Act III: "Where Angels Sleep"

         Though the sun was high in a cloudless sapphire sky, daylight was dimmed to a hazy suggestion through the towering canopy of Terrill Silva, where Jace Dabriel leaned to investigate a rustling in the brush. Between stretches of tranquil, pleasant heat, the boughs swayed in the gathering cool of early afternoon, carrying the scent of the trees. Also on the air was the noise of small animals, shuffling close by but often hidden by the lush terrain.  Often, but not always.

         An odd chirping rose from the clump of soft ferns just inches from the outrider's face and now he was sure; there was something there. Reaching forward, Jace parted the foliage before him, crouching down further now, his effort revealing a pair of bright green eyes staring up at him. It was a cabbit, one of nature's optimists, half-rabbit and half-cat. Spotted, the thing yipped. It turned to scurry away and Jace fell to his backside in surprise.

         “It’s supposed to be good fortune to see one of those things up close,” said a voice. Jace’s instincts had him going for his crossbows, but it only took a second for him to process the familiarity. “And it must be true,” forerunner Lucas Reese went on, smiling as he offered his hand.  “If I was your enemy, you’d be dead.”

         Jace took the hand and was pulled to his feet. 

         “Mmhm,” he muttered as he brushed himself off.  When he looked into the kid’s face, his expression feigned bewilderment. “Lookin' pretty proud of yourself there, Luc. Why’s that?”

         “Proud, sir?  Not at all.”

         “Because you didn’t get the drop on me.”

         “No, sir. Of course not.”

         “If you had, it might have threatened my ever-expanding ego.”

         “Understood.”

         “Can’t have that.”

         “No,” Lucas agreed, but he couldn't hide the first cracks in this stern facade.

         Jace flashed the smile that was almost as famous as he was.

         “So,” he said, slightly more serious as he moved to his horse. “What’s the word?”

         Lucas reached up to the leather strap around his shoulder, revealing the cylindrical container carried on his back.

         “More fuel for that ego fire of yours,” he said, withdrawing Senator Tillian Bren’s latest herald.

         Jace paused in the act of rummaging through his saddlebags.

         “Did you just say … ego fire?”

         “I did. It came to mind, so I thought I’d go for it. What do you think?”

         Jace pondered a moment.

         “Nice,” he said, proceeding with his search.

         Lucas shifted the still-rolled parchment to hold it under his arm, knowing Jace had no interest in reading the latest news to hit the streets of every Veil’driel city. Not, at least, while he and his team were the ones making it.

Now the forerunner was holding two different parchments, both much shorter.

         “Correspondence from General Creed and Constable Thean?”

         Jace finished snapping up the saddlebags and was making his way over with a bundle of jerky, splitting it. He tossed half over to Lucas with one hand and took the letters with the other.

         At a glance, the message from Constable Thean was lengthy, inked in the symbolic language of the Outrider Order. In reality, most of it was gibberish; the meaningful portion was only a few sentences buried among the rest. “Permission to proceed to mansion: granted. Conduct reconnaissance. Record all relevant data. Send post rider to verify receipt of correspondence.”

         Thean never once asked about the team’s welfare. Never indicated he cared. Jace used to wonder how and when his mentor had grown so cold, but stopped caring somewhere around the age of nine.

         “Why does he always include that?” Jace mumbled out loud.  “How else would I respond … pigeon?”

         “Sir?”

         Jace looked up, taking a bite out of the beef jerky and crumpling the parchment in his hand. 

         “Nothing,” he said dismissively. “Your orders are to return to your post tonight and pass on word to your counterpart that we’ve received this.”

         “I’ll be back by morning for your report.”

         Jace nodded.

         “What kind of food you got in there?” Lucas reached eagerly into the carrying tube as the Outrider went on. “If I have to eat any more of this beef jerky, I swear I’m gonna drown myself in that stream over there.” Now the forerunner’s arm, buried in the tube, froze. Then, sheepishly, Lucas withdrew the first bundles of jerky. “Damn it!” Jace yelled, appalled, and Lucas was unable to stifle a laugh. “Can’t the front lines send anything else?”

         “It’s the easiest thing to transport,” Lucas said, traces of amusement still evident in his tone. “You’re a lot further out than you used to be. Not much stays edible long enough to pass down the chain.”

Lucas’ mood was improved, no doubt, by the fact that he had not been required to bring water from one of the local villages. The Outriders' discovery of a nearby stream had made the ride much more pleasant.

         “Do you want the letter from General Creed?”

         “No,” Jace said, “It can wait.” He sighed.

         There was not, in truth, much reason for the general to send messages to the Outrider point team at all.  He had no real authority over them, and the information he sent was often trivial. Jace believed that he only included a message for the sake of doing so, to deny his own irrelevance to their mission.

         Lucas rolled the parchment back up, stowing it once more in the tube, along with the herald from Senator Bren, and the jerky.

         “I’m surprised you haven’t found any fruit in these woods,” he said. “Or some nuts or something.”

Jace smiled, taking out his golden lighter and striking it. He held Thean’s message to the flame, waiting for it to ignite. Another pointless task, he thought. There wasn’t anyone for miles but the Outriders themselves who could interpret the message.

         When the flames came close to his hand, Jace dropped the smoldering remnants into the circular stone outline of the previous night’s campfire, watching the last bit of pulp burn to embers.

         “These are not woods you go walking around in,” he said, finally snuffing out the smoldering ash with his boot.

There was a blank expression on the forerunner’s face.

         Jace looked up at him.

         “Do you know why?”

         “Can’t say that I do,” Lucas answered with a smile. “Not all of us have the sexiest assignment in the Republic. I spend most of my days riding in a straight line for miles on endless miles.”

         Jace was gnawing on the jerky again.

         “Aw, c’mon, it’s not that bad, is it? Hell, some of my best memories are from when I was a forerunner on the post.”

         “Yeah,” Lucas replied. “That’s 'cause when you were a forerunner, you weren’t keeping up supplies and correspondence with an Outrider point team on the edge of civilization.”

         Jace laughed a little.

         “And that’s how you met Isabelle, so you had her out there.”

         “Alright. Easy there, killer.” 

         There were twenty outposts reaching back to Veil’driel’s main military force, each at forty-mile intervals. Lucas Reese was the last rider on the line, and so the responsibility of covering the final miles between the Outriders and the line fell to him. It was one of the loneliest, most dangerous jobs of all. Not only were the riders and their outposts prime targets for the enemy, but the post line stretched to unprecedented lengths.

         “If it’s any consolation, your days on the line are numbered.”

         “Are they?” Lucas asked, taking Jace’s comment for a joke.

         Jace raised his eyebrows.

         “What, are you serious? The mission doesn’t end until you guys reach the coast.”

         Jace turned and started deeper into the woods, beckoning Lucas to follow.

         “Leave that there.” Lucas dropped the transfer tube gently next to Jace’s horse, eager to follow and for the chance to experience something outside the monotony of his everyday duty.

         “You know,” Jace said, as they continued on their way. “The fact that you’re the last rider on the post is extremely significant. Only the most competent forerunners are given that task. You above all; on the longest line ever assembled.”

         “Yeah?” Lucas asked.

         He was trying to maintain a front of ambivalence, maybe a bit too hard.

         “Yeah,” Jace said, occasionally looking off into the trees. “Some of the greatest Outriders in history have that mission to their credit. Ward, Duchyene, Elsworth.” He stopped, remaining silent as he looked over his shoulder. Then they were moving again. “Thean.”

         “Thean? Really?”

         “Really.”

         Jace stopped again, this time signaling for Lucas to remain where he was.

         “You’ll make Outrider soon enough,” he said, walking alone now. “I hear nothing but good things about you.”

         A quizzical expression twisted the forerunner’s face. 

“How could you have heard anything about me? The only people you’ve had face-to-face contact with over the last six months is the rest of your team and me.”

         Jace shrugged.

         “Yeah. I actually just made that up.”

         Lucas smiled, looking down at the ground for a moment. When he brought his eyes level again, his guide was still once more.

         “Something wrong?”

         Jace raised his hand, calling for silence. Then he motioned for the forerunner to come up beside him.

         “What is it?” Lucas asked, but Jace did not respond.

         Instead, he extended his arm toward what appeared to be nothing more than the continuation of the overgrown path they were on. But his arm disappeared past the elbow, outlined in a dazzling viridian glow.

         Lucas' eyes opened wide as he watched, crouching like a man possessed as he scooted closer to the Outrider. Now he slowly extended his own hand. It felt like he was reaching through something dense, like packed soil and into open air beyond. Cool air.

         “What the?”

         Lucas and Jace parted their arms against the air, and the presence of endless, tangled trees suddenly gave way like colored mist dissolving before them. It left a gap, a small window looking onto a vista. It was right in front of them: the primeval forest had been replaced with a wide plain under bright skies, the terrain sprinkled with blossoms in every color of the rainbow. A smear of somber gray in the far distance betrayed the presence of far-off mountains, and the men smelled salt water. The cry of a seagull reached out to them, warbling, as if distorted by the barrier between the woods in which they stood and the scene they now looked in on.

         It was impossible, but this strange, incongruous vision was real. There was no denying it once they saw the spectacular mansion that dominated the scene a few leagues over the grass. The structure was immense and majestic, a manor of many connected structures topped by eager, subtle spires and parapets. Some of the chambers were domed, others squared off; yet all were elegant, and seen together the place was a masterwork of grace from a bygone era. Rising suddenly against the wild shoots and grasses, a narrow stone path led toward to the door, through a small, open arch.

         “You know the name of these woods, at least?” Jace asked.

         “According to my maps,” Lucas started, before pausing again. He was staring high into the sky, watching a group of seagulls fluttering near the shore. From such a distance, the birds looked like fluttering streamers of white and gray paper, and only their occasional cries made it obvious what they were. Even as he watched, they began to leap into the air one by one, circling; their shadows thrown over the distant water drew his attention to the frothy surf against the shore and the inviting sunlight, interspersed with fleet shadows. As he looked at it, the rhythmic flow of the waves washed across his mind. “According to my maps,” he said again, blinking hard. “Terrill Silva.”

         “Named after Jonathan Terrill, one of the Republic’s earliest explorers,” Jace explained. “He led the first ever sanctioned expedition in search of the coast.”

         “Then why have I never heard of him?” Lucas asked, eyes darting around the entire peninsula.

“Because he went crazy. Wandered these woods for months until, finally, his expedition opted to turn back.” Lucas turned to Jace for the first time, clearly interested in the story. “But Jonathan had no intention of returning home in disgrace. So he murdered them all in their sleep.”

         “I’ve never heard that story, either.”

         “Yeah, well,” Jace began. “It wasn’t recorded that way. The Republic Archives say the expedition was wiped out by a mysterious fever.” Jace motioned all around.  “Thus, the name of these woods.”  He looked back out toward the mansion. “Anyway, as it turned out, that fever the politicians made up drastically decreased expansion out here, as most of the population feared disease. Which is why we have the outskirts, better known as the wilderness, and why the first of our major cities is more than just a little while,” he motioned behind them. “Back that way.”

         “How do you know all this?” Lucas asked, impressed.

         “We’re only as good as what we know, Luc. Time in the library is just as important as time in the field. Burying yourself in ancient texts and maps might not be the most glamorous thing in the world, but any Outrider worth a damn must commit to it. Finding out what it truly means to –”

         “Relic told you about it, huh?”

         “Yep,” Jace admitted, uncaring.

         “How did you guys find out about this?”

         Jace smiled, the truth still amusing him whenever he thought of it.

         “It’s the cabbits,” he said. “You have to look into their eyes to find the wood’s edge, and even then it isn’t obvious.”

         Lucas was hardly convinced.

         “That part,” he said. “You’re making up.” When Jace did not comment, Lucas turned back to him, and to his astonishment, he saw in the Outrider’s face that he was telling the truth. “Seriously?”

Jace nodded. 

         “It would seem there’s more to those little creatures than bringing good fortune.”

         “But how could you ever find that out? What, did you just go staring into the eyes of random animals for some reason?”

         “Can’t tell ya that.”

         “Was it in Constable Thean’s record book?”

         “What?” Now it was Jace’s turn to look surprised. “How do you know we have that?” he asked, facing him again.

         The young forerunner shrugged. 

         “Everyone knows. Thean gave it to you before you set off, right? Crazy. That thing could be in the Madsen Vhair Institute in Telminster.” He was looking back out to the breathtaking sight of the ocean. “Nothing stays secret for long.”

         Jace opened his mouth to address the nonchalance with which Lucas freely admitted such a serious breach of classified information, but then suddenly stopped, pivoting on his heels to face the approach of another familiar voice.

         “…at this moment, my dear citizens, as I transfer these words to paper, news reaches us from our Outriders through the heroic line of post riders stretched into our nation’s frontier. The intelligence they have gathered remains classified, but suffice to say, no enemy activity has been reported in months, and that –” Cedwyn stopped with a grunt. “No, wait, this isn’t what I’m looking for,” he said, thumbing through the next pages of Senator Bren’s herald. “Ah, here we go.” He cleared his throat, and after a moment, was reading again. “... his sterling gray eyes like a gathering storm, the savior of Fairlawn City possesses an exceedingly charming aura, appearing vulnerable and fierce all at once. Perhaps Praetor Duchyene put it best, when asked to comment on his cousin’s accomplishments: “He transcends the era in which he lives.  The brightest of all stars on an all-too-dark horizon.”

         Jace shook his head.

         “I am seriously going to kill him,” he said.

         Cedwyn could not contain his laughter.

         “Gotta give him credit,” he said, folding the herald and sliding it into his pocket. “He got ya good. From half a continent away, no less.”

         “He tries to embarrass you?” Lucas asked, amused.

         “No, he succeeds, kid,” Cedwyn said.

         “That and he doesn’t take Senator Bren all that seriously,” Jace added, sighing at length and then finally smiling.

         By this time, Cedwyn Knight had reached the young forerunner and Jace, nudging past them to look out at the mansion. Until now, he had fought the nearly uncontrollable urge to blast across that plain to the end of the peninsula. Each passing hour had become excruciating, and now it was every minute. 

         He needed to get there. He needed to know what was inside.

         It took a few seconds before Jace said anything else, the mansion holding every shred of his concentration. But then, with a start, he glanced to Cedwyn.

         “Whatcha find out?” he asked, coming out of a daze.

         “There’s nothing west for at least five miles. We don’t have to worry about an organized attack coming from back that way. Relic and Iz aren’t back yet,” Cedwyn answered immediately. Jace nodded. “So what are we doing? If Lucas is back, our permission to proceed has come through.”

         Jace did not respond, more concerned with his spyglass as he examined the distant structure. Then, anticipating Lucas' request, he simply handed it to him.

         “Thanks,” Lucas said, eagerly peering through it.

         Cedwyn persisted.

         “Let’s go.”

         At first, it looked like Jace was thinking about it. But the frown that emerged on his face soon showed he had decided against it.

         “Oh knock it off,” Cedwyn said, reading the expression. “We’re the first people to be this far east in decades, let alone find the way through these woods.” Jace was lying in the soft undergrowth on his side now and sighed. “Months of nothing but hard riding and abandoned towns,” he went on. “And we find a giant mansion sitting here in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful, luxurious. If nothing else, it means sleeping under a roof tonight, and that’s reason enough right there.”

         Cedwyn, too, laid flat on his stomach, staring at the mansion through the crackling portal and smacking the beef jerky he’d taken from Lucas’ transfer tube when he grabbed Bren’s herald.

         A moment of hesitation passed while Jace mulled it over, but his demeanor abruptly shifted when something more urgent popped into his head.

         “Hey!”

         “Hm?” Cedwyn mused, glancing up to Lucas, considering swiping the spyglass.

         “He knew we had Thean’s old record book,” Jace said, motioning to Lucas with a sideways tilt of the head.

         “Yeah,” Cedwyn said simply.

         “You knew about this?”

         “Yeah, I’m the one who told him,” came the distracted reply. Then Cedwyn reached for the spyglass and took it from the forerunner. “Thanks for not ratting me out, kid. Now let me borrow this for a second.” Now, surveying the mansion with the spyglass, he spoke as if he could see the expression on Jace’s face. “Oh, big deal. So he knows we have a thirty year old record book. Half the information is obsolete.”

         Jace just shook his head, a mixture of disbelief and resignation.

         “Don’t you have your own spyglass?” Lucas asked suddenly, still on his knees and looking down to Cedwyn.

         “Don’t you?” Cedwyn shot back.

         “Mine’s on my horse. I didn’t know we were coming to a secret illusionary forest edge when I started into the woods.”

         “Yeah, well …  I broke mine,” Cedwyn said.  “On a top secret mission.”

         “He fell off his horse,” Jace said behind them.  He was standing upright again.

         Lucas glanced behind to Jace for a second and then back to Cedwyn, smiling.

         “No I didn’t,” Cedwyn objected, still looking through the spyglass.

         “After falling asleep in the saddle,” Jace added.

         Cedwyn pulled the spyglass away from his eye, only partially engaged in the conversation.

         “Whatever,” he said, condensing it and tossing it back to Jace. “C’mon, let’s go.”

         “It could be a trap,” Jace pointed out as he caught it. “Until Relic and Isabelle confirm no activity north or south, it’s not a good idea.” He attached the spyglass back to its place on his belt. “Besides, you never ride over a wide open plain in broad daylight.”

         “Jace, we’ve been camping in these woods so long that an enemy in that place would already know we were here, and we’d be dead.” When his friend didn’t answer, Cedwyn looked to Lucas. “Go back to the glade,” he said. “Wait for Outriders Avery and Talabray to return, and tell them we already left for the mansion.”

         Lucas stood straight. 

         “Yes, sir.”

         Cedwyn turned to Jace.

         “Sound good?”

         Jace shrugged. 

         “Well, if by good, you mean stupid …”

         “We’ll meet back here in the morning,” Cedwyn added with a final glance to Lucas.

         “And be careful,” Jace said, shaking the forerunner’s hand.

         Cedwyn whistled, and the sound of their horses crashing through brush soon followed.

         “And feel free to take a nap in Jace’s bedroll if you get back before we do,” Cedwyn added.

         Lucas smiled again, and having already started back to the clearing, he stopped again to watch the Outriders vault into their saddles. For a moment or two, they spoke.

         Then, in a brilliant burst of green, they vanished into the air; gone through the illusory tree line that had driven Jonathan Terrill insane.

***

         The lush meadow flew past in a blinding blur beneath pounding hooves, creating a kaleidoscopic mesh of flowers growing in great clumps throughout the tall grass. The few miles to the mansion melted away like a flash, the towering structure looming ever larger with each moment. In the air, the scent of the sea saturated the Outriders’ senses, firing bitterly down their throats and rushing into their lungs. The breeze was warm against their skin, but heavy with the sting of salt as they raced, their trial by fire upon them. They rode side by side, and the field seemed to grow brighter as they neared their goal, a swath of cloud passing unnoticed away from the sun.

If Cedwyn was wrong, and there was someone or something waiting for them, then it was already too late. They were committed now. There was no safety net, no Plan B. It was a game Jace had played before, recently, and one he was not happy about being pushed into rolling the dice again. Easy as it was to submit to Cedwyn, two years his senior, Jace was regretting it now. A consequence of the night that made him famous. A night that left scars of hesitation and doubt.

         Or as he liked to justify it to himself: Caution.

         Neither Outrider so much as glanced at the other, their horses neck-and-neck, their eyes trained on the destination as the details of a lighthouse came into focus. Closer still to the mysterious estate, immense bodies of sandstone rose into view off shore; the action of the waves with the wind and salt in the air had eroded the rock into a fascinating gothic landscape that collected dull light as if it were dew. It appeared as if the stones had not been worn away by the passing of ages, but had risen from some unfathomable darkness of the deep, only to melt away with the first kiss of fresh air; hanging, eternally, upon unseen rocky roots, they grasped desirously toward the unreachable sky.

         Nothing intercepted them on their journey, and in what felt like no time at all, the Outriders found themselves at the base of an immense stone archway. An elaborate suspension bridge lay just beyond, leading the way across a wide and treacherous moat, and ultimately to a massive door, aged wood inlaid with dark, solid steel. Though the manor they had seen so far ached with beauty, the approach ached with phantasmal hints of combat that suggested the building could just as easily become a fortress.

         They dismounted, immediately drawing their crossbows and standing back to back: Cedwyn facing down the cobblestone path to the mansion, Jace surveying the open grassland behind them. The plain was empty, a beautiful riot of blossoming color that swayed in the same warm breeze sweeping over him. Had he been somewhere else, Jace may have closed his eyes to cherish it. Here, the unseen danger was too strong for that.

         “Clear?” Cedwyn asked.

         “Yeah.” 

         The whole peninsula was quiet, save for the rhythmic beat of a glittering tide stretching on for eternity around them. When Cedwyn finally spoke, it came as a discordant clash, as if the sound of his voice did not belong.

         “Wow,” he said, and Jace turned to find him standing in the middle of the bridge, staring down at the choppy water. “The moat is connected to the ocean.” He waited for Jace to come and join him so he could fully appreciate the view. Indeed, there was an inland waterway cut into earth at the far end of the circular moat, extending through a high cliff overlooking the beach, where it opened into the Hezlin Sea. “Can you imagine how many engineers it would have taken to create that?”

         Jace shook his head. 

         “No,” he said, distracted. “I really can’t.”

         “Something on your mind?”

         Jace turned back from staring down the rest of the walkway.

         “Yeah,” he said, shocked by the question and a little offended. “How about this gigantic mansion we’re standing in front of?” He gestured up to it with the crossbow in his left hand and Cedwyn laughed. “Yeah, it’s hilarious,” Jace went on, looking away. “It would take forever to clear a structure this size.” His gaze drifted up to the elegant balcony perched above the main entrance. “We have no way of knowing what’s in there, and you wanna strut through these giant doors like we own the place.”

         Cedwyn looked unconcerned as he stood and took his first steps across the stones.

         “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said, then paused and looked up at the suspension system above. “No pun intended.”

         Jace hesitated at first, but now matched Cedwyn’s stride. Soon they reached the doorway.

         “Nice,” Cedwyn said, his voice fluctuating slightly as he turned the brass handle and found it unlocked. Then he lunged forward and the door crashed open, the Outriders bursting inside.

         Moving instinctively, they took defensive positions and went about securing an immense lobby, with three grandiose staircases; the steps themselves were carpeted in red and gold, the banisters carved in an oceanic motif. One set of stairs stood straight ahead. The other two swept off with a graceful symmetry one to each side, extending up to a terrace that wrapped around the perimeter above like a crown on the room. On the higher level there was a fountain, gently running even now, and half a dozen doors all around them, with several corridors running adjacent to the chamber in which they stood.

         Jace had been more right than he could have imagined. A hundred Outriders couldn’t have secured this place, let alone two over-anxious ones.

         “I gotta say,” he said, gaze drawn towards the glimmering jewels on the fountain’s bottom.  “You seem to have taken on quite a reckless streak lately.”

         “Ya think?” Cedwyn said, frozen as he concentrated on the surroundings.

         “Makes me wonder if you’re trying to impress me.”

         “Well, of course,” Cedwyn responded, scanning the lobby with his crossbows. “You are a national hero now.” Satisfied they were alone, he looked over.  “What, you’re gonna tell me you’re not impressed by my courage and stoic bravado?”

         “No, very impressed, actually,” Jace said, lowering his weapons.

         “Good,” Cedwyn said, standing down as well. “'cause later I’m gonna ask for your autograph.”

         Without another word, he started off to the right. They both knew that by their usual standards, they had already lingered too long.

         Jace sighed.

         “This is so stupid.”

         “Yeah, probably,” Cedwyn acknowledged, shrugging as he came to another door. Then he hesitated, turning back to Jace after realizing he hadn’t followed. “Aw c’mon, doing stupid things is what made you famous. Why break old habits?”

         “Hmm.” Jace mused, somewhat annoyed. “Must be that whole almost dying thing,” he said, moving to join him.

         Now it was Jace’s turn to lead as they burst through the door. The routine was the same, covering the room as they had countless times. There were no enemies, and the Outriders found themselves staring into an enormous library. The surroundings were easier to sweep, more confined, but the upper levels went back as far as either could see. Seemingly endless bookshelves ran all the way into shadow from every vantage. Slowly, they pushed deeper into the room.

         Neither man had ever seen so many books gathered in one place, a number of them bound with fine leather, while some were so huge or old that the yellowed pages were gathered between leaves of iron. The walls were richly decorated with oil portraits of various important-looking people, many dressed in fine clothing that recalled styles long out of date – and just as many completely foreign. Many wore jewels worked into fanciful shapes and swirling colors that seemed as if they must have come from the imagination of the painter, one mind behind them all. The colors were bright, vivid, as if the entire collection had been created at once. A pleasant-looking, ornate lantern sat extinguished on a very large table in the center of this first level.

         For a moment longer Jace looked up to the higher ground around them, surveying with his crossbows as they had in the lobby. “Clear,” he said, knowing it was hardly conclusive.

Cedwyn had both crossbows lowered at his side, walking over to an open book on the table.

“What are you doing?” Jace asked with a double take away from the high veranda.

         “What do you mean?” Cedwyn asked. With the crossbow in his hand he used the tip of the loaded bolt to prod the already half-turned page. “Gods of Sun and Sacrifice” he read aloud, then looked up. “Catchy.”

         “I asked you a question,” Jace repeated.  “What are you doing?”

         “Catching up on my reading?”

         Jace answered Cedwyn’s light tone harshly, and he took an almost threatening step towards him.

“We just walked into an unsecured room, complete with unexplored high ground, and you walk over to that book?  What the hell, Ced?”

         “The place is abandoned,” Cedwyn remarked, still calm in stark contrast to Jace.

         “Is it?” Jace asked.  His advance stopped, but he was standing close. “You smell that?” He nodded towards the lantern. Cedwyn looked up from the book and around, taking a moment to sniff.  Then he looked back into Jace’s eyes. 

         “Oil?”

         “Yeah. This lantern was extinguished recently,” Jace said.

         “So? How many of these places do we have to come across? People fled for the cities and dropped everything. When people are panicking, they don’t sit and pack their belongings or turn out the lights. They haul ass.”

         Jace relaxed a bit, sighing and running a hand back through his hair.

         “Who knows how long this lantern burned after whatever nut lived here left?”

         Trying to calm his nerves, Jace still looked tense.

         “What makes you say he was a nut?” he asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down. It was an odd thing to do for someone so concerned with security not two minutes before.

         “Anyone who builds a mansion, never mind lives in it on the edge of civilization, is a nut,” Cedwyn said, and he pulled out a seat opposite Jace, right in front of the book about sun gods. “And I don’t do anything without thinking,” he said, swiping a finger over the page in front of him, leaning back comfortably in the chair. He held it up and the dust there was thick. “Haven’t seen an enemy in months, Jace. Not a wizard, not a rider, not a minotaur or whatever else. This place is a lot bigger than most, but it’s the same as the rest. Left behind by a scared citizen of Veil’driel.” Jace didn't respond, and Cedwyn took the opportunity to look around again. “A very rich, scared citizen.”

         Jace almost laughed.

         “I feel like I should start telling you about my childhood now,” he said with a smile. “Seems like we’re having these little therapy sessions every week now.” Jace’s tone was light, but there was a clear truth to his words. Cedwyn knew it well.

         “What you did and went through would have shaken anyone up.” Jace just shrugged before Cedwyn leaned forward across the table, now taking his turn to match a light tone with a serious one. “I’m not kidding, Jace,” he said, emphasizing the point with an extended, wordless stare. “Anyone else, myself included, would have recorded the enemy position and returned to camp that night.” Now he sat back in his chair again. “And I gotta tell ya, I don’t think it’s even possible to calculate how many lives you saved by attacking instead.”

         Jace looked blankly into the distance, resting his forearms on the table, hesitating for just a moment as Cedwyn had come to expect.

         “And look what it’s gotten me,” he said, almost whispering. “I can’t even clear a room without being affected. Six months ago you wouldn’t have been able to keep me away from here. Today, it took all my courage just to come with you.”

         “Ah, yeah, well …” Cedwyn picked up the heavy book and put it on his lap, flipping through the pages. “It’ll pass in time. Only natural.”

         Jace smiled, a hollow gesture that might as well have said: I'm not so sure. At length, he said more. “I thought the visions would go away, and they have. But lately, it happens when I sleep. They're so vivid. So real.”

         “It's the mission, Jace,” Cedwyn said. “We've all been pushed hard on this trip. But look, all the better we should spend a night, maybe even two, here. There's not an enemy in sight. And don't forget, you got the Veil’driel Star out of the deal,” he went on. “How many people in history have received the highest military honor we got?”

         “Seven,” Jace said, thinking out loud.

         Cedwyn never looked up from the book, expending great effort to remain unconcerned.

         “Right, well, I was asking rhetorically, but there ya go,” he said, distracted by an illustration of a massive obelisk. “Give it time. You’ll get that annoying swagger back soon enough.”

         Jace raised his eyebrows.

         “Six months isn’t soon enough?”

         “Actually,” Cedwyn paused, squinting to read the rune symbols etched into the art on the page. “It’s been closer to seven.” Then he looked up at Jace and closed the book, apparently losing interest in whatever was there. “So yeah, maybe you’re just screwed,” he said with a smirk, tossing it back on the table with an echoing thud. “Maybe fatalistic attitudes can last forever.”

         Jace smiled wide, his eyes narrowed and he tilted his head to the side.

         “Fatalistic?”

         “Yeah,” Cedwyn said.  “Fatalistic,” he repeated.

         The continued pause on Jace’s part caused Cedwyn to elaborate further, his tone taking on confusion as he did so.

         “Fatalistic. Like being consumed with thoughts of death and all that. Having it affect your confidence.” Jace appeared thoroughly amused, but said nothing. “Like fatal. What?” 

         “That’s not what it means.”

         “Whatever,” Cedwyn said. “Yes it is.”

         “Fatalistic like fate,” Jace corrected, on the verge of laughing.

         “No, you’re wrong.” Cedwyn looked around. “Matter of fact, where’s the dictionary in this place? I’m gonna prove you’re –”

         A sudden crash interrupted him, rocketing both Outriders to their feet, and sending Jace’s chair falling hard to the floor. There was nothing calm about Cedwyn’s demeanor now, his crossbows expertly surveying the veranda above and all around. Jace did the same before they made their way to the far wall for some cover. When they were reasonably sure there was nothing above them amidst the shadows, they concentrated on the direction from which the crash had come: a small door in the middle of a wall that was, itself, an immense bookshelf.

         Cedwyn took his first steps away, taking the lead, conveying a series of signs to indicate he would go to the door while Jace covered him.

         “You’re seriously communicating with hand signals?” Jace asked. “We’ve been talking in here for the last ten minutes.”

         Cedwyn frowned, though it was unclear if he was doing so because he knew Jace was right, disapproved of the talking, or both.

         Jace nodded to the door.

         “Go.”

         Cedwyn darted forward as Jace stepped out into the center of the room, sweeping over the veranda above yet again. Cedwyn crouched beside the door, his back against the books.  Jace moved directly to the door itself, his arms stretched out at his sides.

         “Yeah, this was a great idea,” he said as he backed to Cedwyn’s position. “Remind me to take your advice more often.”

         Now Cedwyn, crouched on the side, reached up and put his hand on the silver doorknob. Jace maintained his surveillance, but when more time than expected passed, he risked a glance down again.

         “What are you waiting for?”

         Cedwyn did not respond right away. He just sat there quietly.

         “I’m listening for a minute.” 

         “Sure you’re not just hesitating?” Jace asked. “Wouldn’t want you to get all fatalistic on me.”

         Cedwyn turned the doorknob and nudged the door slightly with the back of his hand. It creaked open ever so slightly.

         “I hate you,” he said, peeking through the crack. Then he slammed it open, Jace raising his crossbows to guard his back.

***

         Cedwyn crouched low to the floor, arms outstretched in both directions as he stared down one end of a long corridor running away on his right. Directly in front of him, an immense portrait of a proud-looking watchman looked out at the Outriders from atop an ancient bastion, as if they were in the place of some unseen battle. Beneath it, a small placard read: Captain Braylyn Syllica, The Greywall, Emren. Etched in smaller print were numbers that appeared to be a date, but like the uniform the figure was wearing, Cedwyn found the system utterly unfamiliar. Syllica's flinty eyes seemed to watch as he moved, reminding him of Jace in better days.

         To the left, the passage led to a short flight of stairs that ascended to a landing and small foyer. There was a quaint table there.

         “Which way we going?” Jace asked, glancing back over his shoulder from where he still covered the library. “Left or right?”

         “One’s as good as the other,” Cedwyn answered, bouncing his stare between the two directions. “That commotion could have come from either.”

         Jace nodded.

         “Left then,” he said.

         Cedwyn was off without hesitation, hunched in a way that sacrificed pace for defense. The stretch to the stairs was short, and while it was almost excessively decorated, the Outriders never paused to examine any of it, passing portraits, busts, and even a display case without so much as a glance.

         “I’d say this way leads back to the main lobby,” Cedwyn said when they reached the top of the stairs and stood in the foyer.  He opened the door he was talking about and peeked through. Then he turned back to Jace and nodded. “Top of those grand staircases,” he confirmed, turning his attention, with Jace, to the other door on their right. “It’s a pretty safe bet that whatever we heard came from there.”

         Jace said nothing as he waited for Cedwyn to take up position beside him. Two tall sconces made of copper or bronze flanked the door before them, their purpose more aesthetic than practical.

         When Cedwyn was ready he looked over to his friend.

         “On three?

         “How ‘bout we just go?”

         Cedwyn thought on it a second and shrugged.

         “Works for me,” he said, then kicked it open, jumping to the side so Jace could burst in immediately.

         It was another hallway, but this one was grandiose with high vaulted ceilings and walls far wider than the other they had passed through. It was stunning, but Jace hardly had time to process the beauty before the sight of a man, crouched over a fully armored knight, seized his attention.

         In an instant, Cedwyn was in the corridor as well, sighing when he recognized Relican Avery rising to his feet, a similar look of relief on his face.

         Jace smiled.

         “Relic?” He clipped his crossbows back down to his belt. “What the hell are you doing?”

         Cedwyn laughed, having the words taken out of his mouth.

         “Looking over the place,” Relic said, going back to what he was doing, which was apparently trying to stabilize the suit of armor and stand it back up.

         As Jace began to regain his bearings, he noticed that these suits of armor, all poised in various positions – some parrying, some standing at ease, some with weapons and some with none – lined the entire length of the hall on both sides.

         “I don’t know what’s weirder,” he said, examining them. “Finding you here, knocking one of these things down,” his surveying eyes stopped on Relic. “Or that you were actually trying to put it back together.”

         Relic smiled, but said nothing as he continued the work of fastening the leg joint. It clicked, and he picked up the knight, returning it to its post guarding the small space of wall at its back.

         “This place is absolutely amazing,” he said, still gauging the balance of the thing.

         “How long have you been here?” Cedwyn asked, still amused.

         Relic shrugged. 

         “Lucas said I just missed you, so about the same as you.”

         “Never thought of calling for us?” Jace asked.

         “Yeah, great idea,” Relic said, his sarcasm a symptom of frustration with his task. At the moment, the knight was twisting slightly whenever he tried to let it go. “Announcing my presence to whatever might be in here. I didn’t see you in the lobby so I went looking. Took the door at the top of that giant staircase, had a look around –”

         “What were you doing?” Cedwyn asked, getting the point.

         “Trying to look out that window.” Relic nodded up to the one he meant, just over the shoulder of the knight; one of many spanning the wall at equal intervals. At the moment, a bar of bright sunlight was streaming in, highlighting motes of dust and turning them to white sparkles in its path. “To get my bearings.” Finally, he appeared to have accomplished his task and let go, taking a step back to admire his handiwork.

         “I don’t think there’s a single country not represented here,” Jace said, more to himself than anyone else.

         Relic nodded, crossing his arms.

         “And then some,” he said.  “Some of these armor styles are outdated by hundreds of years.  It goes all the way down the hall.”

         Cedwyn took a step closer to a knight standing next to him, the armor a deep shade of scarlet. Above each was a coat of arms to indicate the nation the suit represented, emblazoned on a standard that hung from a long pole. He peered up to inspect the closest one. The banner featured a rearing griffon, and though the style was familiar enough to know the creature, it looked like something from Veil’driel's pre-republic past. Other suits were so strange that they spoke of wholly different climates and cultures; a few were so primitive they would be of no use against today's weapons.

         At least one was so massive it stood head-and-shoulder above Cedwyn, the tallest.

         “Some of them I’ve never heard of or read about,” Relic said, and the comment drew a glance from both of his fellow Outriders. He was, after all, a master historian. “And be careful,” he went on, taking note of Cedwyn’s distance. “They’re not exactly the most stable displays I’ve ever seen.”

         Cedwyn leaned back a bit, his eyes narrowing with scrutiny as he looked into the empty void behind the slited helmet.

         “Feels like they’re gonna come alive and attack us.”

         Jace smiled, perhaps imagining such a sight, and just happened to look past Relic where a certain coat of arms caught his eye and changed his demeanor. Without another word he stormed toward it, catching both Relic and Cedwyn by surprise.

         “What is it?” Relic said, confused as he watched Jace pass.          

         When he did not respond, Cedwyn too showed concern.

         “Jace?”

         Several long moments passed before Jace turned around, blocking the suit of armor he was standing in front of.

         “Where’s Isabelle?” he asked, his expression like stone.

         “Jace –”

         “Where is she?” he yelled.

         “I don’t know,” Relic said, spreading his arms. “She wasn’t back yet. Lucas said he was going to wait and tell her we’re here. She should be here any –”

         Jace sprinted out, at full speed in just a couple steps, his famous quickness on display. Neither of his friends pursued, just exchanged baffled expressions. 

         Then Relic noticed it, the knight he couldn’t believe he had missed before: the armor of the golden riders that had plagued the Outriders since they had first set out from Fairlawn City. They were their deadliest and most formidable enemies, almost sending Jace to his death nearly seven months before.

         Relic opened his mouth to say something as he took his first steps back, but no words were necessary.

         “Yeah,” Cedwyn said as he turned and ran out.

         Relic was right behind him, and breaking into a full sprint, had clipped one of the suits of armor with his elbow as he passed. He was nearly at the end of the hallway before he heard the knight crash to the floor behind him.

         “Damn it!” he yelled, and was through the door.

***

         Despite the short time it took for Cedwyn and Relic to make their way across the foyer and into the lobby, Jace was already out the main entrance and into the warm day beyond.

         “Jace, wait!” Cedwyn yelled, but he was completely ignored as he and Relic followed down the grandiose staircase. By the time they emerged onto the cobblestone walkway themselves, Jace was almost to the horses. Relic had left mount near the other two, and even with Jace's frantic pace, only his own steed stepped restlessly in anticipation of action to come. He soon had one foot in the stirrup, and in a flash was in the saddle. “Jace!” Cedwyn tried again. 

         Jace was on the verge of taking off, having to rear around to acknowledge Cedwyn at the last second.

         “What?” he screamed, and his eyes were so fierce that Cedwyn actually hesitated. “What?” he snarled again.

         It was Relic who finally pointed to the field, even before Cedwyn could. Jace turned to see for himself and was calmed instantly, tension easing visibly from his shoulders. Even his horse sensed the release and calmed as its rider leapt from the saddle. He was on a beeline for Relic as soon as he hit the ground, who, distracted by Isabelle’s approach, hadn’t even noticed until Jace had two fistfuls of his shirt.

         “You don’t know to stay in pairs on this side of the woods?” he yelled, pulling Relic closer with the action. “Why didn’t you wait for her?”

         Two grips clamped down on Jace’s shoulders like iron vices before he ever knew what hit him, twisting him away from Relic and tearing him back with such force that he nearly fell to the ground. Then, regaining his balance, Jace swung back around towards Relic but did not advance again.

         “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Cedwyn barked, standing between them.

         Jace was catching his breath, the exertion of his run now hitting him all at once.  He opened his mouth to speak, stopped, hunched forward, and then half gestured to Relic, managing: “You don’t travel alone on this side of the woods.”

         “You really wanna have that conversation?” Cedwyn asked. “You and I coming out here like this isn’t exactly by the book, either.”

         “Which I told you was a bad idea,” Jace shot back, suddenly redirecting his anger to Cedwyn, and he was standing fully upright again.

         Now it was Cedwyn who took a full step towards Jace, suddenly finding himself on the defense and not at all pleased about it.

         “Oh, you’re gonna go at me, now?” he said getting up in Jace’s face. “’cause we can play that hand if you want to, Jace. Really.”

         Jace just sighed, regaining his wits as he looked away. The response appeared to sober Cedwyn as well, and when he spoke again his tone was far more composed, even somewhat regretful.

         “Alright,” he said, putting a hand on Jace’s shoulder and turning back to Relic. “Alright.”

         “I came here alone,” Relic started unexpectedly, as he readjusted the crossbow bolt belts intersected across his chest. Remarkably calm, as usual. “Following your lead.”  When the belts were straight again, he looked up. “And I didn’t leave her alone. Lucas was waiting for her.”

         “Alright!” Cedwyn yelled again, his hand still on Jace’s shoulder. “Both of you!”

         It was then they heard the sound of approaching hoof beats, seizing their attention.

         “You guys go in yet?” Isabelle asked when she dismounted. Her mood was high and her smile flashed bright as she strode to them, breathing hard from the exhilaration of the ride, completely oblivious to what she had walked into. “And thanks for leaving me back there. Nice to know I matter.”

         It didn’t take long to sense the tension.

         Jace was looking away to the mansion and Cedwyn lowered his hand from his shoulder. Relic, after pulling down the bottom of his shirt to straighten it, was the first to make eye contact with her.

         “What?” she asked with honest curiosity.

         Jace cleared his throat.

         “You okay?”

         “Um,” she paused, confused by the unexpected gravity she had met with. “Yeah?”

         “Lucas head back?” Cedwyn asked, trying to keep the uncomfortable silence from returning. The question was basically rhetorical.

         “He did,” she said immediately. “To report that we’ve swept the edge of Terrill Silva at a five mile range in all directions, and that finding it void of enemy activity, we have commenced reconnaissance of this mansion in accordance with the orders of Constable Fenlow Thean.” She stopped, was met with another pause, and her jaw dropped slightly when none of them perceived the mock formality in her tone. “Okay, seriously,” she said. “What’s going on with you guys?”

         “A tiff,” a loud voice came echoing down upon them. All four Outriders had their crossbows drawn in a flash, trained steadily on the small balcony extending out from above the main entrance. “Between that one,” a tall, strong man was pointing down at Relic, “and that one there,” he finished, moving the same gesture over to Jace.

         “Who are you?” Cedwyn asked.

         “How uncouth,” the man said, touching his chest. “Invading a man’s home and then asking him who are you? Besides being rude, it’s not the question that you should be concerned about. I’m part of the reason you’re here.”

         “We’re not in the mood for games,” Jace said. “Why haven’t you fled to the cities like everyone else out here?”

         “And where did you come from is what I wanna know,” Cedwyn added. “We were just in there. Place was empty.”

         “In truth, I wasn’t expecting you until nightfall, which might, in part, explain my absence. But was it empty?” the man asked. “Not everything is always as it appears. Don’t they still teach Outriders that sort of thing?” At this there was a brief exchange of glances between the four of them. “Then again,” the mysterious man continued, his tone perplexed. “If your method of approach is any indication, perhaps they don’t.” He shrugged, sounding astonished. “Advancing on a building like this one across an open plain. In broad daylight? I have to say … I find that remarkable.” Jace looked accusingly to Cedwyn, but then his focus was back on the balcony. “So now let me see if I can figure out who each of you are.” He smiled. “Hm. Well, that’s easy enough. You, my dear, are quite obviously Isabelle Talabray. Even more beautiful than I’ve heard.” He took a minute to reflect, and from the shift in body language, his reaction turned slightly more serious. “I knew your father, and I was sorry to hear of his passing. He was a good man.”

         Isabelle wavered a second, but had the wits to keep her crossbows trained.

         Still, the man went on, taking no offense.

         “He would have been very proud of you,” he finished, then turned his gaze on the rest, surveying them with purpose. “Have I forgotten to mention, young Outriders, that the cobblestones you’re standing on is, in fact, the ballast of the Beacon Fleet?” There was a bit of confusion then, as the Outriders tried to understand the odd spontaneity of the comment. All except Relic, who took a single step forward, crossbows still trained on the man. “Ballast, you see, is heavy material carried in the hull of ships to provide stability when – ”

         “We know what ballast is,” Relic said, and Cedwyn half-smiled at the response. It amused him that the earlier episode with Jace hardly fazed him, but as soon as someone challenged his knowledge of something, Relic was clearly annoyed. Jace and Isabelle just continued to stare. “And that’s impossible,” he continued. “The Beacon Fleet was completely destroyed; establishing once and for all that the cross tides could not be passed. Even if other continents exist, travel between them could not.”

         “Oh, there are other continents, but we can talk about that later. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Relic. That was easy enough.” His attention now turned to Jace and Cedwyn.

         “Let me save you the time. I’m Jace,” he said. “That’s Cedwyn.”

         “Really?” the man asked, honestly surprised. “Where’s the hat I’ve heard so much about?”

         “He stopped wearing it,” Isabelle said unexpectedly.

         Jace looked her way for a second. She winked at him and then he squinted back up to the balcony.

         “Alright, so you know who we are. Now rude or not, who are you, exactly?”

         “You could tell us how you know so much about us while you’re at it,” Cedwyn chimed in.

         “Ah, yes, of course,” the man said, now standing up straight from where he was leaning on the railing, stretching his back. “I see we’ve come back to the beginning as everything does. I am Artemus Ward, a former Outrider of some significance.”

         There was complete silence and stillness then, as the Outriders froze. They could have been four statues at that moment, if not for Relic unconsciously lowering his crossbows.

         “A-Artemus Ward,” he stammered, in utter disbelief.

         “Quite right.”

         “Like … two time Veil’driel Star recipient Artemus Ward?” Jace asked, speaking the name with a slow and deliberate drawl.

         “I am.”

         Cedwyn’s eyes widened to saucers.

         “You’re a legend,” he blurted.

         “I am?”

         The mansion’s main entrance swung open just then, revealing two men dressed in expensive silks moving briskly towards the group. They walked side by side, each with a pleasant expression, although they could not have possibly been any more different in appearance. While the man on the left had a typical build, the one on the right towered over him, standing nearly seven feet tall. Along with his height, the silhouette of the man’s muscles beneath his clothes was equally impressive.

         “You can keep your weapons if you don’t trust me; I can’t say I blame you,” the voice of Artemus came down again. “And if you’re worried about your supplies, speaking as someone who has been in your position before, be assured there is more to be offered inside than anything you might have stowed in your saddlebags.” The two men were halfway across the bridge now. “There are stables across the moat. If you look off to your right you'll see them off in the distance. Gunther and Luther here will lead your horses there. With your permission, of course.” There was a pause, and no words were required to convey the Outriders’ concern. “Yes,” Artemus went on. “I can appreciate your hesitation. But you’ll find no wizards, minotaurs, or golden riders here.” He balled a fist and brought it to his mouth, clearing his throat. “Although, on second thought, I cannot actually guarantee Gunther is not a minotaur.”

         Beside Jace, Isabelle smiled a little, just as the men passed them with a silent but warm greeting en route to their horses; the huge man rolled his eyes good-naturedly while his companion grinned.

         “Then maybe you can explain why you have the suit of a golden rider,” Jace said, turning back to the horses as if still debating whether he would allow the men to take them. “So prominently on display in that Grand Hall of yours.”

         “For starters, nothing here is mine,” Artemus answered without hesitation. “This estate is not my own. It belongs to the Wizardess Jaden, who at the moment is the single greatest ally Veil’driel has.”

         “I’ve never heard of her,” Isabelle said.

         “You haven’t had the opportunity,” Artemus stated plainly, looking from Isabelle to Jace. “And to answer your question, Mr. Dabriel, there has never been an order of knights, in the whole history of this world, that is not represented there.” Gunther and Luther were now leading the Outriders’ horses away, as Jace had decided not to object. “The answers to your many other questions are a bit more complex, I’m afraid, and will require more time than I’m willing to spend standing out here on this porch. Now,” he spread his arms for a moment then brought his hands together in a clap. “I am aware that I do not yet have your trust, and in a sense, earning it is another part of why you’re here. But remember this. You have come here. To me. Not the other way around. If you wish, I will give the word to my staff and your horses will be returned, along with all your supplies. You can head back to Terrill Silva and wait until morning for your post rider to return. Or you can join me for an exquisite lunch, have your questions answered, and be informed of the true nature of this mission you’ve been on for the last half year.”

         Jace sighed.

         “Did you say … lunch?” Cedwyn asked.

         “Indeed. And assuming the cuisine on long-range missions hasn’t changed much from my day, you’ll be happy to know jerky is not on the menu.”

         Both Gunther and Luther were stopped, as having heard Artemus’ words, they were waiting for a decision. For a moment or two no answer came, the empty space filled by the sound of the tide in the moat far below.

         “You could be using the food to bait us,” Jace finally said. “Hoping our stomachs make the decision for us. Knowing we’ve been basically starving for months.”

         “Yes, that’s right,” Artemus admitted. “Or I could simply order you killed right now.” Again, silence, as if the Outriders hadn’t considered that. “Now we could imagine hypothetical scenarios ‘til the setting of the sun, but sooner or later an actual decision will have to be made. I have offered your choices, and now await your answer,” he finished, motioning to where his associates waited with the horses.

         At this, Jace turned, realizing for the first time that they’d stopped and were waiting. Then, without even turning to the others, he nodded his consent for Artemus’ staff to continue.

         “Excellent!” Artemus turned to the double glass doors leading back inside. “I’ll meet you in the lobby,” he said, then disappeared through a veil of gently wafting curtains.

         “I don’t know why you seem so concerned, Jace. I don’t care if the food turns out to be poisoned,” Cedwyn said. He stopped, looked the rest of the way to the mansion and then back. “I’d eat it anyway.” Then he smiled and took a few jogging steps to catch Relic, who was already walking in front of them.

         Watching Cedwyn go, Isabelle turned to Jace, waiting for him to make eye contact with her. When he finally did, she just smiled and clipped her crossbows back to her belt. Then, bringing her hand to his shoulder, she squeezed it softly before starting towards the entrance herself.

         With his crossbows still drawn, Jace followed.

***

         As before, there was no one to meet them when they passed the threshold into the immense main lobby of the mansion, but now there was the smell of a feast coming from somewhere; the scent of food had permeated the surroundings much the same way the salt water air had when they passed through the illusory border of Terrill Silva.

         The eerie emptiness of the place was gone, despite no one there to be seen. Off from where the enticing aroma of food tortured their starving senses, there too was the clatter of moving dishes, and off in various directions came the occasional opening and closing of doors. There were voices and the sound of unseen goings on all around them. There was life.

         “Wow,” Isabelle muttered, mostly to herself. Unlike the others, she was seeing this rotunda for the first time. Her attention floated to the double-tiered fountains that flanked the entrance behind her, marveling at the thin domes of water, their reflection sparkling in her eyes.

         Artemus Ward was not yet at the top of the central staircase that Jace had run down only moments before, but he was somewhere close; his presence preceded by his laughter fluttering down from a corridor above.

         “It’s breathtaking,” Isabelle said, turning to Jace and looking up at him. He nodded, meaning to respond but hesitating when their eyes met. Isabelle only sighed, picking up on the conflict inside him as she always did, and the moment was interrupted by the sound of an opening door.

         “Well then,” Artemus said cheerfully as he walked around the veranda. “Allow me to greet you more formally, Outriders of Veil’driel.”

         He was staring down at them as he strutted around the perimeter towards the first flight of stairs on their right. But it wasn’t until he started down and drew closer that his broad, strong face and gently graying hair came into view. He was dressed as any common man, and carried himself in that manner. By his age at the time of his disappearance, he would have to be in his early fifties, but the resemblance he bore to the portraits of his youth was striking.

         Just like Constable Thean, age suited him somehow, Jace thought.

         “Welcome to Lornda Manor,” he said, shaking their hands one by one. He took his time in doing so, giving the distinct impression of studying them.

         It was more real now, in the calmness of this grand room, without the burbling of the rushing water and brashness of his sudden arrival that this legendary Outrider was standing with them. Then he stepped back and crossed his arms just a few feet away, his focus on Relic who was staring at the fountains.

         “Amazing, aren’t they?” Artemus said.

         “Yes,” Relic acknowledged, looking to him. “Particularly the precious stones at the bottom.”

         “Amethysts, emeralds, rubies and sapphires,” Artemus said, walking to the edge of the closest one. The rest of the group followed and soon they were all looking through the water. “Gemstones such as these serve a purpose here, as they once did throughout the world. Each has its own innate properties, as unique as the time and pressure that created them. You’ll find fountains to be quite common around the premises,” he said, looking about and gesturing lightly. “Siphoning in water from the sea. While some provide simple functions such as illumination at night, others, when configured correctly, are used for say ... purifying salt water.”

         “Unbelievable,” Relic said, and he couldn’t help himself from leaning forward, closing his eyes and opening his mouth to sip from the top tier. Then he spit it out in a fury, back into the fountain.

         “The stones in that one, however, serve only an aesthetic purpose.”

         “Ahh,” Relic said, trying to hide his embarrassment as he rubbed his sleeve over his tongue.

         While Jace hardly reacted, Cedwyn couldn’t help but laugh. Isabelle was more successful in concealing her amusement, uttering a compassionate awww before giggling.

         “Come, we have much to discuss,” Artemus said, motioning to the dining room as a slender man wearing white opened it up. The smell of the food intensified, so heavy around them it was as if the air itself became edible. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.” Artemus led them to the door, then stood aside when they reached it to let the Outriders go first. “There is tomato soup today, isn’t there, Charles?” he asked.

         “Just as you requested, sir.”

         Artemus nodded and smiled, turning back to the Outriders.

         “Please,” he said, encouraging them to enter. Isabelle was looking hard at Jace now, but Jace did not look back. After a bit, he just walked forward.

         The dining room stole the breath of everyone entering for the first time, drawing their attention up to an amazing chandelier in the center of the ceiling. The chandelier was composed of delicate flutes of ivory-colored crystal, arranged in tiers that grew narrow as they traveled downward. At first, one was reminded of a great icicle, but on looking longer, the pristine yellow glow of the candles at the top seemed to cascade down and across the glowing surface. Like the water in the fountains the Outriders had seen before. The light spilled, clear and inviting, upon a long mahogany table set with beautiful glassware, china, and many platters that were, at the moment, still protected by sterling covers. Baskets of breads and bouquets of decorative flowers were already visible, and the countless dishes hinted at a feast of truly enormous proportions.

         Artemus Ward made his way to the end of the table, waiting for the Outriders to be seated before taking his chair. Then, much to Cedwyn’s surprise, he noticed a copy of Senator Bren’s most recent herald, sitting to the side of Artemus’ place, where one of his staff left it for his attention. The only copy here in the wilderness should have been the one Lucas Reese delivered to Jace in the woods, and yet there it was: waiting for Artemus as if they were about to have this meal at a mansion in Fairlawn City.

         Before he could speak, Charles reappeared at the head of a small group of servants, who began to uncover the food. Even Jace's mouth began to water, and he noticed his fellow Outriders leaning forward or exchanging glances as they saw for the first time what sort of fate awaited them. There was delicious roast ham, turkey, and beef. There was potatoes, gravy, stuffing. All manner of salads brought flashes of green to the table, while steaming bowls of pasta sat amidst trays filled with pools of red and white dressing and sauces. The centerpieces were built of exotic fruits of every color standing around long-stemmed flowers of every hue. Silky puddings and finer chocolates than any of them had ever laid eyes on occupied trays alongside decanters of dark coffee, tea, and crystal-clear juices. But perhaps the most amazing thing took longer to notice, and sank in for each Outrider slowly, and at different times. The sheer variety of foodstuffs, the number of things that were fine and foreign.

         Charles stood for a moment, watching with a certain benevolent amusement as the Outriders took it all in. Artemus Ward's expression was less readable, but he sat comfortable, in control. The servant tapped a spoon against one of many wine glasses on the table, though the wine itself had yet to appear, and arrived while he was speaking.

         “Lady and gentlemen,” said Charles, with a smile that came first for Isabelle, but then took them all in turn. “On behalf of Lornda Manor and its people, may I please propose a toast.” There was a pause while everyone reached for a nearby glass of some preferred drink, even Artemus. “To the young Outriders and their auspicious visit,” said the dapper man. “May your visit here be illuminating.”

         Glasses clinked among the Outriders for the sake of form if nothing else, though their hunger in the face of such a magnificent banquet was almost paralyzing. For as long as any could remember, they had consumed only jerky, water, and what little could be foraged on the plain. Certainly Artemus was aware of this, and indeed, he seemed in some way to be allowing, rather than commanding, the display from his servant. In the next few moments, silverware was subtly laid before them.

         “Charles is quite a toastmaster,” Artemus said, approving if a bit gruff. “A duty which I no longer begrudge him at my age.” He took the herald and unfurled it, scanning it as the last of the knives, spoons, and forks were distributed to the guests. There was a sense that the entire scene, phenomenal as it was, had been the product of many hours work by many more people than they had seen yet, and that somehow, at this last appointed instant, it had fallen together according to plan in the face of all odds. The Outriders could hardly consider it, though, as they finally began to eat.

         “Hmmm,” Artemus muttered, glancing up from the herald that he had begun to read with great intent. “It seems you are no longer this conflict’s sole recipient of the Veil’driel Star, Mr. Dabriel.” Jace, who was sitting next to Isabelle, raised his eyebrows at the news, having not yet read the herald.

         “Oh?” he asked. His tone suggested barely a passing interest.

         “Indeed,” Artemus answered as he picked up a small tomato and popped it into his mouth, folding the herald so that only the story he was interested in was seen, and placing it back on the table so he could read it as he ate.

         Another member of Artemus’ staff entered then, two large pitchers of warm apple cider in hand, and he laid them on the table, having to move several others to make room. Charles had disappeared, but his orchestrating presence could still be felt.

         “A Senior Bowman … Hawkins,” Artemus went on, pausing a moment to read the details before speaking again.  “A member of your sharpshooter brigade.”

         Jace smiled at the mention of the name, but none of the others noticed.

         Artemus nodded slightly.

         “Apparently,” he started, sounding impressed. “Bowman Hawkins, at nearly the cost of his life,” he was reading from the herald now. “... single-handedly performed actions that allowed a convoy of the utmost importance to make its way through Bryce Valley and into the Kingdom of Sindell.”

         Relic leaned forward.

         “Sindell?” he asked, astonished. “Do we even know it's still there?”

         Jace’s eyes were now fixed on Artemus as well.

         “It is, yes,” Artemus assured. “The capital, at least. The powers attempting to hold sway over this continent control most of it, but the capital remains, protected by their valiant airships and what you might describe as a … force field of some kind.”

         “And you know that how?” Isabelle spoke up.

         “My master helped devise it centuries ago, for emergency situations like this.”

         “Your master,” Cedwyn said. “This Jaden woman?”

         “That’s right,” Artemus said, reaching forward and picking up a goblet of cider, taking a deep drink and then placing it down again. “She was the critical importance, although that information is highly classified.” He looked up then, holding Jace's gaze with a burning focus in his eyes. “In an operation made possible by your actions. That one-man attack you launched, so eloquently recalled right here,” he motioned down to the herald with his goblet. “A few editions ago.”

         “Wasn’t a one-man attack,” Jace said.

         “Excuse me?” Artemus asked.

         Jace glanced over to Relic.

         “I wasn’t alone,” he specified, and waited for Relic to look over. After he did, Jace nodded to him, and Relic smirked, perhaps partly in memory of their scuffle.

         “Ah, indeed.” Artemus centered his eyes on Relic. “I meant no offense, sir,” he said, smiling lightly and gesturing to him with an open hand. Relic only smiled back, and the conversation flowed on. “You know Bowman Hawkins, do you?”

         “We met once, yes,” Jace said.

         Artemus nodded. There was nothing obviously condescending about this man, but every question had an odd ring that was difficult to describe, as if he already knew the answers to everything he asked.

         “I see. Well, it would appear you have some competition,” Artemus went on.

         “You said your sharpshooter brigade,” Jace said, disregarding Artemus’ comment entirely, and even as his fellow Outriders ate around him, their focus remained on these two men.

         “Yes,” Artemus said, understanding Jace’s meaning full well. “I did.”

         “It’s interesting,” Relic said, trying to make what he thought Jace’s point was, but in a gentler way. “All this talk of being the nation’s darling. At one time that was you, and you could be again. If the people of Veil’driel knew you were alive, they’d –”

         Artemus smiled.

         “No, son.  Not me.  I gave up on Veil’driel long ago, and I daresay she doesn’t care about me any more than I her.” He looked to pause, suspending a forkful of spinach in front of his mouth, reflecting, as if some thought at that moment reinforced what he was saying. Finally, he nodded, ate the food, and went on. “Blind allegiance to plutocracy is no longer my forte.” Then he took a deep breath and his eyes surveyed all at the table. There was awkward silence. “No offense to present company, of course.”

         Isabelle and Relic exchanged a glance.

         “No,” Jace said, his tone more snippy than Cedwyn could remember hearing in quite some time. It was as if the Jace of old had suddenly showed up and took a seat.  “How could we possibly take offense to that?”

         “I apologize if my words cause any discomfort,” he said, looking around the table, acknowledging that they had. “I am, however, free to speak what I will. Do not forget that I was bleeding for Veil’driel before the four of you were crawling. Many of the techniques you use, I pioneered.” He picked up the herald and gave it a little shake. “So please, save your sarcasm.”

         “I’d be happy to,” Jace said without hesitation. “If you would tell me how you have a copy of a herald released throughout the Republic when the nearest city is over six months’ ride from here.”

         “Six months if you’re an Outrider on a mission of reconnaissance,” he corrected.  “Significantly shortened if you’re riding straight on with no stops, as post riders do.”

         “You haven’t answered my question.”

         “No,” Artemus said.  “I have not.”

         At that moment, Artemus diverted his stare. The action was odd, and Jace followed his line of sight to see what he was so interested in, to find Relic holding a purple fruit in front of his face; his expression a mixture of intrigue and suspicion, strange to be sparked by a simple piece of produce.

         “This is a dragon apple,” he said.

         Artemus smiled, holding his gaze a long time before nodding. 

         “Yes. Ever see one before?”

         Relic took to spinning it in his hand.

         “No,” he said, holding the fruit motionless now, looking past it to Artemus. “I’d imagine most people from the Republic haven’t. They only grow in Mazhira, which is farther south than even the minotaur lands. And it’s fresh. Which should be impossible.” He placed it back down on the table.

         Finishing the last bite off his plate, Artemus leaned back in his chair, nodding slowly and crossing his hands on his stomach.

         “That fruit,” he motioned to the parchment, still folded beside his plate. “Along with Senator Bren’s latest herald, are not the only things in this residence from around the world. But the means of their collection is beyond your understanding.” The Outriders hung on his every word, waiting at last for information of some substance. Artemus clearly enjoyed the anticipation, but then at last the corner of his mouth curved into a smile. “But I am not, as yet, at liberty to go any further.”

         “Not at liberty?” Isabelle asked. “What’s stopping you?”

         “Jaden for one. The Republic of Veil’driel, to a lesser extent,” he said, calm even in the face of what he knew would be heated scrutiny coming his way. Almost giving the impression that it amused him.

         At this, Cedwyn became visibly agitated, annoyed enough to stand up, to demand answers.

         “What do you mean you’re not at liberty because of the Republic? You couldn’t possibly have contact with Veil’driel. Jace is right, it’s time for answers, legend or –”

         Jace cut him off, suddenly and unexpectedly, oddly calm even as Cedwyn was acting out the outburst he himself had been on the verge of.

         “I thought you don’t consider yourself a part of the Republic,” Jace said, “How could they order you to withhold information?”

         Artemus rubbed his face, looking annoyed for the first time himself. It did not show in his tone, however.

         “Jaden is working with Veil’driel. Cooperating with them, and so, then, am I. Now, to be perfectly honest – “

         All of a sudden, Artemus stopped, sitting up sharply from his relaxed position in the chair, and looking down, closing his eyes and clearing his throat.

         None of the Outriders reacted, or more accurately, they lacked the time to do so; the door Artemus’ help had used all along started to open. As it did, everything around Jace blurred into slow motion, so the door appeared to slow progressively until it was almost still. Everything around him faded to black; suffocating, completely soundless black, the heavy sound of his breath hammering in his ear, his heartbeat pounding like a deafening drum.

         The only thing that remained was Artemus, sitting the way he was, distressed, and the chair he was sitting in, everything else gone. Then, slowly, he looked up. There was another flash of light, and when it faded, impossibly, he was young. Artemus was the young Outrider, Jace’s age, looking the way he did in all of the portraits, even wearing his Outrider cloak. It was how he looked in all the history books, only casual. Real. As if Jace had found a secret door leading through almost three decades past. Jace found it hard to breathe, and then impossible altogether, but he couldn’t look away. There was no way to explain it, even if at that moment he was capable of conscious thought, but he would rather suffocate than look away.

         Another flash and there was sound, he was back in the present, and although he expected to gasp for breath, Jace found that no one else had noticed whatever had just happened to him. Instead, everyone’s focus was fixed on the young woman who had entered through the door while Jace had been … gone.

         Her hair was black and held up in a bun, and she wore the rough garb of a ranger; obviously she was a scout, and she hunched over Artemus, leaning over his chair and whispering something into his ear, and he looked up to them.

         “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this lunch a bit short, as something has come up,” he said, standing. “And let me apologize for the moment of weakness there. I’m afraid I’ve been a bit under the weather of late. Nothing serious.”

         “Wait a minute,” Cedwyn said suddenly. He was wondering if Jace’s reservations about this man had not been far from the mark. “We’d like at least some explanation of what’s going on here. You can’t honestly expect us to just trust everything you’ve told us.”

         “Indeed, I can,” Artemus said simply. “With the aid of this,” he nodded over to the woman who immediately started over to Jace. He didn’t even notice she was in route until she was directly in front of him, opening a small pack slung around her shoulder. “Allow me to present the reason for our earlier absence. As we were in the process of acquiring the means to ease your concern.”

         The woman withdrew a pristine-looking book and handed it to him, but even in the short time they both touched it, there was another flash of light. Jace’s breath skipped violently, and he was back on the Fairlawn Thoroughfare on the night that had made him famous. It was so real. He could feel the freezing air in his lungs, felt the chill of the winter night. He remembered this moment. He was staring into the metal face of the golden rider who had just tried to kill him, red robes flowing all around in the circle of arcane light from the crystal on its horse. It was at that moment he felt a sturdy hand shake his shoulder and was once again back to reality, both hands white-knuckled on the book as the woman had apparently let go during the episode.

         This one had been much more unpleasant than the other, and unlike before, his friends had noticed. Cedwyn’s hand was on his shoulder.

         “Steady now, son,” Artemus said, and whatever the truth, he appeared honestly concerned. Jace took an uneven breath and Isabelle touched his leg beneath the table. Slowly, he opened his eyes. “I’m afraid the method used to acquire that might have carried some … residual energies. Are you alright?” he asked, although any of the others could have. Isabelle was leaning closer to him, wondering the same thing, and Relic was staring, transfixed as well.

         Jace nodded, feeling the dull throb of a headache that vanished quickly, and his grip on the book loosened as he studied it. He recognized the cover and opened it to the first page.

         “All will be revealed to you tonight. From the lips of one of your own,” Artemus said, drawing everyone away from Jace to where he was standing at the end of the table.

         “If this is your attempt at intrigue,” said Cedwyn. “We’re not at all amused. I don’t know what you expect us to do until nightfall, but –”

         He was startled when Jace spoke suddenly.

         “That’s fine,” Jace said to Artemus, and then he glanced back to Cedwyn and the rest before looking back down. “It’s fine,” he repeated. The confusion this caused did not last long, as Artemus was speaking again.

         “My people are at your disposal,” he said. “They will show you to your rooms as you wish, and in the meantime, make yourself at home. You’re free to roam at will. Please, eat and drink your fill, take a hot bath if you like, and you will be summoned when it is time.” He turned to the two others who had returned: Charles and the one who had not been introduced. “Let them finish, see to whatever they need,” then he turned to the table, full of food, and toward the woman who had handed the book to Jace. “Deliver the rest,” he told her, and she nodded.

         No one had to ask, as Artemus turned back to meet the Outriders’ curious eyes. “We send out loads of food to the local villages,” he explained. “I’m sure you scouted them out on your way to Terrill Silva.”

         “Yes, we saw them,” Isabelle said, and narrowed her eyes. “They’re abandoned.”

         “Are they?” Artemus asked, smiling. He looked to Cedwyn and Jace.  “Exactly as you found this place, then? Outside the safety of the cities, people have become quite skillful in the art of hiding themselves. Now, again, I really must depart.” And without another word, he was gone.

         The woman moved to follow Artemus out, but lingered at the door before passing through it. Jace did not look up, however, still staring down at the book. Relic, on the other hand, picked up on it, quickly looking to Isabelle to see if she had as well. She felt his eyes on her and turned to look at him; Relic had his answer by the sheepish way she returned his gaze before shifting her eyes away.

         Artemus’ departure was as a weight off their shoulders, and Jace massaged the bridge of his nose. Charles and the other nodded to the Outriders, busying themselves with the cart before exiting the dining room on the main lobby side.

         “Flashbacks again?” Cedwyn asked, concerned. They were common with him early on in the mission, common to people who had symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

         “Yeah. Yeah, I guess,” Jace said. “Just a lot more … vivid.”

         “You okay?”

         “Fine.”

         “Because you were the most skeptical of us all, and you let him off the hook when I pressed for more answers.”

         Jace sighed, trying to slow his mind down.

         “Yeah, because he’s telling the truth,” he said, handing the book to Cedwyn.

         He opened it, eyes drawn to the inside cover.

         “How can we be sure this isn’t a forgery?”

         “Because I know my cousin’s signature,” Jace said.

         Cedwyn looked down again to inspect it further on his own, only looking up again when Jace spoke.

         “And anyway, I just know.”

         Relic walked to where Artemus had been sitting, and was holding the herald, unfolding it in his hands. “This is definitely Senator Bren’s herald,” he said. “I don’t get it.” He lowered it back down to his side. “He’s got this herald, which hasn’t been distributed within hundreds of miles of here. He knows about our mission, and he has food on this table from all over the continent. Possibly beyond.”

         “So much for us being the cutting edge of Veil’driel’s information,” Isabelle said.

         Relic nodded.

         Now Cedwyn reached over the table and handed the book to Isabelle, and she glanced at the inside cover.

         “Alley Cat?” she asked in stunned disbelief.

         “Not sure I would address the praetor by that nickname you have for him, Iz. At least not tonight,” Cedwyn said.

         Isabelle looked up, her face wrinkled with the sarcasm that carried her words. “Oh, right. Thanks, Ced, because I was planning to.”

         Cedwyn smiled as Relic sat back in his chair and started to eat again, intending to read the account of Bowman Hawkins’ adventure in Bryce Valley when he stumbled upon something else.

         “Hey, look at this, Jace,” he said. “Clive Barringer was promoted.”

         Jace’s expression showed the name was familiar, but he didn’t know from where.

         “You know, one of the sentry in Fairlawn,” he said.

         Jace smiled lightly and nodded, but his thoughts were not in that room as he moved his hand up to bite his nails. Relic’s mention of the Fairlawn Woods was the second time his mind was brought there in as many minutes.

         “What are you thinking?” Isabelle asked him, gently grabbing his wrist and guiding his nails away from his mouth.

         There was a pause, and a moment where it appeared Jace would not respond. But then at a start his focus darted up to her, held her eyes a second, and then he looked around to the rest at the table.

         “I don’t know,” he said. “That we should wait for tonight, I guess.”

         “So we’re staying,” Isabelle said, confirming.

         “Can you think of a reason not to?” he asked, and the question was not rhetorical.

         Isabelle shrugged, taking one last glance at the book before laying it down.

         “He called the Republic a plutocracy,” she said.

         “Yeah,” Jace acknowledged. He surveyed the food and looked to Relic. “But I think it’s worth the risk to find out what’s going on.” Now he looked over to Relic. “What do you think, Rel?”

         Relic was staring at the dragon apple; he picked it up again, and tossed it over to Jace. 

         “Yeah, we should stay,” he said, watching his friend catch it. “And I wanna get a look at that library as soon as possible.”

         “And in the meantime?” Cedwyn asked.

         The book the woman had handed Jace, which Isabelle had just put down, was still open, revealing the message from Praetor Duchyene. It read simply: Trust him, and beneath was his signature and personal seal. The book itself was the latest he had written, entitled: A Vision of Patriotic Leadership. It had not yet, to Jace’s knowledge, even been printed.

         “We hope to get answers,” Jace said, answering the question. “To sleep under a roof, in a bed, for the first time in months.” He bit into a large roll and started helping himself to one of the many soups before him. Tomato was his favorite, and somehow Artemus had known that too. He had also taken notice of an orange bottle with clouded glass, but with effort, feigned disinterest. “And we finish this ridiculous lunch.”

***

         Jace stood on the balcony outside his room after watching the first sunset he had taken the time to appreciate in months, and he had picked a good one. Beyond the hypnotic lapping of the tide just below, the Hezlin Sea had faded to dark indigo; the dying light of day flailing over the choppy water in dazzling sun-points like a net of melted brass. By the time the red-gold orb had slipped the horizon completely, the Outrider was calm, without a thought or care in the world, and the irony of that was not lost on him. Here he was, on the very edge of his country’s territory, in a mansion that belonged to a wizardess. But as he watched the moon rise into view above, he was more at peace, felt more like himself, than he had in … far too long.

         There should have been a lot on his mind, but there wasn’t.

         He could have been playing out scenarios ...

         ... Calculating ulterior motives that their host might secretly harbor. But he hadn’t.

         On some level, maybe, Jace knew this transition had begun with the vision in the dining room, when he had seen Artemus Ward young for that brief moment, but it didn’t concern him. The restlessness that had burned inside him for months, the source of his doubt and worry, was almost totally gone. Whether it was expelled by some strange phenomenon, or merely the hours of sound afternoon sleep this place had afforded him, was irrelevant.

         He found the steady rhythm of the tide deeply soothing; a sensation aided by the apricot liquor sloshing around in the bottle he held. The moon was full, a great white eye not yet lidded by the gathering storm in the night, and just off to his right, slightly nearer to the shore, the Lornda Manor lighthouse revolved on its drowsy axis to cast sweeping paths of light across the sea.

         Further still, to the eastern side of the mansion, the first suggestion of the ancient, long-abandoned docks were in view; two colossal pylons barely visible in the moonlight. The sheer enormity of this entrance, where great ships were once welcomed, was intimidating to behold, and there was something creepy about the emptiness. Something eerie about a place born for bustling activity, now nothing but cold stone in darkness.

Jace brought the bottle back to his lips.

         Cedwyn stepped out onto the balcony, but paused a moment to admire the glasswork of the open double doors: a broken ship on stormy seas.

         “Well now,” he mused, rapping the knuckles of one hand against the artistic depiction while placing a cigarette in his mouth with the other. “They’re certainly screwed.”

         Jace smiled and Cedwyn moved out to take a spot against the railing, nodding toward the light on the ocean as he took the bottle from Jace.

         “Nice,” he said. “A lighthouse on a coast where no ships have been sighted for centuries.”

         “You read my mind. I was just thinking something like that.”

         “Yeah?”

         “Yeah. And how it's amazing you can't see it from the woods.”

         “Mmhm,” Cedwyn muttered. He handed Jace a cigarette and then struck his flint box, lighting it for him. “I see you’ve made yourself right at home,” he said, taking a drag as he gestured to Jace without looking. “No crossbows, no crossbow belts. Even your short swords are gone.”

         The early spring night had cooled considerably with the setting of the sun, and while Cedwyn saw fit to adorn himself with his cloak, Jace was without; revealing he was completely unarmed.

         “How’d you get your cloak?”

         “Those guys from the stables brought our packs back about an hour ago,” Cedwyn responded, then he motioned behind them to Jace’s room. “I brought you yours.”

         “Thanks.”

         “Saw that pretty scout girl again, too.” Cedwyn paused a minute, staring at the ocean before glancing back to Jace. “Her name is Hazel Lien, one of the Lornda Manor scouts. Apparently Artemus is Lornda Manor’s Constable Thean.”

         Jace nodded slightly, absently brushing some ash off his sleeve.

         “I figured the wizardess would have scouts.” He looked up again, bringing the cigarette up and inhaling.

         “For what purpose?”

         Jace draped his arm over the elaborate balustrade, his words carrying the smoke from his lungs.

         “Keep an eye on things? Gather information to protect the Manor? Who knows?”

         Cedwyn took a generous swig from the bottle.

         “Hm,” he said, wincing. “Woulda thought they had all the protection they needed.” He handed the liquor back to Jace. “Guess they just don’t make magical forests the way they used to.”

         Jace shrugged, smiling as he took it

         “Guess not.” Then Cedwyn paused a while, and Jace perceived the reflective quality in the silence. “What’s up?” he asked at length.

         Cedwyn sighed.

         “I don’t know, it’s probably nothing.” There was another short break before the look in Jace’s eyes insisted he go on. “The servant who brought me my pack. He asked about Thean’s record book.” Cedwyn adjusted his hold on the cigarette so it was between his thumb and forefinger. “Like he knew it was how we made it through Terrill Silva.”

         A look of intrigue crossed Jace’s face.

         “How did he seem when he asked?”

         The ash from Cedwyn’s cigarette flared over his features, highlighting the softening expression on his face in a fleeting glow that bobbed about like a red firefly in the darkness.

         “Innocent,” he said. “Completely innocent. Like he was making conversation.”

         “But how did he know about it?”

         “Exactly.”

         “What’d you tell him?”

         Cedwyn’s draw of tobacco smoke was longer this time.

         “Said I didn’t know what he was talking about,” Cedwyn answered. “Obviously.” Jace took a moment to register the words, blowing smoke rings towards the sea. “I managed to casually mention all the cabbits we’d seen out there, though. Pretending that we hadn’t made the connection. Like we just happened to get through by dumb luck. Not knowing there was an illusory border at all.”

         “Smart,” Jace said, approvingly. Then he flicked his cigarette over the railing, leaning over to watch its spiraling descent to the rocks.

         “Yeah,” Cedwyn said, looking pleased with himself, tweaking some ash.

         “He probably knew you were lying, though. Cabbits are almost impossible to find. Seeing a bunch of them, as you suggested, is just about unheard of.”

         Abruptly, Cedwyn stood out of his lean, turning squarely on Jace as he discarded his cigarette as well, obviously agitated. Maybe because he knew Jace was right, and that he should have known better. Maybe it was because of how relaxed and unconcerned Jace appeared.

         Probably it was both.

         “You know, I really don’t get you,” he said. “Is a hot bath and full stomach really all it takes to ease your mind?”

         Jace remained still, watching as Cedwyn’s cigarette hit the surf. Then he stood to match match his posture.

         “No, of course I’m still concerned. Yes, it makes me wonder why one of Artemus’ servants was asking about Thean’s record book,” he said. “Yes, I still wanna know where everyone was when we first came here this afternoon. No, I do not completely trust this guy.” Cedwyn slid his hands into the pockets of his cloak, sighing as turned back to the view. “I wanna know how he has a copy of Bren’s herald as if he had been strolling through the streets of our cities. How he has a copy of Aleister’s latest book, which isn’t even published yet, by the way.” Jace turned to where the bottle was sitting on the railing, picking it up again. “But he did, Ced. He did have Aleister’s book, and it contained the words: trust him.

         Cedwyn leaned his head to the side just slightly in what appeared to be mild concession.

         “All I’m say’in is we better get answers tonight.”

         Jace took another drink.

         “Yeah, well, that’s exactly what he’s promised.” Cedwyn nodded as Jace leaned on the railing again, sideways this time so he could still face his friend. “Now if it’s the same thing that happened today, where those promises go unfulfilled, it’s gonna be a totally different story.”

         Cedwyn was amused again, letting out the beginnings of a chuckle as he swiped the bottle.

         “Yeah?” he said, taking the deepest swig so far. Then ran the back of his sleeve across his mouth. “What are you gonna do if he tells us nothing, take on the legend himself? Along with all his servants?”

         Jace smiled.

         “Close,” he said, crossing his arms. “I’d load our bags with as much food as I could fit in them and ride back to civilization.” He was still smiling, but Cedwyn thought he sensed something melancholy in the tone. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve accomplished our mission. We were asked to scout the countryside and we did that. There’s no threat to report. No army.” He took the bottle back. “It’s guerrilla warfare we’re fighting against, waged by supernatural terrorists.”

         “Yeah, but you saw an army, that’s what concerns me. Minotaurs, that night in Fairlawn. If they’re not in Veil’driel anymore, where’d they go?”

         The notion darkened Jace’s expression, and as there was no answer to the question, Cedwyn quickly changed the subject; attempting to interrupt whatever head-trip he might have embarked on.

         “So you two would do that, huh?” he asked. “Just waste the … accommodations like that?” Cedwyn motioned back to the luxurious suite behind them, but it wasn’t necessary for his point to get across. Jace just crossed his arms with a sort of half-smirk. No intention of answering the question. “You know, you amaze me, you really do.” Now it was Jace’s drink that was deeper than any before. “At camp, you guys can’t keep your hands off each other. Even with the threat of a court-marital around every corner.” Cedwyn motioned around the balcony, but his meaning was much broader. “Out here you could do anything you wanted, and no one would ever know. Hell,” he turned out to where the pylons rose like the arms of a sea god in gloom. “No one would even care.”

         Jace put the bottle down on the balustrade again, and there was something indefinable about the way he did so that suggested it was for the last time. There it stayed, and neither man made to move it.

         Jace tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

         “I don’t know,” he said. “I think maybe at first it was the weight of this mission. Being a part of the first point team in thirty years. Having the Republic’s hopes on our shoulders. I just … I don’t know.”

         “Felt guilty?”

         “Yeah,” Jace admitted. “I don’t know why.”

         “I do,” Cedwyn said, and he turned his back to the spectacular view so he could look down at Jace. “And it’s not the Republic’s standards or expectations. Or even the unrealistic ones you put on yourself.” He waited a moment, glancing forward to the other sea visible from the balcony; the one made of glass. “It’s Thean’s, and you don’t wanna let him down.” Jace raised his eyebrows and sighed, knowing it to be true. “You’ve always been his favorite,” Cedwyn went on. “A truth hidden by the same sort of secret that hides your relationship with Isabelle.”

         Jace shifted his glance to meet Cedwyn’s.

         “How do you mean?”

         Cedwyn smiled.

         “The only one who thinks it isone is you.”

         There was a long gap in the conversation, and a sudden gust of wind blew in from across the sea as Jace raised his chin to look up at the sky, noticing for the first time that the moon and the stars were gone. He thought he felt a raindrop then, and stood straight, almost losing his balance when the world took too long to catch up.

         “Woah,” he said, swaying a little.

         “Feeling that a bit, are ya?” Cedwyn asked, nodding down to the bottle, amused. Jace did not respond, only blinked. “You have no idea what we’ve been drinking, do you?”

         “Not really, no,” Jace said. “But it,” he wobbled a shade to the left, “it’s more potent than what I was expecting.”

         “Um. Yeah,” Cedwyn said, his tone reflecting the understatement. “That’s because it’s Orinel Lin.”

         Jace took a moment, attempted to think, but then nodded instead as if he had come to an understanding.

         Cedwyn smiled.

         “You got nothin',” he said conclusively, having witnessed Jace’s ruse of knowledge nod on more than a few occasions. Then he sighed, shaking his head in a kind of entertained astonishment. “It’s a vintage unique to the nation of Mazhira. Same place as where the dragon apples are from,” he explained. “Used exclusively in religious ceremonies by the theocratic heads of state.” It was unclear if Jace was even paying attention; he had taken to staring at the bottle as if examining it for clues. “It’s illegal to take out of the country.”

         Jace froze, looking serious again.

         “Like … picking lunar roses illegal?” he asked, referring to the token law that prohibited the picking of Veil’driel’s national flower outside of the Harvest Festival.

         Cedwyn raised his arm, teetering his hand in a seesaw motion.

         “Kiiiind of,” he said. “Except that you’re hunted down by an army of killer monks.”

         “Oh.”

         “Also, you’re condemned to one of seven hells.”

         Jace winced.

         “That’s a lot of hells.”

         “And that isn’t the only bottle,” Cedwyn went on, gesturing to it. “There’s gotta be a hundred of them stored throughout dozens of wine cellars all over the mansion.”

         “Dozens?”

         “Dozens. I’ve seen them myself. Vintages from all over this continent, and some I’ve never even heard of. Languages on the labels I’ve never seen.”

         “That’s impossible,” Jace blurted.

         “Is it? A year ago, no one had ever heard of a wizard, and not in the history of the world had there been a single recording of minotaurs working together. To get here, we had to travel through an enchanted forest only passable by staring into the eyes of a bunnycat, and at some point tonight, we’re gonna get a briefing from a man whose birthday still gets kids a day off from school.” Jace ran a hand back through his hair. “Now. You tell me. What’s impossible?”

         Jace opened his mouth to respond, but hesitated. Then smiled.

         “Apparently nothing.”

         In the distance came the first rumblings of thunder. The winds continued to pick up, and the gusts became more sustained. Below, the sound of swaying cherry trees rose up from a grove near the shore, answering the song of the tide with its own.

         “And he’s growing feverlew,” Cedwyn abruptly added, suggesting he had forgotten to earlier. “In a botanical warehouse on one of the lower levels.”

         “The amphetamine?”

         “No,” Cedwyn said seriously, and this drew a curious expression from Jace. “The enticing pudding garnish.”

         Jace nodded, realizing his question had been a stupid one and laughing a little.

         “It just doesn’t make sense, that’s all,” he said. “If he was trying to hide any of this, why would he let us wander around at will?”

         “I don’t know,” Cedwyn answered honestly. “But true to the man’s word, I haven’t been interfered with by any of his servants.”

         Jace nodded.

         “Right now, I’m most curious about Aleister’s book. And where Artemus has gone.”

         Lightning flashed beyond the horizon, and the sky crackled again. Cedwyn didn’t respond. He was looking past Jace, not at him.

         “What is that?” he asked, squinting.

         Jace turned around, away from the docks, looking for what Cedwyn saw. In the distance, near the mansion’s main entrance towards the bridge, there were what appeared to be two silhouettes in the darkness. There, the revolving beams of the lighthouse did not touch, making it almost impossible to perceive any detail.

         Jace squinted.

         “What is that?”

         Behind him, Cedwyn frowned.

***

         “What are we doing out here, Relic?” Isabelle asked, bouncing a little in place to ward off the gathering chill. “It’s gonna pour any minute.”

         Relic was holding up a lantern to shed its light on his book.

         “You just answered your own question,” he said, and after reading the last sentence, glanced down to the cobblestone pathway and faced her. “We’re out here because it’s gonna pour. It’s good luck, actually.”

         Isabelle looked straight up into the air.

         “Great,” she said, and then flinched, startled by Relic’s sudden outburst.

         “Unbelievable!” he yelled. Relic looked back to the book, double-checking whatever connection he thought he made. Then, taking a knee to get closer to the stones, he spoke again, this time in a barely audible whisper. “Un-be-lievable.”

         “Is it?” Isabelle asked, smiling. Since lunch, she had sat with Relic for hours in the library, watching as he buried himself in books, jotted down notes into his Outrider record book, and compared various maps and illustrations with those he had studied in Constable Thean’s. Even now, she wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking into, but there was something about Relic’s obsessive enthusiasm she found both charming and contagious. He was as innocent as a child in moments like these, and they always enjoyed each other’s company.

         But this was different. This was as excited as Isabelle had ever seen Relic get.

         “This really is the ballast of the Beacon Fleet. There can be no doubting that now,” he said, holding the open book directly beside the stone and comparing it to the symbol on the page. They were identical.  “It’s exactly as I thought. Kenaz.”

         “Didn’t you already know that?” Isabelle asked.

         “Hoped,” Relic corrected, looking up at her. Then he turned and stared into the distance. “Hoped.”

         Isabelle stiffened just slightly, twisting to look past the wide moat behind them, to the dark plain beyond. The distant shadows of the Terrill Silva tree line swayed faster now, to an ever-steady chorus of the breaking Hezlin tide. The wind was picking up and the night was getting colder. This was more than just rain on the way. It was a storm.

         “I hope Lucas is okay.”

         “He’ll be fine,” Relic responded immediately, despite being completely distracted. “He reminds me of your boy at that age. He lives for this.”

         Another few moments passed.

         “Well … maybe we should check on the horses,” Isabelle suggested, and Relic looked at her just as she turned back to face him. When she nodded, he grinned, rising to his feet.

         “They’ll be fine too, Iz.”

         Isabelle sighed.

         “Okay.”

         “Besides,” he said. “You won’t wanna miss this.”

         Isabelle relaxed, finding security in the certainty behind Relic’s eyes. She wanted so badly to believe there was nothing wrong, and then in that moment, she did.

         “So, tell me more about this Beacon Fleet.”

         Relic closed the book but kept the place with his thumb.

         “The fleet of ships sent by Veil’driel over four centuries ago,” he began. “To explore the oceanic world.” He stopped and looked out past the beach. “Never to be heard from again.” There was a pause then, and Isabelle was on the verge of urging him to continue when Relic turned back. “There were six ships,” he went on. “The ballast for the R.V.S. Awatere was marked with the rune symbol Kenaz.”

         Isabelle looked down at the rune-marked cobbles at her feet.

         “Kenaz?”

         Relic nodded, and without another word, started forward towards the bridge. Isabelle matched his stride without hesitation, and he held the lantern low at his side, careful to illuminate the pathway as they distanced themselves from the mansion.

         “Fehu,” he said, naming the new rune symbol when it changed after about twenty feet. “The R.V.S. Prince.” When about the same interval passed and the rune etchings in the stones changed again, Relic said nothing at first, but it was the last time he made the mistake after Isabelle elbowed him gently in the ribs. He smiled, enjoying her interest. “Perthro,” he named the new symbol. They were at the bridge. “R.V.S. Gale.” They went on, Relic announcing each proceeding change in rune and its corresponding ship in turn. “Dagaz. R.V.S. Sanda.” They had crossed the roiling black of the moat. “An-” Relic stopped suddenly, reflecting on something for a minute. “No, I’m right, nevermind,” he pointed down with the hand that held the book. “Ansuz. The R.V.S. Southland.”

They had come to the end of the long path now, standing where the Outriders’ horses had been left on their arrival, and with another step they were standing on the grass of the plain, turning together to face the mansion. Unlike the nights they had spied on the estate from the woods, when all was dark, almost every light in the massive structure was on, blazing welcome from every door and window.

         Relic kneeled just as he did in front of the mansion’s main entrance, at the beginning of the pathway when he had shown her the first rune.

         “Jera,” he said, and while he expected it, the confirmation of seeing this final rune caused his words to get lodged in his throat. “The R.V.S. Telminster.” He stood again. “She was the flagship.”

         Suddenly, there was a particularly violent crack of thunder and Isabelle jumped. Relic looked up, and as if on cue a torrential downpour began. On instinct, Isabelle started to dash back to the main entrance, but Relic just held out his hand, stopping her in her tracks.

         “C’mon, Relic, let’s go!” she protested.

         “Just wait,” he said, an odd smile on his face.

         When a few more moments passed, with the only developments being her increasingly wet cloak, she grunted and took off back towards the main entrance. Seeing no other choice, Relic took off after her. They ran together back down the path, through the driving rain and swirling wind. Arriving at last under cover of the balcony where Artemus had first appeared. When Relic caught up to her, and they were both stopped, he had expected to find her annoyed, maybe even a little angry by his attempt to stop her. He was surprised, however, to find her laughing, brushing the water from her hair.

         “It’s just some stones etched with symbols!” she said, pushing Relic gently. Her hair was soaked, and she giggled as she shook her hands. “The Beacon Fleet is a myth, Relic! Not history.”

Relic smiled widely before turning back to the pathway. But his mirth was geared towards her reaction more than buying into what she was saying.

         “You weren’t just patronizing me all afternoon, were ya, Iz?” he asked, feigning hurtful rejection.

Isabelle giggled.

         “Awwwww,” she said, ruffling his soaked hair and talking to him like he was a five-year-old boy. “No, Relic, I think it’s cute.”

         Relic shrugged.

         “Alright, we’ll see.” He nodded in the direction of the bridge. “The ballast was said to be enchanted.”

         “Enchanted.”

         “To glow when wet.”

         “Mmhm.”

         “So that, were anything catastrophic to happen, the fleet might be easily found.”

         Relic was drifting into his own world again; where his concern for convincing Isabelle melted away.

         “Easily found, huh?”

         He blew a warm breath into his fist.

         “Yes,” he said, still staring ahead. “To mark how far they made it, among other things. Provide some insight into the cross-tides charted in the oceanography surveys of old.”

Isabelle took a tiny step closer to him so she could whisper in his ear.

         “And glowing rocks would make that possible, would it?” she asked, eyes glittering in the lantern light.

         Relic jerked away with the surprise of Isabelle’s undetected advance, which had of course been her intent. It had the desired effect; snapping him from his imaginings back to the present, and he smiled.

         “According to the Mazhira government, yes. The Beacon Fleet was a tri-nation endeavor. Sindell, Mazhira, and Veil’driel were all involved. The ultimate failure of the mission, however, was the beginning of the strained relations that never recovered. Makes you wonder what coulda been.”

         “Blah. How could a shipwreck ever be seen from the bottom of the ocean? You could sink the sun down there and never see it.” Relic didn’t answer at first. “Hmmmm?” she pressed.

         “Well… In the shallower areas, theoretically, the wreckage would be visible from the sky. To the Sindell Air Force. And … in the deeper parts of the ocean … so the legend goes …” Relic cleared his throat to mask his words. It sounded like: Un-ter-ater-mempire.

         Isabelle twisted her mouth a little, doing her best to keep from laughing at the earnestness in Relic’s expression.

         “Did you just say … Underwater Empire?”

         Relic laughed first, realizing, perhaps, that this was sounding more than a little absurd. Even by his standards.

         “Aw, sweetie, you’re such a nerd,” she said, barely able to contain herself. “Please tell me you don’t believe in Underwater Empires too!”

         At that moment, the entire walkway flickered to life and began to pulse with gentle light, dim at first but growing steadily more vibrant. Soon, the entire pathway was flaring in six distinct, evenly distributed colors; the astonished Outriders saw red, green, blue, purple, pink and gold.  It seemed then that the wetter the stones became, the brighter they shone, and the rune symbols took on a darker hue of the same colors. The illuminated air glittered and sparkled like magic.

Isabelle gasped at the sight, her expression completely blank. All thought had rushed from her head just as the darkness had fled all around them.

         Relic had a similar expression, but he took a step forward.

         “Honestly, Isabelle?” he asked, and a silence drew out between them. “I’m getting there.”

***

         Cedwyn and Jace were shielded from the downpour, covered by the balcony of the suite on the next floor, but their view of the dazzling colors beaming up from the mansion walkway was obscured. For they were staring through a waterfall of cold rain, flooding down from the ledge above.

         “Well now,” Cedwyn said. “That’s somewhat interesting.”

         Jace did not respond. He was hypnotized, transfixed by the sharp contrast to the dark, making him blink the vivid afterimage out of his vision. But the act forced him to recoil and shake. 

First there was a bright flash of green, and the open maw of a minotaur with razor sharp teeth dripping thick ichor. Next came a blast of red, illuminating a strange, desolate valley. A young man stood there by himself, too distant and seen too briefly to seize on any detail.

         Then he was in the Fairlawn Woods, on the road, and everything was as clear as it had been on that fateful night months before. He could see his breath and feel the cold. This was more than a dream. It was more than a flashback. It was real. Like the experience he had in the dining room only, impossibly, more vivid. He felt his head snap back, searching for the glint of comets, but there were none to be seen.

         “Hello?” he asked no one, spinning around slowly in search of the surroundings. Jace knew he should be concerned with the dark shadows off the road or deep in the trees. There were minotaurs out there somewhere. He reached down to his crossbows.

         They were gone. He had left them in his room.

         But that didn’t make sense. What room?

         “Relic!”

         No answer. Relic wasn’t there, and neither were their horses.

         The icy fingers of panic were threatening to grab hold of him, he could feel their paralyzing grasp extending from the blackness, eagerly flexing in anticipation of stealing his heart. He decided to take cover; he needed time to decide what to do. But where?

         He took a step, but tripped over something, and he knew before looking what it was: The corpse of Damian Calloway, who had been sent ahead of him to scout the source of the aerial attacks on Fairlawn City. His body was badly mutilated, his neck broken at a horrible angle, his legs shattered.

         Jace forced himself to look away, and thought to step closer to the woods when there was, in that moment, a gruesome cracking noise. Horrified, Jace brought himself to look down again, just as the mangled corpse began straightening its legs. One of his eyes was gone, but the other blinked.

         And then the broken face smiled wickedly.

         “Dabriel,” it hissed. “Jace Dabriel.”

         Jace said nothing, his mouth too dry to speak. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

         “Where is my wine skin, Jace?”

         “Wha – … what?”

         “You took it. Didn’t you? You were disappointed when you found it.” There was a sound like dry twigs cracking as the thing raised its arm, its head staying unnaturally still. “Come … come closer.”

         Hardly of his own volition, Jace began to kneel, a prisoner in his body. Gingerly, he dropped to a knee, precisely as he had done all those months ago. Inches away from Calloway’s nearly unrecognizable face, Jace’s senses were saturated with rot.

         “Why … why did you not leave coins on my eyes as Relic suggested?” it asked, and Jace realized for the first time that while he heard the words, the corpse spoke without moving its grotesque and useless mouth.

         “I … we didn’t have them.”

         “Do you think they would have helped me? Do you believe in that nonsense?”

         “I don’t know,” Jace said, and he grunted in an attempt to stand.

         “Do you believe this is real?”

         “I don’t –”

         In a flash, the corpse lunged at Jace, grabbing his shoulder in a clamp of dry blood and bone, its jaw falling slack as its head tilted ghoulishly sideways.

         “Do you believe?”

         “I don’t know!” Jace screamed, and he fell back, landing on the cold tile of the balcony floor.

         Cedwyn had moved forward with him so that his hand was still on his shoulder.

         “Jace!” he yelled. “You’re fine. Everything’s fine! You’re okay!”

         Jace gasped for breath, slapping Cedwyn’s hand away.

         “What?” Jace asked, gasping. Then he paused and looked around. He didn’t say another word, only jumped to his feet on a beeline to the bottle, chugging it until Cedwyn ran to him to tear it away.

         “Surely two gentlemen such as yourselves can share one bottle of wine,” the calm voice of Artemus Ward remarked as he watched from the doorway.

         At first, neither Outrider moved a muscle, each with a hand on the bottleneck. But then, with a hard yank that caused Jace to stumble forward, Cedwyn ripped it away.

         Artemus walked out to them slowly, paying them almost no attention as he took a spot on the balustrade between them, leaning mere inches from the wall of water. The rain was falling harder. The storm was getting worse, and now even the balcony was offering insufficient protection from the horizontal rain.

After taking in the view regardless, Artemus turned to Jace.

         “You’re lucky,” he said.

         There was a long pause.

         “... yeah?” Jace asked, warily.

         Artemus motioned out to the angry, white-capped sea.

         “One more night and you’d have been caught in this.”

         Cedwyn found something interesting about the exchange, what he thought a deliberate lightness in Artemus’ tone. It annoyed him.

         “We’ve been out in far worse than this,” he said, slightly hostile.

         Artemus turned to him and smiled. 

         “Yes, of course you have,” he said. “You’re Outriders, after all.”

         Although his demeanor was pleasant enough, there was that indefinable sense again, a subtle subtext that hung on his every word like a fog, lingering on the edge of perception.

         “Now, if you’ll be so kind as to join me. Your Praetor awaits.”

         “Relic and Isabelle are still in the library,” Cedwyn said.

         “No, they are outside,” Artemus corrected, gesturing towards the distant, varicolored walkway. “They will be summoned any moment now,” he added, and he barely got the words out before vanishing into the hall, turning right.

         After waiting to make sure he was gone, Cedwyn sighed.

         “What do you think?” he asked.

         Jace shrugged.

         “I think he’s the only chance we’ve got to figure things out.” He took a deep breath and looked to Cedwyn, oblivious to how he sounded. “As far as information goes, he’s our only source. And information is food right now. Sustenance. And ya know what, Cedwyn?”

         “No. What?”

         “You never bite the hand that feeds … the food in your mouth.”

         Then, nodding as if he’d just imparted some valuable wisdom, Jace turned and followed Artemus out.

Cedwyn stayed behind a moment longer, not even trying to digest what he witnessed. There was no point, really. Not yet, at least. He knew, however, that it was something more than a flashback, and that the only real reason it hadn’t been more debilitating for Jace was the astronomical alcohol content of the Orinel Lin.

         Now, making his way to the door through Jace’s suite, he rubbed a hand over his grizzled face, turning to watch one last glint of the lighthouse. Then, he too was gone, leaving the balcony behind.

         In fast pursuit of his friend. And the hand that feeds food in his mouth.

***

         “It’s so … beautiful,” Isabelle gasped.

         Relic looked and spoke as if lost in a dream.

         “Do you know what this means?”

         She nodded.

         “Definitely.”

         “Really?” he asked, surprised.

         She shook her head in slow motion.

         “No.”

         Relic glanced at her and smiled, meaning to turn back to the dazzling walkway before something stopped him.

         “Um. Iz?”

         She pried her gaze away from the colors to look at him.

         Relic pointed to her neck.

         “You’re glowing.”

         Isabelle opened the top of her cloak, withdrawing her necklace, and Relic’s eyes widened as he saw the cinched jadeite shining bright green.

         “Is that the necklace Jace gave –” Relic started, but Isabelle interrupted.

         “What does this mean?”

         He paused.

         “I …” he leaned closer. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of material in Thean’s record book about precious stones, but I haven’t figured it all out yet. Most of the information feels incomplete, like it’s missing other  –”

         “We gotta find Jace,” she said, cutting him off again, turning urgently back to the door. Her hand was moving toward the doorknob when it turned on its own, and it opened to reveal Hazel Lien.

         “Oh. Sorry,” she said pleasantly, seeing they were just inches away. “Hope I didn’t startle you.” She was dressed for the elements, and carried a pack similar to their own. “I’ve been told to summon you to Paladin Hall.”

         Isabelle and Relic exchanged a glance.

        Hazel smiled, expelling a little breath as she nodded.

        “The hallway with all the knights.”

         “Thank you,” Isabelle said, returning her polite smile as she brushed past and started on to the stairs.

         Relic made to do the same, but then glanced back to Hazel. She caught it.

         “You wanna know how the ballast was recovered,” she said. “Don’t you?”

         “Yes. That’s one of about a hundred questions I have, actually. How was it all recovered from the ocean floor?”

         “It wasn’t. There were no shipwrecks.”

         Relic just stared.

         “Come again?”

         “The Beacon Fleet reached its destination,” Hazel said, laughing a little at the look in Relic’s eyes. “Made it to the continent of Emren. They just weren’t allowed to return.”

         “But then,” he stepped closer to her. “How is the ballast here?”

         She smiled a little bit wider.

         “That’s a very long story, Outrider.”

         Relic took a breath and crossed his arms, the lantern still dangling from his hand.

         “Yeah? Well, maybe you can tell it to me. I’m something of a historian.”

         Hazel’s eyes narrowed and while she kept them on Relic, her head turned slightly away.

         “I know who you are, Relic.”

         “Do you?”

        “Yes,” she said, then paused, letting the flirtatious moment linger. “And I’m something of a historian myself.”

        “Later tonight, then?”

        She twisted to the side and tapped the pack she was carrying.

        “Raincheck,” she said, and in a strange bit of timing, a violent gust of wind shook the doors. “Literally, I guess,” she laughed.

        Relic made the connection, and when he did his expression was incredulous.

        “You’re leaving? In this?”

         She nodded.

         “Yep.”

         She was bundled up in the gear of a ranger, protected against the ravages of the weather. Only her cloak seemed odd. It was a bright crimson, and looked much thinner than the practical kind demanded by a far-ranging scout. It was closer in style to a robe.

        Relic looked on the verge of saying something, when Charles, the skillful toastmaster and head servant from lunch, entered the lobby. His hands were overflowing with parchments as he rushed along on some unknown business, and he nodded at them with an infectious grin before vanishing into a corridor.

        The break drew their conversation to a natural end.

        “Well. Good luck, Hazel.” He stepped away to let her go.

        “Thank you,” she said. “I think we’ll probably meet again soon.”

        Relic raised his eyebrows, and a line of curiosity creased his forehead.

        “Yeah?” he asked. “What makes you say that?”

        Hazel turned to the door and let the storm in, but before passing through it she glanced over her shoulder.

        “Just a feeling,” she said simply, and then left him for the wind and the rain.

ID: 1582456   (Rated: 13+) Act III: "Where Angels Sleep"  ~Continued~ by The Last Browncoat