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The Heartwood
Talesan’s Village
The First Cathedral
Hasday, the Twelfth Day of Scholar

Daxia and Brother Llewellyn

The Eye of Hastur was exactly where his Imperial sister had said he would be. Sitting in the cloisters, where they had eaten dinner before, carefully scribing notes into the middle of a scroll.

“Good morning – what is the word, oh yes – Fer-cho-vie Yurisdotter.”

It was a fair pronunciation for someone who didn’t peak Ancient. He did roll up the scroll and collect his inks at her request, his expression becoming a bit more curious.

“The library?

“Why, of course. Though it is a fair walk; we should stop at the kitchen and prepare a basket; not unlike for a picnic, yes? Wait here and I shall return presently. If I see your friend, shall I ask her to join us?”

It was more than a small amount of time before Llewellyn returned. When he did – with or without Kisa Allaine – he had what looked to be a fancy basket in one hand and a lead crystal lantern in the other... a rather odd combination.

“This way.”

He lead them into the cathedral and towards the front, the northern end... and then to the northwest corner, the corner of the ruined tower. There, amidst the broken stone there was one portion of wall remaining and set into a tall stone arch there was a heavy bronze door. He had to lean his shoulder into it to push it open. Beyond there were stairs. One ran a few flights up and into the rubble. The other direction lead down and that was where Llewellyn lead.

In a wide but tight circle the stairs plunged into the depths of the earth. They were worn, the center of each tread now concave from generations of traffic. It was wide enough to carry something large down, like, perhaps, a coffin.

They were finely carved but not exquisite.

They walked in the glow of the Brother’s light until they broke out into a large subterranean hall. It was so tall the light didn’t reach and if one stepped into its middle the sides and galleries beyond would be cast in gray and black shadows. This was old and amazingly crafted, it reminded one of the baths of the Amber Inn.

“That way, east I believe, are the catacombs. If it is a name of importance you can probably it carved upon the sarcophagi. There are Translevs, Kories, Bankorpools, Allaines, Koromovs, Veilliki all interred here.

“And many I cannot place or recognize.”

“This way is to the archives.”

Down the long halls he lead; there were many crossings and turning. Some of the passages were blocked in rubble and for a long distance one side had collapsed in a chaos of broken columns, a shattered arcade and the splintering of huge stone beams. He was certainly correct; this was a long, long walk.

Finally he stepped through a darkened archway. Setting the basket down he lifted his lamp up high and offered up a prayer and simple arcane rhymes; the most basic, the type one would use to light a fire in the rain.

One by on, like a string of regimental fire flies, ahead of them a series of lamps came to light. Once their eyes got used to the brightness they were indeed standing in a library. True, it was only one corridor wide, a single long hall topped with a plastered barrel vault. But it was three galleries high and from floor to ceilings each gallery was stacked with shelves. Every now and then there were stairs connecting the levels, all cut from stone. This end was obviously the most recent; the shelves were filled by scrolls and the big crockery pots that held families of related scrolls. Further down the scrolls gave way to leather bound books.

The books, they were well protected. Their cases had glass doors covering them.

This place was larger, all by itself, than the Korie manor atop the highest ring of Grand Talantal. It made the library of Dawnview Vale look like a market stall.

The ceiling was painted, of clouds and all things aerial, and as one walked it passed from day to sunset to sunrise and then to noon. Odd though.

While the far wall – which one got too only eventually – was finely crafted, with bas relief of columns and arches. It sliced upwards at the end of the stacks like a knife. Above the ceiling had passed into night again.

Again it was something only a Dayalan might notice.

Some of the painted stars, some of the constellations were incomplete, interrupted by this wall.

The Eye of Hastur turned to Daxia.

“Where would you like to start?”

Verchovai Daxia Yurisdotter

Dazi watched Kay and Romana head back to the Inn to fetch Dancer. Her brow furrowed at the tumbling tiles and odd twisting Paths she could see.

Backward. Again.

She suppressed a shudder as she listened to Felli, and nodded to the senior Healer. She paused, however, before going to the cloisters.

Seeing backward. What was, what had been. Removing the warriors from the board.

Did they not believe Dayalans to be warriors? Even with Poppy Gwynn a frequent visitor to the Village?

Perhaps.

Everyone knew Jvrillians did not get involved in a fight without a Contract. Of course, they could not possibly know about the one Jvrillian whose employer would not hesitate to get the both of them involved in a fight. The thought of Kadri and Mikal did ease her frown a bit.

Glancing at Bekkah, she saw nothing on the Paths that might be of use.

It was beyond frustrating to have a gift that didn’t bother being helpful when the help would be needed the most.

Before turning toward the cloisters she gave Bekkah a quick hug and a smile.

“Take care, my sister. Be watchful on the docks.”

Her step was lighter as she sought out the Eye of Hastur. She didn’t realize until the man spoke that she had no idea what Bekkah and Felli’s plans were for the day.

Well, that just made a frustrating gift all the more frustrating by being enigmatic and not particularly helpful. No... encouraging Bekkah to be careful and watchful was a good thing. Definitely helpful! Because if she knew her sister — and Dazi did know her sister — Bekkah had a habit of seeing only the good in people. Dazi looked for it... Bekkah saw it everywhere. Unfortunately, Dazi knew that goodness did not exist everywhere.

She liked Bekkah’s world better, despite the fact that it wasn’t realistic.

She smiled at Brother Lew.

“That’s a fair pronunciation. It’s fair-cho-vay... the initial consonant is not quite a ‘V’ and not quite an ‘F’ but something in between.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to join you this morning when you search the Archives. I could explain why it’s important... but even I’m not quite sure how my mind came to the conclusion. I just know it’s important.”

She was relieved that his reaction was curiosity and not a possessive refusal. Although, considering the impressions she had of these Imperials, she wondered why she thought he would refuse her request. She seemed to be doing a lot of second-guessing herself this morning. Quite a bit more than usual, in fact.

But she nodded. “If Kisa would like to join us, by all means, do invite her. She’s a bookworm, you know. Though I caution you,” Daxia said with a chuckle, “if you continue questioning her as you have, she will return the favor! In her own way, of course.”

She waited near the gardens for Lew — and Kisa, as it turned out — simply watching the movement of the leaves in the slight breeze. The Paths were a mess. It still bothered her to see backward along the Paths. She hadn’t liked the feeling when she saw the past as she stood in the small chapel of the Temple on the Border. She hadn’t liked the feeling any better this morning as she stood on the steps of the Imperial Cathedral.

She offered to carry the basket... the warrior’s instinct to always have at least one hand free. Yes, Lew was a scholar like Kisa. That didn’t stop her instincts from being what they were.

“Have you ever seen the Patterns go backward, Kisa,” she asked softly as they crossed the expanse of the cathedral. “Looking into the past, I mean. I know I wrote you of what I saw in Bordertown, but I never asked if this was something that was ordinary or rare or unheard of.”

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Dazi might have almost forgotten the reason they were here. It would be a thing of wonder to walk through the catacombs of history, to see the names, to wonder at how so many of the Noble and Imperial Families came to be here... beneath Talesan’s Village.

Here... in what was once the Dayalan city of Port of Lys.

She simply followed the Eye as he led them farther and farther into the depths of the tunnels. In the largest of the halls, with darkness high above and deep shadows lining the sides, Dazi briefly thought of the spell she had learned from Tashka... no mere light spell, but the summoning of a Sister to illuminate the darkness. No, now was not the time for that... however, perhaps later a Sister’s help would prove useful.

They followed twists and turns as they steadily moved away from the Cathedral. When they reached the Library and Brother Lew’s light spell caused the lamps to be lit, Dazi gasped.

So many books!

She turned to see the same light in Kisa’s eyes that she was certain shone in hers. Two people who loved learning as much as breathing... now led to a world with more books than either had ever seen in their lives.

She left the basket of food near the door and walked the length of the library with Kisa and Lew. To have this available at any time? The Dayalan Priestess decided that the Eye of Hastur might be the luckiest man she’d ever met!

Then she reached the end of room, looking at the fine wall that marked the end of the library.

Again her brows furrowed as she ran her hand over the surface of the wall and looked at the ceiling.

“What is on the other side of the wall, Lew? No Dayalan would cut the constellations apart like this,” she said, pointing to the mural above. “The wall was built... well, later than the original structure, but the craftsmanship is still fine enough that I would not guess it to be modern. I don’t suppose you know when it was constructed, do you?”

Then she closed her eyes, tilted her head and unerringly found East... the direction from which her Lady began Her survey of the world each day.

“Are we in the old Temple?” She shook her head. “Oh, right. Maybe you wouldn’t know. Are we under the docks... or under the Bay itself? Or still under the Village?”

It took a moment for Daxia to realize Lew had asked her a question and she settled her mind to attend to the problem at hand. The past was going nowhere; there would be time to learn more about this place later.

“Where to start...” She glanced at Kisa then looked back at the shelves upon shelves of books and scrolls. “Would copies of tax rolls be stored here as well as in the Khorall’s offices, do you think? Kisa can find things in tax rolls that I would never have imagined existed before she gave me hints of such things.

“Fortunes change on the land and on the sea, da? Good harvest years, and years of blights and bad weather leading to bad harvests. So the same could be true of the sea, da?

“When the fisher folk had bad seasons of fishing, what did they do then? Has this evil spirit of the East always been part of the cycles among the fisher folk? I would think not, for Talesan’s Village would not have the reputation it has for being a town of people adaptable to all manner of change. The most liberated town on the mainland, da? Whoever is in charge, the people remain the farmers and the fishers. From what Kevin said last night, I might suspect there has always been some competition between the two, but it would seem this extreme animosity is not ordinary.”

Daxia paused to look down the history of the Village in the form of its archives. Books, real books, protected behind glass... that could very well represent the era of Yrick’s Bright Empire. During the Coven Age, if anything was written at all, it would be on scrolls. The technology for bookmaking — any technology, for that matter — was lost to those living in the Second Age. Well, more accurately, it was deemed unimportant.

“She thinks out loud like that,” Kisa whispered to Lew. “It’s often quite interesting. We’ll just wait.”

Dazi began walking back toward the entrance but stopped near the demarcation between books and scrolls.

“This evil came to this shore with the East. And the East came to the Port of Lys at the end of the First Age.

“Our history... and the tale of the Battle at the Waters Edge... there is one line in that tale that says...

“That day, the Eastern sharks fed.

“Well, now we know exactly what that means. Every bit of the past that brings illumination always seems to bring despair along with it. Is that just a Dayalan curse? Are we, the children of the First to Stand Against the Chaos Lords, meant to have a history that is more heartbreaking than comforting? Ah, perhaps... She is who She is. And She really, really angered the Chaos Lords.

“So the sharks came with the East, it would be reasonable to surmise.” She gestured to the oldest of the books. “If the well-protected books represent the history of the Bright Empire, the earliest may even contain the only tax rolls of the time, if there were such thing. Did we worry about such things? We built the Port of Lys and Caer Maeyin before we built the Keeps... you mentioned the age of the baths being older than Dawnview, remember, Kisa? And yes, that makes sense. The history Kassia thumped into my head said the great cities and the Starwatch Reaches were built first.

“Then the Keeps were built. While the Dayalan architects were going from here to there and from there to here building Keeps for the Families, Yrick... well, who knows? Declared himself king? Decided he was the ruler of the whole world? He annoyed our foresisters something terrible, but he couldn’t have been such a terrible person or we’d never have said there was a constellation for him. And surely the Starwatchers who devised the calendar wouldn’t have named a month for him!

“Hmm. Maybe they didn’t. The days of the week had different names before Prince Lhannon firmly placed himself and his Empire on the mainland. Still... that’s not important now. But the return of the Forgotten Fleet could have meant other changes I don’t know about. I’ll have to ask my cousin when I see her.

“Records from the First Age — if such records exist — would tell of the cycles on land and sea and, we can hope, how the people coped with such things before the taint of Chaos touched these shores.”

Dazi gestured to the scrolls in their many pots.

“I’d hope to find records from the Second Age, but suspect people were less interested in writing things down and more interested in simply living. But the Coveners were more likely to live in harmony with the land than anyone else. Perhaps that harmony extended to the sea. It would have still been the Dayalans doing the scribing, though. I’m still hazy on the synergy between us, but even in the East it’s known. What was it that Romana said to Celi? It wasn’t quite nice... Oh, yes. Dashka’tahl daylna’te’shabash ved’m? Daylna’stashkov’dahhana’daylna... shabash ved’m’stashkov’dahhana’daylna. What’s the difference between the Starbredkillers — Dayalans — and the Children of the Trees and Beasts — the Coveners? Dayalans always, always fight to the last Dayalan. The Coveners? The same... always fight to the last Dayalan.

“Hmm. I’d say that wasn’t quite accurate. Perhaps for the Children of the Trees... the Horned God. But the Children of the Beasts, of the Mother... well, Linette proves that a falsehood. Still. A puzzling thing, this synergy.

“And then came the Third Age... It always makes me wonder about the Highside. Tashka said the best were sent to hold the Bridge. They all died there... well, except that now one of them has been moved off the board of that game to the board of this one. Thinking about the religious implications of why Kay is here really hurts my brain. And all the Dayalans at the Temple on the Border were killed, too... except for Starlord Tashka.”

The Dayalan’s hand strayed to the silver double-star pendant at her throat. “And now she shines in the night sky with Linette.

“So some of us surely stayed in Dawnview. What I wonder is...” Dazi frowned as she looked at the scrolls. “...how many of our sisters remained here. Even if the Temple and City had been buried, would we have stayed?

“Are there records here written by Dayalan hands that tell of the return of the Forgotten Fleet? How interesting that would be! But more to the point, even in that period of uncertainty, there maybe be records that tell of fertile and fallow years on land, and the equivalent in the sea.

“And what of the return of the Forgotten Fleet itself? There had to have been Dayalans on those ships — no one else could have navigated across the Sea of Opals. What of them? Did they find this library and add their thoughts to it?

“So, is this the first time the evil spirit has taken hold of the Talesan Village fisher folk? I think so. It’s not a thing like the princes of Kh’Lhy’Ra who would get bored and go back home. No, more like the Chaos Riders, I think, who are never bored with attacking Bordertown. Not as big a deal as He Whom They Follow, more like demon-sized? Except with the independent will of... Them. Hmm. I should ask Romana about that later.

“So, what we’re looking for is the ways in which the fisher folk have dealt with a dearth of fish over the course of the Ages. That gives them something, something practical to return to after eliminating the evil spirit of the East.”

She nodded to herself.

“Hmm, now getting rid of it...” Row after rank of books and scrolls got yet another inspection before the Dayalan shook her head. “Well, now wouldn’t this just be a handy time for Romana to be able to call up her Friends to help? But she released them, and wasn’t that an emotional thing? I think they actually liked her. But she set them free and willingly chose to follow the Lady Attera. That nearly made me cry from happiness; it was such a beautiful thing she did. So... Romana can only provide information, but she’s frightfully smart. There’s still the language barrier, and even though she can speak Colonial as well as I can, there are some things that just don’t translate. Very well. Even when it’s fairly close to Ancient.

“Kevin and his lads can probably find the people responsible. Hmm, come to think of it, Felli and Bekkah can probably gather as much information. I’d hate to think we’d have to toss the ringleaders in the bay for the evil spirit — it just goes against everything I was taught. But I understand the consequences of battle; some die. Oh, and this is a battle, and not just a battle of wits. Indeed, Bekkah and Felli are going to hate it even more than I do. That might be the only way to get rid of this thing, though. Romana will know. I hope. We’re probably not going to find that information here.”

Dazi looked at what she suspected might be the scrolls of the Coven Age... far too few of them, really.

“Probably not.”

The Starlord turned to her companions, hands clasped behind her back and bouncing on her toes with slightly less enthusiasm that Romana generally displayed. Slightly less. Kisa, being accustomed to her thinking while forgetting to keep it all inside her head, had an expression that Dazi couldn’t quite put into words, but it did make her heart flutter a bit. The Eye of Hastur looked at Daxia then down at the parchment on which he’d started to make notes before Dazi’s tangents had turned too many corners, and then back at the Dayalan.

“So, Brother Lew... besides going from past to present, what organization do the books and scrolls have? We’re looking for patterns of good times and bad times for the fisher folk, and indications of how they’ve dealt with the bad times in the past.

“And perhaps any mention of unnatural things that can’t be explained by those doing the writing.”

The Heartwood
Talesan’s Village
The Archives
Hasday, the Twelfth Day of Scholar

Daxia, Kisa and Brother Llewellyn

Llewellyn looked at the wall, up to the ceiling, to the wall again and then back to the ceiling.

“I never noticed that. And yes, the wall has always been there, at least here generations, I believe, perhaps longer. If you are saying it is not as old as the archive, well, I am no Master Craftsman but this is finer work than that which built our Cathedral – Hastur forgive me for saying so. As for where we are... I do not know. I suspect somewhere to the east and to the north, otherwise we’d be in the sea and the Blackwater runs right behind the Cathedral. I cannot imagine a river running over us; the ceiling should leak then, correct?

“It has always reminded me of the Keep. The question, then, is when was the Keep built? What could have happened, or was about to happen, that they built this wall?”

He then crossed his arms, looking back to front.

“Well we do keep the tax rolls, of course we do. And they are near the front of the hall, on the lower shelves, because we are always in and out of them. And as best as I can tell, by hand and style, the works of one author are kept in the same area, like you would keep your own writings in one place.

“As for that, it is the benefit of scrolls, lassie. On the top of each cask, we record what is in each of them.

“The books? There is often a sigil on the backs, usually a rune that gives a hint to its content. Or what month it was written.”

“The tax rolls are here?”

Kisa stood near one row of scroll casks, peering at them curiously.

“These all seem to be written on Restday, the day after the markets.”

Llewellyn trundled back, tapped the kegs and nodded.

“The Larsens have a tariff on outbound goods and shares a portion with the village elders. This way they know how to divide it up amongst the townsfolk. For example, the farmers once bought a plow horse to be shared, the fishers brought in a new boat from Sherman’s Keep – things they could not afford as single families.”

Taking off the top of one barrel, Kisa drew out a scroll, and in a very un-lady like manner sat on the floor and rolled it out.

“I like tax rolls. They are fascinating...

“And as for backwards, Daxia? Of course. It helps one determine why something happened.”

For Daxia, her research was both rewarding and frustrating. There was a tome about a cyclonic windstorm that swept across the coast like an angry demon, where it came from and where it went was a mystery; it was blamed on wind spirits and the whole point of the treatise was to condemn the practice of worshiping such destructive entities. There was another tome, obviously nautical, written in Ancient, describing which stars to follow if one wanted to navigate the reefs around a strange set of islands. There was a journal whose last entry read:



Another book recorded an equally disturbing history, documenting the growth of the Dirkwood and the loss of three neighborhoods to the forest. It ended with a stern recommendation to seek out and burn saplings in the first weeks of spring, to keep the trees from encroaching any farther.

What was strange, however, extremely strange, was that there never seemed to be any previous history of fishing catch changes; once you were past the bay, the fishing was good. There was some manner of speculation that the size of the Village – being the smallest on the mainland – was beneficial as it kept the villagers from overfishing their grounds.

Finally, however, Daxia found a curious volume. It was a book, but it was written in Imperial, and seemed to be from the time when the Empire first returned. It had a four legged rune on its spine – it seemed to be a bestiary of one manner or another, describing the creatures found upon the mainland.

It focused mainly on the Forest creatures – various and sundry walking fish, the fierce nature of the local bear population. It spoke of things that shouldn’t be, twisted creatures that could only have been made with the most obscene sorceries and called them abominations. It recorded carnivorous trees and meat eating birds that flew faster than one could see. And there was also this entry:



About this time Kisa spoke up.

“Brother Lew... what is a blackfin?”

The Eye looked up from his own research, looking back to the Dawnview heiress.

“Oh! It’s a local delicacy and in quite demand up and don the Highland Path – for as far as it can be shipped and kept fresh. Sometimes it’s smoked; sometimes they use common magics to trade beyond the Path, where it is more expensive than Master Rory’s beer. It’s a relatively uncommon species of...”

The priest held his words for a moment, then two.

“Shark.”

“Curious.”

Kisa sat back, bracing herself on her arms.

“Did you know you stopped selling them about a year ago? Well, that’s not quite true. About three years ago you stopped killing them... then started hunting them again.

“Just after the hunting started, the rest of your fish-based taxes started a slow decline.

“And now look – when was the last time one was sold?”

Shepherds of the sea. If they were that, they could be, as Romana said, herding fish to the fishermen... and perhaps, if the fishermen were not behaving properly...

They might keep them away.