They started with lessons.

A few hours after Nathan woke in their cave he found himself bundled aboard a cart loaded with supplies, clothes, and a cantankerous mule named Rupert. Nathan chose not to ask where they'd got it all and simply thanked the cobblings. That might have been a mistake: he almost had to beat them away with a stick.

Belias and Cain, along with a few others, insisted on escorting him back to Maggie. Nathan didn't bother to argue, relieved that most of the cobblings had been left behind. Any worries about being laid up while he healed from the torture was groundless: once the paste dried Cain had scraped it away to reveal a series of dark, triangular scars. They still ached when he moved, but the torture might have happened months ago. He considered asking what was in that paste, but before he could work up the nerve Belias had insisted they focus on magic.

The homunculus claimed he had attended an old master of the art but refused to go into more detail. Nathan didn't want to push the homunculus. He was struggling enough as it was, trying to wrap his mind around even the possibility he could do the things that Belias insisted should be as easy as breathing. His self-appointed teacher decided to prove it to Nathan as they traveled. The homunculus forbade any of the others to give Nathan water and then began.

"I feel like an idiot." Nathan sat in the back of the cart and stared at the crude wooden bowl Cain was balancing in his palm. The golem moved so smoothly as he walked that the water didn't even ripple.

Belias ignored Nathan’s whining. "A salamander can endure heat, even take it in for nourishment, but cannot release it as you did when you killed those men. Stretch out with your feelings and take the cup from Cain's hand."

"Thanks for the tip, Obi-Wan." Nathan raised his hand and tried again to Jedi the cup out of Cain's reach. It didn't so much as twitch. "It's still not working." He sighed and turned to the driver of the cart. "You got any advice, J?"

Jabberwisp was very much what his name sounded like, a tuft of cloth and twigs that, if the excitable little thing could hold still, might easily be mistaken for a girl's homemade doll. How he was even holding the reins was a mystery to Nathan: as far as he could tell the little cobbling didn't have digits.

"You-know-that-feeling-you-got-as-a-child-when-you-believe-really-believed-you-could-fly?" Jabberwisp squeaked. "Concentrate-on-that-feeling-and-BELIEVE-you-can-move-the-cup!"

Nathan stifled a giggle. The cobbling sounded like an offended balloon. "Thanks, buddy."

"Anytime-young-master-just-name-it."

"You know, you could just call me Nathan."

"I-know-young-master-it-is-just-my-custom."

Nathan glanced at Belias. "You sure it's a good idea to let him drive? No offense, but J looks like a stiff breeze would send him into outer space."

"He is stronger than he looks. Move the cup."

Nathan rolled his eyes and focused again. He did feel... something. A nebulous sense of heat and light at the back of his mind. He could hold onto that feeling with a little effort, but whenever he tried to send it towards the cup it melted away like snow in his hands.

"Look B, I feel something, I just can't..." he aimlessly waved his arms at Cain. "Can I just have the water, please?"

"Belias. And no, you may not."

Nathan scowled. "I could just order you to give it to me, you know."

Belias cut a furrow into the wooden sides of the cart with his finger. "You could. You won't."

"Fine. Um..." Nathan glanced at Jabberwisp again, watching as the little cobbling lightly flicked the reins. Belias was right: the cobbling didn't have fingers, but the straps of leather were sticking to Jabberwisp's stumpy limbs as though they'd been glued there.

Nathan considered that for a moment and smiled. "Hey, Belias. Were there any wizards or bloodlines or whatever that could only manipulate what they were touching?"

The homunculus ran its metal hand along its withered, useless one. "There were. There were many, in fact, but−"

"Cain, could you please bring the cup here? I promise I'm not going to drink it. I just want to try something."

The golem ambled forward and offered him the cup. Nathan leaned forward, dipped his finger into the water, and focused.

The water boiled away in an instant, becoming a cloud of steam and blasting Nathan full in the face. Nathan yelped and toppled off the cart. Neither the steam nor the fall had hurt him, but Nathan was certain his ego had taken a bad hit.

"Ow... that worked... ow." He climbed back up into his seat, wincing as the scars on his back complained. He turned to Belias and beamed as he wiped moisture from his face. "What do you think?"

"I think you need to work on control."

Nathan sighed. "Thanks. Would you mind telling me what the deal is?"

The homunculus's face was unreadable. "The deal?"

"You know, the lowdown, the scoop, the... oh, never mind. Please tell me more about wizards who had to touch things to work magic on them."

"Not yet. We must be thorough."

Thorough, to Belias, meant hours and hours of grinding, torturous, bizarre tests. The homunculus threw an endless barrage of them at his student: lighting candles with a gesture, pulling moisture out of the air, a myriad of little challenges each weirder than the last. Cain watched in silence, as always, but Jabberwisp would occasionally comment on the lessons and even contradict Belias. Nathan had a feeling that if Jabberwisp took the time to slow down he would probably be a better instructor, but was deferring to the homunculus for some reason.

It was only after Nathan spent a fruitless hour trying to draw in a bowl of water that Belias finally ceded the point. Nathan had spectacularly failed every trial: the air sullenly ignored him, the candles exploded like little waxy bombs, and the water, when it didn't evaporate under his hands, showed only Nathan's irritated reflection.

"They were held in contempt, considered weaklings, not called wizards but artificers, a title of little more regard than a village blacksmith."

Nathan scowled at the homunculus and picked candle wax off his fingers. "Who now did what why?"

"Those who needed physical contact to work their will. Even the least of wizards could cast fire from their hands or scry the wind. Most could have moved that cup or boiled the water with a thought, but a wizard who had to lay his hands on the world to change it was hardly a wizard at all. Such things were for mere mortals. Besides, what happens to a man who puts his hand into the fire?" he said, then gave a rare smile. "A man unlike you, Nathan."

Nathan shrugged. "He burns."

"Exactly. The world has laws that apply even to wizards. An artificer, unless of weak talent or great control, would oft be consumed by his own workings. Imagine trying to work molten iron simply by laying hand on it."

The homunculus inclined his head. "The salamander's gift is a potent one, especially when considered in tandem with your talents. The power you can draw upon is considerable. You should be able to survive a loss of control, provided nothing explodes." Belias turned away, facing down the road. "It is... most convenient."

"No kidding," Nathan stared at his hands for a moment. "I can melt things. Huzzah."

"Do not malign yourself or your power, Nathan." Belias said. "It is a simple, if mighty thing, to will fire to dance to your desires, to make the clouds flee at your whim. The power of an artificer is not measured in strength but in the mind."

"What do you mean?"

"Artificers created the greatest of our kind."

Nathan stared in shock. "But you said−"

"I said that those with such ability were considered weak. I did not say they were. An artificer could not destroy armies with a gesture, so they were forced to be creative." The homunculus nodded at Cain, still pacing along in the cart's wake, "To imagine something that could."

Nathan stared at the golem, lost in a black corner of his mind. What would it be to create something like the ancient, living weapon? No one could touch him again, for starters. Not someone like Renal, not even someone like Maggie. As his mind raced along the possibilities, Cain turned to face him. Nathan felt his cheeks flush with shame and the golem nodded once before turning away. Nathan followed his gaze to one of the birdlike cobblings as it soared to Belias' shoulder and chirped in his ear.

"There are travelers up the road. Put up your hood and be silent; we must hide." Belias leaned back and seized Jabberwisp, who yelped as he was hoisted into the air.

Nathan frowned and then lunged after the reins with a muffled yell before Rupert realized he was loose. He glared at Belias as the homunculus fled. "Hide? Why?"

"Not you," Belias hissed over his shoulder as he stalked from the cart "Us. We are to be destroyed on sight whenever found."

Forbidden knowledge, Nathan mused, his thoughts trailing back to his talk with Maggie about the revenant. He turned back to Belias, suddenly nervous at the thought of being alone. "Hey, what if they're highwaymen?" Nathan shrilled. "What should I do?"

The homunculus didn't even turn. "Kill them."

Nathan stared at Belias' back as he vanished under the trees, unsure if he was serious. Shrugging, he climbed up to Jabberwisp's spot and sighed, then jumped as the cart suddenly shook.

He turned just as Cain settled in the back. "What you doing, big guy? Shouldn't you be hiding?"

The golem turned to face Nathan, then reached out and touched Nathan's elbow briefly before looking away and going still as only an animate statue can, having folded himself into what looked like an incredibly difficult yoga pose. In that position, the golem occupied a little less space than most microwaves.

The gesture spoke volumes, even if Cain himself couldn't. I'm not leaving you.

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Nathan smiled and tossed a section of cloth over the golem. "You'd better stay still under this. Forget blowing cover; I'm not sure the cart could take it."

The days wore on like that; constant lessons broken only by rest and occasional travelers. They passed several inns as well, but Belias refused to think of stopping and Nathan glumly conceded the point. It was too dangerous for any number of reasons.

Nathan's control improved but it was a delicate process, if a process that involved the occasional explosion could be called delicate. He had no trouble tapping into the magic: a moment of quiet concentration was all it took to make his body hum with a sensation not unlike the warmth of a campfire. His clothes, however, would start smoldering if he held it in too long, and Belias quickly shooed him from the cart before he managed to set it on fire. It took two days of practice and several spontaneous combustions for Nathan to develop enough control to summon magic and hold it in his mind without reducing his clothes to streaks of soot. With another second's focus he could send his power flooding into whatever he was touching.

Limiting the flow was another challenge. One moment the candle was still and unlit, the next... he could start and stop on a whim, but it was a struggle to limit the forces within to the trickle of power necessary to light a candle rather than a torrent that resulted in explosions of molten wax. He ruined just as many shirts by coating them in the stuff as he had by incinerating them.

Luckily the cobblings had stolen enough to clothe a small village.

At Belias' suggestion he tried with a small knife, though the homunculus had insisted that Nathan strip off his tunic, one of the last, and get well away from the cart before he did. The wooden handle went up straightaway but the metal itself pooled in his hands, heat rippling the air. As it cooled he rolled the hot lump in his hands, imagining the steel as a pair of polished spheres.

He thought he'd been walking for a few seconds, but when Belias called him to the cart he realized that minutes had passed while he paced and muttered over the iron in his hands. When Nathan opened them Belias was delighted: the blade had wound itself into steal balls the size of large marbles.

They'd experimented a little more but that had been the crowning achievement. Nathan thought back to that moment with a proud smile as he admired the scenery, rolling the balls in his hand..

Ruins had begun to dot the landscape, bone-white lumps of rock shrouded by centuries of growth. They appeared slowly at first, and then quickly became as frequent as buildings on a city street, a ghost town of aged rubble. Nathan couldn't shake the feeling that something was odd about the ancient stonework. It was only when a cluster of slender towers rose out of the trees, miraculously untouched by the years, that he put his finger on it.

The ruins weren't ruined. The forest had grown over the stonework but failed to wear the buildings down. There were no cracks, no signs of weathering, nothing. Nathan had a feeling that if he cleared the roots and vines away the stone would be unblemished as the day it was shaped.

Nathan had once visited Hoover Dam with his family. As he stood on the gigantic wall of concrete he had felt an oppressive sense of weight, the terrible pressure of all that water on the great structure beneath his feet. It seemed to tense beneath him, flexing like a vast, monstrous fist as it strained against its burden. He had the same feeling of endless strain here, not against water but against time.

If the efforts of the forest were any indication, the 'ruins' had plenty of fight in them. The walls were flawless: there was no mortar, no signs of bricks or tooling. Nowhere was there an edge or seam to disgrace the workmanship with something so crude as a straight line. The lofty monoliths above the trees might have been natural outcroppings if they hadn't had windows, narrow, rounded slits in the stone that put Nathan in mind of the hollow stares of skulls.

Wizard towers.

Nathan shivered, reminded uncomfortably of the revenant by the comparison, and glanced at his companions. Jabberwisp, Cain, and even Belias kept preternaturally still as they passed through the shadow of the towers, wrapped in the silence.

They don't want to be here.

"Pay-no-mind-to-these-ruins-young-master," Jabberwisp said. "Not-really-a-place-to−"

Nathan held up his hand. "Slow down, little guy. Could you say that again?"

The twigs and rags forming Jabberwisp's body shifted slightly, puffing out and rearranging themselves like the feathers of a bird. Nathan saw something glitter through the seams of the cobbling's body; a gemstone, maybe a piece of glass. "This is not a good place, young master. Things happened here."

Nathan leaned forward. "What things? If it's too much, you don't have to."

Jabberwisp turned to Belias again, who nodded and said "You were here, librarian. Tell him; it is his right."

The cobbling sighed and stopped the cart with a twitch of the reins, then braked the cart and patted the driver's seat. "Someone get up here, please. Young master, if you would come with me, I will show you where I was made."

Belias scowled. "I said to tell him, not take him on a−"

"He is the wizard, not you." Jabberwisp said curtly. "You may be eldest, Belias, but I was created to answer to none but my mother-maker and she is long dead. If I deem it necessary to show him then show him I will. Of the two of us, which had more experience with young wizards?"

The homunculus's eyes narrowed. "A child's replacement is not a child, nor heir to a child's rights. Know your place, cobbling." Belias leaned forward to take the reins. "Do as you must. Be quick about it."

After a moment Jabberwisp turned to Nathan. "You may wish to place me on your shoulder, young master, and bring a torch. We have some walking to do."

It wasn't far to the base of one of the towers, perhaps a quarter mile through the woods. Still, it was deep enough into the forest that Nathan grew nervous, even comforted as he was by Cain's silent insistence on coming with them.

"You sure nothing... spooky can find us?"

Jabberwisp tittered from Nathan's shoulder. "I would not worry, young master. Cain is with us. He−"

There was a rustle in the bushes ahead of them. Cain vanished in a rumble of motion. There was a muffled thump, and then silence.

"...will see us safe."

Nathan let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and stepped through the bushes. Cain was crouched over a young buck, a small rack of antlers crowning the animal's head. The golem turned and flashed through a series of one-handed gestures, the other hand resting on the deer's chest as it slowly rose and fell. Cain had knocked the animal out cold.

"He wants to know if you would like venison tonight, young master."

"Um, no thanks." Nathan stared at the animal and at Cain. "Jesus. I know it's what you were made for, but... Jesus."

Jabberwisp shrugged and said in a knowing whisper. "A weapon from another age, young master. One of the greatest. Just a little further."

Nathan moved past the golem and nearly collided with the wall: it was so densely covered by foliage and loam that he hadn't even noticed the tower's base until it was right in front of his nose. "Whoa."

"Indeed," chirped the little cobbling. "This was one of the dormitories, or so it was called. The entrance was... here." Jabberwisp tapped one of its arms in a quick little ditty against the stone. Nathan took note of the pattern, a little surprised at how easy it was to remember. Tap tap, tap-tap, tap.

The wall irised open, vines and debris falling away in a shower as the rock rearranged itself into a door and a flight of stairs. The cobbling nodded, then turned to Cain. "Wait here," Jabberwisp squeaked, then lead the way into the dark. Nathan lit his torch and followed.

The stairs wound around the tower, occasionally opening into vast rooms at the tower's center. The huge chambers were filled with artifacts of an age gone by that Nathan could only marvel at: spheres of glass housing constellations of pale fire, braids of molten stone that hung in the air, statues of flowing water and, of course, books. Countless thousands of them spread across every surface; towering in stacks on the floors and tables and bursting from the shelves.

The stairs were lit by windows and nothing else. None of the interior rooms were open to the outside: instead, the air in them shone with buttery luminescence that put Nathan in mind of bottled sunlight, and he had a feeling that's exactly what it was. Everything was suspiciously clean, without a cobweb or a crumb of dust anywhere. The steps were laid out in a tight, perfect spiral up the tower so smooth that, even after several minutes, he felt no strain from the work of moving uphill. Nathan scarcely needed the torch: he felt that he could have navigated this place in the dark, as though he'd lived in the tower his whole life.

When the cells began to appear, that thought chilled him to the bone.

They were small, little more than alcoves in the stone, and unlike the large rooms these were clearly impacted by the weight of years, each shut behind the remnants of a sturdy door. The cells were spaced far apart from one another, he guessed to keep the occupants separate.

Nathan cautiously approached one. When he pulled the ring set into the door it came loose in a shower of rust: he had to haul the door open by grasping its warped sides. The room was nearly empty; the only feature was a set of chains bolted into the far end of the windowless little cell.

"What the hell is this?"

Jabberwisp shivered. "One-of-the... sorry, young master. It is one of the rooms where the... the students were kept."

Nathan stared at the chains. "Students, huh?"

"It was one of the tests. A child suspected of the gift would be chained here, a bowl of water left just outside their reach. Then the masters would wait." The little cobbling rustled faintly. "Those that survived would ascend to the higher cells."

Nathan slammed the door hard enough to knock pieces of rotted wood from the frame. "Maggie told me there were bloodlines. Why do this?"

"There were bloodlines, yes. But men of power dally, do they not? I watched many, many children, most hardly old enough to speak, pass through these doors. Few, precious few, left them again." The little cobbling skittered back up to Nathan's shoulder and wound himself into a tight ball. "Small wonder the people thought the masters were monsters."

The rooms grew steadily larger, closer, and less unpleasant as they went up, until eventually the faded remnants of staggering wealth were evident.

Some legacy.

The upper rooms had windows and Nathan glanced out, hoping to see something to take his mind off things. They were already well above the highest trees, and far off Nathan could see a long, thin gap in the trees marking the road. Nathan stared at the cobbling, finding his voice for the first time in minutes. "You and Belias... you watched them do that to children?"

"Belias was not here, and there was nothing I could do." The sound that whistled through the fabric of the little cobbling might have been a sigh. "Let me show you something worth remembering."

Jabberwisp skittered into the darkness like a spider. A faint white light, little more than a match's worth, glittered through the cobbling's body when he moved. "Come, young master. It is the last room."

Nathan followed the little light up the last of the stairs, finding himself standing before a massive set of double doors. Unlike the rest these were intact, made of heavy wood banded with metal in an almost organic pattern. Nathan leaned closer. The banding was gold etched with glyphs almost too small to be seen with the naked eye.

"Please open the door, young master. Only your kind can."

Nathan reached for the ring, feeling a warmth as he touched it that he already recognized as a sign of magic at work. He pulled the door open and gasped.

Where before the rooms had ceilings several feet over Nathan's head, this place had no discernible roof. Shelves formed of the same smooth stone as the tower vaulted upwards, stretching out of sight. Sculptures of winged serpents coiled here and there about the alcoves, their frames of copper and wood gleaming with polish. Catwalks and ladders spiraled amongst a city of shelves stocked with uncountable books and scrolls, all miraculously perfect after so much time. One such catwalk arched delicately under Nathan's feet as he slowly made his way into the room, and when he looked down the same impossible vista reached into the depths below him. "This, this is impossible..."

"This," Jabberwisp laughed from one of the monolithic shelves "is the library. Every stronghold of the wizards opens into this place. Those books in the other rooms were merely trifles: the true knowledge was kept on these shelves. My mistress was a student and often studied here. When she passed on, I remained until the Sundering."

"But Belias said you were a..." Nathan paused, unsure what to say.

"False child?" Jabberwisp supplied. "A commonplace thing, young master. Many a wizard sought to replace what they lost or see it born anew. Alas, it is an easy matter to make a soul but much harder to shape it to your liking."

"Your mistress... what? She lost a child?"

"She was barren. When she was young and the pain grew too much she dove into golemcraft, finally waking me to be her child. She hoped to craft through magic what she could never create through love." There was something cold in the little golem's squeaky voice as he gestured at himself. "She failed, and died of grief soon after."

"God, J..." Nathan struggled for words. "I... God, I'm sorry."

"As am I," The cobbling shrugged. "But enough of that. We go through there next." He indicated another door several staircases and catwalks away. "The masters hoarded wisdom quite greedily, both from your world and this. Speaking of which, the sentinels should be arriving any moment now."

"Sentinels? Wha-" Nathan's question fell short as it was answered with a sudden crash of sound.

The sentinels were apparently the snakelike winged sculptures lurking amongst the shelves. One had thrown itself into the air and filled Nathan's ears with the horrible, tearing sound of its wings as it ripped towards them, landing with a crash where Jabberwisp was heading.

Nathan backed away but Jabberwisp gently tugged on his pants. "Come, young master."

The little cobbling was only tall enough to reach his shin, but the tug brought Nathan up short. He hurriedly bent to pick the cobbling up. "Shouldn't we be running?!"

"You are of the gift, young master. Pay it no mind, it will do you no harm." Jabberwisp urged him forward. "Now, if you would continue through that door..."

Nathan could only stare in rising panic as the sentinel slithered forward. Gleaming wooden eyes glared from under a horned brow as it came closer. It stopped several feet away, baring copper fangs. Nathan kept still as long as he could, then started shouting in its face.

"What the hell you want, you big hunk of scrap?!" The thing reared back as though stung as Nathan brought his fists up. "Back off or so help me I will go melt-fu on your ass!"

"Melt-fu? I say." Nathan turned and saw Death leaning against the doorway they'd just left, smiling warmly.

"That's a new one."