Chương 46: Chapter 39 — The Immense

[NOTIFICATION] ──────────────────────────── Current XP: 4, 350 / 10, 000 The Guild clerk stamped the posting without looking up.

"Escort — Nutter Estate. Completed. Any incidents to report?"

"Several," said Fenwick. The clerk looked up. Fenwick gave him the short version. The wrecked carriage. The missing footman and driver. The dragonfly attack. The charm. He placed his notes on the desk and waited while the clerk read them. The expressions on the clerk's face took a journey from alarm to disbelief to dawning exhaustion as he pulled out piece after piece of additional paperwork required to complete the report.

"I'll flag this for the board," the clerk said.

"The missing persons report will go up today."

"It should go up as connected to the others," said Fenwick.

"The ones already posted." The clerk looked at his notes. Then at the board. Then back at Fenwick. He picked up a different form. Set it down. Picked up another one.

"Connected postings require a cross-reference filing," he said.

"That's a separate form. And if you're suggesting the dragonfly attack is related to the missing persons, that's an incident correlation report, which goes to a different desk." He paused.

"Which then has to come back to this desk."

"Yes," said Fenwick. The clerk looked at the stack of paperwork that had materialized in front of him.

"I'll note that," he said. His eyes crossed for a second as he examined all the new forms this one quest had created. With a sigh, he stamped the quest complete. [NOTIFICATION] ──────────────────────────── +500 XP — QUEST COMPLETE: ESCORT — NUTTER ESTATE Current XP: 4, 850 / 10, 000 Max was looking at the board. Seven postings now. Max stood in front of the board, head moving slightly, eyes tracking across the postings. They stopped on the upper right. He stood there for a long moment. Max was looking at the board.

Seven postings now. Max stood in front of the board, head moving slightly, eyes tracking across the postings. They stopped on the upper right. He stood there for a long moment. Then he pointed. Fenwick followed his finger. A livestock posting — aphid herd losses, eastern settlement, cave activity noted nearby. Filed under creature activity, not missing persons.

"That one," said Max. Fenwick read it again. The cave. The losses. The pattern. He looked at the clerk. The clerk followed his gaze to the posting. Read it. Looked at the stack of forms already on his desk. Looked back at the posting.

"Oh," said the clerk.

"Great." He pulled out another form. Then he turned and followed Fenwick out. Nibbles was in his study. Fenwick closed the door. He reached into his notes pocket and carefully unwrapped the blank page, setting the disc on the desk between them. Nibbles looked at it without touching it. It was small. An inch across. Dried flesh, dark and hardened. The symbol was written in dried blood, deliberate and careful.

"Where did you find this?" said Nibbles. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"On the dragonfly that tried to fly off with Lady Nutter," said Fenwick.

"The pack was directed. Someone sent them to that road." Nibbles was quiet for a moment.

"The footman and driver."

"The footman and driver weren't there. The swans were killed — left where they fell. Whatever came didn't linger." Fenwick paused.

"The dragonflies didn't eat them." Nibbles looked at the symbol. He had forty years of holy service, every text the Order possessed read and considered. The symbol meant nothing to him. He recognized that it should mean something to someone.

"Brother Aldous," he said.

"He's been in the library." A messenger was sent, a young rabbit named Herman. Aldous came in still carrying a book. It was old — the cover worn to softness, the spine reinforced twice, the pages so thin that text was readable through both sides in spots. This volume had been stuck in the back, only accessible to those who knew it existed, handled carefully by people who understood it might not survive them. He had it open to a page near the back, one finger holding his place.

He saw the disc on the desk from the doorway. He stopped walking. He stood there for a moment. Then he came forward, each step slow, his feet finding the floor carefully. He reached the desk. His hand touched its edge, fingers gripping the wood. He did not touch the disc. He looked at the symbol from above it, close enough to see the detail, not close enough to make contact. His fur stood up. All of it.

In one motion, ears to tail, the involuntary response of a body registering something the mind was still catching up to. His hands, when he set the book on the desk, were not entirely steady.

"Where," said Aldous.

"A dragonfly," said Fenwick.

"On the Thornwall road. Four days out. It was directing a pack attack."

"How many taken?"

"Two. A footman and a driver." Aldous looked at the disc. He did not touch it.

"Alive," he said.

"Were they taken alive?"

"We don't know," said Fenwick.

"They weren't there. No bodies." Aldous sat down. His legs had made the decision. He put both hands flat on the desk, on either side of the book, and stayed there for a moment before looking back up. He opened the book to his page and turned it toward them. The illustration was old, the ink faded, the style of a different century. A symbol, reproduced from a source the book's author had clearly considered significant enough to document carefully. Small. Round.

Drawn with the kind of precision you used when you were copying something you did not want to get wrong. It matched the disc exactly.

"The sources are fragmentary," said Aldous. His voice had steadied.

"Scholars have argued for two hundred years about whether the accounts are literal or allegorical. Most of the primary texts didn't survive. What we have are references, copies of copies, things written by people describing things they had heard from people who claimed to have seen." He paused.

"But the symbol is consistent. Across every source that survived. Whatever else the accounts disagree on, the symbol is always the same." Nibbles looked at the book. At the disc. At Aldous.

"What does it mean?" said Nibbles.

"He collected," said Aldous.

"That's what the oldest accounts say. He built something. An army, some sources say — others say a court, a congregation. The language isn't consistent. What's consistent is the taking. People were removed from settlements. Disappeared. Over the years." He looked at the notation for the missing postings in Fenwick's notes, still on the desk.

"Over the years, in a pattern that only became visible when someone looked at the whole map at once." The study was quiet.

"Who," said Nibbles. Aldous looked at the disc.

"The oldest texts don't give a name," he said.

"They give a title." He paused.

"They call him The Immense." The chamber dropped in temperature immediately. Saying the name carried power. Fenwick hugged his robe to himself a bit tighter and noticed his breath leaving in a puff of white. Nibbles went very still. The word sat in the study and stayed there.

"He was stopped," said Aldous.

"The accounts agree on that much. They don't agree on how, by whom, or what 'stopped' meant. Some sources say destroyed. Others say it is contained. Others say—" He stopped.

"Say what?" said Fenwick.

"Others say sleeping," said Aldous.

"Waiting. That something woke him in the original accounts, and something put him back down, and the texts treat that as a resolution but don't specify what kind." Fenwick looked at the disc. He looked at Max, standing in the corner of the study, turning a small decorative tile over in his hand. He had found it on the last visit and apparently considered it worth returning for. Max had stopped turning the tile. Fenwick noticed this.

He didn't know when it had happened — somewhere in Aldous's account, the tile had gone still in Max's hand. He was holding it now, not turning it. His eyes were on the disc. He looked at the board postings in his notes. Seven missing. Up from three when they left.

"The hero arrived," said Fenwick slowly.

"Something old sensed him and woke up." The study was quiet. The disc sat on the desk between them. Nobody reached for it. Outside, somewhere in the compound, Herman the rabbit was delivering a message to someone who would have to fill out more forms. [SYSTEM PRIVATE LOG] ──────────────────────────── [Sindy — Private Log — Day 69] Seven missing postings. The symbol on the charm matches an eight-hundred-year-old illustration in Brother Aldous's book. The oldest texts call him The Immense.

The accounts say he collects that he builds. That he takes people. The accounts say he was sleeping. Max arrived. Something woke up. ▌ Becca, if you're reading this: ▌ I think I know what the thread means. ▌ I don't know what to do about it yet. ▌ But I am watching. ▌ Two words. The right ones. ▌ I am watching.