[via Seer Stone] In Transit

[Ezre Vks]

the thin air between

the 14th of Vortas, 2719 | Late Evening

The rumble-hum of an airship's engines were not an unfamiliar sound anymore, not now that Ezre had traveled from Hox to Anaxas and back again a handful of times in the few years he'd been far from Frecksat. He almost always paid more for privacy, preferring a smaller, quieter space than any of the larger common areas aboard the passenger liners that sailed their way through the clouds, fat and lazy, between one Kingdom and the next. This flight between Brunnhold and Vienda was a much smaller affair, cramped and loud, but the Hexxos Guide and his distressed Hessean companion had still counted out the extra coins needed for a cramped but personal cabin together, complete with a tiny, round, thick-glassed window.

The half-a-day airy sprint to Vienda was hardly any time at all in comparison to the ninety-hour flight to Frecks, a trip usually made longer with stops and layovers, foul weather and winds. That didn't even include the cable cars between cliff sides or carefully-carved tunnels through the Spondola mountains themselves just to get to humble Kzecka, isolated and far from the capitol, already buried deeply in snow this time of year.

The Hoxian settled both himself and Lilanee with all his usual well-honed calm, hiding his nervousness at confronting someone else's mother over a funeral for someone that his lover, her daughter, vehemently did not believe dead beneath the smooth, soft fabric of both his bright saffron linen layers and the softer boundaries of his rhakor. Worry and conversation ebbed slowly, the pair drifting into comfortable silence curled close to each other in the small space and Ezre pressing one side of his face against near the cool glass window to let his dark dark eyes wander over the moonlit Anaxi landscape far below while the other ninth form had tucked her head against his tattooed chest.

In the warm comfort left between speaking and listening, he let inked fingers thread through the Hessean's red curls, aware by the steady softness of her breathing that she'd dozed off after an emotion-filled day. Shifting gently, his free hand reached into a pocket, sifting through his rather impressive, expensive collection of seerstones and withdrawing one set into a delicate rose carved out of whalebone. He'd given Tom a small, flat disk inset into a pocket watch because he thought it was clever, because he thought it was a fitting reminder, because he had a not-so-subtle sense of humor when allowed to express it in his own way. His match was a little bone rose—a reminder of the Harbor the raen spoke of and an accidental portent of the East Garden.

Appropriate. Inappropriate. Fitting all around, honestly.

He sighed, turning the tiny, powerful stone over a few times between his fingers, hesitant.

Cognitive scrying was difficult over long distances, but Ezre did not want to wake Lilanee with whatever he had to say out loud, and he was not particularly interested in slipping away from the soothing weight of her person pressed just so against himself to go elsewhere in the airship and make his magical conversation. Cognitive scrying was also disruptive and disturbing to someone not expecting such things—someone like Tom who put on a decent show at being a human in a galdori politician's skin—but he had no idea what the not-Incumbent would be up to at this house and he didn't know anyone else in Vienda to reach out to on such short notice. He didn't know if the raen would truly appreciate such an interruption, either; it was a worthwhile risk.

Closing his hand and pressing the stone into his scarred palm, the dark-haired Guide closed his eyes and gathered his field close, drawing it inward as if even the mona could enter his very thoughts. Focusing himself on the weight of the seerstone in his tattooed hand, the Clairvoyant student sifted through his thoughts, quieting all of them and selecting from within his busy mind his memories of Tom Cooke—his cold, wind-burned face in Bethas, his disapproving, sweaty scowl in Roalis, his Tek words in his Viendan accent, his familiarity with a knife. He filled his consciousness with the way the man laughed, the sensation of his entropic field, and the delicate shape of his galdor-bodied hands.

Breathing in, reaching further, Ezre remembered the raen's mind, the vestibule of space he'd touched before in the other man's Cycle-altered consciousness. He remembered the strangeness of it, the warped landscape of a trapped soul's inner existence, and it was as he pictured these things that he spoke whispered Monite instead of mere Estuan, casting in hushed tones to open the channel linked between the two ferrous-monic oxide stones that had been attuned to each other in their crafting, searching like hands in a dark dorm room when feeling gently for familiar warmth only spanning autumn-chilled distances with magical precision,

Ziea casual greeting, Cooke-vumash. Are you busy?

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum House • Uptown

Evening on the 14th of Vortas, 2719

T
daresay,” tutted Valère, “it will be a nasty surprise.”

Maurus laughed hard; he coughed, wheezed a plume of smoke, waved a plump hand through the thick air. Then he laughed again, rustling his waxed red mustaches. There was a flush in his cheeks and a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Does Iseult know, yet?” he asked, when his laughter’d thinned out enough to let the words through.

Edmund Valère was a thin, dark man, tall for a galdor and black-haired, Bastian on his mother’s side. He was younger than Maurus and Vauquelin by roughly a decade; he made up for it, many said, with a vicious ambition. He was yet unmarried, but there were whispers, Tom knew, how he was spending a lot of time with the youngest of the Leblanc daughters – remarkable, if true, given everybody knew the old towhead might as well’ve been keeping them locked up and spinning gold in a tower somewhere.

Valère was dealing the cards with quick, precise motions. “I can’t say,” he said. One round; two, three – Tom watched the cards stack up in front of him, crisp, backed in glossy black and thin patterns traced in gold. Six, seven – nine. Ten, thirteen.

A loud snort to his left: Descoteaux, with his rasping voice from fifty some years spent in smoky rooms like this one, in dozens of gentleman’s clubs. There were traces of the Tors in his accent, nestled underneath the Viendan polish. “She’s more to worry about than where Ambrose is spending his evenings – any of you had the pleasure of seeing Colette lately?”

Comtois whistled, taking up his cards with a flourish and taking a drag on his cigar. Valère laughed through a tight-lipped smile.

The seconds dripped away. Tom reached for his cards and saw his hand settle atop them, dotted with freckles and traced with veins. He spread out his hand and found he couldn’t focus on them, the letters, the numbers: the pictures jumped out at him, the tall printed figures of towers and birds and flowers inlaid in gold, catching the low phosphor light.

Familiar suits, but this was like no Rooks deck Tom had never seen. There were no dog ears, no lines of creases, no suspicious marks. He remembered a hand-painted deck he’d kept in the pocket of his old coat ’til the day he’d died; old Whelan’d tried to give it to him in lieu of a tithe, and he’d taken it and beat the kov anyway, because that was his qalqa.

Maurus grunted, made the funny noise he made when he didn’t much like his hand. It was remarkable, Tom thought, how his mustache could be so stiff and neat, and that piss-poor excuse for a toupe could be so damned –

There was a burst of laughter at the bar, some ways across the room; it broke Tom’s attention, scattered him on the smoke, on the smell of cologne. The tap of a stick against a billiards ball, a hissing roll. Tom fought the urge to cough. The smell of cologne and expensive cigars was cloying.

“Anatole?” came Descoteaux’s voice. “What d’you think?”

He looked up smoothly, catching the other incumbent’s eye. He raised an eyebrow; reflexively, he let a smile settle across his face, a little ironic, a little mean, tugging at all the sneering lines Anatole had creased into it over the decades. “You know what I think,” he purred.

Descoteaux laughed, and Murus laughed even harder. Tom looked back down at his cards. The taste of brandy was cloying, too; he wasn’t sure how much he’d drunk. He knew he was here for a reason – the conversation had lost its course, but there was something he’d determined to tease out of Comtois after Descoteaux had made the invitation – but he’d lost track of it.

On the bright side, Tom knew clock-all about bridge whist. He wasn’t sure if he had a good hand or a bad hand, and that was probably doing something for his rooks face. It was his turn, and he had his fingertips on a card, when he felt it.

The tug. The funny weight.

It was familiar; it was horribly flooding familiar, and bizarre, all at once. Tom might’ve been drunker than a kenser in the Dove, and everything would’ve still gone cold and sharp. He blinked and fumbled. The top card slipped out of his hand; he got a grip on the last two.

“Anatole,” Descoteaux grated.

His stomach lurched. He knew what to call it – he remembered it sharply from the Brunnhold phasmonia – the settling of another mind against his – but the room, with its lamplight drifting on cigar smoke, tilted, and he found a vestibule carved into his mind without much warning, and he thought for a moment that another of his kind might’ve been –

Z̡͕͚͉̠͇̣i̯̜̗̠͍̥e̻͓͚̪̪,̴̘̗̠̘ ͏̟̙C҉̭̠̣̙̱o͈o̷͇̗̣͎̟ͅk̗̟͔̟̰͍͉ȩ̳̳̱̬̲̲-̱̹͉̳͍͙͜v̧̲̺̤̖u̱ma̱̤̣̹͟ͅs̰̙̼̹̝̙̗h͓̻̘̹̮͔̲͠ ̜̳̯͟

“Shit,” Tom spluttered.

“Mr. Vauquelin,” Valère said, raising his eyebrows. The table had gone quite silent; there were six pairs of eyes on him. “Are you quite all right?”

Murus coughed on a drag.

–͖̺͙̲̼͗̂ͣͅ ̼̘̬̮ar͉͚ͧͮ̍ͣ̒̿ȇ̳͈̎̇́̔ͮ ͣ͌́̚y̩̘͐̆͂ͬö̬̠̖̳̘́̽̓͋̂̒̑u̬̥̝ͥ̏ͦ̏̏̈́ ̲b͈͔͔̩̪ͯ̊̿̉̑ͤu̞͆̑s͖̟͖̩̱̮̰̉̇y̲?̭̖̺̜͚̇ͣͣ̈̉ͤͯͅͅ

“Yes,” Tom breathed, and the sound of his voice in the room dragged him back to the present: to his hands, shaking on the table, to the breath in and out of his lungs, to his whirling stomach. “I – perhaps – I apologize, gentlemen.” A little messily, he shoved himself to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me.”

He’d been here often enough, leastways, to know his way to the lavatory. He staggered through the smoky room, off down the dark side hall; he passed nobody, then. He could feel it as he moved, tucked into his waistcoat-pocket. The weight had settled on his mind, now, but it wasn’t like he remembered.

He fumbled into the narrow, lavender-smelling room. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his face pale and drawn above his dark silk cravat, the pale phosphor lights glinting in his red eyebrows. He thought he’d be sick; he wasn’t, but he gripped the edges of the washbasin hard, ran some water, splashed his face with shaking hands.

“What the fuck,” he muttered under his breath.

He felt a pang as he fumbled out the watch. The etching caught the light, antlers arranged into the pattern of stars. Even then, he paused; he’d never told Ezre how much it’d touched him. There’d been too much to think and feel, at the time, then too much to do.

He opened it up, peering into the burnished seerstone, but – nothing, he mouthed, frowning. One hand still gripped the sink, white-knuckled. It’d been in his head. It’d been in his flooding head.

He’d read about this, he reminded himself. Be calm. Be calm. He squeezed his eyes shut, forced his breath into an even pattern; his stomach rolled, and the little perfumed room tilted, but he held. He made a space in his mind for the Hexx. Slowly but surely, he opened the vestibule.

Are you busy?

Not anymore, came Tom’s response. It was in a high tenor, at least as high as Ezre’s, with a sharp, nasal edge, a faint rasp. There was something almost breathy about it, and some consonants were a little muffled, like they were coming from someone with a stuffy nose. The accent was Uptown.

Tom bowed his head over the sink, his jaw set, and waited, holding his focus.

[Ezre Vks]

the thin air between

the 14th of Vortas, 2719 | Late Evening

He'd forgotten—or he'd never known, really—just how difficult it was to maintain a purely inaudible cognitive connection with someone else via Clairvoyance, whether it was by spellwork or through a scrystone. He'd read plenty of theories. He'd heard a few lectures. He'd been told, over and over, that this was not a simple affair and that it was all too advanced for a mere student such as himself.

Ezre had not believed them.

He did now.

Even if the connection was easy—he'd touched the raen's mind before, he'd been allowed to drift through the seat of a dispossessed soul's consciousness, nestled though it was in the body of a stranger—it was the maintenance of the connecting that was a challenge. The Hoxian felt things at first—pressing through time and space on the invisible conduit created by the mona, on the intangible connection made between two carefully crafted stones—he heard other voices, tasted something strange (alcohol, maybe?), and smelled a nostril-stinging sweetness that he'd come to recognize as cigar smoke. It was disorienting, to see nothing but the ruddy darkness behind his own eyelids, and yet all of the sensation was brief.

He felt recognition, too. He'd been heard, and, strangely enough, that lurch of confirmation was actually nauseating. Ezre's breath caught, inked fingers curling tighter around now-warm bone, exhaling a ragged sound through his nose as he forced himself to grasp through the wispy sensation of projecting his own consciousness and cling more firmly to the immeasurable metaphorical space he'd just so rudely demanded Tom Cooke make for his company in his own mind.

Not anymore, some voice drifted like smoke through his thoughts—not quite the voice he knew. Panic rose, and the already disoriented young galdor felt for a moment as though he was falling, but it was just the sensation of his heart racing and his stomach lurching. Had someone stolen his gift? Had the raen given the scrystone to someone else by accident? Was this connection being spied on?

Dru—oh. Vauquelin-vumash? Dru. Tom Cooke! It was a blending of who the raen really was, who he'd been, and who he'd been forced to become. Oh, by Bash's molten wisdom! Of course.

His first response to the revelation of just how true and unfiltered their purely mental connection came in fluent Deftung—harsh sounds, softened by amusement which could be felt but not heard to someone who didn't understand the language. Some idiom about volcanoes and their lack of care about warnings, some traditional saying meant in lieu of an apology because lava consumed indiscriminately and yet sometimes left behind such beautiful glass. It was, unfortunately, impossible to translate into Estuan with the same nuances and once Ezre realized he wasn't thinking in the right language, wasn't speaking in the right words because the voice that greeted him was not what he'd come to know as Tom Cooke's, there was a long pause.

He understood, then. He swallowed, hard, and refocused,

I do not have time to send a letter. I will be in Vienda by morning. I do not have friends there, not really, save for you.

The Hexxos Guide knew he was imposing. He felt he had no choice. If there was a hint of timidness or chagrin or shame or concern to the tone of his projected words, Ezre did not make attempts to hide it,

I am intruding on you. Harshly so. Please excuse me. I just—Do you—I need—I do not yet know if I will be welcome in the Kuleda household, but Lilanee's mother has declared her father dead. I must appear prepared, but the truth is, I am not. There is to be a funeral. She disagrees, of course. He may still be living. You can imagine the many reasons for my company.

He paused, as if stating the obvious would be a waste of effort, given what kind of effort he was already putting into this discreet but probably too powerful for his own good sort of scrying. Nails dug into a scarred palm. He was wincing, but no one was looking at him, anyway. He could not hide feelings from this Clairvoyant stream of consciousness, for his inner life was vibrant and rich, bright with a well-tended garden of emotions that were simply kept from view behind the sturdy doors of his rhakor. Projecting himself along the ley lines of Vita in such an unfiltered state was revealing—as difficult as it was to form thoughts in only Estuan, it was impossible to hide how he felt about everything.

Surprise. Embarrassment. Concern. Pride. Tension. Attraction. Annoyance. Apology. Fear. Determination.

The colorful mind of a teenager who knew both too much about the world and too little about living in it all at the same time was more or less like a wild animal: difficult to keep from devouring their connection entirely. It took so much of his still-maturing skill to keep from flooding Tom's generous mental space with all of who he was. Sweat tickled his scalp and he could not breathe evenly. The airship bobbed with turbulence, and it was all the dark-haired boy could do to keep from either letting go of their connection or throwing up. Maybe both. He managed to hold it all in,

Can you tolerate me a moment more? Everine—do you know any in Vienda? I did not have even a moment to myself to speak to the Everus in the Church of the Moon in Brunnhold. We left so quickly.

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum House • Uptown

Evening on the 14th of Vortas, 2719

T
om was cast adrift; it was all he could do to hold onto the line, with every scrap of focus he’d learned from meditation, though there could be no self-warding here. Nothing to hold him in place but his own bones, his own clenched jaw, his own determination. The rush of shocked Deftung caught him by surprise, and he winced as it rolled over him.

He didn’t know what the fuck Ezre was saying, but he caught the amusement, warm and bright. A pulse of shame went through him. He didn’t know what to say or do. What, was Ezre laughing at him because he was sick? Had Ezre seen what’d happened at the whist table? His desperate stagger for the lavatory? He ached with embarrassment all through, and when Ezre spoke again in Estuan, he felt a flare of irritation.

In Vienda by tomorrow. No time. What was that supposed to mean? As he went on, Tom struggled to focus; he wasn’t sure what he had to do with any of this. On top of all of it, the presence on the other side was nearly unrecognizable, for all the color in it: the landscape of those words was awash with emotion in a way Tom couldn’t describe, fear and curiosity and embarrassment, flooding attraction of all things –

A funeral, Ezre said. He may still be living. Tom began to make sense of it; it took shape in his head, and he placed it in the emotions he felt across the ley channel. He steadied his breathing again, ran a little water in the basin, splashed his face cold. He breathed in deep through the chilly air in the water closet, smelled lavender and linen.

Lilanee’s father wasn’t dead, or she didn’t think he was, and her mother was holding a funeral. And Ezre was coming with her, back to Vienda, because –? There wasn’t much sense Tom could make of it, but he felt the urgency of it in the ley channel. He saw the seerstone sitting on the edge of the basin, open, the low phosphor light echoing through the ferrous-monic oxide.

And all that irritation shifted

slowly

into –

Warmth.

Like a warm spring draft tossing a laundry-line, it crept across the ley channel. Deep concern, and not concern he could hide behind a scowl or a manful grunt, or a muttered curse. There’s no honor in that, came Tom’s voice, before he could hold it back; it was a quiet, surprised breath, clearly moved. Is Lilanee all right? Is she with you? What happened?

A pause. Tom gripped the edge of the sink, taking a deep breath; the porcelain was cold under his hand. He opened his eyes and squinted at his reflection, then down into the basin, at the soft echo of a reflection, like a ghost. I’m too drunk for this.

Another pause. A little tug of embarrassment shook the line, but there was no way for him to withdraw into his vestibule, no way for him to cut Ezre off; this was the damned strangest thing he’d ever felt.

You’d think you’d know more Everine than me, being Hexxos, but let me think. Ah! There’s an Evera that’s in charge of Rookwren, he offered suddenly. We’re not supposed to know their names, but she’s a relation of Vauquelin’s – a distant cousin – Evera Sibylla, is what she’s called now. She just recently got the position, because Everus Perpetuus, her predecessor, kicked the can. She sends letters sometimes, but mostly, I throw them in the hearth with the rest.

Another pause. I didn’t mean for you to hear that part, he added sheepishly.

Another wave of nausea shook him, and he steadied himself on the sink; he shut his eyes and tilted his head back, feeling the strange buzz of the mona around him, holding onto the ley channel with his focus. He felt as if he were holding onto a line, like the rope ladder up to the Eqe Aqawe.

He still felt Ezre, too. The uncertainty, the fear; what he could identify, now, as weariness from the hurried journey. He could imagine, crisp and vivid, the lad packing his things in a rush, arranging to board an airship without even enough warning to send a letter. Had they been in person, Tom might’ve put on a good show of anger – a fair good show – but now, he felt nothing but sympathy. He could imagine packing your things and booking tickets in a rush, out of love.

No intrusion, he offered, more gentleness in this voice than he ever would have offered in his real one. I’m to assume the Kuledas don’t know you’re coming with Lilanee? Do you have a place to stay, either of you, if worse comes to worst?

[Ezre Vks]

the thin air between

the 14th of Vortas, 2719 | Late Evening

Holding it all together felt the way he remembered holding a handful of young mountain hingles had been like as a child in the fleeting glory of Kzecka summer: squirmy and difficult to contain, full of chittering distractions. His feelings wiggled through the connection, unguarded and unconcerned with their presence despite his otherwise fastidious exterior appearances. Thoughts drifted like clouds outside his window though both of their minds. Ezre kept his eyes closed as if seeing nothing somehow made maintaining their shared conversation easier, but his ears were ringing and his sinuses ached already.

Tom's true voice, or his memory of his voice unbound by borrowed flesh was a curiosity, but it was the warmth the raen clearly chose to hide beneath the gruff exterior of his begrudgingly galdori vessel that confirmed assumptions the Hoxian had already made about the man's innermost character. There was relief upon such a simple revelation, and a flutter of humor at the mention of insobriety—

Honor in death and life—Deftung poetry filled the metaphysical space between them, carried across very real distance by unseen, sentient particles who did not choose to so directly make known their opinions on mortality. Ezre caught himself, soft colors of chagrin tinting his projected words as they became Estuan once more,

—Lilanee is angry and confused—rightly so—but, zjai, we are together now—

He could not hide the fondness fast enough: the strangely expressive temperatures and colors of otherwise verbally unexpressed emotions from their Clairvoyant channel. If there were words for such feelings, he'd not said them out loud. There were other thoughts, too, fortunately, or not, and they were warm and thick like so much honey fresh from the comb: affections and blatantly base distractions. Ezre stretched his consciousness reflexively to tame it, to snatch it away from such a private view for someone who did not need to be privy to all of his youthful passion, especially when not used seeing the Hoxian's truest self beneath well-practiced cultural stoicism any more than he was used to hearing the voice Tom remembered so fondly as once his own,

There was a letter. It was not an invitation for her to come home so much as a declaration of her mother's decision. Kuleda-vumash has been in Western Anaxas. Or was. He has not communicated in some time, even though he is an archaeologist. He is—what is the Estuan?—eccentric. A decision was made that he is deceased, I suppose. I understand the need to do so, but I do not know if any attempts have been made to contact him properly. I believe Lilanee expects me to assist with arrangements, as is fitting a Hexxos, but—there is no body. And I am neither Anaxi nor Hessean.

He was not unaware of their funerary rites, not after years of upper form studies in mortuary sciences. The Six Kingdom's methods of burial and mourning were part of his education, but that didn't mean that Lilanee's family would at all appreciate his officiating, even if he meant it as proof of the loyalties of his heart.

Now is a good time to share with you the less than austere opinions on the Carriers of the Dead in my home Kingdom, let alone among the religious communities outside of Hox. My connections with the Anaxi Everine are limited at best.

There was no shame in the admission—those who chose to lose their identities and bear the burden of death were not necessarily purposefully mysterious—but the stigma of the dead was difficult to wash from the hands that touched them, that washed and interred them, that prayed for the turning of the Cycle to be kind. It was the way of things, and while Ezre clearly thought otherwise of his place in the world, as did many Hexxos, as did the raen they sheltered in their ranks, he understood that many of his own people did not feel the same.

Thank you for a contact. You are a good friend.

Tom gave him a name—forbidden, but only superficially, superstitiously—and yet the Hoxian was left more confused. Perhaps it was because the man on the other side of the seerstone wasn't sober. Perhaps because the connection was so difficult to maintain. Perhaps there simply were language barriers when communicating at the speed of thought.

I do not see what cans have to do with this—or with an Everus' death. I am sorry there is so little control with—with this form of communication. It is exceedingly challenging. If it is cut short, it is because I am definitely making myself ill.

A golden sparkle of pride in his own talents was quickly huffed away from their shared space, the hints of empathy and comfort as unexpected as the question.

—I do not know what Lilanee's mother is expecting. I do not think she knows of me at all. I do not think she knows of our physical intimacy ...

of our romantic friendship ...

of our personal relationship ...

wait...I—

—by Bash—ashes and smoke, I do not mean for you to hear all of that, either—well, here we are. What a bizarre mental landscape this is, Cooke-vumash.

If someone could laugh through some Clairvoyant connection, it would be Ezre, but it was not with embarrassment. He could not hide here. There was no rhakor when sharing his innermost self through a strangely intimate form of magical conversation when there was no speaking involved. He was not apologetic for his oversharing, not entirely, for in his culture, there was no shame in physical exploration between interested parties, not like in Anaxas. However, as an inexperienced young creature who had no interest in comparison to more accomplished bodies, the sudden awareness of his own unfiltered admissions were laced with immediate, self-conscious regret.

Her family does not know me. Or of me. Lilanee thinks so generously of me. She believes me to have some kind of religious authority to convince her mother that this is a wrong choice, and I have been unable to get her to see that is neither my role as Guide nor my place here in Anaxas. Hesseans are so irreligious–what am I other than Hexxos? Just cxîl. Just a foreigner.

He did not feel the dribble of blood from one nostril, trailing over the delicate curve of his upper lip, mingling with the sweat that prickled there as he concentrated to maintain the silent connection. Breathing shallow but even, he swallowed and tasted the metallic tang he finally recognized, but the Hexxos Guide chose to ignore it,

I have not even thought of alternative arrangements should we need them, but it is my plan to prove he lives if I can—magically. It will be a challenging task, but no one else has tried.

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum House • Uptown

Evening on the 14th of Vortas, 2719

H
e didn’t feel it until he tasted it on his lips, warm and sweet. It jarred his concentration; he nearly let go of the line, but he managed to redouble his holds, as if wrapping it thrice round his fingers tight enough to bleed him. He licked the blood off his lips, wiped it from his nose with the back of one hand, rough and abrupt. The other still held onto the edge of the washbasin.

He stared fixedly at the ferrous-monic oxide, lips set thin.

She announced the funeral without inviting Kuleda home for it? There was another flare of anger, of concern. By now, Tom was adjusting, if messily, to what he was receiving; he felt a – familiar tug – and he knew Ezre wasn’t lying when he’d said we are together now, for all he hadn’t quite wanted to know the hows and the whys.

Still, he frowned deeper, shutting his eyes against the pale phosphor lights. He felt the first stab of a headache.

Too drunk for this shit, or

Not Drunk Enough . . . ?

No. No, no, no – he shook it off, for now, at least, because there wasn’t a single chance he was going back to the bar before he was finished with this vodundun, and by that time, it’d be too late. He centered himself again, breathing in and out.

There was a more blood trickling out of his nose. Still, he snorted at Ezre’s words – once, at his confusion, and then as he fumbled so gracefully to define the relationship Lilanee’s ma didn’t even know about. But the gravity of the situation was beginning to settle on him, and what crept across the line then was something deeper than concern: the first stirrings of fear.

Handlers of the dead. I remember, Tom offered grimly. Just cxîl. The word washed through him again, full of meaning; it took on different properties, now, tinged with different colors.

He raised a hand, waving it sharply as if there’d been any chance Ezre could see him. Slow down. Slow down. Bizarre landscape indeed. A twist of humor, but frayed. Hold on just a little longer. I didn't even know you could scry like this, without a stone, but I'm not doing so well, either. I'm going to start bleeding from the ears, if this keeps up.

All of his thoughts were beginning to fray. Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. The two of you are coming to Vienda, unannounced, to sabotage – call it what it is – the funeral of a man who’s been declared deceased by Lilanee’s mother, who doesn’t even know you’re clocking? But you’re going to the Everine first, just to make sure everything’s in order before the chroveshit hits the –

Contact him?

Prove he’s alive?
    Western Anaxas?

Contact him properly?

In hatcher territory?

There was silence, for a few moments; Tom’s head was utterly empty. He caught his breath against the sink through another wave of sickness.

Then – the picking-up of pieces, as he always did.

What was there for him to focus on right now? The immediate.

You might as well call me Tom at this point, Ezre-xî. It was softer; it echoed with the honor he’d felt from Ezre for those few moments, the ring of Deftung poetry and a Brother’s obligations like a distant bell. My door is open, if either of you end up needing a place to stay in Vienda. As long as Lilanee's all right with it, me being a murderous ghost what I am, and all.

I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, and I must admit, I’m – interested. But it sounds dangerous.

[Ezre Vks]

the thin air between

the 14th of Vortas, 2719 | Late Evening

Dru. Her presence was required, it was just strange— Ezre didn't yet know much of Lilanee's relationship with her Hessean mother, other than the words in that letter and the tears that had stained her cheeks. The young woman seemed much closer to her mostly absent father, and while he'd come to understand that family relationships were complicated outside of his own, she hardly spoke of her mother and therefore he'd assumed they were not close. He wasn't entirely confident that her parents were close to each other, either, given the dismissal this whole funeral business felt like.

—everyone deserves to grieve, but I do not—

—drinking? I have interrupted a social gathering—

—alcohol is alright, but not my preference—

—chan is—

—oh. I have wandered—

The Hoxian hissed out loud and felt the comfortable weight of another body pressed against his stir and shift. He raised the hand gripping the small scrystone so tightly instinctually toward his face and ran inked fingers beneath his nose, lips twisting in a wince at the awareness that upkeep was far more taxing than he had been entirely prepared for—and yet ... they'd managed this long. He might have whispered the words as he thought them, the Clairvoyant threads unraveling slowly but tangibly. He held as firmly as his inexperience allowed, tenacious in his curiosity despite the churning of his insides and the crushing pressure that had begun to grow less tolerable at his temples,

Without a stone is perhaps more difficult. This is unorthodox. I am bending the rules, most likely to my detriment. My professors would call this Intermediate Clairvoyance, so I am taking some risks. Maybe. We will both feel some regrets when this is over. Probably also tomorrow, I am afraid. It is my ardent hope not to vomit in this small cabin, honestly, and the rest is survivable.

There was an indeterminable sound that rippled between them, that was softly made in person also. Amusement. Denial. Acceptance.

Sabotage is fair—if he is not dead, it cannot be a funeral—

—zjai. Contact. I will be in his home. Among his things. Personal effects. Things he has touched. Lilanee is his offspring; therefore, his bloodline—

Quiet settled at the speed of thought, heavy and almost tangible. The loud growling of the airship's engines and the very unwelcome jostling of turbulence were not distant. Instead, they were adding to the overwhelm of the moment and Ezre strained his magical senses, smiling in spite of it all,

Deftung is easier when your mouth does not get in the way, Tom, though perhaps much can be said of conversation with no physical barriers at all, without so much of—so much of ourselves in the way.

The Hexxos Guide hummed and the sound echoed through his thoughts with some strange cocktail of appreciation, gratitude, and sorrow.

Do not compare yourself with ghosts, please—

He couldn't equate his mother to existing in such a damned state. He couldn't put Tom on the same destructive trajectory. Even if there were some truths in the comparison, there was also a painful lie. He knew the similarities. He could list them in his thoughts. He could list their differences, too. He could—

Ghosts are already dead.

You are still alive, Tom.

The differences are impossible. The differences are subtle. I am aware. I cannot see what you see, and you cannot see what I see. I cannot expect you to feel as I do, either. You exist somewhere I cannot be. I have not been. I will not ever be, probably. Nothing excuses the ugly necessities of a body. No one can escape death, however eventual. It is complicated. But you are not—raen are not—the same. I am desperately biased, I know—

Ezre was forced to pause for a long moment to resist the tide of unbidden feelings on the subject of what constituted living, of what raen really were, of what was right and wrong, of what his own mother really could have been had her choices been different, of who Tom really was. Ezre choked on bile and tears, worn thin by the fierceness his own upkeep, strained by the effort of such a connection without speaking, rubbed raw by such a magically vulnerable conversation, insides twisting as if the mona had made magma stir suddenly from his very soul.

He never dwelled on these things.

Not willingly.

There was a deep sadness, a hot chasm of confusion, and then a forceful change of subject, like the ground rolling with a quake.

Dangerous, zjai. Difficult, also. I am sure that your experience with my casting and your personal Clairvoyant research would not be unwelcome assistance, but I cannot guarantee any level of safety. You should be used to that, however. I am who I am. It is a worthwhile risk—

We should— Knuckles curled beneath his nose and dug against the thin line made by his tattooed lips. The Hoxian attempted to steady his breathing, failing.

This is difficult— He pressed against the Clairvoyant cords, tangled but slipping, faltering for a reserve of magical endurance that was not as deep as he'd imagined it to be,

I trust the name Vauquelin is easy enough to ask after in Vienda?

[Tom Cooke]

Pendulum House • Uptown

Evening on the 14th of Vortas, 2719

I
’m sorry, Ezre-xî.

Tom’s vestibule was, for once, very quiet. There was still a scattering of thought, feeling – the ever-present nagging for more brandy, more anything, even despite the queasy churning of his stomach and the cloying taste in his mouth. But it was quiet and attentive, and focused, even if briefly. I’ll try to mind that distinction, best I can.

(I didn’t realize…)

He hadn’t, though he should’ve; maybe he had, but he hadn’t wanted to. It was too hard to pick through, plastered and trying to hold onto the ley channel. Still, he hadn’t missed that tangled rush of thoughts; he hadn’t missed the feeling that pulsed through them. He couldn’t help but meet it with a quiet ache of sympathy.

A few thoughts pulsed through him, scattered: he wondered how Lilanee felt about it; he wondered how Lreya felt about it, up in Kzecka; he wondered, he wondered if he’d ever be at peace with it, he wondered if it was possible to be at peace with it. Now wasn’t the time to wonder, but he couldn’t help those scattered threads of thoughts.

Now wasn’t the time to wonder, though. Or hesitate. He suspected Ezre’d’ve told him if Lilanee harbored misgivings about the whole raen situation – would Ezre have told him? – would Ezre have known, really? – just how biased was the Hexx? – if she did, they were hers to harbor – but it was immaterial now, anyway. Or he’d find out.

He wasn’t half sure what he was getting himself into, either. Blood, personal effects, cognitive scrying. I am who I am, Ezre had said. So be it. It felt worth it; he felt another pulse of warmth.

You give me a job.

It’s not hard to ask after Vauquelin in Vienda, no, he mused, but I don’t know you’ll get all the way to me, just asking. Even if I want to see you, other people tend to make that decision for me. If all else fails, try Stainthorpe Hall, 423-C, or – hells – just remember 312 Willow Avenue, Uptown. Just remember 312 Willow.

Tom squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head over the sink. Tap, tap, tap. He wasn’t sure how long it’d been; when he opened his eyes, the sink was painted with droplets, like a spray of crimson from an artist’s brush. His arms were shaking to hold him up.

There was a dampness at one of his ears. He did not reach up to touch it.

He gripped the sink tighter. Listen, all right, I don’t want sick all over that benny airship cabin. The words came faster; he gathered up all of his focus. And I don’t think Lilanee’d appreciate it, either, waking up to you hurling all over her. Just – come by and see me in Vienda, whether you need a kint or not. We can talk about this over tea and biscuits. I’ve got some damned comfortable chairs.

His mind was wandering again. He refocused it, painfully. What else? What else? He could barely conceive of it here, of Everine, of stretching one’s mind all the way across Anaxas, into the fogs, into the place where nobody’d ever gone and come back alive — a cold fear gripped him and shook the line, but he held himself, because there was nothing else to do.

There weren’t words for it, but it was there, in the thin air between, filling up the place where Ezre had folded space and time to bring them together. This isn’t my qalqa, he ached. All of this is impossible; all of this is subtle; I cannot understand any of it; I don’t know myself anymore, I don’t know this world — this is so alien to me — and you’re chasing after it —

Please take care, Ezre-xî. It cut through all the strangeness, firm but suffused with warmth. Take care of yourself and that lass of yours. But go, please, before we both start bleeding out of our eyes.
[/style2]

[Ezre Vks]

the thin air between

the 14th of Vortas, 2719 | Late Evening

Ezre knew the distinction was a personal one, that the line between death and life was not meant to be obscure, just one that had become broken, twisted, changed. The gods had made clear the path that souls were meant travel between one life and the next, and yet it seemed as though those same gods no longer had hands large enough to contain it all, that something strange had happened and now some precious life slipped through their unseen fingers into an in-between that wasn't meant to be. The young Guide didn't understand it, couldn't yet comprehend it, and the reminder of what should have been the truth about the woman—the destructive force, the unwanted thing, the incorporeal hunger, the murderous monster—who had given him life was more than merely uncomfortable—

Dru. I am sorry.

—it hurt: a fiery ache that burned brightly in the darkest of places, buried beneath so much volcanic ash and rhakor. The light to his path, this flame, and no one had ever seen it. He did not have the experience or the maturity to have proper control of his consciousness, of his truest self made so bare in this Clairvoyant conversation, stretched thin, streaking across the Anaxi landscape like the trail of a falling star. All that he felt in the moment of silence was so—

bright

—so very, very bright—in the darkness for the briefest of moments at Tom's apology.

You must realize now.

The response was quiet and small, flames snuffed out like he pinched the wick of a candle with bare fingers, quickly hidden. Tucked back away with the lingering scent of embarrassment and shame filling his nostrils like smoke, chagrined at revealing himself so easily.

Poor sorcery. Or just a desperate need to cling to common ground. Both. Probably a mix of both.

Ezre felt warmth creep between his fingers, squeezed into a fist around that seer stone so tightly that the muscles of his hand already ached, shoved beneath his nose while he struggled to keep his breathing even despite the crushing pressure that felt like a vice holding his sinuses captive while the mona sought to remind him of his weakness. His eyes were closed and he didn't know if he really was crying salty wet tears or if red droplets trailed down delicate cheeks instead, grasping feebly at a connection that had now certainly grown weaker, the Hoxian's magical endurance beyond spent in upkeep.

"Three-Twelve Willow Avenue." He said it out loud, whispering the words as he thought them, tasting bile before he chuckled at the raen's chiding, gasping for a lungful of air as if somehow it made a difference in a spell that was clearly overdue for ending. He repeated the words a few times, lips moving, voice breaking, unable to quell the nausea or the monic warning that rang in his ears, "I can remember that, zjai—

"Tea or chan—" He gurgled, pressing his lips together in an attempt to cling to the last thread of their connection, aware of how tenuous it'd become. The airship, distant from his attention, lurched in the clouds and he felt it ripple through his very consciousness as much as through his stomach,

I can only do my best—even if it does not feel like enough—caring for the living is harder than I imagined when one feels so much—I will get in less dangerous touch with you when in Vienda—I should not have—revealed ourselves—put you at risk—been so frivolous—attempted to show off under the excuse of privacy.

You take care, also, Tom.

Thank you.

It was abrupt, the amandation of their conversation, Ezre's tattooed, bloodied fingers uncurling and dropping the stone, spilling red onto the stuffy green Brunnhold uniform he still wore. The sensation of monic displeasure bordered on the agonizing, churning and burning up his esophagus and dribbling from his sinuses. He felt like he was melting from his face, though the more pressing matter as the airship bobbed again in normal, expected turbulence was the pressing matter of his now thoroughly rebelling body, trapped as he was beneath Lilanee, the ache of over-reaching hardly the worst of his concerns as he struggled through the disorientation of returning from very distant, very involved, very internal conversation to reorient himself in a cabin, in a world, that suddenly felt smaller.

"Willow Ave—vre'ialiterally a diminutive ('ia) use of the word heart (vre), used here as a term of affection and endearment—excuse me—"