Summertime Blues 17, Transparent 15, Dove Grey 8

[auguris]

Name: auguris
'verse: Ghost Sight
Story: Broker of Death V
Colors: Summertime Blues 17. It's still not done, Transparent 15. Spring, Dove Grey 8. For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.
Supplies and Styles: Canvas, Pastels: truth
Word Count: 1680
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
Summary: Master Vider gives Broker the last piece of the puzzle. Concrit welcome.

Broker followed Master Vider through the garden, rubbing his arms. Little blue star flowers broke through the dirt, the first growth of the year.

"Broker," Vider said.

He shrugged. "Sevana would have liked these. I meant to show her some day." He smiled. "Or take a few when you weren't looking."

Vider said, laughter in his voice, "I am always looking."

A dry, decent-sized fountain marked the center of the garden. Broker never quite caught his Master working on it -- he would go home for the weekend and return to find the fountain running and a smattering of Gardener enchantments kick-starting the flora. This year there would be no weekend home. He smiled at the idea of Vider with his fingers in the dirt, burying herbal satchels and polished bits of malachite and moonstone.

But that was not today's work. Vider stood in front of the fountain, gathering his magic from inside himself. Broker breathed in deep, all these years and still overwhelmed at the depth and strength of the man's power. Vider shone from within, red-black tendrils of magic coiling the length of his body. The air stirred and the ground beneath them shifted, not dangerously but a mere hint -- of what they were, what they could do, how their very beings tied into the fabric of their reality.

Vider's working encompassed the fountain, the marble splitting down the middle and sliding apart. A pedestal rose from the ground, carrying a gray lock box with it. Broker shivered when Vider let the working fall apart, errant magic whisked away in the wind.

"Hell of a security measure," Broker murmured. "You have to teach me that."

"In a few years, perhaps." Vider strode to the pedestal, dismissing thick wards Broker hadn't even sensed. He took the lockbox and handed it to Broker. "Take this inside."

"What's in it?"

"Perhaps it has crossed your mind that I intend to show you the contents, that in fact this is the very reason I have removed it from a place so well hidden that you did not know it was there, despite living here for nearing eight months." He turned back to the fountain, raising his magic once more. "Inside."

"Right," Broker muttered, doing as asked. He set the box on the kitchen table, peering at it. Wards removed, it would be easy enough to break into. He daren't risk his Master's ire, not after saying something so stupid.

Master Vider returned shortly, unlocking the box and pulling out a stack of manila envelopes stuffed thick with mostly neat sheafs of paper. Broker only raised his brows. "This is the research your parents were conducting on the location of The Sword once named Excalibur."

Broker felt something like a laugh rise at his throat, going so far as to briefly grin, but he shook his head at his idiocy. The Sword was no joke; it had existed, that much was true, although what it really looked like and whether it was enchanted and what Arthur Pendragon had actually done with it were up for verbose, endless, sometimes violent debate.

Sometimes violent, Broker mouthed. If you are in their way, they will do all in their power to remove you, the book's writer had warned. The room grew hot as his chest tightened, lungs constricting, air a struggle.

"Why didn't you tell me," he murmured, not looking at his Master or even the research or the table it sat on or the room they stood in. "Why," he said again, fire leaping up in front of his eyes as he moved and Vider stood almost an entire person taller than him but he shoved the man anyway, "didn't you tell me!"

Vider caught his arms as he attempted another shove and held him still even as he tried to wrench away. "Would you have believed me?" he asked, impassive.

"Your daughter," Broker said, everything slipping and latching, a puzzle without all the pieces, "was she there? Did she--"

"I don't know," Vider said, tone harder. "I found out too late to stop it." Vider cupped one hand behind Broker's head. "Nearly too late for you."

Broker turned way from the embrace, head bowed. He blinked when he found the kitchen strewn with paperwork, the clock fallen from its position on the wall, chairs knocked over. "Oh," he muttered.

"It's all right," Master Vider said. "Help me clean up."

The worked silently. Broker sighed at the mess of paper on the table. "The Followers of Morgause killed my family for a bunch of paperwork."

"Your parents refused to share their findings with Dweven," Vider said. "I haven't any real proof, but the implications are obvious."

"What about the Assembly? Can't they do something?"

Vider shook his head. "When the Circle isn't denying that they exist, the Court is investigating anyone who dares mention the Followers. Both are too in love with their little city-state to assist a handful of wizards in a tiny village, anyhow," Vider continued, scorn thick enough to choke on. "I'm afraid there is little we can do but be vigilant."

"Will they come after me?"

Vider met Broker's gaze. "Havard Eisvur is legally dead." Broker stared at him. "You never wondered why I suggested you change your name?"

Broker hugged himself. "I didn't care why. Wait, then how am I -- am I not your apprentice anymore?"

Vider smiled. "You are. Paragon Ventufere is aware of the situation. She found a little wizarding orphan and sent him to the nearest Master."

"That sounds farfetched." Broker wrinkled his nose. "And I'm sixteen."

"I am aware," Vider said, voice dry. "Enough time will have passed, once you reach Adept, for anyone to wonder much of it. A friend of mine is suspicious, but she has her own life to worry about. As for the Followers, aside from Kaija I doubt they pay me much attention. Your parents were the target, not you personally."

"What about Sevana? She didn't do anything either!" Broker snapped.

"I know. She, and you, were most likely meant as a message. Little scares a parent more than the idea of putting their child in danger."

Broker rubbed his nose. "But they didn't get Mom and Dad's research. You have it."

Vider shook his head. "I have a copy. I don't know what they did with the originals. The Followers may have it, or it may have burned with the house."

Broker sat at the table, picking at his memory. Now that he knew -- they had spent so much time in the study, together and not, working on what he had assumed were bills or... he'd never thought about it. He should have. He could have helped, somehow. If they were sharing their research with Master Vider they had to give it to him -- maybe the Followers found out, saw them transferring the paperwork. He could have hidden it in his bags. He didn't need to know what it said, even, but he could have helped keep it secret. Been a lookout. If he'd known they were all in danger, if he'd been -- vigilant, that was the word Master Vider had used, if he'd been vigilant he might have seen something, might have been able to warn them. They might not all be dead.

"Broker," Vider said quietly, and he realized he was crying. "This is much--"

"Did they find it?" he asked, wiping his eyes. "Excalibur?"

Vider paused before shaking his head. "The last they shared with me, Helena was certain it had been transported across the Curtain. Ciardha thought it was nonsense, but..." Vider trailed off as read through the sheet in front of him.

"But?" Broker prompted.

"Hm? Oh. But your mother is not the first person to have thought so. She never quite suggested they chase after it, however."

Broker ran his fingers over the top sheet, his father's normal scrawl forced into legibility, dark and blotchy from being photocopied. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Nothing," Vider admitted. "For now. The only person I know who would benefit has already gone chasing after it." He sighed. "We must keep it hidden. You may wish to continue their work, but your own education comes first. Once you have reached Adept, you will have more freedom of movement."

"Maybe I shouldn't," Broker murmured.

"It is your decision," Vider said. "Your life is your own. I only wanted to give you the last piece. The knowledge is yours to pursue or ignore."

Broker sat back, watching Vider read through his parents' words. The shear amount of work that lay in front of him -- hours upon hours, pen-callused fingers scribbling across how many dozens of journals, all done under his nose, behind his back, beneath his notice. Trips he'd never noticed or asked about, conversations he had never eavesdropped on, arguments he hadn't noticed. Years of questions and answers and more questions. When did it start? When he was a baby? Before he was born, before Sevana?

Two entire lives, each longer before he was born than his own at this very moment, thousands and thousands of moments and secrets and whispers he did not know, could not comprehend. The weight of them, of who they were, of who they would never be -- should have been all-consuming, a suffering, but it was not. He only felt an emptiness, a shadow where there once was life. Who were they, really? What did he know besides Mother and Father? Would he find answers in their work? Moments of their lives, slips of thoughts, shades of personality? Did they still love each other?

He placed the flat of his palms on the table. There was work here to be done, still, details to be consumed, concepts to be considered. The notion of continuing their work, finishing it, crossing the Curtain, finding the Sword -- there was a rightness to it, a puzzle he could make whole.

But he thought of fire, and of ash where a home had once stood.