Ending an Ending

Ending an Ending: First Book of the Laurian Pentology

Books in the Laurian Pentology:

Ending an Ending

Book One

Beginning

Book Two

Beginning an Ending

Book Three

Ending

Book Four

Beginning a Beginning

Book Five

Ending an Ending: First Book of the Laurian Pentology

By Danny Birt

Published by Ancient Tomes Press Imprint of Cyberwizard Productions 1205 N. Saginaw Boulevard #D PMB 224 Saginaw, Texas 76179 Edited by Crystalwizard Cover Artist: Cerberus Inc Ending an Ending: First Book of the Laurian Pentology Copyright Š 2008 Cyberwizard Productions ISBN: 978-0-9815669-1-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008928350 First Edition: 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher and the individual authors, excepting brief quotes used in connection with reviews.

To John Tolkien for his illustrious imagination, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman for their contagious curiosity, Orson Card for sifting the human psyche to make conscious the unconscious, and Stephen Hawking, who still holds the mental prowess to leave me in the dust.

Author’s Note: ***WARNING*** If this is your first fantasy novel ever, GO NO FURTHER. No, I’m being serious! Go find yourself a book with a Hobbit or Grendel or Kender in it; you really need to ease your way into this genre.

Why save this book for later?

The common model of the traditional epic fantasy is as follows: In the first couple pages, you meet “The Hero” (TH) who meets “The Sage” (TS) who relates to TH the legend of “The Magic Thing” (TMT) and “The Ancient Evil” (TAE).

“TAE’s Peons” (TAEP) then ruin life at home for TH, so for the rest of the series TH must Quest For TMT, and Vanquish TAE. TH then returns home, becomes “The Benevolent Ruler” (TBR), and lives happily ever after, provided there is not a sequel.

The model is so predictable it can be written out in pesudo-mathematical formula: 1.

2.

3.

4.

TH+TS/TMT>TAE TAEP>TH TH+TMT= -TAE TH=TBR

The common model makes for an excellent well-rounded story (or else it wouldn’t have become so common), but no matter how hardcore the fantasy connoisseur, it can get a little boring being able to guess the ending of a book in the first fifty pages.

Thus, in an effort to bring back some of the wonder to long-time fantasy readers, this book intentionally does none of those formulaic things. Nor does it delve deeply into Fantasy 101 topics, like spending copious paragraphs explaining that dwarves are short.

Instead, set your expectations on some fine collegiate-level Fantastic pondering, such as: How might the presence of magic affect a flat world’s physics? How can one tell the difference between a person hearing the voice of a god and someone having a psychological breakdown? How much loyalty can one expect from and give to any single deity in a polytheistic world? …You’re still reading? My, my, aren’t you the adventurous one.

Very well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Table of Contents

Prelusion

1

Corpus

35

Exodus

77

Subterfuge

125

Forestall

164

Commencement

217

Glossary

264

Pronunciations

270

Biography

272

Prelusion Why am I? What am I? One of his legs swung tentatively in front of the other, their syncopated time kept slightly off-kilter by the soft thudding of the unnoticed blood-slicked staff in his hand. His feet felt about on the leaf- and twig-strewn ground for purchase, since his eyes were all but useless in the darkness of the night.

How do I know how to move like this?

How do I know how to wonder like that – like this?

He was not sure of his overall purpose, but parts of him had purposes, and if parts of him had purposes, then surely the whole of him must likewise have purpose. The purpose of his feet was to feel for solid basis; the purpose of his ears was to listen for signs of renewed aggression; the purpose of his legs was to transport the rest of him out of danger.

Though he was moving away from where he should be going, moving his body away from dangers was a base priority overruling all others in his mind.

Twice the unfamiliar/wrong creatures had attacked him, one at a time, and he still did not know what they were. He did not recognize them the way he had recognized/identified the hooting, flying creature (bird/owl) in the sky or the large, leafy structures (plant/tree) that towered overhead, making the night so nearly starless.

What is this feeling of familiarity? Familiar with what?

When/where have I seen these things before? When/where am I now?

He thought that if he looked into the sky at the colorful little spots of light in the darkness, he could find out where he was going, but when he tried to do so, he found there were too many tree leaves blocking the majority of the spots. The trunks of the same trees kept hidden the attacking creatures until they were all but on top of him. It made for slow and fearful going, all alone in the close darkness.

Alone? As compared to what? Is there an opposite of ‘alone?’

A slight flicker of yellow light caught his left eye’s peripheral vision. It pricked yet another category in his mind, causing him to try to correlate the two images.

Sun means yellow light. Is it becoming daytime? It seems so dark and cold around me, though; day brings bright and warm.

He headed toward the flickering yellow light, placing each foot quietly so he wouldn’t scare the day away. Maybe if he found it, he could be warm. Maybe the creatures would stop attacking him.

As he approached it, the day suddenly silenced itself. He paused, hoping that it would stay in place. It did. Breathing a sigh of relief, he continued toward the day and entered a small clearing. Oddly, the day sat in the middle of the clearing in a small earthen pit filled with large hunks of tree. The day seemed to be trying to escape from the pile of dead tree parts, and as it did, it crackled before and behind him.

But how does the day crackle behind me if it is in front of me?

1

Danny Birt He crouched and whirled, thrusting his staff out in front of him as he did. The staff glowed as it thumped into the legs of someone (what is a someone?) behind him. As the someone fell, three other “someones” stepped from behind the trees that encircled the clearing (or does the trees’ presence make up the clearing?). Though they looked threatening, he felt that he should not hurt them.

The one encased in metal, holding a long, thin piece of wood with a taut string attached to both ends, made three throat noises at him. The ‘someone’ waited for a moment, then repeated the three noises. The two standing someones vocalized at the one on the ground, and the one on the ground made noises back.

Seeing the studded-leather-clad North Seren hit the ground filled Lalt with a rich sense of long-awaited satisfaction. Like many humans, the man was a lout and thoroughly deserved to have his swelling ego lanced.

As much as he secretly enjoyed watching Geduad’s floundering, the white-robed elven cleric reluctantly returned his attention to the mysterious – and potentially dangerous – man who had come from out of nowhere to invade the Seren camp.

A brown robe, brown pants, and brown boots effectively covered the man’s entire body. His silvering hair gave hint to an age that was otherwise impossible to determine, given the lack of proper lighting. He stood slightly above the elf’s own height, making him average height for a human. The only thing that was out of the ordinary was the staff that he was carrying.

Lalt peered at the staff intently. At first he had taken it as a flat rectangular board, but he now realized that it was not straight – it imperceptibly twisted on its axis to a ninety degree angle along its man-height length. But that was not the only thing that was strange about it…

“Shoot him!” yelled Geduad, from the ground.

Pander, Seren to the God of War, drew a notched arrow back to his ear and sighted along the shaft, tremendous muscles rippling despite being used to such effort.

“Hold!” called Tannon, the Head Seren, and Seren to the God of Knowledge.

The War Seren slackened his bowstring at his leader’s command, but kept the weapon ready all the same.

“What?” squealed Geduad, scooting back from the stranger.

“He may have peaceful intentions,” the learned man said.

“He swung at me with that cudgel he’s holding!” snapped Geduad testily, dusting off his leather pants with the hand of his non-sword-arm as he stood. “You call that peaceful?”

“You startled him into self-defense, North Seren,” noted Lalt, the slim brownhaired elf. He gently gestured with a thin and hairless hand toward the mystery man. “You see, he refrains from further aggression. It may be that he thought you one of Obblagatt’s creatures, the way you sneaked up behind him. It would seem” he pointed to the sticky head of the staff “that he has already had an encounter with one, the poor man. See the black blood at the top?”

“Ignore the color of the blood for a moment, gentlemen,” Tannon lectured. “Look with the wisdom of your gods at the color of his staff.”

Everyone looked to see what had drawn the professor’s eyes.

“No, no, no!” the North Seren exclaimed. “You can’t tell me he’s one of us! He doesn’t feel like a Seren!”

Pander cut the ensuing conversation short with a word, removed the arrow from the bow and replaced it in its quiver. It was a small risk for himself, considering he was well armored, but it fell on his ample shoulders to protect the University professor and the elven 2

Ending an Ending cleric at all costs. “Who are you?” he sternly asked for the third time. “Why do you not answer me?”

The strange man with the staff and brown robes slowly lowered his own weapon to the ground in response, but gave no answer.

“Lalt, is he mute or simple?” asked Tannon. The older man’s quiet, cultivated and scholarly voice filled the glade as it had the auditoriums of the University. The lecturing tone calmed everyone in the clearing. “Assessing the mind and body’s health is your god’s field of expertise, not mine.”

“I’ll have to touch him to find out.” The elf rolled back white sleeves with red piping at their ends, revealing his thin arms. He looked about himself, then picked up a water-skin from the pile of equipment on the ground. Making eye contact with the stranger, he uncorked the skin, poured some water into his hand and drank it. “Keep your bow at the ready if you please, War Seren Pander,” he said softly as he cautiously approached the stranger.

As the slim, brown-haired elf moved forward, the stranger hefted his staff once more, but subsequently lowered it.

Holding his hand up in front of his chest, the elf once more poured water into his cupped hand, and sipped. Using hand gestures, he made it clear that he wanted the stranger to do the same thing. The elf poured water into the stranger’s outstretched hand, and as he did, the mystery man felt a pleasant heat wave roll up his arm and through his body. The elf then motioned for the stranger to put his hand up to his face.

The mysterious one went along with it straight up until he was supposed to swallow. Not knowing what to do with the stuff, he opened his mouth and let the water dribble out while he took a breath – a little too early. He choked on the residual water, as it dove straight down his throat toward his lungs.

Pander bellowed with booming laughter. “What, don’t tell me he doesn’t know how to drink!”

“Of course he knows how to drink,” Lalt said deprecatorily. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had water go down the wrong tube accidentally.”

Tannon smiled and motioned for the others to put away their weapons. “Definitely simple.” He removed his silver rimmed spectacles from his nose.

“Head Seren, I believe we should reassess this man.” The elf strode closer to Tannon. “And he… he is a man. He has all the anatomy of a human being; I checked when I touched his hand to give him the water. He’s not mute, but he seems to have never used his vocal chords. He’s in perfect health.” He shook his head, thin hair wafting like gossamer.

“Absolutely perfect. His body has never even been scratched. No man can go through life that long without sustaining some injury! Even if that were not the case, the color of the staff marks him as sent by the gods, and therefore a Seren.”

“Not necessarily.” The University professor placed his spectacles back on his nose and peered through them to examine the staff. “According to my admittedly limited research on the subject, the gods’ chosen Seren have always worn medallions as we do.” He pulled his own out from underneath his clothes. The medallion elicited a gasp that denoted recognition from the stranger. “If they didn’t, how would they otherwise be recognized as Seren? Without size difference of the medallions, how would they know who was to be the Head Seren when working a mission together?”

“But the staff!” the War Seren, Pander, rumbled. “What about that? There’s something really unnatural about it, and I’m not talking about the color.”

“I will agree that the gods probably sent the staff to us since it has the same color as our medallions,” Tannon mused, “but did they send the man?”

3

Danny Birt “What are you saying, Head Seren?” Pander asked. “Are we supposed to take the staff from him? And do what with it? Even if it were a powerful mage’s staff, none of us do magic.”

“Though it would make sense to send a magic artifact to help fight a mage, I do not get the feeling he is a courier from the gods.” Lalt rubbed at a diamond earring in his left earlobe. “Do any of you feel that you could take that staff from him?”

None of the men nodded their heads.

“That settles it.” Lalt emphasized his words by dropping the corked water bottle back into the pile. The mystery man kept his eyes on the water bottle. “If we wish to bring the powers this staff hides in it along with us, we must take the man as well.”

“Why would we bring along a simpleton on such a dangerous mission?” Geduad protested. “For gods’ sakes, cleric, the man doesn’t even know how to drink; why would you think he knows how to make proper use of that staff?”

“He made good enough use of it a moment ago, Geduad,” Lalt said with a mocking grin. “I seem to remember someone lying on his backside.”

Geduad took a menacing step toward the elf. The War Seren quickly took a step between them. The two big men made eye contact, then slowly eased back to their original positions.

“I suppose he could be having an amnesic episode, cleric,” Tannon admitted dubiously to the elf, “but I know little of such things. Were there any signs of emotional distress or of magical interference?”

“There didn’t seem to be,” Lalt said, shaking his head while keeping a cautious eye on Geduad. “Perhaps his memories were taken away. I’ve worked with victims from Sanctuary often enough to know that memories can be selectively removed; if humans can do it, it would be child’s play for a deity.”

“But surely no god would erase a man’s entire life to remake him into a Seren?”

Tannon objected. “Isn’t who and what we are partly why we’re chosen to begin with?”

The two other humans glared him into silence. Lalt gently said, “I know you are new to the ways of the Seren, professor, but the gods work in ways beyond our capacity to comprehend. They do what they feel is necessary, regardless of how it affects us.”

“Mmmm!” obliviously muttered the man with the staff. The group turned to look at him, and found him near the fire. He poured water in his hand and drank again. “Mmmm!” he repeated, baring his teeth in what could pass as a misshapen smile.

“Could he be a priest who took a vow of silence?” asked Pander. “Or a monk?”

“He’s not a monk. We’re to headed to protect them so they don’t have to fight; it would make no sense for one of their brotherhood to be here. He may be a priest, though, or some other sort of god’s servant,” Lalt said. “I mean, he has to be holy in some way to carry a symbol of the gods’ power, wouldn’t you all agree? But that brings us full circle back to the original question: who is his deity?”

As the man began to drink directly from the bottle, Pander threw in, “Seems he’s figured out how to use a mouth.”

Lalt walked over to the fire, tore off a juicy hunk of the rabbit cooking on the spit, and placed the slightly burnt piece of meat on a slab of stale bread. He walked over to the man. “Mmmm,” he said, and handed it over to the man’s cupped hand.

“Mmmm?” his eyebrows furrowed. Delicately, he set the meat and bread in between his teeth, and began to chew. The roasted meat burst, spilling its oily juices onto greedy taste buds. He chewed faster, eyes widening. “Mmmm!” He backed away from the group, set his staff on the ground, and took a second bite before even swallowing the first bite.

4

Ending an Ending “That was another strange thing I noticed in my analysis of his body,” the elf continued his earlier thought as he backed away from the man. “There’s nothing in his entire digestive system; not even a crumb stuck in a fold of his intestines.”

“How can that be? Everybody eats!” Pander said.

“Perhaps,” the elf ventured, “he comes to us directly from a prolonged Sleep. If he is one of the original Seren, his Waking would have been…”

Everyone grimaced in sympathy. Waking from the years-long Sleep of the Seren was the single most painful experience any of them would ever go through. The longer one Slept, the more painful and laborious the Wakening. That this man may have lost his wits after a prolonged Sleep seemed plausible.

“If that’s so, then his memories will return?” Tannon removed his spectacles once more and polished them as he peered at the elf.

“They could,” answered Lalt. “But the fastest way for memories to return is to be around familiar things. If he has been Asleep for thousands of years, I doubt that any place he would remember would still exist as such.”

“Why not?” asked Geduad. “Nothing ever changes; you should know that better than I, elf. How old are you? A thousand years old?”

“Several thousands,” Lalt said.

“Isn’t it about time you died, then?” Geduad crossed his arms.

“All right, you two, enough!” The Head Seren stepped between them with palms raised. “For the sake of the argument let us say this man is a Seren. What god or goddess sent him and why, and more importantly why him instead of a more capable Seren? If he had a medallion I’m sure my Lord would infuse me with knowledge, but he seems to have none, and that staff is too nondescript to tell me anything.”

“Wrong.” Geduad glared at the silent stranger who paused in the act of licking his fingers clean and looked back at him. “The staff and wand are the traditional symbols of magic. I think he was sent by the mages at Pinnacle to hamper our mission!”

Pander tweaked his neck to look at Lalt. “He could be right, you know. Look, he has a robe and staff like a mage, and we’re headed to kill a mage! What if he’s a Seren of one of the Banished Gods, like a Mage God?” The professor rolled his eyes. “Warriors; all brawn. Don’t base your judgement on peasant rumor. I may never have studied the subject, but everyone knows that the return of the Banished Gods exists only in bedtime stories to frighten children.”

The Head Seren studied the others for a moment, glanced at the stranger then folded his arms. “He was brought to us for a reason, and I, for one, will not go against the will of the gods. If he’s not meant to be with us, our gods will procure circumstances to prevent him from staying. Until that time, he travels with us and fights by our side. Lalt, he’s your responsibility, so teach him to communicate properly. And find out who his god is,” he added over his shoulder as he headed back into the trees to resume his watch.

“Don’t you mean who he is?” Lalt asked of the Head Seren’s retreating back.

Pander grunted. “Why should we care who he is? He’s a servant; that’s all that matters.”

The War Seren unstrung his bow, wiped soil off the tip, and with one more curious glance at the newcomer, lay down near the fire. The North Seren ran a hand along his roughshaven jaw, spat into the fire, and stalked off into the night-darkened forest.

The elf from the Temple of Healing gave the mystery man an encouraging smile, then led him to a place near the fire. “You’ll be warmer here,” Lalt said, his delicate white teeth shining in the firelight. “Get some sleep.” He squatted down beside the fire and patted the ground. The stranger stared at him, and slowly squatted down as well. Lalt nodded, took 5

Danny Birt the stranger’s arm and tugged, then lay down on the ground. The stranger regarded him, and followed suit.

Sleep did not come as easily for the nameless man. Though he did not feel like he should harm the others, he did not feel safe around them.

What can I learn about them by looking at them?

He rolled over on his side to eye the path where the sallow-tempered one had exited the camp and reviewed in his mind what the man had looked, sounded, and (ugh!) smelled like. Resolving to not go anywhere near the Geduad on his own, his gaze next took in the massive form that lay across from him on the other side of the fire.

The metallic armor the man wore reflected the firelight dimly, as did the oil coating his thick, brown hair. An assortment of smaller weapons adorned his body while his twohanded sword and shield lay next to him.

Shifting his body to get a look at the man in the spectacles, he beheld a whitehaired older gentleman dressed in clothes that did not fit in with the forest environment. He seemed quite urbane, cultured, as though dwelling outside of a city did not suit him.

What is a city? Why do I know ABOUT something, but never the thing itself?

The elf, whose (designation/name) he was sure had to be Lalt, sat asleep, back pressed against a tree, as though the rough bark gave him more pleasure than pain. Out of the group, only he seemed to be truly calm. Then again, even that could be a farce that was well hidden by delicately beautiful facial features and fluid motions.

That left only one person in the clearing left to examine.

The man looked down at his own body, taking in lightly hairy hands and arms, brown robes, dirtied traveling boots. He looked around for his staff, but did not see it, then touched what he guessed was his face, feeling and hearing the prickly hairs pressing back against his palm and fingertips.

I wonder what I look like.

Out of the Lej forest, past the Torberepar continent’s shoreline, across the maw of the massive whirlpool, up a Torunmem river and under the surface of the Merian Lake, a woman’s eyelids reflexively blinked in a fruitless attempt to clear her prophetic vision. It was a natural reaction left over from when she spent more time in her body looking through her eyes, but no matter with what she “blinked,” the wriggling semicircular cataract defied her.

She withdrew some of her concentration from other pertinent areas in an attempt to refocus her Portent to a more short-range view of time in the affected area on Torberepar.

The great crystal dome under which her body resided normally helped the Prophetess clarify such spots of temporal difficulty, much like the curved, polished glass in spectacles might help a myopic person. However, even this great tool was unable to pierce the clump of presence that blocked her prophetic vision over the north continent.

The Prophetess was not used to “interesting things” happening so close to home.

She wasn’t sure she liked the idea, either. It was she who made things happen to others; very little ever happened to her.

She refocused her crystal dome and cast her gaze upward into the sky to scrutinize the stars. There was no significant change in the heavens; no one up there had brought about this challenge to her powers. But if it was not Their hands which had crafted this problem, whose was it? Why? Lacking necessary information but loath to have nothing to show for her efforts after having traveled so far, the Prophetess checked in on some of her side projects in the Osilorn and Wisp lands on Tortryst, and was satisfied with their consumptive results. She 6

Ending an Ending glanced at the Lich’s lands, but as usual he noticed her peeking immediately and thrust her out before she could see a thing. She frowned, then checked in at her shrine and answered a few of her more worthy petitioners’ questions.

Yet still she was unable to see through the blur over Torberepar.

Eventually, she gave up and decided to wait the annoyance out, hoping that whatever the little cataract was focused on, it would blow past in the next few days before she needed to see events occurring in the area. All her careful planning would be set back decades if she did not reap any rewards.

The next morning, the newcomer now christened “Sanct” by the cleric because of a certain indefinable sanctity about him, sat near the dying fire watching the others break camp. His piercing gaze took in every detail. He noticed seven facial expressions that everyone had in common, in what situation each was used, and what reaction each elicited.

Common words that came up in conversation soon found their way into his vocabulary, even if their use was skewed on the first try or two, but he understood only part of what his erstwhile companions were discussing as they finished preparations.

“Wakey-wakey, gentlemen,” called Geduad, returning from wherever he’d spent the night. “Time to go kill us a mage.”

“Thank your goddess for giving us such a glorious day for mage-poaching, will you?” commented Pander.

“You make it sound like sport!” the Head Seren grumped from his position on the ground, hands wrapped around a silver mug of hot tea. “I may have puzzled out some of the greatest secrets in the world, but I’ll never understand warriors.”

“The day would be more glorious if we were farther away from Lej,” Lalt said to Pander in distaste. “The entire country stinks like the decaying swamps and marshes in which it hides.”

“No help for it. Obblagatt’s set up his tower at the convergence of the three kingdoms’ borders.” Tannon shook his head. “You have to hand it to the man, he knows what he’s doing. He’s so far away from anyone that none of the kings of Seighn, Lej, and Brelia will even notice him impinging on their sovereignty until he’s firmly entrenched in his stronghold.”

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Geduad said firmly. He ran a whetstone down the blade of his short sword and peered at the edge. Irritation crossed his features and he applied the stone a few more times before nodding in approval. He placed the stone in a pouch and looked over at Tannon. “That’s what Seren are for.”

“We shouldn’t be,” Lalt muttered, shaking his head with a frown.

The North Seren’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He was used to the elf being downright solicitous of the gods’ rights to direct their Seren’s lives, so the rebellious streak was something new.

Lalt refused eye contact with the rest of the group. “It wasn’t always this way. Seren did not always have to rush about putting things aright. We used to build for the greater good, not tear down what was already rotten. All we do nowadays is lessen the damage. The gods’ hold on the world is slipping. This whole business with Obblagatt is merely indicative of the larger problem; a mage trying to set up a Dominion where he oughtn’t would never have gotten this far in my youth. You can even see it in the hourglass in Tempore’s Temple: our world’s time is running out. The world is Ending, and our gods do nothing.”

“Blasphemer!” shouted Geduad, so livid he looked almost apoplectic. “And you call yourself a servant of the gods?”

7

Danny Birt Lalt nodded his head tiredly, halfway agreeing with the North Seren. “Yes, it is a blasphemous idea. But is it my saying it or the reality itself that constitutes blasphemy?” He sighed. “I cannot ignore what I have observed over my lifetime without lying to myself, but if it will comfort you, I will refrain from mentioning it again.”

“Our gods must be doing something,” Geduad muttered.

“For all our sakes, I honestly hope I am wrong, that I am missing some clues, and the gods are doing your ‘something,’” Lalt said. “If not… if the world finds its Ending prematurely… everything has been pointless – including our lives of servitude, no matter how pious they may have been.” The elf stood, bowed to the North Seren, and then turned to the teakettle sitting over the remnants of the night’s fire.

Luckily, the two verbal combatants had a mutual wish to drop the conversation: Geduad was troubled by the philosophical dilemma Lalt had brought up, and Lalt knew that trying to reason with a zealot was a waste of time.

Lalt poured two mugs halfway full of tea and handed one to Sanct. As he approached, the elf got a better look at the newest addition to the group. The Sun Goddess reveals many things that her sister keeps hidden, thought Lalt. In the morning light, the man no longer appeared frightening or mysterious. He was just an average-looking human with a staff that -- Where did he put his staff? the elf wondered, looking around, confused.

The stranger accepted the partway-offered tea mug, then surprised everyone by saying “Think eew.”

“I wouldn’t suggest calling Sanct rude names anymore,” Tannon said to Geduad.

“Sanct?” Pander let go with a guffaw. “How embarrassing! Don’t tell me you’ve named your pet that, Lalt.”

“He needed a name.” The cleric shrugged.

“Elves,” the big man sighed, shaking his head. “You’re all alike.” He tightened a leather buckle on his pack, preparing to hoist it into place.

“I beg to differ,” the elf said mildly. “Were I Avilorn, we would be sparring right now over that asinine comment.”

“Huh, I suppose living in the mountains does give them more spirit than you squirrels.” The man did not face Lalt. He pulled his pack from the ground and shrugged it onto his back.

“Arbilorn, if you please,” the elf said stiffly, “and though my people traditionally live in the forest, I have personally lived in City Aeterna since before you were-” “Like the man was saying,” Geduad interrupted the lecture, “no matter if they live in forest or cave, elves make up the stupidest names.”

“Caves?” asked Tannon, his ears perking up and taking his attention away from looking at a map. “I was under the impression that the dwarves were the only faeries… my apologies, Lalt -- the only nation of the Fair Folk – who prefer to live in the earth.”

“A common misconception.” Lalt turned to a less hostile audience. “There is life in every environment, if you look hard enough. The Osilorn in particular have found beautiful ways through which to communicate with their cavernous homes.”

“Please take no offense, but I find it hard to believe that a hole in the ground could ever be beautiful,” Tannon said.

Lalt was busy burying what was left of the night’s fire. “Calling the Osilorn queendom a hole in the ground is like calling human cities a bunch of boxes. Technically it’s true, but they’re both so much more. We elves always work to enhance the preexisting beauty of our environment, and I must say…”

Disgusted with the direction of the conversation, the North Seren blocked it out and set off down the overgrown forest trail, scouting ahead as he always did. Soon after, the others began filing down the trail.

8

Ending an Ending “I don’t like it,” muttered Geduad to Pander as they walked somewhat ahead of Lalt and his charge. “He’s learning too fast to be a natural-born human.”

Pander shrugged. “If he really is one of the original Seren like Lalt says, all he’s doing is remembering stuff he’s forgotten.”

Geduad gave the big warrior a look that said ‘you’re an idiot,’ and hustled farther up the trail.

Having heard Sanct’s “Think eew” back at camp, Lalt was testing their newest member’s knowledge of language as they trailed behind Geduad. The elf was amazed at the results, at how easily Sanct picked up language. It seemed as though all he needed was to hear and understand something but once, and he was using the word or grammar in the next sentence.

How does he learn so fast? Lalt wondered. It can’t be my teaching skills. Might he be recovering some of his memories from before his Sleep, if he is indeed a Seren?

“Lalt?” Sanct said, interrupting Lalt’s half-test, half-lesson.

“Yes?” the elf prompted him. He saw Sanct’s frown, and marveled that Sanct was already getting the hang of combining emotion on his face with gestures and language.

“What purpose do we have there?” Sanct pointed to the east in the direction they were walking.

Lalt glanced toward the east, then looked back at Sanct. Purpose? Does he mean our mission? Perhaps. If so, that’s one more reason to believe him to be a Seren. How else can he know we have a mission if a god or goddess didn’t provide it? But how can I explain so he’ll understand? “There is… a bad man… that way. He’s…” What’s the best word?

Damage? Destroy? Hurt? Hurt. “…hurting people, and we need to stop him.”

Sanct nodded and gave Lalt a quizzical look. “How?” “Well, we will ask him to stop. If he refuses-” “Refuses?”

“Says no. If he refuses, we will need to kill him.”

“Kill?”

“Make him stop living.”

Sanct’s brows knitted into a puzzled expression.

Lalt struggled for an explanation. “What you did to the creatures last night with your staff.”

Sanct had a horrified look on his face. “You plan in advance to do this? But this is a bad thing!”

“But necessary.” Lalt’s voice took on a soothing tone.

“Bad is necessary?” he demanded. “The creatures doing it to us is not all right, but us doing it to him is necessary?”

“If we do not stop him, he will hurt more people.” What, is the man an idiotsavant philosopher?

“How can bad be good? Bad done to bad is good?” Sanct truly seemed distraught, and Lalt was at a loss for words, so he apprehensively called Geduad back to try to explain and went forward to take up position in the file.

“If you have to decide between lots of bad and just a little bad, the least amount of bad is good, right?” Geduad had no problem with killing a mage, and didn’t understand how anyone could. Maybe he could teach Sanct the right way to think.

Sanct slowly nodded his head. “I think so.” Though he listened readily enough to Geduad, he still kept his distance physically.

“Well,” Geduad said in a very self-satisfied manner, “If the only one that’s killed is Obblagatt, that’s far better than him killing lots of monks, yes?”

“Monks are… you-and-me creature type?”

9

Danny Birt “What are you two talking about?” Pander asked as they passed by the shrub from which he was picking his breakfast. When Geduad explained as best he could, Pander decided he would walk with the other two. He popped a little red berry in his mouth, offering the handful to Sanct and Geduad. “Oh. Yeah, monks are humans. But they’re special humans.” Seeing the obvious question on Sanct’s face, Pander continued. “Monks turn their lives over to understanding the gods’ intentions for and workings of our world, so the gods care about ‘em lots. That’s why each of our gods sent us to protect them, when no one elsewhat now?”

“Gods?”

“Come on, you don’t know who the gods are? Are you a Seren or not?” Geduad exclaimed exasperatedly, returning to the fore.

“Don’t know what a gods is,” Sanct called after him.

Pander suddenly, nervously, found himself the sole target of Sanct’s questions.

“The gods created us, created the world, created everything that you see.”

“I… am created?”

“How do you think you came into existence?”

“Existence?”

“Tannon!” Pander yelled, giving up at that. “Give this guy one of your books!” He strode further up the trail, ignoring the twigs that scratched at his armored body as he passed the Head Seren.

Sanct looked at Tannon worriedly. I have already made the other three stop talking with me. What happens if I upset Tannon, too?

The University professor slowed to let Sanct catch up with him. “Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Patience, young warrior,” he said to the War Seren. “You shouldn’t give up on yourself so easily.” He matched his strides to Sanct’s, and lowered his voice to conversational level.

“However, he inadvertently had a point. Creation is one of the mysteries of life that we as mortals cannot understand, as it is part of the god Etre’s domain. Mages are sometimes foolish enough to say that they can create life, but they’re really only manipulating preexisting life into another form. The man we are going to take care of now is one of those who tries to create life, but fails in the worst way.”

Sanct was confused by the use of so many long words, but he persevered. “And gods sent you to take care of?”

Tannon nodded assent. “One god for each Seren. My god is the God of Knowledge and the Aged, Lalt is dedicated to the God of Healing and of Children, Pander to the God of War and Warriors, and Geduad to the Goddess of the Northern Continent, Torberepar.”

“Which god sent me to take care of?” Sanct asked.

Tannon smiled resignedly. “My dear boy, we were hoping you would tell us. We are actually not even sure you are supposed to be here. The only reason you’re still with us is that the color of your staff matches our medallions – a unique color. Any time the Seren color is seen, it means that item or person is connected with the gods in some way. By chance, do you know if the staff is yours, or if you came by it some other way?”

“What is staff?”

“The thing in your hand.” Tannon pointed.

Sanct looked down at his hand and had a whole body twinge at the sight of the staff. He had not seen it since the previous night. “Where this have from come?”

Tannon looked at him closely. The man was definitely surprised to see the object in his hand – he was regressing in his grammar. How can that be? He’s carried the staff with him since yesterday! “So you’re not sure if it’s yours?”

Sanct stared at the staff with a look that slowly turned surer yet more perplexed. “I know only yesternight and today, but the staff is surely me, yes.”

10

Ending an Ending “How do you know?” asked Tannon curiously.

Sanct shrugged. “How do you know your hair is you?”

The scholar paused, searching for an easier way to word his thoughts. In the end, he gave up and called Lalt over. “You probably have an answer to this, what with you working with bodies all the time,” he said to the cleric.

Lalt first listened as Tannon explained the dilemma. Next he turned to Sanct. “My hair is attached to me and had its beginning in me, as have my fingers and my eyes.”

Sanct pulled a hair from the elf’s head, making Lalt wince. “Still you?”

The elf hesitated. There were many schools of thought on that subject. Lalt had heard the debates many times, but had never been terribly interested. He had only stuck with the debates for as long as it took to satisfy his own curiosity as a cleric who worked with the occasional severed body part.

“I’m having a difficult time answering that question, Sanct,” Lalt said falteringly Sanct looked at the staff and nodded. “Yes, me, too.”

Tannon butted in. “But he was born with his hair as part of him. You weren’t born with a staff.”

“Born?”

“Created.”

“Created! Yes! Pander said I am created and World is created. Who is World?”

“What is world. World is a thing, not a person.” Tannon geared himself up for another verbal battle. Being a University professor, he was not used to teaching such basic topics. With Sanct’s small lexicon, no matter how quickly it burgeoned, explaining was going to be troublesome. “Sanct, will you promise to not interrupt me until I’m done speaking, even if you don’t know a word? Thank you.”

Tannon began drawing in the air with two fingers. “The sacred histories in the Temple of Knowledge tell us our world is flat, shaped like a square. The four corners of the square are kept balanced by the two pairs of cardinal gods and goddesses so that it doesn’t tip into the lake of lava beneath us. Unfortunately, the closer to the edge of the world we get, the more volatile the winds and the faster the currents of the ocean become, so no one has ever looked over the edge to verify this. Even the powers of mages weaken the higher up mountains or farther down into caves they go, so they cannot use magic to examine the limits of the world.

“The waters of our oceans flow in from the edges of the world. When they meet at the center of the square, they drain down through the earth in a great whirlpool. The water falls onto the lake of lava, and the resulting steam builds pressure under the world, constantly pushing it skyward. The small amount of steam that leaks around the edges of the world becomes the clouds.

“To the east of our world sits the Sun Goddess, Aiz. When she heats the world during the day and the steam pressure from below rises, the world likewise rises above where she sits, leaving her sister’s light the only one in the sky. The world cools throughout the night, falling back down until it is again in range of Aiz. “The Moon Goddess, Eiz, sits in a similar state much higher in the western sky, but since she is weaker than her sister, we can only see her when Aiz is blocked out by the world.

It is said they were placed on separate sides of the sky by their father, the God of Time, Tempore, for fighting with each other over who would Begin the world, and who would End it.

“The stars revealed by the Goddess of the Night are actually the homes of the gods.

Every god has their own cluster of stars from which they look down on us, even during the daytime when we cannot see them. Even the gods of the continents have homes in the sky, though they reside there but rarely. If you look to our north, you will see the brown star of 11

Danny Birt Torberepar, to the south the green of Tortryst, and easternmost Torunmem’s star, blazing blacker than all the night sky.

“The force of the grave, or – or – oh, gods’ sakes, Sanct, is it pertinent?” Tannon was exasperated with the stricken look on his student’s face.

He nodded endearingly.

“Well, speak up,” Tannon snapped. He did not enjoy having lectures interrupted.

“Less stars in the Tortryst,” Sanct said. “Why?” “I believe what you mean is ‘Less stars in the south,’ Sanct. Tortryst is the southern continent, named after the Goddess of the South, but when speaking directionally it is considered archaic to use the cardinal gods’ names.

“As to the large swaths of starless night sky,” Tannon continued, “they are the former homes of the Banished Gods. No, Sanct, I do not feel well enough versed in that area of theology to tell you about them. Let us say that they are utterly powerless, and so they do not matter to our mission.

“Getting back to our lecture, the force of the grave, or ‘gravity,’ comes from the pull on our souls by our graves, a law enacted by Kyr, the Goddess of the Afterlife, back when – hush, Sanct.”

At first, Sanct thought that Tannon was admonishing him to not ask anymore questions, but when he looked where the scholar was looking, Sanct saw Pander saying something with his hand, passing along a signal from farther up the trail.

The group met around the leader. “What did you spy?” asked Tannon of the North Seren as he hurried back to them.

“Two of the lizards, three of the dogs, and a new type roosting in a tree.” He spat on the ground. “Obblagatt has been busy if he’s graduated to flying creatures.”

“And turned them out of his tower to make room for more impressive ones,” murmured Tannon. “This is most worrisome. What other life forms do you think he may have in store for us by the time we reach his abode?”

Pander held up a hand to forestall Geduad’s answer. “On the battlefield we take care of problems one at a time, scholar. We’ll deal with that when we get to the tower.” .

“Of course.” Tannon nodded his head. “I bow to your superior knowledge of tactics. Can you make a plan of battle for us?”

Pander nodded in turn. “This is a clean-up job, nothing serious like the tower’ll be.

Geduad, I want arrows going into the new creature after we see what it can do. I’ll deal with the dogs. You, Sanct, you know how to fight, right?”

“Yes?” Sanct didn’t sound very convincing even to himself, but the War Seren didn’t seem to notice his tone of voice.

“You and Lalt take care of the lizards. Tannon, stay here, we’ll come back for you when it’s safe.”

Sanct’s heart began to beat faster. “Lalt?”

“Yes, Sanct, what is it?” the elf said distractedly. He always prayed to his patron deity before difficult moments in his life. Any of the other Seren would have known what he was trying to do by the hand clasping his medallion, and left him alone.

Sanct swallowed. “How do I to fight?”

His concentration broken, Lalt looked at the man in horror. “You don’t know?”

Sanct shook his head.

“Just… do what you did last night to the other creatures!”

Stringing his bow, Geduad yelled in surprise – the creatures had apparently noted the presence of the Seren, and were charging down the trail. The North Seren threw his bow to the side and dodged a savage maul by a huge dog with so many bones protruding outside 12

Ending an Ending of its skin it looked like a walking exoskeleton. Geduad continued to stagger back as he pulled a sword from its sheath.

Greenish-blue scales shimmering in the morning light, two six-legged lizards as long as a human was tall shimmied past the dog, pressing the advantage on Geduad. They looked like they did not have any teeth, but their mandibles looked powerful enough to crush a tree limb. The dog joined its two fellows in circling around the back of the group.

Sanct heard a loud clank from behind and turned to see Pander warding off the talons of a squawking white-feathered bird with his shield.

“You’ve gotta watch your back. Keep an eye on the sky when there’re flyers, Sanct!”

The War Seren batted the squawking creature back into the branches with a thwack from his shield. “You owe me one, now!”

“Owe you one what?” Sanct asked.

“Favor!” Pander was already after the next creature.

Bewildered and hyperventilating, Sanct tried to glance at his back like Pander had told him, though he failed to see how that would help the situation. While looking, he did catch a glimpse of Lalt near him, shaking his head and muttering at the nearest dog, his face looking almost like he was pleading. Oddly, the dog seemed to listen to the elf for a moment, but after that it shook its head, flapping its clacking bone-riddled ears, and advanced.

Clasping his medallion with one hand, Lalt stretched the other hand out toward the approaching dog.

“Tense orbicularis oculi,” the cleric whispered.

The dog suddenly shut its eyes and halted its progress, snorting menacingly.

Another dog was loping briskly toward the elf. Lalt again extended his hand.

“Tense buccinator,” he whispered.

The second bony dog’s jaw immediately snapped shut on its own tongue. Being unable to open its jaw, the canine was reduced from howling to whimpering as it ran off, its tongue dripping with freshly spilt crimson blood.

“I am sorry,” Lalt whispered. It had been heart wrenching for the Arbilorn to hurt creatures that looked and acted like his totem animal, but Lalt knew they were not truly dogs.

They had been unable to hear his thoughts, and, more importantly to any elf, he had not been able to hear their thoughts.

Sanct ran forward to dispatch the blinded dog. The noise of his staff connecting with the creature’s bony head sounded like he had stepped through thin ice and into a bog.

Sanct was at once relieved and horrified at the shiver that ran up the length of his staff and through his hands.

A twang and a second squawk from his right told him that someone had killed the flying creature, but as he looked forward, he saw the North Seren still having trouble with the lizards. He moved forward to help. Geduad grudgingly accepted his help inasmuch as he was an additional target for the second lizard.

Turning his full attention to the first lizard, the North Seren took a risk by wielding his sword with one hand while reaching for his medallion with his other. The ploy did not work quite as he’d hoped.

“Damnation!” he swore as the lizard’s gigantic mandibles tore the sword from his grasp. Muttering a prayer to the goddess of the continent, he turned to the nearby tree, swiped a rigidly clawed hand at its roots and pushed it.

To Lalt’s surprise, the tree came crashing down on top of both lizards as though it had never been rooted in the earth at all. Looking in the pit, he saw evidence of the sort of erosion that should have taken years. The elf said a quick but fervent prayer for the life of the tree.

The five companions looked at each other, four of them breathing heavily.

13

Danny Birt “And that’s that,” Tannon smiled, kneeling to examine a dog that he had subdued through no visible means.

“My best sword,” Geduad groused. Even were he able to remove the blade from the dying lizard’s rigor mortised mandibles, it was bent at an awkward angle that would make it useless in a fight. “I’ve had it since I left the farm.” He petulantly kicked the shimmerscaled beast, and felt a little better.

Sanct also stared at the sword. He had felt how strong a sword could be; he could not imagine how powerful the lizard was. What if that lizard had gotten a hold on my leg?

Would I be alive?

Pander unhooked a sword from his back and tossed it to Geduad, scabbard and all, without a word. Geduad nodded his thanks.

Pander looked at the downy bird at his feet. “This one’s definitely new; maybe we could learn something from the way it was manufactured. Do you want to dissect it, Head Seren?”

“No.” Tannon stood. “Though, I’m curious about that new ability.”

Pander shrugged. “I heard a crackle like the dropping of a mage’s shield, so I loosed my arrow. I guessed right. I turned around and almost fired at that dog, too, but you got in the way.” He playfully jabbed at Sanct with the feathered end of an arrow.

“Trying to help your kindred out?” asked Geduad crossly.

“Confound it, North, he isn’t one of the mage’s creatures!” Lalt said exasperatedly.

“What is your problem?”

“He isn’t human.” Geduad brooded by his one kill. “You’re as blind as a worm.”

“Squirrel,” Lalt said derogatorily.

The North Seren looked confused. “Huh?” “I am not Osilorn. The correct racial slur for me is ‘squirrel,’ not ‘worm.’ How pitiful; you can’t even get your racism right,” Lalt said in disgust.

“We’re not talking about what you are!” Geduad blustered. “We’re trying to figure out what this is!” He pointed at Sanct.

“For the gods’ sake, man, look at him!” Lalt stalked to Sanct’s side and gesturing up and down his body. “Don’t you even know what your own race looks like?”

Geduad stalked forward. “He looks it, yes. Acts like? Feels like? Absolutely not.

Even you, ‘squirrel,’ you said that he ‘had all the anatomy’ of a human, but can you honestly tell me is one?”

Lalt drew in a breath but held it for a moment, then longer, and longer still, so Geduad furthered his argument. “Oh yeah, about that anatomy. Have any of you noticed that he has yet to suffer a bruise, a scratch? He isn’t even breathing hard now!”

“How do I worry you?” Sanct asked. “I wish not to dissect you.”

The tense moment passed. “He’s not so smart after all,” quipped Pander.

Geduad broke his incredulous stare at Sanct to cast a furious one at Pander.

Tannon broke in. “Geduad, I will not have you questioning my commands.”

Geduad tried to protest, but silenced himself when Tannon stood.

“I welcomed him into this Seren much as I welcomed you when I took over. Until I see evidence that he will be deleterious to our mission, he stays with us. With the new creatures’ magical abilities, he may have a necessary skill in dealing with Obblagatt. I’m not willing to risk losing that.” He broke off, looking with displeasure at Sanct. “But I have no reason to trust you, and if you cause trouble I will punish you so severely that you will wish Geduad had severed your head. Understand?”

Sanct shook his head. “No. What is severed?”

Tannon sighed. “Lalt, take hold of your charge. We’re headed out of here.”

14

Ending an Ending The group left the dead creatures as they lay. Lalt forestalled Sanct’s otherwise inevitable question with a quiet “don’t ask.” The elf may as well have tried to stop a river’s flow with a single brick – there were plenty of other questions to be asked.

“Lalt, what makes me so different?”

“Goodness, Sanct, I don’t know!” And what I DO know makes no sense!

“What makes a mage so different?”

With a sigh, the cleric wondered if raising a child was half this mentally fatiguing.

“I’ve had many human friends who used magic. It’s not that their human side changes.

Rather, they are given additional power that most of you humans don’t have.”

“Seren have powers too. Does that make us mage… mages?”

“No!” “What difference?”

“Like priests, we receive our powers from the gods to do their will. If we go against their will or do evil with our gifts, they are taken away. Human mages’ power stems from no god, so they can do good or evil with total impunity.”

“About their power, what is magic? And what about you, and other elves – why do you keep saying humans only?”

Lalt sighed again as he ducked under a low-growing branch. Metaphysics was an impossible topic to explain to someone who could not see it. “One question at a time. Magic is… a form of power, and therefore a responsibility. Magic is another way to get things done.

It needs strength from a sentient source, be it human or Fair Folk. It needs ritual and will.

“Elves and the rest of the Fair Folk are born imbued with magic; we touch it as easily as you breathe air. It is an innate part of us, as much as blood is to a human, so any of the Fair can ‘do magic,’ but we do it better.” It was an oversimplification, but he hardly wanted to spend the rest of the day – or year – talking about it.

“I still don’t understand what magic is,” Sanct stated.

Lalt indulged in yet another sigh, again wishing that any of his magic-using acquaintances was here to explain it better than this. “It’s power,” he finally summarized, wincing at how much he left out.

Sanct took this as the whole truth. “Are there many mages?”

Tannon stepped in for the patient elven cleric. “Depending on the century, their number fluctuates between five thousand and fifty thousand – they tend to have such short lives it’s hard to keep track. The only ones who live long enough to get their names known are the most powerful ones like the Alaris, the Apex of Pinnacle, and occasionally one of the established Dominion masters. Obblagatt is a rare exception.”

Sanct nodded, paused, then said, “So Obblagatt is a human with great power who knows rituals that can bring creatures to… exist… that hurt monk humans?”

Again, Lalt was amazed at Sanct’s capacity to piece together abstract information.

“Yes, Sanct. Exactly right.”

“And Geduad believes that I came to exist in this manner?”

The cleric and the scholar could only nod.

“Why do you not believe that?”

Tannon clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Let it suffice to say that I had a feeling you aren’t, all right?”

Sanct seized upon the word. “Feelings, yes. How does one get feelings?”

Lalt paused halfway through swiveling his body over a log fallen across the trail.

“What, you mean you don’t have feelings?”

“No,” Sanct corrected, “feelings I have, but in… abundance? Yes, many feelings.

Where I should go, what I should say. Happy, sad. Where do they come from, and why do I have them?” He hopped over the same log to rejoin Lalt.

15

Danny Birt Lalt held up a hand. “Sanct, I believe you’re talking about two different types of feelings. One is what humans call ‘the heart,’ the other is a ‘hunch,’ which likely has to do with your god. Allow me to leave you with Tannon to discuss those subjects. He has made an extensive study of both, and would be happy to talk with you more, I’m sure.”

“Wait!” Sanct pleaded. “One more question. Monks. Powerless?”

“Why would you think that?” Lalt asked.

“We go to… to…”

“Defend them? Keep from being hurt?”

Sanct pointed at Lalt. “Yes.” Lalt nodded. “The Monks’ Reserve is not powerless – their knowledge of the underlying rules of the world is unmatched – but they are nonconfrontational. Meaning, they prefer to not use what powers they have against their fellow human beings. I don’t know if they would be allowed to or even wish to use those powers to attack Obblagatt; I suppose we are here to make sure they do not have to make that decision. Tannon, he’s all yours.”

The elf moved off to speak with the others, gladly leaving the University professor to be teethed upon by Sanct’s voracious mind.

By the end of the day, the company had run into four more groups of the magically constructed creatures. Under the cover of darkness they discussed their findings in a small hollow they had found for their camp.

“I don’t like the idea of leaving these creatures alive,” rumbled Pander. “Didn’t we come out here to stop these things from bothering the monks in their Reserve?”

“I don’t like it either, War Seren,” Geduad explained, “but if we stop to track down and kill every creature that we come across, we will be delayed in coming closer to Obblagatt’s tower. The more time he has, the more control over the land he will have, and the less effectively I will be able to hide our presence.”

“North Seren, if I may interject?” Tannon asked smoothly. Given assent, he continued. “I have been educating this fine man here,” gesturing to Sanct, “so my mind has been wandering. I’m afraid I have a rather startling theory.”

“Let’s have it,” grunted Geduad.

Tannon nodded. “The claiming of Dominion over an area of land is a very tricky business when it comes to mages. To gain mastery over those lands, they must already have a certain amount of power invested. Yet, to have that power, they must have a good bit of mastery over the land. It’s a paradox, you see.”

“Lovely.” Pander sat back. Tannon had lost him at “interject,” but he didn’t mind.

What he did mind was the necessity of sleeping in full metal armor without a fire. Not only does metal not help with keeping warm, if the sleeper rolls over in the middle of the night, it feels like rolling into a huge puddle of cold drool.

“For a normal human to become a lord or lady of their land, all they have to do is inherit a pre-existing title. I understand it is different for your kind,” he nodded at Lalt.

“What does this have to do with Obblagatt?” asked Geduad crossly.

Tannon looked sternly at the North Seren. “I have students half your age with twice your patience.”

For once, the man looked abashed.

Tannon continued. “A mage, however, is different from the normal human being, because he or she needs to have power over a certain element in the land itself. There is a Dominion, for example, on Torunmem that has plants seen nowhere else in the world, because the Dominion’s Master has made the propagation of plant life his life work. The plants live on and live off of that land, which helps give the Master claim over it.”

16

Ending an Ending “Tannon. Obblagatt. Now.” Geduad’s tone was highly impatient.

Tannon obliged. “Gentlemen, what do you see as Obblagatt’s main power?”

None seemed to want to venture an opinion until Tannon pointed to Pander..

Pander tossed a piece of wood onto the fire, “So far all we’ve seen are his creatures, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t do other things with that magic of his. That’s the way of mages – they might specialize in one form of power, but they always have seven tricks up their robes.”

The scholar cleared his throat. “Be that as it may, his power does lie mostly in the creation of these strange creatures. Now, remember what I said about mages needing to invest their power in the lands over which they were claiming Dominion?”

Tannon’s opinion of Geduad raised a notch when he caught on before anyone else. “He’s not letting his creatures escape, he’s trying to populate these lands for declaration of Dominion! We’ve got to get to him before he declares, or I’ll be unable to hide our presence from him!”

“Even worse,” Tannon said, “the door will finally be opened for other mages to claim Dominions on this continent! That’s why the Torunmem Dominions have not stepped in – they want to expand their power base. But why won’t Pinnacle?”

“Actually, I asked a mage friend of mine.” Lalt fingered a diamond earring in his left ear. “He said that Obblagatt has not broken any rule of Pinnacle, so the Apex doesn’t have grounds to force him off the land. The Schools of the Unseen and the Miniscule might even be supporting him, since he attained his Peerage in both. This would never have happened if there were an elf in charge up there.”

Geduad looked darkly at Lalt. The idea of an elf being in charge of all the mages in the world was a doubly distasteful idea to him.

“Pinnacle is a high place?” asked Sanct.

“A pinnacle can be, yes,” answered Tannon, “but we are talking about the mage stronghold, a great tower named Pinnacle. It’s how the word ‘pinnacle’ got its meaning.”

“We are headed there?”

“No. That tower is far away, across the ocean on Torunmem. We are headed toward a smaller tower with only one mage, and his apprentices. Almost all mages live in towers; it gives them the feeling that they can look down on everyone else.”

Sanct looked over at Tannon as best he could in the dark. “What can I do to help?”

The lack of a fire made it hard to judge the Head Seren’s reaction. “What can you do, period? The only thing I’ve seen you do so far is swing that staff. All of us have our medallions directly connecting us to the power of our deities; to what powers do you have access?”

Sanct sat still and silent in the dark. He had no answer.

Tannon seemed to feel this. “Stay with Lalt as his guard. The rest of the plan will remain unchanged for everyone else. Sleep now; we move at daybreak.”

“Head Seren, may I have a word with you?” Geduad came to his feet.

After walking away from the group, the two men faced each other.

“Well, what is it?” asked the scholar.

“That’s no Seren over there.”

“Now, Geduad, we’ve gone over this before,” Tannon said. “Even if he is not a Seren, he is a servant of the gods in some respect.”

“There’s nothing about him that says servitude to me, does it you?” he asked in reply. “Other than that staff, of course, and you can’t even prove that it’s his.”

“We do not understand the ways of the gods,” the scholar tried to explain, but Geduad would have none of it.

17

Danny Birt “No! Normal humans don’t; we do. We have to. We’re their servants, and how can we do what they want us to do if we don’t know their will? And he,” Geduad pointed back toward the hollow, “isn’t a part of our mission.”

“I say he is, and as Head Seren-” Geduad jerked his pointer finger up to his chest. “I was Head Seren of this mission until you came along,” Geduad said angrily, turning his finger around to poke it into Tannon’s chest. His finger connected with Tannon’s Seren medallion under his shirt, and got a warning shock that served to both calm and anger him at the same time. “So I know that he wasn’t to be part of it.”

“Have faith,” counseled Tannon.

“That what?” asked Geduad. “All we have is faith and guesses about him! Did a god send him? Which god? Why? Has our mission changed because of him? Is that staff his, and will it help us?” He shook his head angrily. “Tannon, even among the most devout servants of the gods, faith only goes so far; you have to know a little to believe a lot.” He turned his back and stalked off to commune with the continent of his goddess.

Tannon returned to the fireside deeply troubled.

Lalt’s sharp elven ears had had no trouble picking up the conversation that had just taken place. He knew that all of them were asking those questions, none more so than Sanct.

However, Geduad’s last sentence had provided him a key into understanding the mystery man a little better.

Sanct knew little, so he had to believe a lot; he had no choice. His amazing rate of learning had been slowing down more and more until it was almost human by tonight. Yet, he did know some things that hinted at knowledge directly from the gods. It was as though whoever Sanct’s god happened to be was not interested in his servant having a personality, so long as he did his master’s will.

The elf shrugged mentally, and rolled over away from the fire. It was merely one more example of how the gods were not evenhanded to their servants.

“Lalt.” Tannon’s voice rolled the elf back over on his side.

“Yes, Head Seren?” Lalt had a feeling that the man was not interested in making small talk, so it made sense to use his title instead of his name.

“Earlier today, Geduad asked you a question that he barreled over in his haste to make a point.” The elderly Seren stared at Lalt from across the fire. “Yet, it was a good question. You were hesitant to commit to saying more than Sanct having human anatomy.

Why?” “I am still as hesitant, Head Seren,” Lalt said, sitting up reluctantly. He glanced over at Sanct and Pander, touched his medallion, and sent out a nuzzle to each body; they were both truly asleep. “I do not actually understand it, so I cannot explain properly, and I would not like to give an incomplete and therefore inaccurate analysis.”

“I am the Seren of Knowledge. Tell me what you can.”

Lalt considered Tannon’s statement. He did not know if the human had meant that the God of Knowledge would help his Seren sort out and understand the information, perhaps even discard the incorrect musings, or if he as the Seren of Knowledge felt less powerful without basking in his domain. Either way, his Head Seren had made a demand; his oath that bound him to this Seren made it impossible for him to stay silent.

“Are you familiar with the idea of the gestalt?” Lalt asked to start.

“Something being worth more than the sum of its parts, yes,” Tannon answered.

“I’ve studied it in detail, in fact; it’s a fascinating theorem.”

“Would you be willing to explain your view of it to me?”

“Does this have something to do with Sanct?”

“Yes. Please?” Lalt asked again.

18

Ending an Ending “Very well.” Tannon assumed a posture, as though he was readying for a lecture.

“Some people consider gestalt to be a heretical idea, since they believe that it goes against the rules of Etre. They usually fall back upon mathematics to prove their point, spouting things like ‘adding one to one should always make two, never three’ and such things. And yet, one person working in tandem with another person can do the work of three individual persons, can they not? I would thus suggest that those people who call gestalt heretical are ninnies who haven’t the mental fortitude to understand the dynamic.

“When noting that things A and B combined make a C greater than the sum of A and B, I postulate that the Gestalt Effect comes from neither A nor B, but from the connection between them – sort of A plus B plus the space between equals C. For there must be this relationship, this connecting space, or else A and B are no longer separate and indistinguishable. Some of my peers at the University hold that the Gestalt Effect comes from the overlap of A into B, and vice versa, but I consider that nonsense.”

“So, to your way of thinking, everything and everyone connects through a medium, never directly?” Lalt asked.

“Yes,” Tannon said. “Now where is this going?”

“The Gestalt Effect, as you put it, also works on the body.” Lalt touched his chest.

“We are more than flesh plus bones equals a body; flesh and bones plus ‘the space between’ equals a person. Personality, decision making, emotion – all of these things decry that we are more than the sum of our parts, yes? We are more than a lump of flesh?”

“That would stand to reason,” Tannon agreed.

Lalt haltingly said, “And yet, Sanct is not. He is the sum of his parts, no more.”

Tannon blinked slowly in the firelight. “How so?”

Lalt shrugged helplessly. “That is where my thoughts fail me. I cannot put my finger on it, figuratively or literally. I know what I sense, but it makes no sense.”

Tannon shook his head, and shifted his slight body weight to compensate for his arthritic hip. “There has to be more than that. If he was just a body, could he talk?”

Lalt bristled, and made his slight frame taller. “Head Seren, I’ve told you what I know, against my better judgement.” He pointed his finger at Tannon. “Don’t criticize me for carrying out your command.”

Tannon looked annoyed at Lalt’s statement, but he did not press the subject. This was twice in the same night he had had an angry finger pointed at him: he was Head Seren, but he was still a scholar, not a leader of men. Why his god had chosen him for this mission was beyond him.

Instead of fighting, Tannon asked, “So, what is he really? Is he human or not?”

Lalt sighed. “He is obviously not a mineral, and cannot be a plant. No animal can understand – and therefore become – a greater being than itself according to the Law of Being, and no animal has been greater than human since the dragons of long ago. He is not a vampire, not a reverse shapeshifter, and not one of the Fair Folk with glamorous illusions.

The only other possibility I could think of would be if he were an elf who ranked so low in his totem that animals commanded him instead of the other way around, but as I said, he has the anatomy of a human. Moreover, he walks, talks, smells, feels, looks, and sounds like a human. Can you think of a more fitting option?”

Tannon shook his head. “I cannot. Thank you, Lalt. If you think of anything more, let me know immediately.”

Lalt nodded, and laid back down on the ground. He knew that he had left Tannon unsatisfied, but he was unsatisfied himself.

19

Danny Birt The next day Sanct was to find out how grueling it could be trying to keep up with Seren under a deadline. It seemed that they all had some special ability that qualified their being there. Geduad knew the land before he came in contact with it and had unerring footsteps. Lalt had a light pad to his foot that kept him from tiring, and even Tannon seemed to have an endless supply of stamina stemming from the medallion hanging at his neck. Sanct found himself wondering again why he was with this group of men when he had no idea what he was supposed to do, or even what he was able to do.

The company lost count of the number of times they ran into the mage’s creatures, simply avoiding or killing them if they were directly in their path. Sanct marveled at the speed with which each individual of the group seemed to dispatch mage’s ilk. Oftentimes, the only reason he knew there had been a fight at all was when he would pass up a creature that was still twitching, having been pierced with an arrow or cut down with a sword. Yet, the Seren never seemed to lose their dogged pace.

Sanct was thankful to be so far back in the line; it meant he rarely had to deal with the creatures. When he did, he took care of the creature as quickly as he could and put it out of his mind. He did not enjoy hurting the creatures, but he knew it needed to be done. On the bright side, Pander seemed to have at least a grudging respect for how efficient Sanct was becoming in his talent at bludgeoning the creatures.

“Well, not too bad with your little broomstick, are you?” he panted as he jogged back toward the front of the group. “Nothing like a dwarf-made sword and Surian shield in your hands, though. You’ll never see me with anything less.”

Sanct smiled in return, not knowing how to say that he didn’t feel he could take responsibility for his staff’s actions. It seemed to have a mind of its own, not being in his hand while he was jogging, then snaking out to defend Sanct before he noticed a danger.

The land had been sloping more and more all day, and as Sanct looked back occasionally, he could see the distance they had already covered. The land below seemed darker the further south he looked. Tannon had told him it was because there were swamps and marshes down that way. His talk with Tannon reminded him that the pain in his lungs was from the extreme height to which they were ascending. Looking up the mountains, he hoped that they weren’t planning on going much higher.

Tannon called Geduad forward to discuss something, and soon the party was headed off in a slightly different direction. They came to an abandoned homestead, complete with a loft atop an empty barn.

“We stay here tonight,” Tannon announced. “Obblagatt’s tower is hidden ahead somewhere to the east, near where the three kingdoms’ borders converge. We will be leaving soon so we can get there well before daybreak.”

Pander walked up to the barn/house, laid a hand on it, and with his other hand grasped his medallion. He turned back around and said, “The upper level is rotten through, but the barn is still sturdy. It’s the ground again for us, gents.”

Sanct walked inside and lay down. Even after the exhausting run that he had been dragged through, he found he was unable to sleep because of the emotion that he labeled as “fear.” He looked at the others settling in to the corners of the building, searching out a bit of privacy, and wondered if any of them was feeling the same thing.

Pander laid down to Sanct’s right. “Nervous?” he asked, smiling.

Sanct considered, decided “nervous” meant “fear.” He nodded.

“Don’t feel bad. It’s normal to be worried about the unknown, and the future is the greatest unknown of them all.”

“Why is that?” Sanct asked, trying to take his mind off the present.

“Time is the domain of Tempore, the Brother-God of Time. It isn’t really ours.”

“Brother-God?” 20

Ending an Ending Pander turned onto his side to face Sanct. “In Aeterna, where I’m from, we have the biggest temple in the world. It’s dedicated to Tempore, but people also go there to worship Etre, the Brother-God of Existence. They’re brothers, so they share the temple. They have statues in the temple, along with a third god whose face is scratched out.”

Sanct raised his eyebrows. “To defile a religious item is naughty, is it not? Would the god not be angry?”

“Many people wonder how the priests of Tempore could have been caught so offguard as to allow it to happen. Also, why has the statue never been refinished?” Pander shook his head. “It’s not a topic to bring up in the temple, though. The priests get very upset, let me tell you. They’ll escort you right out.”

“So there are three Brother-Gods. What are Brother-Gods?”

“I didn’t say there were three,” objected Pander. “There’s just two statues and a rumor. But if you want to know about the Brother-Gods, talk with Tannon.”

“Why do you always start a conversation only to refer me to someone else?” asked Sanct curiously. “Don’t you know anything?”

Pander was caught speechless. He knew Sanct had not meant to insult him – he didn’t even know if Sanct understood what an insult was, let alone how to deliver one. In so many ways, Sanct reminded Pander of one of his long-lost sons, so eager to learn yet equipped with so hopelessly inept a tongue.

The warrior decided to answer Sanct openly.

“I come from a very poor branch of an old Aeternan family. I became a servant in one of the wealthier houses in the family to help my parents at an early age. Later I became a guardsman for the head of the family. I suppose that no one ever thought that a serving boy or a guardsman had any need to learn how to read.”

“Why are you angry about not reading?” Sanct shifted his weight around a rock that was gleefully digging into his side. He wondered why Pander had never taken the time to read; he had learned earlier this morning from Tannon, and while he could not read words he did not already know, he could read a page aloud. Maybe his god does not want him to read, Sanct thought. Maybe the gods want their Seren to remain purely devoted to them, and their needs. He thought of another example. “Tannon isn’t angry about not hitting things with a sword and shield as well as you do.”

Pander chuckled darkly. “That’s what you think. Wait a couple years, and you’ll understand. That’s the curse of humanity, my friend: from the day you’re born you’re tantalized by knowledge and power, and with every taste, you thirst even more.”

“Is this why you became Seren?”

Pander blinked. Maybe this is going too far. “Seren normally don’t talk about our past, Sanct. It tends to make us too comfortable with each other.”

“Comfort is bad?” Sanct cocked his head.

The War Seren looked at his companion wryly. Even his son had not been this… this… well, however Sanct was being. “Well, if you put it that way,” he said in a tone of voice with which Sanct was unfamiliar. “Oh, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt; you need a point of reference for yourself, don’t you?

“Like I said, I was a guardsman in Aeterna. One night, I was standing watch in the house when robbers came. The master of the house had always kept coinage on hand in a chest in his own room. The robbers found out and came straight for the bedroom.

“I was the only guard that was in that portion of the house. I held the hallway against seven men – seven! – for I don’t know how long. Eventually, the other guards heard the racket and came at the robbers from behind.

21

Danny Birt “That, my friend, is a religious experience. Besting not only seven individuals but the combined might of a group of seven people is something that not one in a thousand men can say they have done.

“The master of the house asked me what I would have as a reward for my service. I asked for only enough money and time to make a religious pilgrimage to the Temple of the War God, for I was sure that it was he who had made my victory possible.

“Maul’s Temple is one of the few temples not on Torberepar – it’s in Bastion, the capitol of Sur on Torunmem – so I was bound to be gone for a long time. I didn’t realize at the time how long, but the head of the household gave me an unlimited leave. I’ve often wondered whether that was luck, or predetermined,” Pander mused.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I crossed the ocean and landed in Sur. I hadn’t brought a horse – it didn’t seem right to go on a pilgrimage by anything but my own two feet – so it took me a few days to get there. When I arrived, though, it was all worth it.

“I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I first caught sight of the temple. It was so unlike all the temples in Aeterna, and yet I knew I would fit in there better than anywhere back home. It wasn’t built for beauty, but it was proud. It looked simply built without any gaudy gold or marble, yet it had stood for thousands of years. The pillars were carved like all different sorts of spears and staves, the metal roof looked like a shield. Even in as bellicose a city as Bastion, it was unmistakable for any other building.

“Despite the temple’s ferocious appearance, I felt welcomed inside, like I was expected. I entered, and went to one of the little altar alcoves – that’s how they do it over in Torunmem, instead of a single alter for everyone – and came to my knees. I thanked my god with all my being for the great talent he had given me, the healthy body I maintained, and the wisdom of how to employ each.

“And I was recognized.

“I can’t explain it, Sanct,” Pander said with a catch in his voice. “If you don’t remember your god’s acknowledgement, I’m truly sorry for you, for it was the highlight of my life. I would do anything for my god, for a feeling so good, so pure.”

“What was it like?” Sanct asked in a hushed voice.

“Like I said: recognition. My god recognized my accomplishment for what it was.

Not only that, though. He viewed me, looked into me deeper than I even know myself, as deep as if I was being judged for the Afterlife, and he approved of me. He approved who and what I was.

“I think we humans aren’t ever supposed to feel totally sure of ourselves, Sanct,” Pander said. “If we did, I don’t think we would feel like we needed anybody else, maybe not even the gods, so we’re born incomplete. That feeling of complete acceptance is something that we all yearn for, deep down, whether we admit it or not.”

“Was it hard to give up your position as a guardsman?” Sanct asked.

“A bit,” Pander shrugged, “though it was nothing in comparison to giving up on ever seeing my family again. In fact, I almost didn’t become a Seren.”

Sanct raised his eyebrows. “What made you decide in favor of your god?”

Pander drew in a sharp breath, and his eyes moistened. I knew talking about my past was a bad idea. “It didn’t exactly happen like that, Sanct.”

Sanct looked at Pander’s medallion, confused. “But you’re a Seren.”

Pander knew that none of the other Seren were asleep yet. They were far away, each having taken a corner of the barn, but he knew they were all listening. With a deep breath, Pander resigned himself to finishing his story. “It was the final test of my god, offering the Seren position to me. If I had abandoned those for whom I had cared, I would not have been given the position; my god would not accept someone of lesser virtue. Either way, I was guaranteed to not get what I wanted.”

22

Ending an Ending “So your family is…”

“Oh, that’s all in the past,” Pander waved his hand to try to pass it off as nothing, despite his stuffy nose. “My wife, my children are dead three generations now, though I still check in on my descendants when I can squeeze in a bit of time between missions and Sleep.

Talking about sleep,” Pander said preemptively, trying to head off any more prying poignant questions, “I think it’s about time we got some, don’t you agree, my friend?”

Sanct nodded and settled down. He felt better. His body was so tired he did not have much time to think about all Pander had just told him. But he had enough frame of mind left to wonder what he had given up to become a Seren – if indeed that was what he was – and what the other conspicuously silent men in the barn had sacrificed.

His last thought before sleep overtook him was to wonder if Pander had really meant it when he had called Sanct “friend.”

The Prophetess noted and ignored the echoes of her vexation bouncing back and forth through her hollow crystal dome. It was natural to be displeased by being thwarted – it was within her nature as a human, at least – but anger was not useful in this situation and so should be discarded.

The cataract that blocked her from witnessing ongoing events was coming ever closer to the one place she needed to be able to see, to Portend. As it came closer it occluded everything, including her carefully laid observation posts, while in its path it left uncertainty and growth. Its growth effect on animals and plants was bad enough – its effect on higher sentience was drastic.

The Prophetess’s body shuddered of its own accord with a terrifying thought: what if this cataract, or whatever was at its center, entered a major city? It could throw off her Portent in ways unimaginable!

She weighed one against another, her delicate short-term project against her vital long-term project, and decided to go with the safe route: she would intervene before things got worse. True, it meant sabotaging her own plans, but they had been intentionally sabotaged from the beginning.

She set about locating someone who was already on the continent of Torberepar who was powerful enough to assist in her plans. There was only one person she could think of that fit that description, though, and his set of morals meant she would need to think up another reason for him to intervene.

What seemed like an eye’s blink later, the others were waking up, prompting Sanct to rise as well. They left the comparatively warm confines of the barn while there was still no hint of the sun goddess in the sky, and ate along the way.

While they walked, Tannon tried to explain the group’s strategy to Sanct, as he was the only one who didn’t know.

“History tells us that when Seren fight archmages – high mages that have mastered the powers of two or more Schools of Magic – the Seren’s divine powers are often equaled or overshadowed by the power of magic. Whenever possible, Seren always try to negate or limit mages’ magical talents.

“In my recent studies in the library, I came across a certain potion which, when vaporized, slows the mind to the point that if a mage tries to cast a more difficult and therefore more destructive spell, they cannot concentrate enough to finish it. Once I mix it, Geduad will enter the tower and deliver it to Obblagatt and his apprentices in their sleep.

When he’s done, the rest of us can dispatch them.”

23

Danny Birt “Why do we not fight them with magic?” Sanct felt sleepy still, which only compounded his lack of knowledge.

“There is not a God of Mages listed in the pantheon,” answered Tannon, “so there has never been record of a Seren who was also a mage, and there is no widely accepted religion ascribed to such a god. It’s the same with the other Banished Gods.”

“Gods cannot pick a mage as a Seren?” Sanct asked.

“It’s not that they cannot, it’s that they would not.” But as soon as he said it, Tannon realized that it was his belief system talking. “Actually, Sanct, that was a reactionary falsehood. I don’t know if mages can be Seren or not; I’ve never thought about it before.

Give me some time, and I will consider the subject.”

They ran more, taking intermittent rests, and right as the sun began to show signs of peeking over the horizon, Sanct and Tannon caught up to the others, clustered around a peculiar crevice in a cliff’s face.

“My great goddess Torberepar has made this passage for us,” explained Geduad.

“Once we go through I will no longer be able to help you in any way other than keeping our presence from being known; Obblagatt holds the most power over the area nearest his tower.” He looked at Sanct, and hesitated. “Tannon, I’m worried about his presence. I’m not sure I can fully mask it when we’re this close to Obblagatt. I don’t say this to be contrary, but I cannot mask something that I don’t know. He’s not human, not elf… I’m masking all that I know to mask, but I’m afraid I’m missing something.”

Tannon looked at him furiously. “This is hardly the best time to tell me this!”

Sanct glanced from Geduad to Tannon and back. There was nothing he could say that could help; he was unsure of how to help. He looked over at Lalt, commonly the voice of reason, but the Arbilorn was staring off into the distance, tugging at the diamond earring in his earlobe.

The Head Seren finished fuming, and shook his head. “No. He comes. If you can’t keep him from being noticed, he’s alerted Obblagatt already.”

Pander nodded with his eyes down and adjusted his weapons to enter the crevasse.

Lalt slipped through easily, his slim form making walking sideways unnecessary for him.

Geduad went next, setting aside his extra bag since it would be useless in the ensuing fight.

Tannon dropped the rest of his belongings as everyone else had, except for a small box. He motioned for Sanct to follow him.

Sanct had difficulty entering. His staff kept him from squeezing through the curvy reaches. He stopped himself from yelling ahead for help – it would not do to let their enemy know they were coming. Not knowing what else to do, he left his only weapon outside with the others’ belongings, reasoning that he could come back and get it with the help of one of the others.

As he entered the slim crack in the cliff wall, he could smell the recently rent earth, could feel stones poking him in front and back, but there was enough light from up ahead and the occasional grunt of exertion from the others to keep him from panic.

Sanct stepped out of the crevasse and was immediately yanked down by a very alert-looking Pander. “Careful! The mage’s creatures are everywhere.” He pointed over the ledge.

As Sanct looked over the tip of the ledge he was on, he could see many dark, lumpy shapes milling about in the valley. As he watched, he was dismayed to see that they were not simply grazing, but that they were moving in definite grid patterns – almost marching – as though they were on guard, or looking for something. Or someone.

His eyes traveled farther up the small valley to alight on a partially finished stone tower. The slight glow in the air from the impending arrival of the sun helped to show that it 24

Ending an Ending was not decorated at all yet – it looked almost slapdash in its construction, as though the builders were hurrying to get a roof on before the rain came.

As he looked at the tower longer, he noticed that it had a slight shimmer to it that couldn’t be merely a reflection of ambient light from the sky. His heart sped at its sight.

A glint of metal caught his eye right below him. He recognized Pander’s armored form hurrying forward. Sanct looked to his side where the Seren had been but a moment ago, thinking that he was mistaken. There was no one to be seen.

For that matter, he couldn’t see a way down that would not expose him. How did the others do it? To prepare to head down he poked experimentally with his staff at viable hand and footholds before he realized what was strange about that.

My staff? But I left it on the other side of the crevice. How did it get here?

Suddenly, a voice with a weird, lilting laugh boomed out of nowhere, filling the valley. “I know you’re out there. Thought you to hide from the omniscience of a Dominion Master?” The voice hardened. “You are not welcome on my land. Begone.”

The animals homed in as one to attack the nearest Seren wherever they hid. Sanct seemed to be the only one ignored. He jumped down to come to their assistance, but as he ran toward the Seren, another voice boomed across the valley with a stinging rebuttal.

“So this is what a Dominion looks like, Obblagatt?” The higher baritone voice chuckled. “You flatter yourself – this is pitiful! I’ve met tenant farmers with more command over their demesne.”

The creatures halted their attack on the Seren and began sniffing and eyeing about, looking for the source of the second voice. The Seren came together as a group, grateful for the respite. Sanct joined them, and they took up defensive positions.

“Is everyone alright?” Sanct asked.

“They’re less alright.” Pander gestured with a gauntlet-covered hand at the various creatures the Seren had struck down already.

“Pinnacle must be making its move!” called Tannon. “Or another mage is trying to wrest this Dominion away from Obblagatt already!”

“Guess again, professor!” replied Lalt as he removed a snake’s jaws and constricting body length from Geduad’s arm, snapped its neck, and flung the offending creature away. The North Seren had taken the brunt of the attack, since he had been in front leading the other Seren.

The deeper voice issued a challenge. “I have declared my lordship over this land.

Do you wish to challenge me for that right?”

The baritone replied. “The brotherhood of the Monks already claims this land. The kings of Seighn, Lej, and Brelia have second rights to it. I am here as the Monks’ representative to give you the chance to leave with your life, provided you meet with our conditions.”

“Our conditions? You choose to speak as one of those sniveling religious pansies?” scoffed the bass.

The baritone continued, as if it had not been interrupted. “You will destroy every creature you have created. You will remove every block of this tower from its foundation.

You will renounce your false Dominion and never again set foot on Torberepar.”

The voices paused. All the Seren were breathing heavily, scanning the area, looking for the owners of either voice. Geduad shook off Lalt’s clerical ministering, wincing as he jolted his wounded arm. He dropped to his knees, closed his eyes, grasped his medallion with his left hand, and pressed his right hand firmly to the ground.

Pander suddenly pointed and yelled, “Up there!” He fished an arrow from his quiver and set it to his bow. Geduad ignored him.

25

Danny Birt Sanct looked up toward a cliff that was roughly the same elevation as the tower’s unfinished roof. He saw a group of figures in neutral, earthy colors of brown and gray. They stood utterly still and somewhat blended in with the rock face backing them. As he looked at the group, Sanct had a feeling that was incongruous with the feeling he would have for an enemy.

“No!” Sanct yelled, batting Pander’s bow away.

“What?” the warrior asked.

“They are monks!”

Lalt looked sharply at Sanct, then returned his attention to agitatedly gazing at Geduad’s wound.

The deeper voice continued, dripping with sarcasm. “And if I refuse your fine offer of clemency?”

“Either decision that you make will lead to the end of this superimposed Dominion before Aiz again gazes down upon this spot.”

The creatures that had surrounded the Seren ran off toward the group of five robed figures standing on the cliff. From all around the valley, shapes petite and hulking began loping, running, and flying with their brethren.

“There they come.” Pander pointed at the tower’s roof as figures with purple robes spilled upward like ants from a drowning anthill. Pander redrew his arrow to his ear, and let fly. As he expected, the arrow shot straight and true for the tower’s roof, only to fizzle away in a flash of flames when it hit some invisible barrier. “Now how do we get to them?”

Seemingly in retaliation, the tower’s inhabitants caused a blue light to begin to grow from their refuge. The Seren flinched as a blue bolt of energetic light flashed from the tower’s apex, but it was directed toward the distant cliff. It dissipated when one of the cliff figures stepped forward and raised his hand, palm toward the tower.

The baritone voice made a final declaration. “You have made your choice.” The man in front of the four others stepped back and began fishing in a pouch at his waist.

Another man from the back row bent down to pick up an amber staff that was twice as tall as he was. He raised it toward the cloud-covered sky, and slowly began to twirl it around his head and the heads of all his colleagues, sending ripples of electricity visibly skittering through the clouds. Two other cliff figures began methodically pointing fingers at the creatures as they came near, freezing them in their tracks.

More bolts issued from the tower, but the man who had originally stopped the first one held up his other hand in the same fashion, and they continued to dissolve. One misdirected bolt was allowed to sizzle past the group on the cliff ledge and strike some rock behind them, making it heat and sag like wet paper.

The cliff face below the group on the cliff started to come away in huge chunks.

One of the men in the back row dropped to a knee and placed both hands on the ground, and the cliff remained stable.

The man with the amber staff suddenly jabbed it at the tower, and a lightning bolt lanced down from the clouds to rock the stone structure. Another followed, as did another and yet another. In quick succession, what must have been over a hundred lightning bolts came down on top of the tower, populating the whole valley with ghastly shadows, moment overlapping moment. The heat wave generated by their combined strength blew everyone but Sanct and Geduad off their feet.

As the blue magic energy bolts and yellowish white lightning passed each other on their ways to their targets, Sanct’s staff began to glow with its own unique color. He stared at it, feeling his fingers widening their grasp, as though the staff was growing so large that he couldn’t hold onto it. The staff was dragging him toward the tower, urging him to lash out, flatten the tower, pummel, punish!

26

Ending an Ending So distracting was the staff’s urging that at first Sanct did not notice the tremendous rumblings underneath his feet. He looked down, unsure of how the earth, which had seemed so stable to him over the past few days, could so quickly turn shaky.

He turned to Geduad, since he was the only other Seren not flat on his back, for instruction in how to keep his balance. The North Seren was still ignoring everyone, and somehow even ignoring the roiling ground.

Suddenly, the earth below the tower split with a tremendous cracking noise, swallowing the entire structure whole. Lightning bolts followed it all the way down into the chasm until a final resounding boom echoed forth. The earth’s rumbling ceased.

Stunned, Sanct looked at the chasm. He thought that he was hallucinating when he started seeing white dots falling from the sky, but when he reached out his hand, some of the white things stuck to it. He brought it close to his nose, but still could not figure out what it was. He looked up, only to wish he had not when some of the little white grains got into his eyes and made them water.

“Salt,” Tannon said to Sanct, noting his lost expression. “They’re salting the soil.

Nothing will grow here for a long time, but metaphysically, it also means no vestige of the Dominion will remain. The land will be purified.”

The salt shower was short lived. The brown and gray robed men on the cliff wearily dropped their arms. Four trooped away from where they had made their stand while the gray one remained, staring down into the salt-dusted white valley. Sanct stared back at him for a bit, then, at the same instant as the distant figure, bowed respectfully and contemplatively.

The Seren sat in a haphazard circle where they had come together. The North Seren looked extremely tired and pale as though he had gone through some extreme exertion. Pander and Tannon also had bites and cuts associated with the creatures’ attack, but Lalt was ignoring them as surely as he was ignoring their former aggressors. With the destruction of their creator, the creatures had lost all of their ferocity, and had wandered off in sundry directions, suddenly shy of contact.

“Look at my arm. You’re not helping,” Geduad’s voice sounded drained of its normal anger.

Lalt did not respond until he had removed his hands from Geduad’s bleeding arm and opened his eyes. “I am not trying to mend your arm yet. I am trying to nullify the poison from the bite.”

“What’s taking so long?” the North Seren asked plaintively. He was sweating profusely, aching all over, and was repulsed by the odor his body had taken on after the bite – he smelled like his body was trying to rot out from under him.

“I have never run into this type of poison before,” Lalt answered. “Evidently, Obblagatt’s creatures were engineered as weapons in that respect, too.”

“Can’t you just draw the poison out of me?”

“That was what I was trying to do when you shook me off earlier,” Lalt said pointedly. “I can’t do it now; the poison has had time to diffuse away from its entry point into your blood stream. All I can do is try to alter its nature to something harmless, or at least a less harmful substance so your body can process and eliminate it on its own.”

“Fine, get on with it,” Geduad’s body lost some of its tension to sag back against the nearby small boulder.

“It’s tricky,” Lalt said. “I need some time to figure out what to do with it. Tannon, may I have some parchment, a quill and ink?”

The University professor produced the requested articles. “Can you help him?”

27

Danny Birt “I believe so,” Lalt said, “but I need to be careful. Altering a substance that is already in a person’s blood stream can have volatile effects if I do not choose well. If I turn the poison into something to which his body is allergic, he might go into shock. Worse, if I turn it into something unstable that can decay further, the end result might be more deadly than the original poison.”

Everyone stayed silent while Lalt made an incomprehensible triple helical drawing on one side of the parchment, and took notes concerning the drawings on the other side.

Eventually he set the writing utensil down and clamped his hands firmly on Geduad’s bared shoulder blade and left breast, effectively sandwiching the man’s heart between his hands.

“Be strong,” Lalt said to his patient. “This is going to hurt.”

Lalt closed his eyes, and squeezed.

“Oh, goddess!” Geduad whimpered. “Oh, Torberepar, please! Augh!” He writhed in pain, his hands clasped at the dirt beneath him as he begged his patroness for surcease.

His heart beat so fast that it felt like it was going to gallop straight out of his chest and into the hand of the elf that held him so implacably. Not only had his heart sped its beats beyond anything he had felt at his utmost exertions, there was a severe burning sensation that was growing in it as well, almost like a hot coal was being forced through his chest to his back.

Then the coal was gone, passed through, and his heart was as steady as it might have been if he’d been sleeping.

“There,” Lalt removed his hands, “it’s over, Geduad. Rest easy.”

“You’ve done it!” Pander enthused. “Praise the gods!”

“I think I’ve done it,” Lalt said cautiously, yet optimistically. “I will need to check him a few times over the next day or two to make sure nothing comes of what’s left in his blood, but he should recover. Nasty piece of work, that; I’ll have to wait to heal his arm. I’m too tired, now.”

“Is he well enough to answer questions?” Tannon asked.

“Why don’t you ask me yourself and find out?” Geduad said wearily.

All the men grinned, relieved to hear some of the North Seren’s spirit returning. It was a good sign.

Tannon walked over and sat near the wounded Seren. “Geduad, who was Obblagatt talking to when he said ‘I know you’re out there’?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean was it us or that other group?”

Geduad frowned. “You mean, was I doing my job or not? Rest assured, even despite the rumble and boom show I’m still actively holding your presence on this continent a secret.” His frown deepened. “No, I take it back. I just stopped covering you all except Sanct, because I haven’t been covering him – he’s been hiding himself! He defies my talent and my goddess’s power simply by his existence!”

“Ah, yes. Existence?” Sanct asked.

“Now is not the time for your questions, dolt.” Geduad fingered a dagger while looking at Sanct.

Pander intervened. “It doesn’t matter anyway; we won’t have to do this again. It could have been the mages; maybe Obblagatt was already the Master of his Dominion and could see through Geduad’s powers; it could have been Sanct that was the problem. What I want to know is who those mages were, how they got here at the same time as us, and why they decided to intervene. Lalt, didn’t you say that neither Pinnacle nor the Dominions were willing to spread their dainty hands out to clean up their little mess?”

Lalt shrugged. “Laws mean nothing to free agents.”

“It wasn’t Pinnacle, and it wasn’t the Dominions either? What other group of archmages exists in the world?” argued Pander.

28

Ending an Ending “It was monks, led by an archmage,” Tannon said slowly.

“Impossible!” Pander crossed his arms.

“No, it’s perfectly true,” Lalt said. “Not quite as Tannon says, but it was an archmage and monks.”

Tannon focused on Lalt. “How ‘not quite?’”

Lalt said, “The monks were defending the archmage; they took no part in the actual attack.”

Tannon turned to Pander questioningly. The War Seren clasped his medallion, closed his eyes, prayed, then reopened his eyes. “The Seren of Sante has the truth of the matter: the monks were defending their defender, no more.”

Lalt bowed slightly to Pander. Next, he turned to Sanct. “I knew who they were, and Tannon recognized them eventually, but what about you, Sanct? How could you possibly have known they were monks, when you’ve never even met one?”

The Seren turned to Sanct, who shrugged. “I felt? Felt. Um, felt happy?”

The other Seren turned to Lalt, since in all their minds the elf had become almost a translator for Sanct. The elf asked, “You are saying that when you saw the group of men on the ridge up there, you felt a positive emotion?”

“Felt…” Sanct paused, wrestling to find the right word. He gave up, came over to Lalt, and patted the elf’s head. “Felt this.”

“Felt soothed? Calmed? Protected? Loved?” Lalt tried a few different words.

“Protect. Not them protect me, me protect them. Protecting? Protectal?” Sanct said with a questioning lilt.

“Protective. So you saw them, didn’t know who they were, but since you felt like you needed to protect them, you surmised they were monks?” Lalt was amazed anew at the man’s deductive reasoning.

“We protect monks. I feel protective of men. Men are monks,” Sanct verified.

“So they were monks. Who was the mage?” Pander grunted.

No one answered.

“Elf?” Geduad said.

“Human?” Lalt retorted.

“Don’t get cute,” Geduad wanted to get angry, but it felt wrong to be yelling at the person who had just saved his life. “I saw that look on your face.”

The cleric chose his words carefully, thumbing the diamond earring in his left ear.

“I met him when I first came to the Temple of Healing, and have run into him on many subsequent missions.”

“You claim there is a Seren of Mages?” Geduad’s expression was one of evident distaste.

“No, there is not, but long ago he had the blessings of a god, and is a major power in his own right still.”

“Who was he, then?”

Lalt sighed in surrender. “Alaris.”

The whole group broke out in quarreling. Sanct had trouble hearing everyone’s points as they poured forth.

“The myth of the Alaris has been disproved time and--” “--even exists, he’s a criminal, and what’s more--” “--common name among mage-kind, perpetuates--” “--so old, he would have to be dead by now!”

The North Seren staggered to his feet, focusing the conversation on him. “No matter who it was, there is still a very powerful mage defiling my goddess’s continent. We need to find him and dispose of him quickly while he’s still weak.”

29

Danny Birt “You’re weaker than he is!” Lalt shook his head.

“Besides, Obblagatt was the focus of our mission, not any and every mage,” Tannon rumbled, annoyed.

Geduad’s face turned red as he shoved himself away from the rock, but collapsed back against it. His tone of voice ground down as he continued, “Just because you have a larger medallion doesn’t mean you grasp the true meaning of our mission!”

“I as Head Seren will not involve this Seren in your goddess’s personal vendetta against magekind.” Tannon spoke firmly.

“That mage could come back to this Dominion, and we would have to go through our mission all over again!” Geduad reasoned. “Now that one Dominion has already been demarcated and established; all he would have to do would be pick up the reins where they were dropped.”

Lalt held up a finger. “Not true! He salted the earth. Feel around you, Seren of Torberepar, and sense if there is any Dominion left to claim. If he wanted to take this Dominion, he could have done it, but he prevented anyone from having it. His mission seems to have coincided with ours.

“Speaking of our mission, Head Seren,” Lalt turned to Tannon, “is it accomplished?

I myself do not have a feeling of completion from kind My Lord Sante.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Geduad waved an arm at Lalt.

Everyone ignored him, waiting for the Head Seren to finish his prayer, which he did presently.

“For you, it is not, but not for the reason Geduad wishes. Your mission was not merely to defeat Obblagatt but to protect the monks in their Reserve, and there remain a goodly number of Obblagatt’s creatures still alive. You must hunt them until you’re sure there’s a small enough number that they cannot self-perpetuate beyond a generation.

“Since that is the case, however, I fear my services are defunct; I must leave you all.

I shall head back to Aeterna and hope that my god may allow me to resume my previous life, instead of making me Sleep. I doubt, from the descriptions you gave me, that a body as old as mine would be able to survive the process of Waking.”

Sanct watched the Seren formally turn toward Tannon, and they all took out their medallions. After comparing sizes, all but Lalt put their medallions away. Geduad looked disgusted, but remained silent.

“May your leave-taking bring you to holiness, Brother Seren,” intoned Lalt. “I shall lead this Seren in your stead.”

Pander announced his intention to leave as well. “After all, I know that my god can send someone more adept at hunting. I’m a soldier, not a poacher.”

Sanct saw two of his three amiable companions leaving and realized that things might not go well for him without his defenders. “So, what happens now?”

“We go our separate ways,” Lalt said. “We live another day, the world lives another day. What more could you want?”

Sanct did not entirely understand. He dropped his question to announce, “I believe that I am also done.”

“You’ve done nothing!” The North Seren snorted and turned toward Lalt. “He’s proven useless after all. Look at him; still not a scratch anywhere! What do you think of your pet now, elf? And why aren’t you scampering back to Aeterna with him? Leave me to my mission; I’ll work better with you gone.”

“What would have happened if Alaris had not come along?” Lalt countered, brushing back his delicate hair with his fingers. “Sanct has yet to show us what powers reside in his staff – there were enough to confound your power to cover his presence, certainly. As to why I do not return to Aeterna, I still have to take care of your health, so my 30

Ending an Ending mission is not finished. It’s inevitable that your rash propensity to rush into situations will end in additional injury.”

Lalt, the new Head Seren, gave his leave for the three of them to go. Geduad stayed with the Arbilorn, resting before he and Lalt resumed their mission. Despite being at odds with each other, both felt an odd relief to be rid of their three companions.

Pander’s keen ears caught the sounds of hooves soon after they left the hidden mountain valley. Telling Sanct and Tannon to stay there, he went to investigate.

Tannon noticed the troubled look on Sanct’s face. “Are you still not sure that we did the right thing in trying to kill Obblagatt?”

Sanct shook his head. “I believe that was correct. I am worried now about that other mage, and what I am to do. My mission was so clear until Obblagatt fell, but now I feel no guidance; I have no sense of direction toward a goal. What am I to do about the Alaris?

Where am I to go? What purpose do I now serve?”

Tannon marveled. Sanct had gone from not knowing a single word to asking the greatest philosophical questions of humankind in less time than it took the moon goddess to wane in her strength. “And what is the meaning of life?” he mused softly with a smile.

“Yes, that, too.”

“No!” Tannon laughed. “My boy, you’re sounding more and more human every day. These are questions that you will always ponder. In fact, I have a proposition for you.

While you’re busy deciding what you want to do, why don’t you accompany me and Pander back to the City Aeterna? You have many questions I’m sure you would be able to find answers for in the Temple of Knowledge to which my University is attached. If not there, Aeterna has the largest collection of the gods’ temples in the world.

“I have to admit,” Tannon smiled, “I do have selfish reasons for wanting you to come with us. I hope to take a roundabout return path and tour two of the broken cities of Lej, but it would be nice to discuss them with someone, and while Pander is loyal and as stalwart as a boulder, he has a similar intelligence quotient.”

“What’s a quotient?” Pander asked, leading three horses toward the other men.

“We were talking about Sanct’s future,” replied Tannon smoothly, then segued, “and I’m afraid I’m rather at a loss. What with this being my first mission, I know not what the gods normally do with their Seren after a mission’s end…?”

The War Seren looked apprehensive at the question. “Each of the gods treats their servants differently. Who’s his, if he’s a Seren?”

“I don’t know whose he is, of course,” Tannon said, “but as to your second question, surely the gods would not have sent three horses for only two Seren?”

“I’ll admit he’s probably attached to the gods somehow; I thought that from the time he showed us that staff. I just want to know which one it is, and how.”

“So do I,” Sanct said plaintively.

“And so, he has decided to come to City Aeterna with us,” Tannon said.

Sanct opened his mouth to object to the decision being made for him, but realized that even though he had not voiced it aloud, he actually had made that decision.

“It still doesn’t make sense, being dedicated to a god you don’t know.” Pander shook his head. “It’s like saying yes before you know the question.”

“Well, Sanct?” Tannon turned back to the man in brown robes. “Have you had any insights on the subject?”

“Insights?” asked Sanct.

Tannon winced. “Never mind.” Turning to Pander, he asked, “Where did the horses come from?”

31

Danny Birt Pander hooked a thumb behind his back.

Tannon raised an eyebrow. “What, you picked them off a horse tree?”

The big man smiled broadly, as though that was the obvious place to find horses.

“You’re not accustomed to the ways of the gods, Tannon. If you finish your mission properly, you’re rewarded in small ways.”

“Our gods manifested horses with saddles and bits and feed already prepared for us?”

“They didn’t just magic themselves down from the sky, if that’s what manifest means,” Pander said. “Likely, three nearby travelers are waking up and cursing fate now that their horses have run off. It’s always like that with the gods: if you’re getting what you want, someone else isn’t getting what they want.”

Tannon winced at the bitterness in Pander’s voice. The learned man had never been to Sleep, so he did not fully understand the life of a Seren. All along this trip, he had tried, always unsuccessfully, to understand the Seren’s strange dichotomy of resentment toward and love for the gods.

Sanct asked, “I know this is off subject, but what does one do to a horses?”

“A horse.” Tannon wondered if Sanct had really come so far.

“Call ‘em whatever you want,” Pander growled, giving a reprimanding look to Tannon. “And you ride.”

“Ride?”

“You know, ride!” Pander slowly swung up onto a horse’s back.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because you can go farther faster without getting as tired,” Tannon answered.

“And because it’s an advantage over foot soldiers in battle,” added Pander.

The two began a mild discourse over the qualities of a horse while Sanct approached one. The closer he came to it, the bigger it seemed. He reached out to touch the nostril of the nearest one. It whickered and tossed its head at him, and he jumped.

Pander bellowed with laughter. After calming down, he explained a bit more about how to handle a horse to Sanct. Chagrined, Sanct tried to jump up on the horse as he had seen Pander demonstrate but only succeeded in bending himself in half over the horse’s back. Pander was beside himself with mirth, but he kindly dismounted and started with horse basics, then later progressed into how to ride them.

With the day being so late and Sanct’s equestrian education well on its way, they decided to stay the night where they were, only setting up a minimal one-person guard in case some of Obblagatt’s creatures were to overcome their newfound shyness.

Sanct awoke to the new day so full of questions that he couldn’t help but wake the more scholarly of his companions.

“Tannon,” he badgered the bleary-eyed man from where he knelt by the blanket, “Lalt said that the mage that attacked Obblagatt with us was named Alaris, which seemed to make everybody else got mad. Some people called him ‘the Alaris’, like it was a title. Was he another mage like Obblagatt, or was he a mage and a monk at the same time? And what is a Dominion anyway? …Tannon?”

Tannon wrenched his glasses onto his face. Half of him wished his students back at the University were this anxious to learn, and the other (older) half of him berated the first half for being masochistic. “Good morrow to you, too, Sanct. Why the desperate need to know about the Alaris?”

32

Ending an Ending “Well,” Sanct mulled his words, still hesitant over how to translate feelings into language, “I think the Alaris was involved with our mission, and that I’ll be seeing him again.

Who knows if next time we will be on the same side? I want to be prepared.”

“Involved in our mission?” Tannon was desperate for another few moments to clear the cobwebs of sleep from his mind. Repeating some choice phrase had always been an innocuous delay tactic for him.

“I get the feeling that it wasn’t only by chance that he arrived when we did, that we were supposed to meet. Does that make sense?”

“Not a coincidence?” the scholar pondered, mind ready for action. “How so? Do you think the battle was staged, that it was a fake? Might Obblagatt still be alive?”

“No, but it seems like we’re missing a connection between them, like someone was pulling our strings – Obblagatt, Alaris, the monks, us. Doesn’t it?”

Tannon wondered when Sanct had learned the phrase ‘pulling our strings.’ “I find it hard to believe that anyone could pull the strings of the Alaris if even half the stories about him are not lies.”

“So you believe he exists?”

“The line of the Alaris is no lie,” Tannon hedged. “It can’t be. It’s documented by too many solid sources. I’m certain that it’s not the same person, though. No human lives that long, even Seren don’t, and in all the credible stories the Alaris is always a middle-aged male human. Perhaps with his magic powers the original Alaris was able to create a continuation of his consciousness… I’m sorry, Sanct. What I meant was that perhaps at death the Alaris passes on his skills, powers and memories to another middle-aged human male who becomes the next Alaris.”

Tannon fluttered his hands in front of himself, seeing that he was losing Sanct.

“Regardless of how it works, the Alaris definitely exists. His group of Laurian mages, call them a cult or not, is proof enough for me.”

“Well, I still don’t believe in any old Alaris,” muttered Pander from his perch on a rock. He was eating a handful of nuts he had found nearby while touring on his watch.

“Humans living forever just doesn’t sound right. Kyr wouldn’t allow it.”

Tannon rose from his blankets slowly, his arthritic hip dictating the speed of his ascent. “I didn’t say he was immortal, did I? I agree with you; a human defeating the Goddess of the Afterlife does sound ridiculous.”

Pander also rose from the rock upon which he had kept his watch. “The Alaris is an old mage’s tale, Sanct, like the Mage God. If there were a deity for mages, there would be a temple for mages to worship him. If there was a god that gave mages power, the Surian Combat Mage Corps would know about it, and they don’t.”

Tannon looked over at Pander. “I wish that Lalt were here. He said that he had met the Alaris. That would have been quite a treat and something that I might have been able to add to my Lord’s library. Ah, well. Perhaps when he returns to Aeterna.”

Sanct was not done with questioning Tannon. “What does the Alaris have to do with Pinnacle?”

“Not much, I suppose, beyond the basic connection – Alaris is a mage, and Pinnacle is the ancient mage stronghold. All mages congregate there; many live there, others only come for research or to buy supplies.”

“So the Alaris is like Obblagatt?” asked Sanct once more.

“No! Not all mages are like that. Obblagatt was power-hungry. But it only takes one with so much power to ruin the name of all mages for an entire community.”

“So not all mages are bad?” Sanct said.

Tannon and Pander looked at one another, each urging the other to answer. In the end, neither did.

33

Danny Birt The journey toward City Aeterna passed in a blur, or so it seemed to Sanct. Tannon pointed out important points along the way – when they passed from Lej through the Free Cities, when they turned south on the Aeternan highway – but somehow, none of it seemed to matter; none of it really stuck in his mind.

His disconnection from the world finally reached a point when he simply stopped in the middle of the road, looking to his right and slightly back at a circular pile of boulders off to the side of the road.

“What’s wrong, Sanct?” Pander grasped his sword.

Sanct stared wordlessly out into the distance to his right. His horse whickered, as though annoyed at being stopped.

Tannon asked the same question and got the same response.

“Quiet, Tannon.” Pander nudged his horse in between the two men, for once being the expert on a subject because of his experience as a Seren. He touched Sanct’s arm.

“Does it feel like you’re falling forward, like you’re really tired?”

Sanct nodded slightly, and Pander nodded in turn. “Go on. I’ll take care of your horse for you. Sleep well, my friend.”

Sanct barely heard him as he slid off his horse and walked off into the brush.

“So,” Tannon said as he watched the mystery man head away from the road, “he’s to partake of the Sleep of the Seren. Looks like our mystery man was a Seren after all. At least we finally know.”

Pander looked at the University professor with a guarded expression. “Tannon, I know you’re the Seren of Knowledge, but you don’t know as much about Seren as I do: this was your first mission, compared to my twenty-second.

“I know Seren,” he concluded, “and that wasn’t one. I don’t know how he can Sleep, but he’s not a Seren.”

Tannon frowned. He grasped his Seren medallion and asked both Pander and his god, “But if his role was not that of a Seren here, then…

“What was he?

“Why was he?”

She felt the visual impairment clear as fast as her ears might pop after descending from a great height. The Prophetess hastened back to her world to view the disaster the cataract’s originator had left in its wake. After making sure that it was definitely gone, she contemplatively settled into her slimy bed to mull over recent events.

The mage she had encouraged to declare Dominion on Torberepar had failed in his pitiful defiance of the continent’s ruler, as she had intended, but she’d been unable to study the all-important means that had been employed in his demise. It disgruntled her like a fisherman who’d lost the worm off his hook with nothing to show for his patience.

Unless whatever it was that the cataract had centered on had been the means behind Obblagatt’s downfall. She checked on the possibility, but it did not pan out.

Consequently, years of planning the experiment had seemingly gone to waste.

Worse yet, she knew neither why it had failed nor who had intervened. She could ask Alaris, but that would require admitting to him that she did not know something, and with him, she could not afford a single inkling of weakness.

The Prophetess set about fixing her Portent and getting on with life. So long as the anomalous cataract remained gone, she had work to do in other worlds, and she was behind on many of her projects already.

34

Corpus Air burrowed insidiously into lungs that had collapsed subjective centuries ago, only to rush back out through tightened vocal chords in a scream of agony. Blood sluggishly drooled through heart chambers made fragile by time’s merciless abrasion. Involuntarily, muscle groups twitched about, flailing appendages hither and thither as animating energy returned to the body. To complete the process, into his brain rushed his memories of having no memories.

At last, Sanct’s body settled down, except for the occasional twinges that were a part of the Waking. He knew not how long he had lay in the dark; it could have been weeks or moments. But Sanct agreed with his Seren mentors; Waking was the most painful experience he had ever felt.

At least, the most painful that I can remember.

Cautiously, the middle-aged body of a much older man moved a finger. Not so bad.

An arm? Doable. He slowly worked into a sitting position, and his stomach took that opportunity to try to purge itself, even though there was nothing to purge, and hadn’t been since yesterday.

Sanct corrected himself. He didn’t know what passage of time he had crossed. No one ever knew until they met other humans. Sometimes it was months, sometimes it was years, and no Seren ever felt the toll of time upon the body, past their Waking.

Sanct tried to open his eyes, then tried again after rubbing gunk out of them. They were open, but could see nothing in the utter darkness.

With care, Sanct hoisted himself off the granite slab that had served as his bed. He slowly began putting himself through varying rehabilitating stretches that his mentors had taught him.

His mentors. His mind finally began to join his body in a more alert state. Are any of them alive? Where are they? Are any Awake right now with me? I suppose I’ll know the answer to that once I figure out my mission during this Wakening.

His mind wandered over the vagaries that the role of a Seren could entail. He already felt more capable than he had at the beginning of his last mission: he had remembered how to talk, who he was (at least, who he was during his last mission), and, blessedly, that he was a Seren.

He had not been certain of that fact until the moment of Waking from the Sleep.

That proved, at least to himself, what he was. Only a Seren had that gift. Not even the greatest archmage in Pinnacle or the Dominions knew the secret of how to prolong their life in this way.

“So, now that I at least know that you did in fact choose me to be your Seren, are you going to tell me who you are?” he queried his deity.

As expected, there was no response. Why would there be? The only communications, if they could be called that, that he ever received from his patron/patroness 35

Danny Birt were vague feelings which would lead him toward an act or location – to travel with this group, to head in that direction.

Why all the secrecy? he asked silently, getting the exact answer he expected: nothing.

He finished up his stretches, and felt much better for them. Finally feeling fit to walk, Sanct felt around to find the pile of personal items he had doffed when preparing for the Sleep. He donned his usual brown robe and brown pants, securing them at his waist with a length of twine. He picked up the leather satchel given to him by Pander during the last mission, and placed it crosswise over his shoulder. His staff was not there, but he had not truly expected it to be. Being as prepared as he was ever going to be, he headed out into the main body of the circular temple.

He barely remembered any details of what the great temple looked like. He had been so driven to Sleep that he had not taken the time to look for a clue to whomever his deity was, but now that he was less hurried, the problem proved beyond his mental capacity.

The tremendous echoing building had been abandoned some time ago, for no apparent reason. No path led to the building or its grounds. There were no figurines or symbols, no books inside to give answers. The entire curving temple reminded him of the description Pander had given him of an Aeternan oceanfront warehouse – bare, massive, waiting to be filled. The only reason that he knew it was a temple was because it made no sense to build anything else this large and empty in so far out of reach a place. That and it was where he had Slept; surely it was a holy place.

Sanct opened one of the tremendous doors to the temple and stepped outside. It was strange to note the chill in the air and the multicolored leaves – had the world changed since he was last awake? Then again, he was high in the mountains of Angyest, likely not even a day’s hard ride from its capitol, Aeterna. Perhaps it would be warmer in lower elevations.

He stopped to pick an apple from a small orchard that had sprung up by the temple. It struck him as strange: the little grove had been a flat of dirt when he had gone into the building what seemed like yesterday and today there was an ancient grove of trees and shrubs standing tall about a stream-fed pool of fresh water.

The trees gave him some idea of how long he had been in Sleep – more than two centuries, by their massive girths. He stuffed some of the fruits in his pack, filled his water bag, and set off on his way, following the new stream down the path he had taken so long ago.

The geography of the land between the austere temple and the highway had not changed since he had been there last. He remembered walking under the same leaning rock, squeezing through the inhumanly small crack in the hillside to ascend on the other side.

There was not much plant or animal life in the area, which made the lovely grove of so many types of fruit trees near the temple all the more conspicuous.

When he finally reached the great stretch of flat rock slabs that made up the Aeternan Highway, no one was around to be seen in either direction. Makes sense, he thought – the gods don’t want their Seren’s places of Sleep known. He looked down the road toward Aeterna, then back up in the direction of Seighn and Lej. He tapped his foot, and took out another apple.

“So, which way do I go?” Sanct finally asked aloud.

There was no answer. Not even a feeling.

“Now, see here, you woke me up for a reason, now tell me which way to go!”

Still no answer.

Sanct began to wonder whether his mission was to stand on the Aeternan highway until he ran out of fruit and starved. He finally decided to head north, back the way he had come so long ago, toward Lej and Seighn.

36

Ending an Ending As soon as he took his first step, he felt that he was going in the wrong direction.

“Make up your mind,” he muttered as he turned around to head south.

A tall, strident man rode toward Sanct, trailing a packhorse. He slowed the horses to a walk. Next, he stopped completely.

“Sanct?” he said incredulously.

Sanct stopped and looked closely at the man up on his horse. “Pander?”

“It is you!” The man dismounted and strode forth with arms open wide and a smile on his face. “I’m so thankful to find I’m not alone on this mission!”

Sanct endured the embrace with a bit of confusion. “I’m not sure that we are on the same mission, Pander. I’m headed south while it seems you’re headed north.” Noting the numerous scroll cases attached to the man’s saddlebags, he added, “…on a diplomatic mission, no less.”

“Hey, don’t blame me.” Pander crossed his arms. “Why the War God would send his Seren to stop a war is beyond me.” He uncrossed his arms and looked Sanct in the eyes.

“But that’s why I need your help.”

“Come, let me hear the full story,” Sanct suggested. “I doubt I’d be of help, but I’ll hear you out, at least.”

Pander agreed, and led his mount and packhorse off the road to a shady tree. As Sanct followed, he assessed the man with whom he had accomplished his previous mission, and found that about the only thing that had changed was his clothes – bright red silk shirt clashing with lime green pants and shoes.

In speaking with Pander, Sanct also noticed that his own speaking ability had burgeoned during his Sleep. He wondered if that was supposed to happen.

The two sat under the tree, sharing Sanct’s fruit and Pander’s meat and bread. “I Woke with my mission already in my head this time. That doesn’t normally happen, because I’m usually working with someone else, and each Seren understands only part of the mission.

This time, I know I have to go to Seighn and stop an assassination from occurring, but I don’t know how I can do that.”

“Who’s to be assassinated?” asked Sanct through a mouthful of the fluffy bread.

“And why?”

“The Prince of Links. As the son of the current king in Avard, he’s second in line to the Seighn throne,” answered Pander. “I don’t know why he’s to be killed. It would make more sense to assassinate the king, wouldn’t it?”

Sanct shrugged. He knew nothing about political matters. “Can you give me any more information on your mission? That’s not much.”

Pander shook his head. “I don’t know when it’s happening, who’s doing it, where it’s going to occur, or why they’re doing it. That’s why I need your help.”

Sanct shook his head in turn. “Pander, I’m sorry, but that feeling still hasn’t gone away. I’m not supposed to go with you. I can give you advice, but I must go to City Aeterna.”

The warrior looked downcast, in thought. Then, his demeanor brightened. “When do you have to get there?”

“Hmm?” Sanct asked, mouth full again.

“I mean, can you just go later? It isn’t urgent, right? Why, I’ll be headed back to Aeterna once I’m done with my mission, too!” the warrior pressed, hope written on his face.

“Come on, you do owe me from our last mission.”

Sanct’s chewing slowed, and he swallowed the floury lump. It was true. Pander had saved Sanct when he deflected an attack with his shield in one of the first battles with 37

Danny Birt Obblagatt’s creatures. “But I have no great ability, no powers - I can barely defend myself, let alone someone else!” Sanct protested.

“If it comes to fighting, I’ve likely already lost.”

Sanct stared, astonished at this admission.

“I’ll welcome any straightforward battle, but what can I do to find assassins sneaking around in the shadows? Plus, what if they use magic? I’d be a sitting duck. At least your staff works against that stuff, Sanct.”

That is quite an assumption to make, Sanct thought worriedly. But, seeing Pander’s shoulders give a tremendous shudder at the memories of the difficulties Obblagatt had put them through, Sanct kept his qualms to himself.

Pander continued his listing quickly, seeming to want to get his mind off its previous track. “Plus, you know our gods wouldn’t have had us run into each other by happenstance. Look, I even have a second horse for you. I was supposed to find you. In fact,” his face did an amazing gymnastic move, “I don’t feel as nervous now that I’ve found you.

Why, I feel as good as if I’d already accomplished my mission, just by finding you! That’s got to be a sign!”

Sanct looked up briefly at his counterpart, only to look away again. He had a feeling he shouldn’t be doing this, for some reason, yet a part of him wanted to, too.

Pander interrupted his thought. “There’s one other thing. I get the feeling that if you don’t come along, I’m going to fail in my Mission.”

Sanct shook his head. “Pander, I get the feeling that everything you say is true, but I also-” “I’m calling in my favor, Sanct,” the War Seren said bluntly. “I saved your life, or at least kept you from serious injury. Does that really mean so little to you?”

“You know how much it means!” Sanct said, frustrated. “But I’m on a mission set by my deity; how can I ignore it?”

Pander peered at him closely. “Did your deity forbid you from coming with me?”

Sanct was taken aback. His eyes rolled one way, then the other. Haltingly, he said, “Well, no, I don’t think so.”

“Would your deity want you to not honor that favor?”

Sanct opened his mouth to answer, and found that he could not force the words out of this throat; his vocal cords refused to buzz, his throat clenched. He shut his mouth again, feeling foolish. Thinking it through, he tried saying the opposite of what he would have otherwise said, and succeeded. “I think my deity would want me to honor it.”

Pander looked very satisfied with himself. “Well?”

“Alright, Pander.” Sanct stood to formally petition. “Seren of Maul, the God of War, I request that I may join your party, for in fellowship can we accomplish more for the greater glory of our gods.”

Pander stood with an expression of relief. “I accept your request, Seren of… some god. Glory and order.” Breaking his formal stance, he tenderly put a hand on Sanct’s shoulder. “Thank you, Sanct.”

The two sat in silence finishing their midday meal while surveying the land. How many years these mountains had seen come and go no one really knew. There were abandoned villages that had been built on the foundations of Avilorn villages that had been abandoned long before Pander had been conceived. Aeterna was considered the oldest city in the world, but no one knew how old it was.

“Looks like it’s going to be a nice, mild winter,” Pander said, staring out into the distance. He teethed off the last bit of fruit from the pear core, and heaved it further down the mountain.

“Winter?”

38

Ending an Ending “We’re almost to the beginning of the year, Sanct. Every year starts out with a winter.” It felt pleasant, to Pander, to be able to speak with someone without having to keep them in view. It was a pleasant feeling, to trust.

“But what is a winter?”

Pander blinked in surprise, and turned partway around. “You mean Tannon didn’t explain the seasons to you?”

“Apparently not.” Sanct shrugged.

“The year gets progressively warmer toward the middle of the year, then it gets progressively colder in preparation for the next year – sort of like an elongated day and an elongated night. The warm part is called summer, and the cold part is called winter. All of Time is supposed to work on that sort of scale, too, but I’m not one of Tempore’s priests; I’ll leave that stuff to them.”

“How does the world warm up and cool off?” Sanct asked.

“The sun goddess, Aiz, exerts more of her power to make the world hotter and hotter, making it float higher above the lava lake below us. When she gets tired and rests toward the beginning of the next year, the world slowly cools off a little.”

“Or is it that Eiz cools the world with her own strength?” Sanct postulated.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Well, it seems like everything has an opposite. If Aiz heats, does not Eiz cool?”

“No, no, no. It’s more like,” Pander hesitated, “it’s warm or it’s not.”

“So cold is just the absence of heat?” Sanct said, troubled. “But you could say the exact opposite, that heat is just the absence of cold.”

The warrior scratched his head. “You’ve lost me, Sanct.”

Sanct opened his mouth to try to explain, but ended up saying, “Never mind. It’s about time to be going, anyway.” He brushed a few crumbs from his robe, stood, and moved to help Pander redistribute the packhorse’s load so he could ride comfortably.

As Sanct made ready to leave, Pander followed his lead. He was a good man, but hardly one to be placed in charge of any mission. Sanct wondered what the War God had been thinking when he sent Pander on the mission alone.

As soon as he had the thought, Sanct reconsidered. Pander had been sent alone, but with two horses; was the presence of the second horse a coincidence, or was Pander intended to have met Sanct? Or was he to meet a different Seren somewhere along the way to Seighn? Or was the horse actually meant to be a packhorse? OrEnough, Sanct reprimanded himself. If you suspect Pander, you’ll suspect anyone.

The two set off again in a northerly direction with Pander and Sanct riding alongside each other. They made small talk while keeping their eyes open for the frequent bandits of the road.

“So, what’s new?” Sanct joshed.

Pander laughed. Asking what had changed since their last Waking was an eternal joke among Seren. Nothing really changed – dialects, countries, everything stayed the same.

Only little things changed. But Pander grew serious.

“Lord Vail’s line has died out. When I Woke, I found the Vail mansion lying deserted. The whole place is still clean, but apparently no one wants to buy it. It has a prime location in the city – on a hill all of its own overlooking the harbor, near the middle of the city…”

Sanct remembered that Pander had fathered children in the Vail family line. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, well, I guess I couldn’t avoid the gods’ rules forever.” Pander rode stiffly for a while, then hit the horn of the saddle, startling his horse. “Sorry, Midnight,” he soothed her.

39

Danny Birt He looked over at Sanct. “I just don’t understand, Sanct. Why couldn’t I love both my family and my god? Is it so impossible?”

Sanct had to ride in silence.

Near the Angyest border at the Wallkeeper’s Wife Tavern, Pander called a halt. “Last time I was passing through, it was a respectable place.”

Paying the stable boy to feed and board their horses, they stepped into the common room. When they entered, a couple of customers turned their heads, but most ignored the intrusion. There was a dwarf sitting alone by the fire, a mother and daughter pair eating dinner, and several assorted men. The innkeeper bustled forward through the many tiny tables with a proprietary smile pasted on his face.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” greeted the keep. “Welcome to the Wallkeeper’s Wife.

Will you be wishing a meal and room? The best in the area, I assure you.”

“Considering there are no others, I would hope so.” Pander’s lips quirked.

“Right you are, sir, right you are!” The innkeeper beamed, putting his hand on his chest. “Deheo and his men are the only ones to brave dangerous lands such as these to give refuge to tired travelers like yourselves. So it’s settled? Spacious beds for the both of you, and I imagine you’d enjoy eating down here with the rest of my gracious guests.”

The keeper produced a hand-sized book and miniature pen-and-ink set. “Now, before you sign, two things: your money and my rules. Well, rule, really. Don’t hurt anyone or anything. And it’s a one-ingot per man, if you please.”

The terms were agreeable so the innkeeper held out the pen and book to Pander.

“Sanct, why don’t I pay this time?” Pander put his hand in his purse.

“That’s generous of you,” Sanct nodded his head as he reached for the pen and book. Pander’s shortcomings in formal education meant he couldn’t even sign his own name, but he was too proud to admit it. Sanct had acquired a basic talent in writing from Tannon. It had taken him but one lesson to learn how to do it, but he knew from Tannon’s reaction that it normally took longer for someone to learn to read and write.

Sanct chided himself when he saw Pander take two squat cylindrical pieces of metal out of his leather pouch and give them to the innkeeper. I may know how to write, but Pander still knows more than I do, and I should keep that in mind. Those must be oneingots. I need to learn about how to use money. Pander still knew more about many subjects than he did; it was disingenuous to say otherwise.

“Is the meal ready now?” Though Pander very much looked forward to taking off his armor and sleeping in an actual bed, his hunger overrode all other comforts.

“It certainly is,” answered the innkeeper. “Certainly. Let me get my helping man to see to your needs, and you take a seat anywhere.” Deheo lowered his voice and tapped his forehead. “He’s a bit touched, if you know what I mean, so when he comes out, be sure to holler loud enough to drown out the voices in his head – his name is Hinch.”

The stocky man walked back into the kitchen area to give the order, and Pander and Sanct walked to a table near a great fireplace with a disproportionately small fire in it.

They set their packs down and dusted off some of the accumulated dirt of the road. Pander unclasped his sword from his belt – a good sign to Sanct, meaning that this establishment would present them with no problems.

A man walked out of the kitchen entrance with two pints of stew.

“Hey, Hinch, you’re supposed to put the stew in bowls!” called one of the customers with a smile in his voice. This drew more attention to the strange looking man.

Sanct looked closer as he was gently harangued by some of the locals.

40

Ending an Ending The man seemed to be perfectly groomed and well clothed, except for a shock of gray hair that went this way and that. The man’s eyes seemed to never settle on one thing, always searching for the next target. He seemed to stand perfectly still while he looked for the proper table.

“Over here, Hinch, sir,” Pander called out. In a quieter voice to Sanct, he muttered, “People shouldn’t make fun of the touched like that.”

The serving man moved toward their table, only to stop about three spans from the men near a second table. His eyes flickered between Pander and Sanct, studying them in the manner of a frightened rabbit. His eyes finally settled on Sanct. “Don’t know,” he said suddenly.

“Know what?” asked Sanct dubiously.

The man named Hinch acted as though he hadn’t heard. Sanct gave a warning look to Pander, and slowly reached for his staff, not wanting to call it to himself in a crowd of strangers. Hinch noticed the subtle movements toward weapons, and set the pints of stew down with a thud on the near table. Without another glance, he walked purposefully back toward the kitchen.

“Don’t let him make you nervous,” suggested a little girl from yet another table.

“He acts funny and talks to people who aren’t there, but he won’t hurt anybody.” The child’s mother cast an apologetic glance in their direction, and turned the girl back to her unfinished dinner.

Sanct smiled at the girl in thanks, and retrieved their pints of stew from where Hinch had placed them. “I wonder if he has anything to do with this mission.” He handed one of the two-handled cups to Pander.

“So do I,” his companion replied, “Especially since he’s still looking at us from the kitchen door.”

Sanct glanced up, but saw no one there. “Are you sure he was?”

Pander grimaced. “Up until the point I mentioned it, yes. Surely he couldn’t have heard me from way over there.”

The two settled down to drinking the thick hearty stew from the pints, since the server Hinch had not brought spoons. After only a few swallows, the little girl who had spoken with them earlier wiggled out of her chair and walked over to Sanct’s staff. “That’s real pretty, mister. Is that a piece of a tree from the elf city?”

Her mother scurried over to gather up her charge, apologizing verbally this time.

“Sometimes she moves so fast.”

“As all children do,” replied Pander knowingly, then offered “Would you care to eat with us? It would mean two more sets of eyes on her.” When the woman began to protest, he interjected gently. “It would be my pleasure. I haven’t seen my own children in quite some time.”

She seemed to melt at his argument. “I accept, sir. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to be separated from your children.”

Sanct hurriedly made room for the two new arrivals, and didn’t argue with Pander; he was still taking the loss of his family hard. The group struck up an animated conversation, energized by the little girl’s high-pitched interjections. They continued to talk until Pander noticed Hinch sitting in the corner. He pointed the oddity out to Sanct.

The innkeeper noticed their consternation. “Hinch, don’t bother the customers,” called the innkeeper to the strange man in the corner. “Hinch?” he called again, getting no response. “Hinch!” The innkeeper threw the wet rag in his hands at the man.

An instant before the rag was to hit him in the back of the head, Hinch whirled, his hand snatched the rag out of midair, and snapped it the floor.

41

Danny Birt The innkeeper flinched at the violence of the action. “Hate it when he does that spooky stuff,” he muttered, leaving the rag to lay where it was with a sidelong glance. “You leave my good paying customers to their meal,” he commanded. In a moment the innkeeper had retreated to the kitchen.

Muttering quietly to himself, Hinch picked up the rag, wiped off the chair where he’d been sitting, then walked over to Sanct. “We’re wondering what you’re, and why you’ve come to visit us.”

Sanct looked the man in the eyes. “I’m a traveler, and I’m passing through like all travelers do.”

“He’s passing through?” Hinch said quizzically, wrinkling his face up like a prune.

He paused, muttered to himself some more, shaking his head. He pointed at Sanct with a pinky finger. “Hinch says you ignore the question.”

“Well, I don’t know how else I can answer it.”

“Hinch, his staff feels like you do!” announced the little girl from where she crouched at the wall. Everyone at the table looked at her.

“What do you mean, honey? Wood can’t feel like a man.” Her mother moved away from the table to scoop up her protesting daughter.

Hinch ignored them all. With one pinky finger pointing at it, he studied the staff leaning against the wall for a moment, then pointed his other pinky finger at Sanct. “That’s not very nice,” he said suddenly. He walked quickly out of the inn.

The meal resumed at a slower pace, and finished. The mother and daughter pair retired to their house somewhere in the distance, and the Seren sat at the table, together and alone. Everything turned quiet and lulling.

“Sanct?” Pander snapped his fingers in front of his companion’s face.

“Huh? What?” Sanct asked, startled.

“What were you staring at?” Pander smiled. “You were pretty intent for a little while, there; you didn’t even hear me call your name.”

“Oh.” Sanct had been staring at the wall, in the direction he had come. He still felt the southerly yearning his deity had placed in him. Apparently, being on another mission had not superseded his original purpose. “Nothing, Pander. Nothing.”

Theirs being the last to be vacated, the innkeeper came over to clear their table.

“What’s the story with your helping man?” asked Sanct, breaking the silence. “He gave me a strange look, then walked out of the inn.”

“Oh, Hinch.” Deheo groaned. “I have yet to figure what he’s about, really. He came to the inn one day and plopped down in one of the seats in this very room. One of my old serving girls thought he’d already paid and was waiting for his meal, so she served him. I was fine with it, but when it turned out that he had no money, I was, of course, offended. What man comes into my establishment and eats my good food without a way to pay for it? I’m a charitable man, I send a generous offering to the temples in Aeterna every year, but I can hardly be expected to feed every vagabond that wanders in.” He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, and sat down at their table.

“Where was I? Right, Hinch. Well, I’m about ready to have some of the boys toss him out and send him on his way, when he tells me, ‘You have need of a server.’ Can you imagine the gall? Saying that I wasn’t getting my job done.” His face turned from exasperated to somewhat sheepish. “Well, as it happens he was right. I’d had an entire family who worked for me move out just two days before, looking to visit relatives in Formast, but he couldn’t have known. Well, I tell him to get back there and wash some dishes until there aren’t any more – might as well get some work out of him, you see? I head off to the bedroom, and the next thing I know, Ella’s waking me up – Ella bein’ my wife – and telling me to get down to the kitchen, there’s a madman causing some ruckus. Right away I don my robe and fly down 42

Ending an Ending the stairs, all in a terror that the idiot has started a fight in my inn, but what I saw shocked me.”

He paused again, theatrically. Sanct stopped himself to allow Deheo to have his moment. “What did you see?” he finally prompted.

“Every dish,” the stocky man said slowly, “Every single one, was clean! Not only that, but he wouldn’t let the cook put any breakfast in the pots because he said that was ‘dirtying them.’” He snorted. “And he was serious, what’s worse. After I explained to him that this was the natural process of things, he calmed down and went back out to the common room, like he didn’t know what a dish was for! I thought the entire thing was settled, but just as I’m sleeping again, Ella comes a-poundin’ up the stairs again to drag me out. ‘He’s eating breakfast, and he says it’s all right by you!’ Well, I go through the whole routine again, and ask him what he’s doing. He looks at me blankly, he does. I try again and tell him to leave, and do you know what he tells me? ‘You have need of a server.’ Again! Then he goes back to eating. Ella steps forward to give him a piece of her mind, but he locks eyes with her, and says, ‘Likes the pretty lady.’ He pulls a flower out of nowhere and puts it in her hair. I’m about to take umbrage at this, her being my wife and all, until I see that he’s said the perfect thing to her, and she’s as happy as a brownie child in the glassmakers’ guildhall.”

Deheo again paused, this time seemingly abandoning the pat-story. “Ever since, he’s drifted in and out of the Wallkeeper as he pleases. He does more than his fair share of work, that’s for sure, and though he makes some nervous with his voices, good luck seems to abound when he’s around.”

“Good luck?” Sanct latched onto the piece of information, this being perhaps the first real clue to the man’s identity.

The white-clad shoulders shrugged. “That’s what I call it, at least. Lost things get found easier, fewer fights happen,” he paused again, “And no one dies. Ever.” He chuckled, rousing himself again. “I’ve told Ella many times that if I have a terrible illness that pains me night and day to get him out of here and let me die like I’m supposed to!”

“Do you think he would mind if I talked with him?” Pander asked. The serving man was a strange point in the journey, and the Seren usually pursued these odd twists of fate, since the gods often placed them in their servants’ way for a reason.

Rising from his sitting position, Deheo said, “Cornering Hinch is tough enough, but inviting him to talk back is like asking a vampire if he wants a nice, brown sun tan. Good luck, friend.”

The innkeeper retreated to the kitchen. Pander and Sanct sat, absorbing what they’d heard. Pander asked the question first.

“Any clue whether he’s mad, or actually talking to spirits?”

“None whatsoever.”

Pander sighed. “Should we try to take him with us?”

His companion looked at him. “Are you kidding? There’s no way he’s mentally stable. We can’t risk bringing him along on a diplomatic mission.”

“Neither were you, but we brought you along,” said Pander.

Sanct smiled. “It’s your call, of course, Head Seren.”

Pander merely nodded. He sat for some time, and Sanct eventually abandoned him to his thoughts, heading up the well-worn staircase to his bed.

The next day, the two men partook of the breakfast set before them, noting the absence of the serving man Hinch, likely due to the incident the night before, and the absence of Deheo, likely due to too much drink the night before. Their horses had caught a lung disease over the night from the only other horse in the stable, so they were on foot.

43

Danny Birt The road exiting Angyest east into the Free Cities and on toward their final destination was straight and uncomplicated. The day passed without incident, so Pander and Sanct kept walking through the evening. Pander remembered a prime camping spot a little further ahead, and wanted to reach it before they turned in for the night.

Sanct’s staff, which had disappeared the night before, returned soon after dark.

“Trouble.” Pander spotted the man standing in the road first.

Sanct could barely make out anything in the dark, but when it moved, he could see it was man-shaped. He squinted. “Are you sure?”

“He can’t be up to good, loitering in the middle of nowhere. But maybe he’s not after us; two men can’t be a big hit. Well, regardless, it’s likely nothing we can’t handle.”

Pander did not draw a weapon, but readied himself.

The man leaned on a sword as they approached. “Good evening, gentlemen.

Headed to Seighn, are you?”

“Our business is urgent, and we must press on. Our apologies.” Sanct tried to brush past the man, but he would have none of it.

“Oh, you need make none. I have business as well, but with you.” The man moved the sword so Sanct had to stop and back-step to avoid bloodying himself. “You see, I am a practitioner of the magical arts-” “A mage.” Pander growled. “We’ll have none of you.”

“Actually, my business is not your concern, but is” he turned to address Sanct “to our mutual benefit. Though you dress like it, sir, you are no mage. Yet you carry an artifact that has quite unimaginable forces locked inside it. You obviously cannot handle it; you ought to let me relieve you of it.”

“I cannot. It returns to me.”

“Of course it does; you make a perfect victim for it. I can handle that. I shall bind it so it will not leach from you any longer.”

Though Sanct was curious what he meant by the staff “leaching” from him, he decided to play it safe. “Really, I’m afraid not. Thank you for your well wishes, but no.”

“Perhaps my friends can help you change your mind?”

Pander’s hands itched to grasp his sword and shield, but didn’t like the odds that were popping up from behind rocks. He counted six in front of him, and he was sure there were more behind. Were he alone he would fight, but he could not protect Sanct.

Sanct shrugged. “As I said, I cannot give it to you, but as you wish.”

Pander watched as Sanct went through the motions of handing over his staff.

“A most intelligent man!” praised the mage. “Fare you well, gentlemen!”

They traveled on for a while at a good pace. Sanct was thinking about what the man had said, and still wondered what he had meant by “leaching.” Was it because of my staff that I lost my memories? Is my staff controlling me through some sort of evil magic?

Did a god not give it to me after all? If that’s so, am I not a Seren?

Pander broke his shocked reverie. “I can’t believe you gave up your staff! Isn’t that the symbol of your deity?”

“What, you mean this staff?” Sanct asked, looking at the staff in his hands.

Pander stared in astonishment. He knew it hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Did you give him an illusion?”

“No. I wasn’t lying to the man. It would do me as much good to try to give someone my bones.”

There was a sound of galloping behind them. They saw several individuals bearing down on them, one of whom was the mage they had just left. The horse riders circled the two men, grinding to a heavily breathing halt.

44

Ending an Ending “I don’t know how you did that, but I will have that staff even if I have to carve it from your body.” The man stalked forward, drawing a short sword from a back sheath.

A dark chuckle filled the night air. “Oh, goodie,” said a voice from somewhere.

“Swashbuckling.”

Pander whirled around and yelled, “Show yourself!”

“He won’t,” The mage belied his own declaration by looking around for the owner of the voice. “He never shows his face.”

“Who is it?” Pander asked. “Have you caught us in the middle of a mage duel?”

The men and women with the mage had turned around, backs toward Pander and Sanct. The mage himself said, “Gentlemen, I offer a truce until morning’s light.”

Pander clearly did not find this offer credulous. “Why?” “There’s a vampire somewhere out there that’s been following my group for months. He likes to play games with us, killing us off one at a time, but since you’re here, we could help each other out. No matter if you were my sworn enemy, I will always side with the living before the undead.”

“Agreed.” Pander nodded firmly.

“Oh, don’t stop on my behalf,” said the disembodied voice. “I was going to enjoy watching you try to take that from him.”

The mage ignored the voice, though Sanct could see by the twitch in his cheek that he had heard, and was angry at the taunt. “We’re his entertainment and dinner. He’s been preying on us-” “Just as you prey on your fellow travelers,” the voice interjected.

“-for three months now. Every time he attacks us we learn more of his powers, but every time he comes back, he has a new trick up his… well, up his whatever a vampire wears. Our only comfort is that there are other vampires in the area that happen to be hunting him.”

“Vampires hunting vampires?” Pander disbelieved what he had heard.

“These seem to be special vampires, sent by the Lich,” the mage said. He called out in a louder voice, “Isn’t that right, Michel? You’re not the top of the food chain anymore, are you?”

There was no reply. One of the mage’s cohorts had already started a fire. Pander and Sanct began to help with the various preparations for the defense of the camp, no matter how strange they might sound.

With the fires blazing, the entire group sat or stood silently, staring out into the night. With no one speaking, Sanct spent his time wondering what a vampire was, and what it looked like, how many legs it had. The voice that had spoken out of the darkness had sound like a refined Aeternan gentleman, but surely a monster could not be called either of those things. It was odd to think that a monster could look like a human.

He decided to ask what vampires looked like.

“We don’t know,” the mage said. “He doesn’t show himself. Maybe he can’t; maybe he’s so old his body has rotten away.”

“What is a vampire, anyway?” Sanct asked.

“What are you?” asked the woman next to Sanct.

Sanct was surprised at the question. He looked the woman in her eyes, and had to blink. It seemed as though there were little black dots swimming around in her irises. Staring into those wriggling eyes, Sanct started to feel sick.

Sanct noticed his staff suddenly in his hand, and felt better.

The leader had noticed the odd question, and had come over to the woman. He took her by the shoulders. “Godarr. Look me in the eyes. Tell me who you are.”

45

Danny Birt “I am Godarr.” The woman blinked, and the black dots that had been in her eyes were gone. She grew angry. “Vampire whorespawn!” She surged to her feet and grasped her club, staring out into the night.

“Very well, I shall not use your body, little one. I’m not here to dine this evening.”

The silky disembodied voice was back.

“No games, Michel?” asked the leader loudly. “Sorry if we’re boring you. So, what’s it to be instead, old man?”

“The pleasure of your company is enough. …No, no, that would be a lie. But don’t you worry, lieutenant, I haven’t forgotten my promise. I will still save you for dessert.” The vampire’s disembodied voice now began worming its way between those standing and those sitting. “This evening all I want is to learn about this Sanct that I find so fascinating.

“What I have before me is patently impossible – a man who is not a man… carrying a staff that does not exist. I must admit, sir, you are quite beyond my six thousand years of experience to fathom. Please, flatter me and answer my original question: what are you?”

Sanct said, “Nothing if not human.”

“Hmm. No, though I smell the truth of your answer, I do not smell a human. I don’t even smell your mother’s scent, nor the father that copulated with her. I take it no woman ever bore you?”

Sanct stood silent. His description coming from the vampire’s mouth – or whatever a vampire spoke with - unnerved him. What does he mean, I’m not a man? I certainly have the anatomy to provide evidence to the contrary. And how can anyone carry something that does not exist, let alone that other crazy stuff?

After the vampire had given him a diplomatic time in which to reply, he picked up the conversation again. “I can see that I have upset you. Can it be that such a complex being does not know himself?” The vampire sighed. “There resides quite a story in you, but it’s one that I’m afraid must there remain.”

The mage took a step forward, advancing on an enemy whose location he looked for in vain. “What, scared to try someone that might actually be your equal?”

After another moment, the voice answered the leader’s challenge with dry panache. “Some distant and unwelcome relatives of mine are coming near my dwelling, and I need to – oh, how would a human do it – douse the light and pretend I’m not home. I believe I shall retire for the evening, ladies and gentlemen.”

“Shall I schedule you in for tomorrow night?” the mage asked wryly.

The vampire’s voice did not immediately reply. The mage walked back to near the fires, only to whirl back around when the voice did return.

“I’m afraid that so long as this Sanct stays near you, I must postpone our little game. I extend my apologies for this let down. Until that time, I bid you sweet dreams.”

The voice and presence withdrew. A previously unnoticed darkness that had been laid atop the murkiness of the night began to dissipate, magnifying the lights of the fire and the moon. Everyone in the mage’s group breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed from their watching positions.

“What, that’s it?” demanded Pander, watching the rest of them putting away their weapons. Not only could it be a trick of the vampire, it could be a trick of this company, trying to lull Pander and Sanct into complacency.

“We’re off the hook until tomorrow night.” The mage shrugged. “As strange as it sounds, his word is better than most humans’. He won’t come back tonight because he’s too scared of him,” he flopped a finger toward Sanct, “and no vampire risks the wrath of Aiz.” “The Goddess of the Sun?” Sanct looked into the sky. “What about her?”

“She hates vampires,” the mage replied. “Any she sees, she burns.”

46

Ending an Ending “Why?” Pander said, “Who cares? Aiz provides us protection; let us simply be grateful.”

Sanct stopped talking, and he and Pander settled down a little ways from the rest of the group to try to sleep and keep an eye on the rest of their temporary allies. He was unhappy about not knowing why Aiz held such enmity toward vampires: few things in this world were completely one-sided, he had come to learn. Things that looked right and proper one day could turn out horribly wrong when seen through the eyes of experience – though, that was unlikely with someone trying to keep you from being killed.

Dawn broke sleeplessly later. Eiz’s delicate enticing beauty faded quickly under the overpowering, splendorous brilliance of her sister, taking with it the fear of the undead creature that stalked in the omnipresent shadow called Night.

Much of the interim Sanct had spent looking south. He wished he could shake the feeling he was going in the wrong direction; the southerly draw altered his sense of balance, making his body feel like it was almost going to topple south, even when he was lying down.

It was annoyingly distracting, made sleep less restful, and might prove fatal in a fight if he did not get used to it soon.

Sanct heard someone stand behind him, so he swiveled around. The leader of the highwaymen moved toward Sanct, who kicked Pander awake at his approach.

“Have no fear.” the mage stopped a respectful distance away. “My treaty with you will not be broken. I actually wish to offer you placement in my band.”

He tried to continue, but Sanct cut him off. “I will give you a definitive and unequivocal no. I have a mission to attend to, and another after that, and even had I none, your sort of ‘business’ is not the sort I would choose.”

The man shrugged, and gestured to the rest of his band, who quickly gathered their belongings and decamped. “Well, it was worth a try. At least your presence gave us one night of sleep. In gratitude for that I would like to make a gift of two horses, if I may.” He bowed slightly.

Sanct looked at Pander, who nodded, eager to be on his way swiftly. Sanct looked at the mage and accepted, but frowned when he saw that the mage had been staring at Sanct’s staff while his attention had been diverted.

The mage noticed that Sanct had caught his covetous gaze. He shrugged regretfully. “You’re no mage, but you two are Seren. I recognized his medallion from my days in the Elf Prince Battles in Sur. I imagine you can handle that staff’s demands better than I can. It’s yours, with my apologies for my misinterpretation.”

“About that,” Sanct queried, “what did you mean by the staff leaching from me?”

The mage set his front teeth on edge in a strange look of consternation. His lips slowly closed over them, though, and he bowed again. “As I said: I misinterpreted. I believe.”

He took one last long look at the staff, a swift glance at Sanct and Pander, then moved swiftly after his departed band.

Pander checked the horses to make sure they were in fit shape. He raised hooves, ran his hands along muscles and bones, and pushed each horse around in circles.

“What are you doing?” Sanct asked.

“Getting them ready to go,” Pander replied. “I’m still not sure those folks won’t change their minds, and I intend to be long gone before they have a chance.”

“I mean, why are you pushing them?”

“Horses put a lot of emphasis into proximity. Watch.” Pander put his hands up to the horse and took a step toward its left flank. The big creature tossed its head and took a step to its right. “There, you see?”

47

Danny Birt “Maybe,” Sanct said uncertainly. “They’re moving where you want them to?”

“Exactly. Horses are like soldiers: show ‘em who’s in charge from the start, and they take orders ever after.”

Pander was struck suddenly by how different his feelings toward Sanct had become since their last mission. During the last Waking, he had seen Sanct in a light almost like a son, whereas now he seemed more like a brother – more socially competent, more capable of defending himself, on par with Pander in most every respect.

Pander chose the brown gelding for Sanct, and kept the feistier white-haired mare for himself, even though it did have a smaller saddle. He made a note to switch the saddles later in the day, when they were well away from this campsite.

The two men had not unpacked a thing over the night, so it was simplicity itself in preparing to leave. They were well down the road before their fire had stopped smoking.

“I wonder how a Surian Combat Mage came to be a robber,” Pander mused aloud.

“Down on his luck?” Sanct guessed.

“That’s no excuse for a proper warrior,” Pander said sternly, “and Surian Combat Mages are some of the best trained warriors in the world. At least, I’m guessing that’s what he was. Did he say that he was a Combat Mage?”

“No, he didn’t. But he did recognize us as Seren. He said he’d seen others during a war.”

Pander looked at him curiously. “Oh? Did he recognize your god?”

“He didn’t say.”

“He sure treaded lightly around you after you scared off that vampire,” Pander chuckled.

Sanct nodded.

Pander paused. “A vampire, so scared he wouldn’t even come near you.”

Sanct remained silent, wondering what the big man was driving at.

“A six thousand year old vampire,” Pander reiterated. “He was so focused on you that he didn’t even mention me. Me! A Seren of Maul!” After riding along in an uncomfortable silence, Pander timidly asked, “So… was all that stuff about you true?”

Sanct felt his hand tighten on the staff that supposedly did not exist, and tapped it against his horse’s flank to set a faster pace. He certainly wished he could set a slower one for his mind. He had been asking himself the same question all night, and hadn’t gotten an eyelid’s flicker of sleep.

The first of the Free Cities was a despicable hodgepodge of filthy buildings, filthy people, and filth. Sanct felt sorry for the horse underneath him having to trod on the disgusting ground.

Quiet disorder was evident everywhere eyes roamed even from outside the first walls. Differing people, architecture, transportation, and states of repair glared obviously at every turn. A three story wooden tavern stood next to what looked like a downscaled stone fortress. Several hovels huddled together, surrounding a heroic monolith that had no explanation. There was a wall around the city, or at least this part of it, but when they passed through that wall, they saw a smaller, older wall, and beyond that was yet another, as though the city was a snail that had twice outgrown its shells.

“This place is disgusting!” choked Sanct when he first whiffed the city from far outside the first gate. He was seriously considering taking the long way around, rather than riding through the cesspool. “How can they live like this?”

“The Free Cities have no government,” Pander responded. “All the services normally taken care of by governments don’t get done unless someone takes it upon 48