Livrik was dead quiet.

Lesh had described a bustling town—quieter than average, sure, but bustling was the specific word he had used. When Jack and Orvalys arrived, there was no bustling at all, and not only that, there wasn’t anyone who could have bustled if they wanted.

“Is it supposed to be empty?” Jack asked.

“I think the better question would be ‘Is it supposed to look like everyone has been killed?’” Orv answered.

Jack shrugged. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”

“Why beat around the bush?” the homunculus asked. “Everyone was obviously eradicated.”

“You think it was the Thori?” Jack asked. It seemed like a long time since the two of them had run into those warriors, but his ribs wouldn’t let him forget it had only been a few days.

“Who knows?” Orvalys said. “The strange thing for me is, why didn’t Lesh see this coming?”

Jack couldn’t help but agree. The strange old man had accompanied them up until about five miles from the city walls. His goodbye had been brief, he simply put his hands on Jack’s shoulders, squeezed a few times, and then in English said, “When in doubt, Athe it up.” It had been a weird thing to hear, but for some reason like everything else Lesh said, it felt right. To be honest it sounded like something Jack would say to himself internally.

His goodbye to Orv had been a little more unceremonious. He nodded to the homunculus and only said “Hold on,” and pointed to Jack—which was also weird. Jack hadn’t been sure if he should be comforted by it, or if he was implying something else. The whole ordeal was strange, even considering the base level of strangeness their entire experience with Lesh had included.

“This is a tragedy for the Yarvans,” Orvalys said.

“Isn’t it a tragedy for anyone?”

“Well, yes,” the homunculus’ eyes darting around the city, not just looking, but scanning it for information. “I’m just saying that this town in particular is incredibly significant to them. It’s one of their holiest places, and someone came in and destroyed it. That’s not insignificant.”

Jack nodded out of habit, but then realized he wasn’t really listening to what Orv was saying. It made him painfully aware of one of the lessons he recently learned. Not the ones about the Athe with Lesh, but the one before that, the one where he was tied up and certain he was about to die.

I haven’t learned enough.

He redirected his thoughts and tried to come up with a good question. “So, it’s like a desecration?”

“Worse than that I’d say,” Orvalys continued. “Plenty of important Yarvan sites were desecrated during the Crusades, ut this place was left untouched by the Tinarian troops. It seemed they at least partly understood its importance. They at least understood that if they did something to harm it, the Yarvans never would have surrendered.”

“So, this is a political move,” Jack said, motioning to the empty houses. “By someone who wants that identity to resurface?” As soon as he said it, he was surprised at what he’d said.

Orv looked up and smirked. “Maybe there is a Warking in there somewhere still eh?”

The statement caught Jack off guard. He tried to find an answer, but he didn’t know how exactly to reply. A few different emotions were swirling around inside of him and he was having trouble identifying them again. There was the surprise he felt because of his automatic observation, and then a bit of embarrassment at Orvalys noticing, but something else too… pride maybe?

But it didn’t matter much, because before he could say anything something else suddenly arose that pushed all those emotions aside. It was a sort of internal warning signal—a wave of anxiety that filled Jack from the top of his head to the tips of his feet. It was only a moment, and he couldn’t say for sure, but later he would swear he heard the burst of glitz and saw the flash just before it slammed into Orvalys.

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Miles away Lesh had heard the shot, his eyes—trained for decades to pick out the smallest details—saw the brief purplish flash of light. He heard Jack shouting something, but it was too far away to make out what it had been. The timbre and tone of the shout was not one of pain though, not physical pain at least. He was shouting for another reason, not because he was the one injured. Lesh drank the Athe and saw that it was true—the small creature Orv had been the one hit by the glitz.

The old man leaped down nimbly from the tree he had climbed to get a better view. Branch to branch he lowered himself toward the forest floor far below. It was something he shouldn’t have been able to do as quickly as he did, but he had already seen the best way down. When he landed, he breathed deeply in and sipped a bit more of the Athe.

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Yes, Orvalys would live—for now anyway. That was clear, and there was no need to drink deeper than that. Jack would discover through his friend’s injury that he cared more for the small creature than he formerly realized, and if the young Athedrinker was open and honest with himself, he would also realize there are other things he has begun to care for—things that would begin to change the young man’s priorities. Those priorities, if mixed together correctly with the small bits of Athe that he had tasted, would in turn determine the fate of the entire world.

It was done.

The things which were to be set in motion had been set. Lesh’s actions in this particular chapter of Jack’s story had come to a close. Wheels were set in motion that would go on to have cosmic effects. Today had been a fulcrum, a day of destiny—a turning point for fates beyond fate.

For Lesh it was a Tuesday (if he were to borrow the Earthen term). The fate of the entire world always seemed to be in some sort of jeopardy. It was the same story over and over wasn’t it? The world teeters on the edge of destruction, and some formerly normal person found themselves situated in just the right place to keep it in balance. Destiny had chosen her one, and that one held immense power beyond anything they could conceive.

It seemed counterintuitive, but that was how things always seemed to work.

“I suppose it makes for good stories,” The old man said aloud to a non-existent audience. “And isn’t that what it’s all about—Story? Intertwining ourselves into our own myths—telling a grand tale with our collective existence—writing the universe with our own hand? Jack lives his story so that a million more can be told and a billion more after.”

Lesh chuckled to himself. He only said the words out loud because he knew he had been going to.

“Inside joke,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t get it.”

The old man squatted and stretched a moment, took a few breaths, and prepared to drink again from the cosmic well. There were other things to be done, things that were possibly even more important than the last few days.

He was about to do something in particular that he had not done in a very long time—eons.

Lesh replaced the ancient mask on his face and turned to the endless west.

It was time to go a-hunting.

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Far away there was a massive airship freighter preparing to leave Izutis. The crew had landed in the early hours of the morning, and due to the size of their ship, the glitz refuel would take the better part of a day. Since the vessel was emptied of all valuable cargo, the crew had left it relatively unnatended to enjoy their time in the small shops and taverns located at the pendulous skydocks. No one was around to see the imposing, shadowy figure creep up a side ladder and disappear into the cargo hold.

Once inside the figure stumbled through the darkness. It kicked an empty crate that had been left behind, cursing the echoey clank before sprinting to a darkened corner. Hopefully, here, no one would see him. Hopefully, here he would be safe.

The man opened his dark cloak and looked down at the bloodied place where his arm had previously been. All that remained was a stump, badly amputated by the street doctors under the skydocks. Hopefully, the operation had at least been done well enough to avoid major infection, or else the end of Pyrn’s borrowed time would come sooner rather than later.

He had been meant to die by that assassin—that was clear. And if he could convince the Senate he really was dead, whoever had ordered his assassination would be thrown off. Who that was, of course, was an entirely different matter. Pyrn had his suspicions, but he couldn’t stick around long enough to verify. His wasn’t the kind of face you could hide for long, the Militia made sure of that. High General was a position of very public image, and all it took was one person recognizing him from the recruitment posters.

Pyrn hugged his cloak close around him. This was a foolish way out, there was no doubt about that. All the time with his position and power someone was still able to put an assassin directly into his room. That was one of the reasons he had to disappear completely. Standing his ground and exposing whatever he would have to expose was the quickest way to make sure a second attempt would happen. That one—he was sure—wouldn’t be unsuccessful.

Chancellor Hitten, he thought. There’s no doubt it was him, but did he act alone?

It was unlikely. At least one of the Great Lines had surely had a hand in this, but why? What were they trying to achieve by offing him? To attack the High General directly? That kind of thing wasn’t just unexpected, it was unheard of.

Unless Hitten knows.

Pyrn shook his head, there was no use giving room to those thoughts. If Hitten or the Senators knew that particular piece of information, his life would have ended longer ago and much more publicly. He also would have been well aware of the major moves they would have made long before they would have made them, or at least he used to think so. He had worked very hard to keep a bead on the secrets—the information people only whispered in the streets. But that method hadn’t prepared him for this, so how effective had it truly been?

It had to be concluded that someone very powerful was pulling the strings, and that’s why Pyrn knew his only option was to leave Izutis.

He had sent messages to Kager Yiles and Jun Horven. Those two he was sure he could trust. The messages were encoded and sent with an unassuming young street boy. Pyrn had written the missives with one hand as he was still in the process of losing the other. Hopefully, when the letters were delivered, the commanders would still be alive to read them. It was frustrating to wonder at something and have to run from it at the same time. It burned Pyrn to do so, and rose up inside him like a hot growl.

But it was the only way. Hopefully, one of his friends would find out what was happening and send him word—that is if they believed what he had written in the missives. Yiles had already had limited information going into this, but the contents of that message would hit Jun Horven like an airship. Even so, it was the best course of action at this point. Sometimes a difficult decision must be made, there’s no way around it, only through.

The high general settled in for a long, cold, and hungry ride. It would be at least several days before he could leave this ship and while keeping to the shadows, find one heading in the direction he was going—one heading toward Ullulia.