1 Ash 121
-there were-
Hozxi grunts. That wasn't right. She runs a line through the words.
-there had been a multitu-
"No, no..."
The scrawling noise of her pen breaks the otherwise all-encompassing silence in the room. Even the waterfront itself had calmed down at this time of night. The ship crews had drank their fill, and had either passed out in an alley somewhere soaked in their own piss or had retired to one of the establishments further up the hill towards the city. Without a breeze to disrupt their flames the candles set out above Hozxi and her writing utensils glowed brightly in the evening dusk.
Hozxi concentrates. Her eyes glisten and the Cardinal Rune pushes all away except for the dusty scrolls and the echoes of the past left behind.
-been a host of new researchers(?) on the most recent airship. I believe they will do great work(s) at the facility(?), but I have my doubts that Alpgiray can conduct them well. Here are the expected matrices:
The scroll went on to list an array of numbers and symbols with which Hozxi was unfamiliar with. She copied them as best as she could. The seer had seen many of these so far on the scrolls Petra had entrusted to her, and as such most of the figures were at least familiar. Whatever they meant still eluded her, but one thing was true: the numbers were growing larger, the formulae more complex. The scholars lost to time had been making progress.
Progress doing what? she asked herself, leaning back. The author of the scroll, whose name she had learned was Duran, led his revolving door of scholars and engineers with a slave driver's mentality. This led to much of the correspondence in the scrolls being about securing new blood from his superiors on the mainland. Only his first assistant, Alpgiray, seemed to feature in his writings, and always in a negative light.
It was more than an assumption. Hozxi could feel the residual aether left behind in the scrolls, the basic enchantment that had allowed them to last for so long and not succumb to the ravages of time. She felt like she had come to know Duran. His struggles. His longing for his wife down in the Clocktower Empire's capital. His worries that a darkness, an end to their hegemony, was coming.
She couldn't blame him. He'd been right, after all. The Empire was now just a footnote in history.
A seemingly endless trail of scientists taken to an island in the frozen expanse north of Kalzasi. A constant stream of letters complaining that there wasn't enough time. Petra had been right to see these as clues that something valuable had been at the unnamed laboratory.
What happened to it all?
Was there anything left?
Dipping the pen for more ink, she reaches the end of the formulae and finds a postscript.
I wish eternally for the Empire to prosper. There is one final concern: the lighthouse. A lighthouse? We are in need of a new sun(?) to burn(?) inside of it. The last one grew too restless(?), and it left/went into the undercroft. Repairs(?) are being taken. If the Emperor would see fit to come see our progress he would surely grant us a new sun(?).
The context being lost, most of the postscript made little sense, but she could **feel** Duran's emphasis. The handwriting was deeper, the strokes made harder into the paper. This was what the whole letter was about. Classic Duran, to leave his true wish to the postscript of a functionary letter instead of putting it at the front. He was known to bury the lede.
A darkness comes. Not catastrophic; one of the candles had finally run its course. Maybe with the money Petra was paying her, Hozxi could afford a nice, steady gas lamp and pay the landlord to start service on her home gas lines, but for now candles would have to do. Even seeing perfectly at night would not help the work of reading and transliterating, which was much more finicky.
As she strikes a match to light a new candle, she hears some drunken reveling outside the window. Most likely a few of the dockhands blowing off steam. She remembers a time when she felt the same as she does now.
One did not become a Seer merely by accepting the Cardinal Rune and passing the initiation. Hozxi had spent long days in the tent of the seers learning how to read the wind, how to see the emotions of others, how to know the beasts' intent by the subtleties of their aether. The little girl was no longer allowed to go out and play with the ball in the courtyard, or knit with the other women, or hunt for food.
She had spent many nights staring out of the tents wondering if it was worth it, to have accepted the Rune and abandoned everything else. It was resentment at that forced choice that made her sour to the memory of her home. Here in Kalzasi one could be a mage and do whatever they wanted: run a store, play ball in the courtyard. She had seen such a broad array of mages and their talents. Why had the Tribe held itself back so?
She buries herself in the next manuscript. Answers were there. They had to be, she thinks to herself, as the Cardinal Rune opens her eyes and the past comes flooding back. One hand dips her pen in ink and the other folds the corner of the scroll so that her fingers feel the texture of the paper. Sight was important for this work, but as the seers had taught her, it was not the only sense.
Her finger runs over the lines on the scroll. As it glides, it feels where indentation had been made, where some ancient writing implement had made its mark, and where her Semblance needed to hone her aether to draw out what remained hidden. Lost. Alone, until strokes were reunited into characters, characters into words, words into phrases, phrases into meaning.
14 Glade (unintelligible)
Some time had passed since the last writing. Doran was not consistent in when he made missives. Two months; plenty of time for more information to be expected by his superiors.
A missive of the Empire(?) to the commandant(?)
The flowers bloom. Alpgiray has concluded that snapdragons prosper here in the greenhouse(?) Our food stores are limited, but they (gender unclear) insist on cultivating flowers given out resources despite my appeals to the commandant(?), The new crop(?) are spent. We require more researchers(?) for the experiment(?) to continue.
Hozxi can smell the blossoms. The memory of the fragrance carries in Duran's script. It's a welcome change to the smell of fish and lake stink, and it draws her further into the past, away from the present, over Duran's shoulder as he writes.
I long for the sun(?). It is dark here still at the pole. The lighthouse is devoid of sun(?). A great(?) devouring(?) has come. It will all be worth it, I am sure, for the praetor. Here are the expected matrices:
Hozxi skips the mathematical section.
I wish eternally for the Empire to prosper. There is one final concern: I have seen the shark(?)-
Hozxi furrows her brow. That wasn't right. There had never before been a mention of a shark, but the context of the word was clear to her: something in the water. A weather event made animistic? It wasn't Duran's style to talk in metaphor, but still, the word was undeniable. She settles on a more euphemistic translation:
-have seen the Leviathan(?). Were it not for the praetor's reassurance I would have burnt(?) a sun(?) in the confusion. Please assure the machine(?) that gears are set in motion. Should it come to pass I will drown(?) the Leviathan(?) in sun(?) before it takes our researchers(?),
This was new. What Hozxi would have given for Duran to have made even the crudest drawing in the margin of his letter to show her what he meant. Instead, the missive ends abruptly, as they tended to, and Duran's signature is the last element she can recover.
Hozxi yawns. It was late, and she could not afford to burn more candles on her string budget. The more exciting news would need to wait for her to have taken a rest and an excursion for breakfast come morning.
Perhaps she would take what she has now to her employer and ask for a more nuanced take. And yet... the selfish desire to prove that she had her own resources, and was not a burden, stayed her mind from considering the affair further. Petra would be impressed by her work. She had to be. It was a matter of pride.
It was a matter of being right.
Hozxi blows out the last candle, and darkness takes the rest of her evening.