Broken Lands

“You found one of the missing shards?” The diminutive woman stopped in place for a moment, then shook her head. “Let’s get you out of the Mists before night arrives; we can talk when we’re inside solid walls. Come on.”

Sophia gave Dav a look for revealing the connection before they’d had a chance to find out anything about it. He didn’t seem to notice; instead, he was right behind the woman as she stepped through the door.

The room on the other side of the door was small, about ten feet wide and six feet long. One side of the wall had a pallet on the floor that was just the right size for the lady they followed, while the other was filled by a pallet that looked bigger than Dav would need. A lantern hung from the ceiling, but instead of shining with the reassuring light of flame, it shone purple. It took Sophia a moment to realize that everything in the room wasn’t purple; instead, the purple was how she was seeing the dense magic it emitted along with ordinary lamplight.

The short woman led them past the stone walls and pallets, through an archway that was not filled with a door, and into a huge, high-ceilinged room with a balcony. It was dominated by a far larger magical artifact hung from the arched ceiling that pulsed with purple light and seemed to stain the windows with its violet hue.

The rest of the room looked reassuringly normal; there were candelabra on the walls that supplied the rest of the light for the room, wooden tables, and a number of people. At first glance, they seemed normal, though there were several others that were short like the sunny-haired cat-eared woman.

Everyone turned to look when she entered, but the woman leading Dav and Sophia waved to them. “False alarm, it was just a couple of youngsters wandering around lost. I’ll take care of them.”

Most of the strangers turned away at that, but Sophia caught several of them peeking back over as the woman led them to one of the tables in the room. The yellow-haired woman hopped up onto a stool, then into a chair that was clearly built for someone her height to be comfortable at the table, even though it was built for people Dav and Sophia’s height. “Pull up a chair, you two. I’m guessing the Shard of Kestii you found was where you got your Vocations?”

Sophia remembered the Wanderer’s instructions to pretend they had Vocations rather than Hallows and nodded her head. “I’m a spellblade and-”

The woman put up her hand. “Hold off on that. Do you know what I meant when I said this is Fallen Kestii?”

Sophia glanced at Dav, then shook her head.

“You really are new; children of Professionals, I’d guess, and likely from a purely human town.” The woman said it with certainty, as if it were obvious. It wasn’t.

Sophia shook her head. She still wasn’t certain what the difference between a Profession, a Vocation, and a Hallow was, but she wasn’t from a town of humans. “Purely human? No, definitely not. Some people wanted that, but they’re fools; everyone has something to contribute and anyway about a third of them aren’t as human as they think they are.”

The woman chuckled at that for some reason. “Fair enough. Does that mean you can go back?”

Sophia shrugged. “If I had the power to get there and knew the way, yes. It’s not going to happen any time soon. I’m nowhere near powerful enough to even find home, much less to open a gateway there.”

“A Gateway?” The way the short lady repeated the term made Sophia think she’d accidentally said something with a specific meaning. “How did you get here if it would take a Gateway to get back?”

“Something went very wrong,” Dav contributed. “Neither of us understands it, but we were thrown through a place that isn’t a place and ended up in … well, here. Wherever here is.”

“A Gateway collapse … yeah, anyone would be lucky to survive that mostly intact, much less slightly Warped. You’re as much exiles as we are, then, for all that you might have a home to return to if the collapse didn’t destroy it.” She seemed to relax a bit. “Good enough. If the Silvanen knew we were here, we’d be in trouble, but you’ve no way to call them down on us. That puts it all in the Guide’s hands.”

Sophia couldn’t stop her frown. So far, she was distinctly unimpressed with the Guide, so putting anything in his hands seemed like a bad idea.

“Ah, if you’re from far away you wouldn’t know of the Silvanen. That must be nice, especially if you’re from a place where the Warped can freely walk on their own. We can talk more about that later, but for now I’d like to get to know you a little better. My name is Aymini; I’m one of the three alchemists here but I was desperate enough to take a Vocation in my younger years and it was my day to watch the gate. Vramt will take over shortly; I’ll introduce you when he arrives. What are your names?”

“Sophia,” Sophia introduced herself. She debated adding the rest of her name, but one name was all Aymini used, so one name was probably good enough.

“I’m called Dav,” Dav stated with a smile. “You asked if we knew what Fallen Kestii meant as if that was something specific. What did you mean?”

Aymini shook her head slightly. “That is a tale best told over a drink, for I’ll surely want one before I’m done. Come, let’s find Vramt-”

“No need.” A deep rumble drew Sophia’s attention to a spot directly behind Aymini. She’d have sworn there wasn’t anyone there a moment before, but there definitely was someone there. Vramt, because that was who he had to be, towered over Aymini. In fact, at nine or ten feet tall, he towered over everyone present. Sophia had no idea how he moved so invisibly.

Vramt’s eyes glowed blue with a touch of orange in the center; similar orange splotches dotted his dark skin. Sophia couldn’t tell if the rest of the colors on his skin were paint or more of whatever had altered his eyes. He had a large metal pendant with a blue stone on his forehead that matched the one around his neck; the rest of his jewelry was a different style, beads strung in a set of necklaces without the metal.

“I heard you’d found two lost children outside the door. These do not look like children to me. Young, yes, but no longer children.” Vramt nodded towards Dav, then Sophia. “Be welcome in Fallen Kestii, young ones. So long as you hold to the Ways, you are welcome here. May the Guide’s hands watch over you and the Broken Lord’s eyes ignore you.”

With that oddly evocative statement, Vramt turned away. The next Sophia knew, he was already at the archway that led to the guards’ rest area. She could guess that the second, larger, pallet was for Vramt; it didn’t seem even close to large enough.

“Does he always do that?” Dav complained at Aymini.

Aymini chuckled. “Only every chance he gets.”

“I heard that.” Vramt’s deep rumble of a voice sounded like it came from next to Aymini, but Sophia didn’t see anyone there.

“You were supposed to!” Aymini snorted, then shook her head. “That man. He’s one of the few here who isn’t a Professional and he makes sure we know it. Always practicing his Vocation. You’d think a stone mage would focus on things like, oh, moving stones around, but he’s turned that Vocation into something very different.”

“Or maybe stone mage doesn’t mean what you think it means.” Sophia considered Vramt’s jewelry in that light and realized that he had a mix of all sorts of different stones in it, everything from gemstones to carved rock. Most of it was semiprecious stone, probably, but it was a huge variety. If “stone mage” meant that he was able to call on some aspect of stone or some aspect symbolized by each stone, he could be very flexible and potentially powerful with all the stones he wore. “I wonder if how much stone he has matters, and if he can use the floor.”

Aymini shrugged. “Better him than me. I’m no mage; I can barely manage enough magic to make medicines, and that’s my Profession.” She hopped out of her chair and led Dav and Sophia to the next room with a wave of her hand to tell them to follow. It turned out to be a kitchen; they stood on the opposite side of a table from the two people cooking.

Sophia stopped and stared for a moment. Both of the cooks’ hands blurred as they chopped and stirred; they worked nearly as quickly as the tools Sophia was used to, but they did it all by hand with only basic equipment. It was impressive but it somehow seemed like wasted effort even though Sophia knew it wasn’t. They didn’t have the tools, after all.

“Never seen Professional cooks working, then?” Aymini sounded amused. “You’re in for a treat, then. They’re competing, so they’re both cooking tonight. Grab a bowl and a mug and we’ll head back to talk.”

By the time Aymini stropped talking, there was a selection of dishes on the table. It included the three bowls and mugs Aymini mentioned, as well as a short loaf of bread and some tableware. Sophia saw it all arrive, but it was still hard to believe that it was done by hand instead of magic with how quickly it arrived.

Dinner turned out to be a stew. It was hearty and surprisingly heavy on the meat. She’d traveled a bit with her parents and knew that many places were heavier on the starches, though she’d also been to places that used even more meat. “Do you raise animals or do you get the meat from somewhere else?”

“Vramt brought down a beastalow a couple of days ago. They’re good eating but it’s hard to use all of the meat before it goes bad; we don’t have the facilities to smoke that much meat, so we have to eat as much as we can fairly quickly.” Aymini spoke slowly, clearly more interested in her food than Sophia’s question.

Sophia couldn’t blame her. It was surprisingly delicious, even for someone who wasn’t really all that fond of stew. She had no idea what vegetables were in it, since they seemed totally unfamiliar, but they were delicious with the beastalow meat and the spices in the broth. The freshly baked crusty bread was another chewy delight; it seemed to clear the flavors just enough to make them really pop in the next bite of stew.

There were no more questions until the food was all gone. Aymini finished first, but Dav wasn’t far behind her.

Dav took a mouthful of the drink in the mug, then nodded. “That’s good ale.”

“Thanks,” Aymini said with a grin. “I did think that batch came out rather well. Now, I promised you two that I’d talk about what being a Fallen city like Fallen Kestii means. You’re both from protected villages, aren’t you?”

“Protected?” Sophia was puzzled and a glance at Dav told her that he didn’t have any more of a clue than she did.