Slithering Maze 14: As the Medallion Turns

Basysus, 28, 1278: Court of Lemongrass Inn, Arth Prayogar. Nothing like bandages, tea, and bruises for breakfast.

Author’s Note: Kingdom of the Slithering Maze is a serialized fiction story that is a part of a collection called the Windtracer Tales. It follows the adventures of Tela Kioni and her crew dealing with expeditions in and around the world of Awldor. There they hunt down lost, and possibly lethal, relics of the Ancient Order, a near-mythical kingdom lost to the centuries old cataclysm, the Great Collapse.

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Previously: Tracking down, the slipping into the Fateweaver’s lair wasn’t hard, but getting out was another story. Between knives, cudgels, and possibly a smug cursed book, Tela, Skarri and Atha recover a map, notes, and a set of mysterious medallions. But the cultists weren’t alone, as they brough hired muscle along that hinted at larger forces at play. But a quick dash out the back spared them unpleasant conversations with the local city watch, leaving the harder questions for in the morning…

Basysus, 28, 1278: Court of Lemongrass Inn, Arth Prayogar. Nothing like bandages, tea, and bruises for breakfast.

I gave the morning sunlight a stink-eyed glare when it skulked in past the drapes the next day. Mouth sticky, I sat up, every joint complaining.

Slowly, I pushed aside the white linen sheets as half-memories of last night crowded in my head. It was all cultists and the fight, followed by the alley escape. I rubbed my eyes and then located my notebook, which I’d drooled on in my sleep.

“No wonder my neck aches. At least I can still read my notes, even if a few letters are blurry.”

After a yawn, I snapped my journal shut, then climbed out of bed. The faint smell of freshly baked cinnamon bread haunted the air from the marketplace.

I made good use of a copper tub down the hall for a solid morning scrub in hot water. Then came liniment that I applied to basically all of me, and the fantastic sensation of clean clothes. Feeling more awake, I returned to my room, only to discover it had become a mix of a meeting hall and healer’s tent.

“Morning, or something,” I grumbled at the others when I walked back inside. “Why is everyone in my room?”

“Because it’s the biggest, which makes it the best place to sort everything out,” Kiyosi replied as if he was explaining why water was wet. Then he waved a hand at the tiny dresser. “The awari root is over there. Grab one and chew it for your aches.”

I reluctantly closed the gap between myself and the bitter-tasting herb.

“It always tastes so bad,” I muttered, snatching up a reddish-brown, slightly furry root.

Seated in a wooden chair next to a tiny table, Atha raised a steaming mug in my direction. For a minotaur, he looked as content as a cat in sunlight. Sadly, that mug wasn’t a sign of nearby coffee. Life wasn’t that kind.

“Hyu should try tea,” the minotaur said cheerfully, which only soured my mood. “Hyu look like hells, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I grumbled back.

I bit off one end of the root and chewed, offering a silent prayer it would numb the pain sooner rather than later. Then I occupied a vacant chair.

Kiyosi wrapped glowing golden spell threads around Skarri’s cut arm, securing them with a bandage.

“So,” the healer said lightly, “was it worth rummaging through a death cult’s den? Sifting around in a pile of plague, disease, and worse waiting to kill you?”

“Don’t start,” I replied. “But yes, it was. Also? New rule. ln a Fateweaver’s murder den, always assume the books are alive, and should be fed crackers.”

Kiyosi arched an eyebrow at me with a deadpan look, shaking his head.

I touched the bruise on the side of my head, which naturally hurt. Slowly, I stretched my right arm overhead.

“If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have the map, the medallions, or the Fateweaver’s bad translations. I call that a win, even if my bruises don’t agree.”

Skarri frowned, hissing with a look that suggested the healing magic on her cut stung. She squinted sourly at her arm.

“What about the Grand Archive?” she asked Kiyosi, words brittle. “Did you find anything?”

The tiefling healer nodded, rolling up spare bandages and giving me the side-eye to see if I was bleeding anywhere.

“Yes. But some of it we already knew,” he explained. “The Merchant Herds have been digging around the Toshirom Ifoon ruins for years. Usually, they hire ruin runners to do their dirty work for them. Anyone caught gets a light fine from the Prayogar council.”

Atha nodded, sipping his tea. “So mercenaries getz hired to do a job, but were stupid and gotz caught. Makes sense they getz light fine. Probably told to go away or getz killed.”

Skarri nodded, while I sat back in my chair with a huff.

“No surprise. The herds keep their hands clean,” I lamented wearily. “Anything else?”

Kiyosi cast his eyes to the ceiling a moment, then nodded.

“Still not quite a surprise, but the Trade-Wardens patrol the ruins. They take the ‘no ruin poaching’ seriously.” He ran a hand through his reddish-brown hair. “If I didn’t know better, they weren’t just upholding the law, they’re protecting the ruins. Even from the merchant herds.”

I swapped a look with Skarri.

“Oh, now that’s interesting. What else?” I replied.

Kiyosi pulled a notebook from his pack and dropped it on the table.

“Plenty of notes about what survivors saw there. Ugly problems like massive, iron-bound stone doors. Poison dart traps. Sling blades in the walls. That place does not want visitors.”

He tossed me his notebook. Two pages in, I let out a low whistle.

“This is nasty work, Ki. If I didn’t know better, the Fateweavers might have wanted to get into the ruins just for all the ways to kill someone.”

Kiyosi gestured to the notebook.

“The best is in the back. Everyone’s heard of the Toshirom Ifoon ruins. But I doubt anyone’s heard of the others just outside Arth Prayogar.”

“This isn’t just one or two. There’s several here,” I said, reading the list.

Kiyosi nodded, closing his small healer’s kit.

“Ten, actually. Reading between sketchy notes, some are outposts, others waystations. I sketched a quick map of them.”

I flipped to the back, pouring over Kiyosi’s map. There were places, names, and notes about these smaller ruins he mentioned. Some of which were barely an hour’s walk from Arth Prayogar.

“No one‘s dug through these in decades?” I mused. “Skarri? Is that map you grabbed from the Fateweavers still in your bag?”

“It is,” she nodded, pushing upright onto her tail. “I’ll get it.”

Kiyosi walked over, kneeling down to check the bruise by my eye. I pulled off my goggles, squinting against the too-bright sunlight. He gently examined my black eye, checking how bad it was.

“You’re lucky you’ve still got a hard head,” he murmured.

I shot him a squinting glare. He grinned but continued to check for any serious wounds.

“What are you thinking about that map? I can tell something’s on your mind.”

“It reminds me of the Fateweaver map,” I replied, wincing as he tapped around my bruise. “The more I think about it, the more convinced I get that the Fateweavers are after something specific.”

“That fire weapon?” Atha rumbled, casually sipping his tea.

I twitched, suddenly remembering that Atha wasn’t really part of our little expedition. Instead, he’d been swept up into it. The broad-shouldered minotaur glanced at me and shrugged.

“Don’t worry, all the same to me,” he chuckled. “At the end of day, it’s always someone want some weapon for something. Not really my problem. Cultists could just want new death trap to call home. They sort of nuts.”

Kiyosi pinched the air in a bright spot of sunlight, extracting strands of golden, magical threads. With deft movements, he finger-knitted them into the braided cord of a healing spell.

While he worked, I gnawed on the awari root, biting off another piece. The sharp, bitter taste numbed the corners of my mouth, slowly doing the same to my bruises. I stared out the balcony doors at the world outside.

Scents of peppered meat on a grill mingled with the sharp odors of buffalo, donkeys, and more walking by in the marketplace. Conversation threaded the air in soothing waves while I tried to sift all this mess out in my head.

Skarri returned with the rumpled curl of paper, then unrolled it on the room’s sole table. In the daylight, the Fateweaver map was more stained and wrinkled than I remembered, but readable.

Kiyosi rubbed the healing threads into my black eye like a cream that soaked in immediately. I pulled my goggles back on, then crossed over to the table, dropping Kiyosi’s open notebook onto the Fateweaver map. I tapped both maps, eyeing the locations.

“That’s it. They match,” I said. “The Fateweavers also have some notes here marking them as…” I squinted at the scrawl “…something I can’t read. What in the watery hells do Fateweavers have against readable script?”

“Let me look,” Kiyosi said, leaning on the table next to me.

He glanced down, tail swishing like a pendulum while he frowned over the scribbles. I bit down on the awari root, gnawing at the end, folding my arms across my chest.

“I’m wondering something. Why are the Fateweavers chasing ruins everyone else in Arth Prayogar has given up on?”

Everyone stared at me in surprise. At least, almost everyone.

“Good reason they givez up,” Atha growled. “Merchant herd dig tunnel into Deeplands just west of there. Bad things crawled out. Offered me a job to guard that tunnel. Pay not worth losing arm.” He idly waved his right hand. “I like my arm. Have had this arm whole life.”

“Good morning!” chirped a happy halfling’s voice from the doorway, nearly making me jump.

Mikasi strolled in, bright as sunshine, with a gleeful grin. The tinker was dressed as usual right down to his brown, tool-riddled vest. His gray smoke cheetah trotted in behind him, tail up, appraising the room.

This morning, Mikasi had a lopsided bandage patched over his left eyebrow. Somehow the halfling made it look a bit dashing. In his hands were the canvas bag of medallions, and a tray with cups and a copper kettle leaking a finger of steam.

“Why…?” I half-asked, gesturing at his wounded eyebrow.

“Oh, I fixed the innkeeper’s stove. It misbehaved,” he replied happily, as if that explained everything. Then again, this was Mikasi.

“Innkeeper’s kitchen? The stove?” Skarri ventured warily.

“Stove,” Mikasi nodded while he strolled over to the table to put the kettle down next to the map. The bag of medallions followed. “Anyway, while I was upside down in the boiler, I glanced outside the stove and noticed something about the medallions.”

Skarri looked puzzled, then started to ask a question. Kiyosi shook his head with a frown to warn her against asking.

Nicodemus sniffed at the table, then crossed over to occupy a patch of sunlight at the foot of my bed. At the table, Mikasi tapped the kettle.

“Coffee?” he offered.

“Saint’s Tide, coffee!” I nearly tackled the kettle.

A cup later, Mikasi opened the canvas bag and pulled out the medallions. He picked one up, gesturing around with it.

“I noticed the way the sunlight reflected off the medallions. Brass reflects, but not like this. Watch.”

The halfling inventor walked onto the balcony, holding the medallion up in the warm sunlight. Light slid off the brass, but as he turned it over, the engravings glowed intensely orange, like hot burning coals.

“It… glows?” Kiyosi murmured, blue tail curled in curiosity.

“Yes!” Mikasi’s eyes lit up with delight. “It’s because they aren’t just medallions. See?”

He gripped the medallion in both hands, flexing as if trying to twist it apart. For a brief second nothing happened, then metal grated against itself with a soft skidding sound. There was a click, and the top of the medallion turned clockwise.

As it turned, a small strip of dull brass rose from the center, splitting the symbol in half. It rose to form a triangle with sun and similar images engraved on the sides. Then, Mikasi held it up in the sunlight.

“I’m almost sure they’re dragon-glass sundials in a brass frame. That’s why the letters glow,” he explained, tapping the medallion’s edge. “Some call it ‘metal-glass’ because it’s metal heated until it turns into a kind of glass.”

Kiyosi stroked his chin, considering the thing. His tail swayed slowly.

“Hot like with dragon fire, or a thousand year old weapon that spews fire,” he said flatly.

We watched as the shadow drawn by the small brass plate touched a letter on the dial. The letter glowed warmly, flickering like a hot fire. Mikasi tilted the dial. The shadow moved, but the next letter didn’t glow.

I slowly stood up from the table, raising my eyebrows.

“Wait. Do that again?” I asked.

Mikasi did, and the same effect happened. This time I saw a faint amber line glow from the letter to the center of the sundial. I quickly scooped up the other two medallions, turning them until they were also sundials.

For the next few minutes we turned the sundials one way, then the other in the sunlight. All of them had a similar reaction, except different letters glowed when the sundial shadow touched them.

“Compass!” Skarri hissed, suddenly grabbing my arm. “It’s spelling out compass points in Tashkiran.”

I scowled at the medallion in my hand, tilting it as I assembled the glowing letters in my mind.

“Div. Kav’sarg,” I recited in Tashkiran. “That’s north and ‘dawn-wind’ or northeast.”

“I think I have west, southwest, and west again?” Kiyosi added slowly.

“Three sunfate sisters,” Skarri said reverently. “Separate but bound along the same path.”

“Aile Shavat! Three directions,” I said eagerly.

“Windtracers,” Atha grunted, barely interested in any of our antics. He sipped his tea and sighed, tapping the mug. “It probably just points the way to something that kills hyu.”

“Map!” I shouted, running for the table and the Fateweaver map. “I have an idea!”

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Windtracer Tales is a work of pure, unashamed fiction. In fact, it considers itself rather fancy and quite proud of itself. Names of characters, places, events, organizations and locations are all creations of the author’s imagination for this fictitious setting. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or reanimated is coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author’s, since the characters and the author tend to disagree a lot.

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