Theis sank to his knees, leaning forward until he had to prop himself up with one arm to keep from falling face-first onto the bare stone. Clouds of hot breath burst through his mask's narrow mouth slit. Closing his eyes, he cracked his neck with a grunt before gesturing to the cat without looking up.

“He's okay, I think.” The cat reached out and spread a massive paw across Nevin's chest, visibly relieved to feel his friend's chest rising and falling beneath his toes. “Still asleep, but it looks like he's coming around.”

Behind him, nearly all evidence of the temporary bridge had vanished, swallowed beneath the yawning lips of the gorge. Only a matching pair of vertical scars on either side of the cliff face and a scattered collection of wood chips hinted that something had once been there. Theis had his suspicions about the origin of that unstable, makeshift bridge, but for the moment, he was simply grateful to have made it across alive and intact.

An odd feeling, that.

The boy stirred, sucking air as he raised a hand to grip his head. Aidux rested his chin on the boy's chest and peered up at him with wide, silver eyes. Nevin glanced down at the cat before reaching out to scratch between his tufted ears. A soft, rumbling purr filled the air.

“Can you hear me, boy?”

The boy nodded without taking his eyes off the darkening sky. Deepening reds and purples dominated the western horizon, and mere moments separated them from an emerging sea of shy, twinkling stars.

Theis pushed to his feet, adjusting his leather cloak until it draped about him like a shroud. He walked over and knelt at the boy's side. The motes in his eyes barely moved. When he spoke, all trace of the usual harsh edge to his rumbling baritone was absent, softened by an uncharacteristic sympathy for the troubled youth lying supine before him.

“Them that raised you,” he began, reaching up to adjust the hang of his wooden mask. “Never asked you whether it was the fires or the soldiers that took them.”

Nevin chewed his lip and swallowed before answering. “Frieda died when I was very young. I don't really remember much about her.”

“Frieda,” Theis said thoughtfully. “And your...?”

The boy looked away. “I've never had a father.”

Aidux moved to speak, but Nevin silenced him with a firm pat.

Content with his head scratch, the lynx returned to the comfort of his friend's chest. The boy watched the sky, his eyes unfocused and brimming with painful memories. Theis knew that look. For the first time in a long time, the man in black had something to say, but that little voice in the depths of his subconscious bade him remain quiet. And he always listened to that little voice.

With a sigh, Theis tugged down on the hem of his cowl. “Been through more in the last few days than many people deal with their entire lives. And against all odds, you survived.”

“Thanks to you.” He rubbed the lynx's head once more. “And thanks to Aidux. Without the both of you, I'd be little more than another victim of Vincht's search for the Sharasil.”

“And yet, without you, the Sharasil would have likely ended up in the hands of the wrong kind of people, or been lost forever. Don't know why it's important to keep that from happening, but that old woman in Comelbough seems to think either option wouldn't be good.”

The boy slid his fingers beneath Aidux's chin and gently ushered the cat off his chest, before sitting up and shrugging the satchel from his shoulders. He pulled the top-heavy pack into his lap, the storm-gray Sharasil stretched out before him like a pair of welcoming arms. Hesitant to be so close to the mercurial and dangerous weapon, Theis and the cat each slid back a step.

His fingers traced the engraved lines zig-zaging out from the strange indentation at the object's center. “Something odd happened in the clearing. In the middle of the fight, I thought I saw it...change? It didn't last long, but there was this bright light and a weird hissing sound, like when you throw cold water in a hot pan. Then it was gone and it looked like this again.

“I know there's more to it than what we're seeing. It's not much of a weapon in its current form, but I don't know what I did to make it change.”

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Lying beside the gorge, minutes from away from night, Theis knew that now wasn't the best time to get into this discussion, but after what they'd just been through, he wondered if maybe an intellectual discussion was just the distraction they needed.

The man in black thumbed the gouge in the chin of his mask.“ At the lowest level, all magic functions off of something called 'intent'. What you mean to do, your goal, the direction you've chosen to take.”

Nevin scratched his head. “Like a thought?”

“Not exactly. Thoughts have no weight behind them, no real substance. Intent is the mental component of physical action. A precursor, if you will. Wise man once said, that everything that's created or built is done so twice - once in the mind, and once in the world. The clearer and more precise the first, the better the quality of the second.”

“I don't see how that's any different from a thought. I think about a house and then I go build it. Intent, thoughts...same thing.”

Theis cocked his head, thinking about the best way to make his point. Then, with little hesitation, he reached out and slapped the young man on the back of the head. The dry clap of leather on flesh pierced the quiet.

“Ow!” Nevin said, rubbing the sting away. “What was that for?”

“Thought about hitting you for a few seconds there, but nothing happened until I made a decision. I formed an intent in my mind, and my hand followed suit. Years of combat training forced the two to work together at a high level, and the result was a hard slap placed precisely where I intended.”

“Next time, just tell me,” he said with a scowl.

“I like it better when he smacks you,” Aidux said, grinning.

“Point is,” Theis continued. “Thoughts don't get you anywhere. Wishing, daydreaming, hoping...pointless. Action is the goal, but without a clear, focused intent, the resulting action will be sloppy, half-assed, disappointing.

“Magic works the same way. If I had to guess, the Sharasil waits until the right intent acts on it, then it...does whatever it does. Do you remember what you were doing or about to do when it changed?”

Nevin shrugged. “Just trying to survive. Aidux was fighting with his soldier, and it looked like he needed some help, so I moved to protect him when my soldier knocked the weapon out of my hands.”

Theis held up a finger. “Aidux was in trouble?”

“He was in a bad spot, and I was worried he wouldn't be able to defend himself.”

“Now hold on,” the cat protested. “I had everything well under control-”

Theis cut him off. “You wanted to kill that soldier, didn't you?”

“That's not-” Nevin looked insulted. “No, I told you I don't want to hurt anyone.”

Theis crossed his arms as he stood. “A man is about to kill your only friend, and you didn't want to hurt him? What were you planning on doing? Charge over there and talk him out of it?”

The boy waved a hand, obviously taken aback by Theis' ludicrous take on the situation, but if he wanted to argue, he couldn't seem to find the words. Theis watched him struggle, but didn't interrupt. A person needed to come to certain conclusions on their own.

After a moment, the boy dropped his hand and shrugged. “Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I wasn't really thinking. I was just acting.”

Theis nodded. “An unrealized intent is still an intent. The subconscious mind acts on intent all day long. Moving the heart, the lungs, hearing, seeing, breathing...each action performed due to unconsciously generated intent. Wouldn't surprise me if your subconscious formed an intent to kill when confronted with the prospect of losing a friend...and the Sharasil reacted.”

“So you're saying that, if I want it to change again, if I want it to reveal what it really is, I have to want to use it to kill?”

“It's possible.”

“All the more reason to get rid of it sooner rather than later.” Nevin sighed, resting a hand on the object and exhaling an unnaturally dense cloud of cool mist. “It's just...it's so strange. You have to know something about it, Theis. Anything. You wouldn't just come out to the middle of nowhere looking for something you know nothing about...right?”

The man shrugged. “Never seen it's like.”

“But...you said you're the one that gave it to Ishen. How can you know nothing? Who told you to take it to him? Why did it need to be hidden?”

“Was just the messenger, boy,” he said, turning to face the southern wilds. The rain had weakened the inky smoke's hold on the sky, but it could be weeks before it vanished completely. “No one told me anything other than where to go and who to give it to.”

He awkwardly shifted his cloak about his shoulders. “The past is the past. Doesn't matter how we got here, just what we do now that we're here. We've a long way to go before we reach Comelbough, and with any luck, it will be uneventful from here out.

“Can't promise you things will get better when we get there, but the old woman should have some answers. And trust me boy, I'm just as curious as you are.”

Nevin ran a finger along the upper edge of the Sharasil. “You think...you think maybe she'll be able to sever the link? Disconnect me from this thing?”

Theis averted his eyes. “Let's set up camp. We've a long road ahead of us, and you two need your rest.”