Cardinal Directions
The events of the last few days were still running through Rhea’s mind* as she approached the cathedral. The interrupted party at Jeremiah’s house and her control of the ash demon Rus as they fought together in the ruined expanse of the Gatesmithe neighborhood. Celeste’s introduction and Indra’s invitation to join Mr. Whiskers and several other notable Weavers in the Spiderskein cell. An invitation to tour local art galleries with Qiuxia, a curator from Chalmara House. Each experience vied for her attention, but none was sufficient to derail her current investigation.
It would be difficult to articulate exactly what drew her to this abandoned place of worship, but there was no denying its strength. The building exerted on her a sense of promise and foreboding. Something, somewhere inside, would show her the next steps on her path.
She opened the old wooden door and walked inside, the sound of her footsteps echoing off the walls. The deserted building had been stripped of most adornment; stone was exposed on every side, and furniture had been piled in the very center of the room, forming a massive haphazard heap of wooden workmanship. As she walked further inside the room, her eyes were caught by canvases on easels scattered around the peripheries. Each canvas presented a diagram of directional marks and colored circles.
Rhea’s breath caught in her lungs. The path of suns! She quickly made her way to the first canvas, but as she studied it, eagerness quickly changed to perplexity. The directions were wrong. This wasn’t the path of suns at all . . .
She walked to the next one, and it too was wrong, and yet differently arranged. So was the next, and the next. The fifth hit her like a bolt of lightning.
This is the Nightside Path!¶ she thought. Her excitement grew again as she doubled back to reexamine the other diagrams. Maybe there are other paths between the suns?
She’d just about gotten back to the beginning when her mind informed her of something odd in the one she’d just passed. As Rhea turned around, she saw the previous canvas begin to peel away from itself, pinpricks of color coalescing into a humanoid form stepping out of the design. Its face and hands were of a normal humanoid style beneath the pointillistic suit of pigment, but between each tiny point in the suit there was only empty space. The figure dusted off its hands, gave a slight stretch of its shoulders, turned, and visibly started at the sight of her.
“I’m terribly sorry, ma’am, I didn’t realize there was anyone here.” It recovered itself and swept a small bow toward her. “Allow me to introduce myself: Aberinkula.”
Rhea managed a smile and replied, “Rhea. Pleased to meet you. Your entrance has my curiosity piqued. Where did you just arrive from? Or, if it’s a secret, humor me with some other tidbit, maybe about this building or yourself?”
It bowed its head and said, cryptically, “Some have only walked where I have fallen.”
Rhea didn’t quite know how to respond to this.
It gave a winsome smile and continued, “But never mind that for now. I suspect I find in you someone who has interests similar to my own. Do you like what you see? Its study has been a passion of mine.”
Rhea smiled again, putting aside the strange reply to her question. “Yes, it fascinates me. I hope to make it to each sun in turn, but only one of these avenues is even recognizable to me.” She gestured at the Nightside Path. “As it seems you are the more seasoned traveler, I’ll take recommendations on routes.”
Its smile faded a little, though it did not disappear completely. “Ah, you place me at a disadvantage, madam. For the path that seems the most interesting to me is the one which I have not yet traveled; the path of M. It draws my fascination precisely by being just out of reach. What it could be a conduit to is as yet beyond my ken.” It gave her a shrewd look. “But you yourself desire to travel these paths, do you not?” Rhea nodded enthusiastically. “Then perhaps providing you with a taste of what can be done will permit you to discover what I have not yet found.”
It lifted its hand and touched a finger to her chin. It looked her over on both sides and then, satisfied with what it saw, withdrew and said, “I believe Zain should be auspicious.”
It led her over to one particular canvas, and as she stared at the path, the being’s touch on her hand sent a small spark coursing through her, and a new understanding of the suns began to grow in her mind.¶
Her eyes traced the path before her and came to rest on the Gold Sun. She asked the figure, “Are there ways to create new paths through the suns?”
It followed her eyes to the wall and smiled again, but merely replied, “If you are the first to travel to the Gold Sun, are you the path’s creator?” It let go, reached inside its pigmented pocket, and pulled out a crystalline-blue emotion leaf.*“I must be on my way, but please do me the courtesy of accepting my calling card. I greatly look forward to when we might meet again and discuss this further.”
Rhea turned and bid him farewell, accepting the gift. But she did not walk away from the canvas; she continued to stare at the path as her new acquaintance departed the cathedral.
Marweg recognized that the Rook hadn’t actually vocalized anything, but the sense of the conversation with it was still there. That tower was a vislae! He still reeled from the discovery. After initial greetings, all he had really managed to glean was that it was trapped.† And it wanted him to help.
No amount of study in the last few days had been of any help. The topic was vague enough that it could’ve been anything that caused the imprisonment, if such it was. So, after the heartbreaking postponement of seeing Früz and Smick’s menageries (a heavy loss—he’d not been able to contain his excitement at the invitation)‡, here he was again, in front of the tower.
Something was different. The door was ajar, as though it’d been waiting for someone to happen along. Without daring to ask himself whether it was a good idea, he slowly pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The only thing of interest in the whole bare interior was a dark staircase leading only up. He climbed the stairs gingerly, pausing every now and then to look back in case there was anyone else here. He spiraled round and round the tower and ended up in a small chamber with very sparse furnishings: a small table, a cot, one wooden chair, and a strange, round device on the table.‡
Marweg picked the device up. It was brass and opened to reveal a compass face, but it pointed in six directions, not four. He turned it a few different ways, watching the hands correspond to north, south, east, west, and . . . the other ones. He wandered around the tower and soon had absentmindedly wandered back down the stairs and outside while trying to discern whether the regular directions were correctly calibrated.
By the time he got home, he was pretty certain that the regular directions were correct. The other two directions seemed also to be regular, in that they diverged from the normal directions in consistent ways. But they weren’t up or down; they just went . . . elsewhere.
He picked the direction labeled Along and stepped out across his backyard. A few steps forward and he didn’t recognize the section of yard he was in anymore. But then he heard a sad, bleating cough, and his heart leaped!
He ran “along” and soon found his old red-throated changebear, which he’d given up for lost some weeks ago. The cub nuzzled him affectionately.
Marweg blessed the discovery of the compass. He carried the changebear back to its place in his menagerie, put the compass down, and set the creature up with food and water. While doing so, however, he realized he didn’t know how to get back to the place where he had found his lost charge. He snatched up the compass to see if the directions had disappeared, and the moment his hands touched the tool, he remembered how to walk there again.
I’ll just have to keep this on me, he thought as he went out again. Going “toward,” he found a new neighbor’s fence which he hadn’t known existed. His interest utterly captivated by this device and the new levels of access it gave, he left his yard to experiment. As he did, he wondered how many more exotic creatures he could fit in a yard that now expanded along a new axis.
Further testing yielded even more delightful new discoveries. He stumbled upon an elderbrin family having a picnic in an “along” section of a nearby park and exchanged pleasantries in passing. “Towardwards” (he was really going to have to find a better word than that) he found a street he’d never seen before, one that he’d have to explore properly on another day.
An hour or more of discovery later, a thoughtform answered his excited knocking on Jeremiah’s door.‡¶
For the third time Ward’s eyes started open. He sighed and made himself comfortable again, trying once more to center himself. There were days when meditation seemed dead set on eluding him, despite all of Cedric’s help and advice.
Ward considered Cedric to be a good fellow. He was genial, enthusiastic without being overbearing, and, as a crafter in the second degree, a more experienced Maker to learn from. He couldn’t have asked the church for a better sponsor.
He shook his head irritably and tried to put the newsclip quiz out of his mind again. He was long past that. The Cathedral of Illumination had already declared him fit for the next stages of progression. He’d signed the document, hadn’t he? He was an adept now, a full member. Although the terms of a billion years with mandated volunteer hours still seemed like a hyperbolic way of saying “for life.”
He sighed again and tried to focus on his meditation as his sponsor had taught him.
His church apartment now housed two (Tenet Seven: Material Generosity), but Rhea was out, and he knew not to expect her back anytime soon. The distracting noise seemed to have come instead from the neighbors at the Halfway House—probably Marty insisting again to Sister Morthag that he was dead. The man was delusional. He thought there was a conspiracy to keep him out of the Pale.
Sister Morthag was generous to a fault; a pleasant and gracious being, she was always willing to pass the time in conversation. He’d gotten on quite well with her when they crossed paths. The spirits she housed were sometimes a bit raucous, though, and right now he needed quiet.
He shut his eyes and breathed. In. Out. In. Out. He let himself grow still, quietly and steadily whispering a mantra under his breath. He pictured the Seven Shackles over himself in their chakra placements, beginning at his belly where his conversion began, then following it to his feet whose illumination marked him as a Aethyric Seventh Diminished. He bent his mind toward expanding himself, unlocking the missing power from his being. He tried to center on the spots above his head, hands, and heart, trying to find the paths that would recover his lost symbiosis. . . .
Fifteen minutes of futility later, he got up and had a glass of water. The kitchen area was not untidy, though not sparkling either. Rhea had been a presence in the apartment for two weeks, but she wasn’t a terribly messy roommate. He was pleased at the lack of hassle it had been for them to work out an arrangement, and her income from emotion leaves made for a little extra petty cash. He appreciated the complimentary church housing, but the fact that they held back a significant percentage of his income for spending within the church store was an inconvenience at times.
She’d asked him to make something for her, hadn’t she? A special door, for whenever she found a new place. Ward felt her faith in his abilities might be misplaced. Although, he did still have that bone from Sumac¶, and it exuded magical power. Perhaps Cedric would have some good ideas of how to use it. He made a mental note to ask Rhea for more details when they met up again. And perhaps his sponsor would help him obtain church credit approval to use some of the crystal orbs held back from his allowance for the project.
He put down his empty glass. “Only three months,” he mused as he tried once more to settle himself. He’d accomplished a lot for the Cathedral in that time. His heart swelled at the ease with which he’d moved through the tasks set at the start. He’d guessed that they’d served mostly to display the level of commitment of new converts. Most of his assignments right now were just being himself, acting as a spirit vessel. He’d nearly worked enough to progress to the next level in the church. It should only be a month or so, all going well, before he’d logged enough hours to move on.
He’d been traumatized his first hosting—before he knew about the church. Not that the spirit he’d carried around had been particularly rude or needy or overbearing, but he’d never dealt with another intelligence inside his head like that before. Schizophrenia might have been a mild way of putting it. The personality he had first inadvertently hosted had been far more alien and unruly. The headache had lasted a week; the nerves were still there when it happened the second time.
The order had been so ecstatic when they found out, they’d nearly burst into song. They’d explained to him that it was a blessing, that it was the very thing they taught their acolytes to do, that service to spirits by allowing them a body to use and share was a high and noble calling. He was a natural, a born talent who must have been destined to become one of them.
“Twelve hours left? Fifteen?” he wondered aloud. He couldn’t remember the exact amount of time left to advance in the order. He suspected that the clock by which possession hours were measured didn’t always correspond to standard chronology. Did time pass differently in the Pale? Maybe he could Make them an accurate clock that would dispense with the vagaries. It was an idea for later.
For now, it was back to meditation. Ward settled himself down again and calmed his breathing. He opened himself up, hoping to receive, trying to restrain that hope lest he be disappointed.
He sunk deeper and deeper into reverie, awareness spreading out beyond him. As his mind beckoned to the aethyric, a tendril of consciousness slowly latched on to him. It drew itself in, whispering too softly to be heard. As it closed and melded with his thoughts, words ran clear through his mind.
Set your sights for the sun.*
* This side scene was focused on her character arc Discover a Secret, and it leaned into her forte, Walks the Path of Suns.
¶ Successful Intellect test. Difficulty 8 to recognize one, 14 to recognize more than one.
¶ Rhea learns the Tap Current secret, for the path Zain.
* Insatiable curiosity.
† In my original notes, the Rook was marked as a vislae who had undergone a radical transformation in a changery for its own reasons. However, when Marweg attempts to speak to it, we drew Imprisoning Ice, which depicts a ship trapped in icebergs like the Terror, and in the moment I decided that no, someone or something did this to the Rook, which raises the question of why. Marweg decided to make this discovery an aspect of a new character arc, and I leaned hard into weaving the Rook into the story.
‡ Weeping Priest; we ruled that the visit had to be rescheduled.
‡ Ambassador + Lucky Coin. He discovers the Multiphasic Compass and with it the secrets of Stam and Renn, two additional cardinal directions.
‡ Incriminating Skull
¶ Marweg decides to take on the Uncover a Secret character arc to discover who the Rook is and how to change them back. +1 acumen for discovering stam/renn, another for the research. Marweg learns the Elevate Spells secret. Marweg spends crux to learn The Language of Animals from his forte and adds a bene to his Sortilege and Interaction pools. He spends 2 acumen for animal husbandry, which is very in-character.
Marweg looks into making additions to his menagerie. I responded: Your research thus far has revealed that there is an entity in Silver, known only as the Huntsman, who captures rather than kills singular beasts; one of these may be a silken stag of some sort. There is a jeweled toad in Green that has never been successfully brought to Indigo. There are unexplored half-worlds between Indigo and Blue. Further research may yield new insights. This generated an acumen as part of your arc (included in the above total).
¶ Level 6 material
* Pendulum – Propane Nightmares