They openly gaped, and the mill owner spotted them while overseeing the work. He walked over and laughed at them.

"Never seen a mage working before, boys?"

"It's amazing. He can do all of that at once?" Bezben said with some astonishment.

"This? This is nothing. Thad here can do a damn sight more, but this is all he needs to do right now. He comes up from time to time to fix the blasted waterwheel for me. I should really replace the whole mechanism, but the craftsman that builds these for us won't be back through for a few months, and I can't afford to send for someone from Orzii. Not that they'd show up anyway."

Bezben just looked at the man with confusion.

The mill owner noticed.

"Oh, sorry. Say, are you folks traveling through? I don't recognize you, now that I think about it."

Uzca jumped in to answer before his confused cousin had a chance.

"We are. We just came through the mountains. We're heading for Orzii to visit some family."

That had apparently been the wrong thing to say because the mill owner spit on the ground.

"Your family owns a mill down there? Thought you could come up here and have an innocent little look at our operation, huh?"

"Uh, no, sorry. We don't know anything about mills."

"Is that so?"

Uzca was about to exit the conversation immediately when the mage stuck his head around the corner. "I'm all set here, Pat. Want me to reattach the wheel?"

"Ope, give me a second, Thad. I need to check the saw brake."

To Uzca's relief, the mill owner forgot about them and jogged away immediately. The mage, Thad, turned to them.

"Can I help you two?"

"We were just admiring your handy work," Bezben said. Uzca didn't try to stop him. He had just failed at not pissing anyone off. Maybe Bezben would have better luck.

"Oh, this isn't much. Just a few basic cantrips. Nothing fancy."

"Cantrips?"

The mage held out a hand. A small flame appeared above it, then it vanished, and a shower of sparks took its place. Then those went away, and there was a loud pop from his hand.

"Cantrips. The simple magic that doesn't require any real effort. I have one to let me walk on water and one to levitate stuff. Although what I have in use technically isn't cantrip level. I needed to feed some mana into that one. The waterwheel was just a little too big for the basic version."

Neither Uzca nor Bezben had any idea what the man had just said. They shared a look.

Uzca decided that he would push his luck as long as the mage was chatty. Just a little.

"Wow, that's amazing. Where did you learn to use magic?"

"I studied at the academy in Telestria for a couple of years. Then I apprenticed in Amailesh with the priests of the Living God. I learned a lot, but they were a little too stuffy for me, you know? I like being out here, in the country. Salt of the earth folk and all that."

Uzca nodded along. "People don't get much saltier than my cousin here."

The mage laughed, and Bezben gave Uzca a look that said he had a magic spear with his name on it.

"Let me know if this is inappropriate. We don't have any mages where I come from, but if I wanted to become a mage, how would I start?"

Thad waved a hand as if to batter away a bad idea. "It's fine. Becoming a mage is no secret. If you have the talent, you can grow it and become one. You'd need to head to one of the empire's magical academies. There's the one in Telestria—that's the closest and the one I went to—and there are a couple more in some of the other provinces or in the capital itself. They can test you to see if you have what it takes, then educate you. That's really all there is to it. It's more luck than anything else. Getting in and starting training, that is. After that, it's all work ethic. Well, tuition isn't exactly cheap, but there are people who will finance a mage's schooling."

A voice called from on top of the mill above them. "Alright, Thad. You can go ahead and put the wheel back on!"

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"Whoops. I better get back to it. Take care, you two. If you decide to give magic a try, I wish you luck!"

"Thank you, your explanation was really helpful."

Bezben wanted to stick around and watch Thad reattach the waterwheel, but Uzca pushed him along.

"We should get out of here before the mill owner comes back down."

Bezben allowed Uzca to push him, but he smiled at his cousin. "What happened to your silver tongue, cousin?"

He didn't respond. The gibe was fair. He didn't know enough about the local politics or relations between towns to pretend he was coming or going from any nearby. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

They hiked up their bags and made good time out of town. The mill owner hadn't come looking for them, and no one in town stopped them to chat. Bezben struck up a conversation as they made their way into some of the forest surrounding the road out of the foothills.

"Are you planning on studying magic, cousin? Is the god's gift not enough for you?"

"I'm merely curious, Bez. For all we know, we wouldn't be able to learn this magic. We know precious little about the lowlands, though, so it pays to figure out everything we can."

"For what it's worth, I definitely want to learn some magic—walking on water? Never getting my feet wet again? I'll take it."

Uzca smiled and gave his cousin a shove.

"Oh, right," Bezben said, regaining his balance. "I almost forgot."

A white spear manifested over his head and shot at Uzca. Fortunately, Bezben had discovered he could dull the blade, so the spear just bounced off Uzca's head.

"Hey!"

"Remember, cousin, people don't get much saltier than me!"

With that, Bezben chased him down the road, laughing like a madman.

An hour later, the cousins, thoroughly exhausted, stopped for an early lunch. They ate the last of the smoked boar and wished they had kept more of it. It wouldn't have kept too much longer, but it was better than the travel rations. Even better had been the pastries, but those wouldn't keep either. Of course, that was more because they wouldn't be able to stop themselves from eating them. Still, they weren't great for the road.

They had passed some other travelers on their way so far, and now a cart slowly rolled its way up the road toward Donarin. It was a single mule pulling a small cart with just a driver. He had robes on, which was an unusual garb for the mountains.

The driver pulled to a stop near them.

"G'day. You two have the look of mountain folk about you. Coming from the peaks and through Donarin?"

Uzca wasn't sure what it was that made nearly everyone comment on them being from the mountains. He almost asked when Bezben preempted him.

"We are. Heading down toward Orzii."

"I see. What brings you two so far down the mountain? Your people usually stay where they belong."

The comment made Uzca's hair stand on end. This man wanted trouble, and he could tell Bezben was headstrong enough to give it to him.

"Where we belong? We're free folk and travel whenever and wherever we please!"

"Bez, come on, let—"

"Do you now? Sometimes a dog doesn't learn. Sometimes a dog forgets. Sometimes you need to teach them a lesson."

The man put his reins away and jumped off his cart.

"We'll see who the dog is, old man," Bezben said. To Uzca's growing horror, a white glowing spear manifested above his cousin's head. He could tell it was the blunted variety. He wasn't trying to kill some random man for slights against his home and people, but he would try to teach him a lesson.

"Oh! God tainted too. My lucky day!"

"Bez! Stop!"

Bezben launched his spear.

The man from the cart made a sour face when he slapped Bezben's spear away with his bare hand. The spear puffed away to nothing as soon as it was touched.

Wind began spinning around the man, and he grinned.

"God-tainted heathens on the road to Orzii. Just like the good old days. Let me show you what true magic looks like, heathens."

A blast of wind lifted Bezben off his feet and threw him into a tree. He was unharmed and started climbing down immediately.

"Look, sir, we don't have to fight."

The man seemed beyond reason, but Uzca had to try. He could fight if he had to, but he wasn't sure he stood a chance against one of these mysterious and powerful mages.

"Are you god-tainted too?" The mage sniffed the air like he could smell the answer. "I think so."

Power coalesced into a hand, and a lance of water shot out at Uzca. He had a choice, seeing it coming. He could let it hit him and knock him away. Maybe the mage would consider himself the victor after knocking down both opponents. He seemed to want to teach them a lesson, not kill them.

On the other hand, Uzca had never been one to give up or just take the easy route. If this man, this mage, insisted on fighting, he would learn what it meant to fight the chosen of Rethkam and Vandrias.

The lance of water met steel as Uzca's hand shifted, and he punched it. The mage's power couldn't hurt his metal hand, and the momentum didn't even stop his swing.

He rushed forward.

The mage's eyes widened briefly, but he regained his composure quickly. Uzca wasn't much of a fist fighter or a warrior, but he was an excellent wrestler. He went low, trying to get the mage's legs for leverage. The man was quick and had good reflexes. He dodged the grapple, and more power collected in a palm. Uzca could almost feel the power collecting there as well as he could see it. Something about it resonated with his gift. Perhaps the two kinds of power were related after all.

Instead of a beam of something Uzca could block, the mage erupted with a wave of force, pushing him back. With some space, the mage started pulling even more power together. Bezben arrived back, and Uzca bent quickly and scooped up his walking staff, passing it to his cousin.

"We have to get you a real weapon. Go left, now!"

Bezben reacted immediately, swinging around to hit the mage from the left while Uzca charged in for a direct attack. Once he had the mage's attention, he would pull the focus right and give Bezben an opening.

The mage had other plans. A cone of frost hit Bezben, freezing his feet to the ground, while another air blast hit Uzca, carrying him off his feet. He reflexively activated his metal body, focused on his feet, and quickly fell back to the ground. He still couldn't do anything, but at least he wasn't in a tree.

Bezben tried another light spear, this one significantly sharper. The mage battered it away once more.

"Not bad for a pair of savages," the mage said, a swirling globe of water forming over one hand. "Maybe when you wake up, drag your sorry asses back to the mountains where you belong. I better not see you here again!"

The water crystallized into ice and then split into two massive orbs of ice. The mage casually launched one at each of them.

With a vicious crunch, the orb collided with Uzca's head, tossing him back. Uzca's vision went black before he had even hit the ground.