Chapter Text
Spring is cold in Rexxentrum. It rains constantly, leaving the cobblestones damp and cool to the touch. At night, storms blow down from the mountains, sweeping clouds of curling smoke from chimneys and flooding the skies with rain.
The library on the second floor of Widogast Mansion is warmed by a roaring fire. Still, when rain rattles the windows, Caleb Widogast tucks himself deeper into the high-backed armchair beside the hearth. He makes a note in the journal balanced on the arm of the chair and turns the page. Another gust of wind and rain, and he sighs, pulls his coat closer around his shoulders.
After another dozen pages, he hears footsteps. That in itself is unusual; the plush carpet of the library swallows most sound. But his wife tends to shuffle her feet when she’s tired.
“Ja, hallo, reinkommen,” Caleb says, raising his voice enough to carry.
“You could never keep me out,” Astrid replies in somewhat slurred Zemnian, crossing the room to lean on the back of his armchair. She sounds bone-tired.
Caleb reaches a hand up and places it over Astrid’s. In Zemnian, he asks, “Have you finished the elixir?”
“Nearly. Three hours to boil off the adamantine and then the final cooling cycle.” She lets her head fall on their clasped hands.
“Do you have a stasis field on it, Schatz?”
“Yes, Liebling,” Astrid says, parroting back the pet name. “Lab safety. You read my mind.”
“I did not cast a spell.”
“We’re married, Caleb, I do not think we need magic for that.” Even exhausted, Astrid manages to turn his words into flirtation. Caleb closes his book, turns enough to kiss her cheek.
“Also,” Astrid adds, still leaning on the back of the chair, “on the topic of lab safety. If I stay up any longer you will find me face down in a beaker of acid in the morning.”
“Three hours until the last phase starts?” Astrid nods. Caleb squeezes her hand. “Go to bed. I’ll wake you at one-fifteen.”
“Ah, Caleb, this is why I married you.” She’s smiling; Caleb can hear it in her voice, and he smiles back, though she can’t see it. “You have to go to bed too. I’ll be done by two. Then sleep.”
“I have to finish this for tomorrow,” Caleb says, holding up his book.
“No. If I have to sleep, so do you. You always get headaches when you don’t and I will not be awake to fix a headache before your meeting.”
“All right, Schatz, all right. I will sleep.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Astrid leaves, and Caleb sinks back into his book. It’s nearly eleven now; he has two hours and twenty-six minutes, which means three hundred pages if he reads quickly.
Caleb is deep into a chapter on mental abjuration when the doorbell spell rings in his head. He shuts it off with a thought before it wakes Astrid, who shares the attunement to all the spells they’ve laid on the mansion, and spends a moment wondering who’s on his doorstep this late, and whether he can get away with leaving them and going back to his book.
The spell rings again.
And then it rings four more times in succession, as though someone is jumping up and down on the doorstep.
Caleb puts down his book and hurries out of the library, through the hall, and down the stairs to the front door. He’s about to say something about how it’s eleven-thirty, his wife is sleeping, who goes around ringing doorbell spells this time of night—
but instead he freezes in the doorway.
There are six people on the doorstep, all cloaked and hooded against the gusting rain. Caleb snaps his fingers, lighting the lanterns on either side of the door to see them better. A blue tiefling dressed in lace and silk is standing right on the step, hand raised to knock. There’s a half-orc in leather armor and a Cobalt Soul monk flanking her. Behind them, a purple tiefling wearing absolutely the most ostentatious coat Caleb has ever seen and a tall, pale woman who he’d lay money is an aasimar are trying to look inconspicuous, and a small, cloaked figure raising a flask to her mouth is tucked in between them. It’s not the strangest group he’s ever seen, but it’s close.
He opens his mouth to ask why they’re there so late at night, and what comes out is, “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” the blue tiefling says, “but maybe! You look pretty familiar.”
The Cobalt monk is eyeing him. “Yeah, you do.” She sounds suspicious, like Caleb sold her bad ale. Something tells him he wouldn’t dare.
“Jester, Beau,” the half-orc says, “maybe we should introduce ourselves.” He looks at Caleb. “Sorry to get you up so late, Archmage Widogast, but we’ve been sent from Zadash with a pretty important mission. We’re the Mighty Six. I’m Fjord.”
The monk nods. “Beau.”
“I’m Jester,” the blue tiefling says brightly.
From the back of the group, the purple tiefling inclines his head. “Mollymauk. Molly to my friends.”
The aasimar glances at him, then back to Caleb. “My name is Yasha.”
“And I’m Nott,” the cloaked figure pipes up. “Wait, I wasn’t gonna say that!”
“We were sent by Lawmaster Orentha Stormgrasp,” the half-orc— Fjord— says. “She told us to talk to you.” He pauses. “Uh, you are Archmage Widogast, right?”
It’s eleven-thirty-five on a dark, stormy night. Caleb has two hundred more pages to read if he’s going to be ready for the conference tomorrow. One of the most motley groups he’s ever seen in his life has turned up on his doorstep with a mission from the Crownsguard. This cannot possibly end well.
“I am Archmage Widogast,” he says. “Headmaster of the Soltryce Academy as well, but please, call me Caleb. And you didn’t wake me up. You might have woken my wife, though.” He opens the door fully, wincing at the chill of the rain. “Please, come in.”
The Mighty Six troop inside, and Caleb guides the Six into the parlor just off the front hall. Less formal. A wave of his hand, and the oil lamps flicker alive, turning the shadows gold. He can feel the precautionary anti-magic field settling over the Six and glancing off his attunement to it.
“This is quite a lot of books,” Molly says in a tone he must think is quiet. “Is this a library?”
“Nah,” Beau says, “can’t be. This is just the parlor.” Nobody looks at her askance, but her shoulders tense up anyway. “I mean, he’s the headmaster, right? Gotta have a bunch more books somewhere.”
“You are correct,” Caleb says, pretending he doesn’t notice how Beau twitches in surprise. “This is the parlor. The library proper is upstairs. But my collection has… overflowed somewhat.” He waves the Mighty Six toward the chairs and couches arranged in a circle to one side. “Sit. I’ll be a moment.” Caleb crosses the room to kneel over the fireplace, giving the Six a moment to speak in privacy and himself a chance to message Astrid. He thumbs the copper wire wound around his wrist and says softly, “We have visitors. Don’t bother coming down.”
He’s willed a fire into existence, guiding it from kindling into a blaze, by the time Astrid sends a reply. It’s largely incoherent, as Astrid’s messages tend to be when she’s mostly asleep, but the gist is that she’s sure he can handle it, and if not, make Eodwulf come and help.
“Love you too,” Caleb sends back. “Go to sleep.”
Across the room, Beau can’t sit still. Something feels viscerally wrong to her, and her intuition has never failed her before.
“Something’s wrong,” she finally says, cutting across whatever Fjord was saying. “This guy— whoever he is— Headmaster Archmage, Caleb, whoever— ugh, fuck.”
Molly nods. “You’re right. He just… isn’t what I expected.”
They turn and look at the wizard, who’s bent over the hearth, lighting a fire. The orange light shines on his green velvet coat and neatly cut red hair.
“He’s exactly who he’s supposed to be,” Yasha says.
Jester leans in. “Are we talking about Caleb? He’s really clean.”
“He’s rich, he can afford that,” Beau points out.
Jester shakes her head. “No, he doesn’t look like he should be.”
Fjord nods in agreement. “He doesn’t.”
Beau snaps her fingers, recalling what Caleb had said in the doorway. “He’s married, too! Why is he married?”
“You’re right,” Yasha muses, “he did say that. Does that seem odd to any of you? Other than Beau, I mean?”
Jester nods. “I guess I didn’t really think he’d be that kind of guy, really.”
“He should have a cat,” Nott says, taking a swig from her flask. It’s not the first she’s drunk tonight, nor the first since Caleb opened the door, and Beau would worry if she hadn’t seen Nott drink as much before.
“I agree,” Yasha says. “He should have a cat.”
Molly runs his hand along the back of the couch, then holds it up to show. “No cat hair.”
“Maybe it’s a hairless cat,” Jester suggests.
“Hairless?” Beau asks.
“Oh, yes! They’re just all skin and no hair.”
Molly leans back, hands laced behind his head. “Terrifying.”
Just then, Caleb stands from the hearth and walks back toward them, and the discussion of his catlessness ends. Beau's unease, however, doesn't.
Caleb seats himself in the remaining armchair and addresses the Mighty Six. “You were sent by Lawmaster Stormgrasp?”
“Yup,” Beau says. “We’re on retainer. Technically.”
“Ah.” They aren’t dressed in Crownsguard colors— must be an adventuring party. “And why did you come to me?”
Fjord leans forward, hands open on his knees. “She thought you might be able to help us. We’re supposed to investigate a cold case. A murder.”
“We are the best investigators,” Jester says, “me and Nott, especially, but everyone else too.”
“We’re really good,” Nott says.
Caleb nods. “How cold is this case?”
“Twenty years,” Fjord says.
Caleb sighs. “I was not even at the Academy twenty years ago. Why does the Lawmaster think I will be of service?”
The Six share a glance that seems to say many things. Caleb catches some of it, he thinks: Jester’s curiosity, suspicion from Beau.
Molly speaks first. He shifts forward on the couch, tail twitching. “Have you ever heard the name Trent Ikithon?”
“I have heard of him, but I did not know him,” Caleb says. That’s the truth, but he can see not all of the Mighty Six believe it. “His disappearance occurred before I started my studies.”
Beau eyes him, sharp. “The Lawmaster thinks he was murdered.”
“Ja, I know that.”
“You said he disappeared.”
“That is, ah, the party line. A motive was never found. Nor a murderer.” Caleb sighs. “This information— it is highly classified. I am not certain what I can tell you.”
“We’ve been sent by a Lawmaster,” Fjord says. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Ja, well, it does, but even the Lawmaster… Orentha Stormgrasp is a good woman, but she does not know everything.”
“I’m from the Cobalt Soul,” Beau says, and looks a little startled at herself. “I should have clearance, or something, right?”
“You might, but they would not.” Caleb stands from his chair. “Give me a moment to get us drinks.”
“Drinks?” Molly says. “Well, this should be interesting.”
“Shh, I want a drink,” Jester says, flicking him with her tail.
There’s a small cabinet of liquors on the back wall of the parlor, with a shelf of tankards and glasses below. Astrid had stocked it, declaring that mixing drinks was close enough to mixing potions. She’d spent an afternoon attempting to teach Caleb to make cocktails, but he had never been much of an alchemist. Caleb sets a jug of ale on the sideboard. There are two bottles of whiskey; he chooses the better of the two and puts it beside the ale.
What is it about this group that caught his attention? They’re familiar, in a way. He told them to call him Caleb, rather than any of the titles he’s worked so hard for. Not Archmage, not Headmaster. And he let them in so late at night, without even checking for permits or passes.
Three tankards and four glasses join the liquor on the sideboard. No milk in the cabinet, but there must be some in the kitchen; he opens the hinged panel on the wall and reaches through, his hand finding the wall of the icebox and then the cold surface of a bottle of milk. The dimensional pocket’s multiple access points and eternal freezing charm had taken him several days to set up, but it’s paid off.
As he pours the drinks, his mind whirls. There’s something about the Mighty Six. He can’t figure out why, but he feels like he knows them, and some part of him has decided he likes them.
Another part of him is very certain they’re a pack of assholes. Good ones, maybe. But assholes nonetheless.
Caleb puts the drinks on a tray and turns around, about to walk back to the group. He looks down at the tray in his hands. Two tankards of ale, four glasses of whiskey, and a tankard of milk.
The Six are talking amongst themselves. He draws a surge of arcane energy with his next breath and interrupts, not moving from his spot across the room. “You did not give me your drink orders.”
“No,” Molly says slowly. “We didn’t.”
“But now I have—“ Caleb looks down at the tray again— “two ales, four whiskeys, and one milk. The ale is for Beauregard and Yasha. The whiskey is for Fjord, Mollymauk, Nott, and myself, although I suspect Nott does not actually need the whiskey, as she has alcohol on her person already. The milk is for Jester. Am I correct?”
“Yeah,” Beau says, “that’s right. That’s exactly right.”
“I want the whiskey anyway,” Nott says.
“How did I know that, do you think?” Caleb asks.
There’s a pause.
“Lucky guess,” Molly suggests.
Caleb raises an eyebrow. “I went out of my way to get Jester a tankard of milk. I doubt that is due to chance.”
“Could it be magic?” Fjord asks. “Some sort of spell? I didn’t cast anything.”
“Neither did I,” Jester says.
“You couldn’t have. This room is under an anti-magic field. I am attuned to it—” Caleb summons a flame in the air between them, to demonstrate— “but you are not. And I protect myself against arcane influences. I have not been affected by magic in any way.” He finally crosses the room, stepping between Fjord’s armchair and the couch Molly, Yasha, and Jester are sharing to put the tray down on the low table. “I have never met any of you in my life, and I would remember if I had, but I know exactly which drinks to pour and who they are for.”
“It might be the Traveler, maybe,” Jester suggests.
“The Traveler?” Caleb asks.
“Yes! He might play a prank like that, making you know what drinks we want.”
“Who is the Traveler?”
“Well, he’s a god, sort of,” Jester explains. “He wears a green cloak, and he taught me magic.”
Caleb decides to leave that for the time being. “Divine intervention could be a possibility, I suppose.” He sits in his armchair and downs half the glass of whiskey in one gulp. “Regardless. Something is, ah, afoot.”
Fjord takes a long drink from his own glass. “It’s getting pretty late. I know this case is confidential and all, but seeing as something’s up, could you see your way to giving us the details?”
The fire and the lamps are burning dim, but Caleb can feel every spark and flame. A benefit of his strength in fire. He exhales slowly, brings the lamps to the edge of flaring, and then lets the arcane energy go again. Outside, the wind howls faintly. Rain batters the windows.
“The disappearance of Trent Ikithon occurred in mid-morning on the twenty-third of Horisal in 816. Midwinter, a nice day by most accounts. He was walking down the Platinum Way— do you know it? A boulevard that runs across Rexxentrum.”
“All praise to the Platinum Dragon,” Molly says.
Caleb blinks at him. “I did not think you were a believer.”
“Oh, well,” Molly says, in a way that means he probably isn’t. Neither is Caleb, particularly.
Caleb continues, “Trent was about to be elected to the Cerberus Assembly. He would have been the Archmage of Civil Influence. Idina Lysoth is in that position now, because Trent disappeared the morning he should have officially joined. As he walked from the Academy— he visited there to observe the students, and as he walked from the Academy to be formally raised to the Assembly, he vanished.”
“Just like that?” Jester asks.
“Ja, just like that. There was a blast of white light, and when the light faded, he was gone.”
Beau’s expression says she doesn’t like this at all. “Nobody saw anyone cast a spell? He didn’t cast anything on himself?”
“The Assembly commissioned an investigation. They found traces of arcane energy, but no source.” Caleb looks around at the Six; Beau shows a hint of understanding what that means, but she’s hiding it, and nobody else seems to get it. “Magic cannot be sourceless. It is always created, whether by a spellcaster, an enchanted item, or divine influence. But whatever or whoever made Trent Ikithon disappear, well, we cannot find them.”
“He just exploded?” Nott asks, her reedy voice rising incredulously.
“Maybe, yes. We do not know.”
Nott takes a swig from her flask. It’s a never-ending flask, if Caleb had to guess, which is an impressive enchantment. He’ll have to remember to ask her where she got it.
But later. Right now… “I’ve explained what I know. I think it is only right for you to tell me what you know, and why you have been sent.”
The Mighty Six share a glance. “You’ve pretty much heard it,” Fjord says. “The Lawmaster sent us to solve Trent’s murder. She wants us to figure out who killed him. Don’t know why she thinks we can, if a team from the Assembly couldn’t.”
Caleb shakes his head. “She wouldn’t know about the team from the Assembly. The Crownsguard did an investigation— the Lawmaster would know of that— but the Assembly’s inquiry was more classified. I only know about it because I am in the Assembly.”
“Should you be telling us this?” Beau asks. “Y’know, the confidential… stuff?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure I can help it.” Caleb gestures around. “With all this, whatever is making us know each other. Something tells me that, ah, I have to.”
“Do you believe in that?” Molly asks. “Fate, luck, the gods. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Anything is possible,” Caleb says.
“A complete non-answer,” Molly says with a grin. “I like that. So that’s really everything you know, then? This Trent fellow just… vanished? In a burst of light?”
“Ja, but you must understand, these events are twenty years gone. What we know is apocryphal at best, planted rumor at worst. Anything you all can uncover will most likely be the same.” Caleb feels the velvet of his coat on his arms, the rug under his feet. “So I suppose I will have to help you. I have a rather lengthy meeting with the Assembly tomorrow, but I will find you in the evening, if you wish. I can show you the, ah, the scene of the crime.”
“That would be helpful,” Yasha says.
“It should be, if I’m helping.” Caleb folds his hands in his lap and tries not to fuck up the conversation any further.
There’s a moment of silence, then, as Caleb stares at the Mighty Six and the Mighty Six stare back.
“Well,” Fjord says, “we should be going. Don’t want to inconvenience you too much.”
Caleb blinks at him. “You did come to my door at eleven-thirty at night.”
“Yeah, guess we already did inconvenience you, huh.”
“Ja, not too much,” Caleb says, and in a way he does mean it.
Molly hauls himself up from the couch. “We appreciate your having us in on such a late night.”
“It’s fuckin’ freezing out there,” Beau says, tugging her long, loose coat closer around herself.
Yasha shrugs. “I don’t think it’s that bad.”
The Mighty Six erupt in complaints as Yasha just shakes her head, and Caleb watches as they make their way to the door. He’s about to turn away when he feels more than hears someone approach him, and he looks back in time to see Nott stop in front of him. The hand that peeks out of her cloak, clutching her flask, has a suspiciously green cast. Caleb waits for her to speak.
“I feel like I know you,” Nott says after a moment. In the low light, her pupils glitter with eyeshine. “Do you— do you feel that too?”
And standing there, as he stares down at Nott the most-certainly-secret-goblin, the hair on the back of Caleb’s neck prickles.
“Ja,” Caleb says. “Ja, I think I do.”
Nott nods, once, and then she vanishes into the entry hall. After a moment, Caleb follows. The Mighty Six are already out in the street, vanishing in every gust of rain. Caleb stands and watches until they disappear around the corner, and only then does he close the door behind them.
Caleb dreams.
Sunset might be his favorite time of day—dusky and soft, as afternoon fills to the brim and flows down into night. The landscape is hazy, but the cart and the people in it are clear. Beauregard sits perched on the rail, shading her eyes as she stares off toward the mountains. Mollymauk, keeping watch on the other side of the cart, shuffles a deck of tarot cards without looking. Jester is humming a walking song— hey, ho, nobody’s home, and Caleb feels the cart swaying to the tune. At the front, Nott is driving, swinging her feet off the seat. Fjord is on the far side, sauntering in time with the cart’s wheels. Nobody is talking much. Caleb can feel himself settling into the rhythm of the cart and the rolling of the hills, the quiet of dusk, the wide grasslands.
Where are they? On the road to Alfield, of course. But there’s something— something—
Caleb’s mind can’t quite grasp it. He lets it go.
There’s a gust of hot air. Mollymauk points down the road. It’s dark enough to see the next flash of fire on the horizon. Alfield, Caleb knows, Alfield is burning.
Burning.
Blumenthal is burning.
The flames are blazing all around him, an inferno so hot it burns white. White fire, flaring under Caleb’s hands, hot enough to burn. His skin turns to ash as he reaches out, into his home, his mother and his father are there and they’re burning, they’re burning, my fire— no— wait—
No, Caleb thinks firmly, and pulls his hands out of the conflagration that roars up before him. This is not real. I am dreaming. My name is Archmage Headmaster Caleb Widogast. I dream of my home on fire and people I do not know. I have had these dreams for twenty years and never once have they been real. There is no fire. My parents are alive. I do not know these people.
No, but I do know them, I must— Nott Beauregard Mollymauk Fjord Yasha Jester— I know them— I saw them—
burning—
no, wait—
who—
The dream collapses like logs in an old fire.