I awoke at half past five, the same as any other day. The night had been short but dawn had nonetheless arrived. I sat up on the edge of the bed and noted that Corporal Thiselt had not returned. Alcohol still lingered in my blood, coursing through my veins with a numbing burn, and muddled my thoughts. I tried to stand but my limbs were unreasonably heavy and off-balanced. My head throbbed with a prickly ache and I groaned aloud.

I gave up on forcing through it and began to trace the line of the graph with my finger. Magic was surely made for loftier uses than this, but for me personally, nothing could be more important than managing my duty to the utmost of my ability. And no one was there to see.

Elemental Gate: Sanatio.

“Heal.”

The preternatural power poured into me from unseen dimensions inside, up along the spine and into the limbs, filling my fiber with a secure tension and cohesion. Technically, Sanatio didn’t remove toxins; another Sigil existed for that. But the magic could restore any corporeal damage done and make me feel as though I were in top shape, regardless of whatever else was going on. The withdrawal symptoms effectively negated, I could go on without the remaining poison getting in the way of my work.

The big day was here. The time had come to go home.

I'd had my fill of heroes and wizards for a lifetime.

I washed up over a basin of water, got dressed, and made my bed, before again recalling that I didn’t have to do that in an inn. I had only created more work for the actual employees. Not off to a great start again. Silently berating myself for being such an incurably rigid single-track organism, I went downstairs to wait for my companions to rise and breakfast be served.

Last night had been a circus, but I had seen people behave foolishly under influence before and had learned to accept that as an inescapable part of human culture. There was no meaning in holding it against them. The hope of returning to the usual routine soon again was enough to mend my mood.

Another two days’ hike through Baloria, and then two more weeks by the highway to the capital. I sure had kept the Princess waiting. Of course, I still had to find her a souvenir too. What kind of things did 13-year-olds generally like? I doubted I would find jewelry fit for an imperial princess in a small town such as this. Her highness was partial to books, but I would have liked to give her something of more practical value. Something that could give her joy for many, many years to come.

Ser Vergil was the first of the others to rise again. Another victim of routine.

He looked pale and shaky as he climbed down the stairs from the second floor to the lobby, depending heavily on the railing.

“Good morning, Ser,” I greeted him with a bow.

The man dragged himself over and heaved a heavy sigh.

“You’d still bow your head to me after what an ass I made of myself last night?”

“You are what you are,” I answered. “Your heritage is not something mere alcohol can wash away.”

“What a mad world!” he scoffed and went out.

The next to show up was deeply confounded Corporal Samuel, coming in from outside instead of his room upstairs. He reported to me in wonder how he had found himself sleeping in a pile of hay in the barn instead of his bed, boars for company, and coins had rained on him when he took off his hat. I suggested it was a belated payment from the tooth fairy.

Sergeant Klein appeared next, looking none the worse for the wear. A stout farmer’s son and soldier, only one night of drinking had done little to bring him down. Much like myself, he was also thankful to the Heavens for being allowed to return home. The sooner the better.

A bit after this, the hero himself returned among us common mortals. Corporal Thiselt came together with him and answered the mystery of where she had spent the night. Nearing the floor, Ray noticed me in the back of the lounge watching him and flushed quickly with shame. He faced away and carried on toward the dining hall. Tailing close behind the young man, the red-eyed archer greeted me with a silent look, a haughty look, a cold look, like she had survived a difficult battle, but it had not been the kind of victory she had wanted, and then they were out of my sight. I could only wonder what was to become of their appointment with the Dark Lord? Were they even going to get that far?

Oh well. It was none of my business now.

Shortly after came the thief Ruvi, who appeared determined to make good of her drunken pledge, and had not robbed the party, or run away at night, despite the prime opportunity to do so. As a matter of fact, she looked more ill than any of the others and took the longest to overcome the stairway. I made a mental note that hauflins were not only unable to hold their liquor, but it could even be called something of a weakness to their kind.

Only one was still missing.

We broke our fast—those of us who could hold it in—but it wasn’t until noon that the wizard Alhereid finally made his appearance. Where he had been, none could tell, but it wasn’t in the inn with us that he'd had his respite. The man had us gather together in the lounge, where he made no mention of the amusements of the dark hours, and seemed no different from the moment we first met him.

“The time has come,” he announced without further ado. “The hero must now journey north.”

Under gray skies, we went out and walked together to the town gate and parted at the crossroads a stone's throw from there.

It wasn’t a long goodbye. All the heartfelt words had been spent. Now, unable to look each other in the eye in broad daylight, we exchanged some vague, short platitudes about good luck and perseverance, and then split up. For a time, I watched the party drift down the Trakian highway, trying to convince myself I was witnessing history in the making.

The naive hero Raymond. The enigmatic wizard Alhereid. The cynical noble, Ser Vergil. The capricious archer Thiselt. The lonely thief Ruvi. They were hardly figures from legends, virtuous champions, but only five very flawed mortals, who seemed like the long road would defeat them before the Thurians could have their turn. But what could we but put our faith in them?

I couldn’t deny feeling a slight sting of regret somewhere inside as I stared at their distancing backs.

What would it have been like to be part of that story?

But we all had our allotted role to play on this earth, and it wouldn’t do for a lowly servant to develop illusions of grandeur now.

I detached myself from the view and turned back to Sergeant Klein and Samuel waiting for me.

“I’ll be in your care, gentlemen. Shall we get going?”

“You worked hard on the way here,” Samuel told me. “So you can hang back and relax now. We’ll get you back home to his majesty safe and sound.”

It was a clouded, drab day, but we had no need to mind the weather. The forecast was ever the same under stone. We scaled the foothills and hiked up the steep rise to the base of the mountain. It had been pleasant going down, but climbing uphill took conscious effort. It was closer to two o’clock before we reached the gate of Baloria and had a quick lunch at the old campsite.

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The Guild hadn’t assigned a watch to the gate here. How negligent of them. Suppose they would know soon enough if monsters began to pour on them. The entrance was narrow enough that a very great beast couldn’t fit through, not without digging through a hundred and twenty yards of solid rock. The entryway with its fortifications were meant to keep masses of invaders out, not trap beasts inside, but the effect was the same.

We passed into the eternal shadow under the Ursus, and Klein said it felt like coming back home, even more so than the capital. Samuel and I could understand the sentiment. It was a small world down under, clearly defined and plain to understand. Everything had its role in a dungeon, and you either carved your slot in the picture, or were dead.

Though we had walked the same path not two days ago, it showed a new, fresh face going the other way. Sides of objects, surfaces we hadn’t seen before. We circled around the old husks of wains and crates and cavalry obstacles dressed in cobwebs and the dust of the ages and passed under the watch of the solemn, blinded, empty-bodied turrets expecting the migrants that wouldn’t come.

My eyes swept over it all, barely conscious of what they were seeing.

My mind was in the far future already.

It wouldn’t be easy getting back into the hectic daily cycle after over a month away. I counted it would be Friday when we reached the capital. It was the worst possible day to return. If there was a large ball scheduled for Saturday, I would be woefully unprepared for it. One night was too short to learn the schedule of a busy day and see that everything was coming along as it should. It was a little lighter if the imperial family was only attending, but an absolute nightmare if we were hosting.

I began to entertain underhanded plans, like stalling on the way and only going to the palace on Sunday morning. It wouldn’t take much convincing to bring the soldiers aboard an extended vacation. No, I couldn’t do that to her highness and Henrietta. If things got frenetic while I was away, they would have to bring other maids to fill in. Employees of less than stellar quality, untrained to the role, not used to it. That tended to create more trouble than it was help. Princess Anastasia didn’t like new faces either. She was slow to open up, it took time to earn her trust. I was giving her unnecessary distress while thinking only of my own benefit. Spending time with such shady characters had made a wreck of my work ethic. Whipping myself back into shape from scratch was going to take earnest effort.

Oh, how I wished we were there already.

Growing impatient and outpacing yourself was an amateur mistake in a dungeon, of course. None of us was quite foolish enough to commit it. We swallowed our homesickness and took it steady, one step at a time. We hiked through the entrance district and came then back to the Earth Vein and the long, lonely bridge stretching across the dizzying heights.

Perhaps I had been unwittingly assured by the hero’s presence before, but looking at that fathomless canyon now, with only the three of us, it truly was an abominable thing. Under other circumstances, I wouldn’t have gone within a hundred leagues of it, but could only tackle my dread head-on now. But I didn't find it in me to step on as brazenly as the guardsmen, and was left a little behind them.

“How did they ever build such a thing?” Samuel pondered in awe. He didn’t seem bothered by heights.

“Ask the professor,” Klein nodded back at me with a grin.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don't know any better,” I told them. “The dwarves took their secrets with them. I would reckon magic was used. They carved out the bridgeheads, perhaps, then extended the rock little by little with appropriate spells, and reinforced the bulk with runes. You can still see the lettered plates embedded in the balusters.”

“So you do know,” Samuel remarked.

“I’m only speculating. It’s pure guesswork. Basic inference.”

I spoke with unusual rapidity. Maybe half to distract myself from the overpowering fear of heights.

“Maids use a lot of difficult words,” the unschooled corporal commented in awe.

“Difficult for jarheads like us, maybe,” Klein said. “But that’s how they all talk up there in the halls of power, you know.”

“Doesn’t it get tiresome when your every word has to be so pretty? I wouldn’t make it through half a day as a noble.”

“Then be glad you’re not one.”

“You’re not one either, Klein.”

“And thank gods for that.”

I wasn’t a noble either, I wanted to point out, but it wasn’t a conversation worth extending. In fact, I began to miss silence again.

We walked on, the two soldiers ahead of me, keeping a cautious eye out. It was the worst place possible to be ambushed by goblins. That was just the sort of underhanded trickery they would do. Their kind had no trouble climbing the underside of the bridge too, if need be, and I wasn't sure they understood the concept of altitude.

We stepped on and I heard a peculiar, grating sound. Like rock dragging against rock. What could have caused such strange noise? Where was it coming from? The next thing I knew, Klein and Samuel’s figures were going down, fast. In my confused eyes, it looked as if they had casually jumped off the bridge, and like so they fell, and looked downright merry going.

I stood back, gobsmacked. Why would the two of them do something so senseless for no apparent reason? Had life been that terrible for them?

It was only with a slight lag that I realized they hadn’t jumped of their own volition—the bridge itself fell under them. The whole thing was breaking apart. While my conscious mind still struggled to digest this twist, my body moved. My legs kicked off the stone and I leapt back, as fast and as far as I could. I retreated even as the blocks gave away under me, but my momentum took me on, and then I fell to sit on the head of the broken bridge, my feet dangling over the black abysses.

Struck dumb, I watched Klein and Samuel sink into the fathomless shadows among the dislodged boulders. They stared up at me wide-eyed, helplessly scooping the air with their bare hands, too surprised to even utter a sound. Then they faded into the black, gobbled up by the earth's bowels.

I couldn’t tell how long I sat there, staring after them. Maybe minutes. Maybe an hour.

The sound of the two bodies and the debris striking the bottom of the canyon—never came.

Did the Vein even have a bottom?

Or had they slipped straight through to the hollow of the earth?

That hideous thought restored my self-awareness.

“Hii——!”

I scrambled away from the edge on all fours, dreading that ravenous chasm would somehow pull me into it too if I lingered. It was hardly conduct befitting an imperial maid, but etiquette was not on top of my mind then. Only when back on a solid floor and far from the gorge could I allow myself the luxury to stand and breathe. Slowly, what just happened began to sink in.

The bridge over the Earth Vein was gone.

The entire central section of it, a good hundred yards of stone, had collapsed, leaving only short stumps on both ends. And the two imperial guards were gone with the ruin. That was going to be a problem. A rather sizable problem indeed. You might perhaps have called it a disaster, even, not far short of the day the Ruby Dragon clawed its way up from under the streets of San Tellestia.

How could I get to the other side now? I wasn’t going to jump that far. Neither did climbing along the ceiling seem possible for human limbs. I would have to find another way. I looked along the sides of the barren canyon. There were no other bridges visible from where I stood, neither in the west, nor in the east. That bleak, desolate view was telling me one grim message.

I wasn’t going home today. If ever.