Quest
The commander forbade sitting during meetings—said it encouraged sloth and endless debate. Which was probably why he made straight for a chair the moment everyone else left.
A row of velvet-padded, high-backed chairs stood by the hearth—old enough to date back to the Age of Blood. Mathaiik ignored them. Commander Talu hadn’t given him permission to sit.
Talu studied Math as he approached. “Sending you along with the others was not my original plan. Alik Nuhzar isn’t wrong: you’ve no business being in the field on a job like this.”
Math’s throat tightened. “Yes, Commander. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
“I don’t know what the mission is.”
Talu chuckled lowly. “Of course. You missed the briefing. Your sister didn’t tell you?”
He didn’t want to throw her under the cart, but Commander Talu could sniff out a lie better than anyone. “Only that plants were involved, Commander.”
“Aye,” the old man agreed. “Plants are involved. This morning we received an alert by messenger bird that a local lumber camp had been attacked by ‘plant grimmocks.’ By the time we received the message and Captain Danvi scried the location, everyone at the scene was dead. It’s not clear who or what was responsible.
I’m dispatching Captains Rabu and Yihura with their people to find out what happened.
” He shook a finger at Math. “Your job is not to fight, but to provide information. If you cause Lieutenant Nuhzar any problems, he’ll send you back home the long way. ”
Math shifted uncomfortably. He’d been at rigid attention ever since the commander had confirmed the plant grimmocks. “Commander. You know how important this is to me.”
“I also know you still haven’t manifested your resonant weapon. Elemental manifestation is one of the foundation stones of our order, and I’m supposed to let a novitiate who still hasn’t mastered that fight beside knights?”
“You let me—”
“I sent you out on minor investigative cases because our backlog is overflowing and we don’t have enough knights. Last week was not supposed to have put you up against grimmocks.”
They weren’t grimmocks, Math stopped himself from saying. He silently counted his breaths.
He’d learned long ago how often senior members of the Order said things just to test someone’s self-control.
“When you came here, we all thought you’d be the next Vesgariik. That your knighthood was simply a question of time. And now…” The look in Talu’s eyes was worse than anger. It was pity.
“Alik Nuhzar’s report on your last mission is one of the most scathing pieces of writing it’s ever been my displeasure to read. You must do better. Do I have to spell out just how thin the ice underneath you is?”
Math swallowed. “No, Commander.”
“Now, as for earlier … you don’t expect me to believe you were late because of your punishment, do you? You weren’t meeting with a paramour, were you?”
All the blood rushed to Math’s face. “I, uh … I don’t…” He swallowed. “No, Commander. I am chaste as the Order demands.”
Commander Talu rolled his eyes. “How quickly people forget that I, too, grew up in the Order and remember being young.”
Math shifted. He preferred to think of Izhiik Talu as someone who’d never been sexually active in any capacity. “Yes, Commander.”
“If not a paramour, then what? And in case you were curious,” Commander Talu drawled, “this is the part where you volunteer an explanation.”
Math cleared his throat. “Thank you, sir. I was late because I couldn’t wake. I was caught in an enchanted trap.” He bit his lip, debated how much to say. “We were wrong about the wall map of the antechamber, sir. It’s not the safe route through the maze at all. Just the opposite.”
Commander Talu leaned forward in his chair, firelight haloing his white hair. “Explain.”
Math opened his journal to the right page and handed it over. “I sketched the map on the wall first. Then I tried a third-circle translation spell, which did nothing—”
“And has been tried many times before.” The commander handed the journal back.
“Sure, because it’s not language. So it came to me: What if I tried a seeing spell?”
Talu gave him a single, slow blink.
“I know what you’re thinking, but it worked!”
“Compose yourself, Novitiate.”
Math straightened. “Yes, sir.”
“You used clairvoyance on an object right in front of you?” Talu frowned. “That’s a fifth-circle Sky spell. You don’t have the experience or skill to handle a spell of that rank.”
“Is it? I didn’t know. It didn’t feel that hard … I just sort of figured it out.”
Talu pursed his lips. “Do not do so again. It is too dangerous.” He tilted his head, then gestured. “Continue.”
“I triggered the map’s enchantment. Which gave me a series of visions, each containing a choice between two options: life and death, violence and peace, things like that. Each time I chose, a new vision began. It went on like that until I…” Math’s voice trailed off. “Well. Until I woke.”
“And you endured this for four days?” Commander Talu’s expression was inscrutable.
“No,” Math lied quickly. “I just, um, no. I didn’t figure out the seeing spell trick until yesterday.”
Talu didn’t react. Didn’t call him out. Which meant either he believed it—or he knew, and chose not to press. That was almost worse.
“Ah.”
“The important part, though, is that when I woke up, the map on the wall had changed.” Math fought not to grin.
“We’ve always assumed the bas relief showed the safe passage through the maze, but what if we have it backward?
What if the map doesn’t reflect the correct path through the maze—it controls it.
You can only solve the maze if you first solve the map. ”
The commander looked poleaxed. “I never would have imagined … wait. Did you?”
“Did I what? Oh. Did I solve it? Tri-Mother, no. I wasn’t even close.”
There was a pause—long enough that Math wasn’t sure if he should brace for rebuke or thanks.
The commander nodded thoughtfully. “I see.” Then: “Still, it’s excellent work. I would not, perhaps, tell anyone just yet, nor mention the unauthorized magic. No one has to know you were involved. I’ll take it from here once the Captain of Riddles has calmed down.”
“Captain Qin was pretty angry,” Math agreed.
“Idallik Knights are never angry, only righteous,” Commander Talu rebuked.
“Then I’d say he was feeling incredibly righteous, Commander.”
The corner of Talu’s mouth quirked. “Yes, I suppose he was. Now go. I trust you to behave appropriately. And hurry: I doubt Lieutenant Nuhzar would appreciate being forced to lag behind waiting for you.”