“What do you call it?” Lamp asks, almost breathlessly.

  “Wall Town.”

  The scholar turns his head with an incredulous expression. He finds Blackwing looking back with a rare hint of humor on his habitually stoic face. The man seems quite pleased with himself.

  “I admit,” Lamp begins flatly, “I expected something a little more grandiose after that speech.”

  Blackwing walks ahead, but Lamp can still hear the grin in his voice when he replies. “Is the name inaccurate?”

  “No, no.” Lamp follows behind, shaking his head. “I can’t fault you on that point.”

  “Tell me, then. What’s the issue?” Asks a man who clearly knows the answer to his own question.

  “No issues, sir.” Lamp lies. “You’ve named more settlements than I have, so I must assume you know your business. I can only conclude that ‘Wall Town’ was the best possible option.”

  “I appreciate your vote of confidence. I was thinking I might change the name to give it a little more pomp, but I’ll leave it alone since you approve.”

  “Why meddle with perfection?”

  “Why indeed? You’re a man of sound judgment.”

  “Heh.” Lamp mutters. “That’s debatable.”

  Their banter lapses as the road-weary convoy nears its long-awaited destination. Lamp and Blackwing stride ahead of the others, eager to begin the work which brought them here. The heavily laden porters lag behind, eager for nothing besides water and rest.

  Before them, a semicircular wall of chiseled stone curves outward from the looming mass of the canyon terminus. The battlements, although formidable in their own right, appear rather miniscule beneath the titanic barrier from which they sprout. In such a context, Lamp finds the fortification more quaint than daunting.

  It also strikes him as odd that even here at the lonely edge of the world, Blackwing still insists on erecting defenses around every settlement. But one can never be too careful, Lamp supposes. If one group of pioneers reached this point, it’s not unthinkable that a second might someday follow. A man acclaimed as the Prince of Merchants would not maintain his sobriquet by failing to account for improbable contingencies.

  In any case, they soon cross the dusty chasm floor to reach the manmade wall. Their group faces no challenge at the gate; its stout wooden doors swing inward on well-oiled hinges in advance of their arrival, sparing them from any delay. Lamp and Blackwing enter first, then step aside to wait while the rest of their miniature caravan trundles through.

  Blackwing thanks each of his porters by name as they pass and appears to take a final stock of the goods they carry. Judging by his relaxed demeanor, nothing seems amiss and nobody went missing. When the final pair of tired feet clomps its way across the fortress threshold, the doors swing shut, and a heavy latch secures them.

  Lamp notes with interest that the interior side of the door features detailed carvings. The largest design shows a flock of bats flying over a flat desert beneath a starry sky. Lamp wonders whether the image represents Blackwing and his expeditions. If so, did the man himself commission it, or had some resident artist taken initiative? The scholar files that question away for later, turning to follow his employer as the merchant begins walking again.

  As they press deeper inside Wall Town, Lamp studies its features. Despite the settlement’s understated, silly name, the scale of this place still impresses him. Judging by signs of habitation, the isolated community seems to host around twenty permanent households, with room to comfortably accommodate more than triple that number.

  It would seem a humble village if transplanted inside the caldera, but out here, far from water and civilization, this little hamlet assumes the air of a proud citadel. Despite his admiration, however, he can’t help but wonder how much it all costs to maintain.

  “How often do you make delivery runs?” Lamp asks with a note of concern. “The water alone must require frequent visits.”

  “It does, but the residents purify and reuse their supply as much as possible. Their efficiency may impress you.”

  “I’m sure it will.” Lamp agrees carefully. “I have to ask, though. Why do you bother? What’s the use of keeping this settlement permanently occupied?”

  In answer, Blackwing lifts his graft arm and points a claw at the great canyon wall. He and Lamp have almost reached its base now, and it looms above their meager, human presence with the grim authority of a divine law. The merchant keeps his eyes on that towering mass of stone while he speaks.

  “The mountain encloses the caldera, the ravines surround the mountain, and that barrier encircles them all. We’ve calculated its precise circumference, but human minds struggle to comprehend such distances. Suffice to say, it’s longer than you could visualize.”

  He turns his head back to Lamp and lowers his voice. “So far as we’re aware, there’s only one passage through the rock, and it wasn’t easy to carve. I would keep this location staffed and defended for that reason alone, but isolation also prevents both espionage and rumor.

  “The people who live here have all visited the edge of creation. They’ve watched me open the gate between worlds, and I don’t want tales spreading. I’m not ready for our world to know. Too much would change. I’d lose-”

  Blackwing glances back down and finds nobody walking at his side. He stops to look over his shoulder and sees Lamp rooted in place a few steps behind him. The scholar’s mind had latched onto a single phrase towards the end of his employer’s statement, discarding the rest.

  “Wait.” Lamp commands, forgetting the constraints of their relative ranks.

  Blackwing politely obliges his employee, turning to listen as Lamp’s thoughts pour from his lips in a wellspring of questions.

  “You can open the doorway at will? I had imagined you found some sort of tunnel or a bridge, but it’s a process you control? Do you use your graft to pull the worlds together somehow, or do you fly between them? You can do that, right? Flying? Oh! Did you find an old-world artifact with working magic? I know you said a few days ago that you weren’t ready to tell me, but I could ask literally anyone else here, couldn’t I? Shit! I should have asked the porters yesterday! Do they know?”

  “They’ve likely heard.” Blackwing finally slips a word in. “I’ll answer your questions if you repeat them one at a time, but please hold off until we reach the bathhouse.”

  “Alright.” Lamp agrees glumly, and the two of them resume walking.

  After taking a few moments to reorder his thoughts, Lamp comments. “I’m surprised they have enough spare water to run baths out here.”

  “The name is euphemistic. We’ll exfoliate with strigils.”

  “Ah. Rustic… Better than nothing, I suppose. Are we going to meet the handmaiden afterwards? She is here, isn’t she?”

  “She is, and we will.”

  Lamp nods in acceptance before plucking up the neckline of his chiton and pulling it to his nose to sniff the fabric. He wouldn’t call himself presentable right now, but he wonders how much their foreign dignitary would mind if they skipped ablutions and got straight to translating.

  Blackwing said the girl seemed eager to communicate, right? She’s probably even more keen after waiting a week or so for her host to fetch Lamp and return, so maybe she’d be willing to tolerate the company of two men who haven’t cleaned themselves after multiple days of hiking.

  Lamp doesn’t bother voicing the idea; he already knows how Blackwing would respond. A royal handmaiden isn’t someone you can meet while caked in dust and dried sweat, especially not when your merchant empire heavily invests in trade with her kingdom. Also, despite Lamp’s own eagerness to begin the greatest scholarly work of his life, he still finds himself looking forward to clean skin almost as much. Perhaps his brain itches slightly less than his scalp today.

  Whilst Lamp weighs the merits of cleanliness against the virtues of punctuality and diligence, Blackwing leads him into the rear section of the compound. This latter portion of the town sits underneath the great wall, nestled inside an excavated pocket. Its low stone ceiling blocks much of the ambient light from the canyon floor, and that environment was plenty dim already.

  Most of the surrounding buildings connect directly to the roof, their walls having never been severed from it. As a result, Lamp’s only direct sightline to the outside world follows the narrow street down which they walk. Every side alley lies in deep shadow, illuminated only by the occasional wandering light-binder.

  Lamp can’t decide whether the ambiance feels more like an animal den or a tomb. He thinks back to the carving of bats he saw on the compound’s door, and he gains a new appreciation for its meaning. People here actually live like that. How fascinating.

  Blackwing turns down a side street then steps through the open doorway of a uniquely well-lit building. Lamp follows right behind him, entering the moderately sized foyer of what must be Wall Town’s inaccurately named bathhouse. The handful of employees waiting within jolt to attention at their employer’s sudden appearance and rush to serve him before he can finish salutations.

  Lamp barely has time to look around before an austere light-binder with graying hair herds the two of them into an adjoining hallway lined with privacy stalls. The scholar steps inside as directed before unburdening himself of his cloak and tunic. He accepts an offered scraping knife along with a bowl containing olive oil and sand.

  Their grim-faced way-lighter maintains a discrete station at the back of the hall while another servant bustles through to collect their clothing with promises to launder and return the garments quickly. He also takes their boots away for a quick wipedown in the main room.

  “So how do you do it?” Lamp tenders his first question while rubbing the oil mixture against the back of his arm. “Open the door, I mean.”

  “Do you remember the first translation you completed for me?” Blackwing asks in response.

  “Um. Not off the top of my head, no. I remember it was a rubbing taken from a cylindrical surface. I think it said… something about a hand and an eye.”

  “It’s an etching transposed from the haft of a golden spear which I obtained on my first visit to the sea of chaos. The weapon came to me as if someone standing outside reality had tossed it my way, arcing out from the pandemonium and rolling to stop at my feet. I couldn’t perceive the thrower.”

  Blackwing pauses, perhaps cleaning his face. Lamp fills the silence with a simple, “Oh.”

  The scholar can make a few guesses from that context, and new questions form from those conjectures, but he decides to hold his tongue for now. If Blackwing wants to tell this story in a certain way, Lamp will hear him out. After a few moments, the conversation picks back up.

  “A tantalizing mystery, isn’t it?” The merchant asks rhetorically. “All the more so when I noticed an inscription on the haft. We had to know what that engraving said, but no one working for me at the time could read the language of priests. So, I directed my agents to hire a translator we could trust to both get it right and to keep it quiet. They found you.”

  Lamp nods, then admits. “I don’t remember precisely what it said. Do you?”

  “Of course; I was quite keen to learn. According to your translation, the message reads, ‘Mine is the hand to open all doors. Mine is the eye to unseam all veils. Mine is patience to outlast the turning of worlds.’”

  Lamp nods along, remembering more clearly now. “As I recall, I speculated that the inscription may have been written from the assumed or actual perspective of a god. Do you think one of the Five gifted it to you?”

  “Maybe. There’s a temptation among my people to view the spear as a signifier of divine favor, but I can’t be sure of that. Its delivery seemed too casual, and we received no discernable directives upon its arrival.” He sighs softly before gently knocking on the wall between their stalls. “You’re the expert, Lamphand. When the gods take a direct hand in mortal affairs, are they known to act so obliquely?”

  “If you go by the oldest stories, then usually not, but they interact with us differently in the current age, so it’s plausible. Besides, who else would hang about in the primordial chaos, waiting to distribute magical weapons to passersby?”

  Blackwing laughs once and without much humor. “That question keeps me awake some nights.”

  Lamp nods in silent appreciation, dwelling with the implications for a moment. He can’t sit with it for too long, however. In the interest of punctuality, he takes up the loaned strigil and begins scraping away his coating of fresh oil and old grime. His mind remains on-topic as he works.

  “I take it you use that golden spear to connect the world-tiles, somehow?”

  “Correct. Standing near the edge, you can feel the moments in which our world grazes another. The sea grows disturbed but more coherent until its visions almost seem physical. Then everything stops. At that stage, only a wrung-out film of the void separates our tile from its neighbor. A spearprick pierces that wall to conjoin the bordering realities.

  “That is the unfortunate limit of my knowledge, however. I don’t understand the mechanics of the weapon’s power beyond my own rudimentary use.”

  Lamp nods along but doesn’t answer immediately. Oddly, Blackwing’s description reminds him of street artists forming sculptures out of bubbles, which is a strange image to hold in mind while he contemplates the membrane of his material reality. That bizarre interplay of cosmic forces carries interesting implications which Lamp feels unqualified to properly analyze.

  For the first time since leaving the cult, he finds himself missing the old theologians whose floors he mopped and tables he waited as a child. It took an excess of ten years, but he’s finally encountered a subject on which he’d like to hear their opinions. However, those old monks aren’t here to bloviate, so Lamp simply rinses his hair then reengages with Blackwing.

  “I can recite a dozen legends about magical spears from the age of tyrants or the gold kingdom, but none of those weapons were ever used to poke a hole through chaos. I can’t imagine an object with that level of power being made by human hands. It must have a divine origin, regardless of whether a god personally chucked it at you.”

  “On that matter, I agree.”

  Before Lamp can start a new line of questions, the second servant returns with freshly laundered clothing. The fabric still steams from its magically accelerated drying, though Lamp trusts it will be cool enough to touch. The scholar hurriedly concludes his exfoliation before accepting the proffered fabric. Then he wraps the warm garment around his torso, clipping it over one shoulder and belting it at the waist.

  Over the privacy wall between their stalls, he sees Blackwing’s graft arm lift up to the ceiling with the fabric of a pre-pinned chiton held in its claws. When his three-pronged grip releases, the tunic falls down his graft, sliding it through the opening. The deftly executed motion is obviously well-practiced, though Lamp finds it quaint that a man who can afford servants would ever learn to dress himself in such a cumbersome manner.

  Lacking sandals, the scholar steps back outside his bathing stall bare footed. Blackwing exits his own enclosure a moment later, still pulling the tunic over his head. Lamp catches a glimpse of the other man’s chest and full right arm in that moment, skin he had previously hidden beneath his hunter’s cloak.

  Long-healed wounds left by slashes, punctures, and burns make a patchwork of the merchant’s body. The faded tapestry of scars tells a story of battles won in decades past, of a youth spent in violence to buy a lifetime of peace.

  Amidst the many injuries, one stands out of place with unique distinction. A faint burn mark in the shape of a hand wraps around Blackwing’s right shoulder. Its proportions seem warped by expansion, stretched outward in all directions as if the arm bearing that cruel imprint had been much smaller when the violence was inflicted.

  Blackwing must have been a child at the time. Who would have-

  Lamp hurriedly averts his gaze as his employer’s head pops through the neckhole. The scholar tries to give the impression that he had been looking somewhere else. Blackwing makes no comment on his indiscretion, so the ruse presumably succeeds. Hoping to brush past that awkward moment, Lamp resumes their conversation.

  He asks a few questions about the divine spear’s physical appearance, which Blackwing answers in succinct terms. In the midst of those inquiries, their boots and chlamyses return from the other room, so they pull on their footwear and cloaks to make themselves ready to leave.

  A minute later, the freshly clean and presentable pair exits the graft-lit bathhouse and returns to the diffuse gloom of the pocket cave outside. Rather than waiting for his eyes to adjust, Blackwing simply heads off. The man probably knows his compound well enough to navigate it blind, so Lamp follows along without worry. He’s long past questioning his employer’s sense of direction.

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  The tall man sets their pace with purposeful strides, and they soon reach the back end of his half-buried town. The main street they followed until this point continues onwards into the stone, forming a wagon-wide tunnel through the wall. Rather than striding directly down that passageway, Blackwing detours into the last building before the shaft. Lamp follows him inside to find a small team of workers unloading and organizing the contents of several large packs.

  A light-binder seated in the corner illuminates the room, so Lamp has no difficulty recognizing the collection of containers which Blackwing and his porters brought down the mountainside. He even sees his chair-harness propped against the back wall and nearly shudders at the sight of it.

  Blackwing speaks briefly with the workers and recovers a small wooden box. Lamp recognizes the lacquered container from his evening on Blackwing’s ship. The handmaiden’s painted mask presumably still rests on its cushion within; Blackwing must plan to return the object to its owner when they meet her.

  The two of them exit that building, and Lamp follows distractedly while his mind wanders back to the last time he laid eyes on the handmaiden’s falsemask. He recalls the two phrases painted on its faces, one a description and the other a prayer. He looks forward to asking the girl for her own interpretation so he can either vindicate or correct his analysis. For that matter, he’d love to guide her through Blackwing’s complete inventory of artifacts. He could measure all of his prior assessments against her firsthand knowledge.

  That would be a bittersweet experience.

  Over the past few years, Lamp made thousands of guesses at the meaning behind each of Blackwing’s foreign trinkets. He whiled additional untold hours envisioning the culture that produced them. And now, after all that invested time, he’ll have the opportunity to simply ask a primary source for her opinion. He wonders how many of his conjectures she’ll invalidate. How much context had escaped his understanding? How many subtle details did he miss?

  Lamp could feel like he wasted all that time, but he chooses not to. Those efforts brought him into Blackwing’s confidence and prepared him to work as a culturally informed interpreter. He wouldn’t be here at the godsdamned edge of the world if he hadn’t first served his time in Emerald’s closet-sized office.

  Also, he’d still like to believe that the notes he and his partner recorded will eventually constitute a valuable historical artifact in their own right. In future centuries, scholars from either side of the rift will want to know what their two worlds thought of each other when first they met. Lamp’s half-ignorant musings will serve as a useful source of insight.

  He just hopes Blackwing doesn’t throw those notes away. Maybe Lamp can get a copy made, now that he’s officially employed. He looks up to ask the question but holds his tongue when he sees Blackwing corralling another light-binder to guide them deeper into the wall.

  Green graft light shows the way as they enter the wide tunnel carved into the back of Wall Town’s pocket cave. The three of them constitute the only traffic here. Lamp doubts this corridor sees much use outside of Blackwing’s trade caravans. Although, he does see occasional side passages as they progress, so the tunnel must have other uses.

  After Blackwing ignores multiple hallways branching off to either side, Lamp starts to anticipate that they’ll pass directly through to the tunnel’s end. Feeling excited, he braces himself to catch his first glimpse of the empty plane lurking beyond the wall. He squints down the long, dark expanse that waits before them, but he can’t see even a faint prick of sunlight from any opening on the far end.

  How deep is this thing?

  Just before he can ask how much further they need to go, Blackwing directs them down the oncoming right turn, and they exit the main tunnel to walk down a narrower hallway. To Lamp’s disappointment, it seems their mysterious guest is waiting somewhere in these lightless, claustrophobic confines, rather than the open desert beyond. Glancing down the narrow corridor, he feels a swell of pity for the girl.

  “You don’t have her locked up in here, do you?” He asks his boss in a soft tone.

  “No. She’s free to roam the compound. She selected this location for her apartment after I managed to communicate that she had a choice.” Blackwing shakes his head. “She didn’t like the sky.”

  “Oh… That’s an inconvenient fear to harbor.”

  “I imagine it is. But, to your point, she’s only confined in-so-far as I’m not currently willing to help her reach the caldera. If she wants to stay, she can. If she wants to go home, I’ll help. She seems keen to see more of our world, however. Depending on your conversation with the girl, I’ll either return her to her people or escort her inside the rim.”

  They pass four doorways to either side before Blackwing stops at the fifth. He turns to Lamp, half-lit by the green graft-light of their tagalong. A slightly furrowed brow disrupts his otherwise stoic expression. When he speaks, his voice carries the weight of import.

  “Our guest waits for us here. Are you ready to meet her?”

  Lamp nods. “There’s nothing I can do to prepare beyond what I’ve already spent my life doing.”

  Accepting Lamp’s answer with a nod, Blackwing turns back to the door and knocks. A moment later, an old-sounding woman calls from within to ask who they are. Blackwing identifies himself, and the old woman replies that she’s coming. A moment later, the door pulls open.

  A matronly woman steps back from the door and gestures them inside. She carries a light-emitting graft of her own, bathing the room behind her in a soft orange glow. Her luminance combines with the green bloom from the hallway, and the colors blend seamlessly to cast the threshold in an olive tint.

  Blackwing politely dismisses their green-glowing escort, and the man departs with a nod. The merchant then enters the apartment with Lamp trailing closely. The scholar scans the room while pulling the door closed behind himself. To his disappointment, he sees no one else waiting for them in the foyer. A dark doorway on the far wall leads into another space. The outworlder must be lurking in there.

  The old woman turns about and walks back through the shadowed aperture, shedding light on it as she approaches. Blackwing follows her with a measured pace, and Lamp makes a pretense of patience by only matching that speed.

  As expected, the handmaiden awaits them in the next chamber.

  Seated at a low table with her back to the door, a girl dressed in disappointingly local fashion holds aloft two vertical wooden trays filled with solid wax. She turns her head from one tablet to the other, comparing their contents side by side. The left box shows the common alphabet, its letters cleanly marked in broad, deep carvings. Several lines of smaller imitation script fill the right box. Pale wax shavings cling to the lowest and most recent attempts.

  Blackwing waits quietly while his guest examines her handiwork. The girl makes a quiet noise of dissatisfaction when she finds an apparent flaw. With the review complete, she sets down the trays and glances over her shoulder. Then her eyes widen when she realizes precisely whom she had kept waiting.

  She rises and turns in a swift but graceful motion before bending into a full bow.

  “Welcome back, Lord Blackwing.” She greets him in the old tongue before straightening.

  Lamp gets his first full look at her, now. She’s young, like his employer said. Judging by her face and build, she’s probably more than seventeen but definitely less than twenty. An unsurprising age-range for a runaway.

  Thin lines drawn across her contemplative face glint like metal in the orange graft-light. The feathery lattice forms radial patterns around her eyes, lending her an avian visage. As for the eyes themselves, they gleam as though molded from silver. Only her pupils retain their original color, or the lack thereof.

  Those shining eyes quickly assess Lamp before returning to rest on Blackwing. As the silence begins to linger, the scholar belatedly remembers to translate her greeting for his employer’s benefit. When he speaks, the handmaiden’s attention briefly returns to him with renewed interest.

  Blackwing nods in response to the relayed message, then steps forward into the room and holds up the lacquered box containing his guest’s painted mask. The girl raises both of her hands to gently receive the case. Then, balancing the box on one hand, she unclasps the lid and slightly lifts it to confirm the presence and integrity of the object within.

  She seems simultaneously relieved and saddened at the sight.

  “Thank you for lending it to me.” Blackwing tells her. “It proved vital in enticing the service of an interpreter.”

  Lamp faces the handmaiden and smoothly translates his employer’s words into the old tongue. Her expression lights up in response, and she almost blurts out an excited reply before pausing to compose herself. Setting aside the obvious urge to rush into conversation with the first person in this alien world who can finally understand her, she instead returns her attention to Blackwing. After bowing her head respectfully, she speaks. Lamp translates again to convey her words.

  “Lord Blackwing,” her voice carries light and clear, with practiced elocution, “thank you for returning my falsemask and locating a translator. I also offer gratitude for the temporary home which you provided for me this past week. I have greatly enjoyed your hospitality, and I apologize for my failure to offer gifts. I had not anticipated an extended stay as the guest of a noble house.”

  Blackwing listens with a polite but neutral expression until the girl’s closing remark. The word “noble” elicits a small smirk which he quickly suppresses. He replies directly to the handmaiden while Lamp translates from his side.

  “You may remain here as an honored guest for as long as you desire, and I will gladly return you to your own world should you wish to depart from ours. If you intend to progress further into our territory, then I must know your purpose before I agree to aid you. But before we discuss that, may we know your name?”

  “Of course.” She answers with aplomb. “I am Lady Ashti of House Wit. I serve at the crown’s pleasure as royal handmaiden to the king’s only daughter. I humbly request that you hold both my name and my station in close confidence. I wish to obscure my status as a foreigner while I travel your lands.”

  Blackwing raises an eyebrow. “Why hide your origins?”

  “I wish to go unnoticed.”

  “For any particular reason?”

  “Yes, your lordship.”

  She returns his level gaze with a politely neutral expression, stubbornly refusing his obvious cue to elaborate. Seconds pass in which neither of them speaks, and Lamp feels a growing sense of unease as their spontaneous pause continues to stretch. He can’t tell what the other two are thinking in the midst of this impromptu staring match, but Ashti yields to the pressure first. Partially.

  “I had planned to take a new name, after your own custom.” She states in a casual tone. “I prepared a few options in advance. Would ‘Gray Owl’ seem appropriate?”

  “To a degree.” Blackwing smoothly replies, brushing past the minor conflict. “Animal monikers are uncommon, but not so rare as to seem foreign. If you want a name that sounds unremarkable, you might try Silver Eyes or Gray Feather instead. Perhaps Gray Plume. ‘Owl’ would draw more attention than any of those alternate choices.”

  Blackwing turns his head to glance at his translator. “Do you have any thoughts on the matter, Lamphand?”

  Following his employer’s lead, Lamp replies with a relaxed demeanor. “Grayowl sounds slightly more auspicious to my ear, but all options would make a lovely name.”

  He voices the opinion to Blackwing first before repeating it to the handmaiden. In truth, he doesn’t have any genuine feelings on the matter, so he simply tried to flatter both of them.

  The girl nods her head in response. “Grayowl, then. Or Owl. At least for today.”

  “Very well.” Blackwing acquiesces with polite indifference. “Would you care to sit?”

  “Yes. Let me clear this out of the way.”

  Owl kneels and sets down the lacquered box. She begins gathering up her writing implements but abandons that effort when the old woman steps forward to handle the task in her stead. The gray-haired employee hurriedly collects the stylus and template, but she leaves behind the outlander’s practice tablet when her employer plucks up the tray between the claws of his graft arm.

  Blackwing thanks the maid for tidying up and seats himself on one of the cushions surrounding Owl’s low table. The handmaiden follows suit on both accounts, and Lamp translates her appreciation to the old woman while settling himself between his employer and the outlander.

  The matronly light-binder murmurs a gracious reply as she finishes organizing. She then steps into an unobtrusive corner of the room, positioning herself to provide direct lighting for her employer while he examines the rows of copied letters. Lamp leans over to get a better look himself, consciously refraining from the use of his own graft.

  After a moment, Owl speaks. “I wrote each line by memory. As you can see, I have not yet perfected my penmanship.”

  “You’ve made good progress.” Blackwing responds while setting down the box.

  After translating to Owl, Lamp can’t help but add, “Our script has a looser standard than the old language. Your mistakes are small enough to be considered a flourish of handwriting. You should be ready to progress your study to its next stage.”

  The handmaiden nods and thanks both of them. An inquisitive glance from Blackwing prompts the scholar to explain the multiple sentences he’d tacked on to his most recent reply. His employer seems mercifully unbothered by the interjection, but Lamp resolves not to butt in to their conversation a second time.

  Blackwing returns his gaze to the outworlder, and his calm bearing shifts slightly as he adopts an expression of respectful sternness. Lamp has seen this same mien on the faces of instructors setting expectations for a class of highborn students. He could easily slip into that mode himself for the sake of parity, but he decides to retain a neutral tone, intending to minimize his influence on the dialogue.

  “Are you willing to tell us why you came here?” The query issues from two voices in succession.

  Owl considers for a moment before asking a question in return. Her expression has likewise grown more serious. The girl’s fresh-faced youth undercuts that effect, but her solid-silver eyes make up most of the difference. She manages to seem somewhat imposing, almost imperious.

  “Is providing this information a condition of my release from your compound?” Owl asks through Lamp.

  “No. You are free to leave at any time.”

  “In either direction?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is your assistance a requirement of successfully navigating both the canyons and the wastes?”

  “Almost certainly.”

  She smiles without joy or humor. “As I cannot move onwards without your aid, and I am unwilling to go back before I have fulfilled my purpose, our disunity will hold me as its indefinite prisoner. No responsible guest or host would wish to leave their counterpart in such conditions. If I tell you why I came here, will you grant me passage deeper into your world?”

  “I would consider it. Until then, my answer is no.”

  “Very well.” She responds with an air of resignation, her practiced countenance slipping a little. “I recognize that I must offer trust before it is returned to me. How much detail do you demand, Lord Blackwing?”

  “Start with the broad strokes.”

  She takes a deep breath before answering. “I need to find someone. A woman from my world crossed into yours nearly twenty-three years ago. I have to bring her back.”

  “Why?”

  “To save the person I love.”

  She makes the declaration with a raised chin and a faintly-defiant tone. However, as Lamp translates, she bows her head a little, blushes slightly, and nervously crosses one hand over the other. It appears she has a complicated bundle of emotions wrapped up in this subject; Lamp wonders if she had once intended to deliver that proud declaration to a different set of ears.

  Blackwing, in contrast, displays no change in attitude upon his face. A single tap of his finger against the tabletop provides the only indication of his mental state. The man doesn’t fidget much, so that isolated twitch reveals to Lamp an intensity of interest. The caldera’s own Merchant Prince has fully engaged his attention on this exchange.

  The observing translator, for his own part, consciously schools his expression and posture, hoping to maintain a perfect image of professionalism. It wouldn’t do for the others to catch him gawking at their intrigue. For all they should be able to tell, he might as well be a piece of furniture. He waits patiently and impassively until Blackwing responds.

  “None would have witnessed her arrival.” His employer finally declares. “No outfit outside my company operates this close to the edge, and even we weren’t established here two decades prior.”

  The girl deflates slightly. “Oh.”

  “Do you know how she crossed?”

  “No. I only know she disappeared after traveling to the same portion of our world where the portal opens now. We had long presumed her dead and thought her body simply missing, but you revitalized old conspiracies by opening the gate. I have no proof of her survival yet, but I believe she lives, if only because I need that to be true.”

  Blackwing nods with a contemplative face. “You’ve proven it’s possible to survive, and the contemporaneous absence of other humans works in our favor. No one could have found or moved her corpse had she died during the crossing. Had she perished, I should have discovered her body when I first visited the area, but I never found it. If we assume she opened a gateway between the normal sites in our respective worlds, then we can be certain she survived beyond that point.”

  “Can we truly make that assumption?” Owl asks with subdued hope. “I am fairly sure of her portal’s location in my own world, but would it necessarily connect to the same spot in yours?”

  “I believe so. When I’m at the edge, I can feel our worlds draw together. I’ve only ever encountered that sensation in a single place. There, and there alone, is where I may open the gate. The position hasn’t shifted since I first found it, so I’m confident that any previous doorway between our worlds opened in the same location twenty-three years ago.”

  “Good.” The girl almost sighs the word with relief. “She is alive, then.”

  Blackwing nods. “Likely so, and we may be able to assist in your search if you provide more information. Before we get into that, however, please explain why you need to find her.”

  “I suppose at this point I might as well.” She pauses for a moment, her expression uncertain. “This may take some time, though. To begin with, do your histories record the existence of creatures halfway between god and man? My people know them as icons. We can save some time if you are already acquainted with their properties.”

  She looks hopefully at both Lamp and Blackwing. Lamp directs a questioning glance towards his employer, non-verbally asking for permission to speak on his own behalf. The other man nods back, so Lamp replies to Owl with his own words.

  “I’ve seen no clear references to the icons in texts from my own world, including both secular histories and scripture. My only knowledge of their existence comes from the poems and prayers I received through my employer and assessed on his behalf.”

  As he speaks, the girl shuffles slightly to fully face him. When he mentions his ‘archeological’ work, she leans forward in sudden excitement.

  “Oh! Have you been reviewing the texts we trade to Lord Blackwing?”

  Lamp nods. “I assist in cataloging the items he obtains from you. I translate and attempt to analyze each artifact.”

  Owl’s stoic mask cracks open completely as she beams with unbridled joy and more than a touch of pride.

  “Artifact.” Her voice cradles the word. “She’ll love hearing that. I used to tease her about-”

  She trails off then refocuses, and her guise of polite detachment returns. Lamp, who had begun to smile with the girl in unconscious sympathy, resets his own expression to match. On the scholar’s opposite side, Blackwing shifts his posture slightly. Lamp takes the small motion as a reminder to begin translating again.

  “Apologies.” The handmaiden resumes. “I will attempt to stay on topic. Do you understand the distinction between true icons and false icons?”

  “No. I can’t recall any reference to that classification.”

  Lamp doesn’t bother translating his answer into the common tongue. His employer should understand the gist of his reply from context, and he doesn’t want to delay Owl’s next statement. Just as well, since the girl carries on immediately.

  “That is unsurprising. Our poets spend little ink on the fakes.” She taps her chin in consideration before continuing. “I suppose the difference is not worth explaining in detail. The two pertinent facts are that false icons can die and they tend to age more rapidly than humans. The brevity of their existence is- in most cases- beneficial, given the disruption caused by their presence and the extreme difficulty of containing icons in large numbers. However, there is one false icon whose substance we endeavor to maintain. Are you familiar with the icon of growth?”

  Lamp nods but waggles a hand in the air in a gesture of low confidence. “I’ve seen references. Based on what I’ve read, she appears to be worshiped as the source or facilitator of crop harvests.”

  Owl shakes her head emphatically. “It is not mere worship. Growth serves as the direct source of almost all of our kingdom’s food. Without her, most of our populace would starve within weeks. She is absolutely necessary to the survival of my civilization, and it is imperative that she remains stable.”

  Owl inhales deeply and lays a single hand on the table, palm down, as if to support herself. Her metal eyes seem incongruously soulful as she resumes.

  “In my world, anyone with magic can summon physical objects, but only the icons can make those objects permanent. Growth is the only icon that creates unsullied food, which makes her the single entity in my kingdom with the ability to feed our population. However, Growth is only a false icon. She withers over time and would eventually die without our intervention. We refresh her lifespan every thirty years by transferring her power to a new host. Each of her previous vessels, from the rupture to the present day, has been a sister to our reigning king.”

  Her hand on the table curls into an unclenched fist.

  “By tradition, the sacrificed princess is supposed to be a woman in her middle years. Someone with enough life left in her body to support the icon, but not so young that she had no chance to enjoy a life of her own. The woman who was meant to play that role in the coming cycle disappeared twenty-three years ago. In her absence, the king’s twenty-year-old daughter is required to assume this obligation.”

  Tears well and glisten against the silver of her eyes, but the drops don’t fall. Instead, her fingers tighten, digging the nails into her skin. She takes another deep breath and steadies herself before focusing on Lamp with an anguished conviction.

  “I have seven years to find the runaway princess and bring her back, or the woman I love will die in her place.”