Teller of Fate
Fifth Movement: The Power Under Glyph
Chapter Forty-Three
* * *
Bradwold the Above-the-Hipbone Disemboweller ran into Darmorel the Well-Spoken and Quolamin the Well-Manicured on his way out. They were in one of the larger pub rooms on the ground floor. The fighter and magick user were sitting with his least favourite person.
Braddley the Below-the-Hipbone Disemboweller was just dealing a hand of Syrat, a game that used a standardized reproduction of the actual deck. “Bradwold, the Rib-tickler! We’re just starting a new game! Join is, do.”
Braddley was the reason Bradwold wasn’t just ‘the Disemboweller’ anymore, among other atrocities.
Handsome in a manicured, mirror loving way, Braddley was also a poseur. Always seen to be in the party, always saying the right thing at the right time, Braddley always managed to be the second or third guy into the fight and usually managed to avoid being in range of any counterattack.
He’d get one and only one actual hit and so an equal share of any loot. It always mystified Bradwold that almost no one else saw him for the blatant faker he was.
Brad responded as civilly as he cared to. “Thank you, no. I’ve business to attend to elsewhere. You know how it is—or at least so your reputation goes.” He smiled his most perfect smile.
Braddley frowned.
“I must be off, now. Darm. Quol. Gutbuster.”
Braddley’s smile slipped again, but not by much.
Brad left before the other could reply.
* * *
The light above had dimmed considerably since Bradwold had awoken, or maybe his eyes had finally adjusted.
The crowds in the plaza were even denser than they had been coming in, though they seemed quieter than he would have thought. The crowds in the Griffin had certainly been louder, yesterday. He shrugged off the minor mystery.
First things first. He was hungry.
With Dæv hustling him out the door, Brad hadn’t had a chance to think about breaking his fast. The subsequent sight of the Gutbuster had put him off all thought of food.
In the clearer air of the plaza, the odours of the city made his stomach feel like an empty pit.
There are many who said that Glyph was most famous for the quality and variety of its whores. Others waxed poetic about its many bazaars where literally anything could be bought or sold. It had its share of architectural admirers. The Seers of Glyph, Mages who specialized in ‘reading’ the spheres in Nonspace, were the most highly sought-after oracles in the Thirty Aions. If you were looking for adventure, the best thieves, wizards, and fighters came here to look for work. And outfitting a party? Forget about it.
But as all regular visitors to the Nonspace city knew, Glyph’s real claim to fame was its food. Not only wasn’t there a delicacy available even in the most remote parts of the former Pleroma that one couldn’t get here, but the fusion of so many cultures meant a host of palate pleasing delights could be savoured here and nowhere else.
Brad agreed with all of that. At the same time, he was a man of simple tastes and what he liked to taste was meat and plenty of it. The smell of something being flame charred drew him like cheese draws a mouse to the trap.
During what was agreed upon as daytime, stands were erected edging plaza. Hawkers would spend eight hours selling a variety of things. This was one of those times.
The purveyors of everything ready-to-eat were concentrated in one section about a third of the way around the wall from where the Griffin’s front door was.
Brad breasted his way through the throng. Tantalizing odours intensified and the sound of sizzling flesh told him he was near.
Brad emerged from a scrum of people arguing about the direction to somewhere—as least that’s what he assumed by the way seven people were pointing in three different directions—and right into the back of a long line.
He cursed quietly and looked for a shorter one nearby. There really wasn’t any difference. This must be the lunch crowd. He decided to wait it out.
The line moved reasonably fast, which surprised him. In only about ten minutes he was standing behind a dwarf in merchant’s garb looking at the food that had so enchanted his sinuses.
That food was round, almost black, and had rather the texture of brains, though he’d been told the first time he’d had them that the meat, called beef, was ground up before being cooked.
The animal that it came from was called a cow. Brad had never figured out why they used two different words.
Finally, it was his turn.
He ordered two of the meat thingies on a toasted roll cut in half. The whole thing was called a burger—yet a third word. He had cooked sliced potatoes (fries) and a mug of beer.
Leaning against the wall beside burger cart, he savoured the exotic delicacy as he enjoyed the day.
Having finished his meal, Brad licked salt from the fries off his fingers and downed the last of his ale. Leaving the mug on the edge of the cart, he set off to the shops in the Mages Quarter.
There were a lot of provisions that they were probably going to need, depending on the next quest they decided to go on, but there were some essentials for every mission and most of those could be got in the shops to which he was headed.
True, the Merchants Quarter held most of the shops in Glyph, but the comparison shopping you had to do to get the right price was a pain.
The Mercenaries Quarter had a zone just for the adventurer stocking up but, unless you were a paid-up member of the Guild, their prices were more suited to people who made their living in the Guild of Magsmen.
The Mages Quarter held shops for everything the troupe might need, and their prices were mostly reasonable.
Besides, Bradwold was hoping an item he had had commissioned in a little shop on Jobs Lane would be ready. He wanted to surprise Dævara with a gift.
The main entrance to the Mages Quarter off the Plaza was designed to be intimidating in a ‘beyond are powers to make mortals tremble’ kind of way.
Dævara had told Brad once she thought it was cute.
A half circle arch proclaimed some doom or other in a language Brad couldn’t read. The door filling the space was big and black and excessively carved with mysterious runes and mystic signs.
It was also placed in a wall that a healthy twelve-year-old could vault over, which rather spoiled the effect. It had no handle or nob by which one could open it.
Brad stood for a minute, debating whether to emulate the hypothetical athletic youth, but decided the breach of etiquette would be more embarrassing.
In a voice he hoped wouldn’t carry too far, Brad said, “Wizards are the wisest, wizards are the ones, who always know what to do, when the demons come.”
He kicked the door and said, sotto voce, “Open up, you bastard!”
The grim gate squeaked open, drawing some looks—and smirks. They hadn’t heard, but they knew the chant.
Dæv always declaimed the rhyme in a loud sing-song voice, with many a flourish and bow and waved arms. Sometimes her giggles so distorted her words she had to do it twice.
The memory eclipsing his embarrassment, Brad stepped through.
The gate slammed shut. The boom echoed a bit longer than he thought it should have.
* * *
Though it had its own peculiar charm, the Mages Quarter resembled the other three in broad outline. Twisty, narrow streets and buildings tended to get taller the higher above the Plaza one climbed.
Alchemy Boulevard was the quarter’s main thoroughfare running as it did alongside the River Phlegethon. As he trudged along, Bradwold noted some of the oddities peculiar to the quarter of magick users.
The most obvious was the river itself. It glowed a reddish-orange and flickered as if made of flames.
It wasn’t. In fact, as Brad could attest, having once fallen in, it was made of clean and quite chilly water.
Engulfing each building was a penumbra of light, another bizarre difference. No adjacent buildings had the same hue, it seemed. Some of them changed in intensity while he watched, but all were visible, no matter how bright the sky was.
In all quarters, some buildings had bridges connecting to others above street level, as a matter of convenience. The Mages Quarter had them too, in many cases out of necessity.
Some buildings had no ground level entrances and more than a few had no ground floor whatsoever. After Brad had travelled Alchemy Boulevard for a bit, he passed under one.
Six stories of wood and stone hung twelve yards in the air over Lamia Square without visible support. It had brightly glowing squares recessed into its underside, presumably for the convenience of pedestrians.
Punctured by many narrow windows, a single covered bridge arched steeply from a slender stone tower to the building. The former housed just a spiral stair.
Someone told him once that the structure was a private residence belonging to one of the more eccentric senior mages. Looking at the floating mansion, Brad thought ‘barking mad’ might be a better description.
Unbeknownst to most non-residents of the Mages Quarter, Jobs Lane was the longest street in Glyph. Most thought it was quite short. Many argued over its location in the quarter. Put both together and the mystery was almost solved. Though it was continuous, Jobs Lane appeared to be in pieces.
Each segment of the street appeared to terminate in blind alleys on both ends.
The blank stone walls that looked like dead-ends had hidden portals in them. No words, sense memories or images were needed to use them, either. One just had to walk straight at the centers of those walls, and one would be in the next segment of the street.
Reputedly, the ends of the lane connected to each other, making it a closed street or, better, a multidimensional hyperloop. Such innovations would be convenient, except that the segment of Jobs Lane any given portal connected to would change randomly at irregular intervals. The adventurer hoped that wouldn’t happen again while he was navigating it.
Jobs Lane was also the street to find if you needed anything made or repaired. The mages, engineers, alchemists, and artisans on Jobs Lane were famed on many worlds for their skill, cunning, and commitment to quality.
Their prices were dear, but no one complained. They themselves were among their own best customers, as no one could find better people to have a custom instrument made.
A section of Jobs Lane crossed Alchemy Boulevard, cutting through the center of Lamia Square.
After turning left under the floating building, Brad walked along it until he came to a blank wall and kept walking.
Between one step and the next, he passed through the wall and came out in the next section. The lane on this side took a sharp leftward curve and then carried on, crossing four more streets until it dead-ended again.
Passing through the next portal, Brad found himself on a segment of Jobs Lane where the buildings were over ten storeys tall, and he knew he was higher up the hill. He had in fact arrived in the section that held his destined shop.
This surprised him, for it usually took several Portal trips more. The shifting nature of the connections had actually saved some time.
Pondering this good luck, the adventurer wandered until he saw the sign he remembered.
The oblong board hung from a horizontal metal pole emerging from the wall over the glass door. It had no room for words, being filled with a complicated-looking set of cogwheels and gears that moved with little clicking sounds. Every few seconds red sparks sprayed out and fell twinkling to the cobbles.
Brad pushed open the glass door beneath it and entered the shop of one Agrippa Thelone, Master Artificer.
It was a large room, made small by the strange devices crammed onto every shelf and low table. Brad threaded his way to the counter at the back.
No one seemed to be here. He knocked loudly on the counter.
In response, Bradwold heard a shuffling noise from beyond a curtain of rough woven fiber. Presently it was twitched aside, and a Miu appeared.
The short (for a Miu) older cat-man was covered in blue-gray fur and had large, pointed ears twitching above where Brad would expect ears to be. Whiskers adorned each side of a slightly protruding lower face. A long open coat of undyed leather was all he wore.
“Yes? How may I assist you, good sir?” Bright green eyes looked straight at Brad over the tops of half-moon spectacles.
“Master Thelone, my name’s Bradwold. I’m here about the items I commissioned.”
Agrippa was already nodding, “Yes, yes, I remember you now. I just finished your commission last week. One moment while I fetch it.” The craftsman ducked back behind the curtain.
There was an opening and shutting of drawers and a slew of muttered curses sounding like a hairball being coughed up before an “a-ha!” of triumph.
The shopkeeper re-emerged holding a small wooden box. He seemed quite excited. Placing the box on the counter, the Miu inserted a small, elaborately shaped key into a lock. A two-thirds turn produced a click and the box lid jumped open a quarter inch. Agrippa levered it all the way. Both bent down to look more closely at the contents.
Inside, nestled in cushioned periwinkle velvet, were two golden egg-shaped objects, each about two inches long.
They were faced with glass under which was appeared to be complicated-looking watch faces.
Many hands distributed around several interlocking or nested dials made for a pretty, though confusing design. The hands were different coloured crystal; the dials etched into the gold surface were inset with red, clear, black, or blue gemstones; the symbols glowed green or amber.
Attached to each piece was a thick steel chain.
Brad reached for one and stopped, looking at the Miu, who only nodded, still smiling his sharp-toothed grin.
Gingerly, the adventurer lifted one out. It weighed almost nothing. Holding it to his ear, the adventurer could hear not the ticking he expected, but chimes. They varied in pitch and overrode each other in an arrhythmic symphony of sound that was quite musical.
Brad held the object out again, turning it over in his hands. “She’s going to love this. How do they work? And why do they look like watches, anyway? I thought they were for communication.”
“They are, they are, but you said you wanted to be able to communicate no matter where you both were. You also said, ‘I want us to be able to feel as close as if we were actually together.’ That took some doing, I’m here to tell you.”
Brad held the watch communicator thingy out to the merchant, “Show me.”
Agrippa said, “No, you keep that. Hold it in your hand.” The Miu then took the other out of the box and retreated from the room again. “Try to say something to me!” he shouted from the back.
“Like what?!” Brad shouted back.
“Anything!”
“How was your day?!”
“Not loud enough for me to hear you!”
“Oh!” More quietly, “How was your day?”
With no sense of a change, Master Thelone and he were suddenly standing nose-to-nose holding hands in the front room; a single communicator was sandwiched between their palms. “Been a slow morning. “You’re my only customer, in fact,” was his answer. Brad could smell the Miu’s breath and feel the warmth of his fingers.
Just as suddenly, the shopkeeper was gone.
Master Thelone came back out from the back, chuckling. “Not too bad, eh?”
Brad had to admit, it was outstanding. Not what he’d expected, but much better. “How’d you break communication?”
“I just let go of the Conjunx. You can break communication just by wishing it, though.”
‘Conjunx,’ Bradwold thought. “Do I have to be holding it for it to work?”
“No, it’s just easier at first. It should become quite easy to do without actual contact with the skin after a while.”
“How tough are they?”
Agrippa smiled. “More than tough enough for a rough adventurer like you. They’re almost indestructible, really. You’ll be happy to know that the longer you and your lady keep them with you, the harder it will be for anyone to part them from you. They’ll bond you as they are bonded to each other.”
“That’s great!”
Smiling, Agrippa Thelone placed the Conjunx back into the box. Brad followed his example. The lid snapped shut and the Master craftsman handed the small golden key to Brad. “The balance due is twelve gold pieces.”
Brad counted them out.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026
© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved
