I watch from behind a bush as Lucien flicks another firebolt at the stupid rabbit. It misses – again. For some reason the damn thing just sits there, chewing bark, as flames rain down at random around it. We’d tried getting closer, even throwing rocks, but for some reason, anything other than magic – and any closer than ten metres – and the idiotic thing just runs off. I don’t know what it is with the rabbits in this world, but it just stares gormlessly into the middle distance even as a firebolt smacks the bark from its mouth – the magic flames reflected in its vacant, dead, empty, glassy eyes. Since when do rabbits even eat bark?

Lucien stops flicking and sighs – probably out of juice – or maybe it’s the lack of energy that’s settled on the three of us since yesterday. Emmet is still resolutely not looking back down the road, to the church. Lucien has entered a weird state of agitation, likely having twigged onto the fact that something’s wrong with Emmet, but at the same time, impatient for it to blow over. I dunno if he’s just usually a spaz, but at least he’s stopped pulling out the fucking wanted poster whenever he thinks (wrongly) that no-one is looking.

I stand up and edge carefully around the line we drew in the dirt, an arc with radius ten metres from the rabbit – of course it doesn’t even twitch. “You outta juice?”

He squints at me in confusion, but seems to catch the drift. “Don’t want to get mana burn,” he replies, as if that clears anything up – what is it? Mystic heart burn? Surely magic doesn’t work the same way as chugging Thai curry. “Have you ever eaten a whole lot of really fatty food, way too fast?” Holy shit, this magic crap is so wishy-washy.

I snap my fingers twice and give it a flick, just like Lucien, but nothing happens. I sigh in frustration and cast my mind back to the Darke Mag’kx book. Amidst the side panels detailing techniques for stylish casting and perfecting your evil cackle (that page had been hilariously doggy-eared) was a lot of pseudo-science babble about ‘finding your inner mana channels’ or some crap. I had honestly expected something to happen the first time around. I had wrecked the shit of those two soldiers pretty handily – for someone not coordinated enough to even play t-ball back in primary school. And apparently, I can read a super duper magic language – which I’m told is not something that just anybody can do. Slightly embarrassing, and I’ll never say it out loud, but a part of me was – and still is – expecting some kind of chosen one super power. I start clicking absently, ‘feeling deep within myself’ for any sign of otherworldly shenanigans – I’d done a yoga class last year, maybe I should do some deep breathing or whatever.

“Gods, will you cut that out?” More out of the embarrassment of obviously failing to cast magic than respect for his concentration, I stop.

He rises from his crouch, arms posed as if he were firing a magnum, I suspect more to look cool than actually aim the spell – though with the way magic seems to work here, it probably makes it more powerful or something. The rabbit is still sitting there, slowly chewing its piece of bark, eyes even more glazed than before. Lucien starts clicking, but doesn’t stop at two – I shuffle away; wouldn’t want to get finger fragments on my new clothes after all. He hits five and flicks his fingers. A ball of fire, at least the size of the rabbit itself, shoots from his fingers (which don’t seem to have exploded this time). The fireball surges over the clearing and by the sheer size of it, actually clips the damn rabbit with its outer edge.

The spell then bounces off the rabbit, rolls along the ground, then bursts at the foot of a tree. The rabbit itself glacially tilts over and collapses on its side. Its eyes are still as glassy as before, but there’s no visible damage from the spell. I experimentally toss a rock at it. The rock bounces off its head – it doesn’t run away as it had every other time we tried that. I jog over and grab the creepy thing. I can’t feel a heartbeat or anything – though I’m not entirely convinced it would have had one anyway.

“What the hell was that? Is this thing fireproof?” I say as I toss the fucking thing back to Lucien.

“I have absolutely no idea. I’m pretty sure they’re not meant to be.”

“What? Rabbits? No shit they’re not.” I pause thinking, “can we even cook it? If it’s fire-proof.”

“It’s probably the fur that’s fireproof. I don’t think it’s a naturally magical rabbit, it did look pretty off. We can probably try skinning it or something.” I nod and we start heading back to camp – a spot under a big tree – luckily Lucien’s bug spray spell still works, I think I would’ve died otherwise.

Emmet looks up as we approach, having propped up his and Lucien’s coats between a few long sticks – technically a tent, I guess. We gather wood and Lucien throws a firebolt at it – complete with flamboyant posing, naturally. Watching the fire crackle, we marvel at the convenience of magic – even if it took us a collective moment to remember that we could do this – it’s incredible how one gravitates to rubbing sticks together. Lucien breaks our reverie by throwing the rabbit straight into the fire. I look at him incredulously.

“What?”

I ignore him as the fire starts spluttering. The flames that touch the rabbit bounce right off, just like the fireball earlier – though this means that tiny wisps of fire are rolling away from our fire like marbles. Lucien catches on and kicks the rabbit out of the fire – the leather pants actually proving useful for once. We stamp out the escaping fire marbles and reconvene, standing in a circle, staring down, looking thoughtfully at the pristine white rabbit.

“Wait, open its mouth for a sec” Lucien breaks the silence. Emmet moves to hold the thing’s mouth open. Without another word, Lucien snaps twice and sticks his fingers down its throat, then immediately retracts them with a yelp as the fireball comes flying back out. “Dammit – it’s fire-proof on the inside as well,” he mutters, “no wonder it was so weird – mana probably fried its brain or something.”

Fireproof on the inside huh? I’m not eating raw, magic rabbit, that’s for sure. But then a thought occurs. “Lucien, where did you get with that grease spell?”

He blinks a few times, “Uh, I can get a coating of the mana construct going – it isn’t actually grease yet.” He makes the necessary finger waggling and opens his palm, showing a gross film of shimmery liquid. I give it a poke – ew. It’s slightly thicker than water, thinner than oil, not quite clear, not quite coloured. It’s like someone just averaged the qualities of the room temperature liquids of the world – a mana construct of the concept of a liquid. “I’m going to need you to read out the section on attribute pairing if I want to actually make this into grease.” Way ahead of you wiz-kid, I’m already flipping through to the right page.

I start reading out loud, hopefully frying the thing in grease won’t count as fire. Lucien seems to get the idea so I guess I’ve correctly guessed the stupid rules of magic around here. “…Attribute pairing can be done a number of ways. The traditional method is the use of physical components when casting the spell. Something slimy, like a toad, a slug or the brow sweat of a con-man can be held in the fist, while casting the spell in order to saturate the mana construct with the desired attribute – in this case, lubrication. Advanced mages, once one gets used to the mana flow of the first method, can imbue the spell with the attribute internally, the same way one forms the mana-construct…” My eyes start to hurt at this point – a splitting headache apparently the cost of my wondrous abilities. Lucien is kneeling like a school-boy in front of me, quivering in paroxysms of education – what a freak.

He walks back to the rabbit and snaps his fingers. He hesitates a bit, then licks his knuckles – I guess that should work. He finishes the hand motions, blushing slightly and ignoring us self-consciously – can’t be easy when your spell casting looks this dumb. Opening his fist, he checks the consistency of the goo coating his palm. He coughs, “Well, it worked” he says, before rubbing the rabbit all over with the conjured grease. Finished, he kicks it back into the fire – where it bursts into flames, turning black within seconds. Panicked, Lucien kicks it right out again, the charred skin of the rabbit slagging off revealing slightly less charred meat underneath.

“What the shit was that?” I ask. Pertinent questions only.

“I guess it had really specific fire protection? Immune to normal fire but incredibly weak to any other variety?” Lucien hazards.

“Stop, I don’t care anymore.” We kneel down and tear some awful, stringy meat off the blackened corpse – what I wouldn’t give for a fucking curry or something. We sit there in the dirt, eating rabbit that had somehow managed to burn all the way through in the three seconds it was in the fire. I look up at the night sky as biting insects buzz around. I would wax philosophical about the alien sky… if I had the slightest idea about the constellations back home. I feel a tinge of melancholy anyway, though not because I can’t see Orion’s Belt or whatever.

The stars are so normal, there’s only one moon and it’s not even a different colour. Here I am, trapped in a world of magic and mystery, sitting beside two literal wizards, on the run from an actual Empire – and I’m squatting and eating burnt rabbit, like I’m on a shitty camping trip.

I quietly snap my fingers and wait.

Nothing happens.

O – O – O – O – O

The snake and the centipede reach the surface. The sun warms the dry topsoil.

Suddenly a shadow passes over them; the shadow of a bird. The centipede shakes in terror, for it is prey. The snake doesn’t know if birds eat snakes. Birds eat worms. Perhaps birds eat snakes that dig, too.

The bird lands; resplendent in steel grey feathers and sharp claws. It looks for something, but instead sees the centipede and the snake that digs.

‘Quickly snake’, yells the centipede, use your venom to defend us. The snake opens its mouth but remembers that it cannot use its venom; the snake has no fangs. The bird hops closer.

‘You must use your own venom centipede,’ says the snake with no fangs that digs. The centipede does not want to – for it is prey.

The snake winds around the legs of the bird.

‘Quickly you must bite it.’

‘But prey doesn’t bite.’

‘Then you will have to become prey that bites.’

So the centipede bites.

O – O – O – O – O

We pass over the border of Caithurt early in the morning the next day. A line of brick in the mostly dirt road and a large sign declare the exact point at which the Empire ends and the ‘Northern Wilds’ begins. I look away from the sign – You are now leaving the protection of Her Majesty – reminding myself that I should really write up that alphabet for Evelyn, maybe later. There are a few more wanted posters hanging off the sign, which Emmet studiously ignores. Ones of the three of us surrounded by a bunch of other posters detailing much more traditional crimes – murder, theft, political dissidence – honestly, what is an ‘agent of chaos’ if it isn’t covered by political dissidence?

Luckily, our posters still don’t seem to detail any kind of cash reward, which should limit the potential pursuers down to the soldiers already on our tail, those morally sociopathic paladin types whose sole purpose in life is some nebulous justice, and dickheads. Hopefully the vague and slightly sinister ‘agents of chaos’ title will ward off opportunistic randoms. It’s still probably not a good idea walking along these open roads; my only consolation is that one step over this boundary line, and no one will lift a finger to uphold Empire laws.

We cross the line and with that my adventures in the Caithurt Empire come to an end. Kind of disappointing really, I don’t think it’s even been two weeks yet. The road directly past the sign is distinctly worse than the glorious Caithurt infrastructure a few steps behind us – almost as if by design. The road itself seems to be made of the same layered gravel as that which we’ve been walking along all day, however, the road of the ‘wildlands’ is dotted with potholes.

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I’m not one for pointing fingers, but the potholes look a touch too regular, and the edges far too angular to be natural – whoever did it hasn’t even bothered to move the displaced gravel, it’s just lying on the side of the road. In addition, someone has gone to the trouble of planting ugly, scrabbly bushes along the road, past the border – I assume to make it look ‘wilder’. I’m thinking that we got off lightly with our dubious title if this is the heavy-handed approach to propaganda – public information – that Caithurt prefers.

The road smooths back over to its previous quality after a few minutes’ walk. Whoever had planted those scrabbly bushes had apparently given up at the same time as whoever had pickaxed the road because the surroundings soon return to normal. We walk further along the road, occasionally stepping around the odd, naturally occurring pothole – I guess there are some benefits to Imperial infrastructure in the end. The smell of smoke becomes apparent as we climb a hill. Cresting it, a pillar of smoke serves to break up the grassy hilled skyline. As we look down the road at a small farm, complete with burning wheat field, I’m reminded of the other benefit of Imperial dominion – regular monster extermination. I watch a little green creature carrying away a chicken, while a farmer and his family watch helpless from inside their cottage – is it that time of year already?

“Oh my god, Goblins!” comes the exclamation from Evelyn, somewhere between amazement, excitement and alarm. I’m not sure if that’s the right terminology for the creatures currently ravaging the farm, ‘goblin’ is generally a catch-all term for anything squat, humanoid, coloured greenish and with a predilection for raiding peasants – though I’m not sure if they’re advanced enough to actually take offense to the generalisation. Whatever they are, Evelyn has started to get a glimmer in her eyes – too close to heroism for my liking. I quicken my pace as the road passes the small farm, the little green men not even glancing at us as three of them take turns swinging clubs at a scarecrow, too caught up in their glorious combat. However, as obvious as it is that the goblins will just bugger off after torching the crops, both Emmet and Evelyn start to slow down. I glance back, two sets of eyes, with a varying, but distinct level of determination meet mine.

“No.”

“What are you going on about? Those people are in danger!” exclaims Evelyn, apparently unaware that the goblins seem incapable of breaking the door down – nor, apparently, interested in anything but how many potatoes they can cram into their mouths at once. I try to get this point across.

“Look, they’re basically wild animals; they’ll probably leave once they’ve stolen a few piglets or whatever.” She doesn’t seem convinced, if anything she’s started to get twitchier. Emmet seems to come to decision and stands straight, giving me a hard look.

“Lucien. We’re going to save those people.” So says the one with literally no offensive capability. I realise that this is actually a decent point.

“You two do know that those things are in fact kind of dangerous?” my statement is punctuated by four of them finally felling the courageous scarecrow. “There’s a reason those peasants are holed up in the house, and not trying to fight.” They still don’t look impressed. “Dark Wizards don’t save peasants anyway.” Emmet balls his fists.

“Maybe the farmer will come out if he knows he has help,” Emmet starts, before letting out an exasperated grunt and turning around. “I want to help those people, so I am going to help those people. You’re not going to stop me.” Then he runs off down towards the farm. Since when did Emmet care about fighting monsters? I turn to Evelyn – who is already running after Emmet, a weirdly intense grin on her face. The two of them race towards a dozen or so armed goblins – neither seeming to remember that I’m the only one with anything resembling a weapon.

Those bloody idiots, what do they think they’re doing? It’s not like monster attacks are uncommon. Our gardens back home were perpetually infested with faeries – annoying, but a fact of life. The semi-intelligent monsters tend to raid farms and the like periodically, usually a few months before harvest – I assume it’s a spite thing. Now Emmet is running, completely unarmed, towards a band of goblins. The farmer has the right idea, it’s never worth actually fighting the buggers, you could get hurt.

Emmet stoops, grabs a rock and throws it at the closest goblin – irritatingly, one of the only ones that has an actual weapon, a big knife. I swear and run after them, snapping my fingers in preparation. The rock, of course, misses, but it does draw their attention and three of them jump off the scarecrow and head towards Emmet.

Like an idiot, he doesn’t even slow down. With a shriek, he lunges and throws a punch at the closest one. Though it’s less punching than just throwing his body, fist first, at the creature. It kind of works, the two collide and another goblin goes down in the ensuing tangle of limbs. Though it quickly becomes apparent that Emmet has no follow-up plan, or any real idea of what to do after ‘combat’ has started. In a few seconds he’s on his back, struggling to fend off two goblins, both armed with clubs. The three of them writhe around, the tangle of limbs preventing any of them from gaining an advantge. The slightly taller of the two manages to draw back, raising its club overhead, prepared to strike – and my firebolt hits it in the side of the head, sending it reeling.

I run up and kick the second goblin in the head, luckily managing to avoid kicking Emmet. I help him to his feet. He’s gasping for breath and unsteady, apparently having realised, like me, that this was probably a terrible idea. The one I kicked stays down. I’m pretty sure a decent kick to the head will down, if not kill, most things; green midgets included apparently.

Unfortunately, the one I hit with a firebolt gets up after a moment’s confusion. The downside of the spell is, irritatingly, its complete lack of impact – I’m basically just throwing a puff of fire. This means that if your target can work past the burn – or is too stupid to compartmentalise pain properly – then my spell repertoire becomes dramatically less effective. To make matters worse, the biggest of the three, the one with the actual knife, catches up and starts snarling at us. I fire another bolt at the closer one while Emmet scrabbles for another rock to throw. Then they both charge.

Burn-scar rushes in and swings his club; I stumble back, just out of range, a firebolt firing into the dirt as I sway. Emmet throws his rock – managing to hit Burn-scar this time – which stuns it, letting me retreat a step. Knife takes this chance to charge in, taking a wild swing at me – swinging wildly as if it were using a club as well, thank heavens for dumb monsters. I flail, and manage to block the attack; the blade luckily hitting my arm on the flat instead of the edge. Beside me, Emmet flails at an attacking Burn-scar, his fists connecting, probably due to one of the goblin’s eyes having been burned off – though his strikes lack impact. These things are surprisingly resilient – and strong – for what look like ugly green children.

Emmet goes down in another tangle of limbs. His frantic kicking the only thing preventing Burn-scar from braining him with its club. Distracted for that split second, Knife rams into me, sending the both of us to the ground as well. Apparently, it’s figured out how its weapon is supposed to work, because it immediately starts frantically stabbing towards my chest. I grab its arm and shove my elbow into its face, desperate to keep the blade out of my ribcage. It forgets the blade again as the two of us roll around and just starts head-butting me. Sharp teeth and snarling grunts flash in my memory, mirroring the chaos in front of me – bloody monsters.

“Daze!”

A burst of light sears my eyes. Pain lances through my skull as I manifest the spell right in front of my face. Knife screeches in pain and I kick it off – hopefully it’s down for the time being, I’m pretty sure it’s as blind as I am. Dammit that hurts. I stumble towards the sound of panicked shouts and dull thumps – Emmet at least still sounds alive. In too much pain to think clearly, I just flop onto the two combatants – grabbing the smaller, bonier one and ripping it away from Emmet. Burn-scar, for once having the sight advantage over something, starts thrashing around, striking everything in reach with its club. I panic a bit; my hands, busy grappling with the goblin, can’t manage the gestures for spells. I struggle about, trying to bash the thing’s head in on the ground, but the damn thing is somehow stronger than me, even if its wrists look like twigs. In desperation I grab its face with both hands and start channelling mana. If it worked on a decapitated head, surely, it’ll work on one that’s still attached, right?

The black mana meets some kind of resistance – possible the fact that the goblin is alive. I just start smashing its head against a rock while continuing to pump it full of death magic. This just causes it to start shrieking and flailing even harder, though less directed. Its fingernails catch on my face and it tears a gash down my cheek. It seems to have lost its club but its bony knees and elbows seem to make up the difference. The mana keeps getting stuck, it doesn’t seem to want to pass through its living flesh – I stick my fingers inside its mouth and nostrils, gritting my teeth as it bites down on my knuckles. It seems to do the trick though, as the goblin starts getting weaker and I feel the death mana start to take hold, sapping the vitality and rotting the flesh. The blows slow, then stop, and with one final burst of effort, I bash its head against a rock and the skull bursts in a spray of rotting brain tissue. I throw up.

The next thing that parses is the weird tingly chill of Emmet’s healing magic. I feel the back of my eyes start to itch and suddenly my vision clears. An extremely dirty and ruffled Emmet is kneeling beside me, finishing the healing spell. I start when I remember the dozen or so goblins that should be left and make an aborted jerk. Around me, at least a dozen goblin corpses lie scattered over the farm. Evelyn stands beside us, in her hands some kind of farming implement, the head of which is absolutely dripping with blood and viscera.

O – O – O – O – O

Holy crap, goblins. Monsters attacking a small farm, the family of four huddled within their cottage – this is what fantasy is made of! I run after Emmet, leaving Lucien in the dust. This is our chance to be real heroes, defeating monsters and saving the day.

Emmet reaches a group of three near the wheat field, but we’re separated as another two spot me and move to intercept. They’re a head or so shorter than me, wielding clubs and almost frothing at the mouth in their haste to reach me. I suddenly remember that Lucien is the only one with anything resembling a weapon. I come to a stop and glance around for something useable. They’re just goblins right? Lowest level things around – can’t be too hard right?

Lying against a tree stump is some kind of farming tool. A long wooden pole ending in a side-ways metal shovel thing – a hoe? I grab it and try to lift it. The fucking thing is so heavy, and the weight is concentrated at the end, making it awkward to hold. The goblins quickly near me, one of them dropping its club and breaking out onto all fours. I heft the hoe up, one hand near the head and the other at the base – like a really long cricket bat. Suddenly, the moment I move my hands into position, the weight disappears.

My feet move by themselves, shifting my body into some kind of ready stance, I feel suddenly stable and balanced. Before I can figure out what the fuck, the goblin in front jumps, fangs and claws readied to rip out my throat. As if in slow motion, I swing the hoe, the action feeling as natural as breathing. The awkward pole feels almost weightless as the metal head makes a smooth arc into the path of the goblin, the spade connects and caves in its skull in a spray of blood. The next one follows, club held aloft – and I naturally follow through after my initial swing and it flows into another strike. The wooden end buts into the goblins ribs, I feel them crack all the way down the shaft. I smoothly twirl the hoe back into my initial ready position, prepared for the third goblin – which immediately turns and runs into the tree-line.

What the fuck was that?

A grin spreads over my face. It was awesome that’s what. Just like back in Weld.

I heft my weapon up and run towards the next group of goblins – these ones carrying a squealing pig between the four of them. I draw within striking range and land on my right foot. In a single move, I pivot and, with my whole body behind it, swing the hoe, breaking bones and sending two of the goblins sprawling to the ground. The other two overbalance and drop the pig, which runs squealing back to the barn behind the cottage. Without missing a beat, I bring the hoe down on the one grounded goblin that is still snarling. With a sickening crunch, the head of the tool buries itself in the centre of its chest – the strike aimed perfectly, as if magnetised. The remaining two squeal and run off, leaving their fellows in the mud.

I bring the hoe back up, but fumble. Maybe it’s the sweat, or the blood, but my hand slips off the end of the pole. Suddenly the weight and unwieldiness of the farming implement returns and I overbalance, dropping the thing to the ground.

I scramble to pick it up, still as heavy as a lump of metal on the end of a stick should be. But I’m not getting that instinct again. More goblins pop out from the garden, teeth bared and clubs at the ready. Shit. I hold the hoe in front of me again as they approach, but the feeling still isn’t coming back. The first goblin rushes me and I make a wild swing, which whiffs over the thing’s head.

It charges bodily into me, all scrabbling nails and sharp elbows. I’m knocked back onto the ground and the hoe falls into the mud. Another goblin joins the first and they both start swinging their clubs at me. One hits my arm and pain shoots through my shoulder. Christ these things are strong. I struggle to roll out of the way of their attacks and wobble to my feet. I grab at the hoe and bring it round just in time to block a strike from a third fucking goblin. I recoil, but manage to swing the stick again – completely off balance – and it forces the three of them back. I take another few steps away, desperate for some breathing room. I try to centre myself; How do I get that feeling back?

I swing at their heads again, though I only manage to strike one’s arm. The fucking stick is still heavy and awkward, why can’t this be an axe or something useful? My lungs feel trapped in my chest as I gasp shallow breaths.

The three goblins are spreading out, trying to get behind me – I didn’t think they were smart enough to try that. The other two circle around my vision, but just as they pass the corners of my sight line, I charge the one in front. It snarls and swings its club, but my reach is longer and I clock it in the jaw – it falls to the ground. With no time to lose, I grab hold of the hoe and try to swing it down like an axe. All of a sudden, the weight disappears. My motions regain fluidity. The hoe crushes the fucking thing’s skull. Its back!

My knuckles go white as I grasp the handle like a vice. Fuck me if I’m letting go again. I bring it round and strike the goblin to my left across the temple, then follow through to whip the others club from its hands with the wooden shaft. The first collapses – probably dead – and the second flees. All at once I’m alone.

I turn to see Lucien burst a goblins skull like a rotten egg, while Emmet starts healing him. I make my way over, effortlessly spearing the chest of a blinded goblin as it gropes blindly in the boys’ direction. I look around at the farm, scattered with dead or fleeing monsters. Emmet’s hands glowing softly with healing magic.

I look up at the sky, the moon faintly visible – still only one, still a familiar yellow. Standing beside two wizards, sitting in the mud and grime.

I plant the hoe in the ground and hold it there.

And my hands tingle.