…there having been seven days passed since the fall of Solinar to the combined armies… Gobhanni on their war ponies, the Light of the Five Heavens turned from Old Velspe for its wicked us… ond and third sons, and half of the girls and unmarried wom… nto the mountain crags, never to be seen again by the husbands and fathers of Old Velspe.

Daily we prayed. Daily were we ignored.

We of Vel had been judged unworthy.

All Praise… Diefyat, Father of All.”

Fragment of “Histories” by Tomasi Reggira, Fourth Dynasty, Velspe

One goblin on a pony

Two goblins with some clips

Three goblins to Solinar

Four goblins burning ships

Five goblins steal your wives

Six goblins using whips

Seven goblins take your lives

Eight goblins in the rain

Nine goblins raise a King

Ten goblins gone again!

Traditional children’s counting chant, Hamuria

Sweat ran from Wallan’s hair, down across his face, and infuriatingly, just gathered in an ever increasing droplet at the tip of his nose.

Harvesting grain had been the hardest job he had ever done in his life. The hours were depressingly long, and the work was both back breaking and arm deadening.

At midday, when the foremen all called for the harvest workers to break for lunch, Wallan sat and tried to cool himself down. He sat in the dappled shade of the copper tree eating his lunch when he heard Foreman Pollard’s heavy, plodding trod nearing him. He quickly ate the last of his pickled egg, and last slice of crumbly white cheese as Pollard came to stand in front of him, slowly and clumsily waddling into position to stand over Wallan.

He feared Pollard was coming to yell at him for working so slowly, as he did most days, though Wallan knew he pulled in as many sheaves as any other worker. The stocky, elderly man exhaled in exasperation. Wallan looked at the man, waiting for the insults to start, but none came. So he continued to wait. This was already an unusual interaction between himself and the heavyset, old grump, and Wallan had to admit to being curious. More than a month of interactions with the old man and this was the first time since their first meeting that he didn’t know what to expect.

Clasped in his fat fingered hands was a large, tattered book. The leather of its bindings had seen much better days, and he couldn’t read any of the blue dyed writing on the faded spine of the tatty old thing. He thought it might be a ledger of some sort, much like the book he had had to sign when he first took up this job; this one was just older, and had been more poorly kept up. There was a part of Wallan that wanted to grab the book, and see if he could repair it, at least a little; maybe return it to some semblance of respectability.

Wallan raised an eyebrow, and waited further. Years learning under the Masters of the Kuljat Amulajat had taught him the art of patient waiting; that waiting for the person in power to speak would be the better course. More safety in letting them address you before you spoke, at least, and bullies like Pollard, while not harnessing the powers of the elements, were essentially the same.

Finally, Pollard spoke. “Boy.” Wallan was beginning to think Pollard didn’t know anyone’s name he didn’t have to know. “Master Khorit and his missus bid me to ask you if you’ve your numbers as well as your letters, Caebern.” Pollard called him a dozen different names, when he bothered to give him a name beyond “Boy,” “Sweety,” or “You-there.” Calling him by the name “Caebern,” the boyish looking god of love and games, was new. He made it both a statement and an implied command; Pollard, he witnessed, didn’t know how to talk to anyone below him in any other way. While it was often awkward, with use of the name “Caebern,” this had just become even more awkward than others.

“Foreman Pollard,” he acknowledged, and added a polite bob of his head, the deference couldn’t hurt, “I am versed. How may I be of service to Tarestar Khorit and his Lady?” He purposefully left out being of service to Pollard. Wallan didn’t think Pollard would miss the slight, but also knew the man couldn’t fault Wallan for any slight, as Pollard himself had invoked the local landholder’s name for whatever this new chore may be, if not his proper title; so this task he was about to be assigned was on behalf of the lordling, and not on behalf of the lordling’s fieldwork foreman.

Pollard’s round, jowly face fell slightly when Wallan confirmed that he had both letters AND the knowing of numbers. He wasn’t sure why Tarestar Khorit knew he was literate, it wasn’t a common trait locally for youths, and young adults, to be any more well read than their own names, and what little they might need for whatever trade their families dealt in. The lord and lady of Southfields had over a hundred people of all ages working on the harvest these last few months. Wallan was a little nervous that they even knew who he was, much less that he was literate.

Pollard stared at him, his dirty blueish eyes squinting at Wallan, trying to either intimidate him, or possibly to just see him more clearly. The foreman was old, and not in the best of physical health, mayhap it was just that his sight was going.

From what Wallan could tell, Pollard called Khorit “Master” without actually knowing that the title was reserved for ship captains, and trained wizards of the Kuljat Almulajat. And the wizards didn’t like having to share with captains, but they couldn’t stop it as it was a longstanding tradition, but absolutely wouldn’t tolerate it with anyone else. Masters of the Kuljat Almulajat had been known to make very public displays of teaching manners to those who had been rude enough to try to claim the title. Public, messy, and horrible. Their rationale had been that “A TRUE Master would be able to defend themselves from the mayhem of a lightning storm, or forest fire being inflicted directly upon their face.” It was a potent lesson.

Pollard stood still, pausing all activity to reassess, his mouth slowly working as he tried to figure out what path his now set adrift thoughts needed to take to get back to familiar grounds. He softly began, his naturally gravelly voice lowly burbling so others nearby might not overhear. “Tarestar Khorit would see you come to the pavilion to work with ma…” Pollard cut himself off before he called someone else by the title of “master,” he growled out the rest in a rush “...mmmm, scribe Hockle. There are issues with the harvest and the books, and the Tarestia is becoming upset.”

Pollard then used the large book to gesture at the distant side of the field at which Wallan had been working all morning with sickle and cordage to where a large canvas shade had been erected for the lord and lady of the local manor to oversee the work.

Wallan stood, stretched, and dusted himself off. His spine and leg joints all protested the action, but he would tend to them in the evening, before he turned in for the night. Pollard had to look up at him, and scowled. For a short man, he’s a bit old to have not yet come to grips with other men being taller than him... Thought Wallan.

Looking at the distant shade, he thought the tent top looked festive with its spirals of yellows, oranges, and even purple swirls that danced about the edges of the bright, white cloth.

Clean, bright colors dyed into the rough fabric were slightly out of place in the field of tans, browns, and greens. For the last two and a half months Wallan had slowly adjusted to a drastically different color palette than the one he had lived in at the front in the war with Velspe. His own red and yellow trimmed black tunics and pants of the Phoenix Corps had been the most colorful part of his world for three years. Aside from the brief and decidedly deadly flashes of extreme colors produced by mages on both sides of the battle lines, all of the colors he had lived amongst could be described with the terms “muddy” and “dusty,” but only when the terms “bloody'' and “visceral” weren’t being used.

Shouldering his small day pack that had held his lunch, his dinner, and several waterskins, though at midday the waterskins were now a third depleted, he bent and retrieved his sickle and bundle of cordage in his right hand. Pollard growled that he should just leave them, but Wallan responded with a simple “that would be careless of me, foreman Pollard. Tarestar Khorit should be embarrassed by one of his harvesters losing not just a half bundle of cords, but an entire sickle. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Pollard grumbled and spluttered, looking scandalized, though Wallan didn’t know if it was the idea of his Lord and Lady being scandalized, or the idea that Wallan wasn’t going to be tricked into “losing” equipment that he could be charged for, and his pay then reduced for incompetence. Wallan had seen another worker, an older woman named Shima, get charged, and her pay reduced, for just that same infraction. Shima was competent. She was as efficient a harvester as anyone in the fields, more so than many, in fact. But, somehow, she had “lost” her sickle. Shima had been both charged a silver for the loss, and she had her pay cut from three copper clips a day, to two. He suspected Pollard and the other foremen shared the cut wages, rather than returning them to the Tarestar and Tarestia of Southfields.

They began their slow walk across the stubble riddled field. Sharp ends of cut grain stems making a prominent show on the brown tilled lines in the earth. Pollard looked like he was moving with twice the effort he should be to achieve this slow walking pace they now used. While Wallan slowly strode alongside in a measured pace, if slightly behind, the foreman plodded and shuffled, kicking through the ridges of rich, brown soil as often as he stepped over them.

Pollard looked tired, and was beginning to sweat profusely, the skin of his neck reddening further in the Summer sunlight. He could hear the man’s breathing begin to rasp.

“Do you know the nature of the disparity, Foreman?” Wallan began to probe, hoping to distract Pollard from his discomfort.

“I do not, Boy.” He grumped. Then, with a slight wheeze, “I expect mmmm…SCRIBE Hockle has forgotten whatever numbers he knew yesterday, and the counting has gone astray because of it, the stupid bird.”

Men in this region, he had learned, referred to other men who wore fancy clothing as “birds.” It was not a compliment.

Pollard began to chuckle as he continued. “That strutting pheasant has been doing a soft man’s duties for far too long, and wouldn’t deign to dirty his fine fetters, and now his brain won't do mathing, as it’s gone soft and silk wrapped like the rest of him.”

In spite of himself, Wallan smiled. He wanted to laugh, but didn’t know how it might be taken. Wallan had only met the scribe on the day he signed the work ledger as a harvester for the Lord and Lady of Southfields. As Pollard had said, Hockle was a “bird,” in that he was very well dressed, at least as a scribe. He wasn’t sure how scribes dressed outside of the army, who were the lowest level officers working at the tasks, or those in the palace, themselves the lowest level of the nobility (mostly the children of Tarestars) doing work for the Kingdom, Pollard might feel Wallan taking his side would be offensive. Somehow.

As the two drew nearer to the shade of the painted canvas, Pollard began running down a litany of instructions on how Wallan should comport himself. He found it insulting. But, repressed his irritation, because the supposed son of a map maker should not know how to behave around royalty; even when those particular royals had never been to the capitol city, themselves. A pair of provincial lords of very low rank.

A tarestar was the lowest rank of landholding nobility in Hamuria, and as with most levels of royalty, Wallan had not had to deal with them as an Apprentice and member of a Pride. Fully trained and graduated wizards were a kind of royalty all their own, and were separate from the caste system of the rest of Hamurian society.

Wizards couldn’t guarantee their children would have any shred of the talent, so their title and responsibilities couldn’t be passed down, nor inherited, the way a royal title would.

There were a very few members of the Kuljat Amulajat who also held titles of nobility, though they were mostly Hadestars and Hadestias; the unlanded nobility. Usually granted to them by the Crown for great deeds that served the Kingdom, and those noble titles may go to their children, but not the title of “Master.” If the Master or Mistress in question even had a child they would choose to recognise. Politics added a level of complexity to life that Six, now Wallan, had always been leary of trying to comprehend. He saw it as polite bullying, and game playing where you gambled with not just your wealth, but your life; he wondered why people bothered. He had heard it referred to in the Golden Tower of the Kuljat Amulajat as “The stupidity of people maneuvering for power they cannot take in the light of day, and cannot hold in the dark of the night.”

Caerly had five different families of Tarest holding the lands of and around the city. Each family had a member who sat on the city’s Altamensa, the ruling body that administered the city and surrounding region on behalf of the Crown. Tarests of an Altamensa usually reported to , and took guidance from, the regional Aerests. Those Aerests looked to the Olysts to whom they were vassals, and the Olysts reported to the Crown itself. Aside from the unlanded Hadests, Tarests were the least powerful, least influential members of the aristocracy.

While Wallan knew that, and the Tarestar and Tarestia knew it (he hoped) a man like Pollard probably didn’t. To the foreman, these two royals were two of the nine most important people in and around the city of Caerly, and thus they were the most powerful people around the world with which he was familiar. To Wallan, who had lived in the most pampered, if dangerous, enclave in the capital city of Aurel, the Southfields were farmers. Farmers who had more money and land than most of their neighbors, but still farmers.

Their trudging pace came to a halt outside of the edge of the shadow cast by the large, wall-less tent. Pollard held up his hand in a gesture to halt Wallan where he stood, and he then slowly shuffled forward to talk with Sargent Mirt, who stood at parade rest just inside the shade offered by the canvas awning. Mirt was a solidly built Ocre man of average height, who was either the baldest man Wallan had ever seen, lacking even eyebrows, or he was incredibly disciplined, if not overzealous, in his daily shaving routine. Dressed in the standard uniform of the Kingdom, the Sargent looked comfortable in the gold trimmed brown tunic, his pants tucked into the tops of well polished brown leather boots with small polished brass buckles running up the outside of each calf. His spear rested against his right shoulder, his bronze accented steel helmet in the crook of his left arm, the ornamental brows gracefully flowing into a hawk beaked shaped nasal. This helmet had never seen the front lines of the war, it was not only shined to a mirror polish, but it was absolutely free of dents. Free even of repaired spots where dents had once been inflicted. This helmet was either new, or had never been used for anything more than as a very heavy hat.

Wallan doubted he had ever looked as comfortable in his own black, red, and yellow uniform. Nor as content with his own duties, though he always did them to the best of his abilities. To do otherwise would have brought down the wrath of the masters upon him. Wallan’s mind shuddered at the thought, though his face, and body remained composed.

“Oho! Pollard! You found yourself the young man! Good, good.” Mirt’s voice was a pleasant tenor, his Eastern accent was clipped, but slightly musical, and showed Wallan that not everyone in this district was a local. He probably sang well at morning prayers, Wallan thought, if he was observant.

The Sargent gave a graceful half turn into the tent, and loudly announced their arrival to those seated back in the deeper shadows. “My Tarestar, my Tarestia, As you have commanded, Now arrives your man Poll’rt,” here Mirt’s accent flared,and he stressed the grumpy foreman’s name, “...and…” Mirt paused, not quite sure what to say about Wallan. “... his hired field hand, a mister Wallet!”

A woman’s voice, rich, cultured, could be heard coming from the deepest shadows within the tent.

Sargent Mirt returned, a broad smile on his face, and ushered the two men into the shade.

The temperature beneath the shade of the stretched canvas was easily ten marks below the temperature in the direct sunlight outside. As they made their way into the tent, the shadows and murk resolved itself as Wallan’s eyes adjusted, and the opulent little setting came into focus.

This was the second time he had been in the presence of the Tarestar, and the first time meeting the Tarestia. Khorit was a man of average height and looks, with his mild skin tones he was most likely of mixed race, and wouldn’t have stood out in any crowd in Hamuria. He sat straight backed in a chair, reading from a thin book, a man in his mid twenties to early thirties. His light brown hair, pulled back into a loose tail, and bright, intelligent, dark eyes offset the severity of an otherwise long and angular face. Khorit wore the loveliest, and most expensive of fabrics, sewn into the most practical tunic and hose Wallan had ever seen a titled person wear outside of a few commanders, unlanded Hadestars, in the Royal Army, and even they had insignia of rank to spruce up their finery. Khorit wore nothing adorning his clothing that denoted his rank outside of the thin gold coronet that circled his head just above his temples, and showed the agricultural elements of the heraldry of the Southfield family crest.

Wallan had heard that before the Tarestia’s old husband had died, Khorit had been a Captain in the army, and a member of the city’s barracks. Some of his fellow harvesters loved to talk all day about the love affair between the dashing young soldier, and sorrow wracked, beautiful, widowed Tarestia. Some few would talk about their favorite pet theories concerning royal intrigues, and poisonings that had led to the old Tarestar’s demise.

Wallan saw this in the war camps to the East, often. People needed to tell stories of all kinds to occupy their minds while they tried to not think about what they were doing at any given moment. Drudgery could spawn a hundred epic’s of glory, if only anyone were to take the time to write it all down. People would spin their own fantastical tapestries from the most scant of cobwebs, and based upon their own wants, needs, and inclinations.

Some people even believed what they heard, when told to them by the person working next to them. It didn’t occur to most people that the person next to them, be it in the fields doing seasonal labor, or on the front lines of a platoon awaiting the next enemy charge, didn’t know, and had no way of knowing, what the lives of those people in power actually entailed.

Tarestia Chania was another kind of noble, all together, from her husband. Where he was angular and athletic as a racing hound, she was a plump, rounded dumpling of a woman. Had she not been wearing twenty pounds of ruffled dress, overdress, and Wallan was certain, underdress, with an added twenty pounds of jewelry, the Tarestia would look like a fairly intense Piincar tradeswoman in her mid thirties to early forties. Her coronet, a slightly more delicate version of the one Khorit wore, sat lightly on her linen kerchief, which both covered her blonde hair, and probably absorbed a great deal of sweat on a hot day. A thick braid trailed from behind her left ear, and over her shoulder, bound every three quarter span by a carved wooden band, set with red stones, and made for just this purpose.

At a glance, the Tarestia didn’t possess the common traits he had associated with the female half of the aristocracy in Aurel. She wasn’t an Ocre, to begin with, but a Piincar, or Pink, and looked like she would fit better in an apron, kneading dough in a prosperous city bakery, than she would lounging around at court functions. She did not possess that precious gem, ethereal, “will break if handled” quality of most of the women of the Hamurian Court he had seen. Nor the razor thin look of a long clawed cat, waiting to pounce and eviscerate her prey.

She did have the very same predatory gaze he thought of when he thought of those Gentle Ladies, however. But he was willing to lay ten gold clips that she would swing the executioner’s axe herself if no one else was available at the moment.

She stared at Wallan, a very slight smile slowly swimming its way across her face.

Sitting to the left of Khorit at a small table covered sloppily in papers and two large ledgers, sat the scribe, Hockle. He was in charge of all of the things that the tarestar and tarestia needed written down, noted, lodged, filed, and proclaimed. Wallan had met the man once, when he had signed up to work for the Southfields as a harvester. He had heard Hockle herald news to the city of Caerly on behalf of the Southfields at least once a week since coming to the city. Dressed in a brilliantly blue dyed set of tunic and pants, with his lower legs wrapped in fine bands of alternating vibrant yellow and darker blue, a style unlike anything Wallan had ever seen outside of the capital city. He wore a slouch hat, also in bright blue, with a small golden ornamental feather that Wallan suspected was worth more than he would earn this year. Though not nearly so much as he had taken from the Paymasters’ tent when he and his siblings had fled.

When reading proclamations to a crowd, Hockle had a pleasant, clear tenor, and liked to litter his presentations with puns and little jokes, to keep the crowd engaged. His puns tended to be funny, and quick, almost like afterthoughts, but his asides to the audience were usually rooted in local lore and knowledge of the personal lives of the crowd; Wallan rarely laughed at those, though he would acknowledge that it took a great deal of familiarity with the audience, and a sly wit to weave the tidbits of humor into the orations.

The old man sat slumped in his chair, long nose pointed down in misery at the mess of papers on his desk, the wrinkles in his elderly face hiding his expression from Wallan.

Where he sat, Lord Khorit held his finger open to a page in the ledger Wallan had signed when he took up working for the Southfields for this Harvest Quarter. He looked to Wallan, and said in his soft, clear voice, “Wallan Maduson, former apprentice mapmaker, once of Phrine Street in the Shadow of the Golden Towers, Aurel. This is you?”

“Yes, Tarestar Khorit. I am Wallan, Son of Madu. And that was my trade, and where I had lived with my family. Now I live in Caerly.”

“Why are you working here in Our fields, instead of for your family back in Aurel?”

“My lord, when my father and mother died, my uncle took over the family trade, and he has three sons.” Wallan looked down, trying to convince them of his sorrow, both for the tragedy, and for the circumstances that led him to leave Aurel. “While I am good at my trade, each of my cousins stands a much better chance to remain employed by my uncle. The King’s factors have only so much work for map makers, and the caravans to and from the city also only provide but so much work. Even the work of scribing and transcribing books for various buyers… Well, my uncle H’Ref made it clear his own sons would get all the work, no matter how much of it there may be. So, it was suggested by my Aunt that I go to live with my Mother’s sister, who married a miller, here in Caerly.”

He had practiced this story often in his room at the inn since his arrival in the city. Spending a week getting to know Caerly had allowed him to learn a little of the local color. One thing he had learned was that the mill that served the Southfields and the Coilleag lands had been raided the winter before, and the miller, and his pretty, new wife who had come from “somewhere near the capital” had both been killed in the raid.

Rumor had it that the Tarestars of both Southfields and Coilleag, just to the north, were arguing over who would foot the bill to rebuild the mill. Neither neighbor wanted the expense, and neither neighbor could afford for the mill to remain closed.

When Wallan looked up again, the Tarestia looked stricken, almost angry; her face was growing more and more red as she stared at him.

“Wallan,” Khorit cleared his throat and continued, “You are saying that your Aunt was married to Dawthet the Miller? Here in Southfields?”

“Lord, Lady, I beg your pardon, but I never met my Aunt’s husband, but my parents referred to him as ‘Daw,’ or sometimes as ‘Doughy.’ And when I got to town, I found out they had,” here he paused. He wanted to make it look like he was collecting himself. “They had passed.” He said it with a soft finality. He had seen officers, and even some Masters, deliver the news of the untimely deaths of loved ones, and he tried to emulate the state of the more reserved recipients of that news here.

The Tarestia looked even angrier now, and Wallan had feared he might have missed vital information somewhere along the line, and his ruse now found out.

He spent a moment contemplating turning this tent, and its inhabitants all to ashes, and running for the mountains to the West, possibly making his way to one of the Eastern Kingdoms that lie beyond both the mountains and the desert.

Tarestia Chania abruptly stood, and to Khorit said, “Husband, I must go. See to all of this.” She gestured at the books open on the table, and the elderly scribe who looked miserable, and to Wallan himself. She turned, and stalked from the tent, a young woman who had been sitting unseen behind the Tarestia’s chair popped up with a “PEEP! Of surprise, and rushed to follow her lady in a flurry of pepper gray fabric and yellow trim. The tarestia was well out of sight in moments, her maid bouncing along behind her disappearing almost as quickly.

“Please forgive the Tarestia, she is very distraught at the mention of the raids and the deaths. Your Aunt regularly spoke with my wife when We came out to judge the milling of the harvest, and made her ladyship feel more at home in her cottage than she has felt in a long time in Our home, and it distressed my wife greatly.”

Wallan lowered his gaze from the Landholder. He wasn't sure how far he would be able to carry out his lie, not if “his aunt Lanie” was well known to the Tarestia. “My lord,” he began, and was immediately interrupted by Tarestar Khorit.

“Please, forgive my wife. And forgive me, for that matter, if you can. We lost a miller, his wife and a mill. You lost family. The two don’t compare, regardless of the needs of the Tarest. I have lost family to these same raids. And the Tarestia had lost her own late husband to a raid from the mountains some years ago. As much as the mountain range protects us here from the Western Kingdoms and the encroaching desert, they give shelter to brigands and inhuman tribes of all sorts.” Khorit smiled, then, if only slightly.

“BUT, we have called you here today for an opportunity. Possibly two. All you have to do is prove yourself.”

Wallan was slightly startled by the rising jolly attitude of the Tarestar. “My lord…”

Tarestar Khorit rose from his chair and thrust a thin blue covered book at Wallan. “Please open to any page in this book, and read me the page you come to.”

Wallan held the book in front of himself awkwardly, looking at the title painted in gold upon the spine.

Then Hockle piped up from where he sat, “Lord, please, this boy cannot possibly be exp..”

Tarestar Khorit turned to Hockle and said, in a calm, even tone, “Hockle, please keep your peace here and now.”

“But, Tarestar Khorit, we don’t need…”

Khorit’s face began to darken in anger, blood rushing into his cheeks and forehead, he looked at the stooped old scribe and spat, “Be silent! Hockle, you have spent this week telling me the tallies were not coming out correctly. You then told me the tallies were off by numbers beyond margin to explain, and have no excuse. You, Hockle, then told the Tarestia and me that you could work out where the numbers had gone wrong, and correct them. A week, Hockle. An entire WEEK! You have told me he read the work contract on his signing day, and you even mentioned to me he had asked you about the misspellings of a few of the words in the contract. You have even ventured that a mapmaker’s apprentice would know various maths well enough to help us out of this debacle. ARE YOU SAYING DIFFERENTLY NOW, SCRIBE?” Khorit’s face was not as red as Wallan would have expected from the rising ire in his voice.

Wallan remembered the incident on the hiring day, and he had asked about the various misspellings. Looking back now, Wallan thought he may have given away his chances to make his lies work with that silly act on his part. And when Hockle’s answer had been both curt and dismissive, Wallan had thought he had insulted the old man, and let the matter drop. He had sharply told Wallan that if he didn’t want the work, others would happily sign the ledger in his place.

At the time he had shrugged, and signed. Until today he hadn't thought about that misstep again.

“But, my Lord! Please! This is unnecessary! I will have this straightened out soon.”

“Mirt!”

At the call of his name, Sargent Mirt appeared at Khorit’s shoulder with a brief nod and a crisp salute. “Sargent, if Scribe Hockle says another word, drag him from Our shade, and tie him to the nearest hitching post. If he protests that, feel free to nail his left ear to the post.”

Getting your ear pinned was a harsh but fairly common punishment in the military camps, though rarely for speaking out of turn. Wallan wasn’t sure if Tarestar Khorit was being too heavy handed, or if there were aspects of this interchange he just wasn’t aware of. He wasn’t averse to blood, and certainly he had no dog in this race, where seeing Hockle beaten was the outcome, but he wasn’t invested in the idea, either.

It just was. So, Wallan stood silently, and remained stoic. It was the best course of action; no need to let any of these men know how out of his depth he was here.

Hockle gasped in horror at the threat, and sat, sweat appearing at his brow, lips quivering, either in outrage or fear, Wallan wasn't sure; but whatever the reason, the old man remained silent.

Sargent Mirt then went to stand beside and behind Hockle where he sat in misery and fear.

Wallan took a deep breath and looked again at the thin blue book in his hands, and then looked up at Khorit. “This is written in Elde Kjolt, I can read it in that language for you, or, if you would prefer Tarestar Khorit, I can translate it into Haman.”

From off to the left, he heard Sargent Mirt chuckle.

“Well, no beetles on you, boy. Please, in Haman, if you please. My written Kjolt is passable, but I have been too lax in learning and practicing the spoken. Proceed.” With that, he gracefully spun, and reseated himself in his chair, taking up a goblet tip sip from.

Wallan cleared his throat as he opened the book, letting it fall open to a random page. He then began in his best voice for oration:

“...Between the 4th Epella Dynasty and the 3rd Qil’eggan Dynasty, the ruling leaders and priests in ancient Hamuria had people to oversee financial matters. In the mud covered city capital of Auratt, cylindrical tokens that were used for bookkeeping on clay scripts were found in buildings that had large rooms for storage of crops. In Keldon Hensen’s findings, the scripts only contained tables with figures, while in Gianni Tiocchini’s findings, the scripts also contained graphical representations of products and even geographical notations of movements of same products. The invention of a form of accountancy using clay tokens represented a huge cognitive leap for the rulers of Hamuria, and its scattered peoples.”

“That will be enough, Wallan. Thank you. And well spoken. You were also trained in public speaking?”

“Thank you, Lord, but no. I was expected to read from the work I transcribed each week for customers as proof of the accuracy of the transcription.” Another lie, but one of the smaller ones he had told these last few months. Apprentices were expected to read entire chapters of texts to their classes at the command of the Masters.

Khorit smiled. “Now, please turn to the back of the book, and read from the first of the pages that have red inked edges.”

Wallan gave a slight bow of his head and proceeded, flipping the book open to the back, red edged pages.

“When dealing with the people of Hamuria, it is best to go into all business transactions carrying a well made set of balance scales, as the Hamu use the worst system of monetary exchanges ever invented. Larger coins that break, or get broken down into pie-like segments referred to as ‘clips’ and noted simply with the lowercase Che symbol. Where ‘3cco’ is 3/7th of 1 full copper coin.

If you have not access to scales for making equal weights of monetary resources, then keep the following formulae in mind:

7cco=1co

7cco x7=1si

7csi=1si

20si=1g

10cg=1g

20cg=1g

100g=1 Helios

1 silver coin is equal to 7 copper coins, and each copper coin is divisible into 7 copper clips. Thus any item you purchase for 1 silver, you may also purchase for 49 copper clips, or 7 copper coins ....”

With that, Wallan stopped. And stared at the page perplexed.

He looked at Khorit, who watched him with one eyebrow raised. “A problem Wallan?”

“I don't mean to belittle such learned men, Tarestar, but they have their notation wrong. And with the notation wrong, their math is also wrong. It’s 6 clips to a copper, and 7 coppers to a silver, so the resulting number of copper slips to a silver should be 42, not 49. In small transactions, this discrepancy isn’t too onerous, but the higher your financial transactions progress, the greater in debt you will find yourself.”

Tarestar Khorit laughed, and nodded. “Yes, Wallan, you spotted it exactly. This book was written by a Velspe scholar who got every aspect of his study of our financial system correct, but was off by 1 copper clip at the bottom, and so was off by hundreds of thousands by the end of the book. It also caused Velspe merchants to lose money here in Hamuria for a century before we all went to war over it. This book caused the War of Three Summers, almost a hundred years ago. And Velspe merchants blamed us. We refused to ‘repay damages suffered’ by the Velspe trading Houses, and they rattled sabers, and we used the excess funds we had accrued over the last few centuries to buy mercenary tribes among the Gobhanni living in the Eastern Mountain ranges that make up the border between Velspe and Hamuria.”

Wallan had not known that about the War of Three Summers, though he thought Five would have. His mind often wandered during the history lessons. Five knew more than most of the Masters were comfortable with an Apprentice knowing. Five knowing more than the Masters wanted was why he was here now, and not currently part of a Pride, going by the name Six.

Wallan guessed his face looked passable enough as being thoughtful or introspective to the revelations the lord had made, because the man just nodded, and then held out his hand for the book. The book now retrieved, he gestured for Wallan to have a seat at the table where Hockle sat, and gestured at the papers spread about.

When the Tarestar spoke, he spoke slowly, and in a calmly metered tone that suggested he had been thinking about this topic seriously for a long time; the man wanted there to be no mistaking his intent here. While the lord didn't have a pretty voice, the voice of a singer, he could probably do well as an orator, and represent plaintiffs before the Crown in Aurel, had he the need for another vocation.

“Here is our problem, Wallan. Hockle and I cannot make the numbers upon these talley sheets properly correlate to the number of wagons of cut grain, and the numbers of reed bails tied in the fields.” He held up his left hand, and a young blonde woman, much like the lady’s maid who had followed the Tarestia out of the tent earlier, appeared at the Tarestar’s side, and refreshed his drink, curtsied, and then bustled to Wallan and offered him a cup of sekanjabin.

Wallan had to admit to himself that this was one of his favorite drinks. The sour, vinegar, sugar, and herb syrup then mixed with water was a treat when he had been in the army. The sweet, tangy nature of the refreshment on a hot day, or after a day on the battlefields, was one he had always welcomed as his due. Sadly, being a field hand for a minor noble meant he only received a water ration. And some days, the foremen were stingy with that.

This fine ceramic cup he had been handed contained very cold water that had been mixed with the syrup concentrate, and was now filling the air around him with the scintillating scents of sweet mint and vinegar that he had dearly missed since fleeing the King's service. The regular soldiers had gotten the sugar and vinegar mixed with water. The officers, and those members of the Phoenix Corps who fought with the army, had received the herbed and fruit laden variety. It made Wallan smile as he brought the cup up to his nose to inhale.

Tarestar Khorit laughed. “You know the drink, Wallan?”

Wallan bowed slightly to Khorit, as he saw Hockle scowl at him from across the table, “Yes, lord Khorit. It was often provided for us when we worked on Royal Commissions. Sometimes the Royal Bursars sent my family a skin of the syrup as a bonus when we had completed an assignment.” Two had carried their ration of the syrup, guarding it from damage and depletion. Though Wallan knew the depletion would mostly have been from himself and Three.

“My mother used to mete it out very sparingly to us, and used it as a reward to get us to do our chores.” He felt that bending the truth here was easier than making some story up from whole cloth about how he would otherwise be so familiar with the expensive drink. Beers and most wines in taverns were cheaper, by far. “Though, I have never had mint in it before. Mostly we were served lemon and ginger. Sometimes, fruit varieties. I have always liked the sour apple kind the royal bursar would send us in the autumn, my lord.”

He had to remind himself that Khorit was, indeed, his “lord” and was entitled to the appellation; the man just didn’t exude that sense of royal bearing that Wallan had come to expect from the nobility when he was in Aurel. With how the man carried himself, Wallan had almost called him “captain” several times.

“Ah, you were being given the extra skins meant for the high ranking military men, I believe. When I served in His Majesty’s Army, those were the skins the quartermasters issued to those of us who held rank enough to warrant it. Sounds like a good business practice, to keep your family appreciative of Royal Largess.”

Wallan nodded, though he doubted Khorit noticed.

“So, Wallan,” Khorit said, getting back to the business at hand, “here is the sharp point of our problem. We find that We are missing at least a ten count of wagons worth of grain every day this last week. We don't know why, and we don’t know where. I would like a fresh pair of eyes to look at these figures, and help us find where the discrepancies are happening. Scribe Hockle insists the workers are lying about their production, which is impossible because it is being tracked by the foremen. Word from the foremen is that the wagonload counts match what they have been turning in. But, the counting talleys delivered from the river barges are short each day. This is our puzzle.”

Wallan nodded and looked at the papers littering the table. This shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, he thought. Either there was a step in the process where the counts were wrong, or there was a step in the process where the produced grain was going astray.

On the walk back to Caerly that evening, Wallan thought about all of the reports and tally sheets he had read that day. He stewed over the information. The walk itself would take him an hour, he knew. And in the morning, it would be an hour back to the fields, or in this case, back to the tent.

The more he thought about what he had read, the more he was concerned by the discrepancies. All of the missing grain was coming from the various fields, no one field’s harvest had been hit with losses in any greater frequency than any other field, which meant that each foreman would have had to be in on the theft. Had they all been, there would be rumors. Twenty some men and women couldn’t all keep the same secret in this coordinated manner. Too many conflicting personalities. Had they all been in the army, and pursuing a victory, the discipline and motivation may have been there, but even in the military, that was asking much.

This led Wallan to believe that either there was a flaw in the very way the grain was being counted, the measurement used, or that the mill weight by the barge landing at the river was wrong.

But, Wallan knew, two thirds of the grain weights were matching the counts. So, if the scales at the old mill were askew, they were not askew in the same way every time they were used. Two thirds of the grain weights matched the counts, and a further third of the weights all came in short, but the short weights were all short by differing amounts.

Some were short by hundreds of Boots of grain, others were short by only a few Boots, and those short by only a few could be ignored as spillage, or other random kinds of waste. Mistakes happen, often enough, he knew. But enough weights were short by several hundred Boots to make this a problem. Most carts carried 4000 Boots of grain, or thereabouts.

Every sack of grain, while not a truly standardized measure, from what Wallan could tell, was 40 Boots of grain. Once gathered, separated, and bagged, each sack was sealed off with a simple stitch across the open end, and thrown into a cart as it was counted. When those carts of grain filled sacks were pulled to the river barges, they were then counted again as they were loaded onto the barges.

At some point between the closing of the sacks, and their being taken from cart to barge, a third of the sacks were being… deflated. According to the reports he had spent the day pouring over, while watched by a vulture-like Hockle, the number of grain sacks remained constant, but the volume of grain in the sacks themselves was variable, and caused great consternation to the various foremen, and the barge captains, both.

At an expense of man hours, the Tarestia had suggested there be teams of foremen who checked the work of other foremen in the loading, sealing, and notation of the sacks. That had slowed the work for three days, but had not produced a culprit, nor had it reduced the number of limp grain sacks that showed up at the barge dock on the river.

The entries had been simple enough, on their own.

5th of Siat

Field 22

Solson’s Wagon: Loaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Brick’s Wagon: Loaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Errik’s Wagon: Loaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Morag’s Wagon: Loaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Pabbo’s Wagon: Loaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Unika’s Wagon: Loaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

…and in this way they went on for a page, followed by:

6th of Siat

Field 22

Solson’s Wagon: unloaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed) Discrepancy (Noted)

Request sent to Tarests

Morag’s Wagon: unloaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Pabbo’s Wagon: unloaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed) Discrepancy (Noted)

Request sent to Tarests

Brick’s Wagon: unloaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed) Discrepancy (Noted)

Unika’s Wagon: unloaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Chirton’s Wagon: unloaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Hustin’s Wagon: unloaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed) Discrepancy (Noted)

Request sent to Tarests

Errik’s Wagon: unloaded (Sacks listed, with weights confirmed)

Olavar O’Solson’s Wagon:...

Page after page in three large ledgers. This is what was recorded of this year’s harvest in the Southfields to this point, these were not the most stimulating of reads; Wallan had wished no less than 20 times that Five had been here with him. If not to just do the readings, but he was certain Five would have figured it all out within having read a few pages, rather than having read a half a month’s worth of entries.

There was a step in this process that was missing; he knew that much. He couldn’t quite picture what it was, but he knew it was there.

There was a link in the chain that Wallan was unreported, and one that the Tarests didn’t know about either. One that was meant to cost them. …or possibly a link, a step, that WAS costing them, but had nothing to actually do with the Tarests. A parasite, like a leech, would take your blood, but it didn’t have anything to actually do with YOU… it wasn't personal…it didn’t care about the damages it was doing to those with the blood to steal, just that the blood was there, and they wanted it … he thought.

The grain was the primary product of the Southfields Tarest. Not only did the Tarestia and her Tarestar depend upon the revenue from the harvest, so too did every person who worked for them, and lived in their lands.

The Crown depended on this grain to feed its army and navy. It depended on the money made in the sales of this grain amongst its allies, though many other Tarests also produced grain as a form of levied tax for the Crown against revenue.

Was this attack on the Southfields happening in all of the Kingdom’s Tarests?

Wallan slowed his breathing as he walked, in an attempt to not excite himself, and possibly stave off jumping to rash conclusions. Master Collesi would have used an especially cruel, though often used, spell to whip him had he heard Wallan making such baseless assumptions, as he now was.

He worked to match his heart rate to his pace, as he purposefully strode back to his room in Caerly for dinner, a bath, and sleep. Maybe a bath, first. He correspondingly slowed his thoughts.

It would have been paranoid to assume attacks across the Kingdom without information from other regions; but it would be imprudent to assume it was ONLY the Southfields being attacked. Allow the possibility, but do not formulate your conclusions on information you do not possess.

So. This leaves us with the idea that Southfields may be experiencing this phenomena solely on its own, and there are reasons for these phenomena to be so localized. Wallan thought, in the dry, droning voice of Maestra Hadissa. Are any, or all, of the other Tarests of this Aerest opposed to the Tarests of Southfields? What enemies do they have that the Kingdom does not itself possess? Or would you line up all of the foreign lands of Thach, under the Light and Shadow of La’an?

As he wound his way through the streets of Caerly, he kept an eye out for the cats that had begun to regularly shadow him as he made his way through his days here. The one little cat he shared his dried fish with on the day of his arrival had been joined a few days later by another. And after a week, two more.

There was a scattering of local cats that now followed him regularly when he walked around Caerly. Several had taken to hanging about the Mother’s Pony Inn just to cadge scraps and treats from Wallan. Arla hadn’t been happy about it at first, but had warmed to the idea when his nephew, the stable boy Vret, who people called “Burt,” had informed his uncle that the cats were either eating, or scaring away rats and mice, and none of the vermin had been seen in the stables since the cats had begun to come around.

As Wallan walked along the East West Road through Caerly, he noticed a small shadow slinking along the road off to his right. It was that first small cat he had met on his first day. Wallan had begun calling her Fleck, for the matched set of tawny dots in her sleek, cream colored fur on the cheeks under each of her pretty green eyes.

The streets were much more crowded than he had seen them any time these last few months. Wagons choked some streets, and masses of milling people were about in Caerly. It was the harvest. Factors from various trade houses were here to make contracts, and set caravan schedules for goods. All of the harvest products not set aside by the landowners for the representatives of the Crown, and related governmental interests, would be sold to whoever came Caerly with with coin they were willing to part with. While it was a great time for commerce in the city, it was worrying to Wallan. He didn’t want any of his cats, for that was how he had started to think of them, to be hurt by the traffic, and stomping of thousands of unfamiliar boots on his streets.

He stopped, and checked in his bag for the waxed cloth that had held his lunch that day. Pulling it open, he found the last slice of cheese he had left aside specifically for this purpose. Pulling off a small piece, he crouched, and held it out to the light spot slowly moving through the darkened patches of shadow between the two buildings to his right. She stopped moving, freezing in place as if to try to stay hidden by blending into the darkness. Her light fur and bright reflective eyes gave her away, though.

Wallan waited, immoble. His arm outstretched to his right, holding a scrap of tangy white cheese. As fast as a darting sparrow, Fleck jumped up onto his arm, claimed the cheese from his hand, and sinuously walked up to his shoulder. She settled in comfortably on his neck and shoulder as he stood, and sat securely, calmly eating her piece of cheese as he walked the rest of the way to the inn. He could feel her gentle purring as she chewed on the scrap. It was a relatively new sensation to Wallan, and felt reassuring in a way he couldn’t quite put words to.

He walked past the central fountain in the great square near the city center where the large houses that faced the square were all owned by the four oldest Tarest families that kept mansions within the walls of the city, along with a fifth large building that was the town hall. Several overly fancy carriages were waiting outside of the town hall. At least three of the ornate monstrosities had gilt incorporated into their woodwork. He saw that each of the carriages had heraldic images deeply carved onto their doors, and randomly spread over all of the available surfaces. It made them look, Wallan thought, that each carriage was being attacked by a hideous menagerie of gaudily colored zoological and mythological creatures.

He didn’t recognise any of the coats of arms; though, one of them looked vaguely like a design he had seen a long time ago. Probably in Aurel.

Another block and a half of walking through the crowds saw Fleck and Wallan arriving at the My Mother’s Pony Inn. Fleck launched herself (painfully) from her perch on his shoulder into the eves above the propped open doors as he walked through, Wallan knew there would be a matching set of tiny scratches under his tunic. They would be added to his growing collection that now littered the landscape of his right shoulder and collar bone.

He knew Fleck would wind her way around the greater structure of the inn, and probably end her explorations in the stable with Burt and a few other cats of various colors and sizes. Occasionally she would saunter through his open window to spend a part of the night curled up on his bed. Wallan didn’t mind. He liked cats in general. Life in the camps at the front had made him a devotee of cats. Regardless of what Five and One thought.

He took a moment to stretch on the front step of the inn, loosened his shoulders and twisted his back and sides. Wallan took the opportunity to give a quick glance up and down the street; it was, he felt, never going to feel completely “safe,” but he was beginning to think Caerly had been the right choice. Maybe after a full year here, he might feel more comfortable. The life he had built for himself felt right, so far. This new job working directly for the Tarests Southfield made for an odd hitch in his step, but he would see what tomorrow brought, and what he could make of it.

The street was, while not clear, if anything it was congested, but there were no mages, sorcerers, nor military troops descending on him from the crowd, no shouting, no arrows, no spells.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

There had not even been a sense of strong magic used in his presence since he had left the army. Wallan knew he could sense magic use within a half a Length. Some other adepts, like One, were not nearly as sensitive, and couldn’t sense other active spells being used within a few Strides. He had been successfully tested out to 3000 Strides, which was a solid Length and a half.

His first night in Caerly, he had been able to delve the entire city from his room in the Pony, and while there were several Artifacts in Caerly, mostly just a few blocks from where he was now, in the larger mansions near the town hall, nothing like active spellwork had been happening in Caerly anytime he had delved the city.

Rich people always had the best toys, no matter where on Thach he had been.

But, in the months he had been here in Caerly, Wallan had yet to sense a single person actually doing any magic themselves.

It was oddly both refreshingly calm, and lonely. He had never, that he could remember, been surrounded by such a lack of those people who could use their Talent to bend the world to their will.

A last stretch of his neck, and he turned back to the entrance to the inn.

And once through the doors, he found it even more crowded than the streets had been. He could see Kamma, head and shoulders taller than anyone else in the common room, as she wove fluidly through the throng. A tray of tankards delivered to one waiting table, and the pay deftly gathered before she gently landed a second large tray laden with steaming bowls of food to another table. Smiling all the while as she navigated back to the bar to give Arla, the only person here taller than her, the money she had collected. As a married couple, Arla and Kamma made him happy. Just how they interacted with each other on a daily basis was the most warm and human set of interaction he had ever, in all his memory, witnessed.

It made him smile.

She noted his approach to the bar through the milling mass of talking people, and gestured up the stairs to him. He would either find his meal waiting in his room, or she would bring it to him presently. Wallan made a face scrubbing gesture, and Kamma nodded as he walked up the stairs to his room before heading to the bathing rooms and sauna at the back of the inn. He found dinner always tasted better when he was clean, and freshly scrubbed.

Wallan made his way up the stairs to his room, and while he was exceedingly glad to be there, he noted the volume of noise invading his room from the two large rooms of traders that currently swelled the inn. This was, he had to admit, the busiest he had seen the inn since his arrival; but he was discomforted by the noise. It reminded him of, if anything, the parts of the army camp where the lower ranks were placed. Rowdy until the very late night, most nights.

There was, he remembered, a set of Artifacts that an enterprising wizard had created for the highest ranking officers’ block of the camp. When placed around the camp, it didn’t silence all of the noise, but it muted and blurred the more excessive noise to allow the officers their nightly peace.

Telling men who had spent the day facing death not to howl at the moon as they drank away their fears and horrors was harder to do, even for the best trained amongst the Talented, than to use those talents to just mute the sound of the howls.

Wallan decided, as he grabbed his bathing kit, and a clean set of clothes, to devote some time to making some of those noise dampening charms. Materials for making such Artifacts were expensive; but Wallan knew he had plenty and enough to spare hidden in his room.

From his room he walked back along the hall to the back stairs that lead him down to the inn’s bathhouse. As he approached, he smiled at the familiar scents of hot water, hot rocks in a set of iron beds, and the fragrances of juniper wood and firespike weed. The large bars of soap on the shelf as he walked in were newly cut bars, and their strong smells of ginger and whatever other herbs Arla used in making his soaps that Wallan had just begun to associate with the idea of “clean.”

There was a cluster of very small men in the room. At least five heads turned to him as he entered, and placed his clothes on one of the appropriate, and empty, shelves.

They all had hair more red than his own dull russet, and much more vibrant, and in brighter tones than his own auburn, and at first glance, all of the petite men sported thick beards. A few of them styled into elaborate braids, some with shiny metal bands separating the various weaves.

Their skin tones were all in the pale ranges that Piincar, though some looked almost bluish, like they may have had Gorma ancestry, though Wallan had never seen a Gorma so much shorter than himself.

With a half turn, Wallan went to the third, and hottest, tub; he stripped off his waist wrap and lowered himself into the simmering hell that promised to loosen his muscles, and draw all of the tension from his body.

Settling in, he noticed two other heads bob up from the first tub, closest to the door. Wallan smiled, and said simply, “Bless this evening, and your endeavors, sirs.”

He closed his eyes, and relaxed, letting the heated water melt the day's efforts from his protesting body. Keeping his eyes closed, he used the bar of soap he had liberated, along with his wash rag, to lather and mercilessly scrub himself down. He started at his toes, and ended by making a frothy, fragrant mass of his hair, before taking a deep breath and sinking down into the hot heaven in which he now stewed. Slowly he resurfaced, and without ceremony Wallan wrung out and then folded his washcloth, and placed it over his forehead and eyes. He leaned back in the tub to relax for a few minutes before he planned to extract himself.

He thought about some of the entries in the ledgers he had read earlier in the day. There was something wrong. He was sure of it, but he had yet to figure out just where the scrawled roads went awry on the page. If he could trace where they went astray, he could more easily put them back onto the best path.

“Ahem.” The voice was oddly pitched, and slightly high, but very definitely masculine. Slowly opening his eyes, Wallan found one of the petite men standing beside him, outside of the steaming tub. His eyes focused upon the little man’s face as he lifted his head and asked, “Yes?”

“You are bathing!” The man before him, beard damp from his own tub, was red faced almost to match his beard and the scant hair atop his head. Along with his blush, he was caught between panting and spluttering.

“Yes.” Wallan said simply. He had been about to replace the cloth on his eyes when the man burst out with “You’re bathing HERE!”

“Obviously.”

“WHY!” Several of the others in the small party had drawn themselves up in shared indignations, and a few piped in with their own echoes of “Why?!” Three of the others had drawn on their own robes, or large towels, and were even now scurrying from the room.

“I was filthy after a long day of work.” the former wizards’ apprentice raised an eyebrow, and finished with “What would you expect me to do, go to my bed filthy?”

“INSOLENCE! I will have you fired for this effrontery! How dare you!” His little voice had risen to such a shrill register, Wallan doubted anyone on two legs would recognise the tirade as words anymore.

The little man turned, and stomped out of the baths, followed by two of his companions, leaving just one of the original seven sitting in the corner of the largest tub, grinning broadly. The fellow was the grayest, and least bearded of his fellows, merely having a spray of curly gray and red hair tumble down from above each ear and running along the jaw. Their hair, an equal mix of reds and grays, was shorn close on the sides of their head above the ears, and the long length left atop the head was braided intricately, leading to a sinuously slung plaited tail that dipped, looped, and finally draped itself over his bare shoulder, secured at the end with an intricate gold band. The very end of the thick cord of hair disappeared into the water as it hung over his clavicle.

And slowly reached down beside the tube where he was soaking to lift a large tankard to his mouth. He took a very noisy, and very slow, draught of his ale. Once it was safely back on the little tubside stool he had originally taken it from, the elder turned to look directly at Wallan. He had a long, straight nose, with a small scar to the left of the nose, just under his eye. His eyes were wide, and a light, bright green that were a rarity here in Hamuria. High cheekbones, and a wide forehead. The man’s ears were small, and had a small golden ring in each lobe.

He watched him for a moment, and then giggled. Wallan thought the man might be well on his way to a morning hangover.

“My boy…” They said to him, in a much deeper, more husky voice than the angry little man had possessed. This voice was well aged, cultured, and while strongly accented with hints of the Western desert kingdoms, was a calming susurrus that the people of the Kingdom of Selmet lacked. This voice was all purring persuasion, not the staccato assault that Selmet merchants tended to have. “I feel you are soon to be owed a sincere apology from my grandson.”

From the confused look Wallan knew he was now wearing, the elder decided to explain. “We, my grandchildren and I, are here with a trading caravan from Jheddo. This is the first time the children have been allowed to leave our family holdings, and to travel. Djoc, who just yelled at you for interrupting his bath, thinks you are an employee of this inn, and had the audacity to bathe with us.” They giggled, deeply, again as they spoke; it was a deceptively light sound from an otherwise smokey voice. “He doesn't realize you too are a guest here.”

Wallan let out a short bark of laughter as the scene replayed itself in his head. “What? Why would he assume I’m not another guest?”

“I’m so sorry. My grandchildren have worked so hard these last few years to secure their place on this trade mission, and they may have forgotten some of their most basic lessons about dealing with you people of Hamuria. It makes me enormously glad we stopped here at Caerly rather than going on to a larger city first. We are the Colvig Miner’s Consorteum, of Jheddo, and I am Elder Bohaty.” The name Jheddo was familiar to Wallan as a small mountainous country from the western coast of the continent; he had spent years pouring over and copying maps, and histories during his time as an apprentice; he had a solid grasp of the geography, both natural and political, of Thach.

“My grandson, Djoc, if you will forgive him, is a good boy; but he thinks of himself as a prince traveling amongst horrible barbarians. I blame his mother.” The elder actually cackled now. “It’s because you Hamurians are all so tall! After more than two months from home, he now thinks all tall, lowlanders are serfs, peasants, and servants. Oh, on my soul, his younger brother, Kopie, would be better for leading this caravan; Kopie makes no assumptions about anyone, nor anything. Ever!`` They laughed again, loudly, and again reached for the tankard at their side.

The Elder Bohaty slipped slightly reaching for his drink, causing him to slide a little on his bench in the tub on which he sat. As they readjusted themselves, they stood up, exposing themselves from previously unseen armpits to hips… Wallan noticed they were not, in fact, a man. They were, in actual fact, a very tiny, compact and muscular woman. Wallan felt his eyebrows lift slightly in surprise.

Time to reassess.

He wanted to be embarrassed, and blush, as he knew any of the local men would have, it would have been completely in character for a small town Hamurian man to be so. But Wallan lost any prudish ideas he might have had about women and men bathing together while serving in his Pride. And then, later, in his Pride’s time with the army. Bathing together was nothing for men and women to be bashful about, it was about getting clean, and soaking the day’s aches away, on those rare occasions when a soak could be had at the Front.

This revelation also made Wallan wonder how many of the others in the group of “petite men” might also be women.

It was an intriguing thought; they all had beards, but their grandmother didn’t. Where their’s a matter of youth? Had they been an affectation? Were their beards fake? Was the Elder Bohaty’s lack of beard due to age, or did she shave?

As she sat up to readjust her seat, definitely a “she,” he now saw, he reassessed her while Elder Bohaty drank from her large mug. As she tipped the drink back, taking a last long gulp, she lowered the mug, and looked at Wallan from where she sat. She was giving him his own frank assessment. The look on her face told him she was waiting for something.

“Elder Bohaty, I am Wallan, Son of Madu. Formerly of Aurel, and now living here, in Caerly.”

“Madu… that name rings familiar.” She paused, thought, and her eyes widened. “Madu… Madu… Madu? Are you a trader come down here from Aurel for the Crown’s Factors?”

Wallan smiled, feeling relief that she had not immediately known the name Madu. “Apologies, Elder, no. I was an apprentice map maker for my father, until he and my mother died. I came to Caerly to live with local family when my parents passed. I now work for the Tarests Southfields, and currently live here at the Pony.”

The woman visibly relaxed, and Wallan guessed she would have spent the rest of the evening trying to pry the nature of his trade, his routes, and his rates from Wallan to wrest an advantage in the marketplace. He knew that while she claimed her grandson led this trading venture, that SHE was in charge. And if all of her adult children trusted her to lead and teach their own children the proper methods of their trade, she was, he guessed, accomplished.

“You have my most sincerest of condolences on the news of your parents’ passing.” She made an odd steepling gesture with her hands, long, strong fingers laced together, and said, “May they guide your steps from this Day to the Last.” Ah, she is a follower of the Vjedika, he thought. It was a polytheistic faith practiced in the farther western quarters of the continent, much like his own, but less shamanic, and more temple based. Very structured, hierarchical, from what he had learned. Interesting.

Wallan gave a light smile, and a half bow from his seat in the steaming tub where he sat. He made a similar steeple of his own fingers, and replied in passable Jheddo, “Elder, may I wish your travels be profitable? May you always eat cakes while your foes eat crusts. May your mines delve deep, and your runs always bring in salmon.”

The elder’s rich green eyes widened. “Such formal manners! You almost sound like my own father.” And she laughed. He wasn’t certain why, but smiled and nodded. “Your parents taught you so well, Wallan, Son of Madu; I am honored!” Her smile broadened then, and very white, straight teeth greeted Wallan in what he thought was a genuine smile. He gave another half bow from his steamy, watery seat.

A bang sounded just behind Wallan, causing him to spin in the water toward the noise, and embrace the calm center of his being, readying himself to redirect the ambient forces around him.

Djoc, now dressed in a very fine selection of expensive fabrics in blue and red, had returned with two others of his party, as well as Arla in tow, the large man looming behind the much smaller three.

Arla’s extreme height and breadth made the three small men look almost doll-like in comparison. He was flushed in the cheeks, and looked slightly confused, as he surveyed the bathhouse.

Djoc pointed at Wallan, and railed, “Look at this! LOOK AT IT!” His voice piping like a flute at this point.

Arla looked.

And then Arla looked to the portion of the room behind Wallan, trying to see what the offense might be he was supposed to be horrified by.

He then joined Wallan in looking at Djoc, who was pointing and breathing heavily. Wallan slowly released the power he had been holding, deciding this was not a “Battering Ram of Lightning and Fire” situation.

Arla turned fully to Djoc and his party, and after taking a steadying breath, “Young Sirs, was there someone else here earlier?”

“No, just this servant who presumed..”

Bohaty raised her voice then. “Djermdjocal! Restrain yourself immediately!”

Arla turned back to the room, gave a slight bow and an awkward smile, and then back to Djoc, “Trader Djoc, the man in the far tub is a guest here, just like yourself, and your party.”

“What?! Do not try to cover for this lazy lout! Take him back to your kitchens and lash him until he learns respect! Then release him from your service. Immediately. We have not traveled this far to bathe with servants…”

From the way Arla’s body swelled, and subsided, Wallan knew he had taken a bracing breath before continuing. “No. As I said, this man is a valued guest here, and is not employed by me. May I introduce to you Teagaisg Wallan Maduson?”

Wallan didn’t recognise the honorific, but he wasn’t about to stop the conversation to ask. He would ask, if he remembered, later.

Bohaty spoke again, “Grandson, calm thyself, and do not embarrass us all any further. We will discuss your social misstep AFTER dinner. And we will begin our redress for your rudeness here and now. Please apologize to the Teagaisg. And you will be paying for his lodging from your personal funds while we are here in Caerly.”

“WHAT?! …but, Nimmu…” Djoc turned hurt eyes to his grandmother.

“No!” Bohaty said, but did not yell. Wallan had the impression that if the Elder started to yell, all of her grandchildren would back up. He might join them.

From his brief exposure he thought she was a woman with a warmth and civility; but he also was of the impression that she was harder than steel when she had need. The idea of being on the opposite side of a trading table from her was sobering.

“Keeper Arla, please forgive my grandson. I’m saying that phrase all too often tonight.” She turned a menacing gaze on her offending descendant. “We shall be taking our dinner in the side room in half a span, and Teagaisg Maduson will be joining us, please set an appropriate seat for him. Also, While our party is here in Caerly, Trader Djoc will be paying for the Teagaisg’s room and board. Go and see to this now, please, I need time to dress for dinner.`` With that, she hoisted her mug one last time, drained it, and then with a grin, tossed it to the innkeeper. Arla caught it without comment, though he looked confused and slightly worried.

Arla looked to Wallan, who was schooling his expression to calm placitude. And then Arla glanced at Djoc, who was silent with rage, his bluish face purpling around his cheeks and forehead. But, as he did not gainsay his Elder to the innkeeper, Arla gave a slight bow, and as he backed out of the room said simply, “I will see to your needs, Trader.”

As he trundled away, Wallan could hear Arla’s retreating voice calling to his wife with some instructions.

Wallan turned back to Djoc, and gave a slight bow, himself. “I am sorry to have caused you such distress Trader Djermdjocal.” And then turned to Bohaty, “Madam, I in no way wish to impose upon your family tonight nor any night, please…” He remembered his manners well enough, but worked to keep the nervous waiver out of his voice; the Lady Bohaty made him feel much like some of the Mistresses at the Kuljat Almulajat. As she was a leader of a merchant train, possibly a foreign envoy, he might want to address her as “Mers.”

“Think nothing of it, Wallan! This will be very pleasant for me, I need to be able to speak to someone not descended from me every once in a while to remind me that there are more people in the world than just my family. Also, the innkeeper’s wife brings us too much dessert, we need an extra mouth. Now, you go get dressed, please. Unless you plan to dine in the nude. It would horrify at least three of my grandchildren, so, please, feel free.” She winked at Wallan as she stood, and started to climb over the wall of the tub she had been soaking in. Bohaty shot a look at her third grandchild who had entered with Djoc. “Nezhi, come along and help your Nimmu, this bath was built for Altiniyeans!” The Elder said, laughing, and holding out her hand for her granddaughter’s aid as she invoked the name of the giant peoples said to inhabit the Northern deserts of Selmet.

Back in his room, the noise from the common room downstairs was increasing as the evening wore on. This was bothersome to Wallan. He had gotten used to the calm, quiet comfort of the inn. Now dressed, and considering ways in which he might gracefully decline his upcoming dinner, it felt awkward to him, both the way in which he had been told to attend, and the manner in which it was made to SOUND like he was being graciously invited.

It was a style of command that was, he reflected, a magic all its own. It was the needling, weedling magic of social pressures, and politely couched words, spoken as softly as a caress, but backed up with an iron willpower. It was a kiss that suggested a bite. In his years at the Golden Tower, the method had sometimes been referred to as Authority of Rank. The idea that, if you were of sufficient rank, you shouldn't have to even actually do anything so base as “give commands” to those below you, but you should kindly direct them in the way they should behave, and then they should go off and do it. It was said that the King only gave actual commands to a handful of people, but to everyone else, they must either anticipate his needs, or they must heed exactly what he says, when he says it, to best serve His Magnificence. Wallan loathed those kinds of game-like interactions.

One, however, was well versed in such magics. Probably to make up for her lacking in real power of the type that Three, Four, Five, and Wallan himself, or Five, Four, and Three all could command. While he knew he could pull down buildings, or overturn streets at need, One had been scary. She could get others to do the hard work. She would use subtle Crafts, and play upon the minds of her victims in ways that Wallan couldn’t imagine. Wherever One was currently, she probably had gained a scad of servants, and had people hanging off of her every word. Besotted legions who were slaving to give her whatever she might possibly want. She spent much of her time studying with the Healing Corps, saying it helped her to more effectively cast her Glamours, and compulsions.

At least, before his long walk here, he had never imagined using the delicate little bits of spellwork that wove illusions. He was learning to appreciate some of that arcane work more, now that he had a need to rely on Talents that didn’t lean quite so heavily on the ability to set an army on fire as they ran towards you. But the Elder was as good at turning others’ actions to her desires and needs as Four had been at turning arrows mid flight.

Wallan had always taken the more direct route of incinerating the arrows as they came in, or letting the frail, deadly things smash themselves against a wall of hardened air.

The Elder, Bohaty worried Wallan more than her grandson, Djoc, did, though. Djoc was a squalling, squealing piglet who thought he was a boar in full bristle and tusk. He could be turned in his tracks with a distraction, like when Bohaty made him pay for Wallan’s room and board, or he could be ignored like wind rattling a window. His threats might work on someone whose livelihood relied on Djoc’s good favor, but Wallan didn’t live in that particular shadow,

Bohaty, however, was … commanding. That was the best word he could come up with for her. She was used to giving commands, and to having them followed; and to make matters worse, she was …charming? Wallan certainly felt charmed.

There was nothing for it, he finally decided. He would go down to the private dining room, and eat with the little family. If he was lucky, he might be able to beg their forgiveness due to his need to rise early.

A raucous cheer erupted from down stairs. The noise was getting startlingly loud, and Wallan could hear a drum and some kind of stringed instrument strike up as the shouting simmered and bubbled back down to a murmur.

Irritated at having been startled, Wallan reached into his bag and grabbed a copper clip coin, and staring at the pie slice shaped redly glinting metal, Wallan gathered his Will, and ran a trickle of his Talent through that willpower. The nature, the very energy of the sound that surrounded Wallan jolted and jumped. Louder, now. Then soft, as he strained the energies of sound through the net he wove of Talent and Will. The way became clear to him, as he found the edges of the noise, and knew suddenly how to turn it back upon itself.

Gathering himself, he forced his will into it, through it, and spat a phrase of what to anyone else would be nonsense words. The small triangle of copper began to pulse. The pulse became a collection of pulses, and soon was a vibration, making the little triangular clip hard to hold; it wiggled, and bounced against Wallan’s fingers and palm.

Then, slowly, those pulses found a droning harmony and began to sing. What started as a halting, stuttering non-verbal approximation of the song being sung in the tavern room below, but mockingly, soon was a higher pitched, first a woman’s voice singing a counterpoint to that male singer below.

Then higher still, it was now a chorus of children’s voices singing the song back upon itself, twisting the waves of music and cheering into a knot of squeaking. Then suddenly it was all a light buzzing, as of lazy bees hovering above bright flowers.The murmur and roar of the crowd mirrored in pitchy laughter, as its voice crept up the registers and plateaus of sound, until it was silent, and took the sound from around Wallan’s world with it.

His ears popped. Wiggling his jaw, Wallan found the sudden silence a delight.

Looking at the now quiet room, he heaved a sigh of relief as nothing caught fire, and there was a lovely absence of coruscating lightning or spectral, flaming dragons.

Taking a deep breath, Wallan pushed his will again, this time through his arm, and to his hand that held the copper clip.

Steeling himself, he turned and pushed it into the wood of the door, spitting another word nobody outside of his door heard. The newly enchanted clip fused itself to the wood of the door at chest height to Wallan.

The quiet of his room satisfied him. Wallan took a few moments to enjoy the silence. As he looked about the room, he noticed a small shadow had stretched itself from the window sill to his bed. Opening the window for her to enter, the small cat slunk into the room, and nosed around a bit before settling upon his pillow to curl up into a furry lump. Fleck opened one eye to watch him in mildest curiosity. Almost daring to ask why he was not yet dressed for bed.

Wallan stood, sighed, and reached for his towel; he had told Elder Bohaty that he would join them for dinner. It may have felt to Wallan like she had forced him to accept, but he had accepted.

He found his best tunic, and his best trousers, and the thinner pair of his stockings. Slipping into his clothing, and running his fingers through his still damp hair, Wallan faced the door, now adorned with its little copper shield, and pushed it open. The sudden wall of noise coming up from the hallway was abrupt and jarring, almost startling Wallan into fright.

He had forgotten the levels of noise that had caused him to cast the spell and create the Artifact already. Only half an Arc had passed since he had turned the clip into a complete noise baffle.

Down the stairs, and very lightly knocking on the private dining room door, hoping they wouldn't hear it over the boisterous noise of the main tavern room, Wallan was a little startled when the door immediately flew open, and Kamma swept from the room with a laugh over her shoulder, and a warm smile for someone inside the room.

Seeing Wallan, her free arm lept out, encircled him, and spun him into the room in as graceful a move as any swordmaster in the army had Wallan ever seen.

Before he could say a word, the door closed, Kamma on the other side, and he was now alone amongst the Jheddo traders.

He had thought there were only seven of the little traders who had traveled here from far to the west, but as he took in the room, it became clear that for each of the seven seated at the finely set table, there were at least three other Jheddo standing around the room, caught motionless, as if their individual conversations had all been flash frozen by a spell.

All eyes were on him. 61 eyes that I can see… all on me… this is, huh… I don’t like this. His thoughts had begun to run riot in the silence of his entry to the room. Wallan’s smile felt fake. And painfully wrong, out of place, as the silence stretched.

Elder Bohaty stood, and her husky, silky voice announced him to the room, and shattered what Wallan felt was an entirely unnecessarily long session of public scrutiny, as she gestured for him to come and sit by her side. He would be sitting between Bohaty and her granddaughter, Nezhi.

He gave a slight bow to the Elder, and then a bow to the room in general, he wasn’t sure who he might offend by not bowing, one never knew when Djoc might take offense, so best bet was to do good to do well, and hope for a better outcome.

The first hour had been spent in conversation with those around him, though several times various well dressed Jheddo in the room would circulate through the crowd to greet him, or to comment on some matter to Bohaty. One truly elderly Jheddo …man?... would walk by to make jokes about the children at the table. Bohaty would smile, and laugh, and sometimes she would explain a joke to Wallan. Some humor was very dependent upon culture, and some jokes only made sense if you grew up in the mountain ranges a thousand or so Lengths to the west.

Wallan drank tea when asked what he would enjoy, while all those around him drank ales, dark beers, or ciders.

The second hour was food. And much of the conversation collapsed as Wallan and 31 Jheddo were besieged by tray after tray of food brought in to them by Kamma.

While he had gotten used to Kamma’s presence all these months, and had forgotten how tall the woman was compared to himself through that familiarity, seeing her amongst the Jheddo threw her height difference into stark contrast. A few of the Jheddo where clearly in awe of both her and her husband Arla’s size.

Several times he saw various party members press large, unclipped, coins into Kamma’s hand as she delivered food or refreshed drinks. These people had money, and loved to spread it around to those who ensured they were able to eat and drink well. Kamma and Arla must be making a veritable dragon’s hoard of coins tonight.

In hour three Wallan had attempted to thank Bohaty for her generosity, and excuse himself to bed, as he had to be up early and out the town gates to the west for work; the Elder was having none of his excuses.

She called for music, and various Jheddo produced instruments. As the music started up, the majority of the Jheddo in attendance sang.

It was enchanting.

Not in any magical, glamour casting, spellworking, “We shall enchant you, Foolish Mortal!,” kind of way. It was just good music, played well by people who enjoyed the playing of it. And the crowd of traders in this room, as small as they all were, sang along loudly with at least every other song, and sang well. They had to now be producing even more noise than that which had been coming from the musicians and drinking crowd in the main tap room that had earlier vexed Wallan. He had a moment of anxiety that he might now be a part of the ruckus keeping someone else from getting to sleep, themselves.

There were harmonies Wallan had been surprised to find himself swept up into, and more than ever, he wished he could sing. Even Djoc, from where he sat at the other side of the table, sang. It was in a very pleasant tenor, that had a trilling warble to it that Wallan knew he could never hope to copy.

The grumpy little Jheddo stayed well clear of Wallan, and Elder Bohaty, for the entire evening. Whenever Wallan glanced his way, Djoc was engaged in smiling conversations with those around him on the other side of the room.

Once, the elderly roving jokerster, Elder Carket he had learned, asked him in his gravelly, frog-croak of a voice why he wasn't singing along; he asked in an almost hurt tone. Wallan simply said “I don’t know the words, my apologies Elder.” and gave a slight bow to the jolly little man.

Carket had laughed, shaking his entire frame and making his intricately plaited white beard twitch and jump, before the round little man shrugged, and moved along. He took up the song as he did so.

Nezhi, and several other young members of the party sang in clear, soaring soprano voices, many swaying at the beginning of each song, but soon enough found themselves in a complicated swaying, twirling dance as they moved about the room, and wove amongst the other members of their party.

He had begun to notice that the distinctly feminine members amongst the party didn’t have mustaches and goatees, just sideburns. Or possibly, he had that backwards, and was attributing femininity to those members without mustaches and goatees, but only sideburns.

His assumptions could get him in trouble, and so he put a lid on any further speculation. Best for all involved, really… He thought.

As midnight approached, Wallan found himself comfortably sated with some choice bits of savory treats, and the music surrounding him was lulling him to a drowsiness he needed to address by going to bed.

Next to him, on his right, Elder Bohaty sipped her ale, and slowly nodded her head to the music as she spoke with Wallan about life in Jheddo, and her business as a trader. Her feet, tied up in the most delicate pair of beribboned sandals he had ever seen outside of Aurel, rested on Wallan’s lap.

To his left, Nezhi was cleverly plucking at a stringed instrument, picking out the tune to a slow, sad song. Her feet, in fine blue slippers, also rested in Wallan’s lap, her ankles abutting with her grandmother’s.

He had no idea when their feet wound up in his lap. But, it felt right, and he couldn’t bring himself to object.

The act felt intimate to Wallan. He didn’t feel like this was an offense, nor any imposition, though he didn’t quite know why. People he barely knew touching him in any way was usually both taxing and confusingly uncomfortable to Wallan; but this felt warm.

Welcome.

He gently rested his hand on her ankles and feet, feeling the light pulse in her ankles through to his palm. The rhythm of it paced in counterpoint to the rhythm of the song Nehzi was playing on the small lute was soothing to him.

With a sharp pang, these acts of intimacy made him miss his Pride. This warmth was a trust, an intimate sharing of touch, though it was completely different than any relationship he had had with any of his “siblings” in his Pride, it was also, somehow, the same.

Bohaty spoke to him, with him, sometimes at him when his attention wandered, and her voice was warmth and comfort.

Softly silky, with a rumbling purr that reminded him of something he could not quite remember. It wrapped him in its smoky burring embrace, and the slight buzz of roughness at the edges crawled delicately along his spine up to the base of his skull. He kept looking at her; the lines of her jaw, and neck were intriguing, and he didn’t know why. An errant curl of silver streaked red hair came loose from a braid, and dangled and bobbed by her temple with every motion of her head and body.

She leaned toward Wallan, and whispered to him, emphasizing her latest point about trade, though Wallan had lost that thread of conversation possibly an hour past.

“...you always need to be sure to close your business every day. Don’t leave any chore undone today when you know you have a full day of chores tomorrow. Finish today’s work today.”

“Certainly, Bohaty.” He smiled. She smiled along with him as he sipped his tea. Kamma should be by again soon with more tea, he thought.

It was quite well past the middle of the night, when he noticed that Nezhi had fallen asleep, her head now on his shoulder, and her instrument (a lute? Dulcimer? Tangletopbox? He didn’t know.) clutched to her chest. The room was much more still than it had been at any other point in the night, and many Jheddo had either fallen asleep in their chairs just as Nezhi had, or they had left; Wallan guessed, to the various rooms they shared in the inn. Those few still awake spoke to one another in low, rumbling tones, mostly in the Jheddo tongue.

It was a tongue Wallan could read, if haltingly, but not speak with anything other than hilarious results.

Elder Carket sat on the corner of the hearth on the far side of the room, sipping from a mug, and carving a piece of errant kindling taken from the woodrick with his belt knife, a decent pile of shavings already covered his lap.

Glancing to his right at Bohaty, he saw her silently appraising the scene around them. She had a slight smile on her face, and turning to him, asked “Did you enjoy dinner with us Wallan?”

“I did, Elder. And the music. And the company.”

She chuckled, kicked his leg with her tiny, beribboned foot, and in a fake harsh voice, scolded him. “To you, I am just Bohaty.” Then she got a mischievous look on her face, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she leaned close to him, “When it is just you and I, please call me Vona. Any man who has massaged and warmed my feet as you have tonight certainly earned the honor!” And she winked at him, her smile sliding ever wider.

At his rising blush and raised eyebrows, she snickered and snorted a laugh at his surprise.

“Shush, now, Lord Red-Cheeks! You will wake my little Ahnkanezharahamina. She will be so grumpy tomorrow if you wake her up now.”

Bohaty…Vona… lifted her feet from his lap, and slowly stood, coming barely up to his shoulder, and stretched. Just then, in that moment, she reminded him of Fleck, as she languidly raised her arms, and rolled her shoulders, flexed her back, and twisted this way and that beside his chair. She was such a pretty little woman. He hadn’t noticed that, ironically enough, when they had both been in nothing but towels and bath water earlier. The lines of her face, the planes of her cheeks, the curve of jaw leading to her neck.

But, he would wager all of his hidden money up in his room that she had more in common with tensed spring steel than the delicate little feline thing she looked like here and now.

Still. Very pretty.

“Now,: she purred so near his ear he could feel his earlobe vibrate, “Can you lift Nezhi without waking her? Help me get her to bed. She had had a rough time on this trip. She hasn’t complained to me even once, and I think she deserves her first night here in Caerly to be in one of your huge soft beds.” She stepped back from the chair to let Wallan stand up, awkwardly, and lift the sleeping young woman from where she slept.

As he lifted her to his chest, Wallan noticed her breathing had become a high pitched, chirping snore. He suppressed a laugh as he straightened, it reminded him a little of the peeping sounds the frogs made the previous spring as he had walked through the nights to get to Caerly.

Nezhi in his arms, the lute-thing still clutched in her arms, he turned to the Elder, and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

Since they were functionally alone, the newly named Vona, led him through the door back to the main hallway of the inn, and back up the stairs to the set of rooms on the opposite side of the building from where his own tiny room waited for him. As Vona walked, Wallan found himself trapped within a cloud of the smell of the young woman he carried as it wafted up to him from her hair. He had noticed earlier that she wore a floral perfume of some sort. Possibly some flower he had never encountered before, rich and heady, from far away and exotic places. Now, it had become muddled with the activities and exertions of the evening. Food and drink and the natural body smell of a young, healthy woman who had worked up an honest sweat having fun during this evening’s celebrations.

As much as he liked the flower scent overlaid on soap, she wore on her skin and in her hair, this combined scent that developed could be said to be purely Nezhi. It was more complex, and more comforting than Wallan had ever known a person’s scent could ever be.

It was intriguing. Did he ever smell distinctly of… well, himself? And would someone, somewhere in his future think of that smell as comforting? Did everyone have this kind of reaction to other people? To other people’s scents?

His reveries over Nezhi’s scent were interrupted as Vona tugged on his tunic to stop his walking. They had arrived at the room.

“I’m not sure how many of the others she is staying with have already made their way up to bed, so silently, please.” the Elder purred a whisper up toward Wallan’s ear. Her hand on his upper arm to balance herself as she leaned in was comfortingly warm.

A deft, and silent turn of a key by Vona opened the door to reveal a room more than four times the size of the tiny space in which Wallan had been living these last season and a half. The bed on the far side of the dark room was one that could have held Wallan’s entire Pride. And possibly with room for a few two or three more on top of that. As they padded closer, he could hear the high pitched piping snore of another little Jheddo form. Wallan believed it was Dleipie, her hair tucked into a pointed cap that curled across the pillow, her blazingly red, braided beard bound tight in a kerchief.

Nezhi continued the “peep” snoring while she nestled in his arms, as Vona pulled back the covers on the closest side of the bed, and the snore created a counterpoint in tone and rhythm to Dleipie’s own as Wallan lowered her down to the bed surface.

Vona made an abortive attempt to remove the lute from her grasp, but when Nezhi wouldn’t release it, Vona threw up her arms in exasperation, and then sighed, as she covered her granddaughter. She turned away, and led Wallan back to the hallway, locking the door behind her.

Walking back to the central stairs, and back toward Wallan’s room, Vona gestured for him to kneel down, the better to talk quietly to him. “You have been exceptionally kind and patient with an old woman, Wallan. I thank you, and hope you will think of the good evening we have had, and not the asinine yelling of Djoc, when you think back on our visit to your city.”

He smiled. “Vona, it has been a pleasure. I thank you.”

Before he could say any more, Vona leaned in, and gave Wallan a fierce hug, and grabbing him by the ears, pulled his head further down, to plant a kiss on his forehead.

His traitorous eyebrows made a mad dash for his hairline, as she stepped back from him, to go back the way they had just come delivering Nezhi to her bed. “Kamma and Arla will have breakfast ready in two hours, if you can spare time to take breakfast with us, you would be most welcome.”

“Two hours…?” This didn’t feel possible, Surely, he thought, it was still nearer midnight than dawn.

“Yes. Not much time to sleep, I realize. I know you have to get to work this morning. My party will be rising soon, though not at all together, and we will start our day by visiting various fruit factors in the city. That is our goal today. There should be time after lunch to at least speak with a grain factor or two.”

“Two hours…” His face looked pained. He sighed, and stood.

Bowing to the lovely little Elder, he said, “Vona, I will never forget your kindness, and your family’s kindness, in allowing me to dine with you last night. Thank you. Truly.” And with that, he turned to the hallway that held his tiny little cell, and strode to the door, key out, and ready to attempt to work a day without having slept.

…oh, joy…

Entering his room, he saw the amount of pre-dawn light filtering through the window that would normally tell Wallan that he needed to get moving to get to the Southfields. Fleck slowly raised her head, and looked at him with all of the judgment and disdain only a small cat can sling. A surprisingly large amount for her size, it turned out.

He struggled out of his now wrinkled best clothing, and shimmied into a clean pair of trousers, and a clean tunic. Both of which were of a much reduced quality and style from those he had just removed. The tunic was a pleasant green color, though; being able to wear whatever colors he wanted to wear now that he wasn’t expected to be in uniform was an aspect of his new, free life Wallan hadn’t known would provide him with quite so much joy as it did.

The trousers were a good sturdy brown cloth; there was no need to go insane with his newfound freedoms. That might cause suspicion. And make him look like a weird bird, like the Scribe, Hockle.

…work… more ledgers…like Vona said, get today’s work done… today…

And that was the answer. It was just that simple. Get today’s work done, TODAY. It was right in the ledgers. It was too obvious, which was why nobody had seen it.

…it was certainly why I hadn’t seen it myself… and it was right there…

A quick pass through the kitchen to beg some food for lunch, water for his waterskins, and then out the door and down the street to the West gate.

Once he had passed the walls with a wave to the two guardsmen on duty at the gate, Wallan decided to push his Talent, and push his body. He couldn’t seamlessly move the magic through his body the way Two could, but Two couldn’t move the magic outside of his body the way any other members of the Pride could.

Momentum and force were present in the world around you, no matter where you were. No matter what you were doing, the world moved. Air moved. Light moved. Heat moved. And to a Talent like Wallan’s, any energy moving through the world around him was energy he could use.

His body was lightly jogging along the road, as he steadied his breathing, and concentrated. With an effort, Wallan pulled upon the momentum of the world around him. As a mental exercise, it was equivalent to gathering fog in one’s arms, and forcing the fog through a funnel. In this case, every flowing iota of force moving in the land for a Length surrounding Wallan was now being fed through his body and both propelling him forward with greater speed, and pulling his body along the lines of power that lay across the land.

As he ran, it became a matter of balance and rhythm. His body worked to find the athletic stride and breath control of running, while it processed the energies Wallan pulled through himself.

A part of his mind thought he should be pushing the force from his body, out behind him, like the wake of a ship moving across the waves, or discharged behind him like the wind pushed by the wings of the nightfliers that fluttered over the fields to his right and left in the early morning darkness. But, the magic didn’t work like that, at least as far as Wallan had found. His body pulled the unseen flows into his form, and it then sped him along the road, saved him from fatigue, revitalizing his mind and body, and protected him, enshrouding his form, from injuries.

His mind began to idle as the strides ate the landscape, fields of crops sped past, and he decided he needed to experiment more with this kind of body magic. It had never been his strongest field, and once the war had begun, offensive spells from a distance became all that the Masters wanted from him, but now he was feeling the exhilaration of running faster than a horse, and he was certain that, if he concentrated, he could kick his way through a boulder with ease, had one been in his way. This must be what Two feels like all the time…

The thought made him laugh, and the laughter threw off his stride and rhythm slightly, the partial stumble causing him to kick his foot through a full stride of the stone and earth of the edge of the road. The resulting roostertail of stone and soil made Wallan laugh even louder in surprise and exultation.

And before he knew it, Wallan found himself loping past the edges of the grain fields, and headed toward the river. The strip of placid, reflective black that cut the pre-dawn landscape in two lay before him as he approached at speeds a racing jockey would be jealous of ever achieving. The gentle curve of the river moved across the Southfields, and had been used for generations as a means to transport grain and lumber to the mill just to the north, and fruit crops to the presses and distillery to the south.

A turn to the right set Wallan to moving north along the river, headed for the mill. While the mill itself had yet to be repaired since the raid, the dock at the mill was still being used as a gathering point for the harvested grain to be inspected and bid on by factors before being shipped to points further afield. While they couldn’t mill, grind, and grade the grain to various flours, the mill’s scales were still working, and had been judged as still being accurate.

He saw the clouds building on the northern horizon as he ran. He wasn't certain, but there might be rain later in the day. It could slow the harvest. Substantially.

Gradually Wallan bled off his speed, and slowed from his ground eating loping, down to a human jog, and then from there down to a walk; releasing his hold on the magics with a mild reluctance. He didn't want to come across the wagon train at inhuman speeds, so walking along like a human was the best way to not make the drovers and their teams scream in a panic as a human shaped meteor came zooming toward them.

Within ten steps his heart beat slowed to normal, and the blue coruscating and crackling lights crawling across his frame that he had not been aware of until now began to dissipate. He sighed as he released the reigns of the arcane forces.

The pre-dawn light that ran before the dawn along the eastern horizon was just visible off to his right, making a hazy false dawn that made Wallan think the day would be hotter than yesterday. An errant breeze from the north brought him the slight smell of smoke, and Wallan knew he was getting closer to his destination.

Cresting a low hill as the riverside road turned to match the lazy course of the river itself, Wallan saw the dark camp made up of the huddled together forms of low sided farm wagons.

Closer now, he could see the staked out horses and the occasional team of oxen used to pull the various wagons; Wallan couldn’t gauge the worth of using oxen over horses, or the reverse, and wondered what the benefits and drawbacks might be. There were many aspects of life he had never thought about before, had never questioned, but seeing the animals all sleeping in tethered clusters along the road made the point to him that some questions just didn’t matter. Ostensibly, a “map maker’s son” didn’t need to know why oxen vs horses, but he was curious, nonetheless.

The camp, sprawling ordeal that it was, was quiet. Wallan slowed his pace a little, wondering at the lack of security. He would have thought that even in the relative safety of traveling in the middle of the Southfields’ territories that at least some caution would be used. AS he passed the second line of wagons, his hackles went up. There was still no sign of guards, or watchers.

Not even the various dray animals stirred.

Wallan was beginning to become truly concerned when he walked by a circle of drovers, asleep around the edges of a fire long burned down to nothing; the remaining smoking embers no longer glowing.

None of the wagon drivers looked injured, and a few had spilled bowls or cups on their laps. Some of the wagoneers leaned against one another and snored with wild, noisy abandon. Leaning down to make certain, Wallan felt for pulses, and verified that all of the people present were alive, but just completely and utterly unconscious.

There were two dogs, large black shovel headed cattledogs, asleep at the feet of an elderly man who had an empty cup in one hand and a blissful look on his wrinkle lined face.

Looking closely at the recumbent figures of the family sprawled before him, a sound caught his attention. Just on the edge of his hearing, a barely audible susurrus. A sandy, sliding sound, just loud enough for Wallan to notice because he had been concentrating on the wellbeing of the slumbering people around this latest ash filled circle.

Knowing he needed a plan, and also knowing that his training in these matters tended to lean heavily upon the “burn it to the ground” or “lightning cures all things: schools of thought, Wallan knew a more subtle plan might do better here. He stayed crouched low, and thought of what things he could do.

With a slow, sighing exhale, he breathed out a glamour of darkness and shadow. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, but it was better than anything else he had been able to come up with on short notice; so he reached out to the shadows around him, and wrapped himself in the darkness that still lay across the land. It was more subtle, and…fiddly… than he liked to work with, but he was finding he could make the more delicate magic work now than it ever did for him at the Golden Tower.

The coming clouds that scuttled southward helped Wallan, as they would delay the sunrise, and add darkness from which he could continue to pull.

With slow, deliberate movements, he stood, and proceeded with utmost care towards the slithering, sliding sounds, shadows and tatters of darkness sticking to his fading and flickering form as he moved amongst the wagons and sleeping bodies of people and animals. Using a scrap of his attention, and will, he made the sound of his footsteps indistinct and thready, blending each step he took into the ambient noises of the dark predawn.

As he approached what he was beginning to think of as the beginning of the caravan of grain wagons headed north to the mill, Wallan found the source of the rushing noise, it having slowly grown in intensity as he made his way between wagons and sleepers.

There was something out of place, and someone not asleep. There was a snore that was more of a ragged wheeze than any somnolent breathing.

Unlike all of the other wagons, this new wagon was on the road itself, rather than pulled off to the side like all of the others, and the sad selection of skinny horses harnessed to the wagon were completely awake. The scrawny beasts were side by side in their traces, and one shivered in the early morning air, while the other, slightly fuller of figure, but still almost cadaverously thin, stood in obvious agitation. It stomped and twitched, flicking its tail, and stomped one cracked hoof in what Wallan assumed was impatience or anger. The worst of the sounds in the camp emanated from the only human who was up and moving about.

The wheezing, broken bellows noise was coming from him. It was fast, frenzied. A wet, staccato clicking patter punctuated his noisome, shrill inhales and exhales. Each tortured breath demanded a cough of release that never came, and matched each of his jerky movements. The bubbling sound that underlay the wheezing breath reminded Wallan of the soldiers he had seen breathing their last through fluid that had built up in a punctured lung. It was a nightmare of drowning poorly matched to the reality of dying of battle wounds.

At first glance, Wallan wondered if the man standing by the out of place cart was using the same spells he himself had been using to mask his presence, but a moment of quiet observation marked out the man as not being wrapped in shadows as much as he was wrapped in tattered rags, and torn clothing. It was all dark clothing, though Wallan didn’t know if the disreputable mass of fabric was black, or just a random selection of dark cloth remnants from a handful of varied garments. Any number of colors could be hiding in that fluttering, waving mass of textile tendrils.

The man turned slowly toward Wallan, and as he did, Wallan noticed his grin, a pained, rictus slash across his lower face, and the score of bulging veins in his face and forehead making the man look like he was struggling to lift the weight of a mountain. Sweat dripped in cascading ribbons down the pale, pocked, vein lined flesh that clung in a thin, stretched layer to the skull that barely supported it.

As he produced a large sack from the shadows of his garments and placed the empty sack over one of the full grain sacks in the untended wagon to his left, the man inhaled wetly.

He stuttered out a string of words Wallan couldn’t quite hear, slapped his hand down upon the empty sack where it lay on the full one, and released a spell.

Most spells made a noise that those trained in the Arts and Talents could hear, and this spell jangled and clattered like an armload of pans falling to a stone floor, making Wallan wince at the clamor; most of his own spell workings, even the most powerful of them, usually made less noise than sand being blown by the wind across pebbled ground.

A line of drool cascaded down from the raw, jutting chin, outlining wet abrasions and bald patches in the stubble as it marked a path from the wretch’s lower lip, to then stretch to the dirty cloth of his tunic. He then hefted the now grain laden sack from atop the bag he had just stolen half the grain from up onto his shoulder, and then with a half twist of his body, down to his right and into the bed of his own tattered wagon.

The poor wretch was a asologe.

Wallan had never heard of a wizard living any real time beyond pushing themselves to a state of asologee, but this was the only explanation he could come to, given what he was seeing.

At some point the thing stumbling around before Wallan had burned out his body and mind by over extending his magical talents, and now, though he lived, had become little more than a shambling, dangerous corpse without enough sense to find himself a grave. Even some well trained Talents suffered asologee, and killed themselves by overuse.

Many children, and a very few adults, suffered asologee when their abilities very first manifested, and in an untrained, undisciplined fit, they destroyed themselves. It was a tragedy to see such potential die. It was the nightmare of all too many mages, whether apprentices or full wizards. Crossing that fatal line as you over-reached to cast that one spell that rested beyond your abilities, or you just worked yourself too long, too hard at even the small spells, but buried yourself under the weight of having tried to cast too many. Suffocating under uncountable flower seeds, it was sometimes described as, and some of the Masters would make reference to “The Uncountable Seeds” as a warning to apprentices.

Wallan had seen many young men and women, mostly apprentices, fall to asologee while fighting the overwhelming number of soldiers Velspe had thrown at Hamuria.

It made Wallan ill to now watch this parody of life move about the small camp stealing grain. It’s actions, he couldn't think of the thing as a man anymore, made no sense to Wallan.

What did an asologe need with all the grain he had stolen? Had the thing been a grain factor for some local lord in its lifetime, and now carried on with his tallying now that he had passed on? Or did someone, somehow, set this revenant on this spree of theft? It still cast the camps to sleep before raiding it for its grain. It brought its own sacks. It only stole half of the contents from those sacks it plundered. Where did it take the grain it had stolen?

There were too many questions here.

Wallan looked at the shambling horror as it mumbled and drooled and knocked back and forth between the two wagons.

It was time to stop this.

Wallan walked in silence back to the last sleeping form of an armed man he had seen, where it slept in a chaotic pile with three rangy, long limbed hounds. As he took the sword from the scabbard at the recumbent man’s hip, Wallan noticed the clouds had reached to where the camp lay between the road and the river.

He exhaled slowly as he stood, releasing the wisps of night that had held tight about him as he had stalked the enclave of still, slumbering wagons. Turning back to the asologe, Wallan gripped the sword and approached.

It spun toward him, and a hoarse shriek of spittle flecked rage split the last vestiges of night. Seeing Wallan now emerge from the darkness, the thing dropped its most current bag of stolen goods, and ran in a crabwise shuffle at Wallan.

Its cadaverous arms raised, claw-like fingers curled into hooks, Wallan could feel it gathering power for a spell. It was trying to pull the heat from the surrounding land, from the drovers and their animals, even from Wallan himself.

Wallan grabbed at the kinetic force of the corpse itself, draining all motion from it in a brief stuttering that made the thing stop, now bereft of the animating force it had used to fling itself forward. Wallan flung the stolen energy back at the bundle of rotting flesh, sending it sprawling to the ground.

He heard its body make several cracking sounds as it struck the ground.

Whatever concentration the monstrosity had possessed to hold its spells together vanished at the impact of its body hitting the ground. The magical clamor of the spell used to hold so many in deep sleep broke across Wallan like the sound of a landslide. The pain drove him almost to his knees, and almost made him drop the sword he held.

The asologe screamed again, and as Wallan himself stood, the irate thing folded and unfolded itself in a parody of spider-like movements back up to its feet. It gibbered at Wallan where it stood, and even gesticulated with the fleshier of its two arms. Phlegm speckled its chin as its garbled words spat out from its twisted mouth.

Wallan had no idea what it was attempting to say, but the thing was distressed.

“Coilg!” the thing shouted. It gestured at the wagon of pilfered grain, and then flung its arm back to gesture up the road. Or possibly up the river, maybe both for all Wallan knew. “Coilg! Coilg! COILG!” It screamed.

In a moment that passed faster than Wallan would have credited, the asologe threw both of its arms up to the sky, gathering both will from itself and the potential primordial galvanic energies from the clouds. With an unholy scream, it sent lightning down from the heavens to where Wallan stood.

And in that last moment of desperation, Wallan pulled that same potential of force from the earth beneath the stumbling carrion’s feet to meet that descending lightning that came for Wallan himself, diverting it. Had the thing not pulled lightning down, Wallan knew he would not have been able to so quickly pull an opposing force from the earth, but all forces in the natural and unnatural world work toward a balance. Lightning thrown likes to return. It was what had made his battle spells so effective, drawing the galvanic magics down through an advancing platoon, and then sending it back up from the ground to the clouds again, striking more soldiers, hitting more men.

And that is what he did here, too; using the returning energies to divert the incoming strike from himself, and pulling all of that punishing blue light through his would-be attacker.

The energy was drawn up from the ground, passing through the asologe, and met the cloud sent spears of light and noise. The crashing wave of simmering heat and deafening sound cratered the very land around the combatants.

And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the lightning surged back up through the asologe to the heavens above, lighting the underbelly of the clouds, and the sky from horizon to horizon.

As he walked toward the thing where it now lay, Wallan could see it was still moving, though only feebly. It had been burned badly. And the lightning had tortured the things remaining muscles until they had pulled joints into contortions, and some bones had broken under the sharp, sudden pull.

It was still speaking. Garbled mumbles, and breathy as the words were, it spoke a new word that Wallan could now understand. What the thing said as it repeated itself, over and over in endless appeal was “please.”

The remnants of its voice squeaked and spluttered through torn lips and broken teeth.

“Please. Please. Please…please…please…please…” It was a reedy, and whispered appeal.

Wallan hoped it was asking to be released finally into death; because he couldn’t give it anything else.

He heard the sounds of the camp, now loudly awake around him and the dying asologe. Wallan stood over the wretched grain thief, and watched it carefully as he moved into position over its weakly jittering, smoldering body. He could hear the cries and exclamations of the wagon drivers and the workers around him as he placed the tip of the sword over the thing’s heart.

He ran the sword into its chest, where he knew its heart should have been; he didn’t want to cut off its head, he didn’t want a grisly trophy. The thing jerked as the broad blade entered, the sound of its sternum cracking as the steel moved between it and the now severed ribs. With a hard twist of his wrists, it finally stopped all movement. Wallan finally saw the tattered robes the thing wore for what they actually were.

Beneath the filth, and the many poorly done patchwork spots, he could see the colors of the formal robes of a full Wizard of the Kuljat Amulajat, the Hall of the Golden Towers in Aurel, the capital of Hamuria. What little sunlight now peaked over the Eastern horizon lit upon the fine lines in reds, yellows, and purples worked into the seams and hems of the dark, old, ripped and tattered robe.

The body, that was all it was now, lacked the traditional metal bracers of a Master. There were wounds around his forearms, though. Not healed, and still weeping. Maybe, in life, he hadn’t wanted anyone to know his training and rank in the Kingdom. But… but the robes were once fine, and would have only been worn by a Hamurian wizard of rank. He thought. It was yet another on a list of items that boldly strode into the face of reasonable outcomes that Wallan expected to see, and smacked them.

There was a ring on the mangled hand that lie by Wallan’s leg. A crusty, filth covered thing, that showed itself, when Wallan brushed his thumb across the surface, to be a band of gold with a line of engraving he didn’t recognize.

He slipped it from the corpse’s finger and into the pouch at his own belt. Wallan ignored as best he could the flap of flesh that came off with the ring.

He couldn’t hide the body’s robe from those in the camp now beginning to surround him, but he could muddy the waters by removing any other formal marks of status they might find. Make him look like a Hedge Wizard and thief who had enough talent to pass himself off as a member of the Golden Tower, but one who overreached his Talents, and died by trying to call down lightning when Wallan had surprised him.

Wallan settled further down onto his knees beside it as the sound of yelling and running feet surrounded him. Wallan knew he had killed more soldiers, and enemy Wizards, than he could count. He had stopped counting years ago, when he heard a soldier bragging about his own numbers of slain enemies; he had been bragging over beers to his fellows about having slain 5 men that day, when Wallan had known that he, himself, had killed close to seventy. The moment had caused him to shut down as he sat at the table in the officer’s bar. Counting deaths made no sense to him after that. That single moment of dislocation from reality and the absurdity of keeping track after “1” hadn’t sat well with him.

From then on, soldiers who kept count made him uneasy. Who wanted to brag about that?

But now, as he knelt over this wreck of a former mage, red spattered sword still in his hand, he knew there would now be a new count in his life, here in Caerly.

It was 1.

All counts started with 1.

Raindrops pattered onto his head, water dripping down from his hair onto face as he sat, his legs folded under him as teams of wagoneers surrounded him, asking questions he could barely hear. Some already, from what little they had witnessed, started to tell a tale of a lone young man with a sword killing a mad, lightning-flinging sorcerer.