Hi. Giving you a little peek behind the curtain as I wake up this site from its long winter’s nap.

I was doing pretty well updating Palace Guard for a while there. I had no idea where all the story was going, mostly, but I was having fun finding out. Then my son got sick. I don’t want to go into the details, but this was taking up a lot of my mindgrapes for a long time there, and I couldn’t focus on writing at all. He’s fine now, and after some resting time, I want to get back at it.

But I’m not going to be getting back to Palace Guard. I am going to do something else. I may eventually revisit Palace Guard; my motto when it comes to Internet Decisions is “never say never”. I’m sorry if that disappoints or frustrates you, and if so, I thank you for engaging with it enough to care in the first place.

What am I going to do instead? That will be revealed. Stay tuned! It won’t be long. I’m back at this now and I want to be serious about it.

And it’s spring!

My beloved Zann,

I had been to the laur before, though not in a long time. I remembered grassy hillsides and plashing brooks and leafy groves. This wasn’t like that.

We stepped out onto a rocky hilltop. There were other such hills and large rocks all around us. The sky, instead of its usual pale blue, was dark pink with a brown sun. Nothing grew. There was no sign of Wande or Jhus.

“What is this?” I asked Ellewen. “Is this a part of the laur that I just never saw? Or did something happen?”

“Something happened,” he said.

“What was it?” I looked around. On a plain beyond the bare hills was a tall red fortress, a tall tower surrounded by great earthworks. High blue fires burned in a ring all around it.

“You know,” he told me gently.

“I do? Did… did we do this to you? With our snowballs?” It didn’t seem likely, but…

“I think we should go back,” he said. “Soon.”

The air smelled of smoke and metal. “I have to find Wande and Jhusdhe. If they’re here, I can’t leave them here.”

“I know you came here for a purpose. But we don’t know that purpose. Let us achieve what we can quickly, and depart. And I doubt your leman and her heir are here.”

I didn’t see anything but the fortress that looked like it ought to be looked at, so I started in its direction. “You do? Why?”

“Why would they be here?”

“It’s a good question.” The hill was steep, and I jumped and skidded to the bottom. Behind me, Ellewen stepped lightly and easily.

“Your wizard’s augury, I mind, was about what you should do next, not about what you should do next to find Goodwife Wande. Unless I misremember?”

I couldn’t remember for sure. “No?”

“Then let us act with speed. There is great danger here.”

“But to do what? If Wande’s not here.”

“I don’t know. We will have to be alert. I was hoping the crossroads would provide a different answer for our quest. I don’t know why you needed to come here.”

We walked on, dodging the elbows of the barren hills around us.

Love,

Ybel

Most beloved Zann,

Ellewen and I walked down a long country road, side-by-side. We hadn’t seen much other traffic, wagons or riders or trudgers. I had lost track of time. How many times had we stopped to eat or sleep or make love? How many nights had there been, or afternoons when the mist stood away from us? I couldn’t tell. I thought Ellewen seemed gloomy, though.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He smiled, but it didn’t reassure me. I thought he seemed more resigned than content.

“You can tell me, you know. Maybe I can help.”

“We’re here,” he said, and stopped.

I looked around. There was a lane stretching away from our road to the left, but only scrubby woods to the right. “No, we’re not.”

“We are,” Ellewen said, peering down the lane. “This is the crossroads in your drawing.”

I tried to remember what I had drawn. It didn’t seem like this at all.

“Stand over there,” Ellewen advised, “and don’t worry about the fourth road.”

I crossed the lane and turned back to regard the scene. I tried to fit what I saw into my memory of my drawing. If this road was the one that I drew up-to-down, and the lane branched off this way, yes, there was the tree with the overhanging branch, and there was a rotted post where I had put a sign… I had drawn that rut… “It is the same!” I said. Had I been here before? Or someone else in my family?

“Yes.”

“But what about the fourth road?”

“Look again.”

I looked again at the tangle of bushes, to see if there was anything there that looked like a road. There wasn’t. It was just scrub. And then a slight breeze fluttered through, and I saw it. The leaves and twigs of the trees and bushes, in their motion they described the lines of a road matching the one in my mind, one that led out of this world into another world that we knew.

“Can we go?” I said, stepping toward it. I knew I could walk that road.

Ellewen didn’t move.

“Ellewen?”

He started to say something, stopped, tried again, stopped again. Obviously he didn’t want to. But why?

“Ellewen, Wande and Jhus may be in there. You don’t have to go, but I do, and I will.”

He sighed, and followed me. “It isn’t that I don’t want to go,” he said.

I took his hand, closed my eyes, and stepped onto the fourth road of the crossroads. I could feel the leaves under my feet, and we entered the laur.

Love,

Ybel

Beloved Zann,

I didn’t pay close attention to my surroundings as Ellewen and I hiked to the crossroads. I wasn’t even sure where we were going; Ellewen was vague about the details. North of Marifall, or south, or, somehow, both.

Mostly I was just enjoying Ellewen’s company. I’m cautious about using the word “love”, but… was I falling in love with him? Such a long time since I last had that feeling. Probably the last time was when Acea and I had started keeping company. I had been so young, and was so different now. Acea had loved me for my fury. I didn’t have that fury anymore; just a lot of schemes. But Ellewen certainly liked me well enough anyway.

“Ellewen?”

He glanced at me questioningly.

“Do you know all my secrets?”

Ellewen grinned, but didn’t say anything.

Silly of me, of course; how was he supposed to answer that? But I needed to know and I couldn’t find a way to ask him. Did he know that I was after the Sauce? What would he think about it if he did? Would he care, would he kill me? Were his feelings for me deep enough to make a difference in that? To say nothing of my other secrets, which were… well, I cared about them, even if he probably didn’t.

And the other problem was Wande. I didn’t know if she’d feel betrayed by my lovemaking with Ellewen. There was a culture in Crideon that men could have male lovers and it didn’t reflect on their bonds with their women. Very different from back home in the Boltmarch. And a lot of women didn’t care for the custom anyway. But that was only part of it: Wande herself had had a greenfolk lover, Jhus’s father, and refused to talk about it. What would it mean to her that I had done the same?

My pairing with Wande was… we cared for each other deeply. Her more than me, I think. But I don’t think we loved each other, exactly. It had always seemed to me like we had agreed that we liked each other so much that we could make our lives a lot better by sharing them. We were being emotionally practical. But now where was she, and what was I doing? Poor Wande and Jhus.

I owed her a lot. When I arrived in Crideon I didn’t know what I was doing. Oh, I could have found my way well enough, living in the big city, finding enough money to eat and sleep, eventually working my way closer to the Palace. But meeting her, living with her, gave me time and space to learn more about who I was now that I was awake and not at war. Ybel had changed a lot while I was taking the Great Nap and I had never learned who he was. I still haven’t!

Whoever he is, he likes Ellewen a lot. And he loves Zann.

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

I lay with my head on Ellewen’s stomach. The lemon-coloured mists of the afternoon were all around us, but left a clearing of courtesy around Ellewen. “I still have to find Wande, you know,” I said.

“Of course,” he answered, playing with my hair. “It’s why we’re here.”

“But, I mean…”

“I know what you mean. It’s all right.”

Was it really all right? I was curst sure Wande wouldn’t think so. What Jhus would think didn’t even bear considering.

“We need food,” I announced. “Food, and some plan of where to go next.”

“I will get the food,” Ellewen said, snapping pieces off of a fallen willow twig. He handed it to me. “You, use this twig to draw a crossroads in the earth. Make it as delicate a drawing as you can.”

I sat up and took the twig. “Is it magic?”

Ellewen stretched and stood. “I’ll only be a short time,” he said, and by the time I finished listening to him, he had sidled into the trees and was gone.

There was a clear area of ground where we had been lying. I made some marks in it with the twig. A crossroads. Well, it could have a bridge here, and a tree on this side, I thought, and spent some minutes adding more details to the scene as best I could.

“That’s enough,” Ellewen said. “I recognize it.”

He had’t made a sound returning, and was now sitting under our tree. Next to him was somebody else’s hat, full of bread and cheese and honey and fruit. “You do?”

“I was hoping you would draw somewhere I knew. It’s not near here, but we should have no trouble finding our way.”

I looked down at my drawing. “I don’t know this place.”

“Some part of you must,” Ellewen said. “It may not be the crossroads we want, but I think it’s worth going to look at. Of course, we should be on our guard.”

“Why is that?”

He pointed. “Because of the murderer hiding behind the tree.”

There was a murderer hiding behind the tree in my drawing. When did I draw that?

Love,

Ybel

Beloved Zann,

I woke slowly, midmorning, with sun on my face. Ellewen sat next to me, looking very much like he belonged among the trees and branches that surrounded us. “You slept well,” he said.

I had. It was the most peaceful sleep I could remember. I closed my eyes again and nodded.

“I wish you could see yourself as I see you,” he said.

“Nnn?”

“Nn,” he agreed, and tickled my chin with a blade of grass. “We of the green have more senses than your people do. I know things about you that you yourself don’t know.”

I rubbed my face and sat up. “I know you do.”

Ellewen smiled. “I mean, I can see things of you that you don’t have words for, that if I explained them you wouldn’t understand. Your people are fascinating, unknowable because you cannot know yourselves, and indomitable in spite of it. There’s a nobility in that, that most of my people don’t appreciate. Too many of us think that your folk can’t truly be people, persons, any more than butterflies or chipmunks can. But I think that it makes you persons more, because it is so difficult for you.” He shrugged, a flutter of his slim shoulders. “It’s easy to be a person for the greenkind. I think we often take it for granted.”

“Is this about Lord Clear?”

“It is about you, Ybel. The stripes of sound and the textures of scent that your waerd has flavoured you with. The wonderful past you are fleeing and the terrible future you are pursuing so avidly. And the virtue that you believe in less and less as you cling to it more and more. I don’t believe I can speak with authority about the best of humanity. But you are my favourite.”

I didn’t say anything, and he kissed my tears away, and I kissed him back, and we ended up not choosing a crossroads that day.

Love,

Ybel

Dearest Zann,

The growling noises became louder. They were accompanied by bursts of rustling branches, as though creatures in the trees were leaping closer to me. I skulked away from nearby trees, as quietly as I could. I don’t know if it helped. But the growling paused, and then receded, as I heard a new sound: soft footsteps.

Someone was here in the woods.

Following me?

I listened.

“Ybel?” a voice said, in a normal speaking tone. “I suspect you’ve lost your path.”

It was Ellewen.

I breathed out.

“Ellewen?” I said, standing up. “What–How did you get here?”

There he was, with a cloak and walking stick, unhooded, calm. Some nearby branches glowed white, shining on our faces. “I hope you’re not in any distress,” Ellewen said. “It seemed to me that I might place myself here to forestall such.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you.”

“It’s not a hospitable copse, this. Shall we walk in this direction?” Some of the branches stopped glowing, and others glowed instead, lighting a path deep into the forested night.

“I’ll trust you,” I said as we started.

“As has been your habit.”

“I haven’t regretted it yet. Although I did wonder what you meant by telling me that I was safe with Lord Clear.”

“Yes. I was going to raise that topic. I’m sorry, Ybel. I didn’t understand Lord Clear. He had never revealed to me that side of his character, that is treating your city so unkindly.” He held a branch aside for me, and I stepped past it. “I was wrong, and you suffered. Like everyone else, I must strive to be less wrong in the future.”

“I accept your apology.” We now were on a forest path whose course was drawn on the earth in white light, and the branches were now dark around us.

“Thank you. What are you in quest of in these charming glades?”

“I’m not really sure. A wizard told me that I should find a crossroads that was significant to my family. I’m trying to find Wande and her daughter Jhusdhe.”

“And at the crossroads?” His fingers on my elbow guided me over a protruding tree root.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know which crossroads. I thought I’d try the Four Signs, but that’s just a guess.”

Ellewen nodded softly. “May I assist you, now that I am here with you? This errand is not a private one?”

“I would love it if you did. I feel like there’s been no-one I could count on. Except Ambe, but I only saw her for a minute.”

“The choice of a crossroads,” he continued, “is a delicate one, and best to be essayed in daylight. Many hours remain of the night. What saith you of the suggestion to get rest and sleep now, and search out family history in the morning?”

He had stopped and turned, and I met his gaze. “That makes sense.”

“Then this will do,” he said, and moved a couple of boughs aside, revealing a small hollow. “There is room here; if you will lie down beside me, I can assure that the night will pass safely and, in all other respects, contentedly.”

“I will,” I said.

Love,

Ybel

Most beloved Zann,

I didn’t know of a crossroads that had anything to do with my family.

I had begged the use of a room in the Wizards’ Hall building so that I could hide out until dark. Not only did I not want to walk the city in daylight without Sandavin’s charm, but that day’s mist was a black-streaked grey I had never seen before and I didn’t want it touching me.

The wizards didn’t have a map of the roads around Crideon. That might have been helpful. I could see if anything stirred my memory. Instead I rested and read a book someone had left lying around. Which family did they mean, anyway? Me, Wande, and Jhus? Or my parents and sisters, from up in the Boltmarch? Or…

Then I remembered that there was a famous crossroads to the east of the city, downstream, that they told folktales about. I couldn’t think of a connection to my family, but there might be one.

It’s called the Four Signs. Usually a crossroads will have one signpost with signs pointing where different places are, down this road or that one. But at this place, for whatever reason, two big roads crossed and each of the four different ways had its own sign. There was a song about a band of highwaymen being killed at Four Signs. “The Red Riders”. I had never been there, but it couldn’t be hard to find. Just follow the Mill Hill road.

The rest of the day was a series of almost doing things but then not doing them. I almost finished the book, but then I thought I should go down to the kitchen and see what was to eat. I had my hand on the kitchen door when there were some bangs and lightning cracks from above. A horrible smell seeped down. Not wanting to see what happened next, I left the building altogether.

Sunset had dispelled the grey mist, so that was good, but when I tried to follow the Mill Hill road out of the city, I ran into a battle between Lord Clear’s men and some other soldiers. I took the long way around to stay clear of the fires, and ended up leaving the city by some other road, anonymous in the night.

It couldn’t be too hard to find the Mill Hill road from here, I thought. Just take the first road north and I couldn’t miss it. Well, I tried that, after some hours walking, and the road took me into the middle of some woods, and by the time I realized it, I had lost the road in the dark.

Ordinarily this wouldn’t have bothered me very much. I might have been lost, but I wasn’t very lost, and I’ve slept outside in worse conditions than this. But something growled from up a nearby tree, and then some more things growled from some more trees.

Love,

Ybel

Dear Zann,

The next day I returned to the Wizards Council hall and presented Rheux and Sandavin with a sealed note from Ambe. They opened and read it, and put it away without reaction. Sandavin said, “I’m going to make preparations for Ambe. Can you deal with Ybel here?”

Rheux nodded. She was just a little bird, but I thought there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm in her nod.

“Deal with me?” I asked her. We were in the same bureau they had questioned me in before.

“We’ve been looking for this woman Wande,” she said. “Not that we’d never cheat anybody, but we don’t do so for no good reason. We have been looking.”

“And you haven’t found her.”

“No. Nor her daughter.”

“What does… Does that mean she’s dead? She and Jhus?”

“No. If they were merely dead, we would have discovered that. It means that there’s something confounding our magic. They could be on another plane of existence. They could have travelled a great distance from the city, farther than they could have had time to travel. Or, more likely, they’re in some relatively nearby place but some kind of other magic interferes with our spells.”

“Like if they’re prisoners of someone,” I suggested.

“That’s one possibility. But then, there are places where such spells are blocked and it has nothing to do with anyone who might be there. Some chambers of this building, for instance. Your people might be in such a place perfectly innocently.” There was a dish of seeds on the table and Rheux pecked at them.

“So what do we do next?”

“I don’t like to send you away unsatisfied,” Rheux said. “But Sandavin and I have done a lot of spellcasting looking for Wande and Jhusdhe. We tried all the conventional spells and then we tried some special magics that often help us scry people or things who are magically warded. I believe that’s a fair exchange for your delivery of two messages.”

I didn’t answer.

“I do have one last thing I can give you, though. We did a card reading for you, in case the gods and spirits had any advice for your search. Card readings are vulgar and unreliable, but at least they’re also difficult to interpret.”

“Thank you?”

“You are welcome. The substance of the card reading is this: that your path should lead you next out of the city, to a crossroads that has something to do with your family.” Rheux cocked her head to the side and looked at me.

“And what do I do there?”

“If I knew, I would already have told you. I wish you good fortune in your endeavours and I hope you find your missing people. We can do no more for you. Please return Sandavin’s charm before leaving us.”

Love,

Ybel

Dear Zann,

I thought of asking the wizards what had happened to Knarrett. Then I thought some more, and I thought about not asking the wizards what had happened to Knarrett, and I liked that better, so I kept my mouth shut.

Sandavin hung a charm around my neck, on the same thong that held my coin. It was made of some dull metal and looked a little like an anteater. I wondered if that was a coincidence. “None of these curst soldiers and brigands should look twice at you if you’re wearing this,” he told me. “You can wear it as long as you’re coming and going on our business, but when we’ve settled everything, I want it back. It’s a good one.”

They seemed ready for me to be on my way, so I yawned and relaxed. “Just one more thing to resolve,” I said. “You have to remove any magic you’re going to use to spy out where I go to talk to Ambe, and you have to bind your whole Council not to track me through magic or any other way.”

So that started a long and frustrating negotiation. More frustrating for them than for me, because my position was that I was always going to believe that they were trying to cheat me unless they somehow convinced me that they weren’t, and it did take us a while to get past that. Eventually I was satisfied, and left, with their sealed message for Ambe.

With the charm around my neck, it was easy to get myself cleaned and fed and some less disheveled clothes, and also some comfortable rest out of the afternoon mist. How I was going to travel all the way to the palace with no longcoaches running I hadn’t thought about, but then I realized I could probably stow away on a boat going upriver. After all my time both on the docks and at the palace, I knew I’d be able to pick one out going the right way.

That worked, and a few hours later I was back at the palace. Nobody looked at me as I stepped off the vegetable barge onto the palace wharf; I ignored all the Rosolla Guards around and went right to Ambe’s lair.

She met me at the door. “Where did you get that thing around your neck?” she said, with some anger.

I detached Sandavin’s charm. “Guess.”

“I don’t need to guess. What do you want?”

“The Council is helping me find Wande. In return I told them I’d bring you this.” And I held out the message.

Ambe opened up a fan and spat on it. Then she closed it again, shook it, opened it, and fanned air onto the message. Finally she smelled the message. “I guess it’s safe,” she said, and took it.

“Can I come in?” I said. “I don’t want to get caught up in any guard stuff here. I want to find Wande.”

She fanned me and the charm, and smelled us, and beckoned me inside her lair. “I don’t like this. Why didn’t you just come to me? I’d have been happy to find Wande for you. Now I have to deal with these pests.”

“It wasn’t by choice,” I said, and told her the story.

Ambe shook her head. “I had no idea it had gotten so bad in the city,” she said. “All right, you didn’t do too badly. Now let me see what they think they have to say to me,” and cracked open the seal on her message.

I couldn’t see the message from where I was, but after a few seconds of reading she raised her eyebrows, and kept them raised. “Well,” she said. “They’ve gotten creative. You met with Sandavin?”

“And Rheux.”

“Oh, her. Ay. Well, this is much to think on. This may be too good a bargain for me to tell them to splash in my piss. Listen, I have to go into my workroom and meditate on some lore. Do you want to rest here for a time? There’s bread and cheese in the next chamber.”

And that’s what I did. I went easy on the bread and cheese, though; I figured everything would be a little easier now and I’d be able to eat much more regularly. Why wouldn’t that be true?

Love,

Ybel