All communication bands are completely silent. Optical survey of the planetary surface shows significant anomalies in comparison with archival data. These include orbital infrastructure that is apparently missing, urban areas that are reduced or missing entirely, and significant erosion and geological activity on the planetary surface.
The causes for these are unknown, but due to our limited assets and resources, we are maintaining a low emissions profile and engaging in passive observation only. In the meanwhile, our attempts to determine the cause of our failed transit continue.
###
Raavi ava Laargan
Rolling out of bed, I managed to fight back my reflex for a yawn, and held my Breath in. The air in my lungs seemed to burn, but it only took a few seconds before I managed to grab the cut quartz crystal die I had placed on my bedside and Breathed out into it.
As the crystal glowed with a muted green-yellow tone, the burning in my lungs vanished as I took a deep breath of fresh air. I went over to the small tray of sand and used the dedicated dowel to smooth it out before drawing a simple quadrant into the grains.
“Work,” I pointed to the first quadrant, “People,” the second, “Personal,” the third, “and Other,” for the fourth. I held the quartz, cut into a simple six-sided cube, in my cupped hands. I shook it a few times and then asked my question. “Am I going to have a good day today?”
I tossed the die into the tray, where it bounced a few times, leaking green-yellow Breath as it went, until it landed on the line between “Work” and “Other”. I leaned in, and frowned.
“Well, that’s not good.” The face of the crystal die showed the symbol for Danger, Be Warned. And it wasn’t like I could ask it another question either, not until I next slept.
Putting the tray and the crystal die aside with some trepidation, I instead turned to my waking routine. After half a month with no sunrise or sunset at all to set a sleep cycle to, I’d settled into eight to nine hours asleep and about thirty-two awake. That was about average for an overwinterer, so I was rested and refreshed and ready to face the world.
As I went into the washroom to clean up, I gave the die and the tray a final glance.
At least… I hoped I was ready.
Half an hour later, I was cleaned, dressed, and munching on a slice of buttered bread while looking out through the window. Winter was here in earnest, and while I had seen snow before—I remembered vividly when I’d been twelve, we’d held the Sundown Feast in the middle of a blizzard, with the awnings creaking from the weight of the snow—seeing it like this, with endless flakes coming down giving the whole world a soft ethereal glow was something new.
“I need to keep reminding myself that this is your first overwinter,” Emuund’s voice came from behind me. “I was like that for my first overwinter too. But you’ll come to hate the snow by the time the sun rises, trust me.”
“Heh. Well, for the moment, I’m watching it,” I said, not turning away from the window. It was beautiful. White and pure, like Breath made manifest…
“I’m just hoping I get some clear skies at some point,” Emuund said, yawning; our sleep cycles had not matched up in the end. “I’m planning to collaborate with the Astronomical Institute for some observations.”
I shrugged. “Well, keep an eye on the weather, and maybe you’ll get lucky.” Sure, there was a constant wind blowing in from the south during the winter—just as there was a constant wind that blew from the north during the summer—but that didn’t mean that clouds were constant.
“Well, we’ve got months left. I’m sure I’ll get a chance.” He yawned again. “I’m off to bed. Don’t burn down the house.”
I snorted, and got ready to go to work. Boots, vest, coat, hood, gloves, and scarf all went on in layers; with the ever-present winds blowing outside, I needed to be well-insulated, even for the relatively short walk.
I was halfway to the ironworks when I heard a commotion coming from down one of the side streets, and went to investigate. “Hello?”
“Who’s there!?” came a call through the blowing snow.
“Raavi ava Laargan!” I shouted back. “What’s going on?” I turned the corner and found a few of the overwinterers standing alert. They had their crossbows cocked but not pointed, and there were two people dressed in battered coats standing a few yards away, towards the outskirts of town.
“Found these two squatting—”
“We only just arrived,” said the taller one, in a deep woman’s voice.
“Then preparing to squat—”
“We were just passing through and have no intention of staying where we’re not wanted,” she said. She had some kind of accent I didn’t recognize, but that didn’t mean much. I wasn’t exactly well-traveled.
I cocked an eyebrow and looked between the other overwinterers and the two travelers. “What are you doing here?”
“Raavi, don’t listen to them—”
“I am a simple traveling penitent, and this is my ward.” She motioned to the second figure, who was about my height under their cloak. “We mean no harm.”
“They’re a pair of vagabonds,” said one of the overwinterers suspiciously. “Probably criminals turned out and exiled.”
“They’re two people. Are you really going to just throw them out into the snow?” I demanded, before turning back to the pair. “You can stay in my house at least until you’ve warmed up and had something to eat.”
“Raavi—!”
“They’re my guests now, and if you want to make a complaint about it, take it up with the mayor,” I said tartly.
They snorted and moved away. “If they slit your throat when you’re asleep, don’t come crying to me!”
I gave an answering snort, just as loud and as obnoxious as I could make it—and given that I was a teenaged boy, I felt pretty proud of my ability in that regard, making the second cloaked figure snicker. I turned to them. “Come with me?” I said. “I’m on my way to work, but if you want to warm up there before heading to my house, I think we can make that work.”
“I accept your hospitality,” said the older woman. “Come, Zoy. Time for us to get out of the cold.”
“Huzzah,” said Zoy—her voice was even more accented, but she was undoubtedly a woman—and started moving lightly through the snow.
I led them up the street towards the ironworks and glassworks. I got them settled in the visitor’s room at the ironworks, getting them some water and a little food from one of the cupboards.
“Thank you,” said the penitent, taking off her cloak. She was a bit taller than me, with dark black hair, streaked with white, tied up into a severe bun. “My name is Stylio. I appreciate your acceptance of us.”
“Of course! I’m not going to force anyone to stay out there in winter!” I said, and then blinked as Zoy took off her own cloak. With that gone, she turned out to be shorter than me, with brilliant but short golden hair.
My mouth went dry for a few reasons, but she ignored me and reached over to the aged sausage, cheese slices, and crackers that was on the platter that I’d brought out. “Well, that’s good,” she said, taking a few slices and tossing them in her mouth as her ear-length hair dangled. “‘Preciate it.”
“My ward’s irreverence aside, she is right. Thank you. Now, I believe you have some work to do?” Stylio said. “We shall be fine here for now.”
“You sure?” I asked, trying to push down my reactions. She was pretty, maybe about my age or a bit older… and, I had to remind myself, her having short hair could be for any number of reasons. They were foreign, or it could have been an accident that made the hair burn or get cut…
“Yes. I would hate for you, as our host, to have problems with your employment,” Stylio said, reaching over and taking a slice of bread. Nibbling on it, she said, “Your kindness is much appreciated but we will not melt nor vanish into the snows. You have my word.”
I glanced at Zoy, and felt my cheeks heat as she looked back at me, taking a bite of another piece of sausage as she raised an eyebrow. “Right, right. Um… until later?”
“Go do your work, dear host. We aren’t going back out into the storms, have no worries.”
Cheeks still burning, I turned and went back over to the sandpit. There, I found my coworkers already hard at work, iron ladles in hand, and saw Renaata wave from next to Maalte, both of them queuing to refill their ladles.
“Hoy, Raavi! You’re a bit late!” Renaata said.
“I know, I was helping these people from out of town—”
“I heard. Come on, you can get the next batch of iron started in Crucible Five, since we’re already started the pour for Crucible Three.”
I frowned and sighed. Well, if that was the cost of my good deed, I’d accept that.
Getting a handcart from the hallway, I made my way up into the warehouse and found the stacked bars of iron right where they should be, between the stacks of the copper and zinc ingots. Those stacks were nearly empty, since we usually spent the summer rolling out the window cames. In spring, the canals would come with barges loaded with more metal for us to shape for the windows and other products that we made here, but, for the moment, we were focused on melting iron. With a grunt, I picked up the first ingot of iron, which would be a future window frame or some other elegant product. For now, though, it was blasted heavy—forty pounds, according to the stamp in the metal—and I loaded six onto the cart before I figured that it wouldn’t hold any more.
Trying to look nonchalant, I started rolling the cart back down the ramp, only to realize that I’d miscalculated. Two hundred and forty pounds of iron was one and a half of me in mass, plus the weight of the hand-cart.
Nonchalantness was thrown out the window, quickly joined by decorum, as I tried to keep the cart from rolling down the ramp at full speed. I crouched down and braced my feet; thankfully, the rough texture of the ramp’s covering was enough to keep me from getting dragged down the ramp with the iron.
And then I heard a voice call out my name, and my heart sank.
“Raavi?” came Zoy’s voice up the rampway.
I considered my options. I could let go of the cart, which would roll down the ramp and hit the wall, which would probably hold from the impact, but if it didn’t, there would be an impressive hole in the side of the building and I would never live it down.
Or I could let Zoy find me, my arms straining as I held onto the cart for dear life, with the rest of me locked into a deep squatting stance to give myself as much control over the cart as possible.
Before I could decide, she appeared along the railing. Her eyes glanced over my predicament, but she said nothing, not even a scoff at how silly I looked. Which was good, because one laugh and she would have obliterated me.
“Stylio sent me to help you,” she said instead, and I reconsidered the laugh. She hopped over the railing, and took position at the bottom of the cart. “She said it was the least we could do if you’re offering us a place to stay.”
As she braced herself against the bottom of the cart, the pull of gravity lessened, and I was able to straighten up a bit. “Thanks,” I gasped.
“I’m just doing what she told me to do. Thank her. Come on, where is this going?”
“Second level, over by the crucibles.” I tried not to look at her as she helped brace the cart, but that was hard. Out of her winter coat and cloak, she was a short, attractive woman who seemed to be made up of wire and sinew, under a pair of long flowing pants and a flowing shirt; a belt with leather pouches was around her waist, cinching the baggy top closed. The fact that her hair was cut short, to a length even with her ear, just seemed to add an air of danger to her, even though logically I knew that she almost certainly wasn’t a criminal, given how she was helping me.
“All right. Point the way.”
Working together, we made our way over to the crucibles in short order. We had five, but we could only use two of them in the summer unless we wanted the building to overheat, so now was the time of year when we could use them as much as we wanted. I opened the hatch for Crucible Five and together we started loading in the ingots, with Zoy lifting them off of the cart and handing them to me.
“So…” I began, grunting as she handed me one of the blocks of metal, “what were you and Stylio doing out there in the winter?”
“Surviving.”
I glanced at her, concerned. “I’d hope so! But like… where do you come from? Why didn’t you have a place to overwinter?”
She scoffed and motioned with her chin to the inside of the crucible. “Come on.” I put the block of iron into the crucible and turned back to her, only to have her shove the last ingot into my hands. “Look, kid, you’re nice, and I’m not a threat to you, but I don’t know you, and Stylio didn’t say I could tell you anything.”
“Why? Would you get in trouble?” I asked, putting the block into the crucible and trying to ignore the ‘kid’ comment.
“No, but you might. Just drop it.”
I mimed dropping the iron on my toe and then hopped around for a moment as if I’d dropped an ingot on my foot, which made her laugh for a moment. “Okay, that was a good one. Come on, the cart’s empty. Is that enough?”
I shook my head. “We’ll need another…” I glanced inside, “three loads that size. At least. Otherwise it’s not worth heating up the crucible.”
Her eyes tracked up the side, and nodded. “Got it.”
We went back up into the warehouse. Getting over to the stacks of iron, I looked it over with a sigh and said, “Remind me to talk with the others about putting the metal down on a lower level.”
“Why is it even up here in the first place?”
“I’m not sure. You’d think that we’d put the heavier stuff down below, but what’s down there is coke and bagged sand… in… ohhh…”
She smirked. “You look like you just had a spark hit you. What is it?”
“The sand for the glass is in hundred pound sacks. These are the lighter things… individually, at least.” I hefted the forty pound iron ingot.
“Well, looks like we have more work to do.”
We worked quickly after that, getting the crucible loaded up in short order with over a ton of iron; I didn’t press her for more information on where she and Stylio were from. I did, however, have other questions.
“I’m still just wondering what you were doing out there in the winter!”
“What? Do you think that the whole world goes to sleep?” She scoffed when I started to nod. “Overwinterers started as people guarding their towns from other people looking to take advantage of a whole town of sleeping people. The ‘work through the winter’ thing was later. Do you think that they would have done that if everyone slept?”
I blinked as I sealed up Crucible Five, before turning to her, my head cocked. “But… that means you’re planning on attacking, then?”
“I didn’t say that,” she said quickly.
“Then what are you saying?”
“That there are always people overwintering for one reason or another,” she said.
Before I could try to push on that line of logic, there was a crash from below, followed by a ragged scream, and more shouting.
I bolted for the stairs, taking them three at a time—and then blinked as I saw Zoy vault over the railings, hang from the top railing, let go and catch herself on the bottom of the catwalk, and then drop to the floor in a roll.
The agonized screaming continued, even as the shouting was calming down, and I shook myself and followed after her.
Turning the corner, I saw a grisly sight. An iron beam the size of a person had fallen over onto one of my coworkers, crushing one of their legs. They were the ones screaming, while everyone else was gathering around—including Stylio.
“We need to get the beam off of them. Sing with me,” she said in her accent, and began to vocalize with her deep voice. On key, with no aids needed, and I could feel it in my bones. The others joined in, one at a time, as best they could, synchronizing their Breath with hers. I recognized the spell; it was a muscle-strengthening spell, like the sort that an archer squad or group of teamsters would use. But just because I recognized it didn’t mean that I could just do it off the cuff, much less lead a group of people I had just met!
But Stylio could, apparently, and working together, they had the iron beam lifted up from its victim in a trice, revealing their crushed leg. It had to be broken in at least three places.
I grimaced—and then I blinked. They had been sitting on my favorite bench. If I hadn’t been loading up the iron with Zoy…
The realization that I had nearly been squished myself—and would have, if I hadn’t helped Zoy and Stylio—was pushed aside as Stylio knelt next to the panting and gasping person. She pulled off their work hood, revealing Maalte, his face streaked with sweat and vomit.
“We’ll need to get a healer,” Renaata said as Stylio cut open Maalte’s pants’ leg and probed it. Renaata was wringing her hands before looking up at me. “Raavi, do you know who is awake? Your mother is one of the better healers, but she’s asleep—”
Before she could continue, though, Stylio reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a wooden wand-flute. I could see that it was beautifully carved, even obscured as it was by her hands, and then she began to play.
We all sat back, watching and listening in awe, as Stylio began to weave an intricate spell of healing.
I’d spent my life as my mother’s audience; even though my own interests were in metal and glass and mechanisms, I knew the basics of healing as only someone with a parent who was a dedicated healer and who explained her art to her inquisitive eldest son could. I knew enough to heal a burn, close a cut, or otherwise do some first aid so that someone who actually knew what they were doing could take over, and I knew that was my limit.
And for most of my life, my mother had been the best healer I knew. Indeed, when I’d been younger, I’d thought she was the best.
Now I knew better.
Stylio was a master. Precise, controlled, a virtuoso. I could pick out the individual components of her spell in the same way that a child could identify the colors on the canvas painted by a master. It was a masterpiece, composed from the standard formulations and strung together quickly and efficiently. There was one movement to close the breaks in the skin. Other separate movements to realign the breaks in the bones and then to fuse them. Still more to heal the tears in the muscles.
And that made me start to worry if she could pull it off as she built to a crescendo, preparing to cast the spell. The larger the spell, the more of her own Breath it would take to fuel. Yes, you couldn’t kill yourself with casting a spell—although you could certainly knock yourself out!—but there was a reason why for major healings it was usually done as a group, with multiple people each donating a small portion of their own Breath to be shaped by the main caster.
And then she finished, and the blue-white glow of her Breath streamed out of her flute and into Maalte’s leg.
She sagged a little, but I could only watch, awed, as the broken leg straightened, Maalte screaming, followed by his screams tapering off as the bleeding stopped, the holes in his skin closing. Inside, the bones were fusing. Not fully healed, but enough to let him stand. He blinked, looked at Stylio, gasped out, “Thank you,” and then passed out.
#
“And you are still not answering my questions!” Mayor Laarthan thundered.
I winced from where I was standing by the doors to his office, but Stylio simply smiled. “I have answered them to what is your business. I am a wandering penitent. This is my ward. We were passing through town on the road when we were accosted by several guards, baselessly accused, and then offered hospitality by young Raavi there. We accepted, followed him to his workplace, and aided with his work and intervened in an accident. That is the whole of it. I do not understand the issue that you have with me?”
“The issue is what a Dormelion is doing so far from home, and one with such a fine-tuned talent at that, without a license!” He pounded the table.
“Would you have preferred that I had left the man maimed?”
“No…” Mayor Laarthan said through gritted teeth. “You could have given him a cancer or some other growth, charging in like that, though.”
“But I did not. Your own healer attested to that. As for why I am here…” Stylio shrugged. “I was led here by a sign, and I wish to help. If you feel that you do not want someone who is willing to heal, that is your prerogative, my lord Mayor, but I have been offered hospitality by a resident of your town. Unless I have broken some law, I believe that I, and my ward, are perfectly within our rights to stay here until such time as our hospitality is revoked by our host.”
Mayor Laarthan glanced at me and scowled. I gave him a half-hearted smile in response before he turned back to Stylio. “Fine then.” He pointed at me. “Raavi there is your guarantor for good behavior. If there is the slightest problem, I will throw both of you back out into the winter and throw the book at him, am I understood?”
“Unquestionably,” Stylio said. “Are we done here?” She rose from her chair.
Mayor Laarthan scoffed. “Unless Raavi wants to reconsider taking in a couple of foreign outsiders a thousand miles from their home, yes, we are.”
“Good. I have a patient to check on.” With that, Stylio turned and walked to the door. She smiled at me as Zoy followed in her wake. “Come, Raavi.”
Not wanting to stay in that office for a second longer than I had to, I followed quickly, in silent awe of Stylio. She’d just performed a major healing, and instead of being exhausted and filled with pain like most people would be—to use your Breath, you were literally tearing out bits of your own soul to fuel the magic, after all—she seemed to be doing just fine. Indeed, once she’d finished healing Maalte, she’d ordered Zoy to bring over the rest of the meat, cheese, and bread and get him to eat them in order to refuel his body. And then the mayor’s officers had shown up and brought us to his office.
“Are you okay?” I asked her for probably the fifth or sixth time.
“I’m fine. Nothing a good sleep or two won’t be able to fix.”
I gave her, and then Zoy, a sidelong look. She’d done that major healing by herself, with no donors of Breath, and she was fine? By all rights, she should have been lying in a chair, moaning and taking painkillers.
Zoy just gave me a shrug and a roll of her eyes in response before putting her coat and cloak back on. I followed suit, and shortly we were back outside in the blizzard.
We trudged through the snow in silence, only the crunch of the snow under our boots offering any sound, with me leading the way. We were about halfway back to my house before I blurted, “So you’re a Dormelion?”
Stylio chuckled slightly from behind her scarf. “Yes. Having second thoughts at having someone from the Empire under your roof?”
I shrugged. “No. I just… You’re very far from home.”
“The Empire isn’t home for me anymore, for either of us, and hasn’t been for some time,” Stylio said. “And I understand your mayor’s dislike of us on those grounds.” I felt her hand touch my shoulder, and I turned. While only her dark brown eyes were exposed under her layers of clothing, I could see concern in them. “If we will cause you problems, we can go.”
As Zoy scoffed, I shook my head. “No. You helped Maalte just like that. Besides, I would love for you to meet my Mom when she wakes up. I thought that she was the best healer, but you can teach her so much.”
“I doubt that we will stay that long, but the thought is appreciated,” she said. “Now, shall we get out of the snow and cold and into somewhere warm?”
“Oh, oh, of course!” I blurted. “You’ve got to be aching with all of that Breath you expended! And then dealing with the Mayor!” I turned and started moving through the snow again. “Follow me!”
We made our way back to the house and got our coats and boots hung up on the racks in the entryway, and when I opened the inner door to the rest of the house, I smelled something that made my mouth water.
Zoy sniffed appreciatively from behind me. “Well now. That’s nice. Your cooking?”
I shook my head. “I wish. I’ve been eating leftovers from the Nightfest Feast and the like, plus whatever anyone else cooks up.” I climbed up the stairs and went to the kitchen, finding a large pot of something on the stove with a note tied to one of the handles.
Raavi,
I know it’s not much, but I needed to say thank you to your guest for helping with Maalte. It needs to cook for a few hours. I put a marker on the clock.
Leena
I grinned and held it up. “It’s from Maalte’s wife. See? I told you that it wouldn’t be a problem.” I glanced up at the clock and saw the marker Leena had left between the notches along the dial. “It’ll be ready in an hour and a half.”
Zoy leaned over the pot and sniffed greedily. “Beats road rations.” She glanced at Stylio. “I say we stay for now. And if that mayor gets in your face again, I have a solution.”
Stylio snorted. “No murder.”
“I no longer have a solution.”
I chuckled at their back-and-forth. “Come on. Let’s get you two some places to sleep and you can shower and everything while we’re waiting for the food to cook.”
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