Each post in this thread should be a letter, sent by redcap or otherwise.
Please be careful to give date, location, sender, and recipient.
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Date: near end of Summer 1013
Location: Sent from Ungulus with Benedict when he left
Sender: Ealhstan
Recipient: Quaesitor Iustina of Guernicus1, Magvillus, Domus Magnus of House Guernicus, Roman Tribunal
Mistress Iustina,
I hope this missive finds you well. I have some dire news. Earlier in the season I arrived in Chester, where I am from, near Gwynnedd but in Mercia, and made my way north to Ungulus where I met up with Quaesitor Luciu of Guernicus. He found Pontius Arbiter's body and buried it. Luciu was wounded from a battle with brigands who seemed to want to steal some goats on his way to Ungulus. He appeared to be healing well before his wound was infected and it took him quickly, a poisoning of the blood they say.
I spoke to Brother Æthelred in Chester, if you remember he is the one who sent me to you all those years ago. We spoke in hushed tones of a self declared witch hunter, Wulfric, who has the ear of the Alderman of Mercia. Wulfric drives fear into the hearts of those who might council restraint against The Order in any response to the damage caused by the war with the Diedne. Life is hard here on this Isle, starvation in some places and this seems to make for easy convincing by Wulfric and his people of the danger of any who practice magic. I believe he may be a danger to The Order but I can not say. At the very least he has succeeded in making Mercia inhospitable at best to The Order, or so it seems.
Ungulus was devoid of magi when I arrived. The three here left on campaign and have not returned or sent word for three seasons. One of their apprentices, Caelha, apprentice to Tacitus of Tremere, is in charge, she does not like me but she seems confident enough and I feel no sense of the infernal about her or anywhere here despite one of the missing magi being a member of House Tytalus. There was talk of tryin to find them, at least that is what Caelha wants the reinforcements, as she calls the other magi, to do.
Along with Luciu, who you know, a couple other magi arrived.
Thomas Myddleton of Merinita - It seems he hid from the War with his master and recently was gauntleted. He does not have The Stink of hell.
Janus of Flambeau - Speaks of burning and smells of smoke, constantly, but does not smell of brimstone. He seems older than the other magi here but I am not sure exactly how long he has been a magus.
Betula of Criamon - Returned to England from The Cave of Twisting Shadows, she is rather strange and I do not have a good read of her though I do not sense anything infernal about her.
Cath'rinne of Bjornaer - She is dark and has an untrustworthy eye but, again, no stink of the infernal.
It seems most covenants of this Tribunal have fallen or are in a state such as this, perhaps Ungulus is salvagable. Castrum Antiquum seems down to a single or few magi in hiding elsewhere. Perhaps Thomas' Parens is the only one left of Castrum Antiquum.
I am unsure where I am off to. Likely I will help Luciu and the others rebuild, perhaps help look for these missing magi of Ungulus. I will send another letter when I have more to share.
Your servant,
Ealhstan
1 Quaesitor Iustina of Guernicus is a pious, middle-aged maga who made her name for herself during The Corruption (of House Tytalus) and views infernalists and demonic influence as the bane of The Order. Since The Corruption she has made it her mission to help arm the Quaesitors against infernal threats, both with knowledge and with looking for and training children who display a propensity to Sense Holiness & Unholiness, which she is able to do herself. She has extensive church contacts which reach even even to England and the churchman who sent Ealhstan to her at Magvillus though many of the more distant contacts she has never met and only has a relationship of correspondence with them.
I don't think Nauvi has arrived and introduced himself as of sending this letter so I didn't mention him.
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Date: Beginning of Autumn 1013
Location: Left at Ungulus for the next Redcap to pass through
Sender: Betula
Recipient: Vineus of Criamon, The Cave of Twisting Shadows, Tribunal of the Greater Alps
Beloved Pater,
This path winds in ways I never would have seen. Unapt ways. Necessary ways. A soul grows within. These lands are dangerous. The Troubles are not over. We must bring safety to these lands. Repair the lands, heal the people. Our old home was destroyed. Replaced by faeries. I seek the final transmission of Cassandra. I have found Janus and others. We will create a new home. It is a mystery. There is much here. I have much to learn.
I will leave instructions here at Ungulus for the Redcaps and write again when I can.
In the light of The Spharios,
Betula
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The Oak Circle
Autumn 1015
To my most patient and long-suffering mistress in the Arts, Mildred ex Merinita,
from your wayward thorn of an apprentice, now styled Thomas Myddleton of Merinita,
I promised you, when we parted, that I would write once I had found a place where folk did not try to kill me every other day. It has taken rather longer than I expected. You will be pleased to hear that I am not dead, not marched, and not even lost in some regio loop, though there were moments when any of the three seemed possible. I have also made an extraordinary set of friends among the nisse who tend our goats here at the Oak Circle, quick clever folk with bright eyes and bright mischief. They have adopted me, or I them, though it is never clear with faerie kin who chooses whom. They consider me amusing, which I count as a victory.
You sent me out from our snug regio with a satchel full of notes, a few hard-won spells, and your parting injunction: “Mind the stories beneath the ashes, Thom, for they are never truly finished.” I thought this very elegant as I stepped out into the world. Then I spent my first notable season ankle-deep in mud and dead men.
I think the tale of what I’ve stumbled upon began on a battlefield in the spring of thirteen. The war had rushed past and left the usual gifts: shattered arms, broken banners, and that peculiar quiet that sits over a place where too many have died and not enough have been buried. The camp fed us fish stew that tasted as if someone had boiled regret, and we trudged up a valley toward some old Roman stones, hoping for shelter and perhaps a little plunder that had not already gone walking in someone’s pouch. The ruins were all tumbled walls and a broken turret, but the stones still remembered the old order; there was a regio staircase with a curtain drawn across it, dark as a priest’s disapproval, and foul whitish silt at the base of the sandstone that prickled with power. The grogs scratched and coughed around it while we tried to decide if scooping the stuff into a pot counted as bravery or madness. It turned out to be vis, of course, though a kind that itches. There is a lesson there about greed and skin rashes.
That first journey north felt like walking through the ghost of an age that had just died. Villages with too many fresh graves, chapels where the altar candles served more for mourning than celebration, and every other hedgerow whispering rumors of Diedne survivors, miracle-working priests, and magi gone bad. You would have liked the Roman roads, at least; they still hold a line in the land as if the mundanes once knew a little something about Rego themselves.
By late summer we fetched up at Ungulus, which you will remember from your own travels. You warned me it was once a shadow of a covenant, and you were not wrong, though “shadow” now suggests too much peace. When I arrived it felt more like a hive that had been kicked over. Out of the wreckage of half a Tribunal came our little swarm: Janus ex Flambeau, all scar tissue and duty, still smelling of smoke from Castellum Veridian; Cath’rinne ex Bjornaer, whose fascination with the dead often leads her to spells they would rather we did not cast so casually; Betula ex Criamon from the Cave of Twisting Shadows, thoughtful and strange; Nauvi of Tytalus, who smiles the way a knife does when you test its edge; Thadeus ex Miscellanea, whose tongue is as agile as any spell. And some others have joined us too: Elric of Bonisagus! Do you remember him! He is alive! And now with us! And a red-headed magus of war, Angus ex Miscellanea. He kind of scares me, if I’m honest, with his martial ways, but honestly, we need him. Especially since Master Janus left… Oh! Sionag! You would really like talking to her. She’s a healer. She patched me up after my run in with the water elemental, but I get ahead of myself.
And then there is young Thom Myddleton. Ha! I tucked myself among them, a Merinita sprig in a very martial and erudite bouquet, and tried not to look too delighted by every ghost story and half-seen regio we passed.
Ungulus itself is a hard place. Stones that remember siege, towers that lean a little as if tired of the wind, and a covenant that owes more in promises than it holds in vis. Chronos the Redcap came and went like some wandering chorus, telling us that the war was not truly finished, that Blackthorn watched us, that Cad Gadu counted on us, that the Diedne might yet rise from some northern bog to finish what they started. You can imagine how this cheered everyone. The scribes scratched away in cramped chambers, copying books promised to Blackthorn in exchange for roots and other necessities, while we planned patrols, vis hunts, and the founding of some new holding that might give us a safer foothold in the north. The whole place stank of worry and lamp-oil.
There were journeys aplenty out from Ungulus, of course; no one stays within those walls for long unless chained to a lectern. We returned to the Roman ruins, poked at battlefield sites, and found scattered traces of magic clinging to stones, water, and bones. At one pool we met folk of a hedge-tradition, led by a man named Malhad. They spoke of the “Dead of the Pool,” who send healing weeds to aid the living. Their potions could stretch a man’s years, though at some cost I do not yet grasp. You would have liked them: no tidy Arts, just a patchwork of bargains and habits that somehow work. They knew nothing of certain red-tinted waters that interested the others, which only proves that magic is like gossip; no one hears the whole of it.
Word came then of Galloway and Wicker Hill, where the Diedne once stood and fell, and our turb captain, Hamish MacDuff, had ghosts of his own to settle. Hamish is a big man shaped by too many winters and too much war, with the look of someone who expects every kindness to be taken away. He returned to a battle site with Cath’rinne and Thadeus to bury a fellow named Maine beside Tacitus of Tremere, the old turb captain Berwick, and a scribe, Lumius. Chronos directed the placing of the grave with more ceremony than some covenants give to signing a charter. Local hunters wandered in with a deer, and Thadeus smoothed the talk so no one asked too many questions about why magi and redcaps keep their own graveyards. I was not there that day, but I have heard the tale so often that the dirt on Maine’s shroud might as well be under my own nails.
Within Ungulus the work became more tedious and more dangerous, which is an impressive combination. We had to settle how the covenant would live now that so many around us were ash or absent. There were lengthy debates about vis sources and scribal teams, about who would stay in the old stone pile and who would strike out for fresh ground. I kept mostly to listening, since politics gives me hives worse than Perdo-soaked sandstone, but even I could see that we needed another home, something living and green to balance all the ruin. Janus fretted that too many resources would bleed away if we founded a new place. Thadeus argued for fairness and prudent sharing. Somewhere in there, the idea of a chapterhouse near a place called Cauldron Falls took root, and my ears pricked up like a hound catching the scent of hares.
We also had our share of stranger works. Cath’rinne spoke with the dead using that grim little spell of hers, Whispers Through the Black Gate, and we exhumed a magus whose ghost had all the warmth of a bishop dragged from bed. He would answer nothing of substance, only pointing us toward a younger quaesitor who held his notes, and demanded we close his grave again. Betula spent mornings talking to the forest with Intuition of the Forest, and as we drew near an old painted cave full of lingering magic, her appetite changed and her humors turned. She began to eat meat, which she had long shunned, and then fell ill enough to turn her art inward with Revealed Flaws of the Mortal Flesh. Whatever she saw upon herself, she would not share, only asked for herbs against her sickness and kept her own counsel. Later, as you might guess, it proved to be a child. Criamon mysteries and motherhood make a curious braid.
You will want to hear how I have fared in my own Arts amidst all this. I have leaned into Muto and Creo as you taught me, though war leaves few quiet seasons for peaceable lab work. I have practiced the otter form I first essayed in your presence, slipping into the streams near Ungulus to watch fish and learn the secrets of current and stone. The grogs now accept that if Thom is missing, he is probably wet and happy somewhere, not dead in a ditch. I have made myself useful in small ways: shaping rafts from conjured wood, mending garments, coaxing stubborn animals to health, all those little tricks that make mundanes forget that you are dangerous.
One of my favorite episodes, which you would have scolded me for enjoying so much, took place at a river crossing the locals call Salmon River. There was a ferryman who took us one way, then announced that his passengers usually “made their own way back,” which is the sort of thing mundanes say when they have discovered that magi can drown and are hoping to see it happen. We discovered a boundary there, a hidden island, and when the others hesitated, I stepped to the water’s edge and let my second sight do its work. The regio line was as clear as a scratched circle on a table. I asked Betula, very politely, if she would conjure a raft. She obliged, and we all huddled together on this unlikely craft and shoved ourselves through the unseen curtain into another layer of the world. I half expected you to appear on the far bank and ask if I had prepared proper notes on the experiment.
In the midst of all this wandering and squabbling, the dream of the new place, the Oak Circle, grew bright. The site lies near Cauldron Falls, where the water leaps down into a pool watched by a faerie lord called the King of the Foam, and the surrounding woods are guarded by ancient oaks I have come to call the Grandfather Oaks. From the moment we spoke of it, I knew that if there was to be a living heart for our survivors, it would be there. Ungulus is necessary, but Oak Circle is the place that sings to my blood.
You will want the tale of how we came to speak with the King himself. At first, I could not reach him. I played with his otter guards, who are man-sized and charmingly vain, and I tried every sort of respectful address I could recall from your lessons on faerie courts. Still he would not answer. So I did what you always told me to do, which was to keep coming back with better stories. I told the otters tales of the Schism, of Castellum Veridian’s fall, of Cairn Mabon buried in flame, of Ungulus clinging to life. I spoke of my own father’s court and of the Day Queen of Coniston Water, where I later served a season as councillor, and promised that if the King of the Foam would hear me, I would deal honestly with him as with any lord. At last, after many days, the water gathered itself into a man’s form crowned with spray, and a voice like the rush of the falls answered.
We struck a truce of sorts. We are permitted to dwell near his pool at Oak Circle so long as we honor his domain, do not poison his waters, and offer news and tales in season. In return he watches the falls, and in times of need may rouse his otter knights to harry any foe that troubles us there. It is a delicate thing, more dance than contract, but I think you would approve. If I have erred, I have at least erred in the direction of beauty.
Around the same time, Betula undertook a great working with one of the Grandfather Oaks. (Did I tell you Betula had a baby?) The tree is older than some kingdoms, its bark folded like a wise man’s brow, its roots sunk deep into whatever passes for the bones of the world in that place. She cast her spells, seeking some insight of her Path, and was taken by Twilight right there beneath the branches. You would have chided me for staring, but I could not help myself. The air thickened, light bent, and for a moment it felt as though the whole world held its breath. When she returned, she was changed in ways I do not yet fully grasp, more certain in some ways and more burdened in others, especially with the child stirring within her. I told her it was all “tremendously awesome,” which I maintain is accurate, even if it is not precise Hermetic language.
The Charter debates at Ungulus finally bore fruit, and a band of us have begun to make Oak Circle into a true chapterhouse. We brought with us peasants, herders, and even a few petty criminals who agreed to work in exchange for shelter and food; we keep locks of their hair, of course, in case they mistake our hospitality for indulgence. A priest named Leofric tends their souls and our tools, walking between the hamlet and the Circle, saying mass, fixing hinges, and offering counsel both mundane and divine. The covenant has an autocrat now, Edwin, whose patience for account-keeping exceeds my own by a factor I cannot express without resorting to Intellego Vim.
Founding a place is a different kind of magic from war or vis hunting. We have spent days drying marshy ground, clearing brush, shaping cottages and sheds. I have taken especial joy in helping the grogs, shifting earth so their cottages do not sink, encouraging beams to warp into better shapes, making sure no one’s hearth smokes too much. There is something very satisfying about watching a wall stand because you whispered to it kindly. It is not as grand as hurling bolts of fire, but I suspect it will last longer.
Of course, the world beyond our oaks does not forget us. Wulfric, that grim churchman Ealhstan spoke of, continues to trouble our thoughts. I have not seen him myself, but I have heard enough to be wary: a man who survives too much, who preaches too harshly, and who seems to have the ear of kings. Chronos brings letters and rumors. Blackthorn demands its books. Cad Gadu peers at us from the edge of the mist. Somewhere out there, Diedne remnants still practice their arts in shadows. We are expected to stand as a bulwark in the north, with half the vis we need and twice the enemies we desire. It is all very unreasonable, which is to say, very Hermetic.
As for me, I have tried, in all this, to live as you taught me: to listen to the stories beneath things, to treat faerie lords with courtesy, to remember that mundanes are not pieces on a board but people in their own right. I cannot say I have always succeeded. I have made mistakes, spoken too lightly when a heavier word was needed, or too honestly when a gentle lie might have spared someone pain. I am still small beside the works of older magi, but when the otters of Cauldron Falls greet me as a friend, when the children of our peasants stare at the Grandfather Oaks with wide eyes, when Betula trusts me enough to let me stand nearby as she walks further into her Enigma, I think perhaps I have not entirely wasted the gifts you poured into me.
You once said, half in jest, that I would not be truly grown until I had a place that I feared to lose. I think the Oak Circle may be that place. The war hangs over us, and the Schism’s embers still glow, but here there is also laughter, and the creak of new-built doors, and the constant murmuring of the waterfall. The King of the Foam sulks if I neglect to visit him with fresh tales. The oaks listen, slow and patient, to our plans. Even Hamish, who has lost more than most, sometimes smiles when the goats misbehave.
So that is my tale since I left your side: battlefields and regios, graveyards and charters, hedge-folk and faerie kings, a failing covenant clinging to life, and a newborn chapterhouse growing among ancient trees. If you find, in any of this, cause to scold me, I shall accept it dutifully. If you find cause to be proud, I shall deny it loudly and secretly cherish every word.
If the paths between regios are kind, I hope one day to lead you by the hand to Cauldron Falls, to present you properly to His Frothiness, and to show you how the oaks move when they think no one is watching. Until then, know that your thorn scratches on, trying to grow into something like a tree.
Your affectionate and incorrigible apprentice,
Thomas Myddleton of Merinita,
written at the Oak Circle near Cauldron Falls,
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Autumn 1016
To my wayward thorn, Thomas Myddleton of Merinita
I am very pleased to hear that you have been making friends, and are finding your own way in the world, and hopefully, being a thorn to others besides me, lest they derive too much joy from life.
It is good to hear from you, and about your trials and troubles, and how you’ve overcome them, or at least making an honest effort at it, which you didn’t alwasy do as an apprentice.
While the things you’ve accomplished might seem grand, it is the stories behind them that will show you the way in the dark times ahead. Always remember my teachings. I know, to you am probably just a rambling old fool, but what I’ve learned may yet safe you in ways you do not yet understand.
It sounds like you’re making yourself a home, and I thank you for the invitation to visit, and survey the mess you have done for yourself and others. I am currently pursuing a challenging faerie to bind as my newest familiar, so it may be some time before I arrive, but I hope to visit by Winter 1017, and I hope you’ll be ready by then to recieve instruction on your magic, to be closer to that of the legendary Pendule. I advise you to prepare for it by learning several Imaginem spells that you can reliably cast. Better to know to know several simple spells than one powerful spell.
And I suggest getting a multicolored cloak, like mine.
If I were to praise you, it would be once you’ve truly shown a growth, besides the rambling of youth. And as for scolding, it seems you are in dire need of that.
Your long-suffering mater,
Mildred of Merinita
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