In camp, after the stone shepherd and the stone sheep, a natural snow storm brewing, Rask catches Alexis attention.
“That creature in the stone carvings back there, you talked about the gems it had seeming similar to ours. But it’s not Sagi? Not the six-armed creature right? But it had horns?”
“Gus felt like there was something special there too…”
Rask looks over at Gus.
“Horns, not antlers.. What do you think it was?” Rask asks Alexis
Deep in the night, in the silver-horned-stag-camp. Everyone is asleep except Alexis, who has the watch. Gustav is rolled in his blanket with Sally perched near his bedroll. Spyglass is tucked against Ethelred, one eye half open toward the fire.
Alexis sits cross-legged on the cold ground with a strip of liver and his knife and cuts it into small pieces, loud enough that Sally can hear it.
“Sally, do you want some meat? Sorry, I don’t have eyeballs.”
Sally lifts her head. After a moment she hops off her perch and crosses the ground to him.
“Eyeballs!” She pecks the dirt twice.
Alexis shrugs. “No eyeballs. Do you want this meat?” He holds out a small piece.
She takes it from his fingers and swallows it. He holds out another, and it goes the same way.
“Try to catch this one.”
He tosses a piece in a low arc. It bounces off her head and lands in the dirt. She eats it off the ground like that was the plan.
“More?”
“More!”
“Catch. I’ll make it go higher so you have more time.”
He lofts the next piece. She snaps it out of the air and gulps it down. Alexis grins.
He sets three flat stones in a row between them and holds up the last piece of liver so she can see it.
He slides the liver under the middle stone and moves the stones around one another, slowly. Alexis narrates in a low voice while he moves the stones. Sally watches with one eye and then the other. When he stops, she hops to the middle stone and flips it with her beak. She takes the liver.
“Fine. Once more.” He cuts another piece, hides it, and shuffles faster this time. She goes straight to the right stone. He does it a third time, as fast as his novice hands can shuffle these rocks. She picks the right stone again and gives him a look, as if the game is beneath her.
“Fair enough. We’ll move onto something else for a little while.”
He leans back against his pack and pulls the silver coin from his pocket. He walks it across his knuckles. Sally hops closer and tilts her head.
“Perhaps some day I can teach you simple coin tricks.”
He walks it across again. When it reaches the edge of his hand, she darts in, snatches it, and hops out of reach with the coin in her beak.
“Mine,” she says around it.
Alexis laughs quietly. “That was mine. Make a deal?”
She holds it up and looks at him.
He holds out another small piece of liver in one hand and his other hand is is palm up empty. “Trade?”
She considers it for a long moment. Then she drops the coin into his palm and takes the liver.
“Good bargain.” He rolls the coin over his knuckles once and puts it away.
Sally hops onto the nearest stone and fluffs her feathers. Her next sound is only a croak, and the one after that is another. Alexis looks at her for a moment.
“Perhaps we’ll get more time to talk some other night.” Alexis shrugs.
He picks up the stones. A piece of liver goes under the left one, and he shuffles. Sally goes to it without hesitating.
For the rest of his watch the two of them sit in the firelight, the stones sliding across the dirt and the crow flipping them over.
The group is huddled in a mountain lion cave while the unnatural storm bears down on them from the north. Alexis has just finished scrying on Mavon, and is worried about his friend.
While sitting in the protection of Raiden Alexis sits cross-legged with his book of notes in this lap. He looks over at Sally and Gustav, and waves a piece of dried meat for Sally to join him briefly.
After feeding Sally, Alexis starts a page of portraits. When he started with Gustav and Ethelred into Pulathi, he had never really tried to draw much. But as Alexis has encountered the weird and the unusual he has worked on his drawing. Nobody would say is portraits are good now, but he can consistently draw so someone knows the likeness.
He keeps the pictures small so he can squeeze a lot of them on this page. Mavon is already on the page. He starts with the Spider of the Dark Hand next. He has a list in his mind; Ezrin, Varisimus, Ethelred, Alekeemo, Cheyeenee, Earyka, Leer, Yeegoth the Mighty, Tarkus Vell, Squire Perez, Ardor Skull-eyes … and the list goes on.
As he keeps drawing he narrates to Sally about the person behind each portrait, feeding her a little bit as he goes. “… Domdir who we found in the sewers of Sutheron, possibly from Mount Sutheron. Another mystery, really. And his companion Draego… “
The storm rages on, Alexis sits in the circle periodically feeding Sally, drawing in his book, and quietly narrating to Sally as he draws.
Alexis falls into step beside Ethelred and Ca’armine as they leave the statue and pillar.
“The pillar.” He nods back the way they came.
“The Dragon could deal in chronomancy. The Spider was a master of the ring and could see possible futures. Between the two of them they knew the empire was ending.” He glances at the road ahead. “I have a theory they decided where to create a reliquary to best help humanity survive the trials back then and into the future.”
He looks at the landscape around them.
“They picked this corner of the empire. Gave the Tears to the dwarves, because a hundred and sixty years is nothing to a dwarf. They’d still be holding them when humanity found its way back.”
He shrugs once.
“I have a hunch this place didn’t survive by chance. It was chosen.”
They keep walking together.
Alexis sets the crystal ball down into his lap. He’s going to use it again, but he needs a moment.
Alexis closes his eyes and smiles. With his eyes closed “It was good to see the old man again.”
Alexis takes a few breaths, still with his eyes closes. Then he adjusts his hat and prepares for the next viewing.
In the new timeline, as the group walks from the old warrior burial area — that no longer exists — to the grotto where the Monastery of the Eagles stands in another timeline. The group walks and Alexis thinks out loud, turning the Collegium ring on his finger.
“How old are the Tears, actually?”
A few steps.
“The Crone gave them to humanity to save humanity. But they were already in play at the Great Betrayal, at the end of the Second League.” He turns the Collegium ring once. “Which means there was a time before the Great Betrayal when Avv decided humanity needed saving. The Age of Wyrms? The Great Upheaval? Earlier?”
He frowns slightly.
“Humanity needed saving at the Great Betrayal. That’s clear. But if the Tears predate even that, what were we being saved from before?” He looks at the path ahead. “The Age of Wyrms? The time of the crafting of the Sword Chaotic? The time of the Saggi, the Akkil, and the demon-gods?” He shakes his head. “What was so dire, that all the other times pale in comparison?”
He doesn’t seem to expect an answer.
After a few days of working on Gus’s leather armor and before Ca’armine’s ritual, Rask changes the subject from armor design on Ethelred:
“Red, I was wondering… I noticed you pay close attention when other people cast spells and it seems like you can tell what kind of spell they are casting without using magic of your own? Can you teach me how to do that? It seems like our enemies use spells often, it seems like it would be helpful for me to learn some of their tells.”
With the other members of the group occupied with their work Red sets into a rhythm of his own. He keeps to himself in camp from morning till dinner.
His days start by leaving food out for the local birds. Admiring how they can achieve such great heights.
He then sets into morning prep for his spells. Tracing a focus circle with runes. Reviewing his spell book, arranging various item of his. Letting his mind wander on what new spells he might be able to write into his book.
He then sets to cleaning any hides the rangers have brought back. From the smallest rodent, to the largest of game. Cleaning and prepping them as best he can. This works calms the part of Red that missed the protection of his armor. His mind drifts to ways to protect himself that way his armor used to.
Each day Red focuses on a sets of his skill. Starting with metal, weapons. Moving on to stone and masonry. Spending time on polishing and sharping his metal tools. Repairing his ropes. Cleaning all of his gear. Taking the axe to a tree to prep a nice long beam of wood.
He learns early on in the first week he can keep the cold at bay through a little magic. He continues to focus on that thread, hoping to improve his ability there.
As the days move on he finds one bird that seems to stick around, to be interested? A small bird. With a pleasant chirp. He feeds it more. Whistles back to it. Funny bird.
Inspired by the scrolls he has read so far he takes to marking in the ground, practicing the three parts: the core, the modifier and the anchor. Lost for a few hours each day in tracing, wiping clean and trying again.
He ends his days sitting at the edge of camp up in a tree. Watching the bird flutter around in the near by tree tops. He can sense the bird is happy, is curious. He decides to build a small stand and nest for the bird on the edge of camp, near where he sleeps.
During the second week things are much the same. He finished prepping the tree into a nice beam. He clears away the debris, putting it into the fire pit. He steps back and intones a word, trace around the beam and it become but a walking stick. Shrunk down in all ways to something very manageable. Red smiles deeply. That is a trick!
The days float by. Everything Red cares about feels a little easier. The bird he now considers a friend. He grants the bird a name. He finally settles one some new entries in his spell book.
Despite the nip of cold and the uncertain future, the uncertain present.. Red is content.
Rask approaches Alexis in the evening, near the end of the two weeks of focusing, training, and regrouping.
“Alexis, if I may, the Inner Watch? You’ve spoken a few times about it, and every time it… stands out?”
Rask is a bit unsure of himself.
“I don’t… I don’t listen for it, but it catches my attention almost is as if I were. It seems that you have learned more about it since you first brought it up, would you be willing to share what you have learned?”
Rask seems almost called to learn more about the Inner Watch from Alexis.
The group is spending 2 weeks focusing and regrouping. Alexis spends these two weeks mostly out of camp.
He finds the spot on the first morning. About a hundred yards up a slope from the group campsite there is a cut between two shoulders of rock, narrow enough that a man standing in it fills it, out of the wind and out of sight of anything below. He walks it end to end many times and does not come back down until midday.
He clears the floor of it to bare stone. He cuts a carving into the rock and lays ash into the cut, and chalks Raiden’s sigils around the outside of it, and holds the wooden focus Ethelred made him flat against the ground while he imbues the space with a subtle but pervasive power.
Alexis even finds a granite and quartz surface that he can grind coins against. He and Ethelred often talk about putting in the effort oneself to make a thing stronger. Alexis sweats to grind a couple coins at an awkward angle.
He gathers what will work for incense. Pine resin, a bark that smells of pepper once it dries, some mushrooms. He burns them in the mornings and chants over them a long while, not loudly. The smoke stays in the narrow place, sitting there and growing stronger.
He sits at the closed end of the cut, facing in, and keeps the watch himself. Incense burning and chanting the whole time.
Down at the camp the fortnight is unremarkable. The mornings are mild considering the season. There is a peace at camp.
Any of the rangers, if they walked up to look, find Alexis kneeling on cold rock with his sleeves shoved back, working and/or chanting. It is a great deal of labor in a very small space.
He comes down at midday and again at dinner. He eats more than he usually does and talks less than he usually does and is in his blanket early. Twice in the fortnight somebody lets him sleep through his watch, and in the morning he does not argue about it.
