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Aloth knows it’s a bad day when he thinks back minutes, hours, and finds large, gaping spaces where his memory should be. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, really, but it’s all the evidence he needs to confirm that Iselmyr has long overstayed her welcome. He sees it in Kana’s uncharacteristic hovering, in the way Edér looks at him when he thinks Aloth isn’t looking, in the way Hiravias grins at him in a jest that Aloth cannot recall, in Pallegina’s frostiness as a direct result, no doubt, of Iselmyr taking his foot in her dirty hands and forcibly shoving it down his throat.
It’s not the first day like this he’s experienced, but he’s uncomfortably aware of it in a way that he never was, before that day in Brackenbury’s Sanitarium. There’s comfort, sure, in the reality that none of his companions will turn him away for Iselmyr’s presence – but though Aloth logically knows this to be true, it’s difficult to shake the decades-old instinct that demands that he run and hide.
It’s what his mother had advised him to do, after all – and was she wrong? Not in Aedyr, surely – but looking back on it in hindsight, she’d only said what was necessary for it to no longer be a crisis on her hands. His father would have been no help, that was certain, but his mother? She had power at her disposal. Influence. If not the necessary resources at her fingertips, then enough to send Aloth away to someone who did know how to help him.
… gods. It’s been decades since he last spoke to her – days since that day in the Sanitarium that brought it all bubbling back to the surface like a cauldron set to boil. They all have bigger things to worry about than this… awkward situation that affects nobody but him.
Dyrford’s inn’s stables are as stuffy and uncomfortable as Gilded Vale’s had been, but he’s paradoxically more comfortable here than he’s been in a long, long time. Something about being surrounded by comrades, almost friends – Senri sandwiched between a dozing Kana and Pallegina, whom no one was willing to touch her because she gets too little rest as it is; Edér snoring in the corner with Itumaak pressed against his outstretched leg, Sagani’s hand tangled in her companion’s fur just in case; Hiravias tucked into a little ball in his bedroll and Durance, half asleep, prodding at the hearth to keep the flames warmly blazing for just a little while longer.
Aloth ought to be resting, too – the scribbles in the margins of his grimoire have grown near nonsensical in his fatigue. But instead, he finds himself thinking back to his mother – of her long, dark hair, identical to his – of the weight of her hands as they’d settled on his shoulders the day he told her about Iselmyr. She’d probably meant for it to be comforting. That’s what he’d like to think, at any rate.
–but then, another memory comes to him, unbidden. His mother sitting behind him, running a brush through his hair. His father is nowhere to be seen and, somehow, he knows that his father will not return in time to interrupt whatever it is that the two of them are doing here. If he thinks long and hard enough, he can’t quite recall when they last spent a quiet moment like this together – and sentiments like that are usually evidence that the memory might belong to Iselmyr instead, but somehow, he knows that’s not it.
His mother sits behind him, and her hands are in his hair, and for once in his life, there is no risk of future hurt. She speaks to him in a calm, lilting voice – of vast and varied histories long passed, of infinite futures to come, of magical theorems that connect their souls through it all. It makes him almost drowsy – and he trained himself out of sleeping too deeply long ago, lest his slumber be interrupted by unwanted attention, but a part of him wonders if he could simply… rest here, and not worry about where he will awaken.
… and then, he notices the peasant woman. She looks ordinary, forgettable in her rumpled clothes and hunched posture. On any other occasion, he wouldn’t pay her a second glance – but his vision ripples, and the image solidifies until he can identify long, stringy hair and shadowed eyes. There’s only one possible explanation for that.
For a moment, the peasant woman looks to him, and Aloth to her, neither of them uttering a word – and then she moves. He opens his mouth, and Iselmyr takes over; he knows this to be true because the next thing he knows, everyone is awake and the peasant woman is nowhere to be found. The memory splinters, then, but… it wasn’t really a memory, was it? There’s not a single moment like it that he can recall; if anything, it’s a childish wish that will never become a reality.
Sagani and Itumaak crouch by the door, peering outside. Pallegina stands a little ways behind her with a blade drawn, and Edér stands behind her simply standing straight and tall, cutting an imposing figure to all who would cross him. Kana inhales deeply, as if preparing to chant. Durance and Hiravias stand ready by the fire – Durance, as if Magran herself had blessed him with the ability to manipulate the embers behind him, and Hiravias who will command those same embers, should a fight break out.
And then Senri comes through the door, alone and unharmed. “False alarm,” she says, her voice smooth as ever. It’s enough to set them all at ease, enough to return to their respective bedrolls. Sagani remains upright, though; she leans back against the wall, but not before whispering something to Itumaak that he can’t hear. Pallegina sheathes her blade, but keeps it within arm’s reach. Senri sighs, settling back into her bedroll, though they all know she won’t be getting any more rest tonight.
“I’m sorry,” says Aloth, miserably. “That was… I don’t know what came over me.”
Except he does know. He knows that it was not a memory, truly, that overtook him before he became aware of that peasant woman’s presence. He knows that something had happened to him – that someone must have done something to him – for him to think, even for a moment, that that vision could have been reality. He’s long made his peace with never having a proper relationship with his mother, but the absence of it, now, is a heavy weight that’s settled uncomfortably in his chest.
“You were watching for danger, and alerted us when you suspected one,” says Pallegina, with far more kindness than he deserves. “There is no fault in that.”
… so she says, but there had been no danger to begin with – or at least, not one that posed a threat to anyone in this room except, maybe, Aloth himself.
They’re halfway across Dyrford Crossing when he sees a peasant woman following them. It’s not the peasant woman, precisely – or at least, Aloth is fairly certain it’s not. This one is quiet and unassuming in how she shadows Senri’s every step, dark hair and shadowed eyes casting a shroud over her that renders her unnoticeable.
… or rather, demands that Aloth not pay attention. Whoever it is, is far too solid and moves too freely for her body to be a Wizard’s Double. A Bewildering Spectacle, perhaps? Ryngrim’s Enervating Terror?
“That’s no way to hunt.”
He startles, suddenly, flinching so violently that he nearly trips over Itumaak. Without warning, Sagani grabs his elbow to steady him, and does not let go until he pulls away himself.
“What are you talking about?” he chokes out, and resolutely ignores the way his voice cracks.
“You’re leaving yourself wide open,” says Sagani, calmly. “Making it obvious that you’re watching closely.” She touches his elbow again, but more lightly – and looks in the same direction as he did, at the peasant woman that hovers in Senri’s shadow.
“So you see her, too,” he whispers. “We really are being followed.”
“Of course I do,” Sagani replies – and it’s shameful, how those words alone can set him so at ease. It’s not just him, seeing things that shouldn’t be there. “And I know she followed us out of the inn, all the way to the curriery, and now here. Can’t seem to get a good look at her face, though.”
“Neither can I,” says Aloth. “I think that’s intentional, on her part.”
“You think it’s the Leaden Key?”
He watches the peasant woman for a long moment. “It’s possible,” he says. “But…”
But Senri doesn’t turn the peasant woman away. Instead, she turns to her, eyes sliding blank in a way nearly all of them have come to recognize. “She seems to be tolerating her,” says Sagani. “And she’s usually sharp about these things. She’d know… wouldn’t she?”
But Aloth will not underestimate this peasant woman – and though his expertise lies in traditional wizardry, his education was thorough enough that he can recognize when mental manipulation is in play.
“She’s a cipher, that woman,” he says out loud, because he’s traveled with Sagani long enough to know that as sharp as she can be, she lacks the training to recognize these differences in magical ability. “I think… no, I’m sure. It’s some sort of glamor that she’s casting on all of us… diverting our attention elsewhere.”
Sagani hums, her hand drifting upward to rest under her chin. “You think she could’ve followed us from Dunryd Row?”
Now that he’s paying attention, it’s obvious that the shroud that masks the peasant woman shifts and warps with every step she takes. But… wouldn’t he have noticed, had someone been following them all the way from Defiance Bay? Or had the peasant woman’s manipulations simply been that thorough? “If she did, then why hide her presence from the rest of us?”
Up ahead, Senri’s eyes slide back into focus. She smiles, more relaxed than Aloth has seen her since before they first set foot in Defiance Bay, and pats the peasant woman twice on the shoulder before turning away.
“She seems to trust her, doesn’t she?” says Sagani. “Or at least, she doesn’t mind that woman’s company.”
“And she’d tell us if something were amiss,” says Aloth – but then he remembers the Sanitarium, and the unsteady gleam that took root in Senri’s eyes there. It was horrific enough, learning of one of the resident animancers’ experiments there – to cut through patients that had suddenly turned angry and violent in the Leaden Key’s manipulation of them, in suspicious conjunction with that animancer’s experiments. To bear witness to all of that through a Watcher’s eyes… “At least… I hope she will.”
The peasant woman runs her fingers through Senri’s hair, weaving through the horns and smoothing the wildflowers there that have been swept in a disarray. Aloth hasn’t known very many ciphers in his lifetime, but in all of his studies, he’s never known them to be quite so gentle.
Unbidden, he thinks back to the dream that was not quite a memory – of his mother simply brushing his hair, in that space seemingly between lifetimes where there was no risk of future hurt. Senri speaks little of her life before she settled in Old Vailia, but it’s obvious all the same that a mother’s love was a luxury that she was robbed of as well. Though she doesn’t say it aloud, he knows it’s why she spends hours, these days, in conversation with Pallegina – because large parts of this world are not kind to godlike like them.
“All right there, Aloth?”
Sagani’s hand is on his elbow again, steadying him even though he’s in no danger of falling. Aloth knows, without having to ask, that she won’t let go unless he pulls away first.
“I’m fine, thank you,” he answers politely, reflexively, though the words taste like ash on his tongue.
They camp outside the ruins by the river that night. It’s not the worst place they’ve camped, but this whole business with the missing Lady Aelys is shaping up to be yet another situation that is likely to be far more gruesome than it initially seemed.
So: the ruins set them all on edge. It makes it that much harder to truly relax, even when that’s perhaps the best thing they can do before inevitably plunging into some grisly, horrific malfeasance. It wouldn’t be the first time – that awful business with the theatre troupe in Defiance Bay comes to mind.
Aloth sits with his grimoire propped open by the firelight, but it’s little more than a prop, at this point – something that lends to the illusion of business, when in reality, he’s doing little more than just sitting there. He watches as Itumaak sprawls happily over Edér’s lap, all but binding the man’s hands to his fur. He watches Durance grin far too gleefully as Pallegina loudly proclaims that Magran is, indeed, every bit as terrible as Durance swears she is – albeit without some of his more colorful epithets. He watches as Hiravias spins a story while Kana listens, enraptured, and Senri wonders, dryly, whether his assessment of Galawain’s goodwill towards those who follow his creed is entirely accurate.
The peasant woman is there, of course. She sits apart from the group, fiddling with the bells tied to her wrist. He looks at her for a long moment – and though she does not look back at him, he wonders if she knows that he’s watching her all the same.
Then, she moves her arm. The bells chime, and a wave of soothing calm washes abruptly over him. All of a sudden, the campfire is gone and he’s back in that space between lifetimes – just him and his mother, together, where there is no risk of future hurt. It’s not real, though – that space never truly existed. Worse, there was never an attempt to bring it into existence at all. He knows this to be true, so why must that woman—
… and then, out of nowhere, Sagani’s hand falls on his shoulder. It’s heavier, rougher than his mother’s ever was – but it’s a solid weight that grounds him back to reality, just as sure as her voice as she calls out to the peasant woman, “If you have something to say to him, then I suggest you make it quick.”
Slowly, cautiously, the peasant woman rises to her feet. Whatever illusions and manipulations shroud her coalesce into a singular image that solidifies before them – a middle-aged woman with long, dark hair and tired, shadowed eyes. It’s the same woman that had been there with them in the stables the previous night – and they would have noticed this easily, had she not toyed with their perception of her.
“You may have earned our resident Watcher’s favor,” says Sagani, “but I’d be surprised if she gave you permission to toy with us like you have these past couple of days.”
–but the peasant woman pays Sagani no mind. “You’re hurting,” she says to Aloth, except… she’s not truly speaking, is she? It’s more accurate to say that her voice is sounding in his mind – and Sagani’s as well, given the way the latter’s frown deepens. “A child’s cry, difficult to ignore—”
“A cry you had no business listening in on,” says Sagani, bluntly, “born from troubles you had no business knowing, because he never made the choice to share them with you.”
“I…” the peasant woman gasps. Something about her shrivels then, under the weight of Sagani’s disapproving frown. Absurdly, Aloth wonders if Sagani would do the same for her own children – and if she already has, how often. A part of him wonders if his own mother would do this for him, in the face of a potential threat – if such a thing would be possible even in a dream, if not his memory of her.
But Sagani is not his mother. He’s older than Sagani, for gods’ sake and she has far more important things to be worrying about than the well-being of a twitchy elf who’s incapable of getting his own affairs in order.
–and the peasant woman knows this. She knows that while Sagani may be no mother to Aloth, she is a mother regardless. It’s simply… instinct. One buried deep, perhaps, after five years of separation from her own family, but one that can be easily revived under the right circumstances. Did the peasant woman simply drag it to the surface? Or was it something Aloth had done, specifically, that compelled Sagani to fall back on it?
For once, Iselmyr is silent – not even threatening to bubble to the surface – but against all reason, he hopes she’ll approve of what he’s about to do.
“Sagani…” says Aloth, slowly. “Thank you. I appreciate all that you’ve done for my sake, but in this case… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really do believe that our mutual friend meant no harm.”
Sagani watches the peasant woman for a long moment – but eventually, her frown dissolves. Her grip tightens on Aloth’s shoulder, and it is a comforting weight, grounding him to reality. “If you’re sure,” she says. “I’ll be here to back you up if you need it.”
And with that, she leaves them – but not entirely. She goes only a little ways away, sits where she can easily see precisely what Aloth is doing and, more specifically, what the peasant woman might do to him. Maybe it truly is just the logical end result to the peasant woman nudging her along a particular mental path – but he’s starting to wonder if it makes any difference at all, to Sagani.
“You were trying to help me,” he says, quietly, to the peasant woman.
She doesn’t voice a response, but he can feel an affirmation all the same.
“But you were wrong,” he continues. “That was no memory you had me relive. It was… well, something I wished for, long ago. It was childish and unrealistic, given my mother’s station, and I’ve made my peace with the fact that it will never come to pass.”
… but it doesn’t have to be that way. The peasant woman weaves her hand through his hair, and it’s almost like how it was in the dream – but her hands are not his mother’s, no matter how she may try to convince him that that is the case. The unconditional love of a mother – what little of it may have existed, at one point, is something to which he no longer has access. A large part of it is deliberate, on his part.
For now, he finds himself leaning into the peasant woman’s touch anyway. She is no more his mother than Sagani is – but he can’t deny that it’s nice to be cared for, even in this small capacity. That someone was watching, that someone had recognized the hurt and sought to soothe it by any means possible – that means far more than it has any right to.
“Thank you,” he whispers, to the sound of chiming bells.