NOVEL NEXT Ch. 9
The rain came down in sheets by the time we reached her home. She led Silvermane and me through two winding lanes and a narrow passage barely wide enough for a cart. The stable turned out to be more of a lean-to, but it was dry, and Silvermane accepted it without judgment.
Her house stood just beyond: a squat little structure of clay-rendered brick and weathered beams. From the outside, it looked modest, but as with everything about her so far, looks were very much deceiving.
The place was small, yes, barely one room and a hearth, but the air carried the scent of worked clay and kiln ash. Terracotta vases lined one wall, not the crude sort for market stalls but the kind shaped with a patient hand. I had seen enough crafts to know which one was of good quality. Back when Sir Roland used to roam the land as a wandering ‘hero’, people would leave him handmade tokens: carved bowls, painted cups, small vases like these.
She met my eyes for a moment, and as though catching a hint of curiosity in me, she said, unprompted, “Someone has to make sure Dunswell’s roofs stay upright when the rains come and the pots stay uncracked.”
So, she wasn’t a merchant. There were no wheels, no tools, no kiln in sight. Maybe she was the supplier. Or a Clay Mage, if those existed.
Now that I had time to sit down, I pondered harder about the way Ceralis had phrased its definition for Pathway.
[PATHWAY: A branch of tasks and objectives that leads to progression in a particular direction.]
Progression.
It had been a while since I’d seen that word, and longer still since it had meant anything. Once, back when the Order still stood, it was the sort of word they carved into banners and manuals: Progression toward virtue, mastery, and service. I’d thought it noble.
Now, the word meant something simpler. Less holy. It meant stop being weak. Stop letting hedge-mages throw fireballs at you while you roll over and die.
I no longer wanted to be weak. If this weird clay mage would be the answer, so be it.
She set the basket down on the table, then gestured vaguely to a chair. “You may sit, good sir,” she said, bowing lightly. “’Tis no trouble at all, nor would I charge a single penny, whether you be highborn or low. Yet, should you grumble or bring a sour face to my hearth, I might, well . . . ask for a small coin, just to keep things proper, you understand.”
She would’ve passed for a commoner if she hadn’t used ‘bring a sour face’. Nobody ever said ‘bring a sour face’ aloud. That phrase existed purely in fiction.
I hesitated, dripping water onto her floorboards. “You seem to do well for a commoner.”
“Oh, I’m but a simple soul, truly,” she continued, spreading her hands as though proving some grand point. “I work the pots and watch the roofs, ‘tis all. That’s me, yes, honest to the core.”
I frowned and tried to say, ‘I much rather appreciate it, when people actually mean the word ‘honest’ when they say it.’
The sentence left my mouth again, but not as I’d spoken it. “Say ‘honest’ and mean it, or learn the punishment for lying.”
I couldn’t imagine her eyes getting any bigger than they already were, but they did. Her mouth opened, closed, and a tiny, incredulous laugh escaped before she could stop it.
[Intimidation Failed – Target is Immune]
Failure? She looks terrified.
She let out a high, nervous laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. “Punishment? Oh . . . what sort of punishment would that be, good sir?”
Never mind. She is definitely not terrified.
I folded my hands slowly, keeping my face bland. ‘My immense disappointment in you, Miss,’ I tried to say.
I said, “My disappointment with you is not a passing thing. I will lose all respect for you as a person. I will unmake every small comfort you pretend to own, one by one, until the map of your life is nothing but the holes your lies have punched through it. I will never associate myself with the likes of you ever again.”
Ceralis! By all the saints, what in the blazes did I just utter?
[Persuasion Successful]
For one wild moment she looked ready to faint, then, with a small gasp that was half-defeat, half-drama, she yanked the shawl from her shoulders. Beneath it, her ‘commoner’ garb fell away in a rustle of far finer cloth: silk-threaded linen, soft grey-blue with embroidery no village weaver could’ve made. She straightened, tossed her hair back, and gave a tiny curtsy to absolutely no one.
“Well,” she drawled, composed once more, “you do make it terribly difficult for a lady to indulge in a touch of mischief, Ser. You are fortunate your tone carries a certain . . . authority. Were it otherwise, I should have you march before the magistrate for the crime of lecturing a lady, and made quite sure your apology was a matter of public record.”
I decided to stay silent. She seemed like the dangerous kind of eccentric, the sort who spoke in full sentences when silence would do, and turned every moment into a performance no one had paid to see. I’d learned enough in my travels to know that the best way to handle such people was simple: don’t engage.
The trouble was, she’d already learned the one reliable method to make me engage.
My stomach gave a low, traitorous growl.
Her lips curved, slow and triumphant. “Well then, Ser. I suppose you’ve earned supper after all. I cannot, in good conscience, let my rescuer starve in my yard.”
[Status Effect: Hunger – Moderate]
[Reputation: At Risk of Demotion to D+]
How exactly does the Ceralis define ‘reputation’, I wondered.
[Reputation: A cumulative metric representing public and peer perception of the Calibrator’s conduct, bearing, and general aura of competence.
High Reputation (Honor): Commands respect through integrity, fairness, and adherence to knightly virtue. Others trust your word before your blade.
High Reputation (Capability): Commands respect through skill, precision, and efficiency. Others follow because they believe resistance is pointless.
High Reputation (Charisma): Commands attention through presence, eloquence, and charm. Others want to stand beside you simply to be seen there.
Low Reputation (Infamy): Commands obedience through threat and severity. Others comply, but plot behind closed doors.
Low Reputation (Disgrace): Invites ridicule, suspicion, and unsolicited advice from moralists. Others see you as a lesson, not a leader.
Low Reputation (Incompetence): Earns pity, dismissal, and contempt. Others doubt you could win a duel with a doorknob.]
I sighed. The Knighthood couldn’t endure another scandal attached to my name. It was already hanging by its last thread of ceremonial decency.
“Very well,” I said.
She turned toward the hearth, where a fire had begun to catch. “Before we speak of supper,” she said lightly, “perhaps you’d care to set that sword of yours somewhere safe. Silver is quite a treasure for one drenched to the bone, and the runework is just short of mastercraft, in my humble opinion.”
Runework?
Did she mean the fine lightning patterns along the fuller? I had always taken them for decoration. Sir Roland had been the kind of man who could make polishing a sword look like sermon work, and as such, he had been the type to favor a bit of theatricality in his armaments.
Not like it’d mattered before. Runes or not, they all felt like iron to me.
I inclined my head, careful not to betray too much interest. She was a mage after all. Only a mage would recognize that kind of binding. Which made things both simpler and infinitely more complicated.