Darolio 2, 1277. Morning coffee aboard the Sheldrake. Looking at the past to see my way forward…
I walked across the common room of the Sheldrake, then carefully sat down on the bench by my favorite window. Tyre’s coffee smoothed down my frayed nerves. Sadly, it didn’t do much for my aches and pains.
The bandages on my back itched, but so did all the scars. Magic healing worked wonders, but the body always remembered. At least I had fresh clothes that weren’t torn to ribbons.
Outside, I watched the sunrise kiss the blue-gray buildings of Talabrae’s Deep, while its people went about their day. It was a soothing portrait of normal. Not a single one of those people had any idea how close they came to a brush with disaster. That was fine by me.
I pulled down my goggles against the morning sun, then enjoyed another taste of coffee.
The crowd along the caravan docks grew while the town woke up. Merchants and mercenaries packed their caravans or windwagons while they prepared to leave. Between the crowds, I saw a familiar figure stroll toward a caravan that flew the Crimson Company banner. Five well armed mercenaries stepped out to meet him.
I knew that man all too well.
He was human and impeccably dressed. Everything from his sleeveless long coat and wine-red shirt to polished boots was clean cut. Even his long blond hair had been styled back into a tight braid.
Vincent Takeda Vargas stopped before he reached the Crimson Company caravan, then turned to look over his shoulder at me. With a small nod, he lifted a hand in my direction.
I returned the wave. Vargas walked away to join his mercenaries, while I took a sip from my cup. The coffee really was fantastic. It tasted like freedom.
My thoughts wandered a bit before I pulled a familiar small crystal from a pocket of my new vest. It was the crystal shard that Baron Marius had used as a spell focus. Mikasi had given it to me once we were back in Talabrae’s Deep, saying it bothered him.
“You caused a lot of trouble,” I sighed at the stone.
I rolled the quartz-like stone between my thumb and forefinger while I stared at it. Its facets caught the sunlight, twinkling brightly.
“How did Marius get this to work?” I mused. “I wonder…”
Slowly, I tilted my head a little to one side, then frowned. After a long breath, I focused my altered eyes on the heart of the stone, the broken shard of an Automatic Crystal. Either I’d see something, or get a headache in the process.
Deep inside the stone, a yellow-gold glow surrounded a twist of dark smoke like a cocoon. That black smudge jumped and thrashed against the golden light. It was like a demon dancing on the head of a pin.
“Well, I’ll be,” I murmured. “So, it was right here all this time. Who would’ve guessed?” A dozen thoughts spun through my head all at once. “I need to figure out what to do about you.”
I dropped the crystal back into a vest pocket when Ki strolled up the Sheldrake’s ramp. He looked better than he had a couple of days ago. Rest, some healing magic, and fresh clothes had done wonders. Ki slowly stretched the stiffness out of an arm, then joined me at the window.
“Now for home?” he asked wistfully.
“Home,” I replied.
“Tyre said you wanted to make one stop?”
I watched the activity outside and nodded.
“Just one.” I pulled in a deep breath. “I need to get my head straight about a couple of things. It won’t take long.”
Ki nodded, then glanced outside with a frown.
“So. You cast a spell.”
Tension dug its claws in and crawled up my spine. I hadn’t been looking forward to this conversation.
“I did.” A sigh bled out of me. “Not that I wanted to, but I needed to.”
“You could have died.”
I sipped my coffee, then nodded. “I know.”
“One of those spells was healing magic. I recognized the sun-gold threads you spun,” Ki said as he frowned again. “The blue-silver ones… that was mind magic, wasn’t it? What Odro taught you?”
“I think so.” I studied Ki over the edge of my coffee cup. “He taught me the basics. I spun the threads off that.”
Ki nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. I didn’t get a good look at the monstrosity you weaved…”
“Magic brass knuckles,” I corrected him.
He smirked and gave me a mock salute. “… a good look at the magic brass knuckles you weaved, but it matched what I saw.”
“You know,” I told him thoughtfully, “I think the only way I could’ve cast that spell was because I stood right next to Crystal.”
“Where is the Automatic Crystal, anyway?” Ki asked.
I half-shrugged. “In the far back of the Sheldrake. Trye, being himself, decided Crystal needed his own room. Naturally, Mikasi is back there now peppering Crystal with questions about inventions and Cesibus during the Ancient Order days.”
“Of course he is.” Ki shook his head, chuckling.
A low rumble shuddered through the Sheldrake’s wooden floorboards, before Evi trotted up the ramp and closed it behind her. The centaur gave us a quizzical look, then seemed to decide it wasn’t her business.
“Tyre says we’ll pull out in ten minutes,” she said. “We’re getting up to lift now.”
I smiled at her. “Thanks, Evi.”
Ki leaned against the window while his tiefling tail twitched against the floorboards.
“How did it feel to pull threads? To cast a spell?”
I pursed my lips, then looked out the window. Gently, the Sheldrake rocked while she lifted off the ground until she was in the air higher than a warhorse was tall. Somewhere nearby, I could hear the hiss of the windwagon’s boiler.
“I don’t know,” I replied softly. “Powerful? Larger?” Memories of that moment played out in my mind all over again and I shook my head. “Mostly, I felt desperate. Is that what it feels like for you?”
Ki raised his eyebrows at that, then nodded. “Just about. Not quite desperate, though. Spinning out those threads, weaving them into a spell. It can get to you if you’re not careful. You think you can do anything if you can just spin out enough magic threads. Weave just a few more. It gets addictive.”
I took a deep breath, then tugged at one of my braids. The ends of my black hair were singed and curled a little. A result of being caught too close to a wild storm. It could have been worse. The storm could have made me grow a tail, blue skin, and all like Ki or any other tiefling.
“Baron Marius.”
Ki nodded emphatically.
“He was a damn good example of getting too caught up in all that power,” he replied softly, while he tapped an idle rhythm on the window ledge. “It’s why I warned you about a spell backlash.”
“A mind storm,” I said. “A storm in someone’s mind. Ihodis and I talked about it back in Ishnanor. When you told me about a spell backlash, it sounded about the same to me.”
“Magic storm,” Ki said as he tested the phrase. “Good way to describe it. Makes sense.”
“There is no way in hell or high water that I’m using magic again,” I said flatly. Magic was terrifying. I’d had enough of it.
A long silence settled down, both of us lost in thought. The Sheldrake shifted position while Tyre’s buffalo team tugged the windwagon barge out of the docks and toward the open prairie.
“Tela? My offer still stands,” Ki said softly.
I gripped my coffee cup with both hands, mouth set tight in a flat line. Ki watched me for a long moment.
“Only if you feel like it,” he added with a long-suffering sigh. “I just thought…”
“We were dying, Ki,” I blurted out. “The baron was taking us apart, piece by piece. He was enjoying it. Using it for some sort of magic I’ve never seen before. It looked glowing blood.”
I felt that old desperate frustration from the ruins slither up my spine before it bit down on my chest.
“I think maybe I was already dead before we got there,” I said in a low, small voice.
Ki’s brow furrowed. “You mean what happened in the tent? When the baron poisoned you?”
“Yes, back in the tent.” I gripped my coffee cup like I was going to choke it.
“Ah.”
“It wasn’t just some magical poison,” I snapped, then pointed at my eyes. “Nobody has their eyes turn into this from poison.”
Ki raised both hands in a peaceful gesture.
“Fair enough, they don’t.”
“Sorry.” I glared down at my coffee, which really didn’t deserve it. “Marius tried to kill me. I’ve had plenty of people try to kill me, but this was different. The baron tried to twist me into some undead, doe-eyed thing that would obediently do whatever he wanted.”
I shuddered, then stared at my coffee again.
“Nothing was the same after that. I wasn’t the same.” While I talked, my jaw tensed. “I have kobold eyes that let me see magic threads. The Crystal? I’m the only one who can understand him right now. Can ‘see’ its words and language. Understand that chime music it sings are words. So, yes, I think I died. Maybe just a little.”
The prairie passed by the window and I found a rather boring rock to stare at. For a dull rock, it was pretty soothing.
“Then there was Long Deep. The ruins. All the ghosts,” I whispered before a long breath slid out of me.
Silence came back to join us.
“Ki?” I asked in a small voice.
He looked over, then raised an eyebrow at me.
“I think I want to take you up on that offer,” I whispered. “To talk about… it.”
“The tent?” he asked.
I shook my head and shrugged.
“That, and a few other things.”
My best friend in the world nodded like some wise old sage.
“Where do you want to start?”
“At the beginning.” I pursed my lips.
Talking about my pain was hard. I’d rather outrun a boulder.
“Back during the last expedition to Long Deep before this one.” I looked over at Ki. “You know, the time when you died.”
