Chapter 50: Seekers That See(k) Too Much

Subject: Inis Location: ???

A slight bump jostled Inis awake. Her thoughts were cloudy, and her eyelids didn’t seem to want to open. Even a second jerk wasn’t enough to force her mind clear.

The wagon traveled along an uneven dirt road at a steady pace. Inis knew she was in a wagon because this particular wagon was hers. Everything from the comfortable seat to the low hum of the power unit was familiar.

“Sorry about the terrain, friend,” a man beside her apologized. “I know that big one startled ‘ya awake, you rustled a bit. It’ll be like this the rest of the way. This border city isn’t connected to the others by public roads, though I can’t fathom why. It’s the oldest, ain’t it? Why not lay a fancy new road here first?”

The sound of someone so close by made Inis’s eyes snap open. She twisted around in the seat and lunged at the other passenger, grabbing him by the shirt.

When she did so, she also activated her virasenses. It surprised her how easily she could do so, and how little effort it took to maintain the focus. More than that, she saw so much more than usual.

The fine details of Inis’s immediate surroundings drew into focus effortlessly, and she immediately knew all she wanted to confirm right now.

He was a human stranger in the period of adulthood where she could no longer accurately discern his age.

Nothing dangerous on him. Just a whistle and a full coin pouch. Was he paid to capture me and bring me somewhere?

Why could she see his possessions so clearly? She even saw thick tufts of messy hair beneath layers of a thick coat, but not one so thick as to heavily dampen a living vira signature.

Had she somehow managed to master virasense in her sleep? It wasn’t normal.

“Who are you?!” Inis demanded, adjusting her grip so she could hold on while the engine slowed the wagon to a stop. “Who paid you?”

She was wary of the whistle in particular, worried that it was something worn to draw allies close if he ran into trouble on a “job”. She maneuvered slightly to ensure he was not able to reach it, but the man just chuckled. He held up his hands to show he had no intention of resisting.

“You warned me you might be unpredictable when you woke up, but I had to see it to believe it. I’m not your enemy, Inis. You paid me to steer your wagon while you sleep, remember?”

I paid him, huh?

She let go and let him sit upright.

“Move slowly, I still don’t believe you.”

There was no stranger that Inis would trust to watch over her and her most valuable possessions when she was at her most vulnerable.

“Could I say a few things you told me to tell you if something happened? Now I see why you went through the trouble of making me learn it good.”

“Go ahead…”

“Thank you. Your family name is a mystery, but I suspect you may have one. You don’t go by Inistra, but that’s your full name, Inis. First, I don’t know your past, so don’t worry about that. I know you’re registered as a merchant, and you’ve indeed got some strange tools in this living wagon of yours. You could be just that, a merchant, or you could even be a theocracy agent. It isn’t my business, so keep it to yourself if you like.”

These words alone weren’t enough to make Inis let up. Calling her by this name meant he actually didn’t know her past, though, or he was a very good liar.

Unless they were speaking to an agent of the state, citizens were free to go by another name She would have used one of a handful of travel names for a temporary acquaintance, so that was suspicious.

“My only business is doing what I’ve been paid to do: steer this wagon to Arlcada. Beyond that, I don’t care who or what you are. You paid in advance, so I’ll do my job.”

It still didn’t add up. Actually, now it really didn’t add up.

“Why would I pay you in advance and just trust you while I slept? Who does that?”

“Right? I couldn’t believe it either. I don’t know, but you came up to me in quite a state, tired and talking strangely. When you found out a convoy was leaving so soon, you looked agitated. Couldn’t afford to hire guards yourself, safety in numbers is the best us small-time folks get. I might have rejected you even though I needed the business, but you gave me just more than my usual asking price, upfront. Crazy girl.”

Inis leaned back and tried to remember. The stranger sat up and immediately started the wagon’s engine again. After fumbling with the controls a bit, it shuddered to life and began to accelerate to the speed it was going at before, barely faster than a rushed walk.

The journey to Arlcada was long, and a convoy wouldn’t want to take a long rough road like this too fast or risk damage to luggage, draw the attention of local beasts, or overtire their shelpacs.

A shelpac was the favorite choice of a convoy driver. Where they lost out to other common beasts of burden in terms of speed they more than made up for in hardiness. To confirm this, Inis extended her virasense radius and picked up two such creatures pulling a heavy wagon up front, and three more beasts pulling three small wagons behind them.

A shelpac’s hardened exterior protected it from harm and thoroughly blocked vira energy. However, not only did Inis find it easier to maintain this greater radius, but she was also surprised to find she could concentrate on the gaps in the boney plating to see much more than she should have been able to.

The beasts in the back were bred by a mercenary company, no doubt. With her eyes, Inis wouldn’t have been able to tell that, but feedback supplied by virasense more than made up for that. Oh, and the military armaments equipped by the riders would have helped her figure that out too.

The road took a sharp bend. Inis’s partner knew how to operate her sophisticated machine. It lent credence to his story, as most people wouldn’t be able to manipulate the levers to make a thing like this move, even if he didn’t look comfortable with the task.

She couldn’t even remember the last thing that happened to her. She had memories, sure, but which memory was really the last? It was like this man’s story was filling in the gaps but not necessarily with the truth.

She watched the scenery passing by while she continued thinking herself ragged. Deactivating her virasenses, she could appreciate the hardier trees that grew in the far north. Bleak white bark, lower treetops, and jagged branches. Thinking about it, Inis couldn’t even name the species of tree these belonged to. Did she ever know it?

The convoy couldn’t be more than a few days into the long journey. It did appear to be a convoy, one of the only ways most people could afford to survive the journey from city to city. By grouping together, they could hire many more guards to ward off beasts and bandits alike.

Enforcers did patrol the roads, but you couldn’t trust them to protect you. The roads were long, and theocracy fanatics made for poor company, even if you were on their good side.

“I might have thought you were in trouble with the law, but you were oddly patient. Didn’t press me, so here we are. Name’s Mertalo, not that you asked. I can tell you forgot.”

Or I didn’t care enough to learn.

Subject: Inis Location: ???

The two sat in silence for some time before Mertalo opened his mouth again.

“I understand you’ve been through something rough.”

She didn’t answer him, but he rambled on like the wagon.

“Blight Seekers always make the most interesting passengers, you know.”

“Did I say I was a seeker?”

Inis glared suspiciously and discreetly confirmed her badge was concealed beneath her rough traveling coat of brown and faded grey. There was a chill in the north even on a comfortable day in the midlands.

“Didn’t have to. I’ve taken many people to many places, and these long journeys give you a lot of time to hear all sorts of things. The seekers have the hardest time sleeping soundly. If they’ve had enough experience under their belts, they’re an entirely different person when they wake up.”

“Different how?”

“Not as different as you’ve been, I tell you, but different all the same. Mumble about one thing falling asleep, usually something normal folks would find strange, then they wake up sweating and feral. Don’t know where they are.”

“I’m not a seeker.”

Technically, Inis was a seeker, but she still didn’t consider herself a “real” one. She was a scholar. A scholar mage, but magic was just a tool. Given that she might have chosen a different scholarly focus had things been different in the past, maybe there was no “true” answer she could give.

“Never said you were. This is only the veterans that get like that anyway, and you’re too young to be a veteran. I wouldn’t have taken this job if I thought I was in for that trouble this month. I say that, but I might have involved myself in it anyway.”

“I was just startled.”

Mertalo nodded awkwardly without protesting her claim.

“I’m just happy you’re acting more… Well, you were so lifeless before. Different air can bring a person back sometimes. It’s partly why I began this job all those years ago. I wanted to see the world, and I wanted to meet new people. That was the only way I thought I could last through that year, and I’ve made it many more years since.”

The way the man was opening up now didn’t seem part of this usual routine with the strangers he met on the road. He was glowering fiercely at the road ahead, thoughts no doubt trapped back in that dark point in his life. It made Inis uncomfortable, but she didn’t know why.

“You act like it didn’t work, though.”

She didn't look at him, instead choosing to stare at the same dirt path, scarred by wheel tracks and hoofprints.

“It did work, for a time, but…”

“But?”

“I learned that I didn’t want to trade my life for anyone else’s. I learned I didn’t want to be anywhere more than anywhere else. Sure, there are better and worse places to be, better and worse people to be with, but they don’t stay that way. Frankly, life’s a mess.”

Inis supposed this was the insight of having lived on the road, meeting all those people. Inis kept to herself so she knew only enough about people to decide to avoid them.

“I’ve never looked through a seeker’s eyes to see what they see in the festerfonts, but it must be worse than the blightbeasts they describe with only their lips. It must be something worth bringing a person to tears while they try to choke themselves in their sleep. It must be more terrifying than the wilderness beasts or bands of savage bandits that make convoys vanish each month.”

He still had more to say, but Inis didn’t really feel like stopping him yet. She studied the Blight, and it’s influence on the seekers that fought it was important too.

“Is it really like that for accomplished seekers?” Inis asked, glancing in his direction.

“I don’t know. I know what I see, not what they really feel. I know what they try to explain, but not why that doesn’t match up with the way they act. I know what to do to calm most of them down, just not why they’d want to see or hear those things.”

There was a rustling in the underbrush. She activated her virasense and sighted a small pack of beasts sniffing the convoy for weak points.

Rather than let the mercenaries eventually find them and take time to deal with them, potentially forcing the convoy to slow and bunch up for safety, Inis decided to act.

A viradart found each target’s head, and their vira signatures faded away. Her eyes lingered on this sight, accustomed to battling the pseudo-life entities in the festerfonts. Not that she didn’t hunt for her meals while camping every day, it was just a sight to behold is all.

Mertalo looked concerned at the sight of the magic, but she signaled that the threat was dealt with. He let out a sigh, but not one of relief.

“What do you do to calm the seekers? What do you say to them?”

He cleared his throat and looked away from the spot where she’d fired her magic.

“The sight of my blood does it for some people. I didn’t mean to do it the first few times, but fighting off an aggressive seeker, even an unarmed one, usually leads to a weary guide getting injured. They just stare at the blood and mumble about it not being dangerous. Can you believe it?”

Inis didn’t respond, but she was curious. If they needed to make conversation to pass the time, this was a discussion she’d choose.

“I didn’t at first, but sometimes I do it myself because at least then I control where the wound is. Or, another thing that works is only possible if I can find a small creature in the wilderness. The first time it happened it was a young Blunt Strider on the way to a farm down south. A rich merchant was hoping to find a buyer where all that land was being settled at the time and didn't even have one lined up. Oh, I suppose that was before you were born.”

“I can read. Anyway, what did the seeker do?”

“The strider wandered close to our carriage just as she was waking up, and then she pounced on the poor thing, slew it with her spear. When it died, she said she was relieved it ‘left behind a corpse’. The merchant and I were speechless, about to get into it over who was to blame, but she calmed down and immediately paid for three times the cost of the creature. After that, the three of us were the best of friends for the rest of the journey. But if I can find a small animal around, I’ll kill it or tell them to kill it and it calms them down. I don’t do it with a ridiculous weapon like that woman’s spear, mind you. I use my knife.”

“If you’re killing something for a reason like that, quick and as painless as possible is what matters, not the weapon.”

“Such a crazy weapon, though.”

“You don’t have a knife on you, why aren’t you carrying it?”

“How did you...? The knife is in the back. It was one of the conditions you made, told me it would protect me if it wasn’t on me.”

Thinking about it, he might have had some details wrong. Not that Inis was some kind of expert. She just had a sneaking suspicion.

“That crazy weapon… did it happen to have a vamplate?”

“A vam-what?”

“A circular plate around the shaft, it protects the wielder’s hands. Also, was it strange in any other way? Like, in how it was made?”

Her companion scratched his head and squinted down the road.

“I think it did, maybe? Could be remembering things wrong in my old age, but it coulda’ made a strange sound? I didn’t really remember that part ‘till now, but it wasn’t noticeable enough to leave much of an impression. The seeker was stronger than she looked, though.”

My mother was the first to use that weapon. She tested the original prototype.

“I think that was an early version of the Techlance. If it was, it wasn’t a spear, and that seeker who owned it was extraordinarily wealthy. Makes sense she could afford to pay for the strider like it was nothing.”

These stories were interesting. Inis thought she could maybe incorporate some of this information, so without thinking, she reached into the back of the wagon where her pack was stored in the same place she usually stashed it. In the pack beside the headset she’d been looking for was an unusual possession.

Why’s my tome Coercing Payment in here? Was I trying to keep people from stealing it? Not like most of these commoners can read anything past their name, a sign, or maybe a menu…

That was more like learning to recognize symbol patterns than true reading. It was true that books were still valuable, but most fools wouldn’t know that. It was more concerning that she still hadn’t remembered anything. It was all one long blank.

Inis put on the headset and explained what it did to Mertalo. He was surprised to see it, and it took some convincing before he was able to loosely understand its function. She had him retell the previous stories before going on. If her memory failed her, at least she had these memgel canisters to go on.

“Oh, so this next one might be a little offensive… oh but I suppose we’re talking about seekers here, so it comes with the territory. Sometimes, I describe the ways a person can… ‘satisfy themselves’... wherever we happen to be going. Places to visit, people to talk to… that kind of thing. The story behind how I discovered that solution is personal and I’d rather not get into it, especially with that thing listening.”

“Not necessary. That you believe it to be helpful to bring seekers to their senses is enough information for me.”

Mertalo nodded appreciatively.

“There’s really only one other thing that works when the other attempts fail. Oddly, it only works on the toughest and most experienced fellows.”

“Curious. What do you do for seekers like that?”

“I tell them that everyone’s alone and will one day die. I say they will too. I said it to this one fellow and he just broke down sobbing. I was apologizing, said his violent behavior had scared me and I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but he just thanked me, eyes still red with tears. He was happy to hear it.”

“These things really calm them? No, I can see why…”

“You do?! Can you tell me? Or, maybe I don’t want to know.”

“It’s nothing you couldn’t understand, at least for the ones I know. Blightbeasts don’t die, so it is only natural a seeker would be comforted to know they weren’t in a festerfont.”

“‘Course blightbeasts die. Seekers get paid to kill ‘em. Even I know that.”

“Not technically, no. They discorporate, dematerialize, or disperse, depending on who you ask. You may not understand the difference, but a seeker does and that is why a genuinely living creature comforts them, especially in death.”

Mertalo shrugged, confused but willing to take Inis’s word for it.

“It’s the same with seeing blood. Your blood is nothing like the blood of a blightbeast. I think I understand why sex talk does it, but I could be wrong. If I’m right, a carnal desire is soothing because it is what living things do. They feast, fight, and fornicate. Blightbeasts mimic the first, have their own version of the second, but they can never understand reproductive urges because they are born and die as they are.”

Inis’s companion let out a hearty laugh and slapped his leg. He took some time to calm down, but she waited patiently.

“This is why I lead such an interesting life. Seekers may be trouble, but they make the most interesting passengers. I may not understand half of what you say, but I get the gist. That last one, though… Have any idea why some of them want to hear such a sad thing?”

“No, I don’t have an answer for you on that one, but I think I might find out soon enough.”

“Careful now, you’re not a seeker, remember?” Mertalo teased. “But if you wanted to pretend like you were one, I’m always willing to listen. A seeker lives a life far too intense for an old bag of bones like me, but sometimes talking helps.”

Inis sucked in a deep breath and leaned back. She clicked her headset off and slid it into her bag.

“I’ve never been a talkative person. Not to others, at least. But, I might be willing to open up a little on this long journey if I could just remember what I’ve been like lately. It’s not even a haze, it’s all just one big blank. I think something bad happened to me, but I don’t know what”

Mertalo made the saddest expression Inis had seen yet, but he didn’t try to comfort her. A man like this knew there was nothing he could say that would work. This wasn’t like his strategies for calming seekers, it was something different.