Completing the duplication of The Ascent of Shattered Knives left Aleicree excited on the 24th day of zir stay with Vrekant. Zie wasn’t sure if it had truly taught zir anything about how to be a better mage, but this book certainly had a purpose and a destination.
Zie had met zir first necromancer (not counting Dylori) the week before last: Rhis, who zie had first thought of as just another farmergon. He was, as Limist had put it, "perfectly lively". Aleicree wanted to meet him again.
Zie packed both copies of The Ascent of Shattered Knives. The original should go back to the library today. Maybe if zie gave Rhis the new copy, he would talk about magic with zir.
With this hope in mind, Aleicree waylaid Vrekant on his way out the door. "Before you fly to wherever you go during the day to work on the weather," zie said, "Could you take me to the home of Rhis? I want to meet him again."
Vrekant stopped, looking at Aleicree. "I could. Rhis may be at leisure today. Beware though, showing up in the morning at a near-stranger's house is quite irregular, and he can be very shy."
"I have a gift for him, a book I copied from the library of Querent-Querent," said Aleicree, fishing the book from a pouch zie was wearing.
Vrekant went "Hmm" as he leaned in to read the title. Lifting his head to meet Aleicree's gaze again, he said, "It's enough of a gift. Are you sure it'll be relevant to him?"
"It was from the fifth floor of the Querent-Querent library." Aleicree packed the book away. "It's supposed to be about magic, though it seems to be just a dream journal."
Vrekant hesitated, tapping his chin with a claw. He looked like he almost had something, so Aleicree waited. At length he said, “A lot of the entry-level materials are dream journals. Many mages have gotten their start from chasing their dreams.”
“Why would dreams mean anything?” Aleicree asked.
“Dreams are privileged from the land gods, who can observe them, but not alter them. Many of them arise from the most essential influences of Fate, things that even the land gods are bound to observe… Since even the land gods typically obey the forces that alter dreams, they can be a great source of mystic insight. Surely you learned about this in academy?”
Aleicree hung zir head. "I did badly in all of my classes save wind manipulation," zie said. "I'm just... someone who meditates a lot, and made zir amicus breeze get very, very big."
Vrekant stepped in and touched Aleicree's cheek gently, then took a step towards the door and cast his arm. "The broken lore is more necromantic than geomantic. If you've been dreaming of shattered knives, maybe you need to meet Rhis. Just don't try to drag him to Nidrio. We'd miss him, and I don't think he does well in new settings."
"No promises," said Aleicree, following Vrekant out the door.
The weather outside was a drizzly day over Vrekant's house, though distantly the clouds showed the usual patchworks of Sorjek's weather. The efforts of the several dozen weathermages who worked the theome broke up the clouds. It made the theome a bright place where the sun was never gone; it made the theome a wet place where the rain was often present. Aleicree thought zie would remember the many sun showers of Sorjek forever.
The two of them took flight and flew over the fields that spanned behind Vrekant's house. There were farmhouses every so often on the rural roads. Aleicree understood now why Vrekant knew so many farmergons. Although they were mighty enough to pull their ploughs themselves, the plots they tended were not so large. They worked together in a friendly community, but they were largely subsistence farmergons.
The two dragons landed in the road outside one of the farmhouses in particular. It was a grey wooden building made with cracked planks, looking smaller and drearier than most of the farmhouses. Rhis clearly hadn't invested in his house. The nearby fields were as vibrant as the others in the area, suggesting the problem wasn't a lack of competency as a farmergon.
"Why does this house look worse than the others we flew over?" Aleicree asked Vrekant.
Vrekant said, "Someday the rest of the farmergons here will pull this building down and put up something better in its place, but that’s a big task. Rhis is still too shy to have befriended everyone."
As the two walked to the door of the small house, Aleicree asked, "Do you think he'll be too shy to accept my gift?"
"He does keep books." Vrekant knocked on Rhis' door.
The two waited. A minute later, the door opened just a little, and a grey-masked face peeked out at them. When he saw that Vrekant stood there, the door opened further, but Rhis held it partly closed and stood blocking it. "H-hi Vrekant," he said. "Wh-what brings you here?"
Rhis was a vrash, and vrash are not small. Still, there was a smallness in Rhis' posture. He tended to hold himself low to the ground. He did not hold his head high, so the very curve of his neck carried shyness.
Aleicree was often the same way. That was why zie touched the ground sometimes. Vashael could walk on all fours too, but to do so was a shy or shameful posture. It was like looking at a vrash version of zirself.
As Aleicree studied Rhis, Vrekant was saying, "When you visited, you made a good impression on an old friend of mine. Zie wants to give you a gift."
Rhis shook his head. "I don't know if I should accept gifts..."
"It's a book," Aleicree said, pressing into the conversation. "I recently copied a book that's supposed to contain mystic knowledge. Would you take a look at it?"
Rhis looked at Aleicree for a long, quiet moment. "Alright," he said.
Another dragon might have invited them inside at that moment, but Rhis stood still blocking the doorway. Aleicree took The Ascent of Shattered Knives out of zir pouch and held it out towards Rhis. He accepted the book and sat down so he could bring both of his hands to the task of holding it up and flipping the pages. (Although they are said to have hands, vrash are quadrupeds, and must seat themselves to use both hands at once.)
When he was satisfied with what he saw, he walked tripodal away from the door, holding the book in one hand as he went. Without his touch upon it, the door drifted towards closing behind him, but before it closed he came back having set the book down somewhere inside. "I think I recognize what this book is talking about. I'll read it. Would you like..." Rhis stopped and swallowed. "Would you like to come inside?"
"Sure," said Vrekant.
Rhis pulled the door fully open, giving their first glimpse of the interior. There was more unpainted grey wood inside and a sparseness to what they saw, without any cushions for comfort, but there were bookshelves partly laden. The two dragons entered and saw nothing that defied that first glance. There were no adornments on the shelves. There were no books out of place around the room. There were no little tables, no rugs, and most especially nothing of colour. The next room over was a kitchen, without sign of a dining room in between.
Such a barren house, Aleicree thought.
"I'm not used to, to making a good impression," said Rhis, facing them with a weak smile.
Aleicree returned it self-consciously, picking up on Rhis' anxiety.
His grey mask and grey stripes were like his grey room, like a sap upon his colours, bleeding them towards the sameness. His otherwise pink scales were a hue that was comely on many dragons. Zie was fixated on him. This wasn't a beautiful room and it wasn't a beautiful sight to see him standing within it, but zie wished that zie could immortalise the sight nonetheless. "You're clearly a very interesting dragon, and I'm looking for insight in magic."
"Can't just go to the magic academies?" Rhis asked.
Aleicree shook zir head. "With only a short time present, what could I gain? I can't attend classes on vacation. I doubt they'd let me into their libraries, and I don't have the basis to gain more than I would gain from the library of Querent-Querent, which is open to the public."
Rhis sighed. He sat on the floor, curling his tail around himself, and looked at Aleicree.
He stared at Aleicree for a little too long, and Vrekant interjected, "I need to get to work. Do you mind if I leave you here?"
"Go ahead," Aleicree said.
Rhis spoke again when Vrekant had left. "I mostly study the void," he said. "I think there are ways to reach across it, and maybe those are studied in the academy, but I don't study that. I just seek... stability. And quiet."
Aleicree had no idea what 'the void' would be in context, and was wondering what zie'd gotten into. "Is studying the void useful?"
"No, but... I don't want to be more than second-rate." He stood up again. Aleicree hadn't sat down. Perhaps he was mirroring zir. "Your name is Aleicree, right? Am I saying that correctly?"
"You are," Aleicree confirmed.
"Aleicree, I'm just a farmergon. I didn't wash out of necromancy or anything, but there are ugly costs to making a career out of it." Rhis paced the room once, then turned to face Aleicree again and continued speaking. "I just want to live, and think, and have enough to eat I suppose. Necromancers aren't always good at living, and that takes care of needing enough to eat, but I use my magic very lightly. It won't kill me."
"What are all your books?" Aleicree glanced over the bookshelves in the room.
Rhis dipped his head. "M-magic texts, admittedly..."
Aleicree smiled. "I have a few days before I go home to Nidrio for the rest of my vacation," zie said. "I've been filling time by copying books. I could start another one, but I'd rather spend that time talking to someone who can tell me more about the mysteries of magic. You're obviously steeped in it."
Rhis tapped his claws on the floor until Aleicree looked down, and then a spreading patch of colour started expanding from underneath him. The wood became vibrantly perfect, healing all cracks and warps as it changed into a warm brown. The floor-healing wave nearly touched Aleicree's feet when it stopped expanding and another wave started spreading from under him, draining the floor's colour back to grey and breaking it with dreary damages.
When he'd finished, nothing had changed. He hadn't looked at the floor during this, but remained focused on Aleicree. "That was vrash surface reformation, expanded by meditative discipline," he said. "Same as wind magic is usually the vashael amicus breeze, expanded by meditative discipline."
If Rhis could fill his home with colour just by thinking about it... "You're living in a dreary house by choice," said Aleicree.
"I am," said Rhis, dipping his head in acknowledgment.
"But... why? Wouldn't you rather surround yourself with beauty?"
Rhis smiled. He seemed a little more confident now. "I am surrounding myself with beauty. Bleak, simple beauty." Aleicree didn't know what to say to that, so a quiet stretched between them until Rhis continued, "Paintergons go to a lot of trouble to arrange scenes. Why can I not want to live in this one?"
"I guess... there's no reason you can't," said Aleicree.
"Magic is a slow path," said Rhis. "Every adept becomes mired in what sustains them emotionally. Even trying to dissolve attachments and live simply is a mire of its own. That's my mire."
Aleicree focused zir amicus breeze and gusted Rhis, who startled and took a step back, his wings rising for a moment and then resettling on his back. He looked at zir in surprise, and Aleicree said, "Magic is a fast path. Ships travel much faster because they all carry several windmages each. Magic is how great things can be done instantly, like when Boghegd in Griolor raises a new building in a single day of work."
Rhis stepped to his former position and sat down, his tail curling once more around his feet. Aleicree mirrored the gesture this time, and the two sat facing each other in Rhis' library. "Even the land gods do that rarely," he said, "and lesser adepts not at all. More feasibly, a great magic can break a building, yet you almost never hear of a building broken by magic. For some reason, they're usually demolished by workcrews instead. It's technically faster to break a building by magic, but in practice it's faster to hire and manage a work crew than to find a mage willing to do the work in that fast way."
"Why would that be? Wouldn't the world be a better place if buildings were just packed up by mages?"
Rhis frowned at Aleicree. "The serenity drain alone would result in a great deal of misery among mages, and then everyone would have to spend eternity studying mysticism to keep up. Do you want to do that?"
"I think it could occupy me for a long time..." said Aleicree, though internally zie wasn't sure. It all seemed hard to fathom. Talk of eternity studying mysticism tempted zir to go back to being the wind aboard the Serene Chordalite. That was magic, but it was a very familiar and stable magic that didn't cause serenity drain.
Rhis must have been able to see that Aleicree was struggling with an internal thought, because he didn't interrupt zir by speaking. He waited for some unknown sign in Aleicree's expression, then said, "Then perhaps you will become a great adept, and lead a new era of magic. Or perhaps not. Even though I do so far like to study mysticism forever, I suspect I will still only be a farmergon. The world will always need farmergons."
The phrase had an air of finality to it, like the ending note of a conversation. Still they sat facing each other. At length, Aleicree said, "We've talked quite a bit, I feel I'm asking this out of order now. Would you teach me?"
Rhis nodded. "I will," he said, and he still seemed confident. "A book is a good gift for a teacher, although I suspect that a dream journal contains only very basic lore. Still, I'll give you a few days. Just don't expect me to risk my health with demonstrations."
He got up and fetched two waterskins from the kitchen, and came back wearing one on a loop about his neck. The other one was held out to Aleicree. "Let's walk my fields. A bit of rain won't hurt us, and I'll make sure the soil is in good order."
So they walked the fields, and Rhis spoke of the passions of the land gods, from which the whole world was formed. The subject seemed basic to Aleicree. It brought back dim memories of classes in the Griolor Wind Magic Academy. Aleicree imagined it was a kind of Mythology 101 that might be taught to an entry level geomancer. Zie didn't stop him to ask the application of this, for that zie knew well enough. Geomancers sought alignment with the passions of the land gods; necromancers sought their own passions in dissonance with Fate. He told zir these things as well. He was treating zir as knowing nothing, but that wasn't too far off.
He didn't stutter anymore. Not on the subject of magic.
Every so often he stopped and closed his eyes in brief meditation, though unlike the dramatic demonstration in the house, the only obvious result this time was the erasure of their footsteps between the rows of plants. This soil was already rich and dark with regular maintenance by a vrash farmergon of - Aleicree gathered - unusual talent. There were no weeds in the field, and no patches of flagging weak growth. Rhis clearly tended the fields regularly.
"You're wasted on the farm," Aleicree said after one of the meditation breaks.
"N-no, I'm... I'm not." Rhis' confidence wilted. "Ev-everyone studies magic eve-eventually. Th-th-Theoma needs dragons w-willing to study magic and then st-still do manual labour."
They walked on in silence for a while. Aleicree felt bad for disrupting the lesson. Eventually, Rhis resumed. There was a little hesitation in his voice at first, but it soon faded.
They patrolled the field for four hours. Rhis didn't talk the whole time, but took breaks to spare his voice as well. When he did speak, Rhis was soon dipping into territory that Aleicree had always struggled to recall when he started to give specific land gods as examples. They were drawn from the northern Kanjamund isle, so there were a lot of land gods who loved the chill-yet-sodden weather stereotypical of northern Kanjamund. It seemed rather fitting for a day of walking in damp fields getting rained on, but Aleicree kept that thought to a smile and didn't say it aloud for fear of setting Rhis to stammering again.
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Aleicree's stomach was rumbling by the time they finished. Zie'd skipped breakfast that morning. When the two went back inside Rhis' home, he took the waterskin from Aleicree and said, "I hope you like peas. That's my usual lunch."
True to his word, he showed up moments later with a bowl of peas and set it on the floor of the front room where his books were held. They were peas in the pod of a variety where the pods were expected to be edible as well. That made them wieldy enough for them to share a bowl and eat without utensils.
Rhis laid on his belly next to the bowl, and gestured for Aleicree to join him on the floor.
Somewhat reluctantly, Aleicree lay on the floor across from him on the other side of the bowl. "Wouldn't you rather have a table? It's uncomfortable laying down to eat, isn't it?"
Rhis shifted in place and was slow to answer. "I... I don't... usually entertain guests. O-on my own, I'd, I'd just as likely hold the bowl..."
They picked at the peas together.
Aleicree said, "Your voice was much stronger when you were talking about magic."
That only got a "Mm" from Rhis.
That stymied Aleicree, who wanted to talk about that subject specifically. Eventually zie thought to say, "You were teaching me about geomancy, weren't you?"
"You're n-not interested in n-necromancy," Rhis said.
Aleicree frowned. How had Rhis decided that? "About that book I gave you. Someone I knew at my academy told me the shattered knife thing is essential to the principle of Rift."
"Y-you are interested in Rift?" Rhis seemed surprised.
"I had a dream about it," said Aleicree. "Before I picked the book up. That was why I picked the book up."
"R-rift is one of the necromantic principles," said Rhis. "But it's integral to Theoma, so geomancers can study it as well. They just... usually don't. Rift splits communities and f-founds new ones far away."
You mean it doesn’t just shatter relationships? Aleicree smiled. "That's what I'm trying to do. I want to lead dragons to Nidrio."
Rhis looked thoughtfully at Aleicree. "Then... It's not surprising you would have such dreams. The principles of magic... rule so much more than just spellcasting. Almost everything can be analysed in their terms."
Aleicree asked hopefully, "Does that dream mean I'll succeed at getting dragons to move to Nidrio?"
Rhis shook his head. He pushed the bowl of peas towards Aleicree and stood up from the floor, then started looking at his shelves. They didn't all have names on their spines, and he tipped a few as if forgetful of where he'd shelved something in particular, but after a close examination of a particular shelf he came back bearing a book titled, "The Tansy Heresy".
"This is a history," he said as he held it out to Aleicree. Aleicree sat up to take the book and look at it curiously. "There was a city named Kintos in a theome on Southern Kanjamund. That city no longer exists. It fell into some disfavour with the land god who ruled the theome, and a group of Rift adepts were allowed to test their theories upon it, warping Fate until they caused the dissolution of an entire city. M-may have caused. It's not strictly clear."
"Are you giving this to me?" asked Aleicree.
"N-no," said Rhis, "But I might let you b-borrow it. Do you think you can copy it before the end of your stay in Sorjek?"
Aleicree frowned, weighing the book in zir hand. It wasn't that thick. "I'm not sure, but I'm sure I could read it in that time, and have it back to you." Zie pouched the book.
Rhis nodded and started to say something, then looked away. After a long moment, he said, "I... don't want to teach you, after all. This morning over-overwhelmed me, and I've never taught a st-student before. But maybe we can share libraries, if you e-ever visit Sorjek again."
There was one last thing to ask, or rather to ask again. "Would you be willing to go to Nidrio with the other farmergons? You could meet Praoziu."
"No, I can't. I'm n-n-not that for-forth, um, outgoing," said Rhis, dipping his head. "I won't visit, because I know I won't move to Nidrio. It doesn't matter to me where I l-live, but moving is a... a lot of trouble."
"You won't even visit to attend a feast with your friends?" asked Aleicree.
Rhis wilted so much that Aleicree thought for a moment he'd hide behind his wings. "There's st-still a reserve between me and... the other farmergons..."
Aleicree smiled to Rhis and reached out towards him. When he actually did hide behind his wings, zie blushed and kept zir hands to zirself, but zie still said, "I'll have to come back someday. I think you're the most interesting dragon I've met in Sorjek."
Rhis lifted his head from behind his wing. "H-how? Vrekant lives here."
"I met him decades ago in Griolor. You're the most interesting dragon I've met here."
Rhis stood up a little straighter... relatively speaking. "Y-you're welcome back any, any time."
Aleicree departed then, flying towards town from Rhis' house. Zie stopped by Tirivolt's for a hand pie, because a meal of nothing but peas was a little too humble for zir tastes. A quick trip to the scribegon picked up another blank book, and then zie went into the Library of Querent-Querent to return the original copy of The Ascent of Shattered Knives. Zie spent the rest of the day at the library occupying a quiet space, getting a start on The Tansy Heresy.
Most of the rest of Aleicree's visit to Vrekant fell into the now-familiar pattern of scribing for most of the day and trying to sweet-talk farmergons into visiting Nidrio in the evenings. This was alleviated by daily flights to and from the seaside for a bit of swimming, after which Aleicree showered off the seawater scent and flew back, getting back each day before Vrekant returned so that he wouldn't discover zie'd briefly left the door unlocked to go out. (He really needs a second key, Aleicree thought.)
Nothing came of the unlocked door. Despite the appearance set by having seen Tirivolt's lanterns in cages, it seemed like the crime rate in Sorjek wasn't that bad.
The copying of The Tansy Heresies went well. The book was improbable. It was about a theome called Akalban that contained a city called Kintos. It described rites of Fate manipulation that involved a great deal of wind-watching of the sort Aleicree had always been glad to not perform aboard the Serene Chordalite. The Rift adepts spied on countless dragons to discover how they needed to act in order to achieve their ambitions. If every adept needed so much wind-watching, were vashael better at advanced magic than other species? Was it really wind-watching, or was Aleicree misunderstanding? Fate had to be observed before it could be changed. Some of it sounded like auguries, with the usual risks to the mind of geomantic rites, and Aleicree didn't understand from the descriptions how the knowledge was gained.
Whatever the method, there was a great deal of studying dragons and then a great deal of using distant magics to inconvenience them. Small delays were created throughout the city. The good order of the city was modified to create unpleasant patterns of packing and vacancy. Aching curses were dispatched upon dragons to make them grimmer or more discontented at key moments. There were claims of dream-sendings to quite a few dragons, though this was noted as 'a forbidding necromancy which injured several adepts by spell-wasting'. There were also accounts of the occasional meeting with seemingly irrelevant dragons who had been identified by auguries as significant to Fate.
It seemed to Aleicree like the city of Kintos was already coming apart as the Rift adepts worked at it. The land god didn't want it to hold together, so its Fate was unweaving in petty conflicts that would ordinarily be averted by the prosperity written into a city's Fate. The adepts just accelerated the Fate, and wove it apart into a grand splintering that produced three tribes.
The final working of the Rift adepts - Aleicree couldn't help thinking of them as a cult, having read so far into their workings - was in two parts. The first was a grand ceremony that honoured a foreseen negotiation and asked the land god to bless the foreseen conclusion. The second was the negotiation itself, which established a treaty between the conflicting parties and saw the three tribes ALL seek lands far from the shore of the theome itself. In the end, the Rift cult was lauded by the outgoing dragons of the city for preventing a great conflict from breaking it, as though they had done anything but break the city themselves.
Struck by a thought, Aleicree checked the front of the book for its publishing date, and compared the dates in the story itself. While it contained numerous professed interviews, it was published two hundred years after the splintering of Kintos. Zie wondered how many ex-Kintosians had actually acquired copies of the book and suddenly wanted to keep the book just to see if zie would ever meet one. How would they react to this hidden history?
Sure, Kintos splintered six hundred years ago, but that didn't stop dragons from that era from still being alive. There'd been zero or near-zero casualties in the splintering of the city itself. Fate kept almost everyone alive over the long-term. "Studying necromancy and dying of spell-wasting" was a leading cause of death across Theoma, at least if Aleicree's geomantic academy could be believed. As strong as the allure of changing Fate could be, plenty of dragons could live six hundred years without necromantic lore.
The evening conversations went mediocrely. There were no disasters, but they had no further successes in recruiting for the feast in Nidrio.
None of the other farmergons were distinctive to Aleicree. They were more quiet dragons who had 'always' been farmergons, and they were discomforted by the idea of flying a long distance to look at a new theome that was recruiting. Were these primordials? Yet as far as Aleicree knew, nothing blocked primordials from going to new places. Aleicree dutifully recorded names and descriptions for them, since they were at least friends of Vrekant and thus presumably friends of those who were going.
Zie wondered if Rhis liked the quiet farmergons, if Fiata drew them out of their shells in some way, and if Ardent got them talking about their interests. Surely all these dragons couldn’t just be quiet. It must have been some awkwardness with Vrekant’s invitations.
On the 29th day of Aleicree's visit to Vrekant, zir copying was briefly interrupted by a group of dragons. Five of the ones who Aleicree had marked down as "quiet" and "not visiting" showed up in a flock led by Rettle, who said she had persuaded more of the locals to join the trip. Aleicree hadn't been thinking about Rettle much that month, but the black-striped green dragon said she'd lured several of her friends in with promises of a side trip to the great big clifftop city of Zyrine, where Raul's sigil burned eternally in the sky.
Aleicree struck out the "not visiting" line in zir notes and wrote for each of them, "visiting Nidrio to visit Zyrine". Zyrine was a famed destination. If word got out that Nidrio had become safe to visit, the proximity of Nidrio and Zyrine could bring them travellers in the future. Doubtless there were dragons who would love staying at a quiet hillside hotel in Nidrio more than they would love a crowded urban hotel in Zyrine itself. It was something to suggest to Praoziu.
Would any of the dragons who flew to Nidrio with Aleicree actually opt to stay there? Obviously, none of them would stay immediately, because they would all have to come back to the harvest. Would any of them pull up roots? Aleicree truly expected to lure only two dragons: Azosta and Limist, who had nowhere else to go. This whole flock of farmergons would only be a bunch of tourists to Praoziu's charming-though-empty land. They would come back with the tale of the reformed land god Praoziu, who was seeking residents, but they almost certainly would not become residents themselves.
All Aleicree could do the days of that last week was to study The Tansy Heresies and wonder, was there some working of Rift that would help? If Rift tore apart communities, would it be ethical to use if there was? Had Vesset, land god of Shibanyet, worked some Rifted Fate upon Azosta and Limist to free them up for Nidrio?
Was Rift just a magic of misfortune?
But then, it wasn't any magic at all for Aleicree. Zie had no idea how to do auguries, did not want to do wind-watching, and hadn't a sensitive intuition for dragons other than that.
There was one dragon who Aleicree thought understood Rift well enough to tell Aleicree if it was something zie could use, and that was the very dragon who had proposed that Rift might help in establishing a new settlement.
Rhis.
There was a good excuse to talk to him again, for zie finished up copying The Tansy Heresies on that day. Pouching the two books, zie flew back to Rhis' house. That grey house soon came into view among green and vibrant fields of vegetables being grown in the perfect, tended soil that Rhis gave them.
It was a dreary day, but the misting rain felt good to Aleicree, and as zie dropped at the edge of the field where zie saw Rhis tending his crops, zie thought the grey air suited Rhis well. His mask of grey and stripes of it disappeared into the backdrop, leaving his blue eyes luminous. His overall pink coloration stood out well... where it wasn't covered by armour.
Oh, that vrash armour, what a misfortune it was sometimes! Rhis wore rough armour roughly worked. Any armour spoke of a baseline of resources, but this armour spoke of meeting social needs cheaply. If it announced a virtue, it was 'not overspending'.
"I've brought back your book!" Aleicree called out, waving with an arm from the edge of the row.
Rhis came over to zir. "I'm glad!" he called ahead, and it might have been the loudest thing Aleicree had heard him say. When he got to the edge of the row he said, "Let's talk inside out of the rain."
They walked into Rhis' house. That front room was still a bleak, empty library with nothing in it but open space and the shelves of books. "D-did you... l-learn anything from it?" Rhis asked, with unusual eagerness shining despite his halting speech.
Fetching the book from zir pouch, Aleicree handed it over to Rhis. "What a terrible story," zie said with a laugh. "Rift seems like a magic of terrible dragons who cause trouble for others. And after doing all that, the Rift cult was lauded?"
"S-saviours of the former K-Kintosians," said Rhis earnestly. "They went into a m-mess and h-helped everyone find their t-t-true f-friends."
Aleicree was brought upright like a string had been pulled, so surprised was zie. Rhis read the same material and had interpreted it totally differently. "You believe in this magic?"
"Ev-everything has its dangers, but this was, was not a story of misuse," Rhis said.
"But they spied on dragons, created inconveniences, and amplified discomforts. They broke things that otherwise would have kept working," said Aleicree, and as zie did zie thought of Azosta and Limist again, having their plumbing business dissolve in expensive mishaps.
"Sort of working." Rhis smiled at Aleicree. It was pleasant to see the nervous dragon wearing that expression. "Kintos w-would have kept sort of working for a long time, and nobody would have been very happy with it. They went on to places where they were much happier."
Rhis walked over to a shelf and slotted away The Tansy Heresies. He kept talking. "Spied on dragons though, I'll g-g-give you that. If you think magic shouldn't be used to sp-spy on dragons you'll have a hard time advancing as an adept. If auguries don't tell you more than you wanted to know, you're not... doing them very well yet."
"I don't do auguries. I don't know how," Aleicree said.
"You're not a real geomancer then," Rhis said, turning to face zir with a serious expression. He reared up and tapped his cheek thoughtfully. "You could be a necromancer without augury."
Aleicree frowned at Rhis. "I don't know any necromantic spells."
Sitting down and curling his tail around his feet, Rhis asked, "Have you heard of an a-abstract?"
"The land gods summon them," said Aleicree. "They can look like anything the land gods imagine, and have any function. The only thing linking them is that they're summoned creatures."
Rhis smiled again. "Anyone can summon an abstract. You only need to be able to focus your passions... well enough... to create an entity from them. Like all major spells, it's a matter of knowing what you want, and being so certain that you inspire the principle of mercy."
Aleicree thought about this for a moment, then wilted. "I wouldn't know where to begin with that. This sounds like something to learn from a semester at the academy."
"It is," said Rhis. He looked distracted, lost in thought. He wasn't quite focusing on Aleicree as he spoke, but the stammer had evaporated from his voice a few sentences prior. "It is. Sorry, I shouldn't be mentioning this, but there's a creature called a wolejerrup. They're powerful in Rift. If I summoned one, an abstract of a wolejerrup, I could instruct it to splinter the local community, and across the next year you might get a few migrants to Nidrio. I wish... I wish I had a payment for summoning one. Something worth exposing myself to the risk of injury and madness involved in necromantic spellcasting. The backlash from the wolejerrup would hit me and hit me and hit me, every time it used its powers."
Aleicree tilted zir head. "If you really think it'd be okay to... summon a creature for the purpose of, um, 'splintering the local community'... Although I really think you should talk to Praoziu. Maybe she'd give you... something." Aleicree cringed. Zir lack of knowledge of geomantic lore was painful here. Why hadn't zie paid more attention in school?
Rhis focused on Aleicree directly. "You know, what I would really like is a catch."
"Beg pardon?" Aleicree asked.
Rhis smiled. "A catch. A promise from a land god to resurrect me instantly if I should ever die. I would like her to, um, catch me if I fall. That's... very empowering for a necromancer."
"I can't promise that on her behalf," Aleicree said, putting a hand over zir cheek and one eye in chagrin.
Rhis lifted a hand out towards Aleicree. "What is your relationship with Praoziu? If you're not a geomancer working for a land god, why are you trying to recruit for a land god who wants tenants?"
Aleicree lowered the hand from zir face. "She's my mother," zie said. "I want her project to succeed."
"That's v-very p-promising!" Rhis sat suddenly more upright for a moment, then rose to all fours. "I might get that catch if I help you. I'll j-join the party to Nidrio. I won't move there, but I'll visit."
Aleicree dropped to all fours. It wasn't a normal standing posture for a vashael, but brought zir quite low. "I don't know about this. I didn't interpret The Tansy Heresies the way you did. Dragons here seem happy enough. Why is it okay to mess with them?"
Rhis frowned. "Maybe I'm g-getting too excited... Um, how many dragons live in Nidrio right now?"
"Three, counting Praoziu herself," Aleicree said.
"Or maybe I'm... n-not," said Rhis. He laid down on the wooden floor before Aleicree, lowering himself even below Aleicree's four-legged stance. "A-anyone who goes wi-wi-with you m-might end up i-in the h-h-history books. They won't... as farmergons... in Sorjek."
Aleicree thought of the notebook zie had of Nidrio's potential founders. Vrekant had brought in a different farmergon every evening on most of 28 days, and some of them had brought their loves with them, so that Aleicree had met 33 farmergons in Sorjek. Zie had recorded each of them by name and description, along with a few things that had come up in conversation around the dinner-table or afterwards while playing board games from Vrekant's collection. They weren’t all going to Nidrio, but they were all in zir notebook as potential founders of Nidrio.
"So if you change their Fates with a wolejerrup..." Aleicree stepped a little closer to Rhis. "They'll go from having a mediocre but happy Fate here... to having an impressive, but unknown Fate in Nidrio."
"That's r-right. But that'll probably be a happy Fate, too. The land gods do their best to keep dragons happy. So it's a h-happy Fate here, or a happy F-Fate there, only the Fate there will be remembered for h-hundreds of years. Maybe thousands."
Aleicree rose back to two legs again. "Just don't do it before you've talked to Praoziu about it," zie said. "If it's something she wouldn't reward you for doing, you'll have offended her by starting it."
Rhis stood up as Aleicree did. "Oh, d-don't worry. It'll t-take me a w-week to summon a wolejerrup. I w-won't do it in a day, just b-before you leave. But I guess n-now I'll see you t-tomorrow w-when ev-everyone shows up to Vre-Vrekant's place. I was p-planning to skip the c-celebration. Too many dragons. But now th-that I have a rea... A, um, a reason to go all the way to Nidrio, that means... I'll be there."
"I'll see you tomorrow," Aleicree said. Zie hesitated on the way out, holding one wing extended. Zie wanted to hug the stuttering vrash, but that seemed too much of an invasion of space against someone shy.
He didn't obviously react to the raised wing, and Aleicree put it down reluctantly and headed back out the door, then to fly back to Vrekant's place.