Chapter 27: Ch 21

A few hours of restlessly pacing the room later, Leah has begun to fret herself into a worry. The room is furnished but empty of pastimes, or even a window to look out of; there is nothing to do, but after her time in prison she is willing to be patient, or at least to try.

Finally there’s a knock at the door. Rennen leads Seffon in, and stands inside the door to keep watch. From what Leah can see, Zon is gone, probably sent to get some rest finally.

Seffon is mostly silent for the first bit, considering her carefully. Leah considers him right back: late thirties or early forties, with a long face and an average build. He has messy brown hair, too long to style but too short to tie back. His eyes are light, with decent-sized bags under them either from stress or exhaustion, or perhaps just genetics. Low-profile cheekbones, a long but not pointy nose, and heavy eyebrows that seem to lend themselves to frowning – which Seffon is doing, currently.

He is the first to break the silence. “What have you remembered, through Bitter Dream?” he asks.

Leah does a double-take at the question, but answers honestly. She recounts the disjointed spider dream, and the more clear healing potion dream, and as an afterthought includes the waking-dream about the jousting. Seffon nods along, eyes narrowed and thoughtful, paying close attention.

“And these cannot have come from your own world?”

“Absolutely not,” Leah says with confidence. “There are no giant spiders or healing potions in my world. For that matter, there are no independent groups of warriors roaming about taking up contracts to fight people. It has to be from here, and the other members of the five confirmed that they were the other Leah’s memories.”

He asks a few more questions, more generic, about the missives and the parties sent in carrying them. Leah tries to ask questions, but Seffon does not even acknowledge them. Finally, when he asks if she knows anything about how many missives actually reached the Valerids, she cuts in with a sudden memory of the inconsistencies in the missives.

“Our leader asked, at my suggestion, to see some of the ones they had already collected. I noticed something odd about them.” She pauses to make sure he is actually listening to her, not just letting her talk. “I found a scroll on a small team that was heading into the city, and I translated it myself.”

“You speak the Olues dialect?”

“Old West Volsti, they called it, and no. I sat down the night after I took it, and I worked it out. It’s easier to do that with the written word than with the spoken word, but even so it took me a long time. Anyway, I noticed that in the missives the Valerids showed us, the phrasing was different, and the tone, and the handwriting, and from my limited knowledge even the spelling wasn’t quite right.”

Seffon narrows his eyes in thought. “Indeed?”

“I am pretty sure that the scroll I had was an authentic one, not to say the others necessarily weren’t – ”

“What were the differences?” Seffon wrings his hands and gestures vaguely as he talks – a nervous habit, Leah supposes, listening to the charms of the bracelet clack metallically. By the fact that he doesn’t stop through most of their conversation, she decides her assessment is probably correct.

“Pfft, this was maybe a week ago? I couldn’t say all the details, but I remember the missives were signed ‘the king of Jun’ – ”

Seffon snorts quietly.

“ – And that they demanded surrender.”

“Indeed.”

The room is silent for a moment, while Seffon thinks. Leah takes this opportunity to try one last question. “Do you mind my asking; if you can speak Volsti, why didn’t you send your missives in Volsti? There were very few I met who could translate from your language.”

Seffon’s lip twitches in distaste. “Politics. If I wrote to them in their language, I would declare myself a supplicant. By writing in my nation’s language, I establish that, whatever my intentions, I will only be treated with on equal footing.”

“I’d never heard of that sort of socio-political…legalese, before.”

“Hrm. Well, I hadn’t known you could even read your own language before, so – ”

“Please, sir,” Leah says sharply, and Seffon looks up. “Whether or not Leah Talesh was an idiot I really don’t know, and I don’t care. I am not. I know a hell of a lot more than you give me credit for.”

Seffon looks at her neutrally. “Helluvalot?”

Leah sighs, smiling at the slip. “Just an expression. It means a very big amount.”

He nods in acquiescence, but does not seem to believe it or take it to heart, more just accept the nicety as a necessity in continuing his questions. He asks her about how many missives she read, how many groups were caught, and how many people were in each group, then leaves.

Leah returns to her bored pacing of the room, dissatisfied but not yet willing to cause a fuss. My safety here depends on being seen as an obedient prisoner, a helpful prisoner – a deserter, maybe even. I can’t be annoying to anyone…at least, not for a while yet.

Lunch is brought in – poached egg on plain flatbread, with some sort of very spicy sauce drizzled over the whole – and Leah is left alone again for another few hours. She can hear the activity in the rest of the hold, people passing her door, footsteps above her and on the other sides of the walls.

In the afternoon Seffon returns, and asks a few more questions: What do the five know for certain about his hold? What do they know about the lands around it? What were their reconnaissance plans? When would their contract with the Valerids expire?

Leah pleads the metaphorical fifth for the most part, not wishing ill against her teammates, but answers truthfully as much as she can without endangering the remainder of the five. The last, however, she hesitates on.

“I think actually…no-one ever directly explained it to me, but I think my original contract was held by the Valerids, and was written up in the wake of the first incursion of your forces into Valerin, a bit over a month ago. I was hired specifically to protect Jeno – the Auzzo’s daughter – until her wedding to the Valerid heir. When the wedding was formally announced, the Auzzos bought my contract. The rest of the five were more general guards, and only more recently were we told to take the offensive. Their contracts are still held by the Valerids, last I knew. I know nothing about any expiry, though.”

Seffon nods, accepting this answer. “That would explain the dagger, then.”

Leah’s head snaps up. “The dagger?”

“It is of Cheden design, used in close-quarters fighting. It started as a tool within the fishing profession, then became part of the standard naval kit for below-decks combat, and from there became general military issue.”

Leah takes this in pensively. “I never knew. I thought she just gave it to me as a token.”

Seffon raises an eyebrow but says nothing. “Even a young noblewoman would know the traditional garb of her country’s military well enough to know what to give as a token. Well. That explains that mystery.”

“Is it not common outside of Cheden?”

“Nothing from Cheden is common outside of Cheden,” Seffon says. “And the same works in reverse. They are not isolationist, but they are haughty.”

Leah chews her lip pensively. “Then why, if it’s not stupid to ask, did the Cheden delegation bring along at least two people capable of translating from Olues to Volsti?”

Seffon’s absent-mindedly twitching hands stop dead in their motions. “Not stupid at all. A very good point.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Can you be sure they brought them over originally, and not after you were ordered to take the offensive?”

Leah admits she cannot confirm that. Seffon considers a moment longer, then gets up to leave. “I’d wondered if I might be permitted some fresh air, or to see Beeswax,” she asks, to his departing back.

“Not yet, no,” Seffon replies simply. The door is closed behind him, and a key turns in the lock, eliciting a frown and a half-smothered sigh from Leah.

Another many hours pass, and at evening she is brought a final meal – a light mix of enoki-ish mushrooms, parsley, sliced ginger, sprouts, and almonds. Hardly enough to sate her, but given that all she has before her is a night’s rest and pacing a small room, she doesn’t need more.

A servant arrives to clean away the bowl, and Leah sees that Zon is once again back on duty outside her door.

“I wonder,” she begins, startling the servant but ignoring his questioning look, “If you would be allowed to teach me a bit of Olues?”

Zon pokes his head around the frame, uncertain. “Th’olues dayle?”

“Dialect? Dayle?” Leah prompts.

“Yes, dialect.” Zon looks to the other guard, who frowns and shrugs.

“Deunau e befõ aseng th Lõ õ th commandẽ.”

“Ask first, of course,” Leah says, guessing the meaning of that sentence. “I just want to be able to better communicate. I could even teach you some Volsti in return.”

The two guards discuss quietly, but Zon’s expression confirms that he would be willing, if he had permission.

That night, Leah sleeps fitfully but forces herself to try to trust the people guarding her door. She wishes she had the dagger, just to reassure her that she was protected against any unexpected threat.

Jeno never said it was a traditional weapon of her country. Maybe it was so obvious she never thought it was necessary to say. And no matter what Seffon said about noble Ladies, I know Jeno. I know she’s terrified of all things military, and that she wouldn’t willingly seek out information about the army’s uniform or traditional weapons.

Or maybe I’m being biased. In my place, I’d probably be able to adequately describe the gear of a soldier or police officer, at least in basic terms, well enough to know what an appropriate token would be.

Any further speculation is cut short by sleep washing over her. She wakes again sometime in the morning, waits for breakfast, and finds that it arrives with a few new sets of clothing, all identical brown suede leathers. The food is also the same as before: again a large portion of mashed sweet potato, this time spiced with cinnamon, and unseasoned but very juicy bird meat – not the pigeon from the Valerids’ table, but something similar. Larger than a pigeon, she thinks, looking at the strips of meat, but not greasy enough to be duck. She wonders if whatever it is, is considered peasants’ food, or fine dining. Am I being fed scraps, or the same as everyone else, or better? Meat is too valuable to be scraps, but why would I be given good food?

No-one comes for a few hours, and Leah has resorted to sitting on the wood floor and tracing the grain lines one at a time before a knock rouses her from her meditation. She stands quickly and faces the door.

Seffon enters. He is dressed somewhat less formally, or at least Leah thinks so; the clothing looks a bit more functional, and less official. Without any greeting or preamble, he pulls out a folded piece of paper before Leah can open her mouth. He reads, apparently mentally translating as he does so.

“The team has returned, after having ridden hard through the night fleeing the country. They confirmed that news in Valerin marks Leah Talesh as having been arrested for conspiracy and treason, but then escaping after a day and a half in prison. According to some she escaped with help of a magical variety, and public sentiment points the accusatory finger at our forces. The five are not under suspicion, as members Djalaa and Havren aided in the ‘apprehension’ of Leah, and none of the others knew she was gone until the morning after.” Leah breathes a quiet sigh of relief for Iris’s sake here. “Within the estate, news has it that Jeno has put herself entirely in the care of the Valerids’ guards, with the only Ben-Lia presence being a highly placed warrior-mage within the Cheden military.”

“Captain Eschen,” Leah jumps in, shocked that Jeno would want him close to her at all. “And it won’t be by Jeno’s asking.”

Seffon folds the paper back up and waits expectantly for her to elaborate.

Leah measures her words. “Jeno has an aversion to all magic. She draws very naive distinctions between violence and protection, and in her mind magic is always the former.”

Seffon hums in acknowledgement, considering the letter. Leah gets the impression there is more written there than what he read aloud.

“I’m glad the team got back alright,” Leah says after a moment. “I know that many who tried to enter the city were spotted and slaughtered by the guards – and my team – before getting too far in.”

Seffon raises an eyebrow. “You mentioned yesterday all the teams who tried to infiltrate the city. Tell me, the team you stopped, who carried the note; were they infiltrating?”

Leah reflects. “They were in the farmlands, moving along a road but not on it, towards the city but not close. I don’t know where they were bound,” she admits.

“I never send my people on suicide missions. When we need to know the situation in Valerin, we rely on established contacts in the countryside, not in the city core.”

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“There are spies in the countryside of Valerin?”

Seffon stiffens a bit at that. “All of us in the Interlands, our ancestors were farmers and labourers from Volst and its provinces. Our cousins are in Valerin still. The farms there bear bastardised forms of our names.”

“Or your names are bastardised forms of theirs.”

That earns her a raised eyebrow, but he doesn’t seem to take too much insult. “Hmm. Either way, they are distant family, who know all too well that if the border had been drawn even slightly differently after the war, they too would have been declared subjects of Devad, and cut off from the laws of Volst. They remember our past, and they will not betray us.”

“Are the laws of Volst so much better than the laws of Devad?”

Seffon shrugs. “Any change is a bad change, when you’ve been doing things the same way for hundreds of years.”

“Hmm. I can relate to that much, at least.”

Seffon seems confused. “Was there a lifting and redrawing of the borders of Algi at some point in history?”

“I don’t know, but in the memories I have now – of the ‘other’ life – there was a similar political hand-over of settled lands. A bit more complicated, because of the whole colonisation and genocide thing, but the settlers then also complained about the new laws, even where they were debatably better than the old laws.”

“Your people suffered a genocide, in this other life?” Seffon seems to pay closer attention at that, and Leah notes it for future reference.

“Not my people, no. But my ancestors were involved in it, and were guilty of some pretty horrible things. It’s complicated, several centuries worth of war and conquest and revolution.”

Seffon watches her pensively, and Leah finally can’t stand the silence.

“What?”

“If your new memories had been fabrications, I doubt they could have produced details like that. Your ‘other’ life is, uh, unexpectedly complex.”

Leah smiles sadly. “It was my reality, for twenty-six years. I’ve been in your world…not quite three weeks? I’m still only mostly certain that this isn’t all some elaborate dream.”

Seffon considers. Finally he stands with a curt bow. “With your permission, I would like to attempt to ascertain the nature of these new memories, whether they are transplants, supplants, or corruptions,” he offers, with a quite formal tone.

“Corruptions?”

“I don’t know your history, or Algi’s, but from what you’ve said…maybe your memories are simply, uh, twisted. There is a chance you have only one set of memories, but they are currently unrecognisable.”

Leah dwells on the implications of this, then nods. Seffon promises to be back soon, and leaves her alone to wait in the empty room again, with no idea of what’s coming. Leah stretches out on the bed and waits anxiously, her mind racing with all the possibilities facing her – mainly, what Seffon might have meant by “ascertaining.”

Very shortly after leaving, Seffon returns. He invites her to accompany him to perform the promised tests, if she feels up to it. She notes this mark of consideration, and takes it as a good sign. Brushing her borrowed clothing smooth, she accepts and follows.

The walk through the halls is quiet, the two of them trailed by a pair of guards. People they pass step out of the way for them, and stare at her openly, some with caution, some with hatred, none with kindness. Leah’s morale shakes, but she insists to herself that she made the right choice – the only choice – in coming here. Nothing good was left in Valerin.

They finally arrive in a separate building, joined to the main hold only by a single passage above a thick stone archway. Through the arrow-slit windows, Leah hears horses.

Past the door, her blood runs cold as she recognises the room in which she initially awoke; the stone table in the centre, woven carpets on the floor, the heavy wooden door, the stone staircase spiralling up to the floor above. She remembers Seffon being backed into that staircase by Meredith, who at the time had been only a fiery blur of steel, yelling with each swing. She remembers the sound of Iris bringing her hammer down on a soldier’s head, and crushing the skull through to the stone beneath.

She hesitates on the threshold, and Seffon looks back at her, not apparently surprised.

“You remember?” His tone is very even and empty.

Leah nods, pale. “This is where my memories of this world start.”

There is a moment of silence. “What a horrible thing to awaken to.”

“Wasn’t their fault,” Leah says quickly. Seffon’s face had had a moment of sympathy, which disappears back to neutrality.

He gestures to the table, and takes on a businesslike attitude, instructing her to lay on it, to relax, to place her hands at her sides, uncross her ankles, look straight up. Leah is reminded of a doctor’s visit, with a slightly more uncomfortable than usual examination table.

Seffon explains finally, as he gathers oils and herbs and bits of twine, that he is going to be testing her mind’s integrity. “It is different from Bitter Dream, and you won’t experience any new memories from this. The spell is rather to determine the full extent of the side effects,” he explains.

“Side effects?”

Seffon elaborates on their earlier conversation. “The spell used to stun you was not supposed to affect your mind, although sometimes mild confusion can accompany it. I want to determine if there is a connection between the trap spell, and your condition.”

“And if there’s isn’t? Was there anything else done that might have caused it?”

“Don’t ask questions before we know whether they need to be answered.”

Leah very much dislikes the implications of that statement, but does not speak again.

Seffon putters around a while more, then starts mixing something in a shallow bowl. He is no longer explaining things, not even muttering, but his lips do still move a bit. The guards at the door seem uninterested in the magic, but Leah is fascinated. She sneaks peeks as often as she can.

He mixes the herbs together in the oil, letting them soak. He twists the twine, occasionally adding a metal ring to the growing band. Once done, he ties it into a loop, soaks it in the oil, the bring it to her, standing by her head.

“Lift,” he says, and she lifts her head enough for him to lie it around her head like a crown. Leah is reminded of various witchcraft-y movies and pagan imagery, but tries not to judge. “Focus on the rafters,” he says, and Leah keeps her eyes on the thick beams crossing the ceiling. “Just look.”

A few seconds pass, and nothing changes. Seffon goes to fill the bowl with tinder, leaving her lying there. A minute or so passes, and he returns to remove it. He lights a fire in the bowl, and drops the crown in it. He stares at the flames, and Leah, assuming that the rafters have played whatever part they were supposed to and she is no longer obligated to watch them, also looks.

There are no pictures, no sounds. The oiled bowl and crown catch quickly, and burn slowly. Black smoke rises, pungent, and Seffon seems to be holding his breath to not disturb it. He watches the smoke until the twine has finished burning, then sprinkles a white powder into the bowl to smother the last sparks. He returns to Leah, carrying the bowl, sifting through it gingerly. He fishes out the metal loops with tongs.

“Here.” He holds them out, and Leah takes them. They burn, and she winces but keeps hold of them.

She looks up at him for answers, but he has turned back to wash the bowl. Opening her mouth to ask if that was all, if he has learned anything, if she can put the hot metal down, she instead finds her lungs filling with the taste of metal and smoke, very intense.

She coughs violently in surprise, and Seffon looks around and begins to approach.

“Smoke,” Leah says, “And metal. When I breathed in.”

“What? Oh yes. Good. That was efficient.”

Leah looks at him for answers, but he just mimes swallowing the metal rings.

“What?” she asks sternly and in some fear.

“The rings know better than the spellcaster where the next step is to be accomplished.”

Leah extrapolates and raises an eyebrow. “Really? I don’t want to think where else they might have chosen to go.”

Seffon gives a look. “If you felt the burn in your lungs, then your lungs are the answer. Breathe them in.” Seeing her look at the rings in trepidation, he sighs. “They’ve stopped being objects, they’re just intent now. They won’t get stuck in there, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Considering a second more, Leah finally places the rings on her tongue – burning and ashy and metallic – and then suddenly they are gone, and she is breathing in the same burning smoke she felt before, the metallic taste sparking across her from the inside. She convulses for a moment, freaked out, then calms down as the feeling settles in and she finds she can still breathe normally.

Seffon finishes and returns to her side, with another vial of the same oil. “Down.” Leah lies back down again. “Rafters.” Leah focuses her eyes on the ceiling. Seffon holds a hand over her head, not touching, then lifts it slowly. Leah feels dizzy for a second, but it passes. The last traces of smoke and metal seem to rise from her lungs up through her neck, skull, and then into the air above her. She for a second imagines she can see a shimmering smoke above her, but it is gone in an instant, apparently siphoned into the vial.

Cool.

“There we are.” Seffon swirls the vial of oil and brings it back to the shelf of ingredients and tools, labelling it with a knotted green string and a paper label, the writing too far away to read. “You can sit up now.”

Leah sits up and watches him take a second vial off the shelf. She considers which question she wants to ask first.

“Why the rafters?”

Without looking back, he answers. “Because if you tell someone to think of nothing, they’ll immediately think of everything. Rafters are boring but easy to stare at. Excellent for emptying the mind.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes.”

Leah nods. “Do we know the results right away?”

“Yes.”

A pause. “Well?” she prompts.

Seffon turns back and stands beside the table, meeting her eyes. “The trap spell did harm your mind slightly. You probably would have been a little confused when you woke up from it, but there was no memory loss effect. The trap spell is not what caused this. However – ” Leah holds her breath, “ – your mind has changed dramatically from when you were last here.”

He holds up the two vials. Up close, Leah can see they are both labelled with her name.

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