Kanin Fyre: Chapter 12 - On the Hunt

We step off the airship and into the town of Eldwoods. It’s much smaller than Starcove had been, and the raised deck that the airship is docked at is the only one in the village. I pause to look out over the town, but Ink urges me to hurry up, desperate to return to the ground. 

This airship was significantly smaller than Sun Skimmer. There was just the main deck and one floor below, and the ship could only carry twenty passengers. This prevented Zyneth and I from engaging in our nightly practice fights, which left Ink very cranky. 

I’m going, I’m going, I tell it, still managing to catch a glimpse of the city before we descend. It’s almost as small as Peakshadow; I bet I could walk end-to-end in twenty minutes. The sky is a muggy gray, but snow isn’t yet falling. The town feels quiet and lazy, tendrils of smoke drifting from chimneys. This isn’t a place I’d expect an arcana expert to live, but it is somewhere I’d expect to find a person looking to not be bothered. 

Good thing I’m about to go bother him. 

Zyneth stretches his arms out behind his head as he follows us down the ramp. “It’ll be nice to stretch our legs again.” 

“Ink is in complete agreement,” I say. Only a handful of other passengers depart with us, as most are continuing on to a different city. “Where do you suppose we should start?” 

“An arcana expert should be well known in a city of this size,” Zyneth muses. “We can start with the postmaster first, and ask around with the merchants after that if it’s needed.

“Good enough for me.”

Ink watches with jittery interest as we make our way through the town. It’s partly stir crazy from the little amount of stimulation it was afforded over the last couple days, but it’s also excited to develop its void abilities. After some explaining on my part, it understands that we’re effectively looking for a void equivalent of Caesius, and while it found the time we spent practicing with her boring, it ultimately approved of the activity, as it meant we would get stronger. Ink can’t use glass magic without my help, but it can manipulate void—and do so much better than me—so it’s eager to participate in the upcoming training. 

Assuming we can find him. We might be on a wild goose chase. 

And we’re about to learn whether or not that’s true here pretty quickly. If my Locate spell takes us to the post office, then we’ll be out of luck. But if not, then it’s much more likely to be taking us to the author of Caesius’s letter. 

Unlike the fancy navigation spell Zyneth bought for our exploration of the Drifting Isles, mine is a bit less mobile. Since I have to put the letter on top of the circle, walking with it causes the breeze to catch the paper and reset the spell. I last checked it before we got off the airship, confirming that this city really is where the spell has been leading us. So far, so good. 

But the postmaster doesn’t know anyone by the name of Siqi, though she can confirm that the letter I have was sent from her office. When I activate the Locate spell again, it’s pointing us away from her shop and further into town. So we keep going. 

Merchants are no help either, though some of us ask what he looks like. To my embarrassment, I don’t even know what species he is. I guess I probably should have asked Caesius or one of the Academy professors back when we were first considering this. Too late now. 

The spell keeps egging us on, however, until eventually we come to the edge of town. 

Zyneth grumbles in disappointment. “If he’s not in the town, then there’s no telling how far away he might be.” 

“He can’t be too, far,” I say. “I tracked the movement of the Location spell when we were flying, and it consistently pointed toward Eldwoods no matter which way we were headed. Doesn’t that mean we can triangulate his location from the different vectors?”

Zyneth stares at me. 

“What?” I ask. 

“Nothing,” he says quickly. 

“Zyneth.” 

“It would be rude to say. Anyway, you’re right—”

I jab a finger at him. “You thought I was too stupid to understand triangulation, didn’t you?” 

“No!” he objects, looking thoroughly embarrassed. “I mean, that’s not exactly the way I would have phrased it—”

“Aha! Guilty.” 

He’s totally right, though, I’m not even sure what ‘vectors’ mean; I was just repeating some vocab I picked up from a small part where I played a surveyor who promptly got murdered at the beginning of the episode to give the main cast something to solve. Maybe Echo knows the math. 

Hey Echo, can you figure out the location of something based on two locations and directions? Um, vectors?

[Affirmative,] Echo says. 

Alright! Can you do that for this Location spell then?

[Affirmative.]

I wait a moment, and nothing happens. Uh, Echo? What’s the answer?

[Data has not been provided.]

Can’t you… figure that out based on where we were before?

[Specific location and vectoring data must be provided.]

Well there goes that idea. 

“Into the forest it is,” I say aloud. “How long do you think we have before sunset?”

Zyneth glances at the sky. “Six hours or so.” 

“Then let’s follow the spell for three hours,” I decide. “If we haven’t found the source in that time, we can make it back here before dark.”

“Good plan,” Zyneth says, largely because he still feels bad about the triangulation thing, I suspect. I’ll have to keep that one in my back pocket to tease him again later. 

Checking the Locate spell one more time, we strike out on a dirt road leading into the woods. 

There’s not much to do while we’re on the road. After an hour of travel and coming across no one, I decide to let Ink off the leash. Keeping as much void as I need to keep my body functioning properly, I let Ink control the rest, upon which it subsequently separates from me and goes bounding out into the trees. 

Of course, it’s still in my head. And I can see through the void, too. It’s a bit of an odd sensation: like driving a remote-controlled car. But if I give it a bit of freedom now, maybe it will blow off some steam and won’t bug me as much tonight. 

Zyneth watches the void go loping off. Or, rolling. Or sometimes oozing. It doesn’t really keep one shape, shifting between different animalistic impressions from moment to moment. I remind it not to engage with anyone, if we come across other travelers, and it shrugs me off with the mental equivalent of an eye-roll. It definitely picked that up from me. I’m mildly offended. At least it can’t range more than two hundred or so feet away from my core. 

“Do you need to eat?” I abruptly ask Zyneth, realizing it’s afternoon and we hadn’t stopped for anything in town. It’s easy to forget about meals when you never get hungry. 

“I’ll be alright,” he says, patting his bag. “I’ve got some rations if I need it.” 

“Alright. And let me know if it gets too cold.” 

Zyneth chuckles. “I’m fine. Cambions run hotter than most other species, anyway.” He raises an amused eyebrow. “What’s got you doting over me all of a sudden?”

“Nothing,” I say honestly. “I just forget about the needs of the living sometimes. I guess, more often than not, these days.” 

Zyneth regards me with a critical look. “I don’t like that wording.”

“What wording?” I ask. 

“The needs of the living,” Zyneth says. “Implying you’re not.” 

I’m silent for a moment, rolling the words around in my head. I hadn’t really thought about my word choice when I said it. And it does make me feel… some kind of way. But I think I’ve known it for so long, now, that I’ve just started to accept it. I mean, Rezira’s life magic doesn’t work on me: Zyneth’s artificing magic does. Even the professor at the Academy had implied as much: I’d need help from a necromancer if I want to figure out a new living situation. 

“Look, I’m not trying to be morbid or self-pitying or anything like that,” I say. “But I don’t even know what I consider ‘alive’ anymore. I mean, I don’t breathe, I don’t eat, I don’t sleep. There’s not a single living cell in this body.”

“But you think,” Zyneth says. “Shouldn’t that count more than anything?” 

“Ink can think,” I point out. “Is it alive?” 

Zyneth chews on his cheek, thinking. “I want to say yes. It’s so unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. The way it thinks and acts…” Tell me about it. “...Blair even indicated it could not be killed. Yet, I suppose I would hesitate to call it living. It seems to be some entity that exists outside the concept of life and death.” He tips his head. “Maybe a soul is what makes one alive?”

“Ink is connected to my soul too, you know.” 

“But it doesn’t belong to Ink.” He lightly bumps his shoulder against mine. “It will always be your own.”

I don’t know why, but looking at it from that angle feels nice. “Thanks,” I say quietly. 

He doesn’t reply; he doesn’t need to. His presence at my side is enough.

We don’t even make it another ten minutes before Ink finds something. It pings me for my attention, and I look through its void. There’s a tall shape in the distance, partly obscured by the trees. It looks like it’s off the main path. 

“Hold on,” I tell both Ink and Zyneth. I pause to reactivate my Location spell. The bubbling fountain of light is stronger now than it has been in days, clearly pointing off in the direction Ink had gone. 

“It looks like we might have found him after all,” I say, putting the slate away. “Ink’s found something up ahead.” 

“What is it?” Zyneth asks. 

I step off the trail, heading after Ink. I can’t see it from here, its void obscured by the trees (and the fact that it’s transparent doesn’t help) but I can sense it as easily as I can sense my Attuned glass. It might as well be a lighthouse to my mind. 

“I’m not sure,” I admit, looking through Ink’s void. “Something large. A building? It’s tall but not wide, like a grain silo. Ink, hold up.” It’s getting too close for comfort. I ask it to wait until Zyneth and I get there, and it grumbles out its impatience, but begins pacing where I asked it to wait.

“Oh,” I say as we’re still heading toward Ink. I haven’t caught sight of it or the building yet, but through Ink’s eyes I abruptly realize what we’re looking at. “It’s a tower.” 

“A tower?” Zyneth asks, skeptical. “In the middle of the woods? With no castle?” 

I hold my hands up helplessly. “It looks like a tower to me.” 

When we catch up with Ink, (to its mounting annoyance) Zyneth and I pause to take in the sight. 

It’s like something out of a fairytale. The tower stretches into the treetops, ivy running up cracks in the old stone face. Stained-glass windows sporadically pepper the surface, and an ornate door is set into the tower’s base. Something about the door looks odd, but I can’t tell exactly why from here. 

I take out the Locate spell and activate it one last time. The light draws a line directly to the tower. 

“Well,” I say. “I guess this is it. What do you think? Just go up and knock on the door?” 

“I suppose so,” Zyneth says.

Ink and Zyneth follow me up to the base of the tower. As I approach, I realize there’s a sign nailed to the door: 

Guests Welcome

Let Yourself In

“That seems like a good sign, right?” I remark. 

Zyneth frowns. “I wouldn’t be so sure.” 

“Why?” I ask. At the same time, I notice what he had. “Oh.” 

Ink is confused. It thought I said we’ve been invited inside. What is the problem?

“The problem is that,” I say, pointing. 

The reason the door looked a bit odd from a distance is because it’s entirely boarded shut. Planks of wood criss-cross the door’s frame, chains are wrapped around its handle, and dozens of spell circles are burned into the boards. 

Despite the signage on the door, the message is abundantly clear: Guests are not welcome.