, but I’m quite well-versed in the tongues of the world, both on this isle and off. Perhaps I’ve encountered one of your clan before?”
There were no others of Maat’s clan on any other isle on the entire world plain. As far as anyone knew, at least. Few Stormland clans ever left the island. Foreign traders were uncommon, and outlanders from the Quarterchief’s clan were rarer than most.
Indeed, this stranger appeared quite like Michael – not a brother, but maybe a cousin. A bit paler than Maat’s father. Bits of hair sneaking out beneath the hat were more sandy brown than black. Beyond that, all he was missing was a beard. Stick him in a bird-skin jerkin and he could be an elder of Secondhome.
“Say, kiddo. About that metal. Does your clan have any iron reserves? Any mining operations? Perhaps saltpeter cultivation?”
Maat shook his head. “Well, there is a field full of rusting hulks…”
A light of familiarity shone in the stranger’s eyes. “Oh? Would you be so kind as to show me? Might be able to trade for it. Information for something a bit more valuable.”
That old glen was not too far from the compound. Well within the land claims of Secondhome. It should be safe from raids. No guarantee that another condor wouldn’t attack the field, but Alabaster condors seldom dive-bombed the same glen twice.
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“Should be there and back well before noon,” the young man said. “Afterwards, you should stay in Secondhome until the evening cooldown. We have berths for guests and travelers. You’ll melt in that ensemble. Heat stroke claims many outsiders.”
The stranger chuckled. “Somehow I think I’ll be okay.”
Along the way, the pair ran into a broad shoulder figure up ahead. It was Lloyd and a handful of his fellow half-clan walking the opposite direction.
“So,” the stranger began. “Still call it Secondhome, eh? And that guttural pidgin you’ve adopted with the traders. Curious.”
The pair walked onward, Ma’at offering only a noncommittal grunt as he looked around for some other friendly face. While off-isle traders who weren’t on name-basis with the clan were not unheard of, Maat had the sudden suspicion that this trader wasn’t quite such a stranger to these lands after all.
“Hey, Maat!” Lloyd threw his hand up. “Who’s the new guy?”
There was no room for both parties to pass on the raised walkway above the forest floor. Stopping along the path for conversation was inevitable.
“He’s an overseas trader,” Ma’at said. “He wants to check out the strange metal in that field we encountered a few weeks back.”
Lloyd said some things to his companions in the gestalt Secondhomer tongue. The half-clan continued onward, while Lloyd stayed behind.
“We were just bringing some water up from a nearby spring,” he explained. “They’ll take my pack. I’ll owe ‘em a favor. Still, I’d quite like another look at that wreckage myself.”
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The Stranger and Ma’at, plus Lloyd, walked along the raised path. The trio soon clambered down to the forest floor and cut along a lightly-treaded footpath back to the treeless glen.
“Hey, you know this guy?” Lloyd asked in a modified Laval dialect.
“Not at all.” Maat eyed the stranger in front of them, curious but somewhat wary. “Some kind of foreign priest, I think? He seems to know something about the foreign metals. Was expecting us to ask about them. Plus, he’s aware of my father, if only by reputation.”
Their nominal guest walked ahead of them. With no forks in the path, it would be hard to get lost. They were hardly operating as guides at that point, and the trader almost seemed to know where to go anyway.
“You are sure this fellow is from another isle?” Lloyd asked.
“He’s wearing foreign garb.” Maat shrugged. “Knows more about the Stormheaths than he lets on, too.”
No Stormlander would be caught dead wearing heavy leather garb and a duster in any season.
Indeed, Maat had many theories: a foreigner from one of those isles where clockwork trinkets hail from. Those seemed especially curious about language and natural philosophy. Or perhaps a Secondhome outcast, exiled long ago. Failing that, perhaps the Stranger was from an island further out from any other they’d ever received a guest from before. Who knew what strange customs, linguistics, or personalities they could possess?
“Can’t see his ears,” Lloyd muttered. “What’s this guy’s deal?”
Much could be told about a person by the shape of their ears. Stormlanders and those of the plains were typically pointier. Humans of Michael and Maat’s kind were often born with stunted, rounded-off ears. Laval said the rounded ears made them look emasculated. Men of the other isles could vary based on how much distant elvan they had in their family trees, but it averaged out to somewhere between Maat’s round lobes and Lloyd’s half-clan dull point.
Notably, the Stranger’s wide-brimmed hat and some slicked-back sandy hair kept his ears well out of view. He glanced back, sly eyes always focused on Maat.
“Hmmm. Creolization of the slang. To be expected. Surprised it blends so well with Lavalese. Always with the clicks and whistles. Probably loanwords from the river-delta.”
“Let’s hurry and see what he has to say.” Maat suggested. “And keep it down. I suspect he can make out some of the Laval dialects, and Secondhomer too.”
Fuzzy, probing vines had already begun to bury the twin wrecks beneath a carpet of green once more.
“Hmmm. Yes. I see why someone of your, ah, tribal disposition would mistake these things as a chariot of the gods.” The stranger peeled a bit of rust off the metal wreckage’s chassis. “Or some sacred ancestral site. May not be too wrong on that front.”
“Well, what is it?” Lloyd asked.
“Years haven’t been kind to it.” The stranger continued, ignoring them. “Guess the others would rather it remain forgotten. Pop out some kids with the local knife-ears.”
Lloyd cleared his throat with a gruff, brusque cough. “Hey, Jean’in. How do you know our elder’s language, anyway?”
The Stranger was silent, squatting down in the dirt, drawing intricate circles in the fine whitish soil with a stick.
“Oh? It’s nothing special. Hell, I speak it better than your parents, almost certainly.”
“What are you doing?”
“Calculating.” The Stranger muttered something arcane that sounded like random syllables.
Lloyd and Maat mostly just let him work.
“Hmmm. Everything’s in place. Just needed this last-minute spatial data from where it all began. Massive amounts of biomass will be needed for the final transmutation.” The Stranger looked around, rubbing his hands in the isle’s chalk-white dirt. “Southern shore still has a dense population. Should more than suffice. Just as planned.”
With his arcane series of interlocking circles complete, the Stranger stabbed his drawing stick down into the ground.
“Your dads. Who’re they again?” The man asked without looking at them.
“What, us?” Lloyd asked. “Hector, the farsighted.”
The Stranger tried not to laugh and mostly failed. “And you, the one with the round ears. You look almost human.”
“My father is Michael, the Quarterchief.”
For the first time since hiring Ma’at as a guide, the Stranger propped his hat up, revealing some steel-blue eyes. Nobody had blue eyes, not even humans of the Quaterchief’s clan.
“The team cap’n? Quarter… oh. That’s it. Quarterchief. Pffft. Yes, that makes much more sense now.” Once more, the Stranger chuckled. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
Their most eccentric guest next explored the makeshift graves the youth of Secondhome had found on their previous expedition. He looked to the smaller grave with a quiet bit of sympathy. His eyes darting back and forth underneath the brim of his hat.
But then he found the second grave. The one to the son of Adkins. The stranger’s chest convoluted, and what came out of his mouth was not the stifled chuckles from before, but a manic and crackling laughter.
“Oh, this spot will do as well as any.”
Lloyd frowned, still waiting off by the nearest whitewood with Maat.
“It’s usually frowned upon to stand directly on top of the clan graves.”
“Oh, it’s empty anyway. Still, can use the gravestone for transmutable material.” The man was already on his knees, pulling items out of his pocket seemingly at random.
The Stranger opened some tin food rations – a common preservative method on far-off isles, and placed these along the edge of his odd ritual circle. He took his leather jacket off and placed it opposite the tins. Then he took feathers from a foreign species of bird and placed them pointing out of the ground at another point between the tin and the jacket. All this, centered around the Adkins gravestone.
“Hmmm. Sufficient, but inefficient.” The Stranger frowned to himself. “Hey. You two.”
“Us?” Ma’at pointed at himself.
“Want to see something cool?” The Stranger beckoned them forward.
Lloyd and Ma’at stepped forward. Ma’at was physically repositioned by the Stranger, spacing the pair out so that Ma’at was standing right behind that stick the Stranger had placed in the ground.
“Perfect. Ought to speed up the transmutation considerably.”
“The what? And how?” Lloyd began.
But the Stranger stomped his foot on the ground, and the odd angles he’d drawn into the soil lit up as if it were all aflame. Etchings, hieroglyphs in languages no one on the isle could ever hope to parse, were illuminated in purple fire.
The flames engulfed the Stranger, though he didn’t burn. He grinned wildly, staring at the pair as he flashed some unnaturally white teeth. Wind sourced from out of nowhere brushed his hair aside, allowing the briefest of glimpses at a jagged, stunted pinna – like someone had taken a knife and shredded his ears up at the tips.
For an instant, they could see the Stranger silhouetted by a view of… somewhere else. A grey and Spartan place, dark and cool. Like the caverns of Secondhome, only the walls and ceiling were made of metal. The Stranger didn’t step back into this new realm so much as he began to glow red and gradually disappeared into the background. Said background soon turned pitch black and seemed to grow where it stood.
Ma’at felt a strong pull, like he was being dragged by invisible hands into this strange vertically standing pit. He tried to step back, but it was as if there was a typhoon-grade gust at his back. He looked over, and Lloyd was stretching, warping in his vision. Like they were being strung out. Maat spoke, but not even he could hear what he said.
A great, booming cry came from behind them. Neither made out the words, as this, too, was carried off into the void.
But they could both feel a pair of strong hands grab them by their bird-feather jerkin and pull them back, away from the void.
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Ma’at and Lloyd wound up on the ground, coughing and suddenly short of breath. Though midday was fast approaching, the field had turned icy cold over the course of half a minute.
Kur and Sam'ien were there, having spent no small amount of exertion pulling them out of that fell circle.
“Ah… your father told us to keep an eye on you,” Kur said, catching his breath. “I mean, it’s just repaying a favor. Nothing personal.”
“It was like you were elongating and being drawn into… that.” Sam said.
The great black void was more of a sliver from this angle. It grew exponentially the closer they dared get to the circle. In time, this sliver shrunk down to a pinprick, then disappeared entirely. And the other ‘sacrifices’ – the bird feather, the stick, the jacket, the gravestone – all had been reduced to narrow, stringlike versions of their previous states. They combined together, fused, where the pinprick of a ‘portal’ had last been seen.
No evidence of a weathered gravestone even existed any longer. The second gravestone belonging to ‘Trevor’ remained, just outside the circle.
What was left was a bare patch of field just an arm’s length across. The markings in the soil were gone, wiped clean by that void. There was little evidence that anything had occurred here at all. And certainly, no evidence of the Stranger remained.
“Well, glad we didn’t end up like that.” Lloyd motioned to the elongated feather now turned into a string.
“What… was that?” Ma’at began.
“Devil magic,” Kur said. “Outlander spell. Who knows what demon spells foreigners can use?”
Sam stroked his thin Plainswalker chin. “Back in the highlands there were legends of something similar…”
“Hey, ancestral rituals that filter foul humors from the water are one thing. But this…” Lloyd’s voice tapered off. “That’s just outright sorcery. Ah, what are we going to even say?”
“We’ll discuss it with your sister tonight,” Ma’at said. “As for the adults…”
They would have to keep this incident a closely guarded secret for the time being. For now, they had little proof of any goings-ons in this clearing at all. Few eyewitnesses could confirm that any mysterious stranger was ever here, or had ever hired them for their services. Perhaps those traders from earlier, sure, but there was a language barrier to circumvent and they owed this foul sorcerer a bit of a debt.
One thing was clear: There was something strange afoot with this glen. This curious, curious glen.
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