Makers

Letter Home

Sanah,

I hope this finds you well and that whatever furor we kicked up has died down.

We are safe and with allies, sorry I can't say more than that. Would you look in on the other creche residents for me? I worry what care they are receiving as 'seized assets of the Council'.

Tam sends her affection, such as it is. She isn't around very often. She did say to mention that the next weave will resolve any improper usage concerns, whatever that means.

Tyche is as erratic as ever but seems dedicated to Rabin. Or at least to Rabin's prophecy. He has taken to wearing the new Elod clergy garments. Is he a priest now? I bet Pate would know.

Rabin continues his silence, and I continue my care of him.

Hope to see you soon, and wish you could write back.

With affection,

Espeth

Tyche signed Espeth's name with a flourish and looked back at Tam. "I assure you I am a priest of Elod. There is no grand ceremony. I'm simply telling Paterus I have accepted the mantle so he can gloat. I don't understand your need to confirm it with him."

"And I" Tam replied, "do not understand why you must couch my words in Espeth's hand. Or why I cannot tell Sanah how the words used to convince me to accompany this venture skirted the truth and that I have words of my own to share when I return to Caddaway."

"In answer to the prior" Tyche answered, "it is because this note will garner a particular response when it is intercepted if it comes from Espeth and an altogether different one if it comes from you. We wish to provoke the former. As to the latter complaint, the message in question is possibly damaging to your budding relationship so I am censoring your failed attempt at being coy due to its destructive potential."

Although he couldn't see anything except the girl's silhouette, and he knew logically that she had no eyes, Tyche could still feel Tam's glare. It made him feel somewhat unsettled, and he could image it being quite effective against people without his particular afflictions.

After a few moments he returned to the document and sprinkled sand on it to help the ink set and dry. "This is important, as irritating as you may find it. With this letter Sanah will get the information he needs from you, with my laudable caution that you are irritated at him. Pate will receive the information I need him to have, as well as your ridiculous question for him. Most importantly the Council will get a spur towards positive activity."

Tam looked over the drying parchment. "What information" she asked with genuine curiosity, "could you possibly be directing to Pate in that?"

"It will tell him that my predictive models have become unpredictable as we predicted, meaning our target is likely here in Rosoph with us, also as predicted previously by the previously predictable models." The Librarian replied simply.

Tam 'glared' at him for several more moments before speaking again, all semblance of cordiality now absent from her voice. "Target? Anticipated? I am only here because I was informed it was critical to ensure the safety of this child. What else have you withheld from me? From us?"

Tyche was unmoved by the malice in her voice and calmly replied, "It IS critical that the secrecy AND security of this boy be maintained. It is equally more important that you find the chaotic force that is skewing our predictive models. With that source nearby almost all of our upstream oriented math simply doesn't work any more. I believe it also affects timecasters."

He raised his hand to halt her as she looked to interject. "They are both the most important thing and there are very few people who could accomplish them both. Sanah spends most of his life matching people to tasks and that is all he did here."