Thirty

The Narrow house near Wellgate was about to have another visitor. Like Sylvie, Sebastian followed the inner city wall, although for different reasons. After the encounter with Kord he had come to the conclusion that his earlier paranoia was not entirely unwarranted: if the Old Lady knew he was in town during a disaster such as this, he was quite certain some other gods knew as well. The half-elf also reasoned they were quite happy to let him do the work... and strike later if they were to strike. Something about the thought knotted his guts. It wasn't the fear of death, but the fear of breaking a promise.

Bearing all of this in mind, he had begun to truly watch his surroundings and made plans to weave complex paths through the city whenever on the move. So far he thought he had shaken off at least two individual shadows trying to follow him.

He had stood at the Wellgate crossing for a while, both to see if there were any shadows and to shake his head at the... interesting building solution that served as the mage Brannig's home. Of the two he could only see the home, and so Sebastian snuck through the rain toward the narrow front of the house, not the least bothered that he was probably getting a cold.

The Hat took such things in stride, whereas Kai might have allowed himself a bit of common sense. He rang the bell and smiled broadly when the door opened. "Good day, madame - aside from the absolutely horrid rain of course. I take it this is the residence of Brannig?"

"Yes, but he's away on business, for days, if not weeks." Her tone was on the cold side of neutral.

Then she narrowed her eyes and stared at Sebastian's pointed ears and asked sharply, "Another of Grinosh's pals, are you?"

If not for his eyes, which were so bright they seemed to nearly glow, she'd have taked it as a given, but she couldn't hink of a relatively easy way to fake that.

"I have not had the chance to make the acquaintance with this Grinosh you speak of. But you must be Martha," he said chipperly, only grinning in good humour. "Might I come in? I have a message to relay to you from Brannig and following that I am afraid I require your capable assistance in the form of directions so that I may carry the second message he has entrusted me with."

As far as scowls went, Martha's spoke of a considerable amount of disgust. "What now? Oh, I guess you'd better come in, then."

The corridor held nothing but a narrow staircase with a coatrack undernath, and a collection of maps on the opposite wall. Martha left through the only door on this floor, taking the lantern with her.

The room beyond was a reception room with shades of office; a crown glass window with coloured panes around the edges, but dark now, since the shutters were closed, a small desk and three comfortable chairs, shelves on the walls holding a few books, but more odds and ends - cracked ceramic pots, a few carved bones.

Martha set down the lantern on the desk, half sat on, half leaned against the edge, and motioned Sebastian to take a seat. "Well, then, what is it?"

"Thank you," he said as he sat down and took a deep breath, by all appearances doing his best to leave as little water in his wake as possible. Leaving the raincloak behind on the coatrack solved most of that problem, of course.

He wasted no time getting down to relaying the message, seeing as Martha was agitated. Sebastian cleared his throat. "My message is rather simple: your nephew wishes to assure you that the journey is going well so far, although the weather is so very damnably bad. The roads are really in no condition, let me tell you," he sniffed. "Therefore he expects that the trip may take longer than previously assumed. He indicated that he would, gods willing, retake this lost time on the return leg. Though of course he could not say when this was..."

"I told him from the start," she said, sighing.

The half-elf smiled sympathetically and shrugged. "As for my second message, it is for the gentlemen that approached him about whatever it is messier Brannig is travelling because of... Brice and..." Blink, blink. "Ah, Ludovic, yes. Have I got it right?"

"Yes, those Saba brats. You wanted directions to their property?" Martha's manner had softened a bit, being now matter-of-factly rather than hostile.

"Precisely, madam." He paused, looking troubled for a moment. "Forgive me for asking, but you do not seem to think much of them? Am I likely to have problems with them?"

She shrugged. "That family in general carries their noses to high for their own good. Ludovic in particular, I think some of the rain got into his head and made it leaky."

Sebastian smiled. "Ah. I see. Perhaps I will avoid dealing with this Ludovic, then."

"Well, good luck with that." She added the directions he'd asked for.

"I have to say. I wasn't expecting him to bring anyone not of the faith into this. I'm surprised that he even asked me to help in the first place."

Sylvie shrugged. "This needs to be solved soon, so asking for help is only practical, no?"

"Maybe. Maybe. It just didn't seem like the Fox to do such a thing, but then, who knows what that man is thinking. Regardless, we shouldn't hurry too much with Montmore."

"He's likely to react badly to a lack of pleasantries?"

"Oh, no, nothing of the sort. He just... likes to take his time when it comes to some things. If he invites us to stay for dinner or some such, we'll be there well into the night."

"Oh, joy."

"It's not so bad. If we tell him that we have places to be, he'll just offer tea or wine or some such."

"Good. Are you going to start the conversation, since you know him?"

"Sure. I don't mind. What are we going to tell him if he asks what we want the book for?"

"Cursed secrecy. Can you ask for a book about weather magic at a time like this without the reason being the current weather?"

"Well, he might even joke about it for all I know. But sure, I don't see why not -- just as long as we don't ask for it the moment we arrive. It won't be hard to change the topic to magic, will it?"

"Probably not, and it certainly won't be a problem bringing up weather." Sylvie considered a moment. "If we need a cover story, it sounded like the kind of book that would also include folk magic and superstitions, some of which may tie in with the work at Old Ivy. What herb or wood to stash under your roof for protection against thunderstrike and these things."

"That's pretty inspired. I think it'll do it. If we need to use it."

Another nod. "We'll see."

Auker led them to a three-storey building roughly the shape of a rectangle, muttering a few choice curses along the way when she walked into a puddle deeper than it had seemed. As luck would have it (like Auker noted), it just had to be the puddle in front of Montmore's home. Montmore's city mansion was not quite as opulent as the term implied, but compared to most houses, it certainly was larger... and possibly just as old, too.

There was no fine strategy involved in getting the master's attention. Auker simply marched to the door and knocked loudly, then waited for a moment. When nobody showed up, she knocked again, this time even more insistently.

Finally a well-groomed black-haired man in his mid-thirties opened the door, an absent-minded expression glued on his face. He did not look the slightest annoyed or worried when he looked from Sylvie to Auker, then back again. He smiled. "I see. Come on in."

Auker said: "'I see?' Is that how you say hello to an old friend?" and walked inside into the space vacated by the man.

He laughed. "I guessed you would rather want to come inside than stay outside, Auker. Hello to you. This is fascinating, I was just thinking about you."

"I'm sure you were. Did you think about Sylvie here, too? Yes, Sylvie, meet Montmore. Montmore, this is Sylvie. I told her there's something more fun to do in this city than to watch it rain."

Montmore laughed. "No, you must be joking? Surely there's no such thing, that would be preposterous." He nodded to Sylvie, still smiling broadly. He had dimples, and the good grace to not cover them with a beard. Montmore had settled for a moustache instead. "Welcome to my home. I will take it that you've come to relieve me of my tedium, the both of you?"

Auker smiled. "We sure have. But only for a while. You know I can't afford to stay late."

Montmore raised both eyebrows, as if even a little disappointed. "Oh well. Tea and sandwiches? Maybe wine, the weather really is dreadful. How about it?"

And, after Auker expressed that he was just delaying the inevitable, Montmore grinned, let them get rid of their coats and cloaks, and led them through the house. It was remarkably quiet and dark. Grandfather clocks stood in a room that had a stairwell, although one only of them ticked. While they were climbing the stairs to the second floor, they came across a servant, whom Montmore instructed to bring wine, tea and the usual set of edibles to the second floor.

Soon, they were in a comfortable little study that had two couches, a glass table and stacks of books, a globe and anything a man interested in practically anything might need. There was a lamp that changed colour from blue to green to white and to blue again. It was the only thing strange in the room.

Sylvie had kept mostly quiet, meeting smile with smile, and watched. Entering the study she paid no particular attention to the lamp, and out of habit tried to read the titles of the books next to her, but stopped herself immediately - it might be considered rude.

However, the globe caught her curiosity. She indicated it and asked Montmore, "May I?" After he nodded, she studied it. It was quite easy to find the region they were in now, since most of it was either blank, or showed very little detail, so the well-mapped part would have to be here. It reminded her of Riya's idea to become a cartographer, and she smiled. If this wasn't an old globe, there certainly was enough work left.

"Interested in cartography, are you?" Montmore asked curiously as he poured Auker some more wine, glancing at the priestess with what was most likely a half-hearted admonition. He seemed genuinely interested in knowing.

"Not exactly." She was interested in places, not maps, but hesitated. It had been a bad idea. Giving an opening to questions like 'where do you come from?' was no good. "I know someone who would like to learn the trade."

Montmore smiled. "I understand. It's a very important science, I feel. We know so little about things outside our own sandbox, it's a shame."

"Mmm, I don't mind it that way," Auker said.

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Montmore asked.

"Out in town, probably getting drunk or talking to old women."

Montmore didn't seem to know what to make of this.

Sylvie chuckled. "Maybe it'll explore the world on its own, then it can't get you into trouble."

Auker grinned. "Knowing my luck..."

Montmore groaned. "That was uncalled for, Au. Uncalled for."

Yet Auker just shrugged. "You're one to talk. You can hardly stop working yourself."

"And I thought this was me not working, dear," the man said with an easy smile. "What else can I do, really? I can't tend to my garden, and going out in this weather... bah."

Sylvie finally sat down, too, relaxed. "It seems like there's a limit to our sandbox when we look up, too - or does anyone really know how weather works?"

Montmore blinked. "Well, there's a theory, and it fits the bill adequately. Mind you that by theory I mean a peer-reviewed hypothesis..." he caught Auker's look and grinned. "Sorry about that. I just mean that a theory isn't just a wild guess about something. There's some very educated guesses, of course, and then there are facts derived through observation."

"So, do any of them explain this?" Auker asked drily, poking a thumb toward the window.

Montmore glanced out the window. "A foreigner of some sort asked me a similar question some time ago. I'll tell you what I told him. It's freakish, yes, but hardly unheard of." He sipped his wine. "Let me return to the question. Yes, even farmers have a basic idea of how the weather works. We do not know all the particulars, but we have a fairly good idea."

"Such is life: The details you're missing turn out to be the crucial ones," Sylvie declaimed, paraphrasing a saying.

"Maybe so," Montmore said with a smile that told of his sudden pensiveness. "Do you know, I could pretend to know much about the subject, but the most I know is included in three books right there."

"Really?" asked Auker.

"Really. Are you interested?"

"Well..." she looked at Sylvie.

"Of course. Never anything wrong with learning something new."

"Quite!" said Montmore, setting his cup of tea down and standing up. He made his way past Sylvie and the globe, then rose to stand on his toes. With a bit of fumbling, he extracted first one book, then another, then a third one. As the mage took the books, he blathered on about each one of them excitedly.

"This first one, by Hammagus, wrote this some few hundred years ago. He was one of the first to study weather. He didn't deal with magic, but he was a very good scientist. A better ornithologist, however...

"The second, hm, I have to confess I could never read it to its end. Terribly stuffy material, even from a pompous mage. Theory, theory, theory, endless calculations... but apparently Jafnaden was very thorough," Montmore said as he turned the second book around with a bored expression. He piled the third one on it. "Because Caledinina -- this last one -- supposedly said the theory was not only mostly sound, also workable. Her own insights into the matter are far more reader-friendly, of course. Purely expository, but fascinating." He sniffed.