《Convergence of Souls - Necromancer Coming of Age Story》


 Prologue - Year 1230 of the Chantrian Church

    Arthael held out his hand, and the man placed a small ring in his palm. "Is the ring warm or cold?" the man asked.


    The man''s voice was soft but it contained a playfulness that made Arthael curious. Arthael considered the question as he studied the man. He wore white robes, which were clean - indicating that he was rich. Arthael''s mother warned him that rich people were dangerous, and that only wealthy men wore clothes that were so clean that one could not see the dirt on them. Dirt was friendly; dirt was something he knew.


    Arthael''s parents left some time ago in the morning, and now it was afternoon. He wanted to tell the man to leave. Father instructed him not to unlock the door for anyone unless it was Mother. But he didn¡¯t unlock it. The man knocked on their door, and when Arthael looked through the peephole, the lock somehow undone itself. The man stepped in as if he was supposed to be there with him. "Why are you here?" Arthael asked hesitantly, ignoring the man¡¯s question for now.


    The man''s eyes crinkled, and he smiled at the question. "Answer my question first, lad, and I will answer yours." The man didn''t seem dangerous, but there was something about him that unsettled Arthael. The man pointed at his hand, where he held the ring. Then he raised an eyebrow. "Warm or cold?"


    "Why do you want to know?" Arthael looked at the door. The man didn¡¯t seem like he wanted to hurt him, but he couldn¡¯t deny the sudden urge to bolt for the door and run. "If you guess right, I''ll give it to you."


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    Arthael looked away from the door back to the ring. Gold was hard to find, and he found that he couldn¡¯t wrap his mind around what it was worth. His parents didn''t have much money, and the ring could help them. It was heavy in his hand, somehow heavier than he thought it should be--even though he never held gold in his life.


    "It''s warm. Very warm," Arthael said quietly.


    The man smiled, and his eyes shone with delight. Then he reached for Arthael¡¯s wrist. The tightness of the grip made Arthael stiffen. When he looked up at the man once more, he saw that his eyes weren''t friendly anymore.


    Arthael knew something bad was going to happen, and he looked around their small home for what he felt might be the last time: the small table and three chairs, the half-eaten piece of bread, and his father''s old pair of boots that smelled of soot.


    He saw his mother''s hair tie, and after a moment''s hesitation, he grabbed it from the table. He could smell the sweet, salty scent of his mother''s hair. Then he was pulled outside, and the place he knew as home for the last 7 years was no longer his home.


    It was only a memory. But in time, even the memory was hidden. Hidden because a child cannot deal with the pain of it. A home is a damn painful thing to steal from a child, not just the place but the people in it too. But that is the way of the church, and it is the way of life in Mildor for children who are blessed with the light...

 Chapter 1 - Year 1270

    This will not be an easy tale to read. I know that because it was not an easy tale to write. It is the story of one man, and yet somehow more. But every story is best told from the beginning, and I would wager once you get to the end of mine, you will see why.


    My family lived near the coast--as far away from the central structure of power--the Mildorian church as people could. Their house was a few miles away from the edge of the coastal cliff. The forest we lived in was sparse, and we didn''t see people often, but the small town nearby - if you could call it that, appropriately named Cliff''s Mouth - was a favorite place of mine to visit. There were not a lot of people there, but the people who were there are still as fresh in my mind as the smell of sweet pine on a hot summer''s day, or the cold salt smell of the ocean breeze that kissed the cliffs of the town.


    There was Arwale - a man who lived by himself and made his living off selling fish. He was a small man who didn''t talk much but liked to stare. My father would buy fish from him, and the man was so odd that he never haggled, and he never even asked for a price.


    Sometimes I wonder if he would just let people take his fish for free. But my father was a fair man, and he gave the strange fisherman a fair price of it all the same. Arwale was the sort of man you couldn''t tell if he was stupid or just strange, and even though my father liked him well enough, he made me nervous.


    Arwale lived by himself, but there were a few others who lived in the small town. Jerile was another fisherman but he was much different than Arwale. He liked my father, and his personality was even bigger than his size. You could hear the man coming from his laughter. My father and Jerile would drink ale and play dice, Arwale would stare at nothing, and I would watch Arwale.


    We lived in a small cabin in the woods only a mile or so away from the town. My mother was content to stay behind. Sometimes I wondered if she was afraid of Arwale or didn''t like anyone in the town. But when I asked my father why she never came, he just smiled and said she preferred the company of the forest.


    Sometimes I wonder what my path would have looked like if the church didn¡¯t come for me. Would I be a fisherman? Or would I be like my mother--a hermit content to live their life alone in the woods? Now I will never know, because even though I eventually came back to that home, it was never the same. It couldn¡¯t be.


    It was lunchtime when the churchmen came. Mother was close to finishing a stew. The salty sweet aroma of it was enough to make my stomach constantly growl.  Perhaps they found us from the smell of the meal drifting through the trees into hungry noses. Or maybe they always knew where I was. I never thought to ask.


    I still remember looking through the window, seeing my father''s back stiffen as he dropped a piece of chopped wood on the ground instead of in the fireplace. Then, I saw them too. It was a line of armored men shining with gleaming breastplates atop huge horses. They came through the trees into the clearing before our house.


    Before then, I never saw so much armor or so many men clad in it. My eyes were drawn to the metal despite the glare to my eye. There was no grit or grease or sweat-stained clothes. The swords that swung at their hips were adorned with jewels, and golden etchings in their armor seemed to glow as they caught the light of the midday sun.


    They seemed at ease in their saddles. Their massive warhorses made our own stock of full-blood mares and stallions look nothing more than ponies. I stood there in the window, and I could do nothing but gape. There was no fear in my throat, only a tightening as my mind struggled to identify what it saw in front of me as reality. How can one fear that of which they do not know? It was as if a storybook legend suddenly appeared before my eyes.


    My father looked at my mother and nodded. There seemed to be something that passed between them then. My father looked at me, and offered me a sad smile. Somehow, that gesture made my stomach curl into a knot and I felt fear begin to inch its way up my spine. Then he walked out, and my mother locked the door behind him.


    The men in the line walked up to my father, and the few on their horses didn¡¯t bother to dismount. Strangely enough, among the men, there was a boy at the end of the column. His hair was bright white, a color of hair I never saw before.. Like the other men, he also wore armor, but it seemed a strange type of white leather. I thought he mustn''t be much older than me. The awkward age between a boy and a man. Somehow, he caught my gaze and smiled at me.


    I rushed to the door - not being able to take the horrible feeling of hopeless fear any longer - but my mother caught my sleeve. She shook her head. "You stay inside now. Your pa can handle himself." She was stern as always, but I could see worry in her eyes then. But there was also confidence too, but at the time, I didn¡¯t understand.


    I rushed back to the window just in time to see my father backhanded across his face. One man stepped down from his horse. He wore a steel helmet with golden-tipped wings on the side. He yelled at my father, who fell to one knee.


    "They''re hurting him!" I stole past my mother, and she tried to grab at me, but I struggled out from her grip. Her nails cut into my arms, and I gasped in pain as I fell through the door. She screamed my name, but it was too late now.


    I ran to my father. Blood welted on my arms from my mother¡¯s nails and I felt like I needed to throw up. When he looked at me, his eyes were wide with anger. A red mark from the man''s hand turned the right side of his face pink.


    "Go back to your mother," he hissed. His eyes were wide open with anger, and a vein stood out in his forehead.


    I knew my father was a proud man, but I never saw such fury in his blood. But I suppose I never saw my father''s pride in tatters either.


    The soldier who hit him watched us with an amused smile. He looked young, not quite old enough to grow a beard ¡ª but not for lack of trying. He grinned at me with a wicked smile that didn''t reach his eyes.


    His breastplate looked more ornate than the other men, inscribed with white silver and a golden rune in the center. His long, straight hair was noticeably flattened as he took off his helmet. ¡°I said submi¡ª" his words were cut off. It was a smooth deadly motion. Just a twist of the hips and the explosive power of my father¡¯s fist knocked the man down. Now, my father was by no means the strongest or biggest man I''ve seen. And before then, I never saw him fight before. But that day, he fought like a man possessed by a devil.


    The soldiers all stared at the man on the ground and then looked back to my father. It was as if none of them thought the punch was possible. I stood there dumbfounded. Despite my father''s commands, I could do nothing but stare as the tense moment unfolded. Then, after several quiet seconds, the ring of steel echoed around us almost at once ¡ª all of the armored men drew their swords.


    ¡°Strike down churchman, and ye will burn. Strike down a church, and the cities will burn. ¡± The child at the back of the column looked at me as he said the words, and he smiled again.


    For a moment, the soldiers and forest seemed to freeze into silence. None of the men moved, and none of the swords wavered. Then the man on the ground moaned and got up, rubbing his crooked jaw. His nose was bleeding too, and it ran down his mouth and neck.


    "You''re going to regret that," he growled out between bloody teeth.


    Then, quick as a snake, he lunged at my father, trying to plant a sharp dagger in his stomach. I wasn¡¯t sure when he pulled it out but my father leapt back and dodged the thrust easily, and before the man could respond, he moved forward and kicked the side of the man''s knee.


    There was a pop as the man¡¯s knee bent the way it shouldn''t. The man screamed and crumpled to the ground. Before the other men could react, my father moved to him, and then he kicked him in the back, forcing his face into the ground. Then, without even pausing, he pulled back his boot and stomped on his head. The man''s head dug into the ground with a thick crunch, and he stilled.


    It was the first time I saw a man die. And at my father¡¯s hand nonetheless.


    I looked up at my father and back down at the man with the crooked neck. Nausea boiled up in my stomach, and I spilled breakfast onto the ground.


    Then my father looked back at me, and what I saw there scared me. It wasn''t the red mask of fury that he  wore before, but instead, his eyes were blank and hard ¡ª resigned to whatever he did and what he was about to do. ¡°I¡¯m sorry son¡±.


    Somehow, I didn''t recognize my father anymore; he was a different man. A killer. It didn''t seem as if it was anger anymore that drove him. It was simply just a moment in time, a place, and the people who showed up, and he was going to give them what they deserved. I knew then that would be the last words I heard from my father.


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    Then, he just turned around and moved his feet slightly apart. He stretched out his fingers, rotating his wrists slightly, and then he pulled out a small piece of cloth from his pouch. The fabric was bright red, and he tied it around his eyes.


    All ten of the remaining horsemen got off their horses. Each one''s face was no longer slightly amused or bored, as before ¡ª but now angry and somewhat confused. I heard one of the men in the back start talking. He was skinnier than the rest, with a voice that whined.  "Some sort of crazy killer, is he?"


    Another bigger man, with a deep voice, looked at him and shrugged. "Guess he¡¯s scared to see us coming?" The rest of the men laughed.


    The men advanced on my father, forming a circle around him, and a few of the men started whispering. All traces of humor vanished, and something took hold of the men.


    I could feel it in the air, like a presence ¡ª or a thickening. It made my skin tingle, and then the whispering grew louder to a soft, deep singing. I couldn''t make out the words, as the men were almost humming more than speaking, but it seemed as if the words calmed the men as they formed the circle. They almost seemed in sync somehow.


    The lanky kid still sat on his horse at the back of the column. He was smiling now as if he were about to enjoy some sort of show. He had an apple in his hand and took a huge bite of it as he met my eyes.


    Then, at the same time ¡ª without a word said ¡ª each man angled their sword towards my father, and all ten points gleamed in the bright sun. They still hummed and sang and began to move towards him.


    Then chaos broke out. My father sprang forward and kicked up a blade. It was dangerous to do ¡ª something I never saw before.


    The speed required to kick a held blade is nothing to scoff at, and my father did it blindfolded. The man holding the sword lost it, and in one smooth motion, my father snatched the blade from the air and put it in the man''s neck.


    Suddenly everything became a whirl of steel. A sword flashed down towards my father''s head, but he managed to twist around and parry it with the stolen sword. The clang was piercingly loud, and I was surprised both men could even hold onto their metal.


    Another blow poked towards his stomach, but he slapped that away too. Then he rolled forward and planted the sword straight into the man''s neck before the man could parry him. It slid in cleanly, and the man barely made a noise, but my father already pulled it out with red blood coating it to block another blow.


    His techniques weren''t full of flourish or show. It was as if the men simply moved slower than him. Blade after blade came towards my father, but he spun and parried and blocked and gave back blow after blow.


    He was moving fast ¡ª almost too quickly to see ¡ª but the ring and clang of steel on steel echoed loudly as the men grunted and pressed in on him, never letting him up. The sound of clashing metal almost sounded like a strange, horrific instrument.


    But he kept them back, and slowly, blood began to flow in the circle as the strange chants and humming and grunting and slashes continued. Another man pulled back, gasping as a deep cut on his arm bled fiercely. "He fights like a devil!"


    "How can he see?" asked another soldier. He looked just as surprised as he was angry. He looked down at his sword as if he thought it might be fake or not made of metal at all. Then he seemed to get a great idea, and he threw the sword at my father. My father seemed to sense it coming, and he ducked. The sword flew into the warrior behind him, right into his gut.


    My father dodged and cut, and it was as if he was dancing. There wasn''t a wasted motion that I could see ¡ª when I could see him, so fast was he moving, and so much steel was flashing.


    The way he moved with a sword ¡ª it was as if it was a part of him. He swung left and right and around in circles at a moment''s notice. Somehow, miraculously, he didn''t need his eyes to see where to swing.


    The sword itself seemed drawn to the other metal, but not only that, his arms didn''t seem to tire. The sword in his arm seemed to weigh nothing ¡ª and it swung too fast to see every movement, and the men around him were suffering for it.


    My father managed to evade multiple thrusts and turn away others to inflict multiple wounds while sustaining none of his own. Five of the men died in only a minute of the battle.


    Most of the men in the circle were bleeding from some wound. One soldier held his hand to his face, and blood ran down his forearm. He dropped his sword and crawled away on the ground. "I can''t see, I can''t see!" he screamed.


    The melee  finally stopped. Only two men still stood. The rest were too wounded to stand, dying, or dead.


    The kid on the horse only took a few bites of the apple. But the bloodshed didn''t seem to impact his appetite, and he didn''t seem concerned at all that my father just killed five of his men. He took another bite, and through his full mouth, he spoke.


    "Best stop before you all get yourselves killed," he said. Then he threw the apple at the man screaming and crawling on the ground. The apple hit him in the back of the head, and the man yelped.


    "He''s a metal mage, you fool."


    I looked at my father, confused at what they meant. I never heard of a metal mage before, and by the looks of most of them, they hadn''t either. But my father didn''t look at me.


    He stood there and panted, surrounded by the bloodied men. He cleared his throat and spat blood onto the ground. Then he wiped a sweaty hand across his face, where one of the men''s swords scored a small cut. His hand came away bloody.


    "Roth, haven''t we had enough fun?" The big man who scratched his crotch had gotten down a while before, but his sword still wasn¡¯t drawn. He waved about lazily with his hand at the blood and the dead men they already lost.


    Roth,  despite his age, seemed to be the leader.


    Besides the kid, there was only one man left on his horse. He was darker-skinned than I had ever seen, and his eyes were a dull red. His hair was cropped short but it was so dark it was almost ebony, like the color of a raven''s feathers. When he saw me looking at him, he shook his head and looked at the house.


    "What a goddamn waste."


    Roth looked at the man and scowled. "Rebert is right. Father won¡¯t be happy if I come back alone." In response, Rebert stiffened.


    ¡°Arthael!¡± Roth called out. For a moment I was confused. None of the men turned to him. But then someone--something, emerged from the trees. At first I didn¡¯t recognize it as a man.


    Because it was the largest man I had ever seen, and his body was covered in a strange bone-like armor. The armor itself went up to the man¡¯s neck in strange ridges and there were jewels encrusted inside it that glowed bright even in the sunlight of the day. The man¡¯s face was adorned with tattoos and his cold blue eyes appraised the situation. For a small moment the huge man¡¯s eyes locked with my own.


    ¡°Take care of it.¡± Roth said.Something about the man made him nervous, I could tell. Roth began to tap his fingers at his side and he couldn¡¯t seem to look at the man. Like the child, Arthael had white blond hair. It hung down to his shoulders. His face was chiseled and lean and his neck was thick with muscle. Arthael stared at the child for a long moment, and then looked at my father. His eyes hardened and then he nodded.


    From a back sheath he pulled a long hammer. The haft was thick metal and the head of it was larger than any hammer I had ever seen. Like his armor, it was also adorned in jewels, but unlike the armor, it was steel. And yet the man held it like it weighed nothing. He advanced upon my father.


    My father shifted his stance and his head tilted towards the direction of the man¡¯s hammer. Arthael waited for a moment then he dashed forward. Before he got to my father he threw the hammer to the side. The hammer flew 20 feet away and skidded on the ground. My father hesitated and the man slammed into him. My father wrapped his legs around the man''s waist, but he was on top of him. And then the blows began to rain down. My father tried to block the blows and guard his head but the man was armored, and his fists were plated with the strange bone armor gauntlets.


    Roth began to laugh as my father was beaten to death. Then his high-pitched laughter turned into a cackle. He doubled over and beat at the neck of his horse as he pointed at my dying father. And still, the blows rained down. He was laughing so hard it seemed like he was having trouble breathing.


    The rest of his men stared at him, and then at Arthael, who still beat my father. But I could tell he was dead. No man could survive that punishment. The warrior was coated in my father¡¯s blood, but he did not stop. The man was mad, possessed of a terrifying rage that made him into something that was no longer human.


    A few of the men began to rummage through their packs, wrapping cloth and bandages around their cuts. One man went to the man on the ground who was still screaming. My father had cut his eyes and the man was rolling around blood covering his face and fingers. ¡°I can¡¯t see, I can¡¯t see, I can¡¯t--¡± and his throat was slit. "Bloody annoying, that is," the man grumbled. Then he began to sift through the dead man¡¯s pockets.


    The big man who scratched his crotch bent down and picked up Roth''s discarded apple. He sniffed it, brushed it off with his other hand, and took a bite. "Hell of a fighter, that man. Never seen anything like it."


    A few of the other men nodded. But by then, most of the men had moved on from my dead father and were tending to their wounds.


    "The boy comes with us." Roth tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "Do what you want with his mother. Just don''t make it loud. We¡¯ve had enough screaming for one day.¡± Several of the men laughed.


    The skinny man grinned with black rotted teeth. "Righto, boss."


    The red-eyed man had stepped off his horse, and he put a calloused hand on my shoulder. For a small moment, he had a faraway look in his eye, as if he had been here before. He patted my shoulder, and pulled me up.


    As I got onto the saddle, I finally looked away from my dead father. Arthael,  had finally stopped beating the course and instead he stood, staring at my house. The men found the door locked and barred, so the big man with the apple simply barreled it down with the full weight of his charge.


    My mother was there with a pan. She brought it down upon the man, but the big man was quicker than he looked, and he caught my mother''s wrist.


    Then the skinny man came up from behind and wrapped a cord around her neck. Then he whispered something to her, and my mother turned to me, and I could see fear and rage in her eyes.


    They bulged from the strain of the cord around her neck, and then I saw something leave her. Perhaps it was her soul, departing her body early before it could feel all of the pain.


    She reached a small hand up and waved at me, and then the red-eyed man wheeled his horse around, and we began to trot back into the forest. "No lad of your age ought to see that."


    "No lad at all," he whispered so quietly I could barely hear him.

 Chapter 2 - Year 1230

    Arthael sat on his hard cot and peered out into the darkness. He could hear some kids whispering in the distance and one kid snoring. There were so many kids in the building he couldn''t even begin to count them all, and the building was so large he didn''t understand how it didn''t fall over.


    Cot after cot after cot, and he suspected they were all full of kids just like him. He wondered how many mothers were missing their sons. But then he remembered the big pouch of coins the man had left on his own family''s table. Maybe it was a fair trade, and they wouldn''t be missed at all.


    He knew he had made a mistake trusting the man. Somehow, the man had tricked him and taken him to this place, and now he couldn''t leave. He saw one kid get up a few hours ago, heard the crack of a whip against flesh¡ªa yelp of pain, and the kid had come back to his cot crying. They were being watched and guarded, under threat of punishment¡ªand there was no way out. He just didn''t know why.


    When they left his house, the man had brought him to a carriage filled with other boys, and they had ridden it for nearly an hour. Arthael had never left the city before, but he supposed that is what they had done. Then they had gotten out, and he had no idea where they were. The city buildings he had grown used to were nowhere to be seen, and he could only see a collection of huge white stone buildings in a neat formation. The forest had been cut away, and the buildings sat in a vast clearing.


    In a way, it felt like they had arrived at a new city. There had been men moving about, blacksmiths hitting hammers, and plenty of horses. The smell of cooking meat in the air reminded him how long it had been since he last ate. But he remembered the city and the chaos that seemed to be a part of everything. Here, things were different. There was no catcalling, yelling, fights, or anything out of order. It was as if they were alone with the trees.


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    At first, he hadn¡¯t noticed, because it was difficult to tell because every man and child was clothed in brown robes. But the oddest thing was that there were no women.


    He had never felt desire for a woman, and he knew one day that he would--from what his father had told him, but the lack of women made him remember his mother. He felt a fierce longing for her.


    He turned to the kid on the cot next to him. It was dark in the vast room, but his eyes had long adjusted, and he could make out that he was sitting up in his cot like he was.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± Arthael whispered.


    The boy shifted and turned towards Arthael. He did not say anything for a moment, and he thought he might not reply.


    ¡°Benny.¡±


    ¡°Did they take you too?¡± Arthael whispered, even quieter than Benny had.


    The boy shrugged in the dark and didn¡¯t say anything.


    Arthael frowned. ¡°What happened to you?¡±


    For a long moment now, the boy said nothing. Then he lay down and turned on his side facing him.


    ¡°The man came into the house, and I was telling him about the ring. I told him it was warm, but my father came home.¡± The boy paused, and his voice got shaky. ¡°They talked, but then the man made my father angry.¡±


    The boy paused for a moment as if he was going to say more but then he shook his head and turned over. ¡°And now I¡¯m here.¡±


    Arthael frowned. He wanted to talk to the boy to make friends, but he also knew he just wanted to talk. He didn¡¯t want to listen to the voice in his head that told him he was never going to see his parents again. Through no fault of his own, the boy had made him feel worse¡ªbecause he realized that he was lucky. His terrible situation, somehow, had been better than it could have been. He lay back on his hard straw cot, and the thought made him shiver underneath his thin sheet.

 Chapter 3 - Year 1270

    I left with the warriors. Perhaps that''s the worst word for the type of people they were. Sellswords and rapists a lot of them. We began the journey by leaving the forest where my parents'' house was. Arthael stayed behind. I could not say why. I don¡¯t remember much of what the men said. My mind was a fog, filled with only pain.I tried not to think of what happened, and the road ahead was too uncertain to even contemplate where it might lead.


    It was when we left my parent¡¯s homestead that we saw Arwale and Jerile. Jerile immediately looked at me and confusion wracked his features. He mouthed something but words did not come out. And then he looked at the men around me, with their weapons and armor. The man was a good man, and a friend to my father. But I would be a liar if I said what he did next didn¡¯t hurt. He simply ran off the road into the forest, leaving Arwale behind.


    Arwale stared at us with a blank expression as our group approached him. There was no fear in him, no remorse that his friend had left him.


    Our column eventually stopped because the man didn¡¯t move. I felt a tension in the group as Roth looked down at the man from his horse. He waved a hand in front of his face and seemed to regard the man for a moment. I thought the kid might kill him, or one of the others might do so. But Roth waved his hand, and our column split around the man and continued on down the road past Cliffs mouth. It would be many years before I saw Arwale again.


    A few hours later we came to a new city. It was much bigger than Cliff¡¯s edge. I still remember seeing the enormous wooden gates sitting ajar and the smells that greeted me as we entered the city. People were moving everywhere, talking to each other, yelling at each other, or even in some cases hitting each other. I could hear languages that I had never heard¡ªloud breathy voices¡ªand nasal, high-pitched ones too.


    It was ruled by no one and everyone. There were light-colored folk, dark-skinned folk, and everything in between. The possibility was everywhere, and I learned later that this made it a truly unique place. By the time we had arrived there, I hadn''t said any words at all. And when we had come, it was all I could do but stare.


    I remember seeing firsthand how little life meant to the people in Portsmouth. There was simply so much of it to go around and too little time to care. It was a place of strangers, a place of meetings, and for some, a place they would never come back to, and you could tell by how they treated it.


    Death was an everyday thing in Portsmouth, and I witnessed it the first time I entered the city. A huge man was dragged out from a building and tossed in the street. The limp engorged body rolled a few feet and then was run over by a passing carriage.


    Then a small child, younger than me, scampered over to the man and picked through his pockets. The child looked disappointed as he hurried away, and he stuck his tongue out at me.


    A woman stepped out of a building and relieved herself next to the man, and I could see yellow liquid begin to soak the man''s dirty shirt. After a moment of relieving herself, she seemed to notice the body and wrinkled her nose at it. Then she hiked up her skirts and went back inside.


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    It was easy to understand why the stench of shit and piss seemed to perfume the air. But the scent of the sea had also washed over me then, and I gulped it in as if it could wash away the horrors before me.


    I looked towards the ocean, where blue water stretched as far as the eye could see. But then I was drawn to what was near the waterline. Some buildings bore huge nets, strange skulls, and massive skeletal jaws. Men traded red bloody raw fish. Elsewhere, guts lay across tables, and flies buzzed in the air.


    "Do you like Portsmouth, boy?" Roth asked with a grin on his face. He would ask me questions frequently, trying to pry out words from me as if we were longtime friends. I shrugged and looked away, but I could still feel his eyes boring into my back.


    He was cruel and ruthless, but I could tell that he was clever. Perhaps moreso than me. Maybe that is why the men followed him. I didn''t like Roth, but I would be lying if I wasn''t suddenly glad to be among killers because they surrounded us everywhere I looked.


    Many men carried curved scabbards at their waists, and crossbows on their backs; for a moment, it became my singular idea to look for a man or woman who didn''t seem to have a weapon showing somewhere on their body. After only a few minutes, I gave up. My father had used an ax to chop trees, and my mother had used a knife to cut our meat, but these things were tools, not weapons. Weapons hurt people, and I had only just begun to realize the pain that they could bring. But then there was Arthael. The man who had killed my father with only his fists.


    As we continued down the cobbled road through the city, Roth held out a knife to me as if he had read my thoughts. "Do you want it?" I looked down at it, and some part of me wanted to take it and put it in Roth''s neck.


    For a moment, I just stared at the blade in his hand, wondering if I could do it, or even would do it. "Take it, lad." Roth mistook my hesitation for shyness and clapped me on the shoulder. Then he handed me the sheathed knife. Maybe it was a game to him, to show me how little he feared me.


    The scent of the sea got noticeably stronger as we turned the corner, and then it was before us. Huge ships, small ships, and a handful of docks led out into the sea. I had never seen a boat before, and most of these couldn''t be considered that. There were huge ships that seemed large enough to live in. I wondered what it was like to be on one. Some looked like they were about to depart as men climbed tall poles in the center of ships and let loose sails.


    Roth got off his horse and beckoned to me. Then, turning, he looked to the red-eyed man whom I had suspected was his second. "Rebert, find a nice stable," he said.


    Rebert nodded, then he turned and looked at the other men in our small company still on their horses. He looked as if he was about to say something or ask another soldier to come with him, but he looked disappointed¡ªas if none of the stock in front of him would be worth the trouble.


    He started to move away, but then the big man¡ªthe man who always seemed to have some sort of itch in his crotch¡ªgot off his horse. I had since learned his name was Horndall, and he seemed to be behind Rebert in the group''s chain of command.


    Horndall dismounted in a heavy, clumsy movement that seemed to irritate his crotch even more. With one final scratch, he thumped Rebert on the shoulder, and then the two of them took off. It wasn''t long before they became lost in the throng of people moving around the docks.

 Chapter 4 - Year 1231

    Arthael''s hands shook as he held the heavy wooden practice sword. The burn in his muscles had become a familiar enemy. But today, they had been practicing hard, and now his arms felt numb. The sweat in his eyes stung, and he tasted blood in his mouth.


    The strain of the last ten minutes was taking its toll, and he wasn''t sure how much longer he could go on. But his body had begun to surprise him. They were forced awake at the crack of dawn and made to run miles and miles. They ran so much and so often that he had given up trying to count the distance.


    Some mornings it seemed the runs would never end, and some mornings the runs ended with them being ambushed by other boys wielding whacking sticks. A battle erupted yesterday that left his entire body in welts. And one of the boys who had gotten him the best was the one in front of him now.


    He was the same height but stockier and more muscular than the other boys. There were so many of them that it was hard to remember their names. Every day he trained with a different group, but this boy, he remembered.


    His name was Karthas¡ªand Arthael didn''t like him. His angry green eyes were always too wide open, and he never seemed to blink, as if he was challenging everything in front of him and wouldn''t for a moment show weakness. The boy was a good fighter--maybe one of the best, but he didn''t fight fair, and that''s why he didn¡¯t like him.


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    Karthas kicked up dirt and poked forward with his practice sword. Arthael shielded his eyes from the dirt--partially expecting the cheapshot, but the wooden point of the sword dug painfully into his stomach quicker than he expected. Arthael doubled over, coughing and straining to breathe. Once he recovered, he looked up to see Karthas grinning at him.


    Arthael felt a new wave of energy as anger pulsed through his veins. He got up and charged the boy. They hit the ground together hard. Arthael began to pummel the boy''s face before he could defend himself. He heard a pop, and blood spurted from the boy''s nose.


    Karthas couldn''t get his arms in front to defend himself. Instead, he scrunched up and knocked his forehead against his own. Pain exploded in Arthael''s head, and he fell back to the ground.


    For a moment, all they could do was lie there on the ground and groan. Then Karthas spat out blood and wiped his nose.


    "You¡¯ve got a devil in you," Karthas said. He pinched the bridge of his nose tight with one hand and the lower part of his nose with the other. Then he twisted the cartilage and bone back into place. He winced at the pain but did not cry out. Then he spat out blood and got to his feet, offering Arthael a hand.


    Arthael looked up at Karthas, and a part of him wanted to ignore the gesture and spit in his face. But there were many boys in the camp, and there were others that he didn''t like, and perhaps more than didn''t like him. He would need friends, and Karthas might be a cheat, but Arthael knew he would rather have him as a friend than an enemy. He took the hand and forced himself to smile.

 Chapter 5 - Year 1270

    Roth and I spent the afternoon exploring Portsmouth. He seemed to know a fair amount about the place, despite explaining that it was his first time ever being there in person. To me, the small city felt too crowded, too dirty, and too busy. But Roth was different. He seemed to thrive with so many people around him. However, I could tell that he made others feel uncomfortable.


    As we walked, others seemed to steer around us. Maybe it was the pristinely white robes or the way that he seemed to stare when someone met his eyes. Roth loved to challenge people, and when he felt like he wasn''t in a situation with enough conflict, he sought it out. I got shoved back and forth as I kept up with Roth¡ªbut as before, people seemed to know better than to nudge him.


    We walked away from the water, further down into the center of the city. It was just as easy to see the change in people as the change in the buildings. Both were more and more rundown. The city had felt vibrant with sound and stench alike by the water. But in the center of Portsmouth, there was only the latter. Things got quieter, and my arms began to prick with goosebumps as I felt eyes watching me from the shadows.


    Some of the people milling around were only half-clothed. One woman leaned against what must have been a tavern with her breasts exposed. She looked at me with blank, uninterested eyes. I looked away, feeling my cheeks flush. Somehow, I had envisioned my first view of breasts to be different.


    Some people hunched around burning fires, and some entered taverns or inns where the signs barely had any paint. A man came out of a building close by us¡ªone without a door, adjusting himself in his pants while cinching his belt. The building read "The Green," but the rest of the sign was unreadable and broken off. The man caught me staring at him, and he stared back.


    I looked to Roth, avoiding the man''s unnerving gaze, wondering why we had come to this part of town. Roth motioned for me to follow him, and we moved beside the rundown tavern. Along its side, there was a gap between it and the building next to it. He motioned again, and we moved on into the alley in between.


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    I looked down the alley, but there wasn''t much besides a dusty shape slumped against the left wall. Apart from that, the alley was empty of anything but discarded tankards, used bowls, and rotting food.


    Roth went over to the form and kicked it, and it didn''t move. But now that we were closer, I could see what was inside the rags.


    It was an obese man. His blue eyes were still open, and from the smell¡ªit seemed as if he had soiled himself. The only indication of a struggle was a deep purple line across his neck.


    A sudden, deep bout of nausea rose in my stomach as the stench of his corpse invaded my nostrils. I turned away from the corpse and retched.


    The sound of a scuff in the dirt drew my attention away from the body. At the entrance of the small alley, a man stood.


    "Howdy, boys," the man said, his voice had a strange edge to it, like he wasn¡¯t friendly but he wanted it to sound like he was. He smiled with crooked yellow teeth. "We don''t see pretty little boys like you around these parts very often."


    Roth turned his attention away from the corpse to the man and regarded him. Then, without any hesitation, Roth walked up to the man and chopped him in the throat.


    The man clasped both hands to his throat and fell to his knees. His eyes bulged as he began to gurgle. His throat didn''t seem to work properly anymore.


    "You see Milnas? This is why I like Portsmouth. It''s like the real world, but more real. Everything happens so fast." Roth leaned down and put his hand on the man''s cheek. The man whimpered and convulsed on the ground as he struggled to breathe. "Kill before you get killed. Act before they act. And most importantly," he got up and gestured around them. "Don''t walk in alleys."


    He then walked away, up the alley from whence we came. I stood there, staring at the man. His eyes locked with mine, pleading for help. A different sort of guilty fear struck me then. I didn''t know how to help the man, but I didn''t know if I wanted to.


    I ran after Roth. I didn¡¯t want to help the man, but I wasn¡¯t brave enough to watch him die either.


    I often think back to that alley and the dying man. Why did Roth take me there? And what was the lesson he wanted to teach me? Perhaps he wanted to show me how cruel he was, or how quickly he could kill me if he wanted to. Or maybe it was nothing more than the game of a cruel child¡¯s mind.

 Chapter 6 - Year 1235

    A few years passed, and life began to become routine for Arthael. Some parts of it were idyllic, and he could do things he never could have done in the city that was his former home. The woods were fun to explore, full of creeks and abandoned stick forts made by the other boys.


    Sometimes he would find himself forgetting that he had been stolen away from his family and trapped in an isolated city. But there were guards, men who stood at key points around them, armed with swords and dressed in stiff leathers. They served as a stark reminder that they were being kept here and not there by their own choice.


    He learned a lot about the church, mainly from the lectures in which the instructors rambled on about the church and its history. They told them how the church started and taught the names of past kings and queens. They taught them about other cultures and other peoples who had tried to overthrow the church, and the economic troubles brought on by outsiders.


    They also instructed them about the strict hierarchy in the church, from the elite warrior-priests known as paladins, who served as the king''s guard and commanders, to the priests who served them, and then the servants themselves who served everyone.


    And they were told where they existed in the hierarchy. They were trainees, picked and selected by the church to join its ranks wherever they fit best, whether as a paladin, priest, or other servant.


    One of the instructors who taught history was an older man named Oref. He was incredibly tall, taller than any man Arthael had ever seen, and so slender that it looked as if his white robes held nothing inside them but his bones. Arthael couldn''t be sure how old the man was, but he wondered if one day the frail older man would disappear in the wind and never return.


    Oref said he had once been one of the church''s highest-ranking members, a high priest. But he was old now, so he had been called here to instruct the next generation.Arthael found most of the lessons tedious, and as Oref''s voice droned on and on about some battle or other, he found himself losing focus in class and thinking of home.


    Sometimes it felt like it had been forever ago, and other times it felt like hardly any time had passed at all. But as the days became weeks and then months, it became harder to remember the little things that once drew his attention, like the smell of his mother''s bread cooking in the oven, the smell of his father''s sweat, or the feel of his favorite leather toy.


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    Perhaps the strangest of all the new things they learned and did daily was the chanting. At first, Arthael thought the instructors were trying to teach them to become a part of a choir or maybe see if any of them had musical talent. Arthael wasn''t sure, but he knew that the church needed priests who could sing. Sometimes he remembered hearing the singing echoing from the large cathedral back when he lived in Mildor.


    But they only learned a few songs, and they sang them day after day. Eventually, he could remember the words by memory and the inflections and notes of the song came second nature to him. The teachers wanted them to practice while they ran and fought, and sometimes he found himself humming the strange songs before he slept.


    There was something strangely soothing about the pattern of words and melodies. When Arthael sang, he could feel a lightness in his bones, and he felt calmer too. His mind seemed sharper, and it was easier to focus. It was as if the world stretched out, and he could pick and choose which parts to experience and in what detail he wanted.


    When they chanted the songs together, he could follow the path of a butterfly in the air even while running briskly or pick out a small rodent hiding in the nearby brush. The runs themselves became longer and longer, but his bones and muscles didn''t ache in the same way they always did, and then they stopped hurting altogether.


    But it wasn''t just his endurance that improved, but his strength as well. The force of blows in their sparring sessions became so intense that the wooden practice swords often broke into splinters. After a while, they had broken so many practice swords in mock combat that they had to chop down trees and make more.


    Arthael asked some of the other boys if they had noticed it, and they had. Karthas thought they were getting stronger on their own, and it was natural that the training got easier and they could do more. They were boys, after all, and they were becoming men. He was right about that, but Arthael also thought Karthas''s ego wouldn''t allow some supernatural force to aid them.


    His new friend Benny, a quiet lad who enjoyed sharpening the eating knives into throwable weapons, thought it was magic that Oref had cast on them. That struck a chord in Arthael, as the instructor had something odd about him. But when they sang most of the time, Oref was nowhere to be seen.


    There were no answers to be had, and the instructors, while friendly enough during the instructions, would shake their heads to questions they didn''t want to answer. Since they had already learned the songs and how to chant, there was never time to ask anymore.


    And so, they chanted, fought, and ran, over and over again.

 Chapter 7 - Year 1270

    I felt something soft brush my arm. I opened my eyes, and there was a girl there. She was pretty, with bright green eyes and freckles, but I had no idea who she was or what she was doing in my room.


    "Wake up, Milnas."


    I sat up and tried to get my bearings. It was dark outside, but a small sliver of moonlight pierced through the window, giving me just enough light to make out the form of the girl. She was clad in a long coat and trousers, with a pack on her back. She handed one to me.


    "Take this, and we go." She turned away from me and made for the door. I stared at her, trying to figure out what was happening.


    She turned back to me. "Now. We''re going now!" she hissed. There was an urgency in her voice that made me begin to panic.


    "Who are you?" I asked. The pack she had handed to me was heavy, and as I looked inside, I saw it was stuffed with travel gear. I caught the smoky scent of dried meat and cheese.


    "Shay," she said, letting out an impatient breath. "Do you want to be stuck with the churchmen for the rest of your life?" She gestured around vaguely.


    I shook my head, trying to look angry but I was just scared and confused. I didn¡¯t want to leave with her unless I knew more.


    She stared at me for a second and sighed. ¡°Fine, you little turd. The red eyed man sent me. I couldn¡¯t give a fuck as to why but I¡¯m suppose to take you out of the city.¡±


    Rebert. The man who had showed me just a small gesture of kindness. In a strange way, it might sense, so I followed her down the stairs. We were quiet, and something about the empty tavern downstairs put me on edge. The fireplace was burning only embers, and the tables were scarred and dirty. The smell of stale beer still filled the air, but there was no one to be seen.


    We left the inn, and I followed the girl. It was raining, and a small mist fell around us. It was foggy too, and some part of me wondered if this strange excursion was just a dream. I sucked in the cool, damp air of the night and tried to force my heart to slow down.


    I didn''t know the girl, and I didn''t know her plan. But I knew that I wanted to be away from Roth and his men.I didn¡¯t know how Rebert could be part of that. But she seemed like she knew where we were going, and soon we entered a small barn.. We entered a small building overhang, and the girl quickly jumped onto a horse that was already saddled. She reached down a hand and helped me onto the back of the animal.


    "Where are we going?" I asked as I clutched the girl''s waist from behind. Her hair smelled like soap, faintly sweet, and the softness of a stray few hairs tickled my nose. I had never been this close to a girl before, and now one I didn''t know was taking me somewhere I didn''t know either. I wondered how old she was.


    She didn''t answer my question, and we rode out of the small stable past the inn. Then we rode past the inn. I couldn''t help but stare at it as we rode past in the quiet night, but as we did so, a strange feeling entered my gut, and the hairs on my arm began to prickle.


    We left the inn behind, and this time, on the back of a horse moving at a quick trot, we made it to the city gates much quicker than our journey through the city that morning. There was one guard on top of the stone wall above the gate, and he looked down at us as we drew closer.


    He was an older fellow, and as he held up the lantern towards us, I could see that he didn''t look friendly. A rusty skull cap sat on thin gray hair, and hard green eyes squinted at us in suspicion.


    "The lad told me that someone would come. There''s something odd about that one, mind you," the old guard said, shrugging. He casually took something from his pocket and brought it to his mouth, a sort of whistle that produced a harsh piercing note in the air.


    "Shit!" the girl screamed. She pulled on the reins tight and I had to hold tight to her to avoid falling off the horse. The horse wheeled around, but we had nowhere to go. The churchmen appeared from the shadows. Not all of them, but enough. Roth stood at the front of his group, picking his teeth with a toothpick as if he had simply been on a nightly stroll. Perhaps he had.


    His second, Rebert, was also present. He glanced at the girl but he kept his face placid. For a man who just betrayed his own, I was impressed. But then as I realized the situation I was in, I almost pissed myself.


    "Really, Milnas? Running off with a girl so soon?" He spat out the toothpick onto the cobblestones and glared at me.


    There was nothing to say, nothing I could say. The girl had taken me from the inn, and I had gone willingly. So, I said nothing. I was not ashamed; I had done nothing wrong. ¡°She¡¯s pretty¡±. And she was.


    Some of the men chuckled, but Roth was not amused. "Get off the horse," Roth said.


    Then he dug into a small pouch at his waist and picked out a coin. He threw it at the guard on the gatewall, but the coin missed the mark, hit the wall, and fell back to the ground.


    The guard stared at the gold coin shining in the moonlight and hurried down from the wall on a ladder and picked up the coin. The single coin was easily a year¡¯s salary for the guard.


    There was movement somewhere from the roof across from us, then a sharp twang. I watched as an arrow hit the old guard in the head, puncturing through the rusted skull cap with ease. The man fell back with a bloody hole in his head.


    "That''s on you, Milnas. Can''t have the city watch gossiping about Chantrian business."


    Shay dug her heels into the horse''s ribs, and we catapulted forward. Roth''s men scrambled out of the way as the huge horse tore through them. But then I heard the same twang again, followed by the sound of an arrow meeting flesh. The horse screamed and reared, and we both fell off.


    By some miracle, neither of us fell under the weight of the horse and she pulled me up by the wrist and dragged me back the way we had come. She was fast, much faster than me, and I struggled to keep pace with her as we neared the docks once more.


    Another arrow flew past my ear, and if Shay hadn''t tripped, it would have skewered her in the back. I was pulled to the ground with her and we fell hard on the ground. And then they were upon us.


    "Who is she?" he asked, as he walked up. Then he looked down at me, voice quiet and thick with betrayal.


    I didn''t know who she was, and even if I did, I wouldn''t want to tell him. I looked at Shay, and she looked back at me. Terror filled her eyes, and then she began to rise off the ground.


    Someone might use leverage and strangle someone against the ground as a point of resistance, or a man with significant height and strength might choke a child or someone of lesser weight against a wall. But Roth did none of that. He bent the reality of size and strength to his will and held Shay in the air with one arm above his head. The air itself held the girl in its grip, and Roth was its maker.


    But such is the way of magic. It can do terrible yet godly things against humans who don''t deserve it. Roth¡¯s hand was encased in a soft yellow glow, a sort of magical gauntlet that made the air vibrate with power. The flesh on Shay''s neck began to burn, and the smell of it made my stomach twist in revulsion.


    "Stop it!" I screamed.


    Roth looked at me, and for a tiny second, there was not an ounce of recognition on his face. It was as if I were a stranger, and he had no idea who I was.


    I had seen magic before. Or at least I thought I had. Once my dad killed a squirrel. The moment of its death was a strange thing. I thought I saw some lighter glowing form of it that struggled to remain in the world, despite the fact an arrow had pierced its heart. The creature wasn¡¯t intelligent enough to look at me, but all the same, I could sense it.


    It looked at me, and I waved at it. Then it wheezed one final time, and seemed to release its hold upon the world. The glowing form began to fade, content to leave everything behind. I remember vividly the look my father gave me. He was confused, perhaps wondering who I was waving at, but then he smiled as if I had simply been being kind to the rabbit and given it a farewell.


    It was strange then, and even stranger now to witness something that just did not seem to sit right with reality, with a glove that gave him the strength of a man when he was nothing more than a boy. The light of it dazzled in the dark.The moonlight shimmered and sparkled with the power of magic, and it was hard to believe that something so beautiful could be summoned by evil.


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    Witnessing magic manifest before your eyes is one thing, but being able to use it yourself is another. Suddenly, the laws of the world don''t matter anymore. If you''re stronger than other men, why should you listen to what they have to say? In the end, the strongest rule and make the law. One only needs to witness magic once to realize it''s the key to all power in our world.


    Roth stared at me for a long moment, his eyes still strange, as if he could see something else that no one else could. But then a sudden shiver went through his body, and he looked up at his hand and the choking girl.


    He faltered for a moment as he looked around and saw his men watching him. Most of them had their hands on their weapons, as if they were ready for a fight. But what fight was to be had against two children? Several of them looked expectant, hungry almost, as if it was nothing but a minstrel''s show and the best event had arrived. I wondered, not for the first time, if the men commanded Roth or if he commanded them.


    He turned to look at me, at first looking scared. But then his eyes flicked to his men again, and a hardness came over him once more.


    "You tell me who she is, or I''ll kill her and make you take her," Roth snarled.


    I hesitated for just the briefest moment. But it was enough. Roth smiled, as if that was the only answer he needed.


    Shay continued to climb higher in the air until she was around 10 feet above us. Then Roth clenched his fist, and a pulse of light emanated from it, followed by a sickening crunch. He turned his fist sharply, and her neck twisted as if someone had turned it all the way around. Then he flattened his hand, and her broken body crashed down onto the docks.


    I didn¡¯t scream--but not because I didn¡¯t want to. It was because I couldn''t. It was as if the horror before my eyes strangled my throat and clenched it shut, never to open again.


    "There now Lad, it''s done and over. Should we find you another girl to fuck?" Some of the men around Roth chuckled but most looked away. It takes hard men to kill and rape a woman, but it takes a different kind of man to laugh at a dead child.


    Perhaps the men had thought it a game--one that wouldn¡¯t truly end, not one that would go this far.


    I didn''t answer Roth¡ªI couldn''t answer. All I could do was look into her eyes. They were still open, wide with fear and bulged by the affixation.


    It was moments like these that Roth revealed his true self. Most of the time he just seemed like a boy with something to prove to the world, but this monster was what lurked beneath. There was no remorse in his eyes, no pity. It was his sadistic desire to cause pain that was at the root of him. But I was no longer scared of him, no longer scared to see the root of evil. My despair had wrapped me like a cloak, and all I could feel was empty at seeing the devil and living to tell of it.


    ¡°Now fuck her.¡± Roth pointed at her corpse, not wanting the game to end, but angry at sensing its closure.


    Rebert stepped from behind Roth and put a hand on his shoulder. It was a firm grip and I saw Roth wince from the pressure. ¡°Enough, child.¡±


    "Take your hand off me before I snap it off." Roth whispered the words slowly, and quietly--and he didn¡¯t even turn to look at Rebert, but the words were not hollow things. I could see that he meant it. He would kill even one of his own if they questioned him at that moment. Rebert took back his hand, but I saw that he now gripped the hilt of his sword, as if he might draw it at any moment.


    The cruelty of his words and the wrongness of her death made something inside me break. But it no longer felt like something inside me. There was a strange jolt or some sort of movement, as if the air itself cracked and divided ¡ª and then the brightness of the moon became dull, and the air seemed to thicken.


    I wasn''t sure how long I stood there before I realized the change. The wet smell of the city and the sound of the waves against the dock were gone. But then, in front of me, I saw Shay on the ground. She lay there with her neck crooked, but her eyes were open and watching me, tears streaming down her face. Just like the bird, she glowed slightly as if she was an outline of her body, but not truly inside it.


    A sudden pang of revulsion coursed through my stomach, and I stepped back. But then I looked into her eyes, and what I saw there crushed me. She was scared. I moved towards her and kneeled, placing her crooked neck in my lap, and she looked up at me as tears moved down her face. "I''m sorry," I choked, not knowing what else to say. "I''m sorry."


    "Why didn''t you save me?" she asked. She tried to move her head, but the bone of her vertebrae and neck was twisted, and nothing happened. She looked confused and then panicked as she reached up her arms to find that her head was twisted the wrong way.


    "What did he do to my neck? Why didn''t you stop him?" She was crying now, and the tears filled her eyes. But I could not feel them. Her eyes were now gray, washed out, and dim. I didn''t have an answer for her. There was no answer to be given, none that could be given.


    The silence was more than just in my head; it was everywhere. And down below, in my lap where Shay was, I felt a gentle tug. "I don''t want to go, Milnas. Don''t make me go." Shay''s voice was frightened now as she pulled at me. Her fingernails dug painfully into my arm.


    I reached down and took her hand. It was terribly cold, colder than anything I had ever touched, colder than snow, and colder than ice. My instincts told me to take back my hand, but I couldn''t. It is one thing to watch someone die, and it''s quite another to watch their very soul perish. Few would say they know what that is like, but I can. I squeezed her hand, trying to comfort her ¡ª horrified at what I was seeing. Where would she go? Would she just simply stop existing? I wasn''t ready for these questions, perhaps I still am not, but I watched the answers unfold before my eyes.


    I began to panic as the coldness from her hands spread from her fingers to my forearm. And then, the color began to return to her. Her eyes became that sea-bright blue again, and the redness returned to her cheeks.


    I held onto her hand, willing her not to go as the coldness spread from the tips of my fingers up into my shoulder. Some part of me knew what was happening ¡ª the part that lives and breathes and somehow does it all without thinking. And that part was giving itself to Shay.


    The cold began to creep into my chest, and Shay''s neck began to twist and turn, and then it snapped back into place. She turned around, looking back and forth. "Where are we?" As she said the words, she dropped my hand, and I clutched it to my chest, willing it to be warm, willing everything to be warm and for the cold to go away.


    And then the world exploded around me. The harsh brown color of the wood beneath my feet felt jagged and rough, and the smells of the sea around us and the sour smell of the city made me want to gag. The bright blue light of the moon seemed to burn my eyes, and as I looked down at my arm, I saw that it was blackened and wilted with rot.


    I tried to move my fingers, but they wouldn''t budge. I tried to move my shoulder, but it was too stiff, and the pain from trying to move it spasmed through my body, and I fell to my knees.


    Nausea filled my gut, and I retched, but nothing came out. I tried to scream, but my throat was hoarse and raw ¡ª as if I had been screaming for hours ¡ª and no sound came out. I coughed, and then I splattered the ground with blood. Then Roth''s shoe thudded into my stomach and lifted me onto my back. The air fled my lungs, and I felt a crack in my ribs as I flew away to hit the hard cobblestones that led up to the wooden deck.


    "Stop," Rebert said quietly, but there was an edge to his voice.


    I looked up to see Roth''s boots turn as he looked at Rebert for a small moment.


    "What did you say?"


    I looked up to see Rebert''s hand still on the hilt of his sword. It was a strange hilt, and it was the first time that I truly looked at it. The pommel had a strange purple jewel, and the hilt ¡ª covered in strips of red leather ¡ª seemed thicker somehow than the other swords that I had seen.


    "I won''t stand by while you kill another child, especially one such as this," Rebert declared.


    Roth looked from Rebert to the other men with a look of confusion on his face. "Such as this?" He threw up his arms in exasperation. "The child is nothing. He has been tested twice now. Three times if you count this," he waved his hand in Shay''s general direction.


    "Only God can deem one worthy. You are not God," Rebert said, making a strange sign on his chest.


    "Remember your place, Shinarin. It is the church that decides God''s word, not you," Roth spat the words out with fury in his eyes, and Rebert flinched as spit from Roth''s mouth hit his face.


    For a long moment, the two stared at each other. Rebert''s strange red eyes held no anger, but in the briefest of moments, I saw them flit to my own. He seemed to register my pain, and he looked at my arm. Then his eyes widened. For a moment he just stared, then almost without acknowledgement, he turned and smashed his forehead into Roth''s nose. I heard the crunch of cartilage, and Rebert drew his sword before Roth even fell to the ground.


    The sword was thicker than any I had ever seen, curved at the edge with a wicked point. I noticed it was also etched from the hilt to the tip in flowing scripts. I stared in wonder as Roth''s own second man now stared down his entire company.


    Roth spat out blood on the ground and got to his feet with a bloody hand held to his nose. "Kill him!" he screamed through blood and snot.


    The men looked at Roth and then at Rebert, but none seemed in a rush to confront him. In the short time I had spent with them, I knew they respected the man.


    One man, an older fellow whose name I had not yet learned, stared at the blade in wonder. "First time in the last five years he drew it. Beautiful." It was as if they were all stunned by the beauty of the blade, or maybe the menace of it.


    In my pain, suffering, and confusion, I wondered about Rebert. The man seemed to have blades all over his body, tucked away in his bandolier, and I imagined he could hide some in his boots too. Some underlying hidden form of the present began to form in my mind. Shay told me that it was Rebert who had sent her. But why?


    Roth looked at his men, and when none of them could meet his eyes, he flung blood on the ground and spat red. "Cowards. Dirty fucking cowards."


    He reached up his hand towards Rebert, and light encircled it once more. But before the light could fully coalesce into a glove, Rebert''s eyes narrowed, and there was a flash of steel. I was so close that blood splattered against my face as Roth''s arm fell to the ground. The magical fist diminished into the air like yellow smoke.


    It was then that all hell broke loose. Three of the men went at Rebert, and I scrambled away from the fighting as best as I could.


    My arm was still aflame with pain, and I refused to look at it, afraid to see what had already scarred my mind. Flesh wasn''t supposed to look like that. But as I tried to crawl away, my mind began to dissociate amidst the pain and chaos around me. Someone grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me away from the melee.


    I screamed until my throat felt like it was going to burst, but a hand clamped over my mouth. I was dragged further and further away from the fight, but I had no interest in the victor. My rotted arm flashed bright pain in my mind as it bumped over and over on the hard cobblestones.


    Then something flew through the air, and something heavy crashed into us. My head hit the cobblestones, and the last thing I saw was Rebert getting to his feet. It was Rebert; he had been thrown at us.

 Chapter 8 - Year 1240

    It had been ten years since they had taken him from his parents'' home. But now, he seldom thought of that old place in the city as his home. The training grounds, as they had all come to know it, was his new home now, and that is where he was happy.


    The years had gone by quickly, and the routine of it all had become familiar. Hardly any of the boys fought anymore, and even if the group dynamics shifted and changed and the wars continued all the same, no one held a grudge. They couldn''t truly hurt another anyway, and a large bruise or a deep cut was nothing to them since every injury healed so quickly.


    For them, the world no longer seemed as scary as it did when they were children. Their bodies were stronger than they ever thought possible and more resilient too. But they had worked hard for their strength, and they all felt proud of the work they had done. The training square had become bigger, and they had even built new barracks for new boys who came to join the younger ranks every year.


    In a way, the boys themselves had become the stewards for the place they lived, and they didn''t mind it. A while ago, Oref and the other instructors had left. One day it was lessons as always, and then the next, they were simply gone. But they found that they didn''t need them, and it didn''t truly matter. They chopped the wood, tilled the soil, killed the chickens, and hunted for fresh game. Some of the men had even taken to teaching the younger kids and life went on.


    But it wasn''t as if they were all still there. Some boys had left throughout the years, but none were thought of often. Arthael was glad Benny and Karthas were still there because they had become his best friends.


    Johnny, one of his older friends, had been taken away by Oref, and another girl named Kaitlyn had been too. But there hadn''t seemed to be anything evil in Oref''s eyes the day he had taken them, but kindness.


    Johnny hadn''t been able to keep up with them on the runs, and he had begun to get left behind, and Kaitlyn, while faster than Johnny, didn''t seem to heal as fast as the rest of them, and a bruise to Arthael seemed to be frequent fractures or broken bones to Kaitlyn.


    There had been many just like them, and Arthael surmised they would be put to some other duty within the church¡ªand he saw that it made sense. They were where they were supposed to be, doing what they were trained to do.


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    There were only twenty of them left now instead of some one hundred that had been taken, but the chores would still be done, and there was still enough to train and spar with, and that was that.


    One day--a normal day just like any other, a man entered the training grounds wearing the blue and gold colors of the church. He was clad in a blue robe and a gold sash, which meant that he held more authority than a priest. Oref had taught them that. Rank was held by color, and a priest only held a white belt. Gold meant that he was a high priest, sent straight from the king.


    Arthael met the man with Karthas, as they had long since cemented themselves as leaders of the others at the camp. The man was hawkish in features, with a long-pointed nose that had a slight curve to it, and beady eyes that measured them with a critical edge.


    ¡°It is time for the trainees of the year 1230--year of the sun to be tested. Those that pass and exhibit the strength the church needs will return to Mildor, and those that do not pass--¡± the man paused for a moment, then shrugged as if he didn¡¯t care enough to explain it further, ¡°will not return.¡±


    Arthael bowed, but said nothing to the man. Something about the high priest itched at him, and he fought the urge to strike him. Perhaps they had been too alone together in the woods where disagreement was always solved quicker with force.


    The priest smiled at them, pleased at the show of respect. ¡°There is a new heretical sect that has sprung up in the desert. You will handle it.¡±


    Arthael nodded to Karthas, and without a word, Karthas left at a brisk trot to gather the others. The high priest stepped close and put a hand on Arthael¡¯s shoulder. He squeezed it and stepped even closer still. For a strange moment, Arthael thought the man might kiss him.


    The man stank off the road, like sweat and dirt and horse. But beneath that, he smelt of old rotten flowers. Arthael fought the urge to turn away. He didn¡¯t like the man, but he respected his rank.


    ¡°Don¡¯t leave any alive.¡± The priest drew back and looked him in the eye. Arthael felt the man trying to gain the measure of him. If the man was looking for resolve and strength, then he had plenty of it. The man raised an eyebrow.


    ¡°As the church wills High Priest.¡± Arthael fought back a sudden urge to knock the man flat to the ground, and he ground his teeth.


    The man stiffened at the anger in his voice. ¡°Be careful with your tone, boy.¡± He handed over a map, then turned and got back on his horse. Before he rode away, the man gave him a long measured look.


    Arthael glared at the man and clenched his fist. He watched him for some time as he continued away from their camp. He realized, after a long moment of watching the empty road, that he had gotten rather comfortable giving orders instead of taking them. The realization made his mouth feel sour, and he felt like he needed to spit out his disgust. And so, he did. But as he wandered back to his men, he couldn¡¯t shake the feeling of irritation at being treated like a child.

 Chapter 9 - Year 1240

    Twenty of them sat astride their horses on top of a dune. Down below, there was a large camp of tents. Camels drank thirstily from buckets, and men and women went about chores under the blistering, dry sun.


    Some appeared to be stretching a form of leather to dry, while a few men sat under the shade they had created, playing dice around a table. He could see a group of small children kicking a ball in the sand. For a brief moment, he found himself unwilling to look away from the children chasing the ball. It seemed so long ago that he had once played like they did. How long had it truly been? Ten years? It felt much longer.


    No one had noticed them yet. For some reason, that irritated Arthael. He felt a warm line of sweat run down his back underneath the leather armor as he stared at the strange people below.


    "Why would anyone ever live here?" From the corner of his eye, he could see Karthas shading his eyes from the sun.


    Arthael looked away from Karthas to see a man walking towards them. The man smiled and waved, and Arthael nodded. He was brown-skinned and leanly muscled, wearing only loose white pants. As he got closer, Arthael could see there was a strange redness on the man''s skin. It was as if the man had let some sort of red pigment pour across his skin and settle there.


    "Hello, friends!" The man smiled broadly, and Arthael was surprised to see that his teeth were so white. Perhaps it was the glare of the sun. "What do we owe the honor?" the man asked, gesturing at them. He spoke in the Mildorian tongue, and Arthael was surprised to hear hardly any accent.


    Arthael stared at the man for a moment. There was something about him that unnerved him, but he couldn''t understand why. Arthael looked at Karthas and found his friend frowning at the man as well.


    The churchmen''s orders were to get rid of the heretics. He intended to follow those orders. He knew, somehow, that it was a test, and he didn''t want to find out what the veiled threats from the high priest could mean for his men and his friends if he failed. But there were children in the camp, and women too. He thought for a moment and came up with a solution that would meet both of his objectives.


    "The church has sent us." Arthael waited a moment to gauge the man''s reaction. The wiry man did not stop smiling, and his smile only seemed to grow bigger.


    "Come with us, so you may be cleansed of your heresy. We won¡¯t hurt the women and children."


    The man''s smile widened even further. "There is no heresy here my friend, only hard work, sweat, and blood."


    Arthael felt Karthas tense, and his friend spoke up. "You will serve when you are told to serve and accept mercy when it is given." Something about his words reminded Arthael of a verse they had learned from the teachers years ago. But there was real anger in Karthas''s voice, and when he turned to look at him, he was not surprised to see Karthas''s hand on the hilt of his sword.


    The man looked down at Karthas''s hand and shook his head. "The Shinarin do not serve,¡± then his wide smile suddenly seemed sad. ¡°Nothing good ever comes from hatred, friend.¡±


    Arthael knew there was truth in the man''s words, but that didn''t make them sting any less. Nothing happened for a moment. He looked past the man and saw one of the kids who had been kicking the ball looking at him. The boy was tall and skinny, and his muscles had not grown to match his bones yet. Arthael wondered if he was older than the boy. Then the boy dropped the ball.


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    There was a loud pop, and wetness spattered against Arthael''s face. He touched his face and looked at his hand. It was covered in thick oily red liquid. Arthael stared at it for a second, and nothing registered. Then with mounting horror, he flicked it off his hand. It was blood. He looked up.


    The man''s eyes had turned red and wild, and they seemed to bulge with pained intensity. The red skin on the man seemed to be different now, too. It was solid and hard, and Arthael could see strange inhuman ridges there. Arthael could only stare in horror as he tried to understand who or what was in front of him. A wild cackle erupted from the man, and then he contorted his hands and brought them together with a loud smack. There was another popping sound, and Arthael was again coated in its thickness.


    "Kill him!" He screamed. He turned to see Benny throw a knife at the man''s chest, but the blade bounced off the man''s red chest as if it had hit a rock. The man turned his attention to Benny. His hands clapped together again, and Benny''s head was nothing but red mist. More blood spattered against Arthael''s face, and he could only stare as Benny''s horse reared in fright and his corpse toppled out of the saddle.


    The red-eyed man held his hands up in the air and began to turn. At first, it was a slow practiced movement, but then Arthael saw the blood from Benny¡¯s corpse, and even the blood from his face began to move through the air like mist to the man. The blood began to spin around him, faster and faster, until it was a small storm of blood.


    Arthael suddenly felt a gut-wrenching fear twist in his insides as he watched the unreal swirl of blood grow larger, and he knew that whatever the man was doing, it would not be good. ¡°Get down!¡± he screamed, not sure if anyone was left alive to hear him.


    He hit the ground, and there was a thick rush of air, as if a volley of arrows had been shot above his head. He looked up from the sand, and there was blood everywhere. It was as if a lake of blood had formed in the sand.


    He stared for a moment at the wet red sand around him, and then his stomach reacted before his mind could. He heaved and fell to the ground as nausea and panic ran through his body. That was the blood of his men. His friends.


    Arthael heard a scream and looked up. Karthas hit the man, and they tumbled into the sand. The man struggled with him, but Karthas was thick and stout--a born wrestler who never lost in the ring they had made back at the barracks. He pinned the man to the ground and began to beat his face. Each fist and smack was like a hammer hitting rock. The thick red coating that formed an armor on the man began to chip away like rock. And then the man began to bleed and die just like the rest of them.


    When he was done, Karthael just sat there, straddled on the dead corpse of the man. Arthael stood up and looked around. There was no one else. His friends were gone, and all that remained were dead bodies drained of blood.


    He walked over to Karthas. And when he looked down into the eyes of his best friend, he didn¡¯t recognize what he saw there. Karthas stared down at his hands. There were deep gashes in his knuckles from pounding in the man¡¯s skull. And when he looked up, his eyes were blank and open wide despite the brightness of the sun. Arthael stared at him for a moment, waiting for his friend to speak, but Karthas said nothing.


    There was nothing to be said. And it was at that moment that he felt another part of himself die. One part had already died. The part of him that was stolen and left behind in Mildor. And now, the part of him that cared--that loved his friends was gone too. Too many had been lost. And he knew that his one friend left would never be the same.


    He looked down at the small village. Other men had begun to assemble, and women too. They held strange instruments, perhaps for farming. One of the kids--the one with a ball, held a small pan.


    A woman screamed. ¡°Rebert!¡± The boy turned to look at a woman in the small village. He shook his head, and the boy charged. The stubbornness. The resilience in the face of danger. He promised to himself that he would let this child live. Even if the rest no longer could. Not after what had happened to his men.


    Arthael reached behind and pulled out the sword. There was no joy in it, no pride. He felt nothing as he moved down the sandy dune. As he got closer, strength flowed into his arms and legs, and his armor began to feel light. He realized he was chanting the words of power--but not in the lyrical way they had been taught. He was shouting the words, screaming them so loud that his throat burned. The rest of the men of the village charged at him, and so they should. They had trained him to be a killer, and that¡¯s all that he was now.

 Chapter 10 - Year 1271

    After the painful few weeks spent with Roth, the new few months felt like a separate life. Rebert, Shay, and I had boarded a merchant ship that journeyed south alongside the shores, trading goods and wares. It wasn¡¯t a huge ship, and the waves were easily felt, but the crew was friendly, and the salty air was something I grew to love. The constant breeze, good weather, and new sights were almost enough to push the past events out of my mind.


    Peace came easy when I was awake. But when I slept after a long day in the sun, my nightmares chased me in the dark. My father would scream for me to help him, somehow still able to speak despite his face being caved in by the mad warrior.


    I had saved Shay, but she wasn¡¯t the same as before. After a few weeks, she had stopped trying to crack her neck, but I would catch her staring out across the seas with blank dead eyes that seemed to see something I couldn¡¯t. She had a haunted look, and I couldn¡¯t blame her. Perhaps she had seen something out there--in the strange place I had been with her.


    I remember the look of betrayal in her eyes--not at me, but at the horror of having her neck snapped. I didn¡¯t know if I could call what I did magic, but I didn¡¯t know what else to call it. Sometimes, if I focused on the lull of the waves and closed my eyes, I could feel the quiet world that we had escaped to, and there were whispers there¡ªsmall traces of light that played against my eyes and called out to me. The strangeness of it all frightened me, but some part of me found it comforting in an odd way--like an old friend calling out to you finally after sensing there was someone else there all along.


    ¡°You should talk to Rebert,¡± Shay said as she approached and put a light hand on my shoulder. I winced. After the fight, somehow Rebert had escaped with us. He hadn¡¯t bothered explaining how. And I hadn¡¯t asked. For a time, all I could think about was the pain. He had amputated my arm--and cut off the rot so it didn¡¯t spread through the rest of my body. It was still a stump, but it was no longer bleeding, but it was as if I could still feel the hand there somehow.


    At the time, I had barely spoken to the man. He hadn¡¯t approached me on the ship, and I had stayed away from him. He felt like a dark cloud, always brooding and glaring at me, and even the other sailors. I wondered why he had risked his life to save us, and I felt that he regretted it. But he was on the ship now, and bound to us in his defiance, and I supposed that he could never and would never go back to Roth.


    I shrugged, not knowing what to say, and Shay squeezed my hand and smiled. ¡°He¡¯s a good man.¡±


    I looked at her and could tell she meant it. I shrugged again, not sure if he was or wasn¡¯t. He had seen good men die--like my father, and done nothing to stop it. And he had traveled with a group of killers.


    ¡°He knows something about you, you know. About what you can do.¡± She looked at me intently then, her blue eyes furrowing. I looked away.


    ¡°And what¡¯s that?¡± I said quietly.


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    ¡°You have a gift,¡± she said, even quieter still.


    I remembered the cold of the quiet and Shay stealing the warmth from my arm--the very life of it seemed to leave my own body as Shay clutched and stole and stole it all from me.I blinked and realized I had been staring at her. She shifted and turned to look out at the sea.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry¡± she whispered, and she looked at my stump. I shrugged, as if the missing limb didn¡¯t matter to me. Somehow, incredibly, it had saved her life--but I was paying the cost, and would forever.


    The weeks continued, and I made friends with one of the ship''s hands. He was a boy of my own age, small of stature but quick of hand and wit. The other sailors seemed to love him, although none were his kin.


    After his chores, he¡¯d sneak away to talk with me and tell me strange tales of his homeland. He claimed that he had been a castaway, but the sailors couldn¡¯t get rid of him, so they had taken him as a part of the crew. He claimed that he was from the woodlands--the mountain folk¡¯s home north of Mildor.


    At that time, I had no idea where Mildor was--and I could not begin to guess at the size and scope of the church¡¯s capital. Clidale¡¯s family and many others in the nearby region fell victim to its expansion.


    His family were simple farmers like mine, with their own goats, crops, and land. But the church required tithe, and when his family was resilient to the idea, the church enslaved them all and shipped them away as slaves.


    When I asked him if he missed his parents, he would smile and insist he would see them again. I wasn¡¯t so sure, but I didn¡¯t want to crush his spirit. Clidale always had a sly grin on his brown suntanned face--so often it was hard to tell if he told the truth or not. But I sensed a goodness in him, and I was captivated by his tales of his people. He spoke of trees taller than any building, and buildings that climbed the trees, and rope bridges that extended for miles.


    We grew close, and it wasn¡¯t long before Clidale and Shay were good friends too. But no matter how much we laughed or swam in the sea at anchor, I could always sense Rebert staring at us. I would catch the man eyeing me as if he had something to say but didn¡¯t yet have the intention of saying it.


    We sailed for nearly a year, up and down the coast. I began to enjoy the harsh beat of the sun on my back, and I grew strong and lean with the strict work that the captain required of all of us. The other men didn¡¯t seem to mind that I only had one arm, and soon I began to get used to it too.


    Perhaps most interesting was Southland Harbor. More so than any other city, it was a buzzing hub of different cultures and people. Strange slant-eyed islanders frequented the town, journeying from islands west and south of the town from another continent entirely, bringing strange goods that could blow beautiful melodies in the air, or spiced food that scalded my entire mouth.


    It was here that I saw more dark people, or Shinarin as I would learn later, than any other city. Shinarin would travel and trade with the islanders, and both people from both cultures made the place their home. Most of them migrated from the northern deserts, fleeing the ever expanding grip .


    When we were in Southland Harbor, I could see the love in Rebert¡¯s eyes for his own people. He would buy strange prickly fruits and laugh with the merchants as if they were his family. Perhaps some of them were. I didn¡¯t know the man was capable of a smile, but when his white teeth flashed, he looked like a different man entirely. I wondered why the man had been with Roth, and not his own people. But while Rebert seemed to be at home in Southland, it was here that he finally convinced me that our journey at sea would have to end.

 Chapter 11 - Year 1271

    ¡°You¡¯ve had enough time, Milnas.¡±


    It was dark, but in the candlelight, I could see a light mist that drifted in through the roughly cut window. Rebert sat across from me at the small table. He held a pipe in his hand, and a small trail of sweet-smelling smoke wafted out as he watched me.


    I looked around the room, wondering if Clidale or Shay had awakened, but they seemed to be still in a deep sleep.


    For nearly a year, Rebert had barely said a word to me. I could always feel his presence, his dark moods on the outside, always watching us.


    I said nothing to him.


    Rebert sighed and looked down at his calloused brown hands. ¡°You have gifts, my boy.¡±


    I remembered what Shay had said to me nearly a year ago. Since then, we hadn''t spoken of what happened, but now it was all coming back. But I didn''t want it to come back. I didn''t need to know more about what I could do or what I had done. I wanted to forget it all, and the idea of living on the sea with honest, hard-working sailors didn''t seem like such a bad life to me.


    ¡°What do you want me to do with my gifts?¡± I waved my stump at him. ¡°I am no fighter. And even if I was, I want nothing to do with the church.¡±


    Rebert glanced at Shay and Clidale, who were still asleep. A part of me wondered if they were awake now, but we had traveled far, worked hard, and spent all day exploring the city of Southport, so I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if their sleep was genuine.


    My own tiredness clung to me, and I wanted to end the conversation and go to sleep, but I was angry too, angry at the man who was the last vestige of my past that I couldn''t get rid of.


    ¡°He killed your family.¡± Rebert looked at me with his dull red eyes, devoid of any expression or accusation. He was just stating a fact.


    Anger made my gut twist and churn. ¡°And what did you do to stop it?¡±


    Rebert looked at me for a moment, then moved to the window and looked out at the city. When he looked back at me, I saw deep sadness in his eyes.


    ¡°Is it such a terrible thing to forget what happened?¡± I said the words quietly, and some part of me knew I was asking myself just as much as Rebert.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go outside.¡± Then, without waiting for me, he left the room. I looked at Clidale and Shay. Clidale lay on the ground, curled up in his rolled mat, and Shay lay on the cheap straw mattress. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep.


    When I left the inn, the brisk night air surrounded me with its cold, causing my arms to prickle. I regretted not bringing my coat, and if I had been sleepy before, I was now fully awake.


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    ¡°Over here, lad.¡± The voice came from around the corner, and I peeked around to find Rebert leaning against the building. He had a pipe in his mouth, and a small trail of blue smoke came out in wisps as he considered me. For a moment, he said nothing, and we just stood there together, outside in the cold air of the dark morning.


    I heard light footsteps and the soft mumbling of a song, and then suddenly an old man turned the corner and stared at us. He was older than anyone I had ever seen before. Deep creases lined his face, and he had strange, milky-white-blue eyes. He stared at us so long I wondered if he even knew we were there. But he had stopped singing, and he seemed startled somehow.


    ¡°Keep moving, old man.¡± Rebert growled. The man winced as if Rebert¡¯s sharp tone had hurt him. He shrugged and walked away. The old man looked back at us once, which I found odd. His milky blue eyes seemed blind.


    We both watched the old man retreat into the distance of the street for a moment. Then Rebert spoke. ¡°You were the reason we stopped in that clearing. It was not by accident.¡± Rebert looked at me and blew out a ring of smoke. I stared at him, not having the faintest idea of what he was implying.


    ¡°It¡¯s your magic. The King sensed it, and he sent us to find the source of it.¡±


    I felt guilty for what happened to my parents, as any would. But I did not truly blame myself. But if what he said was true, then it was my fault.


    ¡°We didn¡¯t expect a metal mancer. If he had just let us take you, then we would have let them be.¡± He had a faraway look in his eye, as if was reliving the scene of the battle. ¡°Never seen anything like it.¡±


    I let Rebert¡¯s words sink in. The burden that the salt and sea air had lifted suddenly came back. But this time, it was more than just shame and fear. The guilt that I had done nothing to save my parents was my own. I was the reason that my parents had died. And now, I finally understood what Rebert was getting at.


    ¡°They¡¯ll find me again,¡± I whispered.


    Rebert said nothing, but he nodded.


    And then suddenly, the pieces came together. ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯ve been on the ship for a year.¡±


    He nodded again.


    ¡°Shay?¡±


    ¡°Just a girl I found that needed some coin. The plan didn¡¯t go as it should have. The guard wasn¡¯t supposed to be paid off. And the girl wasn¡¯t supposed to die. But in the end--¡± he trailed off and gestured at me.


    ¡°But why did you want to save me?¡±


    The grizzled warrior eyed me for a second then blew out smoke. He squinted in the distance. The ships bobbed slowly on the pier and the moonlight cast each in a heavy shadow on the pier.


    Then, slowly, he spoke. ¡°That my boy, is a tale for another day.¡±


    For a moment, I considered his words. Nearly a year ago, I found myself saved by this man. I did not know why or how. But now, I saw that he had planned all of it, and without him, I would be dead or enslaved by the whims of the church.


    ¡°The church sees something in you, lad. They will be back, and this time, you¡¯ll need a weapon. Luck would have it, I know where to find one.¡± He snuffed out his pipe and put it in his pocket, then walked back to the inn.


    ¡°I¡¯m not my father.¡± I called out to him. I missed my father, and at that moment, I felt angry. It was as if I never truly knew him. He was not a man of swordplay or of some strange power. He was a farmer, a woodcutter, and a husband. My dad. But he was gone now, and I would never know who he really was.


    Rebert looked back at me with a sad smile. ¡°You will learn to be.¡± And with that, Rebert walked back inside the inn.

 Chapter 12 - Year 1271

    After the sun had risen and I had eaten, I went to the docks. I knew I could find Clidale there. He liked to throw rocks and bounce them on the water and he would barter with the other sailors and fishermen.


    He was in the same spot as the last few days. I sat next to him without a word and picked up a small stone from the pile he had collected. I threw it, but it sank after only hopping once. Clidale could make it hop six or seven times.


    ¡°We¡¯re leaving the ship. The crew. We¡¯re heading east.¡±


    Clidale picked up another stone and nodded. He didn¡¯t look at me.


    ¡°You¡¯re not surprised?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not like anyone I¡¯ve met, Milnas.¡± He picked up another stone and considered it in his hand. ¡°There¡¯s something about you that I can¡¯t place. Something that ain¡¯t the same as regular folk. Don¡¯t know what it is, but I don¡¯t mind it.¡±


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    Clidale threw the rock in the water, and it skipped along the slow waves. ¡°But normal folk do normal things, and those who ain¡¯t normal don¡¯t do normal things.¡± He shrugged as if that was just the way of things.¡±My folks were like that, can¡¯t say I am though.¡±


    I remembered the broken neck that I had held in my hands, and how it had snapped back together in the silent world without making any sound at all.


    "We''re leaving today," I said, not knowing any other way to say it.


    Clidale nodded again. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. "With Rebert?"


    I nodded.


    "And Shay?" he asked. There was something in his voice that I recognized: a hidden urgency to know the truth. It was then that I realized Clidale must care for the girl. I couldn''t blame him. She was a good-looking girl, beautiful even.


    "It''s up to her, I suppose." I hoped that she would come.

 Chapter 13 - Year 1271

    We left Southport in Rebert''s wagon. Somehow, he had found each of us a kit of supplies and we left the small city quickly. Two huge horses pulled our cart with muscled backs and huge hooves. The horses seemed to know where they were going and were eager to be rid of us.


    Leaving SouthPort, we entered grassy valleys with small towns every few miles. The land was flat, covered in dry grass, and the towns were populated by not much more than a few cows and horses. The air grew hot and dry as we left the pleasant sea breeze behind us.


    I sat in the back with Shay and Clidale while Rebert sat up front, guiding the horses. It was not a comfortable wagon, and the only thing we could sit on was a hard wooden bench that did nothing to protect against the bumps in the road. After a few hours, my rear had grown sore.


    I wondered if I would ever see the sea again, and I already missed the cool breeze and the salty scent of the sea. My daydreaming was interrupted by a giggle. Clidale and Shay had been talking about something, but I hadn''t been paying attention.


    "What''s so funny?" I asked.


    Clidale looked at Shay, and Shay looked at Clidale. Then they both looked at me and shrugged.


    "Nothing of note," Shay said.


    Something she said must have been funny then, and they both burst out laughing again. I laughed with them, but they returned to their conversation. I couldn''t hear them well due to the bumping of the wagon wheels. Trying to suppress a burgeoning feeling of jealousy, I climbed up to the front of the wagon and sat by Rebert. He glanced at me and nodded.


    "Got a way to go, lad," he nodded ahead, as if he could see the end of our journey. But all I could see was white grass and hills. I grunted but didn''t feel like making conversation with the man. Nevertheless, I could feel his eyes on me when they weren¡¯t on the road.


    "You like the girl, don''t you?" He grinned, and it was one of the few times I could remember the man smiling. I stared at him, wondering if he was trying to get a rise out of me. But as I looked at him, I realized I didn''t know much about the man at all.


    "Believe me, lad, she''s a bit beyond us common folk," he grunted and looked once more ahead to the road. I wondered what he could mean by that, but when I turned back to look at Shay and Clidale, they were sitting closer together now. I quickly turned away, trying to convince myself it was no concern of mine.


    One day, I awoke to a slight pressure on my neck. My first reaction was to bolt upright, but my instincts told me to be still. I tried to determine what it was by the feel of it, but I couldn''t. It was cold and poked into my neck, and fear gripped my stomach as some primal part of my mind reached the conclusion before I could. Rebert had finally decided to kill me.


    I decided it was time to open my eyes. The short, thick blade digging into my soft neck was curved, and I felt the wicked, thick point edging slowly into my skin. Strangely, I didn''t feel any pain. Perhaps the blade was too sharp to cause much pain. I had heard that the sharper blades were that way. After a moment, when I didn''t react, he smiled at me and pulled back the blade. The pressure released on my neck. "You have seen what few men have," he said.


    I put a hand to my neck, feeling wet. And when I drew my hand up to my face, I saw a small smear of blood. For a moment, I wondered if I could have killed myself on his sword had I risen quicker.


    "Few men have felt the bite of my steel and lived to see the sword that made their death." Rebert sheathed his sword and grinned with all his teeth. I didn''t like that smile; it was too wide and not friendly, as smiles are supposed to be. His dark eyes seemed to slant with some sort of satisfied menace at my vulnerability. "Let that be your first lesson. Never let another man catch you sleeping."


    I looked down at my hands to find them shaking as adrenaline coursed through my body. It was too early for it, and I could hear the beat of my heart in my head. But I was glad that I didn¡¯t piss myself. Rebert scratched his bearded face. His curly hair stretched past his ears now, and his dark gray eyes scrutinized me with a critical gleam.


    Clidale stood up behind him and rubbed at his eyes. I looked at him, worried that he had heard us talking, but he gave no sign of it. Then Clidale pointed at my neck. "You''re bleeding," he said sleepily.


    Rebert grunted. "So then, your father. How''d he learn the sword?"


    At that, Clidale perked up and looked at me pointedly. "You didn''t tell me your pop was a swordsman."


    "As far as I knew, he wasn''t," I said. "We were just simple folk." The freshness of the memories made my tongue taste sour, and I glared at Rebert, still holding my hand to the tiny slice to my neck.


    "Aye," Rebert said, without much sympathy. Then, without saying anything, he tossed me a wooden sword. He stood up and stepped back a good distance away. But then he closed the distance even quicker. I didn''t expect him to move so quickly. I twisted to get away, but his own wooden sword hit my hip. The pain was hot and searing, and I fell onto my rear.


    Clidale yawned, then walked over and offered me a hand up. I took it, wincing as the pain set in. There would be a huge bruise the next morning.


    "Let me try," he said, then he took the sword from my hand. He looked it up and down and hefted it in his hand for a moment, then tossed it in the air and caught it again. Then, just as Rebert had done, Clidale lunged forward to stab him in the stomach.


    But Rebert was faster than me despite his years, and he stepped back out of range of the blade. Rebert eyed Clidale for a moment and then nodded. Then he turned to me.


    "He shows promise." It stung that he said that. I wasn''t aware that I sought the man''s approval until I saw him give it to someone else, but I didn''t bear any ill will towards my friend.


    We went on like this for days, practicing with the sword after traveling in the wagon all day. Soon we left the quiet, dry plains behind the coast, and the forest began to creep up on us.


    First, it was just a small tree or two, and then before long, we were surrounded by trees taller than any I had ever seen. They made the small trees of my family''s farm look tiny, and this forest felt darker and quieter. It had been quite some time since we had seen another traveler. The bustle of rabbits and the song of birds were absent, and the traveling road had long since deteriorated to a path¡ªif it even could be considered as such.


    And it had begun to grow cold. The trees seemed to grow taller still, stretching up further and further, so I could not see the tops of them. Snow covered everything, and sunlight was forgotten as our days continued. The bite in the air was almost tangible, and to this day, I can''t recall a time being so cold. Rebert had brought thick coats sewn with fur--as if he had expected the temperature change, but they no longer felt warm at all.


    At night, we''d huddle by the cart, trying to build as big of a fire as possible, and during the day, we''d huddle in the back as Rebert sat in the front, with the large horses pulling us along. The horses seemed fine, as if they were built for the weather with huge shaggy coats, and knowing Rebert, I suspected he had picked the beasts with knowledge of the climates we would face.


    Rebert also didn''t seem too bothered by the cold at first. He often became so encrusted with small icicles and sat so still on the cart that we wondered if he was frozen. But as we moved forward through the forest, lost to a road long covered in snow, it began to grow colder still. One day, as we stopped the cart, Rebert looked around, as if looking for something. Then he grunted, looking back at us. "It''s too cold."


    My nose was so cold it felt like I could barely breathe, and my eyes stung with the cold as I tried to look around. But there was nothing but snow, branches, and tall trees. Shay, Clidale, and I were lost among the stiff, furry blankets, but the bite of the frost was cold and sharp. Icicles froze to our eyes, and it had begun to get hard to breathe.


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    "Aye, it''s been cold," I mumbled. Despite Rebert''s knowledge of the roads, I had long suspected that we might lose our way. The forest was thick, and the snow was inches deep by then. I knew that eventually, the cold and the dark would become too much for us, if it had not already.


    "Not what I meant. The world doesn''t get this cold, at least not this part," Rebert looked around again, but this time his eyes widened. He stiffened, then tilted his head. Then suddenly, he drew his curved sword. I hadn''t seen the sword for a while. I had forgotten how thick it was. It was a deadly blade, nicked and scarred from use. At the sight of his blade, we all tensed and looked around for danger.


    Rebert yelped and threw his sword away as if it had bitten him. The sword clattered on the ground, and it shattered into icy fragments. For a moment, he just stared at his hand and back at the ground where his sword lay in pieces. Rebert whispered in his native tongue, and I could tell from his expression that he was dumbstruck.


    "It''s quite alright. I can''t blame you. I can imagine that it was quite cold, wasn''t it?" A high-pitched voice came out of nowhere, and I looked to the tree to the right of us. From behind the tree came a tall, slender man clad in simple brown garments.


    He didn''t seem to have much hair, but his beard was white and long and stretched down past his skinny neck. In fact, he didn''t have much fat on him at all. His biceps were corded and lean, and his stomach carved. Despite the white beard and lack of hair, the man didn''t seem old. His movements were quick, energetic, and strangely graceful. He seemed to glide over to us as we all stared at him in stunned silence. Or maybe we were just too cold.


    But then as he got closer, Rebert reached into his robe. The man looked at Rebert and shook his head, bringing a finger up and pointing it at him. "I wouldn''t do that," the man cautioned with a sudden harshness in his voice that hadn''t been there before. Slowly, Rebert withdrew his hands and put both up to the man.


    "Ah, good good!" The man smiled now, his former demeanor returning. The man looked to Rebert and then us three, but none of us replied. We were too shocked to see the man before us. I still hadn''t managed to convince myself that it was not a dream. I had long suspected that one night I would go to sleep in the cold, and it would take me, and I would never wake up.


    "What did you do to my sword?" asked Rebert.


    "I froze it," the man said matter-of-factly, as if freezing steel and shattering it into ice were a normal occurrence in the world. It was then that I looked more carefully at the man, and I couldn¡¯t help but notice how much skin he was revealing to the elements. It was as if he was dressed for a warm day, not one covered in ice and frost.


    Something about the man seemed familiar, but I couldn¡¯t place it. There hadn¡¯t been many old men on the ship, and we had hardly seen anyone in our travels. The south and southeast were desolate places.


    The old man put a finger into his ear, wiggled it around, and sniffed it as he waited for us to reply. But after several minutes of silence, he seemed to grow impatient. "Not a talkative group, are we?" Then he looked up suddenly, as if realizing something for the first time.


    "Oh my, you do look cold, don¡¯t you? Quite cold!" The man shuddered, gripped his sides, and began to shake furiously, as if suddenly struck by the cold. I could tell he was mocking us, as after a moment, he looked at us with expectant eyes to see our reaction.


    We all just stared, still dumbstruck by the sudden occurrence of the man. Then he sighed, as if we were the most unappreciative audience he had ever had, and he reached out his hand as if wanting someone to shake it. For a moment, I thought about humoring the man, but the cold had become so intense that my bones seemed to resist movement, and I worried that my rear might be frozen to the wooden seat of the cart.


    ¡°You can¡¯t really blame me can you? I had to make sure you slowed down enough for these old legs to catch up. You sneaked off early in the morning.¡± It was then that I remembered.


    ¡°You¡¯re that old man!¡± I said.


    He smiled and then he winked at me. He closed his eyes and then he began to mumble strange words that I had never heard before. It was as if the air caught his words and hung onto them before they reached us. They were heavy words, and as he said them, the words hung there, echoing around us impossibly quiet but also strangely loud. It was as if we had ascended a mountain, and my ears felt as if they were about to pop.


    The man''s forehead began to sweat, and then he clenched his fist. The pressure built even more in my ear, and I cried out and clasped my hands to them. The hairs on my arms began to stand up, and my neck prickled.


    Then he turned his closed fist and opened it. Atop his palm, something began to manifest. It was as if some sort of force came alive in the air just above his palm - a twirling ball of something, and nearby flakes of snow and debris began to move through the air.


    The ball of power moved up out of his hand, further up into the air. It began to churn faster and faster, and the frost peeled back from branches, and the snow melted into water, and the very deep cold that made the air so cutting seemed to stretch and retreat into the growing mass in the center. The cold began to retreat from the air so suddenly that my skin tingled and burned. I heard Shay gasp next to me, and Clidale fell to his knees. He looked at his hands, turned them over, and I could see that they were still ice white with cold.


    After only a small moment, the air was as warm as a spring day. But while the cold had retreated, the wind and force in the air had picked up. The ground was simply brown dirt now, but large specks of dirt continued to fly to the center of the strange center of mass. A huge branch fell from a nearby tree, and Rebert threw himself to the side out of the way, and it narrowly missed hitting him in the head.


    I covered my eyes with my arm and shielded myself as best I could amidst the chaos. It felt as if I was being pulled to the center as well, and I braced myself against the edge of the cart with my foot. But then the pressure and wind seized as soon as it had started.


    I crawled out from the bottom of the cart and saw the strangest thing I had ever seen up until then. The ball was now snow, and ice, and dirt, and it twisted and turned in the center. The old man went up to the large ball of toiling detritus and simply flicked it.


    The ball twirled away, shifting and wrenching, and coiling, and then it spun away into the sky. After a few seconds, it picked up speed, and it couldn¡¯t be seen anymore. The strange man watched the orb float away into the sky, and he waved goodbye. He looked at us sadly, as if he had just said farewell to a fond friend.


    Rebert fell to his knees, covered in dampness from melted snow and ice. He put his wet face to the ground and bowed - staying there, and he began to whisper foreign words in his home tongue.


    The man looked at him for a moment, kneeling there, and then he smiled as if he was intensely satisfied with himself.


    "Ah yes, a Shinarin. I thought as much. You can always tell by their blade." The man gestured vaguely around, as if the sword were still there somewhere - in pieces.


    The man turned away from Rebert and began to mumble to himself, then abruptly turned around. He retreated back into the forest. Several minutes passed, but Rebert still seemed to be deep in his prayers. "What''s got into him?" Clidale asked me, gesturing towards Rebert.


    Shay, on the other hand, still managed to look cold, even though the air was now hot and muggy. "What just happened?" she asked. Then she looked around us, as if she could find the answer.


    I shrugged. I still couldn''t believe what I had seen was nothing more than a dream. But if it was a dream, it was the strangest I had ever had.I was about to say something when a rustling in the bushes behind drew my attention.


    The man was back and carrying a hefty amount of sticks. He huffed and glared at us - as if implying that we should have helped him. Then he dropped them in a pile and began to meticulously layer them in a cone-like shape. I saw Shay glance down at his member, which now hung loose despite the formidable white bush of hair hiding most of it. Somehow, in the brush and foliage of the forest, it looked as if he had lost his loincloth.


    After a small moment, the man was done with his small makeshift arrangement. He whispered something into his palms. He shuddered, swore, and threw something on the ground, recoiling in disgust.


    "Hate fire." He pointed, then spat, and I heard a hiss. The bundle started to smoke slowly, and then it burst into a sudden blaze.


    The sudden heat of the flames scared me, and I fumbled back, covering my eyes with my elbow in a vain attempt to protect against the heat. But then the heat lessened, and when I dropped my arm, there was only a small fire, much more controlled and no longer an inferno.


    The warmth drew me to it, even if the day was no longer cold and frozen. The deep cold had sunk into my bones for weeks. I was sure that if the man had not shown up, we would have gone to sleep and never awoken. But then I also realized that he had created the cold--somehow with his power. I feared the man then. Not because of his power--which is strange to think, but because I didn¡¯t know why he was there and why  he had chased us.


    After a while, we had all settled around the fire, and it grew dark. I could tell none of us were at ease, but the man didn''t seem to pose any immediate danger to us despite his manic energy.


    Clidale stared at the strange old man with wonder in his eyes - and Rebert still seemed to be in some kind of stupor. He was clearly struck by the man and the events we had witnessed. I couldn''t blame him, but I was tired. The journey had been long, spent jostling around in the wagon in the hot valleys following the sea, and then frozen in the forest soon after.


    I looked at Shay, and she too had her hands by the fire, looking into the flames. She felt my gaze somehow and looked at me. I smiled, and she smiled back. I then remembered that I felt a warmth from her smile that I didn''t feel from the flames or the strange man''s magic surrounding us and keeping us warm.

 Chapter 14 - 1271

    When I awoke the next morning, the strange old man was gone. Rebert sat hunched above a small fire that still burned at a steady flame. As I looked around for the man from the night before, I was surprised to find that it was still pleasantly warm. The air felt cool and warm, and the trees around us even seemed to breathe out the crisp, clean scent of leaves and bark.


    Rebert noticed me and nodded. Clidale was also awake, sitting off to the side of Rebert, but he didn¡¯t look happy. Instead, he scowled down at the fire, and I figured they had been arguing.


    Clidale looked up at me, sensing that I was awake. ¡°He left without even saying goodbye.¡±


    Rebert¡¯s eyebrows furrowed. ¡°Quiet, child, before you get your wish and he returns.¡±


    Their bickering finally woke Shay, and she sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She looked irritated, and I couldn¡¯t blame her. Rebert shook his head, not taking the bait. ¡°If you knew who he was, you wouldn¡¯t be so eager to see him again.¡±


    Clidale¡¯s angry face was replaced by confusion. ¡°Who is he?¡± he asked.


    Rebert looked at me, then at the others. He cursed under his breath, perhaps wishing he hadn¡¯t spoken so brashly. Then he spat on the ground and rubbed his bearded chin.


    ¡°You think this is easy?¡± Rebert looked around at our small spot encircled by trees. ¡°Do you think that type of cold can exist and just turn to summer in the flick of a wrist without much effort?¡±


    Rebert gestured at the ground, then pointed in the distance. Surprised, I realized that if I looked far enough away, I could still see snow on trees, on the ground, and on the bushes, some 30 feet away. ¡°And look at the fire, lads. Does it seem like it will ever stop burning to you?¡±


    I looked down at the fire again and realized he was right. It was as if we had been transported to another world inside a dome and could see the outside as it was. The warmth was not only around us, and the snow hadn¡¯t come back, and the flame at the center of it was just as tall and lively as the night before. The logs that the man had placed there were nowhere to be seen. It was as if the fire burned on nothing and floated in the air.


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    ¡°I know what it is. It¡¯s bloody magic, and it¡¯s a wonderful thing, isn¡¯t it?¡± Clidale smiled to himself smugly, as if he had already figured it all out, pushing his hands towards the fire.


    Rebert stood up, anger transforming his red eyes into daggers. ¡°You think this is a game, child?¡± Rebert kicked dirt up, and it sprayed onto Clidale, getting on his chest and covering his face with dust and grit.


    Clidale yelped and stood up, shocked by the outburst of anger. Shay stood up as well, and put her hands forward to calm Rebert.


    I knew the man had a temper, but I had never seen him lash out before like this. Then I remembered how Rebert had been the night before. Fear had transformed the man. He had become a creature that groveled on the ground and had forgotten how to speak in naught but quiet prayers.


    ¡°Magic isn¡¯t a word to be used lightly. You¡¯ve never seen it, never heard of it,¡± Rebert slashed the air with his hand. ¡°Sure, they have their herbs, and brews, and tricks of the light--but even the Chantrian barely wield any power. Their true power resides in their artifacts.¡± Rebert breathed out, trying to calm himself, pausing for a moment. ¡°Magic,¡± Rebert spat out, sneering. ¡°True magic, real magic, is a very rare thing.¡± As he said that, he looked at me quickly, but looked away even quicker.


    He rummaged around and tossed a stick into the still-roaring fire. The twig was small and should have curled up with the heat of the flame, but instead, it just disappeared, as if the fire¡¯s heat was so intense it could incinerate anything that entered it.


    Rebert pointed angrily at the fire. ¡°You see that? That¡¯s real magic.¡±


    ¡°But this man? He is no man. He is more of a god than a man. Did you see what he did to my sword? That was Shinarin steel, and it became ice just by him wanting it so.¡± For a moment, Rebert stared at the fire. Then, seeming to snap out of it, he stood and began picking up our meager belongings with a manic intensity. ¡°And if you think he found us by chance, then you are even more stupid than I thought.¡±


    As if he had already decided that we were leaving, Rebert threw the pots and pans, the few clothes, and the couple of knapsack bags carrying our rations into the cart without any pretense of organization.


    Shay, Clidale, and I jumped in after him, and Rebert cracked the reins. The huge horses sprang into action, and we left the warm clearing. The cold hit me like a slap, and it felt like the breath had left my lungs. And yet, the cold was not what it was before. This was normal--breathable. But we didn¡¯t turn back, and I was glad to be gone from the place after what Rebert had said.

 Chapter 15 - Year 1271

    We made quick work of the forest, and soon we came upon the shadow of the mountains. The trees still surrounded us all around, covered again in snow, but now I could glimpse the mountains through gaps in the treeline.


    Perhaps I hadn¡¯t noticed the mountains before, since we were so stricken with cold. I remember seeing them for the first time that day, wondering how something could stretch so tall and not fall over. The coast where I was from was a flat place. But here, the mountain was everything.


    The top was covered with white snow, and the impossibly tall mountain was framed by more mountains, and more, and more until I couldn¡¯t see anything beyond. They were jagged, rough creatures, sewn with crevices, and crags, and it was hard not to lose myself staring at them. The thought of entering such a range filled me with unease.


    I felt Rebert¡¯s eyes on me, and I turned to him.


    ¡°Never seen the mountains before, have you?¡±


    I shook my head.


    Rebert nodded, and then smiled. When Rebert smiled, he looked younger, despite the gray in his hair. It made me wonder how old he really was.


    ¡°The Gnomen mountains and the trade paths used to be a common route. The gnomes would bring their metals down into Mildor, and the Mildorian traders would bring their own wares - pigs, animals, horses - things not as common in the mountains,¡± he gestured around in a vague sense.


    ¡°I myself had traveled the route once or twice in the old days with my brothers,¡± Rebert grinned. ¡°But then the church grew greedy.¡± Rebert¡¯s fleeting smile turned into a frown. He glared at the road ahead of us, and it seemed as if he had lost the will to continue his story.


    ¡°What happened?¡± I asked.


    Rebert waved a hand dismissively. ¡°The Church grew in power and eventually wanted more in return for less. The gnomes felt they weren¡¯t getting a fair deal, and a war broke out.¡±


    Long moments passed after that, and I thought that the man might be done speaking. I could sense the pain in him, long since buried perhaps, but still there.


    ¡°Who won?¡± I asked.


    Rebert raised an eyebrow. ¡°Who do you think?¡± He shook his head. ¡°After winning that war, the church realized how profitable war can be. And so, they started more.¡±


    Rebert¡¯s hands relaxed a bit on the reins, and it was as if he was staring into another time. He just stared forward, holding the reins, lost in his thoughts and dark past.


    We rode in silence through the forest, and even though we traveled at a steady rate up the mountain, it was slow going. Sometimes we would stop, and rest. The views were breathtaking. Thousands of feet down, and all I could see was more and more trees.


    Finally the road led up the hill and then widened out. We hugged a tight curve around a bend in the road, and came upon them.


    There were five men clad in dark leathers sitting around a fire. They had their own wagon close by, and a crudely set up tent. At first, I thought they might be bandits, but attached to the wagon was a tall flag. The purple background and the gold cross set a lump of fear in my stomach that burned. I felt like I was going to gag. I remembered the standard from my short time with Roth¡¯s men.


    They looked at us in surprise, and neither they nor us said or did anything for a few seconds. Then, Rebert jumped down from his place in the wagon, and the men jolted into motion. One of the men, a smaller one, dove for the tent and took out a small sword. Two of the other churchmen stood up, these were bigger, broad, and muscled, and two others simply watched us¡ªnot bothering to even get up.


    ¡°Well met!¡± Rebert called out. He jumped off the cart, rolled his shoulders, and stretched his back. ¡°Didn¡¯t know there were any fellow churchmen this far out in the mountains.¡±


    The men looked at one another, then back at Rebert in confusion. Rebert strolled forward confidently and put his hand forward to shake a hand.


    The first man to respond was one that had not bothered to get up. He made a show of dusting off his rear and cracking his neck, then he strolled over to Rebert, and he looked him up and down. He had hair so blonde it was almost white. The man was slender¡ªalmost painfully so, and his nose was hawk-like on his skinny, angular face. The man smiled at Rebert¡ªand I noticed his smile was black, and his teeth were rotted.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t think the church had the Shinarin in their ranks,¡± the man sneered at Rebert and the men behind him chuckled.


    Rebert laughed and clapped the man on the shoulder, causing the man to jump in surprise. As Rebert withdrew his hand, the man relaxed. However, as his hand left the man¡¯s shoulder, Rebert slipped his other hand behind his waist and pulled out a knife, plunging it into the man¡¯s skinny stomach. The small blade made a sick squelch as Rebert twisted and wrenched the knife around the man¡¯s bowels.


    The man screamed and pushed Rebert back, stumbling a few feet before looking down at his bloody stomach. He began to dribble and blood frothed out of his mouth as he fell over.


    One of the larger men grabbed a shield propped up against the wagon. The formidable object, made of wood and fine steel, was then used as a battering ram as the man charged towards Rebert.


    Shay screamed as the man barreled into Rebert, the force slamming them both to the ground. Rebert and the big man grappled on the ground, but it was evident that the man¡¯s weight was too much for Rebert. The big man was pressing Rebert¡¯s arms back and looked like he was about to headbutt him.


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    Suddenly, I heard feet hitting the ground behind me, and as I turned, I saw Clidale rushing over to Rebert. Without hesitation, Clidale swung his wooden practice sword as hard as he could down onto the man¡¯s head. The sound reverberated in the air as the hardwood splintered onto the man¡¯s skull, causing him to crumple on top of Rebert.


    As Rebert struggled to get out from under the limp man¡¯s body pinning him to the ground, Clidale picked up the shield the man had used and looked around wildly as the other two men advanced towards him and Rebert. Clidale met my own eyes.


    But as he looked at me, one of the men took that as an opportunity to lunge towards him. Clidale managed to bring the shield up in time to block a sideways thrust at his neck from the man who had managed to procure a sword.


    The cut was strong, and some of the wood from the shield chipped off. The other man, who bore a striking resemblance to the one on the ground, had a huge piece of wood in his hands. It was almost the size of a log, easily 6 feet tall.


    I realized then that the men had been using it as a bench by the fire. It didn¡¯t look like any sort of real weapon, but it was heavy, and the body doesn¡¯t need to be sliced or torn open. Sometimes an angry enough man with enough weight in his hand can do the job just fine.


    The man advanced on Clidale and swung the piece of wood at him. It was a heavy, slow movement, but Clidale was forced to jump back and somehow the movement made him lose his grip on the shield.


    The man with the sword made to advance on Clidale again, but by this time Rebert had finally regained his bearings. "Get in the cart, you fool!" he yelled hoarsely, and Clidale looked at me. Then, his eyes looked behind me, and I turned to see Shay clutching a knife.


    "Stay up there!" Clidale yelled.


    I turned back to see Rebert charging towards the man with the sword. The man poked forward but Rebert seemed to expect the thrust and carried his momentum around the blade, punching his hand into the man¡¯s throat.


    The man coughed and clutched at his throat, and I could tell by the shape of his neck that Rebert had broken his windpipe. The other man looked between us, trying to see if we might be an easier target. His eyes wavered on Shay, but then he grunted and moved towards Rebert.


    The huge man threw the log at Rebert. He was able to duck and avoid it but the man followed up and his fist hit Rebert in the gut. Rebert crumpled into the man, and in one smooth motion, the man picked him up and threw him off the cliff.


    Shay screamed behind me, and my stomach seemed to fold in on itself in horror as the gruff warrior vanished from my sight.


    The man looked down at his companion who lay on the ground, clutching at his neck still, his face purple and his eyes bulging. He shrugged and picked up the man¡¯s sword.


    Clidale was no fool, and as soon as the man picked up the sword, he tried to run over to the cart with Shay and me. But the man who he had hit in the head had managed to roll over and regain consciousness, and he grabbed Clidale¡¯s foot, tripping him.


    The man with the sword found this tremendously funny and roared with a deep, throaty laugh.


    The other man stood up on his knee and pulled Clidale by the foot, hefting him up by the armpits and showing him to his brother. "Fancy this little guy took me out? Bet the lads back home would never let me live that down."


    "Stop him!" Shay grabbed my arm, and her nails bit into my flesh. But the fear had taken hold of me, and I could do nothing as the huge man brought his sword to Clidale.


    The smaller man who had recovered pinned him on the ground and was giggling. The bigger man kneeled down and brought down the sword with almost a surgical precision.


    Clidale screamed out in pain, and it was a sound that I would never forget. It seemed to tear through the air and into my chest, and I could do nothing but watch as the huge man dug the point of his sword into Clidale''s eye.


    The sound was high-pitched and feral, devoid of any inflection that I knew from my friend. I had never heard someone in so much pain before.


    I tried to reach for the strange magic in my body, not knowing how or what it would do. When I had saved Shay, it wasn¡¯t a conscious effort, but as Clidale¡¯s scream began to die out and the brothers started laughing, I reached harder, and a sudden pressure seemed to evaporate around me.


    It was as if the world got quiet, and everything became washed out and muddy. Colors themselves seemed to die, and the air lost its flavor of wood, sand, and leaves. I hadn¡¯t moved, but it felt like I was no longer on the ground, or placed against it with force¡ªand the people surrounding me were little more than bright lights vaguely resembling humans.


    I could see their bones, their hearts, their life pulsing in and out, and I could see everything else around me as well. Life pulsed, and flowed, and grew, and died, and I was there to see it all.


    Without fear, I moved forward to the man holding Clidale on the ground. I touched his arm, and held it there for a moment, trying to recreate that feeling I had when Shay had touched me, but this time, I was the one pulling instead of pushing her away. The man seemed to freeze, and then just like Shay, he began to glow. It was then that he could see me. He looked confused, then looked around, and terror filled his eyes. ¡°Where am I? What have you done to me?¡± His voice echoed as if we were in a large room and his eyes looked up to me standing above him. Then I gripped him tightly and pulled harder than I ever had before, still hearing Clidale¡¯s screams in my head even though we existed in a void of silence.


    Before I had felt the cold of the void steal the life of my arm away, but now, it was different. It was if white hot energy surged into my stump and then before my very eyes, my arm began to grow back. It was if I was some sort of lizard--the bone growing out and the flesh and muscle knitting around it. Before long, it seemed I had never lost my arm. Somehow in the quiet void it was hard to feel any emotion. It was as if the quietness of it all dulled every sense, but also the senses of my mind. Perhaps had I been in the living world things would have been different. Perhaps I would have felt sorry for the man, but in the void, in the quiet, I could not feel anything. And so I pulled and pulled and the man withered in the living realm and his glowing began to fade in the quiet one.


    I focused on the other man¡ªignoring the dying one¡ªand willed myself to him. The feeling was odd, since the form suddenly appeared before me and the shift in my surroundings suggested I had just appeared there. I wasn¡¯t sure how I knew I could do that. But I was not surprised either.


    This was the big man. His form glowed much brighter, and this time I decided to try something different. I reached forward towards the man¡¯s neck and instead of pulling him into me, I pulled him into the air. I was surprised it was so easy, but at the same time, I didn¡¯t expect to find any resistance where I was. The rules were different there, if there were any at all. And then I threw the man as hard as I could. His form flew through the air and hit the tall, glowing form of a tree.


    I sensed something else, but this time, it wasn''t movement or one of the other visible forms. Outside the quiet world, I would compare the feeling to a tingle down the spine, but here, it felt different, more jarring, as if something had just materialized that didn''t belong. Whatever it was, my entire being shuddered.


    The air seemed to tighten, stretch, and then relax, but behind me, I could still sense a heavy presence. A part of me, the part that still managed to feel anything, urged me to leave the quiet world and run away.

 Chapter 16 - Year 1271

    As soon as I turned, I knew it was a mistake. Whenever I saw other people in the quiet realm they were soft glowy things. When they began to die, it was as if the core of them grew more dull and the glow separated and began to dissipate into the ether.


    But what I saw in front of me was something else. It was as if thousands of forms had merged into one. It was so bright that I was immediately blinded. It felt as if my eyes had been burned into my skull. The feeling was like looking at the sun, but if the sun were made of a man.


    A part of me wanted to crush that light, to snuff it out and make it disappear. But even as I thought it, something else in my mind seemed to awaken. It was the part of me that remained from the living world. The coward. The part of me didn''t want to find out what would happen if the light touched me.


    I wasn''t sure if anything could hurt me in the quiet world, but the light seemed to be moving towards me. As the glowing form got closer, my skin began to grow cold. Struggling against the growing pain, I averted my eyes, covered them with my arms, and strained to feel again. I pulled and pulled and focused my thoughts to leave the quiet world.


    When I entered the quiet world, it was like going to sleep without letting my mind rest, but when I left it, it was akin to leaving a dream. I focused on what I had felt before I had entered it, but a rising panic made it hard to concentrate as the horrible brightness drew closer and closer.


    Suddenly, life flooded around me¡ªcolors, smells, the feel of the air¡ªand the sideways grin of an old man. There he was again, the man from the clearing.


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    I stumbled back, still afraid of the glowing form that seemed to burn my eyes. It was strange seeing him again; he was so old, but like before, he had a frightening manic energy about him that belied his age.


    ¡°My oh my, what you have done my boy!¡± The old man gestured around the clearing, and I looked to see what he meant. Across from us, one of the men hung from a thick branch that stuck out through his stomach. He hung from the branch, and blood dripped down to the floor. It was then that I realized I was sitting in something wet, and as I looked down, I saw more blood. Only a few feet away, there was a corpse, but it looked withered and decayed as if it had been burned but left to rot for weeks.


    My stomach reacted before my mind could, and I retched on the ground. But it had been some time since I had eaten, and nothing came out. I struggled to my feet, trying to get away from the blood, and then I saw Clidale. He lay on the ground crying, with a hand to his face. It was covered in blood, and he looked at me with his one eye, and I could see that my friend was in terrible pain.


    ¡°Can you help him?¡± I turned to the old man.


    He looked at me with a curious smile and shrugged. Then he waddled over to Clidale and kneeled down. He reached a gnarled finger down. ¡°Move your hands, boy, and I¡¯ll do what I can.¡±


    Clidale¡¯s hand shook as he removed it, and the old man moved his finger closer. Then there was a bright flash, and Clidale screamed. The stench of burning flesh filled the air, and as the old man stood up, I could see that the wound had been burned. Half of Clidale¡¯s face was a mess of burned tissue.


    ¡°It¡¯ll hurt, and he¡¯ll be ugly, but he will live.¡± The old man looked around the clearing. ¡°Wasn¡¯t there one more of you? Ah yes, speaking of ugly!¡±


    I turned to look at what he meant, and Rebert climbed into view. His face was a myriad of scratches and cuts, and one of his eyes was shut with a horrible bruise. He looked around the clearing at all of the dead corpses and smiled thinly.


    ¡°You did good, lad.¡± Then he nodded as if satisfied, and collapsed to the floor.

 Chapter 17 - Year 1271

    Later that night, I sat by the fire and watched the fire dance. Like before, it was not the natural sort. This time, perhaps because he found our discomfort amusing,  the old man had made the fire green.  There was no wood or scrap to be burned, yet the magical flames licked hot and warded off the cold night air.


    Clidale had finally fallen asleep, and I was glad for it. I didn¡¯t miss his painful groaning. Every time he moaned in pain, it was as if I felt it in my own gut. I felt responsible for his injury. If he hadn¡¯t come with me, he would still have an eye. If I could have acted quicker or used my power faster, perhaps he would still have it too.


    I looked at Shay, and she stared at the flames with a tired, blank-eyed expression. I could sense that more distance formed between us. Nothing was the same since leaving the sea¡ªsince she and Clidale had grown closer, and we grew further apart. Perhaps she thought I did too little and caused my own friend to be hurt. I still felt the mark of her nails as they dug into my flesh as she panicked. Or maybe, seeing a man impaled on a branch and the other man decay before her eyes was enough.


    It was so easy to do what I had done in the quiet world. I felt as if I should feel guilty, but I didn¡¯t. It felt dreamlike¡ªas if it hadn¡¯t really happened. It was so easy there to kill men, and it was harder still to connect it to what I had done, to actually doing it. Some part of me didn¡¯t feel responsible, even if I knew I had done it. And the rest was glad that I could kill my enemies without feeling guilty for it. After all, if I had done nothing¡ªwhat would have happened then? But I could not deny to myself that some part of me--perhaps the biggest part, still felt like a coward.


    Rebert still hadn¡¯t woken up, but the old man had carried him as if he had weighed nothing, and settled him on a mat to sleep on. His hair was a mess of brush and dirt, and his grizzled face was bruised and battered. It was a wonder he had survived being thrown off a cliff.


    But he was alive, and I found I was glad for that. He was sharp-edged and ill-mannered, but I could tell the man cared for me¡ªor at least had it in his mind not to see me dead. I found it funny that I could admire such a trait in someone. It was once a trait I had taken for granted.


    I looked up and found the old man staring again. The old man unnerved me, not only because of what I saw him do, but also because of how long he had been following us. For a brief moment, I wondered how that was possible. We had never seen the man following us on a horse or glimpsed him following us on foot.


    His eyes were a bright blue¡ªlike none I had ever seen, and if I stared too long into them, everything else seemed to blur and fade, and it was as if I was somewhere else, somewhere terribly cold that crackled with ice, cold, and rain. And it was only when I started shivering that I realized I had not blinked. I reminded myself never to do that again.


    ¡°The girl has shock.¡± He pointed at Shay with a wrinkled finger and waggled it. ¡°She¡¯ll be okay. A young mind is malleable and tough, like young wood. Like this.¡± He leaned over and broke off a twig from a small bush, bending it back and forth in his hands.


    He held up his palm to me, and he closed his eyes for a moment. Then the air on top of his palm began to shimmer and crystalize, and then a small tiny bit of ice formed. ¡°Do you want to know how I did that?¡± he asked.


    To my own surprise, I didn¡¯t. I wanted to get away from the man as fast as I could, but I knew he would find us again. And I had the feeling I didn¡¯t want to make the man angry. I nodded.


    He stared at me for a moment longer and scratched his bearded chin. Then he grunted. ¡°As I learned from the elders, the mana pool had always been there, as long as time itself. Perhaps the magic from the pools created time, created the world itself. No one really knows.¡±


    ¡°Incredible things, truly they are.¡± The old man blew out breath between his pursed lips. ¡°I was just a lad when I first saw it, but I still remember it in perfect clarity. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen¡ªor ever will see again.¡±


    He stood up and stretched out his back, and there was an audible pop. Then he gestured around wildly. ¡°The northern sea cliffs, the forest tree homes of the eastern folk, and even the palaces of the Gnomen, nothing compares!¡±


    He paused for a moment, with a wistful look on his face. ¡°Imagine a huge tree, perhaps a mile long. It stretches so high you can¡¯t see the top. Some think it¡¯s taller. No one really knows. But that doesn¡¯t matter¡ªbecause the base of the tree¡ªthe stump itself, is a wonder of its own. The stump is more of a wooden field than a stump, and it¡¯s covered in the softest moss you could imagine. Softer than cloth, and even silk. But the moss is blue, and it glows¡ªand the water in the mana pool¡ªor rather, the mana itself, is like a lake of shifting diamonds. The water sparkles so brightly and brilliantly that it hurts the eye, but you can¡¯t look away. It''s as if your very eyes know the form of true beauty, and if they turn, they¡¯ll never see it again.¡±


    The old man looked at me then, with sadness in his eyes. ¡°I¡¯d kill any man to see the waters again. I¡¯d kill them all if it meant I could just see the mana pool for a mere second.¡±


    I thought he might be speaking lightly, but his sad eyes had turned slightly mad, almost feverish. He held my gaze for a long moment, and I couldn¡¯t look away. I knew he was telling the truth. I feared that I would become lost in his eyes again, but he looked away, angry and somehow hurt at his own words.


    ¡°Everything we know of, from the plants, to the water, to the very animals that we eat¡ªall come from the mana pool. Every being is blessed with its magic, and those that die bleed its energy back into the ground to one day be born into another.¡±


    The man gestured below himself. ¡°I would wager that right now, perhaps thousands of feet below, there is a branch from the pool itself, feeding the ground with its energy and taking it back in.¡±


    ¡°Most humans never drink mana. It¡¯s simply not possible. It¡¯s too far away, too hidden. Those that have drunk from the pool are Elves.¡± The old man eyed me for a second, raising his eyebrow. ¡°Heard of them, have you?¡±


    I shrugged. Clidale had spoken of wood elves, but I didn¡¯t think they were the same thing. I looked down at my friend and felt a deep urge to wake him up. I knew that he would find the man¡¯s tale fascinating. I myself found myself getting drawn into his tale¡ªforgetting, or at least not thinking about what had just happened only a few hours before.


    ¡°Good--because few have. It¡¯s good to know when you¡¯re ignorant about something. ¡± He stroked his beard, shook his head, and chuckled.


    ¡°The first beings who became elves were just humans--humans that had ventured far and came upon the pools by chance. But when they drank the mana, they changed. Fragile bodies prone to disease, and short lives became immortal and strong. Humans became elves for the very first time.¡±


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    He shook his head slowly for a moment, then scowled. ¡°But while the mana gives its abilities to humans¡ªand strengthens their bodies, it does nothing to purify the mind. Humans¡ªat their core, are an evil and greedy race.¡±


    He eyed me for a moment. ¡°Even you, nothing but a young lad, but you¡¯ve got the look in your eye already. You¡¯ve seen killing, and you¡¯ve done your own fair share.¡±


    ¡°It wasn¡¯t my fault.¡±


    He held up a hand. ¡°You don¡¯t need to defend yourself to me, lad. But I know how the world works. No one is born a killer¡ªseldom anyway. Killers are made.¡±


    The old man kept talking, but the truth of his words settled into my gut. I could have chosen not to come with Rebert. I could have run. Perhaps Roth would have found me one day, perhaps not. I thought when I had made that decision, I had been brave, but it was then I realized that perhaps I had only been too afraid to make my own decisions.


    It had not been an easy path forward, and I didn¡¯t think it would get any easier, but I had made my decision to come with Rebert because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn¡¯t.


    He snapped his fingers in front of my eyes, and I flinched. ¡°Are you listening, boy?¡± The old man looked annoyed that I had stopped paying attention to him.


    ¡°As I said before, the mana doesn¡¯t just change the physical appearance. It shifts the mind, it changes personality--it alters the very mind, and sometimes¡ªin unforeseen ways. Every elf develops a connection to something in the world. For me, it is the cold that bends to my will. But for Theodmon, it was the mind.¡±


    I stared at him, and he stared back. ¡°Ah yes, I¡¯m an elf.¡±


    I shook my head. There was nothing mystical or strange about the man, except perhaps his musty smell and his ancient age. ¡°Then why do you look like an old man who has been a beggar for most of his life?¡±


    He grinned. Then he waved a hand in front of his face, and the air seemed to blur and stretch in a strange way. It was as if I was looking through the heat of a fire but harder to see through. Then the distortion was gone, and so was the old man. Instead, there was another figure in front of me.


    The man before me had a long nose like the previous one, but it was sharper now, and instead of long, curly, grey hair, it was black and straight like the oily skin of a snake. His features were harder, and somehow his blue eyes were even brighter--so bright that they glowed. He held out a hand to me as if greeting me for the first time. ¡°Calk,¡± he said. It was an odd name, and I could tell an incredibly old one. I didn¡¯t want to shake his hand so I sought to change the topic.


    ¡°Who was Theodmon?¡±


    Calk shrugged. ¡°He was both no one of importance and perhaps of the utmost importance. In terms of his blood, he was not even born of noble heritage. But his power was unique. Theodmon had power over the mind, and he could influence others'' perceptions and even their own will. In a thousand years, no one had ever seen such power, so it was some time before anyone noticed what he was doing with it.¡±


    ¡°No one knows why the pool gave him such a power. The pool does not seek destruction, and it does not give its gifts to those who are undeserving.¡± Calk sighed, and I could see the deep regret in his eyes as he stared past me into whatever memory that only he could see. ¡°But perhaps the pool can make mistakes.¡± He frowned deeply, as if troubled by the truth in his own words.


    ¡°It was after some time that he began corrupting the minds of his friends, and then his family. He convinced them all that they could do wonderful things if they only drank more mana from the pool. The punishment for doing so hadn¡¯t yet even been conceived. It was simply not done. And when they did, they became even less human than before.¡±


    Calk paused for a moment, and I could sense a strange mixture of hesitation and disgust in the man. It was as if he had seen a larger spider and wasn¡¯t sure if he should squish it or jump away from it. ¡°Those who drank from the pool twice became tall, spindly creatures, more than twenty feet tall, with eyes like huge jewels and ears longer even than my own.¡±


    ¡°Once they were seen, people came to call them the Elder elves. But it was not long after their creation that their end came.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps they didn¡¯t deserve to die. Perhaps we could have found a way to reason with them. But who they became¡ªwhat they became¡ªterrified us. We had no conception of what they were capable of, and they had no regard for our lives. They attacked our cities, burned our homes, and slaughtered our people. The war lasted for decades, and in the end, we were left with nothing but ruins and ashes.¡±


    "I was there during the war of Kel¡¯Edhil. If you asked any living being on this side of the world, they wouldn¡¯t know about it. It was the war of all wars, and any war since or before was not like it.¡±


    ¡°But I was there,¡± he paused for a long moment then, so long I thought his tale was over. His glowing blue eyes seemed stuck to the story of his past, and he frowned as if pained by some hurt.


    ¡°It was the first time in history that my people used their magic for violence at such a scale. It was the first time I had done so as well. But it was a war for survival and so I did what had to be done. I twisted the cold to my will to the likes of which I have not done since-- I called upon hail the size of houses, and I summoned a blizzard the likes of which this world had never seen."


    "The world turned into a magical maelstrom of combined magical power. When I called upon the furies of cold to serve my bidding, others instead smote the Elder elves with lightning that dug craters into the ground, and some threw fire that scorched the land black. There were others still who fought mental battles with Theodmon struggling to keep their sanity.¡±


    ¡°The air itself was clouded with magic, and the smell of sulfur and other elements seemed to seep into the land and burn my nose. Spells wove in and out and danced and flung and stabbed. The world has never seen such a raw display of energy and power, and the sky crackled with energy, and the ground shook with so much power invested."


    "Entire buildings were demolished in the span of hours, and the city itself, Ke¡¯Mordhal was a smoking ruin.¡±


    "On the twenty-third day of the war, everything changed. We learned that Theodmon wished to grant his son the powers of the pool. His son was only a few months old, conceived during the beginning of the war and much too young for the ritual.¡±


    "We knew we couldn¡¯t let Theodmon give his son the power of the pool. It had never been done so early, and we did not know what the consequences would be. And so we planned to attack.¡±


    ¡°But on the dawn of the day of the attack, both were gone. Theodmon and his son were never seen again.¡±


    "That¡¯s it? That was the end of Theodmon?"


    "Aye lad, as far as we know. Without Theodmon to guide them, the other Elder elves surrendered, and most were killed for their treachery. But even if Theodmon had been dealt with, Kel¡¯Edhil had become a shadow of its glory. Thousands of elves were dead, and most of the city destroyed by the elements. Even if the mana pool was still intact, most of the land had become infertile, and the nature magi were mostly all killed in the battles.¡±


    "So, it was no surprise that many elves began leaving Kel¡¯Edhil in search of other lands. Some thought that there could be another mana pool, and some just wanted to leave behind their shame at what they had done to their beautiful home. Cities burned and smoldered, and lava poured from mountains that had been ripped in half by the tumultuous magic."


    Calk stopped talking for a moment and looked down at the blue fire burning hot.


    A sudden leap of intuition formed in my mind. "It was me, wasn''t it?" I asked.


    He looked up at me, surprise painting his features. Then he nodded. "I don''t know how you survived, or how you got here, but I have been looking for you for many many years."


    There was something strange in his cold blue eyes, but I could not recognize what. But as he stared at me, only one question came to my mind. But I dared not utter it to him, because I was starting to fear that this strange powerful elf did not want to help me, but only use me to his own ends.

 Chapter 18 - Year 1271

    We left behind the bloody hill of the battle. Just like with my parents, I tried to push the memories of it behind me and look forward. Calk held the reigns of our wagon, and Rebert sat in the back nursing his wounds. He didn¡¯t say much, but I could tell he kept an eye on the mage. He still didn¡¯t trust the man, and I couldn¡¯t blame him.


    Shay and Clidale were quiet and hardly talked. Neither of them would look at me. Calk''s magic seemed to have stopped any infection from taking root, but my friend had taken to wearing a scrap of cloth around his head to cover the scarred part of his face. He seemed a sunken shell of his former self.


    It was then that I realized the death of the men in the bloody hill did not affect me like I thought it would. Perhaps I had seen too much death by then for such a young age, and my mind had accepted it as a new part of my life. But my friends had not been on the same journey as I had been--and they were different.


    They had witnessed me kill men, and do unnatural things to them. In the quiet realm--in the void where I had gone, I did not experience any of the sensations of violence. There was no sound--only the sensation of it. If I heard a voice it was almost more like I felt instead of hearing the reality of it. I didn¡¯t have to smell the stench of blood, to hear the squelch of a piercing body being thrown onto a tree or to hear the screams of a man having his life sucked out of him. But they did.


    Some part of me wanted to tell Rebert to take them back to the coast, but I knew the old warrior would not leave me¡ªand I wasn¡¯t sure they wouldn¡¯t run into more of the church¡¯s men--especially since we had killed all of them.


    Once Rebert caught me looking at them. He patted me on the shoulder with a calloused hand. "You did well." There was respect in his eyes, and it was the first time I could remember the man showing any warmth towards me. "They will be fine, in time."


    I nodded, but I knew it was not true.


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    We did not encounter anyone else on the road for some time and the quiet seemed to stretch far and wide up the mountain. After the first week of travel, we came upon a small clearing of trees.


    In the middle was a large rectangular box, and in front of the box were five small skeletons. They hung from crude beams and swung in the small breeze from old ropes. They looked like the remains of children, but the bones were strange and unfamiliar, with big heads and smaller bodies still.


    Calk shook his head at the display, and he pointed at a sign that was nailed to the bottom of the wooden box. The words were written in metal, in an odd script, one that I was not familiar with.


    I could not read the common language of the Church, but I knew this was not it. The letters were small, written tightly together, full of strange marks of varying height and embellishments. In a way, I found the writing on the metal to be beautiful. I couldn¡¯t fathom how someone had managed to write scripts into metal in the first place.


    "Here are the traitors. Here are the traders. Here are the chain makers. Here they were hung." After he read the words we all stared at the stone in silence. A cold wind blew down from the mountain and it cut through my clothes in a sudden chill.


    "What does it mean?" Clidale asked in a dry and tired voice. It was the first time he had spoken in days.


    Calk rubbed his hand over the script. "Originally, no one knew about the mountain folk. They hid in the mountains for thousands of years. But then the Chantry found out about their gems.¡±


    "The gemstones of the Gnomen mountains are unique in that they can act as reservoirs, or at times, conduits for magic." Calk rolled his neck and walked away from the post back to the cart. "But it is also what the gems are placed in, held in, that gives them their power¡­¡± He trailed off and pointed at the bones. "These bones are old. Perhaps two hundred years old."


    Clidale went over to one of the swinging sets of bones and touched it. Then he touched it again and frowned. He looked back at Calk. ''How can a set of bones last two hundred years and not crumble?''


    Calk shrugged. ''Gnomen bones are different from human bones. They are harder than rock or stone but even lighter than our bones.


    ''Let''s keep going,'' Rebert said in a gruff voice, then he spat on the ground. I could tell the sight of the bones and mention  had put the fire back in his eyes.

 Chapter 19 - Year 1271

    The journey so far had been long and hard, and the steepness of the mountain had worn us down. We were tired of the slant of the cart, and the two horses had gotten slower and slower. They were sturdy beasts, but the hard journey and consistent miles had worn their bulky muscles into skinny, wiry frames.


    But after long weeks, the road finally seemed to level out, and the hardness of the road shifted as well. It seemed to be made of some type of stone, but I could not fathom an entire road made of stone, unless the road itself was carved from the mountain.


    Besides the strange road, the trees were largely cleared out all around us, and I began to see more and more signs that the forest had been logged for its wood. We passed abandoned logging mills long since taken over by moss and foliage. I wondered at their age.


    For a long time, we continued, silence reigning over our traveling cart and companions. The woods surrounding us on either side were quiet, and as I listened to the sound of the wheels scraping over the road, I felt something on the edge of my senses.


    It was as if I had an itch in a place that I could not scratch or if I had seen something in the edge of my sight, and if I tried to look, it was not there. The more I looked around, the more certain of the strange sensation I became. But there was nothing there but the road, the trees, and the slight cool breeze. I was about to say something when Calk spoke up.


    "We are here," he simply said. He lurched the cart to a stop, pulling hard on the horses. They neighed in protest as the jolt of stopping ran through the rest of the wagon. I heard Clidale yelp as he bumped into Shay, and the two of them glared at Calk.


    He paid them no mind and hopped off the wagon with an alien litheness. Then he walked forward a few steps and breathed in heavily through his nostrils. He grunted and placed his right hand forward, then his left hand, and he held them there.


    After a moment, nothing seemed to happen, and I could sense everyone''s impatience. But for me, I could sense that something was dissipating. It was as if the itch in my mind was suddenly becoming less severe, and every moment it was as if it had never been there in the first place. Then suddenly, the strange awareness in my mind was gone.


    Before us, mist started to form, and then it grew and grew until it coalesced 100 feet up into the air. I could see ice sparkling inside the strange fog, and it was then I felt the strong cold that emanated from the mist itself. The unnatural feel of it reminded me of the day by the campfire when the hot summer day had become winter. The cold pricked my skin, and I shivered. I had never seen anything like it, and all I could do was stare as the most powerful display of magic I had ever seen materialized before my eyes.


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    Calk walked up to the misty wall, and he looked up and down. I sensed a strange admiration in him as he turned back to us and smiled. Then he clapped both of his hands together.


    A loud boom filled the air, and without warning, a freezing wind slammed into us. I was flung onto my back and fell out of the cart, and the air was knocked out of my lungs. I grabbed  the wheel of the cart but not before seeing Rebert knocked off the wagon. He yelled something but was slammed into the ground, and his words were choked off by the force of the wind.He rolled for a few feet and then grabbed


    I craned my neck, and I saw Clidale grab Shay. He narrowly helped her avoid being blown off into the air. Somehow, he had managed to stick a knife into the wood of the cart, and he used it as leverage to pull her back into the cart.


    Inside the roar of the sudden cold wind, I could hear Calk''s high-pitched laughter. It was not the laughter of an old man or even a young one. Instead, it was the laughter of a powerful force freed unto the world without limitations. The winds buffeted us, and the cold was so intense I thought it might freeze into the ground. His hands were clenched in the air, and he stood inside the storm of elements as his robes were pasted to his skin, flapping violently like a flag.


    ¡°Behold my creation!¡± he screamed, shaking his fist in triumph.


    The cold in the air was sucked forward, and the force of it threatened to pry my fingers from the wheel. I struggled to understand what was happening as wind, cold, and clumps of snow whirled everywhere in the air.


    In front of me, the mist wall seemed to shine and harden, and I could see ice crystals expanding within the thick dampness. Slowly, the mist started to fade, and it was then that I could see what had been created within. It was a wall made from ice, perhaps two hundred feet high. The bottom was thick, but the top was sharpened into what looked like hundreds of glacial spikes.


    Calk turned away from the wall after a long moment of staring up at it. ¡°This took me two years.¡± His voice was thick with pride, and he smiled. He didn¡¯t seem to realize that in the last few minutes, all of us had thought that the world was ending.


    I waited for more of an explanation, but he didn¡¯t look as if he was going to explain. Instead, he turned and went up to the wall, whispering something close. Runes and strange letters with curving lines and engravings that seemed to pop out from the ice emerged into a tall shape. After a moment, I realized it was a door.


    Calk walked forward and pushed. The ice door opened as smoothly as any door I had ever seen, and I realized that the hinge itself seemed to be made from small moving gold letters.


    ¡°Sun god¡¯s breath,¡± Rebert whispered.


    Before us was the largest city and most beautiful city I had ever seen.

 Chapter 20 - 1271

    As we moved up the road, which was now suddenly paved in a strange, flat sort of stone, I was amazed at how open everything felt. Before the wonder of the ice wall, the world consisted of trees, rocks, and dirt. The top of the mountain had not been far.


    But now, it was as if we were on an entirely different mountain¡ªone that was so large my mind had trouble grasping the dimensions of it. Perhaps the ice wall and magic had created an illusion of something that didn¡¯t exist. Because now we were close to it, but it was still so tall and steep that the proportions seemed off somehow. The snowy, sharp peaks of the mountain couldn¡¯t even be seen amongst the thick gray clouds that covered the top of it.


    We had only traveled a few hundred feet in the valley before the mountain, before I could see something approaching us. Before long, the dark, muddy shapes turned into large creatures, and then I could see that small men rode atop of them. They were boars, I realized. At the time, I thought the boars were just incredibly big and the men were the size of men.


    ¡°Are those pigs?¡± I heard Clidale ask behind me.


    Calk chuckled. ¡°The boars are native to this land, and the gnome folk have been taming and breeding them for generations. They are fiercely stubborn creatures but also extremely intelligent.¡±


    As the group approached us, I could not stop staring. The gnome folk looked strange¡ªwith the heads of grown men but the body sizes of children. The group wore similar garments¡ªwith green hoods and brown leathers. The group also seemed armed¡ªbut with what, I could not say. They held wooden boxes with a string and an attachment in the front and a strange handle in the back. I could tell they were weapons because each device had a sort of bolt cocked against a string already.


    As they grew even closer, the sounds of the boars grew louder. They snuffled and snorted as they walked, and they seemed larger than normal with huge tusks, but perhaps it was just the difference in size that made them seem so. They were bare besides small saddles that were strapped from back to belly.


    The gnome in the front of the group, took off his hood and jumped off his mount. It was a quick, purposeful movement, and I remember being surprised by his athleticism.


    The gnome stood on the ground, looking up at us. Under the green hood was a stern face and an unruly head of gray hair. The gnome had a thick red beard, and his green eyes looked at Calk. While the rest of him seemed human--at least in terms of his arms, legs and structure of his face, if not the size--his eyes did not. They were larger--and they almost seemed to reflect the light of the day like a stone.


    Strangely, he didn¡¯t say anything. I sensed deep patience in those eyes, and something about them reminded me of Calk himself. Calk stared back at the gnome with his own heavy dose of patience.


    After a few moments, the gnomes behind the one in front of us began to fidget, and I could tell that the confrontation made them uncomfortable. I realized then that the other gnomes looked younger than the one in the front.


    Their faces were unworn by wrinkles and the sun; and in turn they looked at us differently. There was no curiosity in the older gnome who stared at us, but the others looked as surprised to see us as we were to see them.


    ¡°You said you would not come back.¡± The gnome in the front spoke the words slowly, and I could sense an old anger in him. I found myself looking at their weapons, and a nervous twinge ran through my gut.


    For a moment, Calk didn¡¯t say anything, but then he heaved a great sigh. ¡°I said I would not come back unless your people needed me.¡±


    The gnome laughed, but it was not a happy sound. He reached his hand to his waist, and I saw that his small hand tightened on the hilt of a sword. Something about the pommel drew my eye to it. It was a small metal skull. The tension in the air was palpable now, and violence felt close like the snap of a taut string.


    ¡°We made a deal.¡± He gestured behind himself to the city with his free hand. ¡°Man¡ªor whatever you are¡ªhas never made something like Glimmith. It¡¯s been a long time since we¡¯ve needed help.¡±


    Calk stiffened, and his eyes flashed angrily, as if the gnome had said some grave insult. ¡°I would caution you to speak more carefully, Naro. You know nothing of our cities.¡±


    The gnome¡ªI had gathered from their exchange that his name was Naro¡ªlooked away for a moment, as if he couldn¡¯t be bothered by the dangerous shift in Calk¡¯s tone.


    ¡°I know of your cities, or what was left of them.¡± Then without waiting for a reply, Naro whistled and his men turned around.


    ¡°I will bring you to the king.¡± And the column proceeded ahead of us. Naro waited and as the wagon pulled forward, he walked behind us, keeping his stoney emerald eyes on Calk.


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    We crossed the valley and reached the city wall. Even the wall of the city was a work of art. The design of the wall¡ªas I looked to the left and right¡ªwas as if the gnomes had simply poured an entire wall of metal. The metal itself seemed purer somehow than any other metal I had seen before, as it was a bright silver instead of a dirty gray.


    Perhaps even more amazing than the shine of the metal was the huge gems that were inset into the wall itself. I realized there was a pattern of them in the wall¡ªshining brightly with reflected purple light. But as I looked closer, I saw that they were not truly reflecting the light, but that they were pulsing with some sort of light within.


    Calk pointed at them. ¡°Mana gems.¡± Calk had a hungry look in his eye, and I could tell he wanted one of them for himself.


    But while the gems amazed me, I was also drawn to the strange build of the wall. Going up from the foundation of the wall, which was seven feet or so, I could see holes and hidden faces looking down at me.


    I realized then that due to their size, the gnomes might have a particular advantage if an army tried to attack their walls. They could peek down and shoot out, and it looked like they were stacked on top of each other, perhaps with beams in between or even corridors. Their smaller size would allow a considerable density of them to defend the wall from taller invaders.


    Despite the gems and the holes¡ªor perhaps because of them¡ªI wondered how many men it would take to breach the walls or if it could even be achieved at all. The metal seemed impervious, and if some sort of magic emanated from the gems to strengthen it, I could not imagine the wall ever coming down. It looked as if the Gnomish people expected war. And from what I had learned so far of their past, I couldn¡¯t blame them.


    Two metal gates laced with runes and delicate carvings, swung open. I expected noise and to be confronted with the normal chaos of a city. But as we moved through the gate, we were only greeted by silence. That is not to say that there were no gnomes to watch us enter. No, they were everywhere¡ªcrowded in the street, on top of buildings, and everywhere that I looked. But they were quiet and staring.


    I looked over the people in front of us and tried to meet the eyes of a few. Most were young¡ªin that most of them looked like children to my eye¡ªbut a few of them seemed older, like Naro, with long beards and long hair.


    It was hard for me to tell which were children and which were adults. It was as if there were only children and old men. To me, it was hard to see the gradient of age in them. But between all of them, I could feel an intense childlike curiosity fill the air. One of the smaller gnomes started walking towards us, but a larger one¡ªperhaps the parent¡ªreached out and grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him back. It was as if some spectacle had suddenly appeared, and they could not believe it or come to terms with it.


    A loud sound cut through the air, and I realized it must be some type of instrument. The note vibrated and blared, and the Gnomish folk all turned towards the noise. Then, almost simultaneously, they began to part. This time, instead of boars, a coterie of gnomes on horses moved forward.


    Each gnome was clothed in red robes with gold trim, and gold writing seemed to be etched everywhere in the robes. There were four of them¡ªtwo with long white flowing beards that trailed off the horses, and two with no beards at all, but long white hair that did the same.


    They all wore crowns, but not crowns like I had imagined. They were thin lacey creations, so silver and white it seemed as if the metal was woven into their hair. I had never seen such finery in my life, and I knew without a doubt that these gnomes were the nobles of their people.


    They rode up to us as their people cleared, and all four looked at our party. One gnome in the front of the four had a terrible scar across his face. It cut right through his bushy eyebrow down to the left part of his jaw. Attached to the side of his horse was a huge leather scabbard, and after a moment, I realized that it did not hold a sword, but instead an ax. The gnome now rested his hand on it as he stared at Calk.


    ¡°Frost mage,¡± he grumbled in a deep voice. Although his beard and hair were white, he did not seem old or frail. His skin still held a vibrancy, although I could somehow tell that, like Naro, this gnome had a certain presence of age. His big eyes seemed bored, even with the deep frown on his face. ¡°Why have you come?¡±


    ¡°Now, is that any way to greet an old friend, King?¡± Calk asked. Somehow, he managed to sound both friendly and sarcastic. I could tell that Calk was mocking the man.


    The female gnome next to the man, to his right, seemed to think so. She visibly flinched at Calk¡¯s words. She raised a hand, and hardly a split second later, we were suddenly surrounded by sharp spears.


    These gnomes that surrounded us with their weapons looked different from the others in the crowd. They looked old¡ªlike the ones atop horses¡ªbut instead of robes, they were clad in bright silver armor that reminded me of the wall. A material akin to something between metal and stone. And like the wall, their armor held gems, in the chest, arms, and even legs. Their helms were sharp and pointed with a strange curve, and I couldn¡¯t even see eyes within their dark visors.I had not seen them approach and it was as if they had appeared out of the crowd from nowhere.


    The gnomen king still looked bored and showed no sign that anything of significance had occurred before him. He lifted his hand a fraction above his waist and turned it.


    Spears flew in the air back to a straight position, and armor clanked and shuffled over and over. Then, in only a moment, everything was still again, as if the threat of violence had never existed.


    ¡°My wife is not used to insults given so freely.¡± The gnome turned to his wife and gave her a small smile. I could sense her anger at what Calk had said, and perhaps at her husband¡¯s dismissal. She stared at Calk as if she wanted to kill him herself. ¡°Rosalie is a fine queen. But she does not take insults to her king kindly. I would suggest you not make another.¡±


    Calk grinned. He didn¡¯t seem scared of the king or his smoldering wife. But the joke had been said, and he was none the worse for it. ¡°It has been some time, has it not, King? Last I saw you, you were but a prince.¡±


    ¡°Aye, that I was. Unlike your kind, we are not immortal. But we are old enough to not forget who our enemies are.¡± The king¡¯s eyes narrowed, and with that, he turned away from us.


    One of the other gnomes in red, bowed to us. ¡°The king will attend to you later. You will come with me to your quarters.¡±

 Chapter 21 - Year 1271

    We weaved our way through the city. We all sat quietly in the cart, enraptured, and even Calk seemed impressed by the gnomen city. Some were connected by arching bridges, and I could see gnomes traveling across them. As I looked behind us, I realized we were moving down, and it was then that I realized that the city was built on a downward slope, which drove deep into the mountain.


    The road we traveled on was impressively smooth, and it was odd not to have the cart buck and jump as it did on the poorly built roads we had traveled on before. The road was made of smoothed and flattened stones, and the slant was small and gradual.


    Everywhere I looked, it seemed as though gnomes were building or working on something. Hammers chimed all around us, and sawing grated in the air. But there was also cooking, sewing, and various other industries mixed among the people. Huge pots bubbled, and the smell of strange scents, which reminded me of garlic and herbs, made my mouth water as we passed by.


    Every once in a while, a gnome would look up, catch my eye, and stare, but the crowd never returned, and life within the city seemed too busy to be concerned with us for too long. It seemed as though there was simply too much work to do.


    As we moved down the slope, we entered a cavern, but the size of it was like nothing I had imagined. It was as if some immensely large creature had reached a hand into the mountain and scooped out the inside. The space within the mountain was nearly as large as the city behind us, but the buildings within were nothing like the outside.


    The cavern was dark, lit only by strange stones hanging from tall sticks that illuminated the road and other points before us. Hundreds of these stick posts were spread around the cavern, creating a strange field of light.


    We all got off the wagon and looked around. At first, I could not tell what I was looking at, but once my eyes adjusted to the dim lights spread about the cavern, I realized I was staring at the remains of a city. Huge walls sat amidst the ground with sections crumbled and caved in. The stone buildings that still stood seemed blackened and scorched.


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    Calk looked around with an air of curiosity. He walked forward a few paces and picked up a piece of stone from the ground. He rubbed at it.


    ¡°Why have you not rebuilt it?¡± Calk asked.


    ¡°It is a reminder,¡± said King Feer. He dismounted from his small horse, and then he walked forward, putting his small arms behind his back. His bright red robe trailed in the dusty ground of the cavern as he walked forward. Then he turned. To my surprise, he was looking at me.


    The king moved towards me, and I stepped back involuntarily. The king didn¡¯t reach my waist, but his presence seemed to fill the room. I also remembered the easy way he had rested his hand on the battle axe. ¡°Who is the child?¡± asked Feer.


    ¡°I made a promise to you, did I not?¡± Calk turned and gestured back to where we had come from. ¡°The ice wall would protect you. It would be your shield. But when the time came, I would bring you a weapon.¡± He now looked down at Feer, with a feverish intensity in his eyes. ¡°And I have been looking for this weapon for a very long time.¡±


    ¡°So again, I ask you why you have brought¡ª¡± Feer interrupted, but Calk held up his hand impatiently and continued.


    ¡°Inside this child, Feer, is the power to destroy the Chantry.¡±


    The king stared at me for a moment. I could not tell if he was bored or mildly interested. Then he turned to Calk and narrowed his eyes.


    ¡°And what do you want in return?¡±


    Calk smiled, and the grin reached up to his bright eyes. ¡°I want the sword.¡±


    It was then that I remembered why we had started the journey in the first place. Rebert had told me we needed a weapon. And now, the pieces started to fall together, but not how I suspected.


    I turned to Rebert to see if he had made the connection. His eyes flicked over to look at me, but he quickly looked away with no sign of emotion on his face.


    ¡°And what makes this child so dangerous?¡± The gnomen king looked up at me with his cold grey eyes, and I could tell he was not impressed.


    ¡°He¡¯s an elf. He can wield high magic.¡±


    King Feer frowned, and his queen stiffened. There was suddenly a nervous tension in the air. ¡°I thought the elder elves were dead. You told me as much yourself.¡±


    ¡°They are. This was the last one.¡± Calk put a hand on my shoulder, and I could feel the strange icy coldness of the man¡¯s bony hand through my coat.


    ¡°But I¡¯ve brought you one that is alive, and you can have him.¡±

 Chapter 22 - Year 1271

    Later that night I leaned against a metal balcony and gazed out at the Gnomen city. It was strange to lean on the cold hard metal. In the rest of the world, metal was a rare thing, a thing for swords, armor, arrowheads, and not much else that I could think of. But here, it was everywhere. It was as if there was a limitless supply.


    I wondered at the wealth of the city. Everywhere I looked, there still seemed to be activity. It was a bustling place, more so than I had ever seen. Materials and labor seemed to flow as far as I could see, even in the middle of the night.


    ¡°Gillith,¡± I heard a voice behind me say.


    I flinched and turned to see Calk come up behind me. He had come through my small chambers without making a noise. The man--or rather, the elf¡¯s ability to move quietly was unnatural and it unnerved me.


    ¡°What?¡± I asked, turning back to look at the city before me. The tall metal towers stretched into the sky, and in the darkness of night, windows glowed with a strange bluish cast to them. Elsewhere, amidst the streets, the same blue lights hung from metal posts. I could hear the distant clang of a hammer hitting metal.


    ¡°This is Gillith,¡± Calk gestured at the view before me and leaned on the balcony with me. ¡°Named after Feer¡¯s father.¡±


    I thought of the old gnome, and I wondered how long it had been since Calk had seen the king. I wondered too how old the gnomes lived, and that made me wonder how old Calk was. Somehow, I didn¡¯t want to know the answer.


    ¡°Do they ever sleep?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Who? The gnomes?¡± Calk chuckled. ¡°Not in the way we do, lad.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± I asked.


    Calk turned and leaned his back and elbows on the rail. He looked down at me with his eyes, and in the darkness, I could discern a slight blue glow. His white eyebrows moved up slightly as he grinned with his thin lips.


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    ¡°Humans are greedy creatures. They want things, and they want others to know they have these things. But they want things because they simply want them, and they build things to show off or to satisfy their own greed. It makes them dangerous. They are warmongering and can grow in power. But it also makes them weak.¡± He waved his hand in dismissal. ¡°But gnomes are different. They build and create to improve the lives of those around them. It¡¯s a communal society¡ªfrom the very ground up. Even the royals don¡¯t have more money than the tradesmen or merchants. They build not for the wealth of it, but for each other.¡±


    I could barely understand what he was talking about. The entire idea seemed impossible, and I couldn¡¯t see how it could work at all. But perhaps that was because it wasn¡¯t in my nature. I was not a gnome.


    ¡°So, if they all have what they want, and no one wants anything¡ªwhy do they never stop working?¡±


    ¡°I think they take joy in it. They enjoy creation for its own sake. I did not say they weren''t prideful people. But it¡¯s a shared pride, and that¡¯s why their craftsmanship can¡¯t be matched anywhere else in the world.¡±


    ¡°Is that why the church hurt them so badly?¡± I remembered the trek up the mountain and the hanging skeletons. ¡°Because they didn¡¯t know how to fight back?¡±


    Calk raised an eyebrow. ¡°I never said they couldn¡¯t fight. The gnomen people just don¡¯t like to. They aren¡¯t as kind to outsiders as they are to themselves. But if it were up to them, they would stay here on this mountain and let the rest of the world continue on without them.¡±


    I wanted to know more about the gnomen war and what happened, but Calk¡¯s conversation with the king niggled at me more.


    ¡°And what about the sword?¡±


    ¡°Scansthe?¡± He asked, turning to look at me, seeming surprised at the sudden turn in conversation.


    I nodded.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been looking for it for a long time. I believe it is some sort of conduit of magic. But it managed to evade me.


    I searched his face, looking for the familiar hint of mockery, but for perhaps the first time, his expression gave nothing away. ¡°You mean that the sword can think?'' I asked.


    He shrugged. ''Not in the way that you or I do, but it has a will. I¡¯ve been trying to find the sword for a long time.¡±


    ¡°Why do you want it?¡± I asked, pressing further despite a growing feeling in my gut that told me to run. The man was like some sort of wild animal--and even if he looked like an elf--beautiful and perfect as if he was carved from  a painter¡¯s imagination, I could not drive the feeling that I was staring down the jaws of a monster.


    ¡°Now that my boy is none of your business.¡± He smiled then, and with that, he turned and walked away, as silent as he had come.

 Chapter 23 - Year 1271

    I kneeled before the Gnomen king, and he looked down at me from his chair. I kept my eyes down, not trusting them to stop staring at the throne room around me. I didn¡¯t need to look anymore--since I knew the beauty of the room was burned into my memory, and now I knew that Calk had atleast been telling the truth about one thing. The Gnomen people were the finest craftsmen in the world.


    The huge room was the size of a large clearing and the entire floor was one big rug, with hundreds of designs that interlaced and merged with gold and silver thread. One could crawl on the floor for days examining each scene. There seemed to be battles, triumphs, and all manner of things weaved together.


    Scents played around my nose in a strange fashion. I could not tell if it was the rug or something sprayed in the air, but it was as if I was in a field of flowers.


    I wanted to simply walk around the room and explore the various wonders, but I knew I was summoned for a reason. The king had already said something to me, but I had been distracted and not listening. It would not be wise to offend him.


    ''I¡¯m sorry, my King, I was distracted by your¡ª''"


    The king waved his hand dismissively. ¡°Pay it no mind, youngling.¡± The king turned then and made a hand gesture I could not understand. A door opened on the side of his throne room, and a gnome came out. I recognized him from the day before. He was the one who had led the small group of gnomes that had first greeted us.


    ¡°This is my master huntsman. He has come to me with a plan on¡ª¡± the king seemed to muse for a second, considering his words, ¡°on how to handle Calk.¡±


    The king watched me, and I supposed he was looking for a reaction on my face¡ªwhether he searched for anger or some other indication, I could not tell. He reminded me of an eagle, watching for any movement from his prey to attack.


    ¡°Good,¡± he said, then he nodded. ¡°Naro will take the sword, and you will go with him. The mage cannot have the sword.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know anything about the sword.¡± I said. I tried not to let my frustration seep into my voice. The king raised his eyebrow and I knew I had failed.


    Naro stepped up besides the king. ¡°We don¡¯t know how the sword got here. The royal blacksmith is in possession of it, but he cannot remember why.¡± Naro frowned at the king, and he looked back at me. For the first time, I could sense nervousness in the gnome, and his eye twitched. ¡°He doesn¡¯t want to give it to Calk¡ªand he¡¯s said he would die rather than give it up. This means the blade is enchanted.¡±


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    ¡°What if the blacksmith just wants to keep it for himself?¡± I asked.


    The king chuckled. ¡°The blacksmith has been loyal for hundreds of years. And he¡¯s my brother.¡±


    I stared at the king, wondering if that was a joke, but it didn¡¯t seem to be. I recalled what Calk had said about their society¡¯s hierarchy, and in a way it made sense that the king¡¯s brother could just be a blacksmith despite his royal blood.


    ¡°We¡¯ve come to respect magic here in Gillith. If the royal blacksmith does not want to give up the blade, then we can only assume the magic is compelling him not to do so, and most likely for a good reason.¡±


    The king raised his hand, and Naro stopped talking. The king continued. ¡°We cannot keep the blade here because Calk will not accept a refusal. You are not a trade, but a gift. The mage plans to take it whether we want to or not, and blood will be shed. And we are not sure the knight¡¯s cabal will be able to stop him.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t sure what the king meant by the cabal, but I remembered the armored gnomes who had appeared from nowhere and held us by spearpoint.


    ¡°So, the only answer is to take the blade away to stop any damage to Gillith and our people. The blacksmith has already agreed to give the blade to Naro on your departure.¡±


    I liked the sound of the plan; I didn¡¯t like Calk. He had been following us for a long time. I also didn¡¯t need the king to tell me that he was dangerous. I had witnessed his power already¡ªeven if I had not witnessed its limits. All of these things made me sure he would not be so easy to deceive.


    ¡°One more thing.¡± The king eyed me once again with his studious and serious way. ¡°Your companion has been put in the holding cell. He tried to attack the blacksmith and steal the sword.¡±


    I felt a cold lump rise in my stomach. I knew that could only mean Rebert.


    ¡°We don¡¯t have a prison for our people--we don¡¯t need one. But he will be put to work. In time, if he behaves, he will be let go.¡±


    I was surprised that Rebert had attacked the blacksmith, but I knew how important this journey was¡ªand I had expected the sword held more meaning to him than he had told me.


    "Where will we go?" I asked.


    "North. Naro will lead you out of the mountains, and past Mildor. There you can flee to the northern forests.¡±


    Immediately I was drawn back to the stories Clidale had told me at sea. That was his home, but from what he had told me, the church had expanded their boundary of control there as well. But I didn¡¯t know where that expansion ended, so I kept my mouth shut.


    "So, it¡¯s settled." The king sat up from the small seat in the depth of his throne. "You leave tonight."

 Chapter 24 - Year 1271

    I never truly thought we would find the city of the gnomes. But I also never thought that I would leave the same day that we found it, and I certainly didn''t think I would leave without my friends.


    I had grown apart from them since the attack on the mountain with the churchmen. I didn¡¯t know if they blamed me for it. After all, I had brought them with us. A large part of me wished they had never come, but they were still the only friends I had ever had.


    I knocked on their door, and Clidale answered it. He looked sleepy and rubbed at his one eye as he squinted at me in the dim light of the hall. The blue gnome lights stayed on all the time, it seemed. It was a strange thing to witness light without flame¡ªand to this day, I still cannot fathom how they work.


    "I''m leaving," I said.


    "What?" he asked. "Leaving where?"


    "The king says I have to leave Gillith with Naro," I said. "He doesn''t trust Calk, and he wants us to leave the city."


    Clidale blinked at me, and then his eye widened. "He wants you to bring the weapon, doesn¡¯t he? The one that Calk wants?"


    I remembered that Clidale had been there during the discussion with the King and his entourage in the dusty abandoned cave city. But I was surprised that he had figured it out already. Clidale had the beginnings of a deadly swordsman, but his mind was just as quick. I felt a stab of sadness as I knew what I had to do.


    "You and Shay can''t come with us," I said, looking away, not wanting to meet his eyes¡ªafraid of what I would find there.


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    He didn''t say anything for a while, but when I looked back, I was surprised to see him smiling. It was the old smile that I remembered from our time at sea. It was good to see him like that once again.


    "I know, Mil. You don''t need us anymore. You''re something special, aren''t ya?" He thumped me lightly on the shoulder. "You never told me you were an elf."


    I shrugged, and I felt myself smile back at him. "Where will you go?" I asked him.


    He turned back to the room, and through the crack in the door, I could see Shay sleeping. "If it wasn''t for you, I wouldn''t have met her. She''s a good lass. Maybe we''ll head back to the sea.¡±


    I must have looked at him a certain way because his smile faded. "I''m sorry, Mil. She cares for you, but¡ª" he paused "what you did back there, and what has happened¡ª" he looked at the ground, and I could tell the words didn''t come easily. "She told me what you did to her. How you brought her back."


    It seemed like so long ago that I had met Shay in the dirty little inn. I remembered the way Roth had smiled at me, and how he had strangled her. I felt a slow anger creep back into me. It had been some time since I was reminded why I had come this far, and who for¡ªand now I had to say goodbye to keep them safe.


    "I''ll find you again one day, when it''s all over," I said.


    "Sure, Mil." Clidale smiled at me, but it didn''t reach his eyes. Despite the low light of the room, I could see that I was making him uncomfortable. I sensed he was putting on a front for me, to make the goodbye less painful. Things weren¡¯t the same as they were before. He had lost his eye, and I had become something different in his eyes.


    He had always loved to tell me stories of the forests and his home, some real stories of his small family, and some of the monsters there--horrible monstrosities and the heroes that fought them. He had conjured these stories from the creative mind of a child, but they were told at sea, with good company and the smell of the waves. But now, I realized, it was as if one of his stories had come to life before him, and that terrified him.


    For a moment, we just stood there trying not to meet eyes. Then he moved forward and hugged me. Before I could hug him back, he had closed the door, and I was alone in the hall.

 Chapter 25 - Year 1271

    We left Gillith behind us quickly. Naro put us through a grueling pace. We seldom stopped for rest, and if we did, it was only for food and water. My legs ached, and my back grew stiff, but even at night, when it seemed like my body clung to the ground with weariness, it was hard to sleep.


    If I did sleep, it was not for long. Nightmares constantly plagued me. For the first few nights, I would wake up to Calk leaning over me, grinning with crooked old teeth, his eyes blazing blue with hate and disappointment. Then his face would change to that of his elven form, and he would reach for me, and I would panic and roll away, only to find myself back in the waking world rolling through the icy cold snow, away from the comfort of warm embers.


    After the days turned into weeks, my nightmares and anxiety seemed to lessen, but my curiosity did not. I wondered why Calk had not found us yet. I knew that he was more than capable and seemed to have a limitless amount of power.


    We followed trails that were overgrown and all but hidden from use. Naro seemed to have an innate understanding of the terrain and the mountain, and I marveled at the gnome¡¯s memory and outdoorsmanship since I supposed it had been many years since he had trod them.


    He could read animal signs that I couldn¡¯t even see, construct shelters of strange designs that I had never imagined possible, and he talked about the woods and the world as if the trees and squirrels themselves had long since told him everything he needed to know. We would eat strange nuts that tasted bitter but would fill the stomach, and if a scratch or cut was to be had, he would make a salve paste from a plant he found that numbed the pain.


    I found myself growing to like the gnome, even if he didn¡¯t talk much. Despite his small stature, the quiet determined way that he moved about the world reminded me of my father. Once I asked him how he knew so much about the land--despite it seeming to me the gnomes had been holed up in the city for such a long time.


    ¡°Calk is not as smart as he thinks,¡± he had said, and that was it. I supposed there must have been some way the gnomes left their city through the wall--whether through a gap or some other means.


    After a few weeks, we finally left the gnome forests and found ourselves in a valley. It was strange to see so much open space after being on the mountain.


    We both stood staring at the tall white grasses moving in the gentle sway of a breeze. The sun was just going down, and the blue sky had turned orange and pink.


    ¡°Haven¡¯t left the mountain for a long time.¡± Naro stared out at the field, and after a moment, he sighed. ¡°Somehow, I thought I might never see outside the mountains again.¡± Then he took off his pack. ¡°We¡¯ll camp here, but there''s no fire tonight. The space is too open.¡±


    We settled down and ate our rations. We still had plenty of dried meat and fruit supplied by the gnomes, and I did not mind it one bit. To me, it was better than what we had eaten on the ship at sea. I figured they had some sort of special way of preserving the food since it almost tasted fresh.


    We lay there in the grass for some time, watching the sun go down until it was almost night. Usually the gnome kept watch over us while I slept, and it was then that I realized I had never seen the gnome sleep before. I wasn¡¯t sure how he regained his energy, but I thought gnomes must be different from humans in that regard. But now he was sleeping--and I found it incredibly odd.


    For some time I lay there in the darkness of the valley. I knew I should stay up for a while, to give the gnome a chance to rest--and it was good to have one set of eyes open. But then as my thoughts began to drift, I began to hear something.


    At first I thought it was only the rustling of grass, but as I concentrated on the noise and sat up, my skin began to prickle. It was my name. My name floated through the wind around me--so quiet I could barely hear it. But it was my name all the same. ¡°Milnas¡­¡± it whispered. I looked at Naro and then I heard it again, and my eyes focused on the sword. Somehow, in the weeks of travel with the gnome, I had not thought of it once. And at once, I found that incredibly odd. The entire reason we left Gillith was because of the sword--and the entire reason I found myself alone in the valley with the gnome without my friends was because of the sword.


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    It was as if before that moment, I had no memory of it at all--but now I did. And I itched to look at it. I slowly crept over to the gnome and put my hand on the hilt.


    As the flesh of my hand met the hilt, I felt a strange presence around me. I knew it wasn¡¯t a sound that I had heard, but I couldn¡¯t help whipping my head about as I searched for the cause of the strange sensation. And then, before my eyes, a figure began to materialize.


    ¡°Hello child.¡±


    His voice was unlike any I had heard before; deep and rumbling, like the grating of stone. The sound seemed to linger in the air with its thickness. I shook my head in disbelief that the figure had spoken and that he was real.


    He was tall, incredibly tall--and wiry lean. Long white hair flowed over his shoulders and his eyes glowed purple. But they were brighter than Calk¡¯s and I did not see his pupils. Small wisps of light seemed to leak out of his eyes as he regarded me.


    The figure pointed at the sword still in my hand. I looked at it and noticed that it had slipped out of the scabbard. Like the scabbard, the blade was black as tar. However, the blade was covered in purple runes that glowed and pulsed faintly.


    ¡°Would you believe that I made it for you?¡± The figure looked up at the sky for a moment and breathed out a thick breath. I noticed that the grass he stood on wasn''t flattened.


    I looked down to see Naro shift in his sleep. The gnome was still sleeping--but then I realized I had not spoken. ¡°Are you in my mind?¡±


    ¡°In a way. I¡¯m not inside your mind. I¡¯m in the sword. But yes, I can read your thoughts.¡±


    My logical mind protested having someone else inside it since it was not true. How could I know if I was me or if there was someone else inside as well?I felt my vision begin to blur, and a lightness came over me. But then a coolness touched my head, and a foreign sense of calm washed over me. The dizziness and nausea dissipated, and I realized that the figure must be the source of it.


    The fear had left me but the confusion had not. But I did not feel danger from the strange figure--but I could not tell if that was some sort of magical calm or my own.


    ¡°Who are you?¡± I asked slowly.


    ¡°Theodmon.¡±


    Memories of Calk¡¯s stories flooded through my mind. ¡°Was this truly my father?¡± Before this figure had materialized before me I had never given it much thought. I had thought Calk¡¯s stories were those of myth and legend--and despite feeling as if they bore some truth, they were too old, too far, and too hard to believe.


    But father or not, here was the elder elf who had started a war and caused the destruction of the elven cities. I reached for my magic-- and it came quickly despite it being weeks since I had used it on the churchmen. I had begun to hate the power it gave me--hated that it turned my friends from me and hated it was the reason the church had come for me. But it was still there for me when I needed it and the void settled around me.


    But this time it was not a void--but pure brilliance. It was if I was submerged in purple light that clung to the air, and the figure was like nothing I had ever seen. Calk had glowed like the sun and would have burned my eyes in the void if that was possible, but Theodmon was different. Calk was a shadow next to his form of energy. Theodmon¡¯s shined and crackled with violet energy that radiated from him. He reached up a hand and it was as if I was thrown off a cliff, but instead, I was tossed out of the quiet world.


    ¡°Don¡¯t do that again,¡± he said with a small smile.


    ¡°How?¡± I spluttered and attempted to scoot away from the figure.


    ¡°I forced your mind back to reality. Your power is impressive, but even you have limits.¡±


    I sat there on the ground and I could do nothing but stare. Every second it was if my body tensed, and my mind still realed from the power of the man in the void. It was if I had seen a God.


    ¡°Relax child, I will not hurt you,¡± He kneeled down to my level. ¡°Sit, and I will explain everything.¡±


    And so, not knowing what else to do, I sat--resisting the urge to escape into the void of the quiet realm once more--knowing that if I did, my sanity might never come back.

 Chapter 26 - Year 1271

    I took my hand off the sword, and the elder elf slowly faded from in front of me. He waved goodbye, and I waved back. There was a sad smile on his face, and I wondered if he was sad to retreat back to his solitary prison. The feeling of otherness inside my mind slowly faded, but there was still a lingering sense of strangeness that I could feel coming from the blade¡ªas if a tendril of awareness connected us.


    I was in a strange mood. I had been told two stories¡ªof vastly different events from two magical beings that I could still hardly believe existed in the same world as I. And if I were to believe Theodmon, he was my blood-related father.


    For the last month, I had thought I was the heir of an insane warmonger. But if I were to believe Theodmon¡ªwho claimed to be my father¡ªthen I was just the result of an accident. I was simply the child of a war that had almost been, not a war that was.


    I was lost in my thoughts that night. The way you are when something shifts your perspective so far that you don''t know which side your mind is on. So I didn''t even notice the men until they had surrounded us.


    A gruff voice cracked the silence. It was a deep, mangled, gritty voice full of violence. "What''re you doin'' here?" it asked.


    Naro was quick--despite the fact he had been fast asleep a moment before, and before I could even react, he grabbed his short bow and knocked an arrow before I could even get up. I looked into the darkness but couldn''t see anything.


    A hoarse chuckle erupted from the voice. Then, a huge shadowed figure flattened the long yellow grass only a few feet away from me, and I gazed up to see the biggest man I had ever seen. It was as if a man had been built with logs, with a huge chest and shoulders nearly as long as a man''s arm span.


    I looked at his face and wished I hadn''t. I hadn''t seen many, but I knew that this was the face of a killer. If there was a road, this man had worn it, and if there was a battle, he seemed to have been a part of it. Two vicious scars ran the length of his face on each side, and his eyes seemed to be nothing more than dark slits. His long greasy hair hung over his forehead, creating shadows in the wrinkles on his face, and I could see that he was not young¡ªmore so in his eyes than in his age. He held his huge hands loosely at his hips, and I noticed that one massive paw rested on the hilt of some type of squarish weapon.


    "Name''s Cleaver." The man didn''t say the words with any pomp or posturing; it was just a statement of fact, as if he was someone, and we were all expected to know who he was.


    I looked at Naro, and I was surprised to see his face ghostly pale. It was a strange look for the gnome. His old face and wise green eyes always seemed so self-assured. To see fear on his face¡ªwell, it wasn''t exactly a good omen. I had no idea how the gnome could recognize the man.


    Cleaver smiled, revealing all of his teeth. "Hey lads, looks like the little one knows the name!" If he had been a sight to see, it was all the worse with a smile on his face. His teeth were large, somehow reminding me of a horse in the light. But if his smile was big, his eyes didn''t match it. Instead, the man seemed to glower down at Naro, as if delighted to see a bug that he could squash.


    "He''s a small one, ain''t he?" Cleaver turned, and I could hear a deep chuckle somewhere amidst the dark grass. Then he turned back and cracked his knuckles one by one.


    "Why do they call you Cleaver?" I asked, attempting to keep my voice steady, but it sounded quiet and weak to my own ears.


    Cleaver raised his eyebrows, then laughed. Suddenly, his violent eyes didn''t seem as dangerous anymore. I wasn''t sure when the change had come over the man.


    "Well, lad, I''m glad you asked. Used to be a chef of some sort."


    "Show ''em the cleaver!" This time, it was another voice, a higher-pitched one. I wondered how many men were out there in the grass, unseen. I hadn''t realized how tall the grass was until it proved so effective at hiding our field of vision.


    I looked around and realized there must be a lot of them. Then, it was as if a cold stone settled into my gut. It must be a bandit group. My father had warned me about them growing up, but I never thought I would come face to face with one.


    Cleaver took out the weapon from its sheath, and I saw that it was indeed a cleaver. It was clean, so much so that the shine of it caught the moonlight.


    For a moment, I thought the man might chop me down right then with his strange weapon. But he simply held the blade in the air and contemplated us for a few long seconds.


    "Never seen such a small man before. And it''s a bit odd to find a child out here with ''em. What business do you have out here in the grasslands?"


    I looked to Naro, and he looked back at me. Then I saw some of the old assurance come back into his eyes, and he straightened his shoulders. "I am the child''s escort. Our journey is our own business."


    Another voice in the darkness called out, "Don''t look much like a child to me, that one. When I was his age, I was sucking the teat¡ªand not the one from my mama, if you catch my meaning."


    I felt the color rise to my cheeks, and for the first time, I thought that the man might have a point. I was nearly 14 years of age. If I had been a child once, it felt like a long time ago. I had seen and done things that children don''t do. So it was then that I decided I would be a man from that moment on, and I would strive to be seen as one.


    "He''s right. I''m not a child."


    A chorus of high-pitched laughter and guffaws rose around us, and shadows began to emerge into rough-looking men. Beards, scars, worn leathers, and plenty of weapons.


    Cleaver looked behind him at the men, and when he turned back to us, he had a wide grin on his face that stretched from ear to ear. "I like this one, lads. Got something special about him, don''t he?"


    There was something in that smile that I recognized, something in the crinkle of his eye and the loosening of his posture. It was the same way the captain had been on our ship around his men, and it was the way my father had been when he had brought home his friends from the tavern. His men followed him not because he was cruel, but because they genuinely liked him.


    "Well, your business is our business now," Cleaver said, stating the implication as if the matter had been settled the very second he came upon us. And I suppose it had.


    "These are dangerous roads and dangerous areas. You''ll come with us tonight¡ªwith us and the lads." And with that, Cleaver clapped his big hands, and the men around us began to bustle and make camp.


    Camp was made quickly. The men were ruthlessly efficient and before long every man was sitting around a fire keeping warm or sleeping next to one.


    Cleaver had found a thick log somewhere, and Cleaver sat on it next to another man. This man was older and even more grizzled than the rest. Grey peppered his hair and beard, and wrinkles creased his forehead. But I could tell the man was sharp. He seemed less concerned with the fire, or us, or even Cleaver. Instead, he seemed to be looking out into the night, and he rested his hand on the hilt of a knife as if he might draw it at any moment.


    ¡°So how did you get your name?¡± I asked the huge man and he turned to me and gave me a small smile. He patted the weapon on his belt and shook his head.


    "I had been in the city¡ªgreato fuckin Mildor. In the Boar''s inn¡ªdelivering meat. And when I came back to my home, I found my wife on the floor and my house full of those churchmen."


    "Suppose they wanted some special sort of deal, being fancy church folk and the like. But my wife was a mean bargainer, and she didn''t cut slack for no one. Guess they didn''t like her grit."


    Cleaver looked away from us to gaze into the flames, and the man''s fury was palpable. "Never going to find another woman like Rosalie," he spat into the fire. "I''ll tell you that much, lads."


    "And so I asked them. Which one slit my wife''s throat?" Cleaver said the words slow and measured. "It wasn''t that hard to figure it out, you know. Because the lad drew a sword on me." Cleaver laughed, and the noise sounded more like he was choking.


    "So, I took my cleaver still in my hand, and I carved him like I might a pig. The other men didn''t know what to do after I killed the first. They were scared. Not more''n kids most of them. They''d never seen a man wield a cleaver like I could. At the end of the day, meat is meat, and the way you cut it is the same."


    The man next to him nodded at Cleaver. "Wise words, Chief, wise words." Then he picked up a stick and poked the fire.


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    After that, it seemed there wasn''t much more that needed to be said that night.


    We rode on with Cleaver and his men the next morning. Naro hadn¡¯t spoken to me much since we had joined their group. Perhaps he felt that his obligation to be my guide was over now that Cleaver and his men had found us.


    Cleaver had taken a liking to me, and we rode at the front of the column of men. He had given me a horse, a large, gentle being. It was the first time I had ever ridden a horse, but the huge beast didn''t seem to mind, and it was as if the animal simply knew where to go. Naro followed behind me, and the rest of the men did so as well.


    It was as if we had always been a part of their company. Most of the men watched the grass, and some talked to each other. But most seemed content to watch the woods around us or ride among their own thoughts.


    "Where do we ride?" I asked Cleaver. The big man had the biggest horse I had ever seen. It made my beast look like a pony, and in the bright light of day, Cleaver himself seemed even bigger. His hand rested on the cleaver at his side, and he eyed me as he considered the question.


    Cleaver shrugged. "North.¡± Then he pointed to the right. There was a man there, perhaps ten strides away from the column. I hadn''t noticed him before. He was covered in brown and green leathers, instead of a random assortment of armor like the rest of the men. I figured that was why I didn''t recognize him. He seemed to blend in with the grass and shrubs, and to my surprise, he didn''t ride a horse.


    The man grinned at me. His hair was in disarray and looked more like a bird''s nest than a man''s head of hair. Some parts of it seemed cut, others seemed bald, and a few portions hung out in various directions. He pointed ahead of us and giggled.


    "I swear, it¡¯s like he has a compass in his head." Cleaver looked at the man, and then nodded. "Not sure what it is, but the men like him. They trust him."


    "What''s his name?" I asked. The man was still grinning at me, and he pointed again. I realized he was pointing in the direction that the column was traveling.


    "He doesn''t have one." Cleaver shrugged. He reached into a pouch, stuffed something in his mouth, and began to chew. ¡°Good lad, good lad he is. And then we have this hunk of metal.¡± Cleaver turned and winked at another man.


    "Metal Arm is my second. He''s a good man. A better man, even." Cleaver looked at the man behind me in the column with an appraising eye, almost like a man eyeing a good horse. "And he''s got some advantages over other men."


    He leaned off his horse and rapped his knuckles on the man''s metal arm, and it made a sharp clang. "Most of his enemies don''t think of him as a threat. But he''s the best knifeman in the company. Doesn''t take more than one arm to hold a knife after all." My eyes were drawn to his chest, and I realized for the first time that the man seemed to be covered in knives. It was as if he had sewn pockets all over his metal and leather vest.


    "Learned the lesson the hard way," Metal Arm pointed at his arm. "Don''t bring a knife to a sword fight." He shrugged as if he didn''t mind. "Now it''s easy to get in close. For some reason, men think that if a man doesn''t have an arm, he also doesn''t have legs either. Or they are too busy staring wondering why my arm is made out of metal."


    "Always said Old Metal Arm had snake blood in him, eh?" Cleaver clapped Metal Arm on the shoulder.


    I heard a whistle, and I looked to our right. The Grinning Man pointed at us, and at the same time his other hand seemed to act on its own accord. His left arm slapped his right hand down, and then his two arms started to fight. One hand balled itself into a fist, and the other began slapping it.


    The Grinning Man looked between his two arms in confusion, as if he had no idea what was happening. Cleaver frowned at the strange series of gestures and then whipped his head around.


    Before us was the end of the valley and the beginning of the tree line. "Oh, for fuck''s sake." Cleaver stiffened and stopped his horse. He held up a hand, and the column behind us stopped.


    For a moment, nothing could be heard but the small snorts of the men''s horses and a few of them stamping. The yellow grass waved all around us, and as the breeze tickled my nose, I smelled the tang of wood smoke.


    Then Cleaver yanked and turned his horse around, causing it to rear up in surprise. "Swords!" He roared, and his deep voice boomed out in the clearing. His voice ignited a thrill in me, deep in my stomach, and without even knowing what was happening, I whooped with the rest of the men as wild screams filled the air.


    "Ride!" Cleaver yelled again, and he swiveled his horse toward the tree line. He slashed his sword onward, kicked his heels in, and his horse took off. The huge weight of the horse beneath me surged forward without any need for command.


    I caught sight of some movement inside the tree line, but I couldn''t make anything out. The thundering of hooves around me was deafening, and I thumped and slapped against the leather of the saddle. Then we were inside the tree line, and blue and yellow men with bows were running everywhere, but several of them tripped and fell, and several had nowhere to run.


    We ran them over and plowed through them. Flesh was trampled and sliced, blood spattered across my face, and the archers were screaming, and then they weren''t. But then there were more men, and we crashed into them with our mass of horse and steel. I saw Cleaver hack down a man, cleaving his head off straight into the air as if the man''s neck had been made of butter.


    If he was a butcher of animals in his former life, he was now a butcher of men. He had an impossibly wide grin, and his eyes were wide with glee. Another man stood in front of him, and Cleaver reared back his horse, and the huge beast kicked the man into a tree with a sickening thud. Another man screamed as he watched his friend crumble on the ground. He shot an arrow at Cleaver, and Cleaver swerved in his seat and threw a small knife at the man. It hit him in the neck, and the man fell, choking on his own blood.


    "Forward!" Cleaver bellowed, and we moved like a swift current, a wave of destruction moving through the ranks of churchmen with hardly any form of resistance. The archers were long dead. Now we moved through spearmen and swordsmen, and then, in what seemed only a matter of minutes, it was over.


    I had done nothing but ride my horse, but I had seen more men die in the span of minutes than in my entire life. The smell of blood seemed to fill the air. It mixed with the fresh scent of pine and the stench of men who had lost control of their bowels.


    Cleaver¡¯s men dismounted from their horses and went about the task of finishing the men. They were brutal, but efficient and soon the sounds of screams were cut silent as more men died


    After the last skirmish in the woods¡ªif it could even be called that, since it was more of a slaughter¡ªCleaver had spared one of the churchmen. The churchman was barely more than a boy, only a few years older than Clidale and me.


    The boy''s name was Tuale. His hair was white, almost like snow, but in the sunlight, it shimmered gold. When we found him, Cleaver had set up a rope and tied it to a high branch of a tree. Then he had placed Tuale on a horse. Cleaver told him that if he lied, he would slap the horse''s rear with the flat of his blade. Tuale simply looked up at the rope and the tree tied to his neck and nodded.


    As I looked at Tuale, our eyes met. Like his hair, his eyes were a white-gold color. Something about his face and eyes made me think I had met the boy before.


    "So," Cleaver leaned on a huge stick he had found. "How did you lot find us?"


    Tuale pondered the question for a moment. "We didn''t find you. Did you get the impression that we did, considering how you slaughtered us?"


    Cleaver grinned and glanced at the rest of the men around us. Several of them chuckled. Then he patted the grinning man--the scout with tousled hair who had no name on the back, and the grinning man''s grin widened.


    "Ok, let''s say you weren¡¯t looking for us. What are a bunch of churchmen doing out here in the far country?" Cleaver narrowed his eyes on the boy.


    Tuale stared at Cleaver for a moment, and then his eyes flicked to me. But he remained silent, his lips set stubbornly.


    Cleaver sighed and raised his sword near the horse''s rump. Tuale tensed and tugged at the rope around his neck in panic. "Wait," he blurted out.


    "Him. We were here for him," he pointed at me with a shaky hand and clutched the rope with the other. Suddenly, the composure of the boy faltered. He slumped, and tears began to run from his eyes. "Roth sent us to bring him back. He said to kill his friends and the Shinarin, but not to hurt him."


    At the mention of Roth, hot and painful memories flashed through my mind. The taste of blood and bile in my mouth as the man tried to take me. The first man I had killed, and Roth''s sick grin at seeing me forced to do wrong, just as he had done to me, my father, and Shay.


    "How do you know Roth?" I moved closer to the horse and drew the sword. It was as if I had left my body, and someone else had taken control. Despite the sword''s thickness and heft, it felt light in my hand. Even in the bright daylight, the golden runes etched into the strange dark blade glowed brightly.


    Tuale looked at the blade, his mouth hanging open. He stared at it, seemingly lost within its depths. I tightened my grip on the sword, and his eyes widened with fear. He began to struggle with the rope around his neck, and his horse shifted nervously as he fidgeted.


    "He asked you a question, boy," Cleaver growled the words into the boy''s face, and the boy recoiled. "He''s¡ªhe''s," the boy tripped and stuttered over his words as he leaned away from both me and the sword, "my brother."


    The sword in my hand suddenly fell limp to my side, and I immediately recognized why the boy had looked so familiar. He looked identical to Roth, but he didn''t have the permanent sneer and hateful eyes. It was as if he was a different person, but I couldn''t deny that I was looking at Roth''s twin.


    Cleaver looked at me, without any recognition on his face at all. I watched Tuale, seeing more and more likeness as the seconds went by. "He''s a prince." Memories flooded back into my mind of the sea and one of the few conversations I had with Rebert. He had told me who Roth was--one of the two heirs of the church.


    "A prince?" Cleaver spluttered the words. Then he put a huge finger in his ear and wiggled it. "A prince?" he asked again, not seeming to hear my words correctly.


    I nodded, and a wide grin spread across his face unlike any smile I had ever seen. He whipped his head up and turned around quickly. "Where''s¡ª" his huge voice was cut off as he bumped into the Grinning Man. Cleaver looked down at the smaller man and clapped him on the back. The man fell over in the dirt and leaves, looking up with surprise.


    "We got the princer!" Around us, the men began to shuffle and buzz with excitement. "We got him," he said, a younger man next to me echoed. Then more men began to murmur the same words.


    And soon, it was as if the company of mercenaries had transformed into a circus troupe. Blood-covered men started dancing and wrestling. Grinning Man sat on Cleaver''s shoulders, and Metal Arm was beating his metal arm against a drum that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.


    Tuale looked at me as if he had just stepped into hell. Some part of me itched to kill Roth''s twin--to test the sharpness of my new blade, if only because it was the closest I could get to killing his brother. But there was something in the boy that I had not seen in Roth.There was fear in his eyes--where in Roth I had only seen anger. In Roth, I had only seen cruelty--but with Tuale, he had a kindness about his features that gave me pause.

 Chapter 27 - Year 1271

    Things were different after the skirmish. The men had a bounce in their step and an ease to their smiles. After leaving behind the dead churchmen behind we continued north. We no longer relied on Grinning Man for directions. Cleaver seemed to know where we were going. I suppose it had something to do with the boy we had captured as our hostage.


    Cleaver didn''t trust Tuale with the rest of the men, and I couldn''t blame him. I didn''t consider myself a mercenary or someone who could kill, and even I had to restrain myself from killing Tuale when I realized who he was. And so, he rode beside us.


    I spent a moment looking at Tuale. Then more than a moment, and even longer still, until Tuale spoke up. "What?" he asked.


    "Nothing, I was just thinking of who you reminded me of."


    "My brother,¡± he said.


    "Your brother is..." I struggled to find the right word that would describe the devil in him--the way that I hated him.


    "A shit?" he replied.


    I looked at him, surprised, and he shrugged in response.


    "Sometimes I blame him, sometimes I don''t. He seems to take after our father."


    For some reason, I had never thought that Roth had a family. But I suppose he had to have one somewhere. "And who do you take after?"


    He didn''t say anything for a moment, and his face furrowed in consideration. "My mother."


    "What''s she like?"


    "Dead," he said. He didn''t seem saddened by the statement, but his left eye twitched, and he didn''t look at me. "My father killed her. One day I had a mother, and the next I didn''t. The guards found her burned to a crisp on the garden floor." Tuale stared ahead, and his eyes had a strange, glassy look. "No one else could have done it but Father. He was not kind to her. He¡¯s not kind to anyone."


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    "Since then, Roth hasn''t been the same. He is angry. Always angry. And if he doesn''t get what he wants, then he uses his gift."


    "His gift?"


    Tuale looked at me for a moment, and I could tell he was surprised that I had asked the question. "Each noble born is given the gift." Tuale brought his hands to a black necklace around his neck. I almost missed the gesture, but as I stared at the necklace, something about the sheen of the metal reminded me of the sword. "I''ve never killed a man. Sometimes I wonder what it''s like. But I''ve seen men die, and it''s not something I enjoy. So I don''t think I''d like doing it."


    He looked at me. "Some of my friends died in that battle."


    "I know," I said, and I looked away. Something in my voice must have surprised him. Perhaps it was because I didn''t care about his men. And how could I?


    "And you don''t care?"


    I thought about the question for a moment. "I suppose not all churchmen deserve to die. But I''ve never met one who hasn''t tried to kill me.¡±


    Tuale frowned. "The church isn''t evil. We''ve helped a lot of people. Cities have been built, and the word  has saved many souls who otherwise would have been lost." He said the words like he had rehearsed them many times before.


    I sneered at him. "Do you really believe what you say?"


    He shrugged, as if he wasn''t bothered by my condescension¡ªor perhaps because he didn''t believe what he had said. I couldn''t tell. Unlike Roth who constantly seemed to be postering, Tuale was hard to read.


    "I don''t blame you for the way you feel. Roth is not a good person."


    I stared ahead, not wanting to show Tuale the emotions that curled in my gut. He was more than not a good person, and there wasn''t a day that went by when I didn''t replay the events at our farm over and over, wondering if it could have ended differently.


    "He killed my father," the words left my mouth, and they felt hollow and weak. I fought against the fierce desire to punch something or someone. My cheeks burned with shame, but when I turned to look at him, I didn''t recognize what I saw there.


    Roth would have smiled. I knew that. As tears burned my eyes, Tuale reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. He was smiling too, but not in the same way. The unexpected gesture of kindness made me look away.


    "I''m sorry about that. I don''t blame you for riding with this group. Perhaps I should have done the same a long time ago." He looked away for a moment, at the distant trees and  the path winding down through the hills.


    ¡°But I know my father, and I know anyone who crosses him will regret it.¡±

 Chapter 28 - Year 1271

    As we moved north, we left behind the cold, thick forests and shrublands of the south. The Gnomen mountains no longer loomed behind us. Instead, they grew smaller and smaller, and it became harder to distinguish the trees and snow that covered them.


    Ahead of us, it seemed impossibly flat in comparison. There was hardly any treeline anymore, and the yellow grass that had greeted us after leaving the previous treeline was now everywhere in sight. Hills rolled all around us, and the air was dry and hot.


    The men didn''t seem to mind. Everyone was still in good spirits from our victory. And so, I asked Cleaver what we were going to do with Tuale.


    He grinned. "Ransom the boy for gold, of course. And when we get the money, we can hire more men and come back for even more gold." Cleaver grinned at me, and his eyes twinkled mischievously as if it was the cleverest thing he had ever said.


    The plan didn''t seem clever to me, but it did seem dangerous. And from what I had learned from the men around me, it was as if danger was what they sought. Tuale¡¯s words from our conversation echoed in my head.


    "Milnas," Theodmon''s voice suddenly rang out, causing me to jump in my seat and slide to the side. I quickly grabbed the reins to prevent myself from falling off, which made my horse snort in protest. Cleaver looked back at me. "Are you alright, lad?"


    I cursed under my breath, nodded, and struggled to get back into my saddle. I realized that my hand had instinctively reached for the pommel of the sword.


    Theodmon''s voice whispered in my mind again, but this time I managed to remain seated and only flinched. "When you reach the city, the king will personally come to retrieve his son."


    The voice paused for a moment, and I could feel the tension building up in my head, almost like a headache. "There is much danger ahead. You''ve seen it. These men are killers. Will you stay with them?"


    I looked at Tuale.  "What else am I to do? If we are to believe Tuale, the church has not given up on finding me." Rebert had told me they wouldn''t. And he had been right. It felt like a long time ago since he had said that, back in the sleepy coastal town where we had bid farewell to the ship. It had been some time since I had thought of the man, and I felt a twinge of guilt abandoning him. But I did not owe the man. He had done nothing while my father was killed before me.


    "Why do they come for me?¡± I asked in my mind.


    "They are hungry for magic, as it''s dwindling among their own people. Their only connection to it is through stolen artifacts or those they create themselves."


    "But what does that have to do with me?"


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    There was a long silence from Theodmon. Then, his voice spoke even softer in my mind. "The artifacts are created using energy, either willingly given by elves like me or forcibly taken. My people never allowed such practices; it simply wasn''t done. But humans, who lack our power and immortality, are greedy creatures. They have no qualms about venturing into forbidden territories."


    A chill ran down my spine as my mind quickly pieced together the puzzle. "They want to turn me into an artifact."


    "It is no easy task," Theodmon acknowledged, and I felt a strange sense of pride in his words. "You have done an admirable job evading their grasp. But yes, lad, they seek to do to you what I did to myself, in order to harness your power for their own purposes. That necklace around the boy¡¯s neck only holds a fraction of the power you possess, and yet it is enough to make him more dangerous than any man.¡±


    "A barbaric tradition, but it''s the only way for the church to maintain its empire. Without artifacts and the magic they bestow upon the church, they would be like any other force in the world--hindered by age and the constraints of the human body.¡±


    "If you choose to stay with these men and venture into the heart of the church''s domain, I will need to protect you, my child. And together, we will have to strike a blow against the church to ensure they no longer come after you."


    I was taken aback by Theodmon''s determination. I detected an underlying anger in his voice, and his protective instincts felt unfamiliar and foreign. It was difficult to remember that the voice in my head belonged to my biological father.


    "How can we do that? I''m not skilled with the sword, and I don''t know how to control my magic." It had been a while since I had killed the churchmen in the woods, and I recalled the way Shay had looked at me. To her, I was no longer human. I didn''t want Cleaver and the others to view me the same way.


    ¡°We need to find a body and free me from this prison.¡±


    ¡°You can be freed?¡±


    Theodmon chuckled in my head. ¡°Yes, child. I just haven¡¯t found the right moment or the right hand to guide me.¡± I didn¡¯t answer, and Theodmon seemed to sense my hesitation¡ªand whatever else I was feeling. Some part of me didn¡¯t want to do what he wanted me to do.


    ¡°It¡¯s not easy, you know, to forget what it¡¯s like to taste the air, to feel the warmth of flesh against your skin. But the mind is a fickle beast, it can easily forget¡ªbut it doesn¡¯t forget what it is like to crave such sensations.¡±


    I thought about what he said. The thought of being imprisoned for so long seemed to be the worst form of torture. Theodmon seemed to be mostly himself¡ªor from what I could tell. Perhaps it was because he could sense the outside world, even if he could not interact with it. I wondered how long it would take for me to go insane in a similar situation, except without his extra senses. A week? A month? A year?


    ¡°How long have you been trapped there?¡± I asked quietly--softly, in my mind.


    There was no answer. Theodmon¡¯s thoughts tended to drift when I felt his presence in my mind. He could be talking to me one moment, and then another moment, it was as if he was back inside the prison of his own mind. In the corner of my awareness, I could smell something sweet, and for a moment, the air felt wet and moist, and a softness seemed to brush against my lips. Then, a deep sadness. Perhaps it was a memory of his.


    I remembered spending time in the spirit realm. At the time, I thought of it only as the quiet realm since that was the defining feeling. I had grown to like the place but felt fatigued and lifeless outside of it. I wondered about the effects it would have on my body if I spent years there. Perhaps, once I came out, I would be nothing but a skeleton.

 Chapter 29 - Year 1271

    The dirt road had now become more worn, and it was easy to see that it was used more frequently. The dry, hot plains had become greener, and now there were trees, but there was also rain. It spattered the dirt road, and we left deep gashes and puddles behind us.


    At the time, I was huddled in my cloak against the persistent rain when I heard a fierce cry. I looked up to see a small rider and another one charging at us. As they drew closer, I realized one was a grinning man, and the other was Naro.


    It hadn¡¯t taken long for Cleaver¡¯s men to notice Naro¡¯s skill as a tracker, and he had sent them ahead of the column to scout on many occasions. Now the two galloped towards us as if the devil chased and nipped at their very heels.


    Behind them, I saw another two men, and even from a distance and amidst clouds of dust, I could see their bright purple and yellow churchmen tabards. Arrows flew past Naro and the grinning man, but the pursuers didn''t aim true, and the arrows flew wide.


    ¡°Onward!¡± Cleaver bellowed, and we moved towards the two men who had been chasing Naro and the grinning man.


    The two men saw us, but they had gone too far in pursuit to chase Naro and the grinning man. By the time they managed to turn their horses around, we were upon them, and the company had encircled them on all sides. The two men circled nervously on their horses, both with swords drawn, as they looked at us.


    Then one of the men stiffened. I turned to see what he was looking at, and I saw that Tuale had come up beside Cleaver and me. Tuale met the man¡¯s eyes, and he shook his head.


    Suddenly, both men kicked their horses forward towards Tuale. Cleaver¡¯s horse reared, and the big man almost fell off. But the hooves of his great beast kicked one of the men off his horse, and the other nearly fell off his own mount as the two horses struggled next to each other with nowhere to go.


    The man got to his feet and looked up at me. Then he pulled a knife and moved to slice my legs.


    I grabbed the hilt of my sword and managed to parry the quick attack with the scabbard. But I was surprised by the attack, and my reflexive movement didn¡¯t help my balance. The momentum of defending myself caused me to fall off my own horse, and then I lay before the desperate man with his own blade. He stabbed his knife down at me but I rolled away.


    I struggled to my feet and faced the man. I looked around, some part of me wondering where my help was. But none of Cleaver¡¯s men looked concerned. Most of them were cheering or making bets on the fight itself. Coins were being passed around, and anger formed a tight knot in my stomach as I realized what was happening. The men were betting on who would win the fight.


    The churchman must have realized this was his last chance to live because he moved forward again. He poked forward with the tip of his blade, and I jumped back. But he was quick, and he slid forward and sliced again at my left side.


    This time, I wasn¡¯t fast enough, and the man¡¯s blade sliced into the side of my stomach. It went deep, and I felt an immediate hotness as the cold metal blade parted the flesh of my stomach. Blood pooled from the massive wound, and I could do nothing but stare as the man withdrew the blade.


    There was no laughing or cheering now. I looked down and couldn¡¯t believe what I saw there. I didn¡¯t know how I was still standing, and then I realized I wasn¡¯t.


    I winced as Theodmon screamed inside my head, ¡°Use your gift!¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I said. It was hard to speak, and I coughed out blood. It was in my throat, on my face, and my stomach was starting to feel cold. I put a hand to my stomach and pressed against it in a vain attempt to stop the blood. Pain shot through my gut in an intensity that I didn¡¯t know was possible.


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    My vision was beginning to blur, but I saw Cleaver get off his horse. He walked up to the man without any hesitation and struck his cleaver into the man¡¯s neck. The man looked confused and tried to swing at Cleaver with his sword. But the movement had no force at all, and Cleaver took the blade and hit the pommel of the sword into the man¡¯s forehead. He crumpled to the ground, and Cleaver took out his weapon and looked at me.


    ¡°Sorry about that, lad. It''s been a long time since we had a child in the ranks. Forgot you couldn''t fight, is all.¡± There was disappointment in his cold eyes, and it hurt me to see him, as a man, look down upon me.


    ¡°But we took care of this one. And what do we do to the other one, lads?¡± Cleaver looked up at his band of men who still sat on their horses. An argument broke out as the men tried to decide what to do with the other churchmen. I saw Tuale staring at me, and then he looked down at my stomach. The blood still ran, and I could feel it soaking the insides of my pants.


    ¡°You must save yourself, child.¡± Theodmon¡¯s voice rang loud and stern in my head. There was no disappointment there. It was just instruction. This time, there was something about it that was different. It wasn''t as if I was listening to him; it was as if I was being compelled.


    I felt my body respond to his words, and the pain seemed to recede from my consciousness. I could still feel the blood leaking from my gut, and I was sure the blade had cut halfway through my stomach. But it was as if it was a minor thing¡ªinstead of something that had begun to blind my vision with pain.


    As I got up and walked to the other Churchman, I could feel the men around Cleaver growing quiet. I saw Cleaver frown as I passed him, and I felt his eyes on my back. I knew the man thought I was as good as dead, and I thought I would be soon as well.


    The Churchman saw me advancing towards him and raised his guard. As I got closer, he snarled and whipped his blade at me. My right hand twitched, and my arm moved with the blade still in it. I had forgotten I still held it. I parried the blow and slid my sword past it in a strange angular gesture that felt totally unfamiliar. The man must have been taken aback by my quick movement, so he didn¡¯t have time to bring up his sword to defend himself. I plunged the sword as hard as I could into the man¡¯s chest.


    The sword pierced his skin as if there was nothing there, and the blade went through him and out the other side of his back. I leaned against the man as we stood there, and I clutched at him for balance. Then I pushed away from the man, and he fell back down to the ground with the sword still in him.


    I struggled to stay on my feet as the pain returned. I felt a wave of nausea as I turned, and a cheer went up from Cleaver¡¯s men. They laughed at what I had done. I saw one of Cleaver¡¯s men pass a coin to another as a bet was settled. Then I saw the same man''s face light up with horror as he pointed with a limp finger at something behind me.


    The Churchman I had killed had been a small man. Not young, but a smaller, heftier fellow of plain looks. Now, the same man was back, but it was not the same man at all. Blood still stained his tunic, and a huge gash could be seen through the torn cloth.


    But the sword was no longer sticking out of his chest; it was held in his hand. And his entire demeanor had completely changed. The man''s chin was tilted slightly upward, and his eyes were narrowed as if he was appraising the world to decide if it could tell him something he didn''t already know.


    He strode over to me and put a hand on my stomach. Then he applied pressure, and the pain made me gasp. Blood came out of my mouth and covered his tunic. Then, an intense heat seared into the side of my stomach, and I realized I could feel the inside of my stomach moving.


    I looked down, and I could see the flesh mending. It was as if the process of healing had been sped up tenfold. Something about the unnatural sight of moving flesh horrified me, and I screamed.


    Then, as soon as it had begun, the pain was gone, and I stared at my stomach. It was if I had never been stabbed--and there wasn¡¯t even a scar. My throat felt raw from screaming, and I stared down, not believing that I was no longer dying.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll be fucked,¡± Cleaver stared at me and then the churchman who had healed me, his eyes flicking down to the cut in his chest and back up to his face


    The man put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly. He looked into my eyes, and without knowing how, I recognized him. It was no longer churchmen. It was my father. Theodmon.  It was strange seeing the voice in my head come from another face and another voice.


    Theodmon winked at me. Even if he was not in my head anymore, I had the strange sensation that he had read my thoughts. He turned to Cleaver and the rest of the men. Most of them had moved back a good ten feet and Cleaver stared at the man.


    ¡°Who the fuck are you?¡± He looked back and forth between Theodmon and me.


    ¡°His father.¡±

 Chapter 30 - Year 1272

    As we moved north, I spent all my time talking to Theodmon. It was much different than talking to him in my head. Despite all his history and power, he seemed like a regular man. Perhaps it was because he wore the body of one, after all.


    Theodmon did not know how my magic worked, since he had no conception of using it on his own. According to him, there had never been someone who could use magic like me. He assured me that this, in and of itself, was not an unusual thing, but the idea still scared me¡ªsince I had no idea of my limitations or weaknesses. But being the only one with my magic also filled me with a strange sense of pride.


    But while he could not teach me how to use my magic, he could teach me about it. His voice would become rhythmic and instructional, and at times, it felt as if he was reciting knowledge from a book he had read¡ªand perhaps he was. Theodmon spoke in theories and lessons, just as much as he did from his own experience. I once asked him how many books he had read, and in response, he told me a number I could not fathom.


    Theodmon was most curious about my interaction with magic and how I used it, and he would try to get me to explain to him what it felt like in the quiet--because it was something I still did not know. He could read my mind and see what I felt--but he could not come to any different conclusion.


    ¡°From what I can conjecture, perhaps your magical ability is that you can move your soul or your mind''s energy.¡± He must have noticed my look of confusion, and he waved his hand dismissively, as if he didn¡¯t want to get into the subject of souls.


    He held up a finger to his chin. ¡°Your power, unlike any other I¡¯ve seen, seems to have limitless potential. The complexity between the two realms is unexplored but vast, unlike anything I have seen. In a sense, your power is nothing more than the ability to transfer power in and out of the world at your will.¡± The realization seemed to dawn on him. For a moment, he looked off into the distance, nodding his head in thought.


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    At the time, I did not understand what he meant, since I could not even grasp most of the basic concepts of magic itself. But I knew the quiet world was a strange place, and I was not keen to use my powers again unless I had to. The smell of decayed flesh and the wilted corpses of the men when I had left it was all that I could think about when I thought of my magic. ¡°What is your power?¡± I already thought I knew--from Calk, but I wanted to hear it from Theodmon.


    He smiled at me, and I saw a sudden intensity glow in his eyes. ¡°My power is perhaps stronger than any other being I know of¡ªespecially now, but it does have limitations. My power is of the mind. I can hear others thoughts as if they yelled them in my ear. And I can exert my will over others as well, to have them do as I wish.¡±


    ¡°And that¡¯s why the others became so scared of you?¡±


    Theodmon nodded. ¡°An understandable concern, but to be fair to myself¡ªI have never abused my power. But others could not know that.¡± The idea of Theodmon reading my own mind made me uncomfortable, but I had long since suspected something of the sort. He had been in my own head, after all.


    ¡°When one has power, it also influences who the person is and what they seek to do. A fire mage can become hot-headed, quick to temper, and perhaps single-minded towards their tasks. But if one can read the minds of others and see how they think and why they do what they do¡ªwell, let¡¯s just say that ability develops a special sort of empathy. I didn¡¯t seek to control others because I didn¡¯t feel the need to.¡±


    He looked at me for a second as if he were considering the entire scope of me. ¡°I¡¯m not sure yet how your power will influence your personality, but most likely it already has.¡±

 Chapter 31 - Year 1272

    It was not long before we began to see more mountains. Theodmon told me they were the Mildorian mountains, and at the bottom was Mildor itself. We could not see the city since the forest had grown thick around us. But Theodmon told me that we were getting close to the birthplace of the church, the central power .


    A few days into the forest, our company halted, and I saw Naro and Grinning Man talking to Cleaver. I sat on my horse next to Theodmon, and Tuale rode behind us¡ªbut it had been days since he had spoken.


    After seeing his two fellow churchmen butchered before him¡ªand one that had come back to life¡ªhe was skittish and withdrawn. In a way, I felt bad for him, as I realized that his own predicament was like my own when life had put me on this journey.


    As I watched the men talk, I sensed Theodmon mutter something under his breath. I turned to him. ¡°What is it?¡±


    He looked at me with a look of surprise on his face. I figured that he must not have realized he had even spoken. Theodmon frowned, and for a moment, I thought he would not answer the question. Then he rubbed his temples with both of his hands.


    ¡°I am sorry, my son. I¡¯m not used to my thoughts tumbling out into the world so easily.¡± He held up a finger and pointed. ¡°It¡¯s a Whisper Eye, and a powerful one too.¡±


    I stood up in my saddle and realized that there was another man I had not seen. He was cloaked in brown and wore faded, travel-worn clothes. As I looked at him, he removed his hood to reveal blond hair and a handsome face. He had a strong jaw with a closely trimmed beard and a sharp nose. But he was not a man--as he was not much older than myself.


    ¡°What is a whisper eye?¡± I asked, finding something about the boy inherently odd without being able to discern why. His eyes were bright green, and as I asked the question, the boy titled his head and looked right at me.


    Theodmon sighed in frustration. ¡°As I told you before, the mana pool is infinitely complicated, and the effects of it on the human body can be unique. There are more than a hundred, perhaps a thousand, different variations of magic, and all types of magic were accepted, respected, and taught in Kel¡¯Ednas. All except the power of Whisper Eye.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Well, for one, it can¡¯t be taught. Whisper eye is not so much a magic as a sort of virus. It¡¯s an extremely rare form of wild magic. The magic invades the mind and corrupts a part of it, changing the personality of whoever it touches. And then, it is passed down from generation to generation, never growing weaker¡ªonly stronger every time. It would not be so dangerous if the power itself did not also contain elements of prophetic power. It makes Whisper Eyes exceedingly hard to catch and pin down. It has been some time since I sensed it once, and it seems the virus in this one is more powerful than any I have seen.¡±


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    Theodmon shook his head, and I heard him curse again. ¡°I¡¯ve half a mind to kill the bastard right now.¡± Once he voiced the idea, he seemed to like it, and he dismounted from his horse.


    As we walked up to the group of them talking, the man turned to look at us again, but this time he looked at Theodmon. He seemed to stiffen. Almost immediately, he gripped something at his waist and then said something to Cleaver. Then, he moved to mount his horse.


    ¡°Stop!¡± Theodmon yelled. Cleaver turned to us, confused, and looked back and forth between us and the man.


    The man kicked his horse in the ribs without looking back, and before Theodmon could grab him, the man was riding down the road, kicking up a dust storm behind him.


    Theodmon glared at Cleaver as he held a hand on the pommel of his sword. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you stop him?¡±


    Cleaver looked at Grinning Man and Horse Man as if he weren¡¯t the subject of the question. Grinning Man shrugged, then Cleaver answered, ¡°A spy of some sort. I¡¯ve used the man before as a contact. Odd sort, but reliable if you pay him well.¡± He gestured at a small leather bag in his huge hand that was empty. ¡°Very, very well.¡±


    Cleaver continued on as he mounted his horse. ¡°Told us which shifts on the wall have green or dirty guards, or both. Should be easy to bribe our way into the city without much notice now.¡±


    Theodmon eyed Cleaver warily. Then he sighed. ¡°The money''s gone. And we can¡¯t go through with that plan.¡±


    Cleaver glared at Theodmon, and I sensed rising anger in the man. He was the leader of the group, and he did not like Theodmon telling him what to do. He had also seemed to not like Theodmon, and I couldn¡¯t blame him.


    Theodmon knew things about him that he didn¡¯t want others to know. ¡°What do you mean the plan is gone? Did you see how much gold we paid him?¡± His fist tightened around the empty coin purse. For a moment, I thought he might strike Theodmon.


    Grinning Man put a hand on Theodmon¡¯s shoulder and smiled at him. Cleaver regarded the man, and he took a deep breath.


    Theodmon looked between the two men, and a look of disgust came across his face. ¡°If all you are after is gold, then you will quickly find it to be your demise.¡± And with that, he turned and got back on his own horse. ¡°And Cleaver, you might want to check your other purse.¡±


    Cleaver stiffened. From the look on his face, it was not common knowledge that he had two. Then he looked down and rummaged through his leather jerkin and belt. He looked up blankly. ¡°It¡¯s gone. That fucker took it.¡±


    I knew that if we ever saw the man again, Cleaver would kill him, and by the look on his face, he would make it slow.


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you stop him?¡± I asked Theodmon, as he settled back on his horse.


    ¡°You mean with my power?¡± Theodmon sighed. ¡°Like I said, the Whisper Eye is an odd magic. It is resilient to outside effects. The boy--whoever he is, would not be influenced by my magic, despite how powerful I have become.¡±

 Chapter 32 - Year 1272

    The first time I saw Mildor, I couldn¡¯t take my eyes away. It was a sprawling mass of land riddled with tents and squat buildings, spires and thick walls, trees, and parks, and it seemed to go on forever. ¡°How big is it?¡± I asked.


    Theodmon looked down at the city from where we stood on the cliff. The huge city sat nestled in the vast valley surrounded by mountain cliffs and tall trees. ¡°Well, it¡¯s a large city by human standards. But compared to Kel¡¯Ednas?¡± He seemed to think for a moment, carefully considering the city before us, area by area.


    ¡°I would say six Mildors could fit into our city.¡± He gestured at it. ¡°But I have never been here before. I have seen it through the eyes of others and lingered above it through the eyes of a bird¡ªbut I¡¯ve never been here.¡±


    ¡°You can be a bird?¡±


    Theodmon chuckled. ¡°Not quite, my child, but when you live with my power for a thousand years, you can learn a trick or two.¡± He winked.


    For a long moment, I wondered what it would be like to be a bird, to be able to fly and see the world from the sky. And then, looking down on Mildor, I couldn¡¯t imagine why we were there in the first place.


    ¡°How are we going to get into the Chantry?¡± I remembered the mischievous look in the green-eyed Whisper Eye. I knew we couldn¡¯t trust the man. ¡°We don¡¯t even have a plan.¡±


    ¡°Quite right, my boy. But sometimes it''s enough to know that a plan is folly and to wait for a better one to be made.¡± And with that, he put his arm around my shoulders and led me away from the cliff¡¯s edge.


    Under the cover of night, we moved out from the forest. The moon was high and bright, and it shone down on the pale dirt road leading into Mildor. Even from a distance, we could see the walls of the city, and then a breeze stirred, carrying its scent as well. It was a rank smell, unlike anything I had smelled before.


    I noticed a few of the men had also smelled it. Cleaver wrinkled his nose. ¡°Ah, the smell of Mildor. Smells like shit, as usual.¡±


    Theodmon nodded. ¡°It must be the sewers. The city¡¯s construction and growth have long outlived its foundation.¡± Theodmon stared in the direction of the city and took a deep sniff of the air. He paused a moment as if he was digesting the scent, then turned back to us quickly with a triumphant smile on his face. Then he smiled. ¡°That¡¯s our way in.¡±


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    We rode briskly for a few minutes and then came upon the walls of the city. They were tall walls made of sturdy gray stone. It looked as if we had come to a good part of the wall, as it was unattended¡ªand crumbly in some sections, with some parts of the wall grown over with moss.


    Naro pointed under the wall where a huge metal pipe jutted out of a mound of hardened dirt. It was here that a viscous liquid slowly poured out of the pipe into a small stream. The stream carried away the foul liquid, but the smell was much worse now that we were up close.


    The liquid sludge was black and the foulness that permeated the air made me want to gag. Several of the men held rags to their mouths. I understood why Theodmon had picked this spot and why there were no guards patrolling the border of the city. The smell was simply too terrible.


    Cleaver looked at Theodmon. ¡°If that fucker hadn¡¯t stolen my coin purse, I wouldn¡¯t be doing this.¡± He turned to his men--some thirty odd men, each man armored and armed for battle. ¡°I know you don¡¯t want to go into that.¡± He paused for a moment, holding a hand to his mouth, and then he burped. ¡°But I never said this would be easy, did I?¡±


    The men stared at Cleaver, and a few men laughed. ¡°Alright, you fuckers. First one into the pipe gets an extra share.¡±


    The men didn¡¯t move. He sighed. ¡°Three extra shares.¡±


    For a moment, I thought the men would stand still with their leader and refuse to be the first one to brave the sewer pipe. But then Grinning Man grinned, and he leaped into the tunnel. Metal Arm followed soon after, and then the rest of the men piled in, as if gold had started pouring out of the pipe itself. ¡°Greedy bastards,¡± Cleaver chuckled.


    The sewers were hard going, but the men were trained well. Once they took it upon themselves to follow the plan, there was no dissent. They were quiet, and confused, and we sludged through the remains of the city quickly.  The exit was a small metal grate with a single metal ladder, and the company could only go one by one. We all stank like the worst kind of dregs, and every man was covered head to toe in black slime. The smell of shit, sweat, and vomit hung around us like a dank cloud, and more than one man had thrown up during the journey. Every few moments, I myself fought the urge to gag.


    Once we were out, Metal Arm waved us toward a building. It was a massive structure, filled with horses of every variety. A few men guarded each entrance, and the horses neighed, unsettled by the unfamiliar scents and faces.


    We lingered in the barn for some time. It could have been an hour, or perhaps just half of one, but it was hard to tell. Most of the men attempted to clean themselves by wiping their clothes on the barn walls or using hay as a makeshift scrub. However, there was an underlying tension in the air, and I could sense the men growing increasingly anxious by the minute.


    "He''ll be back soon, Your Highness," Cleaver whispered into Tuale''s dirty ear, causing the boy to flinch. Shivering and frail, he had grown thin and weak over the past few days. It seemed they hadn''t been feeding him much, if at all.

 Chapter 33 - 1272

    It was up to Naro to bring back the king. The gnome was the smallest one among us, and the least likely to draw attention due to his natural ability as a scout.


    More agonizing minutes passed, and Cleaver began whispering to Grinning Man, who appeared distressed. The grin had vanished from his face, replaced by a furious shaking of his head. He pointed toward the barn''s entrance, and Cleaver frowned. "Can''t you, just for once, speak the fuck up?"


    Grinning Man gulped, and for the first time since I had met him, he finally spoke. A quiet, high-pitched voice emerged. "Betrayed."


    A cold stone formed in the pit of my stomach, and the men crowded around us, those who heard Grinning Man, began to murmur.


    "I didn¡¯t know he could talk" a voice came from the man to my left. He had a long nose and beady black eyes, already gripping a long, pointed knife. "I bet it was the shifty green eyed lad on the road.¡±


    A man beside him shrugged. "I told you he could fucking talk." He bore a striking resemblance to the first man, with the same eyes and nose, although his hair was cut short.


    ¡°You owe me money!¡± He also held a knife. I realized that, despite spending much time with Theodmon, Cleaver, and a few others in the company, I hadn''t truly acquainted myself with many of the men. But I had heard tales of most of them. These were the Knife Twins.


    They were well-known in the company for their skill with small blades. Neither man had ever been defeated in a knife fight, except when pitted against each other. Their feud was legendary among the men, and they were constantly fighting one another.


    Their bodies were covered in scars from their fights with each other, and more often than not, they were adorned with bloody bandages. It was a wonder they were still alive. After a moment, I realized that I probably didn''t want to be in such close proximity to them while they were arguing.


    One man moved away from the door, his hoarse voice cutting through the grumbling men. "Someone''s coming!" Everybody stiffened as the doors swung open.


    When I saw who walked through the door, my blood seemed to turn to ice. It was as if one of my worst nightmares had materialized before my very eyes, and I stared, struggling to comprehend how or why this had happened.


    "Isn''t this a place for horses?" Calk''s voice dripped with amusement. He stood there, as if he had been there all along, draped in a flowing white robe and a church tabard. Beside him stood Naro, his hand resting on his small sword.


    I locked eyes with the gnome, searching for any stalwart companion I once knew. But there was nothing familiar there. The gnome stared back at me with cold, blank eyes. There was no emotion, no hint of satisfaction or an evil smile. Where had my friend gone? He had taught me about the forest and treated us with kindness. He had scouted alongside Cleaver''s men, and for what?


    My mind scrambled to make sense of the betrayal, but it failed to do so. The gnomes had sent us away, but they had no reason to betray us. From what I knew of them, they despised the church.


    "Why?" I managed to ask, my voice barely audible.


    But it was not my voice that resonated among the men. Cleaver stood up and pointed at Naro. "Traitor!" he snarled, drawing his cleaver from his belt.


    Calk disregarded Cleaver''s words. "Where''s the boy?"


    Silence enveloped the room once again, and no one uttered a word. Men looked around, searching for whoever Calk was referring to.


    Before Cleaver could respond, Theodmon''s voice echoed through the room. "You shouldn''t have left Kel''Edas, Calk."


    Calk surveyed the room until his gaze landed on Theodmon¡ªor rather, the body he inhabited. "Who speaks?"


    Theodmon leaned down slightly and whispered in my ear, "I''m sorry, my son." For a fleeting moment, I thought he might say more, as he lingered there, his hurried breath warming my cheek. But then he positioned himself in front of me, standing tall despite his diminutive stature. His shoulders were squared, and his hands steady.


    Calk''s eyes snapped toward him, devoid of recognition, and for a brief moment, confusion clouded his expression.


    "Traitor," Theodmon spoke softly, barely above a whisper.


    Calk''s ears twitched as if straining to hear Theodmon''s words¡ªan odd gesture that reminded me he was no longer human. Then his eyes widened, registering the sound, and for the first time, I glimpsed something in his eyes I had never seen before.


    He stepped back, reaching for his waist as if searching for a weapon. Then, he stared at his hand, seemingly surprised it belonged to him. Calk, a man capable of controlling the very cold in the air and bending it to his will, was finally gripped by fear.


    Across my field of vision, a cleaver soared through the air, moving so swiftly that I could only identify it after it had already struck. A split second before impact, frost burst from the ground, creating a small mound of ice. The cleaver collided with the ice, shattering upon contact. It sliced across Calk''s face before embedding itself in the wooden barn door behind him.


    "Kill him!" Cleaver bellowed. The small barn erupted into a battlefield as Cleaver''s men lunged at Naro and Calk. Water particles swiftly transformed into ice in a fraction of a second, and he hurled them through the air.


    Icey spears impaled men, passing through them entirely. He moved his hands in a peculiar dance, wiggling his fingers and swaying his arms, while his eyes flickered with a blue glow.


    Amidst the screams of pain, I could hear him laughing, a twisted smile forming on his lips. Blood splattered against his white robes, and members of the company fell dead. Theodmon gripped my shoulder with painful intensity. "You must stop him, son."


    I knew he was right. But fear had gripped me tightly. We were thrust into a situation where our chances of survival seemed slim, and all I wanted to do was run.


    ¡°You do it!¡± I screamed, ¡°take over his mind!¡± Suddenly, something flashed, and my instincts kicked in. I instinctively ducked as a dagger-sized ice shard flew past me and shattered against the wall.


    Then he slapped me. It wasn''t a gentle slap, but a harsh one, leaving a fresh sting in my mind. However, the pain only served to shock me further, and I could only stare at the violence and destruction unfolding before me. He pulled me to my feet, his gaze fixed on me for a moment then he looked at Calk. His eyes squinted and his mouth narrowed, and he shook his head.


    Before I could respond, he stood up and walked towards Calk. I feared he would be impaled by another shard of ice, but Calk''s main focus was on Cleaver. Remarkably, the formidable man had torn off one of the stall doors, using it as a shield as he fought against Calk''s attacks. "Stop!" Theodmon screamed. Calk''s eyes flicked towards Theodmon, but he continued his assault on the men.


    Calk''s eyes narrowed, and he swiftly spread his hands apart as if breaking free from an invisible bond. A low mist of frost spread from the ground, and pale blue fingers of ice emerged, advancing towards Cleaver and his men. One of the men noticed the icy claws but was too late. A hand made of frost grabbed his ankle, causing his skin to darken with frostbite. He fell to his knees, screaming in agony. Cleaver''s men retreated from the icy grasp, and Calk shifted his attention to Theodmon.


    "I''ll come with you, as long as you spare the lives of these men," Theodmon yelled. Calk seemed to ponder his words, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.


    In response, Calk spat in Theodmon''s face and pressed himself against him. Calk smiled, and a shard of ice pierced through my father''s chest.


    For a moment, it felt as if everything in the room disappeared, leaving only the sight of my father''s blood staining his back. It was the second time I had witnessed someone kill my father--this time my blood one, and I had done nothing. Calk pulled the weapon out, the sickening sound of flesh and blood separating filling the air. With a gleeful grin on his face, Calk brandished the weapon while my father slumped to his knees.


    One of Cleaver''s men managed to get close enough to swing an ax at Calk''s neck. But Calk was swift and sensed the impending attack. He ducked and swiftly turned on his heel, then plunged a newly formed ice shard into the man''s abdomen.


    Chaos erupted once more as men scrambled for their chance to strike him down. But I no longer saw it as they did. I had seen enough to know it would end in bloodshed. I cast one final glance at my dying father, who had managed to crawl away from Calk, but was now coughing up blood.


    I had seen enough. I pulled.


    It was a reflexive and almost violent movement fueled by the force of my will and anger. I remembered the first time I had seen Calk in the spirit world. His white-hot energy had called out to me, compelling me to gaze at it in wonder and fear.


    I could sense its immense power once again, and a part of me desired to become immersed in it. However, it pained my already limited senses in the spirit realm. Everything else appeared muted and insignificant in comparison, with the others in the room reduced to opaque specks.


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    With tremendous velocity, I propelled my body through the realm. Movement in the spirit world was peculiar, unrestricted by natural forces or air resistance. Its limitations seemed to be more bound by my will, a realization that had eluded me until that moment of swift traversal. There had never been a pressing need for such speed until now. It was as if my mind and soul surged forward, while my physical form lagged behind like a shadow.


    Calk''s blazing white head turned towards me, and I recoiled. He radiated a brightness surpassing that of every person in the room combined, brimming with white-hot vitality. I feared what would transpire if I made contact, but I knew my father''s time was running out. Extending my hand, I dug my own luminous fingers into Calk''s shoulder.


    A deep cold surged up my arm, and within moments, it felt as though my muscles and skin vanished, replaced by bone-chilling cold that permeated my very core. The bones in my arms seemed on the verge of snapping, and memories of Calk shattering Rebert''s steel sword like wood flooded my mind.


    Agonizing pain coursed through my body, and I screamed. Yet, my cries went unheard in this ethereal plane, while the small, opaque lights danced around me. I knew that if I didn''t stop him, they would all perish.


    As I dug into Calk''s flesh, my arms and hands began to move in and out of both realms. The cold became so intense that my flesh cracked and peeled. I witnessed my arm''s skin fissuring and turning black, nerves dying, and then a numbing sensation seeping into my bones.


    But as swiftly as the cold destroyed the sinews of my muscles and froze my blood, I observed my arm rebuilding itself from the stolen energy, flesh knitting back onto restructured bone, and crusted blood reforming within. And then, it would shatter and freeze again, initiating the cycle of pain once more.


    After enduring this torment twice, I could bear the agony no longer, knowing it would return. I jerked my arm back, only to feel an immediate cold pain pierce my gut. The sensation felt peculiar, as if I were aware of it without truly sensing or perceiving it. When I glanced down, I discovered a hole gaping in my stomach.


    Strangely enough, panic didn''t grip me. My body resembled Calk''s in a peculiar way, as if it were divided into two parts. The physical body in the real world appeared as a bright afterimage, while in the spirit realm, I possessed a second body composed of shifting shadows.


    For the first time, I directed my gaze downward, contemplating the inky and swirling darkness that enveloped the hole in my luminous stomach. As I watched, the darkness began to undulate and writhe, filling the void.


    The glowing afterimage grew slightly brighter, and the hole vanished. It was then that I made the connection, realizing that the substance was some form of essence¡ªa manifestation of the lifeblood of my magic. It was intrinsically linked to my spirit realm body and possibly beyond. This very essence granted me my abilities. Curling my hand into a fist, I flung my hands toward Calk, willing the darkness to converge upon him.


    The darkness sprang forth from my hand, clawing and stretching like an angry, wet appendage. It latched onto Calk, causing his luminous form to recoil and step back, as if struck by a powerful force.


    As the darkness began to envelop Calk, I felt a resistance, as if it were a limb of its own. Fragments of the darkness splintered and faded away, accompanied by a faint, nagging pain that scraped against my mind. Determined, I extended both hands this time, snarling as I drew more of the darkness into my palms.


    Holding my hands out to Calk, the darkness surged forth like a torrential storm, coalescing, shifting, and moving in every direction. I willed it toward Calk, and the cascade of black shadow flooded into him. His radiant form crumbled to the ground, and the darkness writhed and appeared to consume him.


    Through the void, I witnessed fragments of Calk being devoured, and a new type of energy seemed to flow into my being. The silence became clearer, and the fog surrounding the realm dissipated. The specks of light around me transformed into human-like shapes, and I discerned light coursing through skeletal structures. With enough concentration, I even glimpsed it within the ground and the very air itself. I realied I had stolen part of his magic.


    And then, behind him, I sensed¡ªrather than saw¡ªsomething new. I focused on it, realizing that it was difficult to see, which was strange considering my heightened clarity. It became apparent that unlike a person, this form consisted of interlocking plates devoid of any light.


    It struck me as incredibly peculiar because, as I had just become aware, nearly everything I could perceive held some dimension of light within it. Even the wooden beams in the barn''s ceiling emitted a faint glow from the life force of the trees they had once been.


    I left the quiet realm and was immediately bombarded by sensory information. The smell of blood and decaying flesh invaded my nostrils, causing me to vomit onto the ground. Amidst the chaos, someone was screaming. As I turned my head, I realized it was Calk.


    He writhed on the ground, contorted in agony, while a slimy black darkness enveloped his body. It was a bit of the void that had come back with me. The shadowy substance devoured his flesh, leaving his thighs burning and sizzling. His feet and shins were entirely absent, as if some colossal beast had torn them off.


    I attempted to survey the scene, hoping to locate my father or grasp some understanding of what was unfolding. However, my attention was drawn to a group of men standing behind Calk. These were the figures I had seen.


    They donned unfamiliar armor, bone white and oddly smooth, with bright jewels embedded within the plates. Each man wielded colossal hammers, unlike any I had ever seen. The shafts were as long as a leg, and the tips were as wide as my own arm. The thick metal was adorned with intricate symbols and additional gems. It seemed unimaginable that they could even lift such weapons, yet they held them casually over their shoulders, as if the weight were inconsequential. They all fixated their gazes upon me, causing a knot to form in my stomach.


    Scarred faces marked their countenances, and I detected an unsettling sense of calmness amidst the chaos and bloodshed in the room. The sight terrified me. To make matters worse, what lay behind them caused my gut to plummet even further. Men dressed in the blue and purple uniforms of the church stood in a line behind the five armored figures, extending out of the barn as far as I could see.


    "Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!" Calk screamed the words as he desperately attempted to crawl away. The sticky blackness of my magic clung to him, consuming him, but some of its effects appeared to be waning. Finally, one of the hammer-wielding men leaned down and placed a hand on Calk. He whispered something, and then his glove emitted a faint yellow glow.


    The light shimmered around Calk''s form, causing the darkness of my magic to fade like smoke. Although his pain-stricken face appeared somewhat calmer, his flesh remained raw and consumed. I could still discern horror in his eyes, reflecting the devastation I had inflicted upon his body. He cradled his arms and held them close to his chest, and even from a distance, the putrid stench of his decaying flesh reached my nostrils. I knew that even if we lost the battle--and even if he recovered, he would never be the same. I had stolen part of his gift and I would not give it back.


    The man who had dispelled my magic stood upright, towering even above Cleaver. It was difficult to determine whether his sheer width contributed to his imposing presence. Shoulder-length, white-blonde hair framed his face, which seemed as though it had been sculpted from stone and brought to life. I had never encountered a man so flawlessly crafted, and something about it angered me. He exuded an air of tranquility, standing as if it were destiny that we should be discovered in his barn.


    "Give me my son, and I will permit your departure," he declared, scanning our group until his gaze settled on Tuale. The boy remained unharmed, though the weeks of travel had taken their toll, leaving him a mere shadow of the vibrant prince he had once been. Yet, for the first time in a while, I glimpsed a flicker of life ignite within him.


    "Release my son, and you may leave. Although I do not promise we will not pursue you.¡± The king yelled it into the room--not aimed at any particular person, but the loudness and authority in it made the chaotic room suddenly quiet.


    His words hadn''t fully registered in my mind when a harsh bark of laughter erupted from the back of the barn. Cleaver held the prince in his arms now, a knife pressed against the child''s neck. "You killed my wife, you bastard," he growled. His heavily muscled arm bulged as he tightened his grip on the child.


    In that moment, I witnessed the profound hatred within Cleaver, as fierce as ever. Perhaps it was as fierce as the hatred within me.


    Cleaver scanned the room, and his gaze settled on me. A look of sorrow crossed his face, and in that moment, I knew what he was thinking. There had never been an escape plan. The promised riches to the men were a ruse. The only price to be paid was his own life, and the lives of the men he had brought with him. And mine.


    In one swift motion, Cleaver mercilessly severed Tuale''s neck with his blade, causing the boy to collapse to the ground, blood spurting from the wound.


    A brief silence enveloped the room, as if a palpable tension had settled, waiting to ignite into a raging fire. And then, it happened. The king charged forward, barreling through men as if they were made of straw. Then He gripped Cleaver by the neck before the man could strike with his knife. Raising him high in the air, the king withstood the onslaught of swords swung at him by surrounding men. The steel blades merely cracked and skidded against his bone armor, as if they were mere twigs striking against stone.


    The other warriors were not far behind their king, wielding their massive maces. They unleashed devastating blows upon the men, causing them to scatter or collide into one another and the stable walls. A man who had shared a sip from his canteen with me the previous day was flung over a stall, his body sinking into the hay without uttering a single scream.


    Extending my hand, I focused my mind and summoned my power. This time--gaining inspiration from before when my power had persisted outside of the void, I willed only my arm to merge with it. My hand grew cold, and a shadowy, clawed tendril lashed out, scratching at the king.


    But as it made contact with him, the tendril dissolved into harmless black smoke. One of his men noticed the magical attack and he stood up behind his king. He raised his hammer, then he faltered. He took off his helmet and stared at me.


    I stared back, and then I recognized him. It was the same warrior from my father¡¯s farm. He had stayed behind after killing my father.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry your mo--¡± I didn¡¯t wait to hear the rest. Swiftly, I withdrew my entire being from the realm of the living, and flew towards the warrior. The bone armor consisted of interlocking plates designed to shield the man. Once positioned behind him, I extended my hand towards a gap in his neck.


    Within that gap, the most radiant light emanated--although it was nothing compared to Calk, and I channeled my power through it. I encountered resistance, but then a searing heat began to spread up my arm, intense yet devoid of pain. I exerted more force, and the sensation traveled further up my limb. Pushing even harder, I felt myself growing lighter.


    For an instant, it felt as if the quiet realm I inhabited was the sole existence, leaving me disoriented. But then the allure of the warmth beckoned, and I gravitated towards its familiar embrace. Warmth surged within me once more, propelling me away from the spirit realm and back into the realm of the living.


    The world appeared different from what I remembered. And it became immediately apparent why. Gripped within my hands was an immense, heavy hammer, yet it felt as light as a hefty stick rather than a few hundred pounds of steel. I swiftly surveyed the room, preparing myself for what lay ahead, not yet aware of what it would entail. And then, I caught sight of me.


    I stood there, seemingly frozen in time, deathly pale and motionless. My eyes, turned inward, were blank white orbs. Then, the body that had been mine for fourteen years collapsed to the floor. A sickening panic gripped my gut. I had left my former body.


    The mind of the man I had entered had been extinguished. Yet, so had the mind of a child before me. Now, a child had merged with a man. Our two consciousnesses melded together, neither vying for control nor attempting to dominate, but rather two halves of a whole. Suddenly, my sense of self began to fade, as if I were observing myself from a distance.

 Chapter 34 -Year 1271

    The man, who had been a loyal servant of the king - the man named Arthael - one of the few paladin soldiers fit to be one of the King¡¯s most elite guards, no longer wanted to kill the child¡¯s friends.


    Instead, now he could see the suffering his King had caused the child. He had witnessed the heir of the kingdom kill a harmless girl - the heir who had killed a child¡¯s family, and whose very soldiers had started the blood feud of the man who had orchestrated it all. The man no longer hated Cleaver but saw him as a fellow warrior.


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    But the child, who had been in his own small war with the Church, could also see the life of the man. The man who had been taken from his parents at only a few years of age and then trained for 20 brutal years without any rest - all simply because he had an affinity for magical artifacts of the church.


    A child who had become only a man because he was forced to, not because he could make decisions or learn how to - but a child who had become a man without any choice in the world or free will of his own. But despite that, the man was not without kindness.

 Chapter 35 - Year 1270

    Arthael looked down at his bloody hands--and for what felt like the hundredth time, he asked himself what he had done.


    He had not meant to kill the man--not truly. But the rage had come over him once again--the blind rage that made  him just want to keep punching and punching until he could not punch anymore.


    The first time it had happened was after the desert massacre--where he had seen his fellow brothers torn apart by the blood mage. After that, nothing was the same. Any threat of violence--and it was like he was back in the battle.


    He shook his head and looked at the small house. A few of the men were trying to break in, and he could hear the screams of a woman. He turned and looked behind, but Roth and the others were gone.


    The man he had killed did not deserve this end. He looked at the bloodied and bruised corpse, at the face that was indistinguishable from what it used to be. The look on the small boy¡¯s face at what he had done. He knew it would never leave him, just like so many other times.


    But perhaps this once, he could make it right. An idea came to him, and before he could stop himself, he moved towards the men and the house. He had ruined the child¡¯s life, left him without a father, but perhaps one day--if the child ever came back, he could at least find comfort in a way that he never had.


    A compulsion suddenly ran through him to find his own mother and father--but then the thought was gone, as if it had never occurred, and despite a slight twitch in his face, the stoic warrior did not so much as blink as he moved to kill once more.


    Now, some forty years later,  the man was free - free from the lessons and choices that had been forced upon him, free from the love he had felt for a king who did not love him or even love his people. And the part of them that had been stolen away - the soul of a child - had been returned. The magical chains that had repaired his mind but also bound it to his king had finally been severed.


    A few of Cleaver¡¯s men had come to his aid. They held onto the King, trying to stab him with their knives. The King whirled about, and the men flew off him, unable to hold onto the smooth bone armor.


    In the corner of their eye, they saw a flash. Their body reflexively moved to meet it without their mind registering the motion. The child''s mind marveled at the speed and strength of the man who had taken over, and the man noticed the child''s surprise, and he felt a small echo of pride.


    They held the huge hammer in a parry, and the flashing steel bit into the hard wood of the haft. The wood was thick enough and hard enough that the sword only seemed to scratch it.


    Then another swing at a different angle. This time they stepped back, and the steel glanced off the tip of their hammer. As the man pulled back the sword for another swing, they pushed forward with the steel tip of their hammer, attempting to stab the man¡¯s chest. The man dodged backward, and the move gave them enough time to see the man¡¯s face. They stepped back, surprised.


    The beard was longer now, but the angry brown eyes shone with an intensity the child had rarely seen in any other man. He was nothing more than lean muscle, and his cheeks were hollow. Dirty clothes were torn and scraped and browned across his dusty brown skin. A long angry cut shone across his chin, and one of his eyes was closed and bruised.


    "Rebert?" they asked. The child hadn''t seen the man for months, but it felt like much longer than that. A strange pang of guilt burned in their gut, and the child forgot that they had abandoned the man with Calk. But the Gnomen king hadn''t given them a choice.


    Rebert''s eyes narrowed in anger. "Arthael."


    They were about to respond, but one of the armored warriors moved up behind Rebert. They didn''t have time to warn him. So instead, their hand reacted on its own. Without even a thought, their hand reached towards their belt and withdrew a small knife from its sheath.


    Their hand shot out with tremendous speed, and the knife flew through the air to a small gap between the man''s helmet and chest plate. The child did not know of this vulnerability, but the man had worn the armor for years - and he knew it was one of the weaknesses of the impenetrable armor. A look of confused surprise crossed the man''s face as he fell to his knees and grasped his bleeding neck. Blood poured from his gauntleted hands, and he fell over onto his face into the dust of the barn.


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    Rebert looked at them wide-eyed, and he lowered his sword.


    "It''s me," they said. Rebert stared at them without saying a word. They couldn''t tell what he was thinking, but they didn''t have much time to talk. Frustrated, they reached for him, and he flinched back, bringing his sword back up in a swift guard.


    The child thought quickly back to their conversations, but everything seemed like a blur now. The few months of travel had become so distant amidst so much violence. They found it hard to remember what they had talked about or even what they knew about the man.


    And then, memories flashed through their mind of the salt and the sea, and of the foul-smelling wreck of a city that was Portsmouth. It was there that the memory of their lost family felt like an infected scab that they could not forget. The pain had only seemed to get worse and worse until the sun and sea took them away and soothed their pain.


    "You helped us get away," they whispered. The child remembered the feeling of debt they had to the man. "You didn''t listen to Roth."


    Rebert¡¯s eyes widened in recognition. He made a strange motion on his chest and mumbled something in his native Shinarin tongue. Then he opened his mouth to say something and closed it, as if he was not sure what he had been about to say in the first place.


    And then, a huge roar erupted from behind them. They turned to see Cleaver barreling into one of the warriors. A small sliver of hope emerged as they watched Cleaver hit the man in the face. But then they realized that it was none other than the king himself. The king held his ground, and his feet only slid back on the hard dirt floor. Somehow, the king had lost his huge hammer.


    Cleaver looked down at his fist as if he couldn¡¯t believe his eyes, which now seemed broken. Two of his fingers were crooked, and his knuckles seemed shattered. With a deep grunt, the king grabbed Cleaver by the neck and breeches and threw him. The nearly 8-foot giant of a man flew through the air with tremendous speed and crashed into the wall of the barn. The wood broke apart, and splinters went everywhere as Cleaver fell out of sight down the hill behind the barn.


    The child didn¡¯t know what to do, but the man knew this was his chance. He had long since learned now to hesitate when opportunity presented itself in the midst of a battle.


    They rushed forward and swung their own hammer with the full force of a trained paladin. The king seemed to sense the blow coming somehow, and he dove forward, rolling out of the way as their heavy hammer narrowly missed his body. He looked back at them, and for a split second, he only looked confused. Then he frowned. ¡°What madness is this, Arthael?¡±


    He was no longer Arthael. He was two parts of a half that had now become one. Without any difference or separation of thought, they decided their new name was Milthael - a direct melding, two parts of a whole, but a new whole nonetheless. A new person. Milthael felt a grin stretch across their lips as they took pride in their new name and their new identity as one.


    They enjoyed the emotions that played across the king¡¯s face. First, the king had seemed confused, then angry, and then confused again. The man¡¯s golden eyebrows finally settled into an angry frown, and then realization seemed to come over the king, and his eyes turned cold with hate.


    "Who are you?" His voice was quiet but thick with anger. Arthael had only heard the King speak in such a way once before. He knew that if he didn''t move quickly, the King would kill him.


    Milthael moved forward and swung his hammer, but the King dodged back. Before Milthael could move forward again, the King spoke a quick succession of words. The words seemed to vibrate in his throat, and his loud voice chimed and resonated in the air. Milthael''s hammer was stopped with a jarring force, as if it had hit a wall.


    The King held a thick strand of golden light. The child inside Milthael was entranced by the sight of it. There was a certain beauty in the magic as the light shimmered and spun an aura of multicolored light. But then the King dropped the strand and wove his hands together. Milthael tried to move as he recognized the spell the King was casting, but it was too late.


    There was a metallic snapping sound, and then a chain made out of golden light suddenly materialized in the King''s hand. He flung it at Milthael, and before he could react, his body was encased by a golden chain. He could feel the heat through his bone armor, sizzling and burning. The child inside him panicked, but the man was not worried. He knew even the King''s magic couldn''t penetrate the coveted Gnomen bone armor.


    The King flung his hands, and Milthael suddenly flew back into a wall of the barn. The wood of the wall nearly burst apart from the force of his body crashing into it, but somehow it held. Chains around his body crinkled and moved, and the light shifted. He realized that the chains of light had attached him to the wall, and he couldn''t move. The child wanted to panic, to squirm, to cry out in frustration. But the man knew none of that would help. And so, Milthael settled their nerves, stilled their breathing, and waited for what was to come.

 Chapter 36 - Year 1271

    Strung up on the wall, there was little they could do. The child pulled for their magic, and the man felt an unfamiliar cold shock run over their body - as if they had been submerged in ice. The feeling quickly retreated, and a thick nausea hit Milthael''s stomach, making them retch.


    The magic was still there. Milthael could feel it, but it was as if their connection to it had been severed. Suddenly, the power the child had wielded - with all of its terrible ability - felt more important than ever now that they had lost it. The loss of power for the child was disorienting, as if they had lost part of their mind. But there were also their friends, who were being slaughtered.


    The man''s calmness was gone, and the child''s confusion and disorientation became unbearable. Milthael - both the man and the child - strained and screamed in anger and pain, but they could not move. They could not do anything against the magical chains that held them fastened to the wall. They could not do anything to save their friends, and their power was gone.


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    Metal Arm was still alive. The child recognized the old wiry man. The stubborn old man threw himself at the King, swinging a double-bladed ax. It was a reckless chop born out of desperation, and the King didn''t have time to dodge it.


    But as the metal bit into the King''s armor, it was as if he had struck stone, and Metal Arm cried out as his arm bounced back and the ax in his hand went flying. The weapon came close to Milthael, and they winced as it ricocheted off the wall only a few inches from their face.


    Metal Arm looked to see where the ax had gone. For a moment, he frowned, but there was no recognition in his face. There was only panic and confusion now. There couldn''t be any recognition. The child''s body was dead on the floor, but Metal Arm didn''t know why their enemy was strung up on the wall. The King swung his huge hammer, and a moment before it hit Metal Arm, another man jumped in the way. Both men were hit and flung back with terrible force.


    Milthael screamed, filled with a rage they had never felt before. The man had forgotten what it was like to lose a friend, and the child had already lost too many. They flexed and pushed as hard as they could against the chains, but the magic held them, and there was nothing they could do.

 Chapter 37 - Year 1271

    The King looked around the room - once, twice - and then took off his helmet. For a long moment, he just stood there, looking at the carnage in the room. Dead bodies lay everywhere, with some 50 men cut down by only the King and his three paladins.


    He didn''t look happy or proud. His eyes were red and strained, as if he had been crying. He moved over to a small body on the floor, and Milthael realized it was Tuale. The boy had been stepped on in the battle. His face was crushed, and his body crumpled from the fight. The King sniffed, and tears could be seen falling from his angry red eyes.


    "Sire, should we pursue Cleaver?" One of the Paladins looked out through the huge hole in the side of the barn.


    The King didn''t look away from his dead son as he answered. "Track him down and bring him to me." The king bent down and picked up his son, then he looked at Milthael.


    "What have you done to him?" he asked.


    The question rang hollow in Milthael''s gut, and he barked out a short laugh. "Done to me?!" He pressed against the chains and snarled, spittle flying out of his mouth. "What have you done to me? What might I have become if you had not stripped me from my family and made me your slave?"


    The king tilted his head, and his eyes narrowed. "You will be freed from your service Arthael, by that have no doubt.¡±


    Milthael looked out at the huge crowd of people. There were more people gathered together on the steps than he had ever seen. Were there hundreds? Thousands? The crowd of people seemed to blur into the city itself. The sheer number of people made him feel dizzy. Then he realized what was happening. He was to be a spectacle for the church - and for a moment, his eyes seemed to unfocus as panic began to set in.


    He was still trapped by the magic of the king, held to a bar driven through a huge block of white stone. It stood at a man¡¯s height above the ground, in the center of the Palatian square. The crowd was completely silent as it waited for what the king had to say. They all stared at him, wondering what crime he had committed. Underneath him, he could see his king staring out at his people below. He seemed to stretch out the silence, reveling in the intensity of the moment.


    The king was no longer wearing his bone armor. Instead, he wore robes of bright blue, trimmed with gold. On his head, a crown full of diamonds glittered in the morning sun, and his white-blond hair was oiled slick into a tight ponytail. There was no sign of fatigue on his face, no sign of distress that the night before he had killed a score of men.


    ¡°Last night, we were attacked¡ªattacked by bandits, thieves, and murderers of the worst kind.¡± The king¡¯s voice rose and rose, and now anger bled into his voice. ¡°Cleaver the butcher was there, and he killed my son.¡±


    The crowd of people before them, once quiet, now became a crowd of whispers. Arthael no longer hated Cleaver, even if he had been seeing wanted posters for the man for years and many missions had failed in an attempt to track him down.


    But the child inside them hated him now. The child had feared the man known as Cleaver¡ªand even admired him. But he had gotten his father killed¡ªand that could not be forgiven. Tuale hadn¡¯t needed to die, and Cleaver had signed the warrant for their death with the slice of his knife.


    A deep sadness welled in his gut. They had lost another father. That was three. One had been taken, and two unjustly taken in battle. Milnas wondered at why his father had not done more to protect them. Not done more to protect himself. He was supposed to be the most powerful of them, and yet he had been slain as easily as any man.


    There was a small commotion as a man in front of the crowd wiggled his way out of sight and hurriedly pushed his way out of the crowd. Milthael only saw his face for a brief instant, but something about the man seemed familiar. He scanned the crowd quickly, but he could no longer find him. Were those green eyes?


    ¡°Did he deserve to die? Do any of you deserve to die?¡± The king spread out his hands. He hummed something softly, so quiet that Milthael almost didn¡¯t hear it, and then his hands began to glow with a soft golden light.


    ¡°We wield this power not to hurt, but to heal.¡± The King held up his hands, and a priest cloaked in blue robes brought a cripple forward in his arms.


    "Witness this diseased cripple being healed by the grace of the church!" The king placed his hands on the diseased cripple. The yellow glow in his hands dissipated into his flesh. The rotten flesh seemed to scab, then turn pink, and all traces of the horror that had afflicted his flesh were gone. The King picked up the cripple, and the cripple turned his head and grinned at them.


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    Calk was an old man again, but the feverish intensity, and the evil in his eyes was still there. A huge roar went through the mass of people as they witnessed the miracle. The king held him there for a long moment as the people wept in adulation. Then the king turned and set Calk on a chair. Milthael looked away. He didn''t want to see the smug look on the mage''s face that he knew he would find there.


    After a few moments, the people grew quiet again, and a restless energy wormed its way through the crowd when the King didn''t turn back to the crowd. Instead, he looked up to the Palace, as if he was admiring it on a fine day. And it was a fine day. Not a cloud in sight in the blue sky. Somehow, that bothered Milthael, as if the weather shouldn''t be so indifferent to his death. Finally, a cry shouted out, "What about the paladin? Why is he chained?"


    The King turned on his heel, as if he had just been waiting for the question. "You''ve seen what we can do. You''ve seen our power and how it can help all of you," the King shouted again, his magnified voice booming and resonating as if they were all in the largest of chambers, instead of outside in the heat of Mildor''s midday sun.


    The King looked at Milthael as if he was admiring a fine suit of armor. And perhaps that is just what he was to him. "You know how the paladins are created. They are picked and chosen from the people," he spread his hands to encompass the mass before him. "This man here is just a man. He is not royalty. His blood is the same as yours. And we gave him everything. Is it not the ultimate honor? The ultimate reward to be chosen by the church?"


    The crowd was quieter now than it had been all day. They hung on the king''s words, somehow knowing he wasn''t expecting an answer. "It was not his fault. But his soul was corrupted. His very nature was changed." The king walked up to Milthael and looked into his eyes. "This is not the man that once was. This is an abomination who needs to be cleansed.¡±


    The King turned swiftly back to the crowd. "You have witnessed our power to heal. You have seen me cure this poor man," he gestured to Calk and gave him a sympathetic look.


    "So today, I have gathered you before me not only to witness the power of our miracles but also to witness the power of our judgment."


    The King turned and made a small motion with his hands. Milthael heard movement behind him¡ªthe shuffling of heavy feet and the scraping of wood. It was as if someone was pushing something heavy.


    Milthael could not turn his head far enough to look, but he smelled burning metal, and an intense heat began to singe the back of his neck. A cold fear entered his gut and made his insides spasm.


    "This--thing, will serve as a reminder to what happens to those that seek to corrupt our holy institution!¡± The king waved his hand again, and then after a small moment, the world became a place of burning.


    The boiling liquid cascaded down his hair, burned his scalp, and seeped into his eyes. The pain widened his eyes in shock at its intensity. He gasped, and the thick, burning liquid metal entered his throat. It covered his neck, chest, groin, and legs. He began to cough and spit, struggling against the restraints that held him to the pole.


    He had trained his muscles for years--so that they were hard as the toughest stone. His lungs never seemed to empty, and yet he was powerless beneath the pain. The child within them panicked and reached for his magic--but like before, it was just out of their grasp, like the connection had been severed. Thinking became increasingly difficult as the burning consumed him. Both man and child were dying, and the entire city watched in silence as a beloved paladin--the most holy of warriors, was burned alive by more gold than they had ever seen in their lives.


    Nothing had come of the child''s life, and nothing had come of the man''s. The child had spent his first years happily, only to have everything taken away from him. Then, on a journey, he lost the only thing he had gained¡ªhis friends.


    In a brief moment of solace, the man and child''s consciousness mirrored each other, feeling the pain and suffering in the strange parallels of their existence. Arthael had also lost his family and had been forced onto a path without his consent, compelled to serve the church against his will. They had even stolen that in the end.


    But he had gained his freedom, and now it was cruelly snatched away, turning him into a mockery in front of the city he had sworn to protect. Maybe the child deserved the consequences of his actions. He had made a choice, even under pressure, but the man never had.


    But at that thought, something sprang into existence. In the deepest recesses of his mind, not yet consumed by the madness of the burning pain ravaging his body, a distant memory whispered. His deceased father had told him something. His magic came from the bridge between worlds. It was life that bestowed power upon his magic and shaped his abilities. Hope blossomed as the idea fully formed. Time was running out, with his breath held for too long, and once-familiar thoughts now felt sluggish and dull.


    The connection could not be bridged in his current state; he was no longer himself. It was now up to the child. He had always pulled himself into the other realm, drawing its power into himself and channeling its magic into the world.


    But now, he understood that he needed to push it away. So he exerted effort to push it away, and it grew more distant. Then, he pushed harder and harder until the connection snapped.


    His magic was launched into the air like an arrow, and he could feel its impact on a woman some hundred feet away. She felt nothing, as it was not an event of the world, but of the realm between worlds. A link had been forged, and life had begun anew.

 Chapter 38 - Year 1281

    Alkalis sat on the roof, looking out over the market. It was noon, the busiest part of the day. He was watching one of the women sell small pieces of metal and leather, intricate little pieces for horses. Something that went in the mouth. He knew the woman was his mother, but a few years ago she had cast  him out. She was scared of him. He didn¡¯t know why, but he didn¡¯t want to scare her. Perhaps all mothers were scared of their children. But he loved to watch her--to fantasize that she was still his mother.


    One day, he wanted to ride a horse--and maybe then his mother would not be afraid of him. The idea scared him, but he supposed that was part of the fun. However, he doubted he ever would. Only rich merchants or nobles owned them, and he was neither.


    The smell of cooking meat and pies wafted up to him, and his mouth watered. A baker was only twenty or so feet away, and he could see the glow of the oven as the baker pulled out fresh bread. Next to him was another man, slowly turning a metal rod with meat skewered through it. The meat sizzled over the coals as the fat dripped down.


    He sat there, enjoying the sun and the pleasant breeze. He didn''t have the meat or the fresh bread, but he was lucky enough to have a fresh apple. Without taking his eyes off the busy market, he bit into it and savored the sweet juice as it tickled his throat. His gaze wandered to the upper part of the city, the palatian quarters, stretching beyond the market.


    As always, his eyes were drawn to the figure of the golden man. The sun always seemed to catch it in a certain way, making the tall golden figure easily visible even from a distance. On days like these, it was hardest to resist going up to Palatian Square to get a closer look. The cool but sunny weather tickled his toes as he munched on his apple and stared up at the golden man.


    Before he could convince himself that the idea was bad or that he could get in trouble, he scrambled off the short roof of the shack and onto the ground.


    It didn''t take him long to reach the steps. He had strong legs, and he was used to running around the market and exploring the different streets. But now, as he looked up the steps to Palatian Square, a strange sense of dread filled the pit of his stomach, and he couldn''t figure out why.


    He was closer to the golden man than ever before. He could see that it was much different and even more of a spectacle than he had imagined. Up close, the man''s golden skin seemed to glow in the sunlight, and a distant part of him itched to get a sharp knife and carve off gold shavings to sell in the market. He figured he wasn''t the only one to think such a thought, but there wasn''t even a scratch on the man''s golden skin.


    Now that he was up close, he could see the golden man''s face, and what he saw there unsettled him. It appeared as though the man was in pain, as if he were screaming. His neck muscles bulged, and he seemed to be straining against something. Alkalis stared at it for several moments, and then he began to realize why he felt so strange.


    Had the golden man actually been a man? Was he more than just a strange golden statue meant to showcase the riches of the church? Alkalis couldn''t recall ever seeing a statue that looked so real, but he also couldn''t recall ever seeing a statue made out of gold either.


    How could it look so lifelike? The thick muscles of the man''s arms seemed to resist some form of restraint, and even the wrinkles of his tunic were defined and shadowed in the gold. Alkalis thought he could even see the outlines of a bulging vein.


    "Can I help you, son?" a voice interrupted his thoughts.


    Alkalis turned to see who it was, scared that it might be a guard. Instead, he saw an old man in white robes. The man''s face was wrinkled with age, but his friendly blue eyes and smile put him at ease.


    "I was..." His throat dried up, and no words would come out. He could only stare at the man as fear gripped his body. There was nothing about the man that seemed dangerous, but his very presence seemed to paralyze Alkalis. His skin turned cool, and a thick nausea overwhelmed him, making him want to gag.


    The man seemed to notice Alkalis''s discomfort and frowned. "Is everything okay, child?" He took a step towards Alkalis and reached out a hand. There was a coin in it.


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    ¡°Here child, let¡¯s play a game. Is the coin warm or cool?¡±


    Alkalis found the question odd, but he couldn¡¯t look away from the coin. It was as if it drew him to it, and he found himself reaching for it. But the man was quick, and he snatched his wrist.


    But the boy had been grabbed like that before by other boys on the streets who bullied him, and so he twisted his wrist and slid out of the old man¡¯s grasp. The man narrowed his eyes in surprise and lurched towards him, but Alkalis was fast and he skipped out of the man¡¯s reach.


    ¡°Come boy, if you play nice, you can keep it.¡± He held out the coin again, and again, he felt that pressure to touch the metal.


    He thought about reaching for it one more time to steal it from the man, but then an odd sensation came from the back of his neck. It was as if someone was watching him. He turned to look and there was no one but the golden man.


    The old man lunged and tackled the boy, and the wind was knocked out of him. Immediately he began to panic, and he bit the man¡¯s arm. The man yelped, and Alkalis scrambled up the steps.


    ¡°Fuck off you old prick!¡± He screamed, tasting blood in his mouth. And then again, the feeling came back--but this time much stronger. The hairs on his neck rose and he looked down at his elbow and he realized he was touching the golden man.


    The old man charged at him, and this time he knew that the man intended to really hurt him. But he was pressed up against the golden man, and there was nowhere to go.


    The boy panicked, and a shock went through his body, as if he had been plunged in the cold of a lake. The world immediately went quiet and the man who had been charging him turned into a small dull form. But there was intense light originating behind him, and he realized somehow he was casting a shadow that led down into the city.


    He turned and was immediately blinded. But there was no pain, only brightness--and the feeling he had before--of the golden man watching him, consumed him. It seemed to pull him closer and closer and he reached out a small glowing finger and touched the brightness.


    His mind began to shatter and divide, and then it began to crystallize. One life--his own, one--the life of a man, and then another-- the life of a boy his own age. It all came rushing back¡ªthirteen years as a boy, and fourty years as a man. Memories and pain and battles flooded into his mind like a stream released from a dam. Each memory ignited a chain reaction like gunpowder. Tastes, smells, thoughts, feelings, and memories of intense pain surged through his mind in an instant. And then as quickly as it had happened, the intensity of the brightness was gone, and he was alone. But now they knew where they were. And so they let go of the void.


    The old man was almost on them, and they reached for their magic, and there it was, as if it had always been there. The cold, otherworldly connection was just a thought away. It was no longer unfamiliar or a foreign thing to fear. It had been taken away before, and he had lost it, but now he realized he was no longer afraid. It was new to Alkalis, yet also familiar¡ªas if he had always known there was something he could do but had only just discovered his capability. The magic was no longer disconnected--and they were no longer trapped; the small bit of power had entered the world and bonded with flesh¡ªor rather, created the flesh and linked their souls, and they had been reborn.


    They held out a hand, and the void left it as if it had always wanted to be freed. Shadow and void streamed out--more powerful than it had ever been before and it swallowed the old man.


    The churchmen had once stolen his life from him, and now he was repaying the debt. The shadowy void ate at him--biting and tearing and consuming. His flesh melted as if blown away by the wind, and bone dissolved as if it was made into liquid that dried up in the air itself,  and after only a small moment, it was as if the old man had never existed.


    There was no joy in what they had done--but there was no guilt either. Although he had never seen the man before, through his own eyes, he knew the pain that man had caused, and would cause again. He simply could not afford to live any longer.


    The three of them--Alkalis, Arthael, and Milnas-- gazed out at the city before them, recalling the thousands of people who had watched them burn alive, the bloodshed and chaos of the barn where his friends were torn apart--and the companions who had left him to die. But it was not their fault. They had failed them, and they were all gone now-- and in his own way, they were gone too.


    They sniffed the air and caught the faintest hint of bread from the market¡ªAzish''s sweet bread. Alkalis could recognize it by the subtle, sweet aroma. However, the food no longer evoked the same feeling in him. Before, it made his mouth water, and obtaining even the smallest loaf seemed like the most important thing in the world. Now, he realized it was just bread, and there were better things out there in the unseen world he had glimpsed.


    The boy and the man within him had yearned for nothing more than a chance to live their own lives. They looked down at his small hands, hands that had never wielded a sword, hands without callused scars. Yet, they knew that if they were to pick up a sword¡ªif his boyish muscles allowed it¡ªit would not be Alkalis swinging it, but rather Arthael. Once, he had been the best blade in the world--and none had been his equal.


    But they did not wish to wield the sword once more--instead, they just wanted to go home.

 Epilogue

    The town had grown in size. Not by much, but it had transformed from a mere village pretending to be a town into a proper town. They glanced at the small shacks and the tavern, feeling the weight of someone''s gaze upon them. Had it really only been ten years since they had last been here?


    A man wandered onto the road. It was Arwale. The man stared at them once again. Before, Milnas had always found the man peculiar, and his oddness had unsettled him. But now, there was something familiar about the man. He had aged, with more wrinkles and a bald head. They waved at him, but the man simply continued to stare and did not acknowledge them. Despite the man¡¯s oddness, he found the man¡¯s sameness comforting. At least some part of his past had been left untainted. He left the small village and continued on down the road. The trees had grown bigger, and the road had been smoothed. He walked the familiar path back to his home that he had done so many times with his father.


    The boy Alkalis looked ahead at the clearing. He had never been there before. However, Milnas tasted the woody scent in the air, the smell of the grass, and he felt the warmth of the sun on his skin.


    Part of that boy had never imagined they would return, never believed he would want to return. And yet, he had always been curious. Curious to see what it would look like after so long, since he had been taken from his home. Curious because what he saw in Arthael¡¯s mind--which was now his own.


    They knocked at the door of the cottage--hoping and not wanting to find the answer. The house was largely unchanged--but it was older now, and in a slight state of disrepair. The wood had begun to rot, and the shingles on the roof were falling off. The flowers that had once been so carefully maintained had long since died and weeds surrounded the house. But the door still opened.


    Their gaze met that of a woman. For a moment they did not recognize her. Like Arwale, she had aged--but unlike him, his mother had aged harder. There were deep bags under her eyes, and crows feet creased her eyes as she squinted at him. Sadness rested deep in her eyes, and the look of her--once such a happy loving woman, broke them.


    They fell to their knees--as if burdened by a tremendous weight. And they were. The lifetimes of three people struggled under the harsh reality of the world.


    "What''s the matter, boy? Has someone hurt you?" The woman looked down at the small child, more confused than worried.


    They focused on their breathing and willed themselves to their feet. They would not let the church take this from them. Not this time.


    He had once hated Arthael--hated him with every ounce of his being, but now, all he could feel was love for him. Milnas saw the long years of suffering--the inability to move past the magical barriers in his mind that compelled him to loyalty. It should not have been possible for him to have such kindness left in his soul. Somehow a small sliver of it had survived. The church could not stamp all of it out of him.


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    The woman tried to place the small child. Something about him seemed familiar but she could not say what. A distant longing filled her heart as she thought of her own son.


    ¡°Milnas,¡± she whispered, not even knowing that she did, and a far away look came into her misty eyes.


    They moved forward slowly and put their arms around the skinny waist of the woman that had once been a mother to them. It would never be the same. It could not be the same, and they knew that she would never understand what had been done to them. They didn¡¯t want her to know. And they didn¡¯t need her to understand.


    Once they had wanted to flee from the church--they had wanted nothing more to come back and live the life that had been stolen from them.


    ¡°It¡¯s okay mother, I¡¯m back.¡± They said. And when they looked up into their mother¡¯s eyes, there was no recognition. She was here--and yet she was still gone. Without another word, they slowly pushed her back inside, and when she had laid down, they walked back outside and sat on the rotted porch.


    For years Arthael and Milnas had existed only within the void and they had accepted the outcome of their fate. They had mulled over the death of their first father for many long years. There was not much else to do in the quiet than think and observe the small glowing forms of life moving around them.


    ¡°Sharet¡±, Milnas tasted the name of his first father on their tongue. And then the second father.


    ¡°Theodmon.¡± He said. They had only known the strange elf for only a few weeks. Theodmon had died as easily as any man--and that was something they still did not understand. They kicked a small foot in the sand and wondered why he had not used his power. And then there were the others. Rebert. Cleaver. Most likely dead.


    And his only friends. Clidale. Shay. Most likely alive. He smiled a small little smile then. At least there was that.


    They took a deep breath and felt the familiar strangeness of the void closer than it had ever been--only a thought away to bring its power into the world of men. But then, something else.


    At first, they did not recognize it. They turned their head as if they heard a strange sound. A small sliver of light poured down from a gap in the loose shingle above their head.


    When they reached out their hand to it, the light seemed to float around their hand. Strange, they thought. The light played around their fingers and when they focused their eyes on the light, it curled into a little ball in their palm.


    That should not be possible. Arthael had only ever had the slightest inclination to the light magic--and he had only attained his status as paladin through sheer force of will. Controlling light, and bending it could only be done by the royal bloodline.


    And then, they began to laugh. The priest had been right to go after Alkalis. The woman who had once been their mother, just a random face in the crowd who had watched him tortured to death--who had abandoned them in the streets, was not just any woman. Somehow, she had slept with the king, and now, he was the king''s bastard.


    He held up the ball of light in his hand, and then instinctively, he flicked his fingers forward willing the light forward. It shot forward at an incredible speed and hit a tree in the distance. It was if a ballista bolt had struck the tree, as a huge chunk of wood was missing.


    For a long moment he sat there on the porch, watching the sun slowly melt from the sky. It seemed the church did not want to let him go after all...