I took it. So it was that, muttering just under my breath, “‘You’ve already had the benefit of my counsel,’” I rode through the city gates later that morning.

No one noticed me. The Sorcerer’s undead hadn’t yet taken control of the gates. Maybe, they didn’t mean to, since the only people using them were those running away. Certainly, no armies had rushed through to fight the invaders.

Because no one was coming to our rescue. So I supposed there really wasn’t a hurry.

Still, I got out while the getting was good. I didn’t plan to go find any priests or abbey or anything like that, but I did need to make tracks. If I couldn’t book passage out of the country, the open road would have to do.

At least, that’s what I’d made up my mind for. But pushing through the great throng of humanity, of horseback riders and people on foot and in carriages, of orcs and elves and men, I turned to the next obvious question.

If not the abbey, then what? It wasn’t as if I had a lot of options. The longer I held onto the scepter, the longer I stayed a target for the sorcerer’s minions.

Plus, I couldn’t entirely shake Artemus’s comments about the scepter’s importance. Not that I believed it could help the defense effort or anything. It was just an expensive bauble.

But maybe it could be a rallying point or something. Artemus had sure been wowed by it, and so had Jerkoff.

I shook my head at the memory of the squire. So young, so full of zeal and patriotism. Willing to risk his life to avenge his king.

Dumbass.

Still, I hoped the dumbass had gotten out of the city already. Gotten somewhere safe, either headed to the abbey or come to his senses and just kept the letter opener. Unlike me, no one else knew about his part in the business. There’d be no hordes out looking for him.

He could be a rich man, if he played his cards right.

But me? The longer I thought about it, the more it seemed the only thing in my future was death. As long as I held onto this stupid scepter, anyway.

I could ditch it somewhere, of course. But that would do me no good. As long as the Sorcerer’s men thought I had it, I was in danger.

No. The only way I’d get the Sorcerer off my back was to give him the scepter, or give it to someone who would take the heat off of me.

Now, I’m a self-serving opportunist, and I make no bones about that. But there are lines that even I won’t cross.

Condemning all of mankind to a demented necromancer? No.

Foisting the most radioactive bauble in the universe onto a poverty-stricken priest? You’re damned right. It wasn’t like I was going to sugarcoat it. If he wanted to have the hordes of the Sorcerer on his tail, well, I’d be free and clear, and he’d be happy. For a little while, anyway.

I chose not to think about what came after that little while. That was on the abbot, and his choices. I could wash my hands of the whole business at that point.

I reached this conclusion shortly before myself and the throng of refugees with whom I traveled hit one of the rivers. A large stone bridge spanned the distance from bank to bank, and the procession started to cross in an orderly fashion.

I leaned over to speak to a green-skinned orc keeping pace beside my horse. “This is the Aesel, isn’t it?”

He blinked up me with dazed eyes. They all looked like that, the people around me: confused, bleary, terrified. To me, this was just a place I’d lived for a while. A place that smelled like cat piss, in my little corner of it anyway. But this was their home.

“What?”

“This river, what’s it called?”

“Oh. It’s the Aesel.”

I nodded, glancing beyond the road, beyond trees and meadows, and up toward the mountain beyond.

The Gray Mountain.

Artemus’s voice floated through my thoughts. ‘At the foot of the Gray Mountain, where the rivers Mankith and Aesel meet.’

I could follow the Aesel back from here, and it would take me right to the Mankith and the abbey. I could be rid of the wretched scepter.

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Or I could try to blend in with the rest of these people. Maybe I could find a fence somewhere out there, in the world beyond the city.

Reining my horse to a halt, I let the orc go past with the flow of traffic. Heads bobbed by. Carts rumbled, and the odd driver shouted at me to move or get out of the road.

“Make up your mind, dammit,” someone snarled, whipping a pair of oxen savagely to push them past me. “Or stay off the road.”

‘It is a powerful relic. Perhaps it may even turn the tide in this invasion.’

I made up my mind. Cursing myself for a fool, I pulled off the highway to make for the abbey.

No one seemed to notice. At least, they didn’t try to stop me. But why would they? We were strangers, all intent on our own escape, pursuing our own version of safety. Whatever that looked like.

For me, apparently, it involved giving up the most incredible treasure I’d ever seen much less held, on some harebrained idea that a shiny trinket could stop an invading army of undead.

I was a moron. No doubt about that. But at least, when the scepter inevitably failed to save the day, I’d be a living moron, somewhere far, far away from the Sorcerer – and long forgotten.

The Aesel ran through lush meadowland, past great, prosperous farms, cutting across woods and glades along the way. I followed it backward, the mountain looming larger and larger as I went. Now and then, when the cover of trees grew particularly close, I would lose sight of it altogether. Then it would reappear, bigger than ever.

I spotted no signs of pursuit as I went, heard neither voices nor those morbid undead shrieks. As far as I could tell, I’d gotten away unnoticed.

Still, I didn’t stop to test the theory, but rode on through the night stopping only to give my horse a rest while I answered calls of nature.

The moons shone bright and silver. Three moons tonight, each at their zenith. A good omen for a coronation. At least, that’s what the soothsayers and priests had promised in the days leading up to the event.

So much for that. Now the king lay dead, and his people scattered while the undead destroyed their city.

It was a mess for sure. Or, a ‘fine kettle of fish,’ as the people of the Realms liked to say. Not quite as colorful as Earth’s ‘sticky wicket,’ maybe, but evocative all the same.

More so than sticky wicket, I decided, since I had no idea what it was supposed to mean. I vaguely, and perhaps wrongly, thought it had something to do with cricket.

Or is it croquet?

Eventually, I gave up on the question, deciding it was a stupid saying and as such didn’t merit further thought.

Still, the mental detour had given me a little time to focus on something other than the impending doom of this new world to which I’d been so unceremoniously whisked. I realized that my breathing was a little easier, my chest not quite so tight.

So I determined to think of anything and everything except the fact that my new home, cat piss and all, was probably going to be destroyed.

I started with the obvious one: where I’d go. But that failed for equally obvious reasons. Thinking about where to go inevitably turned to thinking about why I had to go.

Next, I tried what I’d do when I got wherever it was I was going. As this was a step removed from the Realm’s imminent destruction, I got a little further. I might take up farming, I decided. Find a pretty village lass. Maybe make some babies together. Babies who could grow into strong boys, who could take over the heavy farm work from their poor old dad.

They, of course, inherited their mom’s strapping, peasant genes in my fantasy. My beanpole genes wouldn’t do them much good on the farm. Not when it came to turning soil, planting crops, shoveling manure.

It was at this juncture that my rosy fantasy faded. Farewell peasant maid, farewell strapping boys, farewell farm life. I was not shoveling shit for a living.

Not if I could help it.

I went through the options open to me, without any revelations. Not that I expected it. I ran over the same list in my first few weeks of landing in the Realm, and things really hadn’t changed much since then.

Anyone with a pulse could join the army. Failing that, I could take up odd laboring jobs if and when they arose, or try putting out to sea, if I could find a berth in need of an unskilled seamen. I could scout about for a domestic lackey or shop boy position.

Or, wherever I landed, I could ply the skills I’d honed already.

I leave it to you to decide which of these illustrious careers I decided to pursue, whenever and wherever I wound up in civilization again.

Thus occupied, I wiled away the long hours of the night, and the early hours of morning. The sun rose scarlet behind the gray mountain, turning it an eerie pinkish color.

The Aesel wound through a wooded valley, and here converged with another river. The Mankith, presumably, and nestled in the verdant stretch of land between the two rivers lay a long compound of gray stone buildings. Golden moons adorned the central structure, and a low stone wall surrounded the entire abbey. A single gate met a little used path, but it was firmly shut at the moment.

I pulled my mount to a halt and stared at the unwelcoming sight. Doubts nagged at my mind. I’d already decided I was an idiot to give up my treasure so easily.

But to a bunch of weirdos who shut themselves away from the world, and hid behind stone walls and signs of the moon?

No. No, that was too crazy.

And anyway, what was I worried about? If the Sorcerer’s minions hadn’t tracked me this far, they probably wouldn’t track me elsewhere. Granted, I’d squandered my head start with this detour, but if I kept off the roads, maybe I could–

“Hail,” a voice interrupted my thoughts. A reedy, annoyingly familiar voice. “By the moons, ‘tis you!”

“Jackoff,” I said, cringing and turning. Sure enough, it was the squire. He approached from the opposite side of the fork, following the Mankith, and mounted on a short, squat donkey. He looked rather ridiculous and oversized on the smaller animal.

He seemed to follow the direction of my gaze, because he apologized, “Not a fit mount for a representative of the king, I know. But I barely escaped the city with my skin, and my options were few indeed.”

I was worried about an altogether different ass at the moment, but I said only, “I’m sure the king would understand. If he wasn’t dead, anyway.”

The squire nodded grimly. “The gods grant him serene rest, under silver moons.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Lots of silver.”

“I am very glad to have reconnoitered with you, my lord,” he went on. “I feared you might outpace me, and I should not catch you again.”

“That would have been a shame.”

He nodded again, seeming to miss any hint of sarcasm. “Prithee, lead on, good sir. I shall follow in your footsteps, if I may be so bold.”