Two: Markings and Mysteries

Schula and I stared at the coin for a long moment. When the serving girl approached our table, Schula scooped it into her lap, as well as the note the wordweaver had left with it.

"Quite a story tonight, he really got into it today," she said with a smile. "Can I get you three anything else?"

"No, thank you," I murmured, sliding money to her for our meals. "You know that wordweaver?"

She took our payment with a nod. "Oh sure, he comes in every few days. If the owner doesn't already have entertainment lined up he welcomes the show. You see how the locals love it, he's a favorite around here. He gets a free meal and a tip and we get a full house."

"Do you know where we can find him?" Nassir asked.

"Hm, that may be a tricky one. Like I said, he wanders. I think his real name is Kinza, but I'm not positive," she said.

"Munda!" A gruff voice echoed from the kitchen.

Our server, Munda I guess, nodded to us. "Well, have a good evening."

She trotted to the kitchen and out of sight.

"What do you make of all that?" Schula asked.

"Well, first I would like to know what the note said," Nassir murmured. "As I cannot see it."

"Oh, sorry. It says find me if you can, witch." Schula pulled the coin from under the table. "That must mean you, Wren. And he left a coin."

"That's not currency," I said. "None from Sulls at least."

"Then what is it?" Schula asked.

I took the coin from her for inspection. Not only had I never seen a brass coin before, I had never seen a coin so big. It was slightly larger than a golden sun piece, which was almost as wide as my thumb was long.

"On one side is a smiling mouth with a key in it..." I murmured, turning it over. "And the other side has a closed lock on it."

"Strange," Nassir murmured. "I suppose we have two trails to chase then."

"Two?" I asked, consumed with looking at the coin.

"The wordweaver or the Mist walker," Schula said. "But the Mist walker could just be a story, we've seen the wordweaver and at least we know he's real. And he mentioned the witches."

"Hmm, I'm not so sure," Nassir said, leaning back in his chair and scratching his beard. "I wonder if this Mist walker isn't an unseelie creature."

"You think it's real?" I asked. "I've never heard this story before, and I have heard most of them."

"It feels to me like a kind of wraith," Nassir said.

My whole body shuddered and I wrapped my arms around myself. A wraith. The first unseelie creature I had ever encountered was a Wraith. The second thing I had met from the Wyldes, after Thain.

"Do you really think she can bring forth spirits that have died?" Schula asked.

Silence spanned the table as Nassir thought about it, taking a long drag of his tankard and setting down the empty glass.

"It's possible," Nassir finally answered. "I've seen enough astonishing things in my time that I would not disbelieve much from a powerful enough being. It sounds like this Mist walker deals in life force though, a price I wouldn't be willing any of us to pay."

His sightless stare pierced each of us in turn, as though he wanted confirmation of something.

Schula nodded, but it didn't reach her eyes. I'm sure we all had someone we would want to see, just one more time.

Bryn. Lark. I had so many questions. So many words left unspoken. And Lark, my mother, could she tell me where the witches had gone? It was a tempting ache in my chest. But the Mist walker couldn't be trusted, not if it really was some unseelie creature. I sighed and looked back up at Nassir.

"Even if this Mist walker is real, I don't think we're going to get far with a wraith. At least not as far as we may get with the wordweaver. And if it comes down to searching Sulls for a man, and searching the entire desert for the Mist walker, I'd much rather cover Sulls."

Nassir nodded, a smile on his face. "Well thought out, Wren. I had worried a moment I would have to keep an eye on you from running after the Mist walker. You have my agreement. The wordweaver."

I blushed and turned away. Even Nassir could sense my inner struggle.

"I'm not going to chase down something like the Mist walker based on a story in a human city," I murmured.

A white hand snaked around my waist, pulling me closer and sending comfort through me. I sighed into her touch, thankful for her support.

"It's settled then," Schula said. "No Mist walker. We need to figure out how to find this man, but this is not the place for planning. Let's go back."

"Right," I agreed. I stood from my seat and helped Nassir do the same.

We walked through the room and I could still hear murmurs of excitement about the story of the Mist walker. Hopefully it wouldn't lead to any humans running around the desert, but anyone native to Sulls should know better than to enter the sands, particularly alone.

At the door I looked up eagerly to see the view of the stars overhead as we left, when a curious marking gave me pause.

Schula and Nassir almost walked away without me, but Nassir stopped and turned around. "Wren?"

"I... hold on. I've seen this before." I reached up to brush my fingertips along a strange mark in the top of the arch in the doorway. It was a circle with a few petal-like shapes on it and arrows in between. It had been carved some time ago by a sharp but shallow tool. Possibly a fingernail, if one were persistent enough against the clay.

"What is it?" Schula asked.

Nassir gasped and we immediately turned out heads to him.

"I see it," he whispered.

I looked at Schula, not sure what to think of his statement. She just watched Nassir, waiting for him to elaborate.

"I see it," he said again firmly. "I can feel the shapes of things around me, but this one I... I see it."

Now it was my turn to gasp. "How is that possible?"

"Wren, where have you seen it before?" Schula asked.

"It's a witch marking," I whispered. "This place is under someone's protection. Or at least, it was before they all disappeared."

But the witches were held in a strange state of regard and fear, even here in Sulls. Especially here in Sulls. Who would so blatantly display an alliance with one?

I turned my head back inside the eating house, locking eyes with a wiry man in the kitchen doorway. He had been watching us, arms folded across his chest. But when my eyes met his, he bolted back into the kitchens.

"Follow outside," I said to Schula and Nassir. Then, I took off toward the kitchens.

I dodged several patrons and rounded the corner from the bar to the doorway the man had disappeared through. A shout from the bar tried to stop me but I ignored it as my eyes swept the kitchen.

A few of the staff paused to gawk at me. I didn't spot the man, but I did see an open back door and I took it.

The darkened streets were nothing against my eyes, and I saw him right away.

"Wait!" I called. The man looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide and he spun around.

"What do you want with me?" he asked, his voice ripe with fear. It was the same voice that called our server away when we were asking her about the wordweaver.

"You were watching us, why?" I asked, thankful that the man had stopped running. We stopped between two buildings and I heard the footsteps behind us as Schula and Nassir came closer. They stopped before the human would be able to detect them, but plenty close enough to hear everything we said.

"You came after me, so I ran," he said.

"You ran so I came after you," I murmured. "I wasn't trying to scare you, I just want to find the witches."

Silence stretched between us, I probably looked just as surprised as he was. We were at a stalemate.

"You're not human, are you?" he asked cautiously.

A tired smirk crossed my lips as I sighed. "No, I'm not."

"I'm warning you," he said. "We're under the protection of a powerful witch."

My eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone," I said. "I'm looking for the witches, I have to find a friend."

"You're a witch friend?" he whispered. "That's how you knew the mark at the door..."

"Yes," I said excitedly. "Are you a witch friend too? Do you have any clue as to where they went?"

He shook his head, and some of the excitement left my face.

"It's not always safe to be a friend of theirs," he murmured. "I will tell you what I know, but not here."

"Where?" I asked, my heart pounding.

He nodded his head back to the eating house and I followed as he rounded not to the kitchen door, but a cellar that took us under the main building.

Schula and Nassir were careful to stay out of sight so as not to scare the man off again, but I could tell they stayed in hearing range.

He unlocked the door and we went inside. He closed it behind him and turned to me with a grim expression.

"I don't know much, I'm warning you now. I don't know where they went, but I know one who left," he said.

I nodded. "I'm looking for Mila or Gilly, they traveled together when they left. Do you know either of them?"

A long shot, but I had to try.

"No," he said, his eyes darting around the room. "I know the witch Vara. She's a family friend. She put a mark on this place before she left to protect me as best she could in her absence. My home as well. She made a promise to my mother you see, to watch out for me and my sister. But if my boss found out there was witchery here, he'd have me out of a job. He's... not as accepting of them as we are."

I nodded, a common story. Useful when you need them, but they better stay out of sight when you don't.

"So you have no idea where they went?" I asked.

"South," he said. "That's all I know."

The same way Mila went. I sighed, then had an idea.

"The wordweaver, he knows something. Do you know how to find him?" I asked.

"Kinza?" The man scratched his chin. "He's not the most easy to find, but I know he knows something too. I just don't know what it is. You're not the first to seek him out. I can tell you where a few of his other common spots are, but that's about as good as I can do."

"I'll take what you can give me," I said. "Sorry for scaring you before, my friends and I have just been looking for a while now and this is the closest we've come to an answer yet."

The man nodded and went over to a small desk with ledger books and inkwells on it. He took out a piece of paper and scrawled several things on it before handing it to me.

"I know he frequents these places, you should start with that first one."

I looked down the page at two eating houses, an entertainment theater, and a gambling house as well as directions of how to get to all of them.

"Thank you," I said, not taking my eyes off the page.

"Don't thank me," he said. "But if you find them, tell Vara that the children are alright."

I smiled at that. "You must have been close."

He shrugged and looked away. "As close as anyone can get to a witch."

I snorted, and that earned me a half smile from him.

"I see you know what I mean."

"I do," I smiled. "I'll go now, I won't come back and add suspicion for your boss. But if I see Vara I promise to pass on your message."

He smiled at that and walked us back out of the cellar. He nodded once at me before going back into the kitchens.

Schula and Nassir came from around the side of the building, Schula looking over my shoulder at the paper. "What do we have here?"

I rolled my eyes, knowing that she had heard the conversation and I simply passed her the paper to read for herself.

"We have a start," I said. "Lets go back and make some plans."

Schula and Nassir nodded, and we walked under the stars back to our rented rooms.