Yara

Year 1378 (Present day)

This was the way she would get what she desired. She had put too much faith in others to make the correct improvised decisions. It was time for her to take direct control.

The historian, Lydee, knew she was being watched. She spent days in her house, leaving only to visit the library and purchase food. At least according to the agent who had been following her. Yara now had reason to doubt what the man said, considering his failure to track her during her visit to the library. How anyone could lose sight of a woman in a library she did not know. The agent had been suitably punished by Yara herself. It was her first act to show the world that she was taking this investigation into her own hands.

And if I run into this man who calls himself Gregorich, he will be the next to witness the efficacy of my methods.

Yara followed the historian out of the library, her face hidden beneath the loose-fitting sunhat which had become so fashionable among wealthy women over the past decade. She had always viewed the style with disgust, a way for useless people to appear as similar without as they did within, but it served a purpose now. With the style trickling down to the masses, she could hide within a large group of people without fear of being detected. This was what her agents lacked; a penchant for thinking beyond the orders they were given. Follow this woman. That did not mean, “Do nothing other than follow her.” She so disliked having to spell out everything for her underlings. Well, no more. She would do it herself.

Yara had not let the woman leave her sight for more than a minute. She knew which books Lydee had viewed on the second floor, and she would return there to ascertain the historian’s rationale for seeking them out after such a prolonged period of isolation in her residence. It was mystifying how arrogant the university’s old professors were. An entire cadre of overpaid, underperforming academics with no sense of how the world truly functioned. They were in fact opposites and anathema to Yara. Her rise to power had not taken a traditional route. It had come from within her, from a strength that others did not possess. She was simply more intelligent, more cunning, and more ruthless than the rest of the world. It therefore stood to reason that she should be above them. It was the same with Oslian. People who could shape the world were obligated to do so.

Within a crowd of people ahead of her, Lydee paused below one of the city’s many murals of devotion to the Divine King, this one depicting him in his younger years. She slowly looked to her sides, and then turned to look back. Through the haze of the midday sun, there was no way she would make out her pursuer, but Yara was pleased that she evidently believed she could. Yara held the advantage, only needing to see the outline of a target she had been following all day. Lydee had to discriminate between dozens of people and determine which of them she had seen before. That she thought she could do so was further proof that Yara was her superior. Intellectuals always believed that their supposed expertise in one area afforded them an edge in all aspects of life. Well, Lydee would soon learn the error of that assumption.

The woman was not returning home, that was clear. Where she was headed, Yara did not know, but the path she took was intriguing. They walked further into derelict districts of the city, places Yara knew well from her past. There was a real risk now that Lydee would be assaulted and nothing would come from Yara’s hard work. But if the woman had chosen this area of the city, it was for a specific reason. Was this new turn of bravery connected to what Lydee had read in the library? Yara believed so. The woman had spent days considering her next move, and now she walked with purpose. This would be a lucrative day for Yara’s investigation.

Lydee’s steps took her to one of the oldest neighborhoods in Oslidor. To the citizens of Oslidor, it was known mockingly as The Fool. Its true title was Goldbend, but as the residents could not have ever hoped to scrape together a speck of gold, the best they could hope for was fool’s gold. Thus, the more appropriate name.

As she walked past street urchins huddled together in the filth of the streets, Yara smiled under her disguise. The trash from the royal district was said to be swept down into The Fool. She hoped it was so. The people here deserved their fate. That was a truth Yara knew personally. For she had been brought up here, and her wretched family had earned all the dirt and sickness in the world.

Her target stopped in front of an abandoned house, its sole doorway containing nothing but a single broken hinge. The sun had fallen low, providing better visibility for the last hour before darkness arrived. The heat and haze of the day were dwindling, and Yara had to stand further back so as not to arouse suspicion. Lydee was now out of sight, but Yara had seen her disappear into that building. She would wait now. It was the perfect time to switch her clothing into a more appropriate attire to match her surroundings. Not a difficult task as there were plenty of people who would willing trade their rags for her expensive cloth. Afterwards, she would simply take her possessions back, regardless of whether the poor woman wanted to acquiesce to her order or not. Best to get rid of the witness anyway. There was nothing to gain by being reckless, and the world would not miss one destitute woman.

Having changed her attire, Yara walked into another abandoned building three houses down from the one Lydee had entered. The residence was cramped, not more than twelve by fifteen feet. It would have once served as a home for an entire family. The door of the one-room dwelling had been torn off, likely in a riot or gang fight of some sort, and splinters of wood covered the first few feet of the floor. A smirk came to Yara’s face as she looked down on that scene of depravity. The people of The Fool were always settling their disputes with violence. It was a sign of lesser intellect to choose raw strength as a first and only option. She knew that firsthand, for her father had made what little money he earned as muscle for a gang. He enjoyed taking his work home with him, as well. Her older sister took the beatings quietly, and then turned them on Yara twofold, as if the younger sister had been spared from her father’s diligent training.

Where are they all now? Ah, yes, I know the answer to that. Perhaps I shall pay them a visit when I am done with this investigation.

Yara found an empty crate whose stains indicated it once carried cactus fruits, one of the few sweet treats a fool could afford. Yara so loved that demonym. It was as accurate as it was cruel, a fitting moniker for the filthy dimwits who passed their times fighting amongst themselves under the delusion that having rank over other undesirables was a position to be envied.

I would have Oslian burn this whole neighborhood to ashes if I could be sure the flames would not spread to adjacent districts. Though if it occurred by accident…

Yara had plenty of time to play with her thoughts as Lydee did not emerge for over three hours. When she did, she looked around and, frightened by where she found herself after dark, she hurried back the way she had entered the neighborhood. This time Yara did not follow; she knew the woman was returning home. Instead, Yara waited until Lydee was out of sight before strolling toward the building her target had just left. Yara walked without fear of the fools and their knives. As always when she left the palace, she wore chainmail under her clothes and carried with her a tonic for boosting energy and one for increasing strength. Of course, she also carried several knives of her own, each blade coated in deadly poison.

I believe I will have an opportunity to use these blades tonight. That would be lovely. I have worked long hours today and I need some entertainment.

She struck her flint tinder kit and lit a street lamp that had likely not been used in decades. The glass was broken, but there was still some oil in the bottom, enough for a few minutes of light. Upon entering the building, she saw that it was much more expansive than the residence in which she had been waiting. Still a single room, it was easily as large as an entertaining room in a decent house. There were no doors or signs that the room led anywhere. Yara looked down on the floor and followed the footprints outlined in the dust. They led to the back of the room and an uneven floor plank. Hidden. How interesting.

She lifted the plank quietly, then reaching into the space in the floor, put her hands under the neighboring planks and lifted them as well until she had a space she could fit through. The light from her lamp was quickly diminishing, but a last look down showed her she had no more than a three-foot drop. Holding the lamp above her, she jumped down into the hole.

She had to get down on her hands and knees to move. A single opening led off into the darkness. Yara followed it. It became difficult to hold the lamp as she crawled, but she did her best, not knowing how long her journey would be. After having traveled perhaps thirty yards, she saw light ahead of her, and just in time. When her lamp went out, she left it in the sandy dirt as she crawled on.

There was light up ahead now, as well as a faint scratching noise. Yara reached the end of the tunnel to see that the opening led into a small room where a man sat at a desk. An oil lamp hung from the ceiling above him, providing the only light. Now who do we have here? The professor knew he would be in this precise location, a place he took pains to hide. This is why I must be the one who does the important tasks.

The royal councilor crawled out of the tunnel and looked up at the man who had turned to look at her. He was of advanced age, heavy set and bald, with a grey beard and a flushed face which spoke of too many years of late nights in the taverns. Knowing her attire hid her true status, Yara simply stood up and brushed herself off.

“Good evening,” the man said. “And who are you?”

Yara waited a moment before responding, anticipating the delightful fear in the man’s eyes when she gave her answer. It was going to be a night to remember, and she wanted everything to be just perfect.

“I am the Grand Advisor to Oslian Vinredor, the Divine King of Vinredor.”

The old man’s reaction was even more delicious than she had hoped. His eyes widened uncontrollably before he glanced back at the tunnel behind him which led out into the darkness, attempting ineffectively to conceal this action. Looking back at Yara, the man breathed out slowly from his mouth, while his hands moved nervously at his sides. He then looked down at the paper he had been writing on. His eyes then darted back to Yara, his face now blank.

Hoping I did not notice where your eyes wandered. You wish to hide what you were writing, as well as your intense desire to flee. Though I suspect you would already have run if you believed you could get away. It pays to be more fit, old man.

“I followed your friend. She led me here,” Yara said, fishing to see what response the man would give and whether he would reveal information about who he was before she began her interrogation.

The man said nothing. He continued staring at her, though Yara could see his mind was active, scheming. He had been hiding underground, and he did not wish for the information he was writing to be seen. An old man, he had likely been living this life for years. Yara would get nowhere with polite questioning. It would have to be done through… alternative methods.

Excellent.

She put one hand behind her back and withdrew a knife, the blade covered in a protective wax slip. She made a show of removing the slip and examining the tip of the blade.

“Do you know what I have here?”

No response.

“As Grand Advisor, I have access to tools of which most are ignorant. This knife is finely crafted, but I speak instead of the poison which covers it. The Royal Herbalist is extraordinarily skilled and diligent. One of her passions over the years has been tonics which assault the human body. They are quite useful for getting information. I do not recall the name of this one, as there are so many, but I do remember I was enamored with its effects. It causes a temporary paralysis to the limbs. Good for when you need to keep someone from squirming.”

She reached behind her back with her other hand and presented a second knife, unwrapping it in identical fashion to the first weapon. “This tonic, I remember well. The Royal Herbalist refers to it as a fire ant tonic. I’m sure you can guess why, but I enjoy explaining it, which I have done many times. Its name is derived from the burning sensation it causes throughout the body. One has to be careful not to use too much of the tonic, for it can prove fatal. Alas, I am forgetful again on one point. I do not recall how much of the tonic I applied to this blade. I have had reason to apply the tonics so many times that my mind has mixed them all together. It will be interesting to see what happens. Now, are you going to cooperate?”

The man nodded.

“I do not believe you.”

She threw the first knife at the man. It lodged in his shoulder. As he reached to remove it, his arms fell loosely to his sides and his legs went out from under him. Yara walked over to him and looked down. His eyes were filled with terror.

“Remember, this only incapacitates the extremities. You can still speak. And that is critical, for your life may depend on the answers you give, or at least, how forthcoming you are. First question- what is your name?”

The man moved his mouth, as if testing to see if it did indeed function. Then he spoke in a low voice Yara could barely discern.

“You’ll have to speak up. I cannot hear you.”

Again the man spoke too softly for her to hear.

Yara slammed her foot down against the man’s left calf. He squealed out in pain as his eyes welled up with tears.

“That I heard. It’s a wonderful concoction, isn’t it? Paralyses the limbs yet does not dull the sensation of pain. Tell me your name.”

“Marshaw.”

“Full name.”

“Marshaw Alent.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Writing.”

Yara stomped on the man’s other leg.

“Writing a letter to a friend.”

“This is taking too long. I will read it myself.”

Yara lifted the paper up to the oil lamp. It was addressed to someone referred to only as P. The contents of the letter made Yara’s eyebrows raise. As she finished it, she turned around with gusto.

“This is even better than I had hoped! You are a follower of The Path. While I think your belief in the fulfillment of a prophecy in the coming days is quite silly, I am pleased to have access to your little hideaway here. The Divine King will be concerned to learn about your activity, but in the long run, he will be happy I have found you.”

Yara had begun pacing the room for dramatic effect. She was so glad the night had ended with excitement.

“Why did the professor come to you?”

“She is not part of my organization.”

“That was not my question. What did she want from you?”

The man adverted his gaze.

“If you are wondering how long the tonic will affect you, it will be more than long enough for the fire ants.”

The man had closed his eyes. When he opened them, Yara saw the guilt he felt. It was euphoric.

“She asked about an old friend of mine. She wanted to know where he was.”

“Oh? And this man’s name?”

“Woller.”

The night of my dreams.

Yara leaned down until she was less than a finger’s length away from the man’s face. Sweat was running from his forehead in unceasing rivers. Yara tilted her head in consideration. “What did you tell her?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

Honest? Partially.

“Why did she come to you?”

Marshaw Alent would not meet her eyes, blinking in a futile attempt to block the streams of sweat.

Yara pulled the knife out of the man’s shoulder and blood ran out as he yelped. She waited for him to cease his pathetic mewling before she asked again, “Why did she come to you?”

“Woller and I were friends,” Marshaw replied through gritted teeth.

Yara pressed the tip of the knife blade against Marshaw’s cheek. “What did you tell her. Say it precisely as you said it to her. I will know if you are lying.”

The man breathed out deeply. Yara could see he was holding back tears. She slowly pushed the knife tip into his skin as he whimpered.

“Tell me,” she whispered into his ear.

“I told her… he had asked me about The Haven of Light.”

Yara turned the knife without applying more pressure.

“He asked where it was! I told him it was up north, in the Ebanigan tundra.”

“Where exactly?”

“I do not know. I’ve never been there.”

“How will she find it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What advice did you give her?”

The man shook his head, an action Yara took as involuntary. She had uncovered much, but she needed the last drop of information or she would lose sight of her target. Yara pulled her knife back. “If this blade is not doing its job, I will go to my next option.”

Marshaw’s eyes were sealed shut. He cried in quiet, heaving motions punctuated by a hacking cough. Yara stood up. “This is going to be much worse, but you are not cooperating.”

As she reached into her pocket for the second blade, Marshaw screamed out, “I told her there are clues in Vision! That is how the others found The Haven!”

Yara paused with her hand in her pocket. “Vision?”

“The second holy book.”

“I see. What else did you tell her about that book?”

“Nothing! She doesn’t need to be told. And I’ve never been to The Haven, I swear it.”

“Why was Woller running to this place?”

“I don’t know. He did not tell me.”

Honest answers. Only took a little persuading. Good and delightful. I have all I need.

“That is all. I must be taking my leave. The poison will wear off in a few hours.”

As a reply, Marshaw simply wept.

Yara looked down at the pathetic creature. She would ask him more questions about his organization if she had the time. Catching Lydee before she fled the city was her priority however.

“I will do you the favor of keeping the fire ants for another person. Perhaps someone less forthcoming with the truth.”

With that, Yara sheathed her blades and grabbed the oil lamp before ducking back into the tunnel from which she had entered.

Once back on the streets of The Fool, she quickly made her way to the nearest guard post. After informing the guards of where to find the traitor Marshaw Alent, she made haste to Lydee’s residence.

I would have liked to see that old man squirm some more, but I cannot be sure he would survive, and Oslian will want to have him interrogated. Fun for someone else then. I’m in a generous mood.

The fire ants can wait for Lydee. They are better suited for someone who does not tell the truth.

Cupela

Year 1348 (Thirty Years Prior to Present Day)

Two days had passed and still Enfildio had not returned. When the first day came and went, and their employer had not brought the unguent he claimed would help Piroska, Cupela had defended him against the other herbalists’ accusations. He had forgotten. He became distracted. He was looking for a replacement for the burned woman. To all of this speculation, Cupela had insisted Enfildio simply needed more time. Perhaps he had to travel further away than they had anticipated. Now, she was beginning to doubt him herself. She would not say it aloud, however. Too easy for Hrent to mock her, or Ubul to shake his head.

Jezmavalin had shown more compassion than Cupela had believed she was capable of. Perhaps the beautiful young woman felt pity for Piroska. The burned woman had never been attractive, but there was little doubt that she would be scarred for life now. Even if Enfildio could procure something which would aid in her healing, she would never look the same. Was the incident a reminder to Jezmavalin of how lucky she was to have been blessed with physical beauty? Or had Cupela simply misjudged the woman?

Sarah had stayed hidden in her living chamber, at least while the others were awake. No work had been done, save for the dismantling and removal of a few pieces of furniture which were burned beyond repair. Once Cupela had begun to sweep the area, but Ubul had told her to stop and wait for Enfildio. “If he returns without the object he promised, he can clean the mess himself.” After a moment of hesitation, she found herself inclined to agree with the sentiment.

Cupela found Piroska still asleep in her bed, the torch unlit, more out of the herbalists’ fear of seeing the burn damage than any other, more compassionate reason. The scarred woman had not been awake for more than a few bells, and during that time she had done nothing but mutter to herself. Cupela had heard her mention a name over and over again which sounded as though it began with an H, though it was difficult to make out. Gods, I hope she is not having nightmares about that pathetic little man. She has been through enough; let sleep be her haven.

She reapplied bandages and sat next to her for a time, not sure of the appropriate response to the tragedy. Eventually her compassion lost out against the woman’s anguished noises.

“I am through with waiting,” Ubul said as Cupela emerged from Piroska’s room.

“What else can we do?” she said without thinking.

“We can take her to a hospital. We should have done that two days ago. Instead, we waited for the most selfish man in the world to fulfill a promise he likely never intended to keep.”

“He never said how long it would take.”

“Why would that be? Perhaps because we never would have agreed if we knew the answer was one month.”

To that, Cupela nothing to say. She looked over at Jezmavalin, who was leaning against a wall, as usual. I cannot recall ever seeing her stand completely upright, as if it were too much effort, or she expected the world to always support her.

“Yes?” Jezmavalin asked.

“Nothing.”

“Then quit staring at me.”

“I always knew she fancied you,” Hrent said from behind Cupela.

Jezmavalin faked a laugh. “Projecting much, Hrent?”

“Shut up, both of you!” Cupela yelled. “Why must you always try your best to make things worse than they already are?”

“There is only one person to blame for all of this,” Ubul said. “Enfildio. He created these conditions in which we have been forced to work. It is no surprise that we are at each other’s throats when we have been locked up together for so long, and then when we see one of our companions gravely injured, our fearless leader practically abandons her.”

Cupela and the others were silent, contemplating the veracity of Ubul’s claim. She did not want to admit Ubul could be correct. Her defense of her idol was beginning to wear her down, yet she did not want to fall into the depthless pit of doubting all that held her together.

“None of this is helping,” she said. “I do not know what can be done for Piroska at this point, but we need to take her to the hospital.”

“No,” Jezmavalin said. Do that and you risk voiding our contracts. I did not stay cooped up her for the past two years only to miss out on my one chance at immortality.”

“Agreed,” Hrent said.

“Finally, something we are united on,” Ubul added.

Cupela had started to shake with frustration. “Enfildio will understand the necessity of the situation.”

Ubul shook his head. “No, he will not. He is a callous bastard.”

“I cannot get her to a hospital on my own, but I can gather bandages and ointments. We have to do something.”

“You’re the only one who is permitted to leave,” Jezmavalin said. “You might as well.”

“And if you come across Enfildio, I hope he is dead,” Ubul said. “For his sake.”

It was midday, it turned out. When Cupela arrived in the city proper, she saw that the streets were bustling with merchants and shoppers. She walked past them while keeping her eyes open for something which might aid Piroska, as if she could possibly find such a thing among vegetables, grains, and cloths. Her intended destination was a physician’s establishment located in the center of the Topaz district. She had no coin, and had therefore taken sleeping and pain killing tonics with her in the hope that she could exchange them for the materials she needed.

As she walked among people who lived above ground, men and women who lived with their families, developed relationships, had opportunities for adventures, and were able to experience all that made life worth living, she realized how envious of them she had become. Perhaps the others have the right of it. I have always believed Enfildio saved me from a life of poverty, but what were his true intentions? Just how much does he care about me? If it had been me in that fire, what would he have done? Where in the world is he?

She looked up to see she was directly in front of The Roots. She stared at the building, as she always did, pondering the range of machinations which were underway within, and the individuals who were pulling strings in secret. Men such as Finder, who Enfildio said could locate anything, and anyone…

He opened the door, as she knew he would, and looked her over, his face unreadable, his demeanor as enigmatic as ever. “Come in,” he said.

She stepped out of the sun and into the shadows of The Roots. Finder stood a few paces away, patiently waiting for her to explain the purpose of her visit. For the first time, she took a good look at the man. He was of average height, stocky, and nearly bald. His nose was bulbous, his neck padded with fat. In all, an unattractive man. Yet, one felt diminished in his presence, as though one continued to live only because he allowed it, the feeling more than a little unsettling.

“I need your assistance,” she said.

An eyebrow may have raised slightly, though it was hard to discern in the shadows. “You are not here to see one of our many clients?”

“Not today. Today, I am looking for someone.”

“Ah,” he said. “Well then, let us first find a room, and then we will speak on finding this person.”

They passed the room where Marshaw often sat, the man looking up as they walked by. Cupela attempted to look cheerful as she followed Finder, though she doubted her efficacy. They entered a room on the left which she had never entered before, but found that it looked nearly identical to all the others. Finder gestured for her to close the door, and then he sat.

“You know services at The Roots are not cheap, mine most of all.”

“I understand,” she said.

“Who do you wish for me to find?”

She swallowed, and pushed aside the doubt, not wanting to appear weak in front of this man. “Enfildio. He has been gone for two days. He went looking for a healing unguent. That is all I know.”

“There is nothing else you can tell me about this situation?”

“There is not.”

“I will gladly take your money, but in the interest of transparency, something which is important in specific cases, I must tell you I am not certain I will be able to find Enfildio. He is an incredibly private man, as are most of our clients.”

“What is the cost?”

“What are the terms of the deal?”

“I would like you to find him before I do.”

“I see. Then it will be one thousand jewels a day.”

“I do not have that much coin.”

“Then I cannot accept the contract.”

Bargaining would not work, she well knew. Finder said nothing more, and Cupela simply bowed her head and exited the room feeling defeated and useless.

On her way out, she passed by Marshaw’s room again. This time, the man signaled for her to enter. She looked back at Finder, who gave no reaction. “I’ll only be a moment,” she said before walking to Marshaw.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I… am looking for someone.”

“Enfildio gives you all sorts of interesting tasks.”

When she did not speak, it was clear her face had given her away. “He’s missing?” Marshaw asked.

“I only know that he should have returned by now. He is likely fine, and only involved in a matter which requires his attention, but I cannot be too safe. I owe him everything, as you know.”

“If I hear anything, I will send word to-”

“I will come to you. Will you be here?”

“I am most days.”

“I need your help Marshaw, but I have no coin.”

“I know what Enfildio means to you, Cupela. I will use all my resources to find him, at no cost to you.”

“How can I accept this offer?”

“As a friend.”

But I have no friends, she thought. Though perhaps I do in this man who has helped me and my family so.

“Thank you, Marshaw. This means the world to me. I will meet you here again tomorrow, and everyday thereafter until he returns.”

“He will return, Cupela. I am sure of it. He is a most resourceful man. In the meantime, I will be here. I promise.”

She left The Roots wracked by guilt. Her actions would have been in direct defiance of Enfildio’s orders, had he felt the need to give any. He trusted her to follow directions, and never doubted that she would be loyal. Then again, there was a chance he had been injured or worse. The human mind’s ability to justify any action is truly terrifying. No matter what course my mind takes, I have a justification waiting for it. Does that mean I would be able to rationalize a heinous act such as murder? I hope not, but I fear that I would find a way even for that.

The physician was eager to make the exchange, which made Cupela slightly concerned that she had given up far more in value than she received in return. She had underplayed the extent of the burn damage she wished to cure however, not wanting to raise suspicions.

When she arrived back at the laboratory, she found Hrent and Jezmavalin sitting on stools in the main workspace, their backs to each other on opposite ends of the room. “I found some materials to help Piroska,” she said.

Both of the herbalists turned to her, but neither spoke. She could tell from their dispositions that another argument had just finished. It was good that they were silent now, as she was uneager to hear about whatever foolishness they were bickering over this time. “Well, I will see to Piroska then.”

She opened the door to the woman’s room, expecting to see Ubul sitting by the bed. Instead, Piroska was alone, still sleeping. Cupela applied the ointment as best as she could and wrapped Piroska in new bandages. Her skin had become overly dry and hard, a cause for concern and a sign that she had been neglected in Cupela’s absence. She finished her work and went to find Ubul to ask him why no one had looked after their companion.

When she opened the door to his room and found it empty, Cupela felt a sense of dread. “Where is he?” she asked as she closed the door and faced the others.

Jezmavalin gave an exaggerated shrug and leaned back against a table. Hrent snorted derisively. “He would not,” Cupela said.

“He would,” Hrent replied after an extended silence.

“If Enfildio finds out…”

“He won’t,” Hrent said. “Unless someone were to tell him.”

“What does he intend to achieve?”

“He said he would track him down and see what was so important that he left Piroska to melt away to nothing.”

“How will he possibly find him?”

Hrent laughed. “You know Jezmavalin has left before. And with Enfildio. She told him some of the places he frequents.”

To that, Jezmavalin said nothing, her gaze remaining on an indeterminable point.

“If nothing else, Ubul is resourceful,” Hrent continued. “He will find him.”

“And when he does?” Cupela asked, her voice quavering.

“He will learn what the old man is hiding. Don’t even attempt to deny that he has secrets he refuses to share with us.”

She did not. She could not.

My world is unraveling. Where are you, Enfildio?

Lydee

It appeared that she had in her possession a source of information which could alter the world inevitably. She could not conjure up a statement of such hyperbole as to accurately match the possible importance of what she had read. And it terrified her.

Lydee had not slept more than a handful of hours in the past four days. She kept poring over the documents she had taken (and to be returned at some point, she had told herself) from the library’s basement. When she did stop and attempt to find sleep, her mind continued to race with the possibilities and implications of what she had read. Through the multitude of questions without answers though, one continually rose above the rest- are these documents legitimate?

An untrained observer would have quickly dismissed the booklets. They contained information which had never been documented before, and in many cases, contradicted information that had been accepted as truthful. Only a fool would have believed the writings on the parchment were actual primary sources from the dates indicated. Only a fool, or a professional historian. Former professional historian now, I suppose.

The parchment and the ink were as ancient as the dates. Of that, she was certain. The edges of the material in the booklets displayed the same worn appearance as others of similar dates which had been verified over the years, and the ink was likewise as aged as was to be expected. The leather cover which held the parchments was much more recently created however, which meant that either these were forgeries, or someone had compiled them within the last hundred years. It was an added layer to the mystery. If she were to work on the assumption that the documents were legitimate, and in terms of their physical attributes, all evidence pointed that way, she was led to the conclusion that someone had attempted to safeguard them in a hidden location.

What is his or her motivation behind this? Not research. This person took great pains to hide the documents. Yet he or she kept them in the library. Why? Why not hide them somewhere more reclusive? And what was their plan to retrieve them?

Lydee felt as though she was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle. She had more pressing concerns as well. If true, some of what she had read could bring entire nations down. And a religion. For this reason, she could understand why multiple parties would be keen to hide the information. But then why not simply destroy it? Another question with no clear answer.

Each of the booklets had provided its own seemingly isolated revelation, and each was enough to send her head spinning with the implications.

In the first tome she read through, she had come across an entry that had stolen her breath with its casual audacity. Even the act of holding the covers against her fingers and palms had made her feel like a traitor to the nation where she had lived her entire life.

The entry began with a map. From its outline, Lydee could not place it as belonging to any location with which she was familiar. There were names of cities and bodies of water she had never heard of either. The entry was dated as being from the year 4,122. Near the top of the map however, there was a note around a set of lines which she took to indicate mountains. The note read, “Homeland of the royal imposters.”

It makes no sense. It is written as if the royal families came from somewhere other than Saltion. But they have been the leaders of Saltion from time immemorial.

The claim was as outrageous as it was provocative. Why were the royal families called imposters? The answer was not there, as the page had been ripped in half. The next entry was several pages forward, and unrelated. Lydee was sure there was more, and that someone had detached something critical. All of the other pages of the documents she held remained, as though the removal of the rest of that entry was a singular act of destruction.

The date was another mystery which left her bemused and fatigued. A year from the future, on parchment from the past. It did not add together. There was also no more elaboration, as if the map and caption were sufficient. While she could not formulate a theory for how this all came to be, it did help her with another mystery she had been pursuing—that of Woller. His research would have taken him to the basement and the very shelf which occluded the small room beyond. What if he had entered that room by carving a hole in the wall? What would he have thought when he found these documents? Would he have feared for his life? Enough that he would have fled the nation of Vinredor without a trace? She could empathize with that. What she held now was a threat to Oslian Vinredor and his entire line.

And now I am in possession of this. Should I too fear for my life? Did I not have cause for sufficient concern even before finding this? For all her trepidation, she could not drag herself away from the other booklets. Afterall, the secrets within were staggering.

In the following volumes, the dates had reverted to the past, beginning with a series of entries listed as Year 9. With each booklet she opened, the dates moved forward in time. The parchment did as well. When she found an entry from only sixty years prior, it was on modern paper, upon which was scrawled modern ink.

Most of the entries were notes of places and events the author had witnessed. One entry was different however. Dated 1348, it spoke of Enfildio the foremost herbalist of his time. He was generally credited as having invented the discipline and had grown both famous and wealthy because of that. He was also Richard’s grandfather, and what she read here would be of great interest to him, though it would likely force him into a rage.

It seemed as though two of her friends and former colleagues were intertwined with the implications of what she had found, an insidious thought. It was, however, the third and final booklet she had borrowed which contained an entry which had struck her own sense of self such a vicious blow that she had quite literally fallen to the floor of her home, sending her into a churning vortex of doubt. All objectivity had been lost and replaced with a desperate grasping for holes in the legitimacy of the documents she possessed.

The entry which sent her reeling was from the year 433. As with the other pages, the parchment and ink matched the date. What was beginning to unbalance her though was the script in which the entries were made. Though she was not an expert in calligraphy, it appeared to her eyes as though each entry had been made by the same hand. Her first inclination was that someone had found ancient writing materials, and then added information on them in the present. That would explain how the same hand could have written an entry in the modern day, and from thousands of years in the past. The issue with this hypothesis was that Lydee could not arrive at any motivation for carrying this out. If someone were to forge documents, they would certainly not hide them away so that no one could find them. Additionally, the vast majority of the entries contained information that likely held no value. While a few of the entries listed historical information of note, such as battles and territorial changes in nations, most took a more personal slant. There were lists of purchases, meetings with people who had never acquired fame, maps of places that did not exist in the atlases, notes for the author to recall certain events or places he or she had been, and when, and generally mundane information. And the room hidden behind the wall had been covered in shelves filled with these booklets. It would have taken thousands of hours to write it all. Who would have done such a thing? It did not matter after she read the entry from 433. After that, she needed to believe the documents were forgeries.

“The Rin fought a war against the Fui and the Lin over control of the Hanz So River. The Rin were routed,” was all the entry read. No map, no other details. The following entry was from the next year, an unrelated list of purchases assumedly made by the document’s author. For most people on Saltion, such an entry would have been meaningless. An ancient war on East Saltion for ownership of a river was not remarkable. Unless you were, as Lydee was, a follower of The Path.

In Justice, the third holy book of The Path, a full third of the chapters center around the wars of conquest of King Denish Rin, the progenitor of the modern Hon Rinese dynasty, during the fifth century. The continent of East Saltion was even more fractioned hundreds of years ago than in its current state of nearly forty different nations. In the year 433, when the wars of conquest began, there were an innumerable quantity of nations, from tiny tribes who claimed proprietorship of lake islands, to intransient peoples who swore fealty to no one. According to the writings in Justice, Denish Rin was granted a vision directly from The Hero. The King was told to unite the lands around his paltry kingdom under the followings of The Path. The Hero told him he would win all of his battles until his kingdom stretched from The Hanz So River to the eastern coast of the continent. And so it happened. The final battle was fought in 451, and saw more than fifty groups of people united under the common banner of the Rin. The unification lasted for more than five hundred years and after a period of adjustments in which the majority of the territory became the domain of the dual dynasties of the Hon and the Rin, the nation settled to near its current state, with various fluctuations of minor note.

The unprecedented string of victories, many of which were achieved against unfavorable odds, gave credence to Denish Rin’s claim that he had been blessed by The Hero, that lone human who was chosen by the gods to guide humanity. The writings in Justice were corroborated by other historical documents, granting validity to the claims in the holy book. It was in fact taken as truth that the wars occurred as they were written in Justice. Lydee had never heard of an alternative description of the wars of conquest. Therefore, what she read had struck her a deep blow. For the author of the entry had said the Rin had lost the battle. Denish Rin, in every historical account, never lost so much as a skirmish, for he was blessed and chosen by The Hero to win. The infallibility of The Hero and Denish Rin’s command showed the veracity of the religion. If this entry was true, it would turn one of The Path’s greatest triumphs into a lie.

It could not be. Lydee would not accept it. Her life had been shaken enough in the past month. To accept that the religion she followed, a faith which put her in danger of persecution and even imprisonment, was erroneous, was a truth much too bitter to swallow.

It was days before she could face the light of the world. After much contemplation, she had determined a course of action. She would prove that the accounts of the war of conquest in Justice were true. She would show herself that the documents she found were falsifications written by a madman. But first, she would find her old friend. For she believed Woller had found these documents as well, and he was the only one she could speak to regarding their existence.

Yara had goons all over the city searching for the former historian. Was it related to what he had found in the library’s basement? If so, then Lydee was at risk as well. She needed to reach her friend before the councilor did. It was a matter then of how to find a man who did not wish to be discovered.

Her only idea had been to return to the library. Though the thought of returning there made her sick, she saw no other options. Yara had been ahead of her during this pursuit, but Yara did not think like a historian. It was there that Lydee would find her edge.

Woller had worked in the history department for decades. He had worked with many people, many of whose names had been forgotten and were not to be found on the last staff roster. To find the names of those people, one had to look into Woller’s research, a place where a council member such as Yara would not have divined to search.

Entering the library flushed her face and made her heart race. It was as if she were returning to the scene of a vicious murder she had committed, taunting the authorities who were attempting to capture her. At least she did not need to return to the basement.

Before heading to her destination, she took some time to walk around the first floor, pausing every so often to check if she was being watched. It was midday and the coolness of the expansive space of the library brought in many more people than were truly interested in finding books. After nearly an hour of her façade, she felt secure enough to walk up one of the grand marble staircases to the second floor.

Woller’s published works focused on the social consequences of royal policies. While he was cautious enough not to write on Vinredor, he cunningly chose policies in Ebanigan and Xu that mirrored those enacted by Oslian Vinredor. He was perhaps overly cautious, as it recently came to light that no one in the Crown was monitoring the works of the university staff and students. Though he is being hunted now. He may have been right to hide his intentions.

His two books had been dead ends, though fascinating in how well he had criticized Vinredor without ever even mentioning the nation. The third publication delivered what she had been looking for however. For the first time in weeks, she felt a burst of hope break through the dark clouds of her mood. In the dedication, there was a singular name. Lydee knew the name, and who he was. More than that, she knew what he was. He was a follower of The Path.

He may have answers to more than one of my questions. I need to believe he can assist me in finding Woller, and in dissipating the torment of doubts which plague my thoughts. He must.

The challenge was that the man lived underground. She had met him but once, many years ago, when she was first hired at the university. Although a brief meeting, it stuck in her memory, for he had made a vague comment that would have snuck by unnoticed by most. Within that comment, he had embedded a line from one of the prophecies. “Bring clarity to the clouded eyes of the blind.” He had said it while looking directly at her, and when her eyes lit up, he had given the slightest of nods. She had taken it as his way of saying, “I see you are a follower of The Path. I am here if you ever need me.”

And now she did.

Year 1378 (Present day)

Gray held out his hand. A portly middle-aged woman reached up from the snow and grabbed it. With a quick jerk, he lifted her to her feet. It was a common occurrence during training, and the excuses of the cold and the ice had worn on his temper. Training men in the primes of their lives who wished to be soldiers was sufficiently difficult. It took time regardless of how disciplined the cadets were, as truly shaping people for battle so that they would not cower or die instantly was a long process. Attempting to convert a motley crew of vastly differing abilities, age, and form into a fighting force was appearing to be an effort in futility. Morale had been questionable to begin, and the bruises, cuts, scrapes, and gashes, all endured in the bitter cold, were taking a toll on the villagers.

“You can’t overextend your arms. You’re losing your balance,” Gray told her.

“The snow’s too deep here,” she said between labored breaths.

“These are the conditions we will be fighting in,” he said. “Don’t hold your weapon point down. The ground is frozen solid.”

Gray scanned the group in front of him. Nine other pairs were dueling, but the exertion of the day’s work had left their arms limp, barely able to hold their weapons upright. He was cycling through these villagers for individual training while Jaroslav and another man were supervising archery practice.

The other man was one of the villagers who claimed he had military service, but was the lone one Gray had come to believe. His name was Wervich and he looked to be in his early forties. Of his past, Gray knew nothing other than that he had served as a professional soldier and had come to the village three years ago, making him one of the newest arrivals. Privacy was well-respected in the village, for which Gray was thankful.

Wervich was an excellent marksman and had become an invaluable asset. Beside his skill, he had a patience that made him a great teacher. The villagers who had some experience with bows had gotten better, and the ones with little to no experience were now passably good. That would be critical, as Gray’s plan increasingly depended on missile fire with every passing day of hand-to-hand combat training.

“One last round,” Gray said to the woman. “Remember, your goal is to deflect my attacks. Even if I give you an opening, consider it a feint.”

The less skilled a fighter, the more likely they were to go for blood. Gray had been attempting to instill defensive-minded tactics into the villagers, especially those who were less physically capable. The idea was to stall for time until the attackers could be torn apart by arrows. Or until I reach them.

With the knowledge that the Imperial Defenders now possessed regarding the village’s defense, Gray assumed they would arrive well armored and equipped with shields. He had therefore kept his two-handed sword on his back and was wielding a bastard sword with a wooden shield, that being the only type available. Chorel the blacksmith had asked after shields, but Gray had insisted that spears were more novice-friendly.

Gray did not hold back in practice. In matters of life and death, concerns over appearing arrogant or flashy were unimportant, not that he had ever worried about those in the past. He simply fought in the style he thought the Imperial Defenders were most likely to employ based on his experience against them and the knowledge they now possessed.

He held his shield up and circled around the woman, looking for an opening. She matched him at every step. Believing that the Imperial Defenders would, quite correctly, believe they were vastly superior in skill to the majority of the villagers, he did not wait long until he made a move. He made a thrust with his sword which the woman attempted to deflect. At the last moment, he lifted his blade above her spear, knocked it aside with his shield, and stepped to within inches of her. In a real battle, she would be dead and she knew it as much as he did.

Another one for archery.

He had had some hope for the woman as she had muscular arms, but her reflexes and her feet were simply too slow. Not wanting to insult her and further her demoralization, he would have her called for archery practice tomorrow and this would be the last time she trained with him. It had been nearly four weeks since Harold had been taken. Gray did not believe they had much more time. He had been whittling the list of melee fighters down to only those who could stay alive long enough to be useful. Everyone else was to be equipped with a bow and placed near a window or on a roof when the time came.

Gray motioned toward the others, and the woman slowly walked over to tell them it was time to eat and rest for the night.

He trudged through the field of knee-high snow toward the archery butts and the four dozen or so people arrayed in front of them. The sun had gone down more rapidly than he had realized and there was very little light left. While it might be wise to get some practice firing in the dark, the temperature dropped even quicker than the sun and risks of injury increased without light.

The wind was howling and the top layer of snow cut into his face with every gust. He did not want to be here, but what ate away inside of him was not his own physical discomfort, it was the fraying of the ties that bound the village. After the simple-minded girl Olisha ran away, suspicions were being cast from neighbor upon neighbor. Makani and Trounen had attempted to keep the peace, but Makani had lost the trust of most of the villagers, and Trounen’s adamant defense of her had had the opposite of its intended effect. Tensions were high and people were worn out.

None of this would have happened if it weren’t for me. That was what gnawed his gut so badly that he had lost his appetite. And behind it all, lived another even more painful reality that no one else knew about; the possibility that this delay would prove deadly for the only person in his life that he would even dare to consider family.

It took Gray some time in the diminished light to find Jaroslav and Wervich. He had considered giving them some sort of identifier so that the others could find them in the heat of battle, but decided it gave more potential benefit to the enemy than to the villagers. Everyone wore a mismatch of different fur coats, thick padded boots, and whatever trousers they had made or scrounged up. They all wore hats as well, and these were even more varied in appearance, but in the darkness, it was difficult to discern color from more than a few feet away. If the Imperial Defenders attacked at night without their uniforms on, the chance of confusion was great.

His two unofficial officers huddled near him, a few steps aside from the others, all of whom had ceased their training and waited for the order to halt for the night.

“That’s all for today,” Gray told them. “We’ll meet at the tavern and go over adjustments to positions and roles. We need to finalize that this night.”

He did not need to say why. Jaroslav and Wervich nodded and began to holler the order. Jaroslav had attempted to salute Gray the first few days of training, but when the old man never acknowledged the effort, he had eventually received the message. Now Gray was wondering if it had been a mistake not to make the operation more formal. As it was, respect and subordination were given as a choice and not as an obligation. Would that have made a difference in terms of efficacy? He was too tired to give it much thought.

The villagers slinked across the field with Jaroslav and Wervich in the lead. He stood for a moment to see if some semblance of a line took form, but it did not. He had not tried to turn them into soldiers. He only wanted to prepare them to repel an attack. But there was a part of him that kept looking for more order, out of a sense that it would give him and the others a greater feeling of security. He was not a leader and that was abundantly clear to all now.

A scream of terror from up ahead. Then more screams. The villagers at the end of the line stood frozen in place. Gray threw down the bastard sword and shield he was holding, unslung his two-handed blade, and rushed forward. The new boots that Makani had made for him provided him with better footing than what the other villagers possessed and he ran past them swiftly, bounding forward with great strides. Near the middle of the procession, villagers began to flee in all directions, screaming. Most had thrown down their weapons in their panic.

The fleeing men and women had cleared a space around a dead body, and on both sides of it, Gray saw two giant white felines. Frostfangs, each one tall enough for its head to be eye-to-eye with Gray. They were not looking his way, however. Both of the animals were focused on another individual holding a two-handed sword.

Jaroslav.

Without stopping his forward momentum, Gray closed the gap between him and the frostfang closest to Jaroslav. The beast turned before he could reach it, but Gray’s blade was already in the air, arcing down and cutting straight through an outreached leg. The animal retreated a step, but Gray did not relent. He stepped to the side of its mangled leg and slashed sideways across its rib cage. Falling back into the snow, the animal could not defend itself as Gray thrust his sword into its neck.

The other frostfang leaped at him and Gray had to roll to the side, behind the corpse of the first feline. He came up quickly and held his blade straight out from his midsection, as the still living beast began to circle him. Jaroslav stood in place across from him, his sword limp in his arms. Gray put out one hand to signal the boy to stay where he was.

The giant feline continued its path, Gray keeping it directly in front of him, but moving his body as little as possible. The animal easily weighed seven times more than he did, and even with his new boots, had an advantage in footing, balance, and speed. But it had no experience facing off against a trained soldier with a two-handed sword that was nearly five feet in length.

Gray stared at the animal while he began to feign a weakness in his right leg. With every step he took, he dragged the leg slightly, hoping the animal would pick up on the evident disability. The circling continued until Gray felt confident his ruse had been swallowed. He began slowly moving backwards, still dragging his right foot until the beast leaped at him, left paw in the lead toward his right side. Gray jumped to his left and sliced his blade down through the animal’s right leg. It turned and lashed out with its mouth, but Gray was quicker with his blade, moving it back up until it lodged into the frostfang’s jaw. He pulled his sword out and chopped down into the animal’s skull, killing it instantly.

He steadied his breathing and looked passed the three corpses at his feet to Jaroslav. Night had fallen now and Gray was unable to make out the expression on the lad’s face. The boy he had made his second in command simply stood where he was, looking over at him.

He wiped his sword across the fur of one of the beasts, sheathed the blade and walked over to Jaroslav. Other villagers were returning to the scene, some mumbling quietly, but most silent.

“I should not have kept us out past sundown,” Gray said.

Jaroslav looked away without giving a reply.

A man walked slowly into Gray’s line of sight, his back straight and rigid. Gray recognized him as the husband who had been attempting to save his wife from the defense force the other night in the tavern. He stood close enough that Gray could see tears running down his face. “My wife is dead. Her blood is on your hands, old man.” With that, he threw down the spear he had been holding.

Gray did not question where the man had been when his wife was attacked. It did not matter. The woman’s death was his fault and that man would not be the only one to see the truth of that. The defense of the village had already cost one life. Gray’s failures were mounting.

He went straight to his room when he arrived at the inn. Alone in the darkness, he sat on his bed without removing his coat or boots. A new plan was forming in his mind. He would defend the village alone. This was his battle after all. In reality, the people of this village had more freedom than most people in the world. Perhaps if he fell, they could make a bargain with the Imperial Defenders. For a brief moment, he even considered giving himself to them, but there was someone who needed him to continue on his journey. The question did hang over him though- was the world better off without him? It was not the first time he had chewed on that doubt.

A knock at the door. Gray wondered what firestorm he would face now. Would the villagers simply tell him to leave and peacefully face whatever consequences the Imperial Defenders forced upon them?

“Gray. It’s Makani,” a voice said from behind the door.

He opened the door and saw she was alone. He moved aside so that she could enter, then closed the door and locked it again.

“I heard what happened to Vina,” she said.

“We were out too late.”

“You blame yourself.”

“I do.”

“But you killed the two frostfangs. You saved many other lives.”

“You know how I will respond to that,” he said, sitting down on the bed again.

He felt ancient. The sword on his back was as an anvil, weighing down his old frame. He did not much feel like fighting to stay upright.

“They’re meeting now, without me or Trounen. Gray, they have not listened to a word I’ve said since Olisha ran away. People are talking about leaving and finding a new home.”

“Is that so bad?”

“Perhaps not,” she admitted. “I certainly no longer wish to stay. When I moved here, I thought I had found a refuge away from the evils of civilization. But there is no running from that. Wherever people are gathered, fingers will be pointed and animosity will take hold. It is only a matter of time.”

He could not argue with that, even if he had cared to.

“The lesson is that you cannot run from your problems,” Gray said.

“Then you will stay? No matter what?”

“If they ask me to leave, I will.”

“You will run from your problems?”

“My problems are my own. The trouble is that I have brought down pain and sorrow unto others. Innocent people who were fine before I arrived.”

“The village was not fine before you arrived, Gray. Each year, the emperor demands more taxes from us. The Imperial Defenders take whatever they want when they visit. Whoever they want.”

He looked up at her now and saw that she was crying. His hatred of himself washed away then and he stood up to embrace her. For the briefest of instants, he thought she would flinch and move away. Instead, he found her in his arms, holding on tight and weeping openly. He now had another person he needed to protect. But he did not mind. It was an obligation he welcomed.

Erden

Year 1348 (Thirty Years Prior to Present Day)

He knew not where they were headed. Crucial as his role of quartermaster was, the destination of the company was information of which he was not privy. More unfortunate was that his position had not earned him a horse, and so he marched on foot along with the majority of the company. With each step he took, he flipped the vial in his hand end over end, in an unceasing cycle.

The first few days had been the hardest, with the intense heat and sun of the region beating down on him, and making it clear that he was the least fit out of the nearly two hundred men, the only one who needed to stop every quarter bell to put his hands on his knees and breathe deep from the scorched air. This occurred so frequently that the embarrassment he felt during the first few incidents quickly evaporated, the judgmental glances and chortling of his companions no longer bothering him.

They were traveling east, that much he knew. By the fourth day, the landscape had shifted slightly, and the hilly terrain made way for vast expanses which made him feel as though he were lost in a sea of brown grass, yet the ground was habitable, and villages had begun to appear again along the roadside now that they were nearing one hundred miles from the capital.

Ever since he was young boy, Erden had been fond of maps, and when they neared a water source he believed to be Crackle River, the map in his head suggested they were close to Agaveton. A rest in the city would be welcome, but that hope was crushed as they left the main road and headed further east.

At night, when he had completed his work of distributing supplies and checking inventory, if he did not fall asleep immediately, he sat at different campfires and listened to the soldiers share stories, laugh about old times, and most of all, speculate on the future.

Erden was on his haunches, a few paces back from the others, deliberating whether he should move closer to the fire, or if that would deter the men from speaking openly. He was the newest member of the company, and unlike the others, had not been through training. The uniform he wore identified him as a military man, but it was the only aspect of him which spoke to that role, and he well knew the other soldiers did not see him as one of the group. And so he sat as a true outsider, and contemplated the discussions without adding a word.

“A five-thousand-man army,” a scarred veteran named Detvin said, leaning back after tending to the fire.

“Horseshit,” a spindly scout named Parlough, replied. “We just killed a thousand of them. How’s it that they have more than before?”

“Could be coming in from East Saltion. True believers looking for a cause to die for,” the man on Detvin’s right said.

Detvin nodded vigorously. “Could be. Or maybe mercenaries from Kinorick. Wanting revenge.”

“Or your sources don’t know nothin’, which is more likely,” Parlough scoffed.

“I hear things from Sour, and he’s been close to Sarthak since forever,” Detvin said, as if the comment would end the conversation.

“Sour’s always making it out to be worse than it is. Been saying for years that he’s dying of a bad heart that only acts up when he eats too fast.”

“Five thousand… it can’t be,” another man said, shaking his head.

“What if they’ve become reinvigorated by the losses?” Erden said, unable to keep the comment in his mind. “I read Vision when I was a boy, before it was outlawed. The Path spread because its followers were persecuted, not in spite of it.”

All the men around the fire were staring at him. Parlough looked as though he wanted to dismiss what Erden had said, but was holding back out of curiosity.

“I don’t want to say this war is futile, but it could be having the opposite of its intended effect. How many people who walk The Path are there in Vinredor? Seems like more than I remember before the religion was banned. We certainly hear about it more now, even though it’s illegal to practice.”

“You’re saying we’re helping the enemy?” Detvin said.

“Not intentionally. But it makes some sense, doesn’t it?”

Parlough stood up then. “You should go back to your books,” he said, reaching for a knife on his belt. “We lost a lot of friends fighting this war. Men with a lot more courage than you.”

“I didn’t mean offense,” Erden said as he stood up and began to step backwards.

“He’s not worth it, Parlough,” Detvin said. “Spent too much time with books, and not enough in the real world. Don’t risk your own head doing something stupid.”

The scout sheathed the blade, but kept his eyes on Erden. “Watch your back in the heat of battle. Oh, but you’ll be back by the wagons, won’t you? Then watch your back as you sleep. Accidents have been known to happen.”

Erden laid on top of a row of water barrels in one of the covered wagons that night, unable to fall sleep out of fear that Parlough was not simply posturing. It was nearly unfathomable how poorly his first attempt at ingratiating himself into the company had gone. Yet he was determined to try again. There were no heroes of epic tales who were social outcasts. They were beacons of hope for others. If he could find an in with even one soldier, he knew he could win over the others in time.

They marched through a deluge the next day, making little progress as wagon wheels became buried in mud. Officers organized the men into teams to push and pull the transports onto solid ground, the efforts leaving the men covered in grime and the wagons still stuck in place. Men groaned that there were plenty of vigor tonics in the wagons, and the injustice of the situation, but Sarthak had refused to use them. Knowing how expensive the tonics were, Erden saw the sense of that, though he did not see how they would be able to get the wagons unstuck without their unnatural aide.

He was leaning against a rope, his hands raw and bleeding, resorting to covering them with his shirt, and feigning effort, as water beat down on his already soaked head of hair. His mind lost in the mists, dulled by the physical demands which had pushed him past where he believed possible, he slowly became aware of a chant breaking out around him. It took a moment for him to focus his mind enough to make out the words, but when a wagon rolled past him, moving faster than he could believe, he began to hear it clear. “Ab-ra-HAM, Ab-ra-HAM, Ab-ra-HAM.”

He wiped the rain from his face to clear his view long enough to see the lean swordsman in the middle of a pack of soldiers, pulling the wagon onward, his eyes showing a determination which made Erden shake. By no means the biggest or the strongest man in the company, Abraham nevertheless led the procession, a step ahead of the other men. All around, soldiers and officers now, too, carried on the chant. Erden watched as Kingsley bellowed out the words, louder than anyone else, and Sarthak watched in silent awe.

That man, Erden thought as he looked back at Abraham’s wake, it is as though he stepped out of a story and into reality. I must learn from him.

The company moved slowly the next day as well, with supplies having to be shifted and wagon wheels and axels needing repair. Once they were back on the march, Erden went looking for Abraham.

It was the first time he had moved from his usual position near the wagons at the back of the column, just in front of the rear guard. The line of soldiers, wagons, and extra horses stretched for half a mile, and Erden had to walk most of it to find the man he was looking for.

Abraham walked alone, the other men giving him a wide berth. As he approached the swordsman, Erden felt eyes on his back, making him consider waiting for another time. But passing by Abraham seemed impossible, even sacrilegious, and falling back in line behind him was even more uncomfortable, so Erden continued on until he was but two paces back.

The sun above felt as though it was but a few feet from his head. From behind him, he believed he could hear snickers, and he had no trouble imagining the soldiers shaking their heads at their pathetic new member. The man in front of him had not adjusted his stride, or given any indication that he was aware of his presence, but Erden’s footfalls were loud enough to give him away. The two men continued on without words for some time, until, feeling exhausted by the heat, Erden nearly tripped over his own feet, falling to one knee.

Cursing, he stood up to see Abraham looking back at him. “Are you alright, Quartermaster?”

“I’m fine,” Erden said, wiping dust from his trousers.

“A drink?” Abraham asked, holding out a waterskin.

“I have some, thank you.”

The swordsman nodded and went back to marching.

“Abraham,” Erden said, the word coming out louder than he had planned.

A raised eyebrow. “Yes?”

“May I… speak with you?”

“You may.”

Erden ran forward so that the two men were walking in step. Now less than a foot away from Abraham, Erden could sense the man’s strength. Though not overtly muscular, and only slightly taller than him, Erden felt small in his presence.

“The sun is intense today,” Erden said.

When no reply came forth, he attempted a shift in the conversation. “You aren’t with the other officers.”

“I am not an officer,” Abraham said.

“My apologies… I didn’t know.”

“No reason to apologize.”

“I just assumed, as you’re the greatest swordfighter... It’s what I hear, I mean to say.”

“I can take lives. That does not mean I can lead men.”

This is not going well.

“They say Sarthak has great skill with a blade as well.”

“He does.”

“Is it innate? Skill with a blade, I mean. Or, do you believe any man can become proficient?”

For the first time, Abraham’s pace slowed. “I have taught men to fight with swords,” he said. “But they were eager to learn. Were it otherwise, I am not sure I would have found success. Though I suspect it is likewise with any endeavor.”

“Motivation can be a powerful tool,” Erden said.

“That’s the way of it.”

A horn blew twice from the front of the column, dragging Erden back to the present. He looked around as men began halting. Confused, and becoming frightened, he looked to Abraham. “We’ve met up with them,” the swordsman said.

“With whom?”

“The 10th Battalion.”

Sarthak called for him that night, after he had taken the evening’s inventory. When he reached the officers, he considered his earlier conversation with Abraham. It occurred to him now that the swordsman had not been present during the negotiations with Enfildio, either. That the world’s greatest living warrior was not part of every company decision baffled him, but then again, what did Erden know of the ways of the military? Ironically, the company’s most inept fighter was here now, amongst the officers of the 10th.

Sarthak silently acknowledged him as Erden came within listening distance of the conversation which was already underway.

“The Herald is within,” Marshal Jouse said. “Our spies have confirmed that. We caught them in transit, but due to your late arrival, they were able to commandeer Desert’s Watch.”

“Were your earlier estimates accurate?” Sarthak asked, giving no response to the slight.

“They were. Only fifty armed men, including her bodyguard. The main force is on its way to Tides. The city guard has been ordered to stand down, so that it does not appear to be an invasion. They are expecting reinforcements, though we are not sure from where or how many. What we do know is that the leaders of their army believe the men which are set to arrive in Tides will give them enough of an advantage to defeat us. What they did not anticipate was that we had tracked The Herald here with this smaller force. The Divine King believes that once The Herald is captured, the movement will fall apart due to infighting. I agree with his assessment, and so we look to end this farce today.”

“What is she doing out here so far from the city?” Kingsley asked. It was a question Erden had been pondering as well.

“She went into the desert, for what reason, we do not know. Even our spies have heard nothing. We do know they separated so that they did not have to support such a large contingent of men through a land with no water. At one point, The Herald broke off from her bodyguards for two days, then returned to the others. As far as we know, she has not spoken of what she did during the time she was alone.”

“It strikes me now that we know very little of this religion, despite its growing popularity and its long history in East Saltion,” Sarthak said.

Marshal Jouse gave him a look of contempt. “The beliefs of heretics are irrelevant. The Herald’s misguided adventure was a tactical error for which she will end up paying for with her life.”

As Jouse spoke, Sarthak nodded politely. Kingsley stood with his arms crossed, while the other officers of the 10th Battalion were grouped behind the marshal, watching the officers of The Blades’ every mannerism.

“We will make our assault at the 21^st bell. The 10th will surround the fortress to prevent any escape and provide missile fire while the 26^th scales the walls under the cover of night. I wish for this to be done with before the morrow.”

“Yes, sir,” Sarthak said with a salute. Erden watched as Marshal Jouse and the other officers of the 10th Battalion returned to their camp. When they were out of earshot, Kingsley spoke.

“Five hundred of the bastards, and they stand back while we risk our hides.”

“Well, someone needs to have the glory of capturing The Herald when she attempts to flee,” Sarthak said.

“Why do we not have the full army here and crush the rebellion outright?” Erden asked.

“Because the Divine King does not wish to legitimize them, nor does he wish to panic the citizenry. He wants to avoid an open war. Marshal Jouse is indeed a bastard, but he is a clever one, and this is the perfect opportunity to end this uprising so that it can be cast aside and forgotten.

Now, Quartermaster, as you heard, we are to climb up the walls of that old fortress, which means we will have the need for ladders, and we do not have the time to fell trees. We have spare wood, correct?”

“Yes, sir. We have half a wagon bed lined with boards.”

“Kingsley doubted me when I granted you this position, but I see my faith was well-placed.”

“You told me yourself to prepare for a possible siege.”

“And you listened. Not everyone is capable of doing that, though we removed those people from this company. I believe they’re in the 10th now. Regardless, it is time to get to work, Quartermaster. Our lives are in your hands.”

Why did he have to say that?

Richard

“It’s a disorganized mess,” Richard said to his fellow herbalists. He was sitting with Rowland, his former student, and Frederick, a man who had been working in the royal herbalism laboratory for more than a decade.

The two men sat across from him at a table in the Shark Eye, a tavern by the docks. It was a stuffy and foul-smelling establishment. However, it was the last place Esther would look for them, and she had the habit of sending out lackeys to gather her herbalists outside of their supposed working hours. Frederick had suggested it, having had need for the escape over the course of his employment. Richard had been there on a few occasions with Woller. The older man had frequented the seedy establishment, which was strange considering the type of clientele on hand. But evidently, Woller had been full of mysteries. Perhaps his affinity for this establishment was yet another.

“You know,” Richard said to the other men, “I inquired as to the sudden change of direction of the program. She gave me some nonsense about it being the same goal, that the health of the soldiers was paramount. I’m not buying that for a minute. She’s hiding something.”

“Whatever she does, she does it for Oslian. That is the key to Esther,” Frederick said. “She would clean his chamber pot if he asked her to. Frankly, I would not be surprised if she already had.”

The man was not smiling. His dislike for the Royal Herbalist was shared by the other employees with the sole exception of Carlisle, who was never present when derogatory comments were made.

Richard just shook his head and looked over at Rowland who was waving a server over for another round. They had come here every night that week, it being their only escape, and ale amplified that sense of disassociation for which they longed.

Sighing, Richard looked around the tavern. It was past midnight and most of the tables were occupied. A young man and woman, the only two individuals in the establishment who looked more out of place than the herbalists, sat a few tables away from them. They wore identical green vests and brown trousers. A patch of some sort was stitched onto the breast of their vests. Richard hadn’t been paying them much mind other than a passing awareness of their obviously foreign garments and an amusement at the level of their intoxication, but a word that was spoken caught his attention just then. Herbalism.

Rowland and Frederick appeared inclined to continue drinking in silence, so Richard closed his eyes and concentrated on what was being said.

“It is a perversion of nature,” the woman said. “The manipulation of the human body shows how far how society has degraded.”

“And this is where it is worse. Here and now more than ever,” a man added.

Doing his best to hide his interest, Richard scratched at his forehead while looking over at the strangers. Sober enough to use his heightened vision, he focused and was able to make out the patch on their vests. It was a dark brown pentagon with a green seedling in the middle.

How curious.

“To permanently deform one’s anatomy… that level of depravity is unfathomable,” the woman snarled. “I do not even want to believe it.”

“Can you be surprised? This is where this was always headed. To sever man’s link to nature, and to use nature’s bounty as the means to that end. It is what our founder feared, all those years ago. Were that she was with us now.”

“To witness this?” The woman spat on the dirt floor. “To see that we have failed?”

“It is not over yet,” the man mumbled into his tankard as he lifted it to his lips.

Suddenly feeling unsafe, Richard excused himself to urinate, not that his companions cared whether he remained or left. As he walked through the room and went outside, he did his best to clear his head from the influence of alcohol.

They’re speaking of me. If they know of my tonic, what would prevent them from knowing my name, what I look like, or where I live?

Steadying himself against the outer wall as he relieved himself, Richard realized he may be in real danger. Those two foreigners were a deadly combination of intoxicated and fanatical. He had never considered the potential downside of receiving credit for his work. He had only looked at the positives, which he believed would be recognition among his peers and perhaps a bit of awe in the minds of the public. Those were the rewards his grandfather had earned and it seemed fitting that his discovery, which was only slightly less impactful, would deliver unto him a similar status. Instead, he had been forced to work beneath a woman he did not respect and the only people outside of the world of herbalism that knew of him were filled with animosity for his life’s work.

He retied his trousers and came to the decision that he could not stay in such close proximity to people who could very well wish to harm him.

Let Rowland and Frederick pick up the tab. They’ll likely drink so much they won’t remember I skipped out on them.

It was incredible what fear could do to sober a man. Richard advanced briskly down side streets until he felt he was far enough away from the Shark Eye to use the main roads with their passageways lit yellow by oil lamps. His life was becoming more complicated and more hazardous by the day. Would those two strangers come looking for him? Were there more of them in the city? They had spoken as if they belonged to an organization that was much larger than just two individuals. That patch with the seedling, what did it signify? He had too many questions racing through his head to reach any conclusions.

As he neared his house, he made certain he was not being followed, walking past his house and doubling back again, his eyes scanning the area for any movement. While he did not see a single person, there was something else that did catch his eye.

More of those signs.

These read, “Look to the sky for the proof of His divinity. The light will show you the way to The Path.”

They seemed to be found on every street now. And as quickly as they were torn down by city guards, even more took their place. Yet, what had come of it? As Richard knew, the prophecy declared that this would be the year a great light would cross the sky.

The Hero is running out of time. The year will end soon. I wonder what the devout will say when his precise prophecy turns out to be rubbish. They’ll conjure up some explanation of how they misinterpreted the writings, no doubt. Failure does not stop fanatics.

It was a strange time to be alive. A strange and now dangerous time for Richard.

The next day he arrived at work to find that he was the first person at the laboratory save the Royal Herbalist herself. “You’re not late, are you?” she asked him.

“No. I believe I’m early.”

“The sun is not up yet?”

“I suppose we could have a debate regarding that.”

“Come over here and help me with this,” she said, looking back down at what she had been doing when he arrived.

Feeling emboldened by the danger of the past night, Richard remained where he was standing. If his life was to be at risk due to his discovery, he should at least be respected by those who were benefitting from his work.

“Esther,” he began. “Your current project is based entirely upon the tonic which I created, yet you do not ask for my advice nor have you questioned the process I followed. I can come to no other conclusion than you are acting out of envy and that your ego was injured when you learned that someone created something you could not have invented yourself.”

Esther paused and looked over at Richard. “You are responsible for the permanent vision enhancing tonic?”

“Yes, of course I am!”

“You mean your department at the university created it.”

“No, I mean I created it. Other than manual labor, such as what you had me doing when I first arrived, no one else had any input in the development of the tonic. Don’t act as though you are ignorant of that.”

“I was told the tonic was developed by the university’s herbalism department. That is why we have you and the graduate students here. The other two professors were uncooperative and have… left the profession.”

The ambiguity of that statement is frightening.

“Ask anyone from the department and they will tell you it was my project.”

“It is that important to you that you receive credit for this?”

“Well, yes. How could it not be?”

“What matter are the results, not who was responsible. Herbalism is an ongoing process. Everyone adds on to what the last person created, and he or she did the same.”

“That may be…” Richard admitted.

“You are so like him,” Esther said, again looking back down at the materials on the table.

“Like who?”

“Enfildio.”

“Did you know him personally?”

“Ah, now it is my turn to be insulted. I did know him. That he never told you of me only proves my point. But that is enough about that. You have made advancements, and I will learn from you. At this moment however, I need your assistance.”

She knew my grandfather? Did she work for him? I know he had many assistants.

Richard acquiesced to Esther’s request and saw that she was deseeding a genizid flower. The seeds of the plant had been used in traditional healing for centuries, though Richard was unaware of any herbalism tonics which utilized them. Seeing Esther at the laboratory alone, doing such a menial task, made him consider what she had said earlier. Perhaps he had lost his temper.

They worked together in silence, deseeding more than twenty of the flowers. The old woman’s liver-spotted hands moved deftly, though she would pause every so often to stretch her fingers, then resume without comment.

Carlisle was the first to arrive, and Esther enlisted his services as well. By the time the task was complete, the rest of the staff had arrived and Richard was dismissed so that he could continue his originally scheduled work. His job for the week had been to collaborate with Frederick in collecting data on the acidity of different existing healing tonics. Frederick was slowly gathering materials when Richard approached him.

“Good morning,” he said, curious whether the man had any recollection of the night before.

“Morning, Richard. Another day in paradise, no?”

“How’s your head?” Richard asked.

“Hurts like usual. It’ll wear off by midday. It always does.”

“Thanks for picking up the tab for me,” Richard said. “I owe you.”

“Made the boy pay for it, so don’t mention it.”

Richard looked around the room then and lowered his voice. “Frederick, do you remember two people at the tavern last night who were wearing green vests with patches on the breast?”

“Is this the beginning of some sort of jest?” Frederick asked, looking up. “Did Rowland put you up to this? Finally realized he’s been paying for my drinks for the past week?”

“What about a loud conversation two people were having about herbalism? Do you recall hearing people denouncing the practice?”

“Ah. Now that I do remember. Of their attire, I have no idea, but I do remember hearing them go on and on about how herbalism is an abomination of nature.”

“Did they mention my name?”

Frederick raised an eyebrow. “Why? Do you know them?”

“No, nothing like that. But you’re sure they did not say my name?”

“I don’t want to say I’m sure, but I didn’t hear them say it.”

Oh, of course not. No one knows it was me. Perhaps Yara did me a favor. I’ll have to thank her the next time she comes to interrogate me.

“That is a relief.”

Frederick grunted. “The boy was interested in what they had to say though. Kept looking over at them. At least until I left the tavern and he had to pay for our drinks.”

“I should speak with him.”

“And leave me with all this work? You can speak to him on your break, assuming we get one today.”

“Fine. I’ll wait until then.”

“Can’t pull one over on me. I invented that game.”

At midday, Esther was called away to speak with the Divine King, giving Richard an opportunity to speak with Rowland while Carlisle was occupied picking up some of her work. They went behind a large shelf used to store knives and beakers, leaving them completely out of the line of sight of any other workers.

“What do you remember of the two people who were speaking about herbalism at the tavern last night?” Richard asked.

Rowland broke eye contact momentarily, then swallowed. “Why are you asking?”

“Did you hear what they were saying?”

“I heard their concerns regarding the practice of herbalism. I spoke to them when you and Frederick left. Richard, they made some good arguments. For instance, what are the long-term effects of what you’ve done to yourself? We have no way of knowing.”

“You weren’t concerned that they would assault you if they found out you worked on that project?”

“I’ll admit that I was. But I was also curious about what they had to say. Anyway, I didn’t tell them who I was. I mostly asked questions.”

“Who are they exactly?”

“They’re members of an organization that promotes traditional healing over tonics.”

“I’ve never heard of such an organization,” Richard said, partially to himself.

“They’re from East Saltion, though they say their organization began here in Oslidor. They had many claims about their founding that seemed questionable to me, but they were adamant about their history.”

“Another insane group of fanatics,” Richard groaned. “Evidently the city is full of them now.”

“Richard,” Rowland said, lowering his voice even further, “they told me about Esther and what she did in the past. They also told me about your grandfather.”

“What do you mean they told you about my grandfather? What does he have to do with this?”

“They said he and Esther… that they experimented with human parts and fluids.”

“Because they’re fanatics! They’re liars, Rowland!”

Richard had not realized how loud he had yelled. His voice cause Rowland to cower, while behind them, he could hear the typical sounds of working halt. Biting his lip, Richard attempted to calm himself.

“This is what those types of people do,” he whispered. “They go around and invent stories about their enemies so as to make their own cause seem righteous. It’s what we get for passing our time away in a slum like the Shark Eye. We’re drinking too much and our thoughts are becoming clouded. I don’t want to hear any more about them or their claims.”

“Fine,” Rowland said as Richard turned away. “But you’re not in charge of me anymore. You’re just another worker here, you know.”

Richard’s entire body tensed, but he gave no response. Instead, he walked back to his work station where he spent the rest of the day avoiding speaking at all.

Lydee

Year 1378 (Present day)

An unofficial extension of the university, the Fostrilya Royal Library remained in operation. Lydee was thankful for that, as she stepped out of the heat of late morning Oslidor and into the comparatively cool and grandiose space. The lobby was quiet, as usual. Above her, along the second and third floors, Lydee could see nothing more than a handful of individuals scanning the stacks or walking past rows of books. Besides the relief from the heat, she was thankful as well for the lack of people. Today she wished not to be seen. At all if possible.

After her ‘meeting’ with Gregorich, what she wished most of all was to speak with Richard. She had been left feeling uneasy in a most peculiar way after her brief interaction with that man with the bushy eyebrows. Conversing and exchanging information with Richard could help jostle free the knot which had tied itself within her mind. She knew there was something amiss, but she could not free it from where it was hidden. The feeling was similar to when one sets out for the day and knows she forgot something, but not what it was.

For now, she would have to pursue the only option available to her. This, unfortunately, made her reliant on information obtained from Iniko. The man would not have intentionally misled her, but she did not trust his memory. Or his mind, whatever is left of it.

Iniko had told her that Woller was interested in prices of luxury goods during the early days of the Xu dynasty. Having dwelt on that detail for some time, Lydee had begun to construct a possible intention behind Woller’s research. A young Divine King had recently come into power in Xu. Octavius Xu had declared that he would cleanse his nation of vice and the worship of material goods. At first, this had led to a ban on any item he had deemed ‘unnecessary.’ When that went disastrously wrong, he replaced the ban with high taxes. If Woller was studying the prices of the same goods, centuries ago, perhaps he was hoping to forecast the economic impact these new regulations would create. The nation was famed for its expansive dye and tobacco plantations, and those goods were now severely restricted due to the exorbitantly high taxes which had been put in place.

Knowing the type of items Woller was interested in was helpful, but there were other questions regarding the particulars. She wished now that she had pressed Iniko more on the exact timeframe. Not that he would have remembered. And not that it would not have taken more patience than she could muster.

The concept of a period of time being the ‘early days’ was itself an issue. The royal nations agreed that they had each been founded during a singular event which took place during what was referred to as Year 0. The veracity of that claim had been doubted by scholars for time immemorial, of course only on East Saltion. To question that on Saltion, save for in Withigan, would be reckless at best. To complicate matters further, the very oldest records were accounts from the holy books of The Path. As those were outlawed in the royal nations, she would have to find the earliest documents she could.

The royal library contained tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of books, papers, scrolls, and parchments. Of this multitude, the majority of the sources were from within Vinredor. Finding information that was thousands of years old, and told of Xu, would be a challenge.

The building was expansive enough to contain areas where she had never visited, even after years of research. The below ground level in particular was quite foreign to her. Among other subject matters which could be described as esoteric, or mundane, depending on who was asked, she knew the basement was where shipping manifests were kept. The library was unlikely to contain records of prices in Xu, but by looking at the prices of items entering Vinredor from Xu, it made sense that one could determine the prices in the country of origin.

She headed toward the spiral staircase which led there, eyes darting side to side without adjusting her head so as not to make it obvious that she was watching to see if she was being observed. Not detecting any eyes upon her, she took the first step down.

If she had waited for only ten seconds before beginning her descent, she might have heard one of the double doors at the entrance to the library open. If she had then looked back, she would have seen a nondescript man in a plain white scholar’s robe enter the lobby. He would have done his best not to indicate that he was looking for someone, so she might not have suspected anything was amiss. As it was, she missed the man entirely. Not knowing the layout of the library, or where Lydee was heading, the man simply began wandering the stacks, making sure to appear as innocuous as possible.

With each step down, the air became cooler. The oil lantern at the top of the steps was lit, but Lydee had to set further lanterns ablaze, a sign of the infrequency in which this level of the library was used. So deep into the earth was the basement that Lydee began to feel chill when she reached the bottom. Upon illuminating the space in front of her, the first object she saw was a table upon which someone had left a partially unrolled scroll. A thick layer of dust covered the scroll as well as the table.

And with the university closing its doors and the professors needing to find new employment, this space will see even fewer visitors than usual. Perhaps if I run out of funds, I can live down here. The scurrying of a rat, inches from her feet quickly dispelled the idea of residence from her mind.

As she searched the stacks, a memory of Woller came to her. When she had first joined the university, he had told her an anecdote of one of his many disagreements with the old librarian, Paitrov. The man possessed a knowledge of history which put the professors at the university to shame. He was an invaluable reference when conducting research, but Woller, believing himself to be the foremost authority on all things historical, had challenged the librarian’s claim that the East Saltion nation of Hon Rin was once a minor territory belonging to its current neighbor, Silth Ju. Woller had set out to prove himself correct, stating that he would conduct a lengthy period of research until he could definitively show that he was in the right. Instead, Paitrov had told the professor to wait in the library’s lobby. He had gone down into the basement for five minutes before returning with no less than three documents which Woller had no choice but to admit proved the librarian correct. Woller told it as a joke, but also as a piece of advice. If one ever needed assistance while at the library, he only had to speak with Paitrov. Unfortunately, the man no longer worked there.

Would that Paitrov was here to assist me now. At least that story has directed me here. If information of the ancient history of East Saltion is down here, it makes sense documents pertaining to ancient Xu would be as well.

The basement was larger than the ground floor, spreading out in all directions past the boundaries of the floor above it. Even though she lit every lamp she came across, Lydee had difficulty seeing where she was going. Reading the words on the sides of the shelves was an even greater challenge. The room expanded out into narrower and narrower passages, making it take quite some time to find a shelf with ship manifests from the first century. When she finally found what she was seeking, she looked at her surroundings and realized she had no sense of where she was, or how to get back to the staircase. She hoped that she would find what she was looking for here because she was not enthusiastic about prolonging her time underground, the musky air giving each inhalation the slight taste of mold. Was there truly mold down here, feeding on irreplaceable historical items? Had it always been this way, or was it just another sign of the decay the library had suffered after Paitrov’s departure?

Someone had given serious effort to assembling the collection she was viewing. The manifests were all written on parchment, of which Lydee could discern multiple types. The documents had been stacked together by year, some in crates and others covered in hide or leather and bound by string or gut. A thick layer of dust lay across the covers, but the documents on the interior remained in good condition. While the ink had faded, as Lydee knew it would, they were still legible once she took held them directly below a lantern.

Removing a set of manifests gave her a strange sensation, as though she were disturbing the slumber of something which did not wish to be awakened. As isolated as she was, she could not help but look over her shoulder every now and then for fear of something just on the cusp of her imagination. There were no sounds now in the basement, not even the scampering of a rat.

On the bottom shelf now, Lydee attempted to withdraw a booklet when a crate fell, spilling parchments out onto the floor. Rigid documents scattered in different directions, some lost in the darkness behind the shelf. She reached under the last wooded level and began to feel for the papers. On her knees, arm extended, her hand bumped up against something cool. Unlike the shelf itself, which was made of hardwood and gritty to the touch, the surface she felt now was perfectly smooth. It was, she realized after a moment, metallic.

Strange. There is nothing else metallic here that I have seen.

Lydee gathered the papers within her reach and placed them back in the crate. Knowing there were a few she had missed, but being unable to find them with such a paltry amount of light, she took the nearest lantern from the wall and placed it on the floor.

Was it dedication to the preservation of historical items, or a more innate curiosity which pushed her to lay down on the floor with her face brushing up against the stonework? Either way, with the lantern now illuminating the area, she looked under the shelf. One piece of parchment was just out of reach. Try as she might, she could not extend her arm far enough to reach it. She chose to remove more booklets from the shelf to create a space to reach through. That was when she saw what she had felt earlier.

The wall behind the bookshelf was made of ironwood, just as the other walls she had passed in the basement had been. Ironwood was a logical choice being common in the dry climate of Oslidor and the surrounding areas. The center of the wall however, a circular space of nearly a man-height in circumference, was dark grey metal. Lydee stared at the anomaly in front of her, unmoving except for the slow rise and fall of her chest. She pulled more booklets off the shelf, then began crawling through the space she had created. The lantern’s glow reflected off the metal, casting the area in an eerie light. Cautiously, Lydee reached out to touch the surface. While it felt as smooth as a pearl, there were odd swirls and abstractions along the surface which gave it the look of having been folded upon itself. She moved her hand along the metal as she stood, curious as to what could have caused its strange appearance. At a higher plane, the lantern revealed odd shapes on the floor to her side. She shuffled in the narrow space, one hand touching the wall until it simply vanished.

She lifted the lantern above her head to shine down on the floor, the light showing that the wooden wall had been cut, fractured pieces of wood scattered on the ground. The cleared space was large enough for her to fit when she turned her body to the side. Not knowing precisely why, she shifted the lantern into her other hand and entered the space.

Through the gap in the wall, she found herself in a room with three sides covered in bookshelves. Lydee walked to one and picked up a leatherbound booklet. The cover appeared modern, but the pages of parchment inside were ancient. The first page seemed to be notes taken regarding events in someone’s life, their travels. There were dates as well, but they made no sense. The first entry was dated as being from the year 4,122, a date which had not yet come to pass. The parchment and ink were clearly ancient, in decent condition but fading and torn along the edges. Further pages followed the same pattern.

Lydee took another booklet off the shelf and inspected it. This one was dated beginning in the year 9, making it, if true, the oldest document she had even seen, or ever heard of. Even Redemption, the first holy book of The Path, was considered to be from the second decade of the first century.

None of this can be. These dates are impossible… aren’t they? But if so, why are these items hidden behind a wall? And why and when was it broken into?

Lydee’s heartbeat had increased without her realizing it. She scanned the room in disbelief, shaking her head and wondering if this was in fact reality, or but a fevered dream. Then, in the distance, a sound.

Someone is descending the staircase.

Panic.

Lydee filled the interior pockets of her robe with booklets, then turned to the gap in the wall from which she had emerged. She squeezed through and crawled to the bookshelf which contained the manifests. She paused then for a moment and was barely able to hear footsteps above her own heartbeat. They did not sound as though they were getting closer.

Whoever it is may be as lost as I am.

Still, she did not want to be found in a space that was clearly designed to be hidden. Through the space she had cleared in the shelf, she rushed to return the manifests, unmindful of their original order. Standing up and dusting herself off, she could tell that the footsteps were now indisputably louder, and increasing in volume with each passing moment. She scanned the area and realized she was at a dead end, the lantern which she held providing the only available light.

A difficult decision to make now. Return the lantern and attempt to hide in the darkness, or find the exit while hoping to avoid whoever else was in the basement? A glance at the floor forced her hand. Her path could easily be tracked by the footprints she had left in the dust which had accumulated due to disuse. It was this dust that made her feel so certain she was now being hunted. That two individuals would seek the basement on the same day, when it had so clearly been neglected for such a long time felt too unlikely to be a mere coincidence.

Lydee did her best to move away from the footfalls. She stepped carefully, making sure not to make a sound and followed her own footsteps until she came to a hallway that branched in multiple directions. There she took a new path. The path spread out again and again, the floor now free of footprints. Behind her, or truly in which direction she did not know, the footsteps continued, muted but audible.

She did not know how long she walked, or how many turns she made, but she eventually found herself at the staircase again. At the base of the stairs were a second set of footprints. Where they led out, the footsteps began to flow seamlessly into her own.

There is no doubt. Someone is searching for me. Or, at the very least, someone is searching for the person they know is down here.

A last look back, then Lydee placed her lantern on the ground and quickly, but silently, ascended out of the underground and back to the familiar confines of the Royal Library, sure, in the way that one can only be in times of terror or dismay, that her life had become inalterably changed.

Cupela

Year 1348 (Thirty Years Prior to Present Day)

A breakthrough had occurred. Diseases, illnesses, afflictions- they were to be a thing of the past. At least that was what the latest development hinted at. Cupela had been amazed by the progress, and then unsettled by the aftermath.

The road to immortality was lengthy, with many twists. Afterall, to become immortal, one would have to be free not only from aging, but from sickness as well. It was a deadly fever which had sparked Enfildio’s intense desire to end the blight of death. Now, it appeared as though the dream of a world without illness was more than just a fantasy. The eradication of disease was still theoretical, but that did not diminish the accomplishment of Enfildio and his team. All of us were critical to this success, Cupela reminded herself for the hundredth time.

For years, Enfildio had sworn by the use of ferins for conducting research on humans. It was irresponsible and immoral to use human test subjects, he had declared. Yet ferins, as different as they appeared from humans, had a remarkably similar anatomy. The furry brown creatures were the size of rats, but with much larger ears and eyes. What made them most beneficial was not their appearance however, but their incredibly short life span. A ferin went from infant to adult in ten days, and the average ferin lived less than two months. With these creatures, one did not need to wait years to see results, but only weeks.

As ferins and humans shared an internal body structure, the animals were also capable of contracting human diseases. This had made them a scourge in the real world, and a blessing in the laboratory. Enfildio and his assistants had learned much about how to fight illnesses over the past years of diligent work. The true breakthrough though had come just one day past.

A set of ferins which had been treated for scarlet fever had survived the ordeal. The tonic given to them had not only helped them survive, but had eradicated any symptoms of the affliction. It was the first time a deadly disease had been cured, not just in their workshop, but as far as they knew, in history.

The cure was based off of close to two years of work in which the team of herbalists had slowly diminished the effects of illnesses. They had tonics now to fight the common cold, sore throats, and to help with mundane fevers. Now they could fight truly deadly illnesses. It was a cause for celebration. Or, it would have been, had the players involved been other than they were wont to be.

Ubul had discovered the condition of the ferins, being the first awake that day. He in turn had awoken Cupela, who had confirmed his findings. The others followed and the workshop had been a bustle of excitement. Then Cupela went for Enfildio. He had been awake, but evidently impervious to the effect of the noises from the larger work room. When he joined the others, he congratulated them on their work and told them to take the remainder of the day off. Everyone had been more than willing to comply with that directive, and they spent the next few chimes of the bell drinking and laughing before going off to their rooms to sleep off the effects of the day, or in the case of Sarah and Piroska, who had not imbibed, or laughed, to find isolation after being forced to interact in such an uncomfortable way with their peers.

The next day, all of the research notes on the progress of the victorious set of ferins was missing, and Enfildio had closed himself off to the world, refusing to answer the knocks at his door. The message was clear to Ubul. “He has taken our work and will attempt to advance with it alone. We are here to do labor for him, not with him.”

“He paid us for our time. Handsomely, I might add,” Cupela said. “If he wishes to work alone for some time, that is his prerogative.”

“You haven’t grown sick of defending the old man,” Hrent said, “even when he confides in the mule girl more than you?”

Cupela was surprised by how much the little man’s words had stung. “Stop acting like a petulant child, Hrent.”

To their side, Jezmavalin laughed as she leaned against a workstation, drinking still from the previous day, and looking as though she had never stopped.

“Where is she? Ubul asked. Sarah.”

“She’s still asleep,” Cupela said, turning to look at the door to Sarah’s quarters. Except, instead of seeing a closed door, she saw the young woman. Tears were beginning to run from her eyes. She turned and ran awkwardly back into her room, slamming the door behind her.

“Asshole!” Cupela yelled at Hrent.

“I don’t see why you defend her when she’s taking your place as the old man’s favorite helper. Or, should I say his errand girl. You think he cares about you at all? He abuses your naivete. You go out and run errands for him, while he spends his nights with Jezmavalin, when he wishes to, or when she’s not passed out.”

Cupela felt her cheeks flush. She looked over at Jezmavalin, but the gorgeous woman just shrugged before standing upright and heading to her room.

Glaring at Hrent, Cupela said, “You can’t handle a single criticism without lashing out. You’re no better than an infantile bully.”

“The truth hurts,” Hrent snarled.

“Is that why you’re steaming?” Ubul asked.

“Sure, defend her. She’s the only woman in here who gives you the time of day. Jez may be drunk, but at least she has the sense to leave,” Hrent said before making a show of casually stretching and walking to his room.

Cupela wanted to scream. Hrent had no way of interacting with others if he wasn’t demeaning them, yet his words had still broken through her defenses.

Why? Because they’re true? No. Enfildio is simply teaching Sarah. She knew nothing of herbalism before she came here. Enfildio has trusted me with stories he would never tell anyone else. Hrent is envious that no one spends any time with him. That’s all it is.

Ubul stepped closer to Cupela and put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s not let Hrent divide us against each other. He’s miserable and the only relief he can find is in making others feel the same.”

Cupela nodded but did not speak. She was doing her best to limit the damage done by Hrent’s comments, but she had also noticed how close Sarah was becoming to Enfildio. Was it preposterous to believe the newcomer could replace her? Do not let that little man make you doubt your own past. That is what he wants; to sow distrust and misery. Do not allow him to win.

Ubul remained by her side. After a few minutes of silence, he spoke up softly. “Still… I can’t help but feel as though Enfildio is using us. All of us. When do you see him conducting experiments? Everything he does is done behind his closed door. It is as if he is hiding something.”

“Don’t start, Ubul. Please.”

“I’m solely thinking aloud.”

Cupela snorted.

Ubul is my only friend here, and even he fails at consolation.

“I will not get any work done today,” she finally said. “Perhaps I will rest and then read some.”

“Not a bad idea,” Ubul said. “I will do the same.”

Cupela barely turned to acknowledge him. She was suddenly extremely fatigued, as though speaking of sleep made her realize how much she needed the break from thinking. Looking around the empty workshop, she felt more alone than she could ever remember.

She did not know how long it took her to fall asleep, or if she ever did. Either way, she jolted out of bed when she heard the explosion.

The world outside of her room was a haze of ochre smoke. Cupela felt the heat of flames reach up to claw at her face. She attempted to clear a space in front of her by waving her hands, but the effort was futile, the effort only hastening the acrid smoke’s climb into her lungs, forcing her to cough until her hands were on her knees. Through the haze she could hear yelling, though it was unclear from which direction.

She had spent enough time in the workshop to find her way along the walls, the heat growing with each step, until she bumped into something. It turned out that something was someone. The hiss of the flames was clear now, the heat making her recoil, yet she knew she could not turn away from whoever had been involved in the blast. Cupela kneeled down and put her hand against the form. She pulled her hand away from the heat of the contact, but what was more disturbing was the texture of the skin she had touched. It felt similar to melted wax, and the image that conjured in her head began to make her sick.

From her side, another person came into focus through the smoke. It was Enfildio. The elderly man was coughing and waving his hands across his face. “Cupela? Are you alright?”

“I am fine. But someone is here, and not in good condition. I can’t see who it is. We need to put out the flames! Do you have your cape? Throw it down.”

Enfildio did so, and Cupela padded the black cloth around the figure on the ground. Flames danced on the nearby table as well, the heat radiating outward and burning her face. She pulled the cape off of the body and went to work using it to douse the remainder of the fire.

There were more voices now as other figures approached. Ubul. Hrent, Jezmavalin. They broke through the smoke, coughing and cursing.

“What happened?” Ubul asked.

“I’m not sure,” Cupela said. “But someone is hurt, and badly.”

“Where is Sarah?” Enfildio asked. “Is that her?”

“We need to get her out of here,” Jezmavalin said. “Outside.”

No one spoke for a moment, as they waited for the response from Enfildio. “Fine,” he finally said after longer than Cupela wished he had taken. “Delicately.”

They began gently lifting the body. Cupela had to hold her breath to prevent herself from retching. The smell was atrocious and the feel of blood and melted skin on her hands was too much to consider lucidly. They slowly made their way to the staircase, no sounds now except for coughing and heavy panting.

The smoke was thinner at the staircase. Cupela held onto one leg as they moved the body up the steps. Halfway along their ascent, it became clear who they were holding. It was not Sara. It was Piroska.

The already frail woman had been burned nearly beyond recognition were it not for the spectacles which she wore, the frames of which were now wedged into her cheeks. Cupela could not look at her without flinching away, yet she returned her gaze time and time again, hoping for a change, as if she were in a nightmare and was about to wake up to find her companion hale again.

“Put her down,” Enfildio said from behind the group. “The smoke has cleared.”

Cupela and the others obeyed, and did their best to let the burned woman down so her body was laying horizontal along a single step. Cupela looked over at the others. Jezmavalin looked dazed, possibly still inebriated. Ubul was shaking his head in disbelief, while Hrent stood motionless, looking down at Piroska, his thoughts unreadable.

“She needs medical attention,” Cupela said, stating the obvious, but being the only one willing to speak. “We need to take her to a hospital.”

“No,” came Enfildio’s voice from behind her. “The hospitals have nothing that can help her. But I know of an unguent. I will gather it and bring it back here. In the meantime, let her rest and give her pain tonics every half bell. Give her enough so that she does not wake up until I return.”

Glances were shared between the assistants, but no one challenged the master herbalist.

As Piroska rested, the others, including Sarah who had finally emerged from her room, began the process of cleaning the workshop. The flames had not expanded out past the single workstation, but the smoke had clung to multiple surfaces. Cupela had opened the door to allow air flow, but the atmosphere still made their breathing labored. They worked in silence until Cupela spoke to break the discomfort.

“She has a daughter, you know.”

“Someone—never mind,” Hrent mumbled.

“She abandoned her daughter to come here?” This from Ubul.

Cupela shrugged. “I do not know her story, only that she has a young daughter. Maybe this was her only method of gaining coin. She keeps her personal life to herself.”

“We all do,” Jezmavalin remarked. Cupela looked over at the beautiful woman, her long dark hair somehow unblemished by the smoke. What reaction are you hoping for?

“Especially Enfildio,” Ubul said, looking at Cupela.

Cupela stared at him blankly. “He doesn’t owe us anything. He pays us to do a job, and we do it. We all knew the terms of the agreement before we took it. That is enough.”

“For you,” Hrent added.

“It’s time to give Piroska more pain killer,” Cupela said, excusing herself.

I hope Enfildio returns soon. Not just for Piroska, but for my sanity as well.

Yara

Her rage had not subsided when the palace servant brought her the Divine King’s summoning. The young man left in even more of a hurry than he had arrived when he saw the whip in her hand. It may also have been the young woman on her hands and knees, staring down at the floor and whimpering that added to the servant’s haste.

The scabs on the adolescent’s back had reopened, which made the scene look worse than it was, Yara reflected. Her own clothes were free from blood save for the black gloves she was wearing. She removed them carefully and tossed them to the servant girl, along with the whip.

“Have those cleaned before I return. Then go back to whatever task you were pretending to do before.”

It would be unwise to be in such a foul mood during an audience with the Divine King. Her back to the door, she took a series of deep breaths before heading to the royal living quarters.

She had been to the Divine King’s private chambers on occasion, but never to his bedroom. In fact, she never heard of anyone being summoned to that intimate location before. A number of possibilities jostled for position in her mind. None of them were particularly pleasing, but then again, her thoughts had been darker than usual. Because of this man, Gregorich. Who is he? Why is he inquiring after Woller while posing as one of my agents? Does Oslian not trust me?

The thought that Richard had fabricated the man’s existence seemed highly unlikely. She did not believe him to be diabolical enough to present an invented story in such an innocent way. She had dozens of questions regarding Richard’s interaction with the man he knew as Gregorich, but she did not have the flexibility to ask them. She could not allow him to know Gregorich did not work for her. Unless of course, she disposed of him afterwards. But he was Esther’s now, and the Royal Herbalist was possessive of her people.

Her next suspicion was a rival on the council. Ilgor was ancient enough to have known Woller back when he was an acquaintance of Oslian’s, but she did not believe Oslian would have spoken to him about the matter. As for Rovellia, she was too dim-witted to hatch any kind of plan. Therefore, her only true suspect on the council was Martin. Oslian asked him for advice on a wide variety of issues, and she would not be surprised if Martin was able to pry information loose which Oslian did not want him to have. She could envision him intending to outdo her and gain favor with the Divine King.

Nevertheless, she was not sure Martin was behind this, or whether she actually preferred that he was. He was dangerously competent, but at least she knew who he was. The idea of someone she did not even know manipulating her was a terrifying possibility, and Yara did not appreciate being made to be fearful.

We will see who else may have been invited to the royal bedchambers. That will be quite telling.

Yara was granted permission to enter the Divine King’s living chambers on the top floor of the palace by the half dozen royal life defenders who guarded the passage at all hours. The foyer within displayed a decadence which would make the common man weep. Precious gemstones lined the framework of each piece of furniture, all of which sat upon a carpet of blood-red velvet. The mirrors were made of glass with solid gold trim, a purple sapphire the size of a fist inset at the top of the twin set on either side of the room. It was here that she had spoken with Oslian once before, when he had been ill and had been advised not to leave his bed. He had stubbornly refused, which came as no surprise to anyone. If he truly did not leave his bed for this summoning, it was not a large leap to assume the worst.

She came to the door which she believed led to the bedchamber. Even before touching her hand to its surface, she could tell how incredibly thick the painted wood and iron door was. She paused to take another set of deep breaths, then rapped upon the door.

“Enter.” Oslian’s voice. Strong enough to carry through the door. A good sign.

The first thing Yara saw inside the bedchamber was the Divine King’s bed, unoccupied. The white sheets with violet trim looked as though they had not been used that day. Instead, Oslian sat on an expansive couch. To his side stood Esther. There was no one else in the room.

“Sit down, Yara,” Oslian said.

Thankful for the direction, Yara bowed and took a seat at the far end of the couch.

Oslian attempted to clear his throat, then broke into a coughing fit. Yara wisely chose to look away until the Divine King had composed himself. “There are two purposes for your summoning,” he said. “The first is that I require an update regarding the information you have gathered on Woller.”

And the second?

“I have uncovered the fact that the reason he was purported to have disappeared is facetious. A relationship between Woller and a student never occurred. She told me this herself, multiple times, under… a myriad of circumstances.”

Oslian looked up to Esther. Yara was not sure what passed between the two of them, but when he looked back at her, he said, “That is not a surprise. Woller was always too blunt and rigid to seduce a woman. My suspicion that he created a lie to cover his tracks was correct. This means he is hiding something and must be found immediately.”

“I agree, Your Excellency,” Yara said cautiously. “I have agents following former friends and colleagues of Woller’s.” She wished to add more, but that was all she had. She was unprepared to deliver a report on the investigation’s progress. Saying the meager actions she had taken out loud made it all the worse. And she had left out the complications regarding the man who called himself Gregorich. In fact, she wished to glean something from Oslian or Esther which could help her determine who the man was, or for whom he was employed. But admitting there was an element to the investigation that was beyond her control was out of the question.

“Very good,” said Oslian. “I know you will find him. You have never let me down, Yara. That is why I requested your presence here.”

And yet, you do not grant me the title of Grand Advisor. A carrot for me to continue to chase, no doubt.

Oslian gave no hint as to his feelings. Speaking tonelessly, he stated, “Esther will explain the second purpose of this meeting.”

The Royal Herbalist had listened without comment thus far, as she always did. She would never deign to interrupt the Divine King, despite the fact, or perhaps because of the fact, that they had known each other for many years. Yara did not know the origin of their friendship, but she did know they had been close for decades and in the years before Oslian became the sole ruler of Vinredor. She was closer to him than anyone, by a large margin. Even when the Divine King had been known to have taken lovers, there were times when he would meet alone with Esther. The true nature of their relationship remained a mystery, even to Yara. She wished to know more, but Oslian never volunteered information regarding his relationships or his past. Caution was also always wise when dealing with the Divine King.

The Royal Herbalist clasped her hands in front of herself. “A recent examination of the royal personage was conducted. During this examination, a tumor was found within a vital organ.”

She paused then. He is dying?

No doubt Oslian had had the same thought. He would not, of course, speak it aloud, at least not in front of her. Esther as well would have known the blasphemous implications of this diagnosis. Yet nothing would be spoken. Nothing could ever be said to anyone about Oslian’s condition.

Yara could not look at Oslian. He sat on the periphery of her vision, but she refused to analyze his image. She had not prepared herself sufficiently to receive this news. Her mentor, the man who had lifted her out of poverty, was dying. She knew that with a certainty she did not want to admit. Oslian was old, and increasingly frail. He had shown signs of illness for the past few months, but Yara had chosen to ignore them. She needed Oslian to stay alive. As long as he lived, her position and status were beyond reproach. Without him… well, she could only fear the worst.

The fragility of her role as royal councilor was becoming increasingly clear. The matter of succession was never mentioned around Oslian, and he had never spoken of it as far as she knew. The common belief was that he had sired multiple bastards, but that those children, likely now adults, were being kept unaware of their royal blood until a time which the Divine King deemed appropriate, or rather, safe. Oslian also had distant relatives, who he likewise kept far away. Vinredor had not always been this way, but that was the last topic to ever address in front of the Divine King.

If, when, Oslian died, Yara now knew she would need a plan.

This day has grown unfathomably dark.

Eyes on the floor, Esther continued. “It is difficult to say how much time the Divine King has until the tumor,” here she swallowed, then tightened the grip of her grasp. “Until the tumor deactivates vital functioning.”

“Unless,” Oslian added.

Esther looked up. Yara met her eyes, then looked to Oslian whose gaze was focused on the Royal Herbalist.

“Unless we can find a cure,” Esther said.

Oslian stood then. He looked to consider reaching for support from an arm rest, then defiantly chose otherwise. “I will defeat this, as I have defeated all other obstacles in my many years. Yara, thanks to your efforts at shutting off the wastefulness of the university, the royal herbalism laboratory has obtained a tonic which grants permanent effects to its user. Esther and I are in agreement on the possibilities which this opens. It is not delusional now to say that a body could be kept healthy indefinitely. This is what I seek. This is what I shall have.”

“Our efforts have increased with our newly acquired staff,” Esther said. “The Divine King’s health is in danger, but he has time, and hope. Our priorities are shifting so that we dedicate one hundred percent of our time to curing the person most responsible for the safety and well-being of the public.”

“Yes,’ Oslian said. “The injustice of this news has not sat well with me.”

Yara and Esther both nodded. Whether from a sense of duty, due to agreement, or simply out of habit was difficult to discern.

“I have done more for this realm than any man before me. This was a nation of poverty and ignorance before I came to power. Under my guidance, schools, hospitals, factories, laboratories, and more have come into existence. The average man and woman in Vinredor has seen their wealth more than double under my rule. I have been in control of the most powerful nation in the world for the longest period of time in recorded history. Now I am to die? While others, people who have accomplished nothing in their lives, people who have wasted the very opportunities I have given them will continue to live. This is what I have earned? No. There must be a solution to this dilemma. It is only right that I live. I have earned that and more.”

He sat back down then, shaking his head. Esther went to put her hand on his shoulder, then pulled back at the last moment.

The truth of Oslian’s words is not lost on me. He is being punished while others continue to live in large part due to the improvements he has given this world. He does not deserve this, but there are many people who do.

Yara unclenched her fists. “Your words ring true, Your Excellency. And I would add, not just this nation owes you, but the world. Have not others benefitted from knowledge and developments which originated here, under your rule? The people of the world are in your debt, yet most of them are either ignorant of that fact, or resentful of it. For much of the world does not recognize you as a divine representative. When so many willfully deny the truth, there is nothing more unjust than that.”

Oslian shot up again, showing a strength that he had not displayed in months. “This is the truth of it! Yes, Yara, you have it right. Not only the people of Vinredor, but the people of the world, they owe me a great debt. Esther,” he said looking to the Royal Herbalist, “there is no time to spare. Go now and begin work on this project of utmost importance. I must hear of every step up the ladder of progress. You are dismissed, my friend.”

Esther bowed, then hurried out of the room, leaving Yara alone with the Divine King.

“Before you leave, Yara, I want you to know that your words have inspired me. When we speak again, I want you to remember them. I have been at a crucial fork in the road, and the clarity of your thoughts has pushed me in the direction I knew was correct. Thank you, Yara, my friend. My grand advisor.”

Grand Advisor. I am honored. And he has trusted me with the most secretive of information. I will not let him down.

“I am pleased I could be of service, Your Excellency. I will continue my investigation with vigor.”

“You will. I know you will.” Oslian coughed then, the horrible retching sound difficult to endure. “You are dismissed,” he said, wiping his mouth before concealing his sleeve behind a cushion.

Lydee

The psychological damage had been too much for her to withstand. For the third consecutive day, Lydee had remained in bed, only leaving the false comfort of the sheets to relieve herself and take a bit of water. She had no appetite. Her negative thoughts fueled her brain activity in a cruel cycle.

She no longer felt safe in her own home, but there was nowhere else she felt secure either. Her office had been broken into, and when she had returned home that night to see that her house had been similarly violated, she had collapsed on the floor and wept. She was still able to go through the motions of living for the next two days. Then she heard about her sister. That blow was one too many.

There were an infinite number of ways she was able to make herself feel guilty. She had not given Veabella a proper goodbye. She did not show her that she cared about her enough, not just in the last meeting, but maybe never in her life. It was undeniable now that she had never supported Veabella’s decisions, and had always acted as though she knew what was best for her younger sister.

Then again, if Veabella had listened to her, she would not be an outlaw. In which case, Lydee had no trouble blaming herself for not pushing hard enough. Perhaps she could have presented her reasoning differently. She could have tricked her into doing what she wanted. But that would be diabolical and condescending. Though Veabella would be safe now.

She should have taught classes on self-pity and how to hate yourself. There were better historians than she, but who could maneuver so deftly through any argument to find inescapable guilt?

Veabella was not the only one she was failing. Woller may already be dead. That was her fault as well. She did not reach him in time. If he was still alive, then he would not be for long. Instead of helping her friend, she lay in bed all day.

That sinister miasma of thoughts paralyzed Lydee until the fourth day of self-imprisonment, when a knock at the door brought her out of her trance.

She approached the door with a lack of caution that spoke to her extreme self-hatred, and opened it to see Richard standing before her. He had puffy bags under his eyes that made him look older and heavier. Behind him, the sun was just rising.

“You’re alive. I was worried,” Richard said softly.

“Why were you worried about me?” Lydee asked, genuinely confused.

“Last week I came to speak with you. Someone was in your house, but he or she left when I called your name. Over the past few days, I’ve come to talk to you about that, but regardless of the hour, you’ve not answered the door. Have you been out?”

“Not in a physical sense.”

“There was someone in your house, wasn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why were you looking for me?”

Richard looked back to the street. “Woller,” he whispered.

“That is why they were here, I believe.”

“Do you think it was Gregorich?”

“Who?”

“The man from the royals who is investigating Woller’s disappearance.”

I need to think. I need to sit down.

“Come in, Richard. Let’s discuss this away from the street.”

Lydee nearly fell onto her sofa. She felt as though her legs could no longer support her weight, even diminished as it was after days without eating. Richard elected to sit in a chair across from her, his eyes constantly darting around the room, then seeming to fix on arbitrary locations. Head spinning from having been upright for so long, she breathed out and closed her eyes for just a moment.

She awoke to find Richard nudging her. “Are you okay?” he asked, his gaze penetratingly intense.

“How long was I out?”

“Not even a minute. Are you ill?”

“No,” Lydee said, readjusting herself into a sitting position. “I have just… not been myself.”

“I heard about your sister. I’m sorry. I’m sure she and her company are innocent.”

“So I am. I only wonder if that will matter.”

Richard hesitated a moment, then went back to his seat. “I do not mean to rush you, but I do not have much time. You see, I have been conscripted, as it were, by the royal herbalist, Esther. I will be tardy already as it is. I hope to avoid too severe of a castigation.”

Lydee felt tears welling up in her eyes, a sensation that now felt as integral to her life as breathing. “What has happened to us, Richard?”

“Our lives have been taken from us. By Yara.”

“Who is under orders from Oslian. The one who dictates everything. Why is Esther so demanding of you? Because of Oslian Vinredor, the Divine King of Vinredor.”

“The most powerful man in the world has us under his velvet slipper.”

“The most powerful man in the world…?” Lydee said under her breath. No doubt he believes he is. But The Hero lives. The truth of that will shake the world.

“You do not look well,” Richard said. “Promise me that when I leave, you will get some fluids in you.”

He waited until she nodded, then he continued. “You have not been visited by Gregorich?”

“No. You said he was investigating Woller’s disappearance?”

“That was what he told me. Do you find it strange that someone is interested in Woller all of the sudden?”

“Only partly,” Lydee admitted.

Richard leaned forward, eyes intensely focusing on her again.

“Woller came up while I was being questioned by Yara before she closed the university,” she said. “She showed interest in his disappearance, though I do not know why. Gregorich must be working for her, looking for hints as to where Woller may have gone.”

“If the Crown is looking for Woller, we need to find him first. He was not just a colleague to me. He was a friend of my grandfather’s as well. He is a good man, Lydee. The rumors about him… they never fit together for me.”

“I feel the same. Woller is in trouble and I’m going to help him. Their intimidation tactics have worked to perfection though, haven’t they? They wanted to scare me, and they did. I apologize, Richard.”

“Your response was reasonable, Lydee. I’m sure I would have done the same. We’re not used to being the subject of intimidation and threats.”

Richard had begun to move in his seat, switching the leg he had crossed and rubbing his thighs. “I have a lead I will follow today,” she told him. “I will get in contact with you when I know more. You should go now. We don’t want to raise even more suspicion.”

“Thank you, Lydee,” Richard said, standing.

“For now, just try to stay alive,” Lydee said, only half joking.

“You as well. In fact,” he said, reaching into a pocket in his robes, “I want you to have these.” He held out three glass vials containing a greenish liquid. “Just in case you find yourself in an unfavorable circumstance.”

“One of your recipes?”

“No. One of my grandfather’s.”

“Even better,” she said under her breath.

When Richard left, Lydee forced herself to start a fire and put on a kettle of water for tea. Her body demanded that she go back to bed, but she did not give in to the allure of sleep.

Sipping the tea, she ran through what she knew and what she could possibly do to get ahead of Yara, and evidently that man Gregorich as well. Though she still did not see the relevance of what Iniko had told her of Woller’s research, it nagged at her that she had done nothing with the information. The library would be her next destination.

Another knock on the door. Dread swept through her body. She knew without any semblance of a doubt that this later caller was unwelcome. I do not want to answer that. But what will happen if I don’t?

A second knock, this one louder than the first. Lydee looked over the room for an object she could use to defend herself. A fire poker leaning against the fireplace seemed the best option, but when the image of her fighting off a sword-wielding guard with a fire poker came to her mind, she decided she would be better off unarmed and therefore unassuming.

She opened the door after the third knock to find a short man with large, dark eyebrows standing in front of her. He did not look armed nor particularly dangerous.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Good morning, professor. My name is-”

“Gregorich. You work for Royal Councilor Yara.”

The man straightened slightly. Had she been in a better physical and mental condition, Lydee may have noticed a nearly imperceptible tremor in the man’s face. “Yes,” he said. “Then, I assume you know why I have come today?”

“I do. Let me ask you, Gregorich, is this your first time at my residence?”

“It is.”

“I see. What does Yara want to know exactly?”

A brief moment, then Gregorich replied. “I am hoping to find some detail which may assist in locating your friend. As of right now, there is still not but rumors, and you know how those are. I would like to ask you some questions regarding what Woller was working on just before he disappeared. What do you know of his research? Is it possible that his studies required a visit to another region?”

“I do not know.”

“That is too bad. You see, I do not want to assume the worst for your friend. He could be traveling, and that would make my job as an investigator somewhat silly, would it not?”

“You believe he is traveling?”

“I wish I did. I apologize, but as of this moment, I do not know much about the man. It does appear as though he vanished magically.”

Silence passed between them. Lydee maintained eye contact with Gregorich, the man giving a forlorn smile.

“Do you recall the last conversation you had with him?”

“I do not.”

“Could it have been regarding his research?”

“It could have. I do not remember.”

“I am only attempting to help.”

“Of course.”

“He was a distinguished professor. I have spoken to many people during my investigation, as I do my best to be thorough. Not one person I have spoken to has had a negative word to say about him. Do you think someone could be hiding something? Is it possible the professor had an enemy?”

“You would know better than I.”

“Well,” the man said, taking a step back. “I know these conversations can be uncomfortable. Perhaps we will speak again. Oftentimes, a chance encounter or event will cause a memory to loosen and a case gets some much-needed assistance. If you remember anything at all, it could be useful to the investigation, even if it appears unrelated. Until then, thank you for your time, professor.”

Lydee watched the man walk away until he was out of sight. Still weak, she returned to her sofa and sat down, a nagging feeling growing in the back of her mind. Closing her eyes, she attempted to focus on the source of that sensation. It was not long until it came to the forefront of her thoughts. He did not give me any manner of making contact with him.

Richard

The first rain in weeks was flooding the streets, converting the city of Oslidor into a muddy swamp. Silting water rushed downhill blocking Richard’s path to the royal herbalism laboratories as he attempted to begin his conscription. His enhanced vision was not helping as water poured over his eyes incessantly, turning his world into a damp nightmare. The storm had come without warning, and without a rain cloak, Richard was so thoroughly soaked that he did not believe he would ever be dry again.

What stung most was that this was his second trip to the lab that day. The first attempt to enter his new work station had been thwarted by guards demanding identification documents. Richard had not been forewarned that he would need to provide any documentation to enter the facilities. After a few terse words, he had thrown his arms up and returned home. When the rain began, he had folded his notarized tax identification paper and tucked it into the pocket of his cloth trousers. He wondered now if the ink on the paper had run to the point of illegibility.

Deciding that it was impossible to become wetter than he currently was, Richard sighed and strode into the newly formed river. He splashed his way across the nearly knee-high, foaming water and came to the gated entrance of the laboratories. Having reached his destination, the rain mockingly began to lighten to where he could see more than five feet in front of himself. Richard called out his arrival to the guards who he could now see sitting down under the roof of the guard post. One of the four guards on duty looked up at him across from the gate, stared for a few heartbeats, then went back to playing cards with his friends.

Richard bit down hard on his lower lip as he watched the bone-dry men laughing beneath the entrance’s roof. “I have the document you requested!” he yelled through the rain.

The guard who had looked at him before stared out again. Richard was sure he could see him and was being intentionally opaque. “Is there someone there?” the man called into the rain.

“Believe it or not, there is. The person who works here who you sent away has returned. Funny that, no?” Richard called back.

The guard put a hand to his ear, then said something to his companions which made them laugh. “If there’s someone out there, show yourself. Can’t see a damn thing through this blasted rain.”

Already close enough that his nose was a fingernail’s length from touching the gate, Richard did not know what the man expected of him. He looked for a bell or chime, but found nothing. Taking a deep breath, Richard crossed his arms and yelled as loudly as he could. “I’m in front of the gods damn gate!”

The lead guard pointed across the table. The man across from him slowly stood up, took his time putting on a rain cloak, and then walked over to the gate. “There’s someone here!” he yelled over his shoulder when he saw Richard. Smiling in the smug satisfaction only achievable by the dim witted, he opened the gate for Richard to pass.

Under the roof, Richard held out his paper. The lead guard spit out some tobacco juice and took the identification document. When he unfolded it, he made a scene of flipping the paper this way and that, turning it over and upside down. “What in the Depthless Sea is this?”

“A notarized tax identification paper.”

“Don’t look like it.”

Shaking now, Richard yanked the paper out of the man’s hands. The ink had smudged beyond recognition, but the wax seal remained in decent enough condition. Richard pointed to it as he held the paper up. “This seal is from the tax ministry. You’ve had your fun, now let me in.”

The guard looked back at his friends, all of who were back sitting at the table, watching enthusiastically. “Security’s tight here. I may have to run this by a few more people.”

“If you can’t recognize the seal because you’re too idiotic, that’s not my fault. I work here now and you had better let me in as I make much more money than you and I will not hesitate to demand your dismissal.”

“I could kill you right here and now and there’s not a damn thing you can do about that.”

The gate having been locked behind him, Richard realized the man was probably correct. And at the very least, he wanted to live long enough to have him fired. That being so, Richard apologized and waited until a fancily dressed bureaucrat came out to check his document. The woman gave the seal a brief look, nodded, and walked back inside.

“Right this way,” the guard said to Richard, making a sweeping gesture with his arms which delighted his friends.

There was no indication of which direction he should head after he went through the large double doors that opened into a nondescript lobby. The woman from before sat at a desk in the middle of the room, scribbling with a quill pen.

Puddles of water trailing him, Richard approached the desk. The woman did not look up even as Richard announced, “My name is Professor Richard Dosple. I am looking for the Royal Herbalist.”

The shortest pause in writing to point to a door on her left was the only response Richard received. This has so gravely surpassed my fearful expectations that I cannot believe this is anything but a nightmare.

Through the indicated door, Richard walked into a long hallway. There were four doors on each side that he could see. He turned to look back at where he had come from, then visualized the one-way conversation he would have with the woman at the desk and opened the first door on his right. There was no light in the room, but Richard could make out stacks of crates piled up to the ceiling. Upon closer inspection, the crates nearest the door were filled with green leaves. Fisilin. A necessary ingredient for any herbalism tonic. Each crate he inspected contained the same. Richard had never seen so much of the plant before. This would last me decades. Perhaps this job will be more interesting than I had anticipated.

The new door on the right led to another room full of identical crates. The additional rooms on that side of the hall were likewise packed with herbalist ingredients, but these of a variety of types. It was not until the last room on the left that Richard finally arrived at the laboratory proper.

The room was much larger than his laboratory at the university. It was well lit with oil lanterns hanging from the ceiling and in nearly every other conceivable location, making metal and glass equipment shine in the light. Richard tried his hardest to find a single blemish on the surface of the equipment, but had no success. The only people he found were two custodians who were wringing out mops. Where is everyone else? I know I’m at least an hour and a half late.

Richard cleared his throat to get the attention of the custodians. They both looked down at the water Richard had brought into the lab, shook their heads and cursed under their breath. When Richard asked where the Royal Herbalist was, the female custodian grunted and pointed to a door at the back of the room. As Richard came closer to the door, he could hear voices on the other side.

Inside, a collection of a dozen or so individuals sat around an oval-shaped table. Three of his former students, including his unofficial protégé, Rowland, were amongst the strangers. They had all been looking over at a short, stocky elderly woman who was standing by a chalk board upon which a schedule was written.

“Are you intentionally late?” the woman asked as she placed her hands on her hips.

“I had to return home for my identification documents,” Richard replied.

“What on Earth for?”

I have made an enemy today.

“The guards insisted I show identification to enter.”

“Ah,” the woman said tapping a piece of chalk in the palm of her opposite hand. “I informed Kowleitzer that the professor would be joining us today. He must not like professors. Or, he was in a bad mood. Or he is drunk. I will fix that, whatever the issue is. You are quite wet,” she added.

“It was raining harshly during my second trip through the city.”

“Now the custodians will be upset and I will have to fix that as well. I do not have time to fix everything here. That is one reason I requested you. Not to fix things, but to give me more time. I need time. I do not have enough time.”

Richard selected not to respond and instead sat in the lone unoccupied chair which was between two woman he did not know. They feigned at not being perturbed when water splashed as he sat.

“I do not have time to call you Professor Dosple. You will be Richard. Your name is on the schedule,” the woman said. “You may call me Esther. You missed the meeting, but the schedule is self-explanatory. I have to meet with the Divine King now. Please get to work. We are low on time. It is crucial that you begin working immediately.”

With that, Esther, the Royal Herbalist, shuffled across the room and disappeared through a side door.

The communication in this facility is sorely lacking.

Everyone who was sitting had already stood up by the time Esther had left the room. They passed by Richard without comment, except for Rowland, who gave a curt hello and a lifeless attempt at a grin. A moment later, only one man remained in the room with Richard.

“Esther will want me to bring you up to date with our experiments,” the man said. “My name is Carlisle.”

Carlisle, a moderately-sized man Richard judged to be in his fifties, led the former professor to the chalkboard. “Your schedule is as you see here.”

Dawn to dusk was written at the top and underlined twice. Grimacing, Richard found his name on the left, and then followed it across the board. He was listed at being in the laboratory ‘under Carlisle’s supervision’ for the entirety of his day, with a twenty-minute break to eat. He would also be attending a meeting once a week.

“Truly illuminating,” Richard remarked.

“According to the schedule, you are to follow my instructions,” Carlisle told him. “The royal herbalist has proclaimed that our top priority is to sort out the active elements and reactions in a newly acquired tonic that provides permanence so that we may apply this effect to other, more suitable existing tonics.”

“You are speaking of the tonic which I developed in the university.”

“The royal herbalist did not elaborate on the tonic’s origins.”

“I’m telling you that I created it. If you do not want to believe me, ask her directly.”

Carlisle looked to consider the offer. He made brief eye contact with Richard, then pursed his lips. “She is simply too busy for that. Follow me, please.”

His supervisor led Richard back into what he assumed was the main lab. People were sitting at desks, looking through papers, writing notes, measuring out ingredients, and adding coal to the largest furnace Richard had ever seen. The two men continued walking until they reached a counter that protruded from the wall, its surface covered with an assortment of scales, knives, and glass oil lamps.

“As I said, our top priority is extending permanence to existing tonics. Our work has already begun on analyzing the first permanence solution so that we may transfer the active reaction to our strength tonic.”

“I can simply tell you what the reaction in my solution is.”

“The royal herbalist was clear on this.”

It took all of Richard’s strength not to throw an oil lamp at the man. He wanted to barge in on whatever council meeting or planning session Esther was attending with the Divine King, and inform them that he was taking back all of the samples of his permanent vision-enhancing tonic, destroying them, and never sharing a single piece of information on their creation. If they would not give him credit for the work he did, they could go through the efforts of doing it all again themselves.

“Your task,” Carlisle continued, ignoring the lack of response from Richard, “is to measure out fisilin in increments of quarter grams.”

This time, Richard interrupted before Carlisle could finish his statement. “I am the one who developed the tonic we are analyzing; I will not be made to do mindless grunt work. I should be leading this project.”

“The project is first and foremost about developing a permanent strength enhancement. The royal herbalist developed the strength enhancement many years ago, and is therefore most qualified to lead. Furthermore, as royal herbalist, what she dictates goes without complaint, especially from newly hired workers.”

“Hired! That’s a laugh. I was not given a choice. And why is our first task focused on a strength enhancement? There are more pressing needs. There are people who have serious medical conditions which we could relieve.”

The side of Carlisle’s mouth twitched. “This is the royal herbalism laboratory. We serve the Divine King and it is of the utmost importance that he has a strong military, a force which can defeat any enemy.”

“This nation has not been at war for decades. This is a waste of time. Time which Esther claimed was lacking.”

“You are to refer to her as the royal herbalist, and her time is lacking, yours is not. And, most importantly, it is not for you to decide. Now, we need the fisilin in the said increments up to one hundred grams by the end of your shift. I have other people who need my assistance.”

Carlisle was already walking away when Richard yelled back at him, “Where do I find a change of clothes?”

“At your home, one would assume,” Carlisle said without breaking his stride.

I need to speak with Esther. I can make her see reason if I can get her alone.

That would have to wait, unfortunately. Seeing no other options at the moment, Richard began chopping fisilin leaf, a task he would have assigned to a student as a punishment for poor marks on an exam. The injustice was duly noted and would not be forgotten.

His clothes were still drenched four hours later when he felt a presence behind him. Richard turned around, the clinging of his wet shirt making the gesture awkward and uncomfortable, to find the royal councilor, Yara standing before him.

“These are not the conditions I expected to find you in,” she said.

“Yes. This work is more suitable for an intern.”

“I meant your clothing. You are wet and malodourous.”

“Oh.” He could not think of a good response for that, though he knew one was laying in wait to surface and demand his attention once he was in bed that night.

“Despite your appearance and odor, I need to speak with you. In private.”

Richard looked at his surroundings. The room was so large, with sections blocked off by walls, that he had no idea how many people were there. He could see three right now, each roughly twenty yards away from him. He had glanced back at them periodically while he was working, but they had never attempted to look his way, at least that he had noticed. All in all, it seemed he and Yara were already isolated enough for a private conversation. “I have a lot of work to do by the end of the day, so get out with it,” he said.

“It is not for you to give me orders. Follow me, but keep your distance. I was not merely joking when I said that you have a foul odor.”

She led him back into the meeting room with the chalkboard. He had, evidently, missed his meal break. He doubted he would be allowed to take it at another time even though he had worked through it.

“Sit. Over there,” Yara said, pointing across the table to the chair furthest away from her. Richard did as he was instructed, his wet stockings irritating him with every step he took.

“What do you know of the sudden disappearance of professor Woller Doclin,” she asked once he was seated.

Again? “He was my friend and colleague. But you already know that.”

“I do.”

“Why are you asking me about him again?”

Yara’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you mean, ‘again’?”

“Your investigator, Gregorich questioned me a few days ago. Did he not report back to you? I know the communication here is less than ideal.”

Silence. The only motion from the royal councilor was the blinking of her eyes.

“Describe this man.”

“You do not even know what Woller looked like after all of this time?”

“No! Describe this man, Gregorich.”

Richard had to think about what his response should be. Something here was not right and he did not want to get even more involved in this than he already was. Is this a test of some sort? Or have I begun to unravel another layer of mystery regarding Woller?

“He was slightly shorter than me, perhaps a few years older as well.”

“What else?” Yara snapped.

“I don’t know… I believe he wore a brown shirt. I’m not sure what else to say.”

“Describe his face.”

“I do not remember it too well. He was serious looking, I suppose. Again, I believe a few years older than me.”

Intuition, and his hatred for the woman, told him not to give the detail he knew would be the most important. Let her struggle with this. She has put me in a much worse situation.

“Have you spoken of your meeting with him to anyone else?”

“No. Why are you asking?”

“He… Gregorich… over-stepped his boundaries. If he already received your information, I will speak with him and not waste your time. But do not speak of this to anyone else. If you do, I will know, and that will be a significant problem for you. Trust me on that. Go back to work now.”

Richard got up and left without comment. He believed her when she said she would not hesitate to do him harm. What he did not believe was that she would obtain any information from Gregorich. She had been knocked too much off balance for the man to simply have over-stepped his boundaries. There was more to this than that. Yara was unsettled and confused. For that, Richard was glad. It was the only positive of his entire day.

The Old Man

Year 1378 (Present day)

The elderly man with the long, white beard and hairless pate who had spoken at the village gathering was named Trounen. While closer in age to eighty than seventy, he worked still as a fisherman and butcher. The Old Man, who was making an effort to think of himself now as Gray, had learned much from Trounen regarding the history of the village and how it had grown over the years.

Trounen was one of the village’s founders, along with Harold, who came to the land nearly two decades ago. As with his talks with Harold, Gray did not learn much regarding the motivations of the settlers, only that they wanted to be far away from civilization. That the village had grown so large, now with more than seventy inhabitants, had been unexpected, and Gray suspected, undesired by the first wave of migrants.

Gray had asked only one question regarding Makani, and had asked only after her business. The store, which doubled as her house, was solely her possession now, as her husband had died five or six years ago. Trounen had started to say something else about the woman’s past, then had carefully directed the conversation back to her work as a cobbler, which everyone agreed was excellent. Gray asked after the lad, Jaroslav as well, partially out of legitimate interest, and partially to cover his question about Makani. Trounen said the boy’s father had died two years past, killed by the frostfangs which stalked the tundra. The man had been out with three other adult males, and had been the only one to perish. Trounen did not need to add that Jaroslav had been shamed by that, but he did, saying that the entire village had tired of the young lad’s preening.

He would like me to humble the adolescent, but that would at best last until I have left, only to add fuel to his fire in my absence, Gray had thought during Trounen’s indictment of the boy.

Gray had decided on an altogether different approach for dealing with Jaroslav. He had effectively made the boy his second in command in the development of the village’s defense. Whenever there was a complaint, grievance, or insignificant question, Gray directed the villagers to Jaroslav. He balanced this by training with the boy twice a day instead of the once daily regiment for the other villagers of fighting age, a metric which was in a constant state of fluctuation.

It was one of the greatest challenges Gray faced. No one knew how many Imperial Defenders would be arriving, or for that matter, when they would come. But the village could field at most fifty-four fighters, and at times that number had gone down to forty-six. All agreed that children under twelve years of age would not fight and would need to be kept inside when the attack began. There were only eight children of that age however. The borderline cases were villagers of advanced age or, in the case of two men, those with severe physical limitations.

There were other challenges as well. Only a handful of the men had ever fought before, and that experience was questionable at best. One man had insisted he had fought for the True Brothers, a mercenary company with a long history and lofty reputation. But Gray believed otherwise after seeing the way he held a sword. Then there was the problem of arming all of those adults. Chorel, the village blacksmith, was capable enough, but he could only forge so many weapons in a day. The existing arsenal consisted of a few swords, mostly rusted from disuse, a larger number of farming implements, a good supply of spears which were used for hunting and protecting the village from beasts, and a great quantity of bows and arrows, used for the same purposes as the spears.

Gray had anticipated these issues. The village consisted of people who wanted to live away from civilization. They were not fighters or leaders. What he had not anticipated was the tedious task of managing personalities and factions within the village.

I’ve never been accused of having a silver tongue. Tried my best to put myself in positions where others did the talking. At least I have Makani and Trounen.

He had relied on those two to take Harold’s place as the unofficial leaders of the village. Makani could smooth things over and make people feel as though her ideas had been their own. Trounen simply took command when needed and ended conversations with declarations that others were afraid to criticize. They held meetings and asked for supplies while Gray and Jaroslav oversaw the military operations which consisted of constructing trenches and fortifications as well as designing plans and procedures for various circumstances which Gray believed could arise depending on the training and experience of the Imperial Defenders.

The sun had just gone down after an arduous day of work which saw two villagers collapse from exhaustion. The people were a hearty lot, but Gray knew he had to continually push them to their limits. He had already pictured the ensuing battle in his mind, and each time he saw himself left standing against a score of Imperial Defenders. He was not sure whether he could manage that anymore. Once upon a time though, he would have eagerly accepted the proposal.

Gray walked with Jaroslav from the improvised training ground back to the village proper. The boy was strong and willing to learn. Although he had started as a complete novice, he had already far surpassed the others. While they practiced out of necessity, Jaroslav trained because he wished to be a great swordsman. The difference was crucial to rapid advancement.

“Do you know how to fight with a spear as well?” the boy asked.

“I do,” Gray responded without looking over.

“May we work some with spears tomorrow?”

“No. The spears will be used by those who are not strong enough to swing swords for an extended period of time. A spear is a more defensive weapon. We will leave them to others.”

He did not have to look over to ascertain the reaction of the lad.

“My mother had been training with a spear. She is afraid of using it however.”

“There’s no shame in feeling afraid. Only in acting afraid.”

They had been sparring a hundred yards from the village and were now crossing the snowy ground toward the tavern. Gray’s meals were free now, as were Jaroslav’s, a request Gray made for the impression it would make on the youth more than for any economical reason. Jaroslav had been beaming with pride during the week that Gray had been in the village, and that enthusiasm could play a defining role in the battle to come. He wondered if the boy would be insufferable after he departed and finally continued on his intended path. He was trying his best to prevent that.

So far, the boy has picked up on every subtlety I have thrown his way. I may have initially misjudged him. His pride over his father’s failing has not made him overly aggressive. It has only left in him a desire to correct what he sees as an imbalance on the scales of his life.

In fact, Gray was beginning to like the boy. He did as he was told and always, without exception, gave his utmost effort.

“Do you think my mother will fight, when the time comes?”

“I do.”

“I hope she will.”

“If enough Imperial Defenders arrive, she will have no choice.”

The comment was not meant to frighten the youth. That it did gave Gray a chill.

These people were better off before I crossed their path. True, they were living under oppression, but where is that not true in this world? Perhaps Withigan, but then that city-state is half-mad. That is what they say, at least.

How many of innocent people will die because of me? Though, what alternative did I have? To lay down and die?

The world was a simple place until people entered the picture. That was a truth Gray had learned long ago. Yet it seemed as though he could never apply the knowledge he had gained. He had lived the second half of his life as a loner, and even then, he was still finding himself entrapped by either honor or guilt, he was not sure which. When other people crossed his path, situations were muddied by emotions from which he had done his best to free himself. It also meant that others could suffer from his failures. He had already crossed half the world for someone he felt obligated to assist, and now he had an entire village depending on him.

More than seventy lives in the hands of an old man. An old man who never learned how to communicate or connect with others. Is it arrogant to view one’s own life as tragic?

Jaroslav rushed ahead to open the door to the tavern. Gray thanked his companion and stepped into the relative warmth of the building. Business had picked up since his arrival. The unnamed tavern had always been popular with the two dozen or so men and women who found comfort in ale, but now finding oneself in the tavern at the right time was seen by some as an opportunity to exert some control over the perilous situation in which the village found itself. Gray was aware of this, which was another reason he always brought Jaroslav along with him.

The cook, Lorina, had taken Harold’s place as host of the tavern until his return. All agreed that he would be back, but the shape that the man would be in when they next saw him was another question altogether. People were never more capable of evil then when their pride had been damaged, and thugs such as the Imperial Defenders were not accustomed to showing restraint. Gray hoped the man was still able to walk and feed himself, but he did not hold out much hope for that.

Lorina had saved a table for Gray and Jaroslav. She poured them both tankards of ale as soon as they sat down. “Fish stew with potatoes this evening,” she said.

“Thank you. That sounds excellent,” Gray replied.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jaroslav added.

“I’ll add some more logs to the fire as well,” Lorina said, hustling off.

Gray could tell Jaroslav enjoyed the benefits of being at his side. Now came his time to earn his payment.

Two women, a mother and daughter, stood up from the table they had been sitting at in the back, one with a clear view of the entrance. The petitioners always waited a few moments before descending upon Gray. Long enough not to seem pushy, but not too long so as to lose the opportunity to be first in line.

“Good evening, Gray,” said the mother. “Apologies for bothering you, but my daughter and I would like to request a small change to the placements of the ditches that are being dug. You see, the holes, they end right before our home. When the fighting begins, the first place people will run to…”

“I hate to be rude, but I need a moment,” Gray said, standing up.

Jaroslav took the hint. “The placement of the trenches was chosen so as to force the enemy into attacking through predetermined, narrow avenues,” he said as Gray walked away.

Back outside in the cold, Gray headed toward the tavern’s outhouse.

After finishing his business, he took his time walking back to the tavern. He knew he was being manipulative, but still considered it his best option. And it would cut down on the complaints and petitions in the end. People would get tired of taking directions from a youth and would eventually give up on holding audience with Gray. Or Makani and Trounen would become busier. But that was a positive outcome. If Harold returned incapable of leading the village, those two would have to take on the role permanently. Best get them used to it now.

The human mind’s ability to justify its own inadequacies is incredible. And there is no lack of inadequacies here. No wonder I am so adept at this.

When he entered the tavern again, the women had left and been replaced with a husband and wife, both in their late twenties. They were two of a handful of second-generation villagers who had known no other way of life than living out here in the wilderness of North Saltion. Gray wondered what their concept of the world could possibly be. Had they any idea of the enormity of the earth?

Do I? I have spent time on three continents and a score of different islands, but what else is out there? A question perhaps for when I am back in isolation.

“He will be an orphan,” the man said to Jaroslav.

“That is more likely if both of you do not fight to defend him,” Jaroslav countered.

This was the most frequent petition- people who were scared of fighting. Gray did not blame them for being frightened. He hoped they would not have to fight and if the Imperial Defenders could not muster more than a few men, it would not come to that. But if it did, they had to be ready. The unspoken question in the air was always, what happens if we win?

Would the emperor truly concede? If not, how long until the next attack? The only positive outcome Gray could imagine was that the emperor would deem the village too costly to fight over and simply found a new settlement with access to the lake. But that would mean biting down on his pride, and based on Gray’s past experience with men and women in power, that did not seem likely.

“We understand that,” the woman said. “We were just hoping…”

“My wife and I watched him against the Imperial Defenders,” the husband said as his wife buried her face in his shoulder. “He has a skill we don’t possess. I know it’s hard for you to understand; you’re a natural warrior. I wish I had half your ability, but I don’t. And my wife is even less of a fighter. I don’t think adding her to the village’s defense will make much of a difference.”

The villagers were growing more savvy each day. Flattery and manipulation were gradually pushing sympathy aside. It was a real test for Jaroslav.

“Gray trusts me to make decisions that will protect the village. We have bows and arrows for those who struggle with hand-to-hand combat. But we need everyone.”

“Mention it to Gray, please,” the husband said after a moment of deliberation. “Enjoy your meal. And thank you.”

The couple walked past Gray who made no effort to hide that he had heard the conversation. Instead, he gave them a formal greeting and headed to his table before a conversation could begin.

“You handled them well,” Gray said, sitting down.

“Thank you.”

As if she had been waiting for his arrival, Lorina bounded across the room with two plates of food. “Let me know if you need more,” she said with a genuine smile.

Gray did not have time to give his thanks for Makani burst through the front door. “Gray! Jaroslav! Come quickly!”

Outside, she spoke frantically as she commanded them to follow her.

“It’s Olisha, she’s gone.”

“She disappeared? Has that happened before?” Gray called out, running to keep up.

“Not since she was young,” was the only reply Makani gave.

She led them across the town to Trounen’s home. The elderly man was kneeling down by the fireplace, stuffing kindling into a fire that had just come to life.

“Olisha is gone,” Makani told him.

“Who was watching her?” Trounen growled, throwing down the sticks and climbing to his feet.

“No one.”

“Dammit, Makani! It’s dark out. You know she needs to stay inside.”

“She doesn’t just wander off.”

The implication of that response froze the group.

“When did you last see her?” Trounen asked.

“Not since morning. Oh, no,” Makani said softly. She reached out to steady herself against Gray. “She said she would be going out with Lorina to hunt birds. But Lorina is in the tavern, isn’t she?”

“She is,” Jaroslav said.

“Makani, do you remember if Olisha left the village at any time since Gray arrived?”

“They’re using her,” Makani cried.

“When did she go out?” Trounen said sternly.

“She said she was hunting birds. The day before Harold was taken.”

Gray rubbed Makani’s back out of instinct, then pulled his hand away, doubting his intentions. “How much information could she reasonably tell them?” he asked.

Trounen answered, as Makani’s sobbing grew louder and more desperate. “The girl is simpleminded, but if you ask her a direct question, she can answer it accurately.”

“They’ll want to know what our physical defenses look like and what kinds of weapons we have. Even if she doesn’t know the full scope of what we’re planning, they will realize we plan to draw them toward choke points and batter them with arrows.”

“It’s not her fault, I know it isn’t,” Makani said, her voice muted through Gray’s coat.

“I don’t doubt that,” Trounen said. “She’s not capable of hatching a plan like this. They likely promised her something in return for her report. I wonder how long this has been going on.”

“What will they do with her now?”

Trounen shook his head. “They can’t send her back. They’ll know we would interrogate her to learn what questions they asked.”

“Even if they know what our general plan is, that doesn’t mean they have an option other than stepping into it,” Gray said.

Makani pounded a fist into Gray’s shoulder. “But what about Olisha?”

“We will have to hope for the best,” Trounen said. “I don’t want to seem callous, but we have other, more pertinent concerns now. The others will be increasingly distrustful. And they will question your allegiance, Makani. People are frightened, and you have looked after the girl since her parents died. They will suspect you.”

Makani’s sobbing continued as though she had not heard Trounen’s commentary.

Gray put his arm around Makani and stood up straighter. “Then they can come to me with their suspicions. Makani’s duties stay as they are.” He turned to Jaroslav. “If anyone raises doubts about Makani, you send them to me.”

“I will, sir.”

“Thank you, Gray,” was all that Trounen said. But Gray read much more into that statement. Gray knew what Trounen was thinking, and he was right.

This is all my fault.

Cupela

Year 1348 (Thirty Years Prior to Present Day)

A few days in the laboratory had been long enough. The tension in that underground facility had been stifling. Cupela had speculated at the hatred between Hrent and Piroska and how it had broken the team so thoroughly that everyone had stopped working. Then, after further examination, the real shock was that it had not occurred earlier. Without Enfildio’s presence in the lab, the long stretches of work in close proximity were too much. Even if the five herbalists had been compassionate and empathetic, which would be a generous description, they would have cracked eventually.

Her task this day was to deliver a gift to the master herbalist’s grandson, a simple but enjoyable excursion. It was always invigorating to step out into the city, even with the horrid heat of the late afternoon, and Cupela would have liked to extend her time outside as long as she could. She was aware however, that Enfildio knew the exact amount of time it took to get to his grandson’s house, and that he was more than capable of monitoring her time away from the lab while managing half a dozen other tasks. Even among geniuses, Enfildio stood out as exceptional.

His grandson lived in the wealthy neighborhood of Peridot. Each time Cupela passed through the rows of houses, each with an elaborate marble fountain to display the wealth of their owners, she pictured herself living there when her work on the immortality tonic was complete. She enjoyed fantasizing about living alone in a large house, with thousands of square feet all to herself. She did not know if she would ever be able to live with others again after the experience of being in such close quarters with five, now six, others. And she was the lucky one of Enfildio’s assistants who was allowed to leave the facility occasionally. She felt sympathy for the others, though she never mentioned it aloud. Likely they would only take her concern as gloating. No doubt they all wished to exchange roles with her and be the one who got to experience something resembling a real life, at least from time to time. Thinking on it now, she was somewhat surprised at the lack of resentment she felt from the others. Most likely this was due to their more overt issues with each other. She had no doubt that Hrent did not like her, but his hatred for Piroska provided him with an even better target for his anger, and vice versa. Ubul would never say anything in front of her, even though she believed he was thinking it. As for Jezmavalin, Cupela wondered if she actually followed the rules. If she did not, Enfildio certainly would know. Then the question became, did he choose to punish her?

Best not to think on that. A beautiful woman lives on a different plane than the rest of us. I may not like that, but it is no different anywhere else in the world. My list of issues with Jezmavalin is long enough without adding envy to the dossier.

She thought then about that awkward man who had accosted her in the library, and had then appeared with the captain of The Blades at The Roots, a bizarre coincidence which she had hardly believed. He had looked at her in a way no one had ever done before; the way all men gazed at Jezmavalin. She should have been flattered, but instead, she had felt unease. Was that what Jezmavalin experienced when all eyes were on her? The thought was laughable. That woman always appeared to relish and encourage the attention, even while feigning indifference. As for me, well, perhaps there is only one person’s admiration which I desire.

She reached her destination and strode up the pathway to the house’s entrance. The grounds were immaculately kept, as always. Enfildio paid landscapers and servants to look after the upkeep of the residence, as the boy’s parents were both deceased.

That is his reason for this project. Enfildio does not want to see another loved one die. I wonder where I would be, and what I would be doing, if his daughter and her husband still lived? It is fascinating how one event can change the trajectory of so many lives.

Enfildio had told her the story in bits and pieces. It was obvious that recalling the details and speaking them out loud was painful for the man, and so he had shared with her what he could endure during late nights when he needed companionship more than anything else.

Cupela was not sure on the exact timeframe, but based on the age of the boy, his parents could not have died more than a decade ago. Her understanding was that Enfildio’s daughter had fallen ill and her husband had blamed himself. She was unclear on whether the man had actually done something wrong, or whether his guilt was irrational. But the woman’s illness became severe enough that Enfildio had stopped working on other projects for some time in an attempt to find a cure. He failed, of course, and she died. The unknown illness took her before her thirtieth birthday. Then, it took another life. Her husband, drowning in guilt, poisoned himself.

Enfildio contacted the boy’s great aunt and brought her to the city to raise him. He would have done it himself, but he had a more important task that only he could complete. In confidence, he had told Cupela that he would never allow his grandson to die. That promise was the origin of the hidden laboratory and all the clandestine operations which now fully encompassed the lives of seven people. She hoped it would be worth it in the end, though she was not as optimistic as Enfildio.

She knocked on the door and a boy answered.

“Hello, Richard,” Cupela said as cheerfully as she could.

The boy looked up at her, and as their eyes locked, his innocent smile began to turn to a grimace. Erden was right, then. I look as poorly as I feel.

Recalling his manners, the body looked down for a moment before collecting himself and returning her smile. As usual, he was dressed in the finest new clothes, and all in black, just like his grandfather. That had been Richard’s choice. The boy idolized Enfildio, a characteristic that he shared with Cupela, she had to admit.

“Is my grandfather coming to see me today?” Richard asked.

“I’m afraid not. He just returned home and has much to attend all at once. But he did not forget you.”

Reaching into the satchel at her side, she removed a thin, rectangular box, and passed it to Richard. The boy cocked his head slightly to the side when his eyes met the yellow bow Cupela had tied to the gift. He took the box enthusiastically and held it inches away from his face.

“I think it’s a book,” he declared.

Untying the bow and removing the top confirmed his prediction. Cupela was curious as to whether the boy knew how expensive the item was. The technology involved in printing and binding paper to a hard cover was not only new, but rare and costly. Another marvel from Enfildio’s old friend, Clarimonda. The woman is a wonder, assuming she actually created everything he claims she has.

“It’s a book on herbalism,” Richard said, flipping through the pages. The grin on his face forced Cupela to suppress a laugh. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a famous herbalist, just like my grandfather. We will work together and invent all sorts of amazing tonics. Maybe I can work with you, too,” he said looking up at her.

Divine Ones save me from remaining in the laboratory when this boy is a grown man.

“Perhaps,” she said. “What do you know of herbalism?”

The boy scrunched his face into a puzzled look. “It involves balancing the quantities of different ingredients which are mixed in intense heat.”

“Oh. I think this book will suit you quite well,” Cupela said. “Your grandfather also wants to know how your schooling is progressing.”

“It’s wonderful. My teacher, Ms. Ulfle is very nice and she knows many things. She is from northern Ebanigan though, so she complains about how hot it is here. But I like her and she allows me to play with her cats.”

Funny how children’s expertise can be so rigidly partitioned.

“Are you learning a lot? And you have been receiving high marks?”

“Yes!”

The boy looked eager for more information regarding his grandfather, but Cupela was unsure what she could say, as Enfildio had given her no order other than to deliver the package. “I have to be going now,” she said. “I’m glad you like the gift. You know your grandfather chose it especially for you.”

“I know. I’m going to read the whole thing today. Ms. Ulfle gives me one day off a week.”

That’s more than I receive from your grandfather. Though, I’m sure I make quite a bit more than Ms. Ulfle.

“That sounds like a wonderful way to pass your free time. I have something else for you which will make your reading all the more enjoyable.”

“The candies!”

Cupela laughed as she withdrew a wrapped sphere of canvas which she had kept in her satchel and handed it the boy. “From my hometown of Terizon. The sweetest treats in the world. For a sweet boy.”

“Thank you so much! This is a wonderful day!” Richard said as he looked for a way to untie the package.

“It was lovely to see you, Richard. Until next time.”

“Thank you so much for the gifts. Tell my grandfather ‘Hello’ and that I want to see him very soon.”

“I will.”

She enjoyed these visits. They reminded her of Enfildio’s softer side. Richard was a nice boy and he seemed happy, especially considering the tragedy that had befallen his parents. Whenever she would leave his residence, after dropping off a gift, giving money to his aunt (which was always done out of the boy’s sight), delivering a letter, or just checking on his well-being, Cupela wondered at the boy’s future. If Enfildio succeeded with his ambitions, the boy would have, quite literally, all the time in the world to spend with his grandfather. But if Enfildio, Cupela, and the others failed, the boy would end up passing to adulthood without having spent much time with the man he so admired, for Enfildio was always busy. If he was not in the laboratory, he was gathering ingredients, making business deals, or conducting research. He spent a small fortune on the boy, and cared for him deeply, but Cupela knew that what Richard wanted most was to be around his grandfather. She did not think Enfildio had picked up on that, and she thought it outside of her boundaries as an employee to mention it to him. Well then, just another reason we must succeed.

The errands Enfildio had her run gave Cupela the only opportunities she had to maintain her actual life, as miniscule as it was. The salary she earned was immense, and as she had no current use for the money, she sent it home to Terizon, where her seven younger siblings lived. At twenty-six years of age, Cupela was the eldest by five years, the youngest of the family but ten. Their parents had died from an influenza which had ravaged the town three years earlier. It was during that outbreak that Enfildio had discovered her.

He had tracked the illness from the port city of Tides, through Agaveton and to Terizon. He had been developing a tonic which could prevent the sickness, but the influenza spread quicker than he could create the formula, and thousands of people continued to die. He believed he had beaten the outbreak to Terizon, but he had been tragically incorrect.

Curious and highly intelligent, Cupela had taught herself to read, becoming one of the only citizens of Terizon who could do so. She had learned from copies of the town’s records when she followed her mother on her trips to clean the town hall. Her parents had been proud of her, though they did not see any practical application for her skills. Enfildio saw things differently.

Cupela had had no time to mourn, for she needed to feed her siblings. The sickness had attacked Terizon indiscriminately, taking the lives of three of the town’s councilors. Cupela stepped in to assist the remaining two councilors settle legal matters and send letters to Oslidor requesting aide. When Enfildio arrived, he was impressed that the young woman whose parents had been impoverished had taught herself to read. Over time, Cupela had grown to believe the master herbalist had also been motivated by a feeling of failure for having arrived too late to help her parents, and had seen in her the same loss he had suffered when his daughter and son-in-law had died a few years earlier. That he had taken her away from a life of poverty had forever indebted her to him. Her employment meant she could support her brothers and sisters, and so she sent them every last tenth-jewel.

The Topaz merchant district was buzzing with life at this time of day as she entered its well-worn but well-maintained streets. Cupela knew she should not be away from the workshop for long, and so she sidled past pedestrians and around carriages in a rush to her destination. Now just outside of the building, she looked up, half expecting it to have disappeared, as if she had only dreamed its existence, as she always did when she went to The Roots.

Finder answered the door, unsurprisingly, as he was the only person she had ever seen do so, regardless of the time of day or night. He gave her a short bow, and allowed her to enter. “He is at his usual table,” the man said.

She found Marshaw in the second room on the right, deep in conversation with a woman wearing a mask of dark gray with yellow adorning the edges. The two of them sat beside each other, a stack of papers, an inkwell, and a glass of brandy between them. “If I have heard nothing, then there is nothing to be concerned over. There are no records, nor any reason for suspicion.” Marshaw said to the masked woman. “You worry too much, my friend.”

He looked up and smiled at Cupela. The woman beside him may have done the same, but her face was unreadable behind the mask. She faced Marshaw again, who lightly touched her shoulder. “I do appreciate how cautious you are. But they do not allow just anyone to enter. That is a dear friend of mine. Now, is there anything else weighing on your mind?”

“Not for the moment,” the woman said as she stood. “Thank you. I will try to find comfort in my faith.”

“That is the way of it. His foresight protects us all as long as we do not waver.”

The masked woman left without another word, sliding past Cupela and through the doorway.

“I apologize if I interrupted you,” Cupela said.

“I’m rather glad for the interruption. It saved me from the same conversation I’ve been having for years. Need me for a delivery?”

“I do.”

“The same as usual?”

“Yes,” Cupela said, opening her satchel and removing a pouch of coins. “How are they doing?” she asked.

“I could tell you, or I could have them speak for themselves,” he said, leaning over. He rummaged through a bag on the floor before sitting back up and passing her a scroll.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Who wrote this?”

“Your sister,” Marshaw said, his pride written plain on his face. “Do you know how much coin you have sent them over the years? More than enough for the youngest to pay for lessons. She wants to be like you, Cupela—a woman of letters.”

Tears began to well up in her eyes as she untied the parchment. Although she had always believed in this man who Finder had vouched for (high praise according to Enfildio) she had never known for certain whether he had delivered the money she earned. She had never wished to consider the possibility that he had been cheating her. Now she held proof of his fidelity.

She had to wipe her eyes every few sentences, and many of the words were spelled incorrectly, but she made it through the message. Her family was flourishing due to her work with Enfildio, and her sister had promised she would teach the other siblings to become literate as well. It makes the long days and nights worth it. Even if we never reach our goal, I have done this.

Marshaw waited until Cupela had retied to scroll to speak again. “My agent who makes the deliveries said your family lives in a new house now, one of the largest in the town. I hope that you are able to see it soon.”

“As do I. Alas, I am too occupied with my work to even leave the city.”

“A situation with which I am familiar. Do you wish to send a message as well?”

“I will write one,” she said, her face beaming.

She left The Roots in the best spirits she could recall, her family, and her youngest sister most of all, on her mind. Now to deal with my other family, she thought as she opened the hidden entrance to the workshop.

The gloom of the descent into the laboratory was enough to make Cupela wish she had been given more errands to run. Hrent being the first person she encountered upon entering the lab amplified that longing.

“Cupela,” he said, checking the room to see if anyone else was nearby. “What is wrong with the new girl you brought here? She hasn’t looked me in the eye once.”

“She’s incredibly shy. But she’s smart. She was the top student at The Scholar’s Guild, and the next two people she beat out were not slouches.”

“The Scholar’s Guild does not impress me,” Hrent snarled. “Perhaps a century ago it was something to preen over. The papers I have read that originated there in the recent past have been self-congratulatory drivel.”

“I may have to agree with you on that. Nevertheless, I assure you Sarah’s intellect is world class. And, I should add, if she passes Enfildio’s standards, that should be enough for you.”

The short man’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, while making his posture as straight as possible. “Still, I thought Piroska was ugly. This new girl looks like a hybrid of a mule and an ostrich.”

“Marginalizing her before she out-performs you?”

A flash of anger across Hrent’s face. “You wouldn’t say that if you truly believed it,” he said, swiftly walking away.

Where are the others? No surprise that they wanted to be away from Hrent, but I do not see signs of anyone at all.

A cursory look around the lab found it empty, a rare occurrence. Enfildio had a separate chamber where he would work alone, but the others shared the expansive main space. Now more than ever, Enfildio’s assistants attempted to work in as isolated conditions as possible, meaning there was always someone in his or her room while others worked. It seemed unlikely that they were all in their rooms now though, especially Sarah who had just arrived and had so much to learn simply to catch up with the others.

When Cupela heard Hrent slam the door to his room, she began the second phase of her search. Starting with Jezmavalin’s room, she put her ear against the doors of each room and listened for any sign of conversation. Nothing at all. Until she reached the door to Enfildio’s living quarters.

Unlike the other herbalists, Enfildio’s private space consisted of three rooms. He had his own privy while the others shared, a personal workroom, and a bedroom. Cupela could hear voices on the other side of the door. It had been more than a year since the last time any of the assistants other than her had been in Enfildio’s private space. At least that she knew of. There was a perpetual shared skepticism regarding Jezmavalin’s comings and goings and it was not difficult for Cupela to imagine a man welcoming that woman into his personal living quarters when no one else was looking. Other than that, Enfildio had used the space sparingly to give demonstrations to the others, and even that had declined over time. It was in fact an unspoken rule of the facility that no one knock on Enfildio’s door unless there was a matter of the utmost importance. The circumstances here were strange enough that Cupela felt comfortable knocking. Or, perhaps her curiosity was such that normal constraints were not sufficient to prevent her from acting.

Laughter behind the door now. Cupela knocked a second time, louder. Enfildio opened the door and looked at her quizzically. “Yes?”

“I delivered the gift to Richard,” Cupela said, trying not to make it obvious that she was attempting to look past her employer to discover with whom he had been speaking.

“Thank you,” Enfildido said.

“Would you like me to help Sarah learn the equipment?”

Enfildio moved to the side slightly. Sarah was behind him, seated in a stool at a large desk. On the desk were tools of measurement, vials for holding liquids, a metal clamp used to extract liquid from plants, and other instruments and equipment which Cuplea had just alluded to.

“I see,” was all Cupela said in response to the revelation.

“Thank you for offering, but I think it is best if I do this myself. Here.”

“Where are the others?”

“Sleeping, I assume. Perhaps pouting, in some cases. The exertion of a full day’s work may have exhausted them, seeing as how it was the only activity in which they partook, other than arguing, for some time now.”

“I see. Well, I will continue with my research then. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“Not at all. Good day.”

With that, he closed the door. Cupela stood in place until she heard the talking on the other side of the door resume. Laughter again. For no reason, Cupela rubbed at her eye.

Veabella

They finally came to a full stop hours later. Meffas motioned for them to reign in their mounts and follow him down into a gulch which cut across the plains. The descent had been easy although the natural trench was two man heights high at certain places. Once dismounted, they were out of sight from surface level. Veabella had been unable to put together fully formed thoughts during the ride, the combination of shock and utter confusion too much for her to handle, and she had decided simply to focus on riding. It was easier and likely necessary.

Meffas rubbed the back of his neck, then looked over his crew. Even Ictorian seemed uncertain of what action to take, if any. Veabella had never seen the strong, dour man so visibly shaken. Evidently, fighting deadly beasts required a much different disposition than fighting humans. Especially when accusations had been thrown, making supposed murderers out of the hunting company.

“I know you are all hoping I have at least a small insight as to what in the Depthless Sea just happened, but I do not. I was as blindsided as the rest of you. Yes, I know that is not helping. I’m just putting it out there so we’re all on the same page.”

Veabella and the others stood motionless. A light breeze passed overhead. The horses stammered in place against the reigns which their riders held tightly.

“I see two possibilities,” Meffas continued. “The first is that there has been a mistake and we have been confused with another hunting company. I see this as unlikely for a number of reasons. First off, all of the other guild companies attended the tournament, either as participants, or spectators. Secondly, we were the only company from Ebanigan, making us unique enough to stand out and therefore difficult to mistake for another group.”

“The other possibility is this,” Meffas said, looking away for a moment. He turned his eyes back to the men and women in front of him. “We have been set up. Someone has decided to blame us for murder. Murders, in fact. Of perhaps nearly one thousand people.”

“Why?” Twig said. Veabella looked over at him. The innocence in his tone made him appear half his age.

Meffas shook his head. Two dozen heartbeats passed before he said “I do not know, Twig. I do not know why we were singled out. Right now, I hope it was simply because we were the easiest target. As awful as that would be, I can think of worse scenarios.”

“You believe we were a good choice to be blamed because we were the only company from Ebanigan,” Xopher said. “And…”

“Because we dropped out of the tournament. Aye, that is what I believe,” Meffas said.

Veabella could hear the pain in his words. He blames himself for this. The injustice of that stung her and made her eyes water. He took an unpopular action under the belief that it would save us from harm. And in return, he has made us fugitives. It is not fair.

Ictorian moved to stand next to Meffas. “At the moment, this is all speculation,” he said. “Though, I will admit I am inclined to agree with Meffas’s deductions. A foreign company could be blamed without retaliation within Vinredor. If we follow that path of thinking, we have other pertinent questions to answer as well. Who, in reality, committed the poisonings, and why would they want so many people dead?”

“Were all of the attendants the intended targets, or just a few individuals?” Meffas asked. “Did the killer or killers want everyone dead, or did they only seek to leave no witnesses?”

Ictorian nodded. “Yes. And when did the poisonings occur? When did the victims die? There are many factors here that require thought.”

“We are unfortunately in no position to find answers to those questions at the moment,” Meffas said.

“Then what will we do?” Veabella asked, surprised she had spoken the question aloud.

“We are not safe in Vinredor, that is for certain,” Meffas replied. “Our first priority is to get back home. Once we are out of the reach of the Vinredorian law enforcement, we need to meet with the guild in Goldcrest. They will have heard of the poisonings by the time we reach them. They may have more information about what happened. And from there… we will have to decide that based on what we learn. For now, we need to eat quickly and get some rest. I believe we are far enough out of the way as to avoid detection. Still, we will have to travel by night until we pass the border.”

The crew broke their stances and turned their attention to their mounts, eager to find work which they could focus on, filling their minds with what was physically in front of them, to take the place of repetitive thoughts. Veabella noticed that Donnes remained standing in place, only shifting her grip on the two-handed axe which she was leaning against.

“Are you alright?” Veabella asked her friend.

“He did save us, you know,” the burly woman said.

“Hm?”

“He blames himself for this, but he saved our lives. If we had remained in the tournament, we would be dead, too.”

“I did not think of that. You’re right. We should tell him.”

“Not yet. He is not ready to hear that yet. He still needs time to beat himself up.”

Veabella furrowed her brow. “What?”

“He’s stubborn that way. We can tell him later.” Without a further word, Donnes went to her horse, leaving Veabella to stare at her back, dumbfounded.

Over the course of the next two weeks, the landscape gradually shifted from rolling hills of patchy bushes to large groupings of beech and oak trees, the soil darker and more solid. Along with the change in terrain, the weather became more temperate. The company made as few stops to resupply as possible, and even then, only one rider ever entered a village. Veabella had always thought of Meffas as cautious, and he seemed to be growing even more so. She thought it unlikely that word had reached the nondescript villagers before they did, but Meffas would take no chances.

They mostly rode out of eyeshot from the roads, and always at night. They headed north by northwest, riding from sundown to sunup, until they finally crossed over from Vinredor into Ebanigan. Once they had left Vinredorian territory, the sense of relief that emanated from each of them was palpable. After a final night of riding after dark, Ictorian had taken Meffas aside. They spoke in private, and the next morning, Meffas announced that they would slow their pace and complete the last few days of riding on a more typical schedule.

The friends began to joke again, and conversations flowed in a manner that was reminiscent of the old days. As much as Veabella wanted to reach the hunter’s guild, she also savored this time of normalcy. She did not know what news would be revealed when they were back in the capital. The future was in flux, and she was having a difficult time convincing herself that everything would go back to the way it once was.

They rode now on the Jeweled Road, the main thoroughfare that connected Oslidor, the capital of Vinredor to Goldcrest, the capital of Ebanigan. The road’s condition did not live up to its lofty name. Neither nation wished to pay for upkeep on infrastructure that they claimed the other one benefitted from more. Of jewels, there were none to be seen. Instead, the gravel was scarred with holes that could easily break a wagon wheel.

Even with the road in poor condition, thousands of people relied on it every day. Safely within the borders of Ebanigan, Veabella still found herself looking away as they passed riders on horseback, merchant wagons packed with goods, and even people on foot. Twig and Donnes did not share her concern. They spoke loudly, often attempting to settle old bets, never once so much as shifting in their saddles when a stranger passed. Veabella found great comfort in hearing them resume their old bickering.

Two days ride from Goldcrest, they stopped in a village called Mininlor. Veabella had passed through there a handful of times in the past, and the company had even spent a night there on their way to Oslidor. Located at the edge of a forest of oak and chestnut trees, the village was large enough to support two inns. There were towns closer to the city, but at that proximity, crime became a concern. This far out, the village inhabitants would not consider crossing with armed men and women. Thus, it was a safe place to enjoy a good meal.

Veabella took point and led the company down dirt streets to the inn they had stayed at just over a month ago. It was early evening, less than an hour before sundown, but villagers were still out and about, walking home from jobs as loggers, fur trappers, and hunters. Not, of course, the same breed of hunters as Veabella and her company. The more mundane type who killed animals for meat, working a simple job that did not incur any serious risks. She doubted any of them had even been face to face with a beast the size of a horse, with fangs as long as an adult human’s fingers.

She wondered at the simple, but seemingly pleasant lives these people led. They did not go on adventures and did not have epic tales they could share. On the other hand, they would almost certainly never by mauled to death, and being framed for murder would have never crossed their minds even under the influence of alcohol.

Past a lumber mill, located between granaries, was their destination, The Foxhole. The inn was three stories tall, made out of the hard oak that was found in the nearby forest. The company had unanimously agreed to stay the night there for one reason- the food. The ale was strong, and the meal of venison and wild mushrooms they had devoured on their last trip had been worth much more than the price they paid. Veabella could not wait to sit down and see what was being served this night.

Ictorian volunteered to hobble the horses and Meffas went to work on acquiring and paying for sleeping quarters. Meanwhile, the four younger members of the company gleefully sat down in the cool first level of the tavern.

Even Xopher appears to be in a good mood. He is not usually a heavy drinker, but something tells me that he will imbibe quite a lot tonight.

Twig bought the first round, supposedly with coin that he had won from Donnes on a bet regarding the Divine Queen Sayel Ebanigan’s number of lovers. Donnes called foul on Twig’s claim that he had won. How the two intended on ever settling the bet was a mystery to Veabella.

A serving girl, looking to have just reached adolescence, brought them their tankards and told them that a meal of rabbit stew with pumpernickel bread and goat cheese would be served that night. Veabella ordered a double helping for all six compatriots, under the assumption that she would be able to eat anything the others did not finish.

“Finally a decent drink!” Twig said, wiping his mouth. “Having nothing but water for weeks was torture, and we haven’t even been caught yet.”

“Shut up, Twig,” Xopher snarled. “We may be in Ebanigan, but that doesn’t mean you need to talk so cavalierly.”

“You need to learn to relax,” Twig said with a dismissive waive of his free hand. After another long drink, he leaned back in his chair. “Meffas will sort it all out. That’s what he’s good at. See, everyone in this company has their role. Meffas makes arrangements, I’m the brains, Ictorian is tall, Veabella asks questions, Xopher broods, and Donnes looks funny. We fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Donnes smacked the little man on the back of his head, producing a pathetic yelp.

“There’s a brain in there?”

“That was really hard,” Twig said, rubbing his head.

Meffas arrived and pulled a chair up next to Twig. “Three rooms for the night. Ictorian and I will share. Twig, you’re with Xopher. Vea with Donnes.”

“Did I do something to deserve this punishment?” Xopher asked.

“If he snores, just hit him,” Meffas said, giving Donnes a wink.

“The lack of respect that I receive is scandalous,” Twig remarked. “I saved us from those guards, I’ll have you know.”

“Let’s keep talk of that down until we’re in a less public place,” Meffas whispered after the others had finished sharing their thoughts on Twig’s proclamation.

As Ictorian strode over to join them, the serving girl, carrying a tray packed with so much food that it looked as though it weighed more than she did, bumped into the tall man. In a crash of clay bowls and plates, stew sprayed out onto the dirt floor.

“Let me help you,” Ictorian said, lifting the girl up in his muscular arms.

Veabella and Meffas went over to assist, as well. The liquid was forming brown rivers on the ground in all directions.

A man in a stained apron rushed over to the serving girl. “Jilana, are you hurt?” he asked.

“No,” the girl said. “I’m sorry, Cadeo. I should not have tried to carry it all at once.”

The cook brushed dirt from her elbow. “Consider it a lesson learned. No one serves for long without making a similar error. Even I have dropped more meals on the floor than I care to admit.”

He then looked at the hunters. “I apologize. I’ll have your food just as soon as this mess is cleared away. And a round of ale on the house for the wait.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Meffas said.

“But I will. Thank you as well for helping Jilana.”

A patron shambled across the room and looked down at the soggy food-covered floor. “Looks worse than what I just vomited,” he said with a laugh before taking a drink from his tankard and stumbling to the table directly behind Veabella.

Twig leaned out from his seat to look at the floor. “I’ve seen worse,” he drawled.

When the food was removed and sand had been poured over the remaining liquid, Cadeo and Jilana brought the crew’s replacement meals and they energetically attacked their stew. As they ate, the drunken man behind Veabella began speaking to himself. She was unfortunately able to make out the entire one-sided conversation.

“Soon, it will be soon,” the man blathered. “Across the sky, so that all can see it. A brightness to illuminate our dark nature. Won’t the Divine Rulers be thrilled. Deny it, distract from it, claim it as their own, they will. But it will be too late. The world will have seen. The second fulfillment!”

“What is that man carrying on about?” Xopher asked.

“I believe he is speaking of a prophecy of The Path,” Veabella answered.

Xopher scoffed. “Out loud? Even drunk I would think he would have more sense.”

At that, the man rose from his seat. Weaving slightly, he attempted to steady himself and then walked over so that he could put his hands down on the hunters’ table.

“Nothing I said is not truth,” the man said.

“Do you not know where you are?” Xopher asked. “It is illegal to support The Path in a royal country.”

“Do I know? I know better than you do,” the man said. “I lived through the purge.”

“We’re sorry for interrupting you,” Meffas said. “May I buy you a drink as an apology?”

The man nodded. “You may. But there is no need to apologize. I survived the purge, and I will survive whatever they do next. There are more treaders of The Path than they know. They will find that out, soon enough.”

“Let me get that drink for you,” Meffas said, searching the room for the serving girl.

“And one for the rest of you, to forget your troubles.”

Meffas slowly turned his body to face the man. “Pardon?”

“With Vinredor. They want you still.”

Veabella saw that Xopher had moved his right hand under the table. She hoped it would remain there.

“What are you speaking of?” Meffas asked.

“You have a secret of mine, and I have one of yours, so we are equal. Worry not, I am no fan of the Divine Rulers, so you have nothing to fear.”

The man glanced at Xopher, who sat straight as an arrow, one hand on the table and the other beneath it, staring at the drunkard.

“Forget the drink,” the man said. “I have had enough already and it is getting dark. Good night to all of you. And do not fret, The Hero watches over you as he does all of us.”

He placed his tankard down next to Veabella and stumbled out of the tavern.

“Should I pursue him?” Xopher asked.

“No,” Meffas said. “He spoke too openly to be lying. He is a follower of The Path, and the last thing he wants is attention from the authorities. Let us view that as a lesson in why we need to be discreet--- there are always people listening. Now, let’s finish our meals and go to sleep.”

Veabella went back to her now lukewarm bowl of stew. As she swirled her spoon through the remnants of her meal, she thought on how her life and the life of her companions had changed so drastically. It did not appear to be a change for the better.

Richard

Year 1378 (Present Day)

His laboratory was nearly empty. The test subjects and most of the equipment had been transported to the royal herbalism laboratory. Richard himself had been ordered to be there the next day. He was still in a state of semi-denial in regards to the entire situation. That his life had so dramatically shifted, and in such a negative direction, in such a short span of time, and from out of nowhere left him in a mental haze. He knew what was happening, but the feelings that should be associated with his situation were not fully present. He suspected the finality of walking into Esther’s laboratory would bring them forward in a torrent of despair.

His students had also been conscripted. That was the word for it. None of them were given a choice, and all had been too fearful to even ask questions. They simply followed the orders. Richard did not like the implications of that conformity. It made him question whether the university was in fact a failure. If education had not instilled a sense of skepticism and a need to ask questions, then perhaps Yara had been correct that the institution needed to be gutted.

As he looked around at the workshop and dust-covered floors, he saw that nothing that had been considered of value to Esther’s current or future research remained in Richard’s laboratory.

Except me. I think.

He was unclear on what his new role would be because no one had given him any idea of what he would be doing, other than working for Esther. Would he still be in charge of his former students? Would he be able to pursue any of his own ideas? Would he be allowed to continue with his development of tonic effect permanence? He had the feeling that he would not like any of the answers he was going to receive.

Tomorrow he would begin his work under the royal herbalist, a woman who was said to be as close to the Divine King as anyone in the nation.

And what will the Divine King ask of us? I am sure it will be distasteful. Elixirs to boost the deadliness of the military, explosive tonics which burn through flesh. Wouldn’t my grandfather be proud?

He was sitting on a box filled with papers, not wanting to finish clearing the room for fear that emptying the laboratory would help usher in the truth he wished to deny, when a voice called for him.

A man he had never seen before was approaching. He was small in stature, his only remarkable trait the bushy eyebrows that seemed to take up too much of his face. With his newly improved vision, Richard could make out a few gray hairs among the black, and a tiny pimple peeking through the top of the right brow. “Good afternoon,” he said. “I hope I am not interrupting anything.”

“No. Just cleaning up.”

“So I heard. It is unfortunate. I would like you to know though, it is true what royal councilor Yara told you, we are struggling to find funding. I’m sure that does not soften the blow right now, but I want to mention it nonetheless.”

“You’re from the Crown then?”

“Indeed.”

“Are you here to drag me to my new overlord?”

“I am not. That is not my department. My name is Gregorich. I am here on an unrelated matter. I am searching for a missing person. I am sad to say this is how I spend my days, and that those days are quite busy.”

The man had Richard’s attention now. Had one of his students fled the city? He had considered that himself, however briefly. “Who are you looking for? Someone I know I assume.”

“I believe so, yes. A former colleague of yours. Professor Woller Karuvian.”

Woller? Did that girl’s family learn of what happened? Why now?

“I did know him. I haven’t seen him in years.”

“No one has. Thus, my involvement.”

Richard did not know what to say, and if he had, he would have been too scared to say it. His nerves had already endured too much in the past week.

“Could you please tell me what you remember from the last time you saw or spoke with Professor Karuvian?” the man asked in a properly polite tone.

Richard recalled the last time he said seen his friend, and had in fact combed over the encounter in his mind dozens of times, looking for hints. But not just hints as to why Woller disappeared later that week. Also hints as to why Woller had asked him so many questions. Questions about his past. He had been unable to connect Woller’s questions about his past to the man’s fleeing the city. The rumors regarding his friend had never seemed plausible to Richard, but he had done his best to convince himself that they were true. The alternative suggested that he was somehow connected to the man’s flight.

His vision had not been enhanced at the time, but he felt as though he could recall the circumstances of the meeting with preternatural clarity. Questions about my childhood that I could not answer. Asking me what I remembered of my grandfather. Probing about a woman who used to attend to me when I was young. And all out of the blue. He had never asked me such things before. Then, a few days later, I heard he had simply vanished.

That last encounter had never sat well with him. That he was now being asked about it gave him the chills. The question now is whether to tell the truth. Who exactly is this man in front of me? What does he know about Woller that I do not?

He decided to proceed cautiously and speak honestly but not frankly. “The last time I saw Woller was at the Shark Eye. We had some drinks together.”

“Did you notice anything different about the professor?”

Richard gave an exaggerated shrug, then realized the gesture may have appeared too overtly casual. “He looked the same as always.”

“About what did you speak?”

“He asked me about my classes. I asked about his. We talked about work.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m sure we did. That was a couple of years ago though.”

“Whatever you can tell me will help. When someone is missing for such a long period of time, and no one has heard from them, well, we often assume the worst.”

“He didn’t say anything about having trouble with anyone.”

“That’s good. That’s all then?”

“I don’t remember him saying anything that made me think he was in danger.”

Richard could tell his answers were being met with a degree of skepticism. But Gregorich did not push. He wondered how many other individuals had been questioned so far. He would have to ask around, without raising even more suspicion.

Gregorich pull out a tobacco pouch and pipe from his pocket. Richard took note of the pipe’s handle. It was crafted from ebony wood, and thus quite expensive. The trees which provided that dark wood were only found on islands off the north of East Saltion. Gregorich was evidently a well-paid royal employee.

The man began packing the brown leaves without looking up. “You must have been surprised then when he disappeared.”

Careful now. “I was.”

Gregorich’s eyes remained on what he was doing. “Your colleagues as well.”

“Yes.”

A spark appeared as Gregorich struck a flint block with a thin piece of metal and lit his pipe. He finally looked up as he took a puff. “I have to say that I am baffled by this case, Professor. The story I’ve heard does not match with accounts of his personality. Then again, love does strange things to a man.”

Richard simply nodded, his eyes focusing on the smoke.

“Are you sure there is nothing else you would like to tell me?”

“I apologize, but it was a long time ago.”

“It was. I hope we can find your friend. Thank you for your time, Professor.”

Gregorich gave a half smile and exited the laboratory, a trail of smoke following him.

I need to speak with Lydee. No doubt she was questioned before me. She may have a better idea of what is going on here.

He waited before leaving the laboratory, under the admittedly grandiose idea that he may be being monitored. To fill the time, he stacked boxes in a corner and swept the floor, retracing the questions and answers that had just passed between Gregorich and himself. When he felt as though enough time had passed, he left the laboratory. If he did not sense that anyone was following him, he would seek out his friend.

As expected, the campus was deserted. Richard took his time walking the paved paths between the buildings, wondered how long it would be before activities were resumed. What form would the revised university take? Who would the professors be? What would they be forced to teach?

He halted mid-step when looking back, and saw light in a room on the second floor of Lorgan Hall. Other than the man who had just questioned him, and the students who had helped him move the laboratory equipment, he had not seen anyone else on the campus all week. No one else had much in the way of materials to export to another location. The majority of the supplies belonged to the university and were therefore supposed to remain where they were.

He did his best to look around innocuously, trusting his enhanced vision to help him see anyone that may have been in the shadows. The day’s light had faded so that a would-be pursuer likely would have deemed themselves safely hidden near a building. Not seeing anyone, he headed toward the light.

As he entered the building, he realized the light had not come from the history department. No chance in encountering Lydee here then. When he got closer to his destination, and remembered which department laid claim to this wing of the building, he grimaced. Archaeology. He considered turning back, but morbid curiosity was a powerful lure.

Noises now reached his ears. Cursing.

“This is why your society fell off the face of the Earth! Shoddily made materials!”

Richard waited outside the office, looking through the open door, curious to see how long he could remain just outside without being noticed.

Inside, the elderly professor of archaeology, Iniko, stood over a shattered pot. “A student should clean this mess! They’re the ones who placed these artifacts so haphazardly in the first place!”

He kicked a potsherd which slid a few feet before resting before a desk. The little man crossed his arms, as if disappointed that his anger had not caused more chaos. “I’ll have to move to a new office. Good that I have so many more now.”

Richard could not stifle his laugh enough to continue his experiment. Iniko looked back at him, one eyebrow raised. “You’re here to clean up?”

“I am not. Sorry, Iniko.”

Iniko waved a wrinkled hand. “Then I will leave this here until suitable help arrives.”

“I didn’t know anyone else was on campus. They haven’t told you to leave?”

“Oh, they told me. They informed me that I had two days to vacate the premises. That was at least a week ago. Ha! I knew they would not check.”

“Are you clearing your office out now?”

“Hardly. I have work to do.”

“Classes have been cancelled, Iniko. There are no students. Everyone was ordered to leave.”

“No students, good. They were a waste of time.” He approached Richard until he was but a pace away. He narrowed his eyes and looked up. “They were only here for the credits. They did not care about learning or studying the past. They thought I could not tell. Well, they thought that at first, until I berated them. No matter though. I am better off without them.”

“The university is closed.”

“I intend to make good use of the newly liberated space.”

Richard shook his head. “What will you do if they come back?”

Iniko had turned away and was rummaging through a crate of rusted weapons. “I will nod my head and tell them that I accede to their requests. Then, when they leave, I will continue my work.”

“And if they forcefully remove you?”

Iniko paused and looked over at Richard. “You believe they care that much? Ha! They are more apathetic than the students. They just wanted the money. They do not care what happens here as long as they do not have to pay for it.”

He is probably right. Not as crazy as he looks.

“Now, instead of standing there with your mouth open like a fool, come here and help me retrieve these ancient chamber pots from the bottom of this crate.”

Richard bent down to assist the old man. “Pardon me for inquiring, but what are you hoping to learn from these particular artifacts?”

“To learn? Nothing, you dolt. I plan on placing them in the spare offices so that I do not need to pause so often in my studies.”

Never mind. He is just as crazy as he looks.

“Iniko,” Richard said, gingerly pulling a chamber pot out of the crate, “has anyone from the Crown come to speak with you about a missing person?”

“No.”

“I mean Woller. A man named Gregorich questioned me about his disappearance. Isn’t that odd? That someone from the Crown would begin an investigation on Woller two years after he vanished?”

“It might be.”

Richard stopped and crossed his arms. “Are you listening to me?”

“Unfortunately.”

“You don’t know anything about this?”

Iniko sighed. “Your friend Lydee came to ask me about Woller. She wanted to know all about the wisdom I imparted to our former colleague.”

“She asked you about Woller?”

“Are you listening to me?”

“Unfortunately.”

Iniko sneered. “There are more chamber pots for you to remove,” he said, gesturing to the bottom of the crate.

“When was this?” Richard asked.

“Perhaps a week ago. I have somewhat lost track of time now that I do not have to give classes. It’s wonderful.”

That gives me an idea of how long this ‘investigation’ has been going on. I need to find Lydee. She must know more about this than I do.

Richard worked quickly to remove everything from the crate. When Iniko yelled at him, he put everything back with the exception of the chamber pots, then practically ran out of the room before he was given more orders.

Worn out from the day’s activities and the additional stimuli from his vision, his head was spinning. He would have preferred not to be able to see the stains on the ancient chamber pots with such clarity.

Despite his exhaustion, he jogged to Lydee’s house, believing time was of the essence. If he did not meet with her this night, he may not have another opportunity for some time. He had no idea what working for Esther would entail, but he had heard that the hours she put in were appalling.

When he came to the row house where Lydee lived, he was relieved to see light in the window. He knocked on the door loudly, beginning to feel impatient and anxious. From behind the door, there were sounds of movement. Then, the light he saw behind the curtain went out. The noise had ceased. Confused, he knocked again. No reply. Roughly a minute later, he heard the sound of a door opening, then closing.

Richard called out, “Lydee?”

There was no answer. Richard considered adding that it was him who was calling, in case Lydee was hiding from someone. Then, a more unsettling thought entered his mind. What if it was not Lydee in the house?

He backed away from the door slowly. Once he was sure he was not being watched, he ran. He ran and did not look back until he had left the house far behind him.

Erden

Year 1348 (Thirty Years Prior to Present Day)

“It all appears to be in order,” Sarthak said as he paced the storage room. “Well done, quartermaster.”

Erden felt relieved until Kingsley, a step behind Sarthak gave him a mad grin, his blue eyes somehow shimmering despite the lack of light.

Sarthak stopped his examination of the supplies of crates filled with foodstuffs, blankets, and first aid materials, and faced Erden. “We will be moving out in two days,” he said. “There is but one final preparation to be made, for which you will accompany Kingsley and myself.”

Not knowing if he needed to respond, Erden simply stood in place and nodded, his right hand clenched around the vial in his pocket. Kingsley continued to stare at him intensely until Erden had to look away. When he looked back, the lieutenant was shaking his head and laughing silently to himself.

Sarthak could not hide his amusement as he explained the situation further. “We will be making a purchase of tonics. This specific concoction grants vigor, while supposedly allowing one to endure pain, to the point where he feels nothing from even a broken bone, for a time. I was skeptical upon hearing the claim, but when I heard the name of its creator, I no longer had any doubts.”

“Enfildio, the master herbalist,” Kingsley said.

The two men must have noticed Erden’s eyes go wide, for they chuckled again. “Indeed,” Sarthak said. “In this company, we rub elbows with persons of legendary reputation. In fact, we have a bit of a history of employing his creations, and they have always given us an edge. As quartermaster, you will be present to assist in determining how much we can afford, both in regards to coin and space. We will be meeting him and his assistant at the fifteenth bell. Until then, get some rest. Your first march is approaching, and it would not do for you to collapse from exhaustion.”

“And there won’t be room on any of the wagons for you if you do,” Kingsley added. “Even if you plan on shorting us on supplies, so don’t even consider it.”

“Not everyone thinks as diabolically as you do,” Sarthak said to his lieutenant, patting him on the back.

“Not everyone’s as handsome either,” Kingsley said, winking.

When the two officers exited, Erden made his way back to the barracks, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the course fabric of his pillow.

No dreams came, and had not since he began his work as quartermaster. He attributed it to a kind of fatigue he had never experienced before, one which left his body too exhausted to do more than stay alive. The scare free time he had ended up being used for sleep. Most nights he was too tired to even eat. Despite that, he was content knowing he was making incremental progress towards a life as a man of great deeds, instead of a bystander.

A soft kick to the back awoke him. He felt his body covered in sweat from the poor ventilation in the room, and his mouth was dry and irritated. A soldier whose name he did not yet know looked down at him. “Captain’s waiting for you outside,” he said, his footsteps trailing away.

It took a moment for him to realize where he was, his mind first considering the idea he was back in his parent’s home. The rank smell of the barracks gradually brought him back into the present. He opened his eyes and rolled onto the floor before pausing again, his mind completely blank. Laughter from a nearby bedroll finally broke him out of his stupor.

Sarthak, Kingsley, and two other Blades were standing just outside the barracks door.

“You have the budget?” Sarthak asked.

“Yes, sir,” Erden said, patting a deer hide wrapped notebook.

“This meeting with Enfildio is not officially sanctioned,” he said. “If the Royal Herbalist knew we were going to a private vendor to acquire tonics, she would not be pleased. And let’s not even mention how the Divine King would see this.”

“If they don’t like it, they should develop some better tonics,” Kingsley growled.

“I forgot to mention that when I was being chewed out for failing to stop this uprising. Now,” Sarthak said, looking to Erden, “this goes down on the record as medical supplies, which it is. No need to describe it any further. Understood?”

“Yes sir.”

“And no talking,” Kingsley said, jabbing an elbow into Erden’s side. “Not just for the meeting, but in general.”

Erden tried to nod as he rubbed his ribs.

They traveled out of the royal district and into the Topaz merchant district. Erden hoped that at least one person he knew would pass by now, to see him in his uniform, walking alongside the captain of The Blades. He held his head up high and pushed his chest out, doing his best to play the part. It felt good and right to be in the company of brave men, as though their courage emanated from them in waves which rippled over him. The uniform which had felt constrictive and muggy just bells ago was now a point of pride as Erden looked out over the common citizens in their white cloth tunics.

They came to a narrow building which was situated between a money-lending institution and a house of imports. No signage indicated what purpose the building served, and Erden could not recall ever having noticed its existence before, despite his frequent visits to the district when running errands.

The front door opened two heartbeats after the captain knocked, revealing a corpulent man of middling age. He gave a curt bow and gestured for the men to enter. “Welcome to The Roots. You may call me Finder,” he said. “The other party has already arrived.”

The interior of the building did not match its inconspicuous exterior. The aroma of coffee and vanilla incense filled the air, and landscapes of different regions of the world covered the walls, from the tundra of northern Ebanigan to the rumored oases of the Crystal Desert. The paint shined as the light from nearby torches reflected off its glossy texture, giving the art works a fantastical feel.

They progressed through a long hallway which opened onto several rooms, many more than Erden thought possible, each one adorned with exotic furniture. Their destination was the final room on the left, the only one which remained closed. The man who let them in rapped gently on the door, then opened it cautiously. “The Blades,” he announced to whomever awaited within, before turning to look at the soldiers. “I do want you to be aware that you are here only due to the word of the master herbalist,” he said. “In most cases, the presence of armed men is unheard of and… undesirable. I assume I need not say more.”

“We understand, and are grateful for the exception you have made for us,” Sarthak said.

Although he did not look pleased, Finder gave another bow and stepped aside. As Sarthak, Kingsley and the other two men found seats, Erden entered the room. Seated at the far end of a long, cherrywood table sat an older man in a black top hat and cloak. That must be—

The thought ended abruptly when Erden saw who was seated on the man’s left. Cupela.

She looked at him for a moment, her face puzzled. When recognition struck her, Erden could see her posture stiffen. He was about to greet her before she turned away to face Enfildio.

No doubt she could put the pieces together as to what had happened to lead Erden here. Oddly, he did not feel any anger toward her. He never had. Though he had not put focused thought on it, he could now recognize that he was thankful that he had been dismissed from the library. Cupela might feel guilt and pity him, as though he had no other option but to enlist. For Erden, a fog had been lifted from his life, revealing a sunnier horizon that nearly blinded him with its brilliance.

He was unaware of how much time passed before Kingsley cleared his throat, drawing Erden’s attention. The lieutenant gave him a threatening look, then motioned to the chair next to him. Erden moved to take the seat with an enthusiasm only exercised by one who is nearly delirious from lack of sleep, or inebriated.

“My apologizes for our late arrival, master herbalist” Sarthak began. “I know you are a man faced with many demands.”

“I am,” Enfildio replied. “Let us be on with this.”

It took a few moments for Erden to have enough awareness to recognize that he did not know if the meeting had even begun. Now afraid that he had missed crucial information, he wished only to be ignored for the duration of the negotiation. If he were to be called upon to speak, he did not think he would be able to respond intelligibly.

Sarthak and Enfildio went back and forth, discussing figures and quantities. Ever charming, Sarthak did his best to procure a bargain, but Enfildio knew he held the upper hand, and so the company ended the negotiations with less than they had hoped for, at a higher price.

Cupela did not speak for the entirety of the meeting, and each time Erden ventured a look her way, her eyes were fixed on Enfildio, though the rigidness her posture developed the moment he turned to her told him that she could sense his gaze. He had wished to speak with her, but now he believed her reluctance to acknowledge was not solely due to what had occurred at the library. She does not want Enfildio to know see that she knows me. He could think of two possible explanations for that. One was that Cupela did not want Enfildio to think she had a relationship with Erden. That felt false however. That Cupela idolized the man was easy to see, and although he was much older, he had an air of authority about him which Erden did not doubt any woman would find appealing. Erden was no threat to this man.

Therefore, it would have to be the second possibility- that Cupela feared Enfildio learning that she had a relationship with anyone, even if it was devoid of romance. Yes, that felt true, and it frightened him. He suddenly came to an understanding of why he rarely saw his old friend. She no longer had a life of her own. She was as property to this older man. And she has no issue with that. She would do anything for him. It was a disquieting thought.

“Thank you for your time, master herbalist,” Sarthak said as he stood. “Perhaps one day circumstances will be such that we can meet openly.”

Enfildio forced a harsh laugh as he too left his seat, Cupela following his lead immediately. “That day will never come. You do not know Oslian and Esther as I do,” he said. As he swept his cloak over his shoulder, he called for Finder.

The heavyset man appeared in the doorway, and surveyed the room. “Yes, master herbalist?”

“We are done here. Please have six crates of the tonic delivered to the usual location, and give the address to the quartermaster there,” he said gesturing to Erden.

“Of course. Thank you for your patronage, as always.”

Cupela followed in Enfildio’s wake, her steps in time with his despite how much longer his strides were. As Enfildio stepped out of the room, Cupela looked back. They locked eyes for an instant, and Erden saw her mouth the words, “I’m sorry,” before turning away without breaking stride and disappearing into the hallway.

He did not think he would ever see her again. It was in the moment of despair that he had the realization that he was in love with her.

Lydee

Her reaction to Yara’s announcement that the university would be closing had surprised her. She thought she would be distraught. Instead, it had given her motivation. Her cause was to find Woller, and without her classes to tie her down, she could relentlessly pursue this new obsession. Lydee knew the reality of her dismal situation would hit her hard eventually, but until then, she would focus all of her energy into a cause she believed was increasingly critical.

The difficulty she was having now was in forming any type of connection between what Iniko had told her and a conceivable reason for Woller’s disappearance. It was well within the realm of possibility that there was no link. As unlikely as it seemed to her, there was a chance that the rumor surrounding Woller’s sudden departure was in fact the whole truth. She intended to start there.

The student’s name was Fayvin. She had taken two of Lydee’s classes before graduating, the second one after Woller’s exit. Lydee had done her best not to signal to the young woman that she knew about the rumor, remembering how uncomfortable she had been as she looked out over the class, taking pains to look the young woman’s way no more or less often than her other pupils. She doubted that her efforts at subterfuge had succeeded, and more likely than not, they had been sniffed out on the very first day of class. Vea always said even a child of three could read my emotions on my face.

The university records still listed an address for Fayvin, and with any luck, she continued to reside there. Lydee took a long route to the Concord district where Fayvin lived, attempting to delay the intrusive and overly personal interrogating she was about to conduct. She walked down a street crowded with market stalls and vendors hawking local produce. It was late in the afternoon and the swarms of insects were nearly as vexing as the repetitive droning of the salesmen. She swatted at a cloud of gnats and scratched at her neck, unsure of whether anything had actually bitten her, or if the visual stimuli had provoked the feeling of irritation on her skin.

The stalls were mostly empty of product at this late hour, save for overripened breezeberries and cactus fruits which made the swarming insects all the worse. As she turned a corner which led to Fayvin’s neighborhood, she was startled by the abrupt ending of merchants. She stopped and looked around there. On both sides of the street, the walls were covered in papers. Notices, or warnings, depending on one’s perspective. All displaying the same message: His second prophecy, the prophecy of trust, would be fulfilled soon. The sky would alight in a display of his glory and foresight. Whoever had placed these had been bolder than usual, plastering the papers high enough up one wall to cover a mural of the Divine King.

As isolated as she was now, she felt as though she was being watched. A trap? To catch followers of The Path? If the royal families had believed those who walked The Path had been defeated, the magnitude of that ignorance had been revealed since the start of the year. The divine monarchs would not sit idly by and be humiliated, which meant retribution of one sort or another. She hoped the faithful were prepared for that inevitability. She did her best to continue in the direction she had been headed, careful to walk at an unhurried pace.

The jeweled had acted out of fear when the first prophecy was completed, for they knew their stranglehold on the continent’s population would falter if The Path could be proven true. She worried that this year would see more violence, and worse atrocities considering the prophecy would be even more public than the first one, four decades earlier. Revealing the truth comes at a high cost. And doesn’t that prove one of the integral messages of the faith? That humans commit horrendous acts, even against good people. Especially so, even.

Once again unmindful of her surroundings, her thoughts had taken her past Fayvin’s house. When she finally realized where she was, she looked up and blushed at her own aloofness. Still feeling as though she may be being watched, she nervously turned around and casually walked back to the row house whose address matched the one she had acquired from the university. At the door, she paused, sensing that something was amiss. Scanning the exterior of the house, she found the proof of her uneasiness. The door was standing upright, but the hinges had been broken off. She looked down and saw splinters of wood on the ground. Her eyes widened as she took a step back and turned to see if anyone was watching her. What has happened here? What, and when?

Seeing that there was no one in sight, she knocked gently on the door. When, after an excruciatingly long wait, there was no reply, she knocked again, louder. Still no sound from the other side of the door. Again she looked around her and could see no one. Biting her lip, she moved the door to one side, squeezing through the opening. Once inside the house, she shifted the door back to cover the empty space.

There were no signs of a struggle, except on the floor directly in front of the door, with more splinters lining the entrance rug. This is too much of a coincidence. The same day I look for Fayvin, there are signs of a forced entry.

A cursory search of the house showed nothing else of note. She did not know of any way to determine when the break-in had occurred. She knew that Fayvin worked as an accountant; perhaps her employer had seen her that day. Maybe she was still at work, and was unaware of the violation that took place. Lydee wanted to believe that was the case. More than she could articulate, she wanted to believe that this was in fact a coincidence. A coincidence. That is what the royals will say when the prophecy is fulfilled. But who will believe that? Who believes in the innocuity of coincidences? She knew she did not.

A few hours later, Lydee was walking alone across the university campus. Fayvin’s supervisor had informed her that the young woman had missed work that day, a rare occurrence, she assured her. On the grounds of the abandoned campus, Lydee felt vulnerable in a way she had never experienced. She did not know where to go or what to do to rid herself of the sensation, but she did not want to go home yet. She did not want her feeling of being watched to follow her into her private residence. After a half an hour of aimless roaming, she decided to head to her office, where at least she would be in an enclosed space. And, truth be told, she needed to begin clearing it out anyway.

She lit a lantern in the lobby of her department’s building, and went up to the second floor. Looking behind herself as she unlocked the door to her office, she double-checked to make sure she could not see anyone in the gloom.

Inside the office, she was pricked by the now increasingly familiar feeling that something was not right. Her growing sensitivity to that sensation frightened her. She did not see anything that had been moved, and nothing was missing from the shelves. The dim glow from the moonlight, and the brighter light from the lantern were more than sufficient for this personal setting she had memorized long ago. If something was out of place, she would notice it as soon as her eyes passed by its location. Everything was as it should be. Nevertheless, the dull pain of dread remained with her.

After checking the shelves and the chairs, she went to her desk. She carefully slid open the drawer, not wanting the force of the motion to unintentionally shift an object’s position. She had been looking for slight adjustments, an object which had been lifted in a search and then returned so that it sat in a new direction. The condition of the drawer sent her heart racing. Pens, papers, stamps, all scattered haphazardly. What to make of this cavalier display?

The office was searched, and no effort was made to cover that up. Because they rushed out in fear of being caught? Or they found what they were looking for and do not believe they can be tracked? Or, worst of all, they want me to know they have been here.

The last option struck her as the truth. She could come to only one conclusion; Fayvin had been kidnapped and her own office had been searched, all for the same purpose. She also knew who she was up against. The royal councilor, Yara. And she is ahead of me. Woller, I am failing you.

Year 1378 (Present Day)

The chancellor, the professors, even the students were all a sad, yet comical mixture of aloof arrogance and pompous self-importance. They all spoke of lofty ideals, but they could not produce results. That was what happened when you lived on other people’s money, with no stipulations. Yara was glad the university would be gutted. It was a well-deserved fate.

With one victory behind her, it was time to focus on a potentially even greater one. She strode along the campus grounds, delighting in the quiet of the area, on her way to the building which housed the history department. That professor, Lydee, knew more about the missing man, her new target, the former professor, Woller. He had been an acquaintance of the Divine King’s many years ago, but Oslian had never held an audience with him during Yara’s tenure on the council. That itself was worth noting. It was typical for anyone with even the slightest connection to a ruler to ask for favors or attempt to exercise influence. Added to the fact that Oslian was shaken by Woller’s disappearance, Yara believed finding the man, and delivering him to Oslian, would lead to her being given the title of Grand Advisor. The position had been vacant for years, but Oslian had made it known that he was willing to fill it if he believed someone had earned that privilege.

Her agents had done preliminary research regarding the ex-university employee. Multiple sources said he had fled in shame after a romantic relationship with a student had been revealed. The woman had since graduated, and still lived in Oslidor. Yara had not wanted her questioned directly, believing subterfuge the best course for her investigation. Agents were currently watching her, but they had nothing of note to report. She had decided that she needed to take more personal control over the investigation.

As Yara entered Lorgan Hall, the aesthetic value of the university briefly entered her thoughts. Each individual building was an architectural feat, the limestone columns their distinguishing feature, but the way they were insulated from the heat of the city their true genius. The large hallways and high ceilings gave a visitor more relief from the constant sweltering conditions outside than even the palace did. When considered along with the library as a singular artistic work, it was startingly impressive. That it had been wasted so was worthy of punishment.

The professor’s office was closed, and through the window, Yara could see no one was present. That the professor was absent was for the best. Yara knew the woman would not be forthcoming with information, especially given the resentment she surely felt. Yara had intended to see if she could uncover more details without overtly mentioning Woller’s name, but she knew that would have been unlikely to provide much. The history professor could be an important source for Yara though. Her agents had reported that the two professors had been close friends. She took a key ring off her belt and unlocked the door.

The last time she had searched the room, it had been with a different purpose. This time, her first destination was the desk. Its drawers were immaculately organized, quill pens lined up evenly, inkwells securely placed. Yara debated making her presence known by rearranging things, but decided that it was best if the woman did not know a new search was underway.

After a thorough search, Yara concluded that there was nothing of value to her hunt in the office. Woller’s old office was converted into a storage room, so there will likely not be clues there either. His old house had been occupied since he left as well. This roadblock to her ultimate triumph was quite vexing. An intriguing idea formed in her mind. What if she were to make it clear that she was looking for Woller? His old friend may believe he was in danger. All Yara would have to do would be to have the professor followed. She smiled, then went back to the desk.

Freed from having to hide her intentions, she could go a more direct route. The former student, Fayvin, who was rumored to have been involved in a romantic relationship with Woller had made a mistake by staying in the city. She would have to pay her a visit.

The woman was employed as an accountant for a textile manufacturer. A position that could have been acquired without four years studying history and art. Her residence was situated in a middle-income Concord district in the north of the city, a section of the city in which Yara had never spent much time. From poverty to wealth in the blink of an eye. A lesson for others to learn from, though they would choose to ignore it, instead insisting it was luck. And that is why the people from my former life have achieved nothing.

Before striding up to the door of the row house, she quickly glanced back across the street. The three guards who had been tracking the young woman were standing in the shadow of an alcove from a building housing a corner store. She then put her hand in her pocket for a final check that her whistle was still there. She wondered if she would have to sound it, and what the fear in Fayvin’s face would look like when the guards came bounding in, armed and eager to inflict harm. Yara’s mouth showed the hint of a grin as she climbed the steps. Four loud knocks on the door. Sounds of movement from within.

The woman who opened the door was stunningly gorgeous, with unblemished skin and large, bright eyes. Yara immediately hated her. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Indeed. My name is Yara and I am on the royal council. I have come to speak with you.” When the woman simply stood there dumbfounded, Yara reached into one of her pockets and presented a golden sigil of the royal house- a piece of solid gold in the form of the royal jewelry. The actual precious stone that Oslian wore was an amulet of violet and crimson, roughly the size of a large man’s fist, which appeared to shift in color depending on the angle from which one viewed it. The replica that Yara and the other councilmembers carried was only a fourth of that size, but it could not be mistaken for anything else.

Yara chose to sit in the first room on her right, in the largest chair. Fayvin came after her and sat across from her. “May I offer you a cup of tea?”

“I will pass,” Yara said. “I can tell that you have been unable to ascertain why a member of the royal council would visit you.” She looked at the beautiful young woman and saw how she wilted under the unrelenting gaze of someone more experienced and powerful. Yara was curious as to the reaction she would get from her next question. She waited a moment to allow herself to savor the anticipation. Then, she struck.

“When was the last time you spoke with Professor Woller Karuvian?”

Fayvin’s eyes widened. She tensed the grip between her hands and shut her eyes. Yara enjoyed her discomfort, especially because she had caused it.

“Two years ago.”

“When did you last receive a communication from him?”

More hesitation. Then, “Before he left.”

“Left?”

The former university student looked up, confused. “He left the university two years ago.”

“And never attempted to contact you?”

“No. Not that I am aware of.”

“Even though you were lovers? He left you to manage the scandal alone?”

The woman said nothing.

“One aspect of my role as a member of the royal council that I particularly enjoy is having the legal right to arrest anyone I deem suspicious. I have exercised that privilege before.”

Tears were now streaming down her Fayvin’s reddened face.

“He told you never to mention your illicit relationship. What do you think of the implication there? That you accept the consequences of what happened, while he escapes?”

“It… it is not what you think.”

“What do I think?”

“I can’t…”

“If not here, then in a dungeon. I assure you though, you will tell me everything I want to know.”

Yara reached into her pocket and removed the whistle. “Do you know what will happen when I blow this whistle? Three armed guards will break down your door and seize you. Then they will blindfold you and take you to a prison cell. I would prefer not to sound the alarm. Not for your sake, but because I want the information right now.”

Yara put the whistle in her mouth.

“There was no relationship!” Fayvin yelled. She sobbed in jerking spasms and wiped her runny nose, while Yara leaned back and took in the display.

Unexpected. But, I believe, the truth. Just as Oslian suspected. Which means, the man was hiding something even more damning. The question is, what does this woman know? Now that the lock has broken, we will see what it was concealing.

“A respected professor lied about having a relationship with a student, then disappeared without telling anyone. That sounds preposterous.”

Fayvin dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve, but the tears did not slow down. “It’s the truth. He asked me to spread a rumor. He said he needed me to do it.”

Yara leaned back in her chair. “Of course, that sounds so plausible.”

“I swear it! Please, I don’t want to be put in a cell! I promise I’m telling the truth!”

“Why would he want a lie to be spread about him?”

“All I know is that he said he needed to leave and that he did not want anyone to find him. He said it was necessary that he have a reason for running away.”

There is a certain genius to that. I am beginning to understand why Oslian fears this man. Though there is much more to this than his intelligence. Unfortunately, investigating Oslian’s history with the professor was not an option. The divine king would not tolerate anyone digging into his past.

“Why did you do this for him?”

“He was a good man. And…”

“He paid you?”

Fayvin nodded.

“Now, think carefully. What else did he tell you? I must know everything. You would not like keeping secrets from me.”

“That’s it! I swear it!”

“Very well.”

The whistle sounded.

Fayvin looked up, pure terror on her face. “What? But I told you everything!”

“Yes. I know. And I can’t have you doing the same for anyone else.”

Cupela

Year 1348 (Thirty Years Prior to Present Day)

She sat on one side of the long wooden table, Enfildio on her right, a stack of papers, an inkwell, and a quill pen between them. On the other side of the table sat the three candidates. The one who had taken the lead the night before sat in the middle. He was named Henry, and he had a confident smile which may have been endearing if it was not so omnipresent and forced. On his left sat the other young man, Visin, who followed Henry’s every move, as though he did not have a mind of his own. On Henry’s other side was the young woman, Sarah, who had only looked Cuplea in the eyes once, and had immediately withdrawn her gaze, almost as though the intimacy of eye contact had burned her.

“I thank you all again for travelling such a great distance for this opportunity,” Enfildio began. “Even here, over five thousand miles away, the reputation of the Scholar’s Guild of Hon Rin is unparalleled. Nevertheless, I would like to present to you a series of questions, so that I am sure I have the best person for the role.”

The body language of all three graduates shifted with Enfildio’s final sentence. The information they had been given had been written carefully to state that the master herbalist wished to work with the finest of the Scholar’s Guild. It had not stated that he only ever intended on giving a contract to one of the three scholars. Henry’s smile had faded, his jaw now clenched. Visin looked as though he had been told he had but one week left to live, while Sarah had taken her hands off of her lap so that they hung to her sides, her body looking lifeless.

Enfildio continued on, either indifferent to their reactions, or truly incapable of reading the room. “Cupela will be asking a series of questions ranging in subject. I would hear from each of you.” He turned an expressionless face to her then. “First question, please.”

Cupela took the top sheet of paper from the stack and flexed her hand before coating the tip of the pen with ink. She had read over the questions beforehand, practicing the inflection she would need to deliver the lines without hinting at her personal perspective. She breathed out silently, then read the first question. “How does one protect oneself from interpreting results in a way that is favorable to one’s ego?”

She looked at Visin first and nodded. Sitting up straighter, he replied, “I can think of two possible safeguards. One would be recording data solely with numbers, for numbers are less emotional than words. The other is having more than one person keeping records, which would help to temper any single set of results.”

Cupela wrote his response as quickly as she could. When she had finished, she looked to Henry. He did not hesitate. “If it is possible, the person recording the data could be separate from the rest of the study, or ignorant of what the result signified. In that case, the data would be much more likely to be free from the taint of bias.”

After writing the second answer, Cupela raised her head and waited for Sarah to speak. The young woman sat motionless in her chair, except for her mouth, her lips closed but sliding back and forth as she stared at the table. “Eventually, the person conducting the experiment will see the results, and will take from them whatever he or she is able to justify,” she said. “The trouble isn’t the numbers, or the data, it is the conclusion which is drawn. Only once the results have been implemented in a practical manner will the truth be revealed.”

The woman spoke in a monotone voice, as though she were reading, though Cupela was sure she had not truly been reciting a verse. When she finished recording Sarah’s response, she looked to Enfildio, who did not look back at her as he said, “Next question. For Henry first, this time.”

When she looked down at the second question, she paused, for it had not been one that she had reviewed. Reading quickly, she deducted that Enfildio must have written it that morning, while she was still asleep. She nearly grimaced when she imagined the expressions that would greet the question. This all passed through her mind in the span of a few heartbeats, not long enough for the room to become even more uncomfortable than it already was.

“There are many myths surrounding an army which fought with indestructible weapons and armor,” she began, knowing full well that her unease was coming through on some level. “The origin of the material varies based on the account. One states it came from within a mysterious lake, another that it was born from volcanic activity. What all accounts agree upon however, are the physical aspects of the material. It did not burn, it did not crack under pressure, it did not so much as dent or get cut by sharp objects. It was also light enough to be useful. Thus, it was employed in the crafting of weapons and armor. The soldiers who took advantage of this equipment became undefeatable and would have conquered the known world if they had not befallen a tragic fate, the details of which depend on the version of the tale you read.”

She looked up from the paper for a moment, looking over the candidates, as though she half expected they would stand up and leave as she was speaking. Confirming they remained, she finished the question. “Do you believe that such a material could exist?”

An amused look on his face, Henry sat back in his chair. “We have that story in Hon Rin as well. It is presented as a tale for children. I believe it is a lesson on hubris, more than something which should be taken literally.”

When no one spoke, he added, “It is a valuable lesson, of course. When one thinks they are invincible, that is the moment they have lost their sense of reality and are most vulnerable.”

Sarah responded more promptly this time. “There is no law that prevents the creation of an indestructible material.” Cupela waited for more, but Sarah did not feel obliged to add to her statement.

Visin, squirming in his seat, cleared his throat twice before speaking. “Pardon,” he finally got out. “I believe it is best to be skeptical of all claims until there is evidence to warrant a belief, and the more outrageous the claim, the more solid the evidence needs to be. Though, I suppose I am open to the existence of many possibilities, granted there is sufficient evidence.”

Enfildio had not said a word during all of this, and Cupela now believed he did not intend to speak until the interview was completed. A quick glance his way revealed that he was staring off into an indeterminate point. A brief sigh, and then she looked down to read the next question.

The whole ordeal lasted four bells, and left Cupela feeling drained. Enfildio had indeed remained silent for the duration of the process, which she knew had begun to agitate Henry and worry Visin. She was unable to read Sarah, and the woman’s dry responses never changed in inflection or directness. When the answers to the final question had been spoken, Cupela simply said, “That is all,” and waited for Enfildio to retake the reigns.

Without making any sort of gesture, he began speaking to the group. “Visin and Henry, I thank you for your time. I apologize for having brought you such a great distance only to send you back, but I need to be sure of certain characteristics of the people I employ. I will, of course, pay for your journey back to Hon Rin. You may wish to remain in Oslidor, however. It is a growing city, and there are many opportunities for both of you here.”

He stood up then and made a show of dusting off his top hat, which he had placed on the table at the start of the interview. “Sarah, we will speak of the terms of the employment when we are in transit. Follow me,” he said, sweeping his long, black cloak up behind him.

Cupela gathered materials as quickly as she could, and exited the room with Sarah, leaving the two young men alone at the table, dumbfounded.

She sat beside Sarah as the carriage rolled along the rough streets on its way out of the city. The woman beside her had not asked any questions, though Cupela did not know if it was due to fear or respect. She wished to put Sarah’s mind at ease, but knew in what was to come, it would be Enfildio who would need to do the speaking. The herbalist scribbled on a piece of paper and held it out for Sarah, who took it and read it without a word.

“That is the salary I offer, per year of employment.”

The young woman was shaking, and this time, Cupela knew why. She had never seen such a vast sum before. Even for a graduate of the world’s most prestigious institute of learning, to be offered such a tremendous quantity of coin, without having ever toiled a day outside of a closed environment, was startling. There would be a price to pay, however, and it was perhaps more overwhelming than the salary.

“I have no experience with herbalism,” Sarah whispered.

“I am aware,” Enfildio said. “I can teach you all that you need to know. What I require is a flexible mind of great ability. There are other requirements as well, but those will have to wait until we reach my workshop. Until then, I want you to think on what you need to live a comfortable life.”

She cannot know how literally he means that.

The carriage left them just south of the city. Beyond the city walls, there was nothing in sight except for cacti, rocks, sand, and a series of hills stretching out like knuckles upon the horizon. They walked in silence, each one carrying a pack. Although she was wearing the loose-fitting, white tunic which was common in the region, the heat made Cupela wipe sweat out of her eyes every fifty paces. Sarah began to lag behind, her clothing ill-suited for the climate. Ahead of them, Enfildio strode onward in his black cloak, in defiance of the elements.

After they had been traveling on foot for a third of a bell, they came within a few paces of one of the nondescript hills, roughly the size of a two-story building. At this distance, a fissure in the rock of the hill could be seen. The cut looked natural enough, and to one passing by, it would not attract undue attention. Enfildio halted to study the hill, and then the surrounding area, before placing his pack on the ground, and turned to face the two women.

“Understand that this conversation could only be held away from prying ears. Sarah, the salary which we agreed upon earlier is not accurate. You will be receiving three times that amount, annually. Why would I hide that from you? Because what I require from you is extreme. And, as you will soon see, on a scale that has never been attempted before.”

Cupela had known this speech would come. It had to, or else Sarah would not be allowed to enter the laboratory. “Sarah,” he said looking down upon her, “you do have one last chance to take another path. I can promise that you will not be physically harmed, or touched in any way during your employment. However, I will tell you, the demands placed on my employees are monumental. Most people would not accept working under these specifications. I know that, and I am content with it as well. I cannot tell you everything you need to know until you consent to work for me, no matter what I demand. What say you?”

He is not as aloof as he appears. Mentioning that she will not be touched is proof of that. He has empathy, he just chooses to be direct and efficient regardless of the circumstances.

“I consent,” Sarah said, looking up at Enfildio.

“I expected as much. You are more like me than perhaps you are aware. The contract is as such: you will receive three times the amount that I told you earlier, for each year of service that you provide. The years of service are solely dependent on the success of this endeavor, and my approval of your work. The first stipulation is that you are unable to leave the laboratory, for any reason, without my consent. Additionally, when you do leave my employment, you will not speak a word of what occurred during the time you worked for me.

It is likely that you will not exit the laboratory until the project is complete. Other than Cupela, who is my personal assistant, none of your compatriots have left the laboratory since they entered. For some, that has been more than two years.”

If Sarah was astonished by Enfildio’s words, she showed no sign of it. She had nodded twice, but otherwise had not moved.

“Know that there are spacious living quarters. You will have a private room in which you have a bed. There are shared spaces for cooking and eating, but the majority of the space is the actual laboratory where you will be working, seven days a week, sixteen bells a day, unless I say otherwise.

That is what I meant by ‘extreme.’ This level of secrecy is necessary due to the goal we are pursuing.” Enfildio paused and scanned the horizon. He slowly made a circle where he stood, peering off in every direction. Upon completion of this safeguard, he resumed speaking.

“The purpose of this laboratory is simple. We are working to develop a tonic that grants immortality.”

The words hung in the air, filling the space between the three herbalists. Cupela was relieved to have the secret revealed to Sarah. It meant she could speak to the woman more openly, without fear of hinting at something that would lead her toward information that Enfildio wanted to remain within a closed circle of people.

She remembered when the idea was first presented to her. She had already been working for Enfildio for a number of years, and had worked with him to develop herbalism tonics that enhanced human capabilities such as hearing and smell. Enfildio also had her run mundane errands for him, and when needed, care for his family who he would often forget to attend to. Herbalism was a new field, but during those first few years, it was almost mythical. People had almost no understanding of what it was, and rumors ran wild about the effects of the tonics, and the herbalists who created them. During those early days, and even now, she was enthralled to be working with someone who many considered to be the ultimate master and pioneer in the field.

The discussion of something greater than mere enhancement had been delivered by Enfildio to Cupela away from his other employees. Her first thought was that they would fail miserably. The idea of immortality seemed at best childish, and at worst delusional. But Enfildio sold her on it with his enthusiasm, his insistence on immortality being the pinnacle of human achievement, and his assurance that she was a critical piece of the puzzle.

He then informed her that he would begin seeking out other individuals who, like her, had the intellect, discipline, and dedication that the project would need. That the most ambitious of endeavors would require more than two people, was unsurprising to Cupela. She knew the amount of time that it would take to find ingredients, check variables, analyze results, and make adjustments was astronomically high. Enfildio scoured the world until he had not just one, but five capable assistants. Together, they had made remarkable progress.

“Word of this cannot reach the outside world,” Enfildio said. “If another herbalist learned what we were working on, he or she would stop at nothing to obtain our research. I mean that literally. An herbalist who believed we were closing in on immortality would not hesitate to eliminate us to acquire what we know.

After we have achieved our goal, our silence will continue. The ramifications of our success would have impacts that we cannot foresee. And on a more mundane level, we would be sought out. Hunted, in reality. I will not allow that to happen.”

Sarah’s gaze had remained steadily on the master herbalist over the course of his speech. She had stared at him, nodding and taking in his words as he explained his thinking. It was clear to Cupela that the young woman fully understood that Enfildio was not exaggerating. Their task was the most ambitious undertaking in human history.

Enfildio moved aside and gestured to the hill. “With that out of the way, welcome to your new home.”

Cupela assisted him in moving the rock. They put their hands in the fissure, then pushed to the left. The rock jerked slowly until a dark opening, roughly as large as a carriage door was revealed. Cupela stepped into the space and reached up onto the rock wall. She pulled out a torch which Enfildio lit with a flint kit that had been hidden in a recess of the wall.

The light revealed a staircase that headed underground. Once they were all behind the false door, Cupela closed it behind them and Enfilido led them down the steps. The smell of the laboratory struck Cupela harshly. A sensation of stress overtook her, the feelings overtaking her to the point where she needed to stop and place both of her hands on the handrail for a moment before continuing on. She did not believe Sarah noticed it, as Cupela was bringing up the rear. That was best, for her reaction was evidence of the monumental struggle the young woman had just entered.

The walls were solid, gray rock until they reached the ground floor. On level ground of paved stone, the walls had been fortified with wood which had been painted white to give the effect of additional light. The entirety of the laboratory and the living quarters was filled with lanterns which burned at all times of the day. The expense of the oil alone was staggering. The monetary totality of the project they were working on was more than most villages saw over the course of a century.

Doors separated the various rooms of the facility, and did an excellent job of keeping sounds from drifting from one quarter to the next. The room they were in was empty, but broke off to the left, right, and straight ahead. Enfildio lit another lantern that had gone out, a sign that either his assistants were preoccupied with their work, or had been careless in his absence.

Or, they have actually killed each other finally. Cupela thought on that. She was not sure she did not wish for it.

They passed through the doorway directly ahead of the staircase. As they walked, Enfildio began speaking again. “I will introduce you to your new family. Assuming they are all awake. I already have my suspicions regarding their work ethic while free from supervision.”

They entered the main room of the laboratory. More than double in area to most houses in the city, it also had two smaller rooms that were accessible through doors. The laboratory was well lit, with more than thirty lanterns on the walls and hanging from the ceilings. Mirrors also worked to reflect light. Although they were underground, it was as bright as noon on a sunny day. The light was quite different than sunlight however. Cupela knew it took some time to adjust to the surroundings and for one’s body to make sense of the situation it found itself in.

The floor of the room was perhaps the least cluttered area. On the tables, glass beakers were laying on their sides, some with liquid that had pooled out onto the tabletops. Papers and quill pens were scattered across every surface, some in large stacks that leaned precariously against walls or containers. The acrid stench of the room nearly made Cupela’s eyes water. The precise organization she recalled when she had pictured the room in her mind’s eye was a mocking contrast to what she now saw.

Worse, the room was void of humanity with the exception of the three individuals who had just entered, and a lone man hunched over on a stool, asleep with his face on a pile of papers.

Enfildio silently walked over to the man. He reached into his trousers’ pocket and withdrew a leather shaving strap. After a brief examination of the item, he stretched it to its limits. Then he lifted it above his head and swung it against the back of the seated man’s neck.

“Ahh!” the man screamed, reaching back to cover his neck. “Who in the Depthless Sea did that?”

He looked up and met Enfildio’s eyes.

“Enfildio!” the word was said as though it were a prayer yelled during a temple service. “You have returned.” The man looked about the room, then stood up. “Thank goodness for that.”

Cupela’s eyes narrowed. Hrent. The man was the most disingenuous person she had ever met. He would attempt to squirm his way out of this. Later, he would tell the story of this encounter in a way that would present himself in a much different light.

“Where are the others?” Enfildio asked.

“In their rooms,” Hrent answered.

“This is what you have been doing since I left?”

“No. No, of course not. We had a momentary set back. Ask the others. They will… enlighten you.”

Enfildio ran his hand down from his mouth to his chin. “Gather them,” he growled.

“This is not typical,” Cupela said, looking over at her new companion. “That was Hrent. He is not always easy to get along with, but he does work diligently. He said something happened, and I believe him. You have to understand, when brilliant, ambitious people have spent years together in isolation, it can wear on them and create tension. Enfildio keeps us all in line, but with him gone… well, we will see, but I do not expect it will be good news.”

Sarah’s eyes had widened. Cupela quickly added, “I promise you, this is an aberration. I have never seen the laboratory like this before.”

Cupela wanted to reach out and touch Sarah to help put her at ease, but she knew that gesture would have the opposite effect. Accordingly, she began tidying up while she waited for the others to return.

The procession began arriving through the door. First Ubul. Cupela considered him to be her closest thing to a friend she had among colleagues. In reality, in her whole life, seeing as though she did not have many opportunities to meet or interact with other people. Ubul was taller than the Hrent, who was well below average height, but not as tall as Enfildio, who was a few inches over six feet in stature. Both Ubul and Hrent were in their late thirties, but Ubul appeared older. His eyes were sunken in his face, but he smiled when he saw Cupela.

After Ubul, a woman who seemed to create a physical pull on the attention of the others walked through the doorway. Beautiful to the point of being unjust, Jezmavalin was a force to be reckoned with. Her slim frame was accentuated by luscious curves. Her long dark hair maintained its luster despite the conditions of the laboratory. When she sauntered past Sarah, the discrepancy in their appearance struck Cupela as viciously cruel. The recent graduate, whose gaze had been seemingly frozen to the floor, looked up at her new colleague. Cupela saw Sarah’s jaw drop ever so slightly before she quickly shifted her view back to the cold, grey stone of the laboratory.

“Enfildio,” the gorgeous woman said. “Finally you have returned. We have had need of you.”

The elderly man fought back a smile which he turned into a grimace. “I look forward to hearing about your progress.”

The next person through the door was Hrent. His arms were crossed, his expression perturbed. “She says she will be with us momentarily.”

He was, Cupela knew, speaking of Piroska. Cupela had worked in close proximity with that woman for more than two years, but she had never had a true conversation with her. Piroska spoke mostly by making demands of others, and then speaking the rest of the time to herself. Cupela had never felt even remotely comfortable around her, but she could not deny her brilliance. Enfildio had chosen his assistants based on their intellect, and in that respect, he had chosen well. Cupela was constantly struggling to stay with their thinking and not fall behind in their rapid analyzation of data and the repercussions of what they had discovered. This was, she believed, the greatest collection of minds in the world. The issues came from, well everything else about the people Enfildio had collected.

Ubul approached Cupela and put his arm on her shoulder. “It is good that you are back. Enfildio as well, sadly. The last two days have been rough. We have not made much progress. Hrent and Piroska have been at each other’s throats, and Jezmavalin has done nothing but lounge in her room. It has been trying, to say the least.”

At least a sixth of a bell passed before Piroska entered the room. That time had been spent in near total silence. Cupela had continued to clean. Ubul and Sarah had pitched in, but they had not spoken. Jazmavalin strode closer to Enfildio and had whispered in his ear. Hrent had stood motionless, arms crossed.

Piroska was a mess, as usual. Her hair shot out in multiple directions, and she was barefoot. Upon crossing the threshold of the doorway, she looked over at Hrent, then to Enfildio. “Enfildio,” she said. “You should cut your losses and kill Hrent. Our progress would double without him.”

Enfildio straightened and moved to the center of the room. “Quiet, Piroska. I will give the orders around here.

Hrent had opened his mouth before Enfildio spoke, but wisely chose to keep his comment to himself.

The master herbalist surveyed the group before him. “I do not care at all about your petty feuds. I do not care who was to blame or whose feelings were damaged. This ends now, and it will not continue. The condition of this laboratory is a disgrace. It will be back to the way it was by this time tomorrow. Also at that time, I will have a full, written report of your progress since I left.

“Your new colleague is from The Scholar’s Guild in Hon Rin. Her name is Sarah. While the laboratory is being repaired, and the report is being constructed, I will introduce her to our equipment and supplies. Do not speak to me until both of your tasks are done. Cupela,” Enfildio said, shifting toward her.

“Yes, Enfildio?”

“You will acquire a book for me, and then you will assist your companions.”

Cupela assented with a quick nod.

“The rest of you, to work, immediately. You have lost time to recover, and you will recover it quickly. Sarah, come with me.”

The new assistant followed Enfildio to a door on the right of the room. Cupela looked over the remaining people in the room. She could tell their minds were racing. Hrent’s eyes were narrowed on Piroska, who returned the look with a crazed glee in her eyes. Ubul snorted, then went over to a cabinet where various tonics were kept. He pulled out a vial of dark orange liquid, a vigor tonic. He downed the liquid in one gulp before tossing the glass vial into a basket of similarly discarded objects. “Back to business.”

Jezmavalin pushed herself up from the wall she had been leaning against. “That could have been worse,” she said, yawning.

Home at last.

Erden

Year 1348 (Thirty Years Prior to Present Day)

He had expected to be dismissed from his position. What he had not anticipated was the lengthy interrogation that proceeded his removal from the library staff.

The Lady had asked him so many questions that he could not remember even half of them. They had all been accusatory in tone, most focused on who Cupela was, and why she needed to access the basement. What startled him most however, were the multitude of questions Udesip had asked him about his own life. With whom did he associate? Was he being paid to collect information? Had he stolen documents from the library? Was he a spy?

When she gave him leave to speak, he told her exactly what happened. Cupela had not explained her actions to him, and he was ignorant as to her reasons for acting with such urgency. Voice cracking, hands wiping sweat from his forehead, he knew he appeared more culpable than he truly was. As for whether he was believed, he could only guess. The Lady gave him nothing, her face hidden from his appraisal.

As the interrogation continued, he became increasingly fearful that he would be passed along to a greater authority, perhaps for criminal charges. Instead, The Lady ordered him to never speak of the incident. He was told to leave the library, and never to return. And though she did not threaten him, he knew that he would not dare defy her again.

When he arrived home early from work, he found his mother on the patio behind their rowhouse, hanging clothes to dry. Having been forbidden to mention the circumstances behind his dismissal had proven to be a blessing in disguise, as he was able to invent a story about quitting his position without feeling guilty for lying to his mother. When she questioned what he would do with his life now that he was out of work, Erden said he had a plan, but that he wanted to keep it to himself until it was on steady footing. Of course he had no plan, but the thought of suffering through another interrogation, this time from his parents, gave him no other choice than to weave a somewhat plausible tale.

Over the next few days, he left the house each morning before his parents awoke, passing the day roaming the city streets, racking his mind in an effort to conceive an actual plan. On this day he had paused by the docks of the Quartz District, hoping an ocean view would inspire him.

The breeze quickly wiped the sweat away from his forehead as he passed dock workers unloading shipping vessels and fishermen bringing in the day’s catch. In his right hand, he flipped a small object end over end in mindless habit. Since he had found the glass vial, he had not been separated from it for a moment. It brought him a bit of comfort, though he was not conscious of its effect. Whenever he did catch himself playing with it, he would put it back in a leather pouch for safe keeping. Moments later, it would find itself back into his hand, and the motion would start again.

He reached an isolated section of the dock and sat down, legs dangling over the water. Looking out onto the horizon, what came to mind was not a possible employment opportunity, but tales he had read of explorers who sailed into uncharted territory. Though he had never been more than a mile from the shore, he could summon the images of sailors working the decks, a lookout spying land in the distance, his call sending the others rushing to the sides of the ship to see if they could catch a glimpse of a new world. It was a scene full of excitement and possibilities.

As his one journey out to sea had seen him getting sick and having to ask the captain of the tiny boat to turn back around before the docks were even out of sight, he did not think a naval life was for him. It did however instill upon him a desire for adventure. Instead of reading of heroes and great deeds, I should be living the role.

Of all the stories he knew inside and out, the tales of soldiers were his favorites. Incredible swordsmen who never shied away from danger, their lives took them to exotic foreign lands where they encountered wonders of which the commoners could never dream. Each day brought the potential for something new, whether it be a challenge to overcome, or a prize to be won. And never did those heroes cower in the face of danger. Meanwhile I flinch at the mere thought of Udesip. Well, no longer.

It was decided. He would become a soldier.

Less than a bell later, Erden walked through the Royal District, his hands clenched in fists, until he arrived at the barracks of the Royal Protectors. The two men on duty at the entrance gave no sign of acknowledgement as he approached and then halted but a few feet away.

“I am looking for the recruitment office,” he said with more bass in his voice than usual.

“I’m looking for the end of my shift,” one of the guards replied.

“Yes… well, could you please point me in the right direction?”

The man lazily lifted one arm and pointed behind Erden, who looked back, then at the two men again. “Do you have the address?”

“No.”

“How does a man typically go about doing this?”

“Use that line with the ladies, do you?”

Blushing and stammering, Erden felt the intense urge to flee. But he did not want to waste the burst of adrenaline he felt, and so he pushed further. “May I speak with a ranking officer, please?”

“Sure,” the second man said. “Oi, Sergeant,” he howled back through the door of the barracks. “Come out here.” He smiled as an enormous man wearing naught but a pair of brown pants opened the door and looked out.

“Demon’s balls,” the man said. “What do you want?”

“Boy here wants to join the ranks.”

“Great. Send him to the recruitment office in the Topaz District. Maybe they’ll turn him into someone who can do a damn thing on his own without calling me.” With that, he slammed the door.

The two guards looked at each other and laughed.

“Thank you,” Erden said.

“Our pleasure,” the first man replied. “Hurry up, and might be they’ll make you a sergeant.”

Erden made to move when he noticed the two men’s backs straighten and their eyes go wide. He looked back to see three soldiers approach. Sticking out from each of their backs, just to the right of their faces, were sword pommels. Erden’s breath caught in his lungs as the men drew closer. “Lieutenant Kingsley, sir,” both guards said, giving firm salutes in unison.

“As you were,” the middle of the three newcomers said. Erden could see that he was at least twenty years older than the other two, though still an imposing figure, his trimmed beard covering a formidable jawline, his shoulders broad and strong. He and the other two Blades passed Erden without a second thought, until, drawing deep on his diminutive reserve of courage, Erden cleared his throat.

“Lieutenant Kingsley,” he said, drawing the attention of all five of the men. “It is an honor to meet you. I would like to offer my services to The Blades.”

The two guards laughed until Kingsley looked back at them gravely. Then, turning to Erden, he spoke. “It’s rather bold to request entrance into the most elite military company in the world. Though, that may be in your favor. Most men would never dare to suggest such a thing, and daring men may be who we’re looking for.”

A glance passed between the two soldiers on the lieutenant’s sides, but went unnoticed by Erden, his eyes fastened on the man who he had addressed. “There is, of course, a trial for initiation. One that most do not pass.”

“I’m eager for the challenge, sir,” Erden said.

“It’s not a matter of wanting it,” Kingsley continued, a gleam in his eyes. “It’s a matter of skill.”

A mile outside of the city walls, a gust of warm wind blew the sandy soil into Erden’s face where he held his hands up to shield his vision from the glaring sun. He felt as though he had not had a drop of water in years, his throat was so parched from the heat and his nerves. It had been two days since he had spoken with the lieutenant, and Erden was unsure the man would truly show himself. Then, just as the sun hit its apex, three figures made the descent over the final hill, the rustling of their steps the only sound other than the howling of the wind.

Each man carried upon his back a two-handed sword, yet only one of them was wearing any protective gear—a mail jerkin and leather gloves. Erden recognized the lieutenant, while the other two men were strangers. One was a tall, muscular man who began chatting with Kingsley. The other was a much younger man, but also sufficiently physically imposing, at least in comparison to Erden. A few paces away, the men halted. The lieutenant inclined his head slightly toward the man with whom he had been speaking. “Here he is.”

“Greetings,” the man said. “Kinsley tells me you are looking to join our operation.”

Erden kept his face as stern as possible. “I am,” he said.

“Excellent. My name is Sarthak. I am the captain of The Blades. I assume that Kinsley informed you as to our induction process.”

“He did.”

“Wonderful,” Sarthak said with a smile. He lightly elbowed the lieutenant, Kinsley, in the side. “I knew promoting you was a good idea.” He turned back to Erden. “Well then, let’s be on with it. We are in the middle of a war after all.”

The third man shifted into a fighting stance. Sarthak gestured to him. “This is our newest recruit, Roliher. He is young, but a strong swordsman. No doubt you spent countless days working on your swordsmanship before requesting entrance into our ranks.”

“No, sir.”

Sarthak shrugged. “More of a natural talent, then.” He looked back to Roliher. “Whenever you’re ready. As always, the first man who yields or falls to a knee loses.”

Oh, shit.

The young swordsman jolted forward and swung his weapon before Erden could fully lift his sword to block. The blunted blade slapped him hard across the chest. He crumbled to his knees, the wind escaping his lungs. Dropping his sword, he wrapped his arms around his body and rolled onto his side.

Sarthak walked forward and looked down on him. He held his hand out, but Erden was in too much pain to move his arms.

“Hmm…” Sarthak started. “Roliher, your place within the company is secured. You may return to the city. Kingsley, please assist our friend here.”

Roliher marched off without a word. The other two Blades lifted Erden up to a standing position. Sarthak righted him to halt his wobbling. “Your ambition caught my attention, I have to admit. And when Kingsley told me you took the bait and truly believed the story he invented, well, I was even more curious. So, I asked around about you. It turns out you worked at the library shelving books.”

Erden nodded.

“Then what made you think you could become a Blade?”

Erden grimaced and bit down on his lip. He swallowed, the action causing a not insignificant amount of pain. “I wish to become more than I am, to convert myself into a man of strength and honor. I want to belong to a brotherhood, and to see the world I know so little of.”

“A noble intention. You have never fought with a sword before, have you?”

“When I was a boy. Though it was made of wood.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” Sarthak said, holding back a smile. “You are not a typical recruit, as I am sure you have recently ascertained. However, that is to your advantage, and ours. Erden, we have plenty of soldiers. We are likely, man to man, the strongest fighting force on this continent. We do not need you to fight for us.”

Oh. I should have put more thought into this.

“However,” Sarthak continued. “We could, nevertheless, make use of you. Our company’s quartermaster has wished to retire for many years, but I have needed him to stay on. However, now that we are back in the capital, where his family resides, I feel it would crush him to have to leave them again. If you work with books, the position of quartermaster, one of letters and numbers, should suit you well, yes?”

Erden beamed. “It would suit me quite well.”

Sarthak let his full smile out from its hiding and stuck out his hand. “Your boldness and honesty have won me over. Welcome aboard.”

Erden shook the captain’s hand, then Kingsley’s.
“And by the way,” Sarthak said. “Dueling a new recruit is not our induction policy. Kingsley simply wanted to have a laugh at your expense.”

Not the heroic start I hoped for.

He put a muscular arm around Erden, perhaps unintentionally driving home the point that the young man was out of his element. The captain’s voice seemed genuine however, and his presence was working to put Erden somewhat at ease. “Kingsley is always good for a distraction, but we have duties to attend to. You included, Erden.”

At the barracks, Sarthak led Erden into a room packed with at least two dozen wooded crates filled with miscellaneous pieces of armor and variously sized swords. The captain lit two lanterns that hung from poles and crossed his arms, surveying the mess.

The items that Erden could see were filthy. Mud and other substances were stained on nearly everything. Even to his untrained eyes, it was clear many of the objects were broken. Blades were badly nicked, hinges were bent.

“The most immediate need we have is to sort through the equipment we have taken during this campaign,” Sarthak said. “I’m afraid it will be tedious, but what it lacks in glamour it more than makes up for in dullness,” he laughed. “Don’t worry. Most of your duties will consist of paper work, but now and again there will be some heavy lifting. When you are done with this, find me and I will introduce you to our blacksmiths. They will appreciate not having to deal with me so directly, so you should not have any issues getting quickly acquainted. Paper and ink are on the table. There’s food in the room on your left. Do you have any questions?”

“Sort the equipment so that helmets are in one group, vambraces in another? That sort of categorization?”

“Precisely. Use your own judgement if there are any ambiguities. I have other tasks to attend to, but I won’t be difficult to find,” Sarthak said, turning to leave. He stopped and looked back at Erden. “Oh, and your salary will be equal to that of the regular infantrymen. You will of course be in charge of payments, so no worries regarding obtaining the money. I apologize for leaving you with this as your introduction to the company, but I have some business to attend to with the 10th battalion. It unfortunately requires my undivided attention. Farewell.”

“Farewell.”

Not wishing to reflect on the decisions that led him to a room full of junk, Erden got to work.

He had no way to mark the passage of time, but the sky was pitch black by the time he was done. He took only one short break to eat and use the latrine, and had worked with his usual focused dedication. In truth, it felt good to be working, as though it made his position in the company more real, and his goals that much closer. The task had been simple enough and as long as he was not in charge of cleaning the materials, he considered it a positive experience. It would be useful to become more familiar with martial equipment after all.

The barracks were empty with the exception of a few guards. Believing he would not get a straight answer from them, and not wanting to look lost on his first assignment, Erden did not ask where all the other soldiers had gone. When he stepped outside, he began to hear noises. Cheering. He headed towards the sound.

The noise led him around the back of the building and onto a cleared area which he took to be a training ground. At least two hundred soldiers formed a massive circle in the center of the open space. Along the fringe of the group, he saw the standard featuring the crossed swords of crimson on the indigo background which represented The Blades raised high in the air, and on the opposite side, another flag of indigo with a mailed fist of crimson, a sigil with which he was unfamiliar.

Erden pressed into the crowd and sidled through. Cheers continued on all sides, sometimes followed by laughs or preceded by gasps. In between the cheering were calls for wagers, words of encouragement, and some rather inventive cursing as well. Closer to the center of the circle, Erden could hear the clang of steel. He stood on the tips of his toes to peer over the final few rows of soldiers. The crowd stood back from a clearing roughly thirty yards in diameter. In that cleared space were eight armed men. Seven of them wore plate armor. Of those, five held short swords and shields. The other two were equipped with two-handed axes. Across from that group stood another soldier. He held a two-handed sword and wore cloth shirt and leather trousers.

The group of seven men were all breathing heavily. They spoke amongst themselves, but Erden could not make out the words. Suddenly, they spread out to encircle the lone soldier on the other side of the clearing. The man watched them with an almost apathetic lack of regard. When they had fully surrounded him, they rushed forward.

What Erden witnessed next took his breath away. Not so for the majority of the other spectators who were hollering and jumping up and down. The man in the middle slid under and between two of the attackers. He popped up behind them and swung his sword against their helmets, knocking them out cold. Two more men charged him. He parried their attacks effortlessly. He then dodged a blow from a shield and kicked that man to the ground. He grabbed hold of the sword arm of the other attacker and twisted it. The man screamed loudly enough to be heard over the crowd, and went to his knees, gripping his arm.

The man who had been kicked to the ground recovered and joined the other three attackers. They slowly approached the lone swordsman. This time, he surprised them by jolting forward. He chopped at one of the axe wielders on the outside, then spun around him. From behind, he hit the man in the head with the pommel of his sword. That man staggered into one of his companions. The swordsman swung hard against the second man’s left arm, which bent horribly backwards.

The crowd, which had sounded mostly in favor of the lone swordsman had shifted completely to his side. They cheered uproariously with his every move. He dashed to the remaining two men. With swings to quick that Erden could not track them, he disarmed both men of their weapons. With an upthrust, he knocked the shield out of one of the men’s hands. Weaponless, the two men went to their knees and begged for mercy. The swordsman obliged.

The noise from the crowd had begun to hurt Erden’s ears. A few men ran into the circle and lifted the swordsmen onto their shoulders. They paraded him around while the rest of the crowd cheered. The swordsman had a slight smile on his face, but appeared to be mostly indifferent to the hoopla.

As the spectators dispersed in various directions, Erden was able to find Kingsley. He took a long drink from a clay jug and laughed to himself. “What was all that?” Erden asked.

“That was Abraham.”

“The one man against the seven?”

“Yes. A minor workout for our champion,” Kingsley said before taking another drink.

“Who was he fighting? And why?”

Kingsley looked at Erden and gave him a wild grin. “The commanders of the 10th had some impolite words for our captain. Abraham didn’t care for their words or their tone. They set some of their guards on him. You would think they would have learned by now, seeing as how he’s saved their asses so many times, but officers aren’t always the smartest people. After he took down their guards, a few of their best soldiers challenged him to a fight. That was them you saw getting embarrassed in front of all these people.”

“I’ve heard of him. I heard he defeated a dozen men at once. I didn’t know if it was fact or fiction.”

Kingsley wiped his mouth. “You do now.”

“I do.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Do you know where the captain is?”

“No, but I can guess he’s trying to smooth things over with the 10th. They may be idiots, but we do have to work with them. Follow me. I should be checking on him anyway, being as how I’m an officer and all.”

They stopped in front a building which was identical to the barracks in which The Blades were housed. Four guards blocked the entrance and did not seem inclined to let them pass.

“Lieutenant Kingsley of The Blades,” Kingsley told them.

“No one is allowed in. Orders from the marshal,” one of the guards replied gruffly.

“Then send a message to Captain Sarthak. Tell him I’m waiting outside.”

“In a few minutes,” the guard said. “Right now we’re busy.”

“Busy being assholes,” Kingsley said loudly enough for whoever was inside of the tent to hear.

The guards all put their hands on their weapons. In response, Kingsley crossed his arms and snorted. Before tensions could grow further, the flap of the tent was pushed open to reveal Sarthak. “Get in here before you get yourself killed,” he said to Kingsley before closing the flap again.

“See,” Kingsley said. “I’m an invited guest.”

The lead guard sighed. “Place your weapons on the ground. All of them.”

Kingsley unstrapped his sword belt and let it fall onto the grass. He then pulled out a staggering number of knives from hidden compartments under his shirt, inside his trousers, and even in his boots. “If you take even one, I’ll sick Abraham on you,” he said with a feral grin.

They found their way to the Marshal’s war room. The officers of the 10th were seated behind glasses of wine at an enormous wooden table. Sarthak stood on the right of the table. Next to him was the lone swordsman who Erden had seen before. Abraham.

“I apologize for my tardiness,” Kingsley said, saluting the seated men.

“I do not recall inviting you to this gathering,” the man seated in the middle of the table said. He looked over at Sarthak. “Who are these men?”

“That is my lieutenant, Kingsley and our quartermaster, Erden.”

“And what are they doing here?”

“I asked them to retrieve me if I was taking too much of your time. I have a bad habit of dragging things out. Thank you for following orders,” he said looking to Erden and Kingsley. “Quartermaster, this is Marshal Jouse, the commanding officer of our campaign against the rebels.”

Marshal Jouse’s gaze swung to Abraham. “I did not believe I would have to inform anyone of who was in charge, or how they are to treat their superiors.”

Abraham did not speak or show any reaction to the comment. His eyes had been on the marshal since the man began speaking.

The marshal waved a servant over to refill his glass. “This will not happen again. Your point was made, whatever it was. If there is another incident of gross disrespect, there will be serious problems. Is that clear?”

“It is,” Sarthak said.

“No,” Marshal Jouse snapped. “I want to hear from Abraham.”

All eyes shifted to the swordsman, who, Erden realized, was still wearing his two-handed sword on his back.

“Understood, Marshal,” Abraham said.

Back outside of 10th barracks, Kingsley collected his weapons and the four Blades headed toward their camp.

“He is correct that a military operation can only have one leader. We will continue to follow his orders and show him respect, as it is our duty. He knows he cannot win without us, and that no other company is capable of replacing us in the field. If he did not believe so, he would have doled out a punishment, or at the very least given a true ultimatum. When the war is over, that is a different matter entirely. Once this partnership has ended… well, we will see.”

The Blades continued their walk, Erden mulling over the captain’s last words, and wondering why they made him so uneasy.