The Star 37

The young mage glanced at the cambion, who looked suspiciously a lot like Amy, Pete's daughter-in-law.

"A bit of taboo desire would make for an interesting drinking conversation at some point," he thought.

He was surprised that he was still a 'he'. Seeing what Pete was thirsty for, Orison was a bit confused on his end. What captured a person's heart and what captured their... eye might be different but there was usually some pretty clear overlap. That was especially true in certain important areas. He could definitely feel his ability's subtle pull to see Pete in a more flattering light. So, it wasn't a matter of the man being emotionally detached or weary of life and connections like pre-Danny awakened Nub had been.

As much as the cambion's new 'people clothes' seemed like it would make for a fun story on a beer and poker night, his own situation sounded like a more needful one done sober. The weird angel/demon throne's evaluation had raised the bull man to the good friend and ally list but the young mage wasn't quite sure what to make of things. It did make him wonder if Pete's willingness to be slapped with a bunch of spiritual debts and sent to a whole other Greater Reality was a lot less straightforward than he had originally assumed.

The young man was no less impressive in full man form as he had been as a bull beast kin, if not as sheerly massive. He wasn't plain of feature but he wasn't a top tier GQ candidate either. Ability influence aside, Orison could see the man's appeal to the 'I wanna feel safe' brigade. He wasn't particularly a part of that group but he liked having at least one tough buddy around.

The biggest and most vexing issue he was dealing with was a building interest in exploring time on the other side of things. It started as a little thing with a younger Sonny contemplating all the lost chances Orison had let slip by while focusing on non-existent future possibilities. He noticed that fate liked to throw unavailable, evil and strange women at his past self while throwing some 'best husband' types. Not being opposed as he once was, especially after outsider monstering out a couple of times, he thought about sticking a thumb at fate and being a 'her' instead.

The optimistic nerd side of himself wondered if he could abuse this evil plot by destiny to trick a 'best wife' out of 'all that is'. The more pessimistic side wondered if he was going to get crapped on if he tried to get serious with ANYONE. Either way, he planned on at least confirming if his bad relationship luck was horrible coincidence and personal life choices or an actual supernatural phenomenon.

He suddenly realized that he was thinking about not immediately important things while a presumably important person was describing potentially life altering information. Crazy brain had been fixed for the most part but surface spirit scrambling was apparently not all magnetized back into alignment yet. He dialed the volume on his brain's random thought radio and focused in.

"-for all of you... With diligence and dedication, you can become a true emissary of the veil."

Unable to help himself, Orison expressed his thoughts out loud to the ancient voice, "Is that synonymous with lesser void denizens being hopeful of becoming true void walkers? So, you guys are using the Veil Cradle's maze in ways it wasn't intended for as well? You know, that's how this reality's entire lineage of void walker's descendants got banned from their cradle. They broke it's resource gathering mechanism, using it as a prison.

"Well, others broke it but that was because the void walkers were forcing it into a half opened status to begin with. Then again, I don't know how parallel the veil cradle is in function to the void cradle. Forget I said anything."

Something reached inside him to rip out his logos. Instinctively, Orison's inner space chomped down on it. Whatever it was that tried to reach through him, it took his space's flipping through a few dimensional frequencies to find the right set of teeth to chew with. He immediately knew when it had succeeded because the ancient sounding entity that had grown silent, reacted angrily.

The ancient entity didn't respond with words but a banishment diagram of incredible complexity, bolstered with laws. The 'veil' sticky spiritual essence microfibers whipped into a frenzy at the intrusion of a link with the outside. Orison already knew it was better to go with a banishment than fight against it. So, he didn't fight it. He looked for a way to control the ejection, as he latched onto his little group in a 'tentacle eye beast' logos group hug.

"Might as well snatch these guys too. Blame it on you being grabby, crypt keeper. You showed me how to get my logos out. Astral connection from the crown chakra gives its pattern form like summoned impressions have. And, stored 'liquid' veil fibers in the solar plexus point give it substance in the material... Neat."

While he and his three bear hug victims were high speed ejected from the white room, Orison was searching for a sideways push to keep from being dumped out wherever the banishment would normally send him. Since it happened so fast, he was having difficulties but the entity missed its opportunity to snatch back Pete and the girls' logos material as well. That didn't mean that the entity couldn't catch up to them.

The same unknown power tried to reach up and through his kidnapped cohort. In doing so, it exposed a crack that Orison exploited to move 'sideways' instead of violently 'outward'. What happened next was beyond his understanding but, in an infinite stretching nanosecond, he made an agreement with something. He assumed it was the living will of the Veil Cradle.

Since all he had to go off of was the adverse reaction of the entity to his conjecture, he was roughly confident that they had been in the Veil Cradle's maze or whatever its equivalent was called. If so, that cradle didn't work quite the same way as the more familiar Void Cradle did. But, if it dealt with the weird stuff between the living and the dead, that wasn't surprising to the young mage.

What exactly transpired within that timeless moment spent communing with the assumed veil cradle, was a mystery. There were only two events he could confirm actually happened. It was undeniable that his spiral's natural growth was enhanced by greater understanding of fate, chance and will. That was accomplished through a process of shuffling and rearranging said laws for his nearest and dearest into more agreeable patterns. Such a stressful thing definitively made the stakes for comprehending them well, very high.

He wasn't allowed to do so for free, however. He had to erase his own connections to all that was in order to be useful in a specific way. He wasn't even allowed to know what he did, though he could guess it had something to do with moving elsewhere in an untraceable way.

Despite how powerful the mysterious source was, something stronger had chained it to purposes it wasn't meant for. And though he was far too weak to be of any real assistance, he did represent a workable loophole. It wasn't as if he had much of a choice. There were three other people with him who'd suffer dearly for his loose mouth if he didn't. He wasn't a saint but he'd fix his own screw ups when he could.

***

The young man came to on the outskirts of a wooded area. He didn't have clear recollections of what he had been up to before then but memories of fey revelries and unearthly enjoyments had been a part of it. Pixie, Satyr, Nymph; he had spent time with and as each one. There was even a brief period where he had been tricked into holding down a genius loci's job for awhile. While posing as the spirit guardian of a sacred spring, he had taken a sip of the waters. The next moment, he had devoured the whole thing and spat the artifact that produced it back out.

The last part was the only reason he hadn't been executed by its returning spirit. Such a thing was embarrassing for the lax guardian and the occasional shapeshifter that now resembled a young mortal. After he apologized profusely, the guardian let him off with a small forgetfulness curse that would wear off as soon as the young man wandered out of the woods. At which time, the curse would twist into a blessing of remembrance of what came before he had wandered in, a return apology for taking advantage of his naivety in the first place.

A few steps beyond the wood line, he was assaulted by the mother of all migraines. In what must have been days later, he came to again. This time, he was surrounded by seasoned and shaped logs. A woman with a bun of tidy gray hair was tending a fire as her young grandson and even younger granddaughter scurried about on their daily chores.

"Ah, you be finally a stirrin!" the old but vital woman said with a smile that revealed a set of overly even false teeth.

He slowly sat up, causing the room to violently spin.

She quickly shuffled over to him and provided a stable hand. "How ya feelin, son? You need a sick bucket?"

"No. I-I was dizzy but it's starting to fade," he said.

Taking their time, she worked through some questions and he worked through what answers he could provide. Shadows of memories weaved in and out, revealing things a little at a time but he knew to hold some things back.

"Sounds like another poor sod who got hisself hoodwinked by the fair folk. Never pay no mind. Those of us who live so close to the old wood, we're understandin where them thrice struck folks of the tamed lands have took on some convenient forgetfulness," she said, patting his shoulder in understanding.

She added with a frown, "Is it no wonder they be losing babes in the night and runnin foul of mischief and bedlam!? Mind if you put iron on the front door, you leave a little milk by the back. It's all well and good to let the fair folk know you ain't up for company but the last thing you want is for them to think you rude!"

Switching to a kind smile, she offered some 'vittles'. The smell of the simmering stew was greatly inviting. It felt like it had been some time since he'd had something other than fruits, nuts and other wild forage.

Once he had a meal in him, she urged him to get some fresh air. "There's no rush, mind. But, if you can move and make use, there's no harm in pullin what part you can to earn your keep, no?"

They young man shook his head. "It already sounds like I'm in your debt. No need to let it pile up on me. Besides, after laying down for so long, I feel stiff all over... I know I'm not a big guy but how did you get me here?"

The old lady smirked. "Us simple country folks' knacks might not be as fancy but they got a touch of the wild in it. Don't tangle with no wily granny or gramps out here or you might get a good wallop!"

A tiny spectral bird feather poked out of a stack of stitched ghostly leaves that appeared in her hand. Before he could ask about it, the young man found himself lifted and gently set down outside of the cottage's front door.

He turned around with wide eyes and said, "What was that? I don't think I've seen or felt magic quite like that before."

She flapped a hand at him dismissively. "I'm sure ya have, son. The flavor might be a bit tangy but it's still just simple wind knack... Do ya not have a knack? Don't tell me! Maybe you're a stole babe they done got bored of. Try and let the feel of the flow run through ya and see what happens. Just... do it a ways from my cottage if ya please!"

It took a couple of false starts, only to be interrupted by her asking for a little more distance, before he was far enough away for the old woman's liking. Doing as she shouted at him, he closed his eyes and the 'flow' move through him. For a moment, he felt like he was as illusionary as her 'pile of leaves' book had been.

In that state, he 'saw' a flow of soft 'aurora' shifting on the latter half of the rainbow in color. The tint slid back and forth from bright to dark in waves across the green and blue streaks, the indigo and purples splashes. From a distance, he heard the woman's voice like a whisper as she shouted for him to come back.

Her sudden loud and near shriek caused his eyes to snap open. Startled, he looked at her to see that she was looking at him with a pale face, clutching her chest. Almost as if it was instinct, he reached out to heal her. He felt a movement of something and suddenly felt very weak.

"Heaven's boy! I was only a little flabbergasted! Never ever pass your life to another like that again unless the need is so great, you're willing to die for it. If one of those greedy noble types saw you do that, they'd find a way to use you up! And I tell ya, they got a mess of ways," she said, trailing to sadness towards the end.

She added, "Thank your lucky stars that you got the palest head of hair I seen on one not still a babe. That little skunk stripe you just earned yourself blends in fair clever."

She showed him a polished silver plate that she used to look herself over and pointed at the small line of dark that ran through her gray bun. "Probably only a few months or so and it'll go back to rights but that's a few you lost, son. Mind what I said or you'll lose a lot more, if not all ya got!"

The young man nodded gravely. "Thank you for the warning and think of that loss as my tuition for the lesson. If you're generous of heart, maybe think of it as repayment of my debt for taking me in? That took the wind out of my sails."

She urged him to lay back down. "Well, you've the porter's knack. Once you got the drift, you'll be popping around the lands like the whole kingdom's full o' gopher holes and capable of making fine living. Steer clear of drafters. The army gets a hold of you, they'll never let you go, I fear...

"Might as well move on to the next big question. You got a fetish or talisman? They can come in all shapes and sizes but they're usually a book and trinket. Fancier types might get a staff or robes and the like. Most get em at their comin o' age ceremony. You still look young enough that you can pass as an early bloomer if ya don't. Best to not let folks know you were spirited away, less you got to."

The young man said, "Like a gift? If I didn't have it on me-"

"No!... No, not like a gift. They're symbols that come from inside ya. The sacred stronomers send a manny-insus to do it twice a year out here in the boonies. Closer to the big cities, you can go to one of the equinox or solstice ones. The capitol's a few week's journey from here but they do it every full moon and special holidays." she said.

Confused, the young man asked, "Is there any reason why an... amanuensis does ceremonies on those times? Is there some advantage? What exactly do they do?"

The old woman shrugged. "Beats me. I'm thinking that if there is, it ain't much of one. Just a way to keep the sacred astronomers busy and make privileged folk feel better n' everybody else... What do they do? They write out their little formulas and such and it makes the air thicker with the stuff that makes knacks work. People's fetishes and talismans pop out that way."

He frowned. "I- I'm not sure how I know but it doesn't feel unimportant. I think that at certain times, certain other... places, maybe sources, are closer. The uninformed probably do it whenever feels right but I'd bet the powerful know the right times... Are there times when they should be doing a ceremony but for some reason don't?"

The old lady sighed. "That don't mean nothin. What trade doesn't have emergencies and the like?"

"How about days that your own fetish grants you more power and days where it grants you a lot less? They're focuses that can also act as power storage, right?" he said.

His head was hurting a little but his thoughts were clearing. A few more shadows were emerging from darker corners of his mind but the fading remnants of the genius loci's power were nearly spent. Half intuition and half educated guess, he fed the wild twist of pattern to brighten it back up. He had to stop because it was fading for reasons other than power. It wasn't something made to last. His effort bought him a little more memory recovery time, however.

Thoughtful but still skeptical, she said, "Well, yeah. But everything in nature waxes and wanes."

He nodded with a wide smile. "Including the sources that not only grant you more strength but also stronger first expressions of that strength. Now, it's just theory. But, there's more water when it rains and that's common sense."

Now that he had her in frowning, deep thought, he added, "Now, if you had the common masses working twice as hard for half the results while you and your buddies are working half as hard for twice as much, then staying in charge is simple, right? It's worse than that, though.

"I'd bet a lot of people aren't that strongly aligned with an expression. It would be easy to influence those folks to express things to better suit your needs with a little tweak here and there. You need more soldiers? More craftsmen? Send your awakening patrol on days where fire or earth pla- power is stronger."

He didn't expect his words would make the old woman cry but they did. He didn't ask why. An old lady was raising two kids without a lot of signs of people coming around to give a hand. That spoke loudly enough for him to get the message.