The small glass rider rode about the table in circles, as though it were in the Grand Kathar Colosseum. At the end of its second run it stopped in front of Trito, tugging on its mount’s reins, and went stiff and solid.

“It seems a normal enchanted toy to me,” Melitas said. “Not really worth waking up early for, is it?”

“It is not a normal enchanted toy,” Eris said. She glared at him. “I will give you this lesson for free: focus on it. Do you feel your skin itching? Your blood being repulsed? Can you sense the mana working within this toy?”

Melitas rolled his eyes. “Of course I can. Do you take me for an amateur?”

Eris sighed. She cupped her face and shook her head.

“There is no mana in this toy,” Trito said after a moment. “That is Eris’ point.”

She traced a finger along her forehead, to her temple, and regarded the party again. “Quite,” she said. “The glass is not enchanted at all. There is no spell to detect over it. It is simply alive.”

Aletheia had been trying to pay attention, but the last few days had her deep in thought. She ate an apple as she listened idly. But this revelation caught her attention. She hadn’t noticed, hadn’t thought to piece together, what Eris said. But she was right. This wasn’t an arcane toy, like so many others. It was something living, like a person or a dog or a tree, even though it could not possibly have been. Almost like….

“Like the Shadow Man,” Aletheia said.

“Precisely,” Eris said. “The Shadow Man is a creature who, like this toy, should not be as he is. He seems to be a demon, yet has no command over mana and cannot be seen with spell detection. A very powerful enchantment was used on this toy of the Boyar’s. It is one that has—”

“My toy,” Corvo said.

He sat beside Eris, watching the rider intently. His head barely poked over the edge of the table. His voice was small, but it interrupted his mother’s immediately.

When everyone looked his way, he shrank. But he repeated, “He’s my toy now.”

Eris smiled. “We shall see. For now—I would not rebuke the Boyar’s hospitality. So he is your toy.” Her features straightened promptly, however, and she returned to looking at the party. “Whatever magic was used to grant the Shadow Man life is of the same nature as that which has animated this toy. It is of a power akin to what shattered the world in the Fall. It can genuinely instill life into that which was lifeless. To make consciousness from nothing. To bring a soul into this world.”

“A power normally reserved for mothers,” Trito said.

She nodded.

“What about elementals? Or golems?” Dorian said. “I fought an Arcane Construct once that walked and talked like a man.”

“We did, too,” Aletheia said.

“Indeed we did,” Eris said. “But these things are different. An elemental is a terrestrial demon. It is a creature of magic. A golem is stone that has been animated with mana, under the effect of a long-lasting spell; yet tap or remove the mana and the golem will die. An Arcane Construct is much the same, governed and powered by a processing unit of the Old Kingdom. They are not truly alive, as this thing is. A demon has an Essence, but golems and constructs have no souls of their own. All will crumble if cut off from their source of magic."

Trito held a finger out toward the glass rider. “What does it eat?” he asked.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Mother watched as the rider began to make its way around the table again. “It is alive, yet it has taken on the aspects of its origin. Glass does not eat. It will remain powered forever. So, too, will the darkness.”

Aletheia took the last bite of her apple, then set it down on the table.

“Look out,” she said, mouth still full, and she rolled the core toward the rider and its horse, "it's an ogre. Kill it.”

The rider had stopped. Now it twisted its head toward the apple core. A moment passed as it lowered its lance. Then it spurred its mount forward, and it galloped

It skewered the core through, heaving it up into the air over its head. Then it went still again.

Aletheia smiled for a moment but frowned as a thought came. “Are we sure it’s safe to play with?” she asked.

“I am less sure than I was a moment ago,” Eris said slowly. “Perhaps ‘tis best not to order it to ‘kill’.”

Melitas yawned dramatically, throwing his arms up at his sides. “This is ridiculous. There’s no such magic. I’ve never read about it. Every magician knows that a spell has to be sustained, either through runes, or a power core, or sheer willpower. You can’t will something to be alive once and let it be. That isn’t how mana works.”

“I would have said the same thing, until I met the Shadow Man,” Eris said. “But my opinion has changed—though I also have not heard of such magic until now. Little did the Boyar know how valuable his childhood toy truly was.”

“I have heard of this magic,” Trito said. “It is known to the Elves.”

The party turned their heads to look at the elf. They waited patiently for him to continue.

“And…?” Aletheia said.

“My order regards it as forbidden,” he said.

“Your damned order regards everything as forbidden,” Melitas sneered.

“You’re part of an order?” Dorian said.

Trito nodded. He reached into his breast pocket and retrieved his pipe, but he did not light it.

“We would be grateful if you elucidated,” Eris said.

Trito waited a moment. Then he said, “To use magic to permanently alter the natural world—to give life to that which was lifeless—is worse by far than to use it as you human magicians do, fleetingly, to solve one problem or the next. Enchantments such as the one on this toy are precisely what led to the Fall.”

“No one knows what led to the Fall,” Melitas said.

“The Elves do,” Trito replied.

“No, they bloody well don’t. Not even elves live that long.”

“Some do.”

“No, they—you can play with your toy. Not that it matters to me anyway. Now that I’m a hero, I shan’t need your company any further.” Melitas stood. “I don’t need to be second-guessed by a knife-eared smoker who thinks he’s too good to use magic.”

He departed, and the door slammed shut behind him.

Trito lit his pipe then. He took a long puff.

“Did I say something to upset him?” he asked.

“The feeble mind reels when ‘tis challenged,” Eris said. “Such is the censorious spirit of the foolhardy.”

Beneath the table, Aletheia saw Eris wrap her hand around Corvo’s.

“If you regard this magic as so dangerous,” Dorian said, “then you’ll help us kill the Shadow Man?”

Trito nodded slightly. “Yes.”

Aletheia pulled the apple core from the glass rider’s spearpoint. The hole went clean through. She said, still distracted, “But then you know what to do, right? If you’ve seen a spell like this before? You know how to deal with Shadow Man?”

The elf considered this. “The glass of a toy can be shattered. A human life can be cut short by a blade. A treant, wood given consciousness by similar magic, can be burnt. All these are vulnerable to violence. But shadow can’t be killed. Your only way of being rid of the Shadow Man permanently will be to find some way to unravel his very existence. It is a hard thing to do, to take life away without killing. Can a spell do such a thing?”

“No,” Aletheia said. “There’s no spell for that. To—just steal someone’s life away. To kill without killing. It doesn’t even make sense. You would have to remove a soul. It's not possible.”

“The man who wrote that book, the book Corvo found,” Dorian said. “That imprisoned the Shadow Man, didn’t it? Can’t you cast that same spell again?”

“If I found out what it was,” Eris said, “perhaps. But that would be a temporary solution. There would always be the chance it would return. Yet if magic gave a soul to the Shadow Man, it must be able to take it away."

“Magic beyond your power,” Trito said.

“I bet Melitas could do it,” Aletheia said.

Dorian and Eris laughed. Trito smiled.

“If I knew such a spell, I could learn it and cast it,” Eris said after a moment. "But I do not know how to create it myself."

“It will take more than a spell,” Trito said. “Perhaps not to bind the soul of the Shadow Man into a new journal. But to kill it—that will be complicated.”

“But not impossible.”

“No. Not impossible,” he said.

“What do you propose?”

“I propose nothing. That isn’t my place. But I know where we would find answers.”

Dark looks spread across the table.

“Where?” Aletheia asked.

“In Seneria,” Trito said. “At the heart of the Old Kingdom. In the city of Ewsos, where my order dwells.”