In the end, they decided to take along the Astanic and Mibian books on time travel in addition to their own notes. If they became stranded in time somewhere, they didn’t want to be without access to them to figure out how to get back.
Keolah was a little sad to leave Torn Elkandu this time. She was afraid something would go terribly wrong and she might never see it again. She wasn’t generally one to give in to pessimism, but it was hard not to be scared of what they were doing. Following Harmony’s dubious directions and finding the Tinean books in this time would be absurdly difficult, but relatively safe compared to what they were about to do. But she hadn’t gotten this far by refusing to take risks. And so they returned to Scalyr.
The crew of the Careful earned some strange looks as to what exactly they were doing from people on the shore and other sailors on the ships sharing the harbor with them. Most of them dismissed it with mutters about damned gnomes.
“Can’t we just put up an illusion?” Kithere asked. “People are staring.”
“It would interfere with the mana flows of the ritual,” Sardill said. “We should be able to set sail soon, however.” His hood had returned to cover his smooth head once again, and darkness shrouded his deathly pale features.
As they left the harbor of Scalyr, they began the ritual. Silver stood at the helm speaking a chant in ancient Mibian, weaving their strands of mana together as each person contributed to the vast spell. It was strange hearing words to support a spell, and Keolah wasn’t entirely certain of the necessity for it. Did they help improve focus or something? Off the ship, at the water around them, at the city falling away in the distance, nothing appeared to be happening yet. practically holding her breath, Keolah gripped the deck railing. Watching the coalescing weave was giving her a headache. It was far beyond anything she had been a part of before. It was more complex than any enchantment she had seen but for those on the ancient magic books.
“We need to accelerate to eighty-one knots,” Sardill said.
“Eighty-one?” Sarom repeated. “That’s ridiculous! No ship can go that fast!”
“We must,” Sardill said. “It is necessary for the ritual to work.”
“And why specifically eighty-one?” Sarom wondered.
“It is the square of nine,” Sardill said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Nine is the number associated with Time Magic.”
Sarom looked at him like he was insane, but turned to the crew and shouted, “You heard the man! Eighty-one knots! Mages, put everything you have into it!”
Mages of Water, Wind, and Fire poured every drop of mana they could into giving the ship speed. As they continued, the air around the ship began to shimmer, and the water turned iridescent. Harmony stood at the prow, focusing intently. Keolah had to wonder if she actually felt guilty about what she’d done. everything she’d done. All the people who had died because of her. Keolah had kept quiet about it, both in assuming she must have had a good reason for it and in not wanting to antagonize the powerful, mentally unstable Changer.
The sky went dark. Not black, entirely, but a deep blue with no sun, stars, or moons in sight. The waters mirrored the shade, chopping waves beneath them rocking the ship and threatening to pull them in as if into a whirlpool. The wind whipped around them like a hurricane, but it was like no storm they had experienced in the Sea of Stars. Cracking blue lightning split the sky and struck the waters off their bow. The ship shook and pitched as a massive wave almost knocked them over.
“Water Mages!” Sarom called out. “Wind Mages! Can’t you do anything about this?”
“Nothing!” one of the gnomes called back. “Our magic is all tied up in the ritual!”
“Then…” Sarom said. “Everyone hold on! Brace yourselves!”
Another wave slammed into them, spraying the deck with foamy saltwater. Electricity charged the deep blue skies like a massive dome. The entire ship pitched down as the ocean fell out from underneath them and drew them down into an inky abyss. Keolah clung to the railing for dear life and clenched her eyes shut. It did nothing to block out the blinding wash of mana that swept over them.
The Careful landed with a massive splash that sent waves off in every direction. Blazing sunlight shone down out from a clear, blue sky, the sort of blue that the sky was supposed to be. Keolah’s soaked robes clung to her body. She pulled dripping wet hair out of her face and turned around to look at the rest of the ship. Some of the crew slowly picked themselves off the deck, most of them seeming none the worse for wear, although better than half of them passed out from mana exhaustion on the spot.
“Did we do it?” Keolah asked. “Was the ritual completed successfully?”
“I think so,” Silver said.
Calto pulled out a telescope and peered through it off to the south, where they’d just come from. “I’m seeing a city on the shore. But it’s a lot smaller than it was, and missing the walls.”
“We did it?” Hawthorne said. “We actually did it? I can’t believe it.”
“If you can’t believe it actually worked, then why were you pushing us to do it in the first place?” Sedder asked.
“Did everyone make it?” asked Sarom, doing a roll call of the crew.
“I can’t find Podim,” called one of the gnomes. “He was right next to me before… before we went through.”
A thorough search of the ship revealed no sign of the missing gnome, but everyone else was accounted for, at least.
“He must have been thrown overboard when we went down,” Calto said. “Is he dead?”
“He may have survived,” Sardill said. “And was simply dropped somewhere in time. He may have been able to swim ashore in whatever time he wound up in.”
“He’s a Water Mage,” Calto said. “So if he landed in the water somewhere — or somewhen — he would have been fine.”
“Was using my ship really the best idea after all?” Sarom asked.
“Yes,” Sardill said. “This may have seemed rough, but had we not done so, it is possible that none of us may have survived the passage. With refinements to the ritual, we may be able to smooth the transition. Especially if we are to locate the Tinean books. They may be the key to doing rituals like this properly.”
“So, if we’ve wound up in the right time, where can we find them?” Keolah asked.
“They should be in the library tower of Sheenvale,” Harmony said. “They were there for a few thousand years, so even if our aim was off by a bit, we probably wound in a time when they were there.”
“And where, exactly, is Sheenvale?” Hawthorne asked.
“Inland Albrynnia, south of the mountains of Sorrow,” Harmony replied.
“So I guess we’re sailing back to Jaston, then,” Keolah said.
“Best get going, then,” Sarom said. “The sooner we get on the move, the sooner we’ll get there.”
“Fortunately, there was minimal damage to the ship caused by the temporal transition,” Calto said.
“Set a course out of the Bay of Scalyr,” Sarom ordered the helmsman who had relieved Silver.
“Aye aye, captain,” the helmsman replied.
Gears turned and pistons clanged as the ship’s engines clattered to life again. With a ding and a whistle, the Careful set off into the placid blue seas of years past.
“Are you sure that’s Jaston?” Vakis asked as the Careful approached the bustling seaport on the north coast of Albrynnia.
“It has to be,” Sarom said. “I’ve checked with the maps and sextant and everything.”
“That’s Jaston,” Amanda confirmed.
“How in the Abyss did it turn into the rotting mess it was when we got there?” Hawthorne asked.
“That rotting mess was our home,” Vakis protested weakly.
“Not that I can talk,” Hawthorne said. “I lived in a tree surrounded by goats.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea to approach and let anyone see us?” Kithere asked. “I’m sure our ship would give rise to a number of awkward questions.”
“We can just put up an illusion to make it look like whatever a normal ship of the time looks like,” Sedder suggested. “Right now I still have an illusion up to hide us completely.”
“We don’t know what a normal ship of the time looks like,” Hawthorne said. “We’re apparently not even entirely certain what time we’re in.” She looked expectantly to Harmony.
Harmony shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you.”
Amanda sighed and looked off at the shore. “Judging by the size and architecture of the city, and its current state of repair, I’ll estimate that the League of Wizards is still active and the Albrynnian Empire hasn’t been formed yet.”
“I could have told you that just by the banners,” Sardill said, pointing. “They’re flying the flag of the Kingdom of Jaston.”
Above walls and towers of stacked stone blocks, flags whipped in the wind with bands of green and yellow, bearing the marking of a wolf’s head.
“Oh, right, that,” Amanda said.
“How much do we really care about changing this timeline?” Sarom asked. “We’re going to be changing it anyway by going to Sheenvale and taking those books.”
“I suppose it doesn’t really matter too much if they see us,” Amanda said. “In the grand scheme of things. But I don’t think they’ll react well.”
“At least now we know we’re in the correct time frame, right?” Keolah asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Harmony said. “I definitely didn’t start chucking books into volcanoes until the whole League of Wizards thing was winding down.”
“Can we drop anchor somewhere away from any coastal settlements and come ashore?” Keolah asked.
“That might be a little inconvenient as we can’t get too close to the shore,” Sarom said. “But the docks in future Jaston were hardly worth standing on, either. Let’s just set up a temporary pier with magic, then, and leave the ship invisible here for when we want to return.”
“Right then,” Keolah said. “Anyone who doesn’t want to go trudging through the wilderness had best stay with the ship.”
“I want to see the city,” Vakis said. “I want to see what my people once were like.”
“They’re not really ‘your people’, Vakis,” Harmony said. “Anymore than they are mine.”
“Is anyone ‘your people’, Harmony?” Hawthorne asked.
“The wild folk,” Harmony answered without missing a beat.
“Who?” Keolah asked.
“You might refer to them in a racist manner as ‘monsters’,” Harmony said, rolling her eyes.
“Oh…” Keolah said awkwardly. “Right. Them. ‘Mother of Monsters’ and all that, right?”
“I wasn’t really literally their mother, you know,” Harmony said. “Just to clarify.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Keolah said. “Although if you’re eight-to-ten thousand years old, it would not be implausible that you had a large number of descendants, especially if you used shapeshifting to give birth to large litters or lay many eggs at once.”
Harmony snickered and patted Keolah on the shoulder with a paw as she went past. “I like you.”
Amanda looked across the group. “I must warn you that they will see any of you non-humans as ‘wild folk’, as Harmony calls them. I would recommend being shapeshifted into humans or concealed by strong illusions before being seen by any of the ‘civilized people’.”
“Oh,” Keolah said. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“Blame Harmony,” Amanda said.
“Hey!” Harmony protested. “I was the best thing that ever happened to Albrynnia!”
“You started wars!” Amanda snapped. “How can you call that the ‘best thing’?”
“I didn’t start the wars,” Harmony said. “The wild folk did. I just gave them the means to exact their revenge upon the city folk.”
“Like that’s any better?” Amanda returned.
“The wars would have happened anyway,” Harmony said. “I could as easily have blamed you for it, but I don’t. I don’t blame you, cousin. You took your side and you stuck to it. You did what you thought you had to do.”
“You tore down everything I’d built,” Amanda said bitterly. “Look!” She gestured wildly toward the walls of Jaston. “Those bright castles whose walls you tore down? You have no idea the advances in metalworking we were making. Our bronze work was unparalleled!”
“Bah, you and your metal,” Harmony scoffed. “Your metal and stone and cold, dead things.”
“And you would have everyone living like animals,” Amanda said.
“The wild folk are not animals!” Harmony retorted.
“They live in caves and use no technology that requires metal,” Amanda said. “I’ll bet even in the future, they haven’t moved on past bows and arrows.”
No one else seemed to want to be involved in this argument. Vakis and Tor exchanged uncomfortable glances. Sardill just stood by and folded his arms across his chest and waited for them to finish. Keolah wasn’t entirely certain whether he was annoyed or amused.
“So, we came all the way to the past to retrieve the Tinean books,” Harmony said. “But you sound like you’d rather go over there and change the timeline.”
“everything I’ve learned in the Valley of Gal could radically change the course of history,” Amanda said. “But no. I haven’t forgotten what we’re here for.” She sighed. “As tempting as it is, there is more to the universe than this little world.”
“Nice to see we’re on the same page about something, at least,” Harmony said. “Even if you are still blaming me for the wars that… we were all involved in.”
Both of them turned to look at Sardill in unison.
“I have nothing to say,” Sardill said. “Now, do we intend to set off immediately, or in the morning?”
“No time like the past, I say,” Hawthorne interjected. “Let’s go.”
“So,” Silver said awkwardly, coming up beside Sedder as they traveled through the wilderness.
“So?” Sedder replied. He reflexively put up a sound ward, in case this was something incriminating or embarrassing, and just in time.
“Do you still have a crush on me?” Silver asked.
“Oh, for love of the Trickster,” Sedder muttered.
“Is that a no?” Silver asked.
“We’ve gone back and forth around the world and traveled through time!” Sedder exclaimed. “After everything that’s happened, I think I’m well beyond the point where I would say I have a crush on someone like a mooning schoolboy. And we met with your ex, which was really awkward, by the way, and now he’s traveling with us, and have I mentioned he’s scary yet?”
“He isn’t going to hurt you,” Silver assured him.
“You’re always so sure of that,” Sedder said. “He’s the one who seemed like he was never quite over you.”
“We came to an understanding,” Silver said.
“An understanding,” Sedder repeated. “And after how creepily he was stalking you all these years, he’s not going to get jealous of you suddenly deciding to start hitting on a younger man?”
“Windriders don’t really take relative age into account,” Silver said.
“Not helping,” Sedder said.
“Look, if it’s a no, then it’s a no,” Silver said. “I understand.”
“I don’t really think you do,” Sedder said. “I—”
A spear planted itself into the dirt at their feet, succinctly putting their discussion on hold for the moment. Sedder stopped in his tracks and dropped his sound wards.
“Wild folk,” Harmony said quietly.
“Certainly not civilized folk,” Amanda muttered.
“Let me handle this,” Harmony said.
Over the ridge, a few heads poked out, none of which were even the slightest bit human, or really elvenoid. Each of them had animal features, or features they were just plain odd that Sedder could not immediately identify. No two of them were alike.
“Greetings, my children!” Harmony said, shifting as she spoke into the ever-changing tentacled monstrosity that she had appeared to be when they first came to her lair at Mount Shadowflame.
“Who are you?” one of them demanded. He had the head of a deer with a large set of antlers that Sedder wasn’t sure how he could even hold up.
“I am the Changer!” Harmony called up at them.
“I don’t know what sort of imposter you might be, because the Changer is right in the hut up the cliff,” the deer-man replied.
“Erm,” Harmony murmured too low for the wild folk to hear. “This is awkward.”
“Whether she’s the Mistress of Change or not, she can clearly change shape,” hissed a snake-like man.
“Well she’s probably a shapeshifter, then,” the deer-man said.
“That means she’s blessed by the Changer,” the snake-man said. “One of the Changer’s children.”
“I don’t know,” the deer-man said. “Who would want to imitate the Changer?”
“Either way, we should probably just take them to the Changer and let her sort this out,” the snake-man said.
“Fine,” the deer-man said. “All of you! You’ve intruded upon Stone Rain Tribe territory. Come along peacefully. We’re taking you to the Changer.”
“No problem,” Harmony said with a sigh.
The wild folk led them off into the rocky hills, toward a settlement consisting of several hide huts huddled around a large fire pit. Sedder drifted toward the back of the group. He didn’t like the sound of this. He didn’t like the look of this. He really hoped that Harmony could get along with her past self. He needn’t have worried.
“What’s this?” said a being, emerging from a large hut. The creature had four legs, hooved like a goat, two trunks like an elephant, and a set of antlers. That was all Sedder could register before the features shifted again, the antlers melting into waving tentacles and then settling into perky ears like a fennec fox.
Harmony — their Harmony, the one from the future — grinned and pranced up toward the creature from the past. The other looked at her in puzzlement as she ran up and leaned close to whisper one word in a fox-like ear.
The Changer blinked four eyes. “What.”
A broad grin split Harmony’s face. “I hadn’t planned to meet myself, but this is kind of cool.”
The other one stared. “What.”
Harmony giggled uncontrollably.
“Kind of cool?” Delven said with a smirk. “It was already confusing enough just keeping track of one of you.”
The deer-man cocked his head. “They’re both the Changer?”
“Just run with it,” Harmony said.
“What should we call the other you, then?” Delven asked. “Calling you both Harmony is going to get confusing.”
“You’re calling yourself Harmony now?” the Changer said, giggling.
“I know, right?” Sardill muttered.
“Okay then. If you’re Harmony, then you can call me Discordia.”
“Oh, come on,” Harmony said. “We’re not that different.”
“You were the one who intentionally picked an ironic name,” Discordia said. “I’m just calling it like it is.”
“You don’t know what my life has been like,” Harmony said. “You don’t know whether it’s ironic or if I’ve just mellowed out over the years.”
“Where are you from, anyway?” Discordia asked.
“Oh, a few thousand years into the future,” Harmony said. “Not quite sure exactly. What year is it?”
“You’re asking me what year it is?” Discordia asked.
“Silly question, I know,” Harmony said.
“So you’re from the future,” Discordia said. “Why did you come back? Are you hoping to avert some sort of terrible disaster? Use your future knowledge to change the course of history.”
“Nah,” Harmony said. “We’re just heading to Sheenvale to snag those old books.”
Discordia blinked. “I don’t know what could possibly have happened in the next few millennia that could make you care about those again.”
“I don’t, really,” Harmony said. “But my new friends here do, and I’d thrown them all in volcanoes and stuff, so time travel was a simpler way to retrieve them.”
“That does sound like something I’d do,” Discordia said.
“We need those books,” Amanda said.
“You didn’t seem to need them when you were too busy making blades, cousin,” Discordia said.
“Yes, well,” Amanda said. “That’s in the past.”
“The present, you mean,” Discordia said. “And I’m guessing one of you must be my other cousin? None of you are bald, so I’m guessing it’s the fellow in the ominous, all-concealing black hooded robes.”
“Very perceptive, cousin,” Sardill drawled.
“See?” Hawthorne said. “I’m not the only one who thinks it’s ominous!”
“I don’t care,” Sardill said flatly.
“This must be big if it got all three of us willing to actually work together for once,” Discordia said. “What’s going on?”
“Cousin,” Sardill said smoothly. “In the future, we resolve our differences and learn to work together for the greater good. We set aside our grievances and turned to more artistic and academic pursuits to usher in a new era of peace and harmony for Lezaria.”
“Oh dear spirits,” Discordia said, making a face. “You can’t be serious. Ugh. Look, all of you, just move on through my lands. I don’t even care what you’re doing. I don’t want to see you again.”
“As you wish,” Sardill said. “Are you certain that you do not wish to hear about—”
“No!” Discordia snapped. “Go!”
No one even paused to make an argument about staying for dinner or spending the night. The party didn’t waste any time in heading straight out of the village and back to the Pass of Lamentation. As they left, Sedder could hear some of the wild folk muttering toward Discordia and amongst themselves. The wild folk didn’t understand what had just happened. Sedder didn’t blame them at all.
Once they were out of earshot, Harmony said, “Have I really changed that much?”
“Cousin, you are the embodiment of change,” Sardill pointed out.
“Oh,” Harmony said. “I guess you do kind of have a point there. And I guess I did stop being such a crusader for change and just contented myself with staying home and trying to perfect my powers. I mean. Really. I’d taken over all of Albrynnia. It didn’t still seem like it needed change at that point. You know what I mean?”
Sardill didn’t answer.
“How did you know what to say to her to get her to leave us alone?” Hawthorne asked.
“I know her,” Sardill said. “Or knew her, at least. I know what she was like, once.”
“You lied,” Kithere said quietly.
“I did not,” Sardill said. “I exaggerated and omitted.”
“And most importantly, avoided a conflict,” Keolah said quietly.
“There is a place for conflict,” Sardill said. “But this was not it. That is not our purpose here.”
“How did you manage to convince her who you are and to listen to you?” Keolah asked Harmony.
“Well, that was simple,” Harmony said. “There’s only three people alive who know my true name, and I’m one of them. And Amanda and Sardill can’t shapeshift.”
“Was that what Amanda said to you, too?” Keolah asked.
Harmony nodded. “And don’t ask what it is.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Keolah said.
“The advantage of immortality is outliving almost everyone who might have ever known you,” Amanda said.
“I wouldn’t consider that an advantage,” Harmony said with a scowl. She looked to Keolah. “You see why I never liked her?”
“So your true name isn’t Ekinda?” Delven asked.
Harmony looked at him and giggled. “Nope. I haven’t heard that particular alias in a while. Is that what I’m remembered as in Kalor?”
“When people dare to say it at all,” Delven said. “Usually it’s just the Mother of Monsters.”
“I guess so far as titles go, it could have been worse,” Harmony said. “People have certainly come up with less pleasant things to call me over the ages.”
The city of Sheenvale was nestled within a lush, green valley, next to a river that flowed down from the south side of the mountains of Sorrow. At a glance, it looked much like Jaston, with its walls built of stacked stone blocks. Only the flags that flew over the walls were different, blue and white marked with a hawk spreading its wings. On the far side of the city, an enormous round tower loomed into the sky.
“So, that’s Sheenvale,” Keolah said.
“I don’t imagine that they’re going to just let us walk in and take their books,” Hawthorne commented.
“What’s the plan?” Delven asked.
“We can sneak in under cover of illusion,” Sedder suggested.
“Or I can turn you all into boring humans temporarily,” Harmony said.
“I’m really not trusting you to change us back, after what you did to Narcella,” Hawthorne said.
“I haven’t heard her protesting!” Harmony argued.
“That’s because she still only speaks telepathically,” Hawthorne said.
“I will go,” Amanda said. “They will know me. I should be able to talk my way into the tower without a problem. They won’t question me.”
“Alone?” Keolah said. “I doubt you’d be able to carry all of those books yourself, even if they didn’t question you really obviously walking out with them all. Are you sure they wouldn’t mind you making off with them?”
“Well…” Amanda said. “They might.”
“I’m going,” Sedder said. “You’ll need my illusions.”
“There’s probably quite a lot of interesting books in the library tower, and not just the Tinean books,” Delven mused. “I’d dearly love a chance to take a look at them.”
“Can you read ancient Albrynnian?” Amanda asked.
“I speak Hlayan,” Delven said. “That’s close, right?”
Amanda smirked. “Not that close. But fine. If there’s anything else you’re specifically interested in, I suppose I could be convinced to pick out a few and translate them for you.”
“Songs,” Delven said. “And how might I convince you?”
“You’ll owe me a favor,” Amanda said.
“Oh shit, a favor,” Harmony drawled.
“Is that bad?” Delven asked her.
“You do not want to owe her a favor,” Harmony said.
Delven snorted softly. “I’m sure I can deal with it.”
“Suit yourself,” Harmony said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Forgive me for saying so, Changer, but I’m beginning to suspect your opinion is a little biased.”
“A little?” Harmony said.
“Enough,” Amanda said firmly. “He already agreed. Back off, cousin.”
Harmony grumbled and withdrew.
“Now, is anyone else coming?” Amanda asked. “And don’t worry about anyone seeing detecting your illusions, Sedder. I’m quite certain there are no inborn Seekers in Sheenvale.”
“Good to know,” Sedder said.
Keolah, Hawthorne, and Silver agreed to go as well, and Sedder put up illusions over them to make them look like ordinary, pale humans. It wouldn’t fool anyone that got close enough to feel their ears. Sedder’s tactile illusions could only give the impression of something being there that wasn’t. He couldn’t take something away that was there, just hide it. Delven didn’t need an illusion. Although his skin tone was darker than typical for this part of the world, it would not really draw anyone’s attention. Not nearly so much as a few purple and blue elves would. Vakis and Tor probably wouldn’t draw any eyes at all.
“Right then,” Harmony said. “You know, I could always go along and hide several books inside my body—”
“No,” Amanda said.
Harmony raised her paws. “Okay, okay.”
“That’s kind of gross,” Hawthorne said.
“Are you sure you won’t—” Harmony began.
“No,” Hawthorne said.
The group headed down into the city, emerging from the wilderness at a rough stone road winding into the valley. If anything could be said about these ancient Albrynnians, at least they could pave their roads. If she didn’t think too hard about it, and the fact that these were completely different kinds of trees, Keolah might have been able to convince herself that she were in any forest in Kalor, in the future she’d come from, and not in the past in a distant land. In the future, these roads were probably overgrown, their stones pried up by monsters, with little left to indicate that anyone had once traveled here. There was something of a sense of wonder in being here, in being now, in seeing things that few in her time had ever gotten the chance to see. If she’d thought the Albrynnian ruins in the Thorndelle mountains were amazing, she hadn’t been able to imagine that she might get the chance to see them as living, breathing cities. Keolah had to stop herself from openly staring at everything as they walked in through the gates, and she wasn’t the only one.
Her translator amulet still worked on the archaic Albrynnian spoken by the people here, probably much better than it had on the modern Albrynnian spoken by Vakis and Tor. The voices of townspeople bubbled around them, but no one gave them a second glance through their illusions. They were just another group of humans walking down the street.
No gas lamps lined the streets. The guardsmen bore bronze swords and not firearms. No machines made everyone’s lives just a little bit easier. Nothing more complicated than the water wheel on the river, at least. At this point, she was glad that they’d decided to hide the gnomish steamship they’d come in. It would have stood out so badly that they might have run into difficulties in completing their task here.
“Just let me do the talking,” Amanda said quietly as they approached the tower.
A wise suggestion, considering that no matter how good their translator amulets were, it might be noticeable that they were using them. Sometimes people’s lips didn’t quite sync up with what they were saying, which was a little disorienting. Not as disorienting as having no idea what they were saying, at least.
“Shaper,” said a uniformed guard at the entrance to the tower, clapping a fist across his chest. “You’ve brought guests?”
Amanda nodded. “These are premier scholars from the Mitten. Please ensure that they are given our every courtesy.”
“Of course, Shaper,” the guard said.
As they headed inside and out of earshot, Hawthorne muttered, “The Mitten?”
“It’s a peninsula in the northwest,” Amanda whispered. “Just go with it.”
Their first stop was to locate a section on music for Delven. The magic books would be somewhere upstairs, and in a much more sensitive location, so it was simple to deal with this first in case they didn’t have a chance to do so on the way out. With Amanda’s help, Delven picked out a few titles and put them in his pack. Along with the thirty-seven Tinean books, that would leave them stealing forty books.
They headed upstairs. There weren’t many people in the library at the moment, and the handful of patrons they passed looked curious at first, until they saw Amanda and abruptly found other things to be very interested in instead.
“Why are they so scared of you?” Keolah whispered.
“What?” Amanda said, glancing at her sharply. “They’re not scared.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Hawthorne added.
“They’re just…”
They emerged at the top of a staircase and came face-to-face with Amanda’s double. Amanda just sighed as her past self looked at them in surprise.
“What’s going on here?” asked the past Shaper. “Who are you and why are you impersonating me?”
“I am you,” Amanda said. “From the future. I need—”
“Did my cousin put you up to this?” Amanda asked. “The Changer is the only one who could have altered your flesh to match me so perfectly. And who are these other people you’ve brought in here with you?”
“They are friends,” Amanda said. “They came back from the future with me.”
Keolah cleared her throat. “I am the Seeker. I’d assure you that what your future self says is true, but you wouldn’t really have any reason to believe me, either.”
Amanda got close to her double and whispered harshly, “Wend—”
“Silence!” the Shaper snapped before she could get out another syllable. “I didn’t think even the Changer would stoop to telling anyone my true name in an attempt to trick me like this.”
“This is stupid,” Hawthorne muttered. “Amanda, we’re not trying to fool you. Why would we bother? I certainly don’t give a twig about your little wars.”
“Who is Amanda?” the Shaper asked.
“That was the name your future self told me to call you, Shaper,” Keolah said. “In the future.”
“As you say,” the Shaper said.
“The ornithopter won’t work,” Amanda said suddenly. “Your design is too heavy.”
“What?” the Shaper asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
As if inspired, Amanda grinned broadly. “If I showed you a design of a technological marvel of the future, would that convince you?”
“A design? No,” the Shaper said. “I want to see one for myself. If you’re really from the future, surely you can do that. If you haven’t brought any with you, it should not be a problem to simply make one.”
“Well, aside from issues with lacking required infrastructure, at least,” Amanda said. “But we’re an Earth Mage. Infrastructure has never been a problem for us.”
Amanda took a deep breath and focused, bringing mana together into a raised palm and weaving metal into existence. The Shaper watched intently, frowning. Keolah had to be impressed, herself. Her own Earth Magic couldn’t generally make something out of nothing, but rather expand on or alter what was already there. Here Amanda seemed to be conjuring metal from thin air. Interlocking gears twined together into a small, complex machine. It finished off with a round face marked with twenty-eight numbers to mark the hours in the day, with an arm with an image of the sun partway down pointing to one of the numbers. Two smaller dials indicated minutes and seconds, the latter of which steadily ticked aloud.
“A mechanical sundial?” the Shaper said, leaning close and picking it up to examine it. “The design is remarkable. How does it work? Does it use magic to detect the position of the sun?”
Amanda chuckled. “It’s called a clock. I could tell you all about it, but are you convinced or not?”
The Shaper sighed. “I don’t think anyone but me could have done what you just did, and I have never seen a design anything remotely like this before. If you’re an imposter, I couldn’t begin to guess who or what you really are.” She turned to look at Keolah. “So. Seeker, you call yourself? Why are you here, with the one who calls herself Amanda? Why did you come back here from the future? What could this time possibly offer you?”
Keolah didn’t see much point in lying. “The Tinean books.”
“Those?” the Shaper asked in puzzlement. “Don’t they still exist in your time? I’m told the enchantments on them made them virtually indestructible.”
“Yeah, they probably are,” Hawthorne said. “But your dear cousin dropped them in volcanoes, threw them into the Abyss, and chucked them to the moons in a fit of pique.”
The Shaper sighed and put her face in her palm. “That does sound like something she’d do. I’m not sure why you want them, though. There were translations made into almost every known language. Are those also missing?”
“No, we have a couple sets of those,” Keolah said. “But we want the originals.”
The Shaper chuckled. “I understand. You’re building a grand library in the future and it would offend you to be incapable of filling it out with the most legendary books on Lezaria, even if you had no real use for them. Am I right?”
“Well… yeah, there’s that,” Keolah admitted. “We’re calling it the School of Thought. I’m hoping to make it a center of learning, to gather knowledge to be shared amongst like-minded scholars.”
“I can respect that,” the Shaper said. “I have no use for them, myself. They were in my library for much the same reason. But I can spare them, for a good cause.” She paused. “I’m keeping the ‘clock’, though.”
“By all means,” Amanda said generously.
The Shaper did not oppose them in climbing the tower and opening a heavily warded chamber. Amanda knew how to get inside without having to have Hawthorne crack it open this time. Once they got inside, Keolah was dazzled by the books around them. If she’d thought the Astanic and Mibian books were heavily enchanted, they were nothing compared to this. They were like the stars against the sun. Surely the League of Wizards had been inspired by them, but for all their expertise, they hadn’t even come close.
“Holy Zaravin,” Keolah breathed.
“Huzzah, books we can’t read,” Hawthorne said brightly.
Delven leaned over and carefully examined the spine of one of the books. “Yes, this writing does look very much like that we saw in Torn Elkandu.”
“Just to be sure, I officially give you all permission to do as you like with these books,” Amanda said.
“Thanks,” Delven said, although he still picked up one of the books gingerly as if it were going to bite him. “This is… definitely going to take a while to translate. At least we knew the alphabets the Astanic and Mibian books were written in. This is something completely unrelated to anything we currently use.”
“Let’s get them back to the ship,” Amanda said. “We left our notes and the time travel books there.”
“No offense, but is there another way aside from the Pass of Lamentation?” Delven said. “Harmony is bad enough. Her past self is beyond insane.”
Amanda made a face. “Agreed. We can go along the coast to the west. It’ll be a longer trip, but there’s less likely to be wild folk out that way.”