Hel.

  It is said that ten million years ago, when the Primordials still roamed the world, this was the most beautiful continent.

  It had a name then: Aeverath. The accounts varied on what the word meant in the old tongue; some scholars claimed it translated to "eternal spring," others insisted it meant "garden of bliss." Sael had read both interpretations and found them equally pretentious. The Primordials hadn't been particularly poetic, from what he understood. They'd been enormous, powerful, and about as subtle as a mountain falling on your head.

  Regardless of linguistic arguments, the continent had apparently been lovely. Perpetual mild weather, fertile soil, rivers that ran clear and sweet. Then, one day, the Primordial of Order and the Primordial of Chaos had a disagreement.

  The historical texts didn't specify what they'd been arguing about. Sael suspected it had been something catastrophically stupid, because entities of incomprehensible power rarely fought over matters of actual importance. More likely it was something like "which direction is better" or "who made this mountain" or some other philosophical nonsense that only made sense if you were an immortal being with too much time on your hands.

  They'd exchanged a single blow. One attack from each, and the shockwave restructured the continent.

  Half of it froze solid. Eternal winter descended in an instant, temperatures plummeting so far that the air itself crystallized in some parts. Ice spread across thousands of kilometers in a matter of hours, entombing forests, lakes, and whatever unfortunate creatures happened to be present at the time.

  The other half caught fire. The ground itself ignited, volcanoes erupted from places that had never had volcanoes. Lava flows carved new rivers through the landscape. Geysers punched through bedrock and sent superheated steam kilometers into the air. The temperature became hot enough to turn sand into glass, and stayed that way.

  And in between the two halves...

  "Is this the place?"

  Richter's voice carried oddly in the thin air. They were floating several hundred meters above what could generously be called landscape and uncharitably be called a geological nightmare.

  Sael looked down at the narrow band of terrain below them. Lava pools glowed like scattered embers across the dark rock, their surfaces rippling with convection currents. Steam vents hissed and spat, sending white plumes spiraling upward before the air currents caught them and tore them apart. To the north, ice cliffs rose like walls, their surfaces reflecting the red glow from the south. To the south, rivers of molten rock carved glowing paths through blackened stone.

  And here, in between, was the zone where both extremes met and cancelled each other out into something merely hostile instead of instantly fatal. This was where Sael and his mother lived.

  "Hmm," Sael said.

  Richter waited.

  "This was a confirmation hmm," Sael added. "Obviously."

  Koleen suppressed a laugh.

  Sael began to descend. The air grew warmer as he dropped, heat rising from the lava pools below mixing with the cold currents bleeding off the ice to the north. The temperature fluctuated wildly with each meter—hot, cold, hot, cold—creating layers of air that pushed against each other in constant turbulence.

  Koleen followed, bringing Richter with him in a levitation field. The older mage adjusted their descent to match Sael's pace, navigating the thermal currents with ease.

  Sael's feet touched stone.

  The ground was dark basalt, worn smooth in some places and jagged in others. Cracks ran through the rock like spiderwebs, some of them glowing faintly with the heat of magma flowing beneath. A lava pool bubbled thirty meters to his left, its surface thick and sluggish. The air smelled of sulfur and something else, a sharp, mineral scent that Sael had almost forgotten.

  Home.

  He walked forward a few steps, his boots crunching on loose gravel. The temperature here was tolerable, hovering somewhere around what most people would consider a very hot summer day. Steam vents dotted the landscape, releasing pressure from the superheated water trapped in pockets beneath the surface. One hissed nearby, sending a white column of vapor into the air. The vapor rose, hit a cold current, and condensed into droplets that fell as scalding rain a hundred meters away.

  Koleen and Richter landed beside him and for a long moment, none of them spoke.

  The hedmaster was staring at the landscape with an expression that was difficult to read. Not horror, exactly. More like... fascination mixed with disbelief. His eyes moved from the lava pools to the ice cliffs to the steam vents, taking in the impossible geography.

  Then Koleen's expression changed. His eyes widened slightly, his breath caught.

  "The mana here is..." he started, then stopped. He frowned, searching for words. "It's..."

  He trailed off again, clearly struggling.

  "Pure?" Sael offered.

  "No. Yes. But also—" Koleen gestured vaguely at the air around them. "It's dense. And concentrated. But not chaotic. It's like..." He shook his head. "I don't have a word for this."

  Sael smiled.

  It was a small expression, barely there, but genuine. "Yes," he said simply. "I grew up on this."

  Koleen turned to stare at him. His expression suggested he was reevaluating several things about Sael's magical development.

  Sael looked ahead, toward a path that wound between two lava pools. The stone there was darker, worn by countless footsteps over years. His footsteps. His mother's. His master's.

  "We should walk from here," he said.

  Both men nodded.

  Sael started forward, then paused. He glanced back at them.

  "I wish to take some time," he said quietly. "If you don't mind."

  Richter's expression softened slightly. "Of course."

  Koleen simply nodded.

  Sael turned back to the path and began to walk.

  The path wound between lava pools the way Sael remembered. The stones were the same stones. The cracks in the basalt formed patterns his feet had learned years ago.

  He walked, and things came back to him.

  A specific boulder, split cleanly down the middle by thermal stress. He'd hidden behind it once during a game his mother had invented. Something about hunting invisible prey. He'd been very small.

  A steam vent that hissed at regular intervals, like breathing. He'd timed his steps to it as a child, seeing how far he could get between exhalations.

  The shape of the ice cliffs in the distance, backlit by volcanic glow. He'd forgotten how beautiful they were.

  It felt good. Better than he'd expected. Like finding a book he'd loved and forgotten he owned.

  Suddenly, Sael stopped at a flat section of stone and laughed at what he saw.

  Behind him, Richter's footsteps paused. "What is it?"

  Sael gestured at the ground. "My mother used to make me balance here. One foot. Eyes closed. For an hour."

  "An hour?"

  "She said it would teach me focus." Sael smiled slightly. "I think she just wanted me to stop talking for a while."

  "How old were you then?" Richter asked.

  "Four, perhaps."

  Both men looked at him.

  "Four?" Koleen said.

  "Yes."

  "The legends about you starting to train in magic at age two," Richter said carefully. "Are those true?"

  Sael considered the question. "I'm not sure. My mother told me I was born awakened, and with a fully formed mana core. I knew magic from my earliest memories. It came to me as easily as breathing, so I assume my mother must have trained me at a rather early age." He paused. "She had her ways."

  They kept walking.

  The terrain shifted gradually. More rock, fewer pools. The air cooled by a few degrees as they moved slightly north, away from the volcanic vents. Sael's feet carried him without thought along a route he'd walked countless times.

  He stopped again at a specific outcropping.

  "This is where I made my first hunt," he said. "I was five."

  Koleen glanced around at the hostile landscape. "Five?"

  "Yes."

  "What were you hunting?" Richter asked.

  Sael pointed.

  On a rock about twenty meters away, a creature basked in the heat rising from a crack in the stone. It was about the size of a large cat, scaled, with a long tail that ended in a small flame. The fire flickered lazily as the creature shifted position.

  "One of those," Sael said.

  The salamander's scales were deep red, almost black, and reflected the glow from the lava pools. It seemed unbothered by the temperature.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "One of them killed my friend," Sael continued. "A bird. A kess. Her name was Pitch."

  Koleen watched the salamander. "And... you wanted revenge?"

  "I was five," Sael said. "Of course I wanted revenge."

  He looked at the outcropping, remembering.

  "My mother told me that killing it wouldn't bring Pitch back, and that revenge was just pain being passed around. That I should let it go." He paused. "She gave me a whole speech about cycles of violence and the importance of moving forward instead of dwelling on loss."

  "I assume you went anyway?" Richter asked.

  "I went anyway." Sael's expression didn't change. "She let me. Followed me at a distance, obviously, because I was five years old hunting something with fire for a tail. But she let me do it."

  He could still remember the weight of the knife in his hand. How small it had felt. How big the salamander had seemed.

  "I killed one. Found the one that did it, they have markings you see, subtle differences in the scale patterns. I tracked it for three hours."

  The salamander on the rock yawned, showing rows of needle teeth.

  "And I didn't feel good after," Sael said. "I thought I would. I thought there would be... something. Satisfaction, maybe. Closure." He shook his head slightly. "There wasn't. Pitch was still dead. The salamander was dead. Nothing had changed except now two things were gone instead of one."

  "What did your mother say?" Koleen asked.

  "She didn't say anything. Just looked at me. Waited." Sael started walking again. "I told her she was right. She said she knew. Then she helped me bury them both."

  His boots crunched on gravel.

  "It was one of the first lessons she taught me," he said. "That knowing something and understanding it aren't the same thing. That some things you have to learn yourself, even if someone's already told you the answer."

  They walked in silence for a while.

  The path continued winding through the landscape, between thermal vents and cooling stone, through air that shifted from scalding to freezing and back again. Sael's pace was steady, unhurried. He wasn't navigating anymore, just following. They walked twenty more minutes before the path forked ahead.

  Two routes split from the main trail: one angling left toward a cluster of thermal vents, the other right into darker, cooler territory. Sael stopped at the junction.

  "Where to now?" Richter asked.

  Koleen glanced between the paths. "Neither looks particularly inviting."

  Sael said nothing for a moment. Then: "Rshq, Vhvdph"

  The air rippled.

  Between the two paths, a third materialized. Like a mirage, as if it had always been there and they'd been too blind to see it. The stones realigned. The heat currents shifted. A narrow trail threaded between the other two routes, leading deeper into the wasteland.

  "What—" Koleen started.

  The path solidified completely.

  "I didn't feel a spell," Koleen said. He sounded disturbed. "There was nothing. No casting, no—" He stopped. "I didn't even sense it was there."

  "You wouldn't have," Sael said. "I made it myself a few centuries ago."

  Richter stared at the newly revealed path. "Made what, exactly?"

  "A concealment. The path leads to my parents' graves. And my master's." Sael started walking down the third route. "If someone were to somehow find this junction and try to take it—without speaking the words I set—they'd be redirected. Despite themselves. To one of the other roads. They wouldn't even notice."

  Richter looked at the barren landscape around them. "But who would even come here?"

  "It's rare," Koleen said slowly, "but sometimes brainless adventurers make their way to Hel. Hunting monsters for parts and cores. Fame and fortune, the usual nonsense."

  "Hmm."

  Koleen glanced at Richter. "What sort of hmm was that one, Your Grace?"

  Richter hesitated. He'd gotten better at reading Sael's sounds over the hours, but this one gave him pause. "I'm not sure. It... didn't seem like a happy one, though."

  "Don't mind it," Sael said. "Follow me."

  They did.

  The path was narrower than the others, winding between rock formations that seemed to close in overhead and the temperature evened out now. Sael walked several paces ahead, then stopped. He raised one hand.

  "[Veil]."

  Magic settled over the path behind them. The spell would hold for another few centuries, probably. Sael lowered his hand and kept walking.

  The path continued deeper.

  "What language was that?" Koleen asked after a minute. "Earlier, I mean. The word you spoke."

  "It was unlike anything I've ever heard," Richter added.

  "High Elven," Sael said.

  Koleen stopped walking. "You speak High Elven?"

  "My mother was a high elf."

  Koleen and Richter exchanged a look.

  "Archmage... I thought your mother was human," Richter said carefully. "That you were fully human?"

  "The high elven went extinct about twelve thousand years ago," Koleen said. "When the Primordial of Corruption was first summoned into the world. So... "

  "She was my adoptive mother," Sael said. He didn't look back at them. "My biological parents were adventurers. Mindless young ones who came to Hel for fame and fortune. They died while looking for it."

  The silence that followed felt heavy.

  Koleen's expression shifted. Understanding settling in. The earlier hmm made sense now.

  "Please don't be embarrassed," Sael said. "I agree with you, actually. They apparently didn't even know I was already conceived when they came here." He paused. "Young adventurers die stupidly all the time. I would know. I lost my god-son and many friends to it, too."

  The atmosphere had gotten thick. Too thick. Sael realized, belatedly, that he'd overshared. Both of them were looking at him with expressions he couldn't quite parse.

  "Be at ease, you two," he said. "It was a long time ago. Centuries, even. I'm practically over it." He tried for a smile. It felt wrong on his face. "Well. Mostly over it. Maybe seventy percent."

  Neither of them laughed.

  Sael turned back around immediately, embarrassed by the failed attempt at a joke. He really needed to study the art of joking.

  "Let's go," he said.

  He started walking again, faster this time, hoping they would just forget this entire conversation had happened.

  They arrived finally at a sort of hill.

  It rose from the landscape ahead, dark stone against darker sky, its surface pocked with thermal vents that released thin streams of steam. The hill was wider than it was tall, sloping gently upward before dropping off sharply on the far side.

  Sael looked up and pointed.

  "My master is buried there," he said. "In his forge, inside the hill. We'll have to go through it and down the other side. My parents' graves are at the edge. That's where we'll find the staff."

  Without looking at them—still avoiding eye contact from the failed joke—he floated upward. His body lifted smoothly, rising toward the hillside.

  Koleen and Richter followed.

  The ascent took less than a minute. Sael's feet touched stone on the slope, near the top of the hill. A few meters ahead, set into the hillside, was the entrance.

  A hole.

  It opened in the rock like a mouth, roughly circular, about three meters across. The edges were smooth, worn by time and heat. Inside, darkness gave way to a faint orange glow; the reflection of something burning deeper within.

  Sael stepped forward and entered the opening.

  The passage angled downward immediately, sloping into the hill's interior. The stone beneath his feet was smooth, worn by countless footsteps over the years. He walked down the incline, one hand trailing along the wall out of habit, and the passage opened up after several meters.

  Koleen and Richter followed behind him, their footsteps echoing softly in the confined space.

  The forge opened up around them.

  It was vast. The hill wasn't hollow so much as it was carved out, the interior shaped by deliberate hands into something functional. The ceiling arched overhead, still rough stone in places, smoothed flat in others. Support pillars rose at intervals, thick columns of rock left in place when everything else had been excavated.

  And through the center of it all, cutting the space nearly in half, ran a stream of lava.

  It flowed from somewhere deeper in the hill, emerging from a crack in the western wall and running in a channel carved into the floor. The heat was intense but not unbearable. The air shimmered above the lava stream, and the temperature in the forge hovered at what most people would consider the edge of tolerable. Sael found it comfortable.

  He snapped his fingers.

  Throughout the forge, candles ignited.

  Dozens of them, scattered across every surface: on shelves, in wall sconces, atop workbenches. The flames caught simultaneously, small points of yellow-white light that pushed back against the orange glow of the lava. The space brightened, details emerging from shadow.

  Workbenches lined the walls. Heavy wooden tables, their surfaces scarred and burned and stained with a thousand projects. Tools hung above them on racks: hammers of varying sizes, tongs, files, chisels, things Sael didn't have names for anymore. An anvil sat near the lava stream, positioned to catch the heat. Its surface was pitted and worn smooth in the center from years of use.

  Weapons in various states of completion leaned against the walls or lay on benches. A spearhead, half-forged, its edge rough and unfinished. A sword blade with no hilt, the metal still showing the marks where it had been folded. A shield frame, just the basic structure, waiting for someone to complete it.

  Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust.

  Sael stood still for a moment, taking it in. The nostalgia hit him like a physical thing, unexpected and sharp. This was where he'd learned to make swords. Spears. His own staff, with his master's guidance. The memories were clearer here than they'd been on the path outside.

  Koleen had moved toward the back of the forge, where shelves rose from floor to ceiling. Books. Hundreds of them, packed tightly together, their spines worn and faded. A library section, tucked into the corner of a blacksmith's workspace. Some of the books were massive tomes, bound in leather or metal. Others were thin journals, barely held together. Koleen's hands hovered near them, clearly wanting to touch, but he held back.

  Richter had drifted toward the workbenches. He was staring at the unfinished weapons with an expression that suggested he was mentally cataloguing everything he saw. His fingers twitched slightly, the same impulse Koleen had, wanting to pick something up, examine it, but restraining himself out of respect for the space.

  Sael's eyes moved to the far end of the forge.

  There, set into an alcove carved from the stone, was a shrine.

  It was simple. A flat stone platform, waist-high, with a cloth draped over it. The cloth had once been white but had grayed with time and dust. On top of it sat a few objects: a hammer, its handle wrapped in leather that had cracked and dried. A pair of tongs. The small carved figure of a bird. And behind them, set into the wall, a plaque with words etched into the metal.

  Eon's grave.

  Sael looked at Koleen and Richter. "Look around if you want," he said quietly. "I'm going to clean the shrine."

  Both men nodded.

  Koleen turned back to the library, moving closer now. His fingers brushed along the spines of the books, reading titles in the dim light. Some were in languages he recognized. Others weren't. He pulled one free carefully, opened it to a random page, and his eyebrows rose. He looked like he wanted to sit down and read for the next several hours.

  Richter picked up the unfinished spearhead from the workbench. He turned it over in his hands, examining the metalwork, the way the edge had been shaped. His expression was thoughtful, almost reverent. He set it down exactly where he'd found it and moved to the next piece.

  Sael approached the shrine.

  The dust was thick here, undisturbed for centuries. It coated everything in a uniform gray layer, softening edges, muting colors. Sael reached out and gently lifted the cloth from the platform, shaking it once. Dust billowed into the air, caught in the candlelight like tiny stars. He folded the cloth carefully and set it aside.

  The objects underneath were clearer now. The hammer's head was still bright, untouched by rust despite the centuries. Master Eon had been particular about his tools. The carved bird was more detailed than Sael remembered, a kess, actually, with its wings spread mid-flight. Pitch.

  Sael looked at the shrine and smiled as he raised his hand.

  "[Gentle Wind]."

  The spell manifested as a breeze and swept across the shrine, lifting dust in a carefully contained current. The particles swirled upward, caught in the wind, and Sael guided them away, dispersing them harmlessly into the far corner of the forge. The shrine cleared gradually, layer by layer, until the objects gleamed in the candlelight as they had centuries ago.

  Sael lowered his hand.

  "Forgive me for not visiting more often, Master," he said quietly, hoping he was somehow listening.

  Footsteps echoed behind him.

  He turned. Koleen and Richter were approaching, both looking somewhat hesitant, as if unsure whether they should interrupt.

  "Find anything interesting?" Sael asked.

  Koleen held up a book, its cover worn smooth with age. "This entire section is... I don't even know where to begin. There are texts here I've never seen before. Some in languages I don't recognize at all." He gestured back toward the shelves. "And the ones I can read, some of these are treatises on magical theory that shouldn't exist. They predate current academic thought by centuries."

  "My master liked to read," Sael said simply.

  Richter cleared his throat. "Archmage, I need to tell you something." He glanced back at the workbenches. "Those weapons you mentioned. The unfinished ones."

  "Yes?"

  "They're not unfinished." Richter's expression was serious. "Or rather, even in their incomplete state, they're all Rank A at minimum. Some of them..." He paused. "That spearhead I examined. If it were completed, it would easily be Rank S. Possibly higher."

  Sael looked at the workbenches, at the scattered projects his master had left behind. "He was particular about his craft."

  "Particular?" Koleen said. "Archmage, with all due respect, whoever worked in this forge was—" He stopped himself, seeming to realize something. His eyes moved to Sael, then to the shrine, then back. "If you don't mind me asking... who was your master?"

  Sael turned back to the shrine.

  For a long moment, he didn't answer.

  "He was just an old man," Sael said finally. "Who didn't want to be known. Who took refuge here, in Hel, and wanted to be left alone." He paused. "And who taught a boy how to make things instead of just breaking them."

  Richter opened his mouth, clearly about to ask another question.

  "I'll tell you all about it," Sael said, cutting him off gently. "About this place. About my master. About everything." He looked at them both. "But perhaps we should retrieve the staff first and leave. Aldric is still out there. And..."

  He glanced around the forge one more time.

  "This wave of nostalgia is making me sadder than I want to be right now."

  Koleen and Richter exchanged a look, then nodded.

  "Lead the way, Archmage," Richter said quietly.

  fast! Plus, the B button works on this one, lol.