The mage shrugged. “Wouldn’t it be better to just have a vial you break or a slip of paper you tear to detonate? Why all the waiting? And why something that you need to inhale?”

“For style! For panache! For that… that il’ne se la that every hero needs in their brand,” said Buster.

“Imagine walkin’ out of a bandit lair with a cigar clenched in your teeth just as the whole place explodes behind you! Or imagine surveying a dark temple with a thick cigar in your hand and havin’ the whole buildin’ explode just as you take a puff!” Boomer pantomimed inhaling from a cigar and tossing it away. “Nothin’ left of it but a geyser of flame and dust just after you say ‘all that ceremony, up in smoke.’”

“The quips practically write themselves!” said Buster.

“Though we’re makin’ a book of ’em, just to get the creative juices flowin’,” said Boomer.

An attendant handed Gorm an open pamphlet. He glanced down at several alleged witticisms printed in thick lettering. “‘Guess I’ll light up. Everyone else here is going to,’” he read.

Boomer and Buster’s twin grins radiated hopeful enthusiasm. “See?” said Boomer. “It all comes down to style.”

“Style can tell us a lot. The little flourishes. Common expressions. Frequent hallmarks of sentence structure.”

“The fact that it’s scarg-spit crazy,” said Pathalan, High Scribe of the All Mother.

“Indeed,” murmured Scribe Beryn distractedly. The ancient Human hovered over the scroll like a reptilian mother over her clutch of eggs, tongue darting over his lips as he studied the text. His skin was the same mottled brown as his robes, just with more wrinkles and a rougher texture, and he wore a pair of pie-plate spectacles that made his eyes look like the huge orbs of some nocturnal lizard.

“I mean it’s supposed to be nonsense,” said Scribe Pathalan, ill at ease in the tiny, wooden chair next to Beryn’s desk. The darkness of the old scribe’s windowless chambers pressed in around the tiny light of Beryn’s glowstone, so that he and the old man seemed to be alone on a starless night. Pathalan could only tell they were surrounded by old scrolls and books by the smell of old parchment. He shivered and pressed on. “Or at least it’s usually nonsense. But this… it’s not like the All Mother at all. That’s why I brought this to you.”

It was an ill-kept secret that Scribe Beryn knew the All Mother’s scriptures better than any other scribe. This was impressive for a Human who, near the end of his life, had a mere seven decades of study under his belt. Since his youth, Beryn had been drawn to Al’Matra’s writings like a moth to a candle, all the while eschewing the less scholarly trappings of being a temple scribe such as holy feasts, holidays, fully-funded retreats to a lake in the Green Span, greater feasts, ritual dances with the priestesses, unsanctioned cavorting with the priestesses, and holiest feasts. Pathalan couldn’t fathom what sort of tiny, precise madness would cause a man to forego the best parts of his job, but the All Mother’s temple took all sorts—indeed, they took anyone they could get—and Beryn was admittedly the useful sort.

The old man blinked and turned the massive lenses upon the Elf. “Short sentences… direct, first-person direction… notes of sadness. It sounds like the All Mother to me.”

“But it makes sense,” Pathalan protested.

Beryn glanced at the page, then turned his gaze on the high scribe, brow furrowed in concern. “Does it?”

“Well, not exactly, but⁠—”

“‘Don’t make me remember. I don’t want to remember,’” Scribe Beryn read the text with a slow, pedantic rhythm. “‘I am sorry for what I’ve done, but don’t make me remember it. Stay away.’”

“Yes, fine, not a lot of sense,” conceded the high scribe. “But it’s coherent in a way, right? She’s not mentioned olives or fish once. And she keeps coming back to this. I mean, three, four times a week I’m getting this sort of… of willful forgetfulness. And when she does it’s very… intense. Unusually so.”

This was an understatement. Normally, the All Mother’s scripture ready to be penned was like a faint itch at the back of the high scribe’s mind, and simply relaxing his wrist and letting them write themselves solved it. These words felt more like a burning rash that had already been scratched too much. They wouldn’t be ignored; his wrist leapt for a pen of its own accord sometimes. Once he’d woken from sleep to find that he’d walked to his desk in his nightclothes and scrawled several verses.

“Well, her holiness does work in more mysterious ways than most,” said Beryn.

“It’s more than that.” The Elf pursed his lips. “Perhaps it’s some sort of… attack?”

“You think it’s demonic?” asked the Human.

“I was thinking more mnemonic…” said Pathalan. There was no need to suspect an extra-dimensional demon when the All Mother had more than enough inner ones to account for any strain of madness. “She’s upset about something.”

“Sadly, that’s not unusual,” said Beryn.

“Right, but… I’m just wondering if there’s something we can do to ease her mind,” said Pathalan. He consciously did not say, “so that she’ll stay out of mine.”

Scribe Beryn gave Pathalan a flat, fascinated look, like an entomologist might consider something with too many legs emerging from a chrysalis. “You know that finding the wisdom in the All Mother’s words takes years. Decades.” He extended a leathery arm and gave the Elf a pat on the hand. “I’m still working through the ontological significance of the thematic patterns in the early books of Jeph, and I had much more hair and teeth when I began that. You can’t take any of it at face value.”

“Right,” said Pathalan, though doubts lingered.

“Are you feeling all right, Holy One?”

He let out a long breath through his teeth. “It’s probably just that business with the statue. I think it’s starting to get to me.”

“Oh? Have they not fixed the sculpture of High Scribe Niln yet?” asked Beryn.

Pathalan felt a chill run from the tips of his toes to the points of his ears, and he couldn’t stop himself from shuddering. “It feels like he’s watching me, like he’s laughing at me. I can’t even go in the sanctuary anymore with him grinning like that. I just… I mean, something’s coming. I just don’t want to remem—I don’t want to know what it is.”

Concern sent deep wrinkles spiderwebbing across Beryn’s liver-spotted features. “Perhaps some rest would be good for you, High Scribe.”

“Yeah. Or maybe a feast. At least Acolyte Penna could bring me another cup of tea.” Pathalan’s voice quavered as he stood on shaking legs. “Something to take the edge off.”

“That sounds nice,” said Scribe Beryn. “A nice cup of pugwort and honeysuckle, I should think.”

The high scribe nodded. Yes. Pugwort was strong. “After I… after I get back to my desk.”

“Yes, I’ll send her up,” said Beryn, watching the Elf stumble back toward the doorway. “All Mother guide your words.”

“May she take a break for a while,” muttered Pathalan in reply, though he knew that sentiment was hopeless. Already he could feel the burning beginning at the back of his skull.

“At least stop for the night!” Poldo hollered over the rushing wind. “You need a rest!”

If the directive held any sway over Thane, he didn’t show it. The Troll thundered on through the swirling snow, even as the sun threatened to slip behind the black brambles of the Green Span’s winter canopy. The driving wind bit at Poldo’s skin, and clumps of ice built up in his mustache and tugged at his lips.

Several Wood Gnomes took what shelter they could in the fur on the back of the Troll’s shoulders. When they caught Poldo’s gaze, Red Squirrel shrieked a tiny imperative at the top of his miniature lungs. It was barely audible over the howl of the frosty wind.

“I’m sure he just didn’t hear me,” said Poldo.

“Hello, Kaitha.” Thane’s breath was a white cloud against the deepening blue of the winter evening. “My name is Thane.”

As one, the Wood Gnomes shot Poldo a look of uniform apprehension; when you are being carried through a blizzard at breakneck speed, it is best to be carried by someone of sound mind.

“He’s just rehearsing, I think,” Poldo assured them.

“We’ve met before… though not like this,” Thane managed labored breaths. “But I’ve helped you before… and I’m… here to help again.”

Red Squirrel chittered again.

“No regrets at all!” said Poldo. “Listen, if nothing else, it’s clear that he needs our help. He’s in no state to deal with the bannermen or the guild. Besides, he shall have to stop eventually!” Poldo’s attempt to reassure the Domovoy was weakened by his own doubts. The Troll ran with the single-mindedness of a golem, sprinting past every limit of endurance that the Gnome imagined for him. He moved faster than a carriage, sometimes galloping, sometimes sprinting, always pressing northward as fast as his huge muscles could carry him.

“Probably,” Poldo conceded, pulling his cloak tighter around himself.