I stared at the fate thread extending from me to Errod, which was jiggling and occasionally seeming to branch off into the city somewhere. All of the others were behaving themselves.


    "I don''t know why this last one is still acting up. The whole thing lasted eighteen, twenty-four minutes maybe," I said, remembering to round the time properly for once, "but even after a full night''s sleep I''ve got a holdout."


    Errod looked concerned. "I''m heading to a meeting with healer Rutlen and Talia Candecky after I do my exercises, to make some adjustments to my... wrist. I don''t know if this is something a healer can help with, but from what I understand she''s considered to be one of the best in the world. Even if she can''t help, someone there can - they have a whole team with different specialties. Do you want me to ask? I know I can''t mention the fate stuff specifically, but if the problem is more with your head or memories... I could try to feel it out."


    "She''d probably want to check around my Dumine, and that could lead to her detecting the extras. But... if you could ask her to come to the university without telling her why I''d like to talk to her."


    Not about the jiggly fate thread, though I wasn''t ready to get into the real reason with Errod. I wanted to know, essentially, if it was possible to bring Connie back to life. If her ghost was haunting me somehow, couldn''t we use magic to grow her a new body? We could even use mine as a template. I had a feeling it wasn''t that easy, but it seemed silly not to ask about it. Still, it was a thing I''d have to very carefully discuss in person.


    After some prompting from Katrin I had sent a note to Talia apologizing for my abrupt departure from our meeting the day before and letting her know Errod was willing to let her examine the glove so long as it was just looking and not any actual tampering, but I told Errod to apologize for me again anyway. With that he was off, and I was on my own again. Before dismissing my view of the fate threads I noted where Katrin''s was pointing - she was in the library, unsurprisingly, which is where I was heading next anyway.


    I wasn''t going to meet up with her just yet, instead popping in on Harmid Yanipliss to see if he had made any progress on the research topics I''d asked about. I hadn''t given him a full day, but I knew at any moment I could be whisked away to Hammersmith so I didn''t want to wait. Ducking into that little curved hallway around the outside of the library, I found his office and opened the door while knocking. The professor smiled when he looked up, but I could tell he was a bit flustered as well - the mess had grown, and he had multiple books carefully stacked with bookmarks all through them. Several of the bookmarks were improvised - I saw a fork in one, and what appeared to be a sock hanging out of another.


    "Ah! I have... some of your answers. Or preliminary answers, at any rate - each potential lead just means more research down the line if you want confirmation or details. I''ll start with the Granch. Nasty things, it turns out. Or possibly thing, singular. I don''t fully understand that yet, but it seems it makes copies of itself rather than truly reproducing. Sit, sit."


    I cleared off a chair and sat down, then waved for him to continue.


    "It''s a spirit that lives in Ematse, and may be a corrupted version of the more common oydirme. Oydirme cluster against the edges of domains in Ematse and feed off of dreams, turning into stand-ins for whatever people might appear in them. They''re harmless, their only effect is making dreams more vivid. Some people who can access their domains in Ematse apparently tame them, and train them to take on a persistent persona. They can act as sort of... servants."


    "Dream butlers sound cool. So what''s different with a Granch? Or the Granch?"


    "They try to break in and attack the mind. Typically it will target ones that are already compromised in some way, the old and infirm or people who have sustained attacks on their spirits. But some people do also use Granch deliberately, by turning their domain in Ematse into a colony. It serves as a deterrent against attacks, since the Granch will ruthlessly attack anything that feels threatening. Most often this was used by the kingdom of Halenvar, in order to protect state secrets; knowledge can be shifted from the physical brain into Ematse easily enough, and then that knowledge can be turned into the focal point for the Granch colony. Most things would be unaffected if done right, but anything that tries to access that specific bit of knowledge would be seen as a threat to the colony."


    "So... they''ve got a spirit monster just... breeding in their memories?"


    "In a sense, yes. It''s... not a popular method, as doing it wrong can result in the death of the host. It''s been around for a hundred years or so, it''s not clear if Halenvar created Granch or found it somewhere and put it to use."


    Cool. Great. "Okay, and if I knew someone that was a colony and they wanted to get rid of the Granch?"


    "That I have not found, yet. I can add it to the list."


    I sighed. "Please do." The good news is it made sense now. Someone had, deliberately, fucked with my memories and then attached the colony to some key bit of that hidden knowledge. When I''d built my mental defenses I''d specified that it would route uninvited guests to the most secure place, but when I tried to design a jail cell it hadn''t worked because there was already a much, much more secure location to send them.


    The wild mage seemed to be okay, and likewise in that brief moment I''d had Katrin and Errod in I hadn''t felt the Granch stirring. So I should be able to invite people in, and even the people who had poked at my memories some had been left alone - but if they went for the area that showed itself as storage units, where that core memory was encrypted, they''d get fucked. In a way it was good news; my security was way, way better than I''d planned on. But eventually I wanted to get at those memories myself, and I didn''t want to get lobotomized.


    "As for a place that is not a plane," he continued, "I have nothing yet. Or rather, I have several things that are likely just random legends or stories - I''ll have to look into them more. There''s some debate about whether or not the Queen of Candles'' domain is truly a plane, there''s the First World from some creation myths, there''s a tale of someone creating a new world through powerful spatial magic, things like that. I''ve just been making a list thus far, and haven''t had time to decide which ones are worth learning more about."


    "Fair enough. Uh. Narrow it down to places with little or no mana."


    "Noted. Off the top of my head I think that may narrow it down to just the creation myths and a supposed site accessible through a deep cave in Calnon, but I''ll have to get back to you later." He paused, having lost his train of thought. "Um. Ah, yes. Yesrin''s Loom. It''s a religious relic, currently held by the Knights of the Storm. It was said to be brought into the world by Yesrin herself when she incorporated into a human form, or was in fact the thing that created her human form. I can''t speak to the legitimacy of that story; Yesrin''s time on this world was during the Second Age so no actual records remain. Everything is a story of a story of a story. The Knights of the Storm were founded by a military order from Brinkmar, which fled during the collapse of that kingdom with the Loom. That implies it was one of the many treasures of Brinkmar, gathered by the Clockmaker."


    Everything kept coming back to this asshole, and a surprising amount circled back to Brinkmar specifically. "Okay so... what''s the timeline there? Like, when was the Clockmaker in Brinkmar versus the queen or whatever?"


    "The Clockmaker, after conquering the world, turned his attention to the other planes. Some surrendered to one degree or another, some fought - most of the planes are essentially uninhabited, of course. The three that put up the biggest fight were Brinkmar, Xeyul, and... I can never pronounce it right. The Queen of Candles'' domain, or the land that existed before it. Um." He pulled out a book, and flipped through the pages. "Ergizegigeiloek?"


    "Er... giz... e-gig... eye-lo-ek?"


    "Close. Ergizegigeiloek. Look, it''s just the Queen of Candles now. The rest of the plane was, so they say, razed to nothingness by the Clockmaker. Only she survived, somehow, and now her chambers are all that can be reached via planar travel - and even then only if she wills it. It''s not the only plane that the Clockmaker did that to, though if the stories are to be believed it was a bit less... aggressive... in other cases. Biltagiretzae was supposedly an uninhabitable plane made of nothing but toxic gas before the Clockmaker turned it into a perfect realm of metal boxes. Where were we?


    "Ah. Yes. So Brinkmar was inhabited by a powerful magic user and his followers, and because it was so secure the Clockmaker had trouble getting in. But he was able to launch an attack and clear them out, and turned it into a... research facility, of sorts. He constructed some cities, and tamed the font of mana there in order to have an endless supply of energy. This is how - I''ve told this backwards, somewhat - this is how he had the energy to defeat the Queen of Candles, temporarily as it turned out, and had confided in people that he was going to use that power to subjugate all the planes, turn the uninhabitable ones into specialized tools as he did with Biltagiretzae. Nusos could be turned into infinite identical housing units, Lenderatze into the perfect farm, things like that. But something went wrong, probably one of his many experiments, and his empire collapsed.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "This was just after the last Grand Alignment - mere months later. Some say he was consorting with demons, some say it was an attack from the Sahrger to prevent him from razing Xeyul, some say he tried to challenge the gods or enslave fate itself. We''ll never know, most likely. With the collapse of the Empire everyone tried to carve out their own piece, and it led to hundreds of years of war. Brinkmar remained apart, under the control of... supposedly the Clockmaker''s adopted daughter, though it''s doubtful she was his official heir or she would have presumably taken control of the Empire as a whole. She reigned for a very long time, being functionally immortal, and then died somewhat mysteriously leaving her daughter as the new queen.


    "The second queen of Brinkmar married a noble from Halenvar, had or adopted a son, or both - it''s unclear - and then a civil war with a powerful magic user most likely armed with the Clockmaker''s old artifacts led to the downfall of Brinkmar roughly... a hundred and sixty-two years ago?" I had to remind myself that that seemingly-specific number was just a result of them doing things in base six.


    "A few expeditions went back, over the years - mostly to try and recover mana batteries from the Crossroads - but the traps and curses left behind from the civil war had rendered the land uninhabitable. So, back to the start of this topic... when the one that was supposedly prophesied to be the savior of Brinkmar told everyone to evacuate, several important artifacts were taken by trusted knights so they could be hidden, destroyed, or kept safe for a future return. Yesrin''s Loom was one of them."


    Not a lot new there, but it was good to get a refresher and summary. I''d still want a book about it at some point. "Okay, so what''s the deal with the Loom then?"


    "It turns out I had a book on it already in my office, it was just buried. The Loom is shaped like a staff, or a polearm, or... well, a stick with a pointy end and a hooked end. In some art it''s two sticks connected by threads, thus the name, but it''s possible the other half was destroyed or lost. It''s supposedly inert, but will be used once more to create a new world when this one is eventually destroyed."


    Oh. Well, shit. That... had probably happened. Connie hadn''t even known she was fulfilling a prophesy.


    Harmid cleared his throat, breaking me out of my reverie. "I''m afraid that''s all I have for you at the moment. I hope some of that is useful in... giving you a more stable place to stand."


    I could just thank him and leave. He wasn''t asking me anything. But I knew I had been looking for an excuse to do this since I came in. It was why I''d come to see him, really. Hammersmith would probably know everything soon anyway, and if I wanted to have any chance of staying ahead of things I would need to trust some people. I simply didn''t have time to learn everything on my own. "I can see... threads. In the air. They connect people and things, and at first I wasn''t certain but now I know that it''s fate magic. I followed one to your door, that day."


    He sat back, eyes wide. "Ah. I see. And do you know why you can see them?"


    "Yes, but I''m not going to get into that. Suffice it to say it''s not something anyone else can do - I can''t teach it to you, and even if I told you how I gained the ability you couldn''t possibly arrange for anyone else to get it. I absolutely won''t discuss that part further, got it?"


    "If you change your mind obviously let me know, but I won''t press the issue. There''s plenty more to discuss without that, though I won''t lie - I''m disappointed. I would do anything to see what you see!"


    Aw, fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound. I reached a hand out and beckoned to him, and after a moment he placed his hand in mine and I closed my eyes. We briefly flickered into a hotel hallway by mistake, but before he could get a good look I had dragged him through door zero and back into his office. He leaned over to look at his body where it sat, eyes closed, behind the desk.


    "What an odd sensation. This isn''t something I''ve done before, though I''ve heard of it being used for... ah... entertainment purposes. I hope I don''t need to worry about Granch?"


    "I''m almost positive it''s fine. Okay, hang on to your hat. Remember, one word about this and you never get to see it again."


    He nodded, suddenly looking very serious, and then jumped back with a squawk when the lines appeared.


    "They''re beautiful! And... wait, there are so many coming from you... are they all fate related?"


    "No, but a lot of them are. You can see there''s a kind of shimmer to some of them, this opalescent sheen?"


    He nodded. "And do you know what any of them are attached to at the far end?"


    "Yeah. You met Errod, this one here goes to him. That one goes to his sister Katrin, plus they have one going between them. This one is made with a spell, it''s the one I need to get rid of, and I know where it goes too. We won''t be discussing details. The rest... I''m not sure. You can see several just kinda taper off into nothing, so I guess they''re not attached to anything."


    Harmid leaned uncomfortably close, too distracted by the lines to consider personal space. "Oh, they are."


    "Wait. How are you so sure if this is your first time seeing them? And what would they be attached to if they just end a few feet away?"


    He smiled and held a finger up, then rummaged through the books again - it seemed to only be the library proper that had the more powerful wards. "Ah, I can touch them. Good," he muttered, and flipped towards the back of one. His lips moved a little as he read something, then he nodded to himself and tossed the book aside. "Where was I? Right, so. Fate has often been referred to with language that implies it''s a line or tether between two things - I assume you''ve read enough in my book to know that? Good. So in most cases fate has a person, place, or thing that is an anchor, and then another that it connects to in order to achieve the desired result. Let''s start with something simple as an example.


    "You''ve got a chair, let''s say, and it''s fated to be sat in by the future king. The chair would be the anchor point, and then it would reach out with one of these threads to find someone that''s a likely candidate for becoming king and attach to them at the other end. It will need to guide that person to the chair, of course, and then keep manipulating events around them until they also get the crown. Clearly your view of these threads doesn''t show that manipulation, just the connection itself - with so many threads attached to you, who knows what that would look like.


    "Only the anchor point is unchangeable. If the chair picked someone, and that person was killed or otherwise became unsuitable, the chair would simply pick another. Er, the fate magic I mean. Clearly it''s not actually the chair picking anything. Meanwhile, if you burned the chair to ashes the fate line would be gone, utterly destroyed - so it matters which end is which. But everything we know says that the range is enormous and that an anchor point with no valid point to attach onto is constantly searching, which implies these little stubs are already attached - they''re fixed, pointing nice and straight at... well, that''s the question.


    "If I had to guess, I would say that you''re tethered to something or someone on other planes. The threads that seem to vanish aren''t actually ending, they''re extending in a direction we can''t perceive. Have you gone to another plane since you gained this sight? I know you mentioned Xeyul."


    "No, that was before. I haven''t been to any other planes since I started seeing the fate lines. Well, we''re kinda in Ematse right now but the view of the threads isn''t."


    "Well then, that''s an easy test! I''ll talk to some people and arrange a short trip for us, and my guess is that the ones that are currently extending off through the walls will disappear a few feet from you just like these others do." He excitedly began to gather some things from his desk, before presumably realizing that he wasn''t actually there and letting them fall to the floor.


    "That''s a good idea and I appreciate the offer, but I''m forbidden from leaving the university grounds at the moment - and when I can, I''m probably going to be hurried off to a secure location by Hammersmith."


    Professor Yanipliss looked pained. "Well, that ruins the next experiment I was about to suggest as well. Hmm. Maybe we could obtain permission from someone, if I can come up with an excuse that doesn''t disclose your ability."


    "Yeah, I don''t think they''re going to let me jaunt off to another plane."


    "No, I assume not - even if it''s a short trip - but the other thing we need is just physical distance. The university grounds, large though they are, won''t be enough... but maybe if they''ll let you out into the rest of the city it will work. Surely if we let guardsmen accompany us..."


    "Wait, what''s the experiment here?"


    "Ah! Sorry, of course. We''re going to get the university''s finest map and a compass, and I''m going to tell you exactly where those other threads are pointing."


    "Ah. Okay. Yeah, I had that thought after following that one to you but I didn''t have the chance to try it. Oh wait! I just thought of a reason we can give them. You said the other kids I rescued are here? Well who doesn''t like helping little kids, right? Get me the compass now, and I''ll have a... friend, I guess... do something to it to make it look vaguely magical. We''ll tell them only I can use it, but they''ll think it''s just the compass."


    He nodded thoughtfully. "That could work. Let me come up with the exact story, I would hate to feed Professor Gramod false information so I want to be careful." He turned to look at himself again, somewhat wistfully. "I see I don''t have any that appear to be fate threads. I won''t lie, that''s disappointing. Those two must be my mind and soul, and see - the colors at the end are the same as some of the others that vanish. It may indicate they''re leading to other planes, although that leaves the question of these ones on you that have a different color. Hmm. Well, with so many to study we may be able to determine some rules."


    "Yeah, no clue why I''ve got more than everyone else."


    "It''s a cascade," he said, "or I would assume so, at any rate. It''s a theory that has been proposed but has been very hard to study. The natural forces that manage fate are not infinite. So imagine you''re fated to become a demigod - and you very well may be, with how much you seem to be involved in. Once that''s the case, fate is already putting effort into guiding you along - and if it succeeds, you would be better positioned to fulfill another destiny by virtue of being more powerful or longer lived or... whatever... and so that fate thread attaches to you as well. Now there''s two of them working to keep you alive and moving towards a purpose, so you''re a better target for a third fate. And so on, and so on, until you have a whole collection. It would only work for fates that don''t conflict, of course, but especially for some extreme cases it would save a lot of effort. It could even be that seeing the lines of fate makes you a better target for them; if we''re about to check where they go you might investigate those places, and help to do fate''s job for it."


    We popped back out to the real world, and immediately Harmid reached over to the same book he had looked at while I had the fate lines up. He flipped to the section he''d checked before, and nodded. "Just as I thought. I''ve never read this book, and I''m sure you haven''t. So that was Perception... Spatial most likely, given the clarity of it, and obviously Thought. That accounts for three gifts - I know it wasn''t wild magic - but it also means that if you somehow unlocked fate magic in a Duminere you would have needed to have... seven? That''s not plausible, even if some of the wilder theories or stories turned out to be true the maximum would be six. So that''s one theory ruled out. Don''t worry, I''ll keep my promise - but I can''t help trying to think of what might have happened to you."


    Despite the risk I was taking, I smiled. He was so excited, and it felt good to have some fresh eyes on it. I waited while he grabbed a compass for me, and then headed out to try and find Katrin so I could get her caught up. Also, now that I knew it should be safe, it was time to finally invite her into my mind palace again. She was going to be so excited.