Accounts of Starlight and Dust: Aterian Accounts, #1

By L.A. Effinger

Being a mage is a solitary profession. Being part of the Magistrate of Limboratii helps, but still, nobody wants to be friends with the prodigy, with the overachiever, the soon-to-be-Archmage Arran Kerodin.

 

Except for Tristan. He's no mage, just a man blown into the city by the desert winds, hunted by a monster.

 

As Arran and Tristan grow closer, the Archmage becomes suspicious of Tristan's place in Arran's life. Friendship makes Arran preoccupied, it makes his magic unstable, and that is all the reason the Archmage needs to banish Tristan from Limboratii, using his power over the mage circle to separate them for good.

Not willing to lose his best friend, Arran no longer stands by and soon finds that the Archmage is the least of his troubles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.A. Effinger
• Release date: Feb 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215462041

Book preview

Accounts of Starlight and Dust

L. A. Effinger

Copyright ©, Linda Effinger, 2020

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be copied, distributed, or published in any form without permission from the publisher. For permissions contact: [e-mail].

This is a work of fiction in which all events and characters in this book are completely imaginary. Any resemblance to actual people is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 9 - 7982 - 1579 - 2445 Paperback

ISBN: 9 - 7982 - 1546 - 2041 eBook

Cover designed by Linda Effinger

Published by Linda Effinger

[e-mail]

www.adozenbottledtales.com

Contents

Part One: The Library

1. Arran

2. Scared of the Dark

3. The Way of Old Men

4. Hurt and Recovery

5. Five Years Pass

6. Fragile

7. Self-Made Magic

8. The Soul's Demand

Part Two: Redgrave

9. Tristan

10. Jorah

11. Nightmares

12. Hunting Spectres

13. Impersonation

14. An Attempt at Faith

15. The Last Inn

16. Found

17. Leap

18. Wounded

19. Tea

20. Seven Years Pass

21. Darkness

22. An Attempt at Flight

23. Slowly Not Quite Dying

24. Gruna

25. Alive

26. Homewards

27. What Remains

Part Three: The Temple

28. Sylphie

29. Seirumir's Sigel

30. King of the Pit

31. Dreams

32. A Year Passes

33. The Stone Garden

34. Morning

35. Decades Pass

36. The Wings

37. Nightly Escapades

Part Four: The Pit

38. The Beginning of the End

The Last Sentinel

Lost

Wake Up

Another Day

Get Up

Funeral

39. Untethered

40. Defiance

41. The Walls

42. The Soul

43. The Body

44. The Foresight

45. The Assurance

46. The Cost

47. The Queen of the Pit

Part One: The Library

1

Arran

Asingle ring of a bell tears Arran awake, the sound cutting clear and dark through the tower he is sleeping in, sounding throughout the library below. It takes its time in the air, seeping into every corner of the night before fading out, leaving only Arran in its wake, awake, and alone in the dark. The dark is not for long, Arran knows his duty. He flings the covers back and snaps his fingers, catching the sparks the friction creates and blowing them out into the room. Lanterns and candles scattered throughout the room catch flame, and the darkness wanes. The magic tingles in his fingertips, the feeling cast aside as he finds his clothes. He braids his currently grey hair, buttons up his shirt and swings his robe over himself. As he gets dressed, he walks up to the window overlooking the city and out into the desert. If he strains his eyes against the night, he imagines that he can see the shadow of the Scarlet Pit, tearing a deep dark gash through the desert. But it’s too dark to tell.

Looking down the streets, he can see other robed figures streaming the eastern gate, other Magisters awakened by the bell. He reaches for a lantern as he walks by his bedside table and rushes down the stairs. The darkness is stronger on the stairs, in the library, it’s older there. Arran rushes past it, tries not to think about it. His hands shake anyway as he unlocks the big heavy door of the library, pushing his weight against it and slipping through a tiny crack.

Another Magister walks past him with a brisk pace, and Arran joins her. They don’t speak, simply focus on getting to the eastern gate, to where there are torches, Magisters collecting up on the wall. Archmage Gruna is already there, his watchful eyes both on the night outside the walls and the street within, counting his Magisters as they arrive. He smiles when he spots Arran. Arran nods in greeting, relief flooding him as he steps onto the wall lit by torches. His hair responds in kind, streaks of the grey braid casting its own soft silver glow. The archmage mistakes the light for delight.

Well met, Magister Kerodin. A good ward, impressive. We’ve never been alerted this early. The archmage pats him on the back and leads him towards the front of the wall.

Or falsely, some other Magister mutters to his left, and Arran doesn’t turn to see who it is. He tries never to look. He doesn’t want a face that he’ll then look out for, act differently towards. He tries to be kind, despite others not deeming him worthy of the same. Or of the archmage’s attention.

He knows the ward is good, he made sure of it. Arran has no talent for people, for making friends, but he can do magic. His powers coil within his chest like a snake nest made of waves, ebbing and flowing against the back of his mind. He makes sure to keep it under control, doesn’t allow any of it to slip past his body, and he’s good at that. At that and whatever else the archmage and the Magistrate want of him.

A murmur passes through the Magisters like wind and Arran looks up. There’s a bit of darkness moving over the road leading up to the eastern gate, something made of things darker than the night.

Sinster sighted. Magisters, prepare! The archmage’s voice rattles them awake and the Magisters move around, those not yet in their place finding it, their eyes always on the horizon. Arran is in place, front and centre, ready to take the brunt of the attack. He’s the strongest of them, youngest and strongest of them, and he is to protect them all. Arran breathes out and a little of his magic comes loose, moving like a current through his blood until it’s at his fingertips in a heartbeat. He draws his hand through the air, drawing a line in the sand a few paces away from the gate, then throws his hand up to the night sky and around them until the shield encompasses them. It’s almost invisible, just a shimmer in the corner of his eye betraying the magic. Of course, there is no way of knowing what the Sinster sees. It might see the magic like snakes see heat.

The shield is up, and with the magic flowing from his hands, Arran can sense the other Magisters around him preparing. There is so much power in him, it’s hard to control where it goes. It radiates around him, and he can taste the magic of his fellow Magisters as it coalesces in their bodies. He tries not to think about it, focusing on holding the shield as the shadow comes closer.

This would be easier using runes. Arran tries to reach inside himself without losing focus, tries to sense how much power this is costing him. It’s not enough to tell easily. But still, this would be easier with runes. Some stone maybe, runes and stone last longer than lines in the sand. He’ll have to look into that, perhaps in Magister Gamish’s library, there is more on runes there than in his. Although he could probably find some starting texts in his own shelves, up in the—

There’s a smaller shadow flitting in front of the beast that is slowly growing in size as it approaches the city.

Archmage, Arran calls out and the archmage notices it too. He puts his hand on Arran’s shoulder, the grip iron.

Do not falter, Magister. You protect all of Limboratii, your fellow Magisters. A hundred thousand lives.

Arran nods, he understands. No compromise, the shield stands. He feels sick.

The small thing runs, and somehow it’s fast enough to escape the Sinster, somehow it makes it far enough to turn into a man, running for his life. Arran watches him, only occasionally checking where the Sinster is, how far it is from his shield. The running man is lucky, this one is slow, a slow lumbering beast with a dozen or so legs carrying three times what they appear to be able to, dragging itself towards the gate more than running.

Arran wishes he could do something, forge a path, hinder the Sinster, do something. But he has to focus. The surrounding Magisters are letting their spells loose. Arran concentrates, allowing the bolts of lighting and light, the fireballs and other spells through the barrier, immediately closing it up behind them. He pulls and pushes against the spell, creating three dozen openings and closing them immediately once the projectiles have passed through them. All of this would be easier with runes. A semipermeable membrane, penetrable from one side but solid from the other, that should be doable.

The spells begin impacting the Sinster, hissing and catching fire where they hit different parts of its body. The man looks behind him once, then up towards the barrier. He keeps running. Arran wonders how long he’s run, and how much his body has left in him. He knows that it doesn’t matter, though. He will not falter, and once the man reaches the barrier, it will be the end of him.

The lumbering Sinster keeps up its pursuit, coming closer. The flames on its body flare up with the wind, the foremost claws almost reaching the running man. Arran tries to harden his heart as the man approaches the line in the sand, the Sinster only three paces behind him now.

Arran can sense him approaching. He can hear the Sinster coming, a gaping nothing where the world around the shield is humming with its own innate magic, a black hole absorbing whatever it comes close to. But before that, a speck in the path of nothingness the Sinster is grazing through the world, Arran can taste magic. Wild magic, untamed and uncontrolled. The magic is like the wind and tastes like the sky, the sound of stone and blue mixing and barrelling towards his barrier.

It’s easy then. Arran opens the barrier for a fireball, for another bolt of light, and for a blaze of blue and earth. He closes the barrier neatly behind each one, shutting his eyes to focus. And just in time. The Sinster thunders against the barrier where only heartbeats ago there was a hole, its entire body shuddering as it comes to a bone breaking halt.

He doesn’t see the archmage’s furious glare. His eyes closed, he can only sense the magic coming from the wall, letting it pass through the barrier so it can be sucked into the black hole that is the Sinster. He only opens his eyes once the last of the spells have passed, and the black hole collapses in on itself. Once he can sense the world knitting itself back together over what is left of the Sinster. Once he can sense the blue blaze that’s panting and shivering within his barrier sputter out, the magic vanishing and crumbling.

Arran’s hands are shaking. He looks over to the archmage, who nods curtly, giving him leave to drop the shield. Arran does so slowly, letting the flow of magic in his arms slowly ebb out, retreating back into his core. His breathing comes hard, and he suddenly becomes aware of how tired he is. The spell is so new, unstructured and unrefined, only a few hand movements away from simply casting the shield wild. He needs to look into runes, this is ridiculous.

But first the archmage clears his throat, calling the attention of the Magisters to him. Magisters, I thank you. A clean and easy kill. A special thank you to Magister Kerodin for a brilliantly executed warning ward, and to Magister Gamish for the refined version of the fiend fire. Excellent work everyone. Now please, Magisters Kerodin and Aduat to me. Everyone else, once again, wonderfully done. I bid you a good night. Rest. Should the drain be too heavy and impact your duties, call on me.

Arran’s heart sinks. He wants to go down with the rest of them, pick up his lantern and go outside, check on the man. He can’t hear him, can’t tell if he’s moving, even alive. But he reigns himself in and waits for the other Magisters to leave, scatter back through the city into their libraries. He waits with Magister Aduat, trying to ignore the archmage’s glare burn into him.

Once it’s just the three of them, the archmage goes down the steps from the wall and the two Magisters follow wordlessly. During the day, without the bell, this wouldn’t work. They’re all too different for that. They bicker and argue, sometimes even drawing productive conclusions from it. But when the bell tolls and the ward is breached, they become a unit, the Magisters of the Unbroken Academy, protectors of Limboratii.

The protectors of Limboratii follow their archmage through the gate, past the collapsed body of the man and to the pile of limbs and fur and burnt skin that once used to be a Sinster. Arran wants nothing more than to stop and check on the man, find out where in that pile of limbs and cloak and hair his face is, find out whether he is still breathing. Instead, he follows the archmage like he has to.

Magister Aduat, see whether you can discover where this thing was keeping itself before this moron led it towards our gates. I fear that it can’t have been far out. Because nobody can run like that for very long. At least not on their own. Magister Aduat bows and gets to work. He’s a hunter in another life, his magic tracks and finds and discovers. It’s fascinating to watch him work, but Arran knows that now is not the time. The archmage beckons him away from the bodies, out onto the road that leads up to the gate.

Now, Magister Kerodin, if you please would be so kind as to explain to me why you disobeyed my orders while there was a Sinster charging towards our gates? Arran tries to keep breathing, tries to keep control of the fear scratching up his throat. Most of all, he tries his very very best to keep a close grip of the power inside his core, to not let anything slip. He’s not a child anymore, he can’t lose control just because an old man is furious with him and he’s scared. It’s a close thing, though.

I am sorry, archmage, I—

Sorry is not good enough. Sorry does not make up for the lives you risked. Explain yourself, Magister! And pray that I can follow your line of reasoning. An unreliable Magister defending this city is a worse liability than a weak one. The words cut deep, but that at least is something Arran knows. He breathes and swallows the pain like its wine, numbing his fear.

The man was casting as he ran, wild magic. I could sense it with the shield. I think it’s why he could outrun the Sinster, and why he could outrun it for very long. It was still blazing as he approached the shield, despite the Sinster so close behind him, eating his powers. I feared what might happen should he realise he had run so far just to die, how his magic might react when he died. And I must admit, I considered the benefit someone so strong might have to the city. Even if he is not trained, with some instruction he might be useful to us, or the guard. He’s not quite sure how much of that is true. He can’t remember thinking anything at all, only feeling oh no and the magic running from his hands. He just hopes it’s enough. The archmage scrutinises him, his eyes flicking to Arran’s braid, which has lost all its light, a deep grey now marred with the darkness of anxiety.

Magister Aduat joins them, his spells cast, his work done. If I may, archmage? The archmage looks at Arran a little longer before he nods, giving Aduat permission to speak. The Sinster did indeed come from quite far off. Most of the dust in its fur is from out in the desert, even further than the reach of the mountains. The dust on its belly and claws is from out there all the way to here. It didn’t stray far. I would wage that Magister Kerodin is not far off in his assumption. It came straight here, and at a speed that suggests a pursuit.

Arran looks over to where the man is lying, still untouched and unmoving. The archmage nods to Aduat and he bows. Thank you, Magister, excellent work. I bid you a good night. A report on what you found tonight tomorrow. Magister Aduat bows, then he too turns and leaves. Arran is left with the archmage, who finally leads him over to the body.

Well, in that case. Magister, see what you can make of him. Arran kneels next to the body and looks within himself. The shield took it out of him, but the power in his core is still shining bright and eager. He turns the body of the man over, so he is lying on his back. Still, all of him is covered in coats and scarves, gloves and boots. So Arran leans over to the only patch of free skin he can find and places his hand on the man’s forehead. He closes his eyes and does the only other thing the archmage deems him useful for. Shielding and healing.

As he closes his eyes, Arran lets go of the iron grip he has on his powers, allowing it to run down his arm and pool in his hands. He focuses on the man’s skin, on the dust he can feel beneath his hands, and on the being that lies beneath the dust. Then he forces himself in.

It’s never nice. That’s why the archmage always asks him to do it, because he knows Arran can handle not nice. Still. It’s brutal the way he forces himself past the skin and into the man’s blood flow. Into his nerves and bones. Arran claws his way through the man’s body, through muscle and intestine and bone. He’s mostly uninjured. Arran withdraws until all of his consciousness is pooled in the man’s chest and then pushes down, into his ribcage and then inside. The light in him is barely there, a candle flame flickering in the wind. But Arran can tell just how much more light there normally is. Nothing near what is burning inside his own chest, but enough to be useful. Even powerful, given the right directions.

He withdraws, the taste of another man’s blood and cartilage lingering in the back of his throat. His hands tremble with the exertion and the terrible sensation of sliding around veins and arteries. He quickly pulls them back, hiding them in his robes as he stands.

He’s near death, barely anything remains. But there used to be some magic there, most definitely an impressive amount for a guard, and maybe even a mage, if he takes to it, he reports, his voice shaking almost as much as his hands. He breathes, tries to get himself under control. The archmage nods and kindly pretends that he didn’t hear anything amiss.

That is good to hear. I will have some guards pick him up. You should get some rest, good Magister.

Arran balls his hands into his robe and tries to summon what courage he has. Archmage, forgive me, but he will not survive in a guardhouse or a cell. He is drained, almost to completion. It will kill him without the proper care.

The archmage looks at him, his gaze cold and unyielding. Be that as it may, Magister. I will hand him over to the guard. What they do with their recruit is their business. Arran knows that tone and bows. There’s nothing else he can do but bow.

Of course, archmage. The archmage puts his hand on Arran’s shoulder in what is supposed to be a kind gesture. Arran only notices the weight of it.

You should get some rest, Arran. You have done well today. You show extraordinary promise, but you are young.

Yes, archmage. Goodnight. He turns to leave, already knowing he won’t go far. He steps around the body, lying there unmoving, and Arran knows he will be back. The man will be dead by dawn if nobody wakes him, and the guard doesn’t know what to do when he will not awake.

Arran listens as he walks, he knows the route the archmage will take home. When their paths diverge, Arran turns the corner and presses himself against the wall, letting the shadow cloak him, shutting the hood over his lantern. He thinks of the body, what it was like inside another man’s heart and bones, and the horror of that sensation extinguishes all light in his hair and eyes, turning it a deep grey. He thinks of the way the archmage spoke to him and revels in the fear that causes, even allows himself to slip into memories of his master before all of this, before the archmage and Limboratii and the Magistrate. He allows himself to notice the darkness, how it is overcoming him and drowning him. He revels in the fear, letting all of it overtake him until his heart is racing and his hair and eyes are as dark as the night.

Once the archmage is well out of sight, Arran breaks out of the darkness, his heart racing in his throat and his breath coming in quick sharp pants. He is lucky he is so tired, lucky the archmage asked so much of him, that he doesn’t have much power left to lose control of. He hurries to the next streetlight and tries to breathe, trying to calm down. The fear still courses within him, making him sick and his knees weak. He hates it. But it’s the easiest way to hide, especially from those that know the light of his hair. He makes a note to get robes with a hood, something to hide himself in that isn’t fear and terrors from the past.

He doesn’t have time for this. His hands still shaking and his heart in his throat, Arran straightens himself up and heads back towards the eastern gate. He has to be there when the guard comes.

It doesn’t take long. Two guards come through the door, looking as tired as Arran feels. They halt when they spot him, and he rises.

Good night, Magister. The archmage asked us to take care of… The man speaking gestures at the body at Arran’s feet. Arran nods.

I apologise that you’ve walked all this way, gentlemen. Things have changed since the archmage issued those orders. The Magistrate will take him under its care. A good night to you. They look at each other, but who are they to dispute a Magister, with orders from the archmage, no less? They bow.

Is there any other way we can be of service, Magister?

He almost says no, thank you, gentlemen. But then he looks down. He is tired, and not physically strong at the best of times. If you wouldn’t mind, could you fetch a stretcher and carry this man to the General Library for me? They bow and scurry away, and Arran bends back down to the body. Checks the pulse. It’s faint, but for now it’s still there. He mentally races through his supplies back home, through the food and drink he still has. It should be enough for a week, but he will have to go and restock sooner, now that he has someone else to care for.

Dread overcomes him for a moment when he realises what he’s just done to himself. He doesn’t know this man, doesn’t know his past, anything. Only that he has magic, and that almost none of it is left. That he needs help. Arran wonders if that will be enough.

The guards return with a stretcher and pick up the body, looking over at the corpse of the Sinster. For a moment, Arran furrows his brow. Something needs to be done about that. But that’s not his problem, it’s the archmage’s. When the guards rise to a stand, he walks ahead, leading them to the General Library, pushing open the heavy doors.

Put him down here, I will take care of the rest. Thank you very much for your help, gentlemen. A good rest of the night to you. They bow and scurry back out of the library and Arran takes a deep breath. He is alone again. Tired and alone again. Finally.

He slides down the door, coming to rest on the cold stone floor of the library. He snaps his fingers and blows the sparks towards the lanterns, the tension in his gut easing as the light warms the entrance hall. Just for a moment Arran allows himself to rest, allows the events of the night to settle around him, lets the fear he’d conjured to hide from the archmage properly melt away, now that he’s home, now that there’s light. Then he gets up. He can’t just let the man sleep here, in the entrance hall. He’s just also not sure if he can carry him.

Well, only one way to find out. He pushes himself up against the wall, his body protesting when the drain of the night finally sets in. Arran ignores it. Looking at the man, Arran sighs. No way he can carry this. Not up all the stairs, not up into the Residence Tower. So he lets go his control and his magic flows through him freely, through his veins and bones and brushing up against his skin. It’s wonderful. He restrains himself quickly, placing his hands onto the holds of the stretcher and funnels his power into the wood.

It’s a terrible idea, exhausting as all hell, forcing the magic raw and wild into the wood. The wood takes and takes and takes, but Arran knows it will be okay. He has enough, and it’s a small spell. This is why the archmage always asks him to shield, asks him to heal, because he has enough. The wood groans and splinters, branches and leaves sprout from the poles as the wood comes back to life, soaking up Arran’s raw power. When the power runs dry, Arran lets go, a shaky breath leaving him as he falls back. He’s so tired, but he can’t rest just yet. Carefully, he pushes the stretcher upwards and smiles weakly as it does what he wants, floating gently. The spell took much more out of him than it should have, but such is the cost of doing wild magic. No control over the outcome or the cost. He’s just glad it floats.

For a moment, Arran laments that he himself won’t float and dreads all the stairs ahead of him. But they won’t grow less if he just thinks about him, so he sighs and pushes himself up on the walls. Tomorrow he’ll begin looking into runes, this is ridiculous. A simple shield shouldn’t take this much out of him. Everything else he doesn’t mind, but the shield, he can improve that. He gives the stretcher a little push, and it moves, floating ahead of him into the Library Tower. Picking up his lantern from the floor, he manoeuvres the stretcher through the library to the passage on the third floor that leads to the Residence Rower. From there, he climbs two more sets of stairs until he’s finally reached the guest room.

Picking up the body from the stretcher to lay it onto the bed is terribly easy, even in his tired state. The body is light, and even through all the layers of fabric Arran can feel the bones press into his arms. For a moment, he considers the very real possibility that he might wake up to a corpse tomorrow. A terrifying thought, but nothing he can do about that now. He beds the sleeping man down onto the bed, not bothering with covers and the light. With all those layers, he won’t be cold.

After gulping down half a pitch of water himself, he carefully places a cup of water on the man’s lips, letting it trickle into his mouth. He watches, waiting for him to swallow before he gives him more. After three cups, Arran deems the water enough for now, mainly by the virtue of his arms being too heavy for him to carry any more. That should be enough for him to make it to tomorrow. And if not… well, Arran doesn’t know what else to do, not with how tired he himself is.

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He doesn’t sleep well that night. He gets a music box like device from his own room, one floor higher, cursing the stairs. When he funnels a little more of his power into it, the dancer in the box begins to twirl. Arran twists the key four times and gets ready for a terrible night.

After four hours he awakes to music, the dancer standing still, the song sounding in his head. It’s annoying, but he’s awake. That’s enough. Groaning as he gets up, he fetches more water and forces himself to stay awake long enough to set up a soup in the kitchen. The man in his guest bed won’t survive of water alone. After the ingredients are all in a pot and the flame is fed, he heads back and gives the man another cup of water.

Arran doesn’t know what he’s started. Sure, he is aware of the significance of his actions, feels their weight. He’s a mage, a good one at that, of course he feels it. But to him, it’s just the significance of saving a life. The guard would never have done this, he wouldn’t have survived.

Arran sits beside the bed and watches the man sleep. He’s so young. The lines on his face are drawn by dust, not years, and watching him breathe, Arran realises the man is about his age, maybe younger. Not even past the twenty. He wonders what he was doing out there, out in the desert, running from a Sinster, when most men his age fool around in taverns or the guard.

Questions he cannot answer right now, not with his eyes this heavy and his mind this slow. Not with the man still asleep. Arran turns the key for the music box four more times and curls up in the armchair again. He too needs sleep. He’s not in as much danger as the other man, nowhere near, but he needs rest if he is going to be of any help to him. If he’s going to look into runes.

He wakes every four hours, feeding himself and the sleeping man all through the night. The next time he feeds him broth from the soup, eating some of it himself. Looking out of the window at the light of dawn creeping over the desert, he groggily wonders if he should sleep another few hours or get up. He opts for sleep. The General Library never gets much traffic, nobody will notice if he sleeps some more.

That first night, Arran is terrified. He’s so worried, the man could die, and when the sun finally has climbed the horizon and he has to open the doors to the library, he climbs the stairs every hour or so, just to make sure he never actually stops breathing. It would be too cruel for him to survive running from a Sinster, only then to die in Arran’s bed. And Arran really doesn’t like cruelty, not in his halls.

That day, Arran is pretty much useless. He walks and eats and begins his research on runes, but he doesn’t really get far anywhere. He keeps walking back to the guest room, keeps checking whether the man is still alive. Every few hours he makes him drink, sometimes goes to get new soup. Eventually he gives up and gives in and just sits down next to the bed again, watching over the man, watching the rhythm of his dreams lifting his chest from beneath all those layers.

Eventually, his humanity catches up to him. He’s only human, so he sleeps. He can’t keep his eyes open anymore, so he lets it happen, the book he was reading falling from his hands onto the floor. His last thoughts before the Sandman takes him go to the sleeping man. He hopes he’ll still be around when he wakes up. By all accounts, he shouldn’t.

When Arran wakes up, in the hours of early dawn, the man is still alive, breathing. His eyes are open and blue and staring at him. Arran looks back, and the blue reminds him of snow trampled into sludge back home. He hasn’t been homesick in years. He smiles.

Do you have a name? The man blinks. Doesn’t answer. He takes the question like he’s taken the food and falls back asleep.

He sleeps through another three days. Arran wakes him, now that he’s awoken on his own for the first time, waking him is simple enough. He eats and drinks on his own, taking the cups and bowls from Arran and giving them back to him. He doesn’t talk, but Arran doesn’t mind. He will talk or leave when he’s ready to. Until then, Arran is off to cook more soup.

He eventually makes some progress with the runes. He also has duties still, responsibilities. He has wards to cast, protecting Limboratii from the threats of the Scarlet Pit, and whatever else may be out there. It’s a different one each month, the duties get passed around the mages of the circle so that none of them are vulnerable to a single threat for too long. This month Arran is to ward off scrying both from inside and outside the city, which isn’t too hard. Arran doesn’t exactly know how the spell he’s casting works, not his field of expertise, but he works the magic and that’s all he has to do.

The upkeep of the spell only ever takes an hour or so each day after the initial setup. The rest of the time Arran watches over the sleeping man, reads up on runes, and wonders what the hell he got himself into. The archmage hasn’t summoned him yet, but there is no way he doesn’t know that Arran has taken the man in. Which means the archmage will leave him to it. The man is Arran’s charge now, and potentially his novice.

Arran groans over his book and lets his head drop back into the armchair. He’s never had a novice, he has no idea what he would do with one. His own experience as a novice is nothing he would ever do to anyone else, and he doesn’t have much else to go off. Sure, the other Magisters have novices all the time, but he’s not exactly social. He looks over at the sleeping face, some of the dirt worn off by the pillow cover, a wild mess of hair framing it. For a moment he hopes he will never awake, never speak. He shakes the thought out of his mind, trying to focus back on the book.

Like all Magisters of Limboratii, he’s the keeper of one of the libraries of the city. It’s his duty to keep the books alive, guide those seeking knowledge to the tomes that will provide it and to keep things in order. Arran is the keeper of the General Library, the largest and yet least important library in the whole city. Few people lose their way to him.

With things the way they are, Arran isn’t a very busy man. For weeks at a time, the only person ever inside the library is himself, and even then, he’s really just distracting himself, reading until he has to head back into the tower of the library that serves as his living quarters. Arran reads a lot. It’s somewhat expected of a mage, and especially of a Magister, a keeper of lore and knowledge. But even for a librarian and a mage, Arran reads a lot. Taking care of the man has slowed him down to one book per two or three days, but he still tears through the pages like his life depends on it, absorbing in the words and rifling through the pages as if they are what keep him here.

When the man wakes up, Arran is reading a book about the advanced calculation of the weight of certain runes in long lasting enchantments. He’s reading and secretly, in the part of his brain that isn’t quite conscious, he’s revelling in his mind reeling, barely comprehending what it’s dealing with, clutching to the pages in desperate confusion. This is the feeling he loves, what he lives for, the one moment of the day when he forgets just how bloody fragile everything is, how easily he could lose control if he doesn’t do this, doesn’t pace and distract himself.

What are you reading? Arran looks up and follows the man’s gaze to the cover of the book he’s holding.

A dissertation on the significance of specific runic components within the context of permanent enchantment formulas, he explains. He wants to curse himself. Why couldn’t he have explained this better? He instead reminds himself that it doesn’t really matter, not right now.

Do you have a name? he asks instead, and the man curls back up under his coat. Arran wonders for a second if that was the last time he’s ever heard his voice, if they won’t ever speak again.

Tristan. The name stands in the room, daring Arran to ask for more, for a family, a house, a city, a home. He doesn’t. Whatever storm he’s survived, it’s not only beaten him out into the desert into the arms of a Sinster, it’s irreversibly blown him away from home, family and anything else tied to a last name, and Arran gets that. He doesn’t probe any further.

How are you, Tristan? Tristan’s eyes linger on him for a moment and when they find nothing but honest concern there, they move back to the book cover.

Tired. I’ve never been so tired. Arran nods, closes to the books softly but keeps it in his hands to keep them busy, marking his page with a finger. Tristan’s voice has a curious accent to it, this isn’t the only language he speaks. Arran wonders how many more he knows.

Do you practice magic? By the way Tristan’s eyes snap up to him, Arran can tell that the answer is no. He nevertheless waits for him to shake his head. What’s the last thing you remember? Tristan looks at him with weary distrust and Arran wonders what kind of life he’s lived that makes distrust so natural for him. But again, he doesn’t ask that. He patiently waits until Tristan offers up an answer.

I could see the city in the distance. I’d been walking for a few days, I was out of food. I heard a growl behind me. I think it was saying something, but I didn’t know the language. A giant black beast came out from the desert, and I ran. Arran smiles. He doesn’t always enjoy being right, and this is one of those times. It followed me, kept talking, or growling, I don’t know. After that… it gets foggy after that. All I remember then is a pain in my chest, like something was being torn out of me. Tristan looks down at his