Tale of Four

”What the fuck are we transporting, Randolf?” Leaning close to him, Elva peeked to the side, towards Alice, as she drew patterns in the ground, rubbing them clean afterwards and starting again, muttering to herself in deep thought. ”I didn’t understand any of it, but it sounded like madness.”

”It’s just the rambling of a Magi, Elva.” Randold siad half unconvinced by his own words as he looked towards Alice, ”We just have a job to do. Take her to Lord Raven. If she gets trapped in her own world thinking about this, then it’s better for us. It means she won’t run off and burn another forest. We won’t have the nomads bailing us out this time if she does.”

”Randolf. She was talking about creating life. And that laugh. She terrifies me.” Looking to Alice, her hand twitched, wondering if she should reach for her crossbow by her side. Even if she would be punished, even if it would mean death or a fate worse. She couldn’t help but feel it would be the right idea to load an arrow and fire.

”Stop.” Grabbing her hand and squeezing it, Randofold looked into her eyes and shook his head. ”I can see what you’re planning, Elva. It is not up to us to decide what to do with her.”

”She is going to bring tragedy to our home. I just know it. Even if I haven’t met them, I know enough to know different Magi have different pursuits of knowledge.” Squeezing Randolf’s hand, he could feel it tremble ever so slightly as she pictured a future he couldn’t. ”Her pursuit is to create life, Randolf. Actions only the Eldest One and Old Ones can do. Tell me, if you were to try and find the secrets to do that, where would you go in this land?”

Randolf lowered his head and took a deep breath. ”The Resting.”

”She must be put down. The Resting cannot be opened. I do not want to say Lord Raven is purposefully putting us in danger, because he did not hear what we did, but think. If she is allowed to live, there is no stopping her from trying to come back over and over, unless we destroy every door in this land. Even then...” Elva took a deep breath. ”She... I... Randolf, we can’t.”

”Lord Raven will deal with it, Elva; we must trust in him as we have always done.” Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and thought for a moment. ”When we get to Lasting Feast, I’ll request to speak to lord Raven, either by the mirrors or his voice, and will tell him what we learnt.”

”Will Lord Halls allow it?”

”Lord Halls is a fair man, and if he understands the severity of my concerns, he will give us the audience we need.” With a deep breath, Elva’s hand danced along her scar as she thought on it. Grabbing her hand and stopping her as her fingers began to dig into the wound, Elva pulled her hand free and sighed.

”Fine. Fine.” With a deep breath, she turned and shook her head. ”I will rest first. I need to ease my mind.”

”Alright.” Looking at Alice, Randolph frowned. ”I’ll try and talk to her. If I am to tell Lord Raven, I need to udnerstand what she is thinking, even if I don’t really understand.” Nodding, Elva wlaked off towards the sleeping man. Making it comfortable, she lay down and closed her eyes, trying to sleep but struggling. With a deep sigh, Randolf walked over to Alice and knelt down beside her, watching her scribble into the dirt, unable to understand the complex rune formula she was making.

’What is she trying?’ Clearing his throat had no effect; Alice continued to write into the dirt, muttering under her breath so queitly he couldn’t understand what she was saying. ”Magi.” Speaking, it still had no effect on her concentration as she once again brushed dirt over her work and started again. ’Only things that hold her interest actually get through.’ ”When we travelled earlier, you were talking about runes.” Having the effect he wanted, He could see Alice’s hand stop before she looked up at him.

”Yeah, why?” Randolf pursed his lips and indicated his sword.

”I was curious; what did you mean? Now I know you’re busy, but soemtimes talking to someone else lets you reach a train of thought you wouldn’t have had before.” Alice rolled her eyes, but stopped herself from getting back to work, seemingly contemplating soemthing before indulging him. Reaching into her belt, she pulled out the quill and tightly clutched it before holding it out for him to see. Before he could take it, she pulled it back.

”Only look.” Saying it with a deeply possessive tone, Randolf nodded. ’I guess it’s fair; I didn’t let her take my sword.’ Staring at the quill, His eyes narrowed as he looked at the intricate rune work on soemthing far more impressive than his sword of the mirrors owned by the lords. His eyes widened when he noticed that they weren’t ones used within the Deadlands, but also when he saw Runes woven into runes, creating numerous layers. Even if he was skilled in runecraft, he knew blacksmiths who worked on his weapons. To create soemthing so complex and functional felt impossible. It was too much; on top of little and more than that, it required perfect accuracy. If even one was wrong, the entire quill would fail. Even if he couldn’t tell what any of it did, he could make at least ten runes. Combined with those written in others, and then, finally, how many more he couldn’t understand, he gathered that the runes were closer to a hundred than zero.

”Impossible.” Covering his mouth, he heard Alice click her tongue in annoyance.

”You can understand them?”

”No, but I can understand how complex this thing is. This much on so little is impossible even for the best artificers. Forgetting that, even if I don’t do it myself, I’ve heard enough talk about materials needing to be compatible. This quill, the things it’s made of.” Letting out a deep breath, he thought of the wealth behind the Divide. ”I don’t really understand money or the cost of things, but if I were to guess, this thing could likely buy someone a large piece of land behind the mountain. Maybe more.”

Continuing to look it over, he stared at the golden feather, realising that the feather was really individual strands of gold woven so thin that it looked like a feather. Then the body, the red material he had never seen, looked different colours, deepening depending on how the fire and moonlight caught it. Finally, the tip. Randolf stared at it and took a sharp breath, almost unable to believe he was seeing it.

”That tip. Do you know what it is?” Alice shook her head and stared at the tip, clicking her tongue.

”No. It’s like metal, but strange. I’ve never seen anything like this, even in teacher study.”

”I’m not surprised.”

”YOU KNOW IT!” Alice cried out in excitement and leaned dcloser towards him, staring with bright eyes.

”Up north, from Listing Feat, is Muted Cry. The rulers are the Hollow family, and when I last saw Lady Hollow, she had this thing, like a staff, made of material that was similar. Black to the point that it absorbed light. Even when outside in the sunlight, it never lost the darkness in it.” Shaking his head,d Rnadolf tried to think about everything he knew during his conversation with Lady Hollow. ”She said it was made from a material from a foreign land, the Shrouded Kingdom. For generations, it has been in their family, and according to them, it has never once changed, permanently keeping its look.”

”The Shrouded Kingdom.” Alice thought for a moment and tilted her head in confusion. ”Never heard of it.”

”I only heard of it from her; before that, I had no idea.” Looking back down at the black metal, ”Anyway, according to Lady Hollow, it’s the finest metal one can have. It never breaks, but because of that, it is nearly impossible to work with. The fact that it was refined to such a degree to make a quill tip is beyond impressive, let alone the carvings on it.”

”I see.” Randolf didn’t hide his smile, happy he managed to pull her away from her previous work, only able to thank his luck. ”For that dead guy, it should have been possible.”

’Got it.’

”You were muttering about this earlier, saying something, I assume the creator of this, that he mastered the material.” There was a noticeable change in Alice, a contempt that mixed with admiration that she likely didn’t notice herself.

’She definitely doesn’t know she admires him with how she thinks of herself.’

”That guy. Somehow he discovered old runes. I’ve been theorising that old runes are the source of power in this world, like the building blocks of it. The problem is reverse-engineering his runes to find the Old runes; with enough time, it should be possible for me. The issue is: how do you translate that to using the arcane?” Carefully putting the quill away, Alice lifted a hand. On it, an orb of water formed. Before his eyes, Randolf saw the orb begin to change shapes, forming a person, then an animal, then a book, as Alice fell deeper into thought. Over and over she played with it.

”If the arcane is runecraft, then there must be a next step to what I have been doing. To add properties and change the shape of a spell is one thing, but it is still fundamentally possible. I am still drawing off the arcane to create water. Whilst close to what I want, it still abides by reality. This water can’t turn into fire after all. But with old runes, and by extension the next step in the arcane, it should be possible. The same principle as before, but rather than turning the arcane into water, I would be rewriting the laws of the world to make the impossible possible.” Her grin as she said that, closing her fist to destroy the water orb, unnerved Randolf.

”Then what were you talking about when you spoke to yourself about creating life?” Her lips curled higher as she let out the same dreadful giggle he had heard on the horse.

”Isn’t that the ultimate form of rewriting reality. To not just give the arcane I wish to mould contradiction that can’t work, but to give it intelligence, a lifespan, a soul. To create life from the arcane is the truest depth of knowledge, the final hurdle to what I need to do.”

Randolf lowered his head and scoffed, ”If you wished to do that, you need to understand what makes a person a person.” Quietly insulting under his breath, he shook his head and prepared to carry on speaking, but froze, feeling a change in Alice as she tensed up.

”Understand a person.” Like him, she spoke under her breath as she pulled the quill and began nibbling on the tip. ”No wonder he failed. He must have been a loner without friends. How could he create a life when he knew nothing about people?” Running a hand through her fiery red hair, Alice half-chuckled, ”It’s so simple. Maybe he could create the soul, but he couldn’t create the things needed to fill a soul. A guy like him definitely wouldn’t use himself as a template. After all, would he accept another like himself existing?”

’Shit.’ Randolf’s eyes widened as he stared at Alice, falling into her thoughts once more, realising he messed up. To anyone else, his words would have been insulting, but for the girl before him, it didn’t matter. ’She doesn’t recognise others as people, so of course she wouldn’t be offended.’ His fear, however, quickly vanished for a simple reason. ’Why does she speak like she is any different to this guy?’

Thinking that, he couldn’t help but feel soemthing nagging in his mind. By Alice’s own words, she had never met this guy, yet to him it felt like she knew him perfectly, as if they had spoken and argued at length face to face. ”Why are you talking like you know him?”

Alice broke out her thoughts and stared at Randolf like he was an idiot. ”Because it was obvious who he was by how he wrote and set everything up.”

”Set everything up?”

”His legacy. He only left part in the cave he buried himself in and wants me to find the rest.” Randolf narrowed his eyes, feeling his lip twitch in a smirk.

’Does she not realise that she is playing exactly to his tune?’