76 Searing 121
"Good day, Master Fletcher," she said as Kaus followed her into the disreputable, yet tidy shop.
"What's good about it?" he groused. The old man, however, was not tidy. But Kala paid that no mind.
"Well, I suppose it is a matter of perspective," she allowed.
"Master Fletcher," Kaus greeted with a nod. He wasn't smiling per normal, but he was amiable enough. The old man glowered all the same. But he tinkered about his shop, and while it seemed like he was ignoring them, he was gathering things she had asked for.
"Bowl," he said, iterating the obvious as he set an ivory bowl down on a table. He was much gentler in his handling than he was with his words. It was a simple thing, but fine, crafted out of ivory. Next, he set an ivory dagger next to it, its hilt wrapped with a latticework of silver wire. "Dagger. Newer, and it'll take an edge. I sharpened it to be sure."
"I appreciate your attention to detail, sir."
He harumphed at that. "You'll be wanting a chalice to make ghostwine," he opined.
"Perhaps," she agreed. "But not yet. I am on a budget."
He stared at her incredulously.
"My mother is wealthy, sir. My own finances are far more limited. Perhaps, if my experiments go as planned, I will also have the funds to afford that next season." She looked at the bowl and the dagger through her rune, saw nothing particularly vexing, magically speaking, and nodded. "May I?" He nodded and she picked one up, and then the other, turning them over in her hands and getting a fuller sense for them. They were magically virgin, and she knew she would be paying for that, but she didn't want her works tainted by anyone else's.
"Well," he said, chewing on the inside of his cheek, "I could keep an eye out for an ivory chalice since you prefer that to human bone." His grin was ghastly, but she didn't let it faze her.
"I would appreciate that, sir. You can always reach me at the Cintamani Pavilion." She set a calling card down next to the instruments.
He picked it up and squinted at it, then tucked it away in a pocket. "These won't work, you know. Not without the proper pictographs."
"Yes, I have been researching those. I'm an adequate scrivener and I have a family grimoire to learn from. I just wanted to make my own tools, you see. I was taught that a mage ought to have as much a hand in crafting her own tools as possible. And while I can't manipulate bone—yet—I can at least ensure the pictographs are my own work."
Fletcher scowled as if he was looking for something to criticize, but was, against his better judgment, developing a modicum of respect for her. But only that modicum.
"That'll be one hundred sixty-eight gold pieces," he said.
She nodded and began to reach into the bag she carried slung from her shoulder.
"Gold, not promissory notes from the Bank!" He scoffed as if the Bank of Kalzasi was some silly idea.
"Of course," she said, pulling out a sack of gold and setting it down on the table.
"You carried a sack of gold through the Low-City?" he asked.
"We may be short," Kaus said with a sly grin, "but we aren't incapable of defending ourselves."
The old man scowled and scooped up the sack of gold. He clutched it tight, though made no move to put it anywhere, perhaps leery of them knowing where he kept his hoard.
"A lot of effort to have a chat with dear old daddy," he spat.
The twins looked stricken for a moment.
"We wouldn't want to disturb his rest," Kala said.
"I'll get you that chalice, some odds and bobs to play sorceress with, and return your gold for that bauble around your wrist."
She looked down at the relic of the Ara, then up and shook her head.
"I'm sorry, sir, but She gave it to us. We will not pass it along until it is time."
"Eh, begone, then." He shooed them, so Kala took up her purchases and put them carefully in her bag, a scarf rearranged to prevent them from scratching each other. The twins bowed; it was shallow, but it was more respect than any child of a Hatakomon had any need to show a commoner. They departed.
Cintamani Pavilion
Later
“Daughter for Daughter," Kaus intoned. "Son for Son. Through the Boundless Gate, waiting, three people become one.”
Kala looked up from her grimoire, glad that he was writing in a notebook instead of training where she would be able to see him through the window and wish she had her blades in hand as well. She enjoyed the poetry that came from his mind; it was a strange articulation of him, who she knew so fundamentally that there were no words for it. And it was no surprise that his poetic mind drifted toward the divine riddle.
"Do you think, perhaps..." He reached for something metaphysical. "Do you think perhaps that it means if you and I, daughter and son, walk through the Boundless Gate, we will become one with the Masked Queen...?"
She sighed. "I wish I knew. I feel as though the answer will be simple, but I still feel as though I must be looking in all the wrong places."
Even her dive into necromancy was a strange, oblique way of coming at the problem. She was looking at the history of her people, trying to track down the way to the winged women. Necromancy was a part of her people's history and so she was going to learn it firsthand; not for power, but for knowledge and, perhaps, wisdom.
"On a day when the wind is perfect,
the wings just need to open
and the love starts."
"Oh, I love that," she gushed, all sincerity. They beamed at each other. His eyes drifted back to his notebook while hers returned to the grimoire. She had borrowed a tool from the groundskeeper, who had a side passion for woodworking. It was a steel stylus with a ceramic grip. If it worked etching wood, she thought she could get it hot enough to etch bone properly.
She licked the tip of her index finger and then held it near the tip of the stylus, channeling Fire into the steel until the saliva evaporated and she had to use some elemental power to shield her flesh from the heat. When the steel began to glow, she stopped, smiling at it, and then began her work. The grimoire laid out several different schema for the pictographs, and she knew enough of scrivening to modify it more to her liking. She started with a seven-pointed star for House Leukos. These tools would be for her to use, but if she was successful, her tools could be kept by the family for use by future generations of Leukos necromancers.
With careful strokes of her instrument, she etched pictographs to make it a focal point for aetheric power in general and the aetheric patterns of souls in particular. More pictographs primed the bowl for absorption and interacting with living and death energy. Because she could, she added paths and the like, using her knowledge of scrivening to make the pictographs more efficacious. It was always best not to waste energy, but even more so, she thought, when that energy was the stuff of souls.
After she had things as perfect as she was likely to get them, she considered for a moment and then reheated the tip of the stylus so her last four pictographs would have clear lines. Outside the working sigil, she carved a pictograph for Raella—Life. On the opposite edge—because geometry was powerful when it came to scrivening, and sacred geometry no less powerful when calling upon the Gods to witness one's works—she carved a pictograph for Wraeden—Death.
Turning the bowl ninety degrees, she carved a pictograph for Lyren—Undeath. But the Mistlord also represented Knowledge. As such, she turned the bowl one hundred eighty degrees to the opposite side and balanced him with a pictograph for Keela—Wisdom. Life and Death ought to be balanced, as well as Knowledge and Wisdom. Perhaps then her forays into this problematic field might do more good than harm, as was always her wish.
"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and bless them," she murmured. Then she sucked the excess heat out of the stylus, letting it disperse into the air.
Blinking several times after all that close work, she looked at Kaus. "I think I ought to save the dagger for another day. It isn't something I will need to use until I am much further along, if I ever get there. Ironic that the advanced tool would be less expensive than the basic tool."
He grinned.
