5. The Mage-In-Training, the Speaker and the Lions (Patreon)

Skill {Magia Touch} developed. Obtain Yes/No?

Tercius just blinked at the notification. As his lids fell to cover his eyes, the words turned from black to white, as if to refuse his weak attempt to hide from it. The letters would adapt to whatever shape and color they needed to and they would stay to occupy the center of his vision until he made the choice.

Well, it wasn’t as if he could say that he was surprised to see this Skill develop.

The year behind him had been filled with rather regular exposure to a considerable and varied amount of sources of foreign magia. Spells from his teachers at the Academy, from his Mentor, or any other Magos that had cast something in his vicinity, had all had a small part in this achievement. As long as magia dispersion had happened in his vicinity some of it was bound to have ended up being picked up by his Channels, and since he actually felt his Channels pick those up…

That veritable storm of collective magia a few days back at the Everstorm Towers also came to mind. The power of six dozen magi working together had expanded and flooded the ritual grounds and he had been there to observe it all, letting the magia flow through and around him. He had felt his own magia seep into the collective pool and disappear into the oh so powerful and intoxicating blend. As if it was happening right now, he could still feel letting go of his small contribution, only to observe as it went on to feed the sheer presence of that magia storm to ever-growing heights.

And now, the magia that formed the semi-physical bodies of some curious spirits finally tipped the scales.

With a yawn, Tercius started considering what to do with it and when.

The Skill would be an excellent addition to his sensory arsenal, of that there was no doubt. He could already see magia as colors, but it could also be heard, smelled, tasted, and yes even touched. According to his Mentor, even stranger ways to experience magia were recorded from time to time. Skills were as individual as their wielder, after all.

But his surroundings crawled with beings whose determination to have a go at brushing off of him seemed only to increase with time and his sensitivity to magia was considerable of its own accord. Even without the Skill, the calve of his left leg was dead cold. The right one was a bit better. He felt as if he had a melting snowman on his back. Taking this Skill here would allow for that sensitivity to build itself further, which might just take him slowly into the perilous waters of “oversensitivity”.

Sometimes, having too much was as bad as having too little and this was one of those cases.

Still, he could adapt the Skill as he developed it further, much as he did with {Magia Sight}. If he picked his choices right, then this Skill could be his answer to both boosting his sensitivity to magia right when he needed it and then tuning it down to his basic level when it was not needed. Maybe even go below the base, if such a thing was even possible.

Tercius looked up with wide-open eyes, the frozen state of his body forgotten entirely. Wait… was something like {Magia Resistance} somewhere further below that base? Well, now he really wanted to go and get a Night Terror of his own and study the way the wyvern's Skill behaved…

As the rush of his idea left him, Tercius groaned. The ice was back and it was not pleasant. He picked himself up to stand on his two icicles and tentatively ambled in search of warmth. Isidorus watched him leave the shade with questions in his eyes, but Tercius didn't care. As he felt the sun on his skin and the warmth suffusing his clothes and footwear, he just closed his eyes and sighed as his entire body shivered.

If he had had {Magia Touch} before he came to this temple, and it had been developed in a way that would let him slide his sensitivity up and down as he wanted and needed, then he might have kept himself from attracting unwanted attention. The spirits would have made a small brush against him, noticed that he was entirely unresponsive like most people were, and they would have been on their way. Although… he wouldn’t have noticed them either…

Refusing {Magia Touch} was also a possibility and he actually considered even that side for a bit. According to his Mentor, rejecting an Skill triggered a period where his older Skills would develop at a slightly accelerated rate. It wasn’t that he needed something like that, considering the advantage that he already had in his anima, but it could be educational to experience this boost on his own skin.

Regardless of the choice, he would have to endure the notification at least until he left the temple. Getting back to the inn would be for the best, actually.

Tercius yawned. He really didn't get enough sleep last night. After he got back to the inn, maybe he should postpone the trip to the market and take a nap— Through watering eyes, the realization of what was truly going on here dawned on him. The coldness in his limbs could be written off to his magia sensitivity, but coldness and tiredness at the same time? Those were two of the most common symptoms of energia deficiency.

Tercius’ jaw clenched and his ears grew red. The fuckers were on him using the trick he wanted to develop!

They were draining him of energia! The question was, were they doing it on someone’s directive?

Regardless of the answer to that, if his energia levels were to dip to zero even momentarily, he would fall asleep whether he liked it or not and he would stay asleep until his energia levels climbed back up.

Tercius stood rooted in the spot, his face carefully neutral and fists kept loose. But what was going on here?

The spirits shouldn’t be able to do this to him. Nothing he knew even mentioned this as even a possibility. With some growing alarm, he wondered why Mistress Kalina didn’t warn him of this. Did she know and choose not to tell him? He hoped, for the sake of their still forming relationship, that the answer was a clear and concise no. Even if she didn’t know, surely Perdinar and Mistress Prime’era knew that this could happen? They had a thousand years to learn something so easily checked…

Simply because of that, he thought it unlikely that the magi knew. After all, they had to know that he would find it out as soon as he spent some time with these beings. Was that also part of their plan? Were the magi playing some deeper game on his account? His heart dipped as he found it both possible and likely. For a mere moment, he hoped that this was not the case.

With narrowed eyes, he considered the other side of the coin.

Was he some kind of an outlying case? Was he somehow influenced by the draining touch of the spirits in ways other people were not? Was that same ‘susceptibility’ the reason why he could see and interact with the other occasional visitors he had in his anima? This too was possible and much more preferable than the alternative.

The spirits continued to swarm around him as he stood still like a statue, his gaze placidly observing the decorated walls of the temple.

He knew so much and yet he was painfully aware of just how much still escaped him or rested on mere supposition.

They were endless, these games.

Tercius sighed, tired in a way that had nothing to do with his draining energia. He wanted nothing more than to leave all these games behind, to let himself get some distance from everyone and everything and just be free. He imagined a small cabin surrounded by tall trees, a small lake nearby, and a mountain. It called to him. A place solely for himself, somewhere where the chance of meeting another scheming person was minuscule—

The whole of Angea. Most of Nogea. Even parts of Sogea, Zagea, or the many uninhabited islands of Isgea. The Planes. All of these places had plenty of free space. The Planes were supposedly both endless and numberless. Surely such a place had some room for him?

“Would you do it again, do you think?” Isidorus asked.

Tercius startled out of his thoughts and turned around to look at the sitting man. “I’m sorry… What did you say?”

“I said, if you had an opportunity would you do it again?”

“Oh. You mean… Well, it depends… If I knew ahead where the temple was and that I didn’t need you to vouch for me… I would have gone ahead on my own. If I didn’t know ahead of time, then… yes, I would likely ask you again,”

Isidorus looked at him for a while, then chuckled. “At least you’ve got your mother’s honesty about you. It must be your father then, who you get that other side from,”

Tercius shook his head slowly. “Some sides of me, master tailor, are only my own.”

Tercius turned away from the man and continued to observe the carvings on the temple walls. Mindlessly following the curves and lines helped him think and he needed that. The continued cold company of spirits had all that it took to make him fall into a really bad mood. He was in a situation where he knew little of what was truly going on and usually that alone was enough to place him on an edge.

So what did he truly know of the situation he was in? He knew that he had only recently started feeling drowsy. He knew that energia was slow to regenerate. Just from that, he could draw a couple of conclusions. Tentatively, he compared the situation now to what would be happening here if his Well was not sealed. All points matched, apart from one. The draining here was occurring as if in slow motion. So… By sealing his Well, he had denied them from swimming and drinking directly from the pool of his energia, but here and now they proved able of licking the wet edges of the pool, one tongueful at a time.

Eventually, they would drain him to complete lethargy.

Tercius drew on that side of him that had developed in Lux’s company. His back straightened, shoulders relaxed and feet sought to find a stable stance, his mind emptying and preparing to react at a moment’s notice. He would leave before they came close, even if he had to do so without getting the answers that he came for.

He would leave this place, even if he had to use force to make them let him go. There would be consequences, but he would deal with those too.

*** *** ***

With the sun at its zenith, even lazing in the deep shade of a massive tree made Tercius perspire. The thin tunic clung tightly to his wet back and yet Tercius just felt cold.

An interesting contrast, one that made him hypothesize that it was his anima that felt the draining touch of the spirits, rather than his body. That was a massive revelation with far-reaching implications that concerned everything from the entire way he thought of Channels to the dual nature of magia and energia and even the nature of Skills, and yet he couldn't bring himself to care or contemplate the implications.

The high priest was clearly taking his time getting back and the hours behind him spoke of a certain purpose. The spirits were not solely feeding off of his energia. The clergy was letting them drain him. Already he felt the need to lay his head on the table and take a nap. His magia regeneration rate and mental faculties might start slipping soon. He didn’t want to do this, but it was time to get things rolling.

“Master tailor,” Tercius said.

The man wiped a layer of sweat off his forehead and looked his way. “What?”

Tercius stood up. “I’m sorry for wasting your time needlessly and… well, everything else that I’ve done to you, but I’m leaving,”

The man almost jumped up. “What? Why? No, you can’t leave. Menesthios could be here any minute now.”

"I don't think he will be. Think about it. Is this Speaker on the other side of the delta or in that temple there? As far as I know, it's not a day of worship and we've been waiting here for hours without a word." Taking out a long strip of white cloth from his backpack, Tercius started wrapping it around his head and covering everything properly. "I have a spare apeos, if you need it.”

“Things are really simple in your mind, aren’t they?”

“Not simple enough, if you ask me,” Tercius shook his covered head and sighed. “Are you leaving with me?”

“No. Look… if you leave now, you might offend the Speaker. Everyone here respects her immensely. The doors of this temple will likely be closed to you, if you do this,”

Tercius stopped at the border of the shadow, Isidorus’ words keeping him from crossing into the light. Nothing was going according to the plan. Nothing. If he went now, an entirely new one would have to be started. But better a new plan than whatever awaited him here.

“Goodbye, Isidorus,”

Through the gardens and around the temple, Tercius paced briskly. Any moment now, someone should stop him. As he got near the massive front doors of the temple, he started wondering if he got this situation wrong somehow.

His answer was standing inside the shade of the overhang. High priest Menesthios stood without a whiff of joviality about him, holding a small side door open. “The Honored Speaker has agreed to see you.”

Tercius nodded and followed the man through a wide hallway of precisely cut walls of stone, a high ceiling supported by a familiar style of pointed arches above them. The walk left them before a massive set of metal doors. A massive horned lion and an equally large horned lioness were engraved on the upper part of the dark metal, their wings radiating rays of light onto those below. More cats, smaller ones and of different types, were everywhere in the middle. At the lower portion of the doors, the multitudes of worshipers grasped with their hands at the ends of the rays, almost, but not quite, touching them.

"Come."

Tercius eyed the side door where the high priest stood. Three human-sized doors could be stacked on top of each other and still, it was likely that their collective effort would fall short of overcoming the big one. Tercius’ left eyebrow twitched. This door… He had a bad feeling about it. Something was… wrong. Then he noticed what it was. The spirits that had been glued to him so far, didn’t follow him here. Nothing cold was touching him anymore.

Tercius shivered. The absence of their draining touch was… unnerving, now.

“No need to be nervous. Come,”

Tercius took a deep breath. He had come this far. The chamber on the other side seemed entirely modeled on the scale of the door it had. The light fell inside through multicolored glass, painting scenes similar to the ones found on the door directly on the massive floor. The notification at the center of his vision did impede a lot of his view, but he still saw around and through it.

Across the massive chamber was an old woman of long silver hair, a flowing dress of black and white covering her body from her neck downward. She stood still and silent, her back turned to Tercius and Menesthios.

Behind her, on a slightly raised stone platform, were two enormous statues. They guarded over the chamber, filling up the otherwise empty space. The sleeping black lion had white horns of a ram curled around his massive ears, while the vigilant whitewashed lioness had pitch-black horns. They had no wings, though. The eyes of the lioness were huge and dark like tar and they looked straight at him. For a mere moment, Tercius had a strong impression that the statue was observing him.

His heart rate sped up a little when the statue’s pale tail flicked from side to side in complete silence.

His Mentor was wrong. She had told him to expect an elder spirit. She wouldn’t have been wrong if she just used the plural of that.

A hand gently rested on his shoulder and Tercius looked at the high priest that led him here. The man gently nodded and leaned towards Tercius’ ear. “Avert your gaze elsewhere. My Lord and Lady have seen ages come and go… If you look too closely into their eyes, a single moment will last you a thousand breaths or longer…”

"Oh…"

“Come here, child,” a raspy yet firm female voice echoed around the chamber.

Tercius swallowed as his hands tightly gripped his backpack. One echoing step at a time, Tercius left the high priest behind him and moved towards the Speaker over the light-colored stone floor.

As he came near her, the woman turned his way. “My eyes are not what they used to be. Let me see your face from up close,”

Standing with a ramrod spine, the Speaker had her hands behind her back as she waited for him to come near. Her brown skin looked like it was stretched out and then put back on the bones and the few remaining muscles, the wrinkles on her neck and face numberless. The eyelids sagged over cloudy green eyes, nearly closing them entirely, and yet he could feel the intensity of the gaze that she paid to him.

He stopped close to the woman, but he still gave her and himself a bit of polite space.

His eyes almost drifted to the form of the spirits behind her, the two statue-like beings bigger than ever, but he forced himself to look away.

The woman stepped closer to him until she stood a palm away, her forehead leveled to Tercius’ eyes. He felt her form as a physical presence on his skin and her stale breath assaulted his nose as she spoke.

“An infidel from the line of one of our own… comes seeking answers…”

Tercius licked his dry lips. “I—”

“Your grandmother came to us in need…” She looked up at him with judgment in her cloudy green eyes. “And we helped. A stray she might be, but she remained our stray. All the years apart and she held onto the core of our fire in her heart… You, on the other hand… Nothing but base blood links you to us. Why should I give you the answers you seek, let alone listen to your questions?”

Translated into plain speech, what can the monkey do for me?

Tercius stood firm in front of the woman’s waiting gaze and took a few moments to think of an answer. Should he try to appeal to her humanity, perhaps convey the urgency of the matter? Besides not wanting to discuss the affairs of his or his family’s private life with her, Tercius thought it unlikely that she would care about any of that. No, this was a Speaker of Divine Balance… and Divine Balance taught that to take something you need to first give something.

“Honored Speaker,” Tercius said slowly. “What can I do to earn the answers?”

The woman’s judgment melted a little and a small smile bloomed in the corners of her old eyes. “So she did teach you… and you did learn… a shame for the lacking heart, though… As for what you can do… a simple exchange will do, as Divine Balance wills it. I ask a question, you answer. You ask, I answer. What say you?”

Tercius considered the proposal. All he needed was a single piece of information. He considered proposing a rule against incomplete or literal answers, but he wasn't sure if that was the right move. It suited him just fine for her to underestimate him based on his apparent youth, as people seemed to so often do. Besides, if he framed his first question well, then even an incomplete answer would be a satisfactory answer. Play it well enough and she wouldn't even know that he had all he needed and from the very first question…

“I can agree to that, Honored Speaker,”

“Then I will ask first. I’m curious… What kind of things did your grandmother say to you about us?”

Tercius’ tongue tied itself into a knot of serpents. Of all the questions in the whole wide world, she had to ask that.

Although his grandmother had piously worshiped Divine Balance for as long as he knew her, she did not exactly agree with the clergy of Divine Balance. In Rona's stories, the clergy was full of two-faced brown-nosers, spineless backstabbers, forked-tongue liars, shameless offspring of shit-eating flies… the list went on. His grandmother was mindful of her words, but if the clergy was mentioned then all the filters went off.

His carefully maintained face of stone fell a bit. Maybe he could spin this somehow… “Err…”

The woman cackled. “That bad, eh? I knew it! That foul mouth of hers was legendary even back then. Out with it!”

"My grandmother's words are her own and I have no right to repeat them. With all due respect to you, Honored Speaker, if you want that answer you will have to ask her,"

The woman stood as still as the beings behind her, her unblinking eyes considering him. Abruptly, she waved a wrinkled hand his way, as if swatting a buzzing fly. “Consider the matter again, boy, and either come to a different conclusion or you know where the door is. Don’t waste any more of my time.”

Tercius’ mouth fell open to protest the abrupt end, but before he could utter a sound he stilled himself. What she wanted he couldn’t give. He wouldn't give.

“Honored Speaker, if you could ask another—”

“The door it is, boy. Now leave me,”

Tercius looked at her frail form and found only an immovable wall of will in those cloudy eyes. “I—” He forced his mouth shut and bowed his head a bit. “I see. Thank you for your time,”

Another bow, this one deeper and from the waist, he gave to the two beings. Believer or not, the White Lioness and the Black Lion were a kind of sentient nuclear warheads. Some care with handling was advised. A twitch of a white tail was the only response he got. The Black Lion had not moved any part of his massive body since the moment Tercius first saw him, seemingly content to sleep and ignore the conversation that had gone on between the Speaker and Tercius.

He turned and slowly walked away.

As he neared the door, the echoes of the Speaker’s raspy voice called out, “Hold there, son of Valeria, grandson of Portia. You don't just walk away… You're the same as your grandmother, young man, and I don't mean that in any good way. So many things would have gone down a different path if she had just stayed and spoken to someone… Come back here… I will have some more words with you…"

Tercius’ eyebrow twitched as he turned around. Again with the tests? Some people just had too much free time on their hands. Or they just wanted him to lose more time here…

As he walked back across the chamber to see what the test got him, Tercius suddenly asked himself what kind of an elder he would like to be. Although his body was that of a twelve-year-old, he was actually somewhere in his mid-forties, practically at the door of elderhood. The woman before him warned him that it was time to think about such things before he got to a certain age.

“Do you know why your grandmother left us?” the woman asked.

Tercius shook his head. “My grandmother told me some things, but never that,”

“Her mother, your great grandmother, may Balance grant her Soul a new start,” the woman uttered the prayer in the old tongue of desert tribes of Sogea, “was a strange woman with strange ideas. You see, once upon a time, your great grandmother used to be an older sister of mine in both faith and blood.”

Tercius' eyes narrowed at the cloudy green eyes of the old woman. Green eyes were a rarity in Sogea, a drop in the sea of dark browns and blacks that dominated the population. Not knowing where she was going with this, but willing to hear her out, Tercius did what elders liked for young people to do— be quiet and listen.

It took a moment for the woman’s cloudy eyes to regain focus on him and continue with a pained voice, “A heretic that preached… strange notions. I will not repeat her blasphemy. The clergy excommunicated her. They had to. When my older sister was cast out of this very temple… she… she… lived for a few weeks inside the district and then she suddenly disappeared. Dead, probably. When Portia came back and learned of what happened… She left us to search for her mother. When she didn’t find her… Without ever learning why her mother was cast out, why she had to be cast out, your grandmother left us and refused to speak a word with—” the woman croaked, her voice getting heavier with emotions.

Tercius wasn't listening to what the woman was speaking. His spine was rigid, his heart hammering, his legs tense. The lions were on the prowl. Moving out of nowhere, the white one was on her massive legs, crossing a dozen meters in mere moments, while the black one had suddenly risen, sitting up on its haunches and gazing at Tercius with pure white orbs, the majestic black mane giving the being an overbearing presence, the pure white horns menacing with glints of reflected light.

Out of a corner of his eye, Tercius glanced at the door.

What was the chance that he could leave the room faster than an elder spirit could? If he went all out with his Skills and he burned through his downsized magia pool like a person with a death wish, then he did give himself a rather good chance of success. But… he would still end up getting caught when he got spent.

Standing still, Tercius tried to make himself as small as possible. It wasn't that hard, not when two giant cats stood so close.

The white lioness sauntered over the movements of the muscled limbs slow and graceful, her size allowing her to cross the distance in a blink of his eye. Yet, instead of going towards him, she laid her massive body on the floor, wrapping the Speaker between two front paws the size of a grown man's torso and a massive tongue slick with saliva licked the side of the Speaker's head, pulling wet hair and making the woman gurgle some strange noise. The Speaker murmured something unintelligible, pushing at the massive tongue and the jaw of the lioness with her saliva-soaked hands.

“Worry not, young man,” the Speaker patted the great white head of the lioness. “Lady Dawn and Lord Dusk won’t harm you. They are just concerned about me, that’s all,”

Tercius blinked silently at the woman, his heart still in his warm ears. Not knowing what else to do with himself, he continued standing still and did what a Magos ought to do in moments of intense emotion. The heart is speeding, the ears are hot, the palms are sweaty, the eyes are darting, he told himself. Fear of failing, fear of dying, fear of making things worse than they had been, Tercius started listing and cataloging each and every present feeling, untangling the knot from the obvious ends and delving deeper into the tangled mess.

Seconds passed, then what seemed like a minute, then two, and he remained whole. Dawn’s massive head just nuzzled the Speaker while Dusk’s sharp eyes surveyed the room.

“You’re handling this much better than some of the initiates,” the Speaker suddenly said.

Not jumping out of your own skin could be considered as ‘handling it’, he supposed.

“What—” Tercius cleared his throat and swallowed a lump that he didn’t know he had, “What do people normally do in this… situation,”

“Some soil themselves, others scream and most start running…” the old woman cackled with obvious glee. “Sometimes all three at the same time. Very few stand silent and rooted in spot,”

Tercius couldn’t say that the norm was in any way an overreaction.

“Tell me, what name did they give you?”

“Tercius,”

“Oh? An old name, one that’s given to invoke luck…” the woman said. “I see…”

Yes. He was the eldest child of his parents, but if things had been different then Tercius would have been the third, probably living under a name whose meaning didn’t have to invoke a kind of luck that was linked with survival. He hadn’t been even born when the babies had died, but he had been carried by a weeping Petra to visit two little remembrance trees almost every week for the first year of his life.

“Can I ask… The… Lord and Lady… they feel your emotions?” Tercius asked, in need to change the subject.

"Oh yes." the Speaker nodded gently, now caressing the tip of the white muzzle. The lioness, Tercius saw now, was not made of marble, as he initially thought, but rather she had fine white hairs all over her body. The stomach moved, as she breathed. "Why they need that, though, is beyond me… I do feel their peace, the placid pools of ages that had seen it all… it… grounds me…"

A bond then? Something similar to what he and his familiar had. Even now, he could feel her at the back of his mind, the direction clear in his mind like a bright light that pointed directly south of him far, far away back home in Nurium.

“Menesthios told me that you are asking to learn where your father and grandmother are…” the Speaker said. “On the account of an urgent matter,”

“Yes,”

“There are some issues with your request, young man,”

Tercius stayed silent, waiting for her to illuminate him on the matter.

“Even should I ignore that you’re not one of our own, in your heart of hearts, and tell you where they are… I fear, from what I saw earlier, that you might actually go there. From what I saw, you’re determined… and young enough to be foolish…”

“By going there… you mean going to the monastery in the mountains east of here?” Tercius asked.

The woman’s cloudy eyes looked at him. “So you do know… Your grandmother spoke of that place, did she?”

So they did go there. That was all he had to know. Tercius almost let out a sigh at the accomplished mission. Now, he had to get out of here and be on his way as soon as possible.

“Grandmother mentioned it once or twice,” Tercius said.

“And you… remembered?”

“I have an excellent memory. If you can give me a few directions to shorten my—”

“A good memory is wasted on a fool, don’t you know that?” the woman snapped harshly, looking at him like one would at a blubbering idiot. The heads of the elder spirits turned his way. “That place, young man, is in the middle of Wilderness. Do you know what that means?”

Tercius noted his fear and let it be. “More or less,”

The old woman uttered a harsh laugh. “If I were a betting woman, I would venture that it's less. Ah, to be young and ignorant, to think of yourself as ready to challenge the world and prevail… There are beasts up there that could halve you with a single bite, young man, and that’s just a single danger on the road,”

An outline of a frown formed on Tercius’ face. “How did they go there, then?”

"How else but with care and experience? We have traveled those mountains for generations," the woman said. "We know which paths to take, which cliffs to climb and caves to avoid, valleys to never step foot in, we know which berries not to touch, and herbs that you absolutely have to have at certain places. We know the streams that would put you to sleep for a week from a single gulp of their cool waters, plants that would strangle you should you come close enough, beasts that would haunt you till the end of times and ends of the world should you assault an offspring of theirs. It's knowledge paid for with blood and sweat, young man.

“Knowledge of which you, child of Valeria, know nothing. To tell you where to go is the same as to send you to your death and that, blood of my blood, is not something I will do.”

Tercius’ heart thumped. Blazing Hells, he didn’t need people to tell him how idiotic he was, he knew all of it on his own. But Tercius had to go. He had to. He was in large part the responsible party for his grandmother starting to form her Well, he was responsible for months of excruciating pain that Well development entailed, he was responsible for Septimus having to take Rona to a place where people could help her. Tercius knew that he would not be able to handle it if he left the two of them there for months or years, not when he had means to help Rona finish the formation now, in less time and with less pain, and not when he could get them back to Nurium with a little help from his Mentor.

It was risky and foolish, but what other option did he have than to fix what he broke?

“Say the urgent matter you have and I shall pass it along so that it reaches the ears of your father. I will have brother Menesthios arrange a room in the basement. You can wait for the reply here,”

A message? "Honored Speaker… So someone would carry my message to the monastery?"

The woman nodded.

“And is there any way that this messenger can take me with him… or her?”

“No,”

“What do I need to do to earn this passage, Honored Speaker?”

“The messenger cannot take you, because the messenger herself does not go. So you see, there is nothing to earn here.”

The messenger doesn’t go… but the message does… Oh… Oh. He knew that magi had a way to transfer messages globally, but he didn't know that the clergy had one as well. His Mentor didn’t mention that. Although, considering that the Empire too had a long-distance method of communication, he supposed that it wasn't as far-fetched that one of the major old religions had one too.

“And… can I ask how long will it take for my message to travel?”

The woman smiled mysteriously. "It takes as long as it takes, young man. But as I said, you can stay here with us while you wait for the reply."

“Uhh… Honored Speaker, I am touched by your generosity, but I really can’t stay. I have other obligations I need to attend to within a few hours, or people would come looking for me.”

“Oh?” the woman gave him a toothless smile. “And here I was, just getting interested enough to invite you to stay and eat with me. A pity… Won’t you even send that message?”

It would look weird if he didn't do it, wouldn't it? "Tell my father that we all think of him and grandmother. Tell him that Tercius will be there to take care of everything. He doesn't need to worry about anything at home. He should just focus on getting ready to come home. He and grandmother both."

“Ah, a dutiful son and caring grandson. A rare breed, if I may say so. Are you certain you won’t stay for a bite or two? I would like to hear more of what became of my niece in her absence…”

"I cannot, Honored Speaker. People are waiting for me to return."

“But you will come back to hear what your father and grandmother sent you back, won’t you?”

Tercius nodded. “When should I come back?”

“I know not when the other side will reply, but you are welcome here any day. I will instruct brother Menesthios to open a room for you, just in case you change your mind…”

*** *** ***

As the years passed and the conditions of her temple and her congregation continued to stagnate and even decline in the case of the latter, Calidia had reached out to her Divine and asked for a way out of the grasp of the Empire.

The time is not right, was the answer she received. Change must arrive first.

Her flesh aged and weathered, her bones started to hurt from moving, and yet no sign came. Even though she believed with her whole heart in the words of her Divine, she came to accept that this change would not come in her lifetime.

Until it did.

The morning had started alike to so many others. She woke before the sun and waited for her bones to grow warm enough to move. The herbs helped, but only a little. She ate the watery porridge that one of the early rising brothers made for her and a sister helped her to reach the Chamber of the Divine, where her fellow servants slept in the warm presence of their Divine. She stood in the spot where she had stood for every day of every year behind her and her voice filled the Chamber with songs of adoration.

Then Lady Dawn and Lord Dusk stirred from their months-long sleep, their eyes opening and gazing at the ceiling just as she heard a Voice that had been absent for decades.

The change you sought has arrived at your doorstep. Tread with Balance, child of my heart.

Shivering from head to toe, the Speaker to Divine Balance fell to the floor and wept herself to sleep like a child. The hours where her brothers and sisters tried to wake her were a blur, but when she did wake finally she had an enormous toothless smile.

“—so what if the Holy Ones find the boy interesting?” someone whispered at her bedside.

“Go outside, sister, and see it for yourself. They are in a frenzy.”

“Well, what are they doing to him?”

“Just… rubbing themselves against him.”

“What— sister, you’re awake.”

“Of whom are you two whispering there?” she croaked.

Brother Menesthios shook his head. “Of no one, sister. You need your rest, I will just have the boy come another day.”

“Tell me.”

There was a silence where the two of them conferred with their eyes only, then Menesthios explained. “— and so he came to our doorstep, searching for answers. I told him that only you could—”

Calidia was propping herself before he was finished speaking, her back groaning in pain. There was work to be done. The change was at her doorstep and she had to greet him. “Take me to the chamber and bring the boy there.”

"What is going on, sister?"

"I will tell you both later, but I must go now. Help me get up. Now!"

*** *** ***

“—he’s gone.” Brother Menesthios said.

Calidia sighed and nodded. “Good, good,”

“Sister, if the boy is so important as you say, then why are we letting him just walk away?” Sister Antia paced with hurried steps, her nerves seeping into her words. “He must stay here, and fulfill his holy purpose with our help,”

Calidia shook her head. “We must tread with Balance, sister. Nothing is set in stone. Wisdom, temperance, and caution are advised with each step of the way. If I force that child to do something he does not want, then what would happen?”

Sister Antia’s eyes shone. “He will do as our Divine bids him to and be honored that he is chosen.”

“A change, sister, is not always for the better,” Brother Menesthios said. “Calm yourself. Our sister has spoken wisely and I support her decision.”

“The boy will come back again,” Calidia said. “I know it. Tomorrow, in a month, or a year, but he will come. We must build our relationship with him slowly and with care. Only then can the change that rides behind him be in our favor.”

Sister Antia stood silent. Abruptly, her eyes shone with white light, the mark between her brows igniting with the same light a moment later. Before Calidia's glowing eyes, a sleek cat of long limbs weaved itself into existence from the light of sister Antia's body.

Sister Antia’s skin paled with each passing moment. “Follow that boy. Do not let him out of your sight, but do not approach,”

The cat bowed its head low, its body turning invisible.

*** *** ***

Tercius was barely able to extract himself from the temple grounds in the late afternoon and he and Isidorus headed out of the old district with haste. At the district gate, Tercius separated from Isidorus and proceeded with the plan he and his Mentor came up with.