by Jean Johnson
“What kingdom do you come from?” Gayn asked as he set down the basket and started sorting the fruit. Most, thankfully, were only slightly bruised or scraped, though one of the kela fruits had one of its wedges half torn from its core.
“Oh, several, actually,” the outlander dismissed. “We’re wanderers, travelers . . . We take in those who have been bullied by others until they feel like strangers in their own lands, and accept them into our Brotherhood. One day, we may find a homeland—perhaps on the continent of Aiar, since they seem to have a lot of room for that sort of thing—but for now, we’re simply trying to support each other as best we can while we travel, searching for a land that will not bully or punish us unreasonably. . . . It must be nice to be punished so reasonably. I’d rather deal with those orphans she mentioned any day.”
“It is a little odd, but the Goddess guides the Disciplinarian, for She knows what is written on my soul, and thus knows what will motivate me best,” Gayn found himself confessing. A mango had a bit of skin scraped off of it. No bigger than his thumbnail, but still, not a perfect fruit anymore. He set that one aside, too, and found himself confessing, “My father is very strict. He wanted us punished harshly for failing him. Such things can include whippings and worse. But so far, I am not being punished all that harshly. I feel like I should be, but I am not.”
“Then why aren’t you?” Alger asked. “Is the female incompetent? Or has her Goddess abandoned her? Some of those who join our ranks are those who have fled from the bullying of various Patron Deities and their unjustly elevated priesthood. Others flee from the tyranny of women who have usurped a man’s rightful place in life—we have as many reasons to join our Order as we have Brothers who have joined. I believe one Brother actually joined us because he was cursed with restless legs, the kind that can only be eased by walking for long distances.”
“Doma Dulette is not incompetent . . . I think,” Gayn muttered. Alger’s words cast some doubt on the matter into his mind. “Perhaps . . . perhaps it is a mild punishment because we did try earnestly, but were defeated by prophecy . . . and the machinations of that bitch-queen. . . . Or perhaps she is waiting to see if anything can be done about my injured arm. Disciplinarians can strike a penitent with flogger and cane, pierce the skin with a needle, burn with hot wax, even score lightly with a knife . . . but they are not allowed to leave permanent scars or maiming injuries.”
“Not even on a mage who goes rogue to the point of slaughtering an entire town?” Alger asked, curious.
That made him snort. “Mages who are that foolish are usually killed, not reformed. My father has personally snapped the necks of thirteen of his penitents over the decades he has served as a Disciplinarian.”
“I presume he has to explain his actions on a truthstone,” Alger said dryly. “And that he passed perfectly?”
“Of course. Dagan’thio would not be the Elder Disciplinarian if his judgment were not perfect in such things,” Gayn stated, defending his father staunchly. He came to the last fruit, inspected it, and tallied up the bad ones. “I think you need only replace five of these fruits. The rest are only mildly bruised.”
“Praise Nurem for small favors,” Alger said.
“Nurem?” Gayn asked. “That doesn’t sound like one of the Deities named at the Convocation. And I don’t remember hearing about any Patron of Outcasts.”
“It’s a new God. Or Goddess, which would be Alshai,” Alger explained. “We’re still picking our patron, though we might pick both. I favor Alshai; some of the others favor Nurem, and some like both. We have time to choose, since we haven’t very many numbers yet, and have not found a homeland for ourselves, either. Nurem the Patron of Wandering Wisdom, Alshai, the Patron of the Unjustly Outcast—those who are forced to wander as outcasts because we were bullied until we left our home nations,” he clarified. “Our numbers are small, and we technically haven’t seen either manifest yet, but it’s only a matter of time, what with the way our ranks keep growing. There are a lot of men who are dissatisfied with the poor luck we’ve been forced to endure in our lives.”
“You’re young,” Gayn pointed out from the lofty position of what he judged to be three or four years more than Alger owned. “You haven’t had to endure all that much.”
“Oh, you’d think so, but not all lands are so peaceful as this one,” Alger countered. He helped gather up the basket and carried it, leaving Gayn to tuck the damaged fruit into the crook of his arm. “Where I came from, we were ousted from our rightful position by heretical usurpers. We were hoping the Convocation of Gods and Man would set things right, but the demise of our faith went unchallenged, and the new Patron is a horrible thing that doesn’t have to be challenged for another four years. Presuming they’ll even have a second Convocation.”
“I was there. They probably will,” Gayn stated glumly. “The ruling family of the Empire of Nightfall are all powerful mages, and they have dozens of them. They say their queen doesn’t have any magic of her own, and I only ever saw her using enchanted Artifacts, but the others are all powerful beyond compare.”
“Well, that land is of no concern to us. Unless we somehow traveled to it, but since it’s somewhere far across the sea and we have no interest in ocean travel, I doubt it. We are Travelers, but we are land travelers,” Alger stressed.
“So why a God of Wisdom and a Goddess of Outcasts?” Gayn asked, heading for the merchant who had the baskets of fruit that needed replacing.
Alger shrugged. “Happenstance, really. Timing and coincidence . . . and a compassion for our fellow sufferers from other lands. Wisdom comes from visiting other lands and having your experiences and understandings increased. And someone needs to defend those who are bullied until they are treated worse than foreigners in their own lands, forced into fleeing just to live unimpeded lives.
“Upon being cast out, my younger brethren and I heard of the Order of Nurem, and sought to join them because we thought men who were wise would know it isn’t wise to bully others just because of differences. Except their idea of a Patron doesn’t quite suit everyone in the Brotherhood. When several of us realized that we were bullied out of our birthlands, we decided we needed a Goddess who could stand against that, and thus the idea of Alshai was born. So here we are, trying to figure out which God or Goddess to manifest as our Patron. Or possibly both, though that would be considerably more difficult with such a small congregation for worship.”
“Ah, yes, the dilution of the power raised via worshipping when it’s being split across several deities . . . I’ll have a kela, a mangan, and three kewii fruits.” Gayn pointed at the fruit with the arm not holding the damaged ones. “And a paper to wrap these other fruit in.”
“I have a drawstring bag,” Alger reassured Gayn, and set down the basket so he could pull the bag out of his pouch and shake it open for accepting the damaged food. “Here, let’s tuck all that in here . . . How much for the five fruits, sir?” he asked the merchant. He squinted at the hand-lettered signs attached to each basket. “A . . . one something for each of the kewii, two for the mangan . . .”
“And two for the kela. That’ll be seven stamps,” the graying male stated, tallying the total for him.
“Stamps . . . stamps . . . Those are the copper coins, yes?” Alger asked, setting the filled bag down so he could dig into his pouch for a small leather purse.
“Yes. Copper stamps, silver seals, gold embossings,” the merchant recited. He eyed the coins the youth pulled out, and gestured toward his weighing scales. “I can take weight for weight in copper, if your coins are foreign.”
“These are Mendhite coins, never fear; we always exchange them as soon as we come to a new land,” Alger reassured him. He counted seven into the pan, and the merchant put a small bronze weight into the other pan on the scales. Gayn, hands free, picked out the replacement fruit and placed them in the basket while the outlander and the merchant shook hands. “T
hank you, sir,” Alger stated. “Farewell, and good business!”
The merchant eyed him, and shrugged in reply. Mendhites didn’t bother with such elaborate sayings when parting company, unless it was an inferior taking their leave of a superior to whom they still owed service. Walking beside the youth, retracing their route, Gayn eyed him.
“Why would you trade in the coins every time you change lands? Don’t money exchangers charge a fee? You’d lose that much from your available funds every single time, whereas most merchants will trade weight for weight.”
“Our Chief Brother pointed out that, as we travel, we don’t exactly linger long enough to pay taxes, yet we make our way through the world selling our minor magics in various small ways,” Alger confessed. “Selling our skill with spells earns us the funds to keep traveling, so that we are not considered burdensome beggars. We also tend to travel through troubled lands, to seek to swell our numbers from among the downtrodden, the friendless, and the betrayed. We give our new brothers a sense of welcome, of kinship, in exchange for joining us in our cause.
“Unfortunately, because we cross borders, some of those borders are, well, unfriendly between neighboring kingdoms, to put it kindly,” he explained. “So the sooner we can get rid of the previous kingdom’s coins, the easier our journey across the new land will be. Whatever fees the exchangers keep, that goes to pay for the taxes that pay for the roads we travel.”
“You’re rather brave, to cross all those unfriendly borders,” Gayn murmured, surprised to find he admired the youth for his efforts.
“Our mission is to seek out those who are bullied and outcast, and give them a sense of home, even if we must travel far from any physical place we once called home,” Alger said. “You don’t find nearly as many people who are bullied in lands that are inherently peaceful.”
“So then why come to Mendhi?” Gayn asked, curious. “Obviously, the Great Library is your goal, but what is it you seek within its millions of pages?”
“Oh, I’m sure it wouldn’t mean much to a great Painted Warrior like yourself,” the youth demurred. “What we seek are small things at best. Obscure knowledge.”
“I have lived my entire life—when not traveling—here in Mendham. Most of the last fifteen years of it within the Temple grounds,” Gayn pointed out, boasting mildly. “I could practically become a librarian with how much I know about the Great Library.”
“Really?” Alger asked, visibly impressed from the way he raised both brows. “Is it difficult, becoming a librarian?”
“Well, you have to be enough of a mage to take the oathbindings, of course, and obviously I am one,” Gayn boasted a little more. “I’m a Painted Warrior-Mage, not just a common Painted Warrior. But my mother is a librarian, and she has stated that I could’ve been one, if I wasn’t also so very good at hunting down criminals, aiding my father in his work.”
“Well . . . if you’re feeling generous and are willing to help, and since you know so much about the Library. . . . Oh, but your duties as a penitent. You probably have to wait hand and foot upon that woman,” Alger murmured, looking a little distressed at that thought. “Nonstop for . . . how long is your punishment?”
“Two months, but even penitents are allowed a day off from our punishments. We’re supposed to reflect and recover on our days off,” Gayn explained to the outlander. “Since I am not a violent criminal, nor inclined to flee, I do not have to be locked up when not enduring my penances. Family Day is in two more days,” Gayn added. “That is the traditional day off for penitents, since family is so very important to us here in Mendhi—at the very least, I get half a day, mandated by the law. I understand foreign lands don’t celebrate family, which is barbaric . . . but then Mendhi is one of the oldest and most wise of nations.”
“So . . . you would be free to go elsewhere on this Family Day?” Alger asked. “Do you not have family?”
“I would be expected at my father’s house for luncheon, but I could either meet you in the morning or the afternoon, depending on which half Doma Dulette would allow—I am still her penitent, unfortunately,” Gayn said, wrinkling his nose. “She will need to know where I go, even if she does not have to accompany me.”
“Oh, well, that would be wonderful. Trying to figure out the Library system on our own, or with just a few moments of help from the terribly busy Librarians, has not made our progress very easy,” Alger confessed. “The other Brothers would be thrilled to have an expert like yourself to help us in our quest for knowledge. We have several things we need to look up, ranging from what it takes to get a Patron to manifest, to simply some new spells that could be more useful while we’re traveling so much.”
“What other spells?” Gayn asked. “Mirror-Gates? Portals?”
“Oh, that, and many more. A surprisingly large number more. Like, why is it so exhausting to use a flying spell, when even nonmagical birds can soar without effort on a breeze?” Alger asked. “Particularly if you’re trying to carry a heavy load, which is why we don’t fly as mages; it’s just far less exhausting to walk everywhere—and it is exhausting to just walk everywhere! For that matter, even the simplest of spells would help immensely. I’d actually punch someone for a decent shoe-repair spell, for example . . . and I don’t think of myself as a violent man.”
Gayn found himself amused by that. “I’d imagine that, as travelers, you go through a lot of boot soles.”
“You have no idea,” Alger agreed, rolling his eyes. “I have become an expert on walking in the last half-year or more. If you have smooth soles, you’ll travel okay on properly cobbled roads like these ones, but if you try to travel on dirt roads turned muddy in the rain, or up and over grassy slopes, or on icy mountain paths . . . well, you need hobnails on your shoes to keep from slipping and falling on mud or grass, but they are painfully awkward to use when walking on hard stones.
“I’m quite serious,” the youth added candidly. “I’d be willing to actually punch someone in payment for a spell that could be applied to my shoes that allowed for decent traction and cushioned walking across all terrains, without having to switch shoes or have them wear out within just a few months.”
“Well, I won’t help you if you try to punch me,” Gayn retorted. “But I should be able to find some sort of spell or spells along those lines, in just a few more days’ time. The place to meet me, of course, would be the Index Hall. We can start at the shelves on indexing where Travel Spells can be found, and go from there. . . . There’s the doma, and your friend.”
Alger squinted through the crowd, spotted them, and chuckled slightly. “They look about as awkward and uncomfortable as a dog and a cat forced to sit side by side, awaiting their masters’ return.”
Gayn could see that in the way the pair stood next to each other but assiduously avoided eye contact, looking at the streets, the buildings, the passersby and everything. A caravan started across a side avenue, and blocked all further view of the pair. It also blocked their progress, so they paused to wait.
Still, Gayn had seen the awkwardness. “Yes, they do . . . but I cannot legitimately claim myself master of anything, right now. Still, I’ll ask my doma if I get the whole of Family Day off. By law, I have to have at least half the day free from punishments if my punishments are light, and the whole day if they are harsh. So far, they have been light. With nonviolent penitents such as myself, it’s often acceptable to give them the whole day off.”
“Then I hope she’ll say it’s for the whole day. We have a lot of things to look up,” Alger murmured. “Besides, if you get the whole day, we could perhaps teach you a few of our more exotic spells, ones picked up in our travels, as payment for aiding us. That, and of course my brethren will sing your praises with each question you can help us answer.”
“We’ll see if you can teach me anything. I know quite a lot of spells,” Gayn replied, fairly confident of his broad education. “But yes, that would be
a proper sort of payment.”
Chapter Eight
Another long, long day. Pelai unwarded her front door and walked inside, leaving it open for Krais. She had a mouthy cat meowing at her for his supper. At least she had remembered to come back and feed him for breakfast, thank the Goddess, but it would be nice to have everything settled and a routine established, so that she could work more free time into her schedule. Thassam Koret, her new Second, had reassured her things would settle down, but after two nights of interrupted sleep, Pelai felt a little paranoid about tonight.
Setting the plate of chicken scraps on the floor, she petted Purrsus for a few moments, then checked the shelves inside. Just one plate of food left, suitable for his breakfast. The leather and lapis lazuli stone collar he wore allowed him to come and go through a small flap in the glazed doors overlooking the lake, which meant he could and probably did hunt his own supper occasionally among the lawns and flower beds, but he was her responsibility to feed and tend.
Eyeing the other contents of the stasis cupboard, she made a mental note to get some more food for herself as well. Supper had been a few hours ago, pocketbread stuffed with greens, onion slivers, and crumbled hardboiled eggs in a creamy sauce. Pulling out the bowl of chickpea paste, she dabbed some onto two plates, added some carrots and peapods and a couple of pickled onions, good for hot weather, since today had grown warm. Her residence came with cooling spells, but they only worked at half strength when she was not home, making it too hot to ignite the iron-cast cooking rune.
Almost out of most of this stuff, too. I’ll have to go shopping tomorrow . . . except I can’t spare the time. Koret couldn’t get all the high-ranked mages in to meet me on such short notice, just the ones around the Temple, but I’ll be meeting several more tomorrow when they finish arriving by mirror-Gates.
At least we’ve had six months to set up a better relay system than before. That spell we cast—that I tried to cast—cut down the distance the mirrors can span to just barely a few days of travel at a stretch. On a good aether day. She added some herb-baked crackers, used the spoon to round a better hollow into each dollop of chickpea paste, and poured a drizzle of olive oil infused with garlic over the near-white paste. The good kind of paste, extra-fine, and almost as smooth and white as sour cream.
