The Untold Tale

Eight

Pip, as it turns out, is an extremely competent researcher.

She says this is because she possesses something called a Doctorate in English. I ask her what reading has to do with alchemy, and she laughs. We spend the most pleasantly fascinating evening while she tells me all about the education system in her world, where there are libraries that reach into the sky and are filled with more books than can possibly be read in a single lifetime; where it is illegal for children to not attend a school; that the most skilled and most celebrated of her people are called "Doctors," no matter their healing knowledge, and that they are also, comically, often the most myopic when it comes to their subjects of discourse.

"This is why you are unmarried?" I ask. "Because you are devoted to your studies?"

"I guess," she says, looking up from the enormous roll of blank parchment she fetched down from my cupboard. She blushes and looks away. "But I'm still really young, in my society. Twenty-five... that's nothing. Also 'cause, you know, most of the people at my school were jocks. Um, like Kintyre," she adds, when I admit I do not know what a jock is.

"I see."

What I do not see is why she is so keen to scour every book in my library. I think that, if we are to head out on an adventure, we would be better learning how to build a campfire, sew wounds, and practice outwitting elves. The thought of being ill prepared for our journey terrifies me, though I will not allow Pip to see my fear.

"Well, the aim of the quest is obvious," Pip says to me, as I begin pulling the scrolls and books I feel may be helpful off my shelves and into a pile on my desk. Pip has cleared space on the floor and is now crouched over the long piece of parchment. She is methodically scoring it into a grid-work of squares, rather like an over-extended calendar.

"Obvious?" I ask, slipping two blue leather-bound tomes on the native fauna of the northerly Minchin Forest onto the top of the pile.

"We have to summon the same Deal-Maker spirit the Viceroy did to send me home. That part's easy."

"Ah, and we have that spirit's sigil already," I say, retrieving the note with the recreation my Men brought to me when they brought me Pip. I hand it to her, and she lays it to the side of her chart.

"And that's Station One, taken care of. With this sigil comes the rules of summoning, so we also know that this is going to be a collection quest. We have to get stuff and bring it all together," Pip explains, when my eyebrows wrinkle with my confusion.

"I see," I say. "But what... stuff?"

"Well, that's what research is for. Which Spirit Poem goes with this particular Deal-Maker? Where is it written down? What is its history? Who has summoned this spirit before?"

"The Viceroy has," I say, grasping her line of reasoning. "Did you see anything?"

Pip stills, hands hovering over a quill and inkpot. "No," she says softly. "No, I didn't see anything in the room."

I wait for another episode of shaking and screaming, but none comes. Pip breathes deep, in and out, for several minutes. When she feels calm enough, she resumes scoring the parchment.

"I'll search the tomes and notes my Men extracted," I say. "And compare them to the Spirit Poems on record. They are... ah! Here." I pull them from the shelf.

Pip chuckles. "Only you would have a record of known Spirit Poems."

"I am the Shadow Hand," I say glibly.

"Yes, you are."

❧✍❧

Over the next few days, I spend many an hour re-reading my Men's letters, and the pages and scrolls they liberated from the Viceroy. When the information within them tangles in my mind, and I need a respite from clue-deciphering, I pick up the chronicles of my brother's adventures, and those of the heroes that came before him. I make notes on the sorts of tools they seemed to find useful, the weapons and provisions they pack when they go on adventures, the clothing they cherish. I'm not certain where to procure all of these items, but thankfully, my Men do, as they often pack as if they're questing when I send them to spy.