The tri-clinic closed very early on temple day, which often meant it tended to be quite packed by mid-morning.

  Just after the sun had risen, Caen was already at the tri-clinic. He was on dispersal duty today: the dematerialization of sprites.

  Sprites formed when there was an imbalance in the ambient mana within a region. Many factors contributed to this: the backwash of spellcasting, expulsion of attuned mana, and slag cleansing, to name a few.

  Sprites formed often in the tri-clinic, and temple day was often dedicated to dispersing them.

  Using a spell and his fully extended spirit tendrils, Caen rummaged through an examination room in the Blood-healing section. There were four other Spirit-healers here with him, only one of whom was an Ereshta'al.

  One of them was significantly younger than everyone here, but the other three were people he’d known for years. Troublemakers.

  They all peered into corners and nooks, behind equipment, and on windowsills, using short-ranged spells to ferret out sprites of all sizes and to dematerialize them.

  Beyond the need to clear the building of what amounted to pests, younger Spirit-healers were particularly invested in dispersals because they offered them an easy avenue to advance.

  Spirit-healing passive augmentations granted a spiritual suction that attracted free-floating spirit particles. And even though sprites weren't sentient, they possessed pseudo-spirits of a sort. Upon dispersal, their spiritual particles could be drawn and integrated into one’s spirit.

  Caen located a sprite behind a lamp sconce on the wall. It was a writhing mass of cobwebs. Sprites inhabited whatever physical substances were left unattended.

  He spent some seconds casting the dispersal spell, and the cobwebs fell to the floor, losing their coherence altogether. The spell was fairly involved and cost quite a bit of mana.

  The next sprite Caen located was a clump of dust as large as his eye. He forewent a spell this time. As soon as he connected to the sprite, it exploded in a light shower of dust. He was far more adept at unfurling his existence after so many weeks of training with Hshnol.

  “He’s not even doing anything,” said one of the Spirit-healers in a low voice.

  She'd spoken from across the room, and Caen wouldn't have been able to hear her if not for his newly acquired passive augmentations in Vibration magic. Amongst other things, his sensitivity to sound had increased drastically.

  “I think I saw him cast one spell, but ever since, he's just been standing there,” another said. “Fucking ritualist.”

  They snickered at that.

  A tendril of Caen’s spirit located another sprite on the underside of a chair. It constituted a few short threads of cloth and crawled quietly across the wooden frame. Soul-sense dispersed it in an instant.

  “I hear he’s been getting a big head since he came back from Odaton,” one of them said. “He got into a fight or something?”

  The Ereshta'al boy with them laughed quietly. “I was there. He didn't beat anyone up. His aunt is a Valiant. She and her party got into a brawl. Ritualist, here, helped transport the injured to the healing tents.”

  “Rimich has been saying he'll put the pompous idiot in his place. I honestly can't wait. There—”

  Caen snorted and turned to leave the room. The tri-clinic was sure to be packed this morning, and he'd promised Brother Nabik that he'd help out today.

  He paused at the door.

  Klakalk glyphs.

  They'd been coming frequently since he'd found one at home. This was the second he'd seen at the tri-clinic so far.

  The one at home had vanished eventually, but there'd been others. In his room. On the stairs. The windows. His family members had been having trouble sleeping.

  As Caen made his way to Nabik, he quickly reproduced the glyphs in a notebook.

  ***

  “I’m disappointed to have to remind you of all people about this,” Brother Nabik said to Rimich.

  They were in the middle of a procedure. Nabik and a visiting Blood-healer had been reconstructing the bones in a patient's shoulder. Caen, Rimich, and a pair of auxiliaries were working on mending several portions of torn tissue and fractured bone.

  “I distributed notes to all of you on Healer naMoon’s lecture. I urged you to read it before this procedure. Three techniques were outlined.”

  “We read it, Healer Nabik,” Rimich forced out through clenched teeth, glaring at Caen, who was working in silence.

  “List them out then,” Nabik replied. “And which of the three should be applied to this specific case?”

  Rimich bowed his head, looking very enraged. The auxiliaries beside him wore their shame openly, though.

  Caen was mending a hairline fracture caused by a spell that one of the auxiliaries had used incorrectly.

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  “Caen, which of Healer naMoon’s bone-mending techniques should have been used in this situation?”

  “Spiral seam symmetry,” he said. “Anything else will place too great a strain on what you're trying to fix.” Caen had written those notes himself. Brother Nabik had asked for copies days ago.

  “There were mnemonics in the notes, even,” Brother Nabik said. “A healer heals. If you don't bother learning vital information, how, by all the Entity's lights, will you get any healing done?”

  “W-we’re sorry,” one of the auxiliaries mumbled.

  “As you should be,” Nabik said. “Stand back and watch. I won't have you making any more mistakes.”

  ***

  Caen left for the helpers’ lounge while Nabik dressed down the auxiliaries some more. His meeting with the language expert was in an hour, and he was anxious to get answers.

  The helpers’ lounge was much fuller today than usual. Younger healers and auxiliaries sat eating and chatting or fixed themselves drinks and snacks at the round table at the center of the room.

  Some people quieted when Caen walked in, gawking at him. He ignored them all and began mixing himself a blueberry beverage. The options on temple day were always better.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rimich storm into the lounge.

  The surrounding chatter ceased as he walked up to Caen. A few auxiliaries elbowed their companions and gestured.

  “Some of us actually earned our positions here through talent and hard work,” Rimich said without preamble. “You fucking abject.”

  A few people laughed at that.

  “Ouch,” someone muttered.

  Caen didn't have the time for this. He had far more important things on his mind. He grabbed his plate of pastries and cup of blueberry juice and made to step around Rimich, but the man moved to block him. He stepped close, looking down at Caen.

  For all the muscle mass Caen had built in the past few months, he hadn't grown much taller. He Mimicked Rimich’s Blood-healing affinity, which was quite a bit higher than his.

  “What? Can't talk anymore? You were running your mouth so easily back there, ritualist.”

  “Get out of my way,” Caen said.

  Rimich shoved Caen with both hands.

  The instant he made physical contact with Caen, a paralysis spell went off. Caen hardly moved from the shove.

  Rimich's whole body, however, went limp, and he crumpled to the ground, dragging Caen's cup of blueberry with him.

  The lounge erupted into a hubbub.

  Rimich lay slurring on the floor, eyes unblinking. His face and shirt were dyed with blueberry juice.

  Caen met his eyes for an instant, walked over his body, and left the noisy lounge.

  He ate quickly as he made his way to his mother's storage closet in the temple. He locked himself in there, sat on the floor with his back to the wall, and projected his consciousness into the Astral Realm.

  ***

  “This is Preceptor Hiyilit,” Vai said, gesturing to the man sitting across from them.

  Hiyilit was deathly pale with chapped lips and numerous rings on his left ear.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Caen said.

  “Likewise,” the man said in accented Thermish.

  They were all sitting in a living room with ornate columns at the corners. Caen and the preceptor sat in cushy armchairs. Vai hovered on his throne, and Hshnol stood quietly by the window wall.

  “Let me start with a full disclosure,” the man said. “I studied Ektlk decades ago. It’s a fairly simplistic language derived from the more complex Klakalk. I do not speak Klakalk. I merely acquainted myself with the rudimentary aspects of it in my youth.

  “Interpreting the glyphs you showed me required a horrendous amount of comparative reconstruction on my part, as well as reaching out to colleagues I haven't interacted with in years. Klakalk has so few experts, and Ektlk has something of a bad reputation.”

  “This Ektlk language, why does it have a bad reputation?” Caen asked.

  “Hmm, let's see.” Hiyilit fiddled with one of the rings on his ear, as he squinted in recollection. “It saw a brief resurgence some centuries ago when several Filiation mages began using a shorthand form of it in their taxonomy, but then there was a whole thing with terribly unethical experimentation. Materials were burned, researchers were hunted down and killed. All that. So…” He shrugged.

  Caen was so deeply intrigued by this, but they were here for a reason, and the Preceptor intended to be here for only thirty minutes. “Thank you for the disclosure, Preceptor Hiyilit. What did you make of the glyphs?”

  Vai gestured needlessly, and all the glyphs in question, including the ones Caen had seen today, materialized in midair beside Hiyilit, who startled a little at their sudden appearance.

  “Handy,” the man muttered, peering at the floating glyphs. “Honestly? It’s a prank of some kind, I think,” he said. “There are perhaps five people I know of with a robust enough knowledge of Klakalk to construct glyphs like this.”

  He pointed at a portion of the glyphs Caen had seen in Redshadow. “These here can be interpreted as ‘communicate together’ or simply ‘discussion’. Paired with this glyph, it denotes ‘urgency’. This final portion means ‘supplication’ or simply ‘please’.”

  He went over the glyphs that Caen saw at the Valiants’ lodge. ‘For your own good’ and ‘hurry’.

  Then more of the same every time after. Hiyilit helped paint an alarming picture.

  ‘Please. Come to that place. To discuss. This is urgent. They come. You are in danger. This is for your own good. Come alone.’

  Caen's heart was beating in his chest. “How do I go about learning this language?” he asked. “Could you recommend a primer or a lexicon, or some kind of guide?”

  “That would be quite the tall order,” Hiyilit said. “If you're looking to become conversational, you can give up on that. But if it's to pick up the basics, and maybe interpret some elements, or even cobble together glyphs yourself, then Vai should know how to get his hands on a guide. The Ser-gwu library has a treatise or two on Klakalk. You should be able to find a lexicon there as well. Your other option would be any respectable Citadel of magic.”

  Caen looked at his uncle.

  Vai nodded. “As long as it’s something like this, even if it's in a restricted section of the library, I’ll be able to get you access.”

  “Um…” Hiyilit began. “If it's not too presumptuous of me to ask, where did you find these glyphs?”

  “An… anonymous admirer,” Caen said. “On Grat-line.”

  “The envy bubbles within me,” Hiyilit mumbled, shaking his head. “Well, it was a pleasure, gentlemen.”

  “Actually, before you leave,” Caen said. “I need you to translate something into Klakalk for me.”