Steelfated, page 45
“Fine. Have it your way.” he huffed, and he turned and walked away.
By the end of the day, everyone in the Fey Court knew what had happened at the muster. Rumors and whispers spread across the grounds about how some mortal man had appeared and embarrassed the Glass Guard, the masters, and the regents, all within a single morning, and still walked freely amongst the Court.
35
Tribulation
(9th Nature’s Rise, 675 3rd Era, by the Reckoning of Reysh’ar’ak, the Monitor of Times passing in Talys Rae)
When the call came for her first “test” Morgain was already awake, though it was still before dawn. She silently cheered at the fact that a summons, or some other form of crisis, had not rudely awoken her. Ever since her death, she’d been brusquely awoken at least once a week for some catastrophic event, or some other shenanigan played upon her by the other Steelfated.
Berillis was waiting behind the door, with her hands clasped behind her back.
“Ahh, bandrui, you are awake. Good. Your test begins in a half an hour, near the pool at the base of the tree of knowledge. This is a test of intelligence, wisdom, and wit, where the elf-kin tested for strength, speed, and finesse in the muster yesterday. You may take three things with you, though none of them may be another person, nor may they be a weapon. You will be presented with eight puzzles to solve- they may be any sort of mental test. You may find that you are looking at a memory puzzle, or perhaps a riddle. Answer to your best ability, and solve the problem as completely as you can.”
“What should I expect?” Morgain asked. Berillis grinned petulantly.
“I told you what to expect.”
“I have to finish eight problems before the sun sets.”
“Yes. You must do your best to solve them all, though I’ve known no one to solve all eight.”
“How many must I solve to be successful?”
“That is for the regents to decide. It depends on the skill of your answer. I’ve seen a fey pass the test with only two problems solved, though they were solved brilliantly. The ‘safe’ number is five, though many strive to get six. I saw a fey man reach seven one time, and still fail, because he panicked at the last two minutes and spat answers that, while technically correct, had no thought or cleverness behind them.” Morgain nodded, then leaned back for a moment.
“I can take three things?” Morgain asked.
“Yes, except they may not be weapons, another person, or made of iron.” Morgain rolled her eyes.
“Right. No weapons, no people, no iron which cannot be brought to the Court, anyway.” Berillis scowled.
“The threat of iron is real, Morgain. Have you ever considered that while you mortals have gained mastery over iron, that it is perhaps the very thing which causes you to age and die?” Morgain glanced at her.
“Are you suggesting that for mortals, iron is a slow acting poison, whereas for the fey, it acts quickly?”
“I’m suggesting nothing.” Berillis’ eyes narrowed.
Morgain paced through her room, wondering at what she was going to take with her.
After some time, she asked Berillis if a quill, ink, and a blank scroll would be one item, since they went together to serve one purpose. The dryad nodded. With that confirmation, Morgain grabbed the items. She also chose a silver backed hand mirror, and at a loss for what else to choose, grabbed one of the small brass cylinders she’d brought from Ironlake.
Unsure of what inspired her to grab that, of all things, she followed Berillis, who was leading her along, and giving her the cold shoulder.
About halfway there, she threw back her head and laughed, the realization of what she’d done coming to her. She’d grabbed it to emulate Radyn, because it was the last thing anyone would have expected her to grab. Now, the only thing left to figure out is what to do with it.
She stood in front of the giant tree along with two other fey, a man and a woman. Below them, in the crystal clear pool, swam eight salmon in incessantly swirling patterns that looked vaguely like knotwork to her. Apart from the fact that they had distinctly colored fins, they looked to be normal salmon. It didn’t take a stretch to realize that the salmon fins indicated the Octet and their spheres of influence. The woman was shorter than Morgain herself was, and willowy. She was a Roane, and she wore her seal skin as a skirt. Her hair was dark, and her skin was a pale green, the color of the shallows. She was quite pretty and seemed rather friendly, if aloof. She called herself Naia. The male fey was smaller still and, as a plantrhys dwfen, was a rarity. Shorter than either of the women, the wiry little man had the air of a scribe, or one of her father’s treasure house keepers. It intrigued her to see that he wore a pair of spectacles, very similar to the ones she’d made for Gemma those years ago. He had dark hair, and a small, thin nose, and a warm smile despite his bookishness, and called himself Wren. Morgain introduced herself as Fiona, or bandrui, the latter of which was what she had been going by her entire stay in the Fey court. Names were far too dangerous to use here. Even a birth name could give the Fey some level of power over them, though not so much as a true name would.
Three fey walked across up the hill to them and stopped three paces out. Daeion and Alystra sat on a pair of floating, heavily cushioned chairs thirty feet away from the hilltop, and it was Radyn’s turn to be in the crowd with the other Steelfated.
“This is the tribulation. A test of the mind and wit. Before you are eight dilemmas that need to be solved. They may be riddles, they may be mathematical problems, they may be puzzles of logic. The tree salmon and the tree will decide. Sit yourselves down around the pond and do your best to solve the problems as they are presented to you.”
Morgain sat, crossing her ankles, and looked into the water.
She watched the fish as they swam in their dizzying, mesmerizing pattern. Suddenly, she realized words were forming in the air above the pond, and she grabbed her quill and ink.
The first problem she would face was a riddle.
One night, four men sat down to play.
They played all night, till the break of day.
They played for gold, and not for fun,
with separate scores, for every one.
When time it came to square accounts,
All four had won quite fair amounts,
Canst thou this paradox explain,
How no man lost, instead all gained?
Morgain sat for a moment and thought. The first thing that came to her mind was that they were all among the Steelfated. Coins existed and changed hands frequently among the dead, but it had little meaning to them. They could just take whatever they wanted from any merchant in the Highlands, and they did not need to concern themselves with lodgings or food. All of that was provided for them. After a moment more, it came to her. She looked to the fey across from her and spoke.
“The four men are all performers of some sort, most likely musicians, but I suppose they could have been mummers. Each played to earn their keep, and for tips. Apparently, they were rather talented, and likely each played a different instrument. It would be hard pressed for two pipers to make an equal amount of coin, and one or the other would have felt slighted.”
The fey across from her said nothing, but motioned her gaze back to the pool.
After a short time, a new set of words took shape in the air.
A farmer has an apple tree, of which she is immensely proud. One day, after harvesting from the tree, she calls her three sons together before her and tells them they are each to take some apples, and sell them to bring home an equal amount of coin. If they can manage this, then the inheritance will be split between them equally. If not, then it would be split amongst them according to the share they returned with. There were 150 apples before them on the ground. Thinking this to be a simple task, and not being of the jealous sort with their siblings, they each move to take 50 of them. The farmer stops them before they can.
To her eldest, she gives 85. To her second born, she gives 50, and to her youngest, she gives 15. The younger brothers protest, but she ignores their pleas, and shuffles them off toward the market to sell the apples.
Unbeknownst to them, their mother follows to ensure they do not simply balance out the apples when they are out of her sight.
They return that night, bearing 10 full soft copper marks each, and the mother is most pleased, for she knew they had not cheated, and had each sold their allotted apples to different buyers for different prices. How did they manage the feat?
Morgain read the words and jotted down the numbers. After a moment, she looked up.
“The brothers did, in fact, work together, to an extent. The first buyer would have been someone who was looking to make a slight profit on the apples, perhaps another merchant. He bought 12 dozen apples from them, at one copper mark a dozen. The first brother sold him 7 dozen apples and was left with one extra. The second brother sold him four dozen apples and was left with two. The third brother sold one dozen apples and was left with three.”
“The next man who came by was not only rich, but starving, and he bought all the remaining apples from the brothers at 3 coppers a piece.” Morgain said after a moment.
The fey motioned her to watch the water again.
And so her day went, though the questions posed rapidly became harder.
She made it to five, and after three hours solved it. She glanced up at the sky, and realized that it was well past noon, and the sun, while still high, had sunken more than halfway to the horizon from its zenith.
The sixth riddle was nearly impossible.
It was a logic puzzle, and an infuriatingly hard one at that.
You find yourself in a room with three figures. They are of a nondescript age, gender, and size, but all three are the same. They understand your language, but refuse to speak it. Instead, they answer only with ‘da’ or ‘ja’. One answer means yes, the other no, but you do not know which is which. One figure is Truth, and can only speak truthfully. One figure is Falsehood, and can only lie. The third is chance, and can do either of them at whim. You cannot pass until you’ve solved which is which. To determine their identities, you may ask three questions, and each question can only be asked of one figure. If the answer cannot be given, the figure’s head will explode. Which figure is which, assuming the first figure you ask a question is on the left, answers “da” and does NOT explode.
Morgain had been scratching away at this for a long time, and was still no closer to solving it. She was ready to pull her hair out. She’d come up with four different answers, one of which was just simply to guess and hope for luck. She closed her eyes and thought for a moment, reaching her awareness out and down through her tattoos.
“Bandrui, that is not permitted.” the fey across from her pointed out. “That is considered seeking outside help.” Morgain released her knotwork. She thumbed her lip for a moment. The sun was nearly set. She was probably safe, having answered five of the questions. She glanced around for a moment.
A sharp spur of the brass cylinder caught her right thumb and ran under her nail. Cursing to herself, she jerked her hand out of her pocket and looked around, a thrill of panic racing through her. She pulled her mirror from her pocket, and looked at herself, then over her shoulder.
Radyn was seated on the ground, leaning against the tree, and playing with one of the blacksmith puzzles she’d seen him pocket on the day before Behltai’ne. He looked up, catching her eyes in the mirror, and pointedly took the puzzle apart and reassembled it in three different ways. Octet bless that man, of course!. She turned the mirror in her hand slightly to view Daeion and Alystra. The Regents watched her closely, though neither uncovered it. She had felt their eyes on her specifically for the bulk of the day, and the mirror confirmed it.
“Why on earth should there only be one way of solving that puzzle? There is never just one way to solve anything. The other ways might be far too difficult or the price too steep for following through with them, but there is always an alternative.”
She thought for a moment more, then did something that was a stroke of madness, or a stroke of genius. However, it had not been expressly forbidden, so ergo in relation to the fey, it was allowed.
She pulled the brass cylinder from her pocket, and plucked two of the strands of the weave that surrounded it, holding them taught using her magical “hand”, and tossed the cylinder into the air behind her head. She watched in the mirror as the cylinder reached the apogee of its arc, and when it did, she tangled the two threads together in her hand.
If her motion hadn’t attracted every eye in the clearing, the result of crossing the strands of weave about the object got the rest.
It gave the customary shrill whistle, and the powders inside exploded, giving off the sharp crack and the acrid smoke that she’d experienced so many times. A noise that she alone, with the likely exception of Radyn, had been ready for.
She dove for the water, openly making a grab for one of the salmon of knowledge, whilst the fey court was busy in shock.
It was a crude way to solve the problem, a way of cutting the proverbial knot, but the Fey would never have thought of it. It was also incredibly rude.
Daeion and Alystra had not been expecting it, but perhaps because of Radyn’s performance the day before, or perhaps because of their age and power, reacted much more quickly than anyone else.
Truthfully, she’d never expected to get her hands on one of the salmon, so she was surprised when she got a finger on one, the same finger she’d just cut on the cylinder. She missed her chance to grab the fish, however. She felt the knotwork of Alystra and Daeion’s magic grab ahold of her and jerk her backwards from the pool soon after she’d felt the salmon swim through her fingers.. She’d been expecting that, and had gotten what she wanted, anyway. Though she was pulled forcefully backwards, she had cupped her hands and pulled a mouthful of water into her mouth.
She had hoped that, being the Well of Knowledge, that she would get some flash of insight. She did not. Apparently, unlike the pools of Magh Maellagh, the pool of knowledge was nothing but water, although it was remarkably cold and sweet.
“What in the thirteen hells was that, Bandrui?” Alystra and Daeion both snarled at her, their voices doing their creepy three part harmony. “The salmon of knowledge are forbidden and sacred!”
“My apologies, regents. I tell you three times no one told me that consulting the fish was forbidden.”
“Bandrui, they should not have needed to. They are an integral part of the tribulation.” The regents said, though Daeion’s voice had dropped back to normal, denying the three-part harmony. Alystra’s voice, however, still had a secondary half register to it, more felt than heard, and the effect was as disconcerting as waking up to a totally unfamiliar, totally unexpected, stiff tongue running across the back of your neck. The voice sent an unconscious shiver through her whole body.
“Forgive me, but no one explained that clearly. I was told I could not have outside help, though I was unaware that stretching my awareness down into the ground was outside help. I was just trying to center myself. Once that was communicated, I realized exactly how that could have been a request for outside help, and I looked to see what interior help I could find. The salmon were interior, and I was struggling with the problem, but since they are salmon of knowledge- I thought that-”
“How would the trial have been finished if you’d caught one of the salmon, bandrui?” Daeion asked. “If one of them had been removed, the trial could not have been completed. It takes all eight to pose each question.”
“Oh, I thought perhaps it might have been one question per salmon, and I went for the one that was closest to me at the beginning, figuring that it had asked the first question of me, and would be safe to… um… remove.” Daeion turned to Cynnamora, eyes flinty and hard.
“Is what the bandrui says true, Cynnamora?” He asked.
“My liege, I’ve met with the Bandrui often, and have formed something of a friendship with her. I also admit I gave them some basic information about the tests they would be required to pass, for example, the dates they could expect to face the test, and the basic outlines behind them, but I am not responsible for giving her the information requisite to start the Tribulation. That would have been Berillis’ duty.”
Daeion turned to Berillis at this, who stood taller, and clasped her hand behind her back.
“Berillis, did you or did you not tell the bandrui what to expect?”
“Your radiance.” She said formally. “When I spoke to the others among their company, they informed me Cynnamora had told them about the trials, and she herself told me that-.” Daeion sighed.
“Did you tell her that access to the pool or the salmon was forbidden to her?”
“I- no, your radiance, I did not. I assumed she already knew. Everyone knows that.”
“The fey know that. She is a mortal, and an outsider. Aside from which, you were supposed to tell her the rules, as all the guides are. You might have been able to get away with it, if it had been another fey, but you should have especially told her. Mortals are rude, and while ignorance of the law does not exempt one from the consequences of their actions, it can at least be used as a buffer. She was at fault, yes, but her actions were not done to break the rules intentionally.” The regents looked at each other and communicated silently between themselves for a moment.
“Since your actions came from a place of ignorance, rather than willful malice, bandrui, you may continue the testing. However, as punishment, whatever your correct score is qthe sun sets shall have two points deducted from it.” The regents said in their three-part voice. “Continue and let there be no further interruptions.” Morgain’s back stiffened, and Berillis and Alystra smiled. Two of her correct answers were to be deducted from her score?? At best, assuming she got no further, she could hope for a three. Although she was really only confident in her first two answers. Three may or may not be enough to get her through the Tribulation. Considering her massive breach of etiquette, she did not think three would be enough.
