The trio camps on the mountain slope that night, stopping on a relatively flat patch that should prevent them from rolling downhill in their sleep. Blackwing refuses to light a fire and directs Lamp to leave his graft dormant. Those restrictions seem overly cautious to the scholar, and he wonders precisely whom Blackwing thinks they’re hiding from, but he complies without complaint. At least the perennially cloudless sky should permit enough starlight to prevent them from tripping over loose rocks.

  Dry trail rations make for a meager supper, but a spectacular view redeems the meal at its conclusion. As they finish eating, the three of them sit side-by-side to watch the first sunset Owl has ever seen. No one speaks for several minutes as they absorb the quiet beauty of the evening’s slow descent. Silence holds atop the mountainside while daylight sets behind its dusty slope. Only when the stars assume their scattered stations above does Owl’s wistful voice gently cut their shared serenity.

  “She would have liked this.”

  Lamp softly translates for Blackwing but otherwise says nothing. After a few pensive moments, the girl continues.

  “Among the artworks collected from your world, her favorite piece is a frieze that features a line of people marching away from a rising sun. The princess often… she would stare at it.” Owl lets out a long sign then leans back, resting her weight on her hands. She shuts her silver eyes before she speaks again. “Lamphand, do you remember that coin collection I mentioned the first time we conversed?”

  “I do. Is this meant to be private? Should I stop translating?”

  The handmaid shakes her head. “I could never share this account with anyone in my homeland, but I have realized that here it hardly matters. What I wished to tell you is that I caught the princess standing before those coins on more than one occasion, usually late at night. They, and certain other trinkets from your world, have clearly established a strong hold on her imagination.”

  Owl’s voice grows fainter. “She… I know my princess would never abandon our people like her aunt did, but I have come to suspect that she entertains fantasies of a new life in your world nonetheless. The look on her face, the mournful way she gazes at those objects… It was the first clear sign she gave me that she yearns to live beyond her allotted years. When I realized what it meant, that her calm acceptance of fate was merely a brave face she wore for the benefit of others, I knew I had to do this for her.”

  The outlander's almost whispering by the end of her statement. Lamp looks down at the girl with concern. Owl notices his worried face when she reopens her eyes and looks back up, and she offers a reassuring smile before martialing her expression.

  “Thank you for listening. I was unable to share that secret with anyone before tonight.”

  “Of course.”

  They say little else to each other before falling asleep. Lamp again offers his dreams to the gods, but tonight they refuse his gift. His unconscious mind drifts through visions of sore feet, dry air, and a bright yet cold sun. Next he dreams of flying. Then he wakes.

  Lamp slowly sits upright and rubs his bleary eyes. He glances to one side and finds Owl still asleep on her own mat. He turns the opposite way to discover that Blackwing has already risen and packed away his bedding. The man hasn’t wandered off alone, however, as Lamp quickly spots him a short distance away. To the scholar’s befuddlement, his employer seems to be engaged in a series of deep and meditative stretches.

  After multiple nights of sleeping on rocks, that’s probably a good idea; Lamp might attempt to join the other man once he’s finished his own packing. With that goal in mind, he quietly extricates himself from his reed pallet and gently rolls it up. He carries the bundle away from his slumbering companion to Blackwing’s “chariot” and tucks his bedding into its affixed storage space.

  That done, he ambles over to Blackwing and starts imitating the man’s various poses. He quickly realizes the folly of this choice when his body sharply objects to these novel configurations. He considers quitting, but his boss has already nodded hello to him, so Lamp sticks it out. He feels immense relief when Blackwing finally relaxes into a sitting pose.

  The two of them exchange meaningless pleasantries and reach a swift agreement concerning the beauty of their environment under the early morning light. Lamp asks about the difficult stretch routine and learns that Blackwing copied the movements from a traveler he met decades ago. Then both of them then glance towards Owl, and, realizing that she’s still fast asleep, they settle into an actual conversation.

  “Do you know Clearheart well?” Lamp asks, broaching a subject that he’s wanted to revisit since their last talk.

  “No.” Blackwing answers stoically. “I’ve met roughly half your city’s basileis, but I’m not close to any of them. We tend to only speak directly if someone commits a major breach of contract or invites me to a wedding. Clearheart has done neither. All I can confidently say about her character is that she honors her commitments… Excluding her inherited role as a human sacrifice.”

  “Well. When you consider that dereliction, she’s a total flake.” Lamp jests without much humor in his voice.

  Blackwing nods with a somber expression. “Dying for your people is a noble but difficult thing. I can scarcely imagine how a child might cope with the weight of that obligation. Did Owl tell you how old those girls typically are when they first discover their responsibility?”

  “No. I didn’t think to inquire.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “Alright.” Lamp hesitates, then asks. “Do you believe she’ll be able to talk Clearheart into going back with her?”

  “No.” Blackwing answers with immediate confidence.

  Lamp nods in agreement. “So what happens after she fails?”

  “In the ideal case…” The merchant pauses then corrects. “In the best plausible case, Owl recognizes her limitations and agrees to return with me to the gate. I’ll transfer her back to her people, and maybe this venture will open new channels between our societies.”

  “But her princess still dies seven years from now to keep their kingdom fed.”

  “Yes.” Blackwing answers matter-of-factly. “It’s a shame when good people die young, but I won’t burden myself with the guilt of problems I did not cause and cannot fix. My conscience will be satisfied once I’ve arranged their meeting. I hope our handmaiden manages to find her own peace in the aftermath of failure.”

  Blackwing stands and brushes the dirt off his kilt. He tilts his chin back and stares up at the morning sky. Lamp remains seated but follows his employer’s gaze. Far above their heads, the last and brightest of the night stars have already faded from view. Dawn has broken, and now the day begins in full. If Owl doesn’t wake up on her own soon, they’ll have to rouse her.

  Before that, Lamp poses one last question. “Blackwing, you mentioned the best plausible case, but this could go much worse. What if Grayowl does something stupid like trying to kidnap a lord?”

  The other man shakes his head disdainfully while turning away, but he still answers. “Clearheart would likely prefer to keep that incident quiet, so I could probably recover the girl’s body and return it to her kin. They won’t be pleased with me, but our partnership should remain salvageable.”

  Lamp nods. He can think of even worse eventualities, but Blackwing’s presence should stabilize any conflict before it can erupt. The city lords typically remain cordial when dealing with their peers, excepting when they go to war, but Lamp’s not enough of a pessimist to find that outcome likely.

  Regardless, this situation’s fully out of his hands. The most he can do is to advise Owl against suicidal courses of action. And if she doesn’t listen… Gods, he hopes she listens.

  Lamp mutters a prayer to that effect while his employer gently shakes the girl awake. The outlander rises without protest and quickly readies herself for travel. Once both passengers have strapped themselves back into their chairs, Blackwing resumes the journey.

  Traveling alone, the merchant strides about half as fast uphill as his team of porters had hopped down. So, with half a day’s climb behind them already, Lamp expects to reach the next fortress around midday. He confirms this assumption with Blackwing before passing it along to Owl.

  From there onwards, the scholar and outlander pass time with idle conversation, jumping between tangents until they somehow reach the subject of wildlife. Lamp starts describing some of the caldera’s terrestrial fauna, but Owl completely sidetracks him by mentioning that a small minority of her peers among the Select can summon and command apparitions of those same animals.

  Her people call these ghostly creatures jinn, a term which Lamp had only heard spoken a few times throughout his whole life before Owl mentioned her lost jinni two days ago, as the cult discourages such superstition among its adherents. He would previously have translated her word to ‘daimones’ in his own language, but Owl’s unfolding description deviates too sharply from the ancient myths.

  The scholar begins to suspect that a preexisting concept of nature spirits was simply transplanted onto modern magic, but he elects not to risk that etymological debate. For the time being, he’s happy to let Owl take the conversational lead.

  The outlander doesn’t mention her own pet apparition again, and Lamp likewise skirts around that topic. Otherwise, she seems to enjoy comparing the various jinn she’s encountered or heard of against the beasts Lamp has seen in person. Most of the more impressive animals he’s met up close were reduced to either pelts or butchered carcasses by the time he found them, but he glosses past the little detail.

  Although Owl’s list of creatures ends well before Lamp’s, she does surprise him with a few bizarre accounts of lifeforms he’s neither seen nor heard of before. The strangest of them is a deer-like animal that stands as tall as a man at the shoulder. The outlander describes it as having a sleek body with strong, graceful legs well suited to marathon running. Long, coarse hairs grow down the back of its neck and sprout again at its rump to form a tail. Owl tries to convince him of the beast’s inherent beauty, but, to her clear amusement, Lamp remains leery of her misshapen “horse” creature.

  After Owl runs out of animals to describe, Lamp continues naming and detailing all of the fauna he can remember. Owl shows interest towards the start, but the longer his list grows, the more she disengages. Lamp, with his near-decade of experience as an educator, could easily recognize boredom if he saw it. Strangely, he doesn’t find that emotion now. Owl’s expression seems almost sorrowful.

  “Are you alright?” He gently asks.

  “Yeah.”

  She doesn’t elaborate, and he doesn’t pry.

  They stop talking for a while.

  Eventually, sometime around noon, the tireless Blackwing finally brings his passengers within sight of their destination. Not their sight, of course, but he sees it. The merchant informs his backwards-facing companions of this development when it occurs, and they happily accept his word on the matter. The news lifts Lamp’s spirits considerably. He can hardly wait to bid good riddance to his inadequately-padded prison.

  They reach the fortress a few minutes later, and Blackwing slows to a halt before releasing Lamp and Owl from their confinement. A pair of heavy wooden gates swings outward while the passengers disembark, but Lamp delays his group for another moment while he works out a bit of stiffness. Once he’s ready, the three of them stroll inside the little town. They make a brief detour to return their chairs to storage before heading toward the back wall of the settlement and its passageway carved through the mountain.

  When they reach the tunnel’s mouth, Blackwing pauses to collect a light-binder for their journey. The young man informs his employer that the tunnel’s single wheeled platform is currently in use for a supply run. Lamp masks his relief at this development and forwards the update to Owl. She replies back that she doesn’t mind walking, if that’s an option. Blackwing agrees, and their group proceeds on foot.

  As they walk inside the mountain, Lamp finds his eyes drawn to the twin grooves carved in the passageway’s stone floor. His gaze tracks those channels deeper into the tunnel, where he imagines a magically accelerated wooden platform barreling out from the darkness to crash through their fragile bodies. His earlier relief at avoiding a second ride on the contraption dissipates, but Blackwing seems unbothered, so there’s probably no danger.

  Just to make sure, Lamp poses a question to his employer. “Do the other weight-binders ride the platform like you do?”

  “No.” Blackwing shakes his head but doesn’t look back. “Whoever took the cart from storage will be walking alongside it. Their pace should match ours.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Lamp sighs in relief and moves a little further from the wall he’d been hewing towards. After another minute or so, he checks on Owl. The outlander seems more at ease in the confines of this tunnel than she was outside. While she had adapted fairly well to the sky during the course of their uphill ride, Lamp can still detect a subtle improvement in her mood now that she’s ensconced again.

  Since she’s apparently feeling better, and since they’ve gotten moderately well-acquainted by now, Lamp decides to raise a subject he had previously considered too sensitive.

  “Grayowl.” He begins in a casual tone. “Can you tell me what magic feels like in your world? Is it different?”

  “Oh yes. Completely.”

  She answers immediately with a voice that carries no traces of reservation or regret, indicating to Lamp that she’s made peace with the loss of her soulmask. That’s a welcome sign. If the girl’s not morose or guarded about her ambiguously-permanent change of station, then Lamp can broach a field of questions about magic, culture, religion, and politics that he’d deliberately skirted up till now.

  For the moment, he simply listens as Owl orders her thoughts and begins to elaborate on her answer to his question.

  “I have dwelt on this matter extensively since my arrival.” She pronounces. “I will offer you the best metaphor I have yet devised. Instead of siphoning magic, imagine that our aim is to gather water. To me, charging a graft feels like opening a fog net to harvest dew. I have no ability to choose where the mist gathers; I must simply be present, attentive, and open to it. Once I collect the water, I need to be careful about how much of it I consume at any given time because I cannot know when I might receive more.”

  She mimes the motion of overturning a cup before continuing. “In my homeland, magic feels more like… imagine rowing a raft into the middle of a river and bending over the side to drink. You never need to worry about dying of thirst. The danger lies in leaning too far.”

  “So it’s water either way.” Lamp interjects with sudden musing. “I wonder… Do you think grafts could hold magic produced by soulmasks?”

  The outlander cocks her head. “Maybe? I had never considered that. It would be an interesting experiment if we could recruit test subjects with complementary magics. Oh! One of my mother’s close friends can substantiate lanterns! We could check whether your graft is able to absorb her light! I will tender the request after my journey concludes and I return home. I expect she would happily agree.”

  “As would I.” Lamp smiles. “Now, before I interrupted you, there was some mention of a danger associated with drawing too much power. Could you elaborate on that?”

  “Oh… Sure. Returning to my analogy: If you lean too far overboard, or try to swallow more water than you have the strength to hold, you lose your balance and fall from the raft. Then the river- the magic- pulls you under. This ‘tipping over’ is how false icons are made.”

  She glances aside at Lamp. His academic curiosity must be written plainly on his face, because she nods and switches topics without prompting.

  “A false icon is a member of the Select who lost control over their soulmask. A few times each generation, some unfortunate fool acting under duress or drunk on arrogance channels more power than their spirit can control. When they reach a breaking point, their soul snaps, and the surging magic restructures their bodies in accordance with its own character. They become monsters.”

  She frowns pensively. “In the days of our founding, a heretical sect sought to worship these false icons as ascended demigods. Some of those idiots even provoked their transformations deliberately. I assure you, though, the change is no gift. The ‘ascension’ is a trade of sanity, intelligence, and compassion for power. It turns a conscious person into a mindless thing. It is a net loss in every case! Aside from one. The only one we need.”

  Owl wears a slight scowl as she speaks her closing sentence, so she pauses for a moment to refocus. After a calming breath, she shakes her head and carries on.

  “A handful of false icons are born every few decades, and they tend to destabilize and perish within a human lifespan. In almost all cases, their existence represents a hassle with no upside. We do our best to shepherd the non-beneficial icons away from populated areas, and we lock them away whenever they prove docile enough to allow that. Some of them cannot be confined, however, so our king and Judgement must intervene to destroy them.”

  She sighs deeply. “The change has not taken anyone I personally know, at least not yet, but my parents lost a friend that way before I was born. It is a sensitive subject among members of my class, so I hope you appreciate my unwillingness to describe specific cases. You can ask general questions about the process, though.”

  Lamp shakes his head. “We can talk about something else if you’d prefer, and we don’t need to talk at all. I don’t mean to pester you.”

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I certainly have no objection to changing topics, but I am enjoying these conversations.” She smiles reassuringly. “Besides, two people from our respective homelands will eventually need to discuss these issues. It may as well be us, and there might be no better time than now.”

  Lamp nods. “In that case, could you tell me more about your codified social hierarchies? I get the impression that your world-tile hosts an intricate and rigid aristocracy.”

  “It does, though the way you phrased that makes me wonder… Does your homeland not retain any noble families at all? We assign equivalent titles when discussing your liege, given his obvious receipt of divine favor, but we were never sure about genealogy on this side of the gate.”

  “Our people have that ignorance in common, then. We don’t track our own bloodlines, and Lord Blackwing doesn’t have a noble house.” Lamp waves an expository arm ahead towards his boss. “There’s no point in emphasizing lineage when personal power is decided randomly for every child and dominant families are only maintained through adoption and marriage. Our early scribes did preserve some records of the old, great houses, but none of their heirs arrived here after the rupture, so those traditions died out.”

  “Fascinating.” Owl tilts her head. “Maybe all the first kingdom’s aristocracy got sucked into my world with none left over for you. We have an abundance of long family lines on my side. You could stop nearly anyone on the street and ask for their last noble ancestor. Most would be able to tell you immediately.”

  “Oh? But most of those people wouldn’t be counted as nobles themselves, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “How does that work? When and why did they lose their status?”

  “It comes down to one of three things.” Owl holds up the same number of fingers. “The people at the very bottom fell to their low station because an ancestor of theirs committed serious crimes and destroyed that family’s reputation. One rung above them, we have the descendants of debtors and other minor criminals who were unable to offer restitution for their transgressions. Last and highest are the families that either failed to produce a member of the Select or have not done so in several generations. They are-”

  Lamp interjects. “The Select- sorry for interrupting- does ‘Select’ exclusively refer to those in your society who wield soulmasks?”

  “It does.”

  “Then the manifestation of a soulmask taken as a mark of divine favor upon the entire household?”

  “Yes. The more of us- them- you have, the higher your family’s station.”

  “So, conversely, if a family goes too long without a blessing, they fall from grace?”

  “More or less. They transfer to the top of the working class, becoming artisans, head servants, and the like. Industrious households sometimes generate more wealth than they commanded as members of the low-nobility, though it takes a while.”

  “What if someone in the family-”

  “No. They cannot return.” The outworlder anticipates his question and cuts him off. “The Select are only chosen from the youths of the royal court. If our king strips a house of its title, the gods will never hand it back to them.”

  “Oh.” Something about that doesn’t sit well.

  Lamp clinks his thumb against the side of a finger. The unconscious twitch betrays a pensive agitation which he barely manages to hold off his face. He needs to remain calm.

  Much as he’d like to derail this conversation with protestations of injustice, he remembers Blackwing asking about the distribution of magic on their first full day of travel. For the sake of obtaining that answer, Lamp should stay his course. So, resolving to fish for information, he squeezes the bitterness from his voice and speaks in a level tone.

  “Does your king bestow soulmasks, then?”

  “No.” Owl shakes her head emphatically, perhaps detecting Lamp’s scorn despite his efforts. “The gods decide. His highness merely prunes the list of candidates.”

  “That’s half the choice.” So much for his pretense of impartiality. “Do your kings ever restore any families to the nobility?”

  “No. Well, not in centuries.” She sighs defeatedly. “I understand how our system might seem discriminatory to you, and there are those in my homeland who agree with that sentiment, but it is a necessary measure to ensure prosperity for all my kingdom’s people. Only those families with experience in governance and politics can properly cultivate their children to assume the same roles. If our magic was distributed randomly, then abuse of power and dereliction of duty would both run rampant. We would be unable to maintain justice or peace.”

  “My world manages.” Lamp rebuffs. “Mostly.”

  “Mostly.” Owl offers a kindly smile that almost manages to hide her hints of irritation. “How much of a gap exists between ‘most’ and ‘complete’?”

  The outlander’s accusatory question hangs in the air for a taught moment before her defiant expression turns sheepish and she breaks eye contact. Directing her gaze forward, the girl seems to wrestle her riled emotions back under a diplomatic veil. After a few measured breaths, all traces of defensiveness vanish from her face. Lamp allows an additional pause while he collects his own thoughts.

  It seems he struck a nerve; this issue must be contentious back home. It’s likely an old source of tension with generations of tumultuous history, and Lamp can imagine how that antiquated debate might have been inflamed by Blackwing’s recent appearance in the popular consciousness. Now that the masses have seen a world in which no one is excluded from heaven’s lottery, the necessity of their traditional norms could be in question.

  It would naturally fall to Owl’s cohort to reassure their inferiors of the hierarchy’s virtue.

  If he’s right about the outworlder’s circumstances- and there’s strictly no chance of him asking to confirm- then she won’t brook any challenges to her rank, or to the positions of those above her. The scholar will have to abandon that line of conversation, then. Picking it up again would almost certainly lead to a heated argument, and where would Lamp be if he gravely offends the girl and she demands a replacement translator?

  Best to move on.

  A few additional minutes pass in silence before Lamp tests the waters with a new question about the pedigree of House Caution. Owl answers readily, and her mood appears to improve as they progress backwards through history. The two of them remain on the dry subject of noble heritage for the remainder of their trip down the hallway, pausing intermittently to reflect or rehydrate.

  Eventually, after a long bit of walking, they pass the wheeled platform on its way back toward the outer fortress. Lamp is relieved to see how slowly it travels under normal circumstances. The weight-binders pushing the large cart seem to employ their grafts merely to make the vehicle roll smoothly under its heavy load of crates and jars. Blackwing appears to be the only person in his company crazy enough to take the thing for a joyride.

  Not long after passing the cart, they reach the lift platform and step aboard. Lamp asks Owl if the same mechanism exists in her world. She affirms that it does, though her people call these machines “elevating” platforms, rather than lifts. Lamp translates the phrase for Blackwing’s consideration, and the merchant reacts with polite indifference.

  All of them shield their eyes while their attendant way-lighter flares two beams of light up the elevating shaft. A few moments later, their lift begins to rise. The trip up doesn’t feel quite as ponderous as the previous journey down. Lamp wonders for a time if that’s a difference of experience but eventually concludes that Blackwing has subtly manipulated the platform’s weight.

  He points out his suspicion to Owl. The girl tilts her head back to glance at the rope pulling them upward, then at the walls, before nodding in agreement a moment later.

  “I doubt this machine could carry us so smoothly at such speed without his assistance.” She turns to Lamp with a curious expression. “Does his graft simply absorb weight? I have seen him accomplish strange things. The way he stopped his fall after climbing to the alcove, for instance.”

  Lamp shrugs. “There are only so many categories of graft-magic, and his type clearly belongs under the weight-binder classification. That said, high-tier grafts sometimes blur the typical borders. People at Blackwing’s level usually aren’t willing to disclose the specifics of their unique mastery, but I can ask him if you’d like.”

  “So long as it will not put your station at risk.”

  Lamp waves a hand in dismissal. “It’s not that sensitive a topic. Knowing his temperament, he’ll just decline to answer if he doesn’t want to explain.”

  The scholar switches languages and forwards the question to his boss. Blackwing seems unphased by the inquiry and answers promptly. Lamp translates for Owl as the man replies.

  “I wield the same fundamental magic as every other weight-binder. However, the extent of my blessing allows me to explore our common talent at a deeper level. Over time, I’ve come to understand that our magic’s true nature is to control the way an object falls.”

  He lays his human hand on the exterior frame of their lift and continues. “Every substance that can be touched, from elemental matter to living bodies, constantly strains to sink below the earth. We perceive that tendency as weight. My magic’s rudimentary expression is an alleviation or enhancement of that unending dive. The advanced application is to change a fall’s direction, or to cancel it entirely.”

  Blackwing pauses while Lamp completes his translation to Owl. Once the outlander’s caught up, she nods thoughtfully. The girl seems to be mulling over her response, so Lamp takes advantage of the break to share a comment of his own.

  “That’s both simpler and more conceptual than I expected.” He remarks. “Looking at it through a theological lens, magic permits us to modulate the enforcement of natural philosophies created by the gods. I suppose, then, that the difference between you and other weight-binders is in the way you interpret heaven’s edicts. When they touch something heavy, they hear the gods whisper, ‘this object weighs a lot.’ When you touch the same thing, you hear, ‘this object greatly yearns to fall.’ Does that sound accurate?”

  “Yes. Aptly put.”

  “Yet only half understood.” Lamp shakes his head. “I’ll translate all of that for Owl.”

  Once the outworlder’s up to speed, she turns to Blackwing and poses another question of her own. “Could a lesser… (Lamphand, is the term ‘weight-binder’? Thank you.) Could a lesser weight-binder learn the same skill?”

  Blackwing nods. “Yes, after decades of practice, though most have grown too old for labor by the time they comprehend. Some continue honing their skill for its own sake, or to make daily life more convenient, but few live long enough to achieve my mastery. Even among those elders, none could match me in a contest of power. Some barriers are absolute.”

  A meaningful stare accompanies his final sentence, making clear that it was a tacit warning against testing the likes of Clearheart. Lamp nods in agreement, glad to receive the other man’s assistance in that persuasive effort.

  As for the handmaiden, she nods as well and asks no further questions. Judging by her expression, she’s turning something over in her mind, but whatever that thought is, she keeps it to herself. The topic closes, and the four of them stand in silence for the rest of their ride up, excepting a single muffled cough from their attendant way-lighter.

  When the platform comes to a stop at the top of the shaft, Blackwing directs everyone else to exit ahead of him. Once they’ve disembarked, he relaxes his magical hold on the contraption to restore its original weight. Then he steps off himself, nods in passing to the men who presumably placed rocks on the system’s counterweight to lift their platform, and starts down the tunnel.

  Now that their group has reached the upper level, the steady ring of pickaxes carries softly through the air. Most of the impacts sound muffled, but a few intermittent blows strike sharp and clear. The noise creates a minor impediment to conversation, but Lamp gets Owl’s attention anyway.

  “Are you excited to see the caldera?” He asks. “Do you think you know what to expect?”

  She nods. “From what you have told me, and from the little I was able to learn before I crossed over, this portion of your world lies flooded beneath a vast expanse of non potable water. Humans survive on scattered islands, harvesting and fermenting grapes for sanitary hydration, raising goats and pigs for food, and farming trees to create boats and homes.”

  She looks at him for confirmation. He smiles politely in reply.

  “That’s not inaccurate.” He tells her. “People in isolated inland communities tend to rely on diluted wine if they can’t access clean water, but large coastal settlements employ heat-binders to perform evaporative desalination and purification. Also, we take most of our food from the sea, and we prefer brick and stone as building materials over lumber. Heavy buildings hold better against storm wind.”

  The outlander nods pensively, and they walk quietly for a moment while Lamp contemplates his next words. Owl doesn’t seem to appreciate the magnitude of difference between the sunless wastelands of her native world-tile and the lush wilds his own. The verdant vista which awaits them might come as a great shock; Lamp feels that should brace her for it before they emerge from the tunnel. He would have done this sooner if he had thought about it earlier, but better at the last minute than never.

  After a short pause, he asks. “Your world doesn’t host any wild flora, does it?”

  She shoots him a curious glance. “You mean plants that survive without human assistance? We do. Sort of. We have lichen and mold. The only place that consistently grows larger vegetation without our help is the cavern where we keep the growth icon.”

  “Ah. My world is rather different.”

  “I know.” She nods with a controlled expression. “The gods granted you sunlight and rain. I assume you can grow crops anywhere you please without relying on magical assistance, excluding all of the flooded areas, of course.”

  “We can, but that’s not quite what I'm getting at.” Lamp sighs. “Maybe I’m ruining a surprise you’d enjoy. Do you want to know what’s ahead of us?”

  She shrugs. “We have nearly arrived, have we not? Unless I need to be warned about something dangerous, we might as well wait a few minutes. And if something waiting outside is likely to confuse me, you can explain it at the time.”

  “As you like.” Lamp acquiesces before another thought occurs to him. “Say, have I mentioned anything about Blackwing’s hometown? No? Sorry about that. I’ll give you the rundown he provided for me when we were passing through here a few days back. It’s called ‘Trembleheel’s Landing’ or just Trembleheel for short. Blackwing’s maternal ancestors have lived here since its founding, which is really quite a fascinating story. Would you like to-”

  She nods.

  “Alright. Back in the early second century…”

  He regales Owl with the details he recalls, and she listens attentively for a minute or so before something further down the tunnel distracts her. She turns away from him and squints towards the small spot of light that marks the mine’s main exit. Lamp glances the same way but sees nothing of note. He returns his eyes to the outlander in hopes of an explanation, but instead he watches with bemusement as she tilts her head back to sniff the air. After a final moment of concentration, she turns back to Lamp with a mildly concerned expression.

  “Can you smell that?” She asks uncertainly. “The air carries a faint scent which I cannot place.”

  “Saltwater, maybe?” Lamp pulls a deep breath through widened nostrils, then shakes his head. “I don’t smell anything new. Maybe my nose isn’t as keen as yours. I’ll ask the boss.”

  Lamp forwards the question to his employer. Blackwing doesn’t bother sniffing the air. He simply answers straight away.

  “Rain. She smells rain. We might not launch today.”

  “Oh.” Lamp switches languages and informs Owl. “Blackwing says it’s raining, so there’s a chance we won’t set sail until tomorrow. If the downpour’s not too strong, we might get to explore a little of the town. I didn’t see much of it last time.”

  Owl nods with moderate enthusiasm. “That all sounds fun. I have encountered small patches of conjured rain before, but this phenomenon will cover the whole sky, will it not?”

  “Yes. The part we can see, anyway. Though, depending on the storm’s intensity, we might spot a few patches of sunlight amidst the clouds. It seems decently bright outside, and I can’t hear any wind, so this is probably a gentle shower. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Indeed, it takes them less than a minute to reach the mouth of the mine. Their attendant light-binder bids his farewell after receiving thanks from Blackwing, and the remaining three continue forward. Each of them either shields their eyes or squints as they emerge from the dark shelter of stone into the open air.

  As soon as Lamp steps under the sky, two soft raindrops gently plop against his head. He feels a few others impact his clothing and peers upwards to assess the offending clouds. Once his eyes adjust to the light, he takes a moment to appreciate the sun-dappled gloom hanging overhead. As he expected, they’ve met only a mild drizzle.

  Scattered rainfall sprinkles, rather than pours, from the thin clouds above them. Looking forward, however, Lamp spies a line of darkness drawn across the horizon that promises a heavier deluge in the hours to come. The encroaching front validates Blackwing’s earlier prediction. They won’t sail today.

  Returning his eyes to the ground, Lamp finds Blackwing watching Owl while Owl stares out over the hills. Following the handmaiden’s gaze, he finds a beatific view of the temperate jungle which surrounds the settlement.

  Distant, heavy branches sway at the whims of a playful wind. The canopy’s graceful, rocking dance creates a semblance of gentle waves lapping atop an emerald sea. That likeness endures mere moments before a flock of starlings erupts from behind its leafy veil, dispelling the forest’s oceanic illusion as it takes to the sky in a swirling ball. Too far away to be seen as more than specs, the birds appear as a drifting mist beneath the sun-marbled rainclouds.

  Owl watches the living vista with a stunned expression, standing in wordless awe for a long moment. Then, slowly, she turns further away from the sea and lifts her gaze above the cliff face at their back. Beyond that obstacle, the mountain ring rises far on high. Its verdant grandeur ascends above them like a monstrous green wave; its jagged, snow capped peaks almost resemble sea foam cresting above an apocalyptic surge.

  The outlander closes a mouth that had begun to hang open, swallows, and turns back to her interpreter.

  “Lamphand.” She whispers. “What the fuck?”

  He rubs the back of his neck with a guilty expression. “You said you wanted to see for yourself.”

  “I suppose I did.” She sighs, shuts her eyes, and massages an eyebrow with two fingers. “And, unless you have an undisclosed talent for poetry, I doubt you could have done this view justice. I know when I return home, I shall struggle to describe it… Anyhow, the sky’s throwing water at us. Should we not retreat indoors?”

  Blackwing, once apprised of his guest’s suggestion, agrees to it. He sets off down a well-maintained gravel path that descends from the hillside into the town. At Lamp’s prompting, he confirms that the three of them won’t set out until the rain abates. For tonight, he intends to get Lamp and Owl settled in his manor before attending to other matters. He gestures in the direction of his home as if to point it out, but other, grander buildings block their view.

  As they enter Trembleheel, they encounter a steady flow of foot traffic. The townspeople appear less than daunted by the day’s barely-inclement weather, and they seem equally unbothered by Blackwing’s return. The streets have a calm atmosphere of purposeful focus which feels welcoming and familiar to Lamp. He must have missed urban environments more than he’d realized, based on the relief he feels to reenter one.

  Walking at his side, Owl displays a markedly different reaction. The further they travel through the town, the more attention she pays to the people around them, and the more openly she gawks at everyday applications of graft-magic. Lamp follows the outlander’s gaze as her attention bounces around their environment. She takes keen interest in a myriad of routine activities, and her unabashed curiosity prompts him to appreciate a series of small moments he would have otherwise ignored.

  Nearly everyone they pass wields magic openly.

  A woman with stone knuckles uses the heat generated by her graft to speed-dry the paint on a decorative vase. After a few moments, she picks up a brush and deftly continues her artistic work. In another corner of her shop, two younger workers employ the same graft-type to regulate the heat of an active kiln.

  Across the street, a man with silver palms sends vibrations into a stone tumbler. He carefully rotates the vessel as it rapidly shakes between his hands. Lamp can’t see the material he’s polishing inside it, but the displays throughout his storefront suggest a common gemstone.

  As they cross an intersection, they espy a metal workshop farther down the conjoining road. The resident bronzesmith maintains the speed of a spinning grindstone wheel with rhythmic downward kicks of his single jade hoof. Though wrinkled and white haired, he defies his apparent frailty by powering the heavy machine with ease. Each push of his graft imbues the turning stone with stored momentum, achieving via magic what his body could never accomplish through muscle alone.

  The old man’s assistant, likely his son by appearance, helps the smith maneuver a recently demolded plowshare above the grindstone. The unwieldy hunk of cast bronze moves lightly in their hands, suggesting either great strength or a magically reduced weight.

  Nearby to the working men, a young girl sits atop a wooden sawhorse, kicking her feet in the air while she watches her elders with a bored expression. In uncanny contrast to her disinterested eyes, she holds her lips back in a rictus grin, exposing the amethyst teeth that comprise her graft. She must be absorbing all sound from her grandfather’s smithy, for Lamp hears nothing as the whirling grindstone scrapes against the plow.

  When that sight passes out of view, Owl turns her focus to the next curiosity, and Lamp follows her lead. Together, they observe a jeweler softening gold between her glowing fingers as she draws it into a wire then weaves the metal in a complex braid. They look up simultaneously to catch a courier leaping between rooftops, crossing the street above their heads while clasping some important missive tight against his chest. With shared fascination, they watch a smartly-dressed woman take revenge against a thieving seagull by knocking it out of the sky with a pebble accelerated to whip-crack speed.

  All the while, the rain still falls light upon their heads. Enough of it has landed on Lamp’s face to dampen his skin, but his clothes don’t yet feel sodden, and his sandals remain dry. Though the weather hasn’t begun to trouble him, he checks his companions to assess their comfort. Blackwing appears at ease, per usual, and Owl seems too distracted to care.

  However, now that he’s watching the outlander closely, Lamp realizes that her attentiveness to their surroundings doesn’t present as the gleeful curiosity he had imagined while attempting to view the city through her foreign eyes. She takes interest, yes, but not with the childish excitement of an awestruck tourist. Her silver gaze lacks that familiar spark of joy, and her slack expression speaks more of melancholy than stupefaction.

  After a moment, the girl notices her translator’s concern and turns to offer him a halfhearted smile.

  “Your world is greatly blessed, Lamphand.” She softly remarks. “Everywhere I look, I find magic and life. The gods must dearly love your people to award them so generously. Seeing all that they have given here, I cannot help but wonder if they detest mine.”