“Deceit leads a man from a grove to a jungle.”

.[].[].[].

“Ah, my son! Five years is much too long!” Ernest’s mother wailed, giving the budding mage one last embrace before he embarked upon the King’s Road. “An apprenticeship is not worth such grief!”

Ernest took after his mother in his grayish black hair, amber eyes, angular features, and pale complexion. He certainly hadn’t inherited her height or build, however, for the top of her head came up to the bottom of his chest, where her face was buried. Reaching down and patting her back a few times, unable to return the hug because of the hulking briefcase in his right hand, Ernest smiled.

“Such grief is only a bit of worry on your end, mother. I’ll be sure to visit when I can. It won’t be too long,” he reassured her. She released her clasp and composed herself, patting down the wrinkles in her red dress and dabbing at her eyes.

“Of course, of course. But I must ask still, why Sunblotch, my son?” she pleaded. Not that Ernest could answer honestly - not without figuratively, perhaps literally, tying a noose around his neck. “That place is terrible! And with your condition, it is simply -”

“Mother.”

She sighed. “Regardless, stay safe on your journey, my son,” she advised, wringing her dainty hands. “Keep to the King’s Road all throughout. And I am sorry that your father could not be here to see you off; the Aureate Fist never rests, is what he tells me.”

“Of course. I understand.” Ernest glanced back at the horse-drawn carriage, squinting his eyes from the hanging sun. It was midsummer, and Ernest had always hated the kingdom’s blistering heat. Fortunately, the servants had finished packing his belongings, and he could return to the soothing embrace of cooling magic. The mage had applied the latticework on the carriage himself, in this case. He turned. “Well, I believe it is time to embark, mother. I’ll come back and visit within a year’s time, if all goes well.”

“And it will,” she sniffed, “because you will return at the first hint of trouble. I’ll not have my boy get caught up in anything untoward.”

Ernest simply smiled.

.[].[].[].

The smile fell off Ernest’s face the second he lost sight of Gravehill Castle, and he drew the curtains. Anyone could be watching.

He loved his mother, in the vaguest sense. She was a kind woman, happy with her lot in life, who doted on him to an absurd degree due to… certain circumstances, not the least of which being his status as an only child. But love was linked with respect, and he didn’t have very much of that for her - half of the equation was missing. It was more so vague sentimentality - an easily cut, fraying thread - that tied the two, in his mind.

Regardless, the mage grimly prepared himself for the three-and-a-half month journey to the Viscounty of Sunblotch. The King’s Road was a path that began at the crown’s Palace of Purity, swirling around in a spiral to grace every land of the kingdom - although there were extensions of the Road, tolled ones, that connected gaps in the spiral, so that one wouldn’t have to ride through the north to reach the south. It bolstered the economy and connected the kingdom.

It was also egregiously slow, for someone of Ernest’s inclinations. But traveling through bandit-infested countryside was hardly an alternative. Regardless, traveling to Sunblotch for his mage apprenticeship was necessary, and it was a course of action Ernest had decided upon after careful consideration - and after consulting a map.

One that he’d actually brought on his person, in a pocket of his mage’s robes, where it always was. Ernest unfolded the yellow parchment, splaying it across his lap and tracing the path on the Road he would be taking, familiarizing himself once more. Afterward, he took the opportunity to do the same for the reasoning of his apprenticeship’s circumstances. The central goal of it was thus:

To quickly, efficiently, majorly increase his magical power and knowledge on a vastly accelerated timetable. In that, going somewhere far, far away from the Vulcarian Kingdom’s center of power was requisite, preferably somewhere with festering corruption, crime, and regional turmoil - and the closer to the borders one went, the more such things increased.

The royal land of Eudaimonia, officially Crown Jewel Eudaimonia, was in the direct center of the kingdom. The Duchy of Gravehill - Ernest’s home, as a nephew of the Duke Gravehill - sat squatly east of this, being one of four demesnes that surrounded the Crown Jewel, and it was of a medium size and decidedly above average prosperity. War, economic downturn, crime, and internal strife were practically alien to the region. Blindness was a requirement if one wished to walk down a notable city’s street without seeing a guard or other form of law enforcement.

In contrast, the Viscounty of Sunblotch, the southernmost land of the kingdom and Ernest’s destination, had gone through three attempted insurrections - by bandit lord, unpaid workmen of the capital, and ambitious second son of the viscount, in that order - within the last two decades. There had been two instances of incursion by desert horsemen in the same time period, all only beaten back through luck and the timely arrival of the Aureate Fist. It was hanging on by a thread: the monster slayers had a decidedly minor presence due to low pay rates, the criminal elements ruled more strongly than the aristocracy, and there had been whispers of another rebellion just last year.

All of this suited Ernest’s purposes. It was perfect.

And, if it just so happened to have a history of necromantic takeovers, undead scourges, and lich overlords… well, it would be simply outlandish to correlate that to his motives.

Ernest picked up the hulking briefcase of alchemically cured leather and antesteel in between his feet, placing it in his lap. Unlocking the clasps - which required the fulfillment of three separate magical security measures - and opening the case revealed journals of Ernest’s personal notes, reference books for the application of latticework and magical arrays, experimental gems for the amplification and transmutation of mana, and other things of that nature. Resting on top of it all was a volume that Ernest had gone through unreasonable trouble to procure.

The Expatiation and Dilation of Varied Energies: A Study of Dynamism and Efficiency. Authored by Aldwyn Escutcheon II.

To Ernest, it was only proper to do some due diligence on the mage his five year apprenticeship would be under, and the best he could do to that end was read the singular dissertation to the man’s name. He had a little over three months to do so. Ernest cracked open the three hundred page study, noting the miniscule font and lack of array sketches as he flipped through.

Ernest sighed. He hated having to draw out latticework from vague description, geometrical equations, and proportional relationships.

.[].[].[].

A few months later, the budding mage exited his carriage and almost stumbled from a sudden wave of roiling heat and humidity. He could already feel himself perspiring.

Sunblotch had perfectly fulfilled Ernest’s not insignificant list of professional requirements. Conversely, it had failed to meet a single one of his personal preferences for comfort, even ignoring the fact that it was a destitute, crime-infested region in perpetual turmoil - and that was clearly showing now. As he began to fan himself with his hands, Ernest wondered if he should have completely ignored his own predilections.

If the midsummer weather of Gravehill could be blistering, then the autumn heat of Sunblotch was boiling. It bordered the sun-scorched Great Desert, separated by a sizable strip of mountainous elevation called the Carthapian Barrier, and was itself a humid jungle - of course it was hot. He’d known that. Expectation did not fully prepare one for reality, however.

With a dusty road of gravel beneath his feet and a crimson carriage at his back, Ernest beheld the four story castle he’d presumably be staying at for the next five years, barring unexpected circumstances and vacation time. It looked extremely out of place relative to its woody, verdant surroundings, being an edifice of black stone with three towers that lanced into the sky, but that was the last thing on Ernest’s mind.

He needed to enter the refuge from the mugginess. It undoubtedly had cooling enchantments in every nook and cranny.

“Markus,” the mage said, turning to the carriage. The driver, Markus, had been in the House’s employ since before Ernest was born, and he was at the latter end of being middle-aged - about eighty years old. Currently, he was unloading the couple of hefty trunks of magical materials Ernest had brought along on the journey, panting all the while.

“Yes, sir?” the man gasped out, placing the second of four trunks on the wheeled luggage carrier, as tender as could be. He stood up, wiped his brow, and turned to the mage. His young apprentice and presumed successor in retirement, Milius, continued unloading the packages with incessant grunting. “How can I be of assistance?”

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“I’d hope you could bring the baggage after me with as much haste as you can muster. I’ll be going ahead to meet Lord Escutcheon at the door,” Ernest replied, grabbing his own briefcase and patting down his state of dress.

He’d worn his most inoffensive clothing, not bothering with creating a remarkable first impression and instead making sure there wouldn’t be a negative one. They were a pair of formal black shoes, an ordinary pair of black slacks, and a white mage’s cloak with amber highlights that stretched down to just above his knees, covering his white dress shirt. His larger frame, an inheritance from his father, filled the robes out fairly well.

The mage felt like removing the cloak already, but that would have to wait until he’d nailed down Escutcheon’s demeanor.

“Of course, sir,” Markus nodded. “We’ll make haste.”

Ernest briskly turned and walked down the gravel path, in itself framed by towering monoliths of wood and moss, every tree tall as the hulking castle itself and rising from verdant undergrowth. True, the trail was as wide as the castle, enough that the scenery was not properly overbearing or imposing, but it was still much at odds with the verdant plains of Ernest’s home. Additionally, they’d heard chittering, hooting and everything else under the sun ever since entering the rainforests of Sunblotch, but near the castle, all was silent. It was eerie, somewhat foreboding.

Regardless, cowardice would get him nowhere. Ernest strode to the castle’s front, ascended the three steps to the exterior entryway - an alcove held up by two pillars of black stone - and thrice swung, firmly, the iron knocker against the large wooden doors.

THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.

Ernest hadn’t quite meant to be that loud, but it didn't matter. He waited a minute in stoic silence, then two minutes, to the point that Markus and Milius had finished unloading all of the baggage and had wheeled the carrier to right in front of the steps. They all stood there, sweating - and the rate at which they did so was increasing exponentially.

It was unthinkable that Escutcheon didn’t have magical surveillance measures and bounded fields to alert him of entrances on his territory. Ernest wondered what was taking the man so long. Despite the fact that it was potentially a faux pas to do so, he swung the knocker twice more.

THUNK. THUNK.

And waited.

Eventually, the door swung open, revealing a man who decidedly did not look like a mage. Ernest heard Milius gulp. He hardly blamed the dull-witted stableboy - the man before him barely even looked like a man. If this was Escutcheon, then the mage was a mess of discomfiting contrasts.

He was built like a strongman, with large muscles that rippled with movement, as shown when he crossed his arms over his powerful chest. The motion stretched back his short sleeved shirt of dark green silk, revealing a pale complexion to his bulging upper bicep - but the rest of his skin was tan, as if he spent all day in the harsh sun, something obviously untrue if he was a mage. Looming above broad shoulders was a decidedly effeminate face, with a small nose, round features, and assessing eyes of glittering emerald. The man’s hair, colored similarly to roasted chestnut, hung limply at mid forehead length - one would have expected it to be as feminine as the visage. His long, thick legs were clothed in beige workman’s pants, and while one foot was properly sized for such a burly build, the other was as tiny as his mother’s. Both wore boots of study black leather, with the pants tucked into them.

Ernest was baffled and immediately alert, but he clamped down on those feelings. Surely this was a servant of Escutcheon’s? Some abomination he kept in employment out of pity? Perhaps an unorthodox experiment gone wrong?

“‘Tis a pleasure to meet in person, student. I am Escutcheon,” murmured a soft voice, almost angelic in quality.

Full lips smiled at him. Ernest responded with a faint - false - smile of his own. Milius, the little fool, loudly gulped again, and he could imagine the dumb looks on his servants’ faces. Thankfully, they knew well enough to keep their mouths shut.

Ernest had obviously known of his lack of knowledge on his teacher - in fact, it was something expected and unavoidable, because his was no age of information, and mages tended to be somewhat secretive anyway. But to this extent? With the opening of the door, every fact of Escutcheon’s that Ernest possessed - from background to physical appearance - was suddenly thrown into disarray, contradicting and juxtaposing and such.

…Although, Ernest supposed all he’d known was that of the moderately sized - surprisingly - list of mages in Sunblotch, Aldwyn ‘Lord Lattice’ Escutcheon and Friederia Hogan-Yvdolla had been the two best choices. Ernest had chosen the former because his title implied either superior skill or greater connections than the latter, perhaps both, and that was all. Most of what had been thrown into disarray was less so solid information and more so reasonable expectations.

Ernest already had various questions. Firstly, how was Escutcheon’s appearance - in both the feminine and masculine aspects - so young? His magical dissertation, which Ernest had read a few times through the course of the trip, had been published seventy years ago. Mages lived hundreds of years, slowing down the withering of the body through alchemy and perhaps ritualcraft - but doing so to this degree was unthinkable. Similarly unthinkable was the sheer aberrance of his physical appearance.

Any mage who willingly lived in a hell like Sunblotch was obviously not normal - Ernest had expected that - but such absurdity was unprecedented.

Well… it wasn’t as if Ernest could back out now. The best he could do was aim to unravel this mystery.

“Yes,” Escutcheon hummed, his twinkling, appraising eyes no longer roving over Ernest’s form, “you are a fine young man. Come in. You’ve already received the details of your apprenticeship, indeed, I know, but things of importance should be discussed in person. Your servants can deposit your luggage in the door, here.”

Ernest nodded. “Of course, Lord Escutcheon.”

“Please, call me dominie.” Escutcheon turned on his heel, letting his beefy arms hang at his side, and briskly began walking towards the nearest set of stairs.

Ernest’s lips twitched at this form of address despite his raised hackles. It was something unequivocally native to the County of Contirini, his mother’s homeland, informing him of his teacher’s nationality. He had no issues with it. It meant something akin to ‘sir’ or ‘master.’

“Of course, dominie,” Ernest affirmed, following Escutcheon. He froze after stepping through the doorway, noticing the distinct lack of cooling enchantments.

It was just as hot inside as outside.

.[].[].[].

Escutcheon led Ernest to a smoking room despite the fact that, as both admitted in idle conversation, neither of them smoked. Ernest would have been surprised if the man did, considering the feminine - angelic - quality of his voice. He sounded like more of a maiden than any of Ernest’s female relatives, even more than the one young priestess in the House Gravehill chapel.

Regardless, in the smoking room they sat, wasting perhaps five minutes affirming what they both knew for the sake of clarity:

Ernest’s apprenticeship would entail one hour of direct magical instruction every day, and perhaps technically more if Escutcheon saw it prudent to include Ernest in any experiments or studies. Ernest was expected to procure whatever materials the man requested, from the nearby towns or otherwise. He was free to spend the rest of the time as he wished, though it was understood, in an unspoken manner, that Ernest would spend the time furthering his own skills and education. That was it.

Ernest found it acceptable. The direct instruction time was the most agreeable condition. More than an hour a day of direct instruction would be, frankly, a waste of both his and Escutcheon’s time - magic, at least in the sense that mages understood it, was a solitary study of memorization, comprehension of laws and theorems, the manipulation of magical energy, and such things of that nature, expressed through latticework, rituals, and arrays. The allotted hour was mostly in case Ernest required a personalized clarification of certain concepts, and for Escutcheon to check on his progress. Further, even an hour of one-on-one instruction with a skilled, experienced mage was superior to a week of learning for a peasant mage in the magical academies of the kingdom, hence the use of apprenticeships by the nobility.

The procurement of materials tickled at something in Ernest’s brain, though. It was clearly reasonable - lugging things around was about half the workload in an ordinary trade’s apprenticeship - but, if Escutcheon needed Ernest to get materials, then how had he been previously getting them? Likely there was a completely innocuous explanation - he’d need to ask - but the feeling was still there, and Ernest wasn’t one to fully ignore such instincts.

Regardless, the mage wouldn’t complain. The freedom the arrangement allowed was unexpectedly fortunate, and risking it would be foolish.

“Student,” Escutcheon hummed from his perch on the opposing couch, heart-shaped face pressed against a burly, veiny fist, “‘dominie’ rolls off your tongue quite pleasingly.”

“Of course,” Ernest nodded. “My mother is from the County of Contirini. She, even now, slips into her accent sometimes. I even used it myself as a child - I had to be trained out of it.”

“Ah,” he - although Ernest wasn’t completely sure at this point - replied, voice soft, smiling fondly, warmly. Ernest suppressed a shiver. “That would do it. If you are a Gravehill, then what is she, originally? Of the Count Contirini’s blood?”

“Yes. She, Maeve, is his eighth daughter.”

“And the ninth and final child is the first son. I suppose she was a throwaway,” he muttered, before turning back and smiling apologetically. “Ah, forgive me. Referring to your mother as such was uncouth.”

Ernest actually thought the same - that his mother was acquiescent breeding stock, and the most lowly of all her fellows at that - but it wouldn’t do to espouse such an opinion.

“I take no offense, dominie.”

“Who is your father, then?”

The conversation continued along such a script for a short while, breaking a bit of the ice between the two. Ernest snuck in some of his own questions as well, revealing that Escutcheon was the second son of Frodore Janus Escutcheon, the former - now deceased - governor of Luvidico, the County of Contirini’s capital city. He dragged out some other details - notably the fact that the elder mage’s magical specialties were in filigree and latticework, the exact same as Ernest - but most of it was useless. Ernest could care less that his teacher found Sunblotch’s environment and weather to be wondrous.

Thankfully, Escutcheon finished with the pleasantries after precisely fifteen minutes of such idle talk. Ernest knew this because of the time keeping arrays with various modes, able to be remotely changed via pulses of mana, inscribed on the bottom of his shoes. The function he’d set it to, in this case, made them shortly thrum, vibrating, exactly every sixty seconds after being activated. Given that the interruption came at almost exactly the fifteenth buzz, Ernest suspected Escutcheon had his own method of keeping time, albeit not as makeshift and crude as his own.

“I am afraid I have business to attend to,” the elder mage murmured, standing up. He turned to Ernest. “Your journey has been long, and undoubtedly you are weary.” Ernest was. Three months on the road was not a pleasant experience, and his stress was heavily suppressed, not nonexistent. “Retire and rest, child. Work will come tomorrow.”

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Work did come tomorrow, at the crack of dawn. Escutcheon confronted Ernest exactly five minutes after the latter broke his fast.

“Would you procure me my first set of materials?”

“Of course, dominie.”

“You are a proper young man. Then, there is the nearby settlement of Martine. A map of this region can be found on the desk near the front door. I require chalk and a bucket of iron shavings.”

“It will be done.”

“I know it will,” he faintly smiled. “But, in case of rabid wildlife or thieves, take these…”

Ernest exited the castle with a scent-dispelling bracelet, noise-dampening, waterproof boots, a wand that fired balls of force, and a glove capable of projecting a shield.

He did not bring his cloak.