Maxwell

  “We pressed deeper today, though I no longer know what compels us forward. Duty? Pride? Madness? Perhaps only the cruel momentum of a decision too far gone to be undone.

  The Darkenlands shift beneath our feet. Valleys we crossed yesterday are gone this morning, replaced by jagged hills of bone-white stone. The sky bleeds in colors I have no words for. It feels as though the world rearranges itself when we are not looking, as though we are rats running a maze for some unseen master.

  Regulus has taken ill. His skin is clammy, his lips cracked and blackened. He insists it is nothing, yet I have seen him scratching strange markings into the dirt when he thinks no one watches. Spirals, runes, symbols that make my head ache to behold. Cynthia has threatened to kill him if he does not stop, though her threat seemed more weary than earnest.

  Athelos... Gods, what remains of Athelos? He stands taller than the rest, unbent in body, but his mind is breaking. He whispered to me last night: “The wall never ended. We never crossed.” I could not answer him, for a part of me fears he may be right.

  I tell myself this is the burden of leadership, that all captains must carry their men’s fraying minds along with their own. But in the stillness, when the wind dies and the land groans like a wounded beast, I hear another voice. It whispers that I have led them into damnation. That each step brings not salvation for mankind, but chains for us all.

  Sarah, if my words should ever find you... know that I marched not from strength, but from weakness. I feared the end of all, yes, but more than that, I feared being powerless before it. Now, I see there are fates worse than powerlessness.

  Perhaps it is not the Corrupted One who is ensnared here. Perhaps it is us.” - Writings of the Sword-Saint, 2156 Post-Separation (PS).

  The world was ash and whispers.

  We stumbled through the ruins of Fogveil’s lower levels, a trio of ghosts haunted by the specter of a battle that yet echoed in our minds. Every snapped twig sounded like the crackle of flame on swaddling cloth. Every gust of wind carried the phantom scent of charred meat. I supported Amelie, her weight a fragile burden, her silence a chasm deeper than the grave. She wept without tears, her body trembling with silent, racking sobs that shook us both.

  To my other side, Cliff leaned heavily on his own resolve, his breathing a harsh, ragged counterpoint to Amelie’s grief. Blood seeped through the crude bandages on my arms, a dull, throbbing pain that was nothing compared to the sharp agony in my heart.

  “This way,” Cliff rasped, his voice like gravel. He pointed with his chin toward a fissure at the base of one of the colossal trees, a dark mouth promising shelter from the oppressive mist. “Deeper. The fog is thinner here.”

  Amelie flinched at the word ‘deeper,’ a broken sound catching in her throat. She buried her face in my shoulder, hiding from a world that had demanded too much. I could feel her despair, a cold weight that threatened to pull us all down into the abyss.

  The Mistmother’s presence was a constant pressure at the back of my mind, a low hum of measured rage. I did not dare look up, terrified I would meet her gaze again and lose what little remained of me. We were insects fleeing a god’s garden, and I could feel her disappointment like an icy grasp upon my soul.

  The cave was our salvation. The entrance was a jagged mouth in ancient bark and stone, promising a respite from the all-seeing fog. The air inside was blessedly still, blessedly silent.

  We spent what felt like months in that hollow, though I suspected it was no more than a couple days. Time had lost its meaning, measured only in the slow mending of our wounds and the even slower retreat of our shared horror. We slept in exhausted heaps, huddled together for warmth against the damp chill. We spoke little, for there were no words sufficient to mend what had been broken. I would wake from fitful nightmares to the sound of Amelie crying in her sleep, and Cliff, sitting vigil by the entrance, his blue eyes staring into a darkness only he could see.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, we pieced ourselves back together. The physical wounds were the first to heal. The others, I knew, would scar over but never truly fade. By the third morning, Amelie’s sobs had subsided into a profound, unnerving quiet. Cliff’s movements were less pained, more deliberate. And I... I felt older. The boy who had been scared of a serpent in his dreams felt like a stranger from another lifetime.

  It was Cliff who finally broke the long silence. “We move at dawn,” he had said, his voice rough but clear. “East. Away from this cursed place.”

  There were no arguments. There was only the quiet acceptance of those who had seen hell, and lived to suffer its burns.

  And so we traveled. For days, the world was a blur of green and grey. We hunted, we made camp, and we walked, bound by a silent pact forged in the ashes of Fogveil. The ghosts walked with us, but with each rising sun, their whispers grew a little fainter. We were moving forward, because there was no other direction to go in.

  At last, we broke free of the Mistmother’s domain. Once more we saw gentle hills that lay unobscured, without the slightest trace of fog about them. It was a stark contrast to the mist-choked woods we had emerged from, one that would perhaps have called for celebrations, were we not so broken in spirit and soul.

  As day bled over into evening, and the length of our walk started to wear on us, we decided to make camp near the bank of a small lake. It was a picturesque spot overlooking blue-green waters, nicely shaded by the leaves of a great oaken tree. The remains of an old campfire sat abandoned at its base, surrounded by various logs and tree stumps, indicating that others had passed through here in the not-so-distant past.

  No sooner had we settled down than Amelie excused herself to venture down to the water, leaving me and Cliff with the task of cooking up a meal. As we had already hunted and dressed a deer earlier that day, the work consisted mostly of lighting a fire and setting up the necessary equipment. Cliff set about procuring firewood with the practiced ease of someone who had done it a million times before, whilst I took a seat on one of the logs to rest my weary legs.

  It did not take long before uncertainty and doubt yet again began to cloud my thoughts, spurred on by the lack of labor and distraction. It soon reached a point where I could not contain it to the confines of my mind any longer, and so I aired my frustrations to Cliff, hoping against hope that he could provide some manner of comfort.

  “What am I doing here, Cliff?” I sighed, letting my head drop into my hands. “I’m not cut out for this.”

  His ministrations with the firewood came to a halt, as sapphire eyes lifted to regard my defeated visage.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Where else are you supposed to be?”

  Home. With my mom, and my friends. In my own world.

  I did not give voice to the thought.

  “I... don’t know,” I said instead, somewhat reluctantly. “Just... not here. It’s too much. All of it. It’s just too much. I’m not... I’m not strong enough to take it.”

  “You are,” he said. “If you weren’t, you’d be dead by now.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” I said, the ice in my chest growing colder still. “The only reason I’m still alive, and not buried in a shallow grave, is Amelie. She’s done so much to protect me. To keep me safe. And now that she is hurting... I have nothing to offer her. No comfort to provide. I’m just... dead weight, dragging her down.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Cliff said, resuming work on the fire. “If things truly were as you envision them, she would’ve left you a long time ago. Amelie is... pragmatic, in that way. She doesn’t waste time on things that don’t interest her.”

  A moment of silence passed as I considered this.

  “You can’t be sure of that,” I said, resenting the hint of desperation that crept in among my words.

  “Well, I am,” he said, taking a step back from the neatly-arranged assortment of logs to inspect his handiwork. Seemingly satisfied, he made to open his pack, before catching himself and sending me a knowing look. “Care to get this for me?”

  “Huh? Oh, right. Sure,” I said, holding out my hand towards the logs, and closing my eyes. Within seconds, the immaterial came into focus before my mind’s eye, as it sought the plentiful Astra imbued in the nature around us. Unlike in Fogveil, the energy in this place was untainted and pure, and thus easy to manipulate.

  Calling out to it, I allowed a small fraction to flow through me. A sharp breath escaped my lips as I felt my internal organs submerged in a sea of divine ether, setting my blood ablaze. Opening my eyes again, I focused on the fire pit, and snapped my fingers. A moment later, the wood went up in flames, the fire coming alive with an audible roar as it licked the side of the logs with ferocity.

  “Impressive,” Cliff said. “I’ve seen even experienced Wielders mess that up before.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling the leftover dregs of power seep from my skin. It was astonishing how tiresome Wielding could be on the body, even in such small quantities. “I’ve had a good teacher.”

  “Now that, I don’t doubt,” Cliff said as he got seated on a nearby tree stump. “I’ve seen firsthand what Amelie is capable of. Her control is remarkable.”

  We sat in silence for a while, staring into the flames, lost in our respective thoughts. Above us, the sun bled out upon the horizon, casting golden rays that filtered through the leaves and set the shadows to dancing. So lost was I in my reverie that I ceased to notice Amelie’s absence, and how she had yet to return from the lake.

  In time, the darkening sky inspired action in Cliff, and he rose to fetch the meat we had prepared earlier. By the time he got back, a contemplative look had settled on his features.

  “I think I’ll tell you a story,” he said, as he worked to prepare dinner. “I’m not much of a storyteller mind you, but I think you’ll like it.”

  I gave a noncommittal shrug in response. I would not mind a good fable as we waited. In truth, I was grateful for any distraction.

  Once Cliff had made the necessary preparations, and the deer meat was sizzling nicely on the crudely-constructed wooden spit that hung suspended above the flames, he went back to his tree stump again, and made ready to tell his tale.

  “A long time ago, there was a boy who felt utterly lost in the world,” he began. “Abandoned by his mother and scorned by his father, he struck out on his own at a tender age, leaving behind the meager life he had lived up until then. Though the thought of braving the unknown scared him, he found the idea of staying with his father equally terrifying, for the man had a temper on him that could rival a daemon on its best day. And thus, motivated by a fierce desire to escape, he packed up what few belongings he had and set out on the open road, with no particular destination nor goal in mind.

  Being a young boy of twelve, he was not yet learned in the ways of the world, and possessed only the simplest understanding of survival in the wild. As such, those first weeks on his own were harsh, with long days on the road followed by cold nights pressed up against rocky outcroppings, huddled beneath a blanket. It was not before a week had passed that he managed to light his first fire, offering warmth and protection against the chill of the night.

  During this period, they boy lived off of whatever he could forage from the wild, as hunting animals lay well outside the range of his capabilities. He drank water from ponds and streams without boiling it, ignorant of the risks of sickness, and suffered greatly as a consequence. He ate strange berries from bushes that more seasoned travelers would know to avoid, and spent nights thrashing and writhing under the weight of mind-rending fever, as what meagre meals he had consumed ran through his intestines like liquid. Once, he even attempted to eat a patch of tar-top mushrooms raw, which is something most anyone would be able to tell you is a tremendously bad idea.

  The following bout of illness would have killed him, had it not been for the help of a kind-hearted merchant, who happened upon the boy face-down on the side of the road in a pool of his own vomit.

  And so it was that the boy learned the first of what would later become his Five Lessons - that the wild was so named for a reason, and that nature is largely indifferent to your survival, despite your best wishes to the opposite.

  After a couple of days spent in fitful rest, the boy recovered, and thanked the merchant incessantly for his aid. The young trader was an enterprising fellow who had been braving the roads for some time, building up a respectable reservoir of funds to supply further trading excursions. Now, he was looking to make one of his most ambitious journeys yet: to trade silks and wine produced in the Free City of Hilfen to the rich aristocracy in Benadiel. Along the way, he would stop at smaller settlements and villages, to trade more household goods with the commonfolk. Wares like salt, cheese, coffee and beans.

  Upon learning this, the boy took a moment to consider his own situation, before he arrived at the only sensible course of action. He promptly went to his knees, and begged the merchant to let him come with, as life on his own had been hard and unforgiving. Luckily enough, the merchant took pity on him, and allowed him to ride with to Benadiel, granted he serve the merchant as manservant and aide along the way.

  And so it was that the boy found himself traveling with Alistair Baldec, the merchant legend who would later go on to establish the Baldec Menagerie: the largest delivery and postal service guild in Alwaar.

  His time with Alistair was a happy one, as the two got along like brothers. He learned much from the merchant, who had traveled a great many miles in his life and thus accumulated an impressive collection of stories and geographical know-how of the surrounding areas. The boy also met with a wide assortment of people living in the different villages they stopped at along the way, and got to witness firsthand the artistry and mercantile prowess of Alistair, who was gifted in the ways of speech and persuasion.

  At night, the two shared delectable meals over the campfire as Alistair told the boy stories and tales taken from his collection. He told him of Targan the Unyielding, and how he single-handedly faced down an entire platoon of soldiers to defend his village from invading forces. He told him of the Seductress of Carthal, who charmed men with her stunning looks and alluring personality, only to rob them of their wealth and leave them heartbroken and impoverished. And he told him of Illiard the Romantic, the bard who fell in love with a Faerie princess living in Mistweave Forest, who eventually slit his own throat in order to imbue his soul in the harp she carried with her at all times, so that they may never again be separated by her disapproving family.

  The boy did not know how much of these tales was truth, and how much was fiction, but it mattered little. They were captivating all the same, and filled his head with vision of places both magical and ghastly.

  And so it was that the boy learned the second of what would later become his Five Lessons - that you should never underestimate the value of happy times spent in good company, and the wonders it can work upon your heart.”

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  At this point in the story, Cliff took a break to eat some of the meat he had cooked on the flames. I ruminated upon all that I had heard, thinking of the boy and how he must have felt. Suddenly, a question formed in my mind, one that struck a discordant tone with what I knew of Alwaar.

  “Wait... You told me that the boy survived on his own before he met the merchant,” I said, furrowing my brows. “And that he didn’t have any notable survival skills to speak of. So how did he survive the Husknights? He must have endured a great many during his time alone.”

  “Oh,” Cliff said in-between bites. “This happened a long time ago, before Husks became the plague they are today.”

  A prolonged silence followed in the wake of his statement. Then, without preamble, I let slip a sound halfway between a gasp and a cough. So great was my surprise that I could not hope to contain it.

  “What?! You mean to tell me that-”

  “There weren’t always Husks, no,” he nodded, finishing my sentence for me. “The first Husk appeared roughly four hundred and twenty years ago. Prior to that, no man had to contend with their wickedness. As such, we refer to those times as the Halcyon Years.”

  I offered no reply, as my mind worked to consider the implications of this information.

  “It’s a sobering thought, isn’t it?” Cliff said, noticing my expression. “To imagine how different life must have been back then.”

  I nodded my assent. An Alwaar free of the Husks... it seemed an impossibility. Everything I had learned about Alwaarian culture since my arrival here pointed to a society constructed around a single guiding principle: survival. To live on with some measure of normalcy in a world abandoned by its creator. To thrive in the face of extinction, to stand against overwhelming odds.

  It was too much to consider in a single evening. And so I chose to let the information simmer in the back of my mind instead, and motioned for Cliff to continue with his story.

  He took a sip from his canteen, and cleared his throat.

  “As weeks bled over into months, and the summer green gave way to autumn yellow, the duo arrived at the second-to-last stop on their journey to Benadiel. This was the last village Alistair planned to trade in before entering the city proper, but due to surprising demand at previous stops, his stock of goods had been greatly diminished, and so there was little left for the citizens of Talberg.

  It was here that, following an hour of passionate haggling and other such commerce- related proceedings, the boy became witness to his first ever public execution.

  A woman no older than twenty summers at the most had been dragged out by an angry mob, to stand trial before the village on charges of adultery and infidelity. Her husband, the local innkeeper, had supposedly stumbled upon her and another man having intimate relations in one of the guest bedrooms of the inn. Outraged, he had put the philanderer to the sword, before taking his wife to the bailiff. Now, he was demanding a stoning for the woman, claiming that she was possessed of an evil daemon that would drive her to commit further indecencies.

  The woman, on the other hand, professed her innocence, and claimed that no such thing had taken place. Rather, it was her husband who was at fault, as he had come home drunk from a lively night out, and proceeded to row with a younger man they had hired to tend to their property. The argument had grown heated, and in a fit of blind rage, the husband had reached for his sword and driven it straight through the young man's neck. According to the woman, he now sought to lay the blame on her to escape the consequences of his actions, and had thus concocted a story of infidelity and righteous punishment.

  She told them this with tears in her eyes and honesty in her voice. Alas, it was clear who the crowd was siding with. They had already cast their lot with the husband, and would not be swayed from their belief, no matter the facts of the situation. For they were starved for entertainment, and had bloodlust coursing through their veins.

  The woman begged and pleaded, wept and sobbed. But it fell on deaf ears, as the crowd stripped her of her clothes, rendering her naked and exposed on the ground. And then, they threw stones at her, leering smiles on their faces.

  The woman died screaming, cuts of red being torn into her flesh by the relentless hail of rocks. The boy had to avert his eyes at the sight. He had seen much cruelty in his life, but never such relentless barbarity, fueled by bloodlust.

  Later that night, as he lay on the back of Alistair's wagon, unable to sleep, a powerful compulsion suddenly gripped him, and he rose again to go look for the husband. He found him in the outskirts of the village, seated around a campfire with some companions, drinking and laughing merrily. The boy hid amongst some bushes to eavesdrop on their conversation, and it did not take long for the husband to confirm his suspicions.

  "At last, the bitch is dead," he said, grinning ruefully. "My only regret is that I did not think of it sooner, as I would have been rid of her and her thrice-damned family a long time ago!"

  Upon hearing this, a dreadful anger woke to life in the boy, and he felt terrible purpose awaken in his chest. He waited until the men had fallen asleep before leaving his hiding place, coming up on the husband who was snoring loudly next to his friends. There, he retrieved his hunting knife, and used it to slit the man's throat, taking great satisfaction in the feeling of justice well-served, wrought in the warm blood gushing over his hands as the man died in his arms.

  And so it was that the boy learned the third of what would later become his Five Lessons - that some men harbor nothing but wickedness in their hearts, and thus deserve nothing but cold steel, to rid the world of their corruption.

  The body of the husband was discovered by his companions the following morning. The bailiff was called, accusations were made, and an investigation started. By the time the sun had reached its zenith, half the town had been called in for questioning. Even Alistair was forced to give testimony of his whereabouts the night prior, a testimony that the boy corroborated with the earnestness of a natural-born liar. In all the hubbub, no one bothered to ask him for his own alibi at the time of the murder. After all, how likely was it that the killer would be a young boy from out of town with no connection to either of the two parties?

  Alistair and the boy left the village that same day, packing up their things and setting course for Benadiel. Despite the appalling nature of the act he had committed, the boy felt neither regret nor anguish. The man had deserved to die. That was all there was to it. Just as one would not weep for a murderer facing the gallows, the boy would spill no tears for the one who had condemned his own wife to death.

  The two traveled in silence, their minds adrift in brown study. It was not before they approached the gates of Benadiel the following day that Alistair finally shook himself from his reverie, and told the boy to help him unload his wares from the wagon. At first, the boy was confused by the request. Surely they needed the wares brought into the city, and not dumped on the ground outside its walls? But then, he noticed other merchants doing the same thing further up the row of wagons. And soon thereafter, he saw the armed contingent of guards patrolling the road, interrogating the merchants and inspecting their goods as they went.

  Once the two were finished unloading their silks and wine, the boy asked Alistair why they were being scrutinized so closely by the guards. Alistair explained to him that nary a month prior, an unassuming merchant had rolled through the gates unimpeded, and parked his wagon near the busiest section of the trade district. There, he had left it unattended, and walked right back out the same way he came, much to the confusion of the guards. Ten minutes later, the wagon had exploded in a plume of blue flame, killing three dozen people and setting fire to nearby buildings.

  Nobody knew why the unknown merchant had done this. There had been no calling card, no declaration of intent nor blackmail letter. For all intents and purposes, it seemed nothing but an act of wanton violence, enacted upon the citizens of Benadiel. The guards also failed to apprehend the merchant, as they had not made the connection between him and the explosion before several hours after the fact - at which point, the man was long gone.

  As such, the Lord of Benadiel had now imposed a strict inspection policy upon any and all merchants looking to trade in his city. This slowed things down considerably for all parties involved, but was largely deemed a good precaution by most of the citizenry, as very few wanted a repeat of what had now come to be known as Blue Foeden.

  The guards worked their way down the row of wagons, but it was slow going. They were being insufferably thorough with every inspection, and would make a point of rifling through all the contents of every potato sack and radish basket. At last, they came to the wagon in front of Alistair’s, which was helmed by an old man who needed a walking stick to support himself as he stood. The boy could tell by their shift in demeanor that the guards did not view him as much of a threat. Their posture grew relaxed, the grip on their spears slackened. The man nodded amicably to himself as they went through his cart of wolfskin pelts.

  Then, suddenly, one of the guards perked up. He had found something hidden in-between the layers of pelt, something that was not supposed to be there. Holding it up, he revealed the foreign item to the sunlight.

  It was a glass bottle, containing a dark-brown liquid. Alcohol. Rum. The old man was attempting to smuggle undeclared drink into the city.

  At once, the guards readied their weapons, training them upon the transgressor. The old man, however, merely smiled, and ran a hand through his grey beard. Then, he said something, but it was not normal speech. At a distance, the boy thought it more akin to a bestial growl than words.

  The effect was instant. All three of the guards slumped their shoulders, letting their spears fall away. When they turned around, the boy saw carefree smiles on their faces, and eyes that seemed to behold nothing much of anything. They trodded away from the man and down to Alistair, who was next in line and watching the spectacle unfold with a pale-faced expression.

  The following inspection was sloppy, and careless. Nary a glance was cast at the goods in their wagon, and the questions posed were superficial and easily countered. It was clear to any with a lick of sense that the men were not in their right mind - but Alistair, ever the merchant, was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So when the guards waved them past, he sent them a charming smile and spurred the horses, ignoring his unspoken obligation to inform the others of what had befallen them.

  And so it was that the boy learned the fourth of what would later become his Five Lessons - that appearances can most certainly be deceiving, and that due diligence is a virtue overlooked at your own peril.

  Once inside the city gates, the boy at last parted ways with Alistair, after a round of heartfelt thank yous and bittersweet goodbyes. The merchant even gave him a small pouch of coins for his troubles, eleven lesser and one standard, before wishing him luck on his travels. A pittance if judged from the perspective of a mercenary or traditional aide, but to the boy, it was more money than he had ever had to his name, and so he left the trade feeling like the richest man in the world.

  The following days were spent on wide-eyed gawking and exploration of the city proper. There were more things to see there than the boy had imagined in his wildest dreams. Boisterous merchants from near and far, drawing people to their stalls with silver-tongued words and alluring promises. Lavish restaurants packed with men and women in florid garments, sipping wine from crystal glasses. Rowdy inns serving food and drink to the common man and rambunctious mercenaries alike. Shady individuals conspiring in dingy alleys and squalid houses. Imposing knights draped in silver armor and red cloaks.

  Around every corner, there waited a new discovery, and the boy felt he could spend a lifetime here and still not see everything the city had to offer. Alas, reality was soon in the coming, as his money pouch grew lighter by the day, his coins disappearing to pay for meals, accommodation and new clothes.

  After a week had passed, the boy was down to his last four lessers, with no idea of how to acquire more. As such, he was forced to consider the possibility of leaving the city and going back to life in the wild, lest he desired becoming a homeless beggar fighting for scraps.

  It was during what he thought to be his last days in Benadiel that he happened upon a poster hanging on a public notice board near a fountain. It portrayed a brave and heroic knight facing off against a hoard of invaders, and contained instructions on where and how to sign up for the Baelford Army.”

  “Wait, hold on,” I said, interrupting the story. “The Baelford Army? In Benadiel? I thought it was the Harthways who controlled that city?” An image of Rachel’s ash-brown hair and caramel eyes flashed before my eyes.

  “It is now,” Cliff nodded. “But this is a story from the Halcyon Years. Things were different back then, including which of the Great and Lesser Houses were in power.”

  “Oh... Right,” I said. “So the Baelfords were once the lords of Benadiel, huh... Makes me wonder how the Harthways ended up in charge.”

  “That is a story for a different day,” Cliff said, waving a dismissive hand. “Anyway, we’re reaching the end of my tale. Pray give me the opportunity to finish before you start asking questions.”

  “O-Okay. Go ahead,” I said, lowering my head.

  “Either way... the boy, having no better course to follow, soon set off for the place indicated on the poster. After a significant trek, he arrived at the front of a large building with a fenced-in courtyard, some distance from the city proper. A pair of guards stood watch by the entrance, brandishing spears of iron and cloaks of red. Behind them, the boy could see a collection of people dressed in simple gambesons duelling with each other under the watchful eyes of what he presumed to be the captain of the guards.

  Naturally, being naught but a boy of thirteen now, he was refused entry, and told to remain outside the fence lest he risk disturbing the new recruits. This did little to dissuade the boy, however, as he merely snuck around to the other side of the building, and skipped the fence there instead.

  For the next few hours, he watched from a distance as the recruits faced off against each other in all manner of competition, be it duelling, archery or axe-throwing. All the while, the captain walked in their midst, taking stock of each man and his capabilities. Every now and then, he would stop to comment on something, or give instruction on the finer points of swordsmanship, but that was all. Not once did he draw his sword or offer to spar with the men himself.

  It was not before the sky turned orange and the shadows grew long that he gave the order to stop. The men looked a sorry bunch, their faces slick with sweat, clothes stained by dirt and grime. Several of them nursed cuts and bruises, in various states of severity. The boy managed to pick out some choice words and curses as they filtered out of the courtyard, eager to get home to a warm meal and a soft bed.

  The boy made to leave as well, convinced of his successful concealment, only to be met by the captain himself on the other side of the fence. He had no idea how the man had managed to move so quickly as to intercept him, nor how he had failed to notice him missing. But alas, he felt the bitter chill of defeat in his chest all the same, having been discovered in a place he was most certainly not allowed to linger in.

  To his surprise, however, it was not anger and chastisement that met him. Instead, the captain wore a sort of conspiratorial smile, as he drew his sword for the first time that day, and presented it to the boy.

  The boy, seeing no other alternative, accepted the offer and wrapped his hand around the hilt. The captain promptly let go, and the sword dropped straight to the ground like a leaden weight. It was much too heavy for the boy to hold, weak and untrained as he was.

  “Swing this blade every day until you can hold it properly,” the captain said. “Then, and only then, shall I let you into my courtyard. If you fail to do this, I shall not have you. If you lose the sword, I shall not have you. If the sword is stolen, I shall not have you. Guard it well.”

  And then... he left.

  Over the following months, the boy practiced in secret, swinging the sword over and over again until his body was drenched with sweat and his muscles screamed in agony. He begged for food on the streets, and slept outside wherever he could find partial shelter from the elements. Occasionally, he would have to fight off other strugglers who had grown desperate for a meal. There is no honor among those who face starvation, after all, only beggars with food and beggars without.

  It was not much of a life, but he had the sword, and a goal to reach. And every day, he could see that goal inch closer and closer, as his body slowly started assuming a more robust form.

  At last, he reached the requirement set out by the captain and more besides. Thus, he returned to the training yard with his head held high and the sword in his hand. The captain recognized him immediately, and put on a satisfied smile as he wished the boy welcome into their ranks.

  And so it was that the boy learned the fifth of what would later become his Five Lessons - that nothing in life comes easy, and that good things inevitably find their way to those who do not fear hard work and labor, but greet it with open arms and a firm mind.”

  “...”

  We sat in quiet contemplation as Cliff finished the last of his meal, and packed down what was left of the deer. Somewhere in the far reaches of my perception, I noted to myself that Amelie was likely to be upset with him for that, as neither of us had eaten yet. But the weight of his story rested heavy on my mind still, begetting hundreds of questions that dragged my attention away from such matters. I could only think of one that seemed prudent to pose, however.

  “Is this... the story of your life, Cliff?” I asked with some hesitation.

  He looked up at me with a frown. “Do I look five hundred years old to you, boy?”

  “U-Uhh, no! Of course not!” I said, waving my arms in a placating gesture. “I just thought that... the way you told it made it sound so visceral, and real, and-”

  “Personal?” he offered.

  “Yes! Exactly!” I nodded.

  “Well, it was personal. But not to me,” he said, looking away. He frowned as he ruminated, squinting at a nearby tree as if it held some kind of answer. Then, when it offered him none, he snorted and gave a slight shrug. “It was my master’s story, who in turn heard it from his master.”

  “Your... master?” I said. “You have a master?”

  “Don’t we all?” he posed, before turning his attention back to his meal again. “The boy in that story would later grow up to become the first and only Champion-Tier Swordsman to ever grace the lands of Alwaar - Eadrick himself. They call him the Sword-Saint. You might’ve heard of him.”

  I allowed myself a sharp intake of breath as the name registered in my mind. Amelie had spoken briefly of the Sword-Saint before, during one of our long treks through the countryside. He was nothing short of a storybook hero. Tales of his campaign into the Darkenlands was the stuff of legend, she had said.

  “The Sword-Saint?” I asked. “But... wait, how can the Sword-Saint be your master? You told me the story was from the Halcyon Years? So... how was he still alive to teach you?”

  “Weren’t you listening?” Cliff said. “The Sword-Saint wasn’t my master. His son, Godwyn, was.”

  “... What?” I said.

  “Suffice it to say that, although I’m not five hundred years old, I’m still considerably older than appearances would suggest. Barely a week past one-hundred-and-forty-six, in fact.”

  “Bullshit,” I gaped, my eyes positively bulging from their sockets. “There’s no way.”

  “Oh, but there is,” Cliff said. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss something just because it doesn’t fit with your understanding of the world.”

  I was left a stuttering mess as Cliff rose from his seat, and proceeded to stretch out his back. A series of audible pops could be heard as he bent his shoulders this way and that.

  “Rodona’s tits!” he grimaced. “How my body still moves is a mystery of divine nature.”

  I could think of no suitable response to this, and so kept my mouth shut as my mind worked to come to terms with the earlier revelation.

  “If you’re just going to sit there gaping, you might as well put yourself to some use, and go check on Amelie,” he commented as he began dismantling the tripod set above the flames. “She looked like she had a lot on her mind earlier. Probably why she hasn’t come back yet.”

  When I gave no indication of moving, he fixed me with a pointed stare that carried a thousand implications. The biting chill of it was enough to set my limbs to motion. I got up, gave a stiff nod, and walked off.

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