“Let me tell you a story.”

In point of fact, that was exactly what he had been paid to do. His employer had likely used the fact that the Traceren Ridsekes would be telling a story as incentive for his guests to attend that night’s ball. Many of those guests thus assembled in their finery; drinking from gilded or ivory cups and eating from platters carved from the finest teak or hammered from silver would not have been there if not for their desire to hear him do exactly as he was apparently beseeching them.

All part of the atmosphere. It never paid for a story-spinner to oversell himself. And Traceren Ridsekes was the story-spinner supreme. He stood in the center of a ring of the most wealthy, powerful, and above all dangerous people in the city of Bri-sean; a city run by criminals and blackguards, and yet he spoke as if at an intimate gathering of friends.

Fitting for his profession and reputation, he cut a larger than life figure; standing at least a head taller than any of the other men in the room, as well as a few of the elves and hailene in attendance. His was not the first image that sprang to mind when any of them thought of a minstrel.

That word conjured to mind a dapper, possibly effeminate young man of presumably elvish heritage, with dark hair, fair skin, and delicate features. They did not conjure a blonde giant of obviously Mindeforme parentage that granted him a frame one more associated with coats of mail rather than the blue spider-silk waistcoat, matching pants and lighter blue poet’s shirt he wore as if he’d been born in them.

Of course, they knew not to call him a minstrel; Trace was a loreman. While none not of the Art fully understood the difference, it was whispered that calling a loreman a minstrel was akin to calling a man who routinely caused minor extinctions a mere hunter.

Trace allowed the Word; that gentle thrum in tune with the rhythm of the universe, to fill him and issue forth with his own words. The quality of the story and the skill in the telling were genuine, but the Word called to something in each person’s mind and their innermost hearts, in a way that mere words and inflection never could. Under the sway of the Word, they felt the story; believed it; felt it resonate with their own lives.

The tale was a simple but a powerful one; the familiar tale of two lovers in the Age of Tragedies, Themea and Colthus. Everyone knew the basics; how the young lovers met, were separated by war and arranged marriage, and how they found each other once more in their twilight years. But the details were where Trace worked. As his predecessors in the Art before him, he had rewritten the tale to suit his own style of storytelling and tailored it on the fly for the audience.

Bri-sean ‘nobles’ were a suspicious and skittish lot. It was a necessity, considering that the most common path to what passed for nobility in Bri-sean led over the cooling corpse of a previous noble. For that reason, that night’s telling of the tale emphasized the unwavering trust that grew between the two lovers and how the rewards from that trust allowed them to go on in their darkest hours.

Even without the Word throbbing in their ears, the nobles would have eaten it up like the heavily spiced, imported cheese they loved so much. Trace was giving them a glimpse of something they all longed for, but could never have. And that glimpse was exhilarating, possibly even addictive.

It was having precisely the intended effect. Here and there, they were leaning toward him; eyes heavily lined with the most fashionable ochre money could buy glazing over, jaws occasionally going slack. A few, with a number of known throat cutters and assassins among their number, were even showing water in their eyes.

While his words worked their unique magic, Trace took in the room. High Consul Domiterey, his host and employer, had similarly spared no expense in having his ballroom constructed. The floor was tiled with black marble from the dwarf held, frozen coasts of Genmide, the ceiling was high and vaulted, every inch covered in a gilded frescoes that were no doubt the work of artisans from Harpsfell, possibly the Bardic College itself. Every space along the wall that didn’t sport a door, window, or fireplace was draped with lush tapestries depicting idyllic rural scenes of Callen, Rizen and Mindeforme – in such a mindless juxtaposition that it was clear that whoever had placed them had never visited either nation.

Though just as thoroughly captivated by Trace’s story, servants still found enough wits about them to continue circulating their platters of sliced meats, exotic fruits and spiced wine amid the rapt nobility.

As the story wound toward the denouement, Trace added a discrete hand gesture to one of his flourishing hand movements and on cue, a servant he’d personally retained just for this effect crossed behind him with a tray of Cylla wine from Rizen. With timing that had taken the entire afternoon and the promise of more than enough gold to buy the servant passage from Bri-sean with enough left over to pay for a month’s room and board abroad, the serving man reached Trace just as the loreman reached behind him without looking and plucked a glass from the tray.

Like so many things that took a great deal of effort and practice, the sequence was small and seemed so simple to those watching. But their hindbrains told them that an amazing, possibly magical thing had just happened and without even realizing it, their impression of the famed loreman improved yet again.

“…and in that place, Themea and Colthus found their joy eternal, their love and trust, everlasting.” Trace finished in a reverent tone. He wore a serious and introspective expression as he sought the eye of one of the many guests in the room. He found her standing near a tapestry depicting the famed color-shifting roses of Rizen’s southern coast. Alone, he noted.

She was a hailene and like all hailene, she sported a pair of grand, feathered wings, which emerged from the back and when fully extended, could nearly reach twelve feet wingtip to wingtip in adults. Her wings were dark grey, becoming black at the tips of her flight feathers. That alone was a mark against her by hailene standards of beauty, of which Trace put little personal stock in.

Her raven hair was worn up with a few strands left free to frame her face with its dark, almond shaped eyes and full lips. Her black dress was dark green velvet that clung pleasingly clung to her breasts and hips while managing not to be revealing in the least. Even her arms were covered; but by sleeves and by elbow length gloves.

Trace had spotted her when she had arrived, unannounced and, it wouldn’t surprise him, uninvited. Magic was all well and good, but loremen were students of people and their surroundings. Observation was second nature to them. And Trace observed that the hailene woman didn’t belong, even if her bearing and general air told all the gathered Bri-sean nobility that she did. Most of that was purely her hailene upbringing; all hailene were raised to innately feel that they should belong everywhere.

When he was certain he’d caught her eye, much to her apparent, yet swiftly disguised shock, he raised his glass. The angle was such that she was perfectly framed in the blown glass bowl of the cup. “To love eternal.” He didn’t use the Word with that line. It was unnecessary to augment the natural resonance of his reverent tone.

His audience parroted his salutation to the couple in the story and obediently waited until he drank to do so themselves. Trace allowed himself a smile, obscured by the wine in his glass, at this. His hailene was a fraction of a second ahead of the others; clearly she had been acting on what she expected them to do.

Behind him, the musicians began to play a light, casual tune to signal that the story was over. There had been three others interspersed throughout the night, but this was the final one and there was a bit of a crush as Bri-sean’s hoi polloi all attempted to be the first to wish him well, ask him one last question about fashion or theater in Harpsfell, or attempt to retain him for another engagement.

For his part, Trace was amiable and friendly to them all, even the ones he knew to be truly reprehensible beings once they skinned themselves out of their silks and clothes-of-gold and once more wallowed in the running of Bri-sean and its thriving criminal element. He didn’t accept any new engagements, however. A week in Bri-sean required a year abroad to wash away the feeling of having gone wading in a midden.

But for all his stopping to exchange gossip, to fend off job offers, and to complement particularly opulent regalia, Trace managed to steer his way ever closer to his hailene, who was herself seemingly more intent on watching the nobility than speak with them.

Was she from the Bardic College? He wondered. Clearly, she was no lorelady; if she was, she would know her, there being only twenty-one ranked loremen at the moment. The test was arduous and most who even attempted the path washed out and became bards and chroniclers and consuls instead. But she could be a student of the College on a walkabout. The loreman path in particular required seven journeys to the furthest reaches of both continents to learn from different cultures.

In the end, he discarded this thought as wishful thinking. A bardic student likely wouldn’t be so off put by the figure hugging dress she wore and continued to self consciously adjust. Likewise, no bardic student Trace had ever met could cross a ballroom filled with nobility – or the closest local equivalent – and resist the urge to speak with anyone that would respond.

She, therefore, was not from the College. Nor was she from Bri-sean. There were a few other clues that presented themselves upon closer examination, but all of this only served to pique Trace’s interest more.

It took another hour, but he finally managed to sate everyone’s curiosity and follow his hailene onto the ballroom’s balcony.

Bri-sean had once been a city-fortress built on a hill; an outpost of the long fallen Vishnari Empire. Over centuries, a town had grown up around the fortress and it had become a city built around a hill. But despite even the cataclysm that turned the neighboring fey kingdom of the Great Green Expanse into the monster haunted wastes called the Ashed Lands, Bri-sean still managed to grown and thrived thanks to it’s proximity to the Strait of Nivia and it’s lack of proximity to anything resembling rightful or just authority making it a haven for brigands and thieves.

With no room to grow outward, Bri-sean grew inward. Basements were dug, houses were cut right into the sod, and hundreds of thieves’ runs were established until the hill itself was largely gone and Bri-sean became a city shaped like a hill. Rather, like a vast ziggurat with ten steps; each the domain of a different ‘noble’ crimelord.

Domiterey was the man in charge of the third step from the top. His palatial home was built into the edge of the ‘step’ so that his balcony’s all faced the sunset. Like the ballroom, the balcony was likewise a testament to his desire to flaunt his wealth, this time in polished limestone inlaid with gold. In this case, however, the gold served a second purpose; creating the matrix for a spell that allowed the balcony structure to jut out over the precipice without any conventional supports. It was a common technique in Harpsfell, but an exotic curiosity in Bri-sean. Crystal wrought mage lights provided dim, but expressive illumination.

Trace made a gesture and the well paid servant made another pass near him, allowing him to put his empty glass on the tray and replace it with two more. Thus equipped, he sidled up beside the hailene woman who was watching the green moon, Azelia, rising to join her white sister, Gracellia in the night sky.

The third moon, red Mayana, would not be making an appearance in their part of the world until the end of the Gathering season.

“Cylla wine?” He offered before the object of his attention registered that he was there. She turned to see the proffered cup and took it with a slight bow of her head. Her wings drew closer to her back, a sign of agitation in her race.

“Thank you, Mister Ridsekes.” She said politely. But she didn’t make any move to partake of the beverage. Trace didn’t recall her having any drink at any time during the party.

“But of course.” He took a sip of his own drink. “I couldn’t bear to see a lovely woman such as you go parched.” The hailene gave him a sidelong look at the flattery. She wasn’t the kind of woman to melt over complements and Trace had already ascertained that. He was probing. “All I’ll ask for in gratitude is your name.”

She gave him another long look and straightened her back. Another tic typical of eastern born hailene; trying to make herself appear taller when she felt the situation was leaving her control. “Magdalene.” She said simply. “Magdalene Risewind.”

The name cemented what Trace already knew; she was at least from a clan of hailene that never gave up on the compound word clan names adopted by refugees of the fallen Hailene Empire. Had she been of a more societally integrated family, she would have had a portmanteau clan name, or a corruption; something like Riswind or Risner. Were she part of the new hailene court on the island of Illium, she would have been Nyvarra, which translated from the Imperial tongue into the common language as ‘Rises on the Wind.”

She lacked any eastern accents, however, which lead him to believe she had grown up in the west. His guess was Callen, the nation Bri-sean was tenuously located in. He hoped that didn’t mean she was a local. At first blush, he felt she deserved better.

“I have to say, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Risewind.” Trace leaned on the balcony rail and made sure to keep eye contact with her. “It is ‘Miss’, correct?”

“Yes. It is.” Magdalene kept the eye contact, but her tone made it clear that wasn’t an invitation.

“Ah.” Trace decided not to follow up on his earlier question. Instead, he took a moment to direct his gaze to the moons. “I… hope this doesn’t sound egotistical, because I want your honest opinion, Miss Risewind; but what did you think of my performance?”

Magdalene’s wings drew even tighter against her back. She didn’t have time to waste with an over paid story-spinner begging her to validate him when there were dozens of more easily excited girls inside waiting to do that and more for him.

The fastest way to be rid of him would be to deliver an honest or at least unflattering critique.

“If you’re certain that you want honesty; I think Themea and Colthus is an over told and hackneyed story, no matter how you dress it up. And The Beast of Isador Rook is an irresponsible story to tell children and an outright insult to tell adults. You cannot tame spirit beasts and only a fool would try.”

Spirit beasts were viewed by and large as self-propelled natural disasters. Normal ‘monsters’ were a threat, but spirit beasts; monsters, animals or even members of the mortal races caught in and augmented by the effects of the phenomena commonly known as ‘divinity sparks’, were known to be more aggressive, more difficult to kill, and far more intelligent. It was because of them that any village that wanted to survive more than a few years had strong walls and diverse defenses.

That The Beast of Isador Rook; a story about a town the befriended such a creature and was in turn protected from a goblin raid by it; existed at all as a story in such a climate suggested deeper truths that Trace knew personally, but he felt no need to explain that to Magdalene, who wouldn’t believe him anyway.

“I see.” He made sure his tone was jovial. “I mean, I disagree –vehemently on the first count; Themea and Colthus has near infinite creative and exciting permutations; but I can certainly understand. After all, I did use one of the more traditional forms at the High Consul’s request.” Another carefully measured sip of his wine gave her time to respond that she didn’t take. “Do you have any criticism for the other two stories? The Song of Senderic or the Hessan Origin Myth?” He caught her eye upon speaking the second title and unusual for a hailene, she avoided it.

Magdalene’s throat tightened and it took a great deal of self control not to glare at the glorified bard. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see her being anything but at least provisionally friendly with the much loved loreman. “I found it to be wildly inaccurate in places. I suppose you would defend that as artistic embellishment?”

Trace gave up on catching her eye. Not catching it had already told him something important. He turned so that his back was against the rail and directed his attention to the people dancing inside. The musicians were playing a reel from his home nation of Rizen. Briefly, he wished he could convince the hailene woman to join him for it.

Strictly speaking, it was well within his power to do so, to a certain value of ‘convince’, but he wasn’t about to abuse the Word for that and contrary to rumors, he wasn’t the womanizer anonymous copper-piece thriller novelists made him and every male loreman in history out to be.

“I would.” He admitted to her. “The scripture offers three conflicting accounts of the origin in the Book of Light alone, and don’t get me started on the rest of the gods in the pantheon; there are six high holy books of Denaii among four major sects; I hope you will forgive an artist like myself for picking and choosing the more intriguing parts of each to tell. But if you wish to enlighten me; I would be most appreciative.”

He was certainly persistent, Magdalene noted, he probably wasn’t used to being turned down. She decided that the time for subtlety was over. “I don’t think I can, Mister Ridsekes.” She maintained her poise. “I’m to be leaving in the morning and I fear I’ve stayed later than I intended already. I bid you farewell.”

Trace refused to allow himself a frown at this. He was no stranger to rejection; given that the caliber of women he sought after was beyond the level of woman that would swoon over his reputation; but her terseness and barely concealed rudeness was new. He decided that the proper response to that was to get under her skin in return.

“Call me Trace, please.” He raised his wine glass to her. “And I suppose I should call you Sister Magdalene?”

Not only did her wings draw closer to her back this time, but her feathers stiffened. Trace prided himself once again on his ability to read people. She started to shake her head and deny it, so he pressed on, keeping quiet tones, as her sect was largely persona non grata in Bri-sean.

Please, don’t try and tell me I’m wrong.” He said amiably. “You hide who you are well, but I am who I am.” He began listing off the clues, “The way you avoided speaking with anyone here? Of course you wouldn’t; you feel you’ll be tainted just talking to them. Your concern over the inconsistencies in my rendition of the origin story?” This time he used ‘story’ out of reverence to her religion, “Put together with a lady from an eastern tribes family like yourself raised here in the west, made your religion quite clear to anyone who thought about it. As to placing you as clergy, well, I will admit that I am curious how you planned to reach the athame in the slip-sheath strapped to your garter in an ankle length gown.”

Her face colored at this last part. Not from embarrassment, but from annoyance.

“Sorry.” Trace said with a smile, “But that isn’t the best place to hide even a small dagger. Not for a beautiful woman in a dress like that. Next time, might I suggest the small of your back?”

Magdalene’s eyes flashed and she leaned forward dangerously. From anyone else’s point of view, however, she may as well have been whispering sweet nothings in his ear. For the first time, Trace realized that she was a few inches taller than he was. “This has nothing to do with you, Loreman Ridsekes.” She used his title as a kind of ultimatum. “I will leave now and be gone before high sun tomorrow. If I am discovered, I swear on my honor as a templar, I will die with my hands around your throat.”

Templar. Trace thought, not letting his thought processes break through his serene visage. Strange that she didn’t have the build or the bearing of a warrior. He wondered how he missed it.

Leaning forward, Trace made as if he was returning a romantic salutation. “There’s not worry for that, Miss Risewind. I’ve no love for these people; only their money and acclaim. I’ll be away from here come noon myself; my engagement here is over.”

“Make certain it is.” Magdalene said, straightening with a faux giggle that impressed Trace to no end. From a distance, with no context, he would have believed it. With that, she turned and started to walk off.

For his part, Trace stood back up to his full height and smoothed his shirt. “Until next we meet, my dear lady.” He lifted his glass to her. She didn’t respond, placing her own glass on a passing servant’s tray shortly before disappearing into the crowd.

Trace shook his head and smiled to himself as he sipped his wine. Turning to the moons once more, he let his mind wander. What was a Hessan Knight who didn’t look like any sort of knight at all doing at a noble soirée in Bri-sean; a city that had flat out denied the Temple a right to build a cathedral or hospice?

If there was one thing he hated, both personally and professionally, was a story with lose ends. Unfortunately, he reasoned, he would probably not meet the beautiful knight ever again. After all, in the morning, he would be on an airship to Callen’s capital Spinar for some well earned time off.

Real life, he reasoned, rarely cleaned up all the loose ends.