The Mad Inkseller

Defi eyed the eight slimes and eight baskets arrayed on the floor of the room beside the kitchen.

It was supposed to be a dining area, but he thought the table there was an eyesore. He'd relegated it and the matching chairs to the store-room.

It was large enough for the baskets of zaziphos and barrels of slime feed for the eleven production slimes arrayed across the room.

He woke up several hours before dawn, as usual, and did the morning healing session of the land under the sansu orchard. He'd already milked Jar, Lar, and Mal.

The quartel barrels were almost full of their extract.

He needed more barrels. He would buy them himself, but the quartels Sarel had been providing him had a different emblem than ordinary barrels.

The average barrel had glyphs for durability and a minor preservation of the contents etched on the lids and running horizontally around the barrel circumference. He'd already comprehended the design.

The one-year cask had its emblem hidden within the layers of wood, but from what he could see, it spread across the whole of the inner layer. It was the largest emblem he'd seen yet.

The paper emblems people in town kept throwing around for minor considerations were generally less than a hand-span in size.

The barrels from the Bluzand company were a little more complicated. The emblem stretched from the lid and ran in three vertical bands down the side to come together at the bottom.

It had taken him over a month of study to understand the glyphs. The books Orain provided were heavy on theory, and only provided the most common emblem designs. But he was confident he could recreate the emblem on the Bluzand barrels. The glyphs used were basic, even if the configuration was not so simple.

Defi had learned a lot from the design of that emblem.

A visit to the woodshop was in order. And an actual glyphmaker's kit and inks rather than just the pens and ordinary writing ink he'd been using to practice would not be amiss as well.

"What are you doing?" Aire yawned behind a hand.

"Running out of barrels. Where can I buy glyphmaker's inks?" He settled Turq in its own basket, containing only zaziphos.

"You can buy glyphmaker's tools from Jast's, near the guard tower," Aire answered, still slightly sleepy. "His selection of pre-made inks is only until No.4, however. And if you need rare ingredients, you're out of luck."

Glyphmaker's inks were infused with ground mystic ingredients and essences, and were powerful. Pre-made inks were sold in a range of power requirements/outputs, the least of them being No.1 ink, best for emblems of short duration, a day at most.

The minor preservation tags that Reon and Dyene stuck to their paper bags to keep bread fresh and warm were an example of short duration emblems.

Defi set out freshly brewed cloudgrain tea, a loaf he'd been storing in the carved breadbox, jam and dried whisker-snake. "Are the three waking up as well?"

"We don't usually wake them until seven. Children need their sleep."

"Then it's fine to leave them alone in the house for a few hours?"

"They're not misbehaving pets, Defi." Aire looked like she wanted to laugh. "Renne and Markar are fairly responsible, you know. And little Breget is very sweet."

"Breget?"

"Bree's full name. Quite distinguished, very historical."

Defi sipped his tea, watched Aire spread jam on her slice of bread. "The people after them seem numerous."

"I'll be talking to the lady mayor later. She probably knows who they are." Then Aire's slips slanted wryly. "I'm not certain she'll tell however. Mayor Sorza prefers to take on the consequences herself, especially if the town is involved."

"Not the usual politician."

Aire tilted her head. "You're difficult to read, gosh."

"She's interesting."

"Bland. Too bland. I grew up with her as mayor, you know. To my generation, the Lowpool means fish, the waters, and Mayor Sorza."

"I've no concrete opinion for now. We've only met once." The talk he heard on the mayor was mixed.

"From the boy who only listens to Sarel, I'll believe that."

"That's not true." Was it? Defi frowned. "I listen to you and others too."

Aire smiled. "The you of two months ago were a block of stone, Defi."

"Am I now then a block of cheese?"

Her smile widened. "Not sure. You'd never have joked like this though. Perhaps a block of wood."

"Do you mean to say that all options still make me a blockhead?"

"Not saying," she teased.

"Are you not ten years older than I am?"

They bickered all the way to the dawn market. Defi left empty barrels that used to be filled with crab shells and carp bones with Grenia and Marte, before heading to buy what Aire said were necessities.

Milk, vital water, liver, beans, shellfish, eggs, cheese, a variety of greens, and more smoked fish – all of which she claimed were essential for a growing child.

That was before her lecture on baths and proper hygiene and the children's education. Defi managed to slip away in the middle of a rant on the lacking durability of type of cloth that shops recommend as best for rowdy children, and acquire a supply of unmarked barrels from Emer at the woodshop.

Aire showed him all the best parts of the large market and shopping area for food and clothes however, as well as any other product that came to her mind.

He even found a few baskets of starcherry, thanks to her. The fruit was a deep red, six flanges growing from a central core that made the cross-section of the fruit look like a six-pointed star.

Defi was grateful the grocers and shopkeepers were willing to deliver up the river to the Garge house.

The mindboggling thing was, she managed to impart history, geographical data, product quality, best seller analysis, and so much more in the space of an hour.

Defi's head was stuffed with information he likely would never use, from determining the correct temperature of baby milk to the origin and length of travel of the most popular caravans entering the Lowpool.

When they finally parted, it was in front of Jast the glyphmaker's shop. Aire had to return to the orphanage.

"I'll visit in a few days," she murmured. "You better not have starved the children, or yourself."

Defi thought of the mountain of food that was to be delivered to the Garge homestead today. "I don't think that's possible even if you did not visit for a month."

*

"Are you a glyphmaker?"

That was the question that greeted Defi as he entered the shop.

He looked at the young child sitting on the counter.

"Do I have to be," he asked curiously, "to enter?"

"If you're not, why would you enter?"

"I could be buying for another."

The child pouted. "Good glyphmakers choose their things themselves."

"And you," Defi returned, "are not a child."

"What? Are you saying I'm a beast?" The child teared up. "I'll tell Papa! He'll throw you out of the shop!"

"You'll have to get your creator to show up first."

The child melted away, to show a short and slightly plump man leaning against the counter, looking disgruntled. "What gave me away? People usually get hopping mad and leave before they buy anything."

"Won't you lose money then?"

"I'm protecting my investment!" The man waved an arm at the shop full of jars and boxes – liquids and powders were visible, mostly. "If they get baited by the illusion, why should I sell my precious things to them? To be used in substandard work? No!"

"You made all these? Are you Jast, then?"

"I am," the man nodded with pride. "Glyphmaker, what supplies do you need. I can sell you up to level five in ingredients, but level four in glypher's inks."

A smile touched Defi's lips, wondering if he'd be thrown out for his next question. "What would you recommend, for a beginner?"

Jast stared. "You're not a glyphmaker?"

"Not yet."

He crossed his arms. "I don't sell to skill-less fools. You need to be able to make a level-one emblem first."

"Will you test me then?"

The man's eyes narrowed. "What do you think of today's cards?"

"They're a half-centimar narrower than the optimum size for the best activation synergy, likely because a narrower card is easier to handle."

"What do you think should be done then?"

"Cut them a half-centimar narrower still. And leave the activation synergy to personal control of internal energies."

Jast looked blank, then he smiled. Then he laughed, rather like a hyena. When his laughter abated, he coughed out, "You know, they tried that."

Defi frowned. "That was not in the history books."

"Because it was the Barbossa Imperial University that did it, and the consensus was that most low-level sigilcard users did not have enough control over their power to do so. Why would they publish that? There'll be an uproar. It's easier to let the activation glyph on the card regulate the energy needed."

"I thought each sigilcard had reserves of power, depending on how it was made." Didn't it just need a spark? It was not difficult to activate the card without touching it.

"Yes, but there are cards that are unstable by design. The internal energies of living things are chaotic, and people learn control of their Colors gradually. It is not unusual for even a controlled person's Color to spike with hidden emotions."

"Do you not teach control at a young age?" He'd started meditations when he was six.

Jast shrugged. "The mental techniques of control require advanced understanding. How do you explain them to anyone who isn't at least fifteen? I hear there are countries who teach mental control young, but they're all crazy and battle mad."

Defi had nothing to say to that. It appeared Ascharon did not have meditation the way he knew it.

Jast chuckled at his silence. "Still really a beginner eh, even with an answer that a university professor was determined to implement. Just for reminding me of that experiment, I should throw you out. But you have some potential. Who is teaching you?"

"I read books."

"A self-taught glypher," Jast sighed. "Very well. It's not like I sell advanced materials."

He started taking out wooden boxes of various sizes, plain but sturdily made.

"A pen set, for any level of glyph-making – six pens, from fine to broad tip, instructions for care included. A kilo of No.1 ink powder, instructions for use on the lid of the box. Ten pieces of crystal salt, instructions for use included. Twenty packets of glyph paper, instructions for care included."

Defi had the feeling Jast dealt with a lot of beginners.

"A box of No.2 and No.3 ink powder as well, please." He didn't know what sort of ink powder was used on the Bluzand barrels.

Jast paused, straightened.

"I will sell you one box of No.2." His voice was cold. He slapped a slim booklet on the counter. "If you manage to make the second of the emblems detailed in this manual, I will be inclined to sell you more."

But then he added two more boxes on top of the pile, crystal salt and glyph paper. "I have the feeling you'll need these."

Jast put all the boxes and the booklet into a chest, then touched the glyph on the lid. The chest shrunk to a fourth the size.

"Is that standard?" Defi couldn't help but ask, hiding his shock. Ascharon had truly interesting sorceries.

"For purchases above ten solstices, yes." Jast looked at him, half-assessing, aloofly professional. "Twelve solstice in total, young sir."

Defi could not help wonder how much of the total the resizing chest cost. He paid, took the chest under an arm, then left without further comment. It was obvious he'd managed to offend the man by asking for higher rated ink powder as a beginner.

Did he want to do whatever was in that booklet though?

He was familiar with instructors setting punishment tasks. With the level of indignation the man radiated even as he remained coldly polite, Defi could only imagine the difficulty of whatever emblem the man had set him to create in recompense.

But was this Jast so honorable as his old teachers? On the surface, the task appeared simple. He did give Defi added supplies.

Well, it would not disadvantage him to see what the man had set as a punishment. The book had mentioned that comprehending the construction of advanced emblems would advance his skill.

Not to mention, it would be difficult sourcing his glyphmaking supplies from the city.

He'd just spent three fifths of his store of coin.

This venture would be worth it.