Renier's Journal

Found in Renier’s shelter — a timber lean-to in the mountain’s shadow that has stood unrotted for centuries, because the Netherese knew how to do things slightly differently. The journal is written in careful Loross — High Netherese, the noble tongue — in a hand that put time and attention into every letter.

It is the record of a man who refused an empire, and what that refusal cost him. Thessaly of the Arcane Brotherhood took it for safekeeping; her token of invitation is the way to see it again.

The Entries

The first entry:

They have found me again. One of the architects this time. Cerile, perhaps, I think, from the Fourth Tower. He was polite about it. They always are. He explained my obligation. I explained that I had resigned from it. He reminded me that one does not resign obligations of such kind. I offered him tea. He left without drinking it. They will send someone else.

Several pages later:

She came again. She is trying to be patient, and I’m trying to be patient with her. She says the word that I keep refusing to say: home. As though repeating that it would change what it means to me. I told her again, stay, there’s room, the shelter holds.

A later entry:

She looked at the shelter the way she looks at every time, and though she did not say what she’s thinking, and I did not say what I was thinking. Yrel is old enough to carry the basket to the market now. She likes the colors. She stayed home today.

A later entry:

She was here. We were talking. She was telling me once again, it’s not too late, I can still come home.

The city is still there, but then she was gone. The city is gone.

I can feel it.

The pressure was lifted all at once, like a door shutting.

She was standing by the fire when it happened. She brought Yrel, and then they were both gone.

I don’t, I don’t think she saw it coming.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I feel like something is gone for me too.

The city is gone.

Nobody will come. Nobody will come.

The last entry:

The shelter holds. The cold is—

I cannot say the same for myself. I’ve been trying to remember her name. Things are starting to fade. What was the name of the city again?

Notes

The wife and daughter who visited the shelter — Yael and Yrel — went with the city when it stopped having ever been. What remained of them lingered in the shelter as echoes, and the party met them there, wearing two Arcane Brotherhood researchers. The echoes have since gone back to not being.

Renier wrote in Loross to the end. The changed warriors the party has fought speak the commoners’ Low Netherese — but the words that keep coming back, it’s not too late to come home, are the noble tongue. Someone of high birth is still saying them.