Chapter 37: Olis, Scribe of MirMarnia

(I painted this on a blazing hot day in my extremely hot art studio, using Procreate with the HB pencil, then Water brush, then Eaglehawk brush, and then Oil Paint brush. By the end, I was reduced to a boiling hot puddle of a person, and only now, on posting it, have I realised I forgot to paint his left thumb! Yay! - Chaiga T. Cheska)

“Do you realise what you have done, boy?” Harthos’s voice rumbled through the room as he seized Oren’s upper arm, his grip iron-hard, the kind that left no room for argument. The air seemed to tighten around them, as if the walls themselves were listening.

Tavik stepped in at once. He was smaller than both, yet he carried a fierce, bright defiance that made him feel considerably larger. His gaze locked on Harthos, hard and unwavering.

“What has my brother done?” His voice held a dangerous calm, protective to the point of recklessness. Through the tether, he felt a warning pulse from Nix, a flicker of something unspoken, and it settled into him as a stone dropped into cold water. His heartbeat quickened, shallow breaths catching in his chest as unease wound through him and pulled tight.

“He has woken the gods.” Harthos’s reply came low and dangerous, a sound that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. Tavik faltered at once, instinctively stepping back as Harthos pulled Oren towards the door, where Timatticus stood holding it open. The chieftain no longer looked merely agitated. There was a tightness around his eyes, a strain that suggested trepidation rather than anger.

Oren tried to wrench his arm free, but Harthos’s grip held fast. The Burrowback dragged him towards the threshold and turned sharply to the others. “We have no time for questions. Keep up. We must get you to safety first.”

The air in the guest house felt as though it had shifted, the weight of the words settling over them like a sky before thunder.

Tavik, Nix and Bran ran to catch up with Harthos as he hauled Oren through the doorway and followed Timatticus into the open air. The winding lanes stretched ahead of them, emptied of Burrowbacks, the little village fallen into a hush so complete it felt abandoned. Even the hanging blossoms seemed to wait, their petals held in a stillness that did not belong to evening alone.

Timatticus moved swiftly along the path, his silhouette cutting through the dimming light. At each bend, he paused, sweeping a sharp, searching gaze across the quiet dwellings before signalling them on. Harthos and Oren followed at pace, and the others kept close behind their footsteps, quick and tense upon the packed earth. The air carried a strange expectancy, as though something vast and unseen had brushed against the edges of the world and not quite withdrawn.

Harthos kept his grip on Oren’s arm the whole way, hauling him forward with a strength that brooked no argument. The pace was punishing, and Oren’s breath came short as he tried to match the stride of a Burrowback roused to agitation.

“Harthos,” he snapped, struggling to keep his footing on the winding path, “why are you so riled. What do you mean, I have woken the gods?”

The words hung in the evening air, yet the only answer was the relentless pull of Harthos’s hand and the rising sense that the world around them had shifted in some quiet, perilous way.

Harthos said nothing, yet his grip on Oren’s arm never loosened. He dragged him along the path with a single-minded urgency, his eyes darting through the dim light, his bristles raised into something far more menacing than Oren had ever seen. Something cold settled in Oren’s chest as he tried to work out which gods Harthos meant.

His thoughts flicked back to the moment he had pulled Nix through the collapsing portal. He had not truly considered where Nix had been held, only that he had needed saving. He knew the Caelvarae were sky gods, but the truth of that title had never properly settled in him. Nix was half Caelvarae, yet he was not god-like, not in the way Oren imagined a god ought to appear.

Oren cast a glance over his shoulder. Tavik kept pace at his other side, jaw set, eyes sharp. Nix ran beside him, silent and watchful, the runes along his skin faintly restless. Bran kept close to Nix, his smaller form moving with determined strides.

A strange thought rose in Oren’s mind then, unwelcome in its timing. Bran looked tiny now, his head barely clearing Oren’s hip. The sight unsettled him more than he expected. He found himself wondering what opening that portal had truly done to his youngest brother, and whether the change could ever be undone.

Timatticus flung open the door of his round home and ushered them through, closing it behind them with a thud that echoed through the curved walls.

Harthos pushed Oren into the centre of the room, the movement rough with urgency, then strode back to join Timatticus. Without a single word exchanged, the two Burrowbacks split in opposite directions, moving along the circular wall with practised precision. Each pressed a hand to the carved totem poles embedded in the wood, their voices dropping into low, rhythmic murmurs that moved through the air like current through water.

At every touch, the totems flared awake. Runes ignited in sudden bursts of colour, spilling light across the room in shifting, spectral patterns. The glow grew brighter as the two circled the space, each totem answering the next in a rising cascade of brilliance. By the time they met again, the entire ring of carvings blazed with dancing light, the colours rippling like living fire across the walls and floor.

Only then did they turn, together, to face the boys standing in the centre of the room.

Oren, Tavik, Bran and Nix stood with tight, worried faces, the shifting light from the totems casting strange colours across their skin. Harthos exchanged a brief, weighted glance with Timatticus before moving to the door, planting himself before it with his arms folded, a silent guardian against whatever might try to enter.

Timatticus gestured towards the chairs near the hearth, his nod firm, and followed the boys as they moved to sit. They sank into the seats without a word, the crackle of the fire the only sound in the charged stillness. Timatticus took the chair opposite them, lowering himself slowly, his expression grave, the runes’ glow painting his features in sombre hues.

The room felt sealed, held within a circle of ancient power, and the boys waited for him to speak.

Oren looked between Harthos at the door and Timatticus before them, trying to steady the nerves coiling tight in his chest. “Timatticus,” he said softly, the words catching. “What have I done. What is coming?”

Tavik shot him a sharp glance, then turned it on the chieftain. Timatticus let out a long, weary sigh, the kind that seemed to draw from somewhere older than his bones.

“Your magic was felt across all of MirMarnia, Oren,” he said. “It appears you have breached the security of the sky gods, the Caelvarae, by rescuing your cousin.”

The fire crackled, throwing restless shadows across the boys’ faces.

Tavik’s brow drew down, his voice low with disbelief. “But Chieftain, how could you know that. We do not even know where Nix was. How can you know so much?”

The question hung in the air, and the room seemed to tighten around it.

Timatticus exhaled heavily and lowered his gaze to his paw, curling and uncurling his claws as though the motion helped gather his thoughts from some deep, tangled place. “We know because we are Burrowbacks. We are beings from another world, another dimension entirely. We travel pathways no other MirMarnian travels.” His eyes shifted to Nix, then briefly to Bran, a flicker of something unreadable passing through them. “Typically, no MirMarnian can do this. Except, it seems, you.”

Nix lifted his head from where he sat on the floor, his back pressed against the sofa his cousins occupied. The totem-light washed over him in soft, shifting colours. “I am half Caelvarae,” he said quietly, the words carrying a weight that sat older than his years.

He watched the chieftain’s reaction with a calm, almost clinical attention, and found it curious when Timatticus shifted by the smallest fraction beneath the steadiness of his gaze, as though unsettled by being so plainly observed.

“Yes, you are,” Timatticus murmured. “But by the signature clinging to you from your recent visit, boy, it appears your kind do not approve of you. The reason for which you will need to share, at some point.”

Nix blinked back at him, expression unreadable, and offered nothing. He was not willing to share anything yet.

Timatticus’s gaze moved to Bran, who looked small and tired where he sat between his towering brothers, the totem-light casting pale colours across his face.

“You, boy, need to see a magic healer. You have allowed your own magic to feed on you,” Timatticus said, his voice flat but edged with concern.

Tavik and Oren both turned to Bran with the same startled expression. Bran stared back at Timatticus, worry crossing his face, then lowered his gaze to his hands as though the answers might be written in the creases of his palms. “But I am a healer…” His voice thinned, trailing away as he looked up again. “What’s a magic healer?”

“Someone who can offer greater repair to your life force than the life-saving magic your brother gave you,” Timatticus replied, looking at Bran with a mixture of disappointment and concern. He sighed, the sound heavy, and attempted an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, boy. I can see you are not trained in the use of magic and have no idea how to anchor your power when opening portals. But I hope you will take the time to learn before you attempt another. If you do not, you will fade from existence. And I can guarantee your older brother will not always be here to pull you back when that happens.”

Bran looked sharply up at Oren beside him, then dropped his gaze again, stung and unsure how to carry the weight of the chieftain’s words. He kept his eyes fixed on his hands resting on his knees, wishing the topic would shift away from him. Tavik nudged his shoulder, a small, steadying bump that told Bran someone still valued the strange magic he barely understood and was half afraid of.

“Do you have a magic healer here?” Tavik asked, trying to keep the frustration from his voice. He cast a sideways glance at his younger brother, who refused to look up. Tavik felt rattled to his core. First, the Burrowbacks had accused his older brother of angering the gods, and now this chieftain was chastising his younger brother for not knowing how to wield a magic he had never been taught.

Timatticus looked at Tavik for so long that Tavik felt the weight of it settle on his skin. He tried to hold the chieftain’s gaze, but it pressed too steadily, and he found himself looking away, annoyed at the slip.

“We do not have magic healers here,” Timatticus murmured at last. He rose slowly and leaned down to peer at Bran, who was studying his own hands with fierce concentration, as though he could will them to explain themselves. “But I can help restore your brother with the little magic healing I know.”

He reached out and touched Bran’s forehead with his paw.

Bran sagged at once, folding sideways into Oren, sound asleep before Oren even realised what had happened.

Tavik and Oren stared down at him, then lifted their eyes to the chieftain as Timatticus settled back into his chair, watching them with a calm that felt old and worn.

“You put him to sleep. How is that supposed to help him?” Oren said, easing Bran upright on the sofa. Bran slumped back, head lolling, and began to snore softly, the sound small and strangely fragile beneath the glow of the totems.

“It will stabilise his new form, and with the repair you wove into his life threads, I expect he will wake a little taller.” Timatticus’s voice was quiet, almost reverent. He glanced towards Harthos, who stood at the door shaking his head in disbelief.

“He was fading while he held the portal open,” Oren said, the words pulled from him in a low breath. The memory pressed against his chest, heavy and cold, as though the moment still clung to him like a shadow that refused to lift.

Harthos let out a sharp snort from the doorway, a sound thick with the exasperation of someone who has watched fools survive the impossible and cannot decide whether to be grateful or horrified. “Of course, he was fading. The boy has opened a portal twice in his life and has not the faintest sense of where his magic is rooted, nor how to hold himself steady inside it.” He shook his head, slow and grim, his bristles lifting like quills. “It is a wonder the rest of you did not vanish with him.”

Oren turned towards him, the firelight catching the strain in his face. “I am sorry, Harthos.”

The Burrowback blinked, thrown off balance, as though the apology had knocked something loose. “For what, boy?”

“For putting your people in danger from the sky gods,” Oren said, his voice low but unwavering, the words settling between them like a stone dropped into deep water.

“They are not in danger, boy.” The heat in his voice made it clear the apology had landed somewhere he had not expected. “Burrowbacks move between dimensions. It is you who stands in danger.”

Oren and Tavik exchanged a quick, uneasy glance.

Nix rose to his feet, the runes along his skin pulsing in their steady rhythm. He looked between Harthos and Timatticus with the earnest, unguarded expression he wore only when he meant to speak plainly. “I am at fault for this,” he said, his voice quiet but certain. “I must leave to protect my cousins.”

Tavik shot upright and struck Nix hard on the arm. “Don’t be ridiculous, Nix.” Nix’s ears flattened at once, swift and small.

“You’re part of our family, whether you like it or not, and where you go, we go.” Tavik jabbed a finger into Nix’s chest, each word gathering heat. “And if you have not noticed, the tether will not let you leave. We work better together, not with you running off to be attacked on your own. Stop acting as though it’s your burden alone to save us.”

Oren stepped between them, both hands raised, catching Tavik before he could swing again.

Nix looked at Tavik, something moving across his face like a cloud across still water. “I could… turn the tether off. Somehow. Then you would be free of it.”

Tavik’s eyes narrowed to slits. He lunged, and Oren had to plant both hands against his brother’s chest to hold him back, muscles straining as Tavik tried to reach their cousin.

“Nix, you can’t turn off the tether,” Oren said as he shoved Tavik back.

The certainty of it was already inside him, settled and still, the way knowledge sits when it has not come from thought but from some older, deeper place. He did not understand how he knew. Only that he did.

Tavik and Nix froze, staring at him.

“You can’t turn it off,” Oren went on, his voice quiet but unwavering, “because it has become part of your signature. To sever it would be to sever your life threads. For both of you.”

The words hung in the air.

Tavik and Nix stared at him as though he had grown a horn.

“How do you know this?” Tavik asked, frowning. Something in his brother unsettled him. Oren looked different. Not only taller, but changed in the way he held himself, in the way the air seemed to shift around him, as though something unseen had settled into place.

Oren glanced between them and lifted his shoulders in a helpless, almost bewildered shrug. “I don’t know how I know. I just… see everyone’s threads more clearly. And there’s this sense of knowing now.”

Timatticus had been watching them with a stillness that felt carved from old stone. At Oren’s words, he made a small, sharp gesture towards Harthos.

The boys’ attention snapped across the room as Harthos nodded once, reached out, and touched the nearest totem. It answered with a single deep pulse of purple light, then fell dark again.

“He is here,” Harthos announced, stepping aside. He unbolted the door and pulled it wide.

A tall man stood framed in the doorway.

He wore long robes of iridescent blue and green, colours sliding over one another like oil drifting across deep water. His scraggy white hair had been knotted and woven with strips of coloured cloth and beads, each thread catching the light as though it remembered starlight. His skin was a deep, warm brown, his fingers stained to the knuckle with a glowing blue that pulsed faintly, and symbols shimmered across his arms and face like constellations shifting beneath the surface of a dark lake.

He took in the room with a single, unhurried sweep of his gaze, the kind that missed nothing and judged nothing. Then he stepped inside, the air seeming to settle around him as though recognising an old presence. He smiled at the boys gathered in the centre, a warm, steady smile that reached his eyes.

“Greetings,” he said, his voice deep and resonant, carrying a quiet authority that seemed to ripple through the room. “My name is Olis, Scribe of MirMarnia.”