Her words linger and work and work and work and work until they prove themselves true. I fear that I was not made for such truths, the very blood in my veins seems to rebel at knowing them. Does the shape of it come to the world from my mind or did it crawl through perception unbidden to etch itself on the meat of me? There is a pattern to be observed and I cannot remember if I was its author. In the endless bloody galleries it has carved I wander wander, wander wander, because I am it and it is me and I am it and it is me and I am it and it is me and…

Excerpt from the suicide note of Goresje Di Sazhocel Selyta, Royal Archives, Ce Raedhil.

Sjan Saal was a well-made city, inside the walls, with broad cobbled streets and glass in more windows than not. No part of it was particularly pretty but it was obvious that its inhabitants had means and pride enough to care for their buildings. In the high streets around the town’s central plaza the plain facades were largely lost behind a riot of signs, banners and awnings in colors both bright and sun-faded. But for the peculiar local orthography and the absence of anyone over middling height, it could have been one of a hundred country towns from Earth.

That quaint atmosphere ended abruptly at the governor’s palace. A rough stone wall rose in the densest spread of Sjan Saal’s southern district to demarcate the palace and its grounds from the bustle of the rest. The palace itself was a broad, low building hewn from the same glass-smooth black stone that fenced off the eastern end of the valley. There were few windows and fewer doorways to mar the outside, giving it an ugly, industrial appearance that stood in contrast with the lovely grounds enclosing it. The building’s occupants had made heroic efforts to redo the interiors with warm wooden paneling and decorative sconces festooned with glowing coins. It was at least a partial success, leaving the interiors dim but comfortable with only an occasional sweep of unclad stone left as a reminder of the original finish.

It was a mark of esteem, therefore, that the travelers had been given one of the few suites with a window. They had been escorted to quarters in one wing of the palace and left mostly alone, although a few guards lingered at a respectful distance down the hall. The only intrusion on their privacy was the tremulous presence of Tasja, Vimodi’s unfortunate clerk, who had been assigned to them as a notional aide. Any suspicions of espionage were quickly dismissed - the boy was a quavering mess around the four travelers and an entirely different sort of debacle when confronted with Gusje, who had grudgingly agreed to monopolize his attention while they discussed strategy.

The boy wouldn’t be able to understand English, of course, but they didn’t want to chance puncturing their cultivated air of dimwitted affability. It was both fortunate and mildly insulting how easily the governor was convinced that the four travelers were harmless, wealthy cretins and Gusje a useful naïf of no real importance. It would have stung more had the governor not also provided lunch.

“Oh my god, cheese,” Jackie raved, tearing into part of the fragrant, hard wedge that had come with their meal. “I don’t care if Vimodi is a slimy bastard, I’m going to see if he’ll adopt me or something.”

Arjun picked up a piece to examine it. “I wonder what they get the milk from?”, he mused. “We haven’t seen any livestock that seem to fit the bill.”

“Don’t care,” Jackie replied. “And don’t you fucking ruin this for me, Arjun. It’s not a question I need answered when ignorance tastes this good.”

“Speaking of blissful ignorance,” Mark cut in dryly, “I figure we have another day or so before Tizhodhu can get a courier here, judging by the distance we drove. After that point we won’t look like such an easy mark. We should try to make good use of our time until then, drum up some contacts or see if there’s another place we could inquire.”

Arjun raised an eyebrow. “Do you think we’ll be in danger, once Vimodi learns we’re not merely a group of… what were we, again? Foppish nobles from some island?”

“Gadhun Draat,” Jesse replied tonelessly, staring out the window. “I think it’s a peninsula.”

“Right,” Mark muttered, scribbling down a note. “Should probably try to memorize that if we don’t want to look suspicious. Anyway, that was a stroke of genius on Gusje’s part. Gadhun Draat is apparently on the ass-end of everything so nobody actually goes there - but the locals all know the name because they use it like we’d say ‘Timbuktu.’ Someplace way far away, but nowhere in particular.”

“Ultima Thule,” Arjun nodded, frowning when he received only blank looks in response. “Never mind. We never actually told Tizhodhu anything that would contradict that story, you know.”

“Nothing that would contradict where we’re from, sure, just the parts that make us seem nonthreatening,” Jackie said, speaking around a mouthful of food. “God, we haven’t even told Gusje the full truth about how we got here. We should probably fill her in at some point when she’s done distracting Tasja.”

“Oh, sure,” Mark snorted. “We just have to figure out the Ceiqa word for ‘interdimensional portal.’” He shook his head and sighed. “Jack’s right, though. I’ve seen a hundred petty local officials like Vimodi, he’s not interested in anything but our apparent wealth. Plan A was asking nicely, but that was never going to work on him. Playing ourselves down so he’d focus on the threat just made us look like easy marks.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, exasperated. “Nah, we fucked this up good. He wants the truck and our gear badly and he’s only going to play nice as long as he thinks it’ll benefit him. Once he realizes that angle won’t work on us he’s going to drop any pretence of goodwill.”

“Sounds like we should be gone by the time Tizhodhu’s courier gets here,” Jackie muttered.

Arjun nodded, running his fingers through wispy white hair. “Probably,” he agreed. “Relying on the fiction that we’re representatives from afar seems like thin protection. Vimodi may decide that diplomatic consequences are a problem for tomorrow while our equipment is a guaranteed windfall today. We’ve severely underestimated the truck’s value here.”

“I think we’re meant to stay, at least for a little while,” Jesse murmured.

The other three turned to look at him. “What?”, Mark sputtered. “Dude, as far as he’s concerned the only thing standing between him and everything he’s ever dreamed of is us, specifically us being alive and in possession of the truck. We hang around long enough and he’s going to try to fix one of those two problems.”

Jesse pursed his lips and leaned back, looking pensive. “Water and shelter,” he said. “I asked Gusje about it after the meeting. By granting us water and shelter Vimodi has named us his guests. There are rules, expectations. He’ll need deniability to move against us now.”

“Oh, fascinating,” Arjun said, perking up. “I had noticed there was a formal aspect to the serving of water, but that’s remarkably similar to how some cultures on Earth use salt or bread.”

“I had just assumed they were all serving water because it was hot as shit,” Mark said wryly. “I still don’t like it. If he’s limiting his options like that it has to be for a reason. Does he get some sort of prestige for hosting us?”

“Probably,” Jesse admitted. “But this wasn’t his plan. He didn’t want to do it. Tasja was about to offer us water and Vimodi practically grabbed the tray out of his hands.”

“But we had water,” Jackie objected.

Jesse nodded. “Someone…”, he said hesitantly. “There was a girl. She brought us all water before Vimodi arrived. She forced his hand.”

“Huh, I didn’t notice her,” Jackie remarked. “Lucky us. Vimodi’s staff is too good for him.”

“I don’t think she worked for Vimodi,” Jesse said quietly. “She talked to me, asked me why we were here. I think part of what she said was a warning. She-”

He hesitated again. “She knew my name,” Jesse whispered. “She said it perfectly, no accent, like she was speaking English.”

There was a moment of silence while the three others stared at Jesse.

“What the fuck,” Jackie muttered. “Seriously, what is wrong with this place? That is some top-shelf creepy shit right there.”

Mark reached over to clap Jesse on the shoulder. “For future reference,” Mark said, “next time a strange lady who knows things she shouldn’t know serves me a drink, give me a heads-up before I drink it.”

“Sorry,” Jesse said weakly. “I thought… I still think I’m going crazy. None of you saw her, she left before I could say anything. Even after touching the glass she gave me I was half-convinced I made her up.”

Arjun leaned forward, cupping his chin in his hand. “So there’s a third party,” he mused. “One who intervened to protect us from Vimodi and has some knowledge about who we are. I heard mention of a local council of some sort, could it be them?”

“I don’t like it,” Mark grumbled. “Fuck, this is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to stay out of. Local politics is always a shitshow.”

“Was that what she was warning us about?”, Arjun asked, turning to Jesse. “If she’s simply trying to disrupt Vimodi then she may not necessarily be acting in our best interest.”

Jesse shook his head. “It wasn’t that,” he said. “She asked why we were here, and I mentioned that we were looking for something.”

“Dude,” Mark said reproachfully.

“I didn’t get specific!”, Jesse objected, raising his hands. “I said it just like that. She said something about patterns and seekers and sought that felt like it was out of a parable, then she said, ah…” He closed his eyes, remembering the words. “A barred door is both obstacle and protection, open them with care.”

“Be careful where you stick your nose, huh?”, Mark muttered. “Not like we didn’t know that already.” He stood up and paced away from the group, stretching his back. “This fucking place. I’d say we should pack up and leave except the next town down the road isn’t likely to be any better.”

Jackie rolled her eyes at him. “Or we could make half an effort before writing the place off,” she said. “Gusje’s village will need help from here, not the next town over, and that girl Jesse saw is the most promising lead we’ve had yet on information that could get us home. Aside from her there have to be more people like Tizhodhu we could ask, even if they only point us to someone else who can help. Hell, why don’t we ask Tasja? He seems like he’s in a position to overhear interesting things.”

“That works both ways,” Arjun noted. “He could tell Vimodi we’ve been deceiving him.”

“Who, Short Round? We talking about the same kid?”, Mark snorted. “I was suspicious at first but I don’t think he’s a spy. I mean - look at him. I think if any of us talked to him directly he’d shit himself and pass out, and that’s only if we can unstick his eyeballs from Gusje.”

“We may as well give it a try,” Jackie chuckled, pushing up from her seat and grabbing one last morsel of cheese. “If nothing else, we need to go rescue her - the poor girl’s been running interference for the better part of an hour now.”

“-and then Vimodi Ma tried to tell the bursar to give him the funds, and the bursar wouldn’t do it because he had the sealed order from the governor telling him not to. So Vimodi Ma gets very quiet and asks him if he knows who the governor is, and the bursar looks at him and says - ‘he looks just like you, but he has the governor’s seal.’ Hah! And no matter how much Vimodi Ma shouted the bursar refused to release a single qi until he formally stamped the writ.”

Gusje stretched her lips into a sickly grin, nodding along with the punchline while a voice in her head silently railed at Jackie for talking her into this. She hadn’t spoken a single word in reply to the last three stories. She had carefully avoided expressing interest in anything Tasja was talking about. Any reasonable person would have been able to read the deep and profound boredom in her expression, she thought - but then again, Tasja’s eyes seemed to perpetually wander somewhat lower than her face.

“-paranoid that the council was plotting to depose him behind his back - which they always are - so he kept all the documents for the case on him at all times and never made any copies. But there were dozens of landowners involved, so the writs just kept stacking up until he could barely carry them. By the end of the day Vimodi Ma had both arms full of papers - and two scribes from the council following behind him in case he dropped anything. Pfah!”

She could just run, she supposed. The scribe had weak, spindly arms and legs and seemed to lose his breath easily. His shoes actually appeared to be made of wood, so she doubted he could run more than a span of steps before they flew off his feet. She resisted the urge to smile at the mental image - Tasja would take it as encouragement, and she would die of hunger listening to tales of amusing mishaps involving sums while the others enjoyed a leisurely breakfast.

She was saved from her fate by brisk footsteps coming down the hall, heralding the amused face of her tormentor and savior. “Two you, hello!”, Jackie said cheerily. “Good talking?”

Tasja flushed and lapsed into silence while Gusje stood and stretched languorously. “Jackie, I was just thinking about you,” she said coolly.

The taller woman gave her a wicked grin and a wink. “Scary Gusje,” she laughed. “Go eat. Come Tasja us talk.”

Tasja started at the mention of his name, giving Jackie a wide-eyed look. “Me?”, he stammered, his voice cracking. He looked back at Gusje, who finally let her smile reach her lips.

“Don’t worry, Tasja,” she said sweetly. “I’m sure Vimodi gave them enough to eat already.”

Jackie herded the quaking scribe back towards the group with little difficulty. She was the shortest and lightest of their group, aside from Gusje, but even she towered over Tasja’s spindly frame. The pair of them rejoined the others around the remains of their lunch and took seats, with Jackie firmly planting Tasja in the chair beside hers. Gusje split off from the group to enjoy her meal in silence, looking extremely relieved.

“Hungry?”, Mark asked him, dipping his head towards some leftover bread.

Tasja stammered a barely audible response, shrinking away from the group.

Mark sighed and rested his face in his hands for a moment before straightening back up with an exasperated look at the clerk. “We’re not going to hurt you, we just want to ask you some questions,” he said soothingly. “My name is Mark. You’re Tasja, right?”

“Y-”, Tasja stammered, halfway through a confirmation before he stopped and looked at the four of them suspiciously. “You can speak,” he said softly. “Vimodi Ma said you couldn’t speak. Even now, Jackie Rys was barely making sense,” he objected, looking over at Jackie.

“I’m sure we never said that,” Mark said, smiling conspiratorially at the boy. “Everything Gusje told Vimodi was true. And Jack isn’t faking, she’s barely able to put a sentence together.” He smiled and pointed at Jackie, who grinned back uncertainly while trying to figure out if she should be offended.

“But why would you pretend you couldn’t understand us?”, Tasja asked, perplexity edging out fear for the moment. “It made the meeting so much more difficult.”

Mark shrugged. “Why didn’t Vimodi want to serve us water?”, he asked, smiling as he watched Tasja’s face go pale. “Yeah, we saw that,” he chuckled. “Not the best way to start a friendly conversation.”

“I’m sure he didn’t-” Tasja started, trailing off helplessly. “He normally has his reasons,” he concluded lamely, not sounding very convinced of himself.

“I’m sure he does,” Mark said dryly. “And we don’t want to work against him if we can avoid it.”

Tasja looked around at the group again, his momentary curiosity fading back into fear. “What do you want me for?”, he asked shakily.

“We’re a long way from, ah, Gadhun Draat,” Mark explained. “We need some questions answered, basic things about the area. Nothing that should be harmful for us to know. You seem like a knowledgeable and discreet person, so we thought we’d ask you.”

Tasja blinked, still unsettled but obviously pleased by the compliment. “Well, if it’s just general knowledge,” he muttered, flushing. “Yes, I can probably help you.”

“Wonderful,” Mark drawled, reaching into a pocket and coming up with a coin, its markings still glowing with faint light. “Are there people in this area that, ah, try to learn about things? Someone who could tell us how this works, for example,” he said, placing the coin on the table.

“A qi?”, Tasja asked bemusedly. “Do they not have qim in Gadhun Draat?” He looked at the group with a bewildered expression, then shook his head. “Sorry, it’s just - I would have thought these were everywhere, they’re so common. You just expose them to light or heat and they glow for a while, normally enough light for an evening. Not much, though, so you want a few of them.”

“We know that,” Arjun broke in, his accent thick but understandable. “We know how to use. How does qi work?”

Tasja blinked again, looking at them with an odd expression.

“If he says ‘it just does,’” Mark muttered, lapsing back into English, “I may actually hit him.”

“What?”, Tasja asked confusedly, watching Arjun and Jackie restraining smiles. “Sorry, I was just surprised. Gadhun Draat must be very different from Tinem Sjocel if these are the sorts of questions you have.” He spread his arms helplessly, shaking his head. “Unfortunately I can’t answer that for you. Practical knowledge of ruudun is restricted to the Scriptsmith’s Guild, and we don’t have a branch in Sjan Saal.”

“Ruudun,” Jesse said, frowning.

“You - right, new word,” Tasja said frustratedly, his hands becoming animated as he tried to explain. “Working with saon draim, controlling their use and application, that’s ruudun. Any drai aside from qim and utelym has to be registered with the scriptsmiths. They’re the only people that would know the answer to your question, but they’re not going to tell you.”

Mark leaned forward to cup his chin in his hand, frowning. “Because we’re not in the guild,” he muttered. “Well, that’s unfortunate. At least we know where to look.” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Utelym?”

“Water-catch coins, the ones on strings,” Jesse supplied absently. He was staring up at the ceiling, seemingly deep in thought. “Where can we find scriptsmiths?”, he asked.

Tasja shook his head. “Not in Sjan Saal, like I said. We’ve got a registrar that keeps track of licenses but he’s just a clerk like me. The closest branch with real scriptsmiths is probably in Ce Raedhil, or maybe Utine - but you want to visit the one in Ce Raedhil, I’d say.”

“Why is that?”, Mark asked.

Tasja gave him an odd look. “It’s Ce Raedhil,” he said disbelievingly. “You’ve never heard of it?”

“Gadhun Draat,” Mark replied with a helpless shrug. “It’s so very far away.”

“Right, sorry,” Tasja sighed. “Ce Raedhil is the center of Tinem Sjocel. It has the palace, the port, everything flows through there. If you want information, supplies, anything - you may find it elsewhere, but you’re certain to find it there.”

“Good to know,” Mark said agreeably. “Could someone there make a... doorway to a distant place?”

“A what?”, Tasja sputtered. “Is that something they can do in Gadhun Draat? Is that how you crossed the desert?” He shook his head wonderingly. “I’ve never even heard of something like that.”

Mark shrugged. “Just curious,” he said dismissively. “What do you know about Asu Saqarid and the Emperor of Ash?”

“Only what every Sjocelym knows,” Tasja said, clearing his throat before reciting something with the practiced cadence of a children’s tale.

“Behind far mountains, upon foul waters,

The ruler of ashes sits alone.

Stone bars the door, stone bars the door.

The wind blows, the silence grasps,

His children hunger for your warmth.

Stone bars the door, stone bars the door.

Old eyes watch the empty land,

Young hands work with tireless toil.

The vigil whispers where none hear

And stone bars the door, stone bars the door.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable quiet, broken by Tasja coughing into his hand. “It’s an old story,” he said. “My parents called it a story for children and travelers, but they were born before the stones failed across the Vidim Vai. I grew up hearing other stories instead, stories about caravans disappearing and people being snatched from their homes. When Tinem Aesvai fell people stopped talking about it at all, like we were pretending it didn’t happen.”

Tasja gave them a sour smile. “Easy for us down here. We don’t get many Aesvain, but they’re common as qim over in Idran Saal. Tinem Aesvai is actually closer to Far Tinem Setel, but many of them were cut off and couldn’t make that path - so they took the long march over the Vidim Vai, and died by the hundreds. Now they don’t know what to do with all the ones that made it. Might be Ce Raedhil or Utine that doesn’t know what to do with us before long, from what you said.”

None of them could think of a fitting response, and the group sat in silence for a moment.

“Well,” Jackie said in English, slapping her hands against her thighs and popping to her feet. “I have no idea what we’ve been talking about, but it seems depressing as all get-out. I’m going to go check on Gusje.”

Mark nodded, and by the time Jackie was leaving earshot the three men had begun to question Tasja once more in low, insistent voices. She wandered slowly through the dim corridors until she found Gusje staring out another of the palace’s rare windows. This one had a view of the distant lake, and Gusje’s eyes were fixed on the shimmering grey smudge that lay past the expanse of the city.

“Gusje, hello!”, Jackie said, sidling up next to her. “How is?”

Gusje looked over at her for a moment before turning back towards the window. “It’s different here,” she said, speaking slowly for Jackie’s benefit. “So big, so green. So much water.”

“Pretty,” Jackie agreed. “For me, home like.” She frowned. “Not home like. More like than desert.”

“I had only been in the desert, before this,” Gusje murmured. “I had no idea, I thought the whole world was like that. Now I’m wondering if the whole world is like this instead.”

Jackie smiled knowingly at her. “Gusje home want,” she said sympathetically. “Tesvaji, Saneji.”

“Don’t treat me like a child,” Gusje snapped, bristling. “I’m not going to go running back to my parents. I told my father I would get help for all of us, and I intend to do it.” She glowered for a moment more before turning back to the view of the lake.

A few minutes of quiet passed in which the wind whistled outside and the low clouds roiled overhead. “I home want,” Jackie said quietly. “Want mother, brother, friends.” She turned to Gusje, her face somber. “Jackie child, you think?”

The younger woman turned to face her, looking up at Jackie’s uncharacteristically serious face. Gusje’s hand came up to brush against Jackie’s hair, and her lips pursed as she seemed to come to some internal consensus.

“No,” she sighed. She pinched a lock of Jackie’s curly hair in her hand and pulled it forward, separating out a few grey strands to wave them in front of the taller woman’s face. “Definitely not a child,” she said mischievously, her lips splitting into a grin.

Jackie affected a look of mock outrage and smacked Gusje’s hand away with a theatrical flourish. “Bad, mean, unfair,” she declaimed loudly. “Bad Gusje, bad is. Correct, but bad also.” She chuckled ruefully to herself before looping an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders.

“Both home, parents, far away,” she said, her voice dropping back to a more serious tone and giving Gusje’s shoulders a squeeze. “Family near. Jesse, Arjun, Mark, Jackie. Gusje. We together fix bad.”

Gusje blinked her eyes quickly and turned her face to the window, staring out over the strange cityscape for a few breaths before bringing her arm up around Jackie’s waist. “We together fix bad,” she agreed softly.

The thin whine of the wind outside was not loud, but it was enough to mask a set of quiet footsteps that moved away from where the two women sat in their embrace. The footsteps continued away from the visitors’ wing of the palace until they reached the governor’s quarters, where a quiet knock on the door saw them ushered inside.

“You have something?”, Vimodi rumbled irritably. A woman dressed as one of the palace servants entered and knelt deferentially before him.

“The Cereinem girl,” she said. “She’s no mere guide. The visitors trust her.”

The governor sat in a nearby chair, looking thoughtful. “A lever?”, he asked.

“Possibly,” the maid replied. “She seems to be close in their counsel.”

“Well,” Vimodi grinned, clapping his hands together. “A Cereinem’s price should be cheap enough, and their debt lucrative to hold.” He flicked a hand in dismissal. “Ce Raedhil will likely order us to provide aid to refugees in any case. It costs me nothing to offer some consideration for my guest,” he sneered. “We will see where her priorities lie.”