“What news, your Eminence?”

Hylos frowned at the empty courtyard from his balcony. The courier behind him was young, judging from the pitch and yaw in his voice.

Was it fear that put that tremble there, Hylos wondered, or excitement?

Oh, to be young and at war.

“Dark forces rise beyond the northernmost gate.” Hylos said, studying the scenery below.

The courier said nothing, but he could hear the frantic scribbling of one taking notes. Hylos sighed, turning to look at the poor boy.

As he suspected, the lad couldn’t have been older than fifteen. His pimpled face frowning in open-mouthed concentration, with the unfortunate whisper of a mustache beginning on his upper lip.

Dark hair, low brow, a dagger of a chin… “Are you one of Demitri’s boys?”

The lad's dark, familiar eyes shot up to meet Hylos, before quickly averting to his parchment board. “L-legate Hallovan is my uncle, your Eminence.”

‘Demitri Hallovan, at the head of a legion,’ Hylos smiled. ‘Dark times indeed.’

He must have loved the boy dearly to send him all the way to Antyves. Or hated him. One could never quite know, with this sort of war.

The spoils of nepotism were a double-edged sword in the army. Hylos had known fathers to send their favored and disfavored sons to the front lines, both.

He supposed it was Demitri's sister that convinced him to send her child to Hylos. What was her name? She must have been responsible for burying the lad so far from the front lines he’d never see blood.

There was no glory, thought Hylos, serving as the messenger boy to a sad, forgotten old soldier.

He considered the boy. “I thought you might be. What’s your name, lad?”

The courier looked up from the parchment, stylus-hand hovering over it as though considering whether to put Hylos’ question to ink.

“Percy, your Eminence.”

“Put down the stylus, Percy,” Hylos waved. “I haven’t got any news worth writing, and if I did, you wouldn’t be the one writing it. Come here, lad.”

Percy came as he was bid, disappointment written across his face.

Hylos shifted, leaving space enough on the balcony for the boy. He gestured below. “What do you see, Percy?”

Percy looked down, and his eyes went wide.

The courtyard below was cordoned off from the rest of the estate, warded and walled from prying eyes. It would not do to have grubby fingers and dirty shoes on the Atlas. Even the people who lived and served on the grounds never got more than a glimpse of it.

“The Sunview map,” The gangly lad said, voice cracking. He craned his head over the stone railing. “It’s magnificent!”

It was, Hylos would admit, rather spectacular. Forty square feet of finely detailed cartography, showing, more or less in real-time, the entirety of the Pentarchy. Every man, every tree, every structure, and every creature. It was the most valuable source of tactical information in the entire realm.

It was also made almost entirely of gold.

Commissioned at the height of the eighteenth cycle by King Oriel of Enkhyria, in an attempt to bring a quick end to his cycle, and finished just in time for the twentieth. It was one of the finest workings of miracles and mage-craft to kiss the face of this country, and it saved the kingdom—and possibly the world—on two separate occasions.

It was true, however, that the funds that allowed the map to be crafted may have been better spent on food, housing, or perhaps the founding of an entire legion. It was also true that the Atlas had some trouble tracking airborne entities, bodies of water, and anything that moved in excess of five miles in an hour.

It also required monthly polishing by two monks of the Amaurotic Cult of the Eclipse.

It was, in short, a massive drain on expenses. No one could bring themselves to melt it down and sell off its pieces.

Hylos would, if he were permitted. Under the light of the midday sun, the wretched artifact glared brightly at him like one of the Gods’ own eyes.

It was the reason he was stuck there: pinned to a country estate, cursed to watch a war from a bird’s eye view—rather than stuck in the mud with the real men.

The pimpled boy looked at him expectantly, and Hylos withdrew from his thoughts.

“Its proper name is the Atlas of Antyves. You can see us there, at the southern border, if you look closely enough. Might even see the Atlas’s copy of itself, if you’ve got a looking glass on you.”

Percy didn’t. Hylos did, of course, but he wasn’t about to lend it to the boy.

“What lies on the northern edge of the Atlas, Percy?”

Percy looked at him, then back to the map, and back at him. “The Grenadine Sea, your Eminence?”

“The Grenadine Sea.” Hylos nodded. “Also known as the Hanged Man’s Haunt, the Amber Lake, the Dammed River, or—my favorite—the Rat’s Nest.”

“I wasn’t aware it had so many names, your Eminence.”

Hylos hummed. “There are many more names for it than that, boy. When I was in the army…”

Hylos’s voice broke off, and he frowned downwards. He was not, he reminded himself, in the army anymore. For all intents and purposes, he never was. His titles and accolades were surrendered in favor of a Higher calling.

He continued in a lower voice.

“Ask your uncle if he remembers the names we used to have for it, the next time you see him. That’ll be good for a laugh.”

“I will, Your Eminence.”

“And make sure your mother’s not around to hear them.”

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“Yes, your Eminence.”

Hylos sighed. “You keep on using that word. Do I strike you as particularly ‘eminent,’ Percy? Are you in perpetual awe of my grand personage?” He could not help the bitterness that crept into his voice as he swept his arms out wide like a great bird.

“Err—Yes, your Eminence?”

‘I suppose I asked for that,’ Hylos thought, lowering his arms. ‘It’s the robes, I bet. Any man willingly in robes has his head so far up his own ass, you have to feed him with a funnel—and he won’t thank you till it’s come ‘round a second time.’

Hylos shook his head.

“The Grenadine Sea has many names,” He continued, louder than was perhaps necessary, gesturing back to the Atlas. “Tell me, have you completed your education? Do you know your history, rather? If you don’t know your letters as a courier, I imagine we’re all doomed.”

The boy nodded, hesitantly. “I do, your Eminence. History and letters both.”

Hylos nodded back. “Good—very good. Tell me, where do the forces of darkness normally gather at the beginning of a cycle?”

“Um,” The boy looked from him, to the Atlas, and back to him. “The north, your Eminence?”

“The north,” Hylos agreed. “But where exactly?”

“The Grenadine Sea.” Percy said, with a bit more confidence.

‘Good,’ thought Hylos. ‘The boy’s getting it.’

“The Grenadine Sea,” The old soldier agreed. “The Rat’s Nest. After twenty-seven cycles—over three thousand years of fighting—the enemy always comes crawling from the northern mud. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

The boy looked unsure. “Yes, your Eminence.”

Hylos sighed, resting his folded arms on the balcony’s stone railing. “Every step of this war has already been made a dozen times over. They start with the north, then the west, then the east—terrorizing our borders, our farms, wreaking every sort of havoc that can be wrought before the Heros strike them down.”

The boy looked at him with wide eyes.

“I don’t mean to preach complacency,” Hylos assured him. “Every man has to protect his nation, and honor the Gods of his father. But what are we doing here, if not being complacent? To inform our kings of information that was carved in scripture millennia ago? Bah!”

Hylos’ attention was now fully on the Atlas. It shined below him like a second sun, but he stared at it, unflinching.

“I thought every cycle was different, your Eminence?”

“Superficially, maybe,” Hylos snorted. “The last cycle was fought with dragons, and look what happened to them. Not a one left on the peninsula. The cycle before that brought the dark elves out of hiding, and where are they now? Every circle of demon, every stripe of beast, and every flavor of mutant hybrid has fought against us—the greatest army in this or any world.

“We could be doing so much more,” He continued, in a low tone. “I could be doing more. We live in an age when farm boys slay devils with their grandfathers’ swords. When demigods and sorcerers walk the earth with the strength to lift mountains on high and crush their enemies beneath them. An age where any young man from the gutter can be a hero.”

He turned to look back at Percy. “And I missed it. By this much!”

He held his thumb and forefinger a hair’s width apart, rattling his bony hand at the boy. Percy, eyes still wide, flinched back a step.

Hylos let out a deep breath letting his shoulders slouch. He curled his fingers into a fist and pressed it firmly against the balcony railing.

“And now I’m here, pissing away the last of my time in this world while the young men get all the glory. What’s the phrase? ‘Wasted is the gift of youth on the young, experience on the experienced, and joy on the joyous.’ You’d think an old man would have made his peace with that by now, wouldn’t you?”

The boy opened and closed his mouth, looking wildly unsure of himself.

“I’m sorry, your Eminence.” He finally said, after giving a fair impression of a fish’s dying moments.

“Don’t apologize,” Hylos said, waving a hand at the boy. “It’s not your fault the Gods have a sense of humor. Besides, we’re in the same boat, aren’t we? There’s no glory to be had for either of us this far from the lines, lad.”

Hylos sighed once more, feeling the weight of a long life press down on his shoulders.

“I should have given you a warmer welcome to our gilded cage, Percy. But—mark me—if you’ve got an opportunity to leave this place, take it. You’re due for an adventure, at your age. Not this.”

Percy’s face transformed through a series of emotions that Hylos couldn’t read. He thought the boy may have been having a fit before he opened his mouth again.

“Actually… your Eminence,” The boy said, taking a step back from the balcony, and looking down at his feet. “I’m due for Blauwich. I leave tomorrow morning.”

“Oh.” Hylos blinked. ‘What?’

“I’m to collect public information from every settlement from here to the western coast for the Scribe Guild’s bulletin. It’s—err, ‘for the public dissemination of relevant, timely, and non-privileged information in these Dark Times,’ your Eminence.”

The boy smiled weakly whilst reciting—what Hylos imagined to be—the Scribe Guild’s mission statement.

“I see…” the old soldier said, nodding slowly. “I rather thought that…”

He shook his head. “Didn’t you say that Demitri is your uncle? He didn’t get you the job as my courier?”

The awkward boy shuffled his weight between his feet as if stepping in hot coals. “No, your Eminence. The Legate is my uncle, but I got this job from my mother. Guildmistress Hallovan-Ducourt? Arianna? You’ve met her on more than one occasion, your Eminence.”

“Hallovan-Ducourt?” Hylos blinked once more. “She hyphenated?”

‘Dark times,’ The thought came unbidden as he stared blankly at the boy. ‘Could not begin to cause the insanity I see before me.’

“The Hallovans… certainly have moved their way up in the world.” He said, in a small voice.

“They’ve made many friends, your Eminence. That’s why my mother put me on the western route. She figured people would be more willing to talk to me than a stranger.”

“I suppose they would.” Hylos looked the boy up and down, as though he changed shape, becoming a new person entirely.

The same awkward boy stood there, parchment-board pinned under his elbow, stylus held loosely in his hand.

“How much of our conversation would you be making public for this… Dark Times bulletin, Percy?” Hylos asked mildly.

“None of it, if you don’t want me to!” The boy said quickly, raising his free hand in a warding gesture. “If I published the things people told me in confidence, no one would tell me anything at all, your Eminence. No one’s expecting any news from here anyway: a description of the Sunview map, at most. People want to know that the place hasn’t burnt to the ground.”

“‘No one’s expecting any news from here.’” Hylos echoed.

He shook his head, frown etching itself across his face. “‘Burnt to the ground?’ This is the Atlas of Antyves! It saved the world from drowning in tides of blood and darkness—twice!”

“Yes, it did, your Eminence,” Agreed Percy, taking a step back from Hylos. “And if you want me to remind the kingdom of that in the next bulletin, I’d be more than happy to.”

“Get out.” Hylos scowled, stepping forward. “Out!”

Percy shuffled backward, shoulders raised as he turned to scurry away.

“I ought to tan your hide!” Hylos walked after him.

Percy scurried faster, and Hylos chased.