Brin sighed in relief as his last conscious thread returned and he had his full mind back. Well, most of his mind. Two or three directed threads running Invisible Eyes didn't make a noticeable impact on his perception of time.
“Ok, I'm ready. What's up?” Brin asked.
Hogg had poured himself an iced tea and now sat down on his favorite reclining chair. He hadn't actually brought all his furniture from Hammon's Bog, but he'd bought a lot of the same things here in Blackcliff, though nothing as expensive as he'd like.
"So today--" Hogg started.
"Actually hold that thought. We got something from Lumina! But I don't really understand it." Brin showed Hogg the paper Lumina had sent.
Hogg stepped over to snatch it out of his hands, and then paced back and forth in the living room reading it. He frowned, looking back and forth between Brin and the paper a few times.
Finally he said, "Incredible. So it really exists. A bit ironic that I find this when I can't use it anymore. You know what this is, right?"
Brin shook his head. "Maybe if I had a couple hours to go over it, but my knowledge of the Language isn't even close to the point where I can understand a spell at a glance."
He did have more tools for that kind of thing than he used to, though. He immediately created a Directed Thread with the instruction to start reading through the words so that when the time came to cast it, he'd be able to. Then just to speed things up, he cast three more, to start in different sections of the spell.
"This," Hogg said while holding up the paper reverently, "is one of Frenaria's most closely guarded secrets. This is the spell for long range communication. I bet it uses those radio waves you keep talking about. How long do you think it'll take you to learn this?"
Brin took the paper back, unnecessary since he could just review it perfectly from his [Memories in Glass], but if he was going to think with his regular brain then he wanted to look with his regular eyes.
He skimmed the paper, not trying to really read it yet. Instead, he looked through trying to spot any parts that would be especially difficult.
"A long time," he decided. "I don't know this word, or this one, and I'm completely lost in this section."
Hogg walked around to look at the paper from behind him. "Maybe we can break this up. Hard Light should be capable of let's see... most of this, honestly. I think we'll only need you for this section here, and then maybe this bit towards the end."
The sections Hogg indicated only made up about a fifth of the total spell. There were still a couple words that Brin didn't know, but it avoided the most complicated sections. He could still infer a word's name and meaning after seeing it written, it was just a lot harder to learn that way rather than having someone teach him.
"It should be doable."
"Then let's get to work. If Lumina is sending us this, then she probably wants us to use it right away. I'll push my appointments back; this takes precedence." Hogg made no move to leave the room or do anything else to push his appointments back. He'd use his Mirror Images for that. Being made of hard light meant they didn't have the range that Brin's illusory ones did, but they were capable of a whole lot more.
Brin sent a message in the master log.
Main: DT1, please continue to monitor Marksi. All other threads return.
Instantly, all his threads snapped back into his consciousness, returning with the memories of what he'd been up to. The ones watching the house didn't give him much except a very intimate knowledge of what the street just outside looked like, but the threads he'd started working on the spell had already begun to comprehend portions of it. He sent out two more directed threads to begin parsing his two assigned sections. Then he spent a moment finding every word he didn't know. There were four of them. He assigned a conscious thread to each of them to figure out their meanings. He gave each of the conscious threads twenty percent of his mind, which meant that there was barely anything left for him.
He made one last thread a directed thread that he called the Mouth Manager. When figuring out new words of Language, it was essential to try to pronounce them. The purpose of the Mouth Manager was to give all his threads a turn using his mouth, and to avoid all the issues that might come from several different minds trying to use it at the same time.
"Testing one," he said. Then his mouth seemed to move on its own, directed from another source. "Testing two. Testing three. Testing four. Testing five."
It was an unnerving experience. Even though he knew it was his mind working those threads, it still felt like he was being possessed by some external power. He tried to repeat "Testing one", but his mouth refused to move until all the other threads had their say. Only then did he feel himself say "Testing one" again.
Good. His Mouth Manager was working. Soon after his mouth started babbling. “Nossalatu. Nossalatu? Impagio. Acci. Noss... a latu. Acci! Acca? Accai.... Impagio!”
The minutes sped by at double time, and before long he got a message.
DT2: Unrecognized word. Cannot continue. Returning.
He got the memories of a read-through of the first part of the spell, and now glancing at it he could see what the words meant and kind of tell what it was doing. He sent a new directed thread out to start reading after the word that had halted it, and then started reading the first part of the spell again on his own.
DT3: Unrecognized word. Cannot continue. Returning.
DT4: Unrecognized word. Cannot continue. Returning.
Each time it happened, he skipped the word and had them start again. Come to think of it, his main thread wasn’t doing much other than making new threads when one failed. He spun up a few more directed threads, to work on everything he could simultaneously.
Now time seemed to zip forward, and it was all he could do to keep creating directed threads every time one failed.
In what seemed like no time at all, but was probably hours, he finally got one of the messages he was hoping for.
CT1: Got it. Nosslatu. It means “to capture” but in the context of... you know what, it’s hard to explain. You’ll see. Returning.
At first, seeing the success message gave him a huge thrill; it felt like he was getting magic for free. Then he was hit by the memory of spending what felt like an hour doing nothing but staring at a word of the Language and trying to understand it. It was boring, monotonous, head-ache inducing work. He hated it when he made himself do something like that. Working through problems as a thread was much worse than doing it when he had control of his body. With his body he could sigh, or stretch, or get up and walk around a little to take a break, but as a thread he could do none of that. Nothing had been free; doing it like this was a hundred times worse than using his main consciousness.
Still, it was done now, and with the memory of mind-bending work also came the knowledge.
Brin stepped forward and wrapped Lumina in a hug. Since she was made of hard light it felt like hugging a glass statue, but it was the thought that counted. “Lumina! I missed you. What’s this spell?”
“What? You’re touching my projection. How are you doing that?” Lumina asked.
“Your projection on our side is made of hard light. You can touch anything you see here,” said Hogg.
“Hogg did most of the spell, I only helped,” Brin admitted.
“Ah, that makes sense. This spell is highly advanced. I feared that it would be several days or even weeks before you would be able to cast this.”
She walked to an end table and awkwardly lifted up a vase before setting it down, ignoring Hogg’s pained wince. “How interesting! Perhaps I could replicate the same thing on my end... with a little... and... there. Let me try.” She lifted the vase again, and seemed more satisfied by the experience. She turned and hugged Brin back. It wasn’t a warm or comfortable hug, again it felt like now a glass statue was wrapping its arms around him, but it was still something. She let go, and Brin stepped back. “I missed you as well, my dear boy. You must know how dearly I treasure this chance to see you again. But unfortunately it isn’t for sentimentality’s sake that I sent you this spell. There isn’t much time and we have much to discuss.”
“I understand,” said Brin.
“First, this spell. You must both swear to me that you will never reveal it to anyone, inside Frenaria or outside. You must not even speak of its existence. In fact, is this location warded against–?”
“It’s safe,” said Hogg. “And I swear; we won’t tell anyone.”
“I promise,” said Brin. “Do you want an Oath?”
Lumina looked to the side, acting a bit nervous. “Um. No. I think not.”
Hogg grinned. “Ha! You weren’t supposed to give us this, were you?”
“Well, I wasn't told not to do it,” said Lumina. “And I had good reason. As embarrassing as it would be to have this spell fall into the enemy hands, that’s nothing compared to how dangerous it would be to leak the information you sent me in your letter. Let me be clear: You must never again risk this information by writing it down. You must also never speak a word of what you told me in that letter. Not to each other, not to your friends, not even to the King himself.”
Brin had taken precautions with the letter he’d sent Lumina, of course. As soon as they’d gotten a safe place in Blackcliff, he’d told everything that he’d learned from Aberfa. Then he’d paid nearly seventy-five gold to cover it in enchantments against every form of spying, as well as a self-destruct spell should anyone but Lumina tamper with it. Then he’d had Sion’s family put it in a locked safe to deliver it with their caravan under heavy guard. He’d also had an Invisible Eye follow it for the first fifty miles of the journey, making sure no one opened the safe. But now, seeing the seriousness in Lumina’s eyes, he wished he’d been able to do more.
“We haven’t told anyone else,” he said.
“Then the three of us are all that know,” said Lumina.
“You haven’t told your Master? Or the King?” asked Hogg.
Lumina clasped her hands together. “Please understand. By carefully feeding the right information to her spy, I can manipulate events in such a way as to finally bring us victory. But every individual we bring into this is another point of failure. Keep in mind that Arcaena does not need one of us to turn traitor in order to discover that her secret is out. She may divine this information in our fates, or deduce it from slight inconsistencies in our actions. The three of us may slip by undetected if we are careful, but there is no one that Arcaena watches more closely than the King and his Master of Magic.”
“There’s also no one better protected against that sort of thing than the King and your Master. That’s a longshot, even for her,” said Hogg.
“I have other reasons. You know what a [Witch]-hunt can do to a town or city. Imagine what it could do to an entire nation! True, I fully believe that Arcaena chose a [Paladin] as her spy. This spell represents an enormous investment on her part, and she wouldn’t waste it on something less. It would be just like her to seek to corrupt a Class which is by definition incorruptible. But it isn’t a certainty, and she has slain more than only that [Paladin]. She has slain [Knights] and [Messengers]. [Assassins]. [Mages] and [Archmages]. Even a [Prince]! No one would be above suspicion. This knowledge would tear the country apart.”
“Unless only a few were told who could carefully snoop around, looking for those who have the warning signs,” said Hogg. “Look, I’m not saying you should tell everyone–”
“And what warning signs are those?” snapped Lumina. She answered her own question, “We’re searching for anyone who doesn’t remember his own childhood. And besides the man I have in mind, I can think of only one other who fits.”
“Me,” said Brin.
“Exactly.”
Hogg nodded and folded his arms. “Then we tell no one.”
Brin looked between his two adoptive parents in exasperation. “I can’t believe I have to keep saying this, but please don’t endanger the entire world on my account. If telling the King about the spy will help us win the war, then we should tell him!”
“I could never do that to you. Your situation here at court is already... somewhat fraught. I did pass on the list of names of Arcaena’s greatest servants that you provided, and the King received it very gratefully. So grateful was he that I was unable to obscure your existence. There are rumors about and schemes afoot.” Lumina paced a bit as she talked, then looked down at Hogg’s sofa, considering, before finally giving in and taking a seat.
“By all means, make yourself at home,” Hogg said sarcastically and then moved to his own favorite chair. “So what do you want us to do?”
“By now I had hoped to invite you to come to Steamshield, but I don’t think the Tower is quite safe for you at present. I’ve been investigating this [Caravan Master] Zerif you wrote me about, and as of this morning I’m beginning to believe he wasn’t working on behalf of Prinnash at all. It’s becoming more and more likely that he was working for one of my rivals here in Frenaria. There’s a Duke Xander of House Cobol that’s a particular danger. Stay away from his agents and subordinate houses if you are able. I also can’t have you return to Hammon’s Bog. They will know to look for you there. Hm. Remain in Blackcliff, I think, for the time being. We’ll meet again in two weeks, at noon with the same method. I hope I will have more for you then. In the meantime, finish up any business you may have; when the time comes to leave it may be with some urgency.” Lumina looked up suddenly at something that Brin and Hogg couldn’t see. “I must go!”
Her image disappeared.
Brin cursed. Hopefully Lumina wasn’t in some kind of trouble. How many rules had she broken by sending him this spell? She might be getting arrested right now, and he would have no idea until their appointment next week. Not to mention the fact that he still had a ton of questions for her. It wasn’t as important as the fate of the kingdom, but she’d promised to look into figuring out what happened to that caravan he’d subsidized almost two years ago.
“Got it,” Hogg said to the empty air. “I’m about done in this town anyway.”
Brin looked back at Hogg, still worried about whatever had interrupted Lumina so suddenly. It took him a second to think of what Hogg was talking about. “Then you mean–?”
“Yep. I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be. That’s what I was going to tell you before; I’m finally ready to take my money back.”