The refectory staff at Cardocin Hall has an unsubtle way of letting students know that the kitchen is closed. The House Master dims the glow-globes with a dramatic sweep of his arm, so that the vaulted ceiling disappears into shadow and the towering windows begin to shimmer with moonlight. 

Although the Arte he uses is quite modest, students immediately feel the thrill of Nishyá, a fluttering of the primordial breath of the cosmos, tingling along their skin and quickening their pulse. They sense the gentle finesse of his shaping, so unlike their own fitful and clumsy attempts in the labs, and it tinges their minds with euphoria and terror. 

After the light drops, he spins on his heel and strides out the House door in a flourish of robes. The First Degree students assigned to housekeeping take that as their cue to start stacking chairs and mopping the floor.

Most students grab bags and books and bolt for the exits, still chewing their last mouthful. Who has the time to linger over a coffee or pastry anyway?  Only a paltry few are caught up enough with studies to spend a precious hour chatting with friends, and no one is arrogant enough to believe they are ahead. Or, at least, not fool enough to say so in front of a master.

Still.

This night, three tables harbored procrastinators. One was crowded with a dozen blue- and red-robed students playing a noisy and occasionally messy drinking game with a deck of cards. Another was flanked by four black-robed masters smoking pipes and talking in quiet voices.

At the third, The Honorable Leiss, daughter of Rykscraag, was massaging her temples, elbows straddling her empty salad bowl.

She spoke in a deliberately slow and carefully enunciated voice to one of her dinner companions.  “Sazi. You're going to alienate your last advocate among the masters. Take Ónen Dekka's offer and write your Disputation on the Ilarian Diaspora. She's the foremost expert on the settlements in Rath Cemryn, she runs multiple dig sites, and, most importantly, she still likes you."

"You don't believe me."

"It doesn't even matter if I believe you."

"That means you don't."

"Sazi," she shook her head and steepled her fingers, searching the darkened windows for the right words. She sighed. "Find a credible research topic. Starfall isn't even literary. It's just…a conspiracy theory based on rumors and hoaxes."

An uncomfortable silence followed, punctuated by a cheer from the party table as someone clapped an empty cup down.

The third member at the table, Reima, swapped plates methodically. Coming late as he did from the arena, he had learned the hard way to get all his food as soon as he arrived, even if that meant stacking three plates. Although he didn't bother to look up at either his companions or the partiers, he was attentive, as always: a necessary skill for a future duke.

Sazi leaned forward, using the noise as cover. "You know the Tale of Eldref?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"Vaguely," she said, waving a hand. “I had to read it for Ón Seranen’s Tutorial in Third. Tiresome.”

"It's beautiful, actually. But what if I told you the Tale of Eldref is not actually about Eldref and the fall of Muldav Keep?"

"I would say he picked a poor title."

Sazi leaned in further still, holding her eyes with a focused gaze.  "What if it turned out," he said, "that the five doors in the Keep, which open on five consecutive days and release five consecutive monsters, was actually a coded message about five Starfalls?”

She squinted quizzically, but Sazi only smirked and nodded, settling back in his chair. Quod erat demonstrandum.

They paused their conversation as one of the Second Degrees on refectory duty came by with a hot water kettle. Sazi held up his cup without comment and the boy stopped, filled it, and moved on.

“Do you realize how insane you sound? You are trying to prove a prehistoric event by citing an epic poem written less than a thousand years ago, by some troubadour-”

“A very talented troubadour,” he cut her off, reaching for the cream.

“A troubadour,” she repeated with emphasis. “Not an historian, not a scholar, not even an explorer. How would he know? And why in Abo’s name would he encode his discovery as a lyric poem? You know there must be a dozen variations of that tale. Not exactly a foolproof way to preserve knowledge.” She raised her brows at Reima for confirmation, but he just shrugged and took another bite of his torte.

Sazi tsked while gently stirring his tea. “I never knew you for such a skeptic, Leiss.”

She threw up her hands and flopped back in her chair. 

Sazi smiled. “It’s not that I’m unsympathetic, you know. Two years ago, I would have reacted the same way.” He looked up, putting the spoon down. “Recently, though, I found a key, and it has helped me to unlock a lot of mysteries.”

“A key. Really.”

“Metaphorically speaking,” he said, blowing on the tea and taking a sip. His wiry, slight frame made a comical silhouette, bent over the cup with his unclasped robe hanging precariously from his left shoulder. Underneath, he sported only shorts and a light, sleeveless shirt.

Leiss waited for him to reveal more while Reima methodically scraped the last of the light flakes of crust from his plate and licked his fork clean.

“The key, Sazi,” she said, craning forward and throwing her arms wide.

That made Reima smile. She was such a child of the Protectorates, with her grand gestures and fierce intensity. It was provincial, but charming.  When he first met her more than six years ago, he thought that she was genuinely furious, her amber cheeks flushing and accentuating the whorls along her jawline. He had learned, however, that it was never vindictive, just her passion for debate. All that aside, she only let it show in private with close friends, and made sure her robes and blouse were never disheveled. A daughter of a Baron, however humble.

“Sazi, don’t be a dick,” he said, pushing the plate away and signaling a busboy.

“Who’s being a dick?” Sazi replied with an exaggerated quizzical tone.

“You’re provoking her,” Reima said, handing the stack of plates over. “You do that a lot. You’re very smart, we got that. So spill it, I still have studying to do tonight.”

“Fine. No sense of drama. I knew that the Protectorates had zero culture, but I’m surprised that none of Calavi’s made an impression on you.”

Reima’s only answer was to fluff out his arena gear, trying to get some cool air under the studded vest. “Key.”

“Well, it’s a poem.” He sipped his tea. “Sort of.”

“Abo’s balls, Sazi.”

“It’s on a fragment of pottery,” Sazi said, putting up his hands, palms outward. "We call it a visual poem - repeated images set up in a pattern that form a larger whole. I’ve determined that it connects an important literary test with a critical historical concepts." He held out his left hand, then his right, glancing briefly at each. "The Fate of Eldref, Prince of Khalinjar, and Starfall.” He sat back, folding his hands.

Leiss gave a wan, half smile and cocked her head slowly. “Yah, so Eldref supposedly refers to something that would have happened fourteen millennia before his tale was spun?”

"Because that pottery fragment is almost twenty thousand years old."

Leiss pursed her lips. "Ok." She paused, nodding slightly. "Ok. Go on."

“My working theory is that the visual poem was known to the author of Eldref’s tale, but that he had access to other sources as well. The craftsmanship - perspective, line work, precision - indicate a technically mature people.” Sazi was looking from Reima to Leiss now, gauging their reaction.

Leiss narrowed her eyes. "But they worked in pottery."

"Not of a kind you'd find in the Protectorates."

She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not being snide. Well. I'm not only being snide. The composition of the material is unlike anything we've ever seen." He shrugged, suddenly subdued.

"So you think that means it survived a Starfall?" she asked, scoffing.

"Of course not," he snapped back. "All the minerals in the clay are from the region. It's clearly native. Just as clear," he said in a clipped voice, "is its age. Time to update your ignorant definition of prehistoric."

She jerked her head back, jaw tight.

“What might convince us,” Reima intervened in a calm voice, “is some kind of physical evidence of Starfall itself. Some actual remnant that came from the heavens.”

Sazi sighed loudly and threw his head back, hand over his eyes.

“Speaking of drama,” Leiss said, looking at Reima.

Sazi sat up, his mouth squeezed into a prissy expression. “I’ve got Lab-rat to my left and Hoo-ha-boy to my right. Are you surprised that I’m exasperated?”

“Not at all. I’m accustomed to the petulance of historians when someone points out the flimsiness of their evidence.”

Sazi hooked his index finger and gave it a short snap upward.

“No thanks,” she replied brightly.

“I assume you have something, or you wouldn’t have such a smug attitude,” said Reima, raising his brows and folding his arms. The leather bracers made that pose awkward, but he had committed, so he had to make the best of it.

“Well in fact.” Sazi dragged out the suspense by savoring another mouthful of tea. Gently replacing the cup on its saucer, he nodded. “You’re right.”

Leiss refused to give him the satisfaction of encouragement, though her curiosity was piqued. She started calmly folding her napkin, moving her chair back ever so slightly. That was enough to hurry Sazi along.

“The poem clearly depicts something falling from above the noxisphere to alight on land. In fact,” and here he punctuated his explanation by jabbing his index finger on the table, “it gives the precise location.”

That got their attention and in spite of himself, Reima asked, “Which is?”

“The Spindle.”

Reima blinked and looked off, frowning. Leiss arched her brows and cocked her head again.

“The Spindle,” she said, putting the final fold in her napkin.

“Yes, the skinny mountain by The Rook. Tall, thin, looks over the Court of Tramendene and the Plain of Basins.”

“I know what and where The Spindle is, Sazi.” She looked to Reima, but he was still staring off in thought. “It’s just…it doesn’t help much, is all.”

“Not yet. We need to go and get a look at it.”

Reima snorted, looking back at Sazi. “How do you intend to do that?” he asked, his voice mocking.

“I figured a skilled Artefex like Leiss here could get us there and back tonight by doing that ranging thing. Through the Synoptic.” 

Leiss gave a short laugh. “That ‘ranging thing’ won’t work at The Spindle. It’s the largest ansifric landmass on Iferwon. There is no Nishyá to work with, and ranging blind is worse than a death sentence.”

“Ok, then we climb?” Sazi looked at Reima, but he was shaking his head.

“For a dozen reasons, no. First of all, the base of The Spindle is more than four thousand meters above sea level, and its top is almost twice that, the very limit of what humans can handle. We’re sitting at, I dunno, fifteen hundred here? Now imagine climbing a ladder, hand over hand, for four kilometers. Except it isn’t a ladder, it’s steel rings, biting cold, covered in ice, and there are no ropes or rails except what you bring with you.”

“That’s a clear exaggeration!” objected Sazi. “There are sections where the trail winds around the face, I’ve seen pictures.”

“Right, sorry, probably only the last kilometer, kilometer and a half is the ice ladder. The rest is a half-meter wide rock scrabble, also covered in ice. But nevermind that, because to even get on the ladder road you have to pass through Gromay House, a military barracks built on top of a sheer granite rampart that is over 200 meters high, with a single, meter-wide, switchback staircase leading up to its front door. Its guarded front door.”

Sazi began twiddling his spoon on the table. “Ok, smarty, so how do the Sentinels get up there?”

“By the ladder road, but,” he hastened to talk over Sazi’s objections, “they train and train for that climb, and stay up there for weeks at a time on overwatch. You don’t even like to jog, as I recall.”

“Damn straight. What about Sherta?”

“They can’t fly that high with a rider. Maybe five thousand meters tops. Anyway, they won’t go much higher because The Spindle makes its own weather. And above that, it scrapes the lower edge of the noxisphere. On days when the ‘sphere is low, the Sentinels have to hunker down below the ice ladder because the top is in the miasm.”

“Hunker down? How do they do that on a giant stone icicle?” asked Leiss.

“Caves, below the bottom of the ice ladder. Originally they were just overhangs, but apparently they have been expanded to create a staging and storage area. Most of the Sentinels hang out there when they’re on rotation, and the duty teams make the climb to the overwatch station. They don’t talk much about the ops part, though.” He gave a barklike laugh.

“Work with me, guys,” Sazi said.

Reima spread his arms wide, shrugging. “The Consociation goes through a lot of effort to make The Rook impregnable. You think the three of us are going to break through their security before we even graduate?”

“I’m not suggesting we break into The Rook,” he replied. “I’m asking you to get me to the top of the lookout post on The Spindle. You’re the Son-of-a-Duke Soldier-Boy. Don’t you have connections?”

“Not like that, and not for a fantasy quest to find proof of a fairy tale.”

“Starfall is real, dammit!” Sazi bellowed, pounding the table hard enough to make the cup jump off the saucer.

The four masters stopped their low murmuring and looked over, eyes narrowed and faces lit from beneath by the glow of their pipe bowls. “Have a care, young Count, for your crockery,” intoned the senior master, Ón Dajan, in a lilting Cantonaïan accent.

Sazi bowed his head but scowled at the double-entendre.

“Your crockery,” murmured Reima, doing his best imitation of the old mage.

“Hm, right you are - the crockery,” giggled Leiss under her breath.

Sazi closed one eye, feigning a head pain. “Just figure out a way to get me to the top. Please.”