Sara
Just as Clint promised, Sara had woken up to discover another letter that had been slid under her door. She yawned tiredly as she stared at it, currently too groggy to move. Then she remembered why she had been waiting for it and rolled out of the bed to pick it up. She opened it fervently and began to read.
“My uncle doesn’t actually know anything that can really help us, but he’s offered to train me so that I can learn to speak to Crane. It’s going along well, but it’s a lot more complicated than I thought. I think the scholars here are enjoying my confusion a little too much, so I’d appreciate some help from a friendly face. Either way, I’ll be at the grand temple until further notice.”
Sara was familiar with how unkind the clergy of Crane could be to those struggling to learn, so she had decided to waste little time in meeting up with him. After checking out from her room, she stopped by the Midas house to update Alexis. She had seemed angry that Clint hadn’t sent such a letter to her, and even more so that he hadn’t actually found her brother. Since Sara could not be faulted for either of these things, the women then parted on friendly, albeit tense, terms.
When Sara arrived in Seres, it was already well into the afternoon. She was tired, but she rushed to the grand temple anyway. When she entered, it was to find Clint in a familiar position. He was sitting cross-legged in front of the altar with a scroll of ancient text in front of him, but his eyes were glazed over in a meditative trance. She was careful not to disturb him as he worked and instead whiled away the time by thinking about the brilliance that had made this divine language available to mortals in the first place.
It had been many centuries ago, back when Resta was still two separate lands and Galeon was called Eris. Back then, there existed a city nestled above the clouds and guarded by dragons. Legends told that this forbidden city was host to a library that held all of Crane’s secrets; secrets that mortals had coveted since the dawn of time. No one would master flight until later on in the much more recent past, so the city went undisturbed for millennia. Then a group of elite Erisian spies known as the Windlords managed to sneak into the city and abscond with some of the deity’s personal documents.
The information they found had given them vast insight into the history of the gods predating Comalan’s genesis and helped them to decipher the ancient language. The Windlords were eventually caught and punished by Crane for their hubris, but it was too late. Mortals had learned more about the gods than they were ever intended to. As a resolution, Karla Blackstone seized as much of this information as possible and exercised tight control over it. It was then dispensed at her discretion to those who she was certain would not misuse it. Nearly all of the secrets faded out of existence over time, but the ancient language endured and had since been taught to countless generations of templars and clerics.
Now, an untrained hunter from the local farm was studying it.
To his credit, he was progressing faster than she ever had. It had taken her several years to master the written language and move on to applying the words. After a single day, Clint was already attempting communication. She had developed several tricks over the years that she supposed could have helped him to memorize the various block symbols this quickly, but he had somehow managed to work it out on his own. I wish you’d been around to help ME.
Clint’s eyes fluttered open and he grunted in frustration. It took him a few moments to notice Sara’s presence, during which time she had risen from her seat and walked up to the altar. He let himself fall backwards and focused on the pristine white ceiling.
“I am so confused!” he complained. “I was doing alright with the text part, but now I’m not getting anywhere at all!”
Sara sat down beside the laying champion and gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. I was just thinking that you’ve already progressed faster than anyone I know at this. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.”
Clint didn’t seem convinced. “Soon, maybe, but soon enough? We don’t even know what Maula is up to yet. I need to get this down quickly so I can ask Crane what to do. Have you talked to Serenity lately?”
Sara shook her head. “No. I don’t think she has any more to tell me at the moment.”
The cleric had been thinking about Serenity’s silence for a while. It seemed to her at first that the urgency of the situation might cause the goddess to be more eager to communicate. The longer she thought about it, though, the more she began to realize that urgency is not one of her usual concerns. She will talk when she needs to, she thought, there is nothing I can do yet but guide Clint and find the other champions.
However, Clint did not take Sara’s response for the peaceful statement that it was. “What does that mean? If she’s not talking to you, there must be something wrong, right?”
Sara shook her head patiently. “For the gods, it takes a lot of power to even interact with us. So they must be sparing with their communication and just observe. I have been assuming that the fact that Serenity hasn’t responded to me just means that I’m on the right track.”
Clint seemed to think about this for a moment before saying, “Well, if that’s the case, maybe that’s why I’m having so much trouble. Perhaps Crane just doesn’t want to talk to me yet.”
Sara shook her head once more. How curious that he can be so smart yet miss something so obvious. “If that were the case, we wouldn’t be here. You were summoned by Father Blackstone specifically so that you could learn to communicate with gods, right? Then it stands to reason that Crane was the one who told them to.”
“Well, I guess I’d better really focus, then,” Clint said wearily. But as he sat up to glance at his scroll, his stomach growled. “Guess that’ll be easier if I get some lunch. Have you eaten yet?”
“No,” Sara replied. “I came right over as soon I got to the city. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
Clint stood up and began to stretch and shake the numbness out of his extremities. “Come with me. My aunt owns a bakery that produces the best sghitsi in the world.”
They had only just walked out of the temple when Sara caught sight of someone unexpected. She reflexively knelt as a massive female templar approached. When she looked over to Clint, however, she noticed that he had remained standing and was now looking down at her bemusedly.
“What are you--? Who’s this?”
“That’s Matilda the Bear!” Sara hissed quietly, fearing the possibility of the woman hearing her.
“She’s the leader of the Templars! G-get down here!”
Before Clint had a chance to comply, the Templar had stepped over the final step. Sara had been about to yank his arm to force him to kneel, but Matilda stopped short of Clint and asked, “Are you the champions of Crane and Serenity?”
Sara gasped. She had never dreamed, even with the will of the gods placed on their shoulders, that the head of the Blackstone Order would seek them out. This revelation, which really shouldn’t have surprised her, only seemed to make the burden feel heavier. Suddenly embarrassed, she stood up and nodded mutely while Clint replied. “Yes we are.”
Matilda turned to look at Sara, who had remained speechless. She seemed to decide that Clint would be speaking for them, however, and turned her attention back to him. “Sir, I am here to report that I have located the Champion of Ragos and delivered him to the grand temple in Gyanda.”
Sara would never have believed Matilda could speak so deferentially to anyone, even knowing that she had to have started at the bottom of the order’s ranks just like everyone else. She had only met her once while she was studying at the Blackstone Monastery. Back then, she had seemed so fierce and zealous that imagining her use the word “Sir” was an impossibility. The Bear might have addressed royalty as such in theory, but even that felt ironic to Sara. Matilda had to be one of the most powerful people in Resta.
But since Clint had no reason to think any of those things, he instead said, “That’s fantastic! Is it Seth?”
The Bear nodded. “I found him reporting to his superiors at Hem Academy. He’s been blessed by Ragos with a font of rage that nearly blew me and Father Maximus away.”
“I keep telling him he needs anger management. He‘s going to kill somebody one of these days,” Clint joked with a self-indulgent chuckle.
“How is that funny?” Sara said indignantly. “He may really have killed someone.”
“The Hem Order have determined that Seth Midas is not at fault for the death of Albert Harret,”
Matilda announced, then added, “He has been cursed by Maula to kill on contact. That particular tragedy could not have been avoided.”
Clint snapped his fingers. “Is that what the wild source matter is?”
Both of the women raised their eyebrows at Clint, who quickly explained, “Well, I remembered my brother telling me something about the stuff. I asked him about it this morning and he told me that Maula manipulates source matter and that’s what makes her so dangerous. ‘It’s like unraveling a majestic tapestry by pulling on the individual threads and replacing them elsewhere.’ His words, not mine.”
Sara had to think for a moment to truly appreciate the analogy. “So, she took a part of the world itself and put it in him?”
“Not quite,” Matilda said. “He was poisoned by the touch of a maulan’s tail.”
“The maulans are back too, huh?” Sara said bitterly. “Well, that makes sense.”
“What does?” Clint asked.
“Maulans,” Sara repeated for emphasis. “They are horrible, unnatural creatures that Maula spawned during the Wave of Death. They, like everything else, are composed of source matter, but a corrupt version of it.”
“This is very enlightening, but unimportant now,” Matilda announced. “I have come to tell you where to find the champion of Ragos, but there is something else I must say to the champion of Serenity.”
Sara couldn’t help jumping at the thought of The Bear giving her a personal message. She willed herself to calm down and said, “What do you mean to tell me, Commander… umm, madam?”
Matilda’s eyes locked with Sara’s and she thought her heart was bludgeoning her ribs. “One of the Seers back at the monastery had a minor prophecy that you must be aware of. She said ‘Tragedy will arise during the Festival of Ragos which will bring down the tears of Salica. Only the bond of sisters will quell the sorrow.’”
Sara turned the words over in her head for a moment. She wondered why these words should be relevant to her. Salica always sheds tears over tragedy; that’s where rain comes from. Of course tragedy would befall the Festival of Ragos with the bloody Resta Grand Tournament being held during the festivities. But the bond of sisters? She knew that Serenity and Salica, the Goddess of Storms, were sisters. Perhaps…
“I will find the champion of Salica at the Summer Festival,” she said, knowing that was the right idea the moment she said it.
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