CHAPTER 63

The mare turns the corner at Roark’s stables and clip-clops slowly up the incline. Late night has begun to turn to early morning, and to the East dawn tickles the sky pink, bathing Mossgreen’s forest in a dreamy haze. A smatter of Hollor’s Fall’s early risers watch us go past with raised eyebrows, but offer no salutation and make no comment on my flaming knife.

The fire stayed in place for the entirety of the trip, needing nothing but my attention and blackening the blade all the same even though it requires no fuel. It pulses like a living thing, eager to be unleashed but cowed as well, respectful of its master.

Firebrand’s head hangs low, her breathing regular but pained. Before we enter the forest, I dismount, and we proceed side by side into the darkness and gloom under the canopy. My stump on Firebrand’s side serves less to lead her than to keep my aching legs on the true and steady path, to give me something else to focus on other than my throbbing headache.

“Ho! Ho!” says a good-humored voice, coming from everywhere at once and nowhere in particular. Firebrand’s ears rotate to lie horizontal with her head.

“Morning, Moss,” I say, stifling a yawn.

“It flies away from its nest in the afternoon and returns in the morning bringing flames. Does that make it a firefly? Ho! Ho!”

“Hmm.”

Observant or no, I can’t catch sight of him, which makes me think either I really am as tired as I feel, which should be terminal, or he’s not really here.

“Did anything happen while I was gone, Moss?”

“Aye. As night fell skittering, slavering creatures flowed down the road hissing for prey. Later they flowed back again, some covered in the blood of their kills. Such fuss for a runaway fly.”

Amelia. An image of the dead bandits, they’re bodies torn open like so much fruit, comes unbidden into my mind.

I focus on putting one foot in front of the other, leveraging the fact that I’m already walking to propel myself another step, and then another. Stopping means falling on my face and letting myself be dragged the rest of the way. After an interminable walk, the road twists on itself for one final time and then shoots straight towards the last trees which frame the clearing morning sky. Firebrand neighs softly.

What a night, huh?

“You said it,” I mutter.

Mossgreen is sitting by the last trees, legs crossed and elbows propped on the road, with still enough arm left to cradle his head. Sitting, he towers above me still, above Fireband, whose ears are now flat with extreme vexation. It seems she finds trolls objectionable.

“And it made a friend,” the troll says as if to himself. “Mossgreen is glad to see it didn’t break its neck on the dangerous roads instead.”

“Moss, Firebrand. Firebrand, Moss.”

Neither acknowledges the other. Firebrand’s dignified eyes are firmly focused on the path ahead, while Moss’s blind ones are fixed on me. We pass him by, seeing the dark Hollow House loom like a stone on the path, with a single window streaming light.

“Little fly,” Mossgreen calls. I turn to face him, his giant face smiling softly under the darkness of the forest. “Perhaps the fire is no longer necessary,” he says. “Now that it is among friends.”

I look at the flames sedately licking up the blade, obedient and pacified, nearly forgotten. With a thought, I extinguish them.

“Thanks, Moss.”

“Hmm. Mossgreen did give thought to little fly’s question,” he continues. “Fire is a natural thing, like trees, and a good and useful teacher. But perhaps a dangerous thing as well, to keep burning all night and day without a watchful eye to guide it, yes?”

I nod. Too early for riddles.

“Keep a watchful eye, friend firefly,” the troll finishes.

He stands, stretches his long and curved back until his head peeks over the crowns of the trees, and with a final wave disappears into the vegetation without a sound, simply walking until he becomes part of the green.

I leave Firebrand in her box in the stables. The scarred servant isn’t there, so I fill a bucket with water for her and a give her a helping of hay to chew on. With a final pat of goodbye, I go into the house.

The corridors are sleepy and cold, the lights gone out hours earlier. Nothing stirs in the kitchen. I make my way up the creaking stairs and at the top, though my body hungers for the cloud-mattress in my room, I turn left towards the only sliver of light that escapes from under a door. I knock.

“Come in, Malco,” says Lysander.

The elf is sitting at his desk, books open around him and a pen taking quick notes on his notebook. He doesn’t look up when I walk in and keeps writing as I stand lamely by the fire. I don’t insist. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

“There,” he says eventually, with a final underlined note. “Perhaps sitting we’ll be more comfortable.”

We sit down. He in his favorite armchair, surrounded by disorderly piles of books, I in the same chair Delos slept in, which seems perfectly suited to that one activity. I find myself staring at the fire to stay awake, the dying coals straining for a final blaze, to consume something more, anything they can reach.

“I trust you had a productive night,” Lysander says after a moment.

“An interesting one,” I say. “Partly thanks to you.”

The elf gives me a puzzled smile, polite but unsure.

And so we plunge into his games. What move will you play, Malco? What piece has he forgotten about and can be leveraged for a win?

His calm, attentive eyes, so different from the rest of his lively expression, give me nothing.

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In my mind, I kick the entire board away.

“Thanks to your trick with the notebook I got another Perk. That’s why I didn’t die tonight.”

“You mean you read my notebook?” he says carefully, inspecting his perfect fingernails.

“I mean you left your notebook behind for me to steal. On purpose. Did you know that I would gain a Perk?”

I watch him carefully, the flutter of emotions that courses through his face. It lasts only an instant, and then he recovers, adapts.

“No. I was simply curious about your Archetype and wanted to help you develop it. The geas is a pain, as you know, but over the years I’ve become quite adept at asking questions without asking them. I thought offering up some of my own secrets might produce some results, and lo and behold.” He smiles, punctuating his sentence with a pat on the armrest.

“Partial results,” I point out. “I only got part of the mystery.”

“It is often so. The Archetype wants you to behave in a certain way, especially in the beginning. When you do, it rewards you. That’s why I didn’t just sit you down and tell you everything, incidentally. I thought a bit of cloak and dagger should be present, otherwise there wouldn’t be much inquisitiveness going on. But don’t think I did all the work, Malco. You showed remarkable initiative and were rewarded accordingly.”

His words activate bits and pieces in my weary brain.

“What do you mean, ‘the Archetype wants’?”

“I mean exactly what I say,” Lysander answers, steepling his fingers. “Archetypes aren’t simply a set of abilities; they’re… a mold, for lack of a better word. You’re growing, changing day by day with each Perk you pick, with your Expertise, with each decision you make. Your Archetype is nudging you along in the right direction. It wants you to become an Inquisitor, not just to be good old Malco with an Inquisitor’s abilities.”

I lean back in my chair, rubbing my eyes.

“Perks do the same thing,” I say vaguely. “They change me. Earlier today, I…”

A creak in the armchair. I open my eyes to see Lysander has leaned forward, all rapt attention. I hesitate, but I can’t find the strength inside me to be cunning, to be deceitful. I don’t see the point anymore.

“Ged invited me to go see Beckra off,” I say, staring into the fire. “We had time, so we stopped by the tavern…”

I tell the entire tale, from start to finish. I don’t hide anything, don’t circumvent my actions or my intentions. This was my decision when I turned back on the road to Olvion. Trust Arbiter. Trust the elf. So I tell him about Cora, the invisible girl who gave me the ultimatum about my Luck’s Fool curse. I tell him about drinking more than my share at the tavern, and I tell him about walking back to Hollow House feeling powerless and stupid, like I was wasting my time in a world I didn’t understand. I relate how I stole the mare, now Firebrand, and made a drunken escape for Olvion, and I don’t hide that I was sure he would stop me somehow, that the walls of my prison would suddenly reveal themselves and the trap would snap shut before I could ride far. I tell him about my confusion when that didn’t happen, the strange mix of fear and exhilaration of knowing myself free.

When Arbiter enters the story, I find that I cannot say the words I’m thinking of. He understands, giving me a nod to proceed, and all I can say is that whatever I saw beyond the White Door I saw also on the road to Olvion. This interests Lysander more than the rest of the tale so far, his eyes burning with questions I can’t answer. I skip to the part where the robbers appeared, reveal the leader’s reaction on hearing I was connected to ‘the elf’, and, when Lysander simply shrugs at that, proceed to my accepting of the—here my tongue goes still in my mouth. I can’t name the Disciple of Fire Perk. ‘I selected a new Perk, and I burned the forest down,’ I end up saying.

Lysander uses his chin to point to the dying coals, an invitation.

A demonstration.

I focus. Create Fire comes into my mind unbidden, flowing naturally from the place in my heart where this magic resides. A small flame bursts awake in my hand, slim like a candle’s. It holds a moment, minute but powerful, awake with an intensity that I have trouble relating to, and then winks out and I wince with pain.

“You’re tired,” Lysander says gently. “Did you cast many spells?”

Nodding, I tell him about the casting of Hunch, Mantle of Flames, Incendiary Dart, and the myriad Create and Extinguish Fire I’d employed. Though I cannot name anything, the elf nods along, satisfied with my descriptions.

“I know some of those. Create and Extinguish is Basic, Incendiary Dart was part of my own repertoire for a bit. I haven’t come across the one where fire covers you, but then again I was never one for the flashier side of magic,” he adds, incongruous in his dramatic purple robes. “I can ask some of the other Mages, see what they know. The main part is: the more you cast, the more exhausted you’ll feel. Over a normal day you’ll hardly notice this, but keep this in mind when you’re in a Dungeon and can’t simply find a bed in any old corner. Go on.”

I shrug. The rest of the tale is short and simple. I tell him dispassionately about killing the bandits, and he accepts the revelation without a hint of emotion. After, I relate my firefighting efforts alongside the farmers, how I discovered the brutalized remains of the bandit leader and the underling.

“Amelia’s shades did it, didn’t they?” I ask.

Lysander smiles.

“I’ll note that I had nothing to do with that. I simply mentioned you were gone and as soon as night fell she sent them herself.”

“To catch me?”

The elf’s eyes shine with amusement in the growing light of dawn.

“Interesting choice of words. I've noticed that more than once you mentioned your ‘escape’. You ‘ran away’, ‘stole’ Firebrand,” Lysander seamlessly employs my name for the mare as he leans back on his armchair. “And now Amelia sent her lackeys to retrieve you. Is that what you think this is? That the mean Godtouched kidnapped you and is keeping you locked up in his castle until you do his bidding?”

I observe him for a long while, noting his ease, his careless smile.

“The truth is, I don’t know what you want from me,” I admit. “I assumed I was a prisoner in the same way I assumed you have plans that you aren’t telling me about. I… I don’t know why else you would keep me around.”

“Why I would keep you around?” he asks, throwing his hands up in disbelief. “Malco, you’re an intelligent young man, if a tad given to overreaction. You must be aware of your value. Even if you don’t know exactly what they are, you know I have ambitions that I’m going to see fulfilled – everything you read in my notebook was true. There are plans in motion, things that will start to happen in the near future, and I’ll need capable people at my side to see those plans through. Certainly you can see the benefit of enlisting someone who made it through the Challenge, who solved my riddles and found a way to kill a drake. No?”

Hesitanting, I nod. It seems sensible enough, though his constant allusion to some mysterious plans grates on my curiosity, a bottomless, all-consuming pit. The notebook’s torn pages float in my mind.

“So I’m not a prisoner?”

“No," he answers curtly. "I’d like you to stay and help me, and I think I can offer you much in exchange. We’ll deal Valkas, and with that Cora woman if and when she makes an appearance again. But if you wish, you’re free to leave.”

“And the trial?”

He shrugs.

“I’ll tell Valkas you ran. What the hell, I’ll make you a gift of Firebrand and money enough to get by for a while, even, if you promise to remain approachable in case I have need of your skills in the future.”

I sit back, considering. Making my way to Olvion, this time in earnest, and running away with Katha on Firebrand’s back. It’s a fantasy. The idle dreams of a boy. Kord’s face, how I imagine him with his single blue eye, flying after us on storm clouds, crosses my mind.

“I want Katha,” I say, leaning forward again. “And Rev. That’s all I care about. Essa, Hilde, Rue, I wouldn’t want to see them hurt, either. But for my sisters I’ll follow you. Do whatever you ask.”

The elf mulls the question over.

“Rev, Hilde, Essa, and your friend Wyl as well,” he adds the name with irony. “Those are assets I would be happy to acquire for the same reasons I’m happy to take you in, rewards for me as much as you. Rue will be sorted as a matter of course.” Lysander nods. “That only leaves one thing I can assist you with. Help me, Malco, and I’ll do everything in my power to get Katha back to you. I swear it.”

We shake on it, half-ironically, smiles peeking from the corners of our mouths, but very seriously as well. I stand to leave.

“One last thing, Malco,” Lysander says. “That thing you saw behind the White Door and on the road. You said it told you to trust me?”

I nod.

“Then it knows,” he says, half to himself before looking up at me. “The beings beyond the Doors. They know war is coming.”

I study the elf’s face then, the hint of wonder in his expression which doesn’t wane as he turns away from me to the ashen remains of the fire. He looks almost eager.