Captain Mallock and Bandrell marched in the lead, just behind the Vagrant guide. Their military bearing set a standard that rapidly deteriorated in the men behind them. Vhaasa strode along near the head of the column with Oodo to his side. Russk, Borden, and Mogrus Un’Akuhl trailed off after that, with Ghetti leading the drays at the tail end.
Vhaasa’s thoughts wandered as the day’s march stretched on. The memory of Nith’s strange chant from the night before occasionally drifted back to him, startling him out of his trance, as if a wandering mind had become a fatal liability. This venture had become an enclosed world. Uhl’iir with its streets and temples and estates fat with silver, ripe for the taking, had become part of another man’s life. Vhaasa scanned the Nephraath Barrens all around him, searching for a point of reference in all the gravel and glass. The open waste had become the only real place; memories of any other landscape had become artificial and gaudy. As he began to reconsider his reasons for coming along on this mad journey into nowhere, Mogrus’ voice cut in as if emerging directly from his thoughts.
“What kind of rook signs on with a pack of madmen headed into the wasteland?”
“The kind needs silver, I’d think,” Vhaasa answered after a moment, fearing he’d sounded like a child.
“Can’t stack silver in the city-state like an honest thief, then?”
“Not enough... Honest?”
“Thieving’s as respectable a profession as any in Uhl’iir. Better than a fair sampling of them, I’d auger.”
“…Aye. Truth, I suppose. Wasn’t a bookie or a slaver or none o’that,” Vhaasa said, trying to keep his eyes ahead on the Wayfinder leading the cohort.
“You’re twitchy, rook. How old?”
“Why would ye–“
Mogrus jabbed him in the rib with two fingers, chuckled low in his throat, “Bad reflexes when you’re twitchy. Not goin’ to help us any like that. You weren’t so twitchy in the Wayfinder’s circle last night. Strange, since that was a sight more troubling than this day-in-day-out slog we’ve had goin’ for o’er a month now.”
Vhaasa rubbed his side, closed his gaping jaw, and met Mogrus’ strange eyes.
“Seventeen. I’m seventeen. And I’m not twitchy,” he paused, squinted at the maven, “Alright, I’m twitchy. Truth. So I’m a bit sleep-drawn or hinged from that weird storm last night. Doesn’t seem all that strange I’d be a bit shaky after all that and no good sleep, does it?”
“Unhinged.”
“What?”
“Unhinged, not just hinged.”
Vhaasa stared at him, exasperated, then spat out, “Are you tilted?”
“It’s common knowledge, Vhaasa, that all mavens are tilted. Mhy’raan, Tieran Fayle, Highfall, all the great schools and preceptories of the Vast Land have one mission and one mission only. They crank out lunatics,” Mogrus kept his voice level, his gaze flat. His lip curled into a smirk.
“So which one cranked you out?”
“Preceptory of Mhy’raan. Half-cranked. I dropped out.”
“You dropped out? So, what does that mean? Are you a maven or what?”
“Doesn’t mean a thing, rooklet. What’s in a school that’s not in a satchel of books and three decades of practice?”
“I… I don’t know, Mogrus. I wasn’t ever in a school.”
“Nonsense. You went to a fine school. A preceptory of rookishness. Uhl’iir’s premier academy, in fact,” Mogrus smiled with a strange familiarity.
“I just grew up in the rookery. Lookout bits and odd jobs and diversions and the like.”
“Truth, I imagine. Saw your tattoo.”
Mogrus flicked his eyes to Vhaasa’s left wrist and the youth looked down, irritated, and tugged the sleeve of his hide shirt down over the blurry lettering. He’d been tattooed as an infant, the letters of his name traced on the inside of his wrist. The script was distended by his growing body, hardly legible now. Mogrus spoke,
“Some of the nobility do that. Tattoo the shiften brats they dump at guild-houses and the like. Mostly bastards, is the official story, of course. Who knows? My theory is they can’t stand to have somebody else name them. Want the blood recognized, even if they won’t stand up and claim it as kin.”
Vhaasa watched his feet for a few paces, “Yea, I heard some of that. Mhiist – he was my tutor – says I oughta not trust much of what people say when it comes to rumors about nobility. Anyway, it shouldn’t matter any to you, I wouldn’t think.”
“Mhiist has a wise name. A few wise words. Not enough for me to be sure, but it seems he hasn’t steered you horrifically. Your diction needs work. A larger concern in life than most credit.”
“You a… grammarian, then?”
“Novice. Excellent word, by the way. The execution could do with improvement. Oh well. Why do you need silver?”
“Why does anyone? Is there some special reason you’re trying to talk with me?”
“Your eyes, mostly. I’m curious. Less curious than I used to be, but let’s speak truth, Vhaasa, there’s really very little of interest going on out here and I’m employing your services as a provider of diversions.”
“You like my eyes?”
“Like is a bit of a simplification. I don’t care for their aesthetic one way or another, but they’re the eyes of a shiften, and every once in a while shiften are interesting.”
“Oh.”
“Silver?”
“What?”
“You’re not actually going to make me repeat the question again, are you?” Mogrus asked, lifting a brow.
“Oh… no. I guess not. Well, there’s a man in Uhl’iir who’s supposed to be good at finding people. As in, he’s one of the best at that, finding people. And he’s expensive to hire. A barkeep told me its several hundred silver, depending on how hard it is or how long it takes or some such things. It’d take me forever to save that up, and I probably wouldn’t. Save it, that is. I got problems spending silver quick-like.”
“Most of us do, rooklet,” Mogrus observed, “You leave me the task of answering your poorly phrased and implicit riddle. I’ll augur that you intend to hire this man to find out who dropped off a baby with V-h-a-a-s-a tattooed on his wrist at the rookery in Uhl’iir.”
“Is augury a talent of yours?”
“Oh, sure it is. Why not? The list goes on…”
“Well, you’re right anyway. Does that make me seem stupid to you.”
“Oh no, Vhaasa. It makes you seem curious…”
A tension strung up between companionable silence and irritated confusion hung between the two venturers as the cohort made its way south. Out on the vague eastern horizon to their left, Mogrus sighted a flicker of movement, the faintest silhouettes of approaching figures. Vhaasa saw the maven’s strange eyes fix on the distance, watched his weathered face tighten in concentration, alarm.
Oodo, off to their side, bellowed, “Wights! East, east!”
* * * * *