Chapter 20. The Road Again (Patreon)

Back from hiatus!

Hiya everyone, sorry for the two weeks away, but for what it's worth, I'm back in a better place. Work finally settled into a schedule I can actually live with, which means I have time again, so I've been writing ahead, and I'm genuinely excited about where this arc is going.

We're back to one chapter a day. On weekends I'll be uploading extra to make up for the gap during my burn-out, so expect a bit more than usual for the next few weeks.

Hope you enjoy this one. It was a good chapter to come back to.

See you tomorrow :)

The council had gone better than Sael had anticipated, which perhaps said more about his expectations than it did about the council itself.

He'd requested the meeting through Richter, who had arranged it in a few hours, which was frankly remarkable given the participants involved, and Sael had spent the hours before the meeting composing and discarding various approaches before settling on the most efficient one: the truth, plainly stated, with no rhetorical dressing.

They had gathered in the larger of the Eryndor estate's formal rooms, with Richter, the Jade Emperor, and Hera, who had brought her sisters.

The one named Metys had asked the most questions, and most of them were good ones, though the conversation had taken an odd turn when she'd inquired, quite directly, into his known weaknesses and strategic vulnerabilities.

Sael had looked at her for a moment, genuinely uncertain whether to be amused or mildly unsettled, and finally said nothing, which was its own kind of answer. The truth was that he wasn't sure he could have responded even if he'd wanted to since at this point in his long life, he was no longer certain anything could meaningfully hurt him.

Metys had simply smiled and moved on.

As for the sister named Enyo, she had not asked questions at all. She only watched him steadily throughout, and at one point mentioned, without any particular emphasis, that she would very much like to fight him sometime.

Sael had declined as politely as he could manage, and the Jade Emperor had taken that as an opening to propose that he fight her instead, a suggestion he delivered with enough enthusiasm that it was clear he had been waiting for an excuse. Enyo had considered this for a moment and agreed, which seemed to satisfy both of them entirely.

Hera had smiled through most of it, and by the end, Sael had arrived at the strong suspicion that this was simply something the three of them did to people they found interesting, and he thought it was probably wisest to leave it at that rather than examine it further.

He'd told them he was leaving. Weeks, possibly longer, and he would return to Orlys when it was done or when it became clear it couldn't be done quickly. He had the correspondence parchment. He would write.

That had all been two hours ago, now, the pipe was halfway done.

Sael sat on the low wall at the edge of the estate grounds, watching the tree line ahead go dark against a sky, when he heard wings behind him then Oz landing on the wall to his left without ceremony.

"I am ready," Oz said.

Sael drew on the pipe. "Ready for what?"

"To leave. Obviously."

"Hmm."

Oz was a rooster, technically speaking, and had been since Ashams, so Sael found himself genuinely curious what exactly a rooster had needed to settle before being prepared to depart.

He said as much, and Oz's feathers rose slightly. "I am a dragon. And what I do is no business of yours."

"Of course," Sael said, and he did not quite manage to keep the amusement out of it.

The dragon said nothing, which was its own kind of response.

"We'll leave soon," Sael said, letting it go. "I'm waiting for the others." He tapped the pipe idly against his thumb. "There are a few things I'd rather not do alone if I can help it."

A short silence followed as the tree line had gone fully dark now, the sky above it a deep and fading blue.

"The boy," Oz said. "How do you intend to find him?"

At that, Sael reached into his coat and drew out the compass, holding it up so the last of the evening light caught the brass casing. "You remember this?" He turned it toward Oz. "The old man in Antor gave it to me. A Vaelith Needle, it points toward whatever you want most, provided the wanting is specific enough."

He opened the casing, and the needle swung immediately into place. "Since last night, it has been pointing northeast without deviation. I believe the boy is somewhere in that direction, and I think it's worth following." He watched the needle for a moment, steady and certain against the glass. "It's the most honest lead I have."

Oz regarded the compass with an expression that was difficult to read on a chicken.

He seemed to have been about to speak when behind them, came footsteps on gravel, more than one set, slightly out of sync, and not particularly quiet about it.

Sael closed the compass and put it away as he turned around.

Orion came first, which was identifiable less by sight and more by sound: the dimensional bag on his back was overfull, and the metallic clanking coming from inside it had not stopped since he'd rounded the corner. Behind him came Ilsa, carrying a compact case with the Eryndor crest stamped into the leather, and Lance, who had a cloth bag in each hand.

Sael looked at Orion's bag for a moment. "What is all of that?"

Orion adjusted the strap on his shoulder, which did not help. "My uncle packed it. He said we might not always find an inn or a tavern on the road, so..."

He began listing: a cast iron pan, two pots of different sizes, a set of knives, flour, wrapped and sealed, dried yeast, salt, oil, a small crock of rendered fat, three kinds of dried herbs, a portable grate, a folding stand for it, two ceramic bowls that had somehow survived the journey so far, and a considerable quantity of dried goods.

"Hmm," Sael said.

He considered, briefly, taking the bag and storing it properly. It would take very little effort. The boy was clearly carrying more than was comfortable, the bag pulling at his shoulders at an angle that could become a problem before the first hour was out, but he thought better of it.

Orion's constitution was what it was, and it was not going to improve on its own, so the bag would stay where it was. Ilsa, for her part, had set her case down by her feet. "Armor," she said, when Sael glanced at it. "Full set. It folds down."

He nodded. That was sensible. He then looked at Lance, who was still holding his two bags.

"Those are supplies," Lance said. "For the preparation. The compound I gave you before, I went and sourced what I needed this morning."

Sael accepted that without further comment.

He scanned the three of them, and then past them, and then around the general area in a way that was, he hoped, not too obvious.

"Where's Robin?"

Before anyone could answer though, Sael heard wheels on the path behind them: a cart, moving at a comfortable pace, and he recognized the lacquered paneling of Margaret's carriage before it had fully rounded the corner. A moment later Robin's head appeared from the window, spotted them, and he waved with urgency.

The cart eventually stopped. Robin climbed out first, straightening his coat. "My apologies, everyone. I lost track of time, today is my sister's birthday." He stepped aside as Margaret descended after him, and then a younger fox, smaller than Robin, with the same amber eyes and a tail she hadn't quite grown into yet.

She looked at each of them in turn, then settled on Sael and stood a little straighter. "Sir Archmage." Her voice was careful, like she'd been practicing it.

Robin gestured toward her. "This is Fenn. My sister."

"Oh," Sael said. "Hello." He looked at the girl, then at the others, and decided introductions were probably in order. He gave his name first, which prompted Ilsa and Orion and Lance to do the same, each in their own way, Ilsa briefly, Orion with slightly more words than necessary, Lance with a small bow that the girl seemed to find impressive.

Oz did not introduce himself. He sat on the wall and watched the proceedings with his usual quality of attention, which was indistinguishable from disdain.

"And that is Oz," Sael said. "He's grumpy."

Fenn suddenly laughed at that and Sael stood with it for a moment, unsure whether he'd said something funny or whether she was just young enough that most things still struck her that way. He decided it didn't matter.

Margaret, who had come down from the carriage after Fenn, was carrying a flat parcel wrapped in cloth under one arm. "I ran into them in town while I was collecting an order," she said, by way of explaining all three. "It seemed more practical to bring them along."

Margaret crossed to Sael and held the parcel out to him. "Here, Grandpa. Open it."

He took it. The cloth was tied simply, and he worked the knot loose, folded it back, and then stood very still for a moment.

It was... a flag. Old, but not fragile, someone had seen to that carefully. The colours had been restored without losing the wear underneath them, the kind of repair that preserved rather than replaced, and he could see where different hands had worked on different sections of it, the stitching uneven in places, the fabric mismatched in ways that were clearly original rather than damage.

It was a special flag, and he wasn't sure at first that it was real.

"Is that..." he said.

Margaret nodded. "Grandpa Bran kept it. I found it in the archive when I was sorting through his things, years ago." She paused. "I had it restored as well as anyone could manage with magic. I was going to save it for the guild's revival ceremony." A small smile. "But since you're leaving before that, I thought you should have it now."

Sael looked at it for another moment. Every founding member of Pointbreak had put their hands to it, once, a long time ago, in a room he could still remember if he let himself.

The pinch in his chest didn't announce itself, it just arrived.

"...Thank you," he said. "Little Margaret."

She smiled at him. "Brings back memories, doesn't it?"

"Hmm," Sael said. "That it does."

He held the flag for a moment longer before speaking. "We used to carry it on a pole," he said. "Every time Pointbreak traveled. It was tradition, the flag went up whenever we made camp or entered a city, so people knew who had arrived."

He ran his thumb along the edge of the fabric. "Bran started it. He said a guild without a flag was just a group of people walking in the same direction."

"That sounds like him," Margaret said.

The carriage driver, who had been quietly unhitching one of the horses and minding his own business throughout all of this, came forward then and held out a plain wooden pole, capped with a simple iron ring at the top. He had clearly come prepared, or Margaret had thought ahead, which amounted to the same thing.

Sael looked at the man, smiled, then took it.

He worked the flag's sleeve over the iron ring, smoothed it down, and held it up.

The fabric caught the last of the evening light and opened slowly, the old colours settling into their proper shape after however many years of being folded. Nobody said anything for a moment. They had all drifted close without seeming to notice, Ilsa standing just to his left, Orion a step behind her, Lance slightly apart with his bags still in hand, Robin with Fenn at his side, Margaret near enough to reach out and touch it if she wanted. Oz sat on the wall and watched from a distance, which was the closest to participation he ever came.

"Does that mean," Robin said, "that we're the new Pointbreak?"

"That appears to be the case, yes." Lance offered.

Robin looked at his sister. "Did you hear that?" He didn't wait for her to answer. "I'm in Pointbreak. I'm a member of Pointbreak. The guild. The actual guild." He seemed to be processing it in real time, each repetition slightly more pleased than the last.

Fenn laughed at him, which he ignored entirely.

Ilsa said nothing, but she was looking at the flag with an expression Sael couldn't quite name, and as for Orion, he looked the way he often looked when confronted with things he'd only read about, a little overwhelmed and trying not to show it. Lance had set his bags down at some point without anyone noticing.

"The sun is setting," Oz said from the wall. "Unless you'd prefer the king's company tonight, I suggest we go."

Sael had been trying not to think about that. Cedric had apparently received a full account of the morning's meeting — Hera and her sisters, the Jade Emperor, Richter, all gathered at the Eryndor estate without a royal invitation — and had expressed his feelings about this through the appropriate diplomatic channels, which was to say, loudly and through intermediaries.

To his credit, he had at least sent envoys ahead this time to announce he would be visiting Sael that evening, which was a measurable improvement on his previous approach. Sael had sent the envoys back with his regrets and a suggestion that they reschedule. He was not, at present, in any condition to receive guests, and he meant that honestly.

He reached into his coat and drew out the vial, pulling the cork free. The cloud came down from where it had been waiting above the tree line, settling at ground level with a soft displacement of air. It had grown since Ashams; he'd made adjustments over the weeks, and it sat now at roughly the size of a generous room, flat and steady.

He stepped onto it and walked to the center, then pressed the pole's base into the cloud's surface. The cloud accepted it, the material closing around the wood and holding it upright without any additional anchor.

"It looks like a ship," Orion said. "Without the hull. Or the water. Or most of the other parts, actually." He paused. "But it looks like a ship."

Sael looked at the flag standing at the center of the cloud, catching the last of the day's light above them.

He supposed it did, a little.

"Let's go, then," he said.

Margaret was already talking. She'd been talking since the cloud came down, and she showed no signs of stopping as the others climbed aboard; she directed it at Sael specifically, standing at the cloud's edge with her hands clasped.

Write often. Eat properly, she didn't trust that he remembered to. Don't skip cities just because they were out of the way. Talk to people, real people, not just when it concerned the mission. She paused here and pointed at him. She was serious about that last one. And rest. She knew he didn't need sleep the way others did, but she was asking him to rest anyway, in whatever way that meant for him.

"I will," Sael said.

"You'll write, yes?"

"I'll write."

"And you'll come back?"

"...Little Margaret."

"I know," she said. "I know, I know." She stepped back from the edge as the cloud began to rise, slowly and without haste, the estate grounds falling away beneath them in the evening quiet. "Just come back, grandpa."

Sael put his hand up, once, and she raised hers in return as the cloud kept rising.

He reached into his coat and drew out the compass, opening it as the tree line dropped below them and the sky spread out in every direction, the last colour of the day still burning low in the west. The needle sat where it had been sitting since the night before.

Northeast.

Behind him, Robin was leaning over the edge of the cloud, looking down at his sister still standing in the estate grounds below, saying goodbye, while Orion had found somewhere to sit and was looking out at the view below and Lance stood near the flag and watched it move in the wind they were generating, unhurried about it. Oz sat at the front of the cloud, facing forward, feathers flat against the evening air.

Sael finally closed the compass, tucked it back into his coat, and looked northeast. The sky out there was already dark, the first stars just beginning to show, and somewhere under them, a ten-year-old boy with one copper eye and one nearly white was going about, entirely unaware that a cloud was heading his way.

He glanced at Ilsa, who was standing near him, watching the city lights below shrink and scatter.

"Your Right of Quest," he said.

She looked at him.

"It would appear you're on it now."

Ilsa seemed to consider this for a moment, then smiled in a wide and unguarded manner. "I haven't really traveled much," she said. "Outside of the Albyon and Ashams, I mean. Will we stop by cities? Along the way?"

"When there's reason to," Sael said.

"And hunts? If there are monsters on the road?"

"Presumably."

She nodded, looking satisfied with that. The wind picked up as they climbed, and she pulled her collar up against it, still looking out ahead at the dark. "Good," she said simply to which Sael nodded, and said nothing else, half worried he might ruin the moment she seemed to be having.

And so they rose until Orlys was small and distant below them, and then they went forward while the city fell away behind them, the dark opened up ahead, and the flag of Pointbreak snapped once in the wind and held.