Max sat and ruminated in his own thoughts of his loss, his decision not to go home, and what path he might take next.
A youthful man’s voice interrupted those thoughts and startled Max, “Hello there, Max.”
He felt like sinking down into nothingness watching his only friend walk away with the corpse of his only other friend. He already regretted not leaving first thing in the morning with Mathew. So as the young man uttered words of his name from over Max’s shoulder, Max still found his thoughts on the road with his friends and not in the present, “Max?”
Max turned his back on the departing Mathew, but he vowed that it was not a metaphor. “Yes. What can I do for you? Before you start, know that I have been released from service by Lord Gadarax.”
The young man waved one of his hands in a motion of dismissal. “I understand and that certainly only helps my business rather than hindering it.” The man’s robes shined with gold trim along the edges of the robe and of the pockets. The deep blue color looked almost a shimmering purple in the bright sun light as clouds parted overhead. The robes possessed such bulk that the probably thin man must have many items concealed in those robes.
“Well, how do you know my name?” Max huffed with impatience, distracted of the thoughts of Brian’s passing and his mourning.
“You could probably answer that question yourself if you think deeply about it. I will make it easy on you, though. I have sought you out to aid you.”
“I’m not sure I follow your logic.” Max leaned back and thought about any connection in memory of a man in a set of robes. “And aid me? In what? Who are you? What’s your name?”
“I am a pragmatist, Max. That means, I believe in the here and now. I believe in what I can feel and touch. I believe in what I can see and measure. With those words, I hope to bring to your mind that I am sided with you. I want to protect you and help you along on your journey.”
“Your name? Does this have to do with that prophecy business?”
“In fact, it does. From my side, that prophecy business doesn’t mean all that much. What it does mean practically, is that someone is out to get you and treat you as less than the being that you are. That or they will prop you up as some sort of heretical idol to their cause. Either way, trust me; you want to have no part in it. That is, of course, your choice to make.”
“Who is this they? People talk in the greater world in such obscurities.”
The robed man shrugged, “There are many forces in this world that seek advantage, the Beckerans, the Terpen Collective, the Old Sargovian Empire, and you just witnessed two others, the Dumar Citadel and the combined forces of Rotheburg, Burklyn, and the Numak Districts, in so much as they were actually present here. You see, most of these forces were of mercenary origin. Fighting the Dumar Citadel is an unsavory task best left to conscripts and professionals.”
“Why you, I lost a friend, a so called conscript, in that fight.” Max balled up his fists to the point that his fingernails could have drawn blood.
“I’m not stating that my opinion is in agreement. After all, I was here fighting the good fight as well.”
“Well, I was just traveling the world outside of my home more from an unofficial banishment than anything else. That seems just petty enough a reason now, forced into conscription.” Max looked back over his shoulder at the mule that carried the body of Brian, not able to make out the distant details any more. “I was looking for adventure, instead I got to watch and experience the death of a friend. Maybe I want to have a destiny and to be important. But I wonder most of all if I’d just like to go home.” He shot this man a glance. “Your name?”
“Everyone wants to be important, and you certainly can be without having a pre destination to your path. That is what destiny is. Destiny is a lack of choice. It is the lazy man’s way to justify his path through to its conclusion. Rather than using sense to choose a path, someone chooses the way that is expected of him or her.” The robed man shrugged. “Alas, who am I to say, but Enchoron I am and that is who it is to say.”
Max nodded. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I guess.”
Enchoron extended his hand with an open palm. Max simply looked down at it, almost in confusion. “It’s there for you to shake with your own hand as a sign of welcome.” Max shrugged and grabbed Enchoron’s hand, shaking it almost violently in a way of obvious lack of understanding.
Enchoron laughed and stifled that laugh quickly. The expression on Max’s grew grimmer by the second. Max then let go of his hand and looked around. “I don’t plan on staying here with these people any longer. If that was your intention, now is when we part ways.”
Enchoron looked around at the soldiers, nurses, and aides that sat by the dying embers from the previous night. “Actually, I would be quite glad to get out of here. I think I probably made a few enemies out of friends back there. I’d rather put a few leagues between them and myself. Not that they’d try to kill me, but I’m sure they would love to make my life miserable.”
Max pulled his pack up off of the ground and stretched as he stood up. He started taking first hesitant steps that then grew more sure as he walked down the road in the direction opposite of Mathew. Farther away from the things he knew, he chose to walk. Enchoron obviously didn’t expect him to so quickly start his journey away from this place. He looked around towards the camp, thinking quickly, then picking up a brisk walking pace to catch up to Max.
The two of them walked briskly. Max could not hold back at least a couple of tears. As he walked, he thought about so many things from his past. His childhood home had been so predictable and safe. Every step that he took seemed to add more unpredictability to his future. He welcomed the thought of separating from those he cared about and from the events here. Deep within, he hoped to trust in Enchoron’s perspective that someone’s fate wasn’t predetermined.
He did not want to believe that a greater power determined fate. From what he’d heard on the road, some thought the now dead ‘Creator’ determined the course of the entire world then and the entire world to be. He glanced over to Enchoron, who caught up, “I’d like to believe I have a choice. Is there a way to take your path and learn to determine my own steps?”
“There is bravery in what you are doing. People will be hurt. That is inevitable. We must all choose a path that will harm those around by the least amount. Sometimes, in the short term, it may appear that we are harming more than helping, but we cannot see the future.” Enchoron did not seem out of breath. His youth, like that of Max’s blessed him with great endurance, and the way his possessions clung inside his robes, made him seem a traveler of many paths. “If it’s alright with you, I may just travel alongside you, study, document, do my usual. I’ll be here if you need. I am not pushing on you in any way. I am just here to offer insight. I will offer guidance if you so desire it.”
“Right now, silence would be nice.”
Without another word, Enchoron simply nodded. He walked along side Max. Finally, when the camp was completely out of sight and no sound of hammer on sword could be heard, Max stepped off the side of the path and sat down on the soft ground. Enchoron waited to see if it was a brief stop before he settled in on the ground next to the path.
Max thought back to Belka and how worried she must now be. He thought about his parents that probably barely kept him in their thoughts. He remembered The Brigand who first appeared to be a kidnapper, then appeared to be a friend, but no, indeed he intended to be harmful to Max. Then there was Phaedra, she was kind. She taught him about the Old World. He would be walking much more blind then he was without the guidance she provided. Her willingness to walk away from him was proof that she had no ill intentions with him.
“This might be a kind of pre-determination, but I have a friend that told me to meet her up this way we travel. But how will it be just my choice if she already planted that idea in my head. It sounds like that could be me following my fate.”
Enchoron smiled gleefully and seemed glad to see Max thinking about going forward. “Well, in my shoes, I use all available information around me to come to the best course of action. So in that case, my eyes tell me a good deal about what is going on, then I use a few other sources,” he patted his robes, “determining which way best suits my goals, then start walking that way. And through that, I’d say if you do have a friend on the path ahead, that knowledge is part of the available information.”
“Then I suppose,” Max examined a twig that he picked up off of the ground. “I’ll use that knowledge to help me make the next choice and your knowledge beyond that.” He pointed the stick at his new traveling companion. “Do you think there is any way my friend, Mathew, might catch up at some point?”
Enchoron looked down the path, back the way they came. “If he has such an intention in his thoughts, and you leave him the opportunities to do so, the chances become much greater.”
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Max and Enchoron remained quiet until the night grew late, and they put the journey on hold for some much needed rest.
More idol chat followed and the two became a little more comfortable with each other. Max shared the tale of his abduction and rescue that brought him out of the small hamlet community into the greater whole of the Old World.
“Tell me, why during the time of harvest celebrations did you find yourself all alone and so able to be kidnapped without the others spotting what happened?” Enchoron prodded.
Max hesitated, “Well, you see, I guess I could bring that to a story from very early in my life.”
“Go on.”
“It might sound strange. I guess I was a bit of a curious kid. I chased this beautiful butterfly away from the fields where I played with the other kids. I caught it and it fascinated me how it came together. I took it apart, first wing after wing and then I grew curious how the insides felt. I squeezed and crushed the body of the remainder of the bug. It made me think about what little power this tiny being had in its chances at survival.”
“We all do strange experiments as children that we wouldn’t as adults. Young gods are much the same in their experiments with power. That’s why it’s best to be wary of the young of the Shardborn and at least one argument the worshippers of Nobilis can attest to as to the wisdom of their choice.”
“Well, sure, but this girl was watching me the whole time. She saw what I did. She thought it was disturbing and gross and she let me know as much. She didn’t just let me know though, she made sure that all the children knew that day to all those out at play. The stories grew from there and even some of the adults heard blown up tales of my strange and cruel curiosity. It devastated me. I always knew how they judged me with their glares. I never did fully recover.” Max shrugged.
“Max, your parents must surely miss you and hope for your safety.”
Max snorted as he finished a sip of water out of one of Enchoron’s fine wooden cups, “Not a chance. Nor do I care. I’m much more content to be out here on the roads, finding my own way than seeking comfort or guidance from them. They’ve not been kind to me.”
Enchoron offered a small flagon that previously only he had imbibed. “My mother, Adayla couldn’t have been a kinder mother to me. I wish you could have had such an experience. All the same though, I still had to leave her for the world beyond. I feel she taught me the greatest lesson, the kindness of the human heart. Unfortunately, my thirst for knowledge far outstripped anything she could teach me.“
Max took the flagon, sniffed it, and took a small swig. “I think my parents wanted to love me and they tried, but my ambitions may also have outdone their abilities.”
“Well, that’s certainly understandable, because I do believe you have a great talent possessed by a miniscule few. I was sent to the tutelage of the Wizard’s Council who assigned me to the understudy of my master, Maren Dawn. From him I learned about the world, its secrets, and how to be a wizard. At first, it was incredibly difficult to be without Adayla. It took several cycles to finally understand, this was a necessary thing.” Enchoron’s eyes watered ever so slightly, only enough that an untrained eye would have missed it, but Max did not. Then, as quickly as Enchoron’s eyes showed variance, he went stone faced and returned to his previous stature.
Max still didn’t trust Enchoron, but he did seem friendly enough. Max reached out with his empathy to the other man’s feelings, but Enchoron did an incredible job at guarding his emotional state. The scan didn’t feel to Max like when he reviewed the ‘automaton’ where there were no feelings at all, Enchoron’s mind seemed muted somehow. Max eyed Enchoron and wondered what this could mean. The other man looked back with a knowing glance.
Enchoron eyed Max knowingly at the end of each stanza of their conversation. He had to have known that Max attempted to look beyond the surface and read him. Max respected that he didn’t overreact or mince words with him about these attempts. After all, Max did not get too terribly much from that, though the stories interested Max.
#
The two of them finally got back to traveling the path when sounds of soldiers on patrol disturbed them. Max picked up the pace, more than eager to get away from the scene.
After picking up Enchoron’s wagon, farther down the road and mysteriously from a well concealed hiding spot, they traveled for several days. Max’s new traveling companion shared very small snacks in the morning and around dinner time each day. He could feel a positive effect upon him. He felt less fatigue. He felt stronger and more easily able to get each day started. This man quite literally had tricks up his sleeves. Max could not believe that morsels so small as the size of one of his finger nails could actually have this much effect on him.
Max should’ve been starving.
During their breaks, Max returned to keeping to himself while Enchoron read from ancient leather bound books. When the two talked, Enchoron would gladly engage in the banter. When Max didn’t initiate conversation and no immediate questions needed resolving, Enchoron would pull out a strange device that would glow. He would stare at it for lengths of time. Sometimes it would be a momentary glare and other times he would stare for what seemed like hours. At night, it would light up his entire face. Max’s eyes ached from just brief glances at the glowing orb. He found it perplexing that anyone could stare at a single light so intensely for so long.
“What is that light that you stare at so often? It’s a strange habit to me.”
“You are not alone in that. Most common people, not that you are common, refer to this,” he motioned at the device in his hands, “as magic. It is not merely a light, although it might be useful to provide such in a time of need. No, this device contains many tomes of knowledge that I study with vigilance. I like to know my enemies... and my friends.” He motioned slightly with the device towards Max. “I could teach you how to use it if you would like. Also, you must possess the lack of concern and fear that others might shun you and your presence.”
“Could you explain to me, why do so many people see these things as magic and others call them something else?” Max scooted around the small fire. Just a few feet away from it, the chill air bit at his exposed skin, thus he stayed rather close.
“Of course! Magic is essentially a term that people use for something that they cannot explain. They see something done and they wonder, how could this be? There are typically two ways to explain these instances. The first is that it is a divine work or miracle. The second would be that it is magic. Magic to the common observer, simply is. It simply works. There is no way to observe it and take its component parts and replicate it. I understand how this device works. I understand that there are reasons why it functions the way that it does. That is what makes it technology.”
“This whole world is just about magical to me if that is the case.” Max scooted just a little closer, feeling slightly more comfortable with the light being emitted from the orb. He chuckled nervously.
“We’ll fix that. You are a bright man. You are a little behind though; there is so much to learn. There were times past, some believe several ages past where everyone understood devices like these. The age previous to our own is one such age. Another is theorized to be before the Shattering, when the Creator died.”
“It sounds like there is some kind of natural cycle at work. These things come and go.” Max contemplated.
“You are perhaps right in that my friend. Some believe that these ebbs and flows in the ages are a work of the god known to many as Vanusiil, the lord of portals. It is believed that he keeps the flow of the world through time in line now that the Creator isn’t around to perform that role.” Enchoron turned off the light device and put it away under his robes. “We have a good bit more of travel to do before we get to the next town. We may want to contemplate resting at this time.”
“I assumed that you wouldn’t believe in the Creator that I have heard others speak about.”
“That may be. I would say, I must believe in him, as I have seen evidenced in this world... so many signs of those that were once Its servants. Now though, Max, it is probably best that we get some rest. Who knows what tomorrow will hold for us?”
Max yawned. “That sounds like an excellent idea. I’ll see you on the other side of sleeping.”
“Enjoy your travels through dreams, my new and most gifted friend.” Enchoron smiled, his words as sincere as his shining white teeth, but they were also said with a light hearted side.
They slept soundly that night, beyond the sounds of the tinkering of smiths and the practice slashes of soldiers’ swords. In the morning, they were both awakened by the sounds of soldiers marching by in formation. It was not the whole army, but a decent sized patrol. Upon seeing the soldiers again, Max quickly packed away his few belongings and Enchoron did his best not to slow Max down.
Max thought that he would never see anything except for empty land and sparse farmsteads as they rode along the road. Finally, after days of travel, a vast and unfamiliar sight sat distant upon the horizon via the path. The flat ground along their path allowed for them to see for many miles distant. And as they continued their journey, for almost an entire day, Max could see spikes of grey and brown standing tall and vast on the horizon. He did not have the ability or knowledge to know what it was.
“What in the Old World is that?“ Max asked his new mentor as he motioned at the jagged object that stood up on the horizon.
Enchoron chuckled, “You’re still so innocent Max. It’s a good thing you’ve got me. Someone else would take advantage of that. That’s the city of Rotheburg, and really, that should be our next destination.”
After a long exhale of breath as Max panned across the entire width of the city, “That’s Rotheburg? Well, that’s where my friend requested that I meet her if I left home.”
Enchoron possessed a knowing twinkle to his eyes as his eyebrows raised high on his forehead, causing deep creases up to his full hair line.
A city! Max only heard of cities in stories. He thought they were another object of a distant past. Something that was left behind in the previous ages in exchange for a large number of hamlets. The idea was absurd, but he never did have anything to compare the hamlet to, except in his imagination. As the city grew in perspective on the morning that they would actually arrive in the city, his breath was truly taken away. There were massive stone towers standing up through the mists. He never saw such a heavy mist as that which surrounded the tall hewn walls of the city. The tall outer walls of the city stood at many times Max’s height and reached out from the left and right of the gate for, to Max, an unimaginable distance. Back home, he never experienced anything that was so massive to block the view like this. Max blinked a few times and strained to see up into the towers that punctuated the far ends of the wall.. Though the ground continued to be quite flat, the heavy mists that hovered around the first dozen feet from the ground crawled out from the city walls out to the horizon. Max thought, there must be no way around the city without entering the mists. Of course, that probably was not true and he realized this. That was no changing the feeling in the pit of his stomach. The most notable feature of the southern wall of Rotheburg pushed out beyond the crawling mists to ground level some hundred yards or more from the city walls.
“The Rotheburg Ramp, that’s one of the only safe accesses to the city. Notice the quite memorable halberds and glaives, some carved of stone and others made of ancient tempered steel. They’ve punctuated the extents of the ramp for nearly a millennia. This whole thing is a tribute to the war god Roegar and also to one of Darioon’s three loyal chosen, the blessed Roth.” Enchoron motioned to the dangerous looking pillars on the edges of the ramp.
Max had to agree that he would indeed remember the dangerous and powerful design for many days to come. He stood, bumped occasionally by the constant traffic that traveled constantly through the gate of the outer wall, up ahead.