The Butterfly Effect

They’d gotten there late, so they simply rented a room to share and decided to look around more in the morning. When morning came, she led them through the crowd to a little cafe. It was cramped and probably understaffed, but it offered a good amount of stuff and had tables meant for four. She had more than enough experience to know this was the part they simply waited for the information to come to them… or, when waiting got boring, simply ask the waitress.

“Hello, I’m Hannah, apparently the only person who ever shows up to work,” the waitress sighed.

“Happy thoughts!” shouted the man watching over the front counter. “Smile!”

In response, Hannah put on the fakest smile possible before asking, “What can I get you today?”

“You’ve got some extra time?” It looked like it, since it seemed there was only one other person there and they were about to leave, but Lydia decided to ask anyway. She pulled out a handful of silver coins and added, “We’re more or less just here to talk.”

“It’s nobles like you that keep us in business.” Hannah gathered the coins. “What is it that you’re looking for?”

“Do you know anything about a possible treasure the phoenixes might lead to or pass by during their migration?”

“I don’t. But Keandre over there probably does.” She stepped back and gestured for her coworker to take her spot instead. Just to him, she said, “I’ll make sure everyone else is taken care of. Just entertain these guys for a little while.”

He mumbled his response to her then gave the group a natural smile. “You’re the Stones, aren’t you? Well, I know you’re Lady Lydia and he’s Prince Tavin, but I don’t think I’ve seen or heard about the other two…”

“Tim and Henry,” Lydia explained, “they’re my twins.”

That didn’t seem to clear anything up for Keandre, but he didn’t dwell on what he didn’t understand. “So you’re looking for information about phoenixes? Anything in particular you’re looking for? I’m the town expert on this type of thing, so I’ll answer anything I can. I doubt there’s anything that I know that you don’t already, if you made the trip out here.”

“We’re pretty sure on the following-the-phoenixes part,” Lydia remarked. “What we don’t have a lot of information on is what we’re getting out of it. Do you know anything about the treasure that they’re supposed to lead us to once we hear their song?”

“Just to make sure, this is something in the Plains, right?”

“The final part in their migration, somewhere between here and wherever they end up burning out.”

He thought for a moment. “Have you already heard of the House of the Phoenix? It sounds like something that might interest you, at least.”

Lydia shook her head and eagerly waited to hear the story. She liked hearing the tales nearly as much as telling them; she gave him the same kind of attentive silence she would’ve wanted. The boys did the same, though they hardly had much of a problem listening in the first place.

“The House of the Phoenix came from the legacy of some other forgotten bloodline. I don’t know why they chose the phoenix to represent them, or if they came from the mountains and ended up settling on the Plains. But no matter how they got there, they were just like their namesake. Their house was bright for a time, then burned to ashes and no one else ever gave it a second thought. They were bent on finding something—something that they thought belonged to the house that came before them.

“This is the part where stuff starts getting mixed up, so I can’t guarantee how true all of this is. Some say they were the ones to watch the migration of the phoenixes and set up a journey surrounding what was found there. Others would claim they’re the phoenixes themselves somehow, combining stories of spirit animals and more abstract folklore. Then there’s the ones that say that they’re simply the descendants of the one who put the artifact there. According to which story you believed, what led to the downfall of the house varied too; they disappeared while setting it up and ultimately leaving it unfinished, they literally turned to ashes and moved on, or they died out going through the dangers of following the entire thing.

“Legends don’t talk a lot about what they either placed or were searching for. All around it’s more of a word of caution about strange and mysterious people. At least, that’s what it’s shaped into over the years. But I know it’s not just a single thing—it’s a lot more like the first piece of a larger puzzle. That’s the only part that’s really talked about the treasure and, being the explorers that you are, you probably already knew that part. I think I’ve gone over everything I’m sure of and that’s going to be useful to you, but I’m always here if you think you need more information about anything.”

Lydia nodded. “Thanks. The extra background doesn’t hurt, at least.”

“It would’ve been even more helpful when we weren’t being chased by ghosts,” Tim remarked.

“Oh, yeah, we definitely could’ve used some warning on that,” Henry agreed.

“Don’t just blame me. Witless was a part of that too,” she defended. “They probably wouldn’t have gotten as mad if he wasn’t freaking out half the time.”

“Before you get carried away in whatever you’re doing,” Keandre began carefully, “is there anything else you need? Some lunch? Drinks?”

“Do you have any good—”

“We’ll all have water and whatever you would recommend for lunch,” Tavin decided. She would’ve been annoyed, if they all didn’t know he made the right call.

Keandre nodded. “I’ll get right on that for you.” Then he left.

…

“I don’t know if I want to be excited or disappointed that we haven’t found anything else,” Lydia sighed, flinging herself onto the bed.

“That just makes it all the better when we find it,” Tim said. “We’ll be able to figure out for ourselves what it is and what it does.”

Tavin shrugged, carefully arranging his own bed before sitting on it. “I’d rather know what we’re looking for.”

“Either way, it’s all about the adventure and not the reward,” Henry reminded them all. “Even if it turns out to be nothing, the important part was that we had fun on our way there.”

Lydia smiled. “No truer words could’ve ever been spoken.”

As Tim pulled out a trinket from his own bag of things and started messing with it, he asked, “By the way, Mom, you told Aunt Ellie that you’d been here before. When?”

Henry perked up as well, sitting up a little straighter and his eyes sparkling. “Story?”

“I have to warn you, it’s not as good as you think it is,” Lydia began. “It’s kind of boring, actually. It was just something I did for the army; I was sent over here to investigate something when you guys were little. I was only supposed to be there to try to gather information on a murder, but I did find and take a couple of artifacts while I was there too.”

“Which ones were they?” Tim asked.

“They’re both with Imre.”

“That doesn’t tell us anything about what they do,” Henry persisted.

“One keeps things frozen in time. The other lets someone see their spirits and fragments of the past, as long as they provide the date.” She knew what they were going to ask next, so she simply said, “He wanted them so I let him have them. He didn’t want anyone finding something they weren’t supposed to.” They all knew one person, though only she knew the other that the king was trying to protect.

But none of them dwelled on that part. Henry turned to Tavin. “You’re our little history nerd. What do you think about the House of the Phoenix?”

“It could be a lot older than we think it is… or significantly younger,” was his first response. “Simple names like that are all over the place, especially if we’re talking about houses in Tramos or Pagetri where they name themselves after spirit animals. I don’t doubt that there’s been dozens of houses that named themselves after the phoenix, since they more or less all ignore the Qizarn mythology behind the creatures they worship.”

“Which of the versions Keandre mentioned do you think was the most probable?”

“The ancestors of the ones who put the artifact there, though they must have come from the mountains and then went on to the Plains. At the very least, it had to have come after Qizar’s occupation of Fleyw Bresh—Seothia didn’t shape its own folktales until that point. But that means the original house must’ve been even older…”

“It’s not the first time we’ve dealt with stories from the time of Qizar’s legends,” Lydia pointed out. “This is probably just another one of those.”

“Could it even be before..?” Tim wondered.

Tavin shook his head. “It shouldn’t be possible. Qizarn legends spanned the first couple hundred of years of the world’s creation. There shouldn’t be anything before that.”

“Something that their legends never included?” Henry offered.

“As much information they’re finding that confirms that the legends were true, there’s no information from anything outside of that. There’s definitely not anything pointing towards any of its events happening in Seothia.”

“Well, we all know their gods are more than a little screwed up,” Lydia remarked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they just destroyed all the evidence that suggested whatever they didn’t like and pretend like it never happened to begin with. We’ve probably already come across stuff like that, even if we never realized it.”

Tim nodded. “I guess we won’t really know until we get there, huh? But there’s always room for change, and history’s no different. Maybe we’ll be the one to fix that gap of knowledge between the Commandments and the stuff it doesn’t record.”