Chapter: 263 - Howlton (Patreon)

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Tala walked with the Banlens up through the village of Howlton until they came to a courtyard before a quiet, restful seeming area. It was marked as a clinic and healer’s shop.

Right, the men. Tala obviously hadn’t forgotten about those she had within Kit, but they had definitely fallen out of the front of her mind.

-For you, that’s the same as forgetting.-

Hush you.

The motion of the city walking was hardly noticeable, but Tala had quickly become accustomed to the slight swaying.

One of the Banlens went inside to get the healers.

The other smiled. “If you would, Greater Tala?”

Tala nodded and placed Kit on the closest wall.

Tense faces greeted her as Tala pushed open the door into Kit, but they relaxed with the remaining Banlen called out.

“We’re in Howlton, just outside the healers.”

What followed was another bit of time for getting the men out and settled.

Tala felt a bit awkward about not helping, but she didn’t want to infect anyone with the dasgannach, if that was even possible, and she didn’t want to reveal it either.

Thankfully, the door in and out of Kit restricted the number of people who could easily go in and out, and there were plenty of people to help.

It turned out there were half a dozen healers and quite a few apprentices in this one healing establishment.

They also had rather good methods as they set about healing the broken bones straight away.

Artifacts were in place that would repair the fractures, but they still took a few minutes to fully repair the damage that she’d done.

Even so, by the time all the men were settled in to wait their turns, Markl was healed and ready to go.

“I’ll escort you the rest of the way to the Head’s office.”

Tala nodded her thanks, bid the Banlens goodbye, and followed Markl out.

They went up.

And up.

And up.

The whole place was laid out in a pleasing manner. Nothing was too cramped, and there seemed to be multiple ways to get to each place.

The village’s aura made her magesight less informative than usual, but she was easily able to see that at every level almost everyone she saw had a gate.

Finally, she turned to Markl and asked. “Why did so few guards have gates, but basically everyone here does?”

“Hmm?” He paused looking back at her. “Oh! The non-gated are within the village’s core.”

“The core?”

He frowned. “The expanded space? Where we have our farmland.”

Oh! That makes so much sense. The gated can’t be in there because of degradation, but the gateless could be much more comfortable. “That makes a lot of sense, I suppose.”

He smiled. “The gated can come and go on occasion, but access is limited, as I am sure you can understand.”

“Of course.”

“It can be inconvenient as most of our residences are within, and we don’t wish to create segregated societies, so our schools, especially our primary schools, are out here, so that we grow up together.”

“Wait, most residences? I thought this was just a village. How populous are you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t have an exact count, but I believe in the forty-eight-hundred range. The classification is more to do with the size of our village, the walking part out here. There are roughly a thousand gated in our community.”

I suppose that’s one way to measure things. Especially if the gated help out in some way that others don’t.

-We didn’t see any connections of power, but looking back, I wouldn’t be surprised if the gated were the ones to power all the weaponry for the unit.-

Clever use of power, that.

With no other pressing questions, they continued upward.

Eventually, they reached the top level.

The whole level was a room with glass, or something like it, ringing the entire circumference of the somewhat small space.

One figure stood in the middle, able to see out in every direction.

Scripts were embedded in the floor along with fully impressed spellforms that existed solely in the dimensions of magic, just as they did for artifacts.

The man turned toward them as they came up the spiral stairs.

The last bit of the staircase lacked any handhold, so that the view was utterly unobstructed.

The man, seemingly the Head, was odd to Tala’s eyes.

First, he wore what appeared to be incredibly traditional Mage’s robes of a dark green satin, and his feet were bare.

Beyond that, he had a few clear demarcations of a dragonling nature about him.

His hands and feet ended in neat—but wicked-looking—claws.

The backs of his hands, tops of his feet, and his bare arms were covered in small black scales, but his palms were bare.

Horns swept up and back from his brow ridge, their base almost hidden among his long, scraggly, black hair.

Even so, his face looked human, or more or less human.

A scraggly beard matched his hair quite nicely, and his features were on the sharper, more angular side for a human, without crossing the line into seeming truly alien.

He had deep, dark circles around his eyes, which glowed a sickly green.

He looked utterly exhausted, but that was just how he looked physically.

Magically?

His aura was Honored, clearly earned in the arcane style, however that was done.

Tala had flipped through the House of the Rising Sun’s book on the subject, but that was so Alat could store it for later. She’d yet to actually process the information.

He clearly had deeply impressed, natural magics that she couldn’t interpret, along with spell-lines of some material that seemed to glow an unhealthy green that matched his eyes.

The spellforms glowed even where Tala couldn’t detect magic flowing through them.

Yet oddest of all, he had a gate, sitting within him in just slightly the wrong place, and the gate in question felt like it had a flowrate similar to her own, though she couldn’t be exactly sure.

How is that possible?

-I don’t know, but it will be fascinating to find out.-

Tala took all this in in but a moment, even as Markl dropped to one knee.

“Head Pareshti, I bring a visitor. This is Greater Tala.”

Tala finally felt the telltale pressure and tingle of someone using a magesight equivalent on her for the first time in days.

The man spoke softly, as if his voice were hoarse, and he was trying not to strain it.

“Human? Halfway to Refined and oddly shielded.” He hummed thoughtfully. “Regardless, be welcomed.”

Markle straightened, bowed again, and departed without a word.

Tala called after him. “Thank you!”

He hesitated, giving her an odd look. After an almost awkwardly long pause, he finally nodded once and continued back down, out of the chamber.

Tala turned back to Head Pareshti. “Thank you for the welcome.”

“And thank you for choosing not to kill my men when they accosted you.”

Tala stiffened.

“Did you not think I could see?” He pointed out the window, and Tala turned to look.

It took her a moment, but she was able to vaguely see familiar crags in the distance, beside which she’d fought the guards.

“I do my best to watch over all my people, and I was grateful for your restraint.”

“Why did you send them after me?”

“Send them after you?” He chuckled. “I suppose it might have looked that way, given you are unfamiliar with this area, but any Head would have requested to speak with you, given how close you’ve come to our village.”

Tala found herself nodding. That did make sense. If she were in charge of a village, she’d be curious about people like herself passing too close by. Overall, she felt the mood lighten, tension she hadn’t noticed fading away as they cleared the air.

“Now, what brings you to our section of the Wild Plains?”

Tala turned to Pareshti. “I am heading home.”

“And where is that, Greater Tala?”

“Just Tala, please, Head Pareshti.”

“Only if you will call me Paresh.”

“As you wish, Paresh. Do you know of the human cities?”

He hesitated, then nodded slowly. “I do. Most of my people would not be welcome there, for one reason or another.” He chuckled. “Many of their ancestors came from those cities rather… involuntarily.” When he noticed that Tala didn’t get the joke, he clarified, “They were banished, Tala.”

“Ahh. Well, your ancestors too, right? I mean your ancestors came from the human cities? That’s why you have a gate?”

He stiffened, then relaxed, shaking his head even as his right hand raised to rest on his chest. “No, no. I have never visited, nor did my ancestors come from there. My gate comes from my wife, may she guide me and strengthen me until I may join her in death.”

Tala nodded. “If I may be so forward, I had not known how such things worked when both parties were not gated.”

He waved her off. “We are both adults here. For two gated humans, intimacy causes a sort of soul-bond. This is well known and expected. If you are from the cities, I am not surprised that you wouldn’t know that it is the same if only one party is gated, though the results are different.”

“If I may ask, how so?”

He nodded, gesturing.

Tala suddenly found a chair behind her, which not only held her greater than average weight, it was quite comfortable.

She’d felt the barest flicker of power. Did he shape the floor upward into a chair so quickly?

-I’m not sure. He might have called it from elsewhere, probably more easily than shaping it.-

Paresh stayed upright, standing in the center of what seemed to be a control script for the walking village. “When both are gated, if one dies, their soul passes on, usually scarring the one left behind. Even those who do not use their gates feel this effect, though less strongly, and too much damage to the soul can cause… rash or even heinous action. One of my mentors would have said it ‘dehumanizes’ them for a time, until they are healed.” He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “This happens because there is no place for two broken souls within a physical vessel, so one must pass on, severing all ties to Zeme and those here.”

Tala nodded. This was elementary knowledge that hardly bore repeating, but she didn’t interrupt to say so, as he was obviously ensuring common ground before making his point.

“But when one is gated, and the other is not? Then, the bond is much stronger in a sense, and much more one directional. Had I died, my wife would have been hurt far worse than if I had been gated. I sense soul-bound items on you. She would have been harmed as much as you would, should one of your bonds be destroyed or broken.”

Tala found herself nodding again. “But you didn’t die.”

“No, I did not. She did, breaching a ruin, but that is not what we are discussing. When she died, the bond between us caused her soul to come here.” He tapped his chest. “To rest within me, where there was no broken soul to clash with.”

Tala swallowed. She knew it was an incredibly personal question, but the answer would be beyond illuminating. “Can you… can you speak to her?”

Paresh shrugged, his eyes moving to scan the horizon. “In a sense, I can. Your curiosity is understandable.” He smiled, and it was only tinged with the smallest bit of sadness. “And it has been centuries since her passing. I do appreciate both your attempt to ask with care, and your genuine curiosity.”

Tala waited as he sighed, seeming to collect his thoughts. The tiredness she’d seen within him seemed more evident than before.

“She does not have a mind, so she is not actually a person in that sense, not any longer, but she is here with me. I feel her presence, I know her love. It is the feeling of reading beside her, but not talking. Of sleeping side by side, not quite touching. Of living life as one, knowing you will never be alone. She could pass on at any time, I couldn’t stop her if that was her wish, but she chooses not to. I feel her love, every day.”

His eyes were slightly wet as he finished, and he pulled out a handkerchief to dab them dry.

Tala almost asked if such a thing could be abused, or forced as a means for an arcane to gain the power, as she knew of many arcanes who would jump at the chance to have their own gate, but the obvious answer came to her: Soul-bonds have to be voluntary at the deepest level. They must be chosen. And it sounds like the gate isn’t trapped within him either, even after the fact.

It wasn’t fool-proof by any means, but it would be difficult to abuse, even if less than savory arcanes knew of the possibility.

Paresh smiled sadly, drawing her attention back. “My apologies. It has been long since she passed, but I still miss her voice, her smell, her laugh.” He shook his head. “But I am prattling on. You are here for a purpose, am I correct?”

“You are.”

“Then let us hear it. Does it have to do with the curse that lies upon you?”

“I have a— wait. What? A curse?”

“Yes, the concept that is clearly not of you, which pervades much of your body. You were cursed, were you not?”

That started a host of stories tumbling through her mind. Are dasgannach’s living curses? Or something like that?

“I can see I have misspoken.”

“No, I… I had not thought of it in that light. Do you have knowledge of dasgannach?”

“The name is not familiar, but that does not surprise me. My studies focus on the creation of things, and this sounds like a creature. Based on context I would guess it is a concept based life-form?”

“I’ve never heard it described that way, but it fits incredibly well.”

“So, this concept has invaded you, is that what you come to ask about?”

“I was hoping for help diagnosing its current state, though I would happily accept a solution if you have one.”

“Tell me what you know of it, and I will see what I can offer.”

“I can do that but won’t you need some diagnostic equipment or… something?”

He shook his head. “No, no. This whole room provides that information to me, both for that which lies within it, and without. That is how I detected the thing to begin with.”

“Oh. I suppose that make sense.” So, Tala spoke of the dasgannach, and Paresh listened attentively, his eyes only occasionally sweeping the landscape.

Tala told of her encounters with them before, what Master Jevin and others had told her, along with how this one had supposedly been modified.

“That is quite the conundrum, Tala. I do agree, however, that teleportation should be a cure. At least I believe so. I do not have specific knowledge of teleportation methods, but what you say lines up with the little theory I know.”

“That’s good to hear, at least.”

“Do not be surprised, however, if you put the dasgannach in a unique situation, when you attempt to teleport. It would likely be utterly outside its concept to react to.” He chuckled. “It is literally exiting reality, so it stands to reason that such a simple Concept couldn’t account for the possibility.”

“I was afraid of that. Do you think it will leave?”

“That would be the best case, yes. You’d teleport, leaving it behind, where it would die. You would arrive on the receiving array with your blood restored based on your soul-impression, and you’d only be out your inscriptions. Unpleasant, yes, but hardly a true issue.”

“What would the worst case be?”

“It would accept the open invitation you have extended to it. I would suggest retracting such, but I actually would guess that the open invitation, the ongoing option for it to eat that iron too, is why it hasn’t given up and left. It can take that iron, so it can’t leave before it does.”

Tala blinked a few times. “Oh, rust. That makes sense. But why would the bond be so bad?”

He scoffed. “You’d be bonding a creature of pure ravenous, jealous desire and impetus to consume your very soul. That can change a person.” He laughed at himself. “That would change a person, the only question would be ‘How much?’”

She frowned, considering. She thought his definition rang true, but it also eerily mirrored what the arcane artificer, Cerdai, had said about the Concept most closely linked to her own magics. Is that a coincidence? Or was I already being influenced by the collar around my neck, even then?

-I mean, that’s possible, but I really don’t think that your magics changed much since you were taken. I mean, they literally didn’t change at all, structurally, though your understanding of some of them has shifted.-

“I can see I’ve given you much to think about.”

“Is there anything that you can think of to help in my situation?”

“Unfortunately, no. Mine is a constructive Concept. If you were simply ill, or otherwise injured, I could help, but I cannot repair damage willfully done.”

Tala grimaced. “And to get the dasgannach out, I’d have to make a willful choice to incur that damage.”

“Precisely. You are at an equilibrium, if an unhappy one.”

You could just cut off my hand, and heal me after? She knew she couldn’t ask because that would be her choosing it.

Even so, he sighed. “And no, I cannot encourage it out of you, and heal the damage. That would be willful damage on my part. I can repair what time erodes, or unknown consequences, like my own body’s response to my spell-lines.”

Tala blinked at him. “What? Your spell-lines?”

“Yes, the material involved is quite toxic, but it has a magical conductivity and power like nothing else I’ve ever encountered.”

“Then… wouldn’t your continued use be willfully inflicted damage?”

“Not at all. I don’t wish the damage to happen, not at any level. It is a side effect of another choice. And before the idea crosses your mind, the damage is quite contained within my own body. No one else is in any danger, while I still live.”

“That’s good to know.” The idea had just been crossing her mind. “But, I don’t want the damage.”

“No, of course not, you just want all the iron out of your body. That’s not damaging at all.” He gave her a patronizing smile.

“But I don’t want that, I want the dasgannach out.”

“And what is the dasgannach?”

She opened her mouth and closed it.

“You see, that is the danger of curses, or concepts in general. They distort reality in such a way as to muddy and negate what should be easy and obvious solutions. My advice? Get home, teleport, and deal with the dasgannach’s death or bonding.”

“I appreciate that advice.”

“Of course. Words are free.”

Tala smiled. “True enough, but I still do wish to get home as soon as I can. Is there any way I can avoid such encounters in the future?”

“Oh! Of course, forgive me.” He waved his hand, and a map of the region seemed to appear, floating in the air. “If you head directly north, you should reach the Human City lands soon enough, and I don’t believe there are any other villages in that exact direction at the moment. In the next few days? I am not too sure, but if you are as quick as I believe you are, you shouldn’t pass close enough to any to require a talk with their outer scouts and defenders.”

Tala grimaced. “I need to avoid the woods.”

“Oh? Not a fan of the Leshkin? I can’t say I blame you. We do our best to stay away from the woods for that exact reason. It’s one cause of the slow encroachment of the forest into our plains. We’ll have to burn it back in another few hundred years or it will begin to get inconvenient.”

“Something like that, yeah.” Paresh seemed to enjoy talking, and Tala wasn’t going to turn down good information.

“Well then, you’ll want to go north and east, hugging the treeline. You should be able to do that well enough without encountering any more villages. Here and here”—two dots appeared on the map—“Are the shortest paths through the woods, assuming our information is good for the other side. At those points you’ll only have to cross about fifty miles of forest. The more northern route is a bit shorter, but you’d be going nearly eighty miles out of your way to save three miles in the trees, so I’ll let you determine what’s right for you.”

Tala took a moment to ensure she’d memorized the information before nodding. “Thank you. That will help tremendously.”

“Of course. Once again, it cost me nothing.”

Tala hesitated, feeling the barest trembling of the regular rumbling she’d been sensing for nearly a day now. “If I may, what is that?”

“The rumbling from beneath?”

“I’d hope not, but yes?”

“That is purportedly the tomb of the magical beast known as the clockwork thunder.”

When Tala returned a blank look, Paresh smiled.

“In ancient times, the clockwork thunder ravaged the land around its home, driving thinking species back and killing all it could. Time and time again humans and arcanes alike rallied to slay the beast, but every time it was slain, it was birthed anew. So, finally, it was sealed beneath the earth.”

“And you’re looking for it?”

“Its burial place, yes. Not only would it be amazing to learn from the information placed alongside it, as an aid against its possible escape, but the legend states that bribes ‘beyond imagining’ were placed around the seal to pay off those who found it, to keep them from opening the door. All that treasure would immediately vanish should the seal be broken, of course.”

“You’re treasure hunters?”

“Scholars of ancient magics, and designers of new tools mostly, but treasure never hurts.” He grinned. “You know, you aren’t in any real danger, so long as you keep that hand safe. Would you like to join us? We’re narrowing down the location. I suspect we’ll find it within the year.”

“That long?”

“The obfuscation scripts are very well constructed, for all that they can’t completely suppress the beast’s rage-filled hammering.”

Tala frowned. It did sound interesting. A bit foolish too, but definitely interesting. Even so, she wasn’t that tempted. I just want to get home. “Thank you for the offer, but I will have to decline for now.”

Paresh smiled. “Completely understandable. You are far from home. If you ever change your mind, search for us. If you find another village, they should be able to send you our way, even if you can’t find us yourself.”

Tala smiled. “Thank you.” A thought occurred to her, and she decided to ask. No harm in asking. “Could I get some scrap-iron from you, while I’m here?”

“Why… ” He tilted his head to the side for a moment, then nodded. “Ahh, I see. That just might help, yes. One moment.”

Tala hesitated, but less than a half-minute later, the floor opened and a small pile of what was clearly scrap iron raised up on a little platform of some other material. She cocked an eyebrow.

“It is convenient to be able to transport material throughout my village.”

“I’ll say.” She smiled and used a white-metal-clad hand to put the scraps into Kit. “Thank you, Paresh. May you find what you seek, and may it yield nothing but blessings.”

His smile widened. “Same to you, Tala. May you find your way home, and may the journey be short and fulfilling.”

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