The Hammer Unfalls

4.81 True Colors

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Master Willow stirred in the dark. Silken sheets caressed his skin. The light perfume of incense still hung in the air from his evening ritual.

He heard the chime of the doorbell ringing and cursed. Some fool guard had likely been burned by nodding asleep next to a torch. Or maybe a child had snuck a few extra mouthfuls of syrup and gotten a stomachache. These late night “emergencies” almost always resulted from the victim’s own folly. Master Willow could manipulate essentiæ and read sigils, and even craft potions that could grant a person abilities they never thought possible. But he couldn’t cure stupidity.

He leaned towards the side table and unshuttered a lamp. White light bathed the room from the Elderkin sphere inside. He shivered as cold crept in from the movement. Tossing his blankets aside, he shrugged into a tunic, laced up his boots, and draped a cloak over his shoulders. The doorbell chimed thrice more while he dressed. The audacity of the caller’s impatience irked him.

You’d better be missing a leg, or gasping your last breath, he thought in an irritation born of disturbed slumber. Or else I’ll teach you manners.

Master Willow descended the stairs at a pace somewhere between leisurely and hurried, torn between ire and duty. He waved his hands and watched the tower stones unknit, powered by his vines. The last person he expected to see stood before him.

When he saw Glim’s face, that unkempt hair and unsettling eye, Master Willow’s irritation boiled over. The wretch better have an excuse to end all excuses. Jarl had been more livid than Master Willow had ever seen at the boy’s disappearance. He took a moment to savor the image of the punishment awaiting his pupil at the captain’s hands, but then scowled down at Glim.

“Where in blazes have you been?”

The boy said nothing. Just stood there like a dullard, gulping air. Master Willow waited longer than he felt was charitable for an explanation that, as loathe as he was to admit, he was curious to hear.

“Well, out with it! I asked you a question.”

The insufferable clod sat there with the stupid look plastered on his face. Master Willow had a brief urge to slap it into a different expression altogether, but something stopped him cold.

Glim held a runestaff. An ancient one.

The longer Willow looked at it, the more certain he became. A bare spot among the tarnished patina revealed embossed lines curved into an ancient pattern. The sigil was unmistakable. Along the dark silver staff, Willow saw more runic symbols and his heart beat faster.

“Where did you get that?” he said with genuine fascination. Master Willow had only seen such staves in the arcane capital city of Fsisbon, carried by the most esteemed mages. “Those are extremely rare.”

Glim touched his throat, speaking silently, reminding Willow of a landed fish gasping in vain. At last, it clicked. Glim could not speak. An unusual predicament to be sure, but not outside the realm of possibility. If the boy had gone to some tower ancient enough to hold a runestaff, it’s possible he’d tripped some defense or trap wrought by the Elderkin.

“Enspelled, eh? That must be quite a tale. Come in, let’s get this sorted out.”

As he walked the stairs, Willow’s mind churned furiously. Whatever Glim had gotten mixed up in, the boy held something more valuable than anything in this tower. From the casual way he held it, he obviously had no idea of the staff’s worth.

How can I use this? Willow thought. He could take the staff, and probably would. But he needed to know where Glim had gotten it. That information would probably turn out to be even more valuable.

He led Glim to his private apothecary. There had to be a way. It depended on what had taken the boy’s voice. This was no mere mumweed tonic; Glim had no sound at all coming from his lips, nor the telltale swelling in his throat. So it had to be mental. Something had completely disengaged the vocal part of Glim’s brain. But why? It had to be a side effect of some deeper malady. Whoever had done this had probably wanted Glim to forget where he’d been, as a form of protection. The thought excited Willow, because it meant the boy had stumbled onto something worth protecting.

The Mage-at-Arms tried to suppress his glee.

Think, he told himself. What will unblock the boy’s mind?

He spied the raven and frowned. Master Willow had spent the last year preparing the bird to commune with human thoughts. A power of aeolists, both tricky and expensive to bring about. He’d intended to use it to spy on the merchants, who Willow suspected were hiding their sources from him. Gold, he didn’t need. But information? That counted far more. Would whatever Glim had uncovered outweigh the merchant’s secrets?

There were other ways to get information from the merchants. He needed the raven now.

“This will do! Let's give you a voice.”

He took down the massive birdcage. The raven with the mark of the Trine on its forehead ruffled its feathers. It had surely been painful to receive such a mark. In fact, Willow had been impressed that the bird had survived. He ignored its petulant stare and drew a dagger. Glim flinched from his approach.

“Hold still, you clod! I need some of your hair!”

Willow fed the hair to the bird. He knew the moment the spell had engaged. The raven thrashed in its cage, terrified. Whatever Glim had seen had been even more dramatic than Willow had expected.

This should be interesting.

An unearthly keen erupted from the raven's gaping beak. As it spoke, Willow’s anticipation crumbled.

“A candle raised in frost's breff shall wake the Faa-wthers.”

Willow knew those words. One of the faction of Symmetry’s closest guarded secrets. Their spies had stolen it from the Spellkeepers long ago. The Candle Proclamation, they called it. Many of the Faction’s brothers had died to uncover these words.

But how had Glim heard them? And why was he speaking them now?

“A candle awakens the unhearing. The unhearing flee. Squawk! The unhearing hear no more.”

Master Willow backed away, thinking furiously.

The boy’s mother was a Spellkeeper. Ryn had been as well. Perhaps the young woman had let these words slip? But that would be exceedingly reckless, and unlikely. The Candle Proclamation was sacred to the Spellkeepers. And Allora had an almost comical amount of hubris where Glim was involved, as if the boy himself would assume the power of the elder gods. Pure myths. For such a brilliant plyer, the woman had a blind spot the size of Apricity Peak.

And young Ryn would never have crossed Allora. Not if she’d valued her life. He’d seen enough in his day to know the look of a killer. Allora had no room for remorse in her heart.

No. The Spellkeepers would die before revealing the proclamation to Glim. It had to have been told to the boy by someone in the Faction. Nothing else made sense. Why would his brothers-in-arms spill their most closely guarded secret to this dullard? Where had he even encountered them? And why would they give him such a valuable staff?

They wouldn’t.

Master Willow had spent his entire life studying truth. It’s how he’d gotten so far ahead. He knew logic inside and out. He knew the lore as well.

The lore.

An uncomfortable kernel of intuition blossomed into fear. The more he considered the possibilities, the narrower and narrower the truth became, until he found the only explanation that fit the facts.

If the ancient texts held any truth at all, there was one entity that could have rendered the boy mute. Given the age of the staff, and the unlikelihood that either the Spellkeepers or The Faction of Symmetry had talked, Glim had stumbled upon someplace unimaginably old.

And something Willow had never wanted to admit to himself had finally become plain: Allora and her sisters had been right all along, and had a greater mastery of lore than he did. Unfathomably greater. Allora had not been blinded by pride or arrogance. Which meant she wasn’t insane, wasn’t deluded, and knew far, far more than he’d ever imagined.

Which meant something that terrified Willow more than anything: Algidon did exist. And if that absurd proclamation had not been so absurd after all, it meant that Glim had just awoken him.

Willow stumbled over a stack of books and scrambled to his feet, holding his hands up in warding.

“What have you seen? You haven't looked upon... no, it cannot be. This cannot be!”

The raven ruffled it's blue-black feathers.

“Squawk! Warped beasts! Wawl of grey.”

Master Willow gathered things in a haze of fear. His most expensive tools. Clarity potions. Poisons. He sensed Glim’s eyes on him, but gave it no thought. He had to get away. Now. He shrugged on a cloak and ran to the door. When he reached it he turned and looked at the staff with envy. He thought about taking it. Say what you will about Glim, the boy could fight and had reflexes like a cat. Willow decided not to risk it.

Glim had apparently guessed the truth. The raven screeched in its cage. “Caw! Nae… master.”

Master Willow looked at the boy and gave him the best advice he could under the circumstances: “If you want to stay here and die to protect a pile of rubble, that is your prerogative. I am getting as far from here as I can before Algidon arrives.”

Master Willow slammed the door and fled.