"Oh, just lock the door," Polland huffed. "I was just watering my plants, and now that you’re here you might as well watch my back for me."
"So Adi really is at the jailhouse?" Bran said.
"Shush!" Polland said. "We got a report at four in the morning: Mrs. Tuskett’s husband didn’t return from his Sevvenyears sneak-in last night. The informant said she was distraught."
"You think Adi will get them out?" Bran said.
"She already did," Polland said. "Called me earlier: luckily he’s fluent and she didn’t need me. But I doubt she’ll be coming home until later. She’s working late tonight to make up for it." His face turned grim. "She does that when she’s upset, sometimes works clear through the night and just stays until the next morning. It’s her way of dealing with things."
"Is it because of me?" Bran whispered.
Polland looked downward, and Bran didn’t need a reply. He felt terrible for all the trouble he had caused for her. Polland finally gave a shrug and kicked the stool into a closet, tossing the revolver somewhere in the back.
"It’s a toy," he told Bran. "The gun, I mean. Goodness knows I need it with all the burglars in this town, breaking in at any odd time of the day. You’re not the first strange noise at my front door."
"I hope I didn’t scare you," Bran said. "I was just coming to, you know, apologize."
Polland took a deep breath and closed the closet door. "Aye, right you are." He turned to Bran. "Adi was pretty upset, you should know. She was so worried, and the lamp in her room
was on all night. I don’t think she slept a wink, and probably won’t tonight either."
Polland’s words only made Bran feel worse. However, Polland finally shrugged.
"But when she comes home I’ll tell her you stopped by," he said. "I don’t think either of us really blames you, do we? It’s hard enough for us to hear it, and how much more so for you?"
Polland started toward the stairs with the watering can still in his fist. Bran followed him up, but instead of going for Adi’s office, Polland moved for another door on the other side.
In an instant, Bran knew the room had to be Polland’s. Hardly a square inch of it was empty of something green: from the floor to the walls, pots and pans filled with dirt and leafy things sticking in every direction. There were trays of sprouts and foliage across the bed, the floor covered with clay jars, tiny trees, and vines growing up sticks in the corners. There were many open windows that viewed the backyard and thus couldn’t be seen well from outside, with even more plants on the sills and in wire boxes. The room was filled with the smell of outside air.
"An Archon, no doubt about it," Bran said.
"How can I resist?" Polland said. "This cold and heartless city of Dunce doesn’t bear any resemblance to my homeland, so at least my room’s a safe haven for me."
"Do you ever get to see your hometown?" Bran asked.
Something passed over Polland’s face, like the memory of something sad, but he shrugged it off quickly.
"I don’t think I shall ever visit it again," he said wistfully. "These are all I need from there."
Polland nodded toward the long box of plants he was
watering. Bran stepped closer, and instantly he noticed there was something odd about them. Where the flower petals should have been, there were instead mouths, with white teeth and tongues that licked up any droplet of water Polland spilled on its lips as he poured. There were no eyes or even a face, just lips, and the end of them narrowed into a thin stalk in the pot of dirt, just like a flower.
"They’re native to my homeland," Polland said, gesturing toward the teeth. "It gets to be quite a chore when you’ve got fifteen carnivorous Lopsis Volgitix whose teeth need regular cleaning, all while they’re trying to chew your arm off."
The Lopsis Volgitix swallowed the water and licked its lips again as Polland moved on to the next one, pouring some water into its mouth and tossing pieces of meat to the others. The other mouths waited anxiously with their teeth apart, licking their lips and stretching toward Polland.
"Careful, now," he warned. "You trip and fall into this box, and you’re flower food."
One tried to nip at his arm, but Polland dodged it and stuffed some meat down its gullet. Bran had a hard time looking away, but his eyes caught something on Polland’s dresser: a line of photographs of short people in different places. All of them wore tall, conical red hats.
"Those are my family," Polland said, gesturing toward them. "The two together are my parents. Then my older brother Sol, and then younger brother Franklin, Fillip, then sister Nell."
Polland’s parents were standing close together on a hill so the photographer could see the famous Claudius Bell clock tower behind them. Sol had a goofy smile and was looking away, while Franklin was busy with a shovel and Fillip was looking up and grinning at a small crow perched on the top of his hat. Nell was in a garden holding a large carrot half as big as she was, and surrounding her were three blank-eyed gnome statuettes.
"What are the statues for?" Bran asked, pointing to them. Polland glanced over.
"Those are signals," he explained. "Gnomes travel a lot, and some kind people put fake statues of gnomes in their gardens as a sign of goodwill, meaning we can pull up a bit of food in return for some magic put over the garden."
He shrugged. "Others leave gnome statues around the house or in a window, so we know who will let us take lodging for the night. Even outside Dunce, it’s hard to tell who’s on our side."
"Your own network of supporters," Bran said, and Polland nodded in agreement, tossing more food to the flowers. As Polland slid about, Bran couldn’t help but stare at his pointed red hat. Polland must have noticed because he chuckled, and Bran looked away quickly.
"No bother," Polland said. "I’m quite used to it. Look here—"
First he glanced about, then leaned forward and slipped his cap off, much to the surprise of Bran. As he had said before, he was indeed bald on the top of his head, though Bran never would have guessed it with his hat on, as he had a ring of very natural hair going around the sides.
"I thought you couldn’t take it off," Bran said, confused. Polland looked back at him, and all of a sudden he seemed much shorter, as if a quarter of his size had been knocked off.
"Oh…well, see," he stammered. "
I’ve
got to get over such things. In case of emergencies, like police blowing through the door. Can’t let them see me with it on, can I?"
Polland, though, looked wistfully at the cap in his hands. He glanced at Bran, then back at his hat, and he blushed. He reached behind him and picked up a small washrag and set it on his head.
"
Well
…" Polland stammered, adjusting the washrag under Bran’s amused stare, "it
is
bothersome going stark hatless among company…even yours."
Polland held his hat out at arm’s length, sizing it up, and he turned it so that the point was facing away from him, and closed one eye, testing the tip of it. He held it out.
"There you go," Polland said, and Bran reached out and touched the surface of the hat. It had the feeling of fur and was very soft under his fingers, but had hardly any string to it at all, like very soft, thin fuzz. It was perfectly red in all parts. Bran turned it over and looked inside of the hat, and saw that it had a hidden form that narrowed inward so it didn’t slip on Polland’s head, and a golden tag sewn tightly to the side with black lettering that read:
Handcrafted by the
Hatcrafters Duvalle Company
Material composed of:
10% Reddinn
TM
10% Spirit
80% Love
"Perfect perfection," Polland said, pouring more water. "Ten percent Reddinn, that’s awful spiffy. It’s what makes it fire- and waterproof! Spirit always keeps your head in the right place. And eighty percent love? Tops it off like icing on a cake."
Polland chuckled, and Bran forced himself to laugh with him, though the feeling within him was cold. Polland seemed to notice it instantly, because his merriness faded quickly.
"Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?" Polland said. Bran nodded slowly. Polland put his hat back in place and sighed.
"It’s your mother again?" Polland seemed to be able to read Bran’s face.
"Tell me more about her," Bran said, starting abruptly but gathering up his courage as he spoke. "Her magic, I mean. Doesn’t anyone know how it happened?"
Polland did not answer him for a bit, so that Bran almost thought he might not reply. Bran knew the question had been unexpected, but then he realized that it was probably far the opposite, and Polland had known it was coming and had been avoiding it. After a few more moments, Polland finally shifted the can upward, leaving two of the mouths stretching for more.
"There are legends," he said bluntly. "Few, but they do exist, for I have read them. However, any truth to them would be shrouded in ages of mystery."
"But please tell me," Bran insisted. "It’s really all I have."
Polland tilted the watering can forward again and sighed."I have read some that tell of powers like your mother’s, of Dormaysan, the darkest and most evil," Polland said. "They say hers is only possible through great and terrible magic used to bestow the powers, magic that probably neither you nor I will ever know of. It takes that magic, but most of all, a choice: one to sacrifice all traces of good magic within her soul."
"But if it’s true, and she was unable to do good magic," Bran said, "how was it then that she sent me to the bank vault?"
Polland stared out the window, thinking. The watering can went on running into an all-too-obliging mouth.
"That is a hard question," he finally said. "Research is scarce. But all powers must stay in balance. One cannot bear a magic essence of two halves evil and one half good at the same time: three halves do not make one whole. So for such magic to work, the powers of good must be disconnected and removed somehow and placed somewhere else, like transplanting a heart, so that the evil could replace it. Perhaps if this goodness were kept, as impossible as such may be: maybe, she might be able to do a small bit of good, connecting with what she was before."
Polland shook his head. "But those are deep and mysterious magics, far from the knowledge that I hold."
"But," Bran said, "if my mother also held the powers of the Drimra, could she not have saved a piece of herself in that way, to come back?"
Bran, though thinking of his mother, felt as if his real question was not of her spirit, but of the spirit of Baslyn that haunted him. Polland did not respond, but checked that every mouth had gotten some water. The flowers were standing straight and tall, lips closed and formed into slightly wicked, though content, smiles. He set the can aside.
"Follow me," he said. They crossed the hall into the sitting room, and though the fireplace was out, warm light fell across the books from the windows. As the bookshelf was many times his size, Polland drummed his fingers on the ledge and examined the titles.
"Hmm," he said. "Where is that one with biographies?"
About three columns down, a book on the high shelf slid out, as if pushed by invisible hands. Polland muttered his thanks and hoisted himself onto the countertop, hopping to grab the book. He sat on the edge, paging through, and Bran slid next to him, reading over his shoulder.
"Here he is," Polland said, finding something about halfway through. On the page to the left was a pencil sketch of a man’s face, shaven cleanly and with thinning hair. He appeared to be a bit bookish, and his gaze did not entirely look forward, as if he was wary of something.
"This man’s name was Karl Yultz," Polland said. "A mage from a century ago. Not many know who he is, though the Drimra look to him as one of the greatest of their missiv."
Polland ran his finger down the biography on the page to the right. The border of both pages was a line of black, and Bran saw from the bunches of pages that they were divided by colored sections. This was a section of biographies for the Drimra.
"Karl had an obsession with death," Polland said lowly. "The mysteries of it, the powers that it held over all creatures, magic and non-magic alike. Death holds the greatest authority over all, the power to end the life of whomever it chooses. Karl devoted his life to the study of how to change it, to manipulate it."
Polland’s face went grave. "But death is not a plaything to be toyed with. The realms in which Karl entered were vastly illegal, the powers too great and destructive."
Polland pointed his finger to a section halfway down the page, which read:
Karl Yultz devised, with years of research, a powerful Drimra magic which would allow him to separate his spirit from his material body: to place it elsewhere, into a host, so that in keeping it preserved and separate, the body, while missing its soul, would not age or decay, until both were brought together again; thus giving him the ability to outlive centuries if he desired.
However, that which happened to the spirit, would affect the body as well: and also, that which affected the body would affect the spirit, due to their deep and vast connection, thus meriting the need for his followers hide his soulless, undecaying corpse in a tomb or crypt, keeping it safe from destruction.
Upon discovery, the Mages Council tried and sentenced Karl Yultz for Severe Magic Abuse.
"It
has
been done," Polland said. "It is one of the gravest secrets of the Drimra, such that when one dies nowadays, they are always cremated, so their lives pass naturally."
"But what if a dark mage uses the magic?" Bran asked. "There must be a way to stop it."
"Destroy the object their souls are connected to," Polland said. "‘Burn the haunted house,’ that’s the way they put it. Burn it all so there is nothing left. Fire is the only real way to end the life of a Drimra whose body still has life to live."
Destroy it…
Bran thought. For Baslyn to haunt him, something had to be carrying the spirit, something that if Bran found it, he might be able to be rid of it.