OOCOoh, you devil! In a good way, naturally. If you had something terribly devious planned for when Alses leaves, do tell me and I'll retcon, of course .'
Strange,' Alses thought, concerned and intrigued in equal measure. The small house seemed unwatched and unheeded, crouching under the craggy mountain which rose up and then abruptly fell away to the other tiers below. Sel'ira had seemed so
sure there'd at least be a guard on the place, but as far as Alses could tell, there wasn't a soul about.
Squinting to get a better view, she ambled closer and then nearly ran straight back the way she'd came as the general aura of the place wrapped her in its poisoned tendrils. '
No wonder no-one's about,' she thought, forgetting for a moment that almost no-one in Lhavit - Dusk Tower staff and students excluded - could sense auras. The air reeked of fear, that soured-sweat smell – once known and never forgotten, pervading even the garden – slightly unkempt and more shaded than she'd expected, almost shrouding the small home in places, shielding it from prying eyes.
Now, where had
that thought come from? The general atmosphere, perhaps, pressing against her skin with phantom pressure and whispering slyly in her ear during the briefest moments of inattention – she had to focus on the here-and-now, the shallow physicality of Mizahar, if she was to make any progress in any reasonable time, but there was
also the need to keep a weather eye out for other people out on the prowl, for whatever reason.
Breaking into someone's house was a crime, after all, even if the owner was dead.
The most difficult part was moving past the threshold; she wavered for long moments on the boundary line, fighting against the tide of longing and fear that uncoiled in wailing strands from the edge, as though someone had stood here on many an occasion, unable for some reason to move beyond the boundaries of their property.
Alses shuddered as she drew close to the front door; the dark auras of the place pressed heavily against all her senses, sending fingers of crawling desperation skating over her skin. Fear, definitely – but not of life, exactly, more everything outside a person's immediate control. To her surprise, the door opened at the merest touch of her fingers.
Unlocked...which was surely an oddity in and of itself, given how fiercely Arture must have guarded this place –
his place, the only bit of Mizahar he felt at home with. She continued on with caution, fighting the welter of fearful impressions and her own curiosity which was pushing her to move faster, find out more, without due regard for her own skin.
Inside was an unprepossessing place; the original single room had been modified – presumably at the owner's behest – and sub-partitioned into several smaller sections. The air tasted flat and dead, much as her own unused apartment did when she made a rare visit there, and as Alses slowly,
slowly made her way through the tiny dwelling, it seemed almost pathologically tidy, nary a speck of dust or clutter to break up the clean, almost spartan lines – it was almost aggressively minimalist, even for Lhavit.
She moved quietly through the tiny rooms, every sense on high alert and drinking in every scrap of information the world could offer, ready to react in an instant to anything unexpected or untoward. The bedroom reminded Alses of the better class of inn; the small bed was made with military precision, every crease and tuck measured with a ruler and protractor, the positioning of pillows and the turn-down exacting.
Everything – and not just in the bedroom; the entire house - was very neat, very
exact. Here, for instance, the pillows were on the precise centreline to match the small chest at the foot of the bed, the bedside table positioned carefully for ease of reaching – perhaps for a glass or some bedtime reading, although there was, in point of fact, nothing on it.
Everything she could glean from the spartan rooms she'd passed through – and that was precious little – and from the wailing auras burned into the skyglass and wood of Arture's erstwhile home – pointed to a life of quiet desperation and a continual struggle against some nebulous fear of the entire world, something that kept him locked up here, paralysed by his own mind.
Alses drifted aimlessly through the last of the rooms, which appeared to be a kitchen. '
I suppose I should count my blessings,' she thought. Fighting with a thousand voices inside her head was probably a better fate than fearing everything outside these four walls. She didn't have too long to dwell on Arture's neuroses which had made themselves so manifest in the auras of his home, however – her attention was almost immediately captured by the flare of glyphery from the kitchen island, a brilliant coruscating glow to her augmented Sight that cut through the uneasy, unsettled auras of the rest of the place.
“
What have we here?” she murmured quietly, moving quickly over to examine the flare – coming from an otherwise-unremarkable book positioned prominently on the island counter. “
Glyphs, definitely, but to what purpose?”
Careful scrutiny was needed here; it could have been some devious trap left for the curious after all. Caution, delicacy and finesse would all be needed here, to prevent untimely decapitation, incineration, transmogrification or any one of an almost infinite variety of inimical effects that could be stored by glyphs.
Chimes passed, all unnoticed, whilst Alses bent her mind to the examination process, scrutinising every curl and curlicue, every flickering sigil and carefully-inscribed rune, reading both meaning and the deeper magical intents encoded in the djed conduits, following the recursive intricacy of the pathways that looped dizzyingly around one another, merging and splitting and merging again in a complex shield-like network that dazzled the sight and produced what was surely a
very complex effect.
Alses began to revise her opinion of Arture as she beheld his work – it was unlikely to be anyone else's, and there was an odd bent and shimmy to the glyphic auras that matched the wider impressions she'd gleaned from his home. He was a powerful mage, that much was evident, and more skilled than she in glyphing, at least, to be able to produce a powerful ward. And yet he'd lived here, in this poky little place...
Alses brought her mind back to the immediate problem in hand: the glyphic defences covering every scrap of the book in front of her. So, what
was the ward's trigger, and what was it protecting? It seemed purely a defensive measure, a dizzyingly complex occultation – at least from the findings of her gentle probing. There were apparently no stored fireballs or anything of that nature, with the ward's temporary release seemingly keyed to an odd admixture of concepts; the Ukalas and Mizahar in one; divinity and mundanity mashed together.
Only one way to find out; she reached out and carefully, carefully opened the book, ready to drop it in an instant if necessary.
Syna was on her side, however, and the ward gave at her touch with barely a flicker. '
Ukalas and Mizahar together, of course!' she thought, suddenly jubilant. '
The very definition of an Ethaefal.' As the ornate script wrote itself into visibility on the pages, though, Alses' heart began to sink.
'
What in Syna's name...' she groaned, but only for internal consumption. Alses recognized
bits of the paragraphs that suddenly uncurled in front of her greedy sight, but still...this was Nader-canoch, and while she could hold a fairly reasonable conversation in the wizard's language, directing a light opera or taking a class on the finer points of metadjed theory was entirely beyond her. Making matters worse, Nader-canoch wasn't even originally
meant to be written down, it was that old, and so much was conveyed by subtext, intonation, stress and accent that interpreting written Nader-canoch was very difficult, even more so if it hadn't been written in Glyphing runes, which this script certainly wasn't.
Her fingers skipped lightly along the dense paragraphs of text even as frown-lines etched themselves across her face. '
So what have we here...I am...something...afraid, maybe; I think that's a modified form of fear, there...something something something Syna...shadows and presences? Oh, and then there's this bit...there's capot, I recognize that – colour – but it's hyphenated with recha in front and mele behind; that's red and brown, therefore; I don't think our writer is talking about rust and the earth – but senses of red and brown? What senses? Auristics, maybe? If I've even got my translation right, that is...'And then there was that ugly compound word a little later on, a mishmash of
nen and
roza and a dash of negative accents to it that defeated her utterly. With a soft sigh, in the silence of the house, Alses continued to try and make sense of it all.
'
Then we've got listen, or pay attention or something...I've no idea what the next bit is at all...something something something Ukalas – the divine realms? Why is he writing about divinity all of a sudden? And then that's the word for endings, roza, coupled with the personal so he's talking about his own death...is this a will? Oh, I'd kill for a proper lexicon...Something something something...that's either bedroom or duvet, I think, and then there's mention of Glyphing and triggers and a word...a word...that I have no clue about...no, no, hang on, what was that epic we were set once, as punishment...Daraq...Daraq...something Djas...it translated as Equal Love of the Self, or thereabouts, and I think that's what this word is...but I could be completely wrong, I probably am...' Alses nearly cackled with glee when she picked out the word 'research' coupled with 'notes' a little further on, but the rest of it might as well have been gibberish for all she could tell. Only the name at the end was clear.
“
Oh, Arture...Why couldn't you have written this in Common...” she whispered softly, mostly to herself, a futile expression of frustration, since she knew very well why Arture hadn't risked an easily-understood tongue, even with that frankly impressive ward on the journal's pages.
So, since the complexity of his writing had defeated her own meagre understanding of the grammatical intricacies of Nader-canoch, who would understand the ancient tongue in Lhavit? Presumably, most of the more experienced wizards in the Towers had at least a smattering of the wizard's language, but who would know enough of its linguistic convolutions to be able to interpret a written example? The Bharani Library, undoubtedly – but they refused to lend books to the general public, to anyone who hadn't materially contributed to the stores of knowledge behind its walls.
'
But then again, Alse, asking them might not be so hopeless, after all...They won't let me borrow a lexicon or something of that nature, but they might at least have someone who can help translate the language, especially if I stress it's a last will and testament...worth a shot, if we hurry?'
Decision made, Alses gently,
gently lifted the journal from the rather rickety island counter, took one last look around the unprepossessing, pathologically tidy and still dust-free rooms – her Sight revealed nothing of Arture's hidden glyphery, confounded and confused and battered by the wailing fears seared into the very fabric of the building, and flitted out into the gathering dusk, glad to be away from the impressions of a dead Ethaefal's personality that had stamped themselves on the stones and yet also conscious of the
time.
AAlses was now chained to her mortal seeming, a pale ghost wafting through Lhavit's citizenry seemingly without purpose or guide; the Change had come upon her soon after leaving Arture's huddled cottage and she'd taken advantage of her intimate knowledge of Lhavit's streetplan and shortcuts – the maintenance underbridges of the graceful skyglass spans between peaks, specifically – to shift from glorious Ethaefal to pallid Konti in privacy.
The Bharani Library's hugely imposing frontage gleamed impressively in front of her, courtesy of the many lamps ranged across the façade. Day and night, the temple to Knowledge was open – for those who had been found worthy, at any rate.
Alses was not currently counted amongst that blessed company, and so it was with mounting trepidation that she surmounted the steps and crossed the threshold, letting out a breath she hadn't even realised she'd been holding as she stepped into the atrium's mote-shot air. '
Deep breaths, Alse, and remember – not too urgent or forceful, we don't want to make a scene. Be careful, like Sel'ira said.'
The floor underfoot was intricate and beautiful – a circle of snowy marble with gilt-edged 'rays' emanating from it – the sun of knowledge, illuminating the world, perhaps? - but it rang in the cathedral-hush under her sedate footsteps, and she frowned. '
That must be annoying for readers,' Alses thought, briefly, but her attention was mostly taken by the barricade of heavy mahogany desks, each one topped with slightly worn sage-green leather and edged with brass railings. Behind each was a Seeker, the owners and guardians of the Library, she'd gathered, robed in white and clutching quills that skated elegantly across the pages they were working on, always copying, writing, transcribing from piles of books and scrolls, turning haphazard chicken-scratch into beautiful, readable fonts, the information handsomely-bound and presented for the ignorant to drink in.
Well. Always provided the ignorant weren't
too ignorant.
Butterflies danced in her stomach – she now finally understood that particular expression – in apprehension and anxiety as she approached the least busy-looking of the Seekers on desk duty that evening, suppressing a shudder in her hands as she rested them – and the journal - on the edge of the leather top and coughed, as politely as she could. “
Your pardon, sir? I was wondering if you could help me...does the Library have anyone skilled in Nader-canoch I might speak to?”