The sun was slowly setting over the hills when the two men appeared on the old wooden dock. One held an old driftwood staff, while a plain iron sword hung from the back of the other. They remained frozen there for a moment, as though they were no more than ghosts. They looked up the cliffs at the tiered city, each rising layer fronted by stone buildings to weather the storm but concealing softer wooden buildings and even orchards in some places. A river ran through the center of the city, splashing down each level. Sometimes it ran between old worn rocks, dotted with moss or hunchbacked trees. Other times it plummeted through a man-made canal.
Then one man turned to a passing dock worker. “What’s the date?” Therelin asked.
“The 14th…” the man murmured, trailing off quizzically. He didn’t stop his progress by them—a burlap sack was thrown over one shoulder.
“What month?” Kren demanded. “What year?”
The man paused, looking irritated. “The 14th of the 5th Moon, in the year 1481,” he said. He shook his head dismissively and kept heading past them. Therelin heard him mutter under his breath, “Damn magicians…”
That’s my birthday… Therelin realized, blinking. I’m 35 now. At least, that was how one would mark the years for him. His Journeys had taken up some of that time, so his body had likely aged something like 34 years. He mustered his thoughts again. He needed to focus. “We need to learn what happened on the Isle,” he said, dropping his voice to nearly a whisper so they could not be overheard. “Do you know of any mages in Sheld we could speak with?”
Kren was rubbing his forehead, also deep in thought. “I still can’t believe we made it in a month and a half,” he said. “I can’t believe it worked…”
Therelin blinked. He did the math himself, figuring it was about a month or two to sail to Sheld from the Isle of Dusk. That put them right on track for the current date. “Why do you say that?” Therelin asked. Had Kren not expected them to arrive on time? Therelin thought maybe he should handle future Journeys.
“I was thinking that we would likely get stopped, either by Tarro or his reinforcements, so it was likely we’d be killed fighting them,” Kren said, quietly. “So, I planned that if we would have been stopped, we would have surrendered, then found some way to Sheld in Tarro’s service…”
Therelin narrowed his eyes. “Right…”
Kren shrugged. “Maybe it was my lucky sword.”
“We have to figure out where we’re going.” Therelin said, looking down the dock and brushing past the sword comment. “Do you know of any mages here?”
“There’s a small guild, I believe,” Kren said, glancing at him. “Emphasis on small.”
“Maybe they know what happened on the Isle…?” Therelin suggested.
Kren blinked, rubbing his short curly hair. “Right,” he said. “Right. We’ll need to ask someone where it is. Maybe an innkeeper—someone who isn’t going to be bothered or nosy.”
The first barkeep they spoke with explained that there wasn’t even a guild hall for mages in Sheld. He pointed them to a scribe farther up the tiers of the city. From there they were directed to a residential address. Therelin was the one to knock on the door, while Kren looked around nervously.
A woman in her sixties opened the door. Her grey hair was bound behind her head, and she wore a straight red gown. “Who are you and how can I help you?”
The shirtless man in the street pointed to himself. “My name is Therelin. This is Kren,” he said. “We’re magicians and we’ve just arrived in Sheld.”
“Ah, I see,” the woman replied. “I’m Selaara. Let’s speak inside.”
Therelin followed the woman inside, but she paused in the first hallways and stopped them in the antechamber. “Are you in need of accommodation?”
“Quite possibly,” Therelin said. “But first we are looking for information about what transpired on the Isle of Dusk before we left.” He blinked.
“Oh, at last,” Selaara responded. She waved them to follow her and led them further into the house. “I’ve been fearing the worst.”
Kren looked at Therelin with a raised eyebrow, as though to say, “At least she knows about the Isle.” Of course, Therelin had never been unable to speak of the Isle, having only spoken to its inhabitants since swearing the Vows. Still, he imagined he wouldn’t be able to share his words as easily as he had.
Then they entered a cluttered sitting room and the woman turned to face them. Behind her, sagging bookshelves lined the walls and a table full of papers, maps, and other documents seemed to have been forgotten between a few extra chairs and a cleft of stone that stuck out from the bottom half of the wall to support a wide brazier to light the room. “Well, what do you know?”
Therelin blinked, caught off guard. “Have you not heard anything yourself?” he asked. He’d been hoping to get information, not give it. “It’s been over a month since we Journeyed from the Isle.”
“Oh,” the older woman said. “I apologize. I got excited.” She pointed one of her thin fingers toward the brazier. Sitting on the stone shelf beside it was a small wooden frame. An ornately carved brass plate hung vertically inside, bracing a dark, dull emerald in its centre. “The Isle dimmed their spell chime. I don’t know any more.”
“Spell chime?” Therelin asked, confused.
Kren chuckled. “Forgive Therelin—he’s new,” he told Selaara. He turned to Therelin. “There’s a similar device on the Isle; if it’s destroyed or dimmed, attuned devices will also dim. It’s sort of a warning system to protect our ‘safest’ stronghold.”
“So, what do you know?” the woman asked intently. “It’s not a false alarm, as I hoped?”
“No, I’m afraid not—the Isle was attacked. Tarro appeared and started issuing an ultimatum,” Therelin explained. “When the Isle’s defenders made a move, fighting broke out. We left before it became too dangerous.”
Selaara looked winded. She sank into one of the chairs. “Gods,” she said. “Or God, as they’re saying now.” She shook her head. “Did you see others leave before you?”
“We did,” Kren answered. “Many.”
“Good,” Selaara said. “I’ll fetch the others. We should make preparations for more survivors to arrive. Even wounded.”
Therelin blinked. “You’ve heard of him before. What do you know of Tarro?” he asked.
“He’s the sorcerer commanding the bandit armies,” Selaara said, matter-of-factly. “I don’t know much about him, but I know he’s to be feared. I know several powerful magicians. All fear him.
“I see,” Therelin said.
“Not much, is it?” the woman said, rolling her eyes. “Another of our many problems.”
Therelin shrugged. He glanced around the cluttered space. “Well, how can we help?” he asked.
Kren grunted. “We’re helping now?” he asked.
“It’s the only way we’ll learn what happened after we left,” Therelin pointed out to his friend, then looked back to the woman.
“I imagined you would need rest first,” Selaara said. “My colleagues will be more than able to make the arrangements—housing, food, and some sort of notice to direct lost magicians from the Isle to us.”
“You mean signs for Tarro to find and kill us,” Kren muttered, jeeringly.
Therelin and Selaara glared at him. Kren looked at his boots, ashamed.
Selaara turned back to Therelin. “If you are serious about helping us—and those who arrive—we need to learn more about the enemy. Is he coming here next? Why is he so powerful? This might be a larger undertaking than preparing for survivors here, practically speaking. I’m sure we could put your hands to use here, if you preferred.”
Therelin considered her proposed plan. It lined up with his latest branch of curiosities. He had sated his knowledge of the Conclave for now—though he hardly thought that organization’s existence a good thing. Now, this man named Tarro had become his focus. He told Selaara as much. “My intentions for coming here were already to learn more about Tarro, so I agree that is a good place to start. The problem is that everyone I ask knows about the same amount. How would you suggest I go about this?”
Selaara stood again at last. She looked around the room at her books and maps. “The most knowledgeable mage I know resides in Noress-That-Was—he’s the Lord of Information for the Empire of Noress and keeps a renowned archive,” she explained. “If you are serious about this… mission, for lack of a better word, I will write you a letter to ensure he receives you well and shares what he knows. I’d go myself if I wasn’t so tied down here.”
Therelin glanced at Kren, who was scratching the back of his head and pacing uneasily. “Let us think about this. We’ll let you know shortly,” he told Selaara.
She smiled and gave him a nod. “Good. I’ll be back soon enough,” she said. As she put on her sandals, “There’s food in the cellar, down this hall. Help yourselves.”
As soon as she had left, Kren headed downstairs to find food. “I’m famished,” he said.
Therelin followed him downstairs, but waited before getting to the real issue. He needed to collect his thoughts. Then, as Kren was examining a jar of jam from a shelf, Therelin asked, “So? What do you think?”
“What do I think about the food?” Kren asked, barely glancing away from his analysis of the jam. “Or about travelling the wrong way while the seas boil with war?”
Therelin sighed. They would be sailing toward the warfront, not away from it as Kren had once said he planned to do. “I know we would be attracting dangerous attention, but it is the only way to figure out how to weaken him. Also, it’s better to know and be prepared then to be surprised and helpless…”
Kren set down his jar of jam and turned to face Therelin. “I know that someone has to learn more, and someone has to stop him,” he admitted, “but I just don’t see either of us being that someone. We’re not masters, expert scholars, or prodigies, as far as I know. There are people who might stand a chance against Tarro, and then there’s us.” He lifted one hand to show Tarro’s incredible power, then dropped it to show a much lower rung on the proverbial ladder.
“You are right—we are not masters, expert scholars, or prodigies. I know we cannot go directly up against him, but we can most certainly help. We can recruit help, relay information, and contribute to the cause. Also, with the actual masters, expert scholars, and prodigies going up against him and undermining him, do you really believe we are significant enough to be worth his trouble?”
Kren looked at him a moment longer, then turned back to the pantry shelves. “I hope you’re right…”
“So, we’re doing this, right?” Therelin repeated. He wanted it to be a clear agreement.
“I’ve got nowhere else to go,” Kren said, without looking up. Then he glanced at Therelin and smirked. “Besides, you need somebody watching your back.”
“And there is no one else I would rather have watch it, especially with that lucky blade of yours,” Therelin said, returning the smile. “About that… I could use a blade of my own in order to watch your back in return. Perhaps you could help me acquire one?”
“Maybe. But maybe not,” Kren answered with a chuckle. “Do you have any money?”
Therelin shrugged. “I don’t have much, but I hope to make up for it by offering to enchant some of the seller’s other blades.”
“Ah, but what about our pressing quest?” Kren asked, smiling. He had found a second wine rack. “Would you handle that work now or in Noress-That-Was?”
“I think it best to handle that in Noress-That-Was since we may need to spend a little time there anyway,” Therelin said. After all, he hardly expected to find a clear biography of Tarro on a bookshelf there.
“Very well,” Kren said. “But you can’t use mine if we run into trouble on the way.”
“I would not dream to ask that of you—a lucky blade is not something one parts with,” Therelin joked.
Kren took his lucky sword very seriously as always. “Speaking of trouble on the way… will we Journey to Noress or sail?”
“We could make some more coin along the way if we sail. What do you think?”
Kren sighed. “Working on a ship going the wrong way… excellent,” he said sarcastically, but then he lightened up with another chuckle. “I could use some coin too, actually. I wasn’t ready to leave the Isle quite yet.”
“Neither was I,” Therelin agreed. “I barely had a chance to experience it. Another thing—we should decide on a safe place for Journeying in case of emergency.” They were now climbing the stairs back up to Selaara’s sitting room. The old sorceress had not yet returned.
“We could Journey to High Raena if it was an emergency. The whole Raderan coast would likely fall before anyone attacked there. Or would you rather go even further inland?” Kren questioned. He started dipping bread into the jam he had finally chosen.
Therelin shrugged. “That’s probably a good choice. If Selaara doesn’t need anything urgently, we could leave in the next couple days. I’d rather not delay longer than necessary.”
“Next ship, then,” Kren said, around a mouthful. And the next ship it was.