Many Words

That was a question Sif didn’t quite know how to answer. She looked down and away to buy herself some time.

The Shining Hand in the park had been magiker, that she was sure of. Her dream suggested there were more of them, or that there would be. If it could be trusted, at any rate. For all she knew, what looked like a shadowy conspiracy could just be what magiker did to entertain themselves on long winter evenings.

The thought made her smile.

“Child?”

Sif looked up, endeavoring to make her eyes say the smile was false. “I don’t remember, exactly. Chains. Cold.” Best to be careful.

Annike smiled, speaking softly. “All is well now,” she replied. “You will find you grow used to the dreams—the natural ones, at least.”

Sif tilted her head, genuinely curious. “What do you mean?”

“A dream is a tale told by a spirit of the world to the spirit of your being,” the elder magiker said.

Sif nodded. “I understand that much.”

“Good. Leifsson certainly earns his keep.” Annike went on. “Do you know why spirits tell us stories?” Sif shook her head. “Some do to gain an edge on us, to weaken us, that they might worm their way into our minds. Some, on the other hand, do so out of kindness and concern—though there is great risk in explaining the motives of spirits in human terms.”

“Those are the natural dreams, then?” Sif said.

“Exactly so. There are unnatural dreams too, though. What do you know of hedge magiker?”

Sif shrugged. She knew of the class of magiker who never grew strong enough to draw the attention of the guilds, but nothing more.

“In your travels, you may hear the people speak of dreamseers, those who hear the spirits speak to those asleep, who tell their stories to the waking. You may also hear of dreamweavers: those who bargain with spirits to put a dream in a man’s head.”

Sif frowned. “That’s forbidden, isn’t it?”

“It is,” said Annike. “They do not understand the spirit’s price. People die—sometimes in agony, sometimes in ecstasy. The dream is too vivid. And yet…”

Sif raised her eyebrows.

“Yet, some magiker—real magiker, trained by the guilds—weave dreams. I understand it is most commonly political. Some magiker wishes to warn another away from nosing around his territory. The Twelve cannot watch everyone all the time. Our magiker gets away with it.” Annike smiled again, brighter this time. “You need not worry about that, though. I’m sure, child, you haven’t made such powerful enemies so soon after joining us. Your dream says as much. Mere impressions snatched from hazy memories? That realm belongs to dark spirits. Magiker are much more specific.”

Which brought her back to history. The grand arc of the Norrman people began three hundred years earlier, when Halfdan King (at the time, just Halfdan, Sif recalled) freed them from the clutches of the ælfr. Though den Holm proper dated to the early days of Halfdan’s reign, and the villages it had been founded from were much older than even that, the jötnar held the rest of the Northlands through the reign of Halfdan and his son. It wasn’t until Joar King, Halfdan’s grandson, took the throne that the whole weight of the Norrmannrike turned to taking back its ancestral home.

Joar King died a year into the war, fighting over the Solskenheimdalsvad—the only good ford west of the city, very near the Heimdal’s headwaters in the mountains. Sif cast about for the name of the range. She’d seen it on a map earlier—that was it. Hieran’s Wall. She recalled it was named for a particularly cowardly ælf-lord, who fled to the Crystal Desert beyond the mountains rather than face the wrath of the Norrman armies.

That was a tangent, though. Though Joar fell in battle, the war continued, and now two of the prominent towns in the Northlands bore the old king’s name: Joarsgard, the fort and walled city which protected the crossing now, and Kungssorge, a market town whose name meant, more or less, King’s Lament. Together with den Holm, they formed a line: den Holm at the east end, by the sea, Joarsgard eighty leagues away at the west end, in the foothills of Hieran’s Wall, and Kungssorge in the middle.

A shadow fell across Sif’s book. She started, then looked up. A woman stood there. She was tall, and hair the color of a raven’s wing hung straight down to her shoulder. Her eyes were dark, glittering in a pale, chiseled face. “What has you awake at this hour, child?”

Sif blinked. She didn’t know the woman, but her voice— that was it. She’d heard it before, from under a hood in the Septumvirate’s chambers, speaking to the Seven on her behalf. She had not met the woman again, but she knew her by reputation: Annike Sigvardsdottir. “Nightmares, Kvinna,” Sif replied, dipping her head respectfully.

“No need for ceremony here,” Annike admonished. “May I pull up a chair?”

Sif nodded.

“What do you dream about that drives you from your bed?”


Sif’s eyes snapped open. She sat bolt upright, heavy blankets flying off of her. Her breath came in frantic gulps as her eyes darted around the room. A simple bed, a chest at its foot, a slit window with a wavy pane of glass in it. Her room. A dream.

Sweat beaded on her forehead. She could still feel the kiss of the knife. She looked down at her nightdress. No blood. She pushed her covers away. House shoes waited by her bed. She slipped them on, and threw a heavy robe over her nightdress.

Sif had dreamed vividly for as long as she could remember. Ansgar Leifsson hadn’t been surprised to hear it when she said so. Magiker tended to. They were nearer the weave than the average human, nearer the spirits whose influence made dreams in the first place. Still, even if her dreams tended toward the vivid, they were rarely so realistic. She rubbed her arm where the ropes had creased her skin, looked at her bed, and looked away. She doubted she could sleep. Rummaging in her trunk, she found a book, tucked it under her arm, and left her room.

Only every third lamp in the spiral corridor burned through the night. The servants knew better than to douse them all. Sif wasn’t the only magiker to sleep fitfully, neither in a general sense nor tonight in particular. She counted nine others in the great hall, lit in orange by the mound of coals on the grand hearth. Two huddled over a tafl board, talking in low tones. The rest were scattered around tables and chairs, to a man reading in the pool of light cast by a taper. Someone had left a blanket on a chair not far from the fire. Sif set her book down there, found an unlit candle, and borrowed another reader’s flame to light it. She sat, set her candle on the arm of the chair, and wrapped herself in the blanket. That put weight on the bruises developing all along her side. She rearranged herself until the pain subsided.

Unlike the other books in her trunk, this one was for pleasure more than study: a history of the Norrman people, by one Arvid Geirsson the Scholar. Sif had a keen awareness of the gaps in her knowledge of the world. History, geography, literature—these had been closed books to her. Geirsson was a prolific author—or had been; Sif had no idea if he was still alive—who wrote on a wide range of topics, all of which Sif found captivating. Even better, he wrote in Norrmanssprak, rather than the traditionally scholarly ælfish. That eased Sif’s burden significantly.


Sif’s eyes snapped open. She still couldn’t see a thing. Ropes looped tight around her, biting into her arms and chest. She struggled experimentally. Nothing came of it.

Her heart raced. What was happening? The last thing she could remember… she couldn’t. She had no idea how she’d ended up here. Panic welled up in her throat.

She fought it. She was a magiker, wielder of powers beyond the imagining of whoever had taken her. She would find a way out, and bring justice on those who had done this.

Calming down, she listened. Water dripped somewhere nearby. The air was still, and tasted stale. Underground? Perhaps a jordsmagiker’s tunnel, or simply a cellar somewhere in the High Quarter, or in one of the few stone buildings in the Riverfronts. She doubted they were in the sewers. The smell was wrong.

Her mundane senses had done their best, but she had another, better tool. She reached out, felt for the weave… and found nothing. She recoiled into her chair, tried again, and found her heart beating faster again. She had no magic.

Hinges creaked, and a light shone from the doorway in front of her. She squinted against it. Her eyes adjusted, and it resolved into a hooded figure carrying a torch. The figure came closer. Unconsciously, Sif leaned back.

“You are right to fear me, aspirant.” It was a young woman’s voice, but it had an odd creak to it.

“I don’t even know who you are,” Sif replied. She tried to put some bravery into her voice, but heard it waver as she spoke.

The woman noticed. “I am nobody,” she said, facing Sif directly. “I am one of many, all dedicated to our glorious cause. And you, child, you have seen too much. You know too much.”

Sif didn’t like the sound of that. She stalled for time. “Why can’t I feel the weave?”

“Do you think we are fools?” The woman spun around, pacing in front of Sif. “We are magiker, too. We have warded this place against weave-working.”

“Who is we?” Sif persisted.

The woman stopped, faced Sif, and held up her palm. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, her hand began to glow.

The Shining Hand. Sif swallowed. “How are you doing that, if this place is warded?”

Sif could hear the dark smile in the woman’s voice. “There are secrets you do not know, child.” She stepped closer, produced a knife from her sleeve, and raised it high. “And you never will.”