The 8th of Aggrave, Year 373 P.R.F. (High Lunar Cycle)

  The Cetimos Ministry of Summoning’s Testing and Isolation Facility #2, on the outskirts of Drebos Altimas

  As the mages seated themselves, Rudolpho gestured me to take a seat of my own, albeit with less impatience or command than I’d been treated so far. Cautiously, I looked over which open chairs remained, and picked one just to the left of the chair he’d vaguely waved me towards.

  He only smiled at this, because of course he did, but for once my choice here had little to do with social courtesies and posturing: The chair I sat in had a railing back to it with a broad unobstructed opening just above the seat. It looked much more accommodating for my tail than the stuffed and padded number he’d indicated. I could have sat in the other chair by curling my tail forward to one side of me, but then I wouldn’t be able to lean back against the backrest without seeming to slouch. And aside from matters of comfort, I still wasn’t so sure of these people that I wanted to appear to be leaning forward attentively through all of whatever was coming next.

  “There, this is more pleasant,” he said. Indicating the rest of the mages in turn, he continued, “You’ve already met Lady Elutria, and this is Hesra and Master Thomas. Does that satisfy your social courtesies?”

  Now that he was making an effort to be polite, I wasn’t sure how thoroughly I should correct him. On the one hand, not being honest here had the potential for more misunderstandings later. But as much as I hated to admit it, he still may have had a point about trying to hold these people to the courtesy I knew. It just felt so weird; the manners I’d lived by were universal in Thersia. Or at least, I assumed as much. I’d never heard anything to the contrary.

  Unable to make up my mind, I tried to split the difference: “Um, technically Lady Ellutria and I had never introduced ourselves to each other before now. And properly speaking, since none of them introduced themselves, I’d normally still assume that it would only be proper for us to speak to each other for the duration of this conversation. Afterwards, we could still decide to exchange names or not as we each wished, and I’d respect their choices and expect them to do the same.

  “But I understand what you were saying, before, if you weren’t just saying it as part of the test. I understand that’s not how you do things here. I’ll try to keep that in mind in the future, although I might still feel awkward speaking to someone I don’t already know, per the rules that I was raised to understand such things. I hope you’ll be patient with me.”

  As we were speaking, the two always-silent mages had lowered their hoods, and the one Rudolpho had introduced as Hesra, a steely-haired matron with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, spoke up. “Oh? With only the five of us here, that doesn’t seem too outrageous. But with all the people you must encounter throughout your life, day in and day out, doesn’t it get tedious trying to keep track of who you have and haven’t exchanged names with? If you bump into someone you only spoke to once, several months ago, as part of a large gathering, how do you recall whether he introduced himself or if the host introduced him to you? Do you just reintroduce yourself to be sure? How do these social rules of yours not break down under extended use?”

  “It’s not that hard, normally. If you’ve properly exchanged names with someone, their name changes color. Anyone with a green name is someone you can feel comfortable speaking casually with. Blue names, too, more or less, but that might be a more complicated topic.”

  “I’m sorry, you said their name… changes color?” This now from Master Thomas, who looked to be the youngest person here, and the messiest in terms of hair and hygiene. Between him and Lady Elutria, the only two people to be addressed formally in this group, was messy hair actually some kind of status symbol to these people?

  “Yes, their name as it appears above their head…” I trailed off. In the chaos of everything else, I had stopped noticing that no names had been visible to me here, since being summoned.

  And now Rudolpho returned to the conversation with “Oh ho? You can see people’s names, can you? I assume that’s true even for strangers, since you said it ‘changes color’, not that it ‘appears’. And given how you expected us to act, can I infer correctly that this is something everyone from your world can do?”

  “Yes, normally. Or at least I think so. I haven’t actually been able to see your names. I don’t know why. But if that’s not how things are here maybe there are people back home who couldn’t do it either, and I just never knew? I don’t know.”

  “Oh ho ho! Fascinating, fascinating.”

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  “Fascinating and useless you doddering old man, if she can’t do it any more. Stop wasting everyone’s time.”

  And with that, Lady Elutria doused our friendly chat with a verbal bucket of ice water.

  *****

  For the first time since I had been summoned, I was actually being left to myself. Rudolpho had pulled Lady Elutria away from the group, and they were having a quiet, intense conversation some distance away, having traveled about a third of the way around the open perimeter of the tower to do it. I could still see them if I turned to look behind me, but I was trying to afford them their privacy.

  The young male mage (Master Thomas, I forcibly reminded myself), had not only raised the hood on his robe again but pulled it down well over his eyes and most of his face. Slumped back in his chair, I could almost believe him asleep, although that seems surprisingly quick on his part. Maybe he had been exhausted to begin with?

  Hesra, on the other hand, had sighed and shook her head before rooting around in one of the nearby cabinets. She now stood near the exterior edge of the tower, facing the open valley, holding an unfamiliar implement close to her face with one hand while she made small adjustments with the other. I wasn’t sure what she was up to, but I could feel her channelling magic and didn’t want to interrupt.

  After sitting awkwardly for a bit, seemingly forgotten for the moment, I tried getting to my feet. Neither Master Thomas nor anyone else seemed to object, so I went to get a better look at the view, close by but not intruding to where Hesra was preoccupied.

  Staring out closer to the edge, I could now see the actual floor of the valley in detail. The most obvious feature was a large, sprawling city, bounded by protective walls. There were several unfamiliar details, like the way portions of the city walls seemed to be clad in metal, or the large white disks suspended over one district of the city, but for the most part cities were cities and Thersia had no end of unusual architecture.

  More striking to me were the elevated structures criss-crossing the valley floor, almost seemingly at random. I spotted two that might be aqueducts, although one seemed to terminate in the middle of nowhere. Others might be elevated roadways of some kind, but it was hard to make out enough details at this distance to be sure. And for the rest, I had no idea what purpose they could serve at all.

  Below and between the stone structures were a mix of dense forests and open plains. I also noticed a patch of trees where the leaves were a much darker green than their neighbors, or at least appeared darker, that might indicate something more akin to a swamp. Or not. I was hardly well versed in plant life and nature to begin with, and now I was trying to make guesses about the vegetation of what might be another world. But it sat just to the side of a direct line between the tower I stood on and the city, so I made a note of it anyway.

  As I stood there looking out… I admit that some part of me had been hoping to see something that would confirm I was still in Thersia after all. Or to a lesser extent, maybe something so alien that I no longer had reason to keep clinging to such hopes. But the sun and the clouds and the sky didn’t substantially differ from what I was familiar with. At the same time, no part of me was clamoring that this was the sky I had always traveled beneath. That this was my sky, Thersia’s sky.

  Similarly, while I hadn’t particularly expected to recognize these specific mountains and this particular valley and all they contain, nothing stood out as impossible or alien, but neither did it feel like home. Not even just an extremely distant part of the home I knew.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Hesra must have finished whatever she was working on, and was now standing beside me. I turned and tried to convince myself that I could answer her back without being rude, but couldn’t quite manage it yet.

  “Hello again. I’m Secia. I don’t think I mentioned it before, but it was a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  Thankfully, she quirked a smile in response. And it was not one of Rudolpho’s still-increasingly-creepy-even-if-he-and-I-are-now-supposedly-friends smiles, either. “Hello Secia, I’m Hesra, and I’m glad to get to meet you, too. And the view? What do you think of it?”

  “Sorry. Mostly I’ve been fixated on how much it does or doesn’t remind me of home. It’s… nice, I guess? Very green, in a good way. I… sorry, I wanted to say something nicer, or at least better considered, but I might not be in the best place for that right now.”

  Hesra’s face softened at that. “I know that this must be hard. We yanked you away from everything you know, and while our Summoners do ask for your permission first, I understand it happens at an unconscious level. Such that in these early days, it feels like something done to you, rather than a choice you made. Not to mention everything that follows.

  “You actually will receive a proper apology from us, all of us. We’re just not used to giving it this soon in the process, since what good to you is an apology if you couldn’t understand what we’re saying? So please try to be patient with us.”

  Oh. I… Oh. There is so much to unpack from what she just said. But more than anything else, it feels like the first bit of genuine kindness I’ve experienced from my new friends, and I have no better idea what to do with it here and now than I did with all the rudeness that came before.

  Overwhelmed, I just nodded in acknowledgement as I continued staring out over the valley below. Trying to see the beauty in it Hesra saw.