Furthermore, after considerable analysis, we have managed to resolve two anomalous points with a theory that we consider to be nearly proven, although the implications are tragic, to put it mildly. The points are, specifically, the missing orbital installations and some of the anomalous erosive patterns on the planetary surface.
In essence, we believe that these patterns are impact craters from the missing installations, and erosion from the resulting tidal waves.
###
Raavi ava Laargan
I fidgeted with the screw of my wrench as I stood in the back of the mayor’s office. Yufemya hadn’t killed anyone, but most people weren’t nearly as understanding about being hit with an arrow as Lady Fia could be.
“I want to know where you people came from, and why you attacked!” Mayor Williibard growled, his face furrowed like a farmer’s field in spring.
Lady Fia sighed. “I’ve told you twice now, but hopefully the third time will be the charm. We’re on a mission for the king, investigating these attacks.” She motioned with a nod of her head towards the necromancer, who was standing between two guards in the corner, her arms folded and her shoulders slouched. “And the deathspeaker there will undoubtedly be helpful. It’s a stroke of luck to have run across her, but I’ll take it—and her, and get her off your hands.” She snorted. “If she is one—”
“I am,” came from the corner.
“—then you won’t be able to hold her anyway.”
Mayor Williibard scoffed. “She was still dealing with enemies of the kingdom. Do you really think she won’t betray you?”
Lady Fia sighed. “That’s my problem. Look, release her into our custody, our healer will take care of the wounded, and we’ll be gone and you won’t have to deal with us or her.”
“Hmm.”
The door opened, and a young man around my age came in. “Sir?”
“Yes, Theodoor?”
“My mother’s ready for you and the… travelers,” he said, glancing at us.
“Good.” The Mayor rose and gave the group of us a flinty glare. “Come with me.”
“For what purpose?” Lady Fia asked.
“While I might not have papers purportedly from the King for the purposes of riding roughshod over anyone who gets in my way, regardless of their rights, I do have my own resources,” the Mayor said. “Namely, in this town resides one of the greatest seeresses in the entire duchy.” He smiled thinly, and it didn’t feel friendly to me. “And she just woke from a nap, with my question in her hand.”
Lady Fia sighed. “All right. If that’ll get through your thick skull that we mean no harm, then I have no problem with it.”
“Good, because I wasn’t asking.” He went out the door, and the guards motioned for us to follow.
The seeress’ house was right near the Mayor’s modest mansion, and a well-trodden path through the snow showed that it got regular traffic.
We entered what looked like a side building attached to the main house, and, after passing through the mudroom with its inner and outer doors, found ourselves in what was obviously a seer’s chamber. Books lined the walls, many of the spines well-thumbed, along with a workbench and a plush armchair. In the center was what I could only call a mechanism. Easily one and a half times my height, it reached up nearly to the ceiling, with a brushed pit of sand underneath it; next to it knelt a woman around my mother’s age, her hair braided with a purple ribbon and silver hairpins. On a small tray next to her was a set of crystal dice, glowing the distinctive green-yellow of the first Breath upon waking.
“Hello there, Mayor,” she said. “I was just about ready for you.” She took a dowel from a stand of sand tools and used it to make circles in the sand pit, and then divided them into quadrants. “Your question is a good one. So, here,” she motioned to the innermost circle, “immediate, before the end of the season. Then middle term,” she motioned to the next circle, “into Spring, and then Summer, and then after. Then for the quadrants, we have benefit, mild or major, or danger, mild or major.”
The Mayor nodded, while I just stood at the back of the group, trying to both see what was happening and her mechanism, and, at the same time, staying out of the way. Somehow, I accomplished neither of these.
“All right then,” said the seeress. “Now for the question. If Mayor Williibard does not release the necromancer that he has in custody into the custody of the travelers in this room, or does not allow any of them to leave until such time as a response from the King can be received, what will be the result for this town?”
I saw Lady Fia stiffen, but she didn’t say anything as the seeress climbed up the small ladder to the top of her mechanism, and dropped the dice in.
Down and down they clattered, and I could feel the tension in the room rise, and rise.
“Taking longer than normal,” the Mayor noted after perhaps a good half minute of this.
“Yes. That’s interesting.”
“What does it mean?”
“I’ll tell you later,” she said, just as the first die ejected itself from the machine, and landed in the Middle Term-Danger segment of the sand rings. A few moments later, the next one followed, landing next to it, and then, after an even longer pause, the next, and the next.
It took nearly five minutes, but the dice landed in a neat row in the midst of the sand.
The seeress leaned over, and I could see the blood run from her face. She pulled the Mayor over, and pointed at the dice.
“Are you sure? You said—”
“Williibard, let them go.” She pulled him over to the far side of the room, and started pulling down books.
As she flipped open one and showed him a passage, I couldn’t help my curiosity any longer, and leaned in. “How bad is it?”
The seeress scoffed, and motioned to the dice in the pit.
I glanced around, and since nobody was stopping me, I cautiously stepped forward.
“Come on, lad, they won’t bite,” the seeress said, and turned back to the Mayor, arguing in a low whisper, even as she pointed into the book.
Heartened, I leaned down and looked. “Oh.” I swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. “Oh.”
“Raavi, what does it say?” Lady Fia asked.
“‘Complete Destruction.’” I took a deep breath. “If I recognize the runes correctly, it’s the sort of thing you normally have that predicts something even beyond war. Like… a natural disaster or something on that level.”
Silence reigned for a moment, and then Lady Fia sighed. “Well. No pressure there.” She coughed to clear her throat and said, “Mayor Williibard, my offer of your injured people being healed and letting us go on our way still stands!”
#
Half an hour later, under the watchful eyes of the townsfolk, we made ready to go, without their help. Rumor had apparently spread quickly, and they were eager to see the back of us, so the mayor had agreed to release the necromancer into Lady Fia’s custody.
“Sooo…” the necromancer said, looking the Lynx over, “this is different.”
“You can sit here, next to me,” Stylio said, patting her usual bench. “It’s loud, but you get used to it.”
She glanced it up and down one more time, and nodded. “So it’s basically a sailboat on some skis?”
“Runners, but yes,” I said.
She looked at me, and smiled at me from behind her scarf. “Oh, you’re a pedant! This’ll be fun!” She looked me over. “My name is Oksyna Mykyetyav. And you are?”
“Raavi ava Laargan,” I said, eyeing her hand skeptically, and then figuring that she’d be right behind me anyway, so I shook it.
“Rahh-vee,” she said, rolling it around in her mouth a few times, exaggerating it. “It’s a good name. Very Kalltii, with the double vowels and all.”
I shrugged. “It’s how we do proper names around here.”
“Let’s handle introductions later,” Lady Fia said. “So… I hate to do this, but Oksyna?”
“Yes?”
“I need you to swear an oath that you will bring us no harm or lead us into harm’s way until such time as we’ve had a chance to debrief you.”
Oksyna jerked back a little at that, and then her voice went much more formal. “You’ve had dealings with necromancers before?”
“I have. And I know what I’m asking, but given that we’re taking you where you said you wanted to go, I figure this is fair.”
I looked back and forth between them a few times, not understanding what was going on, before Oksyna sighed. “Fine. I swear, on the powers I have been granted, that I will bring Lady Fiaswith and those under her guidance and command no harm nor lead them into harm’s way until such time as I have been released from my oath.”
There was a flash of purple light that left afterimages in my vision, and she grimaced. “Satisfied?”
“Yes. Both of your oath… and that you are what you say you are.”
Oksyna nodded slowly and said, “Well then. Since I don’t want to get hit with an accidental violation, and you’re literally planning on going into harm’s way, shall we get going so you can debrief me?” She motioned to the townsfolk. “Ordinarily, I like the local food and architecture, but for now, I want to move on.”
“Yeah. And we have a long way to go,” Stylio said. She looked a little tired, her shoulders hunched from her normal upright posture.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Shouting like that took more out of me than the healing did,” she said, grimacing. “I am currently experiencing a significant amount of pain, especially in my arms and legs.”
“Why don’t you sit in the Lynx?” I suggested. “We can get it up to speed without you, especially if Oksyna helps. And you can help her in if she has trouble.”
“Oh, I would feel like an imposition—”
“Stylio. Sit. You kept everyone from getting stabbed. You can take a break and let the young people push the boat.” Lady Fia pointed, and the two of them locked eyes for a moment, before Stylio sighed.
“All right. This time. I’m not an invalid.”
“No, you just drained enough of your life force that your body is screaming at you for the insult,” Lady Fia said. “You need food and rest. If any of the rest of us stretched ourselves that far, you’d do the same.”
Stylio frowned and hauled herself into the Lynx, commenting under her breath, “Fia, if you could manage to drain yourself this far, I’d be terrified.”
“Also impressed,” Zoy commented from her spot on the other side of the Lynx.
“That too. Shall we?”
“Yes. Let’s get going. Time’s a-wasting!”
We started to push the Lynx into motion, Oksyna joining in with a will. By now, we had this down, and Stylio helped pull her in when we got up to speed. Lady Fia unfurled the sails, and we were off.
“Wahoo!” I heard Oksyna whoop behind me with glee.
I grinned, and turned the tiller to head down the road. “Yufemya, directions please! Let’s get back to the canal without running into any more problems?”
“I think we can manage that. It looks like we’ll have… a few intersections to deal with, and…” I heard the rustling of paper behind me, “Uh… okay, we might want to stop the Lynx before that section…”
“Why?” Lady Fia asked.
“If I’m reading this right, there are somewhere around four switchbacks on this hill coming up!”
I winced. “Yeah! See if you can find a better route!”
“On it!”
“I hope that I wasn’t a problem,” Oksyna said.
Before I could say anything, Lady Fia commented, “Are you kidding? We desperately could use your skills for this. I feel like we’re kidnapping you.”
“Hmm. Well, you should know that my ransom will be two cups of beer and a warm place to sleep.”
“I think we can afford that.”
“Am I allowed to negotiate the type of beer?”
“Ha! And what would you like?”
“A good Endan beer!”
“We’ll see what we can find in the next city.”
“Uh… Fia?”
“Yes?”
“The next city is Rechneesse.”
#
“So what’s the problem?” Oksyna asked me as we sat around the table by the inn’s fire. I glanced at Lady Fia, who was standing by the window, looking out as she drank her Endan beer. Nearby, Stylio was sleeping on a couch, a blanket covering her. Zoy and Yufemya were off getting supplies as quietly as they could manage.
Figuring that Oksyna should at least know enough about what we were getting into, I leaned in and said, “Her father-in-law, the duke of the city we’re in, tried to have her killed. She survived and she’s doing this mission on behalf of the king so that she can get his support in getting her family back.”
Oksyna glanced between me and Lady Fia before nodding slowly. “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
“Yes, but let’s save that for later.”
“Fair. I’ve only known you people for a few hours.” She finished her beer in one long pull and rose. “So, let’s get that briefing done with.” She went over to Lady Fia. “So I’ve been bound in that oath for a few hours now, and I’ve already cleaned out all of the bugs and rodents in this place. Can you please release me from that oath before I have to start on the beer? It’s good beer and I’d hate to make it go flat.”
“I take it that you were spent?” Lady Fia asked, making me glance back and forth between them, confused.
“Completely tapped. Spent it all on talking with the oathwalkers before the town guards intervened. I was just about to start in on their weapons when your friends showed up.”
Lady Fia seemed satisfied by that, so I swallowed my questions, but I was burningly curious. I’d heard about necromancers, of course. Everyone had. Bargainers with revenants, in pacts with spirits of the underworld and afterlife, able to kill with a touch and a look, or dealing with rampaging revenants and Death Curses. But Oksyna didn’t look like any of the necromancers in any of my books. She was plump and young, not old and almost skeletal, and didn’t wear a black robe with skulls on it. Instead, she had a black sleeveless dress with blue and purple ruffles over a white shirt, and black gloves. If not for the fact that Fia had called her a necromancer, I would have just assumed she was a fashionable and pretty girl about my age with a liking for dark makeup that complemented her dusky hair and skin.
“So what is your situation?” Fia asked.
“What do you mean?”
Fia shrugged and crossed her arms. “Freelance or on a mission? What other obligations do you have? Are you in someone’s service? And what are your goals regarding the oathwalkers? Are you planning on recruiting?”
Oksyna scowled. “In order, freelance, no other obligations beyond the oath you put me under, you know I can’t answer that, and I want to know why a few thousand oathwalkers suddenly decided to cross the mountains and attack every settlement in reach in the middle of winter. Something happened, and that puts it in my wheelhouse. And, no, I’m not planning on ‘recruiting’. Fixing, yes, and I’ll need their help for that, but I have no interest in becoming Nightshade reborn.” She crossed her arms and humph’ed as I winced at the mention of the legendary ancient necromantic tyrant. “Too much paperwork.”
I snorted, and she smiled at me.
Lady Fia nodded. “So what do you know about these oathwalkers?”
“Not much. I heard that they were on the rampage—luckily I was overwintering in the region—and went to investigate. The group I ran into was the first that I came across. Went to negotiate, and I was just getting through to them when those guardsmen jumped out and started with the arrows and axes.”
“How come they didn’t kill you?” I asked.
“Who? The walkers or the townies?”
“Either? Both?”
“I was easily able to suspend things with the walkers, and when the townies attacked, they went for the walkers first and then captured me when they realized who and what I was.” She shrugged. “And I didn’t want to kill them, but it’s good you showed up when you did.” I looked her over, trying to spot a weapon or a wand. She saw me and did a little pose, which made me flush. “Like what you see?”
“Uh…”
“No breaking Raavi’s brain, we need it for the Lynx,” Lady Fia admonished, but she smiled a bit. “And I know that you could have killed them if you wanted.”
“Easily.”
I leaned in a little. “How? Is it true what they say about necromancers?”
Oksyna glanced at me with a small smile. “What? That we can kill with a touch?”
“Yes…?” I said a bit hesitantly, my voice cracking a little at the end, hoping that I hadn’t just upset her.
She smirked and reached out with a pointed fingertip, brushing the side of my cheek. I flinched, but she just smiled. “See? No dying.” She then reached over to the slightly battered table nearby and ran the same finger down the length of the wooden board.
Smoke curled up from the surface as small flames spread—but not in a natural way, as they burned intricate patterns into the wood.
I glanced at Oksyna’s face, and saw that she had her eyes screwed up in concentration, her tongue sticking out and held between her teeth. After a moment, she lifted her hand up, to reveal a flower scorched into the wood.
“Very nice!” Lady Fia said appreciatively.
Staring at the flower—it was a rose, complete with thorns on the stem and distinguishable petals—I said hollowly, “That’s amazing. But… so… wait. You can just touch someone and do that?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to. First, you cannot believe the paperwork. Second, I’m not a murderer. I work with death, but I don’t want to hurry it along unless I have to.” She glanced at Lady Fia. “Which reminds me. Am I free from that oath?”
Lady Fia nodded. “You don’t have anything else to add?”
“Nope.” She folded her arms and shrugged. “You probably know more about what’s going on than I do, if you’re working for the King.”
“Well, we may still need you. So, yes, you’re released from your oath.”
Taking a deep breath, Oksyna closed her eyes and there was a flash of that black and purple light. “Phew. I was nearly tapped dry.”
“Of?” I asked plaintively.
“I don’t use Breath for my other abilities,” she said. “I need something else. Call it… Disorder, Rot, Decay, whatever. With it, I can deal with revenants, bind oaths like Lady Fia here just did. And while I get a steady drip, the best way to fill up on it is to make things around me break and decay, burn, and die.” She frowned. “So there are now no more mice, rats, fleas, or bedbugs in this inn, and I had maybe an hour or two left in my reserves before I would have had problems.”
I swallowed. “Oh.” I thought. “So that’s the black-and-purple light? Your… Entropy?”
“What’s that mean?” she asked, crossing her arms and cocking her head with interest.
“It’s a thing from engineering, on energy lost when you change one kind of energy to another,” I said. “Like when a clockwork machine ticks away, not all of the energy from the spring or the weight goes into making the gears move; you get the gears rubbing against each other, the parts hitting each other, and more. The parts warm up from the wasted heat. Or when you heat up a crucible to melt metal or glass; the crucible and the room heat up too, and that fuel goes to waste. We call that entropy, and it’s wasted because we can’t get it back to do anything else useful.”
She blinked and then a smile crossed her face. “That’s pretty much exactly what I do.” Her smile shifted to a grin. “That’s a nice word. ‘Entropy.’ Much fancier than ‘Disorder’. I like it. So yes, that light is my Entropy, and I use it for necromancer spells like how you use oilsap in a lamp.”
“Huh!” I sat down in the chair next to the fire. “So what about that?” I motioned to the burning logs in the hearth.
“What about them? I could make them burn faster, sure.” The blaze in the hearth suddenly shot up, and then calmed again. “But it usually gets me yelled at for wasting fuel. They just think that I’m using Breath.”
“Fascinating,” I said, and, clasping my hands together, leaned forward. “And you can get extremely precise?”
She nodded her head towards the table with the burned-in rose. “You saw that. That didn’t cost me anything, in fact, because the wood burned. Sure, just a little itty bit, but it still burned.”
I put my hand on my chin, thinking. “Lady Fia, what do you think about experimenting with this?”
She didn’t say anything, and I looked around. “Lady Fia?”
I stood and scanned the room.
She was gone.
#
Lady Fiaswith of House Rechneesse
Fia dropped over the side of the wall, landing behind the large hummocks of snow that were bushes in the summertime. The sharp spikes at the top of the wall hadn’t bothered her that much, between the snow and ice covering them and her own healing.
Cautiously, crouching low, she moved towards the darkened manor house. In the summer, it was a white and gold beauty, full of flowing lines and impressions of flowers and vines carved into the stone and scrollwork, with iron fences cast in waves. Now, in winter, it was a hunched lump of barely distinguishable whiteness that glowed under the muted Night-Light from where she shone behind the clouds.
Perfect.
Fia worked her way around the perimeter, remembering how the guards patrolled, keeping herself low, and her hand on the hilt of her sword.
There.
The window was lit.
She raced across the snow-covered garden, and leapt up and onto the hummock of snow that, in summer, was an iron table cast with the duke’s crest. Not slowing down, she jumped and grabbed hold of the balcony railing above, the ornamental iron vines and flowers giving her grip, and hauled herself upwards.
And then she was there.
Heart pounding, she crossed the balcony, towards the door, and tried the doorknob.
Locked.
She tried rattling it, but to no avail.
She was just considering smashing the window and unlocking it when she heard the lock click open—and the door opened.
Her husband stood there, the smell of alcohol on his breath, his face haggard and unshaven, his collar open and askew, his shirt stained with sweat and food.
And then his face lit up like spring had come months early.
She had never seen a more beautiful sight, and tackled him.
#
Some time later, she said quietly, “Thank you.”
Faalk rolled over and kissed her on the temple. “I knew you’d come back.” He swallowed. “And I’m sorry for doubting. It was… just hard in the dark to believe it all the time.” He shivered. “They showed me your head.”
“I know. I… I could see and hear.”
His eyes went wide, and he started to breathe heavily—in fear, rage, or nausea, she couldn’t tell.
She put a hand on his chest and said quietly, “It’s all right. I’m alive. Stoor is alive.” She motioned to the cradle in the corner of the bedroom, where their daughter lay sleeping. “We’ll figure everything else out.”
He swallowed and nodded before hauling himself upright, and starting to dress.
“So what next?”
She sighed. “Next I need to go.”
“But… but… you just got home!”
“And if I stay, your father will arrange another death for me and toss my body in a furnace this time,” she said, shaking her head.
“Then I’m coming with you!”
“Faalk. Love.” She rose and embraced him, his chin resting just below her shoulder. “You can’t. Stoor can’t travel safely in this cold and you have to protect her. Stay with our guards; they should still be loyal to you, even if I’m not here. And you can’t leave, not without your father either disowning you, meaning that your brother gets the duchy next, or them chasing after you, where it would be too easy to arrange an accident for our girl.”
He scowled and twisted his face away. “I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know. And I love you. But the only reason we didn’t flee before is because of your duty.”
He snorted. “My duty.” He looked up into her eyes. “You know that my father wasn’t even going to let me have a mourning period?”
“Oh?”
“Yes, but—”
The sound of a body hitting the floor came from the hall, and Fia whirled, putting Faalk behind her. Finding her sword on the floor, she bent and picked it up before heading over to the door.
“Are you done?” Zoy’s voice came through the door.
“You followed me!?” Fia demanded, outrage and respect warring inside her.
“As if it was hard to figure out where you were going! Now come on!”
“Did you kill someone?”
“Yes, a guard, but between him and the other one, we’ll be able to make it look like they killed each other,” Zoy said.
“Wait, what?” Fia threw the door open. “What ‘other’?”
Zoy walked in, wiping down her clothes with a blood-stained towel completely nonchalantly. “That one.” She tossed her head back, and Fia glanced past her into the hallway, to see a pair of bodies in her father-in-law’s livery slumped on the floor, both of them leaking blood onto the floor, a knife on the ground. Yufemya was artfully posing them, and gave a polite nod to Fia before finishing.
“Figure we can make it look like they had a wintertime fight, stabbed each other, so sad,” Zoy said. “So, you coming back?” She glanced at the floor. “After you get dressed, that is.”
Yufemya came in. “I think they’re ready, but I have no idea how long it’ll take before they’re found.”
“A while,” Faalk said a bit hollowly, and stepped out into the hallway as Fia pulled on her pants, and followed him as she pulled on her corset. He was standing over the bodies and scowling.
“Well, that’s no loss.”
Fia felt her chest tighten at the sight of the two faces in the lantern light. “I need to go.” She turned and went back to the bedroom as quickly as she could, with Faalk following behind her.
“You all right?”
She nodded. “Yes. I just… those two… I recognized them.”
“Yes, they’re my father’s men. He won’t be happy, even if it looks like an accident, and neither will Joorgen.”
Seeing Zoy’s raised questioning eyebrow, Fia said, “My father-in-law’s captain of the guard.” She motioned to the pair of bodies. “And one of them held down my left arm and the other my right leg when Joorgen readied the ax,” she said.
Faalk blinked and then his eyes narrowed. “If I go and kick them, will that make it look wrong?”
“Probably,” Zoy said.
Yufemya nodded in agreement. “They found your tracks outside and came in to investigate,” she said. “So they’ll eventually be missed, and you’ll have to figure out why they were in here for your story.”
“Oh, I will. Thank you.” He looked over the two of them. “So who are these two?”
“Adventurers helping me… possibly because they have a deathwish,” Fia said, and gave Faalk a quick overview of their meeting with the King and his task as she finished dressing.
At the end, he frowned and then nodded. “Fine. It’s not like the King is that fond of my father and his ambitions. But if this doesn’t work out, we’re taking Stoor and sailing away from here to your homeland.” He motioned to the cradle.
Fia nodded and went over to look at her daughter. She was sleeping next to the stuffed dragon toy she’d gotten for her first spring. Reaching down, she stroked the little girl’s cheek. “I’ll be back when you wake. You’ll never even know I was gone. I promise.” She looked up to Faalk. “Will you be all right?”
He nodded. “Yes. Now that I know you’re alive? Yes, a thousand times yes. And you’ll be back.”
She smiled, only to have it falter. “You said something about your father not even letting you have a mourning period?”
“Yes. He was all set to have me married off for his precious alliance, but apparently the princess I was supposed to marry has disappeared.”
“Smart girl, wherever she is,” Fia said with a scoff.
“Well, to be fair, my father wanted her, so he probably wouldn’t try to have her killed off,” Faalk said, and sighed before rubbing at his forehead. “Go. Please. Before my heart breaks, or my resolve. But if you’re not back here by Equal Nights, I’m coming to find you with Stoor.”
Feeling her own tears leak from her eyes, she bent and kissed him.
He put his arms around her, and for a brief moment, it was bliss.
And the moment ended. A lingering touch, a last look, a sad wave and a door closing behind her.
As they climbed back up over the fence, Fia turned back, and saw the light go out.
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