Harkin’s Holdfast was a fortified township on the southern edge of the Northwood, the great, wild forest that filled the area between the impassable Sawtooth mountains and the realm of Xorn. The Holdfast was the most northerly settlement in the realm of Xorn, and it was here that Saul had first found himself when he’d been reborn into this new timeline.

With his knowledge of events to come, Saul knew that Harkin’s Holdfast was at risk of falling to the warlocks of the Northwood. But, more than that, he knew that the fall of the Holdfast was the pebble that started an avalanche of terrible consequences, leading in the end to the Faction Wars that eviscerated the whole of Keldor from Xorn to the Riverlands, the Citadel, the Trader Cities, and beyond, as far as the coastal cities by the Bay of Bones in the west.

That was the world Saul had been born into in his first timeline, a war-torn, famine-stalked land without pride or hope. He’d joined with Baraz Karak and, together, they hammered the destitute and feuding factions into one united empire, but it hadn’t been easy. This time around, he wanted to stop the Faction War from happening if it was possible. Stopping the fall of Harkin’s Holdfast and saving Xorn had been his first step in achieving that goal.

The warlocks had been destroyed and, with Saul’s help, the fall of the Holdfast had been averted. In the course of the fighting, he made firm friends with Captain Jerryl, the experienced Xornian officer who was in charge of the garrison of Raptor Riders at the village. He’d also gained the loyalty and trust of Brand and Zorea, who’d become his partners in magic and who’d chosen to leave their home to help him on his quest.

Now, Saul returned to the place he’d begun.

The Holdfast had grown since Saul and his friends had last been there. They were welcomed by the gate guards and taken straight to the barracks where Captain Jerryl was still up, working on a report at the big wooden table in his headquarters in the upper floor of the village’s only inn. He had the remains of a meal beside him, and a roaring fire filled the large stone-walled room with a welcome heat.

“This is a surprise!” Jerryl exclaimed happily as he welcomed them. “And Armsmaster Elman! There’s a story to be had here. Come in, get warm, and tell me all about what’s brought you here.”

It didn’t take Saul long to explain how they had come to the Holdfast. Briefly, he told Jerryl about the ambassador of Keljek and the new portal at Jillin. Then, he brought out the strange device he’d taken from the ambassador’s severed wrist. He laid it on the table.

Captain Jerryl shuddered visibly.

“That’s an ugly thing,” the captain said, “though I don’t know why it makes me feel so odd. It’s just a flat disc of stone, but I feel like I was looking at a severed head or something.”

“Yes, it had that effect on all of us, too,” Saul agreed, looking at the little stone disc with distaste. He’d explained all about the ambassador and what the device had done. There was no sign now of the Sigil that had been printed onto the stone surface, but Saul knew it had been there.

“I hoped you might be able to use that Sigilite Scanner of yours to get a reading off this. I’ve had a look at it through my System, but I can’t find anything out about it.”

“Of course,” Jerryl said, “but, in my experience, the Sigilite Scanner only works on people. I can try, though.”

He moved to a corner and took a long, tubular object from a locked case. He shook the tube, and it transformed its appearance from dull wood into a bright, thick crystal filled with a flowing material like liquid gold.

On the surface of the crystal, a Sigil glowed serenely, wrapped around the tube as if drawn on with fine pen strokes.

Jerryl held the scanner out toward the stone disc on the table and pressed a part of the Sigil with his hand. The scanner shone a light on the disc and, a moment later, a stream of words flowed out from the top of the tube, silvery and glowing, very much like the words in Saul’s System.

Sigilite Scanner Active…

Scanning…

Scan complete.

Error: Scan result unreadable

Scan details finished.

“Sorry, Saul,” Jerryl said. “I guess that’s—”

But before he could finish his sentence, there came a sudden rush of new words from the scanner.

Warning: Magical corruption detected

Influence: Terror

Influence: Magical Destruction

Outcome: Death

Message detected…

Await decryption…

They all looked at each other in astonishment.

“I’ve never seen the scanner do this before,” Jerryl said.

They all watched with bated breath, waiting for the message, whatever it was, to come clear. After a few more moments, it did.

First, a small patch of light grew on the table in front of the scanner. The light then formed into the shape of a figure; a heavy-set, middle-aged man wearing outlandish clothes. He had a black beard and dark eyes, and his skin was dark. His bright robes hung slack on his thin body as if he was half-starved.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

As the small vision expanded to fill a square foot of space on the table before them, they saw more of the man’s surroundings. To Saul’s amazement, the figure was standing in a space much like Saul’s own Workshop. They could see the outlines of familiar pieces of crafting equipment and, at one side, what looked like a spell tree.

The man looked up, and there was an expression of terror on his face.

“Is this working?” he said. His voice was quiet, but it was clear as if coming from far away. “My name is… Well, that doesn’t matter,” he began in a heavily accented voice. “If you can see this message, then it means that you are one of the others, one of the others cursed with the System.”

Saul and his friends looked at each other. The System might be many things, but a curse wasn’t one of them. However, this man clearly had an urgent message to deliver, and he was right, at least, that his message had reached another System user.

“I’m recording this message to warn you,” the man said. “They’re coming for me and, when they do, they’re going to tear the System from me and use the Sigil technology within it for their own wicked purposes. They are merciless, and they have great power. They seek to harvest the parts of my System, and they will cut the Sigils out from my very soul once they have got me. I’ve hidden in my Workshop, but they’ve found a way to access it. I have only reached Level 22, and it’s not enough to fight them off. They’re coming for me.”

He looked away at something offscreen and, when he looked back, his face was terrified. “I don’t have much time,” he gasped. “I’m imprinting this message into every Sigil in my System, and I hope against hope that the message will remain, secretly implanted into the machines they make from the parts of my System once they have killed me. If you find this, it means I have died, but it may not be too late for you to stop them. Listen to me. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know what your purpose is, but I know there are two others besides myself, and you are one of them.

“I was given the System and told to build magic and hunt down the trickster god Sarkur, but I have failed. I tell you now, you must stop them. They call themselves the Ministry of Keljek, and they have taken over the land of El-Alun. They have spread their tentacles far and wide, and their whole purpose is to track down the Sarkur and the System users and destroy them. The ministers of Keljek desire to harvest the magic Systems, to cut the Sigils from our souls, and use them for their own purposes. Keljek has come to El-Alun, and they are coming for you! You must stop Keljek! You must— Aargh!”

His voice had been getting faster and more panicked with every word. Now, with a terrible scream, the man fell backward as something bright hit him in the chest. It looked like a net made from pure light. It wrapped around him, pinning his arms and legs and knocking him to the floor. A group of shadowy figures rushed into the scene, piling onto the man.

“Save yourselves! Save El-Alun! Save the world!” the man’s voice yelled hoarsely, then the image flickered and was gone, leaving nothing but blank space on the wooden table.

Saul picked up the stone disc and held it in his hand while Captain Jerryl tapped the Sigilite Scanner, transforming it back into a regular-looking wooden tube before putting it away.

“No wonder this item gave us such a feeling of distaste,” Saul said sadly, looking at the stone disc. “We never knew it, but this bit of stone contained a Sigil that had been cut from the soul of another System user.”

“Poor bastard,” Jerryl said. “I wonder who he was. And what is Keljek? I’ve heard of El-Alun, but I’ve never heard of the Ministry of Keljek.”

“Neither have I,” Saul said, “and that’s worth noticing. I have knowledge of the future since I was reincarnated backward.”

He thought for a moment, remembering how things had been in his former life. “In my previous timeline,” he began, “once we’d united Keldor into a single empire, we built a fleet and traveled west. We fought El-Alun to a standstill. El-Alun had been receiving mercenaries and aid from Darthorn, a realm to the north of El-Alun, so we fought Darthorn, too. We won, of course, and sacked their major cities and made El-Alun a vassal state to the empire. We’d have won in Darthorn, as well, but before we could, the damned elemental gods intervened and took me out of the picture.”

He shook his head, remembering that supreme moment on the battlefield outside the temple of artifacts in Darthorn. In that timeline, there had been an ancient Sigil in the temple, a relic from the former era of magic in Keldor, a Sigil with all the combined power of a hundred mages contained within it. Saul had been about to absorb all that power, but the gods had stopped him, afraid that with such supreme power at his disposal, he would have been able to challenge them. He’d never had any such ambition, but they had tried to destroy him anyway.

Saul gave himself a shake, coming back to the present and finding his friends staring at him.

“Anyway,” he said, “my point is that I learned a lot about El-Alun during the years we campaigned against them and, in all that, I never once heard the word Keljek.”

“What does it mean?” Zorea asked after a pause.

“It means that Keljek is something which only exists in this timeline,” Saul said with certainty. “Keljek is some new entity, some new power that has taken command in El-Alun. This poor man in the message said he’d been given a System and told to hunt down Sarkur. There’s a clue in that. I think that Keljek was created to oppose me, and to oppose Sarkur. And who would have the motive to do that?”

He looked at his friends to see if they were following him.

“Of course,” Brand said, snapping his fingers. “Sarkur gave you the System and told you to hunt the other gods, so the only person who could have given this other man his mission…”

“…would be the elemental gods,” Zorea finished. “And that means they have gotten wind of Sarkur and his scheme.”

“And it also means,” Elman added, picking up the thread, “that the elemental gods have worked out how to build a System for themselves. I’ve not been with you long, Saul, but Brand and Zorea have done a good job at explaining things to me. If I understand it right, the System is a machine based entirely on the magic of Sigils that has been built by Sarkur and implanted into your soul.”

“That’s right,” Saul said.

“And one of the main advantages is that it keeps the elemental gods from finding out where you are?”

“Yes,” Saul nodded.

“So, if the elementals got an idea of what was happening in Sarkur’s scheme, but they didn’t know where you were, their best bet would be to create another System user and send him out into the world to look for you. There’s nothing better than getting someone with the same set of powers to do the searching, I’d say.”

“There’s some hope in this, too,” Jerryl said. “If this is the course of action the elementals have taken, it means that, so far, the System has worked at concealing your location. The elementals cannot locate you, Saul, because if they had, well, we’d know about it. Instead, they are sending agents into the world to find you, but they haven’t managed it yet.”

“Couldn’t they just come into the world themselves?” Elman asked. “They’re gods, aren’t they? Isn’t that what gods do?”

Saul frowned and shook his head. “That’s not how the elementals work. It takes a lot of power for them to take an active part in the events of the world. They don’t perceive time and space as we do, and though they are immensely powerful, they don’t have ultimate power, they’re not omnipotent. They get access to the world when people believe in them, when people access the elemental power that’s mediated by them, but on a day to day level, they have to work through humans or other earthly agents. Even Sarkur had trouble finding me when he wanted to deliver the message that Baraz had also been given a System and sent into the world.”

Brand had been thinking hard for a moment, his brow furrowed. At this mention of Baraz and Sarkur’s message, he spoke, “Saul, tell us again what Sarkur said about how Baraz Karak got a System?”

Saul frowned. “Sarkur said he didn’t know how Baraz had gained a System. He just knew that the elemental gods had pulled him out of the world shortly after I’d been pulled out myself. When I didn’t come back, Baraz went looking for me. He found the Sigil, tried to take it, and the gods grabbed him on the spot. They had the power to do that because, like me, Baraz had given the gods access to his life through his faith in them. Sarkur said that Baraz had been given a System and sent out into the world, and that I should link up with him…”

He looked at Brand, and the young man grinned.

“I see what you mean, of course,” Saul said. “For all we know, the elemental gods themselves are the ones who gave Baraz his System. Baraz Karak was my friend, my loyal companion through two decades of warfare. I’ve been wanting to meet with him and join forces, and I’ve been assuming he’s trying to do the same. But this changes everything. He might well be out there looking for me, but not to join forces. Instead, he may have been sent by the elemental gods to destroy me!”