Damarys had hoped it would be more than a few days before she’d be back with Jelvaic and Arjana, being asked to go deeper into the city, and yet here she was, along with Zeter, Emilie, and Kasyn again while Jelvaic and Arjana gave them all looks of concern.

“So, Ichiba Wa?” she asked as they all sat down.

“The scouts we sent have reported seeing undead and elementals wandering around in Ichiba Wa, just like we had here in Autay Wa,” Jelvaic said as breakfast was brought to them all.

They were meeting in a large barn that had been repurposed to serve as a sort of town hall. It was significantly better than the old pavilion and a few rooms were being erected for more private conversations.

“We know the gate needs to be repaired and we have the carpenters working on that,” Jelvaic went on, “but that’s not what you’re here for.”

“What is it, then?” Zeter clearly had expected for them to be sent into Ichiba Wa as well.

“The crops are dying,” Jelvaic replied.

“They did get trampled,” Zeter said.

“It’s not just those,” Arjana snapped back. “Every field, whether it was trampled or not, is starting to wither.”

“What can we do?” Kasyn asked.

“It wasn’t very well known except by a few of us farmers who noticed,” Jelvaic explained, “but around this time of year our crops always started to slow in their growth, sometimes even developed some withering, until Akumu would go into Shinko Toshokan. Then everything would get right back to normal. I’ve no idea what he did in there, but it’s what boosted our harvests every year.”

“I always thought Yomichi was just incredibly fertile,” Damarys said.

“The soil here’s actually pretty bad,” Jelvaic grunted, “but we easily harvest ten times more than anywhere else in the world.”

“We don’t have Akumu’s permission to enter the Toshokan, though,” Kasyn pointed out. “Even the armies of the Tower of Light couldn’t force their way in.”

“I figure you lot are as close to Akumu’s chosen as anyone could be,” Jelvaic patted Kasyn on the back. “It won’t hurt for you to at least try.”

“Well, let’s get going, then,” Damarys sighed, relieved that they weren’t going into Ichiba Wa.

Now that she knew to look for it, Damarys saw the signs of dying plants in the fields they passed on their way to Shinko Toshokan. The slight browning of leaves, the wilting stems, the shrunken fruits on the vine.

“Anyone else curious what’s special about Shinko Toshokan that Akumu would go there to bolster the crops?” Zeter asked as they rode on his flying carpet.

“It’s the religious Toshokan,” Kasyn replied as though it was obvious. “It would make sense for him to go there to bless the fields.”

“I see that,” Zeter said, “but why go there at all? Couldn’t he have blessed the crops from anywhere? It didn’t seem like he was doing it very publicly if only a few of the farmers even knew about it.”

Damarys hadn’t put much thought into it, but now that Zeter was pointing out the oddities, she too began to wonder. She’d never been inside any of the Toshokans except for Kokyo Toshokan and that one was just rows of books, all written by Akumu over the millennia and stored there. She assumed the other Toshokans were the same, only with their more specific subjects.

“Any of you ever been inside of Shinko Toshokan?” she asked.

The others all shook their heads.

“I was allowed into Chikara Toshokan, once,” Emilie said. “Besides the big moth guardian it was a lot like Kokyo Toshokan.”

“It has a what?” Damarys balked.

“Each Toshokan has a guardian,” Zeter said before Emilie could reply. “Giant moth in Chikara, death specters in Chishiki, outworlder in Shinjitsu, helping hand in Shinko, and of course the Stone guardian in Kokyo.”

“I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never heard of any of those,” Damarys admitted. “I didn’t even know Kokyo Toshokan had a guardian.”

From the looks of it, the others didn’t know much about them either and Zeter looked a little uncomfortable as if he’d just let slip some secret he wasn’t supposed to talk about.

“The guardians aren’t seen all the time, I guess,” Zeter seemed to be trying to cover up for his slip up. “They can help you with finding the tome you’re looking for, while also protecting Akumu’s works from being damaged or stolen.”

“You ever get into trouble with any of them?” Damarys asked.

“Of course not,” he replied quickly. “From what I understand, they aren’t very forgiving and tend to be rather harsh in their punishments.”

“Did you ever steal from the Toshokans?” was her next question.

This time, Zeter didn’t answer. He just kept his eyes looking straight ahead.

“A week ago I would have said stealing from the Toshokans was impossible,” Kasyn grumbled, “but now I’m not so sure.”

“We all lived different lives before this calamity,” Zeter spoke after a moment longer. “But we’ve come together with a united goal of survival and rebuilding. I’m as dedicated to that as any of you.”

“Well said,” Damarys patted him on the back.

One of Kasyn’s skeletons did likewise to Damarys’ surprise. It seemed the rift between Kasyn and Zeter was lessening a bit. She just hoped Zeter was being honest with them all. OF course, Emilie was also a member of the Sages of the Mercurial Robe, and yet Emilie had never struck her as being all that shady. It was obvious to them all what sort of work Zeter had done prior to all of this.

When they arrived at Shinko Toshokan, it looked much the way it had the last time they’d been by here, only now there were no dead soldiers lying about.

“I guess we just knock?” Damarys ventured and knocked on the damaged door.

A moment later, the door shifted, jammed for a moment, and then was wrenched opened. A giant hand, taller than any of them, with more hands sprouting on the tips of its fingers, with more hands sprouting on those fingers, and so on for as long as Damarys could see, stood in the doorway. It said nothing, which given it’s lack of a mouth didn’t surprise her. Instead, it pulled a chalkboard over and quickly scrawled onto it.

Greetings, how may I assist you?

“Akumu hasn’t come here to renew the blessing on the fields,” Kasyn said after a moment. “We’re here in his place. Could you direct us where to go and what we need to do, exactly?”

The hand hesitated, turning almost as if to look behind itself, although it also had no eyes that Damarys could see.

Do you have a writ of permission to enter?

“Akumu isn’t available to grant those,” Kasyn replied. “Could you still let us in?”

Again, the hand hesitated. Was it seeing or hearing something the rest of them were ignorant of?

I am allowed to do that, but you must provide me a service first.

“Okay, what can we do for you?”

This door is damaged, as is the exterior of the Toshokan. Kindly repair it and I will grant you admittance.

The door then scraped its way shut.

“Fix the main gate, fix Ichiba Wa’s gate, fix Shinko Toshokan’s door. I’m beginning to notice a pattern,” Zeter muttered. “I think the Tower of Light really entrances.”

Damarys gave him a little chuckle.

“At least it’s a fairly straight forward solution,” she said.

“Is it?” Zeter asked. “The main gates required a living soul. I’d expect Ichiba Wa to be the same. What about the Toshokan door? Do we need to sacrifice someone every time we fix one of these?”

“I think this time it’s just a door,” Kasyn said but Emilie shook her head.

“It’s not,” she said as her eyes began to glow faintly. “That door isn’t made of any sort of wood I’ve ever seen. It’s still alive but too badly damaged to heal. I think it’s actually dying.”

“Sounds like wood from an elder tree,” Damarys replied. “I’ve known people who’ve made furniture, or bows out of it and it’s pretty amazing stuff. You just have to be lucky enough to get some.”

“I assume an Elder tree isn’t just an old tree,” Zeter said.

“No, they’re ancient, highly magical, and fairly dangerous. There’s a fallen one in the woods, up the mountain a ways that us hunters know to avoid.”

“What makes it so dangerous?” Emilie asked.

“Well, for one thing, they attract powerful creatures to it that feed on the bark, sap, and leaves. They’ll defend their part of the tree aggressively. Then there’s the tree itself. You can’t just hack into it or all you’ll get is dead wood. You have to find a piece that’s been shed naturally. Then you can shape it however you like. From what I’ve heard it’s really easy to work with once you have it.”

There wasn’t much more to discuss so they climbed back onto the carpet and returned to Jelvaic.

“I can send workers to repair the walls,” he said once they explained the situation to him. “But you lot’ll need to get the elder wood.”

“I figured as much,” Damarys agreed. “We’ll can get there by tonight if we take the carpet, but I wouldn’t expect us back until tomorrow evening at the earliest.”

“Understood,” Jelvaic nodded. “The crops won’t die for another couple weeks so we have time, just not a lot of it.”

“Let’s get some camp supplies and then head out,” Damarys told the others. “Grab whatever you think you might need for a couple days out in the woods.”

“Damarys, a word,” Jelvaic called to her as they began to disburse.

He waited until the others were gone before he spoke.

“I wasn’t sure of this until we were back inside the city, but people are going missing. It’s only one or two here and there, but I can’t deny it any longer. It started around the same time as the Sages camp got set up but this doesn’t seem like something they’d do. I don’t know what’s going on, but keep an eye on Zeter and Emilie. I don’t think they’re involved, but they might be close to the people who are. I’ve set up additional guards, especially at night since whoever’s doing the kidnapping is bypassing Akumu’s defenses. Might be they’ve got more of those disks like what Zeter makes, though he assured me they only cover certain transgressions and kidnapping seems too serious a crime for them.”

“You could ask them yourself,” Damarys pointed out.

“As if the Sages would answer me honestly,” Jelvaic scoffed.

“I meant, you could ask Zeter and Emilie. I think they’d tell you what they know, one way or the other.”

“I don’t think they’re involved, but mages are always looking into each other’s minds. If the Sages are behind this, I don’t want them knowing that I’m on to them.”

That sounded a bit more paranoid than realistic but Damarys would just ask Zeter and Emilie herself rather than argue about it with Jelvaic. She doubted the Sages could just read each other’s minds that easily, otherwise, why couldn’t they just read everyone’s minds?

Well, she wouldn’t need to worry about that for a couple days at least. She had an elder tree to harvest, and she hoped the stories she’d heard about them were exaggerations.