Albei’s walls were tall—at least fifty feet. The stones were mostly uniform in shape and size, but I couldn’t help noticing that they also looked distressed—with off-color patches and other discolorations, including what looked like burn marks.

At the top, the parapet appeared prickly from a series of metal spikes poking out of the crenelations. And there were—of all things—a couple of cranes at work. One of them was currently in use moving an absolutely enormous badger from the ground outside the wall to the city’s interior. The people stationed at the top and bottom waved flags to coordinate their efforts, while the hunters who’d brought the beast watched nervously.

The gate was about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet tall, so it could’ve probably handled the badger’s size. Yet, there were also lines of people trying to get in and out; it was probably just easier to use the cranes to transport big deliveries.

No one else seemed to care about the giant badger being lifted up, but Teila and I gawked as the ropes creaked, some of the spikes were temporarily removed, and people yelled instructions—the badger lifting higher and higher until it was slowly swung over the top and out of view.

In the time it took for the badger to disappear, we’d moved forward a couple of spots in line. Up ahead, a pair of scribes inspected people and their carts. It was slow going, with the scribes practically crawling over the materials. They seemed to be inventorying everything, documenting it all, and then issuing receipts for the amount of taxes owed on the materials being brought into the city.

Beyond the scribes, on each side of the road, two giant braziers released smoke into the air. It almost looked like they were fumigating anyone coming into or leaving the city, which given the dangers posed by pest-borne diseases wouldn’t be a terrible idea. It was quite clever, actually.

On the other side of the smoke, four soldiers kept an eye on the proceedings. Two wore brigandine and carried polearms, while the other two were more lightly armored and stood next to a couple of war dogs. Similar to Musa and Jesei back home, the giant dogs seemed to be paired with their riders, and I saw several talents related to team work.

There was a fifth soldier too, but he stood out by himself about thirty or forty yards to our left. Maybe he was taking a piss?

The strange thing was that something had the soldiers and dogs at the gate disturbed. There’d been so much to see, I was late to notice, but now that I looked closely, I saw how they appeared to be scanning the area around the gate—more than you’d expect for a routine customs checkpoint.

The soldier on his own was the only outlier—forlorn instead of alert and anxious. Even with him in armor, I could tell by the slump in his shoulders, and his spirit was slightly faded, as if he was depressed.

The combination of the soldiers’ attitudes was strange, and I was wondering about it when Dura came up to me. “Ah, Eight, I am sorry to ask this, but do you have any taak with you?”

Most of Voorhei’s villagers didn’t bother with carrying money around, since a lot of their trading was done through barter. There was also that there wasn’t exactly a lot to buy either. The only people who regularly accepted coins were the miller, the smiths, and the lodges.

As for me, I didn’t feel right not carrying something on me. I grew up poor, so there was a sense of safety attached to having money in my wallet. In my old life that meant at least five hundred dollars cash, sometimes a thousand. My kids had thought I was crazy—and ripe for mugging—but it'd only happened three times. That wasn’t too bad, right? Mugged three times in sixty-four years?

Well, I’d learned my lesson—I only had a smattering of taak and eltaak in my coin purse. The antaak I carried was strapped to my back in a special leather holder that Bihei had made for me. It wasn’t going to be stolen anytime soon.

I smiled thinking about how profitable the eilesheile trade had been. After Mumu and Uncle Kila’s cuts, I pulled in fourteen antaak a season—all for a couple weeks’ worth of gathering and drying lichen. Yuki did their share, neutralizing the parasitism in the eilesheile, but it was still easy work. Meaningful too. The alchemists could turn a season’s worth of eilesheile into a hundred qi recovery potions.

So, yeah, I had some money on me. “How much do we need?” I asked.

Dura shuffled his feet. “Entry’s one taak per person, but there’s also the cutter hawks and their light. I figure it’ll be just shy of two eltaak altogether.”

“We don’t have to pay for the hawks right away, do we?”

“No, no, the tax will actually be handled by the Hunter’s Lodge inside the city, but it’ll speed things with the scribes if we can show we already have the money. They like that.”

“Sure, okay, I understand.” I pulled out a couple of eltaak and handed them to Dura.

He nodded in thanks, and said, “We’ll be sure to pay you back at the lodge. We’re heading straight there once we’re inside.”

The poor man looked out of his depth, but then again, a manhunt through the streets of Albei wasn’t exactly in his wheelhouse. It wasn’t in mine either, but I at least had the advantage of Helen’s addiction to mystery stories. The concepts involved were familiar.

As we’d talked, the line continued to move slowly forward, and when it was our turn, Dura took the lead in talking to the scribes. He had us all open our packs to show them the cutter hawks we’d killed. The process turned out to be pretty quick, likely because we hardly had anything else with us except what was needed for hunting and camping.

One by one, the hunters started moving past the braziers, the gray smoke swirling around them almost like it was alive. Then, when Dura walked through, the smoke flashed silver. A scribe called to the soldiers on the other side: “He’s clear. The light he’s carrying has been registered.”

Ah, it’s not fumigation. The smoke’s a detector for dark and silverlight. I wonder if there’s a problem with smuggling. There must be, now that I think about it. I didn’t sense qi or mana coming from the smoke, and I eagerly stepped forward to see if I’d notice anything from the inside.

The first thing that hit me was the smell—it was resiny with a hint of something floral underneath. That was followed by a slight itch across my face and neck. Suddenly, my whole body—every inch of me, all at once—felt like it’d been lightly slapped. It was the strangest sensation, without any kind of directionality.

Then, the smoke flashed red. The soldiers yelled, “Mankiller,” and I went out like a light.

###

I woke up groggy, the world spinning. Even after I shut my spirit eyes, the feeling didn’t go away, like I was drunk at a cheap carnival, stuck on the ride that spun to hold people in place using centri... centri... centrifugal force. My stomach rebelled, and—Oh, oh, that’s not good—I threw up.

There wasn’t much in my belly, just some jerky eaten earlier while on the go, but I still managed to get vomit all over the front of my... shirt. Where’s my chainmail? What?

I looked around, and vaguely made out a couple of people sitting. One wore a grey blob, the other a black one. They appeared to be at a low table, a pot of something between them. I smelled goat and chili peppers, which I’d normally be into, but my stomach vehemently disagreed, and I threw up again.

Nothing felt steady—outside or in. A thin line of spittle hung from my chin, and I felt it swing as I fell over onto my side. Ah, I’d been sitting on the floor. When I tried to get back up, though, my arms and legs wouldn’t move. Won’t someone let me off of this ride? I don’t like it.

“He’s awake,” a man said, the one in gray.

“Really, you didn’t think I’d notice?” This voice was odder, at once deeper and higher pitched, like two people speaking at once. It came from the one in black.

The man in gray said, “I meant no insult, honorable one. I only wanted to suggest we get started. One of my people is missing, after all.”

“Not yet,” the one in black replied. “A stable effect needs a stable spell, and this one isn’t yet. Be patient, it will be soon.”

Then a third voice said, Hold on, we’ll give you another shot of adrenaline.

All the voices flowed through me, as if the boundary between me and the rest of the world had become permeable. It made it hard to focus on any of the words or their meanings, both individually and all together.

My hair was drenched with sweat, and my heart racing. Then, suddenly, my thoughts cleared enough for me to recognize that Yuki had spoken there at the end. That felt important, although maybe not as much as the need to scrunch my face and rub it against the floor to clear the stray hair from my eyes. Haircut. I need a haircut.

Then I had another thought, but it wasn’t mine: Hmm... let’s see if this helps.

My thoughts cleared a bit more. Yuki? Is that you?

Oh, thank the gods, finally. You wouldn’t believe how much adrenaline is flowing through your system right now.

What? I asked. What’s going on?

You’ve been detained by the local authorities, and your system’s full of drugs and magic. I’ve eaten all the qi, and doing my best to moderate the hormonal imbalances, but the mana’s out of reach.

Oh. Huh. That sounds bad. And it did, truly, but I found it hard to care. The hair in my eyes was much more concerning.

Focus, Ollie/Eight, please focus! You need to check your Status, so that we can know what we’re dealing with.

Oh, right, okay. Let me look... Thankfully, the phone in my head was steady. All I had to do was look to see:

Conditions

Occupied (Evolving*), Sedative (4), Truth-Telling (4, Forced)

As I watched, the Sedative condition dropped from (4) to (3), and it became easier to care; more specifically I felt a rising alarm at the ‘Forced’ part of Truth-Telling.

Unfortunately, it was about then that I noticed I couldn’t move my arms; they seemed to be tied behind my back. My legs were bound too, at the feet, and that distracted me—got me wondering at how I'd been sitting in the first place.

They had you on your knees, but that’s not important—

There was more after that, but Yuki’s words slipped away as the world suddenly started to sway uncomfortably, like the carnival ride was coming loose from its moorings. I felt myself slide across the room. Nothing else seemed to move, but there was definitely the feeling of motion. I quickly picked up speed, so I closed my eyes and curled up to protect against smashing into the wall, yet no impact came.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in the same place as I’d been before, even though the sense of motion hadn't gone away. I felt like I should be ping ponging around the room, but I wasn’t.

Gods damn it. Yuki’s qi spiked in irritation. The mana’s spinning out of control. Hold on. We’re going to try something else.

A moment later, my vision cleared, and my jaw dropped when I finally saw the people in front of me.

The one in gray was nothing exceptional: a stocky middle-aged man wearing mail, his hair cropped short. He looked like maybe he’d had his nose broken once or twice, and while his eyes were sharp, they didn’t cut.

The second person, though, had a crow’s head. They were human from the shoulders down, and probably a woman given the shape of the robes she wore, but everything above was covered in shiny black feathers. Her beak stretched almost a foot from her face, and it wasn’t a mask either—not with the way her eyes glinted as she looked at me.

She wasn’t a drug or spell induced hallucination either; I was pretty sure about that. Mostly because I’d seen her before. She was the one who’d summoned a snake to drive me away from Voorhei just after I’d first arrived in this world.

That thought was distracting enough that I was able to tune out everything else to look, and yes, she had two wooden hoops with her: one at her side, and the other on the table with a small, blue, iridescent bird standing within it.

The sense of movement diminished, and slowly settled into a rocking motion, like I was being swung back and forth. The distractions diminished enough for me to check my Status camera.

Aslishtei the Wise (Human, Peltwei, Dawn)

Talents: Someday Magician, Hoop Dreams, If You Build It, Likes ‘Em Shiny

The bird quirked its head to examine me.

Error

Not a valid talent vessel.

It’s not alive, then, but... a summons? “That’s so cool,” I said aloud. “I’d like to learn how to do that. Can you teach me?”

“What did he say?” The man in mail said.

“I don’t know” Aslishtei said, “but he’s definitely awake and aware. I’d like to say that we can get started, but the language is going to be a problem. Where did you say this boy is from?”

“Voorhei,” the man said.

“The village to the west? I’d heard that some of their hunters arrived earlier today.”

“That’s right—a group of three, including the master of their Hunter’s Lodge.”

“Yes, that one,” Aslishtei said. “What was her name? Mulallamu? She’s been providing some important resources to the Alchemist’s lodge recently. Fascinating.”

“It’s unlikely she’s involved. Her group arrived before Soldier Calfet went missing.”

Aslishtei waved her hand as if to wipe away the idea. “Yes, yes. I was merely thinking that it was unusual for so many hunters from the same village to arrive on the same day.”

The man cleared his throat. “There’ve been... issues between the hunters and healers. Perhaps something related to that?”

As I’d listened to the two speak, their words had filled my head, not making any room for my own thoughts. Now, though, they lapsed into a momentary silence, and I had space to think again.

It was a struggle get my mind in order—it felt like trying to maneuver a giant spinning top—but I assembled what I knew:

Mumu had arrived safely. They’d not said anything about Borba. There was a soldier missing.

What else? What am I missing?

They know you’ve killed someone, Yuki said. That’s why you’re here.

Right, right. And the missing soldier reports to—I took a quick look with my Status camera at the man in armor:

Sondo the Gate Captain (Human)

Talents: Let’s Get Physical, Body Talk, Handles You Right

My first thought was: It looks to me like someone’s got a thing for Olivia Newton John. Which, in all honestly, was totally understandable. Grease came out in 1978, but she really didn’t take off in my eyes until the early 1980s. I’d been in my twenties then. But wait, no, I’m getting distracted. I need to make it clear that I wasn’t involved in anyone going missing.

Without spilling any of our secrets, Yuki added. So far, it’s been okay, because you’ve been speaking in English, but don’t say anything else until I tell you to. Okay? Please?

I nodded to show that I understood, and that caused some sweat to run down my forehead. I licked my lips, and tasted salt on them. It occurred to me, then, that my throat was parched.

“Water,” I said in Diaksh. “Can I get some water?” I hadn’t intended to talk, but it had just happened on its own.

I felt Yuki’s qi sink, and my stomach followed. In the past, we’d survived the Hunter Lodge’s truth-telling tea through careful of omission of certain truths. That strategy didn’t look like it was going to work here. Whatever was going on—I had little to no control over what came out of my mouth.

“Ah, good. The magic and smoke have integrated, after all. You may now continue, Captain.”

Sondo stood and brought me the tin cup he’d been using. He got me sitting upright again, and then held the cup for me to drink. It was a heavily-watered wine that he offered me—the taste bitter and acidic.

“That’s terrible,” I said. “The vintner should be shot.”

"On that we agree,” Sondo said, but there was no amusement in it. He was all business, checking me over and peering into my eyes. “Now, child, I want you to focus on me and my voice.”

Ignore those instructions, Yuki said. Instead, focus on me and my voice. We have to get around the forced truth-telling as much as possible.

I also hoped to speak as little as possible, so I nodded to show that I’d understood.

Sondo said, “Be sure to answer my questions truthfully, for we’ll know when you lie, and the consequences will be ugly. Do you understand?”

I burped, the taste as ugly as the wine, but then managed to say, “Yes.”

Please, please, wait for me before you respond next time, Yuki said.

“Okay, I can do that.”

“That’s well.” Sondo cleared his throat, his voice becoming more formal. “Where were you this morning, just before dawn?”

Just repeat after me, Yuki said. I was northwest of Albei with the other hunters from Voorhei. We only arrived at the city this afternoon.

I understood what Yuki was trying to do, but my attention strayed partway—my hair was back in my eyes and driving me nuts.

“I, ah, I was northwest of Albei with the other hunters from Voorhei, but I’m sorry—can you wipe my forehead? My hair’s bothering me, and we only arrived at the city this afternoon.”

Sondo glanced back towards Aslishtei, but the peltwei merely looked on with interest. She gestured for him to continue.

“Focus on my voice, and just answer—”

“My hair please. It’s really distracting, and I can’t think.”

Sondo sighed, and brushed my eyes clear. The relief was so sweet. I mean, I still felt like crap—the world all higgledy-piggledy—but at least the distraction was gone for the time being, and I could focus on Yuki again.

That’s when I noticed... “Wow, you literally have steely gray eyes. I thought that was just a romance-novel thing.”

Sondo stared at me, which made me wonder if I should be flattered given the romance-novel reference, but then I remembered I was only eight-years old, so that made the moment weird.

“Besides,” I said, “I’m already taken.”

That must’ve surprised Sondo, because he asked, “You’re engaged at your age?”

“No, but people keep trying. It’s really annoying. My heart belongs to—”

English, use English!

Huh? Oh, sure, I can do that. “Anyway, as I was saying, my heart belongs to Helen. There were lots of people in my past life who tried to set me up on dates after she’d died, but nothing clicked, you know? Lots of good intentions and all that, but I couldn’t let go.” I laughed, and it sounded mocking even to my own ears. “I make a big deal of playing the wise old man, but deep down... I miss her. She was my better half.”

Sondo frowned. “What did you just say? Use Diaksh.”

You were talking about love, about how hard it is to find. Be sure to use Diaksh.

“Right,” I said. “Love’s hard to find, although I don’t imagine people here much care about love. Everything’s about talents—reinforcing and propagating them through the family tree. Although, that’s probably an unfair generalization. Bihei loved her family, and Mumu’s clearly smitten with Haol and Dena. Huh, maybe there is room for love in this world.”

“I don’t think this is working,” Sondo said.

Aslishtei quirked her head at him. “You are very good at stating the obvious, Captain.”

She stood up and walked towards where I sat on the floor, leaving the beautiful-bird summons on the table. I watched her approach, fascinated by the way the light shone on her inky-black feathers.

She stood over me, and asked, “Were you in any way involved the disappearance of a land soldier earlier this morning?”

“No, I was on the road then. Well, that’s just an idiom—in the morning we were still cutting across the land, but we did reach the road eventually, in the afternoon.”

Aslishtei asked, “Do you know or have any enmity for a soldier named Calfet of Huwata?”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Do you know anyone who has? Or wished him ill?”

“No, but if he’s gone missing, Borba probably did it.”

Stop! Yuki yelled. Be careful.

Sondo leaned forward, and asked. “Who is Borba, and what is your relationship to him.”

I sighed—I couldn’t help it. “Borba is a long and complicated story. He is a mistake of our lodge, and tragedy for all of us who live in Voorhei.”

“Yes, and?”

A voice came from behind; I recognized it as Mumu’s. “It’s a story that is my responsibility to tell.” I tried to turn around to look at her, but only managed to fall over on my side again.

“Who are you?” Aslishtei asked. “And what right do you have to interfere in our investigation?”

“I claim the right as this boy’s lodge master,” Mumu said. Her voice was tired, but there was steel under it. She was annoyed too; I could tell. “I should’ve been called as soon as you learned he belonged to my lodge. You knew I was in the city.”

Aslishtei waved away the complaint, and went to sit back down at the table. Meanwhile, Mumu came up beside me to help me sit up again. Her hair was stringy and matted with dried sweat, and her armor looked like it’d been dipped in a vat of mud. There were bags under her eyes too.

“You look terrible,” I said.

“It’s been a long, long day,” she said.

“True, but... ugh... I have so much to say to you; the words are all stuck together.” I fought to get my mind in order, to get to the center of what I needed to say. “Get your head on straight, Mumu. There people who love and care about you, damn it, and you can’t leave them behind. That’s not what a leader does. That’s not what a friend does. You’re hurt by Inleio’s death, I get it, but don’t spread that hurt around. Not like you’ve been doing.”

Sondo’s eyebrows rose at my outburst. “This is your apprentice?”

Mumu stared at me for a long time, but eventually something in her must’ve relented, because she reached out and patted my head. “He is, and my uncanny friend too.” She turned to Sondo and Aslishtei, and said, “Now, let me see if I can explain some things.”