Frontier academies were mostly feeder schools. They weren't temporary enclaves, but they weren't built to look impressive. Arkady was convinced that the structures weren't designed to last as long as anything his people would've built. The workmanship was definitely that of human hands. No dwarf would've thrown something up with so little attention paid to the foundations, and there wasn't anywhere near enough ornamentation for elvish construction. It also just wasn't busy enough for the gnomes to have built it.
The main building was twice the size of the rest of the structures around the enclave, and it was clearly also twice as old as the rest of the structures. Once they walked inside, Arkady noted that the internal area was something that had obviously been converted into the school. He suspected it was originally a human hospital or trading post, and the inside of it had mostly been gutted and retrofitted.
"So tell us about your confusing supplicant," Yasha said to Weesha. She'd met the gnome a few times over the years, but didn't know the Threadbinder as well as her husband did. "Did she present as anything unusual on first appearance?"
"Not at all," the gnome said to them. Weesha was tiny, but had a rather gruff way about her, and both Yasha and Arkady had a load of respect for her. Her outfit was that of a Threadbinder, but it was much more loose fitting than Arkady's. The gnome had never seen the point of armor, but the gnomish people weren't warlike in nature. "Typical human woman, in her mid twenties. She's from the southern forests, but she's been part of a traveling caravan of entertainers for most of her life."
"An actor then?" Arkady said.
"Not a profession you approve of, old man?" Weesha chuckled.
The dwarf stopped, crossing his arms over his chest. "Do you think so little of me, Weesha? The dramatic arts are a fine and noble profession. My late brother was an actor, before the Abari Wars, and I think very highly of them."
Weesha sighed, rubbing her eyes, as she stopped to look back at him. "My apologies, Master Arkady. I was merely attempting to joke, and I had no wish to offend."
"Aye. Aye, I see. Mayhap I took it more deeply than I should've done," the dwarf said. "Anyway, you did not answer my question."
"Mmm. No, not an actor. An acrobat. She tumbles and walks ropes and swings from trapezes and the like. She also throws blades, spits fire, bends her body into unusual positions. Apparently there is coin to be made from such things, but it's a thing where the novelty of it is important, so her family was a caravan, and they dare not remain in any one location for too long."
"The humans do so love a good show," Yasha said with a smile, her hand resting on her husband's shoulder. "Why did she suddenly decide to seek the services of a threadbinder?"
"The girl had been saving for some time, and when she saw the threadbinder flag flying above the enclave as her troupe passed, she decided to inquire as to my rates." The gnome lead them into her office, a rather well decorated room with a grandiose window before a desk, a small stepladder leading up to the chair so the gnome could scale it, the chair hiked as high as possible. "I was having afternoon tea when one of our spotters saw your griffon on approach. It shouldn't have cooled too much, if either of you would care for some."
"I would love some," Yasha said, taking up the teapot to pour herself a coup. "My husband will decline, as he doesn't care for tea."
"It tastes as though it is dirty bath water," Arkady replied. "How long ago was it that her caravan passed? I don't recall seeing it from the skies."
"Just over a week ago."
"Walk me through what happened."
The gnome sighed, picking up her mug, taking a sip from it. "The ritual itself was unremarkable, but the girl availed herself well, not even flinching when it came to paying her way, either in the giving or the taking. In fact, she was skilled enough at the giving that I almost felt bad charging her for the fee, and I decided to give her some of the aryou back, and that was before I began looking at her threads."
The dwarf hopped up into one of the other chairs in the room, this one clearly designed with dwarves and gnomes in mind, as there were small steps on the front of it leading up to the perch. "Seeing multiple threads coming from a core has been known to happen before, but usually when you study the bases, it isn't overly difficult to separate the one true from the rest of the options. You know all this, though, Weesha, and you certainly don't need me to remind you."
"That's just it, Arkady," the gnome said, frustration in her tone of voice. "This girl doesn't have
one
true cord; she's got
four
. And they aren't identical, which caused me further consternation. One of the cords is thick, like heavy rope. One of the cords is thin, like finely spun silk. One of the cords is braided, like it's two woven lines together. And the last of the cords looks like a long scarf more than a cord. Each is remarkably different than the others, but they all seem to be made of proper golden dreamstuff, the sort of color one would expect from a true connection."
"Have you sent word to the academy?" Yasha asked the gnome.
"Oh aye," she replied. "But it will be weeks before the messenger has returned, and Arkady's practically a grandmaster Threadbinder anyway, so I decided since you were here, another opinion wouldn't go awry. So what do you think, old man?"
None of the three of them had any of the telltale markings they should for their age, one of the benefits of being binders. Mages were paid in vitae, and the rituals helped keep the mages from aging, so while Arkady appeared to be a dwarf of three or four hundred years, he was actually nearing a thousand. His wife Yasha, looking similar to elves in their first or second hundred years, was closer to her seventh. And Weesha only looked to be a gnome approaching two hundred, but was nearly double that. As long as there was a need for their services, and they didn't manage to get themselves killed, they would live very, very long lives indeed.
"Well, not having examined the girl myself," the dwarf said, leaning back in his chair, "I would say you have a few options before you. The first, as unlikely as it may seem, is that the girl does, in fact, have four people she would be an ideal match with. Grandmaster Emisin did regale me with a tale once of that, during my education."
"Emisin had passed before I got there," Weesha said. "So I am unfamiliar with that story."
Arkady reached into his satchel and pulled out his pipe and his pouch of fireweed. "Mmm. Shame about what happened to him. As I recall, he told the classroom that sometimes those with great lives, spectacular lives, could get multiple threads, and that if a binder ever came across that, a prudent threadbinder should most likely refund the coin given, add coin in addition for failing the contract, tell the supplicant that their future was uncertain and to run off quickly in the other direction as quickly as one's feet would carry them."
"The tales I've heard of Emisin did not make him sound like he would be one to run from a challenge."
Arkady's bushy eyebrows bounced in amusement. "That he would not. He was not what one would call prudent and he did not take his own advice, and continued the tale to the classroom. What he told us was that he united the applicant, an elvish woman, with an elvish man he found at the end of one of the threads, and then informed the woman that she had another thread they could follow. The woman and her newly found man agreed, and Emisin began to lead them along the other thread." He pushed a thumbful of fireweed into his pipe before tucking the pouch of herb away, perhaps enjoying the suspense he'd left lingering the air while he did.
"And what was at the other end of the second thread?" Weesha finally asked.
"Nobody really knows," Arkady said with a chuckle. "They were following the cord up and across the Gintany Mountains, and just as they were halfway up to the pass, the cord was snapped and disappeared." He found a strikestick in his pouch, dragged it across the top of the gnome's desk and it burst into tiny flame, which he lowered down to light the fireweed. "Emisin's theory, or so he claimed to us, was that there might have been a second just as ideal candidate on the other end of that cord, but that he suspected they had died before they could be reached. On the other side of the Gitanys, the nations of Kupte and Niang were warring over who had the rights to fish in the large sea both countries partially bordered. There was no way to be certain, as the cord had simply disappeared in a flash. One moment, Emisin could see it, the next it was dissolving on the wind."
"What did he tell the supplicant?"
"Only that the other thread had vanished, and that perhaps he had been mistaken. He gave them back a quarter of the aryou they'd paid, and returned them to whence he'd brought them from, and tried to give it no further thought."
"I don't understand why this wouldn't be in the modern lesson plans then, if this is a possibility we should all be on the lookout for," Weesha said. "I envy you, Threatbinder. Your only engagement with hearts is to stop them."
"It's not always as easy as it seems," Yasha said with a soft smile.
"It's not in the modern lesson plans because it's extremely uncommon, and Emisin's theory about what it meant is still somewhat disputed."
"What
else
could it mean?"
Arkady inhaled a deep draw from his pipe before blowing a couple of smoke rings into the air. "Each of the Grandmasters and Grandmistresses had a theory, but what the majority of them finally decided they liked the most was that both of the woman's options had been valid and strong, but that when she'd been introduced to one, the other dissolved on its own, no longer needed. Grandmistress Tesaira said the woman's path was such that she could have taken either cord and been truly happy, but that the two cords were in opposition to each other, so by Emisin leading her along one, he had dissolved the other."
The gnome's brow furrowed in annoyance. "Except that goes against the core of the threadbinder tenets. True emotional connection cannot be dissolved by anything less than death, so while I can understand Emisin's theory, I cannot reconcile that with what the elders seemed to think."
