Charlot emerged into the warmth of noon, and the world seemed to balloon around him. He could see so much better in the light of day! He was pleased to find his charges had not leveled the village in his absence. There was still a small crowd staring at them, but many of the villagers had moved on. They’d seen Korak before and lunch was waiting.

The great lazy bear was lying on his back with his belly pointed at the sun, and Sylas and Shaharzarat leaned with their backs against him, chattering to each other in Tonipatrua. At first, he’d meant to forbid them any speech but Aranic, but it swiftly proved a fool’s errand. They learned so quickly!

He was not surprised to find Sylas had opted to learn Shaharazat’s language rather than the other way around. The girl was an avatar of willfulness. Already, they were making up their own words, crafting little jokes between them. Disaster was inevitable. Charlot was not fool enough to think he could hold back the tide.

Siyabros the wolf circled Korak, and he trotted to Lak’s side as the war-dog emerged, glancing about warily. Charlot wondered if there was some latent bond between the victims of the Asyndagrim, or if it was merely that the war dog was the closest thing around to a wolf.

“Rise, lazy one! We must be going!” Charlot called, as much to warn the villagers the bear was about to be on the move as to rouse the silverpaw.

With a yawn that shook the earth, Korak rolled over and stretched out like a cat, his tail wriggling with his rump high in the air. When he’d regained his feet, Korak sniffed the air intently, casting his slightly-askew glance around the square.

Wondering what he’d caught wind of, Charlot did the same. Someone was frying sausages upwind. In unison, their stomachs rumbled, though the bear’s far outshone the wizard’s. Charlot suppressed his urge to seek out the source of the scent. These villagers could hardly be expected to feed a silverpaw bear, a wolf, and a war dog. The old wizard wasn’t yet sure how he was going to manage it himself.

Summoning his band of children and beasts, Charlot offered the blessings of the Laughing Star to the assembled villagers, and then set off on the northern path on foot. He waved to the children shyly watching them from a vegetable patch and felt quite fine. It was a glorious day.

When they were well away from town, he relaxed the glamor, and Flaccaro glinted so brilliantly in the sun it seemed the staff was trying to blind them all.

“Enough boasting!” Charlot addressed the staff, not caring if the children gave him curious looks. They would learn soon enough that many of Charlot’s belongings had wills of their own. After his long trek, he was nearly home.

Thinking of the Citadel, Charlot wondered if either of the children would have the knack for crafting. Sylas was almost certainly too flighty for such an arduous and time-consuming practice. Shaharzarat had the will for it, but she was perhaps a little too self-assured to recognize the value of items that could add to her own power. Yet, Charlot reminded himself what the children were not what they would always be. They had a tremendous capacity for change.

As he pondered what would come, Charlot glanced ahead at the giant bear. Plodding forward with thumping beats of his massive paws, the ebon hound and the wolf with the broad silver scar trotting side by side. After them came the children, chattering in Aranic, then swapping to Tonipatrua, then to Tehraljatani as they tried to give a name to the hoopwing beetle that had landed on Sylas’ walking stick. They tried all three languages to find the right word for it, weighing the words in their mouths, trying to find the right one.

Charlot felt an urge to stop them and to explain the right words. While he was at it, he would show them how the lacy chitinous hoops were not actually wings at all. The real ones were hidden away beneath the beetle’s shell. Instead, he let them try and work it out for themselves. There would be time enough for instruction later. The feelings of homecoming were stirring in him, and he needed time to reflect.

The children were not the only ones who could change. A week ago, he’d been a hermit, moldering in his tower and waiting for death. Now, he was charged with purpose. If the work to cure his eyes had kindled a spark within him, the events of the last few days had stoked it into a roaring blaze.

His mind whirled with Shenden bows and blightproof potatoes, tricky deals with the Manatramord and looming threats from masgeslayers and legionnaires. He was not the man he’d been just a week ago, and the world was a strange and painful place once he slipped free from the groove he’d worn so deeply.

The serenity he’d grown so used to was gone and could not be regained. As he considered his return to the Crimson Citadel, he felt the dread of all the things he’d left undone, all the tasks that would be required in the days to come.

This whole mad quest had begun because he’d run out of food, and after all that had transpired, his larder was still bare, and he had four more mouths to feed. But it was more than just keeping them fed, the children were a responsibility.

Sharazarat, welling with power that would only grow, imperiling everyone and everything around her. Sylas with his uncanny knack for getting into trouble, the worrisome sense that he was star-touched. The plans of the gods seldom boded well for mortals. Even an archmage. The gods would spend Charlot like a bent coin to further their schemes.

Furthermore, there was the matter of the village. Charlot had talked a grand game of letting Fraughten be destroyed if he didn’t get his way, perhaps he’d even hoodwinked that shrewd crone into thinking he did not care. But Charlot could not fool himself. If he came back to Fraughten and found it a smoldering ruin, if he saw those children who had waved at his pet bear as headless little corpses littering the streets, it would pierce him like a knife.

One more bitter wound he would carry inside him forever. Another Adder Vale, another Cymaring Cabal. How many times had he promised himself never again? Yet, it was happening again. He had hidden as far as a man could hide, and the world had found him again, drawn him back into the fray.

Blasted Audera! This was all her doing. Keenly, he remembered the sprig of clover growing from the blackened crack, the thin fragments of the dream in the widow’s cabin. His mind tumbled through a thousand worries as they passed the ruins of the ancient bridge.

They came upon the old sapwine tree he paused to lay his hand on the trunk and see how it was faring after the removal of the balch beetle queen. The tree lived still.

He looked hopefully toward the river Coromorbo, wondering if he might see the kingfisher again, but the bird was attending to other matters. They passed the spot where Braeburn Clay staged his ill-fated ambush, and Charlot couldn’t help but scan the ground for signs of the struggle, but the rain had washed the earth clean. From time to time, Charlot’s eyes drifted upriver, wondering if there might be a tower of smoke so vast even his ailing eyes couldn’t miss it, but there was nothing on the wind but the smell of the river and a cool late-afternoon breeze.

A weariness grew in his joints, and he considered ordering Korak down so he could ride, but he pushed the thought away. He wanted to make it home on his own two feet.

At last, they arrived. On the other side of the river, Charlot could not clearly see his own tower, but he saw the awe on Shaharzarat’s face as she stared open-mouthed at the Crimson Citadel rising high above the grove of emerald shade yew trees.

How fine it would be to see the tower for the first time as she did, through the eyes of youth! Charlot glanced at Sylas, seeing determination and apprehension vying for control of his face. For the boy, this was far more than a jaunt out to Billibee and a few scrapes along the way. If his story could be believed, Sylas had journeyed for thousands of leagues on his own to be here. Now, the real challenge would begin.

“All of you, sit and be still and silent. This will take a moment,” Charlot commanded. There was a whump as Korak found the ground. No one ever had to tell the bear to lie down twice. Sylas and Sharzarat sat cross leg-legged, and Siyabros and Lak settled onto their haunches, all peering up at the master arcanist.

Charlot cast his mind across the river to the Citadel’s outermost barrier, a potent ward generated by obelisks of polished obsidian, set every fifty paces around the entire island. Before his new companions could cross onto his island, the ward needed to be modified to admit them rather than annihilate them. It was a complicated affair.

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The problem of allowing the Asyndagrim, and Lak in particular, was a fiendishly difficult piece of syntax, for he did not know the mask’s true name. Furthermore, there was every chance Lak might wear a different form the next time she tried to pass the wall. It took quite a bit of tinkering until Charlot was satisfied.

With all their eyes on him, Charlot felt a pang of disappointment that none of his audience could possibly understand the subtle difficulty of what he’d done.

“Just a few minutes more,” he assured the restless youths.

Now, Charlot shut his eyes and let his senses drift into his outermost sentry orbs, looking for any sign of an ambush. Next, he went to the orbs of peerless proprioception beneath the surface of the river, and then to the inner ring of arcane alarms, but they were undisturbed. As unlikely as it was someone had pierced his defenses, he was not about to be caught off guard by an ambush in his own home.

Just before he let go, Charlot felt a familiar ripple beneath the black water, a subtle and sinuous creeping in the muck of the riverbed. At once, his eyes shot open, and his body stiffened with pique.

“YOU!” Charlot shouted, startling all present. With Flaccaro in hand, he strode to the edge of the river and stood on a stony stretch of beach.

“ARISE, NYLACOME!” Charlot demanded, invoking the kraken’s true name. In the distance, he barely make out something blurry jutting from the river, too small to be the entire squid. For a moment, Charlot wondered if it was raising a tentacle in surrender, but then he had a flash of understanding, and his eyes narrowed in anger.

Invoking three arcane sigils that rang in his mouth like tolling bells, Charlot flung his hand in the direction of the offending appendage, and power arced at it, striking the water with a tremendous crack. At once, the river exploded in a mass of flailing tendrils and frothing water, with a howl of pain the devil rose fully to the surface.

“Point your hectocotylus at me again, you vulgar varlet! I’ll blast you into eight separate pieces! The bits of you can fight a civil war to see which regenerates the rest! Get over here while I’m talking to you, spineless squid!”

The kraken made its way to the bank, slow enough to show defiance, but not so slow to risk being blasted again. Behind him, Charlot heard the rumble of Korak’s avalanche growl, but he kept his attention wholly focused on Nylacome.

Two giant, ringed golden eyes regarded the party, and behind them, the squid’s mantle was thicker than an oak tree, wide fins rippling to keep it afloat on the surface. The air was suddenly redolent with the smell of charred squid. Charlot couldn’t help but remember it had been hours since he’d eaten last.

“What are you doing here?” Charlot demanded.

“I LAIR HERE. HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN ALREADY, DODDERING ONE?” Nylacome raised his beak from the water to rasp at Charlot in the black tongue of devils. The rings of his eyes twisted in opposite directions as he peered past the wizard at the newcomers.

“I told you to leave my river and trouble me no more!” Charlot shouted back in Aranic, which he knew Nylacome hated to speak or hear.

“THE RIVER IS NOT YOURS, FOOL! I CANNOT LEAVE WHAT YOU DO NOT HAVE. DO NOT BLAME NYLACOME IF YOU ARE TOO INEPT TO ISSUE A SIMPLE COMMAND.”

As his stomach grumbled, Charlot considered calling on Flaccaro to turn the insolent devil into calamari. Yet, it was a foolish impulse. He needed look no further than the scarred wolf growling at his side for a reminder that one could not eat the flesh of devils.

“Bah! Ever you stand on the edge between insufferable and irrelevant. Care you do not tip the scales enough that I bother to destroy you! What has transpired while I was away?”

“NOTHING AND NO ONE, AS ALWAYS. YOU ARE FORGOTTEN,” Nylacome rumbled.

“Gaze at these five. They are permitted to cross the river! Do not trouble them!” Charlot demanded, speaking in the black tongue of devils with the full force of command.

The golden rings of his eyes twisted furiously. Just as Charlot was about to rebuke the impertinent squid, Nylacome’s tendrils twitched in surprise.

“WHO?” roared the kraken, rising and sending a wave crashing over the beach. Now, his eight limbs were arrayed for battle, the wicked hooks whirling in anticipation.

"WHO ARE YOU?” Nylacome demanded, and he had eyes only for Lak. At Charlot’s side, the war dog sat still, giving no sign she understood

“I SEE YOU! YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM ME!” Nylacome roared. The kraken’s deep voice pounded in their ears like a drum. Deliberately, the war dog laid down, gazing away as if utterly disinterested. Charlot had to fight to keep from grinning at Lak’s antics. How easily she had enraged him!

“HOW DARE YOU SLIGHT ME?!” Nylacome howled. Swift as a viper’s strike, the kraken slammed a thick tentacle into the ground with a sound like a felled tree. The tentacle was capped with a hook as long as a sickle blade, and it pierced the earth just inches from Lak’s snout. The children leapt aside, Siyabros barked in alarm, and Korak reared up, holding his great paws out for battle.

But Lak only scratched herself behind the ear with a hind leg, and then curled out her black tongue in a yawn. The snub was more than the kraken could bear. It flew into an insane fury, slapping its tentacles on the water with a tremendous crack and splashing water onto all of them.

“NYLACOME!” Charlot thundered, and the demon’s true name struck it like a stunning blow. “BEGONE!”

The tantrum ended, and Nylacome vanished beneath the river. Charlot felt him jetting away and slinking into his underwater cavern. He looked at his wet robes with distaste and considered the drying cantrip, but they would be wet again soon enough.

“What was that thing?” Shaharzarat asked, and Charlot could feel the faintest trace of energy in the air emanating from her, just the slightest figment of potential. He hadn’t been the only one ready to cook the squid.

“That is Nylacome, an ancient devil. Once, he was a great blight upon the Arc, sinking entire fleets and devouring sailors by the score. Then, a sage named Vos’Gotte swindled him out of his true name and published it in an elementary tome of planar magic. Now, every second-year apprentice upon the Arc can defeat him with a word. True names have tremendous power. Never trade yours for any price.

“Why is he here?” Shaharzarat indicated the river.

“He is hiding until the day the world forgets his name, be it a hundred years from now or a thousand. I’ve never quite bothered to destroy him. He does eat most of the intruders who approach my island,” Charlot said, raising his eyebrows at Sylas. The boy nodded. He’d come very close to being devoured.

“Why does he hide so close to someone who has power over him?”

“I speculate that he is cowering in the arcane shadow of The Crimson Citadel, cloaked by my power. Otherwise, he’d be getting summoned to every corner of the lake by every hedge wizard who ever cracked the cover of Vos’Gotte’s tome. Which, by the way, is entitled On the Nature of the Planes and the Subversion Thereof. You will both read it if you manage to live through your first year of study.”

The children blinked at him.

“Oh, yes. Let there be no illusions between us. You two wish to learn magic. Listen to me now, there is nothing more perilous in all of existence. Were you committed to learning swordcraft, a wrong move might end your life. When you blunder in the Art, you might end your soul, and a thousand others besides. What you will learn is how to tamper with the laws that bind reality together. Unthinkable hubris, and yet, here I stand. I cannot deny to you what I eagerly took,” Charlot said, and he remembered the vision of the wild young man, staring back from his reflection.

He heard the faintest flutter of wings above them. It could have been any bird, but he knew better. He spoke for an audience now.

“I can warn you, though, look upon me. The danger is so vast you cannot begin to conceive it. No words I could speak could impart even an inkling of what awaits you. The responsibility is crushing. If you survive and gain power, you will never again be able to dismiss matters as being out of your control. Whether a city burns because of your inaction, or it burns because you set the fire, you will feel the same guilt. Look upon me and see what this life has done. You see this lonely tower in the deep wilderness, do you suppose I hate the sight of other people? That I wish to be eternally alone? Well, I will tell you it is not so. I built this tower as far from the world as I could get, to protect others from my presence. From beasts like Nylacome, drawn to the Art like moths to a flame. From the endless machinations of ignoble nobility and idiot generals who think themselves capable of manipulating me into engaging in their petty little wars. From cowardly, lesser magicians who seek to draw me out with wanton slaughter of innocents, thinking they can lure me into their ill-conceived traps,” Charlot glanced at the tree above, toward the gyrfalcon he could not possibly see but knew was there just the same.

“What you seek is power. And power isolates. Power demands action, and you will learn that there are no clean decisions. No matter which side you take, others will suffer for it. Men, women, children, they will die because of what you have done. It is inescapable.”

Sylas and Shaharzarat looked up at him, their faces grave. They were trying as hard as they could to understand. Charlot knew it was an impossible task. Wisdom could only be earned by suffering. Yet, he would try just the same.

This was but the first of a thousand strokes. He would be hammering on them for years, trying to beat them into the shape of magicians before they could become monsters. He saw the red-rimmed eyes of the war dog upon him as well, reminding him of the price of failure. How heavy the weight of it all! He shrugged, but the burden was there to stay.

“Come,” he bid the children, climbing onto Korak’s broad back, and the bear seemed eager for a swim.