Dinner turned out to be a simple fare, as one would expect with monks. I didn’t mind the thin soup with a single slice of rye bread, nor the weak ale. But it wasn’t the food that I had stayed for. During the meal, one of the monks would ascend to a lectern and recite passages from The Book of Ord. What was read usually involved something about how when Ord had been a mortal man he had endured privation and hunger without complaint as he led the Barbarian alliance east across the sea to Nephilim to fight against the Great Evil 800 or so years ago.

  Appreciate what you receive as complaints degrade Ord’s sacrifices. Or so I always interpreted the lesson.

  I sat and listened as I slowly ate my soup and watched Father Wolric, the head priest. I didn’t know all the details, but Wolric had once been an adventuring companion of my father in their younger years. He was a large, muscular man who could command a room even with a whisper. As I watched him, he watched the other monks. Father Wolric was considered by some to be a little too lenient with the rules of Ord’s church, but when it came to paying attention to the dinner sermon and appreciating one’s meal, he took rules very seriously and did not hesitate to admonish any young monk who did not finish every last drop of soup and every crumb of bread.

  On some nights, as he did now, he invited those monks who possessed the Chanter class to sing. Currently six in all, the monks would gather before the lectern and chant in the old language of the First Era hymns honoring Ord. When they did the relaxing sound had an added benefit.

  I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, the mana swirling about me, stirred by the Chanter’s power. I could feel it enter me, strengthening my mind and heightening my awareness. Had I possessed a Class, I might have seen those bonuses take effect in what I suspected were additional attribute points via the magical Soul Windows only class holders could see. Alas, until I unlocked the Merchant class, I could only guess at what the Chanter’s magic was doing to me. I only knew that I liked it…and envied it too.

  The Church of Saint Ioven had been named for a Saint who had died in the Holy Lands during the Second Crusade. Its dark bricked edifice was located near the southeastern gate of the city of Ordheim and old Celemor Hill graveyard. The graveyard was filled with overgrown headstones and weather worn tombs that had borne silent witness to the passage of centuries. It was silent, drab and had made me feel uneasy ever since the first time I had laid eyes upon it. Doubly so tonight as I shouldered my satchel and started the trek back to the Duke’s Citadel.

  I decided to cut through Celemor Hill to reach the main road, rather than walk around the perimeter of the graveyard which would have added at least an hour to my trek. I had spent longer than I’d planned listening to the Chanters and now night was swiftly falling upon Ordheim and soon it would be darker than I was used to for walking home alone. Fifteen years old or not, Ordheim still had its share of dangers even for adults. Footpads, pickpockets and Ord knew what else if you believed the whispers. Things that emerged from the sewers at night and so forth. Still, I had turned down having an escort and knew my route. Besides, I was older and wiser than people knew and I had a small manastone to light my way. A rare item, manastones, but a welcome one as the shadows deepened as I hurriedly made my way through the graveyard.

  I was too focused upon not tripping on the old stones to notice that a fog was beginning to slowly surround me from all sides. That, and the fact that I was distracted wondering if I would ever again be allowed near Brother Curamil’s brewing cauldron. I had ruined a few of his Potions of Fertile Growth days earlier. I have never taken to Alchemy, but thankfully it isn’t a necessity for the Merchant class, just a helpful skill to have when actually selling and pricing potions.

  I drew the hood of my cloak over my head as a light rain began to fall. The air was crisp for the month of Apren. Winter was not yet ready to release her grasp upon northern Aramyr, where the Duchy of Ordheim hugs the coast of the Orichalcum Sea. I finally took a moment to look around. The graveyard’s headstones seemed to float upon a sea of fog and I was in the middle of it.

  I swallowed. Nervous energy made my hands tremble. Thank the Gods it was normal fog and not the purplish miasma that signified a Shadowmurk outbreak! There were things in this world that I had not as yet been exposed to and was in no hurry to experience. Then, as I started moving forward, I stepped upon something that screeched and scampered way. With a cry of surprise I stumbled and fell onto my side, banging my right knee.

  “Damnation!” I swore. I heard something crinkle as I rolled onto my rear to rub my injured knee. Ord’s mercy, it sounded like glass breaking. I reached into the pocket located in the inner lining of my cloak and felt sharp edges. Gingerly, I removed what I had found.

  “Oh no!” I groaned. I recognized it immediately. I had forgotten to return the Stone of Clairvoyance to Brother Obel and now I had broken it! “Well, that’s a whole silver I owe you, Brother. I suppose I should be grateful there isn’t a Dungeon break happening or I would be several silver more sorry!”

  I allowed the shards to fall from my hand to the foggy ground, but then I gasped as a blue light flickered beneath my feet then slowly traced a path through the fog. My accident had activated the magic of the stone.

  “It must be leading me home. Ha! A spot of good fortune then.” It had grown darker far faster than I expected and with the fog surrounding me it lent an eerie atmosphere to the graveyard. What had I been thinking taking this shortcut? No matter. “Lead on then,” I muttered. I walked a bit further, following the magic’s winding path. Why did it not follow a straight line? Not to avoid any of the tombstones, for I nearly tripped again over several. The gate which led out of the graveyard was close, I was certain.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  I could hear nothing save the sound of my own breathing and the soft patter of raindrops upon the hood of my cloak. I was the only one out. Celemor Hill was not a popular place even on a good day, nor was the southeastern part of Ordheim it was located in. It had been a high end area well over a century ago, or so I had heard, but those days were long gone and if one wanted shops and decent restaurants one headed into the more westerly neighborhoods. Still, I was sorry to not see a monk or two blessing the graves or puttering about. A lamplighter lighting the street lamps (those still serviceable) upon the road should have been visible even from here at this hour. If I could have seen them through the fog, that is.

  I increased my pace, doing my best to avoid root and stone. I was used to being on my own, so I wasn’t really frightened. I found an old, wrought iron fence that surrounded one particular tomb whose door was open. Strange. Doors like these were typically sealed tightly to discourage grave robbers. The light led inside. Was that what I was dealing with? Not a route home, but into the arms of thieves hoping to rob the ancient dead of their trinkets? I abhor such blasphemy! I leaned closer to the fence.

  The metal of the fence was ice cold beneath my fingers and I hissed in pain when I grasped them to lean closer for a better look inside, the thickness of the fog only allowing me to see a few yards ahead. My breath came out in a cloud as if it were the middle of Decekaras rather than Apren. I put a hand through the bars and took note that the chill only existed within the area of the tomb itself. I felt the cold travel from my fingers to my spine and I shivered.

  Go in. A voice whispered in my mind.

  “I would rather not,” I whispered back. I am not brave, I admit it. As the son of a Duke I have grown up in privilege. Guards patrol our castle upon the tor overlooking the rest of the city beneath and the sea behind. It is a well protected Citadel. The first several years of my life I had rarely needed to venture outside. Every need was brought directly to me: tutors, entertainment, food. My parents would sometimes host visiting nobles from the other duchies, so I would be exposed to different people regularly. I did not lack for activities. My exposure to this strange new world of magic, however, was limited. My knowledge of other races and the expansive lists of beasts that populate Araymyr were mostly just pictures in books.

  So why then was I moving off the path toward the gate that led into the old tomb? Why am I now opening that gate? Listening to the hinges whine in protest like a disturbed cat? I do not seek adventure. I do not want to know where the stone’s light is taking me anymore.

  My hands shook as I entered the tomb proper, and I involuntary jumped as the gate clicked shut behind me. Sound felt muted. My teeth chattered, and not just from the unnatural cold. The mist was thicker this side of the fence too. Smaller headstones, likely belonging to servants who had served whatever family this tomb belonged to, were just barely visible.

  By my father’s order, I have some training with a sword, but my skill is abysmally low and I have never taken to it. Still, I wished I had some weapon in my hand, but only just in case you understand. I don’t think I could ever cut into someone. Ghastly! My brother Alaric is the warrior, not I.

  I moved as quietly as possible around the tomb, its white marble cracked with age. Vines sprouted from those cracks, telling the story that the tomb was long abandoned and whatever family it had once belonged to had long since died out. Now that I was closer, I could see the tomb door was so old and rusted that at some point a hinge had broken off. This explained why the door now hung ajar. Looking within, I saw the end of the blue light’s path. The magical light hovered just above a rectangular sarcophagus dead center of the room.

  “Can an enchanted item be faulty?” If that were true I would have learned it by now, so I doubted it. “The stone leads you to where you need to go. For what purpose was I led here? What can I possibly need from here?”

  Go in!

  “Are you out of your mind?” I whispered to the annoying voice in my head. I went in anyway. For the first time in my second life, I felt like I was on the cusp of a revelation. Why was I really here? Why had the divine being deposited me upon Aramyr?

  I approached the dais. The end of the spell’s path was the sarcophagus itself. I observed the blue light floating above the stone lid like a stationary candle flame burning without wick or oil. It seemed to burn brighter at my approach. I reached out a hand to touch it, but then thought better of it. Instead, I inspected the stone slab it floated above.

  It bore neither name nor inscription. Instead, a series of runes flickered in the light as if they had been etched with gem dust. I blinked. One would expect a sarcophagus this old to be covered in a thick film of dust, cobwebs and the debris of time. Yet, the marble was smooth and clean as if it had only just been wiped down. Had one of the Brothers been here recently?

  I looked around the room and saw only what one would expect to see. Even behind me, my own footsteps were obvious as they had disturbed the dust of years, if not decades. Nobody else had set foot here in a long time. Whose family tomb was this?

  Celemor Hill’s tombs were older than Ordheim. An ancestor of mine founded the city almost six hundred years ago after the conclusion of the Second Crusade. It had begun as little more than a fishing village. Even before that, humans had been living in this area for centuries and Celemor’s Hill had been a burial ground even then, which was one of the reasons people were no longer buried here. Beneath the tombs and graves far below were catacombs and undercrofts once used by ancient tribes of humans from the First Era. Disturbing those places was considered taboo.

  When nothing in the tomb revealed which noble house the tomb had belonged to, I gave up and turned back to the sarcophagus.

  I focused upon the glittering runes. They were laid out in a series of interconnected circles that, if one looked closely, were actually tiny letters written in a runic language I did not know. I should note that one of the hardest things about being reborn in Aramyr was learning to read and write a new language. I was able to pick up speaking it without issue, but learning to write a runic language is difficult. I got it eventually and moved on to Dwarven, the written language these runes reminded me of initially. As they are a race of savvy merchants, my father had insisted upon Dwarven being a part of my curriculum. Currently, I am working on Elvish. Curse their pointy eared, heretical hides.

  I felt frustrated I could not understand what I was looking at as I examined the runic lettering. That is, until I saw a word hidden amongst the runes that was not runic. Looking closer, the word had been etched along the inside of one of the circles as a part of what, one would assume, was an artistic flourish. Easy to disregard, that is, if one didn’t recognize it as a language from another world.

  ACCESS

  “Access?” My lips stumbled upon a word I knew and understood, yet was now uttering for the very first time upon Aramyr in the language of my previous life. Something happened. The blue flame flickered once above me, then sank down and settled directly onto the etched ‘Access’ word and spread along the circular path of runes lighting each in turn until it stopped before another word I understood.

  PROGRAM

  “Program?” The runes began to light once more along their circular path, spreading uniformly across the sarcophagus. The stone coffin now glowed brightly enough to light the interior of the tomb entirely. My heart was beating rapidly within my chest. What was this magic and what connection did it have to my former world?

  I should have been afraid. I am no adventurer. I haven’t a Class like Alaric. I am a powerless boy who has stumbled across something likely better left to more knowledgeable folk. Yet, the magic had led me here and I wanted to know why.

  “Great Ord, guide me,” I whispered. There were only a few runes left to light and as expected they stopped before a final word I recognized. INITIATE. I licked my dry lips and took a deep breath.

  “I am going to have some explaining to do on why I was home late today.”

  ”Initiate!”