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Tavi opened his mouth to taste the freshness of the Overlook air. He opened his eyes and turned to share the moment with Rose. “It’s so—” his throat closed.
Where? Rose? Where? The words circled each other in his mind.
A telemancer had been talking. “…are you new to Overlook?”
“You.” Tavi nailed the man with a glare. “What have you done? What is your name? What is your title?”
The telemancer backed up hastily. “G--Goodman Rafael Miele, at your service.” He bowed in the Sovereign style, although his name and clothing were Hennan. “Chief Telemancer of the City of Overlook for the di Raprezzi teleport network. And I’m afraid I don’t know what you—”
“You’re incompetent, or lying,” Tavi pressed. “Surely you can count. There were nine of us in Cauldron. Now there are eight. You left my sister behind.” Tavi took a step forward. “My sister, Roseanna
di Raprezzi. I am Octavian di Raprezzi, and this—” he gestured toward the open space beside him— “is unacceptable.”
The telemancer’s eyes widened as he realized he had, in effect, lost the boss’s daughter. “But Signor,” his voice wavered, “that cannot be. I don’t know how…one moment…” He arranged some spell components on the workbench behind him, closed his eyes, and muttered an incantation. In a few seconds, he looked up. “The telemancer at Cauldron says she left from there, and everything was normal. There was no sign of tampering. The circle here is normal. It is not possible to teleport some things in the circle but not others. This has never happened before. I—I don’t know what—”
“Then find out,” Tavi barked. He was as angry at himself as he was at the telemancer.
Our whole lives… he recalled his worry from the duel, so trivial in retrospect.
My one job is to protect her. And I don’t even know where she is.
“I will. Right now. I will find out.” Miele turned back to his workbench and arranged more spell components for what Tavi recognized as diagnostic cantrips. His face looked like Twiggy’s did when she was following the paths of magic with her mind. He stayed like that for what felt like an eternity. Tavi had to remind himself to breathe.
Suddenly the telemancer opened his eyes. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
“What? What is it?” Twiggy asked, even before Tavi could.
“She was pushed from the teleport,” the telemancer said, as if it was a phrase that made sense.
“Pushed?” Kormick asked.
“That’s the only way I can describe it,” the telemancer replied. “She went into the teleport, but something knocked her off course before she reached Overlook,” he said. “I can see the residual energy. But I cannot see how it was done, or by whom.”
“Someone ‘pushed’ at the precise moment she was mid-teleport? Wouldn’t that take incredible luck?” Mena asked.
“Or incredible skill,” the telemancer replied.
“But she is alive,” Savina said, “isn’t she?”
“You sell scrolls of
sending, don’t you? Twiggy said, pointing at a wall of scrolls in the teleport center’s front room. She held out a pouch. Tavi knew the price of a
sending scroll; 360 Gold was enough to exhaust Twiggy’s purse. Tavi was sure he could convince Miele to give them the scrolls, but he knew the telemancer would have to account to the di Raprezzi household for every scroll. If a scroll went missing, the telemancer would have to explain why, and then their mother would know they were in Overlook.
Unless our mother is to blame for this whole mess in the first place, Tavi steamed. But if she didn’t know, paying was best. And paying—and protecting Rose—was Tavi’s job. Tavi thrust his purse in front of Twiggy’s.
“By all means, Signor,” the telemancer replied, and put Tavi’s gold in a lockbox in the front room. He returned with a scroll.
Twiggy’s hand shook as she took it. “Here’s what I’m going to say,” she said, as she unrolled the scroll. “‘We are safe in Overlook. What happened? Where are you? Are you ok? Are you in immediate danger? Be careful, love Twiggy et al.’ That’s twenty-four words. We could use one more if we needed, but—”
“That’s enough questions for four
sendings,” Tavi replied.
Twiggy held the scroll, closed her eyes, and concentrated. The scroll’s words faded into the paper as its expended its magic.
Twiggy furrowed her brow, gave a ragged breath, and opened her eyes. “Nothing,” she said. “She may be too far away… but I was really nervous. Maybe if I tried again…”
The telemancer nodded. “You’re welcome to try a second scroll, but—”
Tavi couldn’t think of anything he cared about less than money right then. His sister was missing, for the gods’ sakes. He poured his purse out on the workbench. “Whatever you need.”
The telemancer handed another scroll to Twiggy. Tavi took Twiggy’s hand. It was sweaty. He put his hand on her shoulder. Mena was at her other shoulder. Tavi could feel her breathing settle as she concentrated again. The words faded into the paper again.
Suddenly, Twiggy grabbed a quill from the table, and started scribbling on the scroll. “Am okay,” she wrote. “No immediate danger, I think. In forest, probably Ketkath. Very freaked out. Trying to build beacon. Have telemancer look for signal. Love, Rose.”
Tavi exhaled. “Goodman Miele?”
The telemancer was already arranging things on his workbench. “I don’t know what she expects me to see. I looked a moment ago—hey!” he interrupted himself. “I can sense it. Something like a teleport circle, but not a teleport circle. In the mountains, over a hundred miles from here. To the East, and I believe, the south. Fifty to a hundred miles off the Follow Road. I can’t be more precise. It’s very crude. No offense meant, Signor. It is impressive. But crude.”
“None taken,” Tavi replied. “So tell us, how do we retrieve her?”
“The difficulty is getting to where she is. I can sell you a scroll of
linked portal that will get you back here from there. But there is no teleport circle where she is. We will need a more…improvised ritual. She has managed to create a beacon. If we can use that to get a fix on her location, it may be possible to send you to where she has placed the beacon. It will,” he sighed, “take time to improvise the ritual, I’m afraid.”
“How long?” Mena asked. “Someone pushed her out of the teleport. They could use that beacon to find her. Or maybe they already know where she is.”
“Hours. Several. Many. I will need to do research. Fewer hours if you help me,” he said. He was sweating. He began pulling books from a shelf over his workbench. Twiggy began to flip through one. Tavi picked up another book and started to skim.
“Aha!” Miele exclaimed, about an hour later. “Come here. Look.” He was staring into a pool of water in a metal bowl. Tavi looked over his shoulder. Savina looked over the other shoulder. Nyoko poked her head behind Savina’s. In the water’s reflection, Tavi could see a forested area. A pile of sticks and feathers and crystals sat in the middle of it.
The beacon, Tavi realized. Behind the beacon, there was a hill of scree, leading up to a mountain face.
“Schist!” exclaimed Nyoko.
“What?” Tavi turned to face her.
“Schist! Garnetiferous schist! With a lamellar band of hornblende!”
“Are you speaking Common?” Tavi asked.
“Those are kinds of rocks, Signor,” Arden said, from behind him.
“Yes, kinds of rocks that are only found together in a few parts of the Ketkath,” Nyoko replied, “and only one is east of here.” Everyone stared at her. “All Adepts learn Geology,” she explained, “when we’re young.” Unsuku nodded. Nyoko and Unsuku pointed the telemancer to an area on a map of the Ketkath. Rose was surely within a half-day’s walk of there, they assured Tavi.
Savina was still staring at the scrying pool. “There’s something odd here,” she said. “As I follow the scry, I can sense what pushed Rose. It’s not regular teleport magic. There’s something divine about it. Something Alirrian. But it’s not quite a prayer, either.”
“Teleportation is arcane,” Mena said, “but travel is Alirrian. And it’s possible to blend arcane and divine magic, although it’s rare. Some mixture of arcane and Alirrian magic would be the best means of doing something like this.”
“And it’s so precise,” Tavi remarked. “It reminds me of the
animal swarms that attacked Rose. Somehow, someone knew when we were on a travel route, and where we were, down to the minute. Someone is watching us when we travel, and attacking us when we do. Mena’s right, that sounds like an Alirrian with arcane ability.”
“But why would an Alirrian want to push Rose from a teleport?” Savina asked the question, but Tavi knew everyone was thinking it.
No one had an answer. The room fell silent, everyone lost in thought. The telemancer returned to work. Everyone helped in their own ways. Tavi, Twiggy, and Mena researched. Savina brought tea. Nyoko shared the stronger stimulant she made a habit of chewing. Arden retrieved spell components from the teleport center’s storeroom. Kormick told stories of stakeouts in Dar Und.
The sun began to set. “Aha!” The telemancer exclaimed again. “We have it!” Twiggy was placing a crystal in a circle of spell components on the other side of the room. “Remarkable! An improvised ritual in only twelve hours!” Tavi didn’t think that the word
only was appropriate. But he was relieved, and gladly handed over an additional 360 Gold for the privilege of
sending to Rose that they were on their way.
Five seconds later, Twiggy scribbled Rose’s response. “Have had to move. Am hiding in a cave. Woods not safe. Have left you a trail.”
Everyone but Unsuku—who grimly pointed out that someone needed to stay behind to bear their Witness if they never returned—crowded into the small improvised circle.
The world went white, then dark. Tavi peered upward. A faint sliver of moonlight flickered through twilight tree cover. Leaves crunched under his feet.
Tavi peered into the darkness and reached out to his left and right. Nothing. “Hello?” No response.
Tavi was alone.
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