The rain was a grey tower reaching into the clouds, and I walked through this bleak edifice of rainwater and chill. Either the fall was unseasonal, or the north winds coming off the mountains and oceans had brought the excruciating weather. I hadn’t been in the city long enough to know learn what was regular about the weather. For all I knew, this could have been some sort of semi-regular Magritham El Niño.

Only the heartiest of rickshaw drives were out in the streets. Those who were were bundled up and sheltering under overhangs against the weather. Shivering where I stood in clothing entirely unsuitable for the rain. I waved a driver over, and when he reluctantly came away from her shelter, I asked the driver to take me somewhere where I could buy something warmer to wear. I was almost tempted to stay in the inn.

As my driver ran through the streets, I shivered against the mid-fall cold. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for the driver having stand waiting around for hours hoping to give someone a lift in this downpour. At least there wasn’t snow.

The rickshaw driver pulled up beside the tailor shop, and I paid her quickly giving her a better tip than I usually would have. I was tempted to offer a heal just in case she’d caught pneumonia or a cold, but those were things anyone with a minor healing affinity could fix, and so I decided against it. I was just thankful that she’d come out to work in this weather and saved me a miserable walk in nothing but the flimsy linens I’d been wearing in the, until today, warm weather.

I went into the store, and a little while later I came out again wearing a heavy leather and wool jacket and a waxed cotton hat to keep off the rain. Pulling these garments tight around myself I began to walk toward the nearest merchant gate, which thankfully, was only a short distance away. From there I could easily get transported across town to the library.

Midway to my destination, I felt something. The feeling was a sensation like a tickling on the back of the nerves in the place where my neck met my head. When I turned, however, nobody and nothing was there. It was a feeling I’d had before. Outside of Larking. In the forests with Wilmette. Funny, I’d never felt it when I had been on the battlefields or in the headquarters in Devotion Valley.

Those times the feeling discpeered almost as soon as they’d come, and felt far weaker. This time the sensation went on and on. A tactile experience like someone was fingering my spine that only disappeared when I stepped into the gathering place that was the center terminal between the merchant gates. When I emerged from the gate complex, the feeling started up once again and followed me across town over the easy walk to the library. Then stopped abruptly once more when I crossed the threshold into the library.

I didn’t know what the sensation that I was feeling was — I had my suspicions — but as long as I wasn’t being watched in the library or in the warehouse I’d rented I could endure for now.

Right now, this visit to the empire’s collection of public books was important for everything that was coming up. Now that I had a method of hiding myself from the blood magic of the empire, I needed to focus on a second more impoctant aspect of magic. Getting out of this city, no that wasn’t right… getting out of this empire, at a moment’s notice.

Taking the elevator to the top floor of the library I honed like a hummingbird onto red plastic flowers to find the bookshelves devoted to space magic. It was critical that learn how to use at least the very basics of this affinity; at the very least how to open a gate.

Fortunately, this information was not kept secret, and there was a multitude of books on the subject. Space affinity was uncommon but not unexpected. It was one of those subjects that the empire encourage its citizens to study. All the better to move people, goods, and armies to the furthest corners of this nation. As a result after about a half an hour I was sitting at a table with a small pile of books, taking notes.

There were dozens of books about to learn how to use space affinity. The essential guides were on the silver level, and in-depth texts and peer-reviewed papers on the gold floor. I spent the rest of a quiet afternoon taking notes.

A few hours later, the only thing left to try what I’d spent the last few hours learning. I couldn’t do this in the library; there was bound to be surveillance and wards against space magic. For all, I knew there was a secret cabal of librarians out to discover which books were being read and report it to the Empire. The idea seemed ridiculous, but then I remembered that was exactly what a small part of the Patriot Act did back on Earth.

Paranoia wasn’t entirely out of bounds. The library had a way to track the books readers tried to sneak out of the building. They also monitored the status of people going to their rank-appropriate floors. It wasn’t out of bounds that the staff tracked what magic was used in the building. There were times when neuroticism was a virtue. Besides, I had rented an entire warehouse that I’d already warded for privacy and experimentation.

It was the early evening when I left the building. The storm had slowed, and the weather had warmed up. The wind, however, was shooting the rain like pellets. My coat had drip dried hanging over a chair during the day. Wrapped up tightly I walked through the streets to the Merchant Gate that night.

From the perspective of someone who’d grown up on Earth, I had a bias when I thought about architecture and city planning. If someone had told me that I would someday live again in a “medieval style” kingdom, I would have imagined chamber pots being thrown into the streets, rats fighting with pigs in the middle of the road, and narrow claustrophobic streets.

Magic, however, was used everywhere instead of technology. Mages had built the sewers, and spells kept the streets clean. Conjuration brought fresh water to stores and homes. The lights which lit the streets were powered by mana. There were civil mages who’d had helped build the roads, walls, parks, and houses throughout the city.

It helped that the city was located near the mountains. A plentiful supply of marble, stone, and metals had been incorporated into the building. Despite the prohibition on Twice-Lived, there were scattered buildings that included the concrete, the prefab shapes, and the glass of modern and even post-modern architecture. It was clear that at least one of local architects had been inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, and maybe even Frank Gehry or Renzo Piano.

It took me nearly an hour to wander through the Magrithiam weather and to the warehouse I was renting. This time I didn’t bother with a rickshaw. That feeling I had earlier in the day — a feeling like someone was tickling my cerebellum with a feather — had come back. I would have to figure out a way toward myself as I moved. Add one more thing to my list of projects.

Back inside the warded warehouse space, I took out the dungeon core with the space affinity, balanced it in my hand, and let it roll around my palm. I’d never used a core to cast a spell before. I wasn’t sure of the process. In retrospect, it was something I probably should have looked up this afternoon.

From the core, I could sense of depth and distance. That same feeling I’d had when I’d first held the soul of a dungeon in my hand a couple days ago.

My notebook was full of runes and processes for casting a gate spell, and if this were a regular situation, the process would be straightforward. I had a lot of practice with rune magic. Using a dungeon core to focus the spell was another matter altogether.

It was at that point where I realized that I was skipping an entire step. My first step should be checking to see if I had any affinity with space magic. Rereading my notes, I attempted to cast a simple gate spell.

Something short, only to the other side of the room. Concentrating. I felt the power well up inside of myself and thought about the runes I wanted to form. A rush of mana pushing out of my body and I saw runes appear in the air. To my surprised a hole two feet diameter formed in the firmament of the universe. Through this hole, I saw a close-up view of the other side of the warehouse.

This was the most basic use of space magic. Not a gate, but a viewing hole. Objects would not be able to move through the space in front of me. Were I to stand on the other side of it there would be nothing visible. Just put this was space magic used as a viewport to somewhere else. A magical spying peek-hole.

While, I could see through the hole, but I could hear nothing. That wasn’t that big of a deal. If I’d included different runes I could have incorporated more data, not just sight, but sound, and with more specialized runes and other affinities also thrown into the mix, touch, temperature, smell, and taste.

There was even a branch of body magic that I’d read about, that tried to mimic the more esoteric senses… echolocation, lateral lines, mana sight and the like. I’d learned that other affinities beyond the body affinity could also be incorporated into the spell, for example, water dousing with the water element affinity, illusions with light affinity and of course mind magic.

There were some limitations to this technique. I was focusing on an area using the line of sight. This was probably the most accessible means of targeting this kind of spying. For any other distance, I needed a way to target a specific location. From what I had read there were three means of doing this kind of targeting.

The first means of targeting involved simply mentally shoving the hole in space in the direction that I wanted it to go. As long as poured mana through my runic construct I could move the aperture of the spell along any X-Y-Z axis. As long as I had the desire and mana, I could, in theory, have sent this view in any 3-dimensional direction; in floating through the air, up into outer-space, or even down deep into the earth.

The second method of targeting was blood magic. Someone with life affinity and space affinity could target a blood signature and open up a view hole right on top of the location of that blood source. That person could then fine tune the view along that same X-Y-Z axis.

The most common use of this technique was the creation of an object which was enchanted to lock onto a person’s blood signature and which incorporate the space magic runes. This object could be used to spy on someone as long as the mana kept being poured in.

Creating this kind of object was not a natural process though. The enchantment required either a single person with Space Affinity, Life Affinity, and Arcane Affinity. Or up to four people, the first with Life Affinity to cast the blood magic, the second with Space Affinity to cast the targeting magic, the third with Arcane Magic to create the enchanted item, and a fourth person with the Ritual Magic affinity to link all these people together.

The final method of targeting Space Magic involved using Arcane Magic. One of the ongoing projects that the Empire funded — part of the responsibilities of the House of Urges — was having the empire’s more talented Arcane Affinity mages lay out a grid of space magic throughout the Empire. If a Space Affinity Mage knew the runes corresponding to one of these beacons, they could include that sequence of runes in the spell they’d formed, and the portal would open up on that exact grid location.

When I’d been in the library, I’d written down five of these grid locations. I now had several runic locations. The first was for my the family estates in Magrithiam. Another site about fifteen miles outside of the city. Two more spots I'd chosen were in the park of Larkin, and the home I'd grown up in. And then for luck, I'd picked a random location clear across the other side of the empire, and an arbitrary place on another continent — in a nation that was known for being a safe harbor for Twice-Lived.

With this information, with access to space magic, I could escape the Empire at any time.

Given that I had at least a little bit of space magic, my next step was to determine just how much of the genetic lottery I’d won.

My first step was to extinguished the hole I dug through the strings of the universe. This time, when I recast the runes, I used the arcane beacon for a spot near my families home here in Magrith. A flood of mana exited my body, and I saw runes form in front of me, and a viewing circle opened up again. Now I could look around at everything that was happening on the road a block away from the gate where my brother and sister lived.

For a few moments, I watched the street. It was a much more wealthy section of town, and there were mage lights which lit up the roads even through the rain. There weren’t very many people out. I let the spell go and the hole I was looking through closed up. This time, when I cast the Space Magic spell, the location I’d selected was just outside of town. Again the viewing window opened up, and I was now looking at a grove of trees that were swaying and seemed to creak and almost break, I saw rolling farmland and the flickering light of a distant farm.

Recasting the spell for the fourth time I targeted the city of Larkin and… nothing. No space rippled and opened up with a view of Larkin. This wasn’t surprising. I hadn’t expected to have any affinity in space magic in the first place.

Flipping through my notes, I found the pages I’d copied about the runes that would let me create an actual gateway rather than just an insubstantial viewing hole that I could look through. After rereading what I’d written, I targeted the part of the room right behind me and opened an actual gate. One of the steps was to imagine the shape of the opening in space that I wanted, and I chose simple one was eight feet high and rectangular.

The runes shaped in front of me, and I felt a drain on my mana. A nine foot tall by foot wide shortcut enfolded in front of me. I was now looking at the wall and a caged cat. The spell worked.

Reaching over, I picked up a pen and threw it through the hole I’d made. The pen made an arc as it flew through the gate and bounced off the far wall. Now the risky part. Holding my breath for the next test, I stepped through the hole and found myself about twenty feet away from where I’d just been, in front of a wall, and an angry cat in a cage.

I turned around and walked over to pick up my pen. This version of the spell was single-directional. That meant that from one side I could look travel through the gate and see the other side of the room, from the other side there wasn’t even a ripple in space.

Even though I was standing on this side of the gate and could see nothing except an angry cat and the brick wall of the warehouse, that I’d been feeling all day, the sensation of having the top of my spine tickled began again.

Concentrating on keeping the gate open I walked the distance back to where I’d come from. It was an odd sensation seeing a shape that existed only in two dimensions form within three-dimensional space. Depending on the angle of where I walked, width and height appeared with no trace of depth. Depending on how visible the gate became as I walked across the room,

Standing beside the gate, I’d made I tossed a pen at the edge and watched that pen as it hit that hole in space’s edge like a pool ball and continue onward along a slightly altered trajectory through the hole. I’d been scared that the sides were razor sharp. A blade, however, needed the barest minimum of thickness — even if that thickness just a few molecules — and this gate had hight and width, but no depth at all. The entrance was a non-hypothetical two-dimensional plane.

I let the gate close. Hopefully opening a gate outside of town would be every bit as straight forward as opening the gate across the room. I concentrated for a second then I began to will the runes for the spacial hole into existence. The hole in space flickered for just a moment, and then I was looking through a doorway into a field outside of town.

I held the entrance to another place open for just another second and then let it close. The mana drain and fatigue were incredible. Opening the gate across the room took a chunk of my mana, but it was doable. But opening a gateway to a location only a dozen or so miles away was exhausting. I wouldn’t have been able to keep that door open more than a few minutes and doing so would have completely drained my mana.

I took a deep breath — mostly from the exhaustion of mana use — but I realized that I still had a lot to do, I yet hadn’t even gotten to the tricky part.

Walking over to the table where I had left the space affinity core, I picked it up and held it in my hands. It might have been my imagination, but the pseudo-living gemstone that was touching seemed to throb with power.

The first step was to check to see if merely holding the core would give me the ability to cast the spell. Trying once again, I attempted to open a viewing portal to Larking… and nothing happened.

The next step was to try to use the orb to cast the spell. Somehow. I focused on the sphere in my hand and evoked space magic runes. Nothing happened again.

Putting the orb back in the pouch and I decided to call it a day. There was something I was missing. Something so fundamental that I probably wouldn’t be able to resolve it through guesswork and luck.

It was early evening when I stepped out into the streets and wandered back towards my room at the inn. It was well after midnight. In this part of the city, the roads were not lit. But the light from bars and taverns, some of which stayed open all night, cast light out into the street.

As I walked through that feeling began to retake hold. A creepy feeling that followed me in my steps and lingers in my wake. I’d only noticed it in the warehouse when I stepped onto the other side of the gate I’d made. Out here in the streets, however, it was as strong as ever.

With what I’d learned today I could have gated back to the room I was renting in the inn. Except that a deep sense of paranoia and self-preservation was grown larger every day. The fewer visible uses of my powers the better.

As a result, I walked and walked through the wet and the dark, ignoring a tantalizingly familiar feeling; a feeling that pricked at my senses and wouldn’t let up.

The restaurant in the inn was closed, but the bar was still open. There was a trio of musician that was keeping the room enraptured. One was playing a moody, sad song on some sort of brass and reed instrument that I couldn’t recognize, another was strumming a guitar-like instrument, while the last was singing elven torch songs in Cretan. The sound was vaguely reminiscent of a Nina Simone crossed with an Edith Piaf. The drunks who were still conscious enough to pay attention were engrossed to every note. The melody must have been beautiful or at least distracting, but I barely noticed a saccharine chord the three women sang.

I hadn’t been able to connect my mana to the dungeon core. Nor had I been able to access any of the plentiful affinity it supposedly held. A space core of this big should as far as I knew, be able to let me open gates as far away as the moon. Well maybe that was hyperbole, and it wasn’t as if I had any interest in going to any of the planet’s moons. Today. Pulling a Neil Armstrong would be cool. The core should, however, have the power to open up gates large enough to move armies.

And that idea made me think.

Somehow, through some astronomically improbable miracle, Chancellor Tequital the Pyromancer hadn’t unleashed the scope of the space core in his possession. Why hadn’t he moved the armies of Argran behind the imperial lines and attacked the empire’s detachment from the rear? During the entire time I’d been stationed in the valley, Tequital had only used the space core once, visibly. Just once. And that was merely to escape from the trap Lord General Aram Heron Sequoia had laid for his forces.

The Pyromancer could have used that core to bring in more troops, attack the Empire’s army from the rear and flanks. At the very least Tequital could have brought in supplies to keep his troops well fed and well equipped. As far as I could tell none of that had happened. The armies of Argran that I’d seen was at the very edge of desperation. Troops wearing rags and eating sawdust and rat. Swords and equipment in desperate need of repair. An army of the very young and very old, with soldiers in the prime of their fighting lives either missing or killed off.

I distinctly remembered that Vermont had said that people in Clan Tequital — the direct lineage of Chancellor Tequital just as I was part of clan Naato — were out of favor. Not banished, not pariahs, only out of favor. Yet he had clearly been a significant part of the enemy’s army. Then there was the Lord General herself. Why hadn’t she been more aggressive during the battles while I was there? Years had passed with no real forward progression.

Come to think of it… the behavior of the entire empire was suspect. From my readings of history, it wasn’t as if our beloved Emperor was shy about throwing away the lives of her citizens during times of war. Yet where were all of the unnecessary charges directly into the enemy lines. From the documentary movies I’d watched about the first world war I’d seen in High School, I would have expected wave after wave of Imptrial troops being thrown at the Argran forces. Where were the casual orders for soldiers to run directly into the meat grinder?

Despite all of the impressive exploding fireballs from the presumed traitor Tequital, the imperial army… our army… had been well rested and well equiped when we’d swept through the enemy ranks. Unlike the Argran army which had been worn down to using its oldest and youngest citizens.

Come to think of it. The identity of the Pyromancer had always been anonymous. Nobody referred to him as “that traitor councilor Tequital,” just as “The Pyromancer.”

I stood up and walked over to the window. A quick examination showed wards around the edge of the window frame. I had improved these on the first day I’d move into this inn. It was night time now. In my room, for the first time since I’d left the warehouse, that odd pressure that had been following was gone. The window was sealed shut. Outside the moon hung in a cloudless sky shining a light down onto the city.

Could Tequital have been working for the empire as a fifth column?

Could his apparent treachery, could his entire appearance of being the side of the enemy against Imperial troops, have been a ruse? Had he joined the enemy forces only to covertly wear down an entrenched enemy force? But he’d been The Pyromancer. He’d been that nameless bastard that all of us soldiers had all cursed almost every day. Could he have been there to present the empire with an enemy to rally against, and a force to justify the use and expansion of the military? If he was on the side of the realm, how many of imperial soldiers had he killed? Hell, Tequital had killed Red Panda’s brother Terrald.

This was some incredibly paranoid thinking. Tin foil hat thinking. The only certainty I had was that I was undoubtedly missing a lot of information. The information I didn’t want to know, except that if someone found out, I’d killed Tequital…

Just walking around the stuff I’d looted off his body was enough to send shivers of paranoia across my thoughts. I was glad I hadn’t mentioned that I’d killed the ex-Imperial Chancellor.

My dreams that night were filled with looming figures and shadows that vanished in the anxious wakefulness of dawn. Putting aside just one more thing that would kill me if anyone found out, my goal for the morning was to discover how to use the affinities of a dungeon core to cast spells.

As soon as I stepped outside of my room and back into the inn, that feel across my brain returned. Performing an experiment, I stepped back into my room and felt the sensation go away. When I stepped into the hallway again, the feeling returned. Each time I entered my room, the experience went away. Every time I left the room, that awareness started up again. The wards were definitely keeping whatever it was at bay.

By now I was pretty sure that some part of my nervous system was alerting me that I being watched from afar. The more important question was by whom? And then the even more critical corollary; since the wards I’d cast around the warehouse and inn were effective, was there a way to create a portable set of wards to carry around with me?

The rain from the day before had started up again. Streams of water ran through the streets and downhill toward sewer grates. The roar of rushing water coming from under the streets. The pavement was slippery but manageable. When I asked, the innkeeper summon a rickshaw to take me to the merchant gate.

On a side street in front of the library, there was a massive pool of water where the sewer was backed up. A group of workers and an earth mage were ripping up part of the courtyard, trying to fix the blockage. Standing under an overhang, I watched the construction for a while. Every once in a while one of them would kneel and touch their head to the foot underwater ground as they paid reverence to the Emperor after having accidentally looked up.

I quickly made my way across the courtyard and into the library and then up to the floor where I was spending so much time. Like usual a few other people were wandering through the shelves. I ignored them. But the rain had kept most of the other patrons and bibliophiles away, so there were far fewer people than I’d seen on

It wasn’t hard to find the section of the library detailing dungeon cores. This section was more substantial than all of the collections on affinities put together. Among books about the best way to grind the cores up, the optimal ways to find dungeons in the wild, theory on growing techniques, essays on monster evolutions, bestiaries based on core affinities, I finally found a small collection of books that were dedicated to the process of casting spells through a captured core.

One of the books in this section was unusually exhaustive. It said that a dungeon core was a kind of crystal growth that processed, filtered, and grew mana. As the dungeon's core aged, it would add layer and layers to its exterior while purifying it's interior giving it hardness. To call the living heart of a dungeon, a gemstone was a mistake. Gemstones were formed through geological activities. A dungeon core was more like a pearl. According to the theory in the book, a core formed around a mana impurity in an area, and it grew by adding layer after layer of purified solid mana to its surface.

Accessing the magic of a core, according to this book, was a lot like how I remembered public-private cryptography was like back on Earth. The dungeon infused its mana with a lock that could only be opened by its master key. Every monster in a dungeon had a genetically copy of this lock in their biology that that monster could use to send messages back to the core. Every monster also had their own individual mental set of lock and key, which the dungeon also kept track of.

To use the core someone needed to figure out the core’s private key. Anybody who knew this key could control the dungeon. If it was an active dungeon, the person who dominated this asymmetric sequence of runes was called the dungeon master.

Any mage wanting to power a spell with the core needed to incorporate the private key in their runic spellcraft. All magic which included this sequence had access to use all of the dungeon’s powers. If it was an active dungeon, this covered the labyrinthine power of creation. There was an entire branch of arcane magic which studied the interaction between core and creation. There was a rumor about knack that could naturally control and interface with dungeons. True dungeon masters.

The text I was reading did not go into detail about controlling a core though it did reference a subsequent edition by the same author. The book did outline the series of arcane magic spells that I would have to use to divine the specific private key of the core. Luckily, unlike computerized cryptography, the public and private keys that dungeons used were not hundreds or even thousands of bytes long. Even the most elder dungeon only used at most a score of runes.

Copying out the sequence of runes that I could use to determine the master key of the core was easy. When I was done, I decided to call it a day. It was still early. I’d slept in, but despite the book I’d been reading speaking of advanced subject matters, hadn’t been all that difficult to decipher.

On the way out of the library, someone called out “Lynx Elm. It is amusing that our paths should cross.”

Turning, I saw Vermont walking briskly toward me. Even in the continuing wind, rain, and cold he was dry. Raindrops seemed to think about falling on him and decide that this was a bad idea. Vermont’s clothing didn’t seem to billow in the breeze. Out of curiosity, I looked at him with my mage sight. Some sort of enchanting seeped into his clothing and a barrier somehow constructed from space magic floated just above his head.

Vermont may have been protected from the wind and the rain, but I was not, and so I waited for him to join me under the library stoa. It did not take him very long to walk over.

“Hello, Lynx Elm.” I said, “It is my pleasure seeing you again. What brings you to this institution of knowledge today?”

“Just brushing up on healing spells,” I replied evasively.

“A worthwhile pursuit. It is a shame that your father has fitted you into the role of an Inquisitor and not part of the Order of the Status, Delvers or Urges. Your skills would seem to be far more beneficial there.”

“My Father’s actions and thoughts are his own,” I said. Then thinking a moment about the queasy feeling which had been following me recently, I said, “This will sound paranoid and for that, I apologize, however, this is a subject of some concern to me. Have you been spying on me? I have sensed something trailing behind me over the last few days. And you are who you are.”

Vermont thought about that question for a moment, “While I have had someone investigate you, my people would not do this in such in a way that you wouldn’t notice. Would you like me to see if I can determine if you are being watched? Arcane counter-intelligence magic is something of a specialty.”

I didn’t have to think about it for very long. “Yes please,” I said.

Opening my vision to my mage sight, I saw rune after rune of arcane magic rollout of Vermont. I hadn’t seen this kind of spell casting before, and I found it fascinating. Most of the spells I used were rather simple and straightforward. The sort of thing you which happens when your only tutors are books and a hillbilly in the woods. If I wrote arcane sentences, Vermont was constructing a short story.

A grid of energy, glowing purple, black, grey, opalescent white and gold, expanded through area centering around Vermont. And when I say a grid, I mean a mathematically perfect three-dimensional lattice of lines visible only by mage sight. Pulses of energy ran through this framework, moving outwards from Vermont. When the white, black and purple vibrations of magic reached an invisible area in space — an area shaped almost exactly like the viewing portals of space magic I’d been creating in my warehouse — these pulses stuck, like leaches to a wound, forming a surface that was almost visible to the naked eye.

Then the spell that Vermont was casting changed. New magic began running along the runic grid that Vermont had established. Energy, like swarms of angry piranha, chewed at someone’s eavesdropping spell. No bite was large in itself. No single nibble destroyed the magic that had been following me for the past few days. But as hundreds of frenzied runes devoured the spying magic, I began to feel a sense of calm settle over my nerves for the first time in days. Then with a burst, the feeling of being watched was gone.

Vermont looked at me, “Someone most definitely is interested in you. That was space magic, mixed with blood magic and mind magic. They had a vision portal based on blood magic set to follow you and pick up surface thoughts and emotions. I could not determine who had cast the spell. Have you angered anyone powerful recently? Or do you have a jealous lover perhaps?”

I considered what I’d been researching yesterday and realized that the feeling of being watched had started before this. “As far as I know only space mage I have ever been near was Termass and About Town Transport,” I said cautiously, “neither seemed to be interested in me. Is there any way to block that spell?” I asked.

“It depends on how accomplished an arcane mage you have it in you to become. Plus it would take a lot for training” Vermont said.

“I have a decent amount of arcane affinity, and I already know a little bit about wards,” I replied.

“Really? Aren’t you full of surprises? If that is the case, then I can recommend some books that cover the basics. Bear in mind that many of the Imperial Orders within the empire keep their own secrets. For example, I cannot teach you the spells I just used. And of course, you can’t learn everything from books, sometimes you need an instructor. Bide for a moment.” Vermont’s eyes glazed over for a moment and then he said: “I have alerted a bookseller I use of your interest, and she will pull something relevant.”

“Lynx Elm, I cannot guarantee that whoever was watching you will not continue to watch you after I leave. While I’ve closed their portal, there is nothing to stop whoever constructed it to rebuild it. That someone has expended the energy to do this makes me think that whoever they are, they will be persistent. I advise caution.”

“I will keep that in mind. And I apologize for thinking that you are the person surveilling me. The constant feeling of being watched has been getting on my nerves.” I said.

“Think nothing of it.” Vermont said, “Now that we are in private, however, if you would like to talk about this and other weighty subjects, then I insist that we sit down and discuss things over some tea. Besides I have something to ask of you. Come with me. There is a rather exquisite establishment nearby that I enjoy.”

We walked through the streets. Vermont, leading the way, remained impervious to the downpour which pummeled the earth from the heavens. I, of course, got soaked by the vicious weather and pretended that I did not feel like a drowned kitten.

We made our way to a small out of the way shop on a side street. The interior was decorated with dark and light woods and lots of glass. Elaborate plants were growing in a way that gave each table a sense of privacy. And once we sat down at the table, I felt the sticky sense of being watched disappear once again.

Vermont led me back to a private room in the back, and we both sat down. In short order a woman came in, and Vermont said, “Stella bring us my usual.” Then he looked at me, “I hope you do not mind that I ordered.”

I shook my head, “Thank you. I know a little bit about local herbalism and medicinal teas, but a place like this serves a different need than the tonics I’ve used to reduce fevers and taste like month old feet.”

It was at that moment that the serving woman knocked on the door to the private room we were in and then discreetly came in, placing a tray with porcelain pot, along with an assortment of smaller dishes, and two cups, on the table.

“That is to be expected. The beverages here are dedicated to pleasure rather than health. For instance, this tea is a mixture of dungeon Lloren leaves and dried Saachi leaves only found on the southern continent. The Saachi leaves are grown on a volcanic mountain by a group of cloistered virgins who devote their entire lives towards the cultivation of this specific plant. Stella, the proprietor of this establishment, has a superb water magic affinity and summons the purest water from the planes of the elementals. The leaves are then seeped for exactly seven minutes and thirty-four seconds. Not one second more, not one second less,” said Vermont.

“I prefer to drink it without adding anything,” he continued as he poured out two cups. “However, Stella has kindly provided us with, sugar, honey, lemon, milk, bourbon, laudanum, and cold water to add according to your preference.”

I didn’t add anything and took a sip. The aroma wasn’t bitter or sweet, but it had a taste like an angel spanking a demon. Sexy paddle spankings. Something that even some of the better oolong teas I’d tried back on earth couldn’t compare with. The flavor tickled my palette like nothing I’d tasted on any of the worlds I’d been too.

“This is wonderful,” I said.

“A pleasurable beverage among friends is itself one of life’s great pleasures,” Vermont said.

“So why did you look me up? I find it hard to believe that you simply ran into me. Especially given that I have sensed someone watching me for the last few days.” I asked.

“In that you are correct. Tell me, Lynx Elm, what do you truly what do you think of the Inquisition? Are you happy with a future hunting down and using the Twice-Lived.” Vermont asked.

“Honestly?” This was about as far away from what I had thought he was going to ask as it was possible to go.

“While I do believe that honesty itself is an overrated virtue, in this situation, yes Lynx Elm, I would appreciate your candor.” He said, then he paused before speaking again, “the tables inside this establishment are warded by the very best arcane mages in the empire. The Emperor herself would not be able to listen in to a conversation here. She has tried.”

“Then, if you must know. I don’t like the idea. Not that I have much choice. I have to admit that I used to dream that when I got my status, I would tell my father to suck it. That I would tell him that I was going to one of the colleges to try and find myself. Or maybe try to join one of the other Imperial Orders simply to spite him.”

“Unfortunately Lynx Elm, I suspect that once you get your status, you will find out that many avenues are simply closed to you. For many reasons — the least of which is your father — the Inquisition is where you will end up.”

“Don’t I have any choice in the matter,” I asked.

“We all have choices, some of us just have fewer than others. The instant you swore the oaths which made you a Squire Lieutenant many of your futures closed.”

I sighed and took a sip of tea.

“And yet, you do have an alternative,” Vermont said.

“What?”

“Did I not mention that I belong to the Order of Numismatica when we first met? Well as you know our order likes to keep an ear out for things that have to do with trade. Members of our order like to keep track of information.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

“Lynx, I was coming to that. Most of our Imperial orders require a strict monogamy. For example, once in the Inquisition will only ever be an Inquisitor. If you join the Assessors, your work will be with statuses for the remainder of your days.

“The only exception to this is the Order Numismatica. Many of our people are members of other orders. Outwardly they seem to be Delvers, Assessor, Inquisitors, Politicians, Academics, Sailors, whatever. But in reality, they serve the empire through Numismatica. Of course this is a touchy subject in other groups, so of course, most of my Order doesn’t mention this openly. They serve the Empire, however, as a crucial part of Numismatica.”

“You… you want me to become your asset,” I said

“Well yes,” Vermont said looking abashed. “Becoming a member of the Numismatica Order would supersede your position in the Inquisition. We have ways of removing your oaths to the Inquisition while making them seem to still be active. Of course, you would need to pretend to still be an Inquisitor, but you would be one of us.”

“Forgive me if I am incorrect about this… but the Inquisition would do horrible things to me if they found out I was reporting to your order,” I asked.

“You wouldn’t be reporting to our order. You would be part of our order. We would do our best not to put you into a situation where your cover was blown. Your role would mostly be gathering information, and working your way up into a position of power within your father’s Order. We would help you with this by providing you with the knowledge and resources to move you into a position of value as quickly as possible. We would also provide you with training and some of our secret knowledge. How to avoid being spied upon, for example.”

“And if I wasn’t moving fast enough, or couldn’t get the information you wanted? Would blackmail me by threatening to reveal me?”

“There are assets, and there are assets,” Vermont said. “We do not turn on our own.”

“All the same — I think I need to think things through,” I said.

Vermont nodded, “I understand. You are young. The world still seems like it is open and filled with exciting possibilities.” Then Vermont smiled. “My door is always open to you Lynx Elm, whether you choose to change your mind or not.”

Vermont and I parted ways a little while later, and I headed back to the inn to change into better clothing for my date with Nynaeve. A fog had rolled in on the city, and the rain had turned into a mist. I dressed in a spiffier set of clothing and then had the innkeeper summon another rickshaw to carry me through the gloom.

Climbing into the back, I noticed that both the passenger section and the rickshaw driver were dry. Asking the driver about this, he said, “magic.” Which didn’t help?

Nynaeve was not inside the mercenary guild. For expediency, we had agreed to meet at her work. A woman that I’d seen a few times was tending the bar. We’d never spoken and didn’t know her name. The room got real quiet as I walked to the bar.

“Nynaeve around?” I asked.

“She said she didn’t want to get rained on, so she’s in the back changing. She should be out in a little while. So where are you taking her on your date?”

I turned and faced the rest of the room and saw that everyone was watching me and listening in to what I was saying to the woman at the bar. “What? Does everyone know?”

“Pretty much.” An old mercenary with a criss-cross of scars across his face called out. Another woman, this one missing an eye said, “and you’ll treat her right, or the guild will have something to say about it.”

There was a chorus of “Yeah,” and “Damn straight,” from around the establishment.

The only exception was a slim woman yelled out “screw her brains out!” at which point one of the two people she was drinking beer with dumped their beer over that woman’s head. The lethe woman turned and to the person who’d dumped his beer and said: “What you do that for?” I didn’t hear the answer, but a fight broke out.

The fight had spread to some of the other tables when Nynaeve came out. She looked over at the flailing and punching mercenaries and the detritus of broken furniture and smashed glassware on the floor. Then she looked at me, looked at the stout stick she usually used to break up fights, and then pulled her braid.

She walked over to where I was standing. “Do you know what that’s all about?”

I shrugged.