Instead of returning to the tavern, which also had a canteen, we sought out a better-equipped restaurant in the neighborhood. The party had coin to spare after cashing in all the loot. The Emperor had sponsored the hero with a travel purse of one hundred silver, and the Guild had paid well over three hundred silver in all for the dungeon findings. The lion’s share of the sum would go with Ray and his companions. Defeating the Dark Lord would undoubtedly cost a pretty penny ere the end—but the rest of us didn't have to go home with empty pockets either. We had more than enough for supplies, lodging, and any surprise expenses on the way.

So we ate a full course and talked, and drank ale and wine, and talked more.

The wizard told us about his exploits over the year since he had left Ray in our care, and he painted such shadows in our minds it would bring night in the middle of the day. He had kept his ear to the ground, as he said, gathering news from all corners of the world. He told us about the suspicious movements of the Thurian scouts, their abnormally daring forays into northern Odia and Nédle. He talked about the seas growing turbulent, about the rampaging marine fiend of the Serpent Sea, and the raids of the corsairs of Strygg, that both claimed the lives of seafarers beyond counting. He spoke about the ill omens the high elf astrologists of Alusia had seen in the stars, about the disquiet mounting in the great minds of the Wiseman Island, and about how the Cathedral Tree had awoken from its hundred-year-slumber, starved for souls. He spoke of a peculiar madness creeping into the minds of men in the far south, where the royalty of Brunstahl had succumbed to an occultic blight in their hubris.

Then he wanted to know about Ray and his training. What the hero had learned and how he had fared in the Imperial court. First, he had the youth speak for himself and then asked each of us for our opinions after fighting side-by-side with him. He wasn’t too concerned about Ray’s development, though, seeing how we had made it through Baloria hale and whole.

My own assessment the wizard wanted last.

I didn’t expect such a formal evaluation would be demanded of me, and hadn’t taken half a minute to even think about it. For a moment, I hesitated. Certainly, perfection didn’t exist for us mortals, and there were always ways to do better. As old Augustine would say, we could only accept being ever on the quest for greatness, but never quite there. Turning this around, if there was nothing about your conduct that posed a direct threat to your future well-being, then why go out of your way to seek flaws? So I kept the verdict brief.

“His ability with sword and magic both is uncommon by human measures. He is hard-working and committed to his role. I believe Mr Reed has acquired the basic skills to survive the world, and how to find for himself what is yet missing. No more can be reasonably expected of him after only a year of learning.”

Ray looked at me as if awed.

“That was unexpectedly nice of you, Ria! I was sure you’d roast me for hours here!”

“He does also have the unfortunate tendency to relax too soon and neglect finer details. He is quick to let success get into his head and also allows disappointments to weigh on him far longer and heavier than they should. He could stand to keep his mindset more level and aloof, and mind his manners in the presence of the upper classes. Neither can I say I approve of his shaky morality either, how liberally he takes to flirting with any female that catches his eye, and how he is not above abusing his status as a hero to do so. I have my own opinions about his disregard for personal hygiene also, but let us close here.”

By the end, the man’s delight had turned into sullenness.

“Do I get to give feedback on maid services too? I could say a thing or two about that.”

“Naturally.” I nodded. “You may submit your comments in writing, addressed to the Imperial House of Ferdina, Parade Street 13, the Department of Public Affairs, open from Monday to Friday. Do see that your postage is paid.”

“That takes way too much effort! How about face to face?”

“I shall accept personal criticism from you the day your name begins with ‘emperor’.”

“The hurdle is way too high!”

The wizard Alhereid raised his hand to interrupt our exchange.

“Thank you, I believe I’ve heard enough,” he said. “You’ve made good friends over the year, Raymond. That pleases me more than you know.”

He then fixed a grim gaze on me.

“You may tell your Emperor the Roadfinder owes him one. Giving Ray to you for a year was not a test for him; it was a test for you. Enthelea is headed to a season of storms. I needed to see on which side of history the Empire stands. Is the tree growing out of the tracks of Vallacia bearing good fruit, or the rotten kind; do they value the life we have, or do they chase death the way the last great Empire did? Had you tossed out the kid, or sought to take advantage of him for what he is, that would’ve sealed your fate. But you held your end of the deal, and you did it down to a T. His majesty may be a bumbling greenhorn as a sovereign, but at least he’s not an utter fool. For now, Ferdina enjoys my trust. And that’s not lightly given these days!”

I answered him only with a disapproving frown, which he ignored.

Then the wizard cast off the gloomy mood like a cape and ordered more drinks to the table. We didn’t talk about the fate of the world anymore, or dark omens, but only about spontaneous, disconnected, trivial things. The things you would discuss with your close friends.

Alhareid had an almost paranormal talent to make you forget who you were and ride along the flow. There wasn’t such a hard shell that he couldn’t pry open and make the words come out. I thought to myself that the job of a wizard was not so different from the job of a conman.

We left the restaurant and looked up a large alehouse that didn’t care about appearances and kept talking and drinking, and then we went into another one that was smaller and smellier, and kept drinking. And I learned things about my travel companions that three weeks on the road and a hike in the shadow of death hadn’t taught me.

We talked about personal dreams.

Sergeant Klein told us how he had nearly ended up a farmer instead of an imperial guard, but a series of timely consequences on his seventeenth birthday had changed his path. Ser Vergil then told the man his earnest wish was to have the fate Klein had called lucky to avoid, and how he envied all those who could say their father was a peasant.

Neither of the two could reach an understanding of the other.

Coproral Samuel revealed to us his ambitions to open a restaurant in Valengrad after saving up the necessary funds, and that years of living frugally had brought him very close to the target already. This confession inspired everyone present and even a handful of nearby strangers to toss coins into his hat in support of his big dream. We had enjoyed samples of his cooking many times along the way and were sure he had what it took to strike gold in the field.

Corporal Thiselt seemed the only one of the soldiers fully content with her current lot. She wanted to one day become an instructor for imperial guard recruits, and timidly pondered if we found the idea overly silly. A young, petite woman drilling companies of brawny men? Of course, we all denied it being silly in the slightest. Once she would come back victorious from the quest to defeat the Dark Lord, no one would dare dispute her qualifications.

Ray’s dream was to save the world and live rich and famous in a nice house somewhere with a pretty view, maybe happily married, and with at least three kids. Alhereid called him a liar and said his only dream was to get laid, which the youth had failed to achieve thus far, though not for the want of effort. Ray emptied his tankard, bright red, and said damn right, that was his dream, and boasted he would yet sample a female of every species under the sun.

Even the hauflin thief was dragged into the conversation and made to tell us what inspired her. She had been listening to us quietly, withdrawn and irritable at first, but when enough time had passed and enough pints emptied, she was eventually pitching in of her own volition, and no one found this strange.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

It appeared hauflins were not immune to alcohol.

Reflecting on what her dream was, Ruvi burst into tears and confessed her only dream was to let her late mother know she could earn a living as a decent person, but no one had ever given her a choice there. She vowed to turn over a new leaf tonight and never betray the hero’s party, if they should have her. And everyone patted her back with smiles and said bygones were bygones, and whatever bad things she had done before didn’t matter.

Nobody asked about my dreams.

By this point, Samuel was drunk enough to have forgotten why his hat was full of coins and used the money to buy everyone another round. The barely articulate Earl’s son was telling Ruvi how unfortunate it was that they hadn’t met any earlier, and if they had, he would have made the thief a princess, he had the money and power to do that, his name held great sway south of the mountains, and one could have thought the man who despised nobility had been suddenly crowned an Emperor.

Corporal Thiselt was pestering Ray to come up with a more decent dream, one that could be put into a book or a song suitable even for children’s ears. The youth refused, bragging his would be the raunchiest tale ever written about a hero, but as loudly as she protested, neither would she stop talking to him. And he would let her freely admire his eyes and become entangled in the vulgar glint and rebelliousness of them. And across the table sat the snow-haired wizard Alhereid, steadily emptying a tankard after another, his eyes lucidly and calculatingly observed us, and everyone around us, and there was nothing he didn’t see and nothing he didn't hear. He told nobody aboout his dream, and I was certain there was no adult or child or elderly, who could stand to hear it.

I didn’t get drunk easily.

I had built some tolerance.

There weren’t many other ways for servants to spend their sparse free nights but to unwind over cups, and completely isolating myself from the others wouldn’t have done me any favors. I was used to the predatory gossip of maids and butlers high and low, and the carnivorous undertones of human entertainment. I’d seen how kings and emperors reveled. I'd seen high diplomats bow to tapestries, and grand magisters crawl on floors like dogs. I’d tasted the classiest, spiciest wines that money could buy, and the sweetest, punchiest of liquors, and the drinks of this rural town were like water in my mouth. But enough was enough. There was something about this wretched night that got to me all the same.

Under the gilded palace ceiling, I could wear the tempered armor of a maid, an institution, but the Empire was very far from here. Faulsen felt closer to the town where I'd spent my youth. Nostalgia was more inebriating than any ale, and it summoned in me memories of insecurity I had thought were long-buried in oblivion, like something slimy and cold and inexplicably venomous slithering its way up in me, and it slowly squeezed the air out of my lungs.

I quietly left my seat and climbed the narrow stairs out onto the shabby alehouse porch.

Before we knew it, the night had fallen, the sun long gone. A cool wind blew from the mountains, crisp, hard, and a little humid. The rustling of pines in the breeze drowned out the noise of the bar. The windows of the nearby cabins were shuttered and dark. The town was at rest.

The boarding behind me creaked under the weight of careful footsteps, and I glanced back to see Ray come up. The youth came to lean on the porch railing next to me, breathing in the smell of the country, and looking appropriately somber on the face.

“Tomorrow we go our separate ways, huh?” he said, his eyes on the uncovered, muddy drive lane between the cabins. “Thanks, Ria. I owe you, for all the help back there in the dungeon. And before.”

“I was only doing my duty. You helped me as many times as I helped you. There is nothing you owe me. We are even.”

“Right. Better to say bye without regrets. No unfinished business. No looking back.”

“Yes.”

The youth seemed tense. Was it the future bothering him?

“It’s been a long year,” he said.

“Yes.”

“A lot happened.”

“Indeed, a lot happened.” It was a noisy year.

“I’m going to miss you. And the Princess. His majesty too. And everybody. You’ve all been so good to me.”

“The road may be long,” I said, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean goodbye forever, does it? Have faith. Do your best, believe in your friends, and I'm sure we may meet again.”

He nodded. “You’re right. I’ll make it. Somehow, I’ll do it. And then I’ll come back.”

“That’s the spirit.”

We stood in silence for a moment. Then Ray resumed,

“So. You know, that thing they say? How it’s better to try and fail than to never try. Do you think that’s true?”

“Generally speaking, I do think so. Why?”

The man turned to me, wearing a flustered, guilty smile, and said,

“Well, you know. This could be your last chance to have sex with a real hero. Are you game?”

I looked back at the man and asked, “Where is the hero?”

Ray spun around and stormed back downstairs to the bar floor without another word. As he went, I caught a glimpse of his face and saw that the hurt on it was genuine. I had taken his blunt proposal as mockery and responded in kind. But maybe that hadn’t been the case. Maybe under the act he had been serious. Maybe it had taken him a lot of courage to ask that.

Maybe there were better ways I could have answered. Would my thoughtlessness come to jeopardize his mission and the future of life? Damn the world then. Damn everything. I was an imperial maid. There was no situation in which I would have said yes to him. I wouldn't have said yes, if it were the Emperor asking—and he had asked, many times, in better words—and I wouldn’t say yes to a boy like him either.

The night had lost its fun for me.

I went back to the inn alone.