Taramo woke up to the feeling of straw poking into his legs and back. While he'd slept Spot had made himself a puddle on his chest and was firmly attached. Sitting up led to Spot starting to peel off and flop into Taramo's lap. He gave Spot a scratch and ignored the gaze of betrayal as he stood and took in the room ha had.

  The sun wasn't glaring down through the four opened windows on the door side of the room inviting the sounds of people at work and some breeze. Piled around all the windows were dozens of different clay pottery that had many different varieties of plants, though vines were prominent and had already started reaching out to have a finger in each plant and had started to clamber up the walls. Taramo felt Ariwyn inside the largest pot which was also from where the vines originated, which was sitting on a wooden table with a chair beside it.

  Hearing him wake a guard poked his head in and said a greeting, placing a bundle of cloth inside by the door and closing the shutters on the windows. It was a set of clothes which Taramo was glad to get into.

  The sandals made his feet feel weird, but he was sure that he'd eventually get used to them. The shirt was slightly loose and the pants had an extra tube of fabric on each leg so they were long enough, but they were dyed in a deep blue that Taramo liked almost as much as having proper clothing.

  Someone knocked on the frame of the door and then waited for Taramo to open it. A woman wearing an apron with some food stains was holding a tray with a bowl that contained a meat stew, a spoon, and a clay pitcher of water with a glass. She gave a hands free curtsy, a slight bend in the knees, and spoke while she walked to the table. Then she gave a proper curtsy.

  "Thank you"

  Her face flushed and she gave a much deeper bow, one would imagine she could have broken her nose if she were not careful. She stood and walked with dizzying steps to the door, leaving it opened as she stumbled out.

  "What's wrong?"

  "(Door closed, sit, eat)." Ariwyn clipped mentally.

  Taramo did so, finding the soup a bit warmer than summer sunlight. Ariwyn spun a privacy ward to hide noise and Taramo made the voice box. Ariwyn stopped for a second after finishing the ward, leaving the partial voice ward that she was spinning to dissipate.

  "You slept a day and a half."

  "I guess the day was a bit tiring. Why make a ward?" The soup had a bit of spice that Taramo wasn't familiar with, but it agreed with him.

  "Most people take formal common as the language of divines. That girl probably thought you gave her a divine blessing. You'll need to learn today's language if you want to converse with anyone besides the high priests or your other archmages."

  "Some of them survived this long?"

  "For a given level of survival. They ripped the weave network into their own fiefs and none know where they are in the world unless they have three armies protecting them."

  "Hmm." None of them would probably remember him and those who would were more likely to think it a plot from their enemies. People who styled themselves as gods.

  "So. Are you the god or am I?"

  "I am. I thought it best to make your presence unknown. Even most of the archmages who were neutral to you would try to destroy you so their enemies wouldn't take advantage of your ability."

  "They thought so well of me?"

  "They thought that you weren't dead for at least ten thousand years. Some might still believe it."

  "And what contingency happened to make my revival so far off?"

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "The minimal mana requirement that you had set was actually set to be exactly equal. And the minimal time you set for it to rest before starting, 172 000 seconds, two days, had been set to years instead."

  What?

  "I wouldn't have made such a mistake."

  "Was there anyone you were working with?" One of the small vines that grew from Ariwyn's pot had twitched it's way onto the table.

  "No one was, I'd even secluded it from my apprentice, but you'd know-" Right. She'd been sealed in the vault before he'd finished the finer aspects of the revival. "Sorry. But no-one could have even known about it."

  "Your apprentice was still the thief?"

  "No! I made sure that Viktor didn't have to-" He had been interested in security bypasses before Taramo had told him to wait until he'd learned the basics. Could he have learned the tricks on his own? Could someone else have taught him?

  "Given how much you worked in your sanctum he probably would have wanted in there" The vine tip caressed the back of Taramo's hand. "I remember you updated it every year. From what I remember of him he would expect you to notice the weirdness in the archives years later and laughed about it. He probably didn't do it on purpose."

  "But you noticed it. Couldn't you have-"

  "If I break the rules then I am no longer myself. I saw that after what I tried." The vine that had curled around his hand softened it's grip and slid back into it's position at the window, pushing the shutters of the window open.

  "I'll get someone to take you to their chapel. The priest there will get you started on learning the language. I'll have to ready myself to purge whatever impurities your body has developped. I made this species of vines for that purpose."

  Someone else knocked at the door and Taramo followed him to the central building. He didn't need to speak but he had a lot to consider.

  ---

  The priest was a jolly fellow who was a bit thin with his flowing robes making him look like a wilting flower that kept all the drooping petals.

  The room had some windows that were much larger than normal with sun-bleached spots that would have had pots recently moved. One small plant with a dandelion remained, though it had already released it's seeds.

  He was reading a tome that had a script which was familiar to Taramo. Despite the intricate bindings it was a child's primer to reading.

  "See Spot run." The priest did not jump but carefully closed the book and turned to him.

  "Wazzup Dawg! How's it hanging?"

  "My apologies. I tend not to practice the high tongue so I slipped into the low divine."

  Taramo got over his surprise somewhat quickly, only taking a minute.

  "Hello. I am Taramo." He offered a hand.

  "Metlanof." Metlanof shook his hand. "I'll do what I can to help you get up to speed with the eastern trade tongue."

  ---

  The language was difficult, but was made easier with many of the formal variations of words being similar to the 'high tongue', though Taramo didn't want to ask if it was for the Archmage's sake since that would be something Metlanof wouldn't know, or it would affront him if he did.

  By the end of three hours he could say 'hello' 'goodbye' and 'my language is lacking' as well as some phrases in the sort of dialect reserved for entreating a king, but it was a beginning.

  A messenger came up to take Taramo back down to his chambers. The people he greeted on the walk back gave bows and curtsys, but no one reacted as much as the cook, aside from the same cook who was probably informed about his language issues, given her mortified reaction.

  ---

  "You're going to want to lie down." Ariwyn had her pot moved beside the straw bed.

  "What. Not going to test my learning?" He understood nothing spoken in the test.

  The vines slithered around Taramo, lightly curling about his limbs and around his torso.

  "So what's the procedure going to be?"

  "I will personally identify and remove any cancerous growths. Most of them should be non-magical but I am ready for those that are. It should take no less than ten minutes but I can't sedate you without risking you not waking up."

  "And then we're good?" Ten minutes would be bad if Ariwyn would explain why she couldn't sedate him. Her time as a nurse-wisp shone through occasionally.

  "No. At the very least weekly and it will take an hour once we're lucky enough to get a potioneer who is willing and able to make a vitality draught."

  "You had how long to get a potioneer?"

  "I had an entire academy up until a thousand years ago. It moved a week's travel away. I've already sent message to try to get one here."

  "I was just joking."

  "I wasn't. Your life is valuable and I will do anything to keep it safe. "One of the vines that was resting around his collar bone.

  "So before I begin, I apologize." Taramo's access to mana winked out as dozens of tiny needles in the structure of the vines injected a substance into him. The passive protection that he wore like a cloak was ripped away and any attempt to weave a defense. The vines tightened and held him fast as the vine by his head sent out a thousand tiny filaments of mana that pierced him and routed the small growths that shouldn't be there.

  Glob after glob was pulled through his skin, leaving holes that Ariwyn would probably fix up when she was done. Most of his liver had to be removed. All the little bits were tossed into a large ceramic pot that was unoccupied. This was the work of fifteen seconds.

  "I lied about not being able to put you under." And then the anesthetic kicked in.