Living the Medieval Life

1

“Boy, are we awesome!”

The words rang out from the front hall of the mountain lair, the stone reflect the unique timbre of a female- no, a woman- and the sound carried the lilt of arrogance and achieved victory. The hollow ringing begged for an echo- in the way it was exclaimed, one could make an argument that it was the exact intent of the proclamation. It begged for others to respond, or be offended- but the only audience was a random bird of prey and a few potential rodents that would qualify as its meal.

It was otherwise an unremarkable day, the sun suggesting that it was past its zenith and plodding along through the sky, clouds covering the blue like fluffy white and gray debris. The breeze kicked up dust from the stone and other pollens, which caused the skinniest male to cover his face and cough a little. He tried to help lift the heavier bags onto the draft horse, but lifting was not exactly one of the things he could rely on as a skill set, and in trying he dropped a bag onto the dust-covered stony ground. The others tried not to laugh, but the prevailing mirth forgave a stifled chuckle.

The biggest of the group would have groaned, had he not been in such immense pain. The fight for supremacy, that epic struggle that every warrior hopes to find themselves engaged and ultimately victorious in, was over with him the champion. The fight was not without cost, and he paid a stiff entry fee for his melee. He tried not to wince as the priest smeared the next vial of salve on the open wound above his knee. He knew he would survive, for this priest was adequate. But the nuisance of the healing process meant he would have to wait before partaking in anything this grand for some time.

On the other side from the skinny klutz was an altogether unassuming woodsman, placing his loads on the draft animal and shuffling around in a general state of confusion. There had been two draft animals, but one had wandered off and left them with a stern predicament. Amongst his tasks was to ensure the safety of the animals, and now with a wounded friend and half the carrying capacity, he was a little perplexed as to how he would move this wreck back home.

Home was not a problem for the woman, however. She didn’t have one. Or at least, didn’t have a home for very long. She got by in the world, in equal parts wit, wisdom, and wiles, but where the others were simply planning to leave, she was daydreaming and considering how she would expend her share of the swag. Her share, at least so far as the others knew, was equal. She was privy to a more confidential accounting of the capital, and her share of the swag more closely resembled her opinion of the weight of her contribution. In other words, the estimated value would be closer to half of the total. But they didn’t need to know that, because they were happy with what they had. And in a pinch, she knew she could just sleep with them to shut them up- it worked for all the others.

The skinny one collected himself. All he wanted was to find some unique flora for his endless hunger of experimentation. What started as an innocent root gathering morphed into a titanic struggle for good and evil- things for which he did not concern himself on the best of days, and wasn’t about to start now. But the money obtained was of a value that would make even the most pious priest question their vow to poverty. Money that would come in handy, for books and supplies, for glass, for coal, for food. He found the lot tolerable anyway, and that is a far cry from the majority of peasants that attempted to engage his rather unique services.

The youngster attending to the warrior was anxious and worried. The man in front of him had been battered heavily, with an extent of wounds that would have slain him certainly and likely the others in the group as well. He volunteered when the group came to the temple to request a companion- he didn’t think he would be chosen because he’d never been proficient at healing human ailments. For that matter, he wasn’t proficient at healing spiritual ailments, either. But the woman smiled, and he would freely admit that he was still an able, capable man, even if he hadn’t seen his seventeenth spring. The wounded man twitched, causing the boy priest to jump and fumble his bandages.

“Jorin,” the dull, gravelly bass voice muttered, “I’m not dead yet, but if you continue to slip I may be. Don’t make my ghost haunt you.” Jorin, the boy priest nodded almost spastically and recovered to focus on his task.

The woman opened her vest and blouse to real her stomach as she lay on the top of the stone doorway, well out of the sight of the men, and attempted to take what sun would poke out of the clouds and onto the mountainside. “Have you found the other horse, Cae-el? I really would hate to have to walk home.”

Cae-el muttered under his breath, “Probably because you prefer to walk the streets instead.” This earned a laugh from the skinny man, who had recovered from his failed feat-of-strength and instead began to contribute to the trip packing. Cae-el looked at the remaining loot and the now heavily overburdened draft horse, and sighed. “Were full up, Zil. What do you propose?”

Zil responded from the other side of the horse. “Don’t you find it the least bit odd that a cult stronghold, horizons away from the nearest castle or town, doesn’t have a horse, cart, or so much as a donkey for the transport of goods to support an army of a thousand men?”

Cae-el responded “Their magicks must have been powerful, indeed.” Zil simply hung his head, half in disbelief and half in to hide his smile.

Jorin looked up and down the warrior. Satisfying his curiosity, he stood and said “Silverhand, I think I got them all. You should be ready to walk by sundown. Silverhand nodded and tried to sit up. The kid did his best- it wasn’t a great field dressing, but the temple ointments would make up for the poor dressings.

“Cae-el, find the horse. I should prefer to not listen to Aiora moan the whole way home about how much she aches.”

All the other males snickered derisively. Aiora covered her partial bareness, rolled over the doorway and said “Zil, if you were more of a man you might hear me moan for other aches.” Silverhand bellowed a laugh. Cae-el chortled a “Ho-ho!” to hide his total bemusement. Jorin blushed in shame and embarrasement. Abzil held his tongue. She wasn’t worth the immediate rebuke. However, he did continue to offer counsel.

“Cae-el, seek the horse. It could not have gone far.” The woodsman was already following a set of hoof tracks that led out of the front gate and out into the wide countryside.

“I shall have it back before Aiora can nick the rest of your share, Zil.” With that, Cae-el set out on a trot.

Aiora turned over the door and said, “Soooooooooo, mmmmmighty Silverhand- what are you doing with your share?” If she would have looked in his eyes, she would have batted her own. In truth, the men weren’t half bad. Even the boy was worth a second look. They were no portraits of perfection, certainly not of noble stock- but for your average, risk-taking commoners, they weren’t hard on the eyes.

Silverhand laid back and drew a deep breath. “I dunno,” he truthfully moaned. “I’ll probably buy more land, hire more hands… maybe even bring a smith to reside across the street. Aiora rolled her eyes. Abzil nodded.

“Your prudence is well considered, Silverhand,” Abzil offered. I’m certain that your wealth will return many times over with sensible control of your spending.” Jorin merely lowered his gaze to the ground.

“Prudence is so booooooooorrrrrrring. Why not have a night on the town? Gods know you deserve one.” Silverhand knew where this was heading and averted his attention to the breeze and the sky. Aiora continued her probing. “At least one good night away from the strict queen of your castle? You could stand to stumble out of a tavern for once in your life.”

Abzil, noting that Jorin was disengaging from conversation, did what he always did to the priest. “Well, look on the bright side, Aiora- at least Silverhand can choose how to spend his share. Isn’t that right, Jorin?” Silverhand felt pity for the kid as both Aiora and Abzil laughed at the priest. Jorin wished he could disappear.

“That’s right, Abzil… that’s very true.” Jorin wanted the return of Cae-el now more than ever.

Cae-el returned to the opening courtyard with a very depressed looking horse in tow. At least, you would think it looked depressed. You would be depressed if you simply wanted to gallop and eat grass in the sunlight all day, only to be corralled by a human that reeked of pine and fear. Even the horse could sense the inferiority complex coming from this human, and it only got stronger around the big human and the female.

Aiora squealed when she saw the horse. Her soft leather boots were not made for the extended walking that the group did, and she was relieved to see that she would have a ride home after all. She laced her blouse and vest back together and sat up. “So Cae-el, she laughed, what will you be doing with your share?”

Cae-el puffed his chest. “I think,” he said with the voice of impending greatness, “I shall buy a seat in the lord’s court, and curry his favor over cheeses and fine drink.” Silverhand smirked. Always trying to impress someone else, but never himself, he thought.

“And you, Zil?” Cae-el robbed Aiora of her chance to play social butterfly. “What grand plans do you have for your money?

“I would like to say that you all wouldn’t have the faintest clue as to what I would be doing with my share, but I will say this- I will be devoting a small portion to the propagation and cessation of practical jokes.”

The four heads turned at that. “What do you mean?” Silverhand quizzed the frail man.

“Hmm? Oh, it’s quite simple,” Abzil offered. “My charges are somewhat intelligent, but sadly they have a streak of unchecked creativity combined with a severe lack of wisdom. As a result… well, ironically, they tend to choose their own manner of discipline.”

“So you play practical jokes on them?” Jorin offered, hopefully looking for a light-hearted turn of discussion?

“Oh, heavens no, boy. They set the practical jokes. I merely turn the pranks on the pranksters.”

“You must invite me over for midday sometime, Zil,” Aiola said, her petite frame approaching the horses. “I would be very much bemused to witness such an exchange.”

“As would I,” seconded the boy priest.

“My dear Aiora,” the wise Abzil smiled, “you are truly an amazing thief. If you think you could find my lair and survive the entry, I would be happy to provide you with a charming afternoon meal. However, you mustn’t be offended if I conceal everything of value before hand.”

Aiora looked hurt as she mounted her draft horse. “You wound me, Zil,” she pouted. “I would never steal from a friend. Isn’t that right, Silverhand?”

Silverhand began to test his healing wounds by walking. “Of course not,” he smiled. “Then again, I have the two best anti-thief magicks that anyone can possibly have- nothing of value and a very jealous wife!” Even Jorin found humor in that statement.

The sun began to hide behind the western mountain ridge. The beasts, groaning under the strain of the loot from a truly amazing adventure, began to descend from the courtyard of the barbarian’s mountain stronghold. The night was less tense than it had been for weeks. The group began to resemble a party in name once again, and feeling a step lighter from the enchantment of success, they headed south towards kith and kin.

2

The city of Fed Sharin was a nosy, smelly place. Many went in search of their fortunes there, only to be denied in some manner or other. Most looked for work that was only marginally less backbreaking than farming, only to find themselves hired out as farmhands. The truly lucky were given a task more fitting of a peasantry- the lifting of stone or timber. Women were not denied this pleasant status, either, and as a result the whole of the populace could be counted on as a fighting force.

Of course, wherever humanity gathers you gain a certain creativity from the collective efforts of others. The motion of peasants and tradesmen alike is a blurred, hypnotic mess, made all the more impressive when its placed in contrast to the buildings of men that have stood for over 400 years. Some would even say it was boring; what is the purpose of history if things never change? This causes certain individuals to rebel against the conformity, to lash out against the status quo.

In this city, that is tantamount to a death sentence. For it is impressed upon all that the routine is necessary- imperative- to maintaining the safety and security that one who seeks a fortune would need to realize their potential. People dressing mundanely, living in places only so far from their work, buying only from designated shops, and never, ever splurging, these were the things that kept everyone safe.

Hogwash, thought Aiora.

Professional thieves are truly a different lot than the average society. To deny that thievery exists would be as ridiculous as proclaiming greed was beneath humanity. The thief is as much a businessperson as the guild or the merchant, but unlike your run-of-the-mill clothier or cobbler their business can’t advertise or demonstrate it’s success. The thief lives off the thrill of the rumor, the collection of the secret. However, thieves are also realistic. If a place has precious little to steal, and is generally undesirable to be at in the first place, with truly grave consequences for being caught, then it should be common sense that a thief would not find a home there.

Aiora rented the top floor from a baker in the guild district.

She had an extraordinarily elaborate system for transporting her wealth into the city, and then into her home. It wasn’t as if she had a room right next to the city gate, although she tried desperately for one. And while the food merchant was, well, quite pleased with her offer, he was unwilling to remove his mother-in-law from the top floor.

She would store her part of the bounty in a bear’s cave. The bear was still there and not terribly interested in eating large, shiny objects. Hunters never ventured into that segment of the wood because of the more fearsome predators that roamed there, and should something go missing, it’s not like it was hers to begin with. It was safe, she was quick, and she only had to ensure the smell of bear for a little bit.

Once she had stashed her loot, she took only that which would fit into small bags and, well, other tight places. This was her daily routine. She walked the route even when she had no loot to retrieve, which afforded her the luxury of routine and an escape from the smell of the city.

Upon her return, she would take a few copper coins- no more than anyone else would spend- and buy a modest set of food. Occasionally she would stop by a clothier and talk about how she so desperately wanted that outfit, but had to save to buy it. Never mind that she actually did have more accumulated wealth than the noble who slept in the back of the keep. It was the illusion she wanted to maintain, and to this point she had no reason to suspect that anyone considered otherwise.

She paid the baker to have water delivered to her room daily, under the pretense that she should want to bathe. The baker, of course, enjoyed the thought of her bathing, and he was never short of a teenage boy that enjoyed the thought enough to lift two full large jugs up four flights of steps- then return with wood to provide heat. No one ever thought to inquire if she needed soap, they were just happy that she spoke to them.

Once in her room, she would check for peep holes and other oddities. She didn’t mind them looking at her, per se, however she did prefer a more private audience when it became time to unpack her possessions. She knew they looked, and at times would even give them a show. But when you have a ruby the size of an apricot and you’re retrieving it from a more private place, well, that’s not exactly the time to have the water boy realizing that parts of you truly are a gem to behold.

The process of retrieval could take months, if the stash was large enough. If she was ever stopped at the gate she merely opened her pack to show a sachel of herbs- which she would sell to a merchant who would then in turn use them for some sordid use or other, then would be on her way. She loved the routine of this place. It made the populace so friendly, so innocent… so gullible and so easy to hide in.

She would take walks around the town. She knew many of the people, and every street, alley, store, door, rope, balcony, and light in each district of Fed Sharin. There are those that say you have to have a purpose in life in order to find true happiness. She fancied that her purpose in life was to know everything there was to know about Fed Sharin. The only place she didn’t know about was the keep.

What- you think a thief would be idle? You don’t think she had a goal in life? Of course she did- Aiora wanted to steal the signet ring from the reigning noble himself, Lord Holman Jironsk. Adventuring was what she did when she needed the heat to come off of her.

In reality, the city of Fed Sharin was quite aware of her goal. Aiora was talented and witty- but also older, not that bright, a poor, sloppy, talkative drunk, and a little –too- ostentatious for an adventuring herb gatherer.

The town watch knew that she was a thief, or at least not to be trusted. They knew that she had her sights squarely on a possession of their Lord. And they knew that they had to maintain a state of readiness whenever she was actually in town.

Travan Fletcher was, unbeknownst to Aiora, her biggest fan. He knew where she went and when, when she left town and how often, and how much she spent. Travan had books- he was able to purchase a book- and record her daily experiences. He had even see her meet with some other companions outside of the city. It was this revelation to Lord Jironsk that had paid him the money to purchase the book and writing lessons to boot.

What neither of them knew was that they were both thieves and of equal caliber. Travan, of course, didn’t prefer to think of himself as a thief, or a spy-warden was so much more agreeable a term. He thought like a thief, had the skills of a thief, but not the experience. And his purpose in life was to catch Aiora.

Aiora decided to splurge a little bit. It had been 2 full moons since she parted ways from Abzil, the only one of that group that she trusted precisely because she didn’t trust him. He was consistent, and boring. Old, smart, but dull. She never reflected on why he had no wife because it made sense to her- a woman would just get in his way and irritate him. Forget fatherhood or children, or even the joy of sex- those were basics, and Aiora knew he abhorred the simple.

Taverns were lively in every town, and even a people oppressed by routine knew that the tavern was a place where you could find yourself laughing, if only for a little bit. In the guild district, that meant you would find yourself right in the middle of The Rusty Ingot, a tavern started so far back that it was rumored to exist before the city walls (true), started by the wife of an ironsmith (false) that was disappointed in the size of her husband’s, er, workload. Anyway, more tales have been spun there than anywhere else in town, as the peasants weren’t very creative and the rich find others to spin yarns for them.

Aiora tied up the last layer of her outfit and reviewed her appearance in a looking glass. It was one of the few things she had that she adored- it was platinum and exquisitely crafted, and platinum has the added benefit of looking a lot like iron to the untrained eye. A little dirt in the creases and you’d fool even the more discerning eyes. Only Zil and men like him could tell it was platinum. She got it out of the house of man that was terrorizing a small town, showing the mirror to girls and claimed it was magic. He was say that if they were beautiful enough, they would see their reflection. The girls would fall for a simple line, he would heap on the praise, then extort their fathers while threatening to deflower them and make them uneligible for marriage. Aiora didn’t normally resort to violence, but it took Silverhand and Cae-el to pull her off that lowlife.

Besides, she thought she was pretty and even though she knew the mirror wasn’t magic, she still liked to believe it.

She wound her way down the broad street. The district was always so crowded, even though little was for sale. A young gent bumped into her on the way to the tavern. She chuckled to herself as she felt the little thief’s hands slip off a small bag from her belt. She watched him as he passed by, he thinking he pulled off a heist, she just trying to gather where he was going. He was green, new, so she wasn’t going to have the authorities get him.

He nervously made his way to an alley behind a stonecutter and dashed to a doorway. After looking to make sure he wasn’t followed, he opened the bag. His eyes bulged at the shape and sparkle, the color… it could only be…

“Green glass.”

The kid yelped and dropped the small bag, its contents hitting the cobbled stone and a small, distinct crack sound was heard.

“Oh poo, you’ve shattered my scent bottle.” She approached him menacingly. The kid was terrified. He was a solid twenty paces from any street, and never heard or saw her approach. He was as good as a stretched neck, and he knew it.

“Whatever shall I do?” Aiora falsely wondered aloud.

“P-p-p-p-please don’t, amaa ama I’m ahh…”

It was at that time she noticed a person, wearing a town guard uniform, at the end of the alley, trying to look inconspicuous and not having a good time of it.

“I know. You shall find a replacement and return it to Stone’s Bakery, telling the baker that it is for the lady in residence. Is that clear?” Aiora looked the boy dead in the eye, then with out moving her head she looked to the end of the street.

The boy, taking the non-verbal cue, lowered his head and shook it from side to side, looking up- briefly- and upon seeing the town guard, he readily agreed and apologized profusely. They parted ways, Aiora on her way to The Rusty Ingot, the boy about to empty his last brown pittance away on an unnecessary scent bottle, and Travan cursing his bad luck for being seen.

3

The Temple of Kalimoch was an impressive construction. In a day and age where many people worshipped many gods, the citizens of the valley ruled by Lord Jironsk had realized over many years that the worship of one god provided several advantages. First, you didn’t have to remember many different names, which was a bonus to those without natural intelligence. You also could provide more attributes to your singular god’s name, making them more impressive with each telling. You would also know that, wherever you worshipped, you knew the same rites and prayers that everyone else did. There were never conflicting holidays or feasts; half the town was never observing a fast while the other was observing a celebration. (Actually, this happened frequently as Kalimoch worship ascended in popularity, and of course Kalimoch was attributed with saving the people from senseless violence by unifying feasts and holidays.)

But the real reason for the impressive façade, interior, and grounds was twofold- grants from Lord Jironsk and the tribute of adventurers. See, adventurers were always a dashing, risk-taking, fearless lot. As a result, turnover in the adventuring business was quite high. The priests of the temple, who were actually quite sensible businessmen when it came to things, decided that they could actually profit on the whole adventuring racket. They knew if they could offer a service that adventurers needed (at a cost, of course) that they could potentially gain money in tribute and in a share of any earnings.

The local town and city street urchins were swept up by the priests. Taught to heal wounds, apply rudimentary first aid, and say a couple of well known, well timed prayers, they would provide needed revenue for the temple and, should they actually make adventurers live longer, provide a “valuable” service. They would never be taught what “value” was, because that would dampen the effect. Besides, they’d usually die before they figured out what value they had anyway.

As time moved on, the fame of the Healers of Kalimoch grew. It became a rote affair for adventurers to pay a tribute before going out on adventures. The final embellishment- the detail that insured the scam for all time- was a priest that could actually fight. Rule number one for all priest of the temple was to survive to worship Kalimoch. What few realized was that the rule was literal, meaning that priests would stay as far away from any fighting so long as they knew they’d survive. However, a strapping young lad by the name of Oerik- toothless, illiterate, and just barely not leprous, but a priest nonetheless- crushed the skull of a feral nomad chief with a firelog to save the young son of a noble, named Holman, from a particularly hideous death involving insertion of a highly barbed bone structure into what could be estimated as a yet-to-be-determined orifice. Prince Holman returned, arm wrapped around the drooling priest, and threw his entire share at the altar in the temple. When he became lord of all the land, his first rule was that traveling priests be paid a share of earnings by adventurers on penalty of death. Oerik was considered the avatar of Kalimoch, and the telling of his tale has improved dramatically over the years… but you get the idea.

Jorin was also one such urchin. Whether he was taken of his own free will or kidnapped is usually a matter of conjecture, usually determined after the fact by the one who survives the longest or who tells the stories; suffice to say, a rough cloth sack was involved during the exchange. He was deemed too puny to fight, and as such was designated in a lower caste of ‘priests,’ ones that starting adventurers that couldn’t afford much tribute could afford- a ‘starter priest,’ if you will. Jorin was grateful to not have to eat worms for a change, but soon realize he’d traded one bad existence for another. As he was puny and weak, he was looked down on by nearly everyone, including a much older Oerik. However, in one of those weird ‘turns of fate’ that Kalimoch was known for distributing, it was Oerik that gave Jorin a purpose.

“You should lerrn ta ‘eel peoples, cuz ye ain’ good fer nuthin else.”

Jorin has a moment of clarity. Being told by a living saint what you needed to do to please your god tends to added impetus to a young man’s drive to survive, even if there were several layer of nasty, brutish rationalizations to obtain it. From that point on, Jorin devoted himself to the healing arts. His instructors were not easy on him, stressing that he needed to be perfect in order to please Kalimoch while in fact it was to not sully the reputation of the temple. For three solid years his life was nearly monastic in his devotion to learning how to heal. This devotion had one benefit that would end up being more valuable than anything he had ever done to this point in his life- he learned how to read.

On the day of his ritualization, he was to be offered to the first traveling party of adventurers to enter the temple and request the aid of a priest- for the right sized donation at least. Jorin knew nothing about the amounts or the bookkeeping, none of the urchins did. They were merely given three rules:

1)

1. Live to serve Kalimoch.

2)

2. Show people the way of Kalimoch.

3)

3. Give Kalimoch his tribute, so that he may give to you.

They were taught that this was the effective implementation of these rules:

1)

1. Run from and avoid fights, ‘cause you’re no good to Kalimoch dead.

2)

2. Keep the praying and healing constant.

3)

3. Pay up when you get home, it’s not like you’ll use money anyway.

Jorin was a different priest, though. As he had been blessed by a living saint, he just –knew- that he would give his all and be the best healer that any party could ever want.

Well, to this end Jorin failed. Silverhand passed out at least twice on his way back to the temple. But he didn’t die, and as such Silverhand was grateful for that. Abzil studied the boy endlessly. He saw… he hated to say ‘potential,’ but there it was. The others treated him as they thought they should treat him, with disdain. Couldn’t their donations at least have earned them a battle priest?

When the party arrived at the temple, Abzil muttered a suggestion under his breath regarding some herbs that were suspected to be quite potent for healing, along the north face of a particular mountain ridge that was a full week’s journey from the temple. Jorin was grateful, and wished his companions well as they went on their way.

Jorin walked through the temple, sack of treasure over his shoulder, and stopped at the entrance to the head monastery. Ringing the dense, heavy bell he identified himself and the giant stone door opened a crack.

“Well, let’s see it then.” Jorin opened his sack proudly. “Hmph. Either you got robbed or you can’t count. Get in here.”

In the hall were a number of head priests, Oerik, and an odd tenant or two. Jorin began his prayer of thanksgiving, the one he’s been trained to say since he was abducted, and placed his loot in the center for Kalimoch to judge. The truth is, for a kid that everyone in that room expected not to return, he brought a nice sized haul. It would have bought a plot of land and enough stone for a small hut at least.

Jorin bowed after finishing his prayer and stepped back. Oerik smiled and said, “So what do you intend to spend your treasure on- OH, that’s right, you don’t get any, Mr. Vow of Poverty.”

Every priest in the room laughed out loud and hard at that jibe.

Jorin was confused, as he always was whenever Oerik spoke. He bowed again, managed a crooked smile, and walked away. As he left the stone hall, he saw a tall painting of Kalimoch blessing a harvest, benevolent and mighty. He almost didn’t hear Oerik say “Are you even smart enough to know what to spend money on?” More raucous laughter filled the hall as Jorin left.

Jorin wandered out and looked over the grounds at the southern mountain range and sighed. He knew that Abzil was right about so much, maybe he would be right about the herbs. But he had to get back to studying. He knew that Silverhand almost died, and he listened very carefully to what Silverhand groaned out. Every over-tightened bandage, every salve, and every placement he had in his mind.

He entered the temple library. A large, bright white stone statue of Kalimoch beckoned to the viewer with an offer of salvation. Surrounding him were shelves of books and scrolls, histories and predictions (prophecies were verbal and cost extra). He knew where the healing scrolls and texts were. He arranged them in a specific order, so that he could remember quickly where information was after he returned.

Never mind that another priest intentionally rearranged the documents. Jorin found that out soon enough.

He poured through the texts. He placed one bandage at the third gateway of Kalimoch, just like the book said for a rib injury. He secured it in place and then applied a bandage to honor the shield of Kalimoch, over the neck and around the arm…no, something wasn’t right. He thought over it for a few minutes, and went though the steps in his head.

“You survived. Did you get paid?” The boy that asked, a young yellow-haired lad of good build, looked at Jorin. Jorin smiled and said “I made my contribution to our savior, yes.”

The boy was puzzled. “Then why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at the temple bath, or with the temple virgins at this point?”

“I have until sundown to complete the closing rituals. As you can see,” Jorin beckoned to the large statue in the center of the room, “he looks over me, and I honor his rituals.”

The boy shuffled away. “Hmph, I think the virgins are pretty. Don’t understand why you’d want to read stupid books.”

Jorin closed all of his texts, rearranged them just so, and walked back to his cot in the back of the temple grounds. He was the youngest of an abduction group, and as such had seen many of his… friends? No… cohorts slain in the service of Kalimoch, and he understood that death was nothing more than his lord reclaiming his soul as his own, to benefit all. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was starting to get lonely. As he had never once in his life been shown appreciation, he didn’t realize that people would treat each other nicely, he just didn’t see the point. He didn’t even see the point in the temple virgins. They made claims that Kalimoch told them which priests they were to serve, he was served only once, and that involved him being tied up in weird places and judged by the matrons of Kalimoch who claimed him unworthy of their attention.

The only person that had ever treated him as an equal, in any capacity, was a skinny bespeckled man named Abzil. He prayed to Kalimoch that night to watch over Zil so that he may have the fortune to show him and his friends his true devotion to the god to which he owed everything, even his life.

4

It was generally considered a fool-hardy thing to live in a forest, mostly because of the ample cover that it provided thieves, bandits, and others with ill intent, not to mention the creatures and beasts that had no further interest than their next meal. In a sense, only the truly brave or completely stupid would live leagues from the nearest road, so obscured by foliage and natural landscape as to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Murderers that traveled the trade routes preyed on the lone travelers, slaying them and dumping the bodies a scant fifty paces from the road, with the bodies never to be seen again.

Cae-el may fit either description. His family’s half-cottage, half-cave that was situated facing south had no particular view, no interesting features, and scarcely unremarkable manner that found it both quaint and baffling at the same time. There was no farmed land, and only the trappings of civilization required to maintain a nearly stone hut.

To approach the domicile, one would have to know the precise angles, distances, and turns at the exact trees, rocks, and streams or else one would find themselves so far away in unnavigable terrain that it is likely one would starve to death. Strangely enough, there were at least 15 such gatherings within 5 miles of Cae-el and his family, but no one knew about any of the others. Questions weren’t asked in this part of the realm. To ask a question invited triple the suspicion in return, and usually wrong directions which was a fate almost equivalent to death.

Not that the people weren’t decent, quite the opposite. The people were generally honest folk, if not a touch paranoid. After all, when rumors of bands of evil men and monsters are the combination of dinner table talk and bedtime story for children, over a long period of time isolation tends to make legends into rumors and rumors into truth, not the other way around.

In truth, Cae-el was unhappy about his return. He was certain his family would be happy to see him, of course, and they could use the help hunting, but he so enjoyed being out of the forest that he hoped to latch on to any group of adventurers that he could just to get away. And what group would turn him away? He was a good marksman, handy with a long blade and a woodsman without peer… at least within a mile of his hut. Outside of that, he was okay in the woods.

The third dry stream bed required a right turn that ran up the mountainside for about 500 paces, or until you saw the exposed rock to the left of the stream bed. It always was miserable to return home in the fall, but no one could stop nature and leaves fell where they willed. As a result, it took Cae-el about 30 minutes to find the accursed rock. No one had been to or from the family hut in a while. Typical, he thought. There was absolutely no sense of adventure or exploration in his family.

He thought of his family, but as a young man that is in the height of his thrill-seeking, foolish days he didn’t place much value on them. His younger sister was annoying, his brothers separate from him, his mother aloof, and his father indifferent. But they were a family, and he cared for them all the same. He contributed his share to the dinner table- actually, a great deal more than his share- but no one ever let on that he was doing a good job at providing for the family. To eat in the hills is a rare thing indeed, and he was particularly adept at obtaining meat and rare edible plants in enough quantities that those in the city would consider average.

Cae-el’s father, however, lived in a life of torment at this. Cae-til was a distant man, never once one for the trappings of society, and had such an interest in nature that at his first opportunity he abandoned the trappings of his home and took his young bride deep into the woods and made do. The lady was terrified, of course, but Cae-til was strong and stern, and had a discipline entirely self-taught, nearly zealous in its execution. He knew exactly how much they should eat, how much they should take from the forest, so that they might not disturb the balance and require expanding away from his new home. His wife bore him eleven children, three dying before their first year and four getting lost in the woods- but he shed no tears, because he knew that was the way of things. By this time, his wife had given up all hope of seeing a city, or an inn, or even hearing music. She did what she could to give Cae-tin the ability to protect his family.

It should not be a surprise that when Cae-til saw his son out looking for the rock under the leaves by the streambed, he ignored him completely. Damn fool can’t find his way home, he doesn’t belong here was the rationale, and it was unchanged in 25 years. He wandered into his hut and addressed his wife. “Cae-el may be by soon.”

“Oh,” was his wife’s meek reply. There was no joy or sadness, just an acceptance.

Cae-el took rounded the mountainside and surveyed in front of him. There were several sets of tracks… his father was by recently, his brothers too with at least a deer. He was pleased that his brothers caught something. Normally they would wait until he caught dinner, then complain to father that he kept stealing their catch. But no matter. It was brothers being brothers, and that was life.

Cae-til prepared the fire for the evening when the distinct sound of metal colliding with stone pierced the dusk air. “Father, I’ve returned.”

“Hmph.”

“What chores require my attention?” Cae-el hoped against hope that his father would turn around to see the swag he had acquired.

“None. We get by without you. If you want food, get your own- we didn’t catch any for your dinner.” And that was that.

Cae-el, resigned to expect nothing less, picked up his bag and entered the hut. His mother sat and rocked in a simple chair, watching the dying light through a hole in the stone wall. “Good evening, dear mother.” He thought it might be good form to kiss her check, but all she said was “oh… hello.”

He sat his bag on the pile of straw traditionally where he slept and began to get his essential belongings from the bag. A long knife, a few empty bags, and a waterskin. He was fed well enough that he could skip dinner, but to keep up appearances, he would leave the hut to hunt. Father wouldn’t accept that his boy bought meals for the last week at taverns, and he wouldn’t abide by a child coming home and doing nothing. But as he set a sack of coins on the straw, he noticed that there was one less straw pile.

“Mother… is everything alright?”

She didn’t answer, and he stood to approach her. Before he could utter another word, a voice that cut through the air like a loud insect broke the silence- the voice of his older brother Ra-til. “We got rid of a bed because a brother left home and I wanted the space.”

“Ra-til, good evening.” Cae-el bowed his head.

“Don’t consider me, stranger. I don’t know you. You aren’t family.” There was a weird look of distrust and rage in the older brother’s eyes. “If you think you belong here, you are mistaken.”

“You speak nonsense, Til-o,” using a nickname from ten years earlier. “You know father always welcomes the wanderer back if they survive.”

“You are no wanderer, thief.” Ra-til begun to approach Cae-en very slowly, and put a hand towards his blade. “You’ve gone soft, you lost your way, and were lucky to find this place with my family. But you are not welcome here-“

“Ra-til.” The voice boomed like thunder. “Make your move or clean your kill, but stop talking. Daylight is dying.” Cae-til did not have the patience for posturing. Ra-til pulled his back but let it droop to his side. “You will not sleep here tonight, your stench would attract the wolves.” With that, he turned around.

Cae-en returned outside. The sun was beyond the horizon and the stars were beginning to show, or so many as could be seen through the gold and red treeleaf canopy. He turned north, and headed up the hill of his family’s hut. Perhaps his baby sister would be happier to see him, but after the reception that he’d received to date he didn’t expect much. His suspicions were correct.

Treana was gathering loose twigs and branches for wood. She heard her brother ascending the hill, and ignored him until he approached within muted voice conversation. “I see that you now consider us worth being around again.” She snapped a branch, almost as a punctuation mark.

“Treana, good evening.” He bowed to her.

“Oh don’t treat me with pleasantries. Father has declared you out of the family and as far as I’m concerned, you are.” Another snap. “You were needed here.”

“Tree, I was not needed here. Ra-til and-“

“Ra-til is a lazy, violent slouch.” Snap. “You know this, we all did, but when you left, we had to make changes. Ra-til actually had to do something, and his endless complaining about it angered Father. Father saw the discord and ordered changes. Now I’m to marry Ra-til when it’s my time, and I don’t want to be his.” Snap.

“Tree, haven’t you ever wondered what it’s like over the hill?” He gestured to the hilltop.

“Of course. I’ve even gone there. And you know what? It looks the same over there as it does over here. You went too far.” She stopped. “You shouldn’t have left.”

“I’ve returned.”

“You’re not welcome here.”

Cae-el took a deep breath. “Tree, if you don’t want to marry-“

“No, I don’t. But I don’t want to leave, either. Look what it’s done to you- you have been poisoned by civilization. You’re fat and you’re sloppy. If that’s what leaving does to you, I’ll stay with my family.”

He’d had enough. Cae-el was used to ribbing from his party, from the tavern wenches, and from the occasional passer-by, but he drew the line at his sister. He grabbed her by the shoulders and blocked her knife hand from her belt. “Listen to me,” he said sternly. “I don’t know what rubbish you’ve heard or been through, but I’m here to tell you, now, that I never gave up on you. Not even on Ra-til. But it is quite clear I have no home here. I am leaving tonight, against father’s teaching and I’m sure with everyone’s blessing. I may have no home here, but you always have a home with me.”

Treana refused to face him, tears rolling down her eyes.

“Marrying Ra-til is wrong. Not everything Father says is correct, and you know this.” That caught Treana’s attention, and she stared at him with anger. “I will be over this hilltop, at the bottom of the other side. This family is welcome to visit me, and unlike this family, I will make it feel as if their home were my own.

“Father is never wrong.”

“Poor girl… remember that when Ra-til takes you.” He stood full, upright- but broken inside. “Return your wood, or you’ll miss dinner.”

He descended the hill, back to the hut. He didn’t say a word to anyone, and picked up his sachel. Without addressing anyone, he went back up the hill. His father didn’t even watch him walk by or look up, instead focusing on preparing for the evening meal. Ra-til, however, did, and sneered with disgust. Treana burst into tears like she did the last time he left. And his mother, nearly catatonic, shed a tear for the boy who was living the dreams she had inside her tormented brain.

5

From the castle walls, the soldiers can see many farms and hamlets spread for thousands of leagues across the wide valley that is home to the reign of Lord Jironsk. It was a common thing for the soldiers of the realm to want to retire and farm, perhaps start a tavern and raise horses. Many of those taverns can still see the proud castle and keep of Fed Sharin and reminisce about the good old days, or the odd border skirmish that kept the soldiers abuzz- the realm had not seen war in over twenty years, more than enough time for the soldiers of that day that survived to move on, and to be a legend to the current crop of guardsmen, pikemen, and archers.

A few soldiers, though, had enough of the city life. Fought in the war, for lord and land, and whatever other hoopla the rich officers fed to the peasants that died in their name. They stood to get as far from the lord as possible.

Kaios, the Silverhand, was such a veteran.

Born in the turn to the modern age, he was the illegitimate son of an ironsmith and a weaver. The mother couldn’t afford to show him lest she be stoned for adultery, and the father couldn’t take him in because of his own family, so he was sent to the orphanage. Fed Sharin’s orphans were done well by its citizens, and received a rudimentary education and, more importantly, skill training from an early age. However, Kaios matured physically more rapidly than the others, and after standing up in a fight for a friend in the orphanage a man took an interest in the youth. You might think it was in revenge for beating up his son, but the man rationalized his son deserved a thumping. The orphan was strong for his age, and mentally alert. He knew before long that the priests of Kalimoch would be by, and felt that the orphan’s destiny lay more appropriately in the service of his lord. He was hidden in the guard barracks, a squire to the more affluent knights and soldiers of the day.

Kaios couldn’t read, and had rudimentary skills such as rope making and basic carpentry. But the kinder of the elite soldiers took to him and would teach him a thing or two about fighting. Not enough to survive, mind you- he was an orphan after all, and why the lord looks favorably on them, no one will ever truly know- but to give the kid a little hope before he’s mercilessly cut down, that’s not a bad thing. The problem is that each soldier and knight gave him enough of a training to make him a truly effective soldier. When the horn sounded, and the soldiers mustered for war, Kaios found himself in the middle ranks of a unit of spearmen.

The unit marched for days and fought a battle that had little explanation, little seeming purpose, and was over quickly. His unit lost hundreds but he and many others survived, and apparently they even won the fight. As they returned, he received many congratulations for doing something that he never actually did- fight in the battle.

However, Kaios’s humility only caused his fame to grow, and before long he was treated as a local hero amongst the soldiers. He earned the name Silverhand because he chose to practice with chain gauntlets on- a trick that a noble told him would make his arm speed quicker- and was otherwise an average guy, bigger but not brighter, handsome but not stunning, and easy going about things. He married a lady that caught his eye in the barracks tavern, someone who was beautiful and energetic, a real party fan.

That’s when things turned sour for the non-hero.

Silverhand was mustered with a platoon to hunt down and apprehend- with force if necessary- a group of accused criminals. The crime was disturbance of the peace by destruction of property. It didn’t take the soldiers long to catch up with the offenders, who mostly plead for leniency. A few, however, knew their true fate. IT was their wood cart that broke free of the yoke, rumbled uncontrollably down the street, and smashed in the front of a merchant’s house who happened to have the ear and sympathy of the good Lord Jironsk. Their charge carried a sentence of 10 years in prison, which was a death sentence for some in the group- those holding the weapons. The fight was brutal and bloody- desperate men fight harder than any soldier- and when it was done, the entire group of accused lay dead, the final by the hand of the force marshall himself. Silverhand resigned his post that evening, to the ridicule of some, and took his wife and their money and started down the valley. His wife was not thrilled with the decision. She loved the taverns and the life of the city. She enjoyed spending Kaios’s earnings. But most importantly, she enjoyed the attention of the other men. Now, all of that was gone. He found a plot of land that required farming over the horizon from Fed Sharin, and there he settled.

He took to adventuring when the money was tight. He wasn’t a very good farmer, and his wife had an insatiable appetite for things, whether they be shiny, smooth, or tasty, and he began to realize that he enjoyed adventuring more than the company of his wife. She began to realize this too, and instead of working through issues as modern married couples are encouraged to do she resorted to nagging.

Silverhand walked most of the way back to his cottage. The boy priest… he couldn’t remember his name, but that kid had done a reasonable job, all things considered, that he should walk within weeks of the injuries he took. His horse, grateful for not carrying the additional 15 stones of a man, bobbed his head tired but relieved. The home was within sight now, and he’d just passed the corner of his farm’s wall. The horse had two large sacks of things, including tapestries, art, and of course gold and jewels. He was covered in a fur robe, mostly to stay warm but also to keep the insects more interested in the robe than in his wounds.

“It’s about time you got back,” was the shrill yell from the window of the cottage. For a brief second, he considered turning around. But he steeled his resolve and moved on down the road. At the front of the cottage, he tied his horse to a post and hefted the sacks. Much better than yesterday, he mused as he stretched his wounds again.

He opened the door to his cottage and there stood his party girl, a veteran of life and royally unhappy.

“By Kalimoch, you smell. And you must be getting slow, because you look half-dead.” Kaios merely wandered to the table and set his sack down. “That’s all you got? You must have been robbed. I bet that bitch Aiora talked you out of half your share… or did she do more? You slept with that tavern slut, didn’t you?” She punched him directly on his arm wound, which made him sneer.

“No, princess, I’ve only ever had a heart for you,” was the response uttered with an understandable mix of disdain, exasperation, disbelief, and resignation.

She rifled through the sacks, tossing aside art as if it were a mere notice, wares as if they were cheap tin. She pulled out the clothes- finer clothes of the wives of the marauder they slew, and she held them up to her. “Is this your idea of a joke?” she yelled. “Do you think I’m really this fat?” She threw the dresses at him, one at a time, almost so fast they covered him like a blizzard of cloth. Yes what was brewing in his head, but rather than say it he only said:

“I don’t think you’re fat, princess- that’s the only clothes they had.”

“Fie on you! Lying cheat! Aiora took the good ones!” He knew this was not true, and so did she, as Aiora was three hands shorter and a solid four stone lighter than ‘the love of his life.’ But she was displeased and he didn’t care, so it lingered in the air like all the other comments.

“How’re the kids?” Kaios tried to change the subject.

“Oh, sure, wonder about the children but not about me. So typical of you. Go out adventuring and leave me here to fend for myself in the middle of nowhere, with no money for food, rude neighbors, and ungrateful children, and you care more about them than you do me. I’m fine, thank you very much.”

He figured she was fine by the way she seemed to muster all that energy to be rude to him.

“And another thing, hero,” she sneered out, “next time you leave for an ‘adventure’ (said with enough disdain to make it sound like a lie) be sure to leave me enough money for the tax assessor. I was able to tell him you were doing something useful, but we both knew it was a lie.

He gingerly stood, his feet sore and he wounds aching. “I’m going to take the horse to the stable and draw a bath. Dinner will be ready when I get back.” He wandered to the door.

“Oh, really. Just what exactly is for dinner, anyway? Do you think I’m just going to make dinner for a man who can’t provide for his-“

And with that, the door shut.

Silverhand took the horse to his stable. He had six standard horses, and he used them as a business to exchange with messengers that were in a hurry to promote some form of state business or other. The neighbors didn’t mind, although they wondered just how bad a husband he must be because it seemed like she never stopped yelling at him.

The two little girls that ran up to him, however, didn’t think he was a bad anything at all.

“Daddy! Daddy!!” the girls ran up to him and each one grabbed and hugged a leg. He smiled- probably the first time since this ordeal ended- and brushed each of their hair.

“My little angels… it’s so good to see you.”

“Leave your father alone or you won’t get any supper!” came the crowing voice from the cottage.

“Go on inside- I’ll be right there.” He smiled and winked. The girls were a little dismayed, but cheered up some when they saw their father put the horse in the stable. That was as good a sign as any that he wasn’t going anywhere. The girls ran inside and attacked their mother. “Why do you have to be so mean to us? Aren’t you happy to see daddy? Why is he so hurt- did you hurt him again?”

“Girls, girls… (sigh) yes, I’m happy to see daddy but we need to-“

“Eat dinner at some point?” He looked through the window. The girls’ eyes were as wide as saucers and smiled. “Yeah, suppertime!! Suppertime!!” Mom had to corral this stampede and quick. “Dinner. Umm… hmm. Hinna, go get some wood. Gabby… go to the shed and get some sausage and potatoes. And I’ll… just be ignored by my husband again.”

The sun had set over the far end of the valley. Another change of the guard was occurring, and this would normally be when he would have started his patrol. But as he sponged off with well water, he knew that he would never do that again. He’d much rather… well, adventure than walk a wall anyday of the week. At least that way, he could be more certain that he’d not kill someone over a rich man’s grudge.

6

The vale was in late bloom. The fall colors contrasted nicely with the blue blooms that scattered the western range. No hills were here, but a valley deep and long that ran from horizon to horizon. Only the mountains to the north provided any sense of a boundary, and even then it was more artistic than practical. The sky was piercing blue, the grass a dying grayish green, and the air warm and dry.

In this kingdom’s history, the location was a frontier for another different and neighboring sovereign who sought the access to the valley. This sovereign was no fool because the valley while poor for farming was strategically vital. For this purpose, his legions constructed a reinforced watchtower. At the peak of the tower, a normal man could see for 200,000 leagues- it was this simple switch of physics that earned it for a reputation of ‘magic.’ No mere mortal could see that far, and therefore being at the tower’s peak must have been an enchantment.

Armies fought, one side lost and one won, and the tower switched possession. For over 800 years the tower had slowly changed possession, marking the turn of eras simply by what nation put it’s banner at the top. Scholars didn’t even have recorded history of the original construction or owners, and so another facet of the magical reputation came to be- it was built by gods, for who else would build with stone so well?

It was functional; the grounds were large enough to hold a legion of soldiers, and the tower doubled as a command center so that a number of people could occupy it as well. But it had last seen use for military purposes about 20 years ago, and even that was not as the silent stone sentinel that it occupied in its glory, but as a rest stop on a long traveled road. Otherwise, it had been home to various scholars, magicians, geniuses, and others for whom city academies had grown lifeless. The tower was an academic retreat.

Abzil called it home.

He studied the tower carefully. He actually had been dreading the return home, and cursing himself for poor decisions. The decisions were the selection of his apprentices, and they were poor because they were young, bright, and utterly mischievous. Abzil saw himself in the boys, but knew once they were board that a tranquil existence would disappear. He was wiser than he realized.

At first, the pranks were sophomoric and juvenile- wet slippers, chairs that were rigged to collapse- and Abzil took it in stride. But then when they saw they weren’t affecting him, they began to increase the impact of their efforts. Soon buckets began to appear on doorways. Oil began finding its way to stairs. Abzil saw an unrealized creative streak in the apprentices and tried desperately to harness it into feats that we would call engineering. This, too, would backfire as now the pranksters were given a new mechanism from which to draw on for their mischievious muses.

Abzil knows that they probably hadn’t seen him yet; they were busy preparing for his return. That meant the tower was going to have a number of silly distractions waiting for him, where all he wanted to do was be off of his feet for at least one full two-moon cycle. He headed to the trees on the hillside, south of the tower, and progressed through the wooded piedmont slowly. He eyed a reasonable branch, about 30 hands long and took it. Quickly he had a knife out and began to carve a hole in the end, like the eye of a very large needle. After he had completed that task, he threaded a silk rope through the hole and tied a sliding knot loosely around the end. He took an empty sack and began to crumble dead leaves into the sack in as fine a powder as he could muster. Children, he grumbled in his head, thank everything they’re not mine or they’d have gone missing years ago.

Once his preparations were complete he traversed up the southern hillside to approach his tower in tree cover. The boys were smart, but were only starting to get clever and he had little time left to best them at each of their petty games. By approaching the tower from the south, he had less ground to cover and there were less windows to signal his approach. Abzil left the tree cover and looked at the tower, a mere 50 paces over flat, grassy terrain that was well cared for.

Smarter every day, Abzil thought, and took out his pole. He poked at the ground, and, when sure his path was safe he’d take a step. His caution was well heeded, as not more than 10 paces from the trees a hollow rustling gave way to a hole wide as a man and twice as deep.

“Oh, now what fun is that- we dug for hours out there!” The cracking voice of an adolescent boy rang out over the hillside garden.

Not entirely convinced that they only dug one hole- they had had months to prepare- he continued a prudent and cautious approach. Perhaps it was fortune, or because Abzil knew the boys would have spread the holes too widely in an attempt to really get him to fall in, he made it to the tower door quickly.

Abzil pulled the stick out with the loopside in front and shoved open the door, but waited. Nothing fell, no other noises… in fact, it was unsettlingly quiet. Holding the stick under his arm, he held it high enough so that the silk rope just touched the floor. Using the premise of dragging his earnings into the tower, he let the rope swing back and forth, and identify the trip wire placed 4 paces from the doorway. Smiling, he swept over it and found a second within one pace. Stepping casually over the laid trap, he hefted his bags onto the round table in the main room. He pulled a vial of horse oil from his robe and mixed it with the leaves until a dark brown paste was formed. He looked for the trap. One wire was a fake, the other… well, it appeared as if a metal pot with who knows what was waiting to greet him. He placed it softly onto the other side of the live tripwire.

“Boys!” Abzil’s voiced echoed through the tower, up the spiral stairs. “Val! Zeb! Come here.” Abzil knew they would likely be hiding, and dribbled a little aged tree sap on the floor. “Boys- I want your help with the earnings.” With that, the games over, the sad boys pouted and sulked their whole way down the steps. Abzil patiently waited.

“You could have at least fallen for one of our pranks,” came the more mature voice of Zebfas.

“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to consider something new. But now, we have work to do.” Abzil looked to the younger Valenu, whose foot stepped ever so squarely on the sap, pulling his shoe right off of his foot.

“Awwww…” was the only response he could get.

“Zebfas, if you have months to prepare practical jokes for your tutor, then I suggest you keep the residence clean. There’s a giant pile of mud near the door. Clean it at once.”

Abzil knew the boys were clever, but also knew the skills of each. Valenu took to the rigging of pranks. Zebfas was more strategic, and better with the materials. By distracting Valenu, he had neutralized Zebfas’s ability to know which line was the fake.

Zebfas hesitated, and turned to look at Abzil, who merely scowled in a manner that suggested immediate compliance was required. Zeb reached around the wire and picked up the unpleasant, tacky mess of leaves and glue, which oozed through his hand as he returned.

Abzil began the scolding. “Lads, I know you enjoy a joke. But it really is growing tiresome. I expect you to dedicate yourselves to your studies. You aren’t going to qualify for the academies if you continue to waste your time on silliness like this.” A mumbled “yes sir” came from each.

“Now, go clean up. We have counting and accounting to perform. Tomorrow, we’ll head to Fed Sharin for supplies.” That brightened the boys’ outlooks, and they ran to the chamber to wash up and prepare for the evening tasks.

Abzil had a very strict schedule of activities. Before sunrise he would ascend the tower, record the wind and weather, and the positions of the stars in the skies. He would mark the rise of the sun in relation to the mountains, then head downstairs for breakfast. Normally Val would help him before sunrise and Zeb would prepare the meals. After the fast was broken, he would hurry to the treeline to check on his herbs and roots. He didn’t buy the hogwash that an herb was more potent if found in nature. He grew some of the most potent herbs in the realm, and understood their properties as well as any scholar.

At the sun’s zenith he’d have the boys perform chores such as gathering would and tending the animals. While they were busy, he’d check his stores of materials and review the findings from the morning against the historical data. He would prepare a simple lunch, usually bread, cheese, and wine, and share it with the boys. They would have a leisurely lunch, and Abzil would teach them about random topics.

In the afternoons, Abzil would focus on lessons with the various minerals, herbs, powders, and liquids he’d gathered and taught the boys what they were good for and how to make them for themselves. Using Abzil’s stash was fine, but someday he wouldn’t be there to make it for them. They would spend weeks on practical applications. At night, Val prepared the meal while Zeb assisted with the nighttime readings.

Abzil had done this regularly, every day, for 26 years. But the academies were running out of money. A good portion of their contribution from the crown was diverted to the Temple of Kalimoch. This made many, including Abzil, bitter about the fate of things. Some resorted to tutoring, others to creating machines of war. The more scientific would lend themselves to trade guilds in order to realize a benefit to the trade. Abzil initially started by being a tutor, but quickly realized he wasn’t good at it.

After his first set of students had abandoned him in the academy (quite literally, in the middle of a lesson they simply walked away), he noted an advertisement that stated the following:

“ADVENTURRERS TRAVL FAR MAK KOIN GIT FAYME”

The only word he read in the entire thing was ‘travel,’ he figured that he could see the land, gather new things, and have protection doing so. He signed up as a wizard, which immediately put him in high demand. He’d never cast a spell at any point in his life, and he knew all magic was was inducing a combination of misperception and stupidity in someone else; more importantly, he knew enough simple tricks that he could convince any gladiator, thief, priest, or noble that he was actually casting spells.

Abzil’s initial forays as an adventurer didn’t go well. He wasn’t a healer, so when they looked to his magic to save the life of the rogue that was poisoned opening a trapped door, he shrugged his shoulders as the poor sap died. He wasn’t a fighter, so when his group needed his help to bonk some heads he took a savage beating and half his party died anyway. He wasn’t a diplomat, so when it came time to convince the general of the hill trolls that hostile actions would result in their turning to stone, they thought he was trying to offer them a mirror.

But that was in the past. The boys had kept decent enough notes that a gap in the records would be forgivable. It was a full three days journey to Fed Sharin and they had to be rested, appropriately wealthy, and prepared. He didn’t want to stay for long and suspected the boys would challenge him on that. As they sat down to count, the boys wondered why anyone would be so interested in other people’s books, and what the heck they were going to do with three full sets of dinner table wares, a stone weight of strange cloths, and exactly 4 small rubies, 3 small amethysts, and 37 silver coins.

7

Beyond the mountains to the north, over a river that bursts with seasonal floods and behind a larch forest there is a castle, more artpiece than fortress that sits inconspicuously in a large crevace of the hills. Inconspicuous because the builder wanted the place to be nice, but not so nice that it would attract attention. The air would normally be cold, except that the owner had a hole drilled through the hill stone and created series of hot springs which had the dual effect of creating a great deal of fog.

The castle was the owned by the original owner, and was the only building throughout the continent of this series of kingdoms, empires, fiefdoms, republics, and collectives that had not changed hands since it was built 6,943 years prior. An impressive length of time. Certainly the original owners had long since passed? No, one of the original owners still resides there, although three others sought different places that were more roomy and less damp.

Dragons like their space, y’know.

The dragon in residence, whose real name no reader of this story could ever do justice, was simply known as Bob. How he came to be known as Bob none could say, and there was a running bet amongst the myriad servants and guild members that anyone that could get Bob to divulge the origin of his name would get 5 gold coins from each resident in the castle- a princely sum, indeed. Bob found this amusing, and let the humans scheme and squabble to attempt to get him to slip and tell the story. But a dragon is a being that charts its age by the eons of beings and considers geologic events to be reasonable measures of the passage of time. It would be more reasonable to suggest Bob was over 12,000 summers old, and is not easily fooled by anyone.

I mentioned servants and guild members. Bob had an idea during the age of titans and fairies. It was a reasonable idea actually, one of which Bob was quite proud. He flew from village to village and communed with the humans, or at least communed with those that weren’t so scared they tried to kill him. Those he ate. But the wiser tribes gain his counsel, and he directed them to do simple things- go into places too small for him to fit, bring him shiny metal and in turn, they would be guaranteed survival from titans. Those tribes were understandably grateful, and prospered while under Bob’s highly effective protection.

Over time entire tribes began to look to Bob as a leader, placing his image on banners and shields, swearing allegiance to him, and even protecting him from other humans’ perceived blasphemies. He laughed. “I’m a dragon, not a god,” he’d say, and the tribes would eventually apologize. This happened every third generation or so. Eventually, Bob got them to start writing down their history, which when told to the people considerably slowed the desire to worship the great green wyrm.

At one point Bob had no less than 349 tribes under his protection. He ate well, he was paid handsomely, and grew to a size more fitting of the titans that had long since fallen into decline. Some tribes from the hills were big, fat, and didn’t bathe; others were obsessed with facial hair; still others were so ruddy with soot and earth that it was as if their very skin was of the earth. His particular favorites were the stunted tribes, they lived longer and as a result they hunched over and their ears and noses grew quite pointy. It was at this point that Bob hatched his great plan.

Bob met with each group of tribes- by now, the concept of trade had taken root and the tribes benefited each other quite well- and laid down a set of ground rules. First, no tribe that wishes his protection was to attack another tribe. Second, he required 20 volunteers from each tribe to meet him at a prescribed place in the mountains. When the 7,000 men arrived, he proposed his scheme, and the Guild of Amalgamated Terror was formed.

The Guild Members had a central tenet- to be the source of fear and anxiety for those not of their realm. Bob so badly wanted to be left alone that he created this scheme. Bob taught these initial recruits two things- to fight and to fake death. Faking death was the key. Every now and then, he would send a number of tribes to the south, mostly to do recon but on occasion to play practical jokes on the folk of those realms. Rustle them out of their villages and take their loot, or their food, but not go overboard on the killing.

Inevitably the southern humans would send an army, or a squad, or just a small band to conquer the ‘invaders.’ There would be a massive fight, some would die, but most would fake death, and the ‘conquerors’ would take a substantially reduced amount of loot back to their places and claim victory. When the victors left, the survivors would get up and leave themselves. They would travel, congregate at the guild house, and discussion options, strategy, take, effectiveness of techniques, and new advances of the southerners.

The southerners began to place rumors to these evil northerners. The fat, smelly ones were called ogres, which was quite upsetting to the ‘ogres’ as they had never passed judgment on the humans of the south. Those with the facial hair were given a variety of names, again making the ogres jealous; “barbarian,” “marauder,” and “savage” were amongst the kinder words used. The stunted elders had a knack for survival as they could fit into small places and rather than kill, they chose torment and pranks to drive southerners crazy; they became goblins. Mind you, all of these beings were still very much human. But unenlightened humans are not particularly trusting, especially of that that doesn’t look like they do.

Bob watched the guild’s activities from afar. On occasion, a particularly ambitious group of southerners would see the guild leave, and pursue them to the north. Bob wasn’t about to have his scheme exposed, so he would swoop in and eat the pursuers with just enough flare as to be seen, and quickly enough to make people second guess what they saw. Bob knew there were fourteen dragons on the planet, of which the next closest was over a million leagues away (and wanted nothing to do with him, after a spat over a bad match of Gggrwrea’the’aeg’th, a dragon game similar to checkers that takes 72 autumns to play). His time to mate wasn’t for at least 2,000 springs, so he preferred to relax and run a sensible business.

The tribes of ogres, marauders, orcs, trolls, and goblins became so wealthy and technologically advanced that they were literally able to figure out ways to revive their kin from near death. Their craftsmanship became legendary, their food almost divine. Occasionally a guild member would forget a shield after a raid. A southerner would tell great tales of its magical powers. Your average ogre would blush; they’re quite modest, really, and say “it’s only a shield, and of no other import;” but then the silly southerners went and made up another race of mystical beings that must have created it- for surely a fat, smelly ogre couldn’t have this level of skill! When word of this trickled back to the ogre tribes, they were crushed. The goblins were upset, and the marauders were particularly sympathetic. No one wants to see people at the height of their craft insulted so… so rudely.

Occasionally, some of the more ‘sociological’ tribe members asked Bob if they could spy on the southerners, blend in, get a sense of how to approach southern humans. They offered that, while Bob was truly a great creature he may not be around forever. What if he wanted to go for a sip of lava with an old friend? Perhaps he would need a holiday? In any of these circumstances, it would help to know how to blend in with their southern kin, to delay discovery and keep their way of life safe. Bob was nervous of this at first, but after ten years of trial he was absolutely convinced. The spies came back emaciated, poor, and brimming with knowledge of their ‘alleged’ civilizations. It was estimated that the Guild of Amalgamated Terror had about 6.3 times the wealth of every human nation, kingdom, empire, and other form of government combined, and the particularly adept at math figured that amount was growing at a rate of five to eight percent annually.

Life in the north was beyond equal. Philosophers reached new understandings; a great debate between Gorlax the Troll and Red Belly the Ogre on something akin to existentialism was the subject of spirited tavern debate for years. And the Guild became something very close to a temple, which they of course would vigorously deny as Bob made quite clear in one of his first rules, Volume 1 page 2, that no one is to worship Bob, or his ideas, possessions, or works. They’re just humans, and he’s just a dragon.

The marauders that participated in the most recent southern raid had returned to the guild lands, having passed the fourth ridge of mountains in record time. They laughed about this particular ordeal the entire way back. “That woman looked desperate, ” they’d joke. “She looked desperate enough to take the boy? What was he, anyway? A healer?” “Did you get a full view of that warrior? Okay, I guess, but he was so slow- I had to do everything in my power NOT to kill him!”

“What about the skinny guy?”

“The incompetent boob with the bow?”

“No, the one with the spectacles.”

“Oh him. Actually, he was pretty decent. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought he’d figured us out. He was certainly the most clever of the six.”

“Don’t you mean five?”

“I was counting the horse that ran away. He was a close second.”

Checking in at the front door, they quickly checked their weapons into the armory and headed into the west wing of the castle. There was plenty of paperwork to do, and they hadn’t earned their boysenberry wine quite yet. They stopped and exchanged pleasantries with others; a set of goblins was keen on learning the effectiveness of their latest traps. One goblin in particular was trying to earn his way back into good graces as he had created a semi sentient slime that could survive on photosynthesis, but unknown to the goblin also corroded anything organic to ensure its survival. It killed many people and is last seen still creeping around some random southern village sewer, for which the goblin was ashamed and vowed to do better next time.

The third floor of the west castle wing was the debriefing area, somewhere the marauders were very familiar. Each of them grabbed form 9034-B and some blank sheets and began to recount their experiences. They were encouraged to remember details, no matter how slight. Each of the adventurers’ names, abilities, and overall performances were noted and collected. The various forms 9034-B were collected and taken to the Office of Montoring, where trending analyses began, and form 312 was filled for the accountants, form 65-A for research and development, and form 1007-Q for the Department of Social Concern.

That day they were subject to what any southerner would have considered an absolutely delightful training session on the upkeep of high quality wood equipment; the marauders had been doing that since the age of 4, so it was more of a punishment. Apparently some of the equipment was not being kept with the same level of care as they had been expecting, so everyone received a refresher. Afterwards, they joked around the well about the latest writings from Malthus the purely gorgeous Orc humor novelist, then went their respective ways.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the department of research and development, a case worker was filing papers away and updating records. “Silverhand… no change. Aiora… declining. Jorin, new. Cae-el... hmph, improving. Go figure. And Abzil… still improving. Fourteen straight improvements.” One more and Abzil would qualify for a special mention, and this goblin hadn’t filled out a form 469-X for 845 moons. He stuck one in the file, just in case.

8

The Rusty Ingot was boring tonight. Normally there was some form of revelry, either a bard playing or a large group of soldiers drinking themselves stupid, but not tonight. A fire had occurred at the smithy by the city wall, and many of the other business owners were helping the town guard in fighting the fire. It was a tragedy, really. The smithy was a young man’s foray, a traveler from somewhere in the southlands that struck an agreement with the town’s existing smith guild. The existing smith would continue to make big ticket items, such as sheets for armor, weapons, and other building reinforcements, and would do custom work; the new smith would focus on smaller items such as rivets, chain, and basic wares. Now with his forge in flames, his future was in doubt.

Aiora looked about the tavern. She had hoped for a dance, or even a lively conversation, but instead noticed one old man without a right arm in the middle of the room and the bartender. She’d already small-talked the bartender to death, and the old man was not demanding any attention. She ordered a sensible meal, consisting of a sausage, a large leek, quarter loaf of bread, and half pint of beer (she was a lady, after all).

This stinks, she moped to herself.

The yelling of men and screaming of women continued as a racket outside. Occasionally she would hear the crash of timber and stone and think there goes another floor, but otherwise your standard party girl was bored. The bartender stood by the door and occasionally eye Aiora. She was able-bodied, why wasn’t she helping? He’d help if he could, but a strange man he’d never met was sitting in his tavern and times were tough for anyone. He’d already had one of his boys reserve a room for the new smith, until he gets on feet again. “By Kalimoch, what a tragedy.”

The girl brought Aiora her plate. The girl half dropped the plate in front of the thief; it was obvious from her manners that she thought little of her customer. The server was plain but not homely, perhaps she was just jealous. Who knows what the girl’s real problem was. Aiora thought it adorable, and decided to tweak the nose of the girl. “Why aren’t you out there helping? Don’t you want to help?” Aiora said with a genuine air of concern, so sincere in it’s delivery that the girl was dumbfounded. The question was just laced with hypocracy, but she couldn’t have said it like that unless she really had concern. Maybe she’s unable to help.

“I, uh… father says I’m supposed to serve-“

At that point a gangly looking boy in a very familiar looking robe burst into the tavern, reeking of burning wood. “Sorry, sir,” was all he could say; the tavern owner helped him straighten out and brushed him off.

“Calm yourself, boy. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, sir, I just finished my shift at the fire and was returning home when I slipped on some slick stone and fell in here.”

“Home to your family for dinner, then?”

“No sir, I’m an orphan.” The boy said that as if everyone knew this fact.

The tavern owner slapped him on the shoulder and chatted him up about the progress of the fight. It was going well, they had most of it out. Fortunately, the smith’s anvil and forge were in the basement, so restoring the building was the chief concern. Don’t know if the smith made it out.”

“Son, here we honor those that give their efforts to their city freely,” pointedly over his shoulder and straight at Aiora, who didn’t notice because she continued to set up the girl for a fall. Have a seat. I’ll bring you some food. The boy, not noticing his surroundings, sat down a stool away from Aiora. The girls’ face brightened instantly.

“Good e’en, Nigel.” She smiled and blushed.

Nigel fought a smile and ducked his head. He only whispered out a simple ‘hello.’

Aiora turned and beamed. She immediately recognized it as her little thief from earlier. And he had a thing for the server girl. How cute! “Yes, indeed. Good e’en, Nigel.”

Nigel froze for what felt like a day, and turn to face the voice. He knew that voice. The woman smiled, lowing her head to look into his drooping eyes. Oh Kalimoch, it’s her again, he shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “H-h-hullo again, miss.”

The girl was a mix curious and outraged. How did she know someone his age? Was she deliberately insulting her now? How dare she go after her fantasy boy! Did he just call her ‘miss?’ She’s ancient! “Nigel, have you met?” was the question, and it squeaked out as if she had been grievously wounded.

Nigel was in a personal version of purgatory. Here was a girl he was very much interested in, some one who made him feel older, more powerful, and noble even though he was a bad boy. Next to him is a woman that has clearly known her share of bad boys and, while old, triggered a different form of better, more alive than noble. Worse, she knew a secret of his, and it looks as if she might say something about-

“Well of course we have, angel.” The girl’s eyes widened, the boy turned away, and Aiora feigned incredulity. “It’s no big deal,” she let linger cruelly. “I commissioned someone from my residence to deliver me a custom green glass scent bottle, and he was sent to retrieve it. You haven’t forgotten, have you, Nigel?”

The boy, realizing he was let off the hook again, went with the lie. “Yeah, that’s all. You know, I just do what I can to earn my keep in the city.” With that, he winked at the girl. The girl blushed. She realized that she was foolish for thinking such a ridiculous thought. That hag was far too old for Nigel.

“Della, would you fetch me a cider? I’m tinder myself after fighting that fire.”

“Of course, Nigel. You, er, need anything else, ma’am?” She looked at Aiora trying not to be rude and failing miserably.

“No, Della, I’m satisfied for now.” The girl cringed now that the hag knew her real name. With that, she went into the back.

Before the boy could stammer out any words, Aiora cut to the chase. She slid to the stool next to Nigel and under her breath she mumbled in the boy’s ear. “Listen, kid- I don’t care if you want to do what you tried to do earlier, it’s your life. But if you want to live long enough to get good at it, you need to find people willing to help. Otherwise, you’re just an ornament on a noose.” She looked around, and seeing only the old man she sat back in her original stool.

The boy, considering what she had just said, started to turn to her and say “but how” and was cut off.

Aiora interrupted at room voice. “I may regret this later, but if you deliver my bottle on time tomorrow, I may have another job for you. I’m sure you’d like to earn some more coins, hmm?” The boy, dense at first, comprehended her when she slowly started to nod. “I think you’ll find a bottle in the Kalimoch district. There is a delightful glass blower there, a true artist, and he’ll give you-“ with the hand Aiora had on the bar, she mimicked grabbing something with her fingertips and stuffed it into a fold of her outer coat deliberately “-a good price. But you can’t tell him it’s me, we’ve had a falling out. You understand?”

Nigel nodded. “Of course. I should have it to at the open of business in the morning. My evening is booked, you understand.”

Della walked out with the largest tankard they had brimmed over with cider. Aiora was impressed with the kid, when he was calm he was quite the smooth talker. “Of course. Take your time, I merely need the bottle before zenith.”

The rest of the evening went by without incident. The weary firefighters slowly made their way into the tavern, with Della bringing tankard of beer, mead, and whatever they had in store for the patrons. A very disheveled smith sat at the bar, a man with a broken spirit. It was clear no celebration would occur that night.

“How dull,” Aiora thought. She stood to leave. When she stood, Nigel looked at her and said “Good evening, miss…” implying that she introduce herself.

“Good evening, Nigel,” was her only reply. With that, she stepped out into the post catastrophic night air. She wandered the lit streets as she liked to, looking in windows at trinkets and toys, books and clothes, exotic foods and other essentials.

Travan followed behind her. Her pattern suggested that she would not make her way towards the noble district, which was alright by his reckoning but he still had to make certain she wasn’t deliberately leading him on a ruse. She would wind her way towards the district, then turn away suddenly, staying within streets that only had shops and merchants. She stopped by a food merchant and picked up an exotic fruit, but didn’t eat it. But at one point she didn’t turn, and walked through the portcullis into the noble district. “Wait for it…” Travan thought to himself. But in an anti-climactic move, she walked right in the front door of the jeweler and goldsmith. Travan decided to stay outside, watching the windows of the flat from the alley across the street. When she hugged and kissed the proprietor on the cheeks, he was depressed. He was hoping for so much more.

Aiora walked to the back of the small store front, The store owner, aurumsmith and appraiser looked up and beamed. “Ah, my favorite supplier,” he said with a big grin. He was enfeebled, having spent most of his years hunched over a table with jewelers tools. She smiled, said “How’s business?” and sat down across from him, her back deliberately shielding her activity from the window.

“Business for my work, not so good. Business for your supply, is very good. I don’t know where you find these pieces, love, but they are magnificent. True works of art. Unparalleled. I’m 60 winters long and I’m learning like a school child from these… well, treasures.” He shook his head. “Tell me you have another.”

“Sadly, not today. But I do have a carving-quality ruby for you. May I please see one of your latest?” He readily agreed, reached behind him, and grabbed a robust yet delicate brooch. When he offered the piece, she underhandedly placed the ruby on the table between them. He gently placed his hand on the stone, and when she handed the brooch back he swept the stone from the table with the skill of a magician.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, the brooch is as good as the pieces I sell you.” She lied, and he knew she meant it as a compliment, but was unsatisfied all the same. “No, I tell you I am an amateur. These artists are so delicate, so patient, that I only dream that I can create one piece of this caliber before I pass on. Here, I have something special in the back for you.”

While she waited, she stayed seated. She looked at the various things on display, and realized with a chuckle that this store was as close to a trophy room as a person of her trade would ever get. On the wall, an ornamental wall candle holder. In the window, an amazing piece that was gold with pearl-inlaid with emeralds in the shape of some mythical creature, maybe a dragon? Feh. Only a rube would want that piece. Everyone knows dragons are just a myth.

“My dear,” he said to introduce his return, “Even when you supply my work, you bless me. I should be able to get sixty cuts from that ruby. You shall receive payment in the usual manner?”

“Of course. I may be by in two weeks with another piece, depending on my fortune.”

“So late? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m just…” She looked at the door. “I just get the feeling like the sun is setting on my glory days.”

“Oh, now, my dear, don’t speak such nonsense.” The owner straightened up as much as he could. “You have provided joy to hundreds. You have seen places and done things that others will never experience.” With this he moved and hugged her once more. “And your sun is still before zenith, whereas mine affords me only the luxury of perspective. Understand?”

She still looked depressed, but nodded all the same.

“Besides, the man across the street is either a suitor or a guard, and I’m sure you’ll find out which sooner than you think.

9

“With grace and mercy, Kalimoch blesses your journey together, so that all-“

“Stop.”

“-your endeavors may be safe and bountiful. We say this-“

“STOP.”

Jorin stopped and focused on a man in his early thirties. The man was wearing chain mail and a tunic with the heraldry of a noble house. To his right and left were two considerably larger men, also wearing chain mail and tunics; behind them were a group of about ten, all men, milling about and joking with each other.

“Yes, sir?” Jorin’s reply was the same as any priest who’s prayers had been interrupted. Externally he was pleasant and forgiving, while internally he wished harm on the man for his rudeness.

“Please go and send a head priest. Or a chief priest. Someone of higher rank than you. ”

“Sir, any priest may do the Rites of Quest Benediction, they’re-“

“You fail to understand me, priest. I don’t want any priest. I want an important priest. Someone worth the considerable donation that I had to pay for thirteen men.” That considerable donation was exactly 14 brass coins, the minimum required contribution for that size of questing party, but no one said that being rich meant being loose with their money.

Jorin hated this part more than all. His dilemma was that he could either go to a head priest and risk a scolding for not doing his prescribed chores, or he could tell the noble that his coins needed to be either more yellow in color or at least more dense and risk him walking away and complaining. He chose to act on behalf of the temple.

“Sir, would you approach the altar, please?”

The noble was hesitant but approached and leaned across the table when Jorin did.

“Sir, I was sent went you gave your contribution, and both know I’m an initiate, which means you gave precisely what was prescribed, yes.”

“I shouldn’t have to give anything, but yes, I paid your extortive fees.” The noble knew where this was going and was just waiting to drop the hammer. He had money, but it wasn’t the money that brought him happiness; it was denying others his money and watching people react poorly towards each other because their sense of taking his money as a right was shattered. To be fair, he did this with merchants, whores, couriers, tax assessors, servants, and he was looking forward to it for the dozen men he’d hired to get him even more loot.

“Well then, sir, surely you can appreciate that to obtain a priest of higher rank you must… donate to the temple accordingly?” Jorin felt like filth saying those words, but also knew that’s business under Kalimoch.

“If I’m to understand you, initiate, you tell me that I have to pay more to receive a better priest.”

“Your contribution would be commensurate with the rank of the priest that you intended to preside over your service, yes.” Jorin was starting to feel better, this man was taking it far better than-

“I see. Initiate lout, I DEMAND that you send a head priest to me RIGHT NOW.” The final words echoed off the inside of the temple narthex. Several other priests and worshippers turned to see the spectacle. The twelve hired men stopped their discussions and focused their attention on the priest.

“Good sir, the requirements for obtaining the Rites of Quest Benediction are plain, and it is not within my power to-“

The noble was now raising his voice and behaving indignantly. “Apparently they don’t educate you in the monastery. I asked for a head priest. You are too stupid to get one. Gav- it is Gav, yes?” He looked to the brute on his right, who nodded. “Gav, hold this diaper-bound illiterate lout in place while I seek out someone worthy of our contribution.”

A voice from behind Jorin softly filled the blessing area. “That won’t be necessary, sir.”

A head priest appeared behind Jorin, and that he was a head priest was fairly obvious. His white robes were edged in thick red borders, with tassles of gold braid and symbols of holy Kalimoch hanging around his neck. He bowed to the group with a comforting, confident smile. “What can I do for you in Kalimoch’s name, my son?”

“Yes. Well. Apparently your priests are ignorant. I would like a different priest.”

“I see.” The head priest looked at Jorin, then back at the noble. “Has this priest somehow failed to provide the services required?”

“Head priest, it wasn’t a failure to deliver, but a failure to make my men believe.” The noble waved to the men behind him. “I could hear their disinterest in his benediction, but rather than try harder or be more passionate, he continued to ramble in a manner that suggested that his passion for our lord is temporary.” He sneered, looked at Jorin for a brief moment, then fixated on the head priest. “And then, when I had made a reasonable request to discuss matters with a head priest, he informed me that it would cost more.”

Jorin wanted to object, but he knew that petty arguments were not for the narthex. He stayed silent and passive, and let the drama unfold before him.

“I see. Initiate, go to the summoning room and tell Priest Jamison that we require a new initiate.” Jorin bowed his head and walked away from the altar.

Wrong, he fumed. This whole experience was wrong! He had no interest in the quality of my benediction, which was reasonable and heart felt. No, he just wanted me to twist in the wind, that arrogant jerk. He entered the summoning room and found Jamison, who was reading a scroll on the news of Fed Sharin. “Father Jamison, head priest Yakoro requires an initiate at altar four.” Jamison looked at the boy and shook his head.

Jamison barked over Jorin’s shoulder “Initiate Lomol, please report to altar four.” He then turned to Jorin. “And you, you know what to do.”

Jorin did indeed know what to do. He stepped out of the back door, and into the meadow pasture of the temple grounds. He slowly made his way to the building across the way. He was in no hurry to get to it, not knowing what was in store for him on his arrival. As he crossed the meadow, his feet falling softly in the thick grasses, he looked at the northern mountains. He remembered his experiences away from the temple and reminisced. Until he left for that adventure, he was convinced that all humans treated each other like dirt and that his purpose in life was to be a shining beacon of civility, humility, and patience for mankind, an example of what could be good and decent.

The four that he traveled with, they didn’t treat him like dirt. They yelled at him at points, laughed with him at others. They cared for his survival, although he couldn’t understand why. They shared meals- he ate more in 6 weeks of adventuring that he had in 6 years of service to the temple. But when they stopped at the temple on their return, they didn’t say “get lost” or “go away” or otherwise suggest that they were sick of him. Rather, the thief hugged and whispered in his ear “Thank you for saving my friend’s life;” the wizard gave him tips for chores and places to reflect, even if he wasn’t thrilled about Kalimoch; the younger woodsmen slapped his shoulder and smiled. The warrior- the man for whom he still worried for his survival and recovery- acknowledged his efforts without malice, disgust, or hate in his words.

He saw the doors to the Chapel of Reflection open and a young initiate fall out of the doors. Too weak to stand, the initiate rolled away from the door and curled into a ball. There were no visible wounds, of course. There never were.

But Jorin knew that his treatment was prescribed, and he was a man who had earned the robes of Kalimoch. Kalimoch was a merciful god, but his mercy must be earned. The Chapel of Reflection was full of men who had no care for Kalimoch beyond the money the priests paid them. What they did have a care for was a sadistic yearning to inflict pain. He considered helping the initiate that left, but instead sat cross legged in the field.

He felt the wind through his hair, the late afternoon sun warm and gold across on his face. It wasn’t fear that he felt, it was more like fatigue, mental anguish and resignation. He wondered if it would be Tak, who favored the club, or perhaps Duke, who grappled and contorted his subjects. He actually knew most of them quite well, their names at least, and he knew that their duties weren’t personal. Jorin stood again. It was a far better thing to enter the chapel by yourself than without an escort, as the escort meant that you took punishment for two.

Jorin pushed one of the heavy doors to the chapel open and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. A muffled scream was heard from below, but otherwise things were calm. A large man wearing a dark robe approached the boy priest, who simply bowed and acknowledged his approach.

“Well, Jorin, I think I have something special planned for you this evening. Follow me.” The man turned and headed to the basement stairwell. Jorin hung his head and followed. They descended the narrow stair- actually, Jorin was amazed that the man in front of him could fit down the stairwell at all- and entered the Room of Consideration. This room had twelve cells, six each on opposite walls, and the center had a variety of shackles, ropes, tables, and other instruments of ‘cleansing reflection.” The purpose of this room was to help one reflect on how they had failed in Kalimoch’s service, to suffer at the hands of men, and receive Kalimoch’s mercy and forgiveness. The man turned into a cell and suggested that Jorin step inside. He drew a breath, then walked in. The robed torturer walked in behind him and closed the door.

In this cell there was a small table on which a large book rested, with two short stools. Jorin had never been in this cell before, for he would remember if there was one square yard of this chapel that wasn’t entirely dedicated to reconciliation and reflection. The robed man sat across the table from Jorin, and offered than he to likewise.

“Jorin, do you know who I am?” The man’s voice was easily the deepest, most mellow voice he had ever heard. Jorin shook his head and the man continued.

“I am Prav, and I am in charge of the punishments here in the chapel. I wanted to chat with you before we began, because I think we may have some kind of misunderstanding.” He opened the book on the table. On the page he stopped at, he had Jorin’s name listed with each torment Jorin had received. It covered both open pages, and the next pair as well. “I have reviewed your history in the Chapel. You have been our guest over 200 times. You have received each of our methods of reflection at least ten times. Do you enjoy being here?”

“No sir,” was all he could utter. Two hundred times? He knew it was frequent, about once a moon, he figured. In reality, it was over two times a moon, and often more.

“Are you an idiot, perhaps?” Prav uttered those words without malice. Jorin shook his head.

“Explain to me, then, how one boy who has attained the rank of initiate can find himself in the company of my men three times every moon?”

Jorin knew that to be anything other than honest with them regarding your thoughts, feelings, and intentions was to invite more punishment. At first he defied them, opting for silent acceptance later. Now, Jorin no longer cared. “I mean this with no disrespect, sir,” Jorin stated with resignation, “but each of these times I wondered what I had done wrong. Now, I am wondering what they are doing wrong that I should be sent here so frequently.” He closed his eyes and waited for the fist across the face, or the hands on the shoulders to drag him to some weird device.

Prav merely closed the book. “My son,” he whispered, welcome to the rank of ‘priest.’

10

Cae-el lit a torch once he was over the hill top and proceeded down the north face. He knew that he may be making a rash decision, one he may even regret. But now was not the time for reflection and contemplation. He was looking for the road, and turned west remembering that he would eventually cross it, at which point he would turn north again and aim for a tavern. He didn’t even know if he would make it there, but he did know that it was too risky to camp in the forest alone. He was tired, his feet were sore, and he needed all of his concentration to avoid a hostile situation.

The night sky was cloudy, with both moons providing little help guiding the way. Cae-el knew that his torch would only last so long. He needed luck tonight. Traveling along the path was much faster, and he was to a point he recognized as being a half-day’s journey before long. The tavern would not be far, around the next hill if his memory served him right.

“Hold it right there. Stand and deliver.”

Cae-el stopped and took count of his surroundings. There was one man with a bow, another with a bow perched in a tree limb… surely there were more. No robbers would attack with only two. “Are you serious?” was his incredulous reply.

“Well, mate, it doesn’t look like this one thinks we’re a challenge.” The other laughed. “Drop your sack and your belt, please. Step to the side of the road and you may survive tonight.”

Cae-el dropped his sack, but not his purse and slowly backed away. “Indeed? Two men, attempting to hit a moving target at 10 and 25 paces with… pine bows? Honestly. You holding pine wood bows drawn for this long and you’ll be lucky if you get more than three accurate shots out of them.”

“We’re better shots n’at. We’ll put your eye out from here.”

“Hardly. Here’s what will happen. I will make it to the edge of the road. By the time you’ve made it to my bag, I will have planted a knife in your eye socket. The other chap will hit the tree I’ll be taking cover behind. I’ll be readying my bow, with which I will shoot you in the back like the cowardly thief you are-“

The arrows whizzed through the air, and Cae-el’s prediction about their accuracy was off, for he gave the bows too much credit. The arrows planted directly in the dirt of the road, two full paces before Cae-el. Cae-el laughed as he readied his own bow. Knocking and drawing an arrow of his own, he aimed directly at the chest of the villein in front of him.

“This is the wrong day to test my patience, knaves. Run now or die.” Cae-el was letting his anger get the best of him, the late day’s frustration finding a release in the tense pull of a bow string. The villains stared at him, almost challenging him to shoot. Their challenge was met, as Cae-el released the bow string and sent a finely crafted arrow straight through the second and third rib on a villein’s left side. He fell to the ground, and death was instant.

“Murderer! MURDERER!!” The man in the trees screamed out.

Cae-el found that poor response, and before the tree-bound robber could utter another sound, he let loose a second arrow that pieced the man’s calf, and because his leg was bent it went through his thigh as well. He fell from the tree in agony, and his landing compounded it. He had only heard the footsteps from behind him briefly, and instinctively fell to the ground. A wise move, as the club aimed directly for his head.

“Murdering swine,” yelled the third robber, “I’ll kill you for my kin, and claim my reward for you in the morn!” Cae-el rolled to the side as the club impaled into the ground where he just laid. He was having trouble releasing his blade- a scimitar of unknown origin, but of high quality and exceptional speed- from its scabbard, and eventually gave up on it. No others were approaching, save for two torch lights on the top of the hill. He would have to hold out long enough to determine if they were friend or foe.

“What, scum villain, afraid to try to kill someone that can challenge you? Murderer!” With that, the incensed club wielding robber charged Cae-el. Cae-el timed his move, stepped to the side of the foe as he swung his club, then punched the man in the face.

“Is that the best you can do, criminal?” The robber launched his elbow on a backswing, which caught Cae-el off guard, and followed up with a backhanded club swing which connected poorly but enough to throw off Cae-el’s balance.

“I think you are mistaken, robber.” Cae-el danced a little to regain his balance and fighting posture. “I did not fire the first shot, nor the second. You should be so lucky that you ambushed me, or you’d be along side your villainous kin.”

“That bag is MINE, thief!” Again the robber charged, and as the club missed again, Cae-el felt for a throwing knife- but none could be found. Sweet mercy, not now…

The robber grunted as he hefted his club, and Cae-el realized it too late, bracing his arm for the collision which was true and square, knocking him a full pace away before he hit the ground. “Come on, you murdering scum,” taunted the robber, “get up and take your shot.” He waited, but placed himself between Cae-el and the bag.

“Stand down, both of you!” A voice rang and the sound of hooves thundered in the night air. The sheriff’s patrol approached on their watch, and upon seeing the man get hit with the club they sped to the scene of battle. With a swift, practiced dismount, the sheriffs men were armed, defensive and ready to strike. The robber dropped his club. Cae-el drew breath, and assessed the situation.

“Sheriff! Thank Kalimoch you’re here. This man just murdered my kin in an attempt to rob me!” With that, he pointed to the bag.

“Hogwash! That bag is mine, and I was ambushed by these three men in a robbery!”

One of the sheriff’s men spotted the clearly dead robber, and heard the moaning from the side of the road.

“You- did you kill that man?” The question was also an accusation, and Cae-el was trying to buy time.

“Sheriff, there are two arrows in the road by that bag. Those were fired in an attempt to kill me. I returned fire-“

“MURDERING SCUM! You shot Graul before announcing that you wanted to rob us!”

Cae-el realized his pickle. The robber was going to lie, and the best possible solution from all of this would be that his bag would be confiscated, and he would be placed in a gaol until the mess was sorted out. It would likely be his word against the two robbers (assuming the other survived), and since Cae-el had not lived in a town, there would be no friends on any juries. Cae-el sat up, now at sword point from a sheriff patrol, and plotted his escape.

“Right. So you both claim the sack, and you both claim the other was trying to rob you.” The investigative patrolman began to think out loud. “Three against one, two lousy bow shots and one was keen, a sack lying on the ground, and a man swinging a club against another man that hasn’t drawn his melee weapon.”

Cae-el saw a glimmer of hope. The man was piecing the attack together.

The patrolman continued. “I one set of foot prints to the bag from the center of the road, another coming up behind it; the missed bow shots in the direction of the ambush.” Cae-el realized this additional data didn’t help either of them, as it could put either in one place or the other.”

“Wait,” said the second patrolman. “Are you Sal, the fletcher from Graytower?”

The robber smiled. “I am.”

“Then who are you?” The patrolman asked Cae-el for identification. Cae-el offered it plainly. “I am Cae-el, I have no home town. I was returning from an adventure, my authorization for my quest is in that-“

“LIAR!” Sal knew that if the patrolman saw that paper, he was as good as dead. “That’s MY party’s adventure order, THIEVING MURDERER!”

Cae-el saw his fate unfolding in front of him, and he didn’t like where it was going. He never trusted his luck. His luck always abandoned him when he needed it the most, and only by skill did he continue to survive. He decided to act.

“May I stand, please?” The patrolman nodded, and Cae-el rose to his feet.

“This man will not let me get a word in edgewise, and you won’t silence him.”

“Because you’re a murderer that killed my kin!”

“I can prove every thing I say if you allow me to have my bag.”

The robber blanched. “Bring the bag to me and I shall show you what you need to see.”

Now the patrolmen were of a reasonable intellect, but even they are human. They simply needed to ask the question “what were the bag’s contents?” to determine who truly possessed the bag. But it was past dark-zenith, everyone was running on adrenaline, and patrolmen aren’t magistrates, barristers, or detectives- they need only keep the piece. One patrolman approached the bag. Cae-el and Sal both knew that if he got there, the gig was up.

That’s when fate, that ever elusive, fickle bitch turned her head and plucked Cae-el’s string.

“Give Sal the bag, I’m sure it’s his.”

In a quarter of a second, Cae-el saw his objectives and obstacles. He had to get around Sal, who would try to stop him; the patrolman approaching the bag would also attempt to intercept his approach. His torch still laid on the side of the road, stubbornly burning well past its life.

Cae-el pivoted from his outside foot away from the standoff and went to the torch. The patrolmen ordered him to stand down, but the time for keeping the peace had past. Sal laughed at first, the fool was practically handing him the loot and a pass from gaol, but stopped laughing when Cae-el reached the torch and turned for the bag. Sal then turned to intercept Cae-el.

The patrolmen were shocked but determined, and each behaved predictably. The guard followed behind Sal, while the investigator moved to intercept Cae-el. When Cae-el saw the patrolman’s defensive stance, he kicked the loose road dirt with a fury and swung the torch out to the right. The dirt stunned the patrolman and the torch hit Sal in the chest, setting his tunic on fire and wound him. Cae-el threw the torch at the horses and picked up the sack- but quickly fell to the ground as the patrolman’s sword aimed for his left arm.

“You’ll hang for this!” was all the patrolman could muster.

Cae-el had another handful of dirt, and launched it at the second patrolman, who was prepared for the cheap trick. It did slow him down a split second, and that’s all Cae-el needed.

“MURDERER!!” screamed Sal.

Cae-el ran straight into the woods. His pack clanking with the various metal knick-knacks and coins, he would be easily traced- but he was also unarmored and a moderate woodsman. His pursuers, however, would have to follow him on foot, and would have to choose between him and their horses, which Sal would steal without a second thought. The patrolmen were not armed with bows, so he could run straight until he found a stream or gulley. Heard the constant yelling of “halt,” “stand down,” and “surrender,” but as the distance between them grew, Cae-el cared far less about their commands and far more about losing them over a horizon.

He veered left, continuing down a hillside and eventually hitting a dry creek bed. His pace improved, and the voice grew distant more quickly. Eventually, Cae-el began to see a moon reflection from what looked to be- the river! He didn’t know it’s name (it was actually the Tafar River) but he knew it was the boundary of his hunting. It meant that his family was around the bend to the right.

Knowing that, he turned left and headed to somewhere that would get away.

11

The morning came too swiftly for the former town guard. The sun was only starting to rise, and his wife who now slept in a separate room poked him in his wounded arm.

“Welcome back, Kaios- time to get to work!” she said with a mocking cheerful tone. In truth, she was quite happy he had returned because now she would not have to do his animal care chores again for some time. She turned, humming a happy tune, and left him to rise from his pain-drenched awakening.

He was having such a pleasant dream. He was strolling through a fruit grove, his daughter playing games and laughing. He was speaking with a friend, who he couldn’t see but knew that they were near and that they were close. One of his friend from the service offered him some wine, which he tasted and found sour- but they laughed about that. Then he had been shot in the arm with an arrow… but woke to realize it was merely his loving wife.

Kaios rose from his be and shuffled to the stable. He grabbed a spade and scooped the droppings from behind the animals, then took the droppings to a bin. Abzil had explained some time ago that he had noticed that plants actually seemed to grow better, oddly enough, around animal droppings. If he were to mix in ashes and other plant material, and mix it just so, he would have better crops. He thought Zil was crazy, but he also knew Zil was seldom wrong. Once complete, he returned to the stable and placed a good amount of hay in the feeding troughs.

Day broke not long after he had finished with the stable, and he proceeded to head to the pig pen. There was nothing unusual- one was missing, another looked ill- so he dumped a pile of leftover plant material into their feeding trough. Scooping out their dropping was out of the question. Looking around, he didn’t see anything else that required his attention, but he figured his wife would know and would be happy to tell him a great list of things to do, usually ending with “move back to Fed Sharin.”

He washed up at the well and removed some of the less necessary bandages. Stretching his torso, he realized he was actually significantly better than even just yesterday. Just in time for the harvest, thankfully. He walked into the house, and his wife was quick to point out “either you half-assed it or you didn’t do everything.”

“Angel, I know that you’d certainly point out anything I’d miss.”

“What, do you think you’re funny? Do you think I enjoy living in the middle of nowhere, doing filthy jobs like this? You’re no peasant or commoner, for Kalimoch’s sake-“

“I told you- never utter that name in this house.” It was the first time Kaios had been stern in months, and his wife even knew that there were boundaries even she was not to cross.

“-and we aren’t living very well. Hinna and Gabby are going to grow up backwards and mothers by the age of twelve out here, is that what you want?”

“Would you prefer we sent them to the academies?” Kaios was actually quite serious about this offer, and watched his wife’s reaction carefully.

“What, them? They’re sweet girls, and they’ve caught on around here, but they don’t have the wit to make it at all in the academies- you’d know that if you weren’t gone so much.”

“We could, too!” Hinna’s hurt, defiant answer rang out from the children’s bedroom. “We’re just as good as anyone, right daddy?”

“Hinna, you aren’t just as good as anyone.” She looked even more hurt, and his wife shrugged her shoulders. Kaios turned to her and said, with a wink and a big smile, the bass of his voice rolling like a drum, “You’re much better.”

Hinna ran over and hopped up to sit in her father’s lap. Kaios said to her, “You know how I know you’re smart enough?” The girl, puzzled, shook her head. “Because your mommy attended the academies when she turned twelve.”

Hinna’s eyes grew. “Mommy, you really did?”

“Yes, Hinna, I did.” She was busy preparing breakfast, but said over her shoulder, “I read lots and studied hard, and learned about the weather and the sky, about nature and places and things.” She threw out, “But they only let me in because I was the daughter of a noble, which you are not.”

Hinna looked down, mumbled a dispirited ‘oh,’ and went back to gloomy.

“Now, don’t you fret even a little.” Kaios lifted her chin up. “One thing that your father has learned is that if you wanted something enough, and you work hard to make it happen, then it will happen. If you wanted to attend the academies, well, I think I may know a way. But you have to do your chores and be good for mommy, okay?”

She nodded her head. “Good. Now go help mommy with breakfast.”

A thunderous pounding rocked the doorway. Kaios stood to answer it. His wife also turned, curious to see how this would resolve itself.

Kaios opened the door to see a man dressed in a fluffy, pleated blouse, wearing a fully brimmed hat with the feather of a large peacock angled just so from the hat’s tie and large, puffy silk pantaloons. His boots were the feature, soft skinned riding boots. All in all, a very complimentary outfit which could only mean one thing.

The tax collector was here.

“Kaios, the Silverhand.” The man stated his subject’s name, but it was more of a command to acknowledge. Kaios did not do so, letting the name linger out for an uncomfortable period of time.

“Erm, Sir. The house of Holman Jironsk, Lord and Sovereign and rightful owner of this and all land known as the-“

“Skip to the amount.” Kaios was losing his patience.

“Right. Sir, in light of your status as a war hero and faithful service to our lord, the tax on your recent gains from your adventuring must be taken into account, and I am here to perform that duty.”

“Excuse me?” Kaios was not thrilled with the direction this was going.

“Yes. We have performed an audit of your activities at the Adventurer’s Hall, noting that you have been actively engaged in adventuring no less than 24 times in the last 100 moons, and as such we are entitled to audit your possessions on behalf of the house of our lord.”

Kaios approached man, flexing to prove a point. “I see. So the money that I paid in taxes on this land, for this cottage, on the feed for my animals, on the income for my stable, to the temple for my blessings, and to store owners for my supplies are no longer adequate to satisfy the Lord’s growing appetite for my earnings?”

“Sir, I think you’re missing the point,” the tax collected objected, but slowly began to back away.

“No, I think you’re missing the point, collector.” Kaios was now ready for a fight. “I sacrificed my income and life for 150 moons to the house of our lord, continue to pay out of my sense of duty, but out of the one income throughout the entire land that requires no service but the sacrifice of the foolish and brave and up until now has never in recorded history been taxed, you now want your portion of that as well?”

“Sir I-“

“No. You don’t need to talk anymore. Listen, and listen well.” Kaios was now toe to toe with the well-dressed bureaucrat. “You may come back, you may send more men. But you will not get any tax from me. You will not find it, and should you threaten me in any manner I will eviscerate you and feed you to my pigs while you still live. They’re hungry and I can’t afford to feed them because, you see, I pay taxes. Mark me on your little sheet as “did not pay.” Put a note that says “defiant” next to it, for all I care. The cost of collecting these taxes will be so high that it will eventually not be worth it. You won’t know how they die, but I assure you it won’t be by my hand.”

The tax collector stammered a little. “You are heavily wounded, and not thinking clearly. Perhaps I will have a priest from the temple sent here to check on you. When you have come to your senses, send a messenger or come to the Assessor’s office in Fed Sharin. We can discuss your levy then.” He mounted his horse and turned around.

“Silverhand, I don’t want to make this collection difficult, but I am backed by the authority of the crown. You know this better than anyone here.” He shuffled and just as he entered a gallop, he said “Reconsider your position. Good day, sir.” With that, he thundered down the road.

“Well that was just lovely of you!” His wife stood in the doorway. “Threatening a messenger of the crown. How will you get Hinna to the academies if you’re in gaol or dead?”

Kaios turned. “Hinna, Gabby, come here.” The girls sprang like gnomes out of the house and were by their father in an instant. “I want you to go down to the Burnknots and fetch some milk and butter. Tell them that I’ll be by with some feed shortly, I have to talk to your mother.”

The girls resisted. “Daddy, can’t we just wait for you?”

“No, you can’t. Mother and I have things to discuss that you don’t need to hear. They’re boring and involve droppings. Do you really want to hear me and your mother talk of droppings?”

“No…” The girls were disappointed, but they would have listened to a dissertation from their father on droppings, they missed him that much.

“Good. Now run along. I will be behind you soon enough.” The girls, disappointed, headed down the road to obtain their dairy collection.

“So we’re going to talk about droppings, eh?” His wife smiled, probably for the first time that he actually saw it. “What droppings, the ones you just laid in their brains, perhaps?”

Making sure the children were well out of earshot, he spoke softly to his wife. “Not all of us are able to pay taxes on demand, or more pointedly, not all of us have friends in court to ensure that we are being properly taxed, do you understand?”

His wife wasn’t quite catching on, started to protest. Kaios did something he rarely did- he told her to be silent. She did, but fumed at the condescension.

“Angel, not every tax collector is on the up-and-up, and not every tax is understood appropriate. I worked as a bodyguard for many collectors, and I was familiar enough with what they did. If our lord has really instituted an adventuring tax, I want to know how much it is, how often it is to be paid, and hopefully I can continue to avoid having collectors bother you altogether. Do you understand now?”

His wife would never admit it, but it did make sense. She had never paid one brass coin in tax in her life, as her parents and now her husband did it for her. It was an obscure concept to her, and one that she didn’t really want to know about. But rather than be caught as the ignorant one, she defended her original point.

“Kaios, you can’t just yell at a tax collector, even if he’s fake.” She looked at him pleading for reason.

“If he wasn’t fake,” Kaios looked her dead in the eye, “why did he travel for five sun’s ride without bodyguard to the farthest reach of the realm, only to turn away when threatened?”

“Because he was, I don’t know, collecting taxes? ” his wife spat back at him.

“Angel, look at the bright side. We’re going to Fed Sharin tomorrow.” Kaios let that linger, and when she finally understood that she would be traveling with him, she stopped being irritable to him for the rest of the day.

12

Abzil made certain that the last of his belongings were secured to the draft horses. These were not adventuring horses, as they were considerably slower, but they could carry more and were a far more comfortable ride. If they started early, they could make to the first tavern not long after sundown. The road held no threat of bandits or otherwise so the trip should be smooth. If it wasn’t for the little pranksters, that would be a guarantee.

Valenu and Zebfas were certainly making their preparations as well.

Abzil had a few items handy for the trip. He had a spy glass, as his sight was not as good as it used to be; he had a vial of tree sap (always useful), and three boxes of flash powder, for which you’d never really know when you’d need it. Also, his trusty silk rope which has paid for itself many times over, and three books. Once in which to write, and two to read, one for personal amusement and the other for discussing at the Fed Sharin Academy. He had other sundries, but they were mostly perishable or consumable. Valenu carried the food and Zebfas the emergency supplies.

The sun had not yet broke and they made their way down the valley road. The trip was deliberate but enjoyable. Every now and then a courier would speed by, but they were never to be bothered, especially when on official business. The boys would say hello to any farmers tending their crops or herders with their flocks. At one point, Abzil passed a rock with a strange looking plant at the base.

“Boys, look there. What is that plant?” He hoped against hope that they would remember.

After studying it intently, Valenu said “it’s a berry, but which one I don’t know.”

Abzil was actually impressed with the fact that he was at least close. “You’ll need to be correct when they ask you at the academies, but it is a strawberry. There’s no fruit now as it is out of season. What are strawberries good for?”

“Pies,” said Zebfas.

“Faking blood,” said Valenu.

“Oh, I’d much rather eat them than use them in a joke,” Zebfas defended.

“Don’t be a dullard, Zeb. You never know when you may need to fake vampirism or death.” Abzil was impressed more and more with the boy. He still wouldn’t pass his entrance examination, but he would consider giving Val more authority around the tower when they returned. He might even start in the city, if he behaved himself.

They continued down the road at pace. Abzil used another opportunity to test the boys, this time Zeb. “See that stream in the valley? Let’s presume that the stream is flooding, and the damage to crops would be disasterous. How could you prevent a flood?”

Valenu said “Dig a deeper stream bed.”

Zebfas retorted “Wouldn’t work. The water you see is already below the surface. Plus, it might stagnate if it was meant to be dry, causing vermin to eat the crops.”

Valenu was amazed. “How did you know that?”

Zebfas cocked his head. “When you dig enough pit traps in the rain, you begin to notice things.”

Abzil added, “Actually, the ditch idea is not that bad. What you say is true, there is certainly water in the dirt during a flood. But, and this is the key, your pit traps aren’t flowing anywhere. If they were directed like a stream, the water in the ground would flow out into the deeper bed and away from the land faster. But let me add a caveat- say you wanted to save the water for droughts. Now what would you do?”

Zebfas said “Well, you’d need a really big pool, like a pond or a lake.”

Valenu added, “And that would only work so well because the land needs more water than and lake or pond could provide.”

Zebfas fixated. “How would you make a really big pool?”

Valenu worked with his companion. “You could dig it or build a big wall to put water behind. But that’s near impossible, to build a large wall that doesn’t leak.”

Zebfas retorted. “Nonsense, castle walls hardly leak at all.”

Valenu shot back “Yes, but they’re hardly holding back water, are they? They’re not leaking because they stop people, not water.”

Abzil let the conversation continue for sometime. Eventually, he interrupted them so that they could take a meal break. He found the most curious trait- individually, the boys weren’t all that bright. Together, however, they were quite intelligent. They spurned each other on, saying things to tap into each others minds, opening the vaults of knowledge that a bold query simply wouldn’t penetrate. He wondered if there wasn’t some kind of way to break it- if it should be broken at all.

He had to ask someone at the academies about that as well.

As the day wore on, the conversation quieted. Abzil was thinking about the future, something that is prudent but in measured quantity. He didn’t want to obsess, lest he overlook something vital. He would have the boys run his errands, for they were already familiar with the city. The first day, he would attend the college of weather and sky, to enter his recordings and discuss topics of the day. He hoped to catch up with his colleague Yazzid, perhaps even have dinner and discuss local matters or government. The second day he would go to the Adventurer’s Hall, to see what the current slate of activities held for profitability and distance traveled, and perhaps catch up on any news. He would probably stay at least a day or two more, and have the boys in the main library of the academy to familiarize them with life and structure there.

Night at the Golden Harvest Inn was relaxing. The farmers were all harvesting or preparing to harvest their crops, so most were away from the local haunts. The in was run by a short, squat, hairy gentleman that resented being called a ‘dwarf,’ because resented being called anything other than “Mr. Mathas.” The chef was particularly good, because she told you she was and it wasn’t like you were going to get anything else, anyway. The boys retired early; Abzil spoke at length with Mr. Mathas about goings-on and local gossip.

Abzil, laying in bed, wondered what else he might discover in the city. He remembered Aiora, and thought about seeing her again. She was beautiful to him, and so very… untamed. He didn’t wish to tame her, but more join her for as long as he could muster the energy. He had known her since she was a teenager; she was a serving maid at the Book and Candle, the tavern in the academy district, and he had recently arrived from the western port city academy of Thurilax. He noticed she was a flirt and a thief, and exceptional at both. He recounted the number of times that he tried to win her attention, or her affection, but there was always something that kept her away.

Eventually he caught her attention and for one night, he moved and lived with her, running along the streets, hiding in the alleys, taking in the city from the castle walls. But she noticed that he wasn’t there with her, that as much as he wanted to be with her, his mind was on the academy, or the money he was spending, or even if they were going to get in trouble, but not on her. She explained it to him, and she could tell he was hurt- but unlike virtually every other man, he accepted it and agreed. No fight, no indignity. He walked away with his head held high, and his heart broken cleanly in two.

The humor in everything was that even after he stopped going to the Book and Candle, after he had taken up residence in the spare room of an eccentric, elderly noble that traditionally housed academy boarders because she thought that being in their presence would make her smarter, when his life had changed and he saw little value in being the bookish school teacher, he went to the Adventurer’s Guild and selected a quest- and whether by pure luck, fate, or consequence, Aiora had also signed on for the journey. When she saw him she laughed and couldn’t believe it- neither could he, for that matter- and they proceeded on with a guy who seemed to be a local legend, a former town guard that everyone seemed to fete whenever he entered a room.

He captured that essence, that desire to run with Aiora again, every time they went adventuring. But the end of the line was approaching. He wasn’t getting younger, having seen nearly 50 winters, and the little things that he provided as an adventurer were fading; his sight was dimming, his reflexes slowing. Sharp as a tack, and wiser every day, but how long would it be before he died because he couldn’t help his party anymore? Could he stand to be the reason that Aiora died?

He put it out of his head. She would tell him; he could trust her to be honest with him, if nothing else. He slept thinking of that adventure, the one in the east that involved a band of ogres raiding stables. He was so impressed when she… and he fell asleep, pleasantly allowing his body to heal and refresh.

The remainder of the trip was less eventful from the boys and from himself. He had begun cycling through the itinerary in the morning of the second day, and as there was a cold, piercing rain he thought of little beyond staying warm and dry. The boys may have had a blast with that southern tree sap that he showed them nine moons ago, but because of it, having coated the tanned pelt of a cow that covered some wool, they were very dry and the boys had little to complain about other than the fact that it had grown much colder.

The third day, which was a very long day indeed, saw Abzil prepare the boys in advance. Two days supply lighter and with fresh horses, they began their final leg of the journey. The various towers of Fed Sharin were plainly in sight, and only seemed to grow the closer they got. This sight would have caused a great deal of wonder in the western farmer, but not to the boys who have made at least a half-dozen trips to the city since being in Abzil’s tutelage. The rain had stopped but it was still cloudy and cool, and each of them were growing anxious to reach the city sooner rather than later.

Abzil sighed of relief and the boys cheered when they reached the groomed trails of the Jironsk Farm Lands, the wheat fields over two-thirds harvested and what seemed like hundreds of men, women, and children hard at work, scything away, going as fast as their dull blades were able. The irrigation was slightly wet, having received the rains from the day before and the runoff from the mountain hill. The northern mountains were starting to know cap…

“Wait, did I just see something?” Abzil fished for his spyglass and quickly assembled it. Raising it over the north mountains, he searched up and down, over the mountainrange where he saw a massive blue blur. He wanted to say blue. It was a blur, that much was certain. But he couldn’t find the scanned image, no matter how hard he tried.

“What did you see?” Zebfas was intrigued- anything that could capture the attention of Abzil that quickly and with that much focus must have been good.

“Look to the north mountains, over the Tregalore Pass.”

“Where?” Zebfas knew where the pass was, but he was stunted in the spacial relations department so he wasn’t quick to catch on.

“THERE!” Valenu yelled loud enough to nearly knock the others out of their chair.

Abzil caught it too. Wings. At this distance it must have been conservatively over 300 paces long. Blue, maybe green. And faster than any creature he’d laid eyes on. That defied logic. No creature that huge would move that quickly. Smiling, he now had new things to do. He knew he was going to look for adventures to the north. And he had a research task for the boys.

“Zebfas, Valenu- I think that you will prove your value to me by learning every thing you can about the myths of dragons.”

13

It had been several days since the last exchange with the jeweler, and Aiora was laying low. She knew she had a follower now, and she was doing everything she could to learn his identity. He was sloppy to be seen, but his real identity was still a mystery so he wasn’t completely a goon. She stayed plain and kept a routine. She didn’t want to spring Nigel on her scheme until she was certain he wouldn’t burn him- or her.

For Nigel’s part, he had done exactly as she had asked- the green glass bottle, the miniature scavenger hunt that included lifting a lady’s undergarments, which almost made him quit until she told him quite bluntly that if he really wanted to be a thief that he would have to be willing to do the embarrassing, the ridiculous, and always be unflinching when it came to taking risk. Hesitation is what kills the thief, contrary to what you may have heard.

She kissed him, if only to slate her thirst and keep his interest. Aiora demanded that he bed his sweetheart Della before long, or that would also make him vulnerable. She knew men, and boys, and the last thing he needed was to learn how to be a thief while smitten or horny. Nothing would stick in his brain, and she hadn’t quite assessed yet how capable that brain really was.

Always she stuck with the routine. This pained Aiora, especially when a particularly large, fat merchant came through town. There was a bulls-eye on his saddlebags, but even she knew the mark was too good. The fat man laughed incessantly, and had a weird name, something like “Roundbelly” which was awfully odd, peculiar, and either coincidental or egotistical. He traveled with some other weird characters, ones like she felt like she had seen before somewhere, perhaps out east with Zil and Silverhand, but couldn’t place a finger on it now.

No matter. She was marked, and she had to learn who placed it before she was either caught or killed. She rightly figured that the stalker didn’t have enough guts to approach her if he was a suitor, so it must be a guard. Guards were so annoying, they really liked to put a damp blanket on everything fun. But they were good, and they knew something about her- this made her happy, because it meant she had a reputation, and that was worth more than gold to her.

She had to have a plan. In order to identify this stalker, she had to have a plan, one that wouldn’t look like she was setting them up. She would have to travel to very routine places on very routine business every day, then spring the long observation route on them. It would work. Otherwise, she would be bored in the city- and what’s the fun in that?

His new robes were the wrong size, but that hardly mattered to Jorin. He was serene openly, and giddy privately. The head priests had their secrets, but how was he- oh, never mind, it all didn’t matter now. His former initiate mates were jealous in his estimation (it was actually irritation, because they all thought him incompetent and his promotion a mercy offering). The laiety bothered him less, and actually listened to him from time to time.

The head priests, however, did not esteem him at all. Oerik was particularly rude to him, not bothering to mock him with words and instead opting straight for laughter. He smiled, shook his head, and walked away, mostly laughing with them in his view. What could they do? He was a priest now. He would nod to higher ranking members of the order who would ignore him, and ignore the initiates who returned the favor.

After lunch, two days after he had been frocked, he was stopped by a senior priest in the northern gardens. It was a cool day, and sunny; the shadow of the temple cast a chill over their encounter. Jorin didn’t know this was intentional. The priest made pleasantries, asking him what he thought of the promotion, and what it meant to serve Kalimoch in an increased capacity. Jorin was still addled with the sense of victory, and as such he babbled Kalimoch’s praises and lived in the present.

This was ended swiftly. The senior priest pushed him against the cold stone wall of the temple, the stained glass seeming like a distant escape from a falsely benevolent man.

“What, you think a stripe on your robe relieves you of your obligations? You are mistaken. That stripe is a mark, more like a bulls-eye. Every stripe you get will be a target on your head. Your adventures will grow more dangerous. As incompetent as you are, that stripe is a death sentence. Praise Kalimoch now, for in the waning hours of your light that will be all that will help you. You have earned nothing yet. A few baubles- that’s what you brought- is insulting to this order. When your time comes, rest assured that we will make you get what you owe and what you owed from your last adventure, or so help us Kalimoch you will find yourself contemplating death on the end of a long stick in the mountains.”

It would be fair to say that Jorin was completely confused. The word ‘confused’ doesn’t really do justice to the sentiment. He sat in the cold shade, tears running down his eyes but not crying; hatred in his heart, but no screaming; fear in his mind, but no running. The shade was reality to him at that moment, cold and surrounding his existence. He felt small. He felt useless.

He felt like he needed to talk to Prav.

Most people would have been a ragged mess after being on the lam in untamed wilderness for several weeks. Cae-el was a mess, but not ragged.

After convincing himself that he was no longer being pursued, he sought the high ground of the hills through which he had been chased. Staying low and finding reasonable, silent perches, he saw no sign of guard or pursuers. He shared a outcropping with a goat, who could not have cared less that he was going to be a wrongly accused murderer. The chewing of cud punctuated the indifference of the animal. Cae-el punctuated the animal.

Fresh off a meal of braised goat, he was full and now had some dried meat for the journey. He went against wisdom and doubled back. The guard would likely never have expected him to return to near the scene of the crime, and all he wanted to do was clear his head and make a shelter until he could find someone.

Visiting Aiora would be suicide, as his face and name would be all over the city. Visiting Zil would expose him for too long in the open valley, ones that guards patrolled all the time. Visiting Silverhand would be similar, plus he didn’t think he’d survive because of Silverhand’s wife. He couldn’t go to his family, or a temple, or an inn…

That’s when the depression sat in. He had his first sense of being truly alone. He sat, in the middle of a deciduous forest with the only walls being that of the landscape, feeling like he was in a tiny cave, with no light, no hope. He began to dig.

He only had his siblings as friends, or anything close to friends, and they shut him out. The only other friends that he knew he couldn’t visit. He dug around massive rocks, trying to make a shelter before nightfall. Cae-el remembered the laughter, which now felt like it was mocking him. He wanted to relieve the ache in his heart and in his mind.

The dirt kept flying.

What had he ever done to be cast out like this? He didn’t ask to be born an outcast. He certainly didn’t ask to be raised by outcasts. He didn’t want to live like an outcast anymore, and that satchel- that cursed satchel- was his ticket out of the woods and into a new life. That cursed satchel…

Cae-el didn’t sleep that night. The rain fell down, punctuating his mood like a cheap novel metaphor. He huddled into his leaky makeshift lean-to and blubbered through the night, unable to sleep from the cacophony of rainfall on leaves and the piercing cold that shot through his layers of fur and bedroll. He had little more than an eye-resting.

Hopefully the rain would pass before long, he thought.

Kaios had forgotten the pleasure and joy of traveling with his wife. Unfortunately for him, she hadn’t forgotten.

“Are you gonna actually ride a horse? Your wounds haven’t healed. You’re being stupid if you don’t take a break. But don’t stay on too long, your horse would keel over dead from the fat you’ve gained on all this adventuring.

“Speaking of adventuring, haven’t you had enough of our little life-adventure? Why do we have to go back? We could sell the land for double what it’s worth and buy a nice little flat in the craft district. You could get the girls into the academy far easier that way and I’m sure you could find a stable, paying job.

“We’re not staying.” Kaios was as clear as a mountain stream on that point.

“I know that’s what you say now, and I know that’s what you want, but why can’t you think about what I want for a change? Have you ever asked me what I thought of moving out to the middle of Kalimoch’s forsaken lands? Do you think any woman enjoying churning butter, or scooping animal droppings? Raising children is not easy when you’re in the middle of nowhere, you know. I’m tired of being hungry, and knowing where our next meal is coming from. I’m tired of not knowing when you’ll come back. And I’m tired of you ignoring me.”

“Princess, I don’t ignore you.”

“Oh don’t give me that, you absolutely do. What was I just saying?”

“That you hate your neighbors and the house I built with my own two hands.”

“That’s not what I said at all. That’s what I mean, you never listen. I was telling you that you would be better served playing to your strengths than farming. Any dolt can farm, but your strengths are obvious. You should be a miner, or sol-“

Kaios stopped in his tracks. “Are you about to tell me to re-join the service?” The question was not posed with any voice inflection, but his wife knew that she was, and that she had never considered his reason for leaving the service to be based in any helpful reasoning.

“I’m just saying the money was good and you were good at it, that’s all.”

“Princess, I love you as I did the day I met you. I would love to see you happy again. But I will not, now or ever, wear the tunic of a man who kills the falsely accused. I have mentioned this before. I will not mention it again. The life we had is gone because some rich bastard’s feelings got hurt and needed to experience revenge. If you really want to blame someone, blame a noble- unless you can look me in the eye and say nobles are never wrong.”

Kaios’s arrow hit home. His princess, his party girl, was of noble stock. The reason she married him was because of a disagreement she had with her father over dating someone of common stock- and an orphan, no less. She did it to rebel. She did it because she thought that she was smarter and wiser than her father, who had money but no heart.

A tear rolled down her eyes. “I just…” and said nothing for the rest of the day.

Abzil entered the city and headed to the Book and Candle. He could find it blindfolded, as he had been in and out of Fed Sharin since he transferred to the academy here. The boys were relieved, as it meant they would be someplace warm for a few consecutive days. He traveled through each of the consecutive wards in turn- the merchants, then the guild, on his way to the temple, through the noble’s district, then the academy. Only the keep was further in.

There appeared to be a burnt down building in the guild district. Abzil looked up and down, and saw the signs of an incinerated smithy. This brought relief to him, as he was certain that Aiora lived over a baker, or perhaps a grocer. Certainly not a smithy, the sound would have kept her awake, and she’d have never stood for the discomfort when not on the job. There was a large pile of timber and stone. He smiled- this was Fed Sharin’s true strength, the strength of the community. Almost like ants in their devotion, nothing would be out of place, everything would be functional and just so.

The noble’s district was a treasure, of course. Every building’s statues and trim crafted by artisans, the windows perfect and unbroken, the waste washed to the sewers daily, and the streets swept. The gardens were manicured and pristine. Abzil held no grudges, because he knew that serendipity was what made a smart man rich.

The academy was something unexpected to the average trade worker. It was a building of glass walls, symbolizing that knowledge was transparent, yet the glass walls were as strong at insulating the building as any stone. One of the many academy graduates discovered that if you were to remove the air from a vessel that it didn’t transfer the heat; that the phenomenon worked with glass; and that with a little care in mounting, you coud create a glass wall that repelled the heat and the cold. He died before his dream was realized, but a statue existed in the stonecraft wing of the academy (which was the home of chemistry and what we would call engineering).

Valenu reserved a room for the three travelers, while Zebfas grabbed a booth in the far corner. Abzil secured the horses at the stable and joined the boys. The fare was not great, but it was different and an agreeable change of pace. Abzil liked the tavern because it was quiet, conversations were respectful of others, and if you were alone the tavern had a library to borrow scrolls and books of the day.

Abzil smiled inside. It wasn’t a bad way to live, really.

14

The last of the treasure safely transported into the city, Aiora secured her earnings and went about her planned routine. Today’s travel would take her to the academy district; this was the most likely to get the attention of any guards that might be tailing her. She bought a roll from the baker and proceeded on her leisurely constitutional.

On her route, she decided to stray from her routine (just a little) and enter the Adventurer’s Guild. The usual louts, drunks, and other riff-raff were in attendance, and even thought he had rebuffed their advances for her entire history, they always tried as if THIS would be the time. Or maybe they were too stupid, drunk, high, or all three to remember that she didn’t want anything to do with them.

“Heeeeeeeey, baaaaaaby… I wanna exshplore yer dungin’s t’night,” came from the crowd, which earned earnest approval from the sloppy group of men.

“Y’got a mean set’mountains I gotta climb.”

“What y’say I wave my magic wand an’ cast a shpell on ya?”

The comments continued, but she didn’t answer, not yet. Everything had its timing. It made her appreciate Silverhand and Zil all the more. Even that Cae-el guy was nice, if a little creepy. They harassed her, but at least they were sober and witty. She’d had them all except Zil, and she had wanted him when it was his time. To his credit, he was the only man that wasn’t so interested into lifting her skirt that she could trick, steal, or have her way with him. It was why she didn’t trust him, and why she knew she could.

She looked at the posted quests. A village raid in the west; a band of goblins in the north and east. The marauders they faced wouldn’t be back for awhile, at least. She scanned the wanted posters- tax evader, murderer, murderer, thief, con artist, magician, vandal. Nothing that was terribly interesting, but then she wasn’t usually the one that picked the adventures. She never had a sense or an eye for where the money was to be had. That was Zil’s thing. He knew where the money was, she got it, and Silverhand made sure she kept it.

She walked to the door, when a very large man wearing a guard’s tunic stood in her path. He was the attractive, handsome type of citizen, for whom a large belly was a ‘love pillow,’ his stench was his true manliness, and the spilled bean soup that dribbled in a stain down the front was a punctuation of his decorum and advanced manners.

“Where’d’ya think yer headin’?” The lout closed in on her.

“Welllllll, strong man,” she started with a flirty approach, “I was thinking I would join you, and head back to your place, and we’d go upstairs to your bedchamber…”

His eyes grew wide as saucers. The other men were in rapt attention.

“… and I’d remove those pants of yours, revealing your wife’s treasure…”

He sneered in his victory, and the other men groaned their approval.

“… and then I’d call her to laugh at her poor choice. Honestly? I’ve seen green beans bigger.” She walked right by him, having slowly worked her way around his girth and sauntered right out the door, with the other men laughing at his rebuke.

She continued into the noble district, where she stopped by her friend the jeweler. They made small talk in the usual locations, him behind the counter and her seated at it. A woman walked in, wearing an emerald green silk gown, a lace scarf and head cover, and several pieces of jewelry. A noble woman by all accounts, she was even polite to the filthy commoner in her store. The customer received full attention from the store owner- catering to nobles is an exacting but rewarding chore- and even asked for Aiora’s opinion on a choice of rings between one that her friend had crafted himself and one that unbeknownst to the lady she had provided as a result of an adventure. Ever the socialite and mannerist herself, it was an obvious selection for Aiora to select her fence’s work.

“Oh you really think so? I’m not sure… the intricacy on this ring is so deep, almost as if it were living itself,” the woman playfully protested.

“Perhaps, but there’s something very… oh, I don’t know, familiar about the piece, perhaps?” The store owner grinned. “Whereas this piece, this is a true original. And it is very complementary to you.”

“Oh, you are a true delight! I am always pleased when people take interest in the finer things. Of course you’re right. I should have this. It will not be overstated and will fit my outfit for the Lord’s Harvest Feast Ball this weekend.” The transacted was completed, and she said her pleasant good-byes.

“My dear, I do hope to experience this with you again. Please, allow me the courtesy of knowing your name.”

“M’lady, I am Della of Yarinol, and I am honored to have assisted you today.”

The customer left, and the fence handed her a small stack of gold coins. “Della, today? Well, Della, you honor me even when you stood to gain from your own work.”

“You have earned every transaction. And, truthfully, I told no fib. I very much preferred your piece. She’s lucky to have it, and you are as skilled as any piece I bring in- s’truth.”

“You are like a daughter to me, you know this?” he said with as deep an affection as he could muster. “So perhaps you will tell me what your suitor has said to you?”

“Nothing. My suitor has gotten cold mittens.” She said this in a manner that suggested slight disappointment.

“Well, perhaps someone in the guard will know. It’s a guardsman that’s following you.”

Aiora paused. She was astonished. “How do you-“

“My dearest child, I wasn’t a jeweler forever.” He mischievous grin lit the store like the sun itself. “I have watched you, worked with you, seen you enter and leave. For ten winters we have done business. For ten winters you have made me a wealthy man, and for ten winters I have protected my supplier.”

Aiora turned and looked at a frame on the wall. “Tell me,” was her simple suggestion.

“He’s good, your tracker. He’s followed you like clockwork at I’d guess 200 paces every day since your return. He conceals well, he wears the helmet and chain coif to disguise his features. All I can say is that he is roughly four cubits long and he is determined to get you. No one in the guard hall knows his target, or even what he’s doing. I think you know both now.”

Aiora looked at her fence and contemplated. With a great deal of hesitation, she uttered the phrase “I hope one day to walk on the roof of the heavens.”

The man smiled back and said “So that I may pilfer the lot of the gods.” The code phrase was the identifier of the thieves guild, and was more secret than the all the treasures that every thief ever collected. Aiora’s head casually swept side to side, and smiled in relief.

“I never thought I’d hear that phrase again.”

“You won’t. Every single other person has been caught or moved on. There’s only me, and I suspect it’s a matter of time before you and I are caught as well.”

“I don’t underst-“

“There is something big, someone very talented who must scry on our order with a crystal ball. Nothing short of magic would be this effective. Talented men, men who have pilfered from the Lord himself and danced in the tavern twenty winters later have been caught and stretched. This town is out of balance, and we few that kept the order have been almost completely removed.”

Aiora considered those words carefully.

“Even those with legitimate work and crafts have been caught with their trophies. I haven’t left my house for fourteen summers because I felt I was being watched. I still may be. However, every book is legitimate and every possession and article is on the level. I cannot be caught unless you give them something to catch me. And with that, we speak no more of this. I will fall to heaven with the bounty of the gods,” he waited.

“And I will laugh as it floats back to the heavens.” Aiora was as solemn as the pious monk, or the executioner. She hugged him as was custom, and she continued her tour.

A man in the guard, eh, she thought to herself so loud that she swore everyone on the street could hear it. She stopped in the gardens to contemplate, and to look around. She meandered through the garden of bushes. She swept her eyes over the tops of the garden, but she also inspected building edges, windows, and doorways hard. There were guards in the usual places, but nothing unseemly. She couldn’t linger any more, so she wandered into the academy district.

Travan was proud of himself. It took her almost two weeks to look for him again, so his skills must be improving. Of course, the jeweler would have to be inspected. He was useful for adventurers and his products kept the nobles happy (and we all know that nobles fund the guard, so one must always tread carefully in those regards), but he may also be a fence, and fences aid and abet.

Mounted on the castle wall, he was able to see down every cross street, and with a little hustle into certain alleys. The castle was built to support observation, both outside of the walls and inside. But she was maintaining her daily routine, outside of a brief stop at the Adventurers’ Hall. Her walks were growing perilously close to sunset, however, and with the days shortening he knew it would be mere days before she was conducting her business by lamps, swinging the ability to observe in her favor. He needed a break, and soon.

Aiora wandered up and down the streets of the academy district. She liked Fed Sharin because even though the districts were supposed to keep similar folk together, it wasn’t a requirement to travel. The academy was full of blissfully intelligent and foolish people. Zil said it best to her- you can be smart and a fool, they are not exclusive. The farmer is not well read, nor is he necessarily a scientist. However, he knows when he must plant, why his crops are sown in a specific order, and doesn’t challenge nature as a matter of course. Yet you can have men who could tell you every herb in the realm by look or taste, recite the forty-seven tenets of alchemical wisdom as if telling a child’s story, and would stretch on the noose for saying the lord is a fat, stupid lout.

They were easy to rob; but given her new understanding, she would be refraining from her favorite pastime for a bit.

Bookstores in the academy district were always the annoying combination of pretentious and optimistic. Scrolls boldly proclaimed “A Treatise on Stone Trade in the Realm,” or “The Enhansing of Croppes Via Pherus Nytrate” or some such. Books that explain the modern understandings of recent history, such as “Results of the Hythloth Campaign, Fourth Edition” are displayed on easels that suggest vast quantities were available. She deplored reading. It forced you to maintain being in one place for a long time, which denied you the pleasure of being out and seeing life. That and she was self taught, and barely above functionally illiterate. She knew job performance language like ‘keep out’ and ‘danger,’ ‘do not’ and ‘death.” But she couldn’t tell you what enhansing was or where Hythloth existed, if at all.

She approached the stable, and noted that there were a larger number of horses in than usual. That meant there were traveling scholars, which was another way of saying ‘money she couldn’t steal because of some guard out to pinch her.’ It was as well, scholars didn’t usually travel richly and those that did would require too much effort for a quick grab.

Aiora noted the academy wall as she rounded the stable to the next street. It was unearthly, truly a feat of magic, how one could exist comfortably in a house of glass. It shimmered as a bottle or a magical field, with the frame of the stone and wood highlighting the inner lamp lit rooms, with students writing and discussing interesting, if wholly unimportant, things. She was not jealous, though. It was interesting inside, of course, and she had been in there for many reasons- mostly to behave in a naughty manner with a student mark- but it was not somewhere she wished to be. The people inside were not her kindred spirits, but something else more boring.

She ambled up the street to the Book and Candle. Inside she smiled, it was Zil’s favorite place. It was agony to her, but to his credit she had never felt so intimate with anyone as she did within that place. It was meant to sequester the soul into contemplation of various sorts, one where a baudy dance would be poor manners, a bar fight would be beyond the pale. She decided to stop in for a half pint of something tasty, and she was growing peckish. Normally, she would make a beeline for the Rusty Ingot, but the chalk sign out front advertising roasted duck was too tempting.

She walked in and could only hear one conversation. That conversation- the voice- made her feel like she was a scant seventeen winters alive. As predictable as a clock work, she knew where to go, and she didn’t even bother to look.

She sat down right next to Zil, and the eyes of two boys nearly popped out of their heads.

15

“As usual, pleasantries appear to escape you around me.” Abzil was deeply pleased to see his long time traveling companion again, even if he let an air of offense shroud the air. Zebfas and Valenu were a little disappointed at first, but that was quickly dispelled.

“Have you finally come to give me help to pay for your son’s academy entrance?” Aiora’s disposition was dead serious, so much so that the boys blanched.

“You have a-“

“And he’s going to the acad-“

“I’ve told you, m’lady,” he said in almost their code language, “if you’d have only left your husband I could make the arrangements without any further concern.”

Val was the first to call shenanigans. Aiora was impressed.

“You’re teaching them well, Zil.” Aiora grinned and Abzil winced. The last thing they needed to hear was a nickname he detested. “Bright, playful and cute. Reminds me of you thirty winters ago.”

“An eternity for any honest citizen. Boys,” he addressed the table, “formalities must be maintained. Please introduce yourselves.”

Zebfas was first to speak. “M’lady. Zebfas of Arthington.” He bowed.

Valenu was a little more measured. “And I am Valenu, son of Pietru of the Swarov Clan.” He did not bow, but held his head high in the formal manner of his people.

“Gentlemen,” Abzil switched to the formal himself, if only for the introductions, “this is Aiora, my good friend and traveling companion.”

“Traveling companion. You make me sound like a common mercenary.” Aiora reached a level of wry that few dared to approach. Abzil wasn’t fazed.

“So why have you come to haunt the Book and Candle?”

“It was a stop on my evening stroll, and the special looked appetizing, so I thought I’d pop in.”

Abzil certainly missed the strolls. “How have you been fairing since we parted ways?”

“Things are exciting, then boring. I haven’t been able to pursue my hobby since I got back, and you know how grumpy I become.” Aiora was totally relaxed. There was no need to hide her sentiments here. Plus, she knew the boys were a little dim from the stories Zil had told her.

“M’lady, if I may, what is your hobby? Perhaps we could help?” Valenu wasn’t about to pass up the chance to spend time with a woman. Zebfas was a little confused, but figured Val had a scheme in his head.

“That’s very kind of you, Valenu, but I think you’d probably be bored by my hobby. It’s mostly involves jewelry.”

“She has an extensive collection, but it’s not for just anyone to see. In fact, I imagine you’re probably going to be looking for new pieces soon?” Abzil laid that setup line for her to take, and she gladly swallowed the bait.

“Just today I was looking for opportunities to pursue that very idea.” The serving man- a student, no different than virtually all of the hired hands in this district- took Aiora’s order for the special and brought Abzil another wine and the boys their food. The boys dutifully waited, and Abzil excused them to eat. Aiora turned to him and picked up the conversation.

“But enough about me- how have you been fairing? What brings you back to the old haunt?”

Abzil wanted to just chat with her, flirt with her, waste time with her, but he didn’t want to be rude to the boys. “I had only returned home, to realize I needed supplies and that Valenu and Zebfas needed some time of practical education. We are here on errands and business.”

“Oh, pity,” she sighed. “Will you have time for me again, perhaps tomorrow?”

I would make the rest of my life for you if it wouldn’t feel like trapping you.

“Of course. There are always errands in the city. And, of course, there’s keeping these two from becoming permanent residents of the dungeon.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard. Valenu, Zebfas,” she looked and addressed them with mouths full of food and mead, “I happen to be a childhood friend of the dungeon master. And if there’s one thing I know it’s that he absolutely hates mischievous boys, if you catch my meaning.” They swallowed hard on that warning, even though it was a complete and total lie, and Abzil was thankful for the fib. The rest of the food arrived at the table and they ate quietly as was the house custom.

When finished, she stood to leave. The others did as well, and she looked at her friend almost wishing he could come with her. For the first time in some time, she wanted him to stay with her, to have a friend in this place once again. But she knew he’d say no, the boys were his charges and he was always, always about business.

“I hope your stay in the city is a pleasant one,” she said, and she leaned in to give Abzil a kiss on the cheek. “I do hope you could stop by the Rusty Ingot tomorrow,” she whispered. Pulling away, she curtseyed to the boys and left.

“Master,” Valenu uttered in wonder, “she’s-“

“Dangerous, Valenu. She is dangerous. Always remember that women are more cunning and tricky than most men.”

“What do you mean?”

Abzil motioned the boys to sit. “We shall not stay long on this topic, we have our own concerns and we need no further distractions.” Taking his seat, he said, “Yes. Aiora is one of the most cunning, daring, and tricky people I’ve ever met. They don’t see you as people, they see you as obstacles. Of course, she has a heart, and she is a woman with feelings and emotion. But she knows things that they don’t teach in academies. She’s very savvy with this town. She knows every building, every street, tree, grate, and almost every person in this town. She knows which guards light the lamps, in which order, at which time, for instance. Not normally useful, but who might be willing to use that kind of information?”

The boys stared blankly. “I’ve not the foggiest,” Zebfas stated after a little bit of delay.

“Good. Keep in mind that there are always going to be people that know more than you about things you consider irrelevant but that have deep, impressionable meaning. And now,” Abzil took a quick sip of his wine, “I want you to tell me what books you are interested in selecting from the shelf.” The evening was going to focus on tomorrow’s learning tasks.

None of them, however, forgot anything in all the events about dragons.

The next morning before sunrise, the three were ready to journey on to the academy. Valenu would have preferred to have stayed in bed, having spent a rather enjoyable time with a girl that was strikingly similar to Aiora in his dreaming. But taverns and food weren’t free, and knowledge especially wasn’t free, so they went about their business in an attempt to earn their way and their keep.

The boys each grabbed a book bag, and Abzil took four tomes of his own. They swiftly made their way to the academy. Zebfas learned on the first trip that breakfast could wait on the first day, that introductions and itineraries and plans and arrangements all had to be made, lest a student trip on you during their appointed rounds doing any number of seemingly useless scientific tasks.

The lights were all out in the academy, and the glass wall appeared like a giant hole into the void. They hustled past it and down a corner, to an anteroom where they shook off the morning cold and waited for an attendant. It was possible to enter the academy unannounced, and many frequently did. Those individuals didn’t gain nearly as much support from the “minds behind the looking glass” as those that followed the rules of polite society. “It is imperative at all times to maintain your sense of civility, manners, and poise,” the students were taught, “because you are as valuable as any noble and as useful as any tradesman. To have people dismiss you on such a trivial thing would then be warranted, as you provide nothing other than your minds, which you are demonstrating to be ineffective.”

Eventually, an attendant arrived and, after three minutes of introductions that felt more like three days to the boys, they were approved to enter the Hall of the Heavens. They started in the stone tunnel, dodging students who appeared and disappeared so silently one would have mistaken them for thieves, and made their way to the grand stair.

There were four academies of honest study. There was the Hall of Heavens, devoted to the patterns of the sky which included astronomy, weather, and research into flight; the Pantheon of Stone, which was devoted to things of the earth; this included alchemy, botany, the study of stone and wood, and advanced carpentry. There was the Court of Man, which focused entirely on people; this included mental exercises, the study of the paranormal, and was one of the few non-religious healing arenas in the realm. Finally, there was the Calculation Environment, which was an oddly open, airy, free form area devoted to the rigid assessment of logic and order; as such, math and physics, economics, accounting, and strategy were taught here. The Catacombs of Knowledge, the most impressive portion of the college, was not itself an academy but a library, and the third largest in the realm.

To graduate, one would have to earn the basic approval of all four, and receive personal commendation from two. Personal commendations were difficult to come by, as a strict code of subjective decision making was made all the more strict with age. Abzil received three personal commendations, from the Hall of Heavens, the Pantheon of Stone, and the Calculation Environment- in truth, people didn’t really excite him- and was one who could have had a future in the academies. He was there to provide the Calculation Environment with his weather and astronomical findings.

Stopping by the library, Abzil looked his charges in the eyes. “Boys, find the right information and you may be on to something big. Go.” The boys shuffled into the library to begin their search. Abzil entered the Environment.

“Abzil, it is always a pleasure to have you about,” spoke a member of the main strategy board. “I trust you’ve brought your data.”

With a quick acknowledgement, he set his books on one of the many medium-sized tables in the room. Students didn’t really move about this room, rather they all seemed rather sedentary. They pondered calculations, effects, motion, geometry, and in effect were attempting to capture the future. Abzil was comfortable here.

“Yes… yes indeed. Yojiro,” the tactician ordered, “bring the realm’s strategy maps for the western realm and also the astronomical projection tables.” Quickly a student returned with two very large sheets of paper, charcoal covered in wax, and a solidified gum sap bar. The paper was rolled onto the large central table, to which Abzil and the tactician got to work. After a spell, the actual results were matched against predicted values- there was a fluctuation in the motion of the stars that could not be readily explained, but they grew closer to obtaining the pattern. The strategist thanked Abzil warmly for his contribution, and each parted ways.

Abzil crossed the main hall, where students had since become more numerous and classes went into session. The Court of Man was the portion of the academies that shared the glass wall, and Abzil avoided being enjoined into various mental exercises. Once you helped a student in the Court, you were imprisoned helping them all it seemed. He found his old colleague, a peculiar man who while utterly unassuming also had received three personal commendations- from all but the Pantheon of Stone. They greeted and Abzil sat opposite him.

“Zake, my old friend, it has been too long.” Abzil smiled a smirk, for he was a little ashamed that he didn’t make more time for all his friends.

“Indeed, it has. I haven’t held on my promise to visit you at the tower, and I feel that I am missing something truly wonderful.”

“That is actually why I’m here. I’d like to ask you about a phenomenon I have observed with the boys.”

“Your charges?” Zake looked at him deeply. “What has manifested in them? Do you suspect a magical influence?” This earned a deep, knowing smile from them both.

“Actually,” Abzil opined, “I wondered if you had any experience with a phenomenon of shared intellect.”

16

The sun was set, the cold grabbing hold in the late autumn evening. The horses were stabled right at the front gate, in the largest of the city stables, adjacent to the merchant district. Kaios thought of beating a hasty retreat.

“I get it, you don’t want to stay. You don’t have to put this kind of show up for my account.” His wife sulked outside the structure, having smelled enough droppings in her estimation for the lifetimes of her children.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with me knowing the owner of the stable, would it?” Kaios grabbed both of their bags and moved on into the district. The streets were deserted. Most people of sense were staying warm inside, by fires or with alcohol. The streets were more rough than he remembered, or maybe he had just grown used to grass covered flat dirt and worn road ruts. His wife, who remained unusually quiet, found their way to the guild district.

Kaios felt that he would grow to regret the decision, but he felt tough love needed to happen. That would happen tonight. He would eventually be able to finish his business and go home, but there were events- predictable, blood boiling events- that needed to occur first. With that, he entered the guild district by the back gate entrance.

The first thing he had seen was that a building had been gutted by fire. It was a barber in his day, but the barber was old and with no sons of his own to keep the trade on. The building damage had been mostly cleaned, but the evidence of trauma on the neighboring building still lingered. His wife didn’t care, though; she just wanted to get inside.

“You can look at that in the morning. I’m cold. I’m not just gonna stand out here.” She walked past him, and he eventually struggled to keep up. “I thought you didn’t care about this place.”

“You thought correctly.”

“Then why was your old town guard sense making you look at that building? You want to come back, you know it, it’s inside you.”

“Princess, you couldn’t be more wrong if you wanted to be right now.” Kaios opened the door and she entered. Each of them rolling their eyes, they walked in to the building on the corner.

The Rusty Ingot was considerably livelier than it had been a few sundowns prior. There was a large table of guards in the corner, still another in the front and middle. Each of the guilds occupied their own tables, along with their wives. Two bards were playing a jig near the fireplace, and some of the serving girls were dancing with some of the men.

A playful, merry evening. Kaios was ready to spoil the party.

He walked to the counter, where the owner got a huge, teeth-bearing smile. “Well if it isn’t my favorite hero,” and before he could proclaim the inevitable, Kaios pulled him close in an embrace and whispered in his ear “I need a room.”

“SILVERHAND!!!” the tavern owner bellowed. Heads turned. Many were indifferent. A few smiles, and a few sneers popped over the faces in the crowd. “My dear, you’re still with this lout?” The owner bent and kissed the hand of his former server.

“Sven, you old softy,” she blushed. “I have missed you so.”

“Della, give the happy couple room twelve. It is great to see good friends here again.”

Kaios went to take the key, but his wife grabbed it first. “I’ll see you in a bit. I want to change and refresh. You should talk to your old friends.” And with that, she took her bag and went upstairs. He looked around and muttered under his breath “what friends?” He sat at the bar, and ordered two mugs of Sven’s personal beverage. Sven learned how to make it from an academy dropout, and after tinkering with the sugar levels and timing, he had created a light potato-beer with a fruit-like flavoring. It was a favorite amongst orphans, for Sven would only serve it to them and his absolute closest friends. The near-quart sized mugs were placed in front of him, and Sven continued to beam.

“Not many of the old guard left anymore, they’ve all moved on,” Sven went on to explain. “Hal transferred to a garrison out west, Notty decided to retire like you.”

“I see him before and after every adventure,” Kaios mumbled into his mug.

“I knew you weren’t a farmer! Let’s see, er… Marcus was promoted to garrison deputy,”

“No surprise.”

“And Shem left about thirty moons ago now.”

“He’s dead.” Kaios continued to drink.

“Dead? By Kalimoch, how?” Sven was puzzled.

“He became lawless. Decided to start a band of vigilantes in the northern forests. Encountered a group of marauders, and decided to join them.”

“Tragic.”

“Not really,” Kaios explained between sips. “He was bored. Never wanted to be a guard, stuck around only because of the people. Besides he was a lousy guard.”

Silverhand was tapped on the shoulder- roughly. He knew better than to turn. He received another set of rough taps. Slamming his mug on the bar, he took a deep breath and without looking he said “Redon. I could smell you when I walked in.”

A very agitated man in a guard’s uniform stood behind him. Sven’s annoyance was palpable. “For all the money in the guilds, Redon, this grudge is over a hundred moons old!” Sven was incredulous, and gave Kaios a look of exasperation.

“You won’t get out of here tonight,” Redon whined. “You won’t attack a city guard, you’re just a citizen. And I have a hundred eye witnesses that will-“

Silverhand spun and grabbed Redon’s neck with his right hand. He lifted him by the neck, and swung his right foot behind Redon’s legs. With one swift motion, he planted his target cleanly into the floor, knocking him out cold. Sven shook his head and began to clear the bar. The sounds of drunk, outraged guards leaving their tables began a chorus of shuffling. Guildmen slid out of the way. A few older soldiers rose to Kaios’s defense, but most to his condemnation.

“Citizen, you will enjoy the stone of the dungeons tonight for that offense,” a brave guard offered.

“Bite your tongue, whelp! Don’t you know Silverhand the legend?” The older guards surrounded Kaios’s flanks.

“I know of Silverhand the coward, and Kaios the Traitor, but the legend? That’s as feeble a bed time story as that of the prancing fairy.”

“Your wife likes it when I tell her that story after servicing me, greenspear.”

“He has attacked a guard and we will not stand for it.”

“He has attacked a fool wearing the uniform.”

“If you stand with him, you betray the uniform and our brotherhood.”

“Your stupidity betrays us all, walk away!”

There were more jibes. Occasionally, references to mothers, innuendo-laced putdowns, and crude scatological metaphors laced the accusatory language. Kaios needed someone to throw a punch.

“You- weakling.” The Silverhand pointed at the leading guard. “If you wish to detain me, charge me and make your move.” The guard stood up right and proclaimed:

“Kaios the Silverhand. I am placing you under arrest for the assault of a town guard.”

“No chance, simpleton.” Silverhand was now a step below purely outraged. “You and you pathetic, weak, scrawny, unproven squad will be sent on southern patrol drills for even trying.”

The guard’s disbelief at the resistance was growing. He was outnumbered twenty to one. “You are mad, and for this we must protect you from yourself!”

Silverhand pointed at Redon. “And you are a fool, for not asking why I put this idiot to sleep!”

“His uniform makes that irrelevant, and your resistance only increases the time you will spend in the dungeon!”

Kaios turned his pointed finger at the guards. “Advance on me or sit like a coward, I care not which.” The veterans muttered promises of protection, but they were lost in the bellows of encouragement from the guards to their de facto leader. The guard walked forward and placed his hand on Silverhand’s wrist.

“You will come with me to the dungeon. Do not resist.” Which, of course, is precisely what Kaios did. This earned a yank, which the scrawny but brave guard offered and received no moment in return. The guard should have tugged on a mountain for his luck. Silverhand spoke softly to the arresting guard.

“You coward. I resist you. Rule 47(a) in the procedures tells you exactly what you must do next. If you are not willing to subdue me, I will lay you down next to your idiot colleague.”

The threat was in the open. The guard realized his choice. He must either back away- no one but a former guard would be able to quote a regulation- or he must uphold the law. The decision was almost instantaneous- he knew he must assault this warrior.

“The law applies to everyone, even former guards.” The guard stepped in and attempted a leg sweep take down. Silverhand kicked back and hooked the guards’ leg, then gave him a slight shove. The boy wearing the guards uniform hit his head off the stone floor, and he too was out like a light.

The guards had had enough. “Lawbreaker!” they screamed. Silverhand and his few allies braced for the assault. The guards stormed the floor in an all out attempt to subdue the old hero.

The thing about bar fights is that discipline usually breaks down. Most training is thrown out the window- along with the warriors with the training- because they are drunk, angry, or worse, both. Feeling no pain takes a goodly amount of the desire to stop a fight away.

The brawl could be heard throughout the district. People began to open their shutters and gather outside the tavern. In a true performing spirit, the bards continued to play even though a stool hit one of them in their fiddle-bow arm. The sound of cracking wood and dull thuds punctuated the cool night air like a collapsing cave. A window above the baker’s shop across the street opened and looked, but determined that even though a bar brawl sounded intriguing, it had been too full a day already and closed.

Kaios’ wife came down the stairs, hearing the noise but because of her time working at that establishment she didn’t care. She tried to make a regal entrance, one that suggested that she had proudly returned. Instead Sven stood by the stairs, just shaking his head.

“What happened?”

“Someone wasn’t happy to see your husband, then another person wasn’t happy with your husbands attempt at diplomacy, and now all his friends are trying to negotiate a truce.”

“Did he start it?” She wasn’t mad about who, or why, or how.

“No, m’lady.”

“Ah. Just like old times!” She was actually happy that her husband was embroiled in a scrum and outnumbered four to one.

When the dust had settled, and the guards had cleared out, Silverhand sat on the floor of the tavern for there were no more stools to be had. Silverhand was bruised and beaten. He had actually been subdued twice, and they had almost secured his bindings when Sven had managed to “trip” and “accidentally” spill some oil on the bindings, allowing Silverhand to break free. As with most engagements, there were only about five or six people hurt, and the rest realized the futility of continuing the action and ended the melee. Kaios’s wife gently applied salve to the bruises and wounds, and when she was halfway across his face, she mewed out:

“There now. Wasn’t that fun?”

17

The sound of teenage boys screaming in agony filled the Hall of Reflection. The expressions bounced off the walls seeking relief, from the pain, from the shame, and from their mistakes. Screams of that nature are a very primal form of pathos, a basic level of communication that is understood in virtually every culture.

Jorin was used to hearing the screams, having been a frequent contributor himself.

Prav was not surprised he had returned. There was something about the psyche of abused people that suggested that the first person that treats an abused human equally tends to gain a bond. None of them knew that Prav was one of their tormentors, because the tormentors wore masks and were all of similar build. But to Prav it was just a job, and he got paid. He began to realize that he became the father these boys lost. This didn’t soften his demeanor, but he had a more complete view of things.

“You know you shouldn’t be here,” Prav sternly warned him.

“I need answers, and you appear to be the only one here that will answer me honestly.”

Prav nodded. He knew the usual set of follow-up questions, the ones that were quite pathetic yet common for an abuser to ask of those that abuse: ‘why do you want to hurt me,’ ‘what did I do to deserve this fate,’ ‘how can I make it stop…’

“Are they allowed to beat me outside of this room?”

This was the first time Prav had heard that question. He knew Jorin wasn’t dim, so the question was a little off-putting. “They can do whatever they want to do out there, I’m not paid to know that.”

“Have the high priests ever been guests in this room?”

The kid hit me with a misdirecting question, and Prav now was curious himself. “I’m not allowed to answer that, about anyone.”

“Alright, no, they haven’t. Am I allowed to fight back?” Jorin was eerily calm.

“I don’t know what the rules are outside these walls, son, but I will tell you this,” and Prav looked at him square. “Being punished when everyone knows the rules is one thing. Being punished in public, or in private when one person doesn’t know why, that is simply something that a real man shouldn’t have to endure. No man here,” and Prav waved to the galley and stairwells, “would tolerate being humiliated in public.”

“So you’d fight. What of gaol?”

“What of it? Listen well, curious lad. I understand my job here, and I don’t question it. However, you are no longer to be in my dominion and I will tell you bluntly. You are not respected when someone does that to you. I believe that I am here to confuse you boys, not help you. It puts bread on my table, though. The moment that I sense disrespect from my employers, one of two things will occur- they will be beaten or I will. It is likely I will sit in gaol. I accept this in advance because the rules that we operate under are not ours to dictate. We must break their rules in order that we should be the men that they need us to be, not the boys they want us to stay.”

“Have you heard of any boys fighting back?” Jorin was now in full learning mode, his questions surrounding the object of his knowledge like water around a reed.

“Certainly. They’re my most frequent guests. But after their promotions, I don’t see them again, until they ask questions of me like you are now. Most don’t return.”

“Thank you, Prav, for your honesty.” Jorin bid him a pleasant day and good fortune. Prav watched him leave and realized this one was simmering and had something up his sleeve. Well, so long as his name didn’t come up it was of no concern to him, and Prav had a hunch this young man wouldn’t spill his name, or anyone else’s.

Jorin headed straight to the temple library. He tried not to scowl, but the sentiment raged across his developing male brain. He was tired of the disrespect, tired of the beatings, and tired of the humiliation. No one else seemed to care, which was perfect as far as he was concerned. He knew there was no comradery here, no brotherhood, and as with everything else he’d done his entire life, he was going to do this himself.

The library was as familiar as his own bedchamber, but this time he began just causally searching shelves. He was curious about the temple’s recorded history. Surely they were so arrogant as to record their history with pride, including an account of… yes. There. On the top shelf, on the second floor was a stack of books very similar to Prav’s. He knew those were the annals of the Hall of Reflections. He was in the right area, but he must be discrete.

There were people that would occasionally meander through the shelves, looking for boys that were hiding or somehow playing games. Jorin was effectively invisible in his priest’s robe. He waited until eyes weren’t prying, took a second check in every direction he could think to see, and noted a dark window in the statue ceiling that someone could spy on him from. He didn’t want anyone to know why he was in that section, so he continued on, to look for other windows and people. Content that he saw none, he returned to the historical section.

Jorin rifled through scrolls, looking for somewhere to start, a name, a year, an event, something. He found one concerning a boy that had joined the temple about 14 moons after he had. He pulled the scroll and hid behind the bookshelf, away from the spy window and in front of one of the many stained glass portrait of Kalimoch performing some act of greatness. The scroll was rather banal, but it was a historical record similar to that of a school report note. There were a listing of accomplishments and other issues of note. Jorin rolled the scroll through the items of note. Promoted to priest in the 237^th winter of Kalimoch to priest. Promoted to monsignor in the 239^th winter of Kalimoch. Died in the 4^th moon of the 240^th winter of Kalimoch performing services in honor of the most high.

The scroll wasn’t it. He knew the books like Prav’s weren’t it. “They couldn’t remember them all,” Jorin thought, and so he began pulling random books from the shelves. “An Account of the Adventures of Our Order;” not quite what he was looking for. “An Experimentation into Adolescent Behavior.” Interesting, but not what he wanted. “Observations About Initiates 2300 to 2499.” This one had promise.

Before pulling the book, he again wandered the balcony. He noticed a high priest placing scrolls in a different shelf; on the gorund floor, he saw some newer students playing games in the library. They are soon to Prav’s care, and no sooner had he thought the words that a high priest appeared and grabbed each of them by the arm. Out the door they went. Jorin casually walked over to the windows that faced the Hall of Reflection and saw the priest walking the boys briskly there. He remembered the first time that had happened to him, and the next…

He did one more walkthrough of the library, and convinced he was not under suspicion he retuned and quickly grabbed the book and maneuvered to his hiding place. He sat on the floor so that his lap could provide a makeshift lectern, and he opened the pages.

Each initiate received six pages of entries. Their names, the dates of their entry into the order, and from where they hailed led each page. It had been so long that Jorin couldn’t remember where he was from anymore. Some of the entries were more full than others, many ending with “ran away” on a specific date. Every anti-social event was in here. Some of these students were regular miscreants. “Attempted to set temple on fire,” “Pugilized another student and attempted to assault a priest,” and “Verbally accosted a high priest in the temple.” These entries greatly intrigued Jorin. Of course it was understood that they would have entered the Hall of Reflection. But these were initiates, and not priests. He placed the book back and continued to search.

He found another set of books, titled “Annals of the Priests.” He cracked open the books and found a similar set of information. Yes, he thought and he quickly reigned in his emotion. He casually began to wander through the library.

“What brings you into the history section, brother?” Jorin almost jumped. A high priest looked down on him condescendingly, the word brother stated as a mocking insult rather than a respectful title.

“Your grace,” and Jorin bowed, not as deeply as normal, “I was merely exploring the library to see what sections I may have missed during my studies as an initiate.”

“I see,” said the priest. “Can you even read?” This was less an insulting question than you might think. Literacy was not a requirement of initiation or priesthood, even the temple’s avatar was illiterate. Jorin had learned it on his own, and had the perfect, canned response:

“Of course! How better to serve Kalimoch than by spreading the glory of the words written by his servants?”

“Hmph. Well, carry on.” The high priest turned. Surely my book will likely be updated with this knowledge. He continued a casual stroll, and not observing anything else potentially threatening, he returned to the historical section and pulled his book. He only had to open to the first page to see what he needed to see:

“Was reprimanded for taking joy in his promotion. Was reprimanded for assaulting a priest. Sent on adventure of risk category 6 returned nearly dead. Was reprimanded for poor performance. Murdered a high priest and fled to forest. Quest issued for his head. Quest successfully completed, his head buried in forest.”

Jorin read through more. “Challenged priest to melee; Oerik accepted on his behalf. Priest was slain.” “Challenged high priest in temple to defend teachings. Sent monsignor to slay in his sleep.” “Failed to bring sufficient funds following adventure. Oerik and his guards assaulted. Priest left the order. Quest issued for his head.” He read through entry after entry, “Priest left the order, quest issued for his head.”

There were only three courses of action, here. He could push his adventurers for more, but he couldn’t have deprived Zil or Cae-el of their moneys. He could fight back, but that would be met in kind. He could flee, but he was no woodsman and would likely be caught by Cae-el or someone like him. The plan would have to be more cunning.

Wandering back to his bedchamber, he noticed some of his former initiate companions outside of the dormitory. He saw no need to interact with them, and continued to walk. They, however, decided to chat with him.

“Brother Jorin.” They surrounded him. “Are you now elevated by Kalimoch that you can no longer speak with us?”

Jorin said nothing.

“Has priesthood made you deaf?” came from another. Jorin sought the ring leader. “Perhaps Kalimoch should teach you-“

There. It’s him. Jorin strode forward and stood toe-to-toe, if not quite eye-to-eye, with the leader of this group.

“Kalimoch teaches me every day, teaches me that I became a priest because you are too foolish to understand his compassion.” Jorin yelled, out loud- “You all know what you are to do now.” The weaker of the group looked about nervously. But the leader was unfased.

“Yes… yes, we certainly do.” And the leader raised his knee sharply, connecting with Jorin’s plexus. Jorin did his best to stand his ground… and that was when he snapped. He had watched Silverhand do something so basic, so simple, that he figured he would try it now- it may be the only time it would be defensible here. He moved to his assailant’s left and waited for the strike, which his fist delivered as if in a bad play. Jorin dodged the fist, and placed his left leg behind the goon. Using his left arm, he placed it across the chest of the initiate and pushed- and like physics demands, he shifted the boy’s center of gravity and caused him to hit the ground.

The group was startled. Jorin had never fought back. Not to a priest, or a student, or even another initiate. He was the wimp, he was the mark, the target, and just felled their biggest as if he were paper-

“Head to the Hall of Reflection. Do not make me say it again.” Jorin watched as they shuffled as group to receive their beatings, and he felt both elated and sick at the same time.

I must leave this place in a heap. This should not continue any more.

18

It had been nearly a full moon since Cae-el had what could be considered the worst day of his life. He had completed, in a fit of desperation, the hut he had started making in the mud. He completed a fire pit on the other side of the hill, sufficiently far enough away that by finding it one wouldn’t find him, and on a side of a hill that enough little fires burned so that it blended in with the rest. He hut faced away from the road and was concealed behind a rise in the hill, but he gave himself a view hole that gave him a clear view of the well traveled road.

His timing was fortunate. Had he not finished that hut within this moon, the ground would have started to harden. The winter was approaching fast in the mountains, and he knew it was a matter of time before the animals started their hibernation and the ground was covered in snow. He had to move and quickly to gather food, and had done a decent job. He figured he had a moon’s worth of stored food, and could probably find another moon’s worth. Winter would still be on, however, but the months gave him time to think of his next steps.

And of course, there was the satchel. It did him no good if he couldn’t change it for money, and it otherwise sat there, mocking him, suggesting that this whole idea of him being an adventurer and experiencing life outside of his family really was a giant mistake. He was loathe to admit his father may be right, and considered the reasons why his father was wrong a little more deeply.

There was a shuffling of leaves towards the road. Cae-el immediately went to the view hole and swept. He saw a person, wearing a sensible pelt robe and moving through the forest in a deliberate attempt to get his attention. This was either someone that didn’t belong, a woodsman that was drunk (which was highly unlikely as they wouldn’t have traveled alone and never drank), or someone that knew it was a mistake and was making a ruckus intentionally. Taking the cautious view, Cae-el made sure his sword could be quickly and silently unsheathed, brought a throwing knife, and began tracking his prey.

The person continued to stumble, shuffling their foot over the ground, walking due north. At some point, they looked up and scanned around them, but seeing nothing they continued to sweep and search. Perhaps their here looking for the satchel, thought Cae-el, and prepared for and assault- his hand covering both the handle of the throwing knife and the hilt- he issued an animal call, the call of a local bird. The person stopped and looked immediately in the direction of the call. The birdsong was repeated.

Treana had come to find him.

She ran to him, no longer caring about being seeing, or hiding from her father, or worse her brother. They embraced as if they had been denied a lifetime’s worth of embraces. She nuzzled into his neck.

“Treana. Why are you here?” Cae-el gently turned her face to look at him. “We are not safe here.”

“I know. They’re looking for you, aren’t they?”

“Who- who is looking for me?”

“Some men stumbled into the forest, and approached father. They said they were with the sheriff, and asked if they knew someone who met your description. Father said nothing, but –he- did. He had them question me. They did things… I told them where you said you were going, but you weren’t there. They beat me, said I was helping you hide. –He- said he would help them find you, which he couldn’t… Cae-el, he’s sworn to kill you. He may have followed me.”

Cae-el was no fool, but he knew that he was in serious danger already. He knew his brother was hunting him, and that he may not be alone. He knew that Treana may be in on a ruse, and that every second he stood embracing her made him a solid target.

“Treana- listen well. Up that hill, near its crest, is a rock outcropping. Say no more. Make your way to it. If he seeks my death he will have to earn it.”

“Please don’t kill him… we are betrothed…” tears left her eyes and she trembled.

“No, you are not. You don’t want to be his wife, you haven’t consented. It feels wrong because it is wrong. Now go. I will deal with him. Watch- you may be amused.” And he pushed her towards the hill. Uncertain, she moved away light of foot and not making a sound. With her out of bow shot, he concealed himself and began to scan for the inevitable motion of hunters.

“Cae-el, you are out here, you are very near, I can smell you!” Ra-til was concealed as well. Cae-el had him placed at five hundred paces, to the south and up on a hill. He had likely watched Treana’s entire exchange and was tracking her to find him. What he didn’t know was if he could trust Treana. Ra-til had the advantage, and Cae-el considered his options. There was a stream bed to the north behind him, but with this tree cover it was a detriment. His first move would be to cross the stream bed. Then head west, to the road. He could cross under a bridge, and if he was lucky he wouldn’t be seen. If he could cross the road, the advantage would be his- as Cae-el would then have an unobstructed view up and down the road- and it would increase the distance between him and his sister.

Cae-el swiftly moved to the stream bed, using the trees at cover. He heard a bow string go relaxed faintly in the distance and a gentle whistling about ten paces away.

“I see you now, murderer and traitor.” Ra-til closed in on his brother’s former position.

Cae-el crossed the stream bed, and another shot hit at his feet. Too close, he thought. He needed a distraction. Cae-el took his own bow and drew it- then let it go, with no arrow.

“And you say I was a bad shot, traitor? I didn’t even hear the arrow!”

No, but you can’t see me either, you vainglorious moron. Cae-el began a slow progression to the bridge. It was about fifty paces, which would take a few minutes to approach if he did it right.

Another arrow struck, this one to where Cae-el was and not his current location. Twenty-five paces to the bridge, an arrow hit Cae-el’s cover tree- but not from Ra-til’s position. He appeared to be alone, which made more sense- as foolish as his brother was, he would never have offered to help outsiders…

Treana was out there, too. She was in on it, and following him. She was much better than her brother at tracking, hunting, and shooting. He doubled his caution. He picked up a rock from the higher part of the stream bed and threw it in the other direction, away from his current path. The rock hit the leaves, and sounded very much like he had stumbled and fell.

“Traitor, you have grown clumsy!” But as soon as he said it, a cat sound emerged from the eastern hill. Treana just warned him. Upon hearing the sound, Cae-el moved two more trees to the bridge.

“On to our little game, traitor?” Ra-til insisted in taunting him, which helped his brother focus into where he might be. He was about 120 paces away, east by southeast, about an elevation above Cae-el. Treana was northeast, and he’d guess from the sounds and shots fired she was seventy paces away, and she had his eyes directly on him. The bridge was about twenty paces away. He wouldn’t make it there, he needed a distraction.

Cae-el stopped and drew his bow. He needed to throw off Treana to make the break, and he knew she wouldn’t be easy to spot, even though he knew what she was wearing. If she shed her outer layer, she maintained an advantage on him. He breathed slowly and scanned.

There. Treana’s dark hair stood out against the hill background. Cae-el drew and fired rapidly, not waiting to see where the shot hit and knowing it would miss- but pin her down for him to make a break. The shot hit solid wood, right in the tree where the hair was showing, and Cae-el ran to the tree next to the tunnel. A shot fell five paces behind him, and Ra-til now had his position. One more and I have them.

Ra-til had lost his patience. “Cowardly traitor, I will bring your head back to father!” He advanced toward his brother, exposing his position sloppily. Cae-el let lose an arrow which was true, and sank into his brothers lower thigh. Ra-til sank to the ground, screaming. With that, Cae-el ran under the bridge and turned sharp to the left and shimmied up a tree. Perched squarely about ten paces off the road, he now knew he had the advantage. He could see his brother pulling out the arrow, but Treana was not to be seen.

Ra-til cried in agony, trying to rip the arrow from his thigh. He became incomprehensible, babbling in agony and thrashing about. Treana made her first- and only- mistake by revealing herself by Ra-til’s side, helping his injury. Sixty five paces, the wind from behind him, and his arrow would sink about one hand every five paces. He let his arrow fly.

Treana placed her pelt cloak over her fallen brother and husband, and tended to his wound. The arrow hit her square in the draw arm, and she screamed in disbelief and agony. Cae-el looked over the wilderness and saw no other pursuers. He hopped from his tree, drew his sword, and advanced on his siblings. They watched him approach, and hated and loathed him. They also knew their end was near. Cae-el looked over them and measured his words.

“I did not bother you. I mourned my separation from you as if I had died. You came to kill me. Father would approve, yes?” Cae-el grabbed his knife.

“You betrayed us! You left our fold! You rejected us!” Treana whined at the top of her lungs between sobs.

Cae-el threw his knife and sunk it into Ra-til’s left eye. Ra-til passed out from the pain, but Treana didn’t realize that yet.

“NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo…” she watched as Cae-el pulled the knife out of his former brother’s eye-socket and carved his name into his forehead. He threw the head down and approached his sister.

“You know the rules. Kill us.” She sneered at her former brother. “Father would expect this.”

“You are right, he would.” Cae-el wiped his knife off. “You can kill yourselves, or let someone or something else kill you, I don’t care. But I am no murderer. If you do go home, explain yourselves to father.” He held his knife up. “And I will give you a message to send to him.” He pinned her head and carved his message into her forehead. Once finished, he grabbed her hair and slammed it into the ground, knocking her out.

Cae-el packed up the last of his belongings. He didn’t care anymore, but he knew that he must not be seen until he established his safety. He was certain he would be caught, tried, and killed. The guard had since placed Sal in jail for his lying and obstruction, but they still wanted to bring Cae-el in for running. Cae-el wrapped a scarf around his face to conceal his identity. He would maintain it until he established his safety. He would head north, until he was caught or stopped. He just didn’t care anymore.

19

“Now, if you’ll look at the latest returns from the last three moons, I think you’ll agree that revenue, while stable, has been trending negatively.”

Two ogres, two goblins, two orcs, two trolls, two elves, and two raiders studied the chart presented by the troll, and nodded in general agreement. One of the ogres asked “What do you think is the source of the trend?”

“If I may, Rotgut, perhaps I can provide some thoughts?”

“Please do. I’m pretty sure no one sitting would object.” A sense of agreement swept the table. A goblin added, “And perhaps there is an idea here that we’re missing. I am curious.”

The troll continued with confidence. “Firstly, we’ve started to see decreased revenue in the southern and southeastern borderlands. According to the Orgoth-Grog principle, the southern nation-state must be experiencing economic downturn exceeding twelve percent of their neat domestic product. Secondly, this projection of revenue…”

Meetings of this nature were proceduralized at Bob’s request over 2,000 moons ago, to the general agreement of the tribes. They were considered tedious at first, but once the routine and functionality of the gatherings were formalized, the tribes began to have deeper understandings of each other and their southern neighbors. Overall capital began to increase at a measurable rate, and the inter-tribal currency exchange- all based on the gold standard, the repository of which was guarded by Bob- made a like-for-like exchange of services and goods possible through the entire northern hinterlands. In relative terms, the average ogre household was more financially stable than an entire southern county, and that was assuming perfect crop-growing weather.

In the Research and Development department, an orc clerk- relatively new but highly detail oriented- noticed that a lambskin form 469-X had been removed. She entered the documentation center and requested an audience with the records clerk. After inquiring about the 469-X form, she was told that it was a potential place hold, and that a special expedition may need to be made to present the southerners- or one southerner in particular- with a writ of travel. The ministry of foreign affairs’ special liason, who had been deep undercover for at least 120 moons, had identified this particular citizen as a potential for… the record keeper leaned in close to the clerk and whispered “emigration.”

“But we haven’t allowed southerner’s passage into the hinterlands for our entire existence!” the orc protested in a whisper.

They continued to talk and gossip, with the record keeper goblin coyly flirting with the orc clerk and suggesting he do more than stuff records on shelves. Their impropriety went unnoticed, but the rumor began to grow. Eventually an elven minister in the interior concern caught enough of a wind and he, along with the rest of the ministry heads, approached Bob.

“I know nothing of this, but you say that someone from the south may merit a pass into our homelands?” They filled Bob in with the prurient details, including timings, events, observations, strengths and weaknesses. Bob listened thoughtfully and, when they were finished, simply muttered.

“Right. Let me know when anything develops. I was there just yesterday and had to deny entry to what appeared to be a noble and a dozen of his hooligans, so I’ll need some rest. Carry on.” And with that, Bob went to sleep.

Each tribe had their particular reason for not wanting a southerner to enter their lands. The goblins suspected that any southern human that made it to the hinterlands would be smart enough to steal their secrets. The ogres, on the other hand, didn’t want anyone as backwards and barbaric socially to enter their lands because it was their experience that the southerner would just start hacking and slashing, with no regard to civility or rules of melee decorum.

The trolls thought it may be a good idea, and they were generally open-minded. Then again, a travel through the land of the trolls would confuse anyone that was alien to the land. Roads through troll lands were windy, crossing rivers as many times as bridges could practically be built, and their communities existed as such. Everyone that knew trolls agreed that they were possibly the most friendly of all the hinterland tribes, and their personal greeting in trollspeak ‘Bai da tyol’ which means ‘health and love,’ sounds too much like the southern common tongue’s ‘pay the toll,’ and the feelings of many trolls have been hurt to the point where they as a rule don’t participate in southern explorations and raids. Honestly, if a pasty grayish-white crudely formed humanoid jumped out from under a bridge and yelled ‘Bai da tyol’ at an uneducated, superstitious southerner, you wouldn’t be shock if they spent all their energy in defiant behavior. As a rule, the trolls hoped that a visitor to their home land would see them for what they really are, and be far less likely to want to kill them.

The bearded tribes held several days of camp sit arounds. They wanted to know which southerner it was, because it was their tribe that had the most interaction with the southerners and may be able to provide valuable insights. There was nearly universal agreement that if it was a fool named Oerik, he may be welcome but it’s unlikely that he would gain very much from a visit. There were others, such as Jironsk, Hathaway, Ricard the Green, Koloth, and Wreyman, that had been debated in the past and ultimately rejected for tactical reasons. As one could imagine, obtaining approval of all the tribes was no small feat.

The rumors spread throughout the town and the taverns, and like with any other gathering they stirred a lively debate. There were two agreements of thought. The first was “would the human be wise enough to accept the invitation,” the second “would we be risking our safety and security for one human visitor?”

The ogre Blackbelly, also known by the humans as Henrik Smith, received a parcel from the town guard. It was a quest notice/wanted poster, and he snorted and chuckled when he saw it. It was inevitable to draw some particular attention, and that he tucked into his pocket for later. One of them would be by today, perhaps the aged harlot or even the bookish elder. He’d even heard that the fighter was in town. The coincidence was too good. He wrote a simple note and pinned it to the board:

“TRAVULN KOMPANYUNZ UF KAY-L CEE DA GILD WARDUN.”

“Have you heard that the southerners now have but one god?” It was the subject of many jokes, the crude worship of Kalimoch. The poor, crude artistry, the ritualism without pretense, and the scam! Oh, the scam was rich. Many of the goblins and beards felt sympathy when they read a little about the requirements for worshipping this god. They had noticed that the adventurers usually had companions that wore a robe and mostly didn’t fight. Such a primitive concept, a god that could do everything. It had long been considered almost scatological in thought, as Bob existed and while he was not worshiped as a god, it was hard to imagine that any entity could be more powerful. When it was explained that Kalimoch was human in form, that was usually when the northerners stopped the conversation. Really, it was too much. The mere suggestion of a humanoid god was as absurd as the sun rising in the west- it just wasn’t possible!

Thorok entered his wing of the Ministry of the Common Defence, and sat at his desk in the third aisle, seven seats down, in the Southwest Border Monitoring Branch. His beard, long, red, and flowing, flapped as he walked by each of his companions. Each of his co-workers acknowledged him as he walked past, and eventually he hung his pelt robe and dove right into his workload. It never seemed to shrink, always growing.

First up was a review of border reports from the last moon. Nothing of note, no mass excursions and no attempted invasions; not that there would be anyway, because if someone invaded he’d never see the report. It was a waste of sheepskin, really, but it did put food on he and his family’s table. There was a giant stack of individual patrol reports. Tedious to read through, but they had to be done. He placed his soft-booted feet on his desk and leaned back on the two legs of his chair.

“Thorok! How’s the slaying today?” A co-worker stopped by. Thorok sighed and said “I continue to slay,” and motioned his hand at his inbox, “and yet the hordes continue to swarm me. And you? How’s your battle?”

They spoke for a little while, the visitor admiring the various personal effects that Thorok had on his desk. He had a knick knack from each southern village he had raided, a piece of hand-carved art from his daughter, his lunch, and of course a large pile of paperwork.

“She says I’m not getting enough protein, so she has only packed lutefisk and herring. Somedays I think she’s trying to kill me from boredom.”

“Well you know, I can always give you some extra protein, all you need to do is ask.” They both laughed a dirty laugh.

The work plugged on, and eventually they sat in the main dining hall. Thorok grabbed his usual table and spoke with his normal group of lunchtime workmates. They spoke of the latest sporting events- Thorok was third place in the caber-toss this weekend, and so soon after a raid- and engaged in the usual gossip. They drank heavily, and at the end of lunch there was a communal sing-along that was part loyalty oath and part comforting poem. Finished, they each stumbled back to their desks and napped off the buzz.

Thorok continued to read through his stack of papers. Buried deeply in the stack, he reached a simple notice that he was to meet with one member of each of the border monitors in the office of the sub-deputy minister of border monitoring and department of… immigration? Do we even have such a department? thought Thorok cynically, but a summoning was rare and a welcome change of pace. He walked and gathered the group of monitors that had also received notices and left for the sub-deputy minister’s front chamber.

He walked in to the standard chamber area; a medium sized table, but off to the side; several comfortable chairs but never enough to seat all invited; bookshelves that really had no purpose because supervisors rarely had the time to read. The sub-deputy minister and two or three people that no one in that building had ever seen before had gathered, and the twelve monitored filed in as well, cramming in as tightly as they could while maintaining space.

The sub-deputy minister thanked them all for coming and promised that their stay would be brief. It was; it was quickly explained that each of them had been selected as the emergency envoy to dispatch should a notice of immigration be issued to any alien. Someone asked if this was particular to the rumors of the southerner, and all that was met in return was ‘no comment.’ They filed out, and each went about their days staying later, doing more than they were asked in sacrifice for the greater good, and eventually went home to dinner with their families.

20

Adventurers are usually an energetic, driven lot. The more experienced adventuring teams each have their routines. One or two prepare the rations, another may set traps surrounding the camp, and another will sharpen blades and tend to weapons or armor if necessary. The meal is had, the previous day’s events are discussed, future plans are as well, and then the early risers sleep and allow the night owls to keep watch. The watch is kept, the groups switch and so on. The routine is almost sacrosanct; long-traveling parties don’t question it, as it is part of keeping the peace.

When not adventuring, however, the adventurer reverts to a more undisciplined, childish form of behavior. Suggesting that someone who fights trolls, eludes goblins, and outwits elves has to get up to tend crops, give speeches or raise children doesn’t usually fly for very long.

Aiora didn’t want to get up. Neither did Silverhand.

They were in the same district, but they weren’t in the same bed, or even the same building. The fight had taken an ample amount of energy out of Kaios, while Aiora called her laziness ‘beauty sleep.’ However, Aiora had a schedule to keep and Silverhand had errands to run, and so they reluctantly rose, dressed, went down to the main floor of their domiciles, grabbed some food, and headed out.

Silverhand weighed his options. He could stop by the adventurer’s hall, it was around the corner and down the street. In one sense, he dreaded seeing Aiora and in another he almost was looking forward to the break. He loved his daughters, of this there was no doubt, but he could only take so much of his wife before life at home became so unbearable that he found any excuse to leave. Kaios the Silverhand had received so much wealth from adventuring over the past hundred moons that he would be a noble if he had lived in the city; he was a land-owning noble, which was no small feat, and he needed just a few adventures more to build a castle on his own land, and a keep, along with a small retainer of soldiers and such. His neighbors all knew was he did and didn’t hate him, and as such he may be able to build his own town.

It was for this reason primarily that he was in town. The taxes proposed by the ‘tax collector’ threatened his future plans significantly. It would take him possibly sixty moons or more to finish his grand plan; taxes would increase it by so much more that he may never be able to realize his dream. If the tax was confirmed, then he would need to speak in court, for at that point it would be his efforts being transferred to the care of another noble, all on the words of yet another noble. The thought grated on him, and he strode down the broad way with a purpose and mission.

Aiora couldn’t miss Silverhand from a thousand paces away, and yet there he was striding boldly down the broad way. He did not look relaxed, which was his normal demeanor, except that he would also acknowledge the citizen that would hail him in the street. This courtesy he was not performing, and Aiora kept her distance and stayed behind him, not rushing to catch up and not trying to hide.

Travan watched Aiora from the tower overlooking the broad way. She appeared to have her eye on a larger man, who from all accounts was the miscreant that assaulted several town guards the night before. He summoned a watch guard to bring four men armed with halberds and two with nets, and to meet him at the door to the adventurers’ hall. He watched the man enter, then Aiora, and he left his post with a skip in his step.

Silverhand looked about the main room of the hall. It was a nauseating scene, one that any man would be disappointed in. Adventurers that were having little success, or didn’t get along with other parties, were gathered here in the hopes that they would catch on with another set of idiots or suckers, so that they could demonstrate their obvious skills and gain the love of women who were turned on by the thrill-seeking traveler. They smelled, they were slovenly, and they represented their abilities poorly. It was little wonder that they were never picked up.

The most disgusting one of all, however, was the guild master. Morbidly obese and standing at five cubits, this behemoth of a man would scare children. If he threatened to eat them, Kaios would have believed it. It was almost as if this man was an ogre, like the ones he saw while adventuring. But he wasn’t an ogre; for starters, he wasn’t painted with tattoos, and he bathed somewhat regularly. But he did have a love of food and drink. Kaios had spoken with him once or twice, early when he looked for adventures. He knew he was an honest man, if not intelligent. He approached the guild master’s desk.

“Unnh…” the guild master identified Silverhand immediately. “The Silverhand approacheth. How can I be of service to you today, sirrah? ” The master sneered a grin, which was disconcerting to Kaios as he couldn’t reach out and slap it off his face, the belly providing a significant barrier.

“What do you know of adventuring taxes?” Silverhand didn’t bother with small talk.

“Ah yes, the tax,” the master frowned. “I’m sorry to say beginning four moons ago, the lordship had decreed that each adventurer pay an amount in tithe to temple of Kalimoch and the House of Jironsk equal to one gold for every hundred obtained; this number to increase progressively by one gold for every thousand gold.”

Silverhand frowned. It wasn’t enough to destroy his plans, but the thought of adventuring taxes were aggravating. On top of that, it was being done on behalf of that sham organization, the Temple of K--- Kaios refused to even think the name.

“Is the tax retroactive?” Silverhand braced for the answer.

“Oh no,” the master laughed. “Had it been retroactive there would have been triple the number of beggars in the streets and permanent occupants of the dungeons, no.” He took a large pull of his mug, which was more like a barrel with a handle. “No, if any collector tries to take more than a few coins from you, you are right to take issue and demand redress in court.”

“Thanks,” Kaios muttered and turned to leave.

“Sir, I have something you may be interested in.” The guild master reached into his pocket- although he was so big, it looked more like he was just scratching himself. He may have been. It may have been a dual purpose hand motion. Perhaps. But whatever.

Kaios turned back to face him. “I don’t know that I’m looking for work right now.”

The ogre/master sneered. “I think you’ll be interested in this.” He handed him a folded piece of paper.

“What’s that?” Aiora appeared magically at Kaios’ left side. Silverhand jumped, and the guildmaster smiled.

“Nothing, he said was work you be interested in.” He handed the paper to Aiora and left.

“Wait, aren’t you going to at least say hello?” She followed him, placing the paper in her vest.

“I have someone to talk to yet. You may want to join me, unless you’ve already resolved your adventuring tax issues.”

“Tax issues? ” she said incredulously. She whispered in his ear. “Do you honestly believe I’d pay taxes to anyone, ever? I’m just a poor, thrice-widowed adventure seeker,” and she smiled mischievously.

“Have it your way. I’m heading to the court to discuss the matter.”

Aiora recognized her opportunity when she heard it. “Oh, that tax matter. I hope you don’t mind me tagging along.” Silverhand shrugged his shoulders and walked out the door, not waiting for Aiora. Aiora swept in behind, wondering why he had so much sand in his boots.

The door opened to the reflection of morning sunlight onto a shaded street. Silverhand turned and began wandering up the way, ignoring the group of guards to his left, and Aiora was accosting him to wait so that she could join him.

“Kaios the Silverhand. Aiora of the Guild District. Stand.”

Silverhand immediately stopped, and didn’t turn. Aiora stopped and wryly turned around. They both saw a guard, well dressed and kept, of average height and build with longer black hair. He was joined by six other guards, that Silverhand immediately recognized as a detainment crew. Kaios glowered at the lead guard and demanded he identify himself and the nature of his business.

“Excellent!” Travan replied. “I was concerned for a second that you were the rabid animal that the guard mentioned last night. I’m relieved that you are willing to follow protocol. I’m Centurion Travan Fletcher, guard of Fed Sharin. It is an honor to meet a veteran of your esteem, sir.” Travan stood forward and offered his hand, which Silverhand cautiously accepted.

“Now, about business. Well, truthfully,” Travan’s voice quieted a bit, “there is the whole incident at the Rusty Ingot to clarify. Which, in and of itself would not be a concern, right? Except,” Travan looked at Aiora with a gentle smile, “there is the issue of you traveling with Aiora, who is a known thief and tax evader, and has been identified as a traveling companion of yours.” Travan narrowed his eyes, and smiled bigger, and in a hushed voice, he said, “I’m not mistaken, am I?”

“You are not,” said Aiora, with her recognizing the man as the one who spotted her with Nigel in the alley a half moon ago. “But his actions at the Rusty Ingot and his affiliation with me are separate. Unless you have proof of this thievery and tax evasion, I suggest you stand aside and allow me on my business.”

“Good heavens, what type of a brute do you take me for, miss?” Travan did not break his smile. “No, these charges are not official at all. However,” and Travan began to haplessly bounce his head, “certain individuals of certain pursuits can be under suspicion for some time, and well, here I meet two individuals, one known to have committed a crime and another highly suspected of committing many crimes.” Travan cocked his head and smiled. “Now what kind of centurion would I be if I didn’t at least ask myself the question, ‘are these two up to no good?’”

This man is pure evil, though Kaios. The guards were not in any hurry to surround them, which was the only sloppy part of their behavior, and that would be rectified in a hand motion. No, this guy was calm, collected, and in charge. It appeared that Aiora’s cover was blown, and that he may be spending some time in the dungeons after all.

Aiora, meanwhile, sized this guy up. He claimed he knew a lot about her, but these were just claims. She smiled inside when she heard that it was Silverhand at the center of the brawl; she liked to think the brawls were for her attention when she was younger, and she would inevitably have a man in her bed that night to celebrate the release of testosterone-fueled rage wishing it was him. No, this guy was pushing forward on bravado, but he had the guards to back him up. The netters concerned her the most.

“We are on the level, or at least I am.” Kaios said exasperatedly. “I was stopping in to inquire about the adventuring tax, so that I could either pay it or speak to someone about it in the court.”

“As any good citizen should.” Travan nodded his approval. “Was Aiora here to do the same?”

“I have paid all taxes asked of me,” was her response. Travan smiled.

“Ah, yes, you say you have. I have on record from the jeweler in the Noble’s District that you have made…” Travan pulled out a scroll from his belt. “… approximately 2,498 gold from the jeweler in provided pieces and supplies.” He rolled the scroll and placed it in his pocket. “That’s a tidy sum of money. Tell me, have you paid the court the associated seventy-five gold in taxes?” The smile did not leave his face.

“Seventy-five gold? That’s robbery by the crown!” Aiora said in disbelief. Kaios grimaced at the utterance, and Travan did as well.

“Oh, a poor choice of words, lady. See, now you’ve committed offense against our lordship by accusing him of a crime. And as we all know our lord is the law, your accusation must be handled appropriately. So, if you please,” and Travan waived his hand, causing the guard to move towards them, “we shall resolve our issues without any further public display?”

The sound of a crow echoed off the alley, looking for trash or other delectables and punctuating a very grim situation, indeed.

21

It wasn’t as if Aiora and Silverhand had been in tight spots before. The profession they shared should have a written contract that has the clause “each member of the party shall be in no fewer than one tight spot per paying adventure.” And everything about this rang out with the hallmarks of a tight spot. Except they weren’t on an adventure. In fact, they were just trying to get some ridiculous rules cleared up. Yet here they were, the town guard advancing to arrest them, and they without any party mates to look out for them.

Zil would be good here. He always had some kind of trick for just such an occasion. And Cae-el, well, for being a clumsy, awkward oaf he always had an impeccable sense of timing. They missed their companions at the moment. And when they looked at each other, Silverhand immediately recognized the bright glint and wry grin of a woman who was about to beat feet and leave him to receive a face full of netting.

The following events occurred within thirty seconds.

Aiora turned to make a break for it and broke out in a full sprint. Silverhand reaches out to grab her, then pursues her up the street. Travan, realizing that he was going to get his big arrest, made no motion and let the guards past him. The guards, who were about five paces away when the two adventurers broke into a sprint, also broke into a sprint, having lost about two paces before reacting to the retreat.

“This is pointless,” Travan yelled out as they ran up the street.

The companions were twenty-three paces from the gate to the Noble’s District. The guards were minimizing the distance between the criminals and their halberds, and probably could thrust and hit the legs of Kaios if they wanted to take the strike. But it was too risky, for a mistimed thrust could knock them off balance.

The netters ran at a slower pace, gathering the weights of the net to make a capturing throw. They practiced this throw in their drills, and thought they easily had the distance to make it. What they didn’t know, and the reason that Silverhand broke in a run with Aiora, was that they practice throwing their nets down hill during pursuits. As result, their distances were exaggerated, in addition to being a slightly different throwing motion and target.

A fog began to creep out of the portal to the Noble’s District. It was still morning, and cool enough that the fog would not have been burned off yet. The fog was thick and acrid. It wasn’t smoke, but it obscured vision. Silverhand and Aiora ran straight for the fog. The guards began to lose ground, as they were running uphill in full armor and gear and were chasing people that fled for a living.

Travan laughed. “Farewell, my friends! I look forward to our next meeting!”

The netters threw their nets with precision throwing motion, and the nets hit one calf of each adventurer, who ran out of the nets as if they were nothing more than cloth.

When Silverhand passed through the door, Aiora grabbed his wrist and followed a street that was still shrouded in fog. Both adventurers were wearing soft-soled boots, and as a result, their footfalls were indistinguishable from the others. Aiora knew this town without seeing it, unlike the guards, and she to the third cracked cobblestone by the pastry baker, then turned left, and ran eight paces to a sewer grate in an alley.

When the fog lifted, and the guards stood around with no evidence of either Silverhand or Aiora, they threw their halberds in disgust and began the search. Most of the nobles that heard the commotion stopped to look, except for one. A middle-aged man in an emerald green robe simply walked down the street and walked calmly toward the academy guild.

“Now where??” Silverhand hissed at Aiora. He was not pleased that he ran, having preferred to fight in that circumstance. Okay, he would have preferred to fight in every circumstance. Not that he was bloody thirsty, but running was so… cowardly.

“Follow me, we are not out of danger yet.” She continued to run through the sewer, with Silverhand in tow, down the length of the sewer and toward the academy district.

“I could have taken them.”

“You could not have taken seven guard. You’re good, but without the party even you aren’t prepared to go seven-on-one.”

“What about that Travan?”

“Him, yeah,” Aiora whispered carefully. “He’s been on my case since I returned. He’s good, Silverhand, I didn’t know who he was until just now.”

“Are we going to have to kill him?” Silverhand asked as a matter of course, as if the murder of a town guard would help absolve them of responsibility in this matter.

“I don’t think it’s him, I think he’s working for somebody.” They noted another section of fog in the sewers. This was distinctly more unpleasant, and Aiora knew their end game.

“Hold here. I must see if we’ve been followed.” Aiora and Silverhand stood fifty paces into the fog, near the ladder to the academy district.

“You have been, of course.” The voice rang out as an eerie reminder that the law was after them. “I may not see you, but I know your options are limited. If I see the grate open, I will presume that your friend… Abzil, is it? Yes, he is helping you out.” Travan approached, sword drawn and ready to fight. “I will hear you try to pass me. You’re good, Aiora, but you’ve lost a step. I’m hear to hand that step back, along with a few years in the dungeon.”

Silverhand began to draw his sword. “Oh, now, Kaios, that’s hardly civil behavior. I haven’t so much as pulled a weapon on you, and I hear you readying for melee? That’s not going to look good in the report. It might go a long way to soiling that wonderful reputation of yours.”

The adventurers stayed silent. They knew that he could only approach the grate, presuming that would be where they were. Silverhand heard a rat scurry away, and stepped forward to face Travan, in front of Aiora and giving her a clear shot at the ladder.

Eventually Travan closed the distance with sword drawn and saw Silverhand, with no drawn weapon. Silverhand looked at him and said in a very low voice, “You accuse me of drawing my sword on an unarmed man, who is actually armed?”

“Yes, well,” Travan laughed sheepishly, “those sometimes have to be the procedure one wishes to follow if one wishes to do his job. Shall we, then?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Silverhand raised his head, and left his hands of the hilt of his sword.

“I understand your hesitance.” Travan remained defensive. “I would complete a crippling strike if you turned to run, and you would have to grapple an armed and trained opponent if you stand. Sadly,” Travan sighed, “I have no wish to do either.”

“Then don’t.”

A hand wrapped around Travan’s face, a cloth covering his nose and mouth. The cloth was in turn coated with a sweet smelling concoction that quickly began to work on the alertness of the guard. Travan grabbed at the assailant with both hands, trying to rip the hands from his face with all of his considerable strength. That strength faded quickly, as the assailant clenched his hands to his opponent’s head, pushing it against his collar with everything he could muster, as if his life depended on it (which now it did). Travan’s protesting swipes lost their energy, then frequency, then height. He fell limp.

Abzil slowly laid him on the tile of the sewer. “He’s a cunning beast, isn’t he?”

Aiora ran up to Abzil and hugged him hard. Silverhand smiled a bit and said, “How long do we have until whatever it was that you used wears off?”

“Oh, that? It’s actually a mix of grain alcohol and heated brimstone, that is light and smells sweet. They call it essence of vitriol, but it’s so effective I just call it ‘ether,’ because it’s like magic. Anyway that plus some chamomile oil and mandrake root, and our friend won’t be waking up for a very long time. At least one half sun.”

Silverhand thought through the situation. “Does anyone have any rope?”

Aiora shook her hips as she walked to him. “Of course I have rope. What girl doesn’t need rope for any particular occasion?” She winked as she placed it on his chest softly. Silverhand rolled his eyes. “Zil, do you have any more of that cloth?”

“No, just this.” As Silverhand bound him, Abzil caught on quick. “If I stick this in his mouth, it might kill him. Here, take this.” He pulled a bag from his inner pocket that was filled with pebbles and shoved it in the guard’s mouth. “Aiora, open a side port.”

Aiora lifted the latch on a side drain port, and Silverhand and Abzil shoved the unconscious Travan into the drain. With a flick, Aiora closed the gate and said, “Let’s get out of this sewer, it smells like droppings.”

Having had a chance to sneak into the Book and Candle through the back door, they knew that their time was near an end. It would be months, if not years, before they could walk the streets again. Zebfas and Valenu were amazed at the size of Silverhand, and of course Valenu was just happy to sit next to Aiora. They sat in a different booth for the first time in Abzil’s memory.

Aiora pulled the quest that Silverhand shoved at her this morning before they all went through their unfortunate events. “Well, we need to be gone anyway, let’s see what we have to do. She unfolded the paper and laughed.

“Dumb luck!” she moaned as she tossed the quest offer on the table.

On the one side was a WANTED poster for a rogue in the northern woods, hailing by the name of Kay-El, for the MURDER of two men and THEFT of items. His capture and return to a sheriff’s outpost, gaol, or dungeon is worth 500 crowns alive and 25 dead.” On the other side was a guild quest contract, authorizing the three of them and a priest of the temple to travel without hindrance in fulfillment of their objective.

Silverhand stared in disbelief. Abzil looked at the notice, then at his companions. “He didn’t do this.” Silverhand said “I don’t know. He was… well, we were kinda hard on him last time.”

Aiora protested. “No harder on him than on each other.”

Zebfas looked at the notice. “Who is he, master?”

Abzil ignored the glance from Silverhand at the word ‘master.’ “He’s a woodsman. Crack shot, handy with a blade. Clumsy, and a bit awkward, but he fought for and with us as if… I don’t know, as if we were his family.”

Aiora hung her head in shame. She never wanted to think that any of them would ever fight for her like that. It could all go south, y’know? I don’t need the guilt of someone I traveled with going out because I didn’t help them. We should all just be able to walk away, whenever we’re ready to stop. I don’t owe them anything.

Silverhand pondered the situation. He was a man that, while not a trained soldier, did okay and never wrong by me. He stood up for the weaker, made the right decisions… no, this quest is from another rich man. This is another stupid law enforcing mistake.

Abzil saw it in both of their eyes. They were going after him. With that he received a pile of scrap paper from behind the bar (if your were regulars, you just knew) and began scribing out the plan. He looked at each of them. “Silverhand, how many affairs must you put in order?”

“Two. I must send my wife home and pay my tax bill.” Abzil laughed at that request.

“No sir, you must just send your wife home with a note to pay the tax bill. Aiora?”

“Just one.” She was actually sad. “I should… I have a loose end to tie up.” She brightened up after a thought. “Besides, I can come back any time to get my possessions.”

“And I have three errands yet. Boys, here’s what you’re going to do tomorrow.” With that, Abzil scribbled away while the boys nodded. Silverhand double fisted his mead, and Aiora curled up in the booth, sipping her wine and mourning the day that was.

22

Zebfas looked down the two scrolls, and checked off the items that were in front of him. Ten vials of vitriol, check. Ten vials of aqua regia, check. One-tenth stone of brimstone, check. One bottle of pine tree sap, check. One bottle of distilled sap and fat, check. Each item had a general use, and Zebfas was keen on the myriad applications of which one could apply some simple principles. Aqua regia for the dissolution of metals, and potentially mechanisms and the weakening of weapons and armor. Brimstone, when heated, smelled nasty (which Zebfas enjoyed inflicting on Valenu every now and then). Pine tree sap to make things water-proof; fat/sap to make things sticky. Vitriol for delusion and to put people to sleep. Abzil had sad once, while looking over a former adventure preparation, “wizardry indeed. Hmph.”

Once the purchases were confirmed, Zebfas loaded saddle bags and placed them on one of two horses. He quite casually walked down the main street, passing from district to district. At the city’s main gate, he went to pass through and was stopped by the guard.

“Boy, state your business.”

“I am to meet my master outside of the city gates for travel.”

“Who is your master?”

The question caught him unaware, but Zebfas answered truthfully. “Abzil, scholar and scientist, tutor and-“

“Right, right. On your way then.” They waved the boy through, who wandered through the main portcullis and stood to the side of the road.

Valenu was the courier today. Abzil had entrusted him with this job, and pulled him out of earshot of Zebfas to provide an additional instruction.

“This is important, boy. My plan’s success hinges on you delivering these notes in precise order and with precise timing. The last note is for you. May fortune follow you today.” Abzil nodded his head and left. Valenu could not remember Abzil ever wish him fortune, and correctly surmised that his errands were more than he was led to believe.

Valenu’s first stop was to a jeweler in the Noble’s District. He’d been through here many times, but never had the chance to wander at his own pace. It was so clean, he thought. The plants were all still green, and the buildings weren’t of your standard painted-mud-covered-stone with wood supports, but planed, boarded wood, with paints that had exotic dyes. Corners and edges had been carved into intricate patterns. There were curtains in every window, and lamps by every building. Even the public gardens were intricate and complex.

He rounded the corner and found his directions to be true; there was a jeweler who was just opening his curtains. A broom sat on his porch, suggesting that a firm sweeping was soon in order. Valenu knocked on the door, and after a confused exchange entered the store.

“Good morning, sir. I am Valenu, student and tutor of Abzil the scholar. I come bearing a message for you.” His instructions were explicit, ‘do not mention any other names than Abzil.’

“A message, is it? More than the standard post? Well, I’m flattered. Most people don’t look upon an old man and deem him worthy of important mail. Who was it from, again?”

“I was sent here by Abzil, the scholar.” Valenu was hoping he would accept the message. It would be a measure of his ability to succeed for the day.

“Abzil, is it? Don’t know any Abzils. I don’t work with students, their fingers are too sticky.” The old man handed the message back, and Valenu knew he was to leave the message with the old man.

“Good sir, my master dictated this message from a material supplier of yours.” Valenu smiled and began a silent prayer- take the message, you old goat.

Those words seemed to hit home. “Well, have a seat then. Let’s see what your Abzil has to provide to me…” He opened the letter and read it deeply, which brought a smile and a tear to form in his eye.

“If I were only 200 moons younger…” He smiled and said, “You’ve done right by me boy, and I must pay you for your message. Please watch the store for a moment.” That moment passed so quickly that Valenu didn’t even realize the old man had returned. The jeweler smiled when he saw the boy, sitting in the same place and watching the door- his eyes not wandering around the store, his hands not anywhere but his lap.

“Alright, then,” and the old man came out with a number of sacks. “This sack is for someone’s wife, is it? And this one, this is for your continued purchases. This final sack, you are to keep until you open your final message. Do that make sense to you?”

Valenu nodded and smiled. “As strange as those vague instructions sound, I understand each and every word.” He was a little concerned when he lifted the sacks. He never realized coins would be that heavy, or more the point how this man could have so many and not be a bank. However, he remained undeterred. “Thank you and good morrow to you.”

“Yes, yes. Good bye to you, courier. Stop by any time.” The jeweler smiled as the boy left the store. Sweet lady, he thought, she warned me when she was under no obligation to. He made his plans for the evening. It had been a long time since he had broken out the picks, forks, and other tools of the shadow trade and worked a real job.

Valenu wanted to rid himself of one of these sacks, and made a beeline to the guild district, around a corner, up the broad way, and to a building with a prominent sign that read “The Rusty Ingot.” He struggled to get the door open while holding the coins, and once he did so he was relieved that he could set down his load. His instructions here were very explicit, and he was told he may meet resistance here, but didn’t know what that meant.

A young girl approached his table. “What would you like?” Valenu blushed. She was pretty, and there was something about her smile that made him want to order something- but he had no money.

“I’m a courier, here to see Kaios, the Silverhand.” A couple of heads picked up around the room. One made a beeline for him.

“You say you’re here to see the Silverhand, eh? Well, he’s not here. Stupid lout went out yesterday and never came back, leaving me here to earn my keep,” and she lowered her head and went to a whisper, “like some common bar slut.”

“You are Silverhand’s wife?” Valenu looked at her directly. She acknowledged his accusation. “I am from Abzil, scholar and scientist. I have a message for you m’lady.”

“Oh, a message from Abzil! Tell me, boy, is this the message that they give before they leave me alone for another three moons?” Valenu was puzzled.

“Ma’am, I know nothing more than I have a message for you.” He held the message for her, which she snatched out of his hand. She read through the message and a tear formed in her eye. “That stupid bitch. That slut. I will kill her if I ever lay eyes on her. How could she do this to him, he wasn’t…” She collected herself and finished the message. “You have two bags for me, then?” Valenu handed over the bags, one being the heaviest bags and the other considerably smaller.

“Listen boy… Valenu, is it? May I call you Val?” She tried to stay calm, but failed miserably.

“M’lady, is everything…”

“No, it’s not, but I thank you for your concern. You are a sweet boy, despite the things that I’ve heard. Go, now. Run your errands. When you are done, return here. I will wait for you. Your instructions are in your last note, whatever that means.”

Valenu stood, and looked around. The bartender was looking at him with a punitive eye. The girl was concerned that he had made someone cry. A town guard was watching him in the corner. “M’lady, please, if there is anything I can-“

“Follow your orders, courier, lest you not get your pay.” She was firm. “Go. Quickly.”

Valenu felt uneasy, but left all the same to continue on the journey.

His next set of instructions took his to the academy. He still had one large bag to deliver, along with two messages, and then he could open the final message for himself. He was a mischievous lad, and considered several times peeking at his message, just to see what it would entail. But after the second message, it appeared that his message may not make sense if he read it now.

Valenu heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Someone was running up the street, and Valenu stood to the side to allow the man to pass- no woman would have footfall that heavy. But they didn’t, and he heard a voice from behind.

“Valenu, courier from Abzil on behalf of the Silverhand.” The town guard’s address always sounds like an accusation. Valenu acknowledged the guard.

“You have seen Kaios the Silverhand?” Valenu nodded affirmatively.

“When did you last see the man?” Valenu told him the night before, at the Book and Candle.

“Did he mention that he was wanted for sixteen counts of assault and the disappearance of a centurion?” Valenu widened his eyes as if the information was shocking (it wasn’t) and shook his head vigorously.

“No sir, no, he simply had a meal and told me to beat it, he wanted to speak with my master, that’s all.” Now this was not strictly true. It depends on your point of view. Kaios did wish him good night when they adjourned for the evening, and did want to continue to talk with Abzil.

“The Book and Candle, is it? Do you know if he’s still there?” Valenu shook his head again.

“Right. Thank you, boy, you’ve been helpful. Deliver your messages, then.” With that, the guard ran- predictably- to the Book and Candle. Valenu continued on his way to the academy.

Abzil watched the guard run by the academy stables and pulled two horses from the livery. Paying his fee, he led them down the street. The ease of his trip depended entirely on whether or not that Travan character managed to squirm free of his predicament. The truth was that it would be another eight hours until they found him, covered in rat bites, filth, and filled with rage, but that’s no longer relevant to the story. Abzil wandered down the way, and eventually made it to the town gate. The guard stopped him and requested he identify himself.

“I am Abzil, scholar and scientist.”

“Your boy was here earlier, he should be waiting out- there he is.” Abzil looked and saw Zebfas smiling and waiving. “Thank you, I’ll be off then.”

“One moment, sir.” A guard walked out of the gatehouse, a scroll in his hand. “Are you acquainted with a woman who hails by the name of ‘Della’ or also ‘Aiora’ and with a man named ‘Kaios the Silverhand?’”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Abzil answered naively. “We are adventurers, and have performed many quests together.”

“I see. Did you happen to see them at all yesterday?” The guard grew closer.

“I did, but everything was normal. Why, I assume something is wrong?”

“Did they tell you that they were wanted by the town guard?” The guard was virtually standing toe to toe. Abzil quailed.

“I, er, listen. I saw Aiora twice; the first day was two nights ago at the Book and Candle, she came by unbidden. The second day she came with Silverhand, who I didn’t know was in the city. They discussed all manner of topics and events, but at no time did they ever mention they were wanted by the guard! ”

“I see. Scholar, open your outer robe, please.” Abzil complied, but with a little protest, nothing that would have been out of the ordinary.

“Are you familiar with the manufacturing of smoke without fire, sir?”

“We all learned that in the academy, that was… oh I don’t remember the class, but I do remember doing it. I haven’t done it since the academy- I haven’t had a call for it.” Abzil began to sweat ever so slightly. Chutzpah wasn’t his bag.

“Sir, we found the remnants of ten broken vials placed throughout the entrance to the Noble’s District. Care to explain how they got there?” They began to search the folds of his robe.

“I would if I was capable, but I was in the academy all day, discussing my pupils and whether they were fit for academy entrance.” A half-truth; he certainly did that but on a different day.

The guards found no materials in his robes. No phylacteries, no vials or bottles. They found a few odd sheets of paper and a coin purse containing enough gold for five days of travel. “Where are you headed?”

“I’m returning to my home in the north hills. Are we quite done? I’m feeling a draft.”

The guards looked at each other. He was clean. His story was reasonable. The gatehouse guard sent him on his way. “If you are found associating with either the Silverhand or Aiora the Thief, you will be charged with abetting an enemy of the city. Is that understood?” Abzil nodded and continued on his way.

“Sir? One more thing.” Abzil shook in his boots. He was so close to the gate and yet it felt like a thousand leagues. “Y-y-es?” he said with a shiver to mask his fear.

“You have forgotten this.” The town guard handed Abzil the quest order for Cae-el, one that had Silverhand and Aiora’s name printed clearly on it. Abzil knew he was caught.

“Good luck capturing that villain.” With a wink, the guard handed it back to him. Abzil was aghast. “Move on, or you’ll catch your death in that robe.”

Abzil would have to ask Silverhand about that. He was not questioning his fortune.

Valenu waited for what felt like three eternities in the waiting room, and even watched a few people just barge in, but he rose when it was his turn to enter, and used all the formalities to get inside and to his destination. He was to enter the Court of Man, a place he had seen often, but never entered. A student approached the lost looking boy, who formally introduced that he was here to deliver a message to Zake.

A man came from out of a room, and a wry smile came over the man’s face. He was similar to Abzil in age and general appearance- must be the academy that does that to you- and, after introductions, offered a seat to Valenu who quickly sat. He had been on his feet on the cobblestones all morning, and was glad to give them some relief.

“You have a message for me, son?” Valenu acknowledged and handed him the message. “Let’s see here… oh dear. Well, this is good news for you. Do you have a sack for me?” Valenu handed him his last sack. “Right. Now, run to deliver your last message, and return here immediately following.” He waved Valenu away with the brush of his hand and opened the sack.

Valenu ran down the hall. He knew it was impolite to run, but he was not much younger than those running around here, and figured he’d at least blend in a little. He took his last message to the Calculation Environment, and requested an audience with the northern border strategy expert. After a minute, a tiny, hunched over man approached him. “You requested me?” he said, the goblin’s age as a perfect disguise to fit into the academy.

“I have a message for you from my master, Abzil, the-“

“Yes, yes, give to me. No time for pleasantries in this hall.” Valenu didn’t know why, but he liked this place. He felt… comfortable here.

After scanning the message for what felt like a full sun, he simply barked “follow me” and walked to the back corner of the room. Valenu dodged students, teachers, and tables, and eventually reached his destination.

“Let’s test your memory, boy. Where is the Pillar of Agnu?” Valenu studied the map, and pointed a mountain on the northwestern mountain range. “Good, yes, and now where is the Treacherous Gap?” Valenu peered hard at the map, and just as the old man was about to lose hope, Valenu pointed square onto a route that was in the northern hills, that led off into the hinterlands and, from what Valenu was told, certain death.

“There may be hope for you yet. Tell your friends that your quarry lies here.” The goblin/old man pointed to a non-descript point, along the treacherous gap, about fifty leagues past the Tafar River, approaching the checkpoint of Fed Sollost. “He will be fifty to two hundred paces off the road, likely to the east. Good luck boy, I hope to see you again.” With a quick nod, the old man/goblin scurried off.

Valenu repeated the directions in his head. He thought the better of it and grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote down the details. Thinking things through, he went back to the map and on the opposite side of the paper drew a crude reconstruction of the identified location. He didn’t know what their quarry was beyond a man, but any man that lived there must have been a truly dangerous individual. Paper in tow, he returned to the Court of Man, where Zake sat patiently, waiting for his return.

“Good. Now, show me your note.” The note! Valenu had forgotten that he had a message for himself. He showed it to Zake, with the seal unbroken. Zake smiled and waved to Valenu in a manner that suggested that he read his note. Valenu opened the note and it read as follows:

“My student Valenu, by now you have completed all but the task this note was to give you. Show Zake the instructions you’ve written down, and he will tell you to go to a place in the academy that was useful for experimenting with sound calculations. Deliver your instructions to the sewer rat, they will know what to do. When you are done, report back to your second delivery and escort them home. They will look after you. You are free to stay with them as you wish, but eventually return to the tower, it will be a quarter moon’s ride, more if snowfall begins so prepare accordingly. Zake will instruct you further, so take notes if you must, and I should see you hopefully before the winter solstice. Good speed and fair health to you. -Abzil”

Valenu looked up, and took the paper out of his pocket with the instructions. “How did he-“

“Know that you would write the instructions down?” Zake smiled and relaxed. “My boy, he has watched you every second that he was around to do so. I dare say he knows more about you than you do about yourself.” The look on Valenu’s face made Zake laugh. “I can see why he took you. You two are very similar in personality. So, you are to go down the hall, to the stairwell left of the Calculation Environment, and go to the bottom of the stairwell. It will smell like a sewer, because it is one. Walk one hundred paces and you will meet your sewer rat. Now, I will expect to see you here at the vernal equinox. I was requested to sponsor you for entrance examinations into next autumn’s enrollment. Study hard, young man. Abzil does not give his commendation lightly.” With that he stood, said “good day,” and left.

Valenu wandered down the hall, and descended the stairwell by the Calculation Environment. He counted his paces carefully, trying not to slip into the sewer water, and at pace eighty he heard a whisper.

“Hurry up Val, I’m growing damp.” He’d recognize Aiora’s voice if she whispered in a blizzard. A torch was lit, and the group was visible to each other.

He handed them a sheet of paper. Silverhand mumbled to him “It’s kind of scary how often Abzil is right, isn’t it?” Valenu nodded. “Take care of my wife. She will try your nerves, but be patient. Say hello to my daughters, they would enjoy your acquaintance.”

“Oh you sweet, sweet boy.” Aiora hugged Val, and Val wanted time to stop. “Take care of yourself. I’m sure I’ll be by to visit you when you’re in the academy.” With that, the adventurers turned to head deep into the sewers, and Val wanted to join them but knew that his time to show responsibility had come.

23

“I am swearing off of sewers for at least six moons.” Aiora didn’t really mean that, but her sentiment was shared by Silverhand and Abzil, who didn’t really consider them a preferred byway in transportation.

“Zebfas, you are clear? Return to the tower and await my instructions. Prepare two guest rooms and expect our arrival by the winter solstice. When is that, boy?”

“When the sun rises behind the mountain, south of Fed Sharin, and sets over the road to Thurilax, and the evening shows the star Aren rising due east at sundown.”

“Very good. Tell Mr. Mathas to take extra good care of you. Stay an extra day if the weather is bad. My boy, I am proud of you. You have done well on this trip.”

“When’s Val coming back?”

“Val has errands yet to perform, don’t you worry, he’s perfectly safe.” Abzil straightened up. “We will follow you to the main road, and there we will part ways. I’m counting on you, Zebfas, to maintain the tower and yourself. Prove to me your skill.” And with that, the four of them burst forth from the city walls.

The three long time companions went straight at the intersection of roads, when Zebfas turned left and headed back to the tower. In the distance, they saw the Temple of Kalimoch, a white building shimmering in the distance. They rode at a hurried pace. The further they distanced themselves from Fed Sharin, the better each of them felt. However, the destination viscerally upset Abzil. At some point, Aiora said “Oh come now, Zil, what could it hurt? A little blessing never hurt anyone.”

“I just hate being scammed at the behest of our lordship, Aiora.”

“I second that motion.” Silverhand, having been an orphan, lived in fear of abduction from an early age, and the other orphans that he was raised around he never saw again.

“Well, anyway, we may get a priest that we’ve had before, assuming they survived.”

Jorin was taking a break from his blessing services. He was wandering down the northern road, with a sign post that read “Trechrus Gap” pointing north, when he heard the pounding hooves coming from the south. He began walking back to the temple, knowing he would have to perform another ritual, another blessing, for other ungrateful adventurers, being led to their deaths, on behalf of an ungrateful clergy… He stood and watched the figures approach. As they came into focus, he started to recognize their forms.

Silverhand! He couldn’t miss that hulking beast anywhere. Right as rain, Aiora and Abzil were right with him, with a fourth horse. He rushed out to meet them.

Aiora began slowing as they saw a white robed priest waving them down just before they reached the temple grounds. She smiled. “See, men? We have what we asked for, and we haven’t even donated yet!” Abzil smiled. Silverhand was surprised, and also relieved.

“My friends! Please tell me you are stopping.” Jorin looked at them with pleading eyes.

“Jorin, you know we don’t have a choice.” Abzil had dismounted and led his horses to the hitching post. Jorin bowed, more than any of them realized a priest should. They gathered to him. Silverhand was the first to notice the signs of conflict on the human. Jorin appeared to have been choked, his knuckles were bruised, and his nose was slightly swollen. “Son, are you okay?”

“First things first. Let’s get this formality out of the way. Do you have four brass coins?”

Brass coins were the lowest denomination in the empire, used mostly as door shims and for art. Peasants couldn’t even use brass coins to feed themselves. They were left over from the start of the current currency system, and after 3,000 moons, no one questioned why they existed but no one ever –used- them, either.

Abzil stated the obvious. “Yes, of course, but I hardly think that-“

“Good. Good enough. Yes. Make a showing of dropping them into the box. Make sure they give a good, hard ‘clunk.’ I will perform your blessing and join you.”

Silverhand repeated his concern. “Jorin, are you in trouble?”

“Oh, by Kalimoch no! I am just very happy to see you all alive and well again. Please, let’s do this quickly. Waste no time! Oh, the preparations. I’m at the second altar on the left. Hurry!” Jorin ran off. Silverhand looked at Abzil, and they had an understanding.

“Something is happening here, and Jorin appears to be in trouble.”

Aiora walked past them with the coins in her palm. “I don’t know what you’re all worried about,” she said at the first coin made a thud. “The boy was honest with us the entire trip last time. Why should now be different?” Thud, thud. “He’s talented, capable, and it looks like he was even promoted!” Thud. “Why should we be worried?”

“Good evening, brave adventurers.” A priest appeared from the narthex, and bowed to greet them. “Kalimoch’s joy and blessings be yours. Please go to altar eight, last one on the right.”

Aiora began to protest, but was shut down by Silverhand. “Altar eight. Thank you, priest.” The priest bowed, and the group entered the nave. Rather than going to altar eight, they when to Jorin.

“It is good to see you alive, son.” Abzil said over the altar. Jorin was mumbling to himself. Aiora couldn’t understand him. Silverhand was greatly concerned. Abzil beamed. The boy was performing the prayer, under his breath, as quickly as possible.

He’s mocking the temple! Abzil nudged each of his companions, and his smile transmitted that Abzil was in on a joke. The others, not quite sure what was happening but relieved that the situation was understood, watch Jorin continue to mumble and continue his prayer. Jorin finished mumbling, smiled, and said. “Kalimoch blesses you on your journey. Let’s go!” As they walked away, an initiate at altar eight was being chastised by a high priest for not going over and getting his party.

Jorin pulled Abzil and Silverhand close and said, “Whatever happens next, just keep walking and smiling.” No sooner as he had said that, that the high priest had started a hurried walk. “Good people! Brave adventurers, stop, please!” The priest in the nave stood by the door. “Excuse me, brother, I’d like a word please.” Jorin smiled and nodded and continued through the door. “Brother. Brother!”

“Good people! You haven’t had the proper ritual!”

Silverhand trailed last. Eventually he slowed to a crawl, and Abzil was close behind him. Silverhand stopped the priest in the nave, and Abzil spun to address the high priest. Abzil looked at the priest confused. “You confuse me, priest. I paid my tithe. I received my blessing- we all heard it- from a priest, no less! Our timing is critical and daylight is short. Good day! Kalimoch’s blessings and all that.” Silverhand chuckled a little at Abzil’s blasphemy. They found it particularly amusing as the priests argued. Abzil overheard the word “brass” whispered in a hiss.

The four horses thundered to the north, up towards the bridge to the Tafar River and the Treacherous Gap. They stopped at the river to allow the horses to drink, and Abzil’s curiosity got the best of him.

“So… deliver. Jorin, what just happened back there?

Jorin sat on the river bank, and broke down in tears. Aiora saw the boy’s catharsis and sat down next to him, pulling him close. Silverhand knelt next to the priest, and Abzil sat as well.

“The beatings. The pain. The humiliation. I don’t want to go back. It’s all a lie.”

Silverhand felt genuine rage. He knew the orphans that were abducted were just as this boy likely was, and this boy was a gentle soul. Abzil hung his head in empathy and disbelief. Aiora kissed the boy’s head and held him.

“I was beaten for doing the wrong things. Then I learned that everything was the wrong thing. I got this-“ and he showed his priest’s stripe, “from admitting that I knew that they were punishing me for no reason. Then I saw the annals. The histories of priests that left, that were killed because they left.”

Silverhand swallowed his rage and felt a genuine bond with this boy, twenty winters his junior but none the less an orphan with a good heart that only tried to do right by people. It was Kaios’ lot to be trained to fight. It was this boy’s lot to be trained to heal. They were partners in this endeavor.

Abzil simply cared to read the books. But it would be some time before they could pull that grand adventure.

Aiora held Jorin tightly to him, and for the second time in as many days, she had a sick pit feeling in her gut. It was that feeling of attachment, of family, that she never wanted to have. But one of their own was being hunted like a dog, and another who was as innocent as he looked sat, his world broken around him and needing to find his own way. She would have left them behind ten winters ago; now she was drawn to think of the slovenly lay-abouts in the guild hall. They were not destined to be those men. Cae-el was a jester, but a fine man. And Jorin… Jorin was a loyal puppy. He would die for them right now. She saw it in his eyes.

Abzil, not always one for saying the right thing at the right time, said “Well then, I imagine you’d be happy to know that we’re going to pick up Cae-el.”

Jorin looked up. “Really? I’ve missed him, too. What’s the quest?”

Silverhand offered his hand to the sitting boy, who accepted and was pulled from his seat. With a slap to Jorin’s shoulder, he looked him dead in the eye and said “He’s the quest.”

“This isn’t right. This can’t be right.” They walked their horses across the bridge. Jorin read over the wanted notice. “Theft, maybe, but murder? He was never the senseless killer.”

Abzil said out loud, to no one in particular, “Yes, and no. He is a killer. No bowman of his caliber and woodscraft is generally known as the serial murderer, but only because they’re rarely around people. He should at least be called to account. I should be able to determine the truth by talking to him, as would Aiora. She’s good with people as I understand.”

“I’m great with people, Zil. To say less is to lie to yourself.” He secretly wished they could be good together later.

Jorin reminded them that finding him would not be easy. “He didn’t have a home, and now he’s on the run. How will we find a woodsman in the woods?”

Abzil placated the boy. “Oh, a woodsman will be seen if he wants to be. Either that, or we’ll all be dead and never seen again.” Jorin blanched, and Silverhand laughed.

“It doesn’t hurt, Jorin, that Abzil has directions to his last known location.”

They stopped at the Treacherous Acorn, a tiny tavern that didn’t get much business. Some surmised it had to do with the severely ugly owners (a nice orc couple), others that it wasn’t exactly in a high traffic location. The food was amongst some of the best they’d had, however, and the owners looked at each other when they saw the bookish human at the table with the other three.

“Looks like he’d fit in nicely with the goblins, eh?” they shared under their breaths.

24

Not one of the adventurers looked forward to the day ahead. They knew approximately where Cae-el was, but no more. Cae-el didn’t want to be found, and none of them were really skilled enough to try to find him. Each of them wanted to find him for a slightly different reason, but mostly to learn the truth from their traveling companion. They broke off the road at the designated point, traveled 150 paces east, and looked about. They didn’t note anything unusual, no trail or anything.

“Cae-el!” Jorin yelled at the top of his lungs. No response was forthcoming.

They traveled north. Abzil deduced that he was heading north based on where they had parted company two moons ago, the location of his alleged crimes, and his last known position. They trampled leaves and sticks, rustled and made enough sound to irritate an avalanche. Silverhand bellowed out “Cae-el! We are unarmed!”

They continued to trudge through the wilderness, their rustling causing an awful stir and driving the animals out of their normal resting places, much to the irritation of the rouge woodsman on the eastern hill.

Cae-el heard the faint sound of first a younger man’s voice, then a voice equivalent to a human lion roar. They were behind him, over a rise, about a thousand paces away. It could be a trap, he wisely considered. But he was beyond counsel, even of his senses. If it was a trap, he would be caught, he would fight, and he may die. He turned and headed back up the hill.

Thorok had had the weirdest day since his birth. First, he was summoned by the sub-deputy minister and told that his border was about to be breached. Secondly, the immigration experts told him he had to shave his beard, for which he loudly protested and even threatened violence. But the weirdest part of the day was that he had been personally summoned by Bob.

Bob confirmed everything he had said, and told him that he was going to be taken to his border, with a task to travel to a tower in the deep southwest. The paperwork was already in order, and he had been determined by his superiors and commendations to be the best fit for this work. However, he would have to shave his beard in order to fit in.

“I don’t want to fit in, I want to be myself.”

Bob chuckled. “I know, and you also know I normally wouldn’t ask a request of you this drastic if there wasn’t a good reason for it.” Thorok considered the matter more carefully. Bob was going to fly him personally to the border- Bob didn’t take anyone anywhere. Bob wasn’t a draft animal he was a g-

“A dragon, Thorok, please.” Bob was reading his mind! “And you’re right, it’s something that is rather important to me.”

“Very well. But I would like some, er, consideration for shaving my beard. The tribe is going to make my life miserable.” Thorok spoke the absolute truth about this. The length of a man’s beard was equivalent to his seniority, his status in the tribe. Bob was effectively relegating him to the status of a child.

“Never you worry about that, I’ve been meaning to speak with your elders anyway. Now go, prepare. Enough southern coin for two months’ travel. Prepare to open a craft guild if you are waylaid and can’t return.”

The woodsman on the hill saw Jorin stand out like a torch, his white robe acting as a beacon of arrow fire. He drew his bow and let go. The arrow flew and sank into Jorin’s right leg, felling him.

“Ambush!” Silverhand yelled the assailant was on the east hill, and the others took cover. Silverhand reached out and with one tug pulled Jorin to cover. A second arrow hit were Jorin was laying, and they both realized Jorin was dead if he didn’t find cover.

“Be quiet son. Bite down on this.” Silverhand gave Jorin a thick piece of branch to bite and Jorin knew that he intended to pull the arrow through. He looked at the warrior, a strange mix of distrust of skill and trust of person, and braced for the pain.

Aiora yelled out “Cae-el! Stop this madness!”

Abzil yelled out to Silverhand to tell him the color of the arrow fletching. Silverhand shot back that the fletching was mottled brown, with white spots.

“It’s not Cae-el, his arrow fletching was raven black.”

Jorin’s scream was unmistakable. He was six hundred paces out now, and could see the horses in the distance, and the party appeared to be pinned down. He hurried his pace, careful not to cause more noise than is necessary. He drew his bow and readied an arrow. Someone out there had them trapped, and he hoped that they weren’t about to leave the young priest to die.

Otherwise, he would join their assailant.

He closed to three hundred paces. The situation was more clear to Cae-el. They were pinned, hiding from an eastern assailant. That assailant had the high ground, placing them all in a precarious situation. Assuming there was only one, time was of the essence. The clever woodsman would have kept a reasonable distance and fired away. No one in their right mind would challenge the warrior one on one, and the others were otherwise no threat.

Cae-el scanned the eastern hill. He had to stop the bow fire, lest they all find themselves recycled in the forest’s food supply.

Thorok waited at the prescribed location in the Ministry compound. He had no idea how this would work- he couldn’t imagine Bob lowering himself to wearing a saddle- and as he pondered the logistics of this trip he heard the massive, heavy swooping wings of their protector and leader. A taloned claw grabbed him while in mid-flight, and Thorok left the ground screaming as tens of thousands of hinterland citizens witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Bob looked back at Thorok, who was still screaming, and relaxed his grip a slight bit. “Sorry,” Bob yelled back, “but I’ve only grabbed people I’ve intended to eat! Are you wounded?”

“HUH? ER, NO,” Thorok yelled back, “JUST SCARED SENSELESS.”

Bob laughed an earthquake-inducing laugh as they sped to the south.

The woodsman, now at two hundred paces, heard a rustling in the north. He was not alone, but couldn’t see the new player in this game. It may be the person they were yelling for earlier. Without knowing if his reasoning were true, he threw a rock due north of himself, to see if anyone would bite.

Cae-el saw the rock land to his left, and knew that the assailant threw it. He also knew that Cae-el was there, and that he was trying to get him to bite on a shot. Well let’s give him a shot, then, Cae-el traced the rock back from the way it rolled, to where it hit, then thought the flight path in reverse in his mind… there. He could see the person’s cover, and it was a great location. He also knew his shot was obscured by branches. He had to move closer. He decided he couldn’t throw a rock of his own, as the party was too far away. He needed to improve his shot.

Silverhand heard the noise as well, and yelled out, “He’s on the hill!” That brought a retaliatory arrow from the rogue woodsman, which sank into the tree that afforded Kaios cover. Silverhand looked around at the arrow and then hid back around.

“Cae-el, if you can hear me- two hundred paces, behind a rock outcrop!”

The dragon stopped at a mountain pass, one about a half-day’s journey to the closest tavern. “Ok and Bo-grok have a tavern south of here that the ogres tell me is quite good. Hole up there, get whatever supplies you need, and don’t return until you have brought him with you. Good luck, human.”

Bob flew away, leaving a very bewildered Thorok behind.

The woodsman, knowing his cover was blown, packed up and began to move to the north and west. He was going to confront this Cae-el character and silence him, steal his arrows, and finish the job. But he only could sense where Cae-el was, he couldn’t see him. He began to shift silently over the leaves towards where he thought Cae-el would be.

Except that Cae-el was no longer there. When Silverhand had gathered the assailant’s attention, Cae-el used the distraction to move up the hill, to draw a perpendicular line of fire. Cae-el had this won. All he needed was a sighting.

Silverhand grew tired of waiting. He stood up against his tree and, not hearing a shot, retrieved his sword and shield from his horse. Still no shot. He either doesn’t have it or is on the move. He strode out, tired of hiding like a child.

“Show yourself you mangy bastard!”

Thorok began a long, cold march south. He was so used to his beard that he was cold despite the heavy clothing he was wearing. There was a faint trace of snow, and the road led downhill into a treed area. He hated the southern lands, they were so… boring. “And you’re right, it’s something that is rather important to me.” Those words haunted him, and would until his beard grew back.

The assailant was in disbelief. Here was a target presenting itself in all its glory, an easy shot, and with only a shield? Fool, thought the woodsman, and fired two shots in rapid succession.

Silverhand heard the shots, and instinctively held the shield up. The first embedded into the shield, and the tip scarred his knuckle, the second whizzed between his legs. “I shall split your skull and feed your bitch sister with the remains!”

Cae-el was also in disbelief. He didn’t want Silverhand to sacrifice himself, yet there he was taking bowfire. More the point, he saw the assailant for the first time. Cae-el took an easy shot, and sank an arrow through the width of his body, piercing the heart and killing the man instantly.

“It was a lucky shot,” Silverhand goaded at Cae-el.

Cae-el smiled and laughed. “Yes, but it was effective nonetheless!” They laughed a small laugh. They holed up at the Treacherous Acorn, Abzil having prepared for a month’s worth of journey and only needing about a week.

Aiora sat across from the men, resting her head on her palm. “Well, I for one am relieved that you are no murderer. Sorry to hear you had a spot of bad luck, though.”

Jorin winced. “I never would have thought you were. None of the story would have made sense.”

Cae-el smiled and ribbed his new ‘little brother.’ “Perhaps not, but you’re a priest- you’re supposed to forgive everyone, right?” Another uneasy laugh. Jorin looked away.

Abzil looked at Cae-el and shook his head. “It would be fair to say that each of us has suffered some misfortune since we parted ways.” The all looked at each other and nodded. “So, here’s what I propose. My tower held a garrison in its day; each and every one of you is welcome to stay, lay low, and relax. I have more than enough food, and we can wait until our legal troubles have blown over.” He looked at Jorin. “You’ll be safe there. Only the ruggedly foolish attempt to assault the tower, and my boys don’t take kindly to outsiders.”

Silverhand politely declined. “You know I must return home.” Aiora plead with her eyes not to go, but his granite resolve would not be swayed. “Besides, I’m a quarter-moon journey away. You are welcome to visit at any time.”

“That’s not what I remember,” Cae-el muttered under his breath. That earned the first real laugh of the evening.

Meanwhile, a man with bright red hair and no beard was being waited on by the female owner of the tavern. Bob wasn’t kidding, he thought, this really is quite pleasant.

A group of people that shared intense experiences doesn’t really amount to much. Some people don’t want to be there, others do but don’t know how to relate. Others yet know everything that’s happening, but can communicate that everything’s going to work out. And some are just trying to find their way. No matter how things really happen, those that adventure seem to have exciting times even during the boring times. They all know why, and that’s the lesson they sleep with every night- life is as exciting as you make it.