EPILOGUE 3

Mischief sighed as they made their way down the winding path of the sharecropper farms south of Astoria for the fifth time that week. This time of year, the fields were green, irrigated by the Torine which was still high from snowmelt, and massive windmills were waiting for that water to drop, and their time to shine.

They weren’t quite sure why Ishara had insisted they should know that. Oh, Lanri’s parents were farmers through and through, and it was obvious that knowing a thing or two about their business would earn them their favor. They just didn’t understand why it mattered. They didn’t need to like them.

They followed the trail along the farmland, careful to avoid the prickly blackberry bushes that encroached on it, and thought about how much better Seeker would have been for this job. She had a gift for finding things – or in this case, people – that concerned Ishara, and Mischief very much did not. Five times they’d checked this shack, and five times they’d gone elsewhere to look for them.

First, the local landlord’s records that they had indeed settled here. They had.

Then, the nearest tavern, to see if they were there, or had been recently. They had, but the tavernkeep didn’t know where they were right that moment.

Then, the local shrine to Tenebor, to ask the priest tending it if they had been there to visit their son-in-law’s grave. They’d done that, too.

They’d also checked the university, perhaps they’d gone there to find Lanri. Again, Mischief had been right to check. And again, from the president himself down to the depressed elf scrubbing the floors, nobody had been able to tell them where these two might be, right now.

The last place they’d thought to check was the mercenary company that had provided guards for Lanri’s travels. There, they had been told that the parents had just left, and were probably heading home.

So, now they were going back there again, hoping that Shala grant them the mercy of finally catching up with them. When they turned the last bend in the path, they were relieved to see smoke billowing from the chimney of their rented shack.

It was an unpleasant, dank looking thing. A moldy roof of thatch above shabby walls that looked barely adequate to hold out the wind, let alone the rain. Thankfully, they wouldn’t have to put up with it much longer.

The shack had a small patio with a pair of rocking chairs overlooking the plot of land they were responsible for, and a stable attached to one side, from which they could hear a few goats fussing about whatever concerns goats. They stepped onto the deck, cringing as the planks groaned underfoot, then stepped up to the door, and knocked.

There were hushed whispers on the other side for a few seconds, before a man opened the door. Dark skinned with brown eyes and long, gray hair tied into a ponytail, he was unmistakably his daughter’s father.

“Are you Batal of Bodrin?” Mischief asked the man.

He squinted at them for a moment, then, spotting the medallion around their neck, nodded. “Are you from Cerene?”

“In a sense,” Mischief said. “I was there quite recently.”

“You’ll forgive me if I assume I won’t like your being here, then,” he grumbled. “Has that bastard Vattens sent you to take more of us? Some obligatory tithe we didn’t pay on the way out?”

“Oh, no,” Mischief assured them. “I’m not here to take anything from you, or your wife. May I come inside?”

“I suppose,” said the man, hesitantly. He stepped to the side, and gestured to a woman who was tending a pot on a stove. “That’s Juno, though, I’m sure you already knew that.”

The woman turned, gave them a forced smile, and nodded at their rickety looking table, gesturing them to sit.

“Please, excuse us. We… have been forced to stomach a lot of bad news, lately.”

“I understand,” Mischief solemnly said. “I… wish I were here to tell you some of it were false, but I’m afraid I only have consolations to offer you.”

“Consolations?" Asked Batal, as he and Mischief both sat down.

“Yes. Your farm in Cerene was destroyed by bandits, and your kin is dead and missing. I… obviously do not have anything to make such grief acceptable.”

“Then… and again, forgive me, why are you here, priest?”

“I’m here to talk to you about your daughter, sir.”

The woman’s head snapped up from her stew pot. “Lanri?! Is she well?”

Mischief smiled at them both. “Oh, yes. Yes, she is. She is… thriving, despite all that has happened to her.”

The woman quickly produced several bowls, and filled them with the broth. It smelled faintly of meat and onion, Mischief reckoned. When she offered one to them alongside a spoon, they did the polite thing, and hesitantly ate some of it. They smiled after the first bite. It was actually quite good, they realized.

“Where is she, then?” Batal asked. “We’ve been looking for her for months, and… and when we heard about her Faron, and realized she was missing, we…”

“You assumed the worst,” Mischief offered. “And… I understand. But you needn’t have. She is, as I said, well.”

“But where is she?” Batal asked again. It was closer to a demand this time, and Mischief couldn’t blame them.

“I… can’t tell you,” Mischief told them. They noticed neither of them touched their bowls of food. “I realize that’s small comfort, but–”

“Damn right it is!” Spat Juno. “You’ve come all this way to tell us you won’t tell us where our daughter is! My love, my Lanri, is missing, and you want me to take your word that she–”

“No,” Mischief flatly told them. “I do not want you to take my word.” They reached under the table, and into nowhere, retrieving the two items they were here to give these people. First, they offered them a letter, sealed with Ishara’s sigil rendered in wax, alongside the emblem of the pontifex.

“What is this?” Batal asked as he took the letter, and unsealed it.

“Please, just read the letter. I will gladly answer your questions, afterwards,” Mischief urged the man. “You can read, according to the records in Cerene.”

He huffed, but did as they said. They knew exactly what the letter said, they’d personally coached the good pontifex through writing it. They could almost follow along, purely by the emotions on the man’s face.

Esteemed friends,

I hope that, despite the odd circumstances in which you are reading this, this letter finds you hale. I pen this letter to address the matter of your daughter, the honored Lady Lanri Vattens, Junior Professor of Archeology at the First University in Astoria. I am well aware that you must be frightfully concerned for her, and to a degree, your concerns are warranted.

The Lady ran into great troubles not long after she left on her expedition. She recovered an artifact of epic power from a shrine thought lost centuries ago, which led her on a perilous journey, in the company of one of Ishara’s holy Heartwardens.

On this journey, they attracted the ire of a great many foes, and your daughter not only bravely protected this Heartwarden, but saved the life of a priestess of Lord Daray, also. She was gravely injured in the effort, but survived, and recovered in the monastery of Cerene for a time. For this alone, she earned not only the lifelong gratitude of Ishara’s faithful, but the favor of the divine itself.

The nature of the boon she was granted is not quite clear to me, my friends, but all who were fortunate enough to witness it testify that she accepted it.

Please, understand that it is the very nature of the divine to be hard to grasp, even to me, and the priest I have entrusted with this parcel. If you have questions, Ishara’s faithful will do all we can to answer them, but I cannot guarantee any of the answers will be satisfying. At times even we can only deduce the truth of the gods.

In their custody, you will find a modest purse, which I sincerely hope might prove to be a spoonful of honey to wash away some of the bitter taste of uncertainty you will rightly be left with. I counsel that you seek out a temple, my friends, and turn to the gods for the solace a mere letter and coin could never grant you.

With the greatest respect,

–Pontifex Jacob De La Cornon.

Mischief watched him closely, until they were certain he and then his wife had both finished reading, then placed the purse on their rickety table. It was obscenely heavy, and the gold within had stretched the leather substantially since it had been filled.

Both of them stared at it with wide eyes, and Mischief had to stop themselves from rolling their own at the sight. Mortals did so adore their shiny coins. “H–how much is that?" Asked Lanri’s mother.

“I have no idea,” Mischief lied. Ishara had ensured it was enough to buy them a farm a fair bit larger than the one they had lost, and to last them for the rest of their lives to boot. “I don’t make a habit of tampering with the things I deliver.”

“Of course,” said Batal, who was clearly trying to stop himself from mentally counting the money. “The letter mentions we could ask questions.”

“Then I will do my best to answer them,” Mischief promised.

“The… The injury our little girl suffered. W–What was it?”

“She lost a foot, I’m afraid,” Mischief softly said. The couple both grimaced. “She recovered quickly, by all accounts.”

“Ah. I see,” said Lanri’s father, sadly. “I suppose… I suppose it could have been worse than that. She always did dream of a life spent inside, reading books, rather than one on her feet, working the fields.”

“This is not enough,” Juno quietly said, looking at the coins. “Make no mistake, this is… profoundly generous of the pontifex, but… this is not our daughter. Her husband died, and we were not able to help her grieve. How can we know that she truly is okay, priest? How can we take your word for it that this truly is a gift to reward her valiance, and not just a bribe to keep us from asking questions?”

Mischief considered that for a moment, then said “because you’re not being asked not to ask questions. The letter encourages them, does it not? Ask them of me for as long as I am here, and once I return to my duties, turn to the temple in Astoria to ask the rest.”

“The temple?” Asked Batal. “What would some priest tell us that the pontifex will not?”

“Nothing,” Mischief admitted. “The high priestess and her curates will not be able to tell you anything. But I do not mean that you should talk to them.” They paused, realizing they were about to quote a letter that they’d claimed not to have read. “The priesthood is only mortal. No acolyte, curate, priest, abbot, or pontifex will ever be able to tell you what the gods do not wish them to know.”

The two middle-aged people stared at them, waiting for them to continue. For dramatic effect, they had another spoonful of the broth they’d served them.

“I mean that for answers about your Lanri, the goddess herself is the one to turn to. Seek out that temple not for the priests, but for the altars and shrines. Only Lady Ishara knows what truly became of her, no-one else.”

Mischief paused for a moment, then, when neither of them spoke, reached behind their neck and unclasped the necklace they wore the priest’s pendant on. They placed it on the table between them, and they both turned their gazes away from them, and towards the sigil.

“You… cannot imagine how badly I wish I could give you the questions to your answers,” they continued. “And I cannot imagine how heavily that doubt must weigh on your souls. But what I can do is promise that she is well, and happy. I… do not know if Ishara will ever tell you what happened to her” – they paused and tapped the sigil – “but… please. Turn to her and ask. Give her the chance to prove my claims. Take this money, and use it to move somewhere nicer. Somewhere with lots of farmland, and a big hearth to warm yourselves by. Then, once you’re as comfortable as your daughter is now, ask that medallion about her.”

________________

A long time later, Batal and Juno of Bodrin sat curled up in warm, soft chairs, watching a fire slowly crackle and pop in their hearth. They’d taken the priest’s advice to heart, and had a big, comfortable home they were sure they would never have to leave.

Their living room was beautiful, lined with shelves of books from Lanri’s apartment the royal magistrate had ruled to be theirs, after Lanri had been declared dead in absentia. They’d fought the court on that decision, the pontifex of Ishara’s church himself had signed a letter attesting that she was still alive.

But as news kept trickling in that she’d been seen traveling to Amourot never to return, eventually not even that was enough to convince the courts that Lanri would ever be back.

“I do miss her so,” Batal quietly said. “Such a vibrant, bright young woman. Maybe… maybe the faculty at her university were right. Maybe losing Faron really did extinguish most of her fire.”

His wife shook her head. “No. Smothered for a while, maybe. But those embers would have been hot enough to start a new fire, just as soon as she got some fuel.”

“I do hope you’re right, dear,” Batal whispered. Outside, on the fields they now owned, several young men and women were beginning to plow and sow the seeds. It was time. Spring had come, and with it, one day of gloom for the two of them, where everyone else saw a sunny and sacred holiday.

The fire danced on the logs, rolling around them, and licking them with a heat so fierce it dried the eyes just to look at it. To his side, he saw something sparkle. His wife was holding that priest’s medallion. It looked just like the one the young woman that had performed their wedding had worn, a coppery gold colored emblem that vaguely looked like a woman’s–

She sighed. “What malarkey. I know our girl is still there, I can feel it in my heart. I would know it if she weren’t. But this?” She paused and held up the medallion. “This is a platitude. It’s been months. Months spent trying to pray our doubts away, and for what? We’re never going to get a goddess to talk to us. We’re never going to get Ishara to answer what happened to Lanri?”

Batal was already opening his mouth to answer, when the hearth started acting up. The fire started to sputter more, like water dripped into boiling oil. The sound distracted him enough to lose his train of thought. “Cursed logs must not have been dry yet,” he grumbled, and he reached to take his wife’s hand.

“I don’t think that’s it,” whispered Juno, who stared into the flames with wide eyes. Curiously, Batal looked at them, too. They’d changed color. The flames were no longer yellow, orange, and white. In their hearth a wholly different fire now burned.

A fire with flames of pink and gold.