Aleicree got up when zie woke, and climbing from the quilted bed into the morning chill of a drafty room, zie went out into the hallway at once to find Vrekant just opening the door into the now-vacated room he'd offered them the night before. "We didn't use that one," Aleicree said with a smile, inwardly thanking the land god for the well-timed awakening that let zir catch Vrekant.
Leading zir old friend to the room used by Limist and Azosta, Vrekant and Aleicree gathered up the other two. They went to the dining room again, and Vrekant passed around a disappointing breakfast of boiled grains. Aleicree scowled as zie licked up wheat berries. No escaping the basics in a farming community, zie reflected.
"I can hardly take a day off without the weather turning foul, so I'll be soon on my way to tend my work," said Vrekant. "I hope I can trust the three of you in my house."
"Will you leave the door unlocked so we can get in and out?" asked Limist.
"I'll take that risk, but I hope you don't all leave at once."
Vrekant left after breakfast, as did Limist and Azosta. Aleicree was left alone in the house. Zie had no idea what to do in the city, and Vrekant had said he hoped they would not all leave at once, so in protection of zir friend's property Aleicree decided to set up in the living room near the front door with zir books.
All day zie worked on that farming manual, intent on getting it copied. Another fifth of the book fell to zir lev-i-quill's insistent scratching.
If all three of my companions are going to be out all day, thought Aleicree, in a few days I will need another book to be copying. I suppose I can finally finish Sea Gods' Laws, but even that will not take a month.
Was zie going to spend zir vacation working as a scribegon? Well, why not? It would be profitable. Courtesy of the lev-i-quill, it wasn't like zie could get hand-cramps.
What else was zie to do? Recruit for Nidrio? There was probably no recruiting that zie could do. What kind of dragon would cross continents on the advice of a stranger? If there was a skill for achieving such outcomes, Aleicree didn't know it. The only way recruiting would work would be if zie got lucky and found someone who was disaffected already. Admittedly, Taisach and Praoziu would be much more impressed with a success at that... and it'd get zir in contact with the local community.
Zie wondered if zir coin pouch would survive the sabbatical with what zie'd put into it. That was an argument in favour of scribing. Books were expensive and having one on hand to sell would help guard against the expenses of travel. There were no armies of copiers who could make books in large numbers. Doubtless even the temple-libraries of Querent-Querent would have empty shelves at times if they were not packed with geomancers who could be pressed to scribework.
At least there was no fee to travel by wing, and no slowness in the choice. Aleicree wondered if the unwinged dragons - the izerah and the kalla were the ones who occurred to zir - ever felt oppressed by the challenges of travel. They did at least have the sea voyages, and those were still sped by wind magic.
Limist and Azosta were first to arrive back home. "We pinned up notes on community boards," said Azosta.
"Pipes and irrigation,” said Limist. Soon we'll start trying to meet farmergons."
When Vrekant arrived that evening, Aleicree met him at the door and asked, “Do you think you could introduce us to any of your neighbours?”
“Oho? Tired of my company so quickly?” asked Vrekant, laughing as he entered his front room. He held up a hand to forestall Aleicree’s apology. “I can. I’d be glad to. But your letters painted a picture of a withdrawing nature, so what inspired this request?”
Aleicree fidgeted with the pouch where zie was storing zir in-progress book. “My father Taisach has been unsuccessful at recruiting for Nidrio. I think he needs some help.”
Vrekant smiled. “Going to lure away my friends, are you? You’re welcome to try. I’d be glad to have the excuse to visit Nidrio myself.” He glanced back towards the door. “I actually called off my dinner plans to be here in the evening for you, so nobody is expecting me tonight. That said, I do know someone who is particularly unlikely to have evening plans; he lives nearby and I’ve mentioned him a few times in letters.”
There was one neighbour of Vrekant’s who had come up in a special way. Aleicree perked up. “You don’t mean Dylori, do you?”
Dylori was the ghost who lived near Vrekant. Ghosts were tremendously rare. They had dangerous auras and a reputation for insanity, but they were truly, truly immortal, standing at the pinnacle of necromantic self-preservation. Like vohntrai, ghosts could only be dissipated temporarily. Unlike vohntrai, they had no ordinary needs.
“He might say no,” said Vrekant, “But there’s no harm in trying. I’ll be back shortly.”
Stunned, Aleicree just nodded along to this idea, and soon Vrekant departed again. Aleicree paced the front room, wishing zie’d asked to go along. Should zie try to recruit a ghost to Nidrio? Ghosts existed outside of the weave of Fate.
Aleicree stepped outside. It was a warm, summery evening and there was just a bit of falling damp in the air. Zie glanced down the street to either side, wondering which house belonged to a literal ghost. The houses looked fairly ordinary, and Aleicree could only see the nearest of them, for there was something of a forest growing in the backyards of the houses on this side of Tavanth street. The trees encroached between the houses.
There was no sign of Vrekant for a few minutes, and then Aleicree spotted him stepping out of 2 Tavanth Street next door. A very unusual dragon followed after him. Dylori - for zie assumed that was Dylori - greatly resembled a mechanical vashael with a protected core, his components all in some shade of white cast orange by the evening sun.
Aleicree raised a wing at them from near Vrekant’s door, and Dylori waved back at zir. As he neared, he came to a clattering stop and said (in a great hollow voice), “Aleicree! Vrekant has told me of you! It’s good to finally meet you!”
“Likewise,” said Aleicree. “Is that your actual voice?”
“I haven’t had an actual voice in two centuries,” said Dylori. “Everything is a spell or construct at this point.”
Vrekant stepped up to Aleicree. “Let’s go inside,” he said, sweeping towards the door.
Dylori hung way back as they entered, and he kept hanging back once they were all in the first room of Vrekant’s house as well. He moved like his bubble was as wide as his wingspan, though there wasn’t quite room for them to be that far apart when they were inside.
Once they were inside and seeing by the light of Vrekant’s magic lanterns, Aleicree could see that Dylori’s suit was actually a very faint blue. It was nearly white.
Azosta and Limist were in the living room, reading books. The collection on the shelves was down to three. Both of them looked up as more dragons entered the room. Azosta went wide-eyed and stiff.
“Whoa,” said Limist, closing the book he’d been reading. “Did someone lose a golem?”
“A what?” asked Aleicree, and looked towards Dylori when Limist gestured that way.
Dylori rapped himself on the chest with a clunk. He said, “This body is something like a golem. I am Dylori, one of Vrekant’s neighbours.”
Azosta said, “You’re a ghost! This is too much magic for anyone!”
Dylori’s mechanical face and hollow voice carried little emotion, but Aleicree thought zie could still hear the disappointment as he said, “You know, ghosts can offer boons. Shouldn’t you be polite?”
Azosta shook his head. “I don’t want any ‘boons’. Your magic is a rending force. All magic leads to the primordial state, but you’re the primordial state incarnate,” he said.
Limist echoed, “Primordial state.” He sighed. “That didn’t take long.”
Dylori tapped his chin with a finger. “I want to break the tension with a laugh, but I’m not quite in the mood. Still, there’s some wisdom in you. What’s your name and title, boon-refuser?”
“Azosta the Endseer.”
With his hands clasped together, Dylori said, “I promise to do you no harm, Azosta.” Dropping his hands, he glanced towards Vrekant’s dining room. “I wasn’t coming here to offer gifts in any case. Just to meet a friend of a friend over dinner.”
Limist walked across the room to reshelve the book he’d taken. “Can you actually eat?”
This time Dylori chuckled. “No, I can’t, but don’t worry. I won’t envy you too much. I ate plenty while I lived, and my memory’s keener than ever.”
Vrekant said, “Since we’re already discussing dinner, I’ll be sure to get started on preparations promptly. You can talk here or in the dining room. Want me to get out a board game?”
“Shouldn’t be any need of that.” Dylori stood taller. “I’m surely enough of a conversationalist and a rare enough commodity to hold attention for one night with strangers.”
So Vrekant left them to talk with Dylori.
“So, uh… Ghosts is dead, right? How’d you die?” asked Limist.
Dylori said, “In a ritual. That’s how it usually is for the kind of ghosts you’ll actually meet. The other kind get drawn away to the Deathwall for everyone’s sake.”
Limist took a seat on one of the roughspun cushions in the room. “What’s a ritual like that entail?”
“Now, that’d be a spoiler. You’ll find out when you’re older,” Dylori said, laughing.
Azosta grimaced. “I suspect he will not,” he said.
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“Do you now?” asked Dylori.
Ignoring the rejoinder, Azosta asked, “Do you ever regret the ritual?”
“Not often, but I know the feeling.” Dylori raised his arms and spread his canvas wings, taking up half the room as he spoke. He held his wings like that, and with his hands he gesticulated. “You see, I’d already been a wraithe for a long time, so at the time I thought I hadn’t anything to lose. That wasn’t quite true. The last function of a wraithe’s splintered geomantic interface is to hold their mind together. So when I deliberately ground my interface to dust and became a ghost…”
Dylori put his wings back down. “I’ve had to take ever so much care of my thoughts since then.”
“So the rumoured madness of ghosts…” said Aleicree, trailing off.
Dylori nodded. “It’s real. Sometimes it strikes wraithes, too.”
“What’s a geomantic interface?” asked Limist.
“A non-physical object that connects between land gods and lesser divinities. No interface, no geomancy, no Fate. I am almost pure chaos to auguries.”
“Almost?” asked Azosta.
Dylori rapped his chest again with another clunk. “This suit exists in Fate, even though I don’t.”
They continued peppering Dylori with questions until Vrekant returned to the living room to summon them to dinner. All thought of recruiting was forgotten. As they ate, the roles reversed. Dylori got their names and professions, and from Aleicree he extracted that zie had a hobby of copying books. “And what have you been copying lately?” Dylori asked.
“A farming manual,” Aleicree said. “I think I’ll bring it to Denxalue and see if I can sell it to the farmergons there.”
"Farming? Yields are adequate, I should think," Azosta said.
"Yeah, how about a plumbing manual?" said Limist, laughing.
Aleicree smiled at Limist. "I would, I really would. I just haven't found any plumbing manuals yet. Maybe you should write one, so I can copy it."
"Huh," said Limist, sitting up straighter. "I suppose I did teach Azosta."
When they’d eaten, Dylori said to Aleicree, “There’s another necromancer in this area who you might want to meet. A novice relative to me, but nearer to you in many ways. He’s known as Rhis the Quiet.”
Aleicree raised an eyebrow. “That’s a remarkably unremarkable title.”
Dylori chuckled. It was very exactly the same chuckle that he’d emitted earlier, which made Aleicree frown. What an unnatural likeness. “Yes, remarkably unremarkable is the first impression Rhis gives off, but he’s more remarkable than he seems at first,” said Dylori.
The next day, Limist and Azosta flew off to continue trying to get work for the month, but Vrekant stayed home. “Yesterday, I went around talking to other windmages in the area, and they agreed to cover my part of the sky for a day. That’ll prevent anything chaotic from happening while I’m out.”
Aleicree cast a glance out the window. It was another day of partly cloudy rain, a common weather in Sorjek. The resulting combination of bright and wet was ideal for crops. “I summoned weather sometimes growing up in Denxalue, and nothing happened when I let it go.”
Vrekant shrugged. “Different theomes. Denxalue, I assume, doesn’t hire weathermages on the regular. The more you do it, the more chaos is waiting to be unleashed. The weather out here can get destructive when we slip up or get overwhelmed.”
“I’m torn between hoping I see it and hoping I don’t,” said Aleicree, smiling.
Vrekant frowned. “Hope you don’t. Some dragons won’t visit Sorjek, just because once or twice a decade someone dies to bad weather.”
“Then I hope I don’t,” Aleicree said, but zie didn’t mirror his negativity. Undaunted, Aleicree kept smiling at Vrekant. He was staying with zir all day! “What are we going to do?”
Vrekant walked deeper into the house, leading Aleicree down the hallway into the guest rooms. “I was thinking I could show you my art collection today.” He opened the first guest room and ushered Aleicree into it.
This was the room that he’d offered to the three on their first night. That time, Aleicree had only noticed the exaggerated and surprising three-dragon bed. This time, Vrekant gestured towards one of the walls. A mural sprawled over the wall depicting trees rearing up in a misty blue forest. The green plants painted at the base of the mural were naturally-colored; the foliage of the trees was a more fantastical hue. The shadows in the forest were tinged violet, while the top of the painting faded to a clear white sky.
“I have too many rooms,” said Vrekant, “But one of the satisfactions is that while I’ve been here, I’ve accumulated paintings for them. This is one of the better ones. The artist visited to paint this. Shyrkin the Chained. A bit expensive, actually.”
Aleicree held a hand up towards the wall, reaching towards it mentally as though trying to be the wall. There was a self-mending charm on the wall, and something else. Something faint and twisting, a fraction of a spell without apparent purpose. Zie put zir hand down and looked at Vrekant. “Why is the artist called ‘the Chained’?”
Vrekant laughed. “I know the reference, but I don’t want to repeat it. It’s presumptuous, immodest, and - I’ll tell you this much - related to a kind of magic popular with paintergons.”
Aleicree stared at the wall with a frown of concentration. “There’s a trace of spellwork on this wall. Something besides a preservation spell.”
“When I was hosting zir, Shyrkin talked about how all painting, maybe all artistic work, is an exercise of magic.” Vrekant reached up towards the ceiling as he said those words. He grinned at Aleicree. “I think zie believes that little spell does something, but I think it’s just a signature.”
“What was Shyrkin like?” asked Aleicree.
“Quite polite, but greedy. I had to point out that the commission fee was already enough to live on for a little while to get Shyrkin to back down on attempts to raise it further. Zie wanted twice as much.”
Vrekant led Aleicree on to different guest rooms. The rooms were a bit drafty with unskilled construction, but there was a painting in almost every room, and two in some. A parade of artist names came through, with stories repeated about their titles.
“You remember all these artists?” Aleicree asked Vrekant after three such stories.
Vrekant nodded. “Painting is a wonderful way to make a name for oneself. Good paintings, like good books, are treasured forever, and everyone wants to know, ‘Who painted this?’ So the owners of the art introduce the artists again and again.”
A theme emerged in the paintings themselves. Vrekant had purchased or been gifted landscape painting after landscape painting. They were all natural environments very different from the artificiality of the landscape in Sorjek. There were rainforests and rivers, swamps and hillscapes, even a tropical beach featuring plants that could only be found in Southern Kanjamund.
“These rooms have no definition without the paintings that are hung in them,” Vrekant said when they had gone through most of the guest rooms and finally entered a room without a painting hung. It was the second to last guest room in the hall. “With the paintings, each one has an individual character.”
“It must have been expensive sourcing all of these,” Aleicree said, touching an empty place on the wall. It was just a blank wall, but after seeing room after room with paintings hung, Aleicree could visualise the spot as clearly as though a blank canvas were hanging on the wall. This room awaited a painting.
“It was, but it’s worth it.” Vrekant stood by the door, arms folded and head high, his tail swaying behind him. “As fast as I am on the wing, I can fly still farther looking at the paintings I’ve collected.”
A mischievous thought struck Aleicree. “Landlubber,” zie said.
“What?” Vrekant’s jaw dropped.
“This is such a landlubber hobby. I could keep maybe one painting in my space aboard the Serene Chordalite, and I’d have to renew the mending charm every few weeks as all the theome transitions robbed it of its magic.”
Vrekant shrank, his fins drooping. “Do you dislike my collection?” he asked.
Aleicree stepped in and nuzzled him briefly. “No, it’s beautiful,” zie said.
Vrekant’s stance rose again, and his fins were all peaking. “I’ve got one more painting to show you,” he said, and he led out the door. He didn’t go to the last guest room, but went through the halls of the house to his own room, which he opened the door of and ushered Aleicree inside.
At once zir eyes were caught by light and motion, for the room was lit by a wall mural that glowed like sunlight. It was sunlight! The wall of the room had been replaced by a natural scene as real as a portal to another place. There was a forest visible through the wall, with birds in the trees and a fox passing by in the grass.
A wind in the room pushed against Aleicree’s amicus breeze, contesting it as though blowing in from outside through Vrekant’s wall. Zie walked up to the wall wonderingly, and touched it… and touched it. It was solid. The texture was of a wooden wall. Zie put zir snout up against the wall and sniffed it, smelling forest scents but feeling wood under the tip of zir nose.
“There’s real paint under it, but the painting itself is simplistic. Just something to hang the enchantment on,” said Vrekant. “It’ll be a disappointment if I ever see it again.”
“Does it show the stars at night?” Aleicree asked, turning to face Vrekant.
“And the sunrise every morning,” said Vrekant, smiling.
Aleicree willfully quelled zir amicus breeze to feel the wind from the painting. It wasn’t a steady wind nor a heavy one, but was a gentle breeze that matched the swaying of the trees and carried the scents of the forest. “Does it show the seasons?” Aleicree asked.
Vrekant laughed and said, “It does, and a range of natural weather. No precipitation comes through it with the wind, but that breeze drives me under two quilts in wintertime! Very occasionally, I find I must sleep in a guest room.”
Aleicree turned to face Vrekant, zir amicus breeze springing back to life around zirself. Zie looked at the rest of the room. Vrekant’s bed was fit for two dragons and had a quilt piled messily atop it despite the early autumn warmth. Zie could easily imagine him huddled under two quilts while a snowy vista blew cold air into the room. “You must love nature,” zie said.
“I do,” said Vrekant. “Sometimes, in my fantasies, I work with weathermages over a natural theome, using more varied weather as we care for the trees and wildlife. I love storms; farms have no use for them.”
Aleicree took a step towards Vrekant. “Would you want to come to Nidrio with me? Praoziu might like weathermages tending the wilderness.”
Vrekant shook his head, his fins lowering. “I don’t want to leave my house behind, nor my friends.” He perked up. “Ask again should you find yourself with two dozen weathermages and still a great deal of surface wilderness. I might come to Nidrio then.”
Maybe in a century, Aleicree thought. Zie glanced at his bed. I wonder…
“You didn’t bring me into your bedroom for anything special, did you?” zie asked.
Vrekant was caught off guard, one hand back and up. “It… it wouldn’t mean anything if we did. I don’t think it meant anything in the academy either.” He put his hands together, but his tail lashed.
Aleicree thought for a moment. It wasn’t like zir to be forward, and… zie wasn’t interested in being unlike zirself. That was a path of stress without reward. Zie smiled to Vrekant, swaying zir tail gently. “Alright. Nevermind that. Seeing your paintings was amazing, and you picked such a good finishing touch.”
Vrekant dipped his head, slowing his tail. He took a step towards Aleicree. They could almost touch. “I missed you all these years, Aleicree. Our letters were never enough…”
“But what we did in academy meant nothing?” Aleicree asked with wide eyes. Zie was tempted to nuzzle at him, his mention of missing zir was such an invitation, but the consciousness of mixed signals stopped that.
“Did it mean more to you?” asked Vrekant. He looked at the wall as he spoke, looked out into the forest view.
Aleicree hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “It was fun,” zie said. “You were one of several, you know. Yet you were the one who always replied to my letters, all through the years, promptly as though it mattered to you. I thought it meant more to you.”
Zie clasped his hand and pulled his attention back to zirself. “Show me your garden, and the trees behind your house,” zie said, wanting this awkward conversation in his room to be over.
“Gladly,” he said, and the two went outside where Vrekant recited the names of the plants beside and behind his house, bending down to show Aleicree the features of leaves, stems, and flowers. Aleicree tried to look attentive, but really zie kept looking at Vrekant and remembering him as zie saw him in the academy, so that zie was a bit flushed. He might’ve picked that up in zir scent, for at length there was something of an answering call in his own, but neither of them said anything immodest. They only kept studying the plants outdoors, and buried their snouts in the scents of the flora.