January 2025: An Interview with a Reach-Man
I have met a Reach-man.
Perhaps you think that this is not a thing worth remarking upon. After all, I have devoted much of my life to studying the Reach and the Hill and River peoples who inhabit it. I have written a great deal about the experiences which the Khazari have had had in dealings with the Reach-folk – about how they interact with each other in their rare instances of trade or diplomacy, of how the Sultana and her armies will often buy or impose peace upon their frontiers through dealing with the Hill and River tribes through gold or negotiation or even force. But all of this has been from the perspective – and the words – of the Khazari themselves. It has always been through their prejudices and their way of thinking and looking at the world which I have seen the people of the Reach.
At least, until now.
He says his name is Yavuz – or at least, that is what my Khazari escort says – for each of the Reach tribes speaks a different language which though intelligible to their neighbours, is far from comprehensible to one who knows none of them. That same escort – a young officer of the customs service named Miroslav – tells me that the only reason he knows the language is because he has learnt it from Yavuz – who hunts for reindeer along the border from atop his stub-legged pony – and because the two of them occasionally speak to one another when the hunter’s prey leads him to stray into the land of the Great Sultana. He is, of course, a hunter, but he is also a great many other things as well. He tells me that his bow is one which he has crafted himself, that his pony was bred from the stables of his own household, and that the three knives – the short and heavy one on his belt, the slim one in his boot used for cutting meat, and the long-bladed one on his saddle-bow – were all received in trade for the pelts which he hunted.
It did not come to me as surprising that it was Miroslav himself who traded Yavuz the third of these knives, for it bore the marks of having once been the lance of a Khazari soldier. Miroslav in turn showed me the inside of his greatcoat, which was evidently lined for warmth with the pelt which Yavuz had given him in exchange for that piece of metal – of a quality of steel which could only be matched by one or two of the river tribes, who work the metal with hammers driven by paddle-wheels along the river.
This turned into a discourse about the origin of his other two knives, whose histories Yavuz described very proudly and very happily, though the officer Miroslav was compelled to apologise repeatedly for the imperfection and the occasional clumsiness of his translation. From what I was given to understand, the iron for these knives was traded to one of the river tribes by a hill tribe who themselves seized the ore on a raid against another hill tribe. This ore, they worked into pig iron which they traded to one of the river tribes. This third tribe then worked this metal into blades of various lengths, which were traded to Yavuz’s people in exchange for pelts, and the few goods which they in turn receive in trade from the Khazari. This tribe of steel-workers in return also trades finished blades to those which supply them with iron, along with fish and reeds and other such goods which may only be taken from the rivers.
Yavuz’s own people, are of course, a hill tribe. Their primary village is apparently three or four days’ ride north of the outpost. I had endeavoured to visit this place, and Miroslav was willing to support me in this journey, but unfortunately his superior refused outright, claiming that were some misfortune to befall me, it may cause some incident between the Sultana’s government and that of the Mansa. This had not occurred to me, for although I carry the pass-port of my sovereign, I did not see myself as one of his representatives, or an individual who was entitled to his protection outside his borders. Then again, perhaps that is why she commands the fortress which I write from – as well as three others in her district – while I am merely a simple scholar of the northern peoples.
As for Yavuz, his village was the place where he was born: a stout hill-fort with a stone fence and sod-covered homes which was home to his family as well as about two dozen others. However, it was not the place which he was raised and certainly not the place where he spent most of his life. As he was foremost a hunter and a trader, his days were mostly spent out on the hills, atop his horse, or under the small tent made of hides which he carried rolled up around its poles behind his saddle. Evidently, he has a marked territory which has been staked out in agreement with the six other hunters of his village, with an agreement to share the meat from their quarry equally among all the people of the village – while retaining the pelts to be used or traded for their personal profit. Yavuz himself possesses what is considered the most enviable territory, for it sits primarily between the village and the Khazari border, meaning that unlike those hunters who must patrol the land between their village and the village of another clan, there is little danger that he may be ambushed or otherwise threatened by those of other clans looking to encroach upon his territory.
Not that any such assailants would find him an easy quarry. In addition to his three knives, Yavuz carries a leather quiver, sixteen arrows tipped with the same steel as that which makes up the blades of his smaller knives, and a bow curved and shaped from horn similar to those used by those Khazari for sport hunting – though obviously far smaller to account for their differing stature. They are also – quite curiously – much stouter in construction and much more difficult to draw than even the war bows used by the specialist archers of the Concordat and our own country. Perhaps this is a result of the Reach-folks’ similarly stout nature, or the great musculature of the midsection which they are all rumoured to have – though the man himself had little opportunity to prove or disprove this rumour, it being so bitterly cold even within the outpost this interview was conducted at that baring skin seemed to be more an exercise in self-harm than anything else.
Naturally, folk like Yavuz are well-dressed for these climes, for they have lived in such lands for centuries. In presenting himself before us, he wore a long coat of quilted wool, coloured bright blue by the crushed pigment of some hardy wildflower which grows in the hills. In addition, he wore breeches of the same quilted material, these coloured a dark red. He also wore high boots wrapped in fur and a hat of triangular shape which was also lined with reindeer fur and whose corners could be folded down to protect the ears, or fully wrapped around the jowls and the neck to protect those as well. Underneath this, I saw a heavy woolen scarf, as well as the signs of another wide sash – this undyed – which wrapped around the waist under the midsection of the coat, likely to provide additional warmth, as well as to protect the belly from blows or the shock of a fall from the saddle.
In addition to this, he carried two cloaks, a heavy one lined in fur which served to provide warmth on cold nights in the wilderness, and a lighter one made of rough and undyed cloth stained brown and grey by years of hard use. This second cloak he used to hide his scent and the bright colours of his garments when he was in need of stealth, such as when stalking prey or ambushing those who he described to us as his enemies.
It was on the subject of these enemies that Yavuz then proceeded to discourse upon at length, execrating them with what my interpreter described only as “the foulest of abuse”. However, given the way that the Reach-man laughed when he recited one of these insults, I got the distinct impression that his hostility towards them was not entirely genuine. This impression was further reinforced when he went on to speak of the nature of war among the hill people – for although they do indeed battle with each other constantly, such conflicts have a ritual quality to them, one where the winner prefers to humiliate rather than kill their enemy – and in which the loser usually chooses to withdraw gracefully rather than commit to a vendetta which may see the expenditure of resources that may drive a whole tribe across the line between sustenance and starvation.
Thus, it is common to drive off a hunter from a rival village by shooting an arrow throw their hat or their cloak rather than through their head – and although Yavuz claims to be the veteran of dozens of such bouts, he also claims that he has only killed once, and a pony at that, shot by accident when he was aiming to shoot an arrow between the animal’s ears.
It was this exchange which gave me some impression of the means by which the Reach-folk amuse themselves, by telling expansive but often true stories – and making declarations and boasts which are usually fanciful lies. For example, more than once, Yavuz enjoined his counterpart Miroslav to “vote for the Great Sultana to make war” upon those who offended him, cheerfully dismissing Miroslav’s own practiced and amused protests that the Sultana of the Khazari is not a figure who makes policy through any form of election. This manner of conversation continued for some time, lubricated by some amount of strong drink from both parties – in the case of the Reach-man, such drink came in the form of a skin of fermented sheep’s milk.
There was also an exchange of food. Yavuz provided a portion of reindeer meat, which he had butchered and smoked himself. Miroslav, in turn, gave the Reach-man a package of preserved figs, shipped from the Khazari heartland by the officer’s family. Such fruits cannot grow this far north, and as a result that gift proved a great novelty for its recipient.
I too, participated in this exchange, offering one of my own spare cloaks – this one made of cotton, a material which likewise cannot grow this far north – in exchange for the smaller of the Reach-man’s three knives. This he parted with gladly, for he says that his interactions with the Khazari have given him a taste for novelty, and the one day he hopes to possess an item from every land in the world.
It was not soon following this that Yavuz was compelled to depart, for he had heard the mating call of one of the reindeer which he intended to hunt, and quickly hastened to prepare his pony and give chase.
In all, this most interesting meeting took place over the course of perhaps an hour and a half. In that time, I have gleaned the information with which I have compiled these notes, and the knife, of course, which I am sending with this message to Senne. I would hope that they both arrive safely with the courier I have entrusted them to, and will find a place within the university’s archives.
July 2025: A Month in the Iron Marches
Day 1 – Montfort
If you find this journal on my corpse, then consider it a cautionary tale.
That’s why I’m writing it after all, as a warning to any other stupid adventurer with tavern bills bigger than their sense of self-preservation. That way, maybe they’ll think better of following in my footsteps, especially if they lead to a nasty and unpleasant end chasing an assignment which was never going to be survivable.
The assignment itself was the first warning sign: the Duke of Torinhall pays generously for adventurers – that’s pretty well-known – but what’s also known is that he pays so well because the jobs he sends them on are so dangerous. This one would probably more dangerous than most, especially since it involved not just tracking down a Flowering Court relic, but the remains of the last group of adventurers he sent to track down that same relic. The fact that some other (no doubt highly experienced and well-equipped group) had already gone out and not come back did not fill me with utmost confidence.
But the pay was very good: five gold coins in advance, and twenty on return with any news of previous party or relic. A good chunk of that advance payment would be needed for travelling costs, pack animals, provisions, and the like, but that twenty on return? That’d be enough to retire on – assuming you didn’t mind living in some horrible little cabin in the ass end of nowhere, eating gruel and drinking donkey-piss ale.
More importantly, twenty gold was enough to live like a Duke – one of the poorer dukes, Amberhelm or Steeplevale, probably – for a year, and that was plenty for me.
So that’s why I’m here, in Montfort, at start of the Iron Road, on the trail of some other poor group of sods who were probably suckered in by the same promise and are now lying dead somewhere out in the middle of that mass of killing magick they call the Iron Marches.
Oh well, at least when I go, I’ll be passing on an important life lesson to whoever reads this – assuming they don’t immediately disregard it and get themselves killed too.
——
Day 2 – Montfort
Provisions are expensive here in Montfort. The prices I have seen for dried meat and hard bread are twice that I’ve found in more civilised lands – even more expensive than what the merchants in Kendrickstone charged me when I made the mistake of telling them I was working for the Duke of Torinhall.
There are all kinds of excuses, of course: the Iron League fix the prices and saddle the importers with fees and taxes, or it’s the importers themselves who keep the prices high, or maybe it’s the farmers out east, who mark up what they sell for when they learn that what they’re growing is headed for the Iron Marches.
Honestly, the explanation’s simpler than that. The land in the Iron Marches isn’t good for growing stuff. From what I hear, the settlements further west rely solely on fishing, flocks of sheep, hunting, and whatever hardy crops can actually manage to survive out there. That means a lot of what’s needed to feed a big town like Montfort has to come from elsewhere – and shipping any kind of cargo costs money, especially when that cargo has to be kept dry and safe the whole way.
Still, I’ve got plenty of money to work with. More than enough to fill my mule with enough dried meat and hard cheese and hardtack and water and wine and vinegar for two weeks – more if I can hunt and gather along the way. I still have enough left over to buy more food, if I need it.
Although given the prices food must go for out there, I’d really rather not.
I depart tomorrow.
——
Day 5 – Harrow’s Fork
Montjoy is the biggest settlement in the Iron Marches, but it’s an overgrown town compared to the cities in the east, let alone the kinds of places the Korilandines have – and I hear even those are dwarfed by the cities of the Khazari: cities so big that it takes a day’s riding to get from one end to the other.
Well, Harrow’s Fork is to Montjoy as Montjoy is to those Khazari metropoli – if they actually do exist.
In theory, Harrow’s Fork is a town, although actually calling it that would probably get you sent to the pillory for fraud. From what I could tell, it was founded by some person named Harrow – whoever they were – over three generations ago, which practically makes this place an ancient bastion of civilisation, if you could call the straw cots and log shacks here ‘civilisation’ at all. Frankly, every step I take west makes me yearn to find this damned artifact, and head home.
The artifact in question is actually kind of interesting. I have to admit, it’s half the reason I agreed to this job, despite the likelihood of it drastically shortening my life expectancy.
See, the Duke of Torinhall’s ambitions of clearing the frontier are stymied primarily by the same sort of leftover feral magickal growth which Torin Tower-Breaker faced all those years ago. Clearing land for cultivation is slow when some bullshit Flowering Court spell can overgrow in a day what takes a week to slash and burn. However, there’s legends out here of some kind of Flowering Court device capable of stopping the flow of all magicks within a wide area, something the Flowering Court were experimenting on when they disappeared. Personally, I think those kinds of powers are beyond the realm of what’s safe for anyone to meddle with, but the Duke of Torinhall pays well, and I really don’t care what happens to the thing after it gets put in the Duke’s hands. I’ll be safe and sound at home in Concordat, eating roast goose and Isonzan sausages – assuming I survive.
And if I don’t? Well then reader, now you know: if the Duke of Torinhall tries to hire you to seek out an artifact that kills magick around it, politely refuse.
As for me? The people at what they charitably call a tavern here say the party I am after did pass this way, and kept going.
So that means I go too.
——
Day 11 – On the Iron Road
I am currently resting in a very strange looking tower house on the side of the Iron Road. Its foundations, as far as I can tell, are perfectly seamless, and perfectly round. I even went ahead and measured to make sure.
The only person who lives here is an old woman who says it was like that when she got here. There were no signs of anyone else then, and she hasn’t found any in the time she’s lived there – which is apparently longer than I’ve been alive.
She’s a strange kind of person, definitely educated, definitely comes from money – her clothes are patched and worn, but they’re the kind of clothes which were in fashion among the nobility when I was a kid. She only lives on one floor of the tower. The rest is made up by a library which she told me in no uncertain terms not to look through. The tower house has a garden around it, but one that isn’t fenced in. I asked her about that. She said she takes precautions. I asked her about bandits and wild animals, she says those precautions are more than enough. I asked her why she lived out here, and she asked me if the Duke of Arnault was still angry about his cousin (there has not been a Duke of Arnault for 25 years).
I stopped asking questions after that.
She did mention that the party I was following came this way too – but that they left the road not long after.
It looks like I’m heading south, into the wild.
——
Day 13 – Somewhere in the Wilds
I’ve picked up their trail.
In fact, it was kind of hard not to.
There are strange things in the land off the Iron Road – that’s something anyone could tell you safe around a fire somewhere far away from danger. But it’s one thing to hear about them and another to see them – belts of black brambles wide as a pasture, with dead jagged trees sticking out of them. Someone had cut a path through those brambles. At first, it looked like that path had already grown over – there were points along the trail where dark thorny vines had encroached back onto the cleared areas – but as I looked closer, I noticed something else. There were bones tangled among those vines – some animal, some possibly human.
And the vines were moving, slithering and writhing over each other like a mass of snakes.
I didn’t take any chances. I cut my way around those clumps. However deadly those patches of live bramble were, they were also slow, at least when it came to crossing ground. At some point, I saw a bird land on one of those patches, only for the vines to lash out, whip-like, and strangle the creature right in front of me.
After that, I took extra care to avoid those patches.
I’m through now. It took all day, but I’m through.
Still, I’m going to go ahead and keep moving for a bit before sundown, just to be safe.
——
Day 21 – Somewhere in the Wilds
I’ve just seen my mule explode.
It had seemed like a normal ruin – or at least, as normal as things get out here: a series of black glassy outcroppings. I’d passed it just fine, or so it’d seemed. There wasn’t any sign that it was any more magical or dangerous than the last fifty glassy black stone outcroppings I’d passed.
Then it started to hum. I turned just in time to see blue lines trace their way across the surface, as if the black was just the surface and some kind of hot coal burned underneath. I managed to get clear, my mule didn’t.
I’ve seen what conjured lightning can do to a person before, but this was different. This was a thunderclap so loud that I bet they could have heard it all the way back on the Iron Road. For hours after, my ears rang and my skin tingled with the residual heat.
The mule, of course, is dead. One of its bones was flung so hard into the ground next to me that it jammed into the dirt so deep I couldn’t even pull it back out. All of my provisions are gone, except for the three days’ rations I was carrying in my pack.
At least I can still eat what’s left of the mule – the parts that aren’t charred to coal, anyway.
——
Day 25 – Still somewhere in the Wilds
I feel like I should be worried.
I’ve found the location of the relic the Duke of Torinhall is after, that’s for sure. What else could explain a zone which is entirely impervious to magick, shaped in a perfect circle. Even from a distance, that space looked discoloured, as if the colour had all drained from it. On closer inspection, the difference is even more stark: outside the zone, there are the same magickal plants and brambles which seem to festoon the entire country this deep in the Iron Marches.
Inside? Nothing. Only the dead remnants of those same plants, lying grey and desiccated, as if drained of their life.
I’ve made some measurements. This dead zone is not actually a circle, but a sphere. Its border has a slight inward curve that continues as it goes up. I did a few basic calculations. I think whatever’s causing this zone is underground, maybe twenty or thirty paces – so in a cave somewhere, or buried deep in a hole. I’ll take a closer look tomorrow.
In the meantime, I’ve found a camp. I guess that should be a relief. It’s still got two weeks’ worth of provisions inside, which means I won’t be staggering back to Harrow’s Fork on nothing but a handful of charred mule a day.
But an abandoned camp with provisions still inside it never makes for a good sign – especially when I’m already supposed to be following a disappeared adventuring party.
I think I’ll set up some traps tonight.
——
Day 26 – Same as Yesterday
It’d started off so encouraging.
This morning, I found a passage in the ground, cut into a perfect square – one leading directly into the centre of the dead zone I found yesterday. With a lit lantern, I followed it down a gentle slope, maybe a hundred paces.
That was when I smelled the unmistakeable stench of rotting flesh.
Three bodies, all prone, as if they’d tripped and fallen over. In the light, I saw the glint of steel and the weave of good linen, and the remnants of leather boots rotting on maggot-infested feet.
That was when I noticed something strange: the feet were rotting, covered with insects and flesh-eating grubs, but up past the ankles, there was nothing, not even a sign of decay. As I looked closer, I saw a line of dead flesh-eaters forming a threshold along the stone floor, as if they’d crossed a line and fallen dead.
Just like the three unfortunates in front of me.
It was as if there was a line in the world: on one side things were normal, on the other, life could not exist.
And like that, all of my questions were answered.
The relic which the Duke of Torinhall sought was real, only his sources must have been a little off. It didn’t stop the function of magick within its zone of effect, but the function of all life – something which my predecessors had found out the hard way.
I’m back at camp now. I’ll be heading back to Harrow’s Fork and down the Iron Road tomorrow. I’ve found the fates of the Duke’s adventurers, and I know better than to meddle with devices of such power.
Besides, a month in the Iron Marches is long enough for a lifetime.
August 2025: The Research Notes of Isan of Korilandis
It is a ridiculous thing to suspect one’s own apprentice of treachery. Perhaps it is simply the finely honed instincts for court intrigue which my younger days have instilled in me, but when one’s apprentice so eagerly allows one to examine an artifact of the Flowering Court possessed of an evil reputation based on the fact that it has violently and terminally deranged every single Court Mage who has previously examined it, save one*, there is perhaps some grounds to be suspicious.
Of course, it was I who made the request of my apprentice in the first place, who also felt the need to warn me at length about their own experiences with the artifact in question when they tried to tap into its power. Likewise, they made it very clear that they would only lend me the artifact for a week at most, for they themselves have affairs which must be handled with alacrity. Finally, there is the fact that the artifact itself is only dangerous if used without the appropriate safeguards, and possesses little ability to force its own misuse save through perhaps a little telepathic sophistry here or there. It is called the Book of Mad Whispers, not the Insistent Merchant-Adventurer of Mad Whispers.
So, if my apprentice does indeed to dispose of me and succeed me as Court Mage of Kendrickstone – a most thankless and underfunded post at the best of times – they would have to have expected that I would ask them to examine the artifact in question, that I would disregard their warnings, and that I would take no precautions whatsoever. Then, they would have had to have expected me to make exactly the same mistakes my predecessors did to fall under the influence of this artifact by advancing recklessly in search of its supposed secrets***. Lastly, they would have had to have expected me to be so foolhardy, so reckless, and so unrestrained in my pursuit as to reach the same state of derangement which took my predecessors months or years in the space of a few days.
As I have already written, it is a ridiculous thing to suspect one’s own apprentice of treachery, and I intend to treat it as such.
As for the artifact itself, I will offer it no such derision. It is supposedly a remnant of the Flowering Court, and it must be treated with respect as such. I am not my predecessors. Where they bumbled about with reckless abandon and greed, I will observe, examine, and take every precaution. I do not seek to tear the secrets out from its pages, I only seek answers as I do with every relic of the Flowering Court, ones regarding its origins, its intended use, and its unlikely survival. I will be safe from the fate which befell my predecessors, simply by virtue of the fact that I am not them.
If I am careful enough, this artifact’s reputation will have no effect on me. If I am not, then I am sure my successor will get a good belly laugh out of that previous statement, should it prove overconfident.
- Never mind that those instincts eventually cost me my position, my country, and my legs.
** My immediate predecessor, of course, reached terminal derangement through the abuse of an entirely different Flowering Court relic.
*** I suspect the life expectancy of a Concordat Court Mage would be drastically lengthened if they were required to take the same instruction on the handling of totems and fetishes that I did at Senne.
When I took up this post as Kendrickstone’s Court Mage, I promised myself that I would do nothing to cause any undue disturbance either to the city or my own career. I would pursue strictly my own research, keep myself firmly outside of local politics, and do nothing to upset the very established consensus of knowledge which the mages of the Concordat seem to have established here. I would step on no toes, intrude in nobody else’s enclosures, and foil nobody else’s plans.
I do not think I have adhered to this plan particularly well.
The matter of my immediate predecessor, of course, could be considered a great overreach. It certainly exceeds the part I have tried to set for myself in this land, although given that the Court Mages of the Concordat find themselves as often politically engaged as those of the Empire, I suspect that there may be few others who would think so*. Nonetheless, it has certainly caused some disturbance at my hands, something which I have tried so carefully to avoid hitherto.
Now, I suspect I am about to do so again.
My predecessors have always suspected this artifact to be of Flowering Court origin. At a glance, such a conclusion would make sense. It was found in the ruins of a Flowering Court city. It was found inside a Flowering Court coffer, next to the broken pieces of other Flowering Court relics. Most importantly of all, it is commonly known that none save the Flowering Court have been able to enchant objects with magick*. With such irrefutable facts in mind, the idea that this Book of Mad Whispers could be anything but a Flowering Court artifact would seem absurd, surely.
But what if this were not the case?
Over the past century and a half, those who have studied the artifact have simply taken Ludovica of Fiore’s conclusions at face value. Being in pursuit of the knowledge stored within the book rather than any understanding of the book’s provenance or properties, they could have taken no more than a cursory glance at the actual physical properties of the artifact before diving headlong down a mongoose burrow which their minds would never recover from. They have – to use a quaint local turn of phrase – eaten the offal without tasting the crackling. As a result, they have left several important questions unanswered, ones which it has evidently taken several generations and several Court Mages driven to insanity to even consider.
Firstly, there is the question of how this one book survived when all other items within the coffer originally retrieved did not. Ludovica of Fiore’s notes were written in a dialect now long out of date, but her words regarding this were unambiguous. Likewise, almost all other Flowering Court artifacts which have been discovered are found a state of advanced decay, yet this book alone survives practically unscathed? Surely there is a reason for that.
Secondly, why a book? There have been other repositories of Flowering Court knowledge found before: worked into enchanted crystals, etched into stone, but never as a book of parchment and ink. This is the first and perhaps only such artifact ever found. Perhaps it has simply been fortunate to survive whatever calamity befell the Flowering Court, but if that is the case, then surely others would have survived too? If the Flowering Court was as skilled with magick and possessed of knowledge as we believe, surely they would have had a great number of such books – if they used such things at all.
Lastly, some of my predecessors have concluded that the enchantment within the artifact has simply gone ‘feral’ over time, twisting its original purpose until it is capable only of malevolence. Indeed, I suspect that is where the artifact’s common moniker comes from: the idea being that of an insane magickal intelligence trapped within an inanimate object and seeking only to escape. The problem with this conclusion is the simple fact that although the material components of Flowering Court artifacts have been found in great decay, and although the creatures made by their magick have also degenerated, the magick itself does not. In many cases, it is the enchantment on an object which is the very last thing to diminish.
No, there is something very strange about all of this, and I intend to examine this artifact closer to see precisely what it might be.
- By involving myself politically, I have, of course, made enemies. To them, I am sure even my drawing breath would qualify to them as an overreach.
** Or so we assume. The Flowering Court definitely did something there. We cannot say if it was truly a city unless we were to ask them – a course of action which regrettably is impossible for a variety of obvious reasons.
*** Or so it is claimed. We still don’t know who raised the tomb of Kendrick Giant-Slayer, and none can deny there is some form of spell woven into those stones.
There are limits to the sort of examination one can do on an artifact of the Flowering Court – especially an enchanted one. While I would very much love to disassemble this book, cut into its cover, and determine the composition of its paper, this kind of highly intrusive work necessarily destroys the object in question, an outcome which I think will neither please my apprentice, nor His Grace, whose property this artifact still officially remains.*
However, that does not mean I have been able to find out nothing at all. While I have not, and do not intend to open this book, that does still allow me the luxury of taking a very close look at its cover.
Village wisemen and the teachers of children say that we must never judge a book by its cover. Perhaps that is a valid life-lesson when applied figuratively. When applied to the examination of magickal artifacts, this saying possesses rather less utility. You can tell a great deal about a book by its cover. You can find out where it was bound based on the particular materials used. You can discover the station of its owner by looking at the quality of those materials. You can determine age, general condition, and whether it has been roughly handled in the bag of some much-buffeted traveller, or if it has sat on the carefully tended shelf of some aristocrat’s library.
As for this book in particular, there are a great many things I can learn from its cover. For example, the cover itself is a form of worked leather – likely elk or cow – which show evidence of being cut and trimmed with the same tools which any skilled leatherworker might use. The stitching in the binding is made of some kind of gut, tight-woven and double-stitched for extra durability. The covers themselves appear to be of some sort of light, somewhat flexible light wood, though I cannot tell the exact kind without cutting the leather open, something which is obviously out of the question. Ultimately, it appears to be a relatively common, if well-made book. If not for the obvious signs of advanced age, the pull of residual magick from its pages, and the unseen air of malice which accompanies its reputation, one would think it no more than any other old book, preserved reasonably well.
Which is, I think, the problem.
As I have mentioned before, we have never seen any evidence that the Flowering Court stored knowledge in what we would consider books. Whether this is because they genuinely did not do so or because all of their tomes succumbed to the same calamity which befell the rest of their civilisation, we do not know. What we can at least assume, however, is that if those books did exist, they would be made of the same exotic materials and with the same sort of strange crafting styles which adorn all of their artifacts, and that they would appear exotic and perhaps even utterly confusing to our own eyes if not placed under intense study.
It is that truth which has led me to entertain the possibility that the Book of Mad Whispers is not a Flowering Court artifact at all.
This, of course, raises all manner of questions. What was it doing in a Flowering Court ruin? Why was it found in a Flowering Court coffer alongside Flowering Court artifacts? Most importantly, why are its pages suffused with magicks which successive court mages** have described as akin to that known to be in possession of the Flowering Court, and which remains far beyond the grasp of our current understanding?
There are potential answers to these questions – hypotheses, really. Perhaps this artifact was the work of some adventurer or rogue who successfully managed to infiltrate the domain of the Flowering Court in centuries past?*** Perhaps they were able to successfully understand sufficient amounts of that civilisation’s magick to reproduce it, but not enough to do so properly, leading to a distorted and dangerous partial facsimile? Perhaps the Flowering Court itself, grasping the danger of this false artifact, dispatched agents to secure this object and sealed it away for safekeeping among other defective works, and this particular object was the only one to survive the intervening cataclysm due to its human provenance?
Frustratingly, I have no way to confirm this hypothesis, at least in the short term. While I could send for specialists to make a closer study of the artifact’s exterior, it would take weeks for them to arrive. My apprentice leaves tomorrow, and they have expressed a desire to see the book returned. I cannot delay their affairs solely for the sake of satisfying my own curiosity, especially if it pertains to an artifact which has no safe usage.
So, further study must wait, but I am not overly concerned. Unlike my predecessors, I have no plans to dramatically shorten my own lifespan, so I may be at liberty to await my apprentice’s return****. Perhaps then, I will ask to borrow the artifact for a longer period of study, and see how many of my guesses are indeed correct ones.
*It would, of course, also be exceptionally dangerous, as enchanted objects of the Flowering Court are known to react unpredictably when sufficiently damaged. I have no intention of becoming yet another cautionary tale in the history of the Book of Mad Whispers.
** At least, while they were still lucid. I think Damien of Arnault became increasingly convinced that the book was actually written by his own hand as time progressed.
*** Contrary to popular belief, there are verified accounts of this happening, though never to a great extent.
**** Assuming they do not find themselves entangled in a ridiculous misadventure, again.
October 2025: Three Accidents, A Story of the Iron League
It is difficult to behold the carefully laid out battlements of Montfort, or the intricately balanced networks of shipments and supply that sprawl across the frontier and think that the foundation of the Iron League were anything but the result of a meticulously planned endeavour, one calculated to the last pace and the last stone before even the first step was committed to action. That is, after all, how the Lords of the Iron League present themselves in these days: as careful and calculated in their dealings as responsible stewards of the vast mineral wealth which passes through their gates, through their toll stations, and on the beds of their wagons.
Yet it was not always so. Long ago, after the raising of Kendrick Giant-Slayer’s keep, but before it blazed forth with glory, what we know now as the Iron League came to exist not as the result of some great plan, but as three accidents, one after the other, which turned a collection of unlikely individuals into one of the greatest commercial powers in the Concordat.
These individuals were – as is often the case – adventurers. There were a dozen of them in all, commissioned by the Duchess of Kendrickstone (the Giant-Slayer’s successor) to scout out the wilds to the west for relics and other discoveries which could allow her to make her name the way her predecessor had. These were the times when Kendrickstone still contended openly with the heirs of Torin Tower-Breaker, and both feuding keeps sought every possible advantage they could dredge from the ruins of the Flowering Court. Thus, these intrepid adventurers were equipped for the task, not only with sword and pike and bow and axe, but with iron-bound casks and chests, with which they could contain even the most dangerous magicks and most unstable relics.
The expedition itself was a great success, but of little importance to our story. There was much danger of course, and no doubt that there are others who could tell the thrilling accounts of close escapes and wondrous sights better than I. However, all that is relevant to this story is that our party of adventurers made their way back towards Kendrickstone with their casks and chests filled with the magickal artifacts which they had been commissioned to find. No doubt by that point, after so many weeks in the wilds, they were looking forward to a warm hearth, soft beds, and all the comforts of what had already become a substantial city.
But that was not to be – at least, not yet. As they crossed the rough terrain, one of their chests broke, spilling the dangerous artifacts across the floor of the forest. Although none were greatly injured by the resulting discharge of magickal energies, it was clear that a new container would have to be found or made if their precious cargo was to be delivered to their employer in full.
Thankfully, the adventurers were not entirely unprepared. Like many expeditions in those times, they had brought not only soldiers and scholars, but practical artisans as well. Two skilled blacksmiths – one a farrier, the other an armourer – had travelled with them, and it was these two who were set to the task of creating a new vessel to contain the exposed artifacts.
This proved to be a laborious process. With the expedition nearly at an end, there were few materials to work with, and although the party could feed themselves through the bow and the fishing spear, there was little that could be used to fashion a new chest of the strength needed. Wood could be found easily enough, but iron was a different story. In the end, the two artisans chose to seek out a local source of iron to work in a makeshift forge. Over the course of a week, they cleared a camp sufficient to burn charcoal and erect a small furnace. Into this, they piled ore they had found under a nearby hillock. After another three days, ore was smelted into iron, and iron worked into a crude replacement vessel. After another day, the camp was taken down and the party resumed their return trip.
Little beknownst to them, this was the first accident.
The second came not long after, when the relics were returned, and the expedition paid off. In Kendrickstone, the castle’s smiths went about trying to rework the crude iron container so that it might be turned into something more polished, more suitable as an implement of a Duchess and her retinue. Yet to their surprise, these smiths found that for all of the rudimentary nature of the container’s structure, the iron which composed it was of a cleaner and more flexible type than any which they had worked before. This they made known to the adventurers who had brought the container, and they in turn discussed the matter amongst themselves.
They knew where the ore for that iron had come from, and they knew how to return to the hillock which that ore came from. They knew that if they continued upon the path which they had set, they could continue to work for the great lords, to risk danger and peril to bring back relics which they would never see again. They knew that on such a course, they could – perhaps after surviving another decade of great danger and constant risk of death – retire to become prosperous lords.
Or they could claim that hill of iron for their own, sell the ore within it, and live in safety for the rest of their lives like princes.
And thus, these adventurers did all they could to take advantage of this second accident. When they returned to that hill, they brought with them picks, shovels, peace mages and work crews. They built atop that hill a fortress – the first signs of what would become Montfort. Then, they sent out riders to all corners of the Fledgling Realms, with pouches containing the iron that they had dug up from that hill – proof of the quality of the treasure which they had found.
Within weeks, orders began to arrive: from the smiths of household knights looking to better-equip the heads of their retinues, from great lords looking for an advantage over their rivals, from even common crafters looking for the iron with which to forge better and sharper tools. Within a year, there were enough orders arriving at that little mining camp to make everyone involved wealthy for a dozen lifetimes – if they could be fulfilled.
And here came the third accident. For although the yields of good iron ore were rich at first, it took only a few months for the veins to grow thin and scant, and only a few months more to be mined out entirely. That hill had not been made of the good frontier iron, but only home to a relatively small piece of it. Now the adventurers-turned-iron merchants were in trouble, for they only had enough to fulfill a fraction of the orders which they had taken, to satisfy only a fraction of the contracts they had signed.
But adventurers are not known to panic under strain – those that do will not remain adventurers for long. Instead, these intrepid figures made plans. They fulfilled the contracts they could and sought out their connections among their former comrades. With the money from those first orders, they hired yet more adventurers to range further west, deeper into the wilds, to find yet more sources of this iron. It was a risk for certain, but one which paid off. Within another year, fresh sources of iron had been found, new camps had been set up, and the flow of ore resumed.
Some say that this frontier ore is different from that which had first been dredged up from under Montfort. There are those who would pay more for a sword made from Montfort Iron than the material that superseded it. Yet no reputable armourer or swordsmith will say that one is better than the other. It is a simple matter of rarity. That ore dug up from further in the wilds is no different from that which came from Montfort, for it is said that it is the latent sorcery of the region itself – a region which would soon become known as the Iron Marches – which was the cause of this metal’s strange and prized qualities.
Within five years, the initial orders had been fulfilled, and so great was the reputation of this new league of adventurers-turned-merchants that new orders flooded in, to be filled by a new wave of adventurers, sent out by those first few who grew wealthy and powerful and passed their offices on to their children and apprentices.
And so it was from those three accidents that the Iron Marches as we know them sprung – and it was from those three accidents which came all that followed: the orderly battlements of Montfort, the settlements spreading across the frontier, the grim grandeur of the Hall of Measures, the quiet marvel of the Iron Road.
From those three accidents sprang the Iron League.
December 2025: A List of Common Prices
Price List:
20 Copper Sparks to a Silver Penny
20 Pennies to a Gold Prince
In the City of Concordat
Pint of Beer: 3 Copper
Loaf of Bread: 6 Copper
Tavern Meal (Simple) 12 Copper
Whole Chicken (Cooked): 14 Copper
Daily Labourer’s Daily Wage: 18-30 Copper
Inn Room (Simple): 2 Silver
Chicken (Live): 3-4 Silver
Eating Knife: 5 Silver
Skilled Crafter’s Daily Wage: 6-10 Silver
Cotton Shirt: 7 Silver
Wool Cloak: 8 Silver
Short Spear: 10 Silver
Simple Lodgings (Month) 15 Silver
Felling Axe: 16 Silver
Cheap Sword: 35-60 Silver
Comfortable Lodgings (Month) 40 Silver
Cotton Aketon: 50 Silver
Riding Horse: 80-150 Silver
War Bow: 85 Silver
Hunting Arbalest: 95 Silver
Steel Helmet: 110 Silver
Suit of Fine Clothes: 3 Gold
Household Knight’s Monthly Stipend: 4 Gold
Maille Hauberk: 5-10 Gold
Small Townhouse: 6-15 Gold
In the Countryside
Pint of Beer: 1 Copper
Loaf of Bread: 2 Copper
Tavern Meal (Simple) 5 Copper
Whole Chicken (Cooked): 6 Copper
Daily Labourer’s Daily Wage: 8-14 Copper
Inn Room (Simple): 1 Silver
Chicken (Live): 15-25 Copper
Eating Knife: 6 Silver
Skilled Crafter’s Daily Wage: 3-4 Silver
Cotton Shirt: 3 Silver
Wool Cloak: 4 Silver
Cottage Rent (Season) 10 Silver
Short Spear: 12 Silver
Felling Axe: 20 Silver
Cheap Sword: 50-100 Silver
Cotton Aketon: 80 Silver
Riding Horse: 40-70 Silver
War Bow: 120 Silver
Hunting Arbalest: 150 Silver
Steel Helmet: 2 Gold
Suit of Fine Clothes: 10 Gold
Household Knight’s Stipend (Monthly): 2 Gold
Large Freehold Farm: 14-30 Gold
Maille Hauberk: 15-20 Gold
Major Costs:
A Small Riverboat: 25 Gold
Cost of a Mercenary Lance (40-day Campaign): 28 Gold
Income of a Landed Knight (Annual): 30-50 Gold
Court Mage of Arnault’s Stipend (Annual): 63 Gold
Cost of Raising a Small Stone Keep: 130-160 Gold
Income of a Baron (Annual) 150-300 Gold
Cost of a Fully-equipped War Galley: 166 Gold
Cost of a Minor Military Campaign (40 Days): 200-500 Gold
Cost of Renovating the Grand Sanctuary of Kendrickstone: 750 Gold
Personal Income of the Duke of Torinhall (Annual): 2500-5000 Gold
Collective Income of the Iron League of Montfort (Annual): 3000-8000 Gold
Ransom of Frederico d’Ortensia, the “Bad Doge” of Fiore: 58500 Gold
Paul Wang 