“Are you in charge now?” Melitas said. “How exactly was that decided? Was there a vote while I was asleep? It seems I must have missed something.”

Somehow he found himself trailing behind a woman he barely knew the name of, deep into hilltop woodlands. He had heard of this Eris of Katharos, of course—any young magician had. When he was a neophyte, she (among others) had caused an enormous stir. No one was supposed to know it was her, or who she was, but those things were whispered by pupils throughout the dormitories at night.

They said she had killed two Seekers. No magician had ever killed two Seekers before, certainly not on her own.

They also said that she had put Rook Korakos under a spell, and that when it had broken, she summoned the Kynigos that killed him—along with ten thousand others in the streets of Katharos.

Having now met her, he was willing to believe both rumors were true.

“Am I in charge now,” she mused as she regarded a sudden swell of rock in the hill. It blocked their way forward. She turned to look at him so quickly that her hair whipped around her neck. “That is the thing about leadership. Those who want it, take it. Those who do not—they ask questions.”

“Our leader is Aletheia,” he said. He felt his cheeks growing hot. “Or she has been so far. But you’ve only just arrived. Why should we trust you?”

“You should not.”

“Then I’d be a damn fool to follow you into these hills, wouldn’t I be?” he said.

“You are learning already. However, if you would like a more satisfying answer, I lead because I have your precious sword.”

Eris did not have the sword. It was still at Trito’s waist.

The elf cocked an eye and glanced between the two magicians. Melitas stared, until at last he said, “Trito has the sword. If anything, by that metric, he should be the one leading us.”

“Does he? My mistake.” Eris made a gesture with her staff.

The hilt of the sword jerked gently in one direction, then the next. Trito put a hand on it to keep it in place, but without any kind of real anchor, the strength of whatever force pulled at it was too much to fight against.

The sword was pulled into the air. It hovered overhead for a brief moment, and then gently made its way into Eris’ outstretched right hand.

“There. Now it is mine.” She looked the runes on the blade over. “I think my intuition was correct. We are headed in the right direction.”

“Excellent,” Melitas said. He glanced up at the steep terrain over them. It was freckled with trees and huge boulders, with rocks that looked like foaming bubbles frozen solid. “Your ‘right direction’ is a dead end’.”

But he was cut off when he blinked, and Eris disappeared.

He looked up.

She stood on top of the tallest boulder, dozens of feet above him. She used the golden blade of Bornimir to shade her eyes from the sun.

“There, like the blade says,” she said. “I can see the outline of the Spire from here. We are facing the north.”

“What did you just do?” Melitas shouted up at her.

“Hm?” her voice was quiet from afar. “What did I do?” Even from the distance he could see her smile. “Magic, if you could not tell.”

“You—you teleported. Instantly. I’ve never seen a spell like that before.”

“You have never seen this spell before? Then it must not be real, for surely the omnipotent Melitas would not be so ignorant on matters of magic." She spoke in a mocking sing-song, before growing more serious. "Do you two intend to stay down there all day? We do not have much time before dark.”

Trito stepped forward. Then, with one hand holding his spear, he scaled the steep hills. He quickly jumped up one set of rocks, grabbed an overhanging tree for support, heaved himself up to a ridge, and soon had leaped over to where Eris stood—all with a hand full. It looked effortless.

Melitas stared at them for a very long time. He was a powerful sorcerer. He did not need to suffer this humiliation at the hands of this maniac woman.

He closed his eyes. He conjured the Aether in the air into his lungs, and he expelled it beneath him. Slowly he felt himself rising upward—and when he looked, he saw that he was levitating.

Mana gathered under his feet. It glowed brightly, and, like a rising cloud of heat, lifted him.

He made it two yards off the ground before the spell came to an abrupt end.

The glow vanished.

He fell.

At the last moment he caught the root of a branch and held on. The jolt nearly pulled his arm from its socket, and he gasped in surprise.

Eris laughed. To Trito she said, “You trust him to follow you into combat?”

Trito regarded him from on-high. “I usually forget he’s here.”

They both turned to continue up the hills, toward what could be called a small mountain, scaling harsh terrain—impassable terrain—effortlessly. Soon they were out of sight.

Melitas screamed in frustration. But he was too prideful to give up, and he couldn’t stand to miss the discovery of the Oak. So he had no choice. He followed. Very, very slowly.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

He found it distressing how attracted to her he was. Almost painfully, so that it hurt when he caught glimpse of her far ahead of him. It would have been bad enough had he not hated her, but he did hate her, and that only made it more humiliating. He had never been attracted to a mother before. He had hardly known any. Not his own, nor were there many at the Tower of Pyrthos. It wasn’t that magicians were forbidden from having children of their own—there were no rules prohibiting it, in fact. It was more that such things just weren’t done, in the way that people didn’t make a habit of jumping off the top of the Tower of Pyrthos or dragging razorblades across their tongues. It was a rule that wasn’t a rule and didn’t need to be enforced, for it was never broken. There was too much to do. Too many tomes to study, spells to make or learn, secrets to uncover. Who had time for a child?

Something about the thought that the woman who was both a Seeker slayer and a temptress was also a mom sat poorly with him. She was too pretty, yes, but also far too malevolent. This woman should not have had a child.

He heaved himself up over another rock. He was an athletic man, but if it wasn’t for the occasional expenditure of mana to help lift him from one boulder to another, he never would have kept up.

He collapsed, exhausted, when he finally reached the top. After a long moment of recovery he glanced around. The terrain leveled, somewhat. They were high up now, and the trees were growing larger and denser. Yellow grass grew between rocks everywhere. The sun burned at his neck.

Trito sat on a fallen log and watched the northward horizon. The distant sliver of black metal, the Spire, could just barely be seen amidst a blue haze.

Melitas hesitated.

“Where’s Eris?” he said.

Trito nodded toward the sky. “Scouting.”

“Scouting? What has she done now?”

The long Elven spear that Trito always carried was pointed to a tree. There, on the ground, was a pile of fabric—and a magic staff leaned against the trunk, alongside a golden sword.

“We aren’t so lucky that she melted, are we?” Melitas said. He stalked toward the staff.

“She will return.”

Melitas reached the trunk. Thinking Trito might stop him from what he was about to do, he looked over his shoulder; but the elf seemed disinterested; he pulled a pipe from the things at his belt and lit it with a small box that seemed to burn when touched.

No one would be able to stop Melitas, then.

He grabbed the staff.

It thrummed with power. Even out of Eris’ grip, it was sustaining distant magic—her lights. He could feel the mana flowing through it, warm like metal left out in the sun. He could taste it.

This was where Eris sourced her abilities from. She wasn’t powerful at all, only well-accoutered. With a tool like this, Melitas would be able to rule the world. He would do more with it than she ever had. He wouldn’t waste his time raising a child.

And with a bit of treachery… he could claim it for himself. Who would there be to stop him? He could be the one who killed Eris, who did what two Seekers and countless more couldn’t. The Tower would take him back after that. They’d make him Magister. He would be a hero.

For now, he needed to grow used to it.

He walked toward Trito with the staff.

“I can feel your Essence, elf. Why is it you use that device to light your fire, rather than a spell?” Melitas spoke confidently now. “You never use magic at all. Can’t you? Aren’t you an elf? Or are you simply dumb?”

“I am an elf,” he said seriously. He took a puff of smoke and blew it out toward Melitas’ face. “And I could use magic.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Magic is an aberration,” Trito said. “It was never meant to be in this world. To use it is to embrace the very force that brought an end to civilization.”

“By that same logic, your existence is an ‘aberration’. Whatever that means.”

“It is. But I cannot change how I was born.”

“You could. It just seems you’d rather stay living,” Melitas said. He waved the staff around. The power was thrilling, overwhelming, intoxicating. He smiled without noticing. “Regardless—if civilization is already over, it seems silly not to make use of the tools available.”

“A man should not do things because they are silly, nor because they are serious. He should neither waste his time trying to do what he thinks is ‘right’. No one is capable of knowing whether his deeds will lead to one or the other outcome before his life is out. A man should only do what he must do, and nothing more. If such a philosophy had guided the Old Kingdom, the world would be much safer than it is today. That is why I do not use magic.”

“What? Is that supposed to be impressive? Should I be awed by your enigma?”

“No. But you should try to understand.”

Melitas decided to amuse himself. “So you don’t need to use magic, so you don’t use magic? Is that what you mean? Do you also need pipeweed? Is that why you smoke?”

Another puff. “Yes.”

“I think I need to find a new elf.” Melitas huffed. “You know—"

A flock of birds on a nearby tree took sudden flight. Their flapping wings pulled Melitas’ attention their direction, and then from the canopy a crow appeared.

It landed at his feet. Its eyes regarded him, and his staff, and it cocked its head.

A volunteer. This would be an excellent place to experiment with his newfound power. He lowered the tip toward this crow and began to breathe in mana—

And the crow transformed.

It expanded upward. It stretched as darkness seemed to fold within it. Its crow’s feet became long and slender legs; its wings became arms; the black coloration of its head turned brown, and feathers flattened into hair.

At last there stood Eris before him.

Naked. An inch in front of him.

“You seem to have taken something that belongs to me,” she said. He was taller than her, but not by much.

This was his moment. His opportunity. He had the staff; he could make it work.

Instead, his courage evaporated. He gawked and did nothing.

She grabbed the staff.

“I thought you had abandoned it,” he said, closing his eyes. He couldn’t meet her gaze.

“I did not,” she said. “Make such a mistake again, and it will be your last.”

She tugged at the haft in his hands.

He held on at first. But then he let it go.

She walked back to her clothes and put them on, although not very quickly. Melitas stole several glances. Her confidence terrified him. If she had been fat or old, or a man, betraying her, or at least standing up for himself, would have been much easier. But her demeanor and looks combined made him useless. She was several dozen times more terrifying than a hydra. Her constant casual threats of murder were always spoken like they might be jokes, yet he could tell from her demeanor that she was not joking.

If she had the mind to betray him, she would not hesitate like he had.

“What did you see?” Trito asked her, rising and soon putting away his pipe.

“I saw nothing out of the ordinary. There are several oaks that fit the blade’s description—beneath a cliff, in this part of the hills. But I did sense enchantments around them. There is magic in these woods, beyond what is natural. Your Oak of Spring is no doubt real. I believe I can use a spell that will lead us to it.”

“You believe?” Melitas said. “Why didn’t you find it while you were a bird?”

“Because a bird is fragile, and I am not eager to be eaten by an owl,” she said, like she was talking to a child. “And despite your aggregate uselessness, you are, at least, some assistance. You might distract a bear while you are eaten, for example. I do not want to find myself facing down an elemental alone, or some other guardian of this place, if such a thing should come to pass.” Then she came back toward him, and she smiled into his face. “If I had not wanted you to look, Melitas, I would simply have turned your eyes to ash. You do not need to cringe so. You seem as though you had never seen a woman before.”

In fact, he hadn’t. Not like this. His face went red again.

“I hope you aren’t teaching your son to play with his food as much as you do,” Trito said.

She laughed. “It is one of my many vices,” she said. “But you are right. We are wasting time.”

Melitas had no idea what came next, for his eyes were closed. But he said, “Cast your spell. Let’s find this damn tree and get this over with.”

“Quite,” Eris said.

Melitas felt a pulse of mana, as the air around them was tapped of its power and became empty, as it had been underground, for a brief moment. When he looked again, Eris had a small light in her left hand, glowing dimly blue—yet it became brighter as she swept it along the nearby trees.

“This way,” she said.

She started off back into the woodlands.