Chapter 159: Not what I was expecting

The dwarven primer stayed open on his desk for six days, and he kept his spear handy throughout, even though his paranoia about Mycari in the shadows never manifested real danger. He'd made sure to dispose of the bodies of his ambushers through a portal after collecting their meager valuables.

Cal worked through the language guide easily, and by the third day the phonetic key had folded itself into place through [Savant of the Mind]. He was reading the most complex examples aloud without needing to sound out the consonant clusters. On the fourth day, he imprinted Rek'grum dun Kar'angor into memory and let his mind chew on it while he did other work.

The rest of the time he mostly spent trying to break [Portal] apart.

The Spell was a black box. One hundred and seven runes woven together with a logic so dense he couldn't find a seam. He tried isolating the handful of runes that he felt activated for the scry-preview, but building them on their own accomplished nothing. They hung inert in the air of his room, an engine without a key. After three nights of coaxing them with Mana and getting only fizzles in return, he conceded. Reverse-engineering it was impossible without the underlying theory he didn't have. He'd have to build his own scrying tool from the ground up, testing each rune individually like he had with Aurelian's runic appendix. A project for another time.

He gave up on efficiency and resigned himself to continuing using the full Spell to spy on his friends.

Every morning, roughly an hour past dawn, he spent the Mana to open a scry-preview over the grove outside Deadfall, held it for a few minutes, and watched Leo push Mira's chair down the path they had once walked during the Remembrance Ceremony. Mira often tipped her face up toward the canopy. Leo had broadened through the shoulders by a hair since Cal had last seen them in person, and his hair still fell in his eyes.

Cal closed the scry and made the decision he'd put off for a week. His friends deserved the truth, and he wasn't going to protect another secret to prolong Mira's disability. He was just grateful they both seemed to be doing well. And speaking of friends… it turns out he'd made another.

The dwarven compendium he'd purchased from the syl'thik set khen'gorn—the phrase Mahina had called him—on a page about older forms of the northern dwarven dialect.

"Kin of stone. A dwarf's friend. Only given, never claimed. To be called khen'gorn by one who has the standing to name you is to be counted among the hearth."

He'd sat with the book open a long time when he first read that. Then he reached into the silver ring and drew out the letter she'd pressed into his palm at journey's end. The grey wax cracked evenly and revealed two folded pages of high-quality paper covered in a running dwarven script. He didn't recognize the woman in the words at all.

Uncle, it opened, and then poured out across the page in affectionate sentences that stretched into paragraphs. She wrote about the road east and the long weeks in the Virethane and the price of oats in Deadfall. She wrote about the ambush and named the two garrons who had hurt themselves in fear, along with the herbal poultices she'd used to heal them, body and mind. About the young half-elf who intervened and saved her and her precious charges. How the wagon had collapsed and that same man had raised a pillar of earth beneath the frame and held it there through the entire repair without asking for thanks or wage. She owed him her life and the lives of her animals, and she did not owe lightly.

"He is khen'gorn, by my naming, and the naming is warranted. Take him at my word. He is clean in the eye, sure in the hand, and steady on the earth. Should your work require another back and a straight tongue, he is one I would send to you without hedging. My debt to him is written into this letter."

He'd turned the paper toward the runelamp.

The ink caught the light and threw back the faintest wash of rust, so faint he would have missed it a week ago. A blood-debt. The compendium had an entire chapter on it. Ink mixed with a portion of the debtor's own blood, verifiable by any dwarf who received it. A debt that couldn't be repaid in coin. She had made his introduction impossible to forge and just as impossible to dismiss.

He pulled the small dark-metal disc of a crossed pickaxe and garron she had given him into his other palm. At the caravan gate, he had not known what to look for, but the compendium named the mark plainly. It represented mining expeditionary crews that worked the deep earth for the ores and gems that only came out of the depths.

Cal had folded the letter along its original creases and set it back into the silver ring beside the token. He didn't know what he would do with either.

On the morning of the day of the appointment with the Healer's Guild, Cal finally managed to pry Corinne away from her family.

"The southern branch?" Corinne fell in beside him at the Hearthsong's gate, her braid still damp from washing. Her eyes lit up. "Are we actually going somewhere? Somewhere that doesn't involve my great-aunt's prized porcelain collection?"

"I'd like to see their contract board," Cal said, "and figured you could use some air."

"Air that isn't full of potpourri and passive aggression? Yes, please!" She practically bounced. "Lead the way. I'm about to go feral."

They began heading south. Corinne had spent nine days trapped inside her grandmother's version of family obligation and was, by her own account, close to biting a merchant's ear off for sport. She talked at Cal in a nonstop rush, with over a week's backlog spilling out at once: the aunts, the seating charts, the dinners and luncheons, the boy her cousin had tried to introduce her to and the polite disaster that had followed. Cal walked and listened and steered them along a route that would, coincidentally, cross within two blocks of the Healer's Guild.

Half an hour in, they passed a side street where a stout dwarf with greying hair in a smith's apron was taking a break, leaning against a brick wall. Cal eyed him, lingering a moment too long.

The dwarf noticed the attention and his expression soured into one of contempt. He stroked his braided beard and muttered under his breath in the gruff dialect of the northern holds.

"Bah. Another beardless whelp playing at warrior."

A grin touched Cal's lips. He slowed his steps just enough to reply in the tongue, his tone light.

"You're right, old man! I wouldn't want you to get ahold of it and pull me down to your level!"

The dwarf's eyes widened. He tugged at his beard reflexively, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to form a retort. Finding none, he settled for a rumbling grunt and turned his attention to the street, suddenly fascinated by a passing cart.

Cal touched Corinne's elbow, steering her past the exchange. She waited a full block before speaking.

"So, you're just doing dwarven now."

"Yuuup."

"In less than two weeks."

"Closer to nine days, really."

"Uh-huh." She rolled her eyes at the sky. "I hate you a little. You know that?"

"Yuuup."

He let a silly smile slip onto his face with an accompanying memory. A couple nights ago he'd gone to a tavern three streets off the Merchant Ring, with a low ceiling, a fire that smoked, and a corner table with four dwarves who hadn't asked him to sit down but hadn't asked him to leave when he did, either. He'd bought the first round on the back of a butchered dwarven greeting, and the second round on the promise of a slightly less butchered farewell. By the fourth round, the eldest of them, a woman with white-grey braids and a nose that had been broken more than once, leaned across the table overly careful and solemn with drink and told him he was pronouncing the gh as a weak growl from the back of his throat, and demonstrated the proper technique with a full-throated hack that shook her chair. The others had joined in. By the sixth round, they were competing to teach him the filthiest idioms they knew, and by the eighth, two of them couldn't pronounce their own names and were arguing about whose fault that was. Cal considered it money well spent and walked back to the Hearthsong at true night with a headache and a vocabulary that no primer would ever have given him, not to mention a much better understanding of the spoken tongue.

"You're smiling."

"Hm. So I am."

"That's your 'I got away with something' smile."

"Corinne… have you ever seen just how drunk you can get a dwarf?"

"My parents run a premier inn at a village where drinking is one of the preferred pastimes. What do you think?"

"Fair point. But trust me when I say it's a lot more fun when you're in the driver's seat."

"That is exactly the phrase people use when they shouldn't be trusted."

Cal could only flash his teeth in reply.

The inn he pulled her into was a decent middle-tier place with a stone front and a fancy sign that read The Larkspur. He walked past the man at the front desk with a nod and headed up the stairs.

Corinne trailed him a couple feet behind.

"Cal? I thought we were going to the Adventurer's Guild Hall?"

"Change of plans. Come on, we're on the second floor."

"Uh… Cal?"

"Almost there."

At the door of the suite, she stopped and he looked over his shoulder. She was standing five feet back with one hand on the banister and a complicated look on her face.

"Look," she said. "I love you; you know that. You are my best friend. But I—"

He got the key in the lock. "Corinne—"

"—don't want you to get the wrong idea, because I feel like maybe this is about to be a wrong idea, and I'd rather we just, you know, talk about it now instead of—"

"Corinne."

"—because I don't want that, Cal, and I don't think you want that either, and I'm just—I'm gonna stand right here, actually—"

The lock opened and Cal turned back to his friend, looked at her and saw what she saw—him, the key, the door, the suite—and his stomach about fell out of his rear end.

Holy-crumbing-mackerel!

"Corinne, no! No! Oh my, no, this is not, I swear, this isn't what you think!"

"Well, what am I supposed to think?"

"I know, I'm sorry, I should have explained—"

"You just dragged me in here and headed for the stairs!"

"I know how it looks; I am so sorry—"

"—and you did that little nod—"

"What nod?"

"At the man at the desk! You gave him a look!"

"I paid the man yesterday for the room! It was a 'hello again' nod, not a 'I'm about to score' nod!"

Cal put a palm over his face. Corinne was laughing now, in that awful, embarrassed way where she was still going to be furious in twenty seconds if he didn't fix it.

"Just… just come in. Please. Give me two minutes. I promise this is not… that."

"You want me to trust you after you just admitted to getting dwarves drunk for fun?"

"Oh come on, that was for science and is totally acceptable."

"What is… science?"

"Never mind that, just come inside and you'll understand shortly."

She did, but she stayed close to the door. He walked to the center of the sitting room, past a table and a set of shuttered glass doors on the side wall that opened onto a narrow balcony. He faced the far wall and drew Mana up out of his core and cast [Portal]. The Spell opened to hang in the air of the room.

It was seven feet tall and four wide, edges shining in chromatic aberrations, and through it the grove lay open with its wet moss and spruce trunks and the grey-green light of the Virethane. As if a doorway had always been there.

Corinne had gone very still.

"Oh." And then, quieter: "Oh."

Cal held the Spell steady and let her take it in, while he fished out a Mana potion and downed it.

"That… is not what I was expecting."

"I tried to tell you. Pervert."

In spite of the wonder standing before her, she stopped to give him a look that said he'd pay for that later. Cal grinned and stepped through the portal.

"Careful not to touch the sides or you might lose a finger."

She could only follow, hesitantly, eyes getting rounder the closer she got. Gradually she raised her left leg from the Mirathrian side and slowly inched it through the aperture, eventually setting it down into the moss near Deadfall. Once she had solid footing, she darted through as if afraid to get stuck on the other end, and he had to grab her for balance before she risked falling in the slick moss.

Leo was thirty feet up the path with both hands on the wheelchair grips. He had gone completely rigid. Mira, in the chair, had turned her head slowly and cocked it to one side like a bird.

"Cal?" Leo managed to croak out. "What—how—how are you—"

Mira remained silent and smiled, waving tentatively.

Cal held the portal open behind him with a portion of his attention and walked toward his friends with the rest. Corinne, ever quick to recover, was already two steps ahead of him.

"Yes," she said to Leo, as if answering a question. "Yes, he can do that now. Isn't it awful? I found out approximately ninety seconds ago and my life is worse and better in equal parts."

"Corinne, what—"

"Ninety seconds, Leo. He was leading me up the stairs of an unknown inn and letting me think he had ungentlemanly intentions."

"Corinne."

"Which is a story for another time."

Mira watched Cal come as he knelt on the loam in front of her chair.

"Hey there," he said softly.

"Hey," Mira replied.

He put his hand on the arm of the chair he'd made for her, and Mira put her hand over his.

"Ready to get out of this thing?"

Her eyes immediately began to well up with unshed tears and she could only nod. Cal squeezed the back of her hand that was resting on his and then stood up and stepped back, looking around at his friends. It was time to give them the rundown.

"Before we proceed, you need to know that thing is a portal, and portal magic is regulated. Dominion-controlled. The guilds and the noble houses that hold the secrets of their use are sworn to confidentiality and pay tithes every year to keep the privilege."

"How would they even keep track of that?" Leo asked.

"I'm not really sure, maybe detection magic? Slave-brands and oaths? Unexplained appearances across distance and time that can't be corroborated? I'm sure there are illegal owners of the requisite Spell like me, but it's really in my best interest to not get found out. The good outcome is indenture to someone powerful enough to force me into service. The bad outcome is a quiet grave in a place nobody can find."

Cal shook his head ruefully.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, I have the Spell because I stole it. During the delve Selara and Aurelian took me on, I watched Lady Halmi casting it and I—" he tapped his temple "—kept it. They don't know I have it. Nobody does, until now. If the wrong person finds out, all three of you could become leverage against me."

Leo was looking at his hands a long time.

"You promised," he said finally. "You promised no more secrets."

"I know, buddy."

"And you've been carrying this one how long?"

"Since the delve. A bit over two months."

Leo worked his jaw. "How long have you been watching us? You have been watching us, right? How else would you know to open that thing here and now?"

"Yeah, you're right. It's been for the last week around this time. The ability to see the endpoint is baked into the portal Spell as a safety measure. I checked in every morning to make sure I'd have the timing down."

Mira, without moving her head, did something small with one corner of her mouth and asked, "You saw Leo trip on the root by the big spruce yesterday?"

"Yup."

The young baker made a strangled sound that was trying to be a laugh and a protest all at once. Corinne was watching all three of them with an expression Cal thought looked pleased, and maybe a bit content.

"Leo, I'm telling you now before it becomes a broken promise, and because it's necessary to get Mira help faster. But don't be misled. This knowledge can also put you in danger if someone were to find out."

Leo dragged a hand down his face and blew out a breath.

"Okay. Okay, yeah. Okay."

Mira was still watching Cal. "You're handing us something that could get you killed or enslaved too," she said quietly.

"Yup. I trust you guys."

She nodded slowly. Then she clasped her hands in her lap and looked up at him.

"Thank you for telling us. We will keep your secret safe."

"Yes!" Corinne chimed in. "This is so epic! I wonder what we can do and where we can—"

"What," Leo interjected, "is the plan, Cal? I assume there's a reason for all this?"

Cal reached into his void ring and the wooden token appeared in his palm. He held it a moment, and then he leaned forward and pressed it into Mira's palm, closing her fingers over it.

"You have an appointment with a 'Master Healer Innes,'" he began. "Of the Mirathrian Healer's Guild, who is supposedly capable of treating spinal injuries. The appointment is this morning, as a matter of fact."

Mira looked down at her closed hand and opened it, gazing at the token. She closed her hand again.

"Cal… is this certain?"

"As long as we arrive on time. She doesn't wait for late patients, and we'll lose our spot."

"You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be. This healer was assigned after a referral from the commander of the entire Mirathrian garrison herself. I don't think they'd give us a bad one."

Mira stared down at her fist holding the token, the tendons on the back of it standing out white. Leo placed his hand reassuringly on her shoulder.

"Okay," Mira said in a small voice. "Okay. Thank you."

She looked back up at Cal.

"Thank you. Can—can we get going?"

After that, Cal got the rules laid out fast.

Nothing about [Portal] would ever be spoken in Deadfall. Nothing. Not to Cassia. Not to Gareth. Not to Jakob. Not to Vonda, especially not to Vonda, and yes, that problem was Leo and Mira's, and no, they were not solving it in the grove. After the healing, Mira would use the wheelchair in public and around her family at home, walking only where no one could see her: inside the bakery renovations at the Golden Mortar, on the isolated stretches of the trails, and never in the village. The cover story would be that the healer had insisted on secrecy and arrived unseen, worked in a closed room, left immediately, and would not give a name. That solved why nobody in Deadfall would see them come or go and kept Cal's secret by waiting until he'd plausibly returned on foot from Mirathra with a healer before Mira started walking about.

"So." Corinne looked at the glimmering seam still hanging in the air twenty feet off, and past it into the sitting room of the rented suite in Mirathra. "You did this because you wanted to share the secret with all of us around the same time?"

"Uh huh."

She nodded. "Okay, I forgive you… roughly forty percent."

"Only forty? I feel like I deserve a bit more credit."

"Well, there's still the thing you said in the suite."

"You act like it's my fault your head was in the—"

"Don't. Push it."

Leo had both hands on the chair grips again, confused by their antics but clearly comfortable with it. Mira held the wooden token in her lap with both hands cupped around it, and she was looking at the portal now, at the strange still image of a room she had never seen framed inside a doorway that shouldn't exist.

"Cal," she said.

"Yes?"

"I'm ready when you are."

He offered a hand to Corinne, who rolled her eyes but took it all the same, squeezing it once before following him forward and through the portal. Leo had Mira and the wheelchair right behind them.

It was time to make Mira whole.

:D

I hope you had as much fun reading this little bit of shenanigans as I had coming up with it. Have a great rest of the week!

Jon