Chapter 23: Flames Before the Storm

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“I have rope.”

“Try it, Red, and I will send you into next yilsemma, I’ll kick so hard.”

“Tsk tsk.” The Light acolyte grinned as Kjaelle paced back and forth behind Katta, who leaned against a box and looked as sour and dark as a black lemon. “Such violence! If you don’t want rope, I can make a repeat performance of the stink smell.”

“NO!” the mini-Joyful yelled in unison. Fyrij, who rode on Kjaelle’s shoulder like a captain guiding a ship through a storm, voiced his complaint the loudest before ruffling his feathers in revulsion. Vantra slapped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing because she, too, did not want to reprise his numerous performances. Yut-ta glanced at the beings clustered around the fire, his brows knit.

“Stink smell?”

Well, she supposed there was no quicker way to clear the fire and also confine Kjaelle to a wagon far from the foul air—and, conveniently, far from Yeralis’s guards. She thought she heard the Light-blessed cursing, and felt sorry for them as she vacated to her nighttime accommodation; unexpected Red stench, especially when one had not smelled for the last twenty-something thousand years, was debilitating.

Kenosera and Yut-ta fled with her. The nomad laughed while plugging his nose, and Yut-ta stuck his palms over his nostrils, his eyes watering.

“That is the worst smell I’ve ever seen—smelled.” The hooskine gacked and Vantra wondered what she could do to improve the air. As a ghost, she did not need scented things, so did not have handy candles or perfume around.

“This is mild, compared to some of the times he’s used it,” Kenosera told him as he hopped up the wagon’s stairs.

“Mild?” he asked, flabbergasted.

“It’s a powerful spell, to make ghosts sense it,” Vantra said as she motioned for him to proceed her.

“I suppose,” he muttered before sticking his vest against his beak and taking a shallow breath. “This won’t linger in clothes, will it?”

“It hasn’t so far,” she said as she checked to see if anyone else came their way—nope—and closed the door, which mitigated some of the unpleasantness.

The nomad slid down on the right-hand bench, chuckling. “I thought Kjaelle would run to this wagon, as it’s the furthest from Red.”

“She’s been spending more time with Katta and Verryn in Verryn’s wagon.” She checked that the windows remained firmly shut before clicking the box on the wall next to the door that activated the cool spell. While temperatures did not affect ghosts as much, the heat and humidity played terribly with essences, and she did not feel like melting during her stink recovery. “And I’m betting Katta has better spells to ward off Red’s trickery. I don’t expect Laken, either. He’s joined the Light-blessed on patrols rather than rest. I think he spent so many centuries lying around, now that he can move, that’s all he wants to do.”

“I can’t blame him for that,” Yut-ta muttered, joining the nomad. “I’m annoyed with resting, and it’s only been a few days for me. Spending years and years in the Fields?” He shuddered.

Vantra had asked Laken if he wished to take a break, but he shook his head and told her he wanted to stay busy. She had fallen into a glum mood because one only stayed busy when they did not wish to think about their current predicaments. Her Chosen, because he lost a part of his essence he needed to complete the Recollection, had a lot to worry on, and it was her mistakes that prompted it.

Falling to despondency and wishing Fyrij was there to cuddle, she glanced out the window before settling down across from the two.

The shimmer of Light under the first drops of the nightly rain reminded her Red shielded the caravan from Yeralis’s guards and the Finders—and whatever might come out of the forest. She scanned the dark trees, but no movement of vines, branches, or animal caught her notice.

“How many Redemptions have you completed?” Yut-ta asked. She did not sense anything but curiosity, though the words depressed her.

“This is my first.” His surprise made her wish she could sigh. “It hasn’t gone how I envisioned it.”

“Lokjac’s of the opinion no Redemption proceeds according to Finder plans,” Yut-ta said, ruffling his wings before leaning back. “Though I think you’ve had a bit more trouble than most.”

“My ex-mentor didn’t want me to Redeem Laken,” she admitted. “And he’s sent Finder Knights after us to force me to relinquish the link with him and send him back to the Elden Fields.”

“That’s strange.”

She shrugged. She should have realized the threat he posed to her and her Chosen, but she could not change the past, as much as she wished it.

“The Nevemere would call him beyemei, a foot stinger,” Kenosera said. “Even with a careful step, a small foot stinger can unexpectedly strike. Most times, the sting swells from the hit and the one struck sits for a few days to heal. But sometimes they inject their venom, and it’s deadly if not cared for quickly. His is a deadly venom.”

She could not argue with that. “If you want to discuss Redemptions, you should speak to Lorgan. He’s completed over a thousand of them.”

Yut-ta’s eyes bulged, incredulous. “A thousand?” he squeaked.

“He’s prolific.”

The hooskine cocked his head, then rubbed at the back of his neck. “Do you find him . . . intimidating?”

Surprised, she tried to form a coherent response as Kenosera laughed. “He’s intimidating if you think about the ease with which he conducts and imparts his scholarship,” the nomad said. “His knowledge is great. But there are things about the desert that he finds fascinating because he didn’t know about them before me and my mates mentioned them. Sit with him. Speak with him. I don’t think you’ll find him unapproachable after you do.”

Yut-ta squinted at Kenosera. “This entire mini-Joyful is intimidating,” he grumbled.

“You think Vantra’s intimidating?”

“What? No! I mean, not that she . . . I know you’re a mini-Joyful,” Yut-ta said, holding up his hands as if to ward off a snappy reply, “but you aren’t a ghost thousands of years old.” He dropped his appendages, and sadness crossed his face. “Mera and Tally said you’re just a few years younger than me. I’m sorry, you reached the Evenacht so young.”

She shrugged, though she disliked the reminder. “I travel with them, but I don’t feel much like a mini-Joyful.”

“But you are.” Kenosera folded his fingers across his stomach and smiled warmly. “I suspected this when we sailed to Selaserat, and speaking with the Light-blessed, they confirmed that Katta and Qira are picky about their choices of intimate companions. They don’t just travel with anyone. That they accompany you says more than you think it does. That they allowed me and my mates to accompany you is extraordinary.” He paused, then laughed. “Qira and Dough are what we nomads would call nemid-vo, or same skin. They are of one mind, and get along because they are so similar.”

Yut-ta clacked his beak. “We Clavanox would say kilete de rih. It means ‘fly in unison’, like hooskine who flap their wings in time with one another as they dance mid-air.”

“I don’t think there’s an equivalent phrase in Keeling,” Vantra said. “There’s an expression about drinking from the same glass, but it’s not the same.” Mental warmth spread through her, that they spoke of such things with her. She learned something culturally significant about the Evenacht without reading it in a book!

“That pack is glowing.”

She blinked at Yut-ta, confused, then frowned at her backpack, which slumped against the cabinets beneath the bed. A warm yellow escaped the confines of the Sun shard’s pocket. She crawled to it and opened the flap; the glare blinded her. If it wished her attention, why not sing, as it had before?

She withdrew it and sat back, a trickle of reservation skimming her essence. “Do you think it’s warning us the Finders have gotten past Red’s shields?”

“Is there another ankis?” Kenosera asked. “Or maybe a vine creature, like you fought at the farm?”

Bursts of fear squirreled up Vantra’s essence as she looked out the window to the river, searching for monsters, and froze. No. Not an ankis or a vine creature.

Blazing glyphs appeared on the black background of tree trucks, hovering mid-air, as fiery as any Sun spell despite the rain. She had no idea what they meant; the Evenacht had glyphs, runes, and alphabets from faelareign and umbrareign spanning back generations. Learning the Reckoning did not prepare her to recognize any other script.

“Vantra?” Kenosera sounded concerned, but not afraid.

“Look!” She jabbed at the window.

He frowned and rose, setting his hand on the back of the bench and bending over to peer out the glass. “Look at what?”

“You don’t see them? The glyphs in the air?”

Yut-ta surged up and crowded in with them. “I don’t see them either. Where are they?”

“On fire in front of the trees,” she whispered, fear that she was going crazy clashing with the larger terror. How could they miss a flaming symbol taller than she was? Another glyph appeared mid-air, as if being drawn by someone in real-time. “I need some paper. I can write them down.”

Kenosera grabbed her notebook and graphite from the pile of study materials sitting in an overhead bin, and she handed the shard to Yut-ta to accept them. The hooskine gasped and gaped before rushing out the door. With a squeak, Vantra followed, Kenosera on her heels.

The glyphs faded. No time! She flipped to a clean page in the center and copied what she saw.

“I see them!” Yut-ta said. “Glyphs on fire, but I didn’t see them until I touched the shard. Kenosera, take it.”

The conversation paused. “No, I don’t see them,” the nomad said, concerned and disappointed.

What was going on? How could she and Yut-ta see them, but Kenosera could not?

“Good thing you’re writing them down,” Yut-ta said. “I can’t see them without the shard’s help.”

“They’re lining up down the treeline,” she said. “I need to follow them.”

She sketched what she saw, messier than she wished, but she wanted to get them down before they completely faded. Kenosera pressed near, holding a sleek rainguard canopy over her head. Smiling a quick thanks, she left the confines of Red’s shield and made her way down the treeline, scribbling what she saw. The talk of others around her dimmed as she concentrated on depicting the symbols correctly. She had to draw several two or three times because she messed them up, and hoped her scribbles resembled the runes with enough accuracy that someone familiar with them would recognize them.

The glyphs to her left flickered and dissolved. Oh no! Wincing at her sloppiness, she raced to jot them all down before they vanished. The last one fizzled and she looked at her shoddy lines. She doubted even her re-drawn images made some of them recognizable.

Seeing white blots in her perception, she turned to Kenosera, annoyed. Before muttering a word, she realized she did not recognize the nearest wagons; the vehicles, which were painted a bright, searing pink-orange, belonged to a rufang group who huddled under the roofs’ eaves, eyeing her and the nomad with distrust. How far had she shuffled across the field, to write them all down?

“So you saw them, Yut-ta?”

When had the mini-Joyful joined them?

The hooskine nodded at Katta’s question while Red stared at the forest, rubbing at his chin in thought. Jare, Mera and Tally guarded the two ancient ghosts, their weapons drawn and their attention on the curious crowd forming behind them, while a dripping Joila took the notebook from her, shielded it, and flipped through the pages using a spell. Lorgan studied the still, silent trees, and by his annoyance, she guessed he had not witnessed the glyphs.

“I’m not certain what to make of it,” Katta admitted, smoothing his hair back to keep his damp bangs from his eyes. “Qira saw them without the shard, Mera and Tally while holding it. The Light-blessed sensed them, but only Joila and Jare saw them with the aid of the shard. I wish the glyphs had lasted longer, so everyone with us could hold the shard. Knowing who the flames appear for is important.”

Where was the shard? Vantra hunted for it; Yut-ta held it, his gaze flicking up and down the treeline. If more runes flamed into existence, he would notice. “Did you see them, Katta?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I sensed the magic but didn’t see the fiery symbols. The same with Verryn. This was definitely a Sun-specific spell that Sun and Light acolytes could view, but no one else. Vesh and Lorgan said they sensed nothing.”

Not good.

“I didn’t see them until I held the shard, but they didn’t disappear after I gave it to Yut-ta,” she told him. Every bit of information should help them understand what they just experienced. “He said he couldn’t see them without holding it.”

“So Qira’s the only one who saw them without the shard, and you’re the only one who continued to see them after contact. Interesting. Those of us who lean darker had difficulty or didn’t notice the magic. Kenosera’s Darkness-blessed, and he saw nothing, while Sun-touched Yut-ta did. Same with Mera, Tally and Vesh.” Katta regarded the notebook, then the woman studying it. “Do you recognize anything, Joila?”

“Only one of the symbols,” she said, lowering the pages. “It’s the old Kanderite glyph for danger. It’s on the signs posted at the entrances to non-official pathways leading into the Labyrinth that tell hikers they need Strans’ Blessing to walk them.”

“If this is a warning, whoever placed it did a lousy job. Where’s Kjaelle?” Red glanced around, then stared at the wagons as if he could see through the wood. “If their origin is Kanderite, she’ll know what they say.”

“Dedari, Lesanova and Tagra asked her to escort them to the outhouses and Resa went to hold her back from spying on the Finders,” Katta murmured.

“And you didn’t go?” Red asked, amused, hooking his sodden hair behind his ears.

“No.” The firmness in his quiet tone cautioned his friend about continuing the teasing.

“Alright, alright. Let’s get to the fires, wring out, and go through the pages.” Red motioned towards the river and their shielded camp. “We need to know what a handful of us are being warned about.”

The suggestion was not an idle thought; cloaked Finders in the crowd stared at them, each with a smarmy smile. Good thing Red had the wagons protected, and Vantra hoped Kjaelle, Resa and the nomads returned without incident. Painful experience proved that her ex-colleagues did not care who they harmed as they pursued their nefarious goals.

The notebook made the rounds of the Light-blessed and the mini-Joyful while Vantra huddled next to a fire, chills coursing through her. That Katta and Verryn had not seen what she did concerned her. That a syimlin could only sense the magic, not see the illusion, bothered her more. How did one conceal a spell from a deity? Or did Verryn’s newness to magic make him less sensitive to castings because he had not learned the intricacies of the craft?

Of course, he did not bother to study the glyphs either, passing the notebook to Lorgan, someone who, he declared, had the knowledge he lacked concerning languages. A forthright statement, and one that reminded her that syimlin, for all their power, had once been fallible mortals.

The scholar perused the pages far longer than the rest of them, then handed the notebook to Red. He leaned heavily on his knees, his gaze drifting to the treeline between the wagons before returning to the fire. “As a linguist, I’m most familiar with nymphic runes, but I can make an educated guess about the others. As Joila noted, some are Kanderite, but not all. Two are from the ancient Calez Nymphic magic lexigraph system, and mean ‘responderance’ and ‘calamity’.”

“Responderance? Is it referring to the Darkness spell?” Katta asked.

“Sort of, since the creation of the responderance character initiated the research into the spell we know today, but the Calez system is more ancient, going back some thirty-thousand years previous. The Nubariz used Calez to intone wartime spells, which they deployed against their Evasherinne elfine enemies to break through Moon-inspired shielding. Responderance was their specific offensive attack against the Prayer Moon, meant to darken its output and make those who thought its brightness was a sign of Moon’s favor question their leadership’s devotion. So, given that history, I’d say it’s part of a warning or a threat.

“I saw three sprite calligraphy symbols, with all the swirls indicative of the Payline Empire’s iconography, but I don’t know what they mean. The rest come from human, dryan, and umbrareign lexigraphs. In the Elfiniti, the native umbrareign reference nothing but names through their glyphs. Many Greenglimmer forest dwellers imbue their name glyphs with magic and then hide them so a malicious being can’t gain control over them using it. I’m fairly certain Rezenarza used aspects of name magic in his Blessing to force the Nevemere to do his bidding.”

He did? Vantra’s mood soured. A certain someone could have told her that. Or had he mentioned it, and she forgot about it? She sunk further into depressed silence; she needed to pay more attention to things outside her despondency over Laken’s disastrous Redemption.

She needed to do a lot of things, and she mentally squirmed as she recalled the various reasons she had yet to accomplish them.

Katta, who sat on the ground, leaning against a box and moodily regarded the fire, looked up. His expression remained neutral, but while she could not say exactly why, she knew his suspicions rose. The group quieted as Kjaelle, Resa and the nomads raced for the cover of the Light shield, faster than if just rain drove them to shelter. They squeezed through the space between wagons, wormed around the rebbas, and trotted to a muddy stop in front of them, streams pouring down their cloaks.

“The Finders?” Katta asked.

“They staked out the outhouses,” Kjaelle muttered, flipping back her hood. Fyrij untangled from her hair, ruffled his feathers, and tweeted his displeasure; at least he had stayed dry. “Someone complained, because when we arrived, the whizen from the guard tower were throwing them out of the area and none too pleased about doing it in the rain. After they left, the beings in line started talking about how the nosy-bodies visited fires and asked questions about the business each being has on the road, whether they’re traveling to Kooldvyn or Embeckourteine, and if they’ve seen a large group called the mini-Joyful.”

“That’s disturbing,” Red said, his typical cheer at bad news replaced by annoyance.

Resa released the Light spear he clutched in his hand; it shimmered and dissolved. “A trader out of The Gate said it’s just him and his wagon, so he’s traveling with the Greymourn Caravan for protection. He said he’d never heard of Finders threatening travelers before, but that’s what this knight did to the caravan owner. Everyone’s confused and upset, and a couple think they’re thieves using green cloaks as cover to shake people down. Looks like their technique might get them thrown into a jail cell.”

“They can proffer their badge,” Lorgan said. “That will prove their identity.”

“Maybe, but those can be stolen or faked.” Resa laughed with hollow amusement. “We’ve seen our fair share of imposters at the Dark Light. Leeyal tends to throw them out on their asses for bothering his customers.”

Vantra would have reddened, if she were alive. She used the Finder name and badge, despite Nolaris taking her position, and continued on her Redemption even though she no longer had the authority to conduct it. She was as much a fraud as they.

“Oh oh oh! Look what’s back!” Red jumped up and spread his arms wide, facing the dark forest as the glyphs blazed into life. Were they the same ones she wrote down earlier? Vantra tugged the notebook away from Red and whisked between wagons, stopping just inside the shield. The protection only extended steps beyond the vehicle, but far enough she had a rain shelter as she compared the glyphs and her sketches.

“They’re the same ones I copied,” she called before returning to the fire.

“Huh. So we’re seeing a repeat, like a distress signal,” Red said.

“I wonder if any of the whizen noticed these glyphs.” Kjaelle held the shard up for Fyrij to land on. The little avian jumped on the peak, peered at the darkness, and twittered, rocking his head back and forth before slumping and whistling the saddest note. The elfine cupped him to her and nuzzled his head to reassure him. “I didn’t see them either,” she said in a soft, calming tone as she handed Dedari the shard.

Resa stared, enchanted, and Vantra glanced over her shoulder at the flames. “You can see them?” Why did she find relief in that?

“Yes.” Resa drifted past the wagons and took in the entire line. “What magic is this? It seems strange, to make it so obvious yet hide it from most beings’ notice.”

Red tapped his chest. “I’m the only one who saw them without the shard’s aid. You can still see them after contact, like Vantra. I wonder why, when the other Light-blessed can’t.”

“It might have something to do with his specific Light abilities,” Lorgan said. “How different are they, between Light-blessed?”

“The temple taught the manipulation of Light in the same way, with later clergy introducing slight tweaks,” Jare said. “Most of us here were at the temple together, so what we learned is identical, even if our specific implementations differ.”

“I can’t even sense the magic,” Kjaelle said, thrumming her fingers on her hips as she stared at the dark trees. Could she not even see the reflection on the trunks? It was so obvious to Vantra. What kind of spell only revealed itself to a Sun or Light practitioner?

“The underlying magic specifically targets the Sun, with bleed-over into Light,” Katta told her. “Without my link to Qira, I would know magic weaves through the trees, but nothing else.”

“I can’t see them,” Verryn said. “And that’s damn strange. Erse has so many magic-sensing spells on me, I’m surprised I can move.”

Lesanova sighed. “I don’t see anything. If you hadn’t told me something supposed to be there, I’d never know.”

“Me either.” Tagra wobbled the shard back and forth as Dedari nodded in agreement.

Why repeat a message no one outside a specific spell orientation could see? What was the point? Vantra studied the glyphs as they started to fade. If it were a warning, why send it into the Void on repeat? Maybe Lorgan was correct about it being a threat, instead. But again, a threat was useless if no one noticed it.

“Kjaelle, you should look at the glyphs,” Lorgan said, pointing at the notebook. “Some are Kanderite.”

“Kanderite?” the elfine asked, then hurried to snatch the book. She flipped through the pages before smoothing a layout in the middle, troubled. “Here is the Kanderite phrase ‘fast water humming’. That’s from a mythic poem called Hekje Memsik. It’s about a man who fought Sivi, an ancient syimlin of water, to force her to stop flooding the lands on whims. She ended up freezing most of it in glaciers so the catastrophes she once caused lessened in severity.”

She might have continued, but the attention of the mini-Joyful and the Light-blessed drifted to the wagons facing the field rather than the trees.

“Jare, get the patrollers back here,” Red said, a command Vantra felt compelled to follow. With confusion and a hint of anger, Jare slipped away while a group of green-cloaked beings attended by armored guards ran into the shield and bounced back.

“Qira,” Katta warned, both he and Verryn rising. Kjaelle dumped the notebook in Vantra’s lap and planted herself in front of the Darkness acolyte, while Vesh did the same to Passion. Mera and Tally, halberd ready, took positions ahead of Red while the Light-blessed formed their weapons and spanned the space between them and the new arrivals. Resa drew the nomads behind the guards, Joila joining them. Vantra scurried behind Red, clutching the notebook to her chest, the remainder of the mini-Joyful joining her.

The flare of flashing glyphs lit the entire field as a Finder stepped forward, keeping their head bowed to hide their features. Something about them, some aura, some . . . darkness, something that did not belong, hid behind a cloak of mild magic that could not conceal the leakage. It reminded Vantra of the corrupted vines, only the earth did not respond to the Touch because nothing tainted lay within reach.

“A fortuitous encounter.” Her smoker’s voice was too gravelly for the seductive tone she attempted to use. Whether intentional or not, the guards with her backed away, as if she made them uneasy, and the cloaked ghosts stilled and faded, as spirits usually did in the presence of danger. Her people did not trust her, which made her doubly dangerous for them.

“If you say so.” Red crossed his arms, as serious and angry as Vantra had ever seen him.

“You travel perilous roads, Light-blessed. We come for the false Finder and her stolen Chosen. If you impede us, we will capture her by force.”

“There aren’t enough of you to force us to do anything,” Resa said, taking his place by Red’s side.

The Finder laughed as a distant roar wafted through the air.


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