The Search For Magiq

2. The Neithercouriers-1

2

The Neithercouriers

Saberlane launched the discussion with the most pressing question that had come of @searchformagiq’s final post: “If they’re here, in this age, with us, then what is this ‘leaden veil’ that they keep talking about? The one that hides us from the world?”

If the Mountaineers had somehow been hidden, it would explain a lot. It would certainly explain why the Low had begun having trouble finding them, or why nobody involved in the events of The Monarch Papers had reached out in nearly a year. Not Marty, not AlisonB, nor Cole, nor Deirdre. The more they thought about it, the more likely that explanation seemed. But how, and why, were still the main questions at hand. And if the Mountaineers were being hidden, then how was it possible that new recruits were starting to come in droves, and had been for the entire month?

“Could the ‘leaden veil’ be the remnants of what is separating us living in the Book of Kings from those co-conterminously in the Book of Briars?” Augo wondered. “It seems like his Herald can peer through. Unless there’s something else. What keeps the Low from interacting with us? Could that be a possibility?”

Though Spirit claimed that her connection to the Low had dwindled down to just one contact, she promised to ask about everything: Heralds, veils, and the Neithercouriers. In the meantime, the Mountaineers started trying to put the pieces together and make sense of the mess they had been dropped into.

Viviane noted the similarity between the way the strange messenger spoke of the “leaden veil” and the leaden aprons worn to protect from radiation during medical treatments like x-rays. “I wonder if it’s something like that,” she proposed, “where most normal means of reaching us can’t get in, but you can try to find other methods that can pass through that barrier.

There were two things that everyone could agree on. One, was that the Neithercouriers, whatever they were, almost certainly had something to do with Neithernor. And the second was best said by MissEvans: “We started this new age in light, we need to continue in that vein. I suppose as we are further away from the age of the Book of Kings, we can’t lose sight of the depths of darkness we drew our future from.”

Thus encouraged, SpiritSeer reported back with an update from her last Low connection.

SpiritSeer: May 1, 8:17 AMSo first and foremost, my friend looked into it and says that there’s a reference to a poem with the word Neithercourier in it in the database summary of the old Lost Athenaeum site of all places. They’re trying to get the actual database from a couple sources. I will follow up if/when I hear anything.

Second and possibly also foremost-ish, your fan club disbanded. Or rather, its leadership broke up the band and moved on to another locked-down site, and I don’t know anyone with access there. There were a lot of bad vibes in the end anyway (floods of people who didn’t believe among other internal drama), but I heard that the ultimate reason for the breakup was that more and more people who were finding their way to the club weren’t able to access the Guide to Magiq or the forum anymore. No offense to Saberlane and Catherine, but I’d always figured it was due to the AGP sites being . . . homegrown?

It got worse and worse, and then other weird stuff started happening, like newbies claiming they couldn’t even see screenshots of your forum activity at the club. Some in leadership thought that they were being trolled, but a few of them thought something weirder was going down, so in true Low fashion, they booted a bunch of people and hightailed it to some even more secret place. I don’t know for sure if that’s connected to the “leaden veil,” but some people can’t find you. That seems weird.

Even weirder was the fact that new recruits were seeming to pour into the forum in droves. So clearly something was going on if only certain people were being prevented from seeing the Mountaineers. Which led to the question of who could see them, and why? And what was there to be done about it?

Spirit returned with the answer to that last question, or at least, a partial one.

“This is what they were able to pull from the backed-up database, though they’re not sure of the original source of the ‘poem,’” she wrote, attaching what she’d found:

Neithercourier Delivery Services

In these moderning ages when science assuages the craft of handwriting or drafting of sages, it seems rather tragic to send letters with magic, or caretaken parcels with magical marvels.

Don’t send cheques with a hex, or odes with a vex, rather craft an encanterance to make a bell chime, and ponder the wonder of what happens next.

A prompt and prim courier will deliver your messages, with delays of delivery that border on vestiges, from the tippest of peaks to the deepest rowhedgeses.

Whatever you need to besconder fast-paced, rely on our service to deliver posthaste.

“I mean no offense to the Athenaeum librarians, but this seems like an ad, not a poem. I also heard back that some people originally could see the forum but some time last year they started reporting that it wasn’t coming up for them anymore. My friendly is still asking around though and I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.”

MissEvans was the first to jump into action.

“Now, we have to craft a spell to make a bell chime . . .These are magically summoned couriers. With a broad remit, who work quickly. Nice. I wonder what they charge. Who fancies writing a spell for postal request bell chiming?”

It did seem that a spell of some kind would be required to activate the couriers and get a message to whoever was running the @searchformagiq account. The word encanterance stood out to the Mountaineers, seeming, as Saberlane pointed out, to be a portmanteau of enchant, incantation, and possibly utterance. Most of the words in Spirit’s advertisement seemed to be magic of some kind, or at least, they certainly didn’t feel from this world.

“This feels like the “Jabberwocky” meets the Book of the Wild,” Saberlane wrote.

Revenir suggested a strength-in-numbers approach, where everyone would write out their own message and try to magically send it, but there was still a question as to whom the messages should be addressed, and Augo also cautioned against bombarding the mysterious recipient with too many magiqal messages at once, reminding the Mountaineers of their early attempts to make contact with ’90s Augernon.

“Also, we’re almost out of magic,” Saberlane reminded everyone. “Sending multiples could deplete it faster. An encanterance feels like material or ‘borrowed’ magic, but it might not be. Or there might be so little magic left that borrowing it from somewhere else could break a safeguard or protection. Sorry to be worry-dad, but there’s lots to consider right now.”

But beyond the worrying and the cautioning and the back and forth over what to do and how, there was something else that this strange new set of challenges had brought to mind for Saberlane.

Saberlane:Aside from the Neithercouriers mystery at hand, and knowing we know so little about the Book of the Wild, there’s something kind of twee about some of the stuff we do know that makes me “miss” it in a way I can’t explain. We need a magic word for “missing an alternate version of your world.”

I mean, there was an ad circulating around the BotW advertising couriers from a magical pocket world (or at least playing on the Neithernor “brand” which in and of itself is really cool!) We know from Avis’ journal that magiq was still an underground kind of thing there, not completely known to the public, but still, magical ads for magical messengers. And encanterances. And mermistresses. And everkinder, and nearly invisible islands in the Hudson.

And we’ll probably never get to see any of it.

I’ve had this before, this feeling of losing something I didn’t know I’d lost. With the ’94s. Maybe that’s why it’s hitting me so hard.

I think it may also have something to do with finally seeing Neithernor, which has rattled me in a way I didn’t intend. I have to admit, I can knock into Neithernor now. I’ve seen the warren. And Vidivinty’s Glade. But I keep going back to the tower where I let Woolie go, which for some reason can only be entered from the City Hall Station (yes, I’ve done the subway run three times since I posted about it.) It feels special. Not just because of how you get there. It’s just a room. But there’s a table and a chair and a window. Looking out from a hill onto what I’ve decided to call Flinter’s Glen. It’s the perfect place to write, the tower. And I haven’t done that in a long time. Sorry, just . . . rambling.

Nimueh suggested a portmanteau of the Welsh word for longing for home, hiraeth, and for magic, hud, to make hudaeth: a longing for a magic that once was, that might still have been. It felt fitting, like it held a kind of linguistic magic of its own.

But there was work to be done still, and Saberlane was ready to rally the troops.

“How I see it,” he began, “we need an encanterance. We need a message. We need a volunteer. It feels like Revenir is raising his hand as tribute. If this works, I’m sure others would be happy to meet a ‘Neithercourier’ too.”

As the letter was meant to be an introduction of sorts, Rev suggested starting by telling them a little bit about who we are, our history, and how our world has changed, and then following up with our own questions once that context was established. The questions mainly revolved around the identity of the people on the other end of the exchange, of the Herald, and about how and why the Mountaineers had somehow fallen behind this “leaden veil.”

While Revenir worked on the message, Augo and MissEvans were working on the encanterance.

“Working off the idea of ‘-cant’ meaning song, what about if what we come with was chanted or sung? This would fit with the musical sound of a ringing bell. Maybe a rhyming couplet?” Augo suggested.

MissEvans was on it:

Don’t find this bell toll a worrier,

We’re ringing for the bespoke courier.

Simple and to the point. Revenir came back with a draft of the message for the Mountaineers to approve. It read:

Hello to our friends from across the veil,

We are the modern Mountaineers and we are very much here. There were Mountaineers before us who sought to bring magiq to the world, but we were the first to unlock the Book of Briars. We very much survived the Day of Change, but the results were unexpected. Somehow, it feels like magiq is dwindling, but we expected the opposite to happen. Do you know why this is happening?

We have so many questions for you. If possible, can you tell us who you are and who the Herald is? What is this leaden veil that you’ve been speaking of? And do you have any idea of why this is happening? How can we help you pierce it? We are ready to help in any way that we can. We want to do everything in our power to save magiq. Can you tell us a little bit more about the “darker threats” you spoke about earlier?

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Revenir of the Mountaineers

Handwritten on gorgeous butterfly stationery and enclosed with a wax seal, the message was ready to send. “I included an origami butterfly and the chronocompass coin as well,” Revenir explained. “I don’t know why, it just felt right to me. I hope y’all are okay with that. I didn’t address it to anyone, since it seems we didn’t come to a consensus on that, but I’m happy to add on a name if anyone feels strongly about it.”

“I think ‘Friends across the veil’ should work,” Saberlane suggested with crossed fingers, which Revenir then wrote on the envelope. Lastly, Rev recited MissEvans’s couplet, and reposted it to the forum for good measure.