NaNoWriMo Posty Post Post

New post! It's all kinds of fucked up because Microsoft Word Starter is intractable. Sorry.


“What do you mean, no transits to Port Nanfula?” Devon demanded. “I have family over there!”
“I’m very sorry, sir, but we have removed all our Nanfulan topaz,” the clerk, an annoying girl, repeated. “Even if I wanted to break the ban for you, I couldn’t. The topazes are all in lockup at our Guildhouse.”
Devon swore floridly, making the girl’s eyes go wide, and stalked out of the tower. He continued to swear as the fog surprised him yet again. What kindo f city just let fog sit there for weeks? Port Nanfula’s priests would have banished this mess as soon as it sprang up! He yanked strength out of the earth carelessly, and fired up his map lore, directing it to the Kosmima guildhouse.
The familiar golden circle sprang to life under his feet, and he felt his blessing searching, finding the quickest route. He opened his tie to the ground as wide as he could, flushing himself with strength. His skin darkened and took on a sheen of vitality. His hair gained silver highlights, and his eyes brightened to the same intense blue as a Kosmima-lit sapphire.
The map lore caught, and Devon was running, heedless of potential obstacles. Within a moment he was airborne, and not even the thick fog could slow him. He had to get back to Port Nanfula, and even if he had to steal the damned topaz, he would. Sarah’s life might depend on it. Their parents might have virtually abandoned them, but Devon would never leave his sister.
He hit the roof and continued running top speed. His body was optimized, his balance perfect,
and the map lore provided the sense of timing he needed to fly over the tops of houses. He left behind
a golden trail of light, like a comet blazing through the air, visible through to fog even to those with no
blessing.
He made another jump, just as blind as all the rest, but midway through the arc he hit a patch of
clear air. Passersby under him stopped and stared. He heard shouts, but he was focused on the patch
of gold on the street he was going to hit. Roof-to-street jumps were tricky; even though his body was
still strengthened, every moment he hung in the air some of that extra durability leached away. His map
lore always plotted his trajectory so that he didn’t injure himself, but he still had to land properly, his
using his calves and thighs to absorb as much of the reflected force of his landing as he could.
He hit, crouched, and exploded forward, saving momentum and turning it into velocity. He
started emitting pulses of Petra power through the road with every step, hopefully sending people
scattering away from what would sound like a rampaging elephant. If they had elephants in Zydobe.
He saw the golden guide line shoot up, and leapt again. He got a flash of image – a window left
open – and curled himself tightly, leaving his hands free to catch something.
He hit and lunged forward. His hands met stone, and he shaped it around them, giving him a
strong handhold. He swung out, then vaulted into the room, releasing the stone as he passed through
the opening. Inside, the fog was blessedly gone, and he could stop and rest. He wasn’t tired, not with
the strength of rock pounding through his sinews, but his heart was beating frantically and he was
pouring sweat. He could still draw up power from the stone floor, but it was diluted by passing through
narrow walls and pillars. He walked over beside the door, not wanting to draw attention to himself as
his body wound down a little. His map lore wanted him to go through the hallway, which was odd. He’d
never had to go through a building before. Unless he was in the guildhouse now?
He realized he could hear voices, and leaned against the wall, listening and hoping for a clue of
his location.
“How are they flying, Diane?” A man’s voice.
“It’s a mixed Coalescence!” A woman. “they found fire and frost spirits, powerful but cheap. He
didn’t tell me what the price was, but he implied they could easily amass a huge store of it.”
“But how does it work?” A new woman.
“The frost spirit manipulates the weight of the ship, making it lighter than air. The fire spirit lifts,
and the frost concentrates weight in the direction they want. It’s basically a falling ship, not a flying
one.” The first woman wounded giddy. With excitement, perhaps? Devon wasn’t sure.
“can we neutralize the spirits without killing anyone?” A new woman, her deep voice
authoritative. “That Storm-blasted detective has been hounding me all day, and Alexander is working
with her. He has every reason to want me in jail, so we have to be very careful.”
Devon heard a man mutter “That’s what you get, stealing someone’s boyfriend,” and snorted
Appreciatively, then paled. This was beginning to sound like a very dangerous group of people. He
Released his map lore, and crept toward the window.
He heard a sharp voice, the authoritative man-stealer, but couldn’t understand the words. He
heard footsteps in the hall, and pulled a massive blast of strength, leaping for the window, but
he hit a sparkling field of light and fell to the ground, darkness closing in on his vision. He saw a
blonde woman standing over him, her fingers wreathed in gemfire, before passing out.

More! More!

3k words of Devon. You're welcome.

Devon woke slowly. He’d gotten into the habit of talking himself into getting up every morning, and he had already started his daily litany of encouragement when he realized he wasn’ tin a hammock, there was no salt-laden breeze, and he had blankets and pillows. Most of all, he was alone. That realization was followed by a wave of sheer, profound relief, and Devon melted into his glorious mattress.

For several minutes, he relished the ability to just lie there, no one shouting, no sails creaking. He eventually decided that he really should get up, so he swung his legs out and stood up. He had stripped out fo the clothes Abram had given him, but looking at those and the clothes ehe’d bought with him gave him the shudders. He forced himself to slide into the stinky, stained outfit that belonged to him, and rolled the others into a small, unoffensive ball and stepped out of the room.

The inn was set up with all the rooms on the second floor, with a common room, bathing room, and landry on the first. Devon walked down the back staircase, which led directly to the bathing room. He gave the attendant there a copper coin, collect3d a towel, and went into one of the private rooms.

He stripped out of the clothes again and sank gratefully into the bath. It was the first time he’d gotten to clean himself in over two weeks, and he intended to take full advantage. The hot water here was supplied by mother of pearl strips laid around the rim of the ceramic tub, which was sunken into the ground. There were two small levers on the edge of the tub. One would open the drain at the bottom of the pool, and the other would open a spout in the side that would let more water in, to be heated by the mother-of-pearl that a gemsmith had inlaid.

For quite a while, Devon simply soaked, enjoying the feeling of being truly warm. While his body relaxed, he began to set his map lore. Since he wasn’t going to be in Zydobe long, he didn’t want to completely learn the town, but he needed to find a clothing shop, and a ship to take him back north.

He let his map loer go, and felt it stretch out. It would let him know when it had located the clothing stores, and it possibly might find a ship. Map lore was a tricky thing: buildings and vessels developed a sense of what they were after a time. The map lore could read that and find the best way for Devon to find it. A ship that had only been to Port Nanfula and Zydobe would light up to his blessing, but one that had been to several different ports might as well not exist.

Once he’d finished with that, he pulled the drain lever. When the tub had emptied, he pushed it back and opened the refill faucet. The water came out warm, and heated as it filled the tube. The strips around the tub glowed as they drew in heat from the air around them. Devon was impressed; such installations were costly and required a lot of skill, since they had to be active at the right times without a blessing directing them.

He started srubbing in earnest, using the soap and brush left by the tub for his use. He’d finished and was ducking his head to rinse his hair, finally rid of the awful buildup of grease, when his map lore lit up the air around him. He got out of the tub, dried off briskly, and suffered into the filty pants and shirt. The shoes, at least, were still in fairly good shape.

He left the inn, dropping the sailors’ clothes into the bin marked “Donate”, required by the priests of Panida, who was the patron godri of the poor, in every laundry facility.

He stepped into the street, very grateful for the bizarre fog that still cocooned the city for hiding hisappearance. He hated looking less than his best. The map lore lita path to a clothing store like a golden thread hanging in the air, one end plunged into his chest, the other connected to his destination. He followed the cord, careful to move slowly and to stick to the edge of the street. He didn’t want to have a collision.

Every once in awhile, as he walked, the fog would end and there would be a bubble of open, clean air. Usually, these followed people walking by, presumably using a Ventus blessing. Occasionally, though, he passed through large bubbles with no one at their center. His lore led him up the city, through the docks district and into the wealthier mercantile levels. The higher he climbed, the closer he stuck to the fog, not wanting to be mistaken for a homeless person in his appalling clothes.

One of the longer bubbles he encountered had a phalanx of terrifying mercenary types clustered near an alley. A blond woman who had Fytevo energy sparkling aroundher in pink and green bursts was interrogating a blond man, while her fellow fighters stared at anyone passing by. Devon could tell that all of them who had Terros blessings were formidable fighters, fully attuned to the eath and ready to rip someone limb from limb. He moved as quickly as he could to the other side of the clear space.

His golden cord wsa thickening, a sign that he was drawing closer to the goal. It juked up,a warning that steps were imminent. Devon slowed further, having learned his lesson from the first time he’d misjudged where the steps had begun and fallen on his face.

At the top of the step,s the cord stretched out and ended in a golden sunburst. He strode confidently toward the end of the line, and walked into a clear air bubble just in time to crash into someone.

They would have fallen, but he drew hard on the earth and gripped the man he’d crashed into, a handsome fellow with short black hair and sparkling hazel eyes. Once he was sure of his balance, he released the other man.

“Sorry. This fog makes getting around difficult,” Devon apologized. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” the man said, looking disdainfully at Devon’s disheveled appearance. “Take care.” And with that, he was gone, though the fog didn’t retreat from him. Devon shrugged and continued into the clothing store.

It was an upscale establishment, with a rainbow of colors and fabrics all around. Devon definitely stood out, and quickly attracted the attention of a clerk, who came over with a very forced simle. Devon forestalled her her sure-to-be-painful greeting with an upraised hand and a winning smile, though he didn’t exert any kind of Panida aura.

“I know, I look awful. I need your help to fix this mess,” he said, gesturing at himself and looking sheepish. The clerk’s smile became much more genuine, and she led him into the store.

As she handed him shirts and pants to try on, he asked her questions about Zydobe.

“So why isn’t this fog disappearing? Shouldn’t it have burned off by now?” he asked, standing behind a screen and trying on a pair of pants the clerk swore were all the rage right now. “Isn’t it summer?”

“Where were you last week?” the clerk asked, handing him an undershirt. “There was nearly a huge crash in the harbor! It took hundreds of people putting up Tranquilus shields to keep the ship from smashing the docks to pieces. They made a…” she paused to search for the right word. “…an imbalance in the weather. The fog’s been here for days,a nd the priests say it’ll last until a natural storm comes through and redresses the problem.”

Devon pulled on the dark pink shirt he’d chosen. “I don’t understand. How fast was the ship going? I don’t see how a sailing ship could be that dangerous.”

“You really weren’t here, were you? It was an airship, not a sailing ship. Second crash since they started their tests,” she said. “Does everything fit?”

Devon stepped out from behind the privacy screen. “Seems to. Though should these pants be so tight?”

“That’s the way they’re supposed to fit,” she assured him. “So where are you from? You can’t be from Zydobe, everyone knows about the airship crashes!”

“Port Nanfula,” Devon replied. “My ship got in last night.”

“Port Nanfula? Is it true the city’s under attack? Are there really mercenaries killing and raping any girls they find? I have a cousin that lives there and I haven’t heard from her in months!”

“Nothing like that was happening when I left,” Devon said. “I can’t imagine that anyone has attacked, though. Where did you hear that?”

“It’s all anyone is talking about!” she told him. “Ships aren’t sailing from there anymore, and the transit stations refuse to send you there. They even blocked transits from Port Nanfula!”

Devon’s jaw dropped.

“That’ll be two silver kings,” she continued. “Would you like hangers for the other clothes you bought?”

Devon paid, using about half the money he had left, and walked out of the store with several days worth of clothing, and a completely new set of worries. HE stepped into the fog and swore. He needed to sit for a moment, and he was going to have to use his map lore just to find a bench. Muttering imprecations, he did just that, and an aura of golden light sprang up to his left. He stomped over to the light, though he couldn’t see the bench even when he was a few feet away.

Once he’d gotten seated, he closed his eyes and got ready to send his map lore out searching again. He was extremely grateful that his was so strong, and he’d gotten so much practice with it lately; being in a strange city was disorienting enough. HE needed to find the Temple of Terros. His map lore flexed and shot out, finding the Temple instantly. He got up, made sure he had a good grasp on his baggage, and set off toward the Temple. The cord led him down levels, and he found himself moving west across the city as well. HE tried focusing on his Panida as he walked, hoping it would give him a clue as to when he was about to run into someone. He couldn’t tell if it was working, though he knew he was doing something.

Petra and Kosmima depended on power inherent in stone and rock. Fytevo worked by combining power from plants and his own personal energy, and PAnida was alla bout drawing power from himself. Usually, Devon felt like his blood as filled with slivers of scarlet light that he could slowly tease out. He did that now, sending tendrils and darts out into the fog as he walked. Once, he hit a body with one of the flickers, lighting it up with a faint scarlet aura and gettinga burst of emotional information – irritation, impatience, and a hint of fear. The person was headed in the opposite direction, and he quickly lost track of her, but he did take a moment to grin giddily at his success.

HE continued making his way through the desne fog. HE didn’t encounter anyone else, so he sassumed this was not a well traveled district. The golden cord grew steadily thicker, and soon he found himself opening the door to the Temple of Terros. He gratefully sat on one of the many pews lining the walls, taking a few moments to enjoy being able to see more than an inch in front of his face.

The room was massive and eight-sided. At the cardinal directions, shrines to the four aspects of Terros had been carved. The other walls held stone arches that housed staircases leading up into the higher levels of the Temple. Devon looked interestedly at the shrines, which were much more elaborate than the poor church in Port Nanfula.

Petra in the north was a strong farm woman, wearing a simple dress, boots, and holding a spade in one hand. For all her lack of accoutrement, she was still stunning, with wide eyes and elevated cheekbones. Across the hall in the south, one wall over form where Devon sat, Kosmima stood, gemstones in his hands. He was a slight figure, wearing pince-nez, and well-fitted tunic and leggings. To the east was PAnida, notoriously difficult to represent. Panida was the Godri, both male and female, and ze was supposed to be aggressively attractive. This sculptor had captured that by suggesting, rather than depicting. Panida’s chest rounded slightly, and the statue’s hips had a subtle flare, but the Godri was muscular and stood in an assertive, masculine stance. Baby fawns and birds sat at zhir feet, and zhis expression was one of gentleness and love.

And to the west, the distant Godfen Fytevo stood, fenced in by plants. Fytevo was the patron Godfen of knowledge and science, and while xie would occasionally intervene for xis priests and acolytes, praying to xir was not very encouraged. Fytevo would much rather you use the tools you had to solve a problem. Xie had a stern and harsh face, suitable for the most unreachable of the pantheon.

Devon noticed a sign on the wall to the northeast. It was the symbol of Panida, a pair of wings framing a set of antlers, and it marked the House of Alms, where the Temple would provide lodgings for the needy. Typically, it was for the poor, but Devon was lost and homeless in this foggy city. He stood up and walked over to the stairway and began to ascend.

At the top of the stairs, a spacious room filled with tables and benches waited. A monk walked up to Devon, smiling.

“Greetings, my son. How many we of the House of Alms help you?” The monk was an elderly man, with a neat salt and pepper beard and deep set brown eyes in a wrinkled face.

“I need information, mostly,” Devon said. “Is all travel to Port Nanfula currently cut off?”

“Indeed. The Guild of Kosmima has removed all Nanfulan topaz from their transit stations for fear the fighting will spill over to our cities. Ships might travel there for a price, but I fear that price would be much too high for anyone one persont o pay. Are you trapped in Zydobe?”

“You are astute, sir,” Devon said. “Could I have lodgings, at least for a few days? I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”

“Of course, my son. Shelter is always available to those in need. If I may be so bold, however, I would point out the charity box. You appear to be a man of means. We do not require a donation, we only ask you consider it.”

“That’s certainly fair,s ir. Should I put my things somewhere in particular?”

The monk led Devon into a tiny cell, with a bed, a chest, and a window. Devon thanked him and began carefully arranging his new clothes in the chest. While he worked, the monk departed and he tried to think Sarah could take care of herself, and as an innkeeper she would have a commodity an invading force would need. He didn’t know exactly what was going on in Port Nanfula, but he couldn’t do anything from here. He had to find a way back, and the best way would be a Kosmima transit.

When he had the clothes chest filled, he walked back into the larger common room and approached the monk again.

“Sir, could you tell me what you know of the situation in Port Nanfula?” he asked. “I left family there, and I haven’t heard anything reliable. What do you know?”

The monk rubbed his lips with his thumb, thinking. “We have received little word from our brothers in Port Nanfula. Two and a half weeks ago, a fleet of mercenary ships attacked the Nanfulan harbor. The Nanfulans were caught completely by surprise and could not fight them off. The last message I heard that I would trust was that the President has been killed and the harbor chancellor has taken over in his absence.”

Devon felt the blood rush from his face. “The President is dead? And Aron Mark has taken over?”

“As I said, that was my last message. Did you know the President?”

Devon sat down abruptly, rudely ignoring the monk. ARon Mark had sent a message – except it had never been delivered. The navy had been caught off guard because…because…

“Eye and Needle,” he swore, forgetting he was in a temple. The House of Acuity had the funds for a mercenary fleet. Mark had the motive, and Judge Hanover was well-known as having an interest in the maneuvers of the Nanfulan fleet. The messages had been the first steps in a coup.

Except, wait. IF the messages hadn’t been sent, wouldn’t they have aborted? Not receiving a message would be a terrible signal for an attack.

He’d been outside the Lord Marshal’s office when he was assaulted. Wheels spun in his head as he followed the logic. If Hanover had been warning the Marshal of the impending attack, while Mark and the House were finalizing their plans, it made sense that Devon’s attacker hadn’t been merely a thief, but had had the intent of getting Devon out of the picture. It really had been a terrible robbery anyway. That wind must have een intended to steal his messenger bag.

Would they have gone after Sarah? He’d told her about the messages, and she’d even been suspicious, her old life as a political informant giving her the perspective to see the connections. If he’d been followed that early, they might have tried to silence her. He had to get to Port Nanfula, somehow.

He stood up, absently thanked the monk, and ran off, already priming his map lore to search out the nearest major Kosmima transit station.

More NaNoWriMo!

Here's the end of the last Alexander scene I posted. I've got plenty more but my fingers hurt. ; ;

He’d drilled Alexander mercilessly until he could easily close a cut Lenn had opened on his own wrist with a knife. It had been an intense night.

Alexander didn’t think he could fix something as complicated as ruptured eardrums, but he felt an imbalance in Dawn shift abruptly back to equilibrium at the same time she sighed and announced “Eye and Needle, that’s better.” She retrieved her hand, adjusting the leather where Alexander had pushed it back for more skin contact. “Any second now–”

The shield she’d put up over the alley entrance was struck by a brilliant white light. Instead of exploding into shards like Alexander’s would have, it stretched out, containing the energy blast until it shrank and died away. She then released the shield and drew cold into her gloves, frosting the steel plates.

Alexander snapped out of his shock and sent a pulse of energy across the road. A mirror of himself and Dawn appeared, mimicking their actions exactly. The man – was he some sort of hitman? – charged out of the alley and tore into the illusion Alexander had put up. Dawn took advantage and streaked across the street, striking him in the back and throwing him to the ground. Alexander saw the fog rolling back in, drawn to all the Tranquilus power they’d burned, and drew some around himself, reinforcing the stealth with an illusion of more fog, though the two disguises were corrosive to each other.

Green flared around Dawn, and she hurled the hitman over her shoulder, before hitting him with a powerful wave of motion that sent him flying directly onto the frost rune she’d inscribed on the wall.

Chilly, steel-gray arms slid out of the brick and gripped the man. His flesh flushed red with cold where the frost-flesh touched him. Alexander felt all his hair stand on end, a reaction to the Coalescence Dawn had just invoked.

She stroked over to the man and slammed her fist into the brick beside his head. Electricity crackled around her and the fog rushed back again. Alexander wondered what effect all this power would have on the fog bank long-term; they were making no effort to balance their forces and could only be making the root problem worse.

“Who are you?” Dawn snarled.

“Who wants to know?” the man spat back. His face was not pretty, with dark black tattoos covering most of it and scars running through those. His hair was black, but cut short, and his nose had been broken often.

Dawn gestured, and a third frost limb appeared from behind the man. It uncurled and placed its single, sharp talon directly above his calf. “Talk or I tell my Coalescence to exercise,” she responded, baring her teeth. Lightning crackled around her again, and Alexander felt the air lose tension, as if she was deliberately bleeding it off.

“Aron Stonespar,” the man growled, and Alexander was startled to hear the ring of truth in his voice.

“Who sent you to kill us?” Dawn asked, her voice amiable, though her eyes told a different story.

“Dunno. Some Kosmima bitch gave me a purse and a picture of the blond fella. Told me to ask some fairy bartender where he’d be. Nancy started getting all sniffly when I showed him the picture, though, so I had to track him down the hard way. You, I just wanted out of the way.”

Dawn glanced at Alexander, who nodded. Every word had been true. Why had a Kosmima woman told this hitman to get his location from a bartender?

“Describe the woman. How did you know she was in the Kosmima guild?” Dawn demanded.

“She rubydazzled me, that was my first clue,” he growled. “She was medium height, short blond hair, blue eyes. Real hardass chick.”

Alexander’s eyes widened in shock, and he stumbled backward. He recognized that description.

“where did she talk to you?” Dawn asked.

“Some inn over on the east side. Life Support.”

Roaring filled Alexander’s ears again, though he could still hear every word.

“She’s been hiring me from that bar for weeks. She’s knobbing the bartender there,” A lewd grin spread across his face. “Though I don’t think he’s appreciating it as much as he should, if you catch my drift.”

“So this bartender’s in league with the Kosmima woman?” Dawn asked.

“Guess so. We always do the deal right there in the common room.” He shrugged, and the frosty arms clenched tighter around him. “There’s always a group of them Kosmimas there. He waits on ‘em personally, doesn’t let his barmaid near.”

“No!” Alexander snarled, lashing out. A blast of frigid air frosted Stonespar’s hair and skin, and a barely visible ripple of force pressed him hard against the wall.

“Alexander, no!” Dawn shouted, one hand plunging into her pocket, the other extending toward Stonespar and the Coalescence.

Alexander felt something press against his force wave. It had to be Stonespar, so he pushed back even harder.

The frost limbs of the Coalescence abruptly dissolved into a whirlwind of white powder. Alexander’s push snapped, throwing him backward into the fog bank. He heard Dawn and Stonespar both scream, then there was an ominous silence, except for the peculiar swoosh of a Coalescence dissolving.

He got to his feet, the fog around him sharpening his sense of balance, and charged back toward the hollowed out section. He burst into clear air, but the dome was empty. He closed his eyes and let his hearing pour down the street, listening for Dawn, but no sounds reached his ears. Even through the dampening fog, he’d be able to hear something, surely.

He heard the sound of running footsteps from the alley, and withdrew his extended hearing. He opened his eyes in time to see Andrea leading a group of detectives out of the alley, each armed to the teeth. Andrea was holding an ebony staff, and every step she took was shocking loud and kicked up a huge cloud of dust. She had once again covered her fists with rose thorns, and her skin seemed to have transformed into bark.

“What’s going on, Cartwright?” Andrea demanded, keeping her eyes scanning about them, alert for any sign of danger. Te officers behind her fanned out, covering every possible angle of attack. “Someone sabotaged our doors so we can’t open the Kosmima ones, and all the others were barricaded. WE had to blast through to that alley. What’s the story out here?”

Alexander gulped, trying to work some moisture into his mouth. “Dawn and I were going to have a little match in the alley, so she could see what my style was. Two men attacked us; at first I thought they were friends of hers, helping out, but they started throwing lightning around. Dawn knocked one of them out and I captured the other, but he blasted through my shield with more lightning and we chased him down here. Dawn Coalesced a frost spirit to hold him and he gave us some information. Then something weird happened, and they both disappeared.” He closed his mouth, aware he was babbling.

Andrea growled. “She didn’t feed her damned spirit again, is what happened. She’s got a good rapport with a benevolent one, but it’s known to kidnap summoners. She’ll be back eventually, but that was damned careless. I need her right now. Did you get any good information before they got voided?”

Alexander bit his lip. “Well, he told us some stuff, but I can’t guarantee every word was true,” he said, knowing anyone with truth sensitivity could hear the lie.

“Most times we can’t, Cartwright,” Andrea said. “Spit it out!”

“He…he was hired by someone I suspect is Jenay Deen,” Alexander started. “There’s some kind of…a cabal, I guess,of Kosmima adepts. They’ve been hiring him for smaller operations for weeks.”

“Do they have a base or safe house?”

Alexander hesitated, and Andrea’s eyes narrowed. “Cartwright. You wanted this job. You swore to protect the citizens of Zydobe. You have a responsibility to report anything to me. Now tell me where the damned safe house is.”

“Life Support inn,” Alexander confessed, shoulders slumping. “Isaac is I league with them, according to this guy.”

Andrea nodded, then turned and issued orders to her followers. Pairs peeled off, going to surround Life Support and start a stakeout.

“Are you really putting everybody on this?” Alexander asked.

“They bottled up the entire Constabulary,” Andrea replied. “It’s top priority that we get these people contained. They’re dangerous to the public. And I have a hunch this is connected to the airships. Follow me.” She slid her ebony staff into a pair of canvas straps on her back, which wove themselves around the dark wood, and took off at a job down the street. Alexander followed, hoping they weren’t going to run very far. He had a suspicion Andrea could run up and down the levels of Zydobe all day, and would have fun doing it.

“Who stands to lose the most from the airships becoming successful?” Andrea asked, no sign of their exertion in her voice. Alexander, who was trying to push the fog away in front of them, grunted. Andrea laughed at him, and continued. “The Kosmima guild has a stranglehold on transportation. If the airships become viable, they’ll be able to move people at competitive prices and with the bonus of actually flying. They only take two people to operate, and I’m told they don’t require any specialized building materials.”

She took a turn, and Alexander realized they were headed for Jenay’s trinket shop. He found the breath to ask, “Are we going to stakeout Jenay? She’ll notice me, won’t she?”

“I’m counting on it,” Andrea replied, slowing her pace as they reached the cluster of trinket shops. “She’ll see you and not look for anyone else. Hang out conspicuously on that bench and make a note of any other Kosmima guildmembers she talks to. If you can keep the fog off this street that’d be even better.”

Alexander gratefully dropped onto the bench Andrea had indicated across the street from Jenay’s shop, and firmed up his concentration on the fog. What had been a ragged clear area expanded and cleaned into a dome. He tried to make the center of the clear space shift over, so it wasn’t obvious that he was doing it. When he felt comfortable with his work, he looked around to find that Andrea had vanished. He looked for her for a few moments, but gave up and started focusing on Jenay’s shop. Andrea was an extremely skilled Fytevo and could blend in to any vegetation with ease, no matter what the weather was. Alexander tried to find a comfortable position on the bench and extended his hearing into Jenay’s shop, wondering how long this would take.

NaNoWriMo Week Whatever: I Hate Typing

I'm awful at transcribing, I know. But here's 2600 words. I have 4200 more ready to go. That just leaves 6000 to go to finish!!!! I can write twenty pages in the next two days right?

Alexander dressed carefully. He had been given a pass by Joaquim yesterday to start walking the streets with a partner. Five days of grueling workouts, both physical and magical, left him feeling sore but weirdly energetic. He had learned a dozen helpful tricks with his blessing, and even figured out a few of his own.

He wanted his uniform to look perfect his first day. He had been given a sky blue vest, to be worn over a white, long sleeved shirt with dark pants. Detectives usually wore leather jackets, but Alexander had been given permission to stick with his long coat. He didn’t have a badge yet, but he had been given a key with a glyph inscribed that would give him access to the Constabulary.

He also had an armband that told those that knew the codes his blessing talents. He knew that the stripe of sky blue cloth stitched to the leather was for Tranquilus, and the smaller stripes of indigo, orange, and dark green were for Algidus, Thermas, and Ventus, but he wasn’t sure why each band had a different number of white cross stripes, or what the golden beads that cinched each cloth strip at the end meant.

Satisfied with his appearance, he walked to the door of Lenn’s set of rooms. He’d found, with the priest’s help, a landlord with two rooms coming open. He was just waiting for the current residents to finish moving out. Lenn had assured him that he could stay as long as he needed, though Alexander was sure the number of boxes with his belongings had caused the young man a great deal of frustration.

The rooms were on the ground floor of a two story inn, and there was an outside door. Alexander slipped out of it and used a touch of Algidus to lock the door once he’d closed it. He then put a hand flat on the wood of the door, closed his eyes, and concentrated. Lenn was far more accomplished at Algidus than Alexander, and had put up a complex layering of energies in his doors that would prevent an unethical Atmos-blessed person from getting in by canceling out any Algidus or Thermas energy used on the door. Fortunately, activating the wards only required a few moments of concentration, which Alexander was happy to provide. He felt the wood of the door grow cooler as the wards hummed to life. He wasn’t good enough to see them; part of the complexity was because Lenn had wrapped each layer of security with one of stealth. On a cold, clear day, the door was easy to miss. With the stubborn fog that had blanketed the city, the door would be completely invisible.

Alexander was glad there had been no casualties from the second airship crash, but the huge amount of Tranquilus energy that had been expended had caused some fairly serious problems. If a group of people working in concert had brought the ship down, there probably would have been a gentle rain or a windstorm. But because something like three hundred people had been throwing a flurry of individual shields at the ship, then reaction had caused a massive fog bank to cover the city and stay there. It had been five days since the second airship malfunction, and Alexander could still feel the imbalance in the air. Priests had attempted to address the problem, but had been unable to do much. The high priest of the Godri Thermas had come from Aethros and performed a mysterious ritual atop the Zydobe Needle. Now, the Eye shone with a constant, ghostly light and any ship that sailed into the fog bank, which extended several miles into the sea, was taken by the Hand of Thermas and guided into safe harbor. The protection did not help ships sailing out of the harbor, though. They had to spend a great deal of energy lighting themselves and using sound to guide their way out, which only made the fog bank worse. The imbalance was slowly righting, but Alexander couldn’t tell how long it would take.

He stepped out into the street and began walking. Like everyone with an Atmos blessing, he could push the fog away from himself. He was only strong enough to create a bubble about a yard wide. It was enough to let him see the road ahead of him, and to warn anyone he was about to hit.

AS he walked, he practiced his shielding. He had managed to figure out a shield that would move with him, but it wasn’t strong enough to deflect a small stone Joaquim had thrown at him, and it reacted badly with his efforts to push away the fog. He was now working on what Joaquim called a “force bubble”. Rather than a sphere that resisted force, he was attempting to generate a cloud that actively projected force outward. It was much easier to move with, but it was exhausting to maintain, especially with the cool fog. Joaquim swore up and down that practice would make the technique less costly, so Alexander put it up anywhere he could. He hadn’t noticed any improvement in his skill, though.

A flash of green light distracted him, and the force bubble dissolved. His clear space wavered, then fog swirled around him before exploding away. A few green sparks hung in the clear dome that now stretched ten feet in the air, and showed about twenty feet of road. Several pedestrians stood as shocked as Alexander, and three of them were shedding the same green sparks as Alexander.

He took a step, but the dome didn’t move with him. He guessed that the few of them haloed in green had all been putting up clear air domes, and they had probably intersected and combined. He guessed that the dome would last several minutes before the fog reclaimed the street. He continued on his way; the transit station he was aiming for had one wall exposed by the sudden expanse of clear air.

When he walked into the wall of fog again, the remnants of green light around him sparked and fizzled out. The fog recoiled from the light, and Alexander took advantage of that to make a new bubble. There was another flash of green light, and he found himself inside the large dome again, which had expanded to about thirty feet high. He didn’t waste time trying to figure it out; now that he could see the entrance to the Kosmima station he hurried into it.

He showed the clerk his key. The clerk touched the glyph with a finger, which cuased it to glow gently. Satisfied, he waved Alexander onward. Alexander walked into the transit room, showed the attendant his key, and was transported directly to the Constabulary.

The cramped room that housed the Constabulary’s receptor circle was dull and drab, basically just a stone box. Alexander hurried out of the room, clearing the circle for anyone else who might be coming in.

When he walked into the main office, he saw Andrea standing there over his newly assigned desk. HE waved at her as he walked up.

“Cartwright. My office.” She turned and strode away. Alexander took off his coat and hung it from the chair before following her, wondering what she needed.

When he entered her office, she was writing something . Without looking up, she barked “Sit,” at him. He fell into the single chair, waiting expectantly.

She finished whatever she was writing before she looked at him. “Joaquim says he’s done all he can with you,” she said. “Which is good, because I need every hand I’ve got. Read this.”

She handed him a sheaf of papers. It was a detailed report of the second airship accident. Apparently, the two person crew that had been manning the ship had been checking their course from the upper deck when the woman was shot with an arrow. The injury had caused them to lose control of the ship, though the uninjured man had been able to maintain partial lift, which explained the airship’s slower glide toward the ground.

“This doesn’t say how the airships are kept aloft,” Alexander observed.

“Damned engineers won’t tell us,” Andrea said. “Apparently it’s ‘immaterial to the investigation, as it cannot be replicated’.” She snorted. “Does anything else jump out at you?”

He kept reading. “Wait,” he said, when one fact did catch his attention. “The arrow was fired from the shopping district between here and the Temple of Atmos?” he asked.

“Nearly as we can tell,” Andrea answered. “The woman told us the direction she was facing when she was hit, and approximately how high in the air they were. That, plus the angle the arrow hit her, was enough to give us a reasonably small area where the archer could have been.”

“I…I think I heard it,” Alexander said. “I heard a bowshot right when everything started happening, but I had no idea it was related.”

Andrea heaved a sigh. “Rookies. Always volunteer information, no matter how irrelevant you think it might be.” Alexander nodded sheepishly. “Next time, say something you have even an idea might be helpful. You’re Tranquilus, your intuitions are valuable.”

Alexander blinked. “My what?”

“Your intuitions.” Andrea looked at him expectantly, disbelief slowly growing in her expression. “You didn’t know? One of your passive gifts is intuition. All Tranquilus get that!” Disbelief turned to incredulity as Alexander showed no signs of understanding or recognition. “Atmos’s tits, Cartwright, open a book sometime! Get out of my office and meet your partner. Dismissed!”

Alexander hurried out, though once he hit the common office he stopped, completely unsure of where, or who, his new partner was. There were four detectives in the room. One had the black jacket that showed he had no blessing, two had scarlet Panida jackets, and one had a golden Petra jacket. Alexander slid over to his desk, hoping someone notice who he was and introduce themselves.

“Looking for me?”

“Shaking sands!” Alexander swore. Standing beside his desk was a young woman with a deep indigo jacket, an Algidus user. She had thick, curly blond hair, rosy cheeks, baby blue eyes, and a wicked set of steel-plated leather gloves.

“Dawn Sets, at your service,” she said, stripping one of the weapons and offering her hand to shake. Alexander complied.

“Alexander Cartwright. Are you my new partner?” he asked.

“Temporary. Rookies get assigned to a new detective every month or so, so we can all get new ideas on how to play nice with other blessings,” she explained. “Captain Fields’s idea, and a damn good one. No one works their blessing the same as someone else, so it keeps us on our toes.” She grinned at him, or bared her teeth, Alexander wasn’t sure. “So we’re going to have a little sparring match for a bit, so I can get an idea of how you work.”

“Great,” Alexander replied, feigning enthusiasm. He didn’t want his first partner to think he was a weakling, but he had expected to get outside of those warehouses, fancy as they were. “Terros or Atmos?”

Dawn snorted, slipping her fingers back into the gauntlet. “Don’t be ridiculous. Back alley. Let’s go.” She started moving toward the back of the Constabulary, and Alexander followed after, grabbing his long coat. Was he expected to have some sort of hand-to-hand weapon? He’d never been in a real fight.

Dawn passed through an inconspicuous door and immediately blended in with the fog. Alexander tried to follow her lead, cloaking himself with cold and mist, but his stealth was flimsy and unstable. He had already lost track of Dawn completely in the thick fog, so he built a shield around himself and increased his hearing as much as he could through the dampening billows of moisture.

He heard a shout, and spun toward it just to see a blast of icy indigo energy splash off his shield. He dropped it and moved right, drawing in Ventus energy to prepare a counterattack. Ventus power was unruly and wild, wrapping around him like a green strangling snake, but Joaquim had shown him a useful trick or two.

He split the energy two ways. The first bit he whipped into a funnel and tied to the ground, making the mists swirl and shred, clearing out a space around himself. The last of it he compressed between his hands, building a ball of air pressure.

As his gusts ripped at the fog, he caught a glimpse of Dawn. She was fending off two hulking brutes, both armed with wooden staves. All three had green aftertrails, signs that they were augmenting their speed with the fog, which was very quickly boiling away.

Alexander aimed at one of the attackers while circling to his left to get a clear shot. Dawn ducked under a heavy swing and swept her leg under both of them. One was quick enough to jump, and while he was midair Alexander released his pressure blast.

Wind howled through the alley and the huge man went flying clear out into the street. Dawn, who was clearly experienced in martial arts, was rolling away from the man she’d sent sprawling, so Alexander put up a shield over him.

“Good idea, but that’s no fun,” dawn said as she got to her feet. “Let’s take him down fair!”

“Shouldn’t we be arresting him?” Alexander asked.

Dawn laughed and pointed. As Alexander looked back at his shield, the fog retreated rapidly from them and a bolt of lightning hammer his shield, disintegrating it and sending both Alexander and Dawn stumbling back, hands clapped to their ears.

Alexander fought to put up another shield, but he couldn’t make one materialize; they kept falling away into sparks. The man was on his feet, and lightning was dripping from his fist, scorching the wood of his staff.

He saw Dawn shout something, though his hearing was filled by a roaring silence, an expression that he had never understood before now. The man grinned, and spun his staff, holding it behind his back and pointing an empy hand at Dawn.

Alexander didn’t have enough energy for a shield, so instead he focused on the chilly bite of the air and wove a confusion net around the man. His palm shifted to the right, and a strip of lightning licked ut, burning a blackened strip down the brick building beside them.

Dawn’s face had gone from cheerful to focused. She clapped her hands together, then thrust her palms out at the man. He was bowled over by an invisible wave, and in the moments that bought them Dawn grabbed Alexander’s hand and dragged him the opposite direction.

When they rounded the corner of the alley into the main street near a shoe shop, she stopped and slapped her hand onto the wall of the building. Frost formed under her hand, and Alexander could see her lips moving in a chant.

When she removed her hand, a glowing indigo glyph rimed with frost remained. She stretched out a hand toward the alley, and the air started to ripple, like it was a pond being rained on. She grabbed Alexander’s hand, and the roaring in his ears was swallowed by an intense heat, and suddenly he could hear.

“-n’t think he’d fall for that, but you caught him by surprise,” she was saying. “Can you hear now? Good, put my hearing back.” She offered him her free hand, releasing his. He gripped it, reversing their position from a moment before, and sent a wave of Tranquilus energy through her. He’d asked Lenn for help with healing, and while the man could barely heal a boil, he knew the theory well.

NaNoWriMo Week 3: A Certain Thickening Is Detected

Here is the next two scenes, 4390 words. This is not the entirety of what I have written; I have about 3500 more written but my transcribing fingers are le tired. The plot is finally starting to pick up, and we have some action coming! Also, I have finally decided on a title: Eye and Needle. You'll see why soon!

To project the light shield required a kind of concentration Joaquin promised he could master, but Alexander absolutely could not figure it out.

After the third time he was so wrapped up in trying to create the shield he walked right into an innocent passerby, he gave up. Instead, he focused no his hearing; on a clear day he could not only amplify it, but also listen for specific sounds. He felt a burning on his earlobes as his blessing became alert for the sound of a bowstring, a dagger slipping its sheath, the crackle of a lightning bolt, or a scream.

The much simpler application of his blessing he could trust without constant concentration. He began paying attention to his surroundings, He was walking down a market street; in the buildings around him, wares like clothing and trinkets were displayed ostentatiously. He glanced up, checking the position of the Temple, and continued walking.

He passed another trinket shop, and nearly stopped dead. Jenay, the bitch Isaac had cheated on him with, was standing at the counter, demonstrating a trinket for a customer. Rage flooded through Alexander, and he felt himself drawing in power. He didn’t even know what he would do with Tranquilus energy, but his face was thumping with blood and he had to do something.

He was reaching out to weave light and shadow into an illusion of a sudden fire when his ears burned and he heard the thwap! Of an arrow and a woman’s scream, carried to him by his blessing. He let go of his illusion, which roared up for an instant before dissolving, drawing yelp from a customer standing near it.

Alexander pushed all the power he’d gathered into a tough shield and spun around, white light flaring around his hands as he looked for an assailant.

But instead of seeing an archer, or deflecting an arrow, he was met with a much worse scene. Between two buildings, he had a good view of the bowl of Zydobe. He could therefore see the airship laboring over the harbor. White smoke was billowing out of one side, and half the craft was on fire. The ship was hurtling straight for the docks, at least a mile from where Alexander stood.

Without thinking, Alexander dropped his personal shield and hurled energy toward the ship, hoping to deflect or slow it. The sun was shining much too brightly and the temperature was too high for him to attempt another Algidus working. He saw his shield begin to spread under the hull of the airship. Once the ship impacted his shield, it exploded into a blaze of blue-white light. The ship actually bounced¸ arcing upward for a moment. Alexander felt the dramatic destruction at his attempt to help like getting slapped in the face by a hand the size of the world. One second, he was watching power stream swiftly toward the airship, and the next he was lying on his back inside a building, lines of fiery pain all over his back. His vision was blurry, and his ears rang.

“Terros’s balls!” a woman swore. He felt a twinge, and the pain in his back faded a little.

“What in Atmos’s name is going on out there?” the voice asked.

“Airship,” Alexander groaned. There was a gasp, and the sound of footsteps. Alexander levered himself up and sat quietly for a moment. He looked around, and saw that he was in a trinket shop. He looked at the placard hanging on the shop counter next to him and sure enough, there was her name. Jenay Deen, Kosmima Adept and licensed trinket manufacturer. He swore, and forced himself to his feet. Adrenaline rushed through his system, pushing his pain away. He got to his feet and sprinted out the door, taking a moment to enjoy the window he’d apparently smashed through.

The airship was hovering over the docks. It was being held up by a series of blue-white flashes. Alexander realized that everyone with a Tranquilus blessing was trying to slow down the massive ship, rather than doing what Alexander had stupidly tried and stopping it cold. He reached up to help, but the shield he threw fizzled out before he could get it near enough to help.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to help directly, the airship was too far away. What else could he do? He looked to his right, and saw the tower of the Atmos temple. The priests there would be powerful healers, and there would be a transit tower close to the temple. He took off in that direction, ignoring the pain in his back and pushing as hard as he could.

He barreled past citizens staring at the impending disaster, dodging and weaving through crowds. He saw several people attempting to throw shields, but the distance was much too great for a shield to travel. Alexander was really stunned that he’d managed to get one so far away, and could only guess that his gathering of energy had given him the edge he’d needed to extend his range so far.

The Temple grew closer as he pelted down the streets. The neighborhood changed from mercantile to residential, and he started drawing attention as the crowds fell behind him. He ignored shouts and orders for him to stop, focusing only on the Temple and getting there to summon help.

As he got to the block that housed the Temple, he remembered the two hundred steps that led up to the front doors and began to swear – though only mentally, saving his breath for running. He reached the steps and had to pause. He looked up, beginning to wheeze, and saw a priest leaning out of the Eye. Flickers of blue white light fell gracefully from the window, floating down to surround Alexander. When they reached him, he realized with a start he could see the priest’s aural-working, a directed extension of his hearing. He sent a pulse of will through the air between the two of them, so that he could hear the priest.

“My son, what has befallen the harbor?” the priest asked. “WE have only word of dread danger, no details.”

The Temple was even faithful to the original Needle’s lack of windows, Alexander realized, even if it wasn’t made of a single piece of still-living rock. “Another airship has crashed,” he gasped. “There are citizens holding it at bay, but there will still be injuries. Healers will be needed.”

“We shall mobilize at once. Thank you, my son, for the warning. Atmos’s blessings be ever upon you.” White energy swirled around Alexander, soaking into his skin. He felt the wounds on his back mend, and his breathing slowed and steadied. What kind of priest was this, that could work a healing from the topmost platform of the Zydobe Needle?

The front door to the temple, which was the only deviation from the original Needle’s design, burst open and five sky-blue clad priests with the golden trim of high acolytes rushed out, striding past Alexander to the transit tower across the street. Alexander was happy to let them pass, satisfied he’d done his part. He couldn’t see the harbor from the Temple, but he could see a towering column of smoke in that direction. He felt a rush of fear, hoping that it was the ship on fire and not docks or houses.

He turned and walked toward the transit tower. Healing may have closed his wounds, but the longer he ran on borrowed time and energy, the worse he would crash eventually. Even a master Thermas adept needed sleep, and Alexander was flat stunned his meager ability to draw endurance from heat was keeping him going this well.

He reached the tower and started daydreaming about his bed, when a memory hit him – he was supposed to be finding a new place to live. HE smacked his forehead and turned back to the Temple, hoping his friend was still there.

Lenn was a novice, studying to become a priest in time. He had a moderate Algidus gift, and his other blessings were negligible. He was completely uninterested in men or women, and was eager to devote himself to the sexless Godfen. He and Alexander had met during a Temple service, when Alexander had flirted with the thin young man. He still remembered the pity in the sparkling black eyes when Lenn had turned him down. They’d run into each other again at a coffeeshop and Alexander had convinced him to at least have a conversation.

A fond smile crossed Alexander’s face as he reached the foot of the long stairway. He began to climb slowly, taking rest breaks as he needed them. He remembered belatedly that he was supposed to be returning to the Constabulary soon. A glance at the sun’s position told him he still had an hour or so, so he continued up the path.

As he walked, he tried the shield technique again. Every time he’d tried so far, he got no results as he slowly increased the power of the shield he was trying to create until a stationary one popped up around him. Joaquim’s advice about improvising was stuck in his head, and he wanted to try it. He tried to think of the steps he took to generate a shield. First, he felt the innate power in sunlight and still air, a kind of slow, syrupy light. Once he could feel it, he imagined it shaping itself around him in a sphere. The shield wouldn’t form until he invested the Tranquilus power with his own personal energy, and that was the problem he kept running into. Reducing the amount of energy he used clearly would not work. So he’d just have to change an earlier step.

HE let himself become aware of the sunlight, a process that he had instinctively mastered. Where he normally just imposed his will on that power, this time he tried to tease it out, gently imagining it curling around him, while envisioning the very light shield he needed.

He felt power flow out of him, and merge with the Tranquilus energy, but he didn’t sense any kind of result. He sighed and let go of his power. He was nearly to the top of the stairs, maybe he could ask a priest for advice. In his experience, priests were not innovators, but it wasn’t like he knew every single one.

He trudged up the final stair and sank onto a nearby bench. The doors to the temple were simple, but had their own grandeur. The doors were made of wood, and the stone arch containing them had the four glyphs of the facets carved in them, with Atmos’s four-limbed storm glyph at the peak. The doors had large iron rings set in their centers. Around them was a small landing, with abstractly carved benches and two small potted trees. Alexander had only been here a few times, and each time he was struck by how elegant the decorations of the temples of Atmos were.

The main door creaked open, and an indigo-robed figure slipped out. His hood was down, revealing Lenn’s curly black hair and dark skin. Alexander waved and called out to him, catching his attention.

“Lenn! Do you have a moment?”

The novice paused and a wide smile appeared when he recognized Alexander. “Of course, for you, Alexander!” Alexander still found the younger man tragically cute but once he’d figured out that Lenn was literally and totally uninterested in sex or love, they’d become good, if casual, friends.

“How’s Isaac doing?” Lenn asked. Alexander felt his face start to crumple, and while he struggled to keep his composure, the astute Lenn picked up on his distress.

“Oh, no, what happened?” he asked, sitting down next to Alexander and putting a thin arm around his shoulders.

“We…we broke up,” Alexander said, choosing his words carefully. HE didn’t want to break down in the face of Lenn’s sympathy. He’d been grateful for Andrea’s no-nonsense, businesslike reaction. He was sure she felt bad for him, but she didn’t drown him in pity.

Lenn’s sympathy was a little easier to bear, because his sincerity shone through everything he did. It was impossible to interpret the look in his eyes as artificial or condescending, like most pity. He genuinely shared Alexander’s pain, even if he couldn’t feel it himself.

“That’s terrible, I’m so sorry!” Lenn told him. “Weren’t you living together?” Alexander nodded. “Well, then, you have to stay with me until you find a place.” Alexander looked up at Lenn, startled. He knew Lenn had a lot of friends in the inn business, and had only hoped for a point in the right direction.

“Don’t you live here?” he asked, gesturing at the Zydobe Needle.

“Oh, Atmos, no!” Lenn exclaimed. “Only full priests are allowed to sleep on the grounds. I have a few rooms in the city. I have a spare bed that’s ready for you right now. Do you need help moving your things?”

Alexander nodded, struck dumb by this unexpected generosity. Lenn returned the nod firmly. “Well, that’s settled. When should I meet you over there?”

“I think I’m free after about six o’clock,” Alexander said. “I guess meet me at Life Support an hour after that?”

“Done, then,” Lenn said, standing. “Will you be all right? I’m on my way to meet someone, but he can wait if it’s necessary.”

“No, no, please,” Alexander replied, making a shooing gesture. “You’ve done enough. I’ll survive until this evening.”

“All right then,” Lenn said. “Take care of yourself.” He gave Alexander a priestly bow, one hand in a fist and the other palm up on top, and began to walk down the stairs. Alexander looked on, amazed at how incredible some people could be.

*****

Devon’s eyes snapped open. It was another early morning. With a great deal of help from Tiercel and the other three Terros sailors, he no longer felt like a walking corpse. The other sailors were all very strongly gifted with Fytevo, and had negligible abilities with Petra, which explained their ease at leaving the land. Each of them carried a chunk of granite or marble to ease the slight pangs even they felt, and holding the stones had done a great deal to ease his terrible condition.

But now he could sense land. The ill-fated experiment with the charm circle had two unexpected side effects. The first was that he could easily purify water now. He still got the best results by using metal as an attractor, but he could do it with just his hands if necessary. The captain had given him a nod of approval and had stopped giving him appraising looks when Devon had demonstrated.

The second side effect was a vastly expanded ability to sense the earth. He’d awoken three nights ago around midnight, convinced they were about to run aground, the feel of rock beneath him was so strong. But they’d only been passing an underwater mountain, one that the sailors hadn’t even known existed.

Abram and Devon were still using the charm circles to refine their route, even though they’d passed the First Storm without incident. Now Abram focused their lores on a very small area, finding minute adjustments to wind and sail that optimized their travel. The captain was in a good mood, which to Devon looked like a tiny decrease in his bellowing, though the sailors all assured him it was very noticeable.

Now, though, the feeling of land was incredibly strong. The underwater mountain had been like heat rising up through Devon’s soles on a hot street. This was like being in a potter’s kiln. Devon tried to use his map lore to find out where the land was, but he only got a few feeble golden sparks that refused to form an image. He relaxed his mind, and sent his map lore searching; once it found something that was a human habitation, it would light it up and he’d be able to find their position.

The golden sparks did reveal to him that they had sailed into a heavy fog. He waved an arm about, and could feel the dense moisture on his skin. Lanterns hung on the railings were barely visible as pale blotches against the wet darkness.

Abram muttered and wrapped his arms more tightly around Devon. They were still sleeping together and Devon was less plagued by panic every time they did. He still had moments where all he wanted to do was run away and never return, but as he was trapped on a ship he really couldn’t do that. He just rode out the strange, inexplicable panic by hiding in a corner of the deck and hugging himself, repeating over and over that there was no reason to be afraid and that he was being absurd.

But now that there was surely land in sight, they must almost be to Zydobe! What should have been a twenty-day trip had been cut down to fifteen with his help, and he could not wait to get his feet on land again.

While he adjusted to the new sense of land, he felt a wave of dizziness. Abruptly, all his hair stood on end, covering his arms and legs with goosebumps. Abram snorted, then woke; Devon could feel him looking around.

“Godri keep us warm,” he heard Abram say, awe in his voice, before the ship was suddenly suffused with a soft but bright light. Abram shifted, and the hammock rocked, dumping them both out. Abram kept hold of Devon, so they both landed well. Other sailors were not so well-prepared. All over the ship, people were tumbling out of hammocks, or sitting up and banging their heads. Everyone was staring up at the crow’s nest, so Devon followed their gaze.

The highest point of the ship was wrapped in some kind of white, ghostly flame. The sailor up in the nest seemed unharmed, though Devon could not see who it was. The white fire was slowly spreading, licking down the mast and spreading out across the yardarms . When the flames began dripping down the sails, Devon squeaked and looked around. No one was attempting to put out the fire, even though Devon knew almost all of them were accomplished at that skill. Fires were deadly on ships.

“It’s a natural Coalescence,” Abram said, keeping his voice low.

“A what?” Devon replied. He’d never heard of such a thing.

“Some people that are ‘specially blessed in Thermas or Algidus can call spirits out of fire or frost,” Abram explained. “It’s called Coalescin’. It’s not a common gift, and it’s dangerous, but they can do some amazin’ things.”

“So did someone summon this?” Devon asked. The flames had completely engulfed the sails,a nd he could see why no one was panicking: the fire burned brightly, but didn’t consume. The sails were pushed taut, as if by a strong wind.

Abram made a strangled sound. “By the Eye, no!” he said. “This’s the Hand o’ Thermas. It lights on ships at night that’re sailin’ through dangerous fog or storms. Atmos gen’rally likes sailin’ ships, and when one is in peril sometimes She lets Thermas help out.”

“So you’re saying we’re in trouble?” Devon asked. “I can’t see anything over the water, though.” And indeed, the strange phantom light made it look like their ship was sailing through an empty, endless void. “How can you steer?”

“Look at the wheel,” Abram said. Devon turned to look at the aft of the ship, and saw that the wheel was completely hidden in a disc of the same flame as the sails. “The Hand o’ Thermas guides ye through fog, storms, even reefs and rocks. I’ve only seen it once before. All ye can do is wait until ze lets you ye go.”

“Why don’t you bring along someone to summon it, then?” Devon asked. “It seems very useful!”

All the crew in earshot turned glares at him and more than one sailor looked toward the Needle to the northwest and made apologetic motions. Devon stepped away from Abram so he could see the man’s face, white with shock. “What?”

“Summonin’ the Hand o’ Thermas is a one way ticket to yer own funeral,” Abram whispered. “Smaller spirits don’t mind bein’ called, but they all have a price. Ye shouldn’t even talk about doin’ such a thing.”

Devon opened his mouth to respond, when a change in the land he sensed completely distracted him. It was rising up beneath them, and he knew exactly where they were. “We’re sailing into the harbor!” he shouted.

As they continued to sail, he could suddenly see the tall, sun bleached walls that guarded the sea entrance to Zydobe. Golden light flared and his map lore swirled around him, and he fell to his knees as images spiraled around him and golden lights flashed and flew. He didn’t know if anyone else could see it, and he couldn’t see through the thickening haze of light at all. In his mind, he could feel an overwhelming sense of unfamiliarity, and he felt like he was falling, hurtling toward an unforgiving landing.

He heard people shouting, and felt the moment the ship passed through the great walls. The bowl of Zydobe appeared, written in golden fire and seared into his eyes. He began to scream.

Something struck him, knocking him down. The sun-bright brilliance of his map lore vanished, and he closed his eyes gratefully, tears streaming down his face from under his eyelids. No longer bombarded with information, he could reduce his map lore’s power. He’d gotten in the habit of leaving it wide open because of the work he’d been doing in the charm circle, and coming into range of a city had dumped every geographical detail into his head at once.

He opened his eyes, blinking away the tears, and saw Tiercel standing over him. “Ye okay?” he asked. The two of them had come to an understanding, especially once Devon had shown him how to purify water. Tiercel’s affinity with metal had let him pick up the knack easily, and he ahd gone from grumpy and taciturn to…well, taciturn.

“I think so. Thank you,” Devon said, clambering to his feet. “We’re in the Zydobe harbor.”

“Yeah, so ye said. We still can’t see anythin’,” Abram said. “How can you tell?”

“My map lore just went crazy,” Devon told him. “We’re definitely – watch out!”

The ship rocked crazily. Devon had barely sensed the approaching dock in time to brace himself as they slid up beside it. In a moment of irony, his Terros blessing kept him standing while all of the experienced, Atmos blessed sailors went sprawling and staggering about the deck. Shimmering fire swept across the desk, and ropes flew by themselves through the air, tying themselves off on the posts of the deck. Once they were secured, the Hand of Thermas went completely out, plunging them into total darkness.

The deck of thes hip was still for a moment, then the captain’s voice split the night, yelling orders that made no sense to devon, who was contemplating whether or not anyone would notice if he just slipped away wearing the set of clothes he had been given.

“Hey, Devon,” Abram said, stepping in front of him and holding out a hand. “It’s been great workin’ with ye. Let me know next time ye want to sail to Port Nanfula, I’ll get ye a discount.” He shook Devon’s hand, handed him his sad, stained messenger bag, then took off into the air. Devon’s jaw dropped at the casual dismissal. He didn’t expect a marriage proposal or anything, but sleeping together for two weeks entitled him to something a little more personal, didn’t it?

All the fear and guilt he’d been working through crashed back down on him and he made up his mind. He jumped up onto the railing, then leapt down to the deck. The drop was further than he had thought, but he managed to land and roll without breaking anything obvious. The wooden deck rocked slightly as he ran toward the city; though the fog was thick and dense, he could see the dock outlined in tiny golden sparkles.

The end of the dock was a short staircase, and he flew down it, landing gently on a flagstone road. He knelt and placed both hands flat on the stones. Golden energy streamed into him as he was reunited with land for the first time in two weeks, and he finally felt the niggling remains of exhaustion burn away. He let out a sigh, and let the connection between himself and the earth dwindle as he stood. He kept a thread of it open, just to feel what he’d been missing for so long.

He knew it was somewhere around three in the morning, and though his body felt like he could stay awake forever, he needed sleep. In his messenger bag he had the coin he’d collected from the jobs he’d picked up that day in Port Nanfula. He felt a tiny pang of conscience that he’d never delivered the letters, which had fallen into the bay as he’d flown out over the ocean into the Greenbreeze. But that wouldn’t keep him from using it to pay for a room for the night, and then finding passage back to Port Nanfula in the morning, hopefully via transit station. He’d had enough of boats.

He very gently invoked his map lore, looking for a good inn. He couldn’t just think “a place where I won’t be robbed”, of course, but he could envision a place with certain characteristics, like a stable, two floors, a clean common room…

With a sizzle, his map lore lit up a path, a golden line shooting away from him. He began following it, keeping his ears open for signs of people. He couldn’t see a thing through this ridiculous fog, which seemed to be blanketing the entire city, and he didn’t want to run into anyone. He walked casually, trying not to display openly that he was a stranger to this city. Considering how badly the last time he’d been attacked had gone, he didn’t want to take any chances.

NaNoWriMo Week 2!

Wordcount for this week was 8097, which is approximately five days worth of writing. Sigh. I AM SO BAD AT THIS I AM SORRY.

Devon recovered enough composure to sneer back, though it was diluted by how his body was leaning in toward Abram, as if they were opposite ends of magnet stones. “I suppose you may, if you really insist,” he said, doing his dead level best to keep his voice lofty and aloof, though it really came across as wobbly and desperate.

Abram winked, and reached forward. Devon flinched back, but Abram was only pulling his seawater bucket back in front of Devon.

“Guess you should get back to work then?” Abram said, before leaping with impossible grace, from his lounging position on the deck to standing in a single motion. He strode away, whistling cheerfully.

Devon tried manfully to scowl after him, but couldn’t stop his expression from melting into a misty smile, even despite his irritation. After all, Abram did have a point; he had been acting like a randy cow. He shook his head and bent his attention to the saltwater. Now that he knew what to look for, this shouldn’t take too long.

***

Alexander woke to light shining on his face. He groaned, considered moving, then decided it hurt too much and elected to remain where he was. Why was he slumped against a wall? He struggled to remember what had happened.

“That’s it for this gem. Why do you keep calling me to heal him when he uses his blessing too much?”

“Because he means a lot to me, Jenay.”

“As much as me?”

There was something wrong with those voices. Some emotion that shouldn’t be there. Thinking was so hard, like each thought was pushing out through a fog.

A muted sound, like a smack.

“Jenay, of course you’re more important to me. But Alex and I have been together for a year. I owe him a lot.”

“Isaac, he nearly killed you! If he wasn’t such a strong Tranquilus, he wouldn’t have been able to bring you back long enough for me to save you.”

“Jenay, you said he did more than just keep me stable. Now you’re just being catty. And besides, if he hadn’t been such a strong Tranquilus, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt me.”

The more he heard, the more Alexander was convinced something was terribly wrong. Who was Jenay? Why did that name sound so familiar?

“Isaac, do you love him? Or me?”

Isaac hesitated for a long, long time, and then said “I’m not sure.” But the harsh vibration of a lie burned against Alexander’s ears, and he suddenly understood what was so wrong.

Jenay was Isaac’s mistress, or ladylove, or whatever. Alexander wasn’t anything but a plaything. No wonder he’d been so distant lately.

Alexander forced his eyes open. He saw Isaac, sitting at the table with his head in his hands, his skin still pale, though not with a deadly pallor. He also saw the blond Kosmima gemsmith that had been hanging around Life Support lately.

“Tell her the truth, Isaac,” he said, his voice gravelly and rough – from all the screaming, he remembered. Isaac and Jenay’s heads both jerked around toward him. He struggled to his feet. Isaac made a move to help him, but Jenay shot him a venomous look and he sat back down.

Alexander, supporting his weight on the counter next to him, glared at both of them. “Tell her the truth,” he repeated. “Do you love her, or me?”

Isaac looked imploringly at him. “I did love you, Alexander, it just…it’s not you, it’s me!”

The all-too-cliché sentiment buzzed in Alexander’s hearing. “Liar,” he said, his crow-harsh voice mocking. “Sun’s shining. You can’t hide behind storms anymore.”

“I know what the problem was,” Jenay burst out. She was a head shorter than Alexander, with blond hair cut close to her scalp, floating away in a feathery cut. She had watery blue eyes that were full of contempt, and her skin was flushed with anger, making her few freckles stand out. “You mope around any time there’s a cloud in the sky because you’re such a bad investigator you can’t figure out who stole Mama’s cookies without using your blessing! And Atmos keep the sky clear, since a hint of a storm makes you a sobbing wreck! It’s no wonder Isaac looked for a woman, you’d certainly have turned me off of men!” Her words rang with sincerity, and no extra vibration reached Alexander’s ears. He turned his gaze to Isaac, who just stared at the tabletop.

“Fine,” Alexander said tonelessly. “I’m too tired to fight anymore. I’ll be out of your inn in a few days.” He walked slowly to the door, determined to keep his back straight until he could rest somewhere Isaac couldn’t see him.

Jenay twinkled her fingers at him, and he saw a white and pink flash come from a ring on her finger. He felt a fizz of energy bolster him, wiping away some of his dizziness. He ignored her condescending smirk and stalked out.

He slammed the door behind him, and stood on the landing for a moment, letting the sunshine soak into his skin. The street was still soaked, and signs of the storm’s fury were everywhere: tree branches broken, signs hanging loose, awnings torn. Alexander’s own sign had been torn clean off its mount and was wedged between two of the staircase railing legs.

Alexander ignored all of that, letting the sun’s rays fill the hole in his heart. Not that they really could, but he did feel better for the basking. He looked down at the street and a flash of sunlight on a puddle caught his eye. He looked into the flashes, and saw a picture form. He closed his eyes, letting it show clearly on the inside of his eyelids. It was his longtime rival-slash-friend, Andrea. He saw her speaking to someone, anger sparkling in her eyes and impatience clear on her face.

Alexander opened his eyes and the vision was gone. He knew some scryers who could summon a vision and hear sound, or show a vision to someone else. Advanced seers like that used flame, or ice, or sometimes smoke to hold their visions. Alexander could only capture brief images in water, and then only rarely, on completely clear days.

As he walked down the stairway, he resolved to go to the temple and seek out some training. He knew he had a lot of potential, but he’d been so good at truthfinding his whole life he’d never bothered to learn any of the other, more advanced things he could do.

But first, he needed to find Andrea. She’d always offered to teach him how to be a real investigator, and he’d need a better income now that he was going to have to find a new place to live.

He knew where Andrea kept her office, and set off that way, to one of the middle levels of the city. As he walked, he kept to the far edges of the streets, knowing he couldn’t move quickly, staying out of others’ way.

He saw a Kosmima tower on his right, and on a whim went inside. While the sunlight and warmth of the morning had been fortifying him, he knew he was still on weak legs and should avoid a long walk across the city.

The darkness inside the transit station was a significant transition. It was cooler, and Alexander felt all his aches and soreness magnify. His breath abruptly started coming more quickly, and he sagged against the doorframe, half in and half out of the tower.

The clerk at the payment desk looked at him, alarm on his face, and scurried over, removing a necklace as he walked. When he reached Alexander, he slid the necklace – an onyx stone on a silver chain – around Alexander’s neck.

Immediately, Alexander felt a chill, and his aches grew worse. But the clerk stepped back and made a sign with his hands. The onyx around Alexander’s neck began to glow, and fizzling energy filled his veins. He felt pressure, as if he was being filled with air. It increased; as he felt more and more invigorated, the pressure built until it became painful.

The instant that first flash of pain hit him, the onyx stone on the pendant shattered explosively. Shards dug into his chest, and the clerk suffered a cut across his cheek. He didn’t seem to notice, instead kneeling next to Alexander, who still felt like he had sparkling wine instead of blood.

“Are you all right, young man?” the clerk asked. He was an elderly fellow, with the signet of a full Kosmima adepthood on his overrobe. “You’ve got quite the resistance to gemhealing built up. I hope I didn’t do you harm.”

“I’m fine,” Alexander gasped. He noticed his fingertips were glowing, and focused. Instead of putting them out, he let the energy spill out, and wove the strands of light into a small orb, letting it float up until it reached about a head above eye level. “I did need help, so thank you. I received a gemhealing just this morning.”

“That explains the way you were resisting,” the clerk said, nodding sagely. “It’s worst for a few hours after a gemhealing. Where are you headed, young man?”

“The Constabulary, on the Third Ring,” Alexander told him, reaching into his pocket for a few coins.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” the clerk told him. “I almost killed you, the least I can do is cover your transit.”

Alexander, never one to turn down something free, shrugged and followed the clerk over to his desk. He dug through his card catalogue, eventually finding the destination card he sought. He handed the card to Alexander. “Have a safe journey!”

Alexander took the card with a smile and a nod. On his way into the main transit room, he waved a hand and conjured a second light, this one bobbing above the door he entered, brightening the room considerably.

The transit room was small, with only two dishes. Fortunately for Alexander, this time of morning the room was empty and he walked straight up to the nearest attendant, a pleasant looking young lady with bright green eyes. She took his folder, glanced at his face, and started giggling. Alexander looked at her, confused, but she just motioned him into the transit circle.

He took his place, still staring at the girl. She rolled her eyes at him, gave him the safety speech, and activated the dishes. With a rock, he felt himself falling, hurtling downward. He opened his mouth to scream, but there was nothing but the darkness around him.

He landed with a hugely jarring impact. He expected to tumble to the ground, but he was standing quite naturally in a receptor circle. His mind was reeling, but his body seemed none the worse for wear. No one around him seemed to have noticed anything strange, and a Kosmima attendant was urging him out of the circle with a frown on his face.

Alexander walked out of the circle, expecting to stumble so much he nearly did. The juxtaposition of his mind being so completely rattled while his body was so ready for action was deeply unsettling. What had that damn Kosmima girl done to him?

He was out the door in a flash, striding quickly while his mind struggled to catch up. His ears had stopped ringing, and the confusions had started to fade. He found himself marching toward the Constabulary. He started thinking about what to say to Andrea. He didn’t want to come on too strong, but he also didn’t want to play the pity card. Although he would if he had to; getting an income of some sort was his priority right now.

The Constabulary was about four blocks down from the transit station. He knew they had their own station, but it was for officers only. Civilians were not allowed to use it.

While he ruminated, he heard sounds of a scuffle. He was next to a Fytevo nursery, a business that sold plants, vegetables, flowers, and fruits that had been raised by men and women with a Godfen-given affinity with plants. From inside, shouts began to rise.

A figure darted out from the nursery and crashed into Alexander. With his reflexes still sharp form the gemhealing, he was quick enough to throw up a shield around both of them, and then another one around the escaping figure.

The person stamped one foot and slammed an open palm into Alexander’s shield. Golden yellow and blue white sparks flared, and Alexander had to throw a sudden burst of energy into the shield to keep it intact. He dropped the outer one, focusing on keeping his captive. His shield was a blurry, blue-white half-sphere that bent light, so he couldn’t get a good look, even to tell if he was holding a man or a woman.

A green blur whooshed out of the nursery, then screeched to a halt. It was Andrea, and she was clearly angry. Her hair had flared bright red, and her fists were covered in wicked green spines. When he looked at her from the corner of his eye, or when light reflected from her eyes or the shiny buttons on her vest, he could see a pink aura of drifting rose petals.

“Cartwright!” she snapped. “Terros help you if you let my thief get away!”

Alexander opened his mouth, and at that moment his captive struck. This time, brilliant golden cracks shot through his shield and it shattered. The backlash hit Alexander, a feeling like he’d been holding a taut rope that was suddenly cut, and he stumbled backward. The surge of energy inside him was starting to dim, but he was still alert enough to throw a confusion burst toward his now-freed captive.

It was much too warm for his wave of disorientation to have any serious effect. The rogue, who Alexander could now see was a woman, only stumbled for a moment.

That moment was enough time for Andrea to strike. She turned again into a green blur, and abruptly intersected with the escaping woman. There was a flash of pink light, and suddenly Andrea was standing over and unconscious figure.

“Can you put another shield up over her?” Andrea asked. “She won’t stay down long.”

Alexander wordlessly extended a hand, and a blurry dome spread over the thief’s body, obscuring her from view.

“It would be best if you could separate her from the ground,” Andrea added, looking intently at him, for all the world like they were having a normal conversation over tea rather than apprehending a criminal. Alexander looked back at her, though he kept his concentration on his shield.

“It’s too warm for me to lift her,” her replied. “And I can’t slide a shield under her, the earth interferes.”

Andrea shrugged. “It was worth a try. Hold her while I get help.” She vanished in another blur of green. Alexander made a mental note to find out how she was doing that; speed usually was a Ventus effect, not one someone with a modest Fytevo blessing like Andrea could duplicate. He knew Andrea couldn’t be drawing speed from the earth; she could barely make a rock shiver.

While he was woolgathering, his shield rippled. On a bright, sunny day like this, with only one large cloud to the west, he could have held a shield against a fully powered Petra. The girl had only escaped before because he was distracted. The rippling meant his shield had achieved fluidity, a rare state brought on by perfect conditions that gave a shield unusual flexibility and resilience.

A yellow burst against the shield told him that the girl was awake. Alexander set himself, widening his stance and extending his hand toward his shield. He was really feeling all this energy loss, but at least he was out in the sunlight. More yellow light shone through his shield, which buckled and flexed, riding the assaults out rather than resisting them outright. Alexander grinned, proud that he’d achieved a good enough shield for it to go fluid. Maybe he wasn’t such a poor Tranquilus after all.

Three men and Andrea came out of the Constabulary, walking quickly down the street to where Alexander stood. The brief scuffle had cleared out a wide space, and even now foot traffic was giving Alexander – and the nursery – a wide berth.

When Andrea reached him, he noted with relief her Fytevo mods had fallen away, leaving her thornless and blond again. “Thank you for your help, Cartwright,” she told him, reaching out a hand to shake his. “I couldn’t have nailed this one if you hadn’t stopped her.”

Alexander waited for the blue-jacketed detective, a Tranquilus adept, to throw his own shield around Alexander’s. He released his inner shield, though it would stay up until someone broke through it. Another benefit of fluid shields.

Once his attention was free, he shook Andrea’s hand. “It’s lucky I got here when I did, because I needed to talk to you anyway,” he told her.

“Why don’t we go in my office?” she offered. He nodded, and followed her down the street.

“So who was that?” he asked as they walked.

“A silk thief, if you can believe it,” she told him. “She’s been breaking into clothing shops and rich homes and stealing silk, of all things! It’s not like it’s that rare! She’s a powerful Petra, you might have noticed, and she just melts any walls in her way and erases any tracks she leaves.”

Alexander whistled. “How’d you catch her? Did somebody see her?”

“She’s been leaving lotus petals as a signature,” Andrea told him. “Hold on a moment.” They had reached the main door to the Constabulary. Andrea flashed her badge, a trinket of tiny opal, ruby, and topaz chips set in bronze. It sparkled, and the granite door, with a larger version of her badge trinket set where a knob would be, swung open.

“Anyway, we tracked down where she’s been buying the lotuses and set a trap for her,” Andrea continued. “She still almost escaped. She’s damn strong, threw me clear through a display case.” A wicked grin spread across Andrea’s face as they entered her small office. “Too bad for her she threw me into rosebushes and the flytrap shelf.” When Alexander looked quizzically at her, she explained. “Roses let me borrow thorns and sleep pollen. Flytraps let me borrow speed.”

“Oh!” Alexander exclaimed. “I was wondering about that.”

“Trade secret, keep your lip shut,” she said, gesturing for him to sit. She had one cramped chair in front of her desk, which Alexander took gratefully. The Constabulary wasn’t much cooler than outside, but he was still starting to wear down. He needed to eat something soon.

“So what did you need, Cartwright?” Andrea asked, folding her hands on her desk and leaning toward him. “Finally here to ask for a job?”

“Actually, yes,” Alexander said. He’d startled her; she leaned back eyebrows high and eyes wide. “I’m being forced to move, and I need a more stable income than freelancing can give me.” He refused to cry, but thinking of the situation with Isaac brought him perilously close.

“I thought you were living with–” a glance at Alexander’s face stopped her question cold. She paused for a moment.

“I know I can’t join as a full detective. I just need–”

“You’ve got, what, a year and a half experience as a PI?” Andrea interrupted. Alexander nodded. “Well, I can write that off as a year’s training, get you partnered as a rookie. You’ll need to go into advanced training, though. I know you’re decent with your Tranquilus, but my detectives can use every particle of their gifts.”

Alexander grinned. “That was my next question. I need a lot of help with my blessing.”

Andrea stood and reached across her desk. Alexander followed suit, and shook her hand.

“I look forward to working with you, Detective Fields,” he told her.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at dawn, rookie,” she replied, smirking. “We need to get you into shape!”

Alexander’s grin became a little forced, but he managed to take his leave of Andrea without embarrassing himself.

***

Wakefulness for Devon had become an exercise in self-motivation. His very first thought upon waking was always the hope that his life was a nightmare. Then he’d feel the ropes of the hammock digging into his skin, and Abram’s huge, hairy arms wrapped around him, and smell the sea-salt air, and realize it was all too real.

At first, it hadn’t been too bad. He still hadn’t figured out how to purify salt water, even though at this point he was so attuned to it he could tell freshwater from salt at a glance. Feeling the salt wasn’t enough; he had to draw it out of the water, and he couldn’t focus his control enough to move the tiny particles. Abram had been sharing water with him, and the fruit he was allowed to eat kept him going, but his lips were constantly cracked and bleeding and his joints felt like they were made of cheap wood.

And then there was the situation with Abram. He was wildly attracted to the man at first, and the first time they’d slept together had been glorious. But immediately after, Abram had gone to sleep and Devon had stayed up all night fighting completely irrational guilt. He had no idea why – neither of them were cheating, it was definitely consensual, and it had been great. But Devon couldn’t stop the idea that what they were doing was just wrong, somehow.

The map-questing they did more and more often was exhausting, and every time they did it Devon just wanted to pass out. Abram, however, had the opposite reaction: he was invigorated, and always wanted to drag Devon into a corner, put up his sight and sound screen, and ravish Devon. And every time, Devon let him. It wasn’t rape, Devon liked it, and he liked Abram. He never said no, even though he hated watching while people walked by when Abram’s mouth was all over him, his tongue igniting a fire in Devon’s exhausted mind and body, even if they had no idea what was going on a few feet away.

Part of the exhaustion, he knew, was being so far away from land. He couldn’t draw on anything on the boat for strength, and there was a big difference between “not depending on something” and “not having it as an option”. Abram, of course, thrived in the warmth of the open ocean, his blessing letting him draw endurance and stamina from heat.

Devon forced his eyes open. Today, he’d figure out the saltwater. He knew there was something incredibly simple he was missing. The captain wouldn’t tolerate him doing nothing, but he seemed fine with Devon spending hours running power through a bucket of seawater, or helping Abram refine their route in the charm circle.

Devon wriggled, loosening Abram’s grip on him. The sailor mumbled and shifted, giving Devon the chance to slide out of the hammock. Getting out without dumping Abram was a challenge, but the week that had passed has provided a lot of practice.

As he padded silently across the pre-dawn, still deck, he felt a flare of energy to the northeast. His gaze swiveled to fix on the source. His hours of focus on the microscopic salt particles had really honed his senses, and he’d noticed he could feel the four Terros sailors when they exercised their blessings. He thought he could even detect different facets, but he still wasn’t good enough to be sure he wasn’t lucky when he guessed.

Squinting through the misty stillness, he saw Tiercel was doing something to a metal brace on one of the railings. Devon walked over, careful to make enough noise to not surprise the crotchety man, but not so much he woke any of the sleeping crew draped all around the ship.

Closer, he could see Tiercel was trying to dislodge a white, crystalline buildup. Devon could sense it was salt from several feet away.

“Blasted rocks,” Tiercel grumbled. “Stubborn as Atmos’s temper.” Power flared around him, looking to Devon like a mantle of shimmering gold flapping in a silent wind. Streamers of golden light struck the salt buildup and skidded, spiraling crazily and fading.

“Can I help?” Devon offered, staying a careful pace back from Tiercel.

The Petra light guttered out, and Tiercel turned. “Well, I sure as hell can’t crack it off,” he grumbled. “Damn crap is glued on or sommat. Ain’t seen nothin’ like it.”

Devon sent his own power into the salt. His new familiarity with the compound felt like sinking into a favorite chair, knowing exactly how to avoid the sharpest springs. He flexed and twisted, and the salt crystals shattered into a million flakes. Belatedly, Devon tried to capture the particles, hoping it would be easier in air, but his power was like a coarse net and the salt tiny, nimble fish slipping through the openings.

“How did the salt get on this brace, anyway?” Devon asked, withdrawing his power. He’d gotten very good at tight control and release, but his general weariness made any use of his blessing a real effort. He noticed there was still a thin layer of salt on the metal. Frowning, he slid a thread or power back into it, encountering a surprising resistance.

“I was in the middle o’ chantin’ that brace and a wave hit it,” Tiercel said grudgingly. Devon had figured out that the sailors often referred to using their blessings on objects as “chanting” them. “The salt just stuck to the metal.”

Devon probed the salt harder, but his blessing slid across a slick barrier, like sliding across ice. He tried his power on the metal. He and Tiercel were opposites when it came to Petra; Tiercel could manipulate metal and make it run like water, but couldn’t impress a handprint in rock, while Devon was adept at reshaping any mineral, but was confused and frustrated by the strange rigidity of metal.

Something about this brace was sticky. As he sank power into the metal, he felt the echo of what Tiercel had done to it. To strengthen an invisible flaw, he’d been convincing the metal to bind itself together. When the wave had slopped up and covered the brace, that artificial stickiness had bled into the water.

Devon’s breath caught, and he jerked back from the railing. Without saying a word to Tiercel, he turned and ran off, barely sparing a thought to let a whisper of power into the wooden deck, deadening his footfalls. He didn’t hear Tiercel grumble about “Atmos-headed city folk, ain’t got time to say a word to a body…”

Devon found the swab bucket he’d been using. The power he’d accidentally invested into the steel was still there, though it was quiescent and directionless at the moment. He grabbed the bucket’s rope, tied it around the handle, and tossed the whole thing over the side. When it hit the water, he let it sink and fill before hauling it back up. The rope, woven of hemp, seemed to feel his urgency and move easily through his blistered and sensitive hands. Once he had the bucket up, he settled down and went into his now familiar trance.

Rather than sending his power floating into the water, which was much like reaching into a bucket of gelatin and trying to fish out a needle, he tapped into the latent energy hiding in the bucket itself. Sticky, he thought. Stick to the salt!

The metal fought him, not wanting to change. With his power living in it for so long, though, he didn’t have the usual difficulty imposing his will on it. It was actually very similar to working with difficult rock like pumice, an intractable and recalcitrant rock. He bent his will on the steel, and felt the metal shudder before obeying his instructions.

The outside of the bucket began to glow, and golden Petra glyphs began to shine softly on its gold sparkled in the water and began to drift to the bottom, sticking to the glyph, a rounded and shiny stalagmite.

Soon, a white crystal began to grow on the bucket’s bottom. Devon came out of his trance, and the brilliance of the glyphs faded to a dull shine. He could see the salt crystal growing, though, and a quick dip of his finger told him a layer of salt free water had already formed and was rapidly growing. He bent his head and tasted the water. There was still a hint of brackish taste, but it was fresh. He’d done it.

At that moment, the sun broke over the horizon. On the sea, that was a fantastic phenomenon, and a quick one. However, this morning the eastern sky was a bloody scarlet. Above him, he heard the crow’s nest watch begin to call out.

“Storm ahead! All hands! Storm to the southeast!”

All around him, sailors sprang to life as if they’d been lying awake. Devon was surrounded by a flurry of action and suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

It was Abram. A grin cracked the man’s face. “Time to earn your keep,” he said, hauling Devon up and toward the charm circle. Devon barely had time to slide his bucket into a somewhat secure nook and let Abram tug him away.

As they hurried across the deck, Devon saw the full glory of the First Storm for the first time. He’d experienced it in visions, of course, but seeing it in person was completely different. While he was using the charm circle, the lightning that crackled constantly throughout the rotating clouds was remote, if powerful. Now that he could see it with his own eyes, he realized that straying too close to the storm – a distance measurable in miles – one of those tendrils of lightning could rip the ship into a thousand pieces.

A breeze hit them, startling after a week spent riding at the wind’s speed. Devon heard Abram whoop, and suddenly they were flying through the air. Devon started to scream, but their sudden flight had robbed the breath from his lungs.

Abram twisted in the air, and Devon found himself cradled under him, their legs tangled together. Abram’s powerful arms wrapped around him, giving their flight a sense of stability. Devon abruptly began to enjoy the flight, with Abram’s heady, musky scent filling his nose and his heartbeat thudding steadily at his back. But almost as soon as it had started, they descended, landing next to the charm circle.

“Damn, it feels good to fly!” Abram said, releasing Devon as they landed. “Hasn’t been a cloud in the sky since we left Port Nanfula. I missed the sky!” He laughed, apparently full of a childish joy now that he could fly again. “Why don’t you hop in that circle so we can keep our course straight?” he suggested, pointing.

Devon silently stepped into the southern lobe of the charm circle. He had figured out by now that the circle was combining his map lore with Abram’s windfinding to chart the quickest course, and it meant sailing into the First Storm further than anyone on the ship ever had. He was completely on board with preventing their ugly deaths, but he was still tired and the charm circle was exhausting to use. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing, hoping meditation would slow down how fast his energy burned away.

He felt the circle hum to life as Abram invested it with power, and the tub on his heart that meant his map lore was fusing with the circle and Abram. But whether it was the meditation or their proximity to the Storm and, by extension, the Needle, it wasn’t as draining as normal.

He kept his eyes closed, and lowered himself to a sitting position. He heard Abram calling out, though the instructions he gave were meaningless. An idea popped into his head – if the charm circle could magnify the windfinding and the map lore as much as it had, maybe it could extend his earth sensing range? How deep was the ocean, anyway?

He felt his map lore, wrapped up in the charm circle and spiraling around Abram. He put part of his attention on it, and sent the rest reaching for rock or earth. Normally, he couldn’t draw strength from anything more than a foot or so away. But as he reached out, he felt the circle surge up around him, and suddenly he could sense stone.

It was far beneath him, and when he cast a mental ‘hand’ down, his reach was barely short. There were countless sparkles of salt between him and the ocean floor, and every one he reached through absorbed part of his power, shortening his range by a fraction.

He withdrew his probe, and noticed the salt was loathe to let him go. In fact, the sparkles seemed to be growing larger. He narrowed his focus, concentrating on only the million or so salt flakes around the ship.

Slowly at first, then faster, the salt began to concentrate as well. Soon, he had drawn a small crystal of salt together and fused it to the ship’s bottom. He put a spark of power into it, and then sent his awareness leaping down.

Again, he fell short. He shaped the end of his power thread into an orb, and fiercely thought of it as sticky. Again, salt particles rushed in, forming a tiny salt crystal in an eyeblink.

He put another spark of Petra power in the new crystal, and a strange feeling washed over him. HE felt like his body was in two places; he could feel his arms resting in his lap, but only distantly, like they were a hundred miles away. At the same time, his torso was filled with exciting tingles. He felt his power in the salt crystal flex, and leap down again.

This time, he hit the ocean floor. Strength rushed through him in a flood, and he drew greedily, hoping to finally banish the feeling of exhaustion that had plagued him since the ship had left the dock.

But he realized he didn’t’ actually feel better. Instead, the power had rushed into the salt crystal about halfway between the ship and the ocean floor. He could feel it growing, sucking the salt from the water around it in an effort to contain he rush of power filling it.

Devon shifted his attention to the crystal, and felt his connection to the ocean floor slacken. The salt crystal immediately ceased growing as Devon lost his grip on the rocky ocean floor. He fumbled for a second, trying to reconnect to the power, but he had lost it and he felt like he was throwing darts, blindfolded and drunk.

“-von”

“-p lore, it’s g-”

“-can’t close the cir-”

Devon’s power curled around the bottom salt crystal, tethered to his physical body by a thin, shining thread of gold. Voices and a loud, hissing shriek had filled his thoughts, blotting out his senses with a roaring flood of white noise. He floated, dazed.

When he paused for a moment, he noticed the now several inch wide salt crystal was sparkling with golden energy. He wasn’t really sure how that was possible, since crystals normally could only store silver Kosmima energy, but he thought if he could get that crystal up to his body, eh could drain off that extra Petra power.

He tugged on the sparkling cord, and was rewarded with a bob of the crystal. He began to put a steady pressure on the thin connection, and felt his salt crystal start to rise. He kept his rate of ascent steady, and as the part of his mind that was underwater drew closer to the surface, he started to hear flashes of voices and that whining roar more frequently.

“-t get in! It’s like a wall! Can y-”

“-e’s glowing!”

“-eed to know how close we are to the sto-”

Devon ignored the voices. He didn’t really comprehend what they were saying, or where they were coming from. He only cared about keeping that salt crystal moving toward his body.

Suddenly, an icy black knife seared through him. He couldn’t scream, but he involuntarily shot upward, leaving his crystal behind.

For one horrible second, he fell into a black abyss, and the only sensation was one of intense pressure. He was being pressed into an impenetrable wall, and he was sure he was going to become a smear of Devon-colored paste, if there had been any color other than blackness.

There was an awful –pop–

-rip-

-squish-

-gasp-

Devon sat up with a wretched gasp, and a fit of coughing ripped through his chest and throat. He was sitting on the deck, and he curled into a tiny ball, hoping to alleviate the awful, empty feeling inside him. He was so cold.

“Get Tiercel, we need an onyx!”

“Is he dying? Pneumonia?”

“Get this damn barrier down, Sandos!”

All around him people were yelling and power was humming. He was focused on nothing but sneaking in breaths between his endless coughs and trying to feel some warmth in his torso.

There was a loud crack, a sound like shattering glass, and warmth was suddenly bathing him. He shuddered and uncoiled. But the warmth was fleeting. It was gone after a moment, and he twitched. A fragment of it stuck in his chest, and he found the strength to open his eyes.

Abram, Tiercel, and the Captain were standing over him. Tiercel was holding a small black stone, and had his eyes tightly closed. The captain and Abram were both gripping Tiercel’s arms, and all three of them had glyphs glowing: Tiercel’s Kosmima glyph on the back of his right hand, the captain’s Tranquilus glyph over his left eyebrow, and Abram’s Thermas glyph on his wrist.

The onyx in Tiercel’s hands flashed, and another wave of warmth filled Devon. This time, it seemed to stick better, and Devon felt himself change from death warmed over to merely feeble and sickly. He tried to think about what an onyx would do with a Kosmima blessing invoked, but very quickly realized all he wanted to do was lie on the deck and absorb whatever warmth he could from stone and sun.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had a landsick sailor,” the captain remarked. “Tiercel, ye didn’t have this, did ye?”

The onyx flickered and died again, leaving Devon a little colder. “Nah, Captain. I cain’t pull but a whisper o’ power outta rocks, so I never got m’self hooked like most o’them Terros do. This kid lasted a week afore the sickness got’m, so he prob’ly din’t’ use it as much, neither.”

“What’re you talkin’ ‘bout?” Devon groaned. Even that was a herculean effort.

“Sailors almost never have Terros blessin’s because their bodies get sued to getting extra strength from the earth,” Abram explained. “Atmos sailors have it lucky, ‘cuz the sun is everywhere. I get the shakes anytime I go up north, though.”

Devon processed this. A third wave of energy came from the onyx, and he felt like he could think again. He opened his mouth to ask a question, then a horrible thought stuck him. “The Storm! We must be sailing straight into it!”

Abram let out one of his full-throated guffaws, though the captain did not look amused.

“We cleared the storm hours ago, but whatever you did with the charm circle kept both of us fenced in ‘til you were done.” He took a breath, and Devon was sure he was going to keep asking questions, when the captain interrupted.

“If we’re done wastin’ all our blessin’s on this land rat,” he said sourly. “Sandos, I need ye to get up there and fix the riggin’, there was a wee problem with a fire. Tiercel, ye need to take a look at our sapphire mounts, they’re gettin’ a bit tarnished.” Without a word to Devon, he stalked off toward the ship’s wheel. Abram slapped Tiercel on the shoulder and leapt up, his blessing carrying him up into the rigging. Tiercel scowled down at Devon, fished in his pocket, and pulled out a dull gray stone. He set it down next to Devon.

“Don’t ye lose that!” the salty man hissed at Devon, before ambling off. Devon picked up the chunk of granite and let out a long, relieved breath. One small piece of stone wouldn’t let him draw out any power, but just holding it eased the ache and the bitter cold he was feeling. He was content to curl up inside the charm circle around the stone, not even worried about being in the way of any sailors.

***

“Get your shield up!”

Alexander threw up his right hand behind him, fingers splayed, and projected a shield. His left hand was busy holding off a searing fireball. He knew his hasty shield was flimsy, and the burst of kinetic energy that came immediately on the heels of the shout shattered the thin barrier and swept his feet out from under him. Alexander let himself fall, and released his tenuous hold on the fireball, which rocketed back toward the assailant.

If he’d learned anything, it was that he couldn’t remain in one place. Even though every muscle screamed at him, Alexander rolled and got to his feet, twisting some light into an illusion of himself that mirrored his actions, going the opposite direction.

He turned to see where his attacker was. The grizzled old man had just caught the fireball and was turning it into a glowing orb that Alexander knew could shatter his bones with just a glancing blow.

The room he was in was a huge warehouse. Each wall faced a cardinal direction, and had a likeness of the appropriate facet of Atmos picked out in chips of colored stone. Alexander sprinted for the southern wall, directly away from the relentless old man. As he ran, the wall began to glow a deep indigo and he felt the air temperature begin to drop.

Once he’d reached the wall, he spun and put both hands up, projecting a shield as well as he could. Tranquilus shields manifested uniquely to each individual, and Alexander’s were shimmery domes. While his shield stabilized, he used the cold radiating from the wall to power a bolt of confusion, an indigo ray that shot toward his attacker.

The confusion bolt splashed off the old man’s own shield, a barely visible turbulence in the air, like heat shimmer. He had allowed his force blast to dissipate, and was watching Alexander with an expression that said nothing so much as “really?”

Alexander didn’t let his shield drop; he’d fallen for that trick already and had a large bruise spreading across his ribs to prove it. He did drop his defensive stance, letting his left hand fall to his side and moving his feet closer together.

“Better,” the old man announced. “But you still depend on these ridiculous theatrics for your shields. Sometimes your hands are busy!” Alexander let the shield dissolve into a myriad of blue-white sparks. The old man continued critiquing his performance. “The mirror illusion was a good idea, but not convincing. You need to practice that one so you can make a good copy without needing any prep time! And that fireball resolution was shameful!”

“I can’t even light a candle on a sunny day in summer,” Alexander protested. “How am I supposed to dissolve a fireball a real Thermas throws at me?”

“Practice,” the old man, whose name was Joaquin, told him, grinning wickedly. His job was to get Alexander ready for street fighting, and he relished getting to abuse his charge. “You’ve got raw power dripping out your ears, boy. You just need to learn how to use it. Watch.”

Moving faster than anyone his age had a right to, Joaquin pulled a tongue of flame from one of the torches burning merrily on the walls. He shaped it into an orb, and infused it with red light, which would make it a concussive as well as fiery blast.

“Now, if you’re a strong Thermas, you can just unwind the orb and it’ll fall apart,” he explained. He swung an index finger around in a swirling motion, and the fireball uncurled into sparks that quickly faded. “But you’re not. So improvise!”

In a flash, he’d put together three new fireblasts. One he hit with a small gust of wind, making it lose integrity and fall apart. The second he wrapped in a shimmer of light, and it quickly faded as he cut off its air. The last fireblast, he threw a handful of indigo sparks into. The sparks burst when they hit the flames, eroding it away.

“Even a very weak blessing can overcome a powerful one with enough ingenuity,” Joaquin observed. “Think about it. Go outside, get some sunshine and some lunch. Come back here in two hours and we’ll work some more.”

Alexander stifled the retort he wanted to make and bowed his head to the trainer before leaving the warehouse. The door was in the wall dedicated to Godfen Algidus. The aspect that governed ice, snow, and the cold of night had no sex; hir face was slender and angular, with thin lips. Xie had no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes. Xie was wearing indigo robes that were loose enough to obscure hir body type, but not so loose that they were baggy and ugly. The mosaic was still emitting a soft, indigo glow and Alexander could feel the chill coming off the chips of stone as he passed through the door.

The warehouse was on the same street as Andrea’s Constabulary. The detectives and peace officers all used it and its Terros twin to keep their street fighting reflexes honed. Each mosaic was somehow rigged to generate conditions that would power an Atmos blessing. The Terros building was divided into quadrants. One had a rocky, earthen floor with lots of metal fencing, one was littered with gemstones, one was a wildly overgrown garden. The fourth was simply padded, since a Panida blessing worked almost entirely inside a person, unless they were communicating with an animal.

Alexander had arrived at the Constabulary early that morning, the day after he’d spoken with Andrea. He’d expected to sit in a classroom, perhaps work with a priest of Atmos.

Instead, Andrea had told him to go into the warehouse next door and do whatever Joaquin told him. They’d started with a mile-long run, which Alexander barely finished, then gone on to lifting weighted poles. The sweltering heat that had followed the huge storms strengthened Alexander’s endurance and stamina, but he still could not lift the bar with a single pair of weighted discs. Joaquin had not mocked him for that, but he’d been merciless in driving Alexander to his very limit.

Then they’d begun dueling. Blessing duels were frowned upon by priests, but they were not technically illegal, and some people made a good living traveling from city to city and competing in dueling tournaments. Alexander suspected that Joaquin was a champion duelist. The old man moved like water, and even though his only real strength was Thermas, and that not notably strong, he knew every inch of what he could accomplish and could combine forces on the fly in ways that Alexander hadn’t even known were possible.

Alexander began walking toward the temple of Atmos. The marble structure mimicked the Eye and Needle, though it was only about a third the size. It still towered over the town, and Alexander had a friend there who might be able to help him find a place to live. As he walked, he tried to project an extremely light shield around himself. Joaquin had showed him the trick; while a shield strong enough to stop attacks cold would keep him anchored in one place and very visible, a soap-bubble thin layer of protection could save his life and would move with him. People walking through it would feel a gentle push, but wouldn’t be hurt.

It was much easier said than done, though. Alexander was very used to throwing shileds with his hands, and absolutely could not throw a shield light enough to move with him.