The lights on the ground burned. Across the manaforge ignited color behind grates, within creases, up and down the pillar and over the pedestal on which the forgestone now rested, slotted within a small central divot.
Pyraz regarded the void-tinged sphere. He clenched his fists and the projection of the Arcane Intelligence was smothered in his grip, but its voice still came from some unseen source on the walls around them, like echoed shouts through a long hallway.
“Place your hand atop the forgestone,” she instructed.
Pyraz held his left hand over the sphere. He was lost in deep thought. Rook flanked around the manaforge and watched the contortions on his face. This man, this ancient man, knew what he wanted. He saw it in his imagination.
His palm lowered to the forgestone. For seconds nothing happened, but presently the lights around them began blinking, the colors on the pillar grew brighter, and a sound like steam hissed from every corner of the central ring they stood in. Then followed the sizzling of a burn; Pyraz snarled in pain as the forgestone radiated cool heat, and not a moment later he pulled himself away. The flesh of his hand was burned by mana.
The second he was clear of the altar, the upper section of the manaforge’s pillar, its smokestack that reached to the ceiling, lowered downward. It was hollow. The forgestone was consumed as the machine became a solid whole, two halves screwed together. The colors grew brighter still. A banging came from within the forge. A noise like the chirping of a bird assaulted Rook’s ears. Tubes previously dark that ran along the walls and the ceiling revealed themselves and through each pumped liquid gold, red, blue, green, and all the party watched in awe—until the flow ceased.
The lights calmed. The blinking stopped.
Another hiss.
The upper end of the pillar raised once more to reveal the pedestal. At its center was the forgestone, now smaller, and arranged in a ring about it were pieces of a suit of steel armor. Heavy pauldrons, a closed helmet with a mask, a musculata cuirass, greaves, and plates for everywhere else; and across it all were etched lines of Manastone, blue engravings over the limbs, at every joint, forming a net across the entire suit when worn.
Pyraz shook off his burned hand. It didn’t deter him. He stepped to the pedestal at once. First he grabbed the helmet. He stared into the mask’s eyes. It was blued steel and utterly featureless—nothing but the shape of a man’s face. The attached helmet was in the style of the Old Kingdom, enclosing everything and topped with a colorful mohawk of horse’s hair.
“Remove all artifacts from the crucible,” the AI said.
Pyraz didn’t respond.
“Is this the armor of a Hypaspist?” Rook said cautiously.
“Yes.” He lowered the helmet and turned over a pauldron. Engraved into the metal was the snarling head of a dog.
“It seems so heavy,” Aletheia said.
Pyraz ran a finger along one of the Manastone lines. “It is powered by the aether. The armor moves itself. Help me.”
With that he equipped the armor. Piece by piece he was enclosed in a steel tomb. Rook helped him as best he knew how, yet the process was quite unlike a modern suit of armor, like the heavy protection Rook had worn in tournaments and during practice in childhood. Every inch of Pyraz was covered in metal. The process took half an hour, and by the time it was done he was quite changed.
He was two inches taller. He no longer looked human, but like a steel sculpture come alive, animated by mana. The shoulders and greaves were bulky, but the armor’s silhouette was otherwise slender, to perfectly match the contours of Pyraz’s lithe frame.
“You wore a suit like this in your final battle,” Eris observed.
“No. I wore this suit. This is my armor.”
“It cannot be this suit exactly—”
He put on his helmet. His voice came out muffled. “It is.”
“Do you feel different?” Rook said. “The burn—did it do anything?”
“Yes,” he said. He ran gauntleted fingers over one of his forearms. “I feel like myself again.”
“There you have it,” Eris said. “The price this forge demands is a small one. You need not fret. Give me the AI’s core. Good, now…” She turned to the manaforge. “It is my turn, machine. Are you ready?”
“Place your hand atop the forgestone,” the AI said.
Rook tapped Pyraz on the shoulder and went nearer to Eris. His jaw was clenched to think something still might go wrong. What artifact could be worth the risk of one’s soul? What might be so valuable? He wanted to grab her by the wrist, but he stopped himself at the last minute. And then…she placed her hand atop the forgestone.
The process repeated again. Hissing. Lights ablaze. Eris held her hand on the stone longer than Pyraz, gritting her teeth, humming in pain, until finally she relented. This time the process of the forging took but a few seconds. The pillar retracted and she stepped forward, and…
There was no staff. Of course there was no staff. There was only the forgestone. The forgestone, and…an orb.
Eris clenched her fists.
“What. Is. This.”
It was the size of a large egg and black and freckled with stars, like the fabric of the nighttime sky cut out and wrapped about a spherical stone.
“It’s an orb,” Aletheia said.
“That—” Eris sputtered. “That is not what I wanted!”
Rook leaned down at the altar. He stared into the orb. It was perfect in its purity, yet he saw no reflection in its surface. And then…a star streaked past his eyes. A comet through the night.
“We have come halfway across the world and this forge gives me—a marble?”
Rook grabbed the orb. It was freezing to his touch and weighed nothing as it rested in his palm. Then he looked to Eris. “What do you want most in the world?” he said.
“A staff, you idiot!”
“Why?”
“Because—a staff represents the power of the Magisters. It is how a magician channels her power. Without it I will never equal the strength of those at Pyrthos.”
“But that’s what you want most?”
“Of course it is!” She screamed in frustration. “The man who was a dog receives a suit of enchanted armor, while I receive a rock?”
Rook tossed her the orb. She caught it, but static electricity arced to her fingers as they touched the sphere’s edges. She dropped it to the ground. It fell six inches—
And stopped mid-air.
She froze. Everyone stopped to stare. As she rotated her palm, so too rotated the orb, until her hand faced upright toward the ceiling and the orb levitated over her fingers, suspended in the air.
Her right hand, the gloved hand still wearing her Spellward, traced the orb. In an instant the dark night sky was replaced by the blaze of the sun. She did the same again; the sun disappeared, and in its place was blue like a cloudless day; and once more, then back to midnight with stars.
“It is an arcane focus,” she said slowly. “A tool for casting spells.”
“Like a staff?” Aletheia said.
“No, though they are similar. A staff draws mana from the air to fill the lungs of the magician, as it were. An arcane focus assists what breath is already there. It directs it more precisely.”
“Like a trumpet,” Rook said.
She glared at him. “As a crass extension of my metaphor I suppose so, yes.”
A moment passed. The orb fell from the air. The stars went out. Darkness overcame its surface. For the first time Rook noticed the reflection of the nearby lights in its sheen. Eris caught it.
“That’s good, right?” Aletheia said.
Eris sighed. “It is not what I wanted. But…it may have its uses.” She looked into her own eyes on the orb. “Foci such as this are rare indeed. Unlike a staff, however, it will take practice to use effectively.”
“Then we have what we came here for. It’s rather time we left, don’t you think?” Rook said.
“Rook,” Aletheia said.
He hung his head. Then to Eris, “Do you feel changed?”
“Do I look changed to you?” Eris said. “I have told you again and again: the price paid once will not be noticeable.” She looked at him, then, rather suddenly, looked away, a fit of rage overcoming her. “Must you be so aggressively stupid at all times?”
Somehow he suspected his remark was not the true source of her frustration. So he smiled at her. “In fact you don’t seem changed at all.” But he knew how Eris was prone to twisting the truth. He reached for Aletheia. “Let me use it first. Just in case.”
That way he could make sure.
“Okay,” Aletheia agreed.
Now he was the one regarding the manaforge. Their forgestone at the pedestal’s center was reduced to three-quarters its original size. He thought briefly about what it was he wanted. What artifact he would prize above all others. A ward, maybe, to keep his friends safe. A suit of armor like Pyraz. A pair of manacles to keep Eris from running away…
He sighed—and he put his hand to the stone.
The burn was prickling numbness, like a limb that falls asleep. The sensation took seconds to appear then grew worse and worse until it was unbearable and he, like the others, was forced to pull away. When he looked at his palm he saw a manaburn, teal and blue across his callused hand, but it was only severe at the tips of his fingers.
By the time he looked up again, the hood of the forge had retracted. Tilted beside the forgestone sat a small half-sphere. He grabbed it.
It was made of bronze and very light. The sphere was concave, like a bowl that wasn’t really a bowl, and situated around its rim was a free-floating circular band. At one of its sides was a notch. All across the device were beautiful decorations of crows in flight, in a pattern Rook recognized at once from a tapestry hung in his father’s great hall.
Crouched in the corner, waiting to strike at one of the birds, was a cat.
Rook turned.
The band turned with him. It gyrated freely around the sphere, moving as he did, around and around as he raised it and lowered it. He soon found that if he held it near his heart the ring flattened itself; thus only the notch spun, like a compass searching for north.
“What is it?” Aletheia said.
“I don’t know…” Rook said.
He turned again. The notch came to a stop. The ring froze in place. He looked up.
Eris looked back at him.
“What?” she said, annoyed. “Do not tell us you have no notion what this device is.”
He smiled, but only for a moment. Of course he knew. A fragment of his soul, given physical shape by plastic mana, to reveal his ultimate desire. Yet what was it Rook wanted most? What thing could he never stand to be without?
It was no thing at all. It was Eris. What he desired more than anything in the world was to never lose Eris again. Now he never would.
“It’s a compass,” he said innocently. “It points north.”
Eris folded her arms. She didn’t believe him. “Is that so? Let me see it.”
“Later,” he said. He slid the device away into a pocket. “We shouldn’t dwell here all day.”
Eris shook her head, but the party agreed. Thus only Aletheia was left.
She did as all others had before. Soon the machine pulled up its hood. Her artifact was revealed. Rook wondered what this girl he loved so much could possibly receive. A sword of her own, perhaps. An Elven artifact. A ward against vampires. Every idea he had seemed too silly, too sentimental, and what he wasn’t expecting at all was for the manaforge to reveal nothing but a circular locket on a silver chain.
Not five seconds in this world and already it was patinaed and dull.
Aletheia grabbed it. She opened it by a switch at the bottom and gazed inside. She gasped and closed it at once, the metal snapping shut with a noise like an alligator’s jaws.
Rook jumped to her. “What is it?”
She put the chain around her neck, hiding it beneath her hair, and hid the locket beneath her shirt. “Nothing,” she said.
“How incredible,” Eri said, “we come so far to use the manaforge and half our party receives ‘nothing’ for the trouble.”
Aletheia didn’t respond. Rook would talk about this with her later, in private, where she could feel more confident.
“All in all the journey was worth it,” he said. “Not all artifacts are staffs and armor.”
“Only the most impressive,” Eris agreed.
“It’s two days back to Dakru. We’ve met one ooze already, I don’t want to stay here any longer.”
Eris glanced back at the forgestone. Now it was less than half its original size. “There is more yet to craft.”
“Eris…” Rook put a hand on her shoulder. He expected her to push him away, like she always did, but this time she hardly noticed. Instead her eyes stayed glued to the pedestal. “You said—”
“I am not afraid of intangible repercussions to the eternal ‘soul,’” she snapped. “We risk our lives daily for treasure. This is far safer a proposition than delving into abandoned ruins filled with scarshades. I will gladly use it again.”
“Eris! Even the Adjutant told us it wouldn’t be safe.”
“Adventure rarely is.”
“You don’t know what will happen.”
“We are soon to find out.”
She placed her hand on the forgestone.
Rook grabbed her. His fingers wrapped around her bicep, but she pushed him away with a burst of energy, not much, but enough time to knock him backward. Enough time to activate the machine once more. Enough time to for the pillar to close, and for the power to swell. Enough time to…
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Kill all the lights.
The room went dark. The manaforge fell silent.
----------------------------------------
“An anomaly has been detected at the central ring,” the AI said. “Protectors 15 through 21 have been deployed to investigate.”
Pyraz sent a flare of light into the air. He stepped toward Eris. “Idiot child.”
She kicked the forge. “Useless, ancient machine! Can it not do the singular thing it was created for?”
“Your greed will be the deaths of us,” Pyraz said. “Did you think the forge would allow you to use it again?”
“Yes! Why would it not? I have a long list of desires, dog, and one marble does not come near fulfilling them all.”
“It had already received the imprint of your soul. The same request short-circuited the vulnerable machine. It is too old, running without its pilot or its navigator, to handle your caprice.”
“You did not know that, and never would have had you slinked away like a wounded pup for the warnings of a demented machine!”
“Forget the forge!” Rook said. “Who has the AI? Eris? Tell the Protectors to stand down!”
“Damage to the forge has been sustained,” the voice came. “An inspection must be performed. Contact the Forgemagister to abort.”
Aletheia stood at the threshold of the hall opposite that from which they entered. Magma streams still lit the other end; and from that direction, from out the ring’s exit that led into darkness, he saw a cohort of machines on approach. They were empty suits of armor wielding axes and spears, walking like marionettes, and in each of their torsos glowed a managem.
Fifteen through twenty-one. Six automatons.
“Look!” she said. “Will they attack us?”
“They may attack Eris,” Pyraz said. “The intelligence of this place has been scrambled. We never should have been permitted access to the forge. It is impossible to know what the AI will do.”
“Then let us not linger,” Eris said.
“Eris is right,” Rook said, trying to be diplomatic, “back to the walls.”
Pyraz raised his hand into the air, his hand clad now in steel, and into his grip flickered a pollaxe. He took the lead. They jogged down the corridor where Rook was nearly killed by the Sentry Pylon, out into the ring, but as they turned toward the Oldwalls entrance, they saw the Forgemagister’s Protector waiting for them.
Thirty feet tall. Shoulders ten feet wide. It stood in the stream of magma and blocked their path out.
“An investigation is underway,” the words sizzled with arcane energy, the crystal in its torso blinking with each syllable, “report to the Forgemagister or be annihilated.”
“This is your fault!” Pyraz said to Eris. He ran a hand along the blade of his axe and charged forward. Rook had seen him cast spells regularly for months, but never had he watched this ancient Hypaspist join battle. He was nearly as fast as an elf, even in his heavy armor, and he dragged the pollaxe through the Protector’s shin. The blade did nothing, but whatever spell was cast on it tore a hole through the purple armored plating, ripping a gash that leaked blue liquid out into the stream of magma.
Pyraz landed on the other side. The Protector swiped at him, but he ducked out of the way, readying to strike again.
“Behind us!” Aletheia yelled.
Rook looked and saw three of the smaller suits of armor marching down the hallway abreast. Their footsteps were like the percussive movement of an entire army as steel met stone. Eris hesitated for a moment, then grabbed Aletheia’s shoulder.
“Shoot the crystal!” she said, pointing to the Protector in its battle with Pyraz. Aletheia readied her bow and did just as instructed, drawing an arrow, rushing forward, while Eris turned toward the hallway.
She let the arcane focus levitate over her left hand. From black reflectiveness, back to a midnight sky. Rook had no notion what to do against enemies like these. He lowered his blade and prepared himself, but Eris said, “Stand back.” She leveled her right hand toward the Protectors and let slip a jet of green fire. For five seconds the column on march was cloaked in flame—yet even incredible heat seemed to do nothing to slow them, their armor too tempered against heat.
She glanced at the orb over her other hand. The Protectors were mere feet away, but even still she did nothing but stare.
“What are you doing?” Rook said.
“Do not distract me!” she yelled.
“You have no time, Eris!” He looked over his shoulder to see Pyraz still in his duel with the impossibly huge Protector, so large that it was too slow to catch him. Aletheia came up close behind it and took shot after shot at the crystal in its chest with her bow, but although the crystal itself was large, it was only vulnerable through a small slit at its front, and when facing away from her nearly completely protected.
Back to Eris. Almost within striking distance now. One of the suits of armor pointed its spear as if to thrust in her direction—
The orb in her hand turned gray like a stormy sky. She stepped backward and made a motion like the throwing of a stone, like she was trying to flick the levitating arcane focus at the oncoming automatons as a projectile, but the orb stayed put; instead, like a fan of knives, there came a flash of gray from her wrist. It hit the three automatons nearest to her first and staggered them all at once. She made the gesture again, then again, and the same followed, and with each successive hit there was another flash—and the armor on the Protectors began to disintegrate.
First the three in front fell to the ground, their legs turned to ash. Then the three behind slowed. Their weapons crumbled in their hands. Their managem hearts flicked to dust. They collapsed. Then Eris made a gesture with her hand; suddenly all the fallen Protectors crumbled before Rook’s eyes. All their armor, their gems, everything—all was destroyed utterly.
Eris looked to Rook with a smirk. She took one step—and collapsed.
He caught her. “Someday,” he said, “we’re going to fight an enemy only I can kill, and you’ll be embarrassed then.”
She supported herself against him, finding his eyes. “I would not count on it,” she said softly.
They both turned to Pyraz.
The Protector swiped for him. He ducked, but his foot was caught in a stream of magma, and he was slow to pull himself free. Just as he dropped his axe to jump to the side—
The Protector’s enormous hand wrapped itself around his torso. He was lifted into the air. His hands found the automaton’s and grasped and dust flaked from its fingers, but it squeezed and Rook heard him shout in pain.
“Resistance signifies contempt for the project of humanity,” the Protector said. Its grip tightened. It shook him and his helmet fell to the ground.
Aletheia aimed her next shot. She whispered something in the arrow, then, just like in the arena at Sam’al, she let the bowstring slip. When the Protector turned the arrow flew straight into its crystal heart. The head bounced off the reinforced Manastone harmlessly, deflected into the Protector’s chest cavity, but not a second later there was a flash—
A golden explosion rocked the outer ring of the manaforge. Shrapnel of bluish-teal and purple armor rained down onto them, falling into the magma. One piece hit Rook in the head but he pulled Eris forward anyway. She was still slow, languid in his grip, and when he looked up he saw the arm of the Protector hanging in the air, so tall, three storeys up at least—and then it fell—and then…
It dropped Pyraz into the magma.
----------------------------------------
“Pyraz!” Aletheia shouted. He landed face-down in the deepest stream. Within seconds he was subsumed by fiery, molten stone. “Pyraz!”
She tried to grab at him, but she burned her fingers and was forced away. She called his name again but no response came. Rook let Eris down and came to her side. Now his head was submerged entirely. Rook extended his sword and lowered it as something to grab, but he knew it was too late. No one could survive that fall. Not even—
A splash. Bubbling. The pauldron of the Protector was carried past them in the current—and a moment later there rose from the stream the shape of a man of steel. Burning coals dripped off from him, sizzling against his armor, raining from his hair, and he was as unperturbed as if they were water. He took five huge steps through the viscous liquid before emerging on the other side, where he grabbed his helmet.
He wasn’t burned. Anywhere. Not an inch of his skin. Not even his hair. His armor had been scorched, its new sheen of paint damaged, but the worst of it was to his leather belt and cloak, both of which were burned to cinders. All else was fine.
Rook and Aletheia stared in awe.
A voice came from Eris’ pocket. “Protectors 1, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 are non-responsive. Please remain in the area while Protectors 22 through 75 are deployed to investigate.”
Pyraz put his helmet back on. As in their entrance he froze a portion of the magma stream for them to walk across, then gestured. “Come.”
Rook grabbed Eris around the shoulder. Together they entered the Oldwalls once again. Before long the calcified stream reheated. Eris stopped. She withdrew the stone on which the projection of the AI still manifested and gave it one last look. Then she flicked it into the lava and followed after Rook.
----------------------------------------
Spirits kept them awake all night. Howling pain, the echoing of distant shouts, calling of names and the last imperiled moments of a people long dead. No matter how harmless, Rook hated to hear them.
The party ate dry rations. This time Aletheia conjured for them a smokeless fire of gold; the others were too exhausted to cast any longer. They stayed silent for a long time.
“What spell did you use?” Rook asked at last. “To survive the lava?”
Pyraz still wore his armor. He had received blunt injures beneath his skin, but he kept them hidden. Only his helmet was off.
“Do you remember the sand of Darom?” he said.
“I remember it was hot.” Rook frowned. “But you were never bothered.”
“As I told Eris before. The Magisters gave me my name. With it came their gifts.”
“You can’t be harmed by fire?” Aletheia asked.
“Fire, nor heat,” Pyraz said. “Though I can still be manaburned. The Hypaspists were all blessed with protections. Enchanted manaserum was injected into us after our initiations. We were made more than men, so we could always serve the Regizar. Stronger. Faster. We live longer…though few survive the procedure. Hardly one in ten. It is…it was a test of loyalty to the throne, for only those willing to die for Him endured it.”
“…how old are you?” Aletheia said.
“I don’t remember.”
“One hundred?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Two hundred?”
“Not that old.”
“Technically you’re two thousand.”
He frowned. “Before they locked me away, I was older than all of you together. That is what I’ll say.”
A tormented howl streaked through the air, so slowly that it moved across their ears like something tangible. Their heads traced it as it passed them by. Then there was no sound but distant calls of pain.
They tried again to find sleep. Eris, perhaps taxed from her magic, may have managed it; she was silent on her bedroll, breathing softly. She always was a quiet sleeper. Pyraz rested against the cool walls. That gave Rook the opportunity he wanted to sit beside Aletheia.
When a noise echoed down the hallway she cringed. Rook pulled her into an embrace. While they sat together she withdrew the locket from the manaforge. She opened it with her thumb. She glanced within…
He watched over her shoulder. The locket’s interior revealed two pieces of glass that, when closed, rested against each other. Nothing else. There was no gold. No silver. No special engravings. Just two small pieces of glass. In the dim light he saw Aletheia gazing into her own reflection.
“I thought it would give me something exciting,” Aletheia said. “Like invisible rope. Or a gem that lets me fly.”
Rook laughed. “See. You should have listened to me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “This is better.”
He looked between the mirror and her face. “What do you see?”
She twisted the locket so that its two halves were horizontal to her eyes. She glanced back and forth between each. “Myself.”
“It is a mirror.”
“No. I see myself but—it’s a woman. She’s…old. And on the right she’s in a robe, and her hair is long, and she looks so bored. But on the right she’s someone else entirely. She has armor on and a sword and a bow and there are people looking at her like…”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Aletheia shrugged. “Like she matters. But they’re both me. I know they are.” She grabbed Rook’s hand and placed the mirror within. “What do you see?”
He was surprised at the suddenness and hesitated, but looked a moment later.
He didn’t see anything. It was only a mirror. But then…
There was a man on the right. It was Rook’s father, he recognized him at once—the long beard and the wispy white hair. He wore a diadem and sat in the Korakos great hall, in their throne, and there were people everywhere, courtiers in fine gowns, fat women and old men, and all about them were tapestries stitched with crows and busts of the family’s ancestors and guards with partisans in black plate armor. Sitting beside his father was the doukissa, an older woman with her own diadem, who had to be his mother in her rightful seat—
Except it wasn’t Rook’s mother. It was someone else entirely. A shorter, plumper, older woman, with dark hair instead of blonde. It was someone he had never seen before.
Only then did he realize that the man wasn’t his father. It was himself.
Rook exhaled. His hands trembled. He looked to the left.
He saw himself in metal armor. Bruised and beaten. A sword in his hands. He was scarred and middle-aged. Beside him was Eris, older yet no less beautiful, a staff in her hands. At her side stood a boy, sixteen, with brown hair and blue eyes, stepping behind her for protection; and at Rook’s side stood a girl, perhaps eighteen, a sword of her own, brown eyes and blonde hair.
Nothing in that vision confused him. He knew exactly what he saw.
He snapped the locket shut.
Two futures. Maybe two halves of the same future. Maybe one true future and one false, or maybe two lies that did nothing but tempt him. Somehow he knew it was the latter, and he hated this thing for showing him what would never come to be.
“What do you see?” Aletheia said.
“You’ll make fun of me if I tell you,” he said, looking her way with a smile. But he knew there was still sadness in his gaze.
“I told you!”
He pulled her tighter in an embrace. “Okay,” he said. “I saw my keep. Everything how it should have been. Myself as duke. And then…I saw my family.”
“Family?”
“Daughter and son and…wife.”
Her eyes went wide. She glanced over at the sleeping Eris, but only for a moment. “Do you think it’s real?” she said.
Rook took a deep breath. He hoped it was. He hoped both were. But he knew nothing about magic—only what Eris had told him. “No one knows the future. Not even Magicians. I think…it shows us what we could become, if we work hard enough for it. Not just what we want most—because why show two paths? No, it’s…it’s telling us we have a choice. It’s asking us who we want to be.”
“I don’t want to be a boring old lady,” Aletheia said.
“That’s why the forge chose this for you. Now you can never tell me that you can’t do your lessons again.” After a moment of silence he couldn’t restrain himself. “I would give anything to have them both,” he whispered. “Why can’t I have them both?
“No one knows the future,” Aletheia said. “Maybe you can.”
He pulled out the compass. The ring twirled about the central half-sphere for several seconds, before its notch found Eris.
“Maybe I can.”
----------------------------------------
There was no daylight to inform them morning had come. They had to give up on sleep eventually, and so they did not long after Rook left Aletheia’s side. Right as they began to pack up their things, Pyraz voiced what had clearly been bothering him all night.
“Why do you never learn?” he said.
A moment. “That remark is directed at me, I gather?” Eris said. She was still on her back, looking at the dark ceiling.
“Yes.”
“Only an idiot would leave a manaforge with so much plastic unused.”
“Only an idiot would push her luck after receiving a powerful arcane focus.”
The orb was out. She played with it atop her outstretched pointer finger. It spun around in circles inches above her nail. After several seconds it would slow, but with a flick of her wrist it picked up speed once more.
“There was no reason to anticipate the activation of the security protocols,” she said. “I did what was reasonable.”
“You used magic against your lover even as he tried to stop you.”
Rook looked away from her. That had been on his mind. He didn’t think Eris would cause any permanent damage to him in a fit of passion, but he had no way to be sure. Then again—was knocking him away with her magic so different from him using a man’s strength to restrain her? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know. He had been trying to keep her safe. That was different, surely?
“We are not lovers,” she said sharply.
“You engage in sexual relations.”
“Not anymore.” The words came one at a time, deliberately, the first high and the second low.
Pyraz waited a long time before responding. “Even after everything, you still think like a child. Your greed will be the death of you. You must learn restraint.”
“Spare your moralizing. I do not need it from a man who fell to his death two thousand years ago. It is thanks to me you are not still trapped in your prison, and thanks to me you are not a dog. Or have you forgotten?”
“I am grateful,” he said, yet Rook saw his face, and he wondered if Pyraz really was grateful. There was a look of remorse in his eyes. “You have potential still. But you need to learn, or I will not travel with you.”
Eris scoffed. “Then I will make your decision easy. I have told Rook already. I am leaving the party. Once we return to Dakru, we are parting ways. Forever, this time. Then you never need worry about my decisions again.”
“What?” Aletheia said, halfway shouting.
Rook sighed and closed his eyes. The time had come. Their last adventure together drew to its close. At least, according to her.
“You’re leaving?” Pyraz said.
“The decision has been made,” Eris said.
“You can’t leave!” Aletheia said. “We’re a team!”
“We are hardly a team. I do not even like any of you. And you do not like me.”
“You don’t like anyone,” Rook said quietly. “And no one but us likes you. It’s hardly an excuse.”
She lifted her head an inch and looked at him with a frown. Like those words imparted some meaning she hadn’t considered before. The expression held—and she winced, so much sorrow in her gaze—yet only for a moment.
“I cannot stay,” she whispered.
“You can’t leave,” Aletheia said again, this a quieter protestation.
“Leaving is…reckless,” Pyraz said.
“Reckless? You just threatened to leave if I was not less reckless!”
He frowned. “I didn’t really mean it.”
Here Eris finally sat up. She scoffed in disbelief. “You—are you all joking? You want me to stay?”
“You’re our friend,” Aletheia said.
“You hate me! And I hate you!”
“We’re still friends.”
“Friends? What—what are friends? Robur was my friend. You are simply irritating.”
“Friends are the people who come to your funeral,” Rook said. “People tend to gather them over the course of a life. Like magic items.”
Eris rolled her eyes. “If that is your definition of ‘friend,’ then I am happy to have none. If I die you may eat me for all I care.”
“You don’t have none,” Rook said. “You have three. Maybe even five.”
She groaned, loudly this time. “I cannot…fine, yes, you are my ‘friends.’ I would happily attend your funerals and eat meat pastries and sing merry songs of your wonderful achievements in life, such as when Aletheia proclaimed herself queen of the goblins, or when Pyraz the Dog ate the fecal matter beside the road in Rytus, or when Rook demonstrated that—he knew how to do many things—even without use of his arms—and it would be a wonderful festivity indeed. Yet all the same, I am leaving. You may send me a letter and I will be sure to attend to reminisce with your corpses on such good times, when such a day has come.”
“Why?” Aletheia said.
“Why what? Why am I so cruel to my ‘friends?’ Because ‘tis more fun, and it keeps imbeciles like you away. So you see, I am a terrible woman, and you shan’t need miss me long. Truly, we are all better off with me absent.”
“No. Why are you leaving?”
Eris fell silent. She bit her lip. She didn’t want to say. Of course Rook knew. He gave her the chance to say it herself, but when she replied with nothing, he stepped in.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “I should never have given in when you came to me that night in Nanos. I knew this would happen, but I thought…it’s my fault.”
More silence.
“He loves you,” Aletheia said. “You can’t leave him again.”
“Yet I am leaving him.”
“You love him.”
Eris shook her head. “That is why I cannot stay.”
“She’s made her choice,” Rook said. “There’s nothing we can do—except tell her how much we’ll miss her when she’s gone.”
“I…” she started. “…will break out into hives if I hear another word of this foolishness. Leave me be. I am not…we are done discussing this.”
----------------------------------------
It was a miserably long journey to travel in silence. Eris trailed far behind the others, preoccupied with her arcane focus at all times, and hardly a word was spoken. Rook thanked every god he knew the name of when they caught a glimpse of the sun, when they found sections of the Oldwalls where the ceiling had collapsed. Finally there was some hint of change. They were out from underground.
Snow was packed ten feet high in the corridors. The going was miserable. They still had miles left to go. But at night the spirits made no noise. They slept well, and the next day they arrived back at the entrance to the Spire.
The door to the portal chamber was open. Unlocked. Ajar.
“Someone has been here,” Rook said.
“Still wish to see your prison?” Eris said to Pyraz.
“No. Let’s go,” Pyraz said.
The door to the Spire had been closed. They pulled it open from the inside—its lock was not now and never had been engaged—and then they saw. A camp set out in the snow. Four tents. Five men. Their breath hung in the air. Each wore cloaks and hauberks of mail armor, over which were draped purple tabards embroidered with the sigil of a Magister’s staff emitting flame.
One man stood out from the rest. He wore enchanted plate, and as the door opened he placed a helmet with a cruciform visor on his head. Yet even as he did, Rook saw the red in his eyes and the strands of blond in his hair.
Lukon had found them at last.
He raised a glass vial filled with green solution. A drop of blood was suspended in its center. It shook violently in his hands. He slotted it into his belt.
“You should be more careful,” he said. “Without the cloak of a manashunt, your phylactery makes you very easy to track.”