4th Ashan, 719
“…and that’s Aurelian, Tulis‘ husband. He runs the smithy.”
From his position on the other side of the street, Pharan watched a dark skinned Ithecal sharpen a heavy, two-edged sword. A ram fur rode the broad line of his shoulders, his only concession to the early Ashan cold as he worked a massive grindstone in the courtyard of his workshop.
“And Tulis was Praxes only child?”
“No… he has two other children, Gaulas and Danius. They both serve with the military.” By his side, Jaene adjusted the clasp of her fur-trimmed cloak. “They don’t have—”
“—why are we here?”, Pharan interrupted softly. He had kept his voice low, so it wouldn’t carry across the street, but he sensed people’s attention. Someone in the half-dark of the smithy was watching them.
When his mentor had set out from the tavern, he had thought they would take another walk across the city. Two, three breaks in the cold, interrupted only by Jaene’s occasional lecture of this or that point of interest. Instead, they had wound up in Lattarsh, beside a smithy that filled him with a vague sense of dread. Or maybe, it was only its inhabitants.
“I thought you might want to see her. Tulis and her family.”
Pharan looked towards the courtyard again. Three Ithecal, a head shorter than Aurelian, busied themselves around the workplace, laying out or cleaning tools, watching their father work. Tulis’ children. Praxes grandchildren. Jaene had given him the name for all three of them, but already he had trouble telling the three apart. That, too, added to his irritation.
“I wouldn’t know what to tell them.” He turned half around, away from the smithy, towards Jaene. Overhead, the sun was a sallow smudge among gray clouds.
“Tell her you knew her father. What you remember of him. People want to hear that those they lost are not forgotten,” Jaene said, casting him a sidelong glance. “What would you say at home?”
“Nothing. We don’t mourn the dead.”
There would be a funeral pyre. There would be a procession—of sorts. More a gathering of family. There would be no tears. None of the grim, heartfelt, sorrow-stricken displays he had observed outside Athart. And for those who didn’t return, there wouldn’t even be that.
Sensing Jaene’s attention he looked up to meet her eyes. “What?”, he questioned indignantly.
“I don’t know”, his mentor said. “I am just curious. It’s not like you take strongly after your brethren after all.”
And whose fault is that, pray tell?, Pharan thought and searched for her eyes. Unlike her full-blooded brothers and sisters, his mentor’s eyes were a deep, bottomless brown. They were also void of discernable emotion.
He looked back towards the smithy again. A small figure arranged knives and daggers for display on a small table. Although a child, it was already taller than him.
“Maybe another time.”
Jaene lifted one hand. A slender Ithecal woman who had just stepped outside returned the gesture. She was shorter than Aurelian, her scales the pale green-brown of mud. Tulis. Pharan hesitated. He searched her features for a semblance to the old hunter he had known for so many arcs and found he couldn’t. They were similar, but only in the way most Ithecal resembled each other. The woman took a step forward and Pharan turned, briskly heading after his mentor. He caught up with her at the corner.
For a time, they walked in silence. Around them, houses grew stunted and alleys crooked as they rounded Yrithal’s summit and descended towards the harbor districts. In a false display of equality, Pharan had fallen in step with the Half-Eídisi.
“Inya”, he started, his eyes on the street ahead. “You said she hated me… how would you know? I could tell because she was all too eager to let me know of her spite, but you looked at her, and you knew.”
Jaene had set her eyes on a stall selling herbs, but at his words, she passed it. She cast him a momentary glance. “You can determine the provenance of any emotional thread with a little skill and focus. My mentor used to call the technique tapestry—a too grand name for what it does if you ask me. It won’t give you what you seek with such clarity, but it will give you a vague shape of a person, an object, a connection to whatever led the emotion to develop.”
His mentor looked around, then motioned towards a potbellied man down the street. “Try it.”
Pharan pursed his lips.
“Mortal law. Immortal law—magic is a violation in an of itself", she said as if she sensed his hesitation. "And if it’s only a violation of the laws of nature,” she added, casting him an expectant look. “No one here, no one watches us, and we are only going to take a short peek.”