(A/N: This chapter was paid for by Covid industries. So I apologise if bits of the chapter seems a bit strange or wobbly, Covid brain is real y’all. Not helped by the fact that a lot of this is exposition so… Thanks for sticking with it. Warning: Contains off-hand and dismissive references to horrific things having been done to women in the past.)

This is no longer funny.

When I was first brought into this, after I had first been captured by… whatever and however, I remember saying that I must laugh about what had happened or I would cry. I found ways to look at the entire situation and find morbidly funny things that would make me snigger. I would mock the men that stand guard over me with a metal rod and barbed whip ready to inflict pain in the event of my disobedience. I referred to them as critics to make myself feel better about hating them.

I don’t hate them. What I feel for them is so small and banal. It doesn’t deserve the word “hatred”. It might be scorn instead, or maybe, given the introduced possibility of what has happened to these men to make them so big and physically powerful, it is possible that I might even pity them.

The world has changed for me now. Things seem to be sinking in. This is the new normal. Routine has crept in and the horror of the situation is a dull and muted roar at the back of things. I no longer believe that it’s all going to be ok. That I am going to be better or that this will, in some way, be fixed. I no longer believe that.

I wonder if I used to be an optimist. I never thought of myself as one, instead, I preferred to think of myself as a realist. Hope is useful, but I am experienced enough to know that hope can also be cruel.

Now there is no hope. I am done. All there is, is anger. Anger that this has happened to me and mine. Anger that this could have been allowed to happen. I see no way out of it all.

And worse than that, I must hold onto that anger. I must grip it tightly and fuel it in the same way that I would fuel a campfire. I must do this because if I let go of that rage, then all that there is left is despair and if all that I have is despair then what is the point of it all anyway.

And that leads to far more horrific questions.

But I have my orders and I must follow them. Not because I have any kind of hope, but because if I disobey then others will be made to suffer.

I hate this. I hate this entire process. Two interviews in and I am questioning everything I know and everything that I have seen. The world is no longer what I thought it was and I feel lesser for it. Holy Flame but what have I become?

Again, There is an important extended section to start this entire thing going. I know that it was important because as he was saying this stuff, Sam was staring just off to one side of me and so, he was watching those events as they unfolded in front of him.

Eventually, if these fucks are serious about all of my notes being turned into some kind of official biography, then all of this will need to be compiled into whatever order makes sense to the publishers. But these passages will need to be kept almost entirely together. The ones where he is just remembering.

It says something about me. I have no idea what it says, but it’s definitely something that even though I am being forced to write these things. Even though I am being forced to listen to this awful, horrific shit. I am still determined to do a good job.

I could argue that I am doing so for people to remember exactly how evil Sam and his cronies have been, one way or another. I also wonder if this book or these notes are going to be used against me in an inquisitorial court. Because I can’t believe that some priest is going to believe that I had no idea that any of this stuff was going on. I barely believe it myself. How could I not have seen this? The only solution is that I deliberately decided not to see it.

If Sam succeeds, then he promises that I will live a privileged life although I have no idea what that means and he isn’t telling me. So there is even something to say that I should hope for his victory.

But I don’t. If the price of his defeat is that I go to the pyre, then I will go and gladly. Believe that, whoever it is that is reading these notes. I will go gladly and I do not believe that I will be entirely alone in that sentiment.

So here, I am using Sam’s words again, regarding his first proper meeting with the Mage, Phineas Tordril. From the sounds of things, this means that the hooded and cloaked swordsman that I received some accounts of, was almost certainly Sam. I can’t confirm that of course but it seems likely.

Over to Sam.

I remember that he was at the back of the group of them. Everyone else was walking around with serious expressions on their faces. Scowls and frowns. Laughable expressions that they deliberately wore over their faces to make themselves appear thoughtful, or to appear like men of substance. They turned the collars of their coats up and wore absurd voluminous hoods that would not have looked out of place on the head of a monk in some out-of-place monastery where disgraced men are sent to live out the rest of their days.

I found them laughable and I had to school my face into a careful expression of control, subservience and modesty.

You did not know it, but you had done me an absurdly huge favour in being the man that had figured all of this out and if Kerrass had lived, then I would have thanked him for the same reason. It meant that I was absolutely beyond reproach and that the assholes that we were burning, had obviously hung themselves during their efforts to go that bit further and fly that bit higher.

But now a moment of crisis for the cult had come and as such, they all needed to come south so that they could survey the ruin that had been left for them by their errant sons and off-shoots. They were afraid. The death of Cousin Raynard Kalayn and Edmund von Coulthard was a disaster because it meant that they were vulnerable. They had no idea how much those other cultists that had been led by my cousin knew. Therefore, they had no idea what had been passed onto the necessary authorities so they were terrified that there were already Inquisitorial armies that were rallying to see to the destruction of the cult in the North.

They were afraid, and because they were unused to being afraid, they were angry and they were looking for people to be angry with. These men had not fought in the war. They had stayed in garrison towns at the heads of their household regiments. Regiments that would have made all the difference if they had actually turned up on the field to support us but obviously, that was never going to happen.

They were trying to be angry with me. All the while Uncle Kalayn was standing near me but not beside me. He was listening to the other men rant at me before he would interrupt them, remind them of where they were and the danger that they were in before snapping that they should be quiet. I was enjoying myself and frantically trying to keep that enjoyment from my face in case it betrayed me.

I had a counter to every argument. I could hide behind their own rules and laws. I was the younger son and was not in charge of the offshoot. I could prove that I had advised our cousin and brother as to what to do. I had written to the North that they needed to send someone with more authority to curtail the excesses of the pair of them and their associated hangers-on. I could prove that and both Cavill and Uncle Kalayn knew that.

Cavill wasn’t there though. He had more sense.

But Uncle Kalayn had come south and he had brought some of his nearest and dearest with him. Powerful men to be sure and they were unhappy with the new regimes that were beginning to take over. They could feel their power trembling and had come to realise that they were sitting on a branch while someone was sawing at the tree. They knew that the Empress was coming to power and that the Emperor was meaning to retire in favour of his daughter. They knew that the Empress had no time for men whose only argument as to why she should listen to them was because she was a woman and they were a man. They saw the increasing power of the female rulers under the Empire such as Queen-Regent Adda, Queen Anais, Queen Meve and the rest.

They were afraid and like all people who realised that their world was ending, instead of changing and moving with those changes, adapting and learning to live in the new world, they were desperately hanging onto what they thought was their powerbases.

As I say, it was funny to watch as I saw the despair enter their faces. I saw the slow sinking sensation that they would not be able to pin this blame on me.

They looked for other targets to direct their ire at. The guardsmen all had their orders and the Watch Captains had chosen those men carefully that night. These were men who had been born on the streets, fought on the front line of wars and had no respect for unearned or assumed authority.

Another moment where I had to struggle not to laugh was when one of those fine fellows that our uncle brought south with him, endeavoured to order one of the guards to release his son. The guard laughed in his face. The parent tried to insist, remonstrating with the guard physically until the guard hit him in the face with his mailed fist. Not even that hard.

Do you remember the first time you were hit in the face? Properly hit in the face, not with a training blow or on the training fields. But a real, honest to The God, punch in the face. You blink, tears come and then there is a moment where you cannot believe that this is happening to you. You sit there dazed and blinking stupidly while the tears stream down your face before, if you are lucky, someone will come to check on you. I remember it. I remember what happened the first time I was struck in the face. I remember being ashamed of the tears even though I had no control over them and they sprung to my eyes without knowing about them or conscious thought.

But I looked at that fallen man, his nose crumpled as he automatically spat the mixture of blood and teeth out of his face. He could not believe that this had happened to him.

It was glorious.

This… I think that there were more of them, moving through the crowd, trying to save their children and keep their identities secret so that the crowd did not try to end their lives out of associated guilt and communal rage. But there were only about half a dozen that knew who I was. And they were terrified and didn’t know what to do with themselves.

The only exception was Phineas. He stood at the back of the group, looking around at everything with an air of interested, curiosity-driven enjoyment. I could well imagine the words that would come out of his mouth when he invited himself to come down south with Uncle Kalayn.

“Oh,” he would have said. “Can I come? I have never seen a mass burning before.”

He was like a man walking through an art gallery for the first time, or a museum. I remember that we had to chase off a couple of stallholders that had wanted to sell snacks and street food there. Phineas would have been one of the people that complained that you didn’t let anyone sell toffee apples or some kind of cooked meat in bread. He would have watched someone burn with a cake in one hand and a flagon of beer in the other. He would have been annoyed when someone jostled him causing him to spill his pint.

You remember what he looked like. He didn’t seem to dress ostentatiously like other Mages that I have met over the years and he certainly didn’t look like any of the Sorceresses. I cannot imagine any woman in their right mind describing him as attractive, let alone having the kind of conniptions and the foolish, stupid, lust-filled gaze that they get when someone suitably gorgeous passes them in the street.

He had longish dark hair at the time. I would later learn that he cut it whenever he remembered that it needed cutting or when he was going to be entering some kind of formal place where he would need to have his hair cut. At the time, it was tied out of his face with a kind of top-knot kind of affair that you see in the Northern Kaedweni

He wore a dark robe and the firelight glittered in the lines that were in the depths of that robe. Arcane patterns or whatever he claimed them to be. He was not an ugly man, it was more that he just didn’t seem to care about romance or self-grooming. I certainly knew that he had physical needs which he exercised when he felt the need. But it wasn’t one of his priorities.

I understand that women felt him off-putting. Men too for that matter. I think it was the low-level kind of scorn that he had for everyone and everything. Some people default to liking people and then they need a reason to dislike someone. You are one of these people. Phineas was one of those people that dislikes people until he is given a reason to treat them as equals.

But on the other hand, if he decided that you were his friend, then you had a friend for life.

He was in that process where he was looking around at what was going on around him. Looking at the people on the flames and listening to what was being said with half an ear. Like you, I have had training and I was keeping watch on him with half an eye. I know to look for the people on the outskirts of things and this man made me nervous. But I had other people in my face, many of whom were trying to yell under their breath and I could not devote enough time to properly keep him in my gaze.

I am confident that he didn’t know who I was. At best, he knew that I was the cult’s agent in the Oxenfurt, Novigrad kind of area. But he certainly didn’t know my name. He was paying attention to what was going on around me with a kind of remote, half-paying attention kind of gaze. But at some point he stopped and stared at me, frowning in concentration which was very different from the fake frowns that were being worn by the cultists that were around me. The frown was much slighter, calmer, and more thoughtful. He was considering me.

Then I had to look away for a moment. The same fear that infected the men around me was beginning to infect me. Would this strange, uncaring man on the outside of things finally be the thing that was my undoing? But I could not do anything about it. All I could do was carry on as if I was safe, and hope that it would be so in the long run. When I finally managed to look back at him, he was looking back around himself with a new expression of interest in what was going on around us and a slow smile was growing across his face.

Now I was really nervous about him. Uncle Kalayn was finally tugged aside to exert some of his authority on some guards which was, in turn, ignored. Things got a bit chaotic in the middle of all of that. On the one hand, I had to be the good, noble and righteous Sir Samuel Coulthard whose little brother was the reason that we all found out that this horror was going on in the local area. The other part of me though was the cult infiltrator.

Adopting one persona over another was not difficult. Going around and being righteously angry was certainly not difficult. There was also a certain amount of triumph in my feelings when I was able to be your brother. I enjoyed that bit. It felt good.

I was trying to enjoy my victory a little. You might have been the person that finished them off, but I like to think I set them up for you. I didn’t mind that it was that way around, I was watching men that had abused me die, screaming in agony.

On the other hand, the subservient lackey of the cult persona was not hard to adopt either. It helped to be able to distance myself from what I was seeing and what was happening to me. But switching between the two at the drop of a hat was more difficult than I could have supposed. My solution was to tell a bit of the truth when the cultists caught me. I told them that I was having to pretend to triumph to maintain my cover. Whereas when it went the other way, I could tell them that, regardless of what had gone wrong, watching people burn was still difficult.

So that was how I danced the fine line, the one to the other.

It was tricky. I have done both extensively over the years. But now I was hoping from one to the other and that made it more difficult and that was what I was focusing on. So I was there, talking with all of the other people that had a vested interest in what was going on, trying not to give away the entire situation.

I remember being called away. Someone had shouted my name, it might even have been you so I had to dismiss the people that I was talking to and walk off so that I could deal with this or that. But in the same way that the most dangerous time for the thief is when they think that they’re free and clear and therefore they start to relax. That was my moment of danger. I turned to look back at the new man that had caused me so much worry.

He was smiling and he saw me looking. And as he saw it, his smile widened.

I remember thinking that this was it. This was the moment that all of my careful planning was going to come crashing down around my ears. This was the moment where I lost. I had destroyed the assholes but the greater threat, the cult itself, was still out there. Still a danger and therefore, I might as well have not bothered.

I remember that moment of despair so clearly. I remember knowing that Edmund and Cousin Kalayn were going to be destroyed anyway, whether we all wanted them to or not. So that was going to happen, all I had done, was do my best to control the descent and arrange matters to my benefit. And now this man, who I still didn’t know the name of. This lackey of our uncle was going to bring that all down around me.

I was so upset that it took a distinct amount of concentration to keep to my responsibilities. I remember thinking that at least I could take Uncle Kalayn with me if he came after me. I was an infinitely better swordsman than any of the people that he had brought with him combined and even more than that, I had armour on so I might have survived the moment. But a message would have been sent north about my betrayal. Uncle Kalayn was stupid but he wasn’t that stupid if you know what I mean.

I had dim ideas that I would be able to take Uncle Kalayn down with me as I fled, then I would steal a horse and some goods to go North before I would start murdering my way through the people that were at the top of the cult. I wondered how far I would get before someone would catch me. I thought I had a good shot at Cavill and his cronies, but at the same time, I didn’t think I was going to get far.

I remember operating automatically for a while, going through the motions and thinking about what to do. I started to write you a letter, mentally composing it in my head so that you would know what you would be looking for when you went North or the information that you could use while you stood before the Inquisition to claim your innocence. I knew that my mistakes would cost me my life and maybe cost the family everything. But you would still be a trusted scholar and maybe you could… I don’t know.

Phineas snuck up on me.

I don’t know how he did it. He always claimed that he had skills that the average age was not supposed to have and as such, he was better equipped for this kind of thing. I always wondered if he used magic to help him when it came to sneaking around. He could certainly move quietly when he put his mind to it.

But he grabbed me by the sleeve and hauled me off between some fires to a quiet area. He had found an area amongst the pyres where the heat wasn’t too hot that you couldn’t breathe, but hot enough to banish some of the onlookers to go and worry about other things.

“Who are you?” He asked with a kind of smile of wonder on his face.

I remember looking around to see if there were any witnesses. I had my hand on my dagger and thought that I could kill him and put him on one of the fires that were already burning hot enough to turn the average human body to ash. There were plenty of screams and the smell of roasting humans anyway so the only danger would be if someone saw me.

He guessed my intent and took a prominent and intended step away from me.

“Who are you?” he asked again. If anything, his smile had broadened.

I decided to play for time.

“I would have thought you knew who I was,” I told him, measuring the distance between the two of us.

He laughed. “I know that you are Kalayn’s agent down here. I know that he sent you after an already lost cause and that you kept these idiots alive long after they should have been dust on the wind.”

I stared at him.

“I am Samuel Coulthard,” I told him. “Sir Samuel Coulthard.”

His eyes widened in a delighted expression and his smile broadened even further. I am lucky enough to have been in the presence of many highly intelligent people. Yourself not least and there is always a moment that if you watch it carefully, you can see their brain working. You can actively watch as they think things through at a rate that the rest of us mere mortals cannot even comprehend.

“Brother to the scholar?” Phineas said. “Younger brother of… You did this.”

He paused and looked at me again for a long moment.

“This is your doing.” His eyes widened in surprise and delight.

I have been so careful over the years, keeping these things from other people. But suddenly, there was a man that I didn’t know that seemed to have figured out what was going on.

“How did you do it I wonder?” He asked, genuine curiosity on his face. He seemed to be interested, fascinated even. Excited. I put my hand on my dagger and went to draw it.

“No no,” he said. “You have nothing to worry about from me. Nothing to worry about at all. I might even be able to help you. I certainly hope so, I would love to work with someone that is not an idiot. Someone that has a goal, who knows what they want to do.”

He smiled. I was still taking in the fact that someone was standing in front of me who seemed to have made me so completely.

He was looking at me, searching my face. I have no idea what he was looking for but he nodded, before shaking his head.

“The sheer amount of talent that this cult has just wasted in focusing on the elder sons. You are there, right in front of them, thinking on your own feet, acting, deciding and strategising for them. I bet they trusted you with everything that they knew, everything that they wanted. I bet they gave you all of the power that you could possibly need to do whatever it was that you wanted with them.”

He laughed.

“And they didn’t realise that in doing so, they had laid the foundations of their own destruction. How utterly marvellous.”

I was honestly speechless.

“Honestly…”

By the way, if there is one thing that I learned about Phineas over the couple of years that I associated with him, he loved the sound of his own voice. He rarely gave in to that urge as he had other things going on and much preferred holding that knowledge over those people whom he considered lesser than him. But once he had decided that you were on equal standing with him, you could rarely shut him up.

“Honestly, there you have it. Your younger brother manages to all but single-handedly demolish a coup attempt that took years of planning and implementing. And as far as I can tell, he did it by being nice to someone that no one began to consider being nice to. Your immediate older brother saw which way the wind was blowing in the political climate of the church and with a stroke, he is going to be a powerful man. And then there is you, a military man who has orchestrated the downfall of the Eldest sons of many families that were part of their little circle-jerk of idiots. But instead of taking any of that talent, or honing it, training it and encouraging it… Instead, they focus on the older brother.

“The drunk, the Lech, the addict, the debtor… The idiot.”

He laughed again. I got the feeling of a man that was relaxing for the first time in years.

“It is not just you and your brothers that have been cast aside and treated sceptically either. Have you met Arthur in the North?”

I nodded mutely.

“Illegitimate son that one. Has more talent in his little finger than the rest of his God-forsaken family. He could lead the cult and make it great. He could have made the worship of The God a real thing. An honest power in the world. He could have led armies and instead of worshipping some kind of…” he waved his hand searching for inspiration, “metaphorical candle flame. Men would be worshipping The God instead and then the North would have been so much stronger and maybe even able to resist the coming black tide from the South.”

The thought of rebellion against the Nilfgaardians was not yet in my mind. I just wanted to carry my war to the cult and to the ass-holes. This was the first time that someone had said it, the first time that someone had put the idea in my head that that was something that I could do.

Like all ideas of that kind, it took root, flourished and my imagination ran off with it for a moment. The power to cast the Empire out of the North. That was the kind of crusade that I felt as though I had been born for. I tried to squash it, to smother it. I had things to do first.

He had been watching all of these thoughts across my face. And maybe, he had even read them because although his mouth was talking, he was thinking and planning.

“But Arthur is ruined. His brothers are brutes and cretins. Hedonists and extraordinarily lazy. But if I had someone like you at my side, someone that could properly see the benefits of the gifts that I have to offer. Who could strategise as to how to properly use them? Then we could be a power. The things that someone like you could do with the gifts that I have to give.”

He saw those words hit as well and he smiled.

“Oh…” He began. “You and I are going to do great things together. It’s going to be such fun.”

I shudder now, as I shuddered then when Sam was saying those things.

I don’t know how long it’s been since the previous time I was called into Sam’s study. Not Father’s study, not Emma’s study. Sam’s study. The previous time that I had seen him was when he had told me about his earliest interactions with Edmund and about how he had arranged to poison Mark. According to the rhythms of the days where I get up, eat, go and work for a while before coming back to my cell, eating some more and going to bed. It has been four days all told. Mostly, what I have been doing in that period is just going over what he told me.

I already have the shorthand notes that I made when he was speaking so that Johann is reading those things out which, in turn, are being transcribed before being taken back. Then I re-reading them again so that I can think about those things and ruminate on them.

I am taken back to my cell… They call it my room but it is still my cell and I have to keep reminding myself not to let their language try and affect me. They want me to call it my room as though I am privileged to have such accommodation. I am privileged too, I know that there are far worse quarters in the castle that contain many prisoners.

I can hear them screaming sometimes.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I am sleeping on a short, narrow pallet with a thin blanket and no pillow while also being forced to piss and defecate into a bucket. That bucket does get emptied for me so I suppose that that is a certain level of privilege that I have over others.

I am encouraged to exercise, but I have no idea what I would do to manage this. Despite it being on the mend, my hand is still injured so the traditional things of what Kerrass calls “push-ups” are impossible and the other traditional “sit-ups”... well… I don’t really want to put my ass on the stone floor of the room that I have vomited, pissed and shat in.

The food is also far from wonderful. It is a soldier’s food, but not the good kind of soldier’s food. I know this because someone has since pointed it out to me. It turns out that there are tiers of soldier’s food. There is the food that is fed to the professional, armoured soldiers that need their strength. Simple, nutritious, tasty and plenty of it. But there is also the kind of thin watery gruel that is fed to the common foot soldier. The men that are herded together, wrapped in a blanket that they are told is armour and given, essentially, a sharpened stick and told that it’s a spear.

The collective name for these kinds of fighters is the “PFI”. I now know what they eat. It’s a thin, watery porridge. There are occasional lumps in it. The lumps seem to vary from time to time and I have learned that this corresponds to breakfast and dinner. There is bread, cheese and some meat though but I haven’t seen a vegetable or a piece of fruit in some time.

I am beginning to long for an apple. Something juicy and tart. The kind of apple where the juice explodes out of the flesh of the fruit and is in danger of squirting you in the eye.

I am worried about the sailor’s disease now. I keep checking my teeth to see if any of them are loose in my gums. It hasn’t happened yet and I struggle to remember at what stage that disease starts to settle in.

I have no idea.

But these are the things that are kind of leading me to think that there is more to all of this than I am kind of understanding. Why do I think that there is more going on?

Because Sam looks fucking awful.

The last time I saw him, he told me that he was making sacrifices, that he already had made sacrifices to see to the end of his goal. But Holy Flame… I just can’t see what poison, or even… I’ve seen curses affect people on the path with Kerrass and I have seen some sick people while doing the same. I have seen men who should have been dead, but those men took weeks to get to that point. When I had seen Sam at the dinner on the night of the Autumn Equinox, he had seemed a little pale and sweaty. Not unsurprising that even the sickest individual might seem a little bit put off by what he was about to do.

The time he was coercing me into working for him, he was calm, collected, and maybe a little pale.

The time after that when we had begun the process of compiling his biography, he had seemed the most like my brother. The Sammy that I had worked and fought with as a child. The Sam that I couldn’t believe was doing all of these things to me and to the people that I love, the people that I thought that he loved.

He was a bit twitchy to be sure but Sam has always had more energy than the rest of us.

This time he looked sick.

They came for me early in the day. I know that because when I arrived at the study, The shutters were open and I could see the light of dawn there. There was dampness in the air and I guessed that some of the autumn rains had settled in at some point. Even at my most optimistic, we had not hit winter yet.

Sam was dressed in his shirtsleeves in defiance of the damp weather. He was sitting back in the large, padded chair that lived behind his desk and he looked pale as a sheet. I would almost call it waxy. There was a sheen of sweat on him that he occasionally would stir himself to wipe off with a towel that was kept nearby for the purpose. He sat back, legs stretched out in front of him and he would often rest his head on the backrest of his chair as if the effort of keeping himself upright was too much for him.

Emma was still in the remote corner of the room, scratching away with a quill on the numerous pieces of paper. But there were several more people in the room this time.

The first person that I saw was Ariadne. At first, I was glad to see her. That reflexive wave of delight and joy that she was still alive and still living. That I was seeing her for real, rather than just imagining her or hoping that she was alright.

Saying that she was alright was possibly a strong term.

She was still wearing the same blue dress that she had been wearing the night of the Equinox. Now it was torn, dirty and there was blood splatter all over it. It would not take much effort to just rip the entire thing off and all things considered, that might be a mercy. I could see her underclothes but far from being the erotic sight that I had always imagined, instead, I felt shame and an overwhelming desire to look away. The dirt and the bloodstains were up her forearms and around her feet but there was certainly some generalised splattering.

I was pleased to see that there were none around her face. I know that she doesn’t need blood to survive, but I also know that drinking blood is like a strong alcohol or drug to elder vampires and as such, the thought had occurred that they would force her to drink blood to control her. But they had obviously decided that this was not going to be something that they were going to pursue.

She looked awful though. For the most beautiful woman in my mind, she had lost weight. Her skin was pasty and clammy looking and her eyes were sunken in deep shadows as well as being bloodshot. Her hands hung down by her sides and were slightly elongated with claws extending out of the fingers. The blood and filth was encrusted under the nails.

She didn’t register my entrance. She didn’t look at me at all. Just staring straight ahead without moving. The only reason that I knew she was alive at all was that she would occasionally breathe.

I longed to go to her. I felt that need in my legs to propel me over to her side. A surge of energy that I struggled to contain. It was in my arms as well, the need to wrap my arms around her and to feel her pressed against me. Even if she was instructed to just stand there. Even if she didn’t have a choice but to stay there and stay still like a statue, I felt as though somewhere underneath there, she would know that I was there.

So why didn’t I? Self-preservation. There were a lot more guards in the room. Several of whom were standing between Ariadne and me which meant that if I had taken a good attempt at getting closer to her, fast. Then they might be under orders to stop me from doing precisely that. Aggressively for all I know.

‘Soon’ I told her in my mind and I put as much effort into expressing that same sentiment with my eyes. I can only hope that she heard it.

She was not the only person that was there though.

There was an elf there that was fussing over Sam and I was not particularly surprised to realise that I recognized her. Saddened? Yes, but not shocked. I remembered Ella, the Elven Alchemist that was the root of so much sorrow, as an angry, bitter woman. Beautiful in the way of her race but there had been a lot of hard edges to her face and her posture. I remembered her as being an angry woman. And by angry, I mean that it seemed to almost consume her. Her gestures were short and sharp. She spat her words as though they offended her lips to be saying them.

I had not remembered her being this thin though. The plays of memory are powerful things and as I looked at her, it took me a moment to recognise her. One of those strange things where I knew who she was, or rather I knew who she must be. But she looked different to how she looked in my memory.

She looked… uglier. She was gaunt and uncomfortable in her skin. An edge was missing from her, a sense of defiance that seemed to have leaked out somewhere. I have no idea where of course but that was the way it felt to me. Whereas before she had been fuelled by something. A determination to see to the end of those that had tormented her. Anger at everything that had happened.

I am unsure.

Now, it was like she was not really there. She was just an empty bag of skin and bones. Moving around, speaking, thinking and carrying on but otherwise, there was little here that reminded me of the woman that I had known. She looked… resigned I think. She would stop and shake suddenly as a tremor of some kind would run through her which she would grit her teeth against before she returned to her work.

And her work was Sam. She had a box of vials that reminded me, intensely, of Kerrass’ potion box. It was not the same as I wondered if someone had stolen Kerrass’ box and brought it out here. But it was not. This one was newer with shinier hinges and made from rougher wood. Kerrass’ box was covered in dark leather to keep it dry. It was shinier with much handling.

As I was shown in and shuffled into position. I watched as Ella took a syringe from a bag and sucked some green liquid into the syringe before injecting it into Sam’s veins. She pulled the needle out before wiping the area of insertion with a cloth and putting the syringe away. Then she looked up at Sam and he nodded to her.

A guard put a wooden biting stick between his lips and he bit down as his body started to shudder violently.

As it did so, Ella simply started to pack up her stuff.

The shuddering didn’t last long before Sam subsided and spat the wooden stick onto the floor where one of the guards picked it up. Ella tucked her box under her arm and walked past me.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. So quietly that I genuinely wonder if I imagined it or not.

I noticed that she was not escorted or taken anywhere by guards. Sam must have noticed.

“She is a slave to my will.” He told me. “Not as much as Ariadne but at the same time, she is broken in ways that we could not comprehend.”

“I let her go,” I told him. “She should have been able to find her own way.”

Sam accepted a cup of something that I presumed was restorative from one of the guards that he drank quickly with a grimace.

“You underestimated her weakness.” He told me, setting aside the cup and leaning back in his chair for a while, seeming to focus on breathing in and out.

I took the time to look around myself but there didn’t seem to be much going on. A couple of people were examining the large map and arguing over some of the things that were there in low voices. They seemed to be pointing to the passes over some of the mountains but my perspective was flawed. A couple of the other guards were being much more attentive around Sam, standing between me and my brother, between Ariadne and my brother and between everyone else and my brother.

“Flame Sam,” I said eventually. “What are you doing to yourself?”

“My course is set.” He told me. “There has been no turning back for me for a while but soon, relatively soon, it will be time to take the fight to the Empire.”

“I’m honestly surprised that the Empire hasn’t brought its fight to you yet,” I told him. “Also, you look fucking awful.”

He chuckled. The guards looked as though they wanted to be angry with me because of my tone but Sam’s laughter seemed to take the wind out of the sails of their anger.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I must look a state. I’m going to get worse before I get better.”

“What was in that stuff that she was injecting you with?” I demanded. “Are they mutagens? Are they trying to turn you into a Witcher?”

He stared at me for a long moment in surprise and confusion. Then he really started to laugh before he winced and held his stomach.

“Ow, ow. Don’t make me laugh Freddie, it hurts.”

“Then I shall think of more jokes,” I told him. “Why did the cockatrice cross the road?”

“To eat the chicken,” Sam answered promptly. “You will have to try harder than that.”

I tried to think of another joke for a while but my inspiration had left me.

“Honestly Freddie.” Sam went on. “Not everything in the world revolved around Witchers. In fact, not many things revolve around Witchers. I am preparing myself, that is all.”

“What could you be preparing yourself for that makes you look so god-damned awful?”

He smiled.

“That comes later in the story. Everything is in its proper order. Everything according to the proper context.” He leaned back in his chair for a moment before his eyes snapped forward and he leaned forward in his chair.

“But,” he declared in a loud voice. “Things to do. Not least of which is to finish our conversations.”

One of the guards leaned forward. “My Lord, surely we…”

Sam laughed at him. “Don’t ‘My Lord’ me in front of my brother. He probably finds it more insulting than I do.”

The guard stiffened. “But… My Lord, you need to rest.”

“By The God, could I be any more of a cliche?” Sam demanded of him. “Could you for that matter?”

“Let him off Sam,” I told him. “It looks like it’s his job to worry about you.”

The guard looked at me with surprised gratitude.

“Also, cliches exist for a reason. In this case, stupid uppity noblemen think they know more than their doctors and their assorted bodyguards and attendants when it comes to their own health. Believe me, I have fallen into that trap on more than one occasion.”

The guard clearly couldn’t decide between yelling at me about impertinence or whether to thank me for what I had said.

“It’s alright,” Sam told him. “You can go. I have the vampire to look after me if anything goes wrong.”

“Yes… My Lord.” I saw the corner of the guard’s mouth twitch towards a smile, triggering an answering smirk from Sam. as the other man left.

“Sit down Freddie,” Sam ordered.

“‘My Lord’ is it?” I did as I was told and one of the guards put a stack of paper on the arm next to me and place a quill and ink in easy reach.

“Yeah,” Sam admitted. “Isn’t it fucking awful? I can take it from servants and things but at the moment, it’s coming from all over the place and I’m hating every second of it.”

“Well, this is what you get for launching a coup.”

He laughed and winced. Leaving me feeling as though I had won a point.

“So where were we?” He asked as he caught his breath.

“I had caught Mother and we were in the process of beginning what happened on the night of the Bonfires.”

“Yes. Phineas, enter stage left.” He sighed. “By The God’s sweaty balls, he was a strange man. I didn’t like him but he was really likeable. Does that make sense?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I thought about that. “I think it might.”

Sam nodded.

“Context though,” he said.

“Context.” I agreed.

Sam thought about it. “I have to admit, I don’t think any of us really understood what you were capable of anymore. Even I, who theoretically knew you the best, had no idea that you would be able to so destroy Kalayn and the rest. It was really interesting to watch if we’re honest.

“Truth be told, although I had wanted to be the one to destroy Edmund and our Cousin… I had wanted them to know that it was me. I wanted them to look into my eyes as I explained to them exactly how I had destroyed them. But in the end, it being done by you was the best possible outcome. You did it all, following other leads you were able to find out everything that you needed to know. You even managed to find a path to Edmund through some of the victims and through official channels. The conflict of it all… Mother killing Edmund means that you found… I mean, it couldn’t have happened better if I had organised it that way myself.

“And it meant that when Kalayn and his cronies came South to take me to task or to otherwise find out why I hadn’t done my job. I could point out exactly what had happened and there wasn’t anything that they could do about it. It was delicious.

“So there were various plans that they wanted to try and absolutely none of them would work. They wanted to know if they could discredit you in some way and therefore bring the entire thing into disrepute. But that wouldn’t work as whatever else could be said about your and Kerrass’ investigation, it had been well documented and impeccably sourced. You had physical evidence and had actually caught the bastards at it as well.

“So that wouldn’t work.

“There was also a conversation about whether or not you could be killed and that would set everything back, but that wouldn’t work either. The plan about delaying everything was working a treat for them which was why it became necessary to do everything on the night of the Bonfires. No matter how hard we tried, money talks and those delays were beginning to extend and people might have escaped if we hadn’t arranged for the “mob” to open the cells and trot them all out.

“And just so we’re clear. That was the right thing to do, no matter how I try to change it all around. They might have got away with it a bit but the people would not have stood for it and there would have been riots and lynchings in the streets. I know that you were being quite down on yourself for letting that all happen at the time, but I don’t think you had a choice. Not all of the assholes would have survived, but one or two might have. There were some sons of powerful people in that little crowd.”

“So we all trotted down there to watch the bastards burn. I don’t know why Uncle Kalayn and his nearest and dearest were so keen to attend that. If it were you or me that was doing it, I would suggest that we were there to spend the last few moments with the people that we love. But nothing could be further from the truth. Some of them were sad that they were going to be losing their sons…

“I should mention, not all of the assholes were firstborn. Edmund and Cousin Kalayn were not as strict about that as they were in the North which was another source of distress but that couldn’t possibly be less important now. They kept the requirement for a certain sense of entitlement though.”

I jumped in.

“Why did they recruit outside of that need for the firstborn?” I wondered. “We know that the…. This God of yours prefers firstborn sons.”

“He does.” Sam smiled at me. He had noticed me nearly calling ‘The God’. “Or rather it does, it has never been made entirely clear to me as to what the gender of the thing is. But still… They recruited lesser because they wanted minions. Raynard Kalayn knew many things and one of those things he knew was that the more followers he had, the more powerful he seemed. I don’t necessarily think that there was some kind of well-thought-out strategy behind it all.

“But he did think that if he had a load of powerful sons in his… congregation I suppose, for want of a better word. Then he would be all the more powerful for it. All the safer if he had the sons of magistrates and courtiers and the like.

“He did use it as a status symbol as well. He liked to have an inner circle of people, Edmund included and those lesser people only really came to what Edmund laughably called “Rites.” Then there was like an inner club of ‘first-born’.”

“I see.”

“So Uncle Kalayn came to see his son burn. I think that they just wanted to yell at me some more. I had not been too available up until that point because I was busy helping you call out that Robart person. So the chance to harangue me in person rather than just with exchanged words was a powerful enticement.

“They came in a group. Maybe half a dozen of them with Phineas being on the outskirts of it all, watching. I remember that he was at the back of the group.”

Sam told me his story about his first meeting with Phineas.

“So that was how I met him,” Sam said. “As I said last time, I had not met him before, later I would decide that I had seen him on the edge of things. Hanging around at the back of rooms, watching and listening. He would attend rites and parties and things but he would never take part in them. He seemed to think, not unlike me, that those kinds of things were beneath him.

“‘There they all are.’ He would say. ‘Dancing naked with their dicks in their hands. A fraction of the power that is available to them. They could have so much more if they just had the vision, the wit and the quality to be able to use the power that I could offer.’”

Sam shuddered theatrically. “He always made me feel like I needed a bath after when I talked to him about that stuff.”

“What did he get out of it all?” I wondered. “I mean, you… I presume, got the tools to destroy the cult…”

“And more.” Sam agreed, “Without what he told me, I would not have been able to do a fraction of what I am doing now and the North would forever be in the dominion of the South.”

“You will forgive me if I don’t canonise him just yet,” I replied with as much acid as I could manage.

Sam acknowledged my sentiment with a mockingly magnanimous gesture.

“But what did he get out of it all?” I asked. “Why would he offer you these things?”

“The long answer, I will get to. The short answer? He was a lunatic.”

I could not help but laugh with him. I wonder if I will continue to hate myself for still loving my brother. I hate him. He has done so much but he is still my brother.

“We couldn’t talk much the night of the bonfires. He promised that he would find me later and we would have a long talk. I was nervous about that but I agreed. It was a strange night that night. I took great delight in watching some of those people die. Some were just weak boys who thought that they were entitled to more than their ability and birth gave them. The sons of noble families that had fallen on hard times.

“More than one was bitter because of how successful Father had become. Men who thought that they ‘deserved’ the things that Father had through dint of Father’s hard work. They thought they were entitled to that and that Father, and us, should just hand it over. Them,? I didn’t care about them. But there were some others that I enjoyed watching die.”

“Flame Sam.”

“Do not pity them, Freddie.”

“I don’t pity them.” I sighed. “I kind of pity you.”

He nodded his acceptance. “Well, partly I am the way I am because of what they made me, so think of it that way. Some of those people had passed me around like an after-party sweet treat when I was younger.”

I was forced to nod as I accepted that.

“Who killed Uncle Kalayn?” I wondered. “Numerous people have suggested that it would be impossible for someone like Uncle Kalayn to do something like that.”

“That, at least, is true.” He looked at me straight in my face. “I will not lie to you, Freddie. I saw my opportunity and I took it.”

“What happened?” I wondered.

Sam smirked. He seemed to be getting some of his strength back. His sweating had dissipated and energy seemed to be returning to him. He leaned forward now and there were fewer pauses between his sentences.

“There came a point where the cult members realised that there was nothing that could be done. There was this moment where they just seemed to… almost come to terms with it. There was little sentiment there. But Uncle Kalayn decided that it was the least he could do to watch his son die. I do not think he did it out of kindness. Earlier he had told our cousin to show some respect and die like a man. So I do not think it was kindness. I think it was much more likely that he wanted to make sure that the job was done.

“There was little love lost between the two of them. There was also a certain amount of saying that he wanted to set an example for others., whatever it was. He was standing there, looking up at his son who was beginning to cough with all of the smoke that was rising to swallow him with all of it.

“I remember looking at him. He was off by himself, I didn’t see a guard or anything which I always wondered about. He was normally more paranoid than that. But he was there, he was alone, I had my dagger in hand. There were plenty of other people wandering around. My hood was up and I just saw my chance.

“I knew what Father’s will said because of the agents that I had planted in the solicitor’s office. I also knew that Kalayn lands would belong to me in the event of this man’s death. I could be patient regarding Coulthard lands. But suddenly, it all seemed as though my course could be set and I could further my goals that bit easier.

“I can’t even blame anyone else, not that I would want to. Uncle Kalayn was a snake and a sick dog who needed to be put down.

“I just walked up to him. I can’t remember what I said. There was certainly no word from me about ‘Now is the time of my vengeance’ or anything like that. I just approached him, we spoke a bit about logistics and things. I do wonder whether or not he planned to see to it that I was ended shortly after that. Wondering whether he would have decided that I had outlived my usefulness. It is possible I suppose but there is no guarantee there.

“He finished our short conversation quickly, he turned back to look at his son and I stabbed him in the side. He looked at me in shock, I remember that. He was honestly astonished that it had happened and when he realised who had done it, I think he was even more astonished. It was inconceivable to him that I might be a person that would do that kind of thing.

“He staggered, I remember, going to lean on me. One of his hands scrabbled for one of his weapons but he was already bleeding his strength away. I had not had any more of a plan than that. I reasoned that in what crowd there was, then anyone could have been the killer and that my guarantees and alibis would be set.

“But as he was standing there, his life-blood leaking out over my hands it occurred to me that if he fell, then someone, maybe even you, would realise that he had been murdered, there would be a further investigation and then things would come out before I was ready for them.

“He was staggering, already weakened, already dying so it was actually quite easy to push him onto the fire and give it a little jerk so that he would look as though he had leapt. He even obliged by giving a little cry of despair as he went. One movement and I was back amongst the crowd. A moment later and someone screamed. Someone from the cult ran over and recognised the burning body and that was that.”

“But witnesses described him hurling himself onto the pyre in despair?” I was not refuting, but more pointing out the flaw in the story.

“Yeah.” Sam agreed. “There was a witness. Only one. Can you guess who it was?”

I sighed. “It was Phineas wasn’t it.”

Sam nodded. “He told as many of the official people as he could. Changing what he looked like with a bit of judicious magic so that there could be ‘multiple witnesses’. He and I had a good laugh about it later. But then Uncle Kalayn was dead and it was all over.

“The Ass-holes had been destroyed and it was time to move on in my plan.”

I nodded. Again, food was ordered and set out so I had something to eat. I had some small pastries, some bread, cheese and things but Sam was brought a large plate of hot meat with green vegetables and gravy.

“I need my strength.” He told me as he must have seen my surprise at the sheer amount that he consumed.

“For what?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

He grinned at me as he shovelled another spoonful of beans into his mouth.

When we were done with our food, someone came and cleared away the plates and the dishes and things. Sam leaned back and rested his head on the back of his chair as though eating was too much effort for him.

“Are we going to continue?” I wondered.

“Oh yes.” Sam agreed, leaning forward. “So much to talk about. So much that I need to tell you. There are instructions regarding what needs to come afterwards but I think it’s important that we do this beforehand.”

“Before what?” I asked him. “After what?”

“Sorry,” he shook his head. “I misspoke. So, I met Phineas and we burnt the assholes. Uncle Kalayn was dead and for a while, I could return to being the dutiful son of the family. I enjoyed that. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.” He considered something for a moment. “I was excited, I think. I was anticipating something. Do you ever get that? When one phase of things has been completed and you are moving on to the next phase of things?”

“I have,” I told him. “Sometimes, when I have been coming to the end of one account and I just want to get it finished so that I can move onto the next, more recent account that is fresher in my mind. I remember, especially, coming to the end of speaking about the Jack conspiracy in Toussaint and wanting to set out on the journey towards the Black Forest.”

He nodded and grunted.

“Also,” I couldn’t help but throw a small barb. “I remember stopping my work at the university in preparation for getting married. I remember being excited about that.”

I looked at Ariadne, but she didn’t react. It was, I won’t lie, heartbreaking.

“I deserved that, I suppose,” Sam admitted, a little ruefully.

I had nothing to say to that. Tears had come to my eyes and it seemed that the dart that I had thrown to injure my brother had caused more harm to myself than it had to anyone else.

“But it was like that.” He went on.

“I do have some questions though, just to confirm things.”

“By all means.”

“So we sentenced Mother? You tried to have her executed.”

“Yes. I was right as well. Your answer and solution were good and, I think, were a little crueller than mine. To dangle the thing that she wanted out of her hands. Like the man holding the stick with the carrot tied to the end of it to get the donkey to continue to chase it. Holding the promise of holy orders just out of sight of her like that. To me, I thought that was cruel.”

He considered again. “It worked though, I will give you that. In the brief time, I’ve known her since she has come back, she seems better for it. More at peace. But even so, leaving aside my desire for vengeance for a moment, we should have sent her to the headsman. Allowed her a full confession and repentance beforehand so that she could go to the Holy Flame or wherever with a clear conscience. But we should have had her killed.

“Back in Toussaint, I told you about all of the people that don’t like us. About how you had been shielded by Emma, your friendship with the Empress and your future as Count Angral. But for me, I was exposed to the dislike and hatred that Father and Emma’s policies had caused. Many decisions caused that attitude towards us. Picking individual things out is all but impossible and that wagon train started long before either of us was born. And, again, being fair to you,” he pointed at me. “Other than the most fanatically angry people that hate you rather than the Coulthard family as a whole. People admit that you were at the right time and place for so much to take advantage of. You made the most of the breaks that you were given access to.

“But that decision, the decision that left Mother alive? That is one of the big decisions that people point to, to say that the Coulthard family is worthless.”

I shifted uncomfortably as Sam continued.

“I say again what I said then. If that had been anyone else, it doesn’t matter what Edmund did or what Mother’s family did to her. Mother killed her son. Infanticide is a serious thing and people get executed for far less. But we, as a family, decided to spare her life. Some might call it mercy. But the other word for it is corruption.”

“Then why didn’t you protest harder at the time.”

“If you remember,” He frowned at me, “I was outvoted. You said what you wanted to do, and Mark and Emma agreed with you. It is the height of stupidity to continue to fight after everything is already lost.”

“And yet, you insist on leading a rebellion against the Empire.”

“Yes, but I am going to win. I know that you can’t see it, not yet anyway. But you will.”

I left that alone for now. I was beginning to get to know him as a subject for an interview. There was a bit of a turn to him whenever he was talking about things that he had no intention of answering and he had reached that point.

“Any other questions?” he prompted.

“Yes, was your helping me with de Radford genuine?”

“Oh yes. I was even looking forward to watching you skewer him. I have seen you train since then and I rather think that you have never been better with that spear and dagger that you have than you were at that moment. You might have been good in those periods when we were away from each other but in Toussaint, you were busy after a period off the road and away from training. In the North, you were still recovering from your ordeal at the hands of Sansum and again in the South, you were still sick. You had the skill but some things were missing from your… whatnot.”

I nodded to show that I had taken the point.

“Where was Phineas at this point?”

“He was waiting for me. Up north a little way in one of the wayside inns. That meeting is next in my account if you are ready to move on.”

“I think so, for now at least.”

“So…” he smiled. “The wills were read. I was Lord Kalayn as well as the Lord of the white cliffs. Mark had gone off in a huff about the fact that Father had anticipated him and his desires. You would be heading off soon because Kerrass was wanting to get underway and also because you were still terrified of the slave.”

He gestured towards Ariadne. I was getting better at ignoring those gestures.

“You were going to go North as I recall? Take up your Lordship?”

He laughed. A real belly laugh, to the point where I was astonished. He laughed hard enough that it left him out of breath and needing to rest his head on the backrest of the chair again.

“Tell me, Freddie,” he began. “How incompetent do you think I am?”

“What?”

“Well…” He struggled for a moment. “Twice. On two occasions. Two of those times when I am honestly astonished that I was not caught. Astonished that you didn’t come after me or were able to tell what was going on. I told the family and everyone where I was going, twice. TWICE. And you believed me both times. Which would be ok, but then when you and Kerrass came North, you find that, at best, I’ve made a few huts in a clearing below the castle and have made no real inroads into my lands. How did you not put all of that together?”

He was right, it did seem rather obvious when I was looking at it like that.

“I mean,” he went on. “I know that your brother, Sammy Coulthard is not supposed to be very good at this whole Lording thing. But I was a damn good soldier. I won awards for it. So surely I should have had, at least, a map of my lands and the local area for you and Kerrass to study. And I should definitely have been aware of the “Hounds of Kreve” or whatever it was that the locals were calling them.”

I sighed.

“It has recently become clear to me,” I began carefully, “that I have several weaknesses. But the main weakness that I have is that I am blind to the faults of my family.” I considered this statement for a while. “Other than Father where I am blind to his virtues.”

Sam grunted at that.

“There is even room to admit that there are those people that I have chosen to be my family where I am blind to their faults as well.”

“Rickard’s drinking,” Sam said.

“Kerrass’ arrogance is a famous one.”

Sam shook his head. “That is the arrogance of professionals.” He said. “You have that arrogance. It is the arrogance of someone who knows more than the next person. You guard it well though and you are protected in that you are aware of it. Also, I would say that that was a lesson that Kerrass learnt from you. He was not as arrogant in the lead-up to the Equinox as he was when we first met each other. But I would point out Shani’s ruthless single-mindedness and selfishness. Many of your friends are very self-righteous as well. They are right, therefore everyone else must be wrong.”

“You are thinking of the Knights from Toussaint.” I accused.

“Yes, them too.”

He sighed and his humour subsided. “I did leave here and I did go North. I did make some steps to begin securing my new territory. I hired a steward and sent them North. I also sent a couple of messages to the castle and various things to talk to Uncle Kalayn’s staff and the like. I told Aunt Kalayn that she didn’t need to move out if she didn’t want to but she was desperately unhappy and I didn’t want to force the issue. But what I really wanted to do was to speak to Phineas and scout out the cult.

“A campaign cannot be carried out without plenty of intelligence and I needed that. I needed to know how much of that entire effort was still in place. What had changed now that I knew that Cavill was going to be in charge and just how much difficulty was I going to be in?

“But first, I needed to speak to Phineas and find out how much trouble I was in.

“We met, as I say, in one of those road inns that you see on the main highways. The giant things that have huge courtyards for the housing of wagons and horses. Giant kitchens and tap rooms and more rooms than they ever really seem to need. I think that when my people and I rule, we will install intelligence operatives in every single one of these, as the number of dodgy dealings that go on in those places is astonishing. Not the cheap and nasty places on the docks in Novigrad, no, the real dirty business is carried out in road inns. Where the staff can’t remember one face from the next and even if you question them, they couldn’t tell you who was here and when.

“He was there first as I rode up.

“I was travelling incognito. It’s not hard as you know. Simply don’t make a huge fuss over everything and you soon find out that people will treat you according to the attitude that you carry with you. If you treat people with respect but don’t stand for any shit, then generally, you’re fine. I rode up and the place was doing a fairly stiff business. Quite a few travellers were in, as well as a wagon train.

“The sun was shining and a lot of people were resting outdoors, snoozing or napping in the sun. He saw me as I walked over and waved. I acknowledged him and went to the landlord to find that Phineas had booked me a room for the night alongside his.

“It was a long conversation. He drank and I stayed sober. Through various stages, I had my hand on my dagger and was ready to kill him before making a break for it and in other stages, we were laughing like old friends.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive,” I told him with what I thought was a suitable amount of intensity.

He missed the point though and went on talking.

“So I dumped my gear in my room, made sure that I could easily sneak out of the room in case I had to murder Phineas and then, wearing my disguise although I am not sure how necessary it was, I went to meet the mage.

“Given that it was our second real meeting, I remember being surprised at how charming he was. He had a cup of wine that he raised in salute towards me.

“‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I decided to get some drinks in, ready.’ He frowned at me as he looked me up and down. ‘Ah, I see that you are trying to be prudent and cautious. Good. Very good. Too many people from our particular social circle are too assured that their… privilege will protect them against all comers. Please, please sit.’

“He gestured to the chair opposite him and I sat down gently and we spent a bit of time looking at each other. Truth be told, I was astonished at what I saw there. I know that you described him as a man that made you want to wipe your hands on your clothes after you have shaken hands with him. That he inspires people to go and take a bath afterwards and I say that that was very close to how I felt with him. But, I had to fight not to like him.

“He was dressed in the same kind of robe that would not have looked out of place walking the halls of the abbey with hands pressed together in an attitude of prayer. His hair was slicked back and looked permanently wet which might be something close to why you felt the need to bathe after meeting him. That and he had a habit of appraising people. He would look a person up and down, paying attention to detail and trying to decide if this was a person that could be used or that needed to be disposed of.

“Plenty of people do that. I know that we, you and I, were both trained in that direction as part of our courtier training and then later when you were practising being an interviewer and when I was learning what to look for when I was sizing people up for a fight. The difference is that we were taught to disguise our observations so that the person didn’t feel that we were being rude or so that we wouldn’t give away our intentions. Phineas did this and took his time about it too. It leaves a person feeling like a sack of meat, like an object or something to be discarded.

“It was even worse for those women that I saw him interact with. He wasn’t a woman hater in the same way that Cavill or his son was. To hate someone you have to, at least, think something of them. But he didn’t even do that. To him, women were either a threat or some means to slake his lusts. So when meeting a woman he would decide whether or not they were a threat to him either physically or magically in which case he would avoid them. And when this was dismissed he would look them over to see if they were a woman that could slake his lusts. He did not hide his appraisal in that regard either.

“‘He thought of women as objects,’ '' is what I am trying to say.

“So the pair of us sat there, looking at each other. Then he moved and started to speak. I know that he did this to you as well. That habit of being utterly still so that he lulls you into a sense of false security, then he moves suddenly and you are startled into jumping. He did that deliberately and enjoyed the effect that he had on people.

“So we watched each other for a while and then he moved, smiling slightly as he noticed how much he had surprised me.

“‘You are trying to decide,’ he began, ‘whether or not it would be better for you if you just slit my throat. I do not doubt that you could. I think that you already have several plans as to how it would be done. Accusing me of magic before stating that you were defending yourself. Murdering me in my sleep tonight would be another good choice, slipping some poison into my food or something of the like. Personally, I would go with listening to what I have to say before you decide just how much of a threat I am. That way you would ascertain how dangerous I am to you.’

“I remember nodding to that. ‘Just how dangerous are you to me?’ I wondered.

“He sniffed. ‘Not very. Indeed, I want to help you. Believe it. You have every reason not to trust me but I want to help you. It would even not be too far a statement to say that I need to help you.’

“I tried to hedge my bets a little. ‘Help me with what?’ I asked.

“He laughed and pointed at me with the hand that was holding his drink.

“‘You want to know how much I have figured out. You want to know how much I know. Very well. I know that you are Lord Samuel von Coulthard, Lord Kalayn elect, pending Imperial verification of course,’ his mouth twisted when he said the word “Imperial.” ‘I know that you were Lord Cavill and Lord Kalayn’s agent in the Oxenfurt area and I know that your brief was to mitigate the growing disaster that was your eldest brother and the young Lord Kalayn. I know that, as far as they were concerned, you were diligent in your duties but that you were fighting a losing battle. That there was nothing that anyone could have done, least of all a younger son like you, could really have done to curtail their efforts but that you did your best.

“‘Despite your best efforts, the inevitable has happened and someone figured it out as to what was happening. Much to everyone’s general surprise, the person doing the figuring out was your younger brother, Lord Frederick von Coulthard. Why no one saw that coming I will not know, given that according to the very smart people that I know, that young man is going to be a professor of Oxenfurt at an alarmingly young age.’”

“‘He has brought considerable fame and fortune to Oxenfurt.’ I felt myself arguing automatically. For the record, I know that you earned your titles and achievements but I have a habit of downplaying your talents when it comes to interacting with the cult so that no one thinks that you are enough of a threat to destroy you.

“‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose he has at that. Witcher Lore and monster Lore are fascinating subjects, the problem is not that there is too little to talk about but rather that what there is to talk about becomes repetitive after a while. There are few insights, just a dry recitation of facts. But still, he has taken what he has and has made astonishing inroads for it. Whatever else you might think of him, he has made a name for himself without patronage from his family, which is rare for someone in his line of work, and that betrays a certain intelligence and analytical mind. I think you all misjudged him when you dismissed him as not being a threat.’

“He saw straight through me.

“‘Ah,’ he said, his smile broadening. ‘But you know exactly how intelligent your brother is. You are protecting him… Now now, don’t misunderstand me. I mean no harm to your brother. I will admit that I did consider seeking some vengeance against him for reasons of my own, but I have since decided that the matter would be entirely pointless. My experiment had failed already but he ensured that I would not be able to pursue new avenues with the same subject and, it is rare that those conditions are so easily met.’”

“‘What experiment?’ I demanded. He smiled.

“‘Lord Samuel,’ He said, chiding me gently. ‘Although I have every faith that you and I will be able to come to some kind of accord. Even though I believe that a beautiful friendship will be formed and that the two of us will be able to do great things together… You are not the only one that is doing some appraising here. You are deciding whether or not you need to murder me in this out-of-the-way inn. I am deciding whether or not I should throw you to the proverbial wolves. So until we agree to trust each other and have some kind of framework regarding working together, I will need to keep some things a secret that is kept… For now.’

“I felt myself smile as something occurred from an old lesson.

“‘But trust is an act of faith.’ I said, ‘I am trusting you in coming here, I am aware of the disparity in power between the two of us, so what are we doing here?’

“He laughed.

“‘I was working on a weapon in Angral.’ He told me. ‘I am keeping what weapon I was working on a secret for now, but I was working on something that would give power to the wielder. Unfortunately, I was missing a key component and as a result, the matter was rushed due to impatience and when it came to its final test, the weapon failed. What your brother did was render the experiment unable to be followed through on.’

“‘Do you know what went wrong?’ I felt myself ask.

“‘Oh yes.’ Phineas admitted. ‘It was one of those situations where there was a branch of experimentation. We could go no further down one road of work because of natural circumstances but as the other was open to us, we followed through on that. Unfortunately, this was incorrect. But we were working blind anyway so…’ he shrugged. ‘But also in my line of work and the circles I operate in, you do not leave such matters closed. Your brother hurt me and as such, I should seek vengeance.’

“I felt myself getting ready for anger or violence and he saw it.

“‘Do not mistake me,’ he said, holding his hand out placatingly. ‘If you ask it, as you have done without using words, I will set aside my vengeance. I will not harm your brother unless circumstances suggest that it is him or me. Indeed, give me the word and I will work to keep him alive.’

“There was an edge to his voice that left me under no illusions there.

“‘Who are you?’ I asked. It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea who this person was.

“‘My name is Phineas.’ He said. ‘I am a mage and although I do not have fame, the Chapter of Mages threw me out because of some of their foolish rules… Do not worry. I can explain and I will, I am the foremost expert in my realm of study.’

“‘What is your realm of study?’ I asked and he smiled.

“‘The technical term is that I am the foremost study in extra-planar entities, the contacting of them and the interacting with them. You will want to say that I am an expert in demons, but that is incorrect.’

“I snapped my mouth shut as I had, indeed, been just about to say that.

“‘Let me tell you about myself,’ he began and I settled in for the story. It was a long one and it was rather involved so I will paraphrase rather than go blow-by-blow. There is also some truth that some of the stories were elaborated on in later conversations so…”

I nodded to show that I understood. So with my brother’s agreement so that this entire work doesn’t turn into a biography of Phineas rather than a biography of Lord Samuel, I am paraphrasing what we talked about. I do not doubt that in the future, I will have to check a lot of this story. I don’t know how massive my list of sources is going to be in that regard but I do have hope that I will be able to fact-check some of what Sam told me.

Even he was forced to admit that he got a lot of this story from Phineas himself and as a result of that, the story might have been a way for Phineas to sell himself to Sam as something of a commodity. There is nothing quite like a good story to get someone to buy into what someone is selling. Sam himself did some fact-checking of his own. Not least of which happened in that period when we could openly hunt Phineas down and as a result, Phineas’ history was much more of an open book.

Phineas was born to a minor noble family in upper Maecht which was part of the Empire back before the first Continental war. I did not enjoy the fact that Phineas could share a country of birth with Kerrass’ assumed identity. But Kerrass only chose that place as a name so that he could appear to be exotic, so I doubt he would have minded.

As far as Sam could tell, Phineas’ father was relatively good, if a weak man who served a greedy and unpleasant Lord. The Father was doing his best to lead a good and noble life until he was met, and seduced by one of the Lord’s distant relatives to assuage the relative's boredom. Much to everyone’s astonishment, the assignation resulted in the woman becoming pregnant to the joy of the family as a whole. A wedding was swiftly arranged and from the way Phineas talked about it, this meant that his Father actually went up in the world.

That is not an unusual story in that kind of strata of life. The problem with the story is that in Nilfgaard, especially in that time and place, Nilfgaardian women were not exactly trained to be seductresses. They would wear deliberately frumpy clothing and were trained to be seen rather than heard. They would stand in the background and watch and listen so that they would be able to help their husband's memory when things needed to be discussed and talked about later.

So that might strike a bit false if I was looking to poke holes in that part of the story. If the story took place in any of the other four Pontar Kingdoms of the North. If it had happened in Cintra, Lyria, Rivia or any of the other smaller nations north of the Yaruga, then I could absolutely believe that this happened. But the specification that it took place in Maecht ran a little false to me.

Sam agreed but the man was long dead so what did it matter?

“I’m a scholar and a historian,” I told him. “These are the little details that people like me get caught up on because they might lead to a completely different conclusion than the one that I should arrive at. Reputations are made on this kind of thing.”

“I accept that,” he said as he took another one of his little potions. “But you can note, that you are getting the story from me, who got the story from him, so you are recounting the sources somewhat removed. Surely saying that would mean that your back is covered.”

“To a certain extent.” I agreed. “But any decent academic book would want a couple of extra sources on that.”

Sam laughed. “Ok, well, when we conquer Maecht you can enquire and look around.”

There was no budging him after that.

That part of the story would imply that Phineas’ father was some kind of minor clerk or chamberlain to someone really powerful. Off-hand and without my reference books, I cannot remember if Maecht had a King before the Empire came calling, but I would certainly expect it to be some kind of Duke. That would also allow for the declaration that the Duke was so pleased about some distant cousin finally finding someone that could make her pregnant. That is the way I can twist the facts to suit the story. So if we follow that logic, Phineas’ Father was a knight of some kind. A second or third descendant of someone that had been knighted at some minor skirmish and by the time of Phineas’ birth, was working as a member of the Duke’s entourage. Or maybe as part of the entourage of one of the Duke’s sons.

The story continued.

Much to everyone’s astonishment, the marriage of convenience turned into a relatively happy one. Phineas’ father could never be entirely confident that he was the father of his son because the Mother had seduced him rather forcefully and the thought had occurred that she might be pregnant by some strapping groom or guard captain. Only to become pregnant and need to seduce someone to… you get the idea.

For whatever reason, the marriage survived until the Nilfgaardian wars of the Usurpation where Phineas’ father was on the wrong side by accident of allegiance. He and his family had always been sworn to someone and that guy had been called a traitor by the winners.

Phineas’ mother grieved her husband but quickly married one of the victors as she still retained her charms as well as some claim to her fortune. Her son and she were packed off to a countryside castle where young Phineas remembered spending his younger years learning to read and write and pick up some of the more “gentlemanly arts''. However, once again, he found himself on the wrong side of history for two reasons. The first is that the Emperor came back.

I have no idea how old Phineas would have been at the time and neither did Sam. But as is the way with such things. The Emperor’s side was of the opinion that Phineas and his mother should have died when the usurper came to power and that her remarriage was a sign of treason rather than a longing for survival.

The other problem was that Phineas was magical and given that the mages of Nilfgaard had supported the usurper who had subverted the rule of the Emperor’s Father, Emperor Emhyr had “views” on magic users roaming around the country getting into trouble. Phineas, despite his relatively small talent in the ways of such things, would have been drafted into one of the Nilfgaardian magic schools with all of the unpleasant forces of servitude and brainwashing that that implies. And then his life would have been spent in some military campaign or the other.

So… quite sensibly, Phineas’ mother took her son and fled North.

Life on the run quickly soured for the pair of them. The servants and the guards that went with them started to leave when they realised that fleeing meant that they weren’t going to get paid for their efforts and that they might even be guilty of treason under the new regime for doing so. So the pair’s entourage started to melt overnight. This was not the romantic flight into exile that either of them had imagined when they set out.

Eventually, Phineas’ mother fell back on her oldest skills and seduced her way into a marriage with a much older man in Queen Calanthe’s court in Cintra.

“Phineas laughed when he told that story,” Sam told me with a chuckle. “His mother seemed to be quite delusional by this point. Guilt and no small amount of grief were part of it, I have no doubt. But she would tell stories that part of the reason that the Emperor was so interested in Cintra was that she was in it. She concocted this entire, mad fantasy that she was the only reason that the Empire cared about Cintra. That she was some kind of grand traitor that needed to be brought to justice before the entirety of the Imperial court.”

“This despite the Emperor’s desire to get his daughter back,” I commented.

“And that Cintra was strategically vital to the North as being the reason that the North held both sides of the mouth of the Yaruga,” Sam agreed. “According to Phineas, he did know that she spent quite a bit of time with the Queen and Marshal Vissgard explaining about Imperial military tactics but she was far from the vital advisor that she portrayed herself as to her son and her friends.”

Regardless of the young Phineas’ family’s importance to the court of Cintra, Phineas’ magical talent was finally spotted and tested. He was sent off to a magical school where he was to be trained. Phineas did tell Sam which school it was but neither Sam nor myself had ever heard of it and, likely, it has now been long since destroyed and sacked.

And then another setback was found which was that Phineas turned out to be, well... Not a very good mage.

“I suspect it was a combination of things,” Sam told me as he sat back, sipping from a cup. “The first possibility is that the school that he was sent to was just… not very good. He claimed that it was expensive, even while he also admitted that his Mother would have struggled to pay for the fees for anything else. So it is possible that it was just the equivalent place where it is called “a school of magic” where the older teachers can call themselves powerful mages. The students, not knowing the difference, believe this elaborate fiction and give these elder teachers respect and awe that is undeserved. In turn, the students become elitist snobs and gradually, given the huge fees, the school becomes less of a magical school and more of a boarding place for the rich and the privileged.

“I can see that.” I agreed. “There is a special type of professor that believes that students only exist to make the professor feel powerful and important. Some few of these turn out to be really good teachers but that is the rarity.”

“The second major possibility was sheer lack of talent.” Sam went on, topping up his cup and pushing the jug over towards me. “I don’t know much about magic, but one of my understandings is that people can channel different amounts of power to different degrees.”

“It has been explained to me that that can be trained,” I said. “That with enough practise, then a mage can channel more and more of the power to get to the point where the power that they had originally becomes an almost trivial amount. But it is true that some of that power is latent. This is why mages can be mages at all whereas I can’t channel enough power to light a candle flame without my brains dribbling out of my ears. That is if there was anything there in the first place.”

“Phineas made no secret of the act that he wasn’t a very powerful mage. It was almost… I kind of want to say that he was almost proud of it all. As though it was a matter of pride that he could never quite get enough power to make anything worthwhile. This was certainly the part that he blamed for the path that his life took after that.”

I nodded, frantically scribbling notes.

“The last reason is that Phineas was lazy. I mean, I have no idea how old he was at the time that all of this was going on. But he would probably be somewhere in his teens or his early twenties. We didn’t get to do that bit given that when we were at that stage, there was a war on so our view of that part of our lives was different. But I think it’s possible that he just didn’t care enough. What’s that saying about magic being as much science…”

“Lady Yennefer once told me that magic is equal parts science, art and chaos.”, told him. “That to be a mage you needed to be good with one of them. To be a powerful mage you needed to be good with two of them and to be a truly great mage you needed skills with all three.”

“So I wonder if he was lazy,” Sam said. “I know that he was disdainful of women. Not as much as the cult was and I wonder if at least some of that comes from the behaviour of his mother and about how she got what she needed by convincing men to marry her.”

“From a time and a place where that is one of the only viable ways of doing that.” I chided him.

“Fair comment,” Sam admitted. “But I know that Phineas did not have as much hate for women. I would more likely call it disdain than hate. I also know that he was something of a drinker and a gourmet. He liked the finer things in life so I wonder if he was easily distracted from his studies which his tutors found annoying. Certainly enough to prevent him from being trained enough to become a proper mage.”

“I don’t know if that was the case.” Sam went on, stroking his chin and musing. “But it strikes me as a distinct possibility. I wonder about the influence his mother had on him. Using your…” he gestured at me, “tools on Phineas a bit.”

“Which tools?” I wondered.

“The tools of a historian looking back on the activities of someone.”

“Ah, I’m not sure that I’m going to enjoy this.”

“Relax, it’s quite complimentary.”

Sam and I had slipped into the relationship of colleagues and friends, the same that we did when we were younger and struggling with some lesson that our tutors had been trying to impart. We would sit, bantering and bickering over something. That feeling was seductive and now I wonder if Sam was doing it deliberately as an effort to get me to come over to his side or to drop my guard in some way.

“But we can say with some certainty.” Sam continued, “That Phineas’ mother was a good-looking woman. We can guess that because Phineas himself was not a bad-looking guy. I mean my tastes don’t run in that direction and I am as confident as I can be that you’re not interested in the male of the species.”

“Not as far as I know,” I admitted.

“But Phineas was a good-looking man. But also his mother, several times, was able to secure a life for herself and her son. She was able to marry Phineas' Father, who I would also guess to be quite a good-looking man...”

“How So?”

“Because she chose him when she was young. She might have been covering for the fact that she had been made pregnant by some groom, but even then, if we can allow that she was a good-looking woman, she would have her choice of lovers to convince that they were new Fathers. She was able to bag someone younger and less powerful.

“Therefore, I would also suggest that she was fairly shallow, but that is not important. That first man was blinded by her, the second man was horny enough for her to forgive her transgressions and take in herself and her son. And then when she fled, she found someone in the Cintran court that could look after her, and her son again at a point in life when women start to lose those charms that nature gave them.

“And on top of that, she was able to send her son to a school that was not known for accepting poor people to their classes which means… and I cannot believe that she was able to bring vast amounts of wealth to the north with her, it means that she convinced her new benefactor to pay for that in the bed chamber.”

I nodded, it was plausible and not a bad chain of reasoning.

“So I think his mother was fairly attractive. Also very good at seducing. But I think it’s also true that she was lazy enough that she made her living that way. She was used to the good things in life and made damn sure that the good things in life did not pass her by. She felt entitled to those things and I wonder how much of that rubbed off on her son.

“He felt entitled to what he was given on several levels. But he was also clever enough to have a certain scorn for his Mother. He saw the way that she was seducing her way into the beds of powerful and wealthy men. So as well as teaching him a sense of entitlement, and not managing to instil a work ethic. She also taught him to be scornful of others. Full of pride for himself, but scornful of others.”

“You also tell me that Phineas was intelligent.”

“Oh, fiercely so. Intimidatingly so. And he expected people to keep up with him.”

“So his mother… She must have been a clever person.” I mused. “She was clever enough to see which way the wind was blowing in the South.”

“Twice in fact.” Sam agreed.

“And she was clever enough to gain that better lifestyle for herself. But then she settled for the life of a wife to… whoever.”

“So I wonder if Phineas was lazy at school.” Sam went on. “He always claimed that it was the fault of the teachers, that they didn’t try hard enough to help him. There’s no way of knowing of course but he did not leave school successfully. He was frustrated and angry and the grand life of the rich and powerful mage had eluded him. In his mind, he was not powerful enough, not talented enough and not rich enough to get the best masters and as such, he was going to be resigned to being some kind of… backwater mage that would become an assistant to someone powerful. But would always be passed over. He would become someone’s research assistant… and also,”

Sam took a moment to consider.

“Here’s his pride again. He also thought he would become the kind of research assistant that did all of the work while the more famous, more powerful and more connected mage took all the credit.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I remembered how I had once felt about doing all the work for my Professors. Oh, how I miss only having that many problems now.

The narrative continued. Phineas left school in a huff, resentful of the process. For whatever reason, the schooling did not take root in him. He was interested in things though and he became the kind of person that makes researchers nervous. He started wondering about those things that his tutors either told him that he wasn’t ready for, wasn’t powerful enough for, or simply outright forbade him from using.

He had taken the treatments that meant that he was not ageing and was a good-looking person, thus destroying some of Sam’s and my own earlier theories. So he decided to do some research. His efforts were leaning towards ways in which he can improve the magical channelling capabilities of a person.

His idea, although undoubtedly a self-serving one, was not a bad idea and I could certainly imagine the applications. He wanted to remove talent from the consideration pool, meaning that mages with the ability to channel magic would no longer be limited according to that talent.

I can well imagine that there is a caste system amongst mages, or there certainly would be back when mages were more numerous on the continent. But the more talented you are, the higher you would climb in the hierarchy. Whereas a less powerful mage could work hard to achieve lesser results and that would be the death of their efforts and what research they might have done would be dismissed by the more powerful.

So according to Sam, he experimented and researched and he looked this way and that way but he started to feel that his efforts were being hampered by the Mage hierarchy. Some texts were being kept from him because he was not skilled enough, which Phineas took as an insult and what they were really telling him was that he was not talented enough. These denials meant that he was even more determined to find his own way forward.

Eventually, though, he found someone that was bribeable and he found his gateway drug to the lands of Necromancy. Sam didn’t know who it was that gave him this as Phineas had never told him, claiming to have killed him when the master had started to become jealous of the progress of the apprentice.

As we keep saying, Phineas was a clever man so when he took the plunge and started using illegal magics, he already had ways to escape. Trinkets, magical artefacts and the like would obscure his passage from his pursuers. He was also careful and paranoid without letting the Paranoia take over his entire being. So he travelled, at first, raising dead people and forcing them to tell him what they knew. Later, he would kill people before raising them as a form of torture to find out what they knew.

Sam felt that, eventually, Phineas had started to get off on the amount of pain and misery he was causing and I tend to agree. It is not for no reason that the Mages of the continent used to hunt down people like Phineas before they completely lost their minds.

One of the benefits that Phineas had though, was that he was looking for something specific. He was not doing it for pleasure, or just for the kick of it. He was doing these things to make himself more powerful but after finding that there was no mage, living or dead that could help him, he decided that this was pointless and moved on to something else.

“I don’t understand everything that he said,” Sam told me, leaning forwards. “I would imagine you would need some kind of training or experience in this kind of thing to truly understand it, but he told me that he was looking for alternative power sources.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was not stupid enough to try and summon demons. He made that point over and over again. He wasn’t summoning demons to talk to them or whatever. He found, relatively early, that communicating across planes of existence was easy and that you didn’t have to summon anything at all, but the problem was always that the information wasn’t dependable. He wanted me to know that what he did was not Gosher or whatever they call it.”

“Goetia.” I told him. “The summoning and binding of demons. I don’t know how it works but I think it’s more illegal than Necromancy because Necromancy is cruel to the body and soul that you brought back. Goetia is cruel to the bystanders and the people nearby that the demon will take advantage of.”

Sam nodded.

“What he was reasoning was, was that if Magic was a thing that could be used… We know that magic is an energy source that we can tap into. So what he was looking for was an alternative. A magic-like thing or an entity that he could use to achieve magic-like effects. He made lots of statements that I have no doubt are almost impossible to verify. He said things like “Mages use magic and priests use magic. Mages use the raw form whereas the priests channel that magic through the beings that we know about and call them Gods. Are they Gods? We have no idea. Or are they constructs that we have created to properly quantify, or justify what we have had them doing in the meantime? There is no way of being able to tell the difference.”

“Sounds pretentious,” I commented.

“He was, he was very full of himself. Very self-righteous and self-congratulatory.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, he found another form, didn't he?”