Lots of other stuff going on this week, only a little progress on the writing front. Full details in this week’s writing vlog.
Monthly Archives: June 2023
A Candle in the Wind – Chapter Seven
Roy took the news that Low Noon would likely empower von Nighburg with his typical grace and good humor, stalking off to retrieve his skiff while grumbling under his breath. Proud Elk went with him, both to keep him out of trouble and likely to ride the skiff again. Johan watched them go, bemused. When Roy had joined the Regulars as a kid he’d had a much more positive attitude and outlook but time had changed him a lot. It was tempting to say it was the war that did it but even during the Summer of Snow he hadn’t been quite so… intense.
From the rumors, most people thought that intensity was what made Roy successful in his work. Johan worried that it was a sign of strain. He’d tried to work out what was bothering Roy when he came to Leondale for his wedding but hadn’t gotten anywhere. Given the constraints they were under at the moment Johan assumed he wouldn’t get another chance. At least not before they went up the tower.
He finished marking up the mirrors and moved over to the crystal itself, examining the burnt out candles the sheriff had left there. As if the thought conjured the man, Warwick appeared. “I can get those out of your way.”
“They’re not an issue, sheriff,” Johan said, handing him the stump of wax. “These are a tool to show things that normally go unseen, correct?”
Warwick slipped the stub of wax into a pouch on his belt. “That’s the idea.”
“We might be able to combine them with the mirrors and work out exactly what is inside the prism before we use the sunstone to dissolve it,” Johan said. He pointed to the child trapped inside. “If nothing else it will let us see if the child is poisoned or injured in some hidden way before we restore him to normal time.”
“They’re intended to reveal magic, not wounds or poison,” Warwick said, moving around the prism. “Besides, I’ve never heard of a candle of revealing and a mirror being used together, much less a candle and a magic mirror. We don’t know as it will do anything.”
“Can it hurt to try?” Tanner asked.
“Mixing magic is always dangerous,” the sheriff said, scooping up the last candle stub, “even magics that exist only to look at things.”
Johan nodded. “There are many very dangerous entities in the world that know when you are looking for them. That’s how people like von Nighburg typically get their start. They go looking for the forbidden and the forbidden finds them eventually.”
“Beyond that,” Warwick added, “I only have three of the things left and we might very well need them. The more magic the candle needs to do its job the faster it burns.”
“Only three?” Johan raised an eyebrow. “Why so few? I would think a druid as skilled as yourself would have many of such a useful thing on hand.”
Warwick spread his hands. “The wicks are very hard to come by since Morainhenge fell and the climate here isn’t right for me to grow the ingredients myself. I reached out to someone I know who tries to keep us supplied with such things months ago but… well, it’s not so easy to find what I need these days. I’d like to have a hundred of the things on hand all the time.”
“That’s unfortunate.” Johan pressed his face against the side of the prism, his nose pressing flat against the surface of the spell. Nothing he saw inside spoke of poisons or wounds. The problem was that both the First Son’s magic and the older Teutonic magics he derived it from excelled at illusions. “Could you spare just one of your candles?”
The sheriff joined him, his frown clearly visible in his reflection on the prism’s surface. “You’re very fixated on this.”
“A moon prism is a very flexible kind of magic, sheriff,” Johan said, stepping away from the crystal to look the other man in the eye. “There are many applications for them in the literature. They were used to preserve food, to keep people from dying until they could be healed and, very often, to create boobytraps. With what we know of von Nighburg I can’t imagine he spent the time and effort to make one of these with no purpose. You know him better than I. Why do you think that was?”
Warwick wordlessly reached into a different pouch, pulled out a new candle and offered it to him. Johan took it and opened up his lightbox, removed the sunstone and replaced it with the candle. Once he had it in place he held it up to the sheriff and said, “Is there a correct way to light this or can I just use a match?”
“The trick isn’t in lighting them it’s in putting them out,” Warwick said. He struck a match and lit the candle for Johan. “I’ll show you how to do that later, for now just try not to breath too deeply. The smoke’s not toxic but if you don’t have the tolerance eventually it will make you see things that just aren’t there.”
“This shouldn’t take more than five minutes.”
“Then you shouldn’t see any side effects if the candle burns steady. Just remember they burn faster the more you draw on their magic and when I was scrying the crystal they burned pretty fast indeed. That won’t just burn through the candle faster, it will strain your mind in the same way.”
The Fairchild siblings approached as Johan adjusted his lighbox. “Good morning, Mr. van der Klein,” the young lady said, her voice sounding unusually scratchy that morning. “Can we assist you?”
Johan spared them a glance as he checked the box’s alignment by feel. After meeting Roy’s friends on the train he’d taken some time to probe the extent of their abilities and experience. Not a great sacrifice given they were stuck on a train. Still, he’d guessed from the look and feel of them that they couldn’t help meddling in Roy’s affairs so he figured he’d best have a good read on them and it seemed his intuition was correct. “I appreciate the offer but I don’t believe so. Both my own magic tradition and the Teutonic school that the moon prism comes from specialize in the manipulation of light. I don’t believe either of your areas of expertise will contribute to that. A river seer would be even better than this candle but I’m afraid we don’t have any of them handy.”
Brandon gently took his sister by the arm. “As I said, Cassie. Besides, you’ve been pushing yourself very hard the last few days and I’m worried about your voice. Take a few minutes to rest.”
He led her several paces away and coaxed her into sitting on a bench outside one of the town’s saloons. Honestly, Johan was glad to see it. It was true that neither one of them had magic that would directly contribute but there were always precautions they could help with. But, if the name was anything to go by, a stone singer relied heavily on their voice and hers sounded markedly strained at the moment. He’d rather not push them if he didn’t have to.
There was also the nature of the magic at hand. On a fundamental level all magic was the combination of a source of power with a vessel to give that power a purpose. That said, regardless of the tradition it was founded in, almost all understandings of magical forces mixed those two concepts. In the druidic tradition fire, water, earth and air formed the basic elements of magic. Of these, fire and air were the forces and water and earth the vessels.
However fire had both a form, in flame, and an energy, in heat. Likewise with air, which was always in motion yet also tangible in the form of wind. The Teutonic tradition spoke of thought as the power and pattern as the vessel but both things were said to reside the mind. All aspects of Teutonic magic thus must be contained by a single vessel. For the Sons of Harmon it was a bit different.
Rembrandt’s magic came from the contrast between light and darkness, with light as the power and the darkness around its edges the vessel that gives it meaning. Most practitioners considered them the purest forms of power and vessel in existence. It was a very different kind of magic, built as much on contrast and negative space as powers and vessels. In the centuries since the First Son’s death many of his followers had tried to integrate other traditions into their own methods with little success. The few successes that did exist all revolved around traditions that had some kind of light source among their paraphernalia. Avery Warwick’s magic candles, for example.
To Johan’s delight, it worked. As he adjusted the lightbox’s mirrors to focus the candle’s light on the larger perimeter mirrors he felt a subtle shift in the way the magic normally felt but no actual rejection like the treatises mentioned when they discussed failed experiments. The perimeter mirrors split the light to form an almost solid ring around the moon prism. The world outside the ring was cast in harsh, impenetrable shadows that turned Tanner and the other townsfolk watching them work into vague silhouettes. Only the sheriff and the Fairchilds were inside the ring and visible.
Cassandra’s mouth opened slightly in wordless amazement. Her brother lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the harsh glare but Warwick nodded in grudging admiration. “Not bad,” he said. “But the candle won’t put out that kind of power for long. You have a minute, maybe more, so make it fast.”
“Hold this, please, Mr. Fairchild.” He put the lightbox in the druid’s hands, gently pressing up on his elbow to keep the box perfectly positioned. Then he reached down to the perimeter mirrors and began to add the last few lines in was on the glass to finish the spell he had in mind.
From its position in the graveyard Jonathan Riker’s statue was in the perfect position to see everything as it happened. At the north end of the cove a flying skiff came into view. A minute later a harsh light glinted off the windows of the houses down by the docks, as if late morning had suddenly transformed to high noon. Something glinted at the top of the lighthouse.
And rising high and distant over the cove, barely audible over the rolling waves, came distant echoes of wild laughter.
Avery watched in amazement as the light suffused the crystal, causing it to almost entirely fade from view. There was still nothing to see inside but Hank. “Looks clear to me. How do you plan to check for poison or the like?”
“Trying a few things,” van der Klein said, scribbling on his mirror and erasing the scribbles a few seconds later. “Let me know if the light changes colors. That means the scrying has discovered a poison or spell at work.”
The sheriff snorted and started counting in his mind. At the rate things were going they were definitely going to need at least one more candle to get through this. He took it out from the pouch on his belt and handed it to Brandon. “No changes so far.”
“That’s poisons and diseases done,” van der Klein said, dusting his hands off and getting up to carefully switch the old, burned out candle for the new one. Fifteen seconds later he finished making his marks with no changes in the color of light from the prism. “No enchantments at work in there either. No point taking the whole thing down and starting over.”
“You’re going to break the prism now?” Avery asked, watching the mirror man carefully scribbling things on his glass.
“Melting might be a better way to put it.” Van der Klein moved around the mirrors in the circle and started to draw on them. “The boy may be a bit disoriented once the prism melts. Miss Fairchild, would you be so kind as to help him if he needs it?”
As the Son of Harmon finished his work all the hair on Avery’s head suddenly stood on end. “Wait.” Suddenly it occurred to him that there was something he hadn’t tried. He scrambled in the paraphernalia in the pouches of his belt, dragging out a thistledown candle. “Wait a moment, Mr. Van der Klein.”
He froze, one hand still on the top of his mirror. “What do you mean? It’s already melting.”
Avery’s stomach did a flipflop, anxiety inexplicably squeezing him like a vice. He jammed the candle into his candle holder with fast, jerky motions. “Something’s wrong here.” Brandon and van der Klein were both staring at him in bafflement and for a brief moment Avery doubted himself. Then he met Cassandra’s eyes and saw they were wild and fearful. “What do you hear, stone singer?”
“Laughing,” she whispered. “A song like laughter – no, like everything was taken away until all that was left laughter or extinction.”
The candle snapped to life with a sputtering flare and Avery centered himself on the flame, intending to probe Hank’s mind. But as soon as he touched the magic there a surge of malicious glee hit his mind so hard he dropped the candle holder.
“Sheriff?” Brandon asked.
For a moment, as Avery collected himself, he saw everything around him with perfect clarity. He saw the moon prism vanish – not melt, just cease to exist. He felt the magic of his two candles meld together, pulling thoughts out of the air and forcing them to reveal themselves to the human eye. He saw dozens of mouths full of rows and rows of blunt, horselike teeth gaping wide in gruesome grins. He saw Hank’s head snap up as he came free of the prism.
Saw the boy’s lips peel back in an ugly grin. Then watched his mouth open wider and wider, his jaw stretching then tearing itself apart with a wet crack. Peel after peel of malevolent laughter filled the square.
Weekly Writing Vlog – 06-21-2023
Weekly writing vlog is out! Not much to report this week but things are grinding forward.
A Candle in the Wind – Chapter Six
As full night fell on Riker’s Cove something subtle shifted in the waters of the Cove. To the discerning eye it might have looked like the moon was slowly growing closer and closer to the surface of the water as the light it reflected there grow brighter and covered more and more of the waves. A discerning eye was necessary because the moon above did not change from its normal route through the heavens.
Yet as the lesser light reached it’s zenith the rays that shone from the water seemed to catch in the reflectors of the lighthouse, glancing off the surface meant to direct the beacon within out to sea. The reflector turned slowly away from the waves and towards the Cove. No human hands moved it yet move it did. In the market square above the docks, where the fishermen sold the day’s catch, the beam of unearthly light focused to a point.
A few minutes later the light faded and the lighthouse reflector turned back out to sea leaving a five foot tall crystal pillar behind.
In his time working with Books, sorting out lost shipments, tracking down pirates and quietly exterminating foreign blood cults, Roy had worked with a lot of aluminum skiffs. The principles were simple. Heat a sheet of aluminum up until it floated then used tin to propel yourself and there you go. A flying platform to take you over land and sea.
He hadn’t realized how hard it was to find one of the things on short notice, usually Books handled that part of things. It took him the better part of the two days preparatory time they had – not to mention a great deal of his personal silver – to locate a skiff he could buy. Not rent, buy. Some pretty clever banking was necessary to get the money ready to actually make the purchase. Hopefully he’d be able to liquidate the thing later.
In the meantime he had his ride back in to Riker’s Cove and hopefully up to the lighthouse. Flight metal was difficult to refine and its use in transportation quite novel. Roy hoped that novelty would translate to a blindspot for both the sheriff and von Nighburg.
It turned out Johan wasn’t quite ready for it either. Once they got the thing off the ground he took one look over the side, moved to the center of the eight foot by fifteen foot skiff, sat down and refused to move. “If I wanted to fall to my death,” he said, “I could’ve done it at home.”
“I’ve been to Leondale,” Roy said with a smirk. “It’s flatter than flapjacks.”
“Falling off a roof will do the trick nicely.”
“There is no trick to dying,” Proud Elk said. “It happens every day and will happen to us all soon enough. Now flying? That is something special.” The Sanna man leaned against the back wall of the skiff, a smile on his face as he stared up at the sky. He hadn’t wound up steering the skiff but he didn’t seem upset at that.
Roy envied him a bit. He had to spend most of his time looking down for landmarks to ensure they actually reached their destination. Flying a skiff was much different from riding in one. But he’d done his fair share of both whereas this was Proud Elk’s first flight so Roy couldn’t really hold his friend’s wonder against him. Flying really was magic in its truest sense.
In the interest of approaching the Cove from the direction most conductive to stealth Roy looped out to sea for most of the flight south. He stayed about five feet over the waves, which he’d had impressed on him as the optimal height for stable flight. Too high for most waves, to low for sudden breezes.
Lighthouses weren’t common along the shoreline that far south so when they caught a glimpse of one peeking above the horizon line Roy assumed it was the Cove’s and moved the skiff over land and set it down. The whole trip took less than an hour. As they climbed out and Johan shook feeling back into his limbs he remarked on the brevity of the trip.
“Skytrains are huge and heavy,” Roy said. “They take forever to get going and they aren’t that fast once they do. Our skiff has good top speed and gets up to it faster than a locomotive so of course the trip is faster.”
He got a grip on the fist sized sulfurite crystal built into the skiff’s rudder. First he coaxed all the heat still in the vehicle’s underside back into the sulfurite. Then, once he was sure he’d reclaimed all the loose magic left in the skiff, he pulled the crystal out of its setting and carefully put it in a special carrying pouch in his bag.
“How much fire was lost?” Proud Elk asked.
“About two fifths of what it holds,” Roy said. “We’ll need to restoke it before tonight if we’re taking it up to the lighthouse.”
“Must we?” Johan asked.
“It’s the simplest way to get up there, especially if we don’t want to cross paths with the sheriff.” Roy slung his pack over his shoulder and took stock of their location. Large spurs of rock jutted out into the ocean ahead of them, old ridges of volcanic stone well worn by time and tide. They were sheltered from the elements by the stone ridge to the north and dunes in the other two directions. Only a passing ship was likely to catch sight of them. They’d just have to hope no one headed towards Riker’s Cove thought to report their presence there to Sheriff Warwick. “Guess I should try and whistle up the Fairchilds.”
“How exactly do you intend to do that?”
“Watch and learn, Johan. Watch and learn.” The Henge and Hills was an old Avaloni tune that many knights from their Stone Circle learned, although Roy wasn’t quite sure why. It was kind of a slow tune and not suited for march or drill. It opened high and clear, with a rising set of notes that stopped abruptly before opening out into a wider, deeper melody that carried the weight and purpose of the old country’s chivalric tradition. During the gold drinker hunt Brandon had taught it to him. It was the traditional tune used to signal your location to Fairchild stone singers and, while he wasn’t entirely on key, Roy managed to whistle the first six or seven bars correctly nine times out of ten. After hiking up to the edge of the hill, at a place where the dunes still hid him from sight, he repeated them twice then settled in to wait.
The other two collected their things from the skiff and came to join him. Proud Elk had found a dousing rod and collected samples of the local flora in Loewenburg but he’d also drawn several samples from the local water table which he carried with him in a series of flasks. The Sanna divining traditions he drew on were exotic but, in Roy’s experience, not very offensive in nature. Roy hoped the man hadn’t gathered all that for nothing.
Johan had a backpack full of dinner plate sized bundles wrapped in heavy cotton cloth that he’d kept a death grip on during the flight out. The magic system devised by Rembrant, son of Harmon, relied on mirrors to direct and amplify light, the aspect of fire the hardest to transform into practical magic. Roy wondered if he’d had something in mind when grabbing them or if he’d just wanted to hedge his bets. Either way, he hoped van der Klein hadn’t laid out too much of his own money. Von Nighburg’s bounty probably wasn’t even going to cover the expenses they were incurring on this part of the job, to say nothing of transportation costs. Unlike Books or Roy himself, Johan wasn’t in a position to spend money freely.
If he was worrying about his finances Johan didn’t show it when he sat his bag down next to Roy and joined him in peering over the top of the dunes. All he said was, “This wasn’t what I thought you meant by whistling them up.”
“What else did you think I meant?”
“I presumed you had a signal prearranged with them.”
“You presumed correctly.”
They hadn’t waited more than ten minutes when the sound of hoofbeats built over the dunes. Roy frowned. He had expected the Fairchilds to make a more discreet approach. Roy got to his feet and peeked over the top of the hill to spot a short, rather portly man approaching on a horse. He reached down for his sword, an old falcata he’d carried in his younger days before Books had imported his Alexopolous made blade. He’d broken that masterpiece a few months ago. In fact, now that he thought about it, he’d gone through a lot of swords in the last four months or so.
The many grisly fates of his cutlery weren’t germane at the moment, however. What was important was the man coming over the dunes and, from what he could see, that man had the look of a sailor rather than a townie. He was wearing a light blue vest, canvas pants and a battered cotton shirt with no collar. There was no weapon at his side or strapped to his saddle. Roy got to his feet and raised a hand in greeting. The rider pulled up about ten feet away and said, “Hello there! Any one of you go by the name Roy Harper?”
“That’s me.”
“Chester Tanner.” He touched his battered sock cap as if he was tipping a hat although his own headgear wasn’t suited to the motion. “Miss Fairchild asks you join her down in the square by the docks.”
“Is that a fact?” This wasn’t nearly what he’d expected as a result of his signal but perhaps the sheriff had left town or something over the last couple of days. He turned to the other two. “You heard the man, let’s get going.”
Unfortunately Tanner hadn’t brought horses for all of them so they were forced to walk briskly as the local man kept his horse at a very restrained trot next to them. At that pace it took them less than fifteen minutes to make the trip down to the docks. To Roy’s surprise they found both Fairchilds and Sheriff Warwick there. To his even greater surprise, they found them walking around an eight foot tall crystal pillar that looked like it contained a boy of about ten years old.
Roy tilted his hat back and stared at the surreal thing. “What is this?”
“The penalty for our good deeds,” Warwick said, his hands on his hips as he stared at the crystal. A set of eight burnt out candles were laid around the crystal in a circle, the smoke from their burning still ringing the unsettling monolith.
As far as Roy knew a magic candle didn’t burn any different from a normal one. Whatever Warwick and the others had been doing here they’d been at it for hours and hadn’t found a solution. There wasn’t anything for it. Roy took the direct approach and walked up beside the sheriff, folded his arms and stared at the crystal, saying, “What good deed have you done recently?”
“Agreed to save some children.” Warwick hooked a thumb at the Fairchilds, who were a quarter way round the crystal and also studying it with incredible intensity. “Those two found one of von Nighburg’s hostage kids in town and freed him. I met your friends when they returned the boy to his parents and they talked me into working with them – and you lot – to save the others. That was last night.”
Roy nodded. “And this morning the town woke up and discovered how he responded.”
The sheriff turned and spat on the ground. “Dust and ashes, that blackguard gets worse every coalstoking day. The day we drown him in the stormwracked bay can’t come soon enough.”
The torrent of sacrilege took Roy by surprise. The sheriff had never struck him as the type to speak so coarsely, especially in public, but maybe he felt von Nighburg had escalated. A mistake on his part. After crossing paths with several groups of black magicians Roy had largely written the hostages off as dead already. He’d have to try and keep the sheriff on track. “Looks like you’ve already taken a good, long look at it. Have you been able to figure out what Nighburg did here?”
“I’m stumped,” Warwick admitted. “Whatever he’s done it’s not rooted in the earth or its fruits, no matter what the thing itself looks like. Your friends have been humming at it but don’t have anything either.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate that humming, sheriff,” Roy said, tapping on the crystal with his knuckles. “That lady’s voice is something else.”
In spite of Warwick’s insistence that the crystal wasn’t earth or stone it felt like any other piece of quartz Roy had touched in his life. Admittedly he didn’t often handle such things but it was also unavoidable in his life of work. He’d chosen to leave his wendigo bone necklace in his armory at home since he wasn’t sure how such a thing might interact with whatever strange pacts von Nighburg wielded but he still knew magical ice when he saw it. That wasn’t what this was either. There was no voice to the crystal so if there was an element of fire to the thing it was very, very small or similar to the sheriff’s candles and its magic kept the flame silent. His intuition told him there was just no fire.
Light glinted off the crystal next to his hand as he ran it along the crystal facets. Glancing behind him he saw Johan setting up and one of the spare mirrors he’d brought along on the ground. “Sheriff,” Roy said, “this is Johan van der Klein, the Son of Harmon I told you about.”
Avery turned away from the crystal and walked over to van der Klein. The two men shook hands as the sheriff said, “Mr. Harper speaks very highly of your abilities, sir. Do you think you can help us with our problem here?”
“Depends.” Johan manipulated the pieces of his lightbox, the reflective inner panes of glass pivoting and sliding on hidden hinges and poles made of silver, the metal animated by the magic stored within. The six sides of the box split and folded into a formation halfway between a flower and the mirrored sides of a lantern. In the middle was a sunstone.
No one outside the Sons was quite sure how Rembrandt Harmonson transformed sulfurite into sunstone, the process was one of the order’s greatest secrets. But the change in the stones afterwards was unmistakable. Where the average piece of fully stoked sulfurite burned with a dull, rich, red-orange light a sunstone shone with a clear, pale yellow glow. Unless the person wielding the stone put it to work.
Johan adjusted his lightbox a fraction of a degree then it unleashed a vibrant, clearly visible bar of light at the crystal, which caught that light and refracted it in a dizzying spray of colors. Roy and the others around the crystal flinched at the display but van der Klein ignored it entirely. Instead he studied the pillar in his mirror. After about fifteen seconds the mirrors of his lightbox shifted slightly, then shifted again after another thirty seconds. Then the light faded and the box closed.
“It’s a moon prism,” Johan said, tilting the mirror on the ground so that the crystal and only the crystal filled the pane.
“You’ve seen one of these before?” The sheriff asked.
“Not directly but they’re very common in the literature and some of the principles in them were inverted when the First Son invented sunstones.” Johan handed Tanner, Brandon and Roy mirrors. “Place those at the other compass points, please.”
Warwick peered over Johan’s shoulder as Roy and the others moved off to their positions. He heard the sheriff’s questioning continue as he worked to position the mirror he’d been entrusted with as van der Klein had.
“Is Hank okay in this moon prism of yours?”
“Hard to say without knowing how von Nighburg constructed it,” Johan replied. “Most of the references to them outside our own order come from very early Teutonic wizardry, stuff they discovered in even older records from the Forever War. Nothing I’ve seen of them says going in one would be dangerous. But there’s no saying your Hank was in good health when von Nighburg put him in it, either.”
“Fair. Is he gonna get hurt if you tinker with it now?”
“There’s several methods I could try to dissolve the crystal and they should all be perfectly safe, save for the last one. Which is why it will be last.”
“Should?” Tanner perked up. “How should are we talking here?”
“If the boy was healthy going in he should be healthy coming out,” Johan said, carefully drawing a series of precise marks on the glass of his mirror with waxy white chalk. “Save the last one methodology where there’s a chance we could set ourselves on fire. Roy, you’ll be our insurance against that if it comes to it.”
Roy got up from his mirror dusting his hands off. “That’s not how it works, Johan. If you start burning I can move the flames off somewhere else but you have to be burning before I can do it.”
“Well let’s not try that one, then,” Tanner said, folding his arms over his stomach. “If my sister’s boy burns to death on my watch she’s liable to send me him. He’s alive now, isn’t he?”
“Not necessarily. A moon prism holds the things inside it in stasis, so there’s a lot of things that could be wrong with him right now that we cannot even see. For example, the air frozen in there could be full of poison gas, like you’d find in a mine.” Johan moved to the next mirror in the circle and started marking it up, too. “In the hands of a malicious person there are any number of ways you can make an empty looking prism incredibly dangerous.”
“That’s a nasty bit of magic,” Roy muttered, looking at the crystal again. From Warwick’s testimony von Nighburg was exactly the kind of man to bait a boobytrap with a kidnapped child.
“It’s worse.” Johan looked up from his work on the mirror. “Remember why we came back here today instead of yesterday? It’s a moon prism.”
Avery spat again. “Dust and ashes, Low Noon’s comin’.”
Roy sucked in a breath. “I don’t suppose an eclipse will make the kind of magic you use to manufacture a moon prism weaker, will it?”
“Unfortunately, it does just the opposite.”
Weekly Writing Vlog – 06-15-2023
Weekly update is almost weekly.
A Candle in the Wind – Chapter Five
Riker’s Cove was quiet that evening. There was nothing unusual about that, of course, but the quiet had a sinister cast to it. A trio of small creatures with a fell light in their eyes crept through the streets, breaking off in different directions and vanishing into the shadows. Then, just after sunset, a wistful melody carried through town. The mood over the town lightened. The sheriff hustled through town to a house near the water.
For the next hour or so two small forms watched that house, their eyes alight with anger and uncertainty. Then they abruptly got up and ran off. They scrambled down the beach to the long pier leading to the lighthouse and the statue of Jonathan Riker watched them go.
There were still many shadows over Riker’s Cove but for the moment the waxing moon banished them out to sea.
Brandon studied the sheriff named Avery with curious eyes. Harper had mentioned that many of the druids from Columbia’s Stone Circle still walked the land but Brandon hadn’t expected to find them holding office in public service. He’d assumed resentment or distrust would preclude it.
Warwick worked his magic for some ten minutes on the boy they’d found by the docks, apparently using a thistledown candle to peer into his memories in an attempt to learn the fate of other missing children from the village. Finally he admitted defeat and extinguished the candle, then thanked the family and spent a few minutes more reassuring them they’d done all they could to help find the other two missing children. The sheriff also took the time to check the house’s perimeter. Finally he approached Brandon and his sister. “Well met, Sir Fairchild,” Warwick said. He touched his fingertips to forehead, a gesture that represented removing a helmet among friends. “I have a lot of questions to ask you but I feel we’ve imposed on the Strathmores long enough. Would you and your companion, Miss…”
“Cassandra Fairchild, sheriff.” Cassie dipped slightly in an abbreviated curtsy.
“If you two would care to join me in my office then we could discuss things without bothering them further.”
Warwick turned and gestured to the door with obvious meaning. Brandon gave Cassie a questioning look. His sister had been quietly humming a tuneless note from when they’d discovered the boy out by the docks at dusk until shortly after the sheriff arrived. Since then she’d kept her peace, which he took as a good sign. Now she gave him a slight nod, telling him she was in fact done with whatever she’d been doing. “Of course, sheriff,” Brandon said. “It would be our pleasure.”
Cassie looped her arm through the crook of Brandon’s elbow and allowed him to lead her through the town. While it was of low intensity she’d spent a long time flexing her talent for stonesong. He wasn’t sure what the exact price for that would be but her vision had to be impaired to some degree at the moment. So Brandon kept an eye on her steps as they walked. He didn’t want to embarrass her by waving a hand in front of her face while the sheriff was present but he wasn’t about to let her fall flat on her face either. However, even if she was completely blind for the time being she could still listen.
While they crossed the town she closed her eyes and tilted her head this way and that as the cool ocean breeze swept through her hair. If she heard anything unusual she didn’t mention it. They reached the town jail without incident. “Thank you for being so accommodating,” Warwick said as he unlocked the front door and ushered them in. “The last month and a half have been trying for the Strathmores. I’d rather they have their peace.”
“I’m happy to give it to them, sheriff.” Brandon replied, guiding Cassie over the step and into the building. “It’s the duty of every Knight on errantry to uphold the virtues of Chivalry. How could I ignore a child in need? How could I impose on his family once the need was met?”
“Fair questions,” Warwick said. He closed the door to the jail and offered the two chairs in the front room. He perched on the edge of his desk. “I’d say your answers do you credit as a knight. I am curious, though. How did you know Stu was in distress? I’m told the ensorcelled children like him appear normal to the passing observer.”
“Perhaps,” Cassie said as she made herself comfortable in her chair. “But he didn’t sound normal to a stone singer.”
Both Brandon and Avery raised their eyebrows. Avery presumably in surprise that she was a stone singer and Brandon that she so easily revealed that fact. Avery set his candle on the corner of the desk and inspected Cassie with more care. “That’s a rare gift, Ms. Fairchild. If its not prying too much into your secrets may I ask in what way you determined something was wrong? Could you repeat it?”
“Every person has a melody to their life, sheriff.” Cassie hummed a few bars of slow, almost sleepy music. “That’s yours, for example. A thoughtful, deliberate tune to reflect a trained and careful mind. When a person is ensorcelled, their tune goes off key or, in extreme cases, it becomes dissonant.”
“That’s the only thing such a sound could indicate?” Warwick asked.
“It could be several other things. But Stewart wasn’t off key at all. He wasn’t even making music. All I could hear was a single note, sustained indefinitely, as if the melody of his life had shrunk into a single, constant scream. I knew we couldn’t ignore that. Unfortunately I’ve never heard anything like that before so I can’t guess whether other people will be the same under the influence of the same magic.”
“Well, your actions are commendable although it’d be better if we knew you could repeat it.” Avery steepled his fingers and studied Cassie in the same way senior knights from Avalon would. Like a new variable on the battlefield. “How did you go about breaking Stu’s enchantment?”
“I just sang a tune.” Cassie smiled her most disarming smile, the kind that kept their father wrapped around her finger. “Everyone has a tune they’re supposed to sing. If they lose track of it often the best way to help them is to sing your own song with them until they find their own again.”
Avery’s lips pursed like he’d just eaten something sour. “That seems a bit simplistic.”
“Simple, perhaps, but not easy to do, even if you know what you’re doing.”
“I suppose.” Avery rose and paced along the side of the building. “Well, it is good that Stu is safe and if you’re willing to help free the other two children that were taken with him I and their parents would be very grateful. But I am curious. You said you were here on errantry, Sir Fairchild. May I ask the nature of your quest?”
Brandon laughed. “You’ll find it ridiculous, I’m sure.”
“No more so than anything else in the Columbian West, I’d say.” Warwick gave them an inscrutable look. “So what is it?”
“The Secret of Steel. What else?”
Avery’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really? I’d heard Stonehenge still searched for that bit of myth from time to time but why come here? The Sanna aren’t known for their metallurgy. The Hispaniola that rule Tetzlan guard the local magic jealously…”
“Technically we’ve been tasked with retrieving some of the Founder’s writings that came over with the first round of Knights that Avalon sent during the Sanna wars. Pellinor’s Journals, The Archives of the du Lac Lineage. But,” Brandon gestured to his sister, “technically it’s her quest. When she came of age she heard the call and the Founders decided to send her here. As far as I know Stonehenge has never sent a stone singer to this place on this quest so I think they were hoping she’d hear something new.”
Avery returned to his spot on the desk, his attitude curious now. “Have you had any luck?”
“We’ve heard a… name?” Cassie put a note of uncertainty in it. “Perhaps a title? Supposedly there’s a man in brown who carries a sword of steel and is called The Strongest Man in the World. Have you heard of him?”
“Yes, the Hodekkian,” Warwick mused. “He knew Jonathan Riker somehow, came to the dedication of his statue. He carried one of the curved swords their people favor at the time. A tachi, I think it’s called? He never drew it, though, so I assumed it was bronze like any other.”
“We’ve heard its a silvery metal that isn’t aluminum,” Brandon said. “It’s not much to go on but it’s a start.”
Avery frowned. “But he’s not here in the Cove. Believe me, I’d know if he was.”
“No, we haven’t heard that,” Cassie put in. “We came because we heard the sheriff’s deputy was also a knight from Morainhenge. We hoped he might know the fate of the henge’s relics. When we arrived we were told the sheriff had no deputy so we thought the man had moved on. Turns out he was just promoted.”
“As you say,” Warwick agreed. “Unfortunately I can’t help you. The Master did empty the Reliquary before Morainhenge fell but he didn’t pass them out to the standing knights. He gave them all to the assistant master and told him to find new, worthy guardians for them. I clearly wasn’t one of the worthies. I’ve heard rumors about Assistant Master Oldfathers in the years since but I’ve never seen him in person.”
Brandon sighed. “Well, don’t feel too put out. We’ve heard variations on that story at least a dozen times in the last year and a half. As near as we can tell only one Morainhenge knight was chosen by one of your relics. Very strange.”
“Oh?” Warwick’s brows shot up again. “Who’s that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“A knight of the First Circle, very green at the time of the Lakeshire War, apparently.” Brandon drummed his finger, trying to dredge up the right name. “Was it Nat Thorton?”
“No,” Cassie said. “Nat was the one who survived. The one who received it first was Cole Thurmond. Nat was his squire for most of the war. When the assistant master brought Cole the Bedrock Shackles after the war they found both were able to wield them.”
“That’s right,” Brandon remembered it clearly now. “But Nat told us Sir Thurmond died running down the leader of a rogue Sanna warband about three years ago and the relic passed to Nat.”
Avery nodded. “I remember Thurmond and Thorton. They were good men, although not very remarkable from what I remember. I suppose time changes us all.”
“I suppose so.” Brandon got to his feet and reached down to help Cassie up. “Well, we will keep looking. Do you think we can be of help with the other children missing from the town?”
“Perhaps.” Avery studied Brandon for a moment. “Although I’m not sure if you’re quite up for dangerous work just yet. What happened to your leg?”
Brandon hadn’t thought he’d been favoring it that much but the sheriff must have noticed. “I injured it fighting some gold drinkers a few weeks ago. The Hearth Keepers have done their best but its not back to normal yet.” He wiggled his foot back and forth. “It’s useful for day to day work and if things turn bad, well, I cultivate the yew so I think I can compensate for it. I don’t expect a few ensorcelled children to be that dangerous.”
“So Roy Harper didn’t tell you to expect danger?”
Brandon suppressed a sigh. He’d hoped all the talk about errantry and relics might sidetrack the sheriff. Clearly the man knew his work better than that. When they’d first arrived in town Brandon and Cassie had discussed how to answer the sheriff if he asked them whether they knew Harper directly. Both of them had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, given the circumstances.
“All we knew is that he left a note saying he had personal business in Riker’s Cove,” Cassie said. “He invited us to join him if we had no other leads to follow up.”
Avery tilted his head. “He left you a note? When was this?”
“About a week ago, according to the date,” Braondon said. “We met Mr. Harper in his capacity as a Railway Detective about three months ago. He offered his home in Keegan’s Bluff as a base of operations for our search. Since then we’ve spent much of our time traveling across the West and so has Mr. Harper. We’re rarely at Oakhart Manor at the same time so we leave messages for each other with Mr. and Mrs. Gardener who watch the house when Mr. Harper is away.”
“And he left you a note about Heinrich von Nighburg?”
“No, as I said he mentioned personal business here and that he’d heard there was an old knight from Morainhenge here. I’m not familiar with the man you name.”
Avery’s eyes narrowed. “He’s responsible for kidnapping Stu Strathmore and the other missing children. Do you often coordinate your work with Harper’s?”
Cassie shook her head. “Mr. Harper supports our quest and lets us know when he hears things that might help us but we only coordinate with him when Brandon’s sense of chivalry drives him to meddle, like with those gold drinkers.”
“Yes, that happens.” Brandon managed not to roll his eyes as he said it but it was a near thing.
“How was it that you wound up on the same train as his friend van der Klein?”
“Mr. Harper suggested we travel with him in his note,” Cassie said. “I suspect it was an offer made for our convenience. He tends to be very considerate of our traveling needs, seems to think it’s his duty as a host.”
“That’s commendable of him.” Warwick grunted and folded his arms over his chest. “He didn’t mention having a stone singer as a resource.”
“Of course not,” Brandon snapped. “He doesn’t speak for my sister or I and he wouldn’t presume to.”
Avery sat a little straighter, looking chagrined. “Of course not.”
“Would it changed your decision to have him leave town?” Cassie asked.
“Not really.” Avery took his thistledown candle and removed it from its base, carefully reforming the still soft wax with his fingers as he spoke. “The fact is I don’t trust firespinners to consider the good of the town first. Just having another ally with unusual talents doesn’t change that equation in a meaningful way. The fact that he was in the Regulars doesn’t help.”
“How did you know he was in the Army?” Brandon asked. “I was under the impression it was rare for people who lived this far West.”
“On the contrary! I’d guess old Regulars are more common out here than in the East these days.” Avery shrugged. “Jonathan Riker ran here to escape the war before it started. Many, myself included, came here after to escape its ghosts. But to answer your question, I knew Harper was from the 43rd Infantry because most people who know about firespinners know that. He’s actually rather famous in these parts.”
Cassie got up and took Warwick’s candle off the desk and held it for him as he worked the wax drippings into it. “So you disliked him because you were at odds during the war?”
“Plenty of Lakeshire born firespinners out here, ma’am.” Avery took the candle from her and held it up for inspection. Cassie favored him with another winsome smile. “Though I suppose the old loyalties did play some factor in my decision.”
She nodded in understanding. “And now that you know there is another druid vouching for him, does that change your opinion of him?”
The sheriff gave her a sharp look. “I thought I was the one who looked into minds.”
“That’s you, certainly,” Cassie said gravely. “But I can hear a great deal that people leave unsaid and often that’s what’s most important. So how is it, Sir Warwick? Will you let the two of us, Mr. Harper and his friends help you save these children?”
Warwick stared at his candle for a long time then sighed and set it down on his desk. “Alright, Miss Fairchild. You’ve got a deal.”
Writing Volg – 06-07-2023
A brief update on my publishing fortunes and talk about other projects!
A Candle in the Wind – Chapter Four
The newest strangers in town had very different priorities from the last group. They never came to the graveyard. That didn’t mean they escaped the patient watch of Jonathan Riker’s statue. On the contrary. After first arriving they went down to the beach where the young man bathed one leg in the ocean. His sister kept him company, occasionally serenading him with snatches of light, wistful song.
Other than that small excursion they didn’t leave the inn for the first day. They were more active the second. The two of them walked up and down the docks, chatting with the captains of small fishing boats and tramp freighters. Money changed hands as if they planned a trip by sea in the near future. And they ended the evening on the beach once more, bathing the man’s leg and pensively watching the setting sun as it sank beneath the horizon, skewered by the Cove’s lighthouse like a giant, burning orange.
The town got very quiet at sundown. Avery found it strange, as habits formed years ago in Palmyra told him the cool evening was the perfect time for candle making. The rhythms of seaside life were very different from those of a druid’s forest stronghold. The morning tide was vital to the people of Riker’s Cove and it came well before sunrise. By sunset most people were long asleep.
As the town’s primary peacekeeper Avery did his best to remain awake until the night was well underway, so as to be on hand in case brigands tried to take advantage of the cover of night. He remained at the jail, his lone thistledown candle burning. With his senses expanded he looked out across the town, listening for the sound of thoughts. There were limits to his range, of course. With only his candle burning he could pick up on thoughts within twenty feet or so of where he sat. But if anyone lit the candles he’d shared with them he would pick up on their mind right away.
Well, with some exceptions. Roy Harper had proven immune to the candle’s power, somehow. Perhaps the hint was in the name of his talent. He hadn’t learned much about druids with the firemind but it stood to reason that such a person would have firey thoughts and that may explain the way the candle reacted to Harper’s mind by flaring up instead of carrying his thoughts. Avery hadn’t worked out a possible solution to the problem yet.
Fortunately Harper’s Sanna friend hadn’t been so impenetrable in his thoughts. Proud Elk had heard something from Harper that convinced him that following Harper could keep their promise to old man Riker one way or another. Avery was expecting the two of them and their friend from the train to turn up again any day now. Probably not by train. Most likely by horse, possibly by boat. Yet so far there was no sign of any of them.
Not for the first time he wished he could find a willing deputy. Sadly there hadn’t been any takers since von Nighburg reminded the town that the law was potentially a very dangerous profession. No one wanted to take the risk of wearing a tin star just to keep the peace.
Such grim thoughts kept him company through dusk. The evening was about to tip over into full night, the waxing moon high overhead just a sliver from fulfillment, when one of his other candles flared to life on the other side of town. Avery scrambled to his feet, snatching up his sword. With his candle holder in his left hand he bolted into the streets. The jail was high on the hill leading out of the Cove and the Strathmore home was almost on the waterfront. Even at a fast walk it took him almost ten minutes to get there.
He covered the last few hundred feet with a growing sense of unease. The closer he got to the house the more the smoke from his candle seemed to thrum with some other magical force. There was a large spell at work and Avery suspected von Nighburg was the source. The emotions of the family coming through the candle’s magic were mixed and the ethics of searching their thoughts directly outside of an active threat were clear. It was a dark thing to do and he wasn’t willing to take that step yet.
Avery did his best to work out how many people were in the Strathmore house before he knocked. He didn’t know the family well. The father was a fisherman and his steady, watchful presence was immediately obvious. The mother was equally apparent. Her concern and drive to nurture those in the house carried clearly through the candle, bright as flame. The Strathmores had three children, though one was currently in the clutches of the black magician that lurked in the lighthouse. Unfortunately, while there was a jumble of youthful excitement in the house, it was too chaotic for Avery to determine how many people were feeling those emotions at the moment.
Most surprising was the addition of not one but two other sets of emotions. One had an air of watchful satisfaction. The other was the source of the mysterious thrumming Avery had felt for the last few minutes. Judging that cautious optimism was the correct approach, the sheriff loosened his sword in its sheath but didn’t draw it. Instead, he knocked on the front door of the house.
Aaron Strathmore answered a few moments later, clearly expecting him as the Strathmore patriach quickly swung the door open and motioned him in. Avery glanced around the main room. Stairs to a loft, small kitchen area underneath, the stove in the opposite corner, doorway to the master bedroom of to the right. A large family table dominated the room and Rachel Strathmore sat there, her oldest child wrapped in her arms. The other two clustered around her, excitedly talking over each other. Standing by the back wall were two strangers with similar faces, a brother and sister at a guess.
Aaron closed the door quickly behind the sheriff. Before going any further into the room he took Strathmore aside and whispered, “Who are those two?”
“Out of towners,” Aaron replied. “The brought Stu back about twenty minutes ago, easy as you please. You wouldn’t think he’d been missing for weeks.”
Avery’s own experience suggested it hadn’t been quite as simple as that. “Did they say where they’re from?”
“Avalon.” Strathmore shrugged helplessly when Avery gave him an incredulous look. “How should I know for sure? They don’t sound like any Columbian I ever met but I’m hardly the expert now am I?
“Okay, I’ll talk to them in a minute. Is Stu all right? Is he acting strange that you’ve noticed?”
“No,” Aaron said, folding his arms. “I’m worried that being a captive so long might have hurt his mind but he seems normal and I didn’t want to worry the missus, see?”
“I understand. I really need to ask him some questions but I can wait ’til the morning if you’d like some more time to let him rest now that he’s back. Just keep in mind that we don’t know what might have happened to him in von Nighburg’s care. Does he remember anything?”
“Not that he’s said.” Strathmore shook his head in a resigned fashion. “Ask you questions now, sheriff. There’s still two missing children and if Stu knows how to help them we’d better find out as soon as possible.”
“Appreciate your cooperation.” Aver stepped over to the table with Aaron, who offered him an empty chair. The sheriff sat while the boy’s mother turned the child to face him. Avery removed his hat and laid it on the table. “Hello, Stu. How are you feeling?”
The child looked up at him with guileless brown eyes. “Hello, Sheriff Warwick. I’m feelin’ pretty fit, I guess, except Momma says I’ve been gone for six weeks and I don’t remember any of it.”
“Sounds like you’re doing alright, son.” Warwick smiled in spite of the serious situation. The energy and excitement in the boy’s voice felt infectious and had none of the sickly magical overtones of enchanted feelings. But Avery’s good mood quickly passed. “Stu, did you know that there are children besides you missing from town?”
Stu shook his head and gave his mother a questioning look. She nodded. “It’s true, Stewart. If you can think of anything that will let the sheriff help them it could be very important.”
Stu screwed up his face in a caricature of concentration. Then he slumped in dejection. “Sorry, sheriff, I really can’t remember anything.”
With a nudge Avery put his candle directly between them. “If I have you permission, Aaron, I might be able to help him remember.”
The Strathmore patriarch glanced at the candle then back at the sheriff. “By magic?”
“Thoughts and memories are my specialty. The candle generally facilitats communication but with a little time and work I can delve into parts of his mind he normally doesn’t recognize.” Avery got up and crossed to the window then took the candle there back to the table with him. “We might be able to dredge up something that way.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Not dangerous, Mrs. Strathmore, but it could certainly be called invasive. Like the barber checking your teeth for cavities.” Avery sat down with the second candle just in front of him. “Shall I?”
“There’s other children out there missing,” Aaron said. “We gotta help as we can.”
“If it’s not dangerous I think a little discomfort couldn’t hurt,” his wife added.
Avery stared at Stu across the candle flames. “What about it, Stu?”
The boy gave his parents a confused look. “But-”
“I heard them, son, and if they’d said no then that would’ve been the end of it. But you must agree as well.” Avery cut the beginning of his mother’s objection off with a look. “Listen well, Stewart Strathmore, for today you cannot be a boy. Today you must be a man. Only a man can take responsibility in a matter such as this.”
His mother overcame Avery’s glare and her objection burst out. “That’s not fair!”
“It was unfair when he was taken from you for six weeks, it was unfair when his memories were taken from him and it was unfair when the burden of being the only lifeline for others was placed on him.” Avery folded his arms across his chest and glared at the boy’s parents. “I won’t add to the unfairness by taking his decision from him.”
“I’m not scared!” Stu exclaimed.
“Good.” Avery gestured at the candles. “Then look at the flame and see the magic there. Have the courage to ask yourself whether you are prepared to grapple with it. Don’t be afraid that you’ll be a coward if you say no.”
Stu stared at the candle for a long moment his expression wavering from awed to nervous to solemn. “What will happen when you do the magic?”
“We’ll look into each other’s thoughts and memories at least as far as we’re able. My mind is very well trained so you probably won’t see much beyond me working the magic. However I’ll be able to see almost everything you’re thinking.” Avery gestured around the room. “Anything you’re thinking about your family, your favorite memories, any grudges between you and your brother and sister. Of course I’ll be looking for you memories from the last six weeks. However there will be many things besides that which I learn in the process because that’s how the magic works.”
Stu looked at him for a long moment then asked, “You won’t tell anyone? Promise?”
Avery considered how to best assure him of that then raised his right hand. “I am Avery Warwick, Knight of the Third Circle, and I serve at the pleasure of Arthur, First and Forever King of Avalon. In rain and sunshine I walk among the stone circle and steward its legacy for the coming generations and I swear on the Stones of Morainhenge all I learn from you will remain secret, save what is needed to defend the innocent.”
Avery felt the magic of the oath catch at him. It had been almost a decade since he’d sworn by the Circle and it felt different to him now. Perhaps the destruction of Morainhenge had changed the nature of his oaths. Perhaps the lack of another Knight to witness and solemnize the oath weakened it. Perhaps he was no longer worthy of his oaths. Regardless, he hoped it would be enough to convince the boy.
“I am Bradon Fairchild.” Avery nearly jumped out of his seat – he’d forgotten the two strangers in the room. The man had stepped away from the wall and also raised his right hand. “Knight of the Second Circle, servant of the Phoenixborn, sworn to defend his Circle and his Realm. I swear by the dolmen of Stonehenge, if this man forswears his pledge and breaks that circle then I shall teach him the error of his ways.”
The magic roared to full strength. Contrary to his musings of a moment ago, Avery felt the binding nature of the oath fall on him stronger than he’d ever felt it before. The magic of the oath settled into place, a gleaming ring formed around his right wrist and Brandon’s. Then the magic settled in place and the ring faded from view.
“There you have it,” the stranger said. “The strongest promise we can offer.”
Stu watched the proceedings in open mouthed wonder. Once the oath was done he snapped to attention. “Okay. Then I wanna do the magic.”
Avery had to shake off his own moment of nostalgia after experiencing that familiar ritual for the first time in ages. He nudged the candles into position and said, “Then look here. Let yourself relax and think about a recent memory. What was it like when you came home tonight? Think about that.”
The sheriff let his eyes go unfocused and sharpened his attention to the candle. He felt the boy’s memories radiating towards him on the waves of heat from the flame. Confusion and surprise at his parents teary delight when he walked in the door. Then, earlier, meeting a pretty lady singing on the street. Earlier still, the Riker girl taking him to meet a strange man.
Tall, dressed in a tunic that looked like it came from two hundred years prior and wearing a richly embroidered red cloak. He had a salt and pepper beard and flinty cold eyes. In his right hand was a staff with a gold banded crystal at the top. The staff was clad in a strange, silvery metal. Based on the description on the wanted poster, Avery guessed this was Heinrich von Nighburg.
Avery felt a pang of confusion. He moved forward in Stu’s memories and returned to the moment the boy met the songstress. Then Avery worked backwards with greater care. Yet no matter how careful he was he found the same fragments of memory and nothing else. It was like the whole time he’d been missing Stu Strathmore had been asleep and formed no memories at all.
Nate Chen Publications 