Week 8

  After a while, Kipper said, “The others will want to see you.”

  Callie turned, eyebrow raised. “There are others?”

  Kipper nodded. “The survivors from the lower stacks. They’re waiting in the old refectory. I told them you would come.”

  Callie groaned, but Ashrend was already halfway to the garden gate.

  She followed, Ember at her heel, the sky behind them split by the shadow of a creature so big it defied belief.

  The Archive’s old refectory had once fed a hundred scholars in a single sitting, but now only a handful of long tables remained, arranged in parallel lines that pointed directly at a dais where, presumably, the faculty had once delivered announcements or performed last-minute spell work to keep the soup from revolting. Kipper hustled ahead while Ashrend slowed to let Callie set the pace.

  Inside, two figures waited at the front of the room. One, a woman in fire-motif robes, sat hunched over a mug, her hair braided into an orderly crown. She looked up as they entered, then promptly buried her face in the mug. The other—tall, ramrod straight, wearing a surcoat the color of a storm, a collapsible spear at his side—stood at ease near the window, hands folded behind his back.

  Callie made for the nearest bench and sat, stretching her legs under the table. She eyed the newcomers with a mix of curiosity and professional skepticism.

  Kipper leapt onto the bench opposite, tail swishing. “Calanthe, I would like you to meet our two newest arrivals.”

  The fire-mage woman raised a hand in greeting. “Tanith,” she said, not quite meeting Callie’s gaze.

  The man bowed, crisply, in the military style. “Zhao Tong,” he intoned.

  Callie nodded to each, then to Kipper. “Let’s hear the story then.”

  “They came for the loot and stayed for the books,” Kipper beamed. “Both strayed off the narrow path to the interior and failed to be maimed and killed with the rest.” He lowered his voice, conspiratorial. “They’re both very accomplished, but... ” He glanced at Callie. “ ...I think they will travel with you, if you ask.”

  Callie stared at Kipper, then at Ashrend, then at the two strangers. “Is this a joke?” she said.

  Zhao Tong shook his head. “Not a joke, ma’am. The Oracle said we should accompany you to Apsu’s Respite. She said there would be further instructions upon arrival.”

  Tanith sipped her drink, then set it down with a clink. “I… would prefer not to go alone.” She smiled, wan and precise. “My work is better in company. And the warg is quite adorable.”

  Ember, catching the compliment, sneezed loudly and thumped his tail against Callie’s boot.

  Callie massaged the bridge of her nose, fighting the urge to laugh or scream. “So I get a fire mage and a professional soldier. And I’m supposed to just—what, start an adventuring party? A good writer would have at least presaged this with individual encounters eliciting bonding or least a hint of interest in both parties.”

  Ashrend grunted. “Too many stories begin that way. It’s better to cut to the chase.”

  She shot him a look. “I was hoping for more of a… solo practice. Maybe a modest outpost near a spa. A small footnote in this world.”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Kipper perked up. “Oh! You should see the footnotes in Tanith’s dissertation. They’re extraordinary.”

  Tanith blushed, but her eyes sparkled. “They are rather detailed,” she admitted.

  The absurdity of it all finally crested. Callie let out a long, ragged sigh, then thumped the table once with her fist. “Fine. If we’re doing this, we do it my way. We get to Apsu’s Respite, and then everyone is free to find their own reason to exist. Deal?”

  Zhao Tong nodded solemnly. Tanith simply smiled.

  Ashrend looked relieved, though he would never admit it.

  Kipper, emboldened, rummaged under the table and produced a tattered folder marked “Field Notes.” He slid it to Callie with a flourish. “I’ve already prepared an itinerary. With points of interest.”

  She opened it, bracing for the worst. Inside, in Kipper’s compact, fussy handwriting, were half a dozen landmarks: “The Sighing Calf,” “The Bridge of Four Hens,” “The Soupstone Monastery (if open).” Each was annotated with risks (“leaches”), rewards (“local cuisine”), and estimated travel times (“1.7 days, barring monster encounter”). In the margins were doodles of Ember, each more flattering than the last.

  “Are these dungeons or eating places?” she asked.

  “Eating places of course,” Kipper replied. “Why would anyone want to go to a dungeon? The food’s terrible.”

  Callie couldn’t help herself; she smiled.

  ***

  They made it as far as the outer courtyard before Callie’s instincts rebelled.

  It was a familiar feeling; something in the rhythm of the day since she walked out of the Archive, the way Ember’s ears swept the perimeter. It set her teeth on edge.

  She caught Kipper by the elbow before he could scurry ahead. “Before we leave,” she said, “do you mind checking with maintenance? Just to make sure I haven’t upset anyone or anything.”

  Kipper’s eyes went wide, but he nodded. “Absolutely! The monitoring sub-committee has an office in the east annex. I’ll fetch them.” He darted off at speed, vanishing around a hedge.

  Ashrend, watching this, arched a brow. “Is this necessary?”

  Callie shrugged. “If you’d had the morning I’ve had, you’d be worried, too.”

  Ashrend grunted, but the set of his shoulders eased.

  A few minutes later, Kipper reappeared, now accompanied by another kobold. This one wore a starched white lab coat and had black-and-white banded markings around his eyes, giving him a look of permanent, startled alertness. He clutched a long strip of continuous paper, the kind with tiny holes punched along the edges and which fed out of an open cardboard box.

  “Diagnostic Engineer Bleat,” Kipper introduced. “He’s the best at reading event logs and system status. Top of his class.”

  Bleat nodded solemnly, then peeled the paper open, scanning the first few lines with a finger tipped in fading black ink. “Incident report follows,” he intoned, voice nasal and flat. “Event: Error Cascade. Correction directive circumvented. Oracle debugged and instantiated. Solution: Purge instigating factor with congruous measures.”

  He looked up at Callie, eyes magnified threefold by safety goggles. “Did you do something inside?”

  Callie gave him her most innocent look. “Me? I just copied a book and practiced basic hygiene.”

  Bleat grunted, then re-read the report. “Did you touch the Oracle?”

  Kipper hissed in concern. “You’re not supposed to touch the Oracle, Calanthe!”

  Callie narrowed her eyes. “It was strictly clinical. She had a fang abscess, and I fixed it. No magic. No violence.”

  Bleat scratched his head with the tip of the printout. “Well, you’ve triggered something. Something about the Oracle’s role in the world schema.”

  Kipper’s tail drooped. “That’s bad, right?”

  “Very,” said Bleat.

  Callie considered this, more amused than alarmed. “Thank you, Bleat. You’ve been… illuminating.”

  The kobold beamed, pleased by the compliment.

  Ashrend took her aside as the others milled about. “You’re not the only one making waves, you know.”

  “How so?”

  Ashrend kept his voice low. “Since your visit to the Archive, we’ve had runners from three different camps. Each with messages for you.” He handed her a folded note, the seal pressed with a crude orcish glyph. “They say you healed a monster. Now every tribe wants to meet the ‘Monster Healer’ of Apsu’s Respite.”

  Callie opened the note. Inside, in heavy, uneven script, was a request: Come to the Sighing Calf. Heal our sick. She stared at the words, feeling a cold pit open in her stomach.

  Ashrend’s mouth twitched in what might have been sympathy. “It’s as if everyone lost control of themselves at once. Like something rewrote the rules.”

  She shut her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them, Ember had appeared at her side, pressing his nose into her palm. His body trembled, not from fear, but from anticipation; the instinctive knowledge that something vast was about to break loose.

  Callie knelt down and scratched Ember’s head. “Nothing to worry about. It’s just the Engine galvanizing every story vector in the region.”

  Tanith, overhearing, sidled up with her notebook. “So what’s going to happen? What does it all mean?”

  Callie laughed. “Well, that part’s easy enough. It means we’re going to get an Audit.”