Broken Lands

Arryn was not happy that one of the closest forest villages to Casterville had been attacked. He was even less happy that no one from Casterville had arrived to check out what was going on, even after people fled along the Road to the city. There had been plenty of time; there might even have been time to get people there before Arryn saw the problem, but Casterville’s authorities had clearly decided to let the village sink without help. They probably hadn’t even told the Registry, since that would require setting a bond to pay the Called who answered the call.

It was short-sighted, but what could Arryn expect? This was Casterville. Short-sighted was normal. Outside the Registry, the place was a mess.

Arryn talked to the villagers as they traveled the short distance along the Road. There were no real surprises; Casterville hadn’t changed in the year since his last visit, though this wasn’t the first outlying village to be trampled recently. In fact, the only real surprise were the snippets of conversation he could hear from the pair in the lead; he hadn’t expected them to consult on their choices. That was something that most people only learned through bitter experience when they no longer fit in a group together and many never learned. It was too early for there to be any real problems, but it was still heartening.

The fact that Revina was hiding from the villagers in the wagon was less hopeful. He still had hope for her, but she would probably need to grow up a bit before she could be as impressive as her father. Well, there was time. It would probably be best for her if she stuck with the two in the lead, but Arryn didn’t think that would happen; they weren’t in the same place and she didn’t fill a role on their team they couldn’t fill elsewhere. He’d have to make sure Revina found a team that could help her adjust. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Arryn dumped the villagers on the Casterville city guard; that was how it was supposed to work and he didn’t want to deal with them more. He let Peaches make his way to the Vocational Registry building; his partner knew the way at least as well as Arryn did.

The building was still an architectural abomination. Arryn was glad that he wasn’t the one who had to deal with all its issues. That was Jessamine’s problem, and he knew he’d hear all about them when they settled in for a drink that evening.

Arryn waved the three youngsters at the Registry’s attendant, then slipped away into the back. Peaches would make sure they talked to her. Arryn doubted he’d have trouble with any of them. Sophia and Dav were fairly sensible and Revina trusted Peaches.

Arryn didn’t bother to knock on the door before he opened it. Jessamine wouldn’t notice a knock unless he pounded so hard that he’d bother others.

As expected, entering didn’t bother her. Neither did closing the door behind himself. Jessamine didn’t look up from the chronicle she was writing until Arryn cleared his throat to get her attention.

Jessamine set her enchanted quill down on the chronicle, then looked at Arryn over the rim of her spectacles. “Arryn. Did you have to hand out three of the advanced badges?”

Arryn winced. He’d hoped to be able to tell her himself; Jess hated surprises. “Unfortunately, yes. The closest village along the Road outside the south gate was under attack by flame beavers. I had three youngsters with me, escorting them here to be Registered.”

Jessamine gave Arryn a disbelieving look. “Advanced badges?”

Arryn sighed internally. This was not how he wanted to explain the three of them, but there was no point in getting upset at Jess. Yes, he had the right to hand out the badges, but she was the Registry Leader that was going to have to deal with them.

“Yes. One of them is Vramt’s daughter; she picked up a Wind-based variant of his stone Vocation. The other two…” Arryn trailed off. He’d had days to think about how he was going to tell Jess about them, but giving them advanced badges early made things a lot more difficult. He’d wanted to ease her into understanding their situation and that would make it very difficult to understand.

“And you couldn’t give them badges that were clearly inferior?” Jessamine smiled slightly as she shook her head. “You always were-”

Jess stopped abruptly. Arryn followed her gaze to the smaller of her two messaging enclosures; it had a yellow ball of light sitting above the aperture. If Jess was still using the code they’d developed back in the day when they worked together, yellow meant important, possibly urgent, but not an emergency yet. The fact that it was in the smaller enchanted enclosure meant that it was a message from elsewhere in the city; a message from elsewhere would come in through the larger enclosure.

Jess glanced up at Arryn, then touched the yellow ball without gesturing for him to leave. That was clear permission to stay. “Aimiva? What is it?”

A lightly accented voice spoke from the yellow ball of light. Arryn recognized the voice as the receptionist’s, even though he wasn’t sure he’d have come up with her name quickly. He generally just waved at her and walked past. “The new Called, the ones who came in with that friend of yours. Two of them are nobles, but they’ve registered for the general introduction session instead of the individualized one. I’m worried they’re looking to cause trouble.”

Arryn knew where she was coming from. Young nobles new to a Vocation had to be handled carefully; so many were spoiled and thought other people, even people who were stronger and more experienced, should yield to them because of who they were. For many, it was unconscious; those could be eased into recognizing a different sort of rank fairly easily. It was the ones who liked to cause trouble who were truly problematic, and those were exactly the sort of nobles who would sign up for a session that included commoners to cause problems. Most would take the individualized session, as they’d assume that would cover what they needed and that the instruction intended for commoners wouldn’t help them.

Arryn caught himself leaning forward before he actually opened his mouth to reassure Aimiva. He glanced at Jess to be sure she was willing to let him speak up. From her amused expression and her gesture telling him to get on with it, he didn’t need to wait. “I assume the two who signed up for the general introduction are Dav and Sophia and that Revina signed up for an individual session?”

The next noise from the glowing ball was a clearly audible sigh. “Yes, that’s right.”

“It will be fine,” Arryn reassured the receptionist. “Those two aren’t going to try to cause trouble. By the way, why do you assume they’re nobles?”

Aimiva snorted. “Two mage-type Vocations? Of course they’re nobles and you know that. Ah…”

Arryn chuckled at Aimiva’s slip into temper. He remembered when Jess did the same thing. She was probably grooming Aimiva to take over her job eventually; that was exactly the attitude he’d encouraged in Jess when he trained her, after all.

“Thanks, Aimiva,” Jess told the glowing ball. “Schedule Rensyn for that session; he can handle a couple of nobles, especially if they’re not there to cause trouble. Let him know I’ll talk with him later, when I know a bit more.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” The light flickered out.

Jessamine tilted her head towards Arryn. “All right, spill. Nobles?”

Arryn shrugged at her and finally sat in the deliberately uncomfortable chair she kept facing her desk. “I’m pretty sure only the girl is a noble; the boy’s her guard. They both have some mage training, but he’s also sword-trained. I’d say they grew up together and ran off to be foolish together then ended up in a bad situation when their escape talisman failed and dropped them in Kestii’s storm sewer. Both of them got mage Vocations; for some reason, he got a summoning Vocation and she picked up spellblade. Realistically, he’s a strong sword arm with a healing summon and she’s a siege mage.”

“Siege mage?” Jessamine pushed her spectacles up her nose. It was an affectation she’d picked up to give her a moment to think, but it clearly wasn’t enough under the circumstances. “How did you find a siege mage? We haven’t had one here in decades.”

Arryn shrugged. “I saw her put out the fires in a village with a single spell and some carvings in the dirt near a stream outside the village walls. All of them. She seemed almost embarrassed about it; she’d only used a spell she learned as a child with minor modifications to pick up water instead of dirt. Wherever she’s from, she knows more about magic than anyone in Casterville outside the High Houses and she doesn’t seem to know what that means. Dav doesn’t have the same skill; I’ve heard her teaching him when they think they’re not being observed.”

Jess nodded slowly. “So you gave them advanced badges because of her potential. Don’t tell me you’re already thinking of the Gateway.”

Arryn nodded slowly. “We need to open it, and there are only two ways to do that.”

“Three,” Jess corrected him. “I know you think it’s a fable, but it’s as likely to work as the other two.”

Arryn snorted in disbelief. “That’s because it is a fable. Maybe one of the Patrons did actually manage to learn the language of magic, but She’s the Lady of Magic. Of course she can make it do what she wants. She doesn’t need some mystical understanding of magic as a language to make it do what she wants any more than the Broken Lord needed to speak the language of swords to kill every Guide-recognized Lord in his lands and prevent us from opening the Gateway. There are only two ways: we have to either get the Guide to recognize a Lord who can open the Gateway or we have to get a group of Called strong enough to conquer the Labyrinth.”

“And you think the mystery noble siege mage might be strong enough. When you had to give her her Registry badge yesterday. Really, Arryn?” Jess shook her head. “There’s a reason we start with the ones who’ve survived at least two Vocation upgrades. Next you’re going to tell me she’s Hallowed, too, or that her father’s the Broken Lord himself.”

Arryn shook her head. There was no chance they were Hallowed by the Broken Lord, and the odds that any other Patron would dare interfere in the Broken Lord’s territory were low enough that he’d never seen anyone Hallowed by anyone else. “Definitely not. The badges I offered Sophia and Dav both have unbroken swords and I made sure to tell them that people would take meaning from the badges. There’s no way they follow the Broken Lord.”

“At least you have that much sense.” Jessamine looked down at her chronicle and shook her head. “I’ll mark them down as people to watch, but I’m not going to invest more in them than that until they prove themselves. I have enough trouble on my plate; you’re lucky you don’t hold Hailport anymore. Catshold is being resettled.”

Arryn clenched a fist, then forced himself to relax. Catshold was a mistake, but only because he didn’t hear about the problems in time. He should have; if only he’d heard Aymini’s warning when it came instead of months later! He could have sent people to deal with Catshold before it was too powerful. That was why the Registry existed, after all.

“It almost worked,” he whispered. “Until the Broken Lord broke the Lion’s mind.” It was a valuable lesson, painfully bought. Hailport’s new Registry Master was going to be busy for decades getting the new catkin accepted and tamping down warp-fear. It would have been worth it if the Lion became a Lord and opened the Gateway, but as it was it was only a lesson in what they couldn’t do.

“But it didn’t,” Jess agreed. “Which is why we have to raise a group that can make it through the Maze.”

END OF ARC 1: BUILDING BLOCKS