Keeping the Fire: Once Around the Circle

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She had thought carefully before meeting again with Mage Alembic. When she decided she would, it was harder done than she surmised. An attempt to find him in the First Hour, when dawn was still fresh, sent her on a wild chase throughout the day. It seemed that in the third hour he was either in the outer wall, along the Knights Keepings in the Fortress' east, or in the south at the Ward et Equivelentia. In each case, when she got to the next location it seemed he had just left it for the first.

At the calling of the Third hour, she was at her wits end. She resolved to simply sat down in Maela's Circle, and wait. Maela's Circle was the only circular public square in all of Fortress Edgar. It was given over to discourse and because nothing but people obstructed the traffic it was also the easiest way to get between anywhere in the Fortress and she waited for him here while the storytellers, criers, and speakers of gods and men gave their calls. As the Forth Hour came, and the Edgarans left their duties and made for home, she finally spotted him moving quickly and carefully through the crowd. His hood was up and he wore a parn, a half cloak, over his left shoulder in the fashion of the fortress, yet there was no mistaking his color or his gate, energetic and playful.

“You are hard to find.” Polena said, as she took pace with him. He looked over only slightly from under his robe more to see if she was alone than to note who it was.

“That is especially true when I wish not to be found. Come walk with me, I can give you once around the circle and then I must continue on to the Archives.” He kept his pace but started it around the circle witter-shins, and she moved with him.  

“I am heading to the Archives myself,” Polena lied, “I'll go with you.”

“No, you won't. It isn't safe or wise for either of us to be seen together. Make it quick, only fifty paces left.” Polena had many arguments in mind but she threw them all out in an instant and went for the one thing that vexed her most.

“Coralm said the Weatherclock attacked him. Who is that and why. Simple?”

“Not so simple as I don't know whom the weather clock is. The only context I have for it is the device. A Weatherclock sits atop a high place and points the direction of the wind.”

“I know what it is, but who Alembic. Give me something. Tavya may well be innocent and I would like to know if I am in danger.”

“You are in the Fortress. You are in danger always. But let me be simple. Ask anyone here and they will tell you a thief, nay, a Djaught of all the Thieves in the Fortress, or all of Free Westa, goes by that name. Ask anyone wise and they will tell you that it is a myth. Why didn't you tell me Coralm said this to you before the attack?”

“He didn't he only just said it now.”

“Ah. Awake. Is he still awake? Twenty left paces by the way,” he continued dodging around a pair of Knights of the Watch who eyed them carefully.”

“No, he is asleep again. Listen, you came to his room, you know everything that goes on here, and Dun has you running like mad from one end of the Fortress to the other. Give me something Alembic. It's a basic law of comerse. You ask, you have to give.”

Alembic was silent the last few paces and stopped.

“That way ahead is mine. Yours is somewhere else. I have advised the King that you are someone he can trust to tell him the truth. The truth is a rare delicacy for monarchs and while he feigned disinterest I suspect he, the queen, or someone close to them will come to you shortly. Other than that we have only two things to do.”

“What are those?” Polena responded, making ready to grab Alembic's robe if he tried to rush away.

“Well, we hope that by the distraction of Grandmother Fate Coralm lives, or by the attention Lady Luck that the Djaught dies.” At this he made eye contact with her for the first time and smiled broadly. “May you walk with the People, and, hopefully, the right People.” And he took his leave.

“What about Tavya?” She said to him as he turned. Alembic only shrugged as he walked away. Apparently even the Mages of Dun have their limits. She stayed a while in thought until the last light of the day left the smiling cheek of the Maela, the Goddess of Luck, the tearing thread in Stone-hearted Fates carefully woven stich.

Polena made her way back to the house of healing to see if Coralm was again speaking. She found the bed empty. He had seemed better last night and better still in the morning. Thinking he had risen she got up and came into the main room of the House. As she did it was as if she had broken a great pot, everyone of the healers stopped and looked to her.

“Where is Coralm?” she asked, her face falling. An old woman among them came up and took her arm gently.

“I am so sorry my Priestess, but the lad we sent could not find you. The fever took him so suddenly and your other, the older man Luminary bade us take him at once to the pyre made ready at the place of the dead outside the walls.

“But there is no other Luminary here. It is I and Coralm.”

“He said he had recently arrived. We tried to wake you Priestess. I am so sorry, but he is gone to your People now.”

Polena could not contain her breathing. Already she knew what she would come to find. A pyre in the place of the dead nothing now but blackened embers and bones, a description from the Watch and onlookers of an aged and bearded man in Luminary's dress who put a very still body to burn there in the Forth Hour, and no one waiting in the place in the Fortress given over to the People's Alliance. Before she had always felt alone in the Fortress. Now she truly was.

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