The pair approaching the dock attracted a great deal of attention. Though technically spring, the weather was still bitter cold, but though the two were dressed in the style of much further south they showed few signs of the harsh travel they must have endured. They were also mismatched, one being an elderly hard-bitten mercenary, the other a plain peasant girl. As they reached the merchant ship the onlookers received another surprise as the mercenary actually deferred to the peasant! "Ho the ship! Mira of Lowfells, espiri scout, and guardian Tallas of the Rohain seek passage to Crisaeda in order to visit relatives!"
Though glad enough to see Tallas, his cousin hardly knew what to make of his companion. The sailors were still telling stories of ropes and tools moving at her will, and she'd made a chair (with his youngest granddaughter in it) rise and fly around the room. He could hardly doubt she was a priest, but . . .
"So you'ld teach anyone to read and write, just so's the students'll provide room and board in turn? And if you can't get enough students you'll use your gifts to . . . what?"
"Whatever is handy," Mira grinned. "I grew up a peasant, I'm no stranger to hard work, though I've spent more time learning than working in the past two years."
"That's not like no priest I ever seen."
Mira grinned again, "I'm not the only one spreading the word, but every one of us doing the work of Exquaestio is different. You see . . ."
The boy looked up from his scribbling. Though his parents were wealthy enough to let him spend four hours of the day in Exquaestio's classes they couldn't buy ink or parchment, so he was writing in the dust with a pointed stick. "Scout Mira?"
"Yes Jassen?"
"Why doesn't Exquaestio have a church?"
Mira gestured around her, "What do you call this?"
He blinked, "I'd call it an alley."
The other students giggled.
"Come up here Jassen." Jassen reluctantly got to his feet. "Oh, come up," she repeated, "I'm not going to punish you for an honest answer."
As he reached her, Mira reached into the box where she kept her supplies and handed Jassen a slate and a piece of chalk. "Here. These are yours until the end of class tomorrow. You'll take them home with you today." Jassen's jaw dropped, but a single look kept him from protesting.
Mira turned that look on the whole class as Jassen returned to his place. "The general answer to Jassen's question is difficult, and I'll be setting lessons from the 8th and 12th chapters of the Book of Travels so we can discuss it further. But consider this. If I were to concentrate on building a church, a place just for worship, I couldn't teach. If I were to spend money on furnishing a church I couldn't buy supplies for worthy students. People are more important than buildings and, to Exquaestio, its schools come first and are as sacred as any church."
"Come on Tallas. You should be able to do this."
Tallas stifled a yawn as he looked at the bag on the table. He'd managed to adapt to being able to separate his spirit from his body when he'd become a rohain guardian, and the sense of danger he'd acquired as a signifer was useful enough, but "seeing" without using his eyes was something else altogether. Still, with the nights getting longer again, there really wasn't anything better to fill these hours.
As Tallas touched the bag again Mira spoke, "Remember, you can't force it. You need to relax and let it come to you."
Tallas began concentrating again, but the long day's work on the docks got the better of him. Mirra woke him, "All right Tallas, that's enough. We'll try again later." She sighed, "I just wish we could spend less time on our bodies and more on our minds and souls."
Tallas watched Mira carefully. Their jobs loading cargo onto ships allowed Mira the opportunity to preach to sailors and other travelers, but she could overextend herself in her enthusiasm to share her faith. After a particularly hard day in the middle of the winter just past she woke up one night vomiting blood and ended up losing a full week's work. Today, though she simply looked tired, she had that look that said she was worrying about her lack of ability to attract others to Exquaestio. Today had been fairly typical. The merchant captain had been pleased to pay for Mira's ability to move even heavy objects without touching them, and unlike most had no objections to her preaching as she worked. Unfortunately, there had been no response or questions from either ship's officers or crew in response to Mira's prayers and rites. Occasionally they'd received an offer to take lunch with the ship's captain, but most often this had been simple politeness and not real interest.
Lunch arrived, and with no invitation forthcoming, Mira and Tallas ate with the other longshoremen. Though the workers had been hostile at first, the better part of a year working the docks had made them accepted if not exactly welcome.
Lunch was nearly over and Mira had gotten her color back when their conversation was interrupted by screams. Mira immediately got to her feet and started hurrying towards their source. Tallas followed, grumbling slightly. Exquaestio taught aide to those in trouble, but his time as a mercenary had taught him caution and he wished he could teach it to Mira.
The source of the screams was an ally between two warehouses and behind a beer stall. A very pretty girl of about 12 or 13 was covered with deep bleeding welts. At first Tallas thought she was the source of the screams, but then realized they came from the older woman trying to hold the girl's hands away from her face and body. Tallas's gorge rose as he realized that the girl had made her wounds herself, and done it without a sound. In an attempt to distance himself from the scene he switched his sight to the spirit realm from the physical. What he saw then shocked him even further.
Tallas couldn't say what it was, but something alien overlay the girl's body. Not thinking, he brought forth his soul sword, the sword that was only visible in spiritual reality that he'd learned to create from his own soul. Tallas wasn't quite sure how, but he knew the thing was startled, and when he started to advance towards it with sword in hand, the thing "leapt" out of the girl's body and "flew" into the air. Determined not to let it escape Tallas took the "step" that separated body and soul and followed after the thing.
Though the thing was slower in the spiritual realm than Tallas's soul body, as soon as it realized it was pursued it started ducking through buildings, around corners, and using similar tricks. Though Tallas tried to keep up, it eventually escaped. Tallas swore in anger and carefully marked where he was in the town. Perhaps he could track the thing down later. He then "snapped" back to his physical body.
Back in his physical body Tallas first noticed the pain in his head. His body had obviously collapsed when his soul left it and his head had hit something in the resulting fall. The second thing he noticed were the shouts. "It's her fault! Casting magic! What'd you do to my girl witch!?"
Tallas sat up and winced as the pain in his head moved from a single spot to an overall throbbing. "It had nothing to do with us goodwife. Your daughter had been possessed by a demon. It wasn't about to let her go before I drove it off."
"It's her fault! Casting spells, stirring up the dreaming!"
Tallas got to his feet, and found Mira supporting him with a worried look on her face. "Goodwife I suggest that you tend your daughter. I drove off the demon, but we can do nothing for her injuries."
Walking out of the alley with Mira's support, Tallas was worried by what he saw. Too many of the gathered crowd were obviously listening to the mother's accusations.
Mira threw the scroll against the wall, yelling "Rot!" Tallas looked up in shock. It was totally against her nature to treat a written work that way. Mira caught the look and was shamefaced as she retrieved the scroll and brushed it off.
"Care to talk about it?" Tallas asked mildly.
"It's utter rot." Mira replied with a fierce intensity. I'd hoped to get something that would help me understand my abilities. Instead, well listen.
Authority is almost beautiful in its simplicity. In concord with a dream the binder is limited only by his concentration. Ensample concord with fire, fire obeys the binder as the most loyal of servants, needing only know his will. It is as the binder loses concentration that fire returns to the inner nature given it by the creator.
"Which means what exactly?"
Mira laughed. "The language is strange, isn't it. Mirrish high style. Anyway; it seems to be saying that gaining authority magic may be difficult, but the magic itself is simple and easy. But espiri authority isn't that way at all. It's complicated and difficult."
"Well, you said the scroll is Mirrish. Perhaps the mage who wrote the scroll didn't have any real experience with authority magic. Or, maybe it just seemed easy to him compared to essence."
Mira giggled. "I don't think so." She paused a moment. "No. What I think is that there are many forms of essence and authority. People may think there's a simple division between essence and authority, but the truth is much more complex. The manners of Crisaeda and Cormenaera are different, but they are both manners of the Free Cities, which are different from, say, the manners of Thalcedon." She grimaced, "Which means, unfortunately, that we're on our own when it comes to understanding how espiri authority works."
"Weren't essence and authority mentioned in The Book of Travels?"
Mira stilled. "Most of the time The Book of Travels just uses the term "magic." It did speak of essense and authority in . . . the final chapter, of course, "Lowfells.""
"Which you didn't copy."
"Which I didn't copy," Mira agreed. "I couldn't bring everything, and I was there after all." She shook her head. "I'll write to the holy father and see how soon he can send me a copy."
Mira had just gathered the household's children to tell them a story when the master of the house showed the two men in. The first was wearing city colors and carrying the truncheon of the city guard, a stranger, apparantly, to everyone in the house. The second, however . . . "Vorhes!" Mira cried joyfully, "forgive me for not getting up, but . . ." she gestured to the children settled on and around her. "Who is your friend? I assume he's not on official business?"
Tallas remembered Vorhes the minstrel quite well. Vorhes had found the two of them in the spring, and, learning of the stories in the Book of Travels had spent nearly a full month learning as many of the tales as he could. Something about him had changed though. Though he still carried his gittern and pipes, and was nearly as dapper as ever, his expression was, well, as if someone had set a meal in front of him he wasn't sure was edible, but was trying to be polite about it.
"Actually Mira," Vorhes replied, "we just now met on the street. Guardman Rufo, the lady on the floor is the Exquaestio scout Mira and the gentleman standing in the corner is her husband, Exquaestio Signifer Tallas."
Looking at the wide stares of the family the guardsman smiled self-conciously and bowed. "It's not official missus. I just need a few minutes with mister Tallas if you don't mind."
"Of course not," Tallas said. Then, turning to the woman of the house, "Would you mind if we used the second room?"
"Ah. No. Go ahead. Can I bring you some, ah, anything?" The poor woman was obviously flustered. An apprentice carpenter and a laundress just weren't used to being called on by guardsmen and minstrels. Though they were determined to see their children given the basic education that had held them back they hadn't expected such visitors while offering their hospitality to the Exquaestio pair.
Leading Rufo into the back room, Tallas took a seat on the scrupulously clean pallet and gestured for the visitor to do the same. "So what's this about?"
"You remember a girl on the docks a few months back, clawing at herself and not making a sound?"
"Yes?"
"Four days ago there was another case my district. I found the child, or perhaps I should say her body. After I reported it I learned that these incidents have been have been occuring for about three years, but none had been reported since your incident on the docks. At least until I found this victim."
Back in the flat's main room Vorhes had agreed to perform for the family. As they listened he sang of "Feroze and the Dragon." Mira knew the tale from The Book of Travels well, but the music and verse made it wondrous.
With the family she listed as Feroze came upon a village plagued by a dragon and agreed to fight it. She hugged the children on her lap as Feroze faced dangers seeking the dragon, but failed to find it. She frowned as the song skipped over the god's trials proving the dragon was imaginary, but delighted in the song's words challenging the village to look past their imaginary dragon. At that stirring point Vorhes ended the song, but Mira couldn't help but think of Feroze's attempt to fight the imaginary dragon and his failure which ended that chapter in the The Book of Travels.
Beyond the song itself, however, she delighted in the traces of espiri power she felt as Vorhes sang, and once the children were settled she didn't hesitate to congratulate him.
"So it is real then?"
"Of course."
"So how do I make it go away?"
"What?"
"How do I make it stop? Every time I play in front of an audiance this, this . . ."
"Channel?"
"Whatever! It doesn't do anything. It's just there distracting me. Surely you can make it stop."
Mira shook her head. "Feroze chooses Espiri for his own reasons. I don't know why he chose you, and I can't make him stop."
She continued, "I am a bit surprised that you haven't figured out your channel does. In the past each time a new channel has appeared the espiri has figured out something to do with it almost immediately. Of course there have been only two of us so far. You're number three."
"You don't know what it does?"
"No. Every Scout is given access to a single channel of Feroze's authority. We can sense other channels, but can only tell if a working matches our own channel, not what another working is. If you were to consult with the Pioneer she would be able to sense your gift much better than I, since Pioneers have all the channels given to Scouts, but if your gift is new she still won't be able to help you work with it."
Tallas and Mira were making their way to the docks to begin their days work and passing through an empty alley when Tallas became aware of the presence of danger. He pushed Mira to one of the walls and drew his knife and barrelhook to confront . . . four, no six thugs. All armed with shortswords well above the legal length. "Luckily they don't know how to use them," Tallas thought as he and Mira started yelling for help. "And what are they doing attacking us?"
It didn't take Mira long to realize that their attackers had picked a good spot for their ambush. The alley wasn't well traveled, and their shouts weren't attracting anyone. The thugs had also been surprised by Tallas's quick response, but if they had held back a bit they were now moving in.
Saving her breath, Mira began a simple rite as she drew her own knife, but lost control of the channels as an attacker tried to lunge past Tallas to strike at her. In the meantime Tallas was fighting desperately. A vicious kick laid one attacker out, and two of the attackers had been grazed with his knife, but his attempts to protect Mira left him vulnerable and he'd picked up a few grazes of his own. The next time he was forced away from Mira however, she had completed her rite and released her knife to strike high in an attacker's chest.
Though unexpected, Tallas was quick to take advantage of his opponents' surprise. His barrelhook darted out to twist a sword from one hand and then looped around to catch another opponent above the eyes which followed the flying sword instead of watching Tallas.
Mira wasn't aware that their attackers had been getting in each others way. As she began a rite to bring the two swords she could see to her she was very aware when Tallas failed to move far enough from a blow and a swork sank into his gut. Paling, Talls dropped.
The alley filled with a shriek of denial that Mira would later be surprised to realize came from her. Forgetting everything else, she pushed at the attacker with her ability. The resulting magical blow threw her victim against the far wall of the alley, where he landed limply.
"Oh. I guess that was stupid." Mira thought in exhaustion as the magic escaped her grasp and she fell to her knees. Numbly she watched the final two attackers turn and run.
Her fluttering thoughts relaxed for a moment, before she realized that Tallas was still hurt. Crawling over to him she ignored the gore as she tried to block the gore with her hands. A gut wound was almost certain death she remembered. Reaching for her channel she sobbed in despair. "If only I could heal." At the edge of collapse as she was, the wonder of what happened would come later. As she reached for her normal channel others come with it. Some channels were similar to what she was used to using. Others were completely different. She knew exactly which channel could be used to heal, she realized. If only she could figure out how.
Workers from the docks were gathering as Vorhes made his way over to Mira. He'd wanted to speak with her that morning, but she'd left before he'd arrived at her rooms. Vorhes realized Mira was using magic of some sort; he'd grown more sensitive to Mira's magic over the past few weeks as they'd tried to figure out his own magic. What she was doing now, though, seemed . . . different in some way.
Mira looked up as Vorhes knelt beside her, and he couldn't help but recoil. With two black eyes set among other bruises, arms covered in blood to elbows, and the pinched look that comes from total exhaustion, Mira looked more madwoman than priestess.
"High Gods girl! What are you doing?"
"Trying to save his life. Help me. Please . . ." Mira begged.
Scarcely thinking about it, Vorhes gittern was in his hands. Though he doubted it would help in the end, he'd still lend whatever aid he could.
One of the laborers approached. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Vorhes fingers fumbled on the cold strings for a moment. "Your prayers couldn't hurt."
More people gathered around but Vorhes ignored the whispers as he started to play and his magic reached out to Mira. His own power felt like a torch as he reached out to the guttering embers of Mira's power. Then he became aware of yet other power around him. Mere wisps, but he realized that he could gather those wisps and combine them together.
Pausing only a moment Vorhes turned to dockworker who'd spoken to him earlier. "There is something you can do," he said. "Sing this song with me." Inventing new words he started playing a working song he'd heard not long ago on these very docks.
As more voices joined n the ancient work song, Vohes took the wisps of power provided and wove them into the magic that Mira was attempting. Pushing back the wonder that he'd finally found what Feroze's gift was supposed to do and the feeling of rightness as the magic flowed through him he concentrating on laying the power where it would Mira the most.
Mira was oblivious to her surroundings. She'd quickly discovered that the healing power might be in her grasp, but she lacked the skill to heal Tallas outright. She'd managed to stop most of the bleeding with what she already knew, but it would start again as soon as she stopped concentrating. Even with the bleeding stopped, she could feel Tallas's life slipping away.
In desperation she tried exchanging her health for Tallas's injury, and though the patterns were still difficult, this turned out to be something that she could do.
Then Vorhes power, together with what he had gathered from his singers, meshed with Mira's own. With the added strength came additional perception. Mira became aware that it wasn't necessary to take Vorhes wound directly numerous small wounds would serve just as well.
Vorhes was unsurprised when Mira's rite ended and she collapsed. He was more surprised to that she and Tallas were still breathing, and Tallas's wound was gone without even a scar.
"What happened?" one of the onlookers asked.
"We healed Tallas," Vorhes said as he leaned over to examine the pair more closely.
"You mean Mira healed him."
"(But I thought she couldn't heal . . .)" came whiny voice from the crowd.
Ignoring the whiner Vorhes replied, "No. Mira was the . . . the knot tying a rope to a bollard. Just like everyone on a line pulls though, we all healed. It took a lot out of her though."
Unfortunately unconsciousness turned into fever, and a full explanation of the day's events would have to wait.
Ria stalked through the fair. She would have much rather been training, or even dealing with the paperwork of her position, but the Archmage's orders had been quite clear. "Show yourself at the Midterm Fair. Make yourself approachable and don't scare anyone off." She was politician enough to understand the Archmage's motives, but the order made her feel more like a performing bear than a Warlord.
Centuries ago the Midterm Fair had been founded as a chance for relatives to visit students at the Academy of Sorcery. Since then it had expanded into a three-day event complete with competitions among the students, special displays of magic by the masters, entertainments, food, and every opportunity for the students and other participants to play pranks and otherwise enjoy themselves. From the grounds of the Academy proper it had spread out to into the surrounding streets. Ria knew quite well that the Fair offered valuable relief for students after the demands of their studies, but she hadn't liked the Fair much as a student, and liked it even less today.
Still, orders were orders, and she tried to enjoy herself.
Taking a deep breath, her attention was caught by a fair barker. "See the Exotic Magical Mysteries of Exquaestio! Cast an Exquaestio spell -- No talent required! Wonder at Images of the Dreaming! Southwest Sanraeth Park -- No Admission Fee!"
"Cast a spell without talent?" Ria thought, and turned toward Sanraeth Park. Most likely the claim was simple fraud; but to make it out in public made it something that should be looked into. She frowned slightly at another barker, this one touting Exquaestio as hiring teachers, mages, and craftsmen. "And if it isn't fraud," she thought, "it's even more imperative that the Council know about it as soon as possible."
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