"They spoke," Deye said, and left it at that.  He didn't care to dwell on what he'd seen and heard and every question just kept it all circulating fresh in his head instead of falling away into memory as it ought.

He was having trouble staying upright, even sitting astride the centaur as he was.  The lapse of smooth gate into cautious plodding did him no favors, either.  His voice sounded slow and thick to his own ears.  "Might there...be a, a place I could set down...for just a moment?"

Gospel had very little life left in him after all that.  He wasn't sure he was going to have the will to move himself from this wall.

"Unless you know a way to extricate myself from you, yes," he said numbly.

Cade hissed at Syrae ran his rough palm over Cade's cock.  He strained against Syrae's hold, his pulse thudding with arousal.  He could count on one hand the lovers who'd wanted to hold him down, manhandle him, tie him up.  He was usually the one expected to fill that role.

"Taking your sweet, precious time," he muttered, shoving himself against Syrae's hand, getting desperate for more than this teasing contact.

"Feh.  Cities."  Razi's face twisted in distaste.  He could get by in them when he had to.  He could get by rather well, in fact, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it.  Cities were dirty in a way the wilderness was not.

"Out here is better," he said, waving a hand to take in the countryside that she called her home.

"Mm," Maza said.  "Indeed.  The university will have its due, as we mustn't forget."

The press of students and masters parted before them as word filtered through the crowd that the archsage had arrived.  Maza lead Pepper past them all and into the library--which was, indeed stone.  All of it the same jagged, rough-textured rock.

The chatter subsided, as those gathered awaited the archsage's words.

"Well, my dear," Maza said.  "You did not exaggerate."

The question at the end of that yes did not inspire confidence.  Ruben fought down a groan and soldiered on.

"I need," he said, speaking slowly for the simpleton's benefit, "rubbings of the pictographs down that hall."

He stabbed a finger at the hall in question.  "Do you understand that?"

"Oh, uh...yes.  Yes, actually whatever it is would be ruined afterward.  I do have coin enough to pay for one sheet I'm sure."

Haven was pacing when Hazel arrived.

"Yes!  I happened upon something that might work.  Do you have a sheet you can spare?  Or a board?  Something flat and thin, about..."

He held his hands up, somewhere around a foot apart.  "...about this big?"

Once back at the inn, Haven sat himself down near the bed where the woman had died and began his work.  He assured Hazel he would be fine alone—this whole thing would involve a dreadful lot of sitting still and occasionally speaking in Old Serenian and reading warmth and hearing sounds imperceptible to anyone but him.  Twice during the ordeal, supplicants arrived seeking healing and he had to stop to help.  All in all, he spent nigh on four hours at it, trying to glean anything he could.

When at last he emerged, he had no answers but did have an idea that might lead to some.  He caught the attention of a passing scullery maid.  "Could you send Hazel to me?  If he's not terribly busy."

He might have asked anyone for the things he needed, but he and Hazel had spent some time together already, enough to put Hazel at the front of his mind now that he needed help.  And who's to say their acquaintance wouldn't grow into friendship in time?

Ruben highly doubted that.

"You can hear me," he said.  "But are you listening?"

Speaker.

He ran a hand behind his back so that he could clench his fist there without her seeing.  Calling him Speaker was hardly wrong and certainly not wrong enough to correct her, but it was just so bloody informal and familiar!  Bad enough he had to talk to her at all, but now he had to put up with her talking to him like they were good friends.

"I think," he said, "that question is perhaps meaningless until you can say it with more conviction."

Maza laughed at the image she brought up.  "Hacked up?  Blessed Kia, my dear, you wouldn't be anywhere near the fighting!  No no, you would hold a place of honor, stationed on a hill somewhere with the general and overseeing the battle, bringing down calamity upon the enemy forces.  That is how a mage wages war."

Unless one were a mageknight, but riding into the thick of battle when one had the option to bestow death from afar always struck Maza as idiocy incarnate.

"Though of course the army is but one option.  I only use it as an example.  Learn to control that level of power well enough and you will have your choice of profession and province both."

The closer they got the library, the more the collective voices raised—mostly in distress.

Razi fell into step beside her, eyes flicking up to the half-clouded sky every now and then.  He knew not one blessed thing about rocs.  Did they hunt solo?  In pairs?  Flocks, even?

"You live in a church?"  That sounded odd to him, but then again he knew as much about churches as he did about rocs.  Maybe it was normal for shepherds to live in them.

"Language.  And yes, all manner of things!  Not just a great scope of items but a considerable amount of them as well."

Maza lead her on, taking the stairs downward toward the library.  Once they passed into more populated floors, staff and students began passing them, running toward the library as news of the event spread.

"Learn to replicate and control this kind of effect and any High Lord or Lady will want you for their army."

He shrugged.  "I'll carry it wherever you like."

Maza made a chuckle that was very nearly a girlish squeal.  He wheeled about and clasped Pepper's hands in his own.

"Pepper how remarkable!  Troublesome, as I said, but think of what you will be able to accomplish when you can harness that kind of power at will."

"Finally, gods alive!"

Ruben sprang up, dusted himself off, and grabbed the naga by the shoulders and hauled him down so Ruben could talk directly at him.

"Listen to me," he said.  He narrowed his eyes at the naga.  "Are you listening?"

Maza smiled and didn't bother to try and hide it, being quite satisfied with himself just then.

"Ahh, I misunderstood you, then.  You mean to say that you turned the library to stone, yes?"

"Am I what?"

He rejoined her and hefted the wing up again.  No sense in both of them getting bloody.  "Lead the way and I'll carry it home for you."

"It is all I ever wear, unless I have cause to go into a city."  Which he tried to avoid mostly almost entirely because it forced him to put more clothes on.

He traced a trail with his eyes backward from the dead bird.  "Ah, there!"

The little strip of cloth had snagged on a cluster of sticker bushes.  He ran over to get it and tied the ends about his narrow hips with bloody fingers.