I woke up with reveille the next morning, and after washing, dressing, and eating with the rest of the troops, I made my way to the General’s office, announced myself to his aide and took my place where I had sat for so long the day before.

Three hours later I was still waiting. Several other people had come and gone. Usually, they had been ushered in almost as soon as they had arrived. Still, I sat. The room didn’t even have magazines. Eventually, when I started to get fidgety, the aide popped his head into the waiting room and said to me, “The Lord General will see you.”

I followed the aide into the room he indicated and saw a woman in a well decorated military uniform sitting behind the desk paging through a sheaf of papers. I stood waiting for her, but she didn’t give me any indication that she had even noticed my entry.

Eventually, after about five minutes, she looked up and said, “Squire Lieutenant Lynx Elm. I will be honest. I am not a fan of the Inquisition. I don’t like what they do, and I don’t like how they do it. I have met your father on numerous occasions, and I have to admit I don’t like him either.

“From these missives, he has sent me he has spoken highly of you. This would not be a point in your favor. Then I remembered how manipulative the son of a bitch can be. And realized that since he is so well aware of my dislike for him and how much my dislike would be transferred over to a son he’d given such glowing recommendations, that I realized your father had undoubtedly taken these factors into account as he wrote to me.

“As a result, I have decided against my better judgment, to give you the benefit of the doubt. It helps that our head surgeon Tilde speaks so highly of you. Most Seekers from my experience would not bother healing the wounded, even if they could do so. So that is a mark in your favor.”

“If I had my way, I would simply give your command to Tilde. We could use another capable healer, but you are an Inquisitor, and as such you must be assigned to do Inquisitor things, I suppose.”

“That said, I would not knowingly put any soldier under my command, directly under the influence of Lord Samdi the local Lord Major of the Inquisitor who has been assigned to us. He is… unsavory at best.

“As a result, your duties are to be a runner. You will report to Lord Cham who is in charge of the runners, and he will assign you a berth, and give you duties. If you would like to help with healing, I can probably make that happen, but it would mostly be in your r&r hours at first.

“One last thing. Don’t eat or drink anything that Lord Samdi gives you. He thinks it’s funny and I’ve lost too many runners that way. As a Seeker, you should be safe, but as a runner, he might be tempted. Frankly, were he under my command I would have court-martialed him and then happily hung him long ago, but you Inquisitors answer only to yourselves. Besides, grudgingly I have to admit, he is useful.”

“Sanbon my aide will give you directions to Lord Lieutenant Cham. You are dismissed.”

Without letting me even say a word Lord General Aram Heron Sequoia’s eyes went back to the papers she had been looking through when I had entered. I stared at her a little bit longer, but then just before I could ask a question, she looked up and said,

“I said you are dismissed.” Then she went right back to her reading. Without any other choice, I turned and left the room.

Sambon was alphabetizing a stack of papers when I came out of the Lord General Aram’s office. “I was told you could direct me to Lord Lieutenant Cham?” I said.

Without looking up from his alphabetizing, he said, “go down five floors to the second sub-basement, Cham is impossible to miss.”

“Thank you,” I said and turned and following his direction, walked down the stairs.

Cham was indeed impossible to miss.

He was a large man — and that included every stereotype that went along with being large. Big, jolly, hearty, in dire need of blood pressure medication. I was torn between wanted to run over to him and start unclogging his arteries and sitting on his knee and asking him for a pony for Christmas.

Cham sat like the nucleus of an atom at the center of a vast hurling orbiting group of youngsters running to carry the charged particles of messages. To my admittedly untrained eye, it seemed that however, I tried to figure out where a runner was headed, the more uncertain I became about the identity, direction, and methodology of the message bearer. It had to be something more than just the simple perspective of the observer. And there just had to have been a method to Chams madness, because while it seemed like Chaos, it was anything but; whatever was going must have worked at a quantum level, and I got the feeling that if anything broke down in this system, there would be an explosive effect that would be felt around the entire valley.

I walked up to Cham and said “Excuse me. I’m Squire Lieutenant Lynx Elm.”

Lord Cham looked at me and “What do we have here. What do we have here? A new boy? No, a Seeker. What does the Inquisition want from me new boy Seeker.”

“Nothing that I know of, sir. Lord General Aram told to report to you and told me to tell you that I was assigned to be a new runner.” I said.

“Interesting. Interesting. I have never had a Seeker as a runner. Not sure how to fit you in. You are a Squire Lieutenant you say. Hmmm… that could work. We can’t have you running around in Inquisition robes though. What would people say? Ho! Ho! Ho! But we can’t have you completely in Runner clothes either. Let me think. Let me think.

“Hmmm. Why don’t you settle in? There is a dorm for the runners through the door over there. Yes, settle in. Find a bed and a locker and a footlocker. The footlockers are locked for privacy. Just put a drop of blood on the seal, and nobody other than you and a blood mage will be able to open it. Ho! Ho! Ho! No need to worry about sneaky runner eyes, rummaging through your possessions.”

“Thank you,” I said, still worrying about the blood magic books that I had stolen and wondered about how often Lord Lieutenant Cham went rummaging through the private items of the people under his command.

“You eat in the mess with the soldiers. And as a runner, you have full access to the keep library. All the runners here come from great houses, and many of you want to further your education. Many of you want to get away from your parent. Ho! Ho! Ho! We can help with both goals. There are mages on staff who we can arrange training or lessons, at their convenience. Weapons and fire-wards are very popular subjects, but there are people who can teach you anything from logistics to leadership. As long as you don’t get on anybody’s bad side the sergeant at arms, the officers and the various mages on staff can assist you.”

“Lord Tilde Jackalope Treant mentioned that he would like me to stop by,” I said.

“Good! Good! That’s the spirit. Can’t have the runners lounging about. Ho! Ho! Ho!”

“Now, if you are close to your 16th birthday, we have a member of the House of Status here who can help you become an adult. Or if you are already an adult and want to change your status, he can help you with that too. Though I have to admit you do seem a bit too young to worry about that.

“Other than that, well… you will pick up the rules as you go along. Basically, what you will do is run quickly. I will assign someone to help you for your first few days to show you around. Now… as for a uniform… what to do, what to do. Maybe an Inquisitor sash? Or a jaunty hat. No that won’t do at all.”

I turned to head into the dormitory. Before I had taken five steps, I heard Lord Lieutenant Cham say “One last thing. Whatever you do. Never eat or drink anything that Lord Major Samdi offers you. He likes to play his little tricks, and I am tired of him ruining perfectly good runners. He is an inquisitor, and you are an inquisitor, in the normal way of things, I would imagine you would be safe, but normal is never the way with Lord Samdi.”

“Hmm… now that I think about it… if I find out that you are safe, I may have you deal with him exclusively. The other runners don’t like him. Why don’t you keep your Inquisition uniform on for now? Let him identify you as one of his sort. Yes. Yes. The next message I must send to Samdi, you will carry as a runner and one of his kind. Ho! Ho! Ho! That should be fine, fix things.”

“Thank you. I guess.” Not knowing what else to say.

Then I walked into the dormitory. There were thirty cots lined in two rows of 15 with a number painted on the floor in front of each bed and a corresponding number stenciled on each cot.

Six of the cots were filled with boys and girls who were sleeping. And a girl was sitting on her bed reading a book. “Hey, I’m new, mind telling me which beds aren’t being used,” I said.

But the girl ignored me.

So I took a closer look at the lockers and saw that for most of them except three the locks were white instead of black. Looked at the locks with my mage sight I saw some of the blood magic runes that I’d been reading about and experimenting with as I traveled. The runes on the white locks seemed to be in a waiting state, and the black locks seemed to be in a completed state.

So I chose a locker with a white lock, carefully put the contents my saddlebags inside and used a knife to slice open a place on my hand to initiate ownership, and then flopped down on the cot.

“Hey newbie, I wouldn’t sleep there if I were you.” The girl who had been reading said.

“Too late now, but why?”

"Fox Maple in the cot next to you pussy farts in her sleep. Nobody had any idea a queef could smell that rancid."

"I can't believe it would be that bad," I said.

"Your funeral. You really an inquisitor?"

"Yup. Not by choice. Father sorta roped me into it."

"Ain't that the way it goes," she said. "My father was a runner when he was my age in some long forgotten battle, and now he wants me to do it too. Builds character he says. It’ll put hair on your chest. He says. I mean come on. I'm a girl. The last place I want hair is on my chest."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me where the library is? Lord Clem mentioned anti-fire wards, and from what I saw riding into the fortress, they might be pretty handy." I said.

"I can do you one better. I'll show you the basics, and if you are as slow on the uptake as you look, I'll take you to the library. I'm Red Panda Elm by the way."

"Lynx Elm, and thanks."

"Don’t think just because we share names; I'm gonna do you any favors Lynx."

"I wouldn't dream of it Red Panda," I said.

For the next hour, Red Panda showed me fire runes and the basics of fire magic. It turns out that I didn't have much talent with it. Or rather, the theory of the magic was easy. Shielding myself from fire used very similar techniques to healing, you just substituted fire runes and resistance runes for life runes and then added durations. The targeting parts of the body were the same.

What I lacked was much of an affinity for fire. I did the old standby of lighting a cigarette by igniting a flame on my thumb, and I could walk on the beach and very comfortably ward off sunburn, but anything more intense than that and I was useless.

"Well, sucks to be you." Said Red Panda. "Not that it matters, unless you are a top-notch fire mage, the amount of burning that is happening down there, and after a while, any fire wards are essentially pretty much placebos."

"Any really top notch fire mages among the runners?" I asked out of curiosity.

"What? These bozos? Most of them can't even cast a fart much less a spell. No. Let me restate that Wolf Mulberry is a good earth mage. A bit thick. A bit dull. Boring as fuck. But a good earth mage. I'm the best fire mage among the runners. So what about you?"

"Life Mage. I'm a pretty good healer."

"Frikken useful. Dude give me a buzz. I've been on my feet, carrying messages, since three in the morning, and could use a pep in my step. Then I will show you where the library is."

I cast my energizing caffeine spell on her, and she seemed to perk right up.

"You are going to be pop-u-lar once word of that gets around," she said. "Well, I might as well give you the grand tour."

"Back here we have the latrine and showers courtesy of the water mage who helped build this fortress. I hope you aren't shy because the showers are a communal group thing and some of the other newbies from high houses seem to expect things like privacy and servants catering to their every whim."

"Ummm…" I said. "I guess I'm fine."

"Just don't stare at anybody's junk and you'll do well. If you got any pervy in ya, people here figure it out real quick."

We walked through the main runner hub. Red Panda waved to Lord Cham and said "Showing the newb around."

"Good. Good." Said Lord Cham. "For the next two days, he is your responsibility. He runs with you, show him around, introduce him to people. Show him how we do things."

Red Panda Elm rolled her eyes and said "Whatever." And then we were walking up the stairs. "Well I guess, you and I are joined at the hip for a little bit longer. Over this way is the mess hall. Everybody in the fortress has different schedules, so there is food available all day. It is hard to get fat as a runner, cuz all we do is run, but if you manage it, they will send you home."

We walked past the mess hall and to another building. "And here it is the grand library." We pushed our way in and entered a room bright from the glow of mage lights on the walls. It was a small room. A man sat at a desk reading a book by the door. The room held maybe a few thousand books.

"We've mostly got military history, engineering, genealogies, and spell books in here. If you are into that kind of thing, this is a great resource. If you want poetry or romance, or even agricultural spells, merchant spells, or music spells, you've come to the wrong war."

"And we can just take whatever we want," I said.

"One book at a time and Merf here will record what you take and what you bring back. Wave to Lynx Elm, Merf"

The man at the desk by the door glared at Red Panda and said "Lynx Elm? New here?"

"First day, sir."

"Son, don't call me sir. I work for a living."

"No you don't Merf, you sit in a Library all day and read books." Shouted Red Panda.

"Shut up Red Panda."

"Shut up Merf."

"Ahem," I said. "Do you have any books on Blood Magic? Or on the wards to protect a home from burglars?" What I wanted was to compare the knowledge that I'd learned from the books I'd stolen to the kind of blood magic knowledge that was in general circulation. It would be good to know the differences.

As for the book on protecting homes from burglars. My skills lent themselves to stealth. After Larkin, I was absolutely sure I would have to break into another building again. Might as well be prepared.

Merf got up and let me to a bookshelf. "These are the books on Life magic we have. These two shelves are about healing; these three are about blood magic, these last two are miscellaneous life spells like detection and wards.

"As for protecting homes from unwanted intrusion. We don't have anything on that specifically, but we do have a section about wards and locks over here. Though I do have to notify command if someone takes any of these books out. The potential for abuse is too great." Merf said.

"That's fine. I don't mind you letting someone know. For now, though I think I will check out a basic book on blood magic. Do you have any recommendations?" I said.

Merf walked back over to the section of books on life magic, and quickly looked over the titles, before pulling one off the shelf and handing it to me. "The people who come here to read about Blood Magic, seem to check this book out more than the others."

"Thank you." I said.

Red Panda and I left the library and headed back to the room where the runners stayed. Just as we were about to go down the stairs, Red Panda turned to me and said.

"One last thing. If any of the runners ask you to play soggy biscuit you really want to join in on the fun." She said and giggled devilishly to herself, and if I hadn't already lived a lifetime of experience, I might have actually believed her.